Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 117 | What Happens to the 2020 Contracts?

Episode Date: March 19, 2020

What happens with players on a contract year? Does the service time get rearranged? pushed back? Will Mookie only be a Dodger for 80 games? What about players with incentives in their contracts? We tried to figure it all out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before we start the show, we reference an interview with Max Kepler that we were excited for. Something came up. It fell through. It will be happening at a later date. So don't listen to every minute of this or just skip around to try and find the Max Kepler interview. It is not part of this podcast. It'll be part of a future podcast to get excited for that. Welcome to talking baseball.

We're going to try and figure out what the hell this all means. And we're going to talk with Max Kepler of the twins. pandemic. You guys are freaking gross. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to talking baseball. We are coming to you live. Well, not live.

We're recording this. You're going to listen to it afterwards. Jake and I are at John Boy Media headquarters. Trevor Plouf is in the Hidden Hills headquarters, H-H-H-H-Q. He calls them. And we will be talking about what this... I don't know what the term, like lockout. pause, hold, whatever you want to call it on the season.

Use the word embargo a lot today. Ooh. Yeah, I like that word. You do like that word. It fit on the way I was using it. Yeah, it kind of fit. Perfectly. So it's a halted play.

How this is going to affect contracts and service time. And there's a lot of players right now that are probably pretty scared about their contract and career. But first and foremost, Trev, how are you doing? I'm doing great guys I'm happy to be here I don't know if you guys see behind me I've been working on the studio a lot of people on YouTube have been

talking shit to me about my audio everything so I'm trying to you know get it dialed in they've been coming after you that never stops bro buckle up yeah you know I'm okay with it

shelves look great though proud of you I built these just so you guys know like I 100% constructed those from scratch when you were done did you get that rush Yeah. No, I was tired.

And, you know, I couldn't, like, gummy up or anything last night because I was doing this, and you can't, like, really measure on gummies. Oh, you could have gummed up. Oh, that's the best. Hey, Trev, on the down low, might need you to mail me some gummies. Yeah. Running out over here. We'll go off camera on that.

Just on the down low. Jake, how are you doing? At Haywood Jublomi. I'm good, man. I'm good. You know, pandemic o'clock. I'm excited for this topic. Trev led us into this one a little bit.

Hot take, Trev is going to come out for sure. And honestly, it's such a mess. And I think it's so much wild speculation in so many different ways to go about it. I'm going to say the word pro-rated a lot. And we'll see how that sounds. So I'm excited. I'm excited. Was it talking baseball when we talked about how cool the world?

word pro rated is? Yeah, yeah. Pro rated. It's kind of an overrated word. I think we talked about that too. Just the way it sounds. Pro is cool, but it's overrated? Well, the word pro has good connotation sort.

It means like, you know, professional. Yeah. Or like I am pro that. I'm for that. And then rated just kind of has an R in there. So that's always cool. And I'm excited to talk to Max Kep in a little bit. Yeah, he's absolutely a stud.

We saw him at spring training. I mean, 6'4, got the Greek bod going a little bit. German bod. Trev raves about him. Yeah. He's the exact opposite of you. Okay. And we're live.

Yes. Yeah. No, you're not wrong. And this episode is brought to you by some very special people, some wonderful people, some new patrons. Patreon.com slash Johnboy Media if you want to support everything we're doing here. and we got some fun names in this crew, guys. We got Mr. Pizza Face, he's a local with Talking Yanks.

Friend of the program. Been very supportive for a while. We also have Izzy Beck, which I think is a fantastic name. Good baseball name. Izzy Beck. Sean Brennan. Kristen Booford. Beauford, Beauford, Beauford,

Elizabeth Gustafson. I like that one. Nailed that. Oliver Pulley Blank. Do you think it's a real last name? Pulley Blank? Why not? Scott Rao and Sean Hidreth.

Oh, no. I think I might have spelled this one wrong. Hildreth. Hilderith. It's Hidl-R-E-T-H. Hiddlest. Unless I spelled it wrong. So anyway, thank you to those people.

We appreciate it. Go sign up. Let's talk. Do you know like the Simpsons when I think Bart used to like have someone like read different names? Oh, you called Mo's Bar. right? Yeah. And he would do the name? So do you think anyone's going to start doing that to you? Oh, they haven't. Oh, they do. They do.

And we just let them have their fun. They're supporting us. They should. So we're not going to... Be more creative, guys. I need some more laughs. If that's what they want to do with their one and a half seconds in the spotlight, knock yourself out. And also they paid to support us so they can do it.

