Episode 431: Southside Stand Up

The actions on the court, and as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting fans closer to the game, with a chance to win court side seats, merch, and more. Visit Michelob Ultra.com/coldside to enter. Michelob Ultra.coldside 26-27, no purchase necessary, opens the US resident's 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026, and ends on June 30th, 2027, multiple entry periods. See official rules at Michelob Ultra.com/coldside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. I mean, this is a sport that's on the precipice of a relevance. The games are taking over three and a half hours. Playoff games are taking over four hours. Games too long, too slow. Who cares? This is a situation where baseball is in trouble to begin with. I hate to bring you to baseball's dead. Baseball is dead. Rest in peace. Thursday, Dallas is back. Dallas is back in the house. Interviews are back in the house. Von Lackey on yesterday's episode of BID, go check that out. And there's more where that came from. If you want draft coverage, if you want draft prospect coverage, BID is the place to be. I'll tell you what, I don't know who's going first. Overall, in the MLB draft, but I'll be damned if we don't have him on the fucking show. I'm trying to cover our bases here. We're checking boxes. We are checking boxes. Yeah, we're going to need that. We're going to need that in writing that we have the one one. The one one was on BID before he was a one one. And if we miss on it, blame Dallas. I mean, I didn't know that that was going to, what? Well, you know what? It's called accountability, Dallas. Yeah, be accountable. Like on CalShi, you're training against peers in a live market, meaning that there's no house and as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position for limited time. Download the CalShi app and use the promo code BID to get $10 when you trade 10. That's CalShi K-A-L-S-H-I trade on anything shout out to our presenting sponsor CalShi. Dallas, this whole Vegas thing, what the fuck are you guys doing over there? What are, what are you trying to do? And all right, all right, all right. Here's how I'm going to phrase a question. What are you trying to do in Vegas? And in your opinion, are you succeeding or are you failing? There's many different ways we can go about that because as of right now, it's a winning record in Las Vegas. So yeah, success. As of right now, you've watched quite an offensive outburst. So success. You've also watched some relievers come in. I said it last night. That's two nights in a row, Elvis Alvarado has come in just absolutely fucking blowing doors. And I said, Elvis has officially set up a residency here in Las Vegas. Because he got his first big league save last night. You've seen guys perform well on the mound. You've seen guys absolutely bludgeon the baseball. I've seen fans look, I've been out in the community each and every day that we've been here. And I understand that these are community events that are geared towards engaging the fan base, engaging an existing fan base that is here, engaging a baseball fan base. That is to be honest, still skeptical about what this can look like. Which I appreciate because I think you have to be real. You have to be raw and you have to be authentic. And you have to be able to acknowledge that those fans have a realistic perspective. And it is absolutely your job as a franchise, as an organization to come in and give them every reason to get on board. And I can appreciate that and I respect the hell out of that. With that being said, the energy around the ballpark, I mean, where I'm staying, I'm walking to the ballpark each and every day, each and every day. There are, I mean, it is an ass load, a metric ass load of fans all over the place that are very excited that I mean, I'm watching, I'm watching baseball card deals go down like on the corner. Like it feels like I'm like, it feels like I'm on skid row of baseball. Like there's just all kind of, there's, there's, there's, there's, it's, it's incredible. It's, it really is. It's exciting to watch. But from a, um, just from a pure baseball perspective, fucking first game game, one 15, 14, 12 innings. I mean, it does, like that felt like we were playing baseball on the moon. That's what was happening. Yeah. Yeah, like I watched, I want, and well, shit, two days ago, uh, Jackson Turio hit a ball like out of the second and bat of the game, right? Yelly singles to lead off. And then Turio takes like a three quarters swing. It looked like and just fucking poop, shot a ball to right. And you're like, thinking, okay, like that might get over the outfit. That's a homer. Well, okay. All right. And he was laughing around the bases the entire time so much so that, uh, saw him yesterday and he's walking out of the tunnel. And, uh, me and our, our outfield coach. We're talking and he came in and we were like, yo, uh, what, what is that? What was that? He just, he like, he put his hands up like, ah, hey, hey, you know, I like it here. I'm like, yeah, I bet you do. You know what else likes it here? Nick Kurds and Tyler Sodistram. They like it here. Uh, I, I've watched those two dudes just absolutely mangle baseball's Kurds. I, I, I got to say this, I watched one of the most impressive performances for a hitter in one night in what Nick Kurds did. And I'm not talking about the four homer 19 total base game in Houston. I'm talking about him back siding a 100 mile an hour sinker off of former teammate, Big Joel Kunel, who I got a lot of love for, who just by the way, uh, what? It was 94, 95 with us. And then he is on the mountain against us. And here's a hundred, you know, fuck all of you. Here's a hundred. Okay. Fair enough. Welcome to the cards. Kurds fucking backside. Oh, God. And then Ashby, who's one of the nastiest left handers in the game. Just an absolute disgusting sinker. 99 up in off the plate under the hands. And Nick Kurds hit it out of everything. Just cleared fucking everything. Do you have any idea how impressive that is to be able to cover that kind of movement from opposite hands in those pitch locations and do the damage that he did. That is, it is obscene. It is truly obscene. What was even more obscene was the homer that Jonah Heimhitt. Because that was he. That was he. Agregious is the word Dallas brother. He hit this ball and I'm he hit it and I'm in the booth and he hit it. Bobby Crosby, first of all, Bobby Crosby, the third base coach. And we were laughing about this. Yes, he like basically started to walk off the field with his head down. Like, guys, this fucking over. And and I'm grabbing. I'm grabbing my partner, Chris. I'm grabbing his elbow because he's standing. He's like, he's like, hi, ball. And I'm like, hey, hey, this fucking thing. This fucking thing is going to go. Like, this is going to go. And that ball just just dumped right over the fucking wall. Oh my god, I do. I have never in my life been a part of what I saw in the first game of the series. Like, that was it was physically and mentally draining. I came home. My wife basically kicked me out of the hotel room. She's like, you're still like, you're high right now. Like, go away. I'm trying to go to bed, go away. It was it was a hard breaker, obviously, because he ended up losing the game. But my god, dude, like I had never seen anything like it. Look, the one context I think that should be provided is that is still a minor league ballpark understood, right? There are not multiple layers and levels to that ballpark. It is still a minor league ballpark. It is very much outdoors. It's hot as fuck and the ball is absolutely sailing. That being said, I know people are like, what is this the environment that we can get used to? Is this kind of games that we can get used to? The ballpark that's being built is going to be indoors. There's going to be a roof on it. There's going to be air conditioner. The humidifier is going to exist. Am I still as curious as you guys are about how that's going to end up playing out? Absolutely, absolutely. I'm not going to just go, oh, there's a roof on it. So you can expect sea level production. Like, no, no, and I'll be honest, what was really fun is to have conversations surrounding how to take advantage of and how to navigate that type of environment. Just from a baseball strategy, baseball ops perspective, because I think this is already sparked major intrigue with the folks associated with the franchise because you're now, you're diving into how you can make this part of what you do well on both sides, not only from an offensive perspective, but how do you go about navigating an environment like this and get out in this environment? And I think that's a, I think that's a challenge. And I, I, I didn't scoff at the notion of what the fill, excuse me, what the Rockies are going through and the idea that it's now a challenge for them to try to figure out how to, excuse me, it's been a challenge, but I would want to roll up my sleeves and get to work with them just as much as I do with our franchise right now, because I, I think there's a way to go about it. And I think there are things that you can identify and it's just, it's, so my, my baseball curiosity mind is fucking just, is bouncing off the wall right now. as a former pitcher, like hearing what JT Gen was saying, where he essentially is reshaping it as a different game of baseball that you're watching at that point in time, where that strategy and all those things are going to change, you wanting to see the A succeed. Do you worry because we talk about that lineup and the idea of Nick Kurtz playing in 75% of the environment. We've seen the last three nights is insane because we're talking 60 plus homers maybe something that could be so special. Do you worry that they'll never be kind of the attraction to pitchers or different things like that? And pitchers will start to want to