Episode 60: Will the Mariners Run Away With the Division/Is Christopher Sanchez the Most Underrated Pitcher in Baseball

The Jimmies opine about the Seattle Mariners and if they will run away with the AL West Division.

Christopher Sanchez is the best pitcher that nobody talks enough about.  He could be the guy that knocks Paul Skenes off the Cy Young throne.

MLB and the MLBPA release their initial proposals for the upcoming labor negotiations. 

Transcript

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Baseball fans and baseball lovers, good day. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the MLB Clubhouse with the Jimmies. I am here with the Slay dude, Justin Slay, Wendell Pops Patterson, and I'm Josh Patterson. We got some good baseball that happened over the weekend. Um, we've got some divisions where the lead has switched hands a little bit. We got uh more surprising teams that are up over 500 now. But most importantly, that what will take up a big chunk of our night tonight um is the initial um proposals for the uh labor negotiations came out last week. So we will get into that quite a bit. All right, fellas, here we go. I did not get a chance to do a bunch of uh research for the recaps and stuff like that this week. So this week we're gonna jump right into the standings and then we're gonna break down uh a couple of teams in each, excuse me, in each league, and then we'll get into the talk about the collective bargaining agreement and all the labor negotiations and all that stuff. So, Slay dude, lead us off with the AL standings, dude. Alrighty Rudy. Well, we still have a lot of the same. I don't think, well, nope, one division in the AL has changed hands since last week, and that is the division our Rangers are in. Josh, I know that's uh going to be one of the topics we talk about tonight. Is is Seattle gonna run away with this? Well, right now they have won six in a row, eight and two in their last ten. They have flipped to be the only team in our division now that is above 500. And saying that, our Rangers, after a horrible series against the Astros, but just so everybody knows, the one game we did beat the Astros, the three of us Jimmies were there together. So, Texas fans, you are welcome. We will try to do more of that for you, okay? But we're only two and a half games out after taking uh taking our walps three out of four against the division in state. Name all the above rival and a not very good team. Uh, they took three out of four from us. But hey, we bounced back and took three in a row from Kansas City at home as we should. And Kansas City has now lost six in a row. I believe they are winning tonight, though. So they are bringing up the rears. They actually fell behind uh Detroit there in the central. And we know Detroit has been really, really bad. Cleveland is uh starting to make a little noise, but man, them Chicago White Sox, I'm telling you, one game behind them in the central. They would be a wild card team as of today. They are the only two teams in their division that are above 500, so no movement there. I guess in the AL, we've had one more team get above 500, and that's Seattle, because I believe they were either 500 or right below when we talked this time last week. New York trying to make a little bit of noise. They are only one game behind Tampa Bay. I think that's gonna be a great race all year. Look up. And Toronto is only two games under 500. Baltimore is only four games under 500, right? So Toronto was kind of trying to creep up and and be that wild card team that maybe we all thought they could be. I think all of us, you know, maybe didn't pick but agreed that we think that uh out of any of the teams that are there in the hunt, whatever it may be, who has one of the best chances to get it? And I think we said either Seattle or Toronto, and both of them are kind of looking like that's what they want to do now. But the East remains the cream of the crop with those two teams. Chicago and Cleveland, a good, good little race. And uh you have four teams in our division, Seattle leading it, but like I said, uh six in a row. They have one, uh, beat a pretty decent, kind of hot diamondback team, too, right? So uh swept them over the weekend and um they're leading it, and let's see if they can they can do what we thought they were gonna do and be the team we thought they'd be at the beginning of the year when we made these predictions. Yeah, yeah, good stuff, Slade, dude. Um, so uh I mean I'm really impressed by the White Sox. I think they're probably up there with the Cardinals as far as the biggest surprise so far this year. Um, I think PopC even said that last week. Um, but uh like they're not just a game above 500. I think they're five games over now. Um so they've had a nice little run over the last couple weeks. Um Murakami is, I think, tied for the league lead in home runs, um, or right up there at the top. Um is also on the IL. Yeah, he's on the shelf now, but um hopefully it's something. Well, I think it was a hammy right? Is that what I read? Little little hamstring injury. So hopefully he can he can get get right and and and healthy and get back on the um back on the field pretty quickly, uh especially since I picked him for rookie of the year. He's making me look pretty smart when it comes to the rookie of the year voting, I'm not gonna lie. Um but uh it's it's pretty funny um because everybody said he can't hit the fastball, and I think he's proven to everybody that he's he's pretty good at hitting a fastball. Um I think it's gonna be interesting in the central uh to see if Detroit gets Glaber back and gets Scuble back. And uh Casey Mys and Kenley Jansen both went on the shelf last week. Uh and Casey Mys was the only one that was pitching very well for him. So uh they are beat up, um, but there might just be kind of a funk in Detroit right now. Um but the main team I want to talk about is the Seattle Mariners. Uh they did, I thought they had one of the best offseasons of any of the teams out there, certainly one of the best in the American League. Um J. Rod seems to have started a lot. His season has started a lot earlier than it normally does. Normally he's a boy of summer and and he doesn't start heating up until closer to the all-star break. Um, he's essentially been carrying the team. And we all know about their pitching staff and and how good all those guys are. And I think they're running, they're doing some funky, like right now they're it's still a five-man rotation, but like Luis Castillo and and Bryce Miller are like piggybacking each other in the fifth time or you know, number five spot in the rotation. Luis Castillo last week uh had a shutout through four innings, and Dan Wilson was like, you're done, and put Bryce Miller in there. And you Luis Castillo on the dugout was visibly frustrated. He has not had a great year, um, but I guess they're just trying to save his arm and and make sure Bryce Miller gets his innings. I don't I don't really know. It's kind of funky. I would I would just as soon go to a six-man rotation if you're gonna do weird shit like that. But um, but yeah, so we know about their pitching rotation, and guys, they've they've climbed the ladder without Raleigh and without Brendan Donovan. Um so how how far do you think these guys get ahead of the rest of the division? Do you think it's gonna stay close? Um, there's still a lot of, and I guess maybe it's because they don't see them play every day like we do. There's still a lot of like people who are in on the Rangers, and um you know, as and I'm not just talking about Rangers fans, right? Because we're all diehard Rangers fans. I thought you were referring to Seattle saying we don't watch him play every day, but you were more taking a dig at the Rangers