Fair Territory: Dodgers & Yankees sweeps, Zack Wheeler & Josh Hader shelved, Brew Crew baseball

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Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory. I'm Ken Rosenthal, here with you for the next I don't know, twenty five minutes or so. We have a lot to talk about after an interesting weekend of baseball, with many interesting weekends ahead. The first thing to talk about, of course, is the Dodgers Padres series, a surprising outcome to many of us, given the way the Padres were playing so well going into that series, and given that the Dodgers have not really reached a peak all season. Well, all of that changed over the weekend at Dodgers Stadium. What happened. The Dodgers swept the Padres, regained the lead in the NL West, now lead by two games. And let's go through the three games. A little bit before, I mentioned some Padres concerns that kind of were amplified by this series. Okay, Friday Night, Clayton Kershaw brilliant against the Padres and six innings, one run. That was on a night when the Padres had to throw a bullpen game with Michael King going on the injured list. Saturday, Dylan Cees, who has had an inconsistent season, was inconsistent again. Six walks in three and a third innings. The Dodgers, for whatever reason, had ceases, I don't know, ahead in a bad place, and they did a really good job against him. Also in this game Blake Snell six innings scoreless. It was the second half Blake Snell that were accustomed to seeing, and Will Smith the catcher for the Dodgers throughout three base runners, three attempted steelers in the first two innings, and then finally Sunday you saw that game. Darvius was just okay, not even that for the Padres. Glass now was decent five innings for the Dodgers, and Mookie Betts with the go ahead homer in the eighth inning, and the Dodgers bullpen bent but didn't break to complete the sweep. So you have in this series, Manny Machado going one for twelve, Xander Bogart's won for eleven, j Croninworth over seven Tatis struck out in were times okay. The Padres offense has been a question at various points this season, but one question that has arisen with them with regard to their offense is their surprising lack of power. It seems only to be coming from Morole Loreano right now their new trade deadline acquisition. That's an exaggeration, but Loreanno is the one guy who went deep in this series for the Padres. Actually they had a couple of other homers as well, but they are not hitting home runs. And I want to show you where they rank among the league leaders in this regard, because this is a telling graphic that we're about to show you home runs for the season. The Yankees are number one, one hundred and ninety five, Dodgers number two, one eighty five, The Padres are twenty ninth at one five, twenty ninth, and that Pirates of course next at eighty eight. They are last in the majors, So the Pirates, I'm sorry. The Padres offense is a concern and it has been a concern. And obviously the Dodgers pitching is getting healthier. We're gonna see Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates and Michael Kopek before the end of the month most likely. So the Dodgers look like again they've taken command. We'll see exactly how this fares out next weekend in San Diego, but right now, the Dodgers again have the lead, and there are two other things with the Padres that kind of bothered me a little bit just watching the games. Starting pitching now, it's been an issue kind of at various points this season. They traded two of their starters to Kansas City to make room for Michael King coming back and to do some other things of course, to get Freddy. For me, Nick Paveda at the top, he's been really good. Cease should be at the top. He's been inconsistent. As I mentioned King's injury, this left knee inflammation not expected to keep him out long. And then New Darvish really has not been good for the most part at all. It's got about a six ERA since coming off the injured list. So that's a concern. And you might say ken doesn't matter in the postseason because the Padres bullpen is so good they're going to shortened games and they can just get a couple of nings out of their starters and go from there. Well, there's a concern there as well. And the concern there is that the Padres bullpen has three relievers in the top nine in appearances, Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada, and Adrian Morejone. Those three guys again top nine in appearances in the majors, and the concern obviously would be that one or more of them wear down by the postseason. Now they might say, well, Padres still have Mason Miller and Roberts Suarez and others. Yes, true, but the bullpen is their lynchpin. It's what they will use to yes, shorten games and win games. If it's not exactly right, after a starting rotation that is not exactly right, then you have a problem. Tatis is another question. No home runs in his last ninety seven played appearances. That's the longest stretch of his career. But I would expect that when the lights come on in the playoffs, Tatis will be Tatis again, even though he has had somewhat of a rocky season. So the Dodgers again look in command of this division. They play again next weekend in San Diego, much different environment. We'll see what happens then, Okay. Manager Dave Roberts from the Dodgers joins Alana Rizzo and Clint Pesius on Dodgers' Territory today at noon Pacific three Eastern. Right after foul Territory, tune in, subscribe on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast to the entire Foul Territory Network. Also this weekend, a couple of disturbing injuries came to light. The biggest one is Zach Wheeler, and this one is a