Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 73 | The Minor League Contraction Proposal: Good or Bad?

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

MLB plans to eliminate 42 minor league teams and restructure the entire industry. Its a hot topic that a lot of people feel strongly about. We tried to talk about every side of the situation. 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 going on? It is Talking Baseball. Trevor Plouf is joining us, and we're talking about the proposal to cancel about 40 minor league baseball towns. Let's do it. All right, there you have it. Welcome back to Talking Baseball. We're joined with Plouffe again. I mean, can we just tell at least the podcast listeners that you will become a mainstay on this show?

do a fun big announcement for social media. If these guys can't keep up, they're pretty much dumb. We were supposed to make like an announcement video, but we have more important shit to talk about it. I mean, I don't even know. You know, we're just going for it and let the listeners figure it out. That's what I feel like. Yeah, they'll figure it out.

We'll get it. Jake, Jake, how are you doing? Hey, guys, I'm good. Yeah, we'll do something fun. We'll get once ploof comes out to New York. We'll put together some good hashtag content or something like that. but I'm doing well, boys. It's good.

You look okay. Okay. I'll take that. Ten out of ten days I'll take that. Reping your California strong shirt, so that's nice to see. Always. Always. A shirt.

A shirt. A shirt is good to see. So the plan is moving forward is that once a week, Plouf will have an episode on talking baseball where he brings something to Jake and that says, hey, let's talk about this. During the season, obviously it's going to be a lot easier to find a team or a team. topic or trade discussion or whatever it is today you guys already know because i said it in the intro wow dude jake just breaking news dante gizzy in the chat said jake's head's looking

big today and that's huge for you that's huge well we we uh ploof i think ploof is helping us with his he's got his giant jess jessie crane head behind him uh shout out jessie crane um so yeah i uh it's it's a big day for me. That's awesome. And speaking of patrons, we wanted to do a big shout out to Sean McLaughlin, Robert Mack, Timmy Crawford, and Joey Khan. Those are our most recent Patreon subscribers. We appreciate you. $2 a month, patreon.com slash johnboy media. Those all sound like made-up names. Those were good. Those were good names. I changed Tim Crawford to Timmy Crawford. I took creative license on that one. So I kind of made it up.

Okay. All right. So Plouf, this was the topic that you brought up. And I think it's interesting because if we didn't have an active free agent season, whoa, don't call me Beverly Hills. If we didn't have an active free agent season. Wow. What a flex.

Yeah, probably that salon that gave me a $100 haircut, asking if I want to come back. But if the Astros scandal and good signings weren't taking up this office, season. I think we'd have so much more talk about the juiced ball and this trying to contract the minor league baseball system and reorganize it. But they're kind of getting pushed by the wayside. We haven't addressed it at all. So I'm actually, I think it's a good topic. Yeah, you know, when you said, let's get a topic or two together, this is one of the first things I thought of. I've, you know, read some articles about it, but didn't really deep dive into it too much.

And then as we decided to cover it, you know, I've been, you know, diving in and just finding things out. And the more and more I read about it, it's the more more sad I get. You know, we kind of open this show up. We're all smiles and whatnot. But this is like a serious topic that I've probably talked to six, seven active and, and former baseball players about. And their opinions range, you know, from I don't care to, like, I have a, I can fix it. know how to fix it and all this stuff. So it's a very passionate topic for players. And I kind of put that out on my Twitter today. I said, does the casual fan care about this? And all the

responses that I got back were yes, we care because, you know, this is, I've experienced minor league baseball or I live near a minor league baseball town. And if it gets taken away from me, you know, what are we going to have? So that's kind of where I think we should start is that, you know, the proposal is 42 minor league teams. It's about a quarter of them that with it, a proposal to just basically be vacated. My first every year in ProBah was in the Appalachian League, and they were trying to get rid of the entire league,

except for Pulaski, which is a Yankees affiliate. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and now it used to be a Blue Jays affiliate when I was there. I don't know why they decided to keep that one. It's not, there's not, it's like a, like a, the jewel of the league or anything like that, but that one ended up not getting on the list. And that's kind of another weird thing about this. It seems like they're kind of random, these towns that are getting affected. Some are small, bad facility type affiliates that you

would say, okay, that makes sense. And some lead the league in attendance and have just put in millions of dollars into the facilities and they're also on a list. So it's an interesting list. and, you know, it's just, it's just not good. I don't know if you guys have really gotten into it, but I kind of wrote down bad and good. That's what my note is. What do you guys want to start with? Well, I'll just open it up kind of my mindset going into the conversation.

