All-Star Break on Deck! Marlins vs. Orioles Series Preview & Predictions | FOF LIVE
Fish on First has partnered with About the Fans to launch a merchandise collection. Rep the FOF logo in more Marlins inspired apparel. Find it all at aboutthefans.com. Enter coupon code FOF10 at checkout to get 10% off your order. F10 for a 10% discount. This is Griffin Conan. This is Xavier Edwards. This is Liam Hicks. This is Dave Myers. And you’re watching Fish on First Live. Fish on First Live presented by About the Fans. Final stream of the first half of the 2025 Marlins season. Save 10% on your merch orders at aboutthefans.com when you use promo code FF10 at checkout, man. 30. This is series number 31 coming up for the Marlins. So, you already know me. I think I’ve been on 30 of the streams. Kevin’s been close to perfect attendance. Maybe one or two. Yeah. Yeah. and ones he hasn’t been on as a panelist. Of course, he’s been our league leader in press box reports this season. So, we might have a couple more people join in during the show. This is definitely one where want to see all your comments in the live chat, whether it’s on YouTube or Twitter or Facebook. Anything that you got in mind, happy to weigh in on it as we countdown to the start of this Orioles series um annual meeting between these two teams. Quickly want to revisit the previous series that the Marlins played for Gamer against the Cincinnati Reds right here. Uh was it was a case where the starting pitching went a long way to deciding these games, Kevin, where the first two they got good outings, Jansen Junk and Yuri Perez. And the last two mixed results from Cal Quantrol and then a stinker. Well, I should say Sandy first. It was a disappointing one from Sandy and then mixed results from Cal Quantrol. So yeah, this team goes not super eventful in the later innings. All these games kind of lopsided at the end. It’s just a when the Marlins get good starting pitching, things go well and when they don’t, they don’t. Overall, we’re takeaways from a series split against a solid Reds team. Yeah. And and once in the filter comes out, you could we’ll talk we spoke about it a little bit there. Not just a Red series, but just starting pitching performance. Sandy single-handedly lost to Marlins. that one I would say. Although I mean seven hits should have been more than enough. The Reds had been an offense that had literally scored one run that first game, two runs the second game. Marlins could have either beat him by one run or whatever it may have been. But yeah, so Sy’s just not getting a lot of sw and miss. A lot of, you know, he was very well known for the ground balls. It’s no longer really much of ground balls, more fly balls that unfortunately just go too deep into the outfield and eventually turn into home runs, I think, is one big thing too with him. and it’s just not getting a lot of swinging miss. The stuff is seems to be there. The VO is there. It’s just it feels like hitters are a lot more aware of what Sandy may have used to get away with in years past that are is now coming to bite him back. I think it’s a big thing to look at. And with Cal, I think that start really just showed that he he’s like a five and dive type of pitcher. Gives you five innings and that’ll be it unfortunately for him. And I think it just proves that maybe, you know, the value that we thought he had at one point that could have been, especially after a good month of June is not we some of us, I guess. Hey, you mentioned you you you started mentioning Kyle towards the latter end more than I have. But yes, um maybe he he’s one of those guys, as he had mentioned before, that uh could probably be maybe a late waiver claim by a team to to make some sort of playoff push or fill it in innings. Hey, looking at those first two games, Yuri looked awesome. I know we were talking about what his best start was. It’s either between this one and obviously his last one against Minnesota, but we would love to see him just go to six innings. He I think similar to what he had maybe happened original starts and we didn’t we actually didn’t see this in the Minnesota one, but just a lot very aggressive approach from the Reds. A lot of foul foul balls. I think it was like 21 foul balls in total in the start against the Reds. Then Jansen Junk admitted it himself like it wasn’t his best stuff. wasn’t really commanding well, but regardless, still completed six. So, it was it was impressive. And overall, I mean, you got to look at that second game with the great offense. Seven run inning there in the top of the third. Obvious continues to be a Red’s killer, I think, is the best way to to put it. So, yeah, overall, I mean, great two games and then unfortunately was just complete wash outs in those last two. Well, Isaac Isaac Azud is joining us. He was watching yesterday’s game intently. You want to weigh in a little bit on the Cal Quantrol questionable fielding plays? There was a couple in this game. One of them that didn’t cost the Marlins anything, one that really accelerated that down spiral in that sixth inning for him. That’s for people that aren’t familiar. I think I could get a clip up here of the seconds of those miscues that he had where he in both cases did not back up home plate in situations where I think any pitcher would know not to. For a guy that has so much big league experience um and has a lot of pressure on him this year being a pillow contract. All all things being considered, that was that was bizarre and kind of disappointing to see somebody like him hurt hurt his own cause with sort of plays that you would expect maybe from a younger player to make. But for a veteran pitcher to not know his responsibilities on balls and play, that was that kind of understandably irked a lot of people to see that. Yeah, it was very interesting to see the lack of of positive body language from Cal. Obviously, the start was not going the way he wanted to in that sixth inning. But in the first inning, I believe it was. Yes. Everybody knows, you know, PFPs goes same in uh as a lower schooler in high school, college, professional, minor league, major league, it’s the same. You as PFPs as a pitcher, you’re backing up home plate on a play at the plate and you’re backing up third base in case a throw goes there. Those are the two spots that you should be backing up. And on that play with a runner on second base, um he was not backing up. would actually help them out in that case because Austin Hayes as you saw. Well, this is the play of the six. Austin Hayes line to single to center. I was trying to advance to second on the throw and instead of backing up on plate, Cal Puncher was right where he is right now in this clip. Caught the ball and gotten Hayes down out at second base. So, that ended up working out for the Marlins. Then in the sixth inning, bases loaded, nobody out. Dela Cruz a line drive single to right. Nobody would I’m sorry, only one run would have scored. But because