Hello, everybody. Welcome to the second half. This is Rates and Burroughs. I'm Al Malkier. I'm

filling in for Derek Vindriper. And with me here, of course, is Enos Saris on this show, Wednesday, July 12th.

And, you know, just before we were starting here, talking about the All-Star game. We actually

didn't talk at all about the Home Run Derby, but we'll get to that in due time. But I figure we'll chat a little bit

about some takeaways from that. And then also just a few, and of course, what we expect to be

a slow news week, a few, I think, noteworthy news items. And then we'll just take the opportunity

of the break here in the middle of the season to talk about some players that at least I personally am finding a little perplexing, not sure what to do about them and see what your thinking is on those players.

So but let's start.

Let's go back to Monday's home run Derby, the winner Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

And kind of an interesting winner because one thing to me that's very notable about Guerrero's first half is that for the second

year in a row, his home run to fly ball ratio is down. There's certainly, you know, nothing

all that wrong with Laddie. but it is an interesting trend.

And, you know, he comes away with the crown and the home run derby.

So is that something that maybe portends more power in the second half?

I mean, the opposite, as Laman said, that the home run derby messes you up for the second half.

But we've had other counter examples.

You know, Juan Soto hit better after his derby championship or derby run one year

where he'd been hitting too many ground balls and not pulling enough.

And it kind of put him in that

in that sort of swing or that mentality to pull the ball more and hit for more power in that

second half. I mean, that's exactly what you want for Vlad Guerrero is more homers. He's doing

everything about the same as he normally has.

...