troubling one, not just from a baseball perspective, but from a life perspective. A blood clot near his right shoulder. We don't know more about that yet. They're going to get more information as this week goes on. He's going for more testing today. Obviously, a blood clot is always serious. That's the biggest thing with Zach Wheeler. The question now is one getting him healthy and of course two, what does it mean for the Phillies going forward. It certainly appears that Zach Wheeler will be out for the regular season and possibly the postseason as well. We don't know that for a fact yet. But the Phillies' rotation without him, well it's simply not the same. It's really good. But Zach Wheeler was a cy young candidate, was brilliant in the first half, probably should have started the All Star Game, but even then he was having some physical issues that he was worried about, and that's one reason he bowed out of the game. So let's look at that Phillies rotation without Wheeler, because as I said, it's still good, it's just not quite the same. Christopher Sanchez brilliant season. He is at the top of this thing two point four five ERA, Ranger Suarez at three point two eight, Taiwan Walker who's having a resurgence three point three four, his us Lozardo, and Aaron Nola, who came off the injured list yesterday after about a three month absence. Wasn't good against the Nationals. Wasn't good before he got hurt either. You see the ERA there six point nine two. So we're gonna have to see what kind of contribution Nola can make, if any, to this team in the postseason. And you saw also at the bottom of that graphic Andrew Painter. He is a great Phillies pitching prospect. But while he was expected to be a contributor in the second half, as you saw five point one five ERA at Triple A nine point four five in August. So Painter still has some things to work out in the miners. He is not yet ready for the majors. So that's the Phillies. The other disturbing injury clearly Josh Hater left shoulder capsule sprain, and that one will keep him out at least three weeks. He's not going to throw. He believes he will be out for the rest of the regular season. Did not rule out the postseason, but I would say the chances are slim that we're gonna see him again this year if we do bonus for the Astros. And what's interesting about the Astros besides what's happened to their bullpen in which everyone has to move up a rung right, Brian Abreu, Bennett Susso all of these guys will now pitch in a later role. The depth is not the same as it was with Hater, the most dynamic reliever in the sport, or at least one of them. The Astros aren't playing well. There's seven and eight since the deadline when they acquired Carlos Korea. They're fourteen and twenty since July sixth, and in this six game homestand they just completed against the Red Sox and Orioles, they were outscored forty four to seventeen, shut out twice by the Orioles, nearly no hit on Friday night. If ever, there was an opportunity for the Mariners to grab this thing. It's right now now. Jordan Alvarez is on a realbilitation assignment for the Astros. He's coming back. That's gonna be a huge boost for Houston. But at the same time, no Josh Hater. A team that has been decimated by injuries all year, Houston I'm talking about, and a team that again is wobblin. It's the time right now for the Mariners to step forward and do something. All Right, Finally, this weekend, I'm gonna talk about the Yankees. Six. I was there Saturday for the Fox broadcast with Aj Prazenski. He actually let me talk. Yes, it was great, Aj, Adam Wainwright, Adam amein. That was a bit of a wild game. Twelve eight, I believe is the final score. The Yankees end up sweeping the Cardinals and the Guardians have lost four or five. So if you look at the American League wildcard standings, the panic that was perhaps setting in for the Yankees and their fans about a week ago has been, let's say diminished. The Yankees now have again a three and a half game lead in the wild card standings. It's pretty comfortable. You see it right there, Yankees at sixty seven and fifty seven. Guardians have lost four or five, they've fallen back. The Royals are still there four games back. I don't expect you through those teams to mount the serious challenge for a couple of reasons. One is the Yankees' schedule. Now, we saw in the last week they played five of six games against the Twins, I'm sorry, six games against the Twins and Cardinals and won five of them five and one. The Twins and Cardinals. The Twins a team that traded ten players at the deadline, the Cardinals a team that traded their top three relievers and spent the weekend playing without two of their best position players, Brandon Donovan and Wilson Contraras. Clearly this has an effect on the quality of competition and the Yankees. Yes, they played better and Anthony Volpi playing much better in the field, doing some good things there. They still have a lot of questions. Max Free does not look great, their bullpens still has to be sorted out, and when will our and judge play the field. All of these questions still are there for the Yankees. But that schedule is going to be their saving grace. It is the easiest remaining schedule in the majors, according to Fangrafts. They go to Tampa Bay next for a series that begins tonight, and then they have Boston at home for four. I'll be there Thursday night for Fox. That's going to be a big series for the Yankees. But again, the rest of their schedule not too bad. After the Red Sox series, they play the White Sox. So the Yankees looking better, breathing again. We'll see how the rest of the season plays out for them, and we'll be back right after this with the Inside Dish ft FAM.

