Latest / Foul Territory / Evan Drellich on MLB team RSN fallout, WBC insurance conundrum

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Evan Drellich on MLB team RSN fallout, WBC insurance conundrum · Foul Territory

0:03
Speaker 1: The athletics. Evan Drelix joining us right now. Working on
0:06
Speaker 1: a number of stories this week. But Evan, we're going
0:09
Speaker 1: to begin with the TV chaos for a number of teams,
0:13
Speaker 1: and it looks like we've learned many of those teams
0:15
Speaker 1: are going to join up with MLB, but we want
0:17
Speaker 1: to talk to you also about how that affects their
0:19
Speaker 1: revenue and their spending for the rest of this offseason.
0:22
Speaker 1: So great to have you on as always, and I'll
0:24
Speaker 1: give you the floor to help explain what is going
0:27
Speaker 1: on this week with regional sports network deals and many
0:31
Speaker 1: teams involved trying to decide what to do.
0:33
Speaker 2: Nothing great is going on.
0:35
Speaker 3: I would say that the fact that we're a couple,
0:39
Speaker 3: you know, weeks from the start of spring training and
0:41
Speaker 3: we have fans and you know, up to a kind
0:44
Speaker 3: of close to a third of the league's markets who
0:46
Speaker 3: are now going to have to figure out where are
0:48
Speaker 3: these games are going to be aired? What am I
0:50
Speaker 3: going to have to do come the regular season. I mean,
0:52
Speaker 3: you still got a you know, close to two months,
0:54
Speaker 3: but it's just it's not the game of musical chairs.
0:57
Speaker 2: You want to have happen here.
0:59
Speaker 3: There's this company, mainStreet Sports Group that operates the FanDuel
1:02
Speaker 3: sports networks that's had all sorts of financial problems. They
1:05
Speaker 3: were in a big bankruptcy case that we've gone over
1:08
Speaker 3: on the show before, and they were the partner to
1:10
Speaker 3: nine Major League teams. They basically ran out of cash.
1:14
Speaker 3: They stopped paying teams, including the Cardinals, in December, and
1:17
Speaker 3: there was this renegotiation period in January where the MLB
1:21
Speaker 3: team said, we're canceling our contract, but we'll still talk
1:24
Speaker 3: to you. Let's see if we can work something out
1:25
Speaker 3: here and maybe find a way to come back. It
1:28
Speaker 3: was all contingent on this company, main Street, getting a buyer,
1:31
Speaker 3: getting more cash into its pockets to be able to
1:34
Speaker 3: pay the teams for these rights, and it basically just
1:39
Speaker 3: hasn't happened in time. So yesterday you had six MLB
1:43
Speaker 3: teams formally announced that they are going to MLB's internal
1:46
Speaker 3: broadcasting group. So MLB, which was already going to carry
1:50
Speaker 3: seven teams before this happened, is now going to carry
1:54
Speaker 3: probably fourteen, maybe as many as fifteen teams in twenty
1:57
Speaker 3: twenty six. So the sports network world, where teams partner
2:02
Speaker 3: with this third party company who puts on the games,
2:05
Speaker 3: it's just disappearing, and so you have six teams that
2:10
Speaker 3: are with MLB. Now a seventh the Tigers likely going
2:14
Speaker 3: to go to MLB. They got to work it out
2:16
Speaker 3: a little bit because they're the ownership group of the
2:18
Speaker 3: Tigers also owns a hockey team, the Red Wings, and
2:21
Speaker 3: you know there might be some what's the word, I'm
2:24
Speaker 3: looking for synchronization that they're looking for synergy in what
2:28
Speaker 3: they do there. And then the two that we're really
2:30
Speaker 3: waiting on are the Braves and the Tigers. The Braves
2:32
Speaker 3: seem like they're going to start their own network, I'm sorry,
2:35
Speaker 3: Braves and the Angels. We don't know exactly what the
2:38
Speaker 3: Angels are going to do, but they could end up
2:39
Speaker 3: with MLB as well. So you know there's a world
2:42
Speaker 3: in which really only one team doesn't go to MLB
2:45
Speaker 3: from this group of nine.
2:47
Speaker 4: What does this money look like for those teams, because
2:49
Speaker 4: that's what we're always hearing. Oh no, it's in flux.
2:52
Speaker 4: Not sure about our TV deal? Will the money be similar?
2:55
Speaker 4: Is Major League Baseball gonna screw the poots on this
2:58
Speaker 4: one and keep the money and then give it to
3:01
Speaker 4: the higher earning teams? No, I'm kidding, But what is
3:04
Speaker 4: the money, What does the money look like for them?
3:07
Speaker 4: Will there be a severe dropoff.
3:11
Speaker 3: Significant drop off? MLB on its website the other day
3:15
Speaker 3: had a stat that for teams that have already taken
3:18
Speaker 3: a haircut, and I think this is probably encompassing. Basically
3:21
Speaker 3: the last three years they've, on average, which is an
3:25
Speaker 3: operative term that means not everybody's at this figure, lost
3:29
Speaker 3: about fifty percent of what they were making, and so
3:32
Speaker 3: now they're going to lose another sizeable chunk. There's a
3:36
Speaker 3: difference between how main Street and traditional RSMs work versus
3:41
Speaker 3: what's happening. If you go to MLB, the traditional rsm's
3:44
Speaker 3: Main Street would say, here's a set amount we're gonna
3:47
Speaker 3: pay you for your right speed. This is what the
3:49
Speaker 3: right speed's worth. And you know that money is coming in,
3:51
Speaker 3: you can budget around it. With MLB, they give you projections.
