BIB on the Radio: The Great Payton Tolle Debate

0:00Why have I asked my electrician I found on Angie.com to bury my pet hamster? I was so moved by how carefully he buried my electrical wires. I knew I could trust him to bury my sweet nibbles after his untimely end. This is very strange. Angie, the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find pills for all your home projects at Angie.com. Dear McDonald's, your breakfast menu? Fire! Tens across the board. I could be happy with anything. Even though I ordered the same thing every time. Thanks for not judging me. I'll try something new next time. Mate. Score a two for five dollar deal in a sausage McMuffin with egg and more. Limited time only, price and participation may vary cannot be combined with any other offer, single item at regular price. A year from today, what would your dream private practice look like? Would you spend less time chasing claims? Or only working with clients who value your skill set? What if you had more time for yourself? Alma empowers you to confidently accept insurance backed by an all-in-one EHR

1:02that simplifies scheduling, documentation, and day-to-day practice operations. Your dream practice is closer than you think. Learn more about Alma at helloalma.com slash get started. Yeah, there should be some passion. This doesn't have to be boring. Boring, boring. You're doing good for my business. Get one thing to gain needs. There's more people like you. You do. Do I have proof? They run around tight. It's looking best. The Daniel Barnes. It's female here. There's Salto Lemakia. This is Brock Hole. Hey, this is John Lester. Baseball. Baseball. Baseball isn't boring. Welcome to Baseball isn't boring. Here's your host, Rob. Welcome back, everybody. Baseball isn't boring. Show live from JetBlue Park, the broadcast booth. Cooper Boardman alongside for the big broadcast at one o'clock. Part of the six-hour Baseball's Travaganza. Here, but we start things off. Maybe the best-hour radio that ever has been done. What do you guys agree with that? He's better than last week.

2:03No, I mean, it's progressively getting better. It's like when someone says, are you in the best shape of your life? I say, well, every day I wake up. I'm in the best shape of my life. There. Yeah, always improving. You're right. Always improving. It's hard. It's sort of like you reach full-musk capacity. And you can't really get any bigger, but you can only maintain. I feel like that's what we're doing now. We can only maintain. This show has reached full-musk capacity. I'm a shade under 250. What was that? What was that trial? What did I say? I'm a shade under 250. Did I say that? I don't think so. Man, I don't know. It says you're the worst to it. That was pretty awake in 180, by the way. Well, speaking of somebody who looks fantastic. Best shape of my life. Hey, guys, guess what? Ian Brown's here. Downtown. Downtown. What's up, guys? Downtown.

3:03Ian Brown. Ian Brown. So we have Ian Brown. Funny, sexy. ML. Ian Brown. It always plays 100%. That's 1,000. Play it again. Play it one more time. Funny, sexy. It was a funny sexy. That was Gordo from earlier in the show. All right, I like it. So we came out and this is a great segue. Which was. Which was. So Ian. Ian Brown of MLB.com. Do an excellent job. Never looked better. Eating very healthy. I've ever seen him. Not even barely drinking. It's the whole thing. He's like, who am I anyway? I mean, it's what's going on. So I asked these fellas at the beginning. Top of mind stories. What was the top of mind story? And they were like, they said, so Gordo's was the fifth starter competition for fifth starter. Which I said, that's the least sexiest topic that I could think of. But Gordo's playing for the tie. Because what is he? What's ready for it? What's up with that? Oh, jeez.

4:03Uh, Mr. Mr. I'm punny sexy. He's funny. It was a nice old Al Yub. On his own. Uncontested. Yeah, so. So and then Sammy said that Brian Bale, which was a little sexier. It was a little bit sexier. I came in, well Tom, I'm not even going to mention producer Tom's was like infield defense. It's like if you want the opposite of something that's like interesting, it's that. And I had brought up the Jaren Durand stuff. Like does this matter that he's hitting the crap out of the ball all over the place? Which of that is absolutely a very, very sexy topic. So top of mind, Ian Brown, what do you got? Top of mind. I just want to see how this puzzle is going to go with Meyer and Derbond to see who's going to be a said good one. You guys should learn from Ian. I want to see what this is going to look like. Because I think Alex Cora is sort of openly just trying to use his eyes to see which looks better. He's going with the other alignment today. Meyer will be a third. Derbond will be a second. But you don't want to wait too long on this. Because Trevor Story needs to know who is double play partners.

