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00:02all right welcome back to newswire here on sports grid our spring training previews continue today
00:06we check in with the chicago white socks with james vegan of socks machine.com joins us now
00:12and always uh love james's coverage of the white socks we thought we would bring them in to get a
00:16synopsis as to what we've seen thus far in spring training and maybe get a season preview as well
00:19james thanks for coming on the show really appreciate it thanks for having me all right
00:24well uh james let's get started and take a quick look back at 2025 and by quick let's get rid
00:29of it
00:30for the chicago white socks because they lost 100 games again 60 and 102 but certainly i think some
00:36steps were taken to ensure that hopefully for the white socks that doesn't happen again which as we
00:42know it's baseball it can but certainly the team on paper is going to look a lot better than that
00:46record right there last season yeah that'd be the hope i mean i can't overstate how many times uh the
00:5228 and 37 second half the white socks had was romanticized around these parts but that's because
00:57kind of where they're coming from having lost 121 games the year before the idea that they were kind
01:02of playing around 500 baseball for a stretch they had a late losing streak i think they were eighth in
01:08home runs after the all-star break and saw the uh you know breakout of colson montgomery kyle teal
01:13these kind of core pieces that they're excited about and then having not a huge big budget offseason
01:19but certainly an active offseason and bringing in you know a kind of big boomer bus candidate with
01:24munotaka murakami they have a lot more reasons to say their fans they should watch than they had it
01:31in previous years even if they can't you know specifically prognosticate this is going to lead
01:35to us competing for a division or this is going to lead to us you know finishing 500 they can
01:40say like
01:40hey there are these projects that you're seeing progress with um to hey come check in on this more than
01:45more than previous years yeah i mean and that's really the key is that in that market in chicago
01:51i mean there's only so many years that you can preach rebuild it's just a big market and obviously
01:57you know the fans of the white socks are not used to having to sit back for four years and
02:01wait or five
02:02years and wait for the team to be good so what they did as james points out is they went
02:06out there
02:07are no real mega deals but a lot of one-year contracts to say hey look we're going to try
02:11and be
02:12more competitive and here are some of the additions from the offseason certainly i think murakami is the
02:17main one and we don't know what he's going to be but that was really the signature signing of the
02:22offseason and then you had the trade of luis robert so luis angel acuna comes to the white socks as
02:28well
02:29in addition hicks in a trade sir anthony dominguez with a signing austin hayes will help out the outfield
02:35so i don't know if this is souping the pot so to speak james i'm not sure but i do
02:40see four or five big
02:41league names on that which i did not see on this roster last season so that's got to be a
02:46better
02:46sign yeah big leaguers is something they can offer in a way that necessarily uh wasn't in place in
02:522024 they had the definitely the worst record in one run games or one of the worst last year in
02:58terms
02:59of like the sheer volume certainly the worst save percentage so coming in and getting sir anthony
03:03dominguez certainly not an elite closer or proven by any of that regard but somebody who's you know a
03:10high leverage arm has proven and pitched in the postseason so having him coming on uh jordan hicks
03:16someone who's at least had success in the setup man uh role before and returning to it sean newcomb
03:20was really good down the stretch uh for the a's out of their bullpen they have pieces that have been
03:25successful in a major league bullpen and high leverage roles before that allows them to be a
03:30bit more creative with grant taylor who came up last year throws 100 and they can kind of say well
03:35we
03:35should at least win an average amount of these one run games because if you look at like their
03:40run differential last year their pythagorean record was over 70 wins so they should have taken a bigger
03:45step last year than they did if they had invested in the bullpen so that's one area where they can
03:48feel
03:48like hey we've shored this up this should be you know average major league quality on top of like
03:53hoping obviously some of their younger arms take a step forward like jordan leisure um or or just some
03:58more you know they have hard throwing uh pitching prospects someone like tanner mcdougall who you
04:05know we saw throwing 98 to 101 in his first outing that's someone you can definitely squint and see
04:09contributing the bullpen down the road they want to develop him as a starter for now but having a
04:15little bit of um a real bullpen in place probably gives them some runway to not forcing into those
04:20decisions and that's another say thing they can point to be like this should be approaching you know
04:26middle of the road quality which at this point is aspirational for a lot of the white socks roster
04:31because of you know the depths they've sunk to before yeah that's definitely part of it a one run
