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Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. This episode is brought to you by our good friends at NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. I'm sure by now you've all got back into your Sunday routines, but they could be even better. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get the most live NFL games all in one place every game, every Sunday, and you can even watch up to four different games at once with MultiView, one of my favorite inventions of this decade. It's exactly what you need to catch all the action. Make your Sundays more magical and also YouTube TV is great. I got it this year. It's awesome. Sign up now at youtube.com/bs device and content restrictions apply. Local and national games on YouTube TV and a FL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games. Welcome to Raits & Barrels. It's Thursday, July 25th. Derek and Riper Trevor may here with you Enosairus on summer vacation in Trevor's neck of the woods though, so maybe you guys are going to get a chance to meet up at some point before Enos back in Northern California. How's it going for you on this Thursday, Trevor? It's going good. Bouncing around, talking in a mic a lot today, but I'm excited to be here. Eno actually reached out. He had tickets. He's like, "Oh, some people drop out of a game. If you want to come to a game," I'm like, "Well, I'm glad we're a replacement friend," but now I wasn't able to get out for that. I'm very busy two weeks lately, so I'm trying to spend time at home as much as possible. But other than that, though, great. How are you doing? I'm trying to understand why Brewers fans just can't have nice things, right? It feels like things are going well again this year, and they are, but this Christian Yellich News has me really bummed out. And I guess if you're going to get bad news about your roster, you'd rather have it a few days before the deadline than a few days after the Brewers have had this leading right into the postseason in recent years, with Devin Williams punching a wall and breaking his hand, Brandon Woodruff not being available a year ago. So this is earlier than usual, so maybe that means things are different. We're waiting for the news on Yellich because he's going to see a spine specialist on Thursday. Seasoning surgery is a possibility according to Adam McKelvie of MLB.com, and it leaves you wondering, "Okay, how much can you change your trade deadline plans in the matter of a few days?" Yellich has been great around a little bit of lost time this year, a 155 WRC+, easily their best hitter. You kind of pace him out. He's like a six-win player over a full season, even though it's not the same level of power output we saw during the MVP years, it's that kind of player again that they're trying to replace. So I guess the only thing you could take comfort in is one, we don't know for sure if it's going to be seasoning surgery, and two, they've got good enough depth where getting the best available position player is almost an option to them regardless of position if they want to pursue it. Yeah, it's a big blow because he is definitely the, for that team outside of maybe Contreras, the don't let him beat you guy. And if you, having two of those guys are in team, obviously with the Yankees all year and the Dodgers have them too, and you want to have a situation where it's hard to pitch around your biggest producers, and he's become such a big producer that, you know, the difference between willy domis being your second best hitter and your third best hitter is kind of a big deal. So I'm hoping this, he goes and sees a specialist, they have some sort of management plan. He's, by all accounts, been kind of managing it all year, and is found a way to have success. So if there's a way to continue that, then I'm sure they're going to, they're going to explore every avenue until everything's exhausted. But going against somebody, the deadline that is going to be anywhere near able to fill in that hole is probably a pipe dream. But you got to do something. So it's going to be really interesting. But that, yeah, definitely not it, not news you want to ever hear, but having a couple of days left to kind of make something happen is definitely better than the alternative. And to at least get the diagnosis from the specialist to understand if it's going to be a few weeks or an actual season ender. But looking at this roster right now, yeah, I think you could see a few players playing at slightly higher levels. I mean, Jackson Churio, since June has looked like a young player starting to click, that helps a lot. If he continues the way he's played for the last two months, that makes a pretty big difference. You can see them getting a little more from Reese Hoskins. Maybe they get William Contreras's April and May form kind of back for the final two months again, because he's been in a bit of a lull relative to what we've seen from him at his peak. So you get a little bit more from a bunch of guys across the board, add one or two quality players. That could be enough to balance out the lineup, but it does change the the look of things in Milwaukee quite a bit. Now, it wasn't just the yellowed injury news that broke in the last 24 hours. We got Mike Trout getting shut down from his rehab assignment, which is a huge bummer. Apparently his knee is bothering him right now. So we'll have to see where that goes. No updated timetable for him just yet. But we have to have some good news, Trevor. We have to talk about Robbie Ray. After a pretty bumpy first inning against the Dodgers, he looked great in his season debut. He was touching 96 even 97 with that fastball, getting big strikeouts against Otani and Freeman in that matchup. And he brought back that knuckle curve to at least or what stack has calls the knuckle curve. So this seems like a call that you may be a month or so ago saying that the Giants getting Robbie Ray back, that could be a huge lift for them if he's back to his pre injury form again. And certainly through one turn back in the rotation, it looks like that could happen. Yeah, it looks like it's a possibility. And, you know, it's not guaranteed, but definitely seeing that type of outing in your first, in the first time back, he looks like he never left. And that is huge for for the Giants team. They got to, in my opinion, got to win the night, got to split the series to keep themselves in a position to maybe add something somewhere. I don't still not convince that they're going to do anything. But I definitely think that selling probably isn't what they should do is because with Robbie Ray being a factor, Blake Snell continuing to improve as well. And Webb getting maybe a little bit of pressure on him to be off of himself to be kind of the guy who eats all the innings in the in the rotation. And he probably continues to get better. That's three really good starting pitchers for a playoff series to sneak it in. Like they could beat anybody at that time. They are kind of primed if they can sneak in to be that time that gets hot at the right that team that gets hot at the right time. And their offense has been good enough. They got some good pieces. They got some, you know, guy like Lamont Wade Jr., who is, you know, gets on base and is a tough out. They got, they got enough guys in the lineup that they could be a pesky offense as well. So Robbie Ray's giving me some excitement. We still don't know what Cobb's going to do. And if you get anything out of Cobb at this point, if Cobb and Ray combine to be one very good pitcher, they're still winning, I think. So I think they're still in a good position. And also Jordan Hicks might have to go out of the bullpen or go out to the bullpen, which might bolster that