Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 457 | Banning the Shift, Bigger Bases, and Ads on Jerseys

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Use code 'TALKIN' for $20 off your first SeatGeek order https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit http://ccpg.org/chat  (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit https://OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/ PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. New customers only. Min. $5 deposit required. Eligibility restrictions apply. See http://draftkings.com/sportsbook for details. 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.

Hello and welcome to talking baseball, where shifts are dead and the bases are big. Wow. And welcome to talking baseball. Brought to you by Seatkeek. My name is Jimmy. His name is Jake. We got Trevor wearing a glove in the middle and producer B.B.D. In the corner.

As I said, we are brought to you by Seat Geek. and with baseball season coming up, maybe, hopefully, you got to use Seat Geek to get your tickets. They rate every ticket from zero to 10 to make sure you're getting a good deal. Green means good. Red means bad. Every ticket on Seatkeek is backed by their buyer guarantee, so you can shop for tickets with confidence.

And we have a code. Code Talking. Get your $20 off tickets at Seekkeeks. $20 off your first purchase code Talking. Make sure you click the link in the description to download the App code talking. I think my wife just used that over the weekend. She asked me, don't you have a code for this? I said, yeah. And it worked. Treb, how are you? James, thank you for the segue. I'm doing great. I also might have to use code talking from Seekkeek. I'm looking to go to a tennis match with Olivia.

It's out here in Palm Springs. So maybe I'll have to go use that. I had a great weekend. It's going to be talking shop with the boys, the Diamondbacks, or like, I guess we're really not the Diamondbacks, as I said on our last pod. But Coach Trev Snakes, one and O, baby, first place in our Pinto B division. Hell yeah. What was the score?

We walked him off, 11 to 10. You know, usually I like to give all the credits of the players, but I absolutely outcoached the other manager. So a lot of it fell on me.

But the guys did great. And really, it was nice to get some ball in since there's a lockout still happening. Jake, what's up, bro? James, Trevor, BBD, everyone live in the chat. Thanks for your patience.

Tech Monster. My guy, Trevor Plouf, FaceTime me. Well, he was at the gym, obviously. It's where he lives. That's where he breeds. He walked me through it. Jim, he busted out some strategy. He chess master Trevor Plouf in his little league game.

So he, you know, maybe we'll save it for the end of the episode. But I mean, very excited. I was part of coaching a lot of coach. I was part of coaching a lot of little league teams. Young Joe Madden. Had my head wrapped in the strategy a lot. So we'll talk shop. I'm, I'm, I'm interested.

Okay. We'll do it at the end of the show, though. People came to hear about the new rules and an update on the negotiations, which is so funny to me that the fake deadline. we were getting updates nonstop. And now it's like back to what it was, but we're still going to miss games, but there's no sense of urgency anymore.

We're still going to miss games. Like every day we don't get a deal. We're missing. They're going to announce today that they're missing more games. Never been a real deadline. That was my light bulb moment in like November. No deadline. Yeah.

But like, you know, and you hear from the player side that the urgency was just, all made up, but they were meeting for like 12 hours. I don't know. It's super bizarre to me this whole thing. Like there was a huge sense of urgency. They announced that we're missing two series. They're supposed to announce today that we might be missing more games, which they will, obviously. And there's just no sense of urgency in the negotiations anymore. Doesn't... Stupid. Nothing I say should be important to anyone.

Oh, man. Yeah, you know, we've had either side. Now, I don't want to say the other one, both sides. That's just out of my vocabulary now. After that last time, I just said it right now, never going to say it again. Either side has come out and said the negotiation or the proposal has gone backwards. That's not what you want to hear when you're looking to get this lockout done with and baseball started. And again, you know, I feel like I'm still pretty optimistic, but I don't know where it's coming from.

I don't know why I'm so optimistic because every single person I talk to is the exact opposite. Yeah, it's the, it's what's the real deadline. Trades don't get done to the trade deadline because they want to figure all that out. There's the rumors of the 25 games with the RSNs being an actual pushpoint for the owners because that's when they'd have to give money back

to the regional sports networks because a lot of their deals are for like 145. games and then they have the floater games on other networks. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. That could be nothing. The owners could be sunk in ready to punt on that. I'm subscribed to that theory.

Jimmy's subscribed to that theory. May 1st, I think suddenly out of nowhere. Oh. Like, I think the owners, I mean, it's not a new theory. But I think that is. I don't know where that rumor comes from. I haven't like looked into it. But May 1st seems to be the day where the owners finally say, yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

let's talk about it. There's a real dark side to the calendar watching. And I kind of want to get out ahead of it because I really feel, I'm going to use an adjective here. And this word carries a lot of weight. I think when we're calendar watching, yes, we're talking about RSNs and when the clubs would have to pay back money for the, for their contract. But I'm also watching to see if they're going to talk about service time

manipulation. We already know that's prevalent in the negotiations. If we're not going to, if they're going to hold that over the players and say, hey, you're not going to get a full years of service time because we only played X amount of games. That could affect so many

people within the game. We're talking all of our boys, all of our Harvard Westlake boys. We're talking show hey. We're talking all these dudes that can, the teams were able to steal an extra year of control. The ultimate F you, to all these, you know, bargaining sessions. So the word I'm going to use to describe it is evil.

