Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 146 | MLB's Proposed Health Guidelines

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

Jomboy, Jake, and Plouffe discuss MLB's 67-page health guideline document and how it changes the return timeline for baseball. 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 to talking baseball. It is May 19th or 20th and still no baseball. Still no signed agreement, but a lot of guidelines. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. My name's Jimmy. I've got Trevor with me. I've got Jake with me.

Producer BBD is here. And it's time for some tidbits, some talk. What's the haps? This has been the schedule during quarantine interview Monday, interview Friday. Just a little nice rap session. Wednesdays. We record on Tuesdays and if you are a Patreon, you can be in the live chat as we record. We have a couple people here already. And, and we have a whole gang of new patrons that sponsored this show. We got Chris Northrop, Greg Delallo, Jr., Griffin Osterhouse, James Willard, Billy Strickland. Billy Strickland is such a baseball name. It is. Yeah, it's Billy Strickland, yeah.

It plays for the Royals too. Warren C. Nicholas Lentz, Parker Terrell, Mark Jez, Kenneth Yarnall, Yarnall, and Matthew Stromer. Thank you very much for supporting us on Patreon, patreon.com slash John Boy Media.

We'll get you there, and we appreciate you. Trev, how are you doing on this fine May 19th? I'm kind of all over the place, to be honest with you. My emotions are running hot. I have a little bit of personal stuff going on, which you guys know about. Not a big deal, guys.

Don't worry. We'll be okay. But this whole baseball thing is kind of driving me crazy. We'll get into it. I'm fighting a lot of feelings. Jake, how are you doing? Also fighting a lot of feelings, less than Trevor.

a rare occasion. Back's getting better. I went for a run this morning, making my push for the 50-man roster if it comes through. So we'll see. Back's already locking up a little bit. Kind of need a good midday stretch.

But fighting the good fight, man. And yeah, I think where I generally have been, if you took my average playing baseball and not playing baseball, I think I'm still above average. like that we'll get there. But I mean, fluctuates with every sentence. So we'll see.

How are you doing, Jimmer for that? I'm all right. I'm doing fun. I will say it is a little disappointing that we haven't had any concrete update since the offer went out and the guideline. And I know they're taking their time, but didn't they say it was like 10 to 14 days? Well, this will be, that was Passon's guess.

Or I think he asked for insiders what the timetable was. and they said like seven to ten days or something like that. And I think we're over, I think we're over that. And it feels like there's been no movement. I think we're at a week right now. At a week? Passing. Passing was on Friday.

And so the last Wednesday up was, okay. So, all right. So I was still like, you know, would have like, not the official deal, but I feel like anything that's been leaked, it's a weird situation. And people keep asking for my update. But I made the rule that my meter could only be yes or no,

on if baseball's coming. back and I'm a hard middle right now. So I feel like I can't, I can't throw the maybe out there. Because this is the thing. What was your last meter? I don't even remember. Yes or no, one of them. Here's the, here's the thing. All of the stuff that's coming out and leaking, like all the information puts me in the no camp. It's just too hard. We've been saying this from the start. Too hard. My brain doesn't believe those things are necessary. And then on top of that, you have both sides still saying 100%, even the biggest voices, the owners and the GMs and Bauer, who's a big voice, you know, saying like we're not going to do anything less than prorated, even saying

100% we reached an agreement. So I'm like torn because we're going to get into these health guidelines. They're a joke. They're straight up like a laughable joke. And I understand why they exist, but I'm really torn. and being torn puts me more on like the negative side than positive for me. I can see that. Yeah.

I would have like some good news. It's a weird time because it doesn't matter what side you were on on this issue. I've tried to talk about it a little bit on social media and people just are mad. Like everyone's pissed off. The general public, like it's, we talk about PR all the time here because it's a powerful thing. I think we've seen that over the last, you know, five. or six years in this country like getting out in front of the story or creating the narrative or whatever you know that's it's a big part of our culture right now and the PR around basically it's always so

fucking bad yeah like nobody wants to hear about this you know and it makes our job hard because we want to talk about it but at the same time nobody wants to hear about you know well let's talk about the owners and how much they're getting money they're going to lose and then players are like hey, well, you know what? What about the last 10 robust years? Show us your books. And then the owners come back and say some other shit about money. And it's fucking exhausting, dude.

Now, is it just... So I see why people are upset. Is it me? Have I tuned it out? Like, the last like three days. Have I tuned it out or have both sides kind of stopped using the public to make their points? Has it been a little quieter the last couple days?