side of things, which was mentioned before the season, before he was signed that it was possible with these guys come back. So this was all part of the plan. This was always part of the plan. They knew this was going to happen from opening day. And so seeing what seeing this through, I think, is their best chance. This was kind of their plan, not plan B, but they're, if we're not already in it, this is our last push. And if it this doesn't work, then maybe we consider just holding Pat. But unfortunately, there's five days left until the break. So you don't really have a lot of time to make decisions to you. So I would hold steady though. I would still hold out hope if I was a San Francisco Giants fan. Yeah. So something we're going to do, I think maybe next week on the show, once the deadline is over, we're going to rank rotations and just get a feel for which teams will be the most dangerous if we get healthy guys into the postseason from all these clubs, because I think the Giants would come up really high on that. Maybe the kind of team you wouldn't want to see as that last wild card team in the NL, because they're starting pitching their bullpen could actually shut you down pretty effectively, now that they're getting all of their key pieces back. We got a few teams we're going to talk about at the fork today though. So tons on the rundown today. We've got Mariners, we've got Rays, we've got Padres, probably even make a few matches via trade that might solve that Brewers problem we talked about up top, we're going to look at the rookie of the year races, and we're going to have a game plan segment looking at how to pitch to Bobby Witt Jr. coming up in a little bit here as well. Take some questions from the live hive throughout the show too. We Trevor, much like the situation in Milwaukee, you have this injury with Julio Rodriguez where it's not looking like it's nearly as serious within the range of outcomes, even though it won't be the 10 day minimum for Julio to come back, you pair that with an injury to JP Crawford, it's going to cost him probably four to six weeks to fractured pinky for Crawford. And you think about the recent form of this team, how much does this last week possibly reshape what the Mariners are going to do at the Tuesday trade deadline? They needed a bat before now they need five bats and they needed JP Crawford to get because he was starting to put together better at bats. We started getting a flow a little bit then he got what kind of not this isn't a use injury. It's just a kitten like it's so frustrating. I'm sure for him, but they needed him. And then Julio obviously is he was starting to get hot too. And they were their really only hopes in terms of production of the plate. Let me just hit you with yesterday's lineup going into the game. This is I think this tells you everything you need to know. Joshua has lead off. Victor Robles is bat in second. Now just think about it. Someone told you that in 2023 that Victor Robles will be bat in second for the Mariners that you would probably say they're not close to being in first. No shade to Victor, but like he was the fourth outfielder two weeks ago and now he's the two hitter. Then Kyle Raleigh, Polanco, Hanniger, Vosler, Locklear, Rayleigh and Dylan Moore. We're going to need we're going to need more. And there's only two guys over 700 OPS. Vosler is an 800, but he doesn't have very many at bat. So we're probably not going to count him. It's just been absolutely abysmal there. I'm I'm learning now being a fan of a team again. I apologize to all the fans that I gave crap over the years. Like this is how this is hard. This is hard to watch. They got to get an outfielder. They have to get someone who puts quality of bats together who is a productive type hitter. We're not talking about a homer hitter who's a strikeout guy. We need a solid complete type of hitter to kind of help make everyone around him better. There's not many options in that category. So it's going to be interesting to see what they do, but they got to do something. If you do nothing, that's a sell in my opinion. What's surprising to me is that they didn't accomplish their main objective from the off season. They wanted to get some of the swing and missing the lineup down. They wanted to strike out less. Unfortunately, no team in the league has struck out more than the Mariners this year. They have a 28% strikeout rate as a team. Two and a half percentage points higher than the next worst team. A's second worst, by the way. But the difference was last year, the Mariners did some damage. They were an above average run production unit despite the strikeout rate. This year, they got a 93WRC+ so they've been below average. They're not making it work. If you have kind of a feast or famine approach within a few core pieces of your lineup, but you do enough damage, you can live to tell the tale. That has not been the story at all. I think outlining that lineup top to bottom they threw out there last night, it does point to a team that needs multiple pieces. I think if you are thinking about the way Jerry DiPoto usually operates, you're probably looking more at players that'll be there beyond this season because of the direction they're going right now and the long-term needs. There's not help coming from within the farm system anytime soon either. You're trying to solve a multi-year problem if you're able to do that and that means you're looking at players that aren't rentals. You're looking at guys that might be a second year of arbitration or even someone like Randy O'Rosa Reyna. Which bins do you think they should shop in? Outfield, for sure. I think you've mentioned Yandie Diaz as someone that you think could be a good fit despite the ballpark. A guy that definitely would help reduce the swing and miss gives you that different type of look in an important part of your lineup. Yeah, Yandie Diaz would be a perfect I think addition but again, we're going to talk about the Rays in a second. The Rays are right there. They're only a game behind the Mariners but the Rays are a team that sells guys high, gets three guys back and then two of those guys turn to that one guy and they're willing to move forward with that. If there is a team that would make a trade in this situation to be the Rays. And I think Yandie is the type of guy like he, not a ton of swing and miss. He's a, he battles. He's not, he's got pop. He's a big strong dude. We've all seen him, right? Because that's not what he's only trying to do. He's not an e-separate. This is just pulling the ball over the fence. And they need that type of player. They need a producer, a guy who gets the RBI as a guy who puts together a tough at bat. They just don't have any of that right now and maybe putting him in front of Cal is, is, you know, maybe a stopgap that keeps him in the conversation. I mean, maybe Louis Robert is a way to do it. If you can do some pitching, put some pitching in there, they just hold on. They're pitching like, you know, tight and, and we'll see it or we don't know if the White Sox be interested in the, the hall they can get from the Mariners. So, but getting a guy like that, a Brent Rooker, that's in division. I mean, he would be the best hitter on the team by far. He's got some control left and he's a little bit of an older guy. So maybe the hall won't be, won't need to be super crazy, but they got to get somebody one at one of these guys that are, that are really doing the thing. And my gut tells me, we're going to get some platoon utility type of guys play multiple positions trying to, trying to mix, smash and move in, in and out of line up and pinch it and stuff. I just don't know if that's going to be enough. Actually, I do know. I don't think that's going to be enough. Yeah. I think the, the