Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / Weird Stuff Happens in Fresno with Jeff Passan

Transcript

Weird Stuff Happens in Fresno with Jeff Passan · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosters to Rings. Alongside John Daniels, we're here
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: with a great show today. We have got guest Jeff
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Passen joining us in the second segment. In the first
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: segment that we want to address the listener's questions and
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the question today JD is how different is the job
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: of being the general manager of the New York Yankees
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: compared to your job as the Texas Rangers or when
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I was with the Minnesota Twins. And I want to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: give you a little background here of some facts that
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I looked up of one of the ways that it's different.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So if you look at the team payrolls for twenty
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: twenty five, and this is according to spot track, the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Yankees have a three hundred and sixteen million dollars pay roll.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Texas has two hundred and thirty five million dollar payroll,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: in Minnesota one hundred and forty million. Those are round figures.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: TV revenue for New York is one hundred and forty
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: five million for Texas, they're hoping quote hoping to get
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: sixty million in their new deal. Minnesota was down to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: twenty five million. Pretty big disparity there. Total revenue for
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the New York Yankees approximately seven hundred and twenty eight
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: million dollars for Texas four hundred and six from Minnesota
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: three hundred and twenty four. So I think those numbers
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: speak to massive disparities between those three jobs. Well, what's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: your initial reaction to the question, how different would it
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: be to be the general manager of the New York Yankees?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: To be Brian Cashman versus being you or being me
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in our previous.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Roles, who was?
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I think there's just by definitely there's a lot of similarities. Right,
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: our goals are as far as winning World Series or
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: our goals are largely the same. Competitively, expectations certainly very different.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: One thing before I jump totally into that, I do
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: wanted to say that when we lead off with the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: revenue disparity, the payroll disparity, it certainly paints a picture
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: that it's like it's easier to be the big market club,
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: and there are absolutely advantages that go along with that, right,
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: there are levels of free agents that you know, when
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: you have a lower payroll, lower budget, et cetera, that
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: you're just not going to even consider, you know that
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: being sad, I just think it's worthwhile pointing out I
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: think cash Brian Cashman, the GM of the Yankees, been
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: calling he's pushing thirty years and he's never had a
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: season where they finished under five hundred, Like that's that's remarkable, right.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: And while he's got the revenue advantages, there are a
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: lot of other big market clubs that have revenue advantages
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: that have struggled to win, you know, much less a
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: World Series. We struggled to you know, have string together
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: consecutive years of success. So I think it's worth pointing
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: that out. And part of that, in my opinion, is
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: because there was a time, I think where the smaller
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: market clubs, smaller payroll clubs in this example, well maybe Minnesota,
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: you had to be ahead in kind of the scouting
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and development side, they had to be ahead, and on
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: R and D and some of these other side. And
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: now you know, with those revenues, the big market clubs
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: aren't just pouring them into the the Major league clubs.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Not just about payroll, they're also pooriam into the infrastructure,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: and they're competing on those fronts, and that, in my opinion,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: is where it's made it even more challenging for some
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: of these smaller market clubs.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, I think
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the numbers that I stated at the outset pain and
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: picture of the resources that some of the big market
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: clubs have, it doesn't mean their goals are any different.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I know that when we work together in Texas, when
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I was in Minnesota, we're not making excuses like we're
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: all trying to win. You know, in Texas, you guys
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: also signed Corey Seeger Marcus Semeon. You know, recent recent
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: signings that were pretty significant, you know, high dollar values
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: of guys like Jacob de Gram and Nathan A. Valdi.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: And Minnesota they signed Carlos Correo while I was there,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: they extended guys like Iron Buxton and Pablo Lopez Like
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: it's you know, I think these teams are still able
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: to access those players. I think we always talked about it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: It's just the mistakes you make in the smaller markets
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: when your denominator is less, are more significant, and they
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: require you to then really think cyclically around are we
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: building towards a crescendo where we hope to keep our
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: window open as long as possible, but realistically we know
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: for every time we're trying to go for it, we're
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: probably expending a lot of our prospect capital to build
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: out those championship caliber teams because there's only so much
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: we can spend on the free edge and market. And
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: when you continue to make buyside trades, eventually you're going
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: to have a little bit of a lull in your
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: organization because you will have gutted your farm system to
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: the point where you're going to need to rebuild. As
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: you illuminated, you know, one of the benefits of having
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the resources the Yankees have is they don't really have
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to rebuild. That doesn't mean they're guaranteed to do well.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: As you said, the fact that Brian Cashman has done
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: such an excellent job without having to rebuild is pretty
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: a pretty remarkable feat. But when you're running Texas, when
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you're running Minnesota and some of the other you know,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: secondary and third markets, there is an acknowledgment that you're
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: trying to keep that window open as long as you can,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: but there is going to be a rebuild probably on
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: the horizon, because if you win as Tech did from
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: twenty ten to twenty sixteen, if you do that for
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: six seven years consecutively, when you are then also making
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: buyside trades to aggressively try to improve your chances of winning.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: There is going to be a lull coming after that,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: and that is what transpired in Texas. But that was
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: only because of the massive amount of success that you
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: had engineered and orchestrated and architected leading up to that.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: That's something you probably don't necessarily see in or to
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: have to concede in places like New York, because if
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: your farm system's a little depleted, you can spend aggressively
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: on the free agent market. If your payrolls a little
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: bit flush, that means you've kept your farm system intact,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and so they're just those resources allow you to keep
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the window open a little bit longer. It shouldn't necessarily
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: prohibit the smaller and mid market teams from peak performing.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's all excellent points. All these.
