Howdy and welcome to the Three True Outcomes Baseball podcasts, presented by Baseball Prospectives.
I'm your host Ian left Quiz and joining me as always, it's Ben
Murphy. Ben. How are you doing. I'm doing well. Ian.
How are you joining us from our nation's capital. Its Jared Wise. Jared,
how are you doing? I'm doing great? Thanks. Thanks. We
had to get this train on the station because, you know, a lot
of trades, a lot of free agent signings, what have you. You
know, it's been kind of the busiest Oh wait, sorry, sorry,
that's basketball. Sorry, totally confused in baseball. Nothing has happened for two
weeks. Was exciting, right, It's very said for baseball that basketball is
like literally more exciting when there's no games going on. Um. Yeah,
So we're gonna break that down a little bit um where it delights to be
back. Fair warning, this one may not have a ton of course you
content in it, but we'll try to load it up first, and then
we'll talk a little bit about the All Star Game, a little bit about
some of the news that has been coming out of baseball in the last week
or so, and then get out of here. But before that, let
me turn it over to the mailback. Captain Jared, how's the mailback?
Let's looking a little idea in But we got one, only one in the
weeks that we were gone. Well that's not us, But what is that
one? The question comes from Jacob, who would like us to evaluate a
trade he made recently. He traded away Anthony Rendon, Aaron Nola, Mamma,
Mike Siroca, brass stripling, Jacob Webb, and Harrison Bader and got
back Cody Bellinger Luke Weaver in a round thirty six pick. What do you
think of that deal? So it's a lot going on, right, There's
a lot? Yeah, yeah, So what this is is kind of the
four nickels for a quarter trade, except one of the nickels is like a
twenty cent piece and one of them is maybe a die. But you know,
whatever, the analogy is, where is the twenty ten piece counterfeit or
better than a nickel? I don't know, Like, I don't ask me
about Funny, it does sound counterfeit since well, you know, yeah,
you can venmo me the results of this trade later. But what, like
what I think we're asking here is whether the difference between Anthony Randon and Cody
Bellinger is worth the remainder of this trade. Yeah, cool, because we
always talk about consolidating and trying to get the best player in the deal,
and I think we'd all agree that Cody Bellinger's best player in the deal.
But it's a lot to give up for Coody Bellinger, right right, And
you know, I I I think it is kind of a little bit dependent
on how many keepers you have, right and a little bit on how you
feel about some of these pictures in particular. You know, I would say
certainly Jacob Webb and Harrison Bader are probably more one year picks. It's starting
to look like especially a debater, but it kind of breaks down to Aaron
Ola, Mikesaroka, and Ross Stripling versus that difference plus Luke Weaver and then
so you know, breaking down player right player Mike Saroka is out over his
skis, but he appears to have the knack for a pitching and you know,
I think we are talking like long term number two starter. Aaronola has
almost completely lost it, but he had it, and Ross Stripling is probably
a number two, number three starter on the Dodgers, which is probably the
most frustrating organization in which to own sat starter. You know, I think
the Dodgers and the Astros are probably the two teams where I've pretty much in
my head devalued all of their starters around or two at this point outside of
you know, the actual ass is that because it seems like they get good
performance out of their pictures. Yeah, performance, I would say, the
challenge of the uncertainty of having them in the playoffs in particular. Yeah,
so it's usage, especially down stretch. Yeah, you know, I think
Ross Stripling is somebody who inherently moves to the pen by September and therefore is
a reliever, which is not the worst thing in the world to have,
and he'll help you during the season, but um, it's kind of child
they you know, those teams both have so much talent at this point,
although a lot of it's vaporized on Houston this year. But u you know,
with the Dodgers, I think getting struggling into the rotation as a challenge.
That said, you know, I would rather have Nolan Siroca over we
Faver, and I think it's pretty close to there between Rando and Bellinger.
One of the things I've been noticing. You know, Fangraphs released their mid
season Top fifty or I guess fifty futures this week, which was interesting.
Baseball Perspectives released their obviously minor league update, which I thought was fascinating as
well. Both great, but focusing on Fangraphs for a moment, they did
a draft of the top fifty players in Top thirty players in Baseball, and
what a lot of the commenters noticed was that twenty eight and twenty ninety year
olds in the twenty twelve draft, the last draft they did, were like
just tanked, even if they were like the absolute superstars in the game.
And you know, I think people kind of under made it how quickly they
could hit the cliff. So I think there is a chance they had Balinger.
It's worth a lot more than the rendown. Yeah, which is you
know all that to say, I think I would personally rather the rend down
no Lass Heroka side, but you know, I see where it is coming
from. Put it that way. Yeah, I think I would definitely rather
have the Balinger side. But I'm surprised because I expected you also took him
down on the Balinger side. I think the age gap between Bell and Ger
redown alone would be enough for me. But I think, I guess the
performance difference is big enough that I think we can say, like, Balinger's
a better hitter today, and he's what six years younger? Yeah, six
years younger, m So obviously the other players are good. I also took
a second to look up Jacob's team. This is for n L three forty,
and he's in last place, so he's sort of rebuilding, and it
seems like, um, this is a good rebuilding kind of trade, consolidating
your talent, and um, I'm assuming since it's a public league that you
know, it's a normal hard thirteen keeper system. But even if he can't
fill up those slots, he can trade him for you know, early UM
draft picks next spring and keep building that way. So yeah, we Luke
Weaver is certainly more than a flyer. He deserves mentioned as a definitely something
of a keeper starter. That's the guy that I asked about that you said
has like shoulder and elbow problems. Yes, okay, yes, just checking
um on his way back, but yeah, it has a could be going
down for Tommy John surgery in a month as well. Yeah, but you
know pures. Yeah, but I think I'm gonna bet on the one that's
already had arm issues like recently to be more likely. I guess what I
would be betting on is that Siroca and Nola are strong enough that it's giving
up a lot. But right like you said, if you're a rebuilder,
I think any quality pitcher is a little less valuable to you. Yeah,
so you know, I see where this is coming from. It's probably a
good example of a win win both teams get something for what they need.
And yeah, I think since we can obviously see it either side good fair
trade. Yeah, and I think, um, you know, not to
pivot from this, but next few weeks are going to be trade season,
so you know, if you have any other trades that you'd like us to
evaluate, either privately or publicly, feel free to send them to us.
