Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Pain, Pride, and Longevity with Adrian Beltré

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Pain, Pride, and Longevity with Adrian Beltré · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rosters to rings. I am joined today
0:07
Speaker 1: by a close friend and twenty six year Major League
0:10
Speaker 1: Baseball executive John Daniels JD. We have an incredible show
0:13
Speaker 1: lined up. Adriane Beltray is making his roster sterene debut today.
0:18
Speaker 1: Adrian's Hall of Fame career was defined as much by
0:21
Speaker 1: the joy he expressed on the field as by his
0:23
Speaker 1: utter dominance on the diamond. Adrian grew up in Cafe
0:27
Speaker 1: to Herrera, signed to Domingo Dominican Republic. In nineteen ninety four,
0:31
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Adrian, and at age nineteen,
0:35
Speaker 1: he made his major league debut, kicking off a twenty
0:38
Speaker 1: one year major league career. After spending seven years with
0:41
Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Dodgers, Adrian played for the Mariners for
0:44
Speaker 1: five years the Red Sox were one season before joining
0:47
Speaker 1: us in the Rangers, where he would spend the last
0:50
Speaker 1: eight years of his career. When Adrianne retired, he had
0:53
Speaker 1: earned four All Star selections, four Silver Slugger Awards, five
0:57
Speaker 1: Gold Gloves, and received MVP votes in eight CS. He
1:00
Speaker 1: also earned the ultimate respect of his teammates, managers, fans,
1:04
Speaker 1: and the media. In twenty twenty four, Adrian was elected
1:08
Speaker 1: into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame with a
1:10
Speaker 1: staggering ninety five point one percent of the vote. He
1:13
Speaker 1: entered the Hall of Fame ranked fortieth all time in
1:15
Speaker 1: war an excellent company sandwich between such legends as Cal Ripken,
1:20
Speaker 1: Roberto Clemente, Pedro Martinez, and Ken Griffey Junior. Adrian, Welcome
1:25
Speaker 1: to Rosters to Rings.
1:27
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you guys for having me. It's a long
1:29
Speaker 2: intro right there, but thank you. I'm happy to be
1:31
Speaker 2: here with you guys.
1:32
Speaker 3: I actually tightened that up a little bit. I had
1:34
Speaker 3: a lot more to it.
1:35
Speaker 1: We'll hit on that throughout the conversation, Adrian. One tradition
1:38
Speaker 1: we have on Rosters to Rings as we ask everyone
1:40
Speaker 1: who comes on, how'd you fall in love with baseball
1:43
Speaker 1: when you were a kid.
1:46
Speaker 4: That's a good question.
1:48
Speaker 2: I grew up around baseball, they saw I knew when
1:51
Speaker 2: I was a little kid. My dad plays on baseball
1:54
Speaker 2: on the minigan. Apparently he was pretty good according to him.
1:59
Speaker 2: But on my fat it was around baseball, and you know,
2:02
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't know anything else that then, just
2:06
Speaker 2: grabbing a bat and the ball and do something in
2:08
Speaker 2: the backyard. So yeah, for me, it was something really
2:11
Speaker 2: really simple to just got in love with.
2:13
Speaker 5: You talked a little bit about when you signed in
2:16
Speaker 5: ninety four or maybe even before that, just you know,
2:19
Speaker 5: trying out at the Dodgers complex at at Las Palmas
2:24
Speaker 5: and Ralph Abula and Pablo Paguero and just that whole process.
2:28
Speaker 5: What was that like for you as a young man.
2:30
Speaker 4: It was.
2:31
Speaker 2: It was so real because at the time, even this
2:35
Speaker 2: might sound weird, but I wasn't really looking playing baseball
2:40
Speaker 2: to sign a contract.
2:42
Speaker 4: I was just playing to have fun.
2:45
Speaker 2: And when I just turned fourteen, you know, I started playing.
2:52
Speaker 4: I started being better.
2:54
Speaker 2: And one of the guys that was on the in
2:56
Speaker 2: our neighborhood he signed. He was already signed with the Marlins.
3:00
Speaker 2: I guess he starts talking to the director of the
3:04
Speaker 2: Marlins about I guess my ability as a player because
3:08
Speaker 2: we kind of played the same field. And this time
3:11
Speaker 2: it came about, you know, they came, my money came over,
3:13
Speaker 2: they liked me to do a try out, they offered
3:15
Speaker 2: me a contract.
3:16
Speaker 4: I don't know where. It was, like, what is going on?
3:18
Speaker 2: And then the Yankees came up, came around San Francisco.
3:21
Speaker 2: Then the Marning actually offered me a contract, but according
3:28
Speaker 2: to my dad and the guys was training me at
3:31
Speaker 2: the time, the contract was too low, so they said no.
3:36
Speaker 2: They offered me I think was thirteen thousand dollars, which
3:40
Speaker 2: was a lot of money.
3:41
Speaker 4: Back then in the Midigan.
3:43
Speaker 2: My dad and my trainers said no, and I immediately
3:48
Speaker 2: went back to school and practicing. But the Marlings, I
3:53
Speaker 2: guess didn't have a big budget because they were like
3:56
Speaker 2: a Newspats from team. And it turned out that the
4:01
Speaker 2: minority director of the Marlings.
4:03
Speaker 4: The Marlings.
4:06
Speaker 2: Was the son of Ralph Aguila, was the director of
4:09
Speaker 2: Manor League for the Dodgers. So he called his daddy,
4:12
Speaker 2: told him about this kid from this area. They might
4:15
Speaker 2: be pretty good. You should take a look at it.
4:17
Speaker 2: So they said, the Dodgers, send the scouts and and
4:19
Speaker 2: and the hitting coach and all stuff. They came to
4:22
Speaker 2: see me the tryout for them, and they offered me
4:26
Speaker 2: a contract. So we took that one. But the thing
4:30
Speaker 2: is that I was so naive at the time that
4:34
Speaker 2: I have no idea about the regulations of age or
4:36
Speaker 2: anything like that. And as you guys know, when I signed,
4:40
Speaker 2: I just turned fifteen, uh twenty days before, so I
4:47
Speaker 2: started with no problem, but I found out I had
4:49
Speaker 2: on that I was illegal to sign under sixteen. But
4:53
Speaker 2: you know it's it was I was. I didn't care
4:55
Speaker 2: at the time because I didn't know I find I was.
4:58
Speaker 2: I was probably a year away from being the big
5:01
Speaker 2: leagues already, and you know it became a big news
5:05
Speaker 2: in the Big League, but you know, I didn't care
5:06
Speaker 2: because I just wanted was the opportunity to play the
5:09
Speaker 2: sport that I loved.
5:11
Speaker 1: Adrian for for our listeners, can you can you take
5:14
Speaker 1: us behind the scenes when you're growing up in Santa Domingo.
5:17
Speaker 1: You talk about having a trainer, you talked about going
5:19
Speaker 1: to school, Just describe like.
5:22
Speaker 3: What is the what is it every day like for you.
5:24
Speaker 1: Like balancing school, balancing training, What did the field look
5:27
Speaker 1: like that you were working out on, what was the
5:29
Speaker 1: equipment that you guys had to play the game?
5:33
Speaker 4: Well?
5:33
Speaker 2: Well, to be clear too and Dominican, most of the
5:37
Speaker 2: Latin Country are different than the US is baseball and
5:41
Speaker 2: school is completely separated, nothing to do with each other.
