First Week of Opening Day, MLB Owners & Diggs to Houston | Episode 153
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Alex Boyajian
4/4/202443 min read
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First Week of Opening Day, MLB Owners & Diggs to Houston | Episode 153
00:00 NFL's Christmas Game Sparks Controversy
02:15 Stefon Diggs Trade Shakes Up NFL
08:27 Major League Baseball's Uniform Fiasco
11:33 Yankees and Dodgers Dominate Early in the Season
13:21 Mets and Marlins Struggle to Find Success
15:12 The Rise of Super Teams in Baseball
30:02 Disparities in Talent and Spending
31:22 The Dominance of the Los Angeles Dodgers
38:31 The Role of Ownership in Shaping Success
41:19 Exploring Fan Involvement in Decision-Making
55:12 Hopes for the Upcoming Week in Baseball
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Alex Boyajian (00:18)
Welcome back episode 153 of Chaotically Intolerant 153. That's right. Well, it's baseball season, but the NFL never stops, right? The NFL will never stop. They'll never give up. They also announced they're playing a game on Wednesday, Christmas. Yeah. I hate that. Me too. I know you're really, really against it. And I love I love more days of football, but Wednesday is like Tuesday and Wednesday is not a day.
for football? Like I can't even imagine how they'll work that out. Like are they going to make a team play Friday the week before and then Wednesday and then play Thursday the next week? Like how is that even going to work out? Yeah, it's probably too late for bi -week. So it would probably be maybe Saturday, Wednesday, and then let's play the following Sunday, I guess. Because Saturday, Wednesday would be Sunday, Thursday. They've never done like the only two days off.
So my guess is those teams will play and is it a triple header or is it just one game? I think it's just one. Okay. So yeah, they'll probably have those two teams play Saturday games just so that they don't have as short of, you know, the quote unquote normal short week. Yeah. It's like, I don't understand why they feel the need. Like they already know that they're the Kings, right? Like I feel like you're going to get the same amount of watch on if you do it on a Monday night.
or maybe even push to a Tuesday, which I don't like, but you could do a Tuesday, Monday game. Like you absolutely could do that, but it's the NFL. They're going to do what they want, but we'll lead off again with the big trade that happened today. Stefan Diggs to the Houston Texans. Man, am I terrified. This is awful. I woke up this morning. I slept in late this morning and that was the worst thing I could have woken up to, I think.
I do have to remember he's old. He is like, he's getting old. So it's not like he's young step on digs, but they have three number one wide receivers on that roster right now. Horrible. Yeah. I mean, it didn't feel like he was destined to stay in Buffalo. So I think in Houston's at the point where I think they need to make a move to sort of solidify their standing. Um, we'll see. I mean, digs is not, it's not that he lacks the talent. It's the head space really that seems to be.
holding him back. But yeah, now Houston with a lot of talent, but then they'll have expectations, which is hard for a team. You know, it'll be the first year that they have people counting on them to win. It's easy when you come off a three -win season, you can kind of just relax, go play football. So they'll have to deal with the weight of expectations, but Colts not getting Sneed probably seems worse now, but the Titans got Sneed, which seems better for them against their division rival. Yeah, I mean,
Like the Titans just don't really seem to have much else. So it kind of felt like a, I don't know, it didn't feel like one of those like big moves that puts them over the top. You know, like that's not what it did for them. I don't know even, I don't really know what it did for them, honestly, but it didn't really do as much as I think they're expecting. That's weird to say. And I mean, yeah, that stung and the Colts didn't want to spend the money, but we signed.
Julian Blackman back again yesterday, I think was, that was something I did want to happen. But I mean, you got to get a big name at some point, right? Like to win football, like to win big games, you need to have big players and homegrown talent is fun for a while, but you need to spend the money too. But it's not a shock. Like I went into this off season saying they're not going to sign anyone big and they really didn't. So I'm not exactly surprised at this happening at all.
That's too bad, because the Colts are closer to contention than the Titans are, that's for sure. Yeah, by far. But we can harp on it all day long, but it's not going to change anything. And also, RIP to Vonte Davis as well, that happened yesterday, passed away. They found him in his grandmother's home. So I remember him as a Colt. He was a great, great Colt, great dolphin.
He did retire at halftime with the Buffalo Bills and I think people clowned on him a lot for that, but we don't know what was going on in his head. So yeah, but RIP to him. I think he was 35 years old, so very sad. Yeah, yeah, very definitely. Curious what happened. I know he had maybe some mental health issues potentially, but always sad to see passing. And then Pat McAfee, they were talking about, you know, few of those Colts players have passed.
Edwin Jackson, a couple other guys that have passed recently. So it's, yeah, always sobering news to hear that. Yeah. All right. Well, let's let's move to baseball. So the Boston Red Sox, I want to I just I have to start with the Red Sox because this isn't like as good as it could have started. Obviously, they could be undefeated right now. But at four and two and your bullpen is or your starting pitching is.
I mean, they're fun. They're they're awesome right now. Like Andrew Bay or Andrew Miller is has changed that rotation for the better. Like almost everybody looks pretty dominant right now. I just I don't even know what to say. But again, this is my validation of twenty twenty one and twenty thirteen. It can always happen. It can always happen. And again, we're foreign to like we're not.
We're not mid season and we're sitting in second place fighting for a playoff spot. So I want people to know that I realize we're six games into the year. Um, but just to be here is pretty awesome. It's pretty cool to, to like go into a season with no expectations and they're blowing them out of the water to start. Yeah. I mean, look, you take the wins where you can get them. April baseball counts the same as September baseball. So these wins are all important. And, um,
You know, look to start on the West Coast is not easy to play at any time in the West Coast as an East Coast team. So go to Seattle. Now you go to Oakland. Yeah. Promising start. Yeah. I'm going to say something just about West Coast baseball. The West Coast needs to adapt to the East Coast. Like they need to adapt to the times. We can't have an East Coast baseball team.
playing at 10 o 'clock at night. I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's the Royals. I don't care. I don't care. I don't think it's right to have that. And it sounds like so East Coast like supremacy, but 47 % of the country lives in the Eastern time zone. That's just how it is. It's a, the America is an Eastern time zone country. You can't have team. I just don't think you can have teams starting at 10 o 'clock, especially on opening day.
