Jeff Passan
Appearances
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
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Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
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Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
We've seen the New York Mets guys spend themselves into a bad place. Money does not necessarily equal success in Major League Baseball. It allows you to make mistakes and it gives you opportunity at those high level players that some teams just don't have access to. And that's not great. Like if you want to say that part is bad, I would agree with you on that.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But is it bad enough where you're going to put constraints in place that ultimately hurt the players, the people who we watch these games for? We don't watch it for the laundry. We watch it to watch incredible athletes do incredible things. And if you're trying to do something that harms them in the name of parody, you're barking up the wrong tree.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah, I mean, we're looking at 116 games from the Seattle Mariners. And let's not forget that Mariners team bombed out in the first round of the playoffs, too. So when I try to answer that question, are the Dodgers good or bad for baseball, right? One of the things I always go back to is that I can more or less guarantee that the Dodgers are going to be in the postseason.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And there are only 12 playoff spots, so there's a lot of value in that. But let's look past 2024 and back to 2023. They got swept in the first round by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Let's look back to 2022. They got beaten by the San Diego Padres. Let's look back beyond 2020 when they won the COVID World Series.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
They hadn't won a World Series since 1988, and they have been spending not quite to this level, but pretty similarly over that time. And so the great equalizer in baseball is that its postseason is just kind of a crapshoot. Like even the best team is going to go into a series with a 60% chance of winning, not a whole lot higher than that.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Right now, if you look at the Dodgers, like the most favorable projections have them at like a 25% chance to win the World Series. Now, if you ask me, would you take the Dodgers or the field? Even though the numbers suggest otherwise, I'd probably still say the Dodgers just because beyond their stars, guys, they have so much depth in the organization and depth matters.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Depth allows you to weather the injuries. Depth allows you to weather the ineffectiveness from some guys you might not have expected. And that's one thing the Dodgers have done incredibly well. They have developed players who can either step in for free agents who leave Or be there when guys get hurt.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
A floor comes with a cap, a cap comes with a floor. The two shall never be separated. And, you know, as somebody who looks at like the Pittsburgh Pirates and sees Paul Skeens on a near minimum contract and sees Jared Jones before he got hurt. But Mitch Keller, they've got Bubba Chandler coming up like the Pirates have an incredible pitching staff. And they didn't do shit this offseason.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I should be the person who's yelling about this because I live in Kansas City, because I grew up in Cleveland, because I embody the Midwestern thought process when it comes to sports. And when you have a team like the Pirates, I look at them and I'm like, try. Just once. Just once. Please go out and try to field a winning team. I look at Cleveland.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
They traded Andres Jimenez, lost Josh Naylor this offseason. They won the American League Central last year. Another team. Didn't do shit. And it just bothers me as a sports fan and somebody who loves nothing more than widespread competitiveness that some of these teams that are in position to go out and potentially win World Series don't treat their seasons like it. It's disrespectful to fans.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
It's disrespectful to the game. And listen... I would love for there to be a salary floor in place in order to force some of these teams to go and spend. We saw this off season, the Oakland A's actually went out. Sorry, that's the A's, not Oakland anymore. But the A's went out this off season and spent some money. And
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
The reason PFT they did that is because they were in position for the Major League Baseball Players Association to file a grievance for them not spending enough of their revenue sharing money. Now, that was enough of a threat for them to go out and spend, but it wasn't seemingly enough of a threat for the Miami Marlins who were in the same position to go out and do that.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I understand if you're going to pull back and do a full rebuild, it kind of makes sense just to bottom out what your payroll is going to be. But that doesn't make the game better. And when too many teams are doing that, when the lack of incentives to win are in place...
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Uh, it's problematic for the sport, which is why I think MLB and the players association in particular did a really good job in the past collective bargaining agreement of draft pick penalties where you can't pick multiple years in a row inside of the lottery. Mm. If you are at a certain salary level or a certain market level.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
So there are little things that are helping, but they haven't solved the problem at this point yet. And it's why when we get to that collective bargaining time, you need smart people in the room to make decisions that positively impact the sport writ large.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I think people are sleeping on Cincinnati a little bit. You know, Ellie Dela Cruz has a chance to be a super-duper star. And Matt McClain, who's the second baseman there, was out all of last season. He's an all-star caliber player. And Hunter Green at the front of their rotation. And they're managed by Terry Francona, who all he's done throughout his career is win.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
The Reds sort of stagnated last year. I think I might have picked them to win the Central last year. But in a division as wide open as that is, I like a team that has some youth on its side. I like a team that has a little bit of energy going on. And the Reds feel like they could be that team this year. Because you're right.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
In the National League, you've got your clearly established teams that are either going to be good all the way to great. In the East, it's the Braves, the Phillies, and the Mets. Uh, in the central, I don't know if anyone's good. All five could win that division, frankly.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And in the West, uh, the, the Dodgers clearly at the top, but the Diamondbacks had the best offense in baseball last year and added Corbin Burns, the best free agent starting pitcher this off season. Uh, the Padres still have a ton of talent and did a good job adding Nick Pavetta to a rotation that really needed another starter. Uh,
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And the Giants are an improved team, and it'll be interesting to see, A, how Willie Adamas plays there, and B, how much Justin Verlander, who's well into his 40s now, has left.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I am happy to say that I am not. It's for the best.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I don't give a shit about that. Why? Why do you? Oh, we do.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah. Okay. I do suddenly give a shit. Right. It's very important to us. How can you not be romantic about baseball? Could he compete? I don't know if he could, but I do know that I have some favors to call him.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
No, no, I'm not. In fact, I'm rooting really hard for it now. I'm going to make sure that the especially juice balls are there for him. Oh, shit. Oh, yeah.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I feel like after I watched the latest White Lotus last night, I feel like this is a very White Lotus conception. We'll turn some people off.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah. You know, the rookie class this year is not all that great. On the National League side, the guy who I picked, I mentioned him a little earlier, is Bubba Chandler with the Pirates. And I think you guys will – I don't know if you saw this story, but I think you'll appreciate it.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
