The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Ken Rosenthal Talks About How Baseball Could Return This Year

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

EG left corner for the career Hi! And he got it! Eric Gordon here, listen to Rocka's radio on your smart speaker, just as. Alexa, play Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio. He is the senior writer for the athletic. He is on MLB on Fox.

You've seen him obviously the last few years with the Houston Astros. One of the most respected voices in baseball today, and we are honored to have him for a few minutes on a very busy time of year. And thankfully, it seems like it's going to be busier. For one, Ken Rosenthal here, on the Matt Thomas show. Ken, thanks for spending some time with me. There are so many stories going out about the scheduling, the pods, the divisions. Is this in your mind a hopeful optimism, or is this just people just throwing more things against the wall hoping something sticks?

It's not throwing things against the wall in the sense that it's a pipe dream. It is something that can happen. Now, you ask me, what is it, Ken? And what are we talking about here? And I don't know the answer that. They are looking at a number of ideas. And the way it's been explained to me, Matt, is that they have to model everything and all kinds of scenarios so that when the time comes, if the time comes, where they have the opportunity to start the season, they will be ready with either plan A, B, D, whatever the case might be. So I know fans are reading about a lot of different ideas. And I know some sound kind of cool, some sound kind of weird, but I would cause against getting overly excited or attached to any one idea just yet, they don't know.

And everything depends, of course, on the virus and how it progresses, where it goes, the impact on different states. And until they have a grasp on that, and until, frankly, there is enough testing in this country to have a sports league come back to action, I don't know that the conversation is all that relevant. That said, all that said, I still. still believe they will play this year. I just don't know how, when, just how we'll all transpire. Have you been given any indication about a drop dead date? Like, you know what, we've got to have a

decision made by a certain period of time because obviously you're not fighting per se stadiums because most of the facilities are on their own. But you may be fighting weather, you might be fighting television networks. There's a variety of things. So any idea when at some point, Commissioner or Manfred says either we're going to have a season or we're not. No. They don't have that kind of date in mind just yet. Keep in mind, we're still in April. Now, granted, it's almost May, but there is, in a normal baseball season, a long way to go,

five months out of six. And also keep in mind that the agreement that MLB reached with the players union gives them the ability to play regular season games through October. So when you ask how late can it start, I don't know the answer because even if you started, for the sake of discussion, Matt, and we're just talking here, let's say you started August 15th and said, you know what, we're not going to have a season, we're just going to have a big round-robin tournament. Well, you could pull that off in two and a half months and then have a postseason, and there are all kinds of ways to do it. In my view, the value of coming back is so great to the sport and even to the country.

that no matter how limited the season is, it will be better to play than not to play. Now, obviously, any kind of abbreviated season is going to have some kind of asterisk attached to it in terms of it won't be viewed the same way as a normal season. But at the same time, I think at this point, fans, media people like myself, everybody just wants to see the game come back. And that is the priority. Ken, when the game does come back, and if they do these pod type of things, they'll probably have to be the DH for every team. Do you think that's something that could be lasting and could have a lasting impact, or do you think that'll go away just be a one-year one-off?

Well, that's been discussed as something that could come up in the next collective bargaining agreement. The current TVA expires December 2021. and I would expect that in the next CBA, if there is ever going to be Universal D.H. Both leagues, it will occur there. Now, in the abbreviated season, there are a number of things you can try and just see how it works and looks, because, again, it's not going to be a normal season. It will be that season with an asterisk. So I expect that if the sport does come back, there will be a number of creative ideas explored.

and the Universal D.H. probably would be one of the less aggressive ones, right? I mean, we all kind of could get used to that. I know some people, nationally, fans would not necessarily like it. But I do expect some other things as well. And I know fans who are traditionalists get upset every time the sport does anything different. But if you're ever going to do it, you do it now in a shortened season and see how it plays out. visiting with Ken Rosenthal, MLB on Fox, MLB Network, the senior writer for the athletic. And again, you get a 90-day free trial with the athletic to check out some of Ken and his team's excellent work.

Last question about this. Any feeling from you, Ken, are owners unified about what could happen? Or do you think when Manfred comes down with a plan, he's going to have to probably, you know, separate the haves from the have-nots, the, hey, this makes sense, hey, this not. How unified right now do you believe the owners are about putting together a season and agreeing to the terms of such season? Matt, that's a good question. And they're certainly unified in their desire to come back. Now, once there is a template for returning, at that point, do they share revenue to a greater extent than they might otherwise simply because of the unusual circumstances? That is something that they would have to address. and the same actually can be said for the players who would be have or have different opinions on other topics among their own body.

There's 1,200 players. They're not always going to agree on everything. And we've already seen some players speak out against the so-called Arizona plan, the one with the quarantine situation and no fans. And you heard Trout and curse us, they don't want to be away from my family that long, et cetera. So on both sides, players and owners, there are going to be. different opinions, and that's understandable. That's kind of the way America is, right? But at the same time, you would think that when push came to shove, if logistically baseball could be played, then all of these different issues that need to be addressed would be addressed in a mature

and adult fashion. And I say it like that, not because I'm talking to my children, but because we've seen in the past these two groups, the players and owners sometimes behavior. in ways that are less immature in adults. Yeah, for sure. Ken, I'd like to ask you a question, taking your reporter's cap off for a second. You've been to have the great fortune of covering the Astros during the World Series runs, the playoff runs

