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Relegation: Baseball, World Cup, and Sorsby · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. Alongside co host Chett West,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I am Thad Levine.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Chet.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We've got an incredible show lined up. We're going to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: get to listener questions down the road. We're also going
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to dive headlong into the Brendan Soresby saga. But where
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we're going to kick off the conversation today is discussing
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: the World Cup and Team USA's head coach Mauricio Pochettino,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: who looks shockingly like Russell Crowe from The Quick and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the Dead.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: You stole that from me, You stole that from me.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: I was going to use that.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Shocking, shocking likeness. He's delivered a lot of colorful quotations here, Chet,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: but also a critical assessment of American football slash soccer.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I was literally going to say, if the US team
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: goes through and wins this World Cup, they're going to
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: make a movie about it, and Russell Crowe will be
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: tabbed to play Mauricio Pochettino. That is a given right
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: off the bat at any rate, and he could keep
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: the weight on too. It would work just as well.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: He doesn't have to go back to being like skinny
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Russell Crowe or anything yeah. So Marizio Poachtino Argentine. He's
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: the head coach of the men's national team. He has
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: led them to their first back to back wins in
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: the World Cup in ninety six years. Last time they
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: did it was nineteen thirty and guess what that that
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: was the first ever World Cup. It was hosted by Uruquay.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: There are only thirteen teams, but U estimated to the
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: semi final. There were sixteen teams invited, but three could
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: not show up, one of them being Japan. I believe
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: there were some things going out at that point in time.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: They kept them for being able to travel over. But
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: poach Tino, he's been a quote machine so far. He
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: gets most of them positive. You know. One of his
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: big messages was why not us? The first World Cup pressers,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: he said, why not us? You know, and it's big
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: one that I really like. His message he's kind of
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: delivering to the team is be realistic and do the
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: impossible now. The first time I heard that quote is
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: that What does that mean? And I think it's about
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: being stay grounded, realize you know where you are right now,
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: but don't limit yourselves based on what other people think
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: is possible. Figure out what your possible is. And then
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: of course you wanted me to get into this one
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: because we saw this this past week. He had a
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: little quote in question. He made a little uh, I
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: believe the publication is le peis And the reporter asked
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: him in an interview about American sports and what the
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: identity of this team is, and he said, American sports
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: reward losers. It a really interesting response to this. What
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: is your response to that when you see that?
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Well, I guess, I guess I start with the thought
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: of if I walk into any one of my three
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: children's rooms, I see a lot of ribbons and trophies
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: for having participated in sports, and so I think there's
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of criticism and a lot of debate in you.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: We've all got the gay Lord Fokker fifth place trophy. Okay,
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: that's out there.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a colorful montage in my kids' rooms of
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: ribbons and sorts of things, very few of which, say,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: are have engraved on in first place or even second place.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: But nonetheless, we do get rewarded for participation. That is
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a criticism I think of US sports. But I think
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: what he's referring to is probably a little bit more
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: on the professional side, and something that you and I
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: may want to cover a little bit more in depth
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in this conversation chat is just this notion of it's
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: incredible how much bandwidth the topic of tanking gets in
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: professional sports in America, and it's all designed to reward.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: In baseball, I can tell you unequivocally when we were
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: in front offices, we talk about choice A, no doubt
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: is winning a championship. The second best thing you can
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: do is lose as many games as you possibly can.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Where you don't want to be is not making the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: playoffs and picking fifteenth in the draft. You either want
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to be in the top five in the league, which
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: is to say, competing for the ring, or the bottom
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: five in the ring and competing for the first pick
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: in the draft. So I think what he's really illuminating
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: here is just this notion that in American sports we
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: are rewarded for losing. Now, it doesn't preclude us from
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: pursuing championships. I don't think he's saying that, but there
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: is a secondary award, which is to not be competitive
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and to try to go get the top pick in
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the draft.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: And doesn't every fan want that going into one hundred
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: and sixty two game season where they're getting excited about
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: baseball again, seasons turning over and hope is ripe on
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: the tree, and then thirty games in, it's the tank
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: fest because we don't have the guys, why did we
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: even bother playing this year at this point? So I'm
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: going to give you the context that this was pulled from, Okay,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: and that'll lead us into a little bit more of
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: our conversation here. The question from the interviewer was, we
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: know how England, France, and Spain play. Players from countries
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: with a strong tradition have a recognizable What is the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: style of the US team? What kind of football do
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: the Americans want to play? This has been a big
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: question about American football and their style of play every
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: World Cup rolls around. You know, we've we're kind of
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: known as a little bit more of an aggressive squad.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: The answer he gave back says, their culture is playful.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: They want to play. We told them, guys, playing soccer
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: is one thing. Competing is another. They're two completely different sports.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: That's fascinating in and of itself. To sit there and
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: say they're playing is one thing, Competing is another. Two
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: totally different sports. They grow up in a culture of playing.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Why if you start an MLS and you haven't won
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: a game in three months, you're at the bottom. What's
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the consequence if there's no promotion or relegation, no international
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: competition to play for? American sports reward losers, but soccer
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: is different. If you reward those who win. If you
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: don't have goals, you don't fight. If I lose, what happens? Nothing,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: just fire the coach. Also, the American player is disciplined,
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: but with a sense of complacency that isn't good in soccer.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: It took us a year and a half to change
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: that mentality. So he's talking about changing that team's mentality
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: because they never had it before. So how do you
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: do that without relegation, without promotion, without something like that
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: to play for? That is this? Is this something that
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: could be implemented in American sports. I have always thought
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: baseball could possibly benefit from this. Have you watched what
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: happens with relegation in European soccer?
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: No?
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's so scintillating to see
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: how you're fighting at the bottom, you're fighting at the top,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: and there's such an incentive to move up a league,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: right check, because there's such a financial incenter from the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: TV deals and some of the compensation that these own get.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: So they're watched the end of a European football season.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's crazy to watch the three or four
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: worst teams battle it out to not get relegated, and
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: the fans. When your team wins that game at the
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: end of the season, or wins enough games to not
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: get relegated, your fans celebrate, like you want a championship
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: just to stay in the league. Now, that doesn't always
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: work out positively, right, Like, what do you think would
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: happen with baseball? The what do we do? What does
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: that look like?
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, hey, listen, I watched Ted Lasso. They
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: seemed to get quite worked up about the concept of relegation.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So shadow as you're reading that quote, a few things
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: came to mind. And interestingly, my mind kind of leaked
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: into the NBA just because the season just ended and
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of all these players who did not
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: play the last twenty to thirty games. So as you
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: were referencing the player whose team hadn't won for a
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: number of weeks in a row, it seemed like in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the NBA, they just started sitting those guys. Jannis was
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: fans first saying I'm ready to play, and the team said, no, no,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you're not healthy enough. I know I could do it.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: It's baffling to me as a fan who's I started
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: following the NBA and you see a team that is
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: at mid season on that playoff cut line or people
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: you know they're going to get in as the tenth
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: or eleventh team playoff whatever, and they're sitting right on
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: that cut line at that point in time, and the
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: team trades away. They're good players and you're saying, you're
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: you're in contention still, you could possibly go to the postseason,
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: but no, they they pull them back. I think there's
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: more of a story there and a little more to
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: talk about along those lines. But Baseball the NBA are
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: slightly different in that in what postseason means, however, Like,
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: what would you think if, Okay, the Colorado Rockies have
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: stunk now for a season and a half, right, what
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: if the Rockies got relegated down to TRIPAA? What would
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: that look like like if the Rockies went down and
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I don't know, the Toledo mud Huns came up and
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: played at the major league level. Is that even a
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: feasible concept in Major League Baseball?
