Is it time to worry about Travis Bazzana?

0:00Nick and JP back with you on the fan here on a football Friday on an Flaw Friday. We got to talk a little Ohio state. That's really tough to say Ohio state with Ohio's Tate. Yeah. And again, not and land the plane in the second name for whatever reason you might hear and might not hear there. But Ohio's Tate coming up in the, we just say Tate. It can just hear it in there. Coming up in about 20 minutes time of bar stool. He's got his punishment list out. If you're not familiar with that, we'll break it down. Coming up in about 20 minutes time. We also have Jordan Schultz coming up and just about, okay, the two had four 20 and some guardians baseball within the hour should the rain hold out. But a big talking point here recently has been the play of Travis Pazana. And obviously one point he was your lead off hitter in the last 30 games though. 218 with a 245 slugging percentage. Just no home runs, nine RBIs and 11 walks and 25 strikeouts.

1:02Well, Mark Chernov. Yeah. Was on. I was get confused because his dad, no, it's Mike Chernov. Mike Chernov. Mark Chernov is the radio guy. Mike Chernov, the guardians. Pended that this morning too, by the way. GMM. We all radio guys. We all do that with Chernov. I just, whatever. But one half of Chernetti was on with the morning boys today and he did talk about Travis Pazana and the struggles during a important season for the guardos. This is what we do every year. This is how we do. We win with young players and that means they go through ups and downs. By the way, veteran players go through ups and downs too. They're just used to going through it. But this is the sort of constant balance of performance and development. And we know who we are. We know how we have to win and you see it with young guys like on Hell and now and chased the lottery. And now Travis Pazana and whoever it is, Brian Roqueo has had ups and downs this year. We are confident in the group that we have. We know that this is a group that can take us into the postseason and motor a lot to make

2:04tough decisions about who plays every day that gives us the best shot of winning. But we know that the best team that we can, that we can feel out there has the best version of Travis Pazana on it for sure. I thought Mike came off a little defensive of young Travis Pazana and even and Stephen votes pressure last night. I thought he came off a little defensive about Travis. And I don't mind it. By the way, I just wanted to note. It definitely seems like a sore spot to bring up the fact that Travis Pazana in the last 30 games and actually a little bit longer. That is not been very good. Yeah, I take it longer than that. I went from July 1st on Nick and July 1st on. He's batting average to 23 on base percentage 319. Slugging percentage and awful 303. So that's that's two months of baseball right there. That's a, I mean, that's an extended time. That's 200 played appearances. He has not been good. And I understand why they get defensive. I do understand that. Made in all star team was for many stretches of the season. You thought carrying the team in certain aspects and it just hasn't looked good for two months. And I think they're genuinely worried.

3:05Especially when you look around and see everyone from that draft class having a lot of success. I think they're genuinely worried about where Pazana fits right now. They're not going to show it. It's interesting. There's not when you're when you run an organization, the guardians way, what they've done really well is be able to kind of keep the temperature around the team at a pretty solid baseline. And what that allows you to do is that again, it's the idea of if your process works, you have more swings in hits than swings in message, right? The problem is this is a really big swing. It was a really important swing. Yeah. And listen, I'm not ready to panic on Travis, Pazana, but I've watched him now play second base for a couple of weeks now. And I think that's your second basement going forward provided you don't need. And now it shortstop because Brian Roqueos on a milk carton himself. Oh, so that's the other side of this is if you go from July 1st, Roqueos numbers are worse than Pazana's. I can give him to you right here. I have them, but they're I've well, I'm going to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

4:06there's no need to, but like they're they're worse. That's the idea. They're worse than what Pazana's numbers are since July 1st. And so if if Roqueos was playing awesome and it was a real conversation, then I think it'd be interesting to find out what the guardians actually would do because it now has to play. He's just he's earned it. He has to play now at this point. Yeah. And I will say I think when you're talking about a young players confidence in this, I know nobody wants to hear this stuff. This is where I actually really agree with Mike Churnoff and what he had to say today. I know nobody cares about a young players confidence or how you raise a very young team. I'm empathetic to the idea. It's one of the hardest things you can do in baseball while also remaining, you know, competitive. And I do, I think there's a chance that maybe Travis Pazana's your left field or next year and not your second basement. Yeah. There's nothing you can do about that now. You have to live with the errors. You're going to have to live with. I think he's gotten better defensively by the way. I think he's worked really hard at it. I don't know. I'd say better. I see a vast improvement from a couple months ago.

5:07I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how you don't see it. I think he looks much better defensively because they're still big oopsies. In fact, I would be I still so many big oopsies. I think it's hard to kind of downplay the highlight moments. I could almost make an argument. I wonder if he's spending too much time on his defense and he needs to spend more time on his offense. And maybe that's where we ended up in this spot that we're in right now. And I thought I had about Bonaylor for the first two years. He wasn't any good in the plate. That's giving him a lot of benefit of the doubt that he hasn't earned yet at this point. But yeah, I mean, like this is a it's a it's an interesting spot for them to be in with a guy they took number one overall. Well, and here's the like so this is where again, I'll come back to I actually agree. You know, I made the point that it sounded like Mike turnoff was very defensive about this. And I think voter is a little defensive about this. And that's fine. By the way, they're trying to protect their guy. And that's the way you should. He's so young. Yeah.

