00:00Dingler, have a day.
00:02Yeah, have a season.
00:03No kidding.
00:04He's in today's lineup.
00:06He'll be the DH.
00:08Reminder, Tigers are playing an early one today.
00:1011-10 first pitch in Boston.
00:14Dingler's the DH.
00:15Jake Rogers will catch.
00:17Okay.
00:17The takeaway is Colt Keats playing first.
00:22Oh, so we got a bat at first.
00:25Yeah, Tork was over for the weekend.
00:27Did draw a walk, but over.
00:31Updated numbers for Spencer Torkelson on the season, batting 182 with a 561 OPS.
00:40We should read into this.
00:41A war of minus 0.4 as opposed to your rookie, Kevin McGonigal, who is now at a 1.4.
00:48And he's also got the foremost at-bats.
00:51Yeah, he plays damn near every day.
00:53AJ's hit him as low as 8 at some point this season.
00:55I mean, is Tork on notice?
00:58He has to be.
01:00I mean, even Javi is hitting this year.
01:03Okay, not everyone is hitting, but we are getting early season Javere.
01:10Riley Green is coming around.
01:12I mean, Kevin McGonigal hit the ground running.
01:15Gleyber Torres is working his way back.
01:18He's showed some bright spots, and at least he's drawn some walks here and there.
01:22He's got 15 of them.
01:24Dingler, Colt Keith, Javere.
01:27I mean, Kerry Carpenter.
01:28Yeah.
01:29While he's not lighting it on fire, at least he goes yard when he makes contact.
01:34So, a little behind the scenes here.
01:37I put in my prep last night or yesterday when I sent it to you guys.
01:41Are we having a Spencer Torkelson problem?
01:44And we thought we could wait a day or two.
01:46Let's focus on the Pistons today.
01:48But the lineup card comes out, and you see Keith moving over there.
01:51Yeah.
01:52And we talked about this for the show, and we were speculating, would it be Keith?
01:57It was about this time.
01:59Maybe this is a week sooner than 2024 when AJ kind of publicly said something about Torque,
02:04and then it wasn't long after that that they sent him down.
02:08I was kind of feeling after this weekend that that clock is ticking because he's got 81 plate appearances now,
02:16and usually you go by maybe 100 at-bats or plate appearances before you really make a strong judgment on
02:22somebody
02:22because that's, what, almost 20% of the season if you're an everyday player, roughly.
02:28That, you know, the clock's ticking here big time,
02:31and I don't think he's going to wait as long for Torkelson to bring them down like they did.
02:36The roster's deeper now.
02:38A question after I make this statement.
02:40Spencer Torkelson, you mentioned OPS, 561.
02:43There's only three players right now that have worse OPS on the team,
02:48and I'm sure you could guess them, but I won't go through that process.
02:52But Jake Rogers, Wensiel Perez, who's only been here for like a week,
02:56and Howie Lee, who's been here less than a week.
02:59Right, rookie.
03:00The two games.
03:00And so, yeah, that's where he is right now.
03:03The question I want to ask, though, is if you send Torke down to Toledo to find his mojo,
03:09find his, who do you bring up?
03:11There needs to be somebody that you can bring up.
03:13Yeah, but what you just referenced there were bench players that have worse OPSs.
03:18He becomes a bench player on this team.
03:20Okay.
03:21That's where this is trending.
03:23Well, think about it.
03:23If Keith plays, you're going to play Keith against righties,
03:25and most pitchers are righties.
03:28Well, if Keith plays first, it allows you to squeeze in, what, McKinstry or McGonagall
03:35plays third, and Javi's at short.
03:37It's a way to get more of your best bats in the lineup.
03:39You could see some Veerling at third, although, like you'd said before the show, he hasn't
03:43played any infield this season yet, but he has played third base before.
03:46Yeah.
03:47Did I see yesterday one of the beat writers saying that Veerling was taking some grounders
03:50at second base?
03:52Just to have some flexibility?
03:54I don't know.
03:55I think something's being considered here.
03:58Look, maybe they give him a couple days off, and he comes back, and he finds his rhythm,
04:02but you can't stomach that from an everyday player.
04:05Javi stopped playing as much when this was happening to him a couple years ago.
04:10They're not going to tolerate it much longer.
04:13I mean, he's not providing what he's...
04:15If you have, you know, 200 batting average, but you're at least getting a home run once
04:21in a while...
04:22And drawed walks.
04:22Yeah, you can deal with that, but he's doing nothing extra base-wise.
04:26That's why the OPS is so horrible.
04:28Right.