saying we watch them play every day, so maybe we're on SN. I like Rangers. We know how much they really suck. I mean, kind of kind of like it's just on on paper. If you look at that lineup with our guys in it, with Langford and Seager and stuff like that. If you look at our our lineup and what it should be when everybody's healthy, yes, we look like we should be an excellent team. Evaldi de Gram and and Gore at the top um of the rotation, and then you know, the lineup, we should be a good team. We just watch them play every day, so we know that the offense is probably even more brutal than what the statistics say. Um, so how far do the Mariners go? Um do our Rangers keep it close or the A's or you know, do the Astros start coming back? I mean, if they hit the rest of the year like they beat up on our Rangers, then you can see that coming together. But what do you think, Slade? What do you think about the Mariners and what they're gonna do in the West? You know, it's been such a crazy, what I guess we're about third of the way through the season so far, and no one's really trying to do anything in the west or really anywhere but the east. But I guess now central with our White Sox or your White Sox, Josh trying to get it going. It is real hard for me to see the Rangers being in it because we do watch them every day as we're up 2-1 in the ninth right now. We scored a whopping two runs. Thank goodness the Grom maybe found a little something and got back on track after a couple rough starts. But you know, now Seattle, we talk about, you know, they're pitching, and maybe, like you said, they're hitting, but you know, they have now scored almost 20 more runs than us, and they've given up five less runs than us. Seattle has. So it kind of shows you, like you said, what their pitching's doing, and they're doing it without obviously MVP two and a history-making catcher last year. He's had a really bad start. Uh Donovan as well, like you said, uh the A's kind of are what we thought they are. They are right around 500, their three games in there. I guess we've actually caught up to them because they've uh had a little bit of a tough turn. Houston, man, I don't they beat up on some teams. They beat up on a Cubs team that was you know going through a very, very rough patch. Uh, they've what beat us five times this year. That's you know, it accounts for 20% of their wins for the entire season. So I don't necessarily see Astros doing anything if the Rangers can get healthy and and start hitting the ball a little bit. But I think as we all kind of thought with the with the guns that Seattle has, with the offense that they uh that they acquired in the offseason, and quite frankly, playing a lot of games against four mediocre to bad teams. I think Seattle's gonna take this division. I think that they're gonna they're gonna have probably a pretty pretty decent five to seven game lead come by the all-star break. Okay. Pops, what do you think? Yeah, I I think that they're gonna get it going, and by the end of the year it'll be probably a double-digit lead. I I don't think the A's uh pitch enough and the Rangers don't um hit enough. Um and their top top of the rotation. I'm sorry? What about those angels? What about the angels? Oh yeah, yeah. Oh, I heard yeah, yeah, exactly. What about those angels? So uh Yeah, I think uh yeah, we saw the uh and the top of the rotations, but you know, they they got chased out of out of out of it in Houston, and then uh the back end of the rotation didn't give up a single run to the can to Kansas City. Uh every every every bull every run that was scored in the Kansas City series was uh came off the bullpen. And you know, we held them to what four runs the entire weekend over the and they scored nine tonight against the Reds, the the Royals did. So that's pretty pretty interesting. But you know, I I just don't think the Rangers can score enough despite how solid their pitching is. I mean, especially if Seager doesn't get going, right? I mean, I I think uh you know, it seemed like putting Young into the second hole seemed to really kind of uh jumpstart the offense a little bit. Uh-huh. But um you know, uh if if Corey Seager isn't Corey Seager, this team is just they got they got nothing, and then the A's are just you know the A's great offense, lots of young talent, but they just don't have the pitching around it. And you know, it'll be interesting to see if they get close, but close at the trade trade deadline if they go and make some moves and try to get some get some pitching. But you that's not a bit their emote for sure. So but I think clearly the the Mariners are the class of division as we thought from uh from the beginning of the year, but uh so you know I think they'll they'll start to show their their true colors. So we'll see. That's my thought. Yeah, a big thing, and I I talked earlier in the season about Raleigh. If Raleigh's not the he doesn't have to be the Raleigh of 2025 for them to be a great team, right? Just be the Raleigh of 2023 and 2024, you know, hit 30 home runs driving 100 RBIs and platinum glove level defense, and and uh he's a perennial MVP candidate. Um so Brendan Donovan, I think, was huge for them. Uh good leadoff guy. JP Crawford's probably not the best guy hitting leadoff for your team, even though he will you know start the game off with a home run every once in a while. He does have a little pop, but Brendan Donovan just puts real good at bats together. Uh good base runner, and then also a good defensive player over at third base. Um so I think I think you guys are right. I agree that I think the Mariners do end up running away with it. Um and Pops, I may even go with you and say it it very well may be a double-digit lead by the end of the season. Because I just I don't I I'm rooting for our Rangers. I want them to win. I just I don't think the lineup has it in them. Same with the A's, they don't they don't have the pitching, just like you said, Pops. There's there's no there's no pitching there. And and when you don't have good pitchers and you play in a triple-A ballpark that likes to give up home runs, you know, it's not a good combination. So I do think Seattle runs away with it. I think our Rangers have a good shot at being second in the division. I just don't think it's gonna be close, you know. Um, who do y'all think comes out on top between Tampa Bay and New York? I think it's New York. You know, I think we said that a couple weeks ago. We see that they're they're you know creeping up there. I just with that, you know, with the power they have, the way they hit the ball, obviously now, um, gosh, with with Schlittler or whatever his name is, and then uh Cole coming back and just adding to that rotation, I just think that I think that that's just a hard one to overcome. I think Tampa Bay's gonna have a great chance and a great shot. I mean shoot at 15 games over 500. That's unbelievable this time of season for uh that small market team, but they're always doing stuff like this. But I think that the Yankees will win it, and I think Tampa Bay is wild card one. Yeah, Garrett Cole had uh had another great start, his second start back, struck out 10 batters, threw 79 pitches, uh, shut them down. I don't think they scored a runoff of him. So um yeah, that's that's a scary rotation, and judge alone makes it a scary offense. Um, all right, so let's get into a little uh a little National League. Pops, you want to lead us off with the standings there? Sure. So uh the whole uh NL East basically playing 500 baseball, but uh the Braves still are holding on to their nine and a half game lead. First team to get 40 wins uh this year. The Phillies uh you know, like we said, they're 500, the Nationals at 500. The Nationals continue to score runs like nobody and continue to give up runs like nobody. So it's pretty pretty interesting. 