Latest / Foul Territory / WSJ’s Jared Diamond: Soaring walk rates in ABS era, Ted Turner’s manager cameo, Brewers defying odds

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WSJ’s Jared Diamond: Soaring walk rates in ABS era, Ted Turner’s manager cameo, Brewers defying odds · Foul Territory

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, we've got Wall Street Journals sports reporter Jared Diamond
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: joining us right now on foul territory.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Gired.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It's good to see a happy Friday work putting out there. Yeah,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: thank you, dude, with loving the work you're putting out there.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We got a few topics here to touch on to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: kind of dive deeper into some of the stories that
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: people can find in the Wall Street Journal.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I want to start with the one on walks.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I like to see what trends are moving
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: with the changes in the sport, and you dove into
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: how walks are flying, they're surging and who did you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: say to blame in the title of the story.
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: There's only one thing that's changed between this season and
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: last season, and that is our good friends, the robot umpires. Clearly,
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: those robot umpires aren't a big fan of pitchers. They
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: seem to like hit or from what I could tell.
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  Speaker 2: So what are you learning? Why is this happening?
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: So the walk rate to this point the seas and
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: is very high. It's about nine and a half percent.
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  Speaker 3: So I realized that that number means nothing to anyone,
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  Speaker 3: because no one really knows what the typical walk rate
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: is it's typically around eight and a half percent. You know,
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: it's actually been very consistent, outside of a little spike
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: during the heart of the steroid era when pitchers were
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: understandably afraid to throw the ball anywhere in the vicinity
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  Speaker 3: of home plate. The walk rate is generally hovered around
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  Speaker 3: eight and a half percent for like fifty years. It's
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: been very consistent. Then all of a sudden this year
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: it's at nine point six percent, actually gone up at
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: ten of the percentage. I wrote that story a couple
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: of days ago. And look, if you've been watching, if
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: you've been watching games, you may have noticed the strike
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: zone is just simply smaller. I mean that's number one,
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  Speaker 3: especially at the top. The strike zone is lower than
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  Speaker 3: it was when it was called by human umpires. So
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  Speaker 3: that's certainly a factor. But the other factor is these
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: robot umpires are unforgetting right human umpires and Eric, I mean,
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: you could speak about this way better than I could.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: You could fool them, you could walk them off the
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: plate half an inch of a pitcher hit his spot,
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  Speaker 3: generally we get the call. Obviously, pitch framing played a role,
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  Speaker 3: not anymore that one batters could challenge those pitches that
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: are two tenths of an inch off the plate and
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: second of ball umpires are sort of adapting to being
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: challenge and being overturned and not giving you that little
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  Speaker 3: that just little smidge off the plate, and the result
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: is we're looking at the highest the first time walks
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  Speaker 3: might be over nine percent since two thousand.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: It's called earning the strikes, Jared. You earn those strikes
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: because you've thrown the ball very well, you throw it
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: exactly where you won it, and then the umpire gives
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: you a little bit. We weren't lying to the umpires.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: KYLEA.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Goshioka is one of the best receivers in the game,
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: and he's like, I'm not lying to him, but I'm
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: not telling him one hundred percent the truth. Do you
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  Speaker 4: see this shifted, this shift going back? Do you see
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: it going back or do you think this is our
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: new going to be our new norm with because of
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: the fact that there's robo umps and you're just never
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: getting that extra and the fact that most pitchers don't
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: really command the ball well, they just throw it super hard.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: It's a good question. I'll say this. We have seen
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: historically that the walk rate at this time of the season,
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  Speaker 3: it does tend to go down by the end of
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: the season. They are historically always more walks sort of
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: in April early May than there are the rest of
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the year, probably because it's cold, because pitchers can't drip
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: the ball for whatever reason. So it typically goes down
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  Speaker 3: by roughly half a percent. So let's say it follows
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: that typical pattern and goes down by half a percent,
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  Speaker 3: we finish at nine point one percent. That still would
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  Speaker 3: be among the highest we've seen in like fifty years.
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  Speaker 3: So even if it does have the typical decline, we're
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: still looking at really high numbers. Usually Baseball says that
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  Speaker 3: this is not a surprise that they saw similar rises
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  Speaker 3: in walks in triple A when they introduce the pitch clock,
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  Speaker 3: and basically, in their mind, if there's going to be
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  Speaker 3: a few more walks, that's a that's a worthwhile trade
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  Speaker 3: off one to get accurate calls. But also the strikeout
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  Speaker 3: rate is also slightly down. Not not giant numbers, right,
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  Speaker 3: We're not going back to you know what it was
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  Speaker 3: twenty thirty, forty fifty years ago. But smaller strike zone,
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  Speaker 3: more walks doesn't make sense. Slightly fewer strikeouts I think
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  Speaker 3: MLB's attitude is all right as long as the walks
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  Speaker 3: don't get totally out of control and will take a
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  Speaker 3: few more walks in exchange for a few fewer strikeouts
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  Speaker 3: and accurate calls. That that's at least that's what they're
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: that's what they're what they're telling me.
