Where are we at in society today? Come after me. I'm a man,
I'm forty. Go ahead, make my day every single week. I
put my freaking heart and soul into this. I don't go out there and
laugh. It's not funny. Nothing's funny to me. I don't wanna go
out there and get embarrassed on Monday night football fun of everybody. I think
this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. So I ain't nothing changed from
yesterday. You still the same person I was yesterday, and I got the
same thing for you that I had yesterday. You know why I'm here.
You play to win the game. You don't play to just play it.
That's a great thing about sports. You play to win, and I don't
care if you don't have any wins. Do you go play to win?
When you start telling me it doesn't matter to retire, get out for the
matters, you know you could use that Herm Edwards last rip there. That
doesn't matter if you and I don't talk about the struggles of the Tigers,
and then it doesn't matter to you or I And that's not fair and that's
not right, because I know it does matter. Now. The frustration is
boiling over. It's boiled over for me for a while. Now. I
suppose for you it's taken a little bit longer, but it has to have
reached that boiling point. Welcome to a Thursday edition of XS and Bros.
Glad you're with us Meyer Hotline eighty sixty six eight three eight forty eight forty
three. Hopefully we tickle you enough where you will be prompted to call and
discuss some of the things that might be on your mind in the world of
sports. You can text US Sports Radio to twenty one thousand. Ben is
our producer. I'm Matt Shephard. Braves complete the sweep of the Tigers in
a seven to nothing final. Terek Schooble with his worst outing of the season,
lasting just four innings, allowing seven hits, four and runs. Detroit
has now dropped four in a row. They have been shut out eight times
this season. They have lost ten of thirteen. They've scored thirty runs in
the three wins. That's fantastic, right, You averaged ten runs per game.
Nobody can do that for an extended period of time. But they've averaged
seventeen runs in the ten losses. So they're going to be off today and
they welcome Chicago this weekend. As we said yesterday, I don't think it
matters what they do this weekend. They should beat Chicago up one foul line
and down the other. That's what they should do because they're just not good
man. I mean, they're they're awful in every facet. But it's not
going to matter because that's what they're supposed to do. And if you've listened
to this show long enough, you've understood what I've said, and that is
I don't take things away from people who win something. It's not fair.
Winning is hard, takes a lot of effort. If it were easy,
so many other teams would be doing it. So if they beat them,
you know, I'll tip my cap to them. And that proverbial stupid saying
that gets overused way too often. But it's not going to change my opinion
of them just yet. There are certain games, certain series, certain teams
you got to beat in order for you to change people's minds. It's no
different. I say this all the time. It is really hard to change
people's minds once you've made an impression, once you've done something that is either
pissed somebody off or brought them something with joy, then it's going to be
hard to turn them around. I would just remind you this. The Tigers
yesterday two more errors. Now I have stressed this while everybody is focused on
the lack of runs, and there were no runs yesterday, and people are
frustrated with the lack of hits, and I understand that the Tigers make two
more errors, and I keep talking about how bad their defense is. Zach
McKinstry with a throwing air, Krek Scubell with a throwing air. The pitching
thing, it's bound to happen. The throwing air is a part of it.
You know. The shortstop position for Detroit has been among the worst we
have seen in recent memory. Seriously, Zach McKinstry starts at short he goes
oh for two with two punch outs and a throwing air doesn't get a whole
lot worse than that. Then they bring in Ryan Kriidler to pinch it and
he goes over too. Look at the war, look at the winds above
replacement, look at their defensive war. Tell me you'd be happy with this.
I mean, these numbers are horrid. It's not working. Haven't built
anything yet, And the problem with baseball is it's it's nearly impossible to rebuild
on the fly. You know, sure you've got trade deadlines, but what
you do in the off season is so important to set the stage for your
in season push. And we need to look really close at what the Tigers
did in the offseason instead of just looking at names Canna, Urchella, Flaherty,
my aida, look deep into what they've brought to this team and what
you expected this team needed. So this is not a knock on the new
players for the Tigers, but what you needed was not addressed. Period.
