Fair Territory: Managers on the Hot Seat, Edwin Díaz & Garrett Crochet problems, Yanks new bash bro duo

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Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory, also known this week as the pregame show for the Patriots Day game in Boston. A game starts at eleven to ten Eastern. Hope everyone enjoys the early start for that one. And it's interesting we talk about the Red Sox at the top of the show because we're going to get into the Red Sox really quickly. And just to say overall, people always ask me, hey, man, you ever get tired of covering baseball? You've been doing it for so long. The answer to that is an unequivocal no. And the reason I never get tired of covering baseball is because it is endlessly fascinating, endlessly interesting, and endlessly different. And it's the reason most fans like enjoying the game as well and following it year after year. And here is why I mentioned this at the top of the show. We have two pitchers who are among the most dominant in the game last season, Garrett Crochet and Edwin Diaz. And the question we ask at the top of the show today is, Okay, which one is the bigger concern? Crochet was coming off yesterday his worst start probably in his whole career. Remember that game against Minnesota tenor and runs in an inning and two thirds. There it is. And he pitched for the most part yesterday better, at least at the start against Detroit. He said it was the best he's felt all year, and he was cruising early until the fifth inning when he went home run, walk, intentional walk home run with two outs, two outs in the fifth. So you ask, Okay, something up with Crochet. It doesn't appear to me that that is the case, simply because he was so good for the first four and two thirds in this game. Edwin Diaz, on the other hand, with the Dodgers, that might be a different story, and it's certainly one worth checking into over the next few days, or at least monitoring from the outside. Here's why he pitched yesterday in Colorado. We had nine between appearances, three hits, three runs without recording an out. And the bigger concern, because that can happen, especially in a non save situation, the bigger concern is his velocity, which over the past few years was ninety seven to ninety nine. This year it's been more like ninety five. Yesterday. At one point he threw a fastball at ninety two point eight. Now, Dave Roberts says that Edwin Diaz has not reported any physical issue, and it doesn't seem that that's the case, but they did give him nine days off, and yes, it was unusual circumstances for a closer yesterday, somewhat non save situation. But my goodness, either he was rusty or there's something up here. So that will be something again to follow over the next few days. The news coming out of the LA Dodgers camp regarding how Diaz is doing again with Crochet, I expect him to be fine. And one of the amazing things about this game is that even the best players, the absolute elite in this sport, can struggle, can struggle sometimes for a couple of games, sometimes for a month, sometimes for a whole season. And I don't expect we're going to see that from Garrik Crochet. But the Red Sox clearly need him. Alex Korra has said repeatedly, we have to pitch right now. They're eight and thirteen, they're tied with Toronto for the last spot in the ALE East, tied for last place in the AL East. Not going too well for Boston. They need to win on Patriots Day, to say the least. Now their biggest rival, the New York Yankees, coming off a big weekend, and I was just talking about how teams and players can go through ruts. The Yankees went through a little rut earlier this month, five game losing streak to the Athletics to Tampa Bay, during which they scored thirteen runs in those five games. Oh my gosh, what's happening to this offense. Well, the bottom of the order is still not exactly what you would want, to quote Joe Girardi, but this team is going to hit home runs. And we saw it over the weekend. My goodness. Yeah, you see, that's how you close out a Homestand the Yankees in this series against the Royals nine home runs in three games. You go back to the last two games against the Los Angeles Angels, that's thirteen home runs in five games. Judge. Now with nine Ben Rice their next start, if he's not a star, already eight home runs on the season. So the Yankees offense, when it is clicking and has this kind of potency, it's going to be really impressive. And I want to show you the home run leaders in the sport. Here's Chris Kershner. Ben Rice is so so good. Cannot believe some people didn't think he could repeat his production from last season. He's in even better now. Amen to what Chris is saying. Now. As for the home run leaders in the sport, this is interesting, all right. The Dodgers up with thirty seven, the Angels with thirty four, Mike Trout a big part of that. There are the Yankees with thirty two, Judge and Rice with seventeen of those, and then at the bottom the San Francisco Giants and the Red Sox. We were just discussing them with thirteen each. So clearly the Red Sox power deficiency is showing up early. The Yankees are doing what the Yankees do.

