Previewing Upcoming Series Against Seattle

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Top prospect Cooper Ingle is getting promoted to Cleveland and hopefully he'll be bringing some offense with him. You are locked on guardian, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day . Hello, welcome to a solo Friday edition of Lockdown Guardians. I'm Jeff as I have been for eight years here at this podcast. I want to take a moment and say today's episode is brought to you by Fandal. The biggest stage in world soccer is here. Let there be goals on Fandal. Visit Fandal. com to get started now on today's show, it's going to be an extra fun when it's always fun when we get to talk about promotions, especially players we've been waiting for when we're talking about Cooper English promotion, the how what where and why of it , we're going to look at some outside the box. Guys, we're not on like top fifty or most likely to be traded lists , well maybe one of them or two of them, I bet will be on the next set. But let's talk about some guys we've not talked about yet this year. And then we'll end by discussing this upcoming series against Seattle . It's , you know, get to see some old friends and get to face a very tough pitching staff, which with this offense yikes . I want to take a moment say what is locked and guardians? We cover you from the majors to the miners, the draft and everything in between. And if we have time, we'll hit the draft and really cover all aspects of the organization today. But first, let's talk about Cooper Ingle. So Cooper Ingle is a player that let's be honest, fans have been clamoring for for the past year, at least. I mean, people have been excited for him because catching was such a black hole in the organization, but he was always kind of a midling catching prospect in terms of his defense. So Cleveland after they traded for Patrick Bailey, they shifted Cooper and Gold to get more time in the outfield, which is something he had done at Clemen. That was a player that was a fourth round pick, the one hundred twenty fifth overall pick in the twenty twenty three draft . And he was a part time catcher, part time outfielder. And if you're saying, hey, Cleveland hasn't announced this yet, are you sure I'm positive ? I have a very excellent source on this. So Cooper Ingel is definitely going to be up, even if by the time you're hearing this, nothing has been formally said you know, the question at this point, the other side of the question, before we talk about Cooper himself , is what is the corresponding roster move? Well, at least one of the Offfielders has to be sent down and it's either you send down a PD Halpin and you DFA Will Dion to clear a spot or you DFA's Stuart Fairchild. And I know most people are like, option two, option two. And fair enough, I mean, to me, Fairchild and Halpin are very much very similar players . They run about the same, they're both, you know, plus defenders , both have strong arms . And on top of that , let's see, Fairchild walks a bit more. I think helping us a little more umphinous as Bat. But yeah, you're definitely moving on from one of them with the promotion of Eng. Thel questishion is how, do you add Ingle to the forty man, which requires cutting someone? Now, we have not been dead on those this year. I think you know, Valera, when they announced him, we weren't surprised by it, but we were a little surprised that it was Valera who got cut when he did you look at a few of their other choices we didn't think of being Nickesi. It's not necessarily that it shocks us that they did it, but we thought there were other players on roster who were more likely at the time . They don't think they're going to shift Jose to the sixty man because I don't think they want to risk. I think they want to hope that it's only going to be five weeks. So I think you're probably gonna see Deon or Fairchild go but bye. And again, I know everyone's like option two . Having said that, I think we spend enough time in their parts. Let's talk about the excitingness. So Cooper Ingel has done nothing but hit in the miners. He has been a wrecking ball . Let's see, his worst WRC plus in where he played more than thirty games is a one hundred thirty nine last combined was last year. It was a one hundred and thirty nine. If you want partial seasons, you'd have to take in more than thirty games . Let's see, we've got a one hundred and seventy, a one hundred sixty one. I think it's a one hundred and forty eight . So every level he has gone to, he has been one of the best hitters on that level in terms of his production , in terms of what he does. It's interesting because when you look at his under the hood data, which is more important than things like batting average and RBIs and you know, the stats I grew up on , I mean, even the stats then when I involved in my knowledge so I'm like on base and Bap and things like that, those aren't