All Star Break Banter

Howdy and welcome to the Three True Outcomes Baseball podcasts, presented by Baseball Prospectives. I'm your host Ian left Quiz and joining me as always, it's Ben Murphy. Ben. How are you doing. I'm doing well. Ian. How are you joining us from our nation's capital. Its Jared Wise. Jared, how are you doing? I'm doing great? Thanks. Thanks. We had to get this train on the station because, you know, a lot

of trades, a lot of free agent signings, what have you. You know, it's been kind of the busiest Oh wait, sorry, sorry, that's basketball. Sorry, totally confused in baseball. Nothing has happened for two weeks. Was exciting, right, It's very said for baseball that basketball is like literally more exciting when there's no games going on. Um. Yeah, So we're gonna break that down a little bit um where it delights to be

back. Fair warning, this one may not have a ton of course you content in it, but we'll try to load it up first, and then we'll talk a little bit about the All Star Game, a little bit about some of the news that has been coming out of baseball in the last week or so, and then get out of here. But before that, let me turn it over to the mailback. Captain Jared, how's the mailback? Let's looking a little idea in But we got one, only one in the

weeks that we were gone. Well that's not us, But what is that one? The question comes from Jacob, who would like us to evaluate a trade he made recently. He traded away Anthony Rendon, Aaron Nola, Mamma, Mike Siroca, brass stripling, Jacob Webb, and Harrison Bader and got back Cody Bellinger Luke Weaver in a round thirty six pick. What do you think of that deal? So it's a lot going on, right, There's

a lot? Yeah, yeah, So what this is is kind of the four nickels for a quarter trade, except one of the nickels is like a twenty cent piece and one of them is maybe a die. But you know, whatever, the analogy is, where is the twenty ten piece counterfeit or better than a nickel? I don't know, Like, I don't ask me about Funny, it does sound counterfeit since well, you know, yeah,

you can venmo me the results of this trade later. But what, like what I think we're asking here is whether the difference between Anthony Randon and Cody Bellinger is worth the remainder of this trade. Yeah, cool, because we always talk about consolidating and trying to get the best player in the deal, and I think we'd all agree that Cody Bellinger's best player in the deal.

But it's a lot to give up for Coody Bellinger, right right, And you know, I I I think it is kind of a little bit dependent on how many keepers you have, right and a little bit on how you feel about some of these pictures in particular. You know, I would say

certainly Jacob Webb and Harrison Bader are probably more one year picks. It's starting to look like especially a debater, but it kind of breaks down to Aaron Ola, Mikesaroka, and Ross Stripling versus that difference plus Luke Weaver and then so you know, breaking down player right player Mike Saroka is out over his skis, but he appears to have the knack for a pitching and you know,

I think we are talking like long term number two starter. Aaronola has almost completely lost it, but he had it, and Ross Stripling is probably a number two, number three starter on the Dodgers, which is probably the

most frustrating organization in which to own sat starter. You know, I think the Dodgers and the Astros are probably the two teams where I've pretty much in my head devalued all of their starters around or two at this point outside of you know, the actual ass is that because it seems like they get good performance out of their pictures. Yeah, performance, I would say, the challenge of the uncertainty of having them in the playoffs in particular. Yeah,

so it's usage, especially down stretch. Yeah, you know, I think Ross Stripling is somebody who inherently moves to the pen by September and therefore is a reliever, which is not the worst thing in the world to have, and he'll help you during the season, but um, it's kind of child they you know, those teams both have so much talent at this point, although a lot of it's vaporized on Houston this year. But u you know, with the Dodgers, I think getting struggling into the rotation as a challenge.

That said, you know, I would rather have Nolan Siroca over we Faver, and I think it's pretty close to there between Rando and Bellinger. One of the things I've been noticing. You know, Fangraphs released their mid season Top fifty or I guess fifty futures this week, which was interesting. Baseball Perspectives released their obviously minor league update, which I thought was fascinating as

well. Both great, but focusing on Fangraphs for a moment, they did a draft of the top fifty players in Top thirty players in Baseball, and what a lot of the commenters noticed was that twenty eight and twenty ninety year olds in the twenty twelve draft, the last draft they did, were like just tanked, even if they were like the absolute superstars in the game. And you know, I think people kind of under made it how quickly they could hit the cliff. So I think there is a chance they had Balinger.

It's worth a lot more than the rendown. Yeah, which is you know all that to say, I think I would personally rather the rend down no Lass Heroka side, but you know, I see where it is coming from. Put it that way. Yeah, I think I would definitely rather have the Balinger side. But I'm surprised because I expected you also took him down on the Balinger side. I think the age gap between Bell and Ger

redown alone would be enough for me. But I think, I guess the performance difference is big enough that I think we can say, like, Balinger's a better hitter today, and he's what six years younger? Yeah, six years younger, m So obviously the other players are good. I also took

a second to look up Jacob's team. This is for n L three forty, and he's in last place, so he's sort of rebuilding, and it seems like, um, this is a good rebuilding kind of trade, consolidating your talent, and um, I'm assuming since it's a public league that you know, it's a normal hard thirteen keeper system. But even if he can't fill up those slots, he can trade him for you know, early UM draft picks next spring and keep building that way. So yeah, we Luke

