Latest / Foul Territory / Fair Territory: "Meh" teams on the fence, Phillies & Giants W’s, Should Rangers shop Corey Seager?

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Fair Territory: "Meh" teams on the fence, Phillies & Giants W’s, Should Rangers shop Corey Seager? · Foul Territory

0:00
Speaker 1: I see the Rangers wanting to get back into this thing.
0:03
Speaker 1: Whether they can or not, I have no idea, but
0:06
Speaker 1: they are not going to concede easily. Welcome everyone to
0:10
Speaker 1: the Monday edition of Fair Territory. We are live this morning,
0:14
Speaker 1: and we have a little more than five weeks until
0:17
Speaker 1: the trade deadline. It is time for teams to start
0:21
Speaker 1: deciding who they are, and we're going to start off
0:23
Speaker 1: today talking about a number of teams that really probably
0:28
Speaker 1: don't know who they are just yet. I'm calling this
0:31
Speaker 1: division the med Division because these are teams that are
0:34
Speaker 1: just kind of slogging along. They're not that good, they're
0:37
Speaker 1: not that bad, They're okay. We're not going to include
0:41
Speaker 1: every possible team in this record range range of where
0:45
Speaker 1: these teams are right around five hundred for the most part,
0:48
Speaker 1: because we can't get to all of them, first of all,
0:50
Speaker 1: and some of them don't really apply here. The Red
0:54
Speaker 1: Sox are a team that's already made their big move.
0:56
Speaker 1: They're kind of going forward. The Guardians are a team
0:59
Speaker 1: that generally doesn't do much. Not too worried about them
1:02
Speaker 1: right now. If they sell, it's Carlos Santana, okay, whatever.
1:06
Speaker 1: And then the Angels. The Angels don't qualify for any
1:09
Speaker 1: playoff discussion until we see a lot more. But let's
1:12
Speaker 1: look at the teams in the Med Division and we'll
1:14
Speaker 1: go through these teams and then at the end of
1:16
Speaker 1: this conversation we'll get into a little Mets, Phillies and
1:19
Speaker 1: Red Sox Giants. All right, here is the Med Division again,
1:24
Speaker 1: right around five hundred, all of them, the Reds forty
1:26
Speaker 1: and thirty eight, the Diamondbacks thirty nine and thirty eight,
1:29
Speaker 1: Mariners thirty nine and thirty seven, Kansas City thirty eight
1:32
Speaker 1: and forty. Are you sensing a theme, Texas thirty eight
1:35
Speaker 1: and forty, Minnesota thirty seven and forty, and a team
1:38
Speaker 1: that probably doesn't even belong in this grouping not good enough,
1:41
Speaker 1: but we'll talk about them, the Atlanta Braves at thirty
1:44
Speaker 1: five and forty one. We'll start with the Reds because
1:47
Speaker 1: to me, they are quite an interesting team. They've brought
1:50
Speaker 1: in Terry Francona, They've invested in this club. They want
1:54
Speaker 1: to win. And tomorrow night we're gonna see after only
1:57
Speaker 1: thirteen minor league starts, hot pitching prospect Chase Burns, a
2:02
Speaker 1: guy who was the second overall pick in the draft
2:04
Speaker 1: last year. He's going to make his debut against the Yankees.
2:08
Speaker 1: You see him right there. Now. This is a team that,
2:11
Speaker 1: in my view and in the view of a number
2:13
Speaker 1: of executives that I've spoken to, could be aggressive at
2:16
Speaker 1: the deadline simply because they've tried to do some things.
2:19
Speaker 1: So the Reds are a team to watch. Perhaps on
2:22
Speaker 1: the by side, the Diamondbacks kind of the opposite. Now
2:26
Speaker 1: they're three and a half back in the wild card.
2:28
Speaker 1: They're a team that has lost so much to injuries.
2:31
Speaker 1: Corbyn Burns and Justin Martinez, an AJ Puck, these guys
2:35
Speaker 1: are all down for the season. Gabriel Moreno currently on
2:39
Speaker 1: the injured list. They just signed James McCann. He's going
2:42
Speaker 1: to join them. They had lost another backup catcher as well.
