Latest / Cards & Categories / Ep. 162 : 2026 World Series Champs PC

Transcript

Ep. 162 : 2026 World Series Champs PC · Cards & Categories

• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome everybody to episode 162 of Cards and Categories.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I am Mike Coulard from Baseball Perspectives, joined by my
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: very good friend Jeremy Brewer from Razzball. 162, we hit
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a Major League season worth of pods. Look at us go, baby.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: That's impressive.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, the good news is we don't have a
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: collective bargaining agreement because it could get down to like
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: 155 or something like that, and it would just get weird.
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: So glad we got the 162 full season of podcast
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: after a few years here.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It's an exciting big number.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we are well into the throes of the offseason.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We'll see how long the offseason ends up being because
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: things are looking a little bit contentious, but I remain
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: relatively hopeful. How are you feeling going into this period
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of like uncertainty with the bargaining agreement coming up and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the lockout pending and everything that's being slung from both sides?
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very conflicted because I feel like we've been
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: through things like this before, like whether baseball or business.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: where logic shall prevail and then logic doesn't prevail type
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: of thing. It does not make sense for the owners
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: or the players to have an extended lockout to lose
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: any games. It does not make sense. It hurts the sport,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: hurts the long-term outlook. It just does not make sense. However,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: it feels like that was the same thing we said
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: last time that we went through this, and we still
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: ended up in a lockout situation. So I'm hopeful that,
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: you know, the posturing will start to disappear. I would
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: be shocked if we don't have a stoppage for for
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: some time during the offseason. And so I'm thinking we're
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: going to have to have a flurry. I mean, we're
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: going to have a wild free agency kickoff here. Like
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: it's it it's going to be wild just because player
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: teams are concerned about the salary caps and things like that.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: And so if you're if you want to spend, you're
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: going to spend. You're going to go do that now
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: and kind of lock in your team because you don't
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: want to be sitting here come a week or two
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: before spring training. They figure things out, and now you're
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: trying to scramble and get a team. You want to
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: get your guys, kind of have your roster plan set
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: going into next year, and the time to do it
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: is now. So I'm expecting a little bit of a
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: feverish November before things come to a halt in December,
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: which– It is unfortunate that they will come to a halt,
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: but like I said, I'm hopeful clear minds prevail. But
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: like I said, I think we've seen this script before,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and we're probably going to come down to the wire
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: in the spring.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a pretty fair take.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I will tee up, the main segment of
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the show is going to be celebrating the World Series champion,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers. I mean, maybe to like bring the mood
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: up a little bit, but I think that's all I'm
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: going to intro with so that you can, if that's
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: what you're here for, you can skip to that portion
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: on the second half where we'll get into a little
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: more discussion on the World Series wrap up and everything
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: like that. But here for this first half, I mean,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the news and notes is setting the table for this
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: offseason with this collective bargaining agreement coming up and the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: lockout likely going to be hitting here in December. And
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, if you remember last time we went
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: through this phase, kind of 21 into 22, Corey Seager,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, signed early to be able to avoid
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: some of this. So I do agree with you. I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: think you're probably going to see Tariq Skubal sign pretty soon,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: pretty early, just to get it out of the way
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and know that he doesn't have to sit there and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: guess at when this lockout's going to end on the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: other side. I mean, I will say I also feel relatively, like,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: positive because... the owners make a ton of money nowadays
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: off of spring training that like, they don't want to
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: chop spring training games off any more too, because I mean,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I've been going pretty regularly for the first like time
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: in my lifetime over the past few years. And it
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: feels like every time that I've been out to spring
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: training over the past three or four years, the crowds
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: have been gaining momentum. Like this is a very highly
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: popular thing, especially if you're from the Midwest, like us
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: getting out, to somewhere like Arizona or Florida in late February,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: early March is fantastic. And so doing that and then
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: being able to see some of these big leaguers up
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: close in these essentially minor league stadiums, if you're an
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: autograph guy, if you're a kid that wants to meet
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: one of your favorite players, it doesn't get better than
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: spring training. So it's a very, very popular time. And
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of money that's flowing through these facilities.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, the concessions, cost just about as much as
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: they do at the big league games that they're not
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a little a few stadiums i've been
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: to where maybe it's a little on the minor league
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: pricing side but the ones that are wildly popular like
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you're paying just about big league stadium prices for the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: beer that you are at spring training compared to the
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: regular season so yeah i think there's a lot of
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: incentive for folks not to let this linger too long
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and obviously the owners want a salary cap but I mean,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: we also just saw a couple of franchises change hands
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that like I think that the long term kind of
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: viability of the league and the teams is looking pretty good.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And there's a lot of posturing because I think the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the owners like got to make their their pitch for
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: this and kind of build things upon it slash like.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: some of these things also strike me as like, you know,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: it's not really not that hard to put some of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: these plans together with gender of AI nowadays, which I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: know a lot of these owners and stuff are probably
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: relying on. So, you know, where previously it might've taken
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: them a few more steps to flesh out a full plan, uh,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: gender of AI can knock out some of those initial
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: planning phases and brainstorm phases that I think has helped
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: maybe the owners a little bit. Um, but that's speculative.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I'm just planting that out there. Uh, So, yeah, I
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: feel maybe in the same boat. Maybe we'll miss a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: little bit of spring training, but there's so much money involved,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: like I said, that it's going to be tough to swallow.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the one thing I'm pretty certain
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: we're going to miss, which is a big, big miss
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: for me, is we'll probably miss all the FanFest and
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: all the road shows and things like that, which if
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: you're a fan that can't get to spring training and
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: it's harder to get to games, those are amazing. They
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: are decent, you know, uh, probably for the team. So
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: they're not big moneymakers are about getting people excited. So
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: that's probably gone by the wayside. If you're hoping to
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: see your fan fest or your caravans or whatever they
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: call them for your, your team, that's probably off, off
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: the table. Uh, but to your point, I think spring
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: training is, is kind of be the target one right now.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Like I, I wouldn't be shocked. Like we miss one
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: week of spring training. Like it's the, uh, pitchers and
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: catchers don't report. And then you like one week of
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: games are gone. And then like, yep, we're back into
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: the swing of things. Like, that would be my over
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: under at this point.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The other component of this going to be a flurry
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of November. I mean, it's a really awful free agent
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: class because of like, because of like this lining up,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: like nobody wanted to deal with this CBA issue. Cause
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: it was such a scramble last time in 21, 22.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: And like, I think some players felt like, Hey, I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: want to feel good going into this process and know
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: that I'm not going to be waiting for a call. Like,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: and trying to nail it down before the lockout or
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: have to scramble on the back end. So I think,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you got Tariq Scooble, and then it's a
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: bunch of kind of, I think, lower tier free agents
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: compared to what we'd see in prior years. So let's
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: get into some of this, because we saw a lot
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: of flurries of moves that like, especially if you follow
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: any like transaction bots on social medias, or you've been
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: seeing all the reports, I remember it'll be trade rumors.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: It's been pretty overwhelming, but I think, A lot of
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: it is settled to where you would kind of expect.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: We've got lots of options. But first, we've got eight
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: qualifying offers that were put out there. You will make $ 23. 15
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: million if you accept one of these qualifying offers. They
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: work the way that they have in the past. If
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: you accept them, you sign a one-year contract with the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: team that's given them to you. If you decline them,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: then the next team that signs you has a draft
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: pick penalty to be able to sign you. So it
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: does kind of lower those values. which kind of makes
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: some of these names interesting. We've got eight, like I said.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So we've got Randy Rosarena from the Mariners, Jake Bowers, surprisingly,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: from the Brewers. That's one where if you went back
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: in a time machine and told somebody that at the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: beginning of the season that Jake Bowers would be getting
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: a qualifying offer after 2026, I think people would have
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: wondered what was wrong with the world overall. David Bednar
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of the Yankees got one. Ryan Jeffers, another stranger for
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: the Twins, but it's also a little bit like The
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Twins have very few catchers in that system, and Eduardo
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Tait is not ready yet. So they need a catcher,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: and Jeffers is their best option. Brandon Lau from the Pirates,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Adrian Morajon from the Padres, Trevor Rogers from the Orioles,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and Seiya Suzuki from the Cubs. So they have until
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: November 17th to decide. We are speaking on November 4th
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: just to kind of plant the seed on where we're
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: at if you're listening to this at some point in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: the future. What do you think about these eight guys?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Anything that kind of surprised you in terms of the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: offers that were handed out there? I'll put the caveat.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: If you're wondering where Tariq Skubal is, he got traded.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: So that's why he's not involved here. So that's one
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of the caveats is that you can't put a qualifying
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: offer after you trade for a player like that. So
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you got an eight pack of names. Anything stand out
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: one way or another? Unusually.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, probably a few things.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: One, I think this is a very indicative of the
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: week free agent class that we're going into because you
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: kind of look at this and it's like man those
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: are some i'm a little surprised at some of the
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: names here that are getting these offers but knowing that
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: we have the cba issues we know that we have
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: the a week of free agent class it kind of
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: gives me a little more faith like yeah there's definitely
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: a few slam dunks here that they're declining all day
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: every day but but there's a few names in here
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: that uh in past free agent classes, there's not a
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: chance in the world they're getting it because they were
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: in the second or third tier of free agents, but
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: now they're.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: In the top tiers.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: Um, and so, uh, it's a much more difficult decision. So, um,
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that said, there's probably a few guys, like if I'm,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: if I'm betting, I think we're going to get, uh,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: at least one, if not two accepted, uh, qualifying offers
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: from guys, uh, this year. And I'm gonna go on
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: my limb. I'm going to, I'm saying Jake Bowers is accepting.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I would be pretty gosh darn surprised if he does not, uh, um,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: what was Jake Bauer's career earnings?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Have you, have you looked this up?
