Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 137 | Baseball Will Be Back

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

Jeff Passan reports that baseball will be back in some capacity this season. He provided a couple of avenues for the return that we discuss on this episode. 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.

Welcome back to talking baseball. Jeff Passan says that there will be baseball in 2020. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Talking Baseball. Little midweek episode, myself, Jake, Trev, producer BBD in the corner. Excited to talk about this passing article. We have Pueg rumors. We have some sad news.

We've got some fun tidbits maybe talking baseball. And this episode is brought to you by a couple really special people. Adrian Kosa or Kosa. I'm going to go with Kosa. Taylor Brown. I'm going to go with Taylor Brown on that one. Sam Hogg. Two G's.

So, Hog. Dylan C. de Baca. Is that like making me? me say something, C. DeBaka? I don't know. And Brian Koser. Kosar. Those are most recent Patreon supporters. We appreciate them very much helping out and keeping us afloat here. They get to watch live if they want to. We have Quentin Huberner in the chat. He says, Ola. And let's get going. Jake, how are you doing? Man, boys, I'm, I'm doing all right.

battling through back pain still this is now the third time that you and BPD will hear this announced in some of our listeners but this might be

Trevor's first time finding out that I am on the juice I'm Royden I started taking some steroids this weekend for the back they were having a good effect now it's starting to wear off a little bit

so I'm starting to get scared about the back again, but yeah, I don't know. I know potential MLB season, but I'm not sure what it means for my eligibility. You know, I think it'll depend how things kind of sort themselves out with the players union and what they lay out for this year. But I had to do it. It was the best decision for me and my family. And we're just taking it one day at a time over here. So thank you. Wow. Huge news. Trev, do you have a response? Do you have news? of your own?

No real news. I feel like this was a road that we were going to travel down eventually with you. So now I'm thinking I was just offering my support for you. And now I'm starting to think maybe this is all kind of made up. And now you just have an excuse to get super jacked. Yeah. So count on that. That will happen.

I dig it. Yeah. Trevor, you have any ailments? Because my right eye, I can't, is not functioning today. It's really hurt. So do you have any ailments? I'm feeling pretty good right now. I got a little sunburned yesterday.

Oh, yeah. You went to the beach. I went to the beach. Proper social distancing. The beach was open. I wasn't breaking laws. My kids haven't left our neighborhood. in six weeks.

Nice, yeah. Six weeks these kids haven't left. I mean, we've driven. I don't feel bad for him. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah, not at all. They have a playground, a pool, grass, a backyard. Tell your kids I haven't left my apartment

or the two by two block by two block area in six weeks. Let me know if they feel bad for me. I'm just going to go tell Teddy that you don't feel bad for him. to suck it up. Damn. Don't tell them. But that's crazy. Do they have kids in the neighborhood to play with?

Oh, that's not allowed. You're guessing that's not allowed. Yeah, we're not doing it. Like, you know, we're doing the things like the drive-by birthday, hellos, and we see people on walks, I guess, but you still, you know, you don't. We're doing our part here. I promise you that. Maybe too much, but it was a fun day yesterday.

Thank you. Yes, thank you. All right. So we got a huge article here from Jeff Passon, friend of the program, one of our dear, dear good friends, always texting us, telling us how much he likes us. Basically, I don't know if you read this article, Trev. It was half of a novel, very long. And also, if you've listened to this show talking baseball, you probably, you knew 80% of it already because he's just detailed, detail, the strategies, the Arizona plan, the three hub plan,

half a season plan, and then figure out where we're at from there. And a lot of stuff that we've talked about. There are some new details that we haven't discussed that I want to get into because I thought they're actually really well, well thought out, and I liked them. But just like as general, like recap, the best case scenario, according to Passon and a bunch of people within baseball,

is that you get the 80 to 100 games, and it feels like a real, season and teams play other teams enough and then you have the playoffs in a neutral site. So that's like best, best case scenario that they still think is possible. Worst case scenario is something we've mentioned on here doing a round robin tournament tournament for tournament tournament. Tournament is East Coast tournament is West Coast. Anyway, doing a round robin tournament for like a World Cup style thing, which would be the

quote in the article from one MLB executive was, give us 60 days and we'll put on a show. And still, the big looming issue is money. And there's not much, there's a kind of a solution that passed and wrote. But the still looming issue is, they're not just pro-rating the contracts. They're actually cutting in half the pro-rated contract. So the easy math there is, say you're set to make $10 million this year. they only play 82 games, pro-rate it, you're at $5 million, a weight. Now there's no revenue from TV, so you're going to have to cut that in half or near half again.

Now you're only making $2.5 million when you're supposed to be making $10 or at least $5. And will players do that for lesser circumstances and care and put their body through kind of a blitz for a fraction of what they supposedly are worth. We've covered all of that on this show a ton. So that's basically what Passon does. It's a great article for anyone that needed to catch me up. Did you have any takeaways from this, Trev, or any, anything that, like, I don't know, you looked at it and we're like, oh, that. Well, first I want to say that Jeff is not a friend of mine because I don't ever get text from Jeff. So, I want him to know that we should be friends, Jeff, you and I, because I think we would do some good work together. But in saying that...

I think you need to know that Jimmy also doesn't get text from Jeff. So your guys are on the same planes. Yeah, yeah. Is it just you? No, no, there's no text. There's no text. Oh, we're just joking. He was nice to us at winter meetings.

We DM. We DM. He's very nice. He seems like a nice guy. But, you know, yeah, we've talked. about all this stuff. And so, you know, these, a lot of this is just rumors and speculation. I think a guy like Jeff who works at a place like ESPN tries to wait. I mean, that's kind of what you've told me. He likes to wait and try to get some confirmation, some two or three stuff like that.

But we've talked about a lot of this. I don't think anything really jumps out to me. He outlines, you know, kind of how he would want to do a tournament. And I just know that's not going to happen. There's going to be no tournament-style baseball. And the reason for that is the players and the owners want to play as many games as possible, and a tournament doesn't suit that. So I think that's out the window. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think there's a chance of that at all.