Ooh. If they come out and say, hey, we're not going to give you your full years of service time. When they implemented the lockout themselves, that is a diabolical and evil plan. They already said that. They said maybe not pay. service time. If that's not in that, that's absolutely evil. I see what you're saying.

That is evil. Controlling somebody for an extra year just because you can, just because earmuffs, everybody, just because fuck it. They better not do that. I honestly don't believe they will do that. I believe they'll honor the full service time. But if they try to hold over the player's head,

or they try to say, you know what, we're not going to do it, straight up evil shit. And I won't stand for it. I don't know what I'll do, but I'll do something drastic. Oh, like that. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I saw somewhere posted, I think, like Pete Alonzo, if he misses 15 days or games of service time this year,

like his free agency gets pushed a whole calendar year. So, man, that's where the deeper and deeper we get into this, like the more problems we run into, Where are teams going to do spring training? The minor league season's about to kick off. Are we going to have teams practicing at their home stadiums again? Not playing against other teams. It's, yeah, man.

I mean, the further you dig the worse it gets. And you're right. I mean, we're still not making progress on repeat, the CBT and the playoff format. One, the players are trying to move. The other, the owners are trying to move. And until we get those, I just don't know. So I'm interested to see, is that the TV calendar? Is that what makes the owners start to give in a little bit?

The players, how are things going in there? You know, I know you've got your feelers out. I don't think guys are getting too hot yet because they anticipated this coming, but when do they start getting nervous? Or, you know, is it even worse than that? Are both sides ready to actually sink their heels in and let this go as long as it needs to, for players to get the change they want

that they feel is overdue? I don't know. And the last we heard, sorry, Traub, do you have anything? No, I just, Gary Kaplan, who's the baseball ops dude for MLB, I believe that's his name,

came out yesterday and said, we're going backwards with this deal. Just, it sounds like both sides are just, I said it like, gosh, why don't you want to say both sides? Because it's become like taboo. It's like saying millionaires versus billionaires.

Gosh, now I don't want to. say that ever again either. I get that one. Both sides is like there's two sides negotiating. Anyways. The heels are dug in, man. Because the people that are annoying on the internet, they have taken all context away from the phrase, both sides. So if you say it, no matter what context you use, the people that want to be mad are going to be mad at you is why Travis avoiding it. People are going to be mad. I'm trying to avoid it. There's two sides here. I'm going to, I'm going to be a both sides stand. There's three sides to this. Pro. The fan's pro player.

I'm pro both sides. The last we heard when the, the players were upset, Ross Stripling, shared it with everyone that at the end of the fake deadline, the owner said, here's our best offer, and they slipped in the rule changes without them talking about it. And the players were upset about that.

They slipped in the bigger bags, the regular bags, the regular, the shift and the pitch clock. And the players were upset because they kind of just slipped it in the final deal. And now we're hearing that the players are giving in or have given in on all of those, hopefully in exchange for something else. Like really think about this. We've said now we're going to ban the shift.

We're going to do bigger bases. We're going to do a pitchcloth. Okay. We said we're going to do ads on the jerseys. We already gave two teams. We increased the playoff teams by 20 percent. already gave that. Now we're talking about increasing it by another two teams. Like give, give, give, and the owners don't even want to up the CBT, which doesn't even affect 90% of the league.

I don't understand. It blows my mind they care about the CBT. Are they worried about one runaway spender in the entire league? They're worried about Steve Cohen that much. Like, I don't understand the point of contention. They said they're worried about the Mets and the Dodgers. That's like, was like reported out there. The Braves won the World Series last year. Go look at their payroll. They're not upset. They're not worried.

They're not worried about the competitiveness of it. Those teams don't care about winning. They're worried about driving up the prices of the, when they want to get players. They're never like the teams that are always going to be whining about like the CBT are never going to go out and spend and get the A free agents. They're just not. When's the last time one of those teams went out and made a big splash like that?

According to Heyman, who's got sources everywhere, the raise offered Freddie Freeman a big contract. Who? They didn't say big contract. I didn't say big. I thought it did. I missed the team. Who?

The raise offered Freddie Freeman a contract before the lockout. I mean, according to Hayman, so. I've been beefing with report. I got someone beef right now. Making bolognais. and baseball Twitter. You know what I'm saying? Sure do.

