Comparing Guardians and Brewers Organizations

Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVAC on its last leg , if you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering and twenty four seven support. Call one eight hundred granger, click Granger. com or just stop by. Granger , for the ones who get it done . Thanks for joining me on this Cleveland Baseball Morning. The final from American family field in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It's the Brewers taking two games out of three over the Cleveland Guardians. The Guardians do salvage the fin ale with a fortitude win. I'm David Barris, Life Long Cleveland Baseball fan and I want to talk about the actual game on the field. The thing I enjoy watching baseball being played, although this is gonna be a bit of an abbreviated episode . It is late at night and I have I have some very early things to do. I'm actually getting on the road and the next two episodes are going to come from the road. So they might sound a little different . They might be a little bit more abbreviated , but I'll stay with you. I'll still talk baseball. I'll sneak away for twenty, thirty minutes and talk baseball with you . So yeah , it's going to be going to be a little bit abbreviated episodes not the typical, you know, forty five minutes to an hour we normally do on these things. So let's get into this. I'm not going to get into as much detail about the game on the field because frankly the Guardians played an incredibly boring , an incredibly boring series against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers beat us two to one on what was it Tuesday night ? And And Slade Zaconi actually pitches pretty well. Robert Gasser surprisingly pitches well for the brewers . Gasser's not having the strongest season . He was owing three he's owe in three with a four hundred and eighty eight ERA , a one point three eight whip yeah he's got pitching pitching run values in the twenty second percentile. Not one of the strongest starting pitchers in Major League Baseball, but you made them look fantastic because you only got two hits off them . So yeah, we're held to four hits that the brewers are even held to four hits, but they managed to score two runs . They have two solo home runs. That's really the difference in the whole game . And we're going to get into why the Guardians offense was so boring, but then you lose four to nine. It was the final score makes it seem much more exciting than it was because you score those four runs on one swing of the bat. You had three hits total in the game. You had one decent rally put together in the fourth inning, Schneimen with an ex clamation point on it with a grand slam and that's it . That's it for nine inches. Very boring game. And then you finally squeak out a fortitude win here. You're pitching locks it down . You come up with three solo home runs in this one and then they gift you a run in the seventh inning with a wild pitch . So even in this one, there were moments there were definitely moments in this Thursday finale. We had runners in scoring position. You had a chance for a big inning and I'm sitting there going, come on, I'm sitting there doing my work, you know, with the game on next to me going , someone can someone deliver a big hit? Can somebody deliver a big crooked number hit and nope no they cannot. Nobody got it done. So we'll still take the win for sure. Like we'll take it. It's tough to play up in Milwaukee. The guardians they were saying on the broadcast the Guardians don't play well in Milwaukee. I looked up the numbers . So we're one and two against them this year . We played them at home last year in twenty twenty five and we were we won that series two games to one and then in twenty twenty four they swept us up in Milwaukee so yeah it's been a while apparently since we've won a game in Milwaukee . We just do not play well up there. I think if I heard the broadcast right, the last game we won in Milwaukee wasn't even against Milwaukee. It was that series that got snowed out and so they like moved the games to Milwaukee to get them in. If you remember that from a few, was it like an opening weekend opening series? Like home opener got snowed out and they moved the games up there or something like that So that's the last time we won up there in Milwaukee. Apparently, I think if I'm if I'm remembering the broadcast correctly, so we don't play well there and our offense has just been decimated now with injuries . So last time we talked, we were hopeful that Chase the Lauder and Anto Martinez were going to be part of this team. That it was just as minor setback that, you know, on Hel Martinez was available to pinch hit on Sunday, you know, and now he's on the IL with the foot injury and then chase the lotter. It turns out it actually did I think they said there was a small hairline fracture in a rib . So they thought it was worth it to just put him on the IL . So yeah, you just you just lost I