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Chuck in the Morning 8-12 Hour 4: Hugh Millen and the Donkey, O.P.Q. and one last thing. · Chuck in the Morning

0:02
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna hop to it. It's like my
0:05
Speaker 1: mom used to say, hop to it, and did you
0:07
Speaker 1: ever hop? Yeah? I did as a kid, And then
0:09
Speaker 1: I realized she was just being colorful with the language.
0:12
Speaker 1: I never hopped Yeah. Nine o'clock hour, Chuck and Ashley
0:15
Speaker 1: with you. Last week, as I mentioned, Hugh Millan and
0:18
Speaker 1: I got into a very interesting conversation about the salary cap.
0:23
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball is going to try to enforce one
0:25
Speaker 1: on the Players Association and their new collective Bargaining Agreement
0:29
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty seven. It could cost us a large portion,
0:32
Speaker 1: if not the entire season, because the Players Association says
0:36
Speaker 1: it is not going to Budge well Lo and behold
0:39
Speaker 1: hanging out with you here. Recently I find out that
0:42
Speaker 1: he was there drafting the first ever collective bargaining agreement
0:46
Speaker 1: that included a salary cap and was a major voice
0:50
Speaker 1: inside that room as one of the player reps, and
0:53
Speaker 1: then of course was a player rep for most of
0:55
Speaker 1: his career in the National Football League. And so just
0:58
Speaker 1: when we were getting to the part of about the
1:01
Speaker 1: advice that he would give the Major League Baseball Players Association,
1:04
Speaker 1: we started talking about Scott Boris's role in this last
1:07
Speaker 1: week and then for whatever reason, technology interfered and pop
1:12
Speaker 1: he went off the air. He left everybody hanging. We
1:15
Speaker 1: didn't want to wait too much longer to bring him
1:17
Speaker 1: back and finish our conversation. So rejoining us now is
1:21
Speaker 1: our QB one. Hugh Millin is with us here on
1:23
Speaker 1: the radio program. Hi. You great to be with you, Chuck.
1:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to condense in a segment, you know,
1:30
Speaker 2: years of negotiation and what have you, and there's a
1:32
Speaker 2: lot of things here, but we'll see if we can
1:34
Speaker 2: make it clear.
1:35
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's dive in where we left off.
1:39
Speaker 1: You were basically you told our audience Scott Boris is
1:42
Speaker 1: a donkey? Was the word that you use for his
1:45
Speaker 1: reaction to not having a salary cap in MLB and
1:49
Speaker 1: that the NFL is wrong to have one.
1:52
Speaker 2: So go go ahead and pick it up where you
1:54
Speaker 2: left off. Yeah, strong words, right, I better have a
1:57
Speaker 2: lot to defend that. Well. First of all, I think
1:59
Speaker 2: there is a distinction in saying, uh, you know, not
2:02
Speaker 2: not calling him a donkey, but he sounded like a donkey.
2:05
Speaker 2: I think at some points we all sound like an
2:07
Speaker 2: ass in our life, right, you know, and and that
2:10
Speaker 2: doesn't mean we are necessarily an ass or a donkey.
2:13
Speaker 2: I have a tremendous respect for what he does as
2:17
Speaker 2: an agent, because his job is to get his players
2:20
Speaker 2: a lot of money, and he does it, does it
2:21
Speaker 2: as well or better than anybody. But as as a
2:25
Speaker 2: mouthpiece for uh, the state of baseball when he comes
2:28
Speaker 2: on with Softy and Dick Fane and he spews these
2:33
Speaker 2: these truths, mistruths, omissions, lies, uh, red herrings, and I'm
2:41
Speaker 2: just exasperated, and so so you know, you you start
2:45
Speaker 2: with he comes on and he said, you know, Dick
2:47
Speaker 2: Fane asked him a very reasonable question, well why does it?
2:50
Speaker 2: Why does the system work for the NFL? And and
2:53
Speaker 2: Boris immediately says it doesn't. And then he says, uh.
2:58
Speaker 2: And he proceeds to say what percentage of NFL teams
3:02
Speaker 2: finished in the top eight in the playoffs? This is
3:04
Speaker 2: his defense, right, He says, well, in the NFL, it's
3:07
Speaker 2: fifty six percent, it's baseball, and seventy three percent. Now,
3:11
Speaker 2: he's right on the seventy three percent for baseball, he's
3:14
Speaker 2: wrong on the on the football, it's not fifty six
3:16
Speaker 2: percent is six two and a half percent. But Scott Bors,
3:20
Speaker 2: I'll give you, I'll give you that baseball on that match.
3:24
Speaker 2: It sounds like he's walking a plank and trying to
3:26
Speaker 2: fit a needl, like why top eighth? Why not all playoffs?
3:30
Speaker 2: Why not top four or the two or World Series champions?
3:34
Speaker 3: Right?
3:34
Speaker 2: He chose a very specific statistic and then he makes
3:38
Speaker 2: that the broad leap that that that is going to
3:42
Speaker 2: define competition. He's going to say that baseball is more
3:45
Speaker 2: competitive than football. You know, had he said the final
3:49
Speaker 2: four in the last ten years, fifteen years, twenty years.