necessarily as valuable. But I do want to say this , one of those underrated stat things that a lot of people don't know about and I'm just gonna share here , I believe it was Chris Mitch ell who used to work with Fanagraphs, who's been with the twins for like has gone through multiple leadership changes. He has stayed there because, you know, he wrote some seminal work and he talked about that, you know, players in the lower miners a high, bat hip is a sign of good quality of contact of hit skill and I and Cooper Angle was seeing three hundred and forty five and three hundred and forty one bat hips when he was in high a so just kind of throw that in there . The fact that his high bat hips throughout again speaks to his quality of cont act he should , you know, be able to hit the ball and get on base. And when you dive deeper into that next level of stuff , while his , you know, his high end velocs ofity average. His evelggocs of ities are not the highest. He's never going to be , I don't think he's ever going to be a twenty home run guy. Maybe end up being wrong in that regard, but you don't need to be a twenty one home run guy. It's actually become exceedingly rare to find those type of hitters in the outfleet every year. People crown to the comments and they're like, come on, why is it that hard? Why can't they just go out and add someone who's going to hit twenty, twenty five home runs and be a right hand bat? And I'm like 'cause there's four of them in all of baseball and they all play on expensive contracts. It's really hard to find those players in general. So when you're looking at Cooper Ingel, he is able to be successful because while he doesn't hit the ball, you know, at the highest degree, you know, the highest hard hitit ex velocities . He still makes, you know, he has he his launch angle is clean, he squares the ball up and he is able to hit the ball hard without having big exit velocity. He puts the ball where it needs to be because the swing is tailored made for good quality of contact. Like we talk about that often on the show, you know, for instance , go back to John Kenzie Noel who chased everything. The reason we get nervous about guys who chase is because you can't have good quality of contact when you expand the zone. Engle doesn't expand ever. He's got one of the best eyes in the org. Now he can be a little passive and that's going to be the question. His his swing rate is lower than anyone at the major league level and part of that, in fairness to him could be because pitching is not as good in the miners and that you have to be a little more passive because guys aren't thrown in the zone as much . So there could be a degree of that with him walk rates are not predictive except for when they are. So what I mean by that too is one of his other big things he walks a ton. You know, Bo Naylor walked a ton. Guys who walked a ton in the majors did walk a ton in the miners, but not every player who walked a ton in the minors walk a ton in the majors. It's about that perceptive. It's about, you know, their eye and their patience and, you know, also being able to do damage when the ball is in the zone. Like Bo Nailer has a pretty good eye . I know people argue with that, but it's a pretty good eye but the problem is they can just pound the zone. It doesn't matter. Like that's what's happening with Stephen Kuan this year. Like pitchers just realized, hey, we'll put the ball in the zone. You're going to walk class and can you even hurt us? And the answer has been no. I think Cooper Engl will be able to hurt teams enough that you can't take that approach. So it's an interesting profile because he is he's been a complete and total and utter dominator, but he's not like the traditional guy. He's not the big exit Velocity. He's not a lot of those big tools and traits. He is a smart player, a strong eye for the zone . And I mean bottom line though, everything I've described, doesn't that sound really good on this team right now? Doesn't that sound like an ideal addition for a team that's struggling with offense, a team that could use some more stability and more consistency? I think it does . And we've spent the last week Com forum. We've also had our doubts with Cooper Angle. We've also had him on this very show. You can go and see when we interviewed him . You know, thank you to his agent Paul Co who set that up back in the day. But we interviewed him, we've been believers in him. We just never wanted the hype train to run out of control because then people expect more than can be possible. Cooper 's a chance to be an above average big league player. I think he'll be fine in the outfit. It'll be a little rough at first because he hasn't played it a ton, but when he got Qantu and Steenam who can really cover a lot of ground, that's going to help . You know, Watson's been a great and I'm running a little on time, but why the now of this call up one? I think