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The Phillies Are Up, The Sixers Are Down (PST Episode 604) · The Philadelphia Sports Table | Philly Sports News & Views

• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Philadelphia Sports Table podcast show, the longest
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: running weekly Philly sports podcast show in the world that's
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: right over eleven and a half years strong. Got a
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: great show coming to you this week. We've got two
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: interviews that we are going to be diving into right
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: after my buddy Lenn and I get done talking about
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: some Super Bowl reactions talking about the Super Bowl parade.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be getting into some Flyers talk as well.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Like I said, two interviews. Got Schoan Bernard from Fox
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Sports Phillies, The Gambler, and DraftKings. He's gonna be talking
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: to us about the state of the seventy six ers. Yeah,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: we're actually gonna get into some seventy six ers talk.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Then we've got Justin Clue exactly.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Oh boy, I can take the state of them.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Well. We've got a great discussion with Justin Klue from
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: the Hitting Season podcast coming up on this podcast episode
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: as well, to talk about Phillies spring training, what we're
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: expecting to see from certain talent not only during spring training,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: but during this twenty twenty five season. I'm Jeff Warren. Yeah,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: that was Lenn Hunsicker, my buddy here. How you doing Lenn,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I know you're a little tired, but other than being tired,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: how you.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Doing, Oh I'm doing I'm doing all right, good good.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I'm still on a high from the Super Bowl, man,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: I really am.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: It still like feels like I mean, I know it happened, obviously,
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: but it's like, damn, they're they're they're the champs of
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: the world again, yes, and like and everybody that I
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: talked to is like, yeah, there's no reason they can't
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: go on a run here. I mean, you know, you
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: never want to be presumptuous and say, oh, this is
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: the beginning of of you know, a dinosaurs should you
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: know that would be silly to say. But at the
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: same time, like all the major components are young, and yeah,
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: under contract, and it's it's it's a it's I think
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I was saying this to so many a couple of
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: days ago, just from the you know, you look at
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: the at the at the Sixers, for example, and and
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: just you look at at the history of like Philly
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: sports teams in our lifetime and it's just so weird
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: to have like a competent, smart, well run franchise where
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: whatever they do just like yeah, all right, yeah, I
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: trust them.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: I give them the benefit of the doubt.
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: They've given me no reason not to believe that they
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: know absolutely what they're doing. It's it's a it's a
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: strange feeling to have.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: It really is. I am still amazed of having this
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: feeling of, like you just said, they are the world
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: champs right now, and they brought Philly its next championship.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And interestingly enough, I'm talking with somebody recently on the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: show here on our Opposition Territory show this past week,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Josh Rodriguez, and I'm like, you know, I'm wondering who
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the next Philly sports team is to possibly get us
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the championship, and he goes, well, probably the Philadelphia Eagles.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, It's it's funny you mentioned that because I was
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: I was watching something. I can't remember what it was,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: but they did a poll like after the super Bowl, like,
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: you know, okay, the Eagles have just won the Super Bowl.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: Who's the next team to win?
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: I think sixty percent, you know, said the Eagles, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: like maybe twenty nine percent said the Phillies and two
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: percent said the Flyers, and then lol percent.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Said the Sixers.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: So I mean it just like, yeah, it's it's overwhelmingly
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: you know, and you look at it, I mean you
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: look at with the Phillies, you're just like they really
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: need to like, you know, yes, they made some ads
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: and that was good at all, but you know, man,
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: their core, their lineup really needs to figure out and
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: approach yes at plate during playoff baseball, and these aren't
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: like young guys anymore. And it's like Kenna, Leopard change
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: its spots. So you wonder, you know, have they peaked,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: like is is there another level there? I don't know, yeh.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: Whereas with the Eagles you don't have that fear.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Isn't it amazing where the two organizations are Phillies and Eagles.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: The amount of pressure that is on the Phillies to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: win a World Series and now the amount of pressure
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: there is on the Eagles to perhaps repeat there really is.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It's there's just so much more pressure on the Phillies
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: than there is Eagles at this Yeah, I.
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: Was gonna say I would say that there's a ton
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: more pressure on the Phillies.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, But sticking with the Eagles, Len, I know
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you weren't able to join you know, Eric and his family,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: our buddy Dave and his family at my house for
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the Super Bowl. We definitely missed you, but you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I know you watched it and stuff. I wanted to
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: get your reactions because this is the first time you
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and I are actually talking about it together after a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: week and a half, Like, what were your reflections just
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: on what you were seeing during the course of the game,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: even your feelings afterwards.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: So it's weird because you know, I went through like
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: ebbs and flows of confidence, and the first time I
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: became like really confident was like ESPN before the game
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: had all of their experts, like, you know, just you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: all like here, we have sixty one you know, people
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: that write for us or experts or whatever.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I think like forty six of them picked the Chiefs.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And that was because I was like, look, the
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: vast majority of these people probably shouldn't have the jobs
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: that they have. You're absolutely correct, They're wrong a lot,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: like a lot, a lot. And so when I saw that,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, we're all going for the Chiefs.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I kind of feel good about this now, right, But
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: then the game happens, and you know, the Eagles they
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: get up huge, but it's never I don't I don't
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: know if it's just years of like you know, seeing
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: teams blow it and stuff like that, like no matter
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: like there. I remember them being up thirty four to
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: nothing and me trying to do the the you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: just the the gymnastics in my head.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: Of like how how could the Chiefs come back?
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like is there enough time on the clock for
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: them to realistically come back? Because if you remember in
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: the Super Bowl two years ago, like in the second half,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: the Chiefs scored on every single possession in the second half,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: So it's like, okay, they if they go on.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: A run like that, is there is there time at
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: this point?
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: And then it got to a point in the game
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: like late in the third quarter, was like I don't
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: think they have time to come back, and that's when
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: I started to feel really good. But it's just amazing
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: that your team could be up thirty four to nothing
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: and you're still having that thought of their time enough
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: for them to come back. Like it's weird.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I was thinking that too, because I was going back
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl two years ago, and you know,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: we talked about it here on the show where Jalen
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Hurts just fumbles the ball, he just drops the ball,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: like right, towards the end of the second quarter, right
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: before the half, it's it's it's picked up by the Chiefs.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: They run it in for the touchdown, and that completely
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: changed the momentum of the game.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is amazing because that was one terrible play, yes,
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: in an otherwise stellar game for him.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, And I was thinking to myself in the third
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: quarter this past Super Bowl is something like that gonna
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: happen again. I was always a kind of on that
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: same wavelength with you, Len, like, Okay, I can see
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: something happening, Like I can see a fumble. I could
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: see maybe Saquan does give it up, Like the guy
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: never fumbles, but maybe he does here in this spot unfortunately,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and maybe somebody takes it back for a touchdown. Maybe
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Jalen hurts. Wait, he's throwing the ball, he's throwing really
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: well today. Maybe he just is off by a smidge
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: and it's a pick six. I kept thinking that to myself.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Thank goodness it didn't happen. But I was with you
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, like I said, I finally got to a
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: point in like late in the third quarter where I
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: was like, all right, I'm pretty confident that we got
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: this yeah, I don't think they have enough time at
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: this point.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah to come back.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I just I still can't believe it happened.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: And being down at the parade on Friday, I still
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: can't believe I did that, to be honest with you.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I get home that night and I'm like, man,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I think I might be a little too old for this,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: like to do it by myself, because it was just
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: it was an amazing experience being at that parade, the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: celebratory nature of what it all was, just seeing the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: massive crowd, just massive people, just it was incredible to watch.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: But I just I'm not sure I'll do it again.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Look if the Phillies end up winning one and the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Flyers to well, I say, look, I'm saying this for
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: every team. If the Sixers ever win one, maybe I'll
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: go down. I don't know if I'll do it again,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: just because I already know what to expect. And frankly,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I was really waiting for one guy's speech. I was
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: waiting for the best running back in football, Saquon Barkley,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to make his speech, because one's all, he gives great
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: speeches that are from the heart, and he really just
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: you can tell just how much he loves Philly and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: the fans, and because of how we have embraced him,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: especially where he came from and the fact that you know,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: just school district over from where I live, that's where
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you know he was born and raised, went to high
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: school and then Penn State. So halfway through his speech,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, what the heck is going on behind me?