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Uh, I was listening to a pod and they joked
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: about it. So I have a range, but I bet
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: it's like five or six mil.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: He is, he's actually nine and a half. Um, but that,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: but that's just basic on volume. It's basic tenure volume
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: of like league and minimums, uh, in, in 2026, he
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: made 2.7 million. Um, and that was his highest by 1.3 million.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: So he's just, you know, he's been stacking this up
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: over about 10 years. So that's why the nine, nine,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: five comes up, but it is kind of a misnomer
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: for the, for the league, but this could easily, you know,
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: almost triple his career earnings by just playing this. And
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: at this point in time, like, you know, He pulls
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: up another year like this, and he could be looking
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: at a long-term deal or something like that where he
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: tries to squeak out a few, maybe a three-year deal
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: or something like that. So I think Bowers is the
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: one that is most likely to accept. And then for me,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Ryan Jeffers is the other one that is probably right
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: there as well. Again, weak free agent class, so there's
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: definitely an opportunity there. But this is a guy that
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: only played 92 games, hit 14 homers, hit 256. He
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: was a 128 WRC +. And so overall was very solid.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: But for a Minnesota team to throw that qualifying offer
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: out there was a little bit surprising. So I think
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: that there's a, I'll call it maybe a 40-60 chance
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: on Jeffers accepting here. But I guess I think Bowers accepts,
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I think there's a chance for Jeffers. But then when
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: you look at the rest of the list, I would
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: be pretty surprised if anybody else here does just because
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: of the free agency class. Lau has been so strong. Bednar,
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: you know, it was nails for the Yankees. They probably
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: hope he accepts.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Um, I think so.
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: Rosarito as much as.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: Up and down as he's, he's been, he's, he's, he's
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: not a guy, only a guy that can, can be exciting.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: He's a guy that can sell, sell tickets. Um, and
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: so I, I think there's just a number of guys
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: here that are going to be in for decent contracts. Um,
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: and they're probably going to have an indication. They're, they're
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: one of these guys are going to sign pretty good
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: starting quick. Um, is this thing that opens up? They,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: I don't remember how long they have to decide. It's
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: not too terribly long. But in the past, there's been
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: guys that have signed new deals before they had to
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: make the decision. And so with the shortened time frame here,
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't be surprised if you get these guys, test
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: the waters real quick, make a decision, and then if
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: it's not there, do the fallback. But my over-under is
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: one and a half accepted qualifying offers.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think I would take the over because,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, outside of a Rosa Reina and say a Suzuki, who,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, are actually the two best bats probably in
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: this free agency class, which also gives you a pinpoint
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of kind of where it's at. You know, players have
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: been signing long-term deals on top of their like rookie deals.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: We're also kind of, they brought this up on Effectively Wild.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: We're kind of in the middle wave of like COVID
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: years where like there just wasn't enough people coming up
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and like getting enough service time appropriately. And it just
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: kind of got wonky from there. And then, I mean,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Jake Bowers, there's a chance that I think he doesn't
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: accept because he is probably the third best bat. He's
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the best left-handed bat that's on the market outside of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: one of the guys we'll get into from a Japanese
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: posting side. But if you want somebody who's produced in
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball, Jake Bowers might be your best left-handed option.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: And I think there's going to be a lot of
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: left-handed hungry teams. I agree with you on Jeffers. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: think Jeffers might take it. I think Bednar might also
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: take it just because like him and Lau, those are
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: guys where I'm a little bit like if I were them,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: I'd be maybe a little bit concerned if I took
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: the qualifying offer. What does the rest of my free
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: agency kind of chances look like out on the rest
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of the market? Are people going to lowball me because
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I have a first round pick attached to me? and
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: want to factor that into the value? Or do they
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: want to just make it easy, know that they're locked
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: in at $ 23 million in 2027, and come back out
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: on the other side? I think Rodgers and Morahilna are
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: also locks. Those are actually two of the better pitchers
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: after Scooble that are available on the market. I think
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: both of them are going to, very surprisingly for some people,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: both get nine-figure deals. There's not a lot of pitching
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: out there, and these guys both have interesting arsenals and
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: great frames. And I think that every team's going to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: be like, yeah, I can coax like a number two,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: number three starter out of both of those guys. And
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to do it to show how
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: smart they are, you know? So it's going to be
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: fascinating to see. They have two weeks to decide. So
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: we'll see where they settle in a couple of weeks.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: On the other side, we also have a bunch of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: options that kind of got picked up or declined. no
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: mutual option got picked up. So, I mean, that's also
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. If you're into like, I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: don't know, somehow in a dynasty keeper league, you're looking
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: at some dudes deal and you're like, yeah, he's got
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: a mutual option. Never even fact that in, into that,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: like how they're going to perform in the future because
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: a mutual option absolutely like never gets accepted pretty much
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that like to get both the player and the team
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: to agree the player, you know, if it's beneficial for
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: them to opt in, the team's not going to opt
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: in and vice versa. So I think we had a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: couple of interesting decisions here. So I will say that
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: for the most part, though, like you would expect these
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to break the way they did. I have linked out
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: to the big old list from MLB.com if you really
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: want to peruse it. I think the ones that I
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: want to talk about are Nick Pavetta getting the option declined,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but I think that also converts into a player option.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: So like, wait, let me read this again. So in
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: terms of the contract he signed with the Friars prior
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to 2025, Pavetta's $ 14 million option for 2027 converted to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a club option because of the time missed. So they
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: did decline it. And then, so actually I think he's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: going to be a free agent. So that'll be interesting
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: to put Nick Pavetta out there. You also had Luis
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Robert Jr. getting his $ 20 million option declined by the Orioles, which,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's another one, if you went back in time,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: it might surprise some folks. But I think nowadays, where
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Robert's at, it doesn't shock anybody. And then you've got,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: my favorite is the no-brainer for Corbin Burns here, who
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: opted into $ 150 or $ 210 million, like the rest of
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: that $ 210 million deal. So, uh, pretty no brainer decision there.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Ryan Helsley opted into a $ 14 million option, which also
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: that's a little bit of a flag for me. Like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Ryan Helsley doesn't feel like he can outdo $ 14 million
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: in the open market. Cause his, his elbows messed up, uh,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: maybe stay away from Ryan Helsley in draft season, but otherwise,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: what are you thinking? Anybody else stand out to you?
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Anything else that kind of gives you a read on
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: where the market is and how teams are maybe valuing
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: these players?
