Colt Emerson & Cooper Pratt extension szn, ABS 2D v. 3D, Cody Ponce’s injury, Boston missing firepower?

00:00:06
Speaker 1: Day, big guest list excited for it. Ron Kratz aj Og crew here. Aj. We didn't have you yesterday. So how was your first Fox game? You called Little Braves Royals and Ernaldo Lopez looked like he was.

00:00:19
Speaker 2: Okay, right, Yeah, his villo was there, which they were worried about.

00:00:22
Speaker 3: Uh, it was a great game if you didn't see it, walk off Grand Slam for Tom Smith. Braves were down to nothing. I'll tell you what, man, I don't know what's going on with Carlos A. Steves, but oh boy, his villa was down, and I think that's got to be a concern for the Royals. He was like eighty nine to ninety. It was weird, and he didn't really have a lot of stuff that day, and he gave up a six spot obviously took a ball off his foot. I think it wasn't good for him. But the Braves pitched really well. Uh, Sale pitch well, Lopez pitch well. The bullpen was nasty for the for the Braves. So they're off a nice start. But it was a great game. Dom Smith walk off Grand same. You don't get to see those very often, so that was cool.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, and we talked about it yesterday in case anyone missed it. During slap Pants, we talked about the connection for Dom Smith, who had lost his mother just a couple weeks prior. So, yeah, cool game to start the year, full of emotions and storylines and all of that. Right, we have a stacked show for you, Like I said, so, we're going to charge fast right now so that we can get into some of these extensions that have been handed out. They usually get handed out before this, but let's run it.

00:01:34
Speaker 4: Let's charge it.

00:01:37
Speaker 1: AJ extension. Season's supposed to be in spring training. What is going on here? We'll take it though. CLT Emerson and the Mariners agreeing to an eight year, ninety five million dollar contract. The deal includes a ninth year club option, a full no trade clause, and escalators that can bring it north of one hundred and thirty million dollars. Emerson is represented by Aces Agency. That's Robert Murray on the scene breaking the news first. About AJ Emerson for some is a question mark because if you don't follow prospects, you don't know who he is yet. He's been on this show, but he has not cracked the big leagues yet. What do you think about deals like this for a player who has a super high ceiling, well.

00:02:15
Speaker 3: It's smart for both sides. I listen, I'm never going to fall the guy forgetting what ninety five million dollars and he hasn't even sniffed the big leagues yet, Like, are you kidding me? Someone would have came to me when I was in Triple A or Double A and said, hey, here's ten million. I would have been like, where do I sign? I'm never going to make that much money in my life. So I just, yeah, I don't.

00:02:33
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have a fall with this and I don't understand it. But uh, I don't know. I don't know how you can be mad at this.

00:02:42
Speaker 3: I know agents will say, oh, he could have got more, he could have got this, he could have got that. But then you have the guys who never make it. And what was the guy for uh Philadelphia Kingery?

00:02:51
Speaker 2: Is that his name? Kingry? Carry signed?

00:02:53
Speaker 4: Like a yeah?

00:02:55
Speaker 2: Never really? I mean, listen, here's what. Here's what teams do.

00:02:58
Speaker 3: Teams go to the players sometimes, now listen, they go around the agent and go directly to the players and say, hey, here's we offer you sixty million dollars or whatever, blah blah blah, will you take it? And then they go to their agent. And so for some of these guys, if they're super excited to get it, and I can't blame them, it's smart. And then the team's like, well, we got this guy locked up for six, seven, eight years whatever it is, and we know where he's going to stand. And I don't care what teams say. It helps them have a guy move up faster if they're making big league money in the minor leagues.

00:03:30
Speaker 4: Oh, totally.

00:03:31
Speaker 5: Scott Kingery I think signed for twenty four million. I think was his number. John Singleton Jonathan Singleton was like ten or twelve. There were some other things with Singhy in there that he had to kind of resurface his career later. But with Scott Kingery, I remember when he signed it was there twenty four or twenty six million. Yes, he didn't pan out, you know, I don't think that's entirely his fault. I think you know, they they moved him around, thought he was super utility guy, blah blah blah. At the time, I said, you want to know what big league teams think of twenty four million dollars. They're giving it to somebody who had zero time in the big leagues. Did they think he was gonna be a big leader. Yeah, absolutely, But they showed twenty four million dollars was fine. If this doesn't workout, we're find taking a twenty four million dollar gamble essentially. So now with Colt Emerson, I'm not saying Colt Emerson's Scott Kingery. I'm saying that it shows the value of money to teams understanding that this is a ninety million dollar gamble. I think we're past the times when like injuries for position players are like massive, like career ending type of injuries. It's more of does this guy pan out to be an All Star? Is cold Emerson pan out to.

