Jared Diamond, Wall Street Journal MLB Reporter

Jared, how are you? I'm doing all right. How are you? I'm excellent. Thank you for taking the time to join us. I hope you're doing better than it has shown online. I hope so.

Finally feeling a little bit better, but it was a difficult week and I'm glad to have something other than COVID to talk about with you. I know. Well, thank you for that. Well, let's let's talk about the man who was named a starter for the National League. Let's talk about Paul Skeans. Any any shock or surprise based on where he was exactly a year ago to right now? There has to be a little surprise, right?

What say you? You no one could have expected this. You just couldn't have it as great as he was in college and as huge of a prospect as he was. You never imagine someone's going to go from being drafted essentially a year ago to starting in the All-Star game.

That just does not happen. Even for giant prospects, right? He's a huge prospect. So there's been other huge prospects. You think back to say Steven Strasburg who kind of came up with similar hype and he was very, very good out of the gate, but nothing like what we've seen out of Paul Skeans. And honestly, I'm a little surprised pleasantly so that he's actually getting the starting job on the All-Star game on Tuesday. It was clearly the right decision, but baseball doesn't always make good decisions.

And that's that's correct. Baseball doesn't always make the decision. Baseball, by the way, doesn't always make the right decisions. And speaking of decisions, a lot of controversy yesterday after he was pulled seven innings of no hit ball, 99 pitches as a manager, Shelton was saying that he was getting tired. He's gassed.

Skeans says, yeah, I was feeling a little tired. What are your thoughts on that? I didn't have a problem with him getting pulled, especially when you think about preservation of his body and his arm through a whole year. It's so frustrating as fans to witness something like that. And it's not the first time we've seen time and time again in recent years pitchers pull out of games with no hitters because of pitch counts and an effort to preserve their arms or whatever it is.

The one thing that you just mentioned is the one thing that sort of makes me more OK with it. And that's Paul Skeans acknowledging that maybe he was starting to get a little tired. And maybe he's just saying that to stay safe, to protect his manager.

Who knows? But let's take him at his word. If he really is coming off the mound and saying, yeah, I am starting to feel a little tired. You kind of have no choice but to take him out of the game at that point. I do believe that these pitch counts and things like this are often overblown and we don't really know very much about what makes pitchers arms sort of explode the way they do. But one thing we do know is that fatigue is a major factor.

So if he was tired, I guess you have no choice. Without a shadow of a doubt, Jared Diamond is joining us from The Wall Street Journal as we pull up into the weekend and we get to the celebrity game down in Texas and they do the home run derby. What else should we really look forward to over All-Star weekend down in Arlington? Well, I am curious to see what they're doing with this skills competition concept and the sort of auditioning this year after the Futures game.

I don't know what kind of impact it's going to have, but I like that they're trying different things. Right. In all sports, the All-Star game is a concept of kind of lost some of its luster. I think that's absolutely true in baseball because of things like interleague play and the like.

Right. Like I think we all sort of know that the All-Star game isn't what it used to be. So I like that baseball is trying to find ways to spice it up. And really what this should all be about is showcasing the incredible talent that baseball has scattered across the sport. Paul Skean starting on Tuesday is one great example of that. But if there's other ways, other things they could do besides just the home run derby moving forward, I think that would be great and something baseball needs to continue sort of looking into. And then, of course, we have the big event. You have the home run derby.

Right. Pete Alonso is back in it going to try to win it for like the millionth time. There's just so many great players in the game right now. And this really is it should be an opportunity to showcase them. And you just kind of hope that baseball does it the way they should. Well, Jared, there are more than 30 first time All-Stars by the time we pull up to the game on Tuesday. What do you feel that this is indicative of when it comes to baseball in its future? Some of these guys won and done.

Do you think there's some continuity or what are your thoughts? I think what we're seeing is that this is I wouldn't want I don't want to say a changing of the guard moment, but it definitely is a situation where, you know, the great stars of the last X number of years are reaching the end. Right. I mean, Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw and Mike Trout and all of these guys that we have loved to watch for the last however many years.

They're still around and some of them are still very good, but they're not necessarily the stars anymore. And there are there is sort of this new crop of players coming up that everyone's going to see now. Right. Especially, for instance, some of these guys in Baltimore.

Right. Like Gunnar Henderson, who, you know, probably is going to be leading off for for the American League, Adlai Rutchman as well for Baltimore playing in that game. I just think that this is a moment where, like it's a youth movement. There's so many great young players in baseball and the future is sort of here. The All-Star rosters are indicative of that. Yeah, I mean, you talk about the Orioles, even Jordan Westberg had to wait for Devers to go down before he got his chance.

Earlier in the week, we really took some time to talk about Elie De La Cruz. He's one of my favorite players to watch in the league right now. Is there a player that's going to be participating in the All-Star game that you think is is a hidden gem? OK, everybody's going to be focused on Skeans. It's going to be his night.