I was scared to talk about this for a while because as soon as it happened, you know, they're getting rid of teams. They're getting rid of jobs. and it was just bombardment by the side that says this is terrible, Manfred's terrible, baseball's terrible. And I just kind of who I am wanted to be like, but wait, there's got to be another side to this because for years, and especially last season,

we've heard constantly about how terrible the minor league system is. These guys don't make any money. They don't even have food. they travel on shitty buses to shitty towns, live in shitty hotels, and play in shitty stadiums, and we need to fix the minor league system. So I was like trying to think, like, is this a way to fix that? But I didn't even want to publicly say that or like ask that question because I'm so scared everyone's going to say, oh, like I'm the devil now just for even trying to figure it out.

And then I did a lot of research. I did a lot of reading on it. And it's interesting, like you said, there's good and there's bad. I do think the public perception got totally skewed by that initial outrage. And we can get into all that. But that's kind of just like where I was like, I'm treading with caution here. And I'm trying to have an actually informed opinion on it. Yeah.

My thing on that is, Trevor, you mentioned your post today where it was kind of a resounding, like, against it. Like, no, like, it's great for our town. and we love it, blah, blah, blah. It's, you know, it was the only live baseball we could see around town, stuff like that. And it kind of leaks into Jake's theory of Yelp reviews, which I'm sure you're well versed on, but I'll tell you. But if you read Yelp reviews, you have to sort through them because you have to think of the person's mindset when they're leaving that Yelp review. If they put one star and they say, worst restaurant ever, they were late for my grandma's birthday, it's like, okay, you just had a bad time.

And I think that's kind of what Jimmy was touching upon. And with your post today, you know, the people who are loud right now are the people are against it. But I don't think anyone knows if that's a majority, if that's a right answer. Those are just the people that are against it right now. So, you know, I think it is funny. We shared one article before this so we could all have some general knowledge going in. But I'll be honest, and it's how I live a lot of my life,

I'm kind of coming in blind. Like we've shared some opinions, and I think there's some obvious stuff that you can put together. But I don't know, like all the economics around it and some of the player stuff. Like, I have my ideas, and I think they make sense. But also, one of my strengths is being not smart enough to know. So I'm interested to see what you got on that good and bad list. Yeah, I got the list. I think the right way to approach something like this, a topic like this.

is just to have an open discussion. Like, I've tried to, like, formulate an opinion, and it's so hard, okay? As a player, that's, like, where I have my best perspective, obviously. Like, that's where I know I've been through the minor leagues. I talk to a bunch of guys, career minor leaguers, guys that are, you know, all stars in the big leagues, and they all kind of have said the same thing, which is very interesting to me. And so I'll start with that, because I think that's kind of the main thing that I bring

to the show as a player's perspective. So every single player I talked to, every single one, agreed that the minor leagues needed to be restructured, every single one. And as far as contracting teams and bringing the number of players down to the minor leagues, all of them are also in favor of that. There is a dirty secret that's in each organization.

When you have that many affiliations, when you have that many affiliates, and that many players. Remember, there's only now 26 men at the big league level. So across baseball, it used to be 750, so I guess it's 780 now. 780 jobs. And sometimes these teams have, you know, eight, nine affiliates. So there's just a ton of guys in the organizations and an overwhelming majority of these guys. And then no one will say this. But an overwhelming majority of these guys are what I've heard people call. I never call on this, but I've heard from front office, call them fillers.

They are there to play the game so that the guys that they believe are going to be big leaders have competition to play against. And that's the only role they have in the organization. Every once in a while, maybe one of them steps up and becomes, you know, well, obviously Mike Piazza is a great example of that, you know, maybe something like that. But the numbers are so, so strongly against that. It's a pipe dream. They sell the pipe dream very well.

And that's what people hold on to. And I think that is kind of where I draw the line where, yes, it's a dream. A lot of people do it and they're happy. And then they get into it and they realize like this is not what I signed up for. So it's that dream they're selling, I think is wrong. Like they are not forthright with each players. I don't know what the right word is. Like what each player means to the organization.