back away from that organization in the same way that resembles the Rockies because hearing a guy like Pat Murphy who is a baseball lifer being like, that was bizarre. You being like, it felt like I was on drugs and all that. Well, that high can be fun for one night. Maybe it can be fun for a week. Is it fun for seven months during a baseball season when you're going through all that? Nookie, is it fun for, is it fun for a lifetime of existence, right? Or the shelf life of a franchise in an environment like that could be asked the Rockies. Is it fun? You know, they're dealing with some inclement weather at times, understanding that that ballpark is outdoors. So there will be a controlled environment to an extent. And that's why I said the entry comes in because now the work starts at the amateur level. Why? Because I'm identifying and trying to identify individuals that I believe we will be able to shape and grow in a certain fashion that can come up and be impactful with what we're trying to achieve. And I mean, you can go back and look at the pitch usage for JT again and you can understand why he was successful. You can understand what starts to play there. I mean, when you have the arsenal that he does and you back away from certain things and you emphasize certain things, you can start to see why you were able to navigate the treacherous waters that is this outdoor environment. So that's where that's where it lies, the challenge. But I do. It is. It's it's scary because it's unknown. And I think you have to be honest about that. Otherwise, it's a disingenuine perspective to go, oh, yeah, but things are going to be so much different because there's a roof on the place and it's indoors and it's going to be like, I just that's for me that that response is is not genuine. But my God, do other just absolute absolute bananas. I mean, watching Kyle Harrison just get mulled, just absolutely mulled. You know, and sure, it takes a defense and miscube behind you and and then the wheels just start to fall off. But I mean, Harrison was another guy just like Ryan Weathers coming into the game had not given up a Homer to a left hander had given up. I think what three extra bass hits maybe, I think to lefties and then gets fucking written out of the yard quite like, I mean, so does from a bad dude, an absolute bad man right now. And I mean, Kurtz goes without saying what that dude's capable of. So it was just a wild, wild three game set. The fact that you play three games, two of the three determined by one run, right? The game two was a was seven to five. So it was, I mean, yeah, it's been, it's been an absolute blast. I'm like I said, 2019 London series, it was fun for what it was, but you knew that you were going to leave London and not play major league baseball games again for the rest of the year or whenever, maybe ever again, whatever, they're going to be playing baseball games in Vegas permanently, at least one would would think permanently. Is this going to be, is this going to be something that the league has to address? How do we? Well, I mean, that's, that's, no, it's, it's, it's a fair question, but I would, I would then counter with what has the league done to address what happens in Colorado? And is the answer? Well, what do you want? They're like the drunk uncle of the league though. They're like, well, it's the Rockies, like no one cares. No offense, Ben, no, no, that's, that's, that's the A's or a historic franchise. Rockies, Rockies fans care, Rockies fans show up, they, they, they care, they care. And so I mean, I understand like we're not being dismissive of the Rockies, but I think the point remains is if this is real, which, but I have seen the ballpark, it's, it's real. That's not a barrage in the desert. You could, but Jackson, you sure you're a home run, I almost killed the camera guy. You could talk about the one last night. Yeah. The church fell to his ass and hit a ball over the batter's eye, like that is absolutely insanity. Yeah. The ball, I mean, dude, the ball that Butler hit, the ball that law dog hit last night was absolutely sizzled over again, over the court is going to hit 87 whole runs and then people are going to be like, wow, okay. So I was having a conversation, I was having a conversation with, with one of my boys about this, uh, do you get worried, do you get concerned about, um, having players play in this environment from an offensive perspective, putting up the kind of numbers that they could put up and produce. And now the pay day, when it comes to arbitration, when it comes to free agency, like are those numbers, something that you're going to quite literally have to pay for, right, double entendre, like you're going to be paying for it, paying for it because you're going to have to pay these dudes. Um, I, I don't know how much of the, again, I like the curiosity is there just because you want to see how it plays out. Have you talked to anyone Dallas, like about the new ballpark and like what people think it will play like or what the assumption will be that it will play like because we talk about like Colorado or Chase and they have these kind of spacious outfields. Obviously the policy and back then Sacramento has been a completely different world. Do you have any feel for that just being around people who are part of that construction in that conversation, all that going on? Sure. But that's again, like that's why I continue to go back to everybody has the same level of curiosity peaked at this point because it's almost like, all right, let's put a roof on it. Let's turn the lights on. Let's get the humidor going like, let's, let's see how the balls play. Let's see how this is going to behave because until you play baseball in this environment, you're just, you're, you're not going to know, you know, and that's why, like I, I, I, pocket the notion outside of outside of the defensive players, the infielders and outfielders who understand how hard the surface is when it's being baked in the summer sun. How much the ball flies once it goes up in the air, not giving up on balls that are seemingly in foul territory, but are then blown back into the field of play and you can make plays on these. Some of these balls end up back in fair territory. So like the advantages per se, I, I think are limited because both teams hit in that environment. If you're familiar with how the ball is going to play defensively in that environment, then there's no advantage. So really the test comes with how you are navigating things on the mound and you, I mean, if you were to ask me, you get two pictures, both of them throw 96 miles an hour. One of them throws a forcing fastball, one of them throws a sinker, one of them throws a curve ball, one of them throws a cutter or a slider. Who do you want on the mound in that environment? I want the guy throwing the 96 mile an hour sinker with the cutter and the slider and not the curve ball. Why? Because the curve ball is a bigger breaking pitch. The fastball is a, is a, the forcing fastball is truer ball flight. So I want, I want the darts. I want to work the lateral and the vertical there. And I think that is a better way to have success. And that's not, I'm not shining a light that nobody has ever thought about thinking about. Rocky has tried to do it forever, right? Absolutely. That's been the game plan. Yes. Give me sinkers. Give me guys and keep the ball on the ground. Well, shit. Flatts out up there. We understand that. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. As am I. As am I. I'm sure you are. I mean, entertainment value wise. Yeah. It'll be great. But then to your point, Alice, like, you think if, if, if Nick curts, it's 55 home runs at home to, to cap off a 78 home run season, you won't be laughing then. I mean, the, the ultimate draw is going to be whether the team is successful consistently, right? Like, whether it is a draw, like, it can be a short term draw with five. Fireworks and a carnival act and stuff like that. But whether it's a medium or long term success is going to be whether they can put a winning product on the field. And I, I mean, for all the reasons that we have now outlined and Dallas discussed, like, I do think that's going to be even if it's, it would seem unlikely to me that it's not going to be something of a unique challenge for them, which doesn't mean it's going to be as ridiculous as it looked in game one. But you, you would think there's going to be some uniqueness to how they're going to build that team. And I just, uh, it's fascinating. You don't, you don't get, you don't get situations like this very often where a team is not only moving from one city to another, uh, kind of in the middle or beginning of a total rebuild, right? That's, it's the nature of the team is changing drastically as these moves are happening. But they have a middle ground in between, uh, middle stadium, a middle location. And for that matter, the starting point and the ending point are as best we can tell about is different as to home environments can play offensively, right? We've, we've, the, the foul ground, uh, at the Coliseum was, was famous, right? Above and beyond all the other characteristics that made it so friendly for pictures, um, particularly pictures who put the ball in the air with consistently, uh, consistency. So it's just, it's an incredible experiment that, you know, not to be overly dramatic about it, but we get to see once in our life twice in our life, you know what I mean? Like it's, it's kind of a, it's a very unique thing for beyond the obvious reasons. And you mentioned the carnival act stuff. I will say it was very cool having Bruce Buffer announcing the lineups before the game. That was, I mean, as a UFC fan, if you've ever watched the UFC fight card, you can hear the fans in the background who know his stick and know his routine. They are saying it along with him, you know, we are like, and you