Fantasy Baseball Today - David Samson Joins The Show! Will The 2020 Season Happen? (05/14 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

We're pleased to be joined by former Marlins President and host of Nothing Personal David Samson! First and foremost, how realistic is MLB's proposal for the 2020 season (4:30)? Who would benefit most in the shorter season? ... David published his own proposal on CBSsports.com. What were some of his rule changes (11:09)? He has an interesting take on extra innings. How would stats be accounted for? ... Does David expect sports back in July (18:36)? What do the economics look like? ... How would no minor-league season and the shorter draft affect the players long term (26:49)? Also, why are there so many minor-league teams? ... We also have some rapid-fire questions for David (34:30). What is Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s outlook this season? What can we expect from the Houston Astros? What's the deal with Marlins man? How would veteran starting pitchers be affected by all this?... We also answer some of your questions! ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. I drive, center field, at the wall, grand slam. This is magnificent. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Well, fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Frank, Scott, Chris, and Adam.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to Fantasy Baseball today on this Thursday, May 14th. Frank Stample here, along with Adam. Mazer and Scott White, and we've talked about the latest MLB proposal basically all week long. Why stop now? We thought it was about time to bring in somebody who, I would say, has a little more real-life baseball experience than we do. We welcome in former Marlins president and current host of nothing personal in our CBS podcast community. David Samson, David, thanks for joining us. How are you holding up, man? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I love this podcast. Happy to be a guest and make some fantasy slash reality.

True story, David. I didn't even know if I should be on today's podcast. Yesterday, Adam was so excited that you were joining us. I felt like I should just leave and, you know, let him do his thing. Yeah. And by the way, Frank, I was a pitcher in seventh grade on my middle school baseball team. And we had never won a game before. And we won our first game of the year. And we went crazy. And we didn't win a game the rest of the season. But we had that win. So you want to talk about real life baseball experience, first win in school. history only win at that point. Can we just take a break? I have a tiny tear in my eye. I'm a little over clemps. Just give me one minute here. I know. It's an emotional story. It was tough reliving it, actually. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if Scott has anything to add in terms of real life, but Scott, maybe some baseball simulation you could throw in there. Yeah, maybe. Like I said yesterday, I'm always having to resist the urge whenever Dave Samson is around to ask him about Survivor, since he's, of course, a former contestant himself first voted out on his season.

So I don't know if this brings up painful memories, but I've mentioned it to him before that it's all I want to ask about because I'm just such a huge fan. It can't be that painful because it's in David's Twitter bio. Yeah, yeah. And I noticed he was tweeting about it last night, finale, kind of spoils it. And I don't think that you can see, but if you can, I am wearing a pink shirt. and I talked about it on today's Nothing Personal. This is the exact shirt I wore at the finale reunion after season 28.

So I brought it out a special for today, not knowing we talk about it on this, but on nothing personal. I did a whole big thing because the winner was Tony, who won the season I was in, and he just became now the greatest survivor player of all time. Look at that. Tough of you had to go up against that. You didn't know it at the time, but you were going up against Babe Ruth. Yeah, well, I said yesterday, Dave, I think, I should say David. You go by Dave or David, David, David.

Yeah, I said yesterday, I think your survivor season is probably on the Mount Rushmore of Survivor seasons. And, you know, Tony was a big part of that. So nice to see him win again. It was an amazing season. And I'll never forget the morning we were flying out to the Philippines is the first time you see who is going to be in the cast with you because you don't know. And you can't talk to the cast members until filming starts, but you travel to location. You spend a few days getting ready with costume checks and with sort of physicals and you get a mental exam. You have to see a therapist for at least one or two sessions.

They do interviews and pictures. I get to the lobby of the airport hotel. They corral us all together. They explain the rules again, which is no talking, the entire flight. You don't even know where you're going. Back then, it was not all filmed in Fiji. each season was in a different place. We thought maybe it could be the Philippines, but we didn't know.

I get down and I look and around at the rest of the cast, and I say, oh, my God, that's Cliff Robinson. And I knew exactly who Cliff was because I'm a huge NBA guy. And I knew him just, I never met him, but he was a guy who I love to watch play. And I said, I can't believe I get to play Survivor with Cliff Robinson. Wow. Was he wearing a headband? Nobody was shrugging his shoulders.

Always the headband. David, I've watched and listen to nothing personal. You're not afraid to tell it like it is, and I appreciate that. The most recent MLB proposal has been presented to the players, and I'm sure there will be some back and forth. We've already heard about that this week. But as of now, we're looking at the season starting in early July, or at least that's what they've proposed,

around 80 games, an expanded roster of 45 to 50 players, a universal DH and teams only playing in their geographic region. How realistic is this current proposal? Well, it's not very dissimilar to what I proposed in an article earlier this week on CBS Sports. And I had to take out my writing skills, which had been atrophied for so long, really since law school. And I was harkening back to my high school days at Horace Mann, trying to remember that it takes three sentences to make a paragraph and going through all the different things. What I hadn't read about, and the reason I wanted to write this article, is I hadn't seen a proposal that actually talked about realistically what has to happen, logistically what has to happen, because over 18 years, I got to know a lot about how to put on a baseball game.