3:53
Speaker 2: By his metric of defining competition, football is more so
3:59
Speaker 2: he shows that. But you know what, I'm going to
4:01
Speaker 2: give him that. But here's what I'm gonna do to
4:04
Speaker 2: show that the imbalance of football versus baseball. If we
4:09
Speaker 2: say that the teams that come from the bottom half
4:14
Speaker 2: of the revenue, and this is total revenue for NFL,
4:18
Speaker 2: total revenue for baseball, this is just apples to apples
4:22
Speaker 2: his own window. He said, the last five years, teams
4:27
Speaker 2: that make the final eight, that would be the divisional
4:29
Speaker 2: round in baseball, right, and football, well, coming from the
4:36
Speaker 2: top ten, Baseball has twelve out of forty thirty percent.
4:40
Speaker 2: Football you'd expect if it was dead even it'd be
4:43
Speaker 2: twenty out of forty, but of football's nineteen out of
4:46
Speaker 2: forty forty eight percent. You can go through every one
4:50
Speaker 2: of these charts. Here these statistics. When you say the
4:54
Speaker 2: bottom half, whether you want to say made the playoffs,
4:57
Speaker 2: Final eight, Final four, Final two, the champion, whether it's
5:01
Speaker 2: the last five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years,
5:05
Speaker 2: that football wins in every single one by an average
5:09
Speaker 2: of thirty six percent more than baseball. And here's glaring
5:14
Speaker 2: to close it. In the last fifteen years, football has
5:18
Speaker 2: had eleven of its fifteen Super Bowl champions have come
5:23
Speaker 2: from the bottom half of payroll. Baseball has had one,
5:28
Speaker 2: and baseball has had none out of the bottom third.
5:33
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of ways to define what is
5:38
Speaker 2: competition and what is competitive. He chose a very narrow statistic,
5:45
Speaker 2: and it completely ignores all the imbalances I'm suggesting.
5:50
Speaker 1: Right, of course, from my point of view, like I
5:55
Speaker 1: can live in a world where somebody's saying baseball's more
5:58
Speaker 1: competitive than you think it is. But my biggest problem
6:02
Speaker 1: is the fans don't feel that way. From a business perspective,
6:07
Speaker 1: if you are running a business and most of your
6:10
Speaker 1: fans won't watch National Baseball games because they think the
6:14
Speaker 1: league's unfair. A salary cap just kind of changes the
6:17
Speaker 1: perspective that your customers have on whether or not your
6:21
Speaker 1: product's fair. And that, to me is important. That, to me,
6:25
Speaker 1: is everything about this collective bargaining agreement coming up.
6:29
Speaker 2: Well, certainly when a third of the fans feel like
6:32
Speaker 2: their owners are punting, when the Dodgers pay more in
6:36
Speaker 2: payroll than sixteen teams, more than half of the league,
6:41
Speaker 2: they pay more in in luxury tax on the payroll
6:44
Speaker 2: than over half of the league, and then what does
6:48
Speaker 2: it result in? We're the immense imbalance. How is that
6:55
Speaker 2: you go back to how is that impacted revenue? So
6:58
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two, and maybe you'll ask me about
7:01
Speaker 2: the concerns we had in the room, But let's just
7:04
Speaker 2: go through the statistics in nineteen ninety two. Now that's
7:07
Speaker 2: the year before NFL free agency. Reggie White was signed
7:10
Speaker 2: in early ninety three, So we can go back and
7:13
Speaker 2: we can look at the revenues of all of all
7:16
Speaker 2: three sports. Baseball had the lead in revenue at one
7:21
Speaker 2: point five eight three billion. Then came the NFL at
7:25
Speaker 2: one point four to nine to two billion, and then
7:28
Speaker 2: basketball was nine or ninety nine million. So now if
7:33
Speaker 2: you look at where they are, Baseball has jumped to
7:36
Speaker 2: twelve point five to three billion. They've gone seven point
7:39
Speaker 2: nine x sounds impressive. Football has gone to twenty four
7:44
Speaker 2: point one billion, sixteen point one x. So baseball is
7:48
Speaker 2: under eight and football is over sixteen. Football has literally
7:54
Speaker 2: lapped baseball. And so both from us a rev new
8:00
Speaker 2: standpoint and from a growth you're basically double. So you know,
8:05
Speaker 2: from a standpoint of the growth of the league, Uh,
8:08
Speaker 2: it's it's not comparable and basketball. And as I said, basketball,
8:13
Speaker 2: if if if you take the NFL, the percentage of
8:16
Speaker 2: the growth, basketball has eighty nine percent of football, Baseball
8:22
Speaker 2: is forty nine percent. So his system that you know,
8:25
Speaker 2: this for this romantic language of oh the free market operating, uh,
8:31
Speaker 2: you know, resembling a genuine free market. You know, the
8:35
Speaker 2: way they h the way they have their structure from
8:40
Speaker 2: the the luxury tax and with the imbalance in the revenue.
8:46
Speaker 2: You know what they're doing is they're defending He's defending
8:49
Speaker 2: an open, uncapped auction that really has produced an aristocracy
8:53
Speaker 2: of about six teams that are clustered on the east coat,
8:58
Speaker 2: each of the coasts, and so you know that's the
9:01
Speaker 2: system that he defends.
9:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
9:03
Speaker 4: You.
9:04
Speaker 1: Millan is with us our QB one talking about the
9:06
Speaker 1: salary cap, finishing our conversation from last week. A lot
9:09
Speaker 1: of people have asked us, we just can't leave everybody hanging,
9:13
Speaker 1: and I felt the exact same way. So we've picked
9:15
Speaker 1: it back up here today. So what were the concerns
9:18
Speaker 1: that you had as you, you know, like a founding
9:20
Speaker 1: forefather of salary caps, you being John Adams, maybe what
9:25
Speaker 1: were some of the concerns that you and your peers
9:28
Speaker 1: had before you did agree to that a free agency
9:32
Speaker 1: and the salary cap would be the future of the NFL.
9:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just to paint the picture, you got the
9:38
Speaker 2: twenty eight teams at the time, and you got the
9:39
Speaker 2: player reps in the room. Dick Bertleson was the in
9:44
Speaker 2: house counsel for the players Association. They would hire Jeffrey Kessler.
9:48
Speaker 2: He would come in from time to time, but Burtison
9:50
Speaker 2: would just sit on the side and he would just say, Hey,
9:53
Speaker 2: if you guys do this, it's this. If you do this,
9:56
Speaker 2: it's this.
9:56
Speaker 1: You know.
9:56
Speaker 2: He would say you second person, not we And and
10:01
Speaker 2: you know, so the players had to discuss all this.
10:03
Speaker 2: You know, we had concerns about what the owners said, Hey,
10:06
Speaker 2: if we get free agency, we're all the player best
10:10
Speaker 2: players gonna go to the Cowboys and the Raiders. There
10:12
Speaker 2: was concern about quarterback movement that you know, you know,
10:16
Speaker 2: and and of course Drew Brees, Jake Diloma's Super Bowl quarterback,
10:19
Speaker 2: Kirk Cousins. There's been plenty of quarterback movie parody. Would
10:23
Speaker 2: we thought, you know, if we get parody, is everybody
10:26
Speaker 2: canna be bored with nine and seven and eight and eight.
10:28
Speaker 2: At the time, the Cowboys and the forty nine ers
10:30
Speaker 2: had the best rivalry in football that was driving all
10:33
Speaker 2: the TV ratings. But you know, you think, well, are
10:37
Speaker 2: we going to destroy that? That the idea that of
10:40
Speaker 2: those real those those dominant teams. The Francise tag, Uh,
10:45
Speaker 2: would it limit the top end of the players? Well, Chuck,
10:51
Speaker 2: if you look at and I've got the table right
10:53
Speaker 2: in front of me, if you look at the top
10:54
Speaker 2: ten players in football right now, the uh, the the
11:00
Speaker 2: Ulize guaranteed value of the top ten football players is
11:03
Speaker 2: forty two and a half million. For baseball, it's thirty
11:06
Speaker 2: eight point nine million, So the NFL has a nine
11:09
Speaker 2: point one percent advantage. If you go the top twenty players,
11:13
Speaker 2: NFL has thirty six and a half million, and a
11:16
Speaker 2: Major League Baseball as thirty four point six million. So
11:19
Speaker 2: the concerns that we had at the time, and here's
11:23
Speaker 2: the thing. Back in nineteen ninety two, Scott Boris could
11:27
Speaker 2: come on and say, hey, in theory, this is nonsense
11:31
Speaker 2: and this is never gonna work. But we've got thirty
11:35
Speaker 2: three years of history of showing. And I'm not saying
11:39
Speaker 2: that the growth that I'm describing is because there's a
11:43
Speaker 2: salary cap, because you can't make that inference logically, but
11:47
Speaker 2: you can as sayst unequivocally that the salary cap did
11:53
Speaker 2: not hinder the league. And because what we're really talking about,
11:57
Speaker 2: what the players should be focused on is the revenue
12:02
Speaker 2: pie and the percentage of the revenue. But in nineteen
12:07
Speaker 2: ninety two, baseball players had fifty two percent, football players
12:12
Speaker 2: had forty three point eight percent. Remember those numbers. I
12:15
Speaker 2: know I'm throwing a lot of numbers in this. So
12:17
Speaker 2: the football players had a much smaller portion of a
12:23
Speaker 2: smaller pie. So now because of the revenue certainties and
12:29
Speaker 2: the interest in the game. Now the football had that,
12:32
Speaker 2: you know, doubled baseball in terms of the revenue. But
12:37
Speaker 2: now the football players, like Scott bors comes on to
12:41
Speaker 2: KGr and he says he uses the word cap thirteen
12:45
Speaker 2: times with Softy and Dick. He he used the word
12:49
Speaker 2: floor zero. You're you're not giving away the cap that
12:54
Speaker 2: I mean, that'd be a surrender. You are you are saying, hey,
12:57
Speaker 2: we'll give you a cap. What are you gonna give us?
