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This is the Wind Up. Welcome to episode number 185 of the Roundtable. Grant Brisby here with Animacola. Sam Miller. Andy, how you doing?

A (2:21)

I'm good, Sam.

B (2:23)

Sam Miller, how are you today?

C (2:24)

Ready to go?

B (2:26)

Ready to go. Let's talk about some ball. Every time. You know what? I will say it is such a pleasure to come on this podcast between episodes and having seen every baseball game between podcast episodes, I feel like such An Ozymandias. Just, like, savant. Like, I know everything that happened at baseball since the last episode. Fricking try me. So what.

C (2:48)

What.

B (2:48)

What happened, guys? No, we're gonna talk about some dodge. It dodges up three nothing as of this recording. Andy texted last night we shouldn't have to play on Friday. How did you phrase it? And he was perfect.

A (2:59)

You had a good post during the. It was a text during the. The Reds series where they're just like. They went up like, five nothing or something like that in game one. You're like, all right, let's just. Let's fast forward. We don't need. We don't need to go through this. And like, I don't mean to downplay the, you know, the pluck of the brewers and the season they've had, but, you know, they look just overmatched offensively. Just unable to do. Do much of anything against the Dodgers. They're down 3, 0. Jokingly was like, we don't need to. We can. You know, everyone kind of knows what's happening here. Let's just. Let's just call it a day.

C (3:30)

Was it joking?

A (3:31)

I mean, me personally, I would like to go home for a few days. Yeah, yeah.

B (3:36)

Counterpoint, Sam. I'm going to phrase this a different way. The brewers, regular season, postseason have a.667 winning percentage against the Dodgers this year. Are the Dodgers in trouble?

C (3:45)

Look, if the brewers can just reach on eight or nine errors per game, what's more likely?

B (3:54)

Three games against the Dodgers to. To surprise. Four games. I'm sorry, four games against the Dodgers surprise win the series or what the brewers did this season overall? Because I have it in my head that that was less likely than anything we're going to see in the postseason. Maybe that's just too much of a galaxy brain.

C (4:12)

I don't. You mean 97 wins, but just that.

B (4:15)

Second half, I guess, is where it's just. They were a non. Entity.

A (4:19)

They're a good baseball team. Yeah, the brewers are a good baseball team, and they're not even playing that bad. They're pitching well. You know, they've given up 10 runs in three games. They've run into the Buzzsaw, you know, and the Buzzsaw is Blake Snell, Yoshinobi Yamamoto, and to a little bit of a lesser extent, you know, Tyler Glasnow. I sent this to you guys. It was a Great post from @ Brew Kuru Scoop on X the Everything site. And it's the picture of Kevin Millar talking to Dan Shaughnessy. Before game four of the 2004 ALCS. You know, for. And I still don't understand why Millar was miked up. Like, why they had so much documentary footage of a team that was about to get swept, but for whatever reason they did. And you know, Millar going up to Shaughnessy saying, like, don't let us win tonight. You know, because we got, you know, shill tomorrow. Pedro, Game six, whatever. And the. But over this from at Brew Crew Group, it says, don't let us win tomorrow. We got Ashby in game five and then Ashby in game six, Game seven. Anything can happen after Ashby starts. I don't understand why the brewers keep opening with Aaron Ashby, but that's. You know what? That's for another podcast with a smaller audience.

B (5:32)

I don't know. I think we've got some deep baseball nerds.

A (5:35)

We don't need to get too in the weeds on the brewers pitching decisions. Like, I get why they're doing it because Aaron Ashby's stuff is electric. I just would have started Jacob Misarowski, but whatever, like, it's not worth getting into. Let's talk about the cba.

B (5:50)

Fair enough. Yeah. This has been, this has been a series designed to, to get people talking about baseball, economics, the collective bargaining agreement, Brewers, Dodgers. It's hard to pick because you can't just have, like, the Marlins are hot for one year and then they disappear. It has to be a team like the brewers, the smallest of markets, a team that's there every year, just can't quite get over the hump because they're missing the Snell or the Yamamoto of their own. Are you guys excited for the discourse that's going to be pervasive over the next, Gosh, I guess 18 months or so about Brewers, Dodgers and what this means for the sport, Capital M. I.

C (6:28)

Feel like there's been a, like a simmering discourse throughout the season of whether rooting for or against the Dodgers. Like, like where that puts you in the ideological spectrum regarding, like, salary caps and stuff like that. And it's amplified in this series. I guess some people have had the position that, like, rooting for the Dodgers is pro player because you want to see teams rewarded for actually spending money to try to win. And then others who've said that, like, well, the Dodgers winning is ultimately bad for the game because if the Dodgers win, then it makes it harder for the players to fend off calls for salary cap and that like the long term labor disputes over the salary cap will only be amplified. And Jeff Passon wrote A piece at ESPN this week that really, like, just gets very specific on the topic. And he says, like, more or less, like, whether there's baseball in 2027 depends on whether the brewers can beat the Dodgers in the lcs, because if the Dodgers go ahead and win this World Series, it's just going to embolden the owners who say a salary cap is necessary. And I don't know, I guess I have wondered whether whether a fan needs to be rooting for this series as some sort of proxy for the broader labor battle or not. Jeff seems to think there's like, a real direct connection between the results of the series and how the negotiations go. You know, Jeff has reporting and I, I merely have, you know, speculation from my, you know, from my home. So I don't want to imply that I know better or anything like that. I am skeptical of that, though. Like, it feels really unlikely to me that this series is going to change the positions of the two parties. You know, like, these are professionals, right? Like, these are long held positions. These are deeply ingrained beliefs. These are informed by economics and lawyers and professional negotiators. And it feels kind of like assuming a level of amateurishness on the parts of the negotiators to think that the results of this series have anything to do with it. And I feel more like in this day and age, there's like a sense of overreacting to every step along the way when really most things don't change anything. Like, most things just don't change anything. We've all lived through elections where every day you're like, oh, my gosh, a gaffe, right? And you think the gaffe is going to do something, but then, like, nothing changes. Like, the outcome feels in the end like it was basically predetermined by, like, rock solid fundamentals. And I'm really skeptical that there's any meat to be chewed from this bone of like, rooting for the brewers as like, some sort of, like, labor solidarity thing or vice versa. And I'm wondering if I'm just naive, if I'm overlooking, like, the connection.

