How To Get Tatis Going, Changes Coming for Rotation

What on earth will it take to get Fernando Tati's junior going?

One of the topics we will discuss on this edition of the on-friar podcast.

Fortunately, we are joined by Derek Togerson, who has all the answers and has the answer

in this case as well.

So I look forward to getting that from you.

Derek, been a couple of weeks, how are you?

Good.

How are you?

I was a time off.

Ralph was good, nice little getaway with the family.

But happy to be back.

Happy to be back.

He covered the Padres.

Nice to be out at Petco on Wednesday.

He felt like it had been a little while since I was out there and had a good time.

But nice to be back talking Padres with you and we've got some meaty topics to dig into

whether it's Tati's.

And he's certainly not the only star player that's struggling a little bit.

Tati's coming to the rotation, which certainly are needed.

And so we've got some stuff to dive into ahead of the Gavin Sheets, Fernando Tati's

Junior Revenge series coming our way this weekend at Petco Park.

So we will get into all of that.

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It is the on-friar podcast brought to you by NBC7.

He is Derek Togerson.

I am Darnett Trip, joining you on a Thursday afternoon, off day for the Padres, what's

been a busy couple of weeks, some weird off days here and there around the Mexico City

trip.

They come right back home after Saturday, Sunday, three against the quality Cubs team, first

drop series since their season opening, home stand, seven straight series without losing

the series.

Had that split in Mexico City and all in all, pretty well, Derek, even though there's some

notable spots on the roster that maybe aren't performing the way you might expect.

They are a, they have a winning record, right?

Yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, they're, I mean,

they're 19-11, they're half came out of first place, they have the third best record in

the national league.

I'm, I'm not complaining.

I think, I think, I think it's going, things are going really well and at every time I've

been in the clubhouse quite a bit lately, every single one of them and there says, you

know what, we're doing all this and our stars haven't done deadly squat yet.

I'm paraphrasing, obviously.

So as soon as those guys do it, as long as the bench role players continue to do anything

close to what they've been doing, Ty France has been a revelation, Gavin Sheets has been

tremendous.

Miguel Anduars has been great like these, you know, Luis Compassano is, you know, suddenly

woken up, looks like he did, he looks like he thinks he's in El Paso, all of a sudden,

maybe he saw him because I don't know, but once you get all these other guys to start,

you'll hit him and you haven't had anything from Nick Povetta and you haven't had anything

from Joe Musgrove and you had had to rely on Matt Waldron like it, that this is overall

incredibly positive and encouraging.

Jeremiah Strod has been gone for a while, like it's, a lot of guys you thought you're going

to rely on heavily have not been able to give you anything.

So yeah, this, this is, this is great.

I'm, I'm stoked.

Yeah, it's, you know, it's, it's an interesting thought because, you know, if you had it,

there's a reverse where like the All Stars are playing out of their minds and you were

getting nothing from the bench and we've had seasons like that.

We've watched seasons like that where it is very, I mean, 2023, obviously not a playoff

season and those guys, again, Juan Soto had a stellar year, not quite full, Juan Soto

capabilities, you know, Tatis is an All Star, Machado got going, you know, I think in

June that year, I think 2021 was another one of those years, Tatis was out of his mind,

Chrono Worth was an All Star, Manny might have been as well, but he had a solid Manny season,

but they didn't get much from anyone else.

I think you would prefer it the way it is now because like the bench guys like Louise

Campusano might not hit like this all year, you know, Miguel and do our tie friends.

So those guys are probably going to regress a little bit as the season goes on, but you

expect, you know, the heavy hitters to get going and if they can do just enough and the

bench piece, you know, whatever the flavor of the week is off the bench, as long as you're

getting something, you feel pretty good about what the team's capabilities are.

That to me seems more promising than a team where you've got three All Stars that are

playing out of their minds and then it is just an abyss from spot six through nine and

that's not the case.

And I think you and and Randy nor said it yesterday, how excited he is as he fills in

for Craig Stan for a couple of days, just about what he's seen from the bench knowing that

they expect.

I'm always concerned when I hear the back of the baseball card line because I feel like

we've tended to hear the back of the baseball card line in bad seasons, like I feel like

we talked a lot about the back of the baseball card in 21 and 23 and even last year.

So I cringed a little bit when Randy nor dropped that line, but I think he and you and

pretty much everybody is right, like there's reason to feel optimistic because those guys

are going to come around to some degree, I think.

Yeah, you'd have to believe it.

But I will say this though, the back of the baseball card line, though, is kind of like

a ride a passage.

Every manager has to say it at some point, Randy's like, I don't know how much chance

I'm going to get here.

I'm going to get it out of the way, get it on the bingo card.

You know, maybe you maybe somebody was trading it on Kowshi and he had to say it and someone

made 50 grand, you know, you know, you don't know with these kinds of things.

No, it's how your trading is alive and well, but yeah, it's one of the everybody has to

say it is just kind of fun to sneak it in there ever now and again.

But yeah, it's, Xander Bogart has been fantastic and he, I think this is probably very sustainable

for Xander this year.

And as you know, coming back when he's been trading, he's like, I think Xander is going

to have pretty decent season.

He looks like he's good and looks like he's healthy.

So he's been, you know, trending in the right direction.

Jackson Meryl is probably the biggest head scratcher for me.

I mean, man, he's obviously been dealing with some physical stuff.

He seems like he always is right when he starts to figure it out.

As a two-homer game in Mexico City, he comes back and has three knocks, the calf issue

pops up.

So I think man, he's probably rounding in the form.

Michael King has been tremendous with basically what he told me has been bad stuff all year

and he's still throwing the heck out of the ball.

Randy Vazquez had one hiccup.

He's been really, really good.

And her mom, Marquez, giving you more than we thought, I was going to walk her.

Viewers were giving you probably about as much as anybody could have hoped.