2:45
Speaker 1: So they're a team that you've heard Mike Hayes and
2:48
Speaker 1: their general manager speak they want to go for it,
2:51
Speaker 1: they want to buy. I just wonder if by the
2:55
Speaker 1: deadline they'll still be in position where they say, Okay,
2:58
Speaker 1: we're still good enough to go grab a wildcard and
3:00
Speaker 1: maybe get hot. I'm not seeing it, but cheers to
3:04
Speaker 1: them for not just conceding and saying, hey, let's get
3:07
Speaker 1: rid of Merrill. Kelly and Zach Gowan and Josh Dale
3:09
Speaker 1: are No, they're trying and they're playing okay. Still the Mariners,
3:14
Speaker 1: now here's a team that over the weekend got Logan
3:17
Speaker 1: Gilbert back. Finally, the rotation is mostly intact now it's
3:22
Speaker 1: except for Bryce Miller, who is on the IL. They
3:25
Speaker 1: are a team that has not pitched as well as
3:27
Speaker 1: we normally would expect, yet they've hit better than they
3:30
Speaker 1: normally do. This is a team that offensively isn't usually
3:33
Speaker 1: very good. They're thirteenth though in runs per game, pretty
3:37
Speaker 1: good above average right now, in large part because of
3:41
Speaker 1: Cal Raleigh. So if you're the Mariners, you're having this
3:44
Speaker 1: magical season from Raleigh, maybe one of the great seasons
3:46
Speaker 1: by a catcher in Major League history, you don't want
3:50
Speaker 1: it to go to waste. We know what they need,
3:52
Speaker 1: first baseman. Most logically, they dfad rowdy t les recently.
3:57
Speaker 1: We'll see how aggressive they are and how they play
3:59
Speaker 1: over the next five or so weeks. The Royals and
4:02
Speaker 1: the Rangers, these are two teams that are quite similar.
4:05
Speaker 1: Great pitching, awful hitting. The Royals have been looking for
4:09
Speaker 1: an outfield bat going back to the offseason. That's when,
4:12
Speaker 1: of course they pursued Anthony santan Dare. They still need that.
4:15
Speaker 1: Kaglian Owen's an interesting guy and we'll see if he
4:18
Speaker 1: can contribute the way Nick Kurtz has started to contribute
4:21
Speaker 1: with Sacramento. And they have, of course Bobby Wick Junior
4:26
Speaker 1: and Salvador Perez and Pasquentino the core of a good offense.
4:30
Speaker 1: I with throw Mike hel Garcia in there as well,
4:32
Speaker 1: but they need more. And all this wishful thinking about
4:35
Speaker 1: them trading Seth Lugo, I don't see that happening. This
4:38
Speaker 1: is a team that is going for it. Barring a collapse,
4:41
Speaker 1: they're going to continue to go for it. The Rangers
4:44
Speaker 1: I cannot figure out. Entering yesterday there were twenty six
4:47
Speaker 1: in runs per game and second in eer. They're dealing
4:50
Speaker 1: with some injuries right now. The two offseason acquisitions, Jake
4:53
Speaker 1: Berger and Jack Peterson both on the injured list, and
4:57
Speaker 1: then you have on the pitching side, Valdis still out,
5:00
Speaker 1: Bradford's still out. Molly tell Tyler Molly, they need those
5:04
Speaker 1: guys back, and they need to somehow get it going offensively,
5:08
Speaker 1: especially at home, where they have not been a very
5:11
Speaker 1: productive offensive club. I don't expect the Rangers to concede easily,
5:15
Speaker 1: and even if they do, I don't know how much
5:17
Speaker 1: they would have necessarily to sell. But this is a
5:21
Speaker 1: team that has been so far a huge disappointment. All Right,
5:25
Speaker 1: Finally two other clubs to discuss, and this one might
5:28
Speaker 1: be the most intriguing of all. The Minnesota Twins. What
5:32
Speaker 1: has happened to the Twins? If you've noticed over the
5:36
Speaker 1: last I don't know, two and a half weeks or so,
5:39
Speaker 1: they've kind of fallen apart. And this all coincides with
5:42
Speaker 1: Pablo Lopez going on the injured list. They've lost thirteen
5:46
Speaker 1: of seventeen and in nine of those games, I'm sorry,
5:49
Speaker 1: in seven of those games. Seven of the seventeen games,
5:52
Speaker 1: they've given up nine or more runs. It's astonishing. They're
5:56
Speaker 1: pitching has fallen apart. They're giving up an average of
6:00
Speaker 1: seven and a half runs per game in that time.