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: So chet it is something we've talked about in baseball
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: as well, just kind of more in a fantasy world.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: But here's a wrinkle I'll throw your way, which is
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: so first of all, I think it would curb tanking
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: in a heartbeat. Sure, as you see in international football
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: now it's shocking.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: In the international football it actually encourages rule breaking. There's
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: teams are going out of their way to break rules
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: so they don't get relegated. They do all sorts of
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: things to keep from getting relegated, and they end up
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: getting slapped on the risk for it. They get punishments
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: for it. But go on.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: Sorry, So here's here's an idea. It's combining a few
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: different thoughts. But there's been some discussion about further shrinkage
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: of the minor leagues and potentially making Triple A a
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: league that is not specific to your organization, but it
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: is a league wide league from which any team can
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: draw players. So you can you can bring up a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: player from any Triple A format, provided that you pay
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: a stipend to do so so. In that format, if
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: you created a all star team of Triple A players
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that then would sit and lay in wait for and
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: the incentive for those players is a year from now
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you will get to the big leagues because the worst
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: team in the Major leagues, and your example, the Colorado Rockies,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: will get relegated, and so now all of a sudden,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it's more viable that that team actually may be able
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: to compete at the major league level. I think so
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that's that's the way going north, where you would get
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: a team out of Triple A that actually could have
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: a puncher's chance of being competitive and not just getting
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: relegated the next season. I think the other side of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: those coin is where is that thirty first stadium where
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: whoever gets relegated can still play. What happens to that
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: team that gets relegated down because the revenue impact for
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: that major league franchise would be so dire relative to
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about international football, because Triple A revenue
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: are minusculeg.
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: They're minuscule, and that's how it is. In European football.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: The revenues from the will take the English Premier League
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: as an example, the revenues going from the English Premier
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: League down to the Championship League, which is like the
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: league below English Premier League, they are twenty thirty percent
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: at most. I mean TV revenues are like one hundred
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: and twenty million pounds that get cut down to like
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: thirty million pounds. They had in a situation you talk
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: about stadiums, they had a situation in this past season
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: in the EPL where Tottenham Hotspur was at at the
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: point where they could have been relegated. This is a
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: team that has finished in the top six regularly over
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: the last decade or so. They haven't been down in
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: the championship level in a very long time, at least
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: fifteen to twenty years. They had just built a sixty
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: some thousand person stadium in twenty nineteen. Can you imagine
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: the decimation financial of getting bounced down to the championship
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: and they do things to protect them, but yeah, it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: a it's definitely a financial hit chet.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: We're going to take a break here, but on the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: other side, we're going to continue our conversation about the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: World Cup. We're going to talk about star power and
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: how it compares to Major League Baseball. Welcome back to
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: rosters to rings. We're going to continue our conversation about
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: the World Cup, We're gonna shift topics a little bit here.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Chet There's been a lot said about Ronaldo and how
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: much he has impacted Portugal's team. Similarly, at a similar
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: age point, I think Renauld's forty. He's one of the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: oldest players in this tournament. You also have Lionel Messi,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: who continues to dominate at his age. But let's start
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit talking about Ronaldo. He plays for Portugal,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: He's been the face of that team for what six
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: or seven World Cups. Now, it's an incredible run by him.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But they tie team A team from the Congo the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: other day, which marked one of the biggest upsets in
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: this tournament's history. It's interesting when it said upset end
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: they tied the game. They didn't lose the game, but
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: they did tie it. Rinaldo in that match had twenty
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: five touches zero shots on goal. He's drawn a lot
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: of criticism both from former players. Thierry Henri, who is
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: a former star from the French team, is kind of
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: alluding to the fact that he's selfish because he's requiring
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that the offense run through him when he's clearly passed
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: his prime, and international publication The Independent went so far
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: as says to describe the Portugal team as ten men
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: in a statue.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: What do you buy that? That's what it looked like
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: in that game?
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Does he give us your thoughts here?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: He was totally out of the game. I mean he
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: was taken out of the game. His abilities have obviously
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: left the building. And if we were to compare him
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: to somebody like Leonel matt see who you mentioned. Now,
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Messi's thirty eight, but that offense runs through Messi and
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: it looks good doing so. And they have many other
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: star players. They don't need Messi to be the guy.
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: They have plenty of stars on Argentina's national team. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Messi got his two goals today, broke the World Cup record.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: He now holds it by two goals, formerly held by
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Miroslav Closa. He is he is a little different, right,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: As an aging veteran, you just don't know if the
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: investment in those guys is going to pay off. But
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Messi Ronaldo two totally different worlds. We've seen this in
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: American sports too, that I think you've got a couple
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: of people cued up. You want me to talk about here,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: am I right?
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Well, well this is well check this is this is
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: a guy who's near dear to your heart. As a
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: diehard Detroit Tigers fan, I know what's coming. It's Miguel
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Cabrera and this so I want to frame this up
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: for you cheat. So John Hart, who is a longtime
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: general manager and kind of a fringe Hall of Fame
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: person in his own right, used to always tell us
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: you don't want to have a star set on you.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: And he was very adamant when you're building a championship
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: roster year over year, aspired to have the same or
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: more stars, but don't aspire to have the same people
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: sit in those seats. And he always cautioned us to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: run the risk of that player who has performed exceptionally
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: well for you and then he's kind of entering the
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: twilight of his career and this compulsion to re up him.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I think the Detroit Tigers have done that. We can
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: run through a few numbers about Miguel Carperre, but give
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: us a fans perspective. How was it for you watching
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: him throughout his career with Detroit.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: It was great in the beginning. Obviously, the end was
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: where the pain started happening, and the end seemed to
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: last for three to four seasons of just if he
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: wasn't injured, he looked like he was injured. He just
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: didn't get around as well as he could have prior
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: to his hitting kind of ebbed and flowed. He didn't
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: play in as many games, and he's eating up millions
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: of dollars in a payroll that in Detroit theoretically cannot
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: afford to have one guy eating up that much money.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: So you're watching that happen and you're going, God, I
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: wish you would just retire. You just want him to
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: kind of as a fan, you know you can't tell
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: him to take a seat because everything he's done, But
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: at the same time, you want to tell him to retire.
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: And I wonder that we don't really see deals like
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: that getting cut these days anymore. I haven't seen too
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: many that penalize the team to that degree on a
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: player of that age.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Well, well, chick, I don't want to rub salts in
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: the wound. I want to give you the pros of
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Miguel Cabert to start with. So, as you know, one
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of the best trades made in the recent era, when
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Dave Dombrowski acquired Miguel Cabert in his first so first
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: of all, he gets sixty one point two war over
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: his career, and he gets paid three hundred and ninety
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: three million dollars for it. Dave Dombrowski, the GM of
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: the the Tigers at the time, has a foresight to
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: sign him to an extension that covers him through his
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: thirty two year old season. It's for one hundred and
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: fifty two million. During that time with the Tigers, all
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: he does is gets MVP votes in his first thirteen
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: years with the Tigers, which is just absolutely staggering. I'm
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: sorry that spans his time with Florida and with the Tigers,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: he gets top five MVP finishes in seven of those years.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: He wins the MVP twice. He's a ten time All Star,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: six times Silver Slugger winner, which is to say, the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: best player at his position. He won the batting title
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: four times chet and he won the Triple Crown once,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: which means he led the league in home runs, RBIs
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: and average. And then if you had a hard stop
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: at age thirty two, you would have had the glory
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: years of Miguel Cabrera because then what they do is
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen they extend him for eight additional seasons.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: There was no hard stop, No.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: This was a slow fade in blood letting. So from
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen through twenty thirty twenty three, check the last
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: seven years of his career. He accumulates two point five
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: war total include I'm sorry, and that's the last eight years,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: including a negative two point four war over the last
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: seven years. So you said it was the last three
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to five years that was painful, It.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Was the last seven years. It was the last seven
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: negative war player. Here's the thing. We were fading out
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: out of relevancy at that point too, as contenders. I mean,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I think twenty sixteen or seventeen was the last year
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: we put a quality piece on the field there. From
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: there on, that team slumped off. You know, me as
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: a Tigers fan, I tend to forget about somewhere between
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: twenty seventeen to about twenty twenty three or so. They
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: just weren't years that are terribly memorable. And part of
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: it was a massive portion of our payroll was going
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: to him, and so it became shed everything you can.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: And then they got downe to his contract. They couldn't
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: shed that. Nobody was picking that up.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And I think check, that's that's the worst part. When
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you're in the front office, you realize you have a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: player who you literally can't move, and as you said,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it just represents it's just so crippling to the franchise
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: on a few fronts. It's a misallocation of your payroll,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, but also I think it's such a
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: taxation on the manager.