So Paul Skeens, you know, probably the best pitcher in baseball right now after less than a year in the big leagues, gets named opening day starter for the Pirates. And Bubba Chandler was a guy who I think he went to Clemson to play football, got drafted, was a two-way player, just an extraordinarily athletic guy.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But Pirates made him a full-time pitcher, fastball up to 100 now, great breaking stuff, good control and commit. He's going to be a guy. I picked him to win Rookie of the Year this year, but... On the day Paul Skeens was named opening day starter, he got a text from Bubba Chandler.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And I don't have the exact words, but it essentially said, enjoy it while it lasts, because next year I'm going to be starting opening day. Wow. I love that.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
i i adore that the guy hasn't thrown a pitch in the big leagues yet and he's got the balls to text the guy who is best at what they do right now and say get out of my way and that's that i mean it's confidence it's swag that's a dog it's a big bubba chandler fan already yeah a great bubble move too yeah i like my bubba's a little cocky yes absolutely
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Christian Campbell is my pick for the American League. He, you know, he started off this season as potentially the second baseman or the favorite going in for the Red Sox after being minor league player of the year last year. And he just kind of stunk at the beginning of spring training. And there was, you know, the gloss wore off a little bit, but the Red Sox believe in the bat.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And I understand why. It's an unorthodox swing, but he's got incredible contact skills. And, you know, through this work – I wrote a story about this earlier this spring on Roman Anthony, Marcelo Meyer, and Campbell, the big three prospects with the Red Sox. And Boston's doing like a bit different form of training of hitters than there used to be.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And hitting has fallen so far behind pitching in Major League Baseball that – It is one of those things that's kind of broken and could use some fixing. And I think these guys with Campbell actually winding up making the Red Sox opening day roster, playing at second base, forcing Alex Bregman over to third, and Rafael Devers to be DH. He's the favorite, I would say, at this point.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Do not sleep on Jackson Jobe. right-hander with the Detroit Tigers, who's in their rotation, as well as Cam Smith, who, Big Cat, I think you might know Cam Smith's name. He was one of the players who went to the Houston Astros in the Kyle Tucker trade.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And less than a year after being drafted, he's making the Astros opening day roster and is going to be their starting right fielder and was one of the best hitters in the Grapefruit League this spring.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
What is that? He's got issues with both elbows. We talked about this, remember?
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Giancarlo Stanton in a cone of shame.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
The Yankees' hope is the fact that they reside in the American League. Because if you drop them into the National League, they're fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth best team. You know, before Garrett Cole needed Tommy John surgery, I still had the Yankees winning the American League East. I do not have that as the case anymore. I don't have them making the playoffs.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And I feel like this is like potential asshole zone for me because I didn't have them making the playoffs last year either. And they made it to the World Series. It's not that I'm like... A Yankee hater, because I don't think that's the case. I just look at them and there are so few things with the Yankees that I can point at and say, yes, that is going to happen.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I know Aaron Judge is going to have a very good year as long as he's healthy. He has consistently done so and is going to be in the Hall of Fame and is the best hitter in baseball right now. But beyond that, do I know that Austin Wells is going to be a success at leadoff hitter? I do not. Do I know that Jazz Chisholm is going to take that leap forward we've been waiting years for?
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
No, I don't know that either. Don't know about Anthony Volpe or Jason Dominguez. Have no idea if we're going to get 2023 or 2024 Cody Bellinger. Does Paul Goldschmidt have anything left? Can Carlos Redon be a top of the rotation guy? How does Max Freed survive? who's been consistently awesome throughout his career in Atlanta, transitioned to New York.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
All of these different things that are up in the air give me pause about the Yankees. But I'll also acknowledge that if a few of these things hit right, the Yankees very easily could not only win the American League East, but could win the pennant again. This is a team whose ceiling is pretty high still, even after the Cole injury.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But the floor happens to be lower, I think, than it is in typical years for the Yankees.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I apologize for doing like a long checklist here, but that's how wide open the American League is. It's like, I mean, you can make an argument for every team. Tampa Bay, Shane McClanahan turns out isn't that hurt coming back from Tommy John surgery now and headlining a really good rotation and an excellent bullpen.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Junior Caminero with the Rays is going to be a superstar and this is going to be his first full season playing. So I could see the Rays doing it. The Blue Jays, I have them at the bottom of the AL right now. But if Vlad Guerrero and Bo Bichette have the years that they have, Vlad last year and Bo the years before that, they're both impending free agents. They could lead the team to the playoffs.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
The Red Sox, I have winning the division. I feel good about what they did getting Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman this winter. And let's not forget about the Orioles, who won 101 games a couple years ago and made the playoffs last season. I think people are sleeping on them a little bit.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
In the Central, the Twins, bad year last year, always questions about health, but they've got a lot of slug in that lineup, and they're starting pitching with Pablo Lopez and Bailey Ober. At the top of that rotation, they have a chance to be pretty good. Kansas City made the playoffs last year. Great pitching and my pick for American League MVP, Bobby Witt Jr.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I've got Detroit winning the Central with Tarek Skubal and so many other great starting pitchers in that rotation. And A.J. Hinch is a manager just like he gets how to construct lineups and use the platoon advantage in his favor. Cleveland won the division last year. I'm not really on them, but they're also one of those teams that surprises.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Seattle playoffs two years ago, 88 and 85 wins the last two seasons. A great starting rotation. And today they signed Cal Raleigh to an extension. Cal Raleigh's nickname is Big Dumper because he's got a fat ass. And it's like, honestly, it's the best nickname in baseball right now. And love, love him as a player. Want a platinum glove leader in the clubhouse.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Uh, the A's are going to be better this year. I'm not sure if they're a playoff team quite yet. Uh, the Astros seemingly always are a playoff team and, uh, you know, training Kyle Tucker and getting Cam Smith back in addition to Isak Paredes, who's going to absolutely abuse the, the short porch in left field. Uh, it, The Astros still have a chance to be good.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But the team I'm picking to win the pennant is the Texas Rangers. They won the World Series two years ago. They were pretty awful last year, but they get Jacob DeGrom back to headline their rotation this season. You know, Kumar Rocker and Jack Light are both really good young arms.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And when you look at the lineup, that Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon up the middle, Josh Young at third base, they traded for Jake Berger at first place.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
first base Wyatt Lankford Evan Carter in the outfield they have good catching with Jonah Heim and Kyle Gashioka like on and on and on if the Rangers bullpen can perform or if at the trade deadline they can go out and get some high-end relief arms I think they have probably the highest ceiling in the league okay so there were two teams you didn't mention White Sox we don't have to talk about because they're uh I mean they're a joke Jerry Reinsdorf should sell the team the other one
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
You know, I remember I went to spring training with the Angels on the day Trout was going to talk two years ago for the first time. And it had been coming off a season where he'd gotten hurt, which has been sadly like an all too frequent thing lately. And we posed him the question, like, do you have any inclination to leave? Would you waive your no trade clause to go to a contender?