Who are the people really required? Who are the extra people? What would make a season, a non-asterisk season, and what would get us eventually to a World Series champion? Because to me, that's the goal is getting to a champion. And so I think that, let's start with 81 games. That to me is the minimum requirement. If you're going to have a season, it is very prejudicial to the best teams in baseball to have only an 81 game season because over 162 games, the cream generally rises to the top. The best teams end up winning. But you need time in case you start slowly like the Nationals did last year. In an 81 game season, you don't have that amount of time.

anything below 81 to me is a non-starter. So that's where I came to 81. Yeah. So who do you think that would benefit a shortened season? Any particular players, like older players maybe, you know, from a fantasy standpoint, maybe. What do you think the big on-the-field differences would be? You know, I'm a little worried from a fantasy standpoint about older players for this season,

no matter how many games, and here's why. There are more players who are like, Albert Poo-Hulls, then not, like Blake Snell, who are on Twitch playing video games, who are spending time with their family, who are not having their regular season, their regular off-season workouts. And my concern is if we go into a spring training here in the next month and then start the season in the next two months, players are very much routine-based. I think younger players and younger bodies will be able to adjust to a different routine

faster than older players who have been doing it the same way time and time again. So I think that players over 35 are going to have big problems because I think you'll see increased injuries, which is a nightmare for owners and presidents having to pay players not to play. So from a fantasy standpoint, I would look to someone like an Acuna to me would be a great MVP candidate, not just an actual season, but in from a fantasy standpoint, because he's the type of guy at his age, he could literally start the regular season tomorrow and be ready to go. So, David, it sounds like the proposal now, you know, if based on what we've heard reported so

far, season starting in early July being around 80 games, 81, you said, something like that, that doesn't sound so much like a condensed schedule anymore like had been proposed earlier. It sounds like they would kind of have their normal numbers. of off days and the same number of games being played in a three-month span as usual. Do you think pitchers would be handled more or less like usual or because they're off their, you know, season-long routine? We would see guys have earlier hooks than we're used to seeing. Well, it's great.

You say that because that's been a trend, right, in recent years that pitchers are getting early hooks anyway and bullpen arms who can go multiple innings become much more valuable. you're going to see that even more. And that ties in perfectly, perfect segue to why rosters have to be expanded. Because the way we would operate a team is we would have a train of players, literally, going from double and triple A to the big leagues and then being sent back down because those are players who have what's called options, meaning they can be optioned down to the minor leagues as many times during the season as you want to do without having to lose them and put them

through waivers. So for pitchers, there's not going to be a chance for starters to ramp up in a truncated spring training. So there's a higher risk of injury. So it is necessary to have more pitchers on your roster. And whoever has the best minor league free agent signings from this past off season, whoever has the deepest bullpen, those teams have the best opportunity to win in a shorter season. So Yankees, Dodgers, World Series, basically. Yeah.

So, you know, you say that, but you ask me, teams could benefit the most and which players. We talked about Akunia, but a team with expanded playoffs like the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Colorado Rockies, when you're in a division with the Dodgers or you are the Red Sox who basically said we have no chance over a long season against the Yankees or even against the Reyes. I think those teams now have a better chance, believe it or not, because let's just take the Yankees, when you've got a season to deal with a injury and Stanton, let's say who doesn't play a full season hasn't in a while. If you go on the IL in an 81 game season,

that's the equivalent of losing a month in a regular season. So when players go away for two weeks and a half a season, that's obviously if we're a more harsh man, another reference, I learned that math. If you lose two weeks in an 81 game season, that's losing four weeks in 162 game season. And if you lose a player for a month, that makes a difference. So it's going to be interesting to see who can stay the healthiest.

and that's where I get back to from a fantasy standpoint, the younger, the better. And speaking of some of those Yankees, we got an injury update earlier on today on Aaron Judge that he's, quote, not going to be ready until the summertime. So it doesn't sound good for Aaron Judge right now, but the Yankees do have a lot of depth where they can help cover themselves there. Doesn't that depend where you are? Because it's summertime in Florida where I am right now. It's always summertime.

It's not summertime of New York, I'll say. Yeah. We had a snowstorm this past weekend. don't know what's going on. Yeah. If he would stay in Tampa, he'd be ready by now, probably. Right. David, everything in the world has changed over the past few months.

There's no reason to believe that baseball will be any different. In your article on cbosports.com, you outlined what your proposal would look like, and that included 23 rule changes. The one that stood out to me most was extra inning games, where you highlight in the 10th inning, games will be played with a runner on second base with no outs for each team. The 11th inning will have a runner on second base and third base. with no outs for each team. The 12th inning will have the bases loaded with no outs for each team.

If the game is still tied after 12 innings, then the result will be a tie. The playoffs go until there is a winner. Baseball traditionalists won't want to hear this, but I love it. I mean, we use your exact 10th inning scenario in softball leagues that I've played in here locally. It affects fantasy too,

because it provides more RBI opportunities. It will lead to more blown saves or losses for relief pitchers and closers. So I think there would be chaos and I love it. Let me give you an update on stats on how I can sell this to the players because we've been talking about changing the rules and extra innings within Major League Baseball for years because when you're running a team, extra innings are your kryptonite.

It's a nightmare. I would spend extra innings with the GM in the clubhouse speaking to the traveling secretary, getting ready to speak to the manager as soon as the game ends, to talk through what moves have to be made because we wouldn't have enough pitching for the following day. So we'd have to make a list of the pitchers who were available. Then we have the list of pitchers who have options.

Then we would have to be in touch with the minor league teams in different time zones when we're playing extra innings to say, listen, this guy's not available tonight for your minor league team. He may have to get on a plane because we're now in the 11th inning and we may have to use tomorrow's starter if this game goes 17. So therefore, who you are going to start, you have to hold off or a bullpen arm. So all of these issues would happen. Players hate extra inning games.

The quality of the game, and this was a big thing that I would talk to Joe Tori about a lot. The quality of, and I didn't mean to flex Joe Tori, but he's the one who would agree with me on this. Extra inning games stink because players are just getting down on the knob and they're going for home runs every single time. And it's just brutal to watch. So my proposal says, let's actually bring small ball back, force it to come back. If there's a runner on second and third no outs, all I got to do is get the ball in the air, hit a ground ball to the other side. I just have to do something.

Loft a little duck fart and all of a sudden we can score a run. What is the downside to this new rule? I don't have one. But from a statistical standpoint, we have to sell it to the players. So for a pitcher, any run scored by a runner who started the inning on base, that would not count as an earned run for that pitcher. But conversely, any runner driven in by a batter and that runner started on base in an extra inning, that player, offensive player, would get credit for an RBI.

