Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 153 | Inching Towards an Agreement

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

MLB has floated a counterproposal to the players for 50 games of fully prorated salaries. How much closer does that bring us to an agreement? Trevor Plouffe adds some tidbits he has picked up from around baseball on that and other wrinkles of MLB's potential return. 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. We have a new proposal. We have good faith negotiations. And we've got a country of flame. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Talking Baseball. My name's Jimmy.

Got Trevor Gloop. Biggs. And we've got Jake. That's not it. Maybe with a ball, maybe home run derby on a Little League field. Welcome to the show. It's talking baseball. Jake, how you doing?

Good. two Little League home runs off Andrew Skip back in Middlebury, Connecticut. I'm doing bad, Jim. It's, you know, it's you and I talk to each other a weird amount in a normal day because it's kind of a business now or whatever the hell we're doing. So you and I have run this a few times, and if you hear any of that in my voice, I'm sorry, and I'll try to keep it out because the tone shouldn't change. because America is on fire and it, like, deserves to be at the same time.

It's terrible. We're recording on Blackout Tuesday or whatever we want to call it. Either way, I mean, you know, you and I just took an hour break or like 30 minutes between recording John Boy, Jake, Radio, and now this. And basically, I, you know, took 30 minutes, kind of collapsed, looked at. all the sad stuff on Twitter, got my energy back up, kissed my girlfriend, and now I'm back in front of a mic, and I want to, you know, talk about all that again with you and Trevor, and then maybe a little bit of baseball.

Wow. Trev, how are you doing? That pretty much summed it up. You know, it's an interesting time. I don't know if interesting is the right word. I think that, I think finally, maybe. people are starting to understand the systemic oppression that's been happening in the country for a long time.

And when we did Keyes Town Hall, I mentioned a quote I saw from Will Smith who said, racism isn't getting worse, it's just getting filmed. So, you know, I think the George Floyd thing, how graphic that video was, you know, We've had other videos of this shit go down, which is crazy to think. It's insane to think about that. We've seen this before. But, you know, that video, I think, that was it. And all the protests that you see across the country, I think that, I mean, they're in every city.

It's not just major cities. I mean, my city of Calabasas held a protest last night. stuff you just don't see often. And I think it's exactly what we need right now. Yeah. That's crazy, man. We talked about it a lot, Jake and I on a different show. And I talked about in the morning show,

and it's people that grew up like me and myself, I think, you know, I think how loud it is and how in everyone's face it is, it's breaking through. And I'm not saying that I've ever been part of the problem. but I don't think I've actively been part of the solution for years. And I think that's kind of where I'm realizing like, ah, this is different. I need to get more involved.

And we built these platforms because people like our tears talk on baseball. But I would just feel real shitty about ourselves if we completely avoided it because that is the problem, right? And that's what I would did probably from age 20 to 30 when these things happened. And I think that's where I look back at my past self and say, you didn't do anything. You know, it weren't the problem, not the solution either. And I'm not, you know, being the solution is a tall, probably impossible task.

But I'm not, we're not going to do anything. But if there's people listening and to be very honest about it, baseball is the white sport dominated by, it's called white fanhood. And I guarantee our demographic of our listeners is a lot of young white kids who maybe were like me 10 years ago. And if I can just say, that if I could tell former self like, stop ignoring it, stop saying you're not the problem so this isn't,

so this isn't your fight or you shouldn't be part of the solution. If I can do that to someone that listens to this, I mean, it's just, it's fucked up. And all the stories we talk about about, you know, what like white privilege really is. And yeah, in spades growing up. Like Trev, I used to flag down cops on our college street when we were having parties, underage drinking parties.

I would run in front of the car. blackout drunk and say officer has there been any complaints yet and he would say not yet and i'd say okay thank you you know and if he said yeah we got one then i'd shut down we'd kick everyone out i had a fake siren i would run in front of the street drunk and just flag them down no fear at all like you know because i told another story and the response was yeah well you didn't have fear because you weren't doing anything wrong okay well here's a story where you know i was doing something that probably gets, it's life changing if I'm not a dumb white kid with no fear and all the confidence in the world that they're actually going to protect me and be on my side.

So I think that's where I'm really changing and I'm hoping that if I can just have some other mindsets, you know, that we're like me, just be like, all right, I'm not saying anyone's part of the problem, but there's a difference between not being part of the solution. So that's why I'm that. I totally agree with that. I think that's a great point. I think a lot of white, I don't know, people, white males, I guess I can speak only from the white male perspective.

You know, like you said, I grew up, I was around every damn race. I played baseball. It was around every damn race. Is it dominated by white people? Kind of, yeah. I mean, once you get into pro ball, there's whites, Latin Americans. Not a lot of black guys playing baseball right now, which sucks. We talked about that before.