What is their email address, Baseball Perspectives dot com. Thank you mail.
Yeah, you're welcome. I was gonna bring up the Fangraft's series on the
next podcast if we needed something, because we've got so much content for this
one. I was wondering what you thought of their Wander Franco position. Um,
wander Franco who was drafted? I want to say fourth. I don't
have it pulled up, but it was eighth. Okay, it was like
extremely high low. I was wondering if he thought he should be picked like
zero, Like, yeah, he should be not considered for this because obviously
he'd be the first. Yeah. So this is um and their conceit was
value over the next ten years team irrespective, I believe, which actually makes
it a really good analog for sports sheet. So yeah, doesn't because yeah
yeah, and they threw out the contract as well, so it doesn't matter
what their current contract with us. Yeah. Um, you know again,
I think to me it felt a little u a little aggressive just because players
like I think Juan Soto, we're still on the board, you know.
Yeah, there were players of an equal age with kind of a stronger performance
record in the mater leagues. Yeah, I mean he went eight, so
basically everybody else was still there. Yes, I know, Soto went sixteen,
Vladito went eighteen. I thought it was interesting. Fernando Tatis went before.
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Um, I can see it.
You know. I think Keith Law went out on a limb in the preseason,
and he's looking pretty good right now. I do think Fernando Tatis is
a little out over his skis performance wise though as well. Just you know
that is kind of not supported by any uh you know, his peripher roles
already Stadcast type metrics, So you know, I don't want to say like
he's extremely exciting, so you know, you can only the hype train only
goes so far down. But um, this might be the high watermark for
drafting for Natatas And the next is that the worst trick in the first fifteen.
I think in this case, the consensus was, and I kind of
agree with it, that Anthony Randolin was the worst pick in the first fifteen.
He remains the most underrated player except in this draft scepting where and I
guess we could link to this, but he was taken forth right, he
was one fifth? Okay, so who was taken forth Culdy Belinger. Yeah,
Cuddy Milinger is pretty good. Yeah, I guess that would suggest directly
that's right. Um, but yeah, I think that was where a lot
of people, I think flag that as good as Rondon is, it's a
little too aggressive on him. Yeah, which I agree, you know,
he's I don't think he's that much lower than fifth, But Yeah. I
wasn't a draft of fifth and the mock draft this offseason either. I was
pretty surprised to see Matt Chapman at thirteen. I guess maybe I always just
sort of assumed that I'm ignorant and or wrong, but curious to hear as
Matt Chapman at thirteen weird like guys that went after him, basically everybody else,
but especially Juan Soto, Vladito, Yeah, Sander Barts, Aaron Judge,
Arles Correa. I think, like, um, you know, I
think you could argue some plays. I think Match Chapman has definitely helped himself
this year, and us who specifically chose I say Ramires over Match Happen this
offseason do not feel great about Match Happen in this moment. Gotcha. Um,
you know, I think it's defensible. I don't think it's depicted at
any any of us would make, but right, I think you could defend
it. Maybe not for scoresheet. Yeah, although the one thing I like
about Match Happen score sheet is he's going to have a pretty choice defensive rating.
Yeah. Is it gonna be choice enough? Uh? Yeah, I
mean one of the like if you see the way that shortstop. You know,
I guess shortstop offenses on their eyes, shortstops are going to hit over
one hundred ops plus this year. Um you know, I think there's a
kind of not the third base isn't two, but it looks like Chapman has
the best rating, like kind of going away at third base. Oh,
Aaronauto is close, but after the two of them, it's traps Shaw and
then pretty big drop off. So I don't think we're gonna worry too much
about trappashaws defensive rating in the future. Um yeah, Uh, not a
great moment, but um yeah, I don't have a huge problem with match
happen being there in real life and certainly non scoresheet cool. Um yeah,
any any other takeaways? We didn't have this in their rundown, such as
it is. But you know, no I asked the questions us, thinking
all right, uh, maybe he can compare it to the mock draft next
time. Run. Yeah, it's interesting to see how players moved. If
you have any questions about that, we'll take those too. Yeah, hit
us with your hot takes about it. Um So. In the meantime,
this this week, we baseball has been off for most of the week,
although I did really appreciate that. You know, I opened up the you
know, my scoreboard about twenty minutes into the return of baseball yesterday and the
Worlds had already given up nine runs. Yeah, I want to say in
the top of the our sitting shoo. Yeah. Yeah. So you know,
at some level, um, you know, I feel like twenty nine
teens really did come at the second half with like a brand new fresh start.
Look, it's not their fault. Dylan Bunny was pitching and he was
hurt. They immediately put him on the I l yeah, they it took
for them to come up with the injury. I assume they put them on
with fatigue, Like fatigue, they're fatigue of watching him pitch. Yeah,
whip clash. Um. Now, I you know, I don't know that
we had the greatest of off seasons in terms of prognostication, but Dylan Bundy
is trash. Looks about as good as Jerickson. So far as trash,
those are true for our belt. Um. But yeah, so we had
the All Star break, um, including the Futures Game, which unfortunately I
have not watched yet, so I may have some takes in the next two
weeks. But I doubted. I did watch. For what it's worth,
I did watch the California League All Star Game. Why did you watch all
Star game earlier? Earlier this month? But time? Yeah, so,
I you know, I'm not not crazy evens like the hipster of features game
watching, like the features games to mainstream. So there's an interesting thing.
There's an interesting thing about the minor league All Star games that a lot of
pose yeah, because they don't watch them. Yeah, then those of you
who don't watch minor league all Star games may not know. But but for
me, a person who watches minor league All Star games, um, the
interesting thing that you may not know is that minor league All Star games are
kind of the rosters are picked kind of the same way major league All Star
games are like based on the player having the best third of a season.
Nice, which is you know, interesting except for the part where it's like
all twenty five year olds in the All Star Game because like, of course
they're having a good season and they you know, like the pitcher who's starting
the like every minor league All Star game is always the guy going like eight
and two. It's like it was really like the last bastion of the one
last record. Yeah. Nice. Um, no, it was a it
was a pretty good Um, that's a pretty good All Star Game came.
