Season 1 Episode 14

Trade deadline speculations.  Cream is rising in Major League Baseball.  

Work stoppage is coming and the major league baseball players Association is in deep trouble

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is Walk Off Slams with Greg Zahn on AM 1150.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome back inside the beautiful downtown studios of 1150 a.m. in downtown Kelowna. This is Walk Off Slams and I am your host, Greg Zahn. Let's get into what's the latest with the Blue Jays. Looks like they've gone out and picked up Simeon Woods Richardson from the Minnesota Twins, former Blue Jay that was part of the Burrios deal. Blue Jays manager John Schneider said Woods Richardson is definitely a competitor and definitely has confidence on the mound. Well, guys, I'm going to translate baseball talk for you. That's nothing more than code for I don't have anything better to say about the guy, or he's really cocky and really arrogant. We had him once and traded him. He didn't pan out for the twins, and we got him back on the cheap. We need somebody to go out there and chew up innings. And if we get as much as we've gotten from Corbin, we'll be thrilled. And that's pretty much it. You know, when somebody talks about, oh, they're a great guy, or they have, you know, fire in their belly, it means they don't have any legitimate success to point their fingers at. I mean, this guy, he's rocking an ERA just under five for his career, 0-7 with you know, in 10 starts, 12 total appearances, um, 0-7 record. Like, that's not good. Um and it's a pretty big ballpark over there in Minnesota. Uh the bullpen days are, you know, a lot for this club. They're having to do it a lot because they're just out of starting pitching. What was once a strength of the Jays coming out of spring training got evaporated almost immediately. And, you know, they need to extend. They need to put a little bit more of a workload on Gosman when Cease comes back from his you know, sore hamstring. They need to ride these guys a little deeper into ball games because the fact that they're going out and they're grabbing Simeon Woods, Richardson, hyphen off the scrap heap and throwing them in there, that's not even telling you that they're trying to win. They're they're just trying to eat up innings, they're trying to give the bullpen that they've taxed with their modern day five and dive approach. Let's chew up a hundred pitches out of our starting rotation guy in five innings. It's coming back to haunt them. You know? It's coming back to bite them in the ass. You know, when you have a rotation full of guys that do nothing but strike people out, they're gonna go through innings. And on a bad day, your bullpen's gonna cover four innings for you. And they've been doing that almost all year. Um, I'm sorry. I've been saying it all year long. You know, Gosman's a stud, Cease is a stud when he's right. Just let them go six, expect more out of these guys, let them know. Like, come on, pitch to contact. It's not always about punching dudes out, it is in certain situations, but it's absolutely not always about punching guys out. And, you know, for me, it's let's pitch to contact, let's get quick outs, let's try to get deeper into the ball game. You know, when you're making $30 million a year, a quality start is not six innings, three runs or less. It's it's a little more than that for me, I'm sorry. And they're not getting an average of a quality start from these guys, in my opinion. So to me, that's just one of those things where that's on you, and you need to figure out how to get more out of these guys because your bullpen dudes, and I come back to it again, they're all failed starters, every last one of them, meaning they weren't good enough to be starting pitchers, whether they didn't have the repertoire to go multiple times around the lineup, or they just couldn't figure it out as a starter. But if they pitch two, three times a week, they can light it up, their stuff gets plus, they they they're not in good enough physical fitness shape to be starters, but they're pretty good for about 25 pitches. That's basically what we've got here. And again, uh it's a byproduct of the Kansas City Royals winning the World Series with relatively no starting pitching. Everybody thought, oh wow, we've got disposable razors. You know, let's let's shave with them until until they go dull and then we throw them away, or we break them. No big deal. In other news around Blue Jays Land, you look at the the blogs, the message boards, the you know websites, and everybody's talking about the trade deadline already. It's two months away. Like, are we really talking about it? Okay, if you must. Uh it's totally premature in my mind to be talking about the trade deadline, you know, but I I'm going to because people are asking me about it. So let's get into it. You know, the glass half-empty section at the Rogers Center, they're they're all talking about trading Kevin Gossman and how many prospects they're going to get in return. Well, Gaussman, he's