Speaker 1: This is Sham and I with the Mets and welcome
Speaker 1: to Bapflip's End Nerds.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Baplips and Nerds, the Baseball Podcast
Speaker 2: with the Twist. I am your host this evening, Russ
Speaker 2: a Lisam and this evening, I am here with Darius. Darius,
Speaker 2: Welcome to your first part of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: Isn't it It's been a while. Yeah, almost made it
Speaker 3: through the whole of January. Now you and John are
Speaker 3: just hogging the airtime. Russ can't get my way in.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's because me and John have been putting interviews
Speaker 2: for when we can actually do them. Sot everybody else.
Speaker 3: John did ask me about Kyle, to be fair, but
Speaker 3: I was on my way home at the time we
Speaker 3: were starting, so I thought it's probably probably not appropriate.
Speaker 2: Yes, and also joining me fresh off his hooded up
Speaker 2: traitors behavior that we saw last week. Rob navaras, how
Speaker 2: we doing.
Speaker 4: I still have the hood otherwise, Yeah, at the beginning
Speaker 4: of a cold. So if I do sound a little
Speaker 4: husky and sexy, you know, you're only human and it's
Speaker 4: down but that could be coming over.
Speaker 2: But yes, this week we're going to do a quick
Speaker 2: exercise what we'd like to call ins and outs or
Speaker 2: keepspin where we're going to just look through some things
Speaker 2: from twenty twenty four that we want to say goodbye to,
Speaker 2: something that we want to keep, and some things we
Speaker 2: expect to be new in twenty twenty five. But before
Speaker 2: we do that, I feel that there has been an
Speaker 2: important moment in baseball that we must discuss. I think
Speaker 2: we saw potentially the bat flip that had the highest
Speaker 2: hang time I've ever seen. I think it may have
Speaker 2: also got about sixty meters in the air. I'm talking
Speaker 2: about Junior Camenio's go ahead home run in the game
Speaker 2: seven of the lead home final Darius lead on Mental.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I mean I think anybody who hadn't seen
Speaker 3: anything from leudom before probably got flavor of what the
Speaker 3: experience is like. I think it was a pretty good
Speaker 3: advertisement for the game. Obviously, it sounds like some people
Speaker 3: are grumpy about this, you know, showing pictures up not
Speaker 3: behaving in the way that players are supposed to behave.
Speaker 3: But I mean, watch that and you don't think that's fantastic,
Speaker 3: then I guess maybe you don't like joy. I don't know,
Speaker 3: just a great time all around, wonderful battleflip? Is it
Speaker 3: a bat flip? At that point we have to call
Speaker 3: it something else when it reaches that altitude, a battle launch,
Speaker 3: that launch, Yeah, you know, terminal escaped the atmosphere. I
Speaker 3: don't know what we call it, but it was great
Speaker 3: and yeah, is a great time, a great way to
Speaker 3: fill the gap in the in between the multiple seasons.
Speaker 3: So I'm all for it. Well done, Junior Camenira and Rob.
Speaker 2: I feel that as this man may sup plan for
Speaker 2: the team that you are a fan of, this is
Speaker 2: only something that you can be more excited about to
Speaker 2: come from it. And congratulations Rob, you are muted to
Speaker 2: start the pod.
Speaker 4: Hey nice and profession around here. What I was is, yes,
Speaker 4: it's not his fault. However, forgive me if I'm not
Speaker 4: excited about the young Dominican phenom who's going to be
Speaker 4: playing middle infield for the Rays next year. Been burned before. Yeah,
Speaker 4: the guy's the guy's electric. It's fantastic. Barring something awful happening,
Speaker 4: He's going to be, you know, the next big flashy
Speaker 4: Ray to be to be dancing around the infield and
Speaker 4: doing special things for the race. I'm really excited about him.
Speaker 4: I think it's fantastic that he's he's showing off his spirit,
Speaker 4: and we were all fairly on a line on this
Speaker 4: podcast that we all kind of agree that that we
Speaker 4: would rather see people backflipping and showing you know, he
Speaker 4: had tears at the end of the end of the
Speaker 4: game because he really really meant it, He really really
Speaker 4: excited about it. He was really clearly in it. Now,
Speaker 4: maybe maybe there's going to be a bit of a
Speaker 4: bit of or the trap needs to calm down and
Speaker 4: get his head in the game properly. Maybe I'm sure
Speaker 4: there's a lot of that coming. But yeah, the guy's
Speaker 4: the guy's exciting, he's electric, he's the top prospect, and
Speaker 4: boy do we need it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's a high highlight for Raised fans.
Speaker 2: Is something that is probably needed right now, especially given
Speaker 2: Yes wander to not having the stadia to play and
Speaker 2: having to play in a mini Yankee stadium in Florida,
Speaker 2: which is probably would be full of Yankees fans.
Speaker 4: So yes, depressing, and you're making it more to prey.
Speaker 2: We'll come to that later, Okay. So, as I said
Speaker 2: briefly at the top of the show, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about some wants and some believes from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four and twenty twenty five. So we're going to start
Speaker 2: off with we've got two things each year that we
Speaker 2: want to bin from what happened in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I'll start off as we'll go for this. I want
Speaker 2: to bin the kit issues. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: spending spring training go wondering. Kind of like whire is
Speaker 2: MLB and Nike and fan tracks seemingly made a product worse,
Speaker 2: like it was an absolute faux pa. Really, kind of
Speaker 2: like open gold blunder by everybody involved, making the lettering smaller,
Speaker 2: making the kits more see through, making the quality that
Speaker 2: the players got seemingly worse, and the quality that the
Speaker 2: fans could get seemingly worse. They just scored such an
Speaker 2: own goal. And I don't know if it's disappeared, but
Speaker 2: what I've seen from a few of the signings is
Speaker 2: that there does look to be better like lettering on
Speaker 2: those signing jerseys. But who knows what's to come. I'm
Speaker 2: assuming Rob, you were probably as furious as the rest
Speaker 2: of us with the kits last year.
Speaker 4: No, completely the opposite. Who doesn't want to see young
Speaker 4: attractive people's bodies which I could see it awful lot
Speaker 4: of I was lucky enough to go to San Francisco
Speaker 4: last year, visited San Francisco and Oakland. I saw some
Speaker 4: games there, and honestly, in person, that cream San Francisco
Speaker 4: Giants uniform was I mean, it looked bad on TV,
Speaker 4: but my god, when you were there looking at it,
Speaker 4: you could see details. Really, you could see details. I
Speaker 4: don't want to come over all make Rowley here, but
Speaker 4: like I could see actual details of you know, the
Speaker 4: bottom of people's people's jerseys tucked into their trousers and beyond,
Speaker 4: like well beyond you know, I shouldn't be able to
Speaker 4: see a lot of the stuff I should see. So
Speaker 4: if we could just get some trousers you can't see
Speaker 4: through the rest of it, I could probably deal with.
Speaker 4: But I mean that that would be a really big start.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think that would be. So, then Darius, give
Speaker 2: us something to throw in our MLB Room one oh.
Speaker 3: One, there are room rue o one. Well, we've got
Speaker 3: so much trouble with room runner one already in the I'm.
Speaker 2: Not just talking about that things that happened in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four. Let's not just throw cycles again. The fan
Speaker 2: base is.
Speaker 3: I'm going to throw something in that I already know
Speaker 3: is not going to be going in the bin, but
Speaker 3: ought to be going in the bin, and that is
Speaker 3: the San Francisco Giants having a different left fielder every
Speaker 3: single year. And for those who don't know, this is
Speaker 3: basically the curse of Barry Bonds. The Giants have not
Speaker 3: had the same player start in left field on opening
Speaker 3: Day since Barry Bonds was on the Giants, which, as
Speaker 3: many of you will know, was a pretty long time ago.
Speaker 3: You know, Barry Rons has been retired for the twenty
Speaker 3: years now, so this is a fast I'm actually you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm going to get the list you we
Speaker 3: can play remember some guys with San Francisco Giants left fielders.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's side. The reason we know it's not
Speaker 3: going to happen this year is because Michael Conforto started
Speaker 3: in left field for the Giants on opening down last year.
Speaker 3: And obviously Michael Conforto has now signed with the Dodgers,
Speaker 3: so the Giants will once again, whoever it ends up being,
Speaker 3: have a different player in left field. And it's I mean,
Speaker 3: it's kind of I sort of don't want it to end.
Speaker 3: At some point. But also it's the damning indictment of
Speaker 3: the Giants organization that we literally can't get somebody to
Speaker 3: just stand at left field and be sort of semi
Speaker 3: competent for long enough to be at the starter for
Speaker 3: two consecutive years. So yeah, that's that's why I would
Speaker 3: like to get them in. But I'm gonna have to
Speaker 3: wait until twenty twenty six at least, and probably another
Speaker 3: twenty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like the that list is probably ridiculous.
Speaker 2: I think I could probably go back. I could maybe
Speaker 2: guess what Hanneger for the year before, and Jock Pederson
Speaker 2: maybe the year before that. But we we do.
