Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 436 | How to Fix the Tanking Problem

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

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Hello and welcome to Talk in Baseball. The Brain Trust is here. Myself, Trevor BPD. We are fixing, tanking in baseball. Let's do it. And welcome back to Talk in Baseball. We're coming live from the Draft King Studio. Myself, BPD, Trevor Plouffe, out on the left coast.

JOM boy and JOM Baby and Jom wife and Jom moms are going. on vacation to Puerto Rico. I think they should be pulling up soon. They left this morning happy for them, deserve it and need it all around. So we're happy for them. Meanwhile, we keep rowing the boat. Two guys, three guys here that never go on any vacations

or never do anything. I just got back from Florida. Trev gets on a plane in about an hour. Don't talk about my personal. I'm talking about your personal life. Fine. Hey, everyone. Hope you had a good weekend.

Trev, Big Baby Trevor. Yes. How you doing, Big Dog? You want to, I mean, I just revealed a little bit, but how is your weekend and how is your next 10 hours? Guys, I'm so happy to be here. Talk and Shop with you. That's going to be the theme today. We're just talking some shop.

And by the way, we're going to fix the tanking problem that baseball has. So no big deal. It's just a light work on it. What is it? Monday? Is Monday the 13th scarier than Friday the 13th? Yes. In my eyes it is.

Because Friday, you know, you could, Freddie Krueger could be there, but still you can go out later, and then there's Saturday and Sunday to recover. So anyways, I am going to the Monday night football game tonight. It's going to be fun. I'm praying.

The Rams have a better outcome than they did the last time they played the Cardinals because that wasn't fun. I was there for that one too. but that is that's nothing to do with what's going on now we missed James who are wishing him well on his vacation he's going to be like all tan probably

is it sunny in Puerto Rico right now gotta be gotta be gotta be but I'm doing great BBD you big freaking handsome stud you introduced us BBDGF how are you doing Treve doing great A big

A big couple weeks for me You know The girl as you alluded to Moved to the city on Friday So Adult now Walked a dog for the first time this weekend It was noodle

BPD's a man Hot BD's a man He's got the girl He just moved to the city Again he kind of blew Everyone's mind in the office this morning He walked my dog noodle

While I was away and it was the first time he's walked a dog in his life. I've been on walks with dogs. This is the first time I've been holding the leash. It's insane. Never owned one. It's insane. It's insane.

BBD, you were like Don Draper. Do you know who that is? Oh, yeah. I've seen the men. That's you. Yeah. You're at the beginning stages of Don. Dong Draper.

Sorry, sorry. If you start drinking scotch at six or six, six or seven in the morning, six or six in the morning. How about that one? Lots of scotch. I don't drive to work anymore, so yeah. Guys, we are going to talk this episode. I went to another wedding over the weekend.

Already revealed some of the tales from that wedding. Might save it for the back end a little bit. Got pretty twisted up. You sent me some pictures. Yeah, I was drunk texting Trev. I was sending pics. I let out a couple bad tweets. It's not a great look.

Not a great look. Had a good time. Celebrities recognized at the wedding. Not a big deal. Trev, we sat down and we said, what should we do for the people this Monday? Should we go deep dive into who's left in free agency? Should we do who signed?

You guys already kind of know. You know, we'll have some apps around different topics going forward. we love a good article. We're a reading pod. Have you been reading lately, Treve? I feel like you were on a reading kick and I haven't heard anything in a little while. I do enjoy reading.

I'm a nighttime reader. So it's tough for me. It takes me a while to finish stuff, but it's my way of going to sleep. Every once in a while I'll have a show that I watch, but if I'm going to bed, I start reading a book, it's like basically melatonin for me. Lights out.

Sean Merriman. And we said, you know what? Jim's out. You know, we, me and Trevor, deep thinkers. Sometimes we use some chemicals to help us think even deeper. And one of my short kings, probably a Mount Rushmore baseball short king, Jason Stark, had an article on the athletic where you can. also find a nice article about our friend Chris Rose that came out today.

Our guy, Stephen Nesbitt, put that up there. Really good read about King Rosie Treves. Treves made. Treves made on baseball today. Our Pops, the company's dad. So that was good. But Jason Stark had an article that was the how to solve MLB's tanking problem. And, you know, this has been a discussion. and it's kind of one of the big ones now.

I know we are a labor pod where the world's number one labor pod. But when we zoom in, and I think it's kind of something that both sides agree to a degree needs to get better is tanking. And we've seen it across all sports. I know all three of us are pretty big sports guys, and NBA had a pretty big problem with it for a little while. they're addressing it. It's still there. NFL is kind of interesting because the season's so short and guys put their bodies on the line

that tanking really doesn't happen. You know, in a way it does. There's the tank for Tuas stuff that didn't really pan out. Yeah, you tank for all these quarterbacks and then they're just brutal. Yeah, I don't know. It's like once you get

to a certain point in the season, like yeah, I think teams will not necessarily like organizations. go all in. But, the players try their home. You know, guys are putting their bodies on the line. Yeah, it's, you know, front offices can tank. Players kind of can't take with that's that whole discussion.