mean against left handed pitching the top three hitters in your lineup, probably three of your most product ive hitters in your lineup so yeah, that's a problem this is a big problem let's see if they were the three most going by going by W RC plus were they the most Chase and Lauder was a one ten WRC plus, Jose Ameros was one hundred nine, Anna Martinez was ninety seven actually. Brian Roccio was a one hundred eight Who else is up there? Bazana is a one hundred and eleven . So not the top three most productive. Minzardo and Friear actually Manzardo's one hundred two frie despite not really having great numbers and kind of being on a bit of a cold streak. He's at a ninety nine Austin Hedges is selled at ninety nine WRC plus and Anjamartine is at a ninety seven right there. Reese Hoskins ninety six . Yeah, okay, interesting . But yeah, I think we can all say Anja Martinez even though the WRC plus numbers aren't you know above one hundred where you want them to be leads the team in home runs with eleven home runs. He's up there near the team lead in RBI's Chase Delauder Jose Ramirez and Anna Martinez are your top three RBI guys on this team. Rokio is forth with thirty two and then there's a bit of a drop off there . So you just lost your three most productive run producers , whatever the WRC plus says two injury on the same day . That's insanity. That does not happen very often you know, imagine an NBA team losing its top three scores, you know, what a team would be decimated they'd be done for imagine a football team losing its quarterback star quarterback running back and wide receiver in the same game. You know, like that's kind of what happened here. And it's not going to be long injuries, so they are going to be back . And the Guardians had a choice here. And we talked about it last episode. There were so many names, especially with those outfielders, you know, less at third base Gabriel Arius was the logical move there at third base and Arius has actually had an okay he had an okay series. He had a chance to bust this game open this finale open. He only went one for five with two strikeouts , but he had he definitely left some runners on base on the game before Schneimen was playing third base. Arius was out of there against the rightie. So they are definitely platooning them, but there were two lefties in this series and Arius went two for four in his debut on Tuesday , including driving in the lone run of the game in the seventh inning. So Arius was the obvious choice him and Schneimen platooning at third base . You could have maybe gone on angel Hanao . That would have been an interesting choice , but you knew you had to get Aries back on this roster . The outfield one is the one where like you have choices here and you've stuck with Stuart Fairchild for a while. Stuart Fairchild should not be hitting in the middle of this order . I know he actually scores the lone run in the game because he draws a walk and is able to come around and score on Arius hit , but Stuart Fairchild should not be hitting the midd inle of the order. He's hitting sixth in the lineup . That's awful. He should be betting knife. If he's in the game at all, he should be betting eighth or knife . Pete Halpin gets in there against the Reichy on Wednesday. So he's the other guy who gets called up Pete actually Pete Helpin is the first one to get called up. So when Anja Martinez goes on the IL it's Pete Helpin that gets called up again , not the most exciting choice down there. I think we all enjoyed this spring training that Pete Halpin had, but there's he's not the power bat the potential that's there . And so he' hes's not an exciting choice at all and he ends up going over three with a strikeout. So Stewart Fairchild's back in there. Now he's betting seventh , but still the things games finding him like he came up in RBI situations like he had a chance to drive and runs. I don't want him there. I want him knife. If you got to put him anywhere, put him knife . Get Stuart Fairchild out of the middle of my rallies I don't know why vote is putting him so high against left handed pitching. Quant eventually comes in a pinch hit for him, but then they finally do something exciting and they finally bring up Cal Watson . So Cal Watson, if you remember, we got him a few years ago in a trade with Miami . Oh, who do we trade? Man , he's currently playing first base for the Milwaukee Brewers . Josh Bell. We send Josh Bell, not the Mawai Jesus, not the Milwaukee Brewers for the Minnesota Twins. He's currently playing first base for the Minnesota Twins. Josh Bell. So we traded Bell right at the deadline and we got Calia Watson. He had like fallen out of favor a little bit in Miami. I don't know, I forget it was like an attitude thing or something like that. Like was it was it like a not hustling thing? I forget exactly why what the rub was on Cleo Watson, but he needed to change the scenery and it's worked in Cleveland. He was a short stop. They