04:29Yeah, he's got three doubles, and that's basically it.
04:33Yeah.
04:33Chris McCoskey, Veerling taking ground balls at second base.
04:36Interesting.
04:36Preparing for every eventuality.
04:38That was sent two days ago on April 18th.
04:41So, I don't know.
04:42Maybe they're going to get him some more work on the infield, and it...
04:45Reshuffles things, and...
04:46Is an eventuality that Spencer Torkelson's not an everyday player?
04:50Well, that's...
04:50I mean, again, as a right-handed bat, then what, he'd only hit lefties?
04:54Yeah, but aren't you going to put Jami Jones in that?
04:56At least they would think that.
04:59Right.
05:00Just seems like...
05:01Well, think about what their lineup looks like against lefties, then.
05:03It's like, that's the only time Torque plays, the only time Jami Jones plays.
05:06No Keith, no Karp.
05:09An unexpected potential problem.
05:11And then you've got to weigh, does his bat, his negative bat, influence you more than
05:18maybe the impact that this could have over at third base if Keith isn't over there?
05:23Mm-hmm.
05:23How does this affect the rest of the defense?
05:25Right.
05:25It's kind of like a rotating circle around the diamond, almost.
05:28I would just say it puts him on notice.
05:30Like, he is walking.
05:31The problem is it's the only thing he's doing.
05:32And I think they're showing, like, we're not going to mess around.
05:35Like, this doesn't mean he's getting sent down tomorrow.
05:38But it's like, hey, dude, like, buck up here.
05:41Put up or shut up.
05:42We'll play other dudes.
05:45Yeah, I don't think it's...
05:46It's not a surprise at all that he's not in the lineup.
05:49It'll be interesting to see how long he's not in the lineup or...
05:52Because I haven't looked at future pitching matchups to see who's going to be, you know,
05:56righty-lefty or what they're doing.
05:58But if you're platooning your first baseman and you're playing for his defensive prowess,
06:06like, that's not the M.O. of a first baseman.
06:09Tech says, all Cookies ever does is cry and complain.
06:13Tork is hitting 188 but has an on-base of 370.
06:15No, he doesn't.
06:16And we're not even a month in yet.
06:18He brings too much negative Nancy to the morning show.
06:26Well, I'm prone to glasses half full.
06:28You're, I think, prone to glasses half empty.
06:31But in this one, like, okay, hit the refresh button.
06:33Those numbers are probably before the weekend.
06:36His on-base percentage right now is straight threes.
06:40Yeah, three across the board.
06:41And how about a first baseman slugging 227?
06:44Right.
06:45It's unheard of in Major League Baseball.
06:47Again, I can get the pom-poms out and pretend everything's going great with him.
06:51I don't think that's honest radio.
06:52No, but I mean, there are other really good things about the rest of this team.
06:58Dylan Dingler, his OPS is 983.
07:01We let off with a Dingler highlight.
07:03The dude was great.
07:04And they took two of three.
07:06And the only loss they had was an extra innings deal.
07:09Right.
07:11And Karp's got the, you know, the 24 strikeouts.
07:14But he's got four home runs.
07:17I don't know, maybe you put Karp at first.
07:20Well, that's exactly what they were trying to be patient with, though, with torque.
07:23To start having a Carpenter-like production where, and Carpenter's strikeouts have slowed down.
07:30It's not still good.
07:31Yeah.
07:32But I don't know.
07:34We got a couple texts in here that torque is out of options.
07:37I was trying to...
07:37Look that up.
07:38Verify that.
07:40Well, then it's just going to be about number of at-bats.
07:44You're just going to get fewer of them.
07:46100% you're going to get fewer of them.
07:48If you're a hole in the lineup, then if he was an outstanding shortstop, or he was Parker Muttows in
07:59center field,
08:00you can accept a deficiency on the offensive side of things.
08:04At first base?
08:06No.
08:07You need your first baseman to provide power or some type of offense.
08:142-4-8-5-3-9-97-97.
08:17Right on cue.
08:17We got to wait until Sparky's 40 game before we panic on torque.
08:23I don't think any of this is panic.
08:24It's just a brass tacks.
08:26Yeah.
08:27The manager took him out of the lineup today.
08:29He didn't hit it all this week, and he hasn't hit really at all this season.
08:32Very little, if any, power.
08:33It's just a, hey.
08:34Just put him in mothballs until next year, because that's when he should start hitting.
08:38It's odd years.
08:39Yeah.
08:40Interesting.
08:4097-1.
08:41But we can have a good night.
08:41We can have fun.
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