6:03
Speaker 1: They've got some interesting pitching to deal if they're willing
6:06
Speaker 1: to do it. Guys like Joe Ryan, Jon, Duran, Griffin, Jacks,
6:11
Speaker 1: they all have two years beyond this one. They would
6:14
Speaker 1: have extreme value in the market. The Twins are for sale.
6:17
Speaker 1: How will that affect them? Who knows. But this is
6:20
Speaker 1: a team to watch over the next coming weeks. Rocco Baldelli,
6:23
Speaker 1: if you remember, was on the hot seed earlier this year.
6:26
Speaker 1: I don't know that you can put him on the
6:28
Speaker 1: hot seat for all this, but I would be surprised
6:31
Speaker 1: right now if they're not taking another look and saying, okay,
6:33
Speaker 1: where are we going here? Not just with Roco but
6:36
Speaker 1: with the team in general. And finally, the Braves. The
6:40
Speaker 1: Braves last week played the Mets really tough. They had
6:43
Speaker 1: lined up schwellenback, Sale and Strider. They had a good
6:47
Speaker 1: series against the Mets, and what happens, Sale gets the
6:50
Speaker 1: fractured ribcage. And now you look at them, they're thirty
6:53
Speaker 1: five and forty one. They are well out of it
6:57
Speaker 1: in the wildcard race. I believe this margin is seven
6:59
Speaker 1: and a half games right now. It's difficult to imagine
7:02
Speaker 1: them being a playoff team without Sale for a while,
7:06
Speaker 1: however long it's going to be, so I don't know
7:09
Speaker 1: exactly how this is going to go for them. Alexanthopolis
7:14
Speaker 1: has not generally sold. I don't expect him to sell.
7:16
Speaker 1: He already had announced before the sail injury and now
7:20
Speaker 1: the point is moot that he wasn't trading Chris Sale.
7:23
Speaker 1: There'll be a question about whether he would trade Sean
7:25
Speaker 1: Murphy the catcher. Murphy's on a good contract. It's not
7:29
Speaker 1: kind of how the Braves roll. They like having two
7:32
Speaker 1: everyday type catchers, Drake Baldwin the rookie of course, being
7:36
Speaker 1: the other. Right now, so the Braves are in a
7:38
Speaker 1: funny spot. Can they compete and get back into a
7:42
Speaker 1: competitive position. I don't know. Albi's been terrible, Michael Harris
7:46
Speaker 1: the second terrible offensively. With both guys, they can sell
7:50
Speaker 1: Azuna at the deadline if they want and get something
7:53
Speaker 1: for him. But this is going to be a fascinating
7:55
Speaker 1: team to watch too, because they simply have not looked
7:58
Speaker 1: like the Braves of old, to say it mildly. And
8:01
Speaker 1: this week they played the Mets. It's a huge series
8:03
Speaker 1: for them, obviously, if they want to get back to
8:05
Speaker 1: five hundred, get back to a place where they're doing better.
8:09
Speaker 1: But right now it is not happening for them. All right,
8:12
Speaker 1: So that is it the med Division, And again it's
8:15
Speaker 1: not complete. I might not have every team. Don't hit
8:18
Speaker 1: me with your whatabouts. These are the teams I was
8:21
Speaker 1: talking about today the teams. I picked teams that are
8:24
Speaker 1: kind of in this funny place when it comes to
8:27
Speaker 1: the deadline, which again is more than five weeks away.