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, these two jerk offs are fighting.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: There is a fight that broke out. We're talking a
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: fight that broke out. Uh, I know, And I miss
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Landon Dickerson first. Yeah, the first half of Landon Dickerson's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: speech I missed too because of this. I was so
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: ticked off. I'm like, you have got to be kidding me.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: We are waiting all this time, we were waiting for hour.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I'm getting sun burnt. The sun is beating down me
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: as I'm standing here in the same place for five hours,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and you guys are ruining this particular moment where the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: best core of the best running back in the National
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Football League is given a Super Bowl speech here at like, uh,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that was worth really quick. I'm not even done with
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the story. So these jerk offs are separated by their friends.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: The one guy walks off, and this other guy's gets up.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: He's bloody right over his eyes, he's got blood on
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: his nose, got blood coming out of his lips and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. Then all of a sudden, he just
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: goes law, almost hits my shoe with his barf, almost
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: hits my sneakers.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: and like he's got four friends around him. And I
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to I wanted to be a dad and say,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: what do you do? You reckon people's time here, you jerk.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, now, there's you know, four or five
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: of them and there's only one of me.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: So and they, even though you are technically in the
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: right day, they would have looked at you and said,
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: shut up, old man.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: They would have yes, and so they would have said,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: they would have said, hey, salt and pepper hair, why
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: don't you go f yourself? Yes, yes, so, but I'm
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: glad I went. It was a once in a lifetime experience.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: It was great getting some videos, some pictures of the
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: entire festivities. It was. It was really cool. Plus I
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: did I put twenty thousand steps in that day too.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: It's incredible.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that, that'll do it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: I mean yeah, because you were over by the Art Museum, right, I.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Was over by the Art Museum. Yeah. I got let
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: off at Jefferson station and did a ton of walking
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and I was trying to get to the other side
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: of the Art Museum and that just didn't work for me.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So the other worst part was having to wait two
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: hours to get on the train at Jefferson station to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: get back to the Lansdale train station where my car was.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: That seriously waiting in line for two hours. That was awful.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: That really did stink.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of had a feeling it was gonna
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: like that.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, buddy, we get to ride this high that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the Eagles are Super Bowl champions, you know, for for
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: quite some time now. But moving along here because I
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: know you got to go to work in a little
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: bit here. Wanted to get into some Flyers talk because
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the Four Nations tournament has been really dominating the hockey
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: world and it's given the Flyers front office some time
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to evaluate the team and the direction of the organization,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: even more as the trade deadline is less than a
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: month away, which is March seventh, and I guess, you know,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: wanted to just really briefly discussed, you know, is now
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the right time for the Flyers front office to really
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: make another trade before the deadline, because when you look
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: at the league right now, len nearly two thirds of
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the league still has a semi realistic chance of making
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the playoffs, or at least they can conceive themselves or
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: convince themselves that they do. So large number of teams
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: that probably think they have a legitimate chance to maybe
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: make the conference finals. So who knows what happens. The
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Flyers are not among the two thirds of the league
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: for sure, but Danny Brier and company, you know, they've
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: made it clear that they're not going to make a
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: trade just for the sake of making a trade. But
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: does the time feel right for Brier to really make
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: his next move here, whether that is going to be
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Scott Lawton, whether Rasmus Risto Lane, and whether they can
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: find a market for him, because that's kind of gone
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a little cold from my understanding. You know, I think
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: this is a critical moment for this team specifically this
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: year as we're as the restructure has been happening here
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: with it, I don't know what are your thoughts.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, if not now, when, because I mean like
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: right now, because I go on Takeathon all the time
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: for the Sixers and the Flyers. The Flyers are are
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: currently slotted to have the sixth pick in the draft
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: if everything was to stay the same, which means that
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: they are the sixth worst team in hockey right now
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: by by you know, I I don't know it's points
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: or winning percentage or however they measure it. They're six
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: worse right now. So what why would you hold onto pieces?
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Like are you trying to hang on to try to win?
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: I mean it clearly it's not happening this year, So
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: you know you want to get more assets for the future.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: So you have a guy like Lawton and a guy
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: like wristal line and who not only would be attractive
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: to teams from a talent standpoint, but also a term standpoint,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: because you know, you trade these guys now rather than later,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and the price should theoretically be higher because those two
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: players have more term. You know you're going to get
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: more than one playoff run out of them because they're
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: going to be with your team for a couple of
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: years here. So I mean to me and I know
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: the market maybe it's cool on wrist of the line
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: a little bit, but I just think when when when
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: it gets down to the nitty gritty here and you're
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: trying to make a playoff push, I mean the way
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: I mean he's wrist line has been pretty much maligned,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: I think, and by us and by a lot of
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: people throughout his tenure with the Flyers.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: But he's he's been a lot better this year, yeah,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: than years yep.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: So I mean that could you know, you could if
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: you're a GM from another team, you could squint and see,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you know, a top four defenseman and that's got value
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: if you're trying to make a playoff push here and
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: if you're really trying to compete. So I think that
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: market heats up a little bit. I think Scott Lawton
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: is going to be a very popular piece. I think
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: they're gonna I think there's a decent chance they turn
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: around in trade because Menko, who they got in the
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Frost Farraby deal from from Calgary. So I mean, yeah, like,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: what what are you holding on to these guys for?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I mean the only reason I could see holding onto
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Lawton is because and look, I know it's talked about
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: so much to the point where it does kind of
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: get annoying. But from from a cultural foundation standpoint, Scott
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Lawton is so important to the locker room when they've
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: had guys that they've shipped out recently that have also
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: been good pieces in terms of the locker room too.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: But then again, he's thirty years old, he's going to
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: be an undrafted free agent after next season, and I
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: don't know, they probably should try to trade. Like business wise,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: they should try to trade Scott Lawton for sure. From
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a cultural standpoint, I wonder what it might do to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the locker room and to some of these younger guys.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, it sucks losing a guy like that,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: but you know, the culture. You know that he and
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not blaming him for this, but what is that
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: culture getting you in the standings?
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: Know, it's not like you know, it's a leadership is
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: so good that it's it's like pulling this team by
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: the bootstraps in a playoff contetch, right, that's not happening.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely correct, And I.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: Mean these guys have had time with him to learn
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: how to do the little things the right way. I
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: mean and Katorie is still there. He's another guy that
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: can be leaned on for that kind of thing. Yeah,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: I just I just don't want to see them have
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: you know, Lawton walk away eventually and get nothing for him.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think this is a guy that a
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: lot of teams are going to be interested. And this
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: is a guy that is if he's on your your
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: fourth line, I mean you you are a legitimate I
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: think playoff contender if you can roll him out there
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: on your on your fourth line or even third line.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of teams like what he can bring,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: and he can from the cultural aspect as well to
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: that team, and I think that they'll be willing to pay.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And I mean I know they've got, you know, seven
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: picks now in the first two rounds, and how many
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: assets do you need and all that stuff, But still,
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: you know you could package some of those picks to
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: jump up, like you're not going to draft seven guys,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: but you know, at the same time, you know you
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: could use that stuff.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, I I just I don't know the.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, really, twenty picks, I want them all.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: We are we are not at a point where it's like, okay,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: we're ready to take that next step. I mean clearly, yeah,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: you know, yes, they barely missed out of the playoffs
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: last year, but it's been at least record wise a
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: step back this year. Let's not pretend that they're right
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: on the cusp, because they're not. I mean, you know
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: that they have some very talented guys. I mean, Connectne
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: has taken another step forward this year. Mitchkoff is you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: we all think down the road he's going to be
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: an elite talent.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: But you need more of that. You need more of that.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: You can't just be like just drafting Mitch Gooff and
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: seeing what he did, you know, in his first year here.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Should be like a drug to the Flyers. They should
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: be addicted to the heroin that is elite level talent.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Right now you've seen it. You should be like, how
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: do I get more of that?
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, yes, that's.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: The mindset that they should be in.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I absolutely agree with you. And again going back to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: what I said at the onset of this particular discussion,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: nearly two thirds of the league still is a semi
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: realistic chance of making the playoffs. So yes, so there's
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of buyers, there's a lot of buyers, and
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I think we're gonna see Danny Breer doing another trade
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: at some point here in the Seeble future.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: I think I think he's going to make multiple trades, sure,
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: just because he's got he's got the pieces there to
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: make multiple deals. So I think he's going to be
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: very active.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: All right, Very good, lend buddy. I know you got
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: to get to work soon, and uh, I'm gonna let
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you go, buddy, and we're going to be getting into
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: some sixers talk. We're going to be getting into some
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Phillies talk as well. You got any last final thoughts
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: before you head out here?