It's been a little quieter. We haven't had anything really come out, which is, good and bad. I mean, you're hoping that we talk. I mean, the last big thing was Snell. And we kind of haven't actually heard anything since then, which again, I mean, spin it however you want, spin it as there's been no progress or spin it as they're actually sitting down and talking. I don't know if I said it on here, Jim. I spend my days talking to you through a computer, but Poppy was telling everyone, May was going to be ugly and we're seeing it. Like Trevor said, people are hot man um and you know it's if you're not at grips with anybody doing anything while

corona's around you're half in the right and you're not going to be happy with anything if you're one of the people that are coming around and saying like hey i think this is a thing and our society needs to move on you're going to feel you're right about everything and guess what you kind of might not be wrong either um and either way it ties back into uh a basic ball in what we're doing. And like Trevor said, I mean, you know, billionaires versus millionaires and are, you know, I don't want to play for two million dollars. I'm supposed to make 10 mil. Absolutely nobody wants to hear that. And again, I'm, I'm going to rest on my laurels like Jimmy kind of was just saying, like I think next week's the money week. I think we need move by, we need news by next week because I think June 1 is like kind of the fake deadline that's been posted because we got to get players moving and things like that. But, um, For me, it still comes back to, man, these franchise values. And this, I had this thought literally coming to my head a second ago. And it sounds like a good clip.

So big baby David, just write your notes, you beautiful producer in the corner that everybody comments on. If baseball doesn't get this done, there's going to be two major sports and two minor sports. Because baseball's going down with hockey. If they don't get this figured out and then they go into a lockout next year's CBA, franchise values are jumping back. Nobody cares about baseball if it's gone for like two years, and everybody loves the NFL and the NBA right now. And I just think that's the biggest thing that hopefully I kept going to the movie scene,

or hopefully better minds prevail and good guy to win and the angry owners says who don't, let's not pay them. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I was doing that in the corner. Hopefully that guy doesn't win because baseball also has so much room to gain here. and at the same time, if you're one of these corona people that you're not going to be happy with anything, then you're going to be miserable that baseball is trying to play. So it's hot.

It's tough out there in the streets. That's what I'm saying. I posed a question on my Twitter, which was a sentiment that I've been getting from many of folk around the league, specifically players. And all I said was, if the health guidelines are this extensive, is it really safe to play? And whoa, people. I mean, they were all over me. Heidi Watney came at me. Heidi Watney came at me.

Okay, I don't like that. I don't like that, Heidi. And she came at me asking, well, is it safe to go to the grocery store? Well, Heidi, people have to eat to live. They need grocery stores. You don't need to play baseball to live. And her point was, there's a lot of auxiliary jobs. jobs, they go along with the baseball season, and it's up to the players to play so those people

have their jobs and can make money and provide for their families. I don't necessarily agree with that. The players are just employees just like anybody else. Okay, owner, this is what I said to her. Owners, when you buy a franchise, you have a responsibility to the community. One, because you're part of the community. You're a pillar in the community when you own a franchise team, but probably bigger than that, the people paid for your stadium, most likely. So there isn't, that's where the onus falls on the owners. You get stuff from the people, you better help the people out. It's not up to the players to play if they feel it's unsafe. Like I said, they're just employees, dude. So I got hot yesterday. Heated. But here's the thing about these guys. I don't know. I need

to calm down. Your tweet was basically like, if these are the guy, and this is everyone's thought, If this is like the guidelines that they think we need to play baseball, then it's just not safe enough to play baseball. And I think that's true if MLB put these guidelines out there fully saying, like fully believing them. Like I don't think MLB believes or wants to actually instill these guidelines or mandate them at all. They're just covering their ass.

And if anyone doesn't know, if there's anyone that has, is not the date with this. like just to like no spitting always be six feet apart maybe sit in the stands if a ball gets touched by multiple players it gets thrown away.

I had a lot of fun with that one because I was just laughing. They're like if the ball gets put in play and touched by multiple players that ball can no longer be used. I'm like, okay, what if they throw a pickoff and then he throws it to the catcher and then the catcher throws it back?

That's three people. That ball never got put in play. That ball's fine. What if the catcher asks for a new ball from the ump, catcher hands it to the umpire hands. hands it to the catcher, catcher, catcher throws it the pitcher.

And I got three people touching that. That ball's fine. Like, it's just like these rules are stupid. It's going to be a lot of baseballs. And, yeah, and they're going to run out of balls. Meredith wills be all over that. No, it's just like, you know, when they wrote those guidelines, they want, don't want teams, they don't want guys to shower after games.

They don't want them doing tobacco seeds. They don't want them high fiving. They're just covering their ass. Like, if anyone actually thinks that they're going to really mandate that, they won't. And the way they wrote it was when possible, don't, you know, crowd each other. And it's like, well, anything that had when possible in it was basically like, we don't actually care about this. We're just doing this to cover our ass.