Quantrol was there trying to cut the ball off for some reason that allowed a second runner to score, allowed both runners to advance into scoring position. It was just very strange to see him not once but twice make a a mental error on where he should have been. And it’s not like he was even trying to go behind home plate. He was just chilling on the mound and then waiting for the cut off man as if he’s the first baseman. So very strange to see from a veteran like Cal like you mentioned. Um, and I’m not sure how much that cost the Marlins in that sixth inning because, you know, the bases would have still been loaded with nobody out and the meat of the Reds lineup up. So, you can’t put all the fault on that. I’m sure the bases would have been uncleared regardless, but it certainly gave the Reds all the momentum in the world and hey, they ended up scoring four runs in that six. So, uh, very very rough to see from from the Marlins lone major league free agent signing. An updated look at the wild card standings. I don’t know how often we’re going to continue to refer to these. But this was a situation where if they wanted to crawl back into it a little bit, had to win this series at the very least to close that gap. Now, five games back of Cincinnati right there as you see, eight games back, the closest wild card spot. And this final series coming up against Baltimore. Obviously, an American League team. So, there’s always so much difference that can make no matter how it goes. Overall, 15 games, if I have that right, between now and the trade deadline. So, anything short of winning out, yeah, I guess you could say 12 and three or so, maybe 11 and four gets people um in the back of their mind thinking something it’s okay. Yeah. Yeah. Essentially, they would have to continue doing exactly what they have done the previous 15 games, which was setting such an extremely high bar. A lot of that because the offense has been amazing and it’s been more good than bad from the starting pitching. So, you would think that they are not going to make up a ton of ground from this point forward. They are still, I have to double check this, about nine games ahead of last year’s pace, which all things considered makes it a relatively interesting first half because the expectations were just so low across that. I I wanted to actually mention one more thing on that red series with Xavier Edwards. I did put it on our mentioned it in a few paragraphs on our site that he came close a few times flirting with his first home run of the season and I I mentioned that not because we’re expecting him to have any sort of meaningful uptick in homers but just the ability to hit balls over the outfielders’s head that in itself has value even when you’re not hitting homers and for so much of this year um reason why kind of the difference between last year’s Edwards and this year is is there have been a lot of liners that gone right at the outfielders. He’s not having the same luck on balls in play. At the same time, there there have been a little bit less of those deep fly balls as well. And it took very deep into this year for him to begin doing that. Overall, three of his top 10 deepest fly balls have come in the last week. There was in this series, there was even one that went foul and what didn’t count that kind of had home run distance. Um, I don’t think it really needed to be argued against at this point, but Kevin, I think he has at this point really solidified himself as their everyday leadoff guy. Um, and he finally got back to stealing bases in this series, too. We got his first steal in in a little while, all things considered. Um, we we’ve mentioned the defensive improvement he’s had since moving to second base again back from shortstop. And even though there have only been a couple games where he’s really fully taken it over, as I showed on the previous graphic, he was technically the series MVP here, he got hits in every single game. Um, it’s just been really good. In addition to auto solidifying shortstop, it’s really both those spots up the middle that the Marlins are feeling pretty good about this deep into the season. Yeah, you said it. And I think ever since he made the move back to second, he’s been great. And I did notice that he he had been hitting for a little more, I guess, pop in this uh in this series against Cincinnati and was very close, like a couple like a lot like to to that first home run of the season. So, good for him. I think he’s also noted that even to move to second has really just been the biggest key for him. Just finally being able to have to work so much on shortstop. Obviously, second base isn’t an easy position either, but certainly easier than playing shortstop. And yeah, I mean, you know, maybe a month ago we were talking about maybe this isn’t a guy that should be on this team for a very, you know, for the future. And then we’re also talking about now we’re talking about this guy as maybe who knows like he could stick around for a little bit longer. Maybe the second baseman for the next couple of years. But I think I think that’s still to be seen. But overall, yeah, I think this is it’s good to see him back, especially the stolen bases. I know his goal was 60. We’ll see if that’s still I don’t think that’s still achievable. he would have to really go on a big run. But um yeah, we’ll see. Again, it’s another guy who’s been hitting the ball well and they’ve needed him and he’s been a good table setter so far for this team. You know, it’s interesting. Kevin and I had heard the same thing earlier in the year that the Marlins might be interested or motivated to move um Xavier Edwards this trade deadline and his um uptick in performance. I wonder if that makes him less or more likely to be traded. I don’t know what you guys think, but we did hear that Kevin and I I I don’t know what their plan would be at second base going forward, middle infield, anywhere. You can’t really count on Jared Cerna, unfortunately. Um, so I’m not sure if his, you know, his actual good hitting has made him less or more likely to be dealt. And you look at it like the Marlins don’t need a, you know, like a typical leadoff hitter, especially now where they are. Like you could, we saw the Augustine experiment and it was really fun. like it was a fun guy to have leading off and for whatever it’s worth I’m s I know he stole a decent amount of bases in the minors. I’m surprised he hasn’t done it as much at the major league level. U he did it like his first game and that was it. But I don’t know how he stole bases in the minors that he I don’t know how he’s not fast but it worked. I mean relative to catcher he’s all right but relative to a regular base runner. He’s no real Muto on the right. And if you just looked at the numbers in the minors, maybe people would get the wrong idea about that. But there is a distinction for sure in athleticism. The Edwards thing is a good topic because I was corresponding with one of