5:46
Speaker 2: So you you literally go to school Monday to Friday
5:51
Speaker 2: and you can do some workouts on your own, but
5:53
Speaker 2: you normally engage on Baseball tvty more in the weekends. Uh,
5:57
Speaker 2: you go and practice and place Friday, stut Sunday. But
6:01
Speaker 2: when you get close closer to maybe getting the contract
6:06
Speaker 2: of a great chance to sign, then you start kind
6:09
Speaker 2: of doing more work on your own because you understand
6:12
Speaker 2: what you need to work in to work on to
6:14
Speaker 2: be better. So for me, it was just going going
6:17
Speaker 2: in the morning to school from eight to twelve, and
6:21
Speaker 2: then the afternoon, I want to go in practice on
6:24
Speaker 2: my own. Then they get better with my friends and
6:28
Speaker 2: get friends. Then we played again in the field. But
6:31
Speaker 2: it was very simple. Once I understood what I need
6:34
Speaker 2: to work on, I was kind of focused on that, but.
6:37
Speaker 4: It was completely different. You have to figure out.
6:39
Speaker 2: That's why one of the reasons that I encourage my
6:43
Speaker 2: country to be better at I just understand that school
6:47
Speaker 2: is still important even if you play sport, play baseball.
6:50
Speaker 2: Sometimes now kids are more focused on just playing the
6:53
Speaker 2: sport and gett an education, So it's something that we
6:56
Speaker 2: need to work on.
6:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's something that all of you know,
7:01
Speaker 5: the trainers there, but also major leagues in the Major
7:05
Speaker 5: League Baseball and all the teams have an obligation in
7:07
Speaker 5: my opinion, to you know, recognize that the system is
7:11
Speaker 5: different there, and and to supplement, especially on the education side,
7:15
Speaker 5: and you know all of it, all the services, doctors,
7:19
Speaker 5: dentists that you know, I think we these players are
7:21
Speaker 5: trying to impress, you know, teams to get signed at twelve, thirteen,
7:25
Speaker 5: fourteen years old. In some cases they're you know, they're
7:27
Speaker 5: they're going to school, but in a lot of cases
7:29
Speaker 5: they're not, and they're not getting you know, some of
7:31
Speaker 5: the things that we take for granted here in the
7:33
Speaker 5: States with our kids. And I hope as you know,
7:36
Speaker 5: as the industry looks at the you know, the system
7:39
Speaker 5: and what rules and regulations, I hope that that can
7:41
Speaker 5: be built in a little bit more than it has
7:43
Speaker 5: because it, you know, we should prioritize, you know, these kids,
7:46
Speaker 5: well being such a small percentage of them are going
7:48
Speaker 5: to end up with the trophy well behind behind them,
7:51
Speaker 5: like you've got right, and so you know, we need
7:54
Speaker 5: to do a better job of preparing them for for
7:56
Speaker 5: the realities of life.
7:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, and in my case, I didn't really experience how
8:02
Speaker 2: it is now, you know.
8:03
Speaker 4: Now we had those guys called was gone.
8:07
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't go through I just went to
8:08
Speaker 2: a Baseball League, and that's how I got this cover.
8:11
Speaker 4: I didn't went through the whole thing.
8:12
Speaker 2: But nowadays it's true they have academies there that they
8:16
Speaker 2: got the kids ten eleven years old already trying to
8:18
Speaker 2: get in signed and completely forget about the education.
8:22
Speaker 4: And there's something that it needs to be changed for sure.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, for listeners back home, when you go visit those
8:29
Speaker 1: academies to scout a player, they're like oasis is their
8:33
Speaker 1: beautiful fields in the middle of neighborhoods and you know,
8:38
Speaker 1: kids are living there in some regards, and these boost
8:41
Speaker 1: cones slash trainers are training the players and the kids
8:44
Speaker 1: maybe aren't going to school at all, or they're getting
8:46
Speaker 1: minimal schooling, but they're getting a significant education in baseball.
8:51
Speaker 1: And that's really from ages ten to twelve on up,
8:54
Speaker 1: and it's it's a really different way of life.
8:56
Speaker 3: But Adrian, moving.
8:58
Speaker 1: Through your career, I take us back to June twenty fourth,
9:01
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, you make your major league debut at
9:05
Speaker 1: nineteen years old. At the time, were you aware of
9:08
Speaker 1: how much Timeless sort of fought to bring you up
9:10
Speaker 1: straight from Double A And what was that night like
9:12
Speaker 1: for you?
9:15
Speaker 4: That was one of the best night of my life.
9:16
Speaker 2: And yeah, I'm aware because he let me know, tell
9:18
Speaker 2: me was the guy that lets you know what he's doing.
9:22
Speaker 2: But I always going to have told me really really
9:26
Speaker 2: special in my heart, he was always good to me.
9:30
Speaker 2: When I got that call to brought up to the
9:35
Speaker 2: big leagues, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe. I
9:39
Speaker 2: understood that it was going to supposed to be just
9:42
Speaker 2: a short time, a week or two, because you know,
9:45
Speaker 2: our third basement at the time was Boui Boniya and
9:48
Speaker 2: he got hurt. So I understood what it was. But
9:51
Speaker 2: I understand that too now that a lot of people
9:54
Speaker 2: was against it for some reason. I mean some reason,
9:58
Speaker 2: I guess you know, you can actually understand part of
10:01
Speaker 2: it because there were another two third basement in front
10:05
Speaker 2: of me in Triple A that there there was supposed
10:09
Speaker 2: to be next next online and for some reason, for
10:12
Speaker 2: some reason, Thanks thanks God, that told me that sort
10:15
Speaker 2: of thought of me for different reasons.
10:17
Speaker 4: I thought.
10:18
Speaker 2: I thought he thought that I had talent, but maybe
10:22
Speaker 2: he had an excuse that if y'all do good, he
10:26
Speaker 2: could send me back down because I wasn't ready, I
10:28
Speaker 2: was too young, and he only needs somebody for two weeks.
10:31
Speaker 2: I can't assume that was part of the reason, but
10:34
Speaker 2: but I was glad that he thought of me. I
10:38
Speaker 2: came up and you know, everything was so real. Everything
10:42
Speaker 2: was so different in my own league. You know, everything
10:44
Speaker 2: was so clean, so big, so so like out of
10:49
Speaker 2: the movie. I just felt like I was floating. When
10:51
Speaker 2: I got to the clubhouse and I find out that
10:55
Speaker 2: day that I was playing. I was playing that day,
10:56
Speaker 2: which is I didn't expect that, So the nerves started
11:00
Speaker 2: to come in a little bit.
11:03
Speaker 4: I went through the whole process of practice.
11:05
Speaker 2: And understand the design and all the stuff that I
11:08
Speaker 2: wanted to make sure that I didn't screwed anything up,
11:11
Speaker 2: and anything was okay until until about about twenty minute
11:15
Speaker 2: before the game. You know, I asked the veteran guys, hey,
11:20
Speaker 2: how is how do we do things here?
11:22
Speaker 4: Like what do you guys do?
11:24
Speaker 2: And the guy that kind of told me hey, just
11:26
Speaker 2: followed me, I told you what to do to get
11:28
Speaker 2: ready for the game.
11:29
Speaker 4: Was with the Guerrero by I mean Garreto his brother.
11:33
Speaker 4: So about twenty.
11:34
Speaker 2: Minute before the game, he told me, hey, let's get
11:38
Speaker 2: out more up for the game. So I was ready.
11:42
Speaker 2: I got out and I sent in the bench for
11:44
Speaker 2: a little bit. Then I was starting to walk out
11:48
Speaker 2: of the dougout. And obviously you guys understand and know
11:52
Speaker 2: how the your stadium is. And we were playing uh
11:56
Speaker 2: they call it the uh the Freeway Series. They were
12:01
Speaker 2: called the Fruit Series. So there was pack house, so
12:05
Speaker 2: into your stadium. When you get out of the dugout,
12:08
Speaker 2: like you feel like people are in top of you
12:11
Speaker 2: behind home play. So I got out and I just
12:13
Speaker 2: saw these people in the stadium and I again remember
12:16
Speaker 2: I never played with more than six thousand people in
12:18
Speaker 2: the stadium. We had like fifty dozen people at the stadium.