13:00
Speaker 2: Or we're gonna demand this, X, y and z. So,
13:03
Speaker 2: so the players in football have a forty eight point
13:06
Speaker 2: eight percent of a twice a big a pie and
13:12
Speaker 2: baseball has forty six point six percent. And here's the
13:15
Speaker 2: irony of this. In early twenty sixteen, Scott Boris told
13:20
Speaker 2: Baseball Perspective that in the prior year that baseball players
13:25
Speaker 2: were getting forty three percent, So they went from fifty
13:29
Speaker 2: and he acknowledged that they had gone from fifty five
13:31
Speaker 2: percent a decade before. Now they're at forty three percent
13:36
Speaker 2: out of his own mouth. And so, so what does
13:39
Speaker 2: that tell you? There is nothing locking the owners into
13:43
Speaker 2: paying anything. They can be at fifty five percent, they
13:46
Speaker 2: can be at forty six point six percent as they
13:49
Speaker 2: are now, they can be down to forty three percent
13:51
Speaker 2: and twenty fifteen, there's nothing. So in theory, you're you're
13:56
Speaker 2: gonna have, you're gonna compel these owners to because you know,
14:01
Speaker 2: Boris comes on. He calls the Podreys owner a genius
14:05
Speaker 2: because of how he spent and he barks about and
14:09
Speaker 2: he literally tells Softie and Dicky says, he goes the
14:12
Speaker 2: podraise went from six hundred million to four billion. Well,
14:16
Speaker 2: it's an agree to pry a sale price a three
14:20
Speaker 2: point nine billion, which is obviously four billion. I'm good
14:22
Speaker 2: with that. But so we have a clear starting point
14:26
Speaker 2: from the August of twenty twelve to now. So that
14:30
Speaker 2: is six point five times the value. And he's gonna
14:33
Speaker 2: bark about the the increase. Well, what's funny about that
14:38
Speaker 2: is if you take the compound annual growth rate of
14:41
Speaker 2: the the NFL franchise values, the average NFL franchise is
14:46
Speaker 2: conservatively projected to be at eight point two eight billion
14:49
Speaker 2: and twenty twenty six versus one point one billion and
14:52
Speaker 2: twenty twenty twelve. So that's a seven point five to
14:56
Speaker 2: three times value. So Scott, so let me summarize Scott
15:00
Speaker 2: Boris comes on. He's got thirty teams to pick from
15:04
Speaker 2: to try and be convincing about the economic prosperity of baseball.
15:10
Speaker 2: He chooses the Podrays and he gives you impressive sounding numbers.
15:14
Speaker 2: Guess what it was. His number one choice was below
15:19
Speaker 2: the average of the NFL in growth. So every time
15:24
Speaker 2: he opens his mouth, you can hand him his hat.
15:28
Speaker 2: Because think of like when you watch the Kentucky Derby
15:32
Speaker 2: a horse race, you know, and it's kind of muddy,
15:33
Speaker 2: you know, and the jockeys they get the mud on
15:35
Speaker 2: their on their goggles and what have you. You know, baseball
15:39
Speaker 2: might as well just take their goggles off because football
15:42
Speaker 2: is so far in the distance a susspec. They can't
15:45
Speaker 2: even see the football out in front, so they're not
15:48
Speaker 2: getting done mud on their glasses. That was thirty years ago.
15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, would you debate Scott Boris on the air
15:57
Speaker 1: if given the.
15:57
Speaker 2: Opportunity, Yeah, I would welcome that. Now, if you're sensible,
16:04
Speaker 2: you would be saying Millan, Scott Boris has made mincemeat.
16:11
Speaker 2: He's chopped up every GM in all of baseball and
16:14
Speaker 2: contract negotiations. How do you think you have the chops
16:18
Speaker 2: to argue with him. Well, my response to that would
16:22
Speaker 2: be this, if we had to debate what is the
16:26
Speaker 2: best dinner and I got to choose a ribi at
16:29
Speaker 2: the met and he had to choose a Boloney sandwich,
16:34
Speaker 2: I'm going to win that debate. If we had to
16:39
Speaker 2: debate who made the most musical impact and I get
16:43
Speaker 2: the Beatles and he gets the Bengals, I'm going to
16:46
Speaker 2: win the debate. So look, I would know what landminds
16:51
Speaker 2: not to step on. But certainly he's got an answer
16:57
Speaker 2: to these very cenral questions that players would have. What
17:00
Speaker 2: percentage of the pie do we have? Okay, well you've
17:03
Speaker 2: you've shrunk that. What percentage of how big is the
17:06
Speaker 2: pie growing? Well, Football's doubled you. And so he's arguing
17:10
Speaker 2: for something in theory, you know, and we haven't talked
17:13
Speaker 2: about a couple things. How about this, This is baseball's
17:19
Speaker 2: own own analysis. You know, baseball players don't get free
17:22
Speaker 2: agency till they're they're in their sixth year, right, So
17:26
Speaker 2: the percent the share of the war the pre arbitration players,
17:30
Speaker 2: the share of the war that's wins above replacement. The
17:34
Speaker 2: pre arbitration players are forty point seven percent of the war,
17:41
Speaker 2: they're nine point four percent of the salary. Meanwhile, the
17:45
Speaker 2: free agents, they are twenty eight point eight percent of
17:50
Speaker 2: the war, but they're sixty one point four percent of salary.
17:54
Speaker 2: So the people who are getting paid aren't aren't. The
17:56
Speaker 2: players that are are are playing playing the best.
17:59
Speaker 1: Baby, So players getting rewarded for how good they were
18:04
Speaker 1: with their previous team and aren't good anymore.
18:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, So so I would look to I would even
18:09
Speaker 2: tell that Bryce Harper. Look, I already gave you the
18:12
Speaker 2: figure we have. We have thirty three years of data
18:15
Speaker 2: that the cap with a floor that mandates their spending. Remember,
18:21
Speaker 2: now they the baseball has to mean football has to
18:24
Speaker 2: spend ninety percent over a three year period, and if
18:28
Speaker 2: they don't, they're gonna have to write a check to
18:31
Speaker 2: all the players in the in the offseason. That's never
18:33
Speaker 2: happened because the football owners have always paid it. So
18:38
Speaker 2: so if you take if I were to talk to
18:41
Speaker 2: Bryce Harper, I'd say, wait a minute, Even you superstars,
18:45
Speaker 2: you're the football players have a higher percentage that both
18:50
Speaker 2: in terms of gross money and in terms of the
18:52
Speaker 2: percentage of the average. So superstars in getting aren't getting
18:56
Speaker 2: suppressed in football, and So if you do this model,
19:01
Speaker 2: look at the growth rate and look at the franchise
19:03
Speaker 2: valuations and the popularity TV ratings. You want to go
19:08
Speaker 2: through TV ratings.