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: A J.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Hinch is the manager through most of that kind of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: decline is how do you play the player because you
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: still want to respect him. He's still maybe wearing a
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: sea on his chest because he's the captain of the team.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So all sudden you're playing him more than you should.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: But not only are you playing him more than you should,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you're still hitting him third, fourth, or fifth because you
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: want to respect him.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Well, I think, yeah, you've got to put him in
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: his place in the lineup. You're not going to bat
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Miguel Cabrera eighth. That's probably not going to happen. And
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I bet it's probably a juggling act between having a
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: player who's on the down side sliding off. And you
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: can confirm this for me, but in the in the
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: locker room. You don't want to turn him into a
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: cancer in the locker room, right, So you don't want
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: your veteran player who's eating up all that contract money
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: to be come desponded, to become angry, and then he
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: affects the locker room in a negative way because at
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: least theoretically from that veteran player, you're getting a positive
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: reinforcement in the locker room, right, Yes.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And and you know, at some point he was the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: north star of that franchise, and for that some point
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: was like for a decade, I mean he was he
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: was not only the best player in the franchise, he
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: was one of the best players in the league. So
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: he has this incredible reverence that everyone has for him.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But you also run into the same chet where the
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: last few years of his career there are people who
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: have not seen the good years of his career. So
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: he just now has teammates tainted.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: A little bit, right, I mean, at some point it
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: because he goes from being the triple Crown winner to
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: having this tainted legacy of being kind of you know,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: what did you do for the last six or seven
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: years of your career? Now I'm the complexity is a
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: from a fan standpoint, is if you're paying him the money,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: have you signed him. At the time when they did it,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: we probably applauded that, but then said, Ooh, in a
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: couple of years, this thing's not going to look so
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: good and we're going to have to ride that out.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: I think now, I'm hoping now that ownership look at
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: these things and maybe do the whole you know, they
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: hold back some of that money and pay it out
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: over forty years. They do a you know, a Bobby
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Benia type thing or something like that, or what they're
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: doing was showhy where he's going to get a bunch
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: of money after he's done playing or whatever. I hope
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: that that's the way to go, because I certainly don't
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: want those guys taking up a roster spot and getting
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: paid that massive chunk of money. I just feel like
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: there's young guys that get in the way of too
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: at the same time, yeah, and can grow in that situation.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Taking you back to that point that you just referenced
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: when Dave Dembrewski is seeing the years tick down on
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: the first deal that they had with mcgreg Kerber, which
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: probably was probably regarded as one of the best deals
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: in all of the sport at that time. The notion
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: of him walking and playing any prominent seasons with another
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: team is just gut wrenching. And so I do think
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: we fall prey, as front office people at that time,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: to this misguided notion that we have to resize.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: I was just going to say, fat, have you ever
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: put yourself in this position before? Have you heard that question?
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Without question? And I'll i'll and I'll say this. Where
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: it compounds is oftentimes that first deal you signed with
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: the guy is so club friendly, and we should understand
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: that these deals live in you know, independence, But we
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: look at it almost through two lenses. One is, we
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: can't possibly let this guy walk. He's so incredibly popular
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: not only in our clubhouse but in our marketplace. But
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: then secondarily, there is that feeling of humanity that you
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: approach that second deal with, which is, wow, we won
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: that first deal by such a landslide. So even if
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: we do give this guy a great deal, and maybe
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: we you know, the last.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: Two playing with the houses money on the way back
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: right right, and.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: We and we convince ourselves, well, maybe those last two
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: years of this deal won't look good. The problem is
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: when the last five years of that deal doesn't look
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: good and it's just ability to win on other fronts.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: As things go south a little early. I can imagine
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: that's probably a difficult decision because you're playing with the
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: emotion of the fan. You're playing with me. You're sitting
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: there saying, you know, Chet loves this guy, wants him
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: on his team, and god forbid you don't sign him
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: the extension. He leaves, has a good season one or two,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: and the team goes south from there, then you're going
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: to look like, well, they didn't retain them. They don't
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: want to play pay the players. These are the stars
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: that keep us going. They don't want to pay them.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: So I can totally see the quandary that the front
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: office would get in there. As a fan, I'm still
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: not going to understand it. I'm still going to blame
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: you for putting eight years on this guy and him,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you know, going tits up for the last five of them.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: That's just how it is. I mean, that's the unfair
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: piece of it.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I suppose wait and ched, I think that the exact
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: example you just talked about was Freddie Freeman when he
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: left Atlanta. Freddie Freeman was in his young thirties. Yeah,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Atlanta was very disciplined. They were not going to sign
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: him to this very deal, the deal that would sign
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: him from age thirty three to forty. The Dodger stepped
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: up and did it, and he has been an.