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Speaker 1: One more hot team I want to mention. Actually we've got a number of hot teams to mention, but this one is not in the other category that we're going to deal with. This one is the San Diego Padres just sold over the weekend for three point nine billion. And more to the point, as far as on the field is concerned, they've won ten of eleven, thirteen of fifteen and Mason Miller, my goodness, this is crazy. His scoreless streak now stands at thirty two and two thirds innings. That's going back to last season. I don't love streaks that spans seasons like Otani's on base streak, but that's the reality. He has pitched thirty two and two thirds scoreless innings in a row. And here is the mind blowing stat of the he has struck out twenty seven of the thirty eight hitters he has faced. We talk about strikeout rates and walk rates all the time. Mason Miller's strikeout rate is seventy one point one percent. That is outrageous. All right, that's the Padres, That's the Yankees, And now I want to talk with are about three teams that put three other teams in misery or extended their misery over the weekend. Now we're gonna get to my column about the managers on the hot seat and the Mets and the Phillies and the Astros, but first I'm going to talk about the three teams that kind of took it to them those clubs this weekend. And let's start with the best team in baseball right now, the Atlanta Braves. This is one of the surprises of the season. The Braves are fifteen and seven after guys like me, I don't know, maybe it was only me writing all spring. Hey, man, this team needs more starting pitching. What's up they about all these injuries? They need to get Lucas Gilito, somebody, anybody. Not so fas, the Braves are pitching extremely well. They're first in the Majors in era. They've got Suarez and Iglesias at the back of the bullpen. That's great. They are also second in the Majors in runs per game, behind only the Dodgers. They just look right now, as Austin Riley told me in our postgame interview Saturday night, like a complete team. They're operating on all cylinders. And in talking to their pitching coach Jeremy Hefner over the weekend too, I said, man, you guys, I doubted you're pitching. Your pitching has been amazing, he said, watch our defense. You have to acknowledge the defense's role in the pitching success. And true to form, the Braves are tied for first in the Majors in outs above average. You saw Kuna make that great play to in the game last night. They are indeed clicking on all cylinders. Now that's the team, of course, that took it to the Phillies over the weekend. Their lead over the Phillies is six and a half games. Their lead over the Mets is eight games. It's Washington and Miami tied for second place five games back. So the Braves, I don't know if we can say they're running away just yet, but they've certainly built a nice cushion so far. Now another team worth discussing and another team that is dealing with a number of pitching injuries, Chicago Cubs. That's the team that took it to the Mets over the weekend. The Cubs, you know it's the deal or you know the deal with their rotation already. Boyd is out coming back, Kate Horton out for the season, actually out for sixteen months, Justin Steele still working his way back. So they've had starting pitching questions with regard to the injured list. They have a number of relievers, including Filmmaton and their closer Daniel Palencia, also on the injured list. And yet they have played better of late, beating the Phillies and the Mets. Maybe they're poor sisters. Those teams five straight and their offense at times can be rather explosive. At one point last week they had three straight games double figures in runs scored. That's an offense that one to nine is pretty deep. So I like what I'm seeing from the Cubs as well. And then you have another team in of the NL Central. This team might be the biggest surprise in baseball. I was talking about the Braves being a surprise, but the Braves are the Braves. The Cardinals are a team that traded Wilson Contreras, Sonny Gray, Brendan Donovan, and Noan Arnatto. This is a rebuilding year. They are not hiding that. And yet right now they are thirteen to eight. They are tied with Oh sorry, they're a half game behind the Reds. Another surprise team in the NL Central, and they're doing it in large part with their offense. It's Jordan Walker, of course, it's Alec Burlson. Mason woman hasn't even gotten hot. They have a legitimate lineup, it seems, even without the players we mentioned. They're tied for eleventh right now in runs per game. They don't pitch nearly as well. And they're going to have some problems there. But the Cardinals, at least to start the season have been rather competitive and this is the team that just swept the Astros, the third team on our manager list. We will get to that, and it's just cool to see a team like this playing at this level when their fans were kind of waiting for this moment, waiting for the team to finally admit that it wasn't going to necessarily compete in the same way it had before. Go younger and listen. Hopefully in time become a really competitive team. Again. I don't expect them to be even a five hundred team when the season ends. But at the same time, all you can ever ask as a fan is that your team competes and that your team gives you legitimate games in September. That is when I was a fan growing up, what I always wanted for my favorite team, which was at that time the Mets. I don't have a favorite team now it's my job, but that is what you want. You want your team to at least show something, show progress, show fight. Cardinals are doing that. So that is it. For the top of the show. We are going to come right back with the Inside Dish, and yes, that is when I'm going to delve in to the managers on the hot Seat, a column I usually write in mid May. This year mid April, stay with us, well well, well, well, well, time now for the inside Dish, the part of the show where I go inside a story I've written, inside a trend in the game, something else entirely. And I want to talk about the story that I published in The Athletic today and it's about you see it right there, the Mets, Phillies and Astros. It says they have deeper problems