00:00:11
Speaker 1: Here we go. The official show is back. Eli Sussman here, the managing editor of fish Stripes. This show appearing on our fish Stripes podcast feed wherever you get your pods, as well as on fishstripes dot com. These solo episodes, as usual, presented by Symbol the Stock Market for Sports. Myle my, what a difference a single week could make. At this time last week, we couldn't even bear and stomach the thought of talking about the Marlins major league team. It had gotten that ugly poor performances across the board, and just some concerns that they could fade out of contention in record time despite all the expectations of improvement heading into twenty twenty one. And since then, it's gone almost perfectly. This road trip that they're wrapping up here on Jackie Robinson Day against the Braves. I'm recording this right before the afternoon season series finale. You're probably going to be listening it to it right after the game or the following day. They are playing with house money heading into this series finale with Trevor Rodgers.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: On the mound.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: You like to win it. You'd like to sweep the Braves. They've never swept the Atlanta Braves in a four game series. Ever, so that would be great regardless, I don't think that takes any of the shine away from what's been a very encouraging turnaround for this team. This will be a positive show. As you can see from the episode of the show, the main subject Jazz Chisholm Junior, who is very immediately vaulting to the top tier of not only recognizable and popular Marlins players, but potentially one of the faces of the game. I don't think there's another team in baseball with swag like the Miami Marlins. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. I have plenty to talk about with him and my stances on him coming up the appetizer, Jazz is going to be the one other player on the Marlins active roster who has clearly exceeded my expectations. So what do I mean by that? Just guys that their performance through the first couple weeks of the season really goes beyond what I thought they were capable of doing at this particular stage of their career. So a Jazz, I thought it may be too early for him to reach this all star caliber level of production and with Dylan Floro. I wasn't sure that he'd be able to sustain what he's did with the Los Angeles Dodgers, his previous team, and instead he has improved upon that pitching better than ever in the Marlins bullpen as probably their eighth ending guy, their main setup guy for the moment, as a refresher, acquired from the Dodgers in and off season trade pretty close to the start of spring training, a two for one trade, if I remember correctly, with them sending Alex Vessia and Kyle Hurt to the Dodgers. Hurt more of a throw in VESSI as someone who had dominated throughout the Marlins minor league levels, and at the time I liked the move. I thought Flora was a safe bet to outperform Vessia at least for this year, if not for the next couple of years. And he's someone who's affordable, who's very experienced. He was in that Dodgers bullpen throughout the twenty twenty season, a two point five to nine ERA last year, and peripherals that mostly back that up only allowed one home run in twenty four and a third innings pitched. I likened his pitch mix to a rich man's Brandon Kinseler. There were some similarities there between him and the former Marlins closer, except flora more affordable, three years of control. But even with that optimism about him in some faith that he can improve what was a very inconsistent Marlins bullpen last year, this just goes beyond anything he could have thought. Digging into the stat cast data as we like to do here, he is in the ninetieth percentile or better out of ten guys can't reach this level in a variety of these peripheral stats, the average exit of velocity that he allows, the hard hit rate that he allows, the expected batting average, the expected slugging percentage, and he's nearly there in his strikeout rate two. Overall, his more traditional numbers, hasn't allowed an earned run in his seven appearances six and a third NX pitched one extremely unearned run. I'll say not all unearned runs are created the same, but this is one that for sure should not have been on his ledger. And overall, just two base runners allowed by himself in his appearances so far out of the Marlins pen, very quickly earning the trust of Don Mattingly in this setup role.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: And the pitch he chased up and out of his own Floro retires o zooth sand of all in that now Floro strikes out Swanson.
00:04:52
Speaker 1: How is he doing it? It looks a little bit different than what we saw from Brandon Kinsler last year because the stuff plays up a little more or same kind of stuff he had last year for the Dodgers, a fastball that averages over ninety three miles per hour with his sinker and his four steamer. He mixes in his change up and his slider. What stands out, what's making him even better than ever to this point, is that his command is the most important pitch that you make in almost any played appearance is usually the first pitch of a played appearance. We got into that a little bit last week talking about the Marlins offense and how they were passing up on too many opportunities to do damage against first pitches, and with Floro, if you're patient like that, he will make you pay. So far, this year, first pitch strike percentage seventy three percent of his plade appearances first career, he's been all right at that sixty one percent the league average during that span. A little over sixty percent. This is taking it to an entirely new level. The fact that he has really four distinct pitches if you separate the four seemer from the sinker, that he's throwing all them in a various counts and throwing it to both handed batters as well, that he is keeping you guessing and he's simply just throwing it in the zone. He's not getting people to chase out of the zone and really not getting many very swings and misses. There were a few in his most recent appearance against the Braves that we saw, and he has that potential overall. He's someone that just expertly manages the quality of contact against him enough variety of his pitches and in a good rhythm with the way that he's selecting them that hitters don't see what's coming and they're unable to square up the ball. As we'll get into a Jazz. What Jazz is doing so well, that's so enthralling to everybody is his ability to get it on the barrel, and Floro is just the opposite. He has not allowed a barrel all season long to this point, coming off a year where he was excellent in that regard. The main reason why there was some apprehension about acquiring Floro is simply his circumstances. That he was coming from the Dodgers. He was affordable, Like I said, this year, his salary right around one million dollars, not even that high with multiple years of control remaining. The Dodgers are a franchise that has plenty of star power, but just as importantly, they're one that has been so consistently successful on the strength of their depth at so many positions. Why would they want to get rid of this guy who is still in the middle of his club control years, coming off a good year for them where they trusted him en route to winning the World Series title and getting unproven players in return. That the only theory I had is that they thought Flora's best days could be behind him, that for some reason that we were missing there was a drop off coming, and it's been just the opposite. So far. He has been terrific. He does it in an unorthodox style as well. If you see the way he sets up on the mounds and right before going into his delivery. That's fun to which he's been a great addition to this pen. The ones carrying this bullpen essentially have been Jimmy Garcia and Dylan Floro. There just those two on their own, with some contributions from Adam Simber and lately John Curtis seems to be rounding into form as well. That is the potential to be solid. But for the most part, they're just biding their time until these next wave of pitching prospects come up as a reinforcements guys that could actually get some more swings and