00:00Good morning! As we get set to start a new week, Jim Costa with Stoney, Gov and Greg
00:07behind the glass. What's up? Good morning, Stoney. You have a good weekend? I had a very
00:11good weekend. How many fireworks did you actually witness? A ton, and it felt like they were
00:16right on top of us. Yeah, we went to one Sylvan Lake on Friday, you could see other communities
00:22and Saturday we were at some people on Walnut Lake. They actually canceled because of rain
00:30or whatever. They postponed their fireworks, but you could see fireworks all over as well.
00:34But yeah. Yeah, the storm's Friday. Yeah. That kind of delayed the start. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But
00:40Saturday was rocking and rolling. Saturday was rock and rolling. We should have canceled
00:43those Walnut Lake fireworks. Right. Absolutely. You got some fireworks with U.S. soccer tonight.
00:48Oh, yes, indeed, baby. A little Monday night football. Show them what's what. Damn right.
00:54Absolutely. That's right. Monday night football. That's right. And Baligan's back. We'll get
00:59to it at 635. The Tigers take another series. Here they go! Here come the Tigers. Still
01:0710,500. They sure are, Stoney. To me, the most important thing is they've become a little
01:14more watchable from the entertainment perspective. They're actually, you know, their starting
01:20pitching has been really good, as we've noted for the last month, so to speak. Their defense
01:28has been really good, personified yesterday by the play by McGonigal and the play by Riley
01:34Green. How you leave made some good plays. They're playing clean baseball and they're getting
01:40timely hitting. Yeah, think about it. Your all-stars all contributed a knock yesterday.
01:44Three all-star, by the way. Not bad. Riley Green falls out with a double short of the cycle.
01:49Yeah. But he had three hits. And he got intentionally walked, too, for the last one. Dan Dickerson
01:54was just, oh, come on! And I think it was Dirk said, you know, the Texas manager still has
02:01to try to win the game. They're down 6-3. Exactly. Yeah, but Dingler drove in a run. McGonigal,
02:07a couple hits and a walk in there, too. If you would have told me this team had three
02:12all-star batters before the season, I would have told you they're 10 games over 500, not
02:1610 games under 500. True. I mean, we never thought, we thought Dingler had potential.
02:22McGonigal, we had no idea about that he was going to be this good. He has exceeded all
02:26expectations. Yeah. And Riley Green had done it two years in a row, make it three years
02:31in a row. Real quick on McGonigal. He has the best eye in baseball. And fight me on it.
02:36I'm not, I don't think you will, Stone. No. He has more walks than strikeouts. There's
02:40only a pod of about six or seven guys who can say it. And he has the most walks of
02:45anybody in that group. He's 21 years old. He has the best eye in baseball. He also is
02:50the second most valuable player in the American League by war. I know. He's exceeded all
02:55expectations. And defensively, that was the thing. Could he stick on defense? He could play
02:59third, he could play short, he could play both at a high level. I know. It's AJ's, you know,
03:03a wonder kid option, optionality, right? Him and Scott Harris. This is what their perfect
03:09baseball player looks like. Yeah. So look, they, they won. They took two or three against
03:13the Rangers after sweeping the Yankees. They've won six of the 10 series since the start of
03:19June. And I think the record in that time is 18 and 12. Nice little plus six. Pretty
03:25damn good. Yes. And, and you're right. They are more entertaining. They're more watchable.
03:29It's more fun when your team wins. Exactly. And at the same time, I have this, this
03:33fear and I want to know if it's unfounded or not, but as the Tigers start to pick up
03:38steam here, my fear is this team is going to win just enough not to sell, but they
03:47won't buy either. They won't double down on their confidence. Hell, if they weren't
03:53going to buy last year when they were, you know, top team in, in the division in a
03:58first place club, if they didn't buy last year, I have a hard time believing
04:00they're going to buy this year. They'll do just enough not to sell. That doesn't
04:05mean they're going to make the playoffs again, still 10 under 500. My fear is they
04:09end up in no man's land, right? Is that a valid fear? Yes. Cause you're forcing
04:14Scott Harris to make a decision around the deadline. And with a few exceptions, most
04:19of those decisions at the deadline have been horrible. So whether it's they keep
04:26scuba, which is a fear for some people or keep them all, I mean, Mize is a free
04:31agent. Now you can give him a qualifying offer. So if he does sign somewhere else,
04:35it's a little different. You won't lose as much, which is what they should have
04:38done for you. They shouldn't have done for Gleyber Torres last year, you know?