00:11:12
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00:12:19
Speaker 1: Time now for the inside Dish, the part of the show where I go inside a story I've written a trend in the game, or talk about something else entirely. But today I want to talk about something that I completely omitted in the first part of this program, and I completely omitted it because I wanted to talk about it in this segment. What am I referring to the Brewers. Their fourteen game winning streak ended yesterday finally, but the Brewers are still in position with the best record in the Majors by six games. This team leads the Majors by six games over the Toronto Blue Jays, who have had a remarkably good season as well. The Brewers, with the eighth lowest payroll in the game, are doing this, leading the majors and run score, doing all kinds of things. And as I wrote today in The Athletic, there's a lesson there if anyone in baseball cares to heat it. And the lesson you see it in every ball the Brewers put in play, every runner they advance, every cutoff man they hit, every extra base they take. And the lesson is that here is a team that is at least trying to play the game properly at a time when too many organizations place too much emphasis on the next big analytical thing and too little emphasis on sound fundamental play. Now, as I wrote, and I want to be very clear about this, because people get excited and upset, I am not bashing analytics. Far from it. Analytics are integral to the game. They've been an important part for years now. They help players get better, they help teams evaluate, they enhance everything about baseball. What I am saying here, what my point is is that while organizations seem to obsess over enhancing pitching velocity, hitters exit velocities Why can't they do the same on the fundamental side. Why can't they emphasize and stress running the bases properly, hitting the cutoff man, all the little things, all the subtleties that make baseball such a wonderful sport. We've talked a lot about the Yankees' flaws in recent weeks, right, We've kind of focused on them. It goes back to Game five of last year's World Series. But it's not just the Yankees who often stumble their way through games. We see this with every team in every game every night. It drives a lot of fans crazy, drives a lot of old school baseball people, crazy, drives some media crazy. It's not the game that we grew up watching. And I'm not talking about going back twenty years. No analytics, no, just play the game right. So, as I wrote today, and I want to show you this passage. This is one I'll quote from because it kind of sums up the entire article. The Brewers are an outlier exploiting a new market inefficiency knowing how to play baseball. They obsess over little things, in part because they generally do not pay for superstars who do big things. Most Brewers make too little money and possess too little service time to defy their detail oriented leader, manager Pat Murphy, and the team's highest paid player leftfield of Christian Yelich, practices what Murphy preaches, inspiring his teammates to do the same. Now, the point about Murphy is important. It's important because he can get away with doing things that other managers can. He can bench South Frilick and Caleb Durban in the middle of a game in April because they weren't doing things properly from a fundamental standpoint. He can criticize and bench Joey or Tiz in July for not taking the right approach offensively, and in that sense he's actually add an advantage because he has younger players, players with less service time, as I mentioned, guys that aren't going to stand up to him. Teams in small markets don't deal with the noise as well that big market teams do, and Brian Cashman made this point Friday in Saint Louis when we were talking to him. I talked to him about this as an aside. I asked about the Yankees accountability and hey, what's going on there? And he said, listen, in a big market. There is so much instant accountability from fans, the media, so much going on that if anything, leaders, managers, coaches have to take more of a supportive stance with players. So you don't see Aaron Boone criticizing players. Now that's a whole different issue. We can get into that, and we have gotten into that. But what I'm talking about here is Murphy has a freedom that maybe some other teams don't. It's almost similar to the Tampa Bay Rays and the way they operate. They can do things because there's little media and fan scrutiny there that other teams do not, So that is part of this. Another part of this is, yes, the Brewers have had good fortune during this incredible fifty three and seventeen run, a run that has extended almost over half a season. Their batted ball luck has been off the charts. Okay, batting average on balls and play actual numbers exceeding expected numbers, all of that, but you look at some of the other numbers too. They're at the top in defense and in base running. Their strikeout rates and contact rates are much improved over last year. When they'm it's the same kind of team essentially, and some of the base running numbers also are better outside the bass down, extra base taken percentage up. All of these things contribute to what is an excellent offensive club. You see right there. They're offensive numbers first in the majors and runs per game. They also do a tremendous job on the pitching side, pitching program, the development of pitchers, guys who come over there and improve, it's pretty good and they do a good job with that, better than a lot of clubs, and it's one reason they are so successful. Quinn Priester is an example of that. Trevor McGill is an example of that. There are other examples up and down their staff as well. They didn't do much at the deadline. We know that they didn't do much in the off season. We know that. I've been critical of that with them, especially during the off season when I thought they had a chance to do some things. They had just lost Devin Williams, they had just lost Willia domas Hey, they needed some reinforcement. They do it their way, and it's an awfully successful way. And again it's a way that other teams should emulate, not necessarily in the way they're constructed. They do what they have to do under payroll restrictions. But in the way they play the game, they scrap, they fight, they beat teams in any number of ways, and as I wrote, there's a lesson here, and it's high time other teams took notice. All right, we will be back with grilling ten right after.

