Latest / Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast / Episode 71 feat. Lindsay Crosby - Spring Training Impressions, Braves Roster Depth, Braves Expecations

Transcript

Episode 71 feat. Lindsay Crosby - Spring Training Impressions, Braves Roster Depth, Braves Expecations · Sports Avenue Twisted Podcast

• 0:26
  welcome to Music another edition of Sports Ave.
• 0:28
  We have a special, special guest in here today and we've been
• 0:31
  trying to get this guy for quite some time and a friend of ours
• 0:35
  from the Tomahawk Talk podcast helped us get him in and we
• 0:38
  appreciate you joining us and giving us insight about the
• 0:43
  Atlanta Braves and and he's the founder of Braves today.
• 0:46
  Lindsay Crosby, welcome. It's an honor for you to have
• 0:50
  you on. We've been trying to get you on
• 0:51
  Forever Forever, but we finally have you on and you could also
• 0:54
  share your credentials of what other work you have done.
• 1:00
  Oh my gosh, it's I do a lot right.
• 1:03
  Happy to be here, guys. But yeah, founder of Braves
• 1:06
  today. We used to partner that with
• 1:08
  Sports Illustrated. Now it's independent on
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  Substack. It's both a podcast and a
• 1:12
  newsletter. Both of those are daily.
• 1:14
  I'm also the host of the Locked on Sports Atlanta postgame show.
• 1:18
  So after every single one of Braves game, we go live.
• 1:21
  And then I also do other freelance work for the Locked On
• 1:23
  Podcast Network covering MLB, covering college baseball, just
• 1:28
  a ton of stuff. So the best place at Crosby
• 1:31
  baseball and social media is where I put everything.
• 1:34
  But happy to be here, happy to talk some Braves and Major
• 1:36
  League Baseball and Alexandopoulos.
• 1:40
  Excited to have you a couple years ago a friend of mine
• 1:43
  mentioned he said that you were one guy to follow on Twitter
• 1:46
  because your content was good so I followed you ever since then
• 1:51
  and and you put up great work and I love I love reading your
• 1:54
  your morning newsletters to to my e-mail so it's it's cool to
• 1:59
  have you man you know you definitely are plugged in with
• 2:03
  the Braves and we're ready to get going and ready to get
• 2:06
  talking all things Lana so let's let's get started and thank you
• 2:11
  very much for joining us by the way of.
• 2:13
  Course, of course. Let's let's get this thing
• 2:16
  started here. So we saw what the Braves have
• 2:19
  done this offseason. They made moves and we saw the
• 2:24
  biggest setting was I believe was Robert Suarez, right, and
• 2:27
  Mike Jastrevsky. Talk about the spring training
• 2:31
  that's happened so far. What are your first impression
• 2:34
  impressions about those guys and the other guys and your thoughts
• 2:37
  about, you know, what has impressed you with the players
• 2:40
  thus far? I think the two things that I
• 2:44
  kind of took away from those two guys specifically Robert Suarez
• 2:46
  and Mike Astremsky is both of them signed with Atlanta knowing
• 2:52
  that they could have smaller roles than they had last year,
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  right? Suarez led the National League
• 2:57
  and saves and he said pretty early after he signed like he
• 3:02
  was going to be the set up man for Rizal Iglesias.
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  So he's take voluntarily taking a step back in deference to the
• 3:08
  veteran who's been with Atlanta for a few years.
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  And Mike Ostremsky said he had conversations with Alexandopolis
• 3:14
  about would he play left, would he play right?
• 3:18
  Would he fill in and center? But knowing when he signed, and
• 3:21
  it's not true now, but when he signed, they had three everyday
• 3:25
  outfielders and jerks and pro far Michael Harris and Ronald
• 3:28
  Cuney junior. And so he signed knowing that
• 3:31
  like, hey, I'm going to get mixed in somewhere.
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  And both these guys were perfectly OK with that.
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  And a lot of players say that, right?
• 3:39
  Like they say that they're fine with it, but watching these guys
• 3:42
  play and watching what they did in spring, they're genuinely OK
• 3:47
  with that. They're genuinely OK with, hey,
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  we just want to be part of a winning team.
• 3:51
  We just want to, you know, we, we like the atmosphere.
• 3:55
  We like the clubhouse. We like the guys we're working
• 3:57
  with. We like the history of the
• 3:59
  organization. Mike Ostremsky talked about
• 4:02
  being a Braves fan as a kid because his his dad or sorry,
• 4:08
  his grandfather, Karl Yastremsky was close with Bobby Cox.
• 4:12
  So they've, they've integrated really well in the clubhouse.
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  They're the kind of guys that other players just naturally
• 4:20
  gravitate to. You know, they're, they're not
• 4:23
  set out trying to be leaders, but other players just are drawn
• 4:28
  to them. From a from the perspective of
• 4:31
  this is a veteran who's been around the league, he's done a
• 4:34
  lot of stuff and he's here for the right reasons.
• 4:36
  He wants to win. He's willing to do whatever it
• 4:39
  takes. We've seen in other teams where
• 4:42
  you don't have that dynamic. I think about Raffi Devers with
• 4:45
  the Red Sox last year, right, where he didn't want to move
• 4:48
  positions or didn't want to change.
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  These guys have come in and said I'll do whatever is needed to do
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  as long as we, you know, have a chance to win.
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  That's what I care about. So that was kind of the big take
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  away from talking to those guys after the signing and then
• 5:01
  seeing them in spring and seeing what they've done.
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  They've both looked really good in spring.
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  So whereas it's going to have the best velocity of anybody in
• 5:07
  that bullpen, Ystromski's been a menace out in the box.
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  He's been pretty good defensively in the outfield.
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  So great additions and really the kind of the first offseason
• 5:20
  in a while that the Braves have been able to bring in guys that
• 5:24
  they feel like could be impact performers.
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  You have so many locked in starters in this lineup and it's
• 5:29
  hard to bring in guys and give them a lot of playing time.
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  And this kind of felt like the first year where they could
• 5:34
  really sell playing time to free agents.
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  And Ystransky is going to be the biggest beneficiary of that.
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  With the season less than two weeks away, it's kind of
• 5:45
  beginning, much like the season ended for the Braves last year,
• 5:48
  with a lot of key injuries. Gosh, yeah, it really has.
• 5:52
  Man, it's tough. Like, like Joey Wentz was just
• 5:57
  recently, you know, diagnosed, done for the year with the torn
• 5:59
  ACL. Spencer Swellenbach comes into
• 6:02
  spring training with elbow inflammation.
• 6:04
  It was reported long not long after that he had surgery to
• 6:08
  remove bone spurs. So he he's targeting a summer
• 6:11
  return 1st. And Waldrip, who was set to have
• 6:14
  a key spot in the rotation, looked great at the end of last
• 6:17
  year. You know, I'm a Florida guy, so
• 6:20
  he's he's kind of my guy there. And he had elbow inflammation.
• 6:26
  And Joe Jimenez is on a 60 day Illinois recovering from knee
• 6:30
  surgery. AJ Smith Shaver still recovering
• 6:33
  from Tommy John early before spring training even started.
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  Hassan Kim had a freak injury with his finger in Korea.
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  And Sean Murphy's also sidelined.
• 6:42
  And then you had, you know, the unfortunate thing with Profar,
• 6:45
  which we'll talk about later. But just just talk a bit about
• 6:48
  what's going on here with the Braves and the injuries and, and
• 6:52
  how can they kind of gather themselves and recovered heading
• 6:56
  into the season? Yeah, it's been 2 years now
• 6:59
  where the Braves have just had absurd amounts of injuries,
• 7:03
  right? You look at 2024 and they lost a
• 7:06
  bunch of position players. You know, they had a pitcher to
• 7:09
  go down. Strider was down for 24, but for
• 7:11
  the most part the injuries were in the position player group and
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  because the rotation other than Strider was relatively
• 7:19
  untouched, they were able like they had.
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  I believe they're combined ER Ray rotation and bullpen was the
• 7:28
  best in baseball. They were like top three in both
• 7:30
  categories. They squeaked into the post
• 7:32
  season on the final day. And then last year it was the
• 7:35
  opposite. They lost all 5 opening day
• 7:39
  starters on the 60 day IL at the first time.
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  I'm sorry. At the same time, it's the first
• 7:45
  time that's ever happened in baseball and they just did.
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  They just couldn't recover from it.
• 7:49
  And then now it's almost kind of a blend, right?
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  You've got, you lost 3 starters this spring.
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  You have two position players on the IL.
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  The one thing I will say about this year is, and Alex
• 8:05
  Anthropolis specifically, the president of baseball
• 8:07
  operations, who you guys know well, you know, having covered
• 8:09
  Blue Jay stuff, is he learns from the mistakes.
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  And I think one of the things he's learned over the last two
• 8:17
  years is you can never have enough, enough depth.
• 8:22
  And they came into spring with a lot of rotation options and they
• 8:27
  made a lot of moves to bulk up the position player side.
• 8:31
  And a ace told us in the past, I remember asking him about this,
• 8:34
  probably the 24 trade deadline and he said they've always
• 8:38
  struggled to build a good bench because the Braves have never
• 8:43
  really had play time to offer a free agent, right?
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  Like they because they had guys who play almost every game and
• 8:50
  they had ADA full time DH, they couldn't offer play time while
• 8:54
  Marcelo Zuna was a free agent. So they trade for Mauricio
• 8:57
  Dubin, who's literally one 2/3 of every American League Gold
• 9:03
  Glove for utility players. He's only been three of them.
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  He's won two of them. They signed Mike Ystrimsky.
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  They bring in Jonah Heim at catcher.
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  They brought in higher caliber backups than they've ever had
• 9:15
  before because they could sell, having play time.
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  They could say, hey, we have at bats available.