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: Clubs an time moore on a payroll side, that than
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: how you spend infrastructural wise. But all these clubs have
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: different gu right, some of them are provided by the
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: c B A right. The Yankees at their level have
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: you know, they're paying attacks and there's some other disadvantages
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: with you that they could be subject to with the
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: draft picks and international depending upon you know their their
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: behaviors and you know the Rangers and the example you
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: gave are you know, they're very close to the first level,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: the CBT, and so that that's a decision they've got
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: to make and understand the consequence of that ownerships leveled.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Are they willing to cross over it? And I think
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: on the smaller marketside, you don't necessarily have the CBA governors.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: You have you have your own you have your own
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: payroll and your own budget that you've got to you know,
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: be mindful of.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: The advantages there in some ways though, is there's a
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: forced discipline that comes with that, right, So you're not listen,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: some of the biggest for agent contracts have been you know,
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: huge wins, and you touched on a few of them
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: for those clubs that have really like leveled them up competitively.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: But there's also risk, right, there's also us the free
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: agent contract could go sideway as a guy gets hurt,
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: or he declines quicker than you thought, or you know,
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: whatever happens. And there's a forced discipline associated with being
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: a lower revenue club where you're not you're not going
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: to get the benefit of the ones that go well.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: But you're also not going to walk into a little
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: bit of a bad situation if a contract goes sideways.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more. You know, like just
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: personalizing my assessment of the Carlos Korea error with the twins,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I just would share these insights, which is, you know,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: before the signing of Carlos Korea, I think the Minnesota
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: fan base conceded that they just were never going to
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: access that top tier of free agents, so they were
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: eligible to consider the second tier on down. I think
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the signing of Carlos care and the pole Att family
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: endorsing that signing was such a watershed moment for the
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: franchise that allowed them to understand they were worthy of
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: accessing the best players on the market. Secondarily, I think
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Carlos before he even set foot on the field an
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: impact which he ultimately did do. He raised the standards
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: of excellence for the franchise, which I think they're going
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to feel for decades to come. They really modernize their
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: advanced scouting, some of their coaching techniques, from their strategic
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: planning techniques. Heck, even the food service was revolutionized by him.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Now to your point, though, once it is clear that
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: they're not necessarily in a win now cycle. You really
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: can't afford to then continue to carry a player like
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that because he just represents too large of a percentage
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: of your payroll. If the revenues aren't there to continue
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: to support building championship players around him. It really is
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: tantamount to the success of that team then to move
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: on from them from that type of player. Whereas a
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: team like the Yankees with a bigger payroll may be
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: able to hold on to that player for a longer
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: period of time without risk, the Minnesota Twins needed to
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: move them on. So as much as he was a
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: positive contributor for that franchise for the period of time
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: he was here, I think it was very important that
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: they traded him at the deadline. He's a much better
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: fit for Houston, who is continuing to try to win
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: a championship at this stage in their development. He's a
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: championship environment player. He's going to perform better for them
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: than he probably will for the Twins right now, especially
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: as the Twins embark upon a little bit of a rebuild.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting to talk about a percentage of payroll
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: and and how you know revenues can fluctuate, especially in
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: the smaller market with winning season or I'm kind of
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: drawn to, you know, AJ the San Diego situated. You know,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: our old friend, a J Preller coworker, and you know,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: they have they've gone from a revenue sharing recipient to
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: a revenue sharing payer and that's you know, in one
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: of the smaller markets by how we define them in
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the country. It's pretty remarkable, right. I mean, we've we've
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: both had a chance last year to go out and
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: see them play in the playoffs and in the environment
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: that's created in the fan base, and you know, I hope.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I think, I think it's good for the game.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: I hope, I hope for you know a lot of
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: I hope that they can sustain it because I think
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: it when you level up a market like that revenue wise,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: and I don't have access to all the numbers obviously,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: but I just think that that's the kind of thing
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: that should be rewarded in the game when you have
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: a small market that's now able to punch above its weight.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think what we went in this
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: firsthand when we went out there, which is one was
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: the outrageous price of beers in stadiums. That was shocking.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: But two is just like how a team can really
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: galvanize a whole community. You know, they're drawing forty five
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: thousand fans on Tuesday nights now, whereas before that was
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: kind of just like a scenic trip for people who
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: are visiting San Diego was like, oh, let's go watch
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: a Padres game. Now you're standing room only there. And
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: so they've really energized a whole community around a baseball team,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: which is spectacular. One thing I think we also have
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to tip our hat to cash about is you know,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with those resources, comes at a heck of a lot
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: more scrutiny and where shows up. I'm thinking of twofold
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: one is you know, I don't know how many people
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: you would say actually cover the Texas Rangers, but I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: can tell you in Minnesota there's you know, six to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: eight people who are covering the team on a regular basis.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Anytime you go visit the New York Yankees, they're literally
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: sometimes one hundred people covering that team. Every one of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: their moves is scrutinized at an exceptionally high level. And
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: then the other thing I would say is Brian Cashman,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: in my opinion is going to be a first ballot
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Hall of Famer when he decides to retire. That said,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: it seems like almost every off season there's the conversation
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: levied of should this be his last season there? Because
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: they didn't win a World Series, and so it's like
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it is a World Series or bust environment there, you know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So with the resources comes exceptionally high expectations, exceptionally strict scrutiny,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: and I can only imagine the amount of stress that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: he feels on a daily basis, which, if we're calling
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it like it is, the stress that we've had in
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: our markets probably is a little bit more commensurate to
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: the resources. Everyone expects you to win, wants you to win,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: hold you accountable to it. But I don't think anything
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: compares to the level that Brian Cashman has to endure
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: on a day in, a day out basis. Couldn't agree.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Look at Cash's situation, how long he's done, it's remarkable,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: you know. I look at like THEO and Boston and
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: kind of how it ended there, and obviously then he
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: goes and they build in Chicago and they went there too,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: and kind of the you know, unbelievable parlay of of
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: the Red Sox and Cubs, and he'll be Hall of
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: Famer as well. But you know, I think THEO said, hey,
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: it's kind of like ten years about time to move on.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: He's had to quote something.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: Along those lines. And so then I look at what
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Cash is done going on. I think it's close to
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: thirty years in the same market and has won consistently.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: You know, one World Series in different with different makeups
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: of the club, right, it's kind of the Core four,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: and then you fast forward to nine and they went
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: with you know, CCI and to Share and the homegrown
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: players of Gardner and and whatnot, and so they've reinvented themselves.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: It is challenging when it's World Series or bus though,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: and that's the kind of pressure that I think those
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: markets bring.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Hey have they won twenty seven World Series? Is that right?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Or World Believe or something?
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I believe that's right, right, And.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: It's crazy to think that they get so criticized for
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: not winning the next one when they're still franchises out
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: there who have never won a single World Series like that,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: that's the level of pressure and scrutiny. Well, thanks for
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the question. Stay with us through the break on the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: other side, we're going to have Jeff Passon as a guest,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: and we also wanted to let the listeners know next
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: week we are off, we are going to return on
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: August nineteenth, So please come back to us in August nineteenth,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: where we're going to start a conversation about the NFL
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: as we're going to have a guest general manager from
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the NFL stay with us through the break on Rosters
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: to Rings. Welcome back to Rosters to Rings since it
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: is quite literally one of his busiest times of the year.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Jad and I are extremely grateful to Jeff Passon for
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: being our guest at Rosters to Rings. Jeff grew up
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: in the Cleveland, Ohio area. He graduated from the vaunted
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Syracuse University knew howse School of Communications. Jeff got to
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: start in baseball covering the Kansas City Royals for the
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Kansas City Star. Two years later, Jeff moved to Yahoo Sports,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: where he spent thirteen years before heading to ESPN in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, where he has been ever since. Jeff has
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: availed himself as one of the most preeminent baseball journalists
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: of this era. Jeff, Welcome to Rosters to Rings.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: Thank you for having me that it's great to be
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: here and listen. If Ryan wasn't going to be here,
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: I suppose you could have scrounged up somebody worse than
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: John Daniels.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: But you know, we'll have to make too appreciate that.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: You know, this is a little bit of a role reversal.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Usually Jeff gets to pepper j D and I will
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the pepper grinders in the other hands. For this interview,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: we get to really start peppering you some stuff, Jeff.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: One of our traditions on rosters to rings is to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: ask every guest kind of what their origin story is.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: How did you get into sports? In Why Baseball, I'll
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: start at the beginning.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: I grew up in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newsroom and
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: in radio booths at WWWE and wkn R and Cleveland.
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: My father started working at the plane Dealer in nineteen
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: sixty three and continued through his retirement forty one years later.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: And so I sort of come by this genetically, in
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: both the fact that I had the ability, thankfully to
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: write a little bit, and that I topped out at
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: five foot nine, and so as much as I loved
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: sports and loved playing sports, I knew my future was
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: going to be much likelier on the written side, and
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: so went to school at Syracuse worked at the Daily
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: Orange there and got the best education possible, not in
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: the classroom, but in the field. My first job was
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: in Fresno, California at the Fresno b where Adrian Warzanowski
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: and Andy Katz and John Branch who I worked with
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: and who's want to pull Itzer prize Like, It's a
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: great sports section with a lot of history and I
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: don't know if you guys have spent any time in Fresno,
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: but weird shit happens there, and where weird shit happens,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: it's great for news, and so spent two years there.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: I got extremely lucky to get my first baseball writing job.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: I was twenty three years old at the time. I
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: had all of like five or six games experience at
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: internships covering baseball. But the editor there, Mike Fannin, took
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: a took a risk on me, and he saw something
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: and I spent a couple of years at the Star,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: went to Yahoo and ESPN has been you know, among
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: all of my really enjoyable stops, Like, there's no point
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: in my career where I look back, and I'm definitely
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: suck now. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to work with really
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: good people at really good and supportive places, But nothing's
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: like ESPN, man. I mean, say what you will about
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: the current state of sports journalism, I will put what
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: we do in both breadth and depth up against anyone.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: I still think when it comes to serving the sports fan,
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: nobody does a better job than we do.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: You mentioned your dad's background and then your transition from
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: more the local writer the beat to these national deal
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: you know in the in the spent certainly from what
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: your dad dealt with, but do in your career, the
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: media landscape has changed so dramatically. Was that a conscious
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: decision on your part to kind of move away from
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: the more traditional newspaper beat or was it a little
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: bit of luck around the right people.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: How'd you describe that?