You know, a lot of talent, a lot of talent in both leagues.
Um. Yeah, but that's not the future to day. So that
leaves us with the All Star Game and the Homer and Derby, So we
can talk about the All Star Game quickly. Whatever we think of the All
Star Game. It was disappointing, but it went really quickly that you finished,
I think an under three hours. I didn't hear that. Actually,
all right, well you won't be surprised to learn that. The way that
I watched the All Star Game, it was actually kind of exciting because I
was watching to see if they would acknowledge the existence of John Means. They
did not, But like the whole time, just sitting there wondering, Hey,
like are they gonna pan to him? Is he gonna warm up?
Is there any like what are the chances he gets? What are the quincies
that are gonna have to happen for John Means again in this game? Like
is the game gonna have to go like thirty seven innings before he gets him?
So like that that was exciting. I was. I was really hoping
somewhere around the board there would be a like a prop bet on whether John
Means gets into the game. Who's who is John Means? John Means business,
He's the Orioles lone All Star representative because only what Troy Mancini was truly
snubbed um, But yes, he's John Means is one of the best pitchers
in the American League if you go by r and don't look at any other
statistic whatsoever. But going by r A, he's one of the best pictures
in the American League who has not yet quite qualified for the title because he
doesn't have enough innings. But that acide, he's one of the best pictures
in the American League. So we should say at the end of the season
he'll certainly be in the league and qualify for the year. There is no
doubt in my mind, no doubt. Okay, I mean if you projected
out yeah, or you know, double the numbers, right right. I
was sorry, We've done talking about the All Star gamers. There more.
No, I've got nothing. It's like loosely related to the All Star breaks.
The All Star breaks like a time to sort of check in on the
season and see, like what's going on? So, especially because I don't
follow baseball that much anymore, I was poking around on the MLB dot com
news page and there's a story that says Red's in new territory heading into deadline
and the like above. The full blurb is like, uh, Dick Williams
and the club are in a position to add players before the trade down line.
I was like, oh, that's interesting. The Reds are in contention,
and so that I pull up the standings, they're in last place.
Yeah, but it's close. Okay. If you look at their run differential,
they should be doing better. Okay, Oh yeah, they're okay,
but like, come on, yeah, Reds in position to add to their
you know, not as bad as you think. Last place team. Yeah,
why won't you let them have this? Because it's insane. It's a
really bad decision. They should sell. Yeah, it's criminal. Um,
they could sell them make the playoffs anyway, given that you know they're counting
on like random bounces to break their way. Anybody could get those random bounces.
Um. The last time we talked about the standings, Minnesota was doing
really well, and you guys promised me it was just because they had beaten
up on the Orioles. But they're still doing really well. That's kind of
exciting. Yeah, they have. They did beat the Orioles a lot.
Yeah, I remember, we don't have to rehatch that the Twins have the
most home runs at this point in the season in major league history. Nice,
all of them off the Orioles. Surprisingly. I know that's not true
because I saw another news story about sorry all but five yes, so yeah,
where it Trevor Bauer has given up a home run in the last five
plate appearances by Max Kepler? Is that right? Yea, yes, it's
pretty hilarious. I can't imagine he's happy about that. Has he tweeted about
it? That's what it really is. That's how you know. It's like
burning his It's like keeping him up at night. He's like four a m.
Tweets about Yeah. No, but if some woman or asks him at
lied about it, he'll he'll tweet about a bunch sorry. Uh um um.
Yeah. So that leaves the home run derby, which is the one
thing that all of us watched. And if if you said to me,
I didn't, I didn't watch. I just know about what happened. Sorry,
I hate to discappline, but you were you were actually chatting with him
during the derby, weren't you? I guess about nothing maybe, but I
wasn't watching. That's what night? Was it again? That's fair? Okay?
Which night was? I can tell you what I was doing Monday?
Monday night? Uh? Was it Monday night? Oh? I don't think
I was doing anything Monday night. I was just not so so while you
get your schedule in order, that's it. H Now the Homer Derby has
become the most exciting part of the All Star Game. And I am shocked
by this because they did a really good job. There was nothing I liked
less. Yeah. Yeah, they completely revamped it and now it's it's good.
U. I heard some people complaining about how like V Junior should have
won and they need to figure out a better way to like fix the elimination
part of it. What do you guys think? Do you think the like
bracket style is good? I think the bracket style is a little goofy,
But you know, I think the like three point challenge has it right where
you know, top four, top two, yeah, uh uh go nuts.
But you know, I don't care too much. Brackets work, it
adds, it adds. Uh you know the walk off in every round?
Yeah? Yeah, I mean yeah, I think I don't think it matters.
I think anyone really carries who wins, and I think Blad is what
everyone remembers. So it worked. Yeah. I heard some other people talking
about that. How like, um, a few years back in New York.
I think it was when like Josh Hamilton went on a tear and then
like didn't end up winning because like nobody talks about anything except like, oh,
Josh Hamilton was so entertaining. So yeah, the thing that got me,
of course was, um, which you know, I'm not the first
to point this out. Um, you know the record for Homer runs hitting
around in the Homer Derby was broken? Was it four times? Um?
Yeah, there might be a problem with the ball. It's gonna put that
out there. Problem. Seems like it's working just fine. Are we going
to segue what Verlanders said? Because I totally want to talk about with Verlanderson
I wasn't, but go ahead. So, as I understand, I've only
heard the quote, like reread a couple of times. He basically just like
dressed down MLB, like how can you possibly say that there's nothing with the
ball? And if there is, it's like not you're doing right? Uh?
I just thought I was like, oh, this is excellent. This
is like clearly a guy that's gotten to the point in his career where he's
like definitely not going to give any flips about whatever the commission commissioner thinks when
he hears this and is saying what everybody's thinking. Has there been any like
official response or they're just gonna like ignore it and hope it goes away.
Um, No, there was no official response. Rob Brandfred said that he
was going to commission a study. Did you look into it? Nice?
Did you tell him you could just look online and all the studies people have
already done. No, I was I was joking, unfortunately, he says.
He says that he says that there is an issue with the ball,
but it was not intentional. M so completely accident. Cool right, right?