04:36game is probably the most variance of any stat baseball but if the run differential speaks to
04:41more wins then maybe that's what's on deck this season as we take a look at the potential starting
04:46lineup and i hate to do this but we do it and so a lot can change between now and
04:50opening day but as
04:51you see it definitely looks a lot better three four and five and you have andrew benatendi who they're
04:56still sitting on probably i have to sit on him for a bit and then lots of young players back
05:01into the lineup acuna projected to start for them after the trade brooks baldwin in right field but
05:06who i definitely would like to speak to is colson montgomery because that is a legitimate player who
05:10the white socks drafted they developed they got him to the big leagues and as we saw last year
05:15i mean who knows maybe this is their guy that represents the team in july in the all-star game
05:20in
05:21philadelphia he was just that good last year so maybe there is some hope for development if you
05:25see that with some of the other players which is like crazy to think of like this time a year
05:31ago
05:31where he's already maybe getting reassigned him out of the camp he had a disastrous last season in
05:36triple a they wound up pulling him back to the complex to do like exclusive work with their hitting
05:40director right you see him turn around a bit now it seems like he's a core played probably much
05:48chance than they anticipate all of really after the all-star break after switching to a bad
05:53it's 21 runs they're still missing there to see a middle infielder show that kind of power now you
06:00combine it with the you know the power potential of murakami also another big swing and miss guy
06:04they can feel like they have a real middle of the order uh to a degree um especially with like
06:09austin
06:10hayes coming over as you mentioned probably playing a bigger role in that outfield um andrew benintendi
06:15is has 20 home runs the back-to-back years hasn't been like a stud or anything but um it
06:20says he's
06:20healthy now kelly's has bothered in the last two years so they're hoping he can play a little bit
06:25more left field or better left field in the past the seeds of a real offense are kind of there
06:30in a
06:31way that you know wasn't at this time last season all right so so let's wrap with this james because
06:36this is going to be the question in order for the white socks to get to 65 or 70 wins
06:41are somehow
06:41going to have to field the pitching staff now shane smith was a great story i know last year
06:46but beyond that it's still dicey the pitchers who they really like a lot as you mentioned are in the
06:50minor leagues so it's a little scary uh who starts opening day who starts game two like i mean i
06:56know
06:56we're not there yet but who do you project i would put shane smith opening day uh anthony k who
07:02they
07:02signed over from the mpb who had great era for them uh last year in japan last year there's a
07:08lot of
07:08like number four number five starters what's the real question is is someone going to emerge as
07:12a fine ace on the staff all right james thanks for checking in we'll check out socks prospects
07:17all season long appreciate the time just baseball coming your way 30 minutes from now here on sports
07:23grid but here on newswire we got ryan ficklestein the editor-in-chief for just baseball to break it
07:28all down what the show will be this afternoon but we'll give you a little teaser and cover some of
07:32the topics today ryan thanks for coming on the show great to see you yeah very happy to be
07:36joining you it's a fun time of year to talk baseball really excited to see camp starting
07:41to roll in and uh gonna be a fun show yeah definitely so 30 minutes away and he'll cover
07:47it all hopefully not just met stuff though ryan we want everybody cover everybody here on the show
07:51today and although ryan does host locked on mets uh okay so the teams in the division we can start
07:57there in the national league east it seems like at least from what i'm reading that bryce harper
08:02and dave dombrowski have had their moment cleared up here they met in person i don't know that bryce
08:09harper is ever going to forget these comments that were made about him but at least for the time being
08:14they have made peace so i guess i would ask you ryan do you think that dombrowski really had any
08:19intent
08:20behind this to fire up his quote unquote franchise player or do you think that simply put this was much
08:26to do about nothing i don't know i think dombrowski has always been pretty candid and maybe this was a
08:33case when he talked about bryce harper not being elite where he was just a little too candid i don't
08:39know if he was so measured when he made those comments to think this is going to light a fire
08:43under him but i do think in some ways even if bryce harper has tried to say that you know
08:49uh he's he's
08:51definitely expressed that the comments bothered him but at the same time he's saying he's not using it as
08:55fuel i don't think those two things can line up i think that there's a little bit of extra fuel
09:00under
09:00his fire so i think for the philly's sake it's only going to help get a better bryce harper i
09:05don't
09:06think that there's going to be some big rift though like i don't think this means that bryce harper and
09:10the phillies are on their way to some type of a separation it was just a story that will be
09:14pushed
09:15to the back burner but i don't think it was the worst thing for bryce harper's offseason to have a
