Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 64 | Interview with MLB Agent Joshua Kusnick

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

Kusnick joined us at winter meetings to discuss the state of baseball, if a labor strike is still imminent, what he thinks about the newest signings and the money being doled out. Josh is a fantastic source of insight and allows us to hear what the agent side of baseball is all about. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What's up? It's talking baseball, and we are here with special guest, Joshua, Cusnik. Nailed it. What's going on? We're here at winter meetings. We have our first guest or second guest on talking to baseball, but your second time speaking with us, if you're just a talking baseball fan, Josh came on talking to Yanks last winter meetings, and it was a fan favorite interview. Despite all odds. Despite all odds. And you're looking great. We've given him. him a Roosevelt's Bob Ross shirt. Second time we've given a guest a shirt from our sponsor Roosevelt's, and it's looked really good. It just looks natural.

It's my sunglasses. You look like you could go snowboarding with that on, and then you have that whole vibe like you own the mountain. I feel like somebody told me yesterday I looked like a porn director. You can pull that off. I mean, I'm wearing a beanie to the winter meetings in San Diego. I got all kinds of issues here with clothing. Now that you have the headphones on, it kind of plays.

I had headphones on earlier. Yeah, that's true. Like, before I put these on, I had those on. Yeah, you just throw out a patchy beard or a little mustache, and you're good. Oh, man. I started shaving again. I look way better. Shaving or with the beard?

Without the beard. Oh, I'm already old. Okay. I'm like, I'm 37 in human years, but like in baseball years, I'm like 300. Yeah, you've been an agent since you're 18. Jake, give the full introduction. Yeah, well, I'll bring up the whole bio. No.

Josh is an agent. Yeah. But that's the tip of the iceberg, as he's about to tell you. I'm more than an agent. The biggest flex, and I did, I remembered this last night. Oh, God. You were the youngest agent ever did. It's true.

I would have shirts and wear that around. And you may too. If I wasn't 37 and I didn't squander all that youthful potential I might have. You're like, wow, you did this thing once a long time ago. I'm like, yeah, but what did you do after that? I was once the youngest agent, make a shirt. Can I trademark that? That might be better when you're older.

I'm going to make a Twitch handle and just start streaming as the youngest agent. I'll be some 40-year-old guy. This guy's the youngest agent? He's so grizzled and bitter for no reason. At one point, he was the youngest agent. I was. I was. And it was weird.

And it's funny telling younger agents that now are like, I got certified when I was 23. Like, ha, surprise. That was 14. I can't curse on this. Damn it. They can. Oh, I can. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is going to be a hard one. It's like, surprise, motherfucker. I was 18. You can start out the motherfucker wallet? Oh, that's right. You guys saw that. I do. There you go.

What the fuck are you sitting on, Josh? You're gonna have a bad back sitting on that. I have a bad back without it. It's like a rock. How many things are in that wallet? A lot of things. There's a lot of debt in that wallet. That was dense.

There was a lot of debt in that wallet. I don't know if you heard. The economy isn't helping everybody. Yeah. So what's, I mean, we. we're going to do a lot of jokes, and you do jokes as well. But I mean, get... Dance, monkey, dance.

Give people the gambit. Like, I, normally I'd say give your elevator pitch, but your elevator pitch would be terrifying to me. It's going to be like three hours. They'd be jamming to open the door button. Like, get me the fuck off this. Which is funny because like when I get on an elevator, I noticed this the other day, actually. Like, the first thing I do is not hit my floor. It's hit door close.

Same. Always. I'm like a terrible person. Like, I'll like hear people like 10 feet behind me. I'll be like, oh, what floor am I going in my? brain. I'll be like door closed. I think you're allowed to be selfish in elevators. I think that's like an area where you're like, let's take care of myself. My favorite part of that is though is if it doesn't work and someone comes in the elevator, people are like, oh, it's really awkward. I'm like,

I don't care. I was trying to close the door on them anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Except this time, I'm going to be like, yeah, I definitely tried to do that. Now what? All right. So what if they do in the elevator with you and they say, kind, sir, what do you do? What's your full pitch? I always tell people I'm a stand-up comic, especially when I'm flying. I don't like talking about baseball with strangers because I don't like ruining it for them. Welcome to talking baseball. Yeah, I don't like ruining. Well, that's the thing.

I have a niche because no one tells the truth and I hate that. And I don't I don't like a lot of this industry. I think there's a lot of lying and I don't like perpetuating that. So I don't do that anymore. I don't lie. So that pisses people off sometimes. And I'm not trying to be edgy with it. but there's so much bullshit with this job being an agent and lying to just get money.

I don't. I decided I don't want to do that. Yeah, I feel like being an agent as like a professional like bullshitter. It's worse than that though. Like I could deal with that. It's just you become so detached from reality when you're doing things for the job and you justify it by saying, oh, but that's not my real life. That's just me as an agent. I'm doing these things in the capacity of my job.

And it's like the Nazi excuse. eyes just following orders. I totally get it. Like, we're in the content game, and a lot of people are like, oh, that's just me on the mic. That's just like, I just go into character. So I don't actually believe that. And it's like, we don't really do that. Like, no, we try to like just say things we actually believe.

They're, they're dramatized. Right. You know, you're not talking like this. Sure. If you could not ruin baseball for all our fans, that would be perfect. But let's, I know that there's a question for anyone, anyone that is just listening and just hearing about you. Yeah. They're going to be interested, like, who has he represented?

So, so I was an agent for, uh, I started. started in 02, so it would be 18 years next year. And I signed my, the very first client I ever signed was a guy named Carmen Callie, a lefty pitcher for the Cardners who got seven innings in the big leagues. And it's the first client I ever had, and he got to the big leagues. And I was like, wow, this is easy. I'm so good at this. And then like five years later, I had my second big league. I'm like, wow, this was not easy. I'm stupid. But yeah, I was an agent for a long time. When I was in college, I did stand up. And before all of that, how I got in all this, I sold autographs.

I was a bad boy for the Orioles in spring training. I stole Cowherpkin's helmet. I stole Cal Ripkin's Batting helmet, which we'll get into, I'm sure. Like not in an Ocean's 11 style theft. I worked for the Orioles. It wasn't too bad. It was pretty good. It was actually.

Bernie Mac worked at the casino. It was in on it. It actually was kind of an Ocean's 11 like scheme stealing that helmet. It wasn't like, but I was working for the Orioles at the time as a child. So it wasn't like, you know, theft in an adult sense. No. But, uh... No, I used to steal stuff when I was a kid, too.

You got to test it out. Yeah, you've got to be like, oh, my parents are right. I shouldn't steal. But anyway, I was a comic. I sold autographs. I scouted. I did scouting for a team, and I realized I hated it because there was no money. And I asked the guy that gave me my first job in baseball.

He actually found me at a minor league game where I was getting autographs when I was 17 years old of Miguel Cabr 18. How old was I? No, no. I was 19. I was getting Dantra Willis and Miguel Cabrera's autograph. and the scout saw me getting Don Trell's autograph, and he asked me, how do you know who that guy is?

And I'm like, oh, I'm a nerd. I like baseball America. This was before the Internet existed. And it was before Google. And he's like, if you ever need anything when you go to school, let me know. And when I got to FSU, I stayed in touch with the guy. His name is Joe Butler with the White Sox. And he's like, you know, if you want to scout guys for us,

like as a part-time guy, let me know. And I started looking at Juko players and guys in Tallahassee for him. Yeah, a long time would. go. And I mean, was there no training? Was it just like, just go tell me a guy. Yeah. Yeah. That guy hit the ball? Yeah. Seriously. I self taught myself how to scout and it really came from figuring out who the minor leaguers, like the autographs I wanted to go get. I needed to figure out who was going to be good. So that's how I figured out how to do that, like my rough scouting. And then I got more refined over the years, obviously. But, um, yeah. What are some favorite scout terms? Like,

just like body type descriptions. Oh, God. Can you do Jake? Yeah. Jake. Can you stand up for him? I mean, when you see this, what is the physique here in the scouting world? That's a bad lower half. You're not seeing the worst part. Oh, man, that's a bad lower half, subpar runner, average body. Hey, I'll take that. Not bad.

All day. Below average arm strength, probably. Yeah, you got it. How's your aptitude? You're a good scout. Low. Don't sign them. Baseball aptitude.

and makeup is like the hardest thing to like evaluate for sure. If I was a scout, I'd just constantly be like, not that guy. And you can have a bunch of hits if you say, don't get that guy. Just stay away. I'd be like, no, he's bad. But that guy? Also bad. Teams need players.

So I feel like you don't sign anybody. You don't have a job. All right. I dabble. You mentioned baseball aptitude. And I mean, I think it's something that gets overlooked so much is there's, there's so many guys that are talented. And like, the further we've gotten into this baseball world that,

Like, you'll hear a guy talk about someone and they'll be like, that dude was so talented. He just didn't have the brain. Like, would you, would you rather have a client that was like, 50-50 he makes it to the big leagues, but I don't know, sharp dude friendly? Like, he gets it. Or would you rather have someone who's like, this guy could be a potential all-star, but what's going on between his ears?

He's an idiot. The first one. 100%. I've represented both. And no part of me ever wants the super talented moron ever again. ever. It's not worth it. There's not enough money in the world to make it worth it. Like I spent my whole life dealing with stuff like that. Is it just babysitting or like how does that go?

It's everything. Babysitting's easier. Like not killing a child feels easier than this. But no. I mean, you hear that a lot. Like you're like the most talented guys don't make it to the bigs. No, they don't. Because it's like it's one of the more demanding jobs. Oh wait.

Through the minor leagues and play every day and live off peanut sandwiches. No, no, no. No. this is good content here. So I learned a long time. Strap in. Yeah, no, really. This is baseball content. I didn't think we were going to get here this soon.