But because I grew up around everybody and really, again, like you said, I wasn't part of the problem. But what have I done to fix it? Like, why can't young black dudes flag a cop car down and ask if there's been a complaint? Or for help? Or for help. Yeah, well, yeah, no kidding for help. just in general, like that feeling of safety or comfort that you had and that I have had, you know, around police officers, not like I saying, I completely feel comfortable around

police officers. I don't, and that's another problem. But I definitely feel much more safe than, you know, any blackmail out there with police officers. So until they can feel the same way that we feel, you know, there's a problem out there. Yeah. And there's, you know, if you're one of those teenagers with burners that's trying to have a conversation with me online, know that a lot of what I'm putting out there isn't a conversation. And maybe I should break it down in one of those, you know, when you see those flow charts that's like, you know, it's like answer yes or no. And if you answer yes, you go down this path and then you answer no.

And it's like, you know, do you like baseball teams that win a lot? Okay, then you like the New York Yankees. Do you like baseball teams that lose? Here's the Baltimore Orioles. The stuff I'm posting is in a discussion. And the first thing that you need to look at on the list is, do you support black people being murdered for no reason? And then you go, yes or no from there. That's the start of the conversation.

And then you could go into everything. Because guess what? Me and Jimmy did this before. There are good policemen. There's a lot of good policemen. There's a lot of bad ones. We need to focus on them. Yes, all lives matter is the goal.

get anywhere close to that goal, we need to start with Black Lives Matter. So, um, and yeah, I mean, you know, all, all the privileged stuff when Jimmy was in the street talking to the cop, I was probably behind him dancing with my shirt off with a cup in my hand and no, no repercussions. Um, and yeah, I'm not, we, we don't need to tell any more frat stories, but, uh, yeah, if you're, uh, if you're, if you're, if you're one of those kids that's wanting to kind of get into an online bicker just to do it, just the show me wrong, show me stats. why why does my life not matter you need to take a step back answer the first question and then just be better we all need to be better yeah dude it's crazy that the mental pretzels you know

like i did on the morning show i do i just said something like yeah have the conversation man like talk the conversation because we all want to avoid it people like people like grew up like us that like we like my nature like said five 10 years ago would have been to avoid this and not address it and and I'm starting to realize no, you need to have a conversation with everyone. But it's crazy that you say something like it's wrong. And the response, like some YouTube comments are like,

oh, so you're for burning cities? No, man. That's a straw man argument. There's so many straw man arguments for people that just want to refuse the first point that there's something wrong with our society. And then they're like, but it's like, no, no buts. Just accept that it's wrong.

And that's the first step. being part of the solution is accepting that it's wrong. I'm not sure what else anyone else can do. Just accept it. Not only or is that not even really part of the movement, you know, it's been shown on social media that a lot of these looters and rioters aren't even with the movement at all. In fact,

they're instigating this trying to get it to look like black lives matter and everybody protesting peacefully are doing these things. It's just not true. It's so scary, man, like these young white kids that are like throwing bricks and stuff. I don't know what they are, but it's so scary. Yeah.

Fucking be peaceful. I mean, anybody that follows me and like likes the shit I do on social media or with Johnboy, like can you have these views that black people shouldn't be treated equally? Fucking hit that on follow, bro. Yeah. Shout out to Bregman, right?

He's like, KKK's a terrorist unit and someone responded to Bregman and was like, you're about to lose some followers for saying that. And Breggner's like, oh, if hating the KKK loses me followers, like, thank God. Yeah. Again, on Keistown Hall, I was like, dude, yeah, you post something. It's like the easiest way to out racist. Just post something supporting Black Lives Matter. And you're going to lose followers and those people are racist.

So it's great. Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of anonymous accounts too. Those are under my skin pretty good. Oh, I mean, if I was in charge of social media, I would not allow anonymous accounts. But I understand there's rights and stuff around that too. But I wish they had like a picture detector. Is this picture the person who I'm talking to?

If not, mute them across the board. Yeah. It's nuts. All right. Anyway, baseball, there was some good news, which juxtapositioned whatever to the world. Kind of weird. But there was good news.

And I'm taking this as really good news. So we're going to pivot to baseball now. Jeff Passon, what's happening, comes out with his big drop that the owners responded to the player's proposal, which off the bat is a point for the players.

Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oh, boy. Wait. I know they didn't officially, Trev, but whatever. I have to say this, though, Jim, because I got fucking torched for this. the big j journalist came at me said there's no proposal

that's not true i could debunk that in five fucking minutes jeff pass and goes on makes everyone tune into sports center and does the exact same shit except i didn't get my leak to me from rob manfred or mlb i was talking to people and they just told me this stuff and now jeff goes on and does exactly what MLB wants him to do and everyone's praising it and not saying shit to him. I'm sorry, I think that's not critical.

There's no proposal. That is a really good point. I got shit on that. You got a lot of shit from fucking Keith Law. Passon even said you went about it wrong and now they're all doing it. This hasn't been officially proposed, right? He's, I don't, it pissed me off yesterday.

