Latest / Foul Territory / Evan Drellich: Inside Rob Manfred’s signing deadline plea, Realignment plan, Tourney floater, CBA tilt

Transcript

Evan Drellich: Inside Rob Manfred’s signing deadline plea, Realignment plan, Tourney floater, CBA tilt · Foul Territory

0:08
Speaker 1: Fancy intro for Evan Dralek from the Athletic joining us
0:11
Speaker 1: right now and buckle up, dude. I've got like eight
0:14
Speaker 1: topics to run through, and I know it's been a
0:16
Speaker 1: busy twenty four hours for you, but let's start with
0:19
Speaker 1: Commissioner Manfred's appearance on WFN radio and him talking about
0:24
Speaker 1: the potential of a split season or an in season tournament.
0:27
Speaker 1: Can you enlighten us on more that will get our
0:30
Speaker 1: fans riled up?
0:32
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I had some fun text with
0:35
Speaker 2: Ken Rosenthal yesterday because he had heard it and I
0:38
Speaker 2: think I had heard it at one point. It was
0:40
Speaker 2: something we had chased a little bit because there'd been
0:42
Speaker 2: murmurs in the industry that there had been some interest
0:46
Speaker 2: in what would they go to a split season? And
0:47
Speaker 2: we would call people and they'd say, that's crazy, what
0:50
Speaker 2: are you talking about? And you know, look, I think
0:53
Speaker 2: there's a reality of When Rob Manford says, yes, we've
0:56
Speaker 2: considered it, where you can go, oh, that's good. He
0:59
Speaker 2: should consider he's the commissioner of Baseball, you should consider
1:01
Speaker 2: all the ideas that come up. And he did pretty
1:04
Speaker 2: quickly acknowledge this to be very difficult to do. I
1:07
Speaker 2: did not think the reason that he offered for why
1:09
Speaker 2: it would be difficult was truly the most important one,
1:11
Speaker 2: where he said it's about the records and the attachment
1:14
Speaker 2: people have to those full season records. Like, yeah, that matters,
1:17
Speaker 2: but there are bigger issues when you try to make
1:20
Speaker 2: a change of that magnitude. So I don't think this
1:23
Speaker 2: is something that's coming to baseball anytime soon. I don't
1:26
Speaker 2: think it's necessarily bad that they are talking about it.
1:29
Speaker 2: I do think MLB and Rob Manford have a habit
1:34
Speaker 2: of kind of wanting to follow, particularly the NBA. You
1:37
Speaker 2: see it with the television stuff, where MLB has been
1:39
Speaker 2: pretty forward about the fact that they want to do
1:41
Speaker 2: what the NBA did, which is go make a lot
1:43
Speaker 2: of money from different streaming companies Peacock, Amazon, etc. I
1:49
Speaker 2: don't know that the NBA Cup gave the results to
1:52
Speaker 2: the NBA that the NBA wanted, and I don't know
1:55
Speaker 2: that baseball would do much better with it. Could baseball
1:58
Speaker 2: do something better than one hundred and sixty game season? Yeah?
2:01
Speaker 3: Maybe, Okay, Evan, let's just say let's just call this
2:05
Speaker 3: what it is. There's a CBA coming up at the
2:07
Speaker 3: end of the year. It's negotiating. It's what Rob Manford does.
2:10
Speaker 3: He wins the pr battle every single time. Why because
2:12
Speaker 3: he goes on these stations and he says, oh, yeah,
2:14
Speaker 3: we're thinking about doing this so that way when he
2:17
Speaker 3: goes into the CBA with Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer
2:19
Speaker 3: and these guys, and he goes, oh, by the way,
2:21
Speaker 3: we want to do this Tournament Cup thing and we
2:23
Speaker 3: want to do a split season, and they're like and
2:25
Speaker 3: the players are like, no, we don't want to do that.
2:26
Speaker 3: And he's like, okay, well we won't do that if
2:29
Speaker 3: you guys give us a salary cap, right or whatever
2:32
Speaker 3: whatever Rob wants. And this is what he does. It's
2:34
Speaker 3: classic Rob Manfred and the owners negotiating in the media.
2:38
Speaker 3: This is never good. This it might happen, but it
2:40
Speaker 3: ain't happening maybe in our lifetimes, because you can't. They
2:44
Speaker 3: won't even stop the MLB season for the Olympics. You
2:47
Speaker 3: think they're going to start it to stop in the
2:49
Speaker 3: middle for some tournament that nobody cares about. I mean
2:52
Speaker 3: the NBA. Do you know who won the NBA Tournament
2:54
Speaker 3: Cup this year?
2:56
Speaker 2: I think I actually do, and I really don't call
2:59
Speaker 2: the mbay clothes. I think it was the nixt And
3:00
Speaker 2: the only reason I would know that is because I
3:01
Speaker 2: was the nick man as a kid. But yeah, I
3:04
Speaker 2: I take I take your point generally. Look, I think
3:07
Speaker 2: it is very true that Rob Manford likes to float
3:10
Speaker 2: trial balloons. Uh you know, they they like to put
3:13
Speaker 2: things out in the media and see see what comes back.
3:16
Speaker 2: I don't know, this might be too generous to me.