3:54
Speaker 3: They say, this is what we think you're gonna bring
3:57
Speaker 3: in in terms of carriage agreement, meaning what you can
4:01
Speaker 3: sell to satellite companies, to cable companies, and also DTC
4:07
Speaker 3: direct to consumer, which is just a fancy way of
4:09
Speaker 3: saying streaming subscriptions. You know, there's been a big push
4:14
Speaker 3: inside baseball and they've done it to get every team
4:18
Speaker 3: available for streaming so that you can watch your team's
4:21
Speaker 3: games locally without having to go get a cable bundle
4:24
Speaker 3: or satellite bundle if you don't want to do it.
4:26
Speaker 3: And so MLB is saying that the teams, whatever you
4:28
Speaker 3: get from streaming, whatever you get from the satellite and
4:30
Speaker 3: cable companies, that's what we're gonna pay you. We're not
4:33
Speaker 3: gonna promise you you're gonna get X because we might
4:35
Speaker 3: not bring in that number. So and the teams even
4:39
Speaker 3: beyond that are just gonna make less money. MLB doesn't
4:42
Speaker 3: have the same deals in place with the cable and
4:44
Speaker 3: satellite companies that mainStreet did.
4:47
Speaker 2: So they're gonna make less money.
4:49
Speaker 3: And this is going to all bleed into collective bargaining,
4:52
Speaker 3: which is going to start up only in a couple months.
4:54
Speaker 3: Here we're going we're gonna have the league in the
4:56
Speaker 3: union starting to get together to discuss the next CBA.
5:00
Speaker 3: It's gonna bleed into the next round of national deals.
5:02
Speaker 3: National TV deals come twenty twenty nine, and those will
5:06
Speaker 3: be negotiating twenty eight. So it's local media rights in
5:09
Speaker 3: baseball are going to be something you're just going to
5:11
Speaker 3: keep hearing a ton about and I'm so happy to
5:14
Speaker 3: talk to you about it.
5:18
Speaker 5: All right, isn't this though Manfred's dream? Isn't this what
5:22
Speaker 5: he's been talking about? MLB Central like the NBA and
5:25
Speaker 5: they can do these just big national deals. But what
5:29
Speaker 5: and all the NBA teams still have their local I
5:31
Speaker 5: know we have the Magic here in Orlando and they're
5:33
Speaker 5: on VANDUL Florida whatever it's gonna be. And but now
5:36
Speaker 5: you know, the NBA has these deals, NFL has these
5:38
Speaker 5: This is kind of Manfred's dream. But what I want
5:41
Speaker 5: to know, Evan, has anyone looked into like the Rangers. Okay,
5:44
Speaker 5: for instance, in the White Sox they started their own network,
5:46
Speaker 5: did they make more money off that than they did
5:48
Speaker 5: off their previous deals? Because the Braves right are talking
5:51
Speaker 5: about maybe starting their own network. So the team's actually
5:54
Speaker 5: other than Yankees, Cubs, that's Red Sox, the Big Ones,
6:00
Speaker 5: Dodgers make a ton because it's force in LA. But
6:02
Speaker 5: to any of these teams that start their own network,
6:04
Speaker 5: do they actually make more money than Why wouldn't it
6:06
Speaker 5: stop every team from making their own network? Well?
6:10
Speaker 3: Look, the infrastructure involved, the investment involved, and the time
6:13
Speaker 3: and effort it's a lot of capital, generally people money
6:17
Speaker 3: that you'd have to invest to start your own network.
6:21
Speaker 3: I haven't looked enough into it to compantly tell you
6:23
Speaker 3: exactly how those networks have done. I can do that,
6:26
Speaker 3: but what I think is true is that none of
6:29
Speaker 3: them have done so well that they escape this larger
6:32
Speaker 3: RSN problem, which is that And Rob Manford's been on
6:36
Speaker 3: record about this, and I don't think he's wrong that eventually,
6:39
Speaker 3: even for the teams that are doing well, the big
6:41
Speaker 3: market teams, cord cutting is going to start to eat
6:44
Speaker 3: in to the money that they get. It is not
6:48
Speaker 3: something while the problem has largely plagued smaller market teams
6:52
Speaker 3: thus far. And the Braves are certainly you know, they
6:55
Speaker 3: have a lot of viewers that they are an exception there.
6:58
Speaker 3: It's something that's going to come for all them. And
7:00
Speaker 3: so the answer doesn't seem to be while every team
7:03
Speaker 3: go out and start your own network. You framed it
7:06
Speaker 3: around this, this is Rob's dream to have all the
7:08
Speaker 3: teams inside MLB. There's some nuance there. The dream is
7:13
Speaker 3: to make as much money as possible. That is what
7:15
Speaker 3: they are trying to do at every step of the way.