00:04:49
Speaker 4: Be that guy?

00:04:50
Speaker 5: And teams are like, yeah, it's worth it. So this is how I gauge what teams think of actual the actual cash that's being given.

00:05:00
Speaker 4: So I love this. I love this contract for both sides.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, he gets a full note trade clause and AJ he's twenty twenty, so in eight years he's twenty eight, in nine years he's twenty nine. He still gets another crack at pre agency. If he's a superstar. Just like Pete Crow Armstrong will.

00:05:18
Speaker 2: Have what's the what was the guy in Milwaukee's name? Not Emerson, the Pratt.

00:05:23
Speaker 1: Let's get to him, Cooper Pratt. You want to get to him. I can cueue that up to get because all that yeah, yeah, okay, let's do it. Let me let me set it up and then I'll swing it right back to you, just so I can let ever know about the money. So Cooper Pratt even lesser known, I would say prospect compared to Emerson, who's been in the scene for a couple of years. Pratt was a sixth round pick in twenty twenty three, sixth rounder, so not a first round guy. Eight years over fifty million dollars guarantee. There's two option years that can push this to around eighty plus. He's twenty one years old and last year was a full season in Double A. He's played three games so far this year in TRIPAA for the first time. Cut down his kra last year. He's got a good on base percentage in his career, but last year his slash line in a full season was two thirty eight three forty three on base three forty eight slug. He does not have much pop in his profile right now. He's a defense first shortstop and he is the fiftieth overall prospect ranked by our friends over at Baseball America. They'll have hot sheet later today and they'll talk about it too, But anyway, aj your thoughts on this one For a player who I don't think has as high of a ceiling as cold Emerson.

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00:07:37
Speaker 2: From what I was told.

00:07:38
Speaker 3: Okay, he was defense first base running, super fast, can cover a lot of ground.

00:07:43
Speaker 4: Right.

00:07:45
Speaker 3: The team came to him and said, hey, here's what fifty million a fifth whatever, fifty I forget, I'm sorry, fifty million.

00:07:50
Speaker 4: Right.

00:07:52
Speaker 3: If you're him and you had just do you have these numbers in what Double A last year? Would you not accept a fifty million dollar contract? I'm sorry, sorry, I'm sorry. Like, I can't say no. If I'm under twenty one years old and they offer me fifty million dollars and I hit two thirty eight in Double A with eight homers.

00:08:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, now could he make more?

00:08:15
Speaker 4: Possibly? Yes?

00:08:16
Speaker 3: Because people that I talk to, you know, in baseball, because I didn't. I'd never heard of this guy when he signed him, Like, who the heck? So I reached out to some people.

00:08:22
Speaker 4: I now.

00:08:24
Speaker 3: Most people say he'll be a solid big league player. He'll be a two probably two minimum of two win war guy every year because of his speed and his defense. Okay, but then if he figures out how to hit more, he could be higher.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: But he's still got fifty million in the bank and he's twenty years old.

00:08:42
Speaker 4: Twenty I think he's twenty years old, twenty one, twenty.

00:08:44
Speaker 3: One, twenty one years old, and he just by the way, he got fifty million, and you're in double A. I guess who's buying that McDonald's on the road every day double A?

00:08:51
Speaker 4: Oh this guy?

00:08:52
Speaker 1: Oh that better be Capital Grill on the road now kidding make me fifty still?

00:08:56
Speaker 3: But like, how do you tell a kid who's twenty one in double A hit two thirty eight ers fifty million? And I know, I mean, I think his agent might be Boris, which I remember Boris never signs extensions except for when he does. But think about it, he's fifty, twenty one years old, he's got this money in the bank, he invested this, he can grow and he's set no matter what happened.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: Same with Carrie when.

00:09:15
Speaker 4: He did it.

00:09:16
Speaker 3: I don't know I get why you would hold off. If you're a you got the chance to be a super superstar. But if you're not, dude, take the money, man.

00:09:22
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, this is guaranteed fifty million. If you got fifty dollars when you're in Double A, you're like, what are we doing with this? But fifty million for a guy who signed in the sixth round. He also he's done a really good job of maximizing value sixth round. He signed for one point three to five million in the sixth round.

00:09:46
Speaker 4: That doesn't happen.