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think there was anything too notable. The
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: two that jumped out to me is maybe a little question.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: First of all, it was Pavetta, like you called out.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: But as you look deeper, it's actually very logical because,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: to your point, because of the injury, the club got
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: their option on him. However, if they picked up that option,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: he got a player option for the following year at
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: $ 18 million.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: Get through those mechanics for me.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: It was essentially a $ 32 million decision that they were
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: making for Pavetta with the injury history. And so I
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: think that's a very smart one on their part to
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: get out of that because even though he's one of
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: those guys like we talk about that pitches well when
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: he's healthy, but Pavetta's very often not healthy. And so
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: I think the Padres are being a little bit cautious
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: there because getting Pavetta back on a two-year, $ 16 million
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: deal is probably– you know, the peak of what he's
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: going to get because of the injury history. The other
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: one was Emilio Pagan for me. It was only a
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: $ 10 million deal that he was opting out of, but
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: he's the kind of guy that despite having a pretty
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: good season, the underlying numbers still concern me, still worry me. And,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: you know, I know why he's opting out. because he's
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: going to be 36 next season and this is his
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: last chance. And he's had back to back good closer
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: seasons for the reds. So he's looking to be, you know,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: arguably one of the best closers out there look for
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: maybe a three year.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I put them on like that three year, $ 39 million
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: kind of a deal.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: So, uh, but I also with all the analytics we
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: have anymore, he's the kind of guy that I can
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: easily see teams shying away from and not wanting to
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: pay the traditional closer tax.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Uh, So that one jumped out.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: A little bit as well, but almost everything else made
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: a heck of a lot of sense. It's tough business.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Guys like Myles Straw, which I thought maybe would stick around,
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: the Blue Jays, a little surprise there, but the majority
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: of these guys... all logical decisions. But teams are definitely
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: trying to clear, clear some room to go for a
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: little bit of this chaos. It's going to come in
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: the free agency real soon.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: That, and I mean, I think players like mile straw,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: like every team thinks that they've got that in, in
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: triple a sort of situation that like, they're not going
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: to go out and handcuff any of that money that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: could be free for a free agent right now. So
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: there's that kind of, factor in there too, as well
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: as like some of the fringy kind of backend starters
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and relievers where you're like, yeah, that actually is not
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: a terrible option. I'm surprised it didn't get picked up.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: It's because of that. It's just like teams would rather
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: have the roster space at this point and try to
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: use it from somebody within their farm system. Because, uh,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, most teams are usually operating with pretty full
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: 40 man rosters. And so if there's anybody coming through
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: your system that you need to move on to your
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: 40 man for the rule five protection, uh, or you
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: want to give a shot next year, now's your time
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to start clearing that space.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Well, and to your point, these guys, they want the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: money to make the big plays. And so a guy
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: like Miles Straw, contract, things like that, they know late
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: in the offseason they can go find a Miles Straw.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: They know that those guys are not going to be
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: the first ones to sign. And so if you want
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: to go after one of the bigger free agents, again,
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: there's not a whole lot of them this year, but
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: you want to go after and make some of those plays,
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: you want the ultimate flexibility to And somebody might fall
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: into your lap, and all of a sudden.
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: You're like, I've got duplication. I don't want that.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: So I do see that as something where a lot
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: of these teams will let some guys go, they'll keep
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: in contact, and then later in the offseason, if things
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: don't play out the way that they're hoping or they
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: don't find the good deals, then they're going to resort
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: back to these kind of guys on one-year deals and
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: kind of fill the roster back out. So it's not
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: unexpected the way that some of these have played.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Then we also had... a handful of players get posted.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: So from the Japanese side, we had three players that,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, we were both expecting, we've been talking about
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: these guys for a long time where I had to
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: go back and find the episodes that we had talked
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: about them. And we've been doing it all summer.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: So it's probably my fault. Let's be honest.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's been good because like, if
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: people have been following along and bidding against you on
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: some of these cards and the Japanese market, They could
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: have been making some windfalls because especially Terry Rocky Sato
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: is the big one here who is coming over after
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: hitting 39 bombs, hit 40 bombs in 2025, was on
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the WBC team, is a third baseman, outfielder. Although people
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: are really dogging his glove that he might end up
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: being a second baseman in Major League Baseball. Left-handed bat.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I will also say that I've been listening to a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: lot of pods and reading people I think they're getting
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: kind of down on the free swinging nature of Sato.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: I get it, but I'm not quite sure if I'm
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: going to go there because I think just look at
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: like what Okamoto did. This is pretty similar to Okamoto.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: Sato does chase a lot more. And so we've discussed
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: him previously. Oh, I should put down like who was when,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: but go back to pods 132, 133, 152, 155. All
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of those were talking about these Japanese players. So earmark
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: that after you listen to us discuss about them a
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: little bit further here. But Sato, I think people are
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: really worried about the swing and miss. I'm a little
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: bit less so because like dudes like this, we just
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: saw it with Murakami and we saw it with Okamoto.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: I think when you're this elite of a talent in Japan,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you will figure it out. That like he might have
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: struggled against, you know, breaking balls or different velocities that
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: he might not see compared to MLB pitchers, but that's
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: what was available to him, and he annihilated it. It's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: kind of like going from AAA to MLB, and I
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: think if you're this good in NPB, and NPB is
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: even better than AAA by all the standards out there,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I think you're going to be a pretty good hitter
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: in MLB. Are you there with me on Sato? Are
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you maybe in this camp where You're also concerned about
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: the swing and miss in his game.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: No, I'm actually right there with you, if not further
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: ahead of you. I look at where he is, what
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: he did, and the metrics that he's posted relative to Murakami.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And I think Sato's in a better spot than Murakami.
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: And look what Murakami did when he came over. Yeah,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: did he strike out quite a bit?
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, he did. Did he hit for amazing power? Yes,
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And I think Sato's more athletic of a player. And
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: so I think he's a more complete hitter. And yeah,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: does he, does he chase? Yes, he does, but he,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: he chases makes contact and makes loud contact. And, you know,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that he can't adapt, adjust.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: He's, he's not going to hit 300 when he, when
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: he comes over, you know, he, he won the triple
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: crown this.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: Year in MPB.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: That's not who he's going to be, but this is
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: a guy that could, easily hit, I'm going to say 265,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: 30 homers, steal five or 10 bases and have some
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: amazing power in the middle.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Of the lineup.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: And again, from a glove perspective, like, yeah, I know
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: he's been dogged, but he, he's been a pretty gosh
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: darn solid glove too. Like, uh, it does feel like, uh,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: you know, these guys are getting a kind of a
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: rough deal, but And maybe that's because some of the
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: pitchers that have come over have not worked out like
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: in my as much as you expect. But the hitters
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: have really translated well the last few times that guys
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: have come over. And so, you know, I've seen some
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: projections on contracts that are pretty reasonable and, you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: kind of what Murakami got. But, you know, I think
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Murakami's really paved the way for Sato here. Um, but I,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you know, I just can't see how he's not a steal, uh,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: in this free agency class. And, you know, this is
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: a guy that's going to be 28, uh, when the
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: season starts, uh, can play multiple spots at the diamond
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: and just fit right into the middle of the lineup.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: And this guy's got swagger too. Uh, he's fun to watch.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: He is fun to watch. So, I'm all in. I
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: don't understand the negativity here.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Even the issues that we.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: Saw with Murakami, bigger strikeout issues, bigger concerns there, and
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: he figured it out. And so I think Sato is
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: going to be at the ground running, relatively speaking.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I fully agree. I think he's going to be
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: totally fine. And I actually think, too, because the free
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: agency clash is so poor, that like there's a decent
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: chance Sato gets to nine figures because it's just possible
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: because a bidding war breaks out. And you've also got some,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: some bigger hitters in terms of the free agency market
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and spending from the team side that have some spots
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: open for him in corner locations. You know, I don't
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: think he is going to hang at third base personally
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that I think he's probably more of like a second
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: baseman left fielder, but like, can he fake it at
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: third when you need him to? Yes. But like, I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: do think he probably settles somewhere else other than third base.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: So that even opens it up even more. But yeah,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I agree. I think it's like a 30 homer bat
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: with like a 250, 260 average. Maybe part of it too,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: is that like we're viewing it a little bit more
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: from the fantasy lens, like on the fantasy lens, like
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that's going to play pretty well on the maybe actual
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: in real life on the field. Maybe it's a little
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: bit different when you factor in the fielding, but Still,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: like you've said, he's a star, and I think he's
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: going to attract that when he comes over, that I'm
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: pretty big on Sato. So yeah, we've got two pitchers
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: here then, too. We've got Kaima Taira and Hiromi Ito.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So Taira, we've talked about before, he is a undersized pitcher,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: I think is probably the best way to put it,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: but he's still like, he throws gas. It's a nasty
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: fastball where like, It's kind of fastball Freddy-ish, like Freddy Peralta-y.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: But he has been a bit of a swing man,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: kind of a reliever, starting pitcher, hybrid. He did a
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: lot of starting more so this year. But like I said,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: is on the smaller side. But that also leads to
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: just an absurd, absurd release point for him too. So
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I think there's going to be a lot of teams
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that are interested in Tyra because of the fastball, because
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: of just the unique qualities that he has in that arm.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: pitched to a 136 ERA over 146 frames with the
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Cebu Lions. And then you have Ito who is one,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: the like Cy Young equivalent over in Japan, which they
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: don't always hand out. Like you have to go out
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: and earn it. So there's that component. And then you
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: also are looking at a guy who I think compared
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: to what you're looking at in Tyra, Ito is a
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: little bit more of like a, Crafty, well-rounded, multiple pitch pitcher.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: But I think because of that, nothing really stands out.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And from what I've been reading and listening to, there's
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: actually a decent chance that Tyra gets more money than Ito,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: even though he was less heralded over in Japan himself.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Ito's stats, 323 ERA in 172 and two-thirds innings this
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: year with the Nippon Ham Fighters. So that shows you
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: also kind of the difference there. There's a lot more volume.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: There's ace kind of production in Ito that, like, he
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: likes getting the ball and going out there every fifth
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: day and, well, once a week, I guess, in Japan. But,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you know, might be a little bit more into that, like,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Masahiro Tanaka mold where like on Tyra, honestly, like I said,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: it might be like a Freddy Peralta mold or like,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if we've seen something like it.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: It could be something brand new. So if you had
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: to pick between Tyra and Ito, what, where would you go?
