Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Rocktober and the Road to the Show with Ryan Spilborghs

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Rocktober and the Road to the Show with Ryan Spilborghs · Rosters to Rings Podcast

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosters to Rings alongside co host Chet West,
0:07
Speaker 1: I am your host, Dad Levigne. Chet I'm ecstatic to
0:11
Speaker 1: have a great, great guest with us today. Ryan Spilborgs
0:14
Speaker 1: a graduate of hometown University of California, Santa Barbara. Ryan
0:18
Speaker 1: Spilborgs was drafted by the Colorado Rockies in the seventh
0:21
Speaker 1: round of the two thousand and two Major League Baseball Draft.
0:25
Speaker 1: He made his major league debut in July of two
0:28
Speaker 1: thousand and five and miraculously finished the season hitting five hundred.
0:32
Speaker 1: Ryan posted one of his best seasons in two thousand
0:35
Speaker 1: and seven, playing an integral role in the Colorado rockies
0:38
Speaker 1: Magical October run to the World Series. After seven seasons
0:42
Speaker 1: with the Rockies in stints with Cleveland and Texas, Ryan
0:46
Speaker 1: took his talents to Japan to play a season with
0:49
Speaker 1: the Cebu Lions. Now, Ryan serves as a member of
0:52
Speaker 1: the Colorado Rockies broadcast team and co host Loudouts on
0:55
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball Radio. Ryan, Welcome to Rosters to Rings.
1:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, man, it's kind of crazy hearing here in
1:03
Speaker 2: my accolades like it. You know, when it's all said
1:06
Speaker 2: and done, you're like, wait, I was just a baseball
1:08
Speaker 2: player for a little bit of time, and you forget
1:10
Speaker 2: all the different stops you had along the way. So
1:12
Speaker 2: I appreciate being on.
1:14
Speaker 1: And Ryan as we get to know you a little
1:17
Speaker 1: bit better on the air, you were a hell of
1:19
Speaker 1: a lot more than that, as teammates would describe you.
1:22
Speaker 1: You were a heart and soul type player. You're a
1:25
Speaker 1: guy who always invested in your teammates, elevated every room
1:28
Speaker 1: you've been in, which I think is the kind of
1:31
Speaker 1: the magnetism that you bring to the broadcast booth. And
1:34
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that I've gotten to
1:36
Speaker 1: learn over my time with you is you kind of
1:38
Speaker 1: have that general manager's mentality. You always have a thirst
1:42
Speaker 1: for knowledge and you're trying to figure out how decisions
1:45
Speaker 1: are made in which that it's kind of a perfect
1:48
Speaker 1: intersection with our show. And I wanted to start by
1:51
Speaker 1: just asking you the question we ask every guest who
1:54
Speaker 1: comes on, which is, how'd you fall in love with
1:56
Speaker 1: sports as a kid? What is your sports passion origin story?
1:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a great one, so my parents. I
2:03
Speaker 2: think it makes a lot more sense when you understand,
2:06
Speaker 2: like my background and I usually, you know, I always
2:09
Speaker 2: say like I wish a back of a baseball card
2:12
Speaker 2: would reflect names of people that were part of your
2:16
Speaker 2: baseball journey versus stats, because it doesn't tell the full story.
2:21
Speaker 2: So my dad was from Belgium. My mom was from Guatemala.
2:25
Speaker 2: My mom being one of seven kids, I grew up
2:27
Speaker 2: in Guatemala City and she was incredibly intelligent. She was
2:32
Speaker 2: whip smart, and she had a high acuity for English.
2:36
Speaker 2: And there was a English professor in Guatemala City that
2:40
Speaker 2: saw some promise to my mom and said, hey, I'm
2:42
Speaker 2: going to send you to the States on an education
2:44
Speaker 2: visa and you're going to learn English and you come
2:46
Speaker 2: back to Guatemala and teach English to at a Guatemala
2:50
Speaker 2: elementary school. So she was about nineteen years old. She
2:54
Speaker 2: goes to Santa Barbara. There's Laquesta, which is a junior college,
2:58
Speaker 2: and it was you know, basically teaching English has a
3:00
Speaker 2: second language to you know, foreigners, and that's where my
3:03
Speaker 2: mom and dad met. And my mom never went back
3:07
Speaker 2: to Guatemala and she ended up helping all of her
3:10
Speaker 2: family come to the States and during that time frame,
3:13
Speaker 2: so I was born in nineteen seventy nine. Baseball in
3:17
Speaker 2: Southern California was. It was basically drawn together because of
3:22
Speaker 2: Fernando Vealezuela, So Fernando Menia in southern California, if you
3:27
Speaker 2: were a Dodger fan, or if you were Latino like baseball,
3:31
Speaker 2: and Fernando connected you to your people. And so my
3:35
Speaker 2: mom might like she just loved Fernando because here's somebody that's,
3:40
Speaker 2: you know, rookie of the year. They go and they
3:42
Speaker 2: win a World Series I think in nineteen eighty one.
3:44
Speaker 2: This guy's like doing things that nobody's done. And for
3:48
Speaker 2: like Latin Americans in southern California, Dodgers were a big deal.
3:53
Speaker 2: So my mom was the one that signed me up
3:55
Speaker 2: for baseball, for tea ball, and you can see kind
3:57
Speaker 2: of in the background of my office, I have a
4:00
Speaker 2: bobblehead of Fernando. I have a baseball signed by Fernando.
4:06
Speaker 2: And so my mom was the one that drove me
4:09
Speaker 2: towards sports. And my dad, being a single child from Belgium,
4:14
Speaker 2: like didn't know baseball at all, which actually was a
4:16
Speaker 2: huge benefit for me because he had no preconceived notions
4:21
Speaker 2: of how to teach me how to play baseball. So
4:24
Speaker 2: when I got signed up for t ball, I was
4:27
Speaker 2: immediately drawn to it. And then, of course, like southern
4:31
Speaker 2: California sports in the nineties, we had the Showtime Lakers,
4:34
Speaker 2: we had the Dodgers. Like it was a good time
4:36
Speaker 2: to be a kid where my love of sports was natural.
4:41
Speaker 2: Everybody wanted to play basketball at recess during baseball season.
4:45
Speaker 2: Everybody wanted to be a Dodger. My number on this
4:49
Speaker 2: West Side Boys and Girls Club and I think you
4:52
Speaker 2: can maybe see it. I have it in my collection
4:55
Speaker 2: back here, but it's a T shirt like this, it
4:58
Speaker 2: says West Side Boys and Girls Club, says Dodgers. And
5:01
Speaker 2: the first number I had was number three. Number three
5:04
Speaker 2: was Steve Sacks, So Steve Sachs was my favorite player.
5:09
Speaker 2: I was immediately drawn to collecting baseball cards. Long story short,
5:13
Speaker 2: like later on in life, I ended up doing radio
5:15
Speaker 2: with Steve Sacks as my co host. Like it's pretty
5:19
Speaker 2: incredible to think about the connections I had, Like for
5:23
Speaker 2: me growing up in Seana, Barbara and I ended up
5:26
Speaker 2: losing my mom in two thousand and nine, so she
5:28
Speaker 2: passed away, but my draw towards baseball was always connected
5:33
Speaker 2: with her love of the Dodgers. Because of Fernando, I
5:37
Speaker 2: had the voice of Vin Scully in my ears along
5:40
Speaker 2: with Don Drysdale. So like growing up in Seana Barbara,
5:44
Speaker 2: where the weather was always nice outside, I had a
5:46
Speaker 2: great group of friends that played baseball and played basketball
5:51
Speaker 2: and football on the streets. I was kind of drawn
5:55
Speaker 2: to playing a sport based on where I grew up.
5:59
Speaker 2: So my love of fair really reflects the opportunity my
6:02
Speaker 2: parents got being immigrants here in the United States. And
6:05
Speaker 2: then my mom's connection to the Dodgers fantastic.
6:09
Speaker 3: So you're from Santa Barbara. Originally you went to you
6:13
Speaker 3: see Santa Barbara? Is that correct? A lot of great
6:17
Speaker 3: ballplayers come in another Michael Young, Shane Bieber, guy pitching
6:21
Speaker 3: for the Cardinals right now, Michael mcgree is out of
6:23
Speaker 3: you See Santa Barbara. Yeah, so they're just cranking them out.
6:26
Speaker 3: What what was that experience? Like, you got to play
6:28
Speaker 3: college baseball in your backyard.
6:30
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's funny you say that when when I was,
6:34
Speaker 2: you know, growing up, I would go to these baseball
6:37
Speaker 2: camps and you see, Santa Barbara baseball camps was one
6:40
Speaker 2: of the ones that I would go to. And I
6:43
Speaker 2: was I say this time and time again, and I'm
6:46
Speaker 2: being honest, and how do you understand too. If I
6:49
Speaker 2: played on forty different teams from when I was a
6:51
Speaker 2: kid to professional baseball, I was maybe the best player
6:56
Speaker 2: on like ten of them. I know I was the
7:00
Speaker 2: worst on ten. I know I was the worst player
7:02
Speaker 2: on ten of the forty teams I played. And then
7:05
Speaker 2: I was somewhere in the middle for the rest of
7:07
Speaker 2: the time. Like I was not the best all the time.
7:12
Speaker 2: It just wasn't. And so I would go to these
7:15
Speaker 2: You see Santa Barbara camps as a kid in the summer.
7:19
Speaker 2: Bob Bronsman was a longtime head coach there, and so Bob,
7:25
Speaker 2: when I got older and I started playing better at
7:27
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara High School, and Santa Barbara High, by the way,
7:30
Speaker 2: has a crazy amount of famous people. From Ron Shelton,
7:34
Speaker 2: who wrote Bull Durham, you know, like you think about
7:38
Speaker 2: Charles schwab is from Santa Barbara. You know, Jamal Wilkes
7:41
Speaker 2: and Randall Cunningham, and we had Eddie Matthews, a Hall
7:44
Speaker 2: of Famer. So, like I'm not kidding, I know my
7:48
Speaker 2: history of sports based on my hometown because it helped
7:52
Speaker 2: create me. And so when I was in high school
7:56
Speaker 2: and as I got better and better, Bob Bronsmow came
7:58
Speaker 2: to our house and I was like, I really want
8:00
Speaker 2: Spilly because he's been I've trained him since when he
8:03
Speaker 2: was a kid too. He was actually I would coach
8:07
Speaker 2: with him in the in the summers as as an
8:11
Speaker 2: odd job. When I was in high school.
8:12
Speaker 3: You hadn't in.
8:13
Speaker 2: I had an in, and so he said, you know,
8:16
Speaker 2: we'd love to have your son play baseball you see
8:20
Speaker 2: Santa Barbara. And honestly, I didn't think much about it.
8:23
Speaker 2: I mean, like I didn't really think about college to
8:26
Speaker 2: that level. I had some opportunities to go to other
8:30
Speaker 2: schools Wichita State. There's a school Emory in Atlanta, because
8:36
Speaker 2: at that time I was pretty good in school and
8:38
Speaker 2: I was considering like going on on a degree to
8:43
Speaker 2: be a doctor, like I was actually interested in the
8:46
Speaker 2: medical field, you know, and so like I was looking
8:49
Speaker 2: at those schools, is going like, hey, this is a
8:51
Speaker 2: chance for a great education and play baseball. And then
8:55
Speaker 2: when UCSB came around, and I didn't really again, I
8:58
Speaker 2: didn't think about it other then like yeah, coach Bob,
9:02
Speaker 2: Bob wants me to come play baseball in my hometown,
9:04
Speaker 2: Like let's do it.
9:06
Speaker 3: How'd your mom feel about you? Going baseball over medicine.
9:10
Speaker 2: She didn't mind it because she knew I was good
9:11
Speaker 2: at it.
9:13
Speaker 3: I mean she was happy if she was a Fernando fan.
9:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she always knew. I mean I'd tell
9:19
Speaker 2: her all the time I was going to be a
9:20
Speaker 2: big leaguer and she always said, like, well, make sure
9:23
Speaker 2: you get your education first. So because that's I mean,
9:26
Speaker 2: my mom didn't get to where she was by through sports.
9:31
Speaker 2: She used her brain.
9:32
Speaker 1: So, Spillity, I love the theme that you established, which
9:35
Speaker 1: is the back of the baseball card and showing the
9:38
Speaker 1: appreciation for the people who helped you along the way,
9:40
Speaker 1: And it sounds like you've already named a handful of them.
9:43
Speaker 1: I would view my career the same way, like none
9:45
Speaker 1: of us can do this on our own. And I
9:48
Speaker 1: want to harken one other name that links us together.
9:51
Speaker 1: Bill guy Vett was a UCSB grad. He also was
9:54
Speaker 1: the assistant general manager of the Colorado Rockies at the
9:57
Speaker 1: time where you were cutting your teeth, and so too
10:00
Speaker 1: was I. And that's just another person that would be
10:02
Speaker 1: on the back of my baseball card as somebody who
10:05
Speaker 1: helped me along the way, who mentored me when when
10:08
Speaker 1: kindidly he didn't really have to, and he really invested
10:10
Speaker 1: time in me. I want to take you to a
10:12
Speaker 1: specific days, Billy. It's July sixteenth, two thousand and five.
10:17
Speaker 1: You get the call to the big leagues. You get
10:19
Speaker 1: to fulfill that promise you made to your mom, somebody
10:22
Speaker 1: who sounds like is maybe the most prominent person on
10:25
Speaker 1: the back of your baseball card. What was that day? Like,
10:28
Speaker 1: what do you remember about how that was communicated to
10:30
Speaker 1: you and the sites the sounds of the first day
10:33
Speaker 1: in the big leagues.
10:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell us how you hit five hundred?
10:36
Speaker 1: Yeah?
10:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So let me backtrack for a second,
10:40
Speaker 2: because I think it'll make way more sense when we
10:43
Speaker 2: get to the call up if I set up the
10:45
Speaker 2: story that got me there. So two thousand and two,
10:48
Speaker 2: I get drafted by the Rockies, of course, you know,
10:51
Speaker 2: like Gaucho and to your point, like Bill guy Vett
10:54
Speaker 2: and I heard about that story for a long time,
10:56
Speaker 2: you know, like people were screaming around. I think Glyn
10:58
Speaker 2: Hurdle was like, we got a Gaucho. So I know
11:01
Speaker 2: that Mike Gaucho connection tied me to the Rockies because
11:06
Speaker 2: of some of the people there. So in two thousand
11:09
Speaker 2: and three, when you sign your contract for like a
11:14
Speaker 2: college player. I also got college involved in my signing bonus.