09:20little bit of extra fuel in the fire yeah definitely so when he's not going anywhere with that contract
09:24that he has he's staying in philadelphia at least for the next few years also staying in the national
09:29league east will be chris sale sale opts to not hit free agency and sign a contract extension one
09:35year 27 million dollars it was announced today club option for 30 million in 2028 so i think two
09:41things are in play here brian it seems like sale likes atlanta okay so we got that he wants to
09:47stay
09:47there and look with a lockout coming honestly i mean not the worst idea in the world to get ahead
09:53of
09:53this thing especially if when sale comes back there is a cap and a floor he may not be able
10:00to
10:00make this kind of money he's 36 years old so i think for both parties makes sense yeah i think
10:06chris
10:06sale has expressed in the past that he doesn't want to be one of those guys that's pitching forever like
10:10justin verlander who said he wants to pitch to 45 i think he's really comfortable in atlanta so he's
10:16locking in a really good salary and if he stays healthy they'll opt into that 30 million dollars and
10:22it's a couple years control but yeah it's a good thing for a lot of these guys when they're signing
10:26extensions we could see more this spring to just get that 2027 number locked in and then you can
10:32worry about free agency after a new cba is ratified makes sense all right let's uh move over now to
10:39the
10:39mets the team that you're following most closely and you know certainly social media is not going to
10:43tell the entire story we're seeing clips posted you know it's almost not fair but it seems like it's
10:49going to take a little time for boba shed to get ready uh to play third base all the right
10:53things
10:53are being said and bachette seems to be happy with the move but naturally we're a month away and that's
10:59how much time he has to get ready for the regular season yeah you know i hate seeing people scrutinize
11:05a spring training error that wasn't even an error it was an error on the first baseman and there was
11:10a
11:10video that got a lot of circulation because he didn't quite get a throw online he got it there but
11:15the bottom line with boba shed is this is a new position give the guy at least spring training
11:20before we start criticizing him if it looks bad in season i get the fan base in particular
11:25is going to be talking about it but he needs some time the one thing i've noted on my show
11:31last year average velocity of throws brett baity and boba shed identical numbers so i don't think
11:37that bachette doesn't have the arm strength i think he just needs time to learn how to throw from those
11:42angles yeah and i think that's why it's a good thing that it's getting started now and not like
11:47endeavor situation in season or something like that uh well we'll get to more met stuff here but it's
11:53really now kind of oriole stuff because pete alonzo was off to a scorching start here at the beginning
11:57of spring training by the way the numbers mean nothing but it does feel like alonzo's playing with
12:02a little bit more of a chip on his shoulder at least this spring than past springs how about this
12:06let's hear from daryl strawberry former mets great on whether or not pete alonzo
12:11will regret leaving the mets i always had hope that you know he would stick around and and be
12:18the guy to break all the numbers i mean as far as a homegrown player we really hadn't had a
12:22you only
12:23had a certain amount that had come through the organization and he was one of us he's one of us
12:27you know and you get a lot of other players in trades and this and that but you know i
12:32i ended up
12:33with a lot of regrets you know for for for leaving and one day you know you wake up and
12:39you feel that
12:40inside of yourself after you you've played in one place and you was loved by the fans and and all
12:46of a sudden you're no longer there it's it's heartbreaking i was shocked you know to see the
12:51fact that that it was going to be over for him especially after breaking my home run record you know
12:58that stood for so long and you know there was more records that he could have put you know his
13:03name on
13:04and been at the top you know as a player that came through the organization from the bottom up and
13:09and built his way up so all right well uh for context here ryan daryl strawberry he's alluding to
13:15coming up with the mets winning the world series and then deciding to bolt to play for the los angeles
13:22dodgers because he was a free agent and then his buddy eric davis ended up joining him there too and
13:27that was sort of what it was built around those guys were really good friends uh strawberry went through
13:34himself and his career many many times went to the giants then of course went to the yankees and won
13:39a couple world series there ended up retiring still more issues but definitely now straw has cleaned
13:44himself up doing great things and good for him but but contextually speaking so much money on the
13:51table here how is pete alonzo gonna tell the orioles no if the money is more than the mets i
13:57think that's
13:58the one thing straw is missing when he was a free agent yes he signed at the time it was
14:02a mega deal what
14:03were we talking about at the time definitely not 150 million dollars yeah and the thing is
14:09pete alonzo was never even offered a contract from the mets they saw that number that the orioles put