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: It was complete luck. I thought I was going to
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: go to Yahoo. I was going to spend like two
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: years there, and then I was going to go back
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: to a newspaper and write a general sports column, because
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: that's you know, that's what it was like when we
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: were growing up. Guys, the people who were at the
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: apex of business were not the news breakers, because newsbreakers
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: by and large didn't really exist. That it's a function
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: of what the Internet has given us and what the
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: marketplace has asked for. I thought I was going to
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: go back to Cleveland and write about the Cavs and
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: the Indians and the Browns for the rest of my life,
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: and I would have been perfectly happy doing so. But
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: I think the consequence of the Internet is the acknowledgment
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: and recognition by people that just because you're in a
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: club house or locker room does not make you smarter
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: necessarily about sports than other people. It might make you
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: a little bit more well informed, it might give you
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: a greater path to insight, but there are so many
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: good sports opinions outside the sphere of traditional media that
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: I think it brought down the value of the general
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: sports columnist and allowed for the rise of the so
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: called insider, whose job in some way mirrors what those
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: longtime newspaper columnists did. Like I remember growing up in
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: reading Terry Pluto, who was at the Acronbeacon Journal and
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: then later went to the Plane Dealer which is now
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: Cleveland dot com. And Terry would have these Sunday columns
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: that just had nugget after nugget after nugget. That made
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: me feel smarter as a sports fan, and I use
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: that as my north star when I'm out reporting, Like
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: how am I going to take this baseball.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Fan, whether he or she follows a.
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: Specific team or the sport writ large, and make that
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: person walk away from consuming what I'm putting out there
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: feeling like they have a greater understanding of what's going
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: on in the game. Like that's the duty. That is
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: everything to me. And whether it's in the form of
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: breaking news or a feature story that you know, explains
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: why a player is who he is, or something is
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: complicated as labor, I feel like I have to be
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: a polymath and I have to know at least a
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: little bit about a lot and hopefully a lot about
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: a lot.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: You know, Jeff, you just hit on so many things.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: One is that that's effectively the ethos of the show
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: is that we felt that when we were GMS, we
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: got to share about forty percent of what we knew
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: with the fans do to a lot of restrictions competitive
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: league rules and otherwise ownership mandates. And so we're trying
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to put peel back the curtain here and share with
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: them as much as we possibly can. One thing be
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: just before we get off your background, I'd love to
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: hear you talk a little bit more for maybe people
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: who are aspiring to follow in your footsteps. The legacy
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of the University of Syracuse is exceptional. I mean I
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: just looked up some of the people who have impacted
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: sports and the names are just it's hall of famer
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: after hall of famer, not to mention almost every team's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: radio en or TV broadcaster, but Bob Costas and Jason
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Stark and Sean McDonough and Sweeney Murdy Murdy and Mike
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Triico and yourself. I mean, it's just the list goes
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: on and on and on. Could you just tell the listeners, like,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: what is the legacy of Syracuse? How did you choose
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: to go there? And what does that meant for your
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: career to be connected with such a vaunta group of people.
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: It's a Syracuse because Northwestern and the University of North
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: Carolina rejected me, So I'm sorry, Ilumni, agreuep Sercuse is
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: a great school and it's definitely not overpriced.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Ninety thousand dollars.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: Now here's what I do want to say, that I
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: feel like going to a pedigree journalism school does give
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: you advantages like the network and just the opportunities with
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: the facilities and a newspaper like the Daily Orange that
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: gives a shit as much as it does. But a
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: lot of people cannot afford to go to schools like that.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: And I want to tell you, like, journalism should not
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: be an old boys club. You should not need the
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: kind of degree that I was fortunate enough to have
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: in order to get into the industry because to me,
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: it's more about the work. It's about the work ethic.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: How much time are you willing to devote to this
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: thing that demands almost all of it? Like that? It's hard,
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: Like figuring out that balance in my life is extraordinarily hard.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: You guys have gone through the same thing. It's what
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: the industry demands, and it's what excellence demands. But beyond
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: the amount of work that you do, it's the type
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: of work that you're aspiring to do. And it's been
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: really interesting to me to see as the insider as
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: a job that has taken on as much of an
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: impact as it has, to see some of the younger
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: people who are coming up and how so many of
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: their hours and how so much of their bandwidth our
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: geared just toward that transactional news and I feel like
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: we've lost the plot a little bit there. And maybe
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: this is just like you know, mid forties guy who's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: been in the industry forever and you know, wants things
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: not necessarily be the way that they were in the past,
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: but feels like some of the some of the great
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: parts of journalism have been lost. Like I don't want
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: to sound like that guy, but I feel like in
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: order for real journalism to be done, not theography, not
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: just being a transaction monkey, nothing like that, but to
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: have like impactful stories that people can read, there needs
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: to be more of an emphasis on that. And that's
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: what I hope people understand that they can learn outside
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: of schools that are going to put you into enormous debt.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: There are stories everywhere everywhere. You could drop me in
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: the smallest and most boring town in America and forty
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: eight hours later, I would come away with five stories
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: that you want to read. Because ultimately, the most important
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: thing that we can be is reporters that is curious.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: I want to be curious about what is making whatever
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I'm covering go, What are the mechanics behind it, who
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: are the people behind it, how does it work, How
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: does that relate to what's going on in the surrounding areas,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: whether that's other teams or in this hypothetical of the
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: small town in the country, and how does it relate
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: to that. There are always great stories to be told
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: wherever you are. It's just a matter of how curious
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: you can be and how committed you are to going
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: and finding them.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: You know, Jeff, one thing that I realized in my career.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: A lot of people ask me, so, you know, what
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: should I do to get my first job? And I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: think sometimes they get fixated on the title or the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: job responsibility. What I always encourage them to do is like,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: understand who is going to be there to mentor you,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: how much time they will genuinely invest in your growth
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: and development, because that's the key to success. We're never
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: tethered to that first job. We have that first job responsibility.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: If we get too fixated there, I think you may
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: find yourself with a little bit of an artificially low ceiling.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: You referenced it earlier, the people in Fresno, the people
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: at Syracuse. You know, I just count myself so blessed.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: In my first job in Colorado, I got to work
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: with I think eight guys wanted to become general managers,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: another one who went on to become a manager. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it's just like it's a very good fortune. But if
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you're open minded to growing and developing with people, and
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you align yourself with the right people, it can really
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: accelerate your career. So I guess the question I have
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: for you as you kind of now have shifted from
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: being a mentee to a mentor in an industry which,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: at least outwardly facing, seems extremely competitive to get clicks
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and to get views of your stories social media, what
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: have you? What opportunities in your role now are there
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: to mentor people and do you really invest in that
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: or is it just too competitive to be spending too
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: much of your time in that arena?
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: I try to, like it's important to me, you know,
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: I'll start with this. When I went to ESPN, ESPN
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: has a reputation as a place where there's infighting among reporters,
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: and dude, I get adjura, like I can't deal with that,
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Like I am my Jewish grandmother's son or grandson rather
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: and if I'm not in a position where I'm feeling
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: good about where I am inter personally with people. If
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: I have conflict in my life, my work suffers for it.
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: And so going in there with the idea, I'm going
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: to get along with everyone and we're going to try
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: and set a different standard than other sports have seen.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: That that was important to me and I. You know,
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: you have to ask Alvin Gonzalez and Jorge Castillo and
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: others other younger reporters who I work with how I do.
