Transcript of MLB Trade Deadline Candidates + Immaculate Grid Trivia | The Pitch Clock

You're used to a cold open being here for the Pitch Clock, but I am going to use this time right before we get started to once again promote Camp Fiesta. I got to mention it on the show earlier this week. Camp Fiesta is a 9-day sleepaway summer camp for children with cancer that I am fortunate enough to be a part of here locally in South Florida. It has existed for 40 years. This will be our 41st year of Camp Fiesta. It is a nonprofit. We raise all of our money simply through donations. So if you have a dollar to spare, go to Camp campfiesta.com/donate. It's campfiesta.com/donate. Donate what you can. And if you can't, just send some good vibes our way. Camp starts next week. So thank you and enjoy this episode of The Pitch Clock. Welcome to The Pitch Clock. Here's the pitch: a two-part baseball segment combining a nostalgic baseball trivia game and an interview with an expert. This is The Pitch Clock. The Pitch Clock is back. Hey, Hey, what?

I'm not doing it. Why? I'm just kidding. Hi everybody. Hey.

All right. You got me.

You got me.

You got me.

I got worried. I'm a jokester. You are. What a silly goose.

He's a showman.

Fist me. Nice.

It's baseball season, guys.

We're back.

All-Star break already happened. Baseball games are being played.

Netflix, am I right? Home run derbies.

I loved it.

It was fun.

I loved that home run derby. It was fun.

And dude, bangers.

Yeah, dude.

Dudes hitting taters. Yeah. And now we have a new new trivia game to play. We'll get to our baseball expert momentarily, but Ethan, what do we got going on today?

So you mentioned dudes hitting taters.

Yeah.

How about dudes naming guys?

Yeah. Dudes naming guys.

Yes.

So what I do best.

Jeremy, you won last week. Would you like to go first or second?

I'd like to go second.

Leave the room.

Carl Pavano.

Chris Cody.

Hey, fan favorite with the war that you get.

I like it.

Hi, Chris.

Hope I just peeked.

It's fine.

Open up your folder then. We're going to bring back an old favorite. Remember the Immaculate Immaculate Grid.

Ah, the Immaculate Grid.

It's been around so long. It's been around since before I was even on the show.

Yes.

Wow.

Long time ago. This is grid number 1188. The reason I picked this one is because it's an all-teams grid. So it's going to be 3 teams on the top, 3 teams on the left. Your teams are across the top, the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Detroit Tigers, and the Atlanta Braves. And down the left are the St. Louis Cardinals, the Boston Red Sox, and the Washington Nationals. This of course will include the Montreal Expos in the Nationals category. So Chris Cody, you know how it works. We're going for low rarity score.

I mean, this should be relatively easy once you get one.

If you get one wrong, it's just going to add to your rarity score.

Okay, I am starting to sweat. Why am I not like— this is so easy, this game. Like, this is just, just, just work with me here.

I'm waiting for you.

Okay, I got one. Yeah, I found one. Yeah, just thought of it. Uh-huh.

Keith Foulke.

Keith Foulke. Which team?

I think he played for the Tigers and the Red Sox.

I think you're right. Oh, I got it wrong. Oh yeah, he did play for the Red Sox, but he did not play for the Tigers.

I mean, I can just be bad at this. I, I don't know if I'm gonna do much.

It's fine. Jeremy might not do much better either. I'm telling you, this is a, this is a toughie.

He definitely will do a lot better than this, but hold on, I'm not giving up hope here. Hold on, let me, let me just think for a second. All right. Cardinals, Braves.

Rafael Furcal.

So happy. Rafael Furcal, 4%, was a Brave and a St. Louis Cardinal. Cody, you were on the board.

I'm on the board. I'm on the board. I feel good about this. I'm sweating. I don't like this.