330 of them. Wow. Yes. Uh and and the next yeah, negative run difference. They've scored 327 runs most in the bigs, and they are uh have negative run differential. So um, you know, the Mets they're on a four-game heater, but uh yeah, I just I don't see them making it all the way to the back, all the way to the top. Uh the Central continues to be um one through five, the best uh division in baseball. The Brewers are uh uh, you know, seven and three in their last ten. They're doing okay. Uh the Cardinals, a little bit of a cold streak, but they did take two out of three from the from the Cubs over the weekend. And uh they're holding in at four and a half games out, half a game ahead of the Pirates and and the Cubs. Uh and the Reds are, you know, they're all I guess they're all above 500. Uh but again, I just I think the the brewer of the cream of the crop there, and I would anticipate the Cubs rising as well. Uh and then in the West, uh the Dodgers continue to uh win eight-2 in their last 10, 5.5 game lead. They they opened that up a little bit. Uh the Padres are uh 3-7 in their last 10. Uh the Diamondbacks, who uh I believe when we were on this call last week, we're in the middle of a four-game heater, and as we're on the call this week, they're in the middle of a three-game losing skid, so they just can't figure out how to stay on top. And then the Giants uh solved all their problems by firing their third base coach. Uh so they are they are just they are killing it. Uh they are on a one-game winning streak, and I believe they won tonight as well. And then the Colorado Rocky are the Colorado Rocky. So they've kind of returned to their place in the pecking order. Um the LA Dodgers, did y'all see Shohei last week uh against Colorado? Let off the game with a homer and then pitched six no-hit innings. I did. In the same game. They they didn't let him go past that, but yeah. That's true, little league, right there. Well, he wasn't a hundred pitches, he did walk four, which is quite a bit for Shohei, but um normally he's pretty pretty much around the plate. You got an old-fashioned pops? Is that what you're drinking? Uh that is some red breast 12 Irish whiskey. Oh, nice. I had an old-fashioned at the steakhouse. That was really good. I ain't nothing wrong with an old-fashioned. Yeah, you get smoked. Uh, dude, listen. I told y'all between the Ranger game on Tuesday and taking the wife out to the steakhouse, that's more than I drank in probably the last five years combined. Jessica was definitely the designated driver that night, so that was good. Um, because I wouldn't have would not have been able to drive home. Yeah, I meant, I mean, I'm I meant did you get the old fashioned stuff? Did you get smoked yourself? But that's I'm happy that you did and that we could be a part of it. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot of fun between the Jack and Cokes with you guys and the old fashions, and I don't know, I don't know. It was called Howl at the Moon, was the drink that I had, and I was like, that sounds like it's right up my alley. And it was like some oh, I don't know. Some coffee flavored tequila drink or something, really good, but then they made it pretty strong. So good stuff, good stuff, good enough for me to hand the keys over to Jessica for sure. There you go. Yeah, um, so one thing I want to talk about um in the National League is Christopher Sanchez. So for um for the Phillies, remember they started off the season just horribly, still haven't really gotten over the hump, but they have played quite a bit better since Mattingley took over. Um obviously Matt English not the one out there on the field getting it done, but Christopher Sanchez is. Um and he has five starts in a row where he has pitched at least seven innings or more and not given up a run. So uh we don't talk about him much. There's a lot of there's always a lot of talk about schemes. Uh lately, there's been a lot of talk about the Miz and all his 100 mile an hour fastballs and striking out people left and right and going deeper in games, um, and him being the new phenom. Um a lot of talk about Mason Miller and what he does out of the bullpen in San Diego. Um, and then in the American League, you got the normal guys, the Garrett Coles, the Tarek Scubles, the Max Fried's. Um, even not so much this year, but last year, a whole lot of the crotch rocket. Um, so is Christopher Sanchez. Uh is he the most underrated pitcher in baseball? You even get you got Zach Wheeler, who's the ace of that staff. He's not even the ace of his staff. Um, so is Christopher Sanchez a guy we should be talking a lot more about? Yeah, I think so. You know, I mean, I think that he made the all star team last year, right? I mean, he's still pretty young. Um so he gets overshadowed uh a lot by every his own team, Schwarber, Harper, Wheeler, uh, Trey Turner. And all and then on top of that, all the all the controversy there between the with the management change. Uh so he so he gets over there and you know you can add Shohei to the list of names that you already rattled off as he's just lights out pitching uh this year as well as um because he's actually been a better pitcher than hitter this year, Shohei. So uh that makes uh you know gets people's attention. But uh, you know, at some point they're gonna start figure figuring it out. Um I know he had a little bit of a wall last year uh late in the season, but uh yeah, he's he's as as good as anybody right now, that's for sure. So he currently leads uh the National League in war at 4.3. He has a 1.47 ERA, which also leads the National League. Um 12 starts, one complete game. Guess what? Also leads the National League. One complete one shutout, and then 79 innings pitched. All of those lead the league. Um batters faced ERA plus is a 291. Fip is a 1.82. Um, I'm not even 100% sure what FIP is. I know what Whip is. Um yeah, he's just so he was Cy Young 2 last year behind Paul Skeens. So he he got a little bit of flowers. He got some he got some votes. Uh Skeens is not having a year this year so far like he did last year. So, Sladew, do you think this guy's got a shot at knocking Skeens off the throne? And if he continues doing what he's doing, how can he not, right? If he's half as good as he's been this year, half as good as he's been the month, and we'll talk about that in a little bit as we are on June, June 1st, officially here, boys. Uh, MLB hasn't come out with their players and pitchers of the month, but uh your boy here has. Uh and I I thought, man, after seeing Ms. stats, I'm like, dude, this is gonna be a no-brainer. I've got to look shit up. Oh no. No. I do. Sanchez, yeah, we got the W Rangers has won two to one. But is that four in a row? Yeah. Four in a row. But why do I think that as we were talking and Pops just went to the National League? I didn't want to interrupt him while he's talking about what the Rangers and and maybe why they're not gonna get over the hump. We're up two to one. Guys on first and third in the ninth inning with nobody out. We proceed to strike out, foul out to third, and strike out. So we can't even manufacture an insurance run there in the ninth inning. So that's luckily we had uh really, really good pitching tonight. It's been the case a lot of the year. And to Wendell's point, the bullpen came in. Um the Grom only went five innings. He had over a hundred pitches, but then so four shut out from the bullpen, including Tyler Alexander, which Pop says we didn't really want to win tonight if he was in there, but he had a one, two, three, seventh, or eighth or whatever it was. But yeah, it was a good win. So that's four in a row, still major leagues, right? Regardless of who it