• 9:21
  We don't have a full time DH. We can rotate you through and
• 9:25
  then when somebody goes down, you'll be a full time starter.
• 9:28
  And guess what? It's already happened for Duban
• 9:30
  and Yasrim Ski. They're already full time
• 9:32
  starters now. But I think that's the
• 9:34
  difference, right? If this was like part of the
• 9:38
  issue in 24 was you lost so many position players that at one
• 9:43
  point in time that year the Braves were starting like 3
• 9:48
  different position players who had been DFA D earlier in the
• 9:52
  season. Outfielder Ramon Lauriano, third
• 9:55
  baseman Gio Urschella, second baseman Whitmer Field.
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  And then they traded for Jorge Solaire, who was playing right
• 10:03
  field in place of Ronald Lacuna Junior like they had, they had
• 10:06
  acquired 4, like 4 ninths of their starting lineup mid season
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  after injuries. Right now, you're in a position
• 10:14
  where you have a backup, a quality backup who's in the
• 10:19
  lineup. And at least on the position
• 10:21
  player side, they're hoping to get Sean Murphy and Hassan Kim
• 10:25
  back sometime in May. They hope it'll be earlier, but
• 10:29
  it could be, you know, they're not sure exactly when in May.
• 10:32
  But when they do that, assuming there's no other significant
• 10:35
  position player injuries, this should be the deepest bench
• 10:38
  Atlanta's had in the last decade or so.
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  The questions going to be pitching wise, do you get
• 10:45
  Spencer Schoenbach back mid season?
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  Do you get Hersen Walter Beck mid season?
• 10:50
  When you do finally get AJ Smith Schauver back, he had Tommy John
• 10:54
  surgery. It's probably late in the year.
• 10:56
  What do those pitchers look like?
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  And does the depth you still have plus the prospects that
• 11:03
  you're looking at in AAA, is that enough to keep you in
• 11:08
  contention until you can add a swelling blocker, add a wall
• 11:11
  drip or whatever? So that's kind of that's kind of
• 11:13
  where you are right now for the Braves is the injuries are
• 11:17
  hitting for 1/3 consecutive year, but they have more depth
• 11:21
  now than they did the first two times it happened.
• 11:27
  I briefly mentioned at the end of the last question about
• 11:30
  Profar, he gets that unfortunate, you know,
• 11:33
  suspension for 180 or 162 games this this time around and full
• 11:40
  season. How much like how much of A blow
• 11:44
  is that to the Braves? And you know how like like what
• 11:48
  where do they go from here with profile?
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  Because I believe he still has one year left on his deal right
• 11:53
  after this year like. He does have the the 27 season
• 11:57
  left on his deal. And honestly, I wouldn't be
• 12:00
  shocked if there was a push in this winter's new CBA
• 12:04
  negotiation to find some sort of way of like, hey, if a guy has
• 12:09
  failed multiple drug tests, do we have a way to like, void the
• 12:13
  guarantee and get out of the deal?
• 12:17
  As far as like the actual replacing the player, the timing
• 12:21
  of when it happened, there's nothing you can do.
• 12:23
  It was early March. All of the rotational
• 12:27
  outfielders who would have paired up with Mike Ashrimsky
• 12:30
  had literally all signed within the previous three or four days.
• 12:33
  Michael Conforto minor league deal with the with the Cubs.
• 12:36
  Randall Grichuk minor league deal with the Yankees and the
• 12:40
  Braves are going to be watching. Friday and Saturday are kind of
• 12:43
  a lot of the big days for veterans on minor league deals
• 12:47
  to opt out and become free agents, but replacing the player
• 12:53
  of Profar isn't incredibly easy and they're going to kind of
• 12:57
  have to absorb it internally. There's just not a lot of
• 12:59
  quality options you can find at this point.
• 13:02
  But the they said all of the right things.
• 13:06
  When they finally got in front of the media, Profar was popped
• 13:10
  and it was announced on an off day, so no media was there.
• 13:14
  The next day when everybody was in the clubhouse and the media
• 13:17
  kind of talked to these guys about it, they all said the
• 13:20
  right things that, you know, it's unfortunate they can't
• 13:24
  dwell on it. Bad things will happen in the
• 13:26
  course of a season. You just have to go out there
• 13:29
  and do your job. I do think that some of the
• 13:32
  comments were maybe a little more guarded than fans wanted
• 13:36
  because to your point, Rob, there is that specter of they
• 13:40
  could like he could be back on the roster next year.
• 13:43
  I personally don't think he plays another, he gets another
• 13:46
  ending in Atlanta. I think that they would rather
• 13:48
  cut him and you know, when he's eligible to be released and save
• 13:53
  15, you know, just pay the 15,000,000 bucks for him to go
• 13:55
  away versus actually letting him come back into that clubhouse
• 14:01
  simply because everybody welcomed him back after he made
• 14:06
  a mistake. And they kind of, you know,
• 14:09
  they, they worked to forgive him and rebuild the relationship and
• 14:14
  then he did it again. And that's one of those things
• 14:17
  it's, it's really hard to give a guy a third chance when he threw
• 14:22
  away the second chance you had given him.
• 14:25
  And so he does technically have another year under team control.
• 14:28
  I honestly don't expect him to play in Atlanta.
• 14:31
  And at this point, I don't know how many teams would be willing
• 14:35
  to bring in Jerks and Profar simply because, you know he's
• 14:40
  one. He's one PED suspension away
• 14:43
  from being banned for life and it's incredibly suspect as to
• 14:47
  now what he would produce. Not only because one, all his
• 14:52
  best stats are when he was on PEDs, but two, he'll be a full
• 14:56
  calendar year plus away from games he wouldn't have played in
• 15:00
  the game since September of 2025.
• 15:04
  So when he signs the start of 27 season, he'll be 18 months away
• 15:08
  from his last game. I just don't know how many teams
• 15:11
  are going to want a 34 year old who hasn't played baseball in a
• 15:14
  year and a half. So, so, so you would say that
• 15:19
  with pro far because he still signed for another year, right?
• 15:22
  And, and the thing about him is now, so Alex is pretty much
• 15:25
  stuck with them. But if they have to open up a
• 15:29
  roster spot just to say, for instance, they call up somebody
• 15:31
  for the minors or it's through a trade, do you think Alex would
• 15:34
  have the tendency to still cut him loose or do you think
• 15:38
  they're going to let him ride? Throughout the way so so you
• 15:40
  can't actually make you can't cut him until he's reinstated.
• 15:45
  So they have to carry him all the way through the suspension.
• 15:49
  Now I don't know the rules as far as if he officially takes a
• 15:52
  roster spot. They've been really specific
• 15:55
  with their wording as they've been cutting down cutting down
• 15:58
  the roster in camp. This is how many active players
• 16:02
  are in camp. I don't believe he takes a 40
• 16:05
  man spot while he's suspended, but they can't cut him until the
• 16:08
  suspension is over. We saw this with Trevor Bauer of
• 16:12
  the Dodgers. He was on the Dodgers roster all
• 16:16
  the way until he was reinstated and as soon as he was reinstated
• 16:19
  they released him. It's kind of what I expect is
• 16:21
  going to happen here is as soon as he's eligible to be
• 16:24
  reinstated, they're going to release him.
• 16:26
  But the Braves can make plenty of roster spots right now.
• 16:30
  Joey Wince is not yet on the 60 day IL, so that's 140 man spot.
• 16:34
  AJ Smith Shover is another guy they can put on the 60 day.
• 16:38
  That's a second Danny Young. They signed him.
• 16:42
  He's coming out of Tommy John for in May of last year from the
• 16:45
  Mets. He's probably not going to be
• 16:47
  back until after mid season. They can easily make at least
• 16:51
  three 640 man spots if they need to just by putting those players
• 16:57
  on the 60 day IL. They also haven't done it for
• 16:59
  Hirsch and Waldrop yet so they can make 3 or 4 roster spots.
• 17:02
  They don't need the jerks and pro far spot, but they also
• 17:05
  can't do anything with him until he's reinstated.
• 17:10
  The opening day rotation now we talked a little bit about it
• 17:14
  briefly there when with the injury debacle that's going on
• 17:19
  right now, it stands to be sales Strider, Elder Holmes Lopez and
• 17:25
  it doesn't on paper doesn't look that bad because you mentioned
• 17:29
  all the depth that you guys have acquired, you know, and building
• 17:33
  up a lot of that depth. So just how do you see things
• 17:39
  going for the guys that are there now?
• 17:41
  How have they performed in spring?
• 17:43
  How do they look? How does Chris Sale look?
• 17:46
  You know, talk a bit about some of them guys and how important
• 17:49
  those guys are now, especially with all the injuries and if you
• 17:53
  were to get Schwellen back and and Schaver back, I mean, you
• 17:56
  guys are looking really, really strong.
• 17:58
  But in the meantime, just, yeah, just talk about the rotation as
• 18:03
  it stands right now. Yeah, something that I've
• 18:06
  noticed recently is all of these guys, their velocity is kind of
• 18:10
  down in spring, and I think at this point it's intentional.
• 18:16
  It really feels like when you watch Spencer Strider, when you
• 18:19
  watch Ronaldo Lopez, even when you watch Chris Sale, it feels
• 18:23
  like they're deliberately not going Max effort in spring
• 18:26
  training. And you have to think that's,
• 18:28
  oh, I have to be available this season because we're not going
• 18:33
  to get wins back all year. We're we've already, you know,
• 18:37
  we're not going to have swollen Bach for at least half the year.
• 18:39
  We're not going to have Waldrop back for at least half the year.
• 18:42
  But the actual stuff, a lot of the results for a lot of these
• 18:46
  guys has been really good. And the thing that I've noticed
• 18:50
  under the new pitching coaches, right, they brought in Jeremy
• 18:54
  Hefner from the Mets. A lot of these guys outside of
• 18:57
  Chris Sale, because he's just who he is.
