What to learn in the final weeks of the season

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Water usually wins. It rots wood in Teres Docs apart. Unless you build with treks. Treks marine grade decking is 100% submersible. Built to resist rod and salt and fresh water. Water has met its match. Treks decking. Visit treks.com slash docs. The ball is here and that means the pumpkin spice latte is back at Starbucks. It's the one we've been waiting for. So whether you're a fan of the original pumpkin spice latte or ready to mix it up with an iced pumpkin cream chai. The new ice pumpkin cream matcha or the new ice pumpkin cream shaken espresso. You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. It's another Friday so let's get to our questions from the listeners. You are locked on Royals. Your daily Kansas City Royals podcast part of the locked on podcast network.

1:04Your team every day. You were turned into another edition of locked on Royals and the locked on podcast network. As always, I'm your host Jack Johnson and you can find me on Twitter at Johnny J underscore 15. That is at J. O. H. N. Y. J. underscore one five. You also can listen to us on wherever you download your podcast. That can be Spotify Apple podcast Amazon music Google podcast Odyssey and YouTube. Just be sure to hit the follow button and subscribe for your first time listeners wondering what to expect from this channel. We bring you episodes Monday through Friday 30 minute episodes and length and on Friday which is today. Of course, it is our mailbag episode. If you ever want to be included, respond below to one of the videos throughout the week. Title your comment mailbag Friday. Then put your question and if you have Twitter, you also can wait for my tweet on Thursday afternoon and respond with your question there. Today's show is brought to you by Fandool College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. And this season, Fandool was giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup.

2:04Join all the action at fandool.com. If I miss anybody's question, I'll try to have a answer by Monday morning, whether it would be on YouTube or Twitter, but I feel pretty confident we'll be able to get to every single one. We're going to kick things off with Jason's question. At this point, what at all does Alex Lang add to this team? We dumped Strom sent Ersek down. Why isn't someone auditioning for a spot in the bullpen next year instead of laying blowing a game almost every time he's put in? Kind of in the same way we discussed the lineup change the other day with Massey and Jensen. This late in the year, you know, you could dump Alex Lang and try to get Carlos Duran in that spot. I'm not sure that Alex Lang is really pitching in any more high leverage roles. So if Carlos Duran comes up and is only pitching in blowouts, is he really auditioning for the bullpen? If anybody was going to be demoted from the big league bullpen, I'd rather it'd be in Eastern McGee, just somebody who's there to be long relief.

3:04But if you're hoping for Alex Lang to be let go before season's end, I just don't see that happening. I believe they're going to roll with the guys they have currently in the bullpen unless there would be an injury. James's question, what's a realistic best case scenario rotation and lineup next year? I would say for the rotation, you would have a brand new number one. You would have Waka as your two. You would have Cameron as your three. Lugo is your four or five and then let's say Ryan Berger, maybe as your number five or they can come bringing a swing guy. But even if they do bring in a swing guy, he doesn't have to join the rotation. He could be a long reliever that could have spot starts. Maybe they have Randy Dobneck in that role. But really what would be a home run for this rotation is having a true workhorse ace. Somebody that is going to cost you quite a bit of money or is going to cost you some prospects. Someone that every time their turn is up in the rotation, you know you're going to be treated

4:07to an excellent outing. Now of course, it's not always going to go that way. But more often than not, you're going to get a really, really strong outing. Think Cole Reagan's in 2024. Now that was somebody you could count on every single time out. They don't have that right now. So who would that be? I mean, the free agent class we know, Scooble is the one one guy. He is the one A guy. You're probably trying to find that one B guy or that one C guy. And the options out there, you could look into a show to Emanaga. If someone like Drew Ress, Musin became an unrestricted free agent, he'd make a lot of sense. You also could look into someone like Michael King. I know he's got a club option coming up. They're not going to be cheap whatsoever. I want to be very out of character for the royals. The sign a guy like that, but they need a guy like that. And I'd rather them go the free agent route than give up a ton of prospects to go get a number one. As for the lineup, we kind of workshopped it before. I would say that your lead off hitter would be Garcia at third.