Well, when you have two West Coast teams, maybe it's one thing, but when you have two East Coast teams, you'd like to see maybe they move the games up to nine at least, you know, because they'll play the national championship game at what, 920 Eastern time for March Badness, which is a little nuts. I mean, granted, shorter games in the NFL and MLB, but it's, yeah, I never liked that. It was always sucky when, you know, my teams, especially, you know, growing up.
Now a little different, you can use easier access to watch games and stay up later to watch as you get older. But yeah, not ideal 10 o 'clock. They're doing them at like 9 40, which is like their fake attempt at like, Oh, look, we're making it earlier for the East Coast. It's like 30 minutes. That's one inning. So instead of getting done at one 30 in the morning, it's going to be one o 'clock. Awesome. Thanks. You know, thanks Major League Baseball.
And another gripe I have with Major League Baseball unit. I'm calling it. I'm dubbing it uniform gate uniform or uni gate The Mariners didn't have their uniforms On Sunday, they just did not have the cream colored uniforms that they wanted. They were not delivered in time to wear them and The st. Louis Cardinals did not have the powder blues Ready, they might not have them ready until the summer
The Yankees were sweating through their uniforms against the Astros in a game that was played in March. You could literally, the jerseys were damp with sweat. This is outrageous. I've never seen a professional sports league like this be so inept with their uniforms. I mean, their goddamn uniforms. How do you not care about what your players look like on the field? Baseball's popularity is already declining.
Why would anyone care about the game now when the league doesn't even care about what their players look like? It's crazy. It's been a whole fiasco at this point. Really has. I mean, got to listen to Seinfeld, right? What was that whole like the cotton they wanted to switch the uniform material if it was, maybe they should just George goes up to Buck Showalter of all. Yeah. And he's like, you know, the players are complaining about the uniforms. You know, they don't feel like they're breathable.
I think you should go to cotton. It's a natural fiber. He's right. And then the jerseys shrink and then like two games later and they're going out and they said Don Mattingly. Pants rinsed out there. He's waddling. Yeah.
But I just, I've never seen something this inept and like baseball, like Rob Manfred already has a bad name for himself. And this, he just keeps fucking up and I don't, I don't get it. I really don't. This is so horrible. Yeah. Like if, if you, if you, I highly recommend any, any listener that wants to buy a new Jersey, don't buy the $175 jerseys that they sell at the team store.
Go to DHgate or Alibaba, which they're Chinese suppliers. The logos are not screen printed. They're not like heat pressed on. They're actually embroidered. The names on the backs are actually embroidered. The shirt might be a little lower quality, but overall much higher quality. And you can get a Jersey for 15 bucks on DHgate or Alibaba. Much better. Just completely skirt around Major League Baseball for that. You're not getting a higher quality thing there.
Let's talk about, let's see here. So how do we want to do this? I guess we'll, I mean, the Yankees are starting out hot, but we do this every year with them, right? We do the exact same thing. And the Astros sucked to start the year. They forgot how to play baseball again. Again, the exact same thing. Well, they threw a no hitter for their only win. That's true. The one that game last night, blew it in the ninth, you know, Josh Hader. So there's, there's a whole, you know, a lot of.
weird alternate universe stuff happening for the Astros. They get off to a slow start a lot, so there's no panic there. I mean, that's the thing with baseball. It's not like an 0 -2 start in the NFL, 0 -3 start where it really kind of really puts you in an uphill battle. The Yankees, I mean, they're good, but they are not 5 -0 good. No way. Well, 5 -1 now. But yeah, they caught Houston at the right time and nothing looked...
Spectacular. I mean Soto did some good things. There was some excitement But these this stuff's all gonna level out it is and that's the thing people have to realize with baseball You can't make these overreactions Lots of fights as well to start the year the blue jays and Rays gotten and got into a fight I can't remember there was at least like two other fights where guys were guys were pissed and I think it has to do with the uniforms there if you're if you're
If you're uncomfortable when you're playing, you're more likely to get mad. The uniforms are, that's the cause for everything. I'm sure the Astros can blame the uniforms, they were sweating too much. No, but I guess who do you think was the big winner of the first weekend? Like who really stuck out to you? Stuck out to you. I mean, it would have to be a team that did well that,
Isn't supposed to, I guess the Yankees only because a four game sweep in Houston is, I mean, I don't know if the Astros even experienced that at any point in this run where they've lost, you know, been swept at home in a four game series. Um, I think given the Garrett Cole didn't pitch wasn't available in that, in that series. Um, I think the Marlins coming out of the gate, Owen.
now going to be 0 -7 getting hammered today. I mean, they were a playoff team last year, but they have a lot of problems with their rotation. That's, but alarming to see a team at home get pummeled like that by the pirates and now the angels. Um, so they're the big loser, one of the big losers early on. And then, you know, but flip side is you got to throw Pittsburgh in there and Milwaukee has a couple of central teams off to really nice starts because.
kind of trash in the central a little bit. We really liked the Cubs and the Reds. But the Brewers have been a team that's been in the hunt. They've been in the postseason, well, I guess they didn't make it last year, but you know, like four or five times over the last seven, eight years, right? So kind of not wanting to just concede the division maybe and getting off to a strong start. And you called the Pirates as a playoff team, so I hope that comes true. Getting off to a nice start as well.
