Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - MORE New Rules Could Be Coming to MLB | 651

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Use code TALKIN for $20 off your first SeatGeek order. https://seatgeek.onelink.me/RrnK/TALKIN To get a quality razor delivered straight to your door visit: https://harrys.com/TALKINVisit http://get.bluemoonbeer.com/BASEBALL to see delivery options.Go to http://shadyrays.com and use code TALKIN for 50% off 2 or more pairs of polarized sunglasses.+++++Timestamps:0:00 Intro3:35 New Rules are Being Tried Out6:35 Designated Pinch Runner16:00 Double Hook SP/DH Rule23:50 Single Disengagement Rule28:45 Limiting Contract Length?38:40 Extensions41:05 Mookie Betts May Play Shortstop! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball. Are there more new rules on the way? Are the owners trying to not pay players as much as they want to? Let's talk about it. Show me your Tatis. Show me your genitals. Show me your... Hello and welcome to Talking Baseball, brought to you by Seatgeek code.

Talking is the code that you can use over at Seatkeek. My name is Jimmy. We got Jake here. Trev. They're in matching hoodies. I don't have mine today, which is a bummer. BPD behind the dish producing away. And we have some topics that came up.

They arose today for the midweek episode that are perfect midweek fodder. They're almost like, you know, offseason talking baseball conversations, but they're happening in season. So I'm excited to discuss them. I know Treb's excited to discuss them. I know Treves excited to come out here this weekend. And I know Trevor's thrilled that he got employee of the week on Weekly Dumb last night. Oh, I didn't know that.

I need to check that out because I love getting awards and you guys saying nice things about me. It doesn't happen that often. But I am excited to come out there because one, I love seeing the boys. But two, I'm excited to get into some new gameplay. Am I allowed to like say what we're doing? Yeah, Dan, it's our cricket slash baseball league. Yeah, a little cricket slash baseball league. I love learning a new little sport trying to beat baggage.

Basically like my entire existence is forgotten Ron trying to beat baggage. in all these games. Your teammate is a World Cup winner for England. See, I like that. You're not top dog. He's taller than you. Some may say more handsome. So we, you know, we think you're going to get along great because you have very similar

personalities, but maybe, maybe you suffer because maybe you're not top dog. Maybe he, you know, his nickname's Pudsey. Yours is ploof. Ploof and Pudsey. That's hilarious. And then panic between you two. Real good. I like that.

But you know, James. I'm a great number two, number three guy. Like, I was never number one on the team. Like, but Moreno loved me. Mauer loved me. I know how to pump guys up. You do. I think I'm going to fit right in.

You do. Jack Flaherty said you're the guy he wished he got to be teammates with that he wasn't in Kelsey Wingert's video with him. But anyway, Jake, how are you? Trev James Davis. And yeah, Treves, congrats on Employee of the Week that you just found out. And yep, you're welcome for ball and play. Like baseball, more balls in play.

That's what we're doing in the warehouse. And yes, you will have a hotter, taller, teammate. And if we're a little brief with you today, Trev, it's because there's some ball players in the office, some active ball players, Patrick Sandvo, I'll read Detmer. So, you know, if we're just kind of high and tight with you, we just got a lot going on. So, you know, don't, you know, congrats on employee of the week,

but you've been demoted in every way. Wow, wow, wow. I'll give you the silent treatment in a second. And I've only done that once with you and you didn't like it, did you? And let us know how those up. days with Longoria go to because we need you doing some business. Shout out. Shout out Elongoria, baby. Just a friend of the social team loves Joe's McFly and our T-shirts. We're in current negotiations with him. He doesn't know it yet. He doesn't know yet.

And how about Tatis back tomorrow and rule changes. I mean, our people love it. And Trev, I saw you running hot on a couple of these. So I'm hyped to get it going with you, Big Daddy. And I'm hyped to tell the people about a new partner, Jim. A new sponsor. Yes, very exciting. Harry's. Hello. So, Harry. Harries, you're probably familiar. You may know about their high-quality razors. BPD could not have been more excited. He said, you use the Harry's soap every day. They are my body wash. And we're giving away one free BBD body wash to a lucky fan. But if you don't win that, you can go to Harry's. Their starter set, it's a $13 value for three bucks, people.