7:17
Speaker 3: And they'll talk about balancing it with reach you Sometimes
7:21
Speaker 3: you could sign up with a service that will pay
7:23
Speaker 3: you more but maybe gets to fewer fans, and there
7:25
Speaker 3: is some sort of balancing act there. But the bottom
7:28
Speaker 3: line is the bottom line. What Rob wants is to
7:32
Speaker 3: be able to sell a large amount or ideally all
7:36
Speaker 3: of the local rights to potentially a bidding a streaming company,
7:40
Speaker 3: a bidding war, or multiple streaming companies. You know, if
7:44
Speaker 3: you can say to ESPN or Peacock whatever, come twenty
7:49
Speaker 3: twenty eight, Hey, besides the Sunday game of the week,
7:52
Speaker 3: you could also be the local home to twenty markets,
7:55
Speaker 3: twenty five markets. There could be a lot of money
7:58
Speaker 3: attached to that, and there could be more. The thinking
8:01
Speaker 3: is then would be available with every team partnering on
8:04
Speaker 3: its own with an individual RSN. So what Rob wants
8:07
Speaker 3: is to control local rights through his office. And then
8:11
Speaker 3: the big question becomes, okay, are you if he a
8:14
Speaker 3: gets that control, how is the money divided up? What
8:17
Speaker 3: happens to revenue sharing? Because the big market teams obviously
8:20
Speaker 3: have more valuable rights than the little market teams, and
8:23
Speaker 3: this is where collective bargaining with the players is going
8:25
Speaker 3: to be really interesting, because the players have an input
8:28
Speaker 3: on this. So if MLB wants to change what it
8:31
Speaker 3: does with local media rights, and it does, it's got
8:35
Speaker 3: to go through the union in regards to revenue sharing.
8:39
Speaker 3: And it's it's a very big jigsaw puzzle that's going
8:42
Speaker 3: to kind of underlie all that we're going to be
8:45
Speaker 3: talking about coming up here.
8:46
Speaker 4: If the number is only six, eight, ten teams that
8:50
Speaker 4: end up coming under the Major League Baseball umbrella, does
8:54
Speaker 4: that work for Major League Baseball?
8:56
Speaker 5: Does that make the money?
8:57
Speaker 4: Or is it something that if they don't get X amount,
9:01
Speaker 4: they don't get fifteen, twenty or even thirty teams, which
9:04
Speaker 4: I don't think they'll ever get. Is that the only
9:06
Speaker 4: way that this like package system really works to make
9:10
Speaker 4: the most money.
9:12
Speaker 3: You want as many teams and as many premier teams
9:15
Speaker 3: as possible. Your right to think this way that if
9:18
Speaker 3: you're trying to say to Netflix, hey, buy a package
9:21
Speaker 3: of seven or eight teams, and it's kind of you know,
9:25
Speaker 3: the Rays of the Marlins, the Rockies, whatever, it's not the
9:28
Speaker 3: star studded Dodgers and they might never be involved, you're
9:33
Speaker 3: gonna make less money from that. And there's even more
9:36
Speaker 3: nuance here where you want to have those rights available.
9:40
Speaker 3: Rob doesn't necessarily the Central Baseball Office doesn't have to
9:44
Speaker 3: take control of that. You just need cooperation and you
9:47
Speaker 3: need those rights available. You could still be in a
9:49
Speaker 3: world where the twenty individual clubs control their local rights
9:55
Speaker 3: and they just agree, okay, we will all come together
9:57
Speaker 3: and sell this to Netflix. I think the Missioner's office
10:00
Speaker 3: looks at it rightly that it's a lot easier if
10:02
Speaker 3: they have final say over what to do with those rights.
10:06
Speaker 3: And that is a key thing to understand here about baseball.
10:09
Speaker 3: Local rights are controlled by the clubs. The Commissioner's Office
10:13
Speaker 3: does not control them.
10:14
Speaker 2: He'd like to.
10:16
Speaker 5: You nailed at Devin. You nailed everything you said you nailed.
10:18
Speaker 5: I think you worked for the commissioners sometimes, which is fine,
10:21
Speaker 5: and no, we do not work for the association. And
10:23
Speaker 5: just to make sure that we established that while we
10:25
Speaker 5: have you on, let's go to the WBC. Yeah, he
10:29
Speaker 5: gets it. Evan gets the joke. He got it.
10:31
Speaker 1: Uh, that is a good joke, but not many people are.
10:34
Speaker 2: And that's okay.
10:35
Speaker 5: One day, Evin got it. We had a long talk
10:37
Speaker 5: at the All Star Game this year on the field,
10:39
Speaker 5: so it's all good. Let's go to the WBC. Everyone's
10:43
Speaker 5: crying about insurance, and I said yesterday Puerto Rico can't
10:45
Speaker 5: afford to pull out of the WBC. They're not going
10:47
Speaker 5: to pull out, and eventually all these guys will find
10:50
Speaker 5: their insurance. And now we're hearing rumblings that Francisco Indoor
10:54
Speaker 5: is gonna maybe be able, probably gonna be able to play.
10:56
Speaker 5: And Edwin Diaz was this all a bunch of hoopla
10:59
Speaker 5: about nothing and this insurance stuff just to get attention
11:02
Speaker 5: to it?
11:04
Speaker 3: Is there an element of this that it could be
11:06
Speaker 3: kind of construed as a pressure campaign?
11:08
Speaker 5: Aj?
11:09
Speaker 3: I think yes, but it is also very real that
11:12
Speaker 3: these guys were going to be denied, and this is
11:15
Speaker 3: the thing that was happening and is happening. I do
11:19
Speaker 3: understand that Puerto Rico is trying. Team Puerto Rico is
11:23
Speaker 3: looking for alternative insurance, which is one thing that could help.
11:28
Speaker 3: I don't know at this point if they've landed that,
11:31
Speaker 3: but that's one way that this could end up getting solved.
11:34
Speaker 3: And the other part, and this was in the original story,
11:36
Speaker 3: and there's an example of this in the past with
11:39
Speaker 3: Migul Cabrera and the Tigers, the team the owner of
11:44
Speaker 3: the major League team that the player plays for can
11:47
Speaker 3: say I'm okay with this risk, and the player can
11:50
Speaker 3: then play. It is an option that exists. So there
11:54
Speaker 3: are avenues for these guys who have been told no
11:58
Speaker 3: to still play. That's a reversal indecision. That's additional insurance
12:03
Speaker 3: being acquired. That's the club owner saying, find we'll take
12:07
Speaker 3: the risk.