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: All star, nothing but electric ever since.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: And that's saying something because Matt Olsen, the player that
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: they then did a choir and extend in Atlanta, has
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: been awesome as well. But they still get crucified for
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the fact that they let Freddy free and go.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: But that's rolling the dice though at the end of
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: the day. I mean, how often does that end up
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: working out? Outside of Freddie Freeman. I bet for every
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Freddy Freeman there's about ten to twelve that are regrettable
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: to some degree or another that have happened over time.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: There's some crazy fountain of youth in Los Angeles whereas
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: these people are drinking, they're probably drinking.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: Actually there probably is. There probably is, Oh my goodness,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: you know, I.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Think to your point, Chet, you know, the aging aging
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: curve for baseball players tends to be you know, the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: rule of thumb is by years thirty and younger sell
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: years thirty one years and older, because players tend to
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: start plateauing or declining at that point. It got a
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: little bit muddled by performance enhancing drugs. We are seeing
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: people perform much later in their careers. But now that
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: we've stabilized that again, it is the exception, the dramatic exception,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: who is still performing and peak performing in their late
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: thirties in Major League baseball.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: I think that's probably true. And as a fan, I'm
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: every time I see one of these deals now and
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: maybe I'm scarred from the home Miguel Cabrari years, but
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: every time I see us bringing back the aging, aging veteran,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: justin Verlander, you are now and in the line of fire,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: but at least it's only for a year. But every
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: time I see these guys getting kind of that extension
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: that takes them out into the into the future, and
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: I say, well, you know, maybe though I won't remember
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: this then, or maybe it won't matter then, or maybe
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: and then you you live it and you're like, it mattered.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: So I'm I'm opposed to it, but I had to
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: learn that lesson to go through it.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it matters, Chip, But when the dust settles,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Miguel Cabrera will be a Hall of Famer. He may
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: even be a first ballot Hall of Famer on his head.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: A similar example of this is Joey Vado. Joey Vado
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: over his last five seasons only accumulated about four war
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: for the right price of one hundred and twenty five million.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: He also may be a Hall of Famer. So Miguel
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Cabrera is not alone, and we're picking on two guys
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: who maybe future Hall of Famers. They dominated the sport
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: during a period of time, they got paid handsomely for it.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: And you know the other thing I'll say, Chad it
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: you know observationally is just so rarely do players get
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: paid appropriate to what their performance is because at the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: beginning of their careers, teams can pay them much less
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: their peak performing because they're younger in their prime than
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: when they get into their plateau years. They've earned their
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: free agent dollars and they're now getting paid more than
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: what they probably should earn. So I think if you looked.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: At baseball's a sport where you pay a player for
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: what they did, now what they're.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Going to do, right, I mean right, you look at
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Miguil Kabert. Despite the fact that over his last seven
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: years he didn't earn his keep. Over his career, he
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: still was a bargain for what he was paid versus
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: what he produced.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: That's an interesting point. I think as a fan, I
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: look back on him, and you just said, I'll forget
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: about it when he's inducted in the Hall of Fame.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I'll probably forget about those six or seven years. You've
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: just now brought it up and drudged it up, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: now I'm thinking about it. However, when he does get
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: inducted into the Hall of Fame, I'm sure that I'm
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: going to forget about the bad years and I'll remember
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the good years. It's just that they were quite a
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: long time ago for him, and those good years Chuch.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Just the last example I'll give here in our own market.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I always working for the Minnesota Twins for eight years.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: One thing that I always marveled at is people's kind
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of critique of Joe Mauer, who was also a first
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: ballot Hall of Famer, also a tremendous player. I think
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: if you look back at his career and if you.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Remember when I asked you if there was an example
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: that maybe you got caught up in one of these.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: This was kind of where I was hoping you were
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: going to go. Didn't want to dredge it right out,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: but here we go. Good job.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Well, so here's the here's the proxy chet, which is
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that if you should pay about seven to ten million
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: dollars per unit of war, and in a smaller market,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: you probably should pay a little bit less. I think
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: if you look at Joe Mauer's career, the war he
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: produced on a yearly basis, the salary earned on those
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: yearly annual basis, I don't think there's a single year
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: where he got paid appropriately but for one so he plays,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you know, close to fifteen seasons, I think there's only
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: one season where you look at it and say, like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: he got paid appropriate for what he contributed. He's the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: perfect example of these guys who beginning two thirds of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: his career he was grossly underpaid. Now maybe the last
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: third of his career he was fairly or slightly overpaid
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in aggregate. I think you look at players like that,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: like Miguel Caber, like Joey Vado, and say they earned
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: an appropriate amount. If not, they got kind of underpaid
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: over their careers. But there's there's a chance that in
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: no given season they ever got paid appropriate to what
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: they contribute.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: I believe at one point in time it was kind
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: of considered a bit of a hometown deal for the
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: Twins with maur and how much success he was having.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: I mean, he was on the cover of video games
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: for a while, but he ended his career with that
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: same kind of vitrol that he got from the fan
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: base of he did he play up to what he
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: was being paid. And you know, every once in a
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: while you have a player that maybe affects their fan
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: base in a negative way, and we've got another player
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: to talk about that in our next segment that is
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: kind of causing some issues in the NCAAA football front.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: This is proving to be a very curious episode. First, chet,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: we got, we got World Cup, we got NCAA football.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: We're going to tie this one also into baseball. But
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about this incredible saga around
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: Brendan Sowersby.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: It's disgusting. It grosses me out, to be honest, I'm sorry.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: I want you know. NCAA football now is just it
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: kind of grosses me out. I feel like it's sleazy
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: I feel like there was a time and everybody tells
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: me grow up, chet, you know, just grow up. It's
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: NCAA football. It's never been honest, it's never been innocent.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: There's always been these backroom deals. I like to play
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: the wilful ignorance game with this stuff. I kind of
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: like to think that it was pure to some degree.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, I think we want to
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: as fans, we want to believe there is integrity in
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: every sport we watch and that every player is competing
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to their utmost to try to win for our team.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: And here we have Brendan Soarsby and just a little
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: bit of background here, college football quarterback who played for
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: both Cincinnati and the Indiana Hoosiers. Going into the twenty
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: twenty six season, the t Excess Tech Red Raiders enticeon
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: with a NAAL deal that is reported to be north
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: of four million dollars.
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: Three teams, three teams. This guy's going to play for, Yes.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the order of the day. Now,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you just go into the highest biddery exactly?
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Does that not feel sleazy to some degree? This is
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: not college football, for crying out loud, Nobody likes this
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: by the way, unless your team is benefiting from it
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: in that season.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Right, which is to say, you better be rooting for
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: an SEC or a Big ten team, otherwise your players
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: are going to be getting real top.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Half to Big Ten. Yeah, it's I mean, that's how
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: close are we to the Super Conference? Right? But go on,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: I don't mean to interrupt. You're giving us the stats
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: and the info about Soresby.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean so, I think this story is pretty
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: well known, but soon after signing this four million dollar
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: deal with Texas Tech, NCAA concludes an investigation to him
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: for sports gambling, and Sworsby has been accused of and
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: admitted to betting on, amongst other things, college football. He
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: hit says that he made thousands of bets spanning ninety
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and that at least forty times he bet
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: on games involving his own team. Now, I think there's
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: some dispute as to whether he played in those games,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: but nonetheless he bet on games in which his team
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: was playing.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And I would like details. I would like to get
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: some details on this because I want to know did
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: he bet against his team, did he bet for his team?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: We don't know that, right, and it doesn't really matter.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: He's gambling on the games his team's playing. And I
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: heard an excuse on one of the talking heads gave
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: this morning that his lawyer said that he wasn't with
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: the team traveling when he was betting on them. He
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: was back in his dorm room, so that shouldn't be
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: construed as betting on the team he played for. So
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: they were trying to draw some parallel there. I'm like,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: what are you talking about, Like they couldn't that he
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: couldn't influence the team with these bets because he was
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: back in his dorm room. Regardless, it's wrong, It doesn't
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: sound right to me. This is this is gross.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: So in che there's a lot of great professional sports
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and now amateur sports which shall a lot more professional,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and we'll discuss those, but the reality is there's one thing,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: there's one thing you cannot do, and that is bet
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: on your sport and on your team. We're going to
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: get deeper into this conversation when we come back on
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the other side here on Rosters to Rings. Welcome back
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to Rosters to Rings. We're talking about Brendan Soursby and chet.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: As you know, the NCAA bylaws call for permanent ineligibility
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: for athletes to bet on their own teams. And let
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: me tell you how this works in baseball. Every spring
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: training and I got a chance to do this when
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: I was less experienced. We have to read what is
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: called Rule twenty one to the entire major league team
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and everyone who is in spring training camp, and it
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: expressly states that the only thing you cannot do in
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: baseball that will garner you permanent eligibility is if you
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: bet on your games or try to entice an umpire
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to change their rulings based upon some financial compensation. Every
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: player check then has to sign this document. We send
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: that to Major League Baseball. This happens every year. Sounds
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: like the same thing is happening in the NCAAA. But
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: here we are. Brendan soars we bet a lot. And
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: his defense is I had an addiction. He went to
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: get get to some service and care and therapy, which
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: is good. Good on him, and I think that's great.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: But now the NFL is launching their secondary draft, which
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: is designed exclusively for people who lose their eligibility, which
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I think is kind of a wild concept. In and run,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and there is a.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Question as to whether that draft is going to happen
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: right now too. I don't know if it's so.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: He's applied, but but the NFL has not told him
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: whether or not he will be eligible for it. But
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: assuming he is, that seems quite shocking to me.