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: But I feel like I try. When they succeed, I
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: feel like I've succeeded. And I don't know how long
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I'm going to do this. It's not going to be
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: a long time because I have a life to live
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: and that life is going to include teaching like that
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: that's what I want to do. That's where I feel
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: like I have the ability to give back. I have
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: had a quarter century now of incredible opportunities to cover
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: amazing things. I have seen NBA finals, I have seen
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: college football playoff finals. I have seen PGA Tour majors.
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: I have seen Stanley Cup finals. I've covered twenty plus
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: World Series. I've done four Olympics. I've seen some shit.
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: I've been places it's been unbelievable, and in that I
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: feel like I've taken away quite a bit, but all
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: of it hasn't crystallized until really like the last five
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: years or so, when you know, our kids grow up
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: and you know, we've been in marriages for a while,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: and we learn about ourselves. And one thing I've learned
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: about myself is I want with the journalism industry where
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: it is right now. It's been hammered, it's been it's
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: been attacked by people in positions of power. Credibility of
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: journalists is and it's an adar right now, and I
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: feel like if there's anything that I can do to
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: help teach the next generation of journalists that there is
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: a place for you to do your job, but also
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: to advocate for what's right, to hold people accountable, all
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: those old central tenets of journalism that I learned in
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: Common one oh seven at Syracuse, Like, I want to
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: embody those and I want to help people out. So
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: when students reach out to me, I will respond to them,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: and sometimes to my detriment because I don't have enough
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: time in the day to do that. But if they
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: want to get on the phone for twenty minutes and
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: ask me questions. I try to make time because I
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: know when I was in that position, when I was younger,
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: those were the kinds of conversations that I wanted to have.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: And I want to be a utility for others who
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: are really committed to this business and to doing it
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: right to learn. Maybe they take away one thing from
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: that conversation, but that one thing can be a central
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: tenet of what they do. I feel like I've been
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: a success in that regard. And you know, whether it's
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: people who I work with at ESPN or a younger
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: guy like Robert Murray who I really like and who
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: cares like I. You know, I, for the most part,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: get along with my competitors, like I have a great
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: reverence for Ken Rosenthal. I think he's done this for
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: a long time, done at an extremely high level, done
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: it ethically, is a good husband, has been a great
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: father who has awesome kids like he to.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Me is the hallmark.
• 30:42
  Speaker 4: So I will even like, I'll reach out to him,
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: I'll ask him questions and he's been extraordinarily gracious with me,
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: and it gives a model for me to follow, Like
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: if Ken's doing that I got to do it too.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: Your reference to the change landscape that the journalism, media
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: landscape and the various pressures political, technological, et cetera. But
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: one thing I'm confident you didn't twenty years ago, didn't
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: you know, take a class on its syracuse with social media?
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: How is that?
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: How is that impacted sports media and journal specifically your job?
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: I have a very it's the right word for it,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: complicated relationship with social media. I think social media inherently
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: is just awful.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I think that.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: And I think this because I see how algorithms are
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: designed to bring out the worst in us, how they
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: thrive on chaos, and not just thrive on it, but
• 31:51
  Speaker 4: implicitly encourage it by doing so. And I'm terrified at
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: the amount of information that's out there that's just blatantly
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: false and in people's digital illiteracy, it is terrifying. That
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: being said, I would not be where I am right
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: now if not for social media. And so I feel
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: kind of like a hypocrite. And it turns out I
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: don't know how this happened. I'm considered good at social media.
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: I think probably because it brings out aside of me
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: that people might not otherwise see and you know, there's
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: nothing in the description of the job as a journalist
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: that says Bill roast people. And it took it took
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: me a while to get to the point where I
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: was confident enough to do that. But I just think
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: that I feel like it's a necessary evil. Right now,
• 32:48
  Speaker 4: Pandora's box has been opened. We are not going back
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: to a pre social media time. So what I do,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: accordingly is try to use it as a tool to
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: show people that, hey, there is mainstream media out there
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: that can do things accurately, that can do things ethically,
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: and that can do things with entertainment as well. And
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: it's a tough balance, you know, outside of like trade deadline.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: If you'll notice, I don't tweet a whole lot. That
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: is absolutely intentionally because I feel like the less I tweet,
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: the more impactful those tweets are going to be. It
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: is scarce to be principal applied to social media, and
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: I wish others, not necessarily in my industry, but just
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: generally speaking, this goes for myself, but this goes for everyone.
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: You're not that interesting. I hate to say it, but
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: what you have to say in your opinion, they don't
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: all need to be out there. And I try to
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: say that to my kids too, that sometimes, uh most
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: of the time, you learn a lot more by listening
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: than you do by speaking.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: You just follow up on that last week, like based
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: on your what you've seen out there on you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: social media world and the good, the bad, the the
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: worse than bad, whatever, How is that have affected how
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: you know?
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: You guys?
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Parents, are your boys? What access have you allowed them?
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: Uh? They didn't get phones until they were in high school. Like,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: we kept them away as long as possible. I think.
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I think my older one has tweeted once and that
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: was his commitments college.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: That's just the account we know about, don't you know.
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: Don't put that in my head.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: Sorry, Like I don't need, I don't.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: Need to know what kind of burners he has. I'll
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: say this, if if that, if that child had a
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: burner account, it would probably be like or for politics
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: or weather or something like that. I don't I don't
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: think it would be I don't think it would be
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: anything nefarious or nasty. My younger one doesn't have any
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: social media yet. He is going into eighth grade this year,
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: and we are keeping him away as long as possible,
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: but we've had conversations with them about it. I think
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: it's important to talk with your kid about what they're
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: trying to get out of social media and what the
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: aim is and what the more than anything, what the
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: what the downsides of it are. I mean, I think
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: we saw it with with Josh Hater, we have seen
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: it with others, Like digital footprints don't go away. You know,
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: the Internet archive exists and it will it will take
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: a snapshot of your best moments and your worst as well,
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: and so it's a good lesson I think to teach
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: them as they go into the world, like all of
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: the all the things you have to be mindful of
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: and on the internet where the way, like the way
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: I look at social media is I'm waiting into a
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: place where there are no standards of decorum. People can
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: say to you what they want to say to you
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: without any consequences, and your reaction to that, UH speaks
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: to to who you are, what your priorities are. And UH,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: because I'm employed by ESPN, you know, there's a specific
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: standard to which we have to hold ourselves. But beyond that,
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: there's one to which I try to hold myself in
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: in engaging with people and in the discourse that I
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: choose to have.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Jeff, look, let's turn our attention a little bit to
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: the craziness which has been your last couple of weeks.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Can you take the listener inside what is a day
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: in the life of Jeff Passon leading up to the deadline?
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: And then on the deadline day? Like, how phrenetic is it? What? What?
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: What constitutes a day for you over the last ten
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: leading up to the deadline.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: I'm going to give you the last thirty six or
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: so hours, and I'll try and do as concisive a
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: walkthrough as I can, because it will show you what
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: the not just what the work is, but like what
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: it's like the human being. And let like preface this
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: by saying, I am not digging dishes, I am not
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: working in minds. I am essentially texting people for a
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: living and getting on the phone and talking with people
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: and then going on TV to talk about it and
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: writing about it. I have like the best job in
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: the world, but everyone, even people with the best jobs,
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: it can be stressful sometimes. And so day before wake
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: up in the morning, I think I went to bed
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: at three thirty and I was up at six thirty,
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: and it had been that way for probably the four
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: days beforehand. It's just not much this time of year,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: so you have to you have to know that when
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: you're working on that little sleep like errors can happen,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: and you need to be particularly mindful of everything that
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: you're saying, doing and putting out there in the world.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: And you know, I got some tips that morning on
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: the relief market, and I'm calling around about that, trying
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: to figure out, okay, is Joan Durant going to go today?
