Importance of the White Sox Series

It's the Lockdown Podcast Network , your team every day . What if this magical feeling could follow you everywhere . With Disney Vacation Club, it does. That feeling follows you from vacations in the magic of Disneyland Resort. Let's go to the beauty of Hawaii and other exciting destinations with your family . Then, that feeling starts to feel like home. It's like a dream. Discover more today at DisneyVacationClub. com. This is a time share solicitation and all offer registration requirements have been met some benefits require additional eligibility . Our trip up the coast was perfection. With my Sapphire preferred card, we earned three times the points on gas, online grocery, and dining. It was amazing. Chase sapphire preferred. The card that's preferred for a reason, cards should be JP Morgan Chase Bank, any member of VIC subject to credit approval to apply . Cleveland Guardian's offense is inconsistent, no surprise without three key contributors and they need more reinforcements. We'll tell you which ones on today's locked on Guardians. Tanner Boba Guardians and you're listening to Locked On Guardians. You are Locked On Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the locked on podcast network, your team every day A little good, a little bad from this road trip, which every time you think things are going be to okay, they turn out to be tougher than ever. This is Lockdown Guardians, your only daily Cleveland Guardians podcast on your Cleveland Guardians that covers a team for the majors, the miners, the draft and everything in between. We'll get into all of that today as we always do . We'll talk about the college world series and some notable players to know from there. If time allows, we'll talk about how big this White Sox series is ahead. Talk about the Guardian's up and down road trip with their two and four on a nine game stretch and which reinforcements are needed on this offense. That of course is Jeff Ellis on the other side of the microphone and camera. He's been here for eight years of the podcast. I'm Justin Lann Laden here for and we've both been covering the Guardian's Minor League system in the draft for nineteen years before we get started, we'll let you know today's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use code locked on for twenty dollars off your first purch . So I am sitting here in the outer banks at vacation. I am still falling guardians. I said to Jeff, I said, We'll see how things go this week with the team and my schedule , but there was a lot of interesting things to talk about this weekend from the games themselves calling up prospects or not calling up prospects , injured prospects. And then you've got a big series ahead this week in Chicag o, Jeff . Yeah, you know, the luckily for Cleveland, the White Hocks lost got swept by the Tigers who were still, I think, seven and a half behind Cleveland. So it's about everything you could have asked for. Pitching wise, starting pitching wise, it was great. I like how many of our comments were very focused on Matt Vesta and I'm not saying you should use Feston and high leverage, I'm just saying all the bullpen was terrible on Friday as a unit you know Spino. Espino I mean at Sabrowski as well it was not a strong return Yeah he was a little trimming he was not ideal but I'm not concerned like you know it just that's what happened. know You it, there are some offensive struggles. We'll get into it. I mean, that is not a surprise for anyone out there who's followed this team even remotely of late, but yeah, it was the one thing that's nice is the starting pitching is really coming into its own . It is. There were the rotation is going to help to keep this team afloat , but that's only going to work so much if you have the proper offensive reinforcements. And I also think we should probably say this because I know a lot of our comments will say this and a lot of other people say this too about trading for this person to that person. Unfortunately it's june twenty second when you're listening to those aren't trading yet. Yeah, I mean, I know the Patrick Baileyade Tr happened. That was a rare occurrence where team was going to move on for a player and the guardians have been wanting him for a couple years and they felt like they just needed that defensive upgrade. And there was a bad GM involved. Yes, and teams just don't know if they're buying or selling right now. The giants for sure know, but they're even saying like we're getting ready to sell. We just don't know what we're doing yet. So there's a lot of teams out there who may or may not be buyers and all those teams. So we think the guardians for sure are clear buyers, but there's a lot of te ams out there that are in the middle who don't know whether or not they're going to be buyers. So naturally anybody who is a seller, they're going to wait until the full market comes together to know exactly who the competition is and how they can get the highest offer. So all that, you know, in the future, I think the biggest thing here is so Kill Watson's been up and I'm not going to I'm not going to bury the kid like hitting najor league pitching is very hard and I think everybody here should have a chance. If you're watching Culia Watson and you're watching games , unless you're Travis Bazana or any of these rookies, right? Even Connor Griffin struggled early. I know he's hurt right now, but you