11:18
Speaker 2: So I wanted to finish my degree, and I got
11:21
Speaker 2: my degree right behind me from UC Santa Barbara. It
11:24
Speaker 2: only took me seventeen years, but I got it eventually.
11:28
Speaker 2: I got it eventually because it took me forever to
11:30
Speaker 2: get this language requirement done. But in two thousand and three,
11:33
Speaker 2: I wanted to go back to school, but I wanted
11:35
Speaker 2: to go to a school not you see, Santa Barbara,
11:38
Speaker 2: because baseball season ended late, so UCSB starts like mid
11:43
Speaker 2: mid August, and I was looking for a school that
11:45
Speaker 2: finished late so I can finish the minor league season
11:48
Speaker 2: and then go to school. So I found one and
11:51
Speaker 2: it was Colorado University of Colorado and Buffalo in Boulder.
11:55
Speaker 2: So I signed up for a couple classes there. And
11:58
Speaker 2: when I moved out to Bolder, I called our strength
12:01
Speaker 2: and conditioning coach at the time, Brian Jordan, and I said, Hey, Brian,
12:05
Speaker 2: I'm in Boulder. Do you have any idea of where
12:08
Speaker 2: I can go work out? And he says, yeah, course field.
12:12
Speaker 2: I was like, but so I'm like a year removed
12:16
Speaker 2: from playing my first full season in the South Atlantic
12:19
Speaker 2: League with the Ashville Tourist, and I'm now working out
12:22
Speaker 2: at Course Field with Larry Walker. So every morning I would.
12:27
Speaker 3: Get nothing daunting about that.
12:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy. So every morning I get up,
12:32
Speaker 2: I would go work out and train at course Field
12:34
Speaker 2: with Larry and then in the afternoons I would go
12:37
Speaker 2: work at a steakhouse in Broomfield called the Village Tavern,
12:42
Speaker 2: where I was the worst waiter of all time, Like legit,
12:44
Speaker 2: the worst waiter of all time. But at the end
12:47
Speaker 2: of working out with Larry Walker, Larry who was really
12:51
Speaker 2: hard on me, like kind of just hazing a young player,
12:55
Speaker 2: you know, He's like, what are you doing here? You're
12:57
Speaker 2: minor league kid, and I was like, yeah, I know.
13:00
Speaker 2: But I was his great workout partner. And at the
13:02
Speaker 2: end of it, he brought me to the bathroom and
13:05
Speaker 2: he brought me some Larry Walker bats and they were
13:09
Speaker 2: thirty four and a half inches thirty two and a
13:11
Speaker 2: half ounce bat, which is heavy, especially for me. I
13:14
Speaker 2: was like at that time maybe one hundred and ninety
13:16
Speaker 2: two pounds, and I was getting a little bit stronger.
13:19
Speaker 2: So like the bat that I swung during my league
13:22
Speaker 2: season was always like a thirty three inch thirty ounce bat.
13:25
Speaker 2: So these are monster bats for me. And so it
13:28
Speaker 2: was these rawlings unfinished maple. I mean, these bats probably
13:33
Speaker 2: cost one hundred and fifty dollars a pop. And so
13:35
Speaker 2: he gave me two of them. So I cut these
13:39
Speaker 2: in my bat bag and I never used them. So
13:41
Speaker 2: the following year, I go to this California League. I'm
13:44
Speaker 2: part of the worst team in California League history. In
13:46
Speaker 2: the second half it was awful. We had the worst
13:49
Speaker 2: record of all time second half of Isalia Oaks. You
13:52
Speaker 2: can look it up. It still stands. And so the
13:55
Speaker 2: off season of two thousand and four, in a two
13:57
Speaker 2: thousand and five, I had to make some wholesale changes.
14:00
Speaker 2: I moved back to Sina Barbara. I started training with
14:03
Speaker 2: this guy named Marcus Elliott. Marcus Elliott is like the
14:07
Speaker 2: godfather of advanced pliometrics. There's a recent book that's out
14:13
Speaker 2: there that is following P three Peak Performance Project out
14:17
Speaker 2: a Scena Barbera, which is like re established how athletes
14:22
Speaker 2: trade that I was one of the guinea pigs for
14:25
Speaker 2: Marcus Elliott. And it wasn't because and it didn't happen
14:28
Speaker 2: without a teammate of mine from Siena Barbara. So anyways,
14:32
Speaker 2: at the end of that training session, I go to
14:36
Speaker 2: spring training and people thought I took steroids. Like legit,
14:41
Speaker 2: people thought I took steroids, which coined a phrase. There
14:43
Speaker 2: were these old T shirts from P three that says, no,
14:47
Speaker 2: I don't take steroids, but thanks for asking. That was
14:50
Speaker 2: our shirt. That was our phrase. So I get to
14:54
Speaker 2: spring training and at that time, I'm now two hundred
14:57
Speaker 2: and two pounds, but I am I am ripped, like
15:00
Speaker 2: I really put the time and effort, and I was
15:02
Speaker 2: doing different things that nobody else was doing at the time.
15:05
Speaker 2: And so all I was trying to do was make
15:08
Speaker 2: the Double A team in two thousand and five. That's it.
15:12
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to make Double A. If I knew
15:14
Speaker 2: if I went back to the California League, I'm going
15:16
Speaker 2: to get released. I'm done. I'm cooked. And by the way,
15:20
Speaker 2: there was only three players from the second half of
15:23
Speaker 2: the Vicelia Oaks team that made it through spring training.
15:26
Speaker 2: Everybody else was cut gone, could put. So I was
15:30
Speaker 2: correct in thinking if I went back to the California League,
15:32
Speaker 2: I'd stick around it I wouldn't have been here.
15:34
Speaker 3: So you figured out how to swing that bat that
15:36
Speaker 3: he gave you.
15:37
Speaker 2: Not yet, So I make the Double A team. And
15:41
Speaker 2: in the very first game of the Double A season,
15:45
Speaker 2: it is top prospect and left field, top prospect in centerfield,
15:48
Speaker 2: top prospect and right field. And then I'm a bench player.
15:52
Speaker 2: And in the very first game, Sean Barker, who was
15:54
Speaker 2: one of the top prospects, is running to first and
15:57
Speaker 2: pulls his hamstring and now I'm going to get a
16:00
Speaker 2: chance to play. And it was Sean Barker who goes, hey, Spilly,
16:05
Speaker 2: you need to start swinging that Larry Walker bat. And
16:08
Speaker 2: I was like what, And he was like, you can
16:10
Speaker 2: swing this bat. You're now strong enough. So I busted
16:13
Speaker 2: it out. I pulled out the thirty four and a
16:15
Speaker 2: half inch thirty two and a half ounce bat, and
16:19
Speaker 2: two and a half months later, I'm leading the Texas
16:22
Speaker 2: League in every offensive category swinging one bat. It never broke,
16:27
Speaker 2: never broke, that Larry Walker bat never broke. And so
16:31
Speaker 2: it actually hangs in my dad's in our house and
16:34
Speaker 2: seeing a barbera in a trophy case, and it's completely
16:38
Speaker 2: worn out. There's no Larry Walker name on it anymore.
16:41
Speaker 2: It looks like an antique bat. But that bat got
16:45
Speaker 2: me to Triple A, and I'm in Triple A for
16:48
Speaker 2: a week. It's now the very best prospect in the
16:51
Speaker 2: outfield in Chew Freeman, he's my teammate. We're there for
16:55
Speaker 2: a week, and Choos running to first base right before
16:57
Speaker 2: All Star break pulls is growing. Matt Holiday in the
17:01
Speaker 2: big leagues that night gets hit by a pitch boom
17:05
Speaker 2: down and who do you think it's the call? I
17:08
Speaker 2: get called to the big league swinging one bat, a
17:10
Speaker 2: Larry Walker bat, And it wouldn't have been It would
17:13
Speaker 2: never have happened if I wasn't encouraged by a teammate
17:16
Speaker 2: to go train with Marcus Elliott, if it wasn't for
17:18
Speaker 2: a teammate that got hurt and Sean Barker encouraging me
17:21
Speaker 2: to swing Larry Walker bat. All these things had to happen,
17:24
Speaker 2: and then I get to the big leagues and so that, yes,
17:27
Speaker 2: that story means the world to me because it shows
17:30
Speaker 2: you how many people had to help me to even
17:33
Speaker 2: get close.
17:34
Speaker 1: Wow, tremendous stuff here from Ryan. Stay with us through
17:37
Speaker 1: the break. We're going to continue the conversation about the
17:39
Speaker 1: playoff runt in two thousand and seven for the Colorado Rockies.
17:42
Speaker 1: We're going to dive into the trade deadline and we're
17:44
Speaker 1: also going to discuss the upcoming CBA negotiations here on
17:48
Speaker 1: rosters to rings. Just really a story of a magical
18:04
Speaker 1: bent which led to some tremendous opportunities for you, not
18:08
Speaker 1: the least of which is along the way you apparently
18:10
Speaker 1: had some voodoo where you got a fe you guys
18:12
Speaker 1: heard along the way, which was very helpful for you.
18:14
Speaker 1: But it does speak to the fact that we all
18:16
Speaker 1: need opportunities and then it's what you make of those opportunities,
18:19
Speaker 1: and you made the most of those situations. So take
18:22
Speaker 1: us now to July sixth, sixteenth, you get the call,
18:25
Speaker 1: who shares that information with you, and what goes on
18:29
Speaker 1: from that point forward.
18:30
Speaker 2: Yeah? Great, that's so. First off, I had no idea
18:34
Speaker 2: all these things were going to happen. And like I said,
18:37
Speaker 2: the bat got me to Triple A. And I'm in
18:39
Speaker 2: Triple A for about a week and so we are
18:44
Speaker 2: heading into All Star break and I need a sports code.
18:48
Speaker 2: So we are doing our first travel for Triple A
18:52
Speaker 2: and we when we fly commercial, which we didn't do
18:55
Speaker 2: in Double A. You don't fly commercial in Double A
18:58
Speaker 2: and certainly don't do it in the lower levels of
19:01
Speaker 2: the myor leagues. So this is my first triple A trip.
19:04
Speaker 2: This is my very first one. So my wife and
19:06
Speaker 2: I we drive down from Colorado Springs and we go
19:10
Speaker 2: to the Cherry Creek Mall and I go and buy
19:12
Speaker 2: a sports coat for my first triple A travel. So
19:15
Speaker 2: we come to the mall, we get a sports coat,
19:17
Speaker 2: and then I drive back. Well, when I get back
19:20
Speaker 2: to the parking lot in Colorado Springs, there's Marv Foley
19:25
Speaker 2: who that you should know Marv. Marvl was called the
19:28
Speaker 2: dance the Dancing Bear, just that he was a wonderful,
19:32
Speaker 2: wonderful manager through great batting practice and he actually helped
19:36
Speaker 2: me later on in that season to go play winter ball,
19:39
Speaker 2: which was really important for me. So anyways, the Dancing
19:42
Speaker 2: Bear is in the parking lot getting ready to take
19:45
Speaker 2: his family on vacation for the All Star break and
19:49
Speaker 2: he sees me and he was like, hey, spill, hey,
19:53
Speaker 2: you got to go back to Denver. And I was
19:55
Speaker 2: like why. He's like, you're you're going to the big leagues.
19:58
Speaker 2: This is happening in the parking lot. My call it
20:01
Speaker 2: story is in the parking lot. And so I got
20:04
Speaker 2: my sports coding. I was like what, and he was like, yeah,
20:07
Speaker 2: you're going to the big leagues, so you got to
20:08
Speaker 2: go meet the team. There's a workout tomorrow and you
20:10
Speaker 2: guys are going to Cincinnati. I was like, awesome, thanks Marv.
20:15
Speaker 2: And then he goes and guess what, I'll see you
20:16
Speaker 2: in a couple of days. So I knew I wasn't
20:18
Speaker 2: going to be there for very long. He basically told
20:21
Speaker 2: me I was going to be there for a short
20:22
Speaker 2: period of time.
20:23
Speaker 3: So not quite how they do a modern day in
20:25
Speaker 3: social media where they sit the guy down in the office,
20:28
Speaker 3: play a bunch of tricks on him, you know, and
20:29
Speaker 3: kind of build up the intensity you're getting yelled at
20:32
Speaker 3: across a parking lot.
20:33
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, in the parking lot, and the manager tells me,
20:36
Speaker 2: I'll see you in a couple of days. So I
20:38
Speaker 2: knew it wasn't long. I called my mom, I called
20:40
Speaker 2: my dad, I called my agent, Bill Shooper at the time,
20:44
Speaker 2: and they all flew out. They all made it to Cincinnati.
20:49
Speaker 2: That was a trade deadline too, where it was a
20:51
Speaker 2: little bit earlier back in the day in two thousand
20:54
Speaker 2: and five, and Eric Burns was just traded four for
20:56
Speaker 2: the Rockies, and he was awful as a Rocky, and
20:59
Speaker 2: then he and up going to Baltimore before resigning with
21:03
Speaker 2: the Arizona Diamondbacks. Otherwise, if Eric Burns had a good
21:06
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, he might have been a Rocky in
21:08
Speaker 2: an alternate universe. So I get I get there, and
21:12
Speaker 2: of course my agent and somebody that really helped me
21:15
Speaker 2: with my swing, Jim Lentin, and I have this funny video.
21:18
Speaker 2: I'll try to find it. It's basically like a VHS
21:21
Speaker 2: video of me during my first batting practice on the
21:25
Speaker 2: day that I'm going to start in Cincinnati, and I'm
21:28
Speaker 2: in the room. I'm like in the first group right,
21:31
Speaker 2: Like I'm in the like I'm in the lineup. So
21:34
Speaker 2: I'm in one of the first groups and Todd Helton's
21:36
Speaker 2: in my group, and I see the first round, Like
21:38
Speaker 2: the video is hilarious. It's me dropping a couple of
21:42
Speaker 2: buns and then I cannot get a ball out of
21:44
Speaker 2: the cage. Like the first seven pitches, I can't get
21:48
Speaker 2: the ball out of the cage. It's I'm literally hitting
21:50
Speaker 2: it straight up or straight into the corner. And you
21:52
Speaker 2: can see Todd Helton walking around with his bat and
21:55
Speaker 2: then he stops to talk, like you can see that
21:58
Speaker 2: I can't get the ball out of the cage. I
22:00
Speaker 2: see him talking to Dwayne Hespi, the hitting coach, and
22:04
Speaker 2: you could kind of go like, what the hell is
22:06
Speaker 2: this doing here? He can't even hit. Uh So it's
22:09
Speaker 2: it's a hilarious interlude between him and I later on
22:13
Speaker 2: in life, because I like I earned his respect over time.