could hear that in the stadium too. Like that was, that was kind of cool. I mean, do I need 81 days of Bruce Buffer yelling at me? I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't think so. I think we could probably pick our spots. And, and I would still digest that. I mean, you got, you got the mind-free Chris Angel throwing out the first pitch or, or did he throw out the first pitch or did it just appear in the glove of Bobby Crosby? But I mean, there's, there's pageantry that that is going to come along with that. And I think that's, that's interesting as well. But just a, just in a side, I did find myself preparing a little differently for the game because I'm starting to look at different metrics. And I'm starting to look at different things for guys in terms of like a, like a pro-changle at the plate. Guys that are, you know, guys that are elevating the ball consistently from a pitcher's perspective pulled air rate, just fly ball rate in general. Those are now more pertinent conversation points than in other places. Do you think the front office is taking any actual learnings away from a three game series? Like, are they not saying that they're going to go ahead and trade X player from off of this sample? But do you think there's anything that they're meaningfully taking away from such a small sample of games? No, Jay and I'll tell you this. And I've asked, I've asked many scouts, I've asked many talent evaluators. How can you truly evaluate what you're seeing here from a talent perspective? And the answer is a simple, you can't. You just can't because, and I pose the question, you got a fucking, you got a six foot, 165 pound shortstop, who comes in and spends a week here and leaves having parked seven baseballs, right? Like, dude has a just unbelievable series. Say, say he hits five homers over the course of seven days and has just bludgeoned the baseball. And then you get back to a different ballpark and you're like, whoa, where that, where that power go? I mean, we just called him up. We're in Seattle. Um, like he's flying out 20 feet in front of the track. What happened to this? What, what do you mean? You know what happened to this when the, when the picture stuff just looks different. You're not asking why you know why you are aware of why. So it, it almost is a conversation about why are we playing baseball in this environment? What are, what justice are we doing to ourselves to these kids? If we can't truly evaluate them and fairly evaluate them, I mean, are we almost creating a hurdle for ourselves to have to clear as organizations who play in environments like this because we're not getting a true read out on what could be impactful players in our big league system. Are you now having to take a look at your double a talent in that environment? They're playing, look, I'm telling you right now, I played in the Cal League. The ball absolutely fucking flies. All right, you get out of the Cal League with a four and a half five ERA. You feel like, fuck, I survived. You get out of the Texas League with a four and a half five. You're like, you know what? I think I'm doing all right. You get out of the PCL. That's the story. It's, you feel like, okay, I'm, I'm surviving. But, but are you really, and what does that evaluation look like from a team perspective? I mean, Milke Tyler and I were talking about this on just the nuts on Tuesday, like the idea that you know, it's, it's going to make evaluating your own talent more difficult. It's going to make evaluating who fits more difficult. It's going to make a value. It's just, it's, I mean, working with the budget, even if it's increased from the Oakland days, working with the budget that the A's will have is his own challenge. And to throw this element or this potential element into the mix. Uh, I do think make it makes it a significantly more challenging job, potentially, especially what the window the A's have coming up here where you have this core position players that are so exciting and with some young arms on the horizon that we talked about a couple. You don't have a half decade to figure this out. No, like you're trying to hit the ground running here. And this is going to be a two or three year thing where, hey, we know we have to evaluate things differently. We have to change our pitching program to fit this ballpark going forward. That is really scary when you talk about that window because even when the Rockies have been willing to throw money at more things than the A's have been in recent years. And with the salary floor coming more likely than not, that will probably change things. But to not maybe have even those same funds and to have a young offensive core, you really want to take advantage of the lot on the line, a lot on the line with the new ballpark that's trying to win a market over. As you said, Dallas, that is still unsure about it overall. And I think a lot of players would have concerns beyond the ballpark about playing there, you know, for an entire year or years of their career. And not to get nuanced on the like talent attraction effort, but when you start to think about guys who are at pivotal points in their careers, whether they are reclamation projects or whether they are guys who are willing to explore a change in arsenal to extend their shelf life. I mean, I think that's in my opinion anyway, that's an easy and easy and obvious way to go when we start talking about bringing free agents in. And then from there, I think simply put, if you're willing to pay these guys the money that they're worth and bring them into a hostile environment, like like one we think will probably exist, then you're going to have to pay for that upfront. Because if they're if they're going to look at you and go, look, we both know what this landscape is going to play like. And if you think that I'm just going to spend three years here and chew into my earning power after I leave here, well, you're going to have to pay for the hit that I could potentially be taking on the backside of my time here. You're going to have to pay me for that now. So if that means overpaying viable talent to bring them in and where the 81 games here at home, so that you get the production that you need for them to help you in some of those games at home, and then on the road, then that might be a conversation you have to have. I guess we'll see. Dallas anything else before you get a hit the road? I know you guys will go a little further in depth on this, but Tarek's Google's return. I think there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on that for obvious reasons. Number one, I don't know if it's a question of what the stuff looks like, because we have seen what the stuff looks like already. I think it's really more of a conversation about and really too pronged is who start to become the suitors. If the Tigers continue to play baseball the way that they have and how quickly does that conversation pick up steam? Is it going to be a team who wants to close the gap in in terms of the race that they find themselves in and do they pull that trigger sooner rather than later? Or are we still in a in a world where teams are waiting things out to see? Well, you know, if we're a wild card contender, then we don't need to go sell the farm to get because it all goes back to if you're going to make the move or make a bid for school bull at this point, I have to believe that you've got to be willing to try to keep him in the building as much of a tall task as that might be. But shut out nanoscope because if if the nanoscope is as good as it seemingly seems, then this is I think to you said it in the tweet, this is a game changer. It's an absolute game changer not only for athletes, but for organizations and obviously doctors who are on the forefront of this, you you have now cut the recovery time significantly with with this specific procedure. Should the issues allow for that procedure to take place? Do you see a mere Garrett commented on our Instagram posts? Yeah. Saying like he was just a few years late or something to that effect. Yeah. That's like the interior brace stuff though, where guys looked at that and said, man, how quickly I could have came back or been able to get into action. Look at someone like Lucas Gialito, especially when you bend through a Tommy John or two already. Like that's already shown to be something so many players prefer now. Yeah, if they're able to. Yeah, no, that's that's the thing is I mean, you know, it's don't know that it will be for everyone, but should the because I mean, now you're talking about the size of the bodies, right? Size of the fragments that are swimming around in there. Are you able to go in there? But I think the idea is you can start to navigate some of those very sensitive areas, avoid potential nerve damage. I mean, look, the bottom line is the less you have to lay the human being open, the less you have to lay the body open, the better. So you can go in there and fiddle around with the robot twigs. I mean, scuba is showing you how important that can be. Dallas, this might, I'm sorry, I know you have to go, but with a lot of these elbow injuries and stuff like this with bone spurs and if you're able to get it done this much faster, do you think more players are going to opt for the surgery than they did before where people thought that layoff was going to be there. And I think overall today, elbows, things players feel are talked about a lot more versus even your era or something before that. Do you think more players will be willing to go that route because there's more focus on whether something's bothering you than pitching through it? Let's not get it twisted. I want to remind everybody that tarot scuba is an absolute freak of a human being. All right, let's just start there. So while he has shown that he has been able to recover and basically get back to who he was in record time, he is setting a new