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Dillon Dingler An Ace As Lead Catcher · Tiger Territory: A Detroit Tigers Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: And welcome into another episode of Tiger Territory, part of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the Battle Territory Network, a Detroit Tigers podcast. I'm Karen Steckley,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: with me as always as a man who is currently
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Rocky Mountain High, but elevation wise, he is Cody steven Eggan.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: How you doing tune?
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: All right, Kirean only elevation wise, but yes, sorry for
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: a little bit of an irregular irregular schedule this week.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: We've been juggling a bunch of different travel plans and
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: the schedules only get more complicated. We got to rain
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: out Wednesday or Tuesday in Colorado. Rather than do the
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: doubleheader Wednesday, where the weather's still a little sketchy, They're
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: gonna do it Thursday. So we've kind of got a
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: lot going on. The good thing is, I think we
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: have some big picture things to talk about, given how
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: well the Tiger's been playing.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so just to get ahead of this a little bit,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: nothing is official for the Thursday pitching plane and stands
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the reason we're gonna get Keeter Montero again. I just
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: went and looked it up. He last pitched on Friday,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: so that would you know make some sense? Well, yeah,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: lines up pretty well there and obviously it's a guy
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: that the Tigers trust, and uh, you would hope never
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: get ahead of yourselves as baseball as as a boy,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Austin Jackson will say, but you would hope that you're
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: not really gonna rely on some sort of like dominant
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: pitching performance, uh, you know against Colorado and you can
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: kind of get out of there as as Scott free
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: as possible. And I do I understand as the elevation
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: as we open this podcast, but you get out of
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: there as Scott free as possible. It does kind of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: set up like a it's it's it's a crunch for
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: the Tigers. I think that's a that's a good way
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to put it, because it's it's the get out there.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: You're gonna play two and then you got to play
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a Texas Rangers team that has some pretty stellar pitching
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: performances this year. Hitting wise, they're still trying to figure
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: out pretty much everything outside of Wyatt Langford. You see
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Evan Carter, you guys getting the nitty gritty of prospects
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. You see Evan Carter with the Rangers.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But like it's a it's a it's not gonna be
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: some slouch of a team. So it's not like, you know,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: you go from you know, from the Angels and then
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: you go to Colorado. Now you're playing a team that
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: you know has playoff and beyond aspirations and experience by
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: the way, So it's gonna be kind of like a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: little bit of an awkward situation there. The good news
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: is that if there is a silver lining to this
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: is that school Ball will indeed pitch against the Rangers.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: So you're gonna get your ace if you're planning on
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: going to the games this weekend on a.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: Home stand, you know.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So if there's a silver lining there, it's that school
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: bl is not gonna be as a part of this doubleheader.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: And uh and just as a really really brief side note,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I'm currently reading a biography on Hank Greenberg. A very
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: good book, very interesting story, underraged story. I think in general,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: don't think it gets talked about enough what he went through.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: But every other page it feels like is like Preenberg
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: did this and a double header, and it's like they
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: just had double headers all the time, like.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: They had actual scheduled doubleheaders, Like it didn't have to
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: rain for them to have a double header. But here
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: you're gonna get Schoobol Friday and a Schoobol bobblehead on Saturday.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: So that's how your ticket salespeople have to be just thrilled.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there, there you go, there you go.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Uh well, I don't know if you know this, Cody,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: but school Bol has been killing it recently that it
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: might be might be might be news to some people,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: but he's been killing it recently.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: I just looked this up.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: He's still like a heavy favorite for the cy Young
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: at like plus like two twenty to fifty something like that,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: not a lot of not like great odds or anything
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: like that, uh, for for the gambling public out there.