00:09:47
Speaker 5: So there's a there's a there's a solid ceiling that people are saying, Okay, he's gonna hit this type of ceiling. But to me, this is also what I just said about what teams think of what fifty million dollars is. He doesn't have. He didn't have a successful season statistically at Double A last year and now he's at Triple A. And for a player, you really need to just get the opportunity in this contract. When they bring these contracts to young players, they're probably not allowed to say the exact words, this will accelerate your time to the big leagues, but you know it will. And if he's defensively ready, you can learn to hit in the big leagues. And if you never learned to hit in the big leagues, because a lot of guys don't, you still have fifty million in the bank.

00:10:38
Speaker 3: Also, also, by the way, let me add this, this isn't the Dodgers. This isn't the Mats, This isn't the eighties, this isn't this is a small market team that did this. By the way, this isn't again, this isn't the Dodgers saying, hey, we don fifty million, so there must be something to this hole we have money thing again?

00:10:56
Speaker 2: Could he have gotten more?

00:10:58
Speaker 3: Absolutely? No, he did it and he's still suffered. He's suffer life.

00:11:03
Speaker 4: Good job, Brewers. Brewers are ruining baseball. Now.

00:11:06
Speaker 5: They've locked up Christian Yellis. Years ago, they locked him up, they locked up Jackson Churio. Now they locked up Cooper Pratt.

00:11:14
Speaker 4: What next? What next? This is hideous, is unbelievable.

00:11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's show that board with the pre debut deals. As Kratz is talking, Guy Kratz.

00:11:24
Speaker 4: Guess who else is super excited about this? Connor Griffin.

00:11:29
Speaker 5: Connor Griffin's going, Okay, I get my I get what my value is, and I made the right call because these dudes are getting it, and I'm the number one, the consensus, number one overall prospect.

00:11:44
Speaker 4: I can wait.

00:11:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, the contracts have now boosted the value for Connor Griffin before he even snips the big leagues, right, he turned down a deal in the low ones. Now he's going to be asking for the mid ones based on what's out there. Yeah, hey, I'm I'm the top prospect in the sport. This guy's the number fifty and whatever Emerson is, it's not one. So Griffin's number goes up. With that last part of the puzzle here, is it curious to you that the Brewers do this?

00:12:13
Speaker 4: Aj?

00:12:14
Speaker 1: They have a lot of really good young talent. I'm sure they might have floated deals like this to others, like Heyzus made who's supposed to be a big deal. They have a number of other middle infield prospects that should be making their way up to the big leagues. They have big leaguers already that are middle infielders that should be in the bigs for a long period of time, like a Bryce Terrang. They acquired Jet Williams. There's a lot there, There's a lot jam. That's why again, I think if I'm Cooper Pratt, I don't get lost in the shuffle anymore. I get paid. But do you think the Brewers are looking ahead at the CBA and wondering if things are going to tilt where younger players get paid more, and this is a way to get some cost certainty with a guy who could end up costing them more down the line, because I look at someone like Cooper Pratt and I'm like, what's the ceiling? Is it Brendan Donovan and a better defended You know, Donovan's a good defender. Is this a better defender Brendan Donovan who's shortstop, it could bounce around and has a get on base percentage, not a twenty five plus homer guy.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think exactly what you said, Scott.

00:13:06
Speaker 3: They're trying to get ahead of this because they don't know what's coming, right, So they're thinking because everything I've heard is if they push hard for salary cap or whatever, but they want to up the minimum. Everyone I've talked to and heard talk says, well, if you just up the minimum and then you can bring down the top, then there's your salary cap and your salary structure and all that.

00:13:23
Speaker 4: You know.

00:13:23
Speaker 3: Take it from what is a seven to fifty or seven fifty and eight right now, make it a million or two million dollars in that makes other people happy and all this and that. So yeah, I think this is a way of teams to get in front of it. And I think the Brewers have always kind of been in front of the curve of certain things, whether it's signing guys, making trades before they need it to people say, but then it works and they still competitive. I think this is smart. I mean, Matt Arnold is not a dumb person. Mark Antinasio, the owner of the Brewers, is not a dumb person. And if you're the Marriers, is JP Crawford a free agent at the end of this year. I don't know his contract status, but I believe I'll check. Okay, So then guess what they did. They just signed up their hopeful short stoff for the next seven or eight years, right depending on when he comes up. So boom, Why would you not if you're the mayors, Hey, we know, we know we're gonna pay our hopeful starting short stoff for the next seven or eight years. That's a win for the organization, and it's a win for a twenty year old kid who just got tinety could be one hundred and something million dollars exactly.