People can blame I mean, even when the Tigers are losing without the guy
and he's recently gone through a tough four game stretch in Toledo, people are
still blaming Spencer Torkelsen for the tigers problems certain extent, I get it,
and I get it because he was supposed to be a big reason for their
success this year. When he's not there, and he's not even on the
team, when he's not in the lineup, when he's not on the team,
it detracts from what your expectations were to be. Totally understand that,
but it can't be just one guy. Don't tell me that bringing up Cold
Keith, signing him to a big deal you expected two twenty nine. Don't
tell me that signing Mark Canna, you expected a three sixty one slug His
is three seventy five. That's not what you expected. More importantly, it's
not what you needed. I bet that's what they're getting. And there's the
issue, man, I mean, that's it in a nutshell. Try to
break down the numbers. We can do that all day long, okay,
Where they rank an average, where they ranking on base percentage, where they
rank an ops and slugging and all this other stuff. And I can go
on my rants that they don't have full time players at full time positions,
too many guys who move all over the ball field. I can go on
and on and on about that, because good teams don't have that. They
really don't. They have a guy or two, but they don't have they
don't have players who aren't married to the one position. The best teams have
their everyday guys. So we can talk about that all day long. But
what is lost in this, what has not been a nearly enough is what
this team needed to do from last year to this year to make up ground
in the division, to be better, to be the team to beat in
the division. They did not do. They did not address as simple as
that, and we should be noticing it all season long, not just a
recent stretch that saw them go one and five on a six game road trip.
Phone numbers open for you. It's the Meyer hoighline eight six six eight
three eight forty eight forty three. How you can text the program Sports Radio
twenty one thousand. We've got a poll question for you. We've got the
results of yesterday's poll question. James Edwards from the Athletic is going to join
us and we're going to talk about the firing of one Monty Williams and where
the Pistons go from here. All that and more coming up on a Thursday
day of exes and bros. Thanks for coming with me to Meyer. Absolutely,
I'll take one of the ease during the Meyer seven for seven dollars sale,
mix or match hundreds of items and pay just one dollar each when you
pick any seven or more. We need Bell Pepper's Eckrich meat branks to grill,
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when you mix or match any seven or more. Exclusions apply See all deals
in the Meyer app. Beck with you on Extus and Bros. We're with
you Monday through Friday from six to till nine. Because we mentioned earlier,
Tigers lose to the Braves seven. Nothing right. He did see something online
for people constantly now that Detroit is stumbling and stumbling and there's all kinds of
disbelief in this team. I don't know where it's been. I don't know
how long it takes you. I don't know at what point makes you realize
that Maybe it's the fact that they're twelve and a half games back. I
don't know. Maybe it's the fact that you know they've lost four in a
row, and as we mentioned before, you know ten of thirteen, and
the offense continues to sputter. And even when you get Trek Scubel out there,
you know you're you're thinking, here's the ace. And I'm not saying
he's not an ace because he is here's the a's he's going to stop the
bleeding. And he didn't, and he gave up a He gave up a
home run to Sean Murphy in opposite field, bomb a two run shot to
make it three nothing, and Sean Murphy has been struggling and then boom,
And it's pretty obvious. I mean, Schooble didn't have it. Look,
those things happen with pictures, the best pictures that happens with Okay, I
don't care who you're talking about, but it's happened to them, all right.
And it's those games where you need your offense to help you because you've
helped that offense quite a bit, and that's why they call it a great
team sport. But they couldn't get it done. So I see a lot
of people online now that the Tigers have struggled this way, the immediate attention
goes toward trading people. Let's trade Tark Scooble and Jack Flaherty and get as
many prospects as we can. I don't know if that's the right thing to
do or not. Okay, that's not what I'm debating here. My frustration
is the word prospects. That's what you want. You want prospects. Wow,
See I don't want that. I want major league talent. I don't
you, And I have no idea Like this is the thing that frustrates me
about sports in general. You want to get rid of a known quantity for
somebody you think or others think will be really good someday, someday. This
is what I get from people all the time. Tigers are so far away.
Trade these guys, get as many good prospects as you can and look
to the future. Oh okay, So I mean, think about it for
a minute. When the Tigers traded Justin Ferlander, They've got they got three
of Houston's best or prospects, I should say, And that's what you're saying,
you're wanting prospects. That's what they got. They got Franklin Perez,
they got Jake Rogers, they got Daz Cameron, highly thought of prospects in
the Houston system. Franklin Perez is out of baseball, Daz Cameron might as
well be. And Jake Rogers, you know, another swinging a miss yesterday.
He's eh and you want to replace him. That's what you That's what
you got you got three prospects for one guy, and then you'll turn around
and you'll complain that ala Vila got screwed, he got fleeced. Why did
he do that? He got three other best prospects one guys who've been proved
at guys who've proven it. Give me some major league talent this team they
don't need prospects. Screw the prospects. You don't know what they're going to
hand up. You don't know what they're going to be like, can you
give me something now that addresses the team's needs now, whether you want to
trade them or not is up to you. I just don't get the whole
infatuation with prospects. And it's really the only sport you do that. It's
the only sport where fans want prospects not knowing anything about them. We have
no idea. I don't know who they are. You think you do,
but most of us, I'm saying most of us now, I don't know.