cost on a player, like a Randy Rosa random or Yandy Diaz or anybody that's not a pending free agent could be so high that they just balk at it and say, yeah, we, we like our pitching core, but we don't like the prices for these players right now. Let's get a deal like this done in the winter when there are more, more willing teams to link up with on a deal. So then you end up in that, that other path where you are choosing more from the expiring veterans that look a lot like the players you already brought in in some ways, which would probably be frustrating for fans. But I do think they are stuck. The Mariners are stuck in this spot where their pitching is too good for them to give up a season because pitching can change so fast. You lose a couple of guys to injuries. You lose maybe one guy to some skills loss. And all of a sudden the rotation that's one of the best in the league is average or even worse depending on how bad that outcome really is. So it's a lot like the argument I was making last year with the Marlins, right? I said, you know, look, this, this team has flaws, but the pitching is playoff caliber pitching. And when you have playoff caliber pitching and you live anywhere within reach of a playoff spot, you have to go get it. But it's just been a, a brutal combination of injuries and recent form that have left the Mariners in this, this bucket where the, the arrow is clearly pointing down right now and getting out of that tail spins going to be really tricky. But you know, you've been a part of teams that have made moves the deadline in both directions, right? So how does it change the vibes when things are not going well? And you actually have some new players, some reinforcements showing up to try and help you get back to being the team you thought you were when the season began. There is hopeful. It's, it's helpful. Like getting someone who comes in clean slate, especially if they're playing really well, it's always interesting because the, because of the difference between like whether or not you go get a guy at a deadline, but he's not like a, like a takeover the clubhouse type guy or like a big, and those guys maybe don't, you know, handle that as well because they have to come be like the savior. So honestly, for the Mariners, that's going to get, they're going to feel that immediately when they come over. Now they need the right guy too that, that'll fit into that thing and not put everything on themselves and just keep doing what they're doing. But it's hard. It's, it's hard. And I'll be honest, that clubhouse has not been happy last couple deadlines with the moves. Like they, they, if anything, they kind of felt like they weren't all on the same page and that, that, that does the opposite thing. And so I just can't point any, any shoot, like any obvious like things that they can make happen, but they're going to have to do something because the guys in there are searching and possibly getting another maybe perspective and feeling like there's some fresh blood in the clubhouse can help alleviate that a little bit, take the pressure off a little bit, make you believe the things will be okay. So I'm hoping that's what happens, but that's definitely something you look for when you're a buyer. And then when you're a seller, you just try to play, play every day. And then, and then roll with the punches. It's very much rolled a punch, especially if you're on that short list, right, to be one of the guys to go. So that's hard on its own, right? But there's a flip side because if you get traded to a team, and then there, now there's excitement and you're in it again. So I guess we'll have to wait and see, but they need the positive thing. They need, they need the little green arrow pointing up. They do. They need something good in that clubhouse right now. If you were calling shots, would you be willing to trade one of the young starters, Bryce Miller, Brian Wu? I don't think they'd ever trade Kirby. I don't think they'd even trade Gilbert necessarily. Maybe there's a world where they would, but think about a team like the Orioles, which has had this multi-year need for rotation help. They are linked to almost any starting pitcher available. The Mariners have shown this organizational skill of being very good at developing pitching. Would you consider something like that to go get Mayo or Norby or Cursed Dad or some combination of those extra position player bats that the Orioles have right now? Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I would say Miller and Wu would be, I would be a green light of them, probably more Wu than Miller, because Miller's been healthy and he's, he's been consistent and Wu was the type of guy, the way that he is, the way he's put together, that these little weird injuries that he gets all the time is not something you train for. It's just something I've seen. It's a pattern I've seen, but he's got great stuff and he's, when he's dialed in, he's dialed in. So they could get a pretty big haul for him because he might be the most risky. I'm sure Emerson Hancock's just going to be throwing, like he's going to be, they're going to try him first, most places. He could fit in that fifth row innings eater, like they just need somebody and they can get a good haul for him. I would be willing to part with Wu for something. Kirby, Castillo and Gilbert kind of are your core and I would, I would stick with, stick with those because I think, I think we have not even remotely seen the close, the best of Kirby yet and we're seeing one of the best, Gilbert's best season. So you'd have to get a crazy haul for Gilbert. But even if they got rid of Gilbert and they were able to get a bat, maybe a big league bat and then some prospector two, I might consider that too, because I don't know if, I mean, there are only two games over 500. I don't know if it's going to make that big of a difference losing one of your starters when you can throw Hancock out there. Yeah, looked at the playoff odds before the show, 35.7% chance for the Mariners to make the playoffs according to fan graphs that feels about right. But like I said before, it feels like it's got that down arrow next to it too, where you expect that number to fall over the next week or two, unless something changes and changes very quickly. 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Let's talk about the Tampa Bay Rays for a moment. They seem like they've got some flexibility where they can try to play the middle. They're sitting right at 500 entering play on Thursday, only a 17.9% chance of making the playoffs. See, you think about that if you're in a front office and say, well, we're not out of it, but we're not necessarily playing or making moves to get immediately better for this year. We're thinking more about the big picture and if thinking about the big picture also helps us in the short run, so be it, right? They've got junior Kamen Arrow, who they can call up down the stretch to get a boost in that group position player. So if they move a bat, possibly move two bats, they have some reinforcements. They could play Curtis Mead more if they want to do that down the stretch. They've got a lot of guys they can trade. They don't really have anybody they have to trade right now and they even have some pitching to spare. Zach Efland could be on the move. I noticed he's got one year at 18 million on the books for 2025 and for a team that spends less than 100 million dollars on his payroll most years, an 18 million dollar pitcher doesn't really seem like part of the equation for the Rays. So it looks like me like Zach Efland is their most likely pitcher to be moved before the deadline. I agree. Or early with that, I think a lot of people would be a lot of teams would be happy to have Efland. You know, there's