Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 76 | Mookie Trade is Coming, Starling Marte Trade, & Some other Small Moves

Episode Date: February 3, 2020

Mookie Betts trade is imminent. The Diamondbacks acquired outfielder Starling Marte from the Pirates. The Twins have reached an agreement to sign Jhoulys Chacin. The Cubs have agreed to terms with righty Jeremy Jeffress. Our Spring Training schedule! 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.

We are talking a mooky bets trade, the Starlin Marte trade, a couple other pickups, and most importantly, it is baseball season. Let's do it. What's going on, everybody? Welcome to Talking Baseball. My name's John Boy, and I got my co-host. Jake with me, he's in Denver. I'm in the Bronx. And this episode of Talking Baseball is brought to you by a whole gang, a whole gang of really great people.

You ready for them? We got Lou Ellen Trevino, O.G. Zach Weizma. I maybe have done these twice, but I forgot. So I'm doing some of them maybe twice. Mark Curtis, Sean Funukin. Colleen Paul Licki. Now they're sounding familiar.

I think these guys are getting repeat shoutouts. Mark Lucas. Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Colin Ackerman. Ismail Ruiz. Call me Ishmael. I think that's the opening lines to Moby Dick.

Moby Dick. When I was a young lad, I had no money in me, pass. I think that's the second line of Moby Dick. Devon Bartling. Sasa. Sasha Kachian. Perfect. Kachian.

Fuck. Sorry, Sasha. Libby Pion, Dave Griffiths, Alex Depinski, Worker-Aunt, Eric Adams, Norm Schaver, Camden Johnson, Jonathan Jaggard. Jaggard's a good last name. Uh, Kempachi, Kenpachi, Jonathan Hauer and Christian Mallet, Christian Mallet's always pop it up, an old friend. What's up, everybody?

Thank you. Those are our most recent Patreon supporters. Uh, Patreon.com slash John Moor Media gives you access to the live show. We got Zach, Quentin, Tom, Christian in the live chat. How's everyone doing? How are you doing, Jake? Hey, James. I'm doing well, man.

Uh, as we normally do, we'll start off talking football a little bit with the Super Bowl. No, no, no, no, no, no. That's my bad baseball pod. I'm good, man, I'm good. A lot going on this weekend. And hey, I want to, were you telling me that MLB hired like a new PR firm? Or was that a tweet or something?

Did I miss that? I mean, I didn't, I don't know. I didn't tell you that and I don't know that. So I'm out. Okay. But is that true? I feel like someone told me that. And it just seems like,

said before your trip to Savannah that if MLB's smart, they're going to save the mooky bet trade until after the Super Bowl. And here we are Monday morning. Heyman's tweeting. It sounds like it's close. And hey, not for nothing. This has been the biggest MLB offseason ever like PR wise and anything. So I'm doing good, man. Everyone, if you're a baseball fan, you have such the bad itch right now. I think like the next week is going to be, week and a half is going to be a nightmare or so. But it's awesome, man.

Yeah, it's good. The only bad thing is, and I got to give the warning before we get deep in the show, the John Boy Media headquarters is brutal. We've told you they just blast the heat. And on days when it's not that cold out, having the windows open doesn't help. Like when it's 20 degrees out,

It's basically air conditioning right now. Then it comes in. It's a nice day out in New York. It's like, I don't know, 60 degrees is my guess. I have no idea. So it's a sauna in this studio with all the soundproofing and the heat blasting. We need to fix that. Monday is also planes day.

Planes just fly nonstop in the sky. So you may hear a lot of background noise. And the only reason that that is because if I close the windows, I'll get hot, I'll pass out and it will be a boring show. It just gets so drained. Well, hold on now. We don't know that. There's a plane.

I wonder if you can hear that one. No, that was just me. That was me talking. Yeah, I don't know. We'll try a pass-out show one day. But no, I'm fine with keeping you alive for now, like most of my victims. I'm going to be playing on and off with my mic as well, same as you, because the planes are so loud. How is Savannah?

How's the Savannah banana doing? Savannah. Yeah, I flew back from Savannah this morning, just got in. I do want to say thank you to Major League Baseball for not breaking any. There was nothing that happened that was of importance besides new era putting out some of the uglier hats that have ever been put out. Bad job there. Other than that, Savannah was nice, man.

I took a nice little break. I did go see the Savannah Banana team area, the stadium, historical Grayson Stadium. And then I did a little segment on their news channel over there. I don't know when that's going to air. But it was cool. It's good. What was your biggest surprise in Savannah? Like, what'd you like?

What'd you dislike? Well, it's not surprised, but it's just the way it's laid out is so cool. It's a grid and like you can walk. There's 23 squares. It's a little like parks that they put in the middle of the grid. And you can walk all of them like really easily. And then there's old houses and old buildings. It's one of the oldest, it's one of the biggest and oldest historical districts in the United States.

I think Louisiana has it beat. And the only reason that it's older than like Atlanta and Richmond is because Savannah during the Civil War was like, hey, we don't care, Sherman, if you come through and you like steal our stuff and you use us as a base, just don't burn us to the ground. So it was one of the few places during the Civil War in the South that didn't get burned to the ground by Sherman. So cool. History. Historic Savannah. Nice. Yeah, nice.

Yeah, it was good. How was your weekend? You got really drunk and did karaoke I saw. Weekend was pretty good, yeah. You know, Friday night, I got the itch a little bit. And I was like, God, my time in Denver is really, really running low. Let me reach out to some of the guys. I reached out to some of the old coworkers, our buddy Jeff.

