00:00Meanwhile, in the American League,
00:02Cam Schlittler is the leader in the clubhouse
00:04for our friends at BetMGM.
00:06Dylan Cease comes in at second to plus 210.
00:08Jacob deGrom is at plus 500 with the Rangers.
00:11Everybody else north of plus 1,000.
00:15Jose Soriano is fourth in AL Cy Young odds at plus 1,800.
00:18Then you get to Davis Martin and his 160 RA at plus 3,000.
00:24That's hard to believe that it's that far off,
00:26a guy with a 160 RA.
00:27But there's a whole bunch of regression candidates here.
00:31I guess I want to start here.
00:33Do you agree with the frontrunner?
00:34I know that you just had a great conversation
00:36with Cam Schlittler at the Lids in Times Square.
00:38What an amazing event that we were able to pull off
00:40with our friends at Lids at Times Square.
00:42I heard Cam was just awesome.
00:44Peter was talking about it on the weekend roundup.
00:45But Schlittler, the AL Cy Young Award frontrunner,
00:48do you believe that that guy can run through the tape
00:51and win the Cy Young?
00:52I do.
00:53I mean, I think the way Dylan Cease is throwing right now
00:55and the way Jacob deGrom is throwing right now,
00:56I think it's going to be a fun race.
00:58But also, Schlittler, the man, really, really cool dude.
01:03The variations of fastball
01:04and the way that he can just attack with those,
01:07and then he still has the curveball that he'll mix in there
01:09and whatever.
01:09But I just feel like we talked about the Christopher Sanchez thing.
01:12I think it's kind of similar with Schlittler here too,
01:14where it's a bit different the way that it looks.
01:17But you have a 6'6 righty who throws 100 miles an hour
01:22and can speed it up on you,
01:23but then has this mid-90s cutter
01:25and then has the sinker as well
01:27to where he can just get you out in so many different ways.
01:30And even when the breaking balls aren't there,
01:32it's three different fastballs that are pretty much always there for him
01:35that he can get you out.
01:37And I know he racks up the strikeouts,
01:39but I think he could rack up the ground balls when he wanted to.
01:41I think there's so many different ways for Cam Schlittler to win
01:43that I think his floor is really high.
01:46The other side of it though is
01:47Dylan Cease could just strike out more batters
01:51than any starter in Major League Baseball
01:52and force his way to compensate maybe for an NERA gap
01:56that could be there at the end of the year.
01:57And also he's just one of the best workload guys
02:02right now in Major League Baseball.
02:03And then you have Jacob DeGrom,
02:05who he's Jacob freaking DeGrom.
02:06He could have stretches where he's as dominant as anybody.
02:10But I think with the head start that Schlittler has
02:13and the floor that he brings,
02:15I think it's going to be really hard for him to give it up.
02:18I think it's going to take a Dylan Cease,
02:19you know, striking out 280, 300 batters
02:23where it becomes this pick your flavor kind of Cy Young voting
02:27where we're not just looking at ERA.
02:29Yeah.
02:30I do want to ask you about two guys
02:32that I guess are fourth and fifth in this conversation right now
02:35and then circle back to DeGrom.
02:37Jose Soriano, Davis Martin.
02:39They've been two of the better stories in baseball
02:42so far this year.
02:43Obviously, Soriano was the headline grabber
02:45for his first five, six starts.
02:47It's been a teensy bit of a downturn over the last bit,
02:49but naturally it was going to come back to earth.
02:52Meanwhile, Davis Martin really has not come back to earth.
02:55Davis Martin has been awesome.
02:57Do you think there's any validity to the Cy Young case
03:00for either of those guys, Soriano in Anaheim
03:03or Martin in Chicago?
03:05I think it's going to be really hard.
03:07I think Martin obviously has proven that he's a darn good pitcher
03:11and he's going to be a solid piece here for the White Sox.
03:14But he's more of that, I think, massage his way through,
03:18give you a bunch of different looks.
03:19And it's amazing how many strikeouts he's been able to amount.
03:22But I don't want to ever rule a guy out
03:24that's throwing the ball that well.
03:26I just think it's really difficult for a guy like him
03:30to keep up with the guys that we saw ahead.
03:32And I think Soriano can rattle off some of the more nasty starts
03:36that we've seen.
03:37But I think also you're seeing maybe teams adjust a little bit
03:41to what he's able to do.
03:43It's a lot of velo and heaviness and ground balls.
03:46And I think teams are starting to raise their sights a little bit with him.
03:50And he's still going to be really, really good.
03:51I just think there's a clear gap between the top three here
03:55and everybody else.
03:57Can I throw you another name real quick?
03:58Do you think that there is a world that Gavin Williams locks it in enough?
04:03Or is he too volatile?
04:05Gavin Williams, over his last five starts,
04:06it was, what, a six-run outing?
04:08And then seven and two-thirds scoreless?
04:11And then a five-run outing?
04:12And then a five-run outing?
04:13But then six innings, a two-run ball?
04:15Yeah, I think you nailed it on the volatility.
04:18I love Gavin Williams.
04:19He's clearly taken another step forward this year
04:21from the put-away pitch and the strikeouts and the command.
04:26I mean, the command has taken a step forward.
04:27But there were starts last year where we're talking about
04:30Gavin Williams just fully unraveling
04:32to the point where he just couldn't throw enough strikes
04:35and he ends up bouncing from the game in the first few innings.
04:37He's a big step forward from that.
04:39But the command is still, I think, pretty far behind
04:42some of these other guys to where it's just going to be mixed into
04:45some bad starts here that end up keeping that ERA higher
04:48than you want it to be.
Comments