Weaver is certainly more than a flyer. He deserves mentioned as a definitely something of a keeper starter. That's the guy that I asked about that you said has like shoulder and elbow problems. Yes, okay, yes, just checking um on his way back, but yeah, it has a could be going down for Tommy John surgery in a month as well. Yeah, but you know pures. Yeah, but I think I'm gonna bet on the one that's

already had arm issues like recently to be more likely. I guess what I would be betting on is that Siroca and Nola are strong enough that it's giving up a lot. But right like you said, if you're a rebuilder, I think any quality pitcher is a little less valuable to you. Yeah, so you know, I see where this is coming from. It's probably a good example of a win win both teams get something for what they need. And yeah, I think since we can obviously see it either side good fair

trade. Yeah, and I think, um, you know, not to pivot from this, but next few weeks are going to be trade season, so you know, if you have any other trades that you'd like us to evaluate, either privately or publicly, feel free to send them to us. What is their email address, Baseball Perspectives dot com. Thank you mail. Yeah, you're welcome. I was gonna bring up the Fangraft's series on the next podcast if we needed something, because we've got so much content for this

one. I was wondering what you thought of their Wander Franco position. Um, wander Franco who was drafted? I want to say fourth. I don't have it pulled up, but it was eighth. Okay, it was like extremely high low. I was wondering if he thought he should be picked like zero, Like, yeah, he should be not considered for this because obviously he'd be the first. Yeah. So this is um and their conceit was value over the next ten years team irrespective, I believe, which actually makes

it a really good analog for sports sheet. So yeah, doesn't because yeah yeah, and they threw out the contract as well, so it doesn't matter what their current contract with us. Yeah. Um, you know again, I think to me it felt a little u a little aggressive just because players like I think Juan Soto, we're still on the board, you know. Yeah, there were players of an equal age with kind of a stronger performance record in the mater leagues. Yeah, I mean he went eight, so

basically everybody else was still there. Yes, I know, Soto went sixteen, Vladito went eighteen. I thought it was interesting. Fernando Tatis went before. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Um, I can see it. You know. I think Keith Law went out on a limb in the preseason, and he's looking pretty good right now. I do think Fernando Tatis is

a little out over his skis performance wise though as well. Just you know that is kind of not supported by any uh you know, his peripher roles already Stadcast type metrics, So you know, I don't want to say like he's extremely exciting, so you know, you can only the hype train only goes so far down. But um, this might be the high watermark for drafting for Natatas And the next is that the worst trick in the first fifteen.

I think in this case, the consensus was, and I kind of agree with it, that Anthony Randolin was the worst pick in the first fifteen. He remains the most underrated player except in this draft scepting where and I guess we could link to this, but he was taken forth right, he was one fifth? Okay, so who was taken forth Culdy Belinger. Yeah, Cuddy Milinger is pretty good. Yeah, I guess that would suggest directly

that's right. Um, but yeah, I think that was where a lot of people, I think flag that as good as Rondon is, it's a little too aggressive on him. Yeah, which I agree, you know, he's I don't think he's that much lower than fifth, But Yeah. I wasn't a draft of fifth and the mock draft this offseason either. I was

pretty surprised to see Matt Chapman at thirteen. I guess maybe I always just sort of assumed that I'm ignorant and or wrong, but curious to hear as Matt Chapman at thirteen weird like guys that went after him, basically everybody else, but especially Juan Soto, Vladito, Yeah, Sander Barts, Aaron Judge, Arles Correa. I think, like, um, you know, I

think you could argue some plays. I think Match Chapman has definitely helped himself this year, and us who specifically chose I say Ramires over Match Happen this offseason do not feel great about Match Happen in this moment. Gotcha. Um, you know, I think it's defensible. I don't think it's depicted at any any of us would make, but right, I think you could defend

it. Maybe not for scoresheet. Yeah, although the one thing I like about Match Happen score sheet is he's going to have a pretty choice defensive rating. Yeah. Is it gonna be choice enough? Uh? Yeah, I mean one of the like if you see the way that shortstop. You know, I guess shortstop offenses on their eyes, shortstops are going to hit over one hundred ops plus this year. Um you know, I think there's a kind of not the third base isn't two, but it looks like Chapman has

the best rating, like kind of going away at third base. Oh, Aaronauto is close, but after the two of them, it's traps Shaw and then pretty big drop off. So I don't think we're gonna worry too much about trappashaws defensive rating in the future. Um yeah, Uh, not a great moment, but um yeah, I don't have a huge problem with match happen being there in real life and certainly non scoresheet cool. Um yeah, any any other takeaways? We didn't have this in their rundown, such as

it is. But you know, no I asked the questions us, thinking all right, uh, maybe he can compare it to the mock draft next time. Run. Yeah, it's interesting to see how players moved. If you have any questions about that, we'll take those too. Yeah, hit us with your hot takes about it. Um So. In the meantime, this this week, we baseball has been off for most of the week,

although I did really appreciate that. You know, I opened up the you know, my scoreboard about twenty minutes into the return of baseball yesterday and the Worlds had already given up nine runs. Yeah, I want to say in the top of the our sitting shoo. Yeah. Yeah. So you know, at some level, um, you know, I feel like twenty nine teens really did come at the second half with like a brand new fresh start. Look, it's not their fault. Dylan Bunny was pitching and he was

hurt. They immediately put him on the I l yeah, they it took for them to come up with the injury. I assume they put them on with fatigue, Like fatigue, they're fatigue of watching him pitch. Yeah, whip clash. Um. Now, I you know, I don't know that we had the greatest of off seasons in terms of prognostication, but Dylan Bundy is trash. Looks about as good as Jerickson. So far as trash,

those are true for our belt. Um. But yeah, so we had the All Star break, um, including the Futures Game, which unfortunately I have not watched yet, so I may have some takes in the next two weeks. But I doubted. I did watch. For what it's worth, I did watch the California League All Star Game. Why did you watch all Star game earlier? Earlier this month? But time? Yeah, so, I you know, I'm not not crazy evens like the hipster of features game

watching, like the features games to mainstream. So there's an interesting thing. There's an interesting thing about the minor league All Star games that a lot of pose yeah, because they don't watch them. Yeah, then those of you

who don't watch minor league all Star games may not know. But but for me, a person who watches minor league All Star games, um, the interesting thing that you may not know is that minor league All Star games are kind of the rosters are picked kind of the same way major league All Star games are like based on the player having the best third of a season.

Nice, which is you know, interesting except for the part where it's like all twenty five year olds in the All Star Game because like, of course they're having a good season and they you know, like the pitcher who's starting the like every minor league All Star game is always the guy going like eight and two. It's like it was really like the last bastion of the one last record. Yeah. Nice. Um, no, it was a it was a pretty good Um, that's a pretty good All Star Game came.