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Uh? No, spring training is starting. I'm excited about that.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: So yeah, we'll we'll we'll see how you know, how
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: this unfolds here the you know, spring training, the camp stuff. Well,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: we'll be interesting to see, you know, how this shakes
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: out in terms of the lineup. I know that they're
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: talking about doing some different things with the lineup, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm just seeing how guys progress here.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: All right, Very good. If you are new to listening
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: to us, follow us on whatever podcast platform you are
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: listening to us on. Subscribe. You can also head on
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: over to Philadelphia Sports Table dot com. We've got all
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of our shows over there. You can search out the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia Sports Table and myself on social media. Len has
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: gotten off of social media, bless his soul. And yes,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be back in
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: just a bit. We are back, and I think now
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: is time and probably the best time to get I
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: don't know if there's best time to talk about the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia seventy six ers, but let's get into some Philly
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: basketball talk right now. It's part of what we are
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: throwing down on the table and now on the table,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: joining us to get into this Philadelphia seventy six ers team.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It has certainly been an interesting season. Yeah, interesting is
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: quite the word we have from Fox Sports Phillies the Gambler.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: He's also doing some stuff over at Draft Kings as well.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: We've got the one and only Sean Bernard.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: How you doing, buddy, Yeah, Jeff, always a pleasure to
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: appreciate you having me back on here. Excited to be
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: chopping up once again, and I wish we had a
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: little bit of a better tune to speak about team,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: especially off the come down of the Eagles parade. Everything
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: that went so well. There so a little in that end,
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: but overall happy to be chatted up.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: What do you got going on over at Draft Kings,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: my friend.
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, writing a ton of content for them, so primarily
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: a ton of NBA stuff right now. Got a little
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: bit of a break for the All Star break, so
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I got to unplug myself up back diving in today,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: so we'll be cranking out content there for the second
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: half of the season. Did a lot with kind of
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: the Luca trade and some of the odd shift that
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: it was all brought in from that, So a lot
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: of that style of stuff and you can check that
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: out on DK Network.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, we know the seventy six er season
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is going to be turning itself around here because Lonnie
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Walker's been acquired, right I'm kidding, of course. I mean
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of local ties, specifically in the eastern
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania area with regard to Lonnie Walker coming back here.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on this acquisition?
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I guess the goals for the season
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: are a little out the window already, but I do
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: think it is a good signing here and for Loanni specifically.
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: This is a guy that's a legit NBA rotation player.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: He's gonna step in and lock some pretty significant minutes
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: right away I would expect for the Sixers team when
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: what I think the message probably is is really the
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: attention in the what was accomplished of the trade deadline
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: is this was not viewed as a season a one
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: year through a one year. Lens that Lonnie Walker, there's
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: a team option for the second year. So this could
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: very well and I think it's more likely to be
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: a guy that does stick around for next season. And
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: it is a cool local story as well. I personally
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: went to college up in Reading, Pennsylvania, so they wrapped
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: him heavy up there from Reading overall, So shout out
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: to Lonnie. He will bring a little bit of a
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: spark to the Sixers team.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they definitely need a spark and Sean, I guess
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: we got to get into some real talk here. Okay,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we got to get into real talk about whether we
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: should really be talking about the possibility or the Sixers
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: should be talking about the possibility of shutting down players
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the season. I mean, it's a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: theme and we got to talk about it. And first up,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: obviously is Joel Embiid. I mean, the team and trainers
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: have been managing his symptoms week by week, and Embiid
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: said this past week that he doesn't definitely need surgery.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: But I think the question should be asked if there's
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: even a one percent chance that a second surgery betters
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Embiid's effectiveness for next season. I'm wondering, like, isn't it
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: worth it, you know, doing it at this point given
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: where this team is at. I don't know what are
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: your thoughts on this, possibly shutting him down, possibly the surgery.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Could it be a good thing long term? I don't
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: know what are your thoughts, Jean.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if that is the case that another surgery would help,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: that should have happened yesterday. I feel with the case. Well,
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: the difficult part about this entire conversation is really where
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: the answers lie. Are the conversations that were not privy
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: to that. They are behind the scenes with the medical staff,
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: and we haven't really got from start to finish this
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: season a concrete answer for what exactly Joel Embiid is
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: dealing with. So if that is the case, they absolutely
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: should go down that direction. My overall understanding or kind
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: of belief of my understanding on the situation is it
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: isn't as linear as that that. There isn't like if
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: you shut him down now, it increases his chance for
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: next year in a major way. This is kind of
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: a lot of management that he's gonna have to deal
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: with for really the foreseeable future, which is probably an
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: even larger concern there. So it is super frustrating. I
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: get the knee jerk reactions to shut him down. Let's
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: you know, wipe away this season. But when you do
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: dive into kind of the logistics of it, with their
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: pick being top six protected, I really think changes the
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: picture a great deal with that meeting there is they
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: have to be one of the first six picks in
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: this draft in order to keep it. Otherwise it goes
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Even as bad as the
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: Sixers are, they're not gonna be worse in the Washington Wizards,
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: the Utah Gays, or you go down the list of
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: the lot of bad teams in the NBA. You kind
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: of are in this dangerous no man's land. And I
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: think the honest assessment from Daryl Morey is our chances
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: of actually getting that draft pick probably you're not increasing
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: by more than thirty percent when you dive into those numbers. So,
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: with that being said, is there more than a thirty
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: percent chance of this team playing out of the play
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: in and having a chance of that, because the worst
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: case scenario for me would be to shut things down
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: and then really have nothing at the end of the day,
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: no draft pick to work with or anything like that.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: It's a tough conversation.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: It's tough. There is no silver bull here, Like, there
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: is no right answer. You're at a fork in the road,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and either way it's a no win situation. But I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: mean to follow up here, Sean. I mean, let's face it,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Joel Embiid, when you look at them out on the court,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: his defense seems to actually be doing more harm than
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it is helping the team. At this point you're watching
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: him on the court, his decision making is certainly a
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: problem from time to time. That's limiting itself to a
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: lack of explosiveness from him, which affects the rest of
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the team. I don't know what are your thoughts on
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: him in terms of this aspect of his game, because
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: even if they do get to the play in, like,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I cannot see them advancing there against whatever team they
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: would be up against here because Joel Embiid's decision making
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: is not good here at this point in a lot
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of different ways, especially defensively.
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And one of the more difficult parts about you
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: Embid in general for his lack of availability is he's
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: not a guy that can kind of pick up and
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: put down and he's exactly the best veryon with himself.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: He does kick off some russ it takes him a
• 26:08
  Speaker 4: little bit to find that form. And I still am
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: more to the belief that if he gets the opportunity
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: to do that, to play expanded games in a row
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: and consecutive like that, that he will settle in it
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: mostly look like the version of Joel Embiid that we've
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: come to expect this point in his career. But we
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: have not seen this to this point. At this stage
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: of the season. He has not played more than four
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: consecutive games in a row at any point this year.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Still less than fifteen games on a season. That's just
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: not enough for him to be out there. So I
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: totally hear you on all the concerns for like how
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: he's physically looked on the court. I'm still kind of
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: more I guess weighing the amount that he's actually been
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: to the court is the greater concern to me. So
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: I think he will settle in if he gets that opportunity,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: but it is if his body allows that to be
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: the case or not.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Absolutely all right, let's move on to Paul George here,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: because as we know, Shamsy reported last week that Paul
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: George is getting some injections of some sort that's keeping
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: him on the court. Jams also reported that this is
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you know, players utilize during
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the playoffs and not really in the regular season. So
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: you know, even if the Sixers try to move Paul
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: George's contract this coming off season, I mean, they're gonna
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: need him to be in a better place from a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: health standpoint here. So I mean, I know it's not
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: gonna happen here, but what are the thoughts on possibly
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: shutting Paul George down at this point in the season.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: What are you thinking here?