A (9:32)

I think Jeff's story, you know, got it, some of that, but I think it also was more about public perception than, like, I don't think the idea that the small market owners who are pushing for a cap would see the Milwaukee brewers win this series and be like, oh, wait, nevermind, like, we don't need this system. Let's change our decades long quest to put a cap on spending, you know, save ourselves some money. Even the Perceived playing field and also, you know, set a baseline for our franchise valuations. Right. Like, that's not going to change because the brewers won four games in a seven game series. But I do think what, you know, Jeff's thing, Jeff's story got at was the idea that there will be a drumbeat of the need for a cap and that it's all that it's about public perception. And I think that it's been very clear from Major League Baseball, you know, this season especially, that they are trying to create a groundswell for the feeling that there needs to be a cap to, quote, unquote, fix baseball. You know, that's why you have Rob Manfred visiting, you know, every clubhouse to basically just like sort of get into a fight with the players about this. That's why, you know, you have the commissioner going on Pat McAfee's show and, you know, McAfee being like, how come the Pirates are no good? You know, it's like, well, the system's quite unfair to teams like the Pirates. Yeah, I mean, I remember when the Pirates were good. You know, that type of stuff. Because it's trying to basically create a perception that in order to save baseball, you need a salary cap. I think the idea that there would be a cap, first of all, the union is not going to go for it. It's the reddest of red lines. It's the thing that matters to them the most. Thing when you bring it up to players, they laugh. Right. Okay. Are the owners willing to, you know, lose a season over it? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. And part of the reason is that for what the. Where the sport is going is related to the media rights deal and sort of nationalizing or whatever, getting all the TV deals under one package.

C (11:34)

Right.

A (11:35)

I could be just totally wrong about this, but I've just asked and anyway, that their national TV deal is up after 2028. It would make sense they wouldn't be able to negotiate that until they had all of it right in 2028. I don't really foresee how they're going to try and sell a national TV deal that is extremely important after missing an entire season. I don't think there's going to be a. That's going to put them in a good bargaining position for their national TV rights if they're coming off missing an entire season. Obviously. You remember how thrilled everyone was when hockey came back in 2006. Right. It was just such a big. Exactly. Grant, you're squinting. Hockey. Hockey was a sport that Was hockey was a sport played on ice where men skated around with sticks and they hit this thing called a puck inside of a net. It was once a major American sport.

B (12:29)

I'm not gonna lie. That sounds great.

A (12:31)

It was. It's pretty fun, actually. Yeah, they used the puck, used to glow and stuff like that. Really cool. You know, there's Eric Lindross and the Legion of Doom. I just don't buy that they're going to miss a season before they do the TV rights. That doesn't make economic sense.

B (12:49)

The sport is financially healthy. Right? I mean, it's like, no one's out here wearing barrels with suspender straps.

C (12:55)

It's.

B (12:56)

It is a healthy sport in so many ways.

A (13:00)

It is. The arguments that the people on the ownership side make is that they're not liquid, right? Like, if all of your money is Grant, don't. Don't make that gesture. That's very inappropriate. I'm just tell. I don't agree with this. Okay. I'm just telling you. What they say is, like, what is my franchise valuation matter if I don't want to sell my franchise? I'm not, you know, I'm not bringing in the money that I should be bringing in. I'm just telling you what they say. No, no, I don't care. You know, like, I get it. Like, it's the reaction I have when people tell this to me. I just sort of look like, are you serious? But that's what they say, and they have a huge say in this. The owners, you know, the 30 sort of guys who run their teams are basically able to point to, you know, yeah, the franchise valuation does not immediately equal cash, you know, which, like, we should all have these sort of problems.