What's wrong with the Mets? Frank the Tank, obviously we have to mention. They are horrible. Yeah. Well, this is just more the residual of all the moves they made that didn't really pan out. And we haven't seen JD Martinez on the field yet for the Mets. So I don't even know how much of a difference he can make at this point. Yeah, a winless.
at home so far to start that's always deflating right when you win this at home you come out for opening day and you have a home stand and you don't win that is that's pretty deflating that's what the Marlins are looking at right now um it's what the Mets are potentially looking at they got now a double header tomorrow against Detroit Detroit also another team that we were speaking highly of in our preview off to a good start again played the White Sox playing the Mets so you kind of have to take this stuff into consideration a little bit.
to, you know, and I think that's why the Yankees are more noteworthy because what they did was against the Astros in these other teams. You know, they beat the Marlins or the Angels or the, you know, it's a little harder because you want them to see, you know, if the other teams are as bad as we think, right? Like you go out and beat a team who is supposed to be bad, but then all of a sudden they start playing a little better. It's like, well, maybe that win, that series win was legit.
And, uh, yeah, keep going, keep going. No, I was saying, and then, you know, we expect the Dodgers to win every game and they've been pretty close to doing that so far. I lost a couple, but, um, but again, I mean, you know, Cardinals and Giants, who knows how good they are. They might be really good. It might be like, Oh, the Dodgers are just as good or might just be, Hey, the schedule has been favorable for them. And, um, you know, Smookie Betts can hit 500 all year. Freddie Freeman's going to hit 14. I don't think so. Um, so it'd be kind of.
Kind of interesting to see as the season goes on what these teams' identities are and do they live up to the billing or go in the other direction. There was a stat I heard, I can't remember the specific stat, but I know Mookie Betts' start, him and one other player are the only two players to start out this hot, Babe Ruth.
is the only other person there is it has something to do with him switching to shortstop or what is he second base is he second base or shortstop? Is he short now right? Or short.
It's short. I can't remember which one it was because I know he made the switch and then oh, Zander Bogart's made the switch to second base. That's what I was thinking of. Mookie and Babe Ruth are like two of the hottest starts to a season. And literally just last week on our baseball preview, I made the comparison of the Red Sox selling Mookie just like them selling off Babe Ruth. And then they just won't win a World Series again after.
doing that shit. But yeah, I would I mean, Mookie, I feel like this kind of came out of left field, right? Like it meant, you know, no pun intended. But it came a little out of nowhere that he started like this, because I feel like last year he wasn't maybe it's just the way they kind of left the season. You know, you get swept and I think he maybe had one hit in that final series against the Diamondbacks. Like it didn't really feel like Mookie Betts was Mookie Betts last year. Yeah, I mean, he's
been an MVP before he's been, you know, he's the kind of guy that when he gets hot, he gets insanely hot, but he can also cool off as he's done in the postseason. He's talented player, he's talented player. What is it, 32 now? You know, it's a crazy thing is that their big three are all, you know, because we think with baseball, like Prime is maybe a little younger, you know, 26, 27, you start to see guys really coming to their own.
But when you factor in that even Otani will be what 30 this summer, then all three guys postseason will be in their thirties. So it's pretty impressive that they can play it, you know, not, and they don't, none of them, obviously Otani you wouldn't expect, but you would have thought maybe Betts would slow down a little bit. Maybe Freeman would slow down a little bit. Cause you'll get like an Albert Pujols for example, you know.
and what happened over the life of his contract, guys like Robinson Kennaux as they got older. That's just not happening to these guys. I think that feeling for Mookie, why he was somewhat coming down, the last four years. Now, this is crazy to say that he's quote coming down, but he's been under 300 three of the last four years.
2020 or actually for the last five 2019. It was 295 2020 It was 292 which again that year doesn't really count And then 21 and 22 he was 264 269 which isn't horrible but something you expect from Mookie Betts who just signed a what a 10 -year deal with the Dodgers in 2019 13 13 year 13 year for yeah, I remember seeing the number and just being
completely and utterly deflated being like, oh my fucking God, this guy is literally never coming back to Boston. There is no shot of like a end of career last couple years in Boston. But I think, yeah, maybe this is like his revival year, 2024. I hope it is. I still love Mookie. He's an awesome guy. Yeah, I can't, as much as I love the Dodgers, hard to actually.
dislike a lot of those guys personally, they all seem like good guys. We don't know what's going on with Otani, but assume he's a good guy. Freddie Freeman's always been seen as one of the good guys at baseball. But you forget that the Dodgers, it's like, yeah, you got those three guys that they spent billions of dollars, well, and Yamamoto that they literally spent a billion dollars on those guys. But then it's like, think about the other acquisitions like the Teasca Hernandez signing Will Smith to a 10 -year extension, trading and extending Glassnow for a ridiculous amount.
Uh, who was the other guy? Well, I mean, they picked back up Enrique Hernandez. Um, you know, they, they signed James Paxton, like he was not, you know, he's no slouch when he's healthy. He's very, so it's like, they have, I don't remember the Yankees ever signing this many guys. I mean, there was always like, Oh, they signed A -Rod or they signed Randy Johnson or Clemens. And it was, it, you know, it wasn't all like all at once, you know, and they would get, they would get guys, they would trade guys. What the Dodgers are doing is, and it's,
smart of them because as these other teams tank more, why not just abuse the hell out of the system and just keep, keep just assaulting it. If you have an unlimited budget, why not? You know, they're going to be able to charge whatever they want to the fans. They're going to be able to make all the money they want from their TV deal. Like it's the Guggenheim family that owns it. So they're there, you know, to say they're the new evil empire almost feels like an understatement. I feel like even like when you think about super teams, like,
When you think about super teams, the NBA comes first, right? You think about the LeBron teams, like that's also, which I'm very, I mean, we'll, I think we'll do our NBA preview right before the playoffs. Cause we haven't talked a lick about NBA. This is a, you know, further out thing. But if you're looking at how the NBA is being built, like that super team era, I think is dying out very quickly. Like you look at like, especially the Celtics, like the Celtics are the best team in basketball, arguably the best team in basketball right now.