You got that one, Jake. I sure do. I am half ball. It's unbelievable. You got to keep check on people. You got to say, hey, listen, no. Buster Olney, my guy. So I'm talking to agents.

They're worried about free agent prices coming down after the lockout so teams can recoup some of the money they've lost. No, you haven't been? No agent in their right mind would ever say that to a reporter. No agent. And if you are that agent, you are the worst agent in the history of agents.

That's like rule number one. Don't say the prices are going to go down. It's always this. I mean, that's just, it's just false. You're putting false things out there on Twitter. I don't like it. It's fair. It's fair for you not to like it.

Do you want to talk about the rule changes that they agreed upon? We talked about it a little last time. I gave my spiel last episode, but maybe we have new, listeners coming. I think we can all say that, I don't know, Trev. I don't know if you say this. I think you do.

I don't want to speak for you. I can speak for Jake, because I know that me and him just set it on a different platform. If you're acting like you care about the base is getting bigger, you don't. And please stop faking a reaction. No one cares.

Yeah, the basis thing? I don't. No one cares. Too many people are faking. making like they have an opinion on it. I think it's two inches. And it's supposed to be for player safety. That's the kind of what we're going for here.

And the miners, they tested the miners for player safety slash bringing speed into the game, thinking that they might just be like speed might help if you get there a little quicker. But they're not only bigger. They're like ridged. They're not as tall. So like it like sliding, jamming fingers and stuff.

They're a little angled. They have ridges. So the water falls off. and they're bigger. Yeah, I mean, Trev, I guess my thing is... Sounds great. You know, I know we go to me for a lot of the player stuff, but A, I mean, two inches in each direction, four inches, A, not bad.

But B, I remember showing up to a baseball field and back of my day, you know, sometimes you had the rubber bases that went in the ground. Sometimes you showed up to fields and they had those like pillow bases. bases that would be like, like kind of in the ground. They'd come off every plane. You'd have to reset them. I never walked away from a baseball game in my life and said, those damn bases.

The base has got us today. The base has got us today. The only time I've ever done that are with the current big league bases. They will get slippery as shit sometimes. So yeah, they're supposed to, they have like a grip on them and then they have waterproof stuff. So they're supposed to,

they're supposed to not be able to like on a rainy day or a wet day, like you have your foot just slide. So, I mean, we're done with that. The bases are going to get a little bigger. The next one is the pitch clock, and we talked about this last episode. I've never watched a game or been watching a game and thought, I wish this pitcher would slow down.

So I'm all for the pitch clock. Like, there's going to be moments. That's the thing. No one will notice. There might be times in the first season. So this all isn't even happening for 2022. If we got a season, there may be times where a pitcher gets a ball

because he doesn't throw the pitch in time. I think that's the punishment. Maybe there's a warning in a ball. Maybe there's a warning. And there might be like a handful of times where it happens as we grow into this. But five years down the road when you don't even notice,

no one's ever getting in trouble, but the pace is quicker and you don't have human rain delays in the mound, that is going to be for the better of the sport. So I applaud that one. I think so too. And there's ways to avoid getting a ball. Like I've played with the pitch clock before.

I mean, you just step off. Yeah. You just have to be engaged in the rubber before the pitch clock runs out. Then you can step off called time. Most guys don't. Pitchers like getting into a rhythm.

Honestly, like this is, it's not for anyone, but I think the pitchers are probably going to, it's going to make them better, if anyone. Like hitters, like defensively, you're going to be stoked because, like you said, James, it's not going to be a human rain delay on the mound. Hitters are ready to go.

You can call time if you need to. I mean, there's nothing wrong with this, and I'm totally fine. This is very similar to the bases with me. It's fine. Yeah, same. Yeah, I think this one, bases, yeah, are definitely on my low end because you can only spin that so many ways. If you do, you start going to the deep regions of this. You know, you wonder, our pitcher's stepping off too much.

Are we doing more lollipop throws to first base? Because those do get under my skin a little bit. Like, if we're just doing that to do that. And then it becomes what time do we land on and the enforcement of it. Are we going to have hard o lumps that the 19th second ticks and then it's a ball? You bet your ass we're going to have hard o'uns out there. So, I mean, that's, and I think that's what's getting me. and I know where this is eventually going to end up in shifts,

where these are going to be the first iteration of the rules, and it's going to be interesting to see how they're enforced, because like we talked, and I said this a lot on Wake and Jake this morning, but, you know, the CBA, the owners look at the CBA, and they say, what's the best way we can manipulate this to better our business slash team? Baseball teams, they look at the rules, and they say, what's the best we can do to manipulate these rules

to have a better performance? And that's how you get to shifts and stuff. So I'm interested to see what spins off of these that we just don't know, that you've got to do it. And I know we've had a season of the minor leagues for the bases and stuff, and we're hoping for some increased base running. But interested to see how pitchers navigate this. See if your clever hitters can do anything to get in the pitcher's head