than their manager, but it doesn't mean that in each case the manager is safe. And as I said earlier, usually this column, Manager's on the Hot Sea column is something I write in mid May. Mid May is when the season is about one fourth complete. That's usually the time when you see firings. That's about the time we see it basically every year. Now, what's different this year the season really is only about one eighth complete. The difference with the Mets, Phillies and Astros is that they are three of the seven highest payrolls in the game. Their expectations are up there with their payrolls, and in New York and Philadelphia, in particular, the noise surrounding the poor starts of the clubs is getting louder, pretty loud. In New York right now, obviously they've lost eleven straight. In Philly two, there is a lot of frustration. I was in Philly over the weekend and I was taken aback Saturday night, beautiful night. Phillies are down three to one in the late innings. Chris Sale is out of the game, so the Phillies have a chance, and that park emptied out. I don't recall seeing that too often in Philly. Phillies had the best home record in the majors the last two years, and now they are five and ten at home. Okay, let's get into each manager, because each is in very different circumstance. Now, I know, Mets fans, and we'll start with Mendoza are kind of in a lather about yesterday and pitching to Nico Horner in the tenth inning with a run around third, one out, rather than intentionally walking him and going to Michael Bush setting up a left right matchup not ideal, even though Bush's slumping with Craig Kimbrel. Okay, that didn't work out. The way to judge a manager, and I know fans are going to be upset when I say this is not by their bullpen decisions. Some are going to work, some are not, Some are hair brained, some are unintentionally really smart. So really, the way to judge a manager is by the way his team is responding to him, his leadership, the way the team is playing. Now you see here Francisco Lindor says of Carlos Mendoza, He's done a fantastic job. This is not on him. A strong case can be made for that. Mendoza two years ago, remember, led this team to the NLCS. That was his first year as a manager. That team had a poor start as well. Last year, of course, they fell apart. It's been well documented, and the Mets basically said, this is on our players, on our core. They broke up that core. They also brought in a number of new coaches, and when you do that manager is the next on the scrutiny list. But you saw David Stearns defend Mendoza on Friday. Mendoza is Stearns's hand pick guy, remembered to replace Buck Showalter. And of course the players kind of rose to his defense yesterday. Now, an eleven game losing streak at the start of the season with the game's second highest payroll is going to raise questions. That's what's happening here. The Mets, though, are without Juan Soto. They've been without him for two weeks now, they're three and eleven without him. Should one player and his absence cause an entire team to collapse? Absolutely not, And it's on all of the players that they haven't been able to step up and account for Soto not being there. So where are we here? It does not seem, at least at this hour, at least as I say this at ten o'clock in the morning, whatever time it is Eastern time on Monday, that the Mets are going to fire Mendoza before their next home stand begins. But certainly he is under scrutiny. And yet I can't say this is all entirely a surprise. I wrote in January. In January, after they redid their team, his team still had defensive concerns, still had injury concerns, still had chemistry concerns. There was a lot of new here, is a lot of new here, new coaches, new players. It was going to take, in my opinion, at least time for this team to gel. Will Carlos Mendoza get more time? That remains to be seen. The Phillies are a different story, entirely unlike the Mets. They essentially brought their team back right. They resigned Shober, resigned real Muto, they'd acquired John Durant to close at last year's deadline, and outside of purging Nick Castianos, they didn't really do much different. It's the same group, the same group that in twenty twenty two went to the World Series and yet has had progressively increasingly disappointing playoff finishes ever since. This is an older group, there's no question about that. It's also, like the Mets, a very talented group. So where are we going here? Well, the biggest problem right now is the offense. You've got Turner, you've got Schworber, you've got Harper at the top. Great, they might not be exactly what they've been in the past, but they're all thirty three or so. They're going to be pretty good. The question is the rest of the lineup, And the rest of the lineup is not deep, not good. This team as of right now is twenty sixth in the majors in runs per game, was eighth last year. The Phillies hit that's what they did. Now They're going to get Wheeler back probably at the end of this week, maybe for that Atlanta series in Atlanta next weekend, and that will help, at least it will give them kind of a jolt of energy. I'm sure to get Zach Wheeler, one of the best pitchers in the game, back on the mound. But pitching has not been the problem. They've got some funky stats that I detailed in the Calm that indicate their pitching actually has been really good. The biggest issue to me, and the reason why Thompson might be in trouble sooner than later, is that the fans are kind of turning on the team, and John Middleton, the owner of the Phillies, is sensitive to fan reaction. Dave Dombrowski, the president Baseball Operations, has never been afraid to make a change if he deems it necessary. That's how Thompson got his job in the first place. So with the Phillies five and ten at home, with their fans kind of disenchanted right now, to say the least, you can see if this team doesn't turn around, a problem becoming more apparent with what they're going to do with their leadership. Like the Mets, they have potential replacements on hand, and I detail them in the column and read that, but really, they've got to play better. It's the same story with all three of these teams. Each of them has to play better or else. All of these things we're talking about are going