I learned this from Murray Cook, the former GM of the Yankees and former GM of the Expos and Reds. He was actually the only guy in history to work for, like, GM to be the GM for George Steinbrenner and Mard Schott, which is awesome. Wow. Yeah, brilliant guy. He drafted Randy Johnson. Like, this guy's still around scouting for the time.

Randy Johnson sucked in high school, though. But he drafted him. And then, and then Dombrowski. He went to the town I lived in, Ronnie Johnson. He's ashamed of it, he doesn't admit it. He figured it out. He donated the shed to the baseball field.

That's nice of him. Eric, he's just like a millionaire. He donated like a fucking shed. I went to the same high school as Eric Hosmer and a bunch of guys. And I've known Haas for years. And I remember when the school, I should not tell this. I remember, yeah, we already got there too. I remember when the school asked him for a donation, like,

because they didn't treat him great, like after the fact they tried to exploit it a lot. Like, I can say that about my high school. I love my high school, but, like, like, you know, they're like, oh, he's super starting out. Let's take. Yeah. And they were going to name the baseball field after him, and they still haven't done it yet. And I'm like, oh, that's not good. Yeah.

Because, like, I'm sure you can imagine, there are not many better baseball players to come out of my high school than Eric Hosberg. Yeah. So that was that. But like I was saying about Murray, Cook, he's actually in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, which needs way more love and support and financing. But he's a member of the Canadian Baseball of Fame. And Murray told me a long time ago, I had a first round pick. in 2010. I think he's on the Yankees now, this kid.

Kellan Deglin. Do you remember him? He's in AA with the Yankees now. Deglin, yeah. Yeah. I got fired, like, real quick after the draft, but I represented this kid. We had a bad falling out, and he never got out of AA like 10 years later. Like, they just didn't make it. And I was never more impressed with an amateur player in my career than that kid. Like, I flew to. Yeah, I flew to British Columbia to go scout him. I signed him. I got him a million dollars.

And when he got a million dollars. the pro ball, as soon as he got his signing bonus, he was terrible. He just could not replicate what he did as an amateur. And I asked Murray Cook, like, you're Canadian. You scouted this kid. What's the deal? What did I miss? Like, I don't understand.

He checks all the boxes, the makeup's there. Like, I'm not wrong. What happened? And he goes, there's three kinds of players that fit into, there's three kinds of players that fit into every bracket. There are players that are happy to get drafted. they're happy, there are players. The second one is there are players that are happy to put on a uniform

and tell people they play baseball. And then the third category is big leaguers. And every single player that you look at are going to fall into one of those three categories and you've got to figure out what they are. And it works every single time. It's like the easiest scouting advice I ever got in my life and by far the best. Is he a big leaguer? That's the question.

Yeah, but you've got to figure out which of the three, though. It can't just be, is he a big leaguer? It's like, oh, is he a guy that likes to tell people he plays baseball? Is he a guy that's happy to get a million dollars at high school? Is he a guy that wants more? Yeah, because if the, if the, step is just to get, like, signed, then they achieve their goal. Right.

And those guys don't make it ever. David Cohn in his book talks about that. And he said, like, his goal was just to have a minor league career. And then he realized, like, wait, and then I can do more. And all his buddies on the Royals got drafted. But he did kind of talk about that. And I was like, that's kind of interesting because, like, you always hear the opposite. Like, that was just, like, step one, you know?

No, they, they are guys that play baseball that just like telling people they play baseball they go out they party they live like the the the semi big league life in the minors telling girls chasing going out and they don't make it and then there are guys that try really hard that give everything and aren't good enough and then they're big leaguers yeah so your list of guys is brantley i i work for brantley over the years kemley jansen jeremy jephyrhus carlos swye sef lugo i was just looking it up because we interviewed him max bert yeah i worked for max yeah That's what I was trying to find his name because you had him on the show. What was that kid's name?

I love Max. He got to double A this year. Yeah, he was fun. We had talked to him on talking to Yanks last year. He was a gold glove winner in college. Yeah, he can pick it. I was going to say it. He can pick it.

He's got to keep improving with his bat, but he's good. And I actually just signed a kid who was a low-A South Atlantic League All-Star for the Yankees this year, Mickey Gasper. We asked Max when we talked to him. We were like, so how did you get, like, hooked up with Cousinick? Like, that's a vibe you have to like be, like, you know, I mean, I'm sure you come to some of these young kids and they're like, what the fuck? Like that guy? Yeah, no, I got that.

But then I'm sure there's others that are like, yes. Yeah, that is who I want and who I need. Yeah, there's a niche for everybody in this. And a guy like, so like Max Bert, Reggie McLean, Dave McKinnon, guys I work for now. I mean, pretty much, even Jeffers over the years, like I wasn't Jeremy's first agent and I'm not his last. But usually when guys have a bad experience with an agent, then they meet me, they're like, oh, okay, this is way better.

Yeah. And I get worried when. I represent a kid the whole time that doesn't know anything else because then they're like, oh, I wonder what's out there. And I'm like, no, don't wonder that. Yeah, don't stray. Don't stray. But there's another.

The devil you know. Well, there's another thing that has 100% accuracy. I have a guy cheats on his girlfriend 100% of the time. Those guys have fired me. Okay. Wow. So if they cheat on their girlfriend, they're going to cheat on their agent. Okay, so who's fired true?

I have 100% termination rate. That's not bad. Good luck figuring that out. That's the business. Yeah, I don't care. Everyone lies about that. Like, you see people getting super sad about getting fired, and it's like, what do we do here? Come on. Well, that's all. That's like the industry. There's no, in baseball, like the bench coaches, they're like, you get hired managers.

You get hired to get fired. I get hired to get fired. There's no feelings in this. Like, that's the thing that I used to hear. And I, obviously, I have all my opinions. If anybody's ever seen my Twitter or met me or spoken to me or overheard me in a hallway. but the elevator people the elevator people but I just there's just so much so much bullshit in this job and I just it would be so much easy like when people like you see agents crying over things or they love their guys I promise you the majority of them do not this is all transactional

it's a business I care about the guys I work for it Reggie McLean is one of my best friends I love Reggie I love that I am able to do this I'm close with every single client I have now I like this better than what I was doing before. But when you see these guys with like 50, 60 clients and they're emotional about all of them, I mean, it's bullshit. I hate it. And I would love to call it out more.

I just, I don't know why anybody, like if I knew what the industry was like before I had gotten into this, I would have followed the other path and gone to do stand up full time. Like I had an opportunity to go to the Upper Right Citizens Brigade School in New York when I was like that same age. but I wanted to work in baseball my whole life. And then I did.

Well, I mean, you do have an 18-year career. Like it is not like- No, no, it's not that. I just don't, I don't care about baseball at all. I love the history of baseball. But this is all business. Everything here at the winter meetings is money. None of this matters to anyone here except for the money.

Yeah. You're like Sinclair, the animal. We just, that's funny. Thank you. We just implemented, like, Wall Street principles. over the years and just implemented it in baseball. And now everything's very cold and methodical. And if teams don't care, why do I need to care?

Like, I don't have any loyalty to these ball clubs. They don't have any loyalty to me or the players. This is all transactional. They're going to use you up until they can't use you anymore. And then they get rid of you, like anything else. So, like when teams sell that family bullshit, that's like a, that's like Coca-Cola selling family. The loyalty stuff, like in the non-tender, we just found out.

I mean, you guys just found that out. I knew that. It's broken. The arbitration. Well, yeah, it's so broken. It's all broken. And there's, you think you guys ask me this offer. Do I, do I personally think this?

Do I have any insight? Yeah, I have insight. This is not coming from that insight. This is my person. Do I think there will be a laborer? Yeah, of course I do. I want to get into that. But we're going to take a quick break first because that's a big fun conversation.

I know it is. And I'm going to talk more than anyone at the winter meetings about that. This is like a fake break. I'm just going to play music. Then they're going to hear an ad. And then we're going to pause two seconds. It's a business, man. Money, money, money.

It's my song, right? Mike Retunno, shout up. And we're back from our break. You got any music stuff? I feel like, I don't know. I'm a huge music guy. You guys should follow me on Instagram. You get on the stage?

Oh, not me. No, I'm just a big fan. I'm an old head of hip-hop guy. I like grunge. I listen to hip-hop now. I'm a huge hip-up guy now. I was sad yesterday for real about Juice World dying. RIP.

Yeah. And, you know, when... Hip hop and grunge? What's like modern grunge? There's nothing. Yeah. But I'm Alison Chains Nirvana soundgrong. and Pearl Jam. Like those are my favorite bands.

Yeah, you're a 90s guy. Yeah, a huge 90s guy. But like old head hip hop guy. I grew up with Cypress Hill, Dre. 90s. 90s. Performative years. 100%. I don't, but, but like now, like one of my favorite artists all time is Childish Gambino. I love Beano. Bino's like my favorite, one of my favorite ever is all time. You like him for like just his rap or do you like just that he, that he transcended? No, I like that.

No, I like that too. Because that's so impressive. Love that. But I legitimately am a fan of his music. Because I knew him as a comedian, right? Most people. And then I started listening to the music. So, like, you know, I don't remember if I mentioned it. I was married for five years, got divorced.

And those five years, I literally did not listen to music, which not a great plan. And I got out of the marriage, and I started listening to everything that I missed. And I'm like, oh, my God, I missed a lot. It's like, who is this Kendrick Lamar character? I'm picturing. I'm picture of you jamming in five years of music in like two and a half weeks. I did. I did.

I 100% did. Just feeling like all powerful. I did. It was like VH won the ketchup and like just 48 hours straight of every song. Hang on. We see if I have this. You know what I like about Glover is that he has all these different things. This isn't a baseball conversation all.