Value. And yeah, whatever their value is. And what I've seen a lot, and this is where I kind of tend to agree with the contraction is, I've just seen guys, whether you're out of high school or college. College, three years of college done, high school, none. Go play Martin Lee baseball for four or five years. You don't make any money, as everybody knows. And then all of a sudden, you're back in the workforce, you're released,

and you have a year of college left. It's very tough to do. And one year doesn't sound like a lot, but not a lot of guys go back and get that year finished. At high school, you're basically starting from zero and you're 25, 26 and you don't have anything to show for it. And that's where I think the biggest push towards contraction for me. The reason I like it is because it's going to eliminate some of that. Yeah. Yeah, no.

And I think that's – all right, so think about who you're talking to on the other end of the mics. the sickos that love baseball so much, we worked for two years not making any money just talking about the game because we love it so much. So say, you know, maybe I had another inch and I had a coach that liked me a little more and I kept fighting the dream. I mean, in the back of my head, I still know what's going on. And I think that's, and you're right, this isn't out there because I think it is just like it's not good guy stuff. But no, you're totally right with, I mean, how many guys out of the minor leagues make it to the show in an organization what is it 5% 10% less it depends it depends on the round that you're drafted in i mean obviously the higher round the

better chance you have of making to the big leagues now making it to the big leagues is everyone's end goal but if you make it to the big leagues for a month is it all worth it i don't know maybe a lot of guys will probably say yeah it's worth it but yeah that number that number shrinks you know drastically when you're talking about guys that have three three years in the league you know so even just to get there for one day numbers are very very you know against you as you slide down the draft especially once you get past i think round five you know first round you have about a 67% chance to get there and then just goes down down down until those rounds after that like the six seven eight nine 10 you're looking at like a 10% chance

that's just to play one day in the big leagues and yeah it's like people after around 40 it was like 5% make it to the bigs or less than that something like that there's not even after 40 anymore so 40 is the cut off now so that's what it was

yeah so it's it's just it's just you know that that part of it doesn't get told so you know I had one buddy who like what we just talked about you know he played

gave everything to the game three years in college um played five or six years in the minor leagues gets out of the game and he just doesn't know what to do and he i remember him crying on the phone to me saying i've given everything to this game and this game left me with nothing and it was it was i mean it was very hard to hear that and that's just one of many many many many stories like that that's pretty that's pretty sad treff it's tough it's very tough to hear that i mean could you do this is kind of not our everything i know

Jake, I want to explain to Jake and to the listeners that aren't completely familiar. Kind of like the whole plan here. So what they're doing, what they're proposing is that rookie ball and short class A, bam, gone. No more longer a thing. What will happen is they will be AAA, double A, high class A, and low class A. Only four things. Right now, those stadiums and those teams, are owned by the minor league baseball committee.

And they, they, like, they're kind of the people that are treating them like shit. Like they don't upgrade the stadiums. They don't upgrade the facilities. And MLB has, some teams have bought their minor league complex and team just to be like,

we need our guys in a better space. So they're, so like structurally, all those rookie and class A things will be gone. Which in a way, makes me think like all those high school kids that get taken in really late rounds, they probably won't get taken or they won't go to rookie ball. They'll go to college because that's not an option anymore.

It just shrinks the class that's going to be sold to this dream a little bit. And like, you know, you just get heartbroken when you don't get drafted at 18 years old instead of getting heartbroken and left in the dirt at 25 without a future. I kind of went off point. I didn't want opinions in this. I just wanted to tell you the nitty gritty. There's some. So that's the thing about this topic.

It's just, you know, you can go so many different ways. Like, you know, we can talk about the players. But then, you know, the other part about this is the communities. And not just the people that are working at the stadiums or that have a connection to the stadium. A lot of these cities have invested a ton of money, taxpayer money into these facilities. And yeah, are they up to par with like major league baseball standard? Obviously not. There are a lot of shitty minor league affiliates out there.

That's just the brutal truth there. But a lot of these towns, you know, Daytona Beach, for example, they're going to get the X in this plan. And they just put $2 million into resurfacing their field and that's just going to be all for not. You know, they need an affiliate, an affiliated team there to draw fans and they're not going to have that anymore. And, you know, the proposal is possibly getting into some sort of, of unaffiliated ball, some kind of independent baseball, but that doesn't draw like an affiliated baseball would. So that's a whole other issue.