• 19:00
  He's a Cy Young winner. You don't mess with him.
• 19:01
  But a lot of the other guys have added new pitches.
• 19:04
  They've tweaked what they've done and a lot of what they've
• 19:08
  been doing this spring is just trying to get more comfortable
• 19:12
  with the new pitches and the new adjustments.
• 19:15
  Great Holmes fastball from a rate basis was one of the worst
• 19:18
  in baseball last year. He's made some adjustments to it
• 19:21
  to try to make it more effective.
• 19:23
  Ronaldo Lopez is trying to fix his change up.
• 19:26
  Bryce Elder has added a cutter. Spencer Strider's trying to get
• 19:30
  more comfortable mixing in the curveball and the change up.
• 19:34
  So like yes, the some of these guys have either been injured or
• 19:39
  have struggled. Bryce Alder was not good last
• 19:41
  year. He did still have a 50% quality
• 19:44
  start. Like half of his outings were
• 19:46
  quality starts. And he's, you can see this
• 19:50
  spring, his velocity is a little bit better and he's trying like
• 19:53
  he's added the cutter and some other things to try and try to
• 19:58
  mitigate the bad outings to be more reliable from a start to
• 20:02
  start basis. So I'm I'm the person who's
• 20:05
  strangely high on this rotation simply because seeing a lot of
• 20:11
  the work they've done in the background, right?
• 20:13
  Seeing a lot of the the improvement in the quality of
• 20:17
  the stuff or the number of pitches they have, knowing that
• 20:21
  the new coaches are working with them and have been working with
• 20:23
  them. I'm probably the high man on
• 20:25
  this rotation. I think provided they don't have
• 20:28
  any other injuries. I think you got these five guys.
• 20:32
  You have maybe a Schwellenbach coming back mid season or a wall
• 20:35
  Drip coming back. I don't want to count on both of
• 20:37
  them, but assuming you get one of them back, I think this could
• 20:40
  be easily be a top 10 rotation in baseball this year.
• 20:43
  The only question I would have is what are the workloads for
• 20:47
  these guys? Simply because all of them minus
• 20:51
  Elder missed time last year. Can they?
• 20:54
  Can you get 30 starts out of anybody in this rotation?
• 20:58
  I don't know if you can, but I think when they're on the field
• 21:01
  this could be a top 10 rotation in baseball, provided you don't
• 21:04
  lose anybody else. Well, let's talk about the guys
• 21:09
  in line in the rotation. And I think the pitching depth
• 21:13
  to the Braves are is pretty deep.
• 21:14
  And I like to mention about the Jr.
• 21:16
  Richie DDA foot Fuentes. I actually want to talk deeply
• 21:20
  about it and and and Owen Murphy, if you look at Richie
• 21:25
  and DDA fluentes, they've been they've been catching well, like
• 21:29
  he they are been insanity to say the least, right, because
• 21:33
  especially Fuentes, he's been virtually unhittable.
• 21:35
  If you look at his that he. Has unhittable.
• 21:37
  He's not giving up a hit in the spring in like 3 outings right?
• 21:40
  Yeah, right. And, and where do those guys fit
• 21:44
  in the rotation? Like they say, there's a
• 21:46
  possibility they could start in AAA, there's a chance that they
• 21:49
  could crack the rotation. Like where do those guys fit in
• 21:51
  the in the rotation pole? Yeah, so.
• 21:53
  So heading into spring training, Fuentes was a bit of an unknown
• 21:57
  because he ended last season on the minor league injured list
• 21:59
  with a shoulder issue and he was a little bit late to debut in
• 22:05
  Grapefruit League play because of just being late to get
• 22:09
  started in spring and everything.
• 22:10
  But I think both those guys are going to get starts this year.
• 22:15
  And I, I feel confident in saying that one of them is
• 22:20
  probably going to make like 10 starts at the Major League
• 22:22
  level. Like I think you're at that
• 22:23
  point and the the issue here is 1 what order do you do them in?
• 22:30
  Right? Fuentes is on the 40 man roster.
• 22:33
  Richie is not. So Fuentes is probably the first
• 22:36
  guy up. But they're also completely
• 22:39
  different players, right? Fuentes is all ceiling.
• 22:44
  His his forcing fastball is one of the best in the organization,
• 22:50
  if not the best now that Spencer Schrider still working to come
• 22:52
  back from his elbow surgery. He has a a really good gyro
• 22:56
  slider that he's added this year that he does along with it.
• 22:59
  He has a splitter that he kind of really can't control.
• 23:03
  Nobody can control a splitter that well, but even he struggles
• 23:06
  with it a little bit. But like if he can put
• 23:08
  everything together, Deidier Fuentes could be an ace.
• 23:13
  Like his stuff is that good. But the floor is what you saw
• 23:17
  last year where his ERA was over 10 because he just didn't have a
• 23:22
  reliable third pitch. And if one of the 1st 2 wasn't
• 23:25
  there, he just got blasted around the yard, right.
• 23:29
  And so like, I'm, I'm really high on Digger Fuentes.
• 23:32
  A lot of the conversation recently, especially after the
• 23:35
  the Wednesday start or the Wednesday outing for him where
• 23:38
  he continued to just mow guys down for four innings, is do you
• 23:43
  find a way to give him a role on opening day?
• 23:46
  Do you find a way to put him in the bullpen or have him at the
• 23:49
  Major League level somehow? The flip side of this for Jr.
• 23:53
  Richie is he is all floor. He throws all three fastballs.
• 23:58
  He has like 6 pitches. He mixes them up well.
• 24:01
  He locates really well. And like, theoretically, the,
• 24:05
  the, the, the value proposition for Jr.
• 24:08
  Richie is he should be able to, even if he's not getting a ton
• 24:12
  of strikeouts and not get a ton of whiffs, he should be able to
• 24:16
  come to the Major League level and, and, and hold his own right
• 24:20
  away. It's going to be a lot of like,
• 24:22
  you got to have a good defense behind him.
• 24:23
  He's going to get ground balls, you know, and that kind of
• 24:26
  stuff. You're going to need some double
• 24:27
  plays to erase, you know, a single here and there and all of
• 24:30
  that. But he can, he should be able to
• 24:33
  survive right away because he has so many options.
• 24:37
  He can command them so well, but none of them are on their own
• 24:42
  awesome pitches, right? Like none of them are are plus
• 24:45
  pitches or elite pitches. He just has a lot of options and
• 24:49
  mixes them up. Fuentes doesn't have very many
• 24:51
  things he can do, but the things he can do, he can do them
• 24:54
  really, really well. So Atlanta needs to figure out.
• 24:58
  And by Atlanta, I mean Alex Anthopolis needs to figure out
• 25:03
  do when you need a starter for the first time, do you go with
• 25:06
  the ceiling of Fuentes? Do you go with the floor of
• 25:10
  Richie? Or do you just default to, hey,
• 25:13
  Fuentes is already on the 40 man roster and Richie is not, so
• 25:16
  we're going to go with him. But either way, both these guys
• 25:20
  look like as soon as next season, they can be in the
• 25:23
  everyday like they could be in the rotation and they can take
• 25:27
  starts for you every fifth day because they're both incredibly
• 25:32
  promising players. They just get there different
• 25:34
  ways. Drake Baldwin, you know, he won
• 25:40
  Rookie of the Year last year really high on him.
• 25:43
  He looks fantastic, especially with the bat and being the
• 25:49
  everyday catcher this season. You guys go and sign Jonah Heim,
• 25:55
  former All Star, former World Series champion 2023 as his
• 26:01
  backup, and Sean Murphy, well, he's hurt.
• 26:04
  How did they split up the the the playing time between those
• 26:08
  two this year? What do you think about the
• 26:10
  Jonah Heim signing and, and just this catching rotation,
• 26:16
  especially when Murphy comes back?
• 26:17
  How do they divvy up this all up?
• 26:20
  I think signing Jonah Heim made a lot of sense from the
• 26:24
  perspective of he's been really good in the past, right?
• 26:29
  Like he was a gold. It was a gold lover and an All
• 26:31
  Star in 2023 where he hit like 260 with a OPS in the mid
• 26:37
  sevens, right? You know, almost a 20 Homer bat.
• 26:41
  I think signing Jonah Heim switch hitter veteran has been
• 26:45
  good defensively, has been good offensively, was the highest
• 26:48
  floor you could get behind Drake Baldwin, who is still a young
• 26:52
  catcher and is still better offensively than he is
• 26:55
  defensively. He's not bad defensively.
• 26:57
  He'd be had a lot better throughout the course of the
• 26:58
  year. But signing Jonah Heim, bringing
• 27:02
  him in is something where at worst he's going to give you the
• 27:07
  exact same thing as all of the backup AAA catchers you had
• 27:11
  where he can catch once a week. You know, while you give Drake
• 27:14
  Baldwin a day off and he can hold his own back there.
• 27:17
  But at best, if you can get him back into something closer to
• 27:22
  that 2023 form, I mean, he was a three WAR player in 2023.
• 27:27
  I had almost twenty home runs, had almost 100 RBI.
• 27:30
  He gives you the ability, if Jonah Heim can can hit before
• 27:34
  Sean Murphy comes back, you can use Drake Baldwin more at
• 27:38
  designated hitter. Because the real question is
• 27:41
  going to be how many times can you stick Drake Baldwin behind
• 27:46
  the plate in one season? Right?
• 27:48
  When Sean Murphy comes back, we're assuming he's going to be
• 27:51
  able to hit now that the hip is finally repaired and that you
• 27:55
  can, you know, because you have him back, you can use Baldwin a
• 28:00
  lot of DH. But if Heim can hit, there's no
• 28:03
  reason that you can't get 500 played appearances out of Drake
• 28:06
  Baldwin now 200 of them. Maybe as the DH, but he showed
• 28:13
  last year that he's one of the better hitters on this team.