But I hope you guys enjoy it. He has all these things. Like he acts, he writes, he does comedy, he does rap. And everything is a different personality. Like he has all these different versions of himself, which everyone does. And he's able to tap into it in some sort of creative. Like his standup is so silly. And then sometimes his rap is like kind of hard for like.

kind of. Yeah, right? Holy crap. But it's like, whoa, dude, who is this guy? I think that's cool. I like that, though. I never, I started to hate, like, you know, pivoting back to me. Hey, that's normally my gig.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, normally my thing. Yeah, but no, that was a great point about someone that wasn't me. Now let's talk about me. I started to hate myself, like, when people would come up to me and be like, oh, you're the youngest agent, you're the youngest, you're the youngest, you're the don't like being known for being an agent. That's why I, like, completely went the other way the last few years, and I show up like this. Do you find you have different personalities when you're in the agent room versus when you're on the stand-up versus doing whatever?

Kind of, I mean, those jokes are jokes I would tell here, so, no, my personality is the same. It's just on stage, you're, like on stage, I told you guys, I play a moron. Like, I tell horrible jokes, but, and they're about rough subjects, but the butt of the jokes, me being a moron. It's not... Expenses at you. It should be. People still hear it wrong sometimes because these are awful subjects. Yeah.

But I like... That's a challenge to me. But that kind of comedy that I do is like dying now. So, like the shock comedy. Yeah, it's... I feel like... I don't know. What were the comedy?

There's two stand-ups that came out this year. Chappelle. I feel like Chappelle and Bill Burr tried to do shock ones. I hated them both. Really? I hate... And I love Chappelle and Burr. But, like, Burr's pissing me off because...

and he's one of my favorites. Burr is amazing, and I loved him in Breaking Bad, and I loved him as a comic for many, many years, and I love Bill Burr. Put your shoulders up. But hearing Bill Burr now complain that it's just a joke,

you shouldn't complain if I offend you, just don't laugh, and I'll get it, is bullshit. You know, the audience is telling you you can't profit off these jokes anymore, and there's so much material out there to write about, it's inexcusable to me that people like Chappelle or Bill Burr are that talented and smart generationally and do lazy, stupid jokes I would hear at an open mic.

I don't watch Dave Chappelle to tell jokes about transsexual people, ever. So for him to go spend time on that. So you've never just went to Nuffles? I hope he's talking about the transsexual people. I hope he's punching down. I really hope Chappelle is punching down this time. He's done so much advocacy for like the unheard voices. I hope finally he just gives it to the disenfranchisers.

people. Shepels was a roller coaster for me because there was a couple that felt like well thought out and it was like, yes, like that's Chappelle. Yeah, you just... The alphabet people joke he did was amazing. Yeah, but then there was a couple that were just lazy. You know, he stole the premise of that joke. That's fair. A comedian named Owen Benjamin

told a version of that joke first, and he sucks, but Chappelle took the premise and made it Chappelle. And that was the best joke, I think, of the special. But Burr, I, like, one of my favorite comedians, Jim Jeffries, Jim started complaining about the PC culture. and they would they would they would they him and bill burr jim jim jem jaffries and bill burr criticized saturday

night live for being sensitive over the the higher they had last year remember that yeah the guy who told all the the the slurry comments on a podcast that were not jokes he just was being a racist yeah yeah those weren't jokes he was just being a bad guy yeah he's being a racist literally and you know he's like i pushed the boundaries of comedy and then you see guys like jim and bill burr defending that right like free speech you know that's the part of comedy i don't like i'll I'll stop after this. But comedians that feel like they can go on stage and say whatever they want and being a bubble and not be criticized is insanity to me.

So I don't, so anytime I hear a comic complaining about PC culture ruining comedy, it bothers me. And I know, I'm just saying my brand of comedy is kind of dying out. I'm not going to change it, but I understand why people don't want that anymore. Is comedy,

is there comedy in the baseball world? I know there is in the clubhouse. Like we've talked to players and they don't take, they don't take baseball nearly as seriously as, as the rabid fans take baseball. But what about here, the front office? Is there any comedy? Is it all just kind of just suck?

Well, you know these people. Funniest GM. I mean, I know that, but. And? Come on. Nick Crawl's awesome. The Reds. Okay.

But, well, see, that's the thing, though. You asked me, like, is there a comedy? So, like, I've been an agent for 18 years. I've known Nick since he was an intern with the Reds. Now he's their GM. So, like. That's got to be cool. It is cool.

Or, like, Stearns. I know Stearns. I knew him when he was an intern at Houston. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy to me. Or Hiam, Bloom. He was an intern at baseball prospectus when I wrote there. That's nuts.

Yeah, right? That's cool. And stuff like that, you know, you have those longstanding relationship. So it's not like I'm going to see Nick Crawl the Reds GM. I'm going to see my friend Nick. So, you know, in all honesty, there's very little time talking about baseball here. We get the work done and then we just catch up. Yeah.

The baseball web is awesome. Like, even those connections. you just said and I mean Those connections are awesome I was going to feature you that a little bit. The web is what keeps people out of the industry and I don't like that. It's weird.

Jake likes to say It's incestuous. Hollywood's one big orgy. Yeah. Baseball is too. And baseball, like you wonder meaning is just like everyone just is like intertangled in this thing.

There are agents that are like talking to each other here and we all literally hate each other. I still can't believe there hasn't been like an incident. at like the agent meetings because we're in a room. We're in one room with every single certified agent. There's never been like a fight. Boris isn't just like...

You're on record saying Boris is the funniest man in baseball, right? Yeah, I can't wait for this week. Yeah, I mean, last year he just like brought a fucking podium and stood on top of it in front of the... I know, so where is he going to do it this year? Downstairs in the lobby, right? I was here last time when he did it. It was by like a giant Christmas stream in the lobby. Yeah, so he's probably going to do it again in the lobby.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. He'll do it Wednesday. I love those. I love it so much. I love it. I told you, he has my favorite. I think I said this last year. Yeah, the nurse one, right?

No, no, no, no. You brought that one up. He has the other one when, when, when Robbie Cano's deal got done, somebody here. I think it was here in San Diego. Somebody asked him, what, you know, how do he feel? Like, you lost Robbie and, you know, now he just got $200 million and how do you feel? And he paused and he looks at the reporter and he goes, you know, it's one thing to, like,

using him? Like, how do you feel like losing him to Jay Z? That was the question. Yeah. goes, how do you feel about losing that big client to Jay Z? And he goes, well, you know, it's one thing to use an umbrella. It's another thing to have been the guy who invented the umbrella. It's just like, damn. I will say this. I'm not supposed to say this on air. And Samantha's not here to stop you. Yeah. I miss you, Samantha. Yeah. I had an incident with Rock Nation this year, which I,

it's a friend. I know. We have a photo bomber on a podcast. No one can see this. No, but I had an incident with Rock Nation this year and I got a kind of like form letter email from someone there and I responded to them saying this is like the first email I've ever gotten from your baseball agency and I have to say I'm as impressed with your baseball agency as I am with your founder's NFL activism. Got him. Any response to that email. Oh, here's a fun conversation we can have that we couldn't have last one of our meetings.

Brody Van Waganon was an agent. Yes. now the GM of the Mets. We call him Brody van GM because I can never remember. I called them something else last year and I got in trouble. Okay, well, I don't know. Thoughts? I think it's a sham.

I think it's insane. Okay, great, because we're on the same page there. I think it's absolute insanity. I think it's an institutional failure that that was allowed to happen. When he represented guys on the Mets. Yeah, no, I get it. It's horrible. I think it's one of like those last draw things.

And for someone in that position to have written that threatening letter, saying that don't underestimate the PA. We have a bunch of alpha male personalities. Like, I read that note. I'm like, shut up, frat boy. Like alpha male shit. Like, shut up. Do you think that that's like an easy crossover?

Like, from the inside, like, is the job of an agent similar to the job of a GM? Like, can it be done by the person that is smart enough? I don't know how the Mets do this year. Well, a lot of their moves didn't work. There you go. They were around. They had some fun. Which for the Mets ain't bad.

Yeah, I mean, the Mets. Do you know my theory on this that I'm not supposed to posit on this, but since he's not an age anymore, I don't care. There's going to be a lot of not supposed to do conversations today. Perfect. So he, everybody who interviewed for that job, in my opinion, probably had a plan for rebuilding that organization for ground up. And he was the one guy that went in and said, we can win. We can win. We don't need to rebuild.

Oh, yeah. That's what he did when he went on my Francesa show with WFN. I didn't know that. Oh, my God. Oh, dude, it's one of the funnier combos. You would love this. I wouldn't because I'd have to hear Brody. I think I might be able to pull this up.

We can, like, move on with a combo. No, it's, it is very funny. It's a comedy show, but, like, not intentionally. I just, I don't, it just adds to what I've been saying. This is. Okay, here we go, here. I know you usually like to ask the questions. I got one for you.

Who in the National League East is going to beat us? And why? Right now? Right now? Or Braves have a better team right now than you do. I mean, I think absolutely. I mean, as far as they're everyday players, I take theirs over yours, so would you.

I mean, you know you would. Okay. I know you usually like to ask the questions. That's the clip. Who in the National League East is going to be? That's the clip. That's the greatest clip of all time. I mean, I tweeted, I said,

this is such a great sound bite. I know Brody has to show confidence, but my God, you can't set up for Francesa that easily. Do you know what I like? I want to go on somebody's show and ask them that question. I want to start. I know you usually have a job,

but I'm going to do it for you because I'm good at everything. I wish you could have seen that eye roll on this podcast. We got a video there, but yeah, how fucking dumb is that from Brody? Who's better than us in the East? Everyone besides the Marlins. And like, maybe that plays somewhere, but New York?

I mean, I'm a two. I know New York well. And it's that, like, level of cognitive dissidents. Like, really? Are you serious right now? And it was, and I knew right then, like, because we were trying. Was that the arrested development moment before you? Like, I've made a huge mistake.