8:31
Speaker 1: All Right, Two really interesting series over the weekend as well,
8:34
Speaker 1: Mets Phillies. That was one. I was there Saturday in
8:37
Speaker 1: Philadelphia for the middle game of that series. Each of
8:41
Speaker 1: the games in this series was kind of a blowout.
8:43
Speaker 1: Phillies won the first one ten to two, Mets won
8:46
Speaker 1: the second eleven four. Phillies won last night seven to one.
8:49
Speaker 1: Great performance by Lozardo. They did some good things offensively
8:53
Speaker 1: in this series. But with this series and the next
8:56
Speaker 1: one I'm going to talk about this decides nothing, absolutely nothing.
9:00
Speaker 1: The Phillies going into this they were two and ten
9:03
Speaker 1: for a while there. Remember they had at two and
9:05
Speaker 1: ten run now they're nine to two. Since then, they've
9:08
Speaker 1: played much better, even without Bryce Harper, who could be
9:11
Speaker 1: returning this week. So good for the Phillies. They seem
9:14
Speaker 1: to have straightened it out. They are a team with
9:17
Speaker 1: a powerhouse rotation, incredible depth that they have. They may
9:21
Speaker 1: be in position to trade a starter, not talking about
9:24
Speaker 1: one of the big ones the veterans, but maybe Mickabel
9:27
Speaker 1: the kid. They may be in position to use one
9:29
Speaker 1: of those starters in the bullpen going forward. Who knows
9:32
Speaker 1: Andrew Painter is coming. They're really interesting from that perspective.
9:36
Speaker 1: Obviously they need bullpen help, maybe a right handed hitting
9:40
Speaker 1: center fielder as well. Met's kind of in an opposite
9:43
Speaker 1: spot right now. They're starting pitching, which was so good
9:47
Speaker 1: for two and a half months, kind of in a
9:49
Speaker 1: funny place. Senga is on the IL, McGill on the IL,
9:53
Speaker 1: and they just have not been the same type of rotation.
9:58
Speaker 1: Manaiah is one start away from coming back on his
10:00
Speaker 1: rehabilitation assignment. Mantas is coming back tomorrow. Who knows what
10:05
Speaker 1: that's going to look like. He had a thirteen EUA
10:07
Speaker 1: and triple A. So the Mets have got to figure
10:10
Speaker 1: out their rotation, and as Will Simon writes today in
10:13
Speaker 1: The Athletic, maybe get another infielder as well. All right,
10:16
Speaker 1: So that's Mets Phillies. The other interesting series again, another
10:19
Speaker 1: series that decided nothing but was quite fascinating for many
10:24
Speaker 1: perspectives was Red Sox Giants, and it was Ralphaeld Devers
10:27
Speaker 1: against the Red Sox. The Giants win two of three
10:31
Speaker 1: good performance by them. It looks like Devers might have
10:34
Speaker 1: the same kind of effect on their offense that Kyle
10:37
Speaker 1: Tucker did on the Cubs, kind of makes everyone around
10:39
Speaker 1: them better. And I've seen some chatter online from Red
10:42
Speaker 1: Sox fans how we're sick of talking about the Devers trade. Well,
10:45
Speaker 1: guess what We're gonna be talking about the Devers trade
10:48
Speaker 1: for a long time for a lot of reasons. One
10:51
Speaker 1: to see how Raphaeld Devers performs, how he ages in
10:55
Speaker 1: this contract that was obviously a concern. And two to
10:59
Speaker 1: see how the Red Sox reinvest the money that they
11:02
Speaker 1: saved when they shipped I don't know, two hundred and
11:05
Speaker 1: fifty million remaining or so over to the San Francisco Giants.
11:09
Speaker 1: I expect that we're going to see the President of
11:11
Speaker 1: Baseball Operations, Craig Breslow, active at the deadline with some
11:16
Speaker 1: of those savings. It's kind of the point, right, they're
11:18
Speaker 1: going for it, and Breslow has said, listen, wait to
11:21
Speaker 1: see what we've got. So the Red Sox are a
11:26
Speaker 1: work in progress. The Giants, too are a work in progress.