And then I'm like, who cares? it's not that big of a deal. But now they were talking about it out loud. It's like, dude, fuck that. That's funny. I didn't even put that together. Okay. So, yeah, everyone, you know, have Trev's back,

Commissioner Nervalb basketball. I've pushed these guys. They have been working harder. Yeah. Since John Boy Media has come on the scene, taking scoops away, these guys have been working harder, and you're welcome pushing your mother.

That is very hypocritical, Treve. Like, not even joking. Like, it is really hypocritical that they gave you. so much shit and then did the same thing. So it hasn't been proposed yet, but as soon as it is, if it's true, it's a win for the players because we were finally negotiating in good faith, you know, and the players union disregarded, well, the revenues, 50-50 revenue split was never officially proposed.

They leaked it to the media, got so much backlash. It made the players look bad in some people's eyes. MLB said, okay, fine, we won't even propose that anymore. Then they proposed the sliding pay scale. And that was a legit proposal. And the union responded to the sliding pay scale and said, nope, we're not even going to acknowledge that that exists.

Non-starter. Here's a proposal that we made. And their proposal was 114 games, I believe, full pro-rated salaries, expanded playoffs. They'll give them all-star game and all that stuff. And the owners and MLB responded with a counter-proposal, Trev. Like we are actually negotiating now. We're passing back and forth the same proposal kind of

and not just saying non-starter here's ours. Non-starter here's ours. So that excites me. The math also, it's like the players are asking for 114. Now the league says we only want 60, which Trev was also early to letting us know that that's probably what they're doing. The very middle point is 82 games.

I think we're on a great path. There's still a lot to figure out, I guess. But I'm excited. about the announcement and the path we're on. Trev, what's your thoughts on this? I agree with you that there's been some positivity when it comes to talks and negotiations. But I also think this non-proposal, this 40 to 50 games that has being reported, is no different than the sliding pay scale they offered before.

I mean, if you really break it down, they wanted to average everyone making about 30% of their salaries, and that's exactly what's going to happen here. So the numbers haven't changed too much. I do have a tidbit. Oh, you want to play the song? Yeah. I'm ready for the song. All right.

Lay it on us. You guys aren't going to like this one. Here we go. Okay. and I'm not even sure if I should be sharing this, but here, here we are. We're all being open.

So, as we know, there was a call between MLB-M-LBPA, and they were discussing this new, you know, almost proposed proposal, and they were talking about 40, 50 games, and clearly the players don't want to do that because they want to play, they want to play baseball.

They want to play as many games as they can and have the full postseason. Just try to make it as close to a normal season as possible. My tidbits, or my tidbit, is that Manfred on the call was very upset. You also, I don't even want to use the word that was told to me, but. I rate.

He was irate. That's a good word. word for it. That's not the word that I have here, but we'll go with IRA. Bullshit. All right, okay, let's get past the word. Pissed off. Stop. Manfred threatened or I'm this, okay, hold on, I got to be real careful here. I was not on the phone call. Just heard this. I heard that Manfred was very upset, and I heard that he threatened to hold players in breach of contract if they didn't agree to the 40, 50 games, whatever, which will be proposed. Right.

And that is the one scary thing that's been looming for me, because we saw that leak out yesterday that the MLB feels like, and I think there is something in that March agreement that says that MLB will be able to dictate the amount of games or something along those lines. And that is the scariest thing looming over everything, is that, you know, they could say, oh, nope, we agree to 50 games. You have to go play that. And then I think the players are, I don't know if liable is the right word or what it is,

but that is the scariest thing currently looming. I don't know what the count. I don't know what that means if they're just going to stick to the 50 games season. I don't buy it. I buy that Banffert said that. I don't buy that. He'd do that. he's just losing every which way

and the owners are probably giving him shit every which way and he is like, you know, the parent who's, their grandparents are yelling at them and then the kids are also yelling at them and finally they're like, I'm gonna fuck you all up. And that's what man Fred's doing.

But he's just losing power. And I don't think he'd actually do it. I think he's just, they're losing, man. They're losing the PR battle. The owners and MLB are losing everything. So it probably just, I, who knows,

that would be so bad that to even like so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so bad. The season would be canceled. The CBA would probably strike next year. And then we'd probably have no baseball for two and a half years. If the owners were to let, I'll just, I'm going to hang my microphone up and go.

It would be, it would be catastrophic. It would be so bad. the owners can't allow Manfred to do that. He's probably like off leash a tiny bit. He's like, you got no idea what these guys are going to do to me. And just trying to get any control of players. I got Manfred as a scared guy right now.

Just the final part of the dance, Trevor and James and, hey, big baby David, we see you down there. But because think about the other thing that happened this weekend and then got washed over immediately because nobody gave a shit. but it was the owner saying, hey, there's owners out there that don't mind if we miss this season. Nobody gives a shit. That was a last ditch effort to try to get some of the players on their back heels. Trevor, I laid out three options.