Like those guys are all homegrown. Those aren't super team signings. Like, yeah, they went out and got Chris Stapp's and, but they didn't go out and get a Kevin, Kevin Durant, like the Warriors did in 2017, I think was when they got him. Um, like that, that super team era is dying out. And I don't feel like any of those super teams were as super as this Dodgers team is right now. Like they did not do, and obviously you can't spend the same amounts of money because of.
you know, the roster sizes and stuff like that. But I feel like even like the most super, super team the NBA ever had wasn't as built up and just not as many household names as this Dodgers team has. Well, baseball, you know, 20, 26 man roster, as opposed to what like 12 in the NBA and the fact that, you know, I mean, the, the fact that the Red Sox are willing participant to give.
Mookie bats up and the Rays are willing participant and these teams feel like they have to do that because the Rays know they can't extend Tyler Glass. Now, the best they can do is try to get one of the prospects and of course, Pepeo goes out and has a bad outing. Koo didn't see that coming for the Rays because he's not under the pixie dust of Mark Pryor anymore. It is deflating and it's deflating because the Dodgers have already been insanely good. You know, kind of, it's funny because we're talking about the Red Sox and how ownership is...
quote, not trying to win or whatever. And look, the Red Sox, as you know, they've had a great run. They've won four championships in the last two decades. And that's better than any other team in the last two decades. That's more, right? The Giants got three, I think, and then the Cardinals. They had three in the, in what, five years? Five years, and then the Cardinals have had two, the Astros have had two. But no, but the Red Sox have had truly the most success in that period. And, and it,
It's not that the Red Sox don't want to win, but at the same time, they know that it's kind of like, we've won enough, we can kind of alter our business model, at least for a little bit. I'm sure that at some point in the near future, the Red Sox will go back to trying to be those Red Sox. But what's sort of like, and I almost feel like it's pathetic in a weird way, like the Dodgers and the Yankees, they cannot settle. They can never accept anything less than having to throw the most money out there. 500, yeah.
Yeah, it's, and it's like, what if, what if the fans had to experience a year or two of losing to come back? What if that was part of the plan or what if it was like this title would mean more? And I think the fact and what sucks about 2020 suck for 85 million different reasons. Sports was a lot lower on the list, but from a sports standpoint, the fact that they played that season and the fact that the Dodgers did win, I think it would be so much easier to sort of tolerate all this.
had they not won a single World Series since 88. But the fact that they can, like let's say they win this year. Oh, but this is now our second in five years and then it starts that debate again. Oh, but a lot of people say it wasn't really a title. And doctors say, but if your team had won, it would have counted. But it's like, no, we know, I wouldn't have wanted the Orioles for that to be their championship. No way. Oh, if Red Sox won, I would have killed myself. Yeah, it would have been awful. So it's like, you can't have it both ways. And, um...
And so it's, it's really tragic that a, that season got played and B that the Dodgers had to be the team that won. Cause had they lost that or had the Braves completed that comeback and the Dodgers are still trying to get that first ring. It just even looks more pathetic that they go out and Otani and Freeman and Betts, you know, it's like, yeah, keep trying, keep doing it. But it's like, yeah, still a lot of guys on that team that have a ring from the Dodgers, which is sad to me. I'm going to go through.
the World Series matchups excluding 2020. Because I just want to look at, because like you think about those teams that can't stand to have a year or two of just some of just complete shit horrible. First off, you can't, I mean, these aren't even World Series matchups. The Baltimore Orioles lost 120 games like three years ago, right? Like three or four years ago. You just can't exclude that. So then you look at the Rangers and the Diamondbacks.
The Diamondbacks have been horrible for like the last 10 years and the Rangers haven't been much better for the last five The Astros we all know when the Astros were absolutely garbage. They were horrible 20 minutes They were so bad, but we knew we knew that it was like, okay, they're really bad but they have a lot of stuff coming down the pipeline and We got to see everything we got to see all those guys come up and it felt like every player from that pipeline worked out
Philadelphia Phillies they had like two or three years where they were just dog shit for a while like it just felt like they couldn't do anything like you think back What 2000 did they win it in 2008 right? Yeah, as an eight and then their rant their run kind of ended after 2011 well, they went back they literally just went backwards. I think we talked about this Yeah, yeah, it's here. They're more games, but their postseason runs got shorter Yeah, and then they eventually went all the way back to fifth place and then they built themselves back up
The Atlanta Braves, they took a while and they built themselves back up. They built up their farm system. They were horrible for a little bit. The Washington Nationals in 2019, that team wasn't even expected to do anything and they went on a great run. Like that was just, that was kind of unexpected in my opinion at least. Miss the postseason in 2018. Yeah. The Red Sox in 2018, they had those.
Worst to first to worst, and then they won three straight titles up until 2018 when they finally won it. Right. Again, 2017 Astros over Dodgers Astros were horrible for a while. 2016 the Cubs. Do we even have to talk about the Cubs being? Yeah, different level of horrible. Exactly. Yeah. Royals. The Royals. Yeah. I mean, Royals over the Mets. The Mets are just historically bad. Sure.
Red Sox again in 2013, like you just keep going back. The Indians in 2016, they weren't great for a few years there. We can even go back to the Rays in 2008. Like they made the World Series and that was the first year as the Rays. Before that, there were the Devil Rays and they were always so bad. That was just there. And then as soon as they changed the Rays, they're good. Like that's...
You have to be bad. I just don't get it. You just have to be bad. I mean, even the Giants didn't make the postseason between 03 and 2010 when they won their first of the three worlds. The years they didn't win the World Series. They didn't make the playoffs. One of them, they had a really bad record. I know they had a losing record. I think it was, they lost like 90 games or somewhere in there. So yeah, 2013, that was the one. 2011, I think they were like, they won like
in the mid eighties, something 85, 86 games, but they missed the playoffs, which it's like, okay. So the fans, you could say they got spoiled because they won three, but they also had two seasons with no October baseball. They just knew how to, they're like the New York Giants who didn't really, I mean, they had one random Plexico shot himself, playoff loss to the Eagles, but they really, in that five year span, they just went eight and one when they were in the postseason. And then they had two years where they didn't even make it to the playoffs.