• 28:16
  He is fantastic as far as a contact bat.
• 28:20
  He hit 274 with an OPS over 800 last year as a rookie in Major
• 28:26
  League Baseball while also playing catcher, the hardest
• 28:29
  position to adjust to the majors at.
• 28:32
  So the Heim signing was big if they can figure out what's gone
• 28:37
  wrong and get him right. And I honestly think that if
• 28:41
  Heim is hitting, you could either trade him when Sean
• 28:44
  Murphy comes back or you could keep him on the roster and have
• 28:47
  3 catchers and that would let you play Drake Baldwin at DH 3-4
• 28:51
  days a week. The job that jerks and Pro far
• 28:53
  was going to hold until he decided to be a dummy and use
• 28:57
  PEDs again. Ohh man.
• 29:00
  I mean. He got spitted once and then he
• 29:02
  did it again. Like it's just.
• 29:03
  Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty dumb.
• 29:06
  It's pretty dumb of him. Dumb.
• 29:08
  Yeah. It's not a, it's not a good,
• 29:10
  it's not a good look on him especially.
• 29:12
  It's really, yeah. So let's let's let's get into
• 29:16
  the whole bullpen aspect. And that was something that
• 29:19
  Braves had a bit of an issue last year, but it seems like
• 29:22
  they worked on it this offseason and there's some guys that I'm
• 29:24
  really intrigued about. So obviously they brought back
• 29:28
  Iglesias. They said that he's going to be
• 29:29
  the closer of this team. And they brought Robert Suarez.
• 29:32
  So he would be the high leverage guy or the 8th inning guy and
• 29:34
  probably occasionally close as well.
• 29:36
  And I'm curious to see how you look at everything else that's
• 29:39
  going back, right. They brought back Jose Suarez
• 29:42
  for I don't even know how many times.
• 29:44
  It seems like it's like a Groundhog Day scenario how they
• 29:48
  have to pick them up through a waiver claim.
• 29:50
  It brought back Tyler Clinton Joel Pyons.
• 29:53
  The name that intrigues me a lot is James Karenchick and he's
• 29:58
  been very impressive and he was with the Cleveland Guardians
• 30:00
  organization in the past. I don't know what happened.
• 30:03
  I think it was the injuries that that derailed him and he got
• 30:05
  caught and then the Braves have picked him up and then you got
• 30:08
  to Dylan Lee's and and the days ball Hernandez.
• 30:11
  Talk about the bull bullpen depth.
• 30:13
  That and talk about how there has been improvement and what
• 30:17
  has impressed you so far in spring training with the
• 30:19
  bullpen. Yeah.
• 30:21
  What are the the issues with last season's bullpen that, you
• 30:24
  know, you kind of touched on them, they started a little bit
• 30:26
  last year was they didn't really have another option at closer.
• 30:29
  One of the things that I like about the way Alex Anthopoulos
• 30:33
  has built the bullpen and previous seasons before last
• 30:36
  year was you always had some sort of like veteran former
• 30:40
  closer or guy with closer like stuff if you needed a backup.
• 30:45
  Like they had Kirby Yates for a little while back there, right?
• 30:48
  Former closer ended up siding with LA, but you had somebody to
• 30:53
  go to if your closer was unavailable or was struggling.
• 30:58
  We saw Rise of Iglesias struggle last year.
• 31:01
  A lot of that issue was his slider.
• 31:04
  He gave up more home runs on his slider in the first half of last
• 31:08
  season than he had given up in his entire Braves tenure up to
• 31:13
  last year. Some of it was just kind of
• 31:15
  fluky, but the issue was you didn't have anybody else you
• 31:19
  could go to. You didn't have a former closer.
• 31:21
  You didn't have closer like stuff.
• 31:23
  They tried Pierce Johnson on a road trip in San Francisco and
• 31:27
  he gave up two walk off wins to the Giants and two consecutive
• 31:33
  games over the weekend. They just didn't have a backup
• 31:36
  closer. You now have Robert Suarez.
• 31:38
  I mentioned him earlier as far as like leading the National
• 31:41
  League in saves last year as your setup man.
• 31:44
  But Dylan Lee is the lefty setup man to go with Suarez.
• 31:50
  Tyler Kinley, they got him. He's the second guy they've
• 31:53
  gotten from Colorado that was really good because they tweaked
• 31:56
  what he did. They just had him start throwing
• 31:58
  his slider a lot more. They're bringing back Aaron.
• 32:02
  Bummer. I'm a little bit I've always
• 32:05
  liked Aaron. Bummer.
• 32:06
  I'm a little bit skeptical because I need to see his his
• 32:09
  health. His fastball velocity was pretty
• 32:11
  low last year, but when he's on and when he's healthy, he's
• 32:16
  fantastic at getting great. He's one of the best in baseball
• 32:19
  at getting ground balls and not giving up barrels.
• 32:23
  He's the second lefty in the pin.
• 32:26
  Joel Piomps was a was a reclamation project from the
• 32:30
  Brewers. He had been very, very good for
• 32:33
  them up until he got, you know, he got injured, had some bad
• 32:36
  luck. They brought him back.
• 32:38
  To your note of Jose Suarez, I really don't think Jose Suarez
• 32:42
  would have made the pin if not for the Joey Wince injury.
• 32:47
  And I do think that also kind of impacted the James Cairnchak
• 32:50
  chances here because Karen, check reclamation project.
• 32:54
  I talked to the pitching lab that he went to over the winter.
• 32:58
  They fixed a lot of his issues. He had injury issues.
• 33:01
  He had mechanical issues. He has looked awesome this
• 33:05
  spring, but he has minor league options.
• 33:08
  And when they lost Joey Wince. The Braves have 13 consecutive
• 33:13
  games to open the season, 13 games in 13 days.
• 33:16
  And they've indicated because starters typically aren't fully
• 33:20
  stretched out to open the year, they're going to look at using
• 33:25
  A6 starter. Joey Wince was going to be that
• 33:28
  6 starter. He added the two seam fastball.
• 33:30
  He prepared all winter to be a starter and then he tore his ACL
• 33:36
  so Karen Check was sent to minor league camp because he has
• 33:40
  options and Jose Suarez probably makes the roster as the long man
• 33:46
  slash sit starter for that opening stretch.
• 33:51
  Again, 13 games in 13 days. I don't know if he'll be on the
• 33:54
  roster by the midpoint of April. I mean, it really feels like
• 33:59
  because they like Fuentes, they have other options to be a long
• 34:04
  man. They have other options, guys
• 34:06
  they want to bring up like Karen Jack.
• 34:09
  If there's no injury after that 13 games in 13 days, Suarez may
• 34:14
  start once or twice and then they may DFA him again.
• 34:18
  They've DFA D him before. They've waved him before, they
• 34:20
  may DFA him to go ahead and add a Karen check or one of the OR
• 34:26
  Fuentes or somebody else who has better stuff.
• 34:30
  And I don't think they care that Suarez is a lefty because they
• 34:35
  already have 3 lefties in the pen.
• 34:37
  They have Dylan Lee, they have Aaron Bummer, they probably have
• 34:39
  Dylan Dodd. Like they've got 3 lefties
• 34:41
  already. You don't need to prioritize a
• 34:43
  lefty if he's your 4th lefty. Some teams don't have two, so
• 34:48
  Suarez probably makes the opening day roster.
• 34:50
  I don't think he's still on this roster by the end of April.
• 34:55
  The Oakfield situation is, is quite interesting for you guys.
• 35:00
  You know, you got Ronald Acuna, of course.
• 35:03
  I mean having him back in healthy is massive for this
• 35:06
  team. Michael Harris, you know, he's,
• 35:12
  he got Eli White and Mike Kastremsky.
• 35:14
  And I get it, spring training in small sample sizes, but they're
• 35:18
  both in the thousand OPS category.
• 35:20
  Like they're killing it in the spring.
• 35:21
  So I think Kastremsky has like 4 homers.
• 35:24
  I think it's like in like 28 at bat.
• 35:26
  So it's it's like, it's just like, how do you see this, this
• 35:31
  all playing out for the outfield?
• 35:32
  And do you feel like Michael Harris can get back to being
• 35:36
  that that guy he was in his first couple years in Atlanta?
• 35:41
  The big issue we've seen with Michael Harris, and it got worse
• 35:45
  last year was his chase rate. Like he just was one of the
• 35:48
  worst and he was like Javi Baez levels are just chasing crap out
• 35:52
  of the zone and striking out on a pitch that was in the dirt
• 35:55
  down and away. He's walked so much in spring
• 36:01
  and just looks to be a different hitter at the plate.
• 36:04
  And we, you know, we kind of thought we talked to him a
• 36:05
  little bit and, you know, made availabilities in the clubhouse
• 36:08
  and all that. And he said that he's really
• 36:12
  been working on his approach, especially early and at bats, so
• 36:18
  that he doesn't get into a position where you know, you
• 36:22
  have two strikes and like, you know, it's, it's like a, it's
• 36:25
  like a 12 count or an O2 count. And you know, they're going to
• 36:30
  throw you or they, they can always throw you a chase pitch,
• 36:33
  but you have to expand the zone to protect, right?
• 36:36
  I'm high on Michael Harris. I honestly think based on what
• 36:39
  I've seen in spring, this may get the year or this may be the
• 36:43
  year where he gets back to that guy.
• 36:45
  You mentioned the the rookie of the year, you know, the 2020
• 36:49
  guy. I think his ceiling is like
• 36:52
  30-30 with Gold Glove caliber defense.
• 36:55
  Like he could be a star in Major League Baseball.
• 36:59
  The Chase rate's just been awful.
• 37:01
  I think this might be the year. And Eli White's the primary
• 37:05
  beneficiary of the juris and pro far suspension.