Speaker 3: We'll do the whole list since since Bond's started in
Speaker 3: left field in two thousand and seven. Out for the
Speaker 3: third two thousand and seven. Here's the list. It's Dave
Speaker 3: Dave Roberts two thousand and eight, Bred Lewis two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine. We've got Mark de Rosa twenty ten, then
Speaker 3: Pat Burrell or half of course, Andres Torres, who remembers
Speaker 3: Andres Torris, good little fancy player for a moment there,
Speaker 3: Mike Morse Giants legend, Mike Morse, Noiaoki and help her
Speaker 3: gun We've got Jarrett Parker completely forgot Jarrett Parker even existed,
Speaker 3: Hunter Pence Pence not two years when he was in
Speaker 3: right field. Yeah, previously, Yeah, Connor Joe kicking around still,
Speaker 3: Alex Dickerson, Austin Slater, and then Jock Peterson, Blake Sable
Speaker 3: not even really a left fielder, you know, kind of
Speaker 3: a catch a utility guy, and then Michael Conforto. That's
Speaker 3: the list, the whole of shame, the Giants left fielders
Speaker 3: who have replaced.
Speaker 4: Who's likely to do this year?
Speaker 3: Who is likely to do this year? That's a good question. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think I think he'll probably be Yazz because I'm
Speaker 3: assuming that Lee will be good to start instead of field,
Speaker 3: so it was Fan. Yeah, I don't sure what we
Speaker 3: have Elliott Ramos, Ramos, Yeah, maybe he has a playlet right,
Speaker 3: And either way, Ramos is a good shout because obviously
Speaker 3: there's like a decent chance. If it's Yazz, then he'll
Speaker 3: probably like be too old, We'll have cut him by
Speaker 3: next season, We'll get another guy. Ramos is twenty five,
Speaker 3: so there's hope.
Speaker 2: And remember that that might happen, and if he does that,
Speaker 2: he might have earned getting his home run ball back
Speaker 2: by doing something that breaking that curse?
Speaker 3: Are fingers crossed? Yeah? I mean like Ramos did play
Speaker 3: left field a decent chunk last season, So that's that's
Speaker 3: our best hope that that happens. And obviously that he
Speaker 3: actually is going to see looked for seconds of the
Speaker 3: last season. We'll see about that. You understanding my pessimism.
Speaker 3: So that can get in the bin, but it's not
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that that the list of guys like that,
Speaker 4: there's some genuinely fine like yeah, we're not talking superstars,
Speaker 4: but some genuinely fine blokes on that list who there's
Speaker 4: there's really no reason why they couldn't have done a
Speaker 4: second year. What what's caused the curse? Is it injuries?
Speaker 4: Is it lack of wanting to keep, you know, keep
Speaker 4: good players around? What's what's happened?
Speaker 2: You won three World Series during that type period?
Speaker 4: Exactly?
Speaker 2: So much, so much of a curse. Oh no, we've
Speaker 2: been cursed that we've won three World series during.
Speaker 3: Where is me is suffering Giants fan?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, Rob, what have we being? Good? Lord?
Speaker 4: I've got a litter written down here. Sorry, I was
Speaker 4: I was looking at past and present Giants then uh
Speaker 4: in particularly, he just caught my attention. I forgot he
Speaker 4: existed anyway, Moving on things to bin. Everyone getting along
Speaker 4: is horrible over the last I've done a bit of research.
Speaker 4: I've gone back and looked, and I felt that over
Speaker 4: the last year we've seen fewer and viewer fights an ejection.
Speaker 4: And now a lot of people, of course will say
Speaker 4: that we don't want people fighting because you know, make peace,
Speaker 4: not all. I for one, like it because it's something
Speaker 4: a bit different and there's always something to talk about
Speaker 4: at a bit of discourse. Something fancy happens when there's
Speaker 4: an ejection. So I went back and looked and tried
Speaker 4: to prove my point that there were in fact fewer
Speaker 4: ejections last year, and I was absolutely right. So going
Speaker 4: back to twenty fourteen, there's been a decided curve down.
Speaker 4: So we started at two hundred and one in ejections
Speaker 4: in twenty fourteen, and then we've got less and less
Speaker 4: and less and less. Then we had a blip in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen where everyone seemed to want to fight each
Speaker 4: other for some reason, which was great, and then carried
Speaker 4: on that trajectory.
Speaker 2: Because just been out that one game between the pirates
Speaker 2: and the Reds.
Speaker 4: Yes, probably probably very very important part of that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: so we obviously have the blip of choice twenty and
Speaker 4: then we carried on it and then again twenty twenty
Speaker 4: three was a huge year of rejections, absolutely huge for
Speaker 4: reasons beyond me, I don't know. But then we've continued
Speaker 4: on that downslide again. We've got back on the curve
Speaker 4: and we are we are removing ejections from the game,
Speaker 4: which means there's less and less, you know, people getting
Speaker 4: in each other's grills, and we get more and more
Speaker 4: times where everyone's just getting on them. You know what,
Speaker 4: I don't care about that. It's sported, it's pugilistic. It's
Speaker 4: one person against another. That's what it's all about. So
Speaker 4: I want to see the everyone picking flowers, holding hands
Speaker 4: and singing come by heart, going into the bin, because
Speaker 4: I think we need more bites, more suspensions, more ejections.
Speaker 2: And more discal So you heard it here. First. Rob
Speaker 2: wants more head hunting. Darius head hunting just as well.
Speaker 3: People who think that we agree too much in this podcast,
Speaker 3: I'm going to pass on this tape. I would like
Speaker 3: no head hunting. Can we have zero rejections this season.
Speaker 3: I'm changing mine. That's one of mine. Now I want
Speaker 3: no ejections the whole season.
Speaker 4: And boom, Adrian Beltree got ejected for a very very
Speaker 4: very entertaining reason. I want more of that.
Speaker 3: Okay, only only joke ejections this season. We can agree
Speaker 3: on that, and now come on, Like, what's better than
Speaker 3: a manager arguing balls and strikes? He's come out, he's
Speaker 3: kicked the dirt across the ground, He's screaming in some
Speaker 3: guy's face. He's probably screaming, you know, like how's your wife?
Speaker 3: But you know he's having a shout.
Speaker 4: At the umpires. He gets tasty and the hats flying.
Speaker 4: You know, there's there's all the infielders stood around looking
Speaker 4: slightly embarrassed. Who doesn't want to see that? That's great?
Speaker 4: Needs to be getting hurt of all about it. Let's
Speaker 4: get people kicked out in games.
Speaker 3: It needs to be like Kyle Schwarber levels of demonstrative,
Speaker 3: like over the top, just very theatrical, because you know,
Speaker 3: especially if you're in the crowd, you can't really see that,
Speaker 3: well what's going on. You've really got to do the
Speaker 3: hand gestures and funny, go for it. Yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: I can just see.
Speaker 4: I've lost Aaron Boone getting ejected for something he didn't
Speaker 4: even say last year was one of my absolute eye
Speaker 4: He didn't say anything, and that was that was beautiful.
Speaker 4: It made beautiful audio, beautiful visuals. Who didn't love that?
Speaker 4: We all saw that. Did you watch, you know, the
Speaker 4: Royals play the Tigers for the seventh time of the season. No,
Speaker 4: you didn't, but you did watch that random game because
Speaker 4: you know that ridiculous ejection happened. So more of that,
Speaker 4: that's what we want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm okay with coaches and manager rejections
Speaker 2: because they're usually just semi like performative anyway, just to
Speaker 2: kind of like to try and vile up the team
Speaker 2: more to do that. So that sort of stuff, I
Speaker 2: think that's sort of fine. Maye less player rejections, but
Speaker 2: who rather mascots.
Speaker 4: There's plenty more people you can eject, idiots who force
Speaker 4: some Lookie Bett's hand open, you know, let's kick people
Speaker 4: out of the stands. That's great, let's do all of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need some accordion players in the Major league
Speaker 2: to get ejective. Have you've seen the video of that
Speaker 2: one where it's like some minor league or independent game
Speaker 2: where the organist player starts playing three brand mice and
Speaker 2: the uppire decides to eject the organ.
Speaker 4: I like that, but that in the in the in
Speaker 4: the description, I want to see that one.
Speaker 2: Okay, back to me for something to bin. We need
Speaker 2: to ben the current playoff rules for how to deal
Speaker 2: with tires because last year was a farce. That Mets
Speaker 2: versus Atlanta's brave second game was absolutely disgusting, utterly disrespectful
Speaker 2: to anybody else involved in this sport. There was no
Speaker 2: way in any shape or form of the Mets attempted
Speaker 2: in that game. They swung at absolutely everything. They swung
Speaker 2: at things that were outside of the zone. They swung
Speaker 2: more often outside of pitches in that single game than
Speaker 2: they did in any other game in Major League that year.
Speaker 2: Go look at the numbers. It's there. It is like
Speaker 2: it is the same level as I've put in our
Speaker 2: notes the Disgrace of Gujon, which some people will know
Speaker 2: and some people will not know. When West Germany won
Speaker 2: one nil against Austria and they both managed to get
Speaker 2: through at the plight of the Tunisian national team in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty two Rock Football Walk Cup, I honestly
Speaker 2: think people should have kicked up more of us about this.
Speaker 2: I think it was I genuinely think it was a
Speaker 2: disgrace to the sport. And it has come about because
Speaker 2: they we now have these tiebreaka rules where it's just
Speaker 2: about who plays against each other, and we don't get
Speaker 2: to have Game one sixty three anymore endorsed.