12:08
Speaker 4: What's the what's the who's who made the change? In
12:12
Speaker 4: the sense, obviously insurance didn't change. The underwriter isn't like, oh,
12:16
Speaker 4: you're right. I am a big WBC fan, so I
12:19
Speaker 4: want to see these guys play. Did they change their
12:22
Speaker 4: line because we were talking about it yesterday, like all
12:25
Speaker 4: insurance everywhere went up by fifty to one hundred percent,
12:29
Speaker 4: So did the Major League Baseball and the team say, okay,
12:32
Speaker 4: we're willing to actually pay more than we would have
12:34
Speaker 4: back in twenty twenty three.
12:38
Speaker 3: So what I understand about the insurance that applies here
12:42
Speaker 3: is that after last go around, when everybody got hurt,
12:46
Speaker 3: or at least the big contract guys get hurt, all
12:48
Speaker 3: two vedas the costs shot up. And my understanding is
12:53
Speaker 3: that there was not another competitor. It wasn't like there
12:55
Speaker 3: was some they were choosing between different options. And one
12:59
Speaker 3: of the questions I asked one of the people I
13:00
Speaker 3: spoke to about this is, well, couldn't you have just
13:03
Speaker 3: thrown more money at this? Couldn't you have said, Okay,
13:04
Speaker 3: we will pay you more for a policy that covers more.
13:08
Speaker 3: And the answer I got back was no, what was
13:11
Speaker 3: on the table is what was on the table? Does
13:14
Speaker 3: that mean now in the last week, you know, they
13:17
Speaker 3: couldn't negotiate it? Slightly differently, I don't know. I don't
13:21
Speaker 3: know exactly what the conversations look like between the union,
13:25
Speaker 3: the league and the insurance company in the last four
13:28
Speaker 3: or five days, since this is all broken out, and
13:32
Speaker 3: you know, I don't expect them to detail it, but
13:34
Speaker 3: clearly the league and the union are trying to get
13:37
Speaker 3: the insurance company to change its mind on some things,
13:42
Speaker 3: and you know, could you offer more money to make
13:46
Speaker 3: them change their minds? Yeah, but I don't know that
13:49
Speaker 3: that's what happened. That's going to be left to the
13:52
Speaker 3: imagination at least for now.
13:56
Speaker 4: Oh go ahead, cy, Is there anything to say? Is
13:59
Speaker 4: there anything like Because some of the Puerto Rican Venezuelan
14:03
Speaker 4: players felt like this was more of an attack on them.
14:06
Speaker 4: Was it just a super random every time the insurance
14:09
Speaker 4: wheel spun it was a Puerto Rican player or a
14:12
Speaker 4: Venezuelan player.
14:15
Speaker 2: It seems.
14:16
Speaker 3: Listen, the portrayal I'm getting from inside is is that
14:20
Speaker 3: nobody has anything against any specific teams here, and that
14:23
Speaker 3: it happens to be that these the players, particularly with
14:26
Speaker 3: the Team Puerto Rico roster, are just unfortunately triggering a
14:31
Speaker 3: lot of these disqualifying criteria more than other teams. The
14:37
Speaker 3: timing of it seems to be certainly suboptimal. And one
14:41
Speaker 3: of the things I was asking is, well, could you
14:43
Speaker 3: do this differently and could you do it earlier? Could
14:46
Speaker 3: you get this these decisions made in November? And the
14:48
Speaker 3: problem if you do it in November is, well, what
14:51
Speaker 3: about a guy's health situation in winter ball? You know
14:54
Speaker 3: what if something develops positively or negatively once the regular
14:58
Speaker 3: season ends, Because if you if you kind of do
15:00
Speaker 3: these evaluations earlier, guys haven't had the benefit of being
15:04
Speaker 3: able to heal up for the winter. That said, do
15:07
Speaker 3: you have to be taking it right down to the
15:08
Speaker 3: wire like this? I'm not so sure there So there,
15:14
Speaker 3: it seems to be just unfortunate that these guys are
15:17
Speaker 3: triggering their criteria. Sixty dil major or simply surgery period
15:24
Speaker 3: are big flags, but the insurance company can make a
15:27
Speaker 3: holistic decision. There's something called an EMR. Please google it
15:31
Speaker 3: if you want to understand how this works in insurance.
15:34
Speaker 3: But you know, they look at a guy's injury history.
15:36
Speaker 3: They look at the body parts specifically, has Lindor had
15:40
Speaker 3: a problem in this elbow before, for example, And so
15:44
Speaker 3: it it's not as simple as X disqualifies you, but
15:48
Speaker 3: it is often as simple as X disqualifies you. But
15:52
Speaker 3: they can kind of, you know, they take a whole picture,
15:55
Speaker 3: is the idea?
15:56
Speaker 5: Anyway, heavan By the way, I know you're a great writer,
16:00
Speaker 5: but if you ever want to make a lot of money,
16:01
Speaker 5: get into the insurance business. It's the one thing that
16:04
Speaker 5: everybody has to have. Nobody wants to use it, and
16:08
Speaker 5: then when you try to use it, the insurance the
16:09
Speaker 5: company tells you know, and they still get their money.
16:12
Speaker 5: So it's like the greatest job. It's one of the
16:13
Speaker 5: greatest jobs besides writing at the athletic that one could
16:16
Speaker 5: ever have. Okay, so just remember.