5:08You'd have Bobby in the two hole at short. You'd have Cags in right hitting third. You'd have a brand new cleanup hitter. My guess right now is, or the best one I could give you that I'm leaning toward his Taylor Ward. He would be your left fielder slash DH. Your five hole hitter would be Jensen. Your six hole hitter would be Pasquintino. Then you're probably looking at a new center fielder, maybe from the right side too, just because you don't want to put Massey in the seven hole because that would be three lefties in a row. So Massey would probably be second and hitting eighth. And then hitting ninth would be Isaac Collins type if he wasn't everyday player. So there's moving parts to that where I don't know if I could give you some of the smaller moves they'd make. But my gut tells me there will be a new left fielder, there will be a new center fielder, and there will be somebody that can DH quite a bit. I think they're going to try to upgrade the offense a little bit just to take some of the pressure off of the top guys in the first five spots in the order.

6:12Good question though. Burns, he's question. I got an autograph from five natural players, Spencer Nivens, Javier Vaz, Young Cheng-Um, Luke Pelzer, Cam Colossium, and do any of these guys stand out to you for reference. Charles was batting above 300 when I was there and a small sample size. I would say that Um is probably the guy that stands out a little bit just because catching depth has been tremendous in this organization. As for the rest of them, I'm not sure I see everyday bigleaguers. And really for all of them, it's going to be a long shot to be an everyday bigleaguer. They don't really have high prospect status or they're no longer in the top 30. But I'm not going to rule it out. I'm not going to rule it out that any of those guys could get to the big leagues at some point. I just haven't been keeping as close a tabs on them in 2026. My attention is kind of shifted more to the the arms and the bats that are in low A Columbia and high A Quad cities. Braden's question. I like the idea of Bobby and Cag's three and four instead of two and three.

7:14I feel this gives Bobby more RBI chances as well as putting your biggest power bet and the cleanup spot. I wouldn't hate it. But I've always taken the approach of your best hitter hits third. Is that Bobby? Is that Cag's? I would still say Bobby would junior, but Caglione is certainly closing that gap for 2026. Now long term, I would still say Bobby will be the better hitter. But this year, you can make a very good case that Caglione has been an all around better hitter. Next year, if you were to make that shift of just moving them down a spot each in the lineup, well then who's going to hit second and who's going to hit? Well, I guess you just be who's hitting second and who would be bumped out of the cleanup spot. I know in my roster prediction right there, I said there'd be a new cleanup hitter. I mean, Caglione would solve a lot of that and you could easily put a Carter Jensen in the two hole. That'd be a pretty nice one, two, three. If you had Garcia, Jensen, Bobby, Cag's and you go righty lefty, righty lefty, that

8:18makes a lot of sense there. So I wouldn't hate it. Certainly would not hate it if the Royals chose to go that route. Okay, we're going to move on to the next one and this is coming from Casey Preds fan. Does it realistically make sense to have all of Cag's, Jensen, Massey and Pasquantino on the same team next year? I really think it does because the Royals don't have the luxury of moving on from any of those guys. You'll probably hear JJ Piccolo say in the end of season press conference, we want to add not subtract in teams that go from 80 plus losses or let's call it 85 plus losses, which is going to be that wheelhouse of where I think they end up. The only way that you can be a playoff team the next year is if you add and not subtract. Michael Massey's been a gold glove second baseman and has been in above average back. When you do that next year, you can maybe hope for it but have some insurance behind it. Maybe that's Nick Lofton, maybe you bring in someone else.

9:18Vinnie Pasquantino has had the worst year of his career. There's no doubt about that. And I know you're probably more so getting at a bunch of lefties in the lineup. Well the only way that you can move on from one of them is if you go get a legitimate piece to replace them. If they were to go out and get tie france to play first base, gold glove first baseman, really good bat this year and then just bump Vinnie Pasquantino either off the roster to the bench, I guess you could do that. My gut tells me they're not going to. They are going to have Jensen, Michael, Bobby, Massey, Vinnie, Caglione, like those six, they're locked in. Those are the guys that I firmly expect to be on the opening day roster and on the opening day lineup. The other pieces, that's where it's up for debate. I want there to be a new center fielder. I want there to be a new left fielder. I want there to be a new DH. I want there to be a new opening day star. Somebody that's not currently in the organization. Those would be my big time moves to make early on in the off season.

10:20Spoon's his question. With Seth Lugo projected to get 175 innings this year, if he reaches 155 next year, 330 over two years, he has a vesting option for 2028. How worried should we be about that? I'm going to be pretty surprised if Seth Lugo is on this roster one way or another in 2028. It's very clear. This contract extension is just not working out. And now it's about trying to figure out how you can maximize his value. You heard us talk about it yesterday with Salvador Perez at this stage in his career. How can you get the best numbers out of him? Probably taking a lot of pressure off of him. He's no longer a cleanup bat. He's no longer an everyday player. Seth Lugo even a top four guy in your rotation anymore. Should you consider moving him to the bullpen? Your paying the money. I'd rather him be productive than just say, well, we're paying him to start. So he needs to start games. If we get the 2028, it might be one of those situations that we see a lot of teams do.