And everyone was kind of busy. and then that was also the Kobe game night. So I was like, all right. Like I can get locked in, get a good night to rest and watch some sports. Did that, dude, it was, so this is going to come off a little rude and nobody was really saying this. But dude, it was kind of bizarre, the Kobe game. They, dude, they held like a full funeral before the game. Like, I don't know.

Like, normally during an event like this, like they show a video and they do. something and then they play the game they had usher sing two songs they had a a cello player come out they had boys to men lebron gave a speech and i don't know it was i guess it was a little la and you and i are being sucked into that world a little bit but um it it was wild because normally they say like players yeah just treat it like another game like there was no way to treat it anything close to a normal game so that was a roller coaster and then yeah went to the zoo blacked out in San karaoke Saturday

woke up pretty miserable for the Super Bowl sports. Nice, cool. Yeah, I don't, the Kobe game, I didn't see it. I wouldn't be able to do that. I had a panic attack in Savannah

because Katie took me on a ghost tour and it wasn't like a nonsensical, campy ghost tour. It was like details of the final seconds of people's lives and the bedrooms. And I literally left.

I was like, I'm Katie. She's terrified of whales. They give her panic attacks. I was like, if I took you scuba, diving with whales. Like, I can't do this. She felt really bad. She's like, I didn't realize. And I'm like, well, I know you didn't realize, but like, I, sure, I was just, I was, only one I

I've ever had like a legit panic attack, but I definitely did. I was walking the streets of Savannah. The Super Bowl was on. So there was no one in the streets. It was kind of weird. There's no one except the ghosts. See, like, Katie gets scared by the ghost because she thinks the ghost are real. I just, I just can't deal with death and the thought of it and everything that gets wrapped up in that. So I was like, I'm out. Guy was like, why are you leaving the tour? Is something wrong? And I said, yeah, this is my nightmare. Thank you. This is a lot of fun, but this is also my nightmare.

It's like counting my breath and doing all things to control myself. But yeah, it's not like a joke when I say, I can't handle death stuff. No. Like, I should probably see a therapist and try to get over it. But it's brutal. Speaking of, Lukie Betts trade is imminent, Jake. Kennerosthal says, Segway. Thank you. Thank you. He's going to be a ghost in Boston soon.

He's dead to Boston. That was a lot worse. Segway. Okay. Well, all right. Anyway, Kenny, Kenny Rosenthal said, like, it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when and where and for who. And it's either going to be the Padres or the Dodgers is what everyone's saying.

I guarantee, well, is he a Boris client? If he was a Boris client, if Hayman would, if Hayman's involved in this, if Boris is involved, there's going to be a mystery team that comes in at some point. But this makes me sad for baseball. And I don't know if this is the conversation you want to have, but it also ties into a lot of notes I have here with Lindor. So I was thinking of putting them together. And then we can actually talk about the return and the results. But like, this sucks. When they, and I know next episode that we do with Plouf, we're going to talk about the upcoming collective bargaining agreement and potential strike and all that. I don't know the

answer. I'm not smart enough to figure out the answer. But this is bad for baseball. When you have a guy that's this good and he's homegrown and developed, and your team is good still. Like the Red Sox, if they want to win, they can go win. But because of the current cap situation, they're like, oh, it's better for us to trade him. And it's just bad. Like, it would be better for baseball if the Red Sox locked up Moogie.

Like the Angels locked up Trout, but then obviously we have problems. with that because they have to help. But then the same with Lindor. Lindor was asked about his future in Cleveland because the owner of Cleveland said we're not paying him, so enjoy him while we have him to the fans of Cleveland, which is so, so messed up. And Lindor said, he said a lot of things. He said he wants to win a ring with Cleveland. He said, wherever I go, I want to win. It has nothing to do with the money. That's kind of a lie. It has nothing to do with the years, also a lie. It has to do with who I like, or who I don't like, it has to do with championships. The front office tries to put a team together to win, not save money.

They're supposed to try to put a team together to win. I'm here to try to win. And there is something very true about what he's saying. Now, obviously Lindor and his agent are going to want the most money and the most years. But when you have teams in baseball, like the Indians and the Red Sox, who have the talent to win, but their focus isn't like, you know, going for the throat when they're that close. It's like, okay, let's ease off a little bit. save some money.

It's a real bad spot for baseball. These two teams are doing this. So I want to talk about the actual trade, and we'll talk about this with Plouf next episode, but I just want to say, like, it's shitty. So do you have any thoughts on that? Or did I just talk in circles? You took combined two big ones, made it a massive.

Although let's start with MOOC man. Let's start with mooky bets. Because you're right. And dude, you're just a biased Yankee fan. You want Mookie. So you want them traded to the KBO. No, dude, you're right. And we are going to talk this a little bit with Plouffe.

And I think the other main statement that I will copy and paste from you is we're not smart enough. Because they do have to change a lot of things in the CBA. And I think that's where the fear factor comes in with stragg and everything. But we're talking about the Boston Red Sox. This is supposed to, I mean, they are a financial juggernaut. They're in one of the proudest baseball homes. I mean, dude, it's been kind of sad to see, and it's, it's this new transition of new media, but you're seeing like the mooky slander posts and stuff like that.