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And what do you think about both of them overall?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, I don't think it's terribly close. I'd
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: take Tyra all day. I think, you know, it is
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: going to be a challenge for teams to look past
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: the stature of Tyra here being 5'8. And I think
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: you and I have talked on the spot a few
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: times of like, hey, the new thing is to get
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: 6'5 pitchers and rely on that downward plane. But this
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: guy's got a 7-pitch repertoire. It's almost like a UDAR-ish
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: kind of. thought process to a degree as far as
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: this guy can throw the kitchen sink, but he also can,
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: can really, really pump it up there. And the control
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: that he had this year in NPB was the best
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: that he's had in his entire career. So he continues
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: to mature and he's still only going to be in
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: the 27 years old. So I think that he's really
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: going to be intriguing. Some teams are going to shy
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: away just from the stature perspective. But I think he's
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: better off than Amai was coming over and, Uh, but
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: I do think the, my coming over is going to
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: hurt his overall earning potential. I told him the other hand, um,
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: you know, I, I do worry about the guys that
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: are a little bit more control centric and don't have
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: the same powerful stuff coming over. And I think that's
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: where I toe fits in. Um, the, the walk rate is,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: has been incredible and that's really what's carried, carried him through, uh,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: you know, walks per, per nine this year, 1.77, uh,
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: with a 4.7% walk rate, which is worse than, than
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: what he did the year before. But he's the kind
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: of guy that's going to nibble at the edges, kind
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: of work through things. But I think the hitting quality
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: in the majors is going to be a bigger challenge
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: for him to use that same tactic. So I think
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: Tyra is going to be the guy to go after here.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I think there's going to be a team that takes
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: a flyer on Ito. But I think he's more back-end
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: rotation material for me.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Okay. Yep.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I think I agree with you there. So we also
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: had one other posting. And he was from the KBO.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: The Hanwha Eagles have posted Si Hwan Ro, their second baseman.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: And well, I guess third baseman, but it sounds like
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: he's going to project over as more of like a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: second baseman here in Major League Baseball. But who knows?
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe I guess there's a team out there that might
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: view him as a third baseman. Is six foot one.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: So certainly has the stature to be able to handle it.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Coming off of three years of 25 or four years
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: of 25 homer plus in the KBO. is going to
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: be 25 years old. We have not talked about him.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: So this is one that is new for us. But
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: the season they came off of is 29 homers and
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: 127 games with a 283-360-505 slash line. And he is right, right.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: So keep that in mind as opposed to where the
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: other thing that's just going to like shoot Sato's market
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: through the roof is being left-handed that like, I think
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: that's going to be the new hotness as we get
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: into free agency after seeing what the Brewers did this
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: offseason or postseason and just steamrolling everybody with left-handed bats.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: But Rowe, I mean, this is a pretty interesting profile.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily aware of him until he got posted
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and started reading into the profile a little bit. KBO
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: is a step down, certainly from NPB, probably more of
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: like a double A-ish level. And I think we've seen
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: less success from players that have come out of the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: KBO than we have from NPB. Just look at like
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: this year with Sun Moon Song, who came from KBO. Um,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: he was not able to really like crack into that
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Padres team very well. Uh, then we also have, you know,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: seen other players where, you know, like, uh, Hey, Hey,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: song Kim for the Dodgers, Hassan Kim, who had a
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: couple of good years for the Padres, but has really
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: fallen apart due to injuries. Roe is probably closer to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Hassan Kim, but like when I was trying to find
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a comp, maybe an MLB, uh, maybe a little bit
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: more of like a, a Vaughn Grissom sort of player
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: where Solid contact, pretty good power, good eye at the plate,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: but maybe a tick too many Ks and a questionable-ish
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: glove where you don't love him anywhere, but he settles
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in a second base. So that's where I'm viewing him.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Somebody where if he gets a location when he signs
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: with an MLB club, if Rowe can find an opening
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: day spot in the starting lineup, Yeah, maybe you're looking
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: at a guy who can hit like 250 and get
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: to 20 homers and counting stats from there. He's not
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: going to run. It's like single digit stolen bases here.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: So a back end MI option for fantasy, but also
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: could also fall a little bit more into that sun, moon,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: song bucket where just can't crack through because nothing kind
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: of shows out. I will say that, like I said,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the power compared to like the Haesong Kim versus Haesong
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Kim spectrum. He's more in the Haesong Kim spectrum. So
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: what do you make here of Siwon Roh?
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're pretty spot on with your analysis.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: I'll give you credit here.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: This is pretty good. All right. But yeah, I think
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: that this is going to be a stretch.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: This is a power bat with going to be some
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: challenge of the plate discipline. It's not like this is
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: a guy that's hitting 310, 320 in the KBO. This
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: guy was hitting 280 at best, and strikeouts were the mid-20s.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: And again, this competition is a step down. So I
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: think he's going to be a guy that is going
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: to probably find more of a platoon-type role.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: He's going to find a role. I'm not too concerned
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: But I think he's going to be more that kind
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: of platoon situation, power bat, maybe a second-tier team that's
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: kind of taking a flyer to see if he fully
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: can translate.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: But I.
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: from a fantasy perspective, we're talking maybe a corner infield
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: flyer at best here. Um, I just, I don't think
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: that we've seen such a strong track record from him, uh,
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: over in the KBO from a plate discipline perspective. And the,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: the game is not necessarily extremely well-rounded like we saw,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: saw with like high cost young Kim, where you had
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: some speed and other things to, to kind of play
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: and carry that, or even strong defense, which we don't
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: really have with Juan here. So, um, I think that
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: he's going to be limited in his overall appeal to
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: kind of that platoon second tier type of major league team.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think there is a chance that
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: he could be more, but it's going to take a
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: development kind of phase. So I think you don't have
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: to worry about him, like hitting 25 homers out the
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: box in 2027, but it could be in there. Like
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: he's 25 years old. Another team could still juice a
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: little bit more out of this profile. So, Something to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: keep in mind for like dynasty keeper situations, 2027 redraft late,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: late round flyer sort of situation right now until we
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: know where he's going to settle. So yeah, that's going
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: to get us through those, those postings. I will, those
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: guys will sign before we get through like the regular
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: portion of the off season. Cause I think they're also like,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: cause I, Rowe is actually his clock, I think, expires
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: on like the day that the lockout is probably going
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: to happen. But for any for the Japanese players and
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: anybody else that comes over, I was reading that like
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: actually their window will stay open through the lockout. So
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: they'll be in like a lockout purgatory if they do
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: sign with a team, but like aren't in like. if
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: their window is open enough to go into the lockout,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: that they could still sign with the team. So I
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: think they'll help us, too, to see where these dudes land.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: So by the time that we get into December, we're
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: going to have news on where the four of these
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: guys have signed, which is going to be exciting for
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: us because also something to keep in mind if you're
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: storing any of the cards of the Japanese players, pull
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: them out now because they're going to sign within the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: next four weeks and it's going to be time to move.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and those markets, let's be very frank, as a
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: guy that has some of these cards, I'm having a
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: pretty big dilemma here. Those cards are not going to
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: be worth much more than they are right now. Those
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: guys are fully hyped. The only thing that's going to
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: drive it further is if they sign with a big team.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: So if somebody signs with the Yankees or the Dodgers,
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: that's what's going to push it further. But Murakami signing
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: last year with the White Sox didn't really juice that
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: market or anything from the card side of things. And
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: even then, it took him to come out blazing in
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: the season for those cards to actually creep back up
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: to where they were and then passed, and now they've
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: actually come back down since then. So the hype for
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: these guys actually bakes in the vast majority of the price,
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: very similar to what prospects do as well coming out
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: of the draft.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: So if you got them, now's the time. Yeah, it's okay.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Hold a few of them if you want, but if
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: you've been stashing, make your move.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yep. Last piece of news is we have the Houston
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Astros hiring Randy Flores as their general manager. And yes,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: it's that Randy Flores, the left-handed reliever from the early 2000s.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe like the reason that the three batter minimum rule
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: was invented. Like if you recall him on a couple
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: of those Cardinals teams, especially the 06 club that won
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the world series, you know, he just would like come
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: in and get one out and go out. Actually, I'm
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: looking at his stat. His stat line is 2010 season.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: with Minnesota and Colorado. He made 58 appearances, 31 innings.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Those are the good old days.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Was a bit of a soft toaster, but
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: was just so nasty on left-handed batters. Has been in
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the Cardinals organization as a scouting director and kind of
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: pitch development guy. So is moving over to the Astros here,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: taking the place of Dana Brown. who left town when
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: he felt the ownership breathing down his neck with Jim Crane.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And I mean, Jeff Bagwell, just always sitting behind home plate,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: staring at your terrible.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Decisions on the field.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I do feel pretty good about Flores landing here though,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: because the word is that the Astros have already kind
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: of retooled some of their other pitching coaches throughout that
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: organization where this club, what actually made that Astros kind of,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: mini dynasty good on top of, I mean, the trash
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: can was that they were plucking arms, just like out
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: of thin air that like, certainly they had the Altuve, Correa, Bregman,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Springer core, and then added Tucker and Alvarez, but the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: pitching staff would just be like created out of nothing
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and like retreads. And they were kind of on the
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: forefront of pitch development. It's really fallen off over the past, uh,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: really since like COVID, And so the fact that like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you're getting Randy Flores in there, who I think the
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: proof is in the pudding with what the Cardinals have
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: done over the past couple of years and some of
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the dudes that they've been developing in the lower ranks.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I think I'm feeling pretty good about like Astros reviving
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: that system to bring pitchers back to where, you know,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years, I was out on just
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: about any Astros pitchers that have come through, but this
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: is going to like perk things back up to where,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: These guys, I'm going to start watching them a little
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: bit more. I'm going to start tracking them a little
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: bit more, keeping tabs on what changes maybe they're putting
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: into the pitch arsenals, because if they can get that
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: system going again, they used to be really good at it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: And you would be able to find pretty cheap pitchers
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: to add to the back end of your fantasy roster
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: into streams.