misses. That's the one thing Floro isn't doing, and yet he is making himself a success in spite of that. Before we go into our big star at the moment, Jessism Junior reminder that here on the Fish Drips podcast, we are celebrating one month of partnership with Symbol, first of many many months we hope it symbols where you trade sports seems like stocks and earn cash payouts when your teams win. Symbol has blended sports and the stock markets offer you a new way to invest and profit off your sports knowledge. More than two thousand early adopters have started investing already in their favorite teams Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA. So you visit www dot symbol dot app simbull dot app to create a free account. Please use the promo code fish stripes all one word for a ten dollars bonus on your first deposit. Current share price of sim Marlin's twenty seven dollars and thirty five cents. It keeps going up because they keep winning, and it will continue to go up when they continue to keep winning later on this year. Is the easiest investment to make early on in the Major League Baseball season. Visit symbol dot app use the promo code fish stripes for a ten dollar deposit bonus. To help build your portfolio, invest in what you know, invest in sports, invest in Jazz Chisholm Junior. Everybody seems to be doing that. They don't need they don't need my selling to do that. To get in on Jazz, who's been the Marlins' main second baseman this year. And as I'm recording this, on Jackie Robinson day, the starting shortstop for the Marlins in place of Miguel Rojas on occasion, he is going to be playing just about every single day. And that was something that looked questionable as recently as a month and a half ago. He was in that competition with Isan Diez for the second base job coming out of camp is someone that had more formal minor league experience and higher level minor league success, and Jazz simply outperformed him. We saw some incredible things in spring training, and we saw incredible things last year. I've never been a Jazz skeptic. He's someone that I always believed could potentially be one of the better players on this team, and certainly someone who I thought was the better candidate to break camp with the team coming out of spring training. We saw flashes of him last year, honestly more than flashes, because I want to be clear about that, with almost all these former top prospects that the Marlins have had passed through the organization these past few years, all of them have some type of flashes.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: Right.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: Even Esan had that flash in his very first major league game, homering off Jacob de Gram. Now Jazz has matched him in that department as well, just a few days ago. Even before that, looking back to twenty twenty, I mean, the surface numbers were not good. He hit one sixty one a two point forty two on base three twenty one slugging, and the strikeout rate was a little bit too high, but you could see in the quality of his play Apparents's ability to discern different pitch types and balls and strikes. You could see it certainly in his base running aggressiveness and his just fluidity on the basis. You could see it in his defense for sure. This is someone who has been a very highly regarded prospect for several years now, even before acquired from the Diamondbacks via trade, and he played almost exclusively shortstop throughout the minor leagues. Even though second base is moving down the defensive spectrum, it's the opposite side of the field, it's different angles. It's a big adjustment for a player that had been locked in at one position and still projects to be a short stop moving forward no matter what team he's on. It's been an adjustment, or it should have been a difficult adjustment, and he has handled it very smoothly going back to twenty twenty, and you could see it in spring training that on the defensive side he can help you win games in a way that a lot of other second basemen can. So that's a very important edge that the Marlins essentially have two shortstops starting alongside each other in the middle of their infield, a key reason why I've been very high on the potential of this Marlins infield defense overall here in twenty twenty one. Of course, what you want to talk about now is the offense and especially the hitting recording this heading into Thursday, which will be his tenth game of the season. Through his first nine games, he's hitting two fifty nine, but with a four hundred on base percentage a six thirty slugging that's a ten to thirty OPS. You remember the last time the Barlins had any hitter come close to a one thousand OPS, it was of course, Gean Carlos Stanton winning the National League MVP. So we're pumping the brakes on Jazz reaching that potential right now. Put so much to like, so much to like. On Wednesday in the Marlins win against the Braves, Jazz hit a home run and he stole base in the same game, the first time he's done that in the majors. It will not be the last. That's the type of stuff that on the most basic level draws people in right when they make those athletic blaze. And he went so deep to center field against Charlie Morden for that three run homer.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: This is Jazz with a high fly ball deep center field at cr turns and looks. It's a three run homer for Jazz, Jazz and Junior and absolutely no doubt or to center field.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: And then he stole third base, not just any base, but still third base as part of a double steal later on in the game. I've told you I have not been skeptical of Jazz. I just didn't want him to overshadow John Birdie. For example, John Berdie being the guy the last few years that has quietly been the best on bass guy for the Marlins and the best base runner for the Marlins, and he made this roster as essentially the fallback at second base, someone that as is the case here on Jackie Robinson Day, starting at second with Jazz at shortstop, and who's very versatile and who really helps you win games. That's the bottom line, helping me win games right now. As confident as people worry about Jazz, it's not too often that rookie players dramatically help you win games in their rookie seasons. It takes a little bit of time. The Marlins have been patient with a lot of these young players, some who have frankly flopped and others like Sandy al Contra who keep improving and improving and improving, now becoming a cornerstone of this team. Brian Anderson, his first cup of coffee in the majors wasn't so great, and he's just been a little bit better every single year, and that he's now established as a very reliable everyday player. Sometimes it takes time, which as it has not taken that much time that first year, sixty two play appearances, and already this year he's back on track. Like you can focus on the small sample size, I think it is more useful to simply combine the numbers. You want to put a little bit more weight on what he's doing this year. But the overall career numbers to this point a one to ninety three betting average, a seven to twenty one ops and that's nothing to sneeze at seven twenty one when you're playing for the Marlins home games at lone Depot Park, that's about a league average hitter for someone we already know is a plus base runner and a plus defender Like that's that's not nothing to scoff at. He that is a guy that if he continues simply doing that moving forward, then the Marlins have a useful player and they salvage something from what was a very controversial trade sending away Zach Gallen to the Diamondbacks. The other side of this, of course, is that Jazz is the model teammates and the model ambassador for baseball. I don't even use that lightly. He is everything that you want from a Major League Baseball player right now, especially in a market that struggles to draw casual fans, that doesn't have that deep rooted fan base that's been passed through the generations and even this year. Things have been going well lately, but a team that I don't think anybody expects to realistically contend for the World Series, that you need a little something that goes beyond the performance to draw you in. Jazz has all that.