5:04And that's going to be, you know, you talk about improving the infield defense foremost. Among that is making sure you have two guys who are working together well around the bags. I think they need to set up. I would say they'll probably settle this within the next week or so. What if you had to, if we're going to put up a poll, where will these guys be? Ian Brown, where are you voting? I'm going to say Derbond at third and Meyer at seconds because Cora really seems to like Derbond at third. And Meyer and Story, they're friends. They've spent a couple years together. I'm sure they have some good chemistry there. They've been trying to build that. So that's the way I think it's going. But if something leads Alex to think otherwise, then he'll go the other way. Gordo, what do you think? I think it's going to be what Ian just said. To me, I would put it the other way if it were up to me. But I think Cora is going to have Derbond at third, Meyer at second. All right, Sammy, what do you got? I think it's going to be Derbond at third, Meyer at second. But I'm not as confident in that as I was before Romy Gonzales got hurt because I figured that second

6:05base platoon would be really simple and easy for Cora to use. But now without Romy, I'm less confident in the take. But I'm not abandoning it yet. So I can't have to be the right hand batter though. Yeah, I don't say IKF is like Ian gave me a ration of crap today. After a Cora, we had the media session with Cora. And I guy fell as I asked, I said, what's the plan in terms of playing Izzy at first base going forward? And I'd like four people come up to me after I said, who are you talking about? What are you talking about? And I said, because in Ian said, like all the nickname, what I said, the guy wants to be called Izzy. So I'm going to call him Izzy. Is that wrong? Is that wrong of me? No, it's just I think the confusion was that Cora was talking about Caleb Derbond. And all of a sudden, this question came out of nowhere about Izzy and nobody really heard what you said. So I think that we're just like, wait, Derbond's going to play first.

7:06I said Izzy. Yeah, it's basically like saying, is Robert Farmsworth Bradford going to play third? It's the same thing. It's Izzy. It's what the guy wants to be called. It's the humble brag. Bradford, like you know his nickname. Was that what that was? That was on the podcast. What is a humble brag? It's just like, I just had a guy a question. He accused Brian Abraham of that saying he worked with the blue jays, like 10 minutes ago. That is a sick brag. He just randomly said, I work for the blue jays. I'm telling you what the guy likes to be called. Anyway, he's liked that with Izzy. Yeah, all the years I knew David Ortiz, all the years I've known David Ortiz, never called it pop. Never. I never called him poppy. Never. Joe Haggard used to like to do that. It's a poppy. I never called him poppy. I never called Pappable on Papp. I never called any like, no, I'm not a nickname guy. What do you call, what do you call Papp to his face? Jonathan. You call him Jonathan? Yeah, I would do a Papp. I don't know. I maybe have evolved into Papp. He just doesn't look like. Not why he was playing though. Never when he was playing.

8:07He doesn't look like a Jonathan. Jonathan is so weird. I would never, by the way, Padroia never PD. Like never. That's fair. Never, never, never, never. Red, if I think about how much time you're wasting saying Jonathan instead of just Pappable. It's a lot of syllables. But I do think that when he was playing, when guys are playing, I don't call them by their nickname. So and I don't think Izzy is a nickname. I think Izzy is just his name. Izzy. If he doesn't want to be called, he does one thing definitively. He does not want to be called IKF. What about Isaiah? He says Isaiah is number two in the power rack. Yeah, Isaiah, like the full name, like have you seen those social clips from like the NBA teams that will call the player by their full government name and then they freak out? Is that what calling him Isaiah is? Yes. Yes. And so he said, like this isn't a sick brag. This is just me extracting information on the wildly popular baseball as a boring podcast, which Ian Browell listens to cons. I don't mind. Nightly walks. Nightly, yes. And I just said, if you're going to power rank what you want to be called

9:10as a new player, as someone we're getting to know, like time on our tradition, Doug, phone rings right in the middle of the show. I don't like that. One of those old rotary phones. No, it's like, the only person that puts it like on like the hen anyway. So I said to top things up, you have to yell hello into the phone. So I said, what do you want to be called? And he said number one, Izzy or Iz? Number two Isaiah. And the disinthird IK. IKF, okay. It's just easy to say. So Izzy, like I'm, if you want to be called, if you want to, if he's telling me that's what he wants to be called anyway. Wait, Rob, question before you get there. Yeah, sure. If you, if you're not going to call the players by their nicknames, do you not want them to call you Brad foe? No, I don't mind them call me Brad foe. I just, I mean, that's fine. I don't care. I mean, there's a lot of Brad foe being thrown around that club. Well, as Ian said, there's one player who I don't think he knows my real name. Who's that crochet? Crochet. Crochet. Crochet.

10:11Crochet. Like I was just telling Brad foe. Yeah. So, but anyway, we, I don't even know where we got this, but Izzy is playing first base today, which is semi-interesting, right? So you, but this comes back to what you were saying, Ian Brown of MLB.com, about third base, second base. And I, this is a sick brag. I did talk to Durbin about his arm throwing, because when we talk about Durbin playing third, the stupid, the stupid narrative is he's too short. How could he ever play third? Well, he's not dunking a basketball. It's nothing to do with anything. The only thing that you would be concerned about is his throwing good enough. And he had that bone chips in his elbow last year, which I referenced for chops, and he had no idea what I was talking about. But he's like, he's throwing much better. I watched him throw. He looks fine. He looks fine throwing the ball. So if he looks fine throwing the ball at third, and he was good at third last year, and he feels comfortable at third, and Marcelo Marri can play second, then what are we doing? Let's not complicate things.

