Hello, hello, hello everybody.
We are extending the product line here on the G&K show.
This is four guys and still no clue.
With me today, I have Kenji Hull,
Joe Weasman and Brady Larson.
We don't have any clue what we're talking about,
but we're gonna try to pretend to talk about it.
So let's hop right into it.
["I'm Not a Man"]
I know we got new intro music.
Welcome everybody, if you even watch the first podcast
or don't, I don't really care,
but you're listening to us now.
We're gonna do a baseball podcast.
This is the start of a baseball podcast.
We're gonna talk all things MLB,
try to get into some college baseball.
We've got the College Baseball World Series on right now.
Brady might mention that a little bit later,
but I'm gonna let the guys introduce themselves.
Let's start.
Kenji, how you doing, man?
I mean, everybody knows and loves Kenji.
How are you?
I'm doing fine.
That's about it.
He's a little depressed today.
All right, moving right along.
Brady, how are you doing?
Welcome to the podcast first and foremost.
Welcome to the show.
How are you?
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
It's quite the honor.
Obviously, as you've heard, I'm Brady.
When it comes to our baseball podcast here,
just a little note to you guys,
I am a Phillies fan.
I am also known to love Bryce Harper
maybe a little too much, but hey, that's all good.
But glad to be here.
Glad to be watching all the college games as well.
I know you mentioned that, but it's always fun time.
I've been out there a few times to watch out in Omaha.
Oh yeah.
It's quite the experience.
It's nothing like it, but it's good to be here.
Yeah, well, welcome to the pod, Brady.
Appreciate it.
We're happy to have you.
And I'm sure you're gonna give us
some pretty ridiculous takes over the years.
And we've added a Clownhorn sound effect.
So stick around for that
because I'm sure it'll get played today.
And then without further ado, last but not least,
Joe Weasman, how are you doing, my friend?
Welcome to the podcast, welcome to the show.
Thank you, thank you.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Brady said his favorite team, so I'm just gonna say it.
With them, my favorite team is the Texas Rangers.
They've been kind of going off this year
and I've liked them for a while.
So promise I'm not a bandwagon.
I'm just not hopping on the bandwagon.
I actually do like them.
I've been following them for some time.
I don't know very much about baseball, to be honest,
like Gabe or Brady, but I'm just happy to be here.
I've been friends with these guys for a really long time.
And it's just always good to hang out with them,
get to talk about anything with them.
So I'm really glad to be on the podcast.
Yeah, I mean, the whole theme of this thing
is that we still don't really have a clue.
So honestly, Joe, you fit the mantra pretty well.
So does Kenji because he just looks at numbers.
He doesn't really know what's going on.
Kenji, speaking of, by the way, I mean,
for all you listeners, is that your phone
that keeps beeping?
I wouldn't be really honest.
Whose ringer is on?
I think it's Kenji's.
It's gotta be Kenji's.
Turn the ringer off, yeah, see?
I mean-
How do you turn the ringer off on your computer?
Kenji, just do do not disturb on your Mac.
Oh, really?
Yeah, you can just do do not disturb.
His phone is flooded with DMs.
So there's a lot-
Yeah, I got, I got, I got.
A lot of girls.
Wow.
People texting me like crazy, you know?
Exactly who I am.
Yeah, well-
Hey, he's not that popular.
Don't let him think otherwise.
For those fans of two guys, one mic, no clue,
you know how Kenji gets into football.
We're gonna try and do our best to stimulate him
to talk baseball because, I mean, this is the first episode.
We've been kinda hyping this up for a little bit
amongst the four of us.
Kenji is half asleep watching
a couple different baseball games.
So we'll see how this goes.
We're gonna try and keep him engaged.
We're not gonna talk any football here.
This is purely a baseball podcast.
But yeah, so I guess, Kenji,
why don't you tell us a little bit about your favorite team?
We heard it from the other two guys.
Why they're your favorite team
and your relationship to them.
Well, I'm an Angels fan because of Otani.
That's pretty much about it.
I could honestly care less about, actually no,
about a month ago, if you were to ask me
if I care about the Angels, I would say no.
But after watching baseball probably every day
for the past month, which I've never done before,
I have become an actual Angels fan.
I can tell it's had an effect on you.
Yeah, I actually like the players.
I love Zach Neto.
He's a rookie, he's a dog.
Estevez is really cool.
He throws really funky, but I like him a lot.
Okay.
And Gio Richella is hurt, but I don't know.
Something about him screams dog.
Okay, I mean, exhilarating stuff right there
from our very own Kenji hole.
Yeah.
But yeah, so I guess.
Oh, I'm not done.
Also, yeah, it was really awesome to watch the Angels,
you know, take three games out of four
against Joe's Rangers.
Oh.
And see how Tony hit like four home runs against them.
That was pretty awesome.
I can pay respect where it's due.
Yeah, it's a good choice.
As a fellow.
So I can't really talk
because the Rangers did quite a number on him.
So it was like the past three teams
from your Angels organization, they're gonna kill him.
I agree.
But yeah, it's been pretty fun watching it.