00:16:51
Speaker 2: Got to keep going on just calming him. Hi, Mama, so I love Let me finish.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: Earlier today, a new episode of the R two C two podcast that's hosted by a future Hall of Famer Cesi Sabathia and Ryan Ruco based. A lot of Yankees lean to that podcast, but it's a national international show. One of the more popular sports podcasts that there is, and Jazz was an amazing guest on that show. I loved, loved the segment in there where he calls out Zach Gallon where he says, at first, he tries to deflect, doesn't think about the trade much that he doesn't really keep tabs on what Gallen is doing out in Arizona. And yet there are two series coming up between the Marlins and the Diamondbacks in May, and he's already had those circles on his calendar. And he says, quote, he says he wants Zach to stay healthy because he cannot wait for them to go head to head in that matchup. Let me get the exact quote. It was a beauty. I'm not gonna lie to you, he says. The one thing I really do want to do is take him deep facing me. It's going to be a mother bleep in when I get there. That he is so good at selling the game and selling himself and doing it very genuinely. He does have this kind of amazing confidence. You've heard it even before he made the majors, even before this season when he finally has all this tangible success in Major League games. He thinks he can do almost anything. He thinks he can hit any pitch, he can hit to gram at one hundred miles per hour. He could steal bases anytime he wants to. That. You can't teach that man, and the Marlins have been missing that. They've had other guys with similar potential who have not put it all together. And Jazz thinks that way, and he talks that way. He has the support of Derek Cheeter as well. That's something we can't overlook. May get tired of this story by now. That was originally Craig Mish reporting that Jeter hands selected Jazz. Saw Jazz at the twenty nineteen Arizona Fall League, where almost all the great Major League prospects congregate in a usual year for some competition, and must have been the twenty eighteen Arizona Fall League actually, because the trade was made in July of twenty nineteen, So first Arizona Fall League for Jeter up close as a Marlins executive and saw him there and was smitten by him there. Now that they're in the same organization, Jeter being someone that has personally reached out to him and been in steady contact with him to help him through this process, seeing a little bit of himself in Jazz. I love it. I love it, and the fact that Jazz is still so eager to hit him up to get tips from him and actually seek his guidance, understanding that, of course, Jeter has one of the best careers ever for a shortstop, quite the same skill set with Jazz, but he wants it, man, he wants he wants it all, and he's determined to get there, to be himself in the process, and of course doing so on social media as well, trying to be as accessible as possible and to take every compliment that he gets. He really does feed off of that type of stuff. It's hard to put to really quantify that how important it is that they're playing with fans in person this year, limited fans, of course, some restrictions being spread out. I think Jazz is someone more than anybody else that has really benefited for things returning to semi normalcy in games. That may be a reason why the numbers in his first call up didn't blow you away, and all the tools are still there and he's still doing the same things but having more success with it now that he has that crowd in person now that he can really taste what it's like being a major league what he's been pursuing this whole time, and it keeps him going, even on the road, even when there's not very many Marlins fans. He feeds off the opposition as well. It's really been fantastic. This team desperately needed it. With that being said, I've been one just trying to pump the brakes a little bit. This is still such a small sample size that ordaining him as the face of the team, one of the faces of the league, and as a superstar. See that's the word. I've been seeing a lot that gives me pause and that I can endorse that he's a superstar after thirty major league regular season games with someone that's been overall, if you're being generous, a league average hitter for his major league careers so far. He's not a superstar yet. He's got that potential. He's the youngest guy on a young Marlins team, and he's leading the team in a variety of categories. He's leading the team in OPS and in slugging, and in his average exit velocity, and more so than anything else, this is the number that blows you away. Is his barrel rate. I tweeted this out earlier here on Thursday morning, that he is ranked number two in baseball, not on the Marlins, but in all of baseball in barrel rate, the percentage of batted balls that he gets on the barrel as measured by the exit velocity and the launch angle. Five total barrels this year, that is a twenty seven point eight percent barrel rate, trailing only Nelson Cruise, the ageless Masher Nelson Cruise by less than one percent in that category. And you saw it. That's how he gets his home runs, and that's how he gets his other extra base hits as well as when he barrows a ball. And he can do it to all fields too. That's what really excites you to dead center to right center, to Wright and even the opposite field. That he has that type of power in a surprisingly compact package, not a big package at all. That he's able to do all this, you can't teach that. In the combination of that and the plate discipline. He has a twenty percent walk rate entering this game today. You just look at the barrel rate in the walk rate and nothing else, and that is such a strong foundation for a player. That's it's Juan Soto. That's what Juan Soto does. That's what any great hitter that you can think of, that's what Mike Trout does. It's a very short list of unanimously regarding great hitters, and the key to them are they crush the ball consistently, and when they don't get pitches to hit, they're able to get on base and make an impact that way. There's a limit to his tools. So far, we've seen him move very fast, and he's an interesting guy because I refer to lots to stat cast. In the one category where he doesn't quite blow you away as much as you would think is his sprint speed, where he averages twenty eight point two feet per second on sprint speed that's almost identical to what he had in the majors last year. League average is right around twenty seven, maybe a little bit lower than twenty seven this early in the season, and they consider elite right around thirty feet per second, so he's in the middle. Like he's good. It