January 15, 2020 • 45 mins
Jason Smith and Mike Harmon react to the recent retirement announcements by Luke Kuechly and Antonio Gates today, Ring Leader Alex Cora is out as the head manager for the Boston Red Sox for his involvement in the 2017 World Series. Guests Jason La Canfora - CBS Sports NFL Insider and Jon Paul Morosi - FOX Sports & MLB Network Baseball Insider join the guys for all the latest news and insight!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the I Heart Radio app by
searching fs R. This is the best of the Jason
(00:23):
Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio. Two
big retirements in the National Football League today, one earlier today,
we all saw one we're kind of stunned by in
the past hour. Antonio Gates of the San Diego slash
Los Angeles Chargers announce his retirement today at the age
(00:43):
of thirty nine, and Luke Keikley of the Panthers star
middle linebacker says he's calling it quits. He is just
twenty eight years old. So let's deal with Antonio Gates
first before we get to Luke Keickley. Gates didn't play
last year and it was quite obvious, and okay, I
think that if the charge had been in contention for
a playoff spot, maybe he might have said, hey, Henry
(01:06):
gets hurt. I'll come out and play that That's the question, right,
Did he want bigger money than they were willing because
Hunter Harry missed the first half of the year. He did.
But the thing is, I think I after he didn't sign,
I knew he was done, but I thought at the
end of the year, he's not somebody who wants to
sign for the beginning of the year. He'd be somebody
(01:26):
that Hey week six, weeks seven, I'll get myself into
shape and play the last eight games of the season.
That's no one. No one wants to retire and come
back and play a full six team game slate. No no no,
I want to come back and play the last seven
or eight games and then maybe the playoffs. But by
the time it got to mid of the season, the
Charges were struggling. Gates was Gates was done. He didn't play.
I'm still not convinced at some point he's gonna come
Back's like Keith van Horne, we're gonna hear, oh, someone's
(01:49):
gonna need someone's contract to Keith van Horne is we're
gonna eventually. Antonio Gates is never gonna retire. So he's
the undertaker and he's gonna sit up again. He'll come back.
He'll play again. In three years, the charges will all
and that will sit out. He's forty two, he'll come
back and play again. Four years from now, be forty
six years old, still playing. He'll get to the end
of Bobby Benitas contract with the Mets and he will
still be playing well. As we've talked about Antonio Gates
(02:11):
during our runs doing Fantasy sports and certainly NFL Analysis
low these many years on Fox Sports Radio, it's he's
the best post up receiver you've ever seen. Those college
basketball days were no joke because you want to talk
about a guy finding lean and leverage and whatever going
to his hundred sixteen career touchdowns. That's what it's all
(02:33):
about for Antonio Gates. He was the touchdown maker Philip
Rivers security blanket for all those years. Gates, for me,
he is a first ballot Hall of Famer. I have
seen three great tight ends in my life, and Antonio
Gates is one of the top two. Rob Gronkowski Antoni Gonzalez.
Gonzalez is clearly the best, and talk about athleticism, but
(02:54):
Gates is right there with him, and then Gronk, who
hasn't played very long, and that kind of gets into
the Luke Kickley argument that we're gonna have in a
couple of minutes. But Gates redefined the tight end position
with athleticism. He played until he was thirty seven years old,
and he was unstoppable. You couldn't stop him one on one.
You had to put two players on him because he
was just that much of a difference maker. And we've
(03:17):
said and talked about the career of Philip Rivers a
lot here on the show. And one thing that's always
amazing and always amazed me is every time you watch
the Charges play, no matter who their wide receivers are,
Philip Rivers is not threatened the football in between a
tight window to a guy in a deep out. His
receivers are always wide open. His receivers are always like,
oh my god, they've got five yards and that to
be And these are good defensive backs. Now, Rivers, to
(03:39):
his credit, has found a way just we talked about
Joe Burrow last night. Hey, when he gets guys one
on one, he knows where to put the football. He
has that rapport with his wide receivers that he does
because Rivers doesn't have the strongest arm in the world.
But that's what he did because he would find the
guys one on one and they would make plays and
they would find a way. I'm coming back to the
football on this play. It's very difficult to figure that out.
(04:00):
When you're a defense and you're you're stuck with one
on one coverage, you don't have a lot of Darrel
revis Is, it's gonna be difficult. But why did the
wide receiver seves so much one on one coverage? Because
Antonio Gates in the middle of the field was absolutely
so dominant. You had to have guys around him, and
so you couldn't double guys on the outside. It was
too hard because if you did that, you had one
on one coverage. And what did Philip Rivers say today?
(04:21):
Anytime I saw Antonio one on one, I knew he
was getting the football. So teams couldn't do that. You
couldn't just cover him with a lineback. You couldn't just say, okay,
well it's gonna be him in the safety will pick
him up. You needed to have multiple people on him.
You can only put multiple people on so many receivers.
So when he's that guy in the middle, of the field.