But Stark had an article on it. And, you know, there's been a few articles on this. And everyone zooms in on the draft. And Treb, before we deep dive into it, I want to tell you about a draft I was drinking the other day out of my dugout mug. Wow. Bears and mugs. It's the only way to get yourself the civil.

Silver Daisy is the dugout mugs. You guys already know. I mean, I don't have to tell you. Trev's holding his knob shot right there. Throw that in every stocking you see. Let's get turned up this Christmas. Like, you know. Can we still get it by Christmas? Are we allowed? I think. What are they saying about that? It doesn't say, it says there's no restrictions here. I know their ship time is normally pretty good. It's December 13th. So I think you'd still be good. Get it in, peeps. Get it in. These are great gifts. And like you said, stocking stuff, are you kidding me? Starting to get to a point where maybe they can't promise it. I don't know what they're promised it. I don't know. I'll reach out. We'll be there around that time.

Yeah. Put a little milk in there. Leave a knob shot out. Put a little of BBD's whiskey in there now that he's Dong Draper. Go get a bunch of knob shots for everyone. Turn up this holiday like I did at the wedding. My goodness. Stop serving me. Stop serving me. What are you drinking? Oh my God. Go get yourself a dugout mug and get your loved ones a dugout mug. Code Johnboy, 30% off at dugout mugs.com, code Johnboy. Hot. Let's, I want to tell you some weddings, but we should. Let's talk a little baseball.

Trev, Jason Stark. We'll get there. One of my short kings. The big thing he tackles throughout this article, which is a really good read. It kind of starts and stops with the draft, which I, I don't know. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around a little bit more. He has some good points in there about the value you see at the top end of the draft compared to the middle. So I don't know.

Let's start there. Let's start there. Please. I think that is, you know, Jason makes a good point. Everyone talks about how the draft is a crapshoot. And it is. Trust me, it is. Go look at the numbers.

I always say that. Go back and look at drafts. top prospect list from five years ago. Look at the names, people. See how many you know. You won't know a lot of them. Okay, it's just, it's a numbers thing. Jason does say there is a split when you get to those top picks.

He went specifically to the top three picks. And if you look at the difference in war generated by those top three picks from the, I think you went 2010 to 2018 or something like that. The war generated by the top three picks dwarfs anything, any other grouping of picks in that first round. So there is some more certainty as you get to the top of the draft, that very elite, elite player. And then it drops off. There's a lot of projections and stuff that never come about. But that, I think, is the caveat.

When we do say the draft is a crapshoot and the prospects rankings are a crapshoot. When we're talking first overall picks or top one, like that one to two to three top 100 prospect in all of baseball, that is more of a, you can bet on those guys, at least reaching the big leagues and having some sort of career. Whereas the rest of the draft is literally just a shot in the dark, informed shot in the dark. How about that? Yeah, the way that Stark laid it out in the article, I mean, he shows the draft pick value. 2010 through 2018. Because if you think about it, guys drafted in 2019, there's only a couple of those guys in the show.

So you're going to leave out those data points as of now. Number one picks with a total of 117 war. Bryce Harper leads number one picks in that with 40. Number two picks, 81.4. Number three, 74.6. Chris Bryant. Mani Machado, is the number three. pick 45.2 career war for Manny Machado. Yes.

We need to like talk about him more. I guess he's got that rich neighbor that steals a lot of the headlines, huh? And then where the reference point moves to, our pick 16 through 20, because that's where, and the proposal that Jason is mentioning here, the top of the draft would then become the first teams that miss out on the playoffs. So this year, the number one pick would have been the 91 and 71 Toronto Blue Jays. So, and then it would have been the Mariners, Athletics, Reds, and Phillies. So it becomes interesting because, again, everything we've talked about in the CBA, the past couple episodes, my mind starts spinning to how teams are going to manipulate this.

And I know you were thinking the same way. But, you know, it really is, it feels like an interesting. way, because teams want to make the playoffs, right? Like there's some incentives there, and it's still incentivizing the rest of the teams to be good. So you can kind of chase those draft picks in a winning way. I don't know. It's definitely, we're outside the box,

but it's not like game-changing revolutionary. I don't know. I guess the question, and it's how much would this really change things? And for me, I guess I'm a little skeptical kind of going back to the idea of draft picks and how valuable they are. Because, you know, those top three picks, you're right. I mean, with how much scouting and how much natural ability guys at that part of the draft have. There's a clear advantage. I just don't know if it really solves.

I feel like that's maybe, that feels like step three out of five to solve tank. I don't know if it's the number one. yeah there's a lot of things like making sure you know a percentage of revenue is used actually to better your club we talked about that last pod where there's a gray area where you could say anything better at your club hey i got some new pine tar rags offense going to click now and that's the that's what you're talking about the manipulating the language in these agreements they're very good at it and both sides can do it it's just that the players really don't as soon as an agreement is signed there's nothing you know the players can necessarily do the teams control all of

the moves you know what i mean so that's kind of what we're talking about there um i do want to point out that this is another i don't know if this is a straight attempt but it's happening this is another division uh that the union and baseball fans because i think everybody enjoys like a topic like this, it's dividing MLB teams. Now, if you're an upper echelon team that is, you know, looking to compete year in and year out, maybe, you know,

you're considered a big city, big market, so you're spending money. This is beautiful to you. You get to go contend for the playoffs every year and guess what? If you fall just short, instead of it being a complete waste of a year and you having a back end pick, now

you either get the playoffs or you get a high pick. The low-end teams, the teams that aren't spending money and aren't really trying to compete, they are going to hate this. I mean, that's the whole point of them saving payroll, accumulating draft picks. They're going after the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs model, that really hasn't been successful, save a few teams. And those two teams we found out were, you know, or at least one of them was doing some interesting stuff.