I'm still going to stick with my early July start date, and I'm still going to stick to the 80 to 100 games. I think they're going to be able to do it. Okay. Just a quick counter on that before I throw out a job. I can't stick to that because it's just who I am as a person. Like that in the article they say is still best, best case. So if I get myself excited for that, it seems like a fool's errand to me to get excited

for the best, best case. Like I always try to, okay, what's two steps down from that? I'll pencil that in. And then if there's good news, I'll be excited. Or if it's that, I'll be still excited. So just for me, like I can't ever be like, all right, that's what's going to happen because it's still best best. I get they say that, but what do you think would change?

The government would be like, eh, can't do this. Or one dude's going to get test positive and then the whole thing's put on pause and or the players don't come to agree. I don't know. There's a lot of obstacles. If there weren't a ton of obstacles, that would be worst case scenario. But it's best case scenario. And I think what it is is you're right.

I mean, this still goes back to everything is out of our hands with the corona. Everyone's talking about that there's going to be a second wave when people start doing things and what does that look like. So, yeah, I think all the stuff out of our hands is the corona and government stuff. And I mean, that stuff just is what it is. I mean, there's not really much we can comment on it. That's going to dictate it. But I do think what Trevor said there is something that I've kind of been saying about the tournament

format is again, I just think you got the big money guys like that, that executive saying, give us 60 days for and we'll give you fireworks, like that's a nightmare. Like if I'm Garrett Cole, I'm not getting the cannon loose for a 60 day exhibition tournament for the cup. And I know something that me and James have talked about a little bit is that, you know, if they do this, the part that scared me off at first is that MLB is still going to try to sell this as, you know, your 2020 world series winner. which is just a sports fan nightmare. Whether they do Pissons World Cup formatting made up or something else,

people just aren't going to accept that. And I think that's just the, you know, Jim, you said they should just call it something else, and you're right, but I don't think they would. I think they'd try to dance around that. And yeah, I think funny, I don't know, around all of this, of time not moving and time moving still crazy fast. at the same time is it's still April. It's the end of April.

It's, you know, there was no scenario when we sunk our teeth into this that it was like baseball is going to be played in a couple weeks. And like Jim said, this article is really good. If, you know, if you've got a relative that's been asking you, when's baseball coming back? You know, send him that article. It lays kind of everything out there. If you've been listening to talking baseball, Commissioner Plouffe and John Boy, you already knew a lot of this.

The big thing that came out was that they're said they're going to play baseball, which, again, as the optimist that's been on this podcast, I don't necessarily love that because you're just putting your neck out there for no reason. And I guess it's a good time for baseball to snag some headlines after the NFL and NBA had a pretty good weekend with the draft and the MJ doc. But I don't think it was needed to put out there. I am with the city's plan, the multiple cities, because I just think instead of having. one biodome if we have three, four, five biodones. That starts to make a lot more sense, people-wise, and games-wise. How it pivots off of that is interesting. But, yeah, I mean, it's a good sign.

And yeah, that's my big thing that against the tournament style is I just see players fighting back against that, because why would they? Why would Mike Trout put himself out there? why would any of the big arms in baseball put themselves through that? And then are we putting Little League rules? Like if you throw 70 pitches this day, you can't pitch for four more days. I don't know. I just think if we start getting into that format, you start losing player buy-in.

The product looks worse. And the whole idea is to get the product out there in front of people when baseball could kind of steal the show and help bring the country back. Instead, if we're putting out to nobody care. it's a terrible look. Yeah. It's, it's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of problems with everything because that would, Trev, what we were trying to say is, so if I'm skeptical on the 80 to 100 games, right?

And I'm the only reason I'm skeptical because that's the best case scenario. So I'm just never going to buy into best case scenario situation. And then Jake's skeptical and we're both the kind of skeptical on the, the tournament. And you are too, because we're saying, why would players do that? what's the middle ground that's what jake and i were really having struggle we're struggling to figure out like what could the middle ground be and pussan didn't even really say yeah i really think that it's just going to come down to like when they can start they both sides are just incentivized to play as many games as possible yeah so i think that's kind of going to be that and then like you're saying like

everyone's talking about 2020 you already said that you think this is tanked no matter what. It's not a legitimate championship. If they can get 80 games in, I'll allow it. But you know that you're going to have millions of fans saying that title wasn't real. Me and Jim did this on talking Yanks a little bit. We said, hey, if we do have 80 games, 90 games, 75 games, whatever it is, if we're going to do that, all the fans need to agree that you can't pull that out of the back pocket.

If Nolan Aronado, that's 393. wins the MVP, you know, you can't be mad about that. Like, we, we know what we're getting into. We're all playing by the same rules, handshake before the season. Yeah. The fans have to do it. Yeah, we have to just say, look, 2020, let's just talk about it like it's a regular season. I mean, I don't know. I kind of feel like what does it matter? Like, 162 or 100. Like, I get it. that that's a third of the season gone, but we always talk about how long the baseball season is anyway. But Treve, it's not just 80 games.

It's 80 games against new division opponents, new scheduling, no travel, double headers every other day, which might completely change your pitching rotation. 30 guys on the, it's not just a shortened season. Yeah, but I mean, okay, so the first year that they had a DH, is that like not count either? Like there are changes in baseball all the time. I'm just saying that I think you can't expect people to not be like,

this isn't what real baseball is. And these numbers don't count. What I'll say is that I feel a little bit of that emotion, depending how we do it. And I think BPD noted this yesterday is that if they do the three stadium thing that's been popular, if they lock those teams in there, I think it comes out to 54 games or something like that, that they would play between those teams.

Is that right? get 50 if you play the other nine teams in your hub you if you pledge them to three game series that's 54 games word that so so i mean if you have the teams from your divisions again what teams go where and that's what i i would still need you still need that semblance of an al east and n l east and the divisions because again if we start if we start getting wonky with the divisions, that's when I think you don't, I think that's when you don't get the handshakes. I think that's when you get fan bases going, this wasn't a real baseball season. But the schedule has already weighted anyway, so who cares?