12:21
Speaker 2: And I just completely got deaz naseous and nervous. So
12:26
Speaker 2: I went back to the bathroom. I went back to
12:28
Speaker 2: the clubhouse and went to the bathroom, and I was
12:31
Speaker 2: so scared. So I was thinking, like, man, if you
12:34
Speaker 2: screwed up anything here, I mean, I'm gonna I'm gonna
12:36
Speaker 2: be a big trouble. So I gathered myself, got it myself,
12:41
Speaker 2: and I said, listen, I just just baseball. Get out
12:43
Speaker 2: there and do your thing. So I did that. I
12:46
Speaker 2: went back out worm up, and I remember I think
12:50
Speaker 2: with Dave hauling third basin, for the Angels, who hit
12:53
Speaker 2: his second and hit like a slow grundball to third base,
12:57
Speaker 2: and I made that slow you know, snow grumble play
13:00
Speaker 2: like a bump play, and.
13:01
Speaker 4: I made a nice play. The first in the.
13:04
Speaker 2: The fence just start clapping, and then I just started
13:06
Speaker 2: feeling more comfortable. And it was really nice relief for
13:10
Speaker 2: me offensively because I was really nervous.
13:13
Speaker 4: And then two days later I came up too bad.
13:16
Speaker 2: My first bad I got a minute second connect was
13:19
Speaker 2: a second one out, and I was facing Chuck Finley. Uh,
13:25
Speaker 2: And I was so nervous that I could feel my
13:28
Speaker 2: body like I'm holding the bat, but I can't feel it.
13:32
Speaker 4: So I didn't know what to do. So I'm like,
13:34
Speaker 4: you know what I'm doing.
13:35
Speaker 2: I'm gonna whatever he throw me the first pitch, I'm
13:38
Speaker 2: gonna swim no matter what, so I can lose my body.
13:41
Speaker 2: And he did throw me a fastball and I just
13:42
Speaker 2: closed my soul at it and and I hit in
13:45
Speaker 2: the double first pitch and the big league a double RBI.
13:47
Speaker 4: And after that I felt just more relaxed. And the
13:50
Speaker 4: rest is history.
13:51
Speaker 2: But you know it was It's not easy. I always
13:54
Speaker 2: had a good idea of how to big how to
13:58
Speaker 2: be in the big leagues. But when you get up
14:01
Speaker 2: in the big nineteen and you it's so many, so
14:03
Speaker 2: many things go around you and you want to do
14:05
Speaker 2: your best. I mean, you have to under stand, agg,
14:07
Speaker 2: it's not easy to just compost yourself on the stand, Agg,
14:10
Speaker 2: you plan among the best in the world, and you
14:14
Speaker 2: are lucky and privileged to be there. So for me
14:16
Speaker 2: was just trying to do my best to stay stay
14:18
Speaker 2: in the big league. But it was a great experience
14:20
Speaker 2: for me for sure.
14:22
Speaker 6: That's awesome. Man. My guess has a lot of your
14:24
Speaker 6: your teammates and co workers.
14:27
Speaker 5: Over the the next twenty years, would have a tough
14:29
Speaker 5: time believing that you were nervous at any point. It
14:33
Speaker 5: never appeared that way those close to you.
14:36
Speaker 6: You got the opportunity there.
14:38
Speaker 5: You mentioned when when Bernie gets hurt, and so that
14:41
Speaker 5: led to the opportunity for you. You you know, very well
14:44
Speaker 5: known for your ability to play through not just paying.
14:47
Speaker 5: A lot of guys play through paying. You played through injuries, right,
14:50
Speaker 5: it was different. Some guys can play through discomfort. You
14:52
Speaker 5: played through like things that would normally require surgery. Can
14:57
Speaker 5: you talk about one of the notable ones and two
15:00
Speaker 5: thousand and one when you had, you know, the infection
15:03
Speaker 5: after I think it was appendicitis. And you know, again
15:07
Speaker 5: he took the field well before anybody would rightfully if expected.
15:10
Speaker 5: And then it's kind of a little bit of a
15:12
Speaker 5: legendary deal. But you talk about just generally your mindset
15:15
Speaker 5: playing through some of those physical issues, and that that
15:17
Speaker 5: time in particular, Yeah.
15:20
Speaker 2: That time was tough because, uh again about the back.
15:24
Speaker 2: Then I wasn't really getting injured yet. I was still young, uh,
15:28
Speaker 2: fuel healthy, and the whole season, I got this weird
15:32
Speaker 2: pain in my stomach and I have no idea what
15:35
Speaker 2: it was, and against naive and stupid me, I'm just
15:39
Speaker 2: not to get through it. I I I could. I
15:44
Speaker 2: did what I could just to ignore it. But when
15:46
Speaker 2: I find out what it was, was too late. A
15:48
Speaker 2: guin happened out to me an appendix, BURSE had a
15:53
Speaker 2: emergy emergency surgery to fix it.
15:57
Speaker 4: Uh it came about that.
15:59
Speaker 2: I guess it didn't really was fixed right, and I
16:03
Speaker 2: got some infection kind of leaking into my stomach which
16:06
Speaker 2: has made it really really bad. I have to fly
16:10
Speaker 2: back to the US so they can try to fix
16:12
Speaker 2: it and figure out what it was. So they end
16:16
Speaker 2: up opening me again and putting in a colostomy bag
16:19
Speaker 2: on my stomach so I can rain or the infection.
16:23
Speaker 2: And after it's about two weeks and the Dodgers all
16:27
Speaker 2: the time talk to me, say, you have couple of options.
16:31
Speaker 4: You have the option of.
16:35
Speaker 2: Go in there and fix it, but you're gonna have
16:37
Speaker 2: to like cut through your stomach and cut about fifteen
16:41
Speaker 2: inches of testing and you have to miss most of
16:45
Speaker 2: the year. The other option is just to let it
16:49
Speaker 2: hear himself and hopefully we were fixing self closet sooner
16:54
Speaker 2: enough that you'll be able to play this year. And
16:58
Speaker 2: the other is to play while you have it with
17:03
Speaker 2: the coloss to my back on. So I chose the
17:07
Speaker 2: last one. I said, I played with the colossal back
17:10
Speaker 2: on non no problem. So I waited a little longer.
17:14
Speaker 2: I went a spring training started, I was still in
17:16
Speaker 2: the hospital. I was I was about a month in
17:18
Speaker 2: the hospital. I flew to Florida. I was in La
17:22
Speaker 2: flew to Florida to start practicing at this At this time, I.
17:27
Speaker 4: Lost thirty pounds.
17:29
Speaker 2: So I'm trying to get my way back and I'm
17:32
Speaker 2: going to the field taking little ground balls and hitting
17:35
Speaker 2: a little bit of the tee with the backpack with
17:38
Speaker 2: the tube kind of feeding me in a cross to
17:40
Speaker 2: my back, hanging on my right side.
17:43
Speaker 4: So I was I was.
17:45
Speaker 2: I was actually feeling stronger, feeling better, like I feel,
17:47
Speaker 2: I can't do this. You know, I'm getting on the way.
17:50
Speaker 2: I'm feeling more energized, so yeah, I can't do this.
17:53
Speaker 2: So it was getting close to games start and I
17:59
Speaker 2: was feeling better. I was doing more baseball activity, running
18:04
Speaker 2: all the stuff, so my body was feeling better.
18:06
Speaker 4: Uh, and Michael lost me.