11:12Right, yeah. He looked very good. I watched a lot of infield drills this year, trying to solve this infield puzzle, trying to be a detective. Yeah. And Durbin, he did look good over there. He had no problem with his arm at all. And the fact that he didn't miss any time, he has a Mr. single drill, other than when he had a wisdom tooth extracted or something, and he left camp. And they haven't put the reins on him at all. So that leaves you believe his elbow is no issue. So I think that Ian's top of mind topic was a good one, fellas. Don't you think? I agree. I don't think I think it was pretty adjacent to the infield defense conversation, though. No. If I'm being honest. No, wait, what? Tom's giving us the looks. He's giving us the looks. We're getting some smirks from the booth. All right, Jimi, come on in. Come on in. Oh, Jimi. An arbitrary arbitration. Here we go. Yeah, we need you to come in now, Jimi, because actually, we're going to be, take a quick break. We have to take a quick break. And we're going to get to the bottom of this, because we need another top of mind, top of mind topic

12:12that we're going to have. So what? I got one. You already had one. You can't have two. All right, you're lucky. There's only one topic that can be top of mind at a time. What is the one, real quick, before we go to break? What is it? If Durbin's the third baseman and Maya's the second baseman, will the Red Sox have the shortest third baseman and the tallest second baseman in the league? That's content. We're going to discuss that. And by the way, we did come up with the Irish actor who fell in love with baseball in the tradition of the show, which we're talking about. How big baseball is in Ireland? Then we, Paul Mescal, right? That's how you say it, Tom. Pretty sure. OK. He fell in love with baseball. He from Ireland, he fell in love with baseball by going to Fenway Park. And I will check if, who is Mara Higgins, right? Correct, Mara Higgins, the actress. He nailed it. We, Ian Brown, and Jamai Webster, it's going to be on with us after the break. Mara Higgins is an actress and traitors who our producer, Tom, said that he is going to get to rep

13:13the baseball as a boring gear as his influence. Now, the only thing he's been able to do is get into her DMs when I say get into her DMs, but I actually like saying something in her DMs and her not responding. So we're going to get there. By the end of the show, Mara Higgins will respond. There's a lot going on. All right, baseball is a boring show at JetBlue Park. These guys are back at the baseball is a boring studios in Brighton. We're going to trend. Quizcently, we get to Tommy here to trend. W-E-E-I, afternoons with heart, dizzy, and Johnson. Weekdays, two to six. Now, here's what's trending on W-E-E-I. The anticipated return of Jason Tatum will not be happening tonight. He was ruled out as well as Baylor Shireman, who was questionable with a left thumb fracture. The subjects will take on the 76s from TD Garden with tip-off at 8 p.m. tonight. The Bruins fell three-one to the flyers and Swamon's first game back following the Olympics. Swamon saved 14 on 16 shots.

14:13The bees will be back in action against the penguins on Tuesday. And that'll be one of two more games the Bruins will play before the NHL trade deadline on March 6th. The Red Sox defeated the twins yesterday, 13 to 8 in their spring training bout. The Sox will take on the Orioles to Orioles today, and begin to play a game right here on W-E-E-I, 93.7, the Shaws in Stone Market, Red Sox, Radio Network, Shaws. Probably be local since 1860. First pitches at 105, coverage arts at one with a Brad Foe and Cooper Boardman, Ranger Swarris is on the mound for your Boston Red Sox. I'm Tom Christopher Lee, I'm nitrogenian now on W-E-I and W-E-E-I dot com. I'm so jacked up. Baseball is a boring show, jet blue park. Orioles taking in field. We get the call at one o'clock myself, Rob Bradford, Cooper Boardman. Six straight hours of talking baseball were already almost an hour and a half in. I mean, it feels like two seconds because all the fine folks that have chimed in,

15:14including Sammy and Gordo play Tessie. And by the way, Sammy, excellent research. You just text us, correct? You want to read it? Go ahead. Yeah, so if Caleb Durbin is the Red Sox Third Basement and Marcelo Meyer is the Red Sox Second Basement, the Red Sox will have the shortest third baseman in Major League Baseball and the tallest second baseman in Major League Baseball. It's out of the Gordo for the assistant. It's out of the way. Let's go. Speaking of like their brand not being any harder, I have Ian Brown here at MLB dot com. His brand, he's never looked better. I've never seen anyone eat cleaner in my life in spring training. Ooh. Yeah, and then the person who hears saying, ooh, holy mackerel, their brand is so hot. Jamai Webster of Ness. Guys, say hello to Jamai. So hot right now. What's up, Jamai? Jamai, so hot right now. So hot. What's up, ladies and gentlemen? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Go to what was that again? What was that, Gordo? Plenty sexy. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I love it. That was great. Yeah, okay. Thanks. Jamai Webster, who just got here,

16:16has made his presence felt and camp. All right, get off the plane. Immediately did a viral video with Garrett Crochet, talking about Caleb Durbin's traps. Yeah, when first time he saw him with his shirt off, he was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, those traps. Those traps. This all upright road, all the way to the day. Let's go. All right, well, Jamai, it's your big moment. It may be the most important moment of your professional career. I'm going to ask you the top of mind topic. So in recap so far, just to give you a little bit more time to think about this, we have Gordo, who said it's the fifth starter, who wants to know who the fifth starter is. We have Sammy, who's concerned about Brian Bayo. You have Tommy Tuton, producer, who says, he's infield defense, which is like saying, where the grass is going to be green. So then you have me, who would say, well, what should we make it during Duran? You have downtown Ian Brown of MLB.com,