our loyal viewers about something related to this earlier today about X and what his improvement means for his future. To me, in the we I think we actually just talked about Connor Norby on the previous stream, right? where between those two there probably is a choice coming between one or the other. I the way that they have set up right now is pretty simple with X at second, Norby at third. We’ve kind of gone into the shortcomings offensively and defensively for Norby at third. Maybe some of that is tied to the fact that he’s still playing a position that he’d ideally not be playing. He’s he is most natural at second base. He’s probably best at second base defensively. At the same time, I don’t think you can really even between the two. It’s not much of a conversation right now between who’s the more valuable overall player at the moment to um so to open up the possibility that you would even sell high on X one way or the other just to move Norby to second or to promote from within. I don’t think that makes a whole lot of sense. Um, but yet like I think that there is, we’ll probably get into this on the next stream. We can actually get into a little now because I’m already talking about it. I feel like Norby in particular has so much writing on the second half of the season where if he wants to make this a tough decision, if he wants to kind of open up the possibility of him moving to his normal position, the Marlins flipping Edwards to address something else, he has to hit first. I don’t You can’t just trust that a switch is going to flip. can’t um can’t keep making excuses for him. For a guy that is we thought based on last year a really skilled offensive player and for whatever reason so far this year has been a lot more bad than good at that. There is a whole lot of pressure in my mind riding on him to kind of keep up with the rest of this position player core. He nor still has minor league options left. So does X. Um, and there are, as we’ve touched on, a lot of other positions that are trending in the right direction where um, they have given both these guys a lot of consistent reps to find out who they are. And so far, it’s going a lot better for Edwards than it is for Norby. Um, so yeah, in my mind it’s Norb is the one in despite how we were feeling about him less than one year ago where he was emerging pretty quickly as one of the players that they could actually rely on that they thought was in in some form part of the future. Uh the yeah the way that Edwards has performed and made second base his own on both sides of the ball. Um, and to answer Isaac’s question in a long-winded way, I I think it this has helped solidify his future um, with this team and more so open up the possibility with everybody else, whether it’s Norby, whether it’s those other guys on the 40man roster that are not in the majors right now like Cerna and um, Max even Max Aosta at this point. Think about how we’re feeling about a Costa entering the year and now all of a sudden you’re wondering where exact where does he fit in in this equation? if they feel good about their middle infield for the foreseeable future. Um, even though we’re used to with the Marlins kind of flipping guys once they get established and trying to sell high, Edwards is still pre-arb for another entire year next year. He’s not even arbitration eligible for the first time until 2027. and he’s not a guy that I would expect to make a ton of money in arbitration moving forward for somebody that doesn’t hit for power, doesn’t drive in runs, and isn’t quite an all-star caliber guy. He’s kind of in that sweet spot of players that even under a Peter Bendix mindset, I think have a better chance at longevity. you know, the only limitation is that second base is his position and if you you don’t know, they’ve tried him in other spots and it hasn’t worked well um for for multiple reasons. So, that’s kind of the only limitation is doesn’t have the versatility going on here. But, it’s it’s it’s kind of up to Norby again for them to make this a a real conversation uh between the two. But but I do see heading in that direction maybe as soon as after this season ends where they choose one or the other just because they they’re both best suited to play second base and right now Edwards has taken that opportunity and run with it. Yeah, you’d also make the case I guess if if you were to put Norby at second, give that a shot, maybe offensively things improve, doesn’t have to worry much about third, similar to what we saw with X going back to second. So just I think there’s multiple ways to to look at that one but and you know especially Norby gives you a little bit more power and obviously it’s a guy who could I don’t know I just I like Norby but obviously it hasn’t been working and and you got to work on the the the chase. I mean he chases that everything barely walks and clearly third base just isn’t working out especially after pretty good returns early on. It looked solid. It’s just really gone downhill since. There are quite a few anti-Eric Wagman comments in here even though but I want this to be very loose conversation. So, might as well bring it up. People reflecting on the guys that have been the I don’t know what you would call this the uh the least valuable players for the Marlins during the first half of the season. I know that was left on like the the cutting room floor when it came to the upcoming episode of Unfiltered, but it was on I think Isaac, it was on your your mind to like at least weigh in on on that whole idea. Um where Sandy’s performance has been picked apart quite a bit. We we know what the issues have been and how it it looks like it was getting better and then got worse again. Maybe we should go in a little bit on Wagaman where it’s not that he’s been performance-wise doesn’t there’s nothing that really jumps off the screen. There’s not that big number like a seven erra that right really gets you frustrated by him, but it’s more so the overall shape of his production where not hitting much, not fielding his position well and limited as a base runner where um expectations were relatively low for Wagaman signing a split deal, but they have given him uh he has gotten just so much playing time for a guy that just it’s has not really perfor he hasn’t the bars pretty high for somebody playing first base to hit really well and he has fallen short of that bar to this point. It’s a lack of anything positive really. I mean, you look at the WRC plus and it’s 81, you know, 19 points below league average. He’s not slugging, which is you would hope a little bit, you know, if if nothing else, you’d hope that he’s at least putting the ball over the fence or at least hitting gap to gap. He’s slugging 365. He’s not walking. He’s walking what is it 6% of the time. uh his on base is only 50 points higher than his lowly 248 batting average. Um you mentioned the inability to play a really nice defensive first base. It’s he had that nice stretch. I