solid. You know, he's a good two at best, definitely a solid number three on a championship caliber team. Uh, but he's not an ace. And he's not Terek Scuble. And you're not going to get the haul that a Tarek Scuble is going to yield from a guy like Kevin Gossman. Two and five all time in the postseason. The rest of the numbers are solid, but you know, winners win. I'm sorry, winners win. They find ways. I don't care what the other numbers say. I'm a big fan of win-loss record. And outside of a management team, an analytics department yanking guys before they have, you know, five qualified innings, winners win. So, you know, I it would make sense for me if you trade him, uh, if you're out of it, if you wave the white flag, so to speak. He's an unrestricted free agent in the twilight of his career. He's in his mid-30s. You know, modern-day medicine and everything would say that he could pitch effectively until his 40th birthday and maybe beyond. But, you know, we we see what's going on with Max Scherzer. Uh, that guy I expected a little more out of. But, you know, it Father Time, it catches up with you, man. It does. It happened to me, it happened to everybody. The wear and tear of a major league season year after year, it gets to you. You just all of a sudden tanks aren't empty, and you're lucky to be able to do what you once did without without pain and without spending a bunch of times uh on the DL. But you know, he's got a few more years in him, and he might get you a decent prospect. I would be shocked if a guy like Kevin Gossman is going to yield anything in the top 100 prospects list. You might get a couple of decent solid players, maybe even somebody at the double A or AAA level that could help you in a year or two. But I would be shocked, and we'll talk about that in a minute. Now, the glass half-full people, you know, they're talking about all the prospects that the Jays have and the ones that they're going to trade away to yield some buddy, you know, some sort of a rental player that's going to help the Jays down the stretch and make a difference. Uh, you know, and I'm here to tell you, they don't have the horses. The Jays minor leagues is middle of the pack overall. They don't have anyone in the top 25, they only have two prospects in the entire top 100, and they're ranked 31 and 55. You're not going to get anything insignificant for that. You know, when if you were to say trade for Tarek Scuble, you'd have to give both of those kids away to get a Tarek Scuble. And unfortunately for the Jays, they're both shortstops, and they're both not doing a doggone thing in the minor leagues. JoJo Parker is their number one. He's a shortstop at Dunedin. He's hitting 230. How do you struggle in A-ball if you're a legitimate prospect? You don't struggle in A-ball. I'm sorry. I don't remember it ever happening when I was coming up. All of the legitimate prospects, they usually hit a wall in double A or AAA when things really started to get significant. But JoJo Parker is the number one guy now that you savage is an established big leaguer. Uh but there's nine shortstops in the top 100 that are ranked ahead of him. They have no top 100 pitchers in the organizations to offer up. And typically trades of any magnitude, they include premium positions, catcher, shortstop, second base, center field, and pitching, of course. Uh those are the positions that you build organizations around. That's how you restock, re-re-refill the shelves in the minor leagues. Well, the Jays, two top guys, they're both shortstop, neither one of them is doing anything special to warrant top 100 rankings. I looked at their careers, nothing special. I'm thinking it's purely speculation at this point on these two guys. It likely has nothing more to do than with somebody's opinion based on some meaningless metric that neither one can repeat on a regular basis. 270 in double A for this Arjun kid. He's he's been around a little bit. Uh he he he's actually slipping in the prospect rankings. He was rated once higher than he is now at 55. So that's not a good trend. Um, if the Jays are gonna do anything, they're selling at the deadline. Um if they're out of it, you know, if they're gonna, you know, do better. I hope that they they can improve on, you know, a couple of likely overrated shortstops in the top 100. Um, you know, these these feel like mercy rankings for me. Uh they don't have enough, in my opinion, to get back to the World Series unless they all get hot again, the way they did last year. And that was an anomaly. I'm here to tell you, it's an anomaly. I've said it a number of times. These guys are an emotional group. They all got hot, they all got happy at the same time, they were all feeling frisky, and things went their way. Every domino fell in the favor of the Toronto Blue Jays last year to help them get to the World Series. Um Springer lit the fire at the top of the lineup with some ridiculous run production, but now all of a sudden he looks like he's showing his age. He he's looking like, you know, last year was the last gasp