You know, a lot of talent, a lot of talent in both leagues. Um. Yeah, but that's not the future to day. So that leaves us with the All Star Game and the Homer and Derby, So we can talk about the All Star Game quickly. Whatever we think of the All Star Game. It was disappointing, but it went really quickly that you finished, I think an under three hours. I didn't hear that. Actually,

all right, well you won't be surprised to learn that. The way that I watched the All Star Game, it was actually kind of exciting because I was watching to see if they would acknowledge the existence of John Means. They did not, But like the whole time, just sitting there wondering, Hey, like are they gonna pan to him? Is he gonna warm up? Is there any like what are the chances he gets? What are the quincies

that are gonna have to happen for John Means again in this game? Like is the game gonna have to go like thirty seven innings before he gets him? So like that that was exciting. I was. I was really hoping somewhere around the board there would be a like a prop bet on whether John

Means gets into the game. Who's who is John Means? John Means business, He's the Orioles lone All Star representative because only what Troy Mancini was truly snubbed um, But yes, he's John Means is one of the best pitchers in the American League if you go by r and don't look at any other statistic whatsoever. But going by r A, he's one of the best pictures in the American League who has not yet quite qualified for the title because he

doesn't have enough innings. But that acide, he's one of the best pictures in the American League. So we should say at the end of the season he'll certainly be in the league and qualify for the year. There is no doubt in my mind, no doubt. Okay, I mean if you projected out yeah, or you know, double the numbers, right right. I was sorry, We've done talking about the All Star gamers. There more. No, I've got nothing. It's like loosely related to the All Star breaks.

The All Star breaks like a time to sort of check in on the season and see, like what's going on? So, especially because I don't follow baseball that much anymore, I was poking around on the MLB dot com news page and there's a story that says Red's in new territory heading into deadline and the like above. The full blurb is like, uh, Dick Williams and the club are in a position to add players before the trade down line.

I was like, oh, that's interesting. The Reds are in contention, and so that I pull up the standings, they're in last place. Yeah, but it's close. Okay. If you look at their run differential, they should be doing better. Okay, Oh yeah, they're okay, but like, come on, yeah, Reds in position to add to their you know, not as bad as you think. Last place team. Yeah, why won't you let them have this? Because it's insane. It's a

really bad decision. They should sell. Yeah, it's criminal. Um, they could sell them make the playoffs anyway, given that you know they're counting on like random bounces to break their way. Anybody could get those random bounces. Um. The last time we talked about the standings, Minnesota was doing really well, and you guys promised me it was just because they had beaten up on the Orioles. But they're still doing really well. That's kind of

exciting. Yeah, they have. They did beat the Orioles a lot. Yeah, I remember, we don't have to rehatch that the Twins have the most home runs at this point in the season in major league history. Nice, all of them off the Orioles. Surprisingly. I know that's not true because I saw another news story about sorry all but five yes, so yeah, where it Trevor Bauer has given up a home run in the last five plate appearances by Max Kepler? Is that right? Yea, yes, it's

pretty hilarious. I can't imagine he's happy about that. Has he tweeted about it? That's what it really is. That's how you know. It's like burning his It's like keeping him up at night. He's like four a m. Tweets about Yeah. No, but if some woman or asks him at lied about it, he'll he'll tweet about a bunch sorry. Uh um um. Yeah. So that leaves the home run derby, which is the one thing that all of us watched. And if if you said to me,

I didn't, I didn't watch. I just know about what happened. Sorry, I hate to discappline, but you were you were actually chatting with him during the derby, weren't you? I guess about nothing maybe, but I wasn't watching. That's what night? Was it again? That's fair? Okay? Which night was? I can tell you what I was doing Monday? Monday night? Uh? Was it Monday night? Oh? I don't think I was doing anything Monday night. I was just not so so while you

get your schedule in order, that's it. H Now the Homer Derby has become the most exciting part of the All Star Game. And I am shocked by this because they did a really good job. There was nothing I liked less. Yeah. Yeah, they completely revamped it and now it's it's good. U. I heard some people complaining about how like V Junior should have won and they need to figure out a better way to like fix the elimination part of it. What do you guys think? Do you think the like

bracket style is good? I think the bracket style is a little goofy, But you know, I think the like three point challenge has it right where you know, top four, top two, yeah, uh uh go nuts. But you know, I don't care too much. Brackets work, it adds, it adds. Uh you know the walk off in every round? Yeah? Yeah, I mean yeah, I think I don't think it matters. I think anyone really carries who wins, and I think Blad is what everyone remembers. So it worked. Yeah. I heard some other people talking

about that. How like, um, a few years back in New York. I think it was when like Josh Hamilton went on a tear and then like didn't end up winning because like nobody talks about anything except like, oh, Josh Hamilton was so entertaining. So yeah, the thing that got me, of course was, um, which you know, I'm not the first to point this out. Um, you know the record for Homer runs hitting around in the Homer Derby was broken? Was it four times? Um?

Yeah, there might be a problem with the ball. It's gonna put that out there. Problem. Seems like it's working just fine. Are we going to segue what Verlanders said? Because I totally want to talk about with Verlanderson I wasn't, but go ahead. So, as I understand, I've only heard the quote, like reread a couple of times. He basically just like dressed down MLB, like how can you possibly say that there's nothing with the ball? And if there is, it's like not you're doing right? Uh?