precedent for the procedure and for the recovery and possibly what to expect on the other side of it, because surgery is always the last thing that you want to do. It's the last step you want to take because of the recovery time because once you change the anatomy, I mean, it is what it is, right? Like I I can no longer turn my arm. I can no longer open up my shoulder capsule to the manner in which would have me be able to throw a baseball the way I did before. So things change forever once you go through a procedure and I think if you continue to see the precedent set and this bar is continually met from a recovery perspective, then yes, this will be a conversation that players are are ready to have sooner rather than later because it's almost like, well, I could spend six to eight weeks on the shelf trying to rest and rehab this thing. Come back and find out that I do need the procedure or I could get the procedure done and still bounce back in the time that I would be resting and rehabbing to only find out that I need the procedure after that. So ultimately, why don't I get the procedure done? The track record is starting to show that I'll be able to bounce back. It's as minimally invasive as it could possibly be. This is now a more realistic opportunity that it ever has been because I am still able to get back. I'm still able to be productive. I'm still able to be the same picture I was and I'm not taking a hit in terms of missing an entire season or a massive chunk of playing time that carbs into my earning power. I know you got to go and we can label these things community events or family time or whatever athletics games, but I just want you to know that the discord understands what's happening. Okay. So I know you've been getting heckled at the ballpark. I know that you're running away a little bit scared, but you cannot you cannot run out early on every Thursday moving forward. So, but family food will come for that ass. Next week. You know what? You know what? That's it. That's it. It's going to happen here. Someone in the discord is getting fucking slapped that straight up. Someone in the discord is getting this for a while. I know it seems like you're getting chirped at a lot and no slaps are happening. So. So if you're out, tell you right now. If you're a rockies fan and you're a part of the discord and you're in Las Vegas, come catch five across the face. All right. This is what happens when you put up like a 130 or whatever it was the last time. All right. Anyway, good luck today. Have a great day. Yeah, always. Let's go. Let's see what's up, everyone. Back here. We're talking ultra pouches. And I just have a couple questions for you. Do you wake up foggy every single morning. Do you wake up just kind of out of it. You need something. You need some sort of chemical to get your body working to get your day started. Maybe you're dealing with kids. Maybe you're going to work. Maybe you're just trying to wake up from a red socks or a baseball hangover after your favorite team wasn't able to get the job done. Well, in the past, I used a pound cup of coffee or I'd go get an energy drink, something from the convenience store and I would just throw those things into me and I didn't feel good. My mind didn't feel good. But it was just enough for my body to run throughout the day. And it wasn't super sustainable. It wasn't super healthy. But since then, I've kind of changed my ways. I've gone to ultra pouches, which has much different things to offer you in terms of those parts of life where you don't have to worry about different chemicals and stuff going into your body. Instead, these are nicotine free and caffeine free. And you're probably thinking if they don't have nicotine or caffeine in them, what exactly is in them? Well, that's a great question. There's things in there like Infinity PX, Alpha 9, Alpha GPC, Invitamin B6 and B12, which helps balance your energy and mood so that when you're dealing with whatever annoying people you come across, and maybe they're good people too, you're not wowing out, you ain't cooking them, you ain't frying them, you ain't going after them in a bad way. Because 90% of users saw significant improvements in their overall focus levels with this stuff. Palm, steady flow state focus, enhanced memory, smooth energy, mood balance, and a reminder, this is all with zero nicotine and zero caffeine as a whole. Now, if you're talking about flavors and you're worried there may not be one that fits you, they got cool mint, winter green, tropical, watermelon, and blue razz, which, you know, if you were a blue kid growing up, the blue lollipop, whatever it may be, you can stick with it right here and find a flavor that's going to put you in a happy head space while you're also taking care of your body in the process. Getting away from those chemicals that, just not something you want to throw in your body on a daily basis, especially since we're all trying to live longer, right? Alter is the ultimate guilt free pouch, delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine. Now, customers can use code BID to get 15% off at takeultra.com. That's takeultra.com for 15% off with code BID. After your purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Fuck them elephants. You're not an elephant guy. They're predators. I mean, most animals are. I agree. So you don't like most animals. I'll let my track record speak for itself. You've killed a lot of animals, not purposely. Well, depending on who you ask in the two fish, I maybe hand him. Yeah. How about my Chicago white socks, though? How about my first place Chicago white socks? I remember that there was a fucking geek ass nerd on this podcast that was. So gung ho that the white socks would just fall off and that they want. We're in a good team that he even made a jersey bet with me. All the white socks had to do was not finish in last place. Well, today, they're in first place. Listen, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I knew that we'd be here in first place. There's a long way to go. There's a, it's too soon to be celebrating. It's too soon to be patting ourselves on the back of the sell side here. But I would say that based on all that we've suffered through here on the sell side of Chicago. I don't know if you could say the suffered part. I'll let you enjoy it, but you didn't really suffer here on the sell side of Chicago. We have suffered for many years, many, many years. And again, like I it's a low bar where sure the goal is to make the playoffs to win the division to finish with the most wins to all these personal accolades from from all the superstars that are on this team. But I do think it's a win to just reach first place this late into the year. Like that is a, that is a marker to post Miracame too, that's ready to lose your star player six and have that not be something that sinks the ship. You just keep on keeping on. And here they are entering play here in mid mid June first place. So if we're going to have a genuine conversation about it. Yes, I think that has to be considered a massive win for the white socks and also like in no way disparaging of moon attack on Miracame. I think it also speaks to something of the fact that he's not probably the best player on the team or is at least sharing that mantle with multiple other quality players. Miguel Vargas being one of those guys Colson Montgomery being another one of those people. Maybe we're also talking about Braden Montgomery in that way down the line. Obviously nine played appearances is going to be a little bit too small for us to reach that conclusion. But I do think it's more than Miracame. So that is credit to the white socks not not taking away from your point. And the fact that, you know, I'm not sure that I think people could have been various degrees of optimistic about Miracame or Vargas or the Montgomery's respectively. But to me, like Davis Martin who pitched last night is probably most emblematic of why the white socks are significantly better than most people outside of the Southside of Chicago anticipated this year. Given that he has a 2.41 ERA through 13 starts this year essentially out dueled Chris sale last night. It was not a vintage Chris sale performance. But I certainly went into that start looking at that and thinking, oh, this is going to be like a braves are going to roll sort of scenario because I'm fading Davis Martin. And this is Chris sale going up against the white socks like let's not over complicate things. And that was exactly not the case at all. And Martin's now sixth in the league in ERA among qualified starters coincidentally one spot behind Chris sale. So yeah, I think it's so I know fan graphs is telling something of a different story, not a different story, but an interesting story here in that they view Cleveland still is a pretty massive favorite to win the division. 