Latest / Who's On First? / Episode 2- Rob Thomson Fired, Is Carlos Mendoza Next?

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Episode 2- Rob Thomson Fired, Is Carlos Mendoza Next? · Who's On First?

• -: So what comes next for the Phillies? Well, was also announced on Tuesday that Don Mattingly would be taken over as interim manager, getting the promotion from bench coach. ⁓ Mattingly in his career played for the Yankees from 1982 to 1995. After that was a hitting coach before getting the head coaching job at the Dodgers from 2011 to 2015. He was replaced by current head coach Dave Roberts. He then moved on to the Marlins where he was the head coach there from 2016 to 2022. He's widely regarded as one of the best players and coaches to never have a World Series ring. Came very close last year with the Blue Jays, however, that was ripped away by one swing by Miguel Rojas and then Will Smith, who won it for the Dodgers. And it's now in Don Mattingly's hands. Will he be able to turn this team around? And so far they're off to a good start in that regard. Mattingly so far 3-0 as manager of the Phillies. And especially yesterday they had a double header against the Giants where they walked both games off. Especially in the second game, great signs for the Phillies was Alec Boehm had the walk off sack fly. He's someone that they need to get going. He's been hitting in the clean up spot on the season for the Phillies. He's moved around a little bit. But he's been a cornerstone to this team. and the success that they've had in the last five years or so. So they really need his back to get going. He obviously has a lot of off the field stuff going on. He's currently in a lawsuit against his parents, arguing that they egregiously mismanaged his money as a kid, as he was making money as a teen moving into professional baseball. So obviously a lot of off the field stuff. Good to see. That's a great sign for Phillies that Alec Bohm starting to get his back going. Also got to give a tip of the cap to Kyle Schwaber It was yesterday in the first game of that double header where he did this Yeah, so congratulations to Kyle Schorber. He gets career home run number 350. Also on Sunday, adds home run number 351. And want a side note for a little bit, I think Kyle Schorber is a player who has a very good chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. His career stats, he's got a career 20.8 war. He's got over 4,500 at bats. He's in the 1,000 hit club. As I mentioned, he's in the 350 home run club now. and he's got a career batting average of 231. He's in his age 33 season, but say for the next five years, if he can keep that 30 home run pace a season, that'll get him into the 500 club, which is the golden ticket for sluggers like himself. Doesn't have a crazy high OBP or hidden for a crazy ton of average, for he makes his impact for a team is in the RBI and the home run category. He's already got 11 on the year and it's the 1st of May. And so super cool for Kyle Schorber, great career moment. And another great sign for the Phillies trying to turn this season around as they're shifting up in the rankings. They're now fourth in the NL East on this three game win streak with Mattingly. So good signs to come for the Phillies. Sadly, cannot say for the other team that fired their manager in the Boston Red Sox. Started off very good for Chad Tracy. He won his first game against the Orioles 5-3. Then he won his second game. He started off 2-0 after a 5-0 win over the Blue Jays, but then things took a turn. It was announced on Wednesday that Garrett Crochet would be entering the 15-day injured list with shoulder inflation. Crochet obviously not off to the best start of the year, but shoulder injuries, arm injuries, never good for a pitcher, especially one that is struggling. Then following the news of Crochet's injury, in Wednesday's game, Brian Bayo started the game for the Red Sox, the young righty. Bayo on the year, a 9-1-2 ERA. He's got a 1-4 record and a near 1-1 strike to walk ratio. He's got 15 walks on the year, 17 strikeouts. Bull was an even worse optic for the Red Sox, was Bayo went three and two-thirds innings. He gave up six hits and four earned runs on two walks and two strikeouts. But after a knock-rate out, Chad Tracy came out in the third to take him out. The entire way that Tracy was walking out of the dugout bail was shaking his head in frustration that he was being taken out of the game. It's not a good sign when your younger player is showing up your interim manager. Obviously all of the eyes in the MLB are on this Red Sox team and how are they gonna react? How are they going to pivot after the firing of Alex Cora? And it was just not a great optic for the team. Tracy now 2 and 2. He did do a good job after the game of kind of cooling down the tension with this quote here. So there you go folks. And it's just been a disastrous start to the year for the Red Sox. And so now I want to talk a little bit about what team I think has the best chance of turning their season around