The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Mike Stanton On The MLB's Return To Play

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Mike Stanton On The MLB's Return To Play

On the trail, it's hard. Then it drops it down. This is Coach Dan Tonin. Matt Thomas is a great guy. And I always listen to the radio show. On mute. What a shot. And isn't Mike Dan Tony a sweetheart?

He listens to my show every day. On mute. On mute. It's pretty funny. I know a man who doesn't listen to show on mute. He's one of our favorite in-studio analyst. He's actually going to finally have to work a little bit. Mike Stanton,

vacation is over in about a month. How are you feeling right now? Matt, I'm feeling a lot better than I was just a couple days ago. You know, it's taken way too long. It's been an ugly, ugly picture. But bottom line, we're actually going to get to watch baseball in 2020. And you'll do it on AT&T with you in the studio, along with Kevin Ashenfelder and crew. It's great to have you on the show again. We really appreciate it. When you were playing, how involved did you get labor negotiations? You know, during the strike of 94, I was a player. I wasn't really involved with the labor side of it, with the union side of it,

other than just being part of the union. But you go back to 2002 in the negotiations the first time we did not have a work stoppage in baseball history as far as when the union has been around. I was actually quite involved. I was player rep for the Yankees. and I had been to a couple meetings early in the off season, the prior off season. So, yeah, I was quite involved with that negotiation. Mike Ross v. Real here, and I have a conspiracy theory.

Just tell me how crazy I am, that the owners, this is exactly what they wanted. Their first few proposals, seems like they should have known that they were not going to be accepted. And this dragged and dragged on, they had the clock on their side. So around 60 games is about what they wanted when the players offered 114 and 82 and 76 and all that. 60 is, it seems like in the end, the owners got their way in many ways. Well, they did. I mean, they did not want to go to 60. They actually, you remember they went, they started off at 48 and then they were talking about 54.

The one thing you have to give the owners, you know, there's a bunch of very smart people on that side of the negotiations. they were incredibly creative because they came up with, what, three or four different ways of putting together basically the same proposal, which was paying the players about 33% of their overall salary. Yeah, it felt like they were changing, as a friend of ours said, four dimes, then a quarter, a nickel, and two dime. It was just moving 40 cents around the same way. So let's move on to this a little bit now and get to the season itself.

But I don't know, I don't expect, Mike, I know you got some free time, you didn't read the entire 100-page manual, did you? Did not. No, no, I fell asleep about page two. Yeah, I figured. So of all the new things they're going to ask these players to do, what's going to be the two or three things that maybe come to mind that will be the hardest? I'm talking about some of the frivolous things like fist bumps, chew and see, spitting. What's going to be the biggest adjustment for the players? I think the spitting thing is going to be incredibly difficult.

not because everyone needs to spit, but it just becomes such a habit in such part of the culture of baseball. And, you know, not even baseball, just our culture overall. I mean, there's times that I catch myself, I go, why don't I just spit? I don't need to spit, but it just happened. And so I think that's going to be a tough one, you know, the social distancing side of it. And I don't think anybody's going to have a real problem with it for the first couple weeks, because everything's going to be. new, it'll be at the forefront of everyone's mind. It's going to be when everyone gets comfortable.

And, you know, we can put, Major League Baseball can put, you know, as many protocols, health protocols in places they want. Really, it's going to be up to each individual player if he continues to do what is supposed to be done to keep the sport healthy. Because we know, you know, all these guys, you know, they're, if they do contract, COVID-19, chances are, if they get sick, they're not going to be very sick. But they're not the ones that are at the greatest peril. It's going to be the coaching staff.

It's going to be, you know, the family at home. It's going to be, you know, people, the support cast around these players. And so they're going to have to really make sure that they keep, you know, kind of their nose to the grindstone and make sure that they understand how difficult this can be if all of a sudden we start getting a whole lot of positive test. I also feel like on a positive side that guys go on the road and you're playing every day, six days and seven weeks, that if they say, look, chill at the hotel,

don't go sightseeing, don't spend a lot of time at malls, I think that may be the easiest adjustment for these professional players. Would that be fair to say? Oh, I'm on board 100% with you because I think at home, you're going to be around a lot more people. You know, you're going to be around your family. Your family's going to want to go to the pool or they want to go get something to eat or something. And you're going to want to be around your family. And, you know, the family members are going to be, you know, out and about while you're on the road.