Lucas Gialito is going to come in here and I think he's going to have a really, really

nice season.

For even caning, he's going to come back and get some real legitimate veteran depth

in the starting rotation now.

Mason Miller is the most bad-ass man on the planet.

Everything you've got.

The only thing that kind of gives me pause and it's weird is the Fernando Tati's junior

thing.

As I go through the entire roster, Tati's the one I'm looking at like, okay, I see the

problem and I don't know how it started and I don't know why it's continuing, but there's

one very, if you look at his baseball Savon page, there's one glaring, it was like the

eyeball test proved this.

I was like, that swing looks weird.

So I kept looking at it, kept looking at it, and finally I went to the Savon page and

said, oh, that's what it is.

It's his attack angle.

And for those who don't know, attack angle is the angle of the bat as it's coming through

the hitting zone and making contact with the ball, right?

Traditionally in his career, he's about 12 degrees, right?

It means he's coming slightly up as he's making contact that helps you put more loft on

the baseball.

That helps you get that launch angle, everybody's looking for, right?

Because it was well.

No, he's sitting the ball hard, right?

Top five and hard hit percentage, top five and average, exit velocity, top five and barrel

percent.

He's hitting the heck out of the ball.

He's getting no launch angle.

Shohei Otoni's launch attack angle is 13 degrees.

Kaushwerber and Aaron Judge, both of them, 14 degrees.

This year, Fernando Tati's junior, six, it's six degrees, which means for some inexplicable

reason, he has flattened his swing so much that he's hitting the hell out.

He's hitting these line drives.

But Darni, how many times have we seen a line drive at 107 off the bat get caught 15 feet

in front of the fence?

Because that isn't high enough, right?

Now they do say eventually line drives will carry out.

This is the case where at that angle, line drives are not going to have to get over the fence.

They have to get taller than the fence at some point.

Right.

There it is.

There does not.

So he's got to figure out a way to get more that that natural loft used to have back

in his swing back in there.

And once he does that, the ball will start flying out of the ballpark again.

So the eyeball and the numbers tell you, his swing is now so flat that he's not able to

generate loft on the baseball to get it over the fence.

So that's the problem.

The fix is figure out a way to get more loft is slightly a couple for three, four degrees

of difference in the swing.

And that's what I love.

So what's about baseball four degrees is the difference between five homers and none.

You know, it's it's it's just so fascinating to me how the most minute little tweaks and

changes can have massive differences.

I would guess that's a very thing that Fernando Tatis Jr. hates about baseball right now.

It's something so minute is causing him to have such a weird start to his season when

like batting average isn't terrible.

Obviously, hard hit, you know, he's doing so many things right.

Just not getting results.

And I think it was Tuesday.

He stung one like 111.9 straight to left field.

And that was another example where those four degrees that's denting the western metal

building.

But it just ended up being a lot of people at bulbs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Could have been an RBI double ends up being a line out and it's it's frustrating.

You can tell he's frustrated.

We're in the clubhouse Wednesday and he just looked so and and you could understand that.

And I think there's been a lot of body language experts and conversation with Tatis, including

on this podcast for the years.

And I'm like, I think he's handling it well this year, like I don't begrudge him from

that standpoint.

I don't know if I've seen anything that makes me concerned other than him just kind of

clearly being bummed out that things aren't going particularly well.

But look, he was out congratulating Nick Castellanos.

That was cool.

When you hit that home where Castellanos kind of raises arms a little bit, gave a fist

pump like you knew how much that meant to him that moment.

This first homer's a Padre big moment in the game ties the game.

He and Tatis do their handshake like Tatis looked excited for him.

And so, you know, I think fans and to some degree, all of us in general are kind of watching

like, okay, how is he handling himself in this situation?

And Dennis Lynn had a piece in the athletic.

He talked to Steven Susa Jr. among others on the staff.

And I think everybody seems very positive in terms of like the maturity he's shown and

the work that he's putting in.

It's just not happening for him.

And that's what he said yesterday is like, I'm just not happy right now.

I'm going through it.

I'm in the cage before.

I'm in the cage after I'm doing all the work and we just can't get anything to straighten

it out.

And it's frustrating.

And you know, it probably doesn't help that he just went through something similar in

terms of the results.

I think different in terms of like the process and the underlying aspect of it.

Last year because I don't think there was a lot of self contact if I recall last year.

He was not scorching baseball as the way he is.

He wasn't doing that last year.

And so we are all kind of scratching our heads and trying to make sense of the worst slump

of his career a year ago.

And now I guess he's what like one at bat away from tying that for the longest stretch

he's gone without hitting the home run.

I think the mentality is there as difficult as it is for him.

I think the work is there and you just hope that they can like you said figure out the

difference what it's going to take to make that minute change in his attack angle or whatever

it is to finally get the results that he should be getting based on the contact he's making

with the baseball.

What I would do is let him bend his knees a little bit more.

You know, he's very upright.

And he's more upright than he's been in a lot of his career.

So I think the little more bend in the knees and when you're standing more upright, he's

going to always has his hands up high anyway to start.

He's coming down and then getting leveled through the hitting zone, right?

Because if you're up high, you have to come down to get there, but he's not coming down

to getting them back up.

If he's maybe a little bit lower on his legs, maybe a little more bend in the knees.

Now he can come down, but he can also get back to the part where he's up because if you

look at it, he's much more upright in his stance this year, which again, I like the simplicity.

His simplicity is great, but now his setup is causing him, I think, to flatten the swing

a little bit too much.

A little more bend in the knee should be good to go.

Now Gavin Sheets was the exact opposite.

Gavin Sheets and he was in Chicago, much more haunch.

He had a lot more bend in his knees, right?

And he still has his hands up high.

It's kind of how he's always done it.

But then he would try to uppercut too much.

So since he has a natural up, swell up swing anyway, when they've got to the pod raise,

they stood him up a little bit.