3:19
Speaker 2: I don't actually think it's always intentional. You know, when
3:22
Speaker 2: he mentioned the golden at bat rule, I'm not sure
3:25
Speaker 2: he did that by waking up that morning and going,
3:28
Speaker 2: you know what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna put the
3:30
Speaker 2: gold in that bat out there today and see what
3:31
Speaker 2: people think about it. He might have. But I think sometimes,
3:35
Speaker 2: you know, Rob does have some ability to be a
3:38
Speaker 2: straight shooter. You know, it is always kind of slanted
3:41
Speaker 2: to his interests. But you know, if you ask me
3:44
Speaker 2: a question, he'll usually usually find some way to answer it.
3:48
Speaker 2: That said, are there things that he does bring up
3:51
Speaker 2: for the sake of the bargaining table? Yes, I just
3:55
Speaker 2: don't see it with this one. Like, you know, it's
3:58
Speaker 2: not the kind of thing that you're gonna be but
4:00
Speaker 2: to kind of hold over the players heads. I don't
4:02
Speaker 2: think it's just it's such a major change and there's
4:06
Speaker 2: so much that goes into it, it's not it's not
4:09
Speaker 2: a great leverage point to me.
4:11
Speaker 1: And we're going to get to more on the bargaining
4:13
Speaker 1: table side with your latest article that came out this morning,
4:16
Speaker 1: but before that, I do want to get to what
4:18
Speaker 1: I feel like is some significant news on the future
4:22
Speaker 1: of the sport with expansion. Eventually we're going to have
4:25
Speaker 1: two more teams. Manfas trying to figure that out before
4:29
Speaker 1: his tenure ends in several years from now. And I'll
4:32
Speaker 1: take the quote from the show. He well, I guess
4:35
Speaker 1: I don't have a quote. He said that the markets
4:36
Speaker 1: have multiple major leagues that have multiple Major League teams
4:39
Speaker 1: like New York, LA, Chicago, et cetera, should not have
4:42
Speaker 1: both teams in the same division. So what were your
4:45
Speaker 1: thoughts on that, because that did give us a little
4:47
Speaker 1: hint of what expansion could look like. As we do
4:50
Speaker 1: think that there is going to be some realignment within
4:53
Speaker 1: the sport when we add two teams and not just
4:54
Speaker 1: going to be like cool Ale and let's just keep
4:56
Speaker 1: doing what we're doing and add one team to a
4:58
Speaker 1: division that has too many teams, like.
4:59
Speaker 2: It's going to it all reworked right, right, and what
5:04
Speaker 2: was really new there to my ear, and my ear
5:07
Speaker 2: isn't perfect. Although I'd like to think that if I
5:10
Speaker 2: haven't listened to Rob Manford more than any other person
5:13
Speaker 2: outside of Major League Baseball, I'm in the top two
5:16
Speaker 2: for people who've heard this guy talk more than anybody else.
5:19
Speaker 2: He has talked before about the geographical realignment, that he
5:22
Speaker 2: wants it to be eight division, yes, eight groups, four
5:27
Speaker 2: teams per group, thirty two teams, and that he wants
5:31
Speaker 2: the East West separation, and you know, his belief is
5:34
Speaker 2: that the timing of playoff games would be better if
5:38
Speaker 2: kind of the West is playing the West in the
5:39
Speaker 2: playoffs and the East is playing the East and then
5:41
Speaker 2: everybody comes together again. Kind of. I'm pretty sure that's
5:44
Speaker 2: basketball's format, and that's something he's talked about before. The
5:48
Speaker 2: specific question of well, what would you do with the
5:52
Speaker 2: two market two team markets, you know, the New York
5:56
Speaker 2: clas I think DC and Baltimore qualify Chicago. Would you
6:01
Speaker 2: put them in the same division or not, so that
6:02
Speaker 2: the Mets and the Yankees are in the same division,
6:04
Speaker 2: And his answer was no, which I don't believe I'd
6:07
Speaker 2: heard him answer that question before and so and that
6:11
Speaker 2: grabbed me, and I usually think if it grabs me,
6:13
Speaker 2: it'll little be of interest to other people. So that
6:16
Speaker 2: was the new part of it. There's many steps before
6:20
Speaker 2: this all gets done. They got to choose the expansion cities.
6:22
Speaker 2: They got to get the stadiums built. You know, this
6:24
Speaker 2: is years away, but they do have a vision of
6:27
Speaker 2: what they want to do.
6:29
Speaker 4: You talk about the cities too, So my question to
6:32
Speaker 4: you is, I know we've heard a couple of them.
6:33
Speaker 4: Do you see Manford leaning towards the two cities that
6:37
Speaker 4: he wants. Has he brought that up in discussion exactly
6:40
Speaker 4: where he wants that the beer? Is that not in
6:41
Speaker 4: anywhere in f rustion?
6:42
Speaker 2: Yeah? No, And I don't know that they're going to
6:45
Speaker 2: tip their hand on that until they have to. Todd,
6:49
Speaker 2: we've heard the same number of cities and Stephen Nesbit
6:52
Speaker 2: at the Athletics done some great work on this. Where
6:54
Speaker 2: it's been Portland and Nashville and Salt Lake City have
6:57
Speaker 2: been have been in the mix. But like everything, when
7:01
Speaker 2: it comes to the Commissioner's office, it's political. You know,
7:04
Speaker 2: Nashville you know, the country is divided up into territories.
