With the promotion of key prospects Samuel Basallo and Dylan Beavers and the young group of high-ceiling position talent now completely in The Show, the last place Baltimore Orioles’ showing on the field these next six weeks should prove to be more than just a bunch of meaningless baseball games. Luke Jones and Nestor use a Birdland history lesson to discuss what a success would even look like for Mike Elias and this era of stars who haven’t really shined…
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ recent performances and promotions. Brandon Young nearly pitched a perfect game, going 7.2 innings with only one hit allowed. Dylan Beavers made his major league debut, going 1-for-3. The Orioles took two out of three games from Houston, highlighting the potential of their young core, including Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holliday, and Gunnar Henderson. The conversation also touched on the team’s future plans, the importance of player development, and the need for strategic off-season moves to build a competitive team.
- [ ] Monitor the performances of Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells in their upcoming starts.
- [ ] Evaluate the development and potential of the Orioles’ young players, including Samuel Basallo, Dylan Beavers, and Gunnar Henderson, in the remaining games.
- [ ] Consider potential offseason moves to improve the Orioles’ roster, including acquiring an impact bat or center fielder.
Orioles Promotion and Weekend Recap
- Nestor Aparicio discusses the recent promotions of Basillo and Beavers by the Orioles.
- Nestor mentions the excitement of the weekend, including events in Ocean City, Maryland, and interactions with various people.
- Nestor highlights the involvement of sponsors like Curio Wellness, Liberty Pure Solutions, and GBMC in the events.
- Nestor shares personal anecdotes about his experiences, including a golf outing and interactions with fans.
Brandon Young’s Perfect Game and Dylan Beavers’ Debut
- Nestor and Luke Jones discuss Brandon Young’s near-perfect game, noting the unexpected nature of such performances in baseball.
- Nestor recounts his experience watching the game on TV while attending an event, emphasizing the excitement of the moment.
- Luke Jones talks about the significance of Young’s performance and its impact on the team and fans.
- Luke mentions Dylan Beavers’ major league debut and the positive start for both Beavers and Basillo in their respective roles.
Orioles’ Young Core and Future Prospects
- Luke Jones and Nestor Aparicio discuss the potential of the Orioles’ young core, including players like Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holiday, and Gunnar Henderson.
- Luke emphasizes the importance of these players performing well to ensure the team’s future success.
- Nestor and Luke discuss the challenges faced by the team, including injuries and underperformance, and the need for improvement.
- Luke highlights the importance of the upcoming season for evaluating and developing the young players.
Pitching and Rotation Changes
- Nestor and Luke discuss the current state of the Orioles’ pitching rotation, including the potential return of Kyle Bradish and Tyler Wells.
- Luke mentions the challenges faced by the team’s pitchers, including Felix Bautista’s injury and the departure of other key players.
- Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of the team’s young pitchers, such as Dean Kramer and Brandon Young, in maintaining the team’s performance.
- Luke emphasizes the need for the team to address the pitching rotation to ensure long-term success.
Orioles’ Future Plans and Fan Engagement
- Nestor and Luke discuss the Orioles’ future plans, including potential off-season moves and the impact of the young core on the team’s performance.
- Luke highlights the importance of fan engagement and the need for the team to provide a positive experience for fans.
- Nestor mentions the upcoming events and promotions planned by the team to keep fans engaged.
- Luke emphasizes the need for the team to continue developing its young players and making strategic moves to improve the team’s performance.