18:08
Speaker 2: Back was getting some infection thing coming out, but it
18:11
Speaker 2: was just a little bit, not a lot, and everything
18:15
Speaker 2: was trending well.
18:16
Speaker 4: But then I out of nowhere.
18:18
Speaker 2: Then one morning I wake up and the back which
18:21
Speaker 2: just full of you know, ugly stuff. I guess infection,
18:26
Speaker 2: just I guess the burst inside and it just went bad.
18:29
Speaker 2: So that forced the Dodgers to, uh forced me to
18:34
Speaker 2: have the surgery. So I have no more choice that
18:38
Speaker 2: I flew back to LA had the surgery. They opened
18:40
Speaker 2: my stomach got up, they caught only testing out and
18:42
Speaker 2: they fixed it. Uh, and they told me that I
18:45
Speaker 2: was going to be out for about four months. Well,
18:49
Speaker 2: long story short, I came back in about six weeks,
18:53
Speaker 2: I went through it. As I told him, I was
18:56
Speaker 2: feeling better, so I started doing my own stuff. I
18:59
Speaker 2: went to be had and because I just want to
19:01
Speaker 2: go back and play. You know, I have the portunity
19:03
Speaker 2: to be playing third base for the Doggers, you know,
19:05
Speaker 2: every day.
19:06
Speaker 4: I don't want to. I don't want to let that lie.
19:08
Speaker 2: You know, I understood the privilege of doing that, and
19:11
Speaker 2: I understand just how I came up to the big leagues,
19:14
Speaker 2: how anybody can take my job. So I didn't want
19:16
Speaker 2: to let that door open for anybody. So I came
19:20
Speaker 2: back six weeks. You know, I didn't feel fully like
19:23
Speaker 2: like I was before, but I was just happy to
19:26
Speaker 2: be out there. But after I did that, in my mind,
19:30
Speaker 2: it's it's nothing that I can. They will stop me
19:33
Speaker 2: from playing because for me always be mental and there's
19:37
Speaker 2: been time of injured being comfortable to deal with.
19:41
Speaker 4: You know.
19:41
Speaker 2: I I I turn ligament when I was in Seattle.
19:46
Speaker 2: I want to say it was two thousand and seven
19:48
Speaker 2: or so. The time I didn't know was turnal ligament.
19:52
Speaker 2: I do for a ball, do on the line, and
19:54
Speaker 2: I jammed my thumb. After the game, my thought was
19:58
Speaker 2: so swollen and I.
20:02
Speaker 4: Checked the doctor. The doctor said, hey, they to get
20:04
Speaker 4: an MRI to.
20:05
Speaker 2: See what it is. And he says, it's just a
20:07
Speaker 2: bum bruise. All right, it's bum Bruce. I can deal
20:10
Speaker 2: with that.
20:11
Speaker 4: So he said, just stay a couple of days off
20:13
Speaker 4: and you'll be fine. You'll be fine.
20:15
Speaker 2: But you know me, I wanted to play next day,
20:18
Speaker 2: but I couldn't. I tried to swing and I couldn't.
20:20
Speaker 2: I wait a couple of days. Uh, the sword didn't
20:23
Speaker 2: come down, which wouldn't come to hold the bad not
20:26
Speaker 2: even pumped up with my glove one. But I did
20:29
Speaker 2: play it after three days. I don't know how, but
20:33
Speaker 2: I managed to get in there and play and and
20:36
Speaker 2: and be decent at it. Well, the pain never went away,
20:40
Speaker 2: so and you asking the doctor every two weeks, Hey,
20:42
Speaker 2: this pain is not going away, like what's going on?
20:44
Speaker 2: So I he uh, he said, you know, I can
20:47
Speaker 2: give you some cottages on shots to calm the pain.
20:50
Speaker 4: Like, yeah, of course, let's do it. So he did that.
20:53
Speaker 2: It was better for a couple for a better week,
20:55
Speaker 2: and then came back to the same pain like it
20:57
Speaker 2: just happened.
20:59
Speaker 4: It went on and on though through the year. So
21:00
Speaker 4: I finished the year Uh.
21:02
Speaker 2: They said, hey, Joseph bum Bruce, just rest, don't hit,
21:05
Speaker 2: don't lift for about at least two months. Just got
21:08
Speaker 2: to rest and and and come back and start doing
21:11
Speaker 2: some BASEB activity to see how it goes. So I said,
21:14
Speaker 2: no problems. So after the season came.
21:16
Speaker 4: To La Uh. I was here for about a month.
21:19
Speaker 2: That flew to Dominican for Christmas in New Year and
21:24
Speaker 2: before high before Christmas, I was trying to hit a
21:26
Speaker 2: little bit, which is normal. I hit nearly November, so
21:29
Speaker 2: I was taking my time just to give my body
21:31
Speaker 2: some some time to heal.
21:34
Speaker 4: I went to the to the body cage and trying to.
21:36
Speaker 2: Heah, he got for tea and my thumb felt like
21:41
Speaker 2: it just happened and like like I didn't spend about
21:44
Speaker 2: four months waiting to see if it gets better. And
21:48
Speaker 2: that was really disappointed because I mean the didn't get
21:50
Speaker 2: better at all.
21:51
Speaker 4: This only came down a little bit, but the pain
21:53
Speaker 4: was just there the same.
21:55
Speaker 2: So I follow the doctor and I said, listen, this
21:58
Speaker 2: is not getting better.
22:00
Speaker 4: I don't know what's going on. And they say, that's weird.
22:02
Speaker 2: When you get back to the stately back to Seattle
22:05
Speaker 2: and we get.
22:06
Speaker 4: An memory on it, Uh, so I did that.
22:09
Speaker 2: I went back, I came to the I came to
22:12
Speaker 2: l A and in January flew to Seattle. Next day
22:15
Speaker 2: guy a memori and the memor right shows I got
22:17
Speaker 2: a turn ligament. So I literally play half a season
22:21
Speaker 2: with turn ligament in my left thumb.
22:24
Speaker 4: So now you know, the spring training is around the corner.
22:28
Speaker 2: So now they're saying, I'm gonna We're gonna have surgery
22:32
Speaker 2: and you're gonna miss half of the season.
22:35
Speaker 4: Like, no, it's not happening. I don't want to miss
22:38
Speaker 4: no time.
22:38
Speaker 2: So if you have played last year with the turnia, man,
22:40
Speaker 2: now I can't do it again. So we postponed the
22:43
Speaker 2: season through year for the next year because I didn't
22:46
Speaker 2: want to have I didn't want to have I don't
22:47
Speaker 2: want to miss I want to miss half or beach
22:50
Speaker 2: out of the season. So I play. I played the
22:53
Speaker 2: turn ligament again. We just what we did was we
22:56
Speaker 2: we Uh. I had a courting and shot every maybe
23:00
Speaker 2: two months. That's what I did. But I played with it.
23:05
Speaker 2: But it was that was one of the more difficult ones.
23:07
Speaker 2: And I ended up having a decent season too, but
23:11
Speaker 2: it wasn't easy to play with H have to manage
23:14
Speaker 2: and understand what my limitations were playing the game.
23:18
Speaker 4: But we have.
23:20
Speaker 2: Some of the ones there were difficult, but those are
23:22
Speaker 2: the two ones that it turns out that it was
23:24
Speaker 2: really difficult to to kind of play with.
23:28
Speaker 3: For sure, you know, Adrian.
23:30
Speaker 1: Just just so people understand, like sometimes we would get
23:33
Speaker 1: calls from the trainer saying so and so can't play
23:35
Speaker 1: tonight tonight because he slept on his pillow the wrong way,
23:38
Speaker 1: and that person would then go on the eel. It's
23:40
Speaker 1: absolutely amazing. The story just should go ahead.
23:43
Speaker 4: Jd Well.