think it was maybe in the middle of May where he he was hitting relatively well. He was his WRC plus crept into the 90s, but it’s just been really tough to justify him being in the lineup every single day, especially against right-handed pitchers. Um, and not only that, just in the middle of the lineup, hitting fourth, fifth, sixth. Um, it’s been tough. Uh, and you sort of knew what you were with him, except it’s just been a little bit a little bit worse. Not as bad as saying, like you mentioned, there’s no big huge scary number next to his name. But to me, the 81 WRC plus for a corner infielder is just it’s pretty bad to me. So, it’s rough. I’m curious to see if he lasts the whole season with the Marlins. He does have like some like some underlying numbers that you know like expected batting average of 271. Like I mean it’s better than what he’s doing right now. Like the hard hit is pretty above average. Like I don’t know. It’s like a frustrating guy to watch at times because it’s like there’s times he looks great and then there’s times he looks really bad and I don’t know that right now. He’s a negative F word player all around. No, I mean I’m not telling you I like Eric Wagman. was telling you, you know, there’s hope with the guy and there’s a reason they brought him in and they’ve continued to play this player, which I mean, they could have easily called up Davidson by now who’s been doing pretty well in TripleA since. So, I think that’s the important conversation to have is they’ve stuck with him this long in this big because the Yeah, because of they do have alternatives. It’s just that there are kind of holes in each of them. With Davidson, I got kind of excited by what he showed at at the end of last month. And now, if you look at it recently, he’s just still not tapping into his power at a level that I thought he was capable of doing, uh, that he showed he could do last year. But if he’s he’s not showing it again this year, and the rest of his approach has has improved, but not to the point where even looks ready for a call up. And somehow we we did get ourselves back to Troy Johnston, who’s having a solid season. I guess it’s a little bit better than last year, but still a big far cry from where he was in 2023. At the same time, he’s we we know who he is. He’s 28 years old. It’s not like they’re basing it on numbers. Anyway, he’s he’s like the same age as Wackman. Wagman’s getting like the everyday playing time and Troy is all these years in this organization. still not getting a look at at that same spot where um in that case it’s it’s just political unfortunately for him where he is inherited from the previous organization the previous front office who inherited him from the previous front office whereas Wagman was brought in very specifically by Peter Ben Nixon and his brain trust in a way where um I think that lends itself to a little bit more stubbornness where you’d rather give your guy the the look even if you feel that both of them have somewhat similar strengths and weaknesses at least. Um, you know, now one thing I have to note I did there was like one play that stuck out to me in that red series. Maybe it was just yesterday’s game or the night before where Wagman made a pretty impressive stretch that saved Otto Lopez from what would have been an errant throw. And just little things like that, it helps to be tall and that’s something that has held back Liam Hicks from playing more regularly there. It’s something that’s held back Troy from becoming a good defensive first baseman is that he’s a bit undersized for the position. So, just little things like that. Um, even when Wagman has slumped at times, it there hasn’t been that really steep drop off in order to justify sending him down or doing anything drastic. That’s that’s what you got to give him some credit for is that there has been even if it’s been below average, it’s been consistently below average in a way where it’s I can understand why it’s hard to give up altogether on him. Yeah, he’s from what we’ve seen, he’s a pretty popular guy in the clubhouse as well. I I know this isn’t a team that needs any help in that regard, but he’s still a guy that some of the younger guys do like to talk to a lot. Uh he’s very popular in the the ping pong ring as well. So, uh I I know it’s frustrating if you’re a Marlins fan because you want to see a young guy in Davis in a not in Troy’s case, but you want to see someone new when uh you have someone like Wagamman just clogging up a position, clogging up an important spot in the batting order when you know this is a team that has their eyes set on the future. And if you’re a fan of a team that’s doing that, you want to see some of those pieces and uh obviously he’s not going to get deal deadline. Uh, so I I’m sure the Marlins will still see Marles will still get to see a lot of these young guys in the second half of the season, probably in September. I want to go into the Orioles series already a little bit with the natural connection between these two teams, the trade they made on Deadline Day last year, and we’ve waited on Connor Norby himself already, but getting to the other pieces of that, Kyle Sters in exchange for Trevor Rogers going to Baltimore just to put people back in that headsp space where they were at this time last July. The Orioles were buyers and they plugged Trevor Rogers right into their major league rate rotation. and Trevor had had this run of consistency in the Marlins rotation before getting dealt right there. They end up uh the idea was that Trevor would be like he was a buying move that would go into the rotation, maybe not have much responsibility come the playoffs, but somebody that would help them make the playoffs and instead he made only about four starts down the stretch with them in August. Gets sent down to AAA. Doesn’t do particularly well there. Enters this spring with an unfortunate knee injury. I think he hurt his knee training in the offseason. So he gets delayed. sent to Triple A, doesn’t resurface until a couple months into the season, then gets sent back down again, and then all of a sudden, these last few outings, he’s now a fixture in the rotation, and guess what? He has like a a one and a half erra. He’s not only in the rotation, but he has been their best starting pitcher over the last month or so. A 157 RA in 28 and two-thirds innings. The control is about as good as it ever has been. not missing as many bats as he used to, but uh people had reached maybe we were a little bit too eager to celebrate this as a win for the Marlins a couple months ago when Sters was popping off and when Connor Norby got healthy, all of a sudden, even though it didn’t work for Baltimore last year, Trevor, they’ve got in the kind of Trevor that they were looking for. So, so Kevin, where what is the current stance? How do how do we even attempt to like sum up this trade at this particular point now that all of a sudden Trevor is the one that is is