It would count toward his slugging percentage, obviously, with bases, everything else. All the stats that would help a player would count. All the stats that would hurt a player would not count. Blown save. If you give up a run, and I didn't put this in the article, because it was already long enough. But if you give up a run and you lose the game, but it's a runner that was given up by a person who was put on base,

you do not get a blown safe. If you give up a run of a player who you are hitting to, let's say it's second and third no outs, you give up a three-run home run in a tie game in the bottom of an inning, that's a blown safe because it would have been a solo home run. You would have lost the game. So there are ways that we can make rules that are not complicated

where players would not have any sort of deleterious impact in terms of their earning power, and it would guarantee that games would end. So, and I guess just kind of connecting the dots here, the point of having it so those games don't go too long, they don't go too many innings, and you have to make all these roster moves to account for it, is you're just not going to have the same ability to make roster changes, right? Like, what do you think is an appropriate roster?

size to account for the fact that there's not going to be a minor league system for these teams to draw from. So that's a great, a little more complicated question. I don't, I think that, uh, you have to have the regular 40 man roster. 40, but on our 40 man roster, there were always, let's just say, five or six guys who there's no chance they're getting a call up during the season. They're too young, but we had to protect them because there are rules in the minor leagues that if you don't add a minor league player to your roster after a certain number of years, that player is eligible to leave you through what's called the Rule 5 draft where that player can be gone to another team. So I need the rosters to be larger because I want to put minor league non-roster invites

on the team. All those guys who get invited to spring training and get added to the roster at the end of spring training, that comes at the expense of players who have to be taken off the roster. I want to be able to add those guys so I can have more bench bats so I can have more arms. And I don't want to sacrifice any of my quote unquote long term guys. But I don't want to have to rush them to the major leagues just because we're going to need bodies. The quality of play will go down. Their careers and confidence. Their confidence would get hurt.

Their careers could suffer. So that's why I want an expanded roster. But the rules would be different for the non-roster guys who would be added. you can let them go at the end of the year off the roster. Okay. So how are those players, how are those players who you're having to add in season? There's been talk of like a taxi squad scenario. They're going to have to stay in shape.

They're going to have to be game ready in case you have to make a roster move for whatever reason. How do you envision a taxi squad working? Are they like scrimaging against the major league team or against other taxi squads that are in the same stadium at the same time. How do you see it going? So I think what has to happen is that while the minor league season is going to be canceled, I think that there will be activities at each of the spring training sites. And I think that's critical because what I would do is I would get rid of all of the all of the schleppers in our system.

And I would bring in just the prospects. And let's say you're a really good organization. And you have 40 guys in your system who have a chance to ever make the big leagues. I'm bringing all 40 to spring training in Jupiter, Florida, if you're the Marlins. And I am having workouts with social distancing guidelines, following the rules and making sure everyone comes in shifts and all the things you need to do to protect them, including having to test them, contact trace, the whole thing. I'm having them do intrasquad scrimmages when possible because those are the guys who are going to be ready to come up when roster moves, quote unquote, have to be made. So I agree to an active 28-man roster during the season, and I have a regular roster of between 35 and 45 guys. And then I have another, let's say, five guys, if you want to get to 50,

who are also available to come to the big leagues, but not at the expense of anyone being taken off the roster. Okay, David, so I've gone back and forth. I probably will three more times today about whether or not I actually think all this is going to happen. you know, just there's optimism, there's pessimism and so many cases. But, I mean, let's think about it. You've got most of the players, and the players are at the age where they're not that vulnerable, but unfortunately we've seen cases in this country of people in that age

groups succumbing to this illness. And then you've got managers who are older and you've got umpires and you've got people associated with the team. And you've got this period where you could test somebody who's actually positive, but won't show up on tests yet. I know you've talked about testing multiple days in a row and all that. But let me just ask a basic question. Do you think this is realistic?

Do you think this is going to happen? Baseball and sports in general are going to come back by July. I don't think by July. I think August 1st is more reasonable, which is why I put that in the article, because there has to be more testing available. And you have to get players to agree to be tested several times a week, I think every other day. And you have to create, just think about the timeline.

Let's say that there were an agreement today on the economics. today, the middle of May. Then let's say that we've got 30 teams where they can go and all their home parks are available the way now in Florida, Arizona, where pro sports can happen without fans. Let's say that all 30 cities have said, okay, go. It's going to take a couple weeks to get a team ready

to even report to spring training. Then you're going to need at least three to four weeks of spring training. That's if we started today. today, to me, today would be if we can start July 4th. And none of that's going to happen today because there isn't the testing available and the political cover. That's another little point that's not talked about a lot. If MLB can go to the private sector and buy enough tests to test everybody every other day, that's fine and they could do it. But they still need the political cover to say,

we are not taking these tests from people who need them. We are not taking any supply from any organization, hospital, community, which would need them. Therefore, we are taking these. They don't have that cover right now. And that cover, I don't know when it's going to come, but it's certainly not today. You mentioned the economics, too. We heard from Blake Snell saying, you know, I got to get mine.

And I get it in that he, if we're going to put ourselves at risk, they don't want to take a pay cut. On the other hand, we all know how bad 1994 was for the game. And the thought of either the players or the owners not going through with the season because of money when they are billionaires and millionaires and millions of people are out of a job, it could obviously be crippling for baseball. So I really hope it doesn't come to that. So if you were in a front office right now and you knew money was going to be an issue, what would your thoughts be right now and how would you bridge this gap? So it's not reasonable to get a 50-50 revenue split because the players don't want to give it because they view it as a cap. But I can say this, guys, there is no way that if football, hockey, and basketball starts, that baseball will not start.

There's just no chance. To me, the four professional leagues in the U.S. are aligned and together because they can't afford to be looked at as though they are lagging or they are leading. It can't just be baseball plays in the other sports. say it's not safe enough or healthy enough to play. That's not going to happen. It can't just be the NFL who says, listen, it's been enough time. We're good to go.