Speaker 4: If I'm going to play Devil's Advocate. I think the
Speaker 4: obvious reason we need to do this is because we
Speaker 4: have expanded the playoffs, and I was initially maybe a
Speaker 4: bit skeptical about that, but I think we're at a
Speaker 4: good level now because I think it does keep more
Speaker 4: fans entertained. But with those numbers, with an extra round
Speaker 4: of wild card games, if we have yet another round
Speaker 4: of games to sort these out, we're pushing it back
Speaker 4: even further into winter. And we've been lucky that most
Speaker 4: of these games have been played in either a dome
Speaker 4: or in Los Angeles. But you know, that New York
Speaker 4: series could have really stumbled into Paul weather. You know,
Speaker 4: we saw it a few years ago in Philadelphia, quite
Speaker 4: a few years ago now, where it was absolutely bloody, freezing.
Speaker 4: You know, we could get snow in some places. So
Speaker 4: I think I've I can't really tend to agree with
Speaker 4: you guys, but if you're gonna gonna play the counter there,
Speaker 4: we've got to we'd be more an uproar if we say,
Speaker 4: got a World Series in you know, Pittsburgh and Minnesota
Speaker 4: and it's under three foot of snow for the whole time,
Speaker 4: So we've got to get these games in, so you know,
Speaker 4: there's a way of doing it without having to to
Speaker 4: schedule a day off game another day off. I actually agree.
Speaker 2: For those players. I feel like it's tough ship. It's
Speaker 2: just like you've got to play another game, and if
Speaker 2: you've got to play another game the day afterwards, well
Speaker 2: you've got to do that if you've got to play
Speaker 2: another game. But they've got to play another game the
Speaker 2: same day and then play another game afterwards. Should have
Speaker 2: had a better record during this season, so you take
Speaker 2: all of the punishments that you get. Darius, what are
Speaker 2: you what are you putting in the bin for your second?
Speaker 3: What I am binning? Contrived home run celebrations? Just I
Speaker 3: don't mind if it's like something that emerges a bit
Speaker 3: organically and you know you can tell there's like a
Speaker 3: story behind it. Something that that happened spontaneously. That's that's cool.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying we can't have home run set. But
Speaker 3: now it's just like every team feels like they've got
Speaker 3: to come up with their own little home run celebration,
Speaker 3: and it's just not very interesting to me. You know,
Speaker 3: maybe there's like one or two novel two times that
Speaker 3: is entertaining, and then it gets boring. Some of them
Speaker 3: are just not even really good from the start. It's
Speaker 3: just like a thing they feel like they need to
Speaker 3: do now, a team spirit or whatever, which you don't
Speaker 3: find whatever you need to get through. Soelth through the
Speaker 3: hundred and sixty two game season, but I'm going to
Speaker 3: take a pass on on the vast majority of them.
Speaker 3: They're not really doing it.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: That weird sausage thing that Brewers had going last year
Speaker 3: was just disgusting. I'm not going going to describe it.
Speaker 3: You can just google Brewis sausage and see what happens
Speaker 3: to people. Just do that. So yeah, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 3: gonna pass. So let's see who comes up with the
Speaker 3: first stupid home run celebration that I can complain about
Speaker 3: on the pod.
Speaker 2: So obviously you're not a fan of the dong bong.
Speaker 2: What I want to say is that do you watch
Speaker 2: any NFL again.
Speaker 4: This podcast? Sorry? Carry on?
Speaker 2: Do you watch much American football? I think I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't really need there's no So.
Speaker 2: The minieset the Vikings, over the course of this season
Speaker 2: have been creating new celebrations weekly for if certain players
Speaker 2: score a touchdown, and they've been going through a selection
Speaker 2: of Disney Classic so they have been doing scenes from
Speaker 2: Camp Rock and from High School Musical. Would you be
Speaker 2: okay with these celebrations if it was like a different
Speaker 2: celebration every time, but it was more choreographed or is
Speaker 2: it the kind of repetitive nature of something that kind
Speaker 2: of just bordes you quickly.
Speaker 3: I think the repetitive is a big part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think maybe it would depend on the choreographing. I
Speaker 3: think that maybe would also get a bit dull after
Speaker 3: a while. It'd be quite funny to see some mob
Speaker 3: players having to do a choreograph routeam, especially if they
Speaker 3: were really grumpy about it. I might be into that
Speaker 3: if they were, like, you know, just like grizzled veterans
Speaker 3: being forced to do like a Glee style home run
Speaker 3: celebration dance that would make me laugh. But again, you
Speaker 3: could ask me a couple of weeks after they started
Speaker 3: and I'd be like, I'm bored of this now, so
Speaker 3: I want the variety. Really, it's definitely yeah. I can't
Speaker 3: imagine doing it in front of sixty two games and
Speaker 3: it's still being entertaining no matter what it is. Really,
Speaker 3: that's a hot.
Speaker 4: Take there that Darius is interested in the choreography. You know,
Speaker 4: we get Matthew Bourne in, we get some proper, you know,
Speaker 4: proper top notch ballet going on, we're in, but you know,
Speaker 4: he just doesn't want to see anybody flapping around.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to think, like, who is the funniest
Speaker 3: person who you who would be made to do a choreograph? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 3: making mad Magsie one like I can around, who's like
Speaker 3: the Brian mccanna of now, Like rules Police, I'm not having.
Speaker 2: This, Okay, Rob, give us our last thing from twenty
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four that we want to put into the bin.
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty four into the beer deferrals. Let's get controversial, okay.
Speaker 4: So it's not for the reason that everyone else is
Speaker 4: going on about deferrals because I've had a lot of
Speaker 4: heard a lot of arguments saying, you know, it's bad
Speaker 4: for competitive balance, it's bad for the player, it's bad
Speaker 4: for the teams. I really couldn't care less who it's
Speaker 4: good for and who it's bad for. My issue with
Speaker 4: deferrals is it's just weird rich people shit. If I
Speaker 4: doubt either any of the three of us, if we
Speaker 4: could say, oh, yeah, I'm going to defer half of
Speaker 4: my wages now for the next ten years, bullshit. I'm
Speaker 4: on the streets, I'm not driving my car, I'm barely eating.
Speaker 4: It's weird people shit, And I don't want to have
Speaker 4: to know about it because it's just a different world
Speaker 4: and it's silly, like they do a job, pay for
Speaker 4: the job, go home, you know. And I really don't
Speaker 4: care if, oh, it's great for the players or oh
Speaker 4: it's great for the teams, I don't care. It's stupid,
Speaker 4: weird people, rich people shit, and I'm not interested in it.
Speaker 4: I would rather it just went away, purely because I
Speaker 4: don't like it. I want to go away, and I
Speaker 4: don't care who it's good for, who it's bad for.
Speaker 4: It's just weird and it needs to go. Just pay
Speaker 4: people for what they're doing now, and that is that
Speaker 4: also there's some clearly some there's going to be a
Speaker 4: scandal about some tax evasion bollocks coming out of in
Speaker 4: a few years time, whereby someone isn't actually you know that,
Speaker 4: Oh that's the whole point actually in the place with it.
Speaker 4: Of course it is, but but someone's going to get
Speaker 4: caught up on it, and then then the whole house
Speaker 4: of cards is going to come clapsing down. And I
Speaker 4: don't want that just course either it's with rich people
Speaker 4: problems and I am not interested in it, thank you
Speaker 4: very much. Can we just take it away? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think that the two main sides of why it
Speaker 2: does exist is one so basically a player's contract can
Speaker 2: look bigger than it actually is. The Airey one is
Speaker 2: effectively partially done so he could get the biggest contract
Speaker 2: of all time, even though it absolutely wasn't. But it
Speaker 2: just makes it look like that. The other side to it,
Speaker 2: as he said, it's actually it's quite a bit about
Speaker 2: deferring the money to different times when you might not
Speaker 2: actually be living in areas or certain tax areas or
Speaker 2: more importantly, majorly, players get taxed every place that they
Speaker 2: go and play as well. So if you basically just
Speaker 2: defer this money to when you're not playing, you'll get
Speaker 2: paid that and not have to deal with doing your
Speaker 2: taxes in every single city that you go through. So
Speaker 2: I definitely think some of it is there to kind
Speaker 2: of keep the money out of other people's pockets. But
Speaker 2: I do get not wanting it because it's it's a
Speaker 2: fath to try and understand what it's going on. The
Speaker 2: only reason why I like having deferrals is because we
Speaker 2: don't end up with as much Bobby Vanilla day bollocks
Speaker 2: as we did before in the past, because everybody was
Speaker 2: just like, good, look at the Mets. They're still playing
Speaker 2: Bobby Vanilla, and it's like, yeah, it's actually that's good.
Speaker 2: Then restructuring their contract was actually a thing that they
Speaker 2: did that was smart. But everybody's just like, they're still
Speaker 2: playing Bobby Vanilla.
Speaker 3: Darius, any thoughts I agree with that statement. I don't
Speaker 3: know that there is always I feel like it's sort
Speaker 3: of a knee jerk reaction at this point. Somebody just
Speaker 3: posts something about Bobby Benir and it's like, let's laugh
Speaker 3: in the Mets. We don't need Bobby Benir to laugh
Speaker 3: at the Mets, do we like there's lots of material
Speaker 3: out there. Maybe not now they're signed one, so maybe
Speaker 3: the Mets will no longer be the figure of fun
Speaker 3: in MLB. But over the years there have been many,
Speaker 3: many more reasons to enough in the Mets than that,
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think that might be a good thing
Speaker 3: about it. I don't really care about deferrals. It's all weird.
