Emergency Pod - Skubal to Dodgers - Baseball will be locked out

Emergency Pod to react to the Dodgers acquiring Tarik Skubal 

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Welcome. Welcome in. I would say good evening, but it would have to be good for it that to be the case. We are here for an emergency edition of the Tailgate Cam podcast. And the reason that we have gathered here today is because about 15 minutes ago, ESPN's Jeff Passen has reported that the Dodgers have finalized a trade for the top asset on the trade market, Tariq Scoobyl. And normally I wouldn't get on here to welcome, welcome in. I would say good evening, but it would have to be good for it that to be the case. We are here for an emergency edition of the Tailgate Cam podcast. And the reason that we have gathered here today is because about 15 minutes ago, ESPN's Jeff Passen has reported that the Dodgers have finalized a trade for the top asset on the trade market to reek Scoobyl. And normally I wouldn't get on here to recap a single trade, but this is not like other trades. So what we have here is the Dodgers, who were already the favorites to win the World Series, acquiring yet again the top available player on the trade market. A player that's been one of the best pitchers in baseball for several years now, has won a Cy Young, and has openly said that he would like to re-sign with the Dodgers ahead of this upcoming impending collective bargaining agreement that we are surely to face. If not before this, absolutely we will face this after the fact now. I guess I should just recap the trade real quick. So it's being reported that the Dodgers are sending outfielder Zaire Hope, who is a top prospect, and two right-handed pitching prospects, River Ryan and Brady Smith, to Detroit. And the Dodgers yet again are making a push before this lockout comes into effect to try to stack as many chips as they can. So when baseball and the players union come to an agreement, if they ever do, to continue bargaining and playing baseball with the players union, that they will have so many players there, whether you know baseball decides to do um, you know, like a courtesy, you know, apron type of salary cap or what whatever the case may be. They have broken baseball. I mean, there's there's no other way to say it. Like, I wish I had other words, but let's just look at some of the recent recent additions the Los Angeles Dodgers have made to their roster. You want to talk about just looking at their bullpen, Edwin Diaz, who is one of the top closers in all of baseball. Um, we could also mention their uh many international signings that they get. Obviously, Otani came from the Angels, but Yamamoto, um Sasaki, um Hasan Kim. Then you factor in the Moogie Betts trade, then you factor in the Freddie Freeman trade, then you factor in getting a guy like Teoscar Hernandez, then you factor in getting a guy like Kyle Tucker. Not to mention the fact that the Otani contract itself, the way it was set up, the way that that whole deal went down, they gave him a deferred contract. So they didn't have to pay him all of his money up front because Otani doesn't really need it because I mean he's probably making all of his winnings gambling anyway, but um Otani doesn't really need that money right now because he is one of the leading uh athletes in the world in terms of their endorsements. It's it's just sickening. It's it's really it's really sickening, it's disappointing. I'm sad for baseball today. I'm sad for where the game is going. I fully anticipate there not to be baseball played in 2027. Um yeah, it's just it's just really disheartening. I mean, yeah, sure. You're gonna have people that are gonna say, well, just because they got Scoobyl doesn't mean they're gonna win. Okay. Well, did was that the case when they got Otani? Was that the case when they acquired Mookie Bats? So this is this is different somehow. Why? It's not. They're ruining the game of baseball because they are stacking chips in a in a in a method that is is ruining the competitive balance of the game because of how they're out they are allocating these dollar amounts in these contracts, especially to Shoei Otana, who essentially is getting who's not getting paid by them right now. I think he's he's actually, in terms of cash out the door, less than $10 million a year that the Dodgers pay him until those deferred payments start kicking in. And you know, I I could sit here and and attack the Dodgers for, you know, being this bully in the trade market, being the bully in the free agent market with the amount of wealth and capital that they have in their ownership group. But honestly, the blame here lies with 29 owners that don't give a damn about winning baseball games. That's what it is. There's 29 owners that could care less about the World Series, that could care less about playoffs, that could care less about making their teams better during the trade deadline, because the reality is it's not like there aren't other billionaires that own baseball teams. There's a bunch. In fact, if you get into the business of owning a baseball team, you have a team that plays 81 home games, and in most cases, in front of at least 10 to 15,000 people a night, there's a lot of billionaires that own baseball teams. So that's not that's not the reason. It's not just, oh, well, the Dodgers have money to spend, it's that the other teams don't value winning the way that the Dodgers go after. And given the timing of this, given the timing of where we are with this collective bargaining, it's it feels like a nail in the coffin. And I'm sad to see it. We'll be back on Monday with our next podcast. Rant over.