uh in a really good career. Um, you know, Vlad the impaler, he was in play, he was impaling after his typical slow start. Kirky was doing Kirky. I mean, he was basically making the Jays look like geniuses for, you know, giving him that contract. And uh, you know, they need him back. There's no doubt about that. Um the lovable cast of nobodies, they were all playing out of a they were on a tree, absolute plane in a tree. Um, and they're gonna need something special to happen if it's gonna if it's gonna get good for them. It starts with getting healthy and staying that way. They haven't been able to get healthy, and I know that that is a huge factor that emotionally, just dealing with the blow after blow after blow. Um but if they want to make a run, they gotta get healthy and stay healthy. Uh in the end, in my opinion, the best thing that can happen for the Jays is you want this, whatever's gonna happen, either get hot or get not. But it needs to be definitive and it needs to be quick. They need to go on a sick run right now. Because the the American League, which was absolute garbage to start the year, is starting to heat up. Uh the American League West, which was the worst division in baseball, now all of a sudden, minus the Angels, everybody's playing some better baseball and they're a lot more competitive. The longer this takes for them to have some sort of a definitive answer, whether they get hot or they just get out of it, it's not going to be good for them. If they hang around and hang around and hang around and they don't get there, they're going to miss out on a chance to sell and hopefully improve a lackluster minor league roster. I mean, they get they need help. The cupboard is bare, in my opinion. If they want to go on a run, they they don't have enough in the cupboard as it stands right now to get a difference maker. They just flat out don't. I mean, when they when they got Shane Bieber, they gave up an 80th ranked prospect, Kyle Stevens, 80th ranked pitcher, to get a guy who was a former Cy Young Award winner, still on rehab assignment for Tommy John surgery. You gave up an 80th ranked prospect to get a dude that was still on rehab. So what do you think is going to take to get a difference maker that's actually healthy and producing in the big leagues? I'm sorry. And quite frankly, you have to ask yourself if you really believe their shortstop prospects are all that good, then you don't want to cut those guys loose. You absolutely need to hold on to them. You might be able to package them with God, one of those guys with Gaussman to get something legit, but that's what it's going to take. And the thing about it is, is when you traded Gaussman, you're not trying to lower what you've got in the minor leagues. You're trying to add to it, you're trying to fill the cupboard so that when you go into next year and you have free agents that are coming in, maybe you sign a couple of second or third tier free agents to join the Jays and help out. Uh they certainly need to change the identity of their offense. The hack attack needs to be broken up, in my opinion. You need guys that can get on base and hit the ball out of the ballpark. Plain and simple. You need a couple of those guys. Uh, what's it gonna take to get them? Maybe it's a free agent signing. You know, Santander was one of those guys that they thought they were gonna bring in and that he was going to, you know, somehow give them a lift, but he hasn't been healthy. Obviously, we know that. That's another blow. Uh it's just one of those things where um, you know, you've got to look at the roster and you have to say to yourself, what do we need to get more balanced? What do we need to hedge our bets so that if we do sustain an injury in this area, we're gonna be okay? What do we need to almost change the identity of the ball club to give us a more well-rounded, a where a more balanced offense? And you address that through free agent signings, you address that through minor league trades, but you know, you look at the way the series has gone in Atlanta, uh dropping the first two games, and you know, who knows what's gonna happen in game three as I sit here, you know, recording the program, it's it's one of those one of those those scenarios where you know I I talked about how they played against this this upcoming stretch. They're playing the Atlanta Braves, the best team in baseball. They're gonna get the Yankees. Um, and so right now you're finding out, do they have what it takes to get through the next two months and be in a position to even make a deal? Well, right now, to me, the answer is no. You know, people are talking about uh the Jays and what they've got, and you know, when somebody says, Oh, take the good with the bad, no, that's a cop-out. That's the to me when you're saying, Oh, I'm just gonna take the good with the bad, well, how much good is there? Because there's bad with everybody, you know, and and and I'm talking about the the Jays offense, the fact that it's one-dimensional. These guys go up there day after day and just