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: As David Bednar going to go. I heard Camilo Devall's name.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: I heard the night before Mason Miller for the first
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: time really in play and buser only, and I had
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: put together something sort of previewing the last couple of
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: days leading up to the deadline, and I think that
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: was like the first, the first real mention the Padres
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: are going to do something big and Mason Miller actually
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: might be out there in play, and so felt good
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: about that. Day goes on and you know, I get
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: the tip on uh Cabrian Hayes going to the Reds.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: I had that news for a while, but he had
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: not been told yet. And when a player has not
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: been told, and I know that he has not been told.
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: I will wait on the news because I feel like
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: these are human beings, and you know, if I put
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: it out there, chances are key. Brian Hayes does not
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: have my my Twitter alerts on his phone, but that's
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: someone he knows does. And imagine hearing either via a
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: an alert from me or you know, a friend saying hey,
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: did you just get traded? Like that's a terrible way
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: to learn that your life is going to change. So
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: as absolute best I can, I try to respect that
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: and hold on to it until I've been told that
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: they know, so you know, get get a couple of breaks.
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: That morning. Austin Slater going to the Yankees was another
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: feeling good about myself. I'm out reporting like where's Deran
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: going to go? I'm told like he's going to move today.
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: And you know, the sense that I had gotten talking
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: with sources that Seattle was in the league for Joe
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: on d ron and I made a critical air. I
• 40:25
  Speaker 4: stopped thinking, this is the trade deadline where ship changes
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: all the time, and where all it takes for it
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: to change is the addition of one player to a deal,
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: which is what happened when the Phillies were you know,
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: the Twins were going around asking essentially for final offers,
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: and Phillies came back with one that beat what the
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: Mariners had and I had just been waiting, okay, that
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: this is going to get done. Hopefully, somebody tells me
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: and Ken Rosenthal drops a breaking Joan durn Or. I
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: think it was Phillies on the verge of acquiring Joan
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: durn from the Minnesota Twins, and I was meeting with
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: one of my bosses at the time. Imagine getting punched
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: in the when you're meeting with your boss. That is
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: what that felt like right there. It was embarrassing. I
• 41:22
  Speaker 4: felt like like I suck at my job. And even though,
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: like I know objectively just based on the history and
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: the number of stories I've gotten and things that I've
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: done right that I'm pretty good at it, like I
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: appreciate the work that I do. In that moment, it
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: is just an empty feeling. It is. It will suck
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: all the confidence that you might have had right out
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: of you. It will make you question yourself, question your process,
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: question everything. And considering there were like sixty trades, like
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: when one of them does that to you, that was
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: a big one, so that that's why I think it
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: hurt more than others. But that was really hard and
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: it had me done. I immediately went outside, sat in
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: my car and just like I didn't cry, but I
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: wanted to like, what does this portend for the next
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: twenty four hours? Am I really in as good of
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: a position as I need to be going into this
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: time where there are going to be so many trades?
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: And in a way, it refocused me. It made me think, okay,
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: like you need to get all of your ducks in
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: a row. As prepared as you thought you were, you
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: weren't enough, and so you need to double down even more.
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: You need to lean on sources. You need to find
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: out what's actually going on, like all that you have,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: all the arrows you have in your quiver. You need
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: to ready for deployment. And you know, the last twenty
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: four hours it was good. Woke up the next morning,
• 43:10
  Speaker 4: got the Mason Miller trade. I don't even remember what
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: happened in the last two hours of the deadline, Like
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I was just sitting there, like over the baseball Tonight's set, right,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: you got Eduardo Perez buster only Kevin Connor's tim Kirkchin
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: and I'm off to the side at the kid's table,
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: and it's just like me in a camera. And when
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: I have something I like, I put my hand up
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: in the air and I wave, and you know, producer
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: gets in my ear and says, what do you got?
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: And I say this, And thirty seconds later, Kevin Connors
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: will very smoothly like transition the conversation that they're having
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: on set and throw it over to me. And at
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: the end, like, the one thing that I was unhappy
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: about that day was that it was the fucking most
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: uncomfortable chair I've sat in in a long time. And remember,
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: like I had broken back a couple of years ago,
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: so I need to talk with the ESPN about getting
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: a more comfortable chair for that set. But otherwise, like
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: the work that day, I was really proud of what
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: we did. I thought our show was excellent. I thought
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: it was informative and had great context. And you know,
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: I don't ever judge myself based on the percentage of
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: scoops I get or stuff like that, because we're all like, so,
• 44:33
  Speaker 4: you know, if I don't have it and Ken does,
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: I'll have it less than a minute later, and vice versa.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: But I felt like I was at a point where
• 44:45
  Speaker 4: I wasn't surprised really by anything that was going on
• 44:49
  Speaker 4: except the Griffin Jacks trade. And you know, being in
• 44:53
  Speaker 4: that place where nothing is surprising you the way that
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Deram did twenty four hours earlier, That's all I can
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: ever really ask.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: You're going to have a really comfortable chair until Ken
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: got the Duran trade and then.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: They switched it out.
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: Those your bosses way of physical reminders keep you uncomfortable.
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: Exactly, you know what, Like sometimes this comfort brings out
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: the best of us. I firmly believe that. And I
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: look at you know, I look at some organizations and
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: what they did at the trade deadline, and they were
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: putting uncomfortable positions, and it's sweare to action, Jeff.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: One thing I just wanted to have you shared with
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the listeners, and this is actually a question from one
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of our listeners, who interestingly is named twins Nowherry, But
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: he said he wanted to know, like, how do you
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: actually cultivate sources and how do you go about like
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: testing whether or not they're worthwhile of you staying in
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: touch with him and if you were to rank them
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: like agents, players, coaches, executives, like have you found some
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: more reliable than others? And then the last little twist
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: on this was like, how do you feel when you
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: kind of get the sense that, whether it's an agent
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: or executive was kind of using you just to promote
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: their player, But there's not a whole lot of truth
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: to the rumor they're trying to promote. So like, I
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: just if you could take us through like how do
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: you cultivate sources? How long is that process before you
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: can truly trust trust them? And then like how many
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of those contact points are you making per hour you
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: during that time frame leading up to actually then feeling
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: comfortable reporting something as being truthful.
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: I think that the point at which I'm willing to
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: report all depends on who I'm getting the information from.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: How long have I known this person?
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: Is there any reason why the person would give me
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: this information? And part of what helps me FAD is
• 46:44
  Speaker 4: that I've kind of cut out all of the incremental
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: things that lead to the eventual transaction. Other reporters will say,
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: these people are talking with this team is talking with
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: this other team about this guy, and I just I
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: don't know the extent of conversations, talks can be hey,
• 47:11
  Speaker 4: what do you think of this guy? Or talks can
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: be hey, here's who we would give up for this guy,
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: it's who you ask for. Let's get to medicals and
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: see how this goes like. And there's such a giant
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: number of different things in between those two ends of
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: the continuum that to me, what matters is not who's
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: talking with whom. What matters is when a deal gets
• 47:37
  Speaker 4: done and what does that mean for everybody involved. And
• 47:42
  Speaker 4: so I've given myself a little bit of leeway in
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: that regard not to get used. It happens still sometimes,
• 47:51
  Speaker 4: and I've done this long enough where I can usually
• 47:53
  Speaker 4: sniff it out. But the people, the people who I
• 47:57
  Speaker 4: have good relationships with, they kind of know not to
• 48:01
  Speaker 4: do that because they know that number one, I will
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: call them out on bullshit and number two that when
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: you do that, your credibility with me just sinks immediately.