22:18
Speaker 3: But yeah, times has he repeated that cage session to you?
22:21
Speaker 2: Oh God, think seven straight baseballs right into the cage,
22:27
Speaker 2: but I ended up going two for four.
22:29
Speaker 3: You know, you're more nervous in the cage, in the
22:32
Speaker 3: in the pregame than you were in your first at bat.
22:35
Speaker 2: I was far more nervous in the batting cage, you know,
22:39
Speaker 2: because my first time I'm showing, you know, showing guys,
22:42
Speaker 2: and they never saw me because I was never in
22:44
Speaker 2: big league spring training. I wasn't even on the roster,
22:47
Speaker 2: so nobody knew who the heck I was.
22:49
Speaker 3: You didn't even got to play with those guys barely.
22:51
Speaker 3: I mean, I've never played him.
22:52
Speaker 2: The first time I ever met any of the majority
22:56
Speaker 2: of those guys, because I mean I was in the
22:58
Speaker 2: lower levels of the minor leagues when they were higher up,
23:00
Speaker 2: so I caught up to him. But yeah, it was
23:02
Speaker 2: It was interesting that that day was crazy. My very
23:04
Speaker 2: first hit came off Todd Coffee, just hit a base hit,
23:10
Speaker 2: you know, infield, drawn in trying to put the ball
23:12
Speaker 2: in play. Got a base hit with Art with a steak,
23:15
Speaker 2: hit it right over Sean Casey on the right side
23:17
Speaker 2: of the infield, inside out swing, which I always had.
23:20
Speaker 2: And then I get to first and Sean Casey, the
23:22
Speaker 2: mayor is like, hey, man, that's a great hit. Congratulations
23:25
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh cool, you know base he
23:30
Speaker 2: was amazing, and like I'm running out to right field
23:33
Speaker 2: and Ken Griffy Junior, who is like I idolized. I
23:37
Speaker 2: had is had a poster of him robbing Luis Gonzalez
23:41
Speaker 2: in Detroit. That's the famous one where he's scaling the
23:45
Speaker 2: wall in center field. I had that and I see
23:47
Speaker 2: griff and I'm like running out to right field and
23:50
Speaker 2: I'm like hey Griff and he just like I balled,
23:53
Speaker 2: like who are you. I didn't know what I was doing,
23:55
Speaker 2: so yeah. Then I ended up with another hit later,
23:58
Speaker 2: and uh there's Sean. He says, man, you really can't
24:01
Speaker 2: hit I was like, yeah, that's right, and then I
24:03
Speaker 2: get off my VP. Yeah, that's why I never takes
24:10
Speaker 2: stocking to GIVVP, like anybody that takes good BP. I'm like,
24:14
Speaker 2: you're a you're a bad hitter.
24:16
Speaker 3: So two for four in your introduction, Yeah, hit five
24:22
Speaker 3: hundred right there.
24:23
Speaker 1: They put you on ice for the rest of the season.
24:25
Speaker 3: Did you kind of know that was going to happen?
24:27
Speaker 3: Like you get one game? Like what happens? Like how
24:29
Speaker 3: do you do They kind of tell you when you're
24:30
Speaker 3: going up, like, hey, you get this game and that's it.
24:32
Speaker 2: Like, no, I mean, you never know. And Matt Holiday
24:36
Speaker 2: pushed to get back, you know, he saw, you know,
24:39
Speaker 2: a Holiday guy hitting the finger and it was a
24:41
Speaker 2: seven I think it was seven day Ilston they counted,
24:44
Speaker 2: they retro retro died it from.
24:45
Speaker 1: The he didn't want to.
24:49
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure Matt knew that
24:51
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna wally pip them.
24:52
Speaker 3: It's a good thing that you didn't want to pip them,
24:56
Speaker 3: because there's there's a little bit of a Matt Holliday
25:00
Speaker 3: scene in this next question. But tell us about October.
25:04
Speaker 3: We're going to fast forward to two thousand and seven.
25:06
Speaker 3: Here real quick, okay, I remember this as a baseball
25:10
Speaker 3: fan watching this and being somewhat jealous because my teams
25:13
Speaker 3: had not had a ton of success up to this
25:15
Speaker 3: point and the Rockies were a somewhat new organization and
25:18
Speaker 3: already having this incredible run, and then being even more
25:22
Speaker 3: jealous when I saw the outcome of it. But tell
25:25
Speaker 3: us what that October run was like for you guys.
25:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I still get goosebumps thinking about it.
25:33
Speaker 2: You know, A lot of it goes way before that.
25:36
Speaker 2: I mean, we were starting to gain some momentum in
25:39
Speaker 2: two thousand and six. Towards the end of the season,
25:41
Speaker 2: we saw Troy tul let'ski make his debut. You had
25:45
Speaker 2: it into two thousand and seven, it was a fresher team.
25:48
Speaker 2: We had some guys that were starting to put up
25:49
Speaker 2: some numbers on the back of the baseball card. Holiday
25:52
Speaker 2: had like a breakout second half of the season. After
25:57
Speaker 2: a encounter with Mark McGuire so in Anaheim. Mike Diego,
26:03
Speaker 2: who was teammates with Mark McGuire and McGuire, lives in
26:07
Speaker 2: Newport Beach, so it wasn't far for him to drive
26:09
Speaker 2: down from Shady Canyon to come in and see us,
26:11
Speaker 2: and he had a hitting session, an early BP session
26:14
Speaker 2: with Matt Holliday and was kind of teaching Matt to
26:18
Speaker 2: like drive down through the baseball, which was counterintuitive to
26:21
Speaker 2: a lot of you know, power hitters. You're like, wait,
26:23
Speaker 2: what are you talking about? Like why would I try
26:25
Speaker 2: to hit the ball into the ground. It was to
26:27
Speaker 2: create backspin. And so Holidays swing at the end of
26:31
Speaker 2: six started getting really whippy and creating a ton of backspin,
26:38
Speaker 2: and we're like, oh crap, Like Holiday is going to
26:41
Speaker 2: be a stud. You know, we already knew he was good,
26:44
Speaker 2: so we knew Holiday was going to be like an
26:47
Speaker 2: amazing player. Garrett Atkins nearly hit three thirty with thirty
26:51
Speaker 2: in two thousand and six, so we had we had him.
26:53
Speaker 2: Brad Hopp was starting to play really well, and then
26:56
Speaker 2: we saw too low in that September in two thousand
26:59
Speaker 2: and seve that's where he makes the backhand jump throw
27:02
Speaker 2: across the infield at Dodger Stadium. We're in number fourteen.
27:05
Speaker 2: He wasn't number two. He was number fourteen when he
27:07
Speaker 2: first got to the Rocky. So we knew we were good.
27:10
Speaker 2: We knew we had talent, and so now it just
27:13
Speaker 2: was the point of putting it together. I started that
27:17
Speaker 2: year off of the minor leagues. I was on the
27:19
Speaker 2: team in two thousand and six for a lot of
27:21
Speaker 2: that time. I was really disappointed, but it was also
27:24
Speaker 2: the best thing that ever happened to me, was me
27:27
Speaker 2: beginning not for the team, like the team. This was
27:31
Speaker 2: one of those things like in hindsight down the road,
27:34
Speaker 2: I was really ticked off about not making the team
27:36
Speaker 2: out out of camp in O seven because I went
27:39
Speaker 2: down to the minor leagues. I got one hundred and
27:41
Speaker 2: fifty consecutive at bats. When I got to the big leagues,
27:45
Speaker 2: my timing was locked in, My confidence was through the roof,
27:49
Speaker 2: and when I hit the ground running in May, there
27:51
Speaker 2: was no way he could get me out. Like I
27:53
Speaker 2: just mentally knew I was good. And so if I
27:57
Speaker 2: would have started the season off on the bench, I
27:59
Speaker 2: probably would have burned out. I probably wouldn't have been
28:02
Speaker 2: able to put the bats together because I didn't get
28:04
Speaker 2: those one hundred and fifty bats to get me going. Well.
28:06
Speaker 3: We hear that a lot about young players too. I mean,
28:09
Speaker 3: you hear about it, and you know they get sent
28:10
Speaker 3: down to get the bats, and everybody always says that
28:12
Speaker 3: are they getting sent down to get at bets? Are
28:13
Speaker 3: they getting sent downs? They're not cutting it or they
28:15
Speaker 3: getting you know it, you're just validating that right now.
28:19
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, that's are important.
28:21
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it kept me short of arbitration by
28:25
Speaker 2: you know, forty five days, which kind of like at
28:27
Speaker 2: the end of the day, like it cost me some money,
28:29
Speaker 2: but it also but I mean like if I didn't
28:32
Speaker 2: do it, would I be sitting here, you know like that,
28:34
Speaker 2: so I look at it more. Dano Dabd in that
28:37
Speaker 2: front office group knew that it wasn't specific to me.
28:40
Speaker 2: It was just based on the roster construction. But in reality,
28:43
Speaker 2: those one hundred and fifty of bats really turned my
28:45
Speaker 2: career around because it got me probably my best year
28:49
Speaker 2: in the big leagues was two thousand and seven. So
28:51
Speaker 2: we knew as a group we were good and Tulo
28:55
Speaker 2: deserves a ton of credit for his care You have
29:01
Speaker 2: to have an edge guy, you have to have somebody
29:04
Speaker 2: that believes that you're gonna win every single night. We
29:07
Speaker 2: didn't have that for years with the Rockets. We had
29:09
Speaker 2: good players, we had good guys, but we were playing
29:12
Speaker 2: the game. We never until Tula really kind of established
29:17
Speaker 2: this mentality like, wait, why can't we kick the crap
29:20
Speaker 2: out of the Dodgers, Why can't we beat up the Giants?
29:23
Speaker 2: Why can't we take down the Yankees? Like what's stopping us?
29:26
Speaker 2: I've never lost in my life. And at first it
29:29
Speaker 2: was a joke. You're like, Tula, you're such an ear
29:32
Speaker 2: of moron, you know, like you're you're a dork for
29:35
Speaker 2: thinking you can just show up here to the big
29:37
Speaker 2: leagues and win. And then as we started.
29:39
Speaker 3: A little did you know you guys know that's a
29:41
Speaker 3: leadership quality to a degree that he was the leadership
29:45
Speaker 3: And I've talked a lot about that on this show.
29:46
Speaker 3: These hidden leadership qualities that people bring raised the entire
29:50
Speaker 3: team up.
29:51
Speaker 1: Yes, Billy, My view of it is like everybody wants
29:54
Speaker 1: to win, There's no doubt about it. It's having the
29:57
Speaker 1: guys on your team that hate to lose and just
30:00
Speaker 1: won't abide by losing. They raise the standards of excellence
30:04
Speaker 1: because they do not want to lose. It just tears
30:07
Speaker 1: them up inside. And for me in my career, and
30:09
Speaker 1: you know, these guys well like Ian Kinsler, Mike Napoli,
30:12
Speaker 1: Adrian Beltray, Michael Young, those guys hated to lose, Kolby
30:16
Speaker 1: Lewis on the pitching side, it's just vital to have
30:20
Speaker 1: that type of player, that player who has that edge
30:23
Speaker 1: that is just you know, and it tends to be
30:25
Speaker 1: the guys that the other team hates and that your
30:27
Speaker 1: team absolutely loves.
30:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we had and fortunately we had several of
30:33
Speaker 2: the guys the teams hated. You know, your victory Aalba
30:37
Speaker 2: same type of personality as too low and that he
30:41
Speaker 2: doesn't doesn't want to lose. I never wanted to lose.
30:45
Speaker 2: I hated losing. I love winning more than i'd like.
30:48
Speaker 2: I mean like I hated losing. So if there's a
30:51
Speaker 2: in my mind, I love to win more than I
30:54
Speaker 2: hate to lose.
30:55
Speaker 1: Well, you're extremely positive person. You're a glass have full guy,
31:00
Speaker 1: so like I think that's your expression of it. The
31:02
Speaker 1: guys who have a little bit of that edge, maybe
31:04
Speaker 1: I'd dare say we're a little bit glass half empty
31:06
Speaker 1: and kind of drove them to hating losing you or
31:08
Speaker 1: the glass half full version, which is you'd love to win.
31:11
Speaker 2: Yes. And so what ends up happening in two thousand
31:14
Speaker 2: and seven was we had this road trip we just
31:17
Speaker 2: and that you remember this series we had. We had
31:20
Speaker 2: a home stand where we swept the Yankees, and if
31:24
Speaker 2: you look at from like May until like mid July,
31:27
Speaker 2: we had the best record in the National League the
31:29
Speaker 2: Rockies did. Then we go on this road trip right
31:32
Speaker 2: before All Star break and we go one to nine
31:35
Speaker 2: on a ten game road trip. We get walked off
31:37
Speaker 2: four different times. Our closer are All Star closer, Brian Wentez.
31:42
Speaker 2: Tito gets announced to the All Star Game in Houston
31:47
Speaker 2: after another blown save in a game that Craig Bigio
31:51
Speaker 2: got his three thousandth hit, and they walked us off
31:55
Speaker 2: for the fourth time on one road trip, and Tito's
31:58
Speaker 2: and tears after that game because because he's going to
32:00
Speaker 2: be an All Star, but he was also told he's
32:02
Speaker 2: no longer the closer. So we went through this incredible
32:06
Speaker 2: high of beating the Yankees, taking a series in Boston earlier,
32:12
Speaker 2: and then we're getting ready for the All Star break
32:14
Speaker 2: and we go one and nine, one and nine on
32:17
Speaker 2: games that we should have won in four walkoffs, lose
32:20
Speaker 2: our All Star closers. He's getting downgraded, and so we
32:24
Speaker 2: kind of hit this wall. Then you go all the
32:26
Speaker 2: way into September, we start getting some call ops. We
32:29
Speaker 2: made no moves as far as the trade deadline because
32:31
Speaker 2: we cost ourselves with that terrible road trip. Mark Redman
32:35
Speaker 2: ends up being like the big name here. But we
32:38
Speaker 2: also didn't know that we had Franklin Morales in Manicorpus
32:42
Speaker 2: and Ubaldo, him Andez coming from the minor league system.