is, against a team over 500. It begs the question, Slay, dude. If you have a team full of, I don't want to call them scrubs because they all have a lot more um major league experience than I do, right? But if you have a team full of guys who are essentially have been minor league players their whole career or backup players or utility guys or whatever, if that's the starting lineup you're throwing out there, let's drop a few bumps down. Let's move some runners, let's, you know, suicide squeeze or or safety squeeze, try to steal some bases, let's try to make something happen, right? Guys on first and third, nobody out. Righty on the mound. So Evan Carter, who's batting probably below 147 now is up, proceeds to strike out. I don't see him, Josh to your point, turn around to square around to try to even lay down a safety squeeze. A safety squeeze in that situation would be great where the guy from third doesn't have to run. Evan Carter is one of the fastest guys in the league. You could have bases loaded, no one out. You know what I mean? And no, we don't we don't do that. We waited until we had a 1-1 count on our nine-hole hitter with two bouts before Osuna stole second, which they were probably gonna give that to him regardless when Danny Jansen's up and he comes out and just pops out to third base. I mean, put some pressure on those guys and and get guys on second and third here, but we're just, I don't know. We all kind of saw it and skip first year here with us, but I he's got to manage, you know, differently than he is because a lot of that, I mean, don't get me wrong, he's not up there striking out or popping out to third, but he can put him in a situation to where a ground ball or a bunt does manufacture something. So, yes, they have to change their approach. And yes, like you said, Josh, especially with this lineup that they're being forced to throw out without you know, two of their best hitters in Seager and and um White Langford. So yeah, it does. It's just it's frustrating. Wins a win. We can't get mad about that. Four in a row is four in a row. You can't get mad about that, doesn't matter. You can't you don't make the schedule, so you just you play the the games you're supposed to, but it's it's frustrating. But you know, back to Sanchez, no, that dude's unbelievable. And you know, we were lucky enough to see him and we didn't know what our lineup would be like. But opening day in Philly, I think he threw six shutout against us and and skip set it, you know, after the game, he was just like, look, you know, that's you could tell from pitch one that this guy was going to be tough. And and maybe that's when you, you know, maybe we should start out the season trying to manufacture and hitting the other way and laying down some bunts even with the full healthy lineup. But I think Sanchez is a b unbelievable. Uh, I didn't realize he was Cy Young too behind skeins. And uh all-star last year, like Pop said. I think that you know he's he get he's getting the praise. He deserves it. He probably deserves a lot more. He's just not that big name yet. But have uh half a good as month, maybe have an ERA of 2.3 in June with three wins instead of five and give up three runs, then yeah, I think he's unbelievable, dude. He's becoming like when Pops was said last year when Scooby was pitching against Sunday night baseball, it's like you need to watch that guy every time he takes the mound because something really neat could happen. Yeah. All right. Um, so do y'all think Shohei or Sanchez has a better shot of winning Cy Young this year? Shohe's been pretty unbelievable. And the fact that he also goes out there and and leads off games and drops bombs. I think Sanchez, just for the simple reason that he is a uh full-time pitcher, right? And now in saying that, he has been able to pitch a lot more. I think in uh the month of May, he threw 39 innings compared to Shohei throwing 25. Now, Shohei only gave it three runs in 25 innings, but Sanchez gave it zero in 39. So I don't care who your name is or how good you've been doing and who you play for, really, right? Because obviously Shohei's gonna get a lot of the praise playing for the team with the highest, you know, baseball, the highest salary in major league history and winning back-to-back World Series. But I think season ends today. You you have to, and and we don't see any signs of Sanchez barring an injury, not saying Shohei couldn't either. And they're obviously watching his pitch count and how many pitches he's throwing, but the fact he did throw 100 the other night, like you said, it's a good sign for them. I think that you know, just playing every day full-time like Shohei, it's it's not showing too much, but it's a little bit of a detriment to him at the plate because, or excuse me, on the mound because he does have to bat four or five times a game and and run and put a lot more mileage on his body than a full-time pitcher like Sanchez. Right, yeah. Okay, well, good stuff. Thank you for that, fellas. Um, so next thing I want to talk about is the initial proposal um from the MLB and the MLB Players Association. Um Jeff Passen on ESPN put out an article about it, um basically breaking everything down and and you know saying why these guys want to do this and why the players want to do this. So I'll break down the basics of it. Now, with these labor negotiations, I'm sure there's all kinds of fine writing, you know, and and you know, all kinds of stuff that we're not gonna be able to see or or understand. Um, but the the biggest thing I think from the Major League Baseball side of it is that they proposed a salary cap, which they have not done, have not even proposed it since 1994. Um for those of you young cats who are listening, uh, in 1994 when that happened, and um the players didn't like it, they stopped playing baseball. 1994 did not have a World Series. Um, it started, what was it, right after the All-Star Break pops when it shut down? Um and you Rangers won first place. Yep. What the sub-500 record? Yeah, we were 10 games under 500. We were under 500. I don't remember by how many games, but we the Rangers were 500 under 500. Yeah. Um, you had Griffey on the verge of a 60 homer season. You had Bagwell that was gonna be getting close to 60, you had uh even Matty Williams over in the National League getting close to 60 homers. Um you know, as baseball was in a good spot, and then it wasn't for four years, and then it took a steroid-induced home run race to to get people to watch the game again when Maguire and Sosa were chasing um well started out chasing 61 and then blew that out of the water. Um, and then a few years later, um another uh steroid-induced record-breaking season with with bonds, and probably the four best offensive seasons that anybody's ever had with Bonds there, those four years that he won his MVP. Um that's that's what happened the last time a salary cap was proposed, right? So I I think we're all in agreement that we don't want that to happen. Um, right now they said that the proposal has a hard cap of 245 million. I believe there's currently, I want to say I saw uh eight teams above that right now. Um and then a hard floor of 171 million, which I believe there's 12 teams that are below that. Um let's see, uh 50-50 revenue split um with and the centralization of all TV revenue. So basically saying that everybody is gonna pay a certain amount into this TV fund, all teams would do it. I think they set it at 50 million. Um and then basically everything that's left over ends up getting split equally between all the major league teams. So um let's see what else. 50-50 split of baseball-related revenue, which is a two percent increase from what it is now. Um, yeah, so that's that's basically Major League Baseball side of it. Now, the