does stand out a little bit more eighty eight percent tile which are very good, but it's not it's not like a otherworldly athlete. It's it's such a small sample, which is why I don't want to make blanket statements about exactly who he is and to say that his numbers early on this season are completely sustainable, I don't think they're completely sustainable, at least not for this year. Because it's good tools, it's really great tools, but it's not otherworldly in terms of his sprint speed. In terms of his max exit velocity on average, he it's the ball harder than any other Marlins player, but he's maxing out right around one eleven, one twelve. When he really crushes the ball, that's great. You do that almost any time, and you're going to get a hit out of it. At the same time, it's it's nothing we haven't seen before, you know. It's that's what Jorgel Farrow does when al Farrow really gets it on the barrel. That's what Garrett Cooper actually does right around that same exit velocity range, when he really gets all the baseball. It's great, and especially for a middle infielder, that's I guess what gets you most excited is that he is having this offensive tear and he's doing it at a premium up the middle position. A second base is pretty important, and we know that he could play shortstop, as he's already done a couple of times this season. That establishes such a relatively high floor for who he is. I just want you guys to keep in mind, of course, the cautionary tales that Marlins have gone after a lot of toolsy young players during this rebuild, and with the exception of Jazz, none of them on the hitting side I've panned out none of them. So at the same time, that gets people to cling to Jazz as yes, we took this gamble and it's working out. But these are also play that can be inconsistent because of the holes in their swing. In the case of Jazz, could be over aggressive on pitches up in the zone, and sometimes he gets all of them and hits it off to Grom at one hundred miles per hour. Most of the times he swings through those type of pitches, and that's when he gets into situations where he makes unproductive outs and he might worry a little bit about the on bass skills. It's going to be such a fascinating process throughout the season to watch him grow, to watch the ups and to watch the downs. But there will be a lot of ups. There is currently an up right now based on what he's shown in such a small sample. I think this is something we can all agree on that he has earned himself a very long leash to validate it and keep it going. He mentioned on the R two C two pod about enterings from trending for the first time in his professional career, feeling like he has to compete for something that he wasn't already assigned, something wasn't didn't earn it directly coming into camp, that he actually had to perform to get this job, and how unfamiliar that was for him. And it happens even more so once you are actually in the major leagues. You're always always working to validate yourself and to keep going. If you struggle for an extended period of time, no matter who you are, that there will be repercussions for that. To this point, he's just shown this very rare combination of tools and at a position that the Marlins have been struggling to fill for a couple of years. Now that we're going to see so much of him this year, and I think that's something we could all celebrate seeing more of his blue hair or whatever color it is he goes to later in the season, and his confidence, his celebrations and his interactions with the fans. He is someone that really is a hands on figure trying to grow the game, someone who invests his time in growing the game. That you don't hold a lot of players responsible for doing that, but when they do, that just makes them all the more lovable. And so I can understand why there's been such a strong immediate attraction of this fan base towards him, and I'm excited to see it unfold right up there with the Dylan Floro that in terms of these guys that have truly exceeded my expectations through this early portion of the season in order to keep the Marlins in the mix here where they're looking like a very capable team early on. Once again wishing you a happy Jackie Robinson Day. I hope you enjoyed seeing number forty two on the field for the Marlins here on Thursday, and they'll be wearing it again on Friday when they actually host the Giants. Doubling up on this great holiday, celebrating breaking the color barrier and allowing amazing people like Jazz into this game. That's been such a blessing that we have these variety of cultures and personalities in baseball to make it great, to make it a higher level of competition than we've ever had before. We'll have our small pod again on Friday morning, just tomorrow. You don't have to wait very long to get a recap of that Thursday game and a preview to the upcoming home stands on our small pods. So make sure you're subscribing to Fish Stripes wherever you get your pods so that you can keep up with everything going on with this Marlins team. We'll have our live streams going previewing every single series, So on Friday, late afternoon early evening, we'll have another live stream looking ahead to the Giant series. You could catch it on Twitter, on YouTube, on twitch, and we always appreciate your suggestions if you have any more ideas for more content you'd like to see outside of our pods and our streams and our written analysis and our news coverage and our Marlin's history celebrations that we're all ears that will do it. For this episode of the official show, Go Fish the indept who can be helped
Speaker 1: Here we go. The official show is back. Eli Sussman here, the managing editor of fish Stripes. This show appearing on our fish Stripes podcast feed wherever you get your pods, as well as on fishstripes dot com. These solo episodes, as usual, presented by Symbol the Stock Market for Sports. Myle my, what a difference a single week could make. At this time last week, we couldn't even bear and stomach the thought of talking about the Marlins major league team. It had gotten that ugly poor performances across the board, and just some concerns that they could fade out of contention in record time despite all the expectations of improvement heading into twenty twenty one. And since then, it's gone almost perfectly. This road trip that they're wrapping up here on Jackie Robinson Day against the Braves. I'm recording this right before the afternoon season series finale. You're probably going to be listening it to it right after the game or the following day. They are playing with house money heading into this series finale with Trevor Rodgers.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: On the mound.