• 37:07
  He's one of the fastest players in baseball, 99th percentile
• 37:10
  Sprint speed last year. Alex Anthopolis told me when I
• 37:14
  asked about it that they consider Eli White to have Gold
• 37:18
  Glove caliber defense at all three defensive positions.
• 37:22
  He has a strong arm, He's incredibly fast.
• 37:24
  He's got great reactions. And kind of quietly his batted
• 37:29
  ball data, like the, the actual, you know, the, the, the hard hit
• 37:34
  rates, the launch angles, all that stuff are actually really,
• 37:38
  really good. He his issue is he just hasn't
• 37:42
  gotten consistent playing time. He also had a couple issues.
• 37:46
  I had a really egregious base running error last year.
• 37:49
  They kind of killed his confidence and he slumped after
• 37:51
  that. But I, I'm on the train of Eli
• 37:56
  White could absolutely have a breakout kind of year where him
• 38:03
  and and Mike Astremsky combined to cover left field.
• 38:08
  I do think there's going to be games where Eli White is in
• 38:11
  right and Ronald Lacuna junior DHS to kind of, you know, have
• 38:14
  1/2 day right not overload his, his, his, his surgically
• 38:19
  repaired knees and everything. And I'm high on Eli White.
• 38:22
  I I I everything I've seen this spring, he's seen the ball well,
• 38:26
  he's drawing his walks, he's hitting for power.
• 38:29
  The the exit below's are up. I feel I feel surprisingly good
• 38:34
  about this outfield. I'm probably the high man on
• 38:36
  everything, but I'm I'm here. I'm here for it.
• 38:40
  This is the Eli White and Michael Harris breakout year for
• 38:43
  both of these guys. I.
• 38:45
  Love it. Me too.
• 38:48
  It's great. Roster cuts are hot.
• 38:52
  Roster cuts are happening right now in spring training for
• 38:56
  pretty much every team at the moment.
• 38:57
  But right now, if you look at the Braves right now, they're
• 39:00
  already doing that right now. And we thought that John Gill's
• 39:03
  been pretty impressive, but he's still 19 years old, but we'll
• 39:06
  get to him a little bit later. But the names that that I see
• 39:10
  out there that's actually been opening eyes for the Braves is
• 39:13
  Dom Smith and Martin Perez. Could you see those guys make it
• 39:18
  to the main roster? Or if there's anyone else that's
• 39:20
  not on the team right now, you could talk about those guys as
• 39:23
  well. I think Dom Smith has a better
• 39:26
  chance than Perez simply because you can see a very clear and
• 39:31
  obvious role right like Dom Smith as a designated hitter
• 39:35
  against right-handed pitching. He's not been bad in his career
• 39:39
  the last couple seasons against righties and the pro far
• 39:42
  situation means that you have the playing time at DH to give
• 39:48
  him. Pro fart was going to be the DH
• 39:49
  against righties and he was going to play the field against
• 39:52
  lefties when when Mike Ostremsky took the bench.
• 39:57
  I think Dom Smith probably gets that.
• 40:01
  I don't put a ton of stock into spring training results, but
• 40:05
  it's kind of like the process, right?
• 40:07
  Like he's he's had good at bats. He's hitting the ball well.
• 40:11
  He does bring you some veteran stuff.
• 40:14
  Against right, he's the last three seasons he's hit.
• 40:17
  I believe it's he has a 104 WRC plus against right, he's been
• 40:22
  he's been above average against right, he's I think he makes the
• 40:25
  roster. He does have a little bit of
• 40:27
  outfield usefulness, but you have enough Outfitters.
• 40:30
  You don't need him to do that. If something were to happen, God
• 40:33
  forbid, to Matt Olson, who's not Mystic Games as he's been in
• 40:36
  Atlanta, Dom Smith would make a ton of sense to take over first
• 40:40
  base for you. But I, I do think at least early
• 40:43
  he makes the roster as your DH against right.
• 40:46
  He's the question for me would be when you get a Sean Murphy
• 40:51
  back, a Hassan Kim back. If Jonah Heim is hitting, do you
• 40:56
  keep Dom Smith or do you go to somebody else who can give you
• 41:00
  more off the bench than a defensively limited Dom Smith?
• 41:05
  Martine Perez really kind of feels like he's just going to
• 41:09
  end up being emergency starting depth.
• 41:14
  The actual stuff in spring training.
• 41:16
  He like today he gave up six hits to a Phillies lineup that
• 41:21
  was mostly backups. They had to pull him in the
• 41:24
  first inning he because he couldn't get the third out and
• 41:27
  then they brought him back later.
• 41:29
  He really feels like he's on a minor league deal.
• 41:31
  He does have an opt out. He can opt out on Saturday if
• 41:35
  they don't add him to the roster.
• 41:37
  I don't know if he will, but it really feels like because they
• 41:41
  have options like Jose Suarez that's been on the roster, the
• 41:45
  stuff is better, like his velocities, his movements and
• 41:48
  everything that Perez is probably on the outside looking
• 41:52
  in. And if, if Jose Suarez had
• 41:56
  options, if they could send Jose Suarez down and keep Martine
• 42:00
  Perez, maybe they'd keep him for those first two starts of the
• 42:03
  year. But because they would lose,
• 42:04
  they have to lose somebody they probably choose.
• 42:08
  We'll keep Suarez and we'll lose Perez simply because Suarez's
• 42:13
  stuff is better and they've seen him do it for the Braves at the
• 42:19
  Major League level. He had a 7 inning start against
• 42:22
  the Nationals in September of last year.
• 42:25
  He allowed two runs struck out. I think he struck out seven or
• 42:27
  eight in seven innings. I think they keep Suarez over
• 42:31
  Perez, but I could one more injury and Perez is making the
• 42:35
  team and that's just scary for a couple Braves fans.
• 42:40
  Oh man. Article yesterday.
• 42:45
  Well, it came to my e-mail yesterday morning.
• 42:47
  It was headlined as Jorge Mateo's roster spot still safe
• 42:51
  and they signed, you know, we signed up.
• 42:53
  They signed up for a speed in his defense, but there are some
• 42:56
  internal options that could give him a push on this roster.
• 43:00
  Guys like Brett Wisely, Cal Farmer, Eli White pushing for
• 43:03
  everyday playing time early on. So project the roster a little
• 43:07
  bit and tell us what we might be looking at come opening day.
• 43:11
  Yeah, I think you, when you look at guys who were kind of like
• 43:14
  locked into starting spots, right?
• 43:16
  You have all of the usual starters, right?
• 43:19
  You have a Cunha and Olson and Riley and all those guys.
• 43:22
  Your two catchers are Baldwin and Jonah Heim.
• 43:24
  I think Jonah Himes, he's not been great in spring, but I
• 43:27
  think they they're going to go with him versus somebody like a
• 43:30
  Chadwick Trump. Eli White is a raw is a lock for
• 43:34
  the roster, right. And so you only have three bench
• 43:37
  spots to go with. And I think the premise of that
• 43:39
  article that I was writing was like, Jorge Mateo is here for
• 43:44
  speed and defense, but defensively, he's not actually
• 43:48
  been that good other than one season.
• 43:52
  And so everything else that he gives you, somebody else on the
• 43:58
  roster is also doing this, right?
• 44:00
  Like he Jorge Mateo, one of the fastest players in baseball, so
• 44:04
  is Eli White. You look at the defense.
• 44:07
  Like Jorge Matteo can play shortstop, so can Brett Wisely.
• 44:12
  Brett Wisely has also played, you know, the outfield as well,
• 44:16
  just as many games as Jorge Matteo has.
• 44:19
  Kyle Farmer is a guy that is not like Jorge Matteo is a liability
• 44:24
  at the plate. Kyle Farmer has a three-year WRC
• 44:28
  plus against lefties of like 109.
• 44:31
  Like he's legitimately, he could be the other half of your DH
• 44:34
  platoon with Dominic Smith. And Kyle Farmer's been a catcher
• 44:39
  in his career and so he could also be your emergency catcher
• 44:44
  because people don't realize this.
• 44:46
  If you have like, say, Drake Baldwin at DH and you have Jonah
• 44:49
  Hyman catcher, if Heim gets injured and you move your DH to
• 44:54
  catcher, you don't have ADH for the rest of the game.
• 44:58
  You just have to use pinch hitters or you have to let the
• 45:00
  pitcher bat. You lose the DH if you take the
• 45:03
  player out of that spot and move him into the field.
• 45:06
  So having an emergency catcher on the roster would be really
• 45:09
  useful. So I still think ultimately
• 45:13
  Jorge Mateo probably makes it, but from a performance
• 45:16
  perspective, he hasn't really earned the spot this year.
• 45:20
  And so you're trying to figure out Jorge Mateo, Brett Wisely,
• 45:25
  Dominic Smith, Kyle Farmer, you probably have two or three
• 45:30
  roster spots among those four guys.
• 45:33
  I do think Dom Smith's your DH against righties.
• 45:36
  I do think Kyle Farmer makes a lot of sense to either be your
• 45:40
  DH against lefties or you put him at second base and you let
• 45:44
  Ozzy Alby's DH, right, Give him a chance to not be in the field
• 45:49
  for 162 games. And I guess that final spot
• 45:53
  probably goes to Jorge Matteo, but I think they could go with
• 45:55
  Mateo or Brett Wisely. Either way, you're probably the
• 46:00
  end of the day, that's the last guy on the bench and he's
• 46:02
  probably not playing a lot. I want to talk about the depth,
• 46:07
  the pitching depth in the miners right now.
• 46:10
  And when you look at the the depth in there, it's actually
• 46:14
  relatively deep. And I'm curious to see what you
• 46:16
  think about this because I'm going to mention some names and,
• 46:19
  and you tell me what you think about that.