16:18
Speaker 3: There's some stability where people don't yell at me all
16:21
Speaker 3: the time. That might be a nice idea. I'll keep
16:22
Speaker 3: that in the back of my mind.
16:23
Speaker 5: No, Ken, Ken's a mean coworker, so I understand he
16:25
Speaker 5: yells at me too, So we share. We share that problem. Okay,
16:30
Speaker 5: is there any way going forward at the WBC that
16:37
Speaker 5: the owners and the players, because they joint own, they
16:40
Speaker 5: joint own this right that basically, you know, there's some
16:42
Speaker 5: other federations that have money that they could come together
16:45
Speaker 5: and say, man, this is really a problem. It's really
16:48
Speaker 5: putting a little bit of a damper on this. We
16:51
Speaker 5: can find our own insurance on our own. You know,
16:54
Speaker 5: I don't know how to I don't know how to
16:55
Speaker 5: ask the question problem like where they can come together
16:58
Speaker 5: and say we're going to help pay these cost or
17:00
Speaker 5: we're gonna help do this and change the rules a
17:03
Speaker 5: little bit. Because everybody wants I want to see this.
17:05
Speaker 5: I want the best players out there. Everybody wants the
17:07
Speaker 5: best players out there. Even though someone like Francisco Lindor
17:10
Speaker 5: had an elbow problem year ago, says he's fine, can
17:13
Speaker 5: play in spring train.
17:16
Speaker 3: The answer is yes, it is always possible that they
17:18
Speaker 3: could figure out a way to do this. It is
17:19
Speaker 3: collectively bargained, so it's not in the CBA for you
17:23
Speaker 3: CBA nerds out there who want to go through the
17:25
Speaker 3: PDF and try to find stuff about how this works.
17:27
Speaker 2: But it's a.
17:28
Speaker 3: Separate agreement between the league and the union as to
17:30
Speaker 3: how the WBC is going to operate and how this
17:33
Speaker 3: insurance applies. They can renegotiate that. But the big question is,
17:39
Speaker 3: and I've said it on this show before, it always
17:43
Speaker 3: comes back to money. Who's taking that risk? Are the
17:46
Speaker 3: club owners going to stand there and say, all right,
17:48
Speaker 3: for the betterment of this grand international event, we are
17:52
Speaker 3: willing to take on that risk. It has certainly been
17:55
Speaker 3: the history of the MLBPA and you can understand why
17:59
Speaker 3: that the not going to try to make a guaranteed
18:03
Speaker 3: contract anything but a guaranteed contract. So it would seem
18:06
Speaker 3: highly unlikely the players are going to say, okay, if
18:09
Speaker 3: I get hurt playing in the WBC, well now the
18:12
Speaker 3: team doesn't have to paint. And it seems pretty unlikely
18:16
Speaker 3: that the clubs are going to be like, well, you
18:18
Speaker 3: got hurt not playing for us, you got hurt playing
18:21
Speaker 3: for your home country.
18:22
Speaker 2: Why do I now?
18:23
Speaker 3: Why am I on the hook for all this money
18:25
Speaker 3: for the next X number of years?
18:27
Speaker 2: So they could.
18:28
Speaker 3: Absolutely find a way to do this differently. It would
18:31
Speaker 3: require one or both sides being willing to take more
18:34
Speaker 3: risk with their money. And gosh, do they like money.
18:39
Speaker 5: That is the name of the game.
18:40
Speaker 1: They wouldn't be doing this tournament if they didn't like money.
18:43
Speaker 1: That's the part that I'm not understanding. I mean, it
18:45
Speaker 1: seems like something that is under Baseball's umbrella. I understand
18:49
Speaker 1: that both sides have to be on the same page,
18:51
Speaker 1: but you want participation, you should want participation. And maybe
18:55
Speaker 1: this has to do with front offices too. We often
18:57
Speaker 1: don't want their players participating, especially pitchers. But if I
19:02
Speaker 1: was the league, I'd be like, yeah, everyone plays, we
19:05
Speaker 1: want you to play. There's an injury for the what
19:08
Speaker 1: is it five six games that someone's playing, Oh, well
19:12
Speaker 1: you take the hit there. And that's how this works.
19:14
Speaker 1: And we're still going to make profit off of this tournament. Again,
19:17
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be this doing this tournament if it wasn't
19:20
Speaker 1: a profitable venture.
19:21
Speaker 2: Right.
19:21
Speaker 1: They had games prepared in France and they were like,
19:24
Speaker 1: this is not going to make us money. We don't
19:26
Speaker 1: have a promoter to back this boom. We're taking it out.
19:28
Speaker 1: I think it was France. You probably know better than
19:31
Speaker 1: I do. Point is, we don't see the books for this.
19:34
Speaker 1: They're definitely making money off of it. I just feel
19:37
Speaker 1: like it's overcomplicated. Maybe I'm just not understanding things and
19:41
Speaker 1: there's too much risk on the table. But it's not
19:42
Speaker 1: like we're seeing twenty injuries. The insurance premiums went through
19:46
Speaker 1: the roof because they're only ensuring this particular tournament and
19:49
Speaker 1: they look at Al Twoveay's injury and I'm sure they
19:51
Speaker 1: had to pay for Edwin Diaz for a season and
19:53
Speaker 1: change and say, hey, this isn't profitable enough for us,
19:57
Speaker 1: so we're going to raise your premiums. That's why if
19:59
Speaker 1: I'm the league, like, maybe we just save the money
20:02
Speaker 1: here and take on the risk ourselves, and if two
20:04
Speaker 1: guys get hurt.