11:29
Speaker 1: Could use another bat. The Dever's trade is something we'll
11:33
Speaker 1: talk about, like the mooky bets trade for quite some time.
11:36
Speaker 1: So there you have it, the med Division, the two
11:39
Speaker 1: most interesting series of the weekend, and we'll be right
11:41
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Speaker 1: Well.
12:48
Speaker 2: Well, well, well, time.
12:53
Speaker 1: Now for the inside Dish, the part of the show
12:55
Speaker 1: where I talk about maybe a story i've written, a
12:57
Speaker 1: trend in the game, something else going on. And this
13:00
Speaker 1: week I've got really something incredibly sad to discuss. And
13:04
Speaker 1: you might have seen over the weekend we lost Scott Miller,
13:07
Speaker 1: one of the great baseball writers of our time. He
13:10
Speaker 1: passed away Saturday, pancreatic cancer. It's something we was dealing
13:14
Speaker 1: with for some time. He was sixty two, and this
13:18
Speaker 1: was a big shock to a lot of people because
13:20
Speaker 1: Scott had kept this quiet. Very few of us knew,
13:23
Speaker 1: and even the ones who did, we always saw him
13:27
Speaker 1: as so relentlessly optimistic, even with this horrible disease, and
13:31
Speaker 1: he was that way pretty much to the end. Now.
13:34
Speaker 1: You might have seen Scott recently. He came out with
13:36
Speaker 1: a book, Skipper, Why Managers Matter and Always Will on
13:40
Speaker 1: May thirteenth. The next day he was on foul Territory.
13:44
Speaker 1: That was May fourteenth, And this was I don't know,
13:47
Speaker 1: just over a month ago. Scott had covered Aj Prasinski
13:51
Speaker 1: as a player for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press, and
13:54
Speaker 1: I remember texting Scott before he went on FT and
13:57
Speaker 1: I said, Scott, you know Aj doesn't read, and Scott
14:01
Speaker 1: kind of laughed. We were just texting back and forth,
14:02
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, I never thought Aj could read either.
14:05
Speaker 1: What I had was a rookie with the Twins. We
14:08
Speaker 1: had a good laugh over that. Now you saw the
14:10
Speaker 1: outpouring from baseball writers on x Saturday after hearing this news.
14:15
Speaker 1: There's one baseball writer after another mentioning how much this hurt,
14:19
Speaker 1: how much we all love Scott, how he was always
14:22
Speaker 1: just so generous and upbeat and kind. Now, baseball writing
14:27
Speaker 1: the community is very close, and yeah we're competitive, but
14:31
Speaker 1: it's the kind of business, like a lot of businesses
14:35
Speaker 1: that really the only people who understand what's involved are
14:39
Speaker 1: the people who are in it. And in baseball writing,
14:41
Speaker 1: what is different about what we do well, the hours,
14:44
Speaker 1: the deadlines, the travel, the noise because it's public, the
14:48
Speaker 1: noise from readers, the noise from editors, the noise from
14:52
Speaker 1: players and managers and executives we cover. It's kind of
14:56
Speaker 1: an unusual job, especially with the amount that people work,
15:01
Speaker 1: and those who do the job over the years, as
15:04
Speaker 1: competitive as they might be, there's a bond that forms
15:07
Speaker 1: and that's pretty much all of us. There were a
15:08
Speaker 1: couple of outliers that maybe you don't want to talk to,
15:11
Speaker 1: but pretty much we're all, if not friends, certainly having
15:15
Speaker 1: mutual respect for one another. And there's a photo of
15:18
Speaker 1: Scott second from the left there with me and Jim
15:22
Speaker 1: Leland and Tim Brown. Tim now retired as a daily writer,
15:25
Speaker 1: it still writes books. Wrote the book with Eric Kratz
15:28
Speaker 1: that's from the twenty fifteen World series. So I wasn't
15:32
Speaker 1: as close with Scott as some other writers. Bob Nightingale
15:34
Speaker 1: and him were like brothers. Jason Stark and Jerry Krasnik.