I just thought I was like, oh, this is excellent. This is like clearly a guy that's gotten to the point in his career where he's like definitely not going to give any flips about whatever the commission commissioner thinks when he hears this and is saying what everybody's thinking. Has there been any like official response or they're just gonna like ignore it and hope it goes away. Um, No, there was no official response. Rob Brandfred said that he

was going to commission a study. Did you look into it? Nice? Did you tell him you could just look online and all the studies people have already done. No, I was I was joking, unfortunately, he says. He says that he says that there is an issue with the ball, but it was not intentional. M so completely accident. Cool right, right? And obviously the problem is, of course that their hands are tied and they cannot possibly in any way make new baseballs between now and the agency,

they you know, baseballs do not exist. How does one make a baseball? Even and if there were somebody making baseballs it's certainly nobody that MLB has any kind of contact with, let alone control over. Yeah. Um, I don't know. Have we talked if anyone like thinks there are too many home runs? I'm out two minds. I don't. It doesn't really really bother me to be perfectly candid. Some of the other stuff an slar to it is kind of taking a little enjoyment away. But the home runs themselves,

I don't know that's true. I don't think I'm necessarily opposed to the home runs. It gets the oriels and the news. That's something No, I don't think so I mean called me Dave, I don't. I don't know if I necessarily believe that it was intentional. I just or at least not from like an owner's where. I think it's hard. It's hard for me to believe that the owners would get together and be like, you know what, they're all just a little bit they're not. I agree that the

owners didn't like get together. I think it's more like the commissioner like left a sticky note on somebody's door that was like Homer's good or whatever. Um. So I haven't looked into it, obviously, but my sense from what I heard is that the overall run environment hasn't changed, it's just redistributed the way that runs are scored. Is that correct? More or less? Yeah? So I think there's like something to think about in terms of like is

the game you want to watch? That? Like that, I think is why you hear old school sports writers grumpy about this that like, you know, doubles and sac flies are going the way of the Dodo. Yeah. I mean I would say it's not only old school sports writers. I you know, I believe on effectively wild the host of them out said too many homers they're taking the stance. Huh. It's like, yeah, I don't

know. It's like it seems to me like the people who are gonna watch baseball are gonna watch regardless of the people who aren't aren't and this isn't going to move the need for people. Yeah. Um, And so my thoughts on the was this intentional thing? I kind of agree with you it wasn't intentional, but they sure haven't stopped it. Yeah, And I don't think

it's that hard. I think they could have done it that they wanted to, so on some level, okay, you can say it wasn't intentional, but like, yeah, but it's hard to imagine the powers that be changing anything once the season has started. Like that seems very not what baseball does. No, that's true except in twenty fifteen when they chased all the balls in the first place. Uh yeah, so but yes, no, I hear you. But you know, in between I would say twenty and eighteen

and twenty nineteen, like this didn't start in the off season. Sure, so, um you know anyway, Um, I think kind of related to that, you Ben, you had an article that you wanted to bring up and talk about a little bit right today, Oh about the one about the labor Yeah. Um, yeah, So you know, I was in the process of getting need to talk about baseball and trying to become more informed about the goings on and found a piece I don't remember. I think it might

have been on It's on USA today. It was today. It was written

by Bob Nightingale. Um, yeah, you know, right, we can just get into so basically, the thing that was interesting to me is there's a bunch of players quoted in the thing is basically saying we're ready for a strike if that's what it takes to get the I guess, financial and contractual stuff free structured to meet our expectations, and they're basically acknowledging that the economics of the game as currently constructed mean that young players are underpaid relative to their

value. And for a while that was fine because the veteran MLB players, when they hit free agency would basically get rewarded for what they had done and not what they were going to do. And then all the teams sort of collectively evolved to the point where they're like, wait, that's kind of dumb. Why would we do that instead of just bringing in more young players that are undervalued, And they started doing that, and so then all the old players are like, hey, wait a second, why is all the young

players so undervalued? And so, as I understand it, now, they're talking about trying to make it so that the younger players get something closer to what they deserve, I guess. And obviously there's some consternation about teams not signing free agents and especially players that I guess had some type of draft pick compensation attached to them. Right there was it Kimbroll and Kaikol this past offseason? Is that right that like both went unsigned? For much longer than anybody

thought they should be based on talent. And I thought it was really interesting

for two reasons. The first was it seemed to me like the first time that I could remember reading quotes by players that acknowledged the manifestation of like the current CBA and did it in a way that acknowledged what the actual motivation was for the teams to be Like, Okay, we realized that because of the way that you know, players pre ARB and then like pre free agency are paid, it means that you know, those are a relative bargain for the

teams, and so the teams are going to you know, shift their resources accordingly, Whereas before, like all the complaining that I've ever heard was just like you know, why aren't you paying us, or like you know, we're not getting what we're worth or whatever else. M And then they were very So that was the first thing. It's just like they seem to finally have realized like, oh, they're doing this because it's in their best interest. And not only that, but it's because of the CBA that we all

agree to. Yeah, and just to cut in here from Clayton Kershaw, yeah, said our free agency structure and our salary structure is that teams have a right not to pay guys when they're getting older. The analytics stay to pay guys in their prime the younger guys. So if that's not going to happen anymore, we've got to find a way to get these guys paid during their peak years if they're not going to be rewarded on the way out. Yeah, which I think is what you were saying, Yeah, exactly,

Yeah, no, that's a good quote, thank you. And the second thing was that they were so directly brazen about making it clear that they were preparing to strike basically, not in a I mean, I guess partially in like a threatening way, but in a like we realized that this is the reality of what we will probably have to do because of the circumstances of like the leverage that doesn't really exist the way that they would want it to without

striking. Essentially, at least that's how I read it, And so I'd be curious to hear not just that first point, but also like for that second point, what you guys think in terms of you know, I guess from my perspective, like this is the first time I've heard them say those things, those two things so directly, but it also makes me wonder what's

going to happen. And you know, the first one sort of points to like, oh, maybe we'll get a CBA that makes a little bit more sense in terms of fewer perverse or unintended consequences, and that to me is like a good thing. But then the second thing is sort of like, well are the players if the players end up striking, is that really going to lead to like a constructive set of negotiations or not? And like maybe they really have no choice, so maybe it doesn't matter. But anyway,