Of course, that's gonna leave the outside open. And that's
what Philip Rivers did for fifteen years. And he's able
to say, Okay, guys like Tyrolle Williams or Keenan Allen
(04:43):
and Mike Williams, whoever it was, gonna wind up being open,
Travis Benjamin doesn't matter because it's really hard to cover
guys one on one when you have a pretty good
quarterback who knows where to put the football. And that's
the genius and the brilliance of Antonio Gates. Yes, yeah,
I always just enjoyed him, especially the last five or
six years when he had that bad, bad foot. He
looked like he was running in mud. Yet he would
(05:03):
somehow find a way to, you know, get it just
enough space right, quick elbow, quick, little shove, forearms shiver,
not enough to extend the arm, but enough to back
off a defensive player, a linebacker or corner or safety
that's trying to cover him, and just enough to to
get it in what I ask of you. And I
brought this up earlier to uh Frostburg as we were
(05:26):
getting ready for the show and and to you, and
I pose it just as a question for the Hall
of Fame voters to decide. He did serve a four
game suspension for p E D S, blaming it on
supplements and holistic medicines that he was using to recover
from prior injuries. But he's got a great Nope, he's
(05:47):
got a great reputation. Everybody loves Antonio Gates. It's gonna
be one of those. Yeah, well he had it, so
we'll push that out other players know. But that's the
thing about having a good reputation. If you have a
good reputation, people will look the other weigh a little
bit on your transgressions as long as they're deemed to
be minor. Let's face it, p DS in the NFL
fans don't really care about it. We care more about
(06:08):
than we do in the National Football I don't know.
We we laugh more at the testing policies. Right this
past week, what was it, Russell Wilson found tags for
both P E D s uh and you know in
street drugs. I think we're both if I'm remembering correctly.
I mean, guys just started getting tagged all over and
it's become a joke. But it's always you raise it up,
(06:29):
particularly this week since we're talking about rules and integrity
of the game and all that. When it comes to
the Astros, to the Red Sox Dodgers and what it
meant to their players and everything else. Just raising my
hand just to ask the question twitter and out about
a frost because that's okay, the chair recognizes Mike Harmon.
It's gonna be part of the discussion point, that's all. Uh,
(06:49):
Mike has swollen down the Jason Smith Show with my
best friend Mike Harmon. Now when it comes to Luke Keikley,
Keikley retiring very surprisingly tonight made a big statement on
social media. Keik Lee has had his share of head
injuries over the course of the past few years and
a twenty eight years old. Okay, we've got a big
coaching change coming in. We're gonna reboot. It's gonna be
(07:11):
one more year at cam Newton. Maybe it's a new
quarterback and Keickley has decided I'm going to hang him
up now. He leaves one of the most decorated linebackers
in the game. Five time All Pro seven or eight.
I think I think he made the Pro Bowl in
all years he was healthy in the NFL. Seven out
of his eight years, five was Pro first teams. He
(07:32):
also had the I think he has the Panthers record
for interceptions. He was a guy that did it all.
He was a tackling machine. He was able to make
plays in coverage, got to the court, he did everything.
But is he gonna be a first ballot Hall of Famer?
Probably not because the standard centers at the position are
Ray Lewis and Brian are Lacker. I don't think. I
don't think there's anybody arguing that ray Lewis played seventeen
(07:53):
years in the NFL. Bran Or Lacker played thirteen years
in the NFL. Luke Keickley as good he does, he
compares great with these guys. Look all the middle linebackers,
a great middle linebackers. Luke Kicklely compares well with. But
all these big Hall of famers, they all played much longer. Now.
When the NFL led Torell Davison after basically having four
years and winning two Super Bowls, that really, you know,
(08:14):
brought the level down of it as far as how
long you had to play. But his level of dominance
got him in. That could do it for Keikilely, But
first ballot, I don't see that for him, just because
eight years is not quite the monster careers in the
monster years that Lewis and er Lacker both had. And
can you say Luke Keickley was as good as these two. No,
he wasn't as good as he was. He wasn't quite
(08:35):
the difference maker of Ray Lewis and Brian or Lacker.
But was he fantastic? Will he get in? Yeah? But
first ballot the the year with Antonio Gates, I don't
see him getting in. What will be interesting to watch
is because you got both Patrick Willis and Luke Kickley
whose careers are very similar. Right, I've done? After eight
years with Patrick Willis only six games played his final season.
(08:58):
We all remember sitting here on a Thursday night watching
the Keik Lee injury, tears streaming out of his eyes,
and we're all looking at each other going, Wow, that's
that's it. I mean that that could have been the
last we see him on the field, and here we
are another early retirement. When you go to the arlak
Er comparison, you're talking about r Laker thirteen years versus
(09:19):
his eight um about two hundred tackles difference between them.
When you talk about that kind of impact overall, uh
thirty one quarterback hits that he's credited with Keikley against Well,
you're you're talking twenty four for Laker in terms of
stats that they keep in some of those you know
(09:39):
you always wanted because tackles is also on an official
stats or both the Carolina and Chicago folks did their
guys right at the linebacker, you're around the pile, you
get a half, and you get a half, and you
get a half. But but you mentioned Gates reputation, and
that's where Lee reputation right, So I mean that's one
of the things that certainly gonna help him as we
(10:02):
go through. And it's always the question of the log
jam or when we have the next bulk insertion to
the Hall of Fame. I do appreciate this. I'll laugh.
Perhaps you missed Rob Gronkowski. Congrats Luke Kickley on early retirement.
You were a fearless player out there on the field.
So when you're coming back Twitter at how about a
(10:24):
fresco Mike hats swollen him the Jason Smith Show with
my best friend Mike Harman Again, Patrick Willis, you talked
about him very similar career to Luke Kickley, but the letter.