17:16who said, who's going to play third base, second base, Caleb Durbin, Marcello Meyer. And now we have Jamai Webster of Nesson, who's on the call, you're doing the game today? Yes, sideline reporting. I'm down on the sideline. I learned what it does the better. No, it does the better. Hey, man, my condolences that TV once again will fall a distance second behind radio. But anyway, that doesn't make a difference. You'll do your best to even that off. All right, Jamai, what's top of mind for you? Top of mind topic for me is questions that can't be answered. Which is everything that you guys just said. But since I'm being forced to give my top of mind topic, obviously I have questions about where the home run's going to come from. All right, that's not a good idea. No, no, that's not it. Oh, no. That's one of my top of mind topics. Oh, multiple. Where the home run's going to come from? What's Brian Baill going to be as an established artist? I'm just saying, I agree with all the top of mind topics that have come. But my top of mind topic, which is kind of unheralded,

18:18if you think about it. Who is going to be this year's Justin Wilson? Who is going to be your lefty specialist type guy, Brennan Bernadino types? Who is going to fill that role for this Red Sox group? That's not a terrible one. It's not terrible. Well, I think Tim Hilly, Tim Hilly of the Boston Globe had a good line when he said that Craig Brezler needs to go out and find Craig Brezler. Yeah, I think that was a good line. All right, so who is that? This is the thing is that we're trying to go through camp and at 11.25 AM, I did not expect to be taking a deep dive into the lefty reliever sense because candidates. But this is what you do. This is inside baseball. You tap in. You surf, you surface interesting topics and make them interesting. So Giovanni Moran. Oh, you took the words out of my mouth, man. I thought. I get the word out of your mouth. The words. OK. Oh, Giovanni, Giovanni. Slow down there. And Sunday, Giovanni Moran is, you have Chapman.

19:18He's a lefty. Tyler Simmons, a Yago or something. Say that, please. That's going to be a drop. Please, please. This is probably Rob does the games on the radio and nothing. So you know what you do? If Tyler comes in, you say, here comes Tyler. You don't see it again. Here comes T-Sam. T-Sam. So you have Giovanni Moran, who's, by the way, going to the WBC. Yes, he is. Take Puerto Rico, representate representative. Yeah, so this is, so fellas, Gordo and Sammy, you are experts in breaking down the roster. Give us who you think is going to merge. Who are the wild cards? I mean, I'll go with Giovanni Moran. I think that's the obvious pick. His change up is disgusting and the Red Sox clearly like him. They've kept him around. And at times, I've thought they would dump him off on the side of the road and they haven't. So a lot of opportunities to do that and they didn't do it. You can kind of tell when they like a guy and Giovanni Moran seems to be right in their crosshairs. I'll give you another one. He's in the mix for the fifth starter spot, but if he doesn't get it, Patrick Sandeval. Yeah, I'm on team Sandeval too.

20:18I think that's a good, that's very interesting. Good under the radar candidate, because Alex Cora was recently asked, you know, you guys going to take a long man, Chris Cattillo asked him that question. He said, we always do. So he would be a good long man who could also do some short stints. OK, so here's the wild card of the wild card. All good suggestions. Giovanni Moran, I can't believe we're sitting here saying, OK, he's number one lefty after Chapman, but that's where we are. Sandeval, that's a good one. Although, you know, you're wondering, OK, well, are they going to like stretch his arm out because he came off surgery, whatever it is? But that's still good. How about, how about Peyton Toley? I'm just trying to find a way to get the sky on the Major League roster. And now they play Coy with this all the time. And they're talking about how these guys are stretching out of the stars. And they're going to be stars. Yet Peyton Toley came in the game the other day. And I know it's spring training. These guys always come in. And it's currently early today, I think, right?

21:19It's yesterday. Oh, yesterday he came in really good. Right. So I know that they want them to be starters, but for what they need, why wouldn't you at least explore that? Especially with Toley, I feel like I think Toley's training more as a reliever at a short term than a starter. Am I wrong, fellas? No, I feel like this is something that's going to play out in May and June. I feel like they're going to give Toley a chance to show that he's a starter, whether it's in the Major League or whether it's a AAA, but Alex of course said numerous times that the both of those guys are not what he said, but they're not going to be relievers. I don't believe like, I think we've seen this time, a common time and time again in Jonathan Pappabon was going to be a starter in 2000. Thank you. Joelle Panyero was going to be the closer. Well done. So help Panyero. We spent our entire spring writing about Joelle Panyero and JC Romero. JC Romero was going to be the closer. It was Jonathan Pappabon.