to milk that clock a little bit with maybe a foot out of the box. I wonder if there's pitcher analytics that come out that are like, Oh, if the pitcher throws it in the first five seconds, the batting average goes up 100 points or something. Who knows? But again, I'm digging pretty deep for those. And no, it's not a, we're going to speed up the game to grab new fans. It's just there are points in a baseball game

that you do have to be honest with yourself where it's like, hey, let's throw the ball. I mean, some of our friends of this podcast, Ryan Yarborough, I'll be honest. Yerby. Yardby move slow. I love him. Nice guy. Played some cards with him. don't know if the vid ever got out. Ryan Yarby, good guy, got to sling it a little quicker, my guy.

And they're already doing this in the minors, like we said. The only thing a pitcher can do timing-wise that they'll piss a hitter off is if he works really fast. Like, you know, there are some guys who are just like ready as soon as you step in the box and you have your hand up, like, hey, let me dig my foot in, bro. Like, let me get my footing. And then as soon as you drop your hand, he's on you, that's the worst thing for a hitter.

So like I said, I think the pitch clock's going to help pitchers just continue to get in a rhythm. But really, it's just, it's good. It's easy. You really won't notice it. It's one of those things. Jim was doing that to me in Blitzball the other day. I was getting frustrated. Oh, my God.

Jake was taking so long. He was stepping out after every pitch. You were Speedy Gonzalez in me. He was stepping out and then like doing the Jeter bounces every pitch. The story. Elie bounce. I was like, come on. I would do when I was pitching,

I'd have some, I'd be like this, a guy would step out, and then I would, I wouldn't even get off the mound. I would just stay on the mound, same thing right there. And then as soon as you use back in, toss. You have to. Judge doesn't step out at all. He doesn't even move his feet after a ball or a strike.

I don't mind it. Yeah, that's cool. And then the next one is the shift. And I don't even know if, like, they're saying, but I think people are jumping the gun because we don't know the new rules around this. We don't know how this is going to change the outcome of games, but it sure will. So when you're betting at draft kings, you've got to take this into account in 2023. The shift is implemented.

So now you need guys that are athletic to play defense. No more sticking a guy at second base just because you know exactly where to place him. So he only has to move a step or two to his left or right. you're going to bring the athleticism back to defense. And that's going to be fantastic. So when you go to draft Kings and you download the Drafking Sportsbook app, make sure you keep that in mind when you bet. For now, use promo code John Boy, bet $5 in any college hoops team to win

and get $200 in free bets if they do. If they win, you win with promo code Johnboy this week at Drafking Sportsbook. 21 plus restrictions apply. See the show notes for details. But yeah, we don't know. The word ban, I don't think it's going to be a full ban. We don't know if they're regulating it just in the infield, if they're regulating it just in the outfield. I know in the minor leagues they did half the season where they regulated it were two on one side, two on the other side.

Then they did half the league where they regulated it like four on the dirt, three on the outfield grass. I don't know what we're doing here. Has it been said? I've just heard that they agreed to ban it. I don't think we have any details on it yet. I'd assume it's going to be in the infield two guys on one side of second base, two guys on the other. other side of second base. That's what I'm assuming. That's the simplest way when you think about it. I assume that as well.

And we're, I think, you guys have talked about it, I'm sure already, but I, we, I think are all on the same page here where we're kind of like that. I wanted all three of these rules. Oh, I didn't want the bigger bases, but I wanted the shift regulated and the pitch clock. And sort of the players and sort of the owners and sort of everyone. This wasn't even like, I don't think this was the players giving in. I know they did, Trev, but I think they were just like, hey, let us think about it before you put it in a deal and then tell us we have an hour to

sign it. And then they thought about it. And they're like, yeah, that's fine. Well, the pitchers are going to be a little, this is again, like, I'm not saying they're trying to divide, but this, it will be a little bit of a division for players. Pitchers aren't going to want this. Pitchers want the shift in place. They want all the advantages

they can get because that's how they are. They don't really want to fight fairly because that's starting pitcher mentality. But listen, I think this is going to be good if it's what we're talking about. Like the four guys in the infield dirt and three guys in the outfield doesn't make any sense to me. Because you can still shift everyone. You just can't play them deep. That would be the only... Well, yeah, all those second baseman playing shallow right to take away the double. Yeah. But you could still shift there and it's just going to be a hot shot at you, which It's pretty easy to field those.