That's not going to work either. So for me, it's going to be all sports together. And it starts with health. And I do believe that it is reasonable for the leagues to get together and have a plan. That works. In baseball, that will come with lower salaries because revenue is going down.

There's no doubt about it. But they're not going to stand up and say, we can't play because of money. It's not going to happen. I hope so, yeah. One thing that has been brought up more recently, and I think there was a report yesterday from Bob Nightingale of USA Today

that everything has to be wrapped up before a second wave, the possibility of a second wave. And so that seems to be why they've backed off the idea of extending playoffs all the way through November because theoretically, I guess, the second wave would happen before then. But, you know, if they're not starting until August, there's no way they're going to fit in an 81 game season if that happens, right? If they're not starting until August and they're not counting on playing playoff baseball deep into November, there's just not enough calendar there, right?

Yeah, my plan is starting August and playing through November. And if you have to play at neutral sites, I'd prefer not to, but if you have to, you would. The reason I don't want neutral sites is then you have actually two full teams on the road. The objects have as few people traveling as possible. But you're asking about a second wave, anybody who's telling you that they have any information about a second wave and the timing of a second wave, they're just making it up. We don't know. They're using maybe information from the Spanish flu in the 1917, 1819, where a second wave came and was more deadly than the first. There's simply no way to know that. Baseball can't plan that.

What they can plan is that any sort of positive test will not lead to a shutdown. And that is another prerequisite for any plan to start any league. You cannot have a Rudy Gobert situation where a player test positive and two minutes later the seasons canceled. Because in my view, there will be a positive test in every sport. Maybe not every team, but certainly every sport. and if you have contact tracing and if you have the players agreeing to be quarantined and go on the injured list if they test positive and if you keep testing and test people in that person's sort of contact tree and if they test positive they have to go away too you can continue to play

yeah i noticed that was part of the proposal you put in it and it's it's the first i think i've seen somebody actually suggesting a plan for how it might work if a player test positive. Because that's a question you see all the time for beat writers and players. What happens when there's a positive test? And yeah, I mean, it seems likely there will be. Hopefully not, but it seems likely there will be. And if it means shutting everything down again, that seems like a non-starter. Yeah, it will be a non-starter.

So let's picture, let's do a real world situation. Let's say that you are, let's just pick any player you want. pick Mookie Betts. He's leading off for the Dodgers. And he's playing center field. Who does Mookie Betts actually come into contact with during the course of a game and a pregame? Because under my theory, he will not be showering next to anyone. He won't be eating next to anyone.

He won't be getting dressed next to anyone. He comes into contact with. If he needs the training room, he'll be in contact with the trainer. He'll be dealing with his own bats, his own water, his own gatorade, his own snacks. he runs out to center field, plays center field. If there are plays where there's a short pop-up, he may come into contact with the second basement of the shortstop. He may come into contact with the left fielder or the right fielder.

He may come into contact with the first baseman, second baseman, third baseman of the other teams to which he's played on a slide play or any sort of hit that Mukki Betts would get. So each player would have his own group of players, not all from his team, who he'd be in contact with. And that's how to protect an entire team from getting sick. Because if Mookie Betts test positive,

it actually will impact, in theory, assuming everyone gets it who he was in contact with. It actually is players spread out amongst many other teams. And that, to me, has a competitive advantage because it's not as though the top nine players from the Dodgers would all have it because he's never going to be next to Justin Turner or Clayton Kershaw. David, I have a write-in question from Chris Towers.

who's normally here on the podcast as well. And he wanted to ask, what will the lack of minor league games and the shortening of the draft mean three to five years down the line when those prospects would presumably be coming up? What can the MLB do to alleviate some of the issues that will have on the younger player pool? That's a great question. And I have an answer that's not going to be popular with a lot of people because I

think there is a big misunderstanding over how the minor league system is used and what we use it for in the big leagues. Our minor league system is used to get enough fat bats for the players we think have a chance to be good. Every once in a while there's a surprise, and we write about it. Everyone writes about it. If there's only five rounds,

what would happen to Albert Pujols or to Mike Piazza? They wouldn't exist. AJ Ramos, who was drafted late by the Marlins, ended up a great player of ours. So many players, what would happen to them? They would still be big leaguers. So the number of rounds in the drafts, have absolutely nothing to do with the number of kids who are going to end up being big leaguers

who should be big leaguers. What it changes is when you lower the number of teams because the guys who don't have a chance will not be able to say they are professional baseball players. They're going to have to go get different jobs sooner than they normally would have when their minor league careers come to an end at 25, 26, 27, 28 or 29. In terms of how players would be spread out amongst teams, the Dodgers wouldn't have an advantage over the market. because there's a cap of $20,000. Now there's a premium on intelligence. The premium is if you have the best scouts

and the best opportunity, and this is a point that people are not making, the Marlins have a better chance to sign undrafted minor league possible players than the Dodgers. The Marlins have the same money, so it's a level playing field, 20,000 each, but the Marlins offer big league opportunities faster because they let their players go faster.

And when you're a minor league player who wants to be in the big leagues, you want to sign with the team like the Marlins in an equal dollar situation because you know you have a chance to start getting service time, which is the ultimate brass ring for every single player. So I don't find there to be any problem with the draft of five rounds. I don't think it hurts baseball. I don't think kids stop playing baseball. All of the crazy things that are being written about,

I don't think will come to pass. I made a comment on the show the other day. I just don't understand why we have so many minor league teams. So let me get your perspective since you obviously know. But I said, like, why does baseball have so many teams? Why not just have one team? And then you'd have more kids going to college because that's the argument. Well, college football, you know, football has college football, basketball is college basketball and the G league and all that.

Well, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense to me. I feel like you have so many players in the minor league system who have no chance of ever making it to the big leagues who make horrible. money. I feel like it's almost putting their lives on hold. And I just don't understand the system. So can you explain it to me? Why do we have so many minor league stops? Should we have that many? You know, what's the best way to have this type of system for the big league, for the major league teams? So there's not one GM in baseball, not one of 30, who in a private meeting with no PR, with no social media, there's not one who would tell you that they don't want fewer teams.