know, this twenty twenty four rookie class is obviously really good . But for most players who are coming up for the first time, you are seeing the AAA to major league pitching gaps. So I'm not going to bury Cleo Watson just because he's had a bad four or five game stretch, whatever. But you're seeing some of the issues that we've had over the last year with him. Like, yes, in the miners, he had taken down his chakes rate this year, but part of that came because he reduced the overall swing rate. So that passivity, as we've noted before, Jeff , doesn't work at the Major League level because those pitchers are going to either get you swinging this zone or they're going to get you to chase away triple the pitchers can't. So I'm not going to bury Wattson over a week of games or even less, but you are seeing the issues that we were worried about early on that he is going to chase and he looks over matched early on. He's not a Watts or he's not a bazana. He's not one of these good rookies unfortunately. Yeah. If you if you didn't get to see him over since his call up, he's currently over ten with seven strikeouts. So it's about as bad as it can get. It was walking in that over yeah venty percent K rate is not Chelsea. I think for me what stood out I think was Saturday's game where it's like I think he is even overthinking it and caught a little in between like there's a pitch that was I don't know how many ball were but it was a two strike pitch and he took it right down the mid dle. Like he just sat there and watched it go by. So I think he's kind of little in between. He got to give any player time. You know, we'll see what goes, but this is some of the concerns we talked about. And to go back to your previous point, like after this weekend, the astros are too out of the wild card. Like people have been coming up with Astros trades for months now. There's certainly two out. A few we did. We do help that whole cottage industry still survive by talking about it. It's like an eat it for our podcast . I mean the Astros are too back. Like there's still and a team like the Astros on top of that, like everyone loves to bring up Yoron Alonso trades. That's not happening. Like they're not trading their superstar. Like this is a team that's going to hope to be back in the running next year. Teams are looking to trade , you know, guys who they either view as inconsequential or guys who are on expiring deals. Like, you know, it's the same thing with like the Mets, like people like to bring up crazy trades like Bobochette because he only makes two million this year. But Cleveland's not acquiring a guy who's owed eighty four million. I don't care what Bob Nightingal says, that guy's opting in with as bad as he's been. Like you still have to have some two feet on the ground. The giants probably are your best bet. I mean, the rockies don't have anything left. You're not getting help externally until I would argue near the end of July. Six, five weeks. Yeah, I think, you know, best case scenario is another month from now is when maybe teams start moving off this, but that might even be best case scenario. So all the help has to come internally sorry. Like I know that's not what people want to hear, but we don't see a lot of trades this early and I don't think we will because I mean the teams that are more than five games back in the wild card, it's Boston, Kansas City, the Angels and that's the Mets, the Giants and the Rockies. Like, that's it. Everyone else is within five games of wild card spots. The Mets are going to keep hanging on because the Mets are five point five backs. So they're yeah. And the American League is no better, honestly, the American League. You got teams that are under five hundred that are holding wild card spots. So it's just a mess this year all across the board because you got a lot of teams who are half in half out. So I think at this point for me I can't keep watching I know I know Pete Halpin actually had a decent weekend offensive ly h theit triple on Sunday and with one out scored the run today, right I don't know if he did score the run or not. I thought he was the run today could be wrong. I'll double check that. Well he had one out triple and he was stranded. So unless he had a second hit at our walk I don'.t know, but like you just you just know what you're going to get from Pete Halpin. Like I know he had a good height of had a good weekend offensively at a couple hits. No, he scored the run. He scored the run after he I think he scored the run off that triple right because he got other Yeah. They had three scoring opportunities. They had two hits in the first inning. They scored a run . And then they had another scoring opportunity. They didn't cash in and that's all I can say because I've been in and out of like how focused I am because I'm sitting on vacation on vacation luckily so because well I mean, yesterday's game was fun. I was able to watch yesterday's game while we were swimming because that was a nice treat. I will say. I don't see any reason why you keep hanging on to Stewart Fair Shell and Pete Halpin. We talked about this multiple times. They're they're redundant and this team long loves one and Schneiman. They're four guys that are the same . Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you know what you're going to get from them. Schneim noten going's anywhere because of his defense and he's versatile and there's still hot streaks in there same with Quant. Defense is going to keep him here plus the contract. He's out. They're not going to get rid of them. Nobody wants him. So he's going to keep playing. There's no two ways around that no matter what you want . I don't you don't need both Halpin and Fairchild. Like the Guardians are so obsessed with with platoon advantages even though Stephen says he hates platooning or he doesn't believe in that, he just wants to be starting pitcher that day. But Stewart Fairchild doesn't hit either side of the plate well. So it doesn't really give you we talked about last week like it's great if you have like you know the Rayburns and he's got a higher OPS than Stuart Fairchild though. That's why like they pinched him today for Perchot is a higher win than Kwan. Like I think he's actually been better than Kwan offensively. That's crazy. But you don't need both. You don't need both . And you know, I know that Cooperingo only has like he played he had a weird weekend. We ' talkll about that too, but yeah, like he's played six pro games in left field. I'm sorry. I think you need to call him up because he played a lot before . Huh? He played a lot before that. It's not like he never played college. It was three it was four years ago in college. So like I, but they're also not playing him in left field every day in the miners. So it's like what are we doing here that we're not just if you want to have him ready for left field in the Majors? Why aren't you playing him in left field more? I don't understand that. I think he needs to be up. And if you know, if it doesn't go well, who cares? Because you're not getting anything from Fairchild and Halpin anyway for the most part. So you already have Wattson can play center, Schneiden can play center, Quan can play center. You don't need Cooper to be a great defensive outfielder. You just need him to hit because the offense is the problem right now. I know you can give up more runs if you're bad defensively, but I don't think you need Bulls Fairchild and Helpin you need someone else in this roster who might give you a chance to hit and I think that has to be English. But I know Jeff, you've got other names you want to talk about. We want to talk about this road trip so far. We want to talk about the White Sox series that's coming up and if we have time, we want to get in some college world series stuff but we might punch that in tomorrow the way things are going, but we have a lot of information to give you and talk about here on the rest of this episode. Summer events are a lot of fun, whether it 's a baseball game, a concert, there's so much going on, right? And it's so much fun to be at in line. The problem is when you try to get tickets to these things, it's a pain, right? You get either stuck in a long queue for like a big event or you get surpr feisesed at checkouts even when you,'re buying baseball tickets. That's why you want to use game time because it gives fans like us the advantage back with innovation and you're able to unlock amazing tickets and experience, just a couple tabs. Very simple to use. I've used them multiple times myself. You get a hundred percent authentic tickets every single time . Thanks to the game time, I guarantee the best part is the fees are included. So the price you see is the price you pay again. My wife and a couple of family members are actually going to Cincinnati, I believe next month to go see Ben z and Boon h forot tickets and should use game time to find a good price on aftermarket because it was hot. So two taps, it's done, no stress, no hidden fees, great seats, and then it's take the guesswork out of buying tickets all events, especially major league baseball tickets with game downSligno,ad the app today, create an account. You just go lockdown for twenty dollars off your first purchase term supply again, create your account. You can code LOCK EDON for twenty dollars off, download the GameSign app today . If you've got a sweet tooth like I do , you know how tough it is to find that perfect treat with all that sugar. That's why Cotton Candy five hour energy shot brings nostalgic flavor back in a whole new way. This is a classic cotton candy taste to remember , but with a tasty caffeine boost and zero sugar. It's a quick easy way to satisfy that sweet craving while keeping things simple and on the go. I am a sugar fiend. That is my addiction in life, sugar, sugar, sugar. I love all things sugar. And for Father's Day today, you know what I got a bit of cotton candy. I love cotton candy, I love sugar, I love five hour energy because it's combining those favorite loves of cotton candy, sugar and that booster of energy to help me get through the day's hard. It with two young kids to keep the energy level up and that's where five hour energy comes in and helps me. So bring on the sweetness with cotton candy five hour energy shots available online now at five hour energy shot. com or on Amazon. com As always winter lose. We appreciate you tuning in the lockdownardians Gu every single day and making us your first listen and helping make the Lockdown podcast network the number one sports podcast network out there. Couldn't do without all of you. And if you want more of the show or more baseball talk with the Guardians, you can check out the Every D are Club. It gets you access to ad free versions of the show on audio every single day. It also gets you access to the user or the listener