to become even more prominent in the discussion around those clubs, and you're going to see more likely than not managerial changes. Now, the last guy on my list today was Espada Joe A. Spotta from the Houston Astros. Now, as I began this section of the column, if ever an owner should understand the value of patients, it's Astros owner Jim Crane. Remember twelve and twenty four two years ago, in Espota's first season, they make the playoffs, they get beaten the playoffs, okay, but they won the AL West. That was their eighth consecutive postseason appearance. Did not make it last year, And if they don't make it this year, that will be the first time since twenty thirteen, fourteen that the Astros have not made back to back postseason appearances. Kind of amazing, isn't it. So? Okay, they're eight and fifteen right now, arguably in even worse shape than they were two years ago in twenty twenty four, So you might say, Okay, well, hey, what's going on with the manager? I'll tell you what's going on. Fourteen players on the injured list. Fourteen, that's the most in the majors. It includes basically an entire rotation, including Hunter Brown, the staff ace, Josh Hater has not pitched at all this season. Jeremy pan You have been in and out of the lineup. He's their all star shortstop. That is the biggest issue. But if you're Jim Crane, owner of the Astros, the guy who has said the window for this team will always be open, are you going to be patient? You've got Joe Spotta in the last year of his contract. You've got the general manager, Dana Brown, in the last year of his contract. They're essentially operating with votes of no confidence. So how is this going to go for them? I don't know, and I don't know how long a spata can last. If indeed this malaise continues with the Houston Astros. They've got Alvarez at the top of his game. You're Don Alvarez leading the majors with ten home runs. You've got Altuve who is healthy. You've got Carlos Correa saying we're not a bad team, we're just playing bad baseball. It all doesn't look all that great for Houston right now, So Mendoza, Thompson, Espada. It is only April twentieth. Again, the season is only about one eighth complete, and yet the scrutiny on these guys is quite high right now. And I'm not talking about fans scrutiny. I'm talking about internal scrutiny. I am sure certain that internally the kinds of questions we're talking about here are being asked. All right, That is it for the Inside Dish. We'll be back with Grill and Ken right after this time. Now for Grill and Ken, the part of the show where I answer your questions, let's go. First question comes from Sean Michael, who says, is there any concern in Seattle with cal Raley's performance so far? His hitting metrics are way down this year. Sean, You're absolutely right, and I would say there has to be some concern. This started in the World Baseball Classic, if you remember. Eventually Team USA stopped playing Raleigh and went with Will Smith. And I remember at one point a reporter came in. He had not seen some of the games, and he was like, where's Cayle Raley. Cal Raley didn't deserve to play now, coy Raley told me at the time he's always had slow springs. It's not that big a deal. Well, it's extended into the regular season. His stats right now are unsightly one fifty nine batting average, okay, whatever, batting average, five to eleven ops, two home runs after hitting sixty sixty home runs last year. So it's a slow start. I feel quite confident that Kyle Raley has not lost it entirely and will ultimately have a good season. But the Mariners in general have not hit the way we expected, and ultimately they're going to have to do that to support their pitching staff. And it's interesting to me the way the Ale West is evolving right now. The Angels have played better than we've all thought they would. The Rangers look like they're a little bit better than they we all thought they were as well, though they've lost a few lately. The Athletics are going to hit. We know that, and then they're the Astros who are banged up, but you can never count them out. So at the start of the year, it looked like Seattle would be the team with maybe the easiest chance to win the division, next to Los Angeles in the Dodgers situation. I don't know about that. Now. Seattle Mariners are struggling a little bit. I do believe they'll get it together, but we have not seen it yet. All right, next question, this one comes from Monthly fifteen. Last few years, we've heard talks of Miami moving Sandy. Should they take advantage of his first few starts being great to maximize return or are the Marlins more likely to hold This is an interesting question because the Marlins are trying to take a step forward. Remember they won seventy nine games last year. They believe that they are even better this year. They are another team struggling of late, and al Contra has been quite good thus far. They are a team that traded Luis Arrives very early what was it two years ago now? And I guess they're capable of making a trade in May, but it would seem to me they want to wait. They want to wait and see how their team performs, see if they can be on the fringes of wild card contention, and then entertain the Alcantra question at the deadline. It's an interesting question because if you want to compete, your best chance of competing is probably with al Contra. But at the same time, we have seen teams like the Miami Marlins, low revenue teams make trades of this nature even when they're in contention. The Brewers have done it with Josh Hayter. They've done it with others as well. Willia Amas was the guy they acquired. But there are examples of this from low revenue clubs. So it's an interesting question, and we'll see how the Marlins play the rest of the first half and then what they decide. All right, I want to thank everyone for watching and for listening. Foul Territory coming up at one o'clock Eastern. That will be a j Perzinski, Eric Kratz and Scott Braun hosting Guardian's first baseman Reyes Hoskins and the Athletics. Tim Britton, the guy who is covering the eleven Mets the eleven game losing streak they'll be joining. We'll be back Thursday with Alana. Have a great week everyone, We'll talk to you then. Bet.

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