And obviously the problem is, of course that their hands are tied and
they cannot possibly in any way make new baseballs between now and the agency,
they you know, baseballs do not exist. How does one make a baseball?
Even and if there were somebody making baseballs it's certainly nobody that MLB has
any kind of contact with, let alone control over. Yeah. Um,
I don't know. Have we talked if anyone like thinks there are too many
home runs? I'm out two minds. I don't. It doesn't really really
bother me to be perfectly candid. Some of the other stuff an slar to
it is kind of taking a little enjoyment away. But the home runs themselves,
I don't know that's true. I don't think I'm necessarily opposed to the
home runs. It gets the oriels and the news. That's something No,
I don't think so I mean called me Dave, I don't. I don't
know if I necessarily believe that it was intentional. I just or at least
not from like an owner's where. I think it's hard. It's hard for
me to believe that the owners would get together and be like, you know
what, they're all just a little bit they're not. I agree that the
owners didn't like get together. I think it's more like the commissioner like left
a sticky note on somebody's door that was like Homer's good or whatever. Um.
So I haven't looked into it, obviously, but my sense from what
I heard is that the overall run environment hasn't changed, it's just redistributed the
way that runs are scored. Is that correct? More or less? Yeah?
So I think there's like something to think about in terms of like is
the game you want to watch? That? Like that, I think is
why you hear old school sports writers grumpy about this that like, you know,
doubles and sac flies are going the way of the Dodo. Yeah.
I mean I would say it's not only old school sports writers. I you
know, I believe on effectively wild the host of them out said too many
homers they're taking the stance. Huh. It's like, yeah, I don't
know. It's like it seems to me like the people who are gonna watch
baseball are gonna watch regardless of the people who aren't aren't and this isn't going
to move the need for people. Yeah. Um, And so my thoughts
on the was this intentional thing? I kind of agree with you it wasn't
intentional, but they sure haven't stopped it. Yeah, And I don't think
it's that hard. I think they could have done it that they wanted to,
so on some level, okay, you can say it wasn't intentional,
but like, yeah, but it's hard to imagine the powers that be changing
anything once the season has started. Like that seems very not what baseball does.
No, that's true except in twenty fifteen when they chased all the balls
in the first place. Uh yeah, so but yes, no, I
hear you. But you know, in between I would say twenty and eighteen
and twenty nineteen, like this didn't start in the off season. Sure,
so, um you know anyway, Um, I think kind of related to
that, you Ben, you had an article that you wanted to bring up
and talk about a little bit right today, Oh about the one about the
labor Yeah. Um, yeah, So you know, I was in the
process of getting need to talk about baseball and trying to become more informed about
the goings on and found a piece I don't remember. I think it might
have been on It's on USA today. It was today. It was written
by Bob Nightingale. Um, yeah, you know, right, we can
just get into so basically, the thing that was interesting to me is there's
a bunch of players quoted in the thing is basically saying we're ready for a
strike if that's what it takes to get the I guess, financial and contractual
stuff free structured to meet our expectations, and they're basically acknowledging that the economics
of the game as currently constructed mean that young players are underpaid relative to their
value. And for a while that was fine because the veteran MLB players,
when they hit free agency would basically get rewarded for what they had done and
not what they were going to do. And then all the teams sort of
collectively evolved to the point where they're like, wait, that's kind of dumb.
Why would we do that instead of just bringing in more young players that
are undervalued, And they started doing that, and so then all the old
players are like, hey, wait a second, why is all the young
players so undervalued? And so, as I understand it, now, they're
talking about trying to make it so that the younger players get something closer to
what they deserve, I guess. And obviously there's some consternation about teams not
signing free agents and especially players that I guess had some type of draft pick
compensation attached to them. Right there was it Kimbroll and Kaikol this past offseason?
Is that right that like both went unsigned? For much longer than anybody
thought they should be based on talent. And I thought it was really interesting
for two reasons. The first was it seemed to me like the first time
that I could remember reading quotes by players that acknowledged the manifestation of like the
current CBA and did it in a way that acknowledged what the actual motivation was
for the teams to be Like, Okay, we realized that because of the
way that you know, players pre ARB and then like pre free agency are
paid, it means that you know, those are a relative bargain for the
teams, and so the teams are going to you know, shift their resources
accordingly, Whereas before, like all the complaining that I've ever heard was just
like you know, why aren't you paying us, or like you know,
we're not getting what we're worth or whatever else. M And then they were
very So that was the first thing. It's just like they seem to finally
have realized like, oh, they're doing this because it's in their best interest.
And not only that, but it's because of the CBA that we all
agree to. Yeah, and just to cut in here from Clayton Kershaw,
yeah, said our free agency structure and our salary structure is that teams have
a right not to pay guys when they're getting older. The analytics stay to
pay guys in their prime the younger guys. So if that's not going to
happen anymore, we've got to find a way to get these guys paid during
their peak years if they're not going to be rewarded on the way out.
Yeah, which I think is what you were saying, Yeah, exactly,
Yeah, no, that's a good quote, thank you. And the second
thing was that they were so directly brazen about making it clear that they were
preparing to strike basically, not in a I mean, I guess partially in
like a threatening way, but in a like we realized that this is the
reality of what we will probably have to do because of the circumstances of like
the leverage that doesn't really exist the way that they would want it to without
striking. Essentially, at least that's how I read it, And so I'd
be curious to hear not just that first point, but also like for that
second point, what you guys think in terms of you know, I guess
from my perspective, like this is the first time I've heard them say those
things, those two things so directly, but it also makes me wonder what's
going to happen. And you know, the first one sort of points to
like, oh, maybe we'll get a CBA that makes a little bit more
sense in terms of fewer perverse or unintended consequences, and that to me is
like a good thing. But then the second thing is sort of like,
well are the players if the players end up striking, is that really going
to lead to like a constructive set of negotiations or not? And like maybe
they really have no choice, so maybe it doesn't matter. But anyway,
I'll stopperamibly. Now, what do you guys think? I'm Jared, Uh
yeah, I mean it was interesting to hear it. I think it's a
lot of cheap talk. I think that my biggest concern right now is that
anything to make these kinds of changes is going to be a rather significant change
to how things operate. I think I don't think I personally see a little
tweak that would fix any of this. And I haven't heard any plans being
floated, not that plans need to be floated publicly necessarily, but it worries
me a little bit that I haven't heard any plans that seem viable being discussed
right now, and I think that has to happen sooner rather than later.
