The Josh Innes Show - Juan Soto's Laughable Deal

Episode Date: December 9, 2024

Congrats to Juan Soto and his agent. They've pulled off quite the heist. That said, if baseball players are making this much money, why not guarantee we have a chance to see them in important situations? Give me the Golden At Bat or give me Death!! Do you enjoy baseball? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Major League Baseball, as you know, I've grown quite bored with baseball over time. And again, part of that is because my favorite team is no longer good at baseball. So maybe I'm like the Alabama people today. And I just hate the whole thing because my team's not involved in it. But I'm not interested in baseball a lot anymore. I think it's basically going to be a sport in which a handful of teams have any chance at all. And that handful of team would be LA, New York, Chicago, places with a shit ton of money. And they're going to leave the Pittsburghs and the St. Louises and the Tampas and the the Cleveland's and the Cincinnati's and Milwaukee's.

A lot of these teams are going to be left in the lurch when it comes to getting big name people to sign with teams. Now, that's always been the case to a degree, but it just feels even more highlighted right now. And this is from someone who loved, past tense, loved baseball. Growing up, baseball was my favorite sport. The Cardinals were my favorite team. Die hard, first sports tears ever were shed over the St. Louis Cardinals.

So, like, I'm a baseball guy. I've loved the game historically, and I still love watching the Astros and all that. But I'm just uninterested in it. I think the game is slow. It's boring. Just the whole setup of the game now doesn't encourage activity. I don't know how people in 2024, in the era of cell phones and instant news and instant gratification, how anybody could sit at a ballpark and watch you know 18 dudes at a time

standing out on a baseball field or nine dudes on the field one dude at the plate standing around with their thumb in their ass for two and a half three hours doing absolutely nothing there's no activity there's no action there's no movement anybody who's listened to this podcast ever or listen to me on the radio ever knows that I will go into this diatribe as often as I can because I think baseball has ruined itself by being a sport that revolves around home runs walks and strikeouts it doesn't encourage base stealing it doesn't encourage activity it doesn't encourage this is going to sound lame doesn't encourage moving runners over it doesn't encourage doubles triples it doesn't encourage activity it is is a home run, strikeout, walk,

game now, and it's fucking boring. That's how I feel about baseball. That's why I'm just not as interested in baseball as I used to be. Throw in the fact that if you're in one of these cities, like a St. Louis, like a Cincinnati, like insert whatever city you're in that's not LA, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia. If you're in these, and I'm even talking about Houston because Houston can spend some money, but Houston's never gonna be a situation like New York where the Mets are gonna pay a guy 760 million. And by the way, I wouldn't want my team

to pay $760 million for a guy. That deal is never going to work out. It's baseball. One guy is not going to completely, like it's not signing LeBron. It's not signing Tom Brady. In certain sports, at certain positions, one guy can take you from the outhouse to the penthouse.

Not that the Mets are in the outhouse. They were a contender last year. But for the most part, they're usually in the outhouse. One player ain't going to do that. Now, I think one player can really help rebuild what wasn't there. Like, I'll give you an example. Bryce Harper. Bryce Harper goes to the Phillies and gets what at the time seemed like a ridiculous deal.

Now it seems like chump change. It was like 400-something million. But, like, Bryce Harper goes to Philly. Philly had been down in the dumps for nearly a decade after they lost to the Cardinals in 2011, they had become just this awful franchise that was running in and out, you know, shitty managers and shitty players. And then they said, all right, we're going to redo everything and we're going to bring in Bryce Harper. They'd already kind of laid the groundwork for what they wanted to do in their farm system. And they had a plan.

And I do believe Bryce Harper completely altered the fortunes of the franchise. So it is possible for a guy to be the catalyst. But if they just sign Bryce Harper and it's like, here's Bryce Harper and eight jamokes, well, they ain't going to do anything. But they also brought in other good players around Bryce Harper. So as far as baseball goes, it is not impossible to sign one major guy that changes the fortunes of your franchise. I mean, look at Albert Pujols. The Cardinals were great for a decade and a half. They were really, really great from 2001, 2000, 2000 to about 2011. Then they gradually kind of tailed off,

and then after 2015, they haven't been shit really since then. They might have occasional blips where it's like, wow, they might spike. But the Cardinals were the franchise in baseball. If you were looking for a model franchise from 2000 to about 2011-ish, and if you want to extend it even further, you could argue until about 2013 because they were back in the World Series again that year. So 2000 to about 2013, you could argue the Cardinals were the model franchise in baseball. But the reason it was easy to be the model franchise in baseball is because for a decade, you had the legitimate best hitter of that era and one of the