32:45
Speaker 2: Our minor league system was strong, and I've played with
32:47
Speaker 2: Ubaldo my whole life. Was my mom's favorite player. So
32:51
Speaker 2: I knew Balda was going to be good because I've
32:53
Speaker 2: watched him. But I had no idea what man Corpus
32:55
Speaker 2: was going to do, and I had no idea what
32:57
Speaker 2: Franklin Morales was going to do. Those guys turned around
32:59
Speaker 2: our back into the bullpen and.
33:02
Speaker 1: Spilly Quick quick quick shout out to Rolando Fernandez there
33:05
Speaker 1: who was overseeing the Latin American development and still there
33:08
Speaker 1: as an assistant GM but wonderful human being, exceptional talent evaluator,
33:13
Speaker 1: and during that era he really fed the team and
33:16
Speaker 1: compliment and all of you guys from the draft and
33:20
Speaker 1: really was a profound impact on that run for the
33:23
Speaker 1: Colorado Rockies.
33:25
Speaker 2: No question, I love Rolando. He was really important as
33:27
Speaker 2: far as even earlier in my career, establishing some of
33:30
Speaker 2: my habits as a as a defender, as an outfielder,
33:33
Speaker 2: taking that seriously, not just thinking about hitting, and working
33:36
Speaker 2: on my swing dri swings in the outfield in between pitches.
33:40
Speaker 2: So we get to September. September seventeenth is the second
33:43
Speaker 2: game of a doubleheader against the Dodgers, and you know,
33:47
Speaker 2: we win game one. We also knew on the schedule
33:51
Speaker 2: that we legit could not lose, like if we want
33:53
Speaker 2: to get to the postseason, we couldn't lose anymore. And
33:57
Speaker 2: so game two or playing the Doggers. We've already won
34:01
Speaker 2: the first game, but we're now facing Sito in the
34:04
Speaker 2: ninth inning, who we did not have a hit off
34:06
Speaker 2: Cito the entire season. It was September seventeenth, and so
34:11
Speaker 2: Matt Holiday right big sweat the new swing of Holiday
34:14
Speaker 2: base hit to right field, and that led us to
34:17
Speaker 2: Helton's walk off home run off Siteoe, which by far
34:21
Speaker 2: is my favorite moment in my entire career. It's not
34:23
Speaker 2: a moment for me. It was a moment of watching Todd,
34:27
Speaker 2: who he just loved for how hard he worked. It
34:30
Speaker 2: was always Todd in the Toddlers there was never it
34:33
Speaker 2: always felt like it was Todd and then the rest
34:36
Speaker 2: of his teammates. This time with this group, Todd, Todd
34:42
Speaker 2: was not the focal point for us anymore. Todd was
34:45
Speaker 2: just part of the team and that was a unique
34:48
Speaker 2: experience for him. And it's not degrading anything before, but
34:52
Speaker 2: the reality was Todd was not the driving factor of
34:56
Speaker 2: this offense. We had a too low We had a
34:58
Speaker 2: Matt Holliday who was going to be an hopeful. It
35:01
Speaker 2: was not Todd. Todd was like a complimentary piece who
35:04
Speaker 2: was a stud, but he meant the world to the
35:07
Speaker 2: fan base and he meant the world to us as teammates.
35:10
Speaker 2: His home run off Pichetoe spurred everything because after that night,
35:15
Speaker 2: when we got to the field, we knew we were
35:17
Speaker 2: gonna win. It was that we have completely transformed as
35:22
Speaker 2: a as a group to not thinking like we're gonna
35:25
Speaker 2: play a game tonight, hopefully we do well. To hell, no,
35:28
Speaker 2: we're winning tonight, like there's nothing stopping us from beating you.
35:32
Speaker 2: We're way better than you. We knew it as a group.
35:35
Speaker 2: We knew we were better than you. And so that
35:38
Speaker 2: team played for one another in a way that I've
35:40
Speaker 2: never experienced. Very few teams ever experienced this. Usually championship
35:44
Speaker 2: caliber teams that get to the World Series, they experience
35:47
Speaker 2: the things that you know what player says, I'm playing
35:50
Speaker 2: for one another or I'm just trying to do my job.
35:53
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to do too much. That's one hundred
35:55
Speaker 2: percent correct. It's also impossible to get twenty five or
35:59
Speaker 2: twenty six people to to buy into that.
36:01
Speaker 3: Now you don't have Yeah, you don't win twenty one
36:03
Speaker 3: out of twenty two down the stretch without having something
36:06
Speaker 3: special in the clubhouse to one degree.
36:07
Speaker 2: Or the other exactly.
36:09
Speaker 3: So you know, it's an incredible finish, Folks, stick around.
36:16
Speaker 3: We've got more coming with Spilly. We're gonna get to
36:20
Speaker 3: some of the details and maybe was Matt Holliday safe
36:23
Speaker 3: in that deciding game against the Padres and some trade
36:27
Speaker 3: deadline talk. We're gonna have him at add some of
36:30
Speaker 3: his thoughts to that when we come back on Rosters
36:33
Speaker 3: to Rings. Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. We've got
36:47
Speaker 3: Ryan Spilborg's Spilly with us today. Sphilly. You guys did
36:50
Speaker 3: a twenty one to twenty two run there to end
36:53
Speaker 3: that two thousand and seven season. Incredible finish this season
36:57
Speaker 3: did not guarantee you a playoff berth. You get to
37:00
Speaker 3: play in a one game playoff with the San Diego Padres.
37:03
Speaker 3: Winter advances, loser goes home. We all love that. Forty
37:08
Speaker 3: eight and a half thousand fans packed Corse Field for
37:12
Speaker 3: that one game playoffs. It's a four hour and forty
37:15
Speaker 3: minute Donnie Brook. Through thirteen innings, teams combined to use
37:19
Speaker 3: fifteen pitchers, score seventeen runs on thirty one hits. I
37:22
Speaker 3: don't know that sounds like a normal game, of course
37:24
Speaker 3: to me. But what was it like playing in that game?
37:27
Speaker 2: You know? Man? I mean leading up to it is
37:31
Speaker 2: really important because there was a set of circumstances that
37:35
Speaker 2: had to occur. We lose a Friday game, were playing
37:39
Speaker 2: the Diamondbacks over the weekend, and we had to sweep them,
37:43
Speaker 2: and if we swept them, we went in the division.
37:45
Speaker 2: If we lose a game, especially where the Padres were at,
37:49
Speaker 2: Padres had to win one game and the Diamondbacks had
37:52
Speaker 2: to win one game during this three game series and
37:54
Speaker 2: our season was over. That's like the math here. And
37:58
Speaker 2: so Saturday, it's a day game in Milwaukee. It's Milwaukee
38:03
Speaker 2: versus the Padres. The Padres are getting into the ninth inning.
38:06
Speaker 2: Trevor Hoffman is getting ready to come out to close
38:09
Speaker 2: this game for the Padres. On Saturday, we had an
38:12
Speaker 2: evening game, and so all the media members are in
38:15
Speaker 2: the Rockies clubhouse because the Padres are about to win.
38:18
Speaker 2: We lost to the Diamondbacks on Friday night, so Diamondbacks
38:21
Speaker 2: are in now. If the Padres win this game, our
38:25
Speaker 2: season's over. So all these media members are in. They're
38:29
Speaker 2: waiting for this funeral to occur. They're waiting to, you know,
38:32
Speaker 2: like it's basically a bunch of vultures getting ready to
38:35
Speaker 2: interview the players that your season's over, right, yep.
38:38
Speaker 3: One hundred and sixty two, and this one game will
38:40
Speaker 3: decide it.
38:41
Speaker 2: Type out. So here comes Trevor Hoffman. Two outs, I
38:45
Speaker 2: think there's a runner on first, and Tony Gwynn Junior,
38:48
Speaker 2: who you can make the argument had the biggest hit
38:50
Speaker 2: in Rockies franchise history. He ends up hitting a triple
38:54
Speaker 2: off Trevor Hoffman, who by the way, was his babysitter
38:58
Speaker 2: when he was younger, because Tony Gwynn would have Hoffman
39:02
Speaker 2: babysit Tony gwyn Junior. Uh, And so Tony gwyn Junior
39:07
Speaker 2: hits his triple ties the game. We literally when that
39:11
Speaker 2: triple occurred and the game got tied, we kicked all
39:15
Speaker 2: the media members out. We told them to get the
39:17
Speaker 2: hell out of the clubhouse. We literally kicked them all out.
39:20
Speaker 2: We're like, get out, yeah, so uh we remove them.
39:27
Speaker 2: They leave. The Padres end up losing that game. There
39:31
Speaker 2: was ice in everything in Milwaukee's clubhouse ready for the celebration. Uh,
39:36
Speaker 2: they get walked off, so now we win. Saturday night,
39:40
Speaker 2: we headed into Sunday and uh, now we're playing the
39:43
Speaker 2: Diamondbacks again, and the Padres ended up getting boat raced
39:48
Speaker 2: on Sunday, and we boat raced the Diamondbacks and every
39:51
Speaker 2: time we'd hear the score change, you know, and the
39:55
Speaker 2: Brewers would score more runs in the Padres. The crowd
39:58
Speaker 2: on Sunday was just unbelo leevable, like just going nuts.
40:02
Speaker 2: So you see our reaction Sunday, like we're going nuts.
40:05
Speaker 2: We're going into we don't know what the heck's gonna happen,
40:08
Speaker 2: but we know something's happening. Well, that night, there was
40:11
Speaker 2: a coin flip and Paul Eagan's, who's the traveling secretary
40:15
Speaker 2: for the Rockies. He's been around forever. Uh, he got
40:17
Speaker 2: into baseball because of Hank Aaron in Atlanta. Like, get
40:21
Speaker 2: this guy's great baseball.
40:23
Speaker 1: One of the finest human beings I've ever been around
40:25
Speaker 1: in my life.
40:26
Speaker 2: You'll ever meet. Ye. They ask Paul heads or tails?
40:30
Speaker 2: He picks heads in lands heads. Rockies get the home
40:35
Speaker 2: field advantage. Wow, Audrey's have to go scientific. Audrey's have
40:39
Speaker 2: to come to Colorado now because the game would have
40:43
Speaker 2: been totally different if we had to fly to San Diego.
40:47
Speaker 2: We're about to take on Jake Peavy, who wins he
40:50
Speaker 2: was like, I think he wins the cy Young that year,
40:52
Speaker 2: or it might have been Brandon Webb that won the
40:53
Speaker 2: cy Young that year. He was it was peak Jake Peavy.
40:59
Speaker 2: And so we play this game. And if this game
41:02
Speaker 2: was between the Yankees and the Red Sox, it might
41:05
Speaker 2: go down as one of the greatest games in the
41:07
Speaker 2: history of baseball. Instead it's it's the Rockies and the Padres.
41:12
Speaker 2: And regardless of how you think of this game, the swings,
41:16
Speaker 2: the win probabilities and like all these things are epic.
41:21
Speaker 2: And did Matt Holliday touch on plate? Of course he did.
41:24
Speaker 2: But also if you think about it like Michael.
41:28
Speaker 3: Barrett was the I was gonna say, there's a there's
41:31
Speaker 3: a little holiday.
41:32
Speaker 2: Could have killed Michael.
41:34
Speaker 3: If you wanted to at least broke in his hand.
41:36
Speaker 3: He could have broke every on his hand.
41:39
Speaker 2: He could have broke everything his body.
41:41
Speaker 3: Blocking the plate in a special way there. I actually
41:44
Speaker 3: went and rewatched that as we were going to talk
41:46
Speaker 3: to you about this today, and I couldn't believe I
41:49
Speaker 3: remember it happening. I do remember this kind of the
41:51
Speaker 3: fallout from this. I don't remember the exact play. And
41:55
Speaker 3: when they replay it, I mean he reaches his hand
41:58
Speaker 3: up of the plate and Barrett just steps on it
42:00
Speaker 3: with his cleat. It was crazy. I was like, well,
42:02
Speaker 3: I guess back then you did what you had to
42:04
Speaker 3: do to keep the guy from scoring. Now we got
42:07
Speaker 3: rules around that.
42:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Barrett never actually if you go back, like Michael,
42:11
Speaker 2: Barrett never actually secured the baseball. So even if people
42:14
Speaker 2: are like I was out, No, he never even had
42:17
Speaker 2: the baseball. The baseball was like ten feet behind him.
42:19
Speaker 1: It was one of the I think, Spilly, I concur
42:22
Speaker 1: with you. It's an iconic game of my lifetime, let
42:26
Speaker 1: alone my career. Like I remember so many details, and honestly,
42:30
Speaker 1: I had left the franchise the year before that, and
42:33
Speaker 1: it's amazing. This is the tail end of our conversation
42:36
Speaker 1: about Colorado, so I just want to weave a few
42:39
Speaker 1: names together. So when I first joined the Colorado Rockies,
42:42
Speaker 1: I stayed on Paul Again's couch because he magnanimously allowed
42:46
Speaker 1: me to live there for a couple of months. When
42:48
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford an apartment. I had an opportunity in
42:53
Speaker 1: Yankee Stadium take batting practice. Clint Hurdle insisted that I
42:57
Speaker 1: do it. He called me Feinstein at that point because
42:59
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he knew my last name. He just
43:01
Speaker 1: knew it was something that sounded Jewish, and I took
43:04
Speaker 1: a batting practice in a group with Chew Freeman, who
43:07
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier. Prior to taking batting practice, I was
43:11
Speaker 1: in the outfield shagging Larry Walker, who you mentioned was
43:14
Speaker 1: on rehabit Simon. He was taking VP. I ranged back
43:18
Speaker 1: to catch one of his first flyballs. It landed in
43:20
Speaker 1: the second deck in a Yankee Stadium and Tom Probes
43:23
Speaker 1: to the the TP longtime trainersaid nice read on that
43:28
Speaker 1: one I took batting practice with I'm sure you're going
43:31
Speaker 1: to remember Preston Wilson. He hitted me his bat. It
43:35
Speaker 1: was literally, I think a forty eight inch like forty
43:38
Speaker 1: five ounce bat. It was like the heaviest thing I've
43:40
Speaker 1: ever held in my arms. I was sweating as if
43:43
Speaker 1: I had malaria. I was so excited, shins were sweating.