And without that, to me, that suggests that we might be heading for
a strike or something bad. Yeah, And you know, it is interesting
to me that what you are saying is kind of coming true, that the
owners and the players Association have kind of negotiated on clampdown on first year players,
you know, have not really paid minor leaguers, have instituted restrictions on
the bonus pools and the draft and the international draft and the international market,
and now owners are not and you know, teams are not kind of paying
older free agents as much. And all of this is rational, but you
see the money leaching away from the system and from the players, and there's
no place where they can get recompense right now, right especially since they do
not have a cap unlike other sports where they kind of can peg their revenue
to kind of the revenue of the game. You know, And I think,
you know, labor law, not my expertise, but I think that's
kind of been the issue. Is that sure, there's no salary cap,
but there's also no salary floor. And you know, this is a lot
of a lot of the ramifications you're seeing are from that. But it has
been interesting, like reading this article in concert with watching the most exciting professional
sports offseason of all time lay out one sport away and you know, as
as a primary baseball fan, but at this point, I would say almost
dual sport fan. You know, I was kind of wondering, like,
is this even possible? I think there are some serious structural issues with baseball
that would kind of prevent this. And you know, I would say a
couple of things. If you're not familiar with basketball, a lot of what
you're seeing in basketball, this kind of player empowerment era is just the result
of perverse consequence where basketball players are not paid the top end of their salary
and so do not really use salary as a measuring stick to choose where to
go, and therefore choose their destinations based on other factors more or less.
But you know, there is also a much more limited minor league system.
There's a much more limited apprenticeship in basketball. There's you know, there's no
baseball player who can provide like a quarter of the war of the best basketball
players that you know, Lebron, James Arianas not Decopo could are probably like
thirty War players, or especially if you double the length of the season,
would be like forty to fifty War players. And you know, there's just
not that kind like you can't make that up through transactions. You could only
make that up through volume. So there, I think there are some like
real differences. But I think what you're also seeing is this drive to shorter
contracts and to player empowerment, none of which was intentional, have kind of
led to a more exciting game. And two, I would say players being
awarded more, perhaps at the cost of this top echelon talent, has kind
of brought up the um the value of the median player and the marshal player.
Yeah, why do you think it's a more exciting game offseason? Right?
Just as okay? Yeah, structure, Yeah, I don't think the
game it's like on the court changes, right, it's like right, right,
I mean there is you know. The one other thing is that kind
of analytics kind of point that turts basketball like should be more exciting and forwards
baseball being more boring. But that's kind of on the old stuff. Yeah,
I don't know as much as you do about the NBA, but it's
definitely been more interesting to me more recently. And I don't really love the
like big picture like um implications and justification for like a salary floor in a
salary cap for individual players and stuff like that, but it is fascinating to
see how teams end up spending some of that money that might have gone to
make sure that the very best players are paid with their worth to like the
middle tier players, and then you've got like, and I don't have any
good examples off the top of my head, but you probably do. I
like, players that end up making way more money than you would have expected
because the teams have this money to spend and they're not really competing based on
money for the very best players, so they end up competing based on money
for the like mid level players, and then sort of like inflates the contracts
for all those players as the you know, competition ramps up for them,
you know, from like a financial perspective instead of anything else. Or those
players are looking to like join forces with the very best players who have exercised
their agency in a way that lends them in the destination that they like as
opposed to with the contract that they like, because the contract would be the
same you know, in so many different places, right, and in basketball,
you don't know the counterfactual, right, So I don't really know exactly
how much like Marcus Morris would be paid if he was a if there was
no salary cap and no restrictions on salary. But just in a you know,
in a baseball like world. But I do feel like the middle class
player is better treated and the better and player is better treated in basketball than
baseball at this point. And I do feel like more money is flowing towards
players at their peaks. Uh. You know, restricted free agency is a
really interesting concept that basketball has that sometimes completely uh you know, deflates the
market for those players, sometimes against those players vastly overpaid, kind of running
the roulette wheel there. Um, but you know, junking arbitration replacement the
restricted free agency might be interesting. I think shorter contracts allows for a little
more movement, perhaps at the expense of overall salary. You know. The
thirteen year, three hundred million dollar contract is really fascinating, But it feels
you know, and you know, agreed to and you know, in this
libertarian world, it is a contract that has agreed Tom, But you know,
I don't know how that is serving everybody right now, and you know,
especially if it's coming at the cost of buyers downline making money. Yeah,
so I guess to make sure we're still focused on baseball and curse shared
from your like economics perspective, Like, what do you think what do you
think is like the most likely outcome if you assume that the CBA gets renegotiated
in a way that is maybe a little bit more balanced in terms of the
player's perspective, and like, what would you think is the best solution?
So, like what will happen and what should happen? Do you have any
thoughts about either of those? Gosh, those are big questions. I don't
know. I think that I do think that after the new CBA, more
money is going to go to younger players. I think it just pretty much
has to at this point. I mean, how much is going to change,
I don't know, But I don't see any way that that both SAIDs
get out of this without funneling a little bit more towards the younger players.
I think it's going to happen no matter what in terms of what should happen.
I don't know if I've an answered for that, because there's a lot
of different things to keep in mind. I don't know that there is one
right answer here, necessarily, and I think it requires some hard thought about
what you want to optimize, and you know, thinking about all sorts of
things like the development system. I think we'd all agree that players need,
generally speaking, need a little bit more time developed baseball and basketball. How
do you how do you keep that in mind? How to keep the incentives
for teams to develop their own players if they're going to go away more quickly.
That's something to keep in mind. Is it necessarily a good thing for
the middle class players to getting more money at the expense of the top class
players? Maybe? I don't know that That raises some philosophical and probably political
questions too. I don't know how I feel about that necessarily. So so
I don't know. You know, do you want do you want more fluidity
like in basketball now where you know, it seems like more players are switching
teams more easily. Is that a good thing? I don't know. Maybe
maybe not for baseball. I could argue that maybe it's not as good right
and maybe it's an aesthetic preference rather than right. I think I got all
for change, and I think a lot of change should happen, but it
requires I don't think there's any real way to know what happens. Requires a
lot of thought and an estimation about what the ramifications of any change are.