between the Mets, the Red Sox, and the Phillies. Starting off for the Mets, a team we haven't talked about much. They continue to be in the slump so far heading into May. They're 10 and 21 on the year. That's good for last place in the NL East and last in the MLB. They're on a two game losing streak with Carlos Mendoza as manager. And it was just announced that Francisco Lindor and Luis Robert are both gonna be making trips to the injured list. And so this is now a pivotal moment in the season for the Mets. What is David Stearns and Steve Cohen gonna do with this team? Is Carlos Mendoza on the chopping block? How many more interviews are you gonna let Mendoza take where he just says, We're not playing well. It's as simple as that. Mendoza can't do much in his interviews in the last couple of weeks as it's just been bad baseball coming from Queens. And so I don't like the Mets odds as of now. We'll see in the next week to two what changes are made in that dugout in the clubhouse to turn things around. Then moving on to the Red Sox who I just mentioned. They're on a two game losing streak and with that dugout drama, I don't like their odds either of flipping around the season. You also have Crochet going to the injured list. But one thing that I really think hurts this Red Sox team is they are a very young team. They got a lot of rookies and second year, third year guys going out, taking, starting reps every single day with Caleb Durbin or a Roman Anthony or Jaren Duran. Guys like that are leading this team. And so without a lot of experience, it's going to be really tough. to turn this clubhouse around, get back into the winning swing of things. And so I don't like them either as much to turn around their season as I do the Philadelphia Phillies. I think they have the best chance of turning around their season between any of these teams. So I don't like their odds as much as I do the Philadelphia Phillies and where they're at in the season. I mentioned Schwaber is red hot. Bryce Harper continues to hit. And I think this lineup is gonna start turning things around. I think another thing that really helps this team is that they have the veteran experience. I mentioned that they're an aging team and they're in that win now phase, but with an aging team comes experience. They got veterans like JT Rielmuto and Trey Turner. and Aaron Nola and Zach Wheeler manning this clubhouse, leading this clubhouse along with Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwerber. They also have another thing to play for. The entire baseball community is rooting for Don Mattingly to get a World Series ring. So however much of a factor that is, anytime you can get extra inspiration for a struggling team, that's always a good thing. And if you put things into perspective here, the Phillies are playing bad baseball as of now, and they're starting to turn things around. But to start the year, they were playing some of their worst baseball that this team is capable of. And they're only six games back of a wild card spot. If they can pick up three to four games before the All-Star break, all of sudden you're looking at a team that's just two games back with that plethora of All-Star caliber players to where I really like their odds to turn things around and they could go push for a playoff spot in the NL. It's not gonna be tough. It's not going to be easy with the strength of schedule and with how tough the National League is this year. But if I had to pick between those three teams, I definitely like the Phillies odds to be able to turn their season around in the right direction. That was great. I was really happy with that. Alrighty now moving on in our show. I want to cover some MLB debuts from this past week starting off It was breaking news over the week that the Guardians were calling up their number one prospect and number one overall pick Travis Bazzana He played baseball at Oregon State University and he was the first ever Australian born first overall pick to now he's making his debut How cool is that and it wasn't perfect for Bazzana. He went 0 for 6 in the two games that he played in, but I have no doubt that he'll be able to turn things around. It was so cool to see he came out his walk up songs on the ears down under by men at work. And it's just another great thing I talked about in last episode where MLB is really doing a great job of capitalizing on the foreign market and getting more foreign involvement in the game. Right now, your best player in the world is Shohei Otani. You just had... the amazing success of the world baseball classic. So I think this is perfect timing for the MLB to have Bazzana coming up now. I have no doubt he'll be able to collect his first MLB hit and continue to excel at the MLB level. He's gonna be playing in Sacramento this week, taking on the athletics, very much a hitter friendly ballpark. So if you're looking to tune in to a game this week, make sure you check out those athletics versus guardians game. to the Aussie go collect his first MLB hit. And then