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And he said, I feel like I have unfinished business here. Now, he hasn't said anything to the contrary since. But like, guys, we got to remember this. Mike Trout is 33 years old now. I'm not going to say he's entirely past his prime because I think if we have like a full healthy year of Mike Trout, he can still be a guy who puts up a thousand OPS and looks like one of the best players in the game.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But he's been around for 14 years now. He's had 14 years of Artie Moreno bullshit. And it just goes to show you the importance of ownership. I don't know if this is the same way in other sports. You guys can tell me in football especially. Because I don't know who's considered the good owners or the bad owners in football.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But the way that Artie Moreno has run the Los Angeles Angels in the 20 or so years he's owned the team, and especially over the last decade and a half since Mike Trout's been around. Let's look at it this way. They had Mike Trout in his prime once. with Shohei Otani for six years, and they did not make the postseason once. It's crazy. It's insane. It's malpractice.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
As somebody who was the biggest Mike Trout stan imaginable during his best years, the year that Miguel Cabrera wins the Triple Crown, I'm arguing that Trout should have been MVP anyway because that wasn't just a hot take. He was a better player that year. What Cabrera did was incredible. Trout was just better than him. It saddens me that Mike Trout might never know what winning feels like.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Because what are we doing this for? Like, what's the whole purpose of athletes going out there? There's the individual accomplishment that you want. They're the goals you set and that you try to meet. And that that gives you some feeling of fulfillment. Yeah.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But at the end of the day, you want to win something with the people who you spend seven or eight months in close proximity with, with some of your best friends in the world. Because coming together as a team and achieving something like that beats anything you can do individually. And Mike Trout simply has never had that in his professional career.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
No, Rendon had surgery, so he will not be playing. He is not playing. That guy's amazing. Yeah. I mean, he really, really is amazing. There were two contracts the winter he signed with the Angels that were for seven years and $245 million. It was Anthony Rendon and it was Steven Strasburg.
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And the total production that their teams are going to get for the half billion or so dollars that they spent on those players, it's unbelievable. And it shows why, like, owners in baseball are so hesitant to give out deals like that. I get it because they can go sideways so fast. And in Rendon's case, like...
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I'm not going to say he never liked playing baseball because I don't think that's true, but it was never like his passion. It was never what he lived for. He was never like a grinder. He was just extraordinarily talented at something, got paid an obscene amount of money and hasn't been able to get back out there. Yeah.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I mean, there's no one left, really. After Bregman left this offseason, it's like Jose Altuve and Lance McCullers are really the only ones left from the cheating team. And Altuve is going to be there forever. He's the astro of lifetime astros. But they still have Jordan Alvarez, who is one of the best hitters in baseball. And adding Cam Smith has...
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
has sort of reinvigorated potentially that lineup. And they've still got Frambois Valdez, Spencer Arrighetti, Hunter Brown. Like, the Astros have done a good job of developing starting pitching. As you saw Carlos Correa and George Springer and some of the core, you know, Alex Bregman, the core guys of not just the cheating championship, but the one they won after that as well.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But, yeah, the Astros... They're an interesting organization because it's it's one of those teams where other like people from other organizations love shitting on the Astros, like absolutely love it. And I think some of it goes back to the cheating, but some of it they just don't believe that they're particularly well run.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And yet they make that trade with Tucker and it's immediately paying dividends.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
yeah you're right that that's what it is in spring i don't know how you guys feel about spring but you know living in the midwest spring is when the sun starts coming out i walk outside in spring you know i can wear shorts and a t-shirt and not like my asshole kids who wear shorts and t-shirts like in the middle of the winter because i don't know when it happened that children's skin suddenly became impervious to cold weather yeah
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I feel like this is a new generation thing. I don't know if your kids are like that.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But, no, you go outside and you see the sun every day, and I think that's why opening day feels good because it is introducing us to the season that makes us happy.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Good hoodies.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
If you have the ability to have a guy out there who can impact both sides of the ball, why would you limit him from doing so? Particularly if he's on a rookie contract, which is short enough where you're not locking him up long-term and you're not going to have... any of like the wear and tear issues later on in life. It's the NFL. You can get rid of them anyway. Contracts aren't guaranteed.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
But Otani being elite at both levels at the highest level of baseball, if Travis Hunter can be an all pro cornerback and an all pro wide receiver in the same season, that's, Get back to me and we'll have a conversation. And I am not minimizing in any way. He's awesome. I love watching him play, but it's just a matter of levels.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Both true. Hunter's never won an MVP, and I'd like to see him hit a 95-mile-per-hour fastball or throw a ball a 95.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Good counterpoint.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Uh, he's, he's been shut down for like a month now, so he's going to have to build up and let's remember he's coming off of his second elbow reconstruction. So the Dodgers are going to take it easy with him. And they also have so much pitching depth that they really don't need him. So is it going to happen in May as expected?
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
It could, but I think it all just really depends on how his elbow responds. And we're going to get a much better sense of that over the next month or so.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah, we don't need it. Yeah, it's all good.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Yeah, I don't think it was quite that much weight, and I don't think it was the flu. They haven't said what it is specifically, but the sense is he's going to play in their actual opening day stateside. So, listen, baseball is better when Mookie Betts is good. Yeah. Yeah. I hope nothing but a full recovery there.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
And I seeing him, you know, even if the Dodgers are bad for baseball, like seeing Mookie Betts out there is a good thing for everyone.