19:09
Speaker 1: Since ninety nineteen as a baseball fan, I don't.
19:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, look you go through the early
19:17
Speaker 2: nine the early nineties before free agency, and then the
19:21
Speaker 2: last five season that average them, and then you say, okay,
19:23
Speaker 2: the percent change. Football is up five percent because you know,
19:30
Speaker 2: you got one hundred and thirty million people all as well.
19:32
Speaker 2: Baseball is down sixty seven percent in just raw numbers.
19:37
Speaker 2: In the early nineties, they had thirty point two million
19:40
Speaker 2: for the World Series. Now they're at a twelve point nine.
19:43
Speaker 2: And the same goes for the Championship I mean the
19:48
Speaker 2: Championships Championship Series. Football is ten times more in the
19:52
Speaker 2: champion Championship Series, specifically ten point zero nine. And you say, well,
19:56
Speaker 2: what about Game sevens. There's been five game sevens this decade.
20:00
Speaker 2: Football still has a six point three x times viewership
20:04
Speaker 2: against game sevens in the Championship Series. So the popularyer,
20:08
Speaker 2: oh h, the attendants they set record here. Boris comes
20:13
Speaker 2: on KGr. He says, well, we're sending setting record attendance. No,
20:17
Speaker 2: you're not. Two thousand and seven was the record. You're
20:20
Speaker 2: down three thousand fans per game from two thousand and seven.
20:24
Speaker 2: So at any event, Uh, he really came on and
20:27
Speaker 2: sounded like a donkey.
20:30
Speaker 1: Het a donkey.
20:31
Speaker 2: But I don't know if Ashley can get that.
20:34
Speaker 1: Uh uh No, you can say jackass, you just can't
20:38
Speaker 1: say a hole.
20:41
Speaker 2: Okay, well all of the above.
20:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can actually say a hole, just not the
20:46
Speaker 3: full Yeah.
20:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah say that. Yeah yeah, so all of the
20:49
Speaker 1: I don't know.
20:49
Speaker 5: So look, and I'll make sure next time to have
20:52
Speaker 5: a donkey sound. No, yeah, every time you talk about him.
20:56
Speaker 5: But look, there's so much more. I mean, I got
20:58
Speaker 5: spreadsheets going on. But what your reaction to that? I mean, well,
21:02
Speaker 5: I think is the biggest pushback. Well, my reaction in
21:05
Speaker 5: general is this. This is I can sum it up
21:07
Speaker 5: in all of this, when is the last time that
21:09
Speaker 5: a Seahawks fan felt they didn't have a chance against
21:12
Speaker 5: the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams? And
21:16
Speaker 5: the answer is probably for some people never where. If
21:20
Speaker 5: I asked, what are your chances as a Mariner fan
21:23
Speaker 5: against the Los Angeles Dodgers, ninety nine out of one
21:26
Speaker 5: hundred people would say that we don't have a chance
21:29
Speaker 5: against them here in this town, and that's not true,
21:32
Speaker 5: by the way. Those numbers that you do have a
21:36
Speaker 5: chance against the Dodgers, but the perception is that you don't.
21:39
Speaker 5: And until they change it with a salary cap and
21:43
Speaker 5: a lot of other little adjustments, then you're then baseball's
21:47
Speaker 5: not going to be able to catch up on a
21:48
Speaker 5: national perspective. Baseball does fine locally, you know, they fill
21:52
Speaker 5: stadiums and their local ratings are good, very good. But
21:58
Speaker 5: nationally you've lost because nobody in Seattle wants to watch
22:03
Speaker 5: the Cubs play the Cardinals on Sunday night, no matter
22:06
Speaker 5: how good they are, because they've got money and you don't.
22:09
Speaker 5: That's just that's just the perception that a that a
22:13
Speaker 5: sports fan has right now of the NFL versus Major
22:17
Speaker 5: League Baseball.
22:18
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'll tell you what, because I'm looking
22:21
Speaker 2: at this show. You tell me the last five years,
22:23
Speaker 2: ten years, or fifteen years. Picket you tell you you
22:26
Speaker 2: picket ten, We'll go the mist Okay, we'll go. We'll
22:29
Speaker 2: go ten. Okay made playoffs. NFL have had seventy This
22:37
Speaker 2: is out of the bottom half of the payroll. And
22:39
Speaker 2: by the way spow track, the Mariners are in the
22:43
Speaker 2: bottom half in every year of this decade. Okay, so
22:47
Speaker 2: this ought to get your attention as a Mariner fan.
22:49
Speaker 2: So you're these are all coming from the bottom half
22:53
Speaker 2: of the payroll. The NFL has has seventy out of
22:57
Speaker 2: one hundred and thirty fifty three percent to thirty six percent.
23:01
Speaker 2: For Major League Baseball, making the Final eight football is
23:05
Speaker 2: fifty percent from the bottom half baseball, thirty percent, the
23:09
Speaker 2: Final four football. This is the championship games football fifty
23:16
Speaker 2: five percent coming from the bottom half baseball twenty three percent.