43:47
Speaker 1: First five balls I hit into the right side of
43:49
Speaker 1: the cage, just as you mentioned, I rifled one into
43:52
Speaker 1: like the left center gap that if anyone fell over,
43:54
Speaker 1: it would have been a double. All my friends really, so,
43:56
Speaker 1: how many balls did you hit out of Yankee Stadium?
43:58
Speaker 1: I was like, are you out of your mind? I'm
44:00
Speaker 1: a front office guy, not a baseball player, but it's
44:03
Speaker 1: amazing that the names you bring up. I want to
44:05
Speaker 1: shift to we promised the listeners where you talk about
44:09
Speaker 1: the trade deadline, and I want to segue into that
44:11
Speaker 1: spilly by saying, one of the things that is so
44:14
Speaker 1: unique about you is your mind. You know, we've talked
44:18
Speaker 1: a lot about your attributes on the field, your contributions
44:20
Speaker 1: to the team, but ever since I've ever gotten to
44:23
Speaker 1: know you, I've talked to you about the depth of
44:26
Speaker 1: your curiosity. I'll say about how front offices work, how
44:30
Speaker 1: drafts work, trade deadlines, the building, the culture of franchise.
44:35
Speaker 1: When did that start with you? When did you start
44:37
Speaker 1: honing those GM skills? It surely wasn't when your career stopped.
44:40
Speaker 1: It must have been something you were thinking about throughout
44:42
Speaker 1: your whole career.
44:44
Speaker 2: Uh me, Well, first off, I appreciate you saying that,
44:49
Speaker 2: I've always been somebody that loves to see how things
44:52
Speaker 2: get put together. I mean like legos, you know, like
44:56
Speaker 2: a puzzle, all that stuff. I love seeing how things
45:00
Speaker 2: get made. Like i'd be great out a sausage factory.
45:03
Speaker 2: I'd love to see that. And so, like, I'm just
45:07
Speaker 2: curious by nature, and I do love I love the complexities.
45:12
Speaker 2: Because when I went to UC Santa Barbara after I
45:16
Speaker 2: you know, I was on my way towards a medical
45:18
Speaker 2: degree until I didn't do so hot in a chemistry class.
45:22
Speaker 2: And you know, I got ticked off a one time,
45:25
Speaker 2: like because I was being taught on a bell curve
45:27
Speaker 2: and I got a ninety five out of one hundred
45:29
Speaker 2: and I got a B. And I'm like, what the hell,
45:31
Speaker 2: that's not how it works. I got a ninety five
45:34
Speaker 2: out of hundred. That's that's an A, They're like, no,
45:36
Speaker 2: bell curve, Bell curve that five percent? They all got
45:39
Speaker 2: ninety five and above. They're n they're the geniuses. And
45:42
Speaker 2: so like I was like, all right, well, this medical
45:43
Speaker 2: thing is maybe not could be my favorite thing. So
45:46
Speaker 2: sociology and psychology took out to me. And so I
45:49
Speaker 2: was always interested in how groups and leadership and all
45:53
Speaker 2: this stuff works. Like I just cared and being in
45:56
Speaker 2: a team environment, it is always like me think about, well,
46:00
Speaker 2: what ingredients do you have to put together to create
46:04
Speaker 2: a winner? Because I've been a part of around some
46:06
Speaker 2: great winning teams at UCSB and Double A with the
46:10
Speaker 2: Rockies and with the Rockies in two thousand and seven
46:12
Speaker 2: the big leagues, I've been part of some championship caliber teams,
46:16
Speaker 2: and so I've always been curious, like, well, how do
46:18
Speaker 2: teams get put together? What do I have to look at?
46:22
Speaker 2: You know? And so that's where it started. Was understanding
46:26
Speaker 2: how to put a group of people together has always
46:30
Speaker 2: piqued my interest. And so you know, I never played
46:33
Speaker 2: fantasy baseball. I did some fantasy football, but my understanding
46:39
Speaker 2: of the game really boiled down to conversations that I had,
46:42
Speaker 2: and to be honest, I spent a lot of time
46:44
Speaker 2: with dan O Dowd in the off season when I
46:47
Speaker 2: was working out at Corsfield. I would go up there.
46:50
Speaker 2: He'd show me the board, show me the depth chart,
46:52
Speaker 2: show me the players that they're interested players for acquisition.
46:56
Speaker 2: I started understanding a little bit more and more what
46:58
Speaker 2: options meant. I'm trying to understand service time, service time manipulation,
47:03
Speaker 2: like everything like from free agency, what type of players
47:06
Speaker 2: are you looking for to the cost of making a trade,
47:10
Speaker 2: so all those things, like I wanted to be bombarded
47:13
Speaker 2: to understand it so I could have a better understanding
47:16
Speaker 2: of why my teammates are who they are, Like why
47:19
Speaker 2: do we have this guy here? You know, like if
47:22
Speaker 2: you're trying to put the puzzle together, you need to
47:24
Speaker 2: know how these pieces work. And sometimes I felt like,
47:28
Speaker 2: I don't think the front office knows how these puzzle
47:30
Speaker 2: pieces are fitting, because they don't. This puzzle piece doesn't
47:33
Speaker 2: work here, this one does. Why did you take this
47:36
Speaker 2: one away? It's from the wrong puzzle box. So that's
47:39
Speaker 2: where I really started to see it. And of course
47:41
Speaker 2: I had some very smart teammates. Cory Sullivan and I
47:44
Speaker 2: talk about this stuff all the time, So that's how
47:47
Speaker 2: it started. I mean, I've always been curious by nature,
47:51
Speaker 2: but then I've had some people in my corner kind
47:55
Speaker 2: of give me some mentorship as far as what they
47:58
Speaker 2: think and and then bounce it off what I think.
48:03
Speaker 1: So, Spilly, I think what you have illuminated there is
48:07
Speaker 1: going to be a perfect segue into the perspective you
48:10
Speaker 1: can offer on some of these trades that just pundits
48:13
Speaker 1: don't know. I think teams have gotten so much more
48:17
Speaker 1: sophisticated as to how we're valuing players, how we're making
48:20
Speaker 1: these decisions. But I do always think that missing piece
48:23
Speaker 1: is how does it actually impact the clubhouse. John Hart,
48:27
Speaker 1: who is a longtime partner of DWD dan O Daoud,
48:30
Speaker 1: who is definitely on the back of my baseball card
48:32
Speaker 1: in terms of mentors who've impacted me. Sounds like he
48:35
Speaker 1: sits on your card as well. Spilly always said to us, Hey,
48:39
Speaker 1: if the team has done it's part, which is defined
48:41
Speaker 1: as if they're in playoff contention, then the front office
48:44
Speaker 1: needs to do it's part of the trading deadline and
48:46
Speaker 1: do something to help the team. But that's something has
48:50
Speaker 1: to be substantive, right, It can't just be superficial. So
48:54
Speaker 1: I would love to just get your perspective on John
48:56
Speaker 1: Hurt's view there of what was the player's perspective the
49:00
Speaker 1: trade deadline when you guys are in it, what is
49:02
Speaker 1: your expectation of what the front office will do. I
49:04
Speaker 1: know we tell you, hey, focus on that night's responsibilities
49:08
Speaker 1: of winning the game, but you guys have to be
49:10
Speaker 1: talking about, hey, what are they doing upstairs to help
49:12
Speaker 1: this team win?
49:13
Speaker 2: Now? Yeah, So our experience with the trade deadline with
49:17
Speaker 2: the Rockies has been frustrating. Like that's the easiest way
49:21
Speaker 2: to put is is we have seen other organizations like
49:25
Speaker 2: the Dodgers and the Padres and the Giants, especially within
49:28
Speaker 2: our division, the Diamondbacks, I mean Diamondbacks have gone and
49:32
Speaker 2: signed big name free agents and stuff like that, and
49:35
Speaker 2: the Rockies generally don't trade deadline like the Rockies over
49:40
Speaker 2: time were very passive. Even if I go back to
49:43
Speaker 2: like I mentioned in two thousand and seven, you know,
49:46
Speaker 2: the big the big deal we got was for Mark Redman,
49:50
Speaker 2: and I believe he was a waiver claim. So you
49:53
Speaker 2: know when and I remember talking to Dan in the
49:56
Speaker 2: off season after seven and Ladroit Hawk moved on, and
50:01
Speaker 2: I think Matt Kurges, who is another glue guy. And
50:04
Speaker 2: eventually Jamie Carroll moved on and I was asking, I
50:08
Speaker 2: was like, how did you guys come up with letting
50:10
Speaker 2: LaTroy walk away? You know, like why didn't you guys
50:13
Speaker 2: bring him back? This guy meant the world to us,
50:16
Speaker 2: you know, And if you look at Latroy's career, I
50:19
Speaker 2: think he's played for thirteen different teams, Like LaTroy Hawkins
50:22
Speaker 2: should be in the Hall of Fame for being one
50:24
Speaker 2: of the best humans of all time. He's now part
50:27
Speaker 2: of the coaching staff for the Minnesota Twins. So there's
50:31
Speaker 2: been failures in my experience. And I also spent some
50:34
Speaker 2: time in the Guardians or Indians organization, so I got
50:37
Speaker 2: to meet some of the disciples of John Hart, from
50:41
Speaker 2: chrisy Antonetti to Mark Shapiro, Ross Atkins. I mean, there's
50:45
Speaker 2: a bunch of people that John Hart has impacted, not
50:49
Speaker 2: only dan O Dowd. I mean the dan O Dowtree
50:52
Speaker 2: goes to John Hart, and John Hart is like literally
50:54
Speaker 2: the biggest tree you can imagine in baseball, like the
50:58
Speaker 2: John Hart Tree is. It's crazy. It is like.
51:01
Speaker 1: Michael on the show we talked about like he in
51:03
Speaker 1: my opinion, if legacy matters John Hartship be in the
51:06
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame. Yes, those Cleveland and the Cleveland Indians
51:09
Speaker 1: teams that he was the GM of did exceptionally well.
51:13
Speaker 1: I never won a World Series, but his his legacy
51:16
Speaker 1: tree is as robust as anybody ever to have worked
51:20
Speaker 1: in the game.
51:20
Speaker 2: No question. Like I joke, what was it, I'm trying
51:25
Speaker 2: to remember George Seaffert with the forty nine ers. I
51:30
Speaker 2: think it was George Seaffert had this tree that it
51:32
Speaker 2: ended up being like like a hundred different head coaches.
51:36
Speaker 1: Bill Walsh tree was Bill Wallstree.
51:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that was John hart So yeah. I mean.
51:40
Speaker 2: The thing is is when it when it comes to
51:42
Speaker 2: trade acquisition for a team at this time frame, every player,
51:47
Speaker 2: every organization wants to feel like they're adding. You're you're
51:50
Speaker 2: adding now. I will point and say, like Bryce Harper
51:55
Speaker 2: when he was asked a week ago, like hey, what
51:57
Speaker 2: do you guys want, He's like, I want a pitcher
51:59
Speaker 2: and I want to know arm, right, I want some
52:01
Speaker 2: bats and want some arms you got. There's a fine
52:04
Speaker 2: line from when players start asking for stuff that it
52:07
Speaker 2: could be detrimental to the team. And the reason why
52:10
Speaker 2: is when you have a group of players. If I'm
52:14
Speaker 2: trying to upgrade the player, that means that my teammate's
52:17
Speaker 2: not good enough to win. Okay, Like that means that
52:21
Speaker 2: you're not good I'm looking for a new guy, right
52:23
Speaker 2: like I'm looking for a new second basement. Well that
52:25
Speaker 2: you're my second basement. That means I don't think you're
52:27
Speaker 2: good enough. And so you have to make sure from
52:31
Speaker 2: a players standpoint, like we have this desire to win,
52:37
Speaker 2: and in order to win, you have to have good players.
52:39
Speaker 2: You really do, uh and and so the trade deadline
52:44
Speaker 2: is this interesting period where a front office can empower
52:48
Speaker 2: a group by bringing somebody that they needed. And like,
52:53
Speaker 2: it's always obvious if there's a if there's a deficiency,
52:56
Speaker 2: you know, if if it's a catcher deficiency or if
52:58
Speaker 2: it's a reliever deficiency, Like it's pretty obvious what you need.
53:02
Speaker 2: So that the players don't have to go out there
53:04
Speaker 2: and say it. But we want the front office to
53:08
Speaker 2: recognize what we're missing and then get us that we
53:12
Speaker 2: need that. Get us that back end reliever, that lefty,
53:16
Speaker 2: nasty guy, get us one more starter that pairs with
53:20
Speaker 2: what we already have. So that's that's how players think
53:23
Speaker 2: about this timeframe. And then I also now see it
53:26
Speaker 2: from a front office perspective, like I really wanted Matt Arnold,
53:31
Speaker 2: who's a gaucho and the Milwaukee Brewers to Land Trek
53:35
Speaker 2: School that I found it really disappointing that the Dodgers
53:40
Speaker 2: got him. Not because I didn't think the Dodgers should
53:42
Speaker 2: go get him. They're the Dodgers are trying to get
53:44
Speaker 2: the third straight World series. This is unprecedented territory. It
53:47
Speaker 2: is basically, it's what is it. It's the A's in
53:51
Speaker 2: the seventies and the Yankees in the nineties. That's it.
53:54
Speaker 2: When we talk to them, talk about three World Series
53:56
Speaker 2: in a row. So I have no issue with the
53:59
Speaker 2: Dodgers saying, you know what, Scooble's the best available player.