You know, it just all boils down to the Rangers bullpen.
Which honestly, I don't have anything to say about that.
And I don't want to say anything about it
because that's when old Tony hit all his home runs
against us, it was in the late innings.
So I mean, our starting pitchers, solid.
Our relief could use a little work.
That paired with, you know, old Tony, it's just,
it's too bad.
Yeah.
At least you got a starting roster, right?
I mean, Brady's Phillies got nothing.
They got no starters, no relievers, no closer.
They got nothing.
Well, the pitch clock's doing something to Wheeler and Nola
because those are two all-star pitchers on the same lineup.
But haven't been performing very well.
But the rest of the league is doing pretty fine though.
Well, I wouldn't be too quick to hate on the Phillies.
They've won like 10 out of 12 or something.
We've won 11 out of the last 13.
Hey, I'm just saying Angels bullpen,
our ERA is like a 1.25 or something.
So our picking's insane.
That's what happens when you get rid of Ryzella and Glacius.
So I mean, it's not that hard.
When the Angels lost, you Kenji, you weren't around for that.
Kenji doesn't understand.
But yeah, talk about, you know, a great bullpen Joe.
Imagine putting up five runs on Jacob deGrom
in the season opener and then losing the game
and getting swept by the Texas Rangers.
I was going to say, I don't know where you're going
with that Brady, cause you did start the season three,
oh, and three to the Rangers who took last in their division
last year.
So I'm just like, I was going to like let you finish
obviously, but I'm glad you kind of, yeah.
You're self up.
That's a bad bullpen right there.
Yeah.
Well, I will, I'll jump into it.
So I'll give a brief introduction.
You probably, if you've listened to the other podcast,
you probably heard me mention the Orioles before.
Those are my guys.
I'm from Baltimore.
They lost the first two to the Cubs
as of this recording on June 17.
Hey, shut up.
O'Connor just hit a home run.
Let's go.
Oh, there it is.
I'm a little more in the 30s than that Kenji.
I don't even know what to do, man.
I don't even know what to do.
Be a little more excited maybe next time.
We got to get you like an energy drink or something, Kenji.
This is crazy.
I haven't seen you this low since the Packers
drive to Jordan Love.
Sorry, we're not going to talk football.
We're not talking football.
That was a good one.
Yeah, I'm an Orioles fan.
I have been my whole life.
I love them.
They have made me miserable the last few years.
But the last season was really good.
This one, they're playing pretty well.
Solid.
Yeah, so I guess that's a brief introduction
of all our favorite teams.
Kenji doesn't really like the Angels.
He just kind of pretends to.
It's a love-hate relationship.
If he gets old time for these,
I will still root for the Angels.
Even when he leaves?
No, he won't.
That's the perfect time to introduce Clownhorn, I think.
Good night.
No, there's no way you're going to stick with the Angels.
Let me tell you, Kenji.
No.
I don't know if Dylan will listen to this podcast,
but the Angels are the chargers of Major League Baseball.
Like, Angels fans are the most miserable group of fans.
They're the most miserable.
We're not even to the All-Star break yet.
You just sit tight and wait
because they're going to fall apart.
It's inevitable.
I'm telling you.
All right, hey.
Hey, it's just like the Phillies getting hot in June.
What can I say?
Hal Schwaber.
Yeah, it's just Phillies in June just go together.
Yeah, so we're going to give a brief little recap
on what's going on up to date in Major League Baseball.
We got a bunch of games going on right now
as we're recording,
but we can talk a little bit about where the standings are at,
how we think the teams are going to finish,
as well as we're going to do a little bit
of two different segments.
We're going to do a DFA watch,
which is a designate for assignment watch.
Who's going to get DFA or who should get DFA?
And then a players to watch.
Kenji doesn't really want to do it
because he doesn't want to give away
his fancy baseball secrets.
We're going to talk about our podcast schedule
and then we'll wrap it up and get out of here
because we don't want to keep everybody too long.
But so then hopping right in,
up to date in Major League Baseball.
So how are we going to go about this, fellas?
I mean, we all are fans, except for, I guess, Joe and Kenji,
you guys like teams in the same division,
but we can all kind of give recaps on different parts
of Major League Baseball.
I mean, anybody want to kick it off?
Do you want me to kick it off?
I can do the AL East.
I can let everybody know what's going on.
Sure.
I don't know who's in what division or what.
Kenji, what division are the Angels in?
Remind me.
California division.
All right, okay, he's got that.
He's right.
Okay, nevermind, we might not.
This might be a little bit of trouble.
Yeah, this might not be a good signal for Kenji.
I'll cover for Kenji.
I mean, Rangers, ALS, straight.
Yeah, so if we go to the AL East,
that's the best division in baseball.
Don't try and say that it's not.
And first is Tampa Bay.
They're unbelievable, 51 and 22.
They just beat the piss out of everybody.
My O's are in second at 43 and 27,
which would be good to win, I think,
every other division in baseball,
but we're playing in the AL East,
so we're six and a half back.
The Yankees at 39 and 31, 10 and a half.