Shout out coach ballgame. Yeah. We know friend of the pod. My kids got a huge kick out of having their name, like, shouted out to them. Yeah. That was really cool. So maybe the Patreon users feel the same. My kids were super stuffed.

Yeah. People like being involved. What was your favorite coach ball game, one liner that just tripped you up? I love that he's just, like, constantly, like, playing the drums. Like, he's pretty like a drummer. You know? He's pretty good. Yeah, he's like, he and like all sorts of rhythmic drumming, you know, he has a bunch

of different things he does. Yeah, we were watching today. on his live stream, and I told Jake, like, I wish I had any musical talent. Because he just sits down on a piece of wood and turns it into a dance party. It's like an amazing skill. Yeah. So, that's great. Love him.

I know that I'm going to just give the floor to you ploof because I'm ready to just get into the middle of this. Just get lost. So you can ease us in. But, yeah, like, I'll just give you a hint. The mooky combo, I think is. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big one.

Fascinating. You know, it's, I've been talking to guys kind of asking around the league because I'm trying to get information about what's going on. And really all the answers I'm getting are we don't know. You know, I don't think anybody knows. And that's the case kind of with every sector in the U.S. right now, it's like you maybe have some speculation, but nobody knows for sure because we don't know what's going to happen.

But I do know, like the April 9th, that was a dumb date that they put out there. May not happening. And for a couple people that I taught to around the league and then some other people like outside of baseball, they were saying July is the earliest stuff like that will happen again. So that's going to be really interesting to see because not only is it a long time from now

and guys are just going to be home, but what does the season look like when it comes back in July? Yeah. You know, July is kind of that halfway way marker in the season. The All-Star game's there. Typically, when the All-Star game comes, you're already, you know, over 82 games in or 81 games in. You're like at 90-something. So we're talking, are we looking at a 100-game season? I don't think so. I take the under on that. And that has a lot of ramifications for what we'll get into in a little bit with guys' contracts,

vesting options, service time. A lot of things are happening. that we don't know how they're going to turn out. Do you think there's any player out there that is in this situation? And some guys that we're going to talk about are Mookie Betts, Kenta Mayeda, J. Hap, and I'm sure every team has a guy. Like, if we just look at contract years. Contract ears. I mean, how about our friend of the program, Oda Rizzi?

He took the qualifying offer. If he goes and pitches, let's say we get three months of baseball in and he's lights out. I mean, he's looking at nine digits in the contract. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah, well, it's, you know, you have these contracts and it's,

they're not going to be fulfilled. You think any of these guys are like, let's just scrap? Scrap the whole season will come back next year. There are certain players that get, they get benefited from that ploof. There are certain players. There are. And certain organizations, I mean,

some places in the game are going to be benefited from this. mostly it's going to be negative. I guess we can kind of dive right into the mooky thing. Yeah. You know, mooky bets. We don't have to recap it too much, but gets shipped off from the Red Sox to the Dodgers because he's got one year left.

They couldn't come to terms on a long-term deal, so the Red Sox are trying to get something from him or for him. So Dodgers pony up, they get him. And now do they get him for 80 games? And they gave away some pretty big. pieces for that. And then we can go even further into that. What constitutes a full season as far as service time?

If they can't come to an agreement on that and Mookie only plays 80 games, guess what? That's not a full season. So is he going to be with the Dodgers this year and next year because it's going to delay his free agency by a year? All these things start to pile up. The Dodgers are either huge winners or huge losers in this. Either they get, like, they get 80 games of Mooki with the World Series run and they get them for another full season next year. Or they get, you know, 80 games of Moogie and that's all they got Moogie for two top prospects and all that.

Like wildly different scenarios are on the table with this Dodgers and Moogie Bet scenario. What are you rooting for, Jake? I just don't think there's a world where, again, just pro-rate everything. Pro-rate. Problem solved. No, I mean, because think about what we're saying. So there would be no free agency this off-season? Like, that ain't going to happen, right? So I don't know.

Isn't it weird? I'm into that? In my head, I have the Dodgers getting screwed. Okay. But that's just where I'm at. you know, well, if they win the World Series in a short and near, they don't get screwed. They have Mookiee bets.

He performs for them. They don't care. They go off into the sunsult. I mean, they still lose a bunch of home games that would have been, you know, in theory, you're selling jerseys, blah, blah, blah. If Mookie goes back to the Red Sox and it's like a shortened season, like Red Sox could come out as huge winners. Yeah?