That allowed that natural loop he has in his swing.

Wow, all of a sudden now you're starting four inches higher.

Your bats four inches more on the strike zone, you're hitting the ball a lot more consistently

and a lot harder.

Ty's got to be kind of the opposite.

He's got to get down a little lower to get that loft back on the swing.

That's the first thing I would do.

Get him a little more crouch, a little more athletic.

Let him see what happens.

Yeah.

And then you just, the fear is that you don't fix one thing and cause another problem.

Like, what?

Maybe any worse than it is right now.

Probably not.

Probably.

There you go.

Yeah.

Anything would be an improvement.

Chip Rocks chiming in.

It's now a race between Tatees and Bryce Johnson as to who hit the first of the season.

Oh, brother.

Oh, God.

And you wouldn't have guessed like what Ethan Salis had his third straight game with home

or the other day and Luis Campusano, however, what is he?

A five-nour, whatever it is.

And do our cast.

Yeah.

Biggest thing on the ball.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then, you know, it's, it's Tatees.

And not only that, I mean, he doesn't have an extra base hit since April 11th.

April 11th?

Okay.

That's another thing.

Okay.

With his speed and aggression on the base pass, you would figure he would, something

would have found a role to do a gap somewhere.

You know, you could stretch a single into a do something.

No.

That's the weird one.

I was like, what is going on?

It's insane.

And I mean, that's, yeah, that's like, I feel like that's, you know, it's why we start

there.

And that's, it has everybody's attention right now.

It's become such a thing, well, something weird to step in mind.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Tatees.

Well, my friends, his last triple was September 22nd of 2022.

Who do we lose Darnay here?

You're not?

I don't know if you can hear me?

My camera is buzzing out right now.

Oh no, so yeah, we can, I can hear you, but we're probably going to get an email about

this if we leave that.

I'll, I'll, I'll work on this.

I'll also work on this.

If I, if I exit, you might just have to carry it for a few minutes, which I have it

got.

I'll have to talk on unchecked for awhile.

God, I'm so sorry to all the people out there to have to listen me to that.

But, um, yeah, Ty France's last triple was September 22nd, 2022.

Ty lucked into a triple.

Okay, Ty France, he's got, he's got two doubles.

He's got three homers.

He sits in, he's got, he played only 17 games.

He got 45 at bats.

All right, Todd, he's got 112 at bats.

How the hell does that man not have a triple or a homer?

I just, I don't, I don't get it.

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

I don't get it.

I don't, I don't think I'll ever go in to get it.

It's just, it's just freaking weird.

I'm, I'm still here.

I'm just trying to figure my life out a little bit.

I'm sorry.

I'm like, this is kind of fun, actually.

Okay.

So for people who are on the pod who will be on the podcast listening, right?

What happened is Darni's camera is having some issue.

We usually do this also for our YouTube Hays back.

There we go.

So all of a sudden, like this, the little circle thing looks like a Pokemon popped up.

Hold on.

No, I got a duck out for a second.

Hang on.

We haven't all kinds of issues today.

Derek was under the weather last week.

My whole system just started bugging out for a couple of minutes there.

It seems more stable now, but hopefully that is the case.

So apologies for those watching on the stream.

My growth still getting dry as you can tell.

You doing all right?

You doing all right over there?

Yes.

Tyfrans locking into triples.

Fernando Tati's junior zero extra bass hits since April 11th, which again,

is incredibly bizarre for somebody who has been at least making

solid contact on a regular basis.

None of this makes any sense.

None of that speed.

When that man's speed is a little, a little flare over the second base,

when he was going to stretch out into a double, like, why what are we doing?

Yeah.

And, you know, there's a funny, you know, Nick Asteanos is talking yesterday,

obviously, after hitting Homer and, you know, he's talking about the lineup in the general

and bench guys again have been awesome.

Kind of waiting for the stars to come around and, you know, he said attitude is

mostly hitting.

I was like, that's an interesting line.

You know, so I asked him, I was like, what, how do you use that?

Like, how do you, how do you, how do you tweak that?

How do you approach that if you are going through a slump?

And he basically said, you fake it till you make it.

Which again, I think is something we've talked about as well.

It's like, you're not getting the results.

You got to try not to carry that with you too much.

And maybe it just kind of fake the enthusiasm, fake the confidence.

And, you know, as he said, you get a result, something goes your way.

Another thing goes your way and I'll say, you don't have to fake it anymore.

And what you're faking is real because balls are starting to drop and,

and you're getting the results that you're looking for.

And, you know, again, I, I don't see it so much as like an attitude thing with

Tatees, but, you know, maybe would do them so good.

If, if he clicked into 2019, 2020 Fernando Tatees Jr.

Dancing in the dugout before the game, when he came back in 2023 and we've seen

him sense, like running out to right field, getting the crowd involved,

playing to the crowd a little bit, you know, nodding his head a little bit more,

just faking some of that enthusiasm and confidence when he comes to the play.

Maybe, you know, hitting him lead off, I don't know.

Like Ramon Lloriano has done a fine job.

I don't know if he's done such a great job that you feel like you can't move him.

But maybe you say, Hey, you're our spark plug guy.

Like you've, we know what you can do, go do it, set the tone, you know,

and put a little bit more on his shoulders and see how that goes.

Maybe he needs to take the Luis Camposano approach where he stops given an F,

because obviously that's work for Luis Camposano.

I don't know if we expected to want Campy to give kind of advice on the mental

game to Fernando Tatees Jr. at the stage in his career, but Campy's figured

something out.

And so maybe Tatees can learn from that.

But whatever it takes at this point, I'm sure you run into a situation where

there can be too much advice and too many cooks in the kitchen and the set is kind

of swirling.

And that's not a spot you want to be in, but, you know, you just love for something

to work at this point, because you know, it's, it's, it's wearing on him.