I mean, it's not, like, I've been pushing for, and a lot of people have been pushing for a balanced schedule. Like, every team should play every team. That's how you get to know who the best teams are. When you're, you know, in a crappy division and you play those teams more than you play the other teams like why aren't we talking about that just because they're the preset divisions and that's what matters like i don't i've been talking about it that's why the twins were fake last year talked all about it so yeah so every episode so 2019 not legit for the twins yes just for just for

the season any season because they're always going to be there's always going to be teams like you're saying the 2019 twins who take advantage of a weak division i don't i don't think it's any anything different unless we already had a balanced schedule and then we're reverting back to an unbalanced schedule then i could see the where we would say oh maybe it's not legit but like we're already doing that so it's just a different schedule you know it's not like it's like going from balance to unbalanced so i think i don't have any problem i would if we get if we get a hundred games in i'm 100% calling it at a legitimate season the only thing is totally 100 games for Sure.

The only thing about this, like the shortened season that really gets me, and it kind of hurts, like when you really start to think about it, is like the guys who are on pace for like Hall of Fame numbers. We're talking about, and I'll just say Mike Trout, you know, he's on pace to become the best player of all time. We're like literally watching the best baseball player of all time right in front of our eyes lose a year or at least half a year of statistics of counting stats in his prime like that's what hurts me like he's going to miss out on 25 homers you know 50 rbis that added that the war is not

gonna yeah that's also a counting stat so he's not going to get that it's like that's gonna people are going to have to talk about that when you talk about mike trot me we lost a year in his prime it's like the ted williams thing that's what i was just going to say it's like ted Williams. So this is a, it affects so, so much. I mean, I know we touch on this all the time, but like it, the, the ripple effect of this is crazy. But if we're just talking about schedule, I don't care about that at all. Well, we're all in agreement that 80 to 100 games we would consider it a real season with the World Series winner. It's the round Robin thing that they better rebrand that to not a World Series. But I don't think Jake and I don't think they will. And then you have a big

public like, well, uh, anyway, the interesting thing that I think, thought pass and wrote in his article was a workaround with players about the less money. And I'm very interested to see what you think about this trap as an ex-player who likes money. Passon said all the guys that are on minimum wage or, you know, contracts or they're in arbitration years, still service time, whatever, they get 100% what they're worth via arbitrate, like, you know, pro-rate it and then 100%. everyone that has big contracts to their name or you find a cutoff. I don't know if it's a monetary cutoff or a service time and free agent cutoff or whatever.

But anyone that's on the higher end of the spectrum, the guys that make big monies, you defer the payments. You say, hey, right now we can only pay you, you know, half of your pro rated half, the 2.5 out of 10. But in the next, over the next 10 years, we will make sure that it gets up to, what your contract is worth, and we get you to the pro-rated correct amount, the $5 million. That, I thought, because we've been knocking our heads around thinking how you get around this problem, so Passing offered that, in my brain, on the surface, that seems like it could work.

Would guys with big money do that, Treb? Do you think that's a viable option? I think they do that in a heartbeat. I think that the main thing the players don't want to happen is to set a precedent. Because clearly things are going to change going forward. And if a team in a certain city, maybe there's a local pandemic. Is that such a thing? Sure.

Sure. So maybe something happens in that particular city and say, hey, we can't have fans for four months of the season. Now, if the president is the president and presidents, we're going to take a huge pay cut, you know, that's going to continue on into the future. So they don't want to set that precedent. So I think if you said, hey, like, we're going to pay you full. You know, the pro-rated games, like, if any games you play, we're going to pay you in full, like we'll just have to defer the money.

I think guys would say, sure. Because right now, if you look at the numbers, I mean, he mentions them in this article. It's $170 million guaranteed across the league when the league's peril is $4 billion. That's a big difference right there. So, like, that is something, you know, when you're talking about, like, legality and moving forward with an agreement, they just don't want to set that precedent. So I think if you said, yes, we'll pay you pro-rated full amount, we'll just have to defer it. Guys are like, no problem. I can handle that.

And I think the money is, the money is going to be the last hurdle, right? Like if the government clears everything, the Rona gets better, they get a system in place, you know, they've got some sort of semblance of a scheduling thing that's going to be the sign-off point is the K-So. and I've kind of been the cooler heads will prevail in this. There's a lot of businessmen and a lot of people who want to get paid. And Passon kind of, I think it was Jimmy's eyes kind of jumped to the money in the article and he's like, oh, Passon said they don't have a plan yet. All right. Let me let me know when they do.

And it's true. I mean, they don't have one yet. I'm still of the ilk that ilk, oh my God. Is that a word? I don't, it kind of is. I don't think it's right there. that these owners, if you own a baseball team, you're a good business man at some business person at some point in your life. And I think, you know, we've talked about some local TV contracts and some national TV contracts potentially.

And I think what is interesting, though, because I said this yesterday, was that, you know, if the money isn't going to even out with new contracts or however they do it, I was saying that, you know, that $10 million player example, we used. 81 games, they get $5 million. You know, the revenue is not there, but they can get it up to, you know, 80% of that. I think players would still be willing to play for $4 million. But I think it's interesting that you said they don't want to set that president of taking less money, because you're right, that is a slippery slope. So after all of that, I mean, are you in the camp of that the money, if we get through everything else, the money will figure itself out, or it needs to be kind of more addressed in the nose. Well, it'll figure itself out.

But so the players are okay with doing the pro-rated. Like, they understand that makes sense because, you know, the teams have to pay back their TV contracts if they don't fulfill the right amount of games. So the players are okay with taking pro-rated. But when it's a pro-rated salary, so you play 80 games, so it's half, you get paid half already. And then the owners are saying, well, there's no fans.

So our revenue's cut. So now we're also going to have to take off a percentage of that. That's what they don't want to do. They're okay with saying, we understand we're only playing half the game, so we only get the paid half. That makes sense. But the press that they don't want to set is if there's no fans in the stands, which, who knows?