We warned them not to get close. And like you're saying, I mean, a lot of it's eye wash, but it also does tie into what Trevor's saying. Let's say we do figure this out and baseball comes back 4th of July, fireworks, baby, America's back. Baseball does need to be set an example. And it's kind of that community thing that Trevor was just talking about. Baseball players, when they're out there, yes, you're mentioning some of the extremes and they

are laughable. But at the same time, these baseball players need to be setting an example for the country that, you know, if they're out there high-fiving in people, like, you know, people are going to get pissed off about that. And the bigger thing for me was MLB just had to drop this because if they came up too short on the safety stuff, oh, you want to see people get loud. That get ugly. Yeah. I mean, and the narrative is going to be because we love talking about the narrative because it's true.

You guys really got to like understand that this is a big issue. They put this out there. Obviously it's to cover them. They're ass, you know. They don't want to be liable for something. So they put, you know, these crazy strict policies that are going to be pretty much impossible to enforce. But let's hope they do enforce them. You know, that's what everyone's hoping.

But what's going to happen is they're going to go back and forth to the players. The players might relax these a little bit. They might say, hey, let's just shower, but socially distant shower. You know, so they're going to relax some of these things. And then the owners are going to leak that to the press. And they're going to say, see, they don't really care about the health issues. It's all about money. That's what's going to happen.

And, you know, we talk about things that on this podcast before anybody else will talk about and that's what's going to happen. Well, and the other thing. It's just a game, man. And that's what's pissing me off about all this. Like, I want both sides to just kind of just get to work. Like figure something out because I know you can. I really think you can.

And they need us to stop posturing for PR relevance and just go and get to work. Jimmy, you'll be proud. of me and Trevor you will too because I did two of my least favorite things. I did some research right before we hopped on and that research was listening to just drop Jeff Passon, excuse me, oh boy, Jeff Passon podcast that he did with Ryan Rosillo, my guy, and I listened to it on double speed gym because it was too long so I had to get all my facts in two of my least favorite things to do. But I think what's interesting about the shower stuff and Trevor you mentioned kind of the cycle there is Jeff was saying that a lot of that stuff may have been put out

there for the players to get caught up in that stuff instead of the money. Because that's kind of what they said about the last CBA is that the players got hung up on a lot of the perks and nice things and being comfortable. I told you guys that. Instead of the money. Yeah. So I think that's another, that's another layer to all these guidelines and things. Because again, think about the majority of players who are like, oh, I want to be able to

shower after the game. You start getting distracted by some of those little things, and you might miss the big picture going on behind you. A 67-page document. I mean, close your eyes and just, like, you know, sometimes when you watch, sometimes when I use a computer program or you play a video game, and there's like an error message that comes up,

and I'm like, damn, a human being typed out these words. Like, everything's done by humans in the end. 67-page document, there was a group of people in a room writing these down. And if you think they weren't laughing while writing these, you're insane. If you think they just were very straight-faced

and serious writing, MLB players can't have sunflower seeds. Like, they were giggling to themselves. Because it's so unnecessary. So unnecessary. I don't know what is necessary. I don't know. I don't know what's necessary.

It's unnecessary. necessary. I mean, they could have done 13 pages. 67 pages, Trevor. 67 pages. I know. Got paid per word, I think. It's so stupid. I used to be really bad at catching lizards. My son loves for us to catch lizards in the backyard. And I was not good at it. And we catch them, we let them go. Okay, we don't like harm these lizards. So easy Pita people. And then I learned a trick. The lasso out of grass around the neck? I've heard that trick. I don't follow.

I don't use that. Okay. But what I do is similar to what Jake was referencing that the owners have done in the past and are doing now, seemingly. Lizards kind of stand there and then I will put one hand and I'll like put it over here. All right. They start to focus on that hand. Meanwhile, this hand holds a box. and I hold this hand out,

I bring the box slowly, slowly, slowly, and then put the box over it and they have no idea because the whole time looking at this other hand and it's exactly what goes on in these types of negotiations that happened in the last CBA, the health guidelines are,

now that's what's going on. That's the slide of hand. So it's interesting, man. Hopefully that doesn't like happen. Hopefully the Players Association is a little bit smarter than these lizards and they can see right through it and like let's just get through this

I'm just like for my sanity I just need both sides to come together and figure this out because like you said if they don't figure this out and we lose this season I 100% believe there'll be a lockout next year yeah that's bad it'll get really ugly if they don't figure this out is it true that you have a collection of lizard tails

that you and Teddy just take all the lizard tails and keep them in a lunchbox. Is that true? Someone's going to clip that, Jimmy, and they're going to get me in trouble. I don't know. Hey, lizard sheds their tails. It's only natural.

I heard it's a gymly legoloss thing that you guys rack up your lizard kill cow. Yeah. I'm pretty sure we catch the same two lizards over and over again. You put them back exactly where we catch them. I'm serious. A thousand percent. Oh, yeah.

You got to mark them. Get a little sharp. Mark him up. I should. I should. We find them in the exact same place. We put them back in the exact same place. This lizard's probably like, gosh.

My grandpa, I believe, did that with a squirrel. He had the squirrel that ate his garden or messed up his garden. And he spray painted it and took it like two miles away. And the fucking thing showed back up, I think. How did he catch a squirrel? I don't know. You can catch stuff. Cages.