they wanted to wait till he's in Cleveland. I do think they wanted to give him that the chance to come into Cleveland and was it the athletic did an interview today or well not today, but they did an interview a while ago where they interviewed a hundred major Leagueball players and asked them what are organizations of a bad rep, the organizations who would not want to play for. Twenty organizations were mentioned. Cleveland was not one of them. They asked what are the best organizations? What are the organizations you'd want to play for? twenty four were mentioned. Cleveland was one of them. And while they were not , they're like eleventh or twelfth on that list . For a you look at the first list, a lot of it is, I mean, the brewers made the ones you don't want to play for play for. A lot of the teams that don't spend as much around that don't want to play for list. Cleveland was on the one you want to play for because they take care of players, they have good amenities and because of moments like this in Cleo Watson. We had that debate when Cleo Watson, you know, should they delay to let his family come in for this organization? That's never a doubt . This is a you take care of your players and they're going to take care of you. And it's the same thing with Cooper English. The one and same reason you don't call up like England and Watson at the same time. Or if they're considering adding huff, you're not going to call him up for a bit. They want every player to get their chance to shine. They want this to be a special moment because it is a special moment. They have amenities, they take care of their players and they think about their players. They don't just do a knee jerk and call them up and not think about oh, you know, we're going to get his family and want to give him this time. We want to give him some time as the new young center of attention . That's why they think they waited after Watson. They give everyone that kind of special time. And they're going to give it to Cooper English now and Cooper Angle, you know, it's going to be fun. We're going to talk a little more Cooper Angle then we're going to get into trade targets when we come back on this edition of Lockdown Guardians The cash app card let you pick your own design. What would go I put on my card? My first I was my kids, but then I got no, no, not the kids. I think I think we'd be Rally Dino. Rally Din theo and cats, right? Like that would be what we'd have to do. Maybe the Guardian symbol Rally Dino, the cats, that would be the official cash app card for a locked on guardians fan, I think. That would be the only way to go for cash app personally designed card. And here's what I love about Cash App. I love OPM. I love other people's money and cash app can do more than you think to make your money work for you. If you direct depositly surrender and paychecks each month and use the cash app card for purchases you can earn interest on your savings. No hidden fees, no minimum balance required. Also, you can hit your savings goal even faster by turning on roundups on your cash app card with roundups. Every purchase you make using the card is rounded up to the nearest dollar and that's where change is automatically put into savings. Don't let your money sit around and gather dust. Make it work for you. Take advantage of interest savings on cash app today . New cash app customers can earn ten dollars if they use the code cash at ten in their profile at sign up and send five dollars to a friend within fifteen sorry within fourteen days terms do apply . I cannot imagine what the experience would be over here. I've got the World Cup game going on. I can't imagine what it would be like to be in one of these stadiums going to one of these games right now , but the problem , how hard it is to get the tickets, how expensive it is to get the tickets. If you want to get a ticket, often you got to jump in a long queue, you get all the way through. And then hey, here's a bonus fee that cost as much as the ticket itself. And that's where game time comes in. Game Time app gives fancy advantage with constant innovation. It's how you unlock amazing tickets and experiences with just a few taps. It's simple to use the game time guarantee means you get one hundred percent authentic tickets delivered on time at the best price. And here's the best part . Fees are included in the price you see. What you see is what you play period. No surprise jump up fees. That is about the most annoying thing in the world. You're like, Oh, I'm gonna get a really good no I'm not because they lied about their fees. That is not game time. Everything about this organization is antithetical to things like that in those fees. That's why we love them here. That's why we use Game Time ourselves. Take the guesswork out of buying MLB tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account and use the code locked on