• 46:20
  So guys like Luke Sennard or Garrett Bowman or Blake Bulk,
• 46:25
  Halter, Burke Halter, Roddy Munoz, Hayden Harris, Lucas
• 46:30
  Bronze, a name that's been talked about the last couple
• 46:32
  years. Like could you see those guys
• 46:35
  being factors later in the year? Because we knew that injuries
• 46:39
  for starting and you mentioned it earlier in the episode, the
• 46:41
  whole rotation was on the IPL to start the year, last year.
• 46:45
  So I firmly believe that if there's a possibility, could you
• 46:49
  see any of these guys get called up later in the year?
• 46:53
  So Harris got a little bit of time late last year.
• 46:57
  I do think he's going to be in the mix.
• 46:59
  He's going to be one of those lefties in the pen.
• 47:02
  I think it depends if they if they lose a lefty, right, if
• 47:07
  Dylan Dodd is not available, do they swap out Dodd and Harris or
• 47:10
  things like that? But having options, he got sent
• 47:12
  down. Blake Burkhalter has moved from
• 47:14
  a starter to a reliever. That's new for this year.
• 47:17
  He was a reliever in college. They had him starting.
• 47:20
  They have him back as a reliever now.
• 47:22
  But I think the big thing behind a lot of those names, you look
• 47:26
  at a Lucas Braun, you look at a, you know, a Brett Sears and Ian
• 47:30
  Maha, Landon Harper. A lot of the guys that you
• 47:32
  mentioned is there guys who they've been good in the minors
• 47:38
  and they can give you innings. Like the thing with the Braves,
• 47:42
  and I talked to Alex and Thomas about this back in December, the
• 47:45
  Braves have not really wanted to put their starting pitching
• 47:49
  prospects into the bullpen. They've kept those guys as
• 47:52
  starters so that they can build those workloads and they can get
• 47:56
  accustomed to six innings, you know, 5 1/2, seven innings,
• 48:02
  whatever it is, every 5th or 6th day.
• 48:05
  And I do think when you get past the Major League starters and
• 48:10
  you get past the top prospects like a Richie and a Fuentes and
• 48:13
  even like an Owen Murphy, you've got a bunch of guys that if you
• 48:18
  need them to take innings, provided they don't get
• 48:21
  destroyed at the Major League level, these guys can go out
• 48:25
  there and take 5 or 6 innings a game.
• 48:27
  Lucas Braun, you know, through like 150 innings last year, a
• 48:32
  lot of these guys just were starters all throughout the
• 48:35
  year. I don't think the ceiling on a
• 48:38
  lot of those AAA guys like a Braun or a Sears or Amaya Super
• 48:43
  High, but I think the floor is there where if you need dudes to
• 48:48
  take innings, they can do it. And then you mentioned like a
• 48:51
  Garrett Bowman, a Luke Senard. Those are some of the legitimate
• 48:55
  pitching prospects that they expect to be future starters in
• 49:00
  the majors. Every year there's a guy that
• 49:03
  the Braves just shoot through the system like just flies up.
• 49:08
  AJ Smith Chauver went from high A to the majors by May Spencer
• 49:13
  Schwellenbach went from high A to the majors by June.
• 49:17
  Luke Sennard is the guy for me that I think you could see him
• 49:22
  start off in something like, you know, like hi A and end up in
• 49:28
  the majors by June if everything clicks right.
• 49:31
  So they have a lot of they have both quantity of like innings
• 49:36
  and quality of prospects in the system.
• 49:40
  And I think that's what makes them, I'm not going to say
• 49:44
  dangerous, but I think that's what makes them less concerned
• 49:49
  about. We have to go out and sign
• 49:52
  whatever starters available right now because they know they
• 49:55
  have all of these guys and they know that a lot like any of
• 49:59
  these guys could shoot to the majors in two months if
• 50:04
  everything starts off well this year.
• 50:08
  Everybody, when they lost Schollenbach, they lost Walter,
• 50:10
  they lost Wentz, everybody's saying go sign Chris Bassett, go
• 50:14
  sign Lucas G Leader or whatever. The Braves are confident in the
• 50:18
  depth that they have. That's why they've said we'll
• 50:21
  add an impact. We'll add a postseason caliber
• 50:24
  starter. We're not going to add a #5
• 50:27
  because we've got number fives at home.
• 50:29
  We've got number fives in the farm system we can call up at
• 50:32
  any time. And that's kind of where that's,
• 50:35
  that's how I feel like this farm system sets up is they've got a
• 50:38
  ton of options to take starts. My question would be when you
• 50:42
  get to the postseason, are they comfortable in any of these guys
• 50:46
  being postseason starters? I don't think they are, but the
• 50:50
  goal should be get to the postseason first.
• 50:56
  In February, the Atlanta Braves signed their ace Chris Sale to a
• 51:01
  one year $27 million contract with a a club option in 28 for
• 51:06
  30 mil with no buyout. What does it mean to bring back
• 51:11
  Chris Sale and have him in the in the rotation through 2028?
• 51:15
  How important is that to the Braves?
• 51:17
  I think there's two reasons why it's huge.
• 51:20
  The first one is not having the questions you have about
• 51:26
  everybody else means that knowing you have your ace back
• 51:31
  is a big deal, right? We have questions about Strider.
• 51:35
  Will he ever get back there? Swelling blocks out with the
• 51:38
  elbow surgery? Like there's so many questions
• 51:40
  about who would be your #1 starter in a postseason series
• 51:44
  You brought Chris Sale back for theoretically provided he
• 51:47
  doesn't just fall off a Cliff. You've got that answer for two
• 51:51
  years now. But also the size of the deal.
• 51:56
  The $27 million is the largest single season salary the Braves
• 52:00
  have ever given out. And the $30 million club option
• 52:05
  would then, if they pick that up, would be the new largest
• 52:08
  salary the Braves have ever given out for a single season.
• 52:11
  And for an organization that lost their TV deal, announced
• 52:16
  they were doing their own thing. And a lot of fans have this
• 52:19
  perception of them. It's not true, but this
• 52:22
  perception of them as being afraid to spend money because
• 52:28
  they don't want to go into the top of the free agent market and
• 52:34
  pay those prices to be able to show, hey, we will pay those
• 52:40
  prices. We just want to do it for known
• 52:43
  quantities who are already in our clubhouse, who everybody
• 52:47
  loves and who have performed versus going out.
• 52:51
  Like if we're if we're going to pay a record contract to
• 52:54
  somebody, we would rather pay it to a guy who's a leader in the
• 52:58
  clubhouse than to some random player off the street who's
• 53:02
  never been in this room before. So signaling to the fans that
• 53:07
  they're willing to spend the money, signaling to the players
• 53:10
  that like, hey, we're spending the money we have to spend to be
• 53:13
  competitive. And then having him back
• 53:16
  guaranteed for at least one year, if not two, kind of gives
• 53:20
  you the ability you can set him as the number one and then
• 53:24
  figure out everything below him. It's a lot.
• 53:26
  Life's a lot easier if you know who's starting game one of that
• 53:30
  postseason series. All you have to do is figure out
• 53:33
  two and three. You don't have to figure out,
• 53:35
  hey, who's our game one starter. So I, I do think that's a big
• 53:39
  deal here for the Braves. It's just what he brings on the
• 53:43
  field, off the field, but then also to the fans.
• 53:48
  Yeah, let's talk about the depth of the shortstop.
• 53:50
  Depth specifically. And you know, there has been an
• 53:53
  issue throughout the years after Danby Swanson has left the
• 53:57
  organization to sign with the Cubs.
• 53:59
  They haven't really had a a surefire shortstop since, but
• 54:04
  they brought back Hassan Kim. Unfortunately, he got injured in
• 54:08
  a freak accident during during the offseason.
• 54:11
  Who would have thought about? They traded for Maricio Dubin
• 54:16
  for Nick Allen from the Astros and I want to talk a little bit
• 54:19
  about some in the minors. I know that Alex drafted a
• 54:23
  couple guys in in the system and signed some guys in the system
• 54:26
  like like for example, Tate's selfie scene.
• 54:30
  I believe he was drafted in first round and Alex look, Dici
• 54:33
  was also drafted in the same draft as selfie scene.
• 54:36
  However, John, John Gill, like talk a bit about him because it
• 54:41
  seems like he has blossomed out of nowhere and he's only 19
• 54:45
  years old. I didn't even think about that.
• 54:47
  I thought he was in his 20s, but this guy's a teen and I believe
• 54:51
  he's starting what double AI believe.
• 54:53
  And then you got Jose Pradoma who was a big signing in their
• 54:56
  national signings couple years as well ago.
• 54:58
  Like talk a bit about that shortstop depth.
• 55:00
  Now it's it seems like it's in a better state compared to the
• 55:04
  previous years. Yeah, the the Braves have it
• 55:07
  all. Had always been very heavy into
• 55:09
  drafting, pitching over position players.
• 55:12
  And this last draft, their first four draft picks were all middle
• 55:16
  infielders. But John Heal was an
• 55:18
  international free agent. He turns 20 in mid-May.
• 55:23
  But the big thing here is defensively he is very, very
• 55:28
  sound. And this winter, like the the
• 55:32
  issue with John Heel was always like he adjusted to being
• 55:37
  stateside. He spent the full season or he
• 55:39
  spent the entire year in full season ball, 100 games in single
• 55:43
  A, they skipped him over high A and he spent a week and AA to
• 55:47
  end the year. And the whole thing for him was
• 55:51
  he wasn't really kind of like he was showing good contact
• 55:54
  ability. The defense was there.