14:14out there and they said all right pete enjoy baltimore and so pete alonzo didn't have a choice in the
14:20matter but i also do think that he landed in a great spot pete alonzo is being looked at as
14:25a leader
14:25with the orioles he goes to that team as a guy who has the the best you know career at
14:31this point where
14:31everyone can kind of defer to pete and i think you're seeing him in spring i don't really care
14:36about the two home runs but just the look that he has right now he seems very relaxed and i
14:41think
14:41after dealing with the pressure of trying to get that long-term deal from the mets for the past two
14:46three years now he could just focus on baseball in a long-term deal in a new spot that really
14:52values
14:52him i think i'll have a great year in baltimore all right now let's go around the league a little
14:57bit ryan will break we'll come back and do some abs stuff new rules in baseball but first
15:02man the twins i i guess they're saying they dodged a bullet here they didn't dodge one with
15:07pablo lopez maybe they did with joe ryan who has back inflammation and they're saying he's going to
15:13be ready for the start of the season if you buy that and they're also saying maybe he could even
15:16still pitch in the world series i don't or a world baseball classic i don't buy that as well
15:20boy the twins are one of those teams going into the season ryan i got major concerns about
15:25yeah you know and it was one of those things for it to go back to back after the pablo
15:31lopez news
15:31it just felt like the twins were getting punished for not doing we all expected them to do which is
15:36trading these guys but the good thing is at least he's going to be healthy but i would be stunned
15:41if they let him pitch in the world baseball classic i cannot see that happening at all after an interest
15:47scare yeah but it was supposed to be maybe not their top starter but one of their top three starters
15:52going into the wbc all right around the league minor league deals michael conforto reese hoskins
15:58tyro estrada any of these three players uh or all of them maybe in your opinion make the opening day
16:05roster how many can have an impact on their team this year i think reese hoskins is an interesting
16:10one just because the guardians need offense in any way they can get it so i'm curious to see what
16:15it
16:15looks like you know the powers return for hoskins since the knee injury but uh he's not he doesn't
16:20bring that much more to the table for the guardians they just need any type of offense they can get
16:25so
16:25i like that of course and then you know with the injury to westbrook obviously estrada has a little
16:30bit more of an inside track to at least break camp who knows how much of an impact he'll have
16:34throughout the entire season but early on he could certainly uh find his way on the roster
16:39ryan will continue with us next don't go away ryan finkelstein back with us breaking down the
16:44latest in baseball just baseball show coming your way in 15 minutes stay on the grid for that uh
16:49spring training action ryan uh 1 p.m eastern uh just getting underway now we've got the pirates
16:54taking on the red socks uh we've got shota imanaga getting ready to uh get all set today as he
17:00pitches for the cubs logan webb against the angels and got some interesting news here from the red
17:05socks i think they're playing all their guys today it looks like against the pirates roman anthony by
17:09the way leading off for boston they've said that he's going to lead off for them this season look i
17:15don't think anybody should be surprised he's a great young player that's a lot to handle as a young
17:20player too yeah he's got a lot in his play especially after the departure of alex bregman i mean
17:26that this is a lineup that did bring in wilson contraris but roman anthony is being counted on
17:31to be you know arguably the best hitter in that lineup and you know how it is nowadays it's not
17:36as much about you know getting on first base and stealing if you're a leadoff guy it's just getting
17:40these guys as many at bats as possible so i think it makes a lot of sense to have anthony
17:45at the top
17:45of that lineup and uh it's going to be exciting to see his first full 162 see what he can
17:50do with it
17:51yeah i mean the red sox a lot of nice young players but i mean i guess ryan the the
17:56question
17:56is is i mean it goes without saying heim bloom while he was there did a great job drafting great
18:01job international but these players have been more hyped than what the substance has been at this
18:06point right i mean i guess with the exception of rafaelis seems to be the one guy that has really
18:10come on but we've heard about so many of them with cassis and campbell and anthony and i mean
18:16they got it and marcelo meyer too all great names all great prospects but i think one of the four
18:21thus far has done anything and that's that's what they need this year they need those guys to to
18:27really break out especially when you look at that infield like you're going to need marcelo meyer to
18:31hopefully figure it out and be a really good contributor where does christian campbell factor in
18:35he got up to that great start at the beginning of last season signs an extension like a week into
18:40the
18:40year and then he sort of disappeared so there's a lot of pressure on these young guys because they