Luke Jones and Nestor discuss …ung near perfection in Houston
Mon, Aug 18, 2025 8:50AM • 38:05
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Orioles promotion, Brandon Young, perfect game, Dylan Beavers, major league debut, Samuel Biso, Adley Rutschman, Jackson Holt, pitching rotation, Felix Bautista, Kyle Bradish, Tyler Wells, Ryan Mountcastle, Colton Cowser, young core.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Speaker 1, Luke Jones
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive. I have the goods. The Maryland lottery scratch offs. We’re gonna have Raven scratch offs by the end of the week, maybe next week, but at least in the near short term, it’s been a lucky batch. The pressure luck and the lucky sevens, we will be out on Thursday, beginning Thursday, fade leaves on Friday. Will be at Pizza John’s in Essex. It has been quite a whirlwind week here. If you are listening to the am radio station, W, N, S T, you’ll be hearing lots and lots of conversations from Ocean City, Maryland, with lots of elected, unelected, cool people, smart people, people with a cause, people with a purpose, and just great conversations that I had at Mako. All of it brought to you by our friends at curio wellness, in conjunction with Liberty pure solutions, as well as GBMC, our newest sponsor, and curio and foreign daughter invited me out on the golf course on Sunday. I’m a little sunburned for everybody. Can see that I’m wearing my curio Orioles shirt. Name Luke. I told Wendy Bron fine and Michael Bron fine out in their 10 at the BMW caves. And it was just, it was a great event. I mean, I I’ve had a crazy couple of days, Ocean City, this ocean city that Mako, this Senator Van Hollen, just all of this stuff going on. Drive home. I’m doing this crazy 20th, 27th, anniversary with all these food, by the way, playing. Got some food you saw it’s still stuck in my teeth. Here, some peanuts from that chicken Pad Thai. But, you know, I told Wendy every day I get together with you, and we do, we do radio together, podcasts, whatever people call this at this point, whatever kids are calling it. And I’m like, are we doing Ravens? Are we doing Orioles? And, like, this is the first time in a long time. You’re like, we’re doing Orioles. We got good news. You put your Orioles shirt on. So I don’t know what good news is. It’s news, though, and it’s interesting. And they won, and even Wendy’s son, who’s five years old. And I will tell you, I talked a lot of bananas with this kid out on the golf course on Sunday. I did. I talked a lot of bananas with this kid. He said to me, he came up to me, he’s like the Orioles 112 to nothing today. And I said, on a golf course kid, you know, really, they won, really. So I was not a part of the Oriole game on Sunday, as you can well imagine, out with Scottie Scheffler, the greatest golfer on Earth. But it’s been quite a weekend, I mean, for the Ravens of Dallas and the Orioles, and it’s churning on, and we’re as close to Buffalo, but the golf took a lot of the oxygen out around here, didn’t it, it did,
Luke Jones 02:41
it did I, full disclosure, I didn’t pay attention to that whatsoever, because I’ve been busy monitoring what happened in Dallas on Saturday night. And we’ll get into
Nestor Aparicio 02:51
that in a near perfect
Luke Jones 02:52
game. I mean, that was the thing. I mean, it’s, we know what it’s been for the Orioles all year. But here, more specifically, recently, when you have a last place team, the residue from the trade deadline, the most recent batch of not so encouraging injury news, and what the outfield has looked like and what we’ve expected the pitching to be, although the pitching hasn’t been maybe that bad, save for a couple games here over the last couple of weeks. But, I mean, Friday night was just a reminder of, for anyone who loves baseball, how beautifully random and unexpected the game can be. Because let’s face it, you and I haven’t spent a whole lot of time talking about Brandon young, because there hasn’t been a whole lot worth talking about, in regards to Brandon young. And look, I don’t say that within any disrespect, but you’re talking about a guy 2627 years old, not really a prospect here because of all the injuries and guys they’ve traded, you know, like Morton and guys on the IL done for the years, Zach efland here recently, with going undergoing back surgery, he’s kind of just been there, right? And he’s made starts, and his first 10 starts did not go well to any meaningful, memorable degree, but he was perfect into the eighth inning. I did not have on my 2026 Orioles bingo card. Nestor to be sending out a W, N, S, T, Baltimore positive text alert relatively late on a Friday night that Brandon Young had a perfect game into the eighth inning. And
Nestor Aparicio 04:27
Ocean City guy, your Wildwood guy, I was on 60th street. You remember where you are when perfect games happen? Okay? I mean, I, you know, I remember no hitters in the seventh inning back in the 1980s that I was on dates and had to, like, stop a date to, like, look up at the television, because that’s the way this works, right? And you and I have this whole no hitter perfect game thing. You almost got one earlier in the year. So, um, I was in between a bunch of events, and I was about to go into figures on. Island to see bad with names. Jason seamers band was playing. He, of course, very famously, when you were a boy, wrote the song, the Oriole baseball song you would hear at the ballpark. Oriole baseball. Feel the magic where you are. I feel like a kid again. There’s a great friend of mine. He’s off to Morocco taking pictures, and I just saw I wanted to see his band. He’s my dude. I was my hope my hotel was a block away. You sent me a personal text. You sent the text. I was literally just walking out the door to go to figure didn’t even think about a baseball game. And when I went into fagers, first thing I did was plant in front of a TV. And I, you know, I saw it get broken up, but I watched it so you and me and us and wnst and our tech service brought to you by cold roofing and Gordian energy sent me to the television on Friday night at figures island in Ocean City. You know my phone, so I know the power of it. And if you are an Oriole fan, and you care at all, maybe more than you do about the bananas or whatever. But if you can, you know, if you like baseball and this, it’s been such a crappy season, and so so many ways that if you did get our text alert now 6000 of you still do, if you got it and you ran to the television, I’m guilty as charged, because, like, I wasn’t gonna miss it. You know what? I mean, like, it was there, and I was literally about two I walked a little bit, and I’m like, I wonder if it’ll still be in progress, because you were sending it to me as I was leaving the hotel room. But I had a two minute walk, five minute walk, and I’m like, I hope I get to see it. And I did. And how about the fact that it was Urias too? Even crazier, yeah.