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I did think it was interesting in that
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: specific report that it did not reference what the injections
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: were for or what specific injury. And Sham's kind of
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: went down the list that he started off the season
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: with two bone brus and his knee, that he's dealt
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: with some growing soreness, and most recently has been dealing
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: with this pinky issue in his non shooting hand. And
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: while it sounds very minuscule when saying a pinky issue there,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: basically it's in this like straight brace that he can't
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: bend it, which certainly impacts things from a dribbling perspective
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: for just setting up your shot and just playing basketball
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: in general. Like that's something that weighs on your mind there.
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: I'm not here to be making a ton of excuses
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: for Paul George. The bottom line is this dude has
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: to be playing better at basketball. And when you want
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: to like track down where this season has gone off
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: the rail, when the Sixers commit to their three star plan,
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: which they obviously did here, you need those three stars
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, responsible for that amount of the
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: production team, and that just has not happened with either
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: end Beat or Paul George. So I've personally been frustrated
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: by this seeming lack of desire to step up in
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: the games where Joel Embiid is not there, where they
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: don't have much going offensively. I mean, the final game
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: before the All Star break, Paul George finished with two
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: points that just can never happen for a guy of his.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: Caliber is incredible.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: I think I've for the I guess the goal for
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: the remainder of the season es salvaged. This is give
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: us something to build off for next year, show a
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: little bit of life in the guy that they believe
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: they signed. I still have to imagine he's in there somewhere.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: This would be like, when looking at the numbers, this
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: is the worst season of Paul George's career since he
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: became the Paul George version that we come to expect.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: We're looking at like rookie year comparisons and things like
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: that from a numbers standpoint. So he's just got to
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: wake up a little. I think they got to keep
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: playing him and try and find that guy.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Why does this happen to the Sixers all the time?
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: It really is. It seems like year after year, Okay,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: we're excited about a specif move, we're excited about some
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: personnel coming in and an acquisition, and oh no, something happens,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: something gets blown up here with that person. It seems
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: like every freaking year something happened. Sean, It's incredible to me, man, Oh.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: God, yeah, it certainly does feel like a curse franchise. Man,
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: it's everything that could go wrong has gone wrong this year,
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: and really for the past decade, it has felt like
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: that has been the case.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely stuff yep, absolutely Well, something that isn't cursed is
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Tyrese Maxey. He's always a bright spot on this team.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: You love his attitude, you love the way he plays
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: on the court. So many of us did just love
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: watching him play night after night. So how do you
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: think Maxie can potentially even up his game during the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: second half of the season coming up here? As the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: prospects of a playoff appearance look pretty grim at this point,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: where do you see Tyrese Maxi going in terms of
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: his play on the court and what he means to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the team.
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: Yes, So for all these conversations about moving on from
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Joel Embiid or time to shut down, there has to
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: be somebody to take the keys of the offense to
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: the organization here. That's what I want to see from
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: Tyrese Maxie, and he certainly showed some flashes. I thought
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: that final stretch leading up to the All Star break,
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: before that five point game which was before he was
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: shut down, which was probably the worst game I've seen
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: him play in the NBA, but outside of that there,
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: he's had an incredibly impressive stretch where I thought his
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: playmaking looked improved. He's certainly gotten his burst and his
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: confidence back, the shooting numbers increasing there. Let's just build
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: off that. If he can continue to grow and look
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: like he could be a potential number one guy on
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: an offense, that is a great thing that this Sixers
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: team can ultimately like hang their hat on for this season.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: So if they are going to continue to be these
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: injury issues within beating Paul George, which seems the likely
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: bet at this point, you're asking for Tyrese Maxi to
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: prove he can be the guy, and I'm betting on
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: him if that's the case.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: There, All right again, folks, talking to Sean Bernard from
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: Draft Kings. Check out all the content that he and
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: they are putting up over at Draft Kings and also
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Fox Sports Phillies The Gambler. He and his college is
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: doing fantastic job, a lot of great Philly sports talk
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: and Sixers talk as well. As we're moving along with
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a conversation here, Sean, I'm wondering, like who really should
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: be stepping up on this team more. If this if
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: this Sixers team is going to be competitive during this
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: latter part of the season, because you know we're gonna
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: get to the schedule in just a bit, and how
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: it is an easier type of schedule. But who should
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: be stepping up in more of it, whether it's a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: leadership role or just getting some more points on the
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: board defense things that you're seeing, who should be stepping
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: up more?
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: And I promise someone will fully side step the question here.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: But the guy that I'm looking at first is Nick Nurse.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: To me that this is your time to earn your money,
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: that you have been this creative head coach, this sort
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: of mad scientist, that he has that label that he
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: can concoct these wild lineups and generate some production. That's
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: what I want to see.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: That I understand your hands have been tied for most
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: of this season. He'd been dealt about as bad as
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: a hand as a head coach hat. But the reality
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: is this team stills to find a way to win
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: some games. If you are going to be the caliber
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: of coach that we all talk about him or expect
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: him to be, so I do want to see Nick
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: Nurse get pretty creative here, Quentin Grimes is going to
• 31:58
  Speaker 4: be a really interesting guy to keep your eye on.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: What was interesting I would say at the deadline is
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: they've really brought in a lot of guys that have
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: plenty to play for, whether that's contractionally, whether that is
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: career wise, guy like Gashan Yabucell who's obviously revived his
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: career in Philadelphia and he's changed his outlook quite drastically.
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: Lonnie Walker sort of getting a similar opportunity with that
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: right here. So I think these are a lot of
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: hungry guys that are young, need to compete for a contract.
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: Jared Butler another dude who was converted from a two
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: way contract and I do think can legitimately play. So
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: they're gonna give a bunch of young guys opportunities to
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: go out and earn their future NBA chances. And I
• 32:29
  Speaker 4: think each of one of these guys is going to
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: make the most of it here. So Quentin Grimes and
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Jared Butler probably at the top of my list there,
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: and any of these guys can really step on it
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: by in any given night.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: All Right, Well, to close us out here, close out
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: this discussion on this seventy six Ers team where they're heading.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Tankathon has the Sixers with the fourth easiest schedule for
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: the remainder of the season here Sean, So I mean
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: for me, honestly, that doesn't matter much considering how they've
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: you know, crapped the bed against competition like the Pistons
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: and the Nets before the All Star Break. I should
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the schedule really mean anything to a Sixers fans from
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: here on out? How do you see the schedule playing
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: out for this team?
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Not much. To be honest with this fun I think
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: all the issues with the Sixers team have basically been
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: internal that it's about them looking in the mirror and
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: fixing things within the walls of the building. This is
• 33:16
  Speaker 4: not an you should be looking across at and frankly,
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: they have some winnable games that they can take advantage of,
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: but it's on them to go out there and take it.
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: So you can certainly look at that as a beacon
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: of hope if you would like to. To me, I think
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: this is just this team needs to wake up, figure
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: itself out, and there is a world where the best
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: case possible for them was having no one at the
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: All Star Break, having everyone have a chance to get
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: away online and kind of return. We'll see what version
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: of this team shows up for the second half of
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: the year.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Very good, Sean. Where can folks find you on the
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: interwebs out there like social media? I know you're all
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: over the place. Let folks know where they can find you, buddy.
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you guys can follow me on x at Sean
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: Underscore Bernard one there. You can check out pick swot
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: media one on Instagram as well as the Fox Sports socials.
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: They're starting to crank out some much more video content
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: more often there to check that out. You can also
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: check I Got Sixers Digest and Phillies Digest on YouTube
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: and kind of catch me on air at Fox Sports.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: The Gambler pickswap media basically constantly.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He's Sean Bernard. Folks and Sean, it was great talking
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: to you, buddy. Really appreciate your time. Come back join
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: us down the road. I'd love to have you back
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: on my friend.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: Absolutely would love to a.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Great discussion with Sean. And look I there, Like I
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: said during that discussion, you know this team is at
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: really a no win situation. They're at this fork in
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: the road. Either way they go, it seems like a
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: lose lose situation when it comes to the Philadelphia seventy
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: six ers, where the season is going to go, and
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: even what's gonna happen in the future within the next
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: few years, which Seawan and I really didn't even get into.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: You know, Eric and I have talked about it on
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: the show recently, but we're still gonna be follow what
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: this team is gonna be doing. We're gonna be talking
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: about it here at the PST podcast show, but we
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: are gonna take a quick break right now to pay
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: some bills. We will be back in just a bit.