I think there's something to that. I think there's something to sort of like having a steady, you know, base of, you know, foundation of your good players and you can spend and keep yourself competitive, you know, and I think the reward should be when you do finally get good that you can buy a couple of key players, you know, like when the Astros, since they had an opportunity in 2017, they went out and they made the last minute and that was the August 30th.
first trade deadline to get Verlander. And it was like, okay, you know, like they haven't even won yet. They deserve this opportunity. And then funny, you know, they went out, they got Garrett Cole the next year, and then they didn't win those couple years that he was there, right? I think it was just 18 and 19 that he was there. Was it that long? Yeah, it was only two years. Yeah. And I think that when they won it in 2022, of course, the Astros are good every year now.
in an obnoxious way that the Dodgers are. But again, it's a lot of homegrown players. Yeah, they went out, they got Hayter this year, which was a bit of a surprise. And okay, it was kind of weird because it didn't even feel like Closer was an area of need for them. You know, you would have thought starter or maybe another outfielder. But they did it and won in 2022 with a lot of
Homegrown guy, I mean their original core, but then you like a Christian Javier from Rivalde's who weren't on obviously on that 2017 team. So I think what the Dodgers are doing is bad. And I, and having lived out there, having been to that stadium many times, knowing it is. At least a place like if you hate, if you're a hater of a place like New York or Boston, or even like a Detroit, those cities give a shit. They care. There is a fabric. There is a sense of community.
that those teams, you know, that those cities have in connection with their teams and it's special. And then of course the people in LA say, well, that's cause it's cold and you don't have shit going on and we have the warm weather in the beaches. But then again, that's like why you don't care. And it's a nightmare to get to those games. And it's like, it's obnoxious that they're going to win the NL West probably if not every year, the next 10 years, nine of the next 10 years, they're going to win multiple championships. Will it be two? Will it be five?
I mean, we're going to have to see a lot of Otani and he's not, they're not throwing him in jail or anything, right? That's not happening. So, and who's to say they're not going to go after a big name next year, just keep this thing going. And it's, and I, you know, there's a part of me that thinks we can't even hate on the Dodgers. There's hate on MLB for, for not making the moves to make, to stop this. Yeah. Well, I think there, there is definitely an issue because you don't have,
like a real salary cap. Like there is the luxury tax, obviously, but like the NFL, they have much more of a harder salary cap. Right. And I think that is you get that's a whole different debate because baseball, like it does feel like a lot of the talent is being hoarded. And in the NFL, you see every year there's like always a few teams that are not good, but they find a way, like they find a way to win football games. They find a way to make the playoffs when.
Yeah, maybe they really shouldn't. Like you look at the Bucks this year, like they were not, you know, nobody expected them to win. They found a way to win. How many teams, how many teams in Major League Baseball can you really point to and say, yeah, they can actually win a World Series this year? Like, well, I think a lot of, yeah, I mean, six, maybe eight at most. Maybe, I mean, you look at the NFL, like you could have made a case for almost every team. Like even could have made a case for the Bucks, I feel like. Yeah. What, what?
sort of saves people in MLB, like the saving grace is that the playoffs are quote unquote a crapshoot, which it's funny because how can it be a crapshoot when it's a series and the NFL is one game? You know what I mean? How are the NFL playoffs? But is it just because these are whining Dodgers and Yankees fans whose teams always seem to be on the wrong end of the crapshoot? You know, cause, oh, we lost Arizona. It's gotta be cause it's a crapshoot. That's not cause they were the better teams. Crapshoot, crapshoot. And I kind of think like,
At least in baseball, that's our saving grace. Dodgers can win 120 games and still need to play well for three more or five more or whatever. In the NFL, it's funny because it does feel like other teams have a cham. I mean, even the AFC where the Chiefs have won four of the last five conference titles. Yeah, the Bills have been in the mix, the Bengals, the Ravens this year. Maybe even a Jacksonville, you felt like if things had gone right for them, whatever. But.
It's a, it kind of feels different though, because home field is a big deal in the NFL, but it doesn't like as annoyed as we are with the Chiefs, as sick of sick of them as we are, they're not hoarding the talent. They just happen to have a lethal combination of head coach and quarterback, just like the Patriots did. And some other superstar players in the mix, Chris Jones, Travis Kelsey, well, up until this year, Ligeria Snead, you know, you develop these guys, it's part, the Chiefs aren't going out and spending like,
They didn't go, I mean, they spent money on Mahomes, but they had drafted him. They didn't go out and, you know, buy Tom Brady in his prime or go out and pick up. Yeah. I mean, if they had picked up Mike Evans, we might've been having a different discussion, but they haven't really done that. You know, they haven't had that big like, holy crap. They're just hoarding everybody. No, it's just they're, you know, they also play in a weak division, which helps. So I just, I wish, I wish you didn't have teams like the A's. I wish the league could almost shrink.
You could have, you know, cause then if the talent gets dispersed a little more evenly, it makes it more fun. You know, I understand if you're a Dodger fan, you want to win every game and every championship. But if you think about it this way, people will say, well, back in the day when these Yankees in the twenties, thirties or whoever, you know, had a big dynasty, they said, well, but there were fewer teams, right? But if you think about it with fewer teams, you can really consolidate the talent on those teams. I mean, yeah, again, one team could hoard a lot of those guys, sure.