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$13 starter set for $3,000, people. harries.com slash talking. Harries.com slash talking for a $3 starter set. We all shave. Trev, you raised your hand. I did raise my hand. I want it to be known that I've been had Harry's. I use Harries to shave here and here and then other places as well.

And it works. It's my favorite razor I've ever had. I just think it's one of the all-time great names for a men's grooming product. Because it's, you know, Harry, Harry. Harry's. Yeah. It's kind of what you're dealing with. Harry's, yeah.

Let me get these Harry's off my face. I'll use my Harry. I never put that together until now. I just thought it was a man's name. Like if there was George, I thought that would be solid too. George's wouldn't go as good as Harry. I thought about a little baby named Gary the other day,

laughed out loud. Can't imagine looking at like a two-month-old and be like, what's up, Gary? Gary. Gary. Hi, Gary. So if you're a little, Garber is awesome. Garber is awesome, but just Gary made me crack up.

I did some turkey math, $13 for, you're getting it for $3 on this deal. I think it's like 77% off. So best day we've ever had. Wow, wow. All right, let's talk about the new rules. And I want to preface this as always by saying they have a league, the Atlantic League, they use to experiment with new rules. If you're going to have a league that you experiment with new rules, experiment with new rules

and test the limits. and you have to experiment with rules that you're like, nah, fuck that, that was bad. If you're not doing that, then you're not actually a baseball scientist. So there's things they put in motion that, like, they know, hey, this may stink, but let's see what it actually is. Because people get very upset at the thought of these, but that's how you run tests. It does suck for the players that are in that league, but you're in that league. The first one's very interesting.

Designated pinch runner. You basically have a person in your lineup that that's their only business being there. That's the only way they can be utilized. And so Tim Locastro or Gore would be great examples of this. They're there. They're on the bench. And you can, like before the game, you would say he's our designated pinch runner today. And so Stanton gets on base.

And in this first inning, he gets a double. and you pinch run, your pinch runner, he runs for him. It does not remove Stan from the game. He gets his next step bat, but he doesn't have to run. I understand the concept. They're tinkering with these in the cricket leagues where you have a designated substitute that you can just like drop wherever you want. I don't like this at all.

I think we're trying to get away from the overly specialized player and bringing the all-around talent back. Like the new rules are bringing speedsters back into the game. because you can't do the shift anymore. You have to be able to run and track down a ball and you're going to get on base more. And this is kind of the opposite of what we are seemingly doing that's working right now, in my opinion. Trev, you shook your head and are had an opinion on this. What do you got?

Well, it's difficult because as soon as one of these new designated pinch runners gets hurt, they actually just take them behind the dug out and shoot them like to do race horses. So that's kind of a controversial aspect of this. down, yeah. It's the, it's, they, they don't mention it. And that's why you like this. The unfortunate truth. Yeah. This is ridiculous. I mean, like you said, James, what we're doing now is bringing more, you know, trying to bring that more five tool talent, showcasing athleticism in our game. This to me is going to do the opposite. Like, you're going to have a big, a big plotter

up there getting on, or trying to get on base, then you bring in the designated runner. It doesn't make any sense. I hate it. I don't have anything else to say other then I think this is ridiculous. And I get what you said earlier. Like, yeah, you want to be testing things out. But there's really no room for this. This one seems like a no-brainer, like shut it down right now. It's never going to work.

Nobody wants to see this, to be honest with you. I went down, you know, they listed that on our talking baseball social media account. Nobody liked it. There wasn't one person that was like, yeah, this seems like a good idea. Well, Jay. Usually when that happens, it's a bad idea. People hate change, right? that's kind of the natural reflect reaction.

I think even when the pitch clock was first introduced, the reaction was probably 90% negative because all the going away lines for years were, you know, the game doesn't have a clock, and that's what makes baseball special. We ended up tweaking the rules to get to a really good place that I think it's been better for the sport, and I think there will be more tweaks going forward.

One of the things I always go back to when we're creating a new rule is if when I learn the game of baseball, if I was taught about this rule, would I have said that's kind of weird or would I have accepted it as part of the game? I think there's a good chance I could have accepted this as part of the game. I want to see what it looks like, and you guys keep mentioning athleticism. Athleticism can show itself in many different ways. Giancarlo Stanton is an incredible athlete at this point in his career. His speed has declined, and he's also an injury-prone player.