But this is driving a stake right in the middle of these MLB teams. And I love it because this is what MLB has done to the, the players time and time again during these agreements and during these, you know, these labor talks. It's just another, but I agree with you when you said this is not the only thing that's going to save tanking or save baseball from tanking. This is like step two, I would say. And that's, I guess that's where I'm trying to mentally get to is what's, what's the

solution? Because I, you know, I'm the Baltimore Orioles. if this draft stuff, if these draft changes were implemented in 2017, I don't think the Baltimore Orioles last four seasons change. Like I still think they just stink and then they have an even worse minor league. Like I don't.

And you know what that incentivizes though? It's incentivized you to go out and get some players. You can go buy players. There's free agents. You can make trades. Like this makes you have to think instead of just sitting back for three or four years being like, well, our hands are tied because we're in a rebuild.

That will stop that. And there's still an emphasis on player development for the minor leaguers you have. Someone can get those guys as good as possible. I guess, I mean, and I wasn't saying that, like, I feel bad for Oriol fans. Like, that's a strong fan base down there. It's a really cool baseball stadium. Like, they shouldn't have to go through that. there's someone in the chat saying MLB wants to get rid of revenue sharing and also stop

tanking oxymoron logic by the MLBPA. I'm going to address this because it's my point about this is an attempt to divide the teams. Both of those issues divide MLB teams. So you've got to think about strategy here. As dumb as that sounds, you know, the PA doesn't have necessarily a ton of leverage. So they have to be smart about what they do. And again, we've seen MLB do this.

I'm going to say to us because I was part of the committee that they did this to. We've seen them do it to us. So it's nice to have a little bit of volley back to him. Say, here, now what do you think of that? Now you want to negotiate in good faith? Okay. God, I love when we say in good faith. Might get that inked on me.

I guess my thing jumps to. Treve, you know this. We're business. man, you me and BBD were deep in the crypto world, we're financially stable. We'll leave this company soon. Yes, I'm getting fired by you and John, baby. Money is what makes the world go around.

And I think, and that's where I was surprised. You said revenue sharing early on, because I feel like that is divisive in the baseball world right now because I don't think we have the perfect solution. Like you said, it's how to team. spend that money. And we've kind of done the salary floor talk, which there's, you know, the owners are never going to do a salary floor because then that would be a salary cap and the players are never going to do a salary clap. So it's almost like, all right. So that's, that's just

a dead wash. So I guess I'm trying to find, because like you said, Orioles, let's use the Orioles example. Huge Orioles Day. Orioles fans, we're chatting you guys up December 13th. I love it. Good Unis. Good Unis. What gets the Orioles ownership? What gets the Ray's ownership? What gets Oakland's ownership? What makes these teams actually come to the table and try to compete when they're in a tough spot, man? Like all those, all these things we said about the Orioles, the Yankees are the Yankees.

Why are they in a tough spot? I don't understand. I'm saying currently the way their division is. I mean, those are just, those are four really good baseball. teams. It's just a tough division as of right now, and I'm sure that'll change and can, and especially if the Orioles played their hands differently, they don't have to be who they are in the division. But I guess it's for all of those teams, what's going to make them actually come to the table and try to be better and try to compete no matter what? And I just don't think, I don't think

mixing up the draft picks is enough. No, I don't think it's enough either, but like you said, this isn't just a one-layered plan. It's a lot of sheet cake, bro. Like, this is a layered cake. Crepe cake. Several layers to it. But I mean, I agree. I think there's a lot of work to be done here.

And there's other, this is Jason's proposal. There's been other things talked about. And there's been proposals by the union and then counter proposals. I guess we can kind of go into those now. I'm going to pull up the article and get down to those. Please. I mean, we were talking about it. Another, well, another thing, before we get into that,

the counter to this system where you've reward, essentially, I think we didn't explain the system enough yet, so I'll kind of try to go through it real quick. It'd be the first teams out all the way down until you got to the playoff teams, and then it'll be the first team out of the playoffs down. to the World Series winner.

So in this, we have 12 teams making the playoffs right now, or 10 teams? We have the three division winners. Like under the current system, it's 10 teams. It's 10. 10. So it would go team that finished 11th in the season

would get number one pick and it would go all the way down to 19. And the team that finished with the worst record would get the 19th pick and then it would go reverse order or playoff stuff like that that's how Jason's proposing it

another counter to that not a counter just an alternative to that will be like a lottery system similar to what the basketball has and MLB actually proposed that they said we can do a lottery for the top three picks in the draft

but it would still be weighted for record and market so it still is not it doesn't really make any sense for, you know, the teams that... It still invites tanking, that proposal, the lottery, in my opinion. And we see that with the NBA. The NBA's had a lottery for how many years, a zillion years?