Yeah, but you know, I think the thing I would most like to
see it is probably more money going back to the players versus the honors,
because I don't see any of the long term trends being in their favor with
the current CBO. Yeah, the players in baseball? Yeah, do you
think do you think the next CBA needs to track the total, like whatever
average annual value of the like the players salaries and contrast that against the like
annual revenues in order for that to happen. No, No, I don't
think that's the only way, but it's it's a way that I could think
of pretty quickly, So you know it's a way, right, Yeah.
I mean I think where all of us probably would be in favor of more
money going to the players. The question is how do you make that happen.
It's not like the owners are just like yeah, sure, that sounds
like a good idea. Yeah, I mean that's why this trick happens,
right, right, And I would say, just as fans, I think
more money going to players makes a more interesting game, So that that would
be my cards on the table. Other than it's the right thing to do,
I also think it is generally better for the game. That's fair.
I don't think I disagree that. Yeah. Um, as part of this
and when we're talking Ian, I pulled up like NBA's homepage to learn that
there's a really big trade that's probably about to happen, but you probably already
know about. I don't know. No, I do. I do not
Houston, Houston, I'm a city. Oh yes, yeah, sorry,
yeah I do. This was we're recording this on Friday, Yeah, Saturday,
Saturday. Yeah. Did it break yesterday? Yeah? I did break
us. Yeah. I've been busy because my family is visiting, so I
haven't been on the internet much at all. I was like, that's I
mean, that makes an already exciting offseason even more exciting obviously. But yeah,
and you know, I think again for people who aren't familiar with the
NBA as a contract thing, So this is Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul who
are declining stars. It would be I don't know that I can think of
a great analog, but maybe like three years from now Manny Machado being traded
for Bryce Harper more than three, right, but yeah, but I would
say exiting their prime, so three to five, um. And you know
the reason why this happened in basketball is, uh, the salary cap restricts
the choice with the teams. So basically Oklahoma City could only trade to two
teams and Miami, and they were or they were interested in trading to two
teams Miami and Houston, and Miami had to do far too much roster manipulation
in order to get stay under the cap. And so Russell Westbrook and Chris
Paul have identical contracts because their maximum contracts and they're measured against the cap,
so they are identical, and so they were able to be traded for each
other. It was kind of a trade of I guess necessity almost or convenience,
which is the kind of thing like you don't have those forces in baseball,
you don't have those restrictions for good or ill. I think you could
argue perhaps from a like player empowerment standpoint restriction those restrictions limit the players.
I do think it makes like dealing with constraints generally makes a more entertaining product,
and Jem, you know, I agree with that. My concern is,
like, all that rational for why that trade went down doesn't sound like
something that would be enjoyable from like maybe like a typical baseball fan experience,
like Manny Machado is chraded for Bryce Harbor because of like the four other contract
things and various exemptions and whatever. Like. Yeah, I think like I
think sort of think that's fun from like, oh, that's the kind of
like simulation game I would like to play, but from like watching baseball perspective,
I don't know, Yeah, I don't know what the deal there.
So I guess the other thing would be that in this hypothetical world, Manny
Machado and Bryce Harbor both requested trades for reason or other, So that is
the empowerment, right, it comes at the cost of their salary. But
they both kind of said we want out of here. And you know,
I think that's the thing that keeps that is keeping basketball afloat in terms of
excite meant you know, in the off season. Um, but you know,
I don't know that it could be mimicked by baseball and keeping it afloat
as an understatement though, Yeah, like the NBA is dominating sports news at
a time when I mean baseball is the only uh you know, game in
season right now amongst the big floor. But you know, I think anybody's
talking about hockey or football. Um. Yeah, but do you think this
is just gonna be like a two week stretch of basketball news? Yeah?
On some level. Yeah, but like Major League Baseball would kill for a
two weeks stretch like this, Like you know, I don't know. Yeah,
they've never had two weeks like this, and you know, I don't
think there could even be two weeks like this, Um and right, and
like baseball saying this is good, this is what we want to push for.
How do we get here? Will lead to just a rafter on a
intend of consequences. Yeah, but um, you know, um, it's
it's interesting. It's just a lot to think about a process, and obviously
we have no say over any of it. So speak to yourself or anything
else on this topic. No, I'm all right, I'm talked up.
Okay, Well that's good to hear. In that case, what is the
best thing you saw this week? Am I going first? Um So?
I actually I kept a list because it's been more than a week and I'm
bad at remember these things. But most of these things are recent. So
I'll just give a couple of quick hits that didn't fit the best thing,
and we'll talk about them in too much detail, but we can dive into
any of them if you guys want. Um So, Homer Dew was on
there. We already talked about that. The Women's World Cup was on there.
I don't know if we want to dive into that or not. Maybe
one of you will mention that more recently, the Angels threw a no hitter
was it last night or the night before, for which was pretty cool.
We had talked briefly offline about, you know, the tragedy that happened with
one of their players, and anyway, I just thought the timingness was cool.
So I don't know if you wanted to, Yeah, well, I
guess just to say, you know, one interesting thing that happens with score
sheet or any fantasy sport, as you end up with transference over some players
who are end up feeling like lines of stats or more than lines of stats,
and a lot of that is to say, like, you know,
this is extremely far down the list of tragedies you know that resulted from this.
But we had Tyler Skaggs on two of our teams. We've had him
on teams like every year we drafted him. We drafted him pretty consistently,
and you know, like in that sense, I feel like score sheet was
our window or like you know, it was our way into understanding him and
you know, his work and then I guess who he was, uh,
you know, and so on some level, you know, it hit us
hard because of this like stupid game that we paid too much for. Um.
But you know, I think to the degree that it like we were
able to feel his impact through this, through this, I think it was
um, you know, it's a blessing. And to have seen what happened
in that first game back was yeah, just you know, really something extraordinary.
Yeah. Um. So to other small ones and then I'll tell you
the actual one. UM so much on the basis of sex with my wife,
which was interesting. It's about Ruth Bidder Ginsburg and I I don't think
I knew anything about her really like five years ago. And then as part
of some of the coaching that I do with some of the college women.