If there's an animal, there's a human that invented some sort of device. I mean, there's bear traps, man. True. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know if he did. I don't think anyone's getting a squirrel for a, I don't know if he did a hand over here and the other hand over here with a squirrel, but he got it. So anyway, yeah. Well, it works for lizards.

These protocols, some of them are smart. I'm not trying to shit on the whole thing. Like, I'm not trying to be no safety. So no one, like, misplace that. It's just 67 pages. Are you kidding me? Nothing needs to be 67 pages. Besides, like, you know, books.

And even then, some of those can be shortened up. It's just nuts. Okay. Let's just do it right now. Okay. Let's just do it. Let me play the sound effect before we just do it. Well, well, what sound effect is this?

We will find out when I hit a button. After the plan, I am with you. That kind of works. Okay. What are we doing? I'm going to start with Jimmy. Okay. Disregard your rules.

Yeah. I need a percentage on this season getting done. 75. Jakey? Yeah, I'm 80. I'm 80. I think baseball itself has too much to lose. BBD?

I'd say I'm around like 70 there. I think it's more likely they figure it out. Whether or not they figure it out in a way that avoids the lockout next year is kind of concerning. But I don't know how much the two things will affect each other, I guess. Trevor? At this very moment, I'm pessimistic. That might just be my state of mind. You're in a book.

I'm like a 50-50 guy right now. Okay. It's not good. I will say that every single person I talk to is like, yeah, I think we're going to get a deal done. So that doesn't sway you? That's good. It doesn't sway me because I just, it should have already been done. Like this posturing for leverage, like I get it. Like the players at this point have more leverage than they've ever had, specifically in the last 10, 15 years.

And what sucks is they can't really use it because people will look at it. at them and say you guys are being greedy in a time of a global pandemic when there's 30 million people without jobs. But they got to stop this. If they want to continue major league baseball, the way we know it and the way it's gone and they want to continue to be our national past time, they have to figure this out. And right now they're not doing that. they're just it's just like who can who can kick the other one who had the report that said was it was it rosenthal or pass and that was like neither team wants to be the first to give in and it's like that's the type of shit that you just can't like keep that behind the walls like you know

I don't that makes me mad at both sides as commissioner of all baseball yep which you are. I am ordering Rob Manfred and the owners and Tony Clark and the NLBPA to cordially sit down and figure this out. We need to get it done, guys. You want baseball to be there, be our national pastime for the next hundred years. Going to need you to do it. Yeah. Do you think if Rob and Tony sat down together, anything will get done? No. Like just those two. No, no, they both are powerless people. They'd be like, okay, I got to go talk to the owners. Oh, okay, I got to go talk to the players.

Yeah, they'd probably like, trust me, I'd love my guys won't go for it. That's what that would be every point. I think they just, I think they just start laughing. They go, they're going to figure this out or what, huh? I don't think it's, I don't think it's that egregious. But, I mean, I do agree that they both. I mean, effectively, Tony doesn't really answer to somebody. You know, there still needs to be votes and whatnot.

So I guess that's part of it. But I know Rob. Rob is, Rob's answering to everybody 100%. Like Rob's not making decisions. Yeah. It's his job, yeah. So funny, you judge, yeah. That's the only thing I can't find because, and we,

I brought it up a little bit last week. These owners are people with big egos. some of the largest egos in the world. And I think, Trevor, like you're saying, the players have leverage, man, and they've got some good stuff going on. If there are going to be 30-man rosters, I mean, we're talking about, you know, four extra guys per team making an MLB salary, whatever that is. And again, the MLB is pretty firm on their stance.

And I think that's the one thing they are not going to come off of is they want their salaries. They are not going to a revenue share. That's been the biggest stance of this union for 25 years. So my biggest thing is just what can they feed the owner's egos? And I don't know what it is. Is it something like, hey, if let's say there is a second wave of this thing. And now all the politics and scientists are coming out. But say they did have to pull the kill switch on this season.

Like could the players say, you know, if the kill switch is pulled, then we don't get the rest of our salaries? Would they ever say that? I mean, I just don't know what the players... Well, no, because the players... Well, then you're just giving the players all the risk here. You can't do that. Well, I mean, they get paid for the games they get paid, you know?

But then you said they'd have to pay it back if the postseason doesn't happen? No, no, no, no. Like, say they play 25 games and then COVID ruins the world. I mean, they get paid for those 25 games and the plug gets pulled. That's going to happen anyway. That'll be... happen no no no I'm saying if they make that if just say they said okay we're just going to pay you pro rated salaries and then a second wave happens and it shuts down the players aren't going to get paid

they get paid for the 25 games yeah right right right that's already that's like that's if the players win out they still assume that risk what the owners don't want to happen is is they pay players for the regular season and then as fall comes around and we get into the playoffs, which is a huge revenue stream for them. Their national TV deals for the playoffs. They don't want all the sudden a regular season to get played and then the playoffs get canceled and they miss out on all that. That's what they're trying to, they're trying to find some way around that.