You're not following the minor leagues. You're not following Triple A and Double
A and how certain guys are doing there. But you want players who are
playing in those leagues for somebody who is legitimately a difference maker. You see
what you want about Jack Flaherty and the contract and whether or not you would
have signed him. He and Derek Schouoble have been really good and you want
to get rid of them for prospects. I feel like they like the Allen
Iverson. We're talking about practice, man. We're talking about prospects, man,
That's what we're talking about. And then you'll have somebody chime in and
you'll say, oh, you know what I mean, here's what you really
need. You need to trade him to the Orioles, and then here's what
you need in return. I want to get fill in the blank, a
certain type of player. I want Jordan Westburg. Oh, well, join
the crowd. Thanks a lot. Jordan Westburg's a lee player. He's also
the one of the key guys for Baltimore moving forward, along with Gunnar Henderson
and along with Colton Kowser. Those guys are all really important moving forward.
They're not sacrificing that type of player. You're talking about Baltimore's farm system because
they've been able to bring up certain guys Adlie Rushman, Henderson, Kowser,
Westbert. You think they've got depth and they do according to all the Minor
League Baseball slash Major League Baseball that focuses on minor league farm systems, all
those websites, maybe they're just blocked in their organization. You want to trade
your best player for prospects. That's where our philosophies differ at this stage,
because the Tigers got prospects too. I'm not buying it, but maybe it's
just rearing its ugly head because of yesterday, Just like recently when the Houston
Astros bought out and said goodbye to jose A bray You this past weekend,
a bray You who had signed a three year, fifty eight million dollar contract
with Houston and had thirty million to go on it, and Houston bought it
out. They said enough. So immediately people think, well, if Houston's
willing to do it, and the Tigers willing to do it, Houston has
one of the higher payrolls in baseball, the Tigers don't. He's thirty seven
and has the two years for remaining on the contract and the Tigers. Everybody
wants to know, well, if they're willing to do that, then why
in the world would the Tigers not be willing to do that with Javier Bias.
As I said, one is thirty seven, the other's thirty one.
One had two years left on his contract, the other has three years left
on his deal. Well four if you include this year, okay, two
for a brave you, this year next for Bias, it's this year,
twenty five, twenty six, and twenty seven, so four years, all
right, a lot of money left there. One has an owner who has
spent money, the other has an owner who has not spent money. I'm
not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm saying I can't imagine him doing it
because of the track record, because of what he's done. Meyer hotlines open
for you eight sixty six, eight three, eight forty eight forty three.
You can text the program sports Radio to twenty one thousand. Here's what we're
gonna do when we come back. We're gonna talk about the Pistons money.
Williams has been fired after one year. We get your thoughts on that and
the pole question that is associated with Montey Williams and basketball. Will also throw
out some names. Remember James Edwards is going to join us eight thirty five
to talk about those names and the decision to move on after one year when
we return on ex'es and bros. Right after this, Hew and cheer for
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of gr in Canadian Lakes, Michigan huge here for Vanandel Institute Purple Community Now
there are grassroots fundraising network powered by the volunteers who support Vai's mission to improve
health now and in the future. Learn more at Purplecommunity dot org. I
don't like being the guy who said I told you so. But when the
Pistons went out and hired Monty Williams, I said, almost verbatim. I
don't like it because in order for him to come here, it took more
money. In other words, the only reason he's getting here in Detroit and
really back into coaching because he said he was going to take some time away.
The only reason is because of money. If that's your driving force,
when you've already made millions, if that's your only driving force, that's a
red flag. And obviously that is the case. The Pistons are going to
have to eat about sixty five million dollars now. Tom Gores is willing to
do that. I gave him a ton of credit. It's funny because so
many sports fans in this state want Chris Illich to eat the millions of dollars
for hobby or bias. And I get it. I get why you think
that personally, it would be really hard for me to swallow, you know,
eating eighty three million dollars over the next four years. I'm talking twenty
five this year, twenty five, next, twenty four and twenty four,
so it's really over ninety million dollars. Anyway. Those people want him to
eat that, and I understand why, and they call him cheap or a
bad owner if he doesn't. Tom Gores is willing to eat sixty five million
over the guy he personally lured, the guy he identified and wanted. He
didn't like his choices. He didn't like that Kevin Ali was being brought to
him by his management team. No thanks. I want somebody established. I
want somebody who's one coach of the year or I don't know what his credentials.