20:04
Speaker 2: A year, it's kind of a win.
20:07
Speaker 3: The The insurance I was told costs a massive amount
20:12
Speaker 3: of money. I don't know exactly what that means, but
20:14
Speaker 3: it is very expensive. And the way it works this
20:18
Speaker 3: go around is this might have this part I think
20:21
Speaker 3: actually might have been true in the past as well.
20:23
Speaker 3: It covers four years for pictures, two years for hitters,
20:28
Speaker 3: So that means if if this is a hypothetical Otani
20:34
Speaker 3: were to pitch and were to be covered to pitch,
20:37
Speaker 3: which he was according to information Ken and I had,
20:40
Speaker 3: he was not going to be. The insurance was not
20:42
Speaker 3: going to sign off on Shoeyo Tani being covered as
20:45
Speaker 3: a pitcher. But had he been, that would have meant
20:48
Speaker 3: that the full seventy not that discounted forty six million
20:51
Speaker 3: with net present value and the deferrals that seventy million
20:55
Speaker 3: dollars per year for four years would have been covered
20:58
Speaker 3: under that policy to hund eighty million dollars. That's obviously
21:01
Speaker 3: the most extreme example I can give you. But when
21:04
Speaker 3: you're talking about the point here is when you have
21:07
Speaker 3: one star player on a big contract go down, the
21:11
Speaker 3: insurance company can very quickly take a bath. And that
21:15
Speaker 3: is what I've told happened last time, that the insurance
21:17
Speaker 3: company did not win with the amount of money that
21:19
Speaker 3: it had to pay out based on what went on
21:21
Speaker 3: last time. And so look, I think both things are true.
21:26
Speaker 3: It is too bad they can't find a way to
21:28
Speaker 3: make this easy. And you can also imagine if you
21:30
Speaker 3: own a baseball team sitting there and going, I don't
21:33
Speaker 3: want to be on the hook for this guy getting
21:34
Speaker 3: hurt for this and the player going, well, I don't
21:36
Speaker 3: want to be giving up my guaranteed salary with whatever
21:39
Speaker 3: the mets so that I can play for two weeks
21:42
Speaker 3: in spring. It's a problem that could be fixed. I'm
21:47
Speaker 3: not sure it'll be perfectly fixed.
21:49
Speaker 1: This sounds like it'll be fun for the Olympics too,
21:51
Speaker 1: But wait, let me backtrack for a moment, just because
21:54
Speaker 1: you know, I am to read the nerd that reads
21:56
Speaker 1: all of your stories and Ken's as well. So for
22:00
Speaker 1: and what I understood, the cost for the insurance company
22:04
Speaker 1: doesn't affect the premium. There was a part in there
22:08
Speaker 1: that said, like, it doesn't matter what the total salaries are.
22:10
Speaker 1: Maybe you can play to this better and explain it
22:12
Speaker 1: to me, because this is a part that I need
22:14
Speaker 1: an explanation on because in my brain I'm just going cool.
22:16
Speaker 1: The Otani explanation just gave me a means. This costs
22:19
Speaker 1: a ton of money. Right in my head, this costs
22:21
Speaker 1: a ton of money. So again, let's just try and
22:24
Speaker 1: save this money and put the onus on the teams
22:26
Speaker 1: in the league because we are promoting this for our
22:29
Speaker 1: sport and it's one freaking tournament for a couple of
22:31
Speaker 1: weeks so.
22:34
Speaker 3: And I actually realized now as I'm talking about the
22:35
Speaker 3: Otani example, well he's still playing as a hitter, and
22:37
Speaker 3: the salary is the same as a hitter. The money
22:40
Speaker 3: is the same there, but it's two years compared to
22:43
Speaker 3: four years that we'll cover. One of the questions I
22:46
Speaker 3: was asking in reporting out that story that ken I
22:49
Speaker 3: did the other day is does one person's approval one
22:53
Speaker 3: player's approval have any impact on another player's approval in
22:58
Speaker 3: the sense that basically, is there a capped amount of
23:01
Speaker 3: total salary that this policy will cover. I was told
23:05
Speaker 3: that is not the case. I don't fully understand. They
23:10
Speaker 3: haven't sent me the full paperwork of the insurance policy
23:14
Speaker 3: to understand exactly how it does work. But it does
23:18
Speaker 3: not seem to be the case that one guy getting
23:22
Speaker 3: money that they're going to go, oh, I ensured this guy,
23:24
Speaker 3: so I'm not going to ensure that guy. What I
23:25
Speaker 3: do understand to be the case is that it's a
23:28
Speaker 3: little easier to ensure guys making a little bit less
23:33
Speaker 3: money than guys making more money. And that makes total sense.
23:36
Speaker 3: You know, Byron Buxton just isn't making the same kind
23:39
Speaker 3: of money that Lindor is so maybe you're able to say,
23:42
Speaker 3: if you're the insurance company, Okay, I'm willing to take
23:45
Speaker 3: a little bit more risk than I would be with Lindoor.
23:48
Speaker 3: That's a hypothetical example. But yeah, so the amount of
23:54
Speaker 3: money a guy makes should not It's not like you
23:59
Speaker 3: can only have three hundred million dollars and you have
24:01
Speaker 3: to spread that around to a bunch of different people.
24:04
Speaker 3: It's supposedly not kept.