Yeah, I'm actually, like, I would be fine if that's what they, if that's what they did and there were still three guys on the right side, they just had to be on the dirt. I still think that that is better than having infielders play outfield. That's when I really have a problem where I think you're ruining, you're literally taking away exciting plays and making them boring, which is bad for the entertainment of the fan. I understand that, hey, if it's allowed, then yes, use your brain, utilize it,

it be better, but making an entertaining product in sport is saying, well, how do we make this more enjoyable for the viewer? And I don't want to see a guy look at a piece of paper and then walk three paces to the right and then it's hit right at them. I'm not playing a video game or a simulation. I want to see a guy react to a ball, run after it, make a dive and catch. So, I mean, for the last couple years, I've been big proponent of this. I'm excited.

Yeah, it gets really tricky. I mentioned first iteration before for the shot clock. I'm interested to see where this lands, because you're right. I mean, the easiest way that we can say is either two guys on each side of the second base bag, feet on the infield. Is that where it lands? I'm not sure. Because I caught myself in a little bit of a trap because, you know, I was saying kind of the,

one of the consistent baseball things, like how many balls have we seen hit right back up the middle that have turned into outs that for 120 years, where base hits and a nice piece of hitting and what coaches taught you, you know, hit it right back up the middle. And then there's a shortstop or a second baseman there and it's an easy out or an easy two-outs. I guess, you know, depending how the rules are written, could there still be a guy there? Is the shortstop playing right next to the bag and they're still there on a big lefty shift? That's where I'm with you.

I was more excited than I thought when I saw that they've agreed to ban the shift. because I've been on that side, but when I actually read the words, I was like, this could. Baseball needs this. This is a step in the right direction. I think it's going to be pretty tricky to designate what goes on. Because I go back to quote unquote traditional defense, and I love the strategy between, you know, no doubles defense.

You got the first baseman and third basement guard in the line, or the third baseman's got to come in to guard bunt. Like there's only so much stuff that you can regulate without mess. with the quote-unquote baseball we know and love. And I don't feel like we're addressing the outfield, which I think is just as much a problem as the infield. Like I know the infield eats up more balls, especially those lefty shifts,

but the Buxton's, the Keirmeyers, the guys that are so special about going out and getting it, when they're in the middle of center field and they go out to that 380 sign and right center and hunt a ball down, that's a good as baseball gets for me. That's what I like. When they're standing out there and Kierremeyer takes one step back on the warning track because he started there anyway, that ain't great.

So that's where I'm interested to see where they land on these rules. I'm interested to see the revolution of them because we know with a new rule, they're going to come in a little timid, a little scared about it because they don't want to overstep and dilute their product the other way. But there's other things that will need to happen along the way with the defensive shifts. and it really does get into a tricky area like between playing up the middle or, you know, there used to be something beautiful

to a center field or either shifting slightly one way or the other and moving a couple steps in and moving a couple steps back and reacting to how the pitcher was pitching them and where they've hit it previously and all of that. And that's been gone. That's been absolutely gone. So I really want to see where those rules land

and if there's room for growth or how firm are we getting with them? I think that we have to look at the shift. Like we look at a lot of things. Like moderation. Like it was cute when the rays were shifting a lot. Oh, look at that Wiley, Joe Madden doing a bunch of weird stuff down there. But when every single team is doing it, it's not so cute anymore.

Like it's just, it gets annoying. It's like, look, you got one little baby cute. 100 babies, not cute, scary. It's like nightmare stuff. When we went to the World Series, it was raised Dodgers in 2020, and we saw, like, how much Turner moved from third base to shallow right field.

I think Jake and I were all like, this sucks. This isn't, this is like a waste of time and kind of just, like, kills, I don't know, it's just you're rooting for, you're rooting for, um, data. in a sense and not athleticism. Keep paper out of baseball.

It's my mantra. Yeah, I like that. And people are going to be like, Ted Williams got shifted, bro. Ted Williams hit 400 when he was getting shot. Ted Williams has the greatest bat to ball skills maybe of all time, number one. And number two,

it was still cute back then. It only happened a few times. Yeah, and they'll figure out a new thing. Whatever the rules are, teams will, the raise will figure out a new smart way to like play within them better than other teams.

So you're still going to have that aspect of, you know, winning on the margins or whatever, taking advantage of the opportunities that other people don't even know exist. You just also have more reactionary defensive plays, which is good for baseball. And hits. Yeah. Yeah, hitters got to be happy about this. There's no doubt. Pitchers are going to whine about a little bit.