I think you can say that at this point. that for some of those guys, if we can have them on display while having other athletes on display, I think there's a world where this gets to a good place. And I think, Jim, you love strategy. I think there's some fantastic strategy that could be involved in this, right?

Like, Giancarlo's stand gets on in the first inning. Do you go for it there? Do you try to get a run? Because he might not get on, his next to it bats. Or do you save it for later in the game? You always want to have an ace in the hole, right? and I think the fun part here is with kind of the wash your hands part of the rule

that this guy could potentially pinch run twice or are they a good do they mash lefty pitching are they a good defender that you still have them They can't pinch run twice? After they pinch run they just become a normal bench player so you could either pinch run them again or have them be a defensive sub. Now that's confusing.

Well it's just done. If you see that at a game I think you're going to be confused by that. Sport of baseball is... Wasn't he already in? The sport of baseball is discussing these things, right? That's one of your favorite things to do on the stand. So I don't know.

Like I've said, with any new rule, I want to see it. I want to feel it and see the reaction. I understand why there's kind of a fear of change and what it is, but I could also see this benefiting the game. So I'd love to see where the tests land us. Well, yeah. I just think you're doing what the game was, was like just isolating individual talent instead of an all-around ball player being what you're searching for and what you're

trying to groom. And that's kind of why I don't like it. But the other question I have for you, Trev, is it also very much to me seems like a ploy to get a win from the PA. Hey, we're creating more jobs and another roster spot, which is they've done that. They've done things to get that result from the result before for the players to be like, yeah, we do like that. And it seems to me like a little bit of a heavy-handed ploy to get a small win for the players.

This isn't a roster spot, right? I think this is just adding. It probably, I would assume they would add a roster spot for this. And it is like, you know, here's a little candy. Come, come take this and then do what I tell you to do. I don't like it. Well, you're giving a roster spot to the guys like LoCastro and Gore and like your straight speedsters. Right, but that'd be taking away from another person's roster spot in theory.

I'd assume they'd add a roster spot on this. I would assume they would too. I don't know if they're, but it's also a skill set. This is a, I'm going to go on a little, not a tangent, but I have a take here. I told someone this yesterday. I blame starting pitchers for all of this. Okay. When we had two different leagues and there was a DH in one league and then the National League, the pitchers had to hit.

Two separate leagues, two different rulesets. it's okay. The problem was nobody tried to hit if you were a pitcher. They just gave up dude. It became like a joke. It became a joke. They didn't practice. You know, they would go up there. They would just

auto take. They would be imitating stances. They would laugh when they struck out. They would just look absolutely horrible up there. They put the fucking puffy jackets on Shohei. At least it wasn't a puffy jacket that Shohay tried to put on. I just can't.

know it was cold there, I get it, but they start wearing these puffy jackets around the base pass. Finally, everybody has had enough of pitchers, you know, showing the game up essentially. So then we got rid of pitchers hitting and made Universal D.H. That was the first step into, you know, I don't want to use the term slippery slope, but it's a little slippery slope. Now we are just throwing shit out there and see what, and we're seeing what hits. Like, it all stems from pitchers not taking the game seriously. And now we're getting stuff like this. I just can't get on board with the runner here.

I can't. I want it to be difficult to be a big leaguer. That's what it's all about. If you can do one thing well, you're in the big leagues. That doesn't work, dude. Like you need to be a fucking ball player who grinds and has to figure out ways to stay in the league.

We shouldn't be like, you know, having a guy, have like Jimmy said one skill set and just be able to ride that into the sunset that's not what the big leads is about we want the best overall talent there and again pitchers you started all this it's your fault and they already tried this a little bit remember it was the A's in the 80s they just always had a was it the A's they always had a track star on their roster just to run I remember them being um because they had to extra bench spots back then because they didn't use a lot of

pitchers. Who was it? They had a couple. They tried it. Herb Washington. Herb Washington. Shout out. Ironically, pitchers will be 100% against this because if you get a guy in first base and you have a designated runner who just like all he does is steal bases, it's basically a runner on third base

or runner in scoring position. With the new disengagement rules that we have, we're going to talk about another one they're going to try to do it here in a second. It's just the pitchers will hate this. Ironically, it's their fault. So the A's did this. Maybe we can look at that if you're interested.