B (13:54)

Is there a GoFundMe or something? I know, I know that you're just the messenger, and I'm sitting here, I'm not. I'm shooting the messenger with barbs. And you are wit. I get it. I don't think that they want to lose the season for all the reasons you're explaining. But I also go back to the point of, like, is this the true disparity between the Dodgers and the Brewers? In a way, sure, it's obvious. It's on the surface, their payroll's three times as much or whatever. I also think that there's a part of it where you have to go, yes. However, a lot of things still had to align for the Dodgers, right? They still had to have the generational player be on a franchise that was just stuck in a vending machine and chasing its own tail. Right. And happened to be in the same area. I do think that there is. I don't think it was necessarily that if the Dodgers were, say, the Yankees or if they were the Cubs, that Ohtani would have gone to them. I think it was a very specific thing that enticed Ohtani to the Dodgers, also, them being the best team. It's not just the Dodgers coming in with brute force. And then I get back to the point. Well, if you give, say, you take a time machine back a year and you give the Brewers a briefcase filled with $30 or $30 million in unmarked bills, what do they spend that on? This is a trick question. I'm pretty sure you guys will know the answer. But what do they spend that extra $30 million on? Corbin Burns. Corbin Burns. I think, you know, they just. They like Corbin Burns. They liked how he fit, and he wouldn't be able to help that right now. And I'm not saying that that 30 million would always have to be wasted, but I don't think that payroll is the number one reason for this kind of. NLCS might be naive.

A (15:30)

It's tough to argue that when Blake Snell and Yoshinobi Yamamoto. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who are earning a combined, you know, whatever, like 600 million over their contracts, are just completely shutting down. The brewers, who have a lot of guys who are somewhere in the 0 to 6 range. Right. But the tent poles of the Dodgers are. Ohtani bets. Freddie Freeman.

C (15:56)

Right?

A (15:56)

Ohtani. It's like, well, the Angels don't like, you know, deferring money. Mookie Betts. We've talked about it a thousand times. Why the, you know, the Red Sox goofed that up. Freddie Freeman, you know, the. The Braves decided that they preferred a younger, slightly cheaper version in Matt Olsen, and the Dodgers were there by the backboard to pick it all up. And so, like, a lot of that is money, but it's also making good choices. And that's kind of, I think, what is frustrating for fans of other teams that they. They make good decisions very often, and they don't really get burned when they. Their money doesn't work out. Right. When Tanner Scott is completely, you know, unplayable, they can just take him off the roster, and it doesn't have. They even used a reliever. You know, it doesn't even matter.

C (16:42)

I don't think you really believe it if you try to argue that the money isn't, you know, distorting competitive factor. I mean, the whole reason that fans get mad that their owners are cheapskates is because they want them to spend more money so that they will be better team. Like, they see the relationship between spending more money and having better players. So, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious that, like, in a sport where there's, like, different levels of finitude that each team has to face, that having more money to spend, spending more money is a good way to make your team better. And, you know, the disagreement over whether the teams are on equal footing. Yeah, I mean, everybody kind of knows they're not. Right. Like, the richer teams have some advantages that can be muted in some cases. You know, you can work around them. The rich teams can also be dumb teams, etc. But it matters. I just don't think that the salary cap has ever been or is primarily or will ever be primarily about making an even playing field competitively. That's not why the owners want it. The owners want it because it creates a favorable negotiating environment for them. It suppresses salaries. It suppresses what players can, you know, leverage. They've wanted it for 50 years. They've wanted it since the first. First day there was, you know, legally recognized collective bargaining. They wanted it through the extreme parody 80s when you didn't have huge gaps in team payrolls. They want it because it makes free agency easier for them. It's like a rule that would help them. So I'm very skeptical that, like, a team winning two World Series in a row is the moral crisis that is really driving this. They just want to save money. They see themselves as businessmen. There are billions of dollars on the. I mean, this is a. This is like a. Not quite an existential question, but this is the sort of terrain that will affect player salaries by billions over the course of decades. You know, if you get it in once and that becomes the way that salaries are determined or, you know, restricted, throttled, then it has. It's a billions dollar, you know, issue. So that's why when, you know, like when Jeff says it's about narrative, he says, but this battle is as much about narrative as it is reality. I think that that's not really true. I think that's true for, you know, folks on Blue Sky a little bit. But I don't think that it's true for the owners or for the union. I think that it is 100% about reality. They literally have economists on their staff. It's a reality question for them, isn't it?

A (19:34)

Yeah. I do think, though, that the fact that we are talking about a salary cap that's not a thing you would talk about on a baseball podcast in 2015 with bargaining about to open up, you know, after the 2016 season. Right. I think. And this is part of a concerted effort through both their actions and, you know, they're sort of fanning the narrative flames to get, you know, salary cap, salary cap, salary cap. You know, they've always wanted a cap. They wanted a cap in 2016. They want to cap every time. As you said, it is their eternal quest. And I think that there's, you know, I'm not accusing them of. I'm not using the C word, obviously, right. Because that's. That's very problematic for them to collude. But, like, yeah, it's obvious that this is what they want. There have been enough teams who have basically decided to sit out of the free agent period in recent years that it has led to more and more people, you know, whether it's fans on X, the Everything site, or talk radio hosts or, you know, columnists who don't live in, like, New York or whatever, to write that there needs to be a more fair and equitable system, because this is. This system doesn't work. That is a victory for the owners. The fact that, like, we have to talk about it is that means they are winning in their battle. Does it mean they're getting at a cap? I really do doubt it because I just don't see the union breaking and I don't see the owners being willing to give up a season in 2027. But, you know, it's like, they might as well try, right? Like, they're, they're not like, yeah, it doesn't cost them nothing.

C (21:15)

Yeah, the winning the battle question is, like, kind of what. Where I started, this is like, are you. Are you actually winning? Does. Does winning the. In the court of public opinion actually mean anything? It seems really unlikely to me that if they give up a year or, you know, half a year because of a strike, because of a lockout, one side is going to be able to say, well, we, we, we. You know, the public blamed the other side. We won. Like, it's going to be a loss for everyone. And I'm skeptical that, like, having good headlines is really a factor in, like, the bottom line long term. It seems like another one of those things where you're, like, looking for daily wins or looking for daily. Like, you're trying to. You're trying to have a scoreboard on this.