Yeah. They reshuffled the odds, but big pictures changed not a whole lot. And it's really... It's truly not apples to apples where one player in basketball can change your whole team's outlook. I mean, you know, we talked about all the war and Price Harper and Manny Machado, and those guys can change part of your team's outlook. It can help mold your team's window, but they kind of can't change your team's winning. I mean, there's too many guys involved.

The other one that I did like from MLB, teams could not have top five picks more than two years in a row. That's a fun little wrinkle. I kind of like that. Like, hey, if you're going to be really bad, like here's part of your punishment. Like you just you can't do that. Man, I wonder, are they even talking about this stuff right now? Like where? Yeah, they are.

You think so? Yeah. They're talking, yes. I don't think they've quit for the holiday season. I'd expect, you know, maybe sometime next week they'd take, you know, five, six days off. But right now, they're still going. And whether it's talks every day or it's talks to monks each side and then reaching out, you know, every couple days, they're still going. because that's the job.

They've got to get baseball back. We're locked out right now. If they're not doing anything, I'm going to walk in there and kick the damn door down and hurt my foot. I'll hurt my foot for all the people. You would do that for the people, wouldn't you?

I would. You know, I guess, and later on in the article, they do, they redo some drafts with lotteries in them. And it is... I don't like that. I don't like that. I know you don't like that, but it is, it does what they wanted it to do in the article.

It does show, so again, if the Toronto Blue Jays were the one pick, again, think about kind of the wagon that the Blue Jays are becoming. And then the Orioles, who are going to be the first pick, were the 20th pick. In 2019, Strasbourg was number one. Chad Jenkins was 20. Bobby Borshering at the 16th pick. Um, 2011. I'm not saying Bobby Borshering again. 2011.

Garrett Cole, your number one pick. Chris Reed at 16. Not in my book. Tyler Anderson is in my book. Good for Tyler Anderson. He's having a nice little career for himself. So it does change things. I, uh,

I still don't know. I want the owners to have more skin in the game. I want them, like, put the money on the table, and I think that's what will make them tick. And, you know, I guess the other thing, in the NBA, I think you see it more that we see teams like the buildup year over year is like, okay, hey, this young team, they kind of finished around 500. And then the next year, okay, they're doing,

I feel like baseball, we don't see a ton of that. Like, we kind of saw the Blue Jays coming. We kind of hoped that the Mariners were coming and they did. But it would be nice to see teams kind of chip away and get better, some of these central teams. And hey, you get rewarded with the pick too. And then by the time that your young core and your group of guys are ready to go, maybe you've got another young pick coming, you're attacking free agency.

I don't know. And Andrew Miller kind of had the quote that starts off this article and he's, you know, high up with the players. There are just too many, you know, for us, we kind of like it at the end of the season because we're like, oh, we don't need to talk. There's four series on here we don't need to talk about. Nats played Pittsburgh.

Wouldn't watch it. Wouldn't want your friends to watch it. There are just too many of those by the end of the year, but I don't know. Is that also a necessary evil for what we love about baseball when we talk about how long the season is and the grind? if we want teams to be great, that means there's going to be teams that are really bad every year. So is it, are we just circling the wagons on kind of a moot point?

Nice, nice. We talked about moot last time. This is what I do in every single proposal. And every time MLB is like, okay, like, yeah, we'll accept that. Where is the Trojan horse? Are you familiar with the story of Troy? I sure am. I mean, are you kidding me?

Fighting over a pretty girl hiding in a horse? That's Jake Storeale. The elite and the Odyssey, let me tell you, if you haven't just sat down and read those to epic epics, go ahead and do that. What an adventure you'll go on.

You should. I always look for the Trojan horse in the owner's proposals or when they accept something. And I think I might have found it. Maybe I need to alert the union right now. Wow. Here it is.

And this is going to bear with me, people. If we start, if say we take Jason's proposal here with the draft, then we implement it. What it's going to do is one good thing it'll do is it'll maximize teams windows of where they believe they can compete. Right now I feel like these teams have very small windows. They get these guys up. They pair them with a few free agents. Then they send them off and maybe they're too expensive, too expensive. there's air quotes for people listening on the podcast, they send them off and starts the whole window over.

And if you now are getting these, your pharmacism is getting replenished as you're going for it, you don't necessarily have to ever be out of that window if you just keep kind of, you know, competing. But that's only if you draft people who are going to help your team in the near. You can't be spending your, you can't be spending your money, your draft capital on guys that are 18 years old. If you need to fill some spots, you go to, you go to, you go to the car. college route. Now what does that mean for players when they only draft college kids? It means you get to the big leagues later. You get to free agency later. They pay you less. Is that the Trojan horse? Is we're going to have a bunch of old guys? We're not going to have

the young superstars unless they come out of Latin America. Think about that. If we only drafted 22-year-olds get to the big leagues at you know, say 24 control you for your prime years, ship you out when you're 30. I feel like that's kind of already happening, no? It makes it even more is the point.

There's more reasons to draft an older dude instead of a younger dude. Yeah, if your team is competing and you need to replenish, it's interesting. I don't know. Maybe that's, I'm making that more of a deal, a bigger deal in my head than it is, but that's how I think about all of this stuff. Like, where's the back door? Like, where, like, what's happening here?