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: But he's been.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Doing it without Jay Rogers, so what so. So I
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: was kind of thinking for a rainy day, and I
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: kind of meant it metaphorically. Now we're kind of doing
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: it literally for a rainy day. I think it'd be
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: nice to kind of talk about one Dylan Dingler.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Dylan Dingler is killing it right now. He's killing it.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of different ways there, a lot of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: different stuff we go to. But since we just brought
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the school part of the conversation and I'll just go
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: with that. Schooble with Dingler catching, Nito has not caught Schooble.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Thirty innings allowed, twenty three hits, three earned runs, thirty
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: eight strikeouts and one walk.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: It's pretty good.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It's pretty good, you know because the reason I bring
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: it up because again, school is schoobl But he'll be
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: the first to tell you how much he had trust in,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: how much he valued Jake Rogers last season. So, like
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: like Jake Justify, so has been given a lot of
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: credit for how dominant Schoogle was in that cy Young season.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But if there's any sort of Rolex situation and Schooble
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: wins back to back cy Young's, I think there's gonna
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: have to be two watches because Dylan.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Is doing his part.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So there's a lot of numbers, Like I said, I
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: can I can get into, but I think we should
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: maybe start observationally. Observationally, Cody, what have you kind of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: seen from from Dingler this season?
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Uh?
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: And then and then talking with him. I know we've
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: done what kind of guy is he? But like talking
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: with him and seeing AJ's trusting him and all that stuff.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: What do you make of Dingler's impact on this team.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've talked about this before. Bal Like how well
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: a catcher calls the game is still such an intangible thing.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: I've said. I for all the advancements in baseball, I'm
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: surprised catchers actually still call games. Knows the Marlins are
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: now in the minor leagues. I guess experimenting with the
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: catchers not calling games, which I know like takes out
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: a certain like human element or to or purity. But
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: I'm telling you we're gonna have like basically pitching coordinators
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: call him plays pitches from the dug out one of
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: these days. Anyway, that was a little bit of a tangent.
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: Dingler seems to just call a really good game, Like
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: he seems to get guys out of hard situations. He
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: seems to call good pitches in difficult counts. He seems
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: to know have a knack for how to put away batters,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: Like you can't really measure what makes one guy different
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: than another, even like catcher Era's kind of a flawed
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: stat according to expert sabermetricians out there. But something about
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: that Dingler just seems to have great feel behind the
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: plate and off that he has great poise behind the plate.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: He always just seems very calm, very in control. You
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: start talking to some of these pictures about Dylan Dingler,
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: sounds like his preparation is next level. I mean I
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: wrote a while back about kind of the no t
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: takes and how he studies and gets himself to absorb
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: the information. Well, now we're hearing even more about like
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: he's basically running the pregame meetings. Like all right, Chris Fetterer,
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: thanks for your input. I got this like it sounds
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: like that's kind of how it goes, and that's a
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: sign of someone who really knows what he's doing, maybe
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: even a level above you know, some of the guys
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: were used to. I think this leads I've got some
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: of the questions like, well, what happens when Jake Rogers
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: get back. It's dyll In Dingwar now the starting catcher,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: and if he continues hitting like three hundred with an
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: eight hundred ops, that's a discussion. We'll talk about his
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: bat after this year. In a second, I think it's
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: still going to be a time share, but maybe something
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: closer to like a fifty to fifty split. I would
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: imagine Jake will catch schoogle just just because you know,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: and Dingler hasn't really caught job, I don't think since Seattle.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: So I think Jake maybe would catch job, and then
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: you know, you divvy it up more probably one who's
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: pitching than anything else, and then you kind of see
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: how it evolves from there. That's what I would expect
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: to happen. But right now, Dingler was a guy entering
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: the sea, and I didn't know how good I felt
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: about him, Like I liked his talent and he was
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: a good defender. Was like, all right, can this bat
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: even hold up in the major leagues? Well, so far,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: he's been one of many pleasant surprises and a big
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: reason that Tigers are playing as well as they are.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And we're gonna get to some of those stats, because
• 8:17
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• 9:25
  Speaker 1: All right, coming back here, Dylan Dingler, I'm just gonna
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: go to his Baseball savont page. Something I recommend everybody
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: do because it's uh. Yesterday we talked about, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: some of the metrics with hobby or buys being a