00:01:15
Speaker 1: You like to win it. You'd like to sweep the Braves. They've never swept the Atlanta Braves in a four game series. Ever, so that would be great regardless, I don't think that takes any of the shine away from what's been a very encouraging turnaround for this team. This will be a positive show. As you can see from the episode of the show, the main subject Jazz Chisholm Junior, who is very immediately vaulting to the top tier of not only recognizable and popular Marlins players, but potentially one of the faces of the game. I don't think there's another team in baseball with swag like the Miami Marlins. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. I have plenty to talk about with him and my stances on him coming up the appetizer, Jazz is going to be the one other player on the Marlins active roster who has clearly exceeded my expectations. So what do I mean by that? Just guys that their performance through the first couple weeks of the season really goes beyond what I thought they were capable of doing at this particular stage of their career. So a Jazz, I thought it may be too early for him to reach this all star caliber level of production and with Dylan Floro. I wasn't sure that he'd be able to sustain what he's did with the Los Angeles Dodgers, his previous team, and instead he has improved upon that pitching better than ever in the Marlins bullpen as probably their eighth ending guy, their main setup guy for the moment, as a refresher, acquired from the Dodgers in and off season trade pretty close to the start of spring training, a two for one trade, if I remember correctly, with them sending Alex Vessia and Kyle Hurt to the Dodgers. Hurt more of a throw in VESSI as someone who had dominated throughout the Marlins minor league levels, and at the time I liked the move. I thought Flora was a safe bet to outperform Vessia at least for this year, if not for the next couple of years. And he's someone who's affordable, who's very experienced. He was in that Dodgers bullpen throughout the twenty twenty season, a two point five to nine ERA last year, and peripherals that mostly back that up only allowed one home run in twenty four and a third innings pitched. I likened his pitch mix to a rich man's Brandon Kinseler. There were some similarities there between him and the former Marlins closer, except flora more affordable, three years of control. But even with that optimism about him in some faith that he can improve what was a very inconsistent Marlins bullpen last year, this just goes beyond anything he could have thought. Digging into the stat cast data as we like to do here, he is in the ninetieth percentile or better out of ten guys can't reach this level in a variety of these peripheral stats, the average exit of velocity that he allows, the hard hit rate that he allows, the expected batting average, the expected slugging percentage, and he's nearly there in his strikeout rate two. Overall, his more traditional numbers, hasn't allowed an earned run in his seven appearances six and a third NX pitched one extremely unearned run. I'll say not all unearned runs are created the same, but this is one that for sure should not have been on his ledger. And overall, just two base runners allowed by himself in his appearances so far out of the Marlins pen, very quickly earning the trust of Don Mattingly in this setup role.
00:04:43
Speaker 2: And the pitch he chased up and out of his own Floro retires o zooth sand of all in that now Floro strikes out Swanson.
00:04:52
Speaker 1: How is he doing it? It looks a little bit different than what we saw from Brandon Kinsler last year because the stuff plays up a little more or same kind of stuff he had last year for the Dodgers, a fastball that averages over ninety three miles per hour with his sinker and his four steamer. He mixes in his change up and his slider. What stands out, what's making him even better than ever to this point, is that his command is the most important pitch that you make in almost any played appearance is usually the first pitch of a played appearance. We got into that a little bit last week talking about the Marlins offense and how they were passing up on too many opportunities to do damage against first pitches, and with Floro, if you're patient like that, he will make you pay. So far, this year, first pitch strike percentage seventy three percent of his plade appearances first career, he's been all right at that sixty one percent the league average during that span. A little over sixty percent. This is taking it to an entirely new level. The fact that he has really four distinct pitches if you separate the four seemer from the sinker, that he's throwing all them in a various counts and throwing it to both handed batters as well, that he is keeping you guessing and he's simply just throwing it in the zone. He's not getting people to chase out of the zone and really not getting many very swings and misses. There were a few in his most recent appearance against the Braves that we saw, and he has that potential overall. He's someone that just expertly manages the quality of contact against him enough variety of his pitches and in a good rhythm with the way that he's selecting them that hitters don't see what's coming and they're unable to square up the ball. As we'll get into a Jazz. What Jazz is doing so well, that's so enthralling to everybody is his ability to get it on the barrel, and Floro is just the opposite. He has not allowed a barrel all season long to this point, coming off a year where he was excellent in that regard. The main reason why there was some apprehension about acquiring Floro is simply his circumstances. That he was coming from the Dodgers. He was affordable, Like I said, this year, his salary right around one million dollars, not even that high with multiple years of control remaining. The Dodgers are a franchise that has plenty of star power, but just as importantly, they're one that has been so consistently successful on the strength of their depth at so many positions. Why would they want to get rid of this guy who is still in the middle of his club control years, coming off a good year for them where they trusted him en route to winning the World Series title and getting