There's like so many ways to go with this topic. So it's tough. Yeah, from the things I read, the major issue with the contraction isn't the contraction. It's the restructuring in the fallout. So Jake, they said that, you know, MLB wants to work with Interleague Baseball. Do we call it MILB? Like what's the how do you sure am i about yeah so they want to work with them to avoid ending up

they want to work with them so they still have baseball in those towns and they have that's just not going to be affiliated and the other interesting thing is they want to make a league that's half of like it's like half affiliated but pseudo not it's an melb league but it's no teams are assigned to a single club, and it's for kids that don't get drafted, but then they can go play in, like, some sort of weird duck league or some shit like that. That was kind of interesting. The true problem, what I read, the biggest problem here is the restructuring. They're going to take, like, 16 of the Pacific League,

and they're going to knock that down to just 10 teams, and how they're doing it is that If you're a AAA club and you're being told to go down to single A, you get, let me find the exact quotes here. Low Class A, a team moving up from low Class A to AAA. So a huge jump. They would have to pay $12 million to move up. And a team asked to move from AAA to high Class A would receive $10 million in compensation to move down. and people are saying that's one of the biggest issues because that's not how minor league teams are valued at all

fucking AAA in New Britain probably isn't making as much as single A in Charleston or something like that, you know? So that, yeah. Here's my thing. And that's where Trevor led us into this part of the conversation is where I get hung up because not only is it, okay, so we got the player's job and chasing the dream.

but the chasing the dream stuff, I mean, look at the flat ground app, look at exit velo stuff, look at independent leagues. If you want to chase that dream, go get that butterfly, knock yourself out. You can do it without some of these baseball teams. Where I do get caught up is in the communities. And I mean, I haven't even thought about like the government stuff. Like if I'm Daytona Beach and I just put two million into a field, you know, I'm, I just turned 30. I'm starting to get that old man tick where it's like that kind of thing pisses me. off. And the other part where I will get romantic on this, as I just kind of, you know,

crapped on the 95% of dudes that are playing minor league ball that aren't going to make it, is growing this game. I mean, I think one of the teams that's getting taken out is supposed to be the Wyoming team that's just out in the, I forget if it's Casper or where it is. I mean, it's in bumfug. I went up there once for work one time. The line they used on me was behind every tree is a beautiful women. There's no trees in Casper, Wyoming. Yeah, it's a good line. Good one-liner if you're ever in Casper. But I just think, and again,

this is where I don't have enough knowledge where we've got minor league baseball players wanting more money. Everyone wants MLB owners to spend more money, whether it's on their players, they're building, everything like that. And so I just don't know how those actual financials go into a pot, because I want to say hey, why don't we just tell the owners to fork over a little more blah, blah, blah. That always seems to be the answer to everything, yet I know if I was the owner, I wouldn't want that.

So the only romantic part of me in this conversation is baseball in small towns. And then I think there is something to an economy. And I think Trevor's kind of bigger question that's been overlooming all of this is, like, do people actually care? And I think the answer is kind of no. Like I think if this happens, you'll have a little bit of outrage, and then it'll be five years later, no one cares, and then they'll do a documentary about three small towns that got severely affected by this, and then we'll move on again. But, and that's like some big picture stuff right there, but I really get, I feel for the communities, and those people that did comment on your tweet that are like, hey, we go to those games. Like we can't drive up to Wrigley pay 75 bucks to sit in the bleachers if that. I mean, it could be more when we can go to, you know, we're doing the Iowa game this year.

Field of Dreams and, you know, we were looking for hotels in that area. You can't find them. So I don't know. Some of this small town stuff, that's the part that really gets to me. I think that's a good point with like the Wyoming thing. I didn't look at a map. They are maps available where they plan on restructure everyone. but keep minor league baseball affiliates in places where there's not major league baseball.

That seems like common sense to me. Like make it the radius. So, you know, we love this sport. It's faded with. Yeah. So they want really what teams are looking for is they don't care that Wyoming doesn't have an affiliate anymore. They want all their teams clustered. They want them as close together as possible.

So it's, well, it's just easier for them to get guys up. up and down. Right. I do think that's also cool, though. Like, if you are within, if you're a Yankees fan and you can go to the Staten Island Yankees and the Trent and Thunder, like, they're within a day's drive when there's like a rehab or there's a huge prospect, if it's in the region. So now I'm contradicting myself because I do think that's kind of cool.