So, I mean, I think a couple of things are going to happen for the rest of the time that there is baseball. I think insurance policies are going to play huge into all these teams. financials in the future. Like we heard that Wimbledon had a pandemic insurance and it paid him out hefty. Every single team is going to have that. Players are probably going to have that. You know, I had that when I was playing. I had injury insurance when I was playing and I paid into it and if I got hurt, I still got what I was projected to make the next year. It's just a smart thing to do anyway. Yeah. That is smart. That's going to be part of the game. But you know, it's, man,

The owners need a public win. I don't know. That's something that they definitely need because, you know, we're talking about the pettiness of us and the PR. Trave, if the owners are playing the PR game as we've discussed, if they did the revenue because they wanted the PR spin, if they do this health because they care about the public. I mean, that's been as evident as every.

The owners care about what the public think. So just. Well, I think more so they just, they wield public opinion as a weapon. Not like the care, but like they use it. If the players will not take any less money and they stay with prorated, and this is what we said last episode. The owners need something that they can say, well, we did this.

And it's going, it needs to be financial. It's not going to be in the court of public opinion. It needs to be both. You know, it's just, I don't know what it is. That's what Jake's saying. I don't know what, I don't know how the owners agree to the pro rated salary. which they should kind of

I think we talked about it already though we gave them an idea we talking baseball if you want us if baseball wants us to come in and help mediate the situation we will

we talked about it they already expanded the playoffs this year their win is keeping that fucking for the foreseeable future yeah 14 teams in that's a huge revenue win for them

not not totally losing your franchise value and maybe the media thing is that they just look like good, but good guys for bringing baseball back. I guess the question is, is that enough? And hey,

if they're really scared about losing their franchise value, I mean, it kind of should be. I'm back up on my percentage. I think I'm, I'm like 90% sure this is going to get done. And I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to tell you why.

I love it, this is the life that we're living right now. You're in it. It's crazy, but they will be the heroes. They're going to pay teams or players. They're prorated salaries. They're going to say, look, we are going to take a financial hit here, but we wanted to do this for our community.

We're the good guys. And then you know what they're going to do? They're going to pass whatever losses they incur, which we don't even know if they're really going to lose money here. There's conflicting reports on that. If they really wanted to get audited, like, I don't know if they're going to allow that. Players have requested documents. I don't think it's going to happen.

But if they really want to recoup the losses, they're going to do it. They're going to pass it on a free agency next year. This winter, free agency is going to be crap. The next winter, free agency is probably going to be crap. They're probably going to cut down their staff. They've already won on the amateur draft. I mean, they save so much money in the draft. It's ridiculous.

They are going to get that money back. So I don't even understand what the posturing is about. Is it them just being greedy and wanting more? They're not going to lose money. For the next five years, they will recoup that money in just different ways that they won't have to explain. They'll just do it. Free agency will be crap. And they'll be like, oh, well, you know, this is kind of our response to, you know,

we didn't make enough money in 2020. So, like, the players are going to wear it. one way or the other. So like the owner should just sign the deal. Like give the players the deferred or the money, the pro rate of money and just let's go. Interesting. I mean to just wish that you could actually know the numbers

because, you know, they say they're going to lose a ton of money for every game. It's like, I don't know. That's the same. That's the same thing MLB did that I shot down immediately when they ran that bogus. Well, the test might not have been bogus, but they tweeted out that they test.

tested all these MLB employees and only 0.7% had it or something like that. And it was like, you didn't tell us who you tested. Did you test physically fit athletes that are 20 to 30 years old? Or did you test the accountants and the executives in the building? You didn't tell us where you tested them, how you tested them, or the timing of the test. Like you can't give us results without giving us any insight into what you did. And that's the same thing when these owners are like, we're going to lose 200 grand per game. You got to show me something that's, says that. Like, I'm just not going to blindly believe that to be true. It could be. I'm not, I'm not trying to dismiss it out of hand. I'm just saying, as humans, you should critically think

and, like, ask for, uh, explain that to me, you know, and they're not. They're just throwing out these numbers. And it's like, well, that, uh, it does nothing. It's garbage in my ears. So if they can open their books and be like, if they can open their books and say, listen, here's the numbers, here's the breakdown. We will lose. $150,000, $200,000, every game that we play at home without this revenue. And if those are the real numbers,

then I have a lot of understanding for why they will not want to play this season and do the prorated numbers. But like, I can't just blindly believe that shit. They're not going to open the books a year away from a collective bargaining agreement. But Treve, I also understand. that. So like go to an arbiter or a middle party. Let him see the books. Keep me out of this.