This could be a thing that happens every couple of years. You don't know what's going to happen. So you don't want to set that precedent where it's like, If there's no fans in the stands, you're going to make 10% of the pro rate of the amount of games or 10% of your contract. They just don't want to start that. So I think that's kind of, we need to clear that up. But I do think, like, the money will figure itself out. And I do, on that note, if you want to segue into, there's a little tidbit that I got.

Oh. Callie Treb. Is that Pearl Jam? First tidbit. I think that was sublime. So here's my tidbit. It's a, thank you. It's a new old tidbit.

Ooh, Jake's favorite kind. We're going to revisit some of the things we've talked about. So I think it was last week. We talked about, you know, how the players and the owners came to an agreement saying, if we do play games, we're going to go ahead and pay you a pro-rated amount. And then they came back and said, well, maybe it. we're thinking we might take some of that off because we're not going to be able to play with fans in the stands. We'll go back in the players.

We're saying, well, no, we negotiated that contract in good faith that you are going to pay us a full amount for the amount of games we play. And we're like, how does that slip by you? How does that slip by? How does that language slip by you, players association? How does that happen? And we're like, I don't think that happened. Like, da-da-da-da. I got a tidbit that that is exactly what happened.

They negotiated that contract. They 100% believe that MLB, no matter what, was going to be just prorating the games and contracts. And there wasn't even a thought about if there's no fans in the stands, they're going to cut the salaries even more. So this was apparently just an old. oversight from the Players Association, which is really tough to take in. Yeah, if that's true, we did this already, so I won't go too hard on it.

But if MLB comes back and says, no, no, no, no, no, check the fine print, hands over like a magnifying glass. And it says, like, we don't have to pay you the full rate. We can drop it if. And Tony Clark and the Players Union just missed it, which is your tidbit. that's what's saying your tidbit says happened. I mean, just an awful look for the players. It's not good.

Just an awful, almost like, like. Do you remember us talking about like that kind of happened really quickly? Like that doesn't make sense. Like they kind of came to that agreement rather swiftly. Yeah. And it turns out maybe the owner's side was just playing a little bit of look over here. we're going to do something on the other side. So, you know, I think that happens a lot.

It just seems like 30 billionaires when they pull their money together for lawyer fees and shit. Going to be hard to beat them. Players Union needs to fucking figure out how to like not be David and them be Goliath all the time. It is that way.

And just the sheer amount of people that one side has working for them and the other side doesn't have working with them. That's a disadvantage right there. I mean, so it's, it's unfortunate that this is kind of what happened. I don't know how it's going to resolve itself, but that's, it's a big, big oversight. Wasn't that addressed in Passon's article a little bit? And again, I don't think there was a clarification, but I think it was from the player's side, and they were saying, like, no, we're, no.

But again, we didn't know if that was an official statement, or like, we just got fucked. I mean, I believe I read that part because I skipped to the money of Passon's article because it's still the biggest hurdle. Not just the last hurdle for me. I still think it's the biggest hurdle. Well, that's unfair to say, Jimmy. The pandemic's the biggest hurdle once they get past the pandemic.

The money's the biggest hurdle. But I think what Passon wrote was that the players just straight up don't believe the owners will lose money by losing fans. fans in the crowd. Like the players, and you're like, that's not true. You're not going to lose money.

Pay us where the owners are like, oh, check our calculators, dude, we're going to lose 30% of our revenue, blah, blah. So you get 30% less pay. And that was like,

so when I read Passons article, I was like, okay, so we're nowhere with that. But I don't know. Yeah, I agree. I don't know how you calculate that

because obviously it's different team by team, how much revenue is brought in by the fans. You know, you really can't say that the Tampa Bay raise are going to lose 30% of their revenue, because there's no fans because there's no chance that their fans make up 30% of their revenue.

So maybe a team like the Red Sox, that's true, which I don't think it is. But you could say a team that sells out. It's teams like the Padres who just spent a ton of money, teams like the Brewers who just spent a ton of money. The Reds probably fall in here where their TV deals are probably, I mean, you can say for certainly not the same as the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Red Sox. but their payrolls are pretty high for this year because they went all in. I just don't know how much revenue fans bring in. Say it's, say it's, I don't know.

Well, we heard for, we heard a million bucks a game. Just use that as a round number. Is that a lot? I don't know. So, I mean, that's 80 million. The original number that was thrown out in the public was 30%. And then we heard from someone that it's higher for certain teams. that we're talking about.

What's a million? I promise you that. We'll never know the real answer to that question. What's the average attendance of a baseball game? Probably 28,000, 29,000. 28,000. Good job, Trev. Thank you.

So what's 1 million divided by 28? Oh, boy. I like this. Not a math. I'm trying. 35 bucks. So if everyone that attends spends 35 books, bucks they get a million dollars a game that sounds right that sounds right after tickets and concessions

i would say that sounds right conservative i think the average that's really low i would say the average person spends like a hundred bucks at a game we're talking concessions tickets you're thinking yankees and red sox i mean yeah i could go to a rockies game for four bucks yeah i think yeah i would say 35 is a good guess let's say it's let's say it's 50 i mean you guys got to remember sweets i think I think 50 is the number. All right, let's do 50. So the average attendance is 28,000 times 50. That's 1.4 million a game.

And we're talking about 81 games. So times it by 81. That is $114 million for one team. It's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. Start selling ads. This is what I'm always going to say to something like that. I mean, you have to pay the people.

the parking attendants, the people serving the beer. Exactly. So it's not clean revenue, but. Okay, 100 million. Well, take away 14. That's how much it costs to pay all the people. This is what we never talk about, though. It's a three-hour job.