Players Association obviously they do not want a salary cap because they don't want to be limited to how much money they can make. The players don't. Um, but for the MLBPA, uh they did issue um or propose a a floor, competitive integrity tax is what they're calling it. Um, but basically it's to get teams to spend more money, and if they don't spend at least um 150 million um on payroll, then they get uh uh hit with a high tax. Okay. Um also proposed the TV share revenue sharing. Uh every team, yeah, every team contributes at least $50 million, and then two-thirds of whatever means goes to a shared pool. Uh they proposed financial gains for younger players. Uh so right now the minimum, I think, is $780,000. Uh as league minimum, they proposed uh the increase that to $1.5 million and 10% annual raises, and then the bonus pool for pre-yard players going from $50 million to $180 million. So essentially you have two sides. One side um looking at this as their their business, right? And that's the owners, right? And they're saying if we have a fixed expense on payroll, then it's gonna build more value um in the organization, right? Now, the Padres, remember, a couple months ago sold for a record $3.9 billion. Um, so I think the owners are probably doing pretty good. Um you know, a lot of these owners, especially the ones that have been in it for a long time, have I mean they they bought these these franchises for $100 million, and now they're worth you know three, four, or five billion. Um even the lowest uh valuation, which I think is like the Marlins. They're it's like $1.7 billion. Like the the owners are doing just fine, right? And the don't get me wrong, the players are doing just fine, right? $780,000 a year to play baseball, sounds pretty good to me. I understand though why they're fighting for these younger guys. That's hard to live off that, dude. I don't really know how a lot of people do it, to be honest with you. So that part I do agree with. So, I mean, now granted, what's the average lifespan of a major league baseball player, or not lifespan, but playing time span, right? But probably four or five years, right? Okay, yeah. So if I'm let's just say conservative, that's only year one, it goes up after that. Yeah, if I play five years and I make three and a half, four million dollars, I think I could probably live the rest of my life on that, no problem. But uh, I think that's ridiculous. I think that the players are being greedy uh certain aspects, and Josh to your point. I mean, it's not like San Diego is this huge market team that we have, and they sold for 3.9 billion. So, no, you can't argue. Yeah, you can argue from the fundamental standpoint that it might make the game and hopefully should make the game more competitive, but don't be an owner and try to throw in some crap that it's also our job to make sure that owners are maximizing the value should they decide to sell this team. A lot of these guys are so rich, they're not dependent upon the revenue, the profits, or losses from these baseball teams to uh to make a living. You know what I mean? This is just an asset dump and a place to hold some of their money to where hopefully they can they can get a little bit of a tax break like billionaires do. But I I I agree with some of both sides, and I I think that both sides are being completely ridiculous, you know. Obviously, with the labor negotiations from the teams that we will talk about in a little bit, and then you know, uh the the people fighting for the honors stating that we're trying to keep valuations up. Well, that's not an issue. I think TV revenue for all the four major sports are keeping the valuations up for these for these franchises immensely. So yeah, so let's start with first the the salary cap. Pops, do you agree with Major League Baseball having a salary cap? I don't really care. You know, I mean I I think all these guys make on both sides make plenty of money. I think the players make plenty of money top to bottom. Um I I think it was always the players' um position, and there's probably some truth to it, that the owners want a salary cap to protect themselves from themselves. Because they will they will pay whatever to get Kyle Tucker $60 million a year for a guy that is not a $60 million a year player, but because they want him and they think he's that final ingredient or whatever, they're going to pay that. So they're trying to protect themselves from themselves. And so uh you can't tell me it's not a there's there's no way you can tell me there's not the money out there to pay those guys this money, and there's no way you can tell me that every every sports franchise, right, because of TV revenue, because of streaming revenue, because of all the different um points where you can it get revenue. Sports franchises are worth more than ever, right? I mean, Cowboys are worth 12 billion dollars, right? And they suck, hadn't even been to a championship game in 30 years, right? Right. So so you know the argument from the owners against the salary uh for a salary cap doesn't hold water to me. It just doesn't. Um but having said that, if they can get they get something that the players can work with, I'm okay with it. But you know, I just I just I don't there's nothing that they can bring to the table that's going to convince the players to sign off on that, right? I mean, there's just there's not there's not there's nothing that they can say other than the fact that you want to control salaries, okay. Right? I mean, there's just absolutely nothing that they can bring to the table. And and and I think if they if they want to die on that hill, then they probably will the sport will probably literally die on that hill. I think you're right, Pops, in regards to that. I I think if I I don't think the MLBPA is going to budge when it comes to a salary cap. They, I mean, they part of their motto is don't destroy what the generation before you did. We're here because of the hard work that those guys put in with the Players Association. Um, that's why all these contracts are guaranteed, that's why there is no salary cap. That's why, you know, minimum league minimum is $780,000 now is because of all the hard work that the guys put in before them. Um, how do you feel about a salary floor? Oh, I'm 100% for it. Okay. Uh to keep teams like the Kansas City Royals and the and the Tampa Bay Rays and the Miami Marlins and the um from just not spending anything at all and trading away anything and everything that once it gets to, once those guys get to where they can make some money. So you you there's that the way baseball is, you there's in my in my opinion, you absolutely have to have a a minimum because a lot of these guys will just not they'll rake, especially if you start dividing up the TV revenue more equipment more evenly and make the Yankees kick in a bunch more than to these other teams. Um they'll just they'll just go cash those checks and move on. Yeah. Slade dude, what do you think about the cap in the floor? I've always been for a cap just for the simple reason that every other of the big four in our in American sports has it. You know what I mean? Because when does this stop getting out of control? You know, in every other league, I mean they look at it as a uh percentage of revenue of what the cap's gonna be, right? Percentage of revenue for the league. And it goes up every single year. We've talked about before we got on here. You're looking at NBA players, and Josh to your point, whether they have 12-man rosters as opposed to 27 in the major leagues as opposed to 60 in in the NFL. But, you know, when's enough enough? You know, when is having a $70 million and a $60 million a year player on the same team going, okay, this is just goofy? You know, NBA, you're