a lot of conversations about how like he's had it down here. He's had like a four one. Like he's pretty around where he usually is. Maybe he's a high three usually, but he's, you know, he's usually around the four. He's he's kind of an innings eater type guy. He throws tons of pitches, tons of different kinds of pitches. He's different angles and all this kind of stuff. So it's not like he's he's a dominant guy by any means. So a lot of guys can a lot of teams could use a fourth guy, a force, a four starter, a five starter. I mean, he'd be a great one to add. And you can pretty much slot him into any of those rotations that are probably looking for somebody. The Orioles are come to mind, but they're in division. And if you're a Rays team, you probably want to avoid if you can. If you're especially for doing lateral moves, you still want to hang around like bolstering the top of your division. But at the same time, I think they're under no illusions that they're going to catch one of those teams either or even the Red Sox. So like they're trying to sneak into the third spot if they're going to sneak in anywhere. So maybe that's not a big deal. So I think Eflin, it's gonna be interesting to see how inter divisional stuff works this time around in the next five days, because there's so many teams that need starting pitching and indivision and like it's weird that there's so many indivision trades that could happen. And it doesn't usually happen that way. I'm guessing that some of that stuff's gonna get thrown out of the window. So but they're just going to shuffle. They're going to they're going to replace some guys. Maybe we don't know. Coming up the miners, they're going to get some prospects from somewhere else and bring them straight up. And so that's why I think like Andy Diaz going is a possibility. That's why I think Randy's a possibility. Like these guys, they rarely have anyone under contract anyway. So it's just they're going to be the same team. It's they're so interesting because they would. This could be the trade deadline. This could be the off season. This could be just in the middle of May and they're kind of doing the same thing. They're always looking for the same things, which is a superpower in a situation where you can decide to kind of be a seller and a buyer at the same time in the climate that is now you can get if you're savvy, you could make some sneaky big moves. Yeah, that's how they operate. I mean, usually you see guys within a year or two of free agency getting moved as their costs go up in arbitration. So that's what I think opens the door for Randy or Rosa Reyna in particular. They already extended Yandy Diaz. So he's cost control, but he's also getting older. So he's at the point where you don't necessarily bank on him for the same year to year production. If you're in the raised position and maybe you want to move Esauk Parade so over to first base more often. So you clear that out by moving Yandy. That's the other way to look at that. And I think you can look at this team and say, well, they've barely had Josh Lowe this year. So having Josh Lowe in the second half kind of gives them something they didn't have. Randy or Rosa Reyna has been a lot better in the last two months than he was in the first two months, but his season as a whole has been a little bit underwhelming too. So they could probably talk themselves into being a team that's underperformed in some ways, where if they just hit their stride in the final two months of the season with a few guys, that could change the way their lineup looks to in addition to whatever trades that they're able to make. They could trade relievers. I mean, fairbanks could be on the move, Jason Adam could be on the move, Colin Poshay could be on the move, and they could be among the very best relievers that could trade it by anybody at next week's deadline. We always forget about their, their reliever haul they could put out there and anyone would use any of those guys. And if we're going to talk about them, I mean, like throw Jason Adam out there, he's probably on the ball. If everyone is, probably. And if you can get the right players or back for them, then they'll do it. And relievers are another big need for a lot of teams, especially guys who are able to be a seventh eighth inning guy and then fill in close role, the setup type style and Pete Fairbanks, Jason Adam and Poshay are all guys who can do all of those roles for any team. And they have their own unique set of skill, like set of metrics that make them really good against certain types of hitters too. So you can kind of pick your pick your poison there and see what they're thinking. So it'd be interesting to see who, who's able to grab some of those guys, because I think grabbing one of them could make a lot of teams much, much better. Again, the Orioles, maybe Kansas City, everyone could use one of them, them and the, I think them and the Blue Jays are going to be the ones with Chad Green and Yimigarcia kind of with the probably the biggest ticket items in terms of the back end of the bullpen. So it would be interesting to see what they do there too. Yeah, having some of those guys not as expiring contracts too will bring back a better return for the Rays as well, which is why I think they're right in that sweet spot, I think one of the more active teams between now and six o'clock Eastern on Tuesday. Let's go to the Padres for a minute Trevor. It's all gas, no breaks with AJ Preller always has been, probably always will be four over five hundred fifty four and fifty, just over 50% chance of making the playoffs. 51.1% court in a fan graphs entering play on Thursday. They've already been aggressive right? They added Dylan Sees in the late trade this spring. They added Luis Arias after the season started. What's on the priority list to make this team a more formidable contender? I mean, the wild card right now is that you Darvish is on the restricted list dealing with a family situation. So there's not really a timetable for his return. You pair that with the Musgrove injury that it could be something that lingers on through even the later weeks of the season, depending on how he recovers. Starting pitching seems like one thing they need, but not necessarily the only thing they need in San Diego right now. Yeah, starting pitchers is the first thing that I would say they just need someone consistent and takes the ball every five days because that's what it's been. They've been, I feel like they've mixed matching a lot this year moving guys around, trying to kind of get some continuity going and they really haven't been able to do that. So getting someone who is solid in that area might be a good pickup. An interesting one for me is like Eric Fettie possibly because he's been rock solid, is hyper consistent. I still think the Cardinals are probably, he's got Cardinals written all over him, but I don't know what they have in terms of ability to trade or who they have to trade. So going to get a starters big, the questions about how quickly Tatiis is going to get back is a big one because he's a stud out there in the outfield and we all know about his bat. So getting something maybe an outfielder, there's not a lot there in terms of superstar potential to Kevin Plar, Tommy Pham's always an option. He's always getting traded. It's really hard to tell with these guys, especially with the way that they'd mentioned wanting to shed payroll going into the season. And so I don't know if AJ Preller is the AJ Preller we know anymore. I tend to expect them to, if there's a blockbuster trade to be made, they're going to be in the conversation because that's the way they operate. It's just hard to tell which starter they're going to try to go get. And I think that a guy like Fettie