For me, the length of a career is a very
big deal. And and when you look at the who's
in at the top of that list, guys playing that long,
guys playing that long, had the all decade guys. That's
that's the thing that jumps in. You couldn't give Gates
(10:46):
his one damn day? How about that? If he's retiring
on social media? He canna let it tomorrow? You could
have done it. I'm happy for you. You're doing what
you want to do, but really, you couldn't just do
it tomorrow. Yeah, well, I mean there's a lot going
on in Major League Baseball. Tried to sneak in the
whole Astros thing tomorrow on National Title game, thinking they'd
get away with it. Today's Gates day as well. He's
(11:06):
hed a definitive first ballot Hall. I mean, inter Lacker
got in even with hair. But what does the bust
have hair or not have hair? I don't think it does.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
Radio app. Joining us now on the Hotline, a man
(11:29):
who was just completed fifteen thousand words on Syracuses upset
of Virginia from Saturday CBS Sports NFL Insider extraordinaire Jason
Locking for what's happening to Jay? What's going on? Guys?
I mean you must be you must be tired, your
hands typing from that. You got the big lacrosse previews,
you had your work. I know you're a busy over.
I did see though, that they tore down the Daily Arms. Yeah, yeah,
(11:54):
they did. They did. I don't know why. Do you
know the backstory of that? I don't remember ruin the
why kind of flashed across my Twitter, but I don't
know if the school bought it. I guess I have
no idea, but I think Otto the Orange is going
to be in charge of the daily newspaper now for Syracuse.
I think that he was a hell of a copy
at her back in the day. Hey, so before we
get to the games, let's start saying we have two
(12:14):
big retirements in the NFL. Antonio Gates calls at Quincy
he didn't play last year, and Luke Kickley a surprising
announcement at age twenty eight after eight seasons in the NFL.
These guys are both Hall of Famers. I think Gates
is first ballot quickly, might have to wait, he only
played eight years. You know, where are you on this
news from today with these guys. Yeah, I think they're
(12:35):
they're both Hall of famers, um, without a doubt. I
wonder I want to get into the minutia of my
you know, Hall of Fame voting in the NFL and
the problems I have with it. But there's so many
guys who caught so many balls, um that I just
I don't know if there's going to end up being
a backlog of tight ends the way there was a
backlog of receivers. But for me Keiley, um, I mean
(13:00):
eight years of doing what he did, knocking heads for
a living, there's plenty long enough. And and you know,
for me, he was a showan on the All Decade team. Uh.
This is a guy who affected the run game, affected
the past game, was an incredible leader, got others around
him to um sort of rise above and buy into
(13:21):
something bigger than themselves. I mean, he was beloved by
the guys he played with and beloved by the guys
he played against, and had immense respect around the league.
So obviously, you know, his concussion issues are well documented,
and he knows his body and his mind better than
(13:42):
anybody else. And if he just got through the rigors
of the season and felt like he may have dodged
a bullet or two and you know what I mean,
and whatever, you know, a lot of life to live,
hopefully for a guy who's twenty eight. And this isn't
you know, I don't know that we should be calling
these early retirements, are saying, you know, it's a surprise anymore,
(14:05):
because we know the risk of playing football. If and
if at any point the mental calculus for any individual
is I don't want to do that anymore, you know,
because of future health and safety, because of how I
feel right now, because of the risks involved, then you know,
I think you have to respect it. And this is
(14:27):
not you know, a fluke or an anomaly. A lot
of young men are coming to these decisions, and I
don't know that we should we should you know, we
as outsiders should be saying, well, that guy retired too soon,
or that guy retired quote unquote early. No, he retired
when he was ready to retire. Alright, Jason. Now we
we've had the coaching carousel has now stopped. We could
(14:49):
move on the last one to join the fray, Kevin
Stefanski saying all the right things, Guys, the limit for
Baker Mayfield. Is he the guy to change the culture
in Cleveland? I don't know. And you know it's it's
it's not just the coach himself, that's who's he working for? Problems?
Who are you working with potentially a problem? You know,
(15:10):
what is this staff going to look like? Who's helping
him pick the staff? How much, say, are the analytics
guys having him picking a staff? And I'm completely progressive
when it comes two numbers and advanced data and metrics.
But I think when we start talking about position coaches
and offensive coordinators, uh, that maybe a little out of
(15:33):
Paul deepodest his debt. I don't know, um, but whatever
they've touched there hasn't worked. And and and I think
Kevin's the fans. He has a lot going for him.
He's been on my radar for a while. A lot
of people I know in respect who know him very well,
speak very highly of him. But he's coming into a
very charged situation where they've been running over um and
experienced head coaches for multiple decades, going back to Mike Patton,
(15:56):
and why this owner in particular keeps hiring the same
archetype from by and large. And I know Hugh Jackson
had one year as a head coach in Oakland, but
it's not like Hugh Jackson had real head coaching chops.
He keeps hiring NFL coordinators over and over and over
and right now, who knows the fancy's walking into a
cauldron where the quarterback's been over empowered. There's a lot
(16:17):
of big characters and quirky personalities that John Dorsey brought
in there, and that's Dorsey's way. But Dorsey's not there anymore.