11:22You just have to eat the money because I do not expect the numbers to be that good going in the 2028. Okay, we're going to take our first break at the show. Then we come back to a lot of questions to get to next unlocked on Royals. College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. In this season, Fando was giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Back your favorite team, build the same game parlay, bet team props, or make your picks for biggest games of the weekend. And throughout the season, keep an eye on the Fando lap for even more ways to get rewarded. The full slate of college football every Saturday, there are plenty of opportunities to follow the games and find new ways to get involved. And I'm already looking ahead to a great slate of college football games that gave you a couple of picks the other day. Who would have thought too that UMass as a 30 point underdog would beat Rutgers out of the big 10 by double digits? That's what you just can't predict. Never would have thought Colorado would go into Atlanta and beat Georgia Tech.

12:23So I'm not always going to be right, but I can give you some picks along the way. I'm going to go with Virginia Tech to win big in the James Franklin opener. I've gone with some safer picks of just these buy games for a lot of teams, but at some point, it's probably going to bite me in the you know what. But I'm going to make those picks over on Fandals. So get started today by visiting fandall.com. Moving on to our second round of questions on lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast network. We're going to post Jack Johnson and stay tuned for the Lockdown Royals postcast later on this evening. That'll be hosted by our very own chance, Libo, and you can listen to him as long as we're still having games. And in the off season, chance will have his off season. As for us, not so much will still be doing five episodes a week until about the beginning of January. Next round of questions does begin with Brett has the emergence of Jensen and Cagley owns saved Zoom Waltz job. That is a really good question. And I've had that thought myself where can JJ Bicolo face the media at the end of the

13:27year and say, well, it wasn't a disaster offensively. We saw Carter Jensen and Jack Cagley own turn into really big time bats for the middle of our order or the top of our order. You've also seen regression from some guys and you've seen some players not be able to take that next step. I've stood by an opinion that I've had for the last couple of months. I do not believe that Alex Zumalt is going to be fired. I also do not believe he's going to be on the staff next year. Alex Zumalt, for those that forgot, he came from the front office. He was a very valued member of the front office. He was a big reason if you go back to 2015 when Lorenzo Cain scored from first to home, like he was one of the masterminds and doing the advanced scouting that Jose Bautista was going to throw the second base, which the Royals knew that in any spot like that, they were going to try to gamble with a fast runner if there was a ball down the line. And that's what won the Royals the game in the series back in 2015.

14:28He's still a very bright baseball mind. But when you do underperform, some move does have to happen. Whether that's player wise or that's coaching wise and coaching wise is always the easier way to go. And this isn't firing somebody. This is just reassigning him. Do they just hand the reins over to Connor Dawson and Marcus Tim's? I believe it was any Rogers that did an article on Jack Caguione and how Marcus Tim's was actually a big help in getting Jack Caguione these numbers this year. So those guys are probably going to be back next year. Well, it surprised me if Zumalt stays not really because I was pretty surprised that he was still on staff going into this year. But I believe he's still going to be in the organization and he's still a bright baseball mind and not everybody's cut out to be an assistant coach or a hitting coach. But that is the move that I kind of expect them to make if there are going to be any changes to the hitting staff. This one's from Zeus. How much of the pitching improvements next year come from internal versus free agency?

15:30A lot are going to come from free agency. I'm not sure there's many internal options you have anymore that are going to be ready to go by 2027. The bullpen is going to be overhauled by free agency. The starting rotation is going to get a workhorse likely through free agency. John Sherman is going to have to open up the wallet and spend a good amount of money. He can't go out there and tell the fan base you expect to compete, you expect to be a playoff team after what's happened this year and then just only make trades because the royals don't have an abundance of talent in the farm system to go in and make some of those big time trades or the trades that can move the needle for you. So yes, I would say that 90% of the team's improvement on the pitching side of things next year will come through free agency and not through internal options. That's all of our questions on Twitter. If I missed anybody just respond below to this video and I'll try to have it answered by Monday. This one is from Dave. Great to talk to you again.

