Fair Territory: Mets & Yankees slump, Injuries for Brewers/Blue Jays/Astros, Mason Miller's Cy chances

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Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory. We've got a ton to get to. In fact, we've got so much to get to. I put some of it in print, actually a lot of it in print. Notes. Calm is up. It's actually free for everyone to read three thousand words on a variety of teams and topics. I advise you to take a look. Now we are almost one tenth into the season, still a very small sample, and outside of the Dodgers, who are doing their usual dominant thing, the world is a little bit upside. Now. We've got the Minnesota Twins tied for first place. We've got the Pittsburgh Pirates in first place. We've got the Washington Nationals second in the major leagues in runs scored, behind only the Dodgers. And finally we've got the Kings of New York, the Sacramento Vegas A's who just rampaged through Yankee Stadium and City Fields, winning five of six. So for the first segment today, we're going to do a little bit of a concern meter, I should call it for some teams that are in a situation now that maybe they are concerned, even though it's only one tenth of the season, and we're going to start with the teams that the A's just rampage through, the Yankees and the Mets. Let's start with the Yankees, losers of five straight. Actually, both the Yankees and Mets are losers of five straight. And the Yankees losing to the A's and then the Rays getting swept at Tropicana Field over the weekend, scored only thirteen runs in those five games. Jazz had that weird play on Saturday night to end the game, the weird explanation afterward, and now they come back home to Yankee Stadium for four against the Angels. So the question is, am I worried about the Yankees. The answer to that is no, I'm not worried about the Yankees. Their rotation is too good. It stands a chance of getting even better when Garrett Cole and Carlos Rodin come back, and their offense is too good as well. Teams will go through these slides. We see it all the time. No, I am not worried about the Yankees. Now let's go across town to the other team in town, the New York Mets. They are a team that also is in the middle of a five game losing streak, just swept at home by the A's twice shut out during that series. The Mets have yet to really get it going out of course, for the last eight games they've been without Juan Soto wan Soto's nursing in that cave strain, They've averaged in those eight games only three point four runs per game, so clearly the offense without Soto is suffering. Jeff mcdeal had a big series coming back to New York brand the NEMO is playing great for the Texas Rangers, and now the Mets are off to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers for three and then the Cubs at Wrigley Field for three. So am I worried about the Mets. The answer to that is yes, and I've been worried about the Mets, and Mets fans have accused me of every atrocity under the sun for this. But I've had a couple of concerns. One is the rotation still not convey David Peterson not pitching well. Senga just had that rough start. Mania is not even in the rotation. They've got some issues there. I've been worried all season about so many new players coming in, new coaches coming in, and how it might take some time for them to gel. I still believe that to be true. You're seeing a transition with Bashett, You're seeing some health issues already with this team. So yes, I am somewhat worried about the Mets, as I have been the whole time. They have talent. They should be okay in the end, but how okay that remains to be seen. Now, three other teams I want to get to in this opening segment. These teams, to one extent or another, are all dealing with injuries. One of these teams, the Houston Astros, is dealing with an incredible run of injuries, and let's deal with Let's talk about them and just where they are right now, seven straight losses after a six and three start. You see the tweet from Chandler Rome is in a dreadful road trip by just about every measurable metric, but watching Cam Smith play has been a bright spot. And then Channel has a story today ranking the Astros concerns after their sixth and ten start. They've got a ton of concerns. Mainly, the concerns are starting with the rotation Hunter Brown down Christian Javier down Tatuya in mind just went back to Houston because he too might be hurt. And then Cody Bolton kind of an emergency starter on Sunday, he leaves the game after getting only three outs because of mid back tightness. So they built their rotation depth during the offseason. They still feel like they have some depth. But when you lose some of your quality guys, obviously you're going to have some issues there. That's the biggest concern with the Astros right now. Spencer Araghetty is coming. They should be better with him, of course than without him, because they need him right now. But this is still a team that can be swept right now today by the Mariners end of a four game series. And they have a backdrop to this season as well, and that's their general manager Dana Brown and their manager Joe Espada during the final years of contracts. Now. I don't know how anyone can hold this against them when so many key players are hurt. Jeremy Panna has an issue as well, but Jim cran and their owner, well, he once got rid of a general manager after that general manager won the World Series. That was Jim Crane, So there are the Astros. I'll go to the Blue Jays two. Here, the Blue Jays are another team dealing with a lot of injuries. Now, we saw Max Sjerzy yesterday. He's healthy, but he did not pitch well, allout eight runs in two and a third. But they had in this series a situation where Corbin Patrick Corbyn was the first starter. Eric Lower was the second starter. Max