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: So.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I know you're not always big on front office changes
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: having impacts on fantasy and the on-the-field results as much
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: as we might think they do. But what do you
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: think here about Randy Flores during the Astros?
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if there's anything that's really going to impact,
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: it's that quality of pipeline of the Astros. I think
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: it's been pretty clear over the last handful of years,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: any I'll say Astros' big-name prospect hasn't really paid off,
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: hasn't really panned out, hasn't been that thing. What Flores
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: has done for the Cardinals for the last decade has
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: really made his medal in the draft. Has he been
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: perfect on it?
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Absolutely not.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: But what front office is nailing every single pick in
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: the draft. Astros have missed much more than they've hit.
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: The Cardinals have been the other way around. And I
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: really think that that's a key reason they're bringing Flores
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: here is because To your point, Astros have been kind
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: of plucking guys, but that's been their whole game. It's
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: like the free agency game. That's how they've been creating
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: their teams. Not since the Jordans and Kyle Tuckers and
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: things like that for multiple years ago were they producing
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: out of that farm system. And teams aren't even wanting
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: to trade with that farm system.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: For better or worse.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: So I do think he's going to have the bigger
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: impact there, gives me a little more trust on the
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: players there that are coming out of that system. I
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: do think he's going to make a difference. I think
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: the Astros are also trying to rebuild some credibility across
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: the league overall. And that's part of the clearing shop
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: that they're going to do. Honestly, until that team is
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: sold and Jim Crane's not there, it's probably going to
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: still have that aura of it. But I think Flores
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: will be a step in the right direction. And probably
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: not going to say a lot for the major league team,
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: but I do think this is going to be a
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: step forward for the minor league system, which eventually will
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: start to populate up throughout, throughout the team in, in
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: the coming years.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I'm right there with you. So we
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: do have a few tweaks to the baseball card calendar,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: go into those show notes and see the full updates.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: We are speaking on November 4th. So 2026 tops cosmic
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Chrome dropped today. So, fun cards look at very expensive.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: So keep that in mind. Uh, I, I, I love
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: the set, but we're not going to go into a
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: deep dive just because it's a pretty niche set as well.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: That like between the pricing and the limited print runs
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: compared to other products, that is, I mean, not compared
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to cosmic Chrome when it first came out that the,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: it's just not quite to the level where we give
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: it a full overview. Otherwise we had the date be
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: set for 2026 tops Chrome update. The presale was on Monday,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and I think it went just about as we had
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: talked about, where most of the bots scooped things up.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: But on December 9th, you'll be able to get some
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: products either on shelves in hobby stores, or there will
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: be another drop on Topps.com for product there. Going to
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: be a huge chase between the rookies and the MLB
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: debut patches that are embedded there within Topps. And then, otherwise,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: we got added to the Schedule 2026 Tops T05. So,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a niche set, obviously designed off
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: of the famous T205 set that has the multi-million dollar
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Honus Wagner card in it. And November 13th will be
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: the pre-order there. So, we're going to take a short
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: break and come back on the other side to talk
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: about those Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee Brewers! Milwaukee Brewers!
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody. We are going to do a pod
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: PC for the Milwaukee Brewers who just won that World
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Series last week. So during our last pod, pod number 161,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: hopefully you can count down from 162. We actually were
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: recording during game five that the Brewers clinched. So we
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: weren't quite on air when the actual clinch happened, but
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: we saw most of the game unravel and got to
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: see the Miz dominate and then leave the very, very
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: loose mound that kind of caused his leg to give way.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: But then, yeah, it was kind of inevitable, I thought,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: after Game 4 when the Tampa Bay Rays really had
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: to use everything that was in the tank to be
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: able to get through that extra innings Game 4 and
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: win it. After that, it just kind of felt like
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: the writing was on the wall because this Milwaukee Brewers
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: team just steamrolled everybody in 2026. It's almost... A little
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: bit of a bummer, maybe, that the World Series wasn't
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a sweep because they then would have been the first
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: team to sweep the Championship Series and the World Series
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: in a seven-game format. But I think when we actually
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: look back on the 2026 playoffs, because of the Brewers' dominance,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit more boring than we would
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: have anticipated. Sam Miller wrote at his substack that this
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: was actually... one of maybe if not the earliest kind
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: of that he could find on record in recent memory
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: of the championship win probability, not happening in like a
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: CS or a world series that it actually happened and
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: the DS against the Padres. So I think it was
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: like the Jackson Churio Homer that he hit was the
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: biggest swing in championship win probability added, which ranks all
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of the individual happenings of a baseball season in for
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: like what added the biggest percentage of, Hey, this team
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: will win the world series. And so because of that,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: that'd be good to honor this Milwaukee brewers team. Maybe
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: even start a little bit of a tradition here of
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: a PC going forward. If you're not familiar with what
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: we do here on this pod, a PC stands for
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: personal collection. We've got a long running list of other
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: cards that we've picked over the years for different awards
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: and hall of fame items. And so now we're going
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: to do it here for these Milwaukee brewers.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: So again, Uh, brew.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, this was a very dominant team,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: was the number one seed in the national league, crushed
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: all their competition, uh, had some superstars, I think on
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: the squad as well between William Contreras, the Ms, Jackson Churio,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: Kristen Yelich being the first captain in Brewers history, Jake Bowers, uh,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Trevor McGill, Logan Henderson, Abner Rebay, uh, I don't think
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: anybody's a hall of famer right now. Christian Yelch is
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: probably the closest on the border, but you know, in
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: a few years time, maybe we'll start talking about Churio
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Contreras and the Miz being on their way to hall
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: of fame careers. So what's going to stand out for
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: the 2026 world series champion brewers in your mind, as
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: you're reflecting back on it a week later after they won. Yeah.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I think that the thing that sticks out to me
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: is the just completeness of the team. And I think
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: that that's an interesting thing to think through when you
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: actually look at the lineup and how deep it truly
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: was and how they actually had a strong bench and
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: the depth of the bullpen and and the reliability of
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: the rotation. Like they, for a few years, they've been
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: kind of knocking on the door of having a really,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: really solid team, but they matured and they just, they
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: were incredibly deep. And it wasn't, you know, a single
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: player that went, went through and just dominated and, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: they carried them. This team was carried by everybody. Um,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: and you know, it's funny when we were looking at
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: the MVP announcement, like you, I feel like you can
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: make a justification for like four or five different guys. Um, and, and,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: and that's not to discount the other players.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: Like it was a full team effort.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: And I feel like it's been a while since we've
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: seen that type of baseball win the world series.