22:20And Aaron Andrews broke that story. He did, yes, that's right. You're on the road to somewhere. But Jamai, you tell me if I'm full of hoey, OK? If I had to pick one of those two guys who Peyton Toley or Conley Early to be a reliever, who would it be? I think you're on point with this, actually. And I feel like the pick would be Peyton Toley. I think he profiles to be a reliever. Guys got dominant stuff. Peyton Toley hit 97, by the way. Excuse me, Conley Early hit 97 by the way. They both had 97, yeah. But no, I'm just saying in his brain. Conley Early? Conley Early, if you were to talk about the evolution of a human being, his freshman year at Army, he's throwing 84. Right. And that's where he learned how to pitch. That's what I'm saying. He profiles more as a starter because he's got the pitch ability, which they love. And now he's got the fastball, which can be elite. He's got the swing and miss. And the separation between his high velocity pitches to his off-speed stuff is going to make it difficult for hitters to swing at, right?

23:21Here's the thing, too. Peyton Toley, sorry, it's rough. No, go ahead, downtown Ian Brown, the floor is yours, man. But Peyton Toley, man, you look at his personality. That is the personality of a short reliever. That is not the personality of a star. This guy will say anything. I mean, he is a character. And you don't see many guys like that star. I'm a total relief pitcher person. Yeah, he's great for business. That's why I won him on the Major League roster. Well, that's where I'll stop, for sure. OK, so say me and Gordon, before I expand on what Ian said, what's your thoughts on that? All right, so with all due respect to the three of you, which is a lot, lots of respect, absolutely no chance. I'm even thinking about Peyton Toley as a relief pitcher for at least another year. He's the number one pitcher in the entire pipeline for the Red Sox. It's not even, we're not even remotely close to reliever conversations. The only thing I'll give you is if he's not up in the big leagues in September, you can have him pitch out of the bullpen

24:23for a month, but full time, absolutely not. That's where my head's at, too. Gordon, before I tell Sammy how wrong he is, you go. Yeah, I don't know. If you're at the end of the season, you're still searching for that lefty. Yeah, yeah. Call Peyton Toley up because he could be that today. He could be a really good lefty reliever today. But people forget, this is a guy who pitched his first professional season last year and got to the Major League. Like, this guy can be a really good starting pitcher. If you give him time to reach that ceiling, I think the Red Sox owe it to him, the Red Sox owe it to themselves, to see if he can get to that ceiling. And you're not going to know if he can get there if you're putting him in the bullpen this fast in his career. So I would let him pitch it out in the minor leagues, try to be a starter, develop those secondaries, and then call him up at the end of the season if and when you need him just like last year. The adrenaline rush that I have and getting ready to respond to both those comments is equal if Mara Higgins responded me on DIA to DM right now, coming on the show. And in case you missed it, Irish actress Mara Higgins, who our producer Tom desperately wants to help

25:24sell baseball as a boring merchandise, we're efforting to have her on before 1 o'clock. But she was Canadian. She's Irish. Oh, OK. Ireland, like Paul Mescal. He may also be on before 1 o'clock, who knows. Anyway. I'm Brian, I work at United Health Care. So Brian, why do you care? I care because I don't want to leave anybody behind. I oversee one of the biggest resource center in United Health Care. I see people walked in in my office every day, just like my parents. They have no idea about the health care. I feel like they have my uncles, aunties. I treat his people like family. I'm Brian, and I'm committed to care. Why are you guys so worried about like you're saying like you're sending them to Siberia? It'll be OK. He can pitch in the major leagues. He can continue to work on his off-speed stuff. He can serve a very valuable purpose

26:25as a major league pitcher, why he's doing this. They have a lot of starting depth. They still have cut a Crawford. They still have Conley early. They still potentially have said they have depth. So all I'm saying is that you need this. And to Ian's point, like right now, that's what fits this guy best for the team. And it doesn't mean that he can't be a starter, but it also doesn't mean that he can't serve this role right now, guys. So why are you so worried about the guy who's shaming USA to its chest? He'll be OK. Bradfell, you're advocating to take the number one pitching prospect in the entire organization out of his role, switch him to a relief pitcher role, and then keep the door open to switch back to his starting pitcher. Even though he just came up first. How do you spell David Price? Well, how do you spell that? When was David Price a reliever? When did he become a reliever? At the end of the season. Yes, exactly.

27:25That's what I'm saying. Are you talking about the papal bond? No, that's not a good comp. This is the number one pitching product. The papal bond was pretty highly rated too. Yeah, OK, fair. He was only maybe left. Maybe less there was ahead of him. But the David Price thing, David Price came up at the end of the season because the raise needed a left, and he pitched out of the bullpen, and then he immediately went back to being a starter for a while. Why do we have to, why do we have to, like, I gave you examples. It's not apples to apples. I got another one for you. OK. Andrew Miller. Andrew Miller. He came up through the Marlins farm system, I think, as a top, top left-handed starting pitching prospect. I'm going to give you another one. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Andrew Miller had a million chances to fail. You've got to get totally those chances. Yeah, well, maybe don't break his confidence, maybe. Right, I think the chances are going to come for a totally later. He has an opportunity to be a starter at some point. But I think for this team's need and necessity, right now, they need them to come out of the bullpen. Oh, you are so right. We're not closing the door. Please, because you got me a smoothie. You are so right.