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  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, first off, let's if you look at
• 4:51
  Speaker 5: that chart. Can we just talk about how the pitchers
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: were just awful in the nineteen fifties. I mean, that
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  Speaker 5: was a huge spike, So whatever happened in the fifties,
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  Speaker 5: they were terrible. But so let's talk about the walks
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  Speaker 5: because you eluded on the league saying talking about let's
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  Speaker 5: not let the walks get too high and get too crazy. Well,
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  Speaker 5: first off, I mean pitchers can just not worry about
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  Speaker 5: throwing so hard and just start throwing some more strikes
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  Speaker 5: would be a little bit of a solid to that.
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  Speaker 5: But my question is do you think that the zone
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  Speaker 5: will will expand a little bit because I think the
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: ABS has been great, But with the walks going up,
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  Speaker 5: the dreaded pace of play time of games has also
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: gone up. So that's the league hates that. We all
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: know the league hates that. So, how do you see
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: the league combating it? With abs happening, walks going up,
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  Speaker 5: game time is getting longer, even though views are good.
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  Speaker 5: It's at an all time high right now. Do you
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: think the league's gonna do something to try to get
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  Speaker 5: the game time back down a little bit?
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Look, so time of game for the average nine
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: inning game right now is two hours forty one minutes.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: That's three minutes longer than last year. And it's the
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  Speaker 3: highest it's been since the pitch clock came into existence,
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: only by a couple of minutes. Right it's two three
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: four minutes here. But I do understand some worrying about
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  Speaker 3: the creep, right you say, oh, it's just two minutes here,
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  Speaker 3: and then it's two minutes next year, and then five
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: years from now, suddenly games are taking two hours and
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  Speaker 3: fifty five minutes instead of too forty or too thirty five.
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  Speaker 3: So I think it is definitely a valid concern in
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  Speaker 3: the in the in ABS is absolutely a factor. In fact,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: there pretty big factor. I mean, more walks, walks take
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: a lot of pitches. It just makes sense. There are
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: other factors why game time is going up, though, Uh
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: you know, one is pitchers are just using more of
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the pitch clock. Right, we're now been a pitchclock world
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: for what is the fourth year. In our pitch clock world,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: pitchers just sort of know how to use it to
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: their advantage. Also, the rise of teams calling pitches from
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: the dugout has played a factor. We know that Miami
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Colorado and other teams sort of that are privately doing
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: this Hendy use more of the pitch in between pitches.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: So there are other factors, and I do know MLB
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: is monitoring it very quick, very closely. I would say
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: that time of game to them is the one thing,
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  Speaker 3: one of the things that gets them really motivated. Right,
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  Speaker 3: a few more walks, if it's not really affecting time
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  Speaker 3: of game, they're probably not going to care because, like
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: walks are base runners, MLB wants more base runners. More
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: base runners, needs more stolen bases. It means more guys running,
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  Speaker 3: it means more action. That's not necessarily bad until time
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  Speaker 3: of game starts going out meaningfully and then suddenly they'll go, huh,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: maybe it's not worth betrayed off anymore. That becomes such
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: an area of emphasis for them. So we'll see where
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  Speaker 3: things go over the next four months. The ABS strike
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  Speaker 3: zone is obviously changed from when they first started testing
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: in the minors. They've tweaked it a lot. I think
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  Speaker 3: it's a reasonable assumption that at some point, or even
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: going into net year, hey, let's see what went well
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  Speaker 3: what didn't. Are there tweaks to make, just like they
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: did with the pitchclock after the first year, they made
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: some tweaks. I don't know any panicking right now. And
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  Speaker 3: by the way, the thing with the forties and fifties
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  Speaker 3: is so bizarre. I asked so many people what happened
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  Speaker 3: in nineteen forty nine to fifty that the walk rate
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  Speaker 3: with like ten and a half percent, couldn't get a
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: good answer. Probably has to do with World War two,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: guys coming back from World War Two. But that the
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: whole other storyline we should be pursuing.
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  Speaker 4: I think Wit played in the fifties, that's how old
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: he was.
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  Speaker 3: He was still in the bushes.