6:07And this kind of goes back to the Da Lauder thing too, although he has had just a fantastic rookie season at the plate. They're they're so young. And you know, because of where Bessonah was drafted and because of Da Lauder's injury, these guys were pushed a little bit. And because of that, they're doing a lot of the heavy lifting developmentally at the big leagues. And that is so stinkin hard while your teams also in a wildcard version. I mean, he's 24 though. I mean, like he's the right age to be up here and doing this. No, no, but in terms of like minor league experience, you look at how much how many games he played the minor leagues and he also had some injuries in there as well versus how many games Roqueo played before he came over. They prefer a but ton of minor league experience before you get to the big leagues. Bessonah in Da Lauder, two guys that have kind of jumped that trend for them. I do think that matters. I do think you need as many of bats as you possibly can get. I want to encourage them to keep the aggressiveness that they've had with some of these guys.

7:10And to track is that you're seeing it pay off. And I don't think Bessonah's broke because he or at least going through a stretch here. That isn't great because he felt rushed up or anything like that. Like I mean, it's so many times we see these guys 24 years old. You need to be up here playing big league baseball, especially if you're taking the place that he was. I think less about age and I just think about reps every day. And again, none of this is to say you're wrong, by the way, or that I actually even disagree that much. I just think like, all right, you guys wanted Travis Bessonah. This is part and parcel with having a guy develop at bats in real time. Like you are going to have stretches where a guy looks unplayable because this is the guardians have become finishing school for their prospects. I think there was a couple of things they did when they called up. Schneeman as one of their last editions and in that aunts netty made it abundantly clear. The idea that they're not there. There's no room for at bats on this roster right now. They're they can part of the part of the discourse and why they didn't make some of the other editions like Ralphie was that they don't have enough at bats for these other guys.

8:12Schneeman's up for a reason and he got the call for a reason. Well, I think part of that is them telling you they want if they're going to lose, they want to lose with Bessonah and they want to make sure Bessonah gets the experience. Bessonah gets whatever experience that comes in the playoffs, anything else like that. That matters to them. A great deal moving forward for the years to come. And I think that's the right response. Do you agree, by the way? Yes. Yes, I would not be benching as bad as he's been for two months. I would not be benching him. I'd be letting him grow through this experience. I'd be letting him get at bats, get the quality at bats. And he's going to be a staple in this lineup for years to come. And here's the other thing. I think they're going to be able to do both in the end. Like they're going to lose a cup. And it's not just Bessonah. As we mentioned, Roqueo has been Roqueo that there are a bunch of young players on this team. And there's not a great deal of consistency from day to day from week to week. That said, you might lose four extra games this year. I still think if you're into playoffs, well, you've kind of superseded your goals. You played all these young guys. You're getting them real time experience. Most of them are producing at a level you hope they would specifically chase the lottery.

9:16Can you make the playoffs? Like if I told everybody that go, sorry, if I told myself, hey, this is what's going to happen. What it what is played out through 140 games and all the young players and all the success that you've had, I would have been, I would have signed up for this 10 times. That I would have been thrilled. Yeah, you would have been thrilled. The idea that they're competitive down the stretch here and you're developing the young guys. They're playing for a couple years down the line. I get it. That infuriates guardians fans to hear because I feel like we're constantly telling everyone. Yeah, one or two more years, but this year has been different and they've done a lot of different things and it is about more so the years beyond than it is this specific moment in time. And again, you're still going to make the playoffs. I know, I know for some reason, people have stopped being impressed by that with the guardians team because I think there is just a complete failure to acknowledge the circumstances that happen in baseball that impact teams like the guardians more than it does. Yankees, I think the difference is like Oscar Gonzalez was a flash in the pan. Because he was never meant to be anything like you look at some of the guys we've said,

10:18oh, just a year from now, you know, we will, we will, and this guy puts us all, most of the guys that have come up and done that, even Quon, if first good as he's been, that was a fringe prospect. These are all like top 10, you know, top 10 prospects for you and some of them are top 100 or top 50 prospects in baseball major major prospect. That's actually something you can look at and go, oh, if this stays up like this and you guys get these experience and they, and the experience doesn't crush these guys, you will have to line the whole problem on why you haven't really been able to win the World Series isn't just about the financial side. It's that you haven't developed enough hitting, right? Somebody can send judge in Stanton against you. And at any point they can change the game in a postseason series. You didn't have an answer to that. You look around this lineup. This lineup has some guys that can be that. And by the way, there's a couple more on the way in the next year or two. And I think they're not done. Obviously with that rotation, that's where all of a sudden you really can cook with gas

11:19and maybe have a two or three. You're running. Fan graphs right now, by the way, has him at 43% to make the playoffs. How you feeling about that? I mean, it's kind of where I have them pegged at the moment. If we're being truthful, I think it's close to a coin split for me. That's why these series coming up, especially these games against the Tigers are so impactful. Where I've been really, we're crushing this down to a 20 game season. And the problem that I'm running into, anytime Parker mess, it takes amount. I feel really confident anytime Gavin Williams takes the mound, except for a couple of times ago, I feel pretty good. Well, we get to the bibi cantillo part portion of this and even foster Griffin to a degree, I feel less confident about it. This is where I get to call back to fan graphs, be in bleep and nerds and say the guardians are going to make the playoffs. Is that right? That's just not the certainty that I feel like a lot of people are walking around expecting to be. I'm 60% I'm 60% sure. Nick crafts says 60% yep. Yeah, Nick Stardom is just saying a 60% chance. All right. I like when Nick crafts is like 75 or 80%. They take two today. We're going to get up to 75, 77%. Who knows? See how I feel.

12:20It might even flip that much for fan graphs. That's how close this whole entire thing is. You take two games and all of a sudden it changes everything. They're numbers. Oh, I got my numbers here. It's not a person. It's numbers. Ohio's Tate. Good job. Barstool sports in five minutes on 92 through the fan.