discord, where it is Jeff, I all fans of the Guardians, listeners to the show , and there's a channel for every single lockdown show with the host and their fans as well. So if you're a fan of any of those other teams, you can check those channels out on discord as well. Go to lockdownguardians. Supercast dot com check the link in your show notes . So you were saying you had some other guys Jeff that I think not necessarily might be Cooperingo. I think it's Cooperingo, but you have some other names you think might make sense ? Well, let's just kind of go through the list. Like if you're looking at who the top prospects are and you look who the top players are, we already talked about Cooper English. I will say I still have my concerns. I do think you should get called up, like one hundred percent , but I mean you look at who has like who are the most passive hitters on the on that triple a team. It's Cooper England and it's Bone Naylor they're very similar in that regard. I mean Cooper English has a mid tier strikeout rate and it's because his zone swing is fifty four percent. You want that to be like closer to I believe like seventy or eighty. Like it means he doesn't take the bat off his shoulder in the zone at all, hardly ever. And I just don't know how that's going play to along with like his average exit below solid, but like his high end isn't great. And I feel like some of those home runs he's hitting in the minors are aided by minor league parks and bad pitching. So I don't think he's not he's better than Watson. He's not the Delauder and Basonite here, right? Like so I think I just want to shade people to kind of have a reasonable expectation for Cooper Angl. But having talked about English, let's talk. Everyone likes to bring up Ralphie V alaze. We're not going to see Ralphie this year. has been rough . It's been extremely rough. He has the worst whiff rate amongst hitters in A right now. He is just missing. He is hacking luckily. He's not expanding. It's not a chase situation, but I mean his his O swing is pretty low. He is, you know, his swing percentage is extremely high. He is swinging at everything that's nearby and it does ye'ahs not, he passive . And it goes far, but man, he is just he can't make contact. He's not walking. It's he is struggling in A . So he has things to work on hell, Hanao is another top prospect . He is , you know, he's not whiffing. He's not having any of those issues. Take Homer on Sunday by the way. He did and his hard hit percentage is good, but his quality of contact is kind of mid. I don't think he has things he's got to work on. He's got to fix that swing a little bit more. He's got the hard hitch . Third base. Yeah . I mean, third base, yeah, you know, they do have some issues there. So I think there is some of that. But you know, I think he has clear things to work on . The guy who's got the most impressive bet of ball data when you look at guys who are like top thirty prospects to me is Cody Huff and the reason Cody Huff stands out over Cooper Ingle is the fact that like his, you know, his zone swing is at fifty seven percent it's or fifty seventh percent out sixty seventh overall. So that's right there. I talked about you kind of wanted closer to seventy . I believe in the maybe it's between sixty and eighty in the big leagues, honestly. So I could be wrong there. But you know, his is sixty seven percent, his offensive swing in the z one is you know twenty point four that's ninety third percentile . His max EV is higher. His ninetiest percentile EV is higher. There's not a lot of gaps in here. Yeah, his strike percentage is a little high. His swing percentage is, you know, not always the best. He does have some swing and miss in his game . And we had this debate last week, but there are a lot of people who say you can't even really look at the data because anyone repeating a level, the data is kind of skewed. You said that. And I know. And I brought up and say to that. So there is that level of it . But when I look at Huff , the one advantage he has over everyone else is he's right handed. And we do know there's a need for balance . We do know that they could, you know, and play their base. He's played their base. Has he played a did he play a game or two or outfield? I don't know if I want to do it long term, but he's I don't think he's played any outfield. I think it's been first catch or third . There was talk to about second base , but I don't think that's happened yet . So he is and I mean because where this team is , I mean, I think he'd be probably the third best offensive catcher, but there's a chance he might be better than Hedges because Hedges has, you know, he's great at game calling, hedges, well, we've seen some of the signs of slippage . He gives you a right handed bat. There's some positives there with that as well. And I gotta be honest, I was looking going back on data since june twenty first, so thirty days from when we're recording this. In that time Reece Hoskins has had a sixty three WRC plus for those who don't know, one hundred is average. So he's thirty seven percent below average . You know, he's terrible in the field. He can't run , his expected batting average is the worst in baseball, his expected slugging percentage is like bottom five percent. So he's his hard hit percentage typically is at around forty four to forty six. It's like forty point nine right now. So it's he's just not hitting the ball