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: lot of blue with the bat it's a.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Lot of Austin Austin's not here to tell us that
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: doesn't matter.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: This, so we can go unvetted there.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: So but with with Diggler, I'm telling you it's a
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: lot of red. It's a lot of positive blocks. Above
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: average Cody ninety eight percent time cod stealing above average,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: eighty three percent tile framing, ninety eight percent tile. And
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: his pop time, if there's like a mediocre aspect to
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: this page right here, is pop times in the fifty
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: eight percent tile. So for fairness there, but with a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: fifty eight percentile pop time, he's still eighty three percent
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: tile cod stealing above average.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So, like he is playing elite behind the plate, elite
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: behind the plate, And there were some throws early when
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: he was playing you know, quote unquote every day that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, ohoh, man, like is this something that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: could be a problem. And then you just kind of
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: like take a beat, which I think sometimes is good
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: for people that do what we do and anyone who
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: talks about the Tigers or you know, baseball in general,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it's just kind of like take a beat and.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Then kind of see what happens after that.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: And since then it's been lights out, So so like Jake,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Like if I would have read that and said Jake Rodgers,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: but yeah, okay, that makes some sense. There is literally
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: not much to improve upon when Jake Rogers comes to, uh,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: comes back from his oblique injury in regards to some
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: of these defensive metrics that Dingler's doing. And here's here's
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: a stat I want to look this up because we
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: know Dingler was not a full time catcher at Ohio State,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: and you talk about the preparation. That's obviously a big
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: part of like how bringing up catchers and why it
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: takes longer for them to develop and and all that stuff.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: And my little joke about how it's kind of unfair
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: but we asked these guys to do because it's that's
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: not that important. But then if you can't hit, then
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you can't play, so like so it's kind of an
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: unfair game. Jake Rogers caught one hundred and sixty four
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: games in college. Dylan Dingler caught sixty two.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: That's interesting, that's pretty good.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: So like if you so, what we're looking at is
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a guy who, just by time allotment, is not in
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: his prime yet and obviously he's a very young player.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: You won't expect him be in his prime in general.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But that's a stark difference. They're both college guys and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: and high picks by the way, So so I just
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: think like they're still.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Upside to Dingler. And then at the plate.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: You look at seventy four percent tile exit or I
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: mean not exit velocity exit Bossit is a little down
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: but hard hit seventy three percent tile, sweet spot, eighty
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: nine percent tile. The hitting metrics are are off the charts.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: Remember I always pointed out that he was an extra
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: base machine in his you know, kind of short frame
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: last season, and that's carried over. He's got four home runs,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: four doubles, and a triple and a triple and when
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: he gets a hold of one, it doesn't feel like
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a fluke. He looks you talk about how like prepared
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and on it. He looks like behind the plate, he
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: looks like that in the batter's box too, You see
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So, like there's there's there's there's a
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: there's an argument to be made that he is like
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: he probably is the better catcher right now. I don't know,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: like if that's like a shockering thing, but like he
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: is the better overall catcher right now. Doesn't mean he's
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: like better for the Tigers or Jake is replaced or whatever,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: because Dingler still doesn't have enough at bats to qualify
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: for a lot of like you know, Baalian average slugging,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: you know, blah blah blah, because you got a average
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: like what three a game.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But but at the.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Same time, one twenty eight ops plus is not It's
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: not nothing, Cody, as they say, be.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I'd be even higher Kiaran if he would take a
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: walk at some point.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he has like.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: Zero zero played appearances with zero walks, which is just
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: odd hard to do. When you look in the metrics.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: That is the one thing that concerns me. His chase
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: rage is very high thirty eight thirty six point eight
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: percent we're talking hobby by his level chase rates, and
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: then the punch out rate is high. I used to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: always think Dingler would have a very similar offensive profile
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: to Jake, which is like, maybe he's not gonna hit
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: for a lot of average, but there's gonna be some
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: pop and he's gonna be able to take his walks. Now,
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: Dingler walked at a ten percent clip last year in
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: triple A walk crates him to be a little bit
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: higher in triple A, but he has a track record