looking at guys signing $75 million four-year contracts. They call them max contracts, right? And I think that, but I like at least what they do in the NBA for that is they say the team that you're currently with can sign you to more team than any other team, excuse me, sign you to more money than any other team can. So it tries to encourage these players to stay and try to build something at the team instead of just jumping to free agency, you know? And so I think there's got to be some changes if they're not gonna put a salary cap in place. Now, this will never happen either. Okay, but you look at like in the NFL, you always see two portions of the contract. This is how much the contract is worth, and this is how much it's guaranteed. Meaning, if we cut you or you get hurt, or whatever it is, this is the most amount of money that we can pay you, and it's not a max contract. You know, yeah, that won't happen. That's what I'm saying. But if they're gonna say we're not having a salary cap, maybe they say, hey, you have a 10-year contract, we prorate it to 70% is the max. So maybe not that Shohei is going to, but year eight, he's just really sucking bad. They say, Hey, dude, good luck, we're cutting you. You know, if some other team wants to pick that up, cool. If not, you sign as a free agent, but we're not guaranteed to pay that money anymore. Again, it won't happen, but I think some type of Compromise is going to have to happen. And I don't remember, Wendell, if we were on or not, but you know, Pop said, Josh, you asked the question, whose side are you on? The players or the owners, and Pop said, I'm on the side of baseball. We don't need to miss baseball games. But if owners are going to die on the hill of the salary cap and the players aren't going to try to negotiate any portion of that, it looks like a work stoppage is almost inevitable. And that's shitty and it sucks. Yeah. Well, and and keep in mind, these are this is the initial proposal, right? So we've got all the way up until December before we have to start talking about lockouts and things like that. And remember, a lockout is not the same as missing games, right? A lockout just means players aren't allowed, they they are locked out from the stadium. But um I think it's important to, you know, kind of uh well, number one, it's important to understand the difference between those two things, a lockout and a and a and missing games, right? But I think it's also important to understand that right now where baseball is, and Pops, you and I were talking about this before we jumped on, where baseball is right now, we had probably the best playoffs that I remember in a long time, guys. I mean, that not just the World Series. The World Series was amazing, but every series, every playoff series leading up to that, even the regular season at the end, you watched a uh Cleveland team come back from double digit uh deficit in the last month. Um, you know, you watched Seattle get to the to the playoffs or get to the championship series for the first time in what was it 24 years, 25 years? Um so uh baseball is in a great place on top of the the awesome playoffs that we had. We had the World Baseball Classic, which was also amazing. You have uh teams from all over the globe doing great. Baseball's in a really good spot right now. Um so I I think the only thing that that will prevent games from getting missed, and and where the the players have the owners a little bit by the by the shortened curlies is um their contracts are guaranteed, so even if they miss games, those players are still gonna get paid, right? And if they miss games, the the owners aren't gonna make any money, and they're still gonna have to pay these guys, right? Am I right there? I know I don't think they have to pay them during a strike. Yeah, they won't have to pay them during a worst stop. Okay, okay. Well, um, so maybe that is a little bit so um both both the guys, the owners and the players have have a little bit of leverage there, but um, you know, taking taking games off is is lost revenue. So talk about the valuation of your business. Um, it's not gonna be as good if you if you miss a bunch of games and you don't bring in as much money. Um, but I don't I don't know that the game survives another strike like we had in '94. Like remember what it took to get the game back on its feet. Because how many you said there was also one in '81, right, Pops? Yep. Strike in '81, and then there was another one in the was it late 60s, early 70s. Early 70s. Yeah. Um, so you know, you have too many of these things. And let's be honest, guys like we don't necessarily we don't care how much an owner of a baseball team is making. We don't care how much, you know, if a guy's making $35 million a year to play baseball or $60 million a year to play baseball, or a million dollars a year to play baseball. As guys like us are like, we don't care, just win. We want the Rangers to win hell. I wouldn't be more mad at one side or the other, I'd just be mad, period. It's it's interesting to see how fans and and not just of baseball, but all across all sports get mad at the play. I think typically fans get more mad at the players. You think so? Over yes, I do, over salaries. Because that's what you hear, right? You hear, you know, Kyle Tucker, four years, $240 million, right? But what you don't hear is that the guy that's out there with the $350 million payroll, do you think he's writing those checks and going into the red? Yeah, exactly. Right? Yeah. So he's paying those salaries, he's got operations on the backside. That's probably that much again, right? Between administrative staff and field maintenance, all that, all that crap. And then, you know, then he but then he's got all the game revenue, the TV revenue, uh, the shared revenue, the the merchandising, the MLB properties revenue. So he's there, so he's making money, but you don't ever hear that, right? You don't ever hear that they're they're bringing home whatever the number is, right? 300 million, 100 million, uh, 50 million, 20 million, right? Yeah, they're not publicly traded companies, so we don't get to see their profit loss, we don't see their balance sheet. Right. Yeah, yeah. And there's all kinds of ways that they can write off expenses that actually show their net income to be substantially less than what it actually is, right? That's we've we've all been doing it for years with Uncle Sam, right? What our what our W-2 says for what it but versus what our adjusted income is is massively different, right? Especially for Josh, right? Because he has 27 kids, right? So we've uncle Sam gets none of my money. Right. So you need to name your next one T D tax deduction. But uh Jessica she should have had little uh Vinny boy, he was born on January 3rd. I was like, man, you should pop him out of there a few days earlier. We got in a tax break. Could have put him on the on the on the on the taxes. Well now you're starting to get their aging out of that, so yeah. Yeah, but you know, it's just but you know, like with the players, like you know, Tucker, 60 million dollars, right? So uh, you know, Uncle Sam gets his his cut of that 30 percent for 38. You know, it's a sliding tax scale, so he pays, you know, the obviously different, you know, he pays a lot more on the back end than what he does on the front end, but um, you know, he's got the same kinds of expensive representation, all that stuff. So, you know, he and you know, it's not a horrible place to be, but out of that 60, he's walking away with 25. You know, I still think I can figure it out how to how to make that work. Just for just for one year, yeah, but you know, but people here say, Oh, he's making 60 million dollars a year. Well, no, he he's not, right? He's because he doesn't