It's the franchise value. They never bring that up in any of these revenue-tied discussions. It's like your franchise value is, I don't know what it goes up every year. It's a lot. it's a lot five years ago you know then you go in 2016 you look at what a team is worth in 2020 you look at what a team is worth and it's gone on up drastic I don't even care about what's going on in the economy it's just it's just kind of how it is so you have to always take that into consideration they never mentioned that in any

financial talks so there's the money thing is a little bit over our head I got to say like we don't know all that's going on. We just did perfect math. That math was good and it's, it's eye-opening to think about that. Yeah, I think it is about a million dollars a game. Numbers were right for sure. All right. Well, let's transition out of this.

There's a couple other topics baseball gave us. So you guys get to get to transition? Yes. I'll play the, I'll play the Pueg song. Yasio Pueg, rumored to go to San Francisco. Sensual. Well, that's Pueg. He's the most sexual player in the history of Major League Baseball.

Okay. Jake, are you happy with Pueg if he goes to San Francisco? Yeah, absolutely. I think they said, I'll embrace them. It's a fun team. And, I mean, it's almost a lock to be a deadline trade, whatever the deadline trade deadline looks like. But, yeah, I mean, Pueg, you know, you and I were,

I think our sign-off line for a couple episodes was like, Don't let Pueig go to Japan. Because he'd be a star over there. He'd have a blast. He'd probably rate. Actually, I kind of changed it. Send him to the CPBL right now. Yeah.

You know, turn it up to 10 in the CPPL. But, uh, yeah, man. Imagine, dude. Get, get Pueg some A-Bs. Is he a good player? Like, I don't know his numbers. I know he's a good player. I mean, excuse me, but like, what are, like, how good is he?

He's solid. All I know is people hate him. Like if I post a video about Pueeg, there's so many comments that just like straight up hate the dude. And unless I'm forgetting storylines, I don't get it. Like I understand that he is a lightning rod and all this. Oh, he's a really good player.

Yeah, his numbers are good, Trap. But people like hate him, dude. And I don't get it. Yeah, really good. His story's amazing. He does so much. much for charity. I held hostage for like three months,

came over at like 19 and became a sensation. And I know he had some trouble where like he was late to practices and Don Manley didn't get along with him and stuff like that, but I don't know. I mean, career OPS of 122, OPS plus, excuse me, 823 regular OPS. I mean, he's fun.

Jake likes to say he's a threat. 19 war. Classic case of he set the bar too high early. He came in hot. We thought he was going to be one of the next great players in baseball. I mean, a 22-year-old Pueig hit 319 with a 391 on base 5 OPS with 19 homers in 104 games. He finished second in the rookie year that year, 22 years old in L.A. I mean, we thought this kid was the future.

He comes back the next year. He's good, not great. And then things start to fall off. As Jimmy mentioned, I think there was some problems. within the organization a little bit. You remember he got sent down for a little while, and I think their minor league team is Oklahoma City, and he was, like, partying down there,

and everyone's like, Pueg, we just sent you down to not do this. But you're right. I mean, it's all been way overblown, and, I mean, he's a really nice split-proof corner outfielder, because that was the first thing that jumped out to us, because we were saying, you know, how do you not sign Puege to have him as the, you know, your platoon versus lefty guys.

But his numbers versus righty, I think, are even slightly better. So I don't know. I hope this guy, yeah, his OPS versus righty is almost. I don't know. I'm glad he's in Major League Baseball because you run the threat with a guy like that of almost a Marbury effect. How about that reference, PBD? Is that, like, I could see Pueg going to Japan and being the, star of stars here and he says you know what screw it oh yeah he's like they you we want to

I'm gonna stop you right now I'll tell you why it's not gonna please do you know how much they practice and like how much they work in Japan like it ain't like he like as he's a great player but he belongs in the states because it's more lax and he can just be himself I don't think that unless they completely change the rules for a Pueg and say just kind of do you buddy there's too much practice over there for him. I think he'll be miserable. Wow. Dude,

his numbers are good. Like last year, he had a little bit of a down year. I got traded halfway through and all that. But in 2018, he had a 120 OPS plus with an 820 OPS. Like, I mean,

compare him to Mike Trout and in the top top tier. That's bad. But compare him to the other players, you know, top nine players. 20% above average. he's above average he's 20 he's yeah he's good like people will give him so much hate because he set the bar so high as rookie year read his story find out about him he's fucking it's also like just one of the more fun dudes to watch people don't like that jim people don't like fun and they don't like guys being different you know yeah i know it's a problem so if you are like a puig hater you kind of out yourself as uh our word uh oh yeah a little bit i think but also a fun hater.

Like you're just, you're not fun. You out yourself as someone I don't want to be around. Yeah, you can not like Pueig and still not be the R word, but you could also also be if you want. But yeah, go out to San Fran or go to Arizona or whatever Biodome is set up. You know, play well or just do your thing. Wait for somebody to get hurt. And man, if he went to a playoff team,

team in the big market like Jim and Trevor's going to hate this and good but if the world happened where the Yankees needed a corner outfielder and Pweig, Pweiged for two months and just showed off the cannon and hit a couple homers and just did his normal game. I mean, Yankee fans would be obsessed with this guy. I would love for him to be there. Don't don't don't be talking about I almost dropped Yankee magic on you. I almost dropped Pue getting that Yankee magic and getting a little boost. I love the idea of him playing with Kapler. Like I want like a pinup calendar with them like doing weird stuff together.

Like I think they're just kind of like such a funny combination. If there's anyone that can like kind of like get it out of Puee, it's kept. I agree with Jake. I don't know Cap that well. You just I laugh at him sometimes. Feel bad about it. I agree with Jake that first. I was like, oh, man, I'm glad he's not going to Japan, but San Fran.

It's a boring place for him to be. But Jake, you're right. If he goes to San Fran, that means, you know, in a normal season at least, he'd be a trade piece if he signs a one-year deal and it does what he has done. He was traded last year. And if he goes to a contending team, hell yeah. Now, that's what I want. I want him into the spotlight.

We love seeing guys like that in the postseason in the spotlight. You know, a lot of guys you talk about, oh, they're made for that moment and usually BS. But like I feel like a guy like Puey is. He's been in that moment so much. Like if you look at like his, I mean, he's with the Dodgers. They're in the postseason every damn year. So this is a guy that's technical postseason career too. So like this guy's ready for that.

