00:00So, when it comes to spring training games, we all take it, as we say, with a grain of salt.
00:10Oh, that's the first state championship in school history for Paradise, by the way.
00:15So, congratulations to them.
00:20The game, however, on Saturday was awesome.
00:26The Rangers beat the Padres 22-2 on Saturday.
00:30I know that, Jacob, you were locked in on that game all day long.
00:34Dialed.
00:35There were a lot of things that happened.
00:38A lot of really good positive things.
00:40But I think the 22 runs, powered by a six homer, four in the third, 13 run third.
00:51Six homers, four in the 13 run third.
00:55The biggest inning for the team in a spring game since records were kept in 2006.
01:00That's just insane.
01:02And they also did something else really special.
01:06The Rangers walked 16 times on Saturday.
01:10That is their now second consecutive game with double-digit walks.
01:15Also, their highest total in a spring game since records were kept again in 2006.
01:20They walked 11 times against Colorado on Friday.
01:23They've had double-figure walks three times in 22 games this spring.
01:29And they've walked 121 times already.
01:32That's the most in the major leagues.
01:34They are simply refusing to swing at pitches that aren't in their own personal, what they call, nitro zone.
01:42Now, this is – Alec, you remember when we were out in Surprise, Kevin and I kept talking about the
01:49catchers doing some work out there.
01:51And I reached out to some people, and they were like, oh, yeah, they're trying to understand the strike zone
01:58of ABS.
01:59So they're trying to work that.
02:02And the hitters do this all the time.
02:04They spend hours at spring training working on what's a strike and what's not.
02:10And that means you think, oh, they go in there and hit all the time.
02:13They go in there and they spend time making sure – they won't even swing at pitches for like 20
02:20minutes because they're working on was that a strike or no.
02:24And you're just trying to train your eye, not your body and bat.
02:27You're trying to train your eye.
02:29And the Rangers have a – what they call a nitro zone.
02:32The nitro zone is where you get the most impact, where you're going to be able to absolutely crush the
02:37ball.
02:38And the way that Mike described this to me, and this was because Mike Piazza described it to him this
02:43way,
02:43is that nitro zone starts as the size of your fist.
02:47So wherever it is across the plate, it's that small.
02:50If the pitcher doesn't throw one right there where you know that's my pitch, you do not swing.
02:57If the umpire calls it a strike, now it's the size of four fists.
03:01All right?
03:02So every strike you get into it, it expands just a little bit more across the plate, up and down
03:09in the zone.
03:09And you heard last night, if you were watching the game, John Smoltz talking about the quadrants that the pitchers
03:16were using,
03:17Severino and Paul Skeens.
03:18And they're trying to pitch all around those quadrants within the strike zone so they don't leave one hanging over
03:24in your nitro zone.
03:25So that's where the Rangers are right now, is they're creating this nitro zone.
03:29And it's an over-and-over mentality.
03:31Go back and look at that World Series run and how many times they forced pitchers to give them a
03:38pitch that Corey Seager could put out of the park.
03:40Like, the swings that Seager and Adolis were taking, they weren't out of the strike zone.
03:46They were right in their honey hole.
03:48Is that a thing I can say?
03:49Yeah.
03:49They were right there.
03:50And it was swing as hard as you can because you know you forced them into that moment.
03:55So that is, that's what the Rangers are doing so effectively already in these spring training games.
04:00Now again, 22 runs, not necessarily something I'm walking around going, let's just brag about this all the time.
04:06It was a preseason spring training game.
04:09But, that's a positive right now is you are training, these guys are training themselves in this time to not
04:18swing at junk.
04:20From 972, Manfred has ruined baseball.
04:23Write this down.
04:24ABS and Strikes is going to extend the times of games.
04:30The people running baseball are idiots.
04:33I wonder, now that they've reduced the times of games, will it take it back to extending?
04:39Because it was, ABS was very fast.
04:41Yeah, it's quick and they've capped it.
04:44You only get a certain amount of challenges per game too.
04:47So it's not going to be like every other pitch, head tap.
04:49You know, like that would be egregious.
04:52And that would extend the time of games.
04:53I really think it'll add per game, like a minute, if that.