Who are we letting in by letting this happen? That's what we did with the qualifying offer. That's what we did with the collective, competitive balance tax. Like, all of these things that we thought were going to help the game, turns out, you know, they get manipulated and they're not helping the game. So maybe that's it. I mean, another one similar vein that we talked about pre-show was like how many teams would rather be that first or second team out of the playoffs than make it in, especially if the playoffs expand and half the league gets in anyway. I mean, I guess they'd still want the playoff revenue more, but so maybe it's got to be sort of like a reverse lottery where it's like, okay, the best team's out get the better odds, but I don't know. There's got to be a weird balance of what a team might want there.

Who was Helen of Troy in that story? What do you mean? Who was she? Yeah. In your example. Oh. Yeah. Who's the hottest woman on earth?

Is Helen of Troy like the all-time hottie? Yeah. Like went to war. Like fighting over her. Yeah. That's awesome. I get a gods fighting. over her.

Yeah, one of Troy. Who, kind of got me. Semi gods were in the war, but it was actually not gods that stole her. It's Minnaleas and what's his name?

Yes. Who's the guy that shoots the arrow? Achilles. No, that's who gets shot with the arrow. Tatis Jr. Yeah, Tatis Jr. Basically. well I think we solved it

Paris Paris a freaking Troy Never trust a guy named Paris Never trust a guy named Paris Um Who knows that Yeah I guess it would This will never happen in the history of time But I was daydreaming when you were talking about

The Iliad in the Odyssey a little bit And it was like what if there was What if the like last place owner Had to pay like $50 million dollars Like if you finish last place Like that's what I'm saying Like if we're really raising the stakes Like you want to talk about a GM

And having your ass in the jackpot Like could you imagine Being the GM of the baseball team Having to go into the owner's office And he just had to write a $50 million Check To be spent to the rest of the league I don't see that happening though

No that's not coming out Maybe if they had to like, if you finish last, you had to like show your face on TV. You're like doing interviews. That would scare them enough. The last place interview. The last place interview. I'm talking baseball. The owner has to sit down, has to come to sit with us.

And we're going to ask them, why did you guys suck so well? You're so rich. How did you make your money again? It's an option. It's an option. So did we solve it? Here's my, oh, here's my proposal.

Oh. It's actually simple, yeah. I didn't know you had one written up. I like, I'd take Jason's drafting, and I like it. I'd implement it right away. I don't even think you need to change as much in it.

I think it makes sense the way he goes about it. The other caveat to that is, we need to have the revenue sharing actually spent on rosters like it's meant to be. Yeah. Like there needs to be clear-cut language. You need to spend X amount

percentage-wise on payroll for your big league team with this money. I believe that is what they do in the NBA. And that's why you see these dudes like,

who got what? I think that is, those are the two ways. It's not a floor. It's not a floor, but it's using, it's actually abiding by what was agreed upon.

You know, it just needs to be in clear language. That's already in the CBA. Yeah. That's my proposal. I think there is something, there's obviously something there. And I think, because there is one downfall of this, we kind of didn't touch on too much, is that it could potentially the trade deadline could get pretty boring, right? Because if you're a team in pursuit of this, instead of trading away,

you're Jack Peterson, you're Adam Duvall, your Jorge Solair, your whole Braves World Series outfield, maybe you hold on to those guys. because you can fight for some draft picks. So that's kind of the only downside to this. But I still think, and again, I'm bad with words, I'm bad with writing words, but there has to be some sort of solution that involves the revenue sharing,

where the money has to be paid with the players, and then maybe you have to have that money on the books through June, and then if you want to trade away those guys, and you want to get a bunch of prospects and your team sucks, there's still a way that that can fuel your organization, that, you know, you can bring in a bunch of, you know, like, I just, I don't know how to word that or phrase it and put it on paper the right way, because then does their record end up really bad,

and then now you're back to the 20th pick? I don't know, because, man, a good trade deadline. That's got some juice, and especially, I was joking before with you guys I was saying copycat league I really think what the Braves did this year and trading for a whole new outfield man I think more teams are going to do that

they gave up no prospects and then they paid a third of those guys' salaries just hoping for something to click and guess what it did and they won the World Series so like I think there's going to be a lot more of that and I kind of like that Because it's the trade deadline, it's exciting, and it's good teams getting better. But then that does kind of counter this theory where teams would want to hold on to guys to try to get that better draft pick.

Maybe we do something like draft order then goes by a record at the end of July. And then if you want to ship your team off, you can ship it off. Whoa. Competing for half the season. That feels like a recipe for disaster. There's a Trojan horse there. There's a Trojan horse there. That was like a group of Trojan horses.

I'm a high school grad, okay? Contract language is my thing. You know what I'm saying? I know what you're saying. At least I'm spitballing. Where's Robbie? That's what we need. That's what we need.

I guess let us... Shout out. Shout out. You got a big shout out in the Rose article. I didn't get much of the mention at all. I got to be honest, you. I was looking for my little section. Didn't ever show up.