7:10
Speaker 2: The Atlanta Breys and the Cincinnati Reds. I think both
7:13
Speaker 2: would have some pause about a team going to Nashville.
7:16
Speaker 2: Does that mean there won't be a team going to Nashville?
7:18
Speaker 2: Not necessarily, but there's all sorts of behind the scenes
7:23
Speaker 2: negotiating in conversation that has to get done. I mean,
7:27
Speaker 2: you know, we saw this type of stuff with the
7:29
Speaker 2: A's and the Giants in the Bay Area, and it's
7:34
Speaker 2: hard to predict at this point. You know, Portland's got
7:37
Speaker 2: a plan that's brewing salt like cities making a push.
7:41
Speaker 2: The size of the city matters. You know, people look
7:43
Speaker 2: at Las Vegas and question whether it's a viable media market,
7:46
Speaker 2: and so you don't want to go too small. I
7:50
Speaker 2: think it's certainly kind of a limited group that could
7:53
Speaker 2: sustain a major league team.
7:55
Speaker 3: Listen, it's gonna be a while because it's hard to
7:57
Speaker 3: find teams in and people that have let's say five
8:00
Speaker 3: billion dollars for an expansion fee, a stadium and everything else.
8:03
Speaker 3: So it's it's gonna be a bit. But I understand
8:05
Speaker 3: why they want to do this, and what they want
8:07
Speaker 3: is the next thing that Rob said was I want
8:09
Speaker 3: to have a signing deadline. Okay, of course you do, Rob.
8:13
Speaker 3: Of course the owners want to have a signing deadline
8:14
Speaker 3: because Evan, can you imagine the pressure that would be
8:18
Speaker 3: on players, because every team would just be like, Okay,
8:21
Speaker 3: we'll just wait till the last hour, and then every
8:23
Speaker 3: player will grovel and come to us say please sign
8:26
Speaker 3: me for one year, one million. Like of course the
8:28
Speaker 3: owners want this, right Like, this makes no sense to me.
8:31
Speaker 3: The whole point. No other I don't think any other
8:33
Speaker 3: league has a signing deadline. They have a ope when
8:36
Speaker 3: it opens, and a lot of teams get there a
8:37
Speaker 3: lot of their stuff done, But no other league has
8:40
Speaker 3: a signing deadline.
8:42
Speaker 2: I understand. I believe that there. I was under the
8:46
Speaker 2: presson that the other leagues do have them. But the
8:48
Speaker 2: other leagues are cap leagues, and I could be wrong
8:50
Speaker 2: about that. I want I want to double check on that.
8:53
Speaker 2: But I in a cap league, it's just a different
8:55
Speaker 2: system because you're splitting the revenue. It is kind of
8:58
Speaker 2: a fixed sum of money. I think probably both things
9:02
Speaker 2: are true. AJ If you had a deadline over time,
9:06
Speaker 2: it could hurt what players make, and players could feel
9:08
Speaker 2: forced into deals that they don't want to take. And
9:11
Speaker 2: also it could create a period of excitement. I do
9:15
Speaker 2: think there is some validity to the league argument here
9:17
Speaker 2: of like, well, that'd be fun if we had this
9:19
Speaker 2: in December, and there's also validity to it. Sure would
9:22
Speaker 2: be fun for the fans. It would not be fun
9:25
Speaker 2: for us, the players here. And this isn't new. This
9:28
Speaker 2: is something that the league proposed in sixteen in the
9:31
Speaker 2: negotiations leading to the seventeen to twenty one CBA. There
9:35
Speaker 2: was mid term talks in twenty nineteen where the league
9:38
Speaker 2: proposes and then it came up again in the twenty
9:41
Speaker 2: one twenty two lockout negotiation. So this has always been there,
9:45
Speaker 2: and now we're in a happy CBA expiration year. Everybody,
9:49
Speaker 2: we're in a CBA expiration year, and you know, Rob's
9:53
Speaker 2: putting it out there. And also we have kind of
9:54
Speaker 2: a slow free agency, at least for the top guys
9:57
Speaker 2: in the market. And so this is one that's good,
10:00
Speaker 2: always swirl and people are always gonna talk about it.
10:03
Speaker 2: And I don't ever see it changing in baseball unless
10:07
Speaker 2: you end up in a very different economic structure. And
10:10
Speaker 2: we're gonna we're gonna have all year to talk about
10:12
Speaker 2: that and then probably into twenty seven as well.
10:15
Speaker 1: So let's get into your article on this. What did
10:19
Speaker 1: you think of the response from some agents you spoke to,
10:22
Speaker 1: from Tony Clark and Bruce Meyer who represent the player's side,
10:26
Speaker 1: and they've been on the quieter side, and it sounds
10:28
Speaker 1: like you got a lot of answers on this one.