Blue Jays, 39, 32, 11 back.
And then Boston Red Sox, 35 and 35.
Boston.
But yeah, it's been,
the AL East is a dogfight every single year.
Even Boston at 35 and 35, they're still contenders.
I think there was some crazy stat,
correct me if I'm wrong, guys,
but wasn't there a graphic that the worst team
in the AL East was like, could win the AL Central
or something like that, like when you looked at the graphic?
Yeah, I think it was.
It's the NL Central right now.
It used to be the AL Central though.
It's the entire AL East was better than the AL Central.
Yeah.
Like all the teams had a better record
than all of the AL Central.
The AL Mid.
Nuts.
You mean AL Mid?
You know what?
Yeah.
I didn't say it.
The Red Sox in the AL Central would be half gay
behind the Minnesota Twins right now.
For the lead, right?
For the lead.
And then they'd beat Milwaukee just barely.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
I mean, they're like the mid,
I mean, I really call them the mid divisions
because they're in the middle of the country.
So they're actually mid,
but they, the records, they're also mid too.
I gotta be honest,
I'm not afraid of anybody in either central division.
The Brewers scare me a little bit.
I guess the Cubs are taking two out of the first two
to the O's.
But the AL Mid and the NL Mid.
NL Central is not as bad, but AL Mid is mid.
Yeah, NL Central should be a lot better in theory actually.
Yeah, because what is the AL Central?
Isn't it like it's Twins, Royals, Tigers?
Guardians, White Sox.
Yeah, I'm not afraid of anybody in there.
No, no, absolutely not.
Let's hear it.
Maybe we have some fans from the AL Central,
but we're not gonna talk about you today
because this is our first episode.
Joe, kick us off with the AL West.
You know, it's kind of hard for me to say this,
but you know, my Rangers are on top right now,
leading about three and a half games
behind or in front of the Astros.
Wow, that kind of hurts.
You know, but a scary team, a scary team in the AL West.
Obviously the standings are, it goes Rangers at one,
and then you got the Astros, Angels, Mariners,
and the Athletics.
A scary team in the AL West right now.
Oakland, right?
Oakland, yes.
I was gonna say the Angels.
The Angels have been on a terror lately.
I don't really wanna talk about kind of what happened
these past four days, but I mean, it's for the podcast,
so I'm just gonna say it.
The Rangers did lose three out of four to the Angels.
In Texas.
In that series, in Texas.
You know, we were, we lost the first game, the Rangers,
and you know, I was kind of feeling hopeful.
It's like, you know, we, I mean, we dropped a game
to the Cardinals last week, so it's just like,
it's bound to happen.
It's baseball.
But the thing is, we lost again,
and then we won the third one,
so I kind of had hope that we could at least tie the series,
but then, Old Tiny's been on a terror, you know,
our hitting hasn't been the greatest.
You know, it's been, I think we're number one in runs
in the league, but obviously this past week,
we've been struggling.
We also played the Rays during the weekend,
and that was tough.
Obviously, best team in baseball.
We managed to take one out of three,
but which is better than getting swept, obviously,
but it's the Rays, man.
He's, yeah, it was tough.
The Rays are just crazy.
Yeah.
Taking, sneaking one game out of Tampa is all you can do.
So yeah.
Yeah, I was really glad that happened.
I mean, they, Sheldie Ovalde, the,
I think number one ranked in the AL right now.
Yeah.
He might've dropped, but he, you know,
he's just been really solid for us,
and watching the Rays just kind of beat down on him.
Not exactly beat down, but he's been really solid,
really low ERA and a whip the whole time, but you know.
Yeah, they hit him around pretty good.
They got him pretty good.
Yeah.
I mean, Oakland, didn't they just win?
I know their winning streak was snapped.
So yeah, they took two games off the Rays.
The first two games off the Rays they took,
and I was ecstatic.
I was so happy.
I would come home from work.
Me and my brother would turn the A's Rays game on,
and we'd win twice in a row.
It was like the greatest thing ever.
They had that reverse boycott game.
That was sick.
They did.
20,000.
That was so fun.
20,000 fans.
That was pretty cool.
Yeah.
That was awesome.
And yeah, they've been doing good, actually.
Seven and three in their past 10 games.
So it's just like, they're pretty solid.
I mean.
They're nine and 27 at home.
I just saw that number.
That's.
Oh, man.
Wow.
The Royals have lost 10 in a row.
So if we go back to the AL made for a second,
they have the worst record in baseball.
It's going to be 13 in a row or 12 in a row.
Just letting you know.
Who are they playing?
Angels, that's why.
Oh, no.
They'll sneak one out of there.
Yeah, they'll sneak one out of there.
Kenji, your entire roster is going to die.
Who's in the Angels' rotation?
Let's see.
Who's pitching for them?
The pitching?
Yeah.
OK, I can name you some.
We got Brandon.
What's his face?
We got Canning who started today.
Griffin Canning, yep.
He actually throws really weird.
Yeah, he does.
He's like, I know four guys, but I don't know the names of them
right now.
OK.