Credentials were, I don't know what he felt like needed to be accomplished
for his next head coach. But he's the one who said, I've got
to go out and get somebody who other teams would have wanted. I want
to beat somebody out in this regard, and he did so. He lures
Monty Williams to Detroit with a six year, seventy eight and a half million
dollar contract. At the time, it was the largest for any NBA coach.
And again we talk about not willing to spend bad ownership. Oh he's
not going to spend money. Time gorz is wont to spend doesn't make them
a good owner. This is what I've said time and time again. Spending
more money doesn't mean you're going to be a better team. We need to
get that out of our heads. How do you spend the money on?
Whom do you spend the money? See the illeg organizations will tell you,
oh, we spend money when we spend it on improving the ballpark, a
team playing, improving our analytics, helping out our younger players down in the
minor leagues. That is not what Major League Baseball fans want to hear.
They want to hear you spend money on your major league product. They want
to see it on the field of play. They don't care about City connect
uniforms, they don't care about the upgrade facilities down in Lakeland because it's not
affecting them. They want to know what's going to affect them April through October
at Comerica Park. That's what they want to know. Now, Why they
don't get that. Why an organization doesn't understand that is beyond me. I
don't know how you cannot be in tune with what your fan base is screaming
for. Put a product on the field. Everything else is ancillary. But
for the Pistons, their owner, who has not endeared himself to the fan
base because he's in Los Angeles right never see him here except on opening night.
There's a disconnect. Fair enough, I get it. I can't say
that I haven't felt that same emotion. But he is a guy who is
willing to say, you know what, Trajan Langdon is going to be in
charge of handling this franchise moving forward. I mean when Troy Weaver was hired,
everybody was excited. They were, yeah, we got a guy who
got a young, up and coming guy. People were just exuberant over the
possibilities there moving on getting a guy who is young and hip and knows what
the NBA is all about. That experiment blew up in your face. So
now you dip and you start all over again. And Trajan Langdon is obviously
told Tom Gores, I got to bring him my own guy. That's a
tough pill to swallow. Man, Tom Gores a year ago. He's telling
everybody, I got the best coach on the market. Other teams wanted him,
they couldn't get him. I got him. I had to overspend for
him. But you know what, I'm the guy who got it done.
Now he's out and he's going to make more money not coaching than he would
be coaching. In the end, he got what he wanted money. Williams
wanted to break from everything. He's going to get that break. But he's
going to do it with sixty plus million extra dollars. Not a bad gig
man does not have to work another day in his life. Does it bother
him that the Pistons set an NBA record of twenty eight consecutive losses. Yes.
Doesn't bother him that they set a franchise record for fewest number of wins
fourteen? Yes? Does it bother him that the Pistons are now a punchline
when it comes to jokes about the city and about basketball. It should,
and perhaps at some point he'll be like, you know what, I can't
take this anymore. I've got to redeem myself. I've got to fix my
reputation. I was supposed to take a seventeen win team and turn them into
at least a thirty win team, and instead he took a seventeen win team
and made him into a fourteen win team. Think about how long it's been
since you've actually cheered for Pistons basketball. Twenty wins, twenty wins, twenty
three wins, seventeen wins, fourteen wins. That's epic feutality, man,
epic. They had the third worst point differential in the NBA. They had
the sixth worst defensive rating in the NBA. So the Pistons are going to
eat sixty five mil a team that has just one winning season since twenty sixteen,
just two playoff appearances over the last fifteen years. That's what you have.
That's how bad it has been. But he made the right call.
He brought in a guy, and he said, in order for me to
have a guy that other people wanted. This is very familiar if to us,
isn't it You wanted Troy Weaver or some liked that with that type of
cachet, You got him and it didn't work out. Same thing with Trajan
Landon. I'm not saying it's going to end the same way. I'm just
giving you a heads up. This is how things work in sports. You
want somebody, and I want a change too. I'm not going to put
a name and a face to the change I wanted because I wasn't positive that
Trajan Langdon would be the right guy. Who am I to say? This
is the stuff that we debate about all the time. Chap, you know
who I want as the next head coach? Who Chauncey Billups? Oh okay,
why well, he hit that big shot. He's a great piston.