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  Speaker 4: But but you talked about four years into the Pitchclock era,
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: we're nine years into the Milwaukee Brewers era. Can we
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: just delete your Microsoft program that you have on your
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: computer and just start getting it right that the Brewers
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: are going to be good no matter what your computer
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  Speaker 4: system says.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're incredible. They're really an unbelievable organization. Just defies
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  Speaker 3: everything that should be true about baseball, everything about their
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: organizations that they should be terrible. They're in literally the
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: smallest market in the major leagues rolls consistently, maybe not
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: the very very bottom of baseball, but in the bottom
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  Speaker 3: third sometimes even like in that twenty five range. They
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: don't spend very much money. You go up and down
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  Speaker 3: their roster, like I think even like reasonably big baseball
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  Speaker 3: fans haven't heard of like two thirds of the guys
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  Speaker 3: that are running out there every day. And yet we're
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: sitting here. They made the playoffs seven in the last
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: eight years, and they're going to be good again this year.
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  Speaker 3: Looks like, I know that division has been really crazy
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: and they're like in fourth place or whatever, but they're
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: on what they're nineteen and sixteen. Anyone good at math?
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  Speaker 3: What paces that? It's like eighty eight wins something like that.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm terrible in math. When you look
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: it up, eight yeah, eighty eight wins. I'm good at math,
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  Speaker 3: got it exactly right, first try. Eighty eight wins. It's
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: incredible and it's a testament to the organization obviously. But
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  Speaker 3: what I found so fast in what I wrote about
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  Speaker 3: why we're talking about this is all the smartest peaceful
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  Speaker 3: in baseball, all these brilliant minds that make these models
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  Speaker 3: in prediction, which by the way, are usually very accurate,
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  Speaker 3: things like Pakoda, things like Fangrass. This really surprising. I
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: had never really looked into this that closely. They're generally
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: really accurate. Something like twenty five teams of the thirty
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: Fangrass is accurately predicted on average within like three to
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: four wins a year over the last ten years. Like
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: they are good, but not with the Brewers. They no
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: one predicts the Brewers. Every model says they're not going
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: to be good, and every year they're good. At some point,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: like you said, you just got to say, maybe there's
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: something we're just not seeing.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: But let's let's make sure that everybody knows Pakoda and
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: all those things. Three to four wins. You know the
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: difference between three to four wins the Mets still have
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: all of their coaches in their organization. That's one win
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: they would have made the playoffs. Three to four wins,
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: you're talking about a team that has been out of
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: the playoff race for you know, a week at the
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: end of the season and in it, you know, so
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I get it that the Brewers nobody's been able to
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: predict it. But do you think this year because all
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: the models have them going higher? I mean, I think
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: the last four years the Brewers have been seventy seven
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: or less wins predicted, and this year a lot of
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: the models I think had them anywhere from eighty one
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: to eighty three wins. Do you think now the computer's
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: gonna be wrong and they're gonna below those wins?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: I think they're gonna be above. They're on pace for
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: eighty eight right now, and they've got they're on pace
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: for eighty eight with like so many of their big
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: players injured right Chario just came back. They have been
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: totally sneaked earlier this season. I think if you told them,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: like when they started having all these guys go down,
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: their attitude is like, let's just try to tread water
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: until they come back, and if we're sort of still
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: hanging in there when those guys come back, we'll be fine.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: They did better than that. They're three games over five hundred,
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: Like they're not running away with it again, they aren't
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: fourth placed in that really bizarrely competitive and al central,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: but they did more than just tread water. And now
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: those guys are starting to come back. And you know,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: from talking to a lot of people about this, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: the Brewers just fascinate me for so many reasons, not
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: least of all sort of the labor implications of all
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: of this, which is obviously always front of mine for
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: me at the Wall Street Journal. How are they doing this?
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: And it's actually very interesting, right, how do these projections work? Right?
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: They look at players, they predict how players are going
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: to perform, and based on that, it spits out a number.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: And those models followed like a pretty usually a rule
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: that's pretty hard and fast, which is players that have
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: been good in the past will continue to be good
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: and players that haven't been so good in the past
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: will continue to be not so good. That's generally what
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: happens in baseball. Of course, like aging curves happen, but
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: generally you are with the back of your baseball card
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: says you are. The Brewers have had this unbelievable track
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: record at digging through the dumpster of other team's rosters,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: finding guys that never done anything in the major leagues,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: seeing something that apparently no one else sees, acquiring them
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: for next to nothing in a trade that no one
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: even notices when it happens, and suddenly that guy is awesome, Right,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: it was Quinn Priester, It's Kyle Harrison. It seems like
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: every year they like find a guy or two that
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: had never done anything previously that gets to Milwaukee and
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: is suddenly really good. So of course production models, can't
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: you acknowledge that they see Kyle Harre, they see Kyle Harrison,
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: they see a guy that's been in the big leagues
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: for three years as the era of like four and
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: a half, they saw Quinn Preserve, a guy that in
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: the era of like six up to the point got
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: to Milwaukee. Suddenly they're really good, And that's a testament
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: to their scouting. Like the things they are doing, they
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: are clearly seeing things and players other teams are not,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: And like, if you're gonna spend as little as them,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: you kind of have to do that.