I'll stopperamibly. Now, what do you guys think? I'm Jared, Uh yeah, I mean it was interesting to hear it. I think it's a lot of cheap talk. I think that my biggest concern right now is that anything to make these kinds of changes is going to be a rather significant change to how things operate. I think I don't think I personally see a little

tweak that would fix any of this. And I haven't heard any plans being floated, not that plans need to be floated publicly necessarily, but it worries me a little bit that I haven't heard any plans that seem viable being discussed right now, and I think that has to happen sooner rather than later. And without that, to me, that suggests that we might be heading for

a strike or something bad. Yeah, And you know, it is interesting to me that what you are saying is kind of coming true, that the owners and the players Association have kind of negotiated on clampdown on first year players, you know, have not really paid minor leaguers, have instituted restrictions on the bonus pools and the draft and the international draft and the international market, and now owners are not and you know, teams are not kind of paying

older free agents as much. And all of this is rational, but you see the money leaching away from the system and from the players, and there's no place where they can get recompense right now, right especially since they do not have a cap unlike other sports where they kind of can peg their revenue to kind of the revenue of the game. You know, And I think, you know, labor law, not my expertise, but I think that's kind of been the issue. Is that sure, there's no salary cap,

but there's also no salary floor. And you know, this is a lot of a lot of the ramifications you're seeing are from that. But it has been interesting, like reading this article in concert with watching the most exciting professional sports offseason of all time lay out one sport away and you know, as as a primary baseball fan, but at this point, I would say almost dual sport fan. You know, I was kind of wondering, like,

is this even possible? I think there are some serious structural issues with baseball that would kind of prevent this. And you know, I would say a

couple of things. If you're not familiar with basketball, a lot of what you're seeing in basketball, this kind of player empowerment era is just the result of perverse consequence where basketball players are not paid the top end of their salary and so do not really use salary as a measuring stick to choose where to go, and therefore choose their destinations based on other factors more or less. But you know, there is also a much more limited minor league system.

There's a much more limited apprenticeship in basketball. There's you know, there's no baseball player who can provide like a quarter of the war of the best basketball players that you know, Lebron, James Arianas not Decopo could are probably like thirty War players, or especially if you double the length of the season, would be like forty to fifty War players. And you know, there's just not that kind like you can't make that up through transactions. You could only

make that up through volume. So there, I think there are some like real differences. But I think what you're also seeing is this drive to shorter contracts and to player empowerment, none of which was intentional, have kind of led to a more exciting game. And two, I would say players being awarded more, perhaps at the cost of this top echelon talent, has kind of brought up the um the value of the median player and the marshal player.

Yeah, why do you think it's a more exciting game offseason? Right? Just as okay? Yeah, structure, Yeah, I don't think the game it's like on the court changes, right, it's like right, right, I mean there is you know. The one other thing is that kind of analytics kind of point that turts basketball like should be more exciting and forwards baseball being more boring. But that's kind of on the old stuff. Yeah, I don't know as much as you do about the NBA, but it's

definitely been more interesting to me more recently. And I don't really love the like big picture like um implications and justification for like a salary floor in a salary cap for individual players and stuff like that, but it is fascinating to see how teams end up spending some of that money that might have gone to make sure that the very best players are paid with their worth to like the middle tier players, and then you've got like, and I don't have any

good examples off the top of my head, but you probably do. I like, players that end up making way more money than you would have expected because the teams have this money to spend and they're not really competing based on money for the very best players, so they end up competing based on money for the like mid level players, and then sort of like inflates the contracts for all those players as the you know, competition ramps up for them,

you know, from like a financial perspective instead of anything else. Or those players are looking to like join forces with the very best players who have exercised their agency in a way that lends them in the destination that they like as opposed to with the contract that they like, because the contract would be the same you know, in so many different places, right, and in basketball, you don't know the counterfactual, right, So I don't really know exactly

how much like Marcus Morris would be paid if he was a if there was no salary cap and no restrictions on salary. But just in a you know, in a baseball like world. But I do feel like the middle class player is better treated and the better and player is better treated in basketball than baseball at this point. And I do feel like more money is flowing towards

players at their peaks. Uh. You know, restricted free agency is a really interesting concept that basketball has that sometimes completely uh you know, deflates the market for those players, sometimes against those players vastly overpaid, kind of running the roulette wheel there. Um, but you know, junking arbitration replacement the restricted free agency might be interesting. I think shorter contracts allows for a little

more movement, perhaps at the expense of overall salary. You know. The thirteen year, three hundred million dollar contract is really fascinating, But it feels you know, and you know, agreed to and you know, in this libertarian world, it is a contract that has agreed Tom, But you know, I don't know how that is serving everybody right now, and you know,

especially if it's coming at the cost of buyers downline making money. Yeah, so I guess to make sure we're still focused on baseball and curse shared from your like economics perspective, Like, what do you think what do you think is like the most likely outcome if you assume that the CBA gets renegotiated in a way that is maybe a little bit more balanced in terms of the player's perspective, and like, what would you think is the best solution?

So, like what will happen and what should happen? Do you have any thoughts about either of those? Gosh, those are big questions. I don't know. I think that I do think that after the new CBA, more money is going to go to younger players. I think it just pretty much has to at this point. I mean, how much is going to change, I don't know, But I don't see any way that that both SAIDs get out of this without funneling a little bit more towards the younger players.

I think it's going to happen no matter what in terms of what should happen. I don't know if I've an answered for that, because there's a lot of different things to keep in mind. I don't know that there is one right answer here, necessarily, and I think it requires some hard thought about what you want to optimize, and you know, thinking about all sorts of things like the development system. I think we'd all agree that players need,

generally speaking, need a little bit more time developed baseball and basketball. How do you how do you keep that in mind? How to keep the incentives for teams to develop their own players if they're going to go away more quickly. That's something to keep in mind. Is it necessarily a good thing for the middle class players to getting more money at the expense of the top class players? Maybe? I don't know that That raises some philosophical and probably political

questions too. I don't know how I feel about that necessarily. So so I don't know. You know, do you want do you want more fluidity like in basketball now where you know, it seems like more players are switching teams more easily. Is that a good thing? I don't know. Maybe maybe not for baseball. I could argue that maybe it's not as good right and maybe it's an aesthetic preference rather than right. I think I got all for change, and I think a lot of change should happen, but it