I don't, I shouldn't know any of this stuff and do it on your own. What they're going to do is the, the owners are going to, the owners are going to bring their numbers to the table. They're going to open their books how they want to open their books and they're going to hide a lot of stuff. And that'll probably do they already did that. Yeah, that that'll be, you know, part of the next media spin. And like Trevor saying, already happened a little bit. I don't know. I think the only other thing that I, that's, spinning through my brain that where the storm seems to be moving is that, you know, it's it's kind of on the owners to make their decision is the two big things that the players can drop is the royal selling for a billion dollars. That's looking good for for everyone involved

because it's like, hey, they've been tanking and bad and they're still worth a billion spot. So that's something. And then the other one that the owners are probably kicking themselves right now is what is it total salaries going down the past two seasons yeah when when when revenue has skyrocketed franchise values of skyrocketed i think the owner's got to be kicking themselves over that one because they that's when they screwed themselves dude i'm so sick of small market and all this like the raise owners are so rich it's an interesting dynamic you know what like so the steinbriders aren't even the richest

owners no no but everyone gives them shit for spending they yeah but their franchise value is the highest but but it's still it's still like you know we don't have money where the small market raise we're the small market a's you do have fucking money you just it's the same exact thing the owners just control that narrative it i mean i've done this so many times it just bothers me when people are like well they're the raise they can't spend don't say that to me because i will rant back in your face that they can that's PR, bro. I know, but so many fans believe this.

I will say this. Like, as individuals, like, the owners that I've met, and I've met, I don't know, like, four owners, I guess that's not a ton. But they're all nice guys. Like, we always say owners, owners, owners, owners. Like, most of the time, dude, it's like, these guys are the owners. but like they have a huge team around them that's helping them make these decisions. And like they trust this team to make the right decisions financially and whatnot.

It's not like these guys are like Dr. Evil from Inspector Gadget and they're just sitting there like pressing the evil button over and over and over again. That's not how it is. They're shrewd businessmen who surround themselves with people who try to make them more money or as much money as possible at all times. So on an individual basis, the owners I've met are great. The owners in Minnesota love them. Great people. But as a whole, collectively, they do shady stuff a lot. Ooh.

Not the poll ads in general. I love them. Donna and Jim, you guys are awesome. They've always been great to me. But collectively, the owners, you know, they have people working for them doing this stuff. Business people. According to this. Five dollars.

According to this website, Jim Pollad, Twins owner is the fourth richest owner in MLP. If anyone... If anyone's interested... If any of his one's interested, St. Louis Cardinals, third, Brave, second, Giants first. Jim, reach out.

Someone from Oracle? I don't know. Who owns the Giants? Charles Johnson. Sure. Great catcher. Six. Six point four billion. Could be a different one.

Born in Montclair, New Jersey. How many owners are from New Jersey, New York? I think there's, I mean, Adonasias from New York. Probably a lot because they, that's the financial capital. Yeah. You know. It's interesting. And like how many owners are from the Northeast?

Because that's kind of like the baseball hub. Yeah. It's, I don't know, man. for fans, not for players, I should say. That's my biggest stilt right now. These guys are driven by the dollar end of the day. Like if this all gets figured out, you're going to see them doing rah-rah PR.

We're bringing back the country. How good are we? They care about the dollar. And if I'm a billionaire owner, I'd rather have my team worth $1.5 billion dollars and I might lose some money this year rather than not knowing what my team's worth slash it could be half of that in a year and a half or so. So that's still my crutch right now because that that is money.

That's not hopes and dreams and rainbows and butterflies. That's the real stuff. And boy, boy do I hope it works. Dude, these guys have never played the short game. It's always a long game with them. That's why I'm like, what is going on here? like why are you doing this? Why aren't you playing the long game like usual?

Maybe I don't understand. If there's no updates next week, which we're supposed to definitely get them, let's try and build an episode around if it's a yes. You know, let's try and build an episode like who's got the best six-man staff if they go to.

Something like that. Let's go Mets. Mets are good. Rangers. Let's get an owner on here. We can try and reach. out. Yeah. Yeah. Get an owner. He's got a, we got a different and new perspective coming to you guys on Friday,

interview with an umpire, which you, which you guys heard us talk about. And we said we wanted to get an umpire's point of view. Yeah, what did you get an owner next? Simple as that. I don't, I mean, they won't. It won't happen. It won't happen. It won't happen. But it'd be awesome. You want to hop on our baseball podcast? all this is going on? We've been ripping you guys for two months. Do you want to come on and defend yourself? Fair and balanced, Trev, fair and balanced.