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: of drawing walks. For whatever reason, it hasn't happened, and
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: he's hit well enough to make up for it. But
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: you look at three oh one average, okay, but only
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: a three h nine one base percentage. To get to
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: some more of the ceiling offensively, he's gonna have to
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: cut down on the chase. He's probably gonna have to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: cut down on the strikeouts and raise the walks a
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: little bit. That seems like something that should happen in
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: time alst it just feels like an anomaly that he
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: hasn't walked at all. But that's something to keep an
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: eye on because there could be a little bit of
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: a correction. Right now, he has a batting average on
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: balls and play of three ninety three, Like that's kind
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: of otherworldly high. That's gonna come down a little bit
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: if he keeps driving the ball. If that hard hit
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: rate stays where it's at, I hey, he could have
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: a great offensive season, but there's room to maybe expect
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: a little bit of regression, especially if he doesn't begin
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: controlling the strikes. I'm a little bit better.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you brought that up because it's it's kind
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: of funny to see somebody with a three oh one
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: average in a three h nine on base.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: Territory.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I was I actually like went to like a
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: different site to make sure of whether it's some sort
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of like algorithm or or whatever, you know, like, because
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it's just it's just it's just like you just don't
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: see that, you know. Really, So, uh, I'll throw this
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: in there. And now I don't want to underrate what
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: Thomas Nido has shown his ability to do. So like
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I'm including like credit to Tomas Theres I don't want
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that to be misconstrued. But since Rogers got hurt, Tigers
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: have played twenty five games. It's a sixteen and nine
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: record in that span. The team's ra the whole team,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: the team's ERA is two point five eight. And the Mets,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: who are because they're New York and the Sodo thing
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and they were a good team last year, they deserve
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of like the attention they're getting a lot
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of attention, especially for their pitching three point three seven
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: ERA in that span.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: So like so with a catching.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Room, no doubt, led by Dingler, the Tigers have.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Actually improved.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Now those first couple of games were Dodgers, you know,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: in Seattle. So it's not like, you know, it's not
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: like that's a part of it. So it's not like
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Jake wasn't calling good games or anything. But at the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: same time, the impact that Dingler has had is clear,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Like there's every metric you want to look at point
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: a war. Uh, you know, laid some of the other
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: stats there, I said, the ops plus uh, the impact
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that what Schoogle has done. I mean, there's no doubt
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden, the Tigers have two catchers
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: that you feel like, super comfortable with. I imagine as
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a coach, I imagine as a player, and definitely as an
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: observer of this team, like you don't have you have
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a one a an actual one in one a situation,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: not just not just one that you just had because
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: AJ likes to split duties, you see what I'm saying.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: So yeah, for sure, No, I think it's interesting, r
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: an interesting point where we can kind of start questioning
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: what's real and what's not. And that that's not to
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: say like what Dingler's doing isn't real to some degree,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: but like I said, where can we maybe expect a
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: little bit of regression. I think Dingler is going to
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: be a candidate there. But then the flip side of that, like,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: did you know Spencer Torpeesen's five for forty, it's five
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: for forty, it's in a slump now three of those
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: hits been homers. And then go look at his stat
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: cast page. The metrics are still all red baby. Even
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: if you break it down in that five for forty spell,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: his AX and velost season are over ninety miles an hour.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: He's hitting the ball hard. He's just hit into some
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: tough luck. So that's like, to me, really encouraging to
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: see that Tork's going through it, but doesn't seem to
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: change his process too much. I do think opponents are
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: beginning to alter the way they're pitching him.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: That's something I really want to keep an eye on
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: for the next week and see how he handles that.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: But the metrics are all there for Tork. They have
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: been all season, and even in what's been a little
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: bit of a dry spell, they're right where you want them.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: Another guy that's interesting to look at his cold Keith,
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: who got a lot of hate early in the season.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: He's starting to turn it on and then you look
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: his expect He's hitting one ninety his expected batting average.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: So Baseball Savant comes up with that based on ex
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: of velocities and launch angles. It's two forty three. Cole, Keith,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: we're hitting two forty three and taking walks at the radio.
