Ken Rosenthal’s Inside Scoop: Mets new pup trio, Jays-Yankees clash, Astros-Rangers battle, Rays alive!

00:00:05
Speaker 1: Let's hit the inside scoop with FT senior insider Ken Rosenthal. Ken, we have gotten this question the most in the past two hours, so I'm like, oh, bring it right to you. Have you ever seen anything like what the New York Mets are doing with their pitching call ups now three in a one month span, and this isn't just back end filler, this is tryout auditions for October.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: Scott. I don't know that I have ever seen anything like this at this point in the season with a contending team, particularly one in the largest market in the country. But it's where they're at. And credit to them in a way, because one of the things David Stearns was charged with when they named him President Baseball Operations was revamping and revitalizing their farm system, their infrastructure. They're drafting, developing all of these things, and they're doing that and they're getting there with these guys, and I don't know if all of them were drafted under Stearns, I would doubt that. I haven't looked at that. But it's a credit to the development certainly that they're at this point. And you know what, whatever it takes, right guys, if these are the best pictures for them right now and into October, then that is what they're going to do. And the move of Senga to triple a today that is surprising. That Will Simon of the athletics certainly hinted at it and wrote about it a couple of days ago. But again, this time of year, and you guys know this, Todd Nerrik as well as anyone. It's all about performance and all of the other stuff is secondary. This is not tryout time. This is performance time. And what's incredible is that the Mets have three non established pictures giving them this kind of performance.

00:01:48
Speaker 3: Now.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: Obviously McLean's the only one who's done under sustained amount of time, and even it's not that sustained. But we'll see how sprot does and how Tong does going.

00:01:58
Speaker 3: Forward, right Ken, I had to disagree with you. You said they get credit. David Stearns, who's one of my favorite because I worked with him with the Brewers, he gets credit for this and the development staff everybody gets credit for it, but doesn't David Stearns also get a little bit of blame for the fact that they have to bring these guys up. The fact that shan Manyah goes down and he is your best signing in the offseason, and you hope Kodei Sanga, who had a calf injury and didn't pitch last year, like he gets blamed for this too.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: No, Eric, absolutely right, And don't get me wrong. I was talking specifically about those three guys and the credit for that. But you're the other side of this and you mentioned it, and it's absolutely fair and accurate and right to mention. Mantas Down hasn't contributed it at all. Shawn and Andyah who they thought would be really good, and no one questioned that signing when they made it. Everyone thought it was a great signing by them and their fans. Pretty much run in the industry. Hasn't worked out so well. And I would argue Clay Holmes, as good as he has been, and he really has been in his first year of starting good, he is a guy that you can't necessarily count on to go deep into games at this point of the season. So yes, this plan that Sterns embarked upon last year, it worked extremely well. Remember Severarino, Quintana, Manaia all pitched really well. We're talking about these free agents on short term deals. Did the same thing again hasn't worked so well. And it's such a difficult thing to identify free agent pitching and get the right guys, because if you go long, you're gonna get bit one way, and if you go short, you run the risk of getting bit this way. You're not getting the same caliber of pitcher. At the same time, you're not making the same kind of commitment. And sometimes it's going to work, and sometimes, as we've seen, it's not. And I was one of the people praising Sterns at the start of the year. Oh man, look at the Mets again. They've done this. Remember they're pitching to the first two months. Their starting pitching was I believe the best in baseball hasn't sustained itself.

00:04:07
Speaker 4: I want to talk a little Al East action right now. We got the Yankees and Blue Jays coming up. Excuse me, looking at the pitching matchups. Cam Schlitter has been absolutely phenomenal with Kevin Gosman has been really good against them. Talk a little bit about what you're expecting to see and how this race is gonna unfold at the end in your opinion, Well, it's.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: Really interesting tonight. The first games you mentioned Schlitter versus Gossman and Schlitter is the Mets the Yankees version of what the Mets have. And I just read a story about him in The Athletic Day by Chris Kirster. I'm not trying for shameless plugs here, but it was a good story about how Schliler wasn't really a guy they thought was going to be all that much. He was thrown in the low nineties at best, and then this season gained weight, velocity jump and now he looks the part. He looks like a guy who can be included in a playoff rotation. I'm not sure that's going to happen, but we'll see. For the Yankees, that was a really important series in Houston in my mind, as crazy as it was for them to win the series, to show they could beat a good team, and now they have to beat the team that has haunted them the whole year, the team that I believe it's ten errors in twelve games against them were twelve hours and ten games they've made. They've played poorly against Toronto. They've got them at home here, and in my view, this is a critical series for the New York Yankees just to sustain whatever it is they've built over the last couple of weeks. They're still not playing the cleanest brand of baseball we've ever seen, but they're doing some really good things. And Trent Grisham's season, to me, is one of the great surprises and great stories of twenty twenty five.