00:14:18
Speaker 1: MJP is a free agent after this year.

00:14:20
Speaker 5: That's what I thought, Okay, And there's and there's there's different companies that pop up buying value in players early on to give them the money. To me, when teams do this, they're just doing that themselves. They're just doing there's a reason those companies start. There's a reason that people go to minor league baseball players and say I'll give you X amount of dollars for future earnings. They're not doing it because they're like, well, you know, I had some extra money.

00:14:48
Speaker 4: I feel like being a charity case.

00:14:50
Speaker 5: No, there's value in signing people up that don't that aren't making a lot of money. And when teams can find that value and do it and be like, okay, this is the amount of risk. Plus we've seen them, we see how they work, we see how they play day in and day out. To me, it's a no brainer to me. I think teams should do it more. And it can benefit the players, especially if they're not taking these contracts out till they're like thirty two years old. They still have their prime years to be able to get those contracts.

00:15:22
Speaker 1: Yep. It's called surplus value. It is a great way to show your ownership group, how much the player is worth versus how much he costs. We're gonna show this video of Luis Castillo dealing a pitch that was called a strike in then ABS said no, it just missed, and pitching in just said umpire incompetent or a rulebook ABS mismatch issue. This pitch may have been both a strike according to the rule book strike zone three D at the front of the plate and a ball according to ABS two D mester at the middle of the plate. AJ, I'll give you this minute here to rant and it'll be like a good prequel to our Joe West conversation later.

00:15:57
Speaker 2: The strike zone is three D. Why is it not three D?

00:16:00
Speaker 4: That's the only thing.

00:16:01
Speaker 3: And I reached out to people on MLB to try to get an answer, and they haven't heard back from him yet. But it's three The strike zone is supposed to be three D. And for everyone bashing Mike Esterbrook and with the Yankees game yesterday, those balls were an eighth of an inch or whatever it is underneath the strike zone. So okay, if that's the middle of the plate, well, the middle of the plate is about this far from the front of the plate. So if that ball is going down, it had to hit in the strike zone. So actually he got it right, but he got penalized and got it wrong, and all the fans like, Ah, this guy sucks. In reality, he actually got the call right. So this is where I'm confused with it. I thought it was I thought the ABS was a three D like some some of the broadcasts have the three D plate with the thing, because that's how the strike zone is supposed to be. It's not supposed to be just a pane of glass. It's supposed to be like a three D plate of the person. So I don't I don't understand this. I don't get it. Why if we don't have the technology, and then why are we running with something that's not in the rule book.

00:16:56
Speaker 2: That's that's my that's my question.

00:16:59
Speaker 5: What I heard was that the three D zone was less accurate, and it was also way bigger than intended, and they felt like it would hurt offensive production.

00:17:12
Speaker 1: Hey we're here, and I want to point out the Baseball America tweet from JJ Cooper's article that is fresh on the rule changes in baseball. This is going back for a while now. AJ. I'm critical because I want these rules in the league earlier ABS is the one where you can make a case that they were getting the tech down. Pitchclock for me, was ready a long time ago. But here's where credit is due. The ones they are selecting to be implemented in the majors are working pitchclock, ban on infield shifts, n l DH, reduction in pickoffs, three better rule, ABS challenge system. Do you agree that they're nailing what they're changing, because there are probably some rules being toyed around with that would not work out so well.

00:17:55
Speaker 3: I think everything on most of these have all worked. I don't know what hasn't worked. I mean, bigger base, more stolen bases, less shifts, more hits, more offense, everything at quicker games, which we all know that I love because I don't have talked for three and a half hours. You only have to listen to my tired act for two and a half hours, so uh, that's fine.

00:18:14
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:18:14
Speaker 3: I think everything they've implemented has work. Now the ABS, I think it needs some tweaks. I think it's been good. The fans have been receptive, the players have been receptive, but most of the stuff has been good.

00:18:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's changing the way that fans, of course young and old, are viewing the game, enjoying the game. ABS challenge is so entertaining. Yeah, they might have to get some kinks worked out, but you're seeing fans roaring like it's a home run on pitch getting overturned. Will that change? I actually don't think so. I think it's going to carrycrats. I think the fans are going to be excited like that from here on out because we live in a world where people love trolling and they get to say, ha, I told you so, do umpires.

00:18:55
Speaker 5: The only way it changes is it for some reason fans aren't engaged in it. Gauge no stoppage and play. Do fans ever not pick their phone up? Now this stoppage and play? They leave their phone down and they're all riveted to the screen.