Herb Washington played for the A's in 1974 and 1975 did not start a single game but made appearances in 105 games. 31 stolen bases and 17 caught steals and he was used as just a pinch runner. Pretty funny. All right. Shout out Herb.

I think there was other guys in that era as well when they're playing on turf. And Ricky Henderson was stealing all the bags. We're like, let's get ourselves a speedster. Or speed. All right. Well, let's move on to the next rule. The double hook DH. Cool term right off the bat, like the double hook.

They may use the DH as long as a starting pitcher completes at least five innings. If the starter fails to make it through the fifth, the club then loses the DH for the remainder of the game and must either have its pitcher hit. or use pinch hitters when the spot in the lineup comes up. The intent of this experiment is to monitor the impact on starters going deeper into games. I don't know if I like this rule, but I like the desired result of this rule, which is make the starting pitcher, the marquee performer of that night,

the billboard name, pitchers go deep, incentivize your pitcher to go five, six, seven innings because that is how you build that like boxing matchup, you know, Pedro versus Clemens in game seven, like that vibe. We got away from it. We're actually getting nearer than we were three years ago. I don't know if I love this rule, but like I said, I love the desired result. So I'll throw it to you first, Jake.

Yeah, I mean, double hook, like you said, great name. That's what the twins used to say when Trev and Dozier, when the shower together, the double hook rule. For me, like you said, the desired result, kind of like the last one. I like base running. I like stolen bases. So there's a desired result there.

I like for the double hook, like you're saying, we want those starting pitching matchups. It was, you know, that one world series. I'm not going to throw any names under the bus, but, you know, the Braves were throwing out guys that kind of weren't out there to start a game into the third inning. So to get rid of the opener, which baseball's already readjusted, like everyone did the innings math and they're like, oh, we need starting pitchers to throw innings. So the game's already fought back a little.

bit. Yeah, correct it itself. With shifts, Jim, you were always on this. That shifts, like, there was no correct. They just tried to hit more homers. They didn't try to beat the shift. They tried to beat the shift in a very different way. That, again, interested, new rule.

I think there'd be some tricky situations where if you have that pitcher who's got four and a third innings, you know, who's on your bench and are you pushing the pitcher to like a dangerous spot? I guess that would be a concern, right? We want to care about player health. I like the concept. I'm interested in the strategy that can potentially go with it.

I do think the game has come back a little bit with even some of the you only can have 13 pitchers and stuff. This may not be necessary. Trev? Again, we're going backwards now. We just got rid of the DH. We got rid of pitchers hitting. We have universal DH.

Now we want to bring it back in some weird way. And the main thing that I had from reading this is, yeah, like if you're in that situation and you've got two outs, it's the, you know, fourth inning and you're trying to get through the fifth inning, you're going to push a guy and he maybe gets hurt? That's the one thing that, you know, I always think about is, are the players going to accept this rule? Does Major League Baseball want to put their athletes in bad situations like this? Does it do they want to make the manager make those decisions saying, hey, man, like you look like you're struggling, but we really want to have. have this dh so why don't you just stay out there for a little bit i think that'll those compromising situations are enough where i don't think this is going to happen i am super interested in this this rule being tested all right like so on the pinch runner trevi you're like don't even test it i'm

yeah sure but this one i'm so curious to see the spider webs of strategy and then and then saying okay well how do we tweak it or or oh that's we don't want that result like if you have i'll use a yanky example. You have Clark Schmidt as your starting pitcher who hasn't gotten through five all season. Okay, Stan, you're not starting as a DH. We need you as a pinch hitter available later on because we're not confident. But if you have Cole, who's gone six every time, then you have, you start your best DH. Also, if you, if the pitcher comes out early and you, you lose that spot in the lineup, well, when does that spot come up again? Is it with two outs and no one on? Well, just throw the, a release, thief pitcher that's not going to hit and just have them stand there, take the at-bat,

because we don't want to burn a bench piece and the inning. That's a stinky result there. So like if you, if this changes to, well, now you're not starting your best DH, because you'd rather save them. And you're also just fully conceding at-bats because you don't want to waste one of your four bench guys and you have to waste a bench guy to replace this guy all the time, then I'm out. But I don't know if that's the result.