Like huge winners. One of the biggest trade. I told you Hyme was smart. I mean, does he know this was coming? I don't know. You, okay. Well, hold on, Jay. I'm going to say no.

You don't think he knew a global pandemic was coming. I'm going to say no. Some people, Bill Gates knew it was coming. Dude. Well, not only that, I mean, we're getting off topic now, but all the CEOs that resigned about a month ago, Bob Eiger from Disney, there's other guys that don't know their names,

but from big companies, just resigning out of nowhere. So you think they knew? I don't, I mean, they're privy to more information. Such a late night, Trev Convo. Such a, I mean, I thought you didn't take Gummies. Dude, if I was on Gummies right now, we could really get into it. Unfortunately, but I have two children and during the daytime is a no-gummy zone for me. Yeah, I'm a no, I'm a sundown gummy, gummy-down guy.

Yeah, so I think all the CEOs knew and they were in on it. And Hime Bloom, of course he knew as well. Yes. So, no, the Mookie stuff's incredible. And like from any player in Mookie's situation, and this isn't, incentive-based contracts. It's just literally service time. Mookie's not the only one about to be a free agent.

Because some free agencies don't depend upon service time, like Oterizzi or a guy that was a free agent signed a deal. This is anyone that is within the first seven years of their season, of their career. Well, six years. Six years. First six years of their career, all these players. Arbitrations affected as well. Yeah.

You know, these guys who have two years in, this is supposed to be there last year of pre-arbitration, last year of League Minimo, hey, I'm going to get a bump in my salary. The easiest answer is Jake's, like, just pro-rate it. If there's 162 games season, and that's what a full season is, then we only play 81, then just cut that and half. Multiply everything by two. But, like, do you think that works for players with incentives as well? like Jay Hap is. His game started incentive. If they play 80, 81 games, every Jay Hap start counts as two.

Yeah. I don't necessarily know that's fair, but I mean, that's a best guy guy. This is where it's crazy because you have all these situations. So either MLB and the players union has to come in and just completely have a blanket statement saying, yeah, everything counts as two. Because we're playing half the game. It's like, maybe they do that. but you guys know that that's just not easy. Like the MLB and the Players Union does not come to an agreement that easily.

Maybe this is a different situation and things are different this time because of what's going on, but I don't see this being easy. I kind of wanted to send that back at you, Trev, because I don't know. I live kind of in La La Land normally, but when me and Jim have discussed this briefly, I mean, again, like you said, pandemic. That's been my word of the week. Like last week it was content. This week it's pandemic.

I was pro rated. No, pro rated is just a great word that I low-key hate. Anyways, like, do you think things will be amicable when it is time to talk? Or do you think there's too many personalities in the room? Like, for me, you come into a room, you say there's a global pandemic, and we got to solve this, and we got to put some ego shit aside. But the world doesn't normally work like that. do you think

if you had to just guess or if you've heard anything like do you think cooler heads prevail or what? I don't know. There's so much. You'd hope you'd hope that things would run smoothly

but I think both sides might see this as an advantageous time. There's also just so much on the docket before they get to this. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot going on. So this is this is going to take some time.

And the season might start, and we might not have some answers to this. Because, like I said, it's not just one thing that's affected by it. You know, we have service time. So that affects free agents in their six-year. We have arbitration guys getting affected by it. You have vesting options like J.A. Hap has with the Yankees. You have incentive-laden contracts. all that gets affected by it.

And like, you know, this isn't all about the money. It's just very interesting to see how the league and the players union is going to work together or if they're going to work together or like how well they're going to work together, I should say. And maybe this will lead to a smoother CBA in 2021 because they've had so many discussions or maybe this is going to blow the whole damn thing up. I don't know. I lean the ladder. I lean the fronter.

Oh, gross. Does this change? the CBA. Say we cancel the season. Yeah. Sure. Does that move the date of the CBA back another year? Does everything get moved back? There's a lot to answer. And we honestly, look, I'm going to tell everyone right now, we don't know shit.

No. We can speculate, but. I think this whole situation is bad. How about that? Okay. Hot takes. Good word. Hot takes. I think it's bad.

The whole thing is bad. We reached into the vocab. Yeah. But I, like, you know, I, I think the MLBPA and MLB just have more to fight about. Like, they wanted the smoothest ramp up until the collective bargaining agreement. And now when they finally get into that room, they have so much to be like, well, you did this. You did this. Yeah, I don't know.