hard enough. So the few times he does make contact. Yeah, he has had three home runs. That is tied for the third most this month and he is right handed, but I think the bell is told gold overhand. Did that just three holes ago ? Well, I mean Go More did that a few holes ago. No, that was that was Nick Wriggle on Thursday. Yeah, it's I mean, Manzano play Friday, Jeff. Explain that. Yeah, it is weird. So it's a double header. I don't have a good explanation, but you know, Manzano Manzardo will yeah and manzardo and Bazana lead the team over the last three days with five. So and again, you know, it's it's a big difference between minor league and triple. I mean one of the best hitters in all of Triple A this year for this team was Stewart Fairchild and it's like so Ingle has the highest WRC plus, then Bazana, then Huff, and then Fairchild and Huff are kind of right in the same range. And then comes Bone Nailer for the next highest after them. So success in triple A doesn't really mean as much . You know, Killie Watson is six on this list . So but you do use it as it's not the end all be all, but it's certainly, you know, it's one of the many things you look at. And I think with Huff , and I just I don't know, I'm wondering, comment in the comments, are you with me or against me? Does Hoskins kind of look cooked? I especially with Jose on. It's like he's going to be an everyday guy and he takes up that DH spot and , you know, especially if manzard and if Manzardo is back, you know, he hit back tightness. So and then all of a sudden if Manzardo isn't manning first you're going to put Hoskins Hoskins has not that first base arm matters, but he also has no range on top of having no arm. Like he's he's had to play more first base because of, you know , hitting and I don't think they'll move on, but I think it is one of those conversations that we probably need to start considering that like, you know, I think Engle and Huff could be up. And I think Fairchild and Hoskins could be gone. And I think that's probably the move I would make . I don't know how you feel and I don't know how our listeners feel . So they can comment below and we come back from break, you can tell me how you feel about my potentially ridiculous idea . Oh, I've got thoughts. I'll tell you exactly what the guardians I think theard Giuans should do. We'll discuss that in a minute . Well, I know baseball season's right in the thick of things, especially the Guardians in Division race trying to stay afloat. And right now you can go to Calci and trade on every single game. So you can go over to Causi and trade on anything baseball related, anything else related. If we look at the ALCR on Causi, the Guardians are still trading at a forty eight percent chance to win. So the everybody buying in those positions thinks the guardians still have the best chance to fight their struggles right now. And if we look ahead of the White Sox series this week too, Cleveland trading at a fifty two percent chance to win this first game in Chicago. So if you put a hundred down there, you can make a one hundred eighty two in that current position. The great thing about Calci is you are trading against peers in the life market. There's no house. So as the probability changes, you could buy in and out of that position based on what you think things are looking like if for a little bit of time if you download the Calcia and you code locked on, you get ten dollars when you trade ten KAL SHI KLC trading anything eighteen plus all the restrictions elsewhere in supply, then contract trading involves risk it may not be super for all investors, prices, values of available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calci dot com slash regulatory On this Disney cruise, we came to play , hanging with Goofy on a private island , getting o h's and odds from census spot. We're on board for all of it. Cause Disney Cruise Line is where we came to play All the good stuff you can do, you can hit the bell on YouTube to get notified whenever our videos go live, whether it's a reaction video of something or it's news or games , bonus episodes, regular episodes. And then please, if you're a listener, hit the download button on your favorite audio platform to keep the show on your feed helps show out and it keeps you keeping the show in rotation. And we would appreciate that because we appreciate talking Guardens Ball with you . So I don't think your idea is crazy at all, Jeff. I don't. I say bring them both up. Why not both? Cooper could place on left field, can move Kwon is center, steam in the center, stream in the third, whatever you got to do, or scheme in the right field , figure out whatever Watson's going to do. And yeah, Hoskins is not really blowing me away. So if they were to if the guardians, if I wake up tomorrow and said the Guardians DFA Reece Hoskins, I would say, okay, like I can't sit here and say would be that's a stupid move and that's not right. The guy's not blowing me away. Like he walks a ton. That's great for a mill and a half. And I believe he also has some other bonuses in there whether that's games played. He doesn't have a vesting option for like a bath or anything. Does he? I don't think he does. No, I'll go pull it up. There's no vesting option for action. It's a one and out. I'll see if I can . Yeah. So he does have some like some bonus clauses for certain , you know , marks he can hit. So I can't sit here tomorrow