He's ready for Yankee Magic. The only problem with that is, is who knows if the Yankees are even going to be in the playoff? Oh, God. Why? I mean, I mean, I got to ask you guys this. You thinking because of the weird rotation, the weird, like, schedule? No, they're going to be their damn good. But I want to ask you guys this.

Is your perception of 2020 going to change if the old Yanks win the World Series? Is it going to be the most legitimate World Series ever just because the Yankees won it? You're, you. Or is it going to be like if they lose it, like, oh, that was not a lot. real season. Trev. First off,

Jake and I have been saying that if they get 80 games in, it's a legitimate season and it's a World Series.

We all three of us agree on that. If it's the round Robin situation, 60 days, tournament style, that's not a World Series championship.

And the handshake agreement that Jake said is that we all have to shake hands before the season starts and said the World Series winner is the World Series

winner. So you don't have people flip-flopping and being assholes when their team loses. Now, does that guarantee we won't do that? No. We're clipping this. We're clipping this.

Kyle and Zach, we need you to clip this, and we're just going to have it in the back room, and we can bring it out when this season ends. We're going to say, look, this is what you said. Yeah. If we get the 75 plus games, every fan has to shake hands and say rules or rules. If Max Kepler goes, you know, 25.

homers, 450 on base, 25 steals, give him the MVP. I mean, we have to agree on that. Like, it's going to be funky,

it's going to be weird, we have to agree on that. Why would it be given the MVP? If, well, I mean, well, twins,

there's twins bias out there anyways. I mean, look at the more knowing. But we, we just have to agree that whatever happened. Stop, stop right now. I read that,

I read that stupid article. Like, okay, let's go back to every single MVP race since 1900 and go put some defensive war statistics for those guys because we saw those games. And then if you want to talk about that, now you made him out. You came out like God. You want to back-at some defensive cats? Let's backdate some of Jeter's old games. I love the stat cat-cats back in 97. Hey, let's talk about the five gold gloves he won.

I'm sure he deserved those. He did it. He did it. I've openly said he did it. But, God, we always end up here. No, if we play the game. Jason Kendall, Jason Kendall, did we clip the gold glove clip? If we're just telling our editors to clip stuff.

Can we go back to Jason Kendall's conversation about gold glove voting and clip that and put it out there? Because I have long said, don't drop gold gloves on me in any sort of argument. In any sort of argument to be like, well, he won three gold gloves. Oh, dude, that is. the most fake award that exists in sports no one gives a fuck and jason kendall said that bat boys fill it out for coaches because coaches don't give a fuck so i'm so glad i i'm good i need that clipped and i need to drop it on people because for some people i guess they just don't understand that they like think they're real they're not real they do because they did i keep telling people this

it's the coolest award you can win because you fucking get to show it off every day i know that's that is awesome. I wish that the voting actually was real. It's an impossible thing to vote on, man. I mean, because no one watches every game. Like Alex Gordon wins left field because the people... Literally, they watch every game now. So I feel the last three, four years, they're more legitimate.

Who's voting now? It's not the play. It's not coaches? Oh, the coaches obviously are not watching every single game, but the numbers are getting backed up by people who watch every game. So like if you're a coach and you don't look at the number, I guess then yeah, you're right, but like you should look at the numbers. You think someone watches... Here we go. Are you serious right now?

I do. I think that watches every single game. Yes, they do. They 100% do. Even the games they backlog, like guys went and watched those games. It's ridiculous, but it's what happens. I think it would take more than a year to watch every single game. I'm going to get my calculator.

You don't have to watch every single game. You just have to watch the plays. So, yeah, I mean, they do it, dude. I mean, I've looked this up before. Who the hell? does it, but somebody does it. It's 15 games. How many games are there in an MLBCs?

It's not one person, dude. It's like a gaggle of people. Well, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Like, not one person is like, who do I think is the best left fielder? You only saw one of them play 162 times. And then every other one you saw five times, maybe.

But you put it into statistics. But I don't think those people, like the debate, I don't think they vote off statistics. And for the longest time, they definitely didn't. So maybe it's getting better. I agree with that. I agree with like the coaches. I mean, look, we even get the player's choice award or whatever.

Like, you know, you come and have to fill this thing out. We're not, players aren't in there like, okay, let's make sure we do this like perfectly. It's like, oh, I don't. That guy. Yeah, he's, I don't really like him. So like, yeah, he had a pretty good year, but he's not even going to be on my ballot, you know. Yeah. Like, there's going to be biased.

Alex Gordon will win a gold glove until he doesn't play baseball anymore. He's probably good. I'm not knocking him. I'm not knocking him. I just don't think any other left fielder has a shot. I mean, this whole thing is just turned into a thing against awards. I mean,

how many awards can you give out accurately if we start getting into the Academy Awards? I mean, we're going to say, the Academy Awards. You know, what was the movie that won everything this year? The Academy Awards are just rich. man like that's straight up who pays more money well see now you're mad at every award so i don't

compare be happy that no no no no no happy the cheater tipped the ball boys and got his gold gloves and and hold on you just changed everything i silver slugger like MVP all those are still totally fine are they we just talked about how are they yeah that's what we're saying they're defensive statistics a all the all the ways to count them have sucked forever and still suck today. B, you can watch every dude's at bat so easily to watch like every, how he plays defense. That's a whole game. You can do the exact same thing.

You can get those clips the same exact way, man. Not back, not, not balls. This is not when Jeter was playing. That's what I'm saying. You're on my side right now. Gold gloves are dumb. The rest of the awards have some legs to stand on. Gold gloves have nothing.

They are, they have been. dumb. I think they're getting better. Okay. But can you imagine because this is, this has happened. Can you imagine if you're a hitter and you post a 99 OPS plus? So you're below average, right? But you win the Silver Slugger.