How do you do in Portland? Not very well? Maybe it's too small
to sample size, but perhaps, just perhaps we would have been wrong about
that, right. Yeah, I think that's fair. You bring in a
guy like Monte Williams, who has taken a team to the Western Conference Finals,
coach of the year. I would remind you that Dwayne Casey was coach
of the year, took a team to the Eastern Conference finals and the Toronto
Raptors. What happens. Gotta have talent on the floor, man, I
mean, did Monte Williams do some things that were ridiculous? Yeah? He
sure did. He did some things that you and I both questioned at the
time, and rightfully so, you and I were like, wait, why
are you Why in the world are you doing this at this time of the
year. In other words, why in the world are you choosing to play
Killian Hayes over j n Ivy. That makes no sense. Why are you
playing a full second unit at this time of the year. It makes no
sense. I remind people this before you try to figure out who the next
head coach should be. It's not like Monty Williams was the second coming of
pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Red Aurbacher, Chuck Day. He's been a
coach for ten years in the NBA. Five times he's taken his team to
the playoffs. He had a losing record in twenty twelve in New Orleans,
in twenty thirteen in New Orleans, in twenty fourteen in New Orleans, he
had a losing record with his sons in Now you get a Phoenix team that's
got some talent. Of course he's going to have some winning records, and
credit to him, I mean kudos to him. Let him to the Western
Conference championship. He never won a title as a head coach, but some
of the things that he did. You think back and you go, who
in their right mind thought that was a good idea. It's easy to armchair
quarterback. I understand that too, but these are some of the things at
least I was saying about Monty Williams going in on top of all that his
style of play or his team style of play. And maybe this isn't always
on the head coach because a lot of this is probably with the play itself.
But it's boring. I mean, they were a boring product. That's
really too bad. But there was all kinds of confusion about what he did
and what direction there was. There was really never a point that you looked
at and you said, I see where they're going now. You couldn't identify
it. So I give Tom Gor's credit. I understand that Trajan Langdon has
decided. I mean, the timing's a little odd. You got the NBA
Draft a week away. But my guess is it wouldn't matter who the head
coach is for Trajan Langdon. Anyway, he's got an idea because he's been
preparing for this. Don't kid yourself. I mean, these guys aren't just
going, oh, hey, I got a job, now I can start
prepping. No, they've been doing this all along. They're well ahead of
the game, So I don't worry about that. He knows who he wants,
he knows who he thinks would be best at number five if they keep
the number five pick, and we'll talk more about that with James Edwards from
the Athletic at a thirty five. So I don't worry about that. The
timing is a little strange. Perhaps they were waiting for Boston to eliminate Dallas
for a couple of different reasons. Maybe just maybe James barrego Is, who's
a Celtics assistant, is a guy who's on their list. Maybe just maybe
Sean Sweeney, who's a Dallas assistant, is on their list. Maybe they're
waiting for the broadcast team to finish up, and JJ Reddick is on their
list. I don't know, but the time is a little strange. That
said, he's got a short list, guaranteed, he's got a short list
already. How short that is, I'm not sure. I guess somewhere in
the neighborhood five. Maybe Chris Quinn, the Miami assistant who's highly thought of,
Maybe he's on the list. Maybe Darvin Ham, which leads us to
our poll question for the day on axes and bros. What do you want
an a Piston's next head coach? Do you want a current young assistant coach?
People love that stuff. They love the vibrant they I don't want to
see retreads, Sep. That's what I get all the time. I don't
want to retread. I would remind you, not that you're wrong, but
I would remind you that retreads are what helped win championships in this town.
Chuck Daily was a retread. Based on many people's definition, Chuck Daily was
a retread. Larry Brown was a retread. Scotty Bowman was a retread.
Mike Babcock was a retread. Dan Campbell, although was on an interim basis,
is a bit of a retread. Sparking Anderson was a retread. Jim
Leland was a retread. Find me the guy who's not Who's the guy who
breaks the mold? They're not there? So you want that? Okay,
that's fine, you want It's almost like it's more important. This goes back
to the Tiger discussion we were having about Flarity or schoobl people. I'll get
rid of Flarity. He's only got one year left on his deal. Scooble
after two years. He's he can be a free agent, but you don't
want to get rid of him because he's homegrown. Right. You don't care
about the retreads in Detroit if they're winning, But you don't want another retread
for a Pistons head coach because you haven't won. You think it'll feel better
if it's a young guy who leads them, who cares. I just want
the best coach. I want a guy who's got a vision. I want
a guy who's got a plan. I want a guy who's gonna play eight
nine guys and keep that rotation and develop those guys. So who do you
want in a Piston's head coach, current young assistant, former head coach or
former player. That's the poll question. On Axes and Bros, James Edwards
will join us eight thirty five to talk more about the firing of one Monty
Williams and where the Pistons go from here. On Axes and Bros. On
a Thursday morning throughout the Great State of Michigan Fest plays at Soaring Eagle Casino
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