is maybe your most safe, but also helpful option. Like a guy like Gary Crochet, we don't know how many innings he's going to throw. So there's just so much of this going. I don't know if a Tyler Anderson's like something that would move the needle for them. I would focus on getting the best starting pitch you can and go from there and then hope Tatiis comes back as soon as possible. I think it would just take a lot of pressure off of two guys that have pitched really well, especially lately, Michael King and Matt Waldron. The King, after the way his season started, was really in a spot where I was looking at that saying, "Oh, they've really, they've really botched the Juan Soto trade." And it looks a lot better now given that King has pitched like a number two starter overall this year. They've needed that in a big way. And then Matt Waldron, just a ridiculous story. Like the quality of the innings they're getting from Matt Waldron right now has got a long way to really stabilize that group. So you have three quality starters right now. I think you've got that question of like, who's the five right now? Is Randy Vasquez really good enough to be in a number four spot for a playoff caliber team? I don't think you want to get to October and have him starting games in the post-season at this juncture of his career. So I think the Eric Fettie call would make a lot of sense. You know, the crochet thing is what we all would like want to dream up because Garrett crochet being on a better team sooner is a lot of fun. But that's going to tap into some of the better prospects the Padres have. It's amazing. Their system's not completely gutted after all the moves they've made. They still have a handful of guys that are on most top 100 prospect lists, which says a lot about their ability to to find and develop players consistently in San Diego. But yeah, I think it's pitching first maybe one position player like a Taylor Ward. Maybe if they were to go that route would help them a little bit to just a nice veteran outfielder that gives them a little more balance across that group of bats. The good news is Tatis is slowly ramping up baseball activities. So his return may be just a few weeks away as opposed to like a very late season thing based on what we know right now. Let's get to the National League Rookie of the Year race for a moment. Part of the reason the Padres have stayed afloat to Jackson Merrill has been excellent. And he is one of many rookies in the NL putting together a great season. There are four rookies in the NL among position players with two or more Michael Bush, Mason win, Joey Ortiz and Jackson Merrill. And given the way this class has come together with Paul Skeens being ridiculous and probably being the easy favorite to win the actual National League Rookie of the Year award. Shouta Imanaga, Yoshinobi Yamamoto. It's to me a little weird and unfair to count players who played professionally in other countries. Rookie's just the way baseball's always done it here. So be it. You get those guys plus Jared Jones and Gavin Stone. And you have Jackson Turio I mentioned earlier playing better the last couple of months. You got like 10 very good impact rookies right there. All just battling for some kind of recognition even if Skeens is going to end up being the runaway in terms of winning the NL Rookie of the Year award this year. Yeah, it's definitely Paul Skeens with then a big gap and then everyone else. Was Shouta maybe a little closer but you know again like Shouta would have to greatly outperform him. Like it would it would have to be very obvious to to dethrone Skeens or Skeens would just have to like stop pitching at some point which would know what he wants. So if he stays healthy he pitches the rest of your Tim easy but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give the props to a guy like Gavin Stone who's been who pitches kind of beyond his years. And then Jared Jones is just a pure stuff you know show. He's great to watch. But the big ones I think that I'm glad we're talking about all these guys but like the Michael Bush and Mason win like they've been huge for their teams. Huge impacts for the success of each team where they're at and they're not necessarily talked about as much. Maybe Mason win a little bit more but Michael Bush has been really impressive and then Joe Ortiz though he is banged up right now has been a great story. And he was in the I believe Joe Ortiz was in the Corbin burn trade. Correct. Did they get him for a Corbin burn? Yeah. So that's that's paying off so far. And then the we got all the Jackson's now they're all kind of with the exception of of you know Jackson holiday who will give him past 20 years old. But the other two Jackson's are coming up coming on too. I just think that Skeens is he's at the top of the mountain and no one can really see him at this point especially with how he's come out throwing really strong second half starting the all-star game like he's the guy we're talking about and he deserves it at this point. Skeens looks like someone who's going to get MVP votes someday. That's that's what he has shown us already. There are a dozen big league starts which is just absurd but a loaded class of rookies in the NL and you're right about Mason win. I mean I think his defense too I saw a nice tweet from Mike Petriello has just improved month over month made a lot more impact on that side much more consistent with the bat than I thought he'd be right away. I thought it was going to take some more time. 332 OBP you'll absolutely take that. I think the big question in Mason wins profile for me is how much power will he develop over time. Right now he doesn't have a ton but he's so young right he's 22 years old he could change a lot these next couple of seasons will at least be a 15 homer guy at his peak that steals bases plays great defense and maybe ends up being a table setter in the long run for the cards. I could see that kind of being a really good outcome for Mason win in the next few seasons. The other guy on that that group though is Jackson Merrill doing this in a new position moving from the dirt to center field learning on the job this spring this season. I can't even imagine how difficult that is on top of making the leap from double a to big league pitching and Jackson Merrill didn't even spend a full season at double a last year he was there for 46 games so to see him more than hold his own as a hitter while learning to play a new position defensively I don't think he'll get full recognition for it in part because of schemes but he's been really important to this Padres team all season he's been impressive and moving from the infield to the outfield doing it in the big leagues and then also producing at the level you are with the amount of hype that is around you as a prospect is just impressive top to bottom so we could probably be talking about him even more you know but any other year I'd say he's he's up there and this this is a this is a big big conversation about who could win this thing but the mustachio monster from I just called him a statue of monster we're gonna go with that from from Pittsburgh probably number one get put that on t-shirt I mean maybe he'll put it on t-shirt I want to steal his likeness you know I mean it's probably the right way to go let's look at the AL side for a minute this is one where I think if we rewind back to march expectations were Jackson Holiday or Wyatt Langford who do you like better and and that was a fair question to ask at the time now holiday had that quick 10 game promotion got sent back down has not had the opportunity to make the impact we had thought maybe he'll get a chance in the final two months maybe there's even enough time for the makeup ground because this is a pretty open