16:30My most recent memory of mailbag Friday to you was that some dipsticks stated that the athletics were able to easily move on from Mason Miller, their closer. Oh, wait, that dipstick was me, but I digress my question on a rating between one and three who on a priority basis in your opinion should be granted extensions by the royals for an office to buy out some arbitration years and or free agent years. Here are the three players. Noah Cameron, Carter, Jensen, Jack Caglione. I would go Caglione, Jensen, Noah Cameron. I'm not sure they need to give Noah Cameron an extension or buy out those arbitration years. See what he is next year. And then you can have that conversation. Jack Caglione, somebody that I firmly believe needs to get an extension of some sorts this off season. He's just been one of the top offensive bats in the American League and you cannot wait one more year because I believe if I'm talking to you 365 days from now about Jack Caglione, he's going to be putting up ridiculous numbers again. He might have outpriced you when you're trying to spend a lot of money on the team already

17:32this off season. That seems like one of the moves that you can make and you'll be better off for it. This one's from Logan. Derand Haps Suzuki Ward. Could you see two of these three names on the team next year and it's so what would be your ideal combo? I love Ian Haps and I love Seiya Suzuki. Seiya Suzuki's really improved defensively and left field. They're not going to be cheap. Those are both 18 to 20 million a year type players. Ward would be cheaper which is why he was in my prediction and the Royals have had interest in Taylor Ward for a number of years. Jerand Iran is a fascinating case for me because Jerand Iran's been really bad for Boston this year. Offensively, he's actually been worse than Kyle Isbel. He also strikes me as a guy that just desperately needs a scenery change and no matter how this season ends up in Boston, they're going to be moving on from him. The Royals had interest in Jerand Iran. Would you go into this off season saying we want to upgrade left field and we're going

18:35to do it with a two year deal with Taylor Ward and we're going to upgrade center field and even though the numbers wouldn't tell you that, we're going to go acquire Jerand Iran for next to nothing to be our center fielder and hope that he can bounce back. I know a lot of people hate to bounce back term but if they're going to be spending the majority of their resources on pitching, starting and relief help, you're not going to be seeing those massive contracts offensively. The likely options would be Ward and Derand and if you did get any in half or say a Suzuki, I'm not sure there's a number two there. I'm not sure there's a second move that you do make. If you go get say a Suzuki or a half, you're probably not getting your front line start or your big time closer because they're going to be very, very expensive and have always had ties with the Chicago Cubs playing their their entire career. So the likely option, the more cost effective option and would generate a little bit of buzz would be Taylor Ward as your new left fielder and Jerand Iran going for a bounce back in

19:38Kansas City and that would be in center field. This one's coming from William. Do you think the Royals will want to give an extension to Jensen? So do you think the Royals can afford to keep Bobby Cags and Jensen around for the long haul? They absolutely can. Until the landscape and baseball changes, this comes down to the owner. If there's no salary cap, it comes down to what your owner is willing to spend. I'm also not tone deaf when it comes to, there's only so much money that can go around and even for billionaires, you can't just give out money to whoever left and right. You also have to be smart about these moves. Do you see Carter Jensen being a big time piece of your team five years from now? And that's why in the past when we've seen the Royals not give out extensions, we say well, I can't believe they didn't do that. I can't believe they didn't give Lorenzo Cain a true extension. They let the brewers pay for him. I can't believe they didn't penny up and they can go get or pony up, excuse me and get

20:38Eric Cosmer, right? When he went to San Diego, but they do look down the road and say, will this guy still be the same player for us? And they can't afford to keep all three of those guys, but it also depends on what those contracts look like and then what you're able to do with the rest of your roster. We're not going to see the Royals be top five and payroll maybe ever. And if there is a salary cap, maybe that changes things here. But the Royals this off season, if they wanted to extend both Jensen and Jack Caglione, they could get it done and still be able to add to this team. Will they do it? It just seems unlikely with all they have to do to improve this roster. Okay, that's going to do it for our second segment here on Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network. I've been your host, Jack Johnson. We're going to take our final break. When we come back, we'll wrap it up with the final set of questions on Lockdown Royals. This back to school season spend less on your kids with Amazon. We all know how crazy the back to school shopping experience can be. It starts with a few items on the list.

21:39Then suddenly you're shopping for supplies, clothes, lunch gear, tech, and about 10 other things you didn't see coming. It adds up incredibly fast. When the school says your child needs a calculator, headphones, tablet for the class, and somehow you're buying another one before the semester is halfway over. Since when did kids need so much tech just for third grade? When your kid spends days planning the perfect first day of school outfit because they want to make a first great impression, you end up putting almost as much thought into it as they do. At least the first day of photos can be worth it. So remember, with Amazon's low back to school prices to spend less on your kids because every all you don't spend on them is at all you haven't spent on them. Shot back to school at Amazon and spend less on your kids. Rapping up this mailbag Friday episode of Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network, I am your host, Jack Johnson. We're going to start the final segment with Zesty. Do you think Salvador Perez should be brought on as a coach once he wants to retire?