63.5% to win the division, the white socks are actually in line with the Tigers somehow still to win the division at 25 and 23%. A couple of days ago, I tweeted out something about. like grouping playoff teams into buckets based on fan graphs odds, not really my own opinions. But my one opinion that I did share was that it's seen, I think the White Sox were like 16 or 17% at the time or something like that. That seemed to be very low. And I think they are much better, they are much closer to a 50/50 shot to win this division with Cleveland, then, then, you know, like the, you know, the 60/30 kind of breakdown that they currently see it as. - Yeah, I think a lot of people would kind of point to what Cleveland has on the pitching side. Right now, you look at the White Sox, 18th and Year 8, 21st and 5th. - It's a lot back. - Yeah, to what the White Sox are doing just offensively. It's 6th and WRC plus and especially at home, where they are just becoming almost this unstoppable force, 18 and 3 in their last 21 games at home. That is kind of insane when you think about it. And I just have to really clap for Chris Guetz and like the pieces that are here. - Can you clap though? - Yeah, let's see it. - Yeah, there it is. - There you go. - One of those, you're welcome. But just some of the deals, like you mentioned with Vargas Peters coming in with a 122 WRC plus and a deal that was cash considerations with the Rays, like that is an absolutely insane thing to have added to your roster and to bring this many young players in and they're all succeeding at the same time. And with a manager like Will Venable who's been known as kind of this communicator and this kind of dude who could bring people together that was constantly what people spoke about and whether it was in Texas or when he was in Boston working in some of those dugouts, it's really cool to see the culture change going on because the way players are speaking there about how much fun they're having, especially guys that had been there over the last three years that saw the worst of the worst and how just the culture and being a member of the White Sox is now fun, it's not miserable, it's not embarrassing to the way it was. And I think all of that is just creating this buzz in this environment that almost pushes you passing a lot of ways, what I think maybe reasonable logic will tell you about a team that has some of their flaws in the rotation because I like their bullpen a lot. And I still don't think they've quite gotten to their first or their final ceiling of what they could be due to some of the injuries they have going on right now. But if Chris gets is willing to step up and go get that, even I'd call it a mid rotation starter, how much that will do for them overall? I think it's significant. Now a lot of these younger players, what do they look in the second half of a 162 game season? Yeah, that needs to be talked about too. But even like what Chris gets did to go and get someone like Randall Grisha who's shown up and just has like a 182 WRC plus in 27 games has been a useless baseball player for the last two seasons really. It's just, there's a lot of just nailing a bunch of different moves right now. And even we're talking the Garrett Crochet thing for that to be a talking point that people are now questioning that maybe they won the deal. And the other parts of that deal beyond the brain and mind gummeries or the Calatheals which already look like it's, but to get someone like Chase Mydroff, like there's just a lot of good moves that have been stacked on top to get here. And I hope people appreciate that over looking at it and saying, wow man, like it's a lot of luck. Like this happened kind of crazily. There's a lot of good process here. I think some of these moves. Nope, he thought he traded for a switchheader. I'm actually gonna say that he's stumbled into a lot of luck. I think Chris Gatz is a, is a bimbo. That's what I'm gonna say. Oh wow. So no credit for Vargas? No credit for Peter. Okay, okay. Okay. I mean, I think it's almost incomprehensible that a GM could think he traded for a switchheader and have that person not be a switchheader and also execute the moves, the successful moves that you have outlined there. That is like, you know, kind of not computing for me. I bet it's the same person. But I understand that it's, you know, it happens in the Veritech and Low Trade. That's it. I think a lot of times people would be shocked when it comes to someone who runs a front office how much information they get from the lower guys up in terms of making decisions in process. You are doing Apologia for Chris Gatz. Oh, I'm not justifying it, but I think people would be surprised how much of that work, how much of that leg work goes into a lot of decisions that are made like that. If the number of GMs who would make the mistake that Chris Gatz did exceeds one in Major League Baseball, that would absolutely surprise me. I think that was a one-of-one mistake. We've never in our lot. If that was happening with any regularity, we would have heard about it happening more than one time in our lives. And that's the only time anybody's ever gone on the record and made that bone head of a move. That was a good idea. It was just that one there. But I think we've heard front office guys at times describe even pitch-mix stuff or stuff like that. That was like pre-video. The one Jared just outlined was like pre-video. No, but just as an example, off the top of your head to have another one like that. I'm not saying Chris Gatz deserves some Major forgiveness or anything like that, but to have that many moves in a row that succeed, that many deals that did not have maybe the respect at that time or valued to that capacity. And now they're all playing out at the Major League level at the same time. You have to tip your cap and give credit to a lot of that stuff, especially for a guy who was turned into a meme for that over the off season. To hit on this many things, there's credit that deserves to be there. And it's not something that's just luck or things that have just kind of fallen into their favor. There's too many things at this point, just a point two. And there's more exciting things in that farm system that will continue I think to feed into this window that a lot of people are going towards. And listen, I'm not telling you the White Sox should be the model of operation or anything like that because there have been mistakes along the ways. But to get to this point in time where nobody, including like Jared said you earlier in the season, saw this playing out. Like I'm gonna tip my cap to that. I do think there's a level of appreciation you have to give. - Yeah, I mean, the Jersey Bet was a nice character to give Jared something to hang on to this season and what's otherwise pretty much lost campaign for him as a fan. So yeah, that Davis Martin was a four tip round cap to me as well while we're tipping caps. I think that's a good idea. To go back to the A.O. Central question though, really fast. You brought up the offense and how much good stuff is happening for the White Sox offense. I think that's where this whole situation could turn because we have spent some time on this podcast when we've talked about the Guardians talking about how, I think you agreed with me, Tyler. I don't remember what Jared's opinion was that there's more reason for optimism about this Guardians offense than there has been for recent like semi-contender Guardians teams in the last couple of years. - The offensive ceiling they have with that young ancestor. - Right, but at some point that has to translate to like better actual production. And while it looked like it was translating in the first part of the season, like the net out so far is like a pretty modest game. They've gone from like 27th and weighted runs created to like 21st on the season or 22nd, which is not nothing, but it's also trending in the wrong direction over the last 20 games. They've been the second worst offense in baseball ahead of only the Padres. And you know, like we can say, Chase De Lauders upside is this, Travis Bazonas upside is this, and I have said those things. But at some point De Lauders in particular, whose downturn has been much more prolonged than Bazonas, pretty brief cooling off here. Like you have to actually be better than the people we were projecting you to be better then. And you know, if the year over year improvement is kind of just boils down to Roqueo is better. Like that's not anywhere near enough because Jose Ramirez is not nearly as good as he was last year at least so far. So like obviously that's a simplification of things. But like in your head, you were baking in Travis Bazonas, Chase De Lauders, like Martin as his production, especially early in the year. Yeah, and it was like, Oh, so these guys are like, the bar was really low, but these guys are better significantly better than the people that soaked up these plate appearances last year. And over the last 15, 20, 25 games for some of these guys, that's actually not been the case. So if Cleveland is going to get back a hold of this division, like the offense is going to need to be better than a bottom five, bottom six offense in baseball, and lately it hasn't been. No, and I think that's why when you speak to what the White Sox are doing, it's so impressive. 'Cause we can sit here in like Bryan Roqueo since we had that conversation. I think he's hovering around like a 110 OPS plus at this point in time. But to have young stars and some on that White Sox team that are not as heralded as some of the names we're talking about on the Guardians currently, as part of that young core, whether it was Prospect Rankings or however you want to frame it. For those guys to be in Chicago and to be having those moments right now, is what's so impressive. Because you thought looking at the Guardians and those names that maybe even the way we talked about some of them, they were going to adjust faster. They're in an organization that has seemingly found a way to get the most out of a lot of guys who don't have those same ceilings. And for the White Sox who already be doing that year one, and it's not one player, it's not two players, it's not three, we're talking a handful or more of guys, even Brayton Montgomery showing up in two hits the first game with the walkoff or a double yesterday, four hits and nine at bats to see all that playing out. It makes me appreciate what the White Sox are doing to an even higher degree, because they're getting these young players that the Guardians are struggling to find consistency with. They're getting more than consistency in Chicago. You'd be thrilled if they were just consistent in Cleveland right now. A lot of those hitters, whether it's Martinez or the Lauder have been rough and rougher well over a month at this point in time. Versus the White Sox, those guys are just trending higher and higher and higher with bad ball data that backs