group right now the leader by war is Colton cowzer just over two wins Luis heel on the pitching side not far behind and he's been pretty important for the Yankees too you think about their rotation in the absence of coal the struggles of rodon inconsistency of strum and so to get what they're getting from Luis heel I can see him kind of sneaking in and actually being the ultimate winner of this award but it could be mason miller Trevor he's closing in on two war out of the pen which is really hard to do in two-thirds of the season if that were to happen mason miller would be the first reliever to win a rookie of the year award since Devin Williams did it in 2020 and it'd be the first time it happened in a full season since 2016 when Michael Fulmer did it so who do you like to win the AL rookie of the year award based on what we've seen so far and based on what could happen in the final two months it's interesting because I think Colton cowzer accumulated a lot of that war earlier in the year and he has come down to earth quite a bit as recently he's pretty he's he's fallen back towards the more average side of things though he is still having a very good year I would say he'll also was absolutely stellar and has come down to earth a little bit more and miller's kind of maintained his dominant so I think that's where the things get a little bit different if we're going to judge this by war the reliever is always going to lose but luck getting near a three you got to be the greatest you got to be brad lige and you know oh five or whatever it was so to get could get a four war so mine is mason miller because I think he's going to keep going um I think that war number is going to keep jumping up and uh but I think that most likely I think heels probably slight has the slight edge with what he's meant to the team and how good they've been I just think maybe he's getting a little tarnished because of how the ink he's it played the last 25 or 30 days he hasn't been terrible but he hasn't been dominant like it was either and so he's kind of just leveled out and miller's got that wow factor I think people just like he's going to watch and watch for 103 like that's the rookie of the year that's not how it's always done so I think those three guys are are definitely probably being interchangeable at this point I think white lingford would have been up there if it wasn't hurt but I think those three three guys the big ones but if I were to pick I would say mason miller ends it's going to end up with it because I think he's going to end up with like 130 strikeouts or some some crazy number yeah he's at least getting to a hundred and he's probably going to do it with an era either at or below two a whip below one and if they could just find a way to get him close to 30 saves I think that would make him basically a shoe in for it because the dominance has been there start to finish this year we actually had a question and discord that came in this week about the long-term role of mason miller do you see a world where mason miller moves back into the rotation again even though he's been named phenomenal in the pen but he wasn't bad as a starter it was just a matter of how do we try to keep him healthy for as many innings as possible I think that was a big part of the the process for the age doing what they did this year but 2025 and beyond could mason miller make that switch back to starting again he could but the the nature of the starting is a couple things health's a big factor and he not only was he struggled with health last year he struggled with health his whole life like ever since he even before he was drafted this has been something that he's dealt with he got to the big leagues after 31 innings in three years like he was hurt pretty much his whole mind early career but he's so nasty that we had to get him to the big league school as possible which I agree with and I think that's makes a lot of sense so I think that just prioritizing him being healthy having him on the field if that means he's closing that means he's closing he's also a two breaking ball forcing fastball guy so we'd have to like he would need to learn a splinker or a sinker or a hard change up or something so there's another pitch that eventually will have to come and play unfortunately I think it might be a little bit one of the like one of these are all this Chapman situations and just pull the bandit off and and do the thing that's that makes him successful because there's a lot that needs to happen for him to find success consistently as a starter does he have the stuff for it thousand percent he's he's got great stuff and he throws that hard as a starter but he also was unable to stay healthy he's not going to throw 200 innings you're just never going to get 200 innings out of him and if you want the premium you always think closers and he's controllable so something tells me that come spring trading 2025 we're going to see them try to stretch out Mason Miller I think that's what's going to happen I think they're at least going to try it I think you if you if you need inspiration you look at what the White Sox did this year with Garrett Crochet and how well that's gone and I think you could probably say Crochet and Mason Miller have similarly scary injury histories where you just don't have those those previous workloads as a starter to fall back on it's a lot of uncertainty as to just how well he'll hold up physically you're trying to take the ball 30 times as a starter but the upside is so tantalizing that if if you feel after and off season that he's gone through and he's found that that's splinker that could be the the magic pitch for Miller to have a fourth option I think you try it I think I think he probably would want to try it that there's a big fork in the road career wise the big difference that you could become a nine figure salary a big nine figure contract guy going down the road you could actually do that as a reliever too that's how good he is as a reliever but the the difference long term is is massive if they can find a way to make it work so okay so you're probably trust me I know yeah you're you're in the camp of saying they're gonna at least try this one more time just see if they can get them stretched out and make it work as a starter for Mason Miller if he finishes this year healthy so if he finishes and throws 58 to 65 you know appearances and was healthy the whole year then I say try him as a starter because he showed they could be healthy all year and he had a workload that was more than he's had in the past but you know and then allow you to work into 140 innings next year and see what see what's there and if it doesn't work you can put him back in the pen but just do it once just do I had it happen to me two and a half-ish times just try it once and if it doesn't work it doesn't work just let him go do what he does let him go kick up dust but yeah I think he would be remiss if he didn't give him a shot one more time see see what he can do the other footnote here I have for the rookie of the year race for Mason Miller if he were to achieve that he'd be the third Oakland reliever since 2005 to do it Houston Street did it in '05 Andrew Bailey did it in '09 you reminded me during our production meeting of that one Andrew Bailey was incredible to start of his career like I think that one's a little lost outside of Oakland I'm pretty sure he was on the cover of '09 the show either the show or like MVP's MVP's fall '09 I remember the commercial he had for the for the game it was pretty funny so that's the only reason I remember that I forgot Houston Street though I want it with the with the A's too something about closers there huh something about it they find him got to give a shout out to Kate Smith having a great