Pardon My Take
Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
I look forward to talking with you guys on the day that Home Run Derby rosters are released. Yes. I have my mission for the 2020 season. You said it.
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Opening Day With Jeff Passan, We Finally Got A Great Tourney Game, Lebron vs The World, Fyre Fest + Severance Finale
Thanks, boys. Appreciate you having me.
The Ryen Russillo Podcast
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I understand why people would rather have it domestically. But if I'm Major League Baseball, I want to go where people want to see me play. In Japan, that first game, they had 25 million people. domestically in Japan watching the game. The atmosphere at Tokyo Dome was unlike anything you will see in a major league baseball stadium in the United States.
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It was a closer facsimile to winter ball down in the Dominican Republic where baseball is life. When we look at where baseball is in the landscape of American sports right now, At best, third. I mean, the NFL is like one through five. But NFL, college football... NBA, then maybe baseball. You can make an argument for college basketball, even though it's mostly a one to two month sport.
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But baseball just doesn't resonate here like it used to. And then you go to Japan. It is clearly the number one sport, the best player in the world and the best player maybe we've ever seen is from there. And it is ubiquitous. I mean, Shohei Otani, if you go read Tim Kuhn's story on ESPN.com, Shohei Otani is the biggest celebrity in the entire country.
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And you have Yoshinobu Yamamoto starting against Shota Imanaga in game one. And you have Roki Sasaki pitching for the Dodgers in game two. And I guess I would counter the people that say, why would you start there with, why wouldn't you start there? Why wouldn't you capitalize on this idea that we want to be where people want to see us play.
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And we want that atmosphere that we simply don't get in the United States. So maybe that behavior can be modeled and replicated here. And I would love a world, Ryan, in which Major League Baseball domestically here in the United States has the passion that they do in Japan and in Latin America and in other places around the world where it does remain the number one sport.
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And I'm going to explain why. Now, understandably, fans are angry that the Dodgers are spending as much as they are compared to everyone else. Because if we look at their payroll this year, let's just toss out the deferrals for a second. If we look at their payroll, what they are paying players, what they're paying in luxury tax, they are going to be over a half billion dollars.
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And there are some teams in major league baseball that aren't even spending a hundred million dollars. And so the disparity between the Dodgers and not just those low level teams, but if you look at the Phillies and the Yankees and the Mets and other teams that are sort of in that $300 million range, like it's a big gap there as well.
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But I think the Dodgers, they understand that Shohei Otani is not going to be in his prime forever. And Mookie Betts is going toward the end of his prime. And Freddie Freeman is going toward the end of his. And I had this conversation with someone yesterday about
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If you're the Pittsburgh Pirates and you have Paul Skeens and Jared Jones and Mitch Keller and you have Bubba Chandler coming, you have all these pitchers who you either know you're going to trade a couple of years down the road or maybe they're going to buy. Why don't you go for it right now? Why don't you not just Use that window, but open it yourself.
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I think the Dodgers see that there's a window here for their stars, and they're trying to capitalize on it and maximize it as much as they possibly can. And they have used the tool of deferrals to do so. Now, I'm not going to say deferrals get a bad name, but I think they're misunderstood.
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Go ahead. Shohei Ohtani is having $680 million of the $700 million he's guaranteed Ryan deferred for 10 years. He is making $2 million a year. That doesn't mean, though, that the Dodgers are paying only $2 million. What they have to do because of the collective bargaining agreement and rules in place is
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and the Arizona Diamondbacks almost ending up in bankruptcy because they deferred too much money and couldn't pay it. They put guardrails in there. And so the Dodgers have to take about $46 million in cash every year and just sock it away into an account that is going to grow to $70 million a decade down the road. Also, Let's acknowledge deferrals are actually good for players.
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Like if this was not benefiting players, they would not be saying, oh, you know what? Go ahead, corporation. Keep my money for the next decade out of the goodness of my heart. And because I'm a kind person. No, they're doing this because what you can do with deferred money, with signing bonus money, especially if you're a team in California, is that you can get tax-free.
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This is just a tax play by players. And the Dodgers are taking advantage of it, whereas other teams in California have not done so. So yeah, is it shitty to look at it and say, oh, they're just putting this off for years to come and that's how they're winning? Yeah, I mean, it's not ideal. And it just feels... the fire of the Los Angeles Dodgers being the new evil empire.
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But the notion that deferrals are why the Dodgers are in the position that they're in or that they're really all that big of a deal, I don't buy that. I think it's just a tool that they're using better than others. And it happens to align with how the Dodgers operate. They do most things better than others. They draft better than others. They develop players better than others.
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They scout in Latin America better than others. They convince players that you want to be on this team better than others. And that's how you get this juggernaut built. It's not one thing. It's a confluence of all of these little areas in which they excel.
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You know, last year's version of Shohei Otani, I don't know if it was my favorite, but it was the most surprising. And all this guy has done his entire career because I'm a rube who doesn't believe that outliers, like, I can't predict outliers. I couldn't have ever fathomed. what Otani's career would look like at the beginning. Didn't think he could go both ways.
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Wrote a story his first spring training saying he couldn't hit. Felt like an asshole pretty quick. And eventually got back to the point where it's like, okay, yeah, he can do this. Then it was, there's no way he can sustain this. His body can't He can't hold up mentally. He can't hold up. Guess what? He can't.
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Then he blows out for a second time, has Tommy John surgery, and as he's coming back, it's like, okay, we're going to get to see him as a full, full-time hitter now. I wasn't thinking about stolen bases, though, and he goes and rips 59 bags the next year and becomes the first 50-50 player. What Shohei Otani does, I think, better than anything is,
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is he fits himself into where his skills are at that point. He has all of the tools in the world, right? He can do anything on a baseball field. But last year, he couldn't pitch, so he needed to become a different player, and he is the ultimate chameleon. This year, he's coming back. He's going to be on the mound, looks like in May or so.
