00:00Rob, is the biggest story you think in the first half of the season, it's got to be these 55
00:06-win
00:07raise, you know? There they are, four games up in the American League East over the Yankees. I know
00:12the Yankees don't have Aaron Judge in the lineup here, but you can't tell me that a $300 million
00:17payroll versus a $106 million payroll, you can't still hold the lead here a little bit,
00:23at least in the American League. Are they the story, or would you think the White Sox are more
00:27of a story? Man, I think the story of the American League is how bad it is, to be honest
00:33with you.
00:33I mean, you look across the board and you look at teams that we were very hyped about, the Royals,
00:39the Red Sox, the Orioles, the Tigers, they're aligning the bottom of this American League.
00:45So that, to me, that's kind of the story, but to your point, there's multiple storylines within
00:50the American League, right? The Rays playing this small ball, longest termed, longest tenured head
00:56coach in terms of, you know, Kevin Cash, and they're just out there doing the thing. And
01:00the question will become, you know, when it comes to the trade deadline, are the Rays finally going
01:05to add? Because they just never have, right? And even with the White Sox, for example, who are third
01:10in the AL standings, I don't know if they're going to add. And though the fourth team in the AL
01:15standings, the Cleveland Guardians, they've been another team that has just never added at the trade
01:20deadline. Are any of these teams outside of the Yankees going to be buyers? I think ultimately,
01:25that's probably my biggest storyline.
01:28You know, if you think about it, the worst team in baseball right now, I just looked it up here,
01:34is nine games out in the American League. Think about that from a playoff spot. You're talking,
01:40that's just to win the division. Wild card, you're six games out for you potentially being. So do you
01:47think there's going to be a lot of movement come August 3rd? Or do you think maybe teams are going
01:52to go,
01:52like, even Detroit? You know, Scribble's name was brought up a lot of potentially being dealt
01:57at the trading deadline. But if you're within reach of a wild card spot, you think that's going
02:03to propel teams and maybe pull back and go, hey, hang in here, man. You know, I'm not going to
02:07be as
02:08active as I thought on being a seller. Absolutely. I think this is going to be a very, very weird
02:14trade
02:14deadline for the AL. And I think we're going to see the kind of the regular faces in the mix,
02:20right? We've seen the Texas Rangers, for example, when they were below 500, make moves for Merrill
02:26Kelly, go out and try to acquire starting pitching, you know, just players to make a push, even though
02:32they were outside of the picture. Now, they're literally in the top of their division with a 500
02:37record. And the question becomes, you know, are they just going to be a consistent buyer every
02:41single year? Kind of like the Yankees, kind of like the Dodgers, where they don't really value
02:45the prospect market. They know they're going to spend. They're willing to spend. They're going
02:49to go out there and they're going to acquire pieces and spend on those pieces. I tend to think,
02:54yes, I think that's who the Rangers are now. So when you're talking about of a team that could be
02:59an
02:59app, just a natural ascender, when you're talking about the second half of Major League Baseball,
03:04I tend to think it's going to be the Texas Rangers. But kind of to your point, when you're talking
03:07about the Toronto Blue Jays, the Red Sox, the Astros, the Twins, a lot of those teams that are
03:12aligning the middle, I really don't think that there's going to be a lot of buying. I think
03:16there's going to be actually some tentative selling within that mix. So yeah, the AL is just
03:22entirely disarray. And the teams at the top are not buyers. The teams in the middle are not sellers
03:27or buyers. It's going to make it for a very weird market.
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