Matt Snyder, CBS Sports MLB Reporter

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Hire high-quality certified pros at angie.com. Matt, thank you for taking the time to join us. Hey, sure thing, man. How are you doing?

I'm very well, thank you. I guess my first question is, and this is more of your opinion, 32 first-time all-stars. What does this mean for the game? Are we in a little bit of a surprise, or can we move forward with future stars?

What are your thoughts? Some of it is a coincidence where you have players like Seth Lugo, a 34-year-old for the Royals having a career year. Some of it is also that there's just some amazing young talent.

So, coincidence, some of that, yeah. I think that we started on this path of guys being so good so soon, a little over a decade ago. 2011, when Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, and Mike Trout took the league by force, all rookies in 2011. And then the next generation was Juan Soto and Ronald Laconia Jr. debuting in the same year as teenagers.

And on through right now, where you see guys coming up and dominating right away. Paul Skeans, for example, the first number one overall pick to be an all-star the very next year. Some of it is that, and some of it, like I said, is guys like Seth Lugo, who are just putting it together as veterans, jerks, and pro-far-of-the-pod race, having a career year at age 31.

It's just been a weird year with the coincidences like that. And Matt Snodessy with us from CBS Sports. You talk about Paul Skeans giving people a reason to go ahead and really pay attention to the Pirates.

Why? What makes him different? I mean, outside of throwing gas, what makes him different than guys who show up one year and then the next year, boom, they hear it in an all-star game?

His stuff is off the charts good. And you see, when guys have never seen him before, for example, one of his first starts came against the Dodgers. And Mookie Betts, one of the best players on the planet, to his third swing on a strikeout, he looked just completely lost, like I've never seen anything like this before. And same thing with Shohei Ohtani, who struck out after that.

Now, Ohtani got him next time for a home run. But when you've never seen him before, and he's thrown over 100 with the fastball, and he's got a sinker that moves so much, people think it's a splinker, which is a combination splitter and sinker, but it's not. I asked him personally, and he said, no, it's just a sinker.

Guys haven't seen stuff like this before. That's just how talented he is with the raw talent. He just learned the sinker this year.

He didn't even use it in college. Being that big and strong gives me hope that his arm isn't going to break down. I mean, he's probably the most hyped starting pitcher since Steven Strasburg, and we know what happened with Strasburg's career. It was a mixed bag between being absolutely electric, winning World Series MVP, being inside on contention, and being hurt almost all the time.

So hopefully schemes as big and strong enough that we'll avoid that path. Yeah, listen, that Strasburg contract that they gave him, that wasn't too bad now at the end. Not for him. The Nationals, not so much.

But for him, not too shabby. Matt Snyder's here with us from CBS Sports. When you talk about the young pitching, we know there's a lot of young bats that we'll see next week as well. And then there's some that are left off. The Orioles certainly have a little bit of a beef.

They have so many bats in the rotation. I guess it was a matter of, what, did they eat each other up in regards to the voting? Maybe. I mean, there's some level also of every team gets one representative, so some slots are going to get used up in that fashion.

I'm not sure. Look, David Fry for the Guardians is a great story. It's cool to have a utility man who is also a catcher. But I'm not sure that he definitely needed to be there instead of Jordan Westberg or Anthony Santander. It just seems like the Orioles probably deserve more than three players. They've got Adlai Rushman and Gunnar Henderson, who are both deserving starters. Corbin Burns, probably good enough to start the game for the AL.

And then that's it. This is the best team in the American League and they've just got their three best players and that's it. So we'll see. There might be some injury replacements. We know that everybody who pitches on Sunday has to get replaced, but that only opens up spots for other pitchers. I don't know if the Orioles have another pitcher. Grayson Rodriguez would probably be a little bit down the line behind guys like Joe Ryan and Ronel Blanco.

So I don't. I'm looking at the AL roster right now. I don't know if anybody's definitely going to be hurt.

So, yeah, Westberg and Santander might be left out in the cold. Let me ask you, Matt, not just in the American League, but in the National League, who do you think has the best chance of making the roster between now and next week as one of these replacements, whether it be because a guy just pitched or maybe, you know, you want to say anybody gets hurt? Who might be next up? Well, so Bryce Harper is in the starting lineup. I don't know if he's going to be back or not. If he doesn't make it back, I think Christian Walker is an easy add there. He's having another great power year.

He's never been an all-star before the Diamondbacks won the NL pennant last year. So that's probably an easy replacement there. Pitching-wise, Zach Wheeler is scheduled to pitch on Sunday, which means he'll still get a go to the game, but he has to be replaced on the active roster. So that might open up a spot for his teammate, Christopher Sanchez, who has been really, really good this year. Those are the two that come to mind, but I don't know that there's going to be that many other replacements.

Every time I do the snubs, I get people back like, oh, this is stupid to do the snubs because there's going to be like 20 guys added anyway. I don't think there are going to be that many. I can only think of two starting pitchers that are going to go on Sunday and one obviously injured player in Bryce Harper. Okay, Mookie Betts, two injured players. So there will be two additions on the National League position player side and one starting pitcher in each league. And so far that looks like that might be it. So there's not going to be that many guys added.

And Matt Snyder is joining us from CBS Sports. We know kind of the, I don't know if I want to call it the appetizer prior to the All-Star game, but we have the home run derby and Major League Baseball is kind of switched up. Are the rules, at least I'd say the order again. Big deal, small deal, no deal. People are still swinging for the fences, right? It's probably not going to be that noticeable. I think they ran into a lot of these exhibition pitchers were throwing it before they were supposed to throw another pitch. And then they were getting so many swings in the early rounds.