54:02
Speaker 2: We're gonna get this guy. My disappointment with the Brewers was,
54:07
Speaker 2: and I've talked to Matt Arnold about this, the cost
54:09
Speaker 2: of acquisition for a rental player and understanding that if
54:15
Speaker 2: you're having to give up a Luis Lara who is
54:17
Speaker 2: a young twenty year old kid that they signed to
54:20
Speaker 2: a multi year contract already, like a pre arm deal,
54:24
Speaker 2: or a Cooper Pratt or you know, a Logan Henderson
54:28
Speaker 2: or you know somebody that they have long term views
54:31
Speaker 2: of to land Scooble if that's what the Dodgers or
54:34
Speaker 2: if that's what the Tigers were asking for in return. Man,
54:38
Speaker 2: that's really hard to do if you're an organization like
54:41
Speaker 2: Milwaukee that's not the biggest market, and this is kind
54:44
Speaker 2: of how they do and operate things. You know, they
54:47
Speaker 2: live within their means. That's the way that I look
54:49
Speaker 2: at it. But the disappointment is you could have had
54:52
Speaker 2: a Scooball on a Miserowski in a season where this
54:57
Speaker 2: would remind us of Kurt Shilling Randy Johnson in two
54:59
Speaker 2: thousand and one, you know, like two monsters that could
55:03
Speaker 2: help you win any series. Uh, this is a shot
55:06
Speaker 2: across the ball to the Dodgers, Like, hey, Brewers, we're
55:08
Speaker 2: right there with you. Let's go. And like there are
55:12
Speaker 2: times where that risk of acquisition you got to throw
55:18
Speaker 2: it out the window and you do have to just
55:21
Speaker 2: eat it. There's gonna be a meal or two where
55:24
Speaker 2: it's gonna cost you and it's gonna lead to a
55:26
Speaker 2: large credit card bill that's gonna take you a long
55:28
Speaker 2: time to pay that thing off. But you're you're gonna
55:31
Speaker 2: be way more happy that you paid for that because
55:35
Speaker 2: you had that meal, versus saying like, eh, I'm glad
55:38
Speaker 2: we save that money. And that's what I think is
55:40
Speaker 2: gonna happen to the Brewers when it's all said and done,
55:42
Speaker 2: and I hope they end up winning a World Series
55:44
Speaker 2: just to prove Baseball wrong. But I understand how difficult
55:49
Speaker 2: a decision like that is to make when you have
55:53
Speaker 2: players that you that are part of your future that
55:56
Speaker 2: you have to move on for for three months of
56:00
Speaker 2: of a what if. And that makes a lot of sense.
56:02
Speaker 2: I understand the risk model there.
56:04
Speaker 3: Okay, Spilly, you started it, So I'm gonna delve into
56:07
Speaker 3: this a little bit more here. So Schooble is traded
56:11
Speaker 3: the Tigers. You know, I ended up being sellers as
56:15
Speaker 3: a fan. I was holding out some hope. Maybe we'd
56:18
Speaker 3: buy a little, maybe we'd sell a little, maybe we'd
56:21
Speaker 3: try to thread the needle. As everybody says, a five
56:23
Speaker 3: and a half games out of first in the ALE Central,
56:25
Speaker 3: two and a half games out of an AL wild card.
56:27
Speaker 3: They're thirty two and twenty since June first. They had
56:29
Speaker 3: an awful May destroyed their season, but their second best
56:33
Speaker 3: in the AL since the first of June. Second best
56:36
Speaker 3: run differential in the AL currently four games under five hundred.
56:39
Speaker 3: Run differential aligns with like a record that'll be fourteen
56:42
Speaker 3: games over five hundred, So they're terribly unlucky thus far.
56:46
Speaker 3: If your player on that Tiger team, what would your
56:49
Speaker 3: reaction be to trading Schoobull at this juncture?
56:52
Speaker 2: Uh? First off, it stinks, but it also makes sense.
56:58
Speaker 2: The reason why it makes sense is school went through
57:00
Speaker 2: a surgery that we've never seen before, the nanoscope. Like that,
57:06
Speaker 2: you know this, like, you only have so many opportunities
57:09
Speaker 2: to take a player and if you're not performing at
57:11
Speaker 2: a high level, to take that player in arbitrage for
57:14
Speaker 2: something else. I mean, like that's exactly what happened, and
57:18
Speaker 2: you dodged a bullet with the nanoscope. You were able
57:21
Speaker 2: to get Scooble back very easily. That could have been
57:24
Speaker 2: a season ending injury and he's headed into the off
57:27
Speaker 2: season and good luck. It might might have made it
57:31
Speaker 2: a little bit easier to sign him as a free
57:33
Speaker 2: agent if he lost the full season but ends up
57:36
Speaker 2: in the surgery. And as soon as that happened, I
57:39
Speaker 2: even said it on radio, this probably changes the likelihood
57:43
Speaker 2: of Scooble getting traded because you don't want to run
57:45
Speaker 2: the risk of not getting value for a player that
57:48
Speaker 2: already got hurt. So it felt like, hey, we almost
57:53
Speaker 2: lost him, now we got him back. Let's see how
57:57
Speaker 2: much of a run we could go on. And then
57:59
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, we're gonna probably have
58:00
Speaker 2: to move them because we can get three or four
58:02
Speaker 2: players in return versus one compensation pick. That's how the
58:06
Speaker 2: calculus ends up working out.
58:08
Speaker 3: So that's it, I mean, And that's really I think
58:09
Speaker 3: you're agreeing with Spencer Torkles, And he made the same
58:12
Speaker 3: comment almost a very very similar comment that was kind
58:15
Speaker 3: of like they had to get something for him. They
58:16
Speaker 3: weren't going to resign them. That's right, you know, So
58:19
Speaker 3: can't let the sun set on the guy.
58:20
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't mean that they're not they don't have
58:22
Speaker 2: a chance to resign him. I think Scuball very much
58:25
Speaker 2: has a chance to resign with Detroit, especially with Chris
58:27
Speaker 2: ilic and this family that you know, they're they're trying
58:31
Speaker 2: to live up to Mike Kilich. You know, Mikekillach poured
58:33
Speaker 2: everything into Detroit. Oh yeah, we know, Like Detroit has
58:38
Speaker 2: truly gone through a renaissance from the town. I mean,
58:40
Speaker 2: you go downtown Detroit, I love it. It's one of
58:44
Speaker 2: my favorite places in baseball to go to. It's great restaurants.
58:47
Speaker 2: I mean there's Gucci, there's lu Lemon like everything. There's cranes,
58:50
Speaker 2: there's new hotels, Shinola watches. If you get a chance,
58:53
Speaker 2: like that's an American maid watching.
58:55
Speaker 3: Detroit and all about it. You're singing my song right now.
58:59
Speaker 3: I bet you wouldn't have had that take twenty five
59:01
Speaker 3: years ago.
59:02
Speaker 2: If you're no, I would be for some And that's
59:06
Speaker 2: that's the point is, like, I think players are more
59:09
Speaker 2: than capable of recognizing when a front office has to
59:13
Speaker 2: make a decision. We get it. Uh, Like we are
59:18
Speaker 2: Baseball players are dumb to begin with, Like don't there's
59:22
Speaker 2: a handful of guys that are smart. Their majority of
59:25
Speaker 2: them are dumb, and they're they're not like dumb dumb,
59:27
Speaker 2: they're just like they don't realize all the things outside.
59:31
Speaker 3: We're very not looking at the business side of it.
59:33
Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, we have blinders on. We're just trying to
59:36
Speaker 2: get through the day. We're trying to eat right, sleep right,
59:38
Speaker 2: take care of our wife and kids, and go hit
59:41
Speaker 2: a baseball at night. I don't have enough bandwidth to
59:45
Speaker 2: start examining trades, you know what the cost of acquisition
59:50
Speaker 2: and the minor league players that we're giving up. I
59:51
Speaker 2: don't have the time. But players understand it that players
59:55
Speaker 2: in that Tiger's room knew that they got hurt multiple times.
59:58
Speaker 2: They were without hobby buys, they were without, you know,
1:00:01
Speaker 2: like multiple players. Miyes was down, schoobl was down, Flaherty
1:00:06
Speaker 2: is down, the back end of the bullpen was down,
1:00:08
Speaker 2: like it's been a crappy year based on injuries. They
1:00:12
Speaker 2: knew they probably had to move on from Schoobol. They
1:00:14
Speaker 2: knew it, so it made sense.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Spilly. We'd love you to stick around for one more
1:00:19
Speaker 1: segment here, but I just want to echo some of
1:00:21
Speaker 1: the things you said about fifteen years ago. When I
1:00:24
Speaker 1: was working for Texas, we took a trip to Detroit.
1:00:26
Speaker 1: When we got off the bus at two am and
1:00:28
Speaker 1: checked into the hotel in Greek Town, I believe there
1:00:31
Speaker 1: were both pimps and drug dealers waiting for us, which
1:00:34
Speaker 1: was quite quite a scene. Most teams now are staying
1:00:37
Speaker 1: in Birmingham as a result of that, or outside of town.
1:00:40
Speaker 1: But I agree with you there's been a tremendous renaissance
1:00:43
Speaker 1: in that city, and the Illage family is at the
1:00:45
Speaker 1: heart heartbeat of that, without question. I also on the
1:00:49
Speaker 1: backside of this, I'd love to share kind of the
1:00:51
Speaker 1: executive perspective to echo what Spilly said about some of
1:00:55
Speaker 1: the decisions you have to make in these times. It's
1:00:57
Speaker 1: really challenging, and I think the line that Scott Harris
1:01:00
Speaker 1: walked here was extremely difficult, and I think he did
1:01:04
Speaker 1: it somewhat artfully, and I talked about that on the
1:01:06
Speaker 1: other side hereon Rosters to Rings. Welcome back to Rosters
1:01:19
Speaker 1: to Rings. Along inside Chet West, We're blessed to be
1:01:22
Speaker 1: joined here by Ryan Spilborg's right. I think you had
1:01:26
Speaker 1: a lot of insight there, and it's an extremely mature approach. Candidly,
1:01:29
Speaker 1: I wouldn't expect today's Detroit Tigers. It sounds like you
1:01:33
Speaker 1: and Torcos and may have a similar mindset, which is
1:01:36
Speaker 1: to actually have the wherewithal to understand you do have
1:01:39
Speaker 1: to trade a guy like Turik school Ball here and
1:01:42
Speaker 1: to just illuminate this a little bit further, like their
1:01:46
Speaker 1: choices were to ride out this season and go as
1:01:48
Speaker 1: far as you could go, and I think a lot
1:01:50
Speaker 1: of the numbers that Chet read out would give you
1:01:52
Speaker 1: an indication that maybe they are a lot better than
1:01:54
Speaker 1: their record would indicate, and they have as much of
1:01:57
Speaker 1: a chance of potentially winning their division. And if they
1:01:59
Speaker 1: win their division, they actually could get a buy in
1:02:02
Speaker 1: what is a very mediocre American League Central and American
1:02:05
Speaker 1: League West moment in time. The flip side is in
1:02:09
Speaker 1: that scenario, you only get one draft pick for Turik Skoogle.
1:02:12
Speaker 1: He's a transcendent generational talent. They were able to trade
1:02:16
Speaker 1: him for multiple pieces that they genuinely believe will propel
1:02:20
Speaker 1: that franchise forward. They probably still are talking internally about,
1:02:24
Speaker 1: we still have a real chance to win this division
1:02:26
Speaker 1: and go out and do this. Scott Harris has sold
1:02:29
Speaker 1: before it and made the playoffs. He's doing it again here.
1:02:32
Speaker 1: So I respect the fact that this is an exceptionally
1:02:36
Speaker 1: difficult decision for an executive to make, and I'm sure
1:02:39
Speaker 1: they waited extremely heavily, and they clearly had ownership support
1:02:42
Speaker 1: to make this decision. They not only made it, but
1:02:45
Speaker 1: they made it two days in advance of the deadline
1:02:47
Speaker 1: because they wanted to make sure if they were doing it,
1:02:49
Speaker 1: they were going to spend exactly one hundred percent of
1:02:51
Speaker 1: their time and focus on it before they consider doing
1:02:54
Speaker 1: any other move moving forward. So, Ryan, I wanted to
1:02:58
Speaker 1: shift our attention to something that uniquely happens in baseball
1:03:02
Speaker 1: every five years, and that's a new collective bargaining agreement.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: Throughout your career, you were a player rep, you were
1:03:08
Speaker 1: on the executive council. One thing I think you could
1:03:11
Speaker 1: share with the with the listeners, which they just don't
1:03:13
Speaker 1: hear otherwise, is when when these negotiations take place. Bruce
1:03:18
Speaker 1: Meyer is the executive director of the Major League Baseball
1:03:21
Speaker 1: Players Association. How does information funnel down to players from
1:03:26
Speaker 1: the executive director to the individual players.
1:03:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great question. So the CBA, it's an
1:03:34
Speaker 2: honor to always be, you know, a union rep. You know,
1:03:38
Speaker 2: like having seen the power of what a what a
1:03:41
Speaker 2: union can do. And I know like that throughout the
1:03:43
Speaker 2: country there's all these different unions, and I'm always a
1:03:47
Speaker 2: huge supporter for unions, and you know the importance of
1:03:51
Speaker 2: trying to protect everybody within it. That's the one thing
1:03:54
Speaker 2: that makes the union so unique is that it's not
1:03:58
Speaker 2: it's not individualized, it's it is design to have the
1:04:02
Speaker 2: entire group under consideration from healthcare to living wages, like
1:04:08
Speaker 2: all the stuff, and whether you're a Major League Baseball player,
1:04:10
Speaker 2: you work for you know, like the pipe fitters in Denver.
1:04:14
Speaker 2: Like the Union is there to protect one another and
1:04:18
Speaker 2: to support one another. So it's an honor to be
1:04:21
Speaker 2: a part of it. So when when I was part
1:04:22
Speaker 2: of I was a Union rep for basically every single
1:04:26
Speaker 2: year that I was a big leaguer, even with limited
1:04:30
Speaker 2: service time, I was completely engrossed in understanding the sport.
1:04:34
Speaker 2: And you know what happens within our union because it's
1:04:37
Speaker 2: the strongest of all professional sports. And so what happens
1:04:42
Speaker 2: is you get your union reps. So every team has
1:04:46
Speaker 2: two reps. You have the main one and you have
1:04:48
Speaker 2: an alternate, So every team has two. It's usually voted on.
1:04:52
Speaker 2: The vote is usually pretty simple. It's like who wants
1:04:55
Speaker 2: to be the rep? You got one guy raising their
1:04:57
Speaker 2: hand and you're like dork, and you're like he's who's
1:05:00
Speaker 2: the alternate? Another guy raises here, You're like nerd and
1:05:04
Speaker 2: so like those are your two union reps. There's not
1:05:07
Speaker 2: a lot behind it. But being part of the executive
1:05:10
Speaker 2: committee is even like a higher level of responsibility and
1:05:16
Speaker 2: the executive committee. You are now part of direct communication
1:05:21
Speaker 2: with the union, reps that the leaders the union everything
1:05:25
Speaker 2: like you are there and you are on call. And
1:05:29
Speaker 2: so when you have the Executive Committee, especially as you
1:05:32
Speaker 2: lead up to the collective Bargaining Agreement, you're on the
1:05:35
Speaker 2: phone a lot. You are having discussions with the latest proposal.