unproven players in return. That the only theory I had is that they thought Flora's best days could be behind him, that for some reason that we were missing there was a drop off coming, and it's been just the opposite. So far. He has been terrific. He does it in an unorthodox style as well. If you see the way he sets up on the mounds and right before going into his delivery. That's fun to which he's been a great addition to this pen. The ones carrying this bullpen essentially have been Jimmy Garcia and Dylan Floro. There just those two on their own, with some contributions from Adam Simber and lately John Curtis seems to be rounding into form as well. That is the potential to be solid. But for the most part, they're just biding their time until these next wave of pitching prospects come up as a reinforcements guys that could actually get some more swings and misses. That's the one thing Floro isn't doing, and yet he is making himself a success in spite of that. Before we go into our big star at the moment, Jessism Junior reminder that here on the Fish Drips podcast, we are celebrating one month of partnership with Symbol, first of many many months we hope it symbols where you trade sports seems like stocks and earn cash payouts when your teams win. Symbol has blended sports and the stock markets offer you a new way to invest and profit off your sports knowledge. More than two thousand early adopters have started investing already in their favorite teams Major League Baseball, the NFL, NBA. So you visit www dot symbol dot app simbull dot app to create a free account. Please use the promo code fish stripes all one word for a ten dollars bonus on your first deposit. Current share price of sim Marlin's twenty seven dollars and thirty five cents. It keeps going up because they keep winning, and it will continue to go up when they continue to keep winning later on this year. Is the easiest investment to make early on in the Major League Baseball season. Visit symbol dot app use the promo code fish stripes for a ten dollar deposit bonus. To help build your portfolio, invest in what you know, invest in sports, invest in Jazz Chisholm Junior. Everybody seems to be doing that. They don't need they don't need my selling to do that. To get in on Jazz, who's been the Marlins' main second baseman this year. And as I'm recording this, on Jackie Robinson day, the starting shortstop for the Marlins in place of Miguel Rojas on occasion, he is going to be playing just about every single day. And that was something that looked questionable as recently as a month and a half ago. He was in that competition with Isan Diez for the second base job coming out of camp is someone that had more formal minor league experience and higher level minor league success, and Jazz simply outperformed him. We saw some incredible things in spring training, and we saw incredible things last year. I've never been a Jazz skeptic. He's someone that I always believed could potentially be one of the better players on this team, and certainly someone who I thought was the better candidate to break camp with the team coming out of spring training. We saw flashes of him last year, honestly more than flashes, because I want to be clear about that, with almost all these former top prospects that the Marlins have had passed through the organization these past few years, all of them have some type of flashes.
00:11:08
Speaker 2: Right.
00:11:09
Speaker 1: Even Esan had that flash in his very first major league game, homering off Jacob de Gram. Now Jazz has matched him in that department as well, just a few days ago. Even before that, looking back to twenty twenty, I mean, the surface numbers were not good. He hit one sixty one a two point forty two on base three twenty one slugging, and the strikeout rate was a little bit too high, but you could see in the quality of his play Apparents's ability to discern different pitch types and balls and strikes. You could see it certainly in his base running aggressiveness and his just fluidity on the basis. You could see it in his defense for sure. This is someone who has been a very highly regarded prospect for several years now, even before acquired from the Diamondbacks via trade, and he played almost exclusively shortstop throughout the minor leagues. Even though second base is moving down the defensive spectrum, it's the opposite side of the field, it's different angles. It's a big adjustment for a player that had been locked in at one position and still projects to be a short stop moving forward no matter what team he's on. It's been an adjustment, or it should have been a difficult adjustment, and he has handled it very smoothly going back to twenty twenty, and you could see it in spring training that on the defensive side he can help you win games in a way that a lot of other second basemen can. So that's a very important edge that the Marlins essentially have two shortstops starting alongside each other in the middle of their infield, a key reason why I've been very high on the potential of this Marlins infield defense overall here in twenty twenty one. Of course, what you want to talk about now is the offense and especially the hitting recording this heading into Thursday, which will be his tenth game of the season. Through his first nine games, he's hitting two fifty nine, but with a four hundred on base percentage a six thirty slugging that's a ten to thirty OPS. You remember the last time the Barlins had any hitter come close to a one thousand OPS, it was of course, Gean Carlos Stanton winning the National League MVP. So we're pumping the brakes on Jazz reaching that potential right now. Put so much to like, so much to like. On Wednesday in the Marlins win against the Braves, Jazz hit a home run and he stole base in the same game, the first time he's done that in the majors. It will not be the last. That's the type of stuff that on the most basic level draws people in right when they make those athletic blaze. And he went so deep to center field against Charlie Morden for that three run homer.
00:13:52
Speaker 2: This is Jazz with a high fly ball deep center field at cr turns and looks. It's a three run homer for Jazz, Jazz and Junior and absolutely no doubt or to center field.