00:19:16
Speaker 1: Our corner time. Let's start off with the Red Sox. But I'm also just going to open this up to you guys to see if you have any overreactions from the first week of the season. There are certainly some in Boston that are already a little bit perturbed, even though it's been five minutes. So we can show the tweet here to kind of sum up how some are feeling up in Boston based on their off season. Did they do things? Yeah, they did a lot. They did a lot on the pitching front. Did they do enough on the offensive side. Gabrielle Starr said, it's only the fourth game of the season, but it is quite a picture of the Red Sox offseason moves, two key pitching editions, struggling, virtually no offensive contributions. They picked up Durban for the most part, the lineup is gonna rely a lot on some of the youngsters, like a Meyer and like a Roman Anthony aj. For me, I didn't get to throw my predictions in. We were busy running things around the one team that I had. I said it the other day on Opening Day on an Orioles radio station. Conveniently, I think the Red Sox, out of the four contenders in the AL East, have the highest chance in my mind, of missing the playoffs. That's just how I feel based on offenses. It is really hard for me to see the Yankees or the Blue Jays missing the playoffs. So then for me, it comes down to the next tier. I think there's Tier one. Tier two is Boston and Baltimore and I think the Orioles have a slight edge based on their offense. The Red Sox might pitch a little bit better, but I think there's enough of a gap between those two lineups, especially when Holiday and Westburg come back. I'm not sure I see it for Boston. I think I see a good team could be an eighty four win team that misses the playoffs.

00:20:52
Speaker 3: Well, if the Blue Jays, if they keep losing starting pitchers left and right, it's going to be it's going to be really tough for them. I mean, they're losing guys. It seemed like every time they take the field. So for that it sucks. But as far as the Red Sox go, you know, two of their offseason acquisitions struggled. Who I mean, Sonny Gray went four innings. Listen, Sunny Gray's a five to six inning guy at most. Anyways, if you look at his track record, he's always been kind of a five inning maybe get into the six every once in a while kind of guy. And then Lozardo, I think, is the other one she's probably talking about. It was his first start, it was their first starts of the year. Let's can we just it's just amazing how or sorry, as Rangers sware as it started.

00:21:30
Speaker 4: Sorry about my apologies.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: It's their first start of the year.

00:21:36
Speaker 3: They've been four games, sorry, four games they've played, and we're all panicked about this. Four and a third, seven hits, four in runs. Okay, so maybe the sinker wasn't sinking as well as he.

00:21:46
Speaker 2: Wanted it to.

00:21:46
Speaker 3: Again, it's been one start. It's been one start for Sunny Gray. Garrett Crochet looked amazing. We talked about how good Cincinnati's pitching is. The Red Sox played Cincinnati the first three games, right, They won one when Crochet threw a shutout, and then they didn't score and neither team really did a lot of scoring, so it lost one game in extra innings. I think this is just trying to get people to overreact, which we're really great at today, especially with social media. Let's put a headline out there, and we love Gabrielle Star, but let's put a headline and she's not just the only one guilty.

00:22:14
Speaker 2: This is everyone. Hey, let's put a.

00:22:16
Speaker 3: Huge headline out there that gets people to click on our article, and then if you start digging in a little bit, you realize again, much like Tony Vaitello, it's been four games.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: They haven't even been through the rotation one time. Everyone chill out in Boston.

00:22:27
Speaker 5: I think the Boston offense issues are going to be talked about the entire season because of the fact that they didn't resign. It's the easy it's the easy route, it's the easy commentary that all they didn't resign Bragman Like, Bragman's not like an MVP candidate at the plate. He helped everybody else. He helped all the young guys in their plate discipline. So to me, that's where his value is going to be missed in this lineup. My opinion is they didn't do enough offensively. What wins championships pitching in defense. Absolutely so. Is their defense the defense that started the year first half of the season, or is it how they finished in the second half of the season where they had guys that were a little bit out of position.

00:23:21
Speaker 4: Similar things are happening.

00:23:22
Speaker 5: They have one of the better center fielders in the game, but last year they were like, Okay, he's going to be in center. He could play really good at second. What's the to me if they're going to have success offensively, Because I think that's the question I could care less about their pitching. I think their pitching is going to be legit. When you have three guys in Gray Ranger and Garrett Crochet, I think they're going to be totally fine. My question is, are they going to run the same lineup out there every day or are they going to do like they did on Opening Day? I think it was Opening Day where they're platooning for Marcella Meyer. Maybe he's not ready yet to be an everyday guy. To me, I think that's where do they have the consistent lineup for these young guys to know they come to the ballpark every day they're playing. They come to the ballpark on the third game of a three game series and they go, I know what this team has done to me. I'm smart enough based on what I've learned in the big leagues. I'm going to make the adjustment and I'm going to have a much better third game of this series. That's how I think this team's going to have success, not trying to be cute Nicolin diming here and there. So that's where I think the offense will do well for Boston. But I still think they're really built to be a five hundred team. Unfortunately.