Oh, Detmers.
That's like, we threw him in my hair last year.
He threw a no-no.
He's good.
Kenji, you also have a great lofty.
He's pretty good.
Oh, Sandoval.
Sandoval's good.
Sandoval.
He was yesterday.
He was really good yesterday.
Yeah, aside from Otani, I'd say he's the best
starter in that rotation.
Otani's been a little tired now.
Terrible.
Yeah, Otani's been a little tired.
Well, when he has to put an entire team on his back just
for that, dude.
Honestly, it's because Mike Trout sucks this year.
Yeah.
I think every time I watch it, I think he strikes it
at least two times a game.
Seager just homers.
Let's go for two against the Jays.
Sorry, guys.
Sorry for the interruption.
Seager's been a little tired lately.
I'm just telling.
If he could hit a little bit better for average,
our team would be even better.
Trout?
He keeps striking out every time.
Mike Flounder, you mean?
Mike Flounder?
I think he's just trying to do too much.
He's got big shoes to fill, obviously,
and he's just trying to swing out of his shoes
every single lap.
So I think if he's like, obviously.
Because Taylor Ward's playing pretty well.
Brandon Jury's playing really, really good for the Angels
right now.
He's hit two whole months today.
The past two weeks, he's a menace.
The bottom of our lineup sucks because half of our infield
is hurt, and we've got a bunch of guys that we pulled up
who have never hit in the major leagues before
and never heard of them before.
But besides that, the top of our lineup is playing really good.
And then our reliever's playing really good,
and our closer's really good.
Yeah, see, Kenji doesn't know much
about the roster or the division or most of Major League
Baseball, but he knows the team.
You watch the games.
You'll be like, they're playing pretty good lately.
You can see it.
Kenji can watch ball.
I watch multiple games a day.
I watch like four games a day.
Yeah, yeah.
It was like your Fortnite phase.
It was like your Fortnite phase where
you said you weren't going to really do it,
but then you played it a couple of times
and you watched some of the highlights.
I remember when you were watching baseball
highlights for a little bit, and then
I started watching the four games.
It's just how it is.
Yeah, Courage JD's just more entertaining than I'm going to
do, I guess.
Apparently.
But I guess that brings us to me then.
Yeah.
Well, obviously we're in the NL East, which honestly should
be a lot better than it is this year.
I mean, Mets are always going to Met,
and that's never going to change.
But currently, the Phillies are 11 for their last 13.
They snapped Oakland's winning streak.
They snapped Arizona's hot streak there for second.
Wait, hold on, didn't Tampa snap Oakland's winning streak?
OK, that's fair.
But we beat them yesterday, the day after they beat Tampa.
And then we just beat Arizona and took three out of four
against them, who they've been on a tear lately.
We've won the last four series in a row,
and we're looking, well, I would assume
we're going to win another game here against Oakland
and take our fifth in a row, which is big.
The only problem is we go into Atlanta next week,
or we play Atlanta at home.
Wasn't it Atlanta and the Mets?
Yeah.
That's the Mets, come on.
That's a fun week.
I mean, some stuff in the NL East is getting decided this week.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
At the end of May, we had the same schedule,
where we went to Atlanta and then to New York,
and then to Washington, actually.
But upcoming here at the end of June,
we have Atlanta at home, New York, the Mets at home,
and then we take a break and go away to Chicago to play the Cubs.
But then we go to the Red Hot, man.
Cubs are the Red Red Hot.
Don't sleep on the Cubs.
But then we got the Nationals at home again.
So we got all the division home games here coming up.
It must be nice to play in a division with either Oakland
or the Nationals.
Yeah, or Kansas City.
Pretty nice.
Or Kansas City, yeah.
But yeah, right now.
Instead of our days off, we're against the Red Sox.
Never mind.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
But you're good.
But now, so we're eight games back from Atlanta,
who's in the lead, who's 44 and 26.
But we're only three games behind Miami,
who is second in the division, which we should hopefully
take that over pretty quickly.
Yeah.
And kind of gain a lead.
I don't think, I think us in Atlanta
are probably going to end up in a dogfight to end the year.
But I ultimately think we're going
to have to make another run like last year coming out
of the wild card spots.
Yeah.
You guys need your pitchers to pick it up.
I mean, you need Gleesler and Nola to figure it out,
because in the playoffs, that's not going to cut it.
No, absolutely not.
Yeah.
But it'll be fun to watch.
I mean, I know I'll be watching Braves-Fillies,
especially with how hot you guys have been in a little bit.
Yeah.
And then so we'll cover, I guess I'll briefly
cover the other divisions in the National League.
NL Mid, Brewers are leading it.
They're 35 and 34, just to give you a taste of how bad
that division is.
Reds, the Reds, which are really fun to watch, by the way.
Reds have some young guys that are really good.
Andrew Abbott, lefty pitcher, has a lot of running.
Dela Cruz is a dog.
Yeah, Dela Cruz is good.
Dela has a total base.
Yep.
They have Steer, they have McLean.
Reds have some dogs.
Hunter Green is really good, too, when he's healthy.