28:25Thank you. You are so, it's, I'll give you another one. And you guys, maybe not even know who he is, but he's a friend of the program, Mike Vassel. In case you don't know who Mike Vassel is, Chicago. BC high grad was a top pitching, the Met's top pitching prospect. And then, obviously, was taken by Tampa Bay as a rule five guy, traded to the White Sox. And then, all of a sudden, they didn't say, we're going to square peg round hole this and make this guy a starter. We're going to say, hey, you know what? We think you can get Major League hitters out as a reliever, sure enough, his ERAs on the three last year, over 60 appearances. That's my example. Because he was a rule five drafting. I got traded. Not a top prospect. He was also, he wasn't, I just said this. He was a top prospect. He was the Met's top pitching prospect. He wasn't there when he got taken by the rule five. But once they say that you have the top pitching prospect, they could have easily said, well, he's a top pitching prospect. He's upside and his value is as a starter.

29:28But they said, no, his value right now is as a reliever. What is wrong with it? Why are you guys being so narrow-minded? Because you're punting on the ceiling for a short-sighted fix. It's like a lucky reliever. I'm not just clear. Is there a rule that wants to become a relieve pitcher? You can't be a starter anymore? It's definitely in here to talk about like what totally would have to do. What's in the same thing you guys are saying? It definitely hinders the development. If you don't have that guy making starts pitching deep into outings for the full season, going on one maybe two in an instance, and then next year, it's like he hasn't started games for a full season. You're going to stretch him back out. Now he's doing something he hasn't done for a year. Maybe he's just going to have a career as a monster reliever. What's wrong with that? Nothing with that. He didn't bother Billy Wagner, right? It certainly did not. And by the way, right now, right now, fellas, Peyton Toli, he's had the whole off season like his off speed. We all understood. He need to spin the ball better. You need to have more command over the off-speed stuff. And maybe he'll get there. But he's still not there. No, yeah, I didn't like his body language after his last.

30:30Just watch him come into the club house after his first two starts. He just looked like he was kind of frustrated. He was out of sorts for sure. With you guys, I agree. I agree. He could be a great reliever. And there's nothing wrong with that. But you got to let him get a chance to be a starter. And he's barely gotten that. Also, I have no things. Yeah, well, that's why I said, that's why I said Mayor June. OK, if he's second, if his secondaries aren't there, that's why you haven't working in the minors, you haven't developing those things in that environment. Yeah, I think they'll give him the room to start the first couple of months, at least. What is this game about? This game is between the years, right? Ooh. It's very mental game, right? So confidence is even more important in a game like baseball. So if he's down there in the minors, toiling away and his secondaries aren't working, you got to let him do it at the major league level. And if it's in short stints as a reliever, if you're getting big league hitters out with what you have, it's important for you to do that. And if you can do that, you can build on the other stuff. But right now, he's got an elite fastball that works. The secondaries will come, but that's also

31:30about getting the experience. You want to get experiencing it's the best hitters in the world, you don't want to do that in AAA. It is well said, by the way. Here's what I would say, guys, is that we don't understand a big part of this is starting pitching depth, right? Correct, which is, no, it's important. We got it, which is right now. It's very, very, very, very, very important. That matters with, totally. OK, so you're starting pitching depth, because this is what they're paranoid about. Like, oh, not having enough. All right, well, you have Conley early, right? You have Johann Ovieto. You have potentially Patrick Sandoval, and this is where I'm going to get to it. If we had Patrick Sandoval is a lefty reliever option, which would I rather have? What I would rather have is Patrick Sandoval as the depth starter, and Peyton Toley, not using him as the ninth rotation option in terms of depth, but I'd rather have him be your weapon out of the bullpen, because I think he could be more of a weapon than Patrick Sandoval for this bullpen.

32:31Then do you have enough guys getting stretched out down in Worcester in case you need a starter at some point? Yeah, don't you? I mean, right now you have, this goes back to Gordo's excellent, excellent top of mind topic, which was who's going to get the fifth starter spot? Johann Ovieto has to be the leader in the clubhouse, right? Correct? Yes, exactly. But you have Cutter Crawford, you have Conley early, you have Patrick Sandoval, and that's not including Peyton Toley. So if you have those three guys, then why can't you say, with this what we need, and Peyton Toley can be the guy that supplies it? Because he's your number one pitching prospect. Oh, no, it's about more than just this year's team. Because I agree with you, Rob. I understand it's not like his arm is going to fall off and he can't do it. It's just a weird developmental thing to treat your number one prospect. We would be making fun of the Yankees if they did that. I could see that now. You're number one pitching prospect, and he's already in the bullpen. So you guys had no problem with what they did last year, then, because he came up, he had the great start in his debut.