But if you took, I don't know, the A's, the Marlins, the Pirates, whatever, whoever's been bad these last years, you just take their best players and put them on one team or on a couple teams that are close, all of a sudden, you know, it's a smaller field, but it's more competitive. So I almost wish we had that because it isn't, who's having fun watching the A's or the Marlins right now? I mean, and who's going to their games and they're making money and their owners.
don't care, they don't need the championships the way that the fans do. So yeah, I feel like even if you look at the worst team in football this year, who was the Carolina Panthers, like by far, I think that was obviously by record, they were the worst team, but also say, yeah, they were just fucking horrible. They were trying, like they're still trying to win. Like it's not like they are openly trying to lose. And you could, you could point to the athletics and say, you guys are openly trying to lose. This is a major league.
Like literally the movie major league situation. I mean, they just sent down one of their best, one of the best players on their team. They sent them down to the minors. Like how can there, there has to be some sort of investigation into that because like what reasoning could they have? I think, I think he was batting like 350 to start the year, something pretty damn good. And they're like, yeah, we're just sending you down. Like they are, they are almost openly trying to lose these games.
And I feel like this happens every year with at least one to two teams. I mean, you could, who could we look at right now? I mean, Colorado, Oh my gosh, Colorado lost 16 to one on opening day or maybe they were down 16 to one at some point on opening day. I mean, this is fucking outrageous that this is what we're doing. This is what we're watching. Professional athletes, these professional teams, they're making billions of dollars. This league is making billions of dollars and.
They're just not trying. They just don't care. And the NFL, even the horrible teams, like I think there is, and I think you could point to the draft and the way that teams are built as well, where when you're bad, there's always like the silver lining in the NFL. We have the number one pick, right? We have. The drafts and just things, yeah. Yeah. And Major League Baseball, like you get the number one pick in the MLB draft.
a lot like you're like, yay, I'm excited, but it's like, okay, well, we're not gonna see a change for five years. Like at least we're not gonna see a change for five years. You know what's weird? You don't hear a lot about like, cause you hear a lot of talk about the salary floor in MOB, but you don't hear about that in the NFL. Even bad teams signed free agents. I remember for a long time, people gripe, Packer fans gripe that they never signed free agents and not, I don't know, it's cause they're cheap and small market or because the fans own them or whatever. Just never was there. It never was.
was part of their model. But they won. But the Packers are, you know, I mean, now they're going to be good again. You know, they've had some ups and downs, but obviously they have, they call themselves title town. They've won what? Three Superbowl, four Superbowls in their history. Think, yeah, 66, 67, 2010, 96 and 2010. So it's not like they're, you know, it's not like it's the, the, and the Bengals are cheap, for example, and they were really bad in the nineties, really bad. And they were bad for the,
early 2000s also until Carson Palmer kind of gets him turned around. And then obviously now they're in a much better place with Joe burrow. But it you feel like even cheap teams and bad teams will sign players. It's almost like the GMs have a say in the NFL. It's almost like they'll go to the owner and be like, we can get this guy and we can mess around and tinker with his contract. So it doesn't cost us that much in the salary cap or whatever. And the owner is like, all right, well, you know, it almost feels like
every team's playing within the same budget. I don't know if that's just because there is a salary cap or just because of the fact that in the NFL that players just want to play and get paid and they know that their careers are short and they will, you know, you wouldn't have a guy holding out into the season to sign in the NFL, you know, like Blake Snell, you wouldn't have that in the NFL. Most of the time, most of the time, every once in a while you have like Le 'Veon Bette, are you talking about a free agent? I'm talking about a free agent.
You're talking about like the you know, no no, no, no, no, that's different. I'll hold out, you know as a player, you know, and that's normal players are gonna gripe about their contract. Chris Jones set out that first game against the Lions. So like I I get that. I mean that's just human nature. Players want to get paid, right? But I mean I'm talking about like these ridiculous asking prices and sitting out and you have the Giants are playing the Dodgers. It would be nice if we could see Blake Snell pitch to
to maybe beat them and he's not ready because he didn't sign until the middle of March. Right? We haven't seen JD Martinez in uniform yet for the Mets. We haven't seen Jordan Montgomery take the hill for Arizona yet. It's, I mean, I get it. It's a long season and so it's not as big a deal, but you just, I feel like you just wouldn't see that in the NFL. I mean, what is the one common denominator on those three guys that you named? Scott Boris. Yup.
There is how many agents do you know in the NFL like that? So but you know, they're they're so like monopolizing on the market, right? Like, it feels like Scott Boris, like JD Martinez did the same thing in 2018 with the Red Sox. Sign around like President's Day. But yeah, well, like we didn't get to see him in in like a Red Sox uniform until I think end of spring training pretty much.
And this is like a super common occurrence. This happened with, with Martinez, I think in 20, maybe in 2021, I want to say whatever his last year with the Red Sox is he had an opt out and he like, he sat and waited and waited and waited and waited and then opted in. Like this is a lot of these guys in the NFL. They're like, no, I want to be ready for training camp. I want to be with the team in training camp and major league baseball. It just doesn't.
It just doesn't happen like that. Like they just don't, they don't care. And I feel like it's when, cause you mentioned the owners and it's difficult for me to, because I have Jim Mersey as an owner, I have like the number three meddling owner in the NFL, but I feel like that is really not that common. Like you look at a guy like, all right, David Tepper is a nightmare to deal with, with the Panthers, right? He's, he's a nightmare. And I, um,
Mark Davis with the Raiders. Like he's probably, I don't know how much he's really involved. Like Al Davis seemed to be more involved as an owner than Mark Davis is. Mark Davis more cares about his P .F. Chang's and his ridiculous haircuts. But like you look at, I feel like in Major League Baseball, like the owner is there. Like he's always there with almost every single team. Like they, he's always involved. Like in Moneyball, right? When you watch Moneyball.
Brad Pitt meets with the owner and he's like, listen, you've got to get me more money. You have to get me more money. We can't compete if you don't get me more money. And he's like, I don't know what to tell you. We can't, we just can't. And it's like, why are you buying a baseball team? If, if you just can't afford to compete with at least the middle of the league, right? Like obviously there's going to be a top and a bottom of, of, you know, spending amounts and the ability, but Oakland and.
and Colorado, it just feels like they are so far down. And in the NFL, yeah, the lowest spending team, there's going to be a bottom, but they are not even close to where the Athletics and Rockies would be. And these super low spending teams and Major League Baseball versus the NFL and the NBA and all these other teams.