Well, we were trying to say, like, hey, some of these moves. from Brody, like they might be pretty good. You know, like maybe. We were trying to make... Are you trying to be fair and balance? Trying. We were trying to make sense of it because it's like, okay, maybe he does have great relationships and maybe he'll be a great negotiator because he can think about it from

the agent type. You could have just asked me if an agent would be a good GM and I'd have been like, uh, wait, wait, remember the last agent turned GM? How well that one? No, who was that? Dave Stewart. Oh, I'm not familiar. With the Diamondbacks?

Not good. Dude, you don't remember what he did? No, no, no. You traded Dansby Swanson and like five guys for Shelby Mills. That's just a fun name swap. Dansby for Shelby. Shelby's still figuring it out. I mean, that didn't work out.

Well, trading the number one overall pick like five months after taking him, like for Shelby Miller. No offense, Shelby. I don't know if you can speak on this, but with the Brewers and Jeffries, what happened at the end of the season there? Because I remember reading your tweets and you were saying like, that's not true. That's not true. Oh, nothing happened. He just had a rough year.

I don't work for him anymore. We had a bad falling out. I hope he does well. Oh, really? You were like all, like, you were his like. 14 years. You were his hype man on Twitter and stuff. I did it for most of my adult life, and we had a bad disagreement before the winter meetings over his future, and he's still a free agent now.

And I don't work for him. Was he injured? I mean, he got hurt during the year. He missed spring. Missing spring seems like it sucks for a lot of these guys. Like, it actually does damage theirs. But then you also, you know, one. has to always look into why someone this spring.

Yeah, that makes sense. All right, we're going to take another break. And this time, we're going to come back and we're going to talk non-tendering, labor, arbitration, state of baseball. Comedy. The stuff I like. I'm going to serve a comedy again. You can.

Let's see, this is your playlist. For the winter meetings. Coming in hot, the spins, hustle hard. Just motivating yourself, huh? Mike Miller. And then here you are wearing a Bob Ross shirt sitting with us. Coming in hard. I think I finished this set list with blowing money fast by Rick Ross.

Hustle. Hustle. All right. So last year, we had you on, as we said, talking baseball. You skirt it around the word that you wouldn't say, but I would say, which was strike. And everyone was. I don't care anymore. But everyone is saying it's coming.

There's going to be a big dispute. After winter meetings last year, we walked away. Everyone walked away, and then they decided on some new rules. and they said, and we're going to open up negotiations now so we can give ourselves the most amount of time to get on the same page by the time it comes up in two years or whatever, like whenever it is, I thought maybe that would have helped and changed some things. Now we have, there's so many issues.

I mean, the arbitration system is broken, the non-tender system's broken. But the big dogs last year, Machado, Harper, they did get paid. Yes, they did. And we are getting a lot of movement this year and guys getting paid. but there are a lot of things broken. So where are we? Better or worse? So let me ask you a question.

I was saving that. You say the big players got paid last year. Why was there no inflation from Arod's contract to 2018? Well, I mean, that's a good call. But I mean... No, I'm asking. How did A-Rod in 2000-whatever get... What was it, 10 for 250?

Something like that? Yeah, or 252, wasn't it? 52, yeah. So. Well, I mean, wasn't that... So, like, what, like, that's what everyone looks at. Wasn't that look... No, that's what agents sell.

That's still stupid. Well, I mean, if the luxury cap's going to be a thing, you have to look at that. The luxury caps is going to be what destroys baseball. I mean, wasn't the A-Rod contract? And again, maybe this is wrong, but I feel like it was viewed that, like, that was too much money. And I know that's not how things are supposed to work, but...

It was viewed that way. Yeah, like... By who, though? Like, by who? It felt like the Texas Rangers were crippled by that contract. Why were they crippled? No, let's stay on this. They were a poorly run organization.

No, no, no, no. How did that cripple them? We're going to totally stay on this. I'm taking over. I mean, they were saying that. Who's they? Say these words. No, I don't know.

Baseball in general. I'm not going to say names because I didn't know the names after the night. I don't mean names. What side? What are you talking about? We're talking about like fans, right? Or, or. No, no.

Or that's what I'm asking. Or owners. What do you mean? Do you mean fans? I'm saying all of it. I think. No, separate that. Besides agents.

Everyone outside of agents said that the Arod contract was too much. Okay. So like separate the everyone. You say fans and ownership. What the fuck do I care about ownership and fans input on a contract? Right. Yeah. No, but but say, stay on that because that's part of the problem when you guys say too much.

This is what owners have conditioned fans to say. You are saying to me literally that was too much of the owner's money. Why do you as fans even remotely give, not you guys specifically? No, no, no. Why do fans give a shit about what owners? But this happens just in America. But that's because of owners. And well, it's because of the rich people.

Yes. It's like the same problem with the TV show Friends, when they were like, we need a million dollars per episode. And the public was like, what the fuck you guys are blah, blah, blah, blah. And Chandler or Matthew Perry went on TV and he was like, we just want a percentage of what everyone else. If we don't get the million, someone's getting the million. Well, that's the point. But, yeah, as society, we're conditioned because they were conditioned by the people with all the money. But it's ridiculous.

It's insanity. Every single team could afford every single player without losing anything. But the luxury cap does change that. No, it doesn't. It only, it changes it in the sense that it acts as a superficial salary cap. That's the only. If you were an owner, if you owned a baseball team and you had those in place, you would, you would duck under that cap every three years or whatever the rules are? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. What's your point? So that's hard to give out bigger contracts when you have to balance it every three years, right? That's a choice from ownership. And that's not going to change until fans get pissed off. And you blame the players for this. Not you.

So do you think there should be a minimum then? Do I think there is a minimum? No, for like for teams. Teams. Like should there be a- No, because if we enter that Pandora's box, they're going to ask for a cap. If we say we want a floor, the inverse is that we want a cap. And is there a situation where that,

would be more beneficial to players now versus what the system is currently? Probably. But do you know why that is? Because owners are not participating in good faith in what the actual system is supposed to be, which is a free market, which it is not. Well, yeah. So the biggest problem with the system, besides, like, owners not wanting to spend and fans being conditioned by the owners, that's a whole bigger thing.

But the actual bargaining agreement that is in place right now, it favors kids that make the big leagues at 19 to 20, and hit free agency at 26 to 29. Yes. And if you break in... Reggie McLean, my client, 26-year-old rookie. Yeah, he's fucked. Luke Voight for the Yankees, 28-year-old rookie.

Yep. Fucked. We'll never get paid. Doesn't hit free agency until he's, what, 34? Yeah, and then he's never going to get paid. So, and I think the goal was to protect young kids. Like, if you make it to the big leagues, you're going to have the security of seven years. No, no, no, no, no, no.

The reason... There's Tori. You want to ask him for your autograph? I would, but we're working. Oh, that sucks. He'll like this conversation. This would be hilarious. Oh, my God.

I would tell him. I don't give a shit. He'll be... I was going to say something so bad right now. We'll reel that in a little bit. Yeah, I don't care. What's he going to do? Write me a letter.

And I'd respond. Can you sign this card? Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Tori, here you go. I wouldn't say sorry. No. Go back to your point. I got distracted by Joe Tori.

My point is, why was the system in place? Okay, yeah, yeah. So the system's in place. System was in place always to protect the veteran players. As long as the veteran players' salaries were preserved, the PA didn't care about selling out the younger guys. So you have a situation where draft picks, minor leaguers, pre-arb guys, all get eaten up by the system,

and very few guys make money, and that's capital. So I'm horrified to ask this question. Commissioner for a day, you get to rewrite the rules. I mean, is it just so much less team control? Like what is the solution? Oh, how would I fix? Yeah. Get guys to free agency sooner and eliminate arbitration.

Or eliminate the arbitration system as it is and change it to something better over less years. Just cut it down. Yeah. But what incentive does ownership have to do that? None. None. Did you see what, this is public, so I'm not breaking anything here. but did you see what Manfred said to the PA?

No. It was in Calcutera's article a few weeks ago. I saw it a line. Craig wrote that there was a meeting with the PA and MLB, and Manfred said, or I'm sorry, the PA said, you know, we're not going to give up stuff. We need to make gains. We need to make gains in the next CBA. And MLB office goes, or Manfred goes, well, we're not, you know, what do we get?

And PA's answer is we give you labor piece. So there's going to be no work savage. And then Manfred's answer to that was we're not giving you anything for labor peace. So that's cool. That's how we start. Tough negotiation. That's not much of a negotiation. Or like the other thing that everyone's, you know, it's like, you know, the owners are totally open to changing the system as long as it doesn't change the finances.

It's like, oh, okay, thanks. For anyone that's watching or listening that is completely unaware of what we're talking about, the system that's currently in place is once a player breaks into the MLB. You're not supposed to say the MLB and people always correct me. MLB. Yeah, because it's not the Major League Baseball. Yeah. So I'm sorry to those people on YouTube. We'd love to leave that comment.

Once you break into MLB, you basically have three, correct me. It's three years of team control where you're just going to make the minimum, which is about 500. 535, yeah. 535 grand. And then you have four years of arbitration, or is it three again? Three years of arbitration, which basically, the system kind of just takes you what you've done,

your age, whatever it takes into account. Your baseball card stats that are super irrelevant now because you're not allowed to use analytics. You're not allowed to use most data, like analytics in arbitration. So you can't use spin rate? Yeah, so there's arbitration if you agree on this number, and then that's year by year. Every year you have to go, and if you guys disagree,

you have to go to arbitration, you have to... Well, like the way the hearings work is, you know, you pick a number as the player and the agent and the PA, and then the team picks a number, and then you have your case, and then the arbitrator picks one of the two numbers. He can't pick in between. Nope.

And you've got to settle for that to happen. But there used to be a negotiating period before arbitration where you could negotiate with the ball club right up until the hearing started. Like you could be there in a suit, getting ready for it, and then see them in the room and get it done. That's happened. And now teams are all something called file and trial

where once you decide to go to arbitration, they won't talk to you anymore. And then you get shit-talked by your own club. Yes. And they tell a judge how bad you are. In front of you. That's such baseball? Derek Jeter had to do it.