And it's like, this is sad and it sucks. And it does tie into Lindor that maybe we need to figure out some rule that a team can, can pay one of their players a lot of money and it counts less against the cap or something like that. Who knows? Again, not smart enough. But sticking with mooky, it's, it's, it's, while. Mookie, he's not a Boris guy. I looked that up at the beginning of your talk. He, he has made it very clear that he wants to hit free agency. And we don't see a ton of players come out and say that.

So I think that's one of the odd situations that's going on here a little bit, which is fine. If you want to hit free agency, that's, you're right. That could be your one chance at getting a serious contract. So Mookie wants to do that. The part that's crazy is that the Red Sox are basically openly saying that they will not be the highest bidder in a Mookie bet free agency, which, I mean, the fact they don't think there's a chance is sad. And yeah, maybe it is something with the luxury tax rules that were, they were meant to keep teams in check and I guess keep the league more balanced. But we haven't seen a team go into that three-year threshold where owners have to pay. more money because they're businessmen. You don't just stumble into having an MLB team.

You have to have a pretty good business acumen. And these guys are smart enough to say, hey, I can run a business without paying what? What is it? 50% of my payroll or 33% in just straight bonus money. So you're right. And this has turned into a good precursor to our ploof episode coming up this week. he's going to be all sorts of excited. Into the baseball a little bit.

The Red Sox, I think, and this is what's getting lost in it, the Yankees are set up really strongly. They're a 103-win team that had the most injuries in Major League history, and they signed arguably one of the best pitchers in baseball. I don't need to make an outlandish statement. Wherever you think Garrett Cole is, He's one of the top pitchers in baseball. The Yankees are better.

The Red Sox, I mean, they lost some borderline guys. Porcelo, you know, that's not going to take them down. Chris Sayle, he should bounce back a little bit. You had special years from Bogarts and Devers. Can they repeat that? They still have a ton of talent. But they also have to look at it as a business. And Dave Dombrowski made some signings that weren't great for them,

and that ties into the CBA and everything. And if Mookie can't give them a guarantee, they have to do what's best for their team. So I think there definitely is a world where if they can get someone like Verdugo, who's rumored. And if they can maybe move David Price off of this and do a one-year reset,

we've seen this literally work for Boston, trading with the Dodgers, getting rid of more, there's more money and less Mookie in the previous trade. But I mean, there's parts of this that do make sense for Boston after you get past the fact that, hey, our owner and every team should be able to keep one Mookie bets or one Linder on their team. Yeah. So you said, you know, how the Red Sucks did offer Mookie. I think a good amount of money, like a lot of money to extend him.

And he said, no, I want to go see what free agency has to offer. And I think he has that right to say like, hey, I might like your offer the most, but I still want to go see what other teams are all about. I know nothing about the other 29 teams. Like, I want to get whined and dined. I want to see what their pitch is. Like, I think any player that wants to do that has the right to do that. But what's weird is the Red Sox are taking that as like, well, well, and Red Sox fans are using this as like, well, if he's not going to accept our extension, we're not even going to try to get him.

It's like, why? You still have him for the year. You could try to win right now. And then go whine and dine him and tell him how great, you know, you want him back. Like, then do that process. They're like, well, we rather get something in return than lose him for nothing. But when the losing for nothing comes into play is also tied to winning. So it's like, it's so weird to me.

But here's where I'm Jekyll and hide on this, Jake. I'd rather Mookiee on the Red Sox as a Yankees fan than on the Dodgers. Ah, see, I disagree with you there. Because I think I know where you're going with this thought process, and I'll try to nip it in the butt. Well, my thought process is they have no pitchers. So, like, I still don't think they're good. Right.

I mean, they, uh, I mean, if Chris Sale can, if Chris Sale can bounce back and be Chris sale and Erod can be Erod and then David Price, I, I mean, that's a whole other situation. I mean, they can put together some starting pitching, which, hey, when they won the World Series, it was a little bit of starting pitching and then just figure it out on the back end. My thing in this is as a Yankee fan, I get what you're saying because there's almost this, hey, you know, the Yankees are the favorites in the A.L. The Dodgers are the favorite in the NEO. I don't want to see Mooki bets on the Dodgers come October.

This is baseball, man. And, hey, Mookie's awesome. if he can find that 2017 and be a 10 war player, Boston can contend for the East. This is baseball. It's why it's an awesome sport. So if Mookiee goes to L.A. and the Yankees were to run into the Dodgers in the World Series,

I will deal with that problem then. For now, Mookie bets on the Red Sox. He's always going to be a problem because he's one of the top three players in baseball. So that's my spiel. Verdugo would be a nice return. So I didn't read all, I didn't read all the trade stuff, but I believe they say, you know, Verdugo is the one from the Dodgers.

And then on the Padres, it's Will Myers, which is like a contract money-for-money situation. The Dodgers makes more sense to me. Verdugo would kind of fit in Boston's vibe as a city pretty well. That's code for Jimmy saying Alex Verdugo grosses him out. No, he's kind of got that. he'd fit in well. That's close where he grosses Jimmy out.

He's like that vibe. You drop him in Southie and he's there. Jimmy, I've got a perfect closing piece for this trade. Throwing your guy Tony Gonsolin. That guy wouldn't survive in the fucking at the East Coast. Where's Tony Gonsolin from? Tony Gonsolin, like, loves cats and they call when he pitches Catter Day. So let me tell you something about Tony Gonsolin.