23:44
Speaker 5: I was gonna, yeah, two seasons that Adrian's talking about
23:47
Speaker 5: two thousand and seven, two and eighty wont gold gloves
23:50
Speaker 5: both years with a torrent ligament in his hand. And
23:54
Speaker 5: that's your point. We used that night get along very well.
23:57
Speaker 5: That one thing we used to argue about the most
23:59
Speaker 5: was when you know, washed Ron Washington, and he was
24:02
Speaker 5: too I love Washing, we all love what he was
24:04
Speaker 5: too scared to tell you you were going on. And
24:08
Speaker 5: Jamie reed, you know, Hall of Fame trainer. He would
24:10
Speaker 5: come to us and be like, somebody's got to tell him,
24:12
Speaker 5: you know, And so that and I would get into
24:15
Speaker 5: like heated debates on whose turn it was, because we're
24:17
Speaker 5: both scared of you, and most of the time you
24:20
Speaker 5: talked your way out of it as you did you
24:22
Speaker 5: know there and performed at a ridiculous level.
24:26
Speaker 6: We could talk all day about about this bit.
24:27
Speaker 5: But twenty fifteen, man, was that the same thumb ligament
24:32
Speaker 5: that you had? I remember we had a meeting in
24:34
Speaker 5: Anaheim with the hands specialist and Jamie and Scott Boris
24:39
Speaker 5: and Mike Fioria. I believe we're there and you had
24:42
Speaker 5: a torn ligament in your thumb then too, and everybody's recommendation,
24:46
Speaker 5: the team, the doctor, your agent was shut it down
24:50
Speaker 5: and get surgery. And I remember you looked at the doctor.
24:52
Speaker 5: You said, can I make it worse? And he said, well, no,
24:56
Speaker 5: I don't think you can, but it's definitely not going
24:58
Speaker 5: to get better and it's gonna hurt a lot. And
25:00
Speaker 5: you said no, I didn't answer my question, can I
25:03
Speaker 5: make it worse? And he said, no, you can't, and
25:06
Speaker 5: he said can you stood up? You ended the meeting.
25:08
Speaker 5: You're like, I'm good, I'll see you guys out there,
25:10
Speaker 5: and like you had like a ridiculous second half of
25:15
Speaker 5: the season and you.
25:16
Speaker 6: Know, carried us into the playoffs. It was really remarkable now.
25:20
Speaker 1: And Adrian, you were catching the bone the outside of
25:22
Speaker 1: your glove at times because it hurts so much to
25:25
Speaker 1: catch it with your thumb. It just was an incredible
25:29
Speaker 1: thing to see. Welcome back to Rosters, to Rings alongside
25:38
Speaker 1: John Daniels, I am bad Levine. What a wonderful conversation
25:42
Speaker 1: with Adrian Beltray. Such an incredibly difficult act to follow,
25:45
Speaker 1: but we have just the guy. We're joined by producer Wyatt,
25:49
Speaker 1: who has diligently read all the listeners questions and will
25:52
Speaker 1: now grill us with the most hard hitting ones from
25:54
Speaker 1: this week.
25:55
Speaker 3: Producer, why I take it away?
25:57
Speaker 7: Thank you that Let's get right into it first questions
26:02
Speaker 7: from Jackson in Cincinnati. As we sit here with a
26:07
Speaker 7: handful of notable MLB free agents still unsigned, who surprises
26:11
Speaker 7: you the most that's still on the board and are
26:13
Speaker 7: there certain teams you think are destined to make a
26:16
Speaker 7: run at some of these players? And I have some
26:18
Speaker 7: notable free agents that include Paul Goldschmidt, Keik Hernandez, Zach Gallen,
26:25
Speaker 7: Framber Valdez, Starling Marte, and Miguel Andrew Harr who I
26:30
Speaker 7: saw had a nine hundred ops against left handed hitting.
26:34
Speaker 3: But those are just to name a few, So take
26:36
Speaker 3: it away, guys.
26:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, j D.
26:38
Speaker 3: I'll take a quick shot at this.
26:39
Speaker 1: Love your thoughts on it is, you know why not
26:42
Speaker 1: knowing the exact ages of a lot of the guys
26:44
Speaker 1: you mentioned, But quite a few of those guys are
26:46
Speaker 1: in their young to mid thirties, and so I think
26:49
Speaker 1: those are the types of guys that tend to sign
26:51
Speaker 1: a little bit later in the process. They're guys that
26:54
Speaker 1: probably were aspirational getting multi year deals, are probably now
26:57
Speaker 1: considering shorter term deals in teams, probably expressing genuine interest
27:01
Speaker 1: on them on shorter term deals. But to name a
27:04
Speaker 1: few of the guys you reference, a add to the list,
27:07
Speaker 1: you still have guys like Chris Bassett out there, who
27:10
Speaker 1: I think is thirty seven years old. Even Justin Erlander,
27:13
Speaker 1: who aspires to pitch another season at age forty three,
27:16
Speaker 1: a guy that JD drafted when we were together in Texas.
27:19
Speaker 1: Nick Martinez has been a very versatile pitcher thirty five
27:22
Speaker 1: years old. Hard to believe that JD he's out there,
27:25
Speaker 1: but I think JD the one guy who really jumps
27:29
Speaker 1: out to me, or two maybe or frame Burvaldez and
27:31
Speaker 1: Zach Gallen. Gallon's thirty years old had been a bona
27:36
Speaker 1: fide kind of a cy young consideration for multiple years
27:39
Speaker 1: of his career, but really kind of had a tougher
27:41
Speaker 1: season last year and you know, some injuries, some performance decline.
27:45
Speaker 1: Now under's the market at age thirty really should be primed,
27:48
Speaker 1: or we would have thought he would have been primed
27:50
Speaker 1: for a long term, very lucrative deal. He's now still
27:53
Speaker 1: sitting on the market. I think teams are trying to
27:55
Speaker 1: figure out how to perfectly evaluate him. He seems primed
27:58
Speaker 1: to me to be to sign one of these one year,
28:01
Speaker 1: make good pillow contracts. And then franber Valdez, who is
28:04
Speaker 1: a guy who has been very successful for an exceptionally
28:07
Speaker 1: good team in Houston for quite some time, left handed,
28:10
Speaker 1: thirty two years old, really great track record of success
28:14
Speaker 1: and pitching on some of the biggest stages in the playoffs,
28:17
Speaker 1: is still without a without a home. He still strikes
28:20
Speaker 1: me as a guy who should garner multi year interest.
28:23
Speaker 1: There's some stories behind him. There's there's more than just
28:26
Speaker 1: the stat line. But who jumps out to you JD
28:29
Speaker 1: as guys who are still in the market who may
28:31
Speaker 1: find homes and soon.
28:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, the same two guys jumped out to me with
28:36
Speaker 5: with Valdez and Gallon, I think on the position player side,
28:39
Speaker 5: you know, the younger position players, the everyday players are
28:42
Speaker 5: going to typically you know there's gonna be significant bidding,
28:46
Speaker 5: very competitive. Sometimes the older guys, the role players kind
28:49
Speaker 5: of have to wait for those seats to be filled.
28:51
Speaker 5: And I think that the list that we touched on
28:54
Speaker 5: kind of falls a little more into that category. But
28:57
Speaker 5: on the pitchers, you know, usually you'll see the younger
29:00
Speaker 5: pitchers go off earlier. I think you touched on maybe
29:05
Speaker 5: some of the question marks on Gallon and Valdez. I
29:09
Speaker 5: wouldn't think that the qualifying offer has too much to
29:12
Speaker 5: do with it, but you do see.
29:13
Speaker 6: That play a role.