10:31
Speaker 1: And I'll just chime in quickly with my opinion. When
10:33
Speaker 1: I try to take a fan opinion on most things,
10:35
Speaker 1: it's like, sure, fans want to see more activity at
10:38
Speaker 1: a certain point. There are other ideas I brought up
10:40
Speaker 1: trade deadline, incentivizing teams to do these signings instead of
10:43
Speaker 1: punishing players. So the bullshit problem I have is, if
10:46
Speaker 1: you really cared, wouldn't you create it for an incentive
10:50
Speaker 1: based program to say, hey, if you sign a guy
10:52
Speaker 1: by this amount of time at this rate, you'll get
10:54
Speaker 1: an extra pick or something. That's the way to spur
10:57
Speaker 1: growth and actually have both sides give a crap. That's
11:00
Speaker 1: where I call the BS meter.
11:02
Speaker 2: Right, and the Union has pointed out going back years.
11:06
Speaker 2: You know, there's a statement that Bruce Meyer, who is
11:08
Speaker 2: now the deputy director at the Union, gave in twenty
11:10
Speaker 2: nineteen when this was proposed, that was, you know, we
11:13
Speaker 2: have tried to offer other forms of incentivizing teams to
11:16
Speaker 2: sign the league doesn't want to do it. And I
11:19
Speaker 2: believe that the idea of a trading deadline has always
11:22
Speaker 2: been the league is not interested in that unless it
11:24
Speaker 2: comes along with a free agent deadline. So you're right
11:28
Speaker 2: on those fronts.
11:29
Speaker 1: You know.
11:30
Speaker 2: One of the things Rob was asked on the radio,
11:33
Speaker 2: this was a radio interview on WFN that spurred all
11:35
Speaker 2: this yesterday, was you know, what are the players thinking
11:38
Speaker 2: about this? And Rob made the argument that they think
11:41
Speaker 2: it's bad for their salaries and said, you know, but
11:43
Speaker 2: I don't really buy that. He was pretty dismissive of it,
11:45
Speaker 2: and Tony Clark batted back with a pretty forceful statement
11:50
Speaker 2: that the league is making a massive miscalculation if they're
11:55
Speaker 2: going to attempt to kind of blow up the system
11:57
Speaker 2: that has produced good six s for the league and
12:02
Speaker 2: over recent years, but you know, also over time. And
12:05
Speaker 2: so Clark had a forceful quote. The day before Brent
12:09
Speaker 2: Rooker on Twitter excuse Me on X said it was
12:14
Speaker 2: one of the most anti player ideas that exists, so
12:18
Speaker 2: he swatted it down. Scott Boris also said it's bad
12:22
Speaker 2: for players. Joel Wolf, who's another prominent agent, he's the
12:26
Speaker 2: head of Baseball Wasserman, and he's got Yamamoto and Rookie Susaki.
12:32
Speaker 2: You know, he drew a comparison to the international system
12:35
Speaker 2: where he has seen some fruits and benefits of the
12:41
Speaker 2: deadline system working well. But you know, he even offered
12:44
Speaker 2: kind of this key question of Okay, what if a
12:46
Speaker 2: guy doesn't sign, you know, if you have the deadline,
12:49
Speaker 2: whatever date you want, what then happens to someone who says,
12:52
Speaker 2: you know what, none of these offers are good enough
12:54
Speaker 2: for me? Are you seeing? I don't think anybody thinks
12:56
Speaker 2: the end result should be the guy who sit out.
12:58
Speaker 2: But that's an unanswered question of what happens to those
13:01
Speaker 2: guys here. So yeah, it's you know, as ninety eight
13:06
Speaker 2: percent of the stories I do and the questions we
13:09
Speaker 2: discussed when I come on with you guys are it's
13:11
Speaker 2: about money, and the players believe this would hurt their income,
13:15
Speaker 2: and I think they have reason to believe that.
13:18
Speaker 4: Take the salary cap out of this whole situation, right,
13:21
Speaker 4: So my question to you is, for both sides, what
13:24
Speaker 4: is the most important thing that MLB wants to get
13:27
Speaker 4: out of this CBA. And what's the most important thing
13:29
Speaker 4: the players want to get out of this besides salary cap?
13:31
Speaker 2: What do you think is next. I'm gonna be a
13:34
Speaker 2: little facetious and think I just said it. It's money, right, Yeah,
13:39
Speaker 2: But look, I think the key on the owner side,
13:43
Speaker 2: besides the salary cap, the kind of the underlying thing
13:46
Speaker 2: here is the media rights in baseball. You know what
13:51
Speaker 2: Manford wants to do is take the control of the
13:55
Speaker 2: local television rights every all the thirty teams right now
13:57
Speaker 2: control what they do with you know, the majority of
13:59
Speaker 2: their games. MLB sells like the Sunday Night package whatever.
14:03
Speaker 2: But you know, if you're a Yankees fan watching on
14:04
Speaker 2: the Yes Network, the Yankees decide to partner with the
14:07
Speaker 2: Yes Network, which they own, but that's their decision. Rob
14:09
Speaker 2: wants that to be his decision, his office's decision, and
14:13
Speaker 2: with the kind of decline of rsns, he would envision
14:17
Speaker 2: a world where I think more TV money is shared.
14:20
Speaker 2: Big market teams don't like that. How could you make
14:23
Speaker 2: big market teams happy? Well, maybe you give them a
14:26
Speaker 2: cap and tell them they don't have to share other
14:28
Speaker 2: money like tickets, and they can keep other things right.