23:20
Speaker 2: How about making the Super Bowl or making the World
23:23
Speaker 2: Series football sixty percent from the bottom half Baseball twenty
23:28
Speaker 2: percent and World Series Champion or Super Bowl champions football
23:34
Speaker 2: eighty percent in the last ten years from the bottom
23:38
Speaker 2: half baseball ten percent. So those are partially picked by you.
23:45
Speaker 2: In terms of duration, I could have done five years,
23:47
Speaker 2: I could have done fifteen years, twenty football in every
23:51
Speaker 2: single category by a as I said, an average of
23:55
Speaker 2: thirty six percent. So here the donkey comes on, called
24:00
Speaker 2: him a donkey, sounding like a donkey, and he's bragging
24:03
Speaker 2: about an erroneous figures of seventy three percent versus fifty
24:08
Speaker 2: six percent. Guess what, even though it's wrong, I'll give
24:11
Speaker 2: it to you seventeen percent. Well what about this chart
24:14
Speaker 2: where football is thirty six percent average on all of
24:18
Speaker 2: these cells in a spreadsheet pertaining to the bottom half
24:23
Speaker 2: of the league. So that therein lies when you say
24:27
Speaker 2: there's a perception, there's a perception because there's a reality
24:32
Speaker 2: it when framed when the when the argument is framed
24:35
Speaker 2: like that, what do teams? How do teams do from
24:38
Speaker 2: the bottom half of the payroll compared to football? There
24:41
Speaker 2: is no comparison.
24:43
Speaker 1: All right, man, Well, thank you very much. Great stuff
24:45
Speaker 1: here the last couple of weeks. So I'm glad we
24:47
Speaker 1: got to the bottom of Donkey and his adventures with shrap,
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Speaker 1: rock and roll. All right, thanks man, all right, by
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Speaker 3: Show the proof.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, I know, it seems like you're bragging
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Speaker 4: But.
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Speaker 1: We might not have time. We might only have time
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Speaker 1: for one, frankly, because that's a pretty big one. Yesterday,
26:16
Speaker 1: the Minnesota Vikings didn announce that Kyler Murray will be
26:20
Speaker 1: their starting quarterback, not JJ McCarthy, for this upcoming season.
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Speaker 1: And I mentioned this earlier, but we get a chance
26:26
Speaker 1: to expand on it now, I'm I don't think the
26:31
Speaker 1: story here is the Vikings have chosen Kyler Murray to
26:34
Speaker 1: be their starting quarterback. The story to me is how
26:38
Speaker 1: early they made that decision. I mean, that's how far
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Speaker 1: JJ McCarthy has fallen in a short period of time,
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Speaker 1: a guy that they overdrafted and then over promoted and
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Speaker 1: maybe overhyped themselves.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: They got rid of Sam Donald because they thought he
26:55
Speaker 3: was going to be so great.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I rid of Sam Donald and now and a
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Speaker 1: span of two years. Man, have they soured on JJ McCarthy.
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Speaker 1: If you brought in Kyler Murray as a free agent
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Speaker 1: and announced before you even played a single preseason game, yep,
27:12
Speaker 1: he's clearly better than that guy we spent a top
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Speaker 1: ten first round draft pick on a couple of years ago.
27:17
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, it's wow. So surprising.
27:20
Speaker 1: That's an abrupt fall.
27:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, Sori, I mean not surprising that he didn't make
27:25
Speaker 6: it really, because if you actually paid attention to his
27:27
Speaker 6: college games, he was just kind of facilitating hand Yeah,
27:32
Speaker 6: he was facilitating the ball moving around.
27:35
Speaker 3: He wasn't really moving the ball around, if that makes sense.
27:38
Speaker 6: He was there to accommodate other people moving the ball around.
27:43
Speaker 1: I mean he won a lot of football games without
27:46
Speaker 1: throwing a pass.
27:48
Speaker 3: Correct.
27:49
Speaker 6: Yes, that's a very distinct, distinct way to put it.
27:53
Speaker 3: And and yet they were like, no, this is going
27:55
Speaker 3: to be the guy.
27:55
Speaker 6: And we're going to get rid of Sam Darnold because
27:58
Speaker 6: of a playoff game despite the success he had in
28:00
Speaker 6: the season. Thanks for that, by the way, Vikings, we
28:03
Speaker 6: really appreciate it. And and then then they try to
28:07
Speaker 6: hype him up again. Oh, it was injury and he's
28:08
Speaker 6: gonna be back. And then it's like, well, you have
28:10
Speaker 6: such little faith, you're gonna go with Kyler Williams. Kyler Murray,
28:14
Speaker 6: who literally hasn't really done anything. I mean, he's good,
28:19
Speaker 6: he's fine. He does more than facilitate moving the ball around.
28:21
Speaker 6: So you've got that going for you.
28:23
Speaker 1: Well, like I said, I don't think the surprise is
28:25
Speaker 1: that Kyler Murray's gonna start for the Minnesota Vikings. But
28:29
Speaker 1: how far JJ McCarthy has fallen that they didn't even
28:31
Speaker 1: give him a preseason game before announcing you're not as
28:35
Speaker 1: good as little Sweet, and so we're gonna go with
28:39
Speaker 1: him instead of you former top ten draft pick. I
28:42
Speaker 1: mean that is and it it happened fast. It really
28:46
Speaker 1: really happened fast for JJ McCarthy's decline there in the
28:51
Speaker 1: eyes of Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. So that's your situation
28:57
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with. And so we'll see. I mean,
29:00
Speaker 1: still time for JJ McCarthy to redeem himself. Probably won't
29:04
Speaker 1: be in a Viking uniform, I would think. But yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: turns out that maybe it takes a little bit more
29:12
Speaker 1: than just being on a really great team in college.