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: I guess, Jared, you just you just complimented me more
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: than you know the fact that the Brewers went into
• 13:59
  Speaker 4: a dumpster to get me in a trade from Triple
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: a with the Yankees, So I could not I could
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: not appreciate that more saying that I was dumpster diver fodder.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: So hey, they wanted you on that team for a reason,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: and it worked pretty well for you guys that year,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: so they.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Were weren't not great for me. I got another half
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: a year in the big league, so that was great.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: But my question for you is the column that you
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: just released this morning about somebody that we lost in
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Ted Turner, another baseball fixture. But can you talk to
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: us about your favorite part of that column about Ted Turner,
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: the owner of the Braves.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, yes, So I h you know, like
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: I guess, like many has always heard this story about
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Ted Turner managed the Braves. Once. Didn't really think much
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: of it. It just sounded very weird. But in the way
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: he give his death, I said, all right, this is
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: a good time to sort of dive into this. How
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: did Ted Turner end up managing the Brave? So over
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: the last couple of days, I've been tracking down a
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: you know, any of the players that were on that
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: and not Braves lineup that day May eleventh, nineteen seventy seven. Thankfully,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: almost all of them are still alive, and all but
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: one is still alive. They're all in their mid seventies
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: or so. I was able to track a whole bunch
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: of them down, and I didn't know how much I
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: remember what they would have to say. This was fifty
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: years ago. To a man, they all had the most
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: unbelievable not only recollection of this, but just stories of
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: this insane day where they show up at the ballpark
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: and Ted Turner's wearing a brave jersey, has a big
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: thing a chaw on his cheek, and he's wearing Cado
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Gaston's shoes. They didn't have any spikes of his own,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and he says he's going to manage the team. And
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: what was so crazy about all these conversations? And I
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: always bring it back to Labor. I know it's crazy
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: to bring this back to Labor is fifty years ago.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I talked to all these guys about Ted Turner, former players,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: and to say that they loved Ted Turner is a
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: complete understatement. And this left me absolutely shocked. This guy
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: was the owner of the ball clay and if you
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: talk to any players about owners now, first of all,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: they're not going to put their name behind and talking
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: about any owners. Probably now, you do not hear this
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: kind of sort of positive talk about an owner of
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: a baseball team like you do. Ad these guys talking
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: about Ted Turner, you know, guys telling me that Ted
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: Turner put the down payment down on their first house
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: because they couldn't afford it. I'll take care of it
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: for you. I want you to live in Atlanta so
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: you could be near of the team. Guys saying that
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: like to it like the whole team. They worked at
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: his TV stations in the offseason those days. Guys weren't
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: making a lot of money. A lot of them needed
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: extra money in the office. That come work in my
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: DV station. I'll make sure that you have a year
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: round income. He would play poker with them on the
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: back of the plane, go out drinking with them after games.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: That's the owner of the team, right, So I expected
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: when I talked to all these guys, they were all
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: gonna like make fun of him for thinking they could
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: manage the team. It was the opposite. A couple of
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: guys telling me they wish he was allowed to manage
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: the team for the full season because they think he
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: would have done a good job. If the league had
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: led him. I was just shocked to hear that sort
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: of positive talk from former ballplayers about a major League
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: Baseball owner. Kind of makes you wonder, like, man, things
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: have changed a lot in the last fifty years in
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: this game.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that was that was gonna be. My question to
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: you was is what kind of field did you get
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: from the guys, Because I mean, I know they It's
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: one thing to like your owner and to be a
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: fan of them, but to have that guy come in
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: and step into a baseball specific role that he's probably
• 17:31
  Speaker 5: not familiar with at all. They still felt like this
• 17:35
  Speaker 5: was the guy that could come in and manage the team,
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: that they were looking forward to him being the manager,
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: even though it was just one game.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: I think they knew that, look, he had a lot
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: to learn. This is the guy that knew really nothing
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: about baseball. And look, for the most part, he was
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: manager and name only. In many ways, he handed off
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: a lot of the strategy to his coaches. At least
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: he was smart enough to know what he didn't know,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: which is about baseball very much nothing. You know, one guy,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Jerry Royster is the shortstop on that team, said, you know,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: he wanted to defeat he did this because he really
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: wanted to know really what a manager did and what
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: it actually took. The team was on a sixteen game
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: losing streak at the time, and he just wanted to
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: get a first hand look at all, Right, what is
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: this job right? Because clearly the guy I have doing
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: it is not working. We've lost sixteen games in a row.