I am the troll next to the bridge who laid out the three options last week. It was three. We're getting canceled. This ain't happening. It was one, we are in a nasty negotiation and they are going to go back forth. Or B, it was the owner'ss. are fine with what was laid out in that original March contract, but they are wired to basically negotiate for sport, and that's exactly where we're going to land.

You know what the owners might get from this? They might get a postseason home run derby and all-star game, which I've been pushing for anyways, owners, you're welcome. We might get some more guys miced up. Oh, shit, that'd be great for the game. And you know what the owners might get? Maybe they get a couple more games saved. Maybe they get it cut down to 75. don't give a shit. That's all the owners have been doing from the start. The players and the union stand it strong on their laurels. Tony Clark will maybe get some love at the end of this.

But is that not how the rest of this is going to play out? The owners are going to say 60. The players will go 95. Okay, 65, 85. And that's where we're going to get. I just, you know, me and Jim, we decided we're going into the blind realm of confidence that this has to happen. I think, well, everything going on in the world is not good, but it's completely overshadowed baseball, which is fantastic.

Nobody cares about the owner's smear campaigns or anything they're trying to do. Even if a player said something dumb right now, they'd say, hey, that's really dumb. Go look outside your window. So we're on the path. Option two was right. I tried to find a ding, ding, ding bell for you, Jake. So, you know, we could be like, it was option two, right? I'm fucking hot, man.

Everyone's talking about woke Jake and stuff. Just because I'm not being a human idiot on scene. Something people don't know about me is I have a strangely okay logic. And that's why all the stuff that's happening out in the world, I sound smart for once because I have good logic. I know you can't just kill people for their skin color. That's not being woke. That's being logical.

The ding sound effect didn't work. It was supposed to be a ding, ding, ding, ding. like the truth he's saying the truth but instead it was just kind of like uh you're not monitoring the front desk right now can you come yeah but yeah jane that's fine i'll take that i have never rang a bell before i would like to like okay i had a front like a front desk of a hotel oh okay never asked for help you have those anymore i think yeah i think so if you're at a place that are like you know someone's not working the the desk later and at night and you need to talk to someone you always feel rude doing it but it but the people want

you to do it because they want to help you they're just where are they that they're not at the front desk like you know back office texting sometimes at the local CVS there's a you know at night there's only like two workers and they're stocking shelves or something so you just give a little ding ding and then they're like okay I'll come get you I bet the hotel you stayed at in Montana had a bell they were always there man well that's they're good workers I got a few points let's get back on thank you here Got a few points. So yeah, I'm cool now, which is huge. You know, they've really, I think you talked about the options.

I think one other scenario might come about. They might have backed themselves into a corner so much here that they're going to dig in and try to fight their way out of it, which is a little scary. I got them caving, man. I got them cait. I got, you know. Dude, remember how we speak of these people in times of,

when times are better, savage, ruthless businessmen who most of the time just have other savage, ruthless businessmen doing the job for them? Like, we always talk, like, individually, these people are probably fine, but they have hordes of people around them trying to make sure their financials stay hot. I'm, here's, here's the thing. I'm optimistic right now. If Jakey is Jakey Logic, I'll be Jimmy Intuition. Okay. So the owners tried the sliding pay scale, and I bet that was run by a group of owners who are small but loud saying,

we can win this. We got this. And maybe they're losing money. And they tried the sliding pay scale, and they got ran out the gym. They got embarrassed. It was a bloodbath. Now they're doing all these.

minor league pay cuts. The nationals cut everyone. The players pick up the tab. David Price picks up the tab. So now you got, bam, round two. Owners just lost a back-to-back rounds in the PR battle. And we've documented they never lose the PR battle, Trev. The owners have the public wrapped around their fingers.

So now we got two, right? Now, with this proposal, the players are asking for 114 games. The owners are asking for 50. Who's serving the fan better there? Now, I understand they lose money with every regular season game, so they don't want to do $140. Allegedly. Allegedly, according to their books.

But I think there's a handful of owners who are trying to strong arm the group because they're going to lose money, and they were like, we can bust the union, we can divide their ranks, and I bet there's a, the ownership group is now swifting, where you have people that want baseball, don't want to lose money, want the value of their franchise to stay higher, and I think they are going to slide in and be like,

you guys are embarrassing us. Let's just get this done. Move forward. And I think that's what's happening in the ownership group. When we look back at these negotiations, the turning point to get back to the March agreement, which is crazy that we had to go with this huge roundabout way to get back there. The turning point will be, ironically,

the way that they treated minor leaguers. And I think because of that, you know, we were talking numbers before. I got the Nationals, Forbes financials up right here. They bought the team in 2006, 14 years ago, for $450 million. That team is worth $1.9 billion right now. That means they've made $1.5 billion in the last 14 years.