Scherzer was the third. None of these guys was in the original plan. They're dealing with, as I've said for quite some time now, a tough deal in their rotation, because really they've got an entire rotation on the IL, five different starters. So where do they go from here? You Savage might be back sometime next week, Jose Bidrios a little bit after that. So they're going to get some people back Bieber eventually, I presume. But right now, with Gossman and Seas healthy and the rest of it kind of in flux, you do have to worry about the Blue Jays and you do have to worry, Okay, how is this going to work out? Now? Am I worried about the Astros? Yes? Am I worried about the Blue Jays? Less so because these guys are going to come back and at some point it's going to be a better situation for Toronto. And I also think they're going to hit. They also have two pretty prominent hitters on the IL as well, and I'm talking of course about Springer, and we'll actually make it three prominent hitters. Springer is the third, Alejandro Kirk and Addison Barger. All these guys are on the IL. They'll be back eventually as well. So less worried about the Blue Jays than the Astros. And finally, the Milwaukee Brewers. Now here are the Brewers. They got off to a tremendous start, and yet they too are dealing with some physical questions. Christian Yelich being the latest. They've been without Cheerio, they've been without Vaughan. These guys will be back, all of them. But the Brewers after getting swept at home by the Nationals, like the Mets and Yankees, have also lost five straight. They're the Brewers. They always seem to find a way. But you see the quote from manager Pat Murphy, tough times. We haven't been in these waters much in the last three years. Just have to get through it. Can they get through it? Yes? They can. Am I worried about them, Yes, a little bit. And I'm worried about them because as we've seen over the years, they've eaten into their depth and trading Freddy Parol, they trading Devin Williams, trading Josh Hater, and they've always seemed to rebound from this. But right now they're pitching staff with Quinn Priester Down is inexperienced. The death is not exactly there. Obviously, Brandon Woodroof is still there. Brandon Woodroof is not what he once was, but a quality pitcher, and they've got others as well, including the miz. But yes, I'm worried about the Brewers because at some point we've all thought this is going to catch up to them. I'm not saying this is the year. I'm not convinced of that, but they operate, unlike some of these big money teams, on a thinner margin for error because they don't have the depth. So at some point, Cheerio Vaughn and hopefully Yellow's come back pretty soon. That should take care of the offense. It's going to be the pitching that is the question. So there you have it. Worried about the Mets, less worried about the Yankees, not so worried about the Blue Jays, a little worried about the Brewers, and very worried about the Astros. That's the first segment. We'll be right back with the inside dish after this.

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Speaker 1: Time? Now for the inside Dish, the part of the show where I talk about maybe a story I've written, maybe a trend in the game, maybe something else entirely, And today I actually want to use as a launching point a story. One of my colleagues at The Athletic wrote Dennis Lynn about the possibility, just the thought of Mason Miller winning the Cy Young Award. Now, the comments today Dennis's article were fairly negative, and basically all of them were saying, it's early, man, we can't talk about this yet. I get it, it is early to talk about Mason Miller winning the cy Young Award. But really I want to talk about the concept now of a reliever winning the cy Young Award and can it happen, because that is an issue we may see come up at some point, whether Mason Miller continues this incredible start to the season or not. And I'm going to suggest to you that we're not going to see a reliever win the Cy Young Award ever again, and I'll tell you why as we go through it. Now, let's talk relievers winning the SI and how often it has happened in baseball history. Not often, in fact, not since two thousand and three, when Eric Ganye won fifty five for fifty five and save opportunities. That's right, kids, fifty five for fifty five for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was a year that was such an outlier, so brilliant that yes, he won the Cy Young Award. But you go to twenty sixteen Zach Britton for the Orioles, a zero point five four era wasn't even in the top three. Now here's Miller. Let's show you his stats so far, just to show why this is even a thought in people's heads, if it's a thought at all. His stats are incredible. Seven to the third innings, nineteen strikeouts out of twenty four batters faced. Obviously he is not allowed or run yet. Now if he continues this run throughout the whole year, yeah we've got something to talk about. But of course, Paul Skins and Christopher Sanchez and all the other great starters in the National League are going to have something to say about that. The biggest reason why I don't think a reliever will ever win a psigh again is because there are awards now for relief pitchers in the National League and American League. We have the Trevor Hoffman Award. We have the Mariatta Rivera Award. These awards came to pass in twenty fourteen, that's when they were introduced, and because relievers have their own awards now, there is a clear spot for them. In addition to those two awards, the Baseball Writers Association of America this year twenty twenty six is introducing its own Reliever of the Year awards for both leagues as well, so by the end of the year there will actually be more awards for relievers than starting pitchers if you