He better stay on the West Coast where the media ain't mean. And the fans aren't mean because that's some weird shit. Anytime I can get Jimmy going on Tony Gonslin, I'm going to do it. A, fun name to say, B, we hate cats. C, gonsolin. Yeah, he's from, it looks like he's from California. Yes. I mean, you don't get on the mound and talk about your cats and do all that weird shit

if you're from the East Coast. Slick Tony Gonsland. Yeah, and a little bit about the returns. I think the Padres, because the Padres have to figure out some money stuff if they are to do this. So, yes, Will Myers involved, I think with Will Myers being involved, they offer better prospects. That's part of the picture. The Dodgers, and this is where, and Jim, correct me if I'm wrong, no, that's weird. He's going to the Dodgers, and I'll tell you why.

The Padres have already had a pretty active offseason for the Padres. did the Tommy fam trade, if you remember that. They did the trade with the brewers where they brought in Davies and Gresham. And more importantly, Fernando Tatis Jr. showed up last year and he's going to be there this year. So they've already made their steps to improve. They're a bunch of young guys. And if the Padres are going to really build something, they need to build it with their young guys. They don't have an unlimited bank behind them.

They wasted a lot of money on Eric Hosmer. and Will Myers, who still are hanging around. If the Padres really want to build something, it's going to be with their young core that they've had coming up for the pipeline. We've heard about their number one ranked farm system for a little while now. We've got some of those guys coming to fruition, a lot of young pitchers, Tatis, et cetera, et cetera. They brought in pro far.

The Dodgers haven't done a thing, and they have money, and they still have this incredible team that has looked like this complete failure. And when you juxtapose it with everything that's going on in Houston, it's one of the more bizarre sports stories in baseball history of recent history of a really good team that gets shit on a lot when they could have done so much more potentially. Mookie Betts is such a fit.

They have so much young talent. They're not going to have to pay an arm in a leg because it's technically a rental. And hey, it could be a guy they resign. And man, when you saw those lineups come out, with Mookie Betts potentially in that lineup. It's insane. How does the outfield play out? I mean, they've like shuffling things around a little bit,

but I mean, it depends who's in the trade, obviously, Verdugo, et cetera, et cetera. A guy that everyone's forgotten is on the Dodgers as someone like A.J. Pollock, who's a great player when he's healthy, he would be a platoon player with Jock Peterson. That's how it would go, right? Bellinger, Mookie, would be every day, and him and Jock would split.

They've got some of that lefty-righty stuff that the Dodgers like to do. I mean, yes. And if Verdugo somehow stays and they flip another prospect, you can mix in Verdugo again. You've got Muncie, Turner, Seeger. I'm missing, am I missing someone big? It's just a crazy lineup. And they can do some lefty-righty stuff.

And Jim, think about, and this isn't as important as Mookie Betts being a great baseball player. But remember when the Dodgers played the Red Sox in the World Series and the Red Sox started left-handed pitchers? So David Freeze was batting three-hole. And everyone was like, hey, maybe still use the good lefties in there somewhere because it's still baseball a little bit. Mookie Betts, Cody Bellinger, Muncie, Turner. Like, you can go lefty righties on these dudes. You have such good balance.

Mookie's a monster. And they haven't made a move this offseason. They haven't made a move. Gavin Lux, your guy. So, yeah, he's going to the Dodgers. I like Verdugo for the Red Sox. I mean, you get him for four years, I believe. He's got all of those baseball savant numbers for him are in the red.

Like, you know, the hard hit rate and all that shit. Exit velocity, outs above, sprint speed, all that. He had a good year last year. And he's a lefty. So you look at the short porch for nine. games or in a series against the Yankees and that might be nice. So I like Verdugo for the Red Sox. I think that would be a good return.

I do think that the Red Sox are in a good situation, that they have two teams both in the same division trying to trade for Mookie because that's going to up the price a little bit and it's going to up the, like you're right, the Padres have made a lot of moves. They'd probably be very fine to be like, we're good. We want to roll this team out there. But do they want to let the Dodgers get them when they have the better farm system? him to return guys anyway. You know what I mean?

So, like, I can see the Padres only really acting on it because they don't want the Dodgers to get them. But the Padgers have a long-term plan in place and it's Mooki for a year. So then how much does that affect it? There's a lot of going on. I like it. Yeah. And, hey, maybe there's something if they can move Myers and they can move a couple

prospects that they don't have necessarily penned in as part of their future. I guess the Mooky rental in San Diego kind of makes sense. But at the same time, it just does. And I think the Padres involvement is to drive up the price for the Dodgers from the Red Sox and the Padre side of things. So we'll see. Hey, maybe something comes out. Maybe that mystery team does show up. Dodgers go nuts. How about we, you know, let's bring Mookie in for a dude or two. Let's flip Seeger and a guy for Lindor. Let's go nuts, Dodgers. And we didn't talk about this all, but does price have to be part of this for one of these? So I guess this is the interesting part of this that that's the great unknown because if you're Boston and you trade mooky bets, depending what comes back, whether it's Verdugo or, you know, another body or two, you still have a really good baseball team.

Like you do. This team's a couple years removed from the World Series. Again, it's got its question marks with sale, but, you know, every team does. Hey, if you're going to bet on or against Chris Sale, I'm still fine betting on that dude. Because when he's right, he's incredible. He's unhittable. He's R. Randy Johnson. So if you trade Mookiee and David Price, like you said, the Red Sox already have, they've got three guys in their rotation.

They're banking on. Avaldi, who knows what you're going to get from that guy. But if you trade Mookiee bets and David Price, the season is done. If you keep one, you convince yourself, you can talk, you can work your way into the wild card. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you trade both, it's officially done. And, hey, as a Yankees fan, I'm rooting for that because I think anything can happen in a baseball season. And if you're a Red Sox fan, not for nothing.