converted him to outfield. They talked a lot about it. Rick Manning talked a lot about it on the broadcast on Thursday on this day game and, you know, talked about they were talking about how like you could just be an athlete like in the outfield. Like there's way more things you have to think about in the infield in the outfield. That's like go out there and be an athlete. And he was he makes an incredible a really incredible stretching out play to catch one, to snag one at full speed . Did he lay out for it? I can't remember if he actually laid out for it or just caught it at full speed . But he makes a great catch that saved runs like Milwaukee had a chance to blow the game open there. If this gets by him, it's at least a double and runs are coming in to score and Caleo Watson saves Parker Messi with a great catch and right field. So we already see the athlete on display. I even watched him leg out of ground out and I was like, oh, he gets down the base. Like this he's got speed here . So Calia Watson is a power hitter here. He is let me bring up the scouting report on him he is a legit power candidate here and he had made it up to let's see where he was . By the way, Angel Hanao now your top prospect on MLB. com and then Ralphie Velasquez and Cooper Ingle. And then Carl Steven where did he ? Cal Watson was twelfth on the list. They got his hit forty five power fifty five, run fifty five, arm sixty , field fifty five, overall grade forty five . What was he doing for Columbus this year? He was up to twelve home runs, twelve doubles and a triple . So his slugging percentage was at four hundred and ninety one. His OPS was eight hundred sixty one strikeouts were a problem , seventy one strikeouts to thirty seven walks, so he is someone who sells out a little bit for power, does strike out a little bit, but he's got pop in his bat and they finally did something exciting. They finally took a chance and they brought up an exciting power hitting option from triple A. The other choice was Cooper Ingel probably who maybe as a result of not getting the call up unloaded his frustrations at AAA and ended up with a three home run game . So Cooper English is a catcher by trade, but they've been trying to make different positions because they know they've got to find some positional flexibility if they ever want him to make the Major League roster and Alfa Corner outfield spot is definitely up, you know, in contention for something he could do . He's been working at it. Same with Ralphie Velasquez . So yeah, it's going to be I would have liked them to do the more exciting choices instead of Stuart Fairchild and Pete Halpin. And you saw the effect it had. Like our offense had no spark , no spark at all in this series and yes, a few solo home runs in the finale , Bazana, David Fry and Manzardo all have solo home runs, which is nice. We need F ry Manzardo to finally reach the power potential that we know is in there and like start becoming consistent power hitters . Both of them are around two hundred thirty batting average, both of them are around a seven hundred thirty plus you know just a little bit over seven hundred and thirty on their OPS . So they're they're basically the same hitter right now. We need that power to continue. They've got to find ways to make this offense run with those top three RBI produc on the IL . So yeah, every time I see Stuart Fairchild's name penciled into this lineup, I mean to be highly disappointed, highly disappointed. There are so many more exciting, interesting choices , guys I want to see, even if it's just for a short window, like the Selvey's Godcast guys talked about this, like give the guy the opportunity to see what it's like to travel with the Major League team to train within the Major League team, get ready with the Major League team, go through those team meetings, see how the veterans prepare for the game and and then get a taste of what it's like to hit in these ballparks, the three deck ballparks and the major league pitchers and the Major League Umpires, like let them get a feel for it and then you know maybe you'll need them again in August or September. Maybe you know you never know what's going to happen in a major league season. So even if it's for a short window, I'm glad Calo Watson is at least here. Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them , and to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog, HBAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Granger for quality products , easy reordering and twenty four seven support. Call one eight hundred granger, click Granger. com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done All right, so speaking of guys that are here and again we're not going to go super long on this episode but uh Daniel Spino finally he's been here for a few days finally gets to make his Major League debut and what does he do? He blows guys away two strikeouts in his inning of relief after Gevin Williams get shelled for seven runs . That was unexpected ten hard hit balls. Oh , two home runs Espino comes in there and yeah, he's thrown up at one hundred miles per hour and blowing guys away at the top of the zone . He averaged ninety nine point eight on that four seen fastball. They could not touch it . They were four for four on whiffs on the four seam fastball. So great to see what a story for Espino to finally make it after all the injuries and the struggles and the time spent at down in Arizona or I should say out in Arizona training and hoping and praying that his dream becoming a major league baseball player. And there have been articles written about him. Again, I know Zach Meisel has a great article about him and his family and everything they went through. He lost his dad, I believe You know, it's incredibly I think they Meisel told a great story where like the grandma his grand ma refused to come when he made his comeback to AAA . She was like, no , major league baseball. I want to be there when you make Major League Baseball. I'm not coming for AAA games. You make maj theor leagues and I'll be there. And he finally did it. He finally was able to make it and the family was in attendance and he comes out and he's throwing electric stuff a hundred miles per hour at the top of the zone, strikes out Garrett Mitchell, strikes out Cooper Pratt, the other rookie making their debut for Milwaukee. So yeah, so Espino, it's a great story and it's so good to see him here . What part of the bullpen , how many innings are in his arm? Like that's all still a mystery . We'll see how the season plays out , but you love what you see. Like there is a legit like Like could he could a closer position be in his future? Could a setup man or a closer be in his future? Could could he be the bullpen help we need because we definitely need some bullpen help. We definitely need some reinforce ments in the bullpen . Holderman's been great since he's come back. Gaddys is a little shaky right now . Yeah , Festa is usually your first guy in, right? You never know what you're going to get from him, who else pitch in this series? Will Deon I don't know. I think Will Dion's got to go back down. He's got to work on some stuff. I'd like to see some other names get that spot over Will Dion right now. Tim Harron is still walking guys . He has two walks in this finale. He almost gets in trouble but Holderman gets him out of it . Gaddess with more walks and more hits, but he's able to strike out two guys , but he still got to have Kate Smith come in and save them for literally save them with a four out save . Gaddys can't get through the eighth inning. So Kate Smith has to come in there and get through it , which he does. unscathed The bullpen doesn't give any runs in this finale, despite too many walks they don't give up any runs. So yeah, Espino definitely could be needed in this bullpen. All right , so that's the big news going on . Okay, a few details. Let me see where we're at here. A few details in this game in this series that are worth talking about . Slate Zakoni pitched well. Slate Zakoni goes five and two thirds, three hits , one earned run two walks, four strikeouts. He does give up the solo home run on eighty two pitches. He's only hard hit eight times. He really wanted to get through that sixth inning and just I was a give up a walk or hit something. He couldn't get out of it, but they're able to get him out of it . Yeah, there were two walks in that inning it came close. Jake Byers got hit by the pitch. I think it loaded the bases for Sal Freck Free Lick and he hits into a force out. So they're able to get out of that sixth inning unscathed although they do give up a run in the seventh inning . That would be the solo home run given up to Garrett Mitchell . But the other thing , one thing that sucked about this series was the Guardian Score run and then give it right back. So we score and tie the game up in the seventh inning. Okay, pitchers duel against Milwaukee and then we give the run right back in the bottom of the seventh inning . We did it again Wednesday after the grand slam in the fourth inning, we make it a four to five to four game Milwaukee still has a one run lead on us but we make it a game now where it felt like a blowout and then he immediately gives up two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Gives up a two run home run to Jackson Curio and then they're just they're blowing us out at that point, right? Seven to four and they kept adding on against Will DM . So we don't quite do it here in this one , but it was an inning later. Milwaukee we actually did to Milwaukee. They scored in the bottom of the second. We score our run in the top of the third. We have a solo home run in the top of the third from David Fry . It was an inning later, but then in the bottom of the fourth they score to take a two one lead and it's like ah, man we just tied it up. We saw the whole week we were doing this and then we finally are able