I'd learned more about her because there's a few of them they are big fans
of her. And then you know, recently the Supreme Court turned over one
of the justices. I had learned more about her then, and then of
course I learned even more watching the movie. The movie is interesting. It
sort of made me reappreciate There's like parts of it where they show like parenting
stuff, which is now like the lens through which I see things. Primarily,
I was like, holy cow, what is it like to be like
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's daughter. But I want to spoil the movie. You'll get
to see it for yourself. And then there was a cool frisbee thing.
The team that I kept in the summertime is like a co ed team that
was founded a few years ago trying to do work in our community around gender
equity and stuff like that. And the season's looking really good, which is
really exciting. And we had our first tournament and we won, which was
like the first time we'd ever really won a tournament. It's not like the
tournament really means anything. It's just like a harbinger of good things coming,
So that was cool. We also got this cool I'll show it to you
guys U. I'll describe it so that the people who are obviously just listening
to the podcast. So the tournament is called Motown throw Down, and they
gave us this still kid yourself, nobody's listening to the podcast. Okay,
Well, so they gave this like vinyl that says Moto go on it.
It's apparently a film like Houston record. The only tracks listed are Saturday Night
Sunday Morning and says it's from the album Ready to Roll, and it's got
like the different sections listed. Anyway, So the best thing I saw this
week was related to my daughter, because that's how everything goes. She started
using utensils, which is like a fairly like innocuous thing, but it's like
also kind of fascinating. It's just you know, it's like one of those
little things you're like, that's it's like compelling to watch her learn, I
guess, and so like it was one of those like little tiny milestones you're
like, watch her. She's always been fascinated with like watching us, even
of course she eats with her hands because it's so easy and like why wouldn't
you if you could socially acceptable? But yeah, it's like she's coming up
on eighteen months, so it's not like amazing, but it's a little bit
notable. And that's why I don't end up watching homoonder Reason stuff like that,
because we're hanging out and going on walks and all that kind of jazz.
So anyway, that sounds touching, And I will say, you know,
I can't remember when I learned to use utensils, but what I like
admire most about myself is that I kind of just, for some reason,
like stuck with my initial the initial way that I hold a utensil. It
just never really improved it. So I do have like baby utensil? Can
I tell you the same way I was. Actually, my brothers were yelling
at me because apparently I don't know how to eat salad, Like I'm not
capable of eating salad with the fork, So that doesn't science me at all.
Yeah, you just grab it for dear life and then you stab y,
don't. I don't see what the uh? She can't She can't tell
the difference between a spoon and a fork when she's holding them, So you
have to like point out to her that the spoon would stab things and then
scoop things. It's pretty adorable, honest. Anyway, Um, always exciting.
I guess I guess saw that next because I don't have anything exciting,
so I'll take that little anchor or the bill worry burry everything. Um the
yeah, I mean, you know, certainly, the things I saw that
were the best things I saw were the things everybody else saw in basketball and
soccer and you know sport. Um. So just personally went to a couple
of concerts this week, both of which were very exciting to me. One
of them one of my favorite bands I've seen for a very long time called
Those Compesinos, who were I saw for the eighth time now, which was
I know that's distressing. Um. So. The one thing I will say
about the Los Campesinos concert is they managed to have burned off like all of
their casual fans at this point because they just made it, you know,
to the other end of the hype cycle where everyone else is like a die
hard or you know gone, which for good or ill for them, but
for like it. Um. They are a kind of loud, kind of
punky band and a lot of chanting and everyone knows the words, so you
get there. And I would say the way I've described it is it's as
close to being in the supporter section of a soccer match as I have ever
been a lot of marks. You have to hit a lot of chances going
on the whole time. And the particular reason I bring this up, and
Jared can vouch for me, is before the kind I was looking up some
lyrics and I ended up on genius dot com um to uh, you know,
take a look at their lyrics, their lyrics and their lyricist, Gareth
is um focused on Well, it turns out he's focused on one major topic,
really, and uh, you know, I've always thought of them as
kind of airs, a little bit to the Smiths and you know, balanced
Maastune and that kind of um like witty lyrical um, you know, witty,
clever lyrics, perhaps replacing the casual racism of these, said Morsy,
with slightly better um politics. But uh, you know, I was looking
and you know, are these songs about love? Are they about existential sadness
and crisis? Sure, but they're focused on one major topic, and that
topic is how many soccer references he can squeeze into the game into a lyric
before before it ends, so you know, if you ever, if you
go to their genius dot com page, you can find this for yourself.
Basically, all their lyrics are soccer puns, which I admire, and you
know, I think giving yourself to a lifetime of following sport is about the
noblest pursuit you can and perhaps that is why I relate to them so much.
It is not the best thing I saw this week, however, because
I also went to another concert, and this one I did not expect to
like as much as I did. I went to see the artist Liz Fair,
who you may remember from let's say the nineties, from such times as
the nineties, and I will say I had become much more of a liszt
Fair fan in the past couple of years. Obviously is why I got there,
but I was still surprised at how relevant and current the song sound today
and listening to her it made me realize how much, you know, I
would say, both the raves and whatever pans there were about her, like
how much she had to deal with in nineteen ninety five being like seen as
the like I don't know, I want to say like crude woman, like
you know, she's she doesn't care, she has no boundaries, and like
people saying that appreciatively, like no, no, this is just what is
happening and hearing it in two thousand and nine, twenty nineteen, probably in
two thousand and nine as well. You know, I guess in the in
the times in which we live, and it's like, oh this is this
feels so current and so on message, and it was just the right music
that we should have been listening to this whole time, rather than dismissing or
being like, isn't it amazing that an actual girl can write music? Um
or you know whatever it was that we were hearing back then. So if
you have not dragged out Exile and Guy Bill in a very long time,
I'll stick that on tonight. You'll enjoy it. So you're saying mistimed her
Window Bay a decade or more. Yeah, I would say that, But
I would also say that every third indie artist now sounds like her, so
she will not be lacking for support acts for the rest of her life.
With that, Jared, what is the best thing you saw this week?
It's also a concert? It wasn't this week, but it's it's also a
concert. It's it's kind of like your story, except um, the opposite.
