Mud Birds: Royals GM J.J. Picollo on Deadline Moves & Extending Seth Lugo; Snippets of Desperation in the AL East

Baseball Tonight with Buster Olney

ESPN Radio

Sports

3.7 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Royals GM J.J. Picollo joins Buster to discuss his traded deadline experience, how much the parity in the American League was a factor in making moves, extending Seth Lugo, adding Mike Yastrzemski, and trading Freddy Fermin to the Padres. Then, Alden Gonzalez talks about the tight AL East race, his preseason Mariners’ prediction, the Yankees trying to get Devin Williams right, and Mookie Betts figuring it out at the plate. Then, Sarah Langs on the Brewers reaching 70 wins. Later, Todd Radom shares this week’s Ballpark & Beyond, and administers the quiz. CALL THE SHOW: 406-404-8460 EMAIL THE SHOW: BleacherTweets@gmail.com REACH OUT ON X: #BLEACHERTWEETS 2:40 Royals GM J.J. Picollo 16:06 Alden Gonzalez 33:58 Sarah Langs 35:44 Todd Radom 46:03 Bleacher Tweets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Baseball Tonight, the podcast for Friday, August 8th, 2025, and today will be better than yesterday.
0:18.6	A Buster Only working from my home in Montana.
0:21.3	Taylor-Schwing is working from back in Bristol.
0:24.2	On Saturday, I'm headed to St. Louis, Taylor.
0:27.5	We've got the Cubs and Cardinals this weekend.
0:29.9	We're hoping to get Pekyllar Armstrong on the microphone.
0:32.4	Oh, man, he would be great on the microphone.
0:34.3	He might be one of the best guys all season if it works out. Yeah, he is one of the guys who's absolutely comfortable, natural, uh, wearing the microphone. He's actually done it once earlier this year. But on our Zoom call, we were like, yeah, we could, he could do it again. Like, we would have no problem having Pete Coral Armstrong again because he's that type of guy.
0:58.8	And on top of that, he's one of the candidates for the National League MVP.
1:05.5	So Cubs Cardinals on Sunday, and the Cubs factor in in my top five this week, Taylor.
1:13.8	You tell me if I mess this up because Kylie McDaniel and I differ greatly on the power rankings this week.
1:15.9	He had the Brewers at number one.
1:17.9	I got the Phillies at number one.
1:19.2	You think that's disrespectful?
1:20.9	The Brewers, the first team to win 70?
1:22.8	A little bit.
1:23.6	A little bit.
1:27.5	I think I like the Brewers a touch more, but you could certainly make a case for either.
1:42.1	Reasonty bias. I just saw the Phillies. They looked incredible in that series against the Tigers. Right, right. The Geron taking over is closer. So I'm going to, I'm going to fess up to that. I got the Brewers at two. I've got the Cubs at three, the Blue Jays at four, Dodgers at five. what do you think?
1:45.2	I think that's solid, Buster.
1:46.9	I think maybe you could make a case for the Blue Jays being ahead of the Cubs. The Cubs have been slipping and sliding recently, but
1:51.7	otherwise a solid top five. I approve. Yeah, okay. And yeah, the first American League team in number four,
	...

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