A (22:01)

I mean, if you take the long view, right? And you were saying, like, you know, this is billions of dollars right at stake. What if the goal is just to make it so that 10 year old kids watching baseball, growing up to play baseball think there should be a salary cap so that when those 10 year old kids 20 years down the line are now major league baseball players and in the union, they don't, they were like, hey, you know what? We should have a cap. Like, it's a gambit that it's, it's low cost and if you're dealing with a, a group of people in the union who are going to fight tooth and nail for this, that the like lifeblood and ethos of their union is they will not have a cap, that it would stain the legacy of Marvin Miller and all those who fought before them. Right. Well, you know, if you just sort of seed the clouds with salary cap, you know, maybe that slowly dissipates.

B (22:53)

I would just like to point out I haven't checked our demographics. I'm assuming that we have the youngest listenership among podcasts out there. So kids, if you're listening to, please just. Salary caps bad. Sorry, Sam, I can't.

C (23:04)

Now. It's interesting because like, when you listen to a baseball game on the radio and there's ads for plumbers and pipefitters unions and you're like, who is this for? How many people listening are going to be making decisions about their, you know, plumbing and pipe fitting union? The answer is like, I guess it's, you know, there's a small number and you got to get them somehow. And maybe this is baseball trying to get a hold of the 600 future major leaguers. This is, the whole thing is just about, about trying to market to the 600 future big leaguers.

A (23:34)

They're trying to break the union in whatever way they can.

B (23:38)

I don't think this is the time to do it though. I mean, it's. Even with Brewers Dodgers, I would say the sport is healthy. This isn't necessary. This isn't 1994. This is, you know, a sport that has just. The streaming behemoth that they've created is amazing. They're printing digital money in a lot of ways. Attendance is going great. Compare, I mean, if you, if you haven't done this, I brought this up a couple times. Just take a look at the average attendance in the 70s for different teams. I mean, you have more teams under a million than I believe over a million in a typical year in the 70s. It's wild. That's not baseball. Now baseball, it's a niche sport. It doesn't hold sway over the collective consciousness like it once did. But it's a healthy pastime that people are still into, giving that up to maximize even revenues. Over 100 year Spanish man seems a little shortsighted, but I'm just a humble podcaster. If you love to travel, Capital One.

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I'm Mayra Amit, founder of Mochi Health. To find your mochi moment, visit joinmochi.com Tara is a mochi member, compensated for her story. So if you wanted to kind of build a wedge into the union based on this issue I could imagine a strategy of basically trying to convince the players that the system isn't fair and that like 85% of them are on loser teams and, you know, only the Dodgers matter. And if you're not a Dodger, this game's rigged against you. Like, that's a message that I could see them pushing. I don't really see them doing it. Seems like they're more complaining about their own wealth and trying to, you know, complain to the public. But like, if you were trying to make that case, the players themselves, it would be interesting. And I wonder, Andy, do you have a sense that ball players who are not on the Dodgers or Yankees resent the existence of the Dodgers and Yankees, like in their day to day? Are they like, I hate those guys, they're so rich.

A (27:34)

No, no, I think they're like, they're like, man, I hope to give to free agency and get paid. If not by the Dodgers or Yankees, but someone like them.

C (27:42)

That's the sense I get too. And so like the. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of wedge potential there right now. Like, that's just not how the players are. I feel like the players kind of like admire the good teams and want to join them.

A (27:55)

Yes. I think the wedge that they are attempting to drive is the superstars and everyone else and basically saying the middle class of players getting left behind. And so, you know, Kyle Tucker is going to get paid this winter. But like a lot of other guys who, you know, like, because you got to remember too, like four players, the prospect of these sort of financial goals are like really, really important. Like making it to the majors, right, is a big deal. But then making it to arbitration is a huge deal, right, for like, for non superstar players. Like, it's a real. It's like 10 years service time. 10 years service. But before that you get to free agency. And like, free agency is a privilege because now you finally get, you know, that's the promise of along the way is like you have grinded all these years in the minors, at least six full seasons in the major leagues, and now you get the riches of free agency, right? And it used to be like that was the, the thing that you could point to, but now guys get to that and then it's like, yeah, I'll give you a minor league deal or something, you know, because. And from a baseball, you know, OPS perspective, that might be what they're worth. They're just playing the market. But that can be a source of frustration for players who grind through this thing. And then they get to, you know, the panacea of free agency. And only Kyle Tucker is getting paid this winter. You know, that's where they're trying to drive a wedge. I don't think that's going to work. But that feels like more fertile ground than, you know, class resentment, than saying, like, all those stinky Dodgers and Mets, you know, you don't want to play for them. You want to play for a hard scrabble team like the Reds, you know, that sort of thing.