And it's Kevin Stefancy's problem now. And I don't know
who his bad cop is, but he better have a
couple of bad cops there who are willing to lay
down the law and set some guardrails and what's acceptable
and what's not and people need to know that there's
real consequences. I don't know that Kevin Stefanski, at age
(16:38):
thirty eight can walk in there and do that himself. Um,
and picking players has been a problem there forever as well,
so god speed, UM. I'm rooting for him. But it's
an uphill client. So the fact that Josh McDaniels took
all the interviews didn't get any jobs. He looked like
he was ticketed for the Brown's job, but it wasn't
a real match. Does him not taking a job and
(16:59):
go back to the Patriots? Does this have anything to
do with Tom Brady his dad's what he might decide? No,
I mean, you know, timing did not work out for
Josh m His agents, you know, didn't get him in
front of Carolina before they got their other client, Matt Rule,
in front of Carolina. And I think David Tepper was
gonna don't think David Tepper was going to hire the
first coach. He truly fell in love and he felt
(17:21):
shared his vision, and had he met with Josh McDaniels first,
I strongly believe, based on what I knew they thought
of McDaniels going into an interview, that he would have
hired McDaniels twelve hours later. But you know, he fell
in love with Rule, and Rule had other options, and
so you know, money and and term of the contract
was no object for him. You know, Josh under the
(17:44):
paradigm I just spoke about in Cleveland, where you've got
a baseball executive basically running the organization by proxy from
his laptop in Lahalla, California. That wasn't gonna fly for Josh.
Like that was never gonna happen. Um, he took the
interview the cause you gotta he's not in a position
to be saying no, and you want to hear people out.
But I think both sides knew that unless Jimmy HASNM
(18:05):
was willing to go with a different management model, that
Josh wasn't going to be a fit there. And everybody
also knew that the Podesto wanted to hire Kevin Stefanski
last year when the owners, you know, the three owners
and Dorsey picked UH Kitchens instead. So I think that,
you know, and less Kevin Stefancy had a horrible interview,
he was probably gonna get that job. And Kevin Stefanski
(18:27):
is too bright and prepared and he just went through
the process with him last year to have a horrible interview. Um,
keeping Josh McDaniels does that help the New England Patriots
make a pitch to Tom Brady. It does, But um,
the Patriots better realized that they need to rerecruit Tom
Brady Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smit Show with Mike Armen
from the Guy Goes Studios on the Hotline with us
(18:48):
CBS Sports NFL reporter Inside or our buddy Jason Lock
and FA find him on Twitter at Jason Lock and
fora Jason. You mentioned Matt Rule a little bit earlier,
and I gotta be honest the hiring to day of
a new man to his staff. I was hoping he'd
end up in the a f C, so there'd still
be a Brady to Torment Smith forever. Joe Brady, you
know's the Carolina what's it mean for Cam Newton And
(19:10):
how's this offense gonna look? Hey, well, if Joe Brady
keeps doing what he did at L s U, he
might end up as the A s C East as
a head coach, So don't rule that out. Um, the
rise for these quarterback guys can be pretty fast. I'm
excited by the move. I think Matt Roy is going
to have a pretty interesting hybrid mix on his staff
of college and pro guys and Brady. Basically, Um took
(19:33):
the best of what Sean Payton does, which it's easy
to steal from the master. It's knowing then how to
apply what you've learned in the heat of the moment um.
It's it's it's utilizing it in game. And he obviously
showed an ability to scheme people open uh and really
take Joe Burrow's game to another level. Um. You know
(19:53):
you said for Cam Newton, I mean, I don't know,
is it Cam Newton? I mean, could it be Teddy
Bridgewater who Brady worked with and and you know Orleans.
If they decide that, you know what, Um, you know,
maybe we could move on from Cam and get a
guy who's a little younger, um, you know, with with Uh,
I guess you look at it both ways. I mean,
he's young to begin with six and play in terms
(20:16):
of his body because of how much time he missed
and you know how long he's been a backup. He
he's probably from a body standpoint and coming back from
that horrific knee injury's probably more like a twenty three
year old, So, you know, will that resonate with them?
And the other thing about this staff is Matt Rule
having a you know, a bunch of college guys on
his staff. They're going to know the kids in these
next couple of drafts. Inside out, they would have recruited
(20:38):
a lot of them that would have been in their
parents house. They'll know him as individuals. Um, they'll know
their makeup, they'll talk to their high school coaches. It
won't be um, you know, sort of the surface level
that most NFL coaches would know college prospects. So there
might be some diamonds in the rough with the quarterback
position who they're really high on, you know from their
experience at Baylor. So j speaking of quarterbacks, are you
(21:00):
happy for Joe Burrow he's gonna go number one overall?
Are you concerned that he's going to be a banker? Well,
I mean, we have the a f C package at CBS,
and it would be really cool, you know if we had.
We've got all these emerging young quarterbacks. You know, You've
you've got Lamar and you've got my Homes and you
know Sam Donald from week the week looks like he
might make the step up. Can Baker Mayfield get it going?