demonstrate that they don't have any sort of a plan at the plate other than just hack. Swing hard in case we hit it. Uh the the offense doesn't have an identity other than hack attack. It doesn't work, it's easy to pitch to. You know, you you're you're looking at guys day in, day out, that could it just as easily go three for four, see eight pitches, or they go oh for four and see seven. And to me, that's just not good enough at this level. And and I blame I blame fate and the front office for this. And I look at it like this. I say, okay, you guys went to the World Series, you were literally one hit away from winning the World Series, and because of that, you think, well, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Well, you didn't get to the World Series because you were a better team than everybody else. You got to the World Series because you had momentum and you had luck and you had things on your side. I mean, you just don't see what you saw last year in the Jays. Everybody got hot at the same time. It doesn't happen. It's usually three or four guys in the lineup. You hope they're your big boys, like Vlad, you know, you lose Bargery, I drove in 70 70 runs last year. Those guys are not only are they a lift for the organization on the stat sheet, but they're an emotional lift, they're a mental lift for everybody else. Hitting is contagious. I'm telling you, it's it's one of those things where one guy gets hot, especially if it's the right guy. Like if Vladdy gets hot, well, then they're not gonna want to pitch to him. And if he's hot, then the guys around him are gonna get better pitches to hit. So, for example, if you're hitting in front of Vladdy, well, A, your only job is to get on base. Okay? You shouldn't be going up there having one, two at pitch at bats. That's just atrocious. You got to make them tired minimum for when Vladdy walks up there. But at the end of the day, if he's hot, you're gonna get fastballs and fastball counts. If the guy behind him can drive in runs and they're pitching around Vladdy, you're gonna get a ton of opportunities to drive in runs. And that's how it is. It's a symbiotic relationship. And somebody needs to do something and they need to do it quick, whether it's good or bad, because the Jays need to fish or cut bait when it comes to this roster. When we come back on Walk Off Slams, we're gonna get into some MLB news and talk about how the cream is rising to the top.

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You're listening to Walk Off Slams with Greg Zon on AM 1150.

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Welcome back to Walk Off Slams. I am your host, Greg Zahn, and we are in the section of the program where we get into some Major League Baseball talk. And as is the case in 99% of the baseball seasons, the cream will rise to the top. 162 games in 180 days, it's a war of attrition. You know, unless there's a full panic button pushed, guys are gonna do what they do. That's why track record matters. You know, and so when we look up the Major League Baseball power rankings, they're starting to fill up with all the teams that we expected to be there. The Braves have been number one for a number of weeks, and now they've got Ronald Acunya Jr. back. He's completely healthy, already hitting bombs. And you look at the Braves, you know, as I sit here today looking, you know, 7-3 over a stretch of ball games. Obviously, it's better now that they've won the first two games against the Jays, but at the time 40 and 20, now probably 42 and 20. Uh overall, the the stars are doing it. You know, Michael Harris Jr. is getting getting on base, swinging the bat. He's one of the top war leaders in the league. Uh Bryce Elder is evolving into a frontline guy. Chris Sale, unbelievable. Like this guy just keeps doing it. I don't I don't, you know, Fountain of Youth. He just keeps keeps getting it done. He's he's dominating it on the mound, uh ranked near the top in the war leaderboards. Uh, and prior to an oblique injury, the catcher, uh Drake Baldwin, probably one of the best best hitting catchers in the game, you know, hitting over 313 jacks. Uh it's amazing. They the the Braves are a really, really scary team right now. And you know, they're doing it on both sides of the ball, which is pretty rare. It's pretty rare. And they're going to be a force to contend with. The Dodgers, they're playing a little bit better after a I mean, Shohei Otani, holy smokes, this guy. He's got to be one of the best three players of all time. I mean, we we it's tough to compare eras. I mean, Babe Ruth is is you know often thought of as the greatest of all time because of what he did as a pitcher before he became a full-time hitter. But Shohei, he's doing it at the same time. And I'm telling you, as of right now, if the season ends tomorrow, he's the Cy Young winner. You know, as I'm looking at it at the numbers, uh.82 ERA, he's averaging over 10 strikeouts a game. He's just been absolutely dominant. But he's not just doing it on the bump, and as I said, probably a Cy Young, but