00:24:33
Speaker 1: M Yeah, that's what I'm feeling. Yeah, you're a few shades above or below the five hundred mark, and if you get a few shades above, you could sneak into the playoffs. It's just it's a really, really good division. It's a gauntlet division. While we're on this topic, by the way, AJ actually, for me, since we're not going to talk a ton about last night, we'll spin it forward. I think the theme was all of the pitching that shine. You had some guys making debuts like an Edward Cabrera with his new team at Luis Steele looking fantastic after Mariner's staff said he looks as good as he has since a few years ago, with some pitch mixed tweaks and with a little bit of a VLO bumped there. Lance mccullors going seven innings giving up one run for Houston. That one stands out. I mean, I'm probably missing a few. Mike Soroka making his debut this season, ten strikeouts and five innings. There were a lot of good pitching performances. Bryce Elder carrying what he did late last year. Braves fans have been all over him, but he had the velow boost, and he again looked good in a four to nothing win for the Braves. Chase Burns looking good picking up his first win. He's got big time stuff for the Reds and I think could be the difference maker for them, hanging around in a wild card spot while Hunter Green is out and what else? I mean, that's a lot. Oh, last one you'll like this was he great? I don't think he was great, but he gave four innings, gave up one run. Roki Sazaki didn't look like the guy who was lost in spring training, so there was a lot to like yesterday from a pitching standpoint. This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Go get that new app. Stream baseball, stream football, stream World Cup action.

00:26:11
Speaker 4: You'll be watching definitely. I can't wait.

00:26:13
Speaker 3: I actually want to try and get to a game. But well, and there, I'll still have my Fox one app. I'll have MLB, the shows, the great shows that Fox has, college football that I love, college basketball, they have it all. This really is the app that you can get all of anything you want to watch on an app. Fox one has it and they are great.

00:26:29
Speaker 1: At yeah, the big sporting events. And by the way, the World Cup is June eleventh to July nineteenth, you can get a free seven day trial of Fox one, So go check that out and you can start your seven day free trial today. Offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one Streaming Now.

00:26:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of it's also cold, it's early in the year. Pitchers are always a head of hitters, I feel like early in the year, so let's let's give them. But there was comment we didn't eve mention early. By the way, he pitched really great for the Red Sox and his one start, so let's not forget about him. Yeah, listen, pitching has been great. The scores have been way down for me. There's a lot of low scores three to twos, three to ones, four to threes, not a lot of ten to nine ball games like we saw in spring training. So the pitching has been really good and it's fun to watch if you like pitching and defense. I mean, Atlanta, everyone was worried about their starting pitching. Look at what they've done in their first four games. They've been pretty darn good. So I think I think it's the way it is right now. It's throwing in the air, and as far as Aszaki goes, yeah, he threw it over the plate. It's weird crowds, so you throw it over the plate, How much better you do?

00:27:32
Speaker 4: Gee bird days?

00:27:34
Speaker 5: Wow, what a what a novelty, especially because you're not in the big leagues if you don't have good stuff. Goneer the days where I mean I watched I watched Foster Griffin throw. You know, he was eighty nine to ninety one. He was living on the corners. He was throwing from a from an awkward angle where you know, the ball was sweeping from a different distance that guys are not used to like unless you do something funky like that rowing on the plate with good stuff, it's hard to hit. As much as aj made it look easy getting two thousand hits, I'm pretty sure he would say hitting is hard.

00:28:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, one more shout out to Kyle Harrison. Five innings, one run, eight k's for the Brewers. Many people high on what he'll look like with Milwaukee. And then yeah, let's go back to Griffin. So that's my next topic for you, Kratz. So he goes five innings, two runs, five strikeouts, coming from overseas back to the US pitching for the Nationals, who were off to a three and one start. They pounded the Phillies thirteen to two. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on how we think the Phillies are going to look for the year after four games, But what did you think about Rob Thompson being tossed because they allowed Drew Millis to meel us to return to third after that replay review, the overturn out at first base.

00:28:52
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't see how you can't get tossed.

