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00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsCreator. We've got Kyle Soppe back with us to take care of our Major
00:05League Baseball handicapping needs as he joins us now once again.
00:08And Kyle, we've got several teams that are hot. And let's start with one of them in the American League.
00:13To the surprise of no one, it should be at this point. Keep betting against the Rays and keep losing.
00:18That's the story.
00:19Tonight, they take on the Toronto Blue Jays, 6.40 p.m. Eastern, and the Rays are slight favorites.
00:25They have Drew Rasmussen on the mound, and the Blue Jays have Kevin Gossman.
00:30And the way the Rays are winning, Kyle, is impressive because it seems like they have to wait until the
00:33final out of the game a lot of times to get that win and walk off.
00:36But that's the way they're getting it done. Any opinion on tonight's game?
00:40Yeah, that's not the most predictive or sustainable way to go about this. I get that they're doing it.
00:45And like you said, this team is always in the mix. They're always competitive.
00:48But I was surprised waking up this morning and seeing Kevin Gossman as an underdog.
00:52I understand how good the Rays are, but let's understand how good Gossman is, too.
00:56You're looking at a 3.10 ERA with a career-low trajectory here in exit velocity.
01:01I think he has what it takes to slow down this offense.
01:05And as good as they are, they are bottom 10 in barrel rate.
01:08You're looking at a pitcher in Gossman that has held opponents to 5 of 35 with runners in scoring position
01:13this season.
01:14If they can't barrel one up and make a big swing, I don't think they're generating much in the way
01:18of runs.
01:18You saw it with the over-under 7 there. I'll say the Jays get...
01:223 or 4 runs, and it's enough to get it done here at Plus Money.
01:28Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Phillies just took 3 out of 4 in Miami.
01:30They go back home and they get to play the Sacramento A's, who actually are off to a good start
01:35this season.
01:36But let's be honest, when you look at the line here, it tells you that Philly should be in control.
01:40Christopher Sanchez gets the start. They're minus 188 with a total of 9.
01:44Kyle Sanchez has not been as good recently as he was at the beginning of the year.
01:49Luis Severino takes him on tonight.
01:51Do you think that the A's stand a chance, or does Philly just keep on rolling?
01:55You know as well as I do. Stand a chance, it's baseball.
01:58Anything can freaking happen at a one-game sample here.
02:01But Sanchez is struggling by his lofty standards. I get it.
02:04But not struggling to the level of Luis Severino here.
02:08So, yeah, I think they get this done rather comfortably.
02:10I'm not going to bet the money line because I don't generally lay that big a number in Major League
02:15Baseball.
02:16But Brandon Marsh, he kills his right-handed pitching.
02:19150, plus 155 to knock in a run.
02:21I think something like that is a decent avenue in a game that I expect the Phillies to score and
02:26score often against Severino.
02:28So, yeah, if you want to same-game parlay it or tie something together like that,
02:32Phillies win. Marsh knocks in a run.
02:34All right, finally, let's get to out west here.
02:37It's the Padres-Giants showdown here with Logan Webb taking on Walker Bueller.
02:42And I know normally the odds would be more in favor of San Francisco, Kyle,
02:46but they are just not scoring and not hitting home runs.
02:50So, it's hard to make them a significant favorite over anyone,
02:52and it's hard to bet it over on the Giants, too.
02:55Total 7.5 tonight in the Bay Area.
02:58Do you like any side here?
03:00Yeah, you're not going to catch me going over on any San Francisco game,
03:03let alone one plate at home.
03:05But Logan Webb is my target.
03:08He's the reason that San Fran's my best bet of the night here on the diamond.
03:12I'm going to take the Giants' money line.
03:14And if you want to go any avenue with Webb, I think you're pretty clear to do it.
03:19Six-plus strikeouts.
03:20The Giants will score first.
03:21I think he just dominates from the jump here.
03:24We know he's a ground ball pitcher.
03:26The Padres, they don't elevate the ball at all.
03:29Bottom five in launch angle.
03:30That's a problem here.
03:32They're bottom, you know, bottom quarter of the league here in plate discipline.