The guys were getting tired before we got to the late rounds. So it's just a little bit of a tweak, but I don't know how much we're going to notice it. And I know that there are some people who don't really care about the event and that's perfectly fine to each his or her own, but I absolutely love it. I think it's great. I think that a lot of people who are not diehard baseball fans will tune in to watch that and it's just mindless fun. So I absolutely love it. If you've never gone to one in person, at least now in the clock era, I think that it was terrible how many pitches guys were taking before they put the clock in. But once they put the clock in, they saved it.

And if you ever get a chance to go do it, it's amazing in person. Well, Matt, once we get done with all of the all star festivities, a home run derby, the actual game out in Arlington, we get back to baseball, man. I'm not saying we're running into the dog days, but time is flying by. The Yankees have been faltering. The O's are sitting at the top of the American League East.

Talk to us about what the hell is going on here. Can the Yankees kind of steady things out? Are they going to be chasing the Orioles the rest of the summer? Well, they were playing out of their minds way too good. They were getting amazing starting pitching with Garrett Cole on the shelf.

You probably knew that that wasn't going to continue. And then all that regression has happened within the last 20 games and they've been pitching terribly. Offensively, they need a lot more than just Aaron Judge and Juan Soto to a lesser extent. They need a lot more from Verdugo. They need Anthony Volpe to look like he did in the first couple weeks of the season when it looked like he was going to have a breakout year.

Maybe Ben Rice is legit. That will help with the lineup depth. They're going to hopefully eventually get Giancarlo Stanton back.

That'll help. Glaber Torres, no idea what's going on there, but he should be way, way, way better than this. They need a lot more help from their non-stars. They're in the starting lineup.

And again, the pitchers, we've seen guys like Marcus Stroman and Nestor Cortez and Carlos Redon be very inconsistent. They're in the bad part right now. They need to bounce back and be better.

They have the horses here. They just need to be better. Matt Snyder joining us from CBS Sports.

When you talk about a Yankees boogeyman, all you have to do is look to Texas and not Arlington, but out to Houston. They've been able to turn things around as of late. What do you think the Strobes are going to do the rest of the year? I think they're going to win the division. I think it was early May. They were 12 and 24 and then they got hot. And I was like, yeah, they're going to be in first place by the All-Star break.

I don't know. It's going to be close. They're two down with just a week to go, but I do think that they're a safe bet to win the division. The Mariners just don't have any offense at all. I don't know how much they can help that in front of the trade deadline.

It's hard to see how many bats are going to be available. And the answer is they need to piece together their pitching. They are banged up. They've lost Sariketi and Christian Javier for the season. Who knows what's going on with Lance McCullers Jr. Justin Verlander is over 40. He seems to be hurt a lot and he can't count on him, but they'll find a way to piece it together.

And offensively, they're just humming along right now and they're doing it without their arguably their best player in Kyle Tucker. So I think the Astros are going to win that division. Oh, you talk about the MLB trade deadline.

Oh my goodness. We got that at the end of the month. Are the Marlins going to have a baseball team by August 1st or should I sign up? Like what's going to happen? Yeah, it'll resemble a Major League Baseball team, but not be a good one at all. I don't think they're going to move Jazz to them, so they'll still have kind of a star player that a bunch of people will like. Josh Bell's probably going to get traded again. Pitching-wise, if they have anybody who can stay healthy at all, maybe Trevor Rodgers goes, but he's not having a good year at all.

Tanner Scott surely is gone, the all-star closer. Yeah, they're not going to be very good at all. They have a lot of work to do in the offseason moving forward. It's crazy. As long as the Marlins have existed, it doesn't matter if they're just coming off a World Series 1 or they just stink.

They're going to sell everybody. That's all they do. Every year it doesn't matter. It's like the farm system.

Yes, it's sad. Matt Snyder, as we start to wrap things up, it seems like for years now, when we get to the end, I can typically look at the National League and go, okay, what are the Dodgers going to do? What are the Phillies going to do? We know the Braves have dealt with some injuries, although they have some amazing starting pitching.

What do you foresee happening in the NL? The Phillies will win the East, the Dodgers will easily win the West, and the Braves will be the top wild card. I think that the Brewers are probably going to hold on in the Central, but I wouldn't count the Cardinals out there. The Cardinals will probably be one of the wild card teams. And then the last spot, I think the Padres are going to stick.

Man, that's boring, though. I just named the six teams that are in playoff position right now. Hey, so it's reality. Yeah, I do think that Diamondbacks are going to hang around. Very interested to see what happens with the Mets, because they looked like one of the most obvious sellers, and then they got really hot, and now they're on the cusp of contention. It's David Stern's first year at the helm.

He probably wanted to reshape the organization, kind of how he wanted it. It's easy to start with trading Pete Alonso there, but they're only two games out. He has to endear himself to the fans if they're that close to contention, and he has to try to go for it. So it'll be really fun to watch what happens with the Mets.

Well, if the Mets bring back grimace in every game, then I think they'll keep on winning. Sounds simple to me. Well, thank you, Matt. Where can people follow you and all your great work with CBS? CBSSports.com slash MLB. A lot of good stuff there. If you want to hit me up on X, I'm Matt Snyder, CBS there. Awesome. Well, thank you, Matt. Enjoy things down in Arlington.

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