And it was pretty clear seeing him seated in front of his locker yesterday,

just kind of, you know, laid back, just clearly just so overcome with frustration

with the first month plus of the season.

I think you got to do one of two things here, either a,

badminton 9th, or so I glisten, all right, see, see how he responds to the

challenge, because he's never, he's never really been challenged or punished,

or you know, had consequences.

Everybody else in the lineup, they're not playing well.

They can move down, you know, Tatees got him a stuck in that one,

two hole for the entire year.

It's kind of what we talked about with Luis or I last year.

If you're not going to be as productive as your teammates,

you're not going to hit above them.

And I would, I'm kind of curious to see how he would actually react to being

challenged in that manner.

That's kind of intriguing to me, where the other thing is he contracts ringworm.

That's, that's the, that's the only thing I can think of.

Mark on Facebook chiming in.

Tatees is lucky the rest of his teammates are picking him up.

Otherwise, he'd be getting dragged by the fan base.

I don't know.

I mean, I guess you do see it a little, I think there's a little bit of frustration

from the fan base.

Again, this feels a little bit different from previous stretches,

where he's had a tough time and he's, but again, the body language isn't great

and clearly kind of feeling sorry for himself.

I think he's handling this fairly well.

He's just for now, for now, yeah, man, it's been a long time.

Remember, it does help, it helps that they're winning.

Yes, you know, because the fact that they're winning if they were, you know,

14 and 15 or worse,

then he wouldn't have one good thing about Tatees, when his team wins,

it eases a lot of that strain.

I think he was feeling it yesterday because they dropped the series of the

comes and lost that game by a run.

So when their team's still winning, it's easier for him.

But if they were losing and he was still doing this,

then I think it would be much more dangerous for him to be

teetering on the edge of going in the tank.

Yeah, that is a good point.

I'm trying to think back when he was slumping last year,

really started in May after he got clunked.

184 with a 626 OPS in May,

235 706 in June, and started getting it going a little bit in June,

then 308 910 in July, and just kind of scrolling through those games,

you know, 14 dropped to, 12 dropped to,

they had a six game losing streak in there, you know, and so

they weren't getting the results, and then they lost six of seven at some point in June.

I think around the time you starting to kind of get it going a little bit.

So, I mean, that is, that is a big deal as well, and he said it yesterday,

look, it's not all about the stars.

You need everybody to win, and that is absolutely the case.

And yesterday was kind of a microcosm in a sense.

They didn't get the win, but their biggest contributions were two big swings

from bench players in Doohar and Castellanos, and Mani went Ofer,

Merrill went Ofer, Bogart's went Ofer, Bogart certainly hasn't been the problem.

Chronoworth went Ofer, Camposano as well.

You know, in a sense, we would be talking a lot more about Jackson Merrill and Jay

Chronoworth, if Fernando Tati's juniors sit in here,

285, five homers, and an 860 OPS.

But he has such, there's so much gravity and attention paid to him

that, you know, people are well aware of what Jackson Merrill and Jay Chronoworth are doing.

And Mani, even, you know, a couple homers in Mexico City hasn't been himself yet,

but it's just been so glaring for Tati's, and I feel like it's kind of been crystallized

his struggles over the last couple of weeks.

Yeah, well, the guy that I think we probably should be talking about too,

as a guy you just mentioned, and Jay Chronoworth, we love Jake.

Jake's an amazing human being. He's awesome.

I couldn't begin to tell you what's wrong.

He made that, he made that swing change coming into the season,

in a spring training, he was destroying the baseball.

I don't know what's happened.

What has happened? His swing looks okay.

It looks like he's in a nice athletic position.

I don't know if he can't see the ball.

I can use to go get maybe the eyes checked because he's not spicking up spin.

I don't know what it is.

And one thing I can guarantee with Jake too is it's not for lack of trying,

it's not for lack of caring.

That dude's out there busting his tail.

I see him in the cage all the time.

I pick a park three or four times a homestand.

He's out there putting the work.

He's on the high velocity machine.

He's taking extra hacks in the cage.

He's doing everything he thinks he can do.

And he gets to do a game and it's not working.

It's just not worse.

He's even hitting the ball hard.

I think it's like one of the last five

immediately baseball and hard hit percentage.

It's just something is just off with Jake.

It's weird, man.

That's one I look at and I just go.

He was always a grinder anyway.

So I figured he was a guy.

He was never going to go into a massive slum,

but also not come out.

One year miraculously hit 310 with 30 homers.

He would just be Jake Kronomworth,

which is 15 to 20 homeruns,

260 average,

driving 70,

play really good above average defense.

Come up with some clutches.

He's a shell of himself right now.

And I don't know.

I don't know what's causing that or how you get that back.

That's the most concerning one to me.

Yeah, chip rocks again.

At least that he's going to look at Kronomworth and say,

at least I'm not as bad as him.

Talk about a career in crisis,

even as defense looks bad.

There you go.

Here you go.

Launch angle this year, 7.1 for his career, 14.4.

Yeah, launch angle sweet spot percentage,

27.9 career average, 34.4.

His average exit velocity,

kind of right on his career average,

you know, lower in barrels per play appearance,

as you would expect,

barrel rate lower than it has been,

which you would expect watching him so far this year.

Yeah, he hasn't hit.

I'm in breaking.

He's got a 45 average against on breaking,

a 77 average off off speed,

and hitting just 204 against fastballs.

Which is why I say,

maybe it's a vision.

He's obviously not seeing spin.

I mean, obviously like what does career average is there?

Let's see, show him more seasons.

Because it's like, yeah, as you look it up,

it's like he's never been this

overpowered by spin.

He's always been, he's only people handling it decently.

Like that is, he's all of a sudden just not seeing

where the ball's going or what it's doing at all.

Yeah, hit 272 off breaking in 2024.

It was 2.11 last year,

289 against off speed in 2024, 197 last year.