14:31
Speaker 2: But all of this kind of comes back to how
14:33
Speaker 2: do you alter media rights and revenue sharing? And the
14:37
Speaker 2: very interesting thing about revenue sharing, we're talking about how
14:41
Speaker 2: owners share money between themselves that is collectively bargained. They
14:45
Speaker 2: can't change that without player approval because the players argue
14:50
Speaker 2: it affects, you know, how teams behave, what they spend on,
14:53
Speaker 2: what they don't. So the media stuff, this boring stuff
14:59
Speaker 2: that happen a couple of year years ago with bankruptcy
15:01
Speaker 2: with Diamonds Sports Group, which is now main Street Sports Group,
15:04
Speaker 2: which is which MLB's nine teams that are broadcast by
15:07
Speaker 2: that company have now cut ties with temporarily while they
15:10
Speaker 2: renegotiate deals. It can be mind numbing stuff, but it's
15:14
Speaker 2: going to be at the heart of all that's gonna
15:16
Speaker 2: happen in negotiations. I just.
15:22
Speaker 3: It's all it's You know what's funny, Evan, is we've
15:25
Speaker 3: had a lot of talks you and I on field,
15:27
Speaker 3: off field, on this show, not on the show. Everything
15:30
Speaker 3: you've said, though, is such so pro owners, right the
15:34
Speaker 3: players like what are we need? What are the players want? Okay?
15:37
Speaker 3: And when you say yes, Manfred is getting his dream
15:41
Speaker 3: come true by this arnsense folding. Now he has control.
15:45
Speaker 3: He controls the pre game, he controls who the announcers are,
15:49
Speaker 3: He controls all this stuff, the money flow, where it
15:51
Speaker 3: comes and goes. But the real question for me is,
15:55
Speaker 3: how do you, if you're Rob Manfred, tell the Yankees,
15:58
Speaker 3: the Cubs, the Mets, the teams that have their own
16:01
Speaker 3: network right that, Hey, guess what, guys, we're cutting you
16:05
Speaker 3: from the Dodgers. They're making three hundred or whatever million
16:08
Speaker 3: a year off sports and at LA right, Hey, La,
16:11
Speaker 3: you know what you're making three hundred We're gonna cut
16:13
Speaker 3: you back to two hundred and pirates you only get
16:16
Speaker 3: fifty million. Isn't that kind of the same thing that
16:18
Speaker 3: they already have. How is he going to get all
16:20
Speaker 3: thirty owners because everything they do, let's not forget Evan,
16:23
Speaker 3: is always unanimous, every vote unanimous. All thirty owners voted
16:28
Speaker 3: forward things, right, So how do you get thirty owners
16:31
Speaker 3: to say, well, I'm gonna have to take less money
16:33
Speaker 3: so I can give it. It's basically revenue sharing, but
16:36
Speaker 3: just in a different way.
16:38
Speaker 2: Right, And I'll nipick one thing he said about not
16:41
Speaker 2: pro owner so much as this is from the ownership perspective,
16:45
Speaker 2: which I think the reality of this round of bargaining
16:48
Speaker 2: compared to the last one. Aj the players were so
16:52
Speaker 2: angry for really that whole previous CBA back in twenty nineteen,
16:56
Speaker 2: they were angering. Twenty twenty, they're angry, and then you know,
16:59
Speaker 2: we go into the life out twenty one. This time around,
17:02
Speaker 2: the pendulums kind of swung the other way. Where it
17:05
Speaker 2: has been management, the owners who at Manford's office, who
17:10
Speaker 2: are saying, these are the issues that we want to
17:12
Speaker 2: address here. It's we know generally what the players want, right.
17:18
Speaker 2: They want to get younger players paid more. They want
17:22
Speaker 2: to you know, raise the CBT, loosen restrictions on the market.
17:27
Speaker 2: Things that are always true will again be true here.
17:30
Speaker 2: They did a great job last time with service time, manipulation.
17:34
Speaker 2: There were some things that I think we're genuinely achieved
17:37
Speaker 2: in the last CBA here. Rob as you point out,
17:42
Speaker 2: has a big owner versus owner problem here, which is
17:46
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why the idea of a CAP
17:49
Speaker 2: is kind of not unfathomable. But like you, first you
17:53
Speaker 2: got to get your owners on board. You've got to
17:55
Speaker 2: find a floor that's agreeable for your small market own
18:00
Speaker 2: you got to find a ceiling that your large market
18:03
Speaker 2: owners okay with, and then at the end of it,
18:04
Speaker 2: you've got to get all the teams, all the players involved,
18:08
Speaker 2: to approve it right. The battle for MLB very often
18:13
Speaker 2: isn't we know this historically is not just the players.