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And we're going to get to see that apex version of himself, hopefully, where he is still an elite starting pitcher and remains one of the best bats in the big leagues. And the fact, Ryan, that he got through last season, like remember the beginning of last season when we were talking, it was like, is he going to get caught up in this
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disaster of a gambling scandal that is reaching the highest levels of Las Vegas and has had a federal investigation into it for two years. Then we hear his translator on tape calling up a bank and taking out money in his name. It turns out, Occam's razor said, well,
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If this guy is connected to Otani, he's probably... No, actually, it looks like everything was above board and he was just stupidly innocent and didn't keep his eye on his money. I don't know what it's like to have hundreds of millions of dollars, but I don't know that I would be going and checking my bank account all the time if I was so rich I didn't have to worry about anything.
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So I'm not going to give him a pass. Like, we're adults. We should know where our funds are. But at the same time, being able to get through that, all the noise, and then turn in the season he did, as exceptional as Shohei Otani is in all the physical elements of baseball, Ryan...
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Uh, the mental capacity and the fortitude that guy has to go out and do what he does on a daily basis is to me, every bit as impressive.
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I'm in Port St. Lucie now. So I'm actually at Mets camp yesterday and the next couple of days. And the vibes are good. I think the Mets understand they're in something of a transitional phase right now. The first couple of years of Steve Cohen's ownership, it was like, OK, let's use the checkbook and bully the shit out of everybody. everyone and win that way.
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But it's, it's not, it's not that easy. Like the best team that they had was the one that had the fewest expectations on it. And so in order to, to match up with a team that has all of the things cranking, like the Dodgers do it takes time and it takes the right people in place. And I think David Cerns is the right person, but it's really interesting to me.
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You go back and look at David Stearns, who's president of baseball operations there now. When he was with the Milwaukee Brewers and building that team into the consistent contender that it is now, it was always with the idea that, hey, we're going to create pitching. We're not going to go out and sign it. But I think when you look at the Dodgers-
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The thing that turned them into this machine was the recognition by Andrew Friedman, their president of baseball operations, that even though I was raised in the Tampa Bay Rays culture, even though efficiency and marginal value was the ethos by which we won there, I'm rich, bitch. I'm going to go out and I'm going to go and get the best players that I can.
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And look, Corbin Burns was out there this winter. Max Free was out there this winter. Like there were good starting pitchers. And the largest deal that the Mets gave out to a starting pitcher was three years. And they gave it to Sean Mania. He's hurt right now. They gave Frankie Montas two years. He's hurt right now. They gave Clay Holmes three years. turn him into a starter.
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And we have no idea, you know, what Clay Holmes is going to be. The stuff looks great, but I'm curious what he looks like in September and October when he's got 150 plus innings on his arm, when he hasn't thrown more than, you know, 70 over the last five years as he's been a reliever. So I worry about the Mets pitching depth, especially.
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Edwin Diaz's velocity is down pretty demonstrably at this point. And he's never been a guy whose command has been his calling card. He's always been able to almost overpower his lack of strike throwing. So unless he's evolving into a different pitcher, there could be some concerns there at the back end of the bullpen. And frankly, they don't have a whole lot of bullpen depth to begin with.
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So when I look at the National League East, Ryan, To me, it starts with the Braves. The Phillies are right there. And I think there's a little gap there before you get to the Mets, even though their lineup is really, really good. When you start with Lindor, Soto, Alonzo, Vientos, Nimmo, like, I mean, that plays.
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And they're going to score a lot of runs this year, enough probably to win games that because of their pitching staff, they may not necessarily have otherwise. Yeah.
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Exactly right. And I, I just love the NLE so much because the Braves, Spencer Schreider looked really good in his first start back feeling good coming off Tommy John surgery. He was slated to be the best pitcher in baseball before he blew out like that. That was in his cards. You know, a guy who led the league in strikeouts a couple of years in a row, like has been incredible since he debuted.
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And when you pair him with Chris Sale, and if people haven't seen Spencer Schwellenbach pitch, he debuted last year. He's like frontline, frontline guy. The Braves do such an incredible job, Ryan. Schwellenbach was a shortstop. And he's through a little bit in college. And the Braves' ability to look at athletes and say, we can make you into a pitcher is unparalleled in baseball.
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And Schwellenbach's the best example of that. So the notion that you can have Sale, Strider, Schwellenbach. against Zach Wheeler, Christopher Sanchez, Aaron Nola in the postseason. And that's not even including Ranger Suarez and Jesus Lizardo, who are in the Phillies rotation. I mean, that would be a whale of a playoff series. And I love both these teams.
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I think they're in different places, though. the Braves core is still pretty young. You know, Acuna coming off of his second torn ACL, he's not going to be the guy who hits 40 home runs and steal 70 bases. Like we're just not going to see that version of him anymore. And that's okay. He's still a phenomenal player, but beyond that, you know, Austin Riley, still a young guy.
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Ozzie Alves, still a young guy. Michael Harris, I think he has a real chance this year to have that breakout season that we've been waiting for. And even somebody like Drake Baldwin. This winter...
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the uh the Braves had the opportunity to go out and trade for Garrett Crochet like there was there was discussion it didn't didn't ever really get very far but there was discussion on a three-way trade that would have landed Garrett Crochet in Atlanta and it didn't happen but Drake Baldwin would have been in that trade and the Braves see him not just as their catcher of the future but
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a guy who's going to hit in the middle of that lineup and be every bit as good as those all-stars that I mentioned before. The Phillies, on the other hand, Bryce Harper. in his 30s. Trey Turner, in his 30s. Kyle Schwarber, in his 30s and going to be a free agent after this season.
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Alec Bowman, Bryson Stott, they haven't really taken that step forward, I think, that the Phillies have been hoping for. JT Real Muto, another guy who's in his 30s. They're windows close to closing at this point. And I understand they have a good farm system. There are going to be some guys who are coming up.
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Andrew Painter might be the best pitching prospect in baseball right now, coming off of almost two lost years because of Tommy John surgery. But the stuff looks awesome. And they've got some younger guys as well, position players and pitchers, where I don't worry that the Phillies are going to have that same sort of
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post-2008 dip where they had a few really, really bad years, I think they're going to be able to sustain it. But man, when you have position players getting into their 30s, you just can't expect a whole lot from them on the tail end of those contracts. And those contracts, Ryan, Trey Turner, 11 years, Bryce Harper, 13 years, they're long deals.