• 55:56
  The base running was fantastic. He stole 50 bags and single a
• 56:01
  like bag every other game, but the power hadn't really shown
• 56:05
  up. Some of that was just hitting a
• 56:06
  lot of ground balls, but some of that was just a lack of
• 56:09
  strength. He came in spring training this
• 56:11
  year looking like a strong safety, like he put on good size
• 56:17
  and is impacting the ball with a lot more kind of authority and,
• 56:22
  you know, power behind it. And so he's probably the middle
• 56:27
  infielder with the highest ceiling in the organization
• 56:33
  simply because if everything clicks, he has the speed and the
• 56:38
  stolen base ability, he has the potential for hit tool, he has
• 56:42
  the defense, but he can also now kind of add in the power.
• 56:47
  The questions going to be as he plays defense with this new
• 56:52
  size, can he still defend as well as he did when he was 20
• 56:58
  lbs of muscle lighter, right, but highest ceiling.
• 57:02
  And I'm really curious to see what they do between him between
• 57:06
  Alex Lodis, between, you know, Cody Miller, the third round
• 57:11
  pick last year out of college. It makes sense that they would
• 57:14
  probably all kind of be in hi AI know John Hill spent a week in
• 57:20
  AA, but based on experience wise, you would probably start
• 57:24
  that guy off in Hi A to start the year.
• 57:26
  But if you put all three guys in Hi A as a lot of log jam to try
• 57:30
  to get some shortstop time in. So somebody's going to have to
• 57:33
  go up to AA to start the year and it feels like it might be
• 57:41
  John Heal. And if that's the case, awesome.
• 57:44
  Kim's on a one year deal. He could walk after this season
• 57:47
  if everything broke right for John Heel, and I'm not saying it
• 57:51
  will, but if everything broke right for John Heel, you could
• 57:55
  see him challenging for the starting shortstop job in 2027.
• 58:01
  I don't think that that's probably, that's probably not
• 58:04
  going to happen. I don't think they're going to
• 58:07
  want to go into 27 with saying this is our planet shortstop.
• 58:12
  They're going to want to have other options.
• 58:13
  But he's the highest ceiling guy.
• 58:18
  Alex Lodis is fantastic defensively.
• 58:21
  Even in college, he chased way too much.
• 58:24
  So we've got to see him get that figured out, get that fixed.
• 58:28
  Cody Miller, to me is the most exciting of the three simply
• 58:32
  because he does so many. He's so defensively versatile.
• 58:37
  He's fantastic at 2nd, at third, at short.
• 58:41
  He's got more speed, he's got underrated power.
• 58:44
  I think he could end up being that utility guy, kind of the
• 58:47
  successor to Mauricio Duban, where he could play anywhere.
• 58:52
  If you need him to cover outfield, you need him to cover
• 58:54
  shortstop for a week while a guy's nicked up.
• 58:56
  He could do all those things. And then Tate Southocene is, I
• 59:01
  mean, he's just now 19 years old.
• 59:03
  He was the first round pick last year.
• 59:05
  I'm really curious to see how many positions they have him
• 59:09
  play. There were scouts before the
• 59:11
  draft who thought that he would be a center fielder in baseball,
• 59:15
  not a shortstop. So I'm curious to see, do they
• 59:18
  keep him in the infield? Do they put him out on the grass
• 59:21
  some? What do they do?
• 59:23
  I do think it's a little bit of a longer build simply because so
• 59:26
  many of those prep players really kind of struggle with
• 59:31
  going from a 35 game high school schedule to 120 game
• 59:37
  professional schedule. It's a physical grind.
• 59:40
  I do think he's going to be clearly behind those other three
• 59:43
  guys, but he could be just as impactful as anybody else.
• 59:48
  But I do think John heals probably the first one we see at
• 59:51
  the Major League level. And I get it.
• 59:53
  Everything breaks right. Could be as soon as 2027.
• 59:59
  The WBC was on the past couple weeks.
• 1:00:02
  It just ended last night with Venezuela winning it all.
• 1:00:06
  Congratulations to them, by the way.
• 1:00:10
  And yeah, great games. Fantastic games.
• 1:00:14
  The Braves had a few players in the WBC with Chadwick Trump
• 1:00:18
  playing for for Netherlands and Nacho Alvarez in Mexico and of
• 1:00:22
  course Ronald playing for Venezuela.
• 1:00:25
  The the the winning team. So and he looks great.
• 1:00:29
  He looked fantastic. So talk about some of the
• 1:00:32
  performances that you noticed from your guys in the WBC and
• 1:00:38
  Ronald and and what he and how he looked.
• 1:00:42
  Yeah, kind of started with Ronald.
• 1:00:44
  The last time he went to the WBC was 2023.
• 1:00:48
  He played center field. They didn't have a center
• 1:00:50
  fielder at that time that they do now.
• 1:00:52
  And he came to MLB and probably won MVP.
• 1:00:58
  It was, it was kind of like he played winter balls and he went
• 1:01:01
  to the BBC and then he won the MVP.
• 1:01:03
  I'm kind of hopeful that that repeats this year.
• 1:01:06
  But we saw him running like his infield single against team,
• 1:01:12
  against Team USA was the fastest Sprint speed that he's put up
• 1:01:20
  in, I want to say, since 20, since early 2024 or late 2023.
• 1:01:27
  So seeing that he's fully healthy there, he had, you know,
• 1:01:30
  lead off home runs, you know, the kind of things that Ronald
• 1:01:34
  does. He had a big throw that they
• 1:01:36
  didn't test him. So it didn't count as a as a
• 1:01:38
  output assist. But he showed that he's fully
• 1:01:41
  healthy. And Ronald's one of those guys
• 1:01:44
  where I feel like the confidence is a big deal, right?
• 1:01:47
  He needs to feel comfortable that he is healthy and has to be
• 1:01:51
  confident that he can perform to go out there and be his best.
• 1:01:55
  And I do think that the WBC he likely saw that.
• 1:01:59
  Hey, I shouldn't have any restrictions this year.
• 1:02:02
  I can do anything I want to do on a baseball field.
• 1:02:05
  And when you combine that with a manager in Walt Weiss who has
• 1:02:09
  been outspoken on, I want to give him time off.
• 1:02:14
  I want to use him at DH to save his legs.
• 1:02:18
  If you give him a day off going into an off day, he gets two
• 1:02:21
  days off. Or if you DH him coming out of
• 1:02:24
  an off day, it's kind of like you ease him back into action.
• 1:02:28
  This could be a massive year for Ronald Lecudin Junior.
• 1:02:30
  I don't think he steals 73 bags again.
• 1:02:34
  But if you come back to this in on September 18th and say, hey,
• 1:02:39
  Ronald's close to a 5050 season, I wouldn't be shocked simply
• 1:02:43
  because of how good he's looked at the WBC and how loose and
• 1:02:50
  free he's playing. I don't think he has that mental
• 1:02:53
  concern about the health of his knee.
• 1:02:56
  You saw it in 2022, right? He came back from the first torn
• 1:02:59
  ACL and he didn't look like the same guy.
• 1:03:02
  He was playing tentative. He needed time off.
• 1:03:05
  You don't see that now and I think that's big for Ronald.
• 1:03:09
  Ozzie Albee's I think looked fantastic for Team Netherlands.
• 1:03:12
  He had the first walk off home run in the BBC history.
• 1:03:15
  One of the issues he had early last year was recovering from
• 1:03:19
  2024's broken wrist. He didn't have any power early
• 1:03:22
  in the year. We're seeing the power.
• 1:03:25
  We saw what in the BC yet He popped the home run, had some
• 1:03:27
  hard hit balls. I feel good about his ability to
• 1:03:31
  at least maybe not be the classic Silver Sluggy S Silver
• 1:03:34
  Slugger esque Ozzie, but at least be, you know, able to hold
• 1:03:39
  his own there at second base. And then Trump got a lot of, you
• 1:03:43
  know, high level reps if they need to call him up to replace a
• 1:03:47
  Baldwin or a Haim or whatever, I feel like he's going to be
• 1:03:50
  prepared to step in, although it's clearly going to be a step
• 1:03:53
  down off of a Baldwin or a Murphy or a Haim.
• 1:03:56
  So just lots of good stuff from the Braves.
• 1:03:59
  Nachos is an interesting one because he is also learning
• 1:04:02
  catcher to kind of be a more well-rounded utility man.
• 1:04:06
  So that I think that's interesting.
• 1:04:07
  But he even had some good games for Mexico, including the home
• 1:04:09
  run. So there you go.
• 1:04:13
  Yeah, Speaking of what Weiss, he's heading into his first year
• 1:04:17
  as the Braves manager. He did have some managerial
• 1:04:20
  experience in the past when he was with the Colorado Rockies
• 1:04:22
  for for a brief moment. But what do you think can change
• 1:04:28
  to clubhouse presence with him? Because Snicker was around for
• 1:04:31
  quite some time. And knowing the Braves history,
• 1:04:34
  they love hiring managers who's been part of Braves history or
• 1:04:38
  Braves alumni's right. So talk about Weiss of how he
• 1:04:43
  can help his team out thrive throughout the season.
• 1:04:47
  Yeah, I think the big thing for what Weiss is, is knowing,
• 1:04:51
  understanding the guys as well as he does and having the
• 1:04:53
  relationships. Him and Ronald are very close.
• 1:04:56
  Ronald calls him Hefe, you know which term of endearment in
• 1:04:59
  Spanish. And and I think the thing with
• 1:05:04
  Brian Snitker, he was a, he was a player's manager, right?
• 1:05:08
  He always stood up for his guys, but he was patient, sometimes to
• 1:05:14
  a benefit, sometimes to a fault. Marcelo Zuna in 2023 after the
• 1:05:18
  first month of season was batting like O 57 or something
• 1:05:21
  terrible like that. And snit stuck with him.
• 1:05:25
  And from after the first month to the end of the year, he ended
• 1:05:28
  up batting like 300 with 30 something home runs.
• 1:05:31
  I mean, he was almost a 4100 guy in 2023.
• 1:05:35
  Walt Weiss is a little bit more impatient.