year in the Cleveland bullpen too it's overshadowed by what Mason Miller's doing as far as AL rookie relievers go but both Smith and Hunter Gaddis have been great for the Guardians so far this year I think for me I'm just wondering is Wyatt Langford gonna be healthy and just go bonkers for two months and and to play his way back into the conversation because the way Colton Cowser has slumped frequently since that great April that's left the door open I think for just about anybody to still take a shot at the AL rookie of the year award let's get to our game plan segment Trevor I thought playing the role of you know Sarah's would be fun I thought it would be like acting like Ferris Bueller for a day and it's not that fun it's actually very hard to try and and find weaknesses in elite hitters in particular and just so people know how the sausages may we do this segment every other week or so we we choose a great player you know tries to use public facing information come up with a good scouting report throws it out there Trevor breaks it down adds to it we kind of go from there like will this work could this work and I find Bobby Whit Jr. to be incredibly frustrating to build a game plan for so here's here's what I did I took a slightly different approach than you know I started out by looking at where in the zone is Bobby Whit crushing the ball where does he crush so barrel rate or barrel balls heat map looked at that first okay you typical spots kind of like middle in a little bit places you wouldn't or pitch anyway then I looked where all the swinging strikes are where can you get him to swing and miss away there's a pretty nice little red spot there there's kind of a funny red spot in the like middle part of the zone outer half that I don't I don't know if I'd want to live there necessarily and I when I was looking into it you know in more detail there were some there were some particular matchups like Joe Ryan's fastball beats him in there and I couldn't quite like figure out if that's anything you could reasonably exploit with consistency it just seemed like a bit of a blip and then I looked over at you know sliders in particular that seems like the pitcher you can really get them and not surprisingly swing strikes on sliders in that down and away sort of bucket that's that's like the thing you're trying to set up the down and away slider looking at all the heat maps so then said well what else can you do like where could you possibly throw fast balls against Bobby with because that seems like a bad idea in generally crushes fast balls started off by looking at the iso something Eno does pretty frequently you can get him down and away you can get him up and in so if you've got that two-seamer that Chris Bassett two-seamer that you can throw at the top of the zone and get that up on his hands great that seems like something that would work pretty well against Bobby with junior and then I started looking at some of the the contact rates on even count fast balls like all right is there a spot where you can throw a fastball early in the count and get away with it or if you're even down and away maybe you could try that and I looked at change-ups in particular because I thought all right maybe you need something else to just kind of mix it up can't necessarily go fast ball slider that's gonna be a little bit too predictable what can you do with change-ups against them there's a little bit of a spot like change-ups down I don't know if you throw a change-up really high in the zone against them frequently but you could try that as well there's some blue spots in the zone there so I didn't really like what I saw when I looked and he's a complete player there's not much there to work with other than you can try you can try to put him away with sliders down and away but I found it challenging to find how you'd get to the point where you could put him away with that pitch everything up to that point seems very challenging he's very good at hitting a lot of different spots so there's first thing I do when I check is looking into a guy is is there is there a glaring spot that no matter what the count is no matter you know what the situation is no matter where whether or not you're ahead or behind that they struggle with all the time that's a that's a swing that's a swing issue right there's guys like uh hunter Renfro Adam Duvall they have these like single swings they have a hole that if you just throw the thin spot over and over again they know they can't hit it hard and they're going to just try to fall off until you make a mistake and they hit the one that you can they can't hit hard he's not one of those guys he's he's a middle lineup superstar you know that is blossoming in front of our eyes so couple big things so it's about when you throw what and where what you're throwing in when and we're talking about this the other night on Sunday night baseball that show here tawny because every every single one of his overlays was bright red the whole box right but there are times where a little blue in in terms of middle counts or late counts or early counts it starts to show up because he's obviously looking for some type of pitch and you got to exploit those things make him feel like he's getting something that he can hit they can't buy what's the same way so up and in is a spot that you can get him to overall that's where I have some blue this up and in spot here's another term that pitchers use sometimes the up and down and away options it's called rocking chair up down up and down that's a that's a Jeremy Heffner word he calls him a rocking chair guy because a lot of guys could be opposite of that too especially right-handers so a lot of right-handers are right-hand or rocking chair guys and he managed and he hits the middle of the plate all the way up and down from all pitches fairly well so it's like got to be the corners like just elevating and going below the zone isn't a great solution for him it's about going in and about going out and there's a lot of guys that function in that way too J.D. Martinez is a prime example of that you want to just stay to the edges you're okay but if you leave it in the middle he he kills it so I was like okay fastballs in to be honest the pitch he hits the hardest the most often is the right-on-right change up it's the one he hits those mistakes he hits them the hardest slider he's actually pretty dang good at overall just in terms of damage so I want to know like in a damaged situation if I'm determining whether how what type of risk I'm going to take I want to know which pitch performs better he hits the fastball a little harder but it's pretty close with the slider and that's not always the case but he's a much higher average so I'm care I'm going to be careful with my slider and by the way this is per sliders move like mine which mine wasn't a crazy good whiff rate slider too so keep that in mind this is the interesting thing so he hits them in all counts but especially poorly when you're ahead so this is right here's the uh when the pitcher's ahead situation slider is open the time he's hitting the slider the hardest is when the pitcher's behind which is weird that's usually not it so like three one counts two one counts one oh counts he hits sliders the hardest in those counts because I think he sees him the most he hits the down and away he gets that spot down and away better you see the miss down here in the bottom that goes away with when you won he is ahead in the in the count which is interesting because usually it's the opposite they're they're trying to fight fight it off because they're getting it later when you're trying to get back on the count you're a slider guy that's the one he takes advantage on as guys feel comfortable doing that and you shouldn't