to pull away in the sixth and seventh inning s of this finale . So yeah , let's go back to Slice for a second. What was working for him in this one went heavy on the slider? He had only used the slider three percent on the season and suddenly he's using it twenty three percent of the time and it was working I guess two whiffs, two called strikes didn't have any strikeouts on it he only had six whiffs on thirty one swings but he had nineteen called strikes pounding the strikes zone with a cutter, sinker and force seamer thirty percent CSW . He was eighty six percent first pitch strike so, really being aggressive and attacking heavy on the cutter the first time through the order, then goes to the slider more in the second and third times through the order . Average explosion on the day was ninety miles per hour . Yeah, so a pretty interesting start from Slate Zaconi, just doing his classic thing out there, battling , working working hard at attacking the zone being aggressive as you can see by the first pitch strike numbers there so yeah so good star from slates accompanying like encouraging and we need to keep that moving forward Gevin Williams was atrocious in this finale giving up seven runs . Yeah, there's not much. Schneimen's grand slam was great . It was a mistake pitch inside to a lefty . Give you the numbers on the grand Saml with Bazana let on with a lead off walk, Manzardo had singled Rocchio then walks. They strike out Reese Hoskins with the bases loaded. He didn't have the best series. They did make some good defensive plays. But then Schneimen gets it ninety nine point four miles per hour, twenty nine degree launch angle three hundred eighty six feet would have been home run in thirty out of thirty ballparks for the Grand Salami. Again, I thought this was going to get us back in the game and then we immediately give up two more runs in the bottom of the fourth. Then in this finale, Parker Messik was very good as well. He did have to battle a little bit . He had three walks . They just had too many walks as a team. I think they had nine walks as a team. Milwaukee, although on the other side wasn't any better. They had eight walks their pitching staff . So Messi does go six innings, four hits, two earned runs, three walks, nine strikeouts on ninety six pitches. He's only hard at six times, although the average exit velocity often was very high. The average exit velocity was ninety four point six . So you may have only given up six hard hit balls, but they were up there in the nineties all day off him . What was working for him was the four seam fastball at the top of the zone Five of the six strikeouts on the four seam fastball were at the top of the zone. He also got a strikeout on a cutter at the top of the zone. He had a sixty percent wiff rate on his four seam fastball, which he was getting up at n ine he averaged ninety five point nine so basically ninety six miles per hour when that pitch had been averaging ninety three point seven . So he was definitely getting some extra juice on that four seam fastball today. I don't know what changed . A lot of called strikes on the sinker as well . So it's a thirty four percent wiff rate and then add in twenty one called strikes, a lot of them on the sinker. It's a thirty five percent CSW for Parker M essic. So very good start for Parker Messic and gets the win for the Guardians and quality start and the win nice for Parker Messic who moves to seven and three on the season with a two point seven ERA this guy if he I know there's still another month to go but this guy definitely needs to be penciled in right now for the all star game for that for the for the AL rotation yeah so, the big difference, I think, the big takeaway from all of this is Milwaukee and Cleveland are very similar teams . But Milwaukee is just better . They just are and they do the things that we want to do. Like we have the same we have similar pitching staffs I was looking at the pitching staffs here like as far as war goes on fan graphs , Milwaukee is second in all of baseball at eleven point five war, their pitching staff. We come in eighth at eight point three . When you're looking at at the advanced stats here and you look at ERA minus . So minus stat now we want to be below one hundred and league average is still set to one hundred, but we want to be below it. Milwaukee is fourth at eighty three ER A minus , we're sixth at ninety one ERA minus. So they're seventeen percent better than league average. We're nine percent better than league average at just overall pitching, I guess you could say. Strikeouts, K percentage, Milwaukee's the best in baseball at twenty six point five percent. We're fourth at twenty four point five percent . Walk percentage they are let's see where they're at. They're pitchers. And we're thirteenth, they're sixteenth. So very, very similar pitching staffs. I could keep going , but you will see it's very similar pitching staffs where, we stop being similar