00:14:06
Speaker 1: And then he stole third base, not just any base, but still third base as part of a double steal later on in the game. I've told you I have not been skeptical of Jazz. I just didn't want him to overshadow John Birdie. For example, John Berdie being the guy the last few years that has quietly been the best on bass guy for the Marlins and the best base runner for the Marlins, and he made this roster as essentially the fallback at second base, someone that as is the case here on Jackie Robinson Day, starting at second with Jazz at shortstop, and who's very versatile and who really helps you win games. That's the bottom line, helping me win games right now. As confident as people worry about Jazz, it's not too often that rookie players dramatically help you win games in their rookie seasons. It takes a little bit of time. The Marlins have been patient with a lot of these young players, some who have frankly flopped and others like Sandy al Contra who keep improving and improving and improving, now becoming a cornerstone of this team. Brian Anderson, his first cup of coffee in the majors wasn't so great, and he's just been a little bit better every single year, and that he's now established as a very reliable everyday player. Sometimes it takes time, which as it has not taken that much time that first year, sixty two play appearances, and already this year he's back on track. Like you can focus on the small sample size, I think it is more useful to simply combine the numbers. You want to put a little bit more weight on what he's doing this year. But the overall career numbers to this point a one to ninety three betting average, a seven to twenty one ops and that's nothing to sneeze at seven twenty one when you're playing for the Marlins home games at lone Depot Park, that's about a league average hitter for someone we already know is a plus base runner and a plus defender Like that's that's not nothing to scoff at. He that is a guy that if he continues simply doing that moving forward, then the Marlins have a useful player and they salvage something from what was a very controversial trade sending away Zach Gallen to the Diamondbacks. The other side of this, of course, is that Jazz is the model teammates and the model ambassador for baseball. I don't even use that lightly. He is everything that you want from a Major League Baseball player right now, especially in a market that struggles to draw casual fans, that doesn't have that deep rooted fan base that's been passed through the generations and even this year. Things have been going well lately, but a team that I don't think anybody expects to realistically contend for the World Series, that you need a little something that goes beyond the performance to draw you in. Jazz has all that.
00:16:51
Speaker 2: Got to keep going on just calming him. Hi, Mama, so I love Let me finish.
00:17:04
Speaker 1: Earlier today, a new episode of the R two C two podcast that's hosted by a future Hall of Famer Cesi Sabathia and Ryan Ruco based. A lot of Yankees lean to that podcast, but it's a national international show. One of the more popular sports podcasts that there is, and Jazz was an amazing guest on that show. I loved, loved the segment in there where he calls out Zach Gallon where he says, at first, he tries to deflect, doesn't think about the trade much that he doesn't really keep tabs on what Gallen is doing out in Arizona. And yet there are two series coming up between the Marlins and the Diamondbacks in May, and he's already had those circles on his calendar. And he says, quote, he says he wants Zach to stay healthy because he cannot wait for them to go head to head in that matchup. Let me get the exact quote. It was a beauty. I'm not gonna lie to you, he says. The one thing I really do want to do is take him deep facing me. It's going to be a mother bleep in when I get there. That he is so good at selling the game and selling himself and doing it very genuinely. He does have this kind of amazing confidence. You've heard it even before he made the majors, even before this season when he finally has all this tangible success in Major League games. He thinks he can do almost anything. He thinks he can hit any pitch, he can hit to gram at one hundred miles per hour. He could steal bases anytime he wants to. That. You can't teach that man, and the Marlins have been missing that. They've had other guys with similar potential who have not put it all together. And Jazz thinks that way, and he talks that way. He has the support of Derek Cheeter as well. That's something we can't overlook. May get tired of this story by now. That was originally Craig Mish reporting that Jeter hands selected Jazz. Saw Jazz at the twenty nineteen Arizona Fall League, where almost all the great Major League prospects congregate in a usual year for some competition, and must have been the twenty eighteen Arizona Fall League actually, because the trade was made in July of twenty nineteen, So first Arizona Fall League for Jeter up close as a Marlins executive and saw him there and was smitten by him there. Now that they're in the same organization, Jeter being someone that has personally reached out to him and been in steady contact with him to help him through this process, seeing a little bit of himself in Jazz. I love it. I love it, and the fact that Jazz is still so eager to hit him up to get tips from him and actually seek his guidance, understanding that, of course, Jeter has one of the best careers ever for a shortstop, quite the same skill set with Jazz, but he wants it, man, he wants he wants it all, and he's determined to get there, to be himself in the process, and of course doing so on social media as well, trying to be as accessible as possible and to take every compliment that he gets. He really does feed off of that type of stuff. It's hard to put to really quantify that how important it is that they're playing with fans in person this year, limited fans, of course, some restrictions being spread out. I think Jazz is someone more than anybody else that has really benefited for things returning to semi normalcy in games. That may be a reason why the numbers in his first call up didn't blow you away, and all the tools are still there and he's still doing the same things but having more success with it now that he has that crowd in person now that he can really taste what it's like being a major league what he's been pursuing this whole time, and it keeps him going, even on the road, even when there's not very many Marlins fans. He feeds off the opposition as well. It's really been fantastic. This team desperately needed it. With that being said, I've been one just trying to pump the brakes a little bit. This is still such a small sample size that ordaining him as the face of the team, one of the faces of the league, and as a superstar. See that's the word. I've been seeing a lot that gives me pause and that I can endorse that he's a superstar after thirty major league regular season games with someone that's been overall, if you're being generous, a league average hitter for his major league careers so far. He's not a superstar yet. He's got that potential. He's the youngest guy on a young Marlins team, and he's leading the team in a variety of categories. He's leading the team in OPS and in slugging, and in his average exit velocity, and more so than anything else, this is the number that blows you away. Is his barrel rate. I tweeted this out earlier here on Thursday morning, that he is ranked number two in baseball, not on