he's starting to heat up. He's starting to heat up at the plate. Uh 1.16 game on base streak. And during that streak, hitting over 390 with an OPS, a gaudy OPS of 1225. You know, that's that's getting on base and driving the ball and and and just hitting the ball with authority. A lot of guys can get an on-base percentage. But OPS is a combination of on base and slugging. So he's doing it all for the Dodgers. And when that when that guy gets hot, everybody else around him gets good. They get good pitches to hit and they they get to enjoy things. When they when they get a chance to pitch around him, uh, you know, that that makes that puts the pressure on everybody else. But this this is a once-in-a-lifetime uh talent doing some really special things. And I'm telling you, if you're not watching the Dodgers games, definitely watch the you gotta see this guy. Uh that's must see TV. Especially the nights he's pitching. Because he's hitting and pitching, and it's it's scary. Uh the Brewers, uh, they're they're playing great ball. You know, I can't say enough about this ball club. I love this organization, the way it's run. Love Pat Murphy, the the manager. He's he's a guy that holds everyone accountable, but these guys play a pretty awesome brand of baseball, especially for a guy like me who comes from an older generation. Uh you know, they you you want your boppers to swing for the fences. You want those guys to drive the ball, but they've got a bunch of guys that understand their roles. They get on base, they they have quality of bats, uh seven and three over a 10-game series uh uh 10-game stretch. Um the thing about it, the bullpen. Holy smokes. The bullpen, and actually not the bullpen, the the the staff, the pitching staff as a whole. In ten games they had an ERA under three. That's an industry term called shoving. Absolutely awesome. They you don't see that ever, not in today's modern era. It's it's just a throwback to, you know, and I'm gonna say some names that that probably don't even resonate with with any of the baseball fans that are listening now, but you know, back when the Orioles had four 20-game winners, you know, Dobson, Palmer, Quayar, McNally, we're talking about just you go in for a three-game series, kind of like the Braves when they had Maddox, Smultz, and Glavin, you're hoping to scratch out a walk. I mean, that's just obscene. Uh Brandon Lockridge, he's he's stepped up for this ball club. Uh Christian Yelich swinging it, Jake Bowers, Andrew Vaughn, all of them getting it done. The pitching, going back to the pitching, I mean, the Miz, Jacob Mizarowski, he just absolutely throwing pellets up there. He he's probably runner-up in the Cy Young vote right now, but good God, what a what an exciting young talent. I love watching this kid pitch. He just rears back and lets it eat. Uh, Kyle Harrison, uh doing an unbelievable job with a 1.7 ERA getting it done in the bullpen. 1.29 ERA over the last you know 10 to 12 ball games. It's it's not a whole lot of room for hits out there. You know, the the it makes the it makes it easy on the offense for the the Brewers when all they gotta do is score three four runs a game to win. Four runs a game to win right now with that pitching staff. It's it's pretty exciting if you're a Milwaukee Brewers fan. Um the Yankees, yeah, they're playing good ball, still in the top ten. I mean, nothing really stands out to me as far as trending, like, oh, this guy's shoving or this guy's raking. They're all just playing really good ball. And you know, when you put a roster together like theirs and you have that talent, uh, they underachieved last year, but they're back. And you know, they're nipping at the the Tampa Bay Race heels. I would imagine that at some point it's gonna be too much for Tampa to hold on to. Could be wrong, been wrong before, but I'm gonna guess that the Yankees are gonna keep doing what they do, and when it's all said and done, they're gonna be at the top of the American League East. The Mariners are the team that I've been waiting for. They're they're doing it kind of in a surprising way, though. You know, they were you know game seven of the ALCS last year against the Blue Jays. Uh they were very close to going to the World Series themselves. Uh they've jumped eight spots in the power ranking to join the top ten. They've won s they won six in a row, maybe plus, against the the league after they lost Cal Raleigh to an oblique injury. And then they find themselves in first place. Find themselves in first place, uh, which is not surprising. The American League West has been the worst division in baseball, but everyone except the Angels, as I said earlier, are heating up. Uh never a great time to lose a guy like the Big Dumper, but the Mariners seem to be doing just fine. Uh he was only hitting 161 before the injury, so it's not like he was helping them offensively. Uh probably a big reason for the slow start was his slow start. Uh, you know, the defending AOS champions, you might and you might wonder, you know, the Nobbus baseball fan, like really