Well, the reason the teams love it is, and I was just part, the last team I was a part of in the minor leagues was the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. What a name. It's great name. We had a bacon strip as our hat. Is there a picture of you wearing that somewhere? Yep. I'm sure there is.

One more than Google it? Yep. So what the teams would do because that's only an hour outside of Philadelphia is they'd have a reliever. Throw an inning or two in a big league game and say, well, we can't use you tomorrow. See you. Back down in AAA. This guy can drive up. And it just makes it that much easier for them to play that like taxi squad thing.

which players don't want. I mean, if you go up there and do your job and you pitch an inning and a half and you do a good job, you shouldn't get sent down just because your affiliate is an hour away. Like, it's, so that's kind of what they want to do. It's why they want everyone so close. But my buddy, who I talked to, and again, we're kind of all over the place. And it's just one of those topics where it's hard not to be. So I'm going to try to stay on a point here with the players.

We were talking about guys who are the draft being significantly, less. I think it's going to go down to 20 rounds or something like that. That's what the proposal is. So less guys, less diamonds in the rough, more guys they think are prospects. And he says, and I'm going to read the text room because I want to mess it up. He said, the tough part is the guys that weren't big picks or signed out of any ball have a better chance now than ever due to some of the advances in the evaluation in our player development department. So he's saying, like you were kind of alluding to Jake that there's a real chance for a lot of guys now that maybe didn't have or don't have, you know, the height, the speed, the strength, you know, right away

to get seen now because of these, you know, advanced player development systems that, that's the iron pig. That's not my bacon hat, though. That's just the iron pig hat. Yeah. Well, can't win them all. Yeah, that's a nice facility, by the way. But yeah, so it's, again, I had this text going.

I feel like these texts are relevant, so I want to read them. This guy was an Ivy League grad, or is an Ivy League grad, one of the smartest guys I ever played with. He says, I really wish I could consult for a team and completely revamp the developmental system. I bet you could create an organization for players that will hold out for. So he's saying like A ball, double, A, triple A doesn't even make sense for teams either. Like it should be completely different, like almost like an academy. which is a whole different ball game than we're talking about now. And I think teams are kind of looking that way.

It's like, do we need 140 games seasons for our players to develop? Like, maybe they don't. Maybe they go and they play every four days. And those other days, it's just straight development for them. So I think this is kind of where we're headed. As we have new ways to measure, you know, output and develop these players, I think they're going to be looking for different ways or different ways to do that

because minor leaguers or your farm system that is the lifeblood of your organization. If you have a bad farm system, you're probably going to be a bad major league team. You're not going to be able to trade for players. You're not going to be able to get guys back up when someone gets injured at the major league level. You need to have those guys ready for you.

So now I really think they're like, do we need nine affiliates with crap facilities to replace, finish our big league team and i think they're saying no like we could just do it a different way and this is the first step for these teams to do that if they did an academy type thing is there games is there a crowd service there you can do games i think it'd almost be like a spring training type thing you know i think you know you have these spring training fields and i think that's going to be still a big part of minor league baseball and should be a big part of mining baseball because you have these

great facilities that the big leaves teams use for only a month out of the year, you know, two months out of the year. Why can't we just have guys there playing against each other? You're still getting competition, but maybe you're, you don't need a guy to, you know, throw 200 endings in the minor leagues. And I think they're really starting to focus on that. And like I said, I think this is just the first step in a new wave of player development, which again, I don't really have an opinion either way, good or bad. I think it kind of makes sense, but then, you know, the old school baseball guy. I mean, he's like, this is, that doesn't sound like real baseball.

Yeah. That, that sounds super weird to me. It's, it's an interesting thing. There it is. And then, I mean, what, what happens to all those, what, we got the bacon hat on Trevor finally? What, I mean, and, and I guess that's where things get really crazy, because it's, I mean, what happens to all these other facilities?

What happens to Coney Island? and what happens to New Hampshire, what happens to Syracuse, what happens to every minor league if we just go straight to those facilities, like you're saying. I don't know. Like, in my head, it feels like there's, it feels like the contraction from everything we've said player-wise makes sense. But it feels like we still need a solution,

and maybe it's combining the two. Maybe it's having these camps, and maybe they travel, you know, whether they're independent or whatever they are, and they could go to different stadiums or something like that. But I have no idea. Like there's so many financials and stuff that gets into this, and this is a part of the reason I copped out on research because I don't think there's a tip of the iceberg.