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, so we've got a couple problems here.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: First of all, the NCAAA has become a toothless governing
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: body at this point. I the first thing I took
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: away from this is if they cannot uphold this by law,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: they are probably done in one shape or another. They're out,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: They're done. They have no they have no ability to
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: govern their sport at through one of the cardinal rules that,
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: as you said, we follow through sport, like this is
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: the one you can do all sorts of other stuff,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: but this one is the one that people aren't getting
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: penalized or the one that people always get penalized for.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: And it's usually you're out, you're done. I mean, Pete
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: Rose is rolling over in his grave right now. He's like,
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: what did I have to do to get this kind
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: of a defense. So it's they're they're lining it up
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: as an anxiety disorder. His attorneys have fought for him.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: They have won that to an extent. Now, what else
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: can fall under an anxiety disorder? I mean, what else
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: can fall under this type of sane defense? Now you're
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: just taking away all of the Bye laws. How many
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: other rules can we break and just get a legal
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: support that says, Nope, you can't kick this guy out.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: You're ruining his chance to make money in this profession
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: in the future. So we've got let's just look at
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: one other thing here. He's petitioned for this supplemental draft.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: This supplemental draft isn't guaranteed to happen right now, not
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: just for him, but they're they're saying, you know, I
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: think Goodell still hasn't ruled on this, and I am
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: wondering if he has to sit out another year. The
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: NCAAA has a countersuit or you know, a legal action
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: being taken against the Big Twelve. Excuse me, the Big
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Twelve has legal action being taken against Texas Tech right now.
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: They haven't lifted that yet. I think they're kind of
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out what's going to happen with Sporesby's
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: NFL future. There's a lot of question marks. I mean,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: this this stuff was all cruising till Sunday, and then
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: like some late night meeting happened and he declared for
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: the NFL Monday morning. There's I think they're kind of
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out how to hand because how is
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: the nc nflcon respond, How are players in the NFL
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: can respond? How would fans respond? How would I respond?
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: If so being talked about is being drafted by the Lions?
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: How do I feel if the Detroit Lions drafts Soresby?
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: And what's going to happen when something questionable comes about
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: when he finally gets to play where he throws an
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: incomplete pass? Am I going to assume he's on the take?
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: I have no idea. You've talked to some people about this.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: What are the ramifications?
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: So chauld I did a little homework on this, and
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you know, I listen to get up sometimes in the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: morning and Damien word You, who's a two time Super
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, answered the very
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: question you just asked. He said, how could I possibly
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: not view every time he throws an interception or an
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: incomplete pass, or slides when he runs six yards and
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: doesn't get the ninth and tenth yard out of that play.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: Is there something going on here? I think that's something
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: that players would be concerned about. Michael Young, who is
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a good friend and was the captain of our tex
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Rangers teams, he just simply said, there's a firm line
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: in the sand. He said, I don't think you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: he talked about it. I don't think I played with
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you know, fire boys all the time. But this is
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: the one thing you can do. Scott Servis, who is
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: a Major League Baseball player, major League Baseball manager, I
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: asked him, like, what would you feel about having if
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the GM called you in this this type of player
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: with this transgression. So he's supposed to be a super
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: talented player, so let's not lose sight of that.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: Year two quarterback. And I think he's like a six
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: or seventh quarterback in the draft at this point, so
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: he could end up being pretty good.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: But he you know, hey, if somebody has this type
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: of error in judgment, it does not have integrity. He
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: just thinks there's just it's it's something that's irretrievable, and
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: that something that people will not be able to overcome.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And so I think it's a it's a very dicey thing.
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: And then The other thing Chad I think is real
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: in this conversation is just this notion that how does
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: the NFL look here, how does the NCAA look against
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: the backdrop of the NBA has an ongoing investigation where
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Rogier and billups very well manned up going to jail
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: over their their gambling insinuations with the NBA and with games,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and Emmanuel Classe has been banned indefinitely from Major League
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Baseball for accepting bets that they have been as little
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: as five thousand dollars to affect pitches in Major League
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Baseball games. So, if that's happening in these two other
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: major sports, how does the NFL even allow this guy
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: to be part of a draft and then potentially get
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: paid by their league to continue his career.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I know there's some losers and winners in this.
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: The first loser would be Texas Tech at this point,
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: not only just in perception of them fighting for this.
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: I mean it's I don't think they fight for this,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: and it's not their guy, right, I mean, every other
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: team in the Big twelve was coming at him pretty hard.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: I mean talking about not playing them, talking about out
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: scheduling them. I mean there's millions of dollars in revenues
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: that they would have ended up losing. But now they
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: don't get they were playing on having this kid play
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: quarterback from they don't get them. The school's reputations damaged.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: There out a million bucks. He's going to get to
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: keep a million of the four million nil money?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: That's Does that make any sense?
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: How does that make any sense? A million dollars you
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: get to keep that? After this whole entire day. I
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: would think that would be the first thing that you
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: could bring you could you could go straight back, claw
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: back in this whole situation. And then of course, you
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: know Texas Tech fans, where are they left in this
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: whole thing. They get to watch their school's name get
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: diregged to the mud through this entire thing. Although I
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: think at times it was it was posed as Texas
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Tech was trying to help this gentleman and they were
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: providing some some counseling and and some some a program
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: for him to be a part of. And they said
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: they would do that if he wasn't playing for them,
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: which I doubt that to some degree or another. But
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: maybe I'll try and have to be too pessimistic on that, which.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a nobility to that, and
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that's sure trying to help him. But that said,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: I think Texas Tech, as you said, loses across the
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: board here. So not only will they not have this
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: gentleman's services, as they are a competitive team that is
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: trying to play in the postseason in college football and
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: there's tremendous financial benefits for doing that, but they also
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: lose their integrity a little bit here because when they
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: found out that he of his transgression, they fought tooth
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and nail to be able to retain him. They stood
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: up to the conference, they stood up to the NCAA,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: and now it seems like they were on the wrong
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: side of that argument. They eventually ultimately acquiesced, but it's
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: is it really them acquiescing or did the kid go
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: into the draft knowing he was not going to be
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: able to win this fight and that's.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: Kind of money to be made at the NFL level.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: I feel like it was kind of a this isn't
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: the juice isn't worth the squeeze at this point, and
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I think I'm going to try and get into the
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: NFL as quickly as I can and put this behind me.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I hope the best for him. I'm not trying to
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: come across as though I don't have compassion for him.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: I understand gambling addiction is real. He's got ninety k
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: out there and bets and tens of thousands of Betsy's placed.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: He's obviously got some problems there, and he needs to