18:16
Speaker 2: It can often be worse internally. And this big market
18:20
Speaker 2: small market divide. The difference between the TV money that
18:23
Speaker 2: the Dodgers have and the small market teams with FanDuel
18:27
Speaker 2: Sports Network have is a big bridge that Manford's got
18:32
Speaker 2: to find a way to get across. And you've got
18:36
Speaker 2: to find a way to get across it that the
18:38
Speaker 2: players will find palatable. And I gotta tell you, you know,
18:43
Speaker 2: Rob Manford makes a lot of money. That is not
18:45
Speaker 2: an enviable position to be in. That is a very
18:47
Speaker 2: difficult task. And I am truly curious what system he
18:52
Speaker 2: settles on, assuming they don't end up getting a cap. Okay,
18:58
Speaker 2: what does it look like? What is this the major
19:01
Speaker 2: change to that media right system you can make that
19:03
Speaker 2: the owners can agree on and that the players will say, okay,
19:06
Speaker 2: you know, we believe this will still spur competition because
19:08
Speaker 2: the one thing that the players don't want is all
19:12
Speaker 2: the money being centralized, because then if you're getting a
19:16
Speaker 2: big check, no matter what you do as a team,
19:18
Speaker 2: why are you going to spend It's a really fascinating
19:22
Speaker 2: problem if you step back, I love it. I agree.
19:26
Speaker 1: It's almost the game inside the game. It's why I
19:27
Speaker 1: love reading what you put out there. So that leads
19:30
Speaker 1: me to my next question. I think probably the last
19:32
Speaker 1: notable thing from the interview with Manfred Auden WFN, he
19:38
Speaker 1: called out the lockout negativity. So the quote and I'll
19:42
Speaker 1: do a direct one this time, I found it. I
19:44
Speaker 1: do think there has been a rush to negativity by
19:46
Speaker 1: a lot of the media that covers our sport.
19:49
Speaker 3: You sure about that?
19:50
Speaker 1: I mean, are we wrong?
19:51
Speaker 2: Are you wrong? Like?
19:52
Speaker 1: And I don't think we're just getting up here and
19:54
Speaker 1: screaming everything sucks. But I think it's pretty clear that
19:58
Speaker 1: if you pay attention to the sport, the two sides
20:01
Speaker 1: are not best friends. They're not partners, as the NBA
20:05
Speaker 1: calls their players. And there happened to be a shouting
20:08
Speaker 1: match a few months ago between one of the faces
20:10
Speaker 1: of the sport and the commissioner of the sport. Amongst
20:13
Speaker 1: his meetings with teams about the salary cap. So your
20:17
Speaker 1: thoughts on the negativity. I consider you media, I consider
20:21
Speaker 1: us media. Do you think we're being too negative about
20:24
Speaker 1: what's coming up in eleven months?
20:26
Speaker 2: No? And you know, it's all I could. I think
20:30
Speaker 2: this expression that I'm making now is what it prompted
20:33
Speaker 2: me when I when I heard it yesterday. It's like
20:36
Speaker 2: it's a little bit of an eye roll and a chuckle.
20:39
Speaker 2: You know. Rob Manford does what he thinks he needs
20:43
Speaker 2: to do to further the owner's interests. Sometimes that's walking
20:47
Speaker 2: right up to the line of saying he wants a
20:50
Speaker 2: salary cap. That walking right up to the line of
20:53
Speaker 2: saying he expects a lockout without saying directly he expects
20:57
Speaker 2: a lockout it's a new norm in sport. But doesn't
21:01
Speaker 2: say I'm going to lock out the players, right, and
21:04
Speaker 2: then you know, kind of turns around and blames the
21:08
Speaker 2: media when people write about these things. It's it is
21:14
Speaker 2: what it is. I don't know how else to put it.
21:17
Speaker 2: I don't think the media is covering this improperly. I
21:21
Speaker 2: think I think there's a ton to explore here. There's
21:24
Speaker 2: stuff we we just talked about that I haven't written
21:26
Speaker 2: about in recent time, planned to it. It's never ending,
21:30
Speaker 2: and the league kind of wants it both ways. I
21:34
Speaker 2: think both sides want it both ways at times frankly,
21:36
Speaker 2: where it's how dare you talk about this? And then
21:40
Speaker 2: a week later, well we're going to talk about it.
21:42
Speaker 2: It's like, okay, it's it's always easy to blame the media,
21:47
Speaker 2: but I I just I don't. I don't spend my
21:50
Speaker 2: time thinking about that one.
21:51
Speaker 1: It's so fun, it's so easy. You're right, Although the
21:54
Speaker 1: media does have a response and it's here right now,
21:57
Speaker 1: we're not representing everyone, but we can try and we
22:00
Speaker 1: can reply to what is said. So yes, I agree,
22:04
Speaker 1: we're on the same page with that.
22:05
Speaker 2: One.
22:05
Speaker 1: Last one I have for you is the big news
22:07
Speaker 1: that popped up over the past twenty four hours with
22:10
Speaker 1: Trek Scougle. So I wanted to know your thoughts on
22:14
Speaker 1: how crazy the number exchange difference was and how that
22:18
Speaker 1: affects everything. We were talking about the arbitration system, and
22:22
Speaker 1: you can speak to this better than I can. But
22:24
Speaker 1: I know at some point last go around during the CBA,
22:27
Speaker 1: they were trying to essentially eliminate this and turn it
22:29
Speaker 1: into a numbers based system, which was rejected. So I
22:33
Speaker 1: am fascinated for the battle and wish that we could
22:36
Speaker 1: live stream schoogling court against the Tigers nineteen versus thirty
22:39
Speaker 1: two MIL.