how much can one guy mean to a ball club? Why is this guy such a huge impact? Well, the reason why he's such a huge impact is kind of what I said about Vladdy earlier. It's it's it's symbiotic. You know, when you have a big bopper in the lineup like Raleigh, and he's hitting the ball out of the ballpark, they're afraid to walk the guy in front of him. So they make sure that he gets good pitches hit. They make him earn it. They don't want to walk him. So they're gonna throw fastballs and fastball counts, as I like to say. It was a situation when I was playing where I got to hit behind Johnny Damon in front of Mike Sweeney. So I was hitting second for the Royals. And the pitching staff did not want to mess around with me. Johnny Damon was on base a lot, he stole a lot of bases. The last thing they wanted to see happen was him get on base, them throw me a breaking ball, which is a slower pitch, harder to throw guys out on. He's still second. I bunt, I pull the ball to second base. Now it's runner at third with one out, and Mike Sweeney, Jermaine Dye, and Joe Randa come into the plate. They pitch to the guys in front of the boppers. So the guys love it when a guy like Big Dumper is swinging a bat well. They want to hit in front of him and behind him because the guy in front of him, he gets a ton of pitches to hit, the guy behind him gets a ton of RBI chances. You know, and so you look at the guy hitting behind him. If he's not a run producer, well then they pitch around the dumper. If he is, then he gets pitches to hit and he hits Jax. And you see it all goes around in a big symbiotic circle, and that's how that's how this whole lineup works. That's how you set up a lineup. It's like who gets on base, who can hit a fastball, who steals run, who steals bases, who hits for power, and you set it up and you put you you you manage the opposition into a position of weakness, into a a position of, well, we're we're gonna really have to be perfect in order to beat this club. And that's the importance of a guy like Cal Raleigh, especially on the heels of hitting 60 jacks. You want you want to look at this guy and be like, we need to get this dude hot. Well, he goes on the shelf with an oblique injury, and what did the what do the Mariners do? They rally and they just start winning ball games and they find themselves in the first place. Next up on this list in the in major leagues, as far as the the teams that are rising, Phillies, they're back. I mean, they only went six and four in a 10-game stretch, but it was against the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Indians. All top 10 teams. So going 6-4 against a bunch of top 10 teams, that's pretty amazing in my book. Uh the Phillies are 21-10 under Mattingley, and they are playing some inspired baseball. Uh, you know, they started the season 9-19. Uh Rob Thompson gets fired. They they hire Don Mattingley, and now we've got a really unique experience where you've got the son as the general manager, and the dad, Donnie Baseball, is the manager. And now all of a sudden they're sitting in second place behind Atlanta, nine nine and a half games back. It sounds like a lot, but they're over 500, and they're only a game and a half as out of the wild card spot as I sit here today. And I'm looking at the ball club, and you you they've got you know, Christopher Sanchez, another Cy Young candidate. The National League's just loaded with great starting pitching right now. Uh, he's been a standout for the Phillies. Uh that staff, they went and they threw up three consecutive shutouts against the Padres. Three. You know, and Sanchez leading the way. Uh, he's definitely their ace. He's a special, special pitcher. Uh, he's getting it done uh at you know over 80 innings pitched at this point. 1.470 RA, that's legit. Absolutely legit. I mean, anything under three is awesome. Uh under two, yeah, that's why we're talking about Cy Young type stuff. Uh the rotation in the back end of the bullpen, they they've been unbelievable. Uh Sanchez has been great, as I said. Jesus Lazardo, Aaron Nola. I mean, they're doing what the middle of the middle of the rotation guys do. Keep you in ball games, give you a chance to win every night, but they're going deep into the ball game and they're taking pressure off of the bullpen. You know, these bullpen guys are you know, they're sensitive. You can't the people don't know this, but you know, they they might pitch three times in a week, but they're up and warming up multiple times. You know, if there's a five-game stretch, they might be up or in the ball game three to four times out of that five. It wears you down after a while. But their bullpen, Orion Kekering or Kerckering, sorry, uh, just dominant, absolutely dominant, just punching everybody out, Johan Duran, uh locking games down, picking up saves, uh, I mean, the getting the job done at a high level, and that's what it's gonna take. I mean, the the Phillies are are definitely scratching and clawing their way back into this thing, and you know, it's impressive to watch. You would