(21:22):
And in year three? Me, that's an interesting division if
you've got Lamar, Baker Mayfield, um, and then Joe Burrow
and I mean it's look, they've got Joe Mixon. I know,
the benals were a wreckt this year, but the left
tackle at Alabama will be back, and you know that
that's a pretty good starting point. One of the offensive
(21:43):
lineman they've drafted the last few years has to be
half decent. Um. They might be crazy enough to franchise
a j Green because they have Burrow. You know, could
Ross ever stay healthy? I don't know, but boys are
pretty good receiver. If they invest in the offensive line,
I think they can make major games quickly offensively, you know, defensively,
it's probably gonna take some time, and they've gotten long
(22:04):
in the tooth at some key spots there. Um, But
I mean, look, could could Joe Burrow take them from
one win to five or six next year? I don't
think that would be the craziest thing in the world,
based on what else they do in the off season. Jason,
you're there on the ground in Baltimore. I mean, how
what are you doing in the community to help people
get past this past weekend? And us a plastic bags
(22:28):
collecting tears. You can solve a lot of water issues
with that after that. But the local consensus of Lamar
are they wavering? What? What? What's the field there? No?
I don't really locally. There's a lot of heat on
Greg Roman um and I think educated fans who watched
that game um justifiably so. I mean on a day
(22:48):
where um, look, guys are dropping balls left and right,
and Lamar in the first half was sort of two
amped up again, so the mechanics were wavering throwing some
fluttery balls. But I mean the first drive ends on
the interception on the ball that Mark Andrews caught about
twenty five times this year, and he's banged up and
he doesn't quite high pointed. Lamar needed some help, and
(23:11):
Greg Roman decided down one score to start going five
wide empty set on a team that has no wide receivers,
and they were a ninety two plays offense. The fullback
um only played seven snaps. I mean, they're worried about
Ingram's injury. Gus Edwards comes out of the shoot, looks
like a house of fire. He didn't even play of
the staffs. They got a completely away from the mess
(23:31):
point r p O game. They just abandoned their identity
and we're chucking it all over the place. Lamar dropped
back seventy times. I mean, come on, it's it's it was.
It was kind of seismic and I wrote a column today.
You know, I looked back at that. You look back
at the Bills with Brian Dable, another guy who was
(23:52):
up for a head coaching job. And sometimes these coordinators
get too cute when when when the world's watching and
their perspective new owners watching. I mean, Buffalo ran thirty
five plays for yards after getting a sixteen nothing lead.
They're running for six yards to carry and they throw
twice as much as they run. Um Josh McDaniels the
week before, you know, that same weekend with New England,
I mean they had three hundred total yards. They had
(24:14):
no plays over twenty nine yards. Now, I know they
were limited all year, but that could have been Tom
Brady's last game, you know. With with the Patriots and
then Gregg Roman crapped out and Kevin Stefanski they average
six yards passing head coach Year Cleveland get the job.
I mean, so, I just I do think that's real
(24:34):
human nature. I mean, you can try to block that
stuff out, but you've got fat friends and family. You're
getting the job, and you know the owners are watching
and the whole league's watching, and you're the only game
being played. And I do think it got to Greg Roman.
All right, hey, j real quick ten seconds. When we
talked to you. Next week, we're talking about what two
teams in the Super Bowl? Casey in San Franz. Here
we go. I like that. Pick. I like that. Pick
(24:57):
Jason lock and For. You can follow him on Twitter
at j Soon lack and for and for a history
of Otto the Orange as well. He's got that coming up.
Jay is always my friend. Appreciated buddy. We'll talk to
you next week. You got apparently go get any buddy up.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
(25:17):
pm Pacific. The order of the day, and really the
order of the last two days, interrupted by l s
U and Clemson last night, has been the cheating scandal
that as rock major League Baseball, as the Houston Astros,
after Rob Manfred's investigation was completed, were found to have
been guilty of stealing signs electronically in the two thousand
seventeen season, a very sophisticated form where they would electronically
(25:41):
they would get the signals in the center field UH
stands and relay that to the dugout, relay that and
and relay that to just outside the dugout where staffer
or someone would sit near a drum and pound it
to let the batter know that it was either a
fastball or an off speed pitched that was coming. Sometimes
it was whistling. And this was just an absolute bombshell
(26:03):
that was dropped on baseball. A. J. Hinch was suspended,
so was Jeff Luno, the of the Astros, the g M.
Then they were both fired by the Astros. They want
to move on. This is a huge controversy that's going
to envelope the league. Alex Cora, who was a bench
coach for the Astros and was named as the ringleader
of the operation, it was his idea. He's the one
(26:24):
that's keeping track of everything and making sure the signals
are relayed from center field to the guy eating peanutshell
sitting outside the dugout banging on the on the trash can.
And as a result, he is now the ex manager
of the Boston Red Sox as he and the Red
Sox have agreed to quote part ways in the wake
of this controversy. And this is why Rob Manfred blew
(26:50):
it by not taking the World Series away from the
Astros because none of this is enough. There is not
one person that thinks this is enough punishment for the Astros.
The Astros cheated their way to a World Series, and
you have a litany of teams who were ready to say, WHOA,
you did not beat us fair and square. The Dodgers,
(27:11):
you're gonna have two World Series parades because they lost.
They lost to the Astros, then they lost to the
Red Sox, who Alex Cora was managing in two thousand
eighteen when they won. The Yankees are upset. Everybody that
the Astros played the A. L. West is upset. Teams
are extreme. It's like a class action lawsuit. I'm upset.
I want MLB and investigate the Royals that they were
stealing signs in and the Mets get the World Series.