Our 2026 MLB expert is here. It's ESPN insider for Major League Baseball, Kyle McDaniel. Kyle is working on the trade deadline now and just recently had an article drop with Jeff Passan on the most likely trade candidates as we approach the MLB trade deadline. But he is also an MLB draft expert, and I want to start there with him. So, Kylee, thank you for being here. And I want to get rolling real quick on some young guys, right? Because we've seen guys like Connor Griffin get drafted and pretty much immediately make their way to the major leagues, come up. These guys are as polished as they've ever been at both the high school and the college level. So I essentially want to ask you, from this draft, that we just saw just a little over a week ago, who is essentially the next Connor Griffin? Who's the guy that we're going to see first at the major league level becoming a household name?

So this draft was seen as having a top tier of 3 guys. It was 2 entering the spring and then 1 entered the fray. So those are the 3 guys you want to keep an eye on. The first is Rock Cholowski, who was basically called to be the number 1 pick over a year ago. He was a $3 or $4 million player out of high school, decided to go to UCLA. Rigged for 3 years. He's taken number 1 overall by the White Sox. He's somewhere in the Dansby Swanson, Alex Bregman sort of mold of player. Above average defender, above average at kind of everything. Might hit 25 homers. Not necessarily the Bobby Witt Jr., how is he doing this, but just really good at everything like those 2 players I mentioned. The other college guy in that group is Vaughn Lackey, a catcher from Georgia Tech that the Twins took. He also is above average to plus at everything, but his sort of wrinkle was he was seen as a late first round pick entering the spring. And I had a number of text messages with scouts where they told me, oh, put him in 20 to 30 range right before the first day of the season.

And then like a month later I'm like, yeah, your team's not gonna get a shot at him at like pick 15 or wherever you were picking. Um, there are also 3 other players, the 3 top high school players in the draft. If you're looking for the actual Connor Griffin that could be that super duper star, uh, the guy that was in that top 3, the 2nd overall pick to the Rays, Grady Emerson, uh, high school shortstop out of Texas. He'd been hyped for 2 or 3 years as if there is a Bryce Harper, that might be the guy. I think he came in expectations a little bit below that. Some people worry that there's not quite the ceiling there, but there's a chance he could be a Corey Seager level guy if everything clicks. And then the two other guys that went after him that have the huge upside, but there's some polish and concerns, would be Eric Booth Jr., the 7th overall pick to the Orioles, who is also from Mississippi like Connor Griffin, also needed a bit of a swing adjustment. We'll see if he can make it as quickly. Enormous upside. The last one is probably the one you want to hear.

Jacob Lombard, the first round pick of the Miami Marlins.

That's right.

Also a big swing and miss concern, but could hit 30 home runs and play shortstop like his brother is about to be the shortstop for the New York Yankees. Though if there's a superstar in this draft, it's probably one of those 5 guys.

I'm going to pull this up right here. You have a top 100 trade candidates.

Okay.

So if you're a Major League Baseball fan, you want to go through this on ESPN.com. I'm going to name your top 10. And here's what I want to do. I'm going to name the top 10. I'm going to have you pick 2 of those to focus on and highlight and then maybe give me one off the board that you'd like to see traded and you'd like to see them end up somewhere. So it's Tarik Skubal, number 1 with a bullet right at the top. Obviously, he's been the talk of the town. Byron Buxton, a superstar in his own right from the Minnesota Twins. Joe Ryan, the pitcher from the Twins. Mason Miller, the reliever of the Padres. Dan talks about him a lot. Shailene Leers, one of my favorite names in baseball, catcher for the Athletics. Zack Neto, the local kid, shortstop for the Angels. I know Danny B just perked up in the other room. They're boys over there. Jeremy Peña, the shortstop for the Astros. Hunter Goodman, who Tony learned who he was and who he plays for earlier in the week, of the Colorado Rockies. He's a great catcher. CJ Abrams, superstar All-Star shortstop, the one who got to start over Otto Lopez unjustly.

And number 10, Luis Urias, a former Miami Marlins second baseman of the Giants who was always on the trade block at all times. Those are your top 10 trade candidates that you and Jeff Passan highlighted on ESPN.com. So let's, let's focus on a couple of those before we get to the guy who's, who's off the board.