Or I don't know if there's a way to tinker further from there. So this one I think is like let him try it for a month and then reassess. Because I do like the intended result of the pitcher starting more. I also agree with Jake. The game is correcting itself. You need innings out of five guys, six guys need to give you like 70% of your inks to be a good team. You guys keep saying you like the desired intent. And I agree.

And you know what? I keep thinking about these rules just being implemented right away into Major League Baseball. And I'm like, I don't like it. but I agree. Like, you could throw, we could, they could test whatever they want in this league.

The only thing, though, the only thing, though, is you got to remember that if Major League Baseball and Manfred want a rule, they're going to get it.

Players can only say no for, I think, a year. You can say no. And then after a year, they can just unilaterally implement it into baseball. So it's like,

once we start doing these things, like, I understand that. There's an instance where, like, they could just start doing all sorts of stuff and the game might become unrecognizable.

I agree with that, but I guess I'm speaking on this one from the standpoint of like, we're all doing this in good faith that we're trying to find good, good things and not. Dude, you're totally right about like the, sorry, Jay, one side,

the marquee matchup, like, billing up the starting pitchers. Like, I love that too. I think people go to the ballpark saying, oh, dude, like, you know, like the Grom's facing off against Shohei. Like, that's awesome. Like, we want to build that up. I don't know if this.

is the way to get back to that. I think doing the math, like Jake says, like, you know, we need to have these guys go. And you're probably going to have, I don't know, two or three guys, hopefully in your rotation that you're like, okay, we're going to have these guys go into the fifth and the sixth. Your fourth and fifth starters might have a shorter hook.

But again, I like the intent, but the way they're getting there is a little strange. I guess that's the thing, the ripple effects for me. With the designated runner, I think the biggest ripple effect is like, all right, you, that one guy on the end of the bench, their profile as a player might change, and you're going to get one inning

where there's kind of hopefully more speed or better base running, which has kind of been part of the goal of baseball. Here, the ripple effect, your starting pitcher gets rocked, and now you have to lose your DH2? If you just have a pitcher who has a bad day, two and two thirds, it didn't happen. Now you lose a guy who was also a specialized player going back.

You only hit now you don't hit. Like it. The potential harm is real high. Yeah. And I don't know. I think where we've gotten to with the amount of pitchers on a team and what you need to do to get through a season, the game's already punched back enough that this one, hey, at the end of the day, what if we're talking about baseball in 10 years where if you're a starter, you're expected to go five innings? Could that be a winning result? I don't know.

But there's a lot of dangers along the way. The next one is, and this one's funny. the single disengagement. So right now we're doing the double. And I also, just in the concept of finding the limits of things, this is like funny to me. I hope what they're saying is, hey,

we did two disengagement and we liked it in the tester. So we implemented it. Let's see if that's the limit. And let's see. And most likely one disengagement, like one pickoff and then you're done is bad. But let's put it in plate of test. that it's bad because I think two is fine.

I actually think it's a fun element to the game right now if you have a base stealer up. But so again, I can excuse them trying like the next level. Like, well, let's see. Can we go farther? And then, but it needs to be an instant no if it's no for me. I think a lot of these rules are like sandlotish, whiffle ball type things.

Like this is stuff we would try in the warehouse. Like, you know what? Like, let's just keep going. Let's push it a little further. I don't know, man. And this, the two disengagement is already, you know, causing stolen base percentages to go up or getting, we're seeing more stolen bases. I think it's already had the intended impact. So like, we don't need to keep going in my mind on this one.

This is a little silly. Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm not going to go dig up receipts, but I remember the first time we talked about the two disengagement. I think you guys were kind of eh, and I was kind of hey. Because how many times in a game were guys just throwing a first unnecessarily to get a breather or get a break? Like, now if you throw to first, there's intent. behind it. And guess what? It like resets each batter. So if there's a speedster on first, you know, you can, you get your shots to go get them. It hasn't affected the product of baseball for me at all. This does seem like, whoa. Like where the stolen bases and the speed numbers

have jumped are their eye-opening to me. I think it's good. But this does feel like one step towards like, okay, we're, we're stealing, stealing. And I don't know if that's where we want to be. I agree. It feels like we can get a couple years of sample on this new rule before we like have to take it even more. Man, it was cool. Like Volpe got the pitcher to throw over twice. I was at the game. And there was like a ooh in the crowd.