(27:34):
I mean, this is how big it is. And all
that the punishments did for Rob Manfred was push forefront
the argument to let Pete Rose and all the other
cheaters like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into the Hall
of Fame. Well, if you let these guys cheat and
there's no punishment for them, because there was no punishment
for the players, then how can you keep Pete Rose
and all these guys out. This completely got out of
(27:56):
Rob Manfred's control because he did not want I'm gonna
be the commissioner that took the World Series away from
a team to be the number one line on his
resume and his legacy. That's the only reason why anybody
else that was strong enough as a commissioner would say, Hey,
I'm sorry, I'm gonna have this job for a long time.
I'm taking the World Series away from you, and you're
forfeiting that because you were found to have cheated in
(28:16):
that season. And if Rob Manfred had the guts, he
would have done it. But he's I don't want that
to be it. I don't want Rob Manford, who most
famously took the World Series away from the Houston Astros,
he did not want that, and that's the reason why
he thought, I'm coming down hard enough with these punishments,
but not realizing what the reaction was going to be,
not having the foresight to know, oh boy, this is
(28:37):
just gonna piss people off. This is why we sit
where we are right now. Why you go to I mean,
first off, Baseball Hall of Fame. It's a separate ality.
So that's writers and that that's run independent of Major
League Baseball obviously, but but that's that. The conversation you
didn't think it was gonna spark, was, oh, now we
gotta let Pete Rose and these guys in the Hall
of Fame. Well, Pete Rose because I went lighter on
the suspension. Pete Rose in his own little little box.
(28:59):
And at this year, you're gonna start seeing more guys
get into the Hall, at least from the early results
of the the pulling of the hundreds of guys that
and women that have votes, that the potential is there
that more players get in because I think there's the
expectation and little soul searching of well one, you've got
(29:19):
no positive tests, regardless of what happened to the size
of hats and batting helmets and the ping pong balls
flying out of a Major League ballparks and band boxes across.
You've got a number of guys that you went after hard,
but you didn't find anything in proof, right, a lot
of allegation, and that's what you have here. You've got
(29:41):
the goods, right, You've got everything on them. You've got
Alex Cora because he was the guy that left the
organization from Mike Fires, and he became the easy guy
to point out and people celebrated saying, look, Rob Manford,
this was a great day for baseball. They don't know
what strongly worded letter five million doll this is nothing. Right.
We saw report yesterday the economic impact of the World
(30:04):
Series victory was over sixty million dollars. Say nothing of
player contracts. People think that no one cares, but no
one cares about the money. But it does. But it's
part of the But it's part of the circumstance because
you also have guys whose legacies are killed forever. I mean,
Dave Roberts spent a year on the hot seat, he
(30:25):
had a World Series title. He gets to sit on
his ask series. Just give him the first one. Kershaw's
legacy was altered. But I mean he's been fantastic in
World Series, the most clutch picture in history of baseball.
But we don't have to lead twice in Game five,
But we wouldn't have gotten to where where it's become right.
(30:46):
It's look, they win, maybe maybe they win, maybe they don't.
But the reality is when you come now with this
kind of thing, it's it's more the five million. You
didn't take anything from their international pool of players. No
players got punished. The need to be punished, The players
need to be punished, need to find the players who
needed to be punished. And instead you said, I'm gonna
(31:08):
go heavy on the people in charge. And that's going
to that's going to put this to bed. If I
if if I suspend a GM and a manager for
a year, who are probably gonna fire those guys, that's
gonna be big enough. And he completely misread the room.
He misread what the reaction was going to be. And
that's the thing is that you can get a lot
of controversy surrounding sports and and you will find a
(31:30):
way to have people split on it. And and when
something is split, you can see the controversy go away.
But cheating in sports is still the forefront of many
people any part Middle America, East Coast, West Coast, cheating
to win, going over the top to cheat. Nobody likes that.
And if you don't come down hard enough, everybody's gonna
hate it. And that's where that's one. He completely miscalculated
(31:52):
the impact of what his punishment was going to be.
Cost of the World Series was five million dollars and
two executives. You made a lot of money, and that
doesn't go away. That's a clown show. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Joining
(32:14):
us on the hotline, no one better to talk to
Fox Sports MLB Network baseball insider John Paul Morossi JP.
Not what I thought we'd be calling to talk about
at this point in time, but this is what the
new cycle brings us. So happy to hear to both
of you, nonetheless, And uh, it really is a remarkable
statement to say that now the teams that have accounted
(32:38):
for the last three American League pennants are now all
looking for a new manager, both both those teams of
Red Sox and Astros. Here a month before spring training
just really speaks to the unprecedented nature of this situation
the baseball has in really all the way around. So
if let me just start here, if the beginning of
(32:59):
this story was yes today when the penalties were announced
and now we are today with Alex Cora, if zero
percent was where we started and a is where we're
going to end when we finally put the astro cheating
scanal to bed. What percentage of the story have we
heard so far? It's an excellent question. And if we're
(33:20):
going to use the parallel to the p D era,
which I think is apt in many ways. Um, here
we are all these years later, and we're still talking
about it right in one way or another. Uh, the
steroid era through the Hall of Fame UM is certainly
part of the conversation this week has the chance to
(33:41):
affect the game for years to come and and maybe
even more than a decade. Not necessarily on an everyday basis,
but the legacies of the players involved will keep coming
back up to your mind, and you'll you'll wonder what
percentage of it was quote unquote real, What percentage of
it was UM artificial in the in the sense of
(34:05):
UM numbers that were achieved based on information that they possessed.