Yeah, I think it's, I think the A's that's that whole situation too with the Oakland and leaving and going to the Vegas and they didn't want them and the Rockies, that's, I mean, that's a shame for the Rockies. We talked about it. It's great city, great sports city, great venue. It's fun because they generate a lot of offense in that stadium and city. It's really, it's tragic. I mean, you wish, you wish, I wish.
that owner there weren't owners that the that it was all under the umbrella of like a giant office of major league baseball and that the league that the teams. You know we're given a certain budget you can spend up to this much money. You know based on revenue revenue sharing or whatever and yeah you still might have the issue where the Rockies don't pull in as much as the Dodgers of course you know maybe make a cap maybe you don't but at least you give the GM the flexibility to say we're gonna try to sign.
Maybe not Shohei Otani, but we're going to try to sign a Snell or a Josh Hader, whatever. And the fact that the owner, the owners kind of ruined it, but it's a business. It's like, we can't, you know, we want to complain about it as fans because it is an entertainment, but I don't know how many people the Rockies are truly entertaining. I mean, they're entertaining, like the families that want to come out and watch, but it's not, that's not really what makes your brand. You know, the Rockies.
not going to be an international brand. They're not going to do it. But if they won, they won the World Series. How many people are tuning in to a Colorado Rockies game? Like as a Rockies fan? Yeah, right. Yeah. Bet the over in a game at Coors Field. I don't know. Yeah, I can't imagine it's a lot. Root Sports is the network that carries their games. I don't know what their TV deal is. They haven't been good in... Oh, I mean, they made the
They made the, they won a wild card game in 2018. I think that was the last time they were in the postseason. They had their little rocktober run and they made it in 17. I think before that they hadn't made it since 09 and then of course it made the world series, you know, seven, but, um, that feels like a waste. Yeah. I'd say the A's have just become a laughing stock. Everybody expects them to just be cheap skates and do their money ball thing forever. But the Rockies feels like a waste, like a real wasted opportunity to, to have a winning.
profitable, exciting franchise. It's a great brand. I love their branding. I love, you know, the whole mile high thing, the Rocky Mountains. I mean, there's great opportunity there and they don't, they're not even remotely competitive. And Chris Bryant, boy, that contract is not looking good. He was, I think it was on opening day. He's standing at first base, just staring into the void. And there's like literally a screenshot of him just like standing there blank face.
The scoreboard reads 16 to one and you're like, Oh my God, this guy is stuck here for the rest of his career. He's it's, it's either take the money, like it sell yourself or maybe try and win, but you're going to have to give up a lot of money. Like you're just going to have to say, cut me. I'm going to forfeit X amount of dollars for you to cut me and get my contract off. Like that's, that's just, it's such a horrible situation for an actual pretty good player.
And when you mentioned the ownership, I 100 % agree with you first off. Like I feel like part of why like football players signed to a city is because you hear other guys in the media talking about, oh, this city's awesome because of XYZ. Like you hear these guys talking about the actual, like the city that actually cares. And I feel like in baseball, you just don't hear as much about that. And I think if...
It's, it's kind of like 50 50 on like, yeah, like you don't want like your organization being run by fans, right? Like you don't want them to make moves just because they're fans. You want them to make smart baseball moves, but at the same time, you want to feel like the ownership and the management cares about the city. Like, um, all right, here's a great example. I saw a video of when taco fall was on the Celtics, right? And.
that you know, the entire TD garden is chanting taco taco at the end of the game because they want Brad Stevens to get taco fall in the game. Is that a smart basketball move? No, it's probably not like it's, you know, it's like, okay, well, this probably isn't the best move in game right now. But you know what, because it's fun, we're gonna put taco in for five minutes, we're gonna let him try and dunk for five minutes, we're gonna let him like we're gonna give the fans what they want. And it feels like as we move further and further away, there's just less of a care.
And then that gets into, there's a big debate right now, because Royals and the Chiefs owners, the Hunts own both the Royals and the Chiefs, right? I don't think the Hunts do, do they? I thought it was the Glass family? There's two discussions on the Royals and the Chiefs about their stadiums right now, because there was a vote for the city to partially fund the stadiums, which...
I don't think we should be using personally, I don't think we should be using government money for stadiums. That's unless you're giving discounts to the people in that state or in the city, whichever fund, wherever the money comes from, unless you're letting them in for free or giving them a heavy discount because that is their tax dollars, the owner should be footing the bill of these stadiums. And Clark Hunt wants money to renovate Arrowhead Stadium, which I understand why you want to renovate Arrowhead Stadium.
because you have your generational quarterback. That's why the Colts built Lucas Oil Stadium for Peyton Manning years ago because the RCA dome was according to them a shit hole. I never got to see it. And then the Chiefs or the Royals, Covman Stadium is gorgeous. I really don't know why they want to build a new stadium, but they're really exploring moving out of Kansas City. And Kansas City is obviously a smaller market and you know,
Missouri and those states those sent, you know, the southern kind of Midwest southern states are much poorer They can't really afford all this stuff. So when you talk about that about not having owners I think we should I think that's something they should explore. I mean it'll never happen I don't think because money, you know controls all But if you don't have owners, I feel like you if you have like a that sounds socialist
Sound like a you know, the people kind of own the teams the people run the teams you The fans pick who you want to run the team, right? Like you could do a membership sort of membership to join the team you get heavy discounts on tickets you get some merchandise for fans right like you also get the fans more involved I feel like that would Encourage the fans to be more involved you treat it more of like a
quote mini government, you know, for, for each team. And I think that because a lot of fans, they don't care as much because they feel like they don't actually have any sort of bearing on the team. I feel like you should have some sort of bearing like social media teams. Don't listen to social media, no matter how many comments that you leave on a social media is, you know, on a team social media, they're not going to listen. They don't give a shit. They don't care. Right? Like you say, Hey,
The Red Sox fans wanted real ketchup in Fenway, right? That was a huge thing for years. The Red Sox wouldn't put out real ketchup. It was like this fake ketchup substitute. No tomatoes in it. And finally, after years and years and years and years of fans saying, give us ketchup, real ketchup, the Red Sox finally did it this year. It was like, it took you guys that long to get us real ketchup? Seriously? And I feel like...