03:36And Logan Webb's getting swings and misses at a career-high rate.
03:39I think he cruises through this Padres lineup at home,
03:43giving the Giants without much of a sweat.
03:46And, you know, you get the home team.
03:48If this thing goes to extras, I like having the home team in those situations,
03:51so that doesn't hurt.
03:52But I think Logan Webb gets it done.
03:54And I think you're looking at something like six to two,
03:56a sweat-free baseball pick to end your Wednesday night.
04:00Tuesday.
04:03I'd like to end Kyle with the Cy Young Award odds here.
04:06Now that Tarek Skubal is not going to win, let's just be honest,
04:10missing two months or even a month of the season makes it almost impossible.
04:13It's sort of stunning here to see two Yankees at the top with Cam Schlittler
04:17and Max Freed.
04:18But I got to tell you, I think, Kyle, this is wide open.
04:22I think Dylan Cease has a shot.
04:23Soriano, I don't see doing what he's done all season long.
04:26But there is Jacob deGrom looming at 11-1 as well.
04:30Man, this is going to be an unusual Cy Young Award winner this season.
04:33You have so many pitchers here who haven't come close.
04:36Yeah, no, I like this.
04:38And I like where we're at as far as trying to attack this right now.
04:41Soriano, like you said, unlikely to sustain this.
04:44Also unlikely to sustain this, the Yankees having two guys at the top of the board.
04:48If they fall back at all, I think you're being asked to pay way too much of a premium here.
04:53The best pitcher in the AL is probably Max Freed.
04:56I think Dylan Cease is right there.
04:58And if you're charging me roughly half the price to go that direction, Cease is my pick here.
05:03You're asking the Blue Jays to trim this deficit.
05:08I think if you get there, a close race, Cease is better than the Yankee options.
05:11Plus 500, I'm in.
05:14Great analysis from Kyle, as always.
05:16Kyle, thanks for coming on.
05:18You got it.
05:19Up next, Jack McMullen from Just Baseball.
05:22Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid, our Just Baseball show coming up later today.
05:27Very excited for that.
05:28Lots of prospect talk, guys coming in and out.
05:30Performances always discussed in a very eloquent way by our next guest, Jack McMullen from Just Baseball
05:36and also the Marlins Radio Network.
05:38Jack, great to have you here on Newswire.
05:40I'll see Jack later at the park.
05:42But before we do any Marlins talk, we got to get to the big story of the day in baseball.
05:47And I suppose if you're the Tigers right now, you really are just hoping that Tarek Skubal can come back
05:55at the end of the season if you're in it.
05:56Because this is just devastating in a lot of different ways.
05:59Number one, to the team, because they have high aspirations to compete.
06:02And then the business of baseball steps in, Jack, because if the Tigers were not doing well, you could find
06:08a world where Skubal could have been moved to some other team to help them compete for the future.
06:13All of that is out right now.
06:15And the injury, to be honest with you, is a little murky when I hear, like, loose bodies in an
06:20elbow.
06:20I'm not even really sure what that means.
06:23Yeah, so I'll tell you, loose bodies is something that is a bit more like, so it's arthroscopic surgery.
06:28It's a bit more cloudy than, you know, a standard UCL injury.
06:32But it's also better news than a standard UCL injury.
06:36Like, an arthroscopic surgery to address loose bodies means that the UCL is intact.
06:41And if the UCL gets torn, that's when guys get Tommy John surgery or they get the internal brace procedure.
06:46So that's a thing that, like, will actually throw a guy off.
06:49Edwin Diaz at the Dodgers a couple of weeks ago, he went down.
06:52He had surgery to address loose bodies in his elbow, too.
06:55So these are things that are just kind of, like, literally how they sound, loose bodies.
06:58Like, fragments of bone that are just kind of floating around that could do some damage to the UCL, and
07:04you want to get them out.
07:05Bad news is that's about a three-month rehab process, three-and-a-half month if Scoble's looking at this.
07:11So he could be back at the end of the year, and he will be back at the end of
07:15the year.
07:15But we're talking about probably a post-deadline return for Scoble.