Luke Jones 06:39
And how about the fact that, I mean, God bless him, he had a great outing. Just set your feet. And I’m almost positive he throws him out, and he’s taken a perfect game into the ninth inning, and the pitch count was fine. So I mean, but what a great night in that regard. I mean, if you’re just a baseball fan, right? I mean, anyone who is a dedicated, knowledgeable baseball fan knows the piece of trivia. Who was the only man to throw a perfect game in a World Series game, Don Larson. Go look at Don Larson’s career numbers. Right. There are hundreds and hundreds of pitchers who had much more accomplished, distinguished careers than Don Larson, who, by the way, pitch for the Orioles before and after he threw that perfect game for the Yankees in what 1956 I think it was, but that’s the the ultimate example of you do not have to be a great or even a good pitcher to flirt with something magical in the game. And look, I’m not going to sit here and say that this means that Brandon Young’s now destined to be anything special to do anything that is more than just what was a really great outlier on Friday night, but it was fun, and he pitched well, and he earned the win, and the Orioles won in convincing fashion, and it set the tone for one ended up being a really fun weekend, because then, of course, you Got the other wnst alert on what late Saturday morning that Dylan beavers had been summoned to Houston and made his major league debut. And I will fully apologize. I was in the middle of worship service at church on Sunday morning when the Samuel biso news came. So that’s why you did not get the alert. So that’s on me. I’ll own that one, but he makes his debut. There’s no situation with beavers or Besides, they both have gotten their first major league hit out of the way. So it’s good. You know, you’re not having a Jackson holiday over 25 kind of start where it’s like, this is awkward. Are they gonna have to send them back down and you know, we’ll see how these guys play. They’re gonna they’re gonna struggle, because they’re at the highest level in the world as it pertains to professional baseball, so they need to get acclimated. But they both looked Yeah, looked apart as far as not being over matched or overwhelmed. And they both tasted some success. And you know, even Saturday night’s defeat and extra innings, I mean, disappointing, because they pitched well enough as a team to win that game if they got just a timely hit, you know, especially in extra innings, when they just squandered opportunities. But you take two out of three from a Houston team that’s in first place and playing well. I mean, it’s good. I mean, at this point, we know that everything about the rest of this season is pointed towards next year. Well, small victories, trying to figure things out, trying to get these young guys pointed in the right direction. Hey, on Sunday, and as I wrote at Baltimore positive.com the Orioles had a lineup that had eight, I won’t say drafted because Samuel besides an international signing. Imagine that an international signing that’s turned into one of the best prospects in baseball. We’re gonna see what he looks like. But the thought of the Orioles doing that five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago. I mean, this was an organization that didn’t even try in the international the international pool, right? So to have that, to have their you. You know, their two best prospects who were on the cusp of being in the major leagues finally arrive and they take two out of three. I mean, that’s fun. There’s there’s been so much that’s gone wrong, including off the field with this season ticket stuff and and how it’s really alienated and offended the hardcore of the hardcore, most loyal Orioles fans here, when you see the overall reception as I wrote, they really needed to produce some good news, and they did this weekend. Now there’s still so much more that needs to be done between now and next March, let’s say. But for this weekend, it was good. There were smiles, you know, as Jordan Westberg said in the in the post game, doing his, you know, his off the field massen interview, right after the game, he said, Hey, this is what the fans have wanted. You know that they’re, this is we’re here like everyone’s here now that in this current wave of, you know, they’re not all prospects, because we’re talking about, got some of these guys have been here a few years, but hey, they’ve got eight out of nine guys in that lineup on a nightly basis. Are guys that have been anywhere from one ones like Adley rutschman and Jackson holiday to a nice bonus international signing like biso, who’s a top 10 prospect in baseball right now, to you know, second round picks, sandwich picks, third round picks, guys like that. You know, we’ve already seen it’s not going to go perfectly. And that’s not me sitting here saying that all these guys are going to figure it out. But we also know, no matter what Mike Elias does this winter, no matter who is hired as the new manager, no matter what the coaching staff looks like, no matter what moves and signings or potential trades they might make, might make here in the next few months. It’s not going to work if this young core, the bulk of it, let’s say not every single guy, necessarily, but the bulk of it, it’s not going to work if these guys aren’t as good as everyone thought they could be. So it’s go time now, right? I mean, Jordan Westberg, Gunner, Henderson, we can nitpick and point to different things about them, but those guys are the least of their worries, right? Adley rutschman and Colton cowser, they need to hit. They need to be better than sub 700
Nestor Aparicio 12:14
ops. So does mayo and so does curse that. Well, I curse that.