So if one of them contracted, now all of a sudden you're susceptible to bringing it on to the, you know, bringing it into the clubhouse. So, you know, it's going to be a very strange situation. But I think with all the turmoil that we've gone through to get to this point, I think everybody's going to just be happy to be back on the field and actually playing baseball. So I'm trying to stay optimistic and think that everybody is going to be prudent about, you know, following the rules, the way they need to be followed to keep everyone safe. All right, Mike. Put yourself back in Major League Baseball as an active.

player, you now are basically been given three and a half weeks to get yourself ready for the season. As a longtime ex-major league pitcher, what do you do now to revamp your regiment to get yourself ready after being dormant for so long? And then before that, being a part of spring training, getting ready for a season that never took place. You know, Matt, I actually got to go through this. The 1995 spring training, we only had three weeks. That was the strike short in the year, 94, and then it leaked into the 95 season, and we had the same thing. It was a vastly different situation because that was something that was self-imposed as far as the industry was concerned. But I don't really foresee it being any big issue here.

You know, most of the guys have been doing whatever they can to throw, to hit. you know, I've worked with several players that have continued to work through, you know, through the lockdown when they could, but even once, you know, down here in Texas, once the, once we came out of the lockdown, now of a sudden, you know, they're getting back in shape and they, you know, it's a different, it's a different generation. You know, these guys work out because they like it, not because they have to. So I don't really foresee it being any kind of big issue. I know a lot of people are talking about starting pitching, that that's going to be an issue.

Well, starting pitchers only go five innings now anyways. You know, at three weeks, especially with the throwing that they've been doing going into camp, throwing 90 pitches shouldn't be a big deal. You know, really the reliance on the bullpen is the way most teams are run now. And so I really don't think three weeks is going to be all that difficult to get the pitchers ready. Now, I think it's a little bit different for the hitters just simply because they're not going to get the repetition and get to see the live pitching. I know if I were one of the big league coaches, I would want my hitters and pitchers both to be seeing each other from day one of camp if we can pull that off. You know, going live BP, let the hitters see as many pitches as they possibly.

Whether they're hitting or not, that's not the point. It's tracking the pitches, seeing the ball, seeing the breaking ball. You're getting those repetitions because you're just simply not going to get the game. that you get in a regular spring training. What about managers, Mike? A guy goes through a two-for-19 slump. Oh, he'll break out of it. I'll put him back out there.

Or a pitcher has two bad starts in a 60-game condensed schedule. Do you think managerial styles will change a little bit this season? I think they have to. You know, listen, we are going to start the season with 30 teams tied for first place. And, you know, August, we usually call August the dog days. But now, I mean, everyone's calling it. And it is. It's going to be a sprint.

And I think that, you know, I was actually a little bit surprised that they put in the August 31st trade deadline because, I mean, that's just a few weeks after the season starts. But, you know, what else could you do? I think that managers are going to have to have a much shorter leash. You're not going to be able to let a guy, especially a young guy, kind of work his way through. You need to hit the ground running because if you get off, you know, you get off your first two weeks, you get off to a start that, you know, four and ten, you might be done. Yeah. Last question for you. We've got some notable free agents.

Probably the number one around baseball would be mooky bets, but we've got a pretty big one in Houston, Texas by the name of George Springer. How do this year's upcoming free agents tackle the 60 game campaign in terms of if they slump, if they're hurt, do they take time off? can you really improve your overall contract value by what you do in the next two months here? I don't know if you can improve it. I do think you can hurt it. I think if George just kills the ball for two straight months, it's not probably going to be all that different than what he's done in the past. He puts up big numbers. But if he really struggles, you know, that's going to, you know, that's going to give the other side a chance to, you know, reduce the offers once free agency comes.

And the thing is, that's going to happen anyway. I mean, I do not envy these guys going through free agency. You know, really not even just this next year. And maybe for the next two or three years, it's just going to be, it's going to be tough because the owners, Major League Baseball is losing so much money. They're businessmen. They're going to try and recoup that money. And where are they going to do it?

they're going to do it on player salaries. 60 games and 70 days thereabouts. Mike, I hope you're ready to broadcast a bunch of action on AT&T. Thank you very much for the time. Enjoy any vacation time you may have left, and we'll look forward to seeing you on television. I can very easily say now, sooner rather than later. Anytime, gentlemen, it was fun.