Speaker 3: Everybody's got too much money. You just sort of have
Speaker 3: to not think about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's move on to something we actually would
Speaker 2: like to keep now, things that happened in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four that we would like to see more of. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna start off with Brent Rooker's Twitter account. I absolutely
Speaker 2: love the fact that we have a major League player
Speaker 2: who is at a club that is effectively stopped player
Speaker 2: teams that will stop fans can communicating with the club
Speaker 2: because the official Twitter account blocked comments over a year ago. Now,
Speaker 2: but you still have basically their top player and probably
Speaker 2: now the face of that franchise for the next few years,
Speaker 2: being very active on Twitter, being very active telling people
Speaker 2: what it's actually like and telling people to shut up
Speaker 2: and listen to someone who actually knows the truth, and
Speaker 2: to me, that's awesome. More of it, please, more players
Speaker 2: doing the same.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brent's great honesty is great, do everything he shares
Speaker 3: what the game is great and I think he's probably
Speaker 3: got a very long career in whatever he wants to
Speaker 3: do in terms of broadcasting, podcasting, whatever whatever he would like,
Speaker 3: because he's got a great personality as well. So yeah,
Speaker 3: very entertaining and much more. Please.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a brain there, articular intelligent. You know you
Speaker 4: genuinely want to hear him talk. Yeah, good bloke, much
Speaker 4: much more. I completely agree. That is something we could
Speaker 4: do with more.
Speaker 2: Of Okay, Rob, what else can we do with more of.
Speaker 4: Tider gaps at the top of the divisions? That's something
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four had that we haven't had in a while. Again,
Speaker 4: I did some research. I pulled some numbers up. Look
Speaker 4: at me and against you two bring up numbers.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, Phil, it's pretty it is pretty
Speaker 2: on key for Rob to do research for the kind
Speaker 2: of the more feely vibes, the sort of parts agreed.
Speaker 4: Well, So, the average gap between first and second in
Speaker 4: each division over the last few years in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: one was six point four two. Twenty twenty two it
Speaker 4: was ten point five, twenty thirteen was eight point three,
Speaker 4: and then we've dropped away to five point five as
Speaker 4: the average gap between number one and two over twenty four.
Speaker 4: And it's a little bit death of the super team
Speaker 4: also a little bit the death of the absolutely dreadful
Speaker 4: teams other than the White Sox. You know, the likes
Speaker 4: of the A's are pulled the boot straps up a
Speaker 4: little bit. The Royals much much better. You know that
Speaker 4: we haven't had those dreadful teams and it's just made
Speaker 4: it more competitive. And there's arguments about not wanting to
Speaker 4: have a homogious middle, but a homogeneous middle is giving
Speaker 4: us better competitions. You know, every division was still in
Speaker 4: play in somewhere or other in the last week of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, So long way that continue because I
Speaker 4: don't want to go back to oh it's September. Therefore
Speaker 4: the AL West has completed, you know, long way the
Speaker 4: Padres keep pushing and catching up the Dodgers and the
Speaker 4: rest of that division. So yeah, I think I think
Speaker 4: we had a really competitive year at the top. Again,
Speaker 4: not everyone wanting to push as much as they can,
Speaker 4: it does have some downsides, but I think I prefer
Speaker 4: that to the boom and bust that we've had. We've
Speaker 4: seen since sort of COVID days of teams who are
Speaker 4: either brilliant or awful, and the homodgeous middle is given
Speaker 4: us better competition.
Speaker 3: Yes, I agree, competition is great. I think you know
Speaker 3: what on of mine is sort of follows on from
Speaker 3: this later on. I think, probably slightly, but yeah, it's
Speaker 3: good when we have races late into the season, keeps
Speaker 3: things interesting. We don't really want to have to hear
Speaker 3: about how you know X division is boring or you
Speaker 3: know certain teams out spending everybody and making things uninteresting.
Speaker 4: You know that.
Speaker 3: I think that's overblown anyway, I'll probably come onto that later.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a good race. It was good playoffs,
Speaker 3: even though the Dodge is won. I think we had
Speaker 3: some very competitive races and blou series are around, so
Speaker 3: it's good for baseball, and he continues.
Speaker 2: Yes, it does, okay, Daris, what would you like to
Speaker 2: keep from twenty twenty four?
Speaker 3: I would like more more Paul Skins. Basically, I want
Speaker 3: more elite rookie pitchers. I also want more Paul Skins
Speaker 3: to be fair, but especially Jackson job. I think we're
Speaker 3: going to get another one, another sort of you know,
Speaker 3: blow your socks off top of the rotation type startup performance,
Speaker 3: hoping for and possibly from Andrew Painter as well. Hasn't
Speaker 3: pitched in a couple of years. I don't know if
Speaker 3: people remember, but he was sort of on track to
Speaker 3: start the season in the Phillies rotation incredibly young age
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago, and then he needed TJ
Speaker 3: and ended up missing the last couple of years. So
Speaker 3: we'll see how they bring him along. But I think
Speaker 3: both of them have got your real front end talent,
Speaker 3: and I think this kind of stuff is also just
Speaker 3: great for baseball. When we have the young guys come
Speaker 3: out of nowhere and really show that their high end talent,
Speaker 3: it's really good. You know, we are living in an
Speaker 3: age where we don't have a ton of these sort
Speaker 3: of real number one starter as anymore. The old guard
Speaker 3: are fading away now, you know, Kersher and Verlander and
Speaker 3: shirts are not what they used to be. We haven't
Speaker 3: had a ton of guides coming through to really replace that.
Speaker 3: So I would like to see us get back those
Speaker 3: you know, appointment of viewing number one, three or four
Speaker 3: races that just kind of occupy that space, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: hopefully that job can do that for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it'll be awesome to I think the
Speaker 2: side always is we've now got skens going into that
Speaker 2: sophomore time period. Are we going to see the slump
Speaker 2: teams maybe worked out what do against him or not?
Speaker 2: But no joke and plaintish both fascinating. You'd love to
Speaker 2: either to get full seasons out of there, to get
Speaker 2: them in May, and having impact on teams that are
Speaker 2: going to make the rosters, going to make the post
Speaker 2: you that was the only thing that basically missing from
Speaker 2: stuff that he very much felt like an Otani where
Speaker 2: it's like, oh, he's amazing in the playoffs.
Speaker 4: I would question. Now this is a question to both
Speaker 4: of you. Pick a number. What percentage of Paul schemes
Speaker 4: do you think is the mustache? And what I mean
Speaker 4: is like, there's plenty of fantastic young pictures out there,
Speaker 4: like they're you know, and is no doubt his talent
Speaker 4: is good enough that he is it should be at
Speaker 4: the tip of everyone's tongue in the discussions. But the
Speaker 4: mustache does something. It's not just it's not just a
Speaker 4: neutral in there, like there is a percentage of this
Speaker 4: poor Schemes experience and why everyone loves Paul Skimes that
Speaker 4: is to do with the mustache. So what percentage of
Speaker 4: him is mustache and what percentage of him is everything else?
Speaker 4: Because I don't think it's zero.
Speaker 2: So I think if you're going to start this like
Speaker 2: logical argument, that you have to start at the most
Speaker 2: extreme end of and go start with Tom Sellek so effectively,
Speaker 2: like if we can basically say, for him, how much
Speaker 2: is it the mustache that gives us basically a high
Speaker 2: point to work from rob and then we can kind
Speaker 2: of bring ourselves down like is it is it too
Speaker 2: much to say it's like even like thirty forty percent
Speaker 2: of like what it is is.
Speaker 3: The mustache tom Selleck.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean I don't think
Speaker 4: I'd even be able to pick him out of a
Speaker 4: lineup if he didn't have the mustache, and he certainly
Speaker 4: hasn't got any acting talent. Okay, so come out with
Speaker 4: Selic But I think Skins is probably less mustache. But
Speaker 4: I still don't think it's it's not a zero.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's a zero. I still think it's
Speaker 2: a reasonable one, maybe in the teens or the early
Speaker 2: twenties percentage. I think there are other things to Skeins
Speaker 2: as well. Obviously his rookie nature which he had last year,
Speaker 2: which he will lose, so the mustache should be could
Speaker 2: could become more important. He does have a famous partner
Speaker 2: as well, and they'll be done, which I think is
Speaker 2: also part of the scheme Ran. But yeah, if you
Speaker 2: were to shave his mustache off and put him in
Speaker 2: the Yankees in stripes, would you would you? Would you
Speaker 2: recognize Paul Skins? Darius?
Speaker 3: I think so, just because at first I thought I
Speaker 3: was actually asking literally what percentage of Paul Skins's body,
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, tall, very much. It's not
Speaker 3: it's not quite the seleg you know. I don't think
Speaker 3: it occupies quite enough of his face that I would
Speaker 3: be confused when it disappeared. You know, some of these
Speaker 3: guys go to the Yankees and you're like, what, who
Speaker 3: was under there? Gret Garrett Cole having to shave to
Speaker 3: go into Yankees was as much made weird than Paul
Speaker 3: Skins would be. And he also hasn't been like we've
Speaker 3: had one season of pl Skins basically, so I've not
Speaker 3: like got, you know, a decade of with a Tash
Speaker 3: and grained into my memory. I'm sure it won't take
Speaker 3: that long for the Yankees to sign him. Obviously the
Speaker 3: Pirates won't extend him, but yeah, I think there would
Speaker 3: still be obviously that double take moment where you're like,
Speaker 3: what where's the Tash? Why I should have put this
Speaker 3: on my list? Why isn't that in the Yankees?