top three or four hitters in the history of baseball. So everything kind of orbits around that. And that was just a good fortune thing. You found him, you drafted him, he became your homegrown superstar. But a lot of it has to do with having that one dude that everything orbits around. The Phillies found that guy by paying him. They paid Bryce Harper and Bryce Harper is the guy that everything has orbited around. And because Bryce Harper came to Philly, it completely changed the fortunes of that franchise. So it can happen, but baseball is not a sport where one dude comes in and just completely like on his own as an individual changes things. I think the Harper signing changed the vibe and the mindset of everything in Philadelphia and that franchise. But it's not like if you sign Tom Brady and you turn the Tampa Bay Bucks into a Super Bowl winner. It doesn't

happen that way. It's not signing LeBron and the Miami Heat go from being 35-40 wins to going to the NBA Finals every year. Like it doesn't happen that way in baseball. So there is no baseball player that is worth $760 million. That player doesn't exist, especially Juan Soto, who's a rather one-dimensional player. But let's do this. Let's play a couple of commercials here, and we'll talk about this some more. I don't know, man. Baseball is just gradually dying to me as a consumer. It just doesn't do anything for me, but we'll get into that here after a word from whoever we're getting a word from. All right, if you're ready to win some real cash during the basketball playoffs, you got to check out Pick 6 from DraftKings. When it comes to basketball

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baseball player in the world. I look back and I'm going to sound like an old head here, but Juan Soto to me couldn't hold Albert Pujols' dick when he was taking a leak. If Juan Soto walked into the bathroom, into the men's room in 2005, like with 2005 Albert Pujols, and it's like, sir, may I wash your dick? My man Albert would go, you're not worth my fucking time. Because I'm a dude clubbing 40 homers, I'm driving in 130, and by the way,

I'm also hitting 330. Like, I look at guys like Pujols, and I look at guys like Miggy Cabrera 330 like I look at guys like Pujols and I look at guys like uh Miggy Cabrera and I look at guys like A-Rod and I look at guys who were total complete incredible hitters of that era and also were very good at their position which really you're not getting out of Soto like Albert Pujols was a first baseman but Albert Pujols was an amazing defensive third baseman who was a first baseman who was a gold glove winning first baseman A-Rod was an elite uh a player on the left side of the infield shortstop third base elite defender and also hit 45 home runs 50 home runs you know guys like that that could do it all baseball's now a sport where we're paying a dude and that's the other thing this is

more of a baseball issue than a Juan Soto issue. Can you imagine having to write that check every year for a dude that's making, you know, however many millions of dollars you make 15 years, that contract is going to be a disaster, but 15 years, there'll be new Bobby Bonilla, but 15 years and you're making seven 60. So what are you looking at? Like 50 million or something like that a year. I don't know the whole breakdown of the contract or whatever, and I don't really care. So let's say you're making $57 million. You're stroking that check, and you're talking about a dude who makes an impact on the game four times a game over three hours.

Baseball is bizarre. And that's why it's so strange to me that when you've got a guy making $760 million, and you'd be against the idea of the golden at bat rule if i'm paying someone 760 million dollars uh 760 mil i want to make sure that dude's at the plate as often as possible i want to make sure that if i'm paying you 760 million dollars i have a chance to see you at the plate versus their elite closer with the game on the line like Like, how can you pay $760 million to someone whose last at bat in a game may come in the seventh inning? And that's very possible, right?

Like, you make the last out of the seventh inning. You're not coming up again in theory, unless you motor through some at bats. There's a chance you're not coming up again. How do we operate in a world where a guy making $760 million is not guaranteed to having it bat with the game on the line? Now, it may work out that he may not have to bat.

Like, your team might be up 10-0 and you don't need it. But how do we operate in a world where that's something people shun and dismiss? So you're cool with guys getting $760, which, by the way, I'm not faulting anybody for getting paid. Get yours. I'd love to get paid. I'm sitting here doing a podcast in my underwear, in my bedroom, hoping to make a couple hundred

bucks a month, knocking this out, just to have a couple bucks in my pocket. I will not fault a dude at all for getting paid $760 million, especially when you're able to hoodwink these people, your agents able to bamboozle them into giving you all this fucking money. When like in reality, you're fine. You're a nice player. You just so happen to come off your best year. A large part of that is who you're batting in front of. That might be Aaron Judge, the most feared power hitter in the game. So of course you're going to get pitches to hit. Who knows what's going to happen whenever you go somewhere else. This has potential to be a giant disaster, but whatever. How could you be against the idea of the golden at bat?

Every owner in baseball should support that. That should be an easy one, especially if you're going to be in a world now where to even play the game with these kind of big money free agents, you're five six seven hundred million dollars you're talking marginal dudes not just I mean Soto's a better average hitter than some but like you're going to be looking at guys who bat 220 230 and can hit 40 homers and you're like well I guess I'll give this guy 300 million dollars like when you're dealing with that kind of cash I want to make sure I've got every opportunity for my best hitter to be at the plate with the game on the line. And the idea that we're sitting here today and there are people who still dismiss that idea