Maybe I don't know what the right Sure, well, I think what
we're saying is like the relevant and most critically acclaimed artists of the of their
era, right, yes, I think, yeah, that's that's what I
would go with. I mean, so like the I think you know was
the Woman's World Cup, But when I'm talking about this is the concerts.
A few weeks ago and I got roped into that. We had someone visiting
from like our Colorado state office, and she was in town and somebody else
was so staying out with her, but that fell through Sona. So it's
like me and this one other person and we were just gonna get a couple
of drinks after work, and we left a little early. It was like
four thirty four forty five, and we went to this bar just completely packed.
Could not find a see day where went to like a second bar,
just absolutely there was no one had to go to like three or four different
bars before I found somewhere where we could go. I was like, I
don't understand, why is it so credit? It's way too early for like
us to not people to go anywhere. And then this girl from out of
town was like, well, like there's a concert at a Capital One arena.
I was like, okay, I mean, I guess that makes sense,
but still like this is this kind of that's who could possibly be paying
there? And and then so she told me, she told us, and
and I was like, well, so at this point, we had a
couple, you know, to drink, and it divulged in this game like
well, well, I guess you know, if you'd go, I'd go.
I'm not saying i'd go by myself, but like, if you guys
want to go, I'd go. And I mean whatever, like if you
guys want to do a final, I'll tag along. I'm not saying we
should go. And we sort of like daring, daring each other to do
this. So so just a few minutes after the concert was starting, we
uh, we went by there, and then we end up scalping some tickets
because it was like mostly sold out and there were three of us, but
there weren't three seats together at the scalper head, so we had to get
two together and a one seat somewhere else. And then we decided that three
of us would just all stand in the two seats, which as someone who
like doesn't love um humors contact, yeah, like that was not exactly what
I was looking forward to. I mean, you know, you know they
were, Um, I guess it helped. They're attective, and I'm like
that evensid like just the factor being next to people's like we could maybe not
do this, but like now we're like at this point, we got to
do it. And then we rush in and um. You know something that
should have tipped me off is like as I was walking the men's restrooms,
most of them were closed off and turned into women's restrooms. Like it didn't
register to me. I was like, oh, I just I At first
I thought it was like the men's room like wasn't functioning. I didn't understand,
like why In hindsight, now I get why they legally they just turned
into the moon's rest room. And so we went and concert just like we
got there just a starting blew. My mind stood up. The whole time
was like dancing, throwing Mahodians in the air. It was is incredible.
It was um new kids on the Block, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany Salton,
Peppa and Naughty by Nature in concert and I'm not not really concert person,
but one of the best concerts of my life. Just just absolutely stating.
I don't know if like it had meeting and the way that Ian talks about
Liz fair heaving meeting necessarily, but like what struck meat was that that what
was fun about this was everybody was just there to have a good time.
And everyone was like, you know what, like I'm gonna have a good
time tonight. There was like no pretension on that level of anything other than
we're having We're gonna have a blast. It doesn't matter like which artist is
singing, he doesn't matter what song it is. There was a time where
like new kids just went into this like essentially like eighties and nineties Karayankee,
and they were songs from like very various other artists like who who knows when
no one they had like five different groups on the bill. They were saying
songs from some other group, but like no one cared. They were songs
every knew, like you know, we're gonna have fun. Every good time.
It was like credibly like overly produced concert that like you know, there
were platforms going up and coming down and people appearing out of nowhere and you
know, new kids going to the crowd and shaking people's hands and kissing,
and it was like it was incredible. It's just like everyone's having such a
good time. It was a blast. I loved it. Could not recommend
it highly enough. That's amazing. So also, not as many people know
Dibbie Gibson's they should. Dibby Getson is awesome and everybody should love her music.
Yeah, well that's what I was gonna say. It was it was
Debbie Gibson the start, Like who was the star of this for you?
Well, for me, that's what sold it from me. I mean,
look, I probably would have gotten no matter what. But the fact that
Dibbie Gibson says, like, you know, I loved Debbie Gibson, this
is this is I'm like, I'm sold. I mean I didn't, you
know, I didn't really knew. I knew a couple of New Kids songs,
but I was I wasn't. This is gonna be hard to believe.
I wasn't really huge new Kids on the Block things. And obviously obviously I
love Tippany's I Think We're Alone Now. I shouldn't have been more than two
Salt and Pepper or Naughty by Nature Stungs and that's all they got to play,
but it was still fun. Sure, Um okay, rankly, I
think we're alone now, uh Tommy James Rubby News. Yeah, if Tommy
James is always going to be first for me and then okay, okay.
I have had I have long had the thought that every generation gets the I
think we're alone now that they deserve. But what's the current one. Then
we don't deserve anything that's fair? The uh, well, Tommy James went
to number whatever. Right, the Ruby the Ruby News went to number one,
I believe in the seventies. Right did really good at number one.
I believe it was h surprisingly uh highly on the pop charts. And then
obviously Tiffany Yeah, um it is a loud version and there's yes, Girls
Aloud. That was a great version. I don't think I've heard it.
I'm gonna listen to that and then I'm gonna listen to this fair But first
then you listen to Girls a Love Aloud is you know, the best girl
band of the ever ever that's a bold state not not not band filled with
women, but you know of the like Spice Girl, and Generation Spice Girls
had a movie. Yeah, now that's true. Um wow, but I
think we're alone now one of the various songs ever written, no doubt in
my mind. Uh yeah. The Rubens went to number forty five on the
charts, which is still surprisingly high. Yeah. Not number one though,
and Girls Will I went to number four in the UK, which is not
as high as this course Sound of the Underground, but high nonetheless. Um
yeah, and uh my, yeah, I just hope you had an amazing
time and that you are in fact hay right sure, am Okay. On
that note, I think we have spent enough time. Hopefully we'll move back
with us something of a trade deadline special. Please send your trades, if
you've made it this far, those trades, thought you know, trades,
have thought of in your head, trades, your designing right now, maybe
even you know, ask us to trade anything. Really, we'll do it
on air for you. Please send us a note at scoreseet at baseball Perspects
dot com. We'd love to hear from you. But until then, on
behalf of Ben Murphy and Jon Wise, I'm me left Woods. Thanks again
and have a great day.