Yeah, I think Zack Neto, I think makes a lot of sense. I think that I'm in Atlanta. I think the hometown Braves make a lot of sense. The lineup use a little more firepower. They typically don't like to trade a lot of trade assets, young players, prospects to get like a rental, and they usually don't make big moves. But as we've seen in the past, they like to have a lot of guys locked up for a number of years. Zach Nettow comes with, I think it's 2 years after this year, might even be 3 plus this year of control. He is, I think, just affordable enough in that I think the Angels are probably in this subtraction part of where things are going right now before they hire their full-time GM. But he's also probably not like a 5, 6 war super duper star. So it seems like a guy that's maybe not going to be on their next playoff team. So it makes some sense. And this is one of those rare instances where I think the Braves might move some chips in. They now went from having one of the bottom 2, bottom 3 farm systems a number of years in a row to now beefing it back up.

They might have 3 or 4 top 100 guys. They have the ammunition to make that move. And I think the team could use it now that it seems like they're back on the right road after last year being a bit of a down year. The second one I think is maybe one for Dan, that Luis Urias at number 10 is like the most raised guy I can think of ever. Yeah, he's like not a great runner or defender historically, is now magically a good defender again, uh, makes a ton of contact. It won't cost a ton of prospects because it's just a rental for the rest of the year. Um, he just fits their like ethos of like a bunch of weird players that have outlier skills, both positive and negative, in a bunch of different directions. They also have made their entire lineup interchangeable with platoons, lefty, righty, everybody plays multiple positions. You could easily just plug him in, whatever guy's not hitting, send to the minors. If somebody else is then not hitting, then you can swap those guys out. I think having him play second base every day for the rest of the season and have like a 5% strikeout rate, like that, that feels like what the Rays deserve.

And I feel like Dan would do a backflip.

You want to phone a friend?

A phone a friend. All right.

Yes.

We're going to add some phone a friends.

I want to phone—

Louis is jumping around.

I want to phone Louis.

He's not on vacation.

I want to phone Louis.

Louis, do you have any names on this grid here?

Any names on this grid? I have one name that I see empty. I have one name.

Give it to me. I'm struggling.

Let it go.

Okay, for the Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks, a very easy one, Curt Schilling.

Curt Schilling.

Oh my God, goddamn it.

I mean, that's a great one. That one probably won't get us a ton of points, but that is a fantastic one, and I should have thought of that one.

We're gonna go with Curt Schilling.

Curt Schilling. Okay.

Oh, 49%. So not great on the rarity score, right?

Right.

But you're on the board with— you just gotta get as many as you can because you never know what Jeremy will do.

Okay. Now I know this guy. I know he was a Cardinal. Troy Gloss.

4?

Which, which square?

I know he was a Cardinal. I know he wasn't a Brave. Let's go Diamondback.

1% Troy Gloss. What a shout, dude.

Okay. I got one.

Okay.

Tiger. Yeah. Rick Porcello.

Ooh, Tiger and Red Sox?

Red Sox.

Yeah, that's a good shout. 10% for Rick Porcello. Now we're moving, Cody. I mean, we're moving now. We're rolling now.

I'm basically just thinking of like guys on one team and then I'm just praying that like they're on the other team. Yeah. For another team. Okay, I'm going to play this game. I just— another pitcher just popped into my head. Yeah, I know he was a Tiger. Yeah. Jordan Zimmerman.

That's a good call. Yeah, I think he threw a no-hitter with the Nationals.

All right.

6% for Jordan Zimmerman.

That's it. I suck.

That's it. Come on, Cody. You got 3 guesses left.

The pitch clock. Like, I have a time limit on this.

You got 3 guesses.

I want to respect the game and not just do this forever. Was Babe Ruth only a Red Sox and Yankee?

I think, I think Babe Ruth played for the Braves.

There you go.

That's just me. 9% for Babe Ruth. Whenever are you, when are you ever going to get 9% for Babe Ruth?