the second debut I wanna talk about from this past week was Peyton Gray. And it's a very different story than that of Travis Bazana. Gray signed as an undrafted free agent with the Rockies after the 2018 MLB draft. Before that, he attended Western Michigan University in 2015, Gulf Coast State College in 2016. Florida Gulf Coast University in 2017 and 2018 before being signed. He was then let go. He's played in the Red Sox, Royals, and Rockies organizations. He's played for the Milwaukee Milkmen in Indie Ball, as well as he's played in the Dominican Winter League and the Mexican Baseball League. In total, he spent eight years in the minors in Indie Ball, working his way up to finally getting his debut chance. He got in for an inning. and he worked a one, two, three inning. What was so cool, he ended his outing striking out 19 year old Connor Griffin. How cool is that? Two completely different stories to get to the MLB. I think it's one thing that makes baseball so cool. Is the stories behind the player so a tip of the cap to Peyton Gray on making his debut? The second debut story I want to talk about on Who's On First is that Peyton Gray. Gray signed as an undrafted free agent with the Rockies after the 2018 draft. He then played in the Rockies organization, the Royals organization, and the Red Sox organization before being released by the Red Sox. He then played for the Milwaukee Milkmen in Indieball before moving and playing in the Dominican Winter League. Following that, he then went and played in the Mexican Baseball League. After that, he finally got a chance to get back into the MLB and into the farm system of the Texas Rangers. And just this past week, he was able to make his MLB debut after eight years grinding in the minor leagues and other leagues. He finally got his opportunity and he made the most of it. He worked a one, two, three inning. And the third out of that inning, was a strikeout of 19 year old number one prospect in the MLB, Connor Griffin. How cool is that for the game of baseball? One of the coolest parts and one of the best parts of Major League Baseball is the stories behind the players and all of the different backgrounds that so many of these players have and how radically different they are in so many ways. Here's Griffin, a highly touted prospect drafted out of high school and here's Peyton Gray, ⁓ Career-long journeyman who grinded his way for eight years just to get his chance with the Rangers and he made the most of it So a tip of the cap to Peyton Grey. Congratulations on the debut Definitely gonna be following that story as the Rangers season continues So now I want to finish out the episode by of course going over the MLB standings as of now Starting off in the nationally National League in the West the Dodgers lead things with a 20 and 11 record Padres followed them a half game back. Diamondbacks in third at three and a half games back. Then it's the Rockies at 14 and 18 and the Giants in last place in the NL West at 13 and 18. Moving over to the NL Central where every team is at or above 500. It's the Cincinnati Reds leading the charge at 20 and 11. The Chicago Cubs one game back at 19 and 12. The Cardinals in third two games back there at 18 and 13. Then it's the Brewers three and a half back at 16 and 14 and the Pittsburgh Pirates at an even 500 in fifth place at 16 and 16. Next up in the NL East, it's the Braves at 22 and 10. They lead the charge. Then six and a half games back. It's the biggest margin of any division is the Miami Marlins at 15 and 16. Then it's the Nationals at 15 and 17, followed by the two teams riding the struggle bus of the Phillies and the Mets. Phillies 9 1⁄2 games back, Mets 11 1⁄2 games back. Then moving to the American League, the Yankees lead the way in the East at 20 and 11. Rays are just 1 1⁄2 games back at 18 and 12. The Orioles in third place at 15 and 16. The Blue Jays. fourth at 14 and 17 and then the Red Sox at 12 and 19 eight game back eight games back already to start off the month of May Then in the AL Central and this is perhaps one of the craziest stats so far as we enter the month of May in the AL Central every single team is worse than every single team in the NL Central the Guardians lead the way at 16 and 16 so the Pirates are last place in the NL Central and They would be tied for first place in the AL Central. Tigers also add an even 500. They're tied for first. Then it's the White Sox at 14 and 17, the Minnesota Twins at 14 and 18, and the Kansas City Royals at 12 and 19, then rounding out the standings in the AL West. It is the Athletics leading the charge, the Young Guns from Sacramento at 17 and 14. The Mariners in second just one and a half games back at an even 500. The Rangers one game under at 15 and 16. The Angels then at 12 and 20, as well as the Astros at 12 and 20 rounding out the division. So that will do it for this second episode of Who's on First. So glad you could join us. Make sure you tune in to some of the games this week. I know I'll be watching them. And I will see you next time.