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of refreshing. So that's, what's going to
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: stick with me.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: It was not, you know, this one pitcher coming out
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: and dominating, getting three starts in the world series.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: And if without him, uh, They don't win. It wasn't somebody.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: We talked about collecting into the playoffs and trying to
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: pick out the guys to roster. It wasn't some unknown
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: guy that came out and had an amazing series here
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: or there. Maybe Jake Bowers can throw into that a
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: little bit. But it was just guys playing really good baseball.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: And.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: God, there's something about that that is just so refreshing
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: to see. So I just love the team aspect. There
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: is no I in team, but there's a few letters
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: of Brewers in there, I believe. So I'm okay with
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: this result, and I feel like there's a little bit
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: of a Brewers dynasty trying to boil up here, which.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: I'd be okay with. I'd be okay with.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think there has been. We've kind
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: of been in the midst of it and just not
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: quite noticed because the Dodgers have been so good too,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: but like And it's unfortunate maybe for the Brewers that
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: they've had the Dodgers on their side of the bracket
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: for so long, too, that, you know, if the Brewers
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: were still in the AL, we could have had some
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: pretty epic World Series matchups. But I do agree that
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: this has been such a well-run team that it feels
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: good to see it rewarded that like, you know, they
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: really go against what the kind of overarching story of
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: this lockout is also going to be in terms of
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: money wins championships. And if you're not in a big market,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: you stand no chance of winning. It's like, no, put
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: up or shut up. Just like run a good team.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Like go, go to the Pittsburgh pirates, go to Bob
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Nutting and show him like, you could do this in Pittsburgh.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: If you put your, your, your power to it. I mean,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: just look at the Tampa Bay rays as well, that like,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: there's multiple ways to win baseball teams and the Dodgers
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: certainly have their advantages, but they also have their blind
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: spots and disadvantages as well. So like, I think that's
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: what makes baseball fascinating is that you can use all
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: these different ways to win a game and leverage all
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: sorts of different skill sets to be able to do it.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: And the Milwaukee Brewers really exemplified that better than teams
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: of recent vintage, like from the Dodgers. They did in
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: 2026 and just like, it all came together. So like,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: the other thing is like, I was talking about, you know,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: left-handed batters a little bit earlier being maybe like the
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: takeaway of like, what teams will learn from this squad or,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and maybe a little bit of like the Aaron Ashby
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: approach too, but also just like run a good baseball organization.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: That's if you do that, you're going to put yourself
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: into contention year in, year out. And that's where the
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: brewers are. Yeah.
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: It's like the nineties Braves. They were really, really good.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: They just have to break through here, here and there.
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: So, okay.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Well, with that, we're going to pick some PC cards here. So,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: We had to start, obviously, with the World Series MVP himself,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: William Contreras. And I think the reason that he won, too,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: is you spoke a little bit to, like, there was
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: four dudes that can win. Why not give it to
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the heart and soul of the squad, William Contreras here,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: who hit 381, 435, 429 in 21 at-bats, 23 plate
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: appearances there. Didn't hit any homers. Did steal one base, but,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: you know, was also brilliant behind the plate, was great
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: on the challenges, was great in throwing runners out on
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the base pass, called all the games very well. So
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: that's really what put him over the top for this
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: World Series MVP. Also just crazy year for him and
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Jackson Churio between winning the WBC, going through the earthquakes
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: in Venezuela, and then winning the World Series together. Like
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: that's a hell of a year. of a 12 months
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: put together. So, uh, with William Contreras here has never
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: been in our PC. So we get to do some
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: fresh picks. Where'd you go?
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Well, Contreras is a tough, tough one because, you know, we,
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: we each have kind of like our go-tos as far
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: as the things we like to do with our PCs.
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: And I love the rookie cards, the Bowman's things like that.
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: But with But here we couldn't pull a Contreras card
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: with the Braves. Like we just couldn't, at least I
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: couldn't go there personally. We'll see what you decide to do.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: But I just felt like it had to be in
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: a Brewers uniform. So I went with a recent release
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: with 2026 Topps Tribute. I went with the Prime Patch
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Auto out of five of the Brewers. And so this
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: card is a massive patch. This one is three color patch.
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: Almost has two full letters in that. And then it
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: is behind kind of a clear acetate finish that is
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: then autographed over. It also has the MLB authentication sticker
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: on it as well to identify the game it's from.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: To be very clear, I was not thinking ahead and
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: I didn't look up what game it's from. So if
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: you want to do that while I'm walking through this card,
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: feel free. But this is a card that was sold
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: actually on eBay just recently. about three weeks ago for $ 375.
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: Like I said, it's an out of five. Right now,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: there's one with almost four days left for $.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: 400 on bids on eBay.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: And the same one that I found sold is listed
• 55:18
  Speaker 3: for $ 1, 100. Buy it now on eBay because his market
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: has gone through the roof with that MVP and just
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: with the way he's endeared himself to a number of fans. Also,
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: there's a one-on-one version out there that has kind of
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: a good half of the Brewers logo on there as well.
• 55:37
  Speaker 3: But that's $ 2, 500 if you want to play that. But
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: I'm a big sucker for these big patch cards. I
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: think they look absolutely phenomenal. And it's really a tough
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: thing when you get an autograph on the patch. But
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: because of the way that Tribute did this, where they
• 55:52
  Speaker 3: kind of have, like I said, like a clear acetate
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: over the patch... they're able to autograph it directly over
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: the patch as well, which really comes out well. So
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: going with the prime patch auto out of five for
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: William Contreras here.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: All right. Well, and he actually, he wore this last playoffs,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: October 8th, 2025, in the Game 3 NLD loss to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: the Brewers at Wrigley. So he racked up a hit.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: That's also why it's probably... going through the roof as
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: well too. You don't get too many game used authentic
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: pieces of memorabilia that were from the playoffs, but that's
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the bonuses of tops tribute. Great,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: great card. Also like a very subtle red on the,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: on the, on the, of five where the red is
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: just kind of like outlined in the background and it's
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: kind of blended in pretty well that you can barely
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: tell that it's a red parallel. Technically it's, But yeah, beautiful,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: beautiful choice. You can't go wrong with something as wonderful
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: as this. And yeah, great find.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's why I love Topps Tribute and a few
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: of those sets, because they do provide these kind of cards,
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: which can be centerpieces of displayed collections. So Contreras, great
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: job here. Where did you go with Contreras yourself?
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: All right, well, this one's got a little bit of
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: a personal twist, which is why I picked it. So
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I went with 2021 Topps Chromed, William Contreras rookie card,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: the negative refractor. So he is going to be in
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: the Atlanta Braves jersey. Although it's a little tougher to
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: tell because it's a negative refractor, which I put a
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: lot of these into the PC because I love them.
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with what they are, it's like
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: a photo negative where the dark colors are light colors
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: and the light colors are dark colors. And then it's
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: got the refractor finish on it. So it's pretty slick looking.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: They especially really pop in person because you get that
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: rainbowy refractor. with the all silverness of it. And so
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: it's a very striking card. They're also very, very rare,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: like they're short printed and they're not a very high
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: print run. And so with, when I see rookie cards
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: like this one, uh, I had found one at a
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: card show buried in a dollar box and snagged it
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: and sold it at peak during like the 2024 season
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: for Contreras when he put up the 23 homers and
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: 132 WRC plus and made about what it is now.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: So I think I sold mine for 25 when it
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: hit peak, but that's a 25 X on the card.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: A reminder of like stash away those parallels that you
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: find for cheap at, at, at card shows that like,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: if you find negative refractors, if you find low, low
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: numbered cards that they're rookies and it's a decent ish player.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to suggest this for like,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: relievers and dudes that like have never like had a
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: chance of sticking on an MLB roster. But for somebody
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: like William Contreras, where like, I mean the negative refractor
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: for a dollar, like it was always going to hold
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: at a dollar, no matter what William Contreras had already
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: like achieved that level in Atlanta. It was only upside
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: from there. So when you're hunting in those, value boxes,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: just kind of keep that in mind, especially as you're
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: going to go through 2026 Chrome products. And there's going
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: to be tons of rookies that come out in this
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: update class and that came out in the regular Chrome
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: class that maybe it's not worth anything now, but those
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: parallels could pick up steam in a couple of years
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: if you stash them away right.
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually love this call because it's something that
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: I do with my collection. Part of it's because I'm
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: a wannabe card seller at card shows, and I tend
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: to not ever do that because even when you and
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: I have done card shows before, I just tend to
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: go buy more.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: Than I actually sell.