His average against fastballs much higher,

you know, highest of his career a year ago.

And so that, you know, I think accounted for the rise in his numbers

after kind of a couple of lean years.

Jake, Jake's 32, right?

Us old people.

As you know, like the vision can get, vision gets worse as you get older.

You know, so it's, at this point, honestly,

Darni, that's all I can think of.

Is he's, he doesn't realize he's not seeing the ball

as well as he should be.

Max Muncie just went through the same thing.

Max Muncie goes and gets glasses.

All of a sudden, he turns into, you know, 2021 Max Muncie again.

And you're like, where the hell did this come from?

You know, because he can see the ball again.

I'm wondering if Jake is going through something similar right now.

That's, that's, that's all I can logically.

It's all I can think of.

16% fly ball rate, 27 for his career, 17 line drive rate, 23 for his career.

There, what was I just looking at?

Pull, pull air percentage, 8.8, 15.7 for his career.

So nearly half of what his career number is.

Yeah, you know, like week contact rate is like,

lower than his career number, it's top in the ball, a whole lot more.

So yeah, I mean, all that, all that kind of tracks.

Because it has been, has been rough and he's spoken about it again,

just kind of his frustration level with the way the season has gone.

Coming off of last year and he said like, he said some long lines of like,

I don't know if I've put in better work coming into a year than I did this year.

And this is, this is the thanks he gets.

Yeah. Well, obviously the answer is don't work hard.

You know, don't work, don't work hard.

And things will go fine.

If you worked, if you worked too hard, then you're going to go straight into the tank.

Yeah, everything will go haywire.

I don't know.

Got any theories on Jackson, Merrill?

Oh, Jackson, I think is, and I've talked about how much I love his approach.

You get, you give him a fast ball on the strike zone early.

He's going to take a rip at it.

I think he's probably expanded that a little too much yesterday.

You know, late in the game, curve ball.

And after two straight walks, curve ball on the dirt swings at it.

First pitch, he's, he's trying, he's being overly aggressive.

What I wanted to do, and I talk about being aggressive.

I want him aggressive in the strike zone, right?

He's being aggressive everywhere.

So I think with him, it's simple pitch selection, what he's offering at.

He's, I mean, the swing, he looks fine.

Obviously, you say the few balls really, really hard.

Credit to Jackson for not letting it, you know, affect him defensively.

He has been one of the best defensive centerfielders in the game this year.

And there's a, a highlight waiting to happen.

Any time of all goes to center field.

That ball better hit the batter's eye.

Or else Jackson's catching it.

Well, he's been, he's been amazing.

Except for yesterday.

Every now and again, you know, every now and again.

But he's, I think he's being overly aggressive on everything.

Instead of being aggressive in the strike zone.

So I think with him, it's just he needs to dial back just to touch, you know,

a little bit, a little bit better pitch selection.

I think, then I think he'll be alright.

Basically, he's getting himself out too much.

Yeah, looking at some of his numbers.

Swing rates pretty much the same for his career average.

Swinging it a little bit more in the zone.

Yeah, I mean, there's not like a ton that really jumps out chase rate a little bit higher.

There you go, Sam.

Um, but again, a little bit higher by how much?

I'm really like a little, uh, where's that chase rate, uh, one and a half percent.

One and a half percent.

Okay, so one and a half percent of those at bats.

He's got.

Let's see how many at bats?

Oh, it's a good question.

115 at bats.

Well, it's one and a half percent is a little more than one.

A little bit.

So one and a half percent is going to be 1.7 or so.

Right?

But that's also how many pitches is he seeing?

Yeah, yeah.

So how many pitches is he offering at to get himself then and a,

and over and over, instead of being one and one,

where now you have a little more control over the pictures doing.

So it's probably a 25, 30 point swing in the batting average,

just from that alone.

And one thing he said yesterday, because he was asked, um,

by AC about the walks, he had a big walk late in the game and he's never been a big.

I think that's why some people I think you've even said to yourself, you know,

maybe question his fit for kind of that lead off spot.

And he's like, the reason I'm walking is because I'm getting too far in counts

because I'm not punishing pitches.

I should be punishing, um, foul them off.

And so we're getting deeper in counts.

I'm seeing more pitches and some of those has resulted in walks,

which is kind of a funny reasoning.

And it makes sense.

And so I think Jackson, you know, would probably tell you like,

you make mistakes hurt and he has not done a very good job of that this year.

Right.

And that is again, over a what 30 game stretch.

No, a little bit long for him.

But it's a say it's the same kind of thing where you're right.

He's not, he's, and his perception is he can hit anything anywhere at any time.

And that's good.

That's the perfect ball player mentality.

That's what you want him to believe.

But there also has to be a little bit of, um, realistic acceptance in that where

after a guy walks two hitters on 10 pitches, don't swing at a curve ball first pitch.

You know, it's, give it a second.

You know, see he thinks that's a pitch he should be hammering.

Now, there have been some pitches he has swung through,

but he's going to done that throughout his career where he's, yeah, you,

you fell one off and you probably the best pitch of the F at.

But also it's 96 with a 25 RPM spin rate.

Like it's, it's not exactly easy to hit a fastball like that.

So he's been missing some pitches.

But more often he has been swinging a pitches that he shouldn't be swinging at.

Yeah.

And here they are with the fourth best record in all of baseball.

Yeah, he's got a suck.

It's a good problem to have now.

Like, uh, yeah, we've had these conversations when they're just kind of spin

on their wheels and that's not the case.

So, um, but we have also seen seasons where like they're doing well,

they're doing well, then suddenly they're not.

Now those seasons, you know, 2021, primarily pitching just went to hell.

And you saw Vince Velasquez and Jake Arietta and struggle to put things together.

Um, that's not the case.

Before I get to pitching, I have one cheesy Fernando Tati's junior idea.

Would you like to hear it?

Yes, always.