That is just me pulling it out of my crat.

Out of your frut.

A Brave. Of course he was a Brave. I knew that.

You have 2 guesses left. You're missing 3 spots.

Okay.

Okay. You don't have a Tiger and a Cardinal. You don't have a Brave and a National, and you don't have a National and a Diamondbacks.

This is crazy. Brave and a National. No, give me a second.

This is my division.

It's my guy. Cigarette smoking Dan Uggla.

Dan Uggla.

3% for Dan Uggla. Your last teams are the Nationals and the Diamondbacks and the Tigers and the Cardinals. Tigers and Cardinals played in a World Series against each other.

2006.

All right. I literally, I want to be done.

Okay. You're done.

I lose.

You're punting?

I don't want to. All right. I've done enough.

And your rarity score is 282. So don't be pressed because you never know what Jeremy's going to fire up here.

And I need to stay in here to heckle him.

I want to talk to you about one of the teams in Major League Baseball that has been an absolute shocker over the last few weeks. So on July 2nd, the Red Sox were 37-48, 11 games under .500. And in an American League that is not any good this season, they were the third worst team in that league. Like, truly, truly dreadful. And since then, they've won 14 games in a row.

Okay.

At the time of this recording, we're sitting here 3 calendar weeks after their last loss. They've won 14 in a row. They've been the best team in baseball over that stretch. My question for you simply, and we're going to bleep this. What the fuck?

Yeah, I've, I've been— this has been on my radar for the last couple of days where I've been like, all right, so what's going on here? What am I missing? Because I feel like a lot of people left this team for dead and thought that this was not constructive. Correctly. They've had too many injuries. Like, it's just not going to work. And I went and, you know, looked a little more closely at the statistics, trying to figure out like, all right, what changed? What's going on? The one thing that I think that you could find in the stats here that I think fans, casual fans don't always realize as much— when you go look at any one of these teams that wins like 100 games or record-setting or runs away with the division, and you go look at just like their, you know, their team stats on Baseball Reference or Fangraphs and look at the WAR numbers, the best teams in baseball never have anyone below like -0.2 WAR. Like, what they're doing is making sure that there's not a suck on the team that's having a -1.2 WAR year where you should have a positive.

Like, there are teams that have guys signed on minor league deals playing for the minimum that put up 2 WAR. Like, the Brewers seemingly do this multiple times every year. And the worst teams in baseball, especially the ones that are tanking, have like 3 guys out there that are like at replacement level or lower and probably making some money. And I've noticed the Red Sox have almost nobody down there. And if they do, it's like a bench guy that had, you know, 20 ABs in this span. And you look at the pitching, almost— I think no one on the team has an ERA over 5 during this span. The usual characters are doing well. Some of those second-tier guys really getting hot and then no one's been bad. And then, of course, there's like a little bit of luck and there's like, you know, a little bit of magic and, you know, things coming together. There's some momentum and things kind of fall your way. But there's also like usually not a good way to explain this because if you could, then you could kind of see it coming and nobody saw this coming.

Here's, here's the real final conundrum for you, Dan. And we're going to forego our standard Star of the Week this week because of what Dan had to say here. Dan on the show earlier in the week has jumped ship from the Dodgers. He's got his raise in the American League and he says that the Brewers are the best team in the National League. Now, they have been the best team in the National League for quite a while in the way that they've been playing. But Dan believes this is the year where they take down the Dodgers in the postseason. So with what Dan had to say, can you defend this take? Is he crazy? And what's made the Brewers so great?

So I don't think he's crazy. I think they're very clearly the second best team in the National League. And if the bet was bet on the Dodgers winning the National League or the field, another one of these things that like maybe the casual fan doesn't realize, you always take the field. Like, especially in baseball, like any, any team just waltzing through because they're like a little bit better in the regular season, it's not how this works. Now, if the bet is Brewers versus Dodgers, I'm still going to lean Dodgers because because they're just better. But the Brewers have all of the elements. There's been a number of studies about what makes a team— if two teams are exactly the same in the regular season, what makes a team better in the playoffs? And typically it's a combination of versatility in the lineup that if somebody's cold, do they have somebody you can plug in that's not just a pure bench player? Do you have sort of the platoons, the speed, the defense, all the things that are impacting every ball in play and putting the ball in play, not striking out, relying on a home run?