07:20And to your point, Craig, like, that is the first kind of business of baseball thing that jumps out.
07:24If the Tigers do slide, the value of Tarek Scoble as a rental goes down drastically.
07:30So we're talking about a guy that the Tigers may have even entertained moving this offseason for a king's ransom,
07:38coming off back-to-back Cy Young Awards, first guy to do that in the American League since Pedro Martinez.
07:42Like, we're talking about a pitcher trade return that we've never seen before,
07:46probably something close to, like, the Juan Soto trade return.
07:49But with Scoble now, it's not like you can ship him off at the deadline.
07:53The other thing is, I feel terrible for Tarek Scoble.
07:56We were talking about this guy that, I mean, won an arbitration case.
08:00He's making more money than any pre-free agent pitcher has literally ever made in a given year.
08:05He's making $32 million this year.
08:07So we're talking about a guy that was in line to possibly get a $400, $450 million contract.
08:14What does an elbow surgery in your walk year do to that number?
08:19Does it drop it from $450 to $350?
08:21You're still the highest-paid pitcher ever, but that's $100 million that we're leaving on the table here.
08:26We're talking about huge sums of money as it pertains to Tarek Scoble right now.
08:31Yeah, and trade-wise, too, I know some comps are being done, and it's not quite apples and oranges,
08:37with Corbin Burns when he was moved.
08:40And you know that Milwaukee got some pretty good pieces back there for that one year in return.
08:44But right now, you wouldn't even get a one-year out of Scoble if he was traded.
08:48And Otani, you know, same deal.
08:49They didn't trade him.
08:50This is going to be a fascinating talk in July.
08:52But the fascinating talk right now, Jack, is we're going to have a new Cy Young Award winner in the
08:57American League this year.
08:57I don't think that there's any denying that.
08:59The Yankees are at the top with their two guys.
09:02I'm not completely sold on this, though, with Schlittler and Max Fried.
09:05I mean, I think that the door is wide open here for somebody else to win this.
09:12Do you feel like it could be a long shot this year?
09:15Do you buy those odds there with having those two Yankees there, or are we missing someone here?
09:21So, Schlittler has had an amazing start to the year, but this is Cam Schlittler's first full season pitching in
09:26the Major Leagues.
09:27It's hard to believe that a guy's first full season throwing in the Major Leagues will result in a Cy
09:31Young Award.
09:32Freed is the interesting one there, and I understand why he's there, because he is not only a quality start
09:38machine,
09:38but he looks like the best version of Max Fried that maybe we've ever seen.
09:42We saw the raw ability when he was a young kid in Atlanta.
09:45He signed his $200 million contract, and he looks like the ace of the New York Yankees, even when Cole
09:51is back, even when Rodon is back.
09:54From a strikeout accumulation perspective, Cease is really interesting.
09:58Dylan Cease is going to strike out a lot of guys.
10:00The ERA may be sitting in the mid-threes, but if he punches out 275 guys, I mean, we're talking
10:06about maybe flirting with modern strikeout records.
10:11I know we got to, what, 300 with Cole in the late 2010s, and Strider was right around 280 a
10:16couple of years ago with Atlanta.
10:18We could be talking about those K-totals with Dylan Cease.
10:21The other guy that I would keep an eye on, Gavin Williams in Cleveland.
10:25I saw he was down on those odds a little bit.
10:26But Gavin Williams is kind of, like, really bursting onto the scene and coming into his own.
10:33He was a guy that had a low ERA last year but was described as lucky because of some of
10:38the bat and ball data against him and all of that.
10:41At the end of the day, this guy gets outs.
10:43He racks up punch outs.
10:45And, you know, if Cleveland is sitting near the top of the American League Central, why can't Gavin Williams be
10:49in that conversation?
10:50Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
10:52All right, let's go to the National League here for a minute and the East, the division that we're the
10:56most familiar with currently.
10:57Ronald Acuna Jr. placed on the injured list.
10:59The Braves have had this happen to them before.
11:01They've actually succeeded without him, ironically.
11:04You make the case he's the best player on the team, but he's going to be out for a couple
11:07of weeks.
