VSiN By The Books | August 4, 2026 | Hour 1

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is VSiN By The Books on VSiN, the eSports betting network.

**Dave Ross** (0:12)
It is the Tuesday morning edition of VSiN By The Books. I am Dave Ross right here at the mid-gaming hall, Franklin, Kentucky. There's our closer, Jensen Lewis, back home in Cleveland, Ohio.
Have we exhaled? How are they feeling this morning, waking up in the great city of Cleveland? Are they excited about all the new editions coming to Guardsland?

**Jensen Lewis** (0:31)
Well, it's different, Dave, when your front office doesn't really do anything to move the needle, the last handful of deadlines, and then all of a sudden, it feels like you're drinking from a fire hose. You know, we'll obviously dive into all of the deadline moves, I think, on the Cleveland front and the American League Central front. Hey, the Southsiders were busy.
You saw the Minnesota Twins the last couple of days. It was really a very exciting 72 hours and a flurry of moves to finish it off right before 6 p.m. Eastern last night.

**Dave Ross** (1:03)
Yeah, it really is a great day if you're a baseball fan. And you know, you're going to see the winners and the losers. And there are some clear, I think, demarcation lines drawn, which teams are going for it, which teams kind of set on the fence and which team might have waved that white flag. Got a great show lined up here on this Tuesday. Matt Youmans going to join the program as he does each and every Tuesday morning, bright and early later on this hour. Greg Peterson trying to sift through all those trades and figure out who's going to win today on the Major League Baseball Docket. We'll get Greg's best bets on the day. Levi Weaver is going to join the program from the Athletic in hour number three. And again, just kind of sift through everything now that the trade deadline has come and gone. No surprise, Jensen. That's where we begin today's edition of our Highlights and Headlines.

**SPEAKER_1** (1:46)
Help your bottom line with today's Highlights and Headlines.

**Dave Ross** (1:57)
So I guess there were other moves to make after Tarek Scoobel went to the Dodgers and it felt like, oh wait, come on, now what's going to happen before we get to Monday? I mean, that happened over the weekend at the dead of the night. And now Jensen, that deadline yesterday, 6 p.m. Eastern, it really did. It felt like a pretty seminal day for certain teams. Again, knowing the landscape of what Major League Baseball could look like next year, I was surprised by some teams, maybe the things they didn't do, and certainly other teams that made some big pushes like the Cubs. We talked about the Guardians a little bit, and certainly the Rays with some minor moves. Do you have any initial winners that just jump off the page to you? And we're going to break this down as the show goes in totality, Jensen, but just some top line thoughts from yesterday.

**Jensen Lewis** (2:40)
Well, of course, the top prize goes to the Dodgers a couple of days ago in Tarrick Scoobel. But when you looked at a lot of the starting pitching market, I think a lot of teams really did themselves a service because we obviously know that not only gets you through into a pennant, but also into a postseason spot.
So you think of teams, you know, like the San Diego Padres who get to really impactful guys and Robbie Ray and Casey Mize. You think about what the Brewers did. No, it wasn't Tarrick Scoobel. And I know there's plenty of consternation about that, but you do get Dustin May, who has been the best starter for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cubs go out and they get Clay Holmes. They get Braxton Garrett. A lot of different places and a lot of different teams did themselves right. And the position player market too. I still wrapping my head around the package that the Red Sox sent to Baltimore for Adley Rutchman. But again, to get a number one overall selection and a switch hitting catcher at this point, I think on LW. Network TV yesterday, there was a comparison of could this be, and it might have been a great friend of the program, Harold Reynolds. Could this be the new Jason Veritek in Adley Rutchman coming in for this year and next year? He's got to work his way back off the entry list here pretty soon, but lot to break down and a lot of futures impact now.
As I told you, I like to wait until the dust is settled, kind of sleep on it and see where some actionable spots are. We'll definitely have some angles now with two months to go before October.