Luke Jones 12:19
I don’t you’re done, you’re done. Well, I’m trying to be sensitive about this, because there’s clearly something going on with him that they’ve been very hush hush about. I don’t know if it pertains to some of his past health issues. I don’t know there’s something else going on. So I’m trying to be sensitive in that, because they have been very quiet about that. So you’re hoping for the best. You’re hoping. It’s nothing that extends beyond worrying about baseball, right? But we don’t know. So I’m he’s kind of out of sight, out of mind, for lack of a better description, right now. But for the guys that are here, you know the guys that are in the major leagues right now, you look at their roster, you look at their lineup on Sunday, which to me, it was akin to, if you’re a baseball America magazine subscriber. They they always do the off season, and then they look at prospects, and they’ll, they’ll project out what the lineup could look like three years, you know, three years in the future. This is the kind of lineup that someone might have written in baseball America three years ago and saying, Hey, this could be the Orioles lineup in 2025 so it’s here. But they need to produce. It’s go time. You want as many of these guys as possible trending in the right direction. You want to see signs from Samuel basayo and Dylan beavers and yes, Kobe mayo, who, you know, Mayo has been up and down. We’ve seen good, but we’ve seen not so good as well, right? So
Nestor Aparicio 13:38
it’s not heralded as a guy that get it 30 Sure.
Luke Jones 13:41
So you want to see enough signs there’s going to be and and we’re as guilty of this as anyone. There’s been so much focus, and there will continue to be so much focus on the rotation and a bullpen that, let’s face it, especially now in the wake of what does not sound like very promising news on Felix Bautista. You know, we don’t know for sure just yet, but we know it’s not sounding good. So much focus is going to be on the pitching, and understandably so. But I’d be lying to you if I looked at this lineup right now and look, I like the potential. I like the fact it’s homegrown. You know, we’ve all been talking about these guys, but I’d be disingenuous if I didn’t look at answer the question right now, if you ask me, could this team stand to have another impact bat somewhere in the middle of that order, someone that’s established, a veteran, whether it’s a player you sign a player you trade for whatever, well, that’s what Tyler O’Neill was about. That’s for your home. There your hope. You’re hoping, right? But I think that’s still going to be there. But this young core is going to have every opportunity the rest of the way. And look even Ryan mountcastle, and I think Sunday was a sign of what’s to come for him. I don’t think Ryan mountcastle is going to be an everyday player in this lineup. I think he’s going to become more of a, you know, three times a week, because they’re going to play Mayo at first base. Oh, is going to catch some. Him, but he’s going to d h some, and he’s going to play a little bit of first base as well. You know, they’re going to, they’re carrying three catchers now because they still have Alex Jackson on the roster as well. So, but it’s going
Nestor Aparicio 15:11
to ask you what that means for ruchman, but we’ll get to that in a minute. I mean, I think, I
Luke Jones 15:15
mean, Richmond is still going to be the primary guy, right? But, but, but I think, you know, you look at this, those eight guys that we saw in the lineup Sunday, and let me give a subtle, not getting ahead of ourselves, but a subtle tip of the cap. Jeremiah Jackson’s done a, quietly, done a pretty nice job in his opportunities, right? I said to you a week or two ago, maybe he becomes the Ramona Rheas next year. And moving forward, you know, he’s, he’s played more outfield, you know, since being called up, but he’s actually more of an infielder, right? So, but because they’ve had the need and the injuries and the trades in the outfield, they’ve kind of just stuck them out there. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying he looks like a Gold Glove guy out there by any stretch, but he’s learning and but he’s looked okay swinging the bat. So the new Steve Pierce, yeah. I mean, you’d love if he could be that good. But, you know, this is opportunity, right? These guys, it’s opportunity. Brandon Young is getting opportunities right now. His first 10 starts didn’t look good. Friday looked good enough to say, hey, I’m interested to see what he looks like in his next start this coming week. So you
Nestor Aparicio 16:18
mentioned that pitching has been better in general, and that’s, you know, I mean, the Marlins deal doesn’t smell the way it did, but the rotation, you know, it’s also ripe with opportunity and thoughts of like Bradish coming over the
Luke Jones 16:33
hill, right? I mean, Bradish, I actually had a chance up, you know, I watched his start, his last start in Norfolk on MLB TV, and he missed bats. He looked he looked pretty good, and that was even with a rain delay in the second inning he pitched. Well, I think it was five innings with with a relatively, not a overly long rain delay, but enough that it disrupted him. But he’s going to make one more start, and the plan then is for him to be reinstated. Tyler, wells probably going to have two more outings, and then he’s going to be reinstated with Bradish will be in the rotation, you know, I I’m not expecting them to to completely give them, you know, the no restrictor plate here, or anything he’s got, going to throw 110 pitches every start, or anything like that. I mean, how many of these guys actually do that? Other than Dean Kramer on Sunday, who was fantastic. But when
Nestor Aparicio 17:20
he starts, he’ll be three, four innings, right?