04:58Because there's no conversation after that.
05:01Because the computer just told you if it was right or wrong.
05:03So you can't argue it after that.
05:05Science and math just told you, hey, this is right.
05:08Hey, this is wrong.
05:09So you just get back to playing.
05:10I don't think it's going to add too much.
05:12Now, that Saturday game, you could probably say to yourself, four of the first five hitters
05:19in the lineup got on four times.
05:22So that's effective.
05:24Let's talk a little bit about Brandon Nemo.
05:26He reached in five plate appearances with a walk, two homers, a double, and a single.
05:33And he scored five runs and drove in four.
05:36The other guys, Wyatt Langford, Andrew McCutcheon, Josh Smith, all had effective games as well.
05:41Three for three for Wyatt Langford with a homer and a walk.
05:43Andrew McCutcheon, three for three with a walk.
05:45Josh Smith, one for one with a grand slam and three walks.
05:48By the way, Josh Smith is on fire right now.
05:51I hope that carries over because what he's doing right now is trying to – this is interesting.
05:57He's trying to tell them, I want second base.
05:59It's mine.
06:01And doesn't matter who else wants to be here.
06:04It's mine.
06:06But as we discussed with Cam Cawley, if that happens and then you get sent down or you don't get
06:12what you want
06:13or you get to the regular season games, it's got to keep going.
06:17It can't just cool off because spring training's over and you've achieved your goal.
06:21That being said, Corey Seager, he was only able to manage one homerun and a walk.
06:27So a little bit kind of a letdown from Seager, but it's all right.
06:30Yeah, you've been keeping an eye on him and you warned us about this exact thing.
06:34But Brandon Emo, here's one of the things about what I'm liking from him is he's going up to the
06:39plate hitting lefties also.
06:41And he's going up to the plate and he's been an effective bat already, hitting against left-handers, hustling, scoring
06:48runs.
06:49And over the last few years, we've had one year of an extremely effective Marcus Simeon at leadoff.
06:58And there are other years where we were like, meh, is it good enough?
07:03We knew we had pop at the front of the plate, but when it comes to a leadoff hitter for
07:08me,
07:09I'm always, if you can hit a homerun, that's good.
07:12I appreciate it.
07:13But I need you on base.
07:15Whether it's scratching out a grounder, whether it's a double out, I need you on base and I need you
07:21working pitchers.
07:23Because working pitchers is now going to allow me to see more pitches and allow the guys behind me to
07:28see more pitches
07:29and allow these opportunities for the guys behind me, if I'm on base, to score two runs or three runs.
07:35And what Brandon Nimmo is doing right now is right in that vein of he's doing those things that it
07:41takes to be the leadoff hitter
07:42that the Rangers have been pursuing for quite some time.
07:46Quite some time, indeed, because I even think about we were doing a Rangers segment last week
07:53and I grabbed a Corey Seager highlight of a home run.
07:56And in the call, Eric Nadel just happens to say at the end, and keep in mind, this was weeks
08:01into the season.
08:02He said, it's Seager's first home run with a man on base of the season.
08:08And it was multiple home runs deep into the season for him.
08:12And I was like, this is weeks into the season.
08:14That's how abysmal the lineup in front of him was, just at a consistent manner,
08:20just being so consistently inconsistent at getting on base.
08:24And I know the ABS is going to help.
08:28It might hurt in some instances, but I think just an overall change in messaging
08:33and how they're attacking this, like you said, as early as the first week of spring training,
08:38working on drills where you're identifying even a new term that's at least new to us,
08:43a nitro zone where it's like, hey, this is going to be where you work.
08:48And like you mentioned, the analogy, the idea of just building it as the umpire works with
08:53or against you, it shrinks or it grows with that.
08:57And a new focus on that and getting a veteran guy like Brandon Nimmo to do that instead of
09:04asking somebody who's a little bit less experienced now, like Evan Carter would have been a decent
09:09option just because we know he knows the strike zone well.
09:11And he even told you guys like, hey, I act like the umpire just isn't there.
09:16So like the emotion isn't necessarily at them.
09:18I'm just like, ah, that's, that's a ball, but okay.