think that, you know, the you know, what's the manager gonna do? Well, the manager, you know, they're they can technically in old school terms, they can win or lose you ten ball games, maybe twenty ball games over the course of the year with their managerial style, their their in-game decision making. Uh but to me it's more it was just a change of voice, a steadying at the top. Uh and you know, Mattingley has has calmed everybody down. Bryce Harper's starting to swing the bat. Uh very impressive to see. Uh, but that's what that's what happens when uh people are pros. You look at their track record and you think, okay, if we can just get the guy that we need, the right voice, uh, the the right mentality, maybe, and sometimes it's just a change of scenery. Uh, all of a sudden, guys like Harper heat up, and you know, he's tracking to be Bryce Harper after a down year, criticized by the front office for maybe being in the twilight of his career. Well, I'm not buying it. He's he's not 40 years old. He's not a geriatric player by any stretch of the imagination. He's Bryce Harper. Uh, and he's still got a ton of ton of life left. So get him hot, the rest of these guys, bomb. I mean, just just a an impressive ball club. And one of the clubs that I predicted were gonna be there uh when it was said and done. Moving on into what everybody's talking about in baseball, which is the Tarek Scuble trade buzz. I mean, it's it's gonna heat up. And you would think that it was too early, but you know, after I listened to my buddy Kenny Rosenthal talk about the fact that they're 16 games under 500 right now, and it's almost a mathematical impossibility that the Tigers are gonna claw their way out of this whole thing, even with the ridiculously bad uh American League. I mean, as it stands right now, the Jays are under 500, and I think they're a playoff team if the season ended tomorrow, which is absolutely amazing. Um, you know, to me, I I I always if you're you're not gonna make a big deal for a guy like Derek Scobel, nor nor do the Jays have the horses. It's gonna come down to the Dodgers, the Yankees, maybe the Padres, who are really aggressive. Uh, if the Dodgers get him, everybody's heads are gonna explode, and I'm gonna laugh because, you know, with all the talk about work stoppage and everything else that's happening in baseball, you're you're looking at teams that are in the positions that they're in for a reason. They are good for a reason. They develop well, they they draft well, etc. They're in big markets. Uh sorry about it. If you're not one of those guys, then you're not one of those guys. You know, I'm watching all this talk about salary caps and salary floors, and and what are we even doing? What are we doing? What we're we're talking about rewarding players, teams, whatever, for not being good at their job, you know, giving profit sharing, luxury tax money to owners that don't improve the ball club, they don't put the money back in. That's why teams don't win. And when you don't have a minor league system with a cupboard full of prospects, you don't get a Tarek Scuble. I'm sorry. Uh and it looks like the Tigers are gonna have relatively no choice, and they're gonna have to trade them in a certain situation to certain ball clubs, and the rich get richer. And you know what? They deserve it. You know, anybody that wants to cry about the fact that the Dodgers are, you know, have this wealth of resources, well, they earned it. I'm sorry, they've been good for decades, and it's it's not well, it is their fault they're good. Um it's their fault that they're good, and they've earned it. They they've been good for decades, they've they've drafted well, developed well. Yeah, they've got a lot of injuries, but they hedge their bets. They they have the money to survive injuries, they have the stockpile of prospects. Go look at the top 100 list um and you take a look at all the Dodgers in that list. It's insane. Uh the other teams are the same way. The Padres have built a good minor league system. They they've got ownership that is aggressive and will make deals in order to compete with the Dodgers. That's what it's supposed to be like. You know, it's it's supposed to be uh an ego contest against owners. It's one owner against the other, win at all costs. That's what professional sports is all about. That's what makes it great. You know, the Tigers are in a bad situation. They've got you know 14 people on the injured reserve list, and it's just been a terrible season for A.J. Henson and the Tigers. But at the end of the day, if they play their cards right and they do it, they time it right, they're gonna get a haul for Tarek Scuba. They need a whole new offense, in my opinion. They need to they need like the Jays, they need to get a new identity, they need a much more well-rounded offense. And you know what? They could make some things happen with Tarek Scuba. When we come back on the walk-off slams, we are going to be talking about my Sunday roast. Come back and enjoy, because it's my favorite part, and I know it's yours.