Not one. There's not one owner who would tell you that they don't want fewer teams because it's so expensive. Do you know running your minor league system? It is tens of millions of dollars a year in operating expenses. It's so much money that it would blow your mind and it's such a waste. And though we hear from people who say minor league players and young drafted players, it's the best way to build your team. It's the cheapest way to acquire talent because you're only paying a signing bonus of $100,000 and that player becomes Christian Yellich. Those people don't know how to run a team because they've never done it. You're spending millions of dollars every single year trying to call. Picture it like digging for diamonds. And you've got the entire state of Nevada. And you look around and you have like two square miles where there's actually diamonds. You got to spend a lot of money to find those two square miles. So I think there will be fewer teams.

And as you know, no good crisis goes without some sort of progress. And this will be a bit of progress in baseball. the number of teams will be cut down, the expenses will be cut down because it makes sense. And if it does lead to more kids going to college, I wish they would because it gives them a better chance. How many teams do you, if you were still running the Marlins, how many teams would you want? How many do you think you could get by with? I am fine with A, AA and AAA. Now, that is very, very aggressive because most people will tell you that they want a rookie team.

They want a high A, which is a full season A. then double A and AAA and then they want a Dominican team. Now, that's five. I could live with four. I can definitely do three. The reason why certain teams want five is they've invested a ton of money. They can't get rid of their Dominican team because back in the day, most teams were paying rent.

Now teams have actually bought their own facilities, built their own facilities, and they want to get a return on that investment. So they get a ton of Dominican players in who are 16 years old and they see who sticks and who doesn't. You've got guys like the Marlins or Jeter who says we're teaching them English, we're teaching them how to cook and clean, how to be professional, you know, electricians or janitors or teachers or lawyers. But the reality is you're not doing any of that.

You're bringing all these players in, looking for the diamond in the rough and trying to get those players to perform for you at a young age. And it's just, it's not necessary. David, something that Adam and I have argued over recently on the podcast is guys like Tim Tebow, and Michael Jordan playing in the minor leagues. I could tell you one thing. Those guys are not going to be diamonds in the rough in major league baseball. How do you feel about guys like that coming in and taking away opportunities from other minor league players?

It doesn't mean a thing. They're not taking away. Michael Jordan took one opportunity from one person. By the way, he never would have been a big leaguer. But it's not like the Birmingham Barons were not giving at bats to top prospects in the White Sox organization. Because Jordan hit four times a day. It's just, I mean, that's silly talk. Come on.

You don't think he would have been a big leaguer? No chance. The last dance says differently. He says, Terry Francona said you give this guy a couple of years in the minors. He'll make it some big leagues. Michael Jordan may not have become a big leaguer, but this is such an eye-roller of a question, but it has come up recently.

So I'll see what you think. If 40-man rosters are expanded, active rosters are expanded, does it make sense for the Mets to have Tim Tebow on their making? Major League roster. And then when rosters are retracted, next year they can DFA and then be done with the whole thing. But he gets in the majors this year with expanded rosters, has his moment, and we can all move on. Does that make sense or is it not happening? Oh, I get what you're asking, because when they call him up, that would draw an extra 10 or 15,000

fans to the game. Right. You're right. Wilpons would love it. I'm joking. There's no fans. No, it makes no sense to bring Tebow up. He's not even a sideshow attraction. It would have made sense last year maybe when the team's out of it, bring them up and let them have a few at bats. But when you have no fans and you're not getting extra broadcast revenue, because more people are watching that particular game, it's just the juice is not worth the squeeze in any possible way. We talked about Vladimir Guerrero. Let's talk about some players here, maybe some young guys.

And we talked about him on our video show last year. And what do you think about him? You know, a huge prospect, a lot of hype, had an okay rookie season. And in terms of fantasy, you know, he's a kind of guy that we've talked about. You got to sort of have blind faith in just the pedigree if you're going to take him with a somewhat early pick. What kind of a year do you expect from Vladimir Guerrero? I like him a lot now. Are you in a league where you take a guy and then you lose him after a year?

Do you keep him forever? Just this year. Let's say just this year. What kind of a year in 2020 is he going to have? So here's the thing. I haven't seen him since the end of last season. I'd like to see how much weight he's gained and what his body looks like. When I project his body, it's not good.

When I project, you know, Vladimir Guerrero had an unbelievable body. Vladimir, the dad, I'm talking about the dad, because he played for us in Montreal. And he was, I mean, he was Adonis. And he didn't take very good care of his body at all. You know, query, did he use any substances that he shouldn't have? All of those are possible. But he never was overweight in any way. Vladimir reminds me more of a Prince fielder in terms of his body.

And those bodies break down over the long term. But in terms of, and I think the Blue Jays have to take that into account when they're choosing who to build their team around and who to give deals to. But in terms of this year, if he is in shape, I like him. If he has spent this quarantine playing Twitch video games, then he is not an Acuna type to me. He needs to get his body right because he depends. on the quickness of his hands, and that can get tiring when you don't have the body strength and you only have the body girth. David, you talk about, you know, players potentially staying home right now and twitching and

playing video games. Is that a little jab at Blake's now? How do you feel about Blake's now? He's dealt with so many arm injuries, and, you know, he was, he had a cortisone shot in his elbow just this spring training. So, I mean, considering, you know, he's staying home and playing video games right now, I mean, how would you feel about someone like Blake's now? Yeah, I did a whole segment on today's, nothing personal about Blake Snell. Two months ago, Blake Snell said that I don't care about Corona. If I get it, I get it.

Let's play ball. Now he's saying in a two-minute video that he's risking his life and pay me my money, reminded me of John Malkovich and Rounders eating Oreos. Pay me my money. That's probably lost on everybody here who's not born in those days. But in any case, Blake Smell, right? Blake Snell has a long-term deal.