and say it's a guardians move on from Rise Hoskins, I'd be upset because like, yeah, he sits some balls far. He hit the homeburn in Houston on Friday, that's great. But like he's not blown my doors off and you're probably going to keep him because of the uncertainty right now. You're going to go with the stable veteran because of all the injuries, right ? But I find a way to get huff and angle on the roster right now. I like huff. I think he can play, like I said, he could play some catcher if you really need him to, but you play first and third and you could DHILL like there's DH bats open if you move Hoskins. So you can DHILL if you think the bat's gonna help. So I don't see why I think this is the time to throw things at the wall honestly. Like you're out Jose , you're out the law or who knows how long he'll be out on hells another' month. Like this is the time you stick stick things things at the wall and see what happens. Like hope they stay. And if they don't , what did you lose? Because you're going to struggle anyway with guys like Halpin and Fairchild and Watson may not give you much and you know K,wan's struggling and has very inconsistent bouts of looking like his old self but not consistently kind of like what Jose was just he's a better version. So yeah , I don't see why you wouldn't try it. Like clearly you're going to have to do something here because I have a hard time believing they're going to be consistent. Like I can you even play five hundred ball with the current roster until Jose or De Lauder on how it gets out? Like we're hoping you know Chase the law is ten days but, who knows how rib injuries are going to heal. Also to go back to your point to you were saying, you know, Clear Wattson looks like he's caught in the middle. I think if you're a passive hitter, you're going to be caught in the middle because you don't know, especially in the major leagues because the pit quality of pitching is better and you're trying not to chase so you're hoping to throw you a ball and not taking the battle off your shoulder. And then when you get a ball in the zone, you're not ready for it. So if you're a passive hitter, you're going to be caught in between but yeah, throw stuff at the wall, see if it sticks and if it doesn't, you know, what did you lose? I don't think you have much to lose here anyway. Like I understand trying to play it safe and go with defense and Halpin and Fairchild and like I'm okay if they hang out on Hoskins right now, but I'm also okay if they don 't because I don't think you're going to hurt yourself more by trying these different things in wake of the situation . Yeah, and for those keeping dragon home, the reason I specifically said Fair Child and Hoskins is that also cleans up two hundred forty man sp ots for the two additions there Jeff, I think I think both are going to if one of them is not traded next month, I think both are forty man candidates at the end of the year. We know English office too. Yeah. Yeah, ye,ah no I, agree. They're on there with Justin Campbell and talking on some Yeah. ching real quick from the weekend. I just want to throw this on. You had brought it up. So he gets one point two million extra if he gets up to three hundred sev andenty five plate appear ances. So I guarantee I'll call it now in our comments. If he gets cut before he gets brought up to it, half of our comments will be about Dolan being cheap and about that. Not about his performance. It's going to be they cut him not because he's he's sitting one hundred and seventy one but because cheap because that is the that's the common you deserve to get to that mark like is he played well enough to earn those extra bats he is he's had a negative value for the past month and I think he's an he's a negative defender. He's a negative runner runner and he's been a negative hitter this year. Like he's not he's not doing well . I can tell you that, but yeah . So the positive though is like we said, like you were saying before, the pitching, the rotation is keeping I know things got out of hand on Friday. First of all, I'm going to say that in hindsight's twenty twenty, we can sit there and talk about this all day , whether or not you take a pitcher out in a certain situation . Tanner has I know this doesn't always you and I had a debate on this . Yeah. It doesn't always hold weight. This doesn't always work, but I would have rather I personally would have rather seen Tanner face Jose Altuva in that situation on Friday. I know he was at ninety five pitches and it was the fourth time he would have faced Al Tuve. So maybe in the same time third. So I honestly, if you're giving me a choice between this is Tanner Briby's last hit or I'm bringing the Matifesta , I'm sticking to Tanner By in that situation. It didn't work. Maybe it will work other times, but it didn't there. And I again, hindsight's twenty twenty. We all could play Monday morning quarterback. I would have rather seen Tanner there . And the bullpen thing, everything got away from them . My goodness, and I know you want to talk about that situation, but my goodness, Joey Cantello , that was incredible stuff on Saturday. And that was when I talked to Joey a couple of weeks ago , I said, You know, it's really good to see you becoming the pitcher we all thought you could be because I'm not even close to that. I don't want to be where I am right now. I want to be better. And he was right because that was