And he said like, you know, it sucked. And Del and Patansis were a Yankee background. And then recently what the Yankees just did last offseason is they bought out. And a lot of people doing it. The Braves are doing this. A lot of guys are doing this. They're buying out the arbitration. That's a thing.

Low A.A.V. Which is average annual value. It's not just a low AAV. That's a low. Total. Yeah. Yeah. So they're buying it out.

I, as a. as a dumb fan or whatever, I'm like, good, don't go to arbitration because then, like... You don't want our pitchers getting yelled at. I don't want Severino to go find... I think some players are fragile, and when they go to that meeting... Some. I think, yeah, I think a lot of humans are fragile. How about that?

I wouldn't want to go to a room. AJ Burnett cried after his hearing. Did you hear this? And then vowed never to play for the Marlins again. Yeah, well, Adel and Batances was like, fuck that, because everyone was mean to it. But what, and no one would want to have to go to court against your boss and your boss, is telling you how much you suck. In fairness, teams don't want to do that, but that's how the system is.

I think, well, I think that's why they're trying to, like, let's just buy out arbitration. Yeah, but they're not. Yeah, but that's still so every single one of those is club friendly. But, I mean, there is, like, an injury, there's a fail safe. Because, because, like, that's the, that's the excuse every time, isn't it? But I'm saying, in this current system, which we agree sucks and is bad. No, the system's fine. It's just broken.

They're not participating in it. If they did it in good faith, we wouldn't have these issues. But wouldn't, like, Severina, what do you get? 70? I don't remember what he got. Whatever. He's not my guy. I can't comment.

So, like, he's got four years left. He's going to make 535, 535, 535. Then probably like, uh, whatever it is. Like 12, 11, 11, 17 is like kind of a clue that was. Something like that. I saw, yeah. So if the total over those years is higher than what that would be, isn't it smart to just sign that? And then you're still a free agent when you're free agent when you're

free agent. You don't have to argue after every season. If you get injured. That's everybody's individual choice. I mean, some guys like it. Some guys don't. I don't ever. I don't know what everybody's situation is in their lives. Well, as an agent, you probably want to bet on the player. But like there is injury risk. Like, I understand buying out arbitration. I do think that they need to just... It doesn't feel like those deals that last year, in my opinion, all of them in the totality, not one specific deal. I feel like all of those were a reaction to what happened last offseason. I think so as well. Oh, absolutely. So that's not good. No.

No, because the owners created this marketplace where no one was getting an offer, and then they benefit from it from like, did you see what happened? Why don't you just take this? And it's like, oh, my God, if they're fucking puppeteers. The ones that were ridiculous were, I think the Braves guys, Albies and Akuna, they're the guys that we talked about who they're, what you said, the perfect storm. They got called up young. And they're stars.

Those are guys that, if they hit it right, I mean, they could have been star free agents at age 27, and they took these kind of odd teams. friendly deals. Yeah. Yeah, I can't. Josh's face was very exciting during that. I can't. I just can't talk about players I don't work for specifically.

I'll get not being, I'll get kicked out of being an agent. But I just, everything's broken. And then we got two years to figure it out. It is better that they, they agreed like, we need to figure this out.

I mean, it couldn't be worse. They didn't agree to that. I thought that was, I thought that's what came in, it happened. It's so super-fing. Okay. Like, if you're in ownership's position, what incentive do you have to open up these negotiations legitimately in good faith? And in my opinion, there's none. And I think it's all just window dressing.

So is that way, I'm scared of a strike. Yeah. I'm not scared of it. It's going to happen. No, no, no. The owners, they're only. No, they're not. They're not. But they should be. That could be the only thing that they're like, okay, we need to do this. They're not. As long as these owners don't lose money, they don't care what happened, in my opinion. Okay. It doesn't need to make... Tell me... Okay, so this is important.

So what is the difference now between 1994 and that labor stoppage and what's going on now? Is that the composite of the ownership, membership, that club of 30 owners, the makeup of it is very different. In the 90s, you had Bud Seelig and Marge Schott and Carl Lindner and all these small...

Seelig, who was a car dealer, and you had all these less... rich people owning these ball clubs who are financially dependent on their club. And now you have billionaires who own teams and literally don't care at all as long as they don't lose money. Yeah, don't tell Mets fans this because they're about to get the richest owner to Steve Cohen. And they think he's going to pour money and really care. But now you're saying.

No one cares about anything. It's just a business. You know, it's a business. And the lowest valued franchise in Major League Baseball is the Marlins at a billion dollars. And then I hear from fans who are all financial experts. on Twitter, which is super cool. Oh, yeah. You're like, oh, the, you know, the Marlins,

just because their franchise valued at a billion dollars, doesn't mean they have a billion dollars. Like, wow, thanks for tweeting that. Really eye-opening stuff. I was like, did you mean to send this to me? So I've got a question, and I think the... You accidentally just sent some stoop. It might be the window dressing and stuff you're referencing before.

Well, what's changed? How long have they been talking? Well, that's what we don't know. In 94, there was also better music that we've already agreed on. There was better music. that. But last year at winter meetings, and there was like no action. There won't be here either. But the whole buzz was, well, already this free agency, there's been more than at this point last year. Yes, I agree. And Moose got paid and he hasn't been paid

in two years. Do you know why? Because everyone saw last year that waiting didn't do shit. Yeah. But the numbers aren't that bad either. Like Moose got paid pretty well. No opinion. No opinion. No opinion. No opinion. Weiler got paid pretty good. No opinion on players. I don't work for it. So last year, it was the high. Like everyone we talked to, and this isn't a side of you. No, no, I got it. Everyone we talked to was like, yo, like this labor shit is real. Like, it's going to go down.

Now it has gotten quiet. I know Jimmy mentioned that like the two sides agreed to open up and talk. That's not new. I don't want to, I don't want, well, I do obviously want you to overstep your boundaries. I'm going to. You're, you are the only person in our 40 hours of being here. With this perspective. That have heard.

Oh, they're all lying. to you. Okay. So that's the window. There's no way you spoke to Calcuttaire and he told you everything was fine. We had them on our history podcast. There's no way Craig didn't tell you exactly what I'm saying. We'll have them on later. But he wrote an art. I feel like, okay, so that's the difference. Like, people would open with that last year. Like people would look around, give like, man, things are. Because they can only see what's right in front of them. And I'm not saying like, I'm this sage, but, you know, they, they. I would like if you called yourself a sage. Seer. I have. I called myself lots of things. They haven't stuck.

You can't give yourself a nickname. Jake tried it with Rocky, but actually what stuck was the toilet nostridamus. That's funny. Yeah, mine's stupid. My players just started calling me J-Cos. Oh, that was. I know. It's so easy.

It's so easy. What would mine be? Yours would be J-Store. Your job. Jimmy O'Brien. Well, be J-O-B. No, that's a good one. That's a good one.

J-Store's not bad. It sounds like some shitty family. Mine sounds awesome because there's a Z in it. It's a good letter. But they, uh, they, uh, Anyone call you Cuzzo? Like Lizzo? They have, actually.

No, I just, yeah, I have nothing more in depth than that. They're all lying to you. Everyone's lying. So we should be worried as baseball fans. Yeah, every single person should be worried. Okay. Like, I mean, not even a little. What can fans do?

They just nothing? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nothing. I lived through the 94, man. I was 12. It sucked. We lost baseball, and I went to spring training games to get autographs of replacement players.

It was terrible. Well, at least we have a scandal to help them. us out right now. No comments. Hey man, the steroids got us through the last strike and now every team will just be legally allowed to cheat and that will get us through this

this next labor stoppage. There's always going to be as long as there's rules people always try to circumvent them. By no comment you mean that yes, the asteros were doing a lot of shady shit and yes, some other teams are doing similar shady shit but no one's doing it. Well, Rob Manfred said they're only investigating the Astros. That's

reassuring. I've talked to a lot of people inside this and a lot of people on Twitter and YouTube don't think I have. They think I'm just some fucking loser. Do they think that? Yes. Wow, this took a turn. I agree. Well, no, they think I'm just like a kid. I've been spreading that room. I think I'm just like a guy. I mean, this conversation just took a turn. Like, people hate me. Do you want my, no. Do you want my trench coat?

No, because I don't break news, but like, and they're like, you don't have sources. Like, I don't have sources, but like a lot of people are using me since I'm kind of out there. Oh, no. Everybody knows what you did. And they're DMing and emailing me more info that I'm not sharing, but like my perception. I mean, I work for players on this game. Well, what I'm not scared to say, but I can't back it up with sources. So believe me or not, is that the Astros were doing this more egregiously than any other team. I have no idea.

I mean, I don't even know if they're doing anything. I have no idea. You know they're doing something, but you just can't say anything. I don't, I'm not part of that investigation. I don't know anything about that. All right. If, I'll ask you this then. hypothetically, if the Astros and the band-aids were rumored are true and the earpieces are true.

I don't know those things. About what? Yeah. Well, just if. If they're all true and it's like went to that lengths. If a team did that? Yeah. If a team from Houston did that.

No, no, if a team did that. And it was systematic. It was executives to scouts. They should all get kicked out of baseball. Yeah. Cool. If a team did all that stuff and got proven? I mean, why not?

Yeah, it needs to be something crazy, right? I don't think it's going to happen, though. Me either. How do you only investigate? Do you want to check everybody? Like, see what's up? They need, I'm sure they are. I'm sorry, is the standard probable cause at this point?

Like, is this a police show? Like, were you law and order MLB? I think, I think, I think, I think they're only going to. I'm sorry, time out. Why was that guy standing there? He took a picture of us. I know. Did you notice that?

It's a fan, man. He started smiling at me. I felt like. It was just taking it all in. He was like, there's the job. Jay Cuss. Yeah, they were like, who's that? That guy's got a dope shirt.