for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms to apply. Again, create an account and redeem code CK ED ON for twenty dollars off. Download the Game Time app today . Well, I got you here real quick. Let's talk about the Ever Day Club. So again, I'd tell you a little something special about the Ever Day Club. When I'm getting really annoyed watching a game , especially if I'm sitting like in my daughter's room waiting for her to fall asleep at night, you know, maybe I'm listening to the game and Justin is busy and can't respond by text. I'm going to the Everyday Air Club Discord and that's where you get to see frustrated Jeff. That's where you get see that version. We're going to see me frustrated, maybe saying some things having my knee jerk reactions I try to avoid. If you'd be interested in getting those ad free episodes, seeing those moments when I am frustrated , you want to and you can start a free seven day trial right now and get closer to your team and us with,out the interruptions, click the link in the show notes or head to supercast or lockdownguardians. Supercast. com . So a little bit more on the angle of Cooper, on Cooper Ang l hereish . He is, you know, a fascinating prospect because I would argue two years ago, he was higher rated as a prospect than he is now or maybe than he was his his ranking this past off season was lower. I feel like in a lot of places than was in the previous year. And the reason because of the reason because of that was the concern with exit velocity, like can he hit the ball hard enough? And the other side of that I'll say is sometimes we get too focused on Exoplasty. It's not for everyone. You know, we talk about Louis Arez, Steven Kuan when he was at peak , even you know, guys like Brendan Donovan, Alex call . I never talked about Alice Coll, right? So a lot of those players there are three buckets that I look at for players, right? There are three things you want Savon. And then that's why like, you know, O'Brien Rocho still makes me a bit nervous because he doesn't fit either of these buckets and almost every hitter does . The true stars are the guys who they barrel, they hard hit, they don't chase and they walk. They can strike out. They can whiff, but they're not expanding the zone. So their quality of contact is always high. And when they hit it, they kill it. So that's that's barrel one. Barrel two and this is probably the smallest barrel is they do chase. They do whiff, but the barrel and hard hit are exceptionally high. This is Jazu Sanchez is the guy always bring up Ahu Heni Suarez was another example of this. And they're the guys that they're going to strike out a lot, but you're going to throw something in the zone and they're going to make you pay . And then the other type are the guys who they walk and okay right. They don't have to walk a ton, but there has to be some walk. They don't strike out. They don't wift, they don't chase. So it's quality of contact in the zone and they square everything up. They may not hit the ball hard, they may not get any bar rels, but they're going to square it up and they're going to get a lot of bloops and bleeps and occasionally they'll go yard . But and that's probably more what Engl's going to be . You know, if he is, you know, somewhat similar to Louis Rise is a hitter, isn't that a net win is an outcome? Now he does walk a lot more. Or Rise has never walked , but you're looking at a player, you know, one of those players like that. And I think that's what he can give you. And I think it's great that hopef weull'll y have what I assume will be most days Ingle , Kwan and then Cleo Watson. And if Chase the Lauder comes back DH with him, I think at the start, I mean, it's still got a nasty rib injury. We'll see when he's back. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it . But it might that might lead to the end of Rhys Hoskins here, honestly if, everyone continues to play well, if everything goes well, it's no guarantee everyone's going to stay up. Maybe I'm wrong and they send someone down, but if the rookies continue to play well, I don't see how we can make that choice. So I'm imagining left field . Like I said, I think I'm leaning towards Fairchild. Again, I know that's what you all are leaning towards as well . So it might be more just witchful thinking on our parts, but Fairchild gone, Eagle gets a lot of time in left field because that's all he's really played. And his arm at Catcher was always kind of medioc . So you're not going to really think of him in rightfield and certainly not in the center . And it's just it's going to be fun. He's going to be exciting to watch and it gives you and since no not gonna happen or fair shout but it's certainly better than that plat oon. So let's talk about some under the radar trade targets. Like when I looked at the top fifty lists, these are names who weren't named. So I kind of mentioned before like I was looking at Oakland because