I'm sure some already are. But this is a good thing for hitters and the game. I think it's, I think it is good for the game. It's funny when you actually put down the parts of baseball that are entertaining and where a home run and a strikeout land on the list. And when you're talking about balls in play or base running or defensive plays, that's where it is. I mean, I know sometimes we laugh at some accounts that, you know,

are just posting home runs and stuff online. And you're like, this ain't it. Like you've seen a couple home, don't get. me wrong. There's a couple special homers that stop you and you're like, oh, I like that. But man, the defensive highlights and the base running and when you're watching that live, like that's kind of what makes baseball beautiful. So I don't know. How runs are the most boring highlight in sports. I mean, I don't, I feel like people, that used to be a common phrase. I didn't, and like, I've heard people say that. And,

but now people are obsessed with them. But like, it was Sports Center top 10. And like, number five came on when I was a kid in high school and it was just a home run. I'd be like, that is visually, like I've seen that already. Give me a robbed home run or a guy getting thrown out the plate or a guy throwing a runner out from his ass any day of the week. Yes. I have when the ball goes out of bounds in soccer as my least boring highlight. Has that ever been a highlight? Oh.

Out. Yeah. Okay. Throw it in. Some good throwing. So sometimes I don't like. that we all agree and we agree on everything today. I'm not really sure I like that.

I'd like to yell at Jake a little bit. Okay, I got something that you might disagree with me on. They're putting advertisements on jerseys now. They're allowing this, which allows the league and the owners to make more money off of the players that will be wearing these advertisements, which is giving the owners more ways to profit, which means that they should definitely not give the players more money, right? Or you disagree with that? I heard it was $100 million, $100 million plus in revenue a year.

$170 to teams. But why if the players give them the right to do that and agree to that, why the hell would the players expect more money? I don't know, man Like I said, this seems like we've been giving We've been giving stuff up When I say we

The Players Association has been giving stuff up This entire time It's just been like slowly like Okay, like we want to move negotiations forward So here's a little like here And it doesn't seem like that's been reciprocated to the other side And I mean look obviously everyone knows I'm biased

But objectively it seems that way too Yeah Yeah I don't know. I don't know. It all depends where we land, and there's no landing area in sight. Do we have basketball fans in the chat? Are you, Jake, do you watch a lot of basketball? I mean, this time of year, especially without spring training, college basketball has become a big part. I need NBA basketball. NBA's getting tougher for me. I mean, the playoffs are going to be awesome. That's where NBA has the win, but that's kind of the whole discussion.

like NBA's regular season doesn't do really anything for me, but their playoffs are pretty cool. You get really good stars and really good matchups that you can watch any game. And baseball wants to copy that approach, and that's not exactly how it works. You want a different direction than I was going to go with this. I want to know if the patches on the uniforms bother anything.

Oh, not at all. Not at all. It's like anything. It's kind of like the bases. You know, in your head it sticks out. And hey, we all love our team's jerseys And different jerseys have different meanings to everyone. I don't know.

It's a crazy amount of money to put a little patch on there That doesn't matter at all. They do this in almost every sports league around the world. I'm looking at the NBA patches. This is what they're going to do? I mean, is it limited to a patch? Or are they going to do like overseas where it's like... I think it's going to be a patch.

I think it's a patch. Oh, who the first? There he is. You can barely see it. That's, I kind of, that's my take on the NBA jerseys, but I don't watch a lot of NBA.

So I don't know if it, like, bother people to see that on, like the wish thing on the Lakers, uh, jersey. Like, I get like,

Yankees fans are probably going to be the people that have the biggest problem with this. Oh man. Yikes fans are upset when the Nike logo was on there. Yeah, you guys hold your jerseys very highly where I think other fan bases like, whatever.

Yeah, I mean, whatever. I live with Jake for like two years. everyone do that and you like won't care about ads at all or anything people like some people like we talked about i wear you down people like hate commercials and it's like how do you think the world works yeah yeah i don't get people who just like just hate ads all the time like how do you think things exist people have to pay for them but what if you get a really bad company on

your team. It's like doesn't work. I mean, the Yankees have TikTok all over their stuff. It's like, whatever. That's, what are the Yankees going to get?

I want to know that. Probably TikTok. They have TikTok everywhere. Like, Yankees are brought to you by TikTok right now. It's all over the stadium. It's everywhere. So I can see the Yankees being associated with China.

Yeah, I mean, that's where baseball is a thousand percent going to screw the pooch. They're going to get involved with some companies that, like, but yeah man I mean I remember how much of a thing it was in basketball you don't even notice you know even even a jersey as prestigious as the Lakers your lake show Trev you're right dude like that you barely notice it you don't care and the amount those

companies pay for it like yeah like that's one of the few times that I think any person should be able to actually put themselves you know put you yourself in the owner's seat and I told you you could put a patch on your team's jersey and basically that rakes you in $20 million. You're doing that. I think there's a lot of other situations where we look at the owners and he said, well, you should do, if you just did this, this and this, like this, I think the fake Jake numbers I ran into the other day and I think it's one of baseball's problem is the owners are making 99 out of 100 decisions purely business-based, purely business. Whatever makes that bottom line better.

If they even went down to 75 out of 100 decisions and they mixed in those other 25 decisions were baseball motivated and fan motivated, not necessarily the best thing for your bottom line, what it would do for the product in baseball, I think would be unreal, unreal. And that's kind of why we're here, right? Yeah. Oh, man. We should be talking about how... Baseball is the most amount of ads already.