B (29:35)

So when I look at the Dodgers roster and I say, you know, you play the game, could this player be on the Reds? Right. And who are we really talking about? I think in theory, Blake Snell could be on the Reds. Right. There is a permutation where a free agent like Blake's. Now, I'm not saying the actual Blake Snell, I'm saying any team could sign a pitcher that they want to. The contract that Blake Snow got. I agree. I understand that he took a little bit less to pitch for the Dodgers and all that stuff, but when I look up Blake Snell, I don't say that is a Dodger specific player. That is someone that is out of the reach of all 30 teams or 29 teams. Only one team can get them. Or two, if you take the Mets, you look at different around the roster. You get that Mookie Betts is almost one of those players, and you say what? You know. But they extended him. The brewers have their Mookie bets. His name is Christian Yelich. It's just. It didn't work out in the same way, but they got. They traded for this young superstar in his prime and extended him in. It just didn't work out in the same way. I look more at Ohtani and I look at, to a lesser extent, Yamamoto, as these are the players that are available to the Dodgers and to a lesser extent, the Mets, but no one else. And I don't think that says a lot about the labor situation writ large. I think that just says something about the dodgers. Compared to 29 other teams, Ohtani makes.

A (30:47)

$2 million a year.

B (30:48)

Well, okay. Okay, sir.

C (30:51)

You can imagine a scenario where the Reds bid what the Dodgers bid on Blake Snell, right? Then don't you have to imagine the scenario that the Dodgers then bid more like.

B (31:00)

Sure, sure.

C (31:00)

If they don't have. If they don't have as many good players as they want, they'll go, you know, they'll go get more good players. Like, they have the ability to just, like, add enough good Players until they think, oh, yeah, we have the best team. And so, you know, like, it would be nice, in a sense, for Blake Snell in the union and everybody else if the Reds were out there bidding up Blake Snell so that he weren't taking, like a pillow contract with the Giants after winning a Cy Young Award. Like, you know, you want to have 27 to 30 teams that are all, like, actively pursuing players so that they have, like, maximum negotiating leverage. But here's the way I think about it. Like this. This I think is really like the thing that opened my eyes, right? You take a player, Michael Conforto, right? What's he making? 18 million? 17 million. So nobody else was willing to give him $18 million, but the Dodgers were. But on top of that, the Dodgers are paying, like, the highest luxury tax penalty for that. So really what they valued, Michael, like, they were willing to pay 35 million for Michael Conforto. So most teams won't pay him 18. The Dodgers would pay him 35. So if you think, oh, well, the Reds could have bid 18, well, the Dodgers are already at 35, so maybe they'd go to 40. Like, you don't actually know what cap they put on player value when it suits their need. They are willing to value players at a much higher level. And then, you know, the Mets are too. So I don't know. That is just to say that, like, it's not so easy to say, well, if only the Reds weren't cheap, they'd have Blake Snell. I think if the Reds weren't cheap, Blake Snell would be richer, but probably still a dodger.

B (32:41)

I'm not necessarily using. I'm using the Reds as just sort of like a stand in for the idea of a pitcher like Blake. So I'm not necessarily focusing on Blake Snell, the individual pitcher, in that exact situation. I'm just looking at him as a concept on the Dodgers, this big name. I think that a player like Blake Snell is available to teams that want to want him. And I just. It makes me feel like the real issue is less the Dodgers versus everyone else. But that's 20% at the top where the Dodgers can take off their hat and they just have, you know, a couple billion dollars under there. It's what separates the Dodgers and I guess the Mets from the other 28 teams. I think that's going to be the major concern that. That the wedge is driven into.

A (33:24)

Let's put a pin in this because we got some other stuff we want to talk to, but I Just think, I don't know. It's cliche to call things black swan events, but, like with the Dodgers, the acquisition of Shohei Ohtani has fundamentally changed their relationship with money. As in, they're like, we got too much of it. We don't know where to put it all. Let's give it to Michael Conforto. And the Mets are owned by Steve Cohen, whose, you know, net worth is probably added a billion just during the course of this podcast. So Cohen is liquid and everyone else is using a credit card in the sport. And so those are just outliers. Right. And that's less about, I feel like, the system being unfair and more about, you know, the richest guy in New York deciding he wants to buy his team. And the Dodgers building up basically, a powerhouse that enticed Ohtani to come there. The San Francisco Giants, they had signed Ohtani could be doing all this stuff because they'd be making insane amounts of money the way the Dodgers are, right? Yeah. I don't know. It's just a very unique circumstance that I think it's less about, like, oh, the Dodgers are Dodgers. Spending is breaking the sport. It's like, okay, if they weren't spending, it just would be like Mark going in Mark Walter and Todd Bowley's pockets. Like, good for them for spending. You know what? They're making so much money. This ballpark is full every single night. Every inch of the outfield is covered in ads. They have tours coming through the ballpark day and night before games. Like, they're making so much money.

B (35:02)

I think that's what I'm getting at, is that the idea, I think, is less about can we get the salary cap, or at least in the public perception is salary cap or no salary cap. I think the public perception could very easily just be fix the outliers. Like, don't. Salary cap is secondary. These outliers, I think that's going to dominate the conversation.

A (35:20)

It's just my prediction, you know what the fix is? Play better play.

C (35:26)

We have fallen into the trap of, again, talking about whether it's a fair game, whether it's a fair sport. And that's the trick, right? It's not a fair sport. It's never going to be a fair sport. It's fine. It's been unjust since the first day. The NBA remains unjust despite a salary cap, et cetera. It's not about fairness. That's the lie. It's about them, you know, trying to create favorable conditions for their business negotiations. So that's not going to change. And, like, that's why they want it. They want it so that they can suppress Blake Snell's salary.