There's so much to fight about right now. I mean, this is a huge issue. Absolutely. But I think that's why I'm more glass half full Because I think something something like this A global pandemic If you can't put your shit aside for this I mean then you're then you're fucked and I'm with you

But I think there's going to be baseball played this season I don't know if it's two months I don't know if it's three months I have no idea But there will be baseball played this year And I think Everyone is going to come together To get that done Whatever that looks like.

You know, maybe it is ugly, maybe it's clean. But they will come together to get this done. And I think we will either know very clearly if, like, the CBA is going to be a shit show. Or if things come pretty smoothly out of this, which that's betting uphill a little bit, I think you're kind of in the clear. Like, we did this. Let's do it again. My thought is this, this hurts the players and the players union so much. MLB has all the leverage.

Basically, you're going through a strike, but you're not getting anything out of it. Well, the owners are getting hurt too. The owners are getting hurt. Playing the game is the biggest thing the players have, so maybe this is a good fake strike for that. Yeah, but players are going to be like, I don't want to do that again.

Let's do anything to play baseball. Same with the owners. Yeah, you know, you say it's true. You don't want to strike, but they will. Like, if things are testy, they will. You know, that's just the bottom line. That's why our union. Why don't the players just strike the rest of the season and then start everything from fresh next year?

Well, you can't strike during a labor agreement. Well, come on. You can't hold out. So, I mean, look, there's a lot of other things, too, that it's going on, like the draft. Oh, dude. I'm so in for the combine. What do you do? What do high school seniors do?

Ray J. Yeah. Ray. Mm-hmm. Kanye. Con. Wow. Raycon.

So you think this is bringing them together? I don't know. Okay. Well, is Ray J's one good song? I'm in love with a stripper. No. Okay. What about these high school kids?

Ooh, I like that song. That's a. She rock and she rolling. Is it one wish? What about the draft? I'm not going to say I haven't done that in my life, but. Fell in love with a stripper? My brother dated a few.

They're good people. My God. The Eastern European women used to torture me for a while. What are we talking about? We were talking about the draft, because I think that's another thing is going to be really affected by this.

Treve, I've got the solution. What you got? Dude, combine. Can't wait. Baseball combine. Baseball needed this anyway. Are you kidding me with spin rate and bat speed and shit? I mean, that is viral videos.

And, like, it'll be good for the kids. If you've got a starting pitcher who's, you know, 18 and he's got the most spin on his curveball. Like his draft stock just went up. The NFL, look what the NFL does with the combine. I mean, it's not going to be there because those guys impact the team instantly. The problem... But we need this.

It would be great content. But the problem is there's so many more baseball players. Yeah, I was going to say, there's so many more picks. It would be like... I don't mind it, though. No, I mean, you'd have to level it off somewhere. Maybe like a D1 skills competition, D2 skills competition. D2 skills competition.

D3 skills competition, high school skills competition, and you have like four separate things. What's a hit you're going to do? Hit in the fucking cage? Homer and Derby. You can really hit a ball far in batting practice. You do bat speed. It's just like the NFL Combine. You do bat speed.

You do ball exit velo. You do all the shit they're doing in these advanced cages. I don't mind it. I just know or I really believe that baseball is not dominated by athletic. It helps. It enhances your skill. But like a lot of guys who are like freaks in this. Oh man. My video went out. We can still hear you. Okay. A lot of guys that are freaks like that, they don't have baseball skills. So they show up in the combine. That's what happens in football too. Yeah. Give me a good race around the bases. Are you kidding me? I wouldn't do a combine because I think there's too many players. But I think you do a skills competition.

for every division. So what's that mean? Maybe like at the All-Star game or like all-conference teams have a skills competition. Or at the College World Series, you do a skills competition as well. I love a skills competition. Yeah, a good skills competition is awesome. I wanted to do that. I'm back.

I wanted to do that for like MLB network, like set that up. like during spring training team should have a skills. I actually brought this up to the union and said, hey, like, you know MLB owns the MLB network. Like, let's bring some of this stuff. Let's bring some content to a network that has zero original content. Yeah. Spring training, a skills competition.

Yeah, I agree with that. You're already doing this shit anyway. Dude, it would be freaking amazing. You put a prize pool together and have some sponsor give you a million bucks for it and the team gets to choose a charity if they win the skills competition or a specific person that works in the organization that needs it you know like you know how I feel about NLB network sure you love it not good what are they going to do with the all-star game Trev bang gone gone for this year there'll be a postseason all-star team like not a postseason

And, like, after the season, they'll name a All-Star team, but they need those days. Do you know they're doing that? Like, we re-ran into a Wikipedia page that had, like, the 2018 All-MLB team. It was like an end of the year. All-Star group of players. Yeah, who put it in a year. Do you know what it was called BPD? I think, like it so much better because putting All-M-L-B team.