reserve the Cy Young for starting pitchers. Now. Dave Roberts made the point over the weekend, or actually maybe last week when talking about Mason Miller, and this was a fair point. This is what he said. He said, if you're going to do it, if you're gonna have a reliever win this award, you're gonna have to really separate yourself. Now, Mason Miller theoretically could do that. He could pitch, I don't know, seventy innings or so, seventy five innings or so. Have these ridiculous numbers. Maybe the padres go to the playoffs and maybe this becomes a conversation, But even then I'm sort of doubting it because of what I just said. These other awards that are in place for relief pitchers. And while the cy Young is a vague description best pitcher, and you can argue certainly a reliever is the best pitcher, I'd still even with starting pitchers not throwing as many innings as before Corgan Burns winning this award with one hundred and sixty seven innings a few years back, it's still a greater amount of bulk, and you still would lean toward the starting pitcher anytime for a cy Young Award. I want to show you believers who have won the SI in past years and show you just what they did, because from a bulk perspective, all of them pitched more than relievers do today. Let's look at this and you'll see what I'm talking about here. All right, there we go, All right, let's go back to nineteen seventy four. This will get you Mike Marshall, a relief pitcher through two hundred and eight and a third innings. And you see over the years Sparky Lyle one hundred and thirty seven, Willy Hernandez one hundred and forty and a third, and now the most recent reliever to win ASI was Eric Gane that was eighty two and a third. That's probably the lower limit. Eck won it with eighty innings in nineteen ninety two. And also you can see here three of these pitchers, the ones that are highlighted, they won MVPs. Eckersley, Willie Hernandez and roleygh Fingers. And actually, I've always thought that the MVP makes more sense for relievers than the Cy Young does. If you are Dennis Eckersley in nineteen ninety two and you had that huge an impact on your team, You've pitched in probably seventy games or so, you're more and most player candidate in my view than a Cy Young candidate. Can a reliever win that award MVP? It would be difficult, especially in this age of Otani and Aaron Judge and Bobby Wait Junior and Jose Ramirez and all of these great position players, but that to me is a more likely category, and I don't still think I don't think that is particularly likely given that, of course, we have again the relief Pitcher of the Year awards, both presented by the league and this year by the BBWAA. So it's going to be something that might come up if Mason Miller continues it. And yes, it's early, and he's probably not going to continue striking batters out at the rate that he is nineteen out of twenty four so far. Now, that's probably not going to happen all season. But the whole concept of a reliever winning the SI, that's a concept that probably is going to disappear from all are talking points at some point in the near future. Now the standards have changed for starters. We know that I just mentioned it. Corpyn Burns one with one hundred and sixty seven, Blake Snell, who's two cy Youngs. They were one hundred and eighty innings. Each one was one to eighty. One was one eighty and two thirds. And as the starters' workloads decrease and relievers are more prominent, and they certainly are more prominent than they've ever been before. You can make the case that, yeah, they are more meaningful than they were in the past. That's why again, I still think it's more of an MVP discussion with relievers than a cy Young discussion. So, yes, the standards are changing. The standards are changing for starters, they're changing for relievers as well. But at the same time, again, this is a tough conversation to have when you have the reliever awards and when you have still starting pitchers who are prominent and who are really good. So for those who reacted to Dennis's articles saying it's ridiculous, no, the discussion is not ridiculous. It's interesting still the idea of an outlier season from a reliever like an Eric Ganye in two thousand and three, making that reliever part of the side discussion. But again, it didn't happen for Zach Britten in twenty sixteen after the Rivera and Hoffman Awards were instituted. And even if Mason Miller goes crazy and has an amazing year and strikes out I don't know ninety percent of this hitters that he faces, it's still going to be an uphill battle. So for the inside dish, that is it. Don't yell at Dennis, don't yell at me, don't yell at anyone. Just read baseball articles and actually just think and be happy. All Right, we'll be back with Grill and Ken right after this. All right, time now for Grilling Ken, the part of the show where you get to ask me questions. Let's go. Let's get started. First question comes from Richard Procter, who says, do you think the Rays are reverting to small ball? Bunting and stealing for example? Seems like they would appeal to the older baseball fans if you watch the Rays Yankees series. Certainly they bunted quite a bit. And they've got a guy, Chandler Simpson, who is an ultimate small ball player. He is a speed guy, he is an exciting guy. Wrote about him last year. Fun to watch. They can do this and they will take advantage of it. The Cardinals with Victor Scott. I was with them this weekend in Saint Louis, and Victor Scott is working diligently to improve his bunting and expand that part of his game. He's another guy like Chandler Simpson who can do these kinds of things. I don't know that we're going to see it come back into vogue, but for certain teams in certain situations, yes, why not bunt? And it's kind of absurd that the bunt has sort of