15:38
Speaker 1: Jerry used to work for ESPN New Works for the
15:40
Speaker 1: Players Association, also very close with Scott, but certainly Scott
15:44
Speaker 1: and I were friends. We kept in touch over the years,
15:48
Speaker 1: and Scott recalled this and I didn't. But two thousand
15:51
Speaker 1: and one World Series, the Jeter home Run off, Young
15:55
Speaker 1: Young Kim, the one that made him Mister November, the
15:57
Speaker 1: Extra Ding walk off, we were to in the press
16:00
Speaker 1: box at the old Yankee Stadium, and you saw that
16:02
Speaker 1: photo from the twenty fifteen World Series. There were various
16:06
Speaker 1: moments like these over the years, all these moments, all
16:09
Speaker 1: these crazy games, and all these good times. And I
16:13
Speaker 1: mentioned on X going back to nineteen ninety six, I
16:17
Speaker 1: mentioned that Buster only that year was the Oriels beat writer.
16:21
Speaker 1: I was the calumnist for the Baltimore Son. We worked
16:23
Speaker 1: together and Buster left for the New York Times, and
16:27
Speaker 1: at that point, obviously the Baltimore Sun had to hire
16:31
Speaker 1: a replacement. Scott Miller and Joe Strauss were the finalists
16:36
Speaker 1: for the job, and Scott Miller was a guy that
16:39
Speaker 1: Buster favored. Buster really liked him. I've liked him too,
16:42
Speaker 1: of course, but I thought at the time Joe was
16:46
Speaker 1: the better choice. And I'll explain why in a minute. Now.
16:48
Speaker 1: We weren't the ones making the decision, obviously, but we
16:52
Speaker 1: would talk to the editor as we'd express our opinion. Now,
16:57
Speaker 1: the reason I favored Joe is actually testament to Scott,
17:02
Speaker 1: because at the time the Oriols were chaotic, Peter Angelos
17:05
Speaker 1: was meddling, the team had a lot of big personalities.
17:08
Speaker 1: There was a lot going on. I thought we needed
17:11
Speaker 1: a beat writer who was kind of relentlessly cynical, who
17:15
Speaker 1: would not take anything at Fay's value, who would just
17:17
Speaker 1: always keep going after this team, be a real digger
17:22
Speaker 1: and Joe that was him exactly. And when we lost
17:25
Speaker 1: Joe in twenty fifteen, he also passed away from cancer.
17:28
Speaker 1: And he was a great beat writer in Atlanta, in
17:31
Speaker 1: Baltimore and Saint Louis, I wrote about Joe and I
17:34
Speaker 1: wrote that he was the kind of reporter who would
17:37
Speaker 1: sense both a left wing and right wing conspiracy at
17:40
Speaker 1: the mere mention of a strained hamstring. That was Joe Strauss,
17:44
Speaker 1: and ultimately we did hire him. Now, Scott was the
17:47
Speaker 1: guy that you saw described on X, the guy that
17:52
Speaker 1: was just an incredibly nice and decent person. Now, I
17:55
Speaker 1: don't want this taken wrong. Scott was not soft in
17:59
Speaker 1: any way. In fact, he wrote a number of stories
18:02
Speaker 1: over the years that were incredibly probing and nuanced, and
18:07
Speaker 1: stories that had an edge. His book, the one that
18:09
Speaker 1: just came out that I highly recommend. It has an edge,
18:13
Speaker 1: It has a point of view. It's about how managers
18:16
Speaker 1: are getting kind of diminished in today's game and that
18:19
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be. So the way Scott went about it
18:24
Speaker 1: was different than the way Joe went about it, and
18:26
Speaker 1: Joe was maybe a better fit at the time, at
18:28
Speaker 1: least in my opinion. I might have been wrong about that.