Like, uh-oh. And then he stole on the next pitch. And I was like, damn, that's fun. That's like a cool element. Like nothing's, not nothing. One of the more fun moments, and I've said this a lot, is when you know a guy's going to steal. And you know the catcher knows. he's going to steal. And you know the pitcher knows he's going to steal. And what's going to happen?

And you throw two pickoffs to a speedster. Like, he's, he's going to go. And Treve, a lot of these new rules were brought to us by Shady Ray's. You know, we're seeing these rules for the first time. You should see them through some shady rays. Lenses. Take on the sun with gear built to last. Summer's almost here. Calendar's getting ready to head towards May. My goodness. And Shady Ray's our friends. You guys know them by this point. They have a world-class product that's just as good as any of the expensive brands. So why don't you save yourself a couple pesos, shekels, denaro, dollars, whatever form of currency you use, the euro is back. And they have their loss and broken replacement guarantee, so you're getting these bad boys for life pretty much. So, and for our

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The deal's too good. Chris Rose says he, this is quotes. He sits his fad ass on them and they just send him a new pair. I wish. Shady Ray's. Hey, I have some pairs of Shady Rays that I wear that I would,

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usually you put your glasses on a a toddler he's going to rip him off he wears one of two ways he keeps them on forever and I need a matching pair so I don't know if you have like super small baby but that would be cool uh all right the defensive, let's see, do we have more here? The defensive shift restrictions and bigger bases that arrived in the big league this year were first experimenting the athletic league. No, just notes here. It's my nephew and my shady rays.

Yeah. So James has like little ones that fit him. I wish I loved anything as much as Chris Rose likes calling himself fat. He does. It looks great. You look great. Very bangable. All right.

The other topic, Treb, this was one that you brought to our attention in the chat last night we were discussing is, Rob Manfred says MLB owners want to limit player contract length. And I don't, I think, I don't know how he said it under the dark quote, but I, you definitely, it should say, Rob Manfred says some MLB owners want to limit contract length.

You should read this, you should read this article. Was it an athletic article? I read it, but I forget. It was. Go read the article. I don't want to steal too much from it, but it's actually a wild read because you're like,

What? It's an Evan Drellich article who are like, you know, he's one of the guys I always read, him and Eno are kind of my guys that I'll go to. I think Evan does a really good job. And like you said, James, like he definitely shouldn't be saying owners, like everybody encapsulating all the owners because in this article, Peter Seidler kind of pushes back at that. He says, you know, each market is different. We explored our market and we decided that this was the best course of action for us. They gave a guy 14 freaking years. So don't tell Peter Seidler that they want to limit the.

length of contracts because he's saying what I think a lot of fans say and what we think like if you have a guy and you know he's going to be in your city for a while like it's awesome like you know you can root for him you can buy a jersey we don't have to have these silly things we're like jersey swap because these guys are getting traded all the time like no like we have guys that you can build marketing campaigns around and you can like I said you can grow up rooting for someone knowing he's going to be on your team I think that's one of the funer things about rooting for whatever sport you're rooting for is if you know a guy as a team you can kind of like say I want to get invested in this dude true I think it makes a ton of

sense you know how they always try to divide the players divide the union and stuff like that or make the union you know the long game they play the long con but the owners are divided and and they they publicly divide themselves and then no one really like talks about that because we saw a ton of long long contracts get given out this off season really long. It was kind of like back to what it was in 2009 and in 2010 when Canoe got his was like, you know, one of the last ones.

And the reason why these contracts that they gave out were so long was to keep the AAV down, the average annual value. They spread it out over a lot of years. Why do they want to keep the AV down? Because they want to stay under the luxury tax. Who wants the luxury tax? The owners. So you have half a lot of money.

the owners creating this tax and then you have half the owners who want to field a competitive team and spend doing tricky things to combat the luxury tax so group a says this is the luxury tax if you spend more than us you owe us money group b is like oh i don't want to give you that money so i'm gonna give a really long contract and and spread it thin so i don't have to pay you that money and then group a is like ah shit you just rigged our system Well, let's not let you do that. It's like, okay, you guys are fighting. You're against each other here. You are divided. So when Manfred says the owners, no, some owners, because a whole bunch are finding ways to rig the system that the others are putting in place.