And then do you have the stopper at the end of the bullpen? Do you have a strong 2 or 3 guys that once you get to the 7th inning, you can hold onto a lead? And then do you have the stopper in the rotation, that number 1 starter that can step in, go on 3 days rest, and then stop a losing streak? And they have all of those things and they've kind of always had all of those things and they seemingly always overperform the preseason projections in the regular season and then do at least as good, if not better, in the playoffs than you think they're going to do. Also, their GM came from Tampa Bay. Yeah, they have a lot of the same DNA. And so I can't say this is not the year because certainly everything is lining up. But again, it's still, you know, 55-45, give me the Dodgers. But if I'm going to take somebody, it's going to be the Brewers. And they do seem to be the team that has kind of the magic on their side. They're in position to make that move because when you take risky moves in the draft, like Jake Minterowski in the second round, the guy who couldn't throw strikes for most of the spring now becomes one of the best couple pitchers in baseball.

It's like when you do stuff like that, you have a chance to break through against the team with an extra— I mean, what is it, $200 million more in payroll? Like it seems like it shouldn't even be close. And they've gotten it close because they're so efficient and so good.

I'll tell you this, one of the best things that could happen for Major League Baseball and the players as they head into this offseason and all of the CBA talk would be a Rays-Brewers World Series with a couple of small market teams that just do it all the right way and find a way to win. Kyler McDaniel is always winning. Go check out his article with all 100 potential trade candidates that he and Jeff Passan highlighted and follow his work throughout the rest of the Major League Baseball season. Kylee, thanks so much for being here with us, man.

We're bringing in the lefty. And Jeremy, I'm just going to tell you now, Cody was unbelievable.

Yeah.

Okay.

So he also could be lying.

There's a lot of pressure. You know, you said you were good and now he said there's a lot of pressure.

I had a nice stretch.

You really got to dig deep for this one. Oh, Jeremy. Open your folder.

I'm looking over here.

Immaculate Grid is back.

Yeah.

Take your time.

It's what?

And dig through it.

I'm already panicking, dude.

Yeah. Trust me.

It was a lot of stuff. You should be.

I'm telling you.

Chris Cody was incredible.

It was one of those things though where I did it at the beginning. I looked at it and I was like, I got nothing. And then they all kind of, the floodgates kind of opened.

Braves Cardinals for Call. Hey, same one.

We're tied.

Actually the same one.

We're off to a flyer. Uh, Rafael Furcal, famously leadoff hitter in MVP Baseball 2005.

Um, did he actually ever pitch for this team? I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do— if I get it wrong—

if you get it wrong, it goes— your rarity score goes up 100.

What?

Well, we're playing, we're playing, so we're playing lowest rarity score. I forgot to mention.

Also, you get to phone a friend.

And you do get to phone a friend. You do get a phone friend.

Okay. But Lewis isn't here anymore.

You could use Gabe.

Or Danny. Alright.

Or Gino.

Or somebody in your context.

Or Olivia.

I'm going to do it just because I literally can't think of anybody else at the moment. Did Zach Gallen pitch for both the Cardinals and the Diamondbacks? No, he didn't. No. He was in the system.

That's a strike. That should get—

he should get credit for that.

That sucks. This is so hard, and I had— there's an obvious one on Diamondbacks-Red Sox, but it's like, that's not going to be rare at all.

Yeah, you should join me.

I know.

I'm awesome.

Uh, Atlanta Braves-Washington Nationals, Dan Uggla.

Yes, we are locked, dialed.

All right, so should I just do the other one where we have the same one? Uh, Diamondbacks-Red Sox, Curt Schilling.