33:33And then about a month and a half later, he was pitching in relief. So that was OK, but it's not OK for him to start the year as a reliever is what you're saying. Yes, right? Because evidently, it's scientifically, and physically impossible for you to become, go from a reliever to a starter. OK, I got one for you, Justin Masterson. Thank you. I just started as a reliever. I can just start naming all of the top pitching prospects who did pan out, who stayed as starters. Who just stayed starters, don't really be able to win. A better part of the thing is a big part of Sabi's argument. Sabi, I'm talking to you directly. Yes. As you keep saying top pitching prospect, top pitching, I don't care. Like, you said, I can say, Conley, early is your top pitching prospect. I can say, whoever's you, I don't want him to go open either. Henry Owens was a top pitching prospect. OK? This is the one about his margarine, it's a logical fallacy. But let me see, a better list is to show me all the top pitching prospects who fizzled out because they became relievers and never got a chance to develop.

34:35I bet you there's a long list. As you mentioned, Brad Fowl, of guys who did it had the yo-yo and still had great careers or still became to be solid, significant major leaders. It's time for seven and a yaga. That was the president. Oh, that's great. T-SAM. T-SAM. T-SAM. All right, we're going to take a break. This has been a lot of fun, man. So we're going to take a quick break. 617-7797-793-37. See everybody hanging on. You guys take it off. Yeah, yeah, man. I know. I know what you're saying. Radio's going to be second, but catch me on the tube today. Yeah, yeah. We're on Nesson. Well, good luck to TV. Yeah. Tom Karen. Will Lumerlone. Jammai Webster of Nesson, Ian Brown of MLB.com, I appreciate your both and go get them. We're all going on. Hey, thank you, man. Play Tessie, guys. Take care, man. I'll see you soon. All right, all right. We'll be back right after this. Let's go. Live from Chet Blue Park. But the Orioles are taking batting practice.

35:36I'm Rob Bradford. This is the baseball scoring show. Nice day here once again. Been pretty good, pretty good. Just played Tessie, guys, going to be here and what we can add to it two and a half weeks. Yeah, just about two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks. Yeah. All right. You guys, it's such a springy time. I need it. I need it, Rob. Rob, it snows every time we're in the studio. It's ridiculous. It's either snowing or we're about to get one of those crazy snowstorms that keeps you locked inside for two days. I love it. You know what? You know what melts away the snow and melts away all the bad thoughts. Ace of space. Just Ace of space. But also just listening to either talk as talking about baseball or as broadcasting baseball, which we will be doing today, as I said, to play the Orioles. Chris Bassett on the mound for the Orioles, fellas. Here we go. Chris Bassett, one of the best talkers in. And also signed the one year. What was it? One year, 18 million dollars. 18 million for Chris Bassett. Well deserved by the way, I would say. Yeah.

36:36I mean, I like Chris Bassett, but it leads to that who shall not be named. Lucas Gellito. Still sitting there. What is Chris Bassett that much better than Lucas Gellito? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. Of course, I don't care. He was still good. Same with Zach Lettell. He should also be signed. Those two. It just makes no sense. And I don't know whatloocus has, but if Lucas Gellito had a one year , 18 million dollar offer, I would definitely take it. I would take any one year offer to be honest, et as long as it was okay, because I think that he's primed to prove everyone to he is still pitch. So, yeah. That's my advice to Lucas Gellito. My advice to you, the listener is go to bbisemboring.com to get all the merch that you can because a lot of it's dropped, it's red hot. Someone signed Lucas G. Lito, please. Can I tell you a fear I have about G. Lito, Rob? Okay.

37:37I am afraid that the A's are going to sign him to a one-year deal and while we're like, yeah, good for him, but then he's gonna have to pitch half of his games in a minor league ballpark. And that'll be more important. That's the weird thing. It used to be when you pitch for the A's, it's like a great like Rich Hill. Yeah, texting. It's a great place to find a landing spot. Pitch in this cavernous place, you know, get good numbers because all that foul ground and then move on, it's just the opposite now in Sacramento. Yeah, so there's a wild change. That used to be the thing. Someone's gonna get a really good picture in Lucas G. Lito for one year deal. And it's gonna be crazy. I'll play happy soon. I can't keep screaming from the mountain tops like about like this guy can help you. I don't, I don't get it anyway. We see at the trade deadline every year, teams, teams trade so much to get solid rental starting pictures. And it's like, you've got a guy who you know can be a mid rotation guy sitting there. Go to the Padres or like the Guardians or something. How about the, I mean, the Braves, the Braves? Yeah, two pictures. The Braves that we've been saying that on play Tessie for like three weeks now,

38:38like, one of the Braves gonna sign G. Lito. What twins? How about the twins? They just had an injury just. Yeah, but the twins aren't gonna confess that they aren't gonna do that. They could sign them and trade them or something. I don't know. I don't know. I just don't want to see it linger too long in a spring training because how many times have we seen guys, especially pictures sign later into the spring? Well, okay, before we get to the calls, Will Lucas, Lito have signed by the time you guys land in Florida. Oh, they better be yes. Yes. Oh, please. Just checking. All right. All right. Well, there's a lot to get to. We've already got to a lot of it. And but really things really start. Don't start get going on these six hour baseball extravaganza until we get here from Jeff in water town. Jeff, how are you, my friend? Doing good, bro. How are you guys doing? Well, I'm just, you know, you're that snowing here. Okay. Wait, wait, what was that? What was the job? Tommy, what was that sound effect? Figured I give a little walk up music. All right. This is this like it's a stone cold Steve Austin