That was not fair. And we don't know, certainly in
a global context, how many other teams, how many other
players were guilty of similar misdeeds of of stealing signs
using technology. And again, much like the stereod era, we're
(34:27):
probably never going to have all that information, Um, we
just have to I think as a sport um and
I think the MLB is taking a very good step
this week showing just how seriously the Commissioner's office regards
UM these violations and and I think there's obviously a
tremendous um disincentive for others to try and moving forward.
(34:51):
But if you were to ask, what are the odds
of another team being mentioned in the next year with
evidence brought forth, we have to say that that remembering
back reportedly, the Astros made the point that the initial
outside of of the UH, the individual that they had
(35:12):
stationed next to the dugout in the playoffs, the purpose
of that person being there was to try to catch
other teams who were cheating. And at the time, I
believe a half dozen or so UH what was the
number that was cited in media reports at the time
of being what the Astros suspected other teams were doing
at that point in time that many other clubs. So, guys,
(35:35):
it is it's a difficult UH story for Baseball to
wade through because to your point, Jason, what we simply
do not know where the other bank of this river
truly is. It is very foggy, and uh it is
not yet clear c JP as we we do the math,
and I mean, you've got a couple of guys that
(35:56):
lose a job. I get it for an ownership, five million,
a couple of draft picks. You get to keep your
international pool. I said, they went off pretty light. Nobody, nobody,
no player faces any kind of retribution for this. All
it is is hints and whispers. He's shrugging you move on. Well,
I I would disagree there. I guess, first and foremost,
the five million dollar fine is the most that is
(36:18):
allowable on her baseball rules to sanction any particular team.
He made sixty thought, but then go if they wanted
to find him five million and one dollar, they couldn't
have done it. Okay, they got to the very maximum
level that they could go. First and foremost, I think
(36:39):
on the conversation, I know it's a popular one in
Los Angeles right now, should they have to vacate a championship?
I simply I don't think that that is something you
could do, because, uh, then you have to start to
reverse engineer the entire steroid era. Who might have won
(36:59):
a certain empionship in a given year, was anybody else
on the other side of any of these championships over
the last three decades in which uh there may have
been p D involvement with anybody else on the opposite team,
Uh involved at all m p D s. It's just
it's a it's a very untenable position to put someone
in to ask the commissioner to do that, and I
(37:20):
think regarding players there there are two different um reasons
for this. Number one is the commissioner came out and
said in I am holding the field manager and general
manager responsible for adhering to the rules that are set
forth that fall regarding the Apple watch that came out
with the Boston Red Sox. He put that on the management. Okay,
(37:45):
that's first and foremost. The second part is, as a
practical matter, UH, if you suspended players that many, all
those that were potentially involved in guilty here, first of all,
the union would grieve it, and second of all, how
many straws are then left okay to play the season
had I mean, it really is a remarkably prevalent scenario
(38:09):
based on what was knowing and who knew it was
going on apart from actually participating in it. Who knew
about it. One had to assume a very substantial percentage
of the team, So it is a it's a tremendously
difficult penalty to legislate. I think the commissioner did quite
(38:29):
a good job of doing it under very difficult circumstances.
All right, so let's take you this the next part. Now,
the Astros part ways with a J. Hinch, the Red
Sox part ways with Alex Cora. Who are we going
to see take those jobs? Well? Again, another key question,
and the question is as well, which teams would even
permit their field staff members to interview for these positions
(38:54):
this close to the start of the season. You've already
had meetings about spring training. UM. I do think though
that given the nature of of uh what has transpired here,
MLB should encourage their member clubs that if of a
bench coach, or a third base coach, or a heading coach,
(39:14):
pitching coaches being requested to interview, I think it's important
to let those people do it. So one name to
mention right here, Matt Cortrouro, who did a very good
job with the UH Tapa Bay raise on their other
coaches half at the major league level, and also interviewed
at least one other job during the course of the
winner and interviewed very well. He would be a good
(39:37):
candidate in Boston because of the familiarity there between him
and Higham Bloom. The new chief baseball officer there in Boston,
of course, has come from Tampa Bay Watch that name,
but in terms of the two names that we know
well in this game that I think in the back
of my mind maybe this would be a good fit
for them, just given their experience. Bruce Bocci, Dusty Baker,
(39:58):
and I think they both have a great reputation as
being players managers who do a good job of lowering
the temperature in the room when things get hot, when
there's a lot of pressure on. They do a very
good job of helping people feel comfortable with themselves, and
I think both of these teams need a lot of
that right now. They're both still very good teams, especially
(40:20):
in the case of the astros Um, and I think
it's simply a matter of bringing in someone unless you
feel like you can really provoke from within, bringing in
somebody who you trust to just steer the ship during
what's the difficult you're maybe it is just a one
year assignment but I think for Dusty Baker and Bruce Bocci,
there would be appeal given these two organizations, these two rosters,
(40:43):
to bring in two veteran managers boac is going to
the Hall of Fame who could potentially navigate the very
choppy waters of the season for these two franchises. Right now,
the other managerial domino yet to fall, because you know,
the Mets are going to find their way into it.