Let's not forget that. If Blake Snell were in arbitration heading toward free agency, you can bet your Boppy that he'd want to get out there and play to prove health so he could get his long-term deal. Now if he loses, he was signed to a backloaded long-term deal getting paid, let's say, $7 or $8 million this year out of a $50 million guaranteed deal. He's saying, and this quote gave me the shivers. It drives me crazy when players do this. Hey, I'm focused on 21 right now. I'm ready to go. That's where my head is.

Well, that's great, Blake. thank you because this was an opportunity for us to actually get value out of you, right? Because we're not paying you the actual AAV of your deal. We're paying you a little under that. It's like the Brewers with Yelich. The brewers have Yelich at $12 million this year and it's going to go up to 14. Then it's going to go into the 20s. The brewers get hurt a lot by losing a full season of Yelich. But the list goes on. The Yankees with Judge, the Dodgers with Bellinger. All of these young overperforming players is how you win rings. You need young overperforming players, not old players getting paid a lot and not performing up to their contract.

One of your proposals would be potentially very bad for the Houston Astros. This is, of course, a joke, but no replay room. How do you think the Astros are going to do this year? I think it was Chris on the show talked about how having no fans and less media presence would benefit them. They're not going to have to answer as many questions to deal with the same amount of stuff. Project the Astros this year. Yeah, I love Houston.

I actually would probably choose them to win the World Series. And here's why. Every player who tells you, and they all do this publicly to act like they're so cool, they say, hey, we don't hear the fans. We don't hear the booing. We don't hear the cat calling. They hear every word. They are aware of it.

They talk about it in the clubhouse. They actually will point out in the clubhouse. Did you see that guy over the third base line? Did you hear what he said? And they all can hear it. And I'm not trying to emboldened the hecklers. I'm merely trying to say that fans do, impact players and player performance.

Not all players are made of stone, and they really do get impacted. So the Astros having no fans, it really does help them. And they are a very good team, even though they lost Garrett Cole, you look at that team in general and what they can do, not having fans, not having the distractions, and they're one of the best teams. Interestingly, though, if there is geographic scheduling, which is what they're proposing,

the Astros end up having some tough teams. They have to play over and over, and that could have, it's great for us to watch in the regular season, but it could impact them going forward. Okay, so I got to follow up then on the fans. Can you tell us about Marlins Man? What the hell is Marlins Man? And now we're on part, we're on version two of Marlins Man, right?

There's a new guy as of a few years ago. Is that right or no? No. His name is Lawrence Levy. I thought he passed it on to someone new. I'm wrong about that. No, I think you mean when we fired the guy who plays Billy the Marlins, Marlin and that we had just another guy in the mascot suit because he was going to be cheaper.

No, Barlin's man is a guy named Lawrence Levy. He's an attorney down here. He spends a ton of money on tickets and he promotes. He loves his orange Marlins jersey. He still wears it even though the Marlins, of course, change their uniforms because Jeter could never have anything that has anything to do with our leadership. But he just loves sports. He loves being on TV. I guess you could say it's narcissism. You could say it's good for the economy, but he has no family. And he takes his money and spends it on tickets. And he is not apologetic about it. He's passionate. Everybody who goes to that many games, we used to laugh. Anyone who goes to 162 games like we do, you have to be a little off, right? A avid baseball fan out of 81 home games, an avid one will go to 50. And that is a

tremendous number. We have people who go to all 81 games and that's very hard to do. And Larry Levy just loves doing it. He loves traveling. He loves meeting people and now he's become a cartoon character and sort of an F-list celebrity and he likes it. And it was never bad for us, but we never paid him. We never did marketing deals with him. But I certainly had to be in touch with him because he had some lot of questions for me all the time. I think it's great. I mean, I think it's hilarious seeing that jersey at game seven of the world series and you know all these different sporting events i admire uh i mean that's actually must be a tough time for him right now i don't know what he's doing with all his money uh not spending it on sports tickets unfortunately

no it's by the way you mentioned that having no fans it will impact people because he doesn't want to watch games on tv he wants to go and for him having no sporting events we don't talk enough about the mental health issues that come from a pandemic like this when there's quarantine and stay-at-home orders. You know, we're here on Zoom or Skype and we're doing our shows and working and putting out content for people. But the change in the routine for millions and millions of people, that has an impact, not just financially, but also mentally. David, I just wanted to ask you earlier in the show, you mentioned that you are devaluing older players, veteran players for this upcoming season. And I would say about five or six of the

top 20 starting pitchers in fantasy baseball this year are over the age of 35. I mean, guys like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander and Charlie Morton and Zach Granky. So, you know, how much of an impact do you see it having on pitchers as well? I mean, did you mean it for all players or specifically for older hitters? Because these older pitchers have kind of been around. I feel like they have a routine by now. Yeah, I meant it for older pitchers too. The people who win the fantasy leagues are the people who are going to identify the number three or four starters

who turn into staff aces. And that's where the value added is. is going to be where if you can identify on your team who is sort of a middle of the rotation guy but somehow is able to deal mentally and physically with this new type of season because we'll look back at the end of this season if it happens and when it happens and there will be surprises in the top 10 in the RA there'll be surprises in the top 10 in wins they'll just be pitcher so you'll say wow we had a middle rotation and he's been our race that happens every year I think it's going to be even more this year.

So it's going to be, we're going to separate the men from the boys in fantasy this year, that's for sure. Sounds a lot like Joe Musgrove to me, so I'll take it there. Someone I'm excited about this upcoming season. He's David Samson,

former president of the Marlins, and host of Nothing Personal. Make sure to download and subscribe. David, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, my pleasure. Have a great day, guys. Thank you. All right, we're going to take a quick break,

but when we return, we are going to answer some of your questions. All right, we're back and answering your questions, make sure to send those in. Fantasy Baseball at cbsi.com. Thanks again to David Samson. It was awesome getting some insight from somebody who's obviously done so much behind the scenes in the game of baseball. So it's just really cool to hear that type of insight, you know, not just, you know, Frank in his basement trying to speculate and figure out what's going on in baseball. But we will answer your questions, starting right now from Dozier.