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: All right. We are back here and now we're gonna
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: be getting into some Philadelphia Phillies talk. Pitchers and catchers
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: have reported we are seeing players on the field. There's
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a lot of storylines heading into this season, and we're
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: gonna get into some of them with our interview this week,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: our discussion with a very good friend of the podcast,
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: one of our favorite guests. For sure. It's what we're
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: thrown down on the table and now on the table
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: joining us to get into this Philadelphia Phillies team, the
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: organization and where we think they are gonna go, not
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: just through spring training, but through this upcoming twenty twenty
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: five season. We have from this the Hitting Season podcast.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I subscribe on Apple Podcasts and I would highly recommend
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you subscribe as well if you are a fan of
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Phillies. And also he does the Dirty Inning
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: podcast over on Believe It Hitting Season's Patreon as well.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: We've got our good friend Justin Klue. Buddy, how are you,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: my friend?
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: Doing all right?
• 35:56
  Speaker 6: Getting getting that pre first spring juice blowing?
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely dude. I am okay. I've been listening to
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you John Stalling, this our friend Liz Rocher as well
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: at the Hitting Season podcast. I'm getting psyched, man, I'm
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: getting psyched for this season. I really am, Like, I'm
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get into it here. But I still believe
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: that the window of opportunity is not closed for this
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Phillies team. I think there is a bunch of talent
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: on this team for sure, heading into this season. There's
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: opportunity for this Phillies team I think to make it
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: through a postseason run here. So I mean to get
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the discussion started. Could this be the year that we
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: see Bryce Harper, Zach Wheeler, Aaron Nola all win a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: World Series?
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: What are you thinking here, Well, Jeff, could this be
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: the year Bryce Harper is one year closer to being
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: the Dan Marino of baseball. I'm sure there's not an
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: infinite amount of money in John Middleton's money. Pitt Dave
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: Dombrowski's going to run out of interest sooner or later. Eventually,
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: Nick Castianos will have to go back to his home planet.
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: Trey Turner's already a bottom five defensive shortstop.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: No one knows the age of a.
• 37:05
  Speaker 6: Fanatic when they die, but ostriches in the wild live
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: to be about forty and the fanatic is forty seven.
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: Wines are plumbing out of the sky faster than America's
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: standing on the global stage or infrastructures being picked apart
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: by manic Pixie computer Nazi and his squadron of pizza
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: face technoids who apparently accrued more government influence every time
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: they got rejected by a girl. The President appears on
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: television every day to give us updates on how heavy
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: the diarrhea load, and his pants is probably a few
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: weeks from the National Park and turned in the private
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: grounds for the Trump kids to hunt immigrants. The guy
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: running the Pentagon is going to indvertently trigger a nuclear
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: war by sending a drug text to Iran that was
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: supposed to go to his ex wife at three am,
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: and there's a meteor hurtling towards our planet with a
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: two percent chance of hitting us with the fourth of
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: an eight mega ton nuclear bomb.
• 37:49
  Speaker 5: Could this be the year?
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: Jet?
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: This has to be the year because we are running
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: out of years.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: We're running out of years on this earth, right, Yes,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, greatest answer this podcast is almost twelve
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: years old. Greatest answer to a question that I have
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: ever heard on this podcast. You just got it, folks,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: You just got it. I should just I should retire
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: the show now. We shouldn't even go through the rest
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of the questions at this point, justin nowhere to go
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: but down. Oh my god, holy crap, what a fantastic
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: answer to the question. Dear Lord. I don't even I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: don't even know what to do now. I'm just like,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I'm just staring at you, and I'm like, I'm looking,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at these top Let me bring up the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: topics here, and I'm like, well, do we do we
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: really want to talk about the bats? Do we really
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: want to talk about the pitching? After that, I think
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: we just shut it down. I don't know. Of course
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I'm getting, course, I'm getting I'm.
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: I'm really glad.
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: Ohs won the Super Bowl. Oh my god, that's a
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: very important not just because like it's the Eagles and
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: they won and that's like obviously we want that, but
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: just the timing was was really helpful. And I talked
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: about this one hitting season. Hell, you kind of need
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: that spasm of joy every couple of years to kind
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: of let the city just sort of resurge and kind
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: of like cough up all that negative energy and just
• 39:09
  Speaker 6: go through something joyous and fantastic together. And the truth
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: is the Phillies can absolutely do the same thing. They
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: totally can, but you kind of have to look past
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: the whole like, oh hey, well now it's your turn
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: like that.
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: I don't think.
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: Anybody on the Phillies is like, yeah, like particularly super
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: inspired by that, at least not for a prolonged amount
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: of time. But there's also this energy out there among people,
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: including me, I'm susceptible to this that Look, you know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: the last three years we had some really fun summers
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: followed by some bittersweet to totally disappointing falls, and this
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: being like the fourth go around with this group. I'm
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: not saying they have any less of a chance in
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: some big significant way than than the past three years,
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: but you do get a little sick of them just
• 39:58
  Speaker 6: not doing it because I think everybody, including the Phillies,
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: thought they by now, they would have had one by now,
• 40:05
  Speaker 6: just because they should they should have had one.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: But with all the money that they're spending and with
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the talent on the team, yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And when you look back and you see, like, well,
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: it all came down to they landed in Arizona in
• 40:17
  Speaker 6: twenty twenty three and they were just like, well, we
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: stopped being able to see the ball, or they came
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: into the NLDS in twenty twenty four and it was like, well,
• 40:26
  Speaker 6: you know, we tried, We thought we were going to
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: get up. We thought that switch was going to get
• 40:28
  Speaker 6: flipped when the playoffs started, and it just didn't get flipped.
• 40:31
  Speaker 6: And you're just like, the whole season ultimately came down
• 40:35
  Speaker 6: to that, and that is really disappointing. And I think
• 40:39
  Speaker 6: there's a subset up of fans who are just maybe
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: struggling a little bit to get back on that Phillies
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: train again. With that in the back of their heads,
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: and I think that's totally fine and totally relatable.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: It's fair.
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: But we are at the point where people are starting
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: to react to each other's reactions. So you're starting to
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: see that line get drawn between Phillies fans. But like
• 40:59
  Speaker 6: some people are like, well, no, you gotta believe in
• 41:01
  Speaker 6: everything and be optimistic all the time. You have people
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: who are like, well no, you got to shove your
• 41:04
  Speaker 6: hands in your pockets and be miserable. You sell Molly
• 41:07
  Speaker 6: at a junior high school, like we gotta. Like you're
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: seeing that kind of like separation begin and people are
• 41:15
  Speaker 6: judging each other's like outlooks for the Phillies, and really
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: all you can do is what Nick Castianis was talking about.
• 41:20
  Speaker 6: He gave them a great answer when when they were
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: talking about the Philly seasons ending bad, and he said,
• 41:25
  Speaker 6: I wouldn't say that we ended bad. We didn't win.
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: So now I'm on a revenge store to prove everybody
• 41:31
  Speaker 6: wrong and give everybody.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: The middle finger.
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: He's like, that's not really my personality. Baseball is hard,
• 41:36
  Speaker 6: and the Mets were hot and they beat us. I
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: know that I personally have put in work to put
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: myself in position to be ready to play and compete.
• 41:42
  Speaker 6: I'm excited for the opportunity. That's the only thing I
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: can control. And I'm not going to make this whole
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: show about things outside of baseball that none of us
• 41:50
  Speaker 6: really feel like talking about all the time. But that
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: does kind of mirror a lot of the philosophy you
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: kind of saw a lot of people take on where
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: they were like, look, I realize there's gonna be a
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: lot of stuff happening in the near future that's gonna
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: be you know what it is, and I'm not really
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: gonna be able to stop or even slow down what
• 42:13
  Speaker 6: it is. What I can do is look inward and
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: look at the stuff around me within arms reach and
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: think about what I can actually do and what I
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: can actually change, like by tomorrow. And that's what Casianos
• 42:25
  Speaker 6: is talking about in a baseball sense. I think that
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: is a healthy mindset.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: It absolutely it absolutely is, and I hope other players
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: on the team have that mindset as well. Like you said,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it's healthy, and I think that's what this team needs
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: because we know that the Phillies are really running it
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: back with batters that we saw on the team last year.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've seen streaky batters. We've seen inconsistency from
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: some of these bats, yet we've seen some really good
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: stuff coming off a lot of these players' bats as well.