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, yeah, we know, because it's just not
Speaker 2: going to change, Like there's there's like I'm waiting for,
Speaker 2: like the superstar that would be like basically tell them
Speaker 2: to jog on, but who knows, we're not going to
Speaker 2: get there. All right, We'll move on to the next
Speaker 2: thing that I would like to keep, And this is
Speaker 2: a very specific thing that is to me and a
Speaker 2: subset of fans of one specific team, But I would
Speaker 2: like Cleveland's bullpen to pitch the same as it did
Speaker 2: last year. There are not many times where you have
Speaker 2: four pitchers in the bullpen with e ras below two
Speaker 2: and a half. Last time I checked, it never happened before,
Speaker 2: and so it's obviously not going to happen again this season,
Speaker 2: which is why it is in my what I would
Speaker 2: like to want to keep. But it was pretty amazing
Speaker 2: to kind of like watch those guys go out like
Speaker 2: week in week out and ninety five percent of the
Speaker 2: time shut everybody down. And yes, I will give some
Speaker 2: credence to the fact that they faced mostly Ale centrals
Speaker 2: that were not particularly good, but we're still really exciting
Speaker 2: to watch. But his score that so most of those
Speaker 2: games were one or two run games, was very entertaining
Speaker 2: to watch.
Speaker 4: And I would like, I mean, yeah, given given the
Speaker 4: Raids have to play Cleveland at least four times a year,
Speaker 4: I'd rather they didn't. So I'm out on that one.
Speaker 3: Well, you're not going to get any arguments for me
Speaker 3: about relievers for us, so.
Speaker 2: Yes, as we're going on to something else, we'll I'll
Speaker 2: be talking about relievers where I think even Darius might
Speaker 2: be struggling. But okay, Rob, something else. The second thing
Speaker 2: that you would like to keep the.
Speaker 4: London games, please. They were bloody marvelous. Obviously absolutely obviously
Speaker 4: we're not getting them this year, but yeah, a lot, yeah,
Speaker 4: bloody marvelous. I had a little bit of a concern
Speaker 4: that that perhaps this year was the year that you know,
Speaker 4: everyone's sort of we've over the novelty. People aren't going
Speaker 4: to commit to as much. But you know what, I've
Speaker 4: probably had more fun this year than the previous years.
Speaker 4: So yeah, fantastic, long way to continue. Let's get them
Speaker 4: back because you know, I want to see the Rays
Speaker 4: play the Marlins because there's not many these coast teams
Speaker 4: left to come over. No, I'm sure they'll find someone better.
Speaker 4: But yes, absolutely, bring it back. We won it, we
Speaker 4: drank it in, We had fantastic time, you know, somewhere
Speaker 4: in between post traumatic stress and having the best time
Speaker 4: of your life due to levels of drinking. But yeah, brilliant,
Speaker 4: bring it back. Let's have more put it in my
Speaker 4: vain straight in.
Speaker 2: Yes, obviously we as far as we are aware, there
Speaker 2: is still we'll still the twenty twenty six game will
Speaker 2: go ahead. No details yet on who will be playing there.
Speaker 2: See the season afterwards is twenty twenty seven. Sadly is
Speaker 2: potentially I'm less likely that there will be a game
Speaker 2: because we'll probably just have the same thing we had
Speaker 2: with the last year. It might if there's any time
Speaker 2: in that being agreed to. We probably won't have a
Speaker 2: special game the year the first year of it because
Speaker 2: the lead time of organizing is too much two or
Speaker 2: three months in. But yeah, it's great fun. I don't
Speaker 2: think any of you can see otherwise, Darius, I think
Speaker 2: you were to have more of what four am kebab
Speaker 2: see up and ready for BP at ten am the
Speaker 2: next day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think I had any kebabs. There was
Speaker 3: a McDonald's trip because I think it was literally the
Speaker 3: only place that was open.
Speaker 4: You've just forgotten them because you were mullered.
Speaker 2: And Brown that were having the kebabs. Then was that
Speaker 2: the previous year?
Speaker 3: That was Andy? The previous year there's you know, vegan
Speaker 3: kebab less less convenient. Yeah, that was the previous year
Speaker 3: that and I can't release that photo that's classified. There
Speaker 3: is there is photographic evidence for a m kebab from
Speaker 3: Andy Brown and Tom Bringle.
Speaker 4: I would say I wouldn't I wouldn't begrudge the Germans,
Speaker 4: or the Italians or the Czechs getting getting a game
Speaker 4: not instead, but as well as us in the next CBA,
Speaker 4: because I really fancy a Batlet's road trip. And you know,
Speaker 4: anyone who listens is welcome to come along as we'll
Speaker 4: have an absolutely amazing time in you know, the back
Speaker 4: end of some weird place in Germany or you know,
Speaker 4: essentially Prague. So yeah, let's do it. Let's you know,
Speaker 4: let's have the europe as well. There's more and more people.
Speaker 4: Let's bring it in. I'm looking forward to it now.
Speaker 2: That would be amazing, Darius, what's the final thing that
Speaker 2: we are going to keep from twenty twenty four?
Speaker 3: I put down stolen base Mania, and I'm not sure
Speaker 3: whether it will continue to this level or not. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll still be high because the rules have changed.
Speaker 3: But will we get you know, Ellie Dela Cruze's insane pace.
Speaker 3: He obviously tailed off towards the end of the season.
Speaker 3: Will Otani go wild now that it's back to pitching.
Speaker 3: I kind of doubt it. I just want some guys
Speaker 3: to just really go for it, you know, like take
Speaker 3: advantage of these rules. If Anie can try and get
Speaker 3: to one hundred, if somebody else we've seen that. If
Speaker 3: you want to go and you have that intend to
Speaker 3: see a lot of bases. You don't even need to
Speaker 3: be the fastest guy in the league. You can do
Speaker 3: it with good instincts and you know, picking the right moments.
Speaker 3: So I just kind of want people to keep pushing
Speaker 3: the envelope. I think it's better for the game to
Speaker 3: have more action on the base paths and whether they
Speaker 3: successful or not. So I would like to keep going
Speaker 3: the way it has been going. I'd like individual players
Speaker 3: to keep in those boundaries of what we might expect
Speaker 3: in terms of records.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel that we need to find that player
Speaker 2: who's on an inconsequential team like Ellie to just go
Speaker 2: for it and kind.
Speaker 3: Of be like the white sock who's going to get
Speaker 3: six hundred and fifty Plight appearances and have absolutely no
Speaker 3: reason to do anything other than trying to steal a
Speaker 3: hundred bases.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just like you knew how could that be.
Speaker 2: But I was also thinking, like then I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wait, CGA Brams. But then also he just did
Speaker 2: not really steal at a good rate last year, so
Speaker 2: just stopped. Yeah, he just kind of like we got
Speaker 2: caught quite a lot. So you were just kind of like,
Speaker 2: maybe do not continue, CJ because even the national may
Speaker 2: have worked out that I think it was close to
Speaker 2: like eighty percent, which in the current climate is be poor.
Speaker 2: So yes, no, that is awesome. Okay, let's now move
Speaker 2: on to what we believe is going to happen. So
Speaker 2: we're gonna talk about a couple of things that we
Speaker 2: believe will continue. These are not our wants anymore. These
Speaker 2: are things that we just believe. And then we'll have
Speaker 2: things that we new, things that we believe are going
Speaker 2: to happen. So I'll start off both of my continues
Speaker 2: are kind of pessimistic. But the White Sex are going
Speaker 2: to be bad. The White Sox are going to be
Speaker 2: the worst team in baseball. Also, the White Sox don't
Speaker 2: really look like they're going to get better because one
Speaker 2: of the key ways of getting better is getting a
Speaker 2: good draft pick, and they are a revenue sharing paying team,
Speaker 2: not providing or not taking, and they can't basically get
Speaker 2: a spot in the draft lottery a couple of years
Speaker 2: basically in a row. So even though basically they were
Speaker 2: the worst team in baseball last year, they're going to
Speaker 2: draft tenth in the next season, so they don't even
Speaker 2: get any of that benefit anymore. And I think to
Speaker 2: one of the things Rob was saying in his last
Speaker 2: point about there's no reason for teams to go for
Speaker 2: the bust really anymore. The draft lottery has done some
Speaker 2: things to kind of get rid of that. But this
Speaker 2: expected or some of the projected White Sox lineups I've seen,
Speaker 2: especially on the pitching side, are ugly. Like I think
Speaker 2: they potentially have one player on their pitching lineup that
Speaker 2: has more service time than the rest on the pitching lineup.
Speaker 2: So they have Martin Perez, who I think has about
Speaker 2: twelve years, and then there's only about three or four
Speaker 2: other people who have more. So I don't know, Darius
Speaker 2: if if you've gone into the weeds yet with the
Speaker 2: baseball prospective annual on the White Sox, But this doesn't
Speaker 2: look good.
Speaker 3: It's not a great team. You know, there's the odd
Speaker 3: little bit they still have Louise Rowett top he's to
Speaker 3: forget with how bad they were, but he does still exist.
Speaker 3: He's still on the team. We'll see how long for.
Speaker 3: And they do have some good prospects. You know that
Speaker 3: they arguably have the two best left handed pitching prospects
Speaker 3: in the miners in Noah shulzten Haggin Smith. So it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's not completely bare in the cupboard, but
Speaker 3: there's not a lot to look forward to here. And
Speaker 3: who is going to try and sell one hundred bases,
Speaker 3: is it, Mike Tappenman, I don't think so. At least
Speaker 3: he gets once a bit, I suppose, But yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's going to be a season of hopefully, let's throw
Speaker 3: some things at the war and see what sticks, because
Speaker 3: last year it was let's try Robert Grossman in the
Speaker 3: outfield for six weeks for reasons that best known to
Speaker 3: the White Socks.