I like it so much. Putting All-Star on your resume. I've said this forever. You can end up having a bad year. can have, you know, a hot start, get the fan vote, which starts in April, you know, and be an all-star and then end up, like, not having a good season. Like, and also, like, Mark Tashara was never an all-star because he was notorious slow starter. He was never an all-star?

Maybe once or twice, but, like, I mean, a lot of, he had a lot of good seasons where he wasn't an all-star, where he might have ended up as, like, one of the top two first baseman, but he was, he said he had to re-teach himself how to swing every time. He went to spring training. Outta boy. Bizarre. Adda boy. Do you think any good comes from this, Trevor?

Like, do you think they, what can they experiment with? Can they experiment with an All-Star game after the season? And it works and guys sell out. Do you think that there can be anything? Because I know leagues want to test stuff. I know the NBA has talked about pushing their season for a couple years now, and they're thinking this could be a good test for them to see if they could push their season into the summer.

or more. Do you think there's anything baseball should try to capitalize from this? I think there could be a new playoff system like they've talked about. Maybe not exactly what they have stated before they want to do, but in a shortened season where it's like, it's not the 162 day grind. Like maybe we try a tournament style, you know, something like that. But yeah, I mean, it's interesting. There's a lot of things they could do. I think that with the shortened season, they're going to have to do a lot more doubleheaders. So we have a 26 man this year.

We might have a 27th man. Yeah. Because you need bodies. You can't break the players down like that. No. What about strength of schedule and, like, you know, do you think they just take the last 81 games and say that's what we're doing? Because it's a logistical nightmare.

Do you think if they say, all right, we're starting July 15th and we're doing an 81 game season. They say, let's just the schedule lies as it lies. That's who you're going to play. Honestly, I haven't even thought about that. That's a crazy thing to think about. Yeah, well, Trev, we were looking at. They probably have to stay with the schedule they have

because hotels are set up. You know, I mean, the air travel is a little different, but they have that set up way in advance. Like all these things are set up at the beginning of the year. And, you know, to fit a baseball team in a hotel room, or a hotel is no easy thing to do. I know it's all set up, but like strength of schedule then is crazy.

Jake and I were doing the Oakland A's schedule, and all of their games against Houston are before the All-Star break. Not all, but, you know, maybe it was like 15 out of 18 or 14 out of 18. So. It's going to be crazy because, yeah, like there could be teams in divisions like you're saying.

They don't even play each other at the latter half of a game, maybe once. And that's not what people want. and it was really pissing me up by this whole thing. I think everyone's kind of here we go. You want to get hot right now? Get hot, baby.

Those fucking Astros are getting out of getting yelled at at the beginning of the season and people are talking about something different and I'm pissed about that. Yeah. We have to remember we're mad at the Astros. Oh, I mean the Astros are pro-Corona. Guys, guys, they have to.

have to live with this every day. Yeah. They go home, they look at their World Series rings, and they get that World Series check. I mean, you guys don't even know what the hell they go through. Alex Breggman is doing backflips of joy at his house right now. I mean, not only do they have to deal with a global pandemic, but they have to live with the fact that they cheated.

So they're getting double whamied. Yeah. And they deserve double sympathy. And I won't have anything else but that. I have to get away from the mic on that one because, I mean, come on. This is, I'm so mad.

I forget about it. And then when I think about it, it pisses me off. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Hey. So just keep in the mind.

Keep in mind, everybody. We got two more minutes before we go to Kepler. Any last and final thoughts about this? I think that they will pro-rate the season and run the last 81 games schedule that pre-exist. Those are my thoughts. As of now, I reserve the right to change my mind whenever I want. So don't hold me to it, jerks.

Jake, your thoughts? I mean, you stole my word, pro-rated. Yeah, but you said that it wasn't your word of the day, so I'm claiming it as my word of the day. So don't steal it from me. I think that makes the most sense. I mean, schedule stuff, no idea. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm wondering if, because there's two ways to go about this, it's get full on creative and, like, start from scratch and use team schedules and, like, change them for the second half. Or it's just, like, play it as it lies. And knowing all parties involved, I lean play it as it lies. But who knows? I think it's all speculation.