Like, I went through Yankee game. I counted how many ads. I was 140 or was like 84. Jimmy counted every ad. Counted every ad that was in my seat that I could do. 184? No, it was like 84, I think. Something like that.

And then if you listen to a game on the radio, every this, and I'm just blind to it. Like, I just don't even notice. It's like you come back from the commercial. They do a little mention of something. Yeah.

On top of just the normal commercials between every inning. People do have strong feelings about this. It's okay to have strong feelings about it. I, I don't know. There's baseball purists, man. And it's okay. Like,

if that's your domain, let that be your domain. 47. I just think that we're going to have to, you got to accept a few things here and there. You really do. And I think like a patch on the jersey is not that big of a deal. It's really not.

Like everyone listen to this. Like, have a genuine conversation with yourself about your shirt. or shoes you wear and what the actual number. Don't make people look inside themselves. That's all I do. I live inside people, Trev.

Ask Jimmy about the two years. No, Jake just loves commercials. You'd watch, you'd watch TV with Jake in college and he would be laughing more at the commercials in the show. They've gone downhill. They have.

But it just made me appreciate like, hey, it's just people trying to get a laugh out of you because they want to sell you something. It might be needed, might not. But part of life. I mean, every single piece of clothing you wear is a logo. I don't know. People know that.

That's an ad. Whoa. It's heavy. They already got Nike on the jerseys. That's the same shit as the other patch, whatever it's going to be there. It's exactly the same thing. But I wouldn't want them to look like how some of the European leagues look, where it's like, you know. That's where people, that's where the purest love comes in.

like, hey, if we go here, what's in 10 years. You lose the logo. Like, I think, like, some of the Premier League teams, even like Ted Lassau, like the Quant, or the Quanticer, or whatever it was, like that is like the main, looks like the team name sometimes. Yeah. But if we're talking one patch, I'm not going to care. And, I mean, maybe that's the purest angle that a patch is going to turn into more.

I, uh, I don't know. I mean, I guess it kind of shocks myself. you know, I think of Manchester United. Like sometimes they've got a giant Chevrolet logo on their chest. I really don't care. So I guess maybe I'm all the way too far on this one. Looks like they might have a new sponsor. Team viewer?

Let me buy whatever they sell. Advertising. Nate Steele wants to have a conversation with you in the chat about the current state of commercials. No one's doing funny anymore. Across the board. Movies, commercials. No one's doing funny. all the

all the like the what's it called the cell phone providers they try to do like funny and corky I know what happened Jake everyone went the way of a mascot you got Flo

still out there doing her thing and it's like guys yeah she's pretty funny brand recognition and I mean they've you know they have to play some of their stuff safe to the chest like flow isn't the problem

yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't label it on flow I just it's so comical to me how uncomical a lot of commercials are. Like, think you either got to hit them one way or the other to remember your commercial. You got to strike an emotion. Anger, fear.

A lot of commercials have dogs barking, so they get your dog to bark, so that's how you remember that commercial. Yeah, that's really smart. Oh, man. Let me piss off my own household. So many commercials have doorbells right now. Yeah.

Remember the commercials were mixing in iPhone rings and stuff and like, it's, when you watch the Super Bowl, the commercial, you know, Hall of Fame, basically. The Super Bowl of commercials is literally during the Super Bowl. And what do we like?

The one that makes us laugh or the one that's most creative. Everyone remembers the QR code one from this year. Like, find an angle. Like, I don't know. That's what she said. Oh. Jake will, Jake in normal life,

will quote commercials from 2008 to 2012 at the nonstop. He did it the other day at the warehouse fucking cracked me up because nobody knew what he was talking about. And it was the Joe Peshy Snickers commercial from 2011. Joe Pesci Snickers commercial. You're not you when you're hungry.

Yeah. Oh, love that. What do you model? Gloves? Jake drops that line all the time. I'm like, no one knows what you're saying, man. Like, just me. It's a really good joke.

I got a little inside info. there's a possible Maddie's staff commercial in the works possibly. I'm not even going to say anything else. Wow.

I'm not going to say anything else but he showed me the script and it was really good. I think he's still deciding if he wants to do it, but it's really good. You'll laugh at this one. A good commercial has such good sticking power

in our brains because you end up seeing the commercial so much. There's a dumb one from like so many years. years ago where they're using pay phones and they don't want to actually pay. So they're saying all the information through the pay phone line. So they said, oh yeah, we had a baby eats a boy. Bob had a baby eats a boy. It's an all time commercial. It's an all time commercial. Like find your angle. I used to do that in middle school. God. That's what she said. This 1-800 to collect call

is from mom. Dance is over. Can you pick me up? That was how I got picked up. That's how it works. That makes me feel so old. Yeah, it's dating a little bit. But that was middle school. And that's your update from the MLB. I think there's nothing left. Trev, tell us one of your middle school stories before we get out of here. Maybe that time the hair died dripped into your eyes.