Because you hit some home runs maybe. Is that impossible? If you go back and look at some gold glove statistic, people that won gold gloves and you look at their statistics, they are going to be below average fielders. And you could do that within the last five years and go look back. There's still going to be guys who finished a year with negative defensive run saves, their user's bad, everything's bad.

The range factor's bad, and they still want a gold glove. Like, can you imagine for a hitting award if you post a 98 OPS Plus and you won the silver for slugger? It's crazy. I'm sure back in the day, there's a couple. There's probably some MVP, like when Kirk Gibson won his MVP, he wasn't the best player at all. But that's the whole other debate of what is MVP. But Silver Sluggers harder.

Yeah. All right. Well, Goldblark voting about Justin. All right. Beautiful man. No one's ever said he's more beautiful than Jeter, but beautiful man. Jeter's pretty beautiful. They're both good looking guys.

Wood. I just, again, I like Jeter, but he gets so much. love that I need to be that balance. That's all. So Jits. I call him DJ. DJ. Right. I love you, buddy, but I got to balance it out. I think you understand that. You're, you're a level-headed guy. You get it. He surely doesn't give a shit, but. It's true. He said, man, that ploof guy, you think he's ever thought about me, ever? You're a play against each other? Better chance you than me.

Then yeah. If he was playing short Yeah, if you were hitting and he's playing shortstop, where's this guy hit? That counts us thinking about you, dude, more than I got, unless he's watched one of my videos, then he's thought about me.

Since he's been done playing, do you think I've ever crossed his mind? No, no. But don't get, don't get beat up about it, Tram. He's thought about signing you. Oh, God. Yeah.

Imagine if your name floated across his desk back in like 16, 17? That was pretty good back then. Not 17, but. Maybe. Yeah, she's, man. He doesn't need my approval. Marlins never reached out to you.

No, no. They were trying to get bad players. I think so. Meaning, I don't know. The other piece of news that I have here is that Chris Davis on the A's. No longer wants to go by Crush Davis. Says he never felt comfortable in that. and he's shedding it.

And it's not your call, man. That is just not your call. It's not like you told people to call you, Crush Davis. You hit big home runs. I love him. I mean, I think he can say that.

If you're Chris Davis, you could do whatever you want. I don't know. I love that he is like, there's two Chris Davis's and he's with a K. Mm-hmm. And like just turned into this absolute, masher.

I love it. I love those two of them. And like, he's kind of like, other Chris Davis falling apart was kind of big for him. Dude, that's what happened with the Agons too.

I think that's why he had to go with Crush Davis because it was like, you can't just say Chris Davis. He'd be confusing. Yeah. I mean, I just think he has 40 home run seasons in a row. Three,

he has three 40 home run seasons in a row. Last year he hits 23. it's bad timing because now you're like, hey, maybe I'm not, it sounds like a guy who's a little down on himself. Like, why don't you just keep the Crush Davis moniker, go hit 40 again. If he had four 40 homerons in a row and then was like, you know what, I don't like it. That's fair. But it seems very reflective of a poor season, which means he might be a little down on himself,

which come on, pick it back up, dude. You're Crush Davis, for God's sake. He's so strong. I'm having flashbacks. We did play together in 2017. So he's one of my favorite guys to watch hit, just because what he does is kind of like unorthodox. He's got so much juice. Trevor, I didn't want to S your D today, but I will right now.

Tell me a little bit about Chris Davis's approach, because it's, it is a different one that you see come across baseball. I mean, he's clearly driven, one way, and I'm sure there was coaches for years that tried to change it, and then they kind of let him go, and it's worked. Honestly, like, I tried to pick his brain hitting, and he really just thinks about, like, his setup, like, where his hands are. Like, he really, really wants to be loose with his hands.

And I guess you can kind of see that when he's setting up. And then he's just trying to drive the ball. There's, like, no sense of urgency in his swing. and his setup. It's really like a relaxed state. And he's just really, really strong. And he puts the barrel on the ball. Like that's kind of like what he does.

So like I saw, I mean, I saw him, like there'll be times where he goes into a rut and he'll stay in that rut. He's kind of like a streaky guy. But when he gets hot, I mean, he's hit big home runs. He hits home runs in the first inning. He hits home runs late in the game. Like he just hits, man. And he hits the ball very, very hard.

One of those guys when I love it. When he, look at that. Look how relaxed you is. That's all he ever talks about is just wanting to be relaxed and being on time. And he could change the game, man. One swing. Look at that. Threat.

It's pretty sweet. That's just using your body the correct way. That's what he does. You guys want to go full. Go ahead. You guys want to go full circle real quick? Yeah. Little unfair.

and Chris, well, actually, no. Chris Davis, career OPS Plus, 119. What was Briggs? 122. I think that, I mean, what do we, what does that mean? I'm just saying, I mean, we couldn't get a job. Davis hit free agency. You'd hear a lot of teams that would be like,

and he has in recent years, he had a couple big ins. But again, this is, this kind of loops in the field and Chris's craziness that we did a second ago. Chris Davis hit 42 home runs in 2016. His OPS Plus was 123 because, I mean, that was all he did, you know? Hey, Chris Davis's first season, 2013. Puegg's 2013. Whoa, guys.

They both raped. Spooky. For both of them before last year, their career started in 2013. Chris Davis, career OPS Plus 126, Pui, Career, Career. OPS plus during that same stretch 127. I don't have a bigger point, but. Thanks, David. I mean, he's known for the

247 average, which he did, one, two, two, three, three, four. Can you see this? I can't. It's both of their stats. So, Puig's better. Uh, the home runs. Obviously, Davis has 216 versus Puegs 132. Pueg with a lot more triples. Doubles are about the same. game. Pueg with more hits. Where were the plate appearances? It's pretty similar.

There's like 50 games difference maybe. That's nuts. I didn't really, their careers have lined up. Yeah, I mean, I never got to, I never really indulged in Pueig's stats, but it was very surprising to me to see the kind of player he was. Yeah, you were drinking the Haterade. I wasn't ever drinking Haderade. No, no, no, no. I don't drink Hater, I don't drink Hater, no. Pueg. I hate somebody. I forget who I hate. He's got 79 steals. Chris Davis has 18.