29:14
Speaker 5: I mean, I remember Kyle Losh and Yovanna Gayardo there
29:18
Speaker 5: were later signs into spring training, so sometimes that could
29:22
Speaker 5: play a role. But I think the question marks you
29:25
Speaker 5: identified are probably a little more reasons why those two
29:29
Speaker 5: pitchers that are still relatively young, and their durability and
29:33
Speaker 5: their quality, you think they'd get good deals.
29:37
Speaker 7: All right, Next question, This was a hot topic in
29:40
Speaker 7: the sports news cycle last week.
29:43
Speaker 3: This one's from Adam and Boston.
29:46
Speaker 7: Bill Belichick not being a first ballot Hall of Famer
29:49
Speaker 7: surprised a lot of people, and there's speculation voters were
29:53
Speaker 7: influenced by Spygate and deflate Gate, some of the cheating
29:56
Speaker 7: scandals that happened during Bell in New England. Do you
30:02
Speaker 7: think Hall of Fame voting systems are flawed when off
30:04
Speaker 7: field controversies enter the equation, especially when you compare it
30:08
Speaker 7: to baseball, leaving guys like Barry Bonds or Pete Rose
30:12
Speaker 7: out despite historic on field success.
30:18
Speaker 6: I'll jump in here with that. So first, I'm not
30:21
Speaker 6: fully familiar.
30:22
Speaker 5: With the NFL Hall of Fame rules, nor am I
30:25
Speaker 5: fully familiar with the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame rules,
30:27
Speaker 5: But I know the NFL there's a few different committees
30:31
Speaker 5: and a few different types of off field contributors and
30:34
Speaker 5: senior contributors and things of that nature that are outside
30:38
Speaker 5: just the regular active players, and I believe Belichick fell
30:41
Speaker 5: into that. And my understanding is some of the rules
30:44
Speaker 5: regarding that, I think there's a maximum of three in
30:49
Speaker 5: that category that voters can vote for.
30:52
Speaker 6: And so I saw one voter who acknowledged.
30:55
Speaker 5: That he didn't vote for Belichick, but it wasn't for
30:57
Speaker 5: lack of you know, it's not that he didn't believe
30:59
Speaker 5: he was deserving. It's that he had identified three other
31:02
Speaker 5: players in that veteran senior status whatever they refer to
31:07
Speaker 5: it as, that had been you know, bypassed for several years,
31:10
Speaker 5: and he felt we're due recognition. And I think you
31:13
Speaker 5: see that with with Baseball's system too, right where the
31:17
Speaker 5: ten maximum that that voters can vote on, and you
31:21
Speaker 5: see guys because of you know, the question alludes to
31:25
Speaker 5: the you know, some of the off field stuff, and
31:26
Speaker 5: so you have guys like Bonds and Shilling that are
31:29
Speaker 5: probably that's the reason why they haven't gotten in, but
31:32
Speaker 5: because that, it kind of backs up the ballot and
31:35
Speaker 5: you see guys like Kenny Lofton and Bobby A Bray
31:38
Speaker 5: who you can debate their merits, but that's the point
31:41
Speaker 5: they should be debated, and they were knocked off, I
31:44
Speaker 5: believe on the first ballot, and guys like that, and
31:47
Speaker 5: there's multiple of them.
31:48
Speaker 6: Deserve a lot more consideration than they were given.
31:50
Speaker 5: So I you know, I'm almost I almost viewed as
31:53
Speaker 5: the issue is more of the limitation on the voters
31:56
Speaker 5: on how many they can vote for. And while I
32:01
Speaker 5: generally prefer a little more a higher standard to get in.
32:06
Speaker 5: It stinks when guys that arguably meet that standard are
32:10
Speaker 5: bumped off because.
32:11
Speaker 6: Of these limitations.
32:13
Speaker 3: Jada, I think he nailed it. I just would add
32:15
Speaker 3: a few things.
32:15
Speaker 1: And I think this is a really insightful question with
32:18
Speaker 1: a lot of layers to it. Honestly, because as much
32:21
Speaker 1: as we have become so formula driven in professional athletics
32:25
Speaker 1: in terms of evaluating the talent of a player, the
32:28
Speaker 1: career that they've had, and the projections that they may
32:31
Speaker 1: have in the future, these Hall of Fame processes are
32:34
Speaker 1: still very subjective. Human beings are voting for the Hall
32:37
Speaker 1: of Fame in a lot of regards. These are human
32:40
Speaker 1: beings who covered their sports for decades, and so personalities
32:45
Speaker 1: relationships do matter. I think we could debate whether they
32:48
Speaker 1: should or should not. I mean, as we talk to
32:50
Speaker 1: Adrian Beltra, ninety five point one percent of the people
32:53
Speaker 1: who voted voted him in. That's a just staggering figure
32:57
Speaker 1: and it speaks to exceptional performance which is undeniable, but
33:01
Speaker 1: also a level of popularity and that he was really
33:05
Speaker 1: beloved by all the people who got a chance to vote.
33:08
Speaker 1: I don't know Bill Belichick, but you know when you
33:10
Speaker 1: watch the press conferences and those sorts of things, he
33:13
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily prioritize those relationships and those connections. So I
33:18
Speaker 1: think a lot of people who do vote for the
33:20
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame do have this exalted distinction for a
33:24
Speaker 1: first ballot Hall of Famer. And I'm not sure if
33:26
Speaker 1: that's right or wrong. You know, when you vote for
33:29
Speaker 1: a guy on the seventh ballot, but you didn't vote
33:31
Speaker 1: for him on the first ballot. I've never fully understood that,
33:34
Speaker 1: but there does seem to be a huge distinction between
33:36
Speaker 1: the people who get in on the first ballot. Those
33:38
Speaker 1: are the guys who are kind of in rarefied error.
33:40
Speaker 1: And I think people in sports often talked about should
33:43
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame in each of these sports have
33:45
Speaker 1: different wings? And so the first ballot wing and then
33:49
Speaker 1: there's the subsequent wings. And I would say I would
33:52
Speaker 1: be shocked of Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft, who also
33:55
Speaker 1: still has not made it in don't make it at
33:57
Speaker 1: some point they had left an indelible mark on the
34:00
Speaker 1: NFL over a prolonged period of time. They deserve to
34:03
Speaker 1: be in. At some point, maybe that will be remedied
34:05
Speaker 1: and remedied in the near future.
34:08
Speaker 5: And let's not forget two time Super Bowl MVP Eli
34:11
Speaker 5: Manning thedias.
34:13
Speaker 1: There will be a Giants theme that we will have
34:16
Speaker 1: throughout the course of this show, and maybe more questions
34:19
Speaker 1: on the horizon from the listeners. JD is they've made
34:22
Speaker 1: major changes over in Giants Land.
34:25
Speaker 7: Yes, we've got another NFL question. This one's from Ben
34:29
Speaker 7: in Honolulu with Clint Kubiak and Mike LeFleur closing out
34:34
Speaker 7: the NFL head coaching cycle. Nepotism seems very prevalent in
34:39
Speaker 7: the NFL, But do you see similar coaching pipelines in
34:43
Speaker 7: the MLB and they're just not publicized as much.
34:49
Speaker 1: So I think that's a great question by Ben. And
34:51
Speaker 1: you know one thing I just wanted to like touch on,
34:53
Speaker 1: and I think this is a whole episode, so I
34:55
Speaker 1: don't want to short change this topic. But you know,
34:58
Speaker 1: we've talked about this in the past, just the volatility
35:01
Speaker 1: of these positions.
35:02
Speaker 3: But I just looked it up.