them. It's not luck, it's not a lot of those other things. And I think that is what's so exciting about for what's going on with them in general. And if the Guardians didn't have the pitching they did, I think that fall would be happening a lot quicker. That's the one thing I think that will continue to keep these teams in that same bucket or tier that you were referencing. - Well, on the couch, yeah. Uh, the Chicago white socks are up 13% for Al central division winner. The guards are at 55%. They're down 8%. People are giving up on the Cleveland guardians. They're saying there's no way this team is going to win the division because they play in the same division as the Chicago white socks. I mean, after after T. Slauber and of guests, I feel like he's preparing for a jump over to the white socks bandwagon as well, bailing on the red socks, maybe no section 10 anymore. I was locked up and I feel very much at home. No, I mean, I'm just saying like it's not a embrace what you want to do. But I mean, it's if there's what happens, I tip it to you. It's that simple. I tip my cap when I think it's deserve going to hurt that risk tipping it so much to get over there. Thank you. Uh, 31% for the Chicago white socks, the Tigers at 13% somehow are up 6%. Maybe that's because Google's coming back. They'll like. Yeah, I don't know, hey, I had other red socks in the standings currently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, yes. Up 13% Chicago white socks on the Calchi app. I don't know where they're right now use promo code BID. Get it on them white socks. You know, feed future generations of your family on the Calchi app. I ride in the white socks. I just found it. Danducat thought the Derek Low was left handed. That's tough. I, I will say not to belabor this one. I do feel like the fact that we have to go back to Danducat and Derek Low kind of makes my point more than just visit, but nevertheless, yeah. That's the time. I believe switchhead are unfortunately rocking the 32 OPS plus at the moment, still working on that one. I think that might be a loss cause. But hey, Chad, do you know his last name? Okay. Do you know who he's related to? I do. His brother's not really trending in the right direction either lately though. Yeah. That hamstring bark and baby. Welcome back to baseball is dead family feud. I'm your man, Justin Havens, Mr. Dallas, Braden has run away scared. So he will miss his second consecutive baseball is dead family feud. We'll get him back into the rotation next week. He cannot run forever as afraid. He talks a tough game about the discord. He calls it the discourse, but you know, we know what's really happening here before though we get to family feud Jared and Tyler, can I talk to you guys about something? Cheers. Yeah, just real fast. Can we talk about the, the BID Patreon offering? Yeah, we can. Can we do that? Yeah. Because we have some, we have some news to share. We have some news to share. It's going to be called, are you, are you ready for this? I'm ready for this. The starting nine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Little homage to the, to the previous era for new subscribers and members. They can purchase the B, it's basically the BID Patreon tier. Jared, correct me if I'm mispeaking on any of this, but it's essentially the BID Patreon tier. It's called the starting nine and purchase it for 50% off for the year or the starting nine and the ketchup crew for 50% off the year combined. That's the deal that we're running right now. I know people have been waiting for the BID Patreon offering for some time now existing section 10 subscribers can get the starting nine at 50% off and we'll get three months free of their starting 10, excuse me, section 10 subscription and what will it include? Because that's obviously very important and this will, we will obviously expand over time, offerings will, tiers will be added, et cetera, et cetera. But the tier that we're offering right now will include three primary things and it involves all three of us here on this podcast. Book club, video game streams and the blogs. Very exciting. So we've talked about the book club, T and I are going to be participating in that. Jared will participate at his discretion, but we'll be getting that started when I, when I mentioned that recently or over the last couple of months, got a lot of interest there. T is very interested. He's in on the book club. T is going to be the front man for the video game streams. I'm also going to be participating in those. We're going to be doing some out of the park baseball. We're going to be toying with the idea of doing some MLB, the show, some throwback video games. T, do you have anything you want to add to the video game streams comment? Yeah, I think it's just the involvement. It's not going to be just stuff where we're opening it up to play each other or listeners of the show who want to kind of get in there. But I'm hoping maybe we can get into road to the show when some of these other things, a diamond dynasty building of team and playing online and going through a lot of that. I was a big MLB show guy back in the day. I've kind of lost my fastball over time, but I'm excited to get back into it and dive back in. Now that I am full-time T, but I think all of that, some retro baseball games, 2K MVP baseball, touching on all of it. It's not going to be just the modern stuff and out of the park baseball, I think is what people might end up connecting to the most where I've been getting a lot more comfortable with it. We're going to put the GM caps on me and J. Hay and we're going to see if we can fix a franchise or if it's just going to turn into us getting fired within a month of the season. If you want to join the book club, the first book is the Universal Baseball Association Inc. That's by Robert Hoover, so be sure to pick that up. We'll be announcing it with specifics next week, but we'll give everybody a little bit of time to get the book and then we'll be setting updates for meeting for the book club. Then, as the months go, we will be obviously reading different baseball-associated books. Some will be books that involve baseball, like this first one. Others will be more hardcore baseball-specific books, baseball stories, those type of things, but it would be a nice variety. Lastly, before we get to Family Feud, the blog, which is probably the thing that I'm most excited about. It's certainly the thing that I've been talking to Jared the longest about doing as it relates to the BID Patreon, but all three of us will be participating in what we're calling the national baseball blogging side, so non-redsox content. I'm extremely excited to get started on that, anything either of you want to add on what we'll be seeing from the blog. This is my bread and butter. I've missed blogging for a long time, and I'm excited to get back at it. I've never really had the chance to do a lot of national writing. Everything I've always done has been redsox-related. In my opinion, when I've come to BID, it's been almost therapeutic for me to talk about things that aren't the redsox, because I'm touching things and subjects that I've just really never discussed in this way, so to do it in the writing format, I'm super excited. As a quick reminder, new subscribers, members can purchase the starting line for only 50% off of the year, or the starting line and the catch up crew for 50% off the year combined. Starting section 10 subscribers can get the starting line at 50% off, and we'll get three months free of their section 10 subscription. I look forward to seeing everybody join and people at the book club and reading the stuff, and please send the feedback, because yeah, I'm excited to get going. But let's get going with baseball as dead. Family feud. So we're really kind of out of order at this point, so I'm going second. You're going second? Yeah. All right. So Jared, top that top. Tea. Get going. Okay. Are you ready? How do you feel? Scared after the tangerine thing. Yeah. I just go in your head. Yeah, I didn't realize I think Jared and Dallas had like a trauma, and I didn't completely understand it. Now I feel it where I'm excited for today, but I'm also scared of today. Yeah, that's awesome. That it's already hit you like that so quickly. That means we're doing our jobs. I'm doing my job. Discord's doing its job. All right. Let's get started. Enough of a preamble. As always, it's out of a hundred BID fans. Thanks to the fans who at about six o'clock this morning chimed in and filled that up real fast. We always drop it at the freakyest times for the most freaky BID fans. All right. Here we go. Question number one, name the best movie featuring Denzel Washington. Pulp fiction. Oh, God. We are off to a terrible start. Question two, Mac Schurzer reached 3,500 career strikeouts on Wednesday, placing him 11th all time. Name one of the pitchers ahead of him on the list. Roger Clements. Question three, name the team that would most improve their championship odds this season by trading for tariff school. The brewers. Oops, sorry, that was the pauses and about that answer. I just had to question four, you just wrapped up a dinner with your romantic partner at the 99 restaurant. What percentage tip are you leaving 25% question five, which player would you, we were just talking about out of the park baseball, right, building franchises, turning them around, which player would you choose to build your team around if given the opportunity and contracts here are irrelevant? Kevin McGonagall, Nick Kertz, James Wood, Ellie Dela Cruz, or Moonataka Murakami. Nick Kertz. Thank you. I love when you do that. It's so umpire-coded. Hello. How are we doing? Uh, I'm doing okay. I think, uh, I'm a little concerned about Tyler going first. I don't know. Yeah. Well, I'm not a movie guy, man. All right. Yeah. Well, don't give it away too much. We don't, we don't like little whispers like