Luke Jones 17:22
I mean, he’ll be, you hope more than that. I mean, they’re okay. They’re building him up at this point.
Nestor Aparicio 17:26
I mean, I think 90 pitches in the miners is 60 in the big leagues to me.
Luke Jones 17:31
I mean, maybe 70, right? I mean, and a lot of it’s gonna depend on how does it look, right? I mean, this is a lot. Is he holding his velocity? Is he commanding his pitches? Is he not having a 28 pitch second inning. That kind of drives up the fatigue, and, you know, takes away the efficiency and the idea of being able to get into the later innings. So you’re, you’re obviously going to be careful with him. You’re going to be careful with Wells. I’m not sitting here saying that Kyle Bradish is going to come back and be the most dominant form of himself, but it sure beats the alternative of racing Rodriguez right now, who had elbow surgery and is out for the rest of the year, and, you know, who knows next year, right? I mean, you certainly aren’t penciling him in to be the number one or the number two. That’s for sure.
Nestor Aparicio 18:13
So Well, I mean, it would mean something that wells and and Bradish are throwing the ball and Rodriguez and Batista are not, yeah, and Kittredge and Baker are gone, and Morton’s not coming back, and Kyle Gibson’s not coming back. And, you know, where are they going to go with this? You know, they were not buyers at the trading deadline in the way that they could have been swapping out Colton cows or for somebody else’s number three starter that would be around here next year, which they were doing the last couple of years, a little bit more of that in regard to Eflin, who they had, and they don’t have any more, right? So, I mean, look, we have one of these stinkers of football games left this one, whatever they are. And we have, you know, 4050, games left on the baseball thing here. What I don’t even want the number. What the number is at this point. Um, 40 something, right? 40 up, almost 50, right,
Luke Jones 19:08
whatever, six weeks left, right? Yeah, somewhere in that. So, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 19:13
I watched the exhibition football game the other night. And as much as it is important to Keaton Mitchell and it is important to Teddy Buchanan, and it is important to Tyler loop. Tyler loop, right? Whoever it is, right? Yeah, so, like, there are people it’s important to. And I would think this Oriole thing is sort of like that, like, if you’re watching because you like gunner, you like the Orioles, and you’re just into it. You don’t have anything else to do on Tuesday night. You know, they’re going west coast a couple times here, and they’re coming back here and playing the Dodgers. So did they have, you know, there’s the Jim Palmer things happening, right? The Cal Ripken night is happening. So they put some marketing nights together. Hope it goes better than the Adam Jones Night. I hope it goes better than Katie. Griggs talking to Ed Norris about selling tickets, which, wow, but whatever they have left for these players, it’s no different than an exhibition game for the ravens and saying, here are my wares. Here’s where I want you to think about me in the off season, not just what Mike Elias thinks, or the next general manager, if he’s run out of here, October 4 or whatever. But what the perception of the ceiling for this operation could be if money bags spend some money and they get a picture, I shouldn’t say if with Rogers. I mean, he looks like a frontline rotation guy, if Bradish comes back now, all of a sudden, you got Bradish and him and wells, and you throw in some of this and some Sagano magic, and Suarez is coming back,
Luke Jones 20:50
you’ll have Dean Kramer, who is just kind of become the innings eater for the group. I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 20:55
and Brandon young almost do a perfect game. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I
Luke Jones 20:59
mean, obviously there’s still work to be done, but, I mean, you just kind of said it. I mean, and I look they have, at the conclusion of business, Sunday night, they have 38 games to go. They have 38 Okay, roughly a quarter of the season left. Just under a quarter of the season left. That’s a lot of baseball. And now that doesn’t mean if these young guys all play well, that you say, Hey, we’re fine, right? We just need to go get this year’s version of Kyle Gibson. And, you know, go get a guy that can be a center fielder, that can kind of just, you know, defensive. I mean, who knows, maybe they’ll resign Cedric Mullins to a one year deal. I mean, that that’s entirely possible, right? I mean, not likely, but possible, let’s say. But the point is, you don’t want to be fooled. You don’t want to talk yourself into the idea that if they do finish well here that there isn’t still major work to be done. But well, you want to see them trending in the right direction, right? You want to see Samuel biso look like a guy that you’re saying, Okay, I think we