29:14
Speaker 1: That's weird, all right. I think that's pretty much. I
29:18
Speaker 1: got a couple of other things. I think they're going
29:19
Speaker 1: to take too much time. I'll ask you this just quickly. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: here justin Herbert. You got a problem with Madison Beer
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Speaker 1: being practice and then playing you know, PDA on the
29:33
Speaker 1: practice field.
29:34
Speaker 3: I think it's a little weird because it's you're at work.
29:36
Speaker 6: Like I wouldn't invite five Iron here to play with
29:39
Speaker 6: my hair while we sat out.
29:40
Speaker 3: In the sports pitch.
29:41
Speaker 6: That would be distracted, right would It would be weird
29:43
Speaker 6: if like in breaks he just came in and was
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Speaker 6: like giving me shoulder massages and like cleaning up the
29:49
Speaker 6: lint off my shirt.
29:51
Speaker 3: That would be strange.
29:52
Speaker 6: You are at work, even though it's training camp, and
29:54
Speaker 6: I know it's like more fun and lighthearted.
29:56
Speaker 3: They do have family days.
29:58
Speaker 6: Yeah, so on the family day, like let them practice,
30:01
Speaker 6: then they get to all hang out.
30:02
Speaker 3: You shouldn't. I don't know. It seems weird to me.
30:04
Speaker 3: I don't cat you do a problem with it. It's
30:06
Speaker 3: just weird.
30:06
Speaker 1: Don't you do the classy thing and sneaker in after
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Speaker 1: everybody's gone.
30:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, you guys can make out in the weight room.
30:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and you can make out on the trainer's table.
30:15
Speaker 3: Who wouldn't love that?
30:16
Speaker 1: That's a class move.
30:18
Speaker 3: That is how real normal people do it.
30:22
Speaker 1: I think it's ridiculous. I mean, you're you're a professional
30:25
Speaker 1: football player. It sort of insinuates you need to act
30:28
Speaker 1: like an adult. Yeah, and look, I've had moments as
30:31
Speaker 1: an adult drink or two animulhere, but I've probably showed
30:34
Speaker 1: some PDA and I look back on it now and
30:36
Speaker 1: I think it is completely wrong. But you do get
30:39
Speaker 1: swept up in the moment. You should not get swept
30:42
Speaker 1: up in the moment at football practice. That's there should
30:45
Speaker 1: never be a moment.
30:47
Speaker 6: And especially because I don't know if you guys are
30:49
Speaker 6: aware of this, but the Chargers haven't won a playoff game,
30:52
Speaker 6: and Justin Herbert has been a reason for that.
30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, coming up next, it's one last thing
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Speaker 1: to close out our show on Sports Radio ninety three
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Speaker 1: then Greg who cannot wait to come talk to you today.
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Speaker 1: I mean he burst through the doors here moments ago.
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Speaker 3: He is excited he is ready to go. He was like,
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Speaker 3: oh my early whoop. See yeah, yeah, I'll back out.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's ready to fly here into ten o'clock.
32:14
Speaker 1: What he got, Ashley, Well, we.
32:16
Speaker 6: I didn't have a chance to mention this earlier, but
32:18
Speaker 6: I did find it kind of more sad or I
32:21
Speaker 6: don't know what it is, but we've talked about a
32:23
Speaker 6: lot of teams, major League Baseball, teams that we have
32:27
Speaker 6: faced this year where it's the starter that's the problem.
32:30
Speaker 3: You got to make it through the starter.
32:31
Speaker 6: Once you make it through the starter, you get to
32:33
Speaker 6: the bullpen and then you can get some runs and
32:35
Speaker 6: get a win. And I think we've become that team.
32:38
Speaker 6: And I don't think it's because our bullpen's bad. I
32:41
Speaker 6: think it's because we don't know how to use them.
32:43
Speaker 1: That's a problem. Also, lately, they haven't help not been efficient.
32:49
Speaker 1: They've only been getting through like five I think that's
32:51
Speaker 1: been like three games in a row. They've only gotten
32:54
Speaker 1: through five.
32:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, it hasn't been good.
32:57
Speaker 1: No, I've pitched well, they're just not being is efficient.
33:00
Speaker 1: And when you're already apparently down another man last night,
33:05
Speaker 1: it does make it more difficult. But yeah, you just
33:08
Speaker 1: got to make adjustments. I mean, we got to play
33:11
Speaker 1: with a little desperation, and we got to manage with
33:13
Speaker 1: a little desperation. Right now we do we can't count. Well,
33:16
Speaker 1: let's get host out tonight so we can use them tomorrow.
33:19
Speaker 1: We might lose eleven to one to night.
33:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, and we've talked about this for a long time.
33:23
Speaker 6: You cannot play the game tonight based.
33:25
Speaker 3: On what might happen tomorrow. You never know what's going
33:29
Speaker 3: to happen a mink.
33:29
Speaker 1: You you do have to some degree have to play
33:32
Speaker 1: that game because it's a long season.
33:34
Speaker 6: But that's more for the future versus like, oh, if
33:37
Speaker 6: we've got four games in a row, well, yeah, a
33:40
Speaker 6: day off and things like that.