that. I'm sorry. I would hate, would hate to reprimand. Um, all right. Jared, are you ready? Do you want to know how much, what he got, what you're working with? Did he get 100? He did not get 100. He's not like, he's not like very far away though. So it's not like an utter disaster. You're definitely within the realm of being able to win. If you were to describe it as a start, what would the line look like, Jay? Oh, I mean, I think like, you know, it's probably like a like a five and two thirds three earned sort of situation. That's pretty good. Like it's, it's, it's capable. You kept your team in the game. Are you gonna be the reason they won almost certainly not, right? Yeah. So it's going to be Jared. If you guys win, that's how this is going to work. But you're going to be part of the story. You're going to be part of the fabric. Look at me. Look at me, Jared. We're together. We're not separated here. We're now we're separated. No, it's all on me. It's an individual sport from here. Yeah, it's a classic team individual sport family. Question number one is always it's out of 100 BID fans. Name the best movie featuring Denzel Washington training day. I tell you, you gave a better answer than T max. Question two, max shares are reached 3,500 career strikeouts on Wednesday, placing him 11th all time, congrats to him. Name one of the pitchers ahead of him on the all time list. Nolan Ryan. Question three. Name the team that would most improve their championship odds this season by trading for Terrick Scooble. The Pittsburgh parades. Question four, you just wrapped up a dinner with your romantic partner at the 99 restaurant. What percentage tip are you leaving? I mean, it's I usually do 20% and then I round it up to the next five. So that's not like an answer us. So like 25%? Unfortunately, T said 25%. Okay, so then 20%. So you're going to go less than T. That's my voice. Well, he's lying. He's not tipping 25%. Like I'm actually doing that, but I'll go with 21. I have to do it. The 99 is my home. Yeah, I was going to say you're going to be. I'm going to give you me mugs when you go in there for the third time that lead. I tipping McDonald's a lot of the time. That's good. Yeah, is there a line for tipping on a McDonald's receipt? No, I don't think so. I was putting it in a little the little glass bucket. Yeah, whatever that's the needy kids glass thing. Anyway, whatever, yeah. Question five, which play we were just talking T and I. We were talking about building teams out of the park baseball. Question five, which player would you choose to build your team around if given the opportunity, Jared. And contracts here are irrelevant. Kevin McGonigal, Nick Kurtz, James Wood, Ellie Dela Cruz, or Moonataka Murakami. Probably it was it was Ellie Moonataka McGonigal. McGonigal McGonigal Kurtz Wood, Dela Cruz Murakami. Nick Kurtz, and that's who he is. Fucking I guess Ellie. All right, let's do it. Question number one, named the best movie featuring Denzel Washington. Jared came through with training day. That was the number one overall answer worth 30 points. Would you believe that Tyler, this is where he stumbled? He said pulp fiction. You will not find Denzel Washington. I never seen a movie that he's in. I thought I heard someone say he was in it once. I think that's just called racism. Samuel Jackson is the one in pulp fiction. I've never even seen pulp fiction. I don't even know what it's about. Oh, Jesus. Okay. There's a lot of things going on there, I guess. We should get you to see pulp fiction. Not my favorite movie, but it's yeah, well, maybe we'll do a movie club. Trouble with the curve. No, thank you. We'll start with pulp fiction. Remember the Titans was the only other answer that would have yielded double digit points. So training day was 30. Remember the Titans was 24. Every other answer man on fire was a kid movie. Man on fire is an answer. You would have gotten five points. But not one that would have yielded a lot. But anyway, you guys got 30 combined points out of that answer. Obviously all 30 of those are Jerry. Max Scherzer reached 3,500 career strikeouts on Wednesday, placing 11th named one picture ahead of him. Tyler said Roger Clemens. That was the third most common answer. 12 points. So you guys are up to 42 points. Jared said Nolan Ryan, who is of course at the top of said list. That was the number one overall answer yet again. So Jared starts off with consecutive number one answers. 36 points. So we are at it was what 42 and 36. So we are at a robot 78 points through two questions. We're trending just below what you want. But plenty of points still on the board. And really quite a good number for having picked up a zero already. Tyler on something of a wild streak. And I'm going to go ahead and say. Elias just got back to me. Zero's in three straight weeks for Tyler. Never been done. And you have played I think four rounds. It's all a bullshit too, man. It's all the stuff. Or wait, yeah, yeah, that smoothie. Yeah, it's all the stuff designed to get the funny answers from you. And I'm doing a great job with that. Yeah, me anyway. So we're up to 78 points. You know what we should do is a social clip. Maybe just over the weekend or next week of people of time. We should rip together. Tyler's worst answers so far. Just I like the tangerine orange. The Denzel pulp fiction. The elephant predator. Yeah, we've got some good ones already. Anyway, very much in this matchup though. Question three, name the team that would most improve their championship odds by trading for tariff scuba. Tyler said the brewers redemption time. The number one overall answer. It is a modest 18 points for a number one overall answer. But it still is the number one overall answer. That gets you up to 96 points. Jared said the pirates, those are the two teams. We obviously spent the most time talking about on the scuba side of things. A couple of pods ago pirates with the number three overall answer. 11 points. So we're up to 107 through three. Braves were the team that sandwiched in between, which I actually think is kind of interesting. That was 13 points. The raise with the only other double digit team with 10. So we have 107. You need 93 points with two questions remaining. You just wrapped up your dinner with your romantic partner at the 99 restaurant. Tyler said he's leaving 25%. He is the mayor of the 99 restaurants. I'll take care of y'all. Money bags, Milliken, they call him. Yes, we're for Eamon's next vlog. Maybe we should do a behind the scenes of investigating Tyler's claims on 25% tipping at the 99 restaurant. See if this is really going on. I'm a big solo diner at the 99. Like I'll go a lot and just sit by myself. Also known as a loser. Okay. Do you not take your unnamed romantic partner because of she doesn't like it or because you just, it's kind of like time for Tyler, the 99. I feel shame when I eat in front of her sometimes. So I like to have a moment by myself to really feel my demons. Very honest answer. Thank you for opening up. Appreciate that. Yep, question. That was, this is question four and you answered 25%. That was the number two overall answer. 14 points, so you creep up to 121. Jared tried for 25 then decided he's not quite as generous as Tyler, Milliken, but he's, yeah, he, but he's not stingy. He's at 20% good, good, good pivot by Jared though. 50, 50 points. The number one overall answer that's his third and four questions so far. So we zoom all the way up to 171 with one question remaining. 15 percent would have yielded six points. So you guys definitely took care of business on the 99 restaurant as to 99 pros. Question number five, and again, you need 29 points. Which player would you choose to build your team around if given the opportunity? McGonagal Kurtz would, Deila Cruz or Murakami, Tyler got first crack at this question. He said Nick Kurtz, which for the record, Jared also tried for fly the flag, baby, you guys are winners this week. Nick Kurtz is the number one overall. 42 points. Wow. He was double the next highest answer, which was James Wood at 21 points. So with 42 points, you guys obviously more than clear what you needed to. And then Jared adds another 15 points with Ellie Deila Cruz, who was the fourth most common answer. So you guys get 57 points out of that question alone, which brings you up to a total of 228 points. So clear it by 28 points. Congratulations to you guys. Get back in the winning ways. Yeah, we did it, see what we do. We pull up we win. Yeah, we did it. Couldn't have done it without you, you know, we did it. We did it. We did it. Did we win the first time we did it together? I mean, obviously, yes, played. Yeah. I don't think I'm even with Dallas. I think we won, didn't know? No, no, no. No, you guys got like one like 32 that one time and just crashed and burned. Yeah. So maybe me and you, Jared or the duo, maybe us come together and get friends. Yeah, it's it's interesting how people play with me. They win and when they don't they lose, you know, oh, well, to be fair, I would have lost without you. Correct. That is true. Yep. They may have worse human when it comes to tipping, but it's okay. You know, hey, listen, we all go about it differently. We have some plans to move to we're going to try our best to move to a four person family feud format, trying to get a guest rotating fourth person. We've been in touch with some people so far who have expressed a high level of interest. So really could become a, you know, like if you're if you're somebody who's looking to kind of get their star blown up, kind of get trending on social media, kind of get your career kind of back on track. I think being a guest person on family feud is a great spot. So for this borderline celebs who are listening for the current or former players who listen to the pod, reach out with to whoever member you're most comfortable reaching out to. Yeah, we get you locked in. Speaking of plans