You were crying in math class. No, this one girl in middle school told me I had a big nose and it's stuck with me ever since. It's been my, it's been my Achilles heel my entire life. You didn't say, I have a Roman nose. Who is the girl? I found out there's a little. a term for it. Now I, I praise my nose, a Roman nose. Yeah, Roman nose. Her name was Stephanie. P.H. or F? And her, and then her friend was Ashley, they both were making fun of me.

Sounds like a Stephanie, P.H. Stephanie. Unless she was like a mean hot girl, then it's definitely an F. They were like, they weren't like super mean, but they just said it. You know, kids are, kids like, are just really brutally honest. Maybe my nose was big back then. You don't think they're flirting at all. You know, now that I look back, maybe. They're just nagging you, dog. Dog. My nose. The Roman knows.

Me and Jerry Blevins have one. Did you guys check that game out? Warehouse games YouTube channel? Sure did. I did. You look good. Boring for this. You a nice single off the monster?

A couple times. Yeah. A couple times. A couple good swings. Got to shoot him straight. You guys know I rank lefties. Everyone should have known what was going to happen. It is funny because, I mean, if no one's seen,

it. I guess we already spoiled it. The one pitch comes at your face, Trev, and I did the pitch ninja stuff on it because it's crazy. You get, like, scared and back away. And then you definitely clicked. You're like, well, fuck it. I'm not going to embarrass myself and get scared again. I'd rather let that hit the face.

Let that hit me in the face, which then helped you just stay in on it. Because there was like the next pitch, the same pitch, and you rock it. Yeah. You got it. Yeah. Make some adjustments there. Yeah. Game tonight. First elimination game.

First elimination game. Major League Whiffelball versus McFlurry Power. That's a good matchup. Yeah. A lot of characters in that game. Hey, are you guys keeping the speed limit? Yes. Yeah.

Okay. The YouTube crowd that we've garnered, I think, is younger. I think Major League football gave us a lot of younger, and they skew younger, and they kind of just an angrier crowd than we've ever had on any of our YouTube channels. But it's true. All of our comments sections are usually very, like, positive. So we're just getting a little more like angst.

We've forgotten. But there's a whole thread on Reddit, which, um, and everyone in there was like, thank God they got, they lowered the limit and there's actually balls in play now, which is how we felt. There's still a lot of tinkering to be done. I think we might widen the home run lane. Because we're,

we're deep into the next season, filming. Yeah. We filmed 16. games for the next season. And we kept a lot of the same rules. We instituted a warning. But they'll be changing as if we feel like they're not good. We'll just continue to change them.

Yeah, we're doing it for the fans. It's got to be the best entertainment that you can get. We're trying to be. Yes. I mean, entertainment is not lacking. Even the games that might not have an amazing amount of action like the first four games, there's still moments that are just, like bossy losing his gum and picking it up off the warehouse ground

and just putting it right back in his mouth because he doesn't know what else to do with it. And then continuing as a bat. It's just entertainment. Those guys are grinders, bro. And you know that we had a lot of back and forth. There were some disrespect happening between that team and our team. And I had to, you know, we talked about it.

There were some words shouted. some fingers pointed. Frisky was throwing as fast as you throw in his game against us. People had me thinking he was like lobbing it in. And then I rewatched the game and I was like, well, he was hitting 62. Yeah. He had a tough time. It's very impressive with your ability to throw it and Jerry.

You guys both adapted really well. Some of the other younger players don't adapt as well as you two were. Major leaguers. Yeah. Adjustment. Pro preception. there is I saw that

and a couple guys Frisky being one of them trying to dial it back it changes everything like so you got to figure your grip a little bit your release point all that stuff

and I'm sure he'll be working on it and if he's back there are some guys I'm scared of they can make adjustments well it's team baggage versus for Ron and and basically semi-final

winner's bracket final got to talk about it can't talk about it. Got to eliminate some of these teams first. So tonight, Warehouse Games YouTube channel, check it out.

For now, we'll see you later. We are doing an episode Wednesday. I believe we may have a guess, but after the technology wrangling that happened today, we will. Yeah, I know.

We'll think about that again. And then Thursday, we fly to Arizona and we should have a bunch of players coming and hanging out of this in a house and we're doing like a ton of content. Taking 30 people to Arizona, so it's going to be wild. And that's the episode. Ah, and. Oh, news?

Warren Moon. Warren Moon just followed me on Twitter, so. One of the best athletes of all time. Whoops. He's not good. He's fabulous. My dad's name is Warren.