We've seen this happen across major league baseball.

I think this happened for Xander Bogart's a couple of years ago.

I think Mookie Betts, uh, I know Trey Turner.

Um, again, a little bit cheesy, but might be kind of fun and might lift the

spirits of a guy whose spirits could probably be lifted.

We might be in standing ovation territory, Derek.

Tati's his first, his, anyway, his first bat.

Uh, maybe, maybe his first at bat Friday against the white socks.

Given the standing ovation, a little bit more than usual with a little bit more

enthusiasm and gusto and hope he can lift his spirits a little bit and go to the play

confident, feeling good and hit his first home or the year against the white socks.

So I think we might be in standing ovation territory with Fernando Tati's junior,

especially since like I get not doing it in a case where a guy is like maybe being a headache

or he's not handling it particularly well like as we've discussed.

I think he's doing what he needs to be doing just not getting the results.

It might be one of those situations fan base has had a long time love affair with

Fernando Tati's junior and has been rocky at points certainly.

As any, you know, meaningful relationship is, uh, this might, we might be in standing

ovation, lift the guys spirits, uh, show up for him and, and hope that, uh, that can,

the good vibes can create something for him and get him going in the right direction.

A little bit cheesy admittedly, um, but we might be in that zone.

You know, I don't, I don't dislike that.

I like me. The, the, the offer and the sentiments are great.

Like we got you. We, I love that. We got you.

The, the thing about Tati that I would hesitate is,

doesn't he put no pressure on himself to give the fans what they want already?

So if he, if he hears that, all of a sudden it's like, oh god, now I got a really,

I'm not sure if he wouldn't just put more of the pressure on himself in that situation.

It's, again, I love the sentiment. Um, I'm not sure if it's for this personality,

but you know, at this point, again, wouldn't be any worse than it is.

Yeah. If we didn't try it.

Hey, I mean, he, he went up into pressure spot Wednesday, eighth inning, basses loaded,

uh, no outs and stung a baseball.

They caught it sack fly, useful at bat, not what he was hoping for.

So how many, what was that off the bat?

Was the XV low on that one?

That was like, I think it was like 102, 103, nothing.

So plenty enough to get out of the ballpark.

Plenty enough. Yeah.

Um, so I'm launching the look 12.

Um, last, last word from chip rocks, bring in Tati senior.

Assistant to the hidden coach.

That might be more of a problem than, um,

that might create more problems than we have now.

Should we move on from that?

Yeah, that's, uh, I will, I will, I like the idea.

I think the, a lot more goes on behind the scenes there, um, with, with senior than most people

realize. Um, okay, behind the scenes, uh, Lucas Chilito working towards his

Padre's debut behind the scenes, Griffin Canning working towards his

Padre's debut behind the scenes, Joe Musgrove working on his return behind the scenes.

Staring to your crystal ball, Derek Togerson.

A week, two weeks from now, who is in the Padre's rotation?

Chilito has how many more, his contract says he has to be up in 25 days when he signed.

How many days is that now?

Uh, it's only been sometime last week.

So he's, he's into the 20s now.

Okay, so he's got, uh, 17 days left, he has made how many starts, was it just the one over the

weekend in Elsonor? The one two and two thirds innings. Okay, now how about Griffin Canning?

It sounds like there's a possibility next week for Canning.

And El Paso, he has made five starts, throwing 15 innings.

The last one, he's gone two and a third, three and a third, two and two thirds, one and two thirds,

five. He wanted to get to five. He'd said that that was the goal, get to five innings before he

can arrive. Okay, so if you're asking me in two weeks what the Padre's rotation looks like,

King, Vasquez,

Cannes, and on particular order, Canning, Geolito, Marquez,

and Bueller, six.

It's a weird way. It's a weird way of doing six.

I know, I don't have cameras backwards. I always mess that up. Six, six, six.

I'm not mad at it. Six man rotation. I think I think they will legitimately, Matt

Roller will be out, obviously. I think they're going to legitimately try that for at least a

little while. And I think that for two reasons. One being, they don't know right now who the best

options are, because you're getting some really good starts from Marquez, you guys see if that

continues. Walker Bueller has certainly shown you enough to allow him to continue to round into

shape. Griffin Canning is probably going to come up and be really, really good, but he's also coming

off an injury from last year with that Achilles. Geolito is going to need some time, even if he does

when he does come up, he's not going to be fully stretched out. You can need some time.

Michael King is coming off the year where he made 15 starts.

Randy Vasquez is the most stretched out, durable one of them all right now. So I think for two

reasons, one is you got to find out who the hot hand is going to be, who truly deserves to stick

in a five band rotation. And two, it's going to help you stretch out some of these innings for the

rest of the season. And we saw how effective it was in 2022, Darnay, how fresh their guys were

down the stretch and into the national league championship series that worked out really,

really well for them from doing that. And you got more than enough in the bullpen, right? You've

got guys, the problem is if you have an extra starter, you lose one reliever, well Kyle Hart can go

multiple innings, David Morgan can come multiple innings. I mean, how Mason Miller can go out and

give you five outs if you need them to. You've got enough guys who can stretch, who can give you

multiple innings out of the bullpen that it's going to be okay. So I think those will be the six

guys in the rotation in a couple of weeks. What say you? Yeah, I don't hate the idea. I also

think we're in a bit of a stretch where the bullpen isn't performing quite to the level that you

would expect because one of the parole just got to go. Oh, I mean, and sure, David Morgan has,

you know, he's seen his ERA jump from zero to 608 over the course of the last. Well, one of

that was Mexico's. Of course, the last four appearances and course field as well.

So I don't hate the idea of, you know, if for no other reason than to give those guys to take

some of the load off those guys, I don't know, you know, when Jeremiah strata is going to get back.