B (36:01)

Yep. All right, Sam. Sam's grounding us. I will say that you bring up a good point. The NFL. If I ever see Patrick Mahomes in person, it's on site. And by on site, I mean I'm going to say, hey, stop that.

A (36:11)

You're going to want an autograph.

B (36:15)

Hey, stop doing that to the Niners. That's. That's me.

A (36:18)

Hey, you look a lot like the quarterback from the University of Nebraska.

B (36:21)

You look like that relief pitcher on the Mets. You know what? We have talked about labor. We've talked about a lot of strife. Let's talk about neither strife nor labor. Let's talk about something depressing. Great players aging.

C (36:36)

Oh, great players aging. Yeah. Let's go. Christian Yelich, real quick. Christian Yelich. Andy, when you were gone, Grant and I did our. I don't know what we did. We talked about players whose hall of Fame chances moved demonstrably in the past year or something like that. And I'm rooting for Yelich. I feel like he's a teetering case for the hall of Fame, and I'm rooting for him. I like the guy. I had a breakfast burrito with him once and his phone number was in my contacts until I got a new phone. So for that reason, I like him. But, boy, he has had the most cursed postseason career. I don't know if you guys are aware of this. In his second postseason game in. Sorry. In his second postseason at bat, his first postseason game, he hit a two run homer. So two at bats in two RBIs in the 115 plate appearances since then, he has one RBI.

B (37:33)

Whoa.

C (37:34)

115 plate appearances, one RBI. And he does not have an RBI since 2018, even though the brewers are in the postseason almost every year. And he's had. I believe he's missed two post seasons with late season injuries. He is playing this postseason with a lower back ailment of undefined severity. But lower back ailments have been ailing him for his late career in pretty clear ways, and it's a bummer. I have been a strong proponent that in this day and age, postseason performance should be a major part of a player's hall of Fame case, their legacy. You have so many plate appearances in the postseason and the regular season is so diminished in value that I've. I've made the case that, like, postseason championship win probability added should be like a Major stat in your legacy, like almost on par with. With your career war and Christian Yelich makes me want to refute that position and say it's not his fault, but it kind of is. It's. It's rough to watch.

B (38:49)

You have that setup, and you had me hook, line, and sinker, and I was thinking, well, it can't be zero, right? Zeros. Just completely unrealistic. So it's going to be something that still sounds bad, and you need. It's going to be 10. It's going to be a. You know what I mean? Like, I was trying to do the. The ratio we had one. That is. That's not just how the dice are falling. That is. That is. That's gripping the bat a little bit too tight. I know that we say we can't clutch hitting may or may not exist, but it's. It's not an individual who's going to be able to spot that. Right. It's.

C (39:19)

It's.

B (39:20)

That's just something that we're going to have to not know. But here I think maybe we. We have an idea that this is someone who is, for whatever reason, trying to. To chase the ghosts and get the monkey off his back.

C (39:31)

Yeah.

A (39:32)

I mean, I don't know. I. I'm always hesitant to assign sort of, you know, whatever moral failings on physical, you know, lack of success, but he's not hitting well this postseason. The entire top four in the brewers lineup has gone completely cold. And that is the main reason why they are going to lose the series, is that their best players are not performing. And he is there. He's probably not their best player. He's certainly their best known player. He is the, you know, the quote, unquote face of the franchise. And I think he's, in my sense of just being around the team a little bit this year and especially this month, he really does, like, shoulder that responsibility ability in a way that is becoming fairly rare. I mean, this guy talks every day to us, you know, after losses, he talks. And that is, you know, a small thing, but something that matters. And I think he really sets the tone for the brewers as an organization. And, you know, it's a big part of, like, their culture and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, I think the. The combination of the lack of success and then also the injuries really is kind of a. A bummer postseason history because there's been several times, you know, 2019 especially, but then also last year, where it's like, wow, this team's roaring and then their best known player is, you know, undergoing surgery and won't be available in October.

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The Quiche Trio and Breaded calamari. Want more savings? See yellow sales signs throughout the store. Shop low prices at Whole Foods Market in store or online. I did kind of make it sound like it was moral failings or you know, grip in the bat is a pretty loaded thing. And I, you know, I've never had a majority of the injuries that baseball players suffer, but it does feel to me that at the end of 162 game season, the back is going to be some of the less forgiving. That's going to be the least forgiving body part for an extra month of baseball. Right? There's some things you can hey, I'm going to power through this. The back is not one of them. And he's been dealing with this for gosh, I don't know how many years, lots of years.

C (42:58)

But you know, there's the direct way that an injury limits what you can do. Like if you have a shoulder injury, your shoulder is weaker. It, you know, saps your strength, right? But also, man, it's hard to perform when you know you've got vulnerability in your body. Just like when you know you're compromised, it's like really hard to to be loose, to be confident, to not know which actions are going to draw out that weakness. And I would imagine, I mean, I think that's true for every. Like, I think that, you know, playing through an. You know, through an ankle injury, I bet is, like, way harder than just, like, oh, well, can you, you know, turn. Make the turn at second base, but back injury especially, it's just, like, right in the center of your body, every action. I mean, it's your core. It is, like, genuinely hard to turn over in bed when you have a sore back. And it's not just hard like, oh, well, it's hard. It's like, there's dread when you have to turn over in bed. You're like, well, let's see how this is gonna go. And you don't want to. So you just sort of lay flat. So I would imagine that the. The range of lost player performance due to injury for, like, kind of, like, just mental reasons or, like, being in a flow kind of reasons. It's like, a huge range. Sometimes no big deal. Sometimes massive deal. I've been amazed watching Jackson Churio this postseason, playing through this hamstring injury. And, you know, like, every game, there's a point where you go, oh, well, that's a wrap. He's. He can't keep doing this.