Let's save that for a rainy day. We'll have a who do you hate episode? I don't hate anybody. We'll keep it in baseball. We'll keep it outside a bit. I would have guessed Chris Davis was just as fast as Pueig, but Spuig runs way more. Oh, yeah, yeah. Chris is not a stolen base guy.

Pueck's caught stealings aren't that impressive either. I think there's Quig's got 38 caught stealing 79 I think there's a little something to be said about like Pueg probably being in better lineups throughout his career So some of the counting stats Like you kind of have to take that in consideration

Although Chris is hit in the middle of lineup And Pueg probably hasn't So they have to take that in a consideration So yeah, it's pretty eye-oping to see that they're similar players And if you really go overall player that Puegg's been statistically better

Yeah I mean Pueck's sit in the middle of lineups, maybe enough for the Dodgers. When he went to the Indians last year, they plugged him in at the cleanup spot right away, and he hit, what do you hit, 300 with an 800 OPS to finish out the season? I think if you look at these stats right here, you know the difference. It's the strikeouts and the OBP. So that's what's bringing Chris's overall value down is he's not getting on base at a high clip.

Probably that's, I believe that's below the league average. And he strikes out a lot, which goes back to that how streaky is. but he's had big moments and there's a guy like a guy that you don't if he's facing like the nastiest pitch in a league like you still have confidence in him like the guy doesn't

trip when he's in a situation like that and that's there's some value to that okay so you're a big Pueek's that number was there a number on Pueeks contract yet? No right? No. He made a lot of money. You want to guess

one year four mill sounds about right which is weird but it's kind of like what's happening so wait does that mean you need a 4 mil for the pro rated or is that? Two mil for half? I don't know like who does that work for contracts yeah that's crazy

I don't know anything anymore Jake's dumb DUM Treve you want to talk about RBI's and how they're kind of dumb guys guys you're not going to hear me say that Guys, we're hitting all the hot buttons today.

They're circumstantial and you have to be put in those situations. Circumstantial. Can I show you like I did a live stream on baseball reference and it was very interesting to me. Okay. Addison Russell, you like him? I don't like him. Okay. Well, in 2016, he had 95 RBIs, which is great, right?

but it's the true outlier of his season. He had a 238 batting average, a 321 OBP, a 738 OPS, and a 94 OPS plus. All poor numbers below average. But he hit fifth in the Cubs lineup. So hitting in front of him was Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, and... Huge OBP guys. And Zobrist and maybe Fowler, every batter that hit in front of Addison Russell that year

had a on-base percentage of 380 or higher. That's how you do it. So circumstantial is the best way to put it. Like I think that you cannot blindly look at RBI numbers at all. You have to dig deeper. Well, a lot of people do, like the Triple Crown, Mickey Cabs won it because RBIs are counted as more valuable than runs, which I think is silly at this point.

I would much more. runs are circumstantial as well i know i know they're both circumstantial but for sounding stats are that's why counting stats are off and the people who don't understand that are just like they just haven't really looked into them i guess yeah yeah yeah but there is something to be said about a guy that consistently is able to do that it's a different type of a bat and it's a great a bat like you want to be in those situations but to do it year after a year after a year after a year after he gets something. People don't have to, like, believe me, but it's,

there's something to be said about that. You have to approach those threats differently. Yeah. All right. And the other news that we have here is that Trey Mancini will miss the entirety of the season, no matter what its length is. He has stage three colon cancer. He did post something on the Players Tribune today that, you know,

I am so lucky. I love baseball. I didn't get to read it because it dropped like as we were recording this. But terrible news. So we wish him well. I got nothing to say besides that sounds incredibly awful and scary. Love you, man.

We're here. Here for you. Yeah. Better. Yep. I think that's about it. B.B.D. in the corner, did we miss anything?

No, just about nailed it. I read the Trey Man see anything between J.J.R. and it's a tear-jerker. Okay. Well, my eyes are already killing me enough, so I'll probably just... Could wash them out for you. Oh, that's huge.

My favorite thing, Trev is we post snippets of this show onto the main YouTube channel. And there are always comments like, who the fucks that guy in the bottom right corner? Why is he there? He doesn't even say anything. I wonder that too. Makes me laugh every time.

But all right, that's the end of this episode. This very well-rounded episode. We talked baseball coming back. We talked to Pueg. We talked RBIs. Tried to figure out who Trev hates the most. didn't get there yet. Jake's flexing his hat. I love baseball. We like that. All right. And we're going to be out. Any last words, Treb? I just ordered some John Boy merch. So I'll be also rocking it as soon as I

receive it. Oh, awesome. Did you happen to order a John Boy Media mug? I did. Did you get a Jake Sox hat? I did. Did you get a John Boy Media shirt? I did. Is that for your daughter, your son? Nope. I don't get anything for them. Sorry, guys. Okay. I was looking at your order.

I have your order up. Yeah, I don't think I got anything for them. I wasn't supposed to. Oh, oh, oh. You got a John Boy Media, a breakdown shirt. It's in parentheses small. I thought you ordered a small, but it just means the logo on the shirt is small.

Yes. And then I got a sweatshirt. Mug. I love baseball shirt. I want to bring the mug. on, you know? I know. I just realized I didn't do in this morning show where I drink coffee every morning and I have a mug in my hand and I need like our mugs. So I got, I'm going to buy a whole batch of mugs, I think. Yeah, I had to have my Jake sucks hat. I mean, it's really cool if he just says it

all the time right here. So people just know. Does anyways, Big Daddy. I don't think you suck. I'm going to go out and just say that. Yeah, how quickly you forget the spring training trip. God, it seems like a. fucking lifetime ago. It's another S and the D reference, Jake. That clip of Jerry Krause and Scotty Pippen dancing, I mean, that looked like me and Trev

getting after it. Yeah, I'm going to play the outro music. Seems like we're doing postgame talk anyway. Yeah. Yeah.