could still stand to go acquire a legit bat, but I’m not so sure he will be there their cleanup hitter come next June, right? I mean, that’s the kind of that’s the kind of potential a lot of people see from him, including non Orioles, people who followed him in the minors. I mean, they, there are people that think this could be the most serious bat out of all the guys you know, other than maybe, you know, I don’t want to put them ahead of gunner, because, you know, gunner has been a guy that you know last year more so, but we’ve seen what he can be at his best, so that, you know, you don’t want to put too much pressure on him, but go play, you know, go show what you can do. And, I mean, he almost hit a home run on Sunday. Was robbed of a home run, actually, which, you know, that’s a short porch in right field at Houston. But still, I mean, it shows you he’s got some, there’s absolutely thunder in that bat. I mean, if you followed him in the minors at all, I mean, he hits some Ruth and type blasts. So the power serious for him, beavers. You know, I don’t think he’s the big time power guy, but I mean, he, all he did was hit this year. I mean, he’s a 300 hitter at triple A, and I get it, it’s triple A. Triple A, but
Nestor Aparicio 23:03
what’s it come for him, replacing Cedric Mullins in some sort of way,
Luke Jones 23:07
I don’t know. Probably, I think they, they view him probably more as a corner outfielder. You know, I think it’s interesting, because it’s not like he had bad numbers prior to this year, but his numbers jumped up this year. And, you know, you look at him, he’s got a quick, like, a short stroke to the ball, like you kind of like it, because you kind of hope that, okay, in this modern age, understanding that just about everyone, even guys who don’t strike out a lot, still strike out relative to what we saw 40 years ago in the game, but you’re hoping that it translates. And I think he’s, you know, the ceiling for him, I don’t know. I mean, I haven’t given it thought as far as, like, what a great cop would be, you know, I don’t want to
Nestor Aparicio 23:53
say, when he grows up, what is he going to be? Yeah, I don’t want to
Luke Jones 23:56
say Nick marcas, because I think Nick marcas was a victim of his own great success his first few years, to the point where then people were underwhelmed by what Nick Marquez said,
Nestor Aparicio 24:07
15 home runs in 70 RBI wasn’t good enough, right? But,
Luke Jones 24:11
but then you looked up and Nick Marquez did that for 15 years, right? He ended up having a hall of very good kind of career. So I, you know, I don’t want to say Dylan beavers is going to be that, but you’re hoping he can be a guy that hits and hits for a decent average, has a little bit of pop in the bat, some gap power. He still, he stole some bases at Norfolk, you know. So he’s got some speed, you know, he’s not gonna He’s not someone I’m projecting to be a future all star by any stretch of the imagination, but he was good enough this year where, hey, baseball America, just did their updated top 100 prospect list, and he he was on, he was on the back end of that, which that tells you that, you know, there’s optimism that he can be a legitimate major league player. So, you know, it’s not as though this young core that everyone’s. Going to be an MVP candidate. I think we all have seen now two or three years into this, that it doesn’t work that way, right?
Nestor Aparicio 25:06
Well, I’m looking at marques numbers here, and I’m just like, I remember it all vividly. I was here for all of it. A lot of it was a lot of bad baseball. That’s a good baseball that he was out of here, right? Just a really solid player, man like, and I don’t know how you piss on 1215, 13, 1014, home runs, or 6073 54 RBIs, or 4531 2824 27 doubles, or 170 hits a year, or just being a 270 hitter, right? I mean, I
Luke Jones 25:36
don’t the reason why, the reason why is, go look at the best years of his career. It was his age 23 and three and age 24 seasons. I mean, he was, yeah, 23 home runs, 112
Nestor Aparicio 25:47
RBI. And all of you’d like to see Jackson holiday do that next year. And you know, in his age, that’s, that’s mark, aka, says age 23 year, he had 300 112 ribbies, third, 23 home runs and 43 doubles, right? Like I’m looking at that at 840, 8o, p, like the whole deal, and it never got there again after 23 and that’s what you better hope gunner Henderson isn’t right,
Speaker 1 26:13
right, right? And again, these are, you know, we’re looking at a couple isolated cases, right? And we also know that, yes, you love to have players that are Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken like Hall of Fame if Dylan beavers mailed in this career. Whoo. Good career. You do cartwheels. Nice career. No questions. So beat his family well with these numbers. But the point is, and look, I’m not, I’m not. If you asked me to say, do I think he’s going to be that? No, I’m going to say no. But again, the jump that he made from double A to triple A.