33:41
Speaker 1: But there is an element of managing for tomorrow and
33:45
Speaker 1: managing for a month down the road. There is an
33:47
Speaker 1: element of that, but we are way way past managing
33:51
Speaker 1: that way.
33:52
Speaker 6: Would you say, though, if you're managing for tomorrow, it
33:55
Speaker 6: would be more in a sense of we're managing to
33:57
Speaker 6: make sure we have enough people, not versus well, if
34:01
Speaker 6: we're in this situation tomorrow, which would be ideal, we
34:04
Speaker 6: want to save that.
34:05
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
34:06
Speaker 1: Well, I mean you also have like players in their
34:10
Speaker 1: futures also that you keep in mind and you don't
34:13
Speaker 1: want to like burn out a guy like I understand
34:16
Speaker 1: why they cap them, like you've got done with an
34:18
Speaker 1: inning at five or six innings at ninety plus pitches,
34:21
Speaker 1: and we're gonna take you. But there does come a
34:23
Speaker 1: moment in the season where you're like, we're going to
34:25
Speaker 1: push you a little bit tonight. Yes, especially during the
34:28
Speaker 1: Piggyback era. We weren't even pushing them. During the Piggyback era,
34:31
Speaker 1: we weren't. We were still letting them stick to their
34:33
Speaker 1: same Well, you're at eighty eight pitches and you're through five,
34:36
Speaker 1: I have no choice but to take you out. What
34:38
Speaker 1: are you talking about. You've just shrunk the bullpen and
34:42
Speaker 1: you're going to have one of the five outings where
34:45
Speaker 1: you're not going to use the bullpen at all. In theory,
34:48
Speaker 1: you've got to push the start. But they haven't done it,
34:50
Speaker 1: they haven't changed it. And that some of that is
34:53
Speaker 1: on the front office certainly. Yeah, because I think that
34:57
Speaker 1: they share in the philosophy. R actually they run the philosophy.
35:02
Speaker 1: But like last night, just inexcusable, So I don't know
35:08
Speaker 1: where it's coming from. I mean, cal said In his comments,
35:10
Speaker 1: he writes.
35:11
Speaker 3: The lineup, Yeah, there was a tweet from a Yankees fan.
35:14
Speaker 3: It was like, see what score four runs and with
35:16
Speaker 3: this pitching staff, you're going to be great. I was like,
35:18
Speaker 3: I remember what it used to think that.
35:20
Speaker 1: Four runs, that's really all you need with our pitching
35:22
Speaker 1: staff too, four runs. I would like to see a
35:24
Speaker 1: world where we scored four runs great the most nights.
35:28
Speaker 1: All right, I'm going to close. I'll close a baseball
35:30
Speaker 1: as well. Hughes conversation. I just want to clarify for
35:34
Speaker 1: my perspective on it is yes, you can win. You
35:38
Speaker 1: can be competitive even with the lowest payroll in the sport.
35:42
Speaker 1: Right now, the Cleveland Guardians have the lowest payroll in
35:44
Speaker 1: the sport, and they're annually competitive and challenging for Division.
35:49
Speaker 1: I think the well they move the division last year
35:52
Speaker 1: because the Tigers rallied, but they make the playoffs quite
35:56
Speaker 1: a bit even with the worst payroll. Tampa Bay Rays
36:00
Speaker 1: never have a decent payroll and they're a consistent winner.
36:04
Speaker 1: The Milwaukee Brewers have been as good as any team
36:07
Speaker 1: in the regular season the last five years. I would
36:10
Speaker 1: bet I don't have it in front of me. They
36:12
Speaker 1: have the most wins in the sport the last five years,
36:15
Speaker 1: and they've got a bottom ten payroll. The point is,
36:18
Speaker 1: you can be competitive even with a low payroll if
36:23
Speaker 1: you're smart and you know what you're doing. Right now,
36:25
Speaker 1: the two best records in Major League Baseball are the
36:28
Speaker 1: Brewers and the Rays. It's not the Dodgers and the Yankees,
36:31
Speaker 1: the Brewers and the Rays.
36:32
Speaker 3: And we have a higher payroll than both of.
36:33
Speaker 1: Them, considerably higher those pack Those are two bottom ten.
36:38
Speaker 1: But there's also this element of that's why I think
36:41
Speaker 1: it's big. It's it's yes, you have a competition problem. Certainly,
36:45
Speaker 1: those big market teams have huge advantages over everyone else,
36:49
Speaker 1: and they're going to get to the playoffs more frequently.
36:51
Speaker 1: I have a better chance than the postseason quite frankly,
36:54
Speaker 1: but you do have you do have a chance. Well
36:59
Speaker 1: from a from a business point of view, When your
37:04
Speaker 1: customers don't think you have a chance, and nine out
37:08
Speaker 1: of ten of them don't, how are you able to
37:12
Speaker 1: create a functioning product and business, a highly functioning product
37:17
Speaker 1: and business that way, when your customers don't trust the product. Yeah,
37:21
Speaker 1: that's what has to get fixed. That's why I am
37:24
Speaker 1: at absolutely all in Chips in the middle on a
37:27
Speaker 1: salary cap and I hope Rob Manford gets his way
37:30
Speaker 1: on this, even if it does cost us some of
37:34
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty seventh season. All Right, we'll talk to
37:36
Speaker 1: you tomorrow at six am. Greg Bell is next Sports
37:39
Speaker 1: Radio ninety three point three KJRFM.
37:41
Speaker 4: You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
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Speaker 4: Just click on demand on our website at ninety three
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