Why a weak schedule is the Mariners’ best friend + MLB farm system rankings

Welcome back to the Baseball Tonight Podcast with Buster Olney! On today’s episode, Buster is joined by ESPN Producer and Researcher for “Get Up!” Paul “Hembo” Hembekides to discuss why the Mariners’ weak strength of schedule at the and of the season should lead them into the playoffs. We’ll also discuss why the Red Sox have a historically great outfield duo in Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela. We’ll also hear from ESPN’s MLB prospect and farm system expert Kiley McDaniel on why the Brewers came in at number 1 in his latest farm system rankings, and why beauty is in the eyes of the beholder when it comes to teams’ player evaluations. All this, plus we play the numbers game with Sarah Langs, and Buster answers your questions in Bleacher Tweets.

Timecodes: 

0:02 Welcome, Top of the First 

2:53 Hembo joins the show!

3:34 Cooper Pratt benched for lack of hustle

7:32 Mariners fighting for a playoff spot

10:33 MLB has a competitive balance problem

15:00 Red Sox are playing great defense

19:01 Sal Stewart is an RBI machine

21:37 Andrew Painter stepping up

24:42 Mike Trout, Ernie Banks & Walker Johnson shared stat

28:42 Sarah Langs plays the numbers game