Look, obviously I have a lean. You guys know that. Pro player, scum. I'm pro player. And it's because that's been my experience. But I just said that individually the owners are awesome people, at least that I've encountered. I mean, the owner of the Phillies,

I saw him take his shirt off and dance in the clubhouse after I hit a walk-off Homer. Like, it was awesome. And he's pretty jacked for being 60. rub his belly? I didn't, but I was like, you know, I think I gave him a beer. I don't know. Like, he was cool. It's awesome. What's his name? I want to say it's John Middleton. Philly's owner. I'm just going to picture him naked, shirtless. It is John Milton. Oh, nice head of hair. Yeah, like I said, this guy was jacked. Yeah, this guy, I mean, this guy takes his shirt off

whenever he wants. Yeah. So, I mean, I wanted to make that point. Like, it's not, specific individual owners we're talking about collectively is who we're referencing here. Oh, John Middleton dude, he's only worth 3.3 billion. And that's all these worth. Yeah. And how much

of that is the Phillies? I have no clue. Well, they feel like a two bill. He began working at his cigar business. And then he then he worked at John Middleton, Inc. where his father put him on the company's board.

Hey, that could be right after college. That's cool. That could be a fun thing for us to do. Let's go profile some owners. Let's put a face to him, man. I kind of am interested in everyone's backstory and stuff. Like this dude's family was in the cigar business. He went to Harvard Business School.

As soon as he gets out, he goes to his company's board. So, I mean, some people will cry nepotism. Other people will cry, well, I mean, he's got to know the industry pretty well. if he grew up in it, so there's both sides of that, and we already did it. No one else can talk about it at all. And then under, you know, while he was on the board, they bought a bunch of brands. They bought a bunch of cigar brands and became a major player in the pipe tobacco industry.

And then sold John Middleton company to Altria, the parent of Philip Morris. And they sold it for $2.9 billion. $1. Jesus. And then he bought a 15% stake in the Phillies for $18 million. Just a chunk in 1994. I mean, they sell their company for $2.9 billion. He buys a 15% stake in the Phillies for $18 million. Damn.

And then in 2014, he assumed a more active role in the Phillies. And then 15, that's crazy. Is there a check? Can we ask questions right now? Yeah, there's a Patreon chat, is how you mean? Hey, Patrions, would you be interested in us profiling owners? Phillies are ranked number eight on Forbes's list of baseball teams value-wise. They are eighth at $2 billion.

That's crazy. I think that would be an interesting case study. I think it would give a good perspective. And like we always say, like, these guys win the PR game because they're sort of faceless. I like tying. I like tying the team to whatever the owner also does. So like the Phillies are just cigar people now. But if you like smoking, you like tobacco and cigars, you like the Phillies.

That's great. I think we should do it. And this is not to vilify anybody. It's really interesting. We got a yes, a no and a maybe. Perfect. Oh. Fucking sounds about right.

I mean, I think I'm just going to do this on my own because I am interested in it. Hey, man. One day they're going to be like, that fucking John boy started this stupid company. Fucking whatever you're worth. It's going to be great. Can't wait for that story. The, what's the Yankees? It would be like horse racing.

If you like horse racing, you like the Yankees. You like the Yankees. That's a good one. I think the Polads, who were the twins owners, and I could be wrong, I'm sorry. But I think they own like Pepsi distribution throughout the Midwest for a long time. That adds up for a Midwest team pretty nicely. And then also real estate holding and stuff.

They own a lot of the downtown in Minneapolis. Yo, Jim Pollard's Wikipedia page is light. It's four sentences. What's going on there? It's all you need. He doesn't want it. That's all Jim wants, man. What's funny is, so here's a little story.

You're yelling about 67 pages. Jim Polad's getting it one and done, man. I live next door. Drew B. Tara and I rented a place in Minnesota. It's my first or second year in the big leagues. And I don't know if it's a stepdaughter or a real daughter, but wanted like a daughter lived right next door to us. And we used to like watch 3D movies.

Like she'd come over and like bring us food. Like we're just really like friendly like nice. But like I said, nice family, man. Like that's it kind of pains me to talk about the owners in this light when I know, you know, they're just people too. How many calls does it take you to get the gym pole at? Two, one? I think I have his number.

Call them live. Hey, if you, uh, right now, you want, if you're, if you're a fan of, um, if you're a fan of, uh, foreclosing on farms during the Great Depression, then you're, we lost them. Then you're a twins fan. And that's a tough break. That's how Carl Polad made his money. He went around stealing people's land during the Great Depression. I knew it was real estate. I didn't know. it was that. Okay, you know. Money's money. I didn't know Carl.

I didn't know Carl. You know, he can't hold the son for the sins of the father. Hey, you know, well, you can't pay for your farm because there's a great depression. You just give that to Carl Pollad, and he's going to own the twins one day. Hey, that's a story that's going on right now, by the way. Yeah. Commercial real estate is essentially dead.

So is that how we become owners? Let's go steal some, some, let's go grab some land from people at our, you know, down and out. Yeah, we need commercial real estate and then we'll convert it in manufacturing and we'll just go. Sounds great. Pandemic insurance company and just cross them fingers. Mm-hmm. Pandemic insurance company is awesome. Just non-stop rooting for a pandemic.