1:05:41
Speaker 2: What's going on. So in twenty eleven and heading in
1:05:45
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, I was on calls almost once a week,
1:05:48
Speaker 2: twice a week. And then you would try and we'd
1:05:52
Speaker 2: get bulletpoint information to share with your teammates about hey,
1:05:54
Speaker 2: what's going on. So you might have like a quick chat, Hey,
1:05:58
Speaker 2: this is what's going on, just in case you're curious.
1:06:01
Speaker 2: You know, like we're we're moving forward with a proposal
1:06:04
Speaker 2: for an international draft. We don't like it, anybody have
1:06:07
Speaker 2: any opinions about it? And and so you have you
1:06:11
Speaker 2: have the ability if you're a player, if you're a
1:06:13
Speaker 2: rank and file player with a data service time, you
1:06:16
Speaker 2: can be on every single phone call if you wanted to.
1:06:19
Speaker 2: Like yet, like, the information is more than there, it's
1:06:24
Speaker 2: just players don't really pay attention to it. Uh, And
1:06:27
Speaker 2: so I say this all the time, having experiences. I
1:06:30
Speaker 2: sat at the negotiating table, I've seen it. There are
1:06:34
Speaker 2: times where I walked out of that room going like
1:06:38
Speaker 2: what the heck are we doing? Like what are they wanting?
1:06:42
Speaker 2: And what the heck are we wanting? Like they're like,
1:06:45
Speaker 2: there's just times where nobody is making sense. Nobody makes sense.
1:06:50
Speaker 2: That's that argument is stupid. Our argument is stupid.
1:06:54
Speaker 3: Like so they're just nobody's making sense and interest of
1:06:58
Speaker 3: the game of baseball.
1:06:59
Speaker 2: Well, there's a lot of things that are just thrown
1:07:02
Speaker 2: against the wall.
1:07:04
Speaker 3: Okay, like here's.
1:07:05
Speaker 2: An idea, what do you guys think about that? And
1:07:07
Speaker 2: you're like, well have you thought about this and this?
1:07:09
Speaker 2: Like that's why that won't work? And they're like, oh yeah,
1:07:12
Speaker 2: a good point. So and then we might say something
1:07:15
Speaker 2: in return, like hey, what do you think about you know,
1:07:18
Speaker 2: getting rid of this, you know, the thirty year of arbitration?
1:07:21
Speaker 2: And they're like, well, what are you going to give
1:07:23
Speaker 2: up for that? You know, like you can't just ask
1:07:27
Speaker 2: for something and get it, Like what are you going
1:07:29
Speaker 2: to give up? So I think, what's going to happen
1:07:32
Speaker 2: for me as I watch this and I say this
1:07:35
Speaker 2: time and time again when it comes to a cap
1:07:38
Speaker 2: and I know the cap is is definitely part of
1:07:40
Speaker 2: this conversation because it makes sense if I was to
1:07:42
Speaker 2: put my owner hat on controlled cost raise the value
1:07:47
Speaker 2: of my franchise. That's what it does. If I have
1:07:50
Speaker 2: a controlled cost, my franchise value goes up because I
1:07:55
Speaker 2: have the ability on my on my forecasting. When I
1:07:58
Speaker 2: send out a perform a to possible investors or any
1:08:02
Speaker 2: of this stuff, or I'm taking out a loan, I
1:08:04
Speaker 2: have definitive revenues that I can predict for the next five, ten,
1:08:08
Speaker 2: fifteen years. It's why control costs makes so much sense.
1:08:13
Speaker 2: That's why the NBA and NFL and all these owners
1:08:16
Speaker 2: want it, is because the controlled costs raise the franchise value.
1:08:19
Speaker 2: The problem with this theory is that in Major League Baseball,
1:08:24
Speaker 2: unlike the NBA, where it is a star driven league
1:08:28
Speaker 2: or the NFL where it's a quarterback driven league, one
1:08:31
Speaker 2: player can't fix a franchise. You have to draft, develop,
1:08:35
Speaker 2: and use free agency all this different stuff, and your
1:08:38
Speaker 2: market sizes matter. Baseball is a regional sport where the
1:08:44
Speaker 2: local TV revenue is going to be different in Cincinnati
1:08:48
Speaker 2: versus LA there it's going to be different.
1:08:50
Speaker 3: In this past week about LA's TV revenue.
1:08:53
Speaker 2: And it's unfair. I get it.
1:08:55
Speaker 3: It's unreal to numbers.
1:08:56
Speaker 2: I get it. It's unfair. But at the same time,
1:08:59
Speaker 2: it was very smart from the Guggenheim Group that recognize
1:09:02
Speaker 2: that what that TV rights deal was and they have
1:09:05
Speaker 2: done everything because they work like a high level corporation.
1:09:10
Speaker 2: Not every team at baseball operates like that. There are
1:09:13
Speaker 2: still mom po organizations that are antiquated, and so my
1:09:18
Speaker 2: argument has always been, I get the owners want a cap,
1:09:22
Speaker 2: but Cincinnati will never spend at the top of the cap.
1:09:25
Speaker 2: And your market size is even if you were to
1:09:28
Speaker 2: have this cap that controls the cost, not every market
1:09:33
Speaker 2: is desirable by a player to go there. It's still
1:09:36
Speaker 2: going to be a coastal sport. And so like market size,
1:09:40
Speaker 2: where you're at all this stuff, it's still the variables
1:09:44
Speaker 2: are way too much that a cap doesn't fix it.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: And so what is the best way to come up
1:09:50
Speaker 2: with a solution here? And I think that at the
1:09:53
Speaker 2: end of the day, when it comes to both the
1:09:55
Speaker 2: owners and the players, because there are so many things
1:09:59
Speaker 2: that fans can lear. You got f one now that
1:10:02
Speaker 2: is making a big mark in the United States. MLS
1:10:05
Speaker 2: is growing because of what just happened with the World Cup,
1:10:08
Speaker 2: NHL is continuing to gain popularity, Like NFL is the
1:10:12
Speaker 2: monster that we're trying to catch up to. You're not
1:10:14
Speaker 2: gonna catch up to them. Stop trying. We're not. The
1:10:17
Speaker 2: NFL will never be the NFL. It's a different model.
1:10:20
Speaker 2: It's completely different. NBA, in my opinions, unwatchable. So like,
1:10:24
Speaker 2: if you're Major League Baseball and we have the largest
1:10:28
Speaker 2: amount of time for games and inventory and advertising, Baseball,
1:10:36
Speaker 2: get your craft together, expand which is gonna happen. That's
1:10:40
Speaker 2: money for the owners. We're gonna get to thirty two teams,
1:10:42
Speaker 2: We're gonna re establish divisions, We're gonna increase the ability
1:10:47
Speaker 2: to travel. That's fifty two future major league jobs. That's
1:10:51
Speaker 2: what the players want. You're gonna have thirty two teams.
1:10:54
Speaker 2: The franchise values will go up because it's a two
1:10:56
Speaker 2: and a half billion dollar franchise tag. That money goes
1:11:00
Speaker 2: into the pockets of owners. They can revenue share with
1:11:02
Speaker 2: some of the local TV rights deals, so you can
1:11:04
Speaker 2: start to cut into what the Dodgers are making. If
1:11:06
Speaker 2: you want to have a socialist ownership group, that's fine,
1:11:10
Speaker 2: I get it, but it doesn't have to change the
1:11:14
Speaker 2: principles that the players have always been against, which is
1:11:17
Speaker 2: they are not going to accept the cap. You cannot
1:11:20
Speaker 2: force feed that to the union and it won't happen
1:11:23
Speaker 2: because it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, It
1:11:26
Speaker 2: doesn't actually fix parody, it doesn't help competitive balance, it
1:11:30
Speaker 2: doesn't do any of these things. Baseball is the most
1:11:33
Speaker 2: diverse professional sport when it comes to parody in the sport.
1:11:37
Speaker 2: There are more teams in the postseason than any other sport,
1:11:41
Speaker 2: and we see it year after year. And if you
1:11:43
Speaker 2: think about like the Dodgers in this run, the Dodgers
1:11:47
Speaker 2: almost got knocked out in twenty twenty four by the Padres.
1:11:50
Speaker 2: The Padres had one game to beat them, and then
1:11:54
Speaker 2: last year one bad secondary lead and it's the Toronto
1:11:58
Speaker 2: Blue Jays winning the World Series. Are people talking about
1:12:02
Speaker 2: the same thing if if the Dodgers haven't one back
1:12:05
Speaker 2: to back No, So, like, I just think that there's
1:12:08
Speaker 2: the cooler heads will prevail because at the end of it,
1:12:12
Speaker 2: it's for the interest of baseball to grow it. And
1:12:16
Speaker 2: I think there's enough there that you can grow the
1:12:18
Speaker 2: sport without having to force a group of people that
1:12:22
Speaker 2: will not accept it no matter what. So it's like,
1:12:25
Speaker 2: stop wasting your time on that one.
1:12:27
Speaker 3: I know the floor is being talked about.
1:12:29
Speaker 2: DA makes sense or makes sense. I mean, just do
1:12:32
Speaker 2: the luxury tax threshold at the bottom like you have
1:12:35
Speaker 2: at the top. I think you could probably do a
1:12:37
Speaker 2: little bit more when it comes to revenue sharing it
1:12:41
Speaker 2: with some of this local media. You're eventually going to
1:12:43
Speaker 2: get the problem that And like again, all this stuff
1:12:47
Speaker 2: is always financially driven. Majority of players are rank and
1:12:51
Speaker 2: file of baseball. Players are guys that are never going
1:12:57
Speaker 2: to get to arbitration, that are never going to get
1:13:00
Speaker 2: to free agency, that are never going to see six
1:13:03
Speaker 2: years of service time. You know it's and so most
1:13:07
Speaker 2: of them are ranked file. They want to have as
1:13:10
Speaker 2: long of a career as possible, but they also recognize
1:13:13
Speaker 2: it's really hard to get there. Increase major league minimums.
1:13:16
Speaker 2: In the last CBA. The last CBA was ratified by
1:13:19
Speaker 2: the ranked file players. It was completely shot down by
1:13:22
Speaker 2: the executive committee. It was zero to six accepted from
1:13:28
Speaker 2: the executive committee. In the last CBA, it was ratified
1:13:31
Speaker 2: by the ranked file. Take care of the ranked file,
1:13:35
Speaker 2: offer more coaching opportunities. Eventually get to expansion with thirty
1:13:40
Speaker 2: two teams, and then on top of that, like when
1:13:43
Speaker 2: you think about the revenue pool, what has worked really
1:13:47
Speaker 2: well is this pre arbitration pool that as far as
1:13:50
Speaker 2: player performances, like Paul Schemes made a million dollars last
1:13:52
Speaker 2: year because he was cy Young Award winner. All these
1:13:55
Speaker 2: young players are making extra money. Just expand that, expand
1:13:59
Speaker 2: that the bottom with a threshold. If you're not spending
1:14:02
Speaker 2: over a certain amount, it's like a tax threshold, you
1:14:04
Speaker 2: just lose some of the money that you're getting. As
1:14:05
Speaker 2: far as revenue sharing.
1:14:06
Speaker 3: I don't think you'll see many arguments from fans about
1:14:08
Speaker 3: paying the rank and file higher and getting them more money.
1:14:12
Speaker 3: I don't think you're going to see too many arguments
1:14:14
Speaker 3: from fans about a floor. I think everybody would love
1:14:17
Speaker 3: to see a floor. It's necessary. The cap that is
1:14:22
Speaker 3: going to be the sticking point. How would you kind
1:14:26
Speaker 3: of advise if you were talking to the commissioner, what
1:14:29
Speaker 3: would you tell the commissioner in this Is it enough
1:14:31
Speaker 3: to expand and say you'll get your money out of that?
1:14:35
Speaker 3: Or do you think we're up for a deadlock here
1:14:38
Speaker 3: for a while.
1:14:38
Speaker 2: I think we're up for a deadlock. But I also
1:14:41
Speaker 2: think it's healthy. I don't think it's a bad thing
1:14:44
Speaker 2: to discuss ways to improve the sport. I mean, if
1:14:48
Speaker 2: we're really concerned about the parity of the sport. And
1:14:51
Speaker 2: again using Trek Scooble as an example, the Reds could
1:14:55
Speaker 2: have made the deal for schoobl The Twins could have
1:14:58
Speaker 2: made the deal for Schooble. Any team in baseball could
1:15:01
Speaker 2: have added that payroll and made that cost of acquisition,
1:15:04
Speaker 2: any team in baseball. So what are we actually arguing about.
1:15:08
Speaker 2: Do I believe all owners believe in a cap, No,
1:15:11
Speaker 2: I don't. I think the Dodgers are like, why are
1:15:14
Speaker 2: you guys picking on us? Like, we're trying to win.
1:15:17
Speaker 2: We're doing everything we can to win, and by the way,
1:15:20
Speaker 2: since we're winning, we're making a craft ton of money,
1:15:23
Speaker 2: like the Angels could have kept Showy Otani. He offered
1:15:26
Speaker 2: the same deal to the Angels. They just don't defer money,
1:15:30
Speaker 2: like Ardi. Morino turned that one down, like the story
1:15:34
Speaker 2: with stan Kasten, and Otani was like, can you repeat
1:15:37
Speaker 2: that one more time? He's like, you want to take
1:15:39
Speaker 2: two million dollars a year for the next ten years
1:15:41
Speaker 2: and then defer the rest of it in an escuir
1:15:43
Speaker 2: account that we just have to fund and then it's
1:15:45
Speaker 2: going to grow from there. Signed like the Dodgers are smart,
1:15:51
Speaker 2: and yes, the bankruptcy helped their television rights deal. There's
1:15:54
Speaker 2: no question that is an unfair advantage. But they're taking
1:15:59
Speaker 2: that money and investing in a team that's winning. And
1:16:02
Speaker 2: so what do you do. I don't think all owners
1:16:05
Speaker 2: believe in a cap I really don't. I think there's
1:16:08
Speaker 2: some old school owners that are trying to find a
1:16:11
Speaker 2: way to control the cost and increase their franchise values,
1:16:15
Speaker 2: because that, at the end of the day, is what
1:16:16
Speaker 2: they're trying to do, is increase the franchise values. And
1:16:19
Speaker 2: there's not another like you put your this money, like
1:16:22
Speaker 2: the Nasdaq or anything like that. Nothing grows like a
1:16:25
Speaker 2: baseball teams one of the best financial vehicles you could
1:16:28
Speaker 2: possibly get if you can afford it. So what are
1:16:31
Speaker 2: we talking about, Spilly?