That's obviously what we're doing here. But I don't know. I lean on my rock, my steed, Trevor Plouffe. I want to go off topic here for my last statement. Sure. There are strict two minutes. All you idiot spring breaker kids, stop it. Yeah.

Do not congregate the way you're congregating. Stop, stop, stop. What would 21-year-old Trevor Plouf be doing? probably out there. Yeah. I was actually talking. It was actually talking baseball. Last episode, Jake and I talked about that.

And I, it was, I feel more. I said it all last week, Tram, but mostly I think it's a little messed up as society that we go run up to these kids that we know we were in their same position with the same young, dumb brains as them. And then we put a mic in their face and say, basically say, say something stupid. Yeah. And then we tweet it out for all of society to be like,

look how dumb these college kids are. And it's like we're all hypocrites. But like a week ago or two weeks ago, I would have thought that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Society's coming around. As we go and the college kids are the, you know, the lingerers.

They're the last to know. But yeah. I told my brother, I laughed in his face when he told me he was going to spring break, remember? And then he was like, no, I'm going. I was like, no, you're not, dude. I've got something. Lucas.

Trevor. Remember when he stepped on your shoe? Trevor Plouffe. I've got a soundbite for you. You're all about the soundbite. He's a soundbite slot. What team does Mooky Betts play for in 2021? I think Heim's just the mastermind.

Wow. I think he's going back to Boston, and Boston's coming out looking rosy. Fantastic. Yeah. Sorry, Yanks. Perfect. I mean, that would be a hell of the storyline.

I mean, Heim. That big, beautiful mind of his. Yeah. I hope he knows how much I give him love on this show. Oh, he does. He's a regular listener. Yeah, he's been DMing me nonstop. Good up, good up, good up.

Good up, John. He's positive vibes only. Yeah. All right, let's throw it to our interview with the German stud in Minnesota, Max Kepler. All right, well, I told you at the very, very top of the show that the Kepler interview actually didn't end up happening. It'll happen in the future. So that sums up all of our thoughts on this. Do you guys think that our conversation was useful, beneficial?

Do you think we're going to be anywhere near close to what actually happens? No. No. I think MLB goes deep in the bag of tricks. BBD said something while we took a little break there, that people are talking about different playoff formats and half a season, things like that. He said if they did 81 games, last year. Correct me if I'm wrong, BVD.

Well, at the, like, 81 game mark last year, the Rockies were the four seed in the West. So. And they finish like 18 games out of any playoffs. If they do, A, that just shows whatever happens when baseball happens this year. It's going to be insane. And B, if they throw a couple wrinkles in there, I mean, it could be chaos, which I don't know. I think it could be good for baseball. They're going to reach deep into the bag of tricks.

no idea what they're going to do. I just don't want another tainted title because we have one of those recently and it's just like, you know, one's enough for the decade. I think if any of the big teams, or not the big team, it's the favorite teams, the Yankees,

whoever else it is, the Dodgers. If one of those teams wins, people would be like, okay, it's not tainted because they were going to be in the playoffs anyway. What does it matter? But, like, big baby just referenced. if a team sneaks into the playoffs because they got hot over 81 games and they win the whole thing, it's going to send shockwaves.

And we can't get excited about that yet because we are going to be seemingly so far away. But once whatever it is comes out, I mean, this year so many teams had a chance. And like that Colorado Rockies thing, like if a team can put together half a baseball season, which crazier things have happened in the sport. Almost any team can. I mean, they could find a playoff berth. They could be like a game changer for a franchise and devastating for a franchise.

The Dodgers and Mookie is my most interesting thing with the service time. Are you rooting for the Dodgers or not rooting for the Dodgers to have that work out in their favor? Well, I mean, this is a Yankees fan answering. I'm rooting for the Dodgers to like win the Dodgers. to win the world, not to win the World Series, but go to the World Series with Mookie and then get another year out of him.

But that's only because I'm a Yankees fan. I think if I was a fan of any other team, I would be rooting for the Dodgers to like miss the World Series, not benefit from Mookie at all, and him go back to the Red Sox. I think that's the funnest storyline for 29 fan bases. And then we'll know that Hime is a time traveler. Oh, my God.

Oh, my God. We've got to end the show there. Conspiracy, Trev, coming out. Nice seeing you, Trevor. Nice seeing you, Trevor. TPP. Wrong way. Mr. Chow.

Jake. I got you put those sunglasses on. What was that? It's a winner.