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: Like I want to have an honest enough relationship with
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: the people that I deal with where they can tell
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: me what they need, what they are feeling, where they
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: are at the moment, how they're looking at a particular
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: transaction they might be doing, whether this could be a
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: good thing, whether this could be a bad thing. I
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: can play Devil's advocate for them, like I like the
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: thought process of it. And I'm not going to be
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: in a front office like that.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: That's not my goal.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: I'm not smart enough to be in the mix there.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: But I do like play acting at sometimes, and in
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: doing so, what it allows me to do with my
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: writing later on is to potentially offer all the perspectives
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: on this, both the good and the bad, and and
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: why one makes more sense than the other. It allows
• 49:06
  Speaker 4: me insight into the decision making of people in front
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: offices that it is so hard to know without understanding
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: what the greater picture is. I think, how how do
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: I get sources? I don't discount that the level at
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: which my voice is respected and considered among fans absolutely
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: plays into that that that i'd be. I'd be naive
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: to suggest otherwise. But I didn't just start, you know,
• 49:43
  Speaker 4: getting sources when I got to ESPN. And and I
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: think it's because I'm honest and because I'm kind of sincere,
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: and I can I can be you know, I think
• 50:00
  Speaker 4: I can be different things for different people. And it's
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: it's not it's not of a fake. But what I've
• 50:10
  Speaker 4: tried to do is when I'm meeting someone, I want
• 50:13
  Speaker 4: to understand where they are in their lives, Where are
• 50:17
  Speaker 4: you professionally, where are you personally? And where are the
• 50:22
  Speaker 4: experiences that I've had? How can I relate to you?
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: And how can I understand what's important to you and
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: get to know you? And I've you know, I've made
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: a lot of great relationships over the course of this job.
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: And I think because I'm honest with people about my
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: life and the things that I'm going through, good and bad,
• 50:45
  Speaker 4: they understand that I work really hard and I care
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: and they see those similarities between us and it's almost like, hey,
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: because you do this the way that you do and
• 50:59
  Speaker 4: I respect you for that, I'm going to try and
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: help you out. Like that's that That to me is
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: is ultimately where most of it comes from. And uh,
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: it's it's the top part of this job, man, because
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: there are a lot of people in the industry, and
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: in giving people time that they feel like is sufficient
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: for them. They're only twenty four hours in a day.
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: You guys, know what bandwidth strain looks like?
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: A quick follow up there, I know, after the deadline,
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: you know, or after deals are made in the winter
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: a lot of times executives will you know, debrief with
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: their with their counterparts, right a touch base? Were you
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: in on so and so or how was dealing with
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: you know, executive X, Y, Z or whatever team?
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: And uh?
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: And certainly if you know if a GM is dishonest
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: or you know that gets around right or games that
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: are playing, do you do the same with your peers
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: or your teammates. And as far as you know, hey,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: so and so source tried to mislead me or lied,
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: is there any debriefing on your end?
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: I do that with my with my teammates. Yeah, like
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: you know, Jesse Rodgers helping of Zales rage Casto, Kayler
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: McDaniel Like, well, we'll go over stuff like that and
• 52:14
  Speaker 4: try to figure out, Okay, where did information come from
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: and where are we weak? How do we make sure
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: this doesn't happen next time? Like I got a lot
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: of spreadsheets and maybe a few too many, and and
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: it helps me, like going into deadline season, organize information
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: and at a time where my head is spinning, like okay,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: this is an easy way to see what you've got
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: ahead of you. But yeah, like going into going into
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: the winter, we will we will try and break things
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: up as much as we can, and we know who
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: our best competition in those situations is going to be.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: Like we It's not always like a perfect pattern, like
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: like Ken. Ken has sources everywhere, like I never know
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: where his information is coming from, and I wouldn't begin
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: to speculate. But there are others that you have a
• 53:09
  Speaker 4: decent sense their patterns throughout the years that you see
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: and you just have to try and fight against.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Those shifting gears. Prominently, a lot is made in our
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: sport about the prospect of a work stoppage after twenty
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: twenty six. Also, I think we could all debate that
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the relations between the union and the Commissioner's office is
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: not exceptional at this state. From a media relations standpoint,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: what council would you offer Tony Clark, the head of
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: the union, and Rob Manford, the commissioner ahead of the
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty six negotiations that could possibly help make this
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit more smooth as we all aspire to
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: not see a work stoppage in Major League Baseball.
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Oh man, I don't know if I am wise enough
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: to offer anything that will bridge the gap between the sides,
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: because to me, that like none of this can be
• 54:07
  Speaker 4: done outside of economics. That's what it's going to come
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: down to. Like, they don't speak the same language when
• 54:15
  Speaker 4: it comes to the game growing, they don't think the
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: same way when it comes to the future. It has
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: and I think this is an unfortunate consequence of not
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: not the listening game hasn't been missed in more than
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: a quarter century. And so I think if there is
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: a central idea, a central theme for everyone to keep
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: in mind, it's don't ruin a good thing, because baseball
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: is a good thing right now. And I just like
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: I hope they all understand and remember history. After nineteen
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: ninety four, it was really bad and it didn't come
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: back fully until Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa and that
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: opened you know, a whole new issue with performance enhancing
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: drugs going forward.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: I think baseball is in a great place right now.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: There are unquestionably issues when it comes to financial disparity
• 55:24
  Speaker 4: in the game. I do not know that those issues
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: would be solved necessarily by a salary cap though, And
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: to me, if there's if there's advice for MLB, it's
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: be open and creative, because I feel like those two
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: words salary cap are the two words that are going
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: to get baseball into a really, really dark place. And
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: for the Union it would be compromise and be willing
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: to see where MLB is at right now. I when
• 56:00
  Speaker 4: acknowledge like acknowledge that when you have a four hundred
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: and thirty million dollar payroll in an eighty million dollar payroll,
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: that that is not something long term that's going to
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: be particularly sustainable for the fans of the sport more
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: than anything. And I don't know, what do you guys
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: hear my dogs barka, Yeah, this is what happens.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: They're trying to find JD and his bunkers. They're concerned
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: about the beating.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: Listen, they get pissed off at labor discord too, Like
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: they understand. They understand that after the twenty twenty six season,
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: frankly throughout the twenty twenty six season, this is going
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: to be like the topic of conversation, are we all
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: not just looking at December first, twenty twenty six is
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: the day that there's going to be a lockout, Like
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: do you guys have hope? I you know, you don't
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: have to answer, but to me, that feels like an
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: inevitability at this point, and if they can figure things
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: out beforehand, I truly urge them to because I think,
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: you know, it's one thing to have an offseason lockout,
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: but the prospect of games being missed just for the
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: whole sport is problematic, especially going into twenty twenty eight
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: when MLB is going to be negotiating a new television
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: contract that the Commissioner's office and I think rightly sees
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: as paving the way for an entire new generation of
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: fans to come in, whether it's streaming, whether it's national rights,
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: whatever it is, Like the way we consume baseball, guys
• 57:41
  Speaker 4: is going to be different in a couple of years
• 57:42
  Speaker 4: than it ever has been before.
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: It feels like we've set ourselves out of the industry,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: set themselves up for that with some of the rule
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: changes we've already seen, right, and the speed of game,
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: and then the number of other things have been more
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: open to embracing kind of the young fan and making
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: the game a little more media friendly in that regard.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: But I think to your point, like history repeats itself
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: and you go buy your lords of the Realm or
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: the game, I mean, it's the issues, the details have changed,
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: but the issues we're talking about today are the same
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: issues that they were talking about in the sixties and seventies,
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: you know, when the union, you know, got going, and
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: so hopefully we can you know, avoid that. I guess,
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: just to follow up on your last answer, like, do
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: you think, generally speaking, do you think it's better like
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: status quo is generally pretty good. Do you think we
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: should you know, embrace that, or do you think meaningful
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: change is needed?