Yeah, that guy looks homeless. He snowboard here? Who would play you in Law & Order MLB? Oh, God. You know, it's funny. The hotel I was staying at, you know who's staying there? Jeremy Piven. Really?

Yeah. Ari Gold. Yeah. Is he going to come be an agent here? It'd be so funny if he just showed up here by accident. See our hype? Oh, yeah, he's tiny. He's a stand-up comic.

I've seen him before a bunch of times. He's staying literally. There's a comedy club connected to my hotel and all ironies. But, yeah, Pivvvvibb. was here, but I, it's so funny. So your Piven's playing you? I don't know, but like I always liked, I mean, I, I, I loved Entourage. I had such a broie show, but like I, and I'm a leftist, but like, I liked Entourage.

No, the first couple seasons were awesome. Then they, like, turned it into a soap opera. I know. What the fuck are you guys doing? This is a fun show about friends having fun. And I still liked it, though. Oh, yeah. Like, people hate, people hate the Entourage movie.

I do not. I don't like it. Wow. I'll never, I'll never watch it again. I've, I watched it when it came out. Forget what happened. I'll never, I'll never watch it again. But, like, I'll never...

Did you ever see this? Hold on. My 19-year-old self, when someone told me, Vince is the star on the show. Eric is the star of the show. And I was like, whoa, oh, my God, that's so true. It's funny that... I was like, Vince has no lines because he was a terrible actor.

So in the season one, Adrian Grenierrez, no lines in season one. He's a star of the show, but like, he didn't talk all. He just be like, yeah. So I opened for Greg Jarrell, the stand-up comic years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The roast comic was when he passed away, unfortunately.

When I opened for him, I wore my entourage shirt on stage. There it is. Suits suck. Do you remember that from the Medellin? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did. I got that shirt made, and I started wearing it on stage. And he wore the famous super high-speed tires and tube shirt.

He did. I mean, this, I loved Craig. This is, I mean, now becoming some people are like, oh, three guys in their 30s talking about entourage. I'm shocked. And three white guys on a podcast. Yeah. But I'm a big fan of if something goes too far, I like to bring it back a little bit. And like Entourage went from, I mean, it was a cool show.

And then it went to like this bro-y-hated world where it's like, I get it. But also like you could say it was a good show. I like I shouldn't feel like an asshole for saying a popular HBO show was pretty good. I do need to make this point as a segue. You should feel like an asshole if anybody here likes Barstool. Okay. You should all hate yourselves for that. You should hate ourselves.

You know his favorite show was Hung. Oh my God, really? With Thomas Jane? What a random favorite show. What a random favorite show. It's like me telling you my favorite show was Oz. Ridiculous. Hung was about the man with the biggest penis in the world.

You're explaining this to the people? Well, because it was based off of a guy named Jonah Falcon, who had a show on the fan called Talking Yanks. Do you know that? Oh, I did not know that. Hilariously, I also watched Hung. Dude, Hung. That's almost like a John from Cincinnati reference.

We were weird. Boom Well that was That was Deadwood I can't think of his fucking name Oh my God I'm kind of I loved it

Did you watch the Deadwood movie? I liked it But it was fan service It was fan service I liked it I liked it But I loved it I'm kind of a train accident guy

And like There's a train track right behind here That's what hung was for me Like hung Hung because was it after enthrash Yeah We would all hang out together John from Cincinnati

Yeah Remember Antirac came off the air And then they aired John from Cincinnati Right after People were like What the fuck is this So existential

It's so weird What's that writer's name? It's pissing me off When I can't think of things It's not David Chase David Chase did the wire Any chase in the chasers? Oh God

No, what? Milch, David Milch Yeah, Deadwood. Deadwood's great My favorite show now is Mr. Robot though. Are you waving at Joe Torrey? No, no, that's Joe Torrey's son.

Joseph Torrey. I was going to say, is it Joe Torrey The stand-up comedian's the 90s? That's my new friend who's in the Yankees Analytics Department. Yankees Analytics Department, people are allowed to have friends?

Not really, actually. That is the fucking the weirdest weirdest thing ever. Yeah. What was? When we met them? We went. Did you meet him last night?

We walked up. Were those the people you were talking to last night? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, those were really the Yankee guys? Yeah, we were sitting at table. Yeah, I was with you guys. We walked up to the, well, that's why, yeah, dude, we were kind of being sketchy

because they were being sketchy, and they're like, they like, almost in a culty way. They like, they like nodded their head. Yeah, they were younger. That's funny. Those guys are still going through the phase that they think this matters and that they're important. They nodded their head and they were like, grab a beer. You know what I do know what I would love? Are you about to kill us?

They didn't say that introduced their name. I was like, hi, I'm Jimmy. And they're like, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can tell me your fucking name. Like, I don't know who you are. I will tell you a funny. They were nice guys in the end. I'll tell you a random funny story I had here yesterday after I saw you guys.

I'm leaving. I go to 7-Eleven. There's a guy getting off his shift from work who's like 60 years old, like grizzled. I thought he was homeless. I'm not judging, but like you looked rough. He worked a- It's California. He worked at a parking. He was a parking lot attendant, this guy.

And holds the door open for me when I'm getting my Gatorade. you know, I drink Gatorade only, apparently. I've told you that, like, several times. I should wear a shirt and get sponsored by them. Gatorade guy. Just make that your new Twitter handle. Gatorade guy. You know, that generic, the old, like, Gatorade logo with the Bob Ross Roosevelt shirt.

As long as it was citrus cooler. That would be pimp. He just naturally called it Giter Rye. Back in all day, they called Guy Rye. So this guy holds the door open for me, and then he asks where I'm from, and I said, I'm here for work. I'm going to be here like a week. You know, we're checking out.

And he's like, where you're from? I'm like, from Florida. He's like, oh, I spend some time in Florida. I'm like, oh, cool, whatever. I don't care. Can I pay for this and leave? And, and, like, you're not a person who's me. I don't need to hear this.

Everyone's real, genuine thoughts. Yeah. Yeah, I say them. Yeah. So, and then he goes, I spent some time in Key West. I'm like, oh, cool. He's like, have you ever been there? And I'm like, yeah, that was it.

That was the whole conversation. And we're leaving. Yep. And then we're leaving. And he goes, Key West is great. If you're open to do experiences. if you know what I mean. And I'm like, I'm here an hour in San Diego and a gay homeless guy tried to pick me up.

Yeah, I might start ending conversations with that just to throw people off a little bit. I think he was just talking about hunting. I've been to Key West. He was not talking. I mean, he was talking about a different kind of hunting. So he was talking about. Mill funter still hang out down there? I do look like a porn producer wearing this.

It's a good look. We, um, a somewhat scary question for you. We're winding down. There's no fear. Don't wind down. I have nothing. Okay. That's fine.

No, I was going to say like what, and I kind of started here and we never philly dove into it, but like you are a man of many interests. Can we talk like you're getting, we can't. About what? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to work in e-sports. Eventually, I'm going to be out of baseball. I think, you know, I'm not signing new clients.

I'm only working for the guys that I have. If I get a referral that makes sense and I can help somebody, I totally will do it, but I'm not signing high school kids, college kids, most minor leaguers. I just, I like the guys that I have, and I'll ride with them, and we'll see what happens, you know, but. We're in for Max, Bert. Hell yeah, Max is great. He actually can catch, too, by the way.

The Yankees almost converted them. Seriously. They got a new catching coach, so maybe he'll hang out with him. Well, you know, shortstop, guys that play shortstop have really excellent footwork. And those are our Cessmas family barbecue. You know those guys? You'd like them. Hi.

You guys know me. They creep me out, but you'd like them. They didn't hire me. Jake is saying, I'm going to see the swathe us. Wahe, dude. Oh, he's at Escohito leading the league in everything. Oh, good talk. Did I see you kiss my dad at the bar last night?

Wait, what? Yep. That's a hard yes. Those guys are great. Did you ever hear my podcast with those guys? No. It was like the least popular one they ever did. It was like episode 43.5.

They didn't even give me a full one. Dude. We weren't even, we weren't fluffing your balls, which, again, after the podcast. It's been happening the whole time. There's a camera. When we did talking yanks, We were a little nervous just because we, agent, stand-up comedy,

we didn't really know what we were going to get into. You were, like, one of our most popular podcasts. Like, people loved it. I should be. I feel like, I feel like. Deservedly so. I feel like I feel like I think that's the recognition I needed and deserved. Cole going to the Yankees?

I mean, he got drafted by them, right? Yeah, he said, no. I know. That was baller as hell. And then they tried to trade for him. I just absolutely love that this kid at a high school. I remember when that happened. He's like, you know, it's my dream to be Yankee.

They offer him like all this money. Can you imagine? No, I cannot imagine being the 30th pick in the draft and then going back to school and be like, you know what? I'm going to do 29 spots better next time. Yeah. Because I always tell kids when they go to school, like out of the draft when I used to, I'd be like, all right, you're a third rounder.

So for you to do better than this, you would have to go to college and go in one of the two rounds ahead of you. Or you could go 37 rounds behind you. So like take the money. And when you have a situation like. Dude, I don't get like. Well, some guys actually. You can't age out of college, but you can age out of being a professional. So, like, if you are drafted in the third round,

or, like, fucking when luck went back to finish school, you know? Stanford, yeah. It's like, look, dude, and it worked out from fine or however you want to think about it. But you don't age out of college. You can just fucking finish that year when you're 40 and can't play anymore. I don't understand why society thinks like, you've got to go to school and finish. You can do that at any age.

Yeah, and Major League Baseball, when you get drafted, depending on what's negotiated, they pay for your college. Yeah. So, like, a high school kid can sign for 10 grand and get his college paid for it and go whenever he wants. Every single player, it's called the college scholarship program, and MLB pays it out. So, like, if a guy gets a signing bonus for like a half a million dollars, so also get on top of that, like, 100,000 for college. Yeah. But he doesn't get that money. It's a program that MLB has, and they have the money held, and then the guy can go to school.