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: deal with those problems. But I don't know that people
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: kept trying to make the argument that putting him back
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: in a locker room was the best way to I
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: think keeping him away from sport might be a pretty
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: good way to keep him from gambling too. It might
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: have been part of the encouragement to some degree or another. Apparently,
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: keep putting in a locker room would create accountability. I
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: just don't It didn't work for three years, right, Like,
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: he didn't have any accountability there. You're going to tell
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: me nobody knew that he was doing this. I don't know.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I also think the danger of running on the defense
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: of I have anxiety and I have an addiction is
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: addictions don't just cure themselves over night, exactly, And so
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: if you are an addict at something, it's probably going
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to show up again, and this is the type of
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: thing that if it ever shows up, it's not only
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: hurting your team, it's going to decimate the league you
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: play in. The NFL willing to take that risk and said,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: as we are wont to do on the show, I'm
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: just going to bring this back to a few baseball Yeah.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Instance is because the reality is there are a lot
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: of people who played baseball and at very high levels
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: who are not choir boys.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: You know, there are people in the that's shocking. I
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: don't believe that you're kidding me.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: There are people in the Hall of Fame who are
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: drug addicts, who are alcoholics, they unfortunately are spousal abusers,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: they're criminals, but none of them have been convicted of
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: betting on their sport and have gotten into the Hall
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of Fame, as you reference Pete Rose famously earlier.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: You know, but I think we made the point, like
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: the problem with this is the integrity on the field, right,
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: It's messing with what happens on the field versus some
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: things that happen off the field. Okay, not that one's
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: worse than another, but the punishments are more severe due
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: to the fact that they affect the product on the field.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, as long as the perception and reality is that
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: the guys are competing to win when they're on the field,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the sports integrity is held intact. And one of the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: things that I mentioned this on the show before, but
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the litmus test for me, because I also have been
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: party two signing guys who had checked past is are
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: they accountable to their actions? Do they have they shown
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: authentic contrition? And is there a redemption story? Can they
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: stand up in front of an eighth grade group of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: kids and inspire them about sport and talk to them
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: about how don't do what I did? And you know,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: just to just to name two stories here, chet Matt
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Bush was the first pick in the draft in two
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: thousand and four, high school shortstop in San Diego get
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: selected first in the draft, famously one pick ahead of
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: your Justin Verlander.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Yes, I remember this well. I remember this well.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: But that, unfortunately is not what he was most known for.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: He bounces around in the minor leagues between San Diego, Toronto,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and Tampa. Between four and eleven, he becomes an alcoholic
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: and in twelve he tragically is in a car accident
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: where he runs over a gentleman named Anthony Tefano and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: almost kills him. Matt Bush gets sentenced to four years
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: in prison for close to vehicular man's order and he
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: serves I think three plus years there. When I'm working
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: for the Texas Rangers, he is on work detail release
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: at a Golden Corral restaurant, a place we don't often,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness visit. He has a ankle bracelet on
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: because he's on work release, and we had him throw
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: a bullpen. It was the best bullpen we had ever
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: seen in a Golden Correal.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Right because he went from being a shortstop to a pitcher.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: I remember he converted to pitching, converted to pitching, and
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: so that day.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: We found out to steer clear of the suck atage
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: at Golden Corral, but that his ninety four mile an
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: hour fastball could play, and we ultimately signed to him.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: But the reason we did was was obviously generated by
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: his arm and how talented he was. But we sat
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: down and had a conversation with Matt Bush in which
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: he shared with us. He sat shoulder to shoulder with
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: his father, and it was one of the most compelling
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: conversations I've ever had. Very flat line we asked him
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: walk us through how you got from, you know, being
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: the number one talent in the draft to where you
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: are today, and he talked openly about it, how his brothers,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: his father had a second job to help ends meet
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: for him, He was raised in part by his brothers
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: at a very young age. He started drinking at a
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: young age, he started trying drugs, and he kind of
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: got off the right path. His father's face was just
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: crumbling in front of us as he heard this, because
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: all he's thinking is I was not there to help
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: monitor my sons, and I was trying to make ends
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: meet for the family. And that's where it all started.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And Matt was extremely accountable to it. He was more
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: than open to go talk to kids about how, here's
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the transgressions I had and how it took away from
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: me what was most important, and how he got back
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: to where he was. I think it was that compelling
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: story that allowed us to stand up and say, this
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: guy does deserve a second chance. But to your point earlier, Chet,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: he never impaired the integrity of the game. Sure, he
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: impaired his own abilities, in his own ceiling and what
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: he could achieve, but he never messed with the integrity
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: that they It was a quite difference.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: And he showed contrition, right. So when we accountability and
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: accountability and contrition. So when we talk about source be
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: going forward, it's going to be how he starts responding
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: to some of this stuff going forward and how he
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: does this with NFL teams. So I think that's probably
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: the next phase of this process. We'll find out his
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: NFL future. We'll find out how what his take on
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: this whole thing is and how he's going to make
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: himself a better person. When we come back, though, we're
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: going to take some listener questions, So stay tuned, folks,
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: because this is where this show gets spicy.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters Terrees. This is the time in
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the show where producer Jason channels all of the interests
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: out there of our listeners and grills us with some questions.
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you that, thank you Chet just a quick aside,
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: I just hold because I have to. It relates to
• 46:56
  Speaker 4: this so much. Probably a lot of people who listeners
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: never saw Pubro's play. And if there's anybody who ever
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: played baseball like this guy was baseball like every way,
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: shape and form. So you have to weigh that in like,
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: you're talking about probably one of the best baseball players
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: ever to set foot in that dirt. I don't think
• 47:14
  Speaker 4: anybody on this podcast is going to refute that. But
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: the sad part of that is it's like mid two thousand's,
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: you know, there I am playing poker in the MGM.
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: It was spring, I remember, because baseball was There was
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: Pete talking to a guy who was walking into the
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: sports book still and this is, you know, like ten
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: years before I did. Never went away, man, because it's
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: a disease, right, and it's a problem if you don't
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: control it. His kid made over twenty thousand. That's man,
• 47:44
  Speaker 4: that's just insane, you know. And we can talk about
• 47:47
  Speaker 4: whether the means to the end of having access to
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: the money makes that happen or if it's just a problem.
• 47:52
  Speaker 4: But man, he ain't missed the baseball and he's got
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: a lot of work to do and a lot of
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: convincing I think too to do that, because even as
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: a fan who would gamble it, it is the ultimate sin.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I feel like everybody's got a Vegas Pete Rose story.
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: It's like whereas right, you know, like I didn't want
• 48:12
  Speaker 4: to see it, you know, but there. I was in there,
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean, like all kind of stuff.
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: So anyway, now I just wanted to share that because
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: I actually saw it, you know, and uh, and it
• 48:24
  Speaker 4: was a really weird thing. Anyway, guys, all right, let's
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: talk baseball, and let's talk about what do we think
• 48:33
  Speaker 4: that is the biggest surprise so far in MLB this season?