Pirates at 34.
He does give out seven runs in an outing.
Yeah.
Pirates at 34 and 34.
Half game back.
Cubs, 33 and 37.
And the most underwhelming team in baseball.
And the most.
Yeah, the most depressing, disappointing season
in this entire 2023 season.
The St. Louis Cardinals are 27 and 43.
Brady, how's your dad doing with that?
I mean, does he even watch the games anymore?
Oh, him and Griff are really just loving it.
That's right, Griff is a fan as well.
Yeah.
They're just loving it, dude.
I don't know what to tell you.
They don't even watch anymore.
They're so over it.
Yeah.
They just basically, they just root for their fantasy teams
and call it a day.
Yeah.
I had Gallegos.
I was watching the game the other day against the Giants,
that final game, before they got swept at home
against the San Francisco Giants.
And Gallegos threw a 2-2 fastball right down the middle
to Yostromski, who headed out to tie the game at the very end.
I saw that.
Yeah, that was, that was, I watched that live
and I was like, of course that would happen.
Cardinals going to Cardinal.
Yep, Cardinals going to Cardinal.
And then the West, the Snakes, the Arizona Diamondbacks
are actually at the top of it.
That may be the most surprising result so far,
I got to be honest.
I don't know if I would pick Diamondbacks to lead in June.
But 42 and 28 for the Diamondbacks, 7 and 3
in the last 10.
Wait, they're 42 and 28?
Yeah, 42 and 28 for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
I did not know they were actually that good.
They're really good.
Their pitching's doing a great job.
Their hitters are great.
Joe's favorite guy, Cattell Martell has been
a good guy.
They got a lot of good young guys.
Cattell Martell, I mean the rookie,
I would say Corbin Carroll.
Yeah, he's-
Oh my goodness, Corbin Carroll.
Come on, rookie of the year for sure.
Yeah, McCarthy's pretty good too.
McCarthy's good.
Yeah, and then we have the Dodgers, 39 and 31,
three games back, four and six in their last 10.
They have a huge bullpen problem.
They do.
Yesterday's game.
Massive bullpen problem.
Yeah, they have a huge problem with their bullpen.
They need to go get some guys at the deadline.
And they have so many starters hurt.
Bobby Miller's my guy, but Michael Grove they brought up too.
He's been bad.
And Walker Buehler, of course, is on IL.
Kershaw's been fantastic.
They'll be regardless, terrible.
I think Dustin May too, he's still on IL.
He's not back yet.
They got so many guys.
Yeah, they got so many guys out and that's not good.
Gonsolin didn't make it back.
Look at their offense this year.
Gonsolin is good.
I don't know a ton about baseball,
but they've downgraded a ton when it comes to hitters.
The past years they've had just stacked players everywhere.
Well last year they had so many mid players like Hayward, Peralta, Rojas, and Vargas are
just like.
Yeah, they're just like role players.
They're like 230, 240.
They have a couple of good games in a week, but that's about it.
Freddie and Mookie and What's Smith and that's about it.
Yeah.
Well last year's team was gross because they had Belly on that team.
They had Trey Turner on that team.
They had, I assure you there was only there for the year before that, but they had some
dues last year and that's why they won, what was it, like 116?
They won some crazy.
How did they not win it last year?
Because they ran into a runaway train that was the San Diego Padres.
Yep, most underwhelming team.
Not second to the Cardinals this year, but they're very underperforming as well.
Yeah, the Padres have been that team.
We're going to get to them in just a second.
Yeah.
Giants then in third place at 37 and 32, four and a half back.
Eight and two in their last 10 though.
Giants are kind of picked it up a little bit.
And then of course, as Joe just mentioned, the San Diego Padres at 33 and 36, eight and
a half back of Arizona and six and four in their last 10.
A surprising stat for that to me, they're 17 and 20 at home.
Petco Park for those San Diego fans is rowdy.
And so that's a little surprising to me that they're there, especially given how much money
they spent.
And then I'm not really sure anybody's surprised by this Colorado 29 and 43, 14 back, three
and seven in their last 10 not playing too hot.
They're just the Rockies.
Yeah.
So I guess that's our division recap.
So then we can kind of move into our different watches.
We're going to kind of try to have some fun with this.
So first and foremost, we have our DFA watch, Designate for Assignment watch.
This is for those that don't really know Major League Baseball.
This is when you're on the roster and they want to get rid of you, but they can't trade
you and they can't outright send you to the minor leagues.
They DFA you, which means they just outright are like, screw you.
You can go anywhere else.
But here we don't want you on the Major League team.
Good luck.
So who wants to, Joe, you want to kick us off with the DFA watch?
Who you've been watching that deserves to get booted?
I don't think Kenji is going to like this one, but I'm going to say Robbie Grossman
on the Texas Rangers.
Wow.
Is it Grossman or Grossman?
I don't know.
Grossman, Grossman.
I think it's Grossman.
So I just like said that wrong.
Yeah, it's the bald outfielder that sometimes DHS you said he was a dog.
Oh, I meant, no, I was thinking the other guy, Tavares was a dog.