22:43
Speaker 2: Not to reveal too many of my texts to Ken Rosenthal,
22:45
Speaker 2: but I think I texted that is all caps fun.
22:50
Speaker 2: Speaking about the difference between the two, it is very interesting.
22:54
Speaker 2: One of the things that's happened in arbitration over time
22:56
Speaker 2: is that I think MLB's looked at it to some
23:00
Speaker 2: degree as a tool by which players can raise salaries rightfully,
23:03
Speaker 2: and a lot of teams don't want to go to
23:06
Speaker 2: it anymore, and a lot of agents don't want to
23:09
Speaker 2: take players to it. Somebody made an interesting point to
23:12
Speaker 2: me in last a couple months that agents in the
23:15
Speaker 2: Union aren't always aligned on the value of going to
23:19
Speaker 2: a hearing. Because if you're the agent you take a
23:22
Speaker 2: player to a hearing, or you kind of support the
23:25
Speaker 2: idea of going to hearing and the player loses the hearing,
23:28
Speaker 2: well they might fire you, right, But where the Union's
23:31
Speaker 2: interest is collectively, the more times you go to these hearings,
23:33
Speaker 2: maybe the better shot you more quickly raise the salaries.
23:39
Speaker 2: So it's a battleground area. It is always, and I
23:42
Speaker 2: don't mean just inside these arbitration hearings, I mean even
23:46
Speaker 2: inside the decision to go. And yes MLB did propose
23:50
Speaker 2: last time to eliminate arbitration. That is not something the
23:54
Speaker 2: players want. They believe it is really kind of the
23:57
Speaker 2: first It's truly the shot they have to get closer
24:02
Speaker 2: to kind of a fair salary for their performance. Right,
24:05
Speaker 2: you know, your your minimum salary for the first three years,
24:09
Speaker 2: and if you're Super two, it's the first two years,
24:11
Speaker 2: and then find this is your first chance of real money.
24:14
Speaker 2: And so it makes sense that MLB would want to
24:16
Speaker 2: clamp down on it. Would and it makes sense that
24:18
Speaker 2: the players want to keep it televising. It would be
24:21
Speaker 2: so glorious. I wish they would do it. They'll never
24:23
Speaker 2: do it. I don't know how it goes away again
24:28
Speaker 2: unless there's some sort of massive change to the sports
24:31
Speaker 2: economic structure, meaning whether you go to a salary cap system.
24:35
Speaker 2: But as long as you stay in this system, which
24:38
Speaker 2: it seems certainly likely everybody will, we're, you know, we'll
24:44
Speaker 2: keep reliving this this same episode, and occasionally you'll get
24:48
Speaker 2: a really interesting matchup where the numbers are so far
24:50
Speaker 2: apart on a truly fantastic player.
24:53
Speaker 1: And here's what we're going to do, since we'll never
24:55
Speaker 1: be able to actually watch that, and also there's a
24:57
Speaker 1: chance that it never ends up happening. But school is
25:00
Speaker 1: one of the best interviews in the game. So at
25:02
Speaker 1: some point in his life it might not be right
25:04
Speaker 1: after the case. Maybe it's after he signs his big
25:06
Speaker 1: free agent contract. We can bring him on and we
25:10
Speaker 1: will ask him how that case went and the back
25:12
Speaker 1: and forth that went down, and how he felt about it,
25:15
Speaker 1: so we'll have some fun with it. Evan, this was great.
25:17
Speaker 1: Thanks for the extended time. It was very necessary. A
25:19
Speaker 1: lot of things happening. I appreciate you and forever else
25:25
Speaker 1: I Athletic Real before.
25:29
Speaker 3: Kevin, you want to know why they'll never televise it
25:32
Speaker 3: because I've been through it. The owners and the don't
25:35
Speaker 3: want the fans to actually hear what they think about
25:38
Speaker 3: the players. I've been through it. That's why. That's why
25:41
Speaker 3: it'll never be televised. The player just sits there and
25:44
Speaker 3: the player gives the positive stuff that they did, and
25:47
Speaker 3: then the owner side, the team side just says, well,
25:50
Speaker 3: you sucked on Tuesday, Todd, you were terrible against oh
25:53
Speaker 3: two breaking balls in the dirt from a right handed
25:56
Speaker 3: sidearm Tyler Rogers looking dude right, and you're like, Okay,
26:00
Speaker 3: nobody hits that guy slider that goes up right. That's
26:04
Speaker 3: why they don't. That's why I'll never be televised because
26:06
Speaker 3: if it was televised, then people would actually know what
26:08
Speaker 3: the teams feel like, in what they what they actually
26:11
Speaker 3: think about players. And that's why it's not going to
26:13
Speaker 3: be televised. I wish it would be because the truth
26:15
Speaker 3: will set you free.
26:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, put it. Put the right dollar figure out at
26:19
Speaker 2: AJ you know Netflix?
26:21
Speaker 4: Is that it like kind of a baseball judge Judy.
26:24
Speaker 2: They don't say, no the money.
26:27
Speaker 1: I'm with you Netflix, right there, you're listening right now.