faded from the game because it can be a weapon. Now, yes, times you don't fund and I remember Brian Kenny on MLB Network used to wear that shirt stop bunting, stop giving away out. Yes, there are guys though, Simpson Scott, others who can bunt for bass hits, who can use that as a different sort of tool in their offensive arsenals. So yes, from that perspective, the Rays certainly put it to good use over the weekend. I don't know that it's coming back entirely, but it would be wise of teams to use that when they have the players to do it, and at opportune times in the course of a game. All right, Next question, This one comes from Sicilian eighty seven. Ken critics are stating Toronto may have overachieved last season. Would you happen to agree with this or are they being too harsh? The Blue Jays certainly in the postseason played at an extremely high level, a higher level than they played during the regular season. I don't know that I would call it overachieving. I would call it a team playing to its absolute max, and that is, in my view, not overachieving. Now you look at them this year and you say, well, what's going on? Why aren't they as good? I explained it a little bit in the first segment. Their pitching injuries have been really destructive in many ways so far. And also they've lost Bobaschett, They've replaced them with Okamoto, they haven't gotten off to the greatest of offensive starts. They've been without Kirk now they're without Springer, they're without Barger. All these things are happening. They are still a very good team, and going into the season people believe they were a very good team. So yes, I would say that those who are saying the Blue Jays overachieved last season are being too harsh. You are what you are. You are what your results say you are. The Blue Jays came within two outs of winning the World Series. I would say they had a pretty good year and if they overachieved, well, I don't know. They played to their max. All right. Next question, this one comes from foul terrator. Are the Mariners back, well, they certainly look good against the Astros. The Astros are depleted. As we've discussed, they are starting to do some good things. They had to walk off with JP Crawford the other night, and he with the bases loaded is absolutely incredible. I've got a note about him in my notes Calm today, thirty three for seventy with the bases loaded in his career. JP Crawford, Brian Kenny, don't tell me that clutch hitting is not a thing. Certainly a thing for some players. He's pretty good at it all right now. The question overall though about the Mariners. They are going to be fine, and Julio's going to come out of it, and Cal Rowley's going to come out of it, and they're going to be the team we thought. Josh Naylor horrible start as well. It's all kind of combined on them at once. I did, though, have an interesting conversation yesterday with an executive who told me he thinks the A's are going to win the division because their offense is that strong and if they get any kind of pitching, which they have over the past week, they've got a shot. And this executive thought, you know what, the Mariners maybe aren't as good as we thought. Maybe they overachieved, if that's the word you want to use for them last year. I don't believe that. I still believe the Mariners are the class of that division, and I still believe that they're going to be back. But the A's are certainly a team to watch. Next question, This one comes from Sean Michael, who says, are the Tigers back? Sean is a big Tigers fan. We've heard from him a lot over the years. They're going to be fine too, and they're going through or had gone through, what was a difficult stretch for them. They lost Parker Meadows of course, to that terrible collision the other night. But the Tigers with McGonagall, with Riley Green, with everything that they've got going on, and the possibility of Max Clark coming later, they too are going to be fine. They're pitching is really good, They're coming off a good weekend, and I just expect that, Yes, they're going to be right in the thick of the Ale Central, if not the team to beat in that division. Let's see if we got one more here before we break out, all right, Kenny, how much of a leash do you think the pirates will give to Connor Griffin? Hmm? Do you think they'll let him figure it out in the majors or demote him by May June if he continues to struggle offensively. Griffin certainly has not produced big numbers. It's a small sample. You've committed one hundred and forty million to him, You've brought him to the major leagues, and yes, you have to expect that some of this is going to occur. Mike Trout, if you remember, struggled when he came out, got sent back to the miners, one of many, many examples in that regard Connor Griffin. If they believe he's getting overwhelmed and somehow mentally getting kind of in a bad place because of this, overwhelmed would be the word to use. Yes, at that point they can and will send him down. But they're not there yet. He's terrific defensively, as we've seen, and he should be at some point given the chance. Not at some point, he should be given the chance to figure it out. If he doesn't. If this continues, okay, you take a deep breath. You let him go back to the miners, get his feet back on the ground and then go from there. All right, I want to thank everyone for watching him for listening. Foul Territory coming up at one pm Eastern. It's AJ It's Aeric Kratz and Scott Brown hosting twins infielder Tristan Gray and the athletic spencer Nustbam who covers the Nationals for US. They're going to join and we'll be back Thursday with Alana for our normal live Thursday show. We'll talk to you then and again. That notes column is up and it's free to read. Have a great week everyone.

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