00:28:55
Speaker 5: There's just there's certain situations where when it doesn't go your way, you.

00:29:02
Speaker 4: Have to get thrown out. Like it's just a it's a I don't understand.

00:29:09
Speaker 5: I don't understand how like the play is supposed to continue, the play is not stopped. When replay started, they said, play the play out. There is nothing that is telling you that this play is what it is called on the field. You have to play it out. That is like one of the basic I remember back in twenty fourteen, they were like, if there's a play, play it, like it was called safe, it was called out.

00:29:34
Speaker 4: Whatever it is.

00:29:35
Speaker 5: This is a live ball. There's no way he should have been given the base because because they said it was the third out. No no, no, no, no, you play it out. I completely agree, And now I'm I was glad to see Donnie baseball at the Helm for the Phillies last night.

00:29:55
Speaker 3: All right, listen, here here's the problem we have with replay. This is one of those situations where where do you put runners?

00:30:00
Speaker 2: What do you do with him?

00:30:01
Speaker 3: The runner looks up, he's rounding third, he sees the umpire call him out. Should he have kept running? Sure, but most guys are gonna stop. They're like, okay, third out. They don't even think that far ahead of replay or whatever. Now I give the pitcher for the Phillies credit. He fired at home. Marshaun tackled the guy at third, which was also kind of funny, but then he helped him up. But Rob Thompson has to get thrown out of this game. But this is one of the weird things with replays is sometimes they don't know where to put runners, and they also can't The thing is you can't go back to the replay and say, oh, well, he was gonna score. He wasn't gonna score. Maybe the easy thing to do was to put him back third.

00:30:40
Speaker 2: Was it the right call.

00:30:41
Speaker 3: I don't know it just as funny. But Rob Thompson did the right thing. He had to get kicked out. He was defending his player. They were getting crushed by the Nationals at home. The fans are already starting to boo in Philly. They already they're like, ah, this team stinks D D. And by the way, when we did our prediction, Joe Dad, I said, no manager. I didn't think it was gonna get fired. I didn't want to say any But when you talk about managers that are probably a little bit under pressure because listen, Rob Thompson, we love him. I think he's a great dude. I think he's doing a great job. But the guy sitting next to Rob Thompson on that bench is Don Mattingly. He's managed before, he's had success before, he's a You can make the argument he should be in the Hall of Fame as a player. He's sitting right there, and he's an easy thing for Dave Dombrowski if things don't go right to say, hey.

00:31:24
Speaker 2: So Rob Thompsons stand up for his guys. I like it. I understand why he did it. Was it the right call by the Empires. I don't freaking know. I don't know what.

00:31:32
Speaker 3: There's nothing in the rule book that says this guy has to go here or do this, So I don't know. But Kudo's the topper for getting kicked out.

00:31:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's going to feel more heat in the division this year. I think the Mets are going to give them more of a run and the Braves are going to give them more of a run. You don't think so, Kratz, Yeah.

00:31:51
Speaker 4: I.

00:31:52
Speaker 5: Think they definitely are. I think it's you have to be seen at the Mets pitching. Is Freddy Peralta going to be the guy?

00:31:59
Speaker 4: Is? You know? He has to be the guy? There's no choice to me.

00:32:02
Speaker 5: I think this might be crazy if I think the Mets offense is actually better than it was last year. I get it they don't have Pete Alonzo, but I just think it's a different looking offense than the Bats are different looking than what I saw from the Mets last year.

00:32:18
Speaker 4: Obviously it's five games.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hey, the Mets front office field the same way. That's why they made the changes they made despite getting some blowback from people. Hey, there was a pretty tough looking injury yesterday for Cody Ponce in his debut. You got thirty million bucks over three years to sign back in Major League Baseball with the Blue Jays. Kp Kem Pelar, who's a host on Bluebird Territory. You see him here on FT sometimes, former Blue Jays star. So don't want to speculate about ponce. But I've been in sports a long time.

00:32:46
Speaker 4: I know what that looked like.

00:32:47
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping the best for him and that it isn't as serious as it looked. Waited a long time to be back in this position. We don't have word yet. We'll probably get word today on how bad it was for him. And like you mentioned a the Blue Jays are down some starters. Early on, people were like, oh, where the classic, where's everybody going to pitch?

00:33:06
Speaker 4: What day?

00:33:07
Speaker 1: There's too many starters? Until then you go, wait, there's not enough starters.