redot and starting to he’s he’s showing exactly why the Orioles thought he would be a boost to their rotation. He’s really making a difference for them. Yeah. And it’s and it’s not just that. You just look at the Marlin side of the trade. You thought Norby was the main piece and now it’s kind of looking like Sters like the way he’s been playing too. So, you know, you look at it and the Marlins, you thought you were getting one player out of this and maybe Sters, it was who was the wild card. Orioles were probably going to DFA and get rid of him. See if just outright him to the miners if if he slipped through waiverss. But all of a sudden, the Morals got two decent players out of this. And and then you have Rogers who, as you mentioned, just wasn’t good. And I wrote an article, funny enough, and I and I went back to see this and I and I I clearly called it the all-star version of Trevor Rogers is long gone. And and I remember this article was a pretty popular article and he got traded for those two players and and I don’t know, the all-star Trevor Rogers that we saw in 2021 is clearly back and he’s looking pretty good and and I still haven’t dove into those numbers specifically to see if he made the changes that I’d mentioned in the article if he made any changes from that 2024 season, but clearly he’s been great. He’s been their best pitcher in the rotation by far in what’s been a really disappointing 2025 season for for an Orioles team that many thought would win the division and and really make a deep push into the playoffs. But uh yeah, no, credit to Trev. I know he’s he’s a great guy. Got to we got to cover him for three yearsish. So he yeah, glad he’s finding success. Unfortunately, I mean hope let’s hope you know it’s not very successful Saturday for him if you’re a Marlins fan. But yeah, I mean overall I think right now the trade’s obviously still up for debate. I think to a certain case if Trevor keeps doing this or some like half of what he’s doing right now through the remainder of the season and Norby continues to struggle because clearly this trade was Rogers for Norby plus Stard then Stard like there’s different ways to look at it but Roger still I think under club control for a couple more years still young still’s got time. So, I I think there’s both ways to to really look at this trade. And right now, it’s it’s kind of a win-win in a sense with just how much the Orioles have needed Trevor, especially recently. It’s one more year of control for Trevor after this year, whereas it’s several more in the Kissable Sters and Orby. That was that was a big part of it, too. And and why the fact that he didn’t help the Orioles last year and they petered out and they very sad exit to the playoffs last year. They didn’t put up much of a fight at all. And then this year they have the exact same record as the Marlins do and they’ve already started selling um for people that didn’t notice they traded away one of their setup guys to Tampa Bay. Even though Trevor’s having the success, it is not it’s a little too little too late. But so I wonder if the Orioles are looking back on it and thinking maybe if we’ called him up back in the middle of May instead of the end of May that maybe that would have made some kind of difference for them. It’s an interesting what if because it should be emphasized that he’s performing well, but it’s not hasn’t been enough at all to help them from heading in the wrong direction, from firing their manager, yada yada yada. Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to it’s hard to blame. Sorry, though. It’s just hard to blame him a little bit because he was just pitching. That’s what I was going to say um when we started talking about Trevor is that he was pitching so poorly in AAA this year before getting called up. We got a 607 erra walking everybody giving up an insane amount of um of earned runs that you know like I’m surprised they called him up at all and just to do what he’s done in five starts he’s given up five earned runs major league level highlighted by an eight shutout inning performance against Texas. It’s great to see Trevor back and yeah you mentioned if they call him up earlier maybe that helps him get more value in case he did decide to sell or maybe that puts him in a buying position but you can’t fault him for not wanting to call him out. He looked awful. It would look that’s when it looked the most like a uh a Marlins win of this trade. But now it’s like Kevin said, it looks like a win-win, which you take those every day of the week. And I’ve been able to watch a couple of his starts and conveniently two of them, both of them were outstanding ones. I saw his season debut with the O’s, believe that was against the Red Sox and Fenway and then a more recent one that was also pretty great. Yeah, it’s it’s not um some of it was the VO going up, but to me it’s more so the fast ball command coming back where he’s painting with that pitch in a way that he’s he’s not getting the strikeouts that he used to even with that, but he’s getting ahead in counts. So, he’s avoiding walks. He’s setting himself up to be able to get more soft contact in a way that looks looks interesting. He does to me he looks like a better pitcher than he was with the Marlins in 2024. It doesn’t look close to what he was as a rookie. I don’t think that guy is ever fully coming back. Still somebody that I he can’t help but feel good for him. Whether it leads to any sort of success for the Orioles the rest of this year and next, who knows? But he’s setting himself up to get a nice free agent deal at the end of 2026 heading into that off season. Unless there’s a, you know, maybe we’ll have a lockout and that ruins everything for everybody. Who knows? But him, it’s it’s been a good story. I bring him up, of course, because he is going to start on Sunday, the series finale series. Did I say Sunday? I meant to say Sunday. Yeah, Sunday against him and Yuri. That was tomorrow. Okay. Um, in fact, let me already pull up the lineups for tonight to look at for this series opener with with the Orioles. Even though they have the same record, they um they’ve been trending in a pretty decent direction for a long time. Ever since they fired their manager, they have had a winning record. I need to remember how to pronounce this guy’s name because it is a long Italian last name. Tony Manscelino is their new manager. They are 27 and 22 since he took over. Five games over 500. That just speaks to how deep a hole they buried themselves in under Brandon Hyde. So part of that is just getting healthy. um that starting pitching has been good with the help of Trevor, but their lineup is there’s another name that I had almost forgotten about. Yeah, I guess we could start at the bottom, right, with his lineup with with Jacob Stallings due to some catching injuries that they have. Stall. Jacob Stallings. You know who’s the backup, right? The the backup to Stallings at this moment. Refresh my memory. It’s Alex Jackson. I’m pretty sure it is interesting. Let me just double check. I noted in the in the Forz article who got traded for something. Let’s just make sure that he’s in the big leagues. I know they called up a catch. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. So, yeah, just let’s Yeah, talk about Hey, you’re rocking the the Orioles orange, too. Supporting Stallings, Trevor. But no, I mean it is crazy to see this lineup because guys like Tyler O’Neal who who was so good last year and Cedric Mullins who was I think a former future Marlin at one point now at the bottom of the lineup next to Jacob Stallings is is crazy to me to see because Mullins and O’Neal were so good during like just two years ago more or less and O’Neal obviously got the big free agent deal with with the Orioles. I think it was like a one year two-year deal. It was a it was a questionable signing at the time because they knew, you know, how weird it was. But Jackson Holiday coming into his own obviously Jordan Westber, solid player, former future Marlin. Uh I think he was an all-star last year. And then Gunnar Henderson, who started off the season hurt, I want to say, so started a little late there. Rhyno Hearn has been awesome. He’s probably going to be moved at the deadline. Raone Lauraniano keeps bouncing around so many teams, but seems like he’s found a home in Baltimore and he’s been fine. And then Colton Cowser, another one of those former top prospects who uh was hogging up some space and that was a big reason why the Orioles moved Sters in the first place too. So it’s a it’s a young lineup. It’s a lot of the home it’s a homegrown lineup honestly to be to be honest with you. A lot of those guys I think except Lauraniano O’Harn and Stallings are all homegrown. So it’s it’s a good lineup. And Jackson Holiday I think is an all-star too. So former number one overall pick getting some love there. And he’s finally getting it going too. So, it’s a solid team and and I’m curious to see how someone like a network matches up against these guys because this is still a good lineup regardless of record. It’s a good lineup. I think a big reason for their struggles has been the pitching starting pitching specifically. They really they didn’t try to get Corbin Burns. They signed Charlie Morton. They signed Sugano from the from from uh I think [ __ ] Japan. So, their rotation just wasn’t good to begin with. They were banking on Ephlyn really keeping good just doing what he did last year. Obviously, they were trying to bank on Trevor Rogers to a certain extent early on and it didn’t work out. So, they’re in an interesting situation. Felix, I think, who was it? Yer Keno just didn’t pan out in the bullpen. Batista has been good. I don’t think they’ll move him and their bullpen just is not good. So, and they already made a move. They already sold one of their their setup men and Brian Baker to to the race. So, they started selling already. So, this is a clear seller unfortunately for for for O’s fans who thought they were going to get another winning season. But, it’s a solid lineup regardless. It’s still good lineup, I think. So, we’ll see how it goes. And I think they’ve been playing pretty good ball recently. I think they swept uh someone recently. I think it was the Mets. The Met they they took two against the Mets. Yeah. Well, yeah. With this team, you mentioned Lauraniano, assuming that they continue with selling the future Marlin. Yeah. Back when he had a couple more years of control, but at at this point, he’s somebody that I think he has a club option for next year. It’s a really favorable deal. If he keeps hitting like this, he he’ll be near the top of the list of guys that they sell at the deadline. One of the better bats out there just based on how he’s performing this year. The results have been inconsistent. That’s why he was relatively affordable for them to sign in the first place. They did not plan on him being an everyday player or close to it, but he has been playing about as much as any outfielder for them this season due to the injuries. As Elf brought up in the chat, Colton Cowser, he was out for a long time with an injury he suffered back in April. um Jordan Westber who was looking like a really key piece of their lineup. He’d been out for a lot of the year as well with a repeated hamstring injuries if I remember that correctly. So now that they’re all healthy at the same time, pretty much even Tyler O’Neal, he’s always hurt and finally the Marlins are catching him at a time where if that’s your number seven hitter, if Cedric Mullins is your number eight hitter, that’s a it’s a really deep lineup at this moment. And then it drops off a little bit from the eighth spot to the nine spot as we touch on. Whether it’s Stallings starting or we’ll probably see Alex Jackson for either tomorrow’s game or Sunday’s game, that should be an automatic out for no matter who’s pitching for the Marlins. with everybody else. They present their own challenges in here. It is it is a tough group um to go through at this point. Moving over to the Marlins side here, there’s been a lot of consistency with this lineup, at least when they face right-handed pitching. So, there’s only so much to pick apart here now that the team in the last few weeks have found a good rhythm. that top four of X, Sanchez, Otto, and Augustine and Sters. And honestly, one through six is basically the same whenever they face a right-handed pitcher from Edwards all the way down to Wagman. They get Liam Hickon here as DH and then Norby is usually there at third. And then at in center field, it’s kind of an interesting mix at this point between once Dne got that everyday playing time he wanted so badly and that he deserved and then his results slit enough so that they’re now mixing in some Derrick Hill and when Javier Senoha gets in there, it’s either in on the outfield spots or at third base. Um, occasionally in the middle outfield middle infield, but Edwards and Otto are playing basically every day. So yeah, it’s a lot of consistency in here. I’m going to continue to keep an eye on X and see if he can. This is a ballpark where he have a better chance than most of sneaking a home run over the wall. So maybe that that’s in play. Other than that, Kevin, as everybody’s aware, Jesus Sanchez is one of the more obvious trade candidates, maybe the most obvious on the position player side, just because he’s a little closer to free agency. He is the most expensive hitter on this roster for what it’s worth this year earning four and a half million. And to this point, you know, the underlying numbers look very good. He has always been a Statcast darling because he hits the ball hard and the overall results have been fine. He’s like a league average hitter to this point. How he performs over these next couple weeks is going to dep that’s going to determine whether or not there’s a fit for him on a contender and how much value he actually has. So, I