in the future, we're also talking about going live. We did talk about that. Yeah, what that was that was a Monday Wednesday idea to go live, right? Straight to the people. I mean, listen, it's really no different. I mean, I don't say borderline things on this pod. So I'm not really worried about it. It's really just a tea thing. But what's that mean? You guys act like I'm saying while things have to be cut out every episode. Yeah, that is what we're saying. That is outside of maybe a doxing situation or maybe a mention of someone's name. Like that's that is not a media member. Um, maybe that happens once in a while, but you know, maybe Dallas Dallas is a bit of a flight risk. I'd say both of you guys. Yeah, you're always kind of at risk to have something that needs to be edited out of the show. Yeah, I could see that being a thank you. Yeah, it'd be exciting. I mean, I love the live element. So yeah, that's a family feudal live reaction. Family feud would be great. Having questions that we can take from the chat during the show. I don't want to make it to like, because then that changes the dynamic of the show. If you're like kind of, I think it has to be like a segment, right? Where we're pulling up questions as opposed to like dread, like having our attention pulled away constantly during the show. Yeah, I agree. Like I'd still want it to be formatted in a certain way. And then, you know, maybe there's time to kind of free ball at the end with with the fellows and the ladies. Mm-hmm. Was there anything else that you guys want to hit on? I mean, I guess I have a final thought just since it's Thursday, quickly, looking, yeah, quickly looking ahead. You know, always looking to see when the Christopher Sanchez and the Jacob Mizorowski's of the world are next on the mound. And in the case of Mizorowski, that happens to be tomorrow evening. Philly's Brewers begin a series. And I will, I looked it up. Oh, well, wait, should I just do nugs now, too? Because it's kind of just a bug. Okay. I'll save that one for the end then drew Rasmussen. I know, near and tough one for you guys, I understand. But fifth pitcher and raise franchise history with 13 or more Ks and zero runs in a game joining big game James shields in 2011. David Price also did it in 2011. Blake's Nell did it twice in 17 and 19 in Tyler glass now in 21. The raise allowed five runs last night, despite that start from Rasmussen and had allowed a total of zero runs combined in the five other starts that were mentioned there. Shohei Otoni four runs allowed in 29 batters face last night, three runs allowed in 114 batters faced in his previous five starts. So we knew eventually he would give up a run. He gave up four last night, very disappointing. It's a shame that he sucks now. But that run that Shohei Otoni went on. We'll always talk about it. Amber Valdes disappointing first season in Detroit continues through April. He had a three three five and a matching FIP through seven starts in 40 and a third innings pitched. Since the beginning of May, he has a five five four ERA with unfortunately a matching five point six eight FIP in seven starts in 37 and a third innings pitch. So he's not helping any potential turnaround there. James would 18 homers in 12 stolen bases through a very nice 69 games this season. He is the sixth player age 23 or younger to rack up 18 or more homers and 12 or more stolen bases through the first 69 games of a season joining PCA last season, both Tatis and Akunya in 21 a rod at 98 and Jose Konseko in 1988. Caglione continued his very his torrid couple of games. He's seven for eight with two homers four RBI and four runs over his last two games. That two game stretch alone has raised his 2026 OPS by 75 points. He's gone from 729. That sounds pretty disappointing to 804. Hey, that sounds pretty good. Entering play today. That's two games worth of performance. I've totally turned around what the surface level perception of his season might be. Cubs post season odds we've talked about this kind of danced around. They were 27 and 12 through May 8th. They had a 91.2% chance to make the post season per fan graphs. Entering play today. They are officially 500 after a loss to Colorado, despite a decently strong. I mean, a strong wasn't that long, but a strong even August start. They are down to 35.7% to make the playoffs after going 7 and 22 over the last 29 games, just a fucking unbelievable collapse. Much has been made about the offense in the Vegas series. If you notable OPS before and afters, Andrew Vaughn's went from 88 to 980. Obviously, he's playing on a partial season worth of sample, but still almost increased 100 points. Nick Kurtz increased by 40 points from 927 and 967. Jackson Churrio increased by 42 points from 830 to 872 and Tyler Soderstrom increased by 52 points from 747 to 799. James Wood, he is very near his entire F4 total from all of last year in half the plate appearances. He was at 3.3 and 689 last year. He's at 3.0 and 322 this year. And lastly, looking ahead, and this is my final thought as well. I'll be prioritizing tuning in for the Mizorowski matchup against the fills tomorrow. He has a 1.50 ERA with 116 strikeouts entering his 14th start of the season. He has a chance to join a very elite list, which is 125 or more strikeouts and a 150 ERA or lower through 14 starts of a season. The only examples of that in Major League Baseball history are Jacob DeGrom in 2021 and both Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson in 2000. Those are the numbers. Good company to be in. Yeah, pretty good. T. Do you have any follow-up thoughts? Yeah, shout out Bryce Eldridge. Just in general, that Grand Slam yesterday was absolutely electric and to see him kind of react in the moment to the full Roberto Clemente moment being the youngest player to ever hit a walkoff Grand Slam like that was a really cool kind of scene to see to play out. But I think just looking at what has happened to him compared to what he was doing at Triple A versus the big leagues right now is fascinating. Last year when he got to Triple A, he was striking out about 30% of the time back down there to begin this year and the results were good offensively but still striking out at a 29% clip. To see kind of the hitter we've seen so far in 2026 and he's cut that K% is down to 22% in the big leagues. How sustainable will that be? I am very curious to see how much it ends up spiking up over time. But we're talking about a guy who is impatient. acting the baseball in a way that's really up there with a lot of the best hitters in the sport. It's a 388 expected Woba. That's tied for the 18th best mark in all of baseball with anyone with at least 50 played appearances, who's the hitter that would be tied with them? It is Wilson Catreras. But to have that 158WRC plus so far, and you had the weird handling of him early where, he was on the bench a lot of days, and he was playing kind of a part-time role. Ever since they really kind of let him loose following that May 21st line, where, you know, there were all these media members being asked about it, people in the front office, being asked about it, they were all going viral. He's been on rail, he's had an 1100 OPS, and a lot of that time has come at DH with Rafael Devers at first base. I'm curious to see where that kind of evolves or goes in due time. But man, for Giants fans who are looking for something to be passionate about or feel good about, to have someone like Bryce Eldridge, who is one of the few bats that should go past Oracle, in that ballpark and the limitations at a place like that, to have a power bat shining through this early, and, you know, the swing and miss stuff like I said, I am very curious to see how it translates over time, but this is a guy who's going to walk, who's gonna go get those easy OPP points on a regular basis. I'm just really impressed with the player, and I'm happy things didn't kind of go off the rails after he was handled early, because I think a lot of people are looking at the Giants and questioning them. But yeah, I think a really cool story in baseball right now. - Shout out Bryce Eldridge. - What year is it? That was 23 draft. - Yeah, he's still 21. Like he is extremely young. - Imagine if he was in Boston, that'd be pretty cool. - Shoulda woulda cut him. - All right everyone, thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. I'm gonna bring back a final thought that I used to say every time we signed off on section 10, but I know you watching and listening right now, I know that your friends with baseball fans, tell 'em about baseball is dead. You probably playin' some fantasy leagues, tell the fellas or the girlies about baseball is dead. Where to mouth is how we grow? And we appreciate everyone for spreadin' the wealth, sharein' the love, as they say. But enjoy your week in a baseball. We'll be right back here on Monday morning. Maybe, maybe not, I don't know, possibly live. We'll let you know. But it shouldn't change for any of the audio listeners or anything like that, it's mostly the YouTube people. But if you do wanna get it as early as possible, when we go live, that'll be the way to do it. But, all right, we'll see you then. - We go. (upbeat music) - This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or draw up something nobody sees coming. And whether you wanna run a flea flicker or the touch push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. - When you shop Croger Delivery, you can expect the savings you love and fresh groceries delivered right to your door. Our refrigerated trucks keep your items cool while our associates are committed to getting every detail right. Carefully selecting and packing your order with care. Because bringing you fresh quality groceries is what we do best. Right now, enjoy free delivery on orders of $50 or more with your digital coupon. Restriction supplies, seasite for details. Croger, fresh for everyone.