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: So in terms of the offense, justin offensively, what do
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the bats really need to do differently this year to
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: make a postseason run? It is a loaded question, for sure,
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: but what and aside from consistency too, because I know,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: I know that's a very you know, generic answer. Of course,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: you need consistency in baseball and stuff, But what do
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: you want to see, whether it's from certain players, whether
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: it's from a certain batting type of philosophy. What do
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: the bats need this year?
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean you stole my consistency answer.
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: Sorry, because that's not an answer. You're absolutely right, that's
• 43:31
  Speaker 6: not an answer. And the truth is, all you're ever
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: doing is trying to give yourself a chance. There's no
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: guarantee your offense is going to work, even if you
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: assemble an offense as good as the Phillies have. All
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: you're doing is giving yourself a better, better, as a
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: better and better and better percentage chance to win where
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: you want to win and the amount you want to win.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: So what I want is to see a more collective offense.
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: I want to see like four or five of these
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: guys hot simultaneously rather than one or two. And I
• 44:05
  Speaker 6: guess you could chalk that up to consistency too. And
• 44:08
  Speaker 6: when I say that, I'm not even saying like there
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: are specific things they need to do or they need
• 44:11
  Speaker 6: to figure out how to do that, because I've learned
• 44:15
  Speaker 6: just every year, I feel like I learn a little
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: bit more about watching baseball and a little bit more
• 44:18
  Speaker 6: about watching the Phillies. And the truth is, there's more
• 44:21
  Speaker 6: you can't control than you can whether you're talking about
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: the plate or you're talking about the guy deciding who
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: the guys at the plate are. And ultimately, all I
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: can do is sit here and tell you what I
• 44:34
  Speaker 6: want to see is what I just said, more guys
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: hot simultaneously, so that there's not one or two guys
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: carrying the offense month a month. Last year, there was
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: a lot of baton handing off where you can probably
• 44:45
  Speaker 6: chart like each member of that offense had at least
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: a two to six week period where they were the
• 44:50
  Speaker 6: offense and that was great, and they won a bunch
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: of games doing that. They won more games than they
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: had the last two years. If someone comes at you
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: with the cliche and wrong headed notion that the Phillies
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: lower and lower playoff finishes indicate some sort of slow implosion,
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: you can respond by saying, the Phillies won eighty seven
• 45:07
  Speaker 6: games and finished third ninety games, and finished second ninety
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: five games and finished first. So there's areas where you
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: could say they're going down and other areas where like, look,
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: they're clearly, you know, getting better. And last year we
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: watched them exhibit the plate discipline of golden retrievers and
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: loose to the Mets. And then we watched the Dodgers
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: be a little more patient at the plate against the
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: Mets and easily dispatch of the Mets, and that was
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: really frustrating. And that gave way to the simultaneous creation
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: of thousands of pro hitting instructors across the Delaware Valley
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: screaming at their televisions saying, oh, they got it. They
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: need a better plate approach, they need to get jerks
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: and Profar because he has a really good plate approach,
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: and they'll put him in the lineup and then all
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: of their plate approaches will be fixed and they'll just
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: be a team of guys who have really good plate approaches.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: And that's not how any of that works, right, because
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: this team is assembled largely with free agents who've been
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: in the league for like eight to ten years. They
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: have their ways of going about things, and if you
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: suddenly decide I need to change my philosophy at the plate,
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: then you're not up there, you know, doing it instinctively,
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: doing it in the way that I always compare it to.
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: You can't look at two plus two and go okay,
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: two and then two and then it's four. You don't
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: have time for that. Yeah, look at two plus two
• 46:18
  Speaker 6: and no, it's four. And they are built to instinctively
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: react in exactly the ways that have made them as
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: successful as they have been. Harper, Turner, Castiano, Schwarbert, Real, Muto,
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: all these guys, if they're up there suddenly with this
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: whole other plate approach in mind, where it's all about
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: patience and thinking. And this is kind of concerning because
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: Kevin Long did bring this up a couple days ago
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: where he was talking about, yeah.
• 46:38
  Speaker 5: Some guys are gonna need to adjust and transition, and
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: you're like, I.
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: Don't know if that's the best move, right, then yeah,
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: guess what you get eight weeks of guys trying to
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: figure out how to hit again. They're not up there
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: going like okay now, like I'm up here, I'm a
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: hitter and I'm up here to hit now.
• 46:50
  Speaker 5: They're thinking, okay, I'm up here to hit.
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: And also there's all that other stuff I got to
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: think about and work into this, and you know, really
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: concentrate on and suddenly you're trying to do two things and.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: You're gonna have the consistency. You're not gonna have it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: It's not gonna work right.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: It's just not gonna work right.
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: So the idea that the Phillies would bring in half
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: a lineup of better played approaches and also change the
• 47:07
  Speaker 6: plate approaches of established and pretty stubborn veterans was a
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: fantasy from moment one.
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: So I'm glad.
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: I'm glad they eventually kind of put or or we
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: eventually figured out that they weren't gonna do that. They
• 47:19
  Speaker 6: were going to use that like one open position player
• 47:22
  Speaker 6: spot they were trying to fill to bring in a
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: whole new approach to hitting, and they kind of just
• 47:27
  Speaker 6: realized these guys aren't going to change. We kind of
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: just kind of lean into the team we have here
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: because again, they won ninety five games that way, So
• 47:36
  Speaker 6: what they do wrong also they do right, So you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: you can't you can't really fix that their approach doesn't
• 47:43
  Speaker 6: not work, or they'd stop winning more games every year
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: than they did in the previous era. I will say
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: also that Castianis's additional quote as far as and I
• 47:52
  Speaker 6: will go back to answering your question a second here,
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: but as far as like the Phillies and their approach
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: and everything, he also said, I do think we have
• 47:59
  Speaker 6: less pressure as a tea this year, especially with everything
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: the media said about us when we lost last year,
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: and we didn't really go out and make any crazy changes.
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: So if we lose, you guys look smart, which is dope, right,
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: But then if we win, it's like a happy surprise,
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: So it's kind of like a freeing place to play baseball,
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: know what I mean. What he's done here, Jeff is
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: organically arrived at the quintessential Philadelphian sports mindset, where this
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: has been going on for years ago. Generations of Philadelphia
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: sports fans have come into seasons miserable because their whole
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: thing is, well, if I'm miserable, then the worst thing
• 48:36
  Speaker 6: that can happen is a pleasant surprise that the team
• 48:39
  Speaker 6: wins and I get to go like, oh I was wrong,
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: and I still get to enjoy this. And Castianos, after
• 48:44
  Speaker 6: several years here has arrived at that point just all
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: totally on his own.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: What does that mean?
• 48:50
  Speaker 6: I don't know, but it feels like it's probably good. Yeah,
• 48:54
  Speaker 6: it feels like you've seen it's kind of assimilating with
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: the culture. Even further so, to your answer your question
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: about what do I want to see the offense do,
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: it is the more of them be hot at the
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: same time, but also use what they've learned, especially like
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: a case like cassianis, use what they've learned about playing
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: here specifically and use that to get better and and
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: and use that to have a healthier, relaxed mindset and
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: have the mindset they need to be the team they
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: have successfully been for the past three years.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, uh, maybe maybe the maybe the key
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: to this is Max Kepler, who knows Maybe it is.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: And I say that because I've talked a lot about Max.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: I know you have, I know you have all the
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: podcasts and I go back to John Stall, this just
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: coming like craping on it I'm kidding John, not that
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: John's listening.
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: I don't even think John hates Max Kepler.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think he does either. But I was listening
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: to that one of those recent episodes that you all
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: did and you're back and forth with John was hilarious
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: on Max Kepler, and I know you've talked a lot
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: about him. Maybe he's the key.
• 49:56
  Speaker 6: I don't even feel like I'm particularly high on him either.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: I feel like I've looked into it and the signs
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: are there that this could be a very uh if this.
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: Could be something that works, it might be. But right,
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: we have another question later. I'm gonna work Max Kepler
• 50:10
  Speaker 5: into this.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Sounds good, sounds good.
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: Well, interesting outcome on the table.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: All right, sounds good.