00:19:08
Speaker 3: This, Okay, Kratz. I opened up Arena Club, put my own money in there, and I wasn't gonna go big.

00:19:16
Speaker 1: I know.

00:19:16
Speaker 3: We went over the Ruby pack a week ago. This time I just went for the low level pack, where it's an easy entry point twenty five bucks. You can get yourself a big Boy card. The Grail has many good options. I slice open the pack. We're looking at it if you're watching us right now, and I pull a card from the nineteen fifties, super cool. I enjoyed the experience looking at it. It's Jim Gilliam. It's the top set from the mid fifties. But I got an offer for more than what the Slap pack costs, and I sold it back. Tough times for the Dodgers right now, don't at me, but I got twenty eight bucks instantly, so I can buy another one of those packs and try and get what I want.

00:19:54
Speaker 2: Absolutely the excitement I heard Kip say before. The excitement's in the chase you sold. Now you get to open another one. I enjoy when you slide it across the screen there and the pack opens.

00:20:05
Speaker 3: Arenaclub dot com slash foul twenty percent off your first lab packer card purchase. Get after It.

00:20:16
Speaker 1: Time now for grilling. Can the part of the show where I answer your questions? Let's get right to them. First one comes from Corey, who asked, should the Pittsburgh Pirates are for Connor Griffin, the game's number one prospect a carving copy of the Jackson Churio contract, or do you think it is too early? Maybe this off season. It's an interesting question because Cheerio, as Corey remembers, signed an eight year, eighty two million dollar deal with the Brewers before playing a major league game. It's kind of an unprecedented deal. Connor Griffin is not as far along as Churio was. Churio was about to make the Milwaukee Brewers. Connor Griffin just got promoted to double A. He's an exciting prospect. We all know that. Say it's too soon now if I'm the Pirates, though, I'm at least thinking about it and trying to maybe start some conversations, because let's face it, the Padres aren't exactly known for keeping their homegrown prospects long term. They've done it a few times, no question, Mitch Keller, Brian Reynolds, they acquired in a trade, they signed these guys. But in general, let's face it, the Pirates lose players, they don't keep them. Connor Griffin is an incredibly talented player, a guy who's gonna hit and do some things in the major leagues, no doubt. But I would say, let's see what he does in double A, maybe even Triple A. Let's see until he's on the footstep of the majors before we anoint him with millions and millions of dollars. All right. The next question, this one comes from let's say, it doesn't come from anybody, but it's a question. Oh yes, what are your thoughts on the reaction to Rob Manfred's realignment comments. If you watch Sunday Night Baseball last night, the Little League Classic, the ESPN announcers interviewed Rob Manford during the game, and he spoke about the potential for expansion and realignment and what that would mean for the game. Now, this is something that Manfred has talked about for years. I went back after that interview and looked at something I wrote in twenty eighteen, more than seven years ago, in which he explained why realignment and why thirty two teams as opposed to thirty is a magic number for baseball, realignment would come. It was in this article after expansion and with thirty two teams you would have eight four team divisions. You could do it geographically, and as Manford explained in this article, and as he explained last night, the advantage to that is, well multiple advantages to it. Really. One is just having teams closer together, bunched together in their divisions, So that would reduce travel. Obviously, where and tear is a concern. If you want to keep players as healthy as possible, have them traveling as little as possible. That's one thing. The other part, and this is something he mentioned last night as well, the postseason in the division series. Now, we could have say, I don't know, Red Sox versus Angels. That was one example I believe he used, or maybe it was in the article East Coast, West Coast. You have games starting at ten o'clock on the East coast, you have teams traveling across country. With geographic realignment, you could set up your playoff system so at least in the early rounds that wouldn't happen. You'd have the West Coast teams playing in the West coast time slot ten o'clock, whatever it might be, and the East Coast teams playing in the East Coast slot. That too is an advantage. So all of this is on the table. All this is going to happen at some point. Manfred and the baseball owners have been waiting for the Rays and the A's stadium situations to resolve before moving forward with expansion, the expansion that would lead to realignment. But again, it's going to happen. And I was a little surprised that people sounded like that we're hearing this for the first time last night, but it was national television and it was the commissioner talking. But this is something that again has been under discussion for years. Okay, one final question before we go, let's see what we have here. Why do you hate the Dodgers? Says James Boshram. That's an interesting question since Padre fans are always asking me why do I hate the Padres. As I've always explained when I get these questions, I hate all thirty teams. That's how you guys see it. So that's what I'm going to embrace. Actually, no, you play good, I write good about you. It's pretty simple that way. You do things that are dumb, I write that those things are dumb. That's how it works. And Blue Jays fans think I hate them, Yankee fans at times think I hate them, Mets fans, on and on and on to nature of my job. I get it. I'm comfortable with it. But guess what, I'm gonna keep writing what I think, and what I think is off of a reflection of what I'm seeing on the field. All right, with that, we're gonna close it out. We've got our Thursday show coming up, of course, live with a lot of Rizzo's. Stay tuned for that on Thursday. That will be at twelve thirty Eastern. Have a great week, everyone, lots of good days ahead.

00:25:01
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