That's $100 million a year. their franchise has gone up. $100 million a year their franchise has gone up in value. The Nationals won the World Series last year. $30 million of that was the player bonus. Okay, do players keep all that bonus? No, they don't fucking keep all that bonus.

You know what they do? You sit around and you say, who's important to our baseball team? Let's divvy up these shares. They gave out 60-something shares last year. There's only 25 on the roster, maybe 35 players, maybe 35 players helped out. And those guys aren't getting full shares, the guys that came up for half a year, a quarter of the year.

You know who is getting full shares? The security guard, the traveling secretary, all sorts of other people who are not employees of the players, they're employees of the organization. The players are giving their portion of the playoff proceeds to, these people. Who knows? I can't even find a number for how much money the Nationals made from the World Series last year. It's got to be a lot. Did they share any of it with their employees? Fuck no. You know what they did? They tried to cut off their minor league system, release players, say they're not going to pay them $400 a week. They're trying to save a million bucks.

They've made $100 million. Each year they've owned this franchise just on the franchise value alone, not even accounting for revenue. So they do this stupid shit, players step up, they have to reverse course the very next day. It's the worst look you could have as an Astros. We are praising them as an organization, coming back, you know, winning all those games, taking down the Astros last year. And now we're, this is where we're at with this fucking organization. Okay, so Jake and I've had some discussions on this and there was.

Sorry, I'm fucking pissed. was like I went up and researched it, Jake, because the last two times we talked about this, I didn't have all the numbers and info. Sure. And I'm going to play the other side here on this, Trev, because the players are using this to create bad PR for the owners, which is phenomenal. But, and some teams deserve it like the A's, the Nationals cut 40 players. Those 40 players would be cut whether this was Corona, whether this was no season,

no matter what, because we are, uh, shrinking the minor league system, right, to only four affiliates per team now. The draft is coming up where they'll sign people. It's only five rounds, and then they'll get unrestricted free agents. So, you know, the Yankees did 45 players, and I was looking and reading, and that's normal. You know, at the end of spring training and then at June, 40 guys get cut from these teams every year as they prepare to... Because they're playing bad. Yes, they don't...

Nobody's fucking playing right now. And that's the part you're missing, Jim, is it's the opportunity. to compete and they don't have that right now. Yes. So yes, guys would be getting cut and the odds of a lot of these guys making the major leagues is highly slim. And we talked about that in the MLB-M-I-L-B contraction stuff we did, but it's the circumstance and they didn't get the shot.

Yes, I understand that. But, you know, I understand it from if you're like a numbers guy from the nationals. You're like, well, you know, we cut 40 guys every season anyway. and just because we didn't play doesn't mean we're going to pay 40 guys extra. Like there is something there. It's not as ruthless and mean and cruel as it's being depicted, but it's a win for the players. I don't know because $400 a week.

Yeah, the money's not a lot at all. But I'm just saying like it is like, you know, the standard operating procedure in a way. You can say this is just, but I'm also not saying that the standing operating procedure isn't fucked up to begin with. But that's a much larger issue. been looming for a while about how little minor league players are being paid. I do think that players in the union saw an opportunity and just absolutely demolished it

to make the owners look as bad as possible. Think about this, Jim. We've been talking like we're like what we want to help minor leagueers. We've been brainstorming how to do it. We're a company that has not affiliated with any baseball team. We just want to help because it's stupid what they're doing. how bad can you mess something up? If you're the Washington Nationals,

a million dollars is absolutely nothing to your bottom line. And you're going to go out and do... This is why I'm telling people, individually, I don't think these owners made that decision. That's what I'm saying. It's just kind of the standard operating procedure that the front office did. They need to have better people

in understanding what they just did. Because that set their franchise back. Yeah, I mean, I did. And we could go on the A's and talk about them, which is a whole different thing. Fuck the A's. That's what really pisses me off. Fuck the A's. What they're going to release somebody.

They can go get a job, go get unemployment, whatever it is they need to do. If you're just going to tell guys you're going to stop their pay but not release them, they can't go get unemployment. They're not free agents. Can they go get a job and work somewhere? Sure. But there's 40 million people unemployed. The jobs aren't there right now. Fuck the A's.

man. What the A's are doing is cruel. It's a whole different league of, you know, what... It's all stupid. And to my point, this is, this is going to be, this is the turning point. And this go-round of negotiations, this fight between MLBPA and MLB, this is the turning points, how they treated their minor leagueers. And, and, which I wanted to finish saying before, was the players association has to do something. Not just individually have the national step up, David Price, fucking awesome. Like, he shouldn't be doing this. MLBPA as a whole should do something and say any minor leaguer that's furloughed or,

you know, not giving their pay, we're going to step up for you. Scott Boris is doing it too. Scott Boris, awesome. Great. It's a great PR for Scott Boris. He's been phenomenal through this. So, yes, this is, they really, they lost you. For anyone that doesn't know, Scott Boris is paying for any minor leaguer that he has that just got cut.