18:31
Speaker 1: Scott went on to great things, of course, Bleacher Report
18:34
Speaker 1: and CBS Sports Line, actually CBS Sports Line, then Bleacher Report,
18:38
Speaker 1: and then The New York Times, and then of course
18:40
Speaker 1: writing a couple of books as well. And years later
18:44
Speaker 1: after all this went down, it must have been about
18:46
Speaker 1: twenty years. I carried a little bit of guilt with it,
18:48
Speaker 1: because I know I had recommended Joe, and Scott was
18:52
Speaker 1: my friend too. I felt badly about it, and I
18:54
Speaker 1: eventually told Scott, and by this time Scott was well
18:59
Speaker 1: on his way to being one of the most distinguished
19:01
Speaker 1: writers of our time. And he kind of laughed and
19:04
Speaker 1: we just kind of had a good discussion about it.
19:07
Speaker 1: It's not the kind of thing where he held a
19:08
Speaker 1: grudge or should have held a grudge. Everything turned out fine.
19:13
Speaker 1: All of our paths, our careers, take these unexpected turns,
19:17
Speaker 1: and you do your best to just keep going. And
19:19
Speaker 1: Scott did that, and he did it in a remarkable way,
19:23
Speaker 1: and he forged a path that was his own and
19:26
Speaker 1: uniquely his own. And again he wrote some things and
19:29
Speaker 1: Tyler Kepner, his former teammate at New York Times, basically
19:33
Speaker 1: tweeted his whole archive from the Times. If you want
19:35
Speaker 1: to go look at it. He wrote some really great things.
19:38
Speaker 1: So as you saw, he was one of the most
19:42
Speaker 1: universally admired and respected writers in our business. He was
19:46
Speaker 1: universally well liked, hard to do in any walk of life. So,
19:51
Speaker 1: as I said on Fox on Saturday, our hearts go
19:54
Speaker 1: out to his wife Kim and his daughter Gretchen and
19:57
Speaker 1: Scott Man. We love you, brother. We'll be back after
20:01
Speaker 1: this with Grill and Kin.
20:04
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20:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did it. Awesome.
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20:38
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20:39
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20:42
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Speaker 3: if the price might start just going.
20:46
Speaker 1: Up a little bit.
20:47
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20:49
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21:04
Speaker 1: Slash foul all right, time now for Grill and Ken.
21:14
Speaker 1: And like last week, we're also taking questions from chat BBCC.
21:19
Speaker 1: That would be Chat BCC. It's a free chat app.
21:22
Speaker 1: Go to foul Territory dot chat. It's totally free and
21:25
Speaker 1: join the conversation. All right, let's get to your questions.
21:28
Speaker 1: We've got some good ones here we go. Brad Barber
21:32
Speaker 1: asks which division leader has the easiest path to their
21:35
Speaker 1: division crown. Brad, I don't normally say this, but I
21:39
Speaker 1: think this is pretty easy. And it's pretty easy because
21:42
Speaker 1: the Detroit Tigers have an eight and a half game
21:44
Speaker 1: lead in the American League Central, and I ask you
21:47
Speaker 1: out there which team is going to catch them? I
21:51
Speaker 1: know the Tigers had a tough weekend against the Rays,
21:53
Speaker 1: but my goodness, the Twins are falling apart. The Guardians,
21:57
Speaker 1: they're just kind of drifted along. Here are the White Sox,
22:01
Speaker 1: and the Royals just have not played to their capability.
22:04
Speaker 1: So I would say for sure it's the Tigers that
22:07
Speaker 1: have the easiest path. The Cubs are in a good
22:10
Speaker 1: position in the ANL Central, and we all expect the
22:13
Speaker 1: Dodgers to win the National League West, but the Tigers
22:16
Speaker 1: have sprinted out and I don't expect anything different to
22:19
Speaker 1: happen in the AL Central to make them. I don't
22:23
Speaker 1: know a second place team, all right. Next question, This
22:27
Speaker 1: one comes from Oh my goodness, Eric Kratz, Eric who
22:32
Speaker 1: asks does can know if the balls are different this year? Now? Eric,
22:37
Speaker 1: I often tease aj Prazinski for not reading what I write.