Like I think, well, there is a tip of the iceberg, and I think that's kind of what we're doing. But like, this has so many layers to it that I have no idea. I mean, how big of an industry is minor league? baseball currently. Like, A, how do you put a number on that? It's pretty good. But it's a big industry. I mean, it's across the country. You know, multiple leagues, we're talking eight or nine. And when you get into players, teams, concessions, people that work the games, I mean, everything that goes on, like, you know, I'll drop some generalities like I normally do, but like there's some

sort of too big to fail or like it's too late to completely change this system. I mean, if we need to contract a little and then we figure out that, you know, we can do some different things with making larger camps or, or, you know, open things that are taken more seriously for the players. I don't know, man. Yeah, I mean, it is a big deal. Bernie Sanders is commenting on it, you know, people, they're feeling the burn on this. And, you know, you're talking about how big of an industry is this. Well, affiliates, you know, big lead teams will sign a lease with an affiliate. And to do this contraction, there's going to be a bunch of broken leases. There's going to be a bunch of lawsuits brought forward because we just had taxpayer money put

into this facility and now you're leaving. You know, you're leaving before you're supposed to leave. So there's going to be a bunch of lawsuits. It's going to be interesting how MLB handles that. They have their hands full right now with, you know, the cheating scandal and everything that's going on. And now this is coming up. And so this is supposed to take place. You know, not this year, but the following year. And I'll give you guys a guess what the total vote was for it. Of all 30 teams, can you give me a guess, yay or nay? 29 yes, and there is one asshole.

Wait, the vote for the contraction? Yeah. 30, yes. All 30. It just, I mean, listen, towns are going to get hurt, and that sucks. But that always happens. And I'm reading up now, someone in the chat that's watching live a patron, Quentin Huberner. I'll shout him out because I appreciate it.

He said there's a good link from someone on Reddit who talked about how all of the Appalachian teams are leaving. And, you know, the write-up talks about how places have been going to the Appalachian in West Virginia and leaving forever. Like, Cole came, they got to leave, and all this stuff. and he says there's one part I just had that was it was interesting like the taxpayer money that's the stuff that's like I don't know like I don't know the legality behind all that shit in 2005

they put 25 million into a new ballpark in Charleston it's small and it's small population and there's like better ballparks that were the same cost I have no idea it seems fucked up to just take that away from them when the taxpayers pay for that facility but it seems pretty rude and then someone left a comment underneath it,

one of General Chillmen. And he said, you know, I worked with the Appalachian League for a while. I've been to most of their stadiums. I'm not surprised Pulaski. The Yankees are the only one surviving because they're the nicest facilities. It goes on to say, the rest of the league isn't completely terrible in terms of facilities, but it's pretty rough. One team literally shares their field with the local high school,

and it looks way more like a high school quality field. than a professional field. So I do think we're romanticizing some of these towns a little more than, like, a lot of people on Twitter are probably, like, fighting the good fight to save this, whatever town that is, save baseball and blah, blah, blah. And if they were to show up and see what they're fighting for, and it's a high school field, like literally a high school field,

I think they'd be like, oh, oh, I kind of get it. You could. You could. Absolutely. I mean, I've said this multiple times. When you, when I first signed 2004 out of high school, you're like, hey, I'm a professional baseball player now. Like, I can't wait to go and play at these facilities and just start this whole thing.

And then you get to these facilities and you're taking a step back. I'm talking about high school ball. You're taking a step back from that. I can only imagine coming from. a big division one program or somewhere that just has nice facilities in college baseball and then and then having to go play in the and I hate saying this because I had a great time there and I love the people there but you have to go play in the Appalachian League it's tough you're going backwards like the pay you ever playing the Pesos League no because you were

you made it to the pros but you ever seen footage of the Pesos League I don't know the the Pesos League is that bad Google it dude who does dude who does our intro song for Talking Yanks Stan Zlatnik, I think he played in the Pesos League. I mean, it's like... Is that an affiliated league? No, no, no, it's not an affiliate league.

It's like, it's like, they did a documentary around. It's like last ditch, last day. It's like, and it's like less, it's like less than like my brother's little league teams. Yeah, and you know, it's... I hate people bringing up the fact. Pecos. Picos, not Pesos. P-E-C-OS.