have all that other stuff to hide behind, like the owners do, so uh on their on their in income statement. So I mean I I just I I think the players get a little bit of a bad rap, and there's because there's not because the numbers are so inflated, right? Because there's not everybody here is gonna make as much money as they can. They're gonna negotiate for as much money that they can, but you know, 150 grand versus 60 million is a big difference, right? So I I I just I think I think you know I think professional athletes in general get get a bad rap because the numbers are so uh comic book stuff, right? Yeah. And and I mean, just the everyday guys like us can't we can't relate to like how much money that even that even is. Right. I mean, how many times have you said, man, I do that shit for free? Right, yeah. Now I'd say I'll do it for league minimum. So yeah. So there's there's those funny videos out there on uh like YouTube and stuff like that where the wife asked the husband, would you punch me in the face for one million dollars? There's a lot of things I'd do for a million dollars. Yeah, um, and these guys are making 60 of those um to play the best game in the world. So yeah, I don't I don't feel sorry for either side. Um they're they're all just you know wiping their asses with hundred dollar bills and you know just swimming in money. So I I don't feel bad for either side. Um, they're not worried about where their next meal's gonna come from, or uh, you know, if they have enough bedrooms in the house to to meet all their needs and all their kids, you know, it's just not uh it's just a different world. So yeah, I mean it's multi-multimillionaires fighting with billionaires. Yeah. So there's not a sympathetic side, so they need to figure it out. They do, because the people who quite frankly pay all their salaries, we just want to see baseball. Right, it's it's that simple. So, um, all right. Well, good stuff. Uh, y'all want to get into a little bit of the worst of the week? You gotta look that up. I think we'll just close it out with the thing saying, again, it's the initial proposal. I don't think anybody should be freaking out right now. Nobody should be knocking down the doors of Ranger Stadium saying you better not put a salary cap or you better have a salary floor or anything like that. It's very early. The initial proposal, um, whatever the final product is of all this, is probably going to be drastically different from the stuff we just read from the the Jeff Passon article, you know. So we'll we'll see how it goes. Um, we still got a season to play this year. We still need our boys to we still need Chris Young to go out and spend some freaking money and get us a bat in the middle of our lineup. So yeah, yeah, for Sheree Davis that releases the funds, so we'll need him to do that. And maybe if we're until two and a half games out, which we don't think we will be at the all-star break, maybe Young can go in there and say, hey, we got a freaking chance here, dude. Yeah. Because what past couple years seems like we picked up some pitching, but like, uh, that's not usually what we need. Yeah, was what last year it was so weird because they had such you know, I I think 2024 seemed to be just a uh hugely injury-riddled year. They couldn't hit also, but it also seemed to be we got beat up a little bit. But 2025 last year just was so so brutal to watch. And it's get it's getting to that point this year. I mean, the game we went to, they won what was it nine to five or nine to six was the final score? That or ten to seven. Yeah, same thing. So they yeah, yeah, they're all the same. They scored eight of those runs in the first inning, and then I mean, other than a jock peterson home run, and however, I don't remember how they scored the the last young assignment. I believe it was a a uh Evan Carter solo shot. Yep, they had that too. Yeah, because every every time Justin went to go get a drink, somebody hit a home run. That's right, or did an ABS challenge. Yes, I missed a couple of those, but I will say we saw Houston hit four home runs, including uh two from uh Jordan later on. Oh, yeah. I mean, you missed the both the Rangers home runs, but you still saw 2,000 feet of the game. I saw the John Peterson one in the first inning. You still saw 2,000 feet of home run. Yes, those were I was gonna say four of the longest home runs I've ever seen in person in my life. Yeah, they're talking about over the bullpen in right center, and then over the other bullpen in left center, and then second deck in left center, and then the one that Yordon hit close to the the the foul. Yeah, yeah. My god, and then when we were there, Pops. That one that Young hit, and yeah, but but Pena hit one in the first off of uh who was yeah, Pena hit one in the first off of Valdi. Um that one that Young hit went up onto the facade of this the second. Yeah, Pena hit one and then he walked somebody, and uh who was it? Tremel, I was it Tremell that hit no, it wasn't Tremel, it was somebody else. Yordan definitely hit another one the night yard there, didn't he? Yeah, he had five homers in three games, yeah. Yeah, but and they hit two in the first inning. Yordon walked, and then uh whoever was hitting third that night. Was it was it Tremell? I I didn't want to say it was. I thought it was, but yeah, I don't think anyway. But anywho, yeah, so um yeah, I guess I started all that by saying the labor negotiations are still early. So on top of everything else last year, not not only did they have one of the best have the best pitching stats, they were the best defensive team. We were coming in this year, and this year has been that's that's kind of been the difference, and I think that's why Lopez is here and and uh touch is not. So yeah. But anyway, all right. So who who who sucker this week? Who sucked? So I uh I was tried really hard to get another cub, uh, but there just wasn't anybody on the on the batter side. So I the best I could do was a next cub. Uh Kyle Tucker. Yeah. Batted a smooth 150, three for 20, scored two runs, did have did have an RBI, struck out four times, um a 150 average, a 150 batting average, which makes sense because he did not walk any, and then a 200 slug and a 350 ops for that's what you get for 60 million dollars these days. Um yeah, I don't think there's a shot in hell that takes that uh option and goes back to free agency. I think he's gonna stick it out for the four years. Yeah. If you can play like that and make 60 million, you're in good shape. And then uh on the American League side, uh, you know, we were talking about about them earlier, and are they gonna hold on or not? Um the Tampa Bay Rays had a little bit of a tough week, and they sure could have used some help from uh Cedric Mullins, who went uh three for 21, 143. He did have two RBIs, uh one one double uh 308 uh on base and a 498 OPS. So um, you know, he just he had a tough week for a team that that needed him. And oddly enough, that's playing his season average. Uh you know, on the on the pitching side, uh a team that's you know leading their division and kind of starting to pull up pull away just just a little bit. But uh Tanner Bibby for the Cleveland Indians, uh two starts, uh eight nine innings pitched, eight K's, a ERE of 10, Whip of 1.67, 10 air runs, 14 hits. Uh he allowed six home runs. And uh was 0-1 and two games started. Uh somehow in there he managed to get a quality start. So he had one really bad one. And one really bad one. Um and then on the in the National League, I went with Nolan McLean of the New York Mets. Uh two start uh 0-1 record. He did not have any qual a quality start. Eight in the third innings, two two starts, eight in the third innings, eight eight Ks, of course. And he even got a win, but he had an 8.64 