I think Grossman's yucky.
Grossman.
Can we get a better verb, please?
Yeah.
Good one.
Kinda ruined the mood.
Yeah.
Anyways, putting that aside.
So Robbie Grossman, he started off pretty hot for us.
He was starting right field while Garcia was DHing because he was that good of a player,
you know, but now he's, he's playing about every other game, maybe one, one in every
three and he's just been, you know, going more and more down.
He's, he was hitting about two 72 80 until about the middle of May.
And that's when he kind of started declining and he hasn't felt like at his stats.
He hasn't hit a home run in, I would say a few weeks.
I'm going to let him say two weeks, two, three weeks.
And I don't know if it's like quite to the point where we have to DFA him, but the thing
with the Rangers is that we have so many good outfielders.
Yeah.
Duran that he's been on a tear.
He was in the month of May.
We have Leody Tavares.
We have Travis Jankowski.
We have Garcia.
Obviously we have so many other guys that can, they're versatile.
They're quick.
They got good averages.
You know, they could, they could hit their spot in the lineup.
And I think Grossman Grossman is kind of just not out of place, but he's kind of like the
odd man out when we're talking about, do you think they'll flip him at the deadline?
Knowing Bochy, I think he'll still give him a chance.
Okay.
He's not, I don't think, like I said, I don't think it's to the point where he got to DFA
him, but I think we will keep him.
Okay.
Maybe he picks it back up.
Yeah.
For the all star break or maybe even before, who knows, but I think he's, he's definitely
one of the guys on the Rangers, like aside from like Josh Smith, but no one knows who
that is.
I've been like really struggling at the plate lately.
So that's my guy.
That's my guy for, for DFA for today.
Okay.
DFA watch.
That sounds good.
Brady, you want to take us in next?
Who's getting DFA probably from the Phillies.
Who's getting DFA?
Well, so aside from half of our bullpen, we, I would say Josh Harrison because he is 35
years old and he's definitely getting older and he's just there to fill in spots, which
as soon as if Reese Hoskins didn't really get hurt, it would probably be a lot better
for us because he wouldn't end up playing cause Bowen will play third.
And even when he has a day off, we have multiple other infield guys like Sosa that can just
come in and get the job done.
But other than Harrison in our bullpen, I have a real concern with Gregory Soto because he
just, his control is abysmal.
It's like me in high school.
It's not there.
And so it scares me.
Like he, I don't know.
He does get strikeouts when he does know how to control the ball, but his control really
scares me.
So I feel like if we need, if he keeps struggling, we got to do something about it.
Yeah.
So when the moment was he an all star?
I know he was with the Tigers.
Was that 2021 or 2012?
Yeah, I think it was, it was 21.
Yeah.
Cause I remember when we were playing, I'm going to be the show.
He had that car that was Corral's.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So Gregory Soto right there.
Joe, you hit us with Robbie Gorson Kenji, who's a great guy.
Who do you want off the angels, whether they're for performance or for, you just don't like
the face or whatever it is.
I feel like you probably would say something stupid here.
He's going to say Taylor Ward.
And get the clown horn ready.
No, Taylor Ward actually plays pretty good right now.
And a certified Taylor Ward hater though, right?
Yeah.
His face bugs me.
He looks like a drug dealer to me.
Yeah.
But the guy on the angels roster that I don't really like, I don't really like either of
our catchers to be honest, cause they can't throw anybody out.
I think I saw or I heard when I was watching the game, they're like one of the catchers,
like three for 19 on throwing people out.
So throwing people out.
Yeah.
Like when people steal him, he's like three for 19.
That's pretty bad.
I mean, it's because like we were supposed to have like Ohope or whatever that guy's
name is.
But he got hurt.
And so now we're rocking with Dyson.
We both hit really well, but they're just terrible catchers.
So I wish I could just boot both of them off my team, but who are you going to bring in?
That's the problem.
There's nobody.
Yeah.
Catching depth in the league is very thin.
It's like, it's heavy at the top and then it like tapers off pretty heavily.
Yeah.
It's a problem for fantasy too.
Yeah.
Which I'm sure we'll get into when we start talking about fantasy more.
So then, so who is your official DFA?
You just DFA the entire catcher's room or what are you?
I think I'll say it's this guy that we've been playing because we're injured.
His name is Velasquez.
Andrew Velasquez?
Yeah.
He was on the O's in 2020.
He sucks.
He's terrible.
Yeah, he sucks.
He's 28 apparently and he sucks.
Yeah, no, he sucks.
He's like five, six.
I don't care if you have a good glove, please leave my team because you are a physical burden
to my angels.
You're a waste of everything.
The reason why, because nobody in the bottom of our lineup can do anything is because he
sits there because he has to play because we lost our awesome dog, Mano.
So I don't know, hope he quits, hope he breaks his leg or something and we can find-
Breaks a leg.
No, no, no.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
I meant like you do like break a leg type of like a, you know, like playing-
Oh, shut up.
No, no.
That's not what she meant.
Shut up.
Shut your trap.