one of the best starts to think of his career . Yeah, it's, you know, it was a fantastic performance by him . He's been a lot of fun to watch. And you know, I want to point this out. Like Tanner had their worst start of the weekend. You had three guys who had the great performances Milwaukee band . Yeah, and go back to last week too. It's like, you know, Milwaukee fans will be the first to tell you they have an elite offense. We like that in the comments . Houston has a really elite top of the top of the lineup team. Like it's a tough team at the top. This pitching st aff has what in their last five games, last six games. They've held the opposing team good offenses to two runs start in Milwaukee was probably the last bad start by this rotation. Yeah, it's like so they had two that got away from them and then they had three starts four starts with less than two runs in that time against good offenses. So I think, you know, for as much as I think are they a five hundred team? I do think they are because the starting pitching. I think the start ing pitching is enough to get them to being close to five hundred. The point is you don't want just a team that's sitting around or near five hundred right now. And a lot of people like jump in the comments again and be like, oh, I told you they're five hundred teams. Yeah, they're a five hundred team when you take any teams of five hundred team for the most part when you take away their top three home run hitters. Like they lost their top three guys in terms of home runs whether or not they're being five hundred . Yeah, if they could go five hundred to the stretch stuff these guys I',ll take that like yeah , I don't know outside of the this is a conversation for another day but outside of the Dodgers. I don't know any of their team like the Yankees I guess are doing it without judge but outside of the dock they're coming Yeah nobody else is really built to do this to lose players like that and still and still be a good team. Like I will take five hundred until one of the even just till Chase the Lauder comes back if he's the first one back I'll take five hundred just st a netretch. Like just hold hold serve, you know ? Yeah, it's, you know, it's and I'll say like this White Sox team is the other side of it. Like I know they're struggling late but I pulled up their last thirty days numbers. it And's, you know, Tristan Peters has been fantastic story, but he's playing over his head, you know, a lot of guys his high bat pips, but it's a deadly comment saying no, they're really good, Jeff. I mean, no, they are. Like it was Milwaukee though they 're okay. So Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas should both be stars in the All Star team. Andrew Benintendi's got a one hundred thirty one WRC plus over the last month with a two hundred and seventeen bad pip. I don't know how that works but Benintendi is apparently found life. Randall Gircheck who, I wanted over Hoskins has been fantastic ever since the Yankees cut him. Sam and Acona you and I both loved in his draft class. That was the one that got away. But Tristan Peters is the guy who stands out, you know, three hundred seventy three Bap Hip like he's been a great for f themine. A fantastic guy who's bounced around forever . Jacob Gonzalez has found his level again after everyone wrote the stories, but it's like their bullpen in Chicago has let them down multiple times in the past week and, you know, Cleveland just lost two out of three to Milwaukee and two out of three to Houston. Those are both good offenses, good teams. They won both games against the Tigers because the Tigers are scuffling. So it's going to be an interesting series. The Cleveland gets to dodge Davis Martin because he pitched today who's been the number one starter, but it doesn't really matter because every starter looks like a number one starter against this offense, right? So except for who pitched on Saturday Sp,en itc'ers Arragadi apparently . Yeah . No, I mean, it's it's a fun young team. About Basana on Saturday by the way . I know. Well, he's he, I mean, I mean, you got banned bazana, you got Manzardo and I mean, like I said R,ochio start wasing to sl ip a bit. He was below league average over the last month. Steady, but also take him. He's, you know, it's like you got those three and then almost nothing behind them. It's the problem . Yeah. Yeah. If you don't have Menzardo and Pazan area not collecting extra base hits and hitting home runs like the offense doesn't give you anything. That's exactly what they did in Milwaukee and Pazana had a I believe a leadoff hit in all three games in Houston. It was a single home or a single. So it was an infield single on Sunday , but he had to lead off hit in all three starts. I'm still thinking the guy should be an all star. I know we had some peaks and valleys here as of late, but to me considering how bad second base is, I still wouldn't push for an all star see the other day. So I was curious the white socks like Davis Martin two hundred and seventy six fif , but like Sean Burke a four hundred and ten, but Fetty and Kay who have had a lot of a lot of their other starts or like are both over five . So it's they're kind of like right yeah, they're kind of the reverse of Cleveland like they need some starting pitching right now and that's definitely their biggest weakness and they have a fantastic offense but their pitching is a weakness whereas Cleveland