A (44:41)

He came out of the game. I don't mean to laugh. I'm not laughing at the concept of someone being injured, but he came out of yesterday's game. He's, like, hobbling off the field, you know, and people are posting on Twitter, they're just like, oh, my gosh, I hope he's okay. Like, that looked bad. Oh, no. I mean, his career might be fundamentally changed. And he's afterwards going like, yeah, I had a cramp. My bad. Like, there's. I mean, he came out of Game 1 of the NLDS with, you know, the same hamstring, and Pat Murphy's like, this could be devastating. This is. I mean, this could be a catastrophic injury. And Cheerio was like, no, no, I'll be back in the lineup for game two. So it's just. It's hard to. You know, it's one of those things, like, when your leg stops working, it's kind of problematic. But. But yes. Can we. Let's. Let's go a couple minutes long and do Harper. I found Dave Dombrowski's comments about Bryce Harper to be very interesting, very pointed, and I would be very surprised if he just kind of let that slip. But he basically challenged him to be a great player again, which I thought was fascinating.

C (45:42)

Yeah, I also thought it was fascinating. The challenge aspect of it is interesting. You know, Dombrowski is Not a guy who's got, like, a long history of being, like, really, you know, like, loose with what he says. And so for him to come out with something that's pretty clearly going to generate, like, the headlines. So the headlines are misleading, I would say. Like, you saw headlines everywhere yesterday about Dombrowski, what he said about the Philly, about Harper. I'll just give you a few. Dombrowski wonders if Harper can be, quote, elite again. Dombrowski, I don't really know if Bryce Harper can be elite again. Dombrowski makes surprising Bryce Harper admission. Can Bryce Harper be elite again? Dombrowski has kids concerns, and those all make it seem like he really, you know, like, kind of maybe crushed the guy or something. And then you watch the video and it. It's actually like, a really interesting. He gets into this kind of, like, he lets his internal monologue come out where he's, like, debating whether, you know, this quality player can be great again. He brings in Freddy Freeman strangely. Like, he starts talking about, freddy's still a really good player. He's a really good player, right? He's still a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. So, like, Freddie Freeman taking shots, and it really, like. Like, in one sense, you thought, wow. Like, Dombrowski just got, like, podcaster brain. Like, he's. He's having this, like, discussion about whether Bryce Harper is at an arbitrarily defined level. Like, by bringing in the word elite, he's making it into a, like, sports talk radio conversation. And you could say, wow, like, that is, like, completely an own goal, because the guy who asked him the question did not say, is Bryce Harper elite? Dombrowski brought it in and, you know, kept the conversation sort of, like, rambling while everybody watched and went, wow, he's going there, huh? So then I think everybody thinks, is this intentional? Was this a challenge for Bryce Harper? A lot of people think it was a challenge for Bryce Harper. I would say it's risky if that's a. Like, Bryce Harper's 33. Like, his body's aging. There might just not be, like, that much left. Like, and he's really great, and that this might be as great as he's ever going to be. So challenging him, while starting with the premise that this is, like, lesser, is kind of risky. Like, I don't know, do you. Do you even need to challenge Bryce Harper at this point? Like, it almost feels a little bit like, condescending to be like, well, this guy needs a fire, you know, lit.

A (48:29)

Under him, it did read like he got into podcaster brain, you know, like, he was like, hey, you know, Ryan Rusillo's got this new thing with barstool. Like, I'm just. I know just as much about ball as him. You know, maybe I could be a stoolie too, sort of thing, Become a stoolie at 71. But my read on it was, it was purposeful. I think they, as an organization are trying to thread the needle of running things back while also trying to shake things up, right? Like, they want to bring back real Muto, they want to bring back Kyle Schwarber, they want to create some lanes for some of their younger players to come up. There was a lot of talk, especially, you know, John Middleton said this explicitly to Matt Galba, the Athletic, after last year's postseason loss, that they needed to change things up. And I think Dombrowski, you know, kind of setting putting a marker on Harper, who is, you know, the quote unquote face of the franchise. But actually, you know, what? He isn't. And that's part of it, right? Is it like, if you think about the Phillies, you think about Schwarber, you know, you think about Wheeler, like, you don't think about Harper. And I think they want him to take back some of that mantle. I think they want him to be more than just another good player. They want him to, you know, level up. I mean, if he could do what Freddie Freeman has done the last four years, that would be an improvement, I think. And I think if you're trying to figure out, how do we get better, it's like, challenge your stars to lead the way. I think that is something that the Dodgers have seen, you know, like Mookie Betts taking on the challenge of being, becoming a shortstop. You know, Freddie Freeman being, you know, remaining as constant in the lineup as he is despite the injuries and his age. Shohei Ohtani, you know, taking on the challenge of coming back as a two way player when he could just be a DH who goes 50, 50 every year. Like, I think there's value in that.