• 50:14
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Something you all were talking about again recently on the
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Hit and Season podcast. Again, folks, subscribe on whatever podcast
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: platform you're listening to us on the Hitting Season podcast
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: is fantastic. Over at Why y Billy Penn, you're talking
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: about the leadoff position in the batting order. You, Liz
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: and John you had an interesting discussion about this recently.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Do we think that Rob Thompson is going to do
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: some tinkering with the leadoff spot in spring training, and
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: might we see a new leadoff hitter other than Kyle
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: Schwarber this coming season. If so, who do you think
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: it might be in that leadoff spot?
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: Well, the only reason I think that he is is
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: because he said he was. If he hadn't said anything,
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: I would be like, Rob Thompson is not going to
• 50:58
  Speaker 6: right spring training one thing, but like.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: He's just saying it just to say it, you know,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: Know, maybe, but he's really not even that kind of guy.
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: He doesn't waste docs lies or small talk. I mean,
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: you could sit in a room with Rob Thompson for
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: like six hours and he just wouldn't say anything right.
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: Even have like a book. He would just be like
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: hanging out, you.
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: Know, right, riding a pure vibes, just sitting But I
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: got I guess what I would say is if he
• 51:26
  Speaker 6: if he's trying to mess around with the lead opposition,
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: that does feel like it does feel like kind of
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: a natural time to at least experiment with that, to
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: at least experiment with seeing you know, let's assume Schwarber
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: stays as effective a power hitter in a different spots
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: as he is in the leadoff spot, and yeah, you
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: know it hit thirty home runs with maybe a couple
• 51:45
  Speaker 6: more guys on base here and there. But I think
• 51:49
  Speaker 6: ultimately you're gonna wind up looking at either Schwarber, and
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: if it's not Schwarbert, then you're probably looking at like
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: a Trey Turner leadoff scenario or and I think this
• 51:58
  Speaker 6: would be more indicative of certain developments taking place, but
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: a Bryce and Stott leadoff situation, because he does have
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: like the speed and the on base capabilities to do that,
• 52:08
  Speaker 6: and he's obviously coming off a rough year. But I've
• 52:11
  Speaker 6: almost I've i believe so much that he is going
• 52:15
  Speaker 6: to have a better year in twenty twenty five that
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: I've pretty much just locked it into my brain as
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: a as a like conjective truth that Bryce and Scott
• 52:22
  Speaker 6: will have a better year. I'm not saying he's gonna
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: be an All Star, but he's going to have a
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: better year than he did last year, and he's going
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: to be much closer to the player that we were
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: planning on him being in twenty twenty four. And should
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: that all happen, I think that opens the door for
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: him kind of just at least getting slipped into that
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: role to see what can he do with it, because
• 52:40
  Speaker 6: he's got you know, he's got enough of the capabilities
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: that you want from a leadoff hitter to at least
• 52:46
  Speaker 6: get a shot at it. And if Rob Thompson's looking
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: around that locker room thinking like, Okay, who's somebody else
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: I could use in that role, there's really not too
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: many guys that he could look at it, you know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: regardless of what your personal definition of what a leadoff
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: hitter is. So I don't know. I think ultimately what
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: this will come down to is someday Kyle Schwarber is
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: gonna leave Philadelphia and everyone's just gonna be like, what
• 53:09
  Speaker 6: a he was just a one of one baseball player. Yeah,
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: not even just like like personality wise, just like the
• 53:16
  Speaker 6: kind of player he was was just a very distinct player.
• 53:20
  Speaker 6: And I you know, I'm I could also also totally
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: see this as like two months of trying to figure
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: out who the next lead off hitter is and then
• 53:27
  Speaker 6: ultimately they go back to Shwarbur.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Anyway, Yeah, yeah, all right, Well I'm moving along here.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: You know, when we look at this Phillies bullpen to
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: get in some pitching, get into some pitching here. This
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: is a it's a strong group in my opinion, or
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: Ryan Kirkering, Matt Strom, Jordan Romano coming on board here,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Jose Alvarado, Joe Ross maybe who knows what we're gonna
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: get from Joe Ross here, just to name a few
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: of these players here. So who who do you think
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: is gonna surprise us most this season out of the bullpen?
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: And why this is?
• 54:03
  Speaker 6: I was going to actually respond to this with a
• 54:05
  Speaker 6: question for you, okay, Jeff, which is that the Phillies
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: are saying, all right, if you liked Jeff Hoffman, Carlos
• 54:15
  Speaker 6: Estevez and you know all those guys, then get ready
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: for Ryan Kirkering, Jose Alvarado and Jordan Romano And like
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: we laugh, but they say that because they what they're
• 54:28
  Speaker 6: saying out loud is they believe Ryan Kirkering has shown
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: enough that he could take another step and be a
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: really effective, you know, top three late inning relief guy
• 54:37
  Speaker 6: to come out of the bullpen, and they want to
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: They want to use him in that capacity. They think
• 54:42
  Speaker 6: Jose Alvarado can return to form, and if you've seen him,
• 54:46
  Speaker 6: he is in phenomenal shape coming into.
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: Camp this year.
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: And I believe obviously that Jordan Romano is capable of
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: returning to his ceiling as well, which is very high,
• 54:56
  Speaker 6: possibly higher than the other two guys, assuming he can
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: bounce back from the injury riddled season he had last
• 55:02
  Speaker 6: year with Toronto.
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: So my question for.
• 55:04
  Speaker 6: You is, would it be surprising if all three of
• 55:08
  Speaker 6: those things worked out or would it be surprising if
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: they didn't, Because that's kind of more what we're asking. Yeah, Absolutely,
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: this comes down to do we trust the Phillies judgment
• 55:19
  Speaker 6: here about these three pictures?
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: That is a great question because I look at what
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Jose Alvarado certainly has gone through, you know, over the
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: past year. You know, we've heard about the family problems
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: that he's gone through. Look, I know when I have
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: family problems. I know when I have things going on
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: in my personal life. Does it affect somehow and in
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: some way shape or form what I'm doing professionally and
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: perhaps maybe with my job here and there. Absolutely, I'm
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: not gonna I'm not gonna sugarcoat anything. And I have
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: a feeling that that may have been an issue for
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: Jose Alvarado as well, dealing with family type of issues.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: When it comes to Jordan Romano remains to be seen.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: You know, whether or not he's going to be able
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: to stay healthy. But if he can, if he's got
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the juice coming from the mound like he's gonna it's
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be fascinating. And with a Ryan kirkering, I mean,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: for God's sake, didn't he didn't he start? Didn't or
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: not start? But his n MLB debut was during the postseason.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, and he handled himself very well,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and if you can, if you can have all, it
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise me if these guys were absolutely lights out,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: to be honest with you, and if I had to,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: if I had to put money on it, I would
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: say that that it would be lights out. So that
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: would be my answer here. What do you think?
• 56:33
  Speaker 6: I think I would be more surprised, and this is.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Pretty much more surprised.
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: Okay, from another angle, I would be more surprised if
• 56:40
  Speaker 6: if all three of those guys and Dave expanded to
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: the beyond that to the other names you mentioned, all
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: of these guys that the Phillies are saying, Matt Strom,
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: I want to throw it there too, because I'm a big,
• 56:50
  Speaker 6: big Matt Strom fan. Yes, that all four of those guys,
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: let's just say like they just go over four on them,
• 56:59
  Speaker 6: and that's like back down to a bad bullpen. I
• 57:01
  Speaker 6: think you where your fear comes from is literally just
• 57:04
  Speaker 6: your fear as someone who has watched like three Phillies
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: teams with three pretty good bullpens. Yeah, you're just kind
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: of like waiting for that for the gate to sway
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: the ship.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Almost.
• 57:15
  Speaker 6: It's like, how many I've seen so many more bad
• 57:18
  Speaker 6: bullpens than good ones, And it doesn't take much for
• 57:21
  Speaker 6: a bullpen to feel like it is bad. Even when
• 57:23
  Speaker 6: you look back at the numbers, you're like, well, I
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: really only blew like four of those games.