00:05:43
Speaker 3: All Right, you have the Rangers Astro series normally in Texas and whatever they call it, the Eyes Eye of Texas, they're on you. I don't know what all the song is, but the Heart, the Heart of Texas. Yeah, is this a series that we should actually be watching? Not just because you're going to be on it and you do it a credible job of being on the sideline for these games, But is this a series that's gonna actually be close? With the Rangers being out with the Astros really not playing great baseball, but they have Jordan Alvarez coming off a bad series with the Yankees, Like, is this something that like it's just gonna be kind of in the wash?

00:06:20
Speaker 2: No? I don't believe. So I'm not just saying that because I'm doing the games. If you look at the standings, the AL wild card standings, where the Rangers are incredibly right there and even the Al West where the Rangers have a little bit to go. But the Astros Mariners has not totally decided. It's a meaningful series, and it's really more meaningful for the Rangers, who are trying to finally get on a role without some of their best players at Valdi and Seger and Simeon, and yet in the past two weeks or so, they've played much better with some of these scrappy guys that they have. It's kind of incredible what they've done without the players that I just mentioned, so definitely has relevance. And de Gram goes on our broadcast tomorrow night. The Astros aren't quite set on their rotation because of the Arraghetty injury. They've got to figure it out. The original plan was the Graham versus Hunter Brown tomorrow, which would have been amazing and still might be amazing if they go that way, but Hunter Brown might end up pitching tonight.

00:07:20
Speaker 3: The Rangers with all those main guys, with Seeger and Simeon. I'm not saying it's their fault, but I'm saying we've always questioned since twenty three, where is this offense? And with the new infused energy I don't think you used that word, but I'll use the energy the young guys that are playing, rookies that are coming up plan Does it go to the fact that possibly there has been a little bit of a malaise since winning that with the regulars.

00:07:52
Speaker 2: I don't think that's an unfair statement, and I don't know that I would call it a malaise due to winning. One of the issue us that this team has is Sieger and Simeon. As great as they are, they are guys who are very low key. Seger is kind of to himself, does his own thing. Simeon is one of the hardest workers in the game, one of the more durable players until this latest injury, but he is not what you'd call necessarily a vocal type. And in the offseason they brought in Jack Peterson and they brought in Jake Berger in part because they wanted the edge that they believe those players would provide. They thought, not unfairly, they had a bunch of nice guys, but they didn't have guys who had that kind of different competitive edge that sometimes you need. You need a different mix of personalities in your clubhouse. So it hasn't worked really to the satisfaction of anyone until lately, and you're absolutely right, or the players that they have been using have brought a lot of energy to what they've been doing, and it's similarly helped. Now. My question is, and I think we'll get somewhat of an answer this week, and are those players good enough? And Seegar's coming back probably next week, it sounds like, and Simeon's less likely and evolved these less likely as well, but Segar alone would make a big difference this series, though it's going to be a challenge just getting enough offense and doing the things that they've been doing to keep this going.

00:09:22
Speaker 1: Hey, Ken, I didn't think I would ask you about this team at this point in the season based on how they had performed over the last couple months until a week ago. But how surprised are you that the Rays? Yes, the Rays have a chance to make the postseason and make things interesting. And if you can include in your answer their trade deadline, I think it's important because they had a chance to unload some other veterans and it seemed to me like they held back because they're going through a cell process and maybe Stu Sternberg wanted to see the team be competitive down the finish line. It's your team. You're the owner, you can do whatever you want.