don’t know if he’s thinking that way, but there is I think a lot of contending teams are going to be looking very closely at Sanchez these last couple weeks to see whether or not he’s a real upgrade for their lineups. Yeah, you mentioned it and there’s teams that need outfield help like the Royals coming into town next week on Friday, the Padres’s right after that. Like those are two teams that really stand out to me that need someone like a Jesus Sanchez. But outside of that, I mean, it’s yeah, this is a good lineup. And Kyle Sters obviously first time facing the Orioles since the trades in with Norby. So I’m looking forward to seeing how that what what that entails and those are two guys that know the ballpark well. So that should help especially more towards the bottom of the order. Liam Hicks uh we we mentioned him on unfiltered and like he’s been so quietly awesome for the Marlins this season and I think Augustine really take you know really overshadows I guess is best way to say it what what Liam Hicks has been able to do. He’s such a good hitter. Not fast at all as we can see from the sprint speed, but he’s good and he’s a good hitter and that’s why they have his bat in the lineup if it’s as a DH, as a first baseman, wherever it may be. So, I I like that a lot. Augustine, I believe, has caught the last couple starts for Edward. He’s been essentially like Edward’s personal catcher to a certain extent. Uh almost all the games have been caught by Ramirez. So, not surprised he’s catching tonight despite his defensive uh issues. But outside of that, like this is again like one of those normal Marlin lineups that we’re starting to get used to there at least one through one through four, one through five. Like that that combo of Ramirez and Sters has been awesome to watch this season, especially now towards the latter end during this awesome part of play that the Marlins have had. So yeah, I think um good stuff overall and uh this is a fun lineup against uh who are they even facing today? Is it? Let me pull that up now. Oh, Dean Kramer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out team Israel. Yes. And that you were correct before about Trevor starting tomorrow, not on Sunday. Uh still a good matchup. Chance the way that he’s pitching. Still interested in seeing that. And then I’m not very familiar with Brandon Young who was starting that series finale against Yuri, but a fuller picture of it right here. Kmer is an interesting one where I’ I’ve seen quite a few of his starts this year. When he’s on, he is actually extremely effective. He’s a guy that doesn’t have overwhelming. It’s very similar to Jansen Jones when he’s on his game where he just has really sharp control and he can put guys away with his off speed stuff, but the velocity is a little bit below average and he can sometimes be too much around the plate and get hit hard. Uh overall, you just you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get with him. So, I think it’s a so far this season it speaks to that where he’s got a mid fours erra, a little bit worse than average. Uh it’s basically a coin flip in terms of whether he’s going to put serious pressure on them one way or the other. And thank you for Marcelo for pointing this out. Brandon Young, an immaculate ending this week. I did hear somebody throw an immaculate ending. I didn’t actually get to see how that turned out. Yeah, exactly. So, doesn’t tell us a whole lot about what to expect from these guys. I will pull pull up I took this the screenshot before when we briefly mentioned Yuri about how good he’s been overall to this point where those first few starts that had the bloated ERA but now it’s down to an even four. The fif is in the low threes. It’s better than it was when he was a rookie. He is to me I’m still really fascinated by the fact that he does not get ground balls. He induces a ton of fly balls at one of the more extreme rates in baseball. That was true as a rookie and it’s still true now where he’s allowing a lot of balls in the air and it’s just a question of like how many of those stay in the yard to this point. So one reason that FIP likes him so far is because he’s only allowed a couple homers in the six starts. He was a little bit less lucky in that regard when he was a rookie. So that is to me well there are many reasons why he’s such a fascinating player but to me that is one of them where he’s actually he pitches two fly balls but he’s a lot of them are innocuous popups that don’t cause much damage which are just as good as strikeouts. Um and he’s coming off a start of course in Cincinnati where that is one of those ballparks you really worry about a guy that’s a fly ball pitcher and yet he was excellent through his five innings of work. Um, and it is an interesting contrast with Sandy because people keep making excuses for Sandy about this being his first year back from Tommy John. Yuri is in the same situation and it just it was a much shorter period for him to look all the way back to what he used to be. But at this point, he he does he looks every bit as special as he did as a rookie because that’s maybe a little bit better um with some adjustments he’s made to his breaking balls. He incorporated a sweeper in there in addition to his slider and his curveball and the fast ball. VO is exactly where it was before and where it touches triple digits a couple times every single game when he’s on it. So overall that’s been an awesome development and I think everybody agrees that he’s that one guy that is firmly untouchable as we head towards the deadline. He’s going to be a big part of this team’s future. Um is there anything else in the chat that I want to get to? Yeah, I thought you mentioned the the Yuri thing with the fly ball because like that’s I think what made his start in Cincinnati even more impressive that you know you still allow all those fly balls but then you go to Cincinnati which as you know hit friendly. So another tough task tonight too. This is a team that has a lot of pop especially at the bottom of the order except stallings and uh yeah I think we’ll see if this comes to bite him the amount of uh I guess fly balls and yeah that he’s allowed but I think that’s another big reason why so many guys are being so aggressive and fing off [ __ ] because of where he’s placing them and the lack of the ground ball is something that we know Sandy for we know Ever for and Yuri’s just been a little different this season and and the numbers have been awesome and he’s definitely getting hopey hopefully gets that RA under three tonight and that that FIP will will go down into into the high twos. So, he’s he’s in a good situation right now for sure and and he’s certainly been been awesome. Yeah, just to wrap up this segment before prediction time. Yeah, we there’s more about Sandy coming up in this Fish Unfiltered episode that Kevin and I and Isaac recorded that will go up tomorrow morning where we went a little bit deeper on