He's paying them the remainder of their year, which actually only goes through August, I think. But he's paying them and saying they planned to be paid and they didn't get a chance to play and win the jobs on pay for him. And, yeah, it's smart by Boris. The teams end up looking bad again. I want to bring it back to Jakey Logic and what's happening again because Jim what you just mentioned I do get what you are saying

that in a normal world these people would have been cut at anyway and they look at it as a business and what Trevor was saying, these guys are businessmen. I mean, that's how they got these teams. That's part of the reason they've grown so much. That's how they make money. But we've been wondering for weeks, for weeks, and I mentioned it briefly before,

what were the players going to offer them? Because they want to get something. And the biggest thing that we haven't mentioned yet that the players threw out there, the home run derby's nice, the All-Star Game after the season, you know, those could be nice, fun things to watch or whatever. But the real money is they offer two years of the playoff format. And that would be money this year, the money that they're banking, on and they kind of everyone has agreed that we need to make this year work.

But next year, that could be crazy money. So, and we finally kind of found out what the players are going to offer that the owners can walk away with. So I think that is another big step that's kind of being overlooked. Yeah, no, that's, we kept saying the owners need to win and doing extended playoffs next year is big because they've wanted that even before Corona. They wanted to expand the playoffs. So now you get it for this season and next season when the market might be corrected

and there's more money to go around and all that. I mean, that's a really good, yeah, that's the big win as well as the All-Star game and the mic'd up and all that nonsense and which is good for the sport. So I'm feeling confident that we're going to land around 80 games with the playoffs next year and everything else. I'm feeling good about it. I like it. I mean, I think we're going to play baseball.

I honestly don't know about the games. I think they might continue to hold out last desperation claw at a victory. I think they might hold out like Jake was saying earlier. Screw 81 games. Screw half a season. Let's try to get it down to 70. Dude, I saw people responding to this. Like, 80's not even enough.

and I'm like, well, how are you? Like, guys, we're like very close to not, we're having zero. And I didn't want like 30. I've said that. And I know 50 is sure. I don't think it's going to land at 50. But like, I saw people getting mad at 50. Like, guys, 80s the max we're going to get.

I, um, speaking of that, um, I have another tidbit. We don't have to play tidbit music. I do love that song. Thank you. What's his name, Bobok? Bubok. Boobok. What's that, play? Don't play it. Don't play it. Don't play it. Don't you dare. Don't you dare play it? He said no.

So, I was talking to a front office employee, and I was mentioning, hey, like, they're, Texas. I think we're going to get some fans in the stands, you know. And someone that I, we all bounce business advice off. he's fully thinking that by the time the World Series comes around, we're going to have, you know, a lot of people in the stands. Well, even in a full capacity, but. I told Jake, if all this happens, like in two weeks from now, if there's not a tick up of corona cases,

then everything's going to go back to normal because guess what? You got every single major city has people breathing on each other in these protests outside. So, like, if we don't see a tick up from these, it's almost a great case study where, okay, I guess we're all right. And then we'll see when fall comes and all that, you know, but. Yeah, they are, so the person I talked to, they said that they've already had internal discussions

about how they would handle that. 5,000. They've done a scenario for that. 10,000, they've done a scenario for that. 15,000 they've done a scenario for that. So these teams are prepping for fans and how to, handle them in the pandemic age. But I think it's a good sign that like, you know,

barring unforeseen circumstances, I always have to say that now because people don't just let that be implied. If we're on this track, I think we're going to see fans. And man, I've got to tell you, the playoffs, if there's fans in the stands for the playoffs, it's going to feel like legit. Yeah, empty stadium's not going to feel legit. to me, man. It's going to be weird.

Hey, one battle out of time, Trev. Yeah. You're right. But I think if this comes to fruition, yeah, if this comes to fruition and we get fans in the stands by the time playoffs starts, man, the owners will be happy. We can, you know, we can, you know, caress their back a little bit and say, you guys okay now? You got some fans in the stands?

It's good. So, um, definitely feels like option number two or whatever Jake's option was where the owner said, yeah, we're fine with that. But let's see what we can do. Let's see if we can get anything better. And I'm telling you, I think there's in the ownership. I think the ranks got divided in the ownership group because the union stood so strong,

where now you have the owners who are like, why are we doing this? We all agreed that this was our fine as a fallback. Quit the bullshit. I think that's what, I think that's what's going on behind the scenes there. Did you, did you talk about, I'm sorry, did you talk about Jack Flaherty and his coming on the show and how I think how we think that was a pretty powerful moment for the players association it was well jack spoke really well and said you know he explained which you know i didn't put the math on that hey the older guys took the cut for us and gave us the service time so we're

going to protect them and we got some feedback that you know people on the other side of the wall listened to that episode and we're like oh i get it now they are are or or I understand a bit more. They are really, their mindset clicks a bit more now. So, I mean, yeah, hey, Jack wanted to come on the show. We actually do have a show here that goes places. People listen in other, in different rooms that you would expect, you know, not just fans. So it's good a fan.