requires I don't think there's any real way to know what happens. Requires a lot of thought and an estimation about what the ramifications of any change are. Yeah, but you know, I think the thing I would most like to see it is probably more money going back to the players versus the honors, because I don't see any of the long term trends being in their favor with

the current CBO. Yeah, the players in baseball? Yeah, do you think do you think the next CBA needs to track the total, like whatever average annual value of the like the players salaries and contrast that against the like annual revenues in order for that to happen. No, No, I don't think that's the only way, but it's it's a way that I could think of pretty quickly, So you know it's a way, right, Yeah. I mean I think where all of us probably would be in favor of more

money going to the players. The question is how do you make that happen. It's not like the owners are just like yeah, sure, that sounds like a good idea. Yeah, I mean that's why this trick happens, right, right, And I would say, just as fans, I think more money going to players makes a more interesting game, So that that would be my cards on the table. Other than it's the right thing to do, I also think it is generally better for the game. That's fair.

I don't think I disagree that. Yeah. Um, as part of this and when we're talking Ian, I pulled up like NBA's homepage to learn that there's a really big trade that's probably about to happen, but you probably already know about. I don't know. No, I do. I do not Houston, Houston, I'm a city. Oh yes, yeah, sorry, yeah I do. This was we're recording this on Friday, Yeah, Saturday, Saturday. Yeah. Did it break yesterday? Yeah? I did break us. Yeah. I've been busy because my family is visiting, so I

haven't been on the internet much at all. I was like, that's I mean, that makes an already exciting offseason even more exciting obviously. But yeah, and you know, I think again for people who aren't familiar with the NBA as a contract thing, So this is Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul who are declining stars. It would be I don't know that I can think of a great analog, but maybe like three years from now Manny Machado being traded for Bryce Harper more than three, right, but yeah, but I would

say exiting their prime, so three to five, um. And you know the reason why this happened in basketball is, uh, the salary cap restricts the choice with the teams. So basically Oklahoma City could only trade to two teams and Miami, and they were or they were interested in trading to two teams Miami and Houston, and Miami had to do far too much roster manipulation

in order to get stay under the cap. And so Russell Westbrook and Chris Paul have identical contracts because their maximum contracts and they're measured against the cap, so they are identical, and so they were able to be traded for each other. It was kind of a trade of I guess necessity almost or convenience, which is the kind of thing like you don't have those forces in baseball,

you don't have those restrictions for good or ill. I think you could argue perhaps from a like player empowerment standpoint restriction those restrictions limit the players. I do think it makes like dealing with constraints generally makes a more entertaining product,

and Jem, you know, I agree with that. My concern is, like, all that rational for why that trade went down doesn't sound like something that would be enjoyable from like maybe like a typical baseball fan experience, like Manny Machado is chraded for Bryce Harbor because of like the four other contract

things and various exemptions and whatever. Like. Yeah, I think like I think sort of think that's fun from like, oh, that's the kind of like simulation game I would like to play, but from like watching baseball perspective, I don't know, Yeah, I don't know what the deal there. So I guess the other thing would be that in this hypothetical world, Manny Machado and Bryce Harbor both requested trades for reason or other, So that is the empowerment, right, it comes at the cost of their salary. But

they both kind of said we want out of here. And you know, I think that's the thing that keeps that is keeping basketball afloat in terms of excite meant you know, in the off season. Um, but you know, I don't know that it could be mimicked by baseball and keeping it afloat as an understatement though, Yeah, like the NBA is dominating sports news at a time when I mean baseball is the only uh you know, game in season right now amongst the big floor. But you know, I think anybody's

talking about hockey or football. Um. Yeah, but do you think this is just gonna be like a two week stretch of basketball news? Yeah? On some level. Yeah, but like Major League Baseball would kill for a two weeks stretch like this, Like you know, I don't know. Yeah, they've never had two weeks like this, and you know, I don't think there could even be two weeks like this, Um and right, and like baseball saying this is good, this is what we want to push for.

How do we get here? Will lead to just a rafter on a intend of consequences. Yeah, but um, you know, um, it's it's interesting. It's just a lot to think about a process, and obviously we have no say over any of it. So speak to yourself or anything else on this topic. No, I'm all right, I'm talked up. Okay, Well that's good to hear. In that case, what is the best thing you saw this week? Am I going first? Um So? I actually I kept a list because it's been more than a week and I'm

bad at remember these things. But most of these things are recent. So I'll just give a couple of quick hits that didn't fit the best thing, and we'll talk about them in too much detail, but we can dive into any of them if you guys want. Um So, Homer Dew was on there. We already talked about that. The Women's World Cup was on there.

I don't know if we want to dive into that or not. Maybe one of you will mention that more recently, the Angels threw a no hitter was it last night or the night before, for which was pretty cool. We had talked briefly offline about, you know, the tragedy that happened with one of their players, and anyway, I just thought the timingness was cool.

So I don't know if you wanted to, Yeah, well, I guess just to say, you know, one interesting thing that happens with score sheet or any fantasy sport, as you end up with transference over some players who are end up feeling like lines of stats or more than lines of stats, and a lot of that is to say, like, you know, this is extremely far down the list of tragedies you know that resulted from this. But we had Tyler Skaggs on two of our teams. We've had him

on teams like every year we drafted him. We drafted him pretty consistently, and you know, like in that sense, I feel like score sheet was our window or like you know, it was our way into understanding him and you know, his work and then I guess who he was, uh, you know, and so on some level, you know, it hit us

hard because of this like stupid game that we paid too much for. Um. But you know, I think to the degree that it like we were able to feel his impact through this, through this, I think it was um, you know, it's a blessing. And to have seen what happened in that first game back was yeah, just you know, really something extraordinary. Yeah. Um. So to other small ones and then I'll tell you the actual one. UM so much on the basis of sex with my wife,

which was interesting. It's about Ruth Bidder Ginsburg and I I don't think I knew anything about her really like five years ago. And then as part of some of the coaching that I do with some of the college women. I'd learned more about her because there's a few of them they are big fans of her. And then you know, recently the Supreme Court turned over one of the justices. I had learned more about her then, and then of

course I learned even more watching the movie. The movie is interesting. It sort of made me reappreciate There's like parts of it where they show like parenting stuff, which is now like the lens through which I see things. Primarily, I was like, holy cow, what is it like to be like Ruth Bader Ginsburg's daughter. But I want to spoil the movie. You'll get to see it for yourself. And then there was a cool frisbee thing.