But the kind of bullshit thing about it is if a guy wants to take classes while he's playing minor league baseball, Once he starts taking classes, he can't stop. Oh. Like sporadically, if he has to go to extended spring training, he can't just, like, miss class. Like if he says, I'm going to take the semester off and then do it next semester, they pull all the money. I agree with that.

It's ridiculous. If you're a baseball player, be a baseball player. Yeah, I go to college again. I agree with that, too, but I'm just saying they make the program very... It's not easy, easy. Right. But it is still a good program. Yeah, and it's cool that the players get taxed on it now,

even if they don't use it. You look applying for that refund. Well, that's fuck. Anything you want to ask me that's controversial before we end this? I was literally going to say... Let's talk about September 11th. Terrible day. Oh, yeah, I'm not joking about that.

Seriously. Pearl Harbor Day. No. You did. You made a joke. That's on you. Just happened. It was two days ago.

Oh, that was. That wasn't a joke. That's just me not knowing history. Celebrating. And we're by the Navy. My ex-mother-in-law's birthday. I was going to say, what is the story when you're disconnected from being an MLB agent? Oh, God.

that you're going to be the most excited to tell and just tell it now and it's fine. So you just can't tell it right now, but you could tell it now and we'll be like, oh, this happened in the future. Hold on, we'll just. If you need to whisper it, like, that's fine. Just whisper it.

The wheels are spinning hard. Oh, shit. Who's a bad guy? Like in general? Who's this guy we, no one should root for? Oh, you mean like in baseball? I'm thinking outside baseball right now. I'm thinking of like,

people I know that I hate. You can throw those under the boss, too. I was like, oh, I hate this guy. I'm trying to think of people I've gotten into fights with. Okay. Oh, yeah, we can totally talk about this. Oh, yes. Let's do this.

I hate David Sampson. Who's that? The former Marlins owner. Okay. Okay. Son, or stepson. He's on Levitard show all the time. Oh, okay.

He thinks he's important, whereas I know I'm not important. Yeah, yeah. And he has a platform. because his stepdad was rich. You subscribe to the nothing matters, which I mean, everyone needs to eventually. I'm a nihilist. I don't think anything matters at all. Like, there's no consequences.

We can do this. Bones. There's no consequences for anything anymore. I could literally do anything here or say anything. Oh, wait. I'm take that back. I'm not a nihist. Because nihilist is like, there's a little bit of anarchy that it's attached to

which I'm not into. And now, if we really want to dive into it late, I'm an anti-capitalist, yet I benefit it from capitalism more than anyone at this table. Yeah, congrats. Yeah, I'm a... Well, we're a self-made business. I'm not against that kind of capitalism. I mean, you know, like, I'm pro-labor across the board.

And I... So, like, trying to think of terrible stories. So, Samson, I showed you this guy's yesterday. He, Justin Verlander tweeted something smart. Very, very, not surprisingly. He tweeted something very, very smart about the finances in baseball. And he wrote that, you know, the system's broken, blah, blah, blah, whatever. The tweet's still online.

And then Samson came out. sub-tweeted Berlander and said, you know, there is a problem with finances and baseball, but it's not going to be solved by players systematically tweeting and complaining about it. Yeah, it is. And I sub-tweeted Samson. I didn't know what to say, and I just wrote, fuck you. And it ended up on the front page of the New York Post. And I rally against Samson.

And then speaking of other people that you shouldn't root for, I have a thing with Brody. You know that. Brody? Yeah. Fuck him. Ben GM. Yeah. What's your thing?

Is it before he became an agent? I have no qualms with him as a GM technically because I don't care. It has no bearing on my life beyond my players. And if my players are good, they're going to take him anyway. And if they don't, I don't care because if they're good, somebody else will take him. So when he was an agent, his company went after my guys all the time. And I imagine I am not the only agent that went through that experience. So to have that guy negotiating with other agents to me is so, so strange.

The whole thing doesn't make sense. That makes it even more Mets. That an agent that's who's not beloved in the agent community. Well, no agent's beloved. None of us are beloved. It seems like there needs to be a buffer period. Like, okay, you're an agent, take a couple years off, go to the front office, then you become a GM. But just flipping that switch to being DeGrom's agent to his GM is weird.

Yes. But Rick Hahn made a transition successfully with the White Sox from being agent to GM. But again, he didn't have clients. He got rid of it. Right. Not the same situation. Stewart and Brody left agent. to go work for ball clubs and it's funny that han was a was an agent and like

he missed yeah he missed out on machado because he didn't give him guaranteed money seems like he should have known that no i can't talk about agent agent wheels are spinning i how do you blame a gm for something like that when that's not his money well okay well i don't know that i don't know who did it but what just no no in general in general do not don't go specific on this with me. I'm asking, why would someone blame the general manager? You think it's, it's not his money. Why does he care? Well, isn't his job to massage the money in the way? Because that was like the money was going to Machado in the office. If a player, if a player gets $280 million or $300 million, do you think the GM cares? No, but it's all about like it was guaranteed money with

Machado. I'm not, I'm not talking about him. Right. General. Any player. Any player. No, I think the GM just wants to land the guys that are going to help the team win because that helps them. Correct. Correct. Yeah, right. And he has to work within the constraints of the budget that ownership gives him. So whose fault is it that nobody got extra money? It's always every single time it is ownership. Every single time someone does not get paid, there's only one person responsible for the person to get paid and is the person handing out the money.

And this is the best. So what, so would you say GM should actually be, be, what should they be judged on trades, prospects? Yeah, signing players. But free agents, that's kind of out of GM's hands? Well, I mean, to a degree. There's good signings. Yeah. But, yeah, but when you're talking about losing a player in free agency because of money, that's very rarely the GM's fault.

But they just offered the most money to Wheeler and they offered the most overall money to Machado but not guaranteed money. So like twice now, in this specific example, which I know you don't like. Which Josh isn't talking about. You're talking about a specific example, Josh is not. Yeah, I'm definitely not. Plattitude specific. Yeah, no, I'm not. Same combo, though.

Yeah, same combo. But, but, but, but, no, you, you, it's not, the GM's not, I mean, teams, some teams don't even operate with a GM, like, in that capacity. GM has a different role, and it's like the team. They're making up all these roles now in baseball, and it's fucking confusing. Right. So, like, they're, it's not solely on one guy. What was that made up role, Jace Tengler had? There's a made up role.

With the Rangers. Tough to say. Dude, I have to Google it every time. Jay's Tingler, new Podgers manager. Oh, made up role. I thought you said made up rule. No, made up rule. I love that.

Yeah. He was like, dude, it was something so stupid. It was like player organized. No, it was quality control, like coach. Well, that's what NFL has that. What the fuck's your job? I don't know. I don't make those up.

That play wasn't quality. Be like, you know what? That was a rough shift. No. That's bad. I want to be the guy who points out bad things at baseball games. Isn't that just what fans do? Yeah, that's Twitter.

Hey, Lance Lynn, your curveballs, not quality today. What do I do to fix it? I don't know. Go talk to the pitching. Don't ask me. Go that way. I just, I think baseball, that's like the worst problem we have now. Forget all the other stuff is that the game is worse than it was.

And that sucks. Like I don't. The product? Yeah, the product itself. You think so? Yeah. Do you think because of like analytics type stuff? Yeah, everything's homogenized now and it's not interesting and there's less personality in general or at least it's marketed poorly.

Well, yeah, I think the game on the field is. fine. I think they need to the way... Ban the shift. Yeah. Ban it. I was I'm kind of into that. You were? Because I was into it a while ago. I thought you were against it. I'm not against banning the shift, but like, let's modify it a little bit because It pisses me. Like, give me feet on the infield or something like that. Yeah, that's what I said. Because when fucking a dude roaps a ball. Yep.

And just one bounce. But I understand like you're supposed to go the other way. And like Manfred said, like the game usually corrects itself, but it hasn't. No, it hasn't. So fix it. I think you're right. Well, when you talk product, I think, because, I mean, guys are throwing harder, guys can hit balls harder. I think the product itself is good. I think there was a little blip in the product that was like, I think Mark DeShare is a perfect example that he's midway through his career.

Teams start shifting on him. It can as well. And all of their base hits that they used to pull through first and second instead are a ground out to short right. And like that guy's too late in his career to start. swing it. So I think we're having a new wave of players that are going to adjust to a degree. Yeah. Well, and we also... Or at least you're going to have a better concept that Mark to share, Mark to share instead of the 300 hitter is going to be a 225 hitter. But that fundamentally changed the game for worse because players have adjusted to something that sucks.

But also, like, we were talking about Moose going to Cincinnati. And they're like, well, he's going to play him at second. And then, you know, he played 40-something games last year, and he grades out well. And what we said was, well, if you can feel, and throw shifts can kind of make anyone like into a good fielder and it's like okay so wait we're taking away like good plays now just by science and math

and I understand I think it's cool that defensive like you can use the data to benefit you I do think there's something cool about like some guy like go this guy in this situation he's probably going to hit it there so put your player there and then when they hit it right there I do think ah fuck

smart but we're taking away diving plays we're taking away skilled infielders. We're taking away exciting baseball. So I do think... Yomer Sanchez gets non-tender. He wins the gold glove. Mike Gustavis, the former third baseman's point in second base. I know I talked way too much and you have to edit shit, but ask me about the

non-tender stuff. I know you wanted to do that and I have Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a longer episode, but we're having a... I'm enjoying it. Yeah, I'm good right now. Nantender stuff is crazy. And Jake, do you want to explain it for the people? Well, I think, A, you know I love passing off stuff.