1:16:34
Speaker 1: I think, first of all, I want to thank you
1:16:35
Speaker 1: for your passion and your intelligence on this. It's one
1:16:39
Speaker 1: thing to be passionate without intelligence. You're pairing it up,
1:16:41
Speaker 1: which is exceptional.
1:16:43
Speaker 2: You know.
1:16:43
Speaker 1: Just to add a little color to what you're saying,
1:16:45
Speaker 1: because I have always found like I think players in
1:16:48
Speaker 1: front office executives, agents in front office executives actually see
1:16:52
Speaker 1: this a lot more. The same way, I want to
1:16:55
Speaker 1: just highlight something you said, and I think Bruce Meyer,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: and I'm sure everyone who's coming before him deserves credit here.
1:17:00
Speaker 1: I think they're addressing the rank and file better than
1:17:02
Speaker 1: they ever have. I do think there used to be
1:17:05
Speaker 1: this notion of trickle down economics. If we take care
1:17:07
Speaker 1: of our highest earners, it will spread to the other guys.
1:17:10
Speaker 1: And I just didn't see that in the first half
1:17:12
Speaker 1: of my career. I'm seeing it more in the last
1:17:15
Speaker 1: couple negotiations. And for the listeners out there who've read
1:17:19
Speaker 1: some of Bruce's proposals, he's really trying to address raising
1:17:22
Speaker 1: the major league minimum. He's really trying to infuse a
1:17:25
Speaker 1: lot of cash into that pre arbitration pool that is
1:17:29
Speaker 1: the rank and file, because, as Billy said, most of
1:17:31
Speaker 1: these guys don't get to free agency, they don't get
1:17:33
Speaker 1: to that big, multi multimillion dollar deal, and so the
1:17:37
Speaker 1: fact that we're taking care of those guys I think
1:17:39
Speaker 1: is the exact right thing for the game. The other
1:17:42
Speaker 1: thing that Chet brought up that I just want to
1:17:43
Speaker 1: echo as well. Is I think we get fixated on
1:17:46
Speaker 1: this concept of a salary cap. I think if we
1:17:49
Speaker 1: focused our attention a little bit more on a floor,
1:17:52
Speaker 1: I think what we could present to the players is
1:17:55
Speaker 1: there's a lot more money in the game if we
1:17:57
Speaker 1: responsibly increase the floor. Now maybe that comes with something
1:18:01
Speaker 1: that's not called to cap, it's a little bit firmer
1:18:03
Speaker 1: on the top side. But I think if we raise
1:18:06
Speaker 1: the floor, there's just more money for the players, and
1:18:07
Speaker 1: the players deserve more money. I think the NBA has
1:18:10
Speaker 1: had a model where there's more of a profit sharing
1:18:13
Speaker 1: concept where if more money is raised throughout the course
1:18:15
Speaker 1: of the year, a portion of that goes to the players.
1:18:18
Speaker 1: Right now, there's no incentive for the player to market
1:18:20
Speaker 1: the brand or to the corporate sponsors of Major League
1:18:23
Speaker 1: Baseball because they don't benefit from it. If we create
1:18:27
Speaker 1: an environment where they do, I think that's a real
1:18:29
Speaker 1: benefit to the players, and it's a partnership. Now we're
1:18:32
Speaker 1: profit sharing, So I think there's a lot of creative
1:18:34
Speaker 1: ways for us to meet more in the middle rather
1:18:37
Speaker 1: than have contentious negotiations, and I'm, for one, very hopeful
1:18:42
Speaker 1: that that's where this ends up. The other comment I
1:18:44
Speaker 1: would make is with the acquisition of Tarik Skouble and
1:18:48
Speaker 1: all the other things the Dodgers have done, I agree
1:18:51
Speaker 1: with you. I think they're brilliant. I think they have, yes,
1:18:53
Speaker 1: the most resources, and I also think they manage the
1:18:56
Speaker 1: resources as well, if not better than everyone. Both of
1:18:58
Speaker 1: those things are true.
1:19:00
Speaker 3: In their farm system are indicative.
1:19:01
Speaker 2: Of the incredible They invest more in anybody on purpose,
1:19:05
Speaker 2: and they've always done that right.
1:19:07
Speaker 1: And also now they have a tax payment that they're
1:19:12
Speaker 1: going to make this year that is eclipsing one hundred
1:19:14
Speaker 1: and eighty million dollars, which it would also be on
1:19:17
Speaker 1: its own the fifteenth highest payroll over again, and I
1:19:19
Speaker 1: think that speaks to like something needs to change here, right.
1:19:22
Speaker 1: And you brought up to really the parody we've seen
1:19:25
Speaker 1: in Major League Baseball, and I think that is true.
1:19:27
Speaker 1: The diversity of playoff teams we've had over the last decade,
1:19:30
Speaker 1: I think is the best in professional sports. The thing
1:19:34
Speaker 1: that I, you know, you hear on the other side
1:19:35
Speaker 1: of that is just, you know, bottom fifteen payrolls haven't
1:19:38
Speaker 1: won a World Series in a long time. And in
1:19:41
Speaker 1: the NBA you see that kind of model of eight
1:19:42
Speaker 1: different champions in eight years, I agree with you, Spilly,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: like I don't think any of us is running from
1:19:47
Speaker 1: this notion of having a dynasty as being good for
1:19:50
Speaker 1: the sport. I don't see that as bad for the sport.
1:19:52
Speaker 1: I think that's actually exhilarating. Like when I grew up,
1:19:55
Speaker 1: everyone was trying to root against the Yankees because they
1:19:58
Speaker 1: were the vaunted Yankees. I think there's some thing to
1:20:00
Speaker 1: be said of having that kind of you know, dare
1:20:02
Speaker 1: I say, villain that everyone's shooting.
1:20:04
Speaker 3: For it's not your team.
1:20:06
Speaker 1: I can tell you this, it's raising the level of
1:20:09
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do in front offices as we're
1:20:11
Speaker 1: all trying to chase down the Dodgers, and we're not
1:20:13
Speaker 1: booboo lipping it that we don't have as many resources.
1:20:16
Speaker 1: We're trying to meet them where they are from an
1:20:18
Speaker 1: intelligence standpoint. So I think I think there's a leveling
1:20:21
Speaker 1: up of the whole game when you have a standard
1:20:24
Speaker 1: bearer that is such clearly the north star in a sport.
1:20:27
Speaker 1: But I think there's a lot that we've covered here
1:20:30
Speaker 1: that if both sides were willing to come to the
1:20:31
Speaker 1: table with just that view of like the betterment in
1:20:34
Speaker 1: the game, there's a lot of things that I think
1:20:36
Speaker 1: we could do absent of necessarily having a salary cap,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: absent of hopefully a prolonged to lockout, that could could
1:20:43
Speaker 1: really allow us to meet a lot closer to the
1:20:45
Speaker 1: middle on this one.
1:20:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like to your point, getting rid of
1:20:49
Speaker 2: one of the arbitration hears makes a lot of sense,
1:20:51
Speaker 2: not just for the players but for the owners. And
1:20:54
Speaker 2: the reason why I say that is because the value
1:20:56
Speaker 2: of that player heading into the fifth year now carries
1:21:01
Speaker 2: a trade value that maybe or may I mean because
1:21:04
Speaker 2: for the most part, and you know this, that most
1:21:06
Speaker 2: players when they're due for thirty year of arbitration, they
1:21:09
Speaker 2: getting non tendered, Like everybody talks about, like, hey, that
1:21:12
Speaker 2: that thirty year of arbitration here it comes. They get
1:21:15
Speaker 2: non tendered because if you have a down year and
1:21:16
Speaker 2: that's that year prior that platform year, you're now a
1:21:21
Speaker 2: cost And if the cause is not you know, valuing
1:21:24
Speaker 2: what your performance as are getting older, you just you
1:21:28
Speaker 2: refresh it with a younger player that do you have
1:21:30
Speaker 2: a cost control. So like having the ability to remove
1:21:36
Speaker 2: one of those arbitration years makes a lot of sense.
1:21:38
Speaker 2: I also think that trying to get this draft down
1:21:41
Speaker 2: to thirteen thirteen rounds is dumb, Like that doesn't make sense.
1:21:45
Speaker 2: Twenty rounds still makes a lot of sense. We used
1:21:48
Speaker 2: to have like sixty two rounds back in the day.
1:21:50
Speaker 2: Mike Piazza was a sixty second rounder. Is like that
1:21:53
Speaker 2: made it to the Hall of Fame as a favored
1:21:54
Speaker 2: Tommy lisort it. But we keep talking about growing the game.
1:22:00
Speaker 2: Why are we taking rounds of draft away if we're
1:22:02
Speaker 2: trying to grow the game, making it even harder to
1:22:04
Speaker 2: get into baseball. So, like, I think there's optics here.
1:22:09
Speaker 2: I think overall, like we're seeing younger players get into
1:22:11
Speaker 2: the big leagues faster, which is good because I think
1:22:14
Speaker 2: it's proven, but also keeping that opportunity for players that
1:22:19
Speaker 2: maybe developed later. I was a late bloomer. I didn't
1:22:21
Speaker 2: get to the big league until I was twenty five.
1:22:24
Speaker 2: I still had the opportunity to go and make money,
1:22:26
Speaker 2: and I ended up getting to arbitration for two years.
1:22:29
Speaker 1: So in Spilly, you're seeing some of those younger players
1:22:32
Speaker 1: in markets like Pittsburgh and Detroit and Milwaukee sign long
1:22:37
Speaker 1: term deals so that maybe their fans can see them
1:22:39
Speaker 1: play for the majority of their careers. I think there's
1:22:43
Speaker 1: a lot of progress being made that maybe fans don't
1:22:47
Speaker 1: really focus on because in these collective bargaining discussions there's
1:22:51
Speaker 1: a lot of contention. There's a lot of vitriol, there's
1:22:54
Speaker 1: a lot of mud slinging. There's a lot that's going
1:22:56
Speaker 1: right for the game right now, there's a ton of momentum,
1:22:59
Speaker 1: and I think they have an cot to out either
1:23:01
Speaker 1: elevate that and accelerate it or unfortunately put a parachute
1:23:04
Speaker 1: behind it. I'm hoping there's gonna be wind in our sales,
1:23:06
Speaker 1: not a parachute behind us, as this sport continues to
1:23:09
Speaker 1: sprint forward.
1:23:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to that point again, like I love that
1:23:15
Speaker 2: the Dodgers have turned into this villain because it brings
1:23:19
Speaker 2: us eyeballs. Last year I did the World Series. It
1:23:22
Speaker 2: was the Blue Jays and it was the Dodgers, and
1:23:24
Speaker 2: it was global. You had all of Canada, you had
1:23:28
Speaker 2: all of Japan because of Otani and Yamamoto, you had
1:23:31
Speaker 2: these two massive fan bases. We had over one hundred
1:23:35
Speaker 2: million eyeballs, which was like double super Bowl, like when
1:23:39
Speaker 2: you combine all seven games. And that's not just taking
1:23:42
Speaker 2: the domestic viewership. We're talking the global viewership of Japan.
1:23:46
Speaker 2: In Canada. So if we're talking about this cap system
1:23:52
Speaker 2: or more parody, what brings more eyeballs and no offense?
1:23:56
Speaker 2: A Reds Tigers World Series or a Yankees Dodgers Like,
1:24:01
Speaker 2: at the end of it, no matter what, like you
1:24:05
Speaker 2: want the blockbuster and on occasion we like to see
1:24:10
Speaker 2: the underdogs and the David versus Goliath. But at the
1:24:13
Speaker 2: end of the day, like we know it is, it's
1:24:17
Speaker 2: the reality of being a human. We want the blockbuster,
1:24:20
Speaker 2: we want the stars, we want the we want to
1:24:23
Speaker 2: we want to root against teams versus rooting four teams.
1:24:27
Speaker 2: Like people enjoy rooting against stuff more than I think
1:24:31
Speaker 2: they like rooting four things.
1:24:33
Speaker 1: Well, Spilly, and I'll leave you with this is I
1:24:36
Speaker 1: think everyone in my generation grew up. I was a
1:24:38
Speaker 1: Baltimore Orioles fan growing up, but I also was a
1:24:42
Speaker 1: person who hated the Yankees. So the one thing that
1:24:45
Speaker 1: tied everyone together was either you're a Yankee fan or
1:24:47
Speaker 1: a Yankee hater. But you had your one team that
1:24:50
Speaker 1: you're affiliated with, and then you hated the Yankees. Spilly,
1:24:53
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much we appreciated the content
1:24:56
Speaker 1: was awesome. We'd love to have you back on the conversation.
1:24:58
Speaker 1: We just touched the tip of the iceberg your testament
1:25:01
Speaker 1: to the game right now, and I hope that people
1:25:03
Speaker 1: like Bruce Meyer, I hope people like Rob Manford are
1:25:06
Speaker 1: listening and tapping into I know you're probably doing a
1:25:09
Speaker 1: ton of stuff with the Colorado Rockies and helping their
1:25:11
Speaker 1: fun office. Ostensibly you're a man of media right now,
1:25:15
Speaker 1: but you're really an asset to the industry as a whole.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: Your passion and your intelligence are something that I hope
1:25:22
Speaker 1: the league is tapping into because we're better for having
1:25:25
Speaker 1: people like you covering the game passionate about the game,
1:25:29
Speaker 1: and we really appreciate it. And I just want to
1:25:31
Speaker 1: say that, and I hope we get a chance to
1:25:33
Speaker 1: talk again on roster Strings. But for those listening, I
1:25:36
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the conversation we had with Spilly. Here's
1:25:39
Speaker 1: to many more of them. Please join us this Thursday
1:25:42
Speaker 1: and every Thursday on Rosters to Rings.
1:25:44
Speaker 2: Thanks guys,