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Which team? Yeah, so so, Jason. I think there's so
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: many things to point to, and I'm sure Chad has
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: his own example. I'm going to live on the positive
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: side of the ledger here and talk to you about
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: the Chicago White Sox. You know, keep keep in mind,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: this is a franchise that is coming off three consecutive
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: one hundred plus law seasons and for a fan base
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: that is torture. For an ownership group that is staggering.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: And so here they are, and they knew they were
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: going to turn it around. They were going to rebuild,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: but as is often the case, sometimes the rebuilding happens
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit faster than you expected. So Chris Getz
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of moves going into this season. He's
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: punted all of their established veterans and he's hoping that
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: they're going to start writing the ship. And as we
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: said here recording here on Monday, June twenty second, they're
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: one game out of first place in what is a
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: pretty mediocre American League Central, to be fair, but nonetheless
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: they're one game out of first place. They're two games
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: over five hundred, which is such a dramatic improvement over
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: where they have been. The things that I thought were
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: just really stood out to me is, according to Fancrafts,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: the Chicago White Sox have accumulated the third most offensive
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: war in the American League, ninth most overall. The National League,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: as we've discussed on the show, is so far quite
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: the senior circuit to the American League this season. But nonetheless,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: the White Socks are doing well their nineteenth and so
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: they still have some work to do there. But Davis
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Martin ranks seventh overall and pitching war in the major leagues,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: and he's on the Chicago White Sox, and who's drafted
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: by them. Some of these trades they've made have really
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: started to pay off. Like they were colossally unpopular at
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: the time. As we were talking about earlier, chet when
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: you trade the established big leaguer, when you're trading Dylan
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: Ceese and Garrett Crochet. You tend to get a lot
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: of criticism in the short term and you hope that
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the prospects turn out well. Some of those prospects are
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: really turning out. Chase Madrath and Kyle Teal is getting
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: reactivated today. He was on he played in the World
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Baseball Classic. Brandon Montgomery has come up and is doing
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: really well. Manuel Vargas has done well, and their drafts
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: are really starting to show up. Colson Montgomery is a
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: really dynamic short step that they have on their team.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Sean Burke and Davis Martin and Grant Taylor, Noah Schultz
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: are really exciting pitchers Sam Antonacci. So this is a
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: really exciting team right now. They're also twenty sixth in payroll,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: which is to say they're going to have a ton
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: of ability this offseason if they want to start really
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: ramping up. And oh, by the way, they're sitting one
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: game at a first place, and about four weeks from
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: now we have the draft. They hold the first pick
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: in the draft, and unlike you know sometimes in the
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball there isn't a clear standout top of
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the draft, there is this year. Rock Schlowski is the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: shortstop from UCLA. He is regarded as another transcendent talent.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: There's a number of other guys they could choose from him.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: They just selected Colson Montgomery as a short stop not
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: that long ago. They may go in a different direction,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: but the point is they're going to be admiral to
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: add another stud player this through this draft, at least
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: another player who is going to be low cost alternative.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, they're going to be
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: able to, you know, wield some of their payroll night
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: this offseason and really advance in a division that has
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: really been scuffling. And Chad, as you are a diehard
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Tigers fan, I was affiliated with the Twins. This is
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: such a unique division the sense that the team that
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: has been favored to win has not.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: Won almost never does.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: And so this was the year for Chicago still to
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: be the doormat of the division, the Detroit Tigers to
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: be the top of the division, and lo and behold,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: as we sit here, things could change. But they're a
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: game out of first place. Detroit's closer to last place
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: than the first place.
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you it's the mostant disappointing part
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: of the season for me would be the White Sox
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: because I just thought they were going to be the
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: doormat of the AL Central and my Tigers would roll
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: right over them. And while my Tigers did sweep them
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: this past weekend, I will get that out there. They
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: still have not played nearly as well as the White
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: Sox have. And I told another podcast that I do
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: for the Tigers Litterbox for those of you who are curious.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: My co host and I Bill, We're talking about who
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: are the threatening teams in the AL Central this season,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: and I said it's going to be the White Sox.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: They're young, and I think they're getting hungry, and I
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: think they got a lot of guys who are about
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: to kind of leap up into that position where they
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: can play at a level where they can win some games.
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: They're not going to quite be the doormat they were
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: last season. So yeah, agree with that being a surprise though.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: Well. I think sometimes as a team, when there's no expectations,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: it's highly motivating, you know, when when you were pressure right, no,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: it's energizing to try to chase people down. It's exhausting
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: when you're running with exactly. People shoulders. They could do
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: nothing but good this year. And I think you know
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a guy that we didn't mention but was deserves mentioning.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: Here is Mirror Kami, who came over from Japan and
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: he has lit.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: The Nobody thought he was going to be able to
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: hit major league pitching. There was a lot of question
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: marks around whether he would be able to handle major
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: league pitching. He had high strikeout rates overseas, big big
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: thing and misconcerns and usually does not translate well right
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: into MLB. But he has done quite well in the
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: first half the Season's shame he got the injury he had,
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: but we'll see how he does in the second half.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Shit, who who is your surprise?
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: So oh, I'm going to go a little more to
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: the negative side here that I'm going to take the
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: New York Mets. I thought for sure, with all the
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: money that they had spent, that they were going to
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: absolutely take the world by storm and finally assert themselves
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: and take their position atop the NL East. They signed
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: Boba Schett in the offseason, They signed Freddy Peralta. They
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: picked up Lou Bob from your Chicago White Sox, Luis
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: Robert Jree Polanco, Marcus Simmy, and Luke Weaver, Devin Williams.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's a murderer's row. They covered everything, they
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: addressed every part of the team almost and yet they're
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: in dead last ten games under five hundred, fourteen and
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: a half games out of first place. How does that happen?
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: They have the number one payroll in baseball right now.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: I believe at the moment they did coming into the season.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: I don't understand how that happens in baseball. That that
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: is the biggest shock or surprise to me that they're
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: as bad as they are. Is this a leadership thing?
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: Do you think we talked about leadership last week? Does
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: this play into that a little bit? Do they not
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: have good leadership?
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: Well, you know chev we talked about last week also
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: about the fact that about sixty eight to seventy percent
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: of the playoff first go to the top twelve payroll teams.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: It really puts a spotlight on the team that do
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: have a top twelve payroll who don't make the playoffs.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Sow about the number one payroll right right. So the
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: outrage you just expressed is being felt throughout Mets territory
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: because when you have the number one payroll and you
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: are positioned more as a seller at the trade deadline
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: than a buyer. It is truly shocking. So I think,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: let's you just reference the cavalcade of players that they
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: brought in this offseason. I'm going to point to that
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: very thing as part of their challenges. There is a
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: lot of change that has gone over with the Mets.
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: David Searns took over a couple of years ago. There's
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: been kind of a line change there, not only in
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: terms of the front office and how they do business,
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: but it's also on the field. They also, in addition
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: to making that number of changes of players, their almost
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: entire coaching staff was flipped out outside of their big
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: league manager. So you're talking about a massive overhaul of
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: personnel and then expectation to perform at the biggest stage immediately.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: So I think the criticism is founded. I also think
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: they probably are more positioned to like, let's see how
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: your two of this looks.
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: So you're saying give him another year as well.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: But I also will say they don't get that leash
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: right because they're the number one pay right, no one
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: is going to just say they just get a Hall
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: pass for a year. Their owner is massively aggressive in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: his other lines of business. It's succeed or massive changes
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: will take place. I think their front office is still
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: probably safe based upon their reputation, but I do expect
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the changes we've seen there in the last season and
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: a half are not done yet based.
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: Off what I was just about to say. So what
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: you say is true, and he's the he's the kind
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: of you know, hair trigger owner who's going to go
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: make all those changes again. Then we're just they're just
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: going to do this all over again. In theory, I mean,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: if they've got to have some continuancy from one season
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: to the next, or is this constant rolling you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: I want to use a term I can't use on
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: air right now, but this constant rolling poop show we'll
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: call it for the younger listeners out there. Don't use
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: that in school kids, but for one season to the next,
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: and I don't see. I guess the NL East is
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: a little more competitive though than the AL Central, right, Like,
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: they don't have the same they don't have the same
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: competition that say, the Twins, Tigers, White Sox have in
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: the AL Central, where nobody seems to really want to
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: be in first place. You've got the Braves, You've got
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: the Phillies, You've got the Marlins who are playing quite well.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: You've got Washington Nationals who are all of a sudden
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: playing quite very much like the White Sox. Young players
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: are starting to rise right. And then you got the Mets,
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: the highest payroll and they are in the basement by
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: fourteen and a half games. So they do this again
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: and make more changes. I don't see great things on
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: the horizon based on what you're saying.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Well in CHEDD, I think I think the analogy I
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: would draw, and time will tell you this is probably premature.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: But when we were much younger, George Steinbrenner led the
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: New York Yankees, and they also had extreme success, extreme change,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: extreme turmoil, extreme drama. And that's what plague that that
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: franchised for a long time.