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: I need to see what the proposals are like before
• 58:43
  Speaker 4: answering that. I hope that's not a cop out question,
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: but are a cop out answer rather, But I need
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: to see how creative the sides are willing to get
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: before understanding what the right thing is. I don't think
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: a salary cap is right. I don't think the current
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: system that we have now is right. I think there's
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: better in every direction. I think the last Bass agreement, frankly,
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: did take us more toward that. I think the draft
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: lottery was a good thing. I think the penalty for
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: losing with your draft pick was a good thing. But
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: there are more steps that can be taken to encourage
• 59:19
  Speaker 4: those low spending teams to spend higher while trying to
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: rein in some of the excessive spending we see at
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: the top.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: And JD one point to build off of what you
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: said relative to history repeating with itself, it seems like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: unfortunately one of the common themes is just the discord
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: between the players and the commissioner's office, the union in
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: the commissioner's office, and I just wish if there was
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: anything I could wish for its You see the NBA
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: there there's more cohesion, it seems, between the players and administration.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: The NFL is getting there as well, and we're just
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: seeing those leagues vault forward. If we could find some
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: common ground where both sides aren't just assuming the worst
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: of each other, hopefully that could pave the way for
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: a real positive growth, because I do think the sport
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: is has turned a corner, is in a better place.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: It is more appealing to fans. But that could all
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: end if we have a protracting work stoppage and we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: take the game away from the fans. I think that'd
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: be very problematic.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: That it would be really nice to have that, but
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: we have to acknowledge history. There years and years of
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: built up animus there toward Rob Manford from the players.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 4: That is not going to go away, and Rob Manford
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: has tried to work toward that. But you know, with
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: Bryce Rper situation a perfect example. When you walk into
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: a clubhouse and you don't have to say the word
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 4: salary cap, you can be walking right around. Players aren't dumb.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: They hear it, they see it, and they will not
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: oblige bullshit like that's just not in their nature. They
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: are competitors and they are fighters, and they have been
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 4: trained to believe that Rob Manfred is the personification of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: the enemy side. And that's how we are going to
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: walk into this labor situation with two sides that seeing
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: one another as the enemies.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: Good times, Yeah, yeah, good times.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 4: It's going to be an interesting story if nothing else.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, somehow we made it through a full show with
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Jeff passed and we didn't ask him a single question
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: about his assessment of the trade deadline. But I think
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that's just we'll leave that to all your other shows. Jeff,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for being on with us today.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: We know this is such an exceptionally busy time for
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: you making time for us or your schedule. We really
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. And you know, Jeff, you said something earlier
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: which really struck a chord with me that I want
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: to just highlight again your notion of the Key Brian
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: Hayes example, and how you tend not to report things
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: until players know. I would just say from my experience,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: that speaks to an integrity that is not universal across
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: all members of the media. There's a humanitarian side of
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: you that you just really revealed. It pains me to
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: hear that. Then on the backside of it, you felt
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the pain associated with the John Durant reporting Because for
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: people like yourself who are doing it the right way,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: I would hope you wouldn't have those negative feelings on
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: the other side, because what you did for Key Brian
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Hayes and his family is significant. That's not a subtle thing.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: That's a significant thing. I think working your job with
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: a high level of competition, but also with empathy is
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: what sets you apart. You reference Ken Rosenthal and a
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: number of others, but you really are ushering in a
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: new era of journalism in baseball. Your tribute to the fans.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: We appreciate you, thank you for coming on, and we'd
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: love to continue the conversation at some point down the road.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: But thank you again stay with us through the break.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: On the other side, Jad and I will talk about
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: how the media impacted our decision making, how we managed
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: the room, how we managed morale, and how we managed
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: information through the trade cycles. Welcome back, and what an
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: enlightening conversation with Jeff Passen.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: Jad.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: It reminded me he was telling the Key Brian Hayes
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: story in which he said that he knew that trade
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: was going down, but he also knew Key Brian Hayes
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: had yet to be notified by the Pittsburgh Pirates, so
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: he sat on that because his humanitarian side superseded his
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: desire to break that news. It reminded me of, you know,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit of an uncomfortable situation we had when
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: we ultimately traded Ian Kinser to the Detroit Tigers as
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: part of a deal for Prince Fielder. You want to
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: fill the listeners in a little bit on that You
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: and I could could kind of like come together on
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: this conversation because I think it really flies in the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: face of what happened in the Key Brian Hayes story.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're talking about November of twenty thirteen.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: We had gotten the.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: General parameters It was basically a one for one deal
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: with Ian and Prince. Dave Dombrowski was in Detroit at
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: the time and we were negotiating with him. They had
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: wanted to move Miguel Carberra to first base. We had
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: Jerks and Profar. He ended up getting hurt, but we
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: had Jerks and Profar that we felt could slide in
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: into Ian's spot, and it was kind of a you know,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: it fit for both sides at least, you know, as
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: we both saw it. The biggest the hurdle at that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: point was the money involved in Detroit.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: We had negotiate with Detroit and.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: They ended up sending us in cash to cover part
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: of the difference in the two contracts. And if I
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: recall that the final agreement was reached as I was
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: on the way to the airport going away for the weekend,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: and so we reached the agreement. I think you and
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: I connected and you were kind of taking it from there.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: And one of the and I think the ultimate reason
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: that I got out was that Prince had a no
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: trade clause and so Detroit had to go to Prince
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: and go to his representative and get him to sign
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: off and agree to the deal, which he ultimately did.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: And I remember talking to to Dave Dombrowski and just that, hey, everything,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna be in the air for the next like
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: two or three hours. Can you do what you can
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 3: please to you know, keep it tightly. And I don't
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: think it got out from Detroit. I think it was more,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: you know, once you have to approach the player and
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: there's paperwork, and the PA gets involved in the league
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: gets and you know, and while we're in the air,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: I remember John Hayman broke the story. Uh, you know,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: I'm texting with you, you know, on Wi Fi and
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: the plane and Ian and his family were in on
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: vacation and I think they're in Hawaii if I recall,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: and uh, and and he was with some teammates and friends.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: So it like they found out about it via the Internet,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: which he never should have, you know, no player should,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: but certainly not somebody like Ian that was such a
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: big part of our clubs and a homegrown player that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: you and I had personal relationships with as well. And
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: and it was embarrassing, It was a bad look. Ian
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: was rightfully upset.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: I think you tried to do as much damage control
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: with Jay Franklin. It was the agent with Ian on
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: the side, but they were pissed and they had every
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: right to be. And since that, after that point, I
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: became much more sensitive about you know, I wouldn't I
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have taken that chance and got on that plane
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: again without having things a little more buttoned up.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think, as we heard from Jeff
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: how he's working so hard to cultivate sources. I agree
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: with you. I don't think that came from Detroit. But
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: once you have the net is spread out in terms
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: of who knows that type of information, the risk just
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: becomes so prominentent My recollection of that was you were airborne.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: I think you and Robin were taking one of your
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: first vacations in forever, maybe going to Wine Country or something.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: And I was actually teaching a class at SMU Law
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: School where I was a guest lecturer, and I let
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: off the conversation by saying, Hey, I want to make
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: this interactive. If anyone has any questions along the way,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: just feel free to raise their hand. About eleven minutes
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: into the class, someone raised their hand and said, did
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: you just trade Kindler to the Tigers for Prince Fielder?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: And I said, you're going to need to give me
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: a minute, and I stepped out in the hall and
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: we made a few calls, and I think what we
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: certainly had underestimated there was typically when no trade has
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: to be waived, especially when Scott Boris, who is a
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: preeminent agent, is involved, there's a lot of back and forth,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: and sometimes there's a negotiation. Sometimes there's a quid pro quo.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: For giving up that right, they get some additional rights,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and so we figured there would be at least some
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: back and forth in that. Somehow Dave Dombrowski called him
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: and he signed off right away, and that all of
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: a sudden fast tracked everything. But also then the news
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: got out. So I appreciate Jeff's perspective on this. I
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: wish all the members of the media had that perspective.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: They don't because they're in competition. And so I think
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: one thing that social media has done to our game
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: is these guys get rewarded for more clicks and more
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: views and that sort of thing, so they want to
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: break the information. I don't think they are trying to
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: recavoc on people's lives, but they're disinclined to ask that
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: extra questionable. Does everyone involve no because they don't want
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: to get beat And I think that's really difficult. And
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: you know, in that situation, you know, as you mentioned,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: it really hurt our relationship with Ian, who was such
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: a valued member of the Texas Rangers. I'm happy to
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: say I think it restored over the years, but it
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: took years to recover from that. And I think we
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: learned a lot through that moment. And you use the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: word I think we were both embarrassed by that taking
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: place like that, and it certainly changed how we did
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: business in the future and towards those ends. JD. You know,
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: ask you the question. You know, as guys like Jeff
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: Passen and John Hayman and Ken Rosenthal and John Paul
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Morosi are trying to get sources and they're trying to
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: fight for this information. You're running a lot of these
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: trade rooms, how did you manage the notion that there
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: were people in the room who probably were getting hit
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: for information? And then you know, eventually, you know, like,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: how did it impact your ultimate decision making when you
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: know that that unfortunate situation where else and you read
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: on trade rumors Jeff said he doesn't necessarily report when
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: people are quote unquote talking, but talking oftentimes you know,
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: you know, reveals your hand. We see a lot of
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: those rumors being posted. You get the post of the
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: Rangers are talking to another team about a player, and
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: you know in your heart of hearts that information could
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: have only come from their room or our room. How
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: does that impact how you proceed relative to you know,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: wanting to share information with people in the room, but
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: also not wanting to get burnt.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a can be a fine line to walk.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: I think early in our time together, you know, it
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: was a smaller room and also a little bit probably
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: a little more paranoia about like where's the stuff coming from?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: Where's it?