04:41So yeah, I mean, that is the fear that they'll just tease you enough, get you all
04:46interested. The trading deadline will happen. They'll keep most of their guys and
04:50then they'll go in a swoon. That's your fear, right? If they are, I haven't looked
04:56at schedules and things like that, but I know they have to play the Dodgers
04:59here. So they, they will play some good teams still. I got, um, I almost said
05:04Oakland, the athletes, the nomads of the athletics. Uh, and then they play and
05:09Philly this week at home, not easy opponents, but we'll see what happens.
05:14I, I'm that's the fear. The fear though, is that you're going to force Scott
05:18Harris to make a decision. And with probably the one exception of his first
05:24one, which was trading Michael Lorenzen for how you Lee, but that same
05:27deadline was Erod. Yeah. I'm saying that that's the one good move he's made.
05:32Yeah. That's been successful really at the deadline. Am I missing anything? No. I
05:37mean, last year's deadline was just ridiculous. He said three deadlines, right?
05:40If I'm doing this correctly, three deadlines. The first was ultimately
05:44mired by screwing up the Eduardo Rodriguez situation. Looked like a rookie
05:49executive. The second deadline was trading Flaherty and that was the
05:55Lorenzo Sweeney deal. Correct. And they still made the playoffs that year. Yes,
06:00they did. And then last season was just Charlie Morton, Chris Paddock special,
06:05a bargain bin shop. Paul Seawolf. Paul Sarah.
06:102, 4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 97, 97. Okay. Let's just get this out of the way. They are 10
06:15under 500. There are 22 games until the trade deadline. They have to trade
06:21Tarek Skubel. Yes. Regardless, if they make some run, they have enough starting
06:24pitching. They can't afford losing him as a team. That's not a serious world series
06:30contender. I agree. The only fear I have in the fear is if, and I agree they should
06:35trade him, is what's going to happen in the locker room once they trade Skubel.
06:41Are they all, I mean, on the field, I think they'll be fine because the other
06:45pitchers have been really good. I was going to say, yeah. I mean, the 3M club of
06:48Mize, Montero, and Melton, pretty damn good. But I don't know, is that sending a
06:54message, aka Dylan Larkin, that we're not in it? We're not in it. If we're close, if we're
07:00trading our best pitcher. No, I think it's a business thing. But for the players, I
07:05know what I want to do is the same thing you want to do. Stoney, they sold two years
07:09ago and made the playoff. I know. This locker room's clubhouse has been through
07:12this, right? Now, Skubel's a bigger fish, obviously, but it creates, it depends
07:18how they handle it. They started this run without him. Right. And they can take it
07:22personally that, oh, you don't believe in us? Well, watch this. Hopefully that's right.
07:27See, I think they have to trade him no matter what. Like, I joked in our prep that they would
07:31need to go 19-3 before the deadline to make me think, okay, maybe you keep him because
07:37that would put you 6 over 500 and probably right at first in the central. And you're
07:42obviously charging forward that you've completely corrected your team and the injuries played
07:48into it. I just don't buy it. I think they have to sell him no matter what. And if this
07:54continues and they start inching into it, that you can do both. I really believe
07:59that. Well, they have six guys right now with Montero for this rotation. Yes. And
08:03they'll get Joe back at some point, right? Now, the recipe to taking a surge and getting
08:08back into it is Montero being in the bullpen. And you completely would screw that up by
08:12trading Skubel and then having to start Montero again. By the way, he had the nine-out save
08:17the other day. Mm-hmm. He's pitched five innings of relief in this new role. Zero hits
08:23allowed. But don't fear if Montero turns into a starter, Gov. They always have Drew
08:27Anderson. You'd have another digger yesterday. I love how everybody picks on him, but like
08:32Will Vest is my guy. I can't stay. I know. He's on the DL right now. Well, I don't like
08:36Jansen, but that's irrelevant. Yeah. Yeah. He actually pitched one inning of good
08:44baseball. He did. He absolutely did. And the other thing is, if they really do believe
08:50that they got a legitimate shot here, do they buy? Well, look, that's what we've long said
08:57on this show is if you are in a position where you are going to convince yourself that we
09:02are in, we aren't selling, we're keeping Torres, who's also restricted, not a restricted, he's
09:08an unrestricted free agent, and you've already done the qualifying routine. If you're keeping
09:12Torres, if you're keeping Mize, more importantly, if you're keeping Scooble, if you're saying,
09:17hey, we think we're that team that we thought we were in March, we're a World Series, hopefully.