If you can have owners privately funding this stuff while also listening to the fans, that's the ideal situation. If I owned a baseball team or I, which if I ever become a billionaire, I have definitely looked into purchasing like a hockey team, like per or like purchasing like a really low on the totem pole sports franchise, even a minor league team. I would 100 % be like, okay, I'm going to offer this membership and the fans will vote on X, Y, and Z. They'll vote on certain things.
that they get to add to the stadium. They get to vote on certain players. They get to vote on this, this, and this. That gets fans more interested. Of course you're gonna care more if you get to vote on, hey, we wanna spend X amount of money on this free agent. Like that would be so much more fun. That's just my rant. Maybe it sounds socialist, maybe it sounds communist. I don't give a fuck. It gets fans, people care more when they're actually involved versus hey,
We're going to spend hundreds of dollars on tickets and we get nothing back. We don't care. Yeah. I would love to see that never happen, but great to never ever happen. Well, actually we run our own ping pong league. We have our own teams. That could definitely be something down the line that we could do. I, that would be something that I would love to do. Um, you know, hopefully maybe not this year, this year it's just too much. It's, it's already being too much, but.
Having something like that, like just getting people to care more. That's that's what you need because baseball fans, like obviously you have your diehard baseball fans, but the majority of America just seems apathetic about baseball and the NFL. Like the world stops Sundays like a lot of the world just stops for the NFL, like whether it's fans that are, you know, like they're kind of casual fans, but they still will go to a bar and watch with their friends. How many people?
Do you know at least that aren't diehard baseball fans go to a bar and watch a baseball game on like a random Wednesday night on a random Saturday night? Like I don't know that many people. Yeah, they care more about the NBA finals going on in June. You have March Madness and the National Championship going on right in the beginning of opening day, right? You have whatever Olympics are going on, you know, every four years or or X, Y and Z. There's so many other sports.
that people care about. And I think they give them more reasons to care. I think there are more reasons to care about. And you also have to say the 162 game schedule. That's just what it is. Like you play 160 or how many days out of the year do they play? They play like 180 days out of the year, a hundred and 200 days out of the year. That's a part of it. You know, it's something that's constantly going on. People are like, Oh, I'll just watch tomorrow. I'll watch the next day. I'll watch the next day. So.
We're trying to fix baseball over here. That's what this show turned into. But, all right, well, I think we're gonna wrap it up there. I'll say, just give me something that you're looking for in the next week to happen in Major League Baseball.
Um, to happen, oof. Like what do you expect to anything even with just the Orioles?
Well, they've had a soft schedule to start the year and they haven't really quite been able to take advantage of it, you know, against the angels and the Royals. I want to see how the offense clicks. It seems like the Orioles offense is kind of one that can be shut down somewhat easily. I want to see if the Yankees continue their hot start. And I want to see what surprise team has a strong second week. You know, we have these like,
Okay, yeah, great. Pirates are five and oh, the Brewers, well, they lost today, but you know, four and one, you know, but but show me again, show me another week and make that an eight and two start, then we'll start to say, okay, it's pretty good start to get you know, because the start of the season, it is important, it is important to establish the tone for the year. It's never easy to win eight out of 10 games at any point, especially if you're the pirates or whatever. So I want to see, you know, because remember last year, the pirates, I think we're like,
2010 at one point or 20 and it really actually off to a great start people forgetting that minor league guy that had played like 10 years and he Maggi Maggi or whatever came up. So I want to see which surprise teams sustain their momentum here in week two. Yeah, I want to see what the Red Sox rotation does second time around. I think that's really important. We're very obviously there's reason to be very excited about the rotation. I mean, Nick Pavetta also is.
number one among current active players in losses where the game ends one to nothing. Wow. This is which is also something that happened with Roger Clemens that happened with Pedro Martinez that happened with Chris Sale long, long Red Sox history of not hitting for your guys. But I'm really curious about how the rotation is going to pan out over the next week. It's definitely not as.
Let me see what their schedule looks like, but it's definitely not as easy. This second half, I didn't really know what to expect from the Mariners, to be honest. I know they have a good pitching staff, but the Red Sox have the Angels, so pretty easy, I guess. And then Baltimore, I'm really curious about Baltimore and we'll be recording probably, I don't know, maybe during one of the games or right before one of the games.
And then I'm also, again, I wanted to mention the Pirates. I was big on the Pirates. I really, really want to see the Pirates win. I really hope they'll be able to keep it going. They're a fun team. I think baseball is more fun when the Pirates are a good team too. I've always loved it. When Andrew McCutcheon was at his peak, that was so much fun. Baseball was just a lot of fun to watch. And then the Mets. Can the Mets win a game?
One day. Maybe JD will walk into winning one. He'll be back. No, he'll be in uniform, I think by Sunday or Monday. So I actually really like that signing for them. I think because they were going after Justin Turner too and they missed out on Justin Turner. So I think that was that was the better signing than than Justin Turner. And I love Justin Turner. But I feel like JD's JD is also a good veteran presence. And he literally.
built the 2018 Red Sox. He helped a lot of those guys hit based on the way he prepares. I think he's going to be big for the Mets. They've started horribly, but I really do believe in the Mets possibly making a push if everything goes right. A poor game losing streak at any point in the season is totally acceptable. It just looks worse when it's 0 -4. Yeah. When that zero is in your win column, it's not good. All right. Well, that's all.
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