35:04
Speaker 1: Between twenty twenty and twenty twenty two to twenty two
35:07
Speaker 1: of the thirty two NFL teams hired a new coach,
35:10
Speaker 1: only four of those coaches are still employed by the
35:13
Speaker 1: team that hired them. That is an incredible, incredible figure. Now,
35:18
Speaker 1: further to that point is the NFL just hired ten
35:21
Speaker 1: new coaches this offseason, which is a significant number. Again,
35:25
Speaker 1: Robert sala is the only person who is a minority,
35:28
Speaker 1: and there were no black coaches that were hired, so
35:31
Speaker 1: they went zero for ten this year, and so now
35:34
Speaker 1: there are only three black head coaches in the NFL,
35:37
Speaker 1: a sport which is dominated by seventy percent of their
35:39
Speaker 1: players approximately who are black, and that means that they're
35:44
Speaker 1: This is from Jerry Brewer of The Athletic wrote this today.
35:47
Speaker 1: I thought it really struck me that there is now
35:50
Speaker 1: one fewer black coach in the league than there are
35:52
Speaker 1: Harbaugh and Lafleur brothers combined. I think this is something
35:57
Speaker 1: that I know the NFL is trying to address, JD
36:01
Speaker 1: MLB is trying to address as well, and these leagues
36:04
Speaker 1: that just have not really nailed this. It feels like
36:06
Speaker 1: the NBA is ahead of both leagues in this regard,
36:09
Speaker 1: but in terms of nepotism. Sorry for derailing this and
36:12
Speaker 1: going a little bit in this direction, but I do
36:14
Speaker 1: think this is a topic we should cover on rosters rings.
36:17
Speaker 1: It deserves an entire show, not just a brief segment,
36:20
Speaker 1: but one that I think we should talk about at
36:22
Speaker 1: some point in the near future.
36:25
Speaker 6: Yeah, that is the question was being read.
36:28
Speaker 5: I had this some of the same themes popped in
36:30
Speaker 5: my head and I read that same article this morning
36:33
Speaker 5: in The Athletic and you know, no black head coaches
36:38
Speaker 5: hired at ten only one minorities. You know, that is
36:41
Speaker 5: a theme. You know, like you said, we could touch
36:43
Speaker 5: on at length, and then you know, only four of
36:47
Speaker 5: the twenty two previous hires are still employed by their
36:51
Speaker 5: current clay And I put myself into this. I don't
36:54
Speaker 5: think we're very good at this as an industry. And
36:57
Speaker 5: it's not just the NFL's baseball. It's all I mean,
37:00
Speaker 5: when you're when you're making changes in leadership that often.
37:03
Speaker 5: If if Apple and Google we're doing that and having
37:06
Speaker 5: you know, CEO turnover every two to four years, I mean,
37:11
Speaker 5: that would be alarming, right, that would be very you know,
37:14
Speaker 5: if if countries did that with it would be a
37:17
Speaker 5: very alarming. And so you know, I think it's it
37:21
Speaker 5: speaks to a major inefficiency and not just the hiring,
37:25
Speaker 5: but then the onboarding, the training, and the and really
37:28
Speaker 5: the alignment between ownership, management and and field staff.
37:32
Speaker 6: UH.
37:32
Speaker 5: And when you don't have that, you could have the
37:34
Speaker 5: absolute best candidate in the world, I mean, the greatest
37:37
Speaker 5: you know, young coach UH prospects so to speak, and
37:41
Speaker 5: step into a role. And if they're not aligned with
37:43
Speaker 5: ownership and management and they're not provided the resources with
37:47
Speaker 5: you know, quality talent and things of that nature, they're
37:50
Speaker 5: they're set up to fail. And so as far as
37:53
Speaker 5: the nepotism, I think so many of these coaches now
37:55
Speaker 5: have ties to the you know, Shanahane McVeigh coaching trees.
37:59
Speaker 5: I don't really viewed as an epotism so much as
38:01
Speaker 5: I've viewed as you know, all these leagues are cyclical
38:05
Speaker 5: and in terms of what wins, right, And so I
38:08
Speaker 5: think you saw it for a period of time with
38:11
Speaker 5: you know, you know, the Parcel Belichick tree, right, and
38:16
Speaker 5: a lot of guys got opportunities. Not very many of
38:18
Speaker 5: them had success, but they got opportunities because they were
38:20
Speaker 5: able to run a system that was having success at
38:23
Speaker 5: the time. I think that's what you're seeing here as well.
38:25
Speaker 5: And you know, whether it's you know, it's Mike McDonald
38:27
Speaker 5: defense or another whatever the next iteration is of the
38:32
Speaker 5: winning formula. You know, I think you'll see a bit
38:35
Speaker 5: of a copycat on that side as well.
38:37
Speaker 6: And the cycle continues.
38:39
Speaker 7: And then John would love to get your thoughts on
38:42
Speaker 7: the Giants hiring John Harbaugh. Do you like it? Is
38:45
Speaker 7: it a home run higher or you worried maybe about
38:48
Speaker 7: the potential lack of alignment with the front office there?
38:56
Speaker 5: Big New York Giants fan, you know, I I am
39:00
Speaker 5: a fan of the hire of John Harvey. I was
39:03
Speaker 5: really intrigued by a number of, you know, the other
39:05
Speaker 5: candidates that were that were out there, including some of
39:07
Speaker 5: the you know, the the impressive young coordinators, some of
39:13
Speaker 5: which got that got jobs and some of which that
39:16
Speaker 5: that are still candidates in the next cycle. But I
39:17
Speaker 5: think where the Giants are, you know, they have some
39:20
Speaker 5: high end talent, they don't have a lot of depth.
39:24
Speaker 6: They've had, you know, too.
39:25
Speaker 5: Much turnover in the organization really since Tom Coughlin left.
39:29
Speaker 5: And I think having Harbaugh and having a clear chain
39:32
Speaker 5: of command, which is a little different than in baseball
39:36
Speaker 5: and other sports we're in a lot of you know,
39:37
Speaker 5: in NFL, sometimes the gm IS is the primary decision
39:40
Speaker 5: maker and sometimes the head coaches. I think the Giants
39:43
Speaker 5: switching their model. They've always been a a GM driven organization,
39:48
Speaker 5: even when they had Parcels. You know, George Young at
39:51
Speaker 5: the time made the calls when they had UH coach Kaflin.
39:56
Speaker 6: You know, of course he made the calls.
39:57
Speaker 5: And so I think the fact that they were only
40:00
Speaker 5: to change their structure to put Harbaugh in in that
40:03
Speaker 5: lead seat speaks to a desire to to, you know,
40:08
Speaker 5: have long term success, and they were recognizing that in
40:10
Speaker 5: the their prior structure, they wouldn't have been able to
40:14
Speaker 5: attract a coach of his success level. And so that's
40:19
Speaker 5: as much as the higher I think the fact that
40:21
Speaker 5: they're willing to change their their organizational structure at a
40:24
Speaker 5: time when when you know ownership is you know that
40:27
Speaker 5: the two owners wanted came out in the Epstein files,
40:30
Speaker 5: but more importantly one is battling cancer, and I think
40:33
Speaker 5: having having some structure and having Harbaugh and that in
40:38
Speaker 5: that role should help them.
40:39
Speaker 4: Quite a bit.
40:42
Speaker 1: Jady, you talked about alignment in the previous question. I
40:44
Speaker 1: think will be fascinating to see with that shift for
40:47
Speaker 1: Shane as the GM to now being kind of on
40:50
Speaker 1: the same playing field, or potentially even subordinate to Harbaugh.
40:53
Speaker 1: How that relationship unfolds over the very near term, I
40:57
Speaker 1: think will know very quickly whether that relationship work. If
41:00
Speaker 1: it does, they've got a ton of talent over there
41:02
Speaker 1: now with an exceptional head coach. If it doesn't, we
41:04
Speaker 1: may see more changes on the horizon for the Giants.