is on the offensive side of things. WRC plus, weighted runs created plus again, Milwaukee's one hundred seven . We are their fourth in all of baseball at one hundred seven . We come in at twenty third in all of baseball at ninety two. So they're seven percent better than league average. We are eight percent worse than league average. And again, we can get in all the numbers, but you will see they are much better than us . They don't really hit the home runs though. We're both neither of us hit home runs. We're twenty fifth, they're twenty six in all this. We're actually tied with sixty seven home runs each each , but they find a way to score way more runs than we do. They're at three hundred and eighty one runs third in all of baseball . We are twenty seventh in all the baseball with two hundred ninety four runs scored. So if they know how to score runs despite not hitting the home run ball . They know how to get on base, they know what they're doing, they know how to drive guys in and their offense is clearly in a better situation than our s and is in even though we pull off the wind. So I would like to think we're on the same level with Milwaukee offensively. Nah, we're not. We just we're not pitching. Yes, pitching. We are definitely on the same level as Milwaukee right now . A lot of those strikeout numbers probably have to do with Mizar i Miserowski who we avoided in this series. Luckily I think they delayed his start . So pitching we're on the same level with them, hitting we are not we're not playing the same game as them . So alright before we wrap this thing up, let's turn things over to your emails really quickly . Bob had checked in late on the Detroit series, but he did say at least the injuries weren't to pitchers because we're so thin at starting pitching. He mentioned Kobe Allard, but they actually Kobe Allard actually got his release from Cleveland. It'll be interesting to see if Kobe Allard comes back on a new contract, but right now he has his release so that he can go explore other possibilities with other teams. So take away even more starting pitching depth right there . But yeah , he thinks he thinks we're going to survive the injuries better than Detroit has survived their injuries. That's got them towards the bottom of the American League Central. Jeff with a G checked in. He said hi Davy needed today's wind Thursday afternoon to write the ship. Good start by messic and nice to see the guards have a multi homeer day. Definitely lots of chaos around the guards currently with all the injuries and new players. These lineups are something . My MVP recommendation for the series is Cade Smith for securing the win. Not sure I can remember a batter having a great series. Very happy to see Daniel Spino make his long awaited debut on Wednesday night. What a story he is. Kid was hitting a hundred miles per hour too. Fingers crossed we can enjoy watching and rooting for Spino for a long time to come. Yes, definitely, Jeff. He finishes. It's definitely going to be a rocky several weeks for the Guardians while Jose Martinez and Dolat are out just need to keep grinding and stay in the hunt for the ALCR. All right, thanks for the podc ast. Jeff in Columbus . Yeah, staying in the hunt is going to be I didn't even see Did the White Sox end up winning today? Where are we at in those standings? Yeah, we 've been in lockstep with them the last few days. So we're still tied at the tide the American League Central at the American League Central although percentage wise points, there's still one percentage point ahead of us for first place . And then Bob checked in one more time after the Brewer series here, he said, I passed my heart stress test this afternoon. Getting one in Milwaukee is okay. Who is more valuable Hosey or Cade Smith? Gaddys and Haron are not what they were . Leadoff walks are simply inexcusable . I think you got to say Kate Smith might be more valuable than Hosi right now Man, yeah, you that having that shut down closer in the bullpen that could come in even for a four out save whew man, Kate has really earned it this year. He says I seriously wonder if Hoskins is done, although he does play a nice first base . Yardians are like a fighter staggered by an early right to the jaw, but they stayed up . As for the series, delaying William's start was not a good idea. In my opinion, vote out smarted himself. Fixing what is not broken needs to be stopped. For example, Quanta Center field. Got to cl stoseayose until Hy is back. I hope he is in the dugout in Houston . And then he said MVP got to be Kate Smith. All right, well, yeah, I was leaning towards the starting pitchers. Honestly, I was probably going to go Parker Messic, but you 've convinced me morning people. You with your emails, you have convinced me Kate Smith deserves MVP on the series. He was it was getting real tight. It was getting real sweaty there and Kate Smith was able to come in and get the four out safe. So you've given him MVP