00:33:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, they've lost Ponts, Birio says, and then you Savage already down. That's three starters and Boden Francis is out for the year. Right, So there's four there down already proven big league starters. So luckily they do have some depth there. But man, I don't never want to speculate. I don't know what KP was saying. I saw the injury. I don't know if he was what he was thinking. He never want to speculate it, but it didn't look good. Let's just hope him. Pray for the best.

00:33:33
Speaker 1: Bieber too, Oh, Bieber. Yeah, there's a lot of guys missing already, and this is part of the World Series hangover. You don't have to win the World Series to feel the hangover. I'm not saying that the playoffs caused the injuries, but you do see teams feel it, especially on the pitching front, after they go deep into it in October.

00:33:50
Speaker 5: Run Let yourself get healthy. The Dodgers did it last year. I'm not saying there's their rotten. Rotation is as good as the Dodgers. Let yourself. Let your rotation get healthy. You don't have to have five guys throw thirty one starts. I texted ponce this morning. He responded, So that's good. I mean, sometimes when guys are down and out about an injury, there's no response. So it's just it's tough. It's tough when you do it in the first game. You come back to the States to play and hopefully it's a speedy recovery yep.

00:34:23
Speaker 1: Wishing him a speeding recovery for sure. And for the Blue Jays, they actually got beat up pretty good. Find the Rockies yesterday and their fans were doing the expectations get set very high, very quickly.

00:34:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, But the Blue Jays lost their starter in with the first inning, so then they're scrambling to cover.

00:34:39
Speaker 2: So, I mean it was one game.

00:34:41
Speaker 5: Guys were getting extended. Guys were getting extended in that game like they were pitching. Probably should have been out and you know, after they got their first three or four outs, but in a game like that, you got to stretch that three or four outs to seven or eight outs if you can. And that's that's where they started to get a a little bit thin yesterday.

00:35:02
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:35:02
Speaker 1: And if you stuck around, you saw another homer from Okamoto in the ninth. He's got too.

00:35:07
Speaker 4: Pall was so high.

00:35:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's good. A couple other things news wise, guys, the Mets are hiring JD. Martinez as a special advisor to baseball operations. It's going to be a similar role to what Carlos Beltron's doing time around the players in the clubhouse, on the field, et cetera. He last played when he was with the Mets in twenty twenty four. So that basically calls it a career for JD Martinez. AJ.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, great career for him too, by the way, great career for him. He turned himself.

00:35:36
Speaker 3: He was remember he was a prospect and he came up and he couldn't hit, and he went back to work and he changed his whole swing and became a really good player that was on some really good teams. And congratulations JD on a great career and he's one of the good guys too in baseball.

00:35:52
Speaker 4: Really change.

00:35:53
Speaker 5: I mean you hear people change your swing all the time. I saw him in Houston. I think it was thirteen or fourteen. I mean yeah, so it was thirteen and you were like he was doing that like foot down super early. And then in fourteen he went to Toledo with the Tigers and just hit like ten homers in cold Toledo in April and people were like, ah, whatever, he's still hitting triple A dingers. And then he went and had an incredible run for homer game. I think he made four All Stars, five All Stars, six All Stars, MVP fourth in MVP voting in twenty eighteen World Series Championship.

00:36:38
Speaker 4: It's a good swing change.

00:36:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, made a big impact on some teammates too. You know, he kind of became a pseudo coach at times for some and you'll be able to see him do that now as a special advisor with.

00:36:49
Speaker 3: The menage when you film VP. He made it a thing to film VP, and he was the first guy to ever do that.

00:36:57
Speaker 1: You'd always see like all the phones with the tripods out before most of the other teams were doing it, and then other teams are like, uh, maybe we should do this, and then everyone's doing all kinds of stuff like that. All right, ft, everyone else for hanging around. We appreciate it, so thank you. Back to normal protocol on what is it? Wednesday is tomorrow? Yes, whole crew, behind the scenes, new graphics. We love your hot sheet. Baseball America really really good timing for them with these extensions for pre debut guys, So make sure you check that out on the Baseball America YouTube channel. All right, March Madness is still rolling, and so is the Court of Legends promotion. Right now, you can pick a twin to win a share of two million dollars in bonus bets talking about the Cavender Twins part of this challenge and to get this offer, you do three things. Opt in to the Pick a Twin to Win free play game, Select which twin Paley or Hannah you think is going to win the Court of Legends one on one basketball game hosted at the Bank at Bolaggio in Vegas. And if the twin that you select wins the battle, you'll win a share of two million dollars in bonus bet. Get more info at at MGM dot com or check out the app gambling problem or concern called one eight hundred Gambler