If you see one go, I think you want to see both go, right? Because if you're going to do this, let's hit the quick reset button. Because there's still a lot of talent, clear some money. and then go out and make some strategic moves with time bloom moving forward can't hear you I did a lot of talking there I was basically saying that you know what glad it didn't come through on the mic I was being Yankee biased

wow the Red Sox have a good three there Bogart's Devers JD if bets is gone and then they got a lot of it's interesting it's an interesting team like because you have Ben Intendi who coin even when he's even when he had it, but even his good year wasn't amazing. No, but he's, he, it is, it is, it is really good year. If he could find that, I mean, he's a good ball player, but he's only really got one of them.

Yeah, he's got 2018. And then it's what, what do they get back for Moogie? Is it someone in the lineup that can play? Is it someone like Verdugo? Because now you do have four or five guys in a lineup that might be able to hit a little bit. So, uh, we'll see. It's, uh, it's tough times in Boston. like the like you open this with it honestly it shouldn't be this way it should be the the boston red

socks being wanting to see mooky play out and saying hey if you're going to hit free agency there's a good chance we could bid you back hey and jim maybe they're doing the old you know this is the boston spin maybe they're doing the eraldus chapman they're going to trade mookie get verdugo and another guy and then they'll just resign mookie after the off season boom that would be awesome if you're I'm a Red Sox fan. That's what you kind of got to be dreaming as a Sox fan. That would be awesome. I would just play out the year, though, and trade him at the deadline.

Yeah, I don't know. I think I'm, would you get more for Mooki at the deadline? I don't think so, right? Deadline prices are lower than, besides the Chris Archer trade, all deadline prices are kind of lower. I guess there is a theory there. You're paying for half a year. Yeah, it's half a year, but maybe you bring more teams into it.

Like we just said, you know, a season rental between the Dodgers and maybe the Padres. If you could get five teams bidding on Mookie for half a year, you know, if, say Texas gets off to a really good start. I mean, maybe there's something fun there, but it feels like the bridge is already burned. And like I'm made up or either heard somewhere, MLB has a new PR team and Mookie is being traded this week. Yes. I don't know if that, I don't know if either of those are true. I believe that he's getting traded this week because it seems like all signs are pointing that way. I don't know if they have a new PR team. Good job if you do. I mean, it has, it has hit the point where like Mookie can't report to Red Sox Spring training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Like you just thought you talked about the East Coast media with Tony Gonselin and his cats. Like that Mookie reporting to Fort Myers would be a complete fiat. It would. Doesn't make any sense. Speaking of reporting to Fort Myers, Jake, I don't know if we've let everyone know the full details.

I tweeted out our full schedule of our spring training trip. But I didn't know. We said we were going on a trip, but now it's official. So I'm going to tell the listeners, well, we're done with Mookie, right? I got everything I needed to say out. We're done with Mookie. I don't know if we want to do with Lindor. I mean, you already led into the trip pretty hard.

So let's do the trip. I said everything I need to say about Lindor. Because it just kind of piggybacked on this city that good teams aren't trying to. It's not like we're talking about the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Detroit Tigers. They need to rebuild. That is the plan. The Indians in the Red Sox can win right now. And they have superstars that their fans love and are embraced by the city.

And they're like, I'd rather save money than go for it. And I understand it's a business. I'm not naive to that. I think that MLB and the union and the league or whoever has to try and put things in place that makes it more enticing to keep homegrown players than it is to be a business. I don't know what it is. I'm not smart enough. I'm trying to figure out. I threw something out there like there should be some hometown team exception where, you know, they can sign Lindor for 25 but only pay, or maybe they pay them half in the league pay.

them have for something. I don't know. There's, again, I don't know real solutions. I don't picture all the owners getting excited to pay half of Lindor's salary, so I'm not seeing that pass through my early test. But you're absolutely right. There needs to be a way that if you have someone as specialist, Francisco, that's fun to say, Lindor on your team, that you should be able to keep him like almost no questions asked. Yeah, cool. All right, here's our schedule for the talking baseball, talking to yanks, Johnboy Media, spring training trip. We're doing the west coast of Florida. We'll get in on February 18th.

We're going to be hanging out Tampa at George Steinbrenner Field with the Yankees for some workout days. On February 19th, we're doing a live podcast in Tampa. So be on the lookout for tickets to that. We'll probably try our best to get some fun guests. And then February 22nd, we're going to drive all the way down to Northport. we'll be at the Braves facility trying to talk to some Braves players, some Braves fans see a game, Orioles at Braves. The next day we head over to Port Charlotte,

where the Yankees are playing the Rays at Charlotte Sports Park. So we'll try to talk to some Rays players, raise fans, all that. Moving on, we go to Fort Myers, where we're going to check out the Red Sox are playing at Hammond Stadium, which is the home of the twins. The next day, we'll stay in Fort Myers. and the Orioles will be playing the Red Sox at JetBlue Park.

So there you go. Red Sox fans who just listened to us Talk about your team. Forever will be talking more Red Sox on February 25th. Then we go to Pirates facility in Bradenton, then the Orioles facility in Sarasota, then the Phillies facility in Clearwater, then back to Tampa to see the Tigers play the Yankees on February 29th.