Yeah, and like what you're saying there, Jim, I think what Seidler and Cohen have done cannot go overlooked how much it changed the baseball landscape. And I think there's a chance we're talking in 50 years, about how much they truly did because, you know, owning a baseball team is a, let's be honest, it's like a cool notch in a belt for a lot of these guys. Like, you're the dude in the city, man. You own, you own one of the sports teams that you watch every night.

And guess what? When you're really rich, you can own a lot of stuff. You can buy a weird island off Alaska. You can buy kind of, you want a couple private plants. You can kind of buy whatever you want. you bought a sports team because you kind of wanted a little bit of a taste of that. Is it a good investment? Yeah, they've also done well there.

But you also kind of want to be a dude in the city. And a lot of these dudes in the cities whose teams have now starting to get overshadowed or now you're starting to show up to fans events and they're saying, why don't you spend like Cohen? Why don't you spend like Sider? Guess what? They don't like that. Now they're getting bad attention for owning a sports team when it's been a good.

business and I think there's been a certain level of expectation of a good product. But now everyone's got Padre fever. Everyone's got Mets fever that I think it's sending some ripples throughout ownership that it was supposed to be like, hey, I'm cool. I put on this show for you for 81 games a year in our hometown and I hope we make the playoffs. And now everyone's like, wait, I can be San Diego, isn't it like the fifth smallest market technically and they're rolling out this budget.

Yeah, I think the other thing I'll close with is people want a lot of things in life. And I'm glad some of these owners want this. Guess what? Players want more money and longer contracts. There's their counteroffer. There's so much we can go into here. Side that even references says we don't use the word small market in our building, but they're the 27th largest market out of 30.

So you're a little, actually short-changed them a little bit. every day. This is the first time where I've seen Tony Clark's quote line up with an owner's quote and that to me

like you guys are you guys both referenced there was Seidler and Cohen kind of doing what they're doing this is the first time like I think it's ever happened um

he says Tony Clark says this is a quote the ability of individual clubs to act in their own self-interest in determining how best to put an exciting product

on their field for their fans is not something that should be restricted agree. Like, right? Like, if you're, if you own something and this is your team, like you should be able to do whatever you want to do. Now, of course, yes, they already put a soft cap on themselves with this competitive balance tax. What a, what a hilarious names. Let's just call it what it is. It's a soft cap. Don't call it a competitive balance tax and then complain that this is not competitive enough. You guys did this because you wanted the soft cap, blah, blah, blah. So Tony says that. And then Sider there comes back. And he,

He says, as I study the other franchises in baseball or other sports for that matter, every single one is really unique in my opinion, different sets of facts, different sets of circumstances. You got an owner and Tony Clark saying the same thing. You got Rob Manfred up there trying to speak for everyone. And like you said, at the beginning, Jim, they're not all in agreement on this and they are divided. And I don't know how the Players Association uses that in the next CBA. but I've been around these talks for quite some time now. I've never had quotes from Tony Clark and quotes from an owner lineup.

This is, it's getting somewhere. And we do have a lot of guys that are looking to get into professional sports teams because of what you said, Jake, it is a trophy for them. And there's guys with a lot of freaking money, a lot more money than some of these owners have. Like you see Steve Cohen come in, 13 Billy. richest owner in baseball like there's other guys that are like that they want to come in and if they start letting these dudes in then i don't know what's going to happen like there there's going to be a strike of the owners maybe like there's it's times are a change in man and i'm i'm so glad

that we're having more of these owners like have quotes yeah and talk out right like there's they're saying stuff now it's awesome the one manfred quote that is at the very start of the article that I just was like, I did like a scoff at, and then I kind of breeze the rest. He said, uh, the difficulty, and I think players will come to appreciate this as time goes by, that those contracts, the long contracts result in a transfer from the current stars to yesterday stars. Uh, I don't think any player saw the money that was being given out and the years last winter and thought, this stinks. Too long.

I don't want that. I don't want to set myself up to be available to get that. So that's a funny one. We do have to wrap things up. We got some... I got to tell you about Blue Moon, Jim. Blue Moon and then some extensions, Trembuds. Blue Moon and some extensions.