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: But I keep what I would consider a dollar box
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: just on my table that has my cards, and when
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: I find– something like this that is definitely should be
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: in a dollar box somewhere.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: I throw it in there.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: And then I just, every once in a while, just
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: go through when, when a player just is going off
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: and you just go through and see, Hey, do I
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: have any of that there? I did that with like
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: PCA this year. I just ran into random cards of him.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: It's just really fun to kind of go back and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: you're absolutely right. These are the kinds of cards all
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: of a sudden shoot through the roof. And you're like,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: wait a second, I've got a handful of these sitting around,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: but it wasn't worth selling for, $ 1. 50 at the time,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: but when they peaked, you could get a fun little
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: return on these kind of cards.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: So great pick.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: As you and I both have talked about multiple times
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: in this podcast, negative refractors are undervalued. They're rarer than
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: people realize, and they're just really, really cool cards.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: So I love it.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: It was a rookie card, so I did indicate that
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: I couldn't go to the Atlanta version, but I guess
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: if you're going to go there, negative refractor rookie is
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: the way to go.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think that's fair. Well, because we need a
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: couple other ways to build out this PC, I figured
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: we would also do a PC for a guy that
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I think probably I would have picked for the World
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: Series MVP, personally, just after the crazy, crazy postseason run
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that we got out of Aaron Ashby here. You know,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: the entire postseason did not give up a run in
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: his 18 innings, picked up three saves, and was just
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: lights out dominant. That his untouchability, honestly, carried the entire
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: back end of that Brewers bullpen because then it allowed
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: Pat Murphy to get really creative with his starting pitchers
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and being able to limit the usage for Trevor McGill,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: where I think that's where some of the other teams
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: that fell apart in the playoffs, they got a little
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: too slap happy going to their closers. And Aaron Ashby
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: was able to help Pat Murphy through that part of
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: it is because Ashby came up as a starter and
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: so had been stretched out at points in his career.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: And that allowed him to carry through in the world
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: series alone. Ashby put up a, Oh, Nope. That would
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: be the individual entire season. I'm going to need a
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: little bit of time to find it here, but he
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: ended up putting up a line of five and two thirds,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: obviously didn't allow run. Struck out nine in those five
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: and two thirds and picked up a save in the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: five game world series. Never been an RPC, never popped
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: up in any sort of player of the month list
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. So the world is your oyster
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: in terms of finding an Aaron Ashby card to pick.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Where did you go, Brew?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 3: Well, this was a tough one for me because I
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: put a very clear requirement on any Aaron Ashby.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Card that he had to have the beard.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Um, that was a very clear requirement for me because
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: I feel like the beard was awesome. Uh, this, this
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: playoffs and I, they think he is the playoffs MVP.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: They don't give that out, but I think that's who
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: he was. Um, so I went with a set that's
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: not even made anymore. Um, unless I'm wrong, I'm pretty
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: sure this set is no longer made. Uh, but I
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: went with the tops, uh, clearly, uh, set from 2022,
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: which was Aaron Ashby's rookie year, uh, card. And so
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: this is his tops, clearly authentic, uh, auto rookie acetate card.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: And so what these are, and these were back when
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: I think you could get like one card in the box.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: So you'd buy like a $ 60 box and you'd get
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: like one card. And in this case, you'd get a
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: random middle reliever.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: Type of thing.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: This one just happened to work out. Um, but they,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: these are acetate clear cards, uh, as, as, as the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: name indicates. Um, but it's just a similar, it's exact
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: replica of the flagship, uh, card that you would get,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 3: but just made an acetate.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: So you can clearly see through it. Um, and this
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: is an auto.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: Version, uh, that Ashby actually has a pretty good signature. Uh,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: it's nice that you have two A's to play off here, uh,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: in that name. Uh, and this is Ashby, uh, Just
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: bearing down, throwing a pitch, like I said, he's got
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: the beard in this one, which is not always what
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: you can say for a lot of the other cards
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: he has out there. But I think this clearly is
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: a cool set, especially for acetate, where you can actually,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: there is acetate generally in flagship, it's like out of 10,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: so they're very hard to find. This is a little
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: bit unique where you can actually find it for a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: much more reasonable price. This one, actually, we're looking at now,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: ends this coming Sunday. Currently doesn't have any bids. So
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: if you want to get out there and try to
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: snipe it for a buck, probably not going to happen
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: with what he's been through. Because I will probably put
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: a bid on it for that. But I think this
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: is just a fabulous card. And Aaron Ashby deserves to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: be in our PC.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a great, great pick. And I think
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: it's also just a really... The photos could be a
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: little bit more not tilted, but it's a good indicator
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: of like what an acetate card is because the person
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: who's took in the photos has put it on like
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: a granite countertop. And so you can see right through
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: it and see the pattern from the granite. So, you know,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: you're getting a clear card. And I think one of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: the underratedly cool parts of the acetate cards is how
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: they hide like all of the copyright information on the
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: back of the card. So it doesn't show through in
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the front. that, you know, if you get a basic
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: acetate card to, uh, without the signature, it'll have like
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: buried info lined up with the photo. So it's all hiding.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: It's a really cool effect. Uh, I agree with you.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: Great signature, great signature for Marin Ashby. It's an upper
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: tier one and he does it constantly. Like it's a,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: it probably takes him a little time. He puts a
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: little bit of care into it. The other factor about this, uh,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: One of the most Wisconsin eBay listeners I've ever seen.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: Badger Brewer Packer out of Wanaki, Wisconsin, outside Madison, trying
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: to make a little bank on his Milwaukee Brewers PC, obviously.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure he's got probably a handful of other
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Brewers cards as he's capitalizing on this World Series win.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: If you want to, you can move it into your PC.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: That's awesome.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: I didn't even notice the seller name, Badger Brewer Packer.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: Tell me where your true allegiances lie.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I went with a 2022 rookie card as well.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I went with, this is a pretty weird set because like,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time it was on the market.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: And like, honestly, usually I kind of hate these cards,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: but it really struck me as a great card. varian
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: ashby from 2022 bowman heritage so he had a rookie
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: card there number 14 bowman heritage it actually used to
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: just be like tops heritage but they would do throwback
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: bowman designs the 2022 design was actually based on the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: 1994 design which uh it's a pretty garbage set i
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: think if i recall correctly like there's not much in
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: those like mid 90s bowman bass sets but it's a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: pretty simple little design with like a little foil l
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: pattern on the left side going down to the right
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: bottom and then a b for the bowman in it
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: and then you got a little bit of uh other
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: like squares kind of creating a circle in the bottom
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: left and then pretty straightforwardly in like a uh just
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: like a normal font from like an old typewriter Aaron Ashby.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: It's a very clean card. It's zoomed in pretty well
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: and squared up. Your requirement was to put a beard
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: on him. My requirement was to get the rec specs.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: That's what stands out for me on Aaron Ashby. And
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: where this card really pops is actually the back of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: the 94 Bowmans were fun where Bowman did this in
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: 94 and Stadium Club did this in 94 where the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: info on the back is just kind of like they're
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: trying to be cool and give you splits against teams
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: and stuff, but it's kind of nonsensical. Like, like I said,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: stadium club was used to be the worst of this.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: It just gives you like weird, weird stats. It was
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: like before like sabermetric stats were around and they were
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: trying to maybe build James it up a little bit.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: But the throwback to the, the nineties design on the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: back of this card is just like, yeah, there used
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to be so much weird backs in the nineties cards
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: and we need to bring that back.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I agree.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: Especially when I was looking at this card, I'm like, man,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: I like the back better than the front of this card.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: And the funny thing is, is like Ashby does, it
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: looks like two different players because he doesn't have his
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: rec specs on, on the card in the back. And so,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: but yeah, Bowman inherited just, you didn't see them around
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: as much. I got a handful of these sitting around.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know how I acquired them, but it was a,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: actually pretty clean, nice, neat set. But this is just
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: a really good card. The breakdown on the back of
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: the stats there, it's what you feel like you get
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: from announcers these days, where they're just like, let me
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: find whatever stat I can find. This guy, when he
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: pitched before 2 p.m.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: On a Tuesday, this.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: Season while wearing blue cleats, he was really good. That's
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: kind of what it feels like on the back years.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: It's like, hey, he pitched three games against the Cubs, and.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: He had a 6.35 ERA.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's what that says.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: I have no idea if that's– did he win two games?
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: You're giving me nonsensical, useless information at this point. But
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: this is a fun card, and to your point, this
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: is $ 5. You can go out and buy this and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: add it to your PC really, really cheaply.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: A very affordable card. And I don't know how short
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: printed it is, but it's got to be relatively rare.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot of 2022 Bowman Heritage out there
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and any that might still be out there. People might
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: have also just like burnt because it's got Wander Franco's
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: all buried in it. So I figured we'd do one
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: last card. Let's round this out for a full Milwaukee
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: six pack all time Brewers card. Let's put it into
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: our PCs. Pretty straightforward. Where'd you go?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: I had way too much fun with this. I'm just
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: going to admit this now.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, what other cards did you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: maybe consider?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, I considered a lot of the greats.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: Did you go with a Hall of Fame rookie card?