00:10:01
Speaker 2: I am surprised by what they've done, and I will tell you this, Scott, they're surprised. I was talking to one of their people just a few days ago, and this guy was saying, Man, we've got this great run differential, it's right there with Toronto's, and yet our record is this theirs is that we should be better. It's crazy. It's baseball, and it's one of those years we just can't explain. And then they started winning and they had the great sweep of Seattle, and they've really kept it going over the last I don't know, a week to ten days, I would say. Now. As for the deadline, it was kind of an odd deadline for them. Certainly they did bring in Griffin Jacks, and they did do some things, but it wasn't a situation where they were trading Yondi Diaz, trading Brandon Loud, doing anything like that. It seemed to me they didn't want to go and give up on the season and what is almost certainly Stuart Sternberg's last season. I don't know how much that was a factor. As much as necessarily. Perhaps they just thought, you know what, we're not really out of it. We've got a shot here. Let's see what happens. Remember the time they thought Kim was coming back, they thought good things were going pop. Perhaps happened and it didn't play out that way necessarily. But here they are now, and you have to give them a lot of credit, and you have to kind of fear them because they're one of these teams that, while I doubt clubs like Toronto and Seattle, I always say I want to see these guys kind of get there. Tampa is a team. Tampa Bay is a team that has gotten there and that has proven over the years they kind of have a winning way about them. We'll see if they can in this situation catch Seattle, because Seattle at some point has to start playing better. They're not going to lose the rest of the season, I don't believe. But at the same time, what has happened in the last twenty games with them six and fourteen is inexplicable.

00:11:57
Speaker 4: I want to go the last thing here. I want to talk about the article that you wrote today eleven years ago. I still can't believe it. I was on the field for this with Salvador Perez hitting the line drive off Eraaldis Chapman's head. At the end we could see the stitches that basically went from the top of his head to the back. It was surreal. It was a scary moment for everybody, especially raldus in Salvador and now all of a sudden they have this special bond. Eleven years later. It went like that, can you just talk a little bit about that and what you remember and a little bit about the article.

00:12:31
Speaker 2: A couple things on this. First of all, Todd, I was in Arizona that night and I was driving from one game perhaps back to my hotel when I got a call saying this had happened. So what I did was I turned around and went right to Goodyear, to the Reds training complex, walked into the clubhouse and figured, you know what, I'll just wait for everyone to come back and then ask whatever questions need to be asked, see what's going on. And the RIDDS PR director at the time, Rob Butcher, one of the great PR guys in the sport, found out about this. He got a call in surprise where the game was being played. It actually was canceled and basically told them get Kenny out of the clubhouse immediately, and I didn't realize. I should have realized, but I didn't realize it was bad, that bad, and my instincts were just go there and see what happens. But at the same time, it was one of these nights where no, it was not appropriate to be there. And when they came back, of course I was not there, but everyone was upset. And I don't know if you were one of the guys that went to the hospital that night, but a lot of players did. And the story is about how even though this happened, Perez was at the hospital that night and for the next two days after Chapman had surgery to repair his face he broke an orbital bow and above his left eyebrow. And from that point on they did become close friends. It's not something that happened suddenly. It happened from that event and over time they really got close and Chapman became Perez's role model in terms of working out. They work out together in the offseason in Miami, where they both live, and it's a cool story in that regard, and the only reason I knew about It was because last weekend in Kansas City, I wanted to sit down with sal just to ask about how long he wanted to play Hall of Fame possibilities, and he started talking about Chapman. He brought it up. He said, I learned my work ethic from Chapman, and that's the seed of that story. And it was kind of a cool one to work on me because the are two very prominent players, opponents really their whole careers, except for that brief time in twenty three or three when they were in Kansas City together, but they have been really the closest of friends ever since that awful incident.

00:14:53
Speaker 1: You were there, right, Yeah, Yeah, I was.

00:14:55
Speaker 4: I have flying third base. I remember the ball hit his head, ricocheted off his head and went tour to me, that's my first reaction is going to get the ball, and then I took I looked to my left and I'm like, we darted right there, and you saw Salvador Perez. He stopped, went right to his knees and everybody came out. It was it was. It was a nasty scene, but I'm just glad that he came out, okay from the whole situation.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's scary, that's crazy that you were there. Well, I'll save the rest, obviously for the crowd.

00:15:24
Speaker 3: To check out.

00:15:24
Speaker 1: There's a shameless plug on the back end, but it's a good one, uh. In The Athletic Ken's story out this morning. Ken, thanks for the time. Enjoy the weekend in Texas.

00:15:34
Speaker 2: Thanks guys,