Beep, beep, beep. Blue Moon, if you follow myself on Twitter, plug me. You saw that I was enjoying some Blue Moons, the night that Trevor's Minnesota team put up a nine spot on us in the first. And I sat down at a table. I met up with some friends.

I was like, you know what? I'm going to have some blue moons and watch the... The Yanks roll on these guys. And there's nine runs. So you know what I did? I had a couple more Blue Moons. Nine? Oh, no.

I still had a fantastic night. You guys know Blue Moon in that Valencia. Orange people. A lot of people commenting on that. Because it's almost, you need it. It's a requirement from Espagna. It's a one-of-a-kind beer that's made brighter, full-flavored, and if you don't want to go out, they'll bring it to you.

If you go to get. Bluemoonbeer.com slash baseball. A lot of words I like in there. I'll say it again. Get. dot blue moon beer. com slash baseball. And find out how you can get some Blue Moon delivered right to yourself.

Celebrate responsibly, Trevor, Blue Moon brewing. There's a link in the description. You look like a Blue Moon. That sweater on looks like a good Blue Moon. I'm the Blue Moon. Ooh, you want to rip through some of these extant? real quick, that got a hinted out? Sure.

Jim, we talked about it a little bit yesterday or the other day. Pablo Lopez extension for the Twins. Obviously, with how good he's looked and the dude he is and, you know, if you're trading away arise, this was the goal for Twins fans. Me and Trevor were both into it. We'll let you comment. Ian Hap, our king, we're happy for him. Did he respond to you yet, Trev?

He responded to me. He did. He did. Okay. Yeah. He'd responded to me when you said he didn't respond to you, but I didn't want to make you feel bad. And Hunter Green is the newest one that was a little bit of some weird updates

because he had to leave the other day. Because did he get hit by a liner? And he came out. But they buy out some Arbiers in Cincinnati, which, Trev, going back to what you were saying before about buying a player's jersey, I really want to get a Josh Hart-Nicks jersey. He's technically a free agent.

I'm not buying one until he resigns. I love the way he plays. I'm about it every once and four years get a Knicks jersey. I'm not getting it until he resigns. If you're a Reds fan, you can get your Hunter Green jersey now. So I'll, Jim, I think, kick to you first. On my thoughts on all these? Yeah.

I'll be quick. I don't have many. Good for all of them. I'm excited. They got wrapped up and they're playing with their teams. Logan Webb also got extended five years, $90 million. Which, you big ass head. He's got a big head?

No, that's what Logan Webb responded to my breakdown of him and Tim Anderson. Oh, yeah, Tim Anderson called a big ass head motherfucker. Tim Anderson said, ain't shit funny, which yo big ass head. And now whenever someone's, that's great. Yeah, whenever anyone says Logan Webb, my brain says, which yo big ass head. So that's just good for us to know from now on. Yeah, that's my inner. Yeah, because I didn't know what was happening right there, but now I know.

It's really funny. Ian Hap Full no trade clause Yeah Like that For him It's a big city guy You know what I'm saying

Yeah he loves Chicago And he did respond to me We had some banter back and forth He said God Jake's so fucking annoying He said that I know A little rascal

That's messed up It's messed up What else do we got I think that's it We got some Mookie bets might be playing Shortstop today Is that really gonna happen?

Don't bet against them. That's all I'd say. I like that. Why not? Yeah. And he takes on that? Like, he'll do it. All of a sudden he goes from the outfield. Yeah. Make a great play right away.

All right, Treve, we're going to go talk to Detmer's and Lopez. You got anything you want to say? Tell my son, hi. They don't care about me. Just I'm an old guy. My snakes are one, six and one. I'm not feeling great about myself right now.

You're sure you don't have one message we can pass on? Couple lefties. Don't try to sneak one inside. They're going to work. Okay. Okay. I was going to say that anyway, so.

Tatis back soon. He's going to go nuts. Tatee is going to go. Longo. Shout out, Longo. Shout out. Jake Shog. I'm kind of in on the Ranger City Connect jerseys, although they're representative of too broad of an area, not just the city.

They kind of look for it. I knew that's just Marcus Simeon.