18:45didn't bring bregman back for them to fill those gaps and ultimately be able to have a solid offense
18:50but roman anthony is the guy that i'm not too concerned about that's the one i think the hype
18:56is going to be matched it's more a matter of you know who else will meet him uh and and
19:00fulfill their
19:01hype but i i'm not too concerned about roman anthony being the guy that we expect him to be even
19:06though
19:06the expectations are pretty lofty all right so the rules are going to change this season and we're
19:14going to see a big change at home plate which is the new abs system that's being put in this
19:19year
19:20and as you can see there the top end of the zone 53.5 percent of the player's height bottom
19:26of the
19:26zone 27 percent of the player's height depth of the zone 8.5 inches from both the front of the
19:30backup
19:30plate to the center but that is where the strike zone will be set during the game we're not going
19:36to
19:37see the box anymore because they think that somehow the players can get a hold of this information or
19:41somebody can steal it for them give them a quick sign i saw this in play ryan the other day
19:47with
19:47the first batter of the game in jupiter when the marlins played the washington nationals
19:51and the alcantara as you'll see here pitching to nasim nunez what happens is he throws the pitch and as
19:59you're going to see nunez kind of check swings here on the pitch and cb buckner
20:07then you'll see nunez tap his helmet they go to the replay inevitably in less than 15 seconds from
20:13now you're going to see that they proved that it was not a strike nunez gets a hit brady house
20:17hits
20:18a home run the nationals uh end up going on to win this game so your thoughts thus far is
20:23it working
20:23for you not working for you what do you what's your opinion so i definitely need to see it in
20:29play
20:30more i love that we got a challenge system and not just a full automated strike something to be way
20:36more growing pains with that but it's just going to be the strategy of the game that's that's really
20:41most fascinating to me right now i think guys are going to be fast and lose kind of just tapping
20:47the
20:47head whenever they want to because they're trying to figure out who's good at this but i'm really
20:51curious how that that shift takes place once the season starts are we seeing any challenges in the
20:56first five innings of a game are there certain hitters that have a green light and others that
21:01aren't going to have a green light at all i think the one thing we will see i don't think
21:05we're going
21:05to see too many pitchers in the top of the head because i think the catchers are going to be
21:09the ones
21:10that are going to be doing those challenges they have a much better look at it and everything that
21:14we're hearing so far as pitchers are not very good at challenging pitches uh as a former pitcher
21:19myself way back in the day everything's a strike so i get why uh they want the catchers to handle
21:25that side of it yeah and fielders thus far have been more conducive to challenging at least in this
21:33early part of spring training we're literally three days or four days in there's not a lot of data that
21:38we can certainly take away from this uh next week ryan and i know that you guys will touch on
21:42this on
21:42just baseball next week it all begins the world baseball classic gets underway in florida arizona and of
21:48course overseas very interesting comments made yesterday after his start by tarik skuble everyone
21:54said that the united states was guaranteed to win this year because they got skuble and skeins at the
21:58top and they got one of the semis and one of the finals skuble says not so fast i'm going
22:04to pitch
22:04one game it's going to be against great britain and then i'm out so i think that's fine probably but
22:13shouldn't we have known this like a month ago a little bizarre to find out now no
22:17yeah it there was a lot of hype around skuble and skeins like you mentioned so to not get that
22:22of course it's a little bit disappointing the good thing is the rotation for team usa is loaded
22:27i mean logan webb was what like the three or the four so even if you don't have joe ryan
22:31even if you
22:32only have skuble for one start you still have logan webb you still have nolan mcclain who's you know
22:38pretty stretched out and ready to go from what i've seen clay holmes from the best of the two guys
22:41that i've been able to look at and they're clearly ready to go for this tournament so
22:45team usa has a lot of pitching but there's a little bit less buzz when you are only talking
22:51one skuble start definitely so all right so ryan let's get a preview show coming your way folks just
22:57baseball exclusively here on sports grid in 10 minutes from now give us a preview as to what
23:02we can expect today a lot of headlines going through uh all the latest that they talk a little
23:09about skuble they talked about pablo lopez so getting into all of your latest lb news on the
23:15just baseball show all right look forward to it ryan thanks again for coming on the show really
23:19appreciate it and you can of course follow ryan on social media covering uh the chief editor at
23:24just baseball and also his locked on mets podcast keeping you updated on the mets 24 hours a day
23:29seven days a week as if you really needed thanks again appreciate it ryan for coming on the show
23:33thanks again thank you
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