Hey folks, need to move Matt Chapman for some infield depth in a head-to-head points league, which I kind of question because Matt Chapman is technically an infielder, so I don't know what you're trying to do here. But who are some comparable players I could target in a trade? Scott, what do you think? Who can you get for Matt Chapman? That's, I mean, that's such a range. That's in a range where there are so many a light hitters.

Like I feel like Matt Chapman is just standard fantasy player in the environment and we're in right now, where home runs are so easy to come by. You end up with them at your third basement. It's like, okay, the more exciting ones were taken. So it's a wide range of players, I feel like you could get for them, right? The downside is who needs a third baseman? That's the most prevalent position.

And that's usually where you start, right? Is looking who actually needs the player you're giving up? Probably not that many people. So I don't know. That's a tough question to answer. Infielders should tend to go in like the same range. We could talk about that, but whether or not you can actually get them in a league that's already had its draft. I think I'd be highly doubtful of that.

Adam, I have three names. Let me know what you think of these. Jeff McNeil, Josh Bell, and Marcus Semyon. I guess it just depends on what position you're trying to bring back. but those were some infielders, I thought, were fair value in a points league for Matt Chapman. Yeah, I think so. I mean, for some reason, I think middle infield, I don't really get the question. Why you need infield depth and a head-to-head points league, I'm not really sure,

and why you're not considering Matt Chapman an infielder. But, yeah, I would love Josh Bell. I like Josh Bell so much more than Matt Chapman, that if you could make that trade, I would do it. Yeah. I like Jeff McNeil about equal to Matt Chapman, and I like Marcus Simian less than Matt Chapman. But like McNeil's the second baseman,

he also has outfield eligibility. Yeah. I just don't know why. I rank McNeil higher than Chapman. His ADP is only slightly higher. I don't know why the guy who got McNeil would trade him for Chapman. That's maybe like Mike Moustakis, if you want somebody who's multi-eligible.

Right. That's a good one. I like Chapman more, but. There's not a second baseman. after Moostakis that I would trade Chapman for because I think you're losing too much. This next one comes from John in Charlotte, North Carolina, dear Bob Pete, Manny, Larry, and Mike.

Bob Pete, that's just such an assortment of common names, except for maybe Manny. What if I told you that was also the 1980s World Series champion, Philly's Infield? This came, like the day after someone, like, what are the chances? of the 1980 Phillies infield coming in as one of our questions. So there you go.

Wait, we just had that same assortment of names. Yeah. And then it came in from another question. It wasn't the same. It was some of the same. Man, you're going to. It was Pete Rose, Larry Boe. Was it the same?

Maybe it was the same. Oh, my gosh, it was the same. Actually, he added one name here. I think it's Bob. I added a catcher or something like that. Yeah. Wow. What are the chances? It's pretty clear.

Clearly, I wasn't paying enough attention because I didn't know it. From John in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I had to spark notes, cliff notes, his entire email, because this was a very long email. So whatever you used in high school, whether it was spark notes or cliff notes. Cliff notes for me. Dense this one myself.

But he's in a 10-team NL-only, head-to-head points league. My starting first baseman right now is Eric Hosmer, with Christian Walker as my utility, with the DH coming to the National League this year. assuming there is a season, would it make sense to replace one of them with Dominic Smith, who is currently a free agent?

He would have to drop either Joe Ross or Tyler Chatwood to pick up Dom Smith. Oh, that's interesting. How about Chatwood? Yeah, I mean, Chatwood's easy to give him. He definitely has some players here that he's just not going to miss. The fact it's an NL only league, I guess you could argue, you know, there's...

You don't necessarily go all. all out for an upside in a deep format where you can't fall back on the waiver wire. And Dominic Smith seems like the upside play. We don't know exactly how much he's going to play. If Cesspit is his full go from the start, maybe not much at all for Dominic Smith. So it's a gamble on the upside, but I don't see Joe Ross or Tyler Chatwood having much upside. I think I might actually prefer to hold on to Chatwood over Ross, but it might be six of

Six of one half a dozen of the other. I think they'll be low impact. Am I missing something on Chatwood? I mean, he's the fifth starter for the Cubs. And his after the All Star break, he had a 280-80-R-A, 1.09 whip, 38 strikeouts, and 31 and two-thirds. I got to be honest. I believe he was. I mean, those numbers came in relief, right?

So it's still a big question given his uninspiring history as a starter that he would be a, any value there. But yeah, that's kind of why I think I prefer to hold on to him over Joe Ross. But we're getting really deep into the pitcher pool talking about those guys. Yeah, I'm a right dropping Joe Ross for the upside, the potential shot at Dom Smith, making an impact with the DH in the National League. He then goes on to list his entire team, and I won't do that. But his one request was that Adam would sing Luke Weaver. No, I'm not going to do it. Okay. Not a dancing monkey. come on. I'll do it.

It has to come naturally. Naturally. This next was from Mike in Ohio. I have an idea for a minor league format providing there is a major league season, of course. You spoke on the podcast about a taxi squad. How about each major league team forming a taxi squad

with 40 players on the roster? Then they would play a game against the opponent that the major league team was playing. Before the major league game, much like a JV and a varsity in a high school basketball league. For example, the Tigers were hosting the Indians. The taxi squads would play the first game, followed by the Major League game. However, the Taxi Squad game would not be played

on days that the Major League teams had a double header, if there are any double headers. But what do you think about something like this potentially happening, Scott? It was something we talked about the taxi squad with David Sampson. And I mean, what he was envisioning is pretty different from what I'm envisioning what seems what what's laid out here i don't know it's i'm just going to put it into it right now it's not going to happen because you need to reduce the amount of people involved in this era is this this social distancing world that we live in so no i i don't think it's a bad idea you know the theory but it's just not practical you just can't have the clubhouses the fields being used by more people than are absolutely necessary so no