26:31
Speaker 1: Throw a big, big number, throw the bag at this
26:33
Speaker 1: and it would be it would be must see. It
26:35
Speaker 1: would be awesome, And I'm with you AJ right. It's
26:38
Speaker 1: like we brought this up the other day. Ivan Corbyn
26:41
Speaker 1: Burns told us about his ARP case and said, your
26:44
Speaker 1: two bad starts in August cost us the playoffs. Forget
26:47
Speaker 1: the other thirty that were incredible, those two bad starts
26:50
Speaker 1: that's why we didn't make the playoffs by a game
26:52
Speaker 1: or two. Like that kind of reply from a team
26:56
Speaker 1: after you're stating how good you are and you're a
26:58
Speaker 1: sign winner. Whatever would be such good content, So anyway
27:03
Speaker 1: we can dare to dream. I'm with you, Evan. We'll
27:04
Speaker 1: try and get the distribution deal done with the league
27:06
Speaker 1: and the streamers. But in the meantime, enjoy your weekend.
27:09
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us and everyone else. Catch Evansworth in
27:12
Speaker 1: the work in the Athletic and on X you can
27:14
Speaker 1: see where his articles are posted on there too.
27:17
Speaker 2: Happy CBA expiration here, Yes, you too.
27:20
Speaker 1: We'll be talking win totals. Oh, this is the controversial one.
27:29
Speaker 1: You weren't on for this yesterday AJ where we talked
27:32
Speaker 1: about the Will Salmon article that referred to Mets officials
27:35
Speaker 1: feeling as if this is a very solid playoff team
27:38
Speaker 1: without doing anything else the rest of the off season,
27:40
Speaker 1: and this is what they're looking at right. Projection models
27:44
Speaker 1: play into what we see for regular season win totals
27:47
Speaker 1: put together by bet MGM on futures that you can
27:50
Speaker 1: bet on right now. Eighty six and a half wins
27:52
Speaker 1: over at one five under at one fifteen.
27:55
Speaker 2: Now.
27:55
Speaker 1: I'm not touching this because I do think there's going
27:57
Speaker 1: to be more in play for the Mets. TBD is
28:00
Speaker 1: one where I'll wait. But right now, if they did
28:03
Speaker 1: nothing else, that is a hot number.
28:11
Speaker 3: Have to wait right now, I would take I would
28:13
Speaker 3: probably that division. I would probably take the under because
28:17
Speaker 3: I'm not sold on their pitching. But who knows, they
28:19
Speaker 3: might have another move up their sleeve. David Sterens, who
28:22
Speaker 3: knows what they can do. But they lost Neil, they
28:24
Speaker 3: lost Nemo. I know they brought in Simeon, they lost Alonso.
28:28
Speaker 3: That's a lot of homers to try to make up
28:30
Speaker 3: for court. Listen, what are they supposed to say, no,
28:35
Speaker 3: we're not very good right now? They're the Mets. They
28:37
Speaker 3: have to say they're pretty good. They're trying, they're building
28:39
Speaker 3: the new casino and doing all that stuff around around
28:42
Speaker 3: City Field. So their course are going to say we're
28:44
Speaker 3: a playoff team. Because if they come out and say, ah,
28:46
Speaker 3: we don't think we're very good right now, Mets fans
28:48
Speaker 3: will riot in the streets. Man, they'll be so mad.
28:50
Speaker 3: They'll be out with the pitchforks for poor David Sterens
28:53
Speaker 3: and Stevie Cohen. So yeah, of course they're going to
28:56
Speaker 3: say that. But right now, eighty six I'd take the under.
29:00
Speaker 4: The under two as well, with the people they got
29:04
Speaker 4: rid of and I you know, oh, I didn't get
29:06
Speaker 4: rid of some. They got rid of some they didn't
29:08
Speaker 4: bring back. And I think that's a big difference. And
29:10
Speaker 4: I know a lot of Mets fans like, well, this
29:12
Speaker 4: has been like.
29:13
Speaker 2: This for years.
29:13
Speaker 4: Well, they actually were in the driver's seat to make
29:16
Speaker 4: the playoffs this year, and they blew that they had
29:18
Speaker 4: a really good team to really get after it and
29:21
Speaker 4: make a push.
29:23
Speaker 2: Getting rid of Nemo. I didn't really like.
29:26
Speaker 4: I think he was a staple on that team, even
29:30
Speaker 4: though you know, they went to him and asked him about,
29:32
Speaker 4: you know, going there. He said yes, I wouldn't never
29:36
Speaker 4: have made that conversation with it. But you know, Jeff McNeil,
29:40
Speaker 4: I still think he's got a lot in the tank.
29:41
Speaker 4: He's a really good hitter. We'll see, we'll see it
29:45
Speaker 4: comes down to pitching and being healthy. But I don't
29:48
Speaker 4: I would say like eighty ish.
29:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you. I think it's an eighty ish
29:53
Speaker 1: right now. They lost a lot, and some of the
29:57
Speaker 1: youngsters will get better, but I don't think they're gonna
29:59
Speaker 1: get that much better right away. Hey, look at this
30:01
Speaker 1: odds boost token for the college football playoff score, bigger
30:04
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30:07
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30:11
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30:13
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