09:21You know, so like he knows pretty well, but I'll take the guy that I know Nimmo hasn't
09:25been a leadoff hitter in quite some time, but I'd rather have the veteran presence there.
09:31I like what he's doing so far.
09:32I like what this team is doing so far in spring training, because it seems like we kind of got
09:37lost from that.
09:38And especially if you want to talk about the year after the world series run, like Adolis
09:42Garcia, I know he's not on the team anymore, but he was such a free swinger.
09:46And then he refined things that 2023 season.
09:50And then he kind of reverted back to free swinger, chasing high fastballs outside of the zone.
09:57If we can just get this, this central focus of, hey, we're going to make the strike zone smaller.
10:03We know that we have technology on our side now, but let's kind of put that on the back
10:07burner and identify our core principle of being do not chase, especially when you have guys
10:14coming up behind you, like Corey Seager, like a white laying for guys that can absolutely
10:20mash.
10:21Let them do that.
10:22That's their job.
10:23You need to get on base.
10:25So I've got a nitro zone.
10:27You touch that nitro zone.
10:29I'm going to show you something powerful.
10:31That's what I want.
10:32This core group of guys at the bottom of the lineups, eight and nine.
10:36And then Brandon Nimmo.
10:38I want you guys to just say, I have a very, very specific goal.
10:43Get on base.
10:44It's that simple.
10:45That's all I'm asking for.
10:46One of the, one of the guys that's still kind of struggling at that right now, Jack Peterson
10:51hitting 172.
10:52But guys, Sam Haggerty is at 355 right now.
10:56That's good.
10:57Sam Haggerty is having himself a spring training.
10:59He is.
11:00And that's one of those dudes, like you keep an eye on him.
11:03We've been kind of keeping an eye on Foscue, who's hitting 444.
11:07There are some dudes right now.
11:09And again, this is spring.
11:10Some pitchers are just working on their fastball.
11:13But this is, there are some promising signs around this lineup.
11:17I think the most fascinating thing is it's competitive.
11:21Canna, Haggerty, Peterson, you have options that you're like, okay, if they can perform
11:26like this in the regular season, they can give us some actual work that's going to be
11:29productive at bats for this team.
11:31And it does sound like Skip's kind of got his mind on where he wants those guys to be.
11:36On Sunday, the Rangers did make five cuts.
11:39Cam Colley, right-hander Gavin Collier, infielder Jonah Bride were three of them.
11:44They're likely to be assigned a AAA round rock.
11:46Now, this is what I go back to when it comes to talking to Kennedy, and it comes to talking
11:51to Jared and the people in that clubhouse.
11:54Cam Colley, the special player that everybody was falling in love with, and G-Bag, the nosebleeders
12:00were able to get him and have a great conversation with him, weird him out just a little bit.
12:06These guys, he's one of those guys that they were like, he'll probably end up back at AAA.
12:11Now, what he does at AAA has to be completely different.
12:15He has to keep doing that.
12:17So if Cam Colley can still stay hot, you'll find him up here at some point.
12:21They'll find a way to make him part of this club at some point.
12:26Jose Corniel made his first appearance on Saturday, was optioned at AA Frisco.
12:31And then catcher William McIver, who we never got a chance to talk to, but I was told that
12:36dude absolutely, like, he is a talker.
12:39And also, we watched him hitting.
12:42He's a monster, dude.
12:43He is a monster.
12:44So hopefully, he went to Round Rock.
12:47So hopefully, we'll get an opportunity to see him at some point.
12:51But now we're starting to see it thin out even more and even more.
12:54I cannot wait.
12:56I cannot wait.
12:58And from the 972, 972 says, Chance Jock doesn't make the team.
13:02I think they're going to give him every chance possible until they're like, we have the option
13:07instead of you.
13:08But financially, they still owe him some money.
13:11And so I think that's one of the reasons that we have to squeeze everything we can out of
13:15you before we say you're done.
13:17But right now, because of how competitive it is for some of these other spots, and we'll
13:20talk about the pitching, the rotation in the bullpen tomorrow, because of that, we are
13:25now seeing that this Rangers team might have some good bats and good at-bats on the way.
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