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They're going to take them pretty late into their careers. So I think the Phillies really feel like this is the year that they have to do something because all they've done is go backwards since reaching the World Series a couple of years ago. They just they they have not improved and get knocked out by the Mets last year was pretty embarrassing.
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I mean, it's going to be a race to 88 wins in both divisions. Now, on to the Diamondbacks.
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I appreciate you bringing them up because the Dodgers are... The Dodgers are just consumers of all of our energy and all of our attention. And the Diamondbacks kind of fly under the radar. They went out and signed Corbin Burns this winter and added him to a rotation that includes Zach Allen, who's been a frontline starter for years now. And Merrill Kelly, who's consistently good.
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And Eduardo Rodriguez, Brandon Fott. You know, Jordan Montgomery is still there. Yeah.
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Yeah, and Cattell Marte finished third in MVP voting last year. And at a second-base position that is so weak throughout baseball, he is the gold standard right now. And Corbin Carroll, I think, is still going to be the superstar that we saw in his first season when he won Rookie of the Year and when he was – you know, in the midst of MVP voting. And he's on a very team-friendly contract.
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You know, they, they signed Geraldo Perdomo, their shortstop, who's I think 25 to a long-term deal. They traded for Josh Naylor, their outfield. They just have a lot of depth there. Jake McCarthy, Alec Thomas, Randall Gritchick, Lourdes Curiel, Pavin Smith. I don't think people know this. The Diamondbacks had the best offense in baseball last year. They outscored everyone.
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And yeah, they lost jock Peterson this winter and they lost Christian Walker, but this is just a team that puts together good at bats and they have matched that with pitching now. And in the field, you know, especially up the middle, they're exceptional. Like it's a, it's a fun baseball team to watch.
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Like if there's an MLB dot TV team at the, at the top of the list, you can make an argument that the diamondbacks are there.
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I worry about them. I always worry about their depth. But what we need to understand is that they have the largest gap between floor and ceiling, I think, in the sport. Things can go sideways for the Padres in a gnarly way, where if they don't get off to a good start, they are going to trade Dylan Cease. They are going to trade Michael King. They are going to try to trade Jake Cronenworth.
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They're almost at the point of a reset right now. But at the same time, they're good enough where we could see them being the team that threatens the Dodgers. And I think bringing in Nick Pavetta, smart deal, not a lot of money in the first couple of years of the contract. So you add him to a rotation with Ceason King and Hugh Darvish, who's banged up right now.
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the starting pitching depth is going to define this team because you mentioned earlier, like their bullpen is nasty. So you get to the sixth, seventh inning and you feel pretty confident about how the rest of the game's going to go. I will say this Jackson Merrill is going to take the leap to superstardom this year. Like he is just a dude. He, I look at him and the swing is,
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and the ability to go to the opposite field with power and the fact that he plays center like he reminds me of a young freddie freeman um you know doesn't doesn't have quite the plate discipline but i think that's going to come over time i think teams are going to pitch around him a little and for him to be doing what he did last year at 20 21 years old and and to have that ceiling right now uh
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But Jackson Merrill and Jackson Churrio with the Brewers, we're going to look back on that rookie class last year, I think, and it's going to be an all-timer.
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Can you really say that the Yankees are separated that much, Ryan, from any other teams? Those projections were out before Garrett Cole blew his elbow out. Before Giancarlo Stanton, both of his elbows stopped working. Before DJ LeMay, he got hurt. Before Luis Gil was out for two months with a lat strain. Like the Yankees are banged up right now.
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And for a team that already is skewing old, they are like one Aaron Judge injury away from being a below 500 team.
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Let's go division by division. Yankees, yes. Red Sox, yes. Rays, yes. Orioles, yes. Blue Jays, eh. I mean, it's the AL, so I guess. Kansas City, yes. Detroit, yes. Minnesota and Cleveland's sort of there. Cleveland's just so disappointing.
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I know it's bad. Dude, I'm from Cleveland. I like, I always can hope, you know, I just, I just like, I just had my fantasy draft with all my friends, most of whom still live in Cleveland. And I just want happiness for them. Like they have to root for the Browns, bro. Do you know what that's like? You don't, and I'm glad you don't.
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The torture, the mental anguish, the specter of Deshaun Watson just hanging over the franchise, like Deshaun Watson being called in for meetings with prospective quarterbacks just exemplified who the Browns are. But I'm sorry, I don't want to get in my Cleveland rant. The White Sox are not... going to win the division, uh, or the league or, or 50 games. Um, Seattle, definitely Texas. Yes.
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Uh, Houston. Yeah. Oakland, probably not, but they're going to be better. And the angels know. So I think that was like 11 or 12 teams, which it depends on your perspective. Um, Either you can look at it like the American League is a haven of mediocrity or the American League is really wide open and we're going to see some compelling things happen and we're going to be surprised by someone.
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And look, the projection systems, Ryan, they tend to... Undersell what the highest achieving teams are going to be.
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I hate win probability.
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Yeah, I'll be honest. I have not been watching... Ask your Cleveland buddies. I will do that. Math isn't hard. Well, some is.
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Subtraction's not.
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That is so well said, man.
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Campbell is going to start at second, I think. It's trending that way. Christian Campbell, I wrote about, I did call them the big three. I did. The minor league three is like... It's a little bit of a backhanded compliment.
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No. And here's why. The two aren't mutually exclusive. You could have kept Mookie Betts. If you look at the payrolls from the Red Sox over the last five or so years, in the time since that trade happened, and if you compare them historically to where they rank in baseball...
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the Red Sox were always, and I mean always like top seven, top eight, usually top five, occasionally top three, a couple of times, I think second. So they were always there. Going into this season, certainly before they went out and signed Alex Bregman, but throughout the The majority of the winner, they were like 14th. And even even now, I think they have like a sub 200 million dollar payroll.
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When you look at it, it's like they're not pushing themselves anywhere close to where teams of their ilk are. And so I get why fans have been bothered because the Red Sox haven't been acting like the Red Sox. They've been acting like the Paw Sox. They've been acting like a minor league version of what they can be.