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't want anything to get out.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: I think as we move along, you know, some of
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: it's having an experience like we did with with Ian's situation,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: and some of it's just understanding the media landscape has
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: just changed so dramatically and that you know that social
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: media is what it is and it takes you know,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: no time for something to get out right. I think
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: once we kind of accepted that, it was kind of
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: made two changes. One was that I would the other
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: way and I was I wanted to create a more
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: open environment. I took the mindset, you know, I'd rather
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: get burned one time by maybe trusting the wrong person
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: than to have the whole group think I don't trust them.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: I just don't think that's good for the culture of
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: the organization.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: So I really, from the front office standpoint of Scouts
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: tried to be as open vest as possible. Certain things
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: you got to be you know, sensitive too, but and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: just tell the tell the people in the room, Hey,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: this is how we're going to approach it. We're not
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: hiding anything from you guys. You know you full access,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: full you know, curtain pull back. But here's what we expected.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 3: You know, if you get a you might get approached
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: by media. If you do, you know, make somebody else
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: aware of it. Just it's okay, we under like we don't.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: You're not pariah for talking to somebody in the media
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: like that. That is part of the nature of our jobs.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: But like, let's be open about that too. And then
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I think the other one that that adjustment that we
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: tried to make was to keep if you especially big leaders,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: if you're going to trade, you know, if you're considering
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: trading major league players, give them heads up, right, whether
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: it's the agent or the player, and circumstances dictate how
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: specific you're going to be. But you know, twenty seventeen,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: we were very open with you, Darvish and kind of
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: the clubs that were involved and what might happen. And
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: you know, there's some risk I guess that, you know,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: you could a deal could break down because the player
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: could or the agent could assert some influence and direct
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: it a little bit. But we were comfortable with that
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: trade off. Joey Gallo in twenty twenty one, you tried
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: to keep Joey fully apprised of.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: What was going on, and again just to just to
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: a way, that's that circumstance.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: You don't really have the ability here, in my opinion,
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: you know, to give minor league players and prospects had
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: that same heads up, just because things are so fluid
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: and things can change so quickly there that it's probably
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: best not to, at least in my opinion. But those
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: were the changes we tried to make. Was go the
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: other way, be more open, more and more upfront with everybody,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: create an environment of trust and versus you know, paranoia,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: and then just try.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: To keep the big league players as looped in as possible.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I think what you're talking about there, you know,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: there's it's there's so two sides to all these coins, right,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: So like you want to have your your trusted people
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: not read on trade rumors that you just made a deal.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: It's there's nothing more disenfranchising, I think to the group.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: There's nothing. In contrast, there's nothing more motivating to the
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: morale of the group. By keeping people in the loop
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: and communicating with them and demonstrating consistently that you trust them,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: the risk you run is you could get burnt. But
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: I always view that as it's not you didn't burn me.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: You're like, you're burning yourself by like revealing some of
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: those things. And I'm going to always invest in the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: culture and the morale of our people. I'm always going
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: to err on the side of trusting the people around me.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest challenges, and you just shed light
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: on it, was when we started, there were ten to
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: fifteen people to keep in the loop. Nelson, there's fifty,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: and you know that becomes challenging because now you've got
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: to trust, you know, your kind of lieutenants to share
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: that information out to other people. So that we can
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: touch and feel as many people as possible. I think
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: the worst case scenario is to have your employees feel
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: like they're just no different than anyone else out there
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: who read the rumors on trade rumors. That you want
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: them to be apprized of what's going on. I think
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: with regards to the players, you know that is an
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: exceptionally noble pursuit. I have always found kind of when
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: you're committed to knowing you are trading the player, it's
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: best to keep them in the loop. That the challenge
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: comes when you may trade the player, but you also
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: may not. And when do you tell them in that scenario,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: because to tell them too much a forehand, hey we're
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: strongly considering trading you. It does, it does protect them,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: It is empathetic, but then there's a strong chance you
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: don't trade them. And Nelson, you have to manage their
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: expectations as are kind of almost re onboarded knowing that
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: they were in a lot of trade discussions. We were
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: prepared to trade and we just didn't arrive at the
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: right deal. Do you feel like that was a tough
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: line to straddle or you always consistent on, Hey, let's
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: just error on the side of telling the player and
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: then we'll deal with the repercussions later.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: Very tough line, and not just the risk that you
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: touched on, but I think there's a you know, a
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: performance risk leading up to the potential trade, right were
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: a few if a player. What we tried to do
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: is almost ask the player like do you want to
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: do you want to be kept abreast or maybe talk
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: to the agent. You know, how much information here is healthy?
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 3: And you have to know, you know your your coworkers
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: around these guys a lot. You have to know, you know,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: kind of them. Maybe ask the manager, Hey, you know,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 3: how is so and so handle this better? To you know,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: some guys don't want to know anything at all, but
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: because I think they know themselves and they know that,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: you know, I've got ten days before the trade deadline.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: I may you know, I'm an everyday player. I'm a reliever,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: I'm a starter, and I've got to prepare to go
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: out and do my job. And you can imagine it
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: affects different people differently. Some guys brush it off and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: go out there and perform with with no issues, and others,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: you know, struggle with that because they have they're married,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: they have young kids, how's it going to? Their kids
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: are reading about it online and how's it going to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: So it's I think you have to kind of a
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: little bit of communicate what do you want to know
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: and also try to anticipate how it's going to affect
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: that individual.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great stuff. So once again we'll be off next week,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: but please join us again on August nineteenth on Rosters
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: to Rings. I just want to say big thank you
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: to John Daniels for co hosting with me for the
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: last three weeks. It's been exceptional reconnect with you, and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: I also hope we do this again soon.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me on. Man genuinely enjoyed it. Talking
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: with Michael, with Rick and now Jeff. It's been fun
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: and I am a loyal listener as well. So good
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: luck with the rest of the podcast loving it Far.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: Too Kind, Far too Kind. Come back on August nineteenth
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: at Roster's to Rings. Please join me host bad Levine,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: Ryan McDonough and other general managers every week for Rosters
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: to Rings on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.