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: Did you go with a Christian Yellich? Did you somehow
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: find a Bud Seelig working? There's a lot of different
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: paths to go down here. But I couldn't pass this up.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: So I went with 1976 Topps. And bear with me here.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: This is Kurt Bovecchia. And if you have no idea
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: who I'm talking about, Kurt Bovecchia was essentially a super
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: utility player from the 70s through the 80s who played
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: for six teams. And he played, I think, 15 seasons
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: in the major leagues. And he managed 27 homers and
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: hit 236 for a career.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: WRC plus of 78.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: This guy was the epitome of the bench utility guy.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: I think his career high at bats was 258 games,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: which would have been the season before this. So 75
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: season going into 76, which was arguably one of his
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: better seasons where he hit two homers, had a grand
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: total of 30 runs and 24 RBIs that season. But
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: what's really fun about this card is this is the
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: 1975 Bubblegum Blowing Championship card. And the Tops, who was
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: the maker of Bazooka Bubblegum, they had in 1975 a
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: Bubblegum Blowing Championship. championship, like full NCAA bracket style, for
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball. And they broadcast the final competition on
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: national television before Game 3 of the 75 World Series,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: and Bovecchia won. And so this card is just a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: picture of him with a massive piece of bubble gum
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: blowing a massive bubble. I didn't actually check to see
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: how large the bubble was, but That's probably neither here
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: nor there. Actually, it's 18 and one quarter inch bubble.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: That he pulled off. Official, official. Official, official.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: But I think what's really fun about this card is
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: if you actually go look at the back, you get
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: the full bracket results of who is in this. And
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: you've got some fun names here. For the Angels, you've
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: got Mickey Scott. The Royals had George Brett in here.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: You had Johnny Bench for the Reds. You had Bill
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 3: Madlock for the Cubs. You had Gary Carter for the Expos.
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 3: It went all the way up. through uh and tried
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: to to win burt blylevin from the twins was in
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: this bubblegum uh championship and so it's just it's just
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: a very oddball fun card i mean you can buy
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: it for five bucks um but if you can get
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: a graded PSA 10 in this, it's like a $ 500
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: card because you, you, you can't, you can't find it.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: And so it's just, it's, it's just oddball quirky. And
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: sometimes I really wanted to find a PSA 10 version,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: like find, like I couldn't find one that's sold for
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: years and years. So I, I, I didn't add that
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: to the PC cause that would be a little bit cheating.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: But I'll just take the, the base version. I'll buy
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: a few hundred of them, send them off to PSA.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: I'll find a 10 when they're somewhere for, for the collection.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I went oddball because why not? That's the
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: kind of stuff you need in the PC. So welcome
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: Kurt Bovecchia to our PC. Probably the one and only
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: time he's going to make our PC.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is an excellent pick. This is such a
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: fantastic little pick. And I mean, he's also got... Bovecchia's
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: got an insane Wikipedia. He's got an entire section of
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: feuds and brawls, which is unreal. But on top of
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: it too, he was in.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: Season 3, Episode 24 of King of the Hill. There's
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: a baseball episode, and he's on the Strickland Propane softball team.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: He's like a ringer they bring in, a la the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: famous baseball team for the Simpsons, but they do it
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: with Kurt Paveka, so that's hilarious. This is a fantastic card.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: It is an all-timer in terms of the hobby and
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: collecting because of what you're talking about, as evidenced by
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the extremely expensive PSA 10, but Man, what a pick.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: I wasn't thinking about this one. I'm glad that you
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: dug it out for us because what a story, what
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a guy, what a card.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: All right, close us out with our PC here because
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: I know you picked a good one too. So what
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: did you find?
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I was juggling around some of the
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: other classics like, you know, a 79 Topps Palmolitor or
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: a 75 Topps Robin Yount the way that you were. Or,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: I mean, Greg Vaughn had some great-looking cards for the
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers. But the first one that I thought of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: and went to immediately was the 2010 Topps Prince Fielder card,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: number one overall. Also number one in Topps Chrome. So
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: there's lots of different versions of this out there. I
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: went with the gold one because it really adds to...
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: This is when the Brewers were especially in that, like,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: real metallic gold and blue version of their uniforms because...
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: if you recall the famous Prince Fielder home run celebration
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: where he got to home plate and then dropped on
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: home plate, like a bomb and all of his teammates
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: just like scattered around him. It's a great horizontal photo
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: of that on this card. It was the number one
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: card from 2010 tops. And it is a great, fantastic
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: Milwaukee Brewers card to own the, Certainly, the lower number
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: refractors of this are pretty much impossible to find because
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: they've been tucked away in Milwaukee Brewers PCs all across
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: places like Madison, Wisconsin, or wherever Badger Brewer Packer Man
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: is living. And so the other ones are much more affordable,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: much easier to find. The gold version out of 2010 total.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Runs you somewhere between 10 to 15 bucks. You can
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: get the refractor version from Chrome. You can get an
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: extractor version. But I think if you're making any sort
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: of small Milwaukee Brewers PC, this one's got to be
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: in there. Like this is just like your Bevequa. Like
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: this is a pretty famous card, I think, within the
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: hobby overall. And yeah, just a throwback to the Prince
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Fielder days and remembering just what a behemoth he was
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: for those early 2010s, late, 2000s Brewers and commemorates it very,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: very well. And in case you were wondering, 2010, 58
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: years of collecting tops, just like such a random ass
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: number to stick in the top of the card.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a great card. And what it does
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: to me is it reminds me how amazing Prince Fielder
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: was for the Brewers. Like I'm just looking at some
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: of his stat lines. 2017, This guy hit. 288 with
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: 50 homers, 119 RBIs, 109 runs scored. That was an
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: unbelievable season. But because of how the offense was, it
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: was only a. 153 WRC plus at the time because
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: the league offense was so incredible. But man, this guy
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: had a run of probably a good five, six years
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: where he was hitting like.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: 280,. 290,. 290. 40, 50 home runs a season.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, he was, I think he went six of
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: seven years of 100 RBIs and just an awesome, awesome
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: all-time brewer. Too bad that the career got cut short
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 3: because I think Prince Fielder was on Hall of Fame
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: path at that point in his career. And so this
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: is an iconic card. Absolutely love it. It's the best
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 3: of baseball and it's absolutely a great add to the PC.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, yeah, that's going to wrap us up for
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: this Milwaukee Brewers PC. If you want to see pictures
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: of these cards and not just listen to our descriptions,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: go to the related Ras Ball post, which was linked
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: in those show notes that I've sent you to a
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: couple of times. If you've got any different cards that
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: you think this should actually be in your Brewers PC,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: let us know. Reach out to us at cardscategories at gmail.com.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: Find us on socials and bluesky at cardscategories.com. We don't
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: have the store anymore. I actually discovered last week that
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: the website that we're using had been shut down. So
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: if you want any more Cards and Categories gear, let
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: us know. Yeah, send in a note. I can open
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: up a new store somewhere else. Certainly can get that
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: set up, especially if you're itching for a hat to
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: keep you comfort throughout this long and lonely lockouts. brew,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: let people know where they can find you.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 2: Yep. Find me Twitter X blue sky, Jay Brewer, one seven, uh,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: all off season. Reach out. If you want to chat coolly,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 2: where can folks find you?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can find me on blue sky at M
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: cool seven C O U I L L on that
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: spelling of cool. Just like my last name, Obviously, you
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: can also click on it in the show notes and
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: you can read my work at Baseball Prospectus. I'm actually
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: I was working on the fantasy side of the Brewers
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: prospect list. So there's going to be lots of Brewers
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: coming up that will be impacting our game. Read my
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: work over at Baseball Prospectus when that is up and running.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: I'll also be at First Pitch Arizona this weekend from
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: November 5th, 6th and 7th. And. Yeah, if you're there
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: and you're hearing this in time, come say hi. Hopefully
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: can find you in a hallway or probably near the
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: hotel bar because it is vacation. So I'm going to
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: enjoy a brewski or two. It's going to be a
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: great time being out at First Pitch Arizona. And if
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: you want to rate and review the pod, if you haven't, well, actually, yeah,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: maybe I should rewind that to if you haven't rated
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: and reviewed the pod wherever you are, do so, especially
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: if it's a five-star rating. If it's not a five-star rating,
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: Reach us on those socials or that email address to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: let us know what would make it five stars for you.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you checking out our podcast. We're going to
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: be running all winter, even throughout the lockout. There's lots
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: of stuff still to talk about in relation to baseball
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: cards and fantasy impacts of the analysis from 2026 and
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: what we might be doing going into 2027. So we're
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: going to be going strong around here on cards and categories. Thanks, everybody.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: We'll see you roughly same time, same place next week.