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: For some reason, it feels like sixty.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: So I guess like that is where like my concern
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: comes from.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: Where it's like, oh man, how many more times can
• 57:34
  Speaker 6: we get luckier? How many times can these guys come
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: out looking sharp? But just putting that aside, I think
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: I would be more surprised if all four of those
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: guys were kind of focusing on here, came out and
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: like had like awful sy like could not get the
• 57:46
  Speaker 6: job done whatsoever. Yes, I'll be surprised by that. So that,
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: I guess is my answer.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: All Right, very good, very good again, folks, talking to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Justin Klue from the Hitting Season podcast Catch Out catch
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: what they're doing on whatever podcast platform you are listening
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: to us on. I subscribe on Apple Podcasts and head
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: on over to Billy Penn WHYY and you can get
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: some great content over there with regard to Hitting Season podcasts.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Also the Dirty Inning on Hitting Season's Patreon. Justin does
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: a fantastic job.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: How long have you been doing the Dirty Inning for?
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: At this point, it's been years, many years.
• 58:21
  Speaker 6: There are three Phillies podcasts that I do currently in
• 58:26
  Speaker 6: season with John and Liz for WHYY and Billy Penn.
• 58:30
  Speaker 6: Then over the Patreon we do the Dirty Inning and
• 58:32
  Speaker 6: absolutely hammered it. All three of those shows have at
• 58:35
  Speaker 6: least one hundred and fifty episodes.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Nice.
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: Yes, it's been a lot. I would say since twenty fifteen,
• 58:42
  Speaker 6: I've been doing at least two of them.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: All Right, very good, very good, it's a lot. It's
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: a fantastic folks. You're gonna get the type of energy
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: that you got after the very first question over there
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: on those.
• 58:54
  Speaker 5: Okay, yeah.
• 58:56
  Speaker 6: The latest Dirty Inning is about Ricky Henderson's first regular
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: season game against the Phillies in nineteen ninety six. So yeah,
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: there's some juice to that one.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Awesome. It's an award winning podcast too, folks, so
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: check it out, subscribe to the Patreon over there. But Buddy,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: before I let you go, there's a lot of storylines,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of storylines that we're going to be following
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: this spring with this Phillies team and the organization. So
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like, what's one under the radar storyline that
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: you're going to be following as the Phillies really get
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: into spring training here.
• 59:28
  Speaker 6: Well, there's stuff like I want to see if Kirkering
• 59:32
  Speaker 6: can do it. I'm emotionally invested in him. There's stuff
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: like what's Ranger Suarez gonna look like coming in? I
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: can't Yes, absolutely, you know how much are we going
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: to test that pitching depth that has been cited so
• 59:46
  Speaker 6: often this winter? And how soon will that test begin?
• 59:50
  Speaker 6: Ken Brysonstott come back. But I don't know if any
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: of these qualifiers under the radars. So I concocted something
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: a little earlier today just to be able to answer
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 6: this question.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: Yes. So in two thousand and.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: Eight, the Phillies bring in outside help for the outfield
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 6: in Jeff Jenkins, the idea being oh, yeah, Jeff Jenkins,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: he's probably he's going to be the right fielder. Like,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: he's a great outfielder, he's a good player. We went
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: and got a guy he's going to be the outfitter.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: So Jason Worth goes to Charlie Manuel and says, hey,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: look at this montage, this video highlight reel of all
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: these plays and showing what I can do, and Charlie
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: manners like, all right, I'm into this.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: I like this.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 6: They wound up platuning the two of them, and I
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 6: believe they hit like two seventy somethings as a duo
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: for the first half of the season. And Jenkins starts
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 6: to fall off, and then he hits the disabled list
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: and Worth kind of takes over and from that point
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 6: forward it's the Jason Worth Show.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 5: We all know this.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 6: So this year the Phillies went out and got some
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 6: outfield help in Max Kepler yep, to play in left field.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 6: I'm not saying this is an exact one to one parallel.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: I just saw something.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: I remember some of your takes on the show last year.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, some under the radar storylines.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 5: So they go and they get Max Kepler.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 6: And you know, oh, he's gonna be the help. And
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 6: let's say, let's let's even give him like a solid
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: first half. Max Kepler, who they are planning to play
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: every day in left field position, he's never played, uh,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 6: every day, and let's say he has a solid first half.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 6: But let's also say that you know, him being a
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: lefty and West and Wilson being a righty. Yeah, perhaps
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 6: Rob Thompson starts get a little cute's like, well, I
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 6: want to play the matchups a little more, and you know,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 6: like we're doing that with marsh and Rojas and and
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: whoever else is around, but like I'm I'm thinking about
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: this with Wilson and Kepler as well. And then maybe
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 6: West and Wilson just starts seeing the ball a little better. Yeah,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 6: And if you go back and you look at his
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 6: limited playing time numbers, you know, he put up some
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 6: solid numbers last year. I don't think anybody complains too
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: much about West and Wilson. I don't know if he's
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: somebody that you know, has like when he was coming
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: through for the Phillies and like that same time that
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 6: like Buddy Kennedy and and Cal Stevenson were coming through
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 6: for the pillage.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: They all got kind of lumped together. Is like the.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 6: Obscure Phillies are like really doing it for them, But
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 6: West and Wilson, I don't know. Maybe he puts together
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 6: a highlight reel and shows it to Rob Thompson says
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 6: this is what I can do, and Rob Thompson's like, hey,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 6: you know what, that's pretty interesting and like you're here
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 6: and uh yeah, I'm me just kind of like get
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: you some more action. And then maybe Max Kapler, who
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 6: has suffered plenty of injury issues last few.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 5: Years, maybe some something gets pulled.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 6: Or stretched or right in a way that it's not
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 6: supposed to and maybe he misses some time and suddenly
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 6: you're like, well.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 5: We need this, we need someone to play in the outfield.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 6: And oh, look at this this young man who showed
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: me a video highlight reel of how of how good
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 6: he was, how.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: Good he can be.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 6: I'm just saying, this is how these things happen. And
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 6: when those types of things work out as they did
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 6: with Jason Worth, right, that's one of those things that
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: you can't plan for. That's one of those things that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: you can't even really pay for. You're just kind of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: like picking guys who you maybe have a feeling about,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 6: or you've heard about, or you like the scouting report
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 6: or a scout you trust said, this guy's a good
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 6: guy for that very low stakes role you're trying to fill.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 6: And you know, when that guy comes through, that means
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 6: you got a pretty deep and a pretty good team.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 6: That means things are going pretty well for you. So
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: I'm just saying West and Wilson's put up some solid
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: numbers over the years for the Phillies. He is a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: obviously low profile guy, nobody anybody would expect to be
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: a central cog to the machine. But there is a
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: little bit of parallel here that perhaps as far as
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: under the radar storylines go, West and Wilson gets an
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 6: opportunity in this cloud of outfield help the Phillies need,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 6: and he winds up using it. And you know, there
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 6: were people who were clamoring before the Phillies got Max
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 6: Kepler and paid ten million dollars from year right that
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 6: we're saying, like, well, why are we doing that?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 6: If West and Wilson's right here, like if you're if
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: we're really not going that far, if we're not going
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 6: Wan Soto up to fill the out right role, and like,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 6: if we're really trying to go cheap, you.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: Can go even cheaper than that. And here's Western Wilson.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: He's right here.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: So as far as under the radar storylines go, I
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: will say the Western, how the Weston?
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I didn't, I didn't. I didn't hammer this out perfectly.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: How the Weston was one the West?
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: You know what I'm getting at.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, absolutely, but very under the radar.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: Yes, perhaps there is a role yet for West and
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 6: Wilson to play. And perhaps it is a Jason Worthyan
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 6: type role.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, fantastic, What a way to end the discussion, folks.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: He is just in clue. Yes, what our I don't
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: forget it. Our favorite, your our favorite. I had another
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: interview on and we serve we love our guests, all
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: of them to come of the show. But buddy, you're
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: our favorite. You really are.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: Well, this is my favorite show to guest on.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Thanks, I appreciate it. I appreciate it again, folks, justin clue.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: From the Hit and Season podcast listen on whatever podcast
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: platform you're listening to us on Billy Penn and at
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: WHYY and The Dirty Inning over at their Patreon. Buddy,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: always great talking to you, tons of laughs, tons of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: great times and discussions here. Come back join us down
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the road, my friend. I'd love to have you back
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: on Happy too.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: Thanks so much, and.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for us this week. Make sure
• 1:05:37
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• 1:05:39
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• 1:05:42
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• 1:05:54
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• 1:06:01
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