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And now, the Sunday roast with Greg's on.

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The Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement is about to expire, and the Players Association is in serious trouble. The owners smell blood in the water. They got the union to cave on major issues in exchange for late-night room service in hotels and babysitters at the ballpark, among other things. They're all making an average of over 5 million and a minimum of 780k. I'm all for getting as much money as you can, but how could the players association compromise on core financial issues for creature comforts that everyone in the game can afford? Late-night room service? Really? They feed the players three to four gourmet meals a day at the stadium. Licensed childcare professionals? Most of the players have nannies and stay-at-home wives. What are we even talking about here? Did they really sell out for stuff they can afford on their own? It's a serious sign of weakness. Did they really spend time negotiating for better entertainment facilities, aka gaming and moving lounges in a place of business? That's just soft. What's next? Crying rooms and safe spaces? Couple that with the Tony Clark scandal, and the union is in a seriously weak negotiating position unless they have the stomach to be locked out, and honestly, that's what it's going to take to show that they've regenerated a pair. Tony Clark is accused of personal misconduct and nepotism involving a relationship with his sister-in-law that reeks of conflict of interest, financial impropriety through the Players Way Shell Company that was said to have hosted very few live events, yet enriched upper-level executives to the tune of six figures each? There are even whispers of obstruction of justice. Is it all a hit piece to weaken the players' association's position in collective bargaining? Well, whether it is, whether it was, whether it was orchestrated or not as such, mission accomplished. Major League Baseball players are in for the fight of their lives. They're wounded and bleeding from self-inflicted harm. They need to stand firm and together, or Major League Baseball owners will crush them into oblivion, and they'll end up like the other sports unions, on their knees begging for scraps for the first time in decades. You can point your finger at a myriad of things to explain why the boys are poised to take another resounding loss in this year's collective bargaining, but look no further than the membership and the decisions they made the last time. The boys are soft, no doubt. You can blame Tony Clark and the leadership all you want, but they, like lawyers, work for the clients and are required to act in a fiduciary manner. The union votes on all matters, whether it is as a whole or through the executive subcommittee. They chose this path and they're now reaping what they've sown. I hope for their sake that they have the stomach for the battle that they will need to fight in order to regain the ground lost in the last one. Unfortunately, they don't have enough battle-tested veterans around to guide them through this. The smartest thing they could do would be to call some players from previous generations who held elevated positions in the Union to advise them on what to expect and how to respond. Short of that, expect a complete beatdown by ownership, and it starts with the Trojan horse that is the salary floor. Give them an inch like last time, and they will take a mile. Good thing this generation of players is the most padded group in history. They should be used to fighting in bubble wrap. They're gonna need more than their rainbow colored elbow guards, C flaps, and oven mitts to survive this one. I hate to say this, but I'll be thrilled by a work stoppage. If the players push back, it's inevitable. And the work stoppage will mean that they showed some backbone. It's Sunday. Can you smell that roast?