Nestor Aparicio 26:46
You know, it’s, it’s good to see right Mark takes almost at 2400 hits. Wow,
Luke Jones 26:50
that’s what I’m saying. I mean, that was the thing. I mean, Nick Mark cake is from about 2010 on and look, I’m not picking on Orioles fans here. Every fan base is like this. When you see a player do look like he’s going to be a great, Hall of Fame caliber player his first few seasons, but then it kind of levels off and plateaus into merely a good ball player. More often than not, people end up being really disappointed in that. But when you take a step back, and then when you evaluate what it is, you say, Wow, that was a really good career. So, I mean,
Nestor Aparicio 27:24
we do that with like Jimmy Smith around here, right? I mean,
Luke Jones 27:27
Jimmy Jimmy Smith was disappointing, until you kind of looked up and said, Okay, I get it. The durability was an issue. But, man, that guy was a really solid corner for a long time and ended up being a perfectly fine first round pick. Not not a Ray Lewis Ed Reed, legendary first round pick, but a perfectly fine first round pick. So you know that that’s where you just look at this. And you know, I mean Brandon Young’s the most re you know the example we’re talking about, because it’s fresh in our minds. But go look at Kyle Bradish, his first 10 starts in the majors. Go look at great Grayson Rodriguez, injuries aside, but knowing what he became second half of 23 and what he was last year, his first eight starts in the majors, it was rough. I mean, I mean, I’ll use a more historic comp for you. Roy Halladay got sent all the way back down to what single a and rebuilt himself into becoming a Hall of Fame pitcher. So we know that development is not linear, and a point I’ve tried to make this year as hard as it’s been because of how badly this went off the rails, because of the injuries, because of the bad off season, because of the underperformance. Yes, all of it combined, there is a reminder, and I I used it earlier in the season a little bit more, because, you know, at that point there was still the thought that, hey, you have 100 games left. You don’t know what’s going to happen, but you go, look at those Astros teams. And I brought this up to you. Remember, 2015 they they were viewed as being ahead of schedule. They made it as a wild card. They won a series. They took the Royals who won the World Series. Go look, they took the Royals to the brink. In a series, they went to a deciding game. You know what happened in 16 they go, got off to a bad start, and they never really recovered. Now, they didn’t have the kind of bad year that the Orioles have had. It hasn’t been to that degree. But the same point holds true that the following year, not only did they rebound, but they won the World Series. Now not going to sit here and say that the Orioles are going to follow that same exact script, but the point is, you’ve got young ball players. You have an organization that from a payroll standpoint, and yes, I’m projecting out and expressing some expectation here, although I don’t know how high it potentially, they don’t have anything on the books, you know, that’s my point. Like on paper, there should be plenty of flexibility to make moves and make what you hope will be good moves, better moves than they made this past off season. But between that and having a group of young players that are going to have all the runway they need the rest of this season to play and. Play and play some more. You’re hoping that enough of that will come together come next spring that it’s a fresh slate. And you’re, you know, new manager, presumably, new coaching staff, presumably. And we’re going to see what it looks like. And development’s not linear. It can go up and down like the stock market and, you know, but there, there is plenty to play for, even if it doesn’t matter in terms of where they are in the standings, because they’re in last place and they’re out of the race, and they traded off guys that would have helped them, right? But there’s enough here to still stay engaged as a fan in a hopeful way, not saying you should cancel your plans on a Friday night to watch Brandon young pitch, although, certainly if you did Friday night you were happy, but you know, let’s see how this plays out. But on this weekend, for what it was and what it meant in terms of promoting a couple of your top guys and Colton cows are coming back off the IL Hey, Colton cowser got to play better the rest of the year. This has not been a good year for you, you know, but he’s got a chance now to go out there and play. He’s probably going to play set a lot of center field the rest of the way, to see what that looks like. In terms of trying to figure out whether this team has a center fielder, they need to go get one this off season, but we’re going to see. There’s a lot of evaluating. But, man, there should be a lot of competition. These young guys should all be looking at each other. And Westberg alluded to this. He’s alluded to this a couple times, and I’ll leave you with this where it’s like, there is no one else, like there’s Santander and the Cedric Mullins and the Austin Hayes and, you know, Mount Castle still here, but there’s a good chance he’s not going to be here next year, based on where he is arbitration wise and all that. There are none of those guys anymore. So hey, go do it. Go play. Go. Look like the core that everyone’s been talking about all these years, the foundation that started with Adley rutschman being 116 years ago. Go out there and look like a group that is trending upward going into the off season. And then see what Mike Elias, or whoever, you know, whoever’s making the decisions, whoever’s making the moves, assuming it’s going to be him at this point, you know, go out there and and put together a team that’s ready to hit the ground running next spring. And if they can do that, I think, not saying that’s going to sell all the tickets they want to sell this off season, because I think that’s a totally different discussion for another segment. But I think people will be optimism, optimistic and ready to hopefully have a much better 2026 but that begins with ending, you know, winding down the rest of the season on a much higher note. And this weekend was a good start to be able to do that.