Control, fine, Trevor Plouffe. Well, I guess, you know, comment. Let us know your guy's solution. Let us know what we missed. King Jason Stark, short King Jason Stark. What do we actually just said? We do, I say we just submit this first half to the league and say you're welcome. Treve, we do have some news and notes around the league.

And guys, I don't want to get the chat too exciting that's already been popping off. Trev said he wanted to do a live Q&A after. He's been absolutely fiending for it. We do have a hard out in 19 minutes. We do have some news and notes before then. And those, a lot of managerial stuff. My dream jobs got filled. We'll talk about that.

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I got to say. Yeah, they've had the same ad read for a couple weeks now, and I just, you know, maybe we should spice it up. You want a little juice? Yeah. We'll talk to them. Let me take off my football shades. These are my coach.

I only coach football. Coach Treb. I see Teddy at a football tryout this weekend. Yeah, he's doing flag football game. Apparently I'm going to be an assistant coach. I can't commit fully because it overlaps with my spring baseball. I'd like, do you think you could get offensive coordinator? I'd like that for you.

I feel like. Maybe. I am going to put this out there right now. I'm ruining some of my leverage here. As we do approach the new year and I do sign a new year. and I do sign a new contract with John Boy Media. I think I'm going to have to put a little in there where it becomes John Boe Media's sponsored team,

whatever I'm coaching. I'm handshake. Boom. Done. That is signed. Speaking of, well, we'll start with one, kind of the biggest current news is the Mets managerial hunt. They are down to their final three.

This team, bro. Aspada, Showalter, my Mets, love the Mets. And Matt Quattaro, Ray's bench coach, Trev's raise. Do you have a horse in the race, Trev? Like, I'll be honest. I've fallen in love with Buck Showalter. He does some Yankees, pre-game post game, and he's electric there. He does some MLB network.

It's so old school, but also he delivers it at a new school fashion. and man, he's delivered in the brief time that I've seen him do some pre-imposed game stuff. He mentioned some stuff on a baseball field and I'm like, wow, you are what I think a manager should be. So that's why I'm a little biased to them. And if, man, again, Mets fans have this weird relationship with Yankee fans sometimes. But me and BD were saying this on Wake and Jake this morning, like, Scherzer, show Walter. like if that's your off season like i'm tuning into some met's baseball next year babe so that's that's kind of my horse in this race right now do you uh where where are you at if this is

these are going to be our final three candidates i mean i think quattaro uh comes from the raise i think they really like that but i don't think you approach this team like he would a raise team i think this is a completely different thing so as much as i like him and i know he is a great baseball all mine. I, no offense, I have no saying this, so it doesn't really matter. I would look towards the other guys. Obviously, Buck for

steadying the ship. It's been rocky in flushing. Hmm. No, not a mess. I always forget. There's no S. You and Matt's fans are.

Whatever. Whatever. It's been a little rocky there. Buck could calm the walk. a little bit. Like you said, he's seen everything you can think of on a baseball field. And yes, he does have an old school approach to how he presents information, but he still is willing to take in information. And that's all analytics is. People need to chill out on analytics and acting like they are some mystical thing that we can't understand. It's just information. Now, Buck knows how to distribute that information, and you can make it sound good to baseball players

and palatable. Similar to to what Jimmy does with breakdowns with people. He makes things palatable for people. They can turn off their brains, listen to them, and get some information. That's why Jimmy's successful. That's why Buck's successful. I really believe that. On the other hand, you have a Spada, who

I believe if you're trying to create like a new culture. He's been in New York. He's been in Houston. Those are two very good franchises to be a part of. I lean, if you're looking for a guy that you want to be there for a long time, I lean him.

I think Buck is a three to four year guy, maybe. I think you could have Aspada come in and be your guy for years to come. I like that. That's my take. It's an interesting way to look at it. BPD mentioned this morning, the Espada, Billy Epler connection. They go back a little bit. I like that kind of take on it.

I mean, Showalter's fun because you're obviously a thousand percent attacking this kind of new window you've set out for yourself. You're right. Like in the dream world where everything's hunky dory and you're trying to do a good six, seven years of Mets baseball, which again, like a lot of managers don't do that. Maybe it would be more a spot or Quattaro. Those are the two guys that now kind of get brought up with every managerial opening. I think they're both in play for Oakland. So it's going to be interesting to see how those sort out have to check with Jolly and Jerry. Jerry Blevins going to be around the John Boy Media Studios this week. So maybe we'll get some juice on that.

Shea Station crew. Trying to see what else we've gotten here. My dream jobs, the talking baseball people, I've told you guys many time. My retirement job probably after Trev and John Baby fire me. I'd like to be a special assistant to the GM for either the Diamond and backs are the Colorado Rockies. Funny enough, in about 24 hours, they each hired one. Clint Hurdle gets hired by the Rockies to be an assistant GM.