Jack was awesome. If you haven't listened to that, go listen to that. We wanted to sneak a little precursor into the Oscar Mercado interview because we recorded that before the weekend and a lot of stuff went down, but we didn't. So if you were wondering about that, there's that. And yeah, I mean, I think my last semi-jakey prediction is I think for this week, you'll see a couple things of Manfred saying that thing, like, hey, you know, we get to dictate the final number of games. You're going to hear that until about the end of the week. Then I think, you know, June 7th, June 8th, because, hey, why not push it to the end just to see if the players

crack. And then they'll say, all right, let's do it. Half a season. We'll figure out the fan stuff if they've come, like Trevor mentioned. But yeah, it seems like it's going to happen. Boy, if they take an ugly twist from here, just what a giant massive mistake in the baseball world and just in the world. It wouldn't surprise. 2020? It would not surprise me. Do you want to, You want to hear, like, okay, let's just jump off a baseball train real quick. Good. And get people some perspective on what the hell has happened this year. Mm-hmm.

2020. We had a World War III scare. We had the Australian fires. People forget about those. Obviously, Kobe and Gigi and all the others on the helicopter ride, RIP. the coronavirus pandemic? Yeah, that's a big one. Murder hornets?

Nah, not lumping them in. NASA discovered a parallel universe where time works backwards. Yeah. Confirmed UFO sightings, many of them. Which got swept under the rug very quickly, which probably shouldn't. Kim Jong-un sort of dies and then doesn't die at all. Obviously, George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Ahmed Arbery. We have all the riots, the looting, the protests.

And then to top it off, just to top it off, Anonymous is back. I was excited for like two seconds about Anonymous, and then they clearly don't have shit. I don't think that that's the case. The Anonymous that I know, the 2012-2013 Anonymous, they don't do. warnings and just fucking deliver the drugs. They drop some stuff, which got, again, like the media, the media is insane. You can't, to get a story to like stick in the media now is nearly impossible. What'd you say about alternative universe?

Yeah. That's a parallel universe. There's a parallel universe where time travels backwards, so it's like Benjamin Butt and shit. So that's cool. What does that mean? I don't know. Go look it up, Jim. You're a researcher.

It's like a real article. It's like real scientist. and shit. It's kind of bizarre. It's like don't read it high stuff. Can you like enter it? I don't even get it. I would like to go in there for a few days and just kind of get back to my 20s. That'd be sick. Right. Yeah. But yeah, it's crazy. Trev, I know that, you know, that timeline's obviously crazy. You could have done one, I think all of last week you could have done one that would blow people away just between, you know, George Floyd.

You know, if you want to work baseball stuff in, fine. If not, also fine. SpaceX. And like you could, you could point to stuff last week that would have been like, wow. Gramps, you watched a fun. You lived a crazy life. And it's like, nah, that was last week, man. We just in the 60s again, race riots and going to the moon and space?

Yeah. Was there a baseball fight then? Were there murder hornets? Was there a pandemic? The murder hornets are. I know. You lumping them in with everything else was disrespectful. I'm sorry. They just have a cool name. Really cool. They had one day. Jake became a hat guy in 2020. That's huge. An on-air hat guy when I haven't showered, which has been a lot lately. Yeah. I also feel like people are wearing hats a lot lately because the barbershops are closed. Like, yeah.

Jake's last haircut was spring training. I have to wear a hat. My last haircut was right after. Sergio Romo. Andy Fade, sliced you up, bro. We're both still tricking them, you know? Different ways. Oh, man.

Don't even bring up spring training. No, no, we can't. That doesn't even feel real. I watched some of the videos the other day, Trave. I told you,

it was awesome. Some guy responded, I said, like, we're going to land at 82 games. Some guys are like, why not 81? What's going to make me mad is when people are going to be like,

we're going to start this season on July 2nd, and people are going to be like, like, you weren't right about the dates you gave out. I don't care about being right. I don't care, dude. You care. I want you to be right, too.

And you've already been, it's already been proven that your information was good. That's what I'm saying. I'm not giving false information for clicks. I'm not giving anything except what I hear, what I think people want to hear or deserve to hear. Okay? Like, I'm not making shit up.

I never will. I'm not going to have some whack-ass source. All of my people that are telling me things are well-connected in the game. So, you know, if the dates end up being June 15th and July 2nd, whatever. I don't care. Keith Law is probably going to talk some crap to me. You know what we should find, Jake and BPD? Can we find a home run that Trev hit against the Yankees and find the Sterling call for it?