if you look at Oakland, they were, I think, entering today tied with Texas and Houston for second place in the West, all teams below five hundred . And they have a lot of good offensive players and they actually are doing well for a team that like Brent Rook er is hurt, right? They're down him. Denzel Clark has had his offensive struggles, but he's also hurt and they don't have him. Both those guys are out for a while. And then they just had to add Zec laf today to the injured list. So this kind of made my trade idea a little less likely, especially because Carlos Cortez is really cooled off . You know, I was a big fan of his out of high school. And then he just kind of bounced around the mets, he went to South Carolina. I believe it was a draft eligible sophomore Metz took him a minor league free agent and he had a great , you know , like fifty games last year with Oakland . And then after that he started this year absolutely in Fuego and instead in June sorry, forty two games last year in June, he said a negative WRC plus. So without Cortez, this all makes it harder. So I'm beating around the bush. But I still think Henry Boltz is an interesting player because Henry Bolt is very similar to Denzel Clark is a super athletic right handed center fielder who can run who has a lot of hard hit and swings and misses a lot of things and does not have an ideal swing and behind them in the miners is another second round pick and re Woltz a second round pick, Ryan Latzko super athletic kid out of Rutgers who they also took in the second round who's already in AAA and then you got Denzel Clark, cousin of the Nailers, who's also, you know, who's in the big leagues who put up some spectacular defensive plays a year ago. So when you put that all together , it's that situation where I feel like right now maybe they can't trade Henry Bolt with the newest injury, but I'm kind of intrigued by him. Now he is rocking a like a four hundred four hundred thirty six bad bit. So that's that's not going to stay. But the crazy thing is throughout his minor league career, he was rocking a close to a four hundred bad pip. Like that's just unheard of. Like throughout every level this is a guy who has had a really high bad pip and part of the reason for that is if you go and look at Henry Bolt's Savant page, he is the one hundredth percentile in terms of sprint speed. He is the fastest player in baseball. Then you look at his fielding and center field , it's all red. Arm value is super high. Arm strength is so ninety second percentile strength, ninety fourth percentile in value and eightieth percentile in range . And then you look at the offensive and he's not chasing terribly high now. He has in the miners . His hard hit is looks like it probably about ninety fifth percentile if he qualified. His bat speed is up there as well. He's not barreling and he's at the average eggs velocity. The reason he's not barreling is he has the worst launch angle on baseball. Point three, not three, which would be terrible , point His swing has no launch at all. So it's just he's an interesting player in terms of physical traits with the speed with the defense with the bad speed. Also doesn't pull the ball at all. So if you could work at a deal where Oakland has absolutely no starting pitching at all. They have the worst starting pitching war in baseball and that's the only reason frankly that they're not winning their division. I think if they had decent pitching, they'd be winning it . So can you flip starting pitching? This isn't Gavin Williams like I talked about before , you know, maybe it's a Logan Logan Allen probably isn't enough. I don't know. Maybe it's a Logan Allen and a Frankl Alaman. You help 'em out in multiple ways. We're gonna come back, talk some more trade targets and then preview this series on today's locked on Guardians . The biggest stage in World Soccer is here. I'm watching it over here on my screen while I'm recording this. 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I almost hit the axe there when I meant to hit big screen. I don't want to have fun recording these. I hope you're enjoying today's episode. But the thought of having to start over just kind of terrified me . So let's get back to Henry Bolt, who was talking about. Again, I felt better about this before the Zack Gedloff. Now Zach Gedloff was mostly playing third base max moncy is going to move in the second max moncy and probably play there now. He's been a little up and down, but there's some good stuff under the hood with them. So I still thought that like oh maybe they want to, you know, Max Swancy is also a former first round pick that maybe they want him to play some more Denzel Clark's probably not going to be back to the All Star Break. Brent Rooker is a they don't know when he's going to be back situation, but they have enough guys that maybe they can have moved on from Bolt and he just feels like elite