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: I mean that makes the Mets of April. That's you know,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: that makes him look good. Sixteen games and sixteen losses
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: in a row. And he learned. He learned very quickly that,
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: like there, it is a hard job and you do
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: need knowledge. But Ted Turner was a pretty smart guy.
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: After he was told by the National League you cannot
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: manage right, the league kibosh at the next day, I said,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: you cannot do this the violation of some obscure role
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: who knows He apparently from what I was told, asked
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the commissioner and the Nation League president. Can I go
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: down to the minor leagues and manage for the whole
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: year so I could learn the job and then come
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: back next year? And they told him no. Was the
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: idea that this guy who's like was at least theoretically
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: willing to go like manage in double A for a
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: whole year, just to like learn what it takes to manage.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: That's the guy with a lot of confidence. Maybe it
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: takes that kind of confidence to become a billionaire, you know,
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I don't know. He obviously was pretty good at a
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: lot of stuff. Considering at least are the business man,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: he was pretty good. Maybe you could have figured out
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: managing too. Is there an owner?
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: And I know you don't know all the owners, but
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: do you feel like there's an owner that you see
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: on the surface that could possibly do this. I'm not
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: saying have success, because being a manager is a difficult thing,
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: especially if you're the same one that's writing the checks
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: to the players and you just had to tell a
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: player you're not getting the same amount of money as
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: you wanted. But is there an owner? Do you feel
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: like there's an owner out there now that you've seen
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: that would step in or that could or have the
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: have the brass to be able to step in and
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: be a manager?
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Zero percent? Literally you want to observe I knew that,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: zero hopes. Don't you know? You know these guys, you
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: know some of them? Could any of these how many
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: of these guys know anything about baseball. Not most of
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: them know anything about baseball.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: The best one anything or care about the game. Are
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: just big fans. That doesn't make you a good manager.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: That is that is totally different to be a good owner. Look,
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: being a good owner.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: It's actually it's a very important job. Like you need
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: you need a good owner to be a successful baseball
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: team as any team of the bad owners fan based
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: guite right. But here's how you be to be a
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: big owner. You spend money, you hire smart people, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: you do nothing but sign the checks. That's what you
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: need to do. If you could do that, you're a
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: good owner. There's plenty of owners that spend money but
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: then to think they know more about baseball than they
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: do and start meddling and meddling. And there's plenty of
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: voters that won't spend. Only the good ones will spend.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: But let the baseball people make all the decisions. I
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: think it. You know, these guys, if you're if you're
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: a billionaire and you have enough money to buy a
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: baseball team, I think you have a you know, I
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: think you kind of think you know a lot about
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of things because you've made billions of dollars.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: I understand if I had a billion dollars, I'd probably
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: think I was pretty smart too.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: My guess is I mean and this isn't for manager,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: this is just for knowing the game. There's probably like
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: five out of thirty owners that I feel like you
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: can have.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Like a really good ball talk with.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I've had a couple. John Middleton knows ball. Philly's Milton
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you can you can get pretty nitty gritty wit nos.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Jim Crane noseball Astros owner, you can get real nitty
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: gritty with him too.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Those are just two that come to mind.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: One that I've had a conversation with where I'm like, oh,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: this person could just get a mic for an hour
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and talk right. Maybe broadcast would be better for them
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: than managed. Still a different story.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: Knows how knows how knows baseball?
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Yep, Okay, so we got we got a few guys.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Could have been around the game. We've been around the
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: game long enough. Guy like Hal he was basically born
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: into this, right, you would think, right, just by Osmosis,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: who would pick up something over the last you know,
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: fifty years.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Right, you grow up with it.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: Maybe the new Padres guy is a baseball genius possible,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Probably not, but you never know.
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: He's been watching a lot of soccer for years. Baseball.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: We're not in on him. We'll find out.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he might be a good owner. I'm not sure. Yeah,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I'm not sure about his ball knowledge yet.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: But TVD TBD I like this for a segment in
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the future, so we'll have to have jired back on
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: which owner is actually no ball might be a perfect love,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: perfect love all Street Journal, Jired, great stuff, dude, awesome,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: awesome catching up with you.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Have a great weekend. We'll catch you soon.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, thanks, Guy's good chatting with you.