All right.

Give me something.

Who's played for the Nationals ever?

I know. Go. Take your time. Okay.

I don't think you guys realize how much more difficult this is for me than for everyone else.

It's called the take your time clock, not the pitch clock. I'll leave.

Gabe, I really am sorry.

Yeah.

Can you give me, can you give me 3 minutes on my own?

I'll come back.

3 minutes later. Fernando Rodney.

Ooh.

For Tigers Nationals.

I think you're on to something. You are absolutely correct, sir. 3%. 3% Fernando Rodney.

Nice.

All right. So you just came right back in. I got one.

Nice pull.

I got a good pull.

Very good pull.

Got a good pull.

Yeah.

Okay.

Let's continue.

Dice gang. Not okay. Oh, sorry. Hold on.

Wow.

I was thinking, I was thinking so much better when—

All right. I'll leave.

When you were gone. Thanks for that.

12 minutes later.

Give me something.

I'm trying really hard here. I guess I'll go Braves. I'll go Braves and Red Sox. I'm going to go Kimbrel.

Okay.

That's a good one. 9% for Kimbrel.

Really?

Really solid. Good, good number.

Okay.

That's a good number.

I got Craig Kimbrel.

Why are you saying it like a visiting player? Craig Kimbrel.

Um, whatever you're doing, just take your time.

I am.

I'm taking my time.

Let's really marinate on this.

I'm not—

I'm—

you're trying to make me feel bad and it's not gonna happen. I know how long it took me.

Danny is napping right now, literally.

That's fine, he can nap.

Danny, wake up!

All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna risk this. I've been thinking about it.

You know, you gotta risk it.

Biscuit.

Tigers.

Cardinals. Johnny Peralta.

That's a good one.

That's a fun—

I think that's good.

I don't know if Peralta— no, he played Johnny Peralta.

11%.

Definitely played Cardinals. That's the one I knew.

That's the first name I thought of in this whole thing.

All right, so you've got 2 guesses left in 3 spots. You've got the Diamondbacks and Cardinals, the Tigers and Red Sox, and the Diamondbacks and Nationals. You're, you're getting You're rolling.

We're rolling now.

Rolling now, huh?

Um, okay, I promise I'm gonna get there soon with a name that hasn't come to my brain yet.

Na—

oh, Nash.

Nat Moore.

Nationals. Diamondbacks. Tony Womack.

Oh my God, what a name.

That's good. I think you're right. Definitely played for Diamondbacks.

No! All right, so this is big here because both of you now have 2 wrong. So this is big. Jeremy, you've, you got to nail this one.

I need to, right?

Yeah, but couldn't he still win if his percentages are way better than mine?

He could still win, he could still win because the rest of his grid. What if he stay, he's got to stay on 2 wrong to win.

3 hours later.

We started this at 1 PM. It's 3:30.

No. Oh, but she said phone a friend.

Oh! Let's do this.

Oh yes, our first actual phone call with phone a friend. Make sure you tell him he's under some time laws. You're on camera.

What's up, JC?

Danny, I need a favor. You're, uh, on the pitch clock with me right now.. You are my Phone a Friend. We are doing Immaculate Grid. I need either a Diamondback National, a Diamondback Cardinal, or a Red Sox Tiger. Okay, so a Red Sox Tiger, Victor Martinez. Good choice. This is why you call Danny Alvarez. Danny, we love you.

No, no, Danny, before I gotta go. Can you call me CC?

All right, we love you, Danny. I'll let you know if you help me win.

Call me CC.

All right, I love you.

Bye.

He didn't call me.

All right.

He's the best.

All right.

Results are in. Uh-huh.

Olivia, call me CC.

Chris Cody, you went first and Chris Cody, you posted a score of 282.

Yeah, mine was, my score wasn't actually good.

Jeremy Taché, you went second and you posted a score of 282.

5.

No!

Chris Cody, you are the winner.

Okay, I thought I lost.

No way!