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And look, if Connor Wong was more, and if Jeter Downs was more, and if Alex Verdugo had been something, then maybe, maybe you can make the argument that this was OK. But I think in baseball, Juan Soto is a perfect embodiment of this. star level players are exponentially more important than everyone else. It's why they get paid, uh, you know, at the level that they do.
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And it's, it's when, when you look like, let's say there's a good player who's worth three wins above replacement. And you have a Mookie who's a six or seven war. You say that, okay, that like, that's only four wins above replacement. But when you look at the wind curve,
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Those four wins are quite often the difference between a first round buy and a wildcard series where you're going to be in for three games and you might get knocked out if you just run into two good pitchers on an inferior team. Those four wins are the difference between a playoff spot and no playoff spot.
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You do this for a ticket to the dance if you don't get it because you're not willing to go out and spend on a homegrown superstar, then you're You know, what are you, what are you doing here?
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So they, the, the way that the Red Sox have developed hitters, especially now in their system, like they haven't cracked that they're ahead of a lot of teams, maybe all teams in baseball right now and hitting development.
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And I think they're going to be spitting out hitting prospects beyond Christian Campbell and Roman Anthony and Marcelo Meyer guys who, because of those big three don't get quite the shine on them who come up to the big leagues.
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And we're like, damn, it's, it's almost like, remember when the Mets were bringing up Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard and Zach Wheeler and Steven Matz and who's the best one out of them, Jacob DeGrom. You know, like he kind of flew under the radar. And I'm not suggesting that, you know, just Nixon Garcia is going to be that guy or Cespedes or any of the other bats that they have there.
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But they're going to be good for a long time. They just could have been good with Mookie, too. Yeah.
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You know what? When did narrative grab hold so strongly? I fucking hate that word, man.
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I will say this. I do appreciate the... the passion and knowledge of local fandom, because it keeps me honest. Like in order to do my job, I need to be able to not just go over like the large scale details of a team. Like I need to be able to get down in the weeds there because fans will sniff out fraudulence in a second. Like they are very, very good at that.
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Uh, I, you know, if I get narrative screamed at me, I, I immediately go and like crack my computer and start studying more because clearly didn't do good enough.
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I don't feel good about it because they're the high variance team in the American League. I'm banking on Jacob deGrom staying healthy, and I'm banking on a middle infield with Corey Seager and Marcus Simeon. guys who were, you know, into their thirties at this point.
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And I'm banking on Wyatt Langford taking the step forward in his second season and Josh Young being able to stay healthy and Jake Berger and Jock Peterson being big impact bats there that they didn't have. And, and Jack lighter and Kumar rocker, you know, young arms taking a step forward. But I think the Rangers, I'm actually picking the Rangers to win the American league.
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If I don't feel good about them, if I don't feel good about them winning their division, maybe I shouldn't pick them to go to the World Series. But that's kind of the state of the American League right now. I can see the Rangers missing the playoffs and I am picking them to go to the World Series. So, you know, part of me wants to say Seattle wins. is going to be that team.
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Um, cause I, I just adore their pitching staff. They are, they are so good and, and so thoughtful in the way that they develop pitchers and deploy pitchers. And, and Logan Gilbert is, is so much fun to watch. He's like a guy who's eternally curious, adding pitches all the time, um, and, and making himself better. Um,
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But the Mariners, as much as there are other teams around MLB, like Cleveland, like Pittsburgh, that didn't go out and spend, Seattle has absolutely no excuse for not bringing in at least one high dollar free agent back, or not at least... making a call on Juan Soto. He's not going to go there, but at least inquire about the possibility.
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At least try to make this offense that kept you from a playoff spot last year a little bit better and don't bank on the return of elite Julio Rodriguez or the evolution of other guys in that lineup to be the thing that carries you into the playoffs because what they have, can it be enough? Sure.
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This is, this should be a, it will be enough because when you have a pitching staff like this, Ryan, it's not going to last forever. We already see George Kirby starting the year on the injured list and to, to have the talent that they do in their rotation, and they have some pretty good arms in their bullpen too, and not complement that with more offensively is an ownership dereliction of duty.
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And fans have every right to be pissed off that the Mariners are operating like they are, even though they have a farm system with a bunch of really good bats. And the winning, I think, is going to be sustainable.
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It looks that way, doesn't it?
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Now, this is not to stick up for what they're doing by any means, but one thing that the Marlins are spending their money on is internal stuff. They had to go and essentially modernize the organization. They had been an anti-Diluvian organization.
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uh baseball franchise for like the entirety of their existence they they operated like a 1990s or early 2000s baseball team the analytics department was practically non-existent and uh you know the the work that they had done on the minor league side and with technology where you know all these other organizations uh are are using it to make their players better there was
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none of that with the Marlins. That being said, it's just going to get really ugly there. And tanking isn't quite like it used to be in major league baseball. I think the draft pick penalties and the lottery that they instituted in the last collective bargaining agreement have done a pretty good job, but you're going to see like two, three teams every year that are just bottoming out.
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The White Sox are in that right now. Uh, and the Marlins are in it right now. The, the Rockies, they're just terrible. I just poorly, poorly run. Uh, so there's no excuse there, but, uh, Yeah. It's, it's ugly. Like it's ugly having 110 plus loss team. It's ugly seeing what the white Sox did last year, you know, losing 121.
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And I, I wish everyone could be competitive, but the fact, Brian, that we talked about as many teams, uh, as there are in the American League, that can win the league. And as many teams that are competitive in the National League beyond those top teams in the East and the West, you can make an argument that just about all five of the central teams could win that division too.
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I feel like for the narrative that exists about the Dodgers being this unbeatable super team, We know that at the end of the day, the best, like the best, best, best teams have about a 25% chance of winning the World Series because the playoffs are just the great equalizer. And that's why teams want to be competitive enough to get in rather
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but don't necessarily want to spend to the level that puts them at the top of the division. Because two years ago, we saw the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Dimebacks, two wildcard teams in the World Series. It doesn't take the best team to win in baseball. And if you are not going to have at least a hope of the playoffs,
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then, then bottoming out is, is what a lot of shameless franchises are going to do. It's why I, honestly, it's why I appreciate the teams that even when they don't have a ton of hope, they don't just go and tear everything down to the studs. Um, the A's for a long time were like that, like that was Billy beans ethos, you know? I do not want to have a terrible team.