39:38sitting trail. Okay, yeah, I want Jeff to pick his own walk in music. All right. All right. I thought it was feedback. I didn't even realize it. Well, when people think you're walking music and feedback is probably not a good walking song. Anyway, we're going to workshop that. Hey, Jeff, how are you? Well, I'm doing good. So what's on my mind this week? Well, two things. One is, and I've always been ambivalent about the WBC. But this year, because I want some, I want to see so many guys get at bats that I kind of like the parallel track that some guys are going to be getting there at bats in the WBC. And the others, the Christian Campbell's of the world or whatever are going to get their bats. And at the Red Sacks Spring Cranie, so we can get to see both of these guys. But the thing I wanted to bring up to you more than anything is this week, I heard somebody on E.I. referred to this roster as a Denny Anges roster. And I thought that was an excellent analogy.

40:39Parts, good pieces, people. But yet, it seems like you're overloaded in one area, deprived in another area, trying to make you all work. But the thought that occurred to me is, if we do, in fact, get a salary cap, which it looks like we might, now all the sudden, the Christian Campbell contracts and the Saddam Rafeel contracts take on extra weight, not to mention Yashita, in terms of salary cap and implications. And that scares me because I don't still get a good sense about this team's ability to kind of put together the pieces in the right way. So what do you think about that? Yeah, it's honestly, Jeff, I'm not going to lie. When I hear salary cap, I immediately tune out. It's the ear muffs. It's just like, you're not wrong. You're not wrong. But it's just about to hear in the now. And I find it like the way that, Jeff, I do want to ask you this.

41:39So we talk about the ear in the now in terms of this roster. And what we've landed is sort of along the lines of the problem that we've landed last year, which is why they traded Devers, which was, it was a mismatched roster. And this is one of the things that Brezlo said when they traded Devers, well, we had to free up space. They didn't make it a lot of sense. And that's sort of where we're sitting here right now with this roster. Tell me if I'm wrong. No, you're right. And I keep using logic, calling the herd. Like I keep, like he just have to move. Things have to loosen, you know, you know, people are being blocked. And there's just, there's just like, what do we have? Like I just feel like they have to, you know, you know, get rid of the surplus to get the essentials. And I feel like we're just not there. And you know, the failure cap thing is only, is ancillary to the fact that I feel like this is a mixed, you know, mixed matched, you know, roster. And, and I don't know, you know, and, you know, just only going to get worse

42:40if they're going to put in a salary cap. That's the wrong thing. But I just feel like, I just feel it. Go ahead. No, I just, I just, that's the wrong thing, is I feel like there's just like a lot of pieces that just don't fit. And I just feel like something has to give. And I just keep waiting for it. You know, at least with the WBC and at least we'll get to see more guys and maybe get a better idea. And, you know, when is my soul am I going to step up and, and, I mean, this should be his time. You know, that's, you know, I just all those questions ahead. Yeah, and a real quick, Jeff, like who mentioned the WBC and you raised a good point about a lot of guys getting in bats, whether it's in the WBC or guys back in Fort Myers, who, you know, whether it's the, you know, the Christian Campbell's or the Izzy's or whoever. But the other part about this, I think to me, at top of the list, when it comes to the WBC concern, it comes back to what Sammy said, the Brian Bayo thing. I have a hard time getting my head around that this is the best thing for him.

43:42The way that he's gone so far, the things that he hasn't done, the things that he needs to keep on working on. And now he's going to be dropped into go get him, pressure pads, be your best, all of that. Away from the coaching staff too. Yeah, in, in, in, in, in, core and everybody. Yeah, I think it is a little scary. And I think it, they'll tell you, they'll tell you say, oh, no, no, this is awesome, this is good for him. But that's the, where we have landed with him in terms of working on things, the WBC isn't a, we're working on things sort of two and a half weeks. But that's always why I've been ambivalent about it. I've always felt like they are, they are racking things up too quickly for a lot of players, just for the, the glory of the, you know, the event. And you're right, people like Brian Bayo, the kind of people who need, they need the flow, any development, they don't need to be thrown into a high pressure, you know, cook your march. Well, we'll see. Well, I mean, I think it's very, very good points, Jeff,

44:42as always, and always good to hear from you. Like I said, our day, I'm sure the sunshine brought up, because it's still snowing here. Yeah, I said, where, my, my words will melt through any snow. Well, could put that on T-shirt. No, I don't know, I don't know. Sammy Gordo, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so sorry. All right, Jeff. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. All right. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to do all the calls. I'll see you all lined up. I appreciate you hanging on a lot of baseball talk to be had. We are two hours down. We have one more of the baseballs and boring show to go. And then we keep things going with the broadcast. I join Cooper Boardman for Orioles versus Red Sox, maybe the biggest game that we've seen in the entire month of March. That's a fact. All right, Sammy Gordo, play Tessie. There were this back at the baseballs and boring studios. 617-779-79737, be back after this. This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning, and even exercising.

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