I have to check it out. But I think what people really hate is when teams are like, oh, we don't have enough money to make these facilities good, which obviously they have enough money to make all the facilities good if they wanted to, but it doesn't make sense for them business-wise to do it. And if they see a flaw in the minor league system, which I think they do, like it's quantity over quality right now.

They want quality, more control over it. And that's what they're going to do. I mean, that's what these guys are, I mean, they're businessmen. At the end of the day, these MLB owners are businessmen. If they can cut out some expenses, travel, and they can see a better end result from their player development because of it, they're going to do it. And that's why it's a 30 to nothing vote. And that's why it's going to happen. And we are romanticizing some of these towns. Some towns are just brutal towns. So we can't forget that. Like I think as a player, like I said, every single person I

I taught to was like, yeah, like they need to get rid of like at least five of those leagues. it's too much. So it's tough when you're talking about, yeah, people are going to lose their job. Some of these towns are going to not have this stream of income coming in. But at the same time, this is,

it's a business decision for these guys and it's coming. And it's just, it's tough. It's, I don't have, I'm not leaning either way on it. It's very, it's very difficult for me.

Someone responded to your tweet. And, uh, they said contraction would cost the host cities, tons of money and costs a lot of ballplayers, coaches, and ballpark employees, their jobs. And that's completely true. 100% true.

Then their next sentence was, the only benefit seems to be more money for billionaire owners. And I just hope that we kind of shed light on like, that may be a benefit. The rich may be getting richer. But as you said, every player you talk to, there's far more benefits than just the billionaires getting richer. Like, the system's broken. And we've been screaming from.

the mountain tops that minor league baseball is broken for years now. Like the Blue Jays just raised all their prices for all their players and they got applauded. So MLB is saying, we're going to try and do this because their mission statement says, the MLB deputy commissioner, Dan Halem, said, from the perspective of major league baseball clubs, our principal goals are upgrading the minor league facilities that we believe have inadequate standards for potential MLB players, improving the working conditions. for minor league baseball players, including their compensation, transportation, and hotel accommodations.

And we've been yelling about that shit forever, that the pay, the travel, and the food sucks for minor league baseball and is near criminal. So like they're saying, like, let's try and fix this. Now, does it also help them out and make them more money? Sure. Could they just pay everyone and do that out of their own dime? Yes, but let's not be like dumb. That's not going to,

they're not just going to do that. There are benefits for players in the league. If this, you know, if when this, is this a certainty? That's what I don't even know. Whenever you have something passed 30 to nothing for the owners.

Yeah. It's coming. And like they might have some legal battles, like you said, but I think it's coming. Yeah. Yeah. The towns that put money into it.

And, you know, the towns, the towns who have that diehard, minor league fan like Dukes from semi-pro? I feel for them. Yeah. It's going to be, it's going to be, it's not being talked about right now, but it will be talked about.

When this goes down, it's going to be a huge story. Like I said, like when you got presidential candidates talking about it, you know it's big. And now it's just been overshadowed by some other things, but it's coming that this is going to be a big topic. And, you know, I think there's going to be more to talk about as it, you know, becomes a little bit clear of what's actually going down. Like, I don't know if those 42 teams are going to be the exact 42 teams that are going to be left out.

You know, there could be some changes. I read somewhere that there, you could pay to play, basically, if you want to, you want to, you know, be still affiliated with the team. So there's a lot of things going on. I think we're all over the place in this. I really do. I think we're kind of everywhere. But I want to end it with just like the player perspective that I've, all the players I've

taught to. This is guys who never stepped foot on a major league field and then all the way to the other side, like guys who are all stars in the big leagues. And they've all were on the same page that there needs to be restructuring. There should be less people drafted. There shouldn't be those guys who are just affiliated with the team because they need people to play with the high prospects. Practice squad, basically. Yeah.

And you know. But you don't get told your practice squad. you get told you're chasing the dream. You get sold a dream. And not to mention, if you just really think about it, if you invested money into someone, whether it's a million dollars, whether it's 50 grand, whatever it is,

and then you're sending them off and you're like, hey, go ride a bus for 20 hours. Go eat peanut butter and jelly before the game and dominoes after. And stay in a hotel where the bed is disgusting. Like, you don't want to treat your investments like that. And you're getting treated like that in the minor leagues. You know, I was lucky enough to be a bonus baby, so I had some money.