and there's all these old heads that want to bitch about the idea of, oh, baseball's just fine the way it is. If you don't like it, don't watch. Well, I might watch it more if there's an opportunity to see Juan Soto making $50 million a year come up on the bottom of the ninth, and I know I'm guaranteed to have best versus best. I'm not guaranteed to have best closer versus slapdick hitter, a two 20 hitter at the end of the game. And I understand that's not the way the game's always been played. I understand that there's changes, but a lot of shit changes in sports. And if baseball wants to keep up with that,

they should implement that because I think it's fucking brilliant. And I think moves like this highlight that even more when you've got a guy making $760 million, a guy who's getting paid that kind of dough. And there's not a guarantee that you at least have the chance to get him to the plate in big spots late in the game. And again, we keep bringing up the ninth. It could be a situation where you decide to use them in the eighth because the bases are loaded. Like go for it. That's fun. You know, I saw the guy from the Savannah bananas. I forgot the guy's name, but the guy that runs it, like the leader of banana ball. And I get that they're a gimmick, but they're a pretty brilliant gimmick. They're like what the globe trotters used to be before the globe trotters started playing high school gymnasiums and nobody gave a shit. Like it's a fun gimmicky type of

thing. And they fill up baseball stadiums three nights in a row when they go to these towns, whether it be like at Baton Rouge where they filled up the college stadium, the baseball stadium three nights in a row, which was like 15,000 a night or whatever that number is, 10,000, 12,000. I forgot what the number is, but they fill up minute made park. They can fill them all up. And I understand you're not going to play major league baseball that way on a 162 game basis. It's not going to be wacky golf for 162 games and you can't implement all the wacky shit they do. But I saw him talking about the idea of the golden at bat. And he's like, I fucking love it. We do that type of shit. Like, why like why not like why are we opposed

to fun like people rip me for liking basketball and I'm not like a spike eskin type who'll do a podcast about basketball and act like it's the greatest thing ever the NBA is very popular among skinny jeans wearing stat nerds for whatever reason guys who you know have no ability to play basketball whatsoever but they love it you know that's not a knock on spike. It's just reality. That's the kind of people that love the NBA, Asian folks and fucking white skinny jeans nerds. That's who that's basketball's main core audience. People that, you know, have prayer candles that have Daryl Morey on them. That's the kind of people that love the NBA. I just love watching basketball in particular. I love watching the Memphis Grizzlies. I'm a Memphis Grizzlies fan. I love watching John Morant play. I love Jaron Jackson and Des Bain.

I love that team. I love Memphis. I love that team. I love to watch them on a nightly basis. I can watch a two-hour basketball game and never find myself extremely bored. Something's always happening. People will say, oh, there's no defense and blah, blah, blah. They shoot too many threes. That's fine. But then explain to me how baseball is interesting. Explain to me how watching some fucking pitcher standing on the mound humming a baseball and their ball goes nowhere, guys standing around doing nothing in the outfield.

Like imagine you get paid $760 million and the vast majority of your job is literally just spent standing around doing nothing. I'm talking about when you're working. Juan Soto's getting $760 million, right? The vast majority of his day, when he's at work and it's the main show, when a game is happening, outfielder. You know what an outfielder does for the vast majority of the game?

Stands there and does absolutely nothing. Spits sunflower seeds, digs in his crotch, digs in his ass, looks in the stand, see what kind of hot pieces of ass are out there. That's what you're doing in the outfield. Your important moments in a game, if you count the four at-bats you're going to get in a game, those at-bats may last a minute and a half apiece, if that. So you're talking about a dude that's maybe giving you four minutes of important action over a three-hour game every night, and that dude makes $760 million.

And the vast majority of your job is just standing there. When you're not in the game, you're in the dugout, and you're not batting, you're either sitting down in the dugout, or you're standing there up against the rail watching. It is fascinating what baseball players make. $760 million to do virtually nothing. And I'm not trying to compare that to dudes who do real jobs. I'm not one of those type of dudes that's like, what about a guy that drives a truck? I'm out there driving a truck every day. I'd kill to make $760 million. I get that. But just from the standpoint of comparing apples to apples, which to me would be comparing athletes in certain sports to other sports, if you want to go apples to apples,

like a football player, if you're an offensive lineman, you're getting your brains beaten in for half the game. Every snap, you're having a collision with a dude on the other side. In basketball, if you're playing 35 minutes out of a 48-minute game, you're running up and down. You're running miles and miles on a given night. A baseball player, the most effort they have to exert is when they're jogging back from right field into the dugout

for the next half inning. $760 million for baseball players. Is Juan Soto still 21? I don't remember. But I think back to the golden bat, which I will stump for forever. Because I am a golden bat honk. And everyone knows this about me. I say everyone knows it.

The handful of people who listen to this podcast know it. I'm a big golden at bat guy. And if you're going to start paying these kind of salaries to people, $760 million for a guy that, okay, he's fine. Nice player. Fine. Had his best season ever. Just worked out perfectly for him.

You're going to pay $760 million for those type of dudes. And you get that motherfucker to the plate as often as you can. Golden at bat me. I need all the golden at bats, please. Thank you. All right. More to come.