You know what? I feel like we've heard some curmudgeony old guy stuff on Clint Hurdle. I feel like his final days in Pittsburgh weren't that pretty. Everything I saw from my Rockies people, they were happy because they were like, hey, there's going to be a voice in the GM's office that no. what it's like to play a course field day and day out. You know, some of the things we've talked about with Trevor Story, the fatigue that course field adds, you know, all the,

whether it's no fastballs without spin, sliders that don't slide, all of that stuff. So he, and, you know, he goes back to the early days of the Rockies franchise. He was a minor league instructor there. So he's got some Rockies roots. This is the part I never know. How much of a voice does he really have day and day out? no idea and then uh former cubs exec jason mcclough a special assistant to the gm

um for the for my snakes jake snakes uh and apparently he was kind of a big part of building out the cubs farm system uh for their their world series team so um i don't know i don't know what does that mean special assistant or helping to build up the coach special assistant means everything can mean anything you want to me that's the coolest part about it's my dream job yeah You could just do this. You could still be a special assistant right now and just continue to do what you do. But what does it mean that McLeod helped

was a key role in helping the Cubs build up their pharmacists and what do they do? I mean, it's a fantastic question, Trev. Like, I don't know. Did he scout him? Did he develop? I mean, people need to stop taking credit for so much. It's a collective effort, man.

Eight years as the top minor league in scouting guru. There you go. Scouting guru. I mean, I'm ready for that. How about that? I still talk to the scout that signed me. Bill Mellie, shout out, Bill. Stud.

48-year-old from Hawaii. Good for you. Oh, really? Yeah. 48? Yeah, young guy. Good for you. Looks like he's decently tall.

Anyways, does that move the needle for you in any direction? That he's tall? Just anything I said. no it doesn't it has zero effect on any major league ball club you know i'm still a baseball snob yeah uh we can talk about the twins coaching hires hank honger is now their first base coach he'll work with the catchers i think that's really important that we have especially until we get you know the electronic strike zone like having catchers they can teach you know at the big league level you're going to get instruction at the minorly level there's going to be roving

guys, but you're not going to have a guy on each staff that can be a catcher, a catching coach, which is not going to happen. Sometimes you get a manager that was a catcher, a coach that was a catcher, then you get that. But most of the time, it's just roving guys. To have a guy at the big league level, go ahead and continue with drills and stuff that, keep you fresh throughout the year, I think is really important to teams, and most teams should probably have that. Not to mention, you know, every team has bullpen catcher, but every once in a while, you've got

have a guy got there and Hank will love to put the gear on. Didn't he have some real pop? I know I'm talking to hit the, I'm talking to the, I'm talking to the, I'm talking to the Juice King. I'm talking to the Apo Juice King, but didn't Hank Conner have some pop in that bat? Hank Conger's really well known for the Little League World Series. People forget he was a Little League star, then came up, yes, he's got some pop. very well liked among baseball players.

A lot of times you hear guys talk about Hank and Hank's stories. So I'm stoked about that. My boy Tommy Watkins shifts over to a third base now. He was a third base coach. Twins up. Better record in 2022. Twins or Texas Rangers? Twins.

Twins. It's a fun game, right? That's a fun game. That's sad for Twins fans. But I think Twins. It's kind of more sad for Texas. Rangers fans. I just signed two like historic

middle infield. You talked about this. You can't win without pitching. Even though I hate that that's a fact, you know I hate pitchers. No, you do. Holy smokes a young Ashanti just popped up on my feed. Can we do seven minutes of Q&A in the chat with me?

We are going to do seven minutes in heaven with Trevor Plouf. If you're in the chat right now, open to any baseball question. Treves, Trev's excited. to do this. John's away the cat will play. And while you guys gets your questions in the chat, I would just like to remind you there is a John Boy Media survey going around.

Helps our team internally. Easy survey. It's a couple questions. And if you fill it out, you get a 20% discount code to the store. So if you're thinking about buying something, which I know you are, you know, easy way to get 20% off. So go fill out this service. The link is in the description.

It's a Google form. So if you could go fill that out, we would really appreciate that. Trev, oh, seven minutes in Trevin. Oh, that, it moved. What do you like, Trev? I like best supermarket to shop at. Wegmans, no doubt. That's an East Coast thing.

We don't have those out here. But, man, Wegmans is something special. If you can shop at a Wegmans, go ahead and do that. Hugo says, Trev, why don't you like the Marlins? You never talk about them. I did. We talked about their young pitching last year in the shortened 2020 season. We actually talked quite a bit about them last year.

We were on them. We're on all the young guys. But you got to, I think teams, a lot of fans of teams kind of get mad at us during the year because we don't talk about their team enough. But you got to give us something to talk about. I know they've made some moves and they're looking good. And Jets and Kim Heng there. are doing great stuff.

So hopefully, 2022. Similar to like the Mariners. Maybe there are 20, 22 mariners will be the Marlins, if that makes sense. I still very much want them. I want them to make a big splash and then a little splash. Castellanos and then like give me another outfielder because I, man, like they'd have a chance.

They'd have a chance to stay around. And, you know, like you said, you know, how long did we joke about the Mariners last year? And then it became really real. And then they were exciting. So I like that. What else do you like, Trev? Who's on my all-shower team?

Interesting. You know, that's a personal preference thing. It changes from time to time. Me and Colin Calgoe, he was probably my last shower buddy. We were two old guys in AAA. We were roommates on the road. And we'd stay late. Like all the young kids would just get in and out.