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: Is with you know, the three homers he has, I
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: don't think people would be sweating it as much. His
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: ex velocity is still really low. That's always been a
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: little bit of a problem for him, and I think
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: his swing, but we've seen him barrel up some balls recently.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: He continues to be disciplined and have pretty good at bats.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Some of the metrics, like the batted ball metrics aren't
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: crazy on Keith, but I think there's room to expect
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: him to continue to trend upward as we get into
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: the summer.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, we got lost in the sauce
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit talking with Austin yesterday about some of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: these like big pictures and especially when he comes out
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: fire and so like, I'm just gonna let Austin talk
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: about whatever he wants, because that's gold.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: You know, we don't have to talk about every little player.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: But credit to Keith for having himself a weekend and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and and.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Sweeney Sweeney Sweeney raised.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Those numbers a lot on so so credit to those guys.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: We didn't forget about them. Uh, Torque quietly is like
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: top six and games played like the guy's.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Like in there like every day.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: So uh So I don't mean that as like, oh,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: something could be happening to I'm just saying, like, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: would you think we'd be saying that on May six?
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: So so yeah, so credit to him and and and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: whole and and you know, we we've seen a lot
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: of I would say we we've seen a lot of
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: surprises that you.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Feel like have value moving forward.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm avoid I'm purposely used avoiding the S word
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: because like you know, like my wife asked me a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: couple of days ago, like the Torque things, like you know,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: like you know, the average has dipped a lot. It's
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: like it has, but like, don't worry about that. Look
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: at this, look at that, and and it's okay. And
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of course he hit a home run the day that
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the day that she mentioned that, and so so yeah,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: I just feel like I mentioned this a couple of
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: weeks ago because I almost forgot, almost forgot about the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Jake Rogers being like, you know, the starter out aspect
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of this Tiger story when I was reading Rosenthal's column
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and and again that's that's one hundred percent due to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: to Dylan Dingler and what he's done. And because there's
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: so many good stories about this team, Cody, I think
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: we can safely, I think we could safely say, like,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the conversation is now officially different in the history of
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: us talking about this team because they've obviously never had
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: they never had the best record in the American League
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: in May. You know, it's just it just it's not existed.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: We've been doing this since AJ took over. If you
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: look at those lineups, you understand why it didn't exist.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: Uh So we as.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We move into this new era, and as Austin Jackson
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: is like, is firing on all cylinders about the doubters.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: You had just done a mail bag in the Athletic
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: So I was kind of curious what kind of questions
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: you were you know, if you could tell us what
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: kind of questions were you getting and did it actually
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: did kind of did it feel like maybe there was
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: some sort of mentality to use an old pun turning
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: up the corner among like what the conversations people wanted
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to hear from you about.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: One hundred percent. It was different probably than any other
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: mail bag or anything like that I've ever done covering
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: the Tigers. I don't think I got a single question
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: about prospects, a sign that people are invested in the
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: big league team. Normally it's a lot about like what
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: is the plan? What who plays exposition next year? What
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: is you know, some sort of criticism of Scott Harris,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Like there was none of that. It was, you know,
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: some line up questions, a couple of things that were
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: a little critical, but it was a lot of like
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: is this for real? What you make of this? And
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: then are the Tigers gonna buy at the trade deadline?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: You know, which is also not really a question I've
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: encountered much of before. And I think that's good. It's
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: all warranted, right, you know, it's a little early for
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: playoff odds. The playoff odds are up above eighty percent.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Tigers are playing well. Even if they totally cool off,
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: like in a big way, that you could see them
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: around five hundred and right in the race at the
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: trade deadline and there would maybe even be more merit
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: to buying that in that sort of circumstance than if
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: they just keep rolling and have a big division lead.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: Not to say they wouldn't buy in that scenario, but
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: you know, hopefully that point gets across. Yeah, it was
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: really different. I think you're starting to both see the