Nestor Aparicio 32:37
I think I lost track of Nick marcas when he left here, he played in 156 158 160 and 162 games in the four years, five years after he left here, despite the concerns about his neck. Remember, crazy? Yeah, 162 games in his year, 34 year. And had just a phenomenal season, 14 home runs. 93 RBI is 43 doubles. It 297, ops, 800 I mean, like crazy. And you’d look at that and say, well, that wouldn’t be good enough for Dylan beavers, or that wouldn’t be good I’m like,
Luke Jones 33:11
sign up for that in blood for Dylan beavers. Yeah. But you know what,
Nestor Aparicio 33:15
if Jackson holiday only did this, you’d say second baseman,
Luke Jones 33:19
you know, one, one, yeah. I mean, it’s, yeah, you know. And it’s
Nestor Aparicio 33:23
terrible. If Jackson holiday only has 20 388 hits, how many hits does this old man have? You know, I can get that. I’ll
Luke Jones 33:32
grab that number. But a very good player, but hey, but this is, this is one of the arguments that I made about Matt leaders all those years, like, look, Matt weeders never became Johnny Bench. We all understand that Matt Weiner still look he’s not what everyone wanted him to be, but he was still an all star catcher, still a Gold Glove caliber catcher.
Nestor Aparicio 33:50
I would have told you that that Matt holiday had more hits than Matt Nick Marquez, but he didn’t. Matt holiday had 2100 hits, 300 home runs, 1200 RBIs. Had more RBIs than marques 299, lifetime batting average. I mean, the Colorado early numbers stack him up, because he had your monster Colorado years at a couple of his age, 2526 27 Yeah, he had some extra padding in his numbers that if Nick Marquez had played in Colorado. He probably would have, you know, he would, would have been a 30 home run guy, right? So, but I, you know, these are really good ball players, and if Jackson holidays as good as his dad, that’s what you’re hoping. It’s still not a one one, you know what I mean, like, which is really weird, because I think it’s crazy. I would
Luke Jones 34:39
disagree with that. I mean, a one, we also have to understand there’s a one one every single year, and the one one doesn’t I mean, there are plenty of guys that were one ones who never amounted to anything special. So, but Hey, Jackson, holiday is another guy, good, very encouraging steps made in his age 21 season. But there needs to be few. Her steps, and he’d be the first to tell
Nestor Aparicio 35:01
you his dad didn’t get his first hits at least 24 Exactly.
Luke Jones 35:05
That’s where you have to
Nestor Aparicio 35:07
look at this. And by the way, let me and
Luke Jones 35:10
this, he’s gonna have 500 hits before his dad got in at bat. And let’s also remember Samuel basayo literally turned 21 a few days ago. I mean, we’re talking about, he’s the youngest player to debut in the majors this year. I
Nestor Aparicio 35:25
mean, to taking him out and bought him a beer, red. I know, right, let him by the way. I don’t
Luke Jones 35:29
know if you saw this. I’ll leave you with this. Go check it out. I’m sure most Orioles fans saw it, but they did the video of having his father call him and inform him that he was in the coffee. Yeah, it was so cool. Yeah. I mean, I don’t say this about a lot of things at the Orioles, especially in 2025 well done on that. That was really, really cool. And that was neat that they shared that getting to have his father enjoy that, and that we all got to, you know, peer into the window of getting to see what that was like for both of them. All
Nestor Aparicio 35:59
right, Luke is appearing into the window more last place baseball this week, but we’re trying to be cheerful about it. The ravens are a couple of weeks out from playing. I did a whole bunch of work that Amaco. You know, if you think of it as public service, that’s cool. I talked to Republicans and Democrats, to talk to people east of the bridge and west of the bridge. I talked to male and female and black and white and young and old. So it’s a lot of conversation. I hope that you enjoy it here during a time when these are conversations we need to be having around especially with the team in last place, and no football going on, but Luke will be out monitoring all things Ravens. We’ll have some reports against the commanders. Saw a few commanders fans that on Ocean City, also some Steelers fans as a mixed bag this time of the year, I sat with browns and Bengals fans among me as well. Then at makeup, we had a great, great time down there. All of our 27th anniversary tastiness tips are brought to you by our friends at curio wellness as well as GBMC. We’re bringing the show out on the road this week. We’re going to be faithless on Thursday. We’re going to be pizza John’s on Friday, next Monday, cost this in Timonium, and then next Tuesday, we move back downtown to slant you in Fells Point. We’ll wrap things up at Coco’s next Wednesday. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have pressure looks. I have Lucky Seven doublers. My eternal thanks to the bronfine family, my friends at foreign daughter, and Curia wellness for having me out on the golf course at the PGA and the BMW championship. It was just great. Great day out of caves Valley. Well done for Steve fader, everybody out there, buddy Mariucci, everybody that just puts that thing on. It was just an unbelievable show. Well done. Saw so many friends out there. Want to make sure that I’m still telling off from all the golf getting you ready for all the conversations this week, and also get ready for football season around here. He’s Luke, I’m Nestor. We are W N, S T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive.