I saw a Trevor Plouffe highlight the other day, completely accidental on the internet. Trevor, do you remember this? And maybe it wasn't you and it was just another handsome guy in it, uh, in an A's jersey. But he's highlight. Those are very slim. Yeah. I mean, you were, you were looking good. But I thought it was that Trevor Plouf power stance.

What was it? Uh, it was at the stadium. I'm like covering my butt so quickly here because I'm pretty sure it was you, but I'm also not sure it was you. But you popped up towards the second base right field area. And the second baseman was running out. Let me see, I've got the right year. I do, I think. The second baseman, Starlin Castro, bobbled it, and it popped up into Aaron Judge's glove.

Do you remember any of this? Was this you? I think I could remember I think I remember something like that happening I definitely popped a lot of balls up towards that area in my figure I think

I think that makes that sounds right I remember that play I think I was at that game here Oakland at New York Judge Tips CC was pitching yeah it's ploof number three

I was with the raise No Oakland Oh yeah I was number three with Oakland I was 14 with the race Sorry. Worn that jersey. So many teams, bro. I played for so long.

We've both worn that jersey, Trevor. That's true. It's true. Dude, let me tell you, man. When I came to New York with the A's, I had a night. Yeah? Yeah? You want to close with that?

I mean, at early morning, five, five in the morning, walking, getting raised pizza. Mm. And then I show up to the park. Here we go. You versus Cici. Trevor's so confident right now. Gosh, it pulled that ball. Slider jams him.

Starlin pops it up, out of his glove, Aaron Judge snags it. Is that Memorial Day? They're wearing like Camo Unis. Yes. Yeah, it had to be because I got released and then traded in June. So. Okay.

So you don't remember that play? That could have dunked in. I do, I do. If Aaron Judge wasn't so damn good. He's a good player. Oh, thank you. There's that show in the war. Jeter probably drops that ball.

Do you, do you, well, he's not a right-field? He was great on pop-ups. He was great on pop-ups. Do you like John Sterling? Do you know John Sterling? Can I play you a John Sterling clip to end the show today? I know who he is, and I've listened to him. Sure, yeah.

Do you want to hear his call after Masahiro Tanaka through a complete game shutout versus the race? I guess. The sun will come out. Tanaka. Bet your bottom dollar with Tanaka. The sun will shine. Anyway, Tanaka.

Anyway. I don't know, man. Dude, he's the best. He loves Broadways and musicals, so he makes references to him all the time, but, like, no one knows what he's referencing. Is he the one that goes like, an A-Bomb from A-Raw? Yeah, he has calls. Yeah, if he, if you, if you,

were, oh, that'd be fun. If you were a Yankee, what would your John Sterling call be? I don't know. Everyone just uses my last name for stupid. He would go weird, man. Yeah, he'd probably go really weird. Because he doesn't like doing the obvious thing. So it wouldn't be like a ploof, there it goes, or anything like that.

Puff, puff, puff. Like if he used ploof, I think he would do like a full magician's trick before that. I got one. I think I know what he would do. Okay. He would say a fiddler. on the ploof. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, not a bad one.

That's pretty good. Not a bad one. That's a good call. Yeah. But he would like sing a song from it. Yeah, like, isn't Urchella's, uh, uh, at five, I went to Hebrew school at nine. I learned a trade. Uh-huh.

Tradition. Pluuf. No, that's not what he could. That's too. It's too much going on. It was fun. I liked it. It's fun.

We need our Yankee fans to come up with Sterling calls. Like, listen to, uh, G. That ball is high. It is far. And it is God. Gio O'Shella, the most happy fella. The most happy fella. He homers' his first Yankee home run.

It's unique. I like that. When they came over to the booth to ask him about it, like the TV crew, they were like, well, you know what's from, Mary's a blah, la, musical. They're like, no, dude. No one knows that. Do you want to know what pisses players off more than anything in Yankee's? Yankee Stadium.

Opposing players. That damn whistle after you strike out. Oh my goodness. You want to punch the PA system. Hey man, PC Richards and Sons. Why don't you boycott them? I mean, it's pretty funny because anything that makes people upset after they strike out is kind of funny.

But it's definitely gotten to me a few times. I'm like, fucking that damn whistle. Jam, I'm sure the internet was in the way a little bit. bit, but on my end, you and I were in perfect whistle lockstep. It was like beautiful, man. We did that on Twitter a couple years ago where we had people whistle in the PC Richards. Is it PC Richardson? It's a sponsored whistle after strikeouts.

And some of the Yankee fans were really good at it. What's that, BD? It's either that or WB Mason. I think it's P.C. Richardson. I think that one's P.C. Richard and some of it used to have W.B. Mason sound. Are you good at it? Can you do the whistle B.B.D? No, I can't whistle at all. Oh, okay.

Oh, my goodness. Bro. He's got bad teeth, drive. He was born with bored. He was born with bad teeth. Born with bad teeth. All right. We're out of here.

Thank you guys for hanging out and chatting with us. We'll be back later.