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: A good point.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: And then you know, Brian Cashman takes over and so
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: works with mister Steinbrenner, but unfortunately he passes passes it
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: down to his children. It's starting. They run the business
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit differently, a lot more stability, and you know,
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: it may take a little time for the owner to
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: really get his feet underneath him. In New York. It's
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: a market that demands success immediately. He's responding to that.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: He's trying to be extremely active in terms of playing
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: a role to drive towards success. But maybe there's you know,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: he may be tripping a wire where there's just too
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: much change, too much turmoil, and not enough stability there.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I do think there's a lot of interesting parts over there,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: but the sum of it is certainly falling short of
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: what they expected from a team overall production.
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: That's my surprise for this season, and I.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Think time will time. We'll see, you know, how the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: rest of the season pans out. If they're selling at
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the trade deadline, that will be extremely noteworthy based upon
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: their payroll.
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: You are one hundred percent right, that'll be interesting to see.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: And I will say they they may not be alone
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: in terms of big payroll team selling because the San
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: Francisco Giants have already said they've hung out a shingle saying.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: They've already said they're going to do it. I don't.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: We're already starting to hear that talk as a Tiger's fano,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: and we started we could talk about schoogle in an
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: entire episode if we want at some point.
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: So JP in Orlando has the greatest follow up to
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: this conversation, I think in regard especially when we you know,
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: look at the White Sox sad and chat what is
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: your take? Both of you want to know what's your take?
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: And JP wants to know, is that as long as
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: you get a chance. You know, on the theory of
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: as long as you make it, you got a chance,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: how does that actually hold up? And Dad, you have
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: answered this for me in the past and you were
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: one hundred percent correct.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: I'm just going to tell you, yeah, so as long
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: as you make it to the playoffs, so you have
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: a chance.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you hear this theory
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: bandied about quite a bit, which is this kind of
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: notion of like, hey, just get in and anything could happen.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: And while I understand like from a fans perspective, and Chad,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your thoughts from that fans perspective
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: of just this notion of you want your team to
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: push to the playoffs. One thing that I felt always
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: was what we tried to do in my career where
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: we found success was if your team is already tracking
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: to the playoffs is the time to make the big
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: move to help you win once you get there. But
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: if you're making the big move to try to shoehorn
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: yourself into the playoffs, you're probably prematurely giving up a
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: lot of your prospect capital for the future. You're probably
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: going to regret that. Check the numbers.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 3: Typically when teams do that, they're a little desperate, right
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: like they maybe goode some moves coming into the season
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: that said we're going for the playoffs, and then they realize,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: we spent all this money, we're not tracking for the playoffs.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: We got to find a way too tracked for the playoffs. Well.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: Well, and I asked one of my children, Quinn, to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: do a little research on this. I asked them to
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: look at the last twenty years of the World Series.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: So that's forty teams who made the World Series twenty
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: eight of those seventy percent were either the number one
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: or number two seed in their league.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: Okay, so this.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Notion that anything could happen, four or ten percent were
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the five or six seed. So and then the other way,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you can look at as thirteen or sixty five percent
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: of the World Series winners over the last twenty years
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: have been a number one or two seed, three or
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: fifteen percent were five or six seeds, and those were
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: famously the Texas Rangers in twenty twenty three, San Francisco
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, and Washington in twenty nineteen. So yes,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: there is by the most loose definition and this notion
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: that hey, if you get in, quote, anything can happen.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: But the thing that is most likely to happen is
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: you get in and then unfortunately you run into a
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: team that is far more talented than you, are, far
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: more ready to win, and they end up vanquishing you.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: And yes, there's a sense of it was nice to
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: have gotten into the playoffs, but chet from your perspective
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: your team, how do you feel about your team getting
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: into the playoffs and then sumerrely dismissed by a team
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: that is clearly far better than you.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: It's happened quite often lately to our Detroit fan base.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: The Tigers have made the playoffs two years in a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: row and have un ceremonies that have been bounced out
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: and you know, I think they've won a series, and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: then they usually get bounced out once the cream starts
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: rising to the top, and this past NBA. I mean,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: the Pistons came in with the best record in basketball,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: number one seed, and they got bounced out by the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Cleveland Cavaliers, which was shocking. I mean, I don't I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: thought they would at least get to the point where
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: they got to play the next you know, and it
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: was not to be. And I think what you'd learn
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: is it's one thing to run the regular season. It's
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: a whole nother thing to run in the playoffs. This
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: is the best versus the best theoretically, right, So you
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: can get by on scriping out wins here and there
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: against good teams in the regular season when the emotion
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: level is down. Maybe you take a few teams by
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: surprise in the beginning because they don't expect or see
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: it coming. But then and then just beat up on
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: the other teams that are below five hundred whatever. And
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: then you get to the playoffs, you play a team
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: that's really great, and your medal against theirs. You see
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: it in baseball all the time. You see a team
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: that gets there and they just don't have some facet
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: to get them through to the next round. They don't
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: have a pen, they don't have a starting staff that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: can get them through a seven game series. Maybe they
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: don't have enough offense when it comes down to playing
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: the really good pitching staffs. Do they have guys that
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: can hit really good, elite level pitching that you run
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: into when you play the Dodgers or the Yankees or
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: whatnot when you get into the postseason. So I think
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: there's that I look at these teams into are they
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: a regular season contender? Are they a postseason contender? And
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: then you got to look at the makeup of their roster,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: and they come down to some of that veteran leadership
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: we talked about last week too. I mean, we just
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: talked about running a young team out there. What are
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: you expecting when the when the emotions are way through
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: the roof and there the stadiums are packed and the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: energy levels are high, and somebody makes a mistake, who's
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: there to pick them up? That is a time when
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: the you know, the rubber meets the road. In my opinion,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: so I think there's regular season champs and there's postseason champs,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: and they're sometimes a little different from each other.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: Not to over oversimplify it, but I've always looked at
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: it that they're players who help you get to the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: to the playoffs, then they're players who help you win.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Once you get to the playoffs, ideally you have as
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: many of the latter, you certainly want some of the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: former as well. But when you talk about, you know,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: are you a team that is beating other teams for
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: four th and fifth starters, but then when you get
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: to the playoffs, you're facing nobody's fourth and fifth starters.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: You're only facing the top set, you know. For the
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Detroit Tigers in particular, A J. Hinch came on the show.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: He's winning you some games in the regular season based
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: upon his ability to match up guys to the right competitor.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: When you get into the playoffs and you're just playing
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: teams that have better players, those advantages that you have
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: in the regular season get a little bit mitigated. And
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: when teams that are in the second tier playoffs palls
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: rather than just don't seem to win in the World Series,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: they get creative, they're platooning, they're doing things on the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: margins to win. But then when they run into the
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: buzz saw of the team that just has better talent
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: and most positions, it's really tough to overcome those gaps.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: And those margins shrink a lot. Those margins you've been
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: given to win with in the regular season shrink quite
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: a bit, margin for air, margin for the you know,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: taking the extra base. All the teams do that when
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: you get to the postseason typically.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: And also in the in the regular season, the best
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: and most creat teams are using all twenty six players
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: and deploying them to help win. In the playoffs, you
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: really rely on about fifteen and so your top fifteen
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: against the other team's top fifteen. Money does pay for
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: something here, and it's the better players, and that is
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: a real challenge. And that's you know we talked about
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: a last time chat. We'll talk about it in future episodes.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: This is where this collective bargaining agreement will be so
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: tantamount to leveling the playing field and trying to bring
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: back clarity in a sport that is really struggling. So
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: that is a wrap for us this week. Thank you
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: for joining us this week, and please join us every
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Thursday on Rosters to Rings. Please join me, host bad
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Levine and other general managers every week for Roster to
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: Rings on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.