B (50:24)

I just came to a crushing realization where I, I read all the quotes that Dombrowski made and every single one of them. I was like, yeah, that's kind of like on its face, what's happening. That's. It's just older players get old. You've seen them bounce back before. Sometimes the elite players take a step back, then take a step forward. All of this made total sense to me. So I guess my question is, do I have podcaster brain?

C (50:46)

Oh, Absolutely. Oh my gosh. Completely. Yeah.

B (50:49)

Like, is that what's leaking out of my ear right now?

C (50:52)

We've had 7,000 conversations about whether Logan Webb is an ace. 7,000. It is the definition defining question of this show.

B (51:01)

Is he there?

A (51:02)

Andy, it's asked and answered.

B (51:05)

It's different day.

C (51:07)

I'm gonna read Dombrowski here for a second. He's still a quality player. He's still an all star caliber player. He didn't have an elite season like he's had in the past. I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or continues to be good. That is like a transcript of this show. That is. Is Ronald Acuna a superstar?

B (51:27)

That's me having that internal monologue before my fantasy draft. You know what I mean?

A (51:31)

I guess a 2025 way to say to both the media and to your players was his internal monologue probably says, which is. Bryce Harper was like a five win player last year. He had a 900 ops in 2023. He had a basically a 900 ops in 2024. This year it was down to 844. If he loses another. I don't know what the math is.54 for five points in OPS. He's sub 800. Right. You cannot be paying a sub.800 OPS first baseman $27 million over the next 10 years. And it's basically hitting the alarm that is like, hey, that wasn't acceptable. We need you to not let this happen again. You can't come out and say that. That would you be. You come across as a crazy person. Like I just did. Right. But if you're looking at the trend line, you're like, oh, we've crossed the Rubicon of him, you know, being a great player. That's a problem. We cannot go down another rung. That is a real problem for us.

C (52:34)

I guess that kind of was. The question is like, do you see Bryce Harper season as part of a trajectory or not? Like that's what the question was. And then Dombrowski brought in the. The categorization of, you know, good quality, all star and elite. Well, that actually changes things things in a way. Like that's not. I challenge Harper to get back to mvp. That's more like I see negative, I see clouds on the horizon. I see a guy in decline. And it worries me. Like that feels more critical than the words on their face actually were. Yeah.

A (53:08)

I mean, and that would suggest that there might be internal worry about the processes that led him to have an.844 OPS.

C (53:17)

He had a pretty Good. You know, he had a pretty. A lot of it was just how.

B (53:21)

Many players have better than 844?

A (53:24)

Look, I'm not the one who said these things. I'm just trying to interpret why a very measured general manager would say something that is kind of feels deliberately provocative.

B (53:38)

I just don't think it's that provocative because I've got podcaster brain. Is there a.

C (53:42)

Something I can take the drop from 24 to 25? I don't know, but the drop from 24 to 25 can be explained 100% by his BABIP, you know, by a BABIP drop. So there's that, too. I mean, there's a. I feel pretty confident about Bryce Harper personally in the. In the immediate, in the short term, in the near term. So I wouldn't be panicking, but that's not really the question. Just out of curiosity, Andy, like, none of us knows. None of us knows this, but you've been in a lot of these conversations with, you know, pobos. You think premeditated. Did Dombrowski go out there planning to. To find this message premeditated?

A (54:20)

I don't know if he was like, God, I hope someone asked about Harper. But I think, you know, clearly thought about it.

B (54:26)

Yeah, this was incidental.

A (54:28)

Clearly, it. Clearly they, you know, I, I think there's. I don't think it was like he was trying to shoehorn in where, you know, someone's like, hey, do you think you will bring back Schwaber? And he'd be like, we'd love to bring back Schwaber. And we'd love it if Bryce was elite again too. You know, that feel like very premeditated. But, yeah, like, the guys in general, the folks who do this job spend a lot of time, they think about every permutation of every thing. You know, they kick it around with their team, they kick it around with their staff. And they usually have, you know, if not a, you know, set of talking points they have, they have a clarity of mind when they, you know, come out there. I mean, I think you saw this with like, Scott Harris did this in the. His postseason wrap up, you know, with the Tigers, where he was basically laying out why they didn't do much at the deadline in a way that, you know, we've talked about it length on the show, but it was like a clear explanation for their thought process. You can agree with it, you can disagree with it, but it is clear he had taken the time to, you know, sort of be like, I want to be able to Explain this in a way that people will stop asking me about this. Right. And I think that's kind of the purpose of what these are in non crises circumstances, you know, like, where they had. Where, like, you've had a couple days to reflect and you've had time to be like, okay, like, what is the plan moving forward? And I think it seems clear, you know, part of the plan in Philadelphia just, like, get some of their guys to arrest some of the trends that they've seen over the last couple years.

B (55:58)

All right, this has been episode number 185 of the Roundtable. What strikes me is that we're not just experts, experts on baseball, but labor, medical science. I mean, what we know about injuries, Andy's football career, Sam's basketball career, me falling down in my own house. Like, we've all dealt with injuries. So we'll be back on Monday. Gosh, I am so bad with the calendars looking out. Are we gonna. We're gonna know everything, right? We're gonna know everything.

C (56:23)

Both series could still be going. I think there's a decent chance that we're still gonna have a ALCS up in the air.

B (56:29)

Hey, game seven, Dodgers. Brewers got them right where they want them to. All right, episode number 185. We'll be back Monday. See you then.

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