Speaker 2: I guess. Yeah, So you had an opportunity to do
Speaker 2: to do maybe what Boston to what Oakland did, which
Speaker 2: was just throw out all of your your young players
Speaker 2: and which ones do well. And I think they've kind
Speaker 2: of done well because of that, but throwing out multiple
Speaker 2: veterans who aren't good just felt like the India decision
Speaker 2: and they're dealing with the consequences in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: All right, Rob, give us something that you think will
Speaker 2: continue on from twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: I was going to say pictures of Andrew Vaughan looking
Speaker 4: sad and exhausted, But sure enough of those last year
Speaker 4: A postseason adverts are going to get more prominent, Like
Speaker 4: do not for a moment think that these things are
Speaker 4: going to stay in the post seeds, those horror roble
Speaker 4: helmet patches. I'm sure somebody liked them. I don't think
Speaker 4: many people did. All they're doing right now is they
Speaker 4: are getting us used to them in the postseason, and
Speaker 4: it will not be long until we start seeing them
Speaker 4: on regular jerseys. Like long is is you know, fine,
Speaker 4: maybe five years, maybe ten years, who knows, but it
Speaker 4: is absolutely coming. We will end up with football styles
Speaker 4: sponsors on shirts, you know, and then then the team
Speaker 4: naming rights will come as well. So it's going to continue.
Speaker 4: Those big, ugly helmet adverts. Be probably going to find
Speaker 4: there's a sleeve patch or something else. You know, we
Speaker 4: got the Betfread Tigers before we know it, the Funky
Speaker 4: Pigeon Yankees. You know, we could go on like the
Speaker 4: gazprom Braids, du X Dodgers. You know, I've got loads
Speaker 4: of these preparation h.
Speaker 3: Anymore, the Dodgers.
Speaker 2: To Dodge.
Speaker 3: Well, you want to have a word with the missus
Speaker 3: about that before before you make any decisions.
Speaker 2: Rough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so yeah, that's that's coming. Yeah, I don't particularly
Speaker 4: want it, but I think yes we're I mean, not
Speaker 4: not the Durik dodging. That's that's a different story for elsewhere.
Speaker 4: But yes, the the the drive rope padres are a
Speaker 4: horrible thing coming in at you.
Speaker 2: So honestly, do you remember the name of the company
Speaker 2: that had the helmet sponsor?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was so how much of an impact it has?
Speaker 2: I think it was Strauss, wasn't it? Remember?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, because I thought it was Johann But it
Speaker 4: was nothing to do with that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and obviously that had a lot of impact
Speaker 2: on you, Rob. The only thing I think that's had
Speaker 2: I like the ones that I've remembered from the it
Speaker 2: was like the Capital One World Series or wasn't the
Speaker 2: World Series or maybe it was the Divisional Series. I
Speaker 2: remember we had the one that was obviously the one
Speaker 2: that we all remember is you got to build them?
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely got to build them.
Speaker 3: That was very effective advertising. I mean, although I haven't
Speaker 3: more related than they, but I've gone into building submarines,
Speaker 3: but I've probably told a lot more people to build
Speaker 3: them than That got me to.
Speaker 2: Go to billsubmarines dot com, which I tell you that
Speaker 2: a significant number of advertising has never made men even
Speaker 2: go to a website. That got me on to a
Speaker 2: website before I realized what it actually was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was a joke. You know, I
Speaker 3: didn't think it was going to be building submarines, so
Speaker 3: I had to go and find out what it was,
Speaker 3: because I assumed it was just going to be some
Speaker 3: obscure reference to something else.
Speaker 2: And on that note, Darius, what else is going to
Speaker 2: continue from twenty twenty four?
Speaker 3: Well, my first one is Rob Manfred announcing stupid rule
Speaker 3: ideas to test them out to the market, because this
Speaker 3: seems to just be an annual occurrence. Now whatever it
Speaker 3: is pictures having to go six in the Golden at
Speaker 3: bat or whatever the hell he's calling it now, well,
Speaker 3: undoubtedly get some more of these where some idea that
Speaker 3: he doesn't particularly believe in. He just wants to do
Speaker 3: a bit of market testing, get thrown out there and
Speaker 3: get flung around. You know, all the talking heads will
Speaker 3: go at it. Everybody will say what it's for a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks, and then they we'll come out and say, well,
Speaker 3: we didn't want to do that anyway, that was a
Speaker 3: terrible idea. I don't believe in it. So I'm looking
Speaker 3: forward to the next one. Maybe we can this is
Speaker 3: this for as like a rob topic, you know, top
Speaker 3: ten stupid Rob Manfred suggestions that we're going to get
Speaker 3: this season. I think we could probably run with this
Speaker 3: at some point, but I'd rather not hear them from
Speaker 3: Manfred himself.
Speaker 2: Do you not think he's going to have too many
Speaker 2: other issues to deal with?
Speaker 3: Do you mean like the not Sacramento Athletics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And not to go into what I think somebody
Speaker 2: else's comment points is for later on, we'll move swiftly onwards.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you my other thing that I think is
Speaker 2: going to continue from into twenty twenty four. I'm going
Speaker 2: to tell you the Baltimore Orioles will not spend money.
Speaker 2: They're going to become the next Rays. They're not going
Speaker 2: to be like Houston. They're not going to be a
Speaker 2: team that gets in position and then spends the money
Speaker 2: to get them the free agent. They're going to try
Speaker 2: and trade away they're good prospects when they're out of
Speaker 2: cost control, or trade when they have too many prospects
Speaker 2: to get in some better players. They've basically taken a
Speaker 2: load of the front office from the Rays, and the
Speaker 2: new owner has said, oh, yes, I'll spend some money,
Speaker 2: but then has also come out this week and being
Speaker 2: like salary cap, Yes, please must must have a salary cap.
Speaker 2: So I'm sorry Boston fans, Boston fans, Baltimore fans, but yeah,
Speaker 2: your your team is. I don't think you're going to
Speaker 2: win because your own I don't think you're gonna spend
Speaker 2: money on that is.
Speaker 3: I mean, I just don't really get it. Like I'm
Speaker 3: sure Michael Aas has got some lovely spreadsheet somewhere showing
Speaker 3: how great a job's done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's just you know, just listen and as
Speaker 2: a as a pre pre pre insight into a podcast
Speaker 2: that you'll be coming after this one. John and I
Speaker 2: had a conversation with Zack Slott, who was the assistant
Speaker 2: GM at the Red Sox and was acting at the Mets,
Speaker 2: and he pretty much said that everybody has models, but
Speaker 2: you basically have to go over those models when buying
Speaker 2: free agents to actually sign players, because if you stick
Speaker 2: to your model, you will always basically buy because somebody
Speaker 2: will out you.
Speaker 4: It's not even the big splashes, is it. It's it's
Speaker 4: that they're not doing the middle bits, like they could
Speaker 4: have thrown a little bit of money at a few
Speaker 4: guys and they haven't done that. That's that's where it's
Speaker 4: Charlie Morton, Yeah, woa, there we go, I just drafted him.
Speaker 3: Actually, you hypocrite.
Speaker 2: I hope your fie ground to me yet. Roll. No,
Speaker 2: let's not talk about our fantasy drafts while we are podcasting, Rob.
Speaker 2: What is another thing from twenty twenty four that you
Speaker 2: believe is going to continue into twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: It's doom and gloom. The A's and the Rays stadium
Speaker 4: issues are only going to get worse. They're going to
Speaker 4: continue down the awful sort of it's not even like
Speaker 4: a graph anymore. It's like someone falling downstairs holding something
Speaker 4: really expensive. It's that bad. The A's are gonna gonna
Speaker 4: not end up where they should be through sharing competence,
Speaker 4: and the Rays because they seemingly have this self destruct
Speaker 4: the late is there is they actually now they've they've
Speaker 4: told told the guys in in Tapa not not to
Speaker 4: fix the stadium, then actually do fix the stadium. But
Speaker 4: we're not sure actually if we actually even want to
Speaker 4: continue with the new stadium that you're gonna fund. So
Speaker 4: it's just an absolute cluster f It's awful and it's
Speaker 4: only gonna get worse that the next the next step
Speaker 4: is gonna be you know, the Yankees good will runs
Speaker 4: out and then along we'll have to play at the
Speaker 4: stadium for twenty twenty six. But oh, they haven't got
Speaker 4: a roof, you know, that's the next thing. God only
Speaker 4: knows what's gonna happen with the Aes, Like are they
Speaker 4: ever gonna get funding? Are these lawsuits from teachers gonna
Speaker 4: step in a way, Like are they gonna move to
Speaker 4: Las Vegas? Or do we just have a team in
Speaker 4: a minor league park in Sacramento for the foreseeable. It's
Speaker 4: not gonna get better in this next year. I think
Speaker 4: we're gonna see more, more of the same things, getting
Speaker 4: worse on worse, And it's bad for these bat it's
Speaker 4: bad for the ideas of expansion, which I think we'd
Speaker 4: all like to see. It's just gonna get worse this now.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe twenty six twenty seven is where we'll start
Speaker 4: seeing some shoots again. But do not be fooled by
Speaker 4: the sound bites you hear this year. It is all
Speaker 4: getting worse for it.