22:41I wouldn't hate it. It just needs to be more of a minor role. Because at the end of the day, he doesn't have any coaching experience. I would love to know when he does retire what the coaches say about his ability to coach. He's a baseball lifer. Salvador Perez, when he's done playing the game, is going to be a coach at some point. He's a catcher. Pretty much all catchers end up coaching one way or another. Would he want to be a manager or would he want to stay in the big leagues? That would be fascinating for me is Salvador Perez's future outlook as a coach. Does he want to manage? And it's so as he willing to go down to Quad cities and manage there. Does he want to take some time away from baseball and then come back? When guys retire, they do want to step away just for a little bit. They want to go spend time with family. They want to be with their kids. They want to be able to take a breather for the first time in a really long time. And Salvador Perez strikes me as a guy that will take some time off.

23:41Then when he wants to return, you can evaluate that. Does he have any head coaching experience? Did he go and did he coach in the minor leagues? Does he want to be an instructor? Does he want to be a bench coach? Being a bench coach would be very valuable. Being a catching coach would be very valuable. So yes, I do see him being a Royals coach some way somehow down the road. Will he ever be a manager? It would be a long time before I could get to that point just because he's going to need some managerial experience before he gets that job. At least that's what I would hope. I'm not always a fan of players just jumping into a managerial role when they've never been a manager before. It's not as easy as people make it out to be. David's question, actually, no. I skipped Coach RP ranked the following teams at the end of 2028. The Royals, the Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Marlins, and the Las Vegas Athletics. Man, really looking ahead here. I am going to say the bottom of that list will be the Angels.

24:41They just always seem like a team that's going to be terrible. I will then say the Marlins. The Marlins have a lot of young talent. They just rarely spend and they don't generate a lot of revenue from attendance. Then I'll go with the athletics because I think in going to Vegas that first year they're going to try to pump some money into the team. I know they've already spent a ton of money to get to Vegas, but that's really a way you open up a shiny new stadium and a shiny new city. Then I will say the Royals and then I'll go with the White Sox. The White Sox and their Chris Guets, they appear to be this team now that have the young talent and are willing to make the moves. They were aggressive, I will say, the deadline not overly aggressive, but they're trying to already put the chips in a little bit this year to go and win the division and make a playoff push. A lot of the guys that are on their roster are still going to be there two years from now. That's a good question though. I try to do my best and looking ahead and predicting the future and knowing how often I'm right, I'm probably not going to be very accurate with this.

25:42That was very much sarcastic and how often I'm ever right. I feel like I'm always snake-bidden when it comes to predicting the future. Williams' question, when Lugo gave up on that play to first, Perez should have got in his face. Someone said that Salvi being the captain is just a ceremonial title. This would have been the other night's game, game two. Yeah, Seth Lugo clearly or was that that would have been on Sunday. Yeah, Sunday when Seth Lugo was melting down, I'm not sure that getting in someone's face, when not getting over like having a mental lapse, Warren's getting chewed out on the field. I'm a big believer in that if players need to handle something, then you handle it in the dugout, you handle it in the clubhouse. You don't handle it on the field where all of the cameras are. That honestly, if that would have happened, it would have been a bad look for Salvi Rob Perez. Whoever told you that it's just ceremonial, that's incredibly off base and just wrong,

26:43too. If you see this team gravitates towards Salvi Rob Perez and always has, that is a title that was 100% earned. You can tell that every free agent that comes here, every young player that comes up, Salvi's the first guy they mentioned when they talk about who are you most excited to play alongside. Now you'll get Bobby and Cags because they're becoming more of those star pieces, but Salvi Rob Perez has always mentioned. He is the captain of this team. He holds guys accountable and even though you may not see it on the field in moments like that, it's handled behind closed doors because that's what captains do. Captains are going to chew their guy out in the field when they make a mental mistake. Seth Lugo usually gets that play done right. If your argument would be, well that's exactly why you chew him out because he always does make that play and he didn't and he wasn't pitching well, there's just better ways to handle it. You're really upset at him and you guys are getting your butts kicked. You can go in the dugout afterward and when the cameras aren't on you say, hey, just