And that is a watch party we're throwing. If you're a Yankees fan and you want to hang out, We had, you know, a whole package that includes fun seats, whole group of Yankees fans, food, beer, and all of that. Follow on Twitter for more info. I tweeted out the whole picture of the schedule if you're actually interested in breaking it down. But it should be a hell of a trip. We're excited. West coast of Florida, baby.

We're getting an RV and living on the RV. I don't know if I said that. Yeah, quite lit, not a, no smoke and mirrors, 11 days, RV in it along the western coast of Florida. spring training. Yeah, come meet up with us. Like Jimmy said, we're doing a, we're doing a game event at the end of it, Feb 29th in Tampa. We're doing an event at the beginning of it, Feb 18th, 19th. So yeah, and we'll be all around. I'm really excited for the Braves. I've become an adopted Braves fan. My love that I gave them last year has been paying off on Braves Twitter. Excited for that. And I've hit the point of the year where I'm going to start calling a lot of

teams, my teams, just to make their fan bases like me, and then find one base you're rude to, and I'm going to spin them on you. So that's where I'm at in my spring training training. That's just how you go about the show. It's how I operate. You say, I'm getting my arm loose. I'm ready. I did. Every team that you like is my team and every team that I talk crap about is, you know, your twins, your Orioles and my Braves, my rocks. Bingo. Anyone who listened last year knows what's going on. They're there. All right, we got a couple straggler storylines here.

We did a lot of time on that bet stuff. But that is the biggest story, and hopefully he gets traded to one of those teams, and one of the players that was involved. This actually happens, and it's not all for naught. But this happened a little bit ago, Jake, and we never talked about it. The Diamondbacks trade for Starling Marte from the Pirates. The Diamondbacks are having an interesting off. season. They had a winning year last year, but they missed the playoffs by two games.

And I was trying to read, like I've said this many times. I can't figure out if this matters. Like, if anything the Diamondbacks has done is actually going to give them the edge. My gut feeling says no, but I'm reading a lot of people saying, like, actually they're doing very smart moves. They're putting the other nice squad. And I don't know if that's Diamondbacks fans or not. but Marte is now going to be their center fielder. Jimmy, yeah, let me talk to you about my Arizona Diamondbacks, baby.

Ketto Marte is going to go to second base full time. What's going on here, Jake? So here's what we need to do, and I did a Super Bowl Sunday hungover deep dive on the Arizona Diamondbacks. What a rush, man. So, okay, so here's what you need to do. The top end talent, it is Catele-Marty. He had a nuts season, like a seven-war season last year.

So there's some juice ball rumors around him, but he's a young, really good player. So it's going to be interesting to see how special of a season he can put up. Can he follow that up at all? Because, I mean, it really was a crazy year. The dude, 32 home runs, 329 batting average and 981 OPS. So they don't have much of star power unless you believe Ketel Marte and he is their star. So if you buy into that, that's where things get fun, man. So Jim, here's something you're going to like.

In the past two years, the Diamondbacks have traded away significant players and they've gotten decent returns for him. They traded Goldschmidt the year before and then they traded Grinky last year. So they got three guys in each of those trades. some dudes are starting to contribute. Carson Kelly, 24-year-old catcher last year, 18 home runs, an 826 OPS in 111 games play. You can get a little excited about that. Good young catcher. They got some pitching. Robbie Ray, he's in his contract year. It'll be interesting to see what he can put together. They signed Mad Bum, Jim. And I know that whole thing seemed bizarre because Mad Bum signed there because of his horses. but if you're Arizona, you're excited about this.

This is a dude who's proven. I mean, he's not as special as he once was, but he's going to throw you some innings. Maybe he could teach Robbie Ray a couple lefty tricks. Luke Weaver, he's a guy they got in one of those trades. 12 starts last year, 294 ERA. The Diamondbacks have a lot of depth. They don't necessarily have a hole on their team.

You have to talk yourself into the star power. But I mean, Eduardo Escobar is a guy that if you watch him play, he's real fun. Starling Marte is a good ball player. Nick Ahmed, Yukon guy, Jim. He had a special warrior last year. They can throw a lot of different dudes at you. They've got young guys on the way from those past two trades I mentioned. So if you're a Diamondbacks fan, you're saying what?

We won 84 games last year, 85 games last year. We signed Mad Bum. We got Starling Marte. And the guys they lost, they lost Alex Avila, who I mentioned, uh, our young catcher who we now like for them. You're losing Jared Dyson, who became somewhat of a role player for them. Steven Sousa Jr. I mean, we're not talking significant guys and we brought in some real dudes.

I got myself excited about my diamond backs over the weekend. I'm glad you did. I'm not excited for him. They got, it's an interesting squad they're putting together. They got two martets now. And I just think that I think, I don't know, them and the Padres, maybe them and the Padres are fighting, fighting to get to that 80, 85 to 89 wins and we'll miss the wild card.

Yeah. That's what it seems like to me. The starts in the NL West are going to be important. As I've mentioned, the Rockies are anchored down. They signed Story in Aeronado, and this is kind of it for them. They had a young crew come up with Hermann Marquez and Kyle Freeland. This is kind of their final shot before they go full rebuild. It'll be interesting to see what kind of start they get to the season.

The Padres, man, like we mentioned, they brought in someone like Tommy Fam, who actually love for them. I mean, personality-wise, he's going to be on dudes asses. But dude, the Padres have been awful. Like they haven't shown us anything. They haven't had a winning season since 2010. And think about what we're saying. Like the Diamondbacks won games last year.