Speaker 2: It's I don't disagree. I think the thing that I've
Speaker 2: said for a couple of years now is that I
Speaker 2: don't think they'll A's whatever make and I think that
Speaker 2: they will get the Washington National treatment or sorry, the
Speaker 2: Montreal expost treatment, as that the club will be taken
Speaker 2: away from them because they can't work out how to
Speaker 2: do anything, and some new owners will be put in
Speaker 2: place and they may eventually get to Las Vegas with them,
Speaker 2: but they could go with that, Darius. One other thing
Speaker 2: are we going to continue to see in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four and twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: I alluded to this earlier, but I think we're going
Speaker 3: to see more handwringing about competitive balance because obviously the
Speaker 3: Dodgers have done this to us with Sasaki and being
Speaker 3: the latest in this long line of the Dodgers signing
Speaker 3: players because nobody else can signed players, everybody goes to
Speaker 3: the Dodgers. It really doesn't matter. People like we had
Speaker 3: this last year and the Dodgers flight, you know, limped
Speaker 3: into the postseason with this cobbled together rotation and like
Speaker 3: ended up winning series on Freddie Freeman's hobble Dan call,
Speaker 3: It's just it's not a thing in baseball, like you
Speaker 3: don't get juggernauts the way you do with other sports
Speaker 3: that are just inevitably going to win, even if they
Speaker 3: just do win one hundred and fifteen games, in the
Speaker 3: regular season. They'll still get bounced in the first round
Speaker 3: of the playoffs. That's just what baseball is like. So
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to worry about this. I
Speaker 3: think people can also complain when we don't have any
Speaker 3: super teams. It's nice to have a villain. I'm pretty
Speaker 3: excited to see this collection of talent assembled. Regrettably, half
Speaker 3: of them will be injured by mid season and they'll
Speaker 3: be like still relying on Clayton kersh Or to come
Speaker 3: back and pitch spinning on them. So I just do
Speaker 3: not think it's worth worrying about. And hey, if it
Speaker 3: I just do one one hundred and twenty games, that's
Speaker 3: also kind of fun, Like it would be exciting to
Speaker 3: see the record get in and we'd still have some
Speaker 3: competitive playoffs. So just do not worry about it. It
Speaker 3: doesn't Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think we talked a fair bit about that in the
Speaker 2: previous pod that I think it's a big hooha over nothink,
Speaker 2: And yeah, if there's anything more to worry about, then okay,
Speaker 2: new things. Let's talk about some brand spanking new things
Speaker 2: to finish this podcast off, things that we think are
Speaker 2: going to happen in twenty twenty five that did not
Speaker 2: happen in the past. Talking about the Dodgers, I think
Speaker 2: more people are going to try and copy them. I
Speaker 2: think a lot of people are going to try and
Speaker 2: have a come into this season with a six man rotation,
Speaker 2: which is also just code for we're gonna have too
Speaker 2: many arms ready to be available for the season, but
Speaker 2: we expect some, if not quite a few of them
Speaker 2: be injured by the time of the season actually starts
Speaker 2: or during this I think this is the new market
Speaker 2: inefficiency in baseball is that actually, you should be your
Speaker 2: il spots as efficiently as possible because guess what, there's
Speaker 2: no max on your IL spots during the season. You
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about your forty man or you're
Speaker 2: taking your players off. You can have as many injured
Speaker 2: players as you like, So why bother basically getting a
Speaker 2: player that might give you one hundred and eighty innings
Speaker 2: of four and a half innings baseball when you can
Speaker 2: get two guys that will give you ninety innings of
Speaker 2: two and a half era baseball. That's I think that's
Speaker 2: where baseball is going. Whether that's a good or a
Speaker 2: bad thing, most likely it's probably not a good thing.
Speaker 2: But that's been I think that's what the Dodgers have
Speaker 2: shown that they can't the successes from to what I
Speaker 2: think the Rays have shown in a few years as well.
Speaker 2: But actually, just having tons of arms is the way
Speaker 2: that you actually get a goods and a pitching out there.
Speaker 2: And I I've already seen three or four teams that
Speaker 2: have mentioned a six man rotation for twenty twenty five. Darius,
Speaker 2: is this on your radar as well?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see sort of the extent to which teams
Speaker 3: can manage it. I think the main obstacle might ultimately
Speaker 3: end up being how many live arms are left that
Speaker 3: teams actually think, yeah, we've got six of these guys
Speaker 3: we want to start. That might be the obstacle for
Speaker 3: a lot of teams because you look down the depth
Speaker 3: chat and you go, I don't think they've got five
Speaker 3: guys I want to start, So that would be the problem.
Speaker 2: Well, you're telling me the Diamondbacks are not going to
Speaker 2: run a six man rotation with Jordan Montgomery Jordan Montgomery
Speaker 2: as their sixth man, not.
Speaker 3: Unless Jordan Montgomery's had a great Officely, Yeah, that doesn't
Speaker 3: seem that likely. I guess you can you know, sort
Speaker 3: of tigers it up and try and piece things together
Speaker 3: with openers and ballpen arms and all sorts, But I
Speaker 3: think that's not really sustainable over a long term. You
Speaker 3: need a decent amount of luck to have that come
Speaker 3: together as well. So I wouldn't be surprised if we
Speaker 3: see more teams trying it this year, and I think
Speaker 3: probably for most of them, they'll find that they don't
Speaker 3: actually have the personnel to make it happen.
Speaker 4: I think the six man rotation is purely to keep
Speaker 4: the players happy pr internal pr If you've got five
Speaker 4: guys on your roster already who are like, Wow, these
Speaker 4: guys are a top level starters, and you've got another
Speaker 4: guy you want to pick up, you're not going to
Speaker 4: tell him, well, yeah, you're gonna be you big money.
Speaker 4: A're gonna be fighting the other five guys. No, we're
Speaker 4: gonna run a six man rotation. Nobody's going to run
Speaker 4: a six man rotation for more than a few weeks.
Speaker 4: It's when the first arm goes, then we're back to fight.
Speaker 4: And I think you'll find by come May everyone's back
Speaker 4: to a five man or fewer rotation. At the six
Speaker 4: man things is not a genuine just building.
Speaker 2: It, building him spraying management. Okay, Rob, what do you
Speaker 2: think will be new in twenty twenty five?
Speaker 4: I think new in twenty twenty five will be there'll
Speaker 4: be a one and done confusion about the shift new
Speaker 4: shift and or base running rules. So they've made some
Speaker 4: very minor tweets to the rules, and I think there's
Speaker 4: going to be just to clarify then. So the rule
Speaker 4: now is if anyone violates the shift rule where you've
Speaker 4: got to have two guys either side of second base
Speaker 4: and they're not had to be on the outfield dirt
Speaker 4: outfields on the infield dirt all that. Whereas it was
Speaker 4: an automatic ball I believe for violating that before, now
Speaker 4: it's going to be an awarded base much like a
Speaker 4: balk really or you know, catches interference where everyone's just
Speaker 4: going to move up one. So that one I do
Speaker 4: think it's too bad where we're going to get more confusion.
Speaker 4: I think is this new base running rule which I
Speaker 4: had to read a couple of times to fully understand,
Speaker 4: and now if I'm going to try and relay it,
Speaker 4: it's not gonna make any sense. But essentially people were
Speaker 4: told to overrun second base rather than sliding into second base,
Speaker 4: so if they got there, the third basement could get
Speaker 4: in home whilst and then the second basement is called
Speaker 4: out on the tag rather than being called out at
Speaker 4: second base. And so now they've changed it that you
Speaker 4: can't do that anymore, so that your third basement can't
Speaker 4: score on deliberately overrunning the second base. This is going
Speaker 4: to cause at some point a great big fight that
Speaker 4: no one quite understands what they're fighting about. One and done.
Speaker 4: It will happen, and then we'll all be online with
Speaker 4: it again. But I think at most people at this
Speaker 4: point won't even be aware of this rule having changed.
Speaker 4: And I think a team is going to fall afoul
Speaker 4: of it. There'll be a big scandal and that be that.
Speaker 4: But we're going to have some kind of discourse over
Speaker 4: this very minor rule which only affects very few teams,
Speaker 4: notably the Yankees who found this inefficiency and were deliberately
Speaker 4: overrunning second when there's two outs already. I didn't think
Speaker 4: I explained that rule very well. I'm not one hundred
Speaker 4: percent sure I fully understand it. I want no.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting one because it requires umpires to interpret behavior,
Speaker 2: which I think is something that you should never basically have.
Speaker 2: I think it's a wrong change, and I do believe
Speaker 2: you are right that there will be some confusion at
Speaker 2: some point, be it from a coach or a manager,
Speaker 2: or probably more from someone commentating on a game and
Speaker 2: not understanding why something has happened, which is usually the
Speaker 2: funnier side to the game, where it's like rule change,
Speaker 2: we all have no idea what is going on there
Speaker 2: is what's going to be new.
Speaker 3: I think we might actually get an official announcement of
Speaker 3: the challenge system, whether that's you know that we'll be
Speaker 3: using it next year. For those who don't know, they
Speaker 3: have been trying sort of the robot umpire but not
Speaker 3: full robot umpire in the miners, so the machine calls
Speaker 3: the balls and strikes, but players are allowed to use
Speaker 3: it to challenge the umpire school, rather than having it
Speaker 3: be the sort of overriding arbiter of all the balls
Speaker 3: and strikes. This seems to be the better way to
Speaker 3: operate it, based on all the feedback in the testing
Speaker 3: they've done so far, so I think after another season
Speaker 3: of doing that in the miners, we might be approaching
Speaker 3: a yeah, we're going to we're going to do this
Speaker 3: in the Major's announcement, and I'm all for I think
Speaker 3: this would be a good fusion of the technology and
Speaker 3: the existing system, and probably one announcement that Manfred will
Speaker 3: make that I won't get upset about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a highly unlikely scenario, a Manfred announcement that
Speaker 2: doesn't send shivers down your spines. It's all the pitch
Speaker 2: clock stuff has been good, So yeah, I still kind of.