the Marlins, but in all of baseball in barrel rate, the percentage of batted balls that he gets on the barrel as measured by the exit velocity and the launch angle. Five total barrels this year, that is a twenty seven point eight percent barrel rate, trailing only Nelson Cruise, the ageless Masher Nelson Cruise by less than one percent in that category. And you saw it. That's how he gets his home runs, and that's how he gets his other extra base hits as well as when he barrows a ball. And he can do it to all fields too. That's what really excites you to dead center to right center, to Wright and even the opposite field. That he has that type of power in a surprisingly compact package, not a big package at all. That he's able to do all this, you can't teach that. In the combination of that and the plate discipline. He has a twenty percent walk rate entering this game today. You just look at the barrel rate in the walk rate and nothing else, and that is such a strong foundation for a player. That's it's Juan Soto. That's what Juan Soto does. That's what any great hitter that you can think of, that's what Mike Trout does. It's a very short list of unanimously regarding great hitters, and the key to them are they crush the ball consistently, and when they don't get pitches to hit, they're able to get on base and make an impact that way. There's a limit to his tools. So far, we've seen him move very fast, and he's an interesting guy because I refer to lots to stat cast. In the one category where he doesn't quite blow you away as much as you would think is his sprint speed, where he averages twenty eight point two feet per second on sprint speed that's almost identical to what he had in the majors last year. League average is right around twenty seven, maybe a little bit lower than twenty seven this early in the season, and they consider elite right around thirty feet per second, so he's in the middle. Like he's good. It does stand out a little bit more eighty eight percent tile which are very good, but it's not it's not like a otherworldly athlete. It's it's such a small sample, which is why I don't want to make blanket statements about exactly who he is and to say that his numbers early on this season are completely sustainable, I don't think they're completely sustainable, at least not for this year. Because it's good tools, it's really great tools, but it's not otherworldly in terms of his sprint speed. In terms of his max exit velocity on average, he it's the ball harder than any other Marlins player, but he's maxing out right around one eleven, one twelve. When he really crushes the ball, that's great. You do that almost any time, and you're going to get a hit out of it. At the same time, it's it's nothing we haven't seen before, you know. It's that's what Jorgel Farrow does when al Farrow really gets it on the barrel. That's what Garrett Cooper actually does right around that same exit velocity range, when he really gets all the baseball. It's great, and especially for a middle infielder, that's I guess what gets you most excited is that he is having this offensive tear and he's doing it at a premium up the middle position. A second base is pretty important, and we know that he could play shortstop, as he's already done a couple of times this season. That establishes such a relatively high floor for who he is. I just want you guys to keep in mind, of course, the cautionary tales that Marlins have gone after a lot of toolsy young players during this rebuild, and with the exception of Jazz, none of them on the hitting side I've panned out none of them. So at the same time, that gets people to cling to Jazz as yes, we took this gamble and it's working out. But these are also play that can be inconsistent because of the holes in their swing. In the case of Jazz, could be over aggressive on pitches up in the zone, and sometimes he gets all of them and hits it off to Grom at one hundred miles per hour. Most of the times he swings through those type of pitches, and that's when he gets into situations where he makes unproductive outs and he might worry a little bit about the on bass skills. It's going to be such a fascinating process throughout the season to watch him grow, to watch the ups and to watch the downs. But there will be a lot of ups. There is currently an up right now based on what he's shown in such a small sample. I think this is something we can all agree on that he has earned himself a very long leash to validate it and keep it going. He mentioned on the R two C two pod about enterings from trending for the first time in his professional career, feeling like he has to compete for something that he wasn't already assigned, something wasn't didn't earn it directly coming into camp, that he actually had to perform to get this job, and how unfamiliar that was for him. And it happens even more so once you are actually in the major leagues. You're always always working to validate yourself and to keep going. If you struggle for an extended period of time, no matter who you are, that there will be repercussions for that. To this point, he's just shown this very rare combination of tools and at a position that the Marlins have been struggling to fill for a couple of years. Now that we're going to see so much of him this year, and I think that's something we could all celebrate seeing more of his blue hair or whatever color it is he goes to later in the season, and his confidence, his celebrations and his interactions with the fans. He is someone that really is a hands on figure trying to grow the game, someone who invests his time in growing the game. That you don't hold a lot of players responsible for doing that, but when they do, that just makes them all the more lovable. And so I can understand why there's been such a strong immediate attraction of this fan base towards him, and I'm excited to see it unfold right up there with the Dylan Floro that in terms of these guys that have truly exceeded my expectations through this early portion of the season in order to keep the Marlins in the mix here where they're looking like a very capable team early on. Once again wishing you a happy Jackie Robinson Day. I hope you enjoyed seeing number forty two on the field for the Marlins here on Thursday, and they'll be wearing it again on Friday when they actually host the Giants. Doubling up on this great holiday, celebrating breaking the color barrier and allowing amazing people like Jazz into this game. That's been such a blessing that we have these variety of cultures and personalities in baseball to make it great, to make it a higher level of competition than we've ever had before. We'll have our small pod again on Friday morning, just tomorrow. You don't have to wait very long to get a recap of that Thursday game and a preview to the upcoming home stands on our small pods. So make sure you're subscribing to Fish Stripes wherever you get your pods so that you can keep up with everything going on with this Marlins team. We'll have our live streams going previewing every single series, So on Friday, late afternoon early evening, we'll have another live stream looking ahead to the Giant series. You could catch it on Twitter, on YouTube, on twitch, and we always appreciate your suggestions if you have any more ideas for more content you'd like to see outside of our pods and our streams and our written analysis and our news coverage and our Marlin's history celebrations that we're all ears that will do it. For this episode of the official show, Go Fish the indept who can be helped