Me and Colin would get a workout in after the game. We do some treatment, and then we'd be all along the shower late at night. And we'd look at each hour and be like, hey, you know what? We put it in an honest day's work today, man. That's what it's all about. So he was one of my favorites. Me and Ryan Domit and Josh Willingham. We always kind of showered at the same time.

Doge were to get in there. Doge is kind of gross. Naked and gross. Yeah. He's like, he messes around too much. that makes so much sense yeah it's sometimes it's a little much that makes so much sense

can I tell a shower story yes that's what the people want I'm not naming names I play with a guy a guy yeah and he would do a shower trick I don't know this is appropriate okay it depends on the trick

I mean okay so like you know maybe earmuffs maybe not earmust even that bad. What he would do is he would have to go pee, you'd have to urinate, but he'd grab the top and just get all the pressure. You know what I mean? And then he would try to let it go and hit the ceiling.

That was his game. And he could do it. That, uh... So, in case you were wondering what goes on. That... is boys will be boys um Trevor here's I'll I'll reveal some of my story from this weekend maybe

watch the chat and maybe we'll get one more baseball question in um if some of you might have saw I let out a couple of reckless tweets um on Saturday night at the wedding um couple reckless tweets I uh you know went to the wedding Having a good time. Trev, my go juice is the espresso martini. You know, I think a lot of people, a lot of people over the years, they have their thing.

You know, I know my mom loves coffee and Kalua. Four Locos had a moment. Red Bull Vodkeys, all that stuff. And I think, you know, a lot of young adults find the espresso martini, and it's kind of a woe moment. Like, you're going north and south pretty quick. That being said, so I go to. of this wedding and they didn't have espresso martinis and that's fine like you know that's a whole

it's a whole thing i'm leaving you got to get right away i'm from do you know i'm from connecticut um sweating's war shit so uh and that's fine so i'm drinking some tequila sodies a mix in a marg you know tequila still like going up and then uh you know the wedding's going little dinner light music family dancing and then you know everyone pops outside some fireworks delightful they come in and they're like, all right, like, you know, we're going to turn up the music. We're going, you know, we're about to bump it in here. And also, we have espresso martinis. So my problem, I was on a path.

Wait, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So they busted them out as like a, we're going to turn this party up. I didn't need that at the time. I was already kind of up. So then they busted those out. And then I went back up. And then, yeah, I tweeted out the next day. But I was going up to strangers and I was asking them their favorite celebrity.

And then before they'd answer, I'd tell them mine was Lowe Bosworth. It was from Laguna Beach. Still follower on Instagram. Great follow. CEO of her own business. But yeah, dad got pretty lost in the sauce. So, Jess said I was delightful. She said I was being very friendly to everyone.

I was in a good place. You don't want to. No. I know how it gets. Sometimes you wake up and you're like, yeah. Yeah. There's that depression that sets in, you're the anxiety, if you will. Yeah.

That's why I don't drink liquor, man. Yeah. I really, really tried not to. I stick my beer and wine. Do you have one more baseball question for the people? I'm looking. Last question, and I got to hop on the bird. Happy for you.

Let's see. You got one? I'm looking. I see Carlos Rodon. Where is he going to sign? That's a tough one. I can't do that one. Who is my favorite big leader growing up?

I want to do that one. Okay. Please. I remember seeing like Ozzie. Smith do a backflip once and like he played shortstop and like I remember that very very early in my childhood when did he even stop playing like does that even make sense like how did I how was Ozzie played for a while yeah he did so it was him and then it was the Dodgers and all of their young um they had five rookies of the years in a row and that was kind of like right when I was in the

midst of my baseball love the dea nomo umo mike piazza Todd Hollinsworth Eric caros in Raulmandisi so those are like my guys and I was collecting some baseball cards at that time and Nomo was like

if he I don't even know if people know what that was all about that was insane in L.A. Yeah like when he would start it was a it was like an event so those are my Those are my guys. I was all Dodgers mostly.

Treb, one of my favorite games, and we'll wrap it up here, is the, I love connecting generations. And sometimes the years just speak and they pop off the map. Ozzie Smith's rookie year, 1978. Ozzie Smith's final year, 1996. Think about how different the world and athletes and everything was. I know, you know, I know JM, the all-JM team is taking out all-stars, but 15-time All-Star, 13-time Gold Glove.

Again, I know those can be loosey-goosey sometimes, but they also, they can also paint a picture of what it was like to watch that dude play defense. Give me more back flips. Different. Give me more back flips. Diffy. Trev, we got to let you go.

Get on the plane. Enjoy your game tonight. I guess we'll root for Maddie Ice and the Rams. Might as well. Yeah, please do. Please do because, yeah, it'll be a better vibe. Last one I'm going to answer. Then I'm going to go.

I love everybody. I love you guys. Okay. I love everybody. My favorite AFI album is Black Sails and the Sunset. Wow. Did not think we'd get there. Trevor, thank you.

Everyone who listened, thank you. We will be coming to you on Wednesday. there might be some Jared Blevins. Do we hit up Max Freed? We'll see. Jake's up. Wait, he's just going to be me and you and BBD on Wednesday again. Come on, man. Maybe not.

Shout out Zendino the Great. Zendino the Ghost. God. Good girl. Daddy Zendino. Thanks, everyone.