41:08
Speaker 5: Absolutely listen, and you know you I have been critical
41:12
Speaker 5: of some of their decisions. But if it does work,
41:17
Speaker 5: this is perhaps the you know, in addition to trading
41:19
Speaker 5: up for Dart and and you know, trading for Brian
41:21
Speaker 5: Burns and some of the other quality moves that this
41:24
Speaker 5: this administration's made. I think if it can work now
41:27
Speaker 5: between Shane and Harbaugh, that is maybe the single biggest
41:30
Speaker 5: feather and Chain's cap in that you're able to set
41:33
Speaker 5: aside ego, able to set aside you know, our personal goals,
41:38
Speaker 5: et cetera, for the good of the organization, and that
41:41
Speaker 5: you talk about leading by example. That's what you know,
41:43
Speaker 5: you want everybody in the organization to be able to do,
41:45
Speaker 5: is you know, just kind of keep your head down,
41:47
Speaker 5: focus on what's in front of you, do your job, contribute.
41:50
Speaker 5: If as the leader of the front office, if he's
41:54
Speaker 5: able to do that and kind of set aside his
41:57
Speaker 5: own ego. What an example, and you know what a
42:00
Speaker 5: tremendous opportunity for him in the organization there, and I'm
42:03
Speaker 5: hopeful it works.
42:06
Speaker 7: Last question, this one's from Bobby in Chicago. Put yourself
42:12
Speaker 7: in Milwaukee Bucks GM, John Horseshoes, how do you handle
42:16
Speaker 7: the Yannis sweepstakes? The NBA tread day trade deadline is
42:20
Speaker 7: coming up this Thursday. It seems generally that waiting until
42:24
Speaker 7: the summer, where there could be a larger bidding war,
42:27
Speaker 7: makes the most sense, but that could also open the
42:30
Speaker 7: door for a surprise team to come in with a
42:32
Speaker 7: sweet offer. So how would you handle this?
42:35
Speaker 3: So why?
42:36
Speaker 1: Three things jumped to mind to me on this one.
42:38
Speaker 1: One is what Jannis's commentary is very concerning. He spoke
42:45
Speaker 1: of a team that has lost its way and that
42:48
Speaker 1: maybe they're not all on the same page, and they're not.
42:51
Speaker 1: The culture is not a championship culture. So as a
42:54
Speaker 1: general manager in that situation, that that really would ring
42:57
Speaker 1: in my ears and be a great cause for concern.
43:00
Speaker 1: I would want to rectify that as best I can,
43:02
Speaker 1: And that's independent of trading him. He doesn't seem to
43:05
Speaker 1: be an outspoken player, He's always been exceptionally loyal to
43:08
Speaker 1: the franchise. For him to levy that level of criticism
43:12
Speaker 1: on the organization, I think speaks to something that has
43:15
Speaker 1: to be rectified and rectified soon. Candidly, I think that
43:19
Speaker 1: gives me some concern for the longevity of the general
43:23
Speaker 1: manager and the head coach there when you hear those
43:25
Speaker 1: types of those comments from a star player. Then secondarily
43:29
Speaker 1: to trade or not to trade. As you just referenced,
43:31
Speaker 1: he's hurt right now, which is a real factor that
43:34
Speaker 1: may mitigate a little bit of what the return is.
43:37
Speaker 1: And then you know, Jad and I only wish we
43:40
Speaker 1: could have traded draft picks in Major League Baseball, but
43:43
Speaker 1: we're really precluded.
43:44
Speaker 3: From doing that.
43:45
Speaker 1: I assume they're going to want a blended package of
43:48
Speaker 1: high end draft picks as well as really good players,
43:51
Speaker 1: because one thing we've discussed in rosters drings before, when
43:54
Speaker 1: you trade a guy like Giannis to a team and
43:56
Speaker 1: you get draft picks for him, those draft picks get
43:58
Speaker 1: devalued the minute you make trade because Giannis is going
44:01
Speaker 1: to make that team better, so that team is going
44:03
Speaker 1: to pick later in the draft. So I would think
44:05
Speaker 1: you would want to balance your JD of draft picks
44:08
Speaker 1: and young up and coming talent. I'm sure there are
44:11
Speaker 1: only a finite number of teams in the NBA that
44:14
Speaker 1: could deliver both right now, and those would be the
44:17
Speaker 1: teams I'd want to be talking to.
44:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think the injury is a you know, even
44:24
Speaker 5: bigger factor here. I mean, it's always always risk what
44:27
Speaker 5: player getting hurt, right You look at Otani when the
44:30
Speaker 5: Angels had him as last year, they could have trade
44:31
Speaker 5: him in the deadline. They end up rattling off seven
44:34
Speaker 5: or eight straight wins, they decide not to trade them,
44:36
Speaker 5: they make a deal themselves for Gilito, and then you know,
44:39
Speaker 5: Tony gets hurt, you know, a week later. I mean,
44:41
Speaker 5: it was just kind of a wild chain of events.
44:43
Speaker 5: They're unpredictable. But when you know, when the guy is
44:46
Speaker 5: sitting with an injury, especially with a calf injury, with
44:51
Speaker 5: all the achilles issues that we've seen in the NBA recently,
44:54
Speaker 5: I got to imagine as a team trying to add
44:57
Speaker 5: him your your That's got to be a a significant
45:01
Speaker 5: concern because, like you said, the price is going to
45:03
Speaker 5: should be very high. If I'm Milwaukee, what I think,
45:07
Speaker 5: and again I'm I don't know enough about the NBA
45:09
Speaker 5: to to really know, but I would think whatever you
45:12
Speaker 5: know level realistically you would determine you should be looking for. Again,
45:17
Speaker 5: I say us a term realistic because you know you
45:20
Speaker 5: want to set a high price, but but you know,
45:23
Speaker 5: I think you want to you want to be fair
45:25
Speaker 5: about it too. And I would view it as like,
45:29
Speaker 5: all right, if he was one hundred percent healthy this offseason,
45:32
Speaker 5: what would we expect to get? And you know, I
45:35
Speaker 5: think teams that come in bidding now should have to
45:38
Speaker 5: meet or just about meet that price, maybe bake in
45:41
Speaker 5: a little bit of risk. But you know, this is
45:44
Speaker 5: you know, he's thirty one years old. I realize it's
45:46
Speaker 5: it's a little older, but he's a you know, Hall
45:48
Speaker 5: of Fame caliber player, m v P, you know, world champion,
45:52
Speaker 5: all the you know, tremendous human being by all accounts,
45:54
Speaker 5: Like franchise player, I think you set a high price
45:59
Speaker 5: and hold to it and have some faith that if
46:01
Speaker 5: your medical team's telling you his leg's going to heal,
46:04
Speaker 5: that you'll get at this winter if you don't or
46:05
Speaker 5: excume me this summer if you don't get it now.
46:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think JD one of the things you're
46:10
Speaker 1: shedding light on there is that the acquiring team is
46:12
Speaker 1: really measuring the number of championship runs, runs that Jannis
46:17
Speaker 1: can influence. And if they're viewing this one as being
46:20
Speaker 1: in jeopardy, that is then challenging for them to value
46:23
Speaker 1: him truly at that hundredth percentile. But that's the partner
46:27
Speaker 1: you're looking for if you're the Milwaukee Bucks. Thank you
46:30
Speaker 1: to John Daniels into Adrian Beltray. What a wonderful conversation.
46:33
Speaker 1: We're going to have part two next week. Join us
46:36
Speaker 1: this Thursday and every Thursday on Rosters ter Rings. Please
46:42
Speaker 1: join me host bad Levine, Ryan McDonough and other general
46:46
Speaker 1: managers every week for Roster to Rings on Apple, Spotify,
46:51
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.