Okay, moving right along.
Kenji's opinion brought to you by waste management.
We're going to go, my DFA watch or not even DFA watch, just who they should DFA right
now is nobody's going to really know him, but CML Perez.
He's a left-handed, he's a relief pitcher for us.
He was unbelievable last year after we trade at the O's traded Jorge Lopez at the headline
to the twins.
And Felix Bautista moved into the closers role.
Perez was a setup man and he throws like mid to high 90s.
He's got a nice little slurve.
And I'm looking to have his baseball reference page and his baseball, so I'm going to pull
up right here.
So I'm going to give you guys straight from the source.
2022 for Baltimore, 66 games.
Let's see, what was his ERA?
1.4 ERA.
In 66 games, he had 2.8 FIP, 1.1 whip, great hits per nine, great walks per nine, was fantastic.
And then you get to this year, whether it's the pitch clock or whatever, I mean, maybe
we'll talk about that another time, how many pitchers have been affected by it.
This year he has nearly quadrupled his ERA.
It's now ballooned to five and a half.
He has allowed, he allowed 46 hits in 57 innings last year.
He's already given up 36 hits in 24 innings this year.
Given up twice as many earned runs.
His whip is double as high, his hits per nine is doubled.
Strikeout to walk ratio has been halved.
And every time he comes in the game, it's just, it's miserable.
I just, I see him come in the game and I'm like, all right, I'll turn on the game tomorrow
because we're losing.
It's so simple.
I just, I hate watching him pitch.
He was great last year.
I wish him the best of luck.
Just get him off the roster.
Just get him off the roster, please.
Yeah, very nice.
A lot of hatred in this podcast.
Can you, can you feel that in the way I just said?
Sorry.
I mean, that was, that was intense.
It's like a, it's definitely time to lighten up the mood here.
Yeah.
So we're going to go players to watch.
We'll kind of breeze through this because we are already at 35 minutes, which I mean,
that's pretty nice.
But my player to watch, I'll just flip around the mood on my own O's.
Adley Rutchman, he's had a bunch of homers from the right side of the plate, which he,
I think he only had one all of last year.
So he's now hitting homers from both sides.
He was great defensively.
Number two hitter in our lineup, hitting 280, I think on the year.
The clear and obvious leader of the Orioles.
Huge Adley Rutchman fan.
I'll probably name my child and my dog Adley after that.
So that's my guy.
Well, who we got next?
We got a Brady Kenji Joe.
Somebody just take hold.
I guess that can be me, but obviously the most, I'd say obvious player would be JT real
muto after hitting for the cycle on Monday.
And he's had four home runs in the last four games currently.
But honestly, I have a different angle here.
My player to watch is Bryson Stott, actually.
Wow.
Okay.
Middle infielder plays second base.
He was a rookie last year from Vegas, but he had an awful year last year.
I'm going to look at his stats right now.
Last year, he ended up hitting, let's see, 234 with in 127 games, which not ideal for
what you want out of a young guy.
But this year I feel like he's really turned it around in half as many games.
He's currently hitting 301 with 341 on base percentage, my man, with seven home runs having
only 10 last year.
So he's already getting there.
He's over double on his runs and his RBIs, Dukes, and as well as he's two stolen bases
behind what he did all of last year.
So he's just skyrocketing.
Good young guy to play and pairing him with Trey Turner up in the middle of the infield
is spectacular.
Despite him having a very subpar year, but I feel like he'll kick it around too.
All right.
Bryson Stott.
All right.
Adley, what's going to Bryson Stott?
Two young rookies from last year or two young second year guys from the rookie season last
year.
Yep.
Okay.
Now I don't want to end on Kenji because he's probably going to say something stupid here
or it's going to be the driest thing you've ever heard.
Kenji, who is your player to watch?
That's me.
I have a lot of players that I watch.
Quickly looks up his fantasy team or baseball.
My watch list?
Yeah.
This guy named Luis Montos.
Oh, the Giants rookie?
Yeah.
I watched him play yesterday.
He's good.
He's a top prospect.
Yeah.
He walked three times in a row.
They're all really good at bats.
And they were talking about his bat.
He hit really good in the minors.
I think he plunged in the minors or something.
Wow.
And his bat's still not there in the majors, but I don't know.
His play discipline looked really, really good.
Yeah.
And he hit there with a lot of confidence.
And of course, I'm sure you would have loved to have a hit because they went into extra
innings yesterday, but he let off two innings that I remember with the walk that helped
him his core runs.
Yeah.
Luis Montos.
All right.
Yeah.
He looks...
I don't know anything about him.
I just watched his game yesterday and they were really high on him, the announcers were.
Yeah.
And he said to our friend who's a Giants fan, he said he's a really big...
He's a dog.
So I...
He's a highly tied of prospects.
He should be good in the league.
I might take him a little bit, but certainly somebody to keep an eye on.
Joe, who you got?
I'm going to go with Josh Young.
Is it Jung or Young?
It's Young.
Young?
Y-O-U-N-G.
Where is he from?
J-U-N-G.
I think...