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense as well. This next one's from Paul in Phoenix. I've been thinking about this, and I don't think I've heard it mentioned. If baseball has no fans but broadcast the games, what's the background sound like? Would something similar to a laugh track be added with cheers and booze? If not, aren't we going to hear a solid dose of dugout beep talk

along with bat-slamming profanity? As guys in the industry, I'm curious to what your opinions are. I would love this. Again, I'm all for the chaos within the game. game if possible. The Orioles played a game a couple years ago without fans because of some protesting happening in the area. And there was some video circulating on Twitter a few weeks back of that game broadcast. I mean, I'm sure most of us didn't pay attention to that game because there was a whole league's worth of games going on. But I didn't watch the whole game, so I don't know how much

was picked up from the dugouts. It seems like a lot more would be. Yeah, the main thing I took away from the clips I saw was just how the ball sounded impacting the bat. And it was, I got to tell you, it was a pleasant sound. I enjoyed the echoing of the impacted ball in an empty stadium like that. It would be different for sure.

don't think it would be all bad necessarily, but it would be different. Yeah, David Samson in the article he wrote with all his proposals would have the broadcasters broadcasting remotely. I guess all you really have to do if you want to know what it's going to sound like is watch the KBO because they're broadcasting remotely on ESPN. I watched a little bit of it. I enjoyed it. It was baseball.

It was good. I don't really, I don't remember what it sounded like. but yeah, I think you would hear some yelling. But I think that also they would have to make sure there wasn't too much of that being picked up because it would be a problem for the players. And the broadcast networks, there's obviously going to be a lot of profanity.

Yeah. I think it's going to be, I remember when I was younger and much more into sports and didn't have a family staying up for some season openers in Japan that started at like five in the morning or something like that.

and they did the broadcast on ESPN, I believe, from their studios in probably Connecticut. And that was weird. That was just like listening to a studio show. There was no ambient sound. You were just watching the game and it just sounded like, you know, you were listening to a studio. So they'd have to pipe in something, I think. But I don't know the answer to this, but it will be interesting. It will be different for sure.

Scott's point, I love hearing the natural sounds within the game, like the crack of the bat, you know, hearing the ball hit the mitt. So that would be really, I guess it would be, you know, once play actually starts, like guys running around the bases or things happening, like maybe you lower that sound a little bit within the game. But definitely hearing the backcrack and the pop of the mitt is something that I think a lot of people look forward to while watching baseball. This next one from Matthew Cullee, Hey guys, I was wondering if you put any stock into players being typical slow starters. And if so, with the season being shortened, do these players need to be moved down in rankings before drafting? thinking of pitchers like Corey Kluber who got off to a terrible star last year before he got hurt,

Zach Wheeler, who the past couple of seasons has had good second halves, but not really great first halves, and hitters like Jorge Salaire and Hunter Dozier, or maybe that's Brian Dozier? I guess Brian Dozier makes more sense,

but not really fantasy relevant, and Matt Carpenter, who have typically been slow starters. I thought this was a fantastic question, and it might be worth something looking into. Oh, yeah. Well, Dozier would have been a great example, obviously we don't care about Brian Dozier anymore,

but you can't bank on the second half outburst that he's going to have. Nobody comes to mind, Scott or Frank, for me. Yeah, I feel like, I mean, I do remember us having those conversations about Brian Dozier and his slow starts now that he brings it up. I don't feel like we've had conversations about that sort of play recently. It is true. Matt Cooper got off. Corey, yeah, okay.

But again, What do I care about Matt Carpenter this year right now anyway? Yeah, it would need to be a pretty consistent thing in a player's track record for me to put any stock into it because, of course, you could slice and dice a season, a million different ways. And just because something happened one way last year doesn't mean it's like a normal thing.

You know, seasons just play out in odd ways. ways. It's different, odd for every player and it's different from year to year. So to say, okay, I'm going to count on this player getting off to a slow start as usual. I don't think is a winning strategy. And by the way, even if you could identify a player who got off to slow starts, you couldn't identify why. You know, is it getting off to slow starts? You know, is it getting off to slow starts because it's early April and it's still cold in some places, some parts of the country? I mean, that wouldn't be true now, you know?

Like, what's the reason for it? There are so many different circumstances surrounding this season that I just think, I think you're, that's probably not your best way to get an edge. There's one pitcher that finishes poorly is, well, for him, his worst months are always the last two months. So everybody invests a lot. It's not going to happen this year for Chris Sale. He's going to be just fine. But seriously,

Sale always has that. His worst months are the last two months of the season. Yeah, you can probably find pitchers who wear down like that. And he's a good example of one. Yeah, I'm still, there's still a lot that needs to be figured out here. Frank, don't even, oh, I'm sorry, Scott. Go ahead. If the schedule is not condensed,

which seems to be the way it's looking now, then I don't think you have to worry so much about players being overworked. And if that's the case, then I think somebody like Salvador Perez, right, who always got work so hard behind the plate and he'd wear down at season's end. well, the season isn't long enough for him to wear down. Are they going to lean on him just as heavily as ever? If they do, you know, maybe you can be more enthusiastic about drafting him. But these don't seem like ranking, reshaping kind of considerations.

They're more like, how excited am I to draft this guy? And that's, you know, that's just sort of a gut feeling kind of thing. I think you made a really good point, Scott, regarding, you know, some players get off to slow starts because the weather is colder. I remember reading into this regarding Jose Ibrahim, his first couple of seasons here in the United States, was that he would get off to slow starts in the colder weather in Chicago because he's from Cuba and he's used to playing in warmer weather

and that would actually affect his production earlier on in the season. So I think that's a really good point that you bring up all the more reason to love Jose Abraeu. Let's go White Sox. But that'll do it for today. We'll be back again tomorrow on Friday. Thanks for listening. Thanks again to David Samson for joining us on today's podcast for Adam and Scott. I am Frank.

We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.