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Now, John Fisher made that happen eventually when when he turned him into the major league Cleveland Indians. But most teams, I think, would go that route if that is the best option that they see for getting back on top. And the fact that that's still a path, it's kind of gross.
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Can I say one more thing before you jump in here?
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Your face when I said antediluvian was my favorite thing I'm going to see all day. It was beautiful. that was that was the moment where my my son he calls him asshole words he's like don't use an asshole word dad like that was an asshole word and i apologize for using it yeah we were uh we have a big thing coming out on floods um on tomorrow's youtube page so uh
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I also feel bad for cursing a lot after hearing the, you know, like, is life advice really going to be a curse-free zone?
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trade deadline hot zone um you want to do life advice with us right desperately yes i i like i i talk along to it and as like as the answers are coming out i'm like okay here's what i would say and and here you know like there's a point i feel like it started when i was 40 where
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suddenly i thought that dispensing advice is like the most noble thing that you can do and i feel like i'm a generally stable and decent person which is the place from which you have to do that like those are the those are the two tenets that you need you need decency incredible floor right yes yeah i'm a high i'm a high floor guy low ceiling guy high floor guy though all right uh
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I feel good about the Dodgers part. I don't feel good about the Rangers part. I, I, I would love to be the guy that picks someone that isn't, um, that isn't the Dodgers, but I'm sorry. I feel like that would just be disingenuous. They're the best team in baseball. I'm going to pick the best team in baseball.
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I'm going to pick Otani to win national league MVP, even though like there are going to be plenty of other guys thrown out. No, he's the best player. It's, it's really that simple. And again, the chances that the Dodgers win, not as great as people think, but, uh, Hey, I'll, uh, I'll stick with them.
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It was 11 o'clock. I was sitting on my bed in my hotel room and I think somebody had tagged me on Twitter saying like, did you see this? And It was a webpage on the Department of Defense's website that was under sports heroes who served. They have a whole array of stories about athletes who had been in the military. And it was a page dedicated to Jackie Robinson's military history. And
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it was dead. And I had read stories the previous couple of days at Axios and the Washington Post about the Navajo Code Talkers, about a soldier who planted the flag at Iwo Jima, all of whom their pages got erased too. And
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My instinct in situations like that is I almost have to get acknowledgement from the people who were involved that, yes, this is really true because I'm so scared that the internet's a place that can trick you. Like it can trick you so many different ways.
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And I don't want to be the guy who gets sent out, you know, like I, I don't want to be that guy because, you know, in my job, what's the most important thing, getting things right. Like my entire reputation, whatever it may be, has been built on the foundation that I get things right. And I care about that. And it's the most important thing.
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So I don't want to go out accusing the government of doing something. But then I tried to type in the URL of where that was. And when it redirected to a new URL that had DEI in front of sports heroes, I was like, well, this is very interesting. So the first thing I do is I emailed the Department of Defense asking a few questions and seeking comment on it. And then I tweeted about it. And
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I think it was like 1130 at night. You know when a story is going to get traction. I don't care about social engagement. I'm way, way past that. I have a lot of followers. It's going to happen. To me, though, this is a story that is about principle. I thought we all agreed that Jackie Robinson's an American hero.
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I thought that was a settled point and not somebody who needs to be used for political reasons, not somebody whose legacy needs to be diminished in any way because our current president has from a particular perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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Like I understand like the, both sides of the DEI argument have gotten so nasty and so unfortunate and, and to see it used as a cudgel the way it is and to see Jackie Robinson be brought into it. Jackie Robinson is like the foremost example of why inclusion is a good thing.
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You know, like if, if we, if we go look at what jet Bob, Bob Kendrick, the, who runs the Negro leagues baseball museum, who is a brilliant human being and just a wonderful contributing member to a better society. Um, Bob said yesterday, the civil rights movement started with Jackie Robinson.
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Baseball integrating was, to me, if not the most seminal moment in American sports history, certainly among them. It's not just that the DEI label was a fix there, but to see it affixed in such a negative connotation to somebody in Jackie Robinson who did so many great things for our country and for our world, it doesn't matter how I felt about it. I just, this is a story.
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And so I was, we did not at ESPN.com print anything initially. A couple other sites ran with it. But our process is we want to hear from the officials who were involved in this. And so we're waiting for comment from the DOD. And I'm in the Mets clubhouse. And I go out to my car. And I brought my computer along. And I open it in the emails there and open up the email.
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And I see this statement from the press secretary at the Pentagon. And it's like, wow. I don't know what to think about politicians now. Politics is so broken in every way imaginable. But when you see statements from press secretaries in Washington historically, they tend to be measured. They tend to have a little gravitas to it. This was just like bomb throwing.
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And so I, you know, I presented it very simply. There was no opinion involved in this. Like, I'm not here to be an advocate journalist. that was not the point of this. There's something that's going on in the world right now. And when it intersects with sports, I need to be the person who uses the credibility that thank God I've been able to build up over time to tell the truth.
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And so I'm not seeking any sort of, you know, justice here. I'm not seeing any sort of remuneration. Like it's not that it's, that Jackie Robinson is such an important part of telling the American story. And it felt like this was being whitewashed. And, you know, regardless of what the excuses that they had, it's back up right now.
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But sometimes people tell on themselves and it felt like they told on themselves here.
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to help make the world just a little bit better through this very stupid thing that I do. Like I write about grown men throwing and hitting balls. And I know that's a very simple explanation of it, but like, We also need to understand this very simple thing that is the sports that we love. It ties in to the rest of the world. And yesterday was that moment with baseball.
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And I appreciated how much people care. Like that's, you know, the passion of the sports fan sort of spilled over into the political world yesterday. And these are two things that people have tried so hard to separate. But I'm sorry, they are always and will always be inextricably tied. Sports are life. Politics is life. The two are bound to intersect.
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I'm looking so forward to life advice, dude. Let's like get it on the schedule now and just save some good ones for me. It's going to happen.