But it might make sense to take a little bit of the again, the load and the responsibility

off the bullpen, put a little bit more on your starters. And you have the options. You have the

bodies. You're also giving Marquez and Bueller a little bit more time because I was looking at

the numbers today and you could probably make a solid argument for either one of them at this

point. You know, Marquez has a lower ERA. I think Bueller has the second lowest fit on the team.

So some of the underlying numbers might might favor Bueller. He's got a quality start. Marquez

super home run prone, you know, if he can limit the long ball, like maybe he, you know, gets going

a little bit. So he has killed through six innings, give up four runs. All those runs come at one

time. Yeah. He'll see a sandwich five shutout frames around one blow up inning. That's kind of

been his, his M.O. so far this year. Yeah, completely. And so maybe that clarifies itself a little bit.

If you do eventually go to five, I don't know what Joe's timeline is at this stage.

That's a problem. And so that's a little bit tricky and a bit concerning. But I'm all, I mean,

I'm generally in favor of the six man. I don't, you know, I, you don't do it just for the sake of

doing it. But I think in a situation like this, I do think it makes sense. You've got some injuries

in the bullpen. Guys aren't performing quite to the level that you would want. Again, not talking

about Mason Miller here. And yeah, it might make sense to do that. You got veteran arms and you've

got some tough decisions to make. Why rush in that decision? You can take a month, six man rotation,

go a few cycles with those guys and then see how things are looking. You get to June, you know,

into July and, you know, again, their health, a health thing could always pop up that influences

the decision. But and then maybe hopefully have a better idea of what things look like with Joe,

give more time for Bueller and, and, and Geolito and Canyon, all those guys to really show you who

they are and where they're at. And then you're not rushing into a decision, then kind of see where

things go towards kind of the second half of the season. Also looking at the schedule because

they've had a lot of off days early in the year. The entire month of May, they have three days off.

The entire month of June, they have four days off. So we're going to play some long stretches here

starting on Friday with the white socks on May 1st because of these long stretches. So that

would be another reason to lean toward maybe trying out a six man rotation.

I like it. I like the idea. How about Wondiparol to please? Go go the the floor's yours.

What what is his number one job? Get ground balls against lefties. Yeah, get get get lefties out,

right? Lefties are any four frickin 17 with four homers against them in four two thirds innings.

Oh my goodness. Why is this man still here? That's wild. It's these he will hasn't been good

the last couple of years. I don't I don't understand it. Bye. Does it's it's killing me.

It's Ken John loved our line the other day. If he's you bring him in with runners already on

base, he blows suit and herons faster than Tory spelling does. It's that you don't he just he doesn't

do anything well for you. If he comes into a gamer joke on the newsroom the other day because

Mason Miller all of a sudden it wasn't the save opportunity and they were bringing Wondiparol to

and I'm like, Oh, it's going to be a save opportunity again. We'll get to see Mason Miller. Sure

no. We got to see Mason Miller. Yeah. Like it's it's like clockwork. The man's going to screw

something up. I don't I don't understand what he's doing here. He has so many other better options.

It's got a player option for 4.4 next year by the way too.

Well, he's going to be exercising that because anybody's going to be dumb enough to give me

anything more than that. DFA just cut him. Just cut him. Just cut him. Just cut him. Eat the

eat the contract. Jose E Feliciano. That's your first order of business. Your first order of

business is, Hey, everybody, I am buying the team. I'm going to tell you what everybody just

keep doing what you have in a wonderful season. Nothing changes. All right. I'm here to support you.

Okay. There are two things change. One, Wondi, you're leaving. And two, Mason, come here. I got

a big old bag of money in the back. I want to give you. Those are the two things that you change.

That's it. Everything else is the same. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. The Mason Miller thing.

Does he have three years after this or two? Three. Yeah. That's nice. Yes. Yes it is.

I think it's a little bit too early yet to get into the, somebody was asking me the other day,

his chances to win the side young award. I love that conversation so much. Isn't it great?

It's because he's like he's legitimately got a shot. I mean, unless, unless Otani keeps doing what he's

doing, Mason Miller will have a legitimate shot. Do you know that that blown call was the first hit

he allowed office sliders since Josh Naylor in late August? Yep. And it came on that blown call.

Yep. That was, that was a bit of a moment.

Chipbox wondering, is you Darver still in the club? I'll slash Doug, I haven't seen him a while.

I think his presence is needed just that the starters have someone to talk to along with Ruben.

He is. I saw him the other day actually. And the thing about it when you're on the restricted list,

you can be there for times, you cannot be there in the dugout, you cannot be there during games.

If you're on the restricted list, if he's there, I've seen him there pregame, he walks around,

he's talking to the guys, he's doing some rehab stuff. But then when the baseball activity started,

he has to leave. Yeah. Per the rules for the restricted list. But yeah, I've seen you a couple times,

actually last homestamp I saw him. So yeah, he's still around.

Who do they have after the white socks? They hit the road for San Francisco. Yeah,

three against the Giants and then right back here against the Cardinals for four. Got you.

Seven o'clock. They should win two out of three from if not sweep the white socks.

They should win two out of three at least from the Giants. The Cardinals got off to a nice start.

They're still not all that deep. That's at least win that series. Then you go to Milwaukee and you

go to Seattle. Those are two really good teams. Those would be kind of a toss up. And then the Dodgers

come here for three. So you're talking about one, two, three, probably three more series wins.

And then you roll the dice with the Brewers and the Mariners on the road.

How about this headline? There's no reason to be frustrated. Raphael Devers spoke to the media

for the first time in three weeks about his early season struggles.

How the heck did he get away with that? Three weeks. Can you imagine three weeks without hearing

from Machado or Tati's or Zander or anybody else? I can imagine three weeks without Mani because

that would be a glorious blessing. But I think Mani wouldn't argue against that. I think Mani

would probably like to go for a three week stretch from time to time. But I know less stops trying

to talk to Mani. And that the last time I did was the first day they were there City Connects.