Carlos Beltray and who was named in the report one
of only two people named in besides he and Alex Cora,
(41:06):
Mets have not said anything. Does Carlos Beltrand manage the
Mets this year? Or do the Mets say, listen, we
have to move on from you. This is too big
a scandal. I think Beltron manages the Mets. I do
because again, part of it is he is not going
to be disciplined at all through the MLB process. Based
on what we saw, the Mets and and perhaps if
(41:28):
they have any issues with it, uh that they with
the situation, they would say was Beltron fully accountable and
forthright in what they told him? Um during the interview process,
We don't know that information, to be honest with you,
We're not sure, um, where all the information was at
(41:48):
the time and what he was sharing with the Mets
at that point, But I think he is going to
be safe. I really do. Uh. There may be some
pressure on the Mets to do otherwise, but under MLB law,
he is now treated as the player, which meant he's
not going to be penalized for it, and I really
have a hard time seeing the Mets moving on from
(42:09):
him in that particular setting. Of course, of course, his
work pointing out Brody van Wagen and who hired Beltron
very close with a J. NH So, so Brody and
a J know each other very well. I'm sure in
that in the process of just vetting out the information
that there would have been a conversation between Brody and
a J about Carlos and and obviously the report back
(42:33):
from a J to Brody was strong enough of the recommendation,
strong enough that the higher was made. So um, it
really is a multi layered question. But I do believe
that Carlos Beltron will be the manager of the Mets
on opening Day. There you go, you made Jason happy.
His punishment is manager of the Mets. Uh yeah, wait, wait,
(42:53):
Baseball just brought in JP. Wait, you might want to
write some words on this. Baseball just punished Carlos Beltrand.
They have extended his contract but the Mets for four
more years. So that that that I really don't think
it's gonna be that bad of an experience to manage
a team that has Jacob Deground, that has no synder guard,
that has Marcus Stroman, that has Peter Wanzo coming out
(43:15):
the rookie home run record. It's gonna be a great
year in Flushing. I can assure you that. Well when
he's playing with house money because he got to skate
on any disciplined off of this, So I mean he
gets to just manage on the seat of his pants.
Who cares? Just Jonaldson four year deal with Minnesota after
the redemptive year in Atlanta and that strong lineup, they
(43:36):
hit a lot of home runs, added another guy. What
do they add here? Well, they were trying for a
lot of the winter guys to to find a way
to upgrade the rotation. Could not do that really in
a big meaningful way. Uh, they wanted to whether they
wanted bum Garner couldn't get either one. They're just gonna
try to outslid teams. We're gonna see some ten eight
games and some twelve ten games in that beautiful ballpark
(43:59):
there in one of the great cities in our country.
They're Minneapolis here in twenties. But I've got some questions
about their their rotation and their bullpend too. And you
look at the White Sox getting better and better. Um
and oh, by the way, at the same time, the
Donaldson signing means that we could now see some clarity
on the trade market for Nolan Ronado and also for
(44:22):
Chris Bryant. I do think Arronado gets moved. I really do. Uh.
The Cardinals have been mentioned very heavily, as have the Rangers.
The White Sox maybe on the periphery there as well.
But I do think that even if the Braves do
not step up, and they should, by the way, to
make a move for Ronado or Briant, still a decent
(44:43):
chance that that that one or both of them is
moved to a club like potentially the White Sox, the Cardinals,
or the Rangers. You can follow on Twitter at John MORROSSI.
That's at John Morrossy JP is always my friend. Appreciate
your time with us and when when the Mets fire
Bell Trent will play back. Well, I hope it doesn't happen, uh,
(45:03):
And I hope there's a better day head for the
game that we can visit on. But yes, I always
love talking with you both, no matter what the circumstances.
And I did uh you know, I tell you what.
Michigan basketball great stuntner under Juwan. I am still a
believer they're gonna make the tournament, have a very good
second half play. Hey, you're a basketball school, now see
you're okay whatever before my friends are youre exactly right?
(45:26):
Take it easy, je. People talk to you, some of
you guys, thank you your money.
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmen podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the I Heart Radio app by
searching fs R. This is the best of the Jason
(00:23):
Smith Show with Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio. Two
big retirements in the National Football League today, one earlier today,
we all saw one we're kind of stunned by in
the past hour. Antonio Gates of the San Diego slash
Los Angeles Chargers announce his retirement today at the age
(00:43):
of thirty nine, and Luke Keikley of the Panthers star
middle linebacker says he's calling it quits. He is just
twenty eight years old. So let's deal with Antonio Gates
first before we get to Luke Keickley. Gates didn't play
last year and it was quite obvious, and okay, I
think that if the charge had been in contention for
a playoff spot, maybe he might have said, hey, Henry
(01:06):
gets hurt. I'll come out and play that That's the question, right,
Did he want bigger money than they were willing because
Hunter Harry missed the first half of the year. He did.
But the thing is, I think I after he didn't sign,
I knew he was done, but I thought at the
end of the year, he's not somebody who wants to
sign for the beginning of the year. He'd be somebody
(01:26):
that Hey week six, weeks seven, I'll get myself into
shape and play the last eight games of the season.
That's no one. No one wants to retire and come
back and play a full six team game slate. No no no,
I want to come back and play the last seven
or eight games and then maybe the playoffs. But by
the time it got to mid of the season, the
Charges were struggling. Gates was Gates was done. He didn't play.
I'm still not convinced at some point he's gonna come
Back's like Keith van Horne, we're gonna hear, oh, someone's
(01:49):
gonna need someone's contract to Keith van