The team that I kept in the summertime is like a co ed team that was founded a few years ago trying to do work in our community around gender equity and stuff like that. And the season's looking really good, which is really exciting. And we had our first tournament and we won, which was like the first time we'd ever really won a tournament. It's not like the tournament really means anything. It's just like a harbinger of good things coming,

So that was cool. We also got this cool I'll show it to you guys U. I'll describe it so that the people who are obviously just listening to the podcast. So the tournament is called Motown throw Down, and they gave us this still kid yourself, nobody's listening to the podcast. Okay, Well, so they gave this like vinyl that says Moto go on it. It's apparently a film like Houston record. The only tracks listed are Saturday Night Sunday Morning and says it's from the album Ready to Roll, and it's got

like the different sections listed. Anyway, So the best thing I saw this week was related to my daughter, because that's how everything goes. She started using utensils, which is like a fairly like innocuous thing, but it's like also kind of fascinating. It's just you know, it's like one of those little things you're like, that's it's like compelling to watch her learn, I guess, and so like it was one of those like little tiny milestones you're

like, watch her. She's always been fascinated with like watching us, even of course she eats with her hands because it's so easy and like why wouldn't you if you could socially acceptable? But yeah, it's like she's coming up on eighteen months, so it's not like amazing, but it's a little bit notable. And that's why I don't end up watching homoonder Reason stuff like that, because we're hanging out and going on walks and all that kind of jazz.

So anyway, that sounds touching, And I will say, you know, I can't remember when I learned to use utensils, but what I like admire most about myself is that I kind of just, for some reason, like stuck with my initial the initial way that I hold a utensil. It just never really improved it. So I do have like baby utensil? Can

I tell you the same way I was. Actually, my brothers were yelling at me because apparently I don't know how to eat salad, Like I'm not capable of eating salad with the fork, So that doesn't science me at all. Yeah, you just grab it for dear life and then you stab y, don't. I don't see what the uh? She can't She can't tell the difference between a spoon and a fork when she's holding them, So you have to like point out to her that the spoon would stab things and then

scoop things. It's pretty adorable, honest. Anyway, Um, always exciting. I guess I guess saw that next because I don't have anything exciting, so I'll take that little anchor or the bill worry burry everything. Um the yeah, I mean, you know, certainly, the things I saw that were the best things I saw were the things everybody else saw in basketball and soccer and you know sport. Um. So just personally went to a couple

of concerts this week, both of which were very exciting to me. One of them one of my favorite bands I've seen for a very long time called Those Compesinos, who were I saw for the eighth time now, which was

I know that's distressing. Um. So. The one thing I will say about the Los Campesinos concert is they managed to have burned off like all of their casual fans at this point because they just made it, you know, to the other end of the hype cycle where everyone else is like a die hard or you know gone, which for good or ill for them, but for like it. Um. They are a kind of loud, kind of punky band and a lot of chanting and everyone knows the words, so you

get there. And I would say the way I've described it is it's as close to being in the supporter section of a soccer match as I have ever been a lot of marks. You have to hit a lot of chances going

on the whole time. And the particular reason I bring this up, and Jared can vouch for me, is before the kind I was looking up some lyrics and I ended up on genius dot com um to uh, you know, take a look at their lyrics, their lyrics and their lyricist, Gareth is um focused on Well, it turns out he's focused on one major topic, really, and uh, you know, I've always thought of them as kind of airs, a little bit to the Smiths and you know, balanced

Maastune and that kind of um like witty lyrical um, you know, witty, clever lyrics, perhaps replacing the casual racism of these, said Morsy, with slightly better um politics. But uh, you know, I was looking and you know, are these songs about love? Are they about existential sadness

and crisis? Sure, but they're focused on one major topic, and that topic is how many soccer references he can squeeze into the game into a lyric before before it ends, so you know, if you ever, if you go to their genius dot com page, you can find this for yourself. Basically, all their lyrics are soccer puns, which I admire, and you know, I think giving yourself to a lifetime of following sport is about the noblest pursuit you can and perhaps that is why I relate to them so much.

It is not the best thing I saw this week, however, because I also went to another concert, and this one I did not expect to like as much as I did. I went to see the artist Liz Fair, who you may remember from let's say the nineties, from such times as the nineties, and I will say I had become much more of a liszt

Fair fan in the past couple of years. Obviously is why I got there, but I was still surprised at how relevant and current the song sound today and listening to her it made me realize how much, you know, I would say, both the raves and whatever pans there were about her, like how much she had to deal with in nineteen ninety five being like seen as the like I don't know, I want to say like crude woman, like you know, she's she doesn't care, she has no boundaries, and like

people saying that appreciatively, like no, no, this is just what is happening and hearing it in two thousand and nine, twenty nineteen, probably in two thousand and nine as well. You know, I guess in the in the times in which we live, and it's like, oh this is this feels so current and so on message, and it was just the right music that we should have been listening to this whole time, rather than dismissing or being like, isn't it amazing that an actual girl can write music? Um

or you know whatever it was that we were hearing back then. So if you have not dragged out Exile and Guy Bill in a very long time, I'll stick that on tonight. You'll enjoy it. So you're saying mistimed her Window Bay a decade or more. Yeah, I would say that, But I would also say that every third indie artist now sounds like her, so she will not be lacking for support acts for the rest of her life. With that, Jared, what is the best thing you saw this week?