speed, elite defense hits ever loving tar out of the ball . Oakland's developmental side . I mean, I don't know. Like yeah, they got some success stories. They also have a lot of failures . So I mean, that's everyone though. So who knows, but it's like get the guy to pull the ball because he doesn't do that at all and get him to change from like the worst launch angle in baseball. Now that could be why hits the taller out of the ball because without any loft, he's just hitting it straight around and maybe that works for him. But the other side is, you know, he's got a terrible bat pip. So a super high one. We've always had a super high one because of his like trades and tools. Former sucker around pick , five more years of team control. I don't think Oakland be that interest in moving in, but for a team that needs to win now, a team that has doesn't need to win now, but wants to start winning now before they move into that new stadium in Vegas start establishing, you know, some success . There's a logic in them adding pitching . And again, I'm terrible at formulating deals, but so let's move to the San Francisco Giants, the team who might actually be willing to move and trade and seem like their doors are open because they are just lost at what to do. There are two players on the giants to kind of stand out . Jung Hu Li is one of them and my only concern with him is I believe he has a it's a team option for next year. I want to say and he's been great this year. He's been maybe their best hitter . He's currently rocking at one hundred forty oh that's it when he was in Korea one hundred thir andty six WRC pl us. He's doing it with a three hundred and fifty one bat hip . Now he is a player who is like a center fielder type, but the first two years two hundred seventy three to ninety one . So he was closer to like you know, even if you said, Oh, it's twenty point improvement every year is what he's going to do, that's still be about forty points below average. You take forty out of his three hundred and thirty three batting average, and he's still a pretty respectable what? two hundred ninety three , but I think you would take more than forty. I mean, I think you're kind of expecting him closer to three hundred. You take fifty one points away and two hundred and eighty one still works, but you know, you get everything across the board. He's not the one hundred and thirty six. And I just I think the bigger issue is what San Francisco would want for him because he can opt out after twenty seven and then the other side is I don't know how much Cleveland would want to add a player who maybe doesn't want opt out to maybe he, doesn't think he can get more than his contract is currently set to make him as a player who does not hit for a lot of power who, you know, has had fifteen home runs over the last three years, total. So that's just that situation where I'm just kind of like I don't know if the giants are really I don't know if Cleveland would go for a player who has that potential high amount of owed money because then you're just stock. The other guy we got to talk about is Casey Schmidt. Now Casey Schmidt has been a classic every other type year player fifty eight WRC plus a one hundred nine in ninety eight to one hundred and thirty three. If you're like, hey, you talked about bad pipelot. What's his bad pipeline is three hundred twenty and one, which is about forty points higher than his previous career high. So you take him from a two hundred and ninety five to two hundred and fifty five , which would put him in line with the year he had a one hundred and nine WRC plus . The thing with Schmidt is he has played left field, first b basease, second , short stop and third base. He can play all over kind of mediocre at all those positions, but hey, mediocre you take and the other side is he is right handed, which need for Cleveland. If you look at this year in particular, he is hitting I scrolled Duvar, didn't I one hundred fifty four against Leftis a one hundred twenty five verses. San Francisco is one of the worst hitter parks in baseball and might be the worst hitter park hitters parks he has one and nine WRC plus there and a one hundred and forty eight . When you're looking at I believe this is his fourth year , wow, because he has such limited time, it's only his third year in terms of service time. So you'd get him for three and a half years. He wouldn't be a free agent after the twenty thirty year the problem with KSG Schmidt is like if you look at last year's data when he is he was in ninety eight, which is acceptable , but it's harder to play him in a year like that because his splits are such . Like he might be in those off years more like he's a seventy one last year versus Righties and one hundred thirteen I'm sorry he's a seventy one versus lefties last year and one hundred thirteen versus righties and then twenty twenty four his previous really strong year . He