They've got a lot of young talent. They signed Madbom. They brought in a really good center fielder. If you're a Diamondbacks fan, there's a world where you can start talking yourself into a serious wild card contender. You're not going to wrestle the Dodgers. But, I mean, if the Diamondbacks land in a low 90s win, there's puzzle pieces that matter.

match up to that. Yeah. I mean, we're going to do like team preview, so I don't want to go two in the weeds. But my gut, and I'm not, I want to be nice to baseball and stuff, but my gut is the Padres and the Diamondbacks in 2020 are just fighting for like, it's a two-team race to miss the wild card. Yeah. And it's going to be, I feel like the other thing that's getting, not in our way, but

the NL East has a lot of strong teams, and it's how is that going to sort out at all? And I mean, are those teams going to play? You play each other in division 19 times, like the Phillies, Mets, Nats, like those guys can beat up my braves. Those teams can beat up on each other that the wild card might be tough. If the Rockies and Padres get off to slow starts or have a couple injuries, you can see the Diamondbacks falling into more wins. The Central's a bit of a mess.

So, and it's going to be fun again this year. What squad do you like better? Cardinals or Diamondbacks? Ooh. Ah, God. I mean, come on. That's easy. I don't know. Is that easy?

I think so. I think it might be the D-backs, man. They just don't have any pitching. The D-backs have pitching now with Ray and Bumgarner. So, all right. They're all young guys. So it's, I get it. Like is Luke Weaver going to be a stud or flame out?

I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to change my opinion so many times on this anyway. So people are going to hold this against me and I'm going to be like, well, I don't know. And dude, it really is what I felt on that day. Jim, I'll give you your spin out of it. It's the beauty of baseball, man. Like I was comparing the Diamondbacks, Rockies and Padres top to bottom,

trying to differentiate some stuff. And it's like, hey, man, the Rockies kind of have the stars. They've got Aeronado, Blackman's story. the team thins out pretty quick. San Diego, they've got so many young dudes and a couple potential big time stars in Machado Tatis. The Diamondbacks, I think they've got the most depth like 26 man roster, but their star power doesn't do anything for you. If you think Cotel Marte is going to come back to Earth,

you kind of don't have a star on that team at all. So it's going to be exciting to see how it sorts out. And I think the NOS could become a running gag very easily. or I don't know if one of those teams gets rolling and they put their neck out there, they could stumble into some wins. I do like that Ben Charrington went to work. He's good at building up farm systems. And I mean, we didn't even talk about the names that he got back for Marte.

It was Leover. There's no way I say any of these words, right? Leover Pagoro and Brennan Malone, high upside youngsters, but they're really far out. but high upside. But Charrington built up the Red Sox minor league system. He went and found a lot of dudes. Blue Jays, they're full of young hitters.

He built that prospect list. And now he's trying to do it with the Pirates. So if you're a Pirates fan, like, who knows if these two guys are going to be good, but at least they're getting to work, which is like, you know, step one for them. So that's exciting. Yeah. And I mean, Marte made sense. He, you know, he's going to be hitting free agents.

see this year next year i forget i think next year um but yeah i mean he wasn't next year star star star marter's got two years yeah so he i mean he wasn't fitting the window at all um i think they have a hail mary that josh bell can repeat and keep a couple people in the seats um he's going to be an interesting name if he if he puts together another nice season um he could be a huge piece for someone at the deadliner at least he can still get a hall um and if you're the pirates. We need to figure out a system, Jimmy, because we, like last year we looked at the tigers and we were like, what are you guys doing? Like, do do something in the rebuild process. Like what, what, what should it be? You're going to have two years of pure misery.

That third year, there should be some signs of hope, a couple decent young guys, a couple veterans, trade the veterans. And then year four should be signs of life. Yeah, I mean, the white socks are right now and like, okay, we're going to compete. them longer than a lot of other teams. The Orioles are year, they just, that was year one of being terrible. Because like the year before that, they were still supposed to be good. They had Machado, they had Jones. They were just bad with all the pieces.

So they're like in going into year two of the rebuild. I don't know. Some really small moves that I just noted down just in case anyone actually uses us for like news headlines. The Cubs have agreed to terms with righty Jeremy. Jeffress one year Major League Baseball deal. 850K with 200K and available incentive so he can make a million dollars based upon appearances. Interesting story with Jeffries. He was good and then nod and then the Brewers just waved him.

I have nothing on that. Honestly, just reading the headline. I don't think it's worth doing a dive into. Yeah, the only thing of note is that our agent friend, Josh Kuznick, used to be his agent. and he tweeted some subtle things that I think Jeremy Jeffers turned down some money in the past that he might be regretting at this point. But with Josh, it's always slightly off the record, but not at all. The twins reached an agreement to sign Julis Chesin,

who will join the team on a minor league contract with an invite to big league camp and earn $1.6 million with an additional $1.5 million in incentives. Huli Shasine had a good year, two years ago, one year ago, and then he was bad last year. He got dropped. The Red Sox picked him up. He's got a fun name and a fun slider, and he got really hurt with a home run rate. He was like really, really unlucky, like kind of a Jay Hap for the Yankee situation, where every fly ball just went for a home run.

But, and Twins fans, correct me if you're wrong, because you know more than me. I believe this is, he's, I believe he probably will break camp, Jake, but just as a stop gap. And as soon as Pineda's back and Rich Hills healthy, they're going to be like, okay, thanks for helping out. See ya. Eat some innings and buy. Yeah, it depends what kind of year he's having at this point. I mean, the dudes come out of the pin.