with him um changeups a better pitch in that situation so I'm trying to get ahead with fastballs up and in I'm going to try to dot down and away with the fastball he tends to tends to take that a lot doesn't like to swing at it he's got very little swing early in counts and then I am going to try to use the change of in mid counts or when I'm ahead or sorry change up when I'm behind or in an even count and go to the slider late so like pitching kind of traditionally and if you really really really want to miss fastball up and in is the only your only real chance he doesn't really change to chase sliders so you got to try to get him out in his zone he's not he's handling him especially this year really really well he's battling late so you want soft contact that's when you typically happen you're like got him roll over to shortstop that's that's considering a win with Bobby Whit so it makes me sad about the change up I would like to use my change up a lot to right he's usually that's a good good way to go but he absolutely kills them and they have to be really really well placed but if you're behind three one or whatever you want to throw a change up in a fastball count that's the pitch that's the time to throw out but any other count true stick with slider fastball yeah it didn't seem like there were a lot of easy openings to work against Whit it makes sense because he's hitting 344 the 390 OBP in a 593 slug this year it's just crazy he's got to this next level so quickly I thought what we saw last year was probably closer to a peak and nope not even close like this has been a whole level like beyond that but the thing that's also interesting about Whit I was looking at the baseball savant page if he played in any other ballpark other than Kansas City he'd have more home runs he's been cheated out of probably a half dozen homers his expected homers versus his actual homers that's a minus five like oh wow it's wild right so you look at like the expected home runs by park across the board he actually has 18 I think of all of his games were in Kansas City he'd have 17 everywhere else he'd have at least 20 if he played in Cincinnati he'd have 31 if you played in Milwaukee he'd have 29 if you played in Anaheim he'd have 26 played in the Yankee Stadium of 25 so the numbers that Whit's putting together are probably just being suppressed by that ballpark this is an MVP caliber player for sure you said something in our meeting that I kind of made my ears perk up if you think you could maybe catch judge like you think he might be the the best bet to win the AL MVP given importance to team and just the way he does it yeah that's the interesting thing is how the how the royals pan out for the rest of season they go if they finish really strong and they they get in the to the playoffs and and maybe surprise some people and they're they're who we're talking about going into the playoffs I think that might get him in the situation now Baron judge keeps doing exactly the at the pace he's doing I just don't think he is catchable because he's not just a DHE there he's out there playing the outfield plays very good outfield but Bobby Whit is like he's doing everything at such a high level and he's so important to his team like we were mentioning how Gunnar Henderson's a little bit on the outside looking in I think even though he started in the all-star game he's probably farther away because he's his big thing is the pop and he's just not going to catch Aaron so if we're comparing their home run totals he's just not going to get to judges home run totals so judge can have the edge but Bobby's doing things that judge isn't doing it's got 50 50 points of average on him he's like the defensive wizard on their team he runs the bases he's got pop and he's got he's producing scoring runs and hitting runs that he's doing everything for that team so that's how he sneaks in but just Aaron judges doing something like he's you know he's on pace like 65 homers and like like a historic season like a very bond season and I don't see the only way he catches him is going to be through a little bit of momentum and hype with his team yeah and I know a lot of times we see teams that are very top heavy as the Yankees are where you have two of the three best players by war in the same lineup in the American League that is they split votes sometimes that works against you having a teammate that good so maybe Soto pulls a few votes away from judge and and that's part of how wit could get there as well and I think the supporting cast in Kansas City while it's better than people expected it's not on the same level as what Gunnar Henderson has with the Orioles not on the same level of what Soto and Judge even have with the Yankees despite all the complaints recently about the lack of production around those guys so just a remarkable season so far from Bobby Whit Jr. and I thought we saw a finished product last year that is not the case by the way I was looking to see if there's any other updates before we go because I'm just waiting I want to know more about this Christian yellow situation we don't have anything like that going down right now but I just saw it coming through from the live hive skines is getting down to like a plus 350 for the NLSI young which is remarkable for a rookie to just make that much of a movement this fast I don't think he'll be able to do it this year but a couple pitching injuries I guess could leave the door open as Fred Rick points out in the stream here I mean sub two ERA sub one whip well over a cape or inning like he's laying the groundwork for sure not a bet I would make but interesting to see none the less no other questions from the live hive today Trevor so I think we can actually wrap this one up here get anything on time on time we're never on time we are never on time Eno never shuts up guys and now we finally got to a point where we could finish the show on time yeah for me we saved nine minutes you got anything you're looking at this weekend though big series for you leading to the deadline I am looking really heavily at the Yankees red sock series I'm doing the I'm set at the nerd cast this Sunday as well for them so there's that's that's linked in but I want some trades to start happening so I can start predicting some some some dominoes I know this this this trade line is a little bit harder than than maybe the more recent ones in the past but man predicting trades is hard I don't know anyone does this feels like you're just you're just throwing scrabble tiles against walls even with sticks but big part of me I know it's become my job to talk about a lot but big part of me is like I just want to sit back and just enjoy the the whirlwind that's about to happen and then start talking about where people landed and then what that means moving forward so I'm excited for that I'm tired of projecting and I want to know where they're going so I can so I can move on but got to be patient for that so just gonna enjoy some baseball for the rest this week we'll be going live Tuesday night 6 30 6 30 eastern I believe is when we're 5 30 eastern we're gonna go live 30 minutes before the deadline deadlines at 6 we're gonna go live 30 minutes before we'll be on for about an hour so if any trades happen trickle in a little after as we've done the last few years we'll be live for that so be sure to check us out on youtube for that you find Trevor on twitter at I am Trevor May you can follow you know even though he's not here and you know saris I'm at Derek or I for the pod is at rates and barrels get a subscription athletic it's $2 a month for the first year at the athletic dot com slash rates and barrels thanks for watching we're back with you on Friday thanks for watching thanks for listening and watching [BLANK_AUDIO]