was a one, sixty three verse lefties and a sixty three verse righties. So he has been really kind of inconsistent with his splits over his whole career . I'm betting they're actually pretty close to average because he's had some big years and some low years at it. But you know , so he's a one hundred and one first left season ninety seven versus righties for his career . You know, he can be okay in the outfield can play multiple positions and frankly , like just being average is an improvement for this team, right ? So I think if the giants are willing to consider KJ Smith, if this is a giants team that is just seems to be loading up on prospects, this is where you go. You make a move . And I think Casey Schmidt makes a lot of sense because of his flexibility because he is right handed . You know, for his career, I'm kind of curious about his home in a way split since I have it open, a one hundred at home and ninety eight away. Most players do, even in a bad hitter's park, tend to hit better at home over the length of a career than they do on the road. I think it's just creature comforts and being home. So I think Casey Schmidt is certainly someone you contact the giants about. I think he makes a lot of sense because of again flexibility, right handedness , problems you're going to pay high because he's in the midst of a career year and speaking of career performances . Someone we talked about a lot this off season who then got hurt and just started play ing as large newbar. He's only had seventy plate appearances in fifty nine at bats, but if you go to his Savant page, he looks like the best hitter in baseball. Everything is to the extreme red on there except for his K rate. His K rate is up a lot. The most interesting thing when I look at his data is in twenty three and twenty four when he was good. His launch angle was six and seven point two. That's not optimized. Last year at a sixteen point five that is optimized. He had the worst year of his career. This year is back to a seven point seven. I mean, the problem with launch angles that optimized launch angle doesn't always lead in best results. Now he did have , you know, not counting this year, the second best barrel rate of his career last year versus the other years , but sometimes, you know, you can whip it around quicker. You know, Stephen Kwan does not have optimized launch angle. It depends on the type of hitter you are and how you're going to do things, but last year was also his highest hard hit percentage. There was a degree of bad luck last year for Lars Naru andp I think a degree of health. And again, he's not going to sustain what he's doing right now. He's otherworldly. Like I said, he looks he has the most read of anyone I've seen on a page and it's because he's had limited time. But I think Lars Nupar is a player to consider. It's one and a half years of control, which also is something that Cleveland looks at and needs. They almost never take a rental or just a, you know, a guy who is going to give you one year when it comes to hitters. And on top of that, the cardinals , you know, you look at their rotation. Andrew Pelent Pellent has been a solid pitcher for them, a nice little surprise, I think, for what a lot of us were expecting . On top of that, you know, they have I'm sorry I'm Blake and I got to pull up the list . Dustin May has been fantastic a lot better than I expected'.s been He their best one Ky.le Hay has been okay. He's been like a five . McGreavy's Fip shows a guy who's borderline, but he's worked well enough for now and then Matthew Libertore has been terrible unless he's facing Cleveland . So you know they could use another starter . You know, Quinn Matthews is supposed to be the guy and he just he's hasn't worked out for him . He was a top one hard prospect, but they've had a lot of guys like Quinn Matthews a top one hard prospect where it just does not working to the big league level . You know, this is a place where again, I don't know what the right choice is, what the right player is, what it would require. You know, do you give up a cantillo because if they're going to lose Liberator, then they have no lefties in their rotation . Can till over New Bar is that overpay? Is that not enough? I don't know how it would work. Can you also throw in a bow nailer since they have pajes and crooks ? I'm joking kind of , but yeah, it's it's that situation where you know and if they lose Newpar, Nathan Church has played super well this year obviously Jordan Walker as they have so much offense, but their bottom ten team and starting pitcher war, which is again what I, was kind of looking at trying to figure out teams and maybe have some weaknesses in the rotation where it could benefit both sides . You know, they Victor Scott is terrible this year, but he's, you know, solid defender and center. There's some value in the past with him and Joshua Baez is just murdering baseballs in