27:45because you're pitching poorly, doesn't mean you get to take plays off. That's how you handle it. Getting in someone's face chewing them out, berating them, that's not really the way to go about it, but no. I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement of he got the captains past just because it's ceremonious and no it's Salvi Rob Perez. No, he very much earned it based on the respect of his teammates and the respect of the coaching staff. Mac Quattrero, who's only coached the guy since 2023, get choked up when talking about Salvador Perez reaching the milestone, getting the standing ovation back at Copman Stadium after passing George Brett. That doesn't just, and we know Mac Quattrero is not a highly emotional guy, it shows you what he means to this team, this city and this organization. He's earned it and in that case, a real captain is going to handle it. He's stern with him, if you really feel like he's dogging it and he's not given 100% handle it when the cameras are not on you, take him down in the clubhouse or just go talk to him on the bench.

28:45You just don't need to choose somebody out for a play like that. I think it would have been truly uncalled for, but maybe that's just my opinion and other people would disagree with me. This one looks like we've got oh, five more so I need to move a little bit quicker here. It's coming from Ricky. If you can only fill one position, which do you choose left field or center field? I would say left field will be easier, but they really need to find that future center fielder in my opinion. Kyle Lisbels had his run out there. He can still be on the team next year, but mainly as a fourth out fielder. Left field is probably what I'll lean to just because I think it actually is the position they are going to try to upgrade. Armageddon Sports asked what do you think of the YouTube ads? MLB is running to promote a salary cap. I haven't really paid that close of attention to it. A salary cap, I believe, would help baseball. I also believe a salary floor would help baseball that you get some of these teams out of the gutter and trying to compete because it is possible. No team can ever tell me that you can't spend money because you're not there yet.

29:47We saw the White Sox spend some money and go out there and probably win this division, but you also see Team Mike the Rays that are always bottom 10, bottom five and payroll, and they have one of the best records in all of baseball this year. Anti-question should the Royals move Seth Lugo to the bullpen in 2027. If he does not start the season well on April, then you got to consider it. Think about Ian Kennedy back in 2019. He was no longer cutting it as a starter. They gave him the closures role and he got 30 saves that year. I want a best version of Seth Lugo. Is that in the rotation? Is that in the bullpen? We're going to find out soon enough, but no, I am not on board of just because you're paying him the money. He has to start games. If he's not effective, then I would like to see him move to the bullpen. Spoon's his question. Do you really think a manager and team that have kept Salvy as the cleanup hitter all year will make him a bench piece next year? You actually think they will bench Salvy? I wouldn't look at it as benching. Like it's, yeah, it's technically a demotion, but every player goes through this and yeah, I don't believe he's going to be an everyday player next year.

30:50I believe he's going to be on the team. I believe he's only going to play about 90 to 100 games next year. You want to keep him as fresh as possible. Carter's now this team's everyday catcher and they're going to need to upgrade the offense a little bit. They're not going to have him hitting cleanup next year. The only reason he's hitting cleanup right now is because you've had a couple of injuries and the offense has been playing better of late and he has been hitting in the forehole. But yeah, I actually do whether I'm right or wrong and I just poked fun at myself of being wrong more often than not. I don't see Salvador Perez being this team's everyday cleanup hitter in 2027. And lastly, Matt's question, since Carter, Homer, to get on Thursday, who will have more homers at the end of the season, Carter or Cags? I'm still going to go with Jack Caglione. I forgot to ask both of them. We talked to them in the clubhouse last night after the win. If there was any competition about a race for 30 and they would have downplayed it and said, no, we're just focusing on putting together good at bats. But my money would be on Jack Caglione. I feel like he's due for another home run surge and Carter Jensen might cool off on

31:52the homers just a little bit. But that was a tremendous series against Miami for Carter Jensen. And man, I'm really hoping that's what I'm looking for. Can both these guys get the 30 before the end of the season? All right, that's going to do it for another edition of Lockdown Royals and the Lockdown Podcast Network. I've been your host, Jack Johnson. Now on video, we send you to the first ever 24-7 YouTube channel on MLB and on audio, check out Lockdown MLB Game Night for your second listen. Until Monday, you take it easy Kansas City. Water usually wins. It warps in Rott's wood. It pulls it apart bored by bored. Unless you build with treks. Treks Marine Gray decking is 100% submersible for docs. Built to last, it resists Rott warping and decay in salt and fresh water. For homeowners, that means care free days on the water, not constant maintenance. For builders, it means trusted performance that minimizes callbacks. Water has met its match, treks decking, performance engineered for your life outdoors. Visit treks.com slash docs.

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