It's also a concert? It wasn't this week, but it's it's also a concert. It's it's kind of like your story, except um, the opposite. Maybe I don't know what the right Sure, well, I think what we're saying is like the relevant and most critically acclaimed artists of the of their era, right, yes, I think, yeah, that's that's what I would go with. I mean, so like the I think you know was the Woman's World Cup, But when I'm talking about this is the concerts.

A few weeks ago and I got roped into that. We had someone visiting from like our Colorado state office, and she was in town and somebody else was so staying out with her, but that fell through Sona. So it's like me and this one other person and we were just gonna get a couple of drinks after work, and we left a little early. It was like four thirty four forty five, and we went to this bar just completely packed.

Could not find a see day where went to like a second bar, just absolutely there was no one had to go to like three or four different bars before I found somewhere where we could go. I was like, I don't understand, why is it so credit? It's way too early for like us to not people to go anywhere. And then this girl from out of town was like, well, like there's a concert at a Capital One arena.

I was like, okay, I mean, I guess that makes sense, but still like this is this kind of that's who could possibly be paying there? And and then so she told me, she told us, and and I was like, well, so at this point, we had a couple, you know, to drink, and it divulged in this game like well, well, I guess you know, if you'd go, I'd go. I'm not saying i'd go by myself, but like, if you guys want to go, I'd go. And I mean whatever, like if you

guys want to do a final, I'll tag along. I'm not saying we should go. And we sort of like daring, daring each other to do this. So so just a few minutes after the concert was starting, we uh, we went by there, and then we end up scalping some tickets because it was like mostly sold out and there were three of us, but there weren't three seats together at the scalper head, so we had to get

two together and a one seat somewhere else. And then we decided that three of us would just all stand in the two seats, which as someone who like doesn't love um humors contact, yeah, like that was not exactly what I was looking forward to. I mean, you know, you know they were, Um, I guess it helped. They're attective, and I'm like that evensid like just the factor being next to people's like we could maybe not do this, but like now we're like at this point, we got to

do it. And then we rush in and um. You know something that should have tipped me off is like as I was walking the men's restrooms, most of them were closed off and turned into women's restrooms. Like it didn't register to me. I was like, oh, I just I At first I thought it was like the men's room like wasn't functioning. I didn't understand, like why In hindsight, now I get why they legally they just turned into the moon's rest room. And so we went and concert just like we

got there just a starting blew. My mind stood up. The whole time was like dancing, throwing Mahodians in the air. It was is incredible. It was um new kids on the Block, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany Salton, Peppa and Naughty by Nature in concert and I'm not not really concert person, but one of the best concerts of my life. Just just absolutely stating.

I don't know if like it had meeting and the way that Ian talks about Liz fair heaving meeting necessarily, but like what struck meat was that that what was fun about this was everybody was just there to have a good time. And everyone was like, you know what, like I'm gonna have a good time tonight. There was like no pretension on that level of anything other than we're having We're gonna have a blast. It doesn't matter like which artist is

singing, he doesn't matter what song it is. There was a time where like new kids just went into this like essentially like eighties and nineties Karayankee, and they were songs from like very various other artists like who who knows when no one they had like five different groups on the bill. They were saying songs from some other group, but like no one cared. They were songs every knew, like you know, we're gonna have fun. Every good time.

It was like credibly like overly produced concert that like you know, there were platforms going up and coming down and people appearing out of nowhere and you know, new kids going to the crowd and shaking people's hands and kissing, and it was like it was incredible. It's just like everyone's having such a good time. It was a blast. I loved it. Could not recommend it highly enough. That's amazing. So also, not as many people know

Dibbie Gibson's they should. Dibby Getson is awesome and everybody should love her music. Yeah, well that's what I was gonna say. It was it was Debbie Gibson the start, Like who was the star of this for you? Well, for me, that's what sold it from me. I mean, look, I probably would have gotten no matter what. But the fact that Dibbie Gibson says, like, you know, I loved Debbie Gibson, this is this is I'm like, I'm sold. I mean I didn't, you

know, I didn't really knew. I knew a couple of New Kids songs, but I was I wasn't. This is gonna be hard to believe. I wasn't really huge new Kids on the Block things. And obviously obviously I love Tippany's I Think We're Alone Now. I shouldn't have been more than two Salt and Pepper or Naughty by Nature Stungs and that's all they got to play, but it was still fun. Sure, Um okay, rankly, I

think we're alone now, uh Tommy James Rubby News. Yeah, if Tommy James is always going to be first for me and then okay, okay. I have had I have long had the thought that every generation gets the I think we're alone now that they deserve. But what's the current one. Then we don't deserve anything that's fair? The uh, well, Tommy James went to number whatever. Right, the Ruby the Ruby News went to number one, I believe in the seventies. Right did really good at number one.

I believe it was h surprisingly uh highly on the pop charts. And then obviously Tiffany Yeah, um it is a loud version and there's yes, Girls Aloud. That was a great version. I don't think I've heard it. I'm gonna listen to that and then I'm gonna listen to this fair But first then you listen to Girls a Love Aloud is you know, the best girl band of the ever ever that's a bold state not not not band filled with women, but you know of the like Spice Girl, and Generation Spice Girls

had a movie. Yeah, now that's true. Um wow, but I think we're alone now one of the various songs ever written, no doubt in my mind. Uh yeah. The Rubens went to number forty five on the charts, which is still surprisingly high. Yeah. Not number one though, and Girls Will I went to number four in the UK, which is not as high as this course Sound of the Underground, but high nonetheless. Um yeah, and uh my, yeah, I just hope you had an amazing

time and that you are in fact hay right sure, am Okay. On that note, I think we have spent enough time. Hopefully we'll move back with us something of a trade deadline special. Please send your trades, if you've made it this far, those trades, thought you know, trades, have thought of in your head, trades, your designing right now, maybe even you know, ask us to trade anything. Really, we'll do it on air for you. Please send us a note at scoreseet at baseball Perspects

dot com. We'd love to hear from you. But until then, on behalf of Ben Murphy and Jon Wise, I'm me left Woods. Thanks again and have a great day.