11:07Their win total is now 94.5, so it's gone down a tick from where it was when Acuna was
11:13healthy.
11:13But the bottom line is that when you have Drake Baldwin and Matt Olsen hitting the way that they're hitting
11:19and now Spencer Strider is back, I'm guessing, Jack, it is, what would you say, just tread above water for
11:25the next couple of weeks?
11:26Jack, Atlanta has banked so many wins in the month of April, it feels like they can just afford to
11:31play 500 ball for the time being.
11:34It seems like, and I was just making this point on the Just Baseball show the other day, like, nobody
11:39has been battered as much as the Atlanta Braves over the last year and a half, and yet they still
11:43have had the month of April that they have had.
11:45We're talking about the best team in baseball record-wise for the month of April without Spencer Schwellenbach, without Waldrop,
11:52without A.J. Smith-Schauver.
11:53Like, their starting pitching was decimated.
11:56Although Lopez was not very good, they moved him to the bullpen in order to recalibrate.
12:00But they've had guys step up, Elder stepped up, Chris Sale is putting the finishing touches on a Hall of
12:05Fame resume right now, there's no doubt about that.
12:08And the offense was amazing, and they got it from guys that you were not expecting it from.
12:12Dom Smith, Mauricio Dubon, Michael Harris on a bounce back, and Harris has missed four out of the last five
12:18dealing with injury, but they get Murphy back.
12:20Like, that Sean Murphy-Drake Baldwin-Catcher DH tandem is going to be really interesting to see how it shakes
12:26out.
12:26Baldwin and Olsen are playing like MVP candidates right now.
12:29So, yeah, I guess it is, like, tread water and make sure that you can survive without Ronald Acuna Jr.,
12:35but, I mean, man, these guys have been so darn good, one through nine.
12:41And I don't know what's in the water in the clubhouse right now, but everything is coming up raves at
12:46the moment.
12:47And just the sheer RBI totals from Olsen and Baldwin, amazing.
12:51Okay, so you and I just had a chance to see the Philadelphia Phillies recently, and they took three out
12:56of four from Miami, as Don Mattingly is now the interim manager.
13:00It seems like he's at least stabilized this team.
13:03You know, Jack, I spoke to JT, to JT Real Moodle, before the series, and he said, go take a
13:09look at who we faced, look at the pitchers who we faced, look at the hottest teams that we faced
13:15at that time.
13:16I guarantee you, we're going to find our water here.
13:19And he was right.
13:20The Phillies won three out of four.
13:22I mean, Jack, of all these teams struggling, Boston, the Mets, the Astros, I mean, you had to see Philadelphia
13:28eventually getting back to where they were.
13:30I think that this is the beginning of that, don't you?
13:33So far and away, like the easiest light at the end of the tunnel to see.
13:37There is no doubt about that.
13:38When you were to look at those four teams, you can look at Boston and say, well, there's some dysfunction
13:43right now with them already getting rid of Cora and the Red Sox Game of Thrones thing going on right
13:48now with the Mets.
13:49They're just not hitting the baseball.
13:50They got a whole bunch of issues there.
13:52And Houston, like that roster is kind of decimated by injury, and it's not the roster that they once had.
13:57With Philly, it's the same thing.
13:59And, like, they have starting pitching prowess.
14:01Painter's going to continue to come into his own.
14:03Nola looked sharp on Monday night in the series finale in Miami.
14:06But, I mean, there's just a lot to like about that Philly roster right now.
14:11And you felt like they were going to snap out of that funk at some point.
14:14Boehm can't hit a buck 55 for the entire year.
14:17He just can't.
14:17So, yeah, Philly certainly trending on the up and up, and they were the easiest light at the end of
14:22the tunnel to see.
14:23Yeah, odds maker's not stupid sending Philly at a win total now of 84 and a half.
14:28It tells you they're going to be right there at the end of the season.
14:31All right, Jack, I'll catch you later at the ballpark.
14:33Enjoy the rest of your day, and we'll see Just Baseball after our show here on Newswire.
14:36Thanks again for coming on.
14:38I appreciate you, Craig.
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