24:07
Speaker 1: Okay, well, let's finish with this educated prediction. What do
24:14
Speaker 1: you think happens next? So the rosters officially get announced
24:17
Speaker 1: on Thursday, we're two days away from that. That was
24:20
Speaker 1: part of why the Puerto Rican team was pissed off,
24:23
Speaker 1: and that's valid. They're like, we're not finding this out
24:25
Speaker 1: until days before and then we have to try and
24:27
Speaker 1: shove a roster together. We don't have endless players to
24:30
Speaker 1: choose from like USA, and USA also didn't even have
24:32
Speaker 1: to deal with this issue. So how do you think
24:35
Speaker 1: this finishes up? Do you think we continue to get
24:38
Speaker 1: news over the next forty eight hours that other players
24:41
Speaker 1: from Team Puerto Rico do get cleared? Edwin Diaz I
24:44
Speaker 1: thought had no chance based on the history of something
24:48
Speaker 1: like that. I know it was a freak accident knocking
24:51
Speaker 1: him out.
24:53
Speaker 3: If I were to guess, yes, that either somehow the
24:57
Speaker 3: insurance that Puerto Rico is pursuing in depend the pressure
25:00
Speaker 3: that MLB in the union, the public response here, and
25:05
Speaker 3: pr elements of this, my guess is something changes. I
25:10
Speaker 3: got to believe that the kind of underlying logic that
25:14
Speaker 3: the insurance company has been has been using and that
25:17
Speaker 3: everybody's agreed to, doesn't go out the window. The criteria,
25:22
Speaker 3: as I understand it, is not some sort of secret
25:25
Speaker 3: for any of these federations or teams. The notion that
25:29
Speaker 3: anybody should be so kind of surprised by what is
25:33
Speaker 3: getting ruled out, you know, unless people were really just
25:38
Speaker 3: kind of hiding the ball, you know, as long as
25:41
Speaker 3: everybody was told sixty d ail and surgery could be disqualifying,
25:46
Speaker 3: it's hard to kind of sit there and go, oh,
25:48
Speaker 3: we're so shocked.
25:49
Speaker 2: That people are disqualified. Now. Is it possible that it
25:53
Speaker 2: really wasn't communicated? Well maybe, But my guess is.
25:56
Speaker 3: That there's some sort of give or change that's made here.
26:01
Speaker 3: Whether it's going to be everything everybody wants, probably not right.
26:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I think people are getting really specific on socials.
26:08
Speaker 1: At my last point here that you can see Carlos Korea,
26:10
Speaker 1: for example, who has flunked physicals for contracts in the past,
26:14
Speaker 1: but this past season he played one hundred and forty
26:15
Speaker 1: something games. He was only on the aisle for a concussion.
26:18
Speaker 1: Brag been missing seven weeks. Judge had the elbow thing. Right,
26:21
Speaker 1: You start to do comps with players and you're just like,
26:24
Speaker 1: why him but not him? It doesn't seem at least
26:27
Speaker 1: for me when I was trying to do my own homework,
26:29
Speaker 1: I'm like, if we're just playing off, hey, the sixth
26:31
Speaker 1: dail or the surgery. He hasn't had either of those things.
26:35
Speaker 1: So now we're going further back, and then if we
26:37
Speaker 1: want to go further back, we can do that for
26:39
Speaker 1: other players too.
26:41
Speaker 3: There are other you know. One of the things that
26:42
Speaker 3: came up in this is that there's some injury reports
26:46
Speaker 3: that are not public. If there's some things going on
26:48
Speaker 3: with some guys that show up in what these insurers
26:51
Speaker 3: get to review. And I don't mean this as a
26:53
Speaker 3: defense of the insurance company. I'm just telling you how
26:55
Speaker 3: I understand it to work that you know, you don't
26:59
Speaker 3: know about. You know, maybe maybe a guy you know
27:02
Speaker 3: about the injury in one arm, but you don't know
27:05
Speaker 3: about the injury in the other arm. And it's yeah,
27:09
Speaker 3: and the insurance company just ultimately has some level of discretion.
27:12
Speaker 3: It's it's it's there's disqualifying criteria that's typically disqualifying, but
27:17
Speaker 3: that's not the only thing they're looking at, and of
27:20
Speaker 3: course they're never going to make it transparent with medical information.
27:25
Speaker 3: It's it's you know, I had multiple people say, we
27:29
Speaker 3: knew this problem was coming because of how how the
27:32
Speaker 3: policy had changed got more expensive, and it's it's too bad,
27:36
Speaker 3: but yeah, people, people apparently saw that this problem was
27:39
Speaker 3: going to exist, and it's nobody could get off the train.
27:43
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, hopefully. But exhibition, Yeah, exhibition there, exhibition.
27:53
Speaker 5: Just saying God, God thinks it's more more valuable than
27:58
Speaker 5: a World Series game.
27:59
Speaker 3: Just so, no now for renters insurance and car insurance AJ.
28:02
Speaker 3: So let me know what your prices are.
28:04
Speaker 1: Everything's I got a guy, I need I need your history,
28:08
Speaker 1: I need your past sixty, I need a million other things.
28:11
Speaker 5: Right, so I needname the last four year social where
28:16
Speaker 5: all that good stuff.
28:18
Speaker 1: Avin, thanks for helping us decideher this. We were looking
28:20
Speaker 1: forward to this combo and at least getting some positive
28:23
Speaker 1: feedback from people in the chat saying that.
28:25
Speaker 2: This was helpful.
28:26
Speaker 1: So we will we will take that as a win.
28:28
Speaker 1: Appreciate the time.
28:28
Speaker 2: Dude, you got it. Guys.
28:30
Speaker 1: We'll continue the WBC conversation just for a couple of
28:33
Speaker 1: minutes here and then we have a guest straining us.