• 1:05:38
  He's flat out told us like he's not as patient as Brian Stinker
• 1:05:41
  is. And so I do think that being
• 1:05:46
  able to understand and recognize, hey, this isn't
• 1:05:50
  working, we need to change something.
• 1:05:52
  Being quicker to get to that, whether it's like in a game with
• 1:05:56
  a pitcher who's off or larger picture over a series or a week
• 1:06:01
  or a month with the lineup or whatever.
• 1:06:04
  I think that'll be useful. But the thing that stood out to
• 1:06:07
  me the most about what why it says he's been very good in
• 1:06:09
  interviews about talking about being open and wanting the data.
• 1:06:16
  He wants the information that it kind of felt like Ryan Sinker
• 1:06:22
  didn't necessarily pay attention to.
• 1:06:24
  He wants the information, he wants the data, and his job is
• 1:06:29
  to figure out the right way to apply it and relay it to the
• 1:06:34
  players. And at times, Brian Sitter did a
• 1:06:37
  lot of things, especially with his bullpen, that felt like he
• 1:06:42
  was just, he had this idea and he was sticking with it no
• 1:06:47
  matter what, right? Like, like I handed this thing,
• 1:06:50
  he would deploy his relievers in a certain order.
• 1:06:53
  We're going to go this guy to this guy to this guy.
• 1:06:56
  And it kind of ignored where you were in the lineup, the
• 1:06:59
  handedness of who was coming up, etcetera.
• 1:07:02
  And it just feels like Walt Weiss's going to be more open to
• 1:07:07
  adjusting that a little bit and being more understanding.
• 1:07:12
  I'm going to put these guys in the best position to succeed
• 1:07:16
  versus saying, hey, this guy's my setup guy, so he's always
• 1:07:20
  pitching the 8th, this guy is always pitching the 7th,
• 1:07:23
  etcetera. Just being a little more
• 1:07:25
  flexible and a little quicker to pivot if things aren't working.
• 1:07:30
  I think it's going to be big for the Braves.
• 1:07:34
  So looking at the the NL ES, sorry, what are some
• 1:07:38
  expectations that you have for this team, you know, heading
• 1:07:42
  into the season? I honestly think like I, I, I
• 1:07:48
  think it's going to be difficult.
• 1:07:49
  Could it have to require a lot of injuries again for them to
• 1:07:53
  not be a playoff team? I do kind of waiver sometimes
• 1:07:59
  about what is the ceiling, is this an NL E winning team or is
• 1:08:04
  this just a wild card team? But I do think that last year a
• 1:08:10
  lot of the issues like yes, there was the pitching injuries,
• 1:08:13
  but before that a lot of the issues they had, they had a
• 1:08:19
  inordinate number of losses in one run games.
• 1:08:22
  A lot of that came back to the bullpen, which we addressed and
• 1:08:26
  they really struggled offensively as they were
• 1:08:29
  adjusting to a new hitting coach and a new way of doing things at
• 1:08:35
  the plate and we saw the offense get better in the second-half.
• 1:08:38
  The offense has been fantastic in spring.
• 1:08:42
  I see this as a playoff team and I don't.
• 1:08:44
  I don't think that should be a question of to whether or not
• 1:08:48
  they will be a playoff team, assuming there's no ridiculous
• 1:08:53
  number of injuries. Again, my my question would be
• 1:08:58
  will they win the division or not?
• 1:09:02
  And I do think it depends on, I'm not super high on Philly.
• 1:09:07
  I do think that New York has to figure some things out.
• 1:09:12
  They brought in some quality players.
• 1:09:14
  They've changed a lot of pieces and they've got to gel everybody
• 1:09:18
  and they've got to figure out they've got 2 infielders playing
• 1:09:22
  new positions for the first time ever, right?
• 1:09:25
  They've got, you know, they're moving Juan Soto from right to
• 1:09:28
  left. They're counting on Luis Robert
• 1:09:30
  to figure it out in center field when he hasn't been that guy in
• 1:09:34
  a couple seasons. Like they have a lot of talent,
• 1:09:37
  but a lot of questions. The rotation has a ton of
• 1:09:39
  question marks. I think Atlanta and Philly
• 1:09:43
  should rightfully probably be the top two teams in the
• 1:09:46
  division and I see a path for Atlanta to win the division.
• 1:09:49
  It's just you, you need you need to stay healthy.
• 1:09:53
  And I think if Atlanta stays healthy, they should be the
• 1:09:55
  division winners. It's just a question of how much
• 1:09:58
  do injuries hit them More than they already have this year.
• 1:10:04
  So to wrap this up, there's a sequence of question I want to
• 1:10:07
  ask you here. It's a little bit of everything
• 1:10:09
  that probably equivalates to what the what the question is.
• 1:10:13
  And the Braves finally got their own network and that's Braves
• 1:10:17
  vision, right? And it's been too long since
• 1:10:20
  they should, they should have had a network a long time ago,
• 1:10:23
  but they finally did. It's never too late on that.
• 1:10:25
  And also with the profitable, profitable revenue, the money
• 1:10:30
  they made this past year, it was it was a significant amount as
• 1:10:32
  well. And how do you look at it on a
• 1:10:35
  payable perspective? We know that Alex Adopolis has
• 1:10:38
  been very, very reserved, very calculated.
• 1:10:41
  And knowing that Terry McGurk is the CEO of the Braves.
• 1:10:44
  And could you see the Braves AD payroll by the trade deadline?
• 1:10:49
  Because you wrote on your article that there's a
• 1:10:51
  possibility they might ride with this rotation.
• 1:10:54
  There has been rumors that they've been trying to add in
• 1:10:56
  the offseason. They they haven't really done
• 1:10:59
  that and they've been going more internally.
• 1:11:01
  But could you see all any of that happen?
• 1:11:04
  Things of like things can change in a hurry, Like could you see
• 1:11:07
  any possible way? I do.
• 1:11:10
  And I do think one of the things that the Braves have been
• 1:11:12
  willing to do in recent years is take on money to get players
• 1:11:18
  right. And I'm thinking about they got
• 1:11:19
  rise of Iglesias from the Angels by taking on the entire deal.
• 1:11:23
  Even the Jared Kellnick trade, which didn't work out, was a
• 1:11:26
  good idea. They took on some dead money,
• 1:11:29
  like $15 million total in bad contracts to get a former top
• 1:11:35
  prospect who had struggled with his old team.
• 1:11:38
  It didn't help that he ended up being a butt head and just a
• 1:11:40
  dummy and it didn't work out from an attitude perspective.
• 1:11:43
  He had a bad attitude in Atlanta, but the process was
• 1:11:47
  sound. And I think Saving Jerks and Pro
• 1:11:49
  Farce 15,000,000 bucks this year means that they should have
• 1:11:54
  plenty of money to add between now and the trade deadline.
• 1:12:00
  And I fully expect them to do that simply because when they've
• 1:12:05
  been competitive and they've gotten to the trade deadline,
• 1:12:09
  they have done that. They've been willing to take on
• 1:12:12
  contracts to get guys, They've been willing to spend more
• 1:12:17
  money. They want to save at least 10
• 1:12:19
  million, but there's been trade deadlines.
• 1:12:21
  They've added $15 million in payroll just to get pieces to
• 1:12:25
  help the team. I think they're going to be in a
• 1:12:26
  position to do that where they initially expected their payroll
• 1:12:31
  to be fifteen $20 million higher than it actually is.
• 1:12:34
  So I do think they're going to end up adding the questions
• 1:12:40
  going to be what are they able to get?
• 1:12:43
  And I guess really kind of what are they going to need?
• 1:12:46
  I think we all kind of assume they're going to need a starter.
• 1:12:48
  You can see a scenario where they don't need a starter,
• 1:12:52
  right? If some of these prospects like
• 1:12:54
  a Fuentes or a Richie work, you can see a scenario where they
• 1:12:57
  don't need a starter. The questions just going to be
• 1:13:00
  what do they add? But I do think they're equipped
• 1:13:03
  to go out and shop in any aisle they want to shop and go get any
• 1:13:06
  guy that they decide they need at the trade deadline, provided
• 1:13:11
  they're willing to move the prospects to do it.
• 1:13:14
  Well, Lindsay, we appreciate your work.
• 1:13:18
  Thank you all Like and we've we've seen all your work.
• 1:13:21
  You don't you do a great job. Great information over here in
• 1:13:23
  this episode. And I'm pretty sure a lot of
• 1:13:26
  these fans, especially Braves fans are going to listen to his
• 1:13:28
  butt. Where can we find you in social
• 1:13:30
  media and everywhere else? So on social media, I'm at
• 1:13:34
  Crosby Baseball, the written work, Braves today.com, that's
• 1:13:38
  also a podcast, Braves Today podcast, wherever you get your
• 1:13:41
  podcasts and on YouTube. And then once the season starts,
• 1:13:45
  we'll have post game shows on Locked On Braves and Locked On
• 1:13:48
  Sports Atlanta going live after each and every Atlanta Braves
• 1:13:52
  game. Yeah, this was awesome, man.
• 1:13:55
  Thanks for joining us. It was, it was really fun to
• 1:13:58
  learn about what's going on with the Braves heading into the
• 1:14:00
  season, learn about their spring training, even talk a little bit
• 1:14:04
  about some of their WS WBC guys. So it was fun.
• 1:14:08
  Hopefully we can have you back down the road.
• 1:14:10
  But thank you very much, man. It was awesome.
• 1:14:14
  Thanks for having me fellas, I appreciate.
• 1:14:16
  It we will place the description below where you can find Lindsay
• 1:14:19
  Crosby and his work. Till next time, take care, be
• 1:14:22
  kind to each other. Signing off from the Sports Ave.
• 1:14:24
  Twister podcast on Wednesday, March 18th, 2026.