ERA. He did not have a quality start in his win, obviously. One-on-one, a whip of almost two. I still don't know how he got the win. Uh that must have been the 16-8 game or something. Um but uh but then I had somebody else picked out, but I don't know the name. Took the picture of it, but but they had a uh maybe I just don't know who it was. Two starts, five innings pitched, 7.2 ERA and a 9.0 ERA. So I picked their uh game logs, but it doesn't say the name. And I don't remember who it was. And that's quality reporting right there. Right. Yeah, that's why our fans keep coming back. We appreciate whoever it was they stuck. It'll hit you at about one o'clock this morning when knowing you're late. Oh, there's no chance. I'll have to go look it up again. Who are our players and pitchers? You do another month or of the week today? Real quick of both. MLB hasn't released players of the month yet, so it'll be interesting to see what our picks kind of stack up against that. Last week, uh player of the week wasn't out for the MLB. We did pick Kitel Marte. No Rainer. I think that I wanted to pick Wilson Contreras, but I think I said it was really hard because he plays for Boston. Yeah. But that's who the Major League picked, so we at least went one for two. Uh this week, Major League Baseball for the uh American League picked Ben Rice. Okay. Uh I'm gonna go ahead and say that no. You know, he did have, so he had, well, you know, he batted better than Jordan. He had three more RBIs than Jordan for the week. Uh Jordan, though, you know, hit five home runs all against our Rangers, eight RBIs last week, uh, including five walks. But I guess I can't disagree with with the Major League Baseball there. Uh Rice did hit 462 as opposed to a shitty 308 for Jordan Alves Alvar last week, but I would say toss it between them for the week. So my pictures of the week, surprise, surprise, is gonna be the Miz. All he did was go out there and give it one on run and 14 innings pitch, two wins, uh, two quality starts. Uh, maybe I'm giving him the pitcher of the week because I feel bad that he probably should have been pitcher of the month for me, but he's just not gonna be. And so my AR, my NL player of the month, and Josh, let me know what you think about this. Gotta give it to Juan Soto, man. He had a pretty good month for a pretty bad team that has one four in a row, but they started off so bad. But uh the guy hit 280 for the month. He had 10 home runs, 21 RBIs, and 13 walks. So that's uh pretty good stat line for any month for any player, especially now and then. And then from my player of the month for the American League, give me the not Oakland Sacramento A's all big Amish. Nick Kurtz had a pretty great month. I don't really see it being anywhere close. Uh it could have been, I'm sorry, go back to the National League. It could have been Soto, could have been Woods, James Wood, could have been Andy Paez. Uh, but for the player of the week for the American League, Nick Kurtz, the guy batted 347 for the month, five home runs, 26 RBIs. He walked 20 times as well. And I don't know, did we last week we were talking, but did his on-base streak end since we talked last? Uh let me look it up since we're not now. Because I know that was the guy I was the guy I had was it was Rangers for us. He sucked. Oh, there you go. For the Red Sox. Yeah, too. So now you don't have to worry about it all night. You'll be able to sleep good, you'll be fine. Yeah, I had to look it up. You see why is Marcus Simeon trending? Uh-oh. He hit a home run. Oh my god. Good for him. Let's see. Ended. Oh. Did it at 48 games. Wow. He tied Mark McGuire for the longest single season on base streak in A's history. Ended up crazy. Missing his sister. And he probably started a new streak the next night and probably has a new one going now. But man, it takes a long time to tie 48 game streak, doesn't it? Yep. Uh One of the longest season single season on base streaks by any player aged 23 or younger since 1900, tying Albert Poohs, who did it in 01 with 40. Is he a Hall of Famer? Uh he will be. He's got what two more years? Yeah, he'll he'll be a first ballot. See, I for sure thought that he was already in it. Seemed like he's been retired long enough, doesn't it? Right. No, we're still we're still waiting on Poohs. We're still I'm still waiting for that home run he hit in 2005 in Houston to land. Oh my goodness. I don't remember seeing that one. During that streak, Kurtz hit 308, had a 464 OBP, and got 53 hits and 48 walks. Jeez. Yeah. Pretty good. Yeah, I think that American League might agree with me on that him being player of the month. We'll see. Yeah. Alright. So we got uh you said Nick Kurtz, and who was the NL player of the month? Your best friend F that guy, Juan Soto. That's who I picked. But I mean, I think it very well could be James Woods. Yeah. And you picked the Miz for the week, but did you stick with it? Oh, I did not. Oh, so yeah, my pitchers of the month. So uh let's see. In the American League, I'm gonna give it to O'Brien Woo. Yeah. Seattle, 1.82 ERA, four wins, four quality starts. So uh really good month for him, and it's showing that their team has now won six in a row. Uh what else did he do? He had 39 K's in 29 innings, so as opposed to only eight walks. And then, yes, I did pick the Miz, Josh, for the picture of the week, but we talked about earlier. I just I can't not give it to Christopher Sanchez. I mean, the Miz literally gave up infinitely more runs this month than he did. The Miz gave up one, but Sanchez gave up zero, okay. And then he also pitched six more innings, and um, you know, he got four wins out of five calling starts. Y'all a lot of these are just absolutely identical. The Miz had 33 innings, one earn run. He had four more strikeouts than that, as you would expect. Yeah, they threw Sanchez had three walks for the month, and the Miz had four. So that's great. Uh Sanchez did give up 25 hits as opposed to the Miz's 14, but I mean, five quality starts, 39 innings pitch, four wins, not a single earned run. How can you not give it to that guy? Yeah, yeah. Good stuff. And well, so one thing that I want to say about the Miz, and the reason we are not having that discussion about him tonight instead of Christopher Sanchez, is number one, Christopher Sanchez was Cy Young too last year. So um he has shown a little bit more. The Miz, we were all flabbergasted when he got called to the All-Star game last year after what I don't even know, remember how many starts. Um, but it was very few. Uh, he barely had any data on the spikes. Um, and then uh got moved to the bullpen at the end of the season last year. Remember that? Um, so I'd like to see the Miz do it for more than a month before we start having those conversations like that. But no doubt that guy is fun to watch when he's throwing 57 pitches that are 100 miles an hour or more. That's ridiculous. That's crazy, right? That's crazy. Um, and then in the interview after the game, they were like, What do you think about that? And he was like, Oh, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's what I do, I throw hard, you know. So uh he's pretty pretty funny guy, but um, did you guys have any trivia for tonight or we we dunski? Yeah, I did not look any up. I didn't have any as well. All right, sounds good to me. We've got a lot of stuff covered tonight, fellas. Good job. Um, all right. Thank you all for listening uh to another episode. Uh, if you like what we're doing, support the show. Check us out on Instagram, on Facebook, on X. Give us a like, give us a comment, give us a subscription. Um, let us know uh what you think about the show. For the Slay Dude, Justin Slay and Wendell Pops Patterson. I'm Josh Patterson. Thank you all, and we will talk to you again next week.