22:41
Speaker 1: I just accepted at this point he's not going to
22:43
Speaker 1: read anything I write. I often tease him for not
22:45
Speaker 1: reading at all. And in this case, we had a
22:48
Speaker 1: story in The Athletic a couple of weeks ago, not
22:51
Speaker 1: by me, by Eno Saras and Evan Drelik, in which
22:54
Speaker 1: they clearly demonstrated that the ball is different, that it's
22:58
Speaker 1: not traveling quite as far, not traveling the same way.
23:01
Speaker 1: There's more drag. Major League Baseball confirmed this. So Eric,
23:06
Speaker 1: you know the answer to my question. If you just
23:08
Speaker 1: wanted to get on the show, that's cool, and we
23:10
Speaker 1: welcome you to the show. Eric, But you know the answer.
23:13
Speaker 1: Read the Athletic. All right. Next question, let's get to it.
23:18
Speaker 1: See what we have here. This one comes from Aton Hayne,
23:22
Speaker 1: who asked, ooh, could you see the Rangers trading Corey
23:25
Speaker 1: Sieger like the Red Sox did with Devers. He has
23:28
Speaker 1: six one, six six years, one hundred and eighty six
23:31
Speaker 1: million remaining, so the number of teams that might want
23:34
Speaker 1: him is small. Curious your thoughts, Aton, I had not
23:38
Speaker 1: looked at it like that, in the sense that, well,
23:41
Speaker 1: if the Red Sox could do this with Devers, maybe
23:43
Speaker 1: the Rangers could do this with Seeger. I don't know
23:46
Speaker 1: that they would. I don't know that they would even
23:48
Speaker 1: consider it. Remember, they won a World series just two
23:51
Speaker 1: years ago with Corey Seeger a huge part of what
23:54
Speaker 1: they were doing, and also in the Red Sox case
23:58
Speaker 1: with Devers. The one positive part for the Red Sox
24:01
Speaker 1: here was they simply did not dump the money. That
24:04
Speaker 1: wasn't all they accomplished here. They got back pieces and
24:07
Speaker 1: the two best pieces Kyle Harrison, who could be a
24:11
Speaker 1: solid starter for years to come six years control and
24:14
Speaker 1: the prospect, the outfield prospect, James Tibbs. I don't know
24:18
Speaker 1: that the Rangers could do that, get rid of Sieger's
24:20
Speaker 1: money and get that kind of return. The Red Sox
24:24
Speaker 1: in their case, had a willing taker. It made sense
24:27
Speaker 1: for the Giants they could not get a big slugger
24:30
Speaker 1: any other way. I don't know if things will line
24:33
Speaker 1: up just the same way that it did for the
24:36
Speaker 1: Red Sox and Giants in this trade. So Seger is interesting.
24:39
Speaker 1: We can go through a list of teams that would
24:41
Speaker 1: need Seeger. He has a no trade. He would have
24:44
Speaker 1: to approve it. I just don't see it happening again.
24:47
Speaker 1: I see the Rangers wanting to get back into this thing.
24:51
Speaker 1: Whether they can or not, I have no idea, but
24:53
Speaker 1: they are not going to concede easily. And in this
24:56
Speaker 1: expanded world we live in with the postseason being expanded,
25:00
Speaker 1: the world's the same size as it's always been. With
25:02
Speaker 1: an expanded postseason, it's very difficult for teams to concede
25:07
Speaker 1: and say, hey, our season's over. You do that if
25:09
Speaker 1: you trade Corey Seeger. All right. I want to thank
25:12
Speaker 1: everyone for their questions, thank you for watching, for listening.
25:15
Speaker 1: We will be back Thursday, our normal live show on
25:17
Speaker 1: Thursday twelve thirty Eastern. Myself Alana Rizzo. Have a great
25:21
Speaker 1: week everyone. Some big series on tap, Cups, Cardinals, Mets, Braves.
25:25
Speaker 1: Let's go.
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