And I try to help as many guys as possible. Like, I always had my name on the lease, my name on the cable, five guys to a three-bedroom apartment or two-bedroom apartment. Like, it's crazy, man. But I just think that, you know, if you really just step back and look at it, I think everyone's, that I, at least that I've taught to, is an agreement that this is coming. And although it's going to hurt some people, like it's probably. probably going to end up being good for baseball.

Good for baseball, bad for small American towns. I hate saying that, gosh, man. People are going to, I think people are going to be mad at me. Yeah, I mean, if I can jump in, A, you guys are monsters. P, no, I mean, you're right. I think all, there's a lot of stuff that adds up, and it sounds like it's on the bad guy side. And, you know, you mentioned feeling the burn because you just always bring up politics on our fucking show.

but, you know, who knows what his real intentions are there is to get some small town votes and seem like that or seem like the dude who likes baseball, you know, he's got us talking about him, right? I don't know. I think there is a restructuring. I think what people are more uncomfortable, uncomfortable with and when this topic does come to the light more,

which it will, like you're saying, like we've kind of been buried behind some bigger stuff. I think the whole thing is the misunderstanding, standing slash people not feeling like there's options. Like you said, you mentioned your buddy dramed up to re-structure. Like, I'm sure if we spitballed, we could think of something right now. I feel like people almost want to feel like they're involved in like, hey, we're taking down these 40 teams, but players are going to make double the salary and this, that, and

the other. And we are going to take care of these other towns in a couple ways. It just feels like you're like powerless. And it's in a sick way, it's not helping the sport of baseball. And it is helping the owner. So it does turn into that David versus Goliath. God, it kind of sucks. It does.

It kind of sucks. Kind of makes sense. That's kind of where my head's at. Like, I've tried to like formulate an opinion. And I'm like, well, it makes sense, but it also sucks. So I don't know where to, that's kind of, that's my opinion. I got a question that's not related to this. in any shape or form.

Also not a baseball question. There we go. When you see a stray cat, you don't feel a thing, but when you see a stray dog, you feel terrible sadness. Is that a win for cats, or is that a win for dogs? Yes. Because I saw a stray cat outside, and I was like, yeah, stray cats are everywhere.

And then I saw a stray dog outside. And I was like, oh, my God, we've got to get this dog home. Cats don't care. That's what I'm saying. Are cat people like, yeah, that's because cats are badasses and dogs are pussies? Or is it because people care about dogs and don't care about cats? I think it's the first one.

I really wish you wouldn't reference. Speaking for the cat people, which I'll never do, don't reference dogs as pussies. That's just kind of contradictory. I'm not on, you never see videos of like a rescued cat getting like nourished back to life. No, cats are survivors.

They're mean, they're standoffish. Dogs want to give you love because they're good animals. Okay. Great. Great. Awesome. This needed some comedic relief, so I'm happy that you. Well, I got a lot of, I got a one window view in a back alley of the Bronx here. There's a cat that's always back there. And then there was a dog and I felt really bad.

And then there's a squirrel and I'm real scared that the squirrel's going to climb through my window at some point because I've got a screen. So I did this whole pod. Yeah, I did the whole podcast and fear of the squirrel. So I just I want I hope this made sense what we talked about I really do I think I don't think we formated it well But I think we got a ton of info out that

I mean I had to look all that shit up Because it wasn't being talked about anywhere The only thing you heard was baseball's terrible Yeah Which kind of you know for some towns it is I think what we've started to realize Is you just really can't speak in absolutes When it comes to the game like it's

It's always somewhere in the middle You know, there. Well, the only thing we can speak in absolutes in. Jake sucks. Oh, the asteros are cheaters. Whoa. Yeah. Wow.

We need to throw that in there. Yeah. Can't be an off-season pod without it. So excited for the like three Astro fans that have been like, I'm not listening to that show until stuff gets swept over. Like, I really want to listen to baseball stuff. But I'm not listening until some of the Astro stuff's gone. And then they're like, okay, minor league stuff, I could get into this.

And then bam. dagger at the end. Brutal. Unbelievable. All right. Thank you guys very much for tuning in. Thank you for the patrons for hanging out with us live. We appreciate it.

See you later. Goodbye. Jake sucks. Thanks patrons for hanging out with us. See you later.