is very like they have some dudes out there. Like Rant Taylor has been good. He's really good. Yeah. I think Sean Newcombe has been pretty good for them as a reliever this year. Yeah, yeah, obviously right. Soranthy Dominguez and Jordan Hicks, I think are pretty cooked . So don't you have Sir Antony on your fantasy team? Can't you say that he's cooked in fantasy? Yeah, just because I don't pay for closures in fantasy, but well, I tried. I had Edwin Diaz this year and that really didn't work out for me. That's why I don't pay for closers because that kind of thing happens to me just some fantasy advice. But I don't know about you, Jeff, but I need the best version of Gavin Williams to pitch on Monday because you changed up the rotation last week to have him start game one of the series. You got Parker Messik who's been steady eddy and really good . Tanner has been great as of late. I need Gavin Williams to be the best version of Gavin Williams shut down the white Sox offense, give your offense a chance to I know I know it's asking a lot to say make two or three runs hold up but Gavin you had a bad start in Milwaukee . They changed up the rotation because they wanted you to start gave one of the series against a division rival who's testing you that you're going to have to try to hold off while you're battling some serious injuries . I hate to be unfair but I need Gainff to go out here today and I need him to hold up two or three runs and make that a win. Like I just think you do . Yeah. So you know, Taylor and Brian Hudson has flipped sometimes he's been like an opener firm sometimes believer. He's been really sol id along with Sean Newcombe. So Newcom, Hudson and Taylor, the guys that have the pen to worry about Davis Martin, they're going to miss Sean Burke's been solid. He's been a solid pitcher. They will face Burke, but they do get Fetty and Kay have been terrible. And then the rest of the pen has been a struggle and Noah Schultz their young prospect they called up has struggled as well with Cleveland once see him. So the pitching has been weak is he hurt now? Okay. Yeah, he's been hurt for a while. He's also on my fantasy team. So you can tell my fantasy team's doing this year by his you picked the wrong way socks, but yeah, I mean, it's a thing everybody . You know, they have those pieces with Cleveland getting Kay and Fetty should give them an advantage, even though Kay is a lefty to potentially hold them because you know, the Tigers have a fair shot. What do you mean ? Platoons, you got the platoon advantage. That's all that matters, Jeff. Platoon advantage. The guy that hit or not super fun young team . There's a lot of like said, you and I love Andrew County. Colts of Montgomery is a guy completely swung and missed on is Riko Nishida still up ? No, right? He liked 's he was a guy you and I both liked a lot in his draft year as well . But yeah, they've had a lot of guys kind of step up come forward some nice development Randall Girchuk at least the team in WRC plus that would just stick because he's exactly what they need. He is what's doing Fairchild. We are hoping it would be. I mean, he's what the Mariners were hoping Rob Rivesdorf would be. It's so hard to find a decent pr playoteiner. It's it's kind of lucky it's almost like more luck than anything hard to find it's hard to find right handed the next time they don't play a lot They don't play a lot so they don't have like that certainty is really goes highway. It's very hard to find right handed hitting outfielders that are available. Like you got your judges and there's other guys out there like your hui Rodriguez is. You know the majority of hitters that get taken are left handed because that's just more guys swing that way and more pitchers are right handed. So a lot of teams favorite left handed hitting outfitters. The right hand hitting outfielder is an endangered species . So the next time you have an Alex call , hold on to him because you never know when you're going to need him . Well, I mean the data still shows that most of the outfielders are right handed. The problem is they're just not very good. Your vast guys tend to pick up the thing is that like they face more because the platoon advantage, right? So then like they end up in a non advantageous solution situation. So yeah, but no, you need NALISCOL. And I would kill for the Dodgers to Tradis Call and Ward right now just , you know, give us someone who can come in because , you know, it give Watson a while but not too long if he's keeping a, you know, plus fifty k percentage, but you know, Engle and huff and then, you know, you got to see those in between trades. What can you make happen that's your best you're not getting the big name, you're not getting the proven guy, but maybe you can get a lesser piece from somewhere . Another lame Thomas type would be awesome. All right, Jeff, so two things before we get out here we got short on time. We'll punt College World Series stuff to another day 'cause it ends on Monday. So if we're together tomorrow, it's good I didn't watch any of this weekend and have any time. I watched as much as I could. I got some thoughts, but we can punt that till tomorrow . How important is this White Sox series and is it a considering they're two in four on the six game road trip with three to go ? Do they need to take two out of three this week . Give me a scale of one to ten how important this white sock series