Like it's a man, brand new digs. Awesome. These things look incredible. There are no

data. Those weren't those. No one's ever done this before. Mani, how do you like it? It's a

softball easy question. Oh, they're all right. Okay, I'm done. I'm out. If you have this little

interest to saying anything about anything, then we're not going to bother. You know, I just, I don't,

I don't care. I just don't care. It's, you know, fine, say, you're like, this is my job. Like,

I got to wear what they would tell me to wear or whatever he said. Now, dude, you know, fans want

to like you because they think that you are really having fun doing something that any of us would

pay to do for a living. And this is your attitude. So I'm not doing, I don't, I don't care. I'm not,

I don't want to talk to me anymore. If so, if you could pay to hit a home run,

dunk on somebody, score a game winning goal in the NHL,

catch a game winning touch. Now catch a touchdown in the NFL.

What would you do? It would be home run for you, right? For me, be the home run. Yeah, the walkoff

because there's just, I mean, obviously, you know, I'm a baseball guy, but there's just,

there's just something about that moment. This like, okay, you know, the whole stadium stops,

you know, that's, there's nothing like it in the home run. There's absolutely nothing like it in

the home run. So, I mean, unless it was Wembee, I got to dunk on that might be because that'd be

impressive. But or Shaq, dunking on Shaq would actually be, because that would be, that would be

just physical dominance. Now, if the, if the overtime goal in an NHL game isn't a Stanley Cup final,

now that would be a very, very close second. That's tough. I think regular season, let's just

make this all regular season across the board. Across the board, yeah, it's a walkoff. Yeah,

it's a walkoff, because like even in an NBA game, yeah, it's really cool to dunk on somebody and

you're going to get on all the highlights and you're going to get the whole posterization thing.

And that's really fun. Catch, you know, catch a late hole, a late touchdown, like an overtime would

be awesome. But so many other things go into that. Your quarterback's got to put the ball in the

right place. You got to have somebody when you get to have the blog. That's like the ultimate team

things. So it's not, it's not quite the same. Even an NHL game, you're like, right, we got 81 more

of these. It's awesome to win this. Even in 162 game season, a walkoff homer in a baseball game,

everyone loses their damn minds. So it's just because it's, they just don't happen all that often.

So it's that, that would be the way to go. It's a great answer. I've, I've played a lot of

pick up countless pick up basketball games in my life and never dunked on somebody. So that would

have to be mine. Now, who would you choose to dunk on? Uh, either Paul Pierce or Rick Fox.

So people you don't like. It's people I'm not, not fans of those guys. It's people you don't like.

I was thinking more of the, what would be the most impressive one to go over? That's a great one.

Yes. Wembee, Jack, Decay, Dremey, I had Dremond dunking on Dremond. I think there's a lot of people

like that. Well, yeah, but then you'd probably, you know, get punched somewhere after you might get

to doing that. Um, with the other one would be, uh, Rudy Gobert would be tough. Oh, yeah.

You know, one of the best defensive players in the game. Yeah. Decay.

Right on cue. Got to cover him with the Sixers. What a nice human being. He was just, he was awesome.

I loved those, that was magical time. It was a magical time for

sophomore year, Darnay. That was, oh, gosh, yeah, I was, I was working, uh, at the NBC station there.

And I was actually producing our post game coverage because that was the Lakers and Sixers and

the NBA Finals. And the, the Lakers had not lost a playoff game. The entire season,

game one in L.A. Have what was formerly known as Staples Center. Sixers go there and win.

AI hits a corner three steps over somebody, tie a lube for some reason has a great game.

And our guy, Vysikahem, I was out there doing the live shots, but also one of my favorite

people ever to walk the planet. He's just incredible. So he says, um, did this game one? He's like,

hey, you know what? The Lakers aren't going to sweep this one. It was either, there's not, there's not,

there's not going to be a sweep here. And so I got as you're asked to, hey, uh, by the Sixers could

sweep, right? There can be a sweep in this series. You know what? That's right. The Sixers could

sweep this series. And nobody believed it. And then the Lakers won the next four, but still.

Yes. I was watching game five at my friend Tim's house and shed a tear on the ride home with my

dad that night. Uh, game two Sixers had a chance. Kobe and AI were jawn at each other towards

the end of the game. AI saying, we'll see what happens. We get to fill you see happens. We get to

fill you. But one of the great what ifs for my sports fandom was if they had just somehow held on

game two and went to fill you with a two o lead. There's a good chance the Lakers still win

four straight. But I would love to have seen that play out because that could have been special.

But game one still in a in a five game series loss game one still one of my favorite sports

memories. Yeah. But they would though think about game. They went too straight though in LA.

Now the Lakers are like, okay, wait a minute. Like that has to start playing in the back of your

head just a little bit, right? You know, even with they were just so stinking good. You look,

you look at that gave us fill was the coach. They had Shaq. They had Kobe. They had Robert

Ori. They had, I mean, they had that was that was the dynasty, right? That was that was in the best

collections of talent in Laker history. I'm not saying a lot. The sixers were AI. Who was the MVP?

Obviously, they traded for DeCamime of Tumbo in the middle of the year, basically because they

figured they'd run into Shaq at some point. And then it was Aaron McKee. A six man of the year.

No. And George. Tyrone Hill. Matt Geiger. Matt Geiger had a sneaky huge 10 points in that game

one win off the bench. Matt Geiger. It was like the talent level and discrepancy between those

two teams. As good a coach as Larry Brown was, the talent discrepancy between those two teams was

so massive that it's it's shocking. The sixers were even there on the first place. Yeah.

We'll always have game one. Thank you, Derek. White socks, giants, back home, Cardinals,

prime time ESPN Thursday. So the pod sometime for you on Thursday. Thanks as always for being with

us. Good to be back with you, Derek. Thanks to everybody watching and listening and we will catch

you next week.