He started game like you mentioned, his slider went right, is a nice pitch. So, yeah, I mean, maybe the Twinkies will figure something out for him. And if he's pitching well, they'll find a role on the team for him. If he's not, see you. 6-3-215, 32 years old from Venezuela. Dude, he's been around. Yeah. Been around.

Cool. Pueg and Holtz have yet to sign, and everyone's kind of doing guessing games, and I'm still, I was in Savannah, and I went on one of the news stations, and I was talking to them, and they're saying that he likes every time I make a video about Pueg, because I love Pueg.

And I said, yeah, I'm really hoping Japan doesn't snatch him up and give him like a couple years, a lot of money and Preeks like America, Japan, I don't give a fuck. Yeah. And it's, uh, keep him in, keep him in a major league baseball. It's,

it's almost at the point where I'm, I'm almost rooting for Puege to go double birds and go to Japan and just be the star of stars there because he would. Um, he would. He's a showman. He's really talented. Um,

man, and it was funny. I was going through some Puege and Brock Holtz articles because, hey, I think we do have to give a little, it's been a while since we've given a round of applause, Jim. 48 of the top 50 MLB free agents by, you know, a lot of the lists that are out there signed going into spring training.

So we're, and so, hey, if Pueegger and Holt could get it figured out by then, cool. Yeah, and I saw people, they were talking about different teams that maybe Puee could be their platoon guy against lefties. Puig is better versus righties than lefties. He's got reverse splits. Um, and yeah, where it's at right now, it seems like a lot of the bad, there's rumors around all the bad teams, like the, the tigers, Pittsburgh that they should sign Pueg because he'd easily be one of their best players on their team. Um, I think the other part of it is that a lot of the contending teams already have their guys in place. Um, and I, you know, I, I think they're unsure if they want to bring in Pueg or what kind of role they would have on their team because he really shouldn't be a platoon guy. And I mean, we're at the point in baseball where if you're the first dude off the bench, you're going to be playing a lot between injuries and everything else.

I don't know. I hope he's in MLB baseball. If he goes to a bad team, I hope it's a fun bad team. What would you guess Puegg's OPS pluses on his career, seven years? On his seven-year career, his OBS plus is 107. 100 is average for anyone that forgets. So Jake has him slightly above average. His OPS Plus is 122.

Pretty good. Yeah. It's really front-loaded by its first two seasons. Yeah. You take those away, it probably comes out to closer to what you're saying, 107. But yeah, I mean, the dude, it's not like he's, he's not a disaster against Ritees. Actually, I think I was looking at his 2018. He was really bad against lefties.

He was like great. righties. So I don't know, man. And I think one of the biggest things that you and I stumble into that probably the analytics community wouldn't like about us, but it's so true. It's like, Pueg is a threat. If you make a mistake, Pueg is going to hammer it. He's when you need a big at bat, he's going to put it at bat together. He's a showman. I remember, didn't he, didn't he rope a dope someone in a Yankees game last year? There's a fly ball to right. He just fielded it off his back leg and pegged someone. Like the dude's special. I hope he finds the right opportunity or I hope he goes to a bad team,

rips it up and gets traded at the deadline. Yeah. I hope that he gets in some brawls and does some fun shit and it's awesome. Pueig also like when he was in Cleveland, I think he helicoptered to a children's hospital one day and then helicoptered back. Like he's a nice guy. I don't know. He was held captive.

Remember he was held captive by gangsters when he was trying to escape Cuba? So that's kind of badass His house gets robbed Was getting robbed like every day Because he owed He owed his like basically baseball pimp money or some shit Crazy story If you haven't read up on Puege's entry to baseball story

And remember when he first came up And everyone was like How do you say this guy? Is it pig? Yeah stuff Yassie oh pig Yeah see a pig I'm pig

And anything on Brock I mean I thought That is a good pickup for a team that needs a utility out. Like if the team's out there searching for their 26th man for this season, like why isn't he get a someone should give him a spring training invite? But I guess he would probably want to be guaranteed that. But wouldn't he be a good 26 man for some team? Well, that's the funny thing.

I read it was a really good line on it. I should be giving credit to someone. But they said that every team now has their version of Brock Holt that they want to try out for the Yankees at Tyler Wade, every team has that guy now that the version 1.0 is getting ignored, which is pretty ironic. So you don't want to pay for that. You want that to come from within, probably.

And you just, you get so locked into the dudes in your organization. And every organization tries to breed these guys now. Yeah. I think that's all we got, Jake. I think that's it. I think, you know, for the offseason's winding down. And, you know, as we get going, I'm like, Man, we're going to start our daily episodes soon,

but what are our main episodes going to be about? And I think we did a good job talking some baseball. Yeah, you want me to dive into Arizona a little more, Timlo Castro? We'll save it. Well, fastest guy in baseball. We'll save it for a strong OBP for a speed guy. I think the 12th or the 13th, we will start doing an episode a day. I'm talking baseball about a team.

We did a poll that everyone ranked the teams, through 30 best and we're going to release our many episodes worst to best so you guys are choosing the order there's some i was going through the results jake with like 300 people take it there's some that for the most part it's good then there's some that are like wait what they have like some like i think our audience or the 300 people that took the ball as the rangers as like the sixth worst team in baseball tough bro yeah it's crazy all right you good goodbye everyone i think i'm good goodbye everyone thanks for hanging you know out with us for a little bit.

See you later. Appreciate you.