as Fox has been broadcast in the games. I did a weekly show with A.J. Hinch, and I tremendously miss him. I look forward to doing it with Dusty when the season gets started again. But from our pure personal aspect, it felt like AJ, not only to me, but the media members that covered him

gave you things, talked about things from a pure reporter to manager to off air on air, what were your thoughts about AJ and how much will you miss the repartee that he has with you and with other people? Because I feel like he's been a guy that just didn't give you those standard pat answers to your generic questions. That's certainly true, Matt. He's an excellent interview. There's no doubt about that. And one thing I will say, because this is a Houston station, in writing the initial report with my co-writer, Evangrelic, about what the Astros did in 2017, and we only reported on 17, not 18. It pained me, pained me to write about A.J. Hinch and Alex Cora, two guys that I've had

very close relationships with and respect a great deal. We had to do our job. We did our job. Ultimately, what happened happened, but A.J. Hinch is a guy that I have tremendous. disrespect and even affection for Alex Cora the same. And it was difficult personally in some ways to get that story out there because of those relationships. Now, again, you do your job and eventually you have to just say, okay, this is it, this is what happened, that's that. But we're human beings and there was some inner conflict. Let's put it that way with me. Yeah. A lot of our audience, now remember, we're the station that carries. the games, but we've been very much in the, you know what, the Astros cheated, they got caught,

they served a punishment, they're going to serve a punishment. It felt like, Ken, that Boston got very lucky. And again, I don't want it to be Homer-centric on the Astros side, but I've seen other well-known people. I don't know how your personal feeling is about to find out right now, but other national people have said that the Red Sox, not only the punishment was very lenient, but Major League Baseball did this on a news dump the day before the MLB, the NFL draft. your take on when the decision was made, the decision itself, and do you blame the Houston fan base for feeling like that the Astros got super severe punishment? Meanwhile, Boston used a video guide as their scapegoat.

First of all, I co-wrote the Red Sox story, too, that led to that investigation. So I come out of it kind of from a similar perspective, having been a part of both initial reports. Now, one thing that is really important to remember, what we reported about the Red Sox was not as egregious and flagrant as what we reported about the Astros. What we reported about the Red Sox also did not have an on-the-record whistleblower like Mike fires to support the reporting. We had off the record people telling us what had happened. So the distinction has to be made, first of all, between the trash can banging and simply using video, decoding it during games, and then relaying it to the dugout to second base to the hitter at home plate, which the Astros also were doing. So what the Astros did in the eyes of baseball and even in the reporting that we did, based on what we heard, was much worse. They were always going to have the tougher penalty, the stiffer penalty.

The question then becomes, okay, given what the Red Sox did, was that enough of a penalty? And we wrote about this, Evan and I did last week, in response to the penalties, we asked a number of questions about what Major League Baseball had decided. One of them was, if the manager and GM were held responsible in the Houston case, as Commissioner Manfred promised, in 2017 after the Apple Watch incident, and that was going to be the policy. Misconduct of this kind, the manager and GM are responsible. Well, if that's the case, then why weren't the manager and GM responsible with the Red Sox? And I have not really heard a satisfactory answer there. What basically my understanding is that they considered J.T. Watkins, the video guy,

a rogue employee, one guy, and that's how they determined it. Now, it was a more difficult investigation. They had more conflicting accounts. It confused things. But that basic standard, manager and GM held responsible, they did not apply that in this case. And that was curious to me. And there are other questions, too, and I encourage people to go back and read that article. But the main thing is, well, I can certainly understand why Astro fans would say, hey, wait a second.

This wasn't close to what we did. The infractions also weren't close. So, yes, you can judge the penalties and say they weren't severe enough for the Red Sox, and you can make a fair case about that, but they were never going to be as severe as what the Astros got. I think, though, one angle of that, though, Ken, is that this was a second time offense from the Red Sox with the same guy, and the Red Sox said, we're not going to violate these rules, and then they did it again. I think that's also an issue that Astros fans have, is that there is a second time offender. That's entirely fair.

That is entirely fair, especially when the commissioner said he's going to apply a harsher standard going forward to any team that does this again. And there's also any consistency in the report about the Red Sox front office being praised by Manfred for communicating the rules effectively to the staff, the coach, and the manager. And that's fine. And he said they established a culture of accountability, et cetera, which the Estrus had not done. and they got criticized for that in his own report about their conduct. But in the same report about the Red Sox, I know I'm jumping back and forth here, it also says the players didn't know the rules. So it's very nice that the front office communicated to the coach and manager well enough,

but evidently the coaches and manager didn't communicate to the players well enough. So there was that flaw, too. Hey, I'm not saying these questions are unfair. They're fair. And we raised them ourselves, many of them. in our article last week. I don't really have any better answers than that.

Ladies and gentlemen, please take the time and subscribe to the athletic. It is not your normal journalism. It's well beyond deep in-in-depth stuff, and Ken's leading the charge on the baseball side of things. Thank you very much for spending some time with us today. We look forward to reading your reports because I feel like something new every day, which is

encouraging sign for all of us that are baseball fans. Kennegan, thanks for the time this afternoon. Thanks for having to know. You've got to take care. Ken Rosenthal, Fox Sports, So MLB Network and the Athletic, a fantastic visit with him. And we could go on and talk to him for many, many hours if we needed to. But he's got to write stories. And we've got to continue our radio show.

Busy man. He's a busy man. We thank Ken for joining us. 1244 is the time the Matt Thomas show continues after this.