He'd probably go out there and strike out the side on non-pitches. But is there someone that isn't garnering the attention that should? Well, there's a few guys and I guess you'll have to tell me what what what constitutes of a hidden gem, right? Obviously, Bobby Witt Jr. is not starting the game. He plays in Kansas City, right?

Where you just don't get a lot of attention in general. And I think it's time for everyone to realize who hasn't already that Bobby Witt Jr. is an absolute superstar and he's not starting the game. He probably would be in any other year if not for Gunnar Henderson. So that's one guy. I think people know who he is.

So here are maybe some guys that people don't know as well. Tariq Scubel, on the Tigers, left handed pitcher. He's probably been the best pitcher in baseball this season, or at least in the American League. You've probably never heard of him because he's on the Tigers. Emmanuel Classe on Cleveland. He's the Cleveland closer, not his first rodeo in the All-Star game.

But this guy has been absolutely insane this season. He has an 0.83 ERA. There's a case to be made that he is your Cy Young winner at this point and not Scubel.

It's one of those two guys. So I'm looking forward to seeing him pitch. And look, you mentioned Elliot De La Cruz. My goodness, I'm not sure there's a more electric player in all of baseball, at least talent wise. The guy's absolutely incredible with things he could do. He's so big. He's so strong. He throws the ball like 98 miles an hour across the infield. So much fun.

So much fun to watch. Jared Diamond joining us from the Wall Street Journal. Well, once we get past all of the fun of next week, it's going to be a little bit of pain for a few of the players as they are going to get shipped off to places that they may not want to go. The trade deadline is July 30th.

Who do you think are some top candidates that are likely to be moved and who are some teams that are looking to be buyers? It's very, very strange this year at this moment. It's very strange. And the reason for that is because there are a lot of buyers and not a lot of sellers.

And in some ways, that's by design, right? By adding the third wild card like baseball did. Suddenly there's a lot more teams that sort of believe they're in contention. Right. And like you just heard today, the Tampa Bay Rays, who have not played very well, you know, by all might be selling based on how they played.

And they're like, no, we think we're going to make it around the playoffs. We could be buyers. So it's going to be a very, very good market. If you are a seller, you can command the world. One team I think is going to definitely be selling is Toronto.

They have pieces. Are you going to see someone like Bo Bichette, though? Will Vladimir Guerrero be traded?

Right. I think the Blue Jays sort of whole situation kind of fall in the park this year enough that you think that maybe they're going to want to fall over. The Cubs have been a big disappointment as well. It makes you wonder if perhaps Cody Bellinger becomes available. I never would have said the start of the season when everyone thought he was going to be the number three hitter on a potential division winning team.

But they've been bad enough that you kind of wonder if they're going to go another direction. Couple other quick names, a jazz Chisholm of the Marlins. You know, he's not a superstar, but he's a good player and he's a guy you'd like to have on your team.

He's available. Garrett Crochet is another all star pitcher for the White Sox left handed pitcher. The White Sox are terrible.

I expect to see him go as well. Jared, you think about the Dodgers losing to the Phillies, you think about the Astros on an upswing, think about the Yankees on a current downswing. The Braves have had some surprises on the pitching staff with some injuries with the bats. What teams do you think are in pole position to be successful in October or are we going to get another big old surprise? Well, look, the answer is probably what you just said that we get a big old surprise that that is the definition of baseball.

It's just impossible to project what's going to happen. The postseason is such a weird crapshoot. But look, as we sit here today on July 12th, the Phillies have clearly been the best team in baseball. I don't think anyone would possibly disagree with that. They've basically been the best team from wire to wire.

And they also are very experienced, right? They were in the World Series in 2022. They went to Game 7 of the NLCS just last year.

I think everyone was stunned. They didn't end up in the World Series for the second straight year last season. And now they're coming back again with the absolute best team in baseball. So they're going to be the favorites.

At least that we sit here now sort of moving forward. The Dodgers have been very good from the other teams you mentioned. I think the Orioles also have been great, but the Phillies, they seem like the team to beat because it's a combination of talent and experience. The Orioles are great, but they've been in the playoffs precisely one time with this group. They got swept. And that was that. Right. So there's something to be said about you kind of have to prove you could do it in October before we really take you seriously.

The Phillies certainly have that. Hey, Jared, I appreciate you taking the time to drop all the insight, everything from some of our young stars to the All-Star game, the deadline, the postseason, the stretch run. Where can people follow you and all of your work with The Wall Street Journal?

On Twitter, X, whatever you're calling it these days, at Jared Diamond or, of course, just on WSJ.com. That's the best place to find all my work. Thank you, Jared. I appreciate the time, man. You feel better. I'm happy that you're on the upswing, OK? Thanks a lot. You're urgent alone.