28:34
Speaker 1: But you can see more coverage from Evaney and Athletic.
28:38
Speaker 1: He's written about this. I'm sure there will be more
28:40
Speaker 1: coming out in the Athletic once we get the roster
28:42
Speaker 1: announcements and all of the final decisions. On that note,
28:46
Speaker 1: it appears as if our favorite closer this WBC just
28:52
Speaker 1: because we want to see him put the uniform on,
28:55
Speaker 1: will not be participating. Francis Romero saying, unfortunately we're all
28:59
Speaker 1: just Chapman will not be playing for Great Britain. He
29:04
Speaker 1: did not qualify. But my question is why did this
29:10
Speaker 1: news come out Initially? Maybe he applied and then he
29:12
Speaker 1: just found out that he didn't qualify.
29:14
Speaker 2: I don't know.
29:15
Speaker 1: This is where I'm starting to get confused here, a
29:17
Speaker 1: j could we have not figured that out sooner? It's
29:19
Speaker 1: like you're either qualified or not. This wasn't even an
29:22
Speaker 1: insurance thing. This was just no, No, we want to
29:24
Speaker 1: find out two days before and let all this prepare.
29:27
Speaker 1: You want to be question and says you're denied two
29:30
Speaker 1: days away from roster announcements.
29:32
Speaker 5: No, they just wanted to try some tea over in
29:34
Speaker 5: Britain and they probably flew him over to Big Ben
29:36
Speaker 5: in Parliament and let him walk around a little bit,
29:38
Speaker 5: and Nolin just you don't like tea enough. I don't know.
29:43
Speaker 5: I'm just this is weird timing. I mean the fact
29:45
Speaker 5: that he was announced as the Great Britain team and
29:49
Speaker 5: now all of a sudden he's not in Cube, was
29:51
Speaker 5: not in this one. I don't know. Randya Rose Arena
29:54
Speaker 5: place for Mexico, I don't know. I don't know. To
30:00
Speaker 5: see him in the jersey, I wanted to see Maybe
30:02
Speaker 5: that's what it was.
30:03
Speaker 4: Maybe he put the jersey. He didn't qualify, and you
30:05
Speaker 4: know in Little League it's like you know, number one
30:08
Speaker 4: through five is smalls, five through ten or mediums. Maybe
30:13
Speaker 4: he got up to the number that he wanted in
30:15
Speaker 4: the jersey was just too small for him. If you
30:17
Speaker 4: don't know why we're talking about Jersey, mishap Great Britain
30:21
Speaker 4: last WBC, look it up. It's a good it's a
30:23
Speaker 4: good laugh watching some watching some letters hang off of
30:27
Speaker 4: Vance Whirley's chest.
30:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of money issues in the WBC, that would
30:33
Speaker 1: qualify for something that needed to be cleaned up.
30:35
Speaker 2: And I think it.
30:36
Speaker 5: Will if you're Great Britain, like it sucks at Chaman Campbellay.
30:40
Speaker 5: But other than that, if you're Great Britain, right and
30:42
Speaker 5: you have no really baseball history at all, you're not
30:45
Speaker 5: Puerto Rico, you're not Venezuela, you're not Dominican, you're not Cuba,
30:49
Speaker 5: you're not Japan, you're not all these countries. Would you
30:52
Speaker 5: make your uniforms just outrageously outrageous, all right? Instead of
30:57
Speaker 5: it like I would if I was in charge of
30:59
Speaker 5: the Great Britain, that would have made them the full
31:02
Speaker 5: Union jack. The hats would have been crazy, like they
31:04
Speaker 5: would have been the hats they wear a Westminster Palace
31:07
Speaker 5: right or Buckingham Palace right. They would have had the
31:09
Speaker 5: whole thing. I mean, I would have made this absolutely
31:12
Speaker 5: epic uniforms. Said they went the plane of uniforms of
31:14
Speaker 5: all time.
31:15
Speaker 4: They went to the t MoU site and Timu made
31:18
Speaker 4: their uniforms.
31:19
Speaker 5: They should have had like the fuzzy caps like they
31:22
Speaker 5: wear a Buckingham Palace right with like the little where
31:24
Speaker 5: the guy just stands there. They could have had like
31:26
Speaker 5: hats like that with the little bill, or they could
31:28
Speaker 5: have had the the what are they bowler hats? Right?
31:30
Speaker 5: I mean, they could have come up with so many
31:31
Speaker 5: cool things to do. Instead, they went as plain as
31:35
Speaker 5: they could, plainer than any high schooling in the in
31:37
Speaker 5: the country has them.
31:41
Speaker 1: I think there was a budget issue there. I'm hoping
31:44
Speaker 1: that they get it.
31:44
Speaker 5: You can go on there are websites scott that you
31:47
Speaker 5: can go on and you can get uniforms for really cheap. Okay,
31:52
Speaker 5: so budget isn't isn't the issue. It was just more
31:55
Speaker 5: that they didn't have any imagination. I'm sorry they forgot.
31:58
Speaker 2: They forgot.
31:59
Speaker 5: It was a big thing they forgot.
32:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only thing I don't understand is, I mean,
32:05
Speaker 1: you have a number of Cuban players who clearly are
32:08
Speaker 1: are Cuban and coming from that country and can't play
32:11
Speaker 1: for them. So I kind of get it for all
32:15
Speaker 1: this so I can't represent any country. I don't know
32:19
Speaker 1: the inner workings of that, but maybe somebody can give
32:21
Speaker 1: me a better explanation on that. One because it would
32:24
Speaker 1: have been fun to see her office in there, you know,