AA. There's a ton of chase. You, you know, when I talk about that second barrel of like second bucket it is of guys who b ar hreitl the and heartball hard but chase everything and it works because when it's in the zone they make quality of contact and consistent quality of contact you go back and you look at you like hey why didn't that work with no well he didn't make consistent quality of contact . H bisarrel rate was not consistent. The hard hit in the swing was we didn't have that barrel rate . Baiaz is just screaming for a call up . So I mean, maybe there's a world where I mean, he's so not a Cleveland type of guy. I mean, I thought he wasn't his draftier , but since then, but he is just a machine who deserves opportunity, former first round pick . He's already got twenty six home runs this year in A Triple and sixty eight games. So they could also maybe use an opportunity to open up a spot for Joshua Baiaz and or maybe Cleveland could just shoot the moon and try for him if you're speaking of right hand bats, but he really does not seem like ty theype' ofre guy. But that's why you know, trying to get Newpark could make sense. It could help St. Louis solidify the rotation, could help Cleveland solidify their outfield a little bit more. And then Josh ua B getsay aes chance or Victor S ky gets another chance. There's some nice pieces there that they want to try out. Now we had a lot of ads, so I can go a little bit long. Seattle is coming to town . When you look at this Seattle team, overall , if we do do what I used to back in the day and I think I have enough time to kind of go through position by position I also don't feel like what's the point with where Cleveland is right now. They're just not a very good team . So it's going to be like every position as advantage to the other team. So , you know, obviously one of the biggest issues in the early going with Seattle has been their offense and Cow Raleigh has not repeated what he did a year ago and you know, he's had some ups and downs this year , mostly downs and looking overall with him a catcher. I mean, I think I would still take out Raleigh over Cleveland. So I don't think that's that's too big of a situation, but he has had a sixty seven WRC plus. He's having a complete opposite year, thirty percent strikeout rate, one hundred ninety eight bat hips. So he's had some bad luck but yeah Calrally has not been anywhere near the same when you move and look at like first base Josh Naylor has played better late but he,'s ninety a nine WRC plus Calmanzardo has been the better first baseman . So you know, toss up so far with those two positions scheduling out. Cole young has been a very solid player liked when they him draft him.ed He's been about average. Travis Mazana has been better than that . So I would give advantage Cleveland though Young's been the better defender. Shortstop currently, I believe JP Crawford is he's playing third for them. Sorry because they called up Cold Emerson. Cold Emers on has negative defensive metrics a one hundred nine WRC plus and a thirty two percent strikeout rate weirdly with the way Rokio is played this year offensively and defensively. I think you'd give advantage Cleveland. Third base, man , more often than not, Cleveland will get that one. JP Crawford's playing some third this year for Seattle since they've brought up Emerson. Crawford is having another really good offensive year compared to what Cleveland currently has at third base . That is advantage Seattle one point lead ing to the outfield and it's going to fall apart. Randy Roz Arena is having a fantastic year . Just nutterly offensive force , advantage Seattle over whoever, you know, let's let's make it let's make it Cooper English since we talked about and no knock on Cooper, but Rosarina has been that dang good this year certain for you to Rodriguez versus Stevenu anQ. Okay , so Seattle takes the lead and then you move into right field. Luke Rayleigh, the Ohio kid , you know, was a nice story in the early going . He is still staying a nice story with a one hundred twenty WRC plus twenty nine Bap. He's a platoon guy for them, but he has performed. So that goes advantage there. And another Ohio kid, Seattle is all the Ohio kids dominate Kanzone continues to play exceptionally well at one hundred fifty two WRC plus. Blue that is highest on the Mariners sorry, second highest to Will Wilson in his six plate appearances. But you know, I believe Brendan Donovan is still hurt for them, right? So he isn't playing right now. But yeah, so that's advantage for Seattle. That's where they really take advantage of it. And unfortunately in this series, pitching matchups . So Louis Castillo versus Joe Kenzelo, Castillo has been pitching better of late. He's still not grand. I mean, I guess I would maybe say adv antage cantilo, mostly because the Seattle team is very left handed outside of Julio and Arose Arena . Raleigh is a switch hitter