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: optimism of the fans and also see like, no, you know,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: people are when every single lineup decision is getting you know,
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: dissected a little bit more. There were a lot of
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: years where Tigers fans weren't that invested in stuff like that,
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: and now there's a little more focus on the day
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: to day product at the major league level, which I
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: kind of appreciate. Now we'll see, like I want to like,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: are these crowds going to be big? You know with
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Tigers have been getting more national attention, but are they
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: going to get national respect? In the words of a J. Hinch,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: like when's it going to be an achievement and accomplishment
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: to beat us in the series? You know, when are
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: they going to really be viewed that way a little
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: bit more that That's kind of what I'm waiting to see.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's there's no reason to think like
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: major League Baseball, I think is looking at the Tigers
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: that way is how I would phrase it. And then
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: and so like it's you know, every now and then
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I kind of go into the opposing media to on
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a gauge like that. I'll probably do that this weekend
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: with the Ranger series, because you know, some some good
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: guys around around the team that I respect, their baseball minds.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I'll have to see and I'll report any interesting things
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: that I find. But in we're in regards to just
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: like how this team has gotten here. It's been a
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: lot of this in terms of like spikes and production
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: from individual players. So it's so it doesn't so it
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: stands the reason that if this guy comes down to here,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: this guy will come up here.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So like, it's not it's not they're not being They're
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: being carried by a system and some really fun players
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: and and and that's what makes uh, that's what makes
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: doing this and watching them and the and the stories
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: that come out of it so fun.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd said at the end of spring training, like
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: I thought the Tigers would be competitive. I thought they
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: could win, you know, somewhere in that eighty mid eighties
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: range of games. Uh, so they didn't really see a
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: ninety version win of this team. Talking today, it's a
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: lot easier to envision ninety wins, right Fangraft is still
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: a little pessimistic, picks the Tigers to go sixty six
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: and sixty one the rest of the way, which would
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: make them an eighty eight win team. That's obviously obviously
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: based on the ZIPS projection system that probably isn't giving
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of love to Hobby Bias or Zach McKinstry,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: despite you know, their hot starts, and also doesn't account
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: for any big roster you know, acquisitions they could make
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: at the trade deadline. So, I mean, that's a good
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: way to think of it. If you go sixty six
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: and sixty one the rest of the way, you know,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: that's cool enough. That's playing something a lot closer to
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: five hundred baseball from here on out. That'd be a
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: five to twenty winning percentage. You'd still finish with eighty
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: eight wins, and you'd have a really good shot to
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: win the Al Central At risk of getting too far
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: ahead of ourselves, doesn't that like that's starting to feel
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: like the floor a little bit. I mean, it's baseball
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: a couple of injuries, all this change. But yeah, I remember, Yeah,
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: like I'm I'm, I'm kind of a believer in.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: The thing to remember is that help is on the way.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: And there is more depth than than I personally thought
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: there was from what we've seen this year and then
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and and there's depth that I believe in that we
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: still have yet to see. So uh So, yeah, the
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Scott Harris trained, the A J.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Hinch train.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Uh, it's Ryan and high getting compliments from Joe Madden
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. Like it's on MLB Network on
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the interview about it by Costas and all that stuff.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: So expect more of that, Expect more cameos on MLB
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Network and hopefully larger crowds and more uh and more
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: like you know, intense and meaningful moments, uh for this
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: early in the season. So it be a lot of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: fun to watch. We'll see what happened to Colorado and
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: then we'll and then we'll see about this Texas series
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: sets up a Boston series that will be quite interesting
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: in a variety of ways. So anything else, Cody before
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: we jet out of here, No, I think that covers
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: it for now. All right, Well, we'll see what happens
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: in Colorado and talk to you guys afterward. You can
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: follow us on Instagram and YouTube and Apple and Spotify,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: five star review, like, subscribe, all that stuff.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: You guys know how these websites function.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: We appreciate all the feedback and all the comments and
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: all the likes and subscribes because it helps us grow
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: this podcast into what we think could be a lot
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: of fun and a lot of fun summer. So for
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Cody Stapenhagen, I'm Kir Steckley. Everybody, have a great day.