I don't know where he's from.
He's obviously from America.
I think his last name was like...
He's from Europe or something.
I can't exactly remember.
I watched the video on that one time, but that's besides the point.
So recently, Young has been kind of struggling these past few weeks.
He...
He was in a lot of home runs.
He was getting a lot of base hits in the month of May, actually.
He was the...
I think he was the AO player of the month, if I'm not mistaken.
Maybe he wasn't...
I don't...
He was...
Sorry.
He was the rookie of the month.
That's what it was.
Obviously, you're going to look really good when you're on the Rangers, when you're hitting
behind Semian, Seager, Nathaniel Lowe, and Adolas Garcia.
Yeah.
You're going to look good.
You're going to look nice.
Getting on base, you're going to have consistent opportunities to get RBIs.
And you're going to get hit, too.
Yeah, exactly.
What I really like about Josh Young is that he...
This is an interesting stat about him.
He's actually homered in every single inning, so one through nine.
He's the only player in the MLB to have been homered to hit a home run, the first, second,
third, fourth, fifth, sixth, all the way up to nine.
That's an ESPN stat.
That's definitely an ESPN stat, just digging, trying to find something about Young.
But that just proves to me that it doesn't matter if he's hitting fifth or if he's hitting
ninth or if he's even hitting first.
He's consistently going to be a reliable guy for you.
That's just all the shows.
And he's not been very hot recently, but actually today against Toronto, he just hit a home run
and he almost hit another one.
But the Blue Jays challenged it and it was actually foul.
It was a few inches away from the foul pool.
So basically he hit about one and a half home runs today.
So I hope he's getting hot right now because he's really a fun player to watch, really
disciplined at the play.
He's just a dog, as Kenji would say.
And so that'd be my guy.
He's one of my favorites to watch.
I love the guy.
Yeah.
A few inches away from a home run.
That's a story in my life.
Okay.
Moving right along.
We're going to go, I guess now we can kind of wrap this thing up.
We're going to go for the podcast schedule.
We're hoping to get an episode out every week.
We're going to recap the week prior in baseball, talk about our DFA watch, Players to Watch,
and choose some other segments.
We do have the College World Series on.
I know it is the first round.
Brady, do you know where it's at with that?
Can you be our accomplice?
So first game started yesterday.
There's two games yesterday, two games today.
And obviously you have double elimination.
So TCU lost a heartbreaker to Oral Roberts yesterday and Virginia lost in the night,
giving up two home runs in the ninth inning to Florida.
And right now you got the Wake Forest game is currently against Stanford.
It's postponed or delayed right now.
We actually do have a Utah native who threw four innings for Stanford, Mr. Joey Dixon.
And Utah's own Braden Taylor is going to get to number six overall.
Joey Dixon, Kenji.
Who's that?
I only know Joe Weiss.
That's Max.
We only know our very own Joe Weiss.
And then you got LSU and Tennessee later tonight.
Is Skeen throwing tonight?
I have no idea.
I would like to assume so.
Then you got, I don't think they, and then you got stuff throughout the week up until
the 29th is when it should be over.
But.
Okay.
All right.
Awesome.
Well, I think that'll do it for us this week.
Does anybody have any extra things they want to say?
Brady, do you have a hot take for us?
Joey, you have a hot take.
Somebody say some stupid second.
Kimbrough is about to blow the game.
Yes, I do.
That's not a hot take.
Against the Oakland A's.
Yeah.
No outs, one is on first.
They just got a ground ball to trade.
So they got runner on second with one out.
But honestly, the Phillies losing to the Oakland A's might just be worth the clown horn.
But he's not going to lose the game.
Well, that too.
Kenji said blow a save, but I don't know.
He doesn't know stats.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
But I mean, the hot take, you can take it how you want, but being at home, I think we
win this series against Atlanta coming up.
Oh, okay.
I'll just do a little.
I'm just starting for you guys.
Geez.
So we got a realtor tomorrow.
So we probably won't have our best guys.
I think we'll probably have Tyhwan Walker throw a game and probably Ranger Suarez.
And maybe Wheeler at the tail end of that or Nola.
I think Nola should be a do-off.
Yeah, Nola should be good.
So we'll probably have Nola, Ranger, and Tyhwan.
But Tyhwan just shoved the other day and Ranger Suarez threw a gem yesterday, but it was the
Oakland A's.
So I'm not going to say too much about that.
I think going in at in Citizens Bank Park in Philly, I think we could easily take two
out of the three.
Yeah, I feel that.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that'll do it for our first episode here.
No Clownhorn.
We'll stick around for the next episode for that, but we will see you guys.
We'll catch you guys next week.
We're going to record another podcast and we're going to keep talking baseball.
So join the Rocketship.
Joey, you want to sign us off?
Thanks for listening to us, guys.
We're just 21 year olds who don't know hardly anything about baseball, honestly, if this
goes anywhere.
That'll be awesome.
Thanks for listening, guys.
Love you all.
All the five listeners who's going to listen to this.
We love you guys.
Mom might love you.
Thanks for listening.
Take care, guys.