Sandy and his current situation where it is just it is so hard to believe there’s a situation where he could get dealt at this point just given what realistically the team can get back in return where any contending team if you plug him into your rotation right now we really can’t feel confident about him making that team better. And ultimately that’s a driving force in terms of why deals get made at the deadline is teams that are looking for immediate infusion of production into their team. And Sandy’s production has been a lot more bad than good at this point. Well, yeah, we’ll continue to cover it though. We’ll continue to follow all those rumors about Sandy uh because there have been just until a couple days ago even more uh just rumblings about him still being a guy that other teams are interested in. It’s ultimately just about the disconnect in terms of what other teams would be willing to give up for Sandy in his current state versus what the Marlins think they could get this off seasonason if he if he bounces back. But we’ll continue to follow that very big story as the deadline approaches. And with that, let us head into prediction time. This is prediction time. I think we’re going to win a lot of games, a lot more games than you think we’re going to win this year. final set of series predictions heading into the all-star break through 30 series points leader has 40 total points so far this series and uh that that’s a look at our leaderboard where Kevin is ranked second among our staffers on this leaderboard it includes our super subs our staffers and our live stream guests to this point in the season I’ve been doing better lately to get myself back above the cutoff but still not not really in contention unless I go on a miraculous run here down the stretch. So, people that are super subs, you have another 17 minutes or so if you want to get your predictions in on the site or in the Marlins Discord server. We predict how many games the Marlins will win, who will be the series MVP as determined by win probability added. Uh it could be a hitter or a pitcher from either team. And uh going for a team that has over the last six series, I think they’ve only lost one to Milwaukee. So, that tells you where things have been trending as of late, but we will uh head into our predictions right now. Let me just get the music set up. And um a threeame set. Last series was four games back to three heading into this Orioles matchup. So, prediction time going on as often. We will start with Kevin Bar. Kyle Stallus. Say it again because our effects kind of muffled your voice right there. The Marlins will take two out of three against the Orioles and Kyle Sters before going on his private jet or on the private jet to Atlanta will be the series MVP. Much better. Thank you, Kevin. Isaac Zoot, your series predictions. Boy, Kevin, I wish I could grow facial hair like you do. Fair handsome. Um, I think that the Marlins actually win two out of three, but the series MVP will be none other none other than Trevor Rogers. Interesting. I will go with the Marlins getting back on track, winning this series, two out of three against Baltimore. A high-scoring series from both sides, I imagine, between these two. The Marlins will have to in order to keep up with the Orioles. I really like their lineup depth, but I I think the Marlins pitching is just enough up to the task. And it starts with getting off on the right foot in the series opener. I hate to do this picking the starting pitcher in the series opener because you find out very soon whether or not it was a good MVP pick or not. I’m going to roll with Edward Cabrera. Um he has just blown past my expectations, not just like with his best performances this season, but just the consistency of it. He does not miss over his last two plus months at this point. Every single outing a competitive one. Surprising amount of length that he provides. I think he goes a long way towards getting them started on the right foot in this series opener. And that the Marlins head into the break at only seven games below 500, which I guess is a small victory relative to what we thought heading into the year. Fish on First Live, the Orioles Marlin show. Thank you to Isaac and Kevin. I am Eli Susman bringing you through the stream. We have another stream less than 48 hours from now. It is one of our biggest of the year. It is the MLB draft countdown reaction show. It’s a countdown and a reaction show where we’ll be starting it off right before the draft begins, a few minutes before 6 pm Eastern time on draft day. Let me just put up a logo to get people fired up about it. There we go. Marlins’s picking number seven overall. We’ve had a lot of coverage about it on our site. Let me just tease some of that for you right there. If you go on fishonfirst.com mockdrafts, we had um yeah, let’s it was a mockdraft that Sean did solo, another one that he did with Hector Rodriguez. We’re going to have on-site coverage from Hector Rodriguez live from Atlanta. We’ve had retrospectives from both Isaac and Kevin looking at previous Marlin draft picks. There will be a final big board from Hector going up on draft day itself to show you who he has ranked in terms of guys that would realistically be the best picks that the Marlins could make overall. That will be wherever you’re watching this. We’ll be sure to broadcast again on Sunday right after the Marlins final game against the Orioles and heading into this big draft moment for this team. The team that uh probably thought they were going to be picking a little bit higher than number seven overall. and we’re gonna find out whether or not that slippage in the lottery is actually going to make a difference one way or the other. Big moment for Frankie Polari and Peter Bendix. So, we will have you covered. This was tied for I guess our smallest panel that we’ve had on the stream. And this is going to set the record for this season with the largest panel. We’ll probably have nine or 10 people on at the same time to give us takes on that. So, it’s it’s going to be a beautiful mess, but look, it’ll be a great reaction. I can promise you all. Yeah, we’ll give you our general reactions and looking forward to seeing everybody’s comments as we go through that and process the results in real time. Thanks again for tuning in. aboutthefans.com is where you can get our merch. Promo code f10. Save 10% when you pick out that stuff and support us uh with your purchases over there. So, we will be live again on Sunday and then of course we’ll be back to our usual series previews after the break next Friday. Thanks again for tuning in and go. Fish on First has partnered with About the Fans to launch a merchandise collection, rep the FOF logo, and more Marlins inspired apparel. Find it all at aboutthefans.com. Enter coupon code FOF10 at checkout to get 10% off your order. F10 for a 10% discount. the Baptist. [Music]
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