I kind of want to hear Josh explain it. But no, I mean, we talked salary and arbitration and stuff like that, but now we've hit this weird fucking bubble where this was supposed to be a way for teams to control the costs on players and this was supposed to be a benefit to them. Now teams have all this analysis where instead of paying, you know, whatever it was going to be for Yolm or Sanchez, the light hitting but good defensive second baseman, now they're saying, well, if we were going to send two and a half million on him,

we might be able to sign someone in free agency for one and a half million. And I don't know. I mean, Josh, is it just like... They just devalued. Analytics have devalued like one war players. Yeah. Okay. It's completely devalued it.

And they're like, oh, we can pay this guy $9 million or we can just non-tendor them and pay them less. And that's not what the system was designed for. Like Blake Trinan is the one that's the most fucked up for me. It's like, okay, the Oakland A's who, again, we won't go into money spending, but we know all the thoughts around that. But that should be a guy that the Oakland Athletes, are either trading or they're fixing or he's a part of their team

because he had one bad year essentially as a reliever. And he's a guy that he won the Roll-Aids Reliever of the Year award. He did. And now they let him go for nothing. Well, how about this? And it's just, it's not how the sport's supposed to work. Who was the other dude that got non-tendered who had the most innings pitched,

most appearances? Oh, yeah. There was some. We can't think he had the most appearances, Josh, for the team in 2019. So they used him the most. and he earned whatever he's earned by doing that, and then they're like, no, fuck it. Some team threw a young reliever out there,

like 80 plus times, and now you're gone. It's funny because fans are like the, used to be the catalyst for change. Like, we're not going to watch. We're not going to buy tickets. Like, we want our players. You could have a completely empty stadium, and it won't matter.

Like, teams will still be rich. Just the TV money so much? Yeah, it doesn't matter. Ticket sales do not matter at all. At all. But you could have an empty stadium that be rich. And the thing that pisses me off to no end, now, more than anything,

is when I hear from bands that they'll come up to me, oh, you're an agent, you're the reason, ticket prices are so expensive. Players, you know, free... Like, I hear about Marvin Miller, this whole, you know, the two days I've been here. You know, Marvin's the reason a family of four can't go to a game.

It's like, shut up. You guys all of a sudden love communism. So... So, no... You were talking to some Russians before, so that could have been the issue. My family's Ukrainian. So, it's true story, Cusnik.

But the thing that bothers me more than anything is is fans saying stuff like that about that being so expensive for a family to go to a game and it's the player's fault. My question is if in spring... It's not that expensive to go to a game. Regardless. People just like that excuse. You can go to a Yankee game for like $20.

I know. You bring your own food. They let you bring your own sandwiches. But let's say that's the excuse. My question is, okay, so in spring training, right? You've been to spring training. We all been in spring training. Players don't get paid in spring training.

Why aren't the tickets free? Ah, good. Good counter. The jury rest. Yeah, so like, stop blaming the fucking players for ticket prices. Like, this is ownership's fault, just like it is for everything. Before we wrap it up. By the way, I'm going to be super popular with the teams this week after the podcast. We'll go live right now.

Just don't tag Brody in this, please. Last time we had you on, you made a point that I thought was really, really good and really important for fans to understand. Not like this interview. No. No, no. This has all been already deleted. We're recording into the void right now. We did record and then he's just said,

you ever see the movie Wet Hot American Summer? Oh, yeah. The kid who's recording without the radio plugged in. Beehive. The Beehive. Sorry. So the point you made was like Charlie Morton and all these guys, spin rate is what they're,

they have. That's the tangible stat that teams look at and teams pay for in free agency. but in arbitration, you're only allowed to arbitrate, is that would be the word? Yeah. Based on specific stats that were agreed upon by the CBA, before analytics.

So we're using an old system. So RBIs and saves get rewarded. Yeah, and games started get rewarded. Now the opener, fuck that. And the raise. But that's why that happened. I know the rays were dancing around and were like, oh, they reinvented baseball. And it has been a good strategy sometimes.

I think it's a cool strategy. didn't want to pay a lot of guys. That was what it was born out of. Yeah. So, Hey, don't forget Jeremy Jeffers when I was representing last week,

he started a game. There you go. That was weird. Yeah. You got an abat. So I don't know if there's anything, there's no development that, but I just think that's so interesting that in free agency,

you get paid for all these. Yeah, you do. You get paid for all these things. Yet when you're young and you go through arbitration, they're like, well, what's also interesting here about your spin rate?

How many innings did you pitch? I'll tell you cool development I didn't see coming. Teams are using analytics to scout Asia. And that's helping them get guys like whoever to come back. Like Miles Nicholas came back from me. Yeah. So that's good. Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. It can be used for good too. Yeah. It also is just, it doesn't, I'm a big fan of the hybrid where you need old school scouting. Everything's about balance. Right. But there are people that want to, like there are teams that want to eliminate the scouting department, just go straight analytics. Wow, those teams will fail.

Like we talked about earlier, you don't get a gauge on aptitude and makeup with stuff like that. And more importantly, though, what I do like, and I can come and just, good place to close if I don't tell a joke. Oh, we might need one. Yeah, we'll do one. Yeah, we'll get one. So, God, I'm going to have to go through my set list. But, wow, I totally threw myself there. It's something good, though, is happening.

Analytics. Japanese players using analytics. No, I don't remember. Lost thought to the void. And when I listen to this, I'm going to remember a point. I'll text you and we can just edit it back back there. Perfect, perfect. But yeah, so we'll close with a joke, I guess.

Let me go through the set list here. So for real, I got to open for Mitch Hedberg, Jim Jefferies, Greg D'Rald. Yeah, we had a fun time talking about Mitch on Talking Yanks. I do like... It's probably an evergreen episode, guys, so go back and listen to Talking Yanks. I do love how old I've gotten where people are like, who are those people? Comedy changes. Like, stuff that was funny 20 years ago generally is not funny now.

Like, comedy changes. Bill, do you know Mitch Hedberg? Oh, you're out. Can you leave? I don't mean the table. I mean literally San Diego. Get the fuck out of here. Mitch, I, and I think we did this a little bit.

I wasn't the biggest Mitch fan originally. Like, I just... I mean, I knew him, so I know, I'm old. Right, right, right. But, like, I still appreciate. There's nobody like Hedberg. I still appreciate. Just like Marvin Miller not getting to live

to his Hall of Fame speech is like the greatest tragedy of Hall of Fame speech. Mitch not getting a Twitter is the worst thing to ever happen. Mitch all together. Yeah, go listen to Mitch. He had terrible. He had terrible stage fright and he, like, go out there and he wouldn't look at the audience.

He closed the eyes. He did his whole set with his eyes closed. He used to on some shows. And it was just like really quirky humor. So wait, okay, I'm going to riff on this one. I don't want to tell like a totally set joke here, but I'm going to ask this since I, you guys are the right generation.

How old are you guys? 30. 30. Excellent. Did you guys see the Harry Potter movies? Yeah. I did not. Me neither.

I've never read the books. Same. I know nothing of Harry Potter. This is going to like be a story joke. Okay. You and I'll walk through this. Yeah. So I went to Universal Studios.

They have Harry Potter land there. Yeah. Everything is exactly like. the movies there, right? I think. You've never seen. But everything's exactly like the movie, maybe. And behind me, when you walk into Harry Potterland at Universal, there's a

giant wall, huge wall of owls, like fake owls that are there. In the book, somebody told me that Harry Potter is an owl. They have something called Owlory, and they use owls to deliver the mail. Send messages, yeah. So I've never seen

this world, right? I have one question. If they have magic, why owls. That's a pretty fair point. So, like, they have subjugated... No, I thought we were going to play off the joke, but... I was going to say, they have subjugated an entire species. Like, do you know how much it must suck to be an owl in the Harry Potter universe?

You guys can just do this with your hands. Yeah, like, you guys have mad... You can transport instantly. They must have wanted to, like, dominate a species like that. Like, that's awful. Damn. So, yeah. They took the species with the most wisdom and made him a slave.

That's Harry Potter for you, folks I think that happened in Egypt to my people once. Oh, boy. Josh, where, hello, where can, what do you need to plug? Oh, your Twitter. I'm starting an esports consulting company. We're starting a platform, but we built upon last year, like the Genesis for it was the winter meetings last year.

So like a year later, we're getting closer to launching. I'm on the Twitters. And at Joshua Cousnick. At Joshua Cousnick. And my Instagram is at, Joshua underscore Cousnan. And everyone that listened to this and watched us, tweeted him and tell him how much you enjoyed it.

And I enjoy you in the game of baseball. Yeah, I'm not going to leave. The baseball needs more, but if there is an exit, there won't be a total exit. I want to be there that day on Twitter. I'm interviewing. I'm actually, I'm interviewing with publishers this week because I want to write a book about my career.

Do it. Because I don't, you know, I'm in the back half. And the other part of it, this is my, I'll postulate this. We'll break, we'll do this here. This is what you wanted. Okay. So my observation here is that you watch ESPN. Yeah.

So their NFL coverage. You know they have Drew Rosenhouse on all the time talking about agent shit? Yeah. Yeah. They don't have that for baseball. No. I want that job. Do it.

No, I am. I love talking about my job way more than doing it. Are you friends with Passing? Yes. Okay. Like heavily. There you go. Jeff and I go way back.

Yeah, make it happen. I mean, I also represent John Butchergrass currently. All right. There you go. So. Which I feel like I'm the asshole for like assuming people knew that. No, but like I'm going to try to talk to those. I want to do more media and, uh, and yeah.

Cool. Josh Cousin, things you're out of me. Oh, I won't be a reporter. I'll be like ESPN. Insider. No,

I'd be like like, has anyone ever referred to Stephen A. Smith by any of those names? Analyst, journalist, respected. Guy. The man. The man. No, I'm going to be yelling guy.

Yeah. Okay. Good. Hawaiian shirt. Yeah. Part two. I'll wear this. Yeah.

All right. Thank you, man. Take care. Let it run. Be able to the song. There were a couple.