Speaker 4: We said earlier the draft lottery worked as well, so
Speaker 4: you have some wins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just copying your peers. That one dog gonna give
Speaker 2: him any credit for that one, and the other one
Speaker 2: is just enforcing a law that existed in the rule
Speaker 2: book anyway that you just chose not to enforce. So now,
Speaker 2: no no credit, no credit for either of those two
Speaker 2: as far as I'm for Rob, But yeah, I will
Speaker 2: generally be fully on board with this. I think there
Speaker 2: is an entertainment perspective to all of this as well.
Speaker 2: Of many of us here have watched tennis or cricket
Speaker 2: or whatever to have but I think tennis is very
Speaker 2: good with the moment of knowing whether something was ball
Speaker 2: or a strike, So I think this could add to
Speaker 2: the entertainment value of the game probably more on television
Speaker 2: than in the stadium, unless they kind of get it
Speaker 2: up on the big screen as well at the same
Speaker 2: time so everybody else can see what was what is
Speaker 2: going on. But yeah, I think it could have a
Speaker 2: very good entertaining perspective and just it just if we
Speaker 2: get rid of like the worst, like five of call,
Speaker 2: everything's just better. Although, hey, Daris, you're taking away the
Speaker 2: the Kyle Schwarber moment. If you kind of if you
Speaker 2: can challenge it, he's not going to get ejected. He's
Speaker 2: going to be like, well, maybe he's going to get
Speaker 2: ejected because he was like, I told you so, and
Speaker 2: then he'll get ejected. But being like.
Speaker 3: Challenging and the robot agrees with the human umpire and
Speaker 3: then he's like, well you're both wrong, and he loses
Speaker 3: it even more, just starts beating the machine the robot.
Speaker 2: There were reports that came out of like when this
Speaker 2: was first tested, like in Single A, they had ones
Speaker 2: where the players didn't know that it would be tested
Speaker 2: and they were arguing balls and strikes to the umpires
Speaker 2: when they were they were actually being done by the robot.
Speaker 2: There are some uppliers in the cingale that have basically
Speaker 2: been ripped into by players, and it was like, not
Speaker 2: my decision, bud, Okay. So the last thing that I'm
Speaker 2: going to boldly predict will happen in twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: is a bouncy you ball. Like I feel that we
Speaker 2: do not get consistency year on year. I don't know
Speaker 2: if this is just because we have more analytics available
Speaker 2: to us now than we ever did before. I very
Speaker 2: much imagine that the ability to making a more standardized
Speaker 2: ball is better now than it ever has been in
Speaker 2: the history of baseball. But we seem to go through
Speaker 2: variations year on year based on the batches and based
Speaker 2: on what seemed created. So we got a little bit
Speaker 2: of a maybe not a dead and ball last year,
Speaker 2: but it didn't seem to be coming off the back
Speaker 2: quite as much as in some of the previous I
Speaker 2: imagine someone has course corrected in the rulings laboratories wherever
Speaker 2: they may be. I think they're in like in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2: And then we will have a bouncier ball in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. So we'll hail your home run king this year.
Speaker 3: I think one hundred hundred that's what we want.
Speaker 2: One hundred hundred is like, if you're talking about that,
Speaker 2: you've changed the Like I think I saw an interview
Speaker 2: with Kenny Lofton saying that, like you'd get a hundred
Speaker 2: solent bases in this current thing, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: because your team just wouldn't let you do it, Like
Speaker 2: and if you started to steal when they said no
Speaker 2: and you were getting caught, well you get dropped. Like
Speaker 2: the one hundred hundred is, let's get like sixty sixty
Speaker 2: first Darius hundred double, the double A Toney Ellie.
Speaker 3: Can do sixty sixty. It's fine with your You two Sporus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, flying find out that park Yeah, and Stacast home
Speaker 2: run Paul Park factor that stadium does. Okay, Rob, what
Speaker 2: is the last thing you think is going to be
Speaker 2: new to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: White Sox Milkshot Milkshake arms Race. The White Sox Milkshake
Speaker 4: was probably the most famous and successful thing that happened
Speaker 4: in the South Side last year, and they had their great, big,
Speaker 4: fancy milkshake. And I reckon that our hipster friendly Bryce
Speaker 4: Harper doing TikTok's making coffee friendly crowd are gonna follow along.
Speaker 4: There's gonna be there's gonna be some sort of ridiculously
Speaker 4: overly priced, overly made version of a normal food stuff
Speaker 4: in every park that is going to challenge the White
Speaker 4: Socks milkshake for supremacy as the peak, the peak thing
Speaker 4: you can get in a ballpark. I think I think
Speaker 4: we got to weird stuff. We've been through weird stuff.
Speaker 4: We've been through cheap offers where you can you know,
Speaker 4: I managed to spend twenty dollars on a two dollars
Speaker 4: hot dog night once and regretted that. But you know,
Speaker 4: we've had the cheap We've had that. Now I think
Speaker 4: we're gonna go super super fancy, like really overspect stuff,
Speaker 4: you know. I think I think we've got that. Pass
Speaker 4: leaves some ideas that came up with. Maybe the Cardinals
Speaker 4: can have a mac and cheese made where there's an
Speaker 4: in house cow milked by Wade Miley. It goes into
Speaker 4: making the cheese for you and it takes bloody ages
Speaker 4: and costs you hundred quid to get this fancy mac
Speaker 4: and cheese. Or the Astros have a special orange juice
Speaker 4: which is freshly squeezed against the bin lid. The old
Speaker 4: classics are the best maybe do.
Speaker 2: You know they're no longer sponsored by Minute.
Speaker 4: Well, I know, yeah, and maybe the second the second
Speaker 4: best version of everything. But yes, I think there's gonna
Speaker 4: at arms race, and I think I think ridiculously hips
Speaker 4: three over priced, you know, and it's gonna be like
Speaker 4: a bowl of cereal that's got like one honey nut
Speaker 4: loop one, you know whatever. It's gonna be something strange
Speaker 4: and weird. But there's going to be like Pinnckley over engineered.
Speaker 4: Normal foods are going to become the new the new market.
Speaker 4: Inefficiency in Bullpark food and beverage amazing.
Speaker 2: I have no comments.
Speaker 3: My comment is that I'm very grateful that the words
Speaker 3: he said after mac and cheese weren't milk shape. Oh man,
Speaker 3: he's writing it down.
Speaker 2: All right. Darius finishes off for this podcast. What are
Speaker 2: we going to see twenty twenty five that we did
Speaker 2: not see?
Speaker 3: I am going to say that for the first time
Speaker 3: in well, if you don't count twenty twenty nine years,
Speaker 3: I believe the Houston Astros will not win the AL West.
Speaker 3: It's time for a new division winner. Others have come
Speaker 3: and tried and failed, blown it up. Jim Croan doesn't
Speaker 3: know what he's doing over there. They're you know, trading
Speaker 3: away Ryan Prestley, They're trading away Kyle Tucker. I think
Speaker 3: it's going to be a disaster.
Speaker 2: It's all.
Speaker 3: It's all burning down. The empire is in pieces, and
Speaker 3: I don't know who it's going to be. I'm just
Speaker 3: saying somebody else is the problem. That's the problem. That's
Speaker 3: why this is a bold prediction.
Speaker 4: I don't doubt that the Astros are going to fall off.
Speaker 4: It's who's actually going to be competent enough to pick
Speaker 4: up the pieces and overtake them is more the problem.
Speaker 2: Why Sir I did not mention the last week, but
Speaker 2: the Texas Rangers. This year shall be the year when
Speaker 2: this podcast is all in on the Rangers. We're gonna
Speaker 2: flip flop like the best Donald Trump. We're gonna be
Speaker 2: a year where the Rangers are bad and then the
Speaker 2: Rangers are good, and then you won't know which one.
Speaker 2: We're gonna say. No matter what happens.
Speaker 3: Jacob de Gron comeback Tour, it's all happening. Hey, maybe
Speaker 3: the Mariners will sign somebody. Okay, that's not going to happen.
Speaker 3: Maren is gonna win eighty five games with like the
Speaker 3: best rotation in baseball and the worst offriends.
Speaker 2: In baseball, Thank you, Darik.
Speaker 3: But eighty five games might be the Astros could happen.
Speaker 2: Could be the first one of the first teams to
Speaker 2: win with a blue five hundred record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is this is what Jerry has been
Speaker 3: waiting for, just the Astros to be this mediocre, to
Speaker 3: get anybody. Fifty four percent. That's all we need, baby percent.
Speaker 3: It's going to do it this year.
Speaker 2: Fifty four percent. And on that bombshell. Thank you both
Speaker 2: Darius and Rob for your glorious insights on what we
Speaker 2: want to keep, what we want to be in, what
Speaker 2: we want to see, and what we expect to see
Speaker 2: more of in the twenty twenty five baseball It has
Speaker 2: been a pleasure, as always, two chats with you, fine gentlemen.
Speaker 2: As always, you can find us at Backflips, Underscore Nerds
Speaker 2: on Twitter, slash x and Backflips and Nerds on many
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