And then getting one. No, if you're an insurance company, you don't want. a pandemic. Oh, yeah, the people that were paying for pandemic insurance. Who fucking pay? Who do you sell pandemic insurance? Wimbledon got it? I think that's like 100% that's going to be a staple in any franchise.

They'll probably end up paying a million bucks, two million bucks a year. And that'll cover whatever, you know, whatever they want it to cover. Like, that's, you know, what the price will be. But I'm assuming these insurance companies are going to make out. and obviously unless there's like several global pandemics. Yeah, that's crazy. But I think that's a good idea. I think that, you know, it'd be a really cool story if one day we all own part of a team

because we figured something out. Dude, listen to this. I don't know what we'll figure out. Kar Polad tried to sell the twins in 2001 back to major. League Baseball as part of a contraction plan. So he just, like, wanted out. Just like, I'm done. They thought that they were going to move the team.

Yeah, twins don't need to exist anymore. And then they went to court. So like this shit, it's interesting to me. It went to court because Minnesota was like, no, you have a lease on the Metro Dome. You can't leave. So then they stayed and now Jim Poll, I mean, what would Jim have been doing if his dad sold the team?

Probably managing one of the other million dollar businesses. Yeah, it'll be okay. Find a way. They also owned the Vikings for a little bit. That franchise values up. I mean, they got a new stadium. I imagine owning, like, all the teams in the city? The owner of Detroit does that.

So he owns part of, I think, all of them. I know he owns the Red Wings and the Tigers. I don't know about the Lions. The Little Caesars, dude? Yeah, Illich. If you like cardboard pizza, your Tigers fan. It is a good story.

And that guy's really cool. Oh, no, hold on. I don't want to be on camera saying that because there might be some, like, shady things I don't know about Little Caesar's Pizza. It's just bad pizza. There's all all skeletons in every one of these owner's closets. That's how you get that much money. Can we just invent like an app or something? There's a documentary called the Russian Five about the Detroit Red Wings and the owner, the little Sears dudes chronicled in there.

There's actually, in that, he's painted in a nice light. Pretty cool. And yeah, what we mentioned that. Can I ask you something like on air that's maybe confidential? Yeah, you can ask it. So we saw LeBron James and the Houston Astros thing. Yeah. Like it's going to come out on Quibi,

which I don't understand how they're going to make seven minute episodes for that because it seems like it's more of a long form to me. But what do I know? Just an idiot baseball player. Former. yeah is that something that's still going on talks um with the quibby show no oh uh yeah i don't know i can answer that one but with the quibby show they're they've been in contact whatever you've been tough spot about it forget i i hate not being open so jake what do you think

I like that. They've been in contact. I like that. Yeah, that's all I should say. That's pro shit. That's when Plouf starts talking show on us, that's show. Yeah. They've reached out.

That's not what Plufe's asking about. So should I just tight lip the rest of it? Yeah, I just shut up, I guess. Yeah. You never know. Speaking of show, I pose this question. There's like four Astros docks in the works right now. I'll tell you that.

And they all reached out to me. they all are want me to be part of it. No stone unturned and we're just going to keep on doing our best day after day. And like the fact that it's like LeBron is producing is so funny. That's the reason that Quibi went with that doc. Is Quibi going to make it? I've heard it's not good. Quibi bought it.

No, no, no, no. I'm saying like is Quibi the company. Yeah. Big picture. Uh, I don't know. Their numbers are brutal right now. but I guess they have better content coming out, but they blamed it on Corona

and not just like a terrible concept of a streaming app. So I do not want to sit on my couch and watch something on my phone. Well, that's what they're saying is it was supposed to be like a mobile thing. People are moving everywhere watching these shows, but then everyone's not. But they say that, Trev, but then that's also terrible math because people don't commute more often than they sit on their couch. couch people commute for, you know, I think the average commute is probably, I mean, I think 40 minutes is even high if I do average there.

So like you're getting 40 minutes of people's day and that's what you think is worth a billion. Nothing adds up really for the Quibi like game plan for me. You know what I'm saying? If they're like, we're going to capture people on their commutes, that's not that much of the day. You'd much rather capture people when they're just sitting at home on their couch. So I don't even understand the whole point of Quibi. but hopefully I'm on that doc that it's going to be on Quibi so everyone go get Quibi and watch the dock.

Are you in LeBron James like boys? Yeah, he reached out personally. We actually, we met at a blaze pizza and just kind of, you know, talked about investments and cheating and stuff like that. So, yeah, that's pretty cool. I talked about my gray's, so he would feel better about his hairline

and it just kind of, we went off from there. Yeah. Hair buddies. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It was a good combo. Well, we're completely off of baseball, which is great. Yeah, I think we'll just play this tune. We're out. We'll see you on Friday.

Let's go baseball. Make it happen.