09:22We need that extra bat. Record be damned, right? Because we had AJ on and he goes, look, our
09:26record's bad, but our run difference was good. If you think you're one of those teams, buy.
09:30Yes. Act like you're 10 games over and not 10 games under. We got three all-star bats.
09:34We got the best rotation in the American League. I don't care what our record is. If you are that
09:38steadfast in that belief, then buy. Yes. I could get behind that. And they have so many
09:43good still prospects at the minor league level that they could trade one or two of them.
09:48But my fear is they say, well, what are you talking about? We're not going to buy. We're
09:53also not going to sell. We're just going to be a bump on the log. We're just going to maybe
09:57make the playoffs. And the emphasis on maybe, Stoney, even though they're looking at the standings
10:02and you're seeing five games back, how many teams are in front of them? Seven, I believe.
10:05Right. I think it's one of the most interesting things how this is framed by fans and doubters
10:11and haters and media. They are both 10 games under 500 and five games back of the wild card
10:18because the wild card final team is a 500 baseball team. So both statements are true.
10:24Exactly. Five is the small number. So if I'm a believer, we're only five back. 10 is the negative
10:28number because that's big. That's a double digit number. The truth is they're the same number.
10:34And I would prefer to use 500 because just because you're five games back, I think some
10:38people use that to make you believe, well, if they just win five baseball games, they're
10:42a playoff team. No, you could win one and the team on the bubble can win one and you've
10:47made no progress. You have to get to 500. That's a decent barometer for what it's going
10:53to take to be in that playoff conversation down the stretch. And they are 10 games below.
10:57And they are the team who the last team wild card team who's in right now is what?
11:02Texas, Texas, which is why this weekend series was noteworthy. Yes. I look at the 10 number
11:07because you have to win 10 more games and you lose the rest of the way. Yeah, it's that
11:10simple, you know, and that seems like a daunting task for this team. And what is it like 72 games
11:16the rest of the way? Yeah. So you you're 10 games under 500 for over half a season. And now
11:23I'm asking you to win 10 more than you lose the rest of the way. Yeah, that's why it's
11:28that's the mountain. So they have to go to get to 500 with a 41 and 31. Is that my
11:33math
11:33correct? That would sound. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. 41 and 31. Within maybe a little reason in
11:41super huge homestand. You got two school starts. Yes. Six games. You got two school starts
11:46in this homestand. You got two school bobblehead giveaways this week. And you got McGonagall
11:53facing his boy heart boy team before he goes to the all star game in filling his
11:59boyhood city. Yeah. Kind of a cool story for McGonagall need some need strong
12:02school will start tomorrow and then also Sunday because one of the watchers and
12:07players in this is Dave Dombrowski and they're playing the Phillies on Sunday
12:11showcase if he beats Zach Wheeler on Sunday. Just another little selling point. Just
12:16add another prospect. Absolutely. Another piece to the trade. Two, four, eight,
12:21five, three, nine, 97, 97. We will talk Balligan and U S soccer. We'll talk Kevin
12:26Durant who wants to team up with Cade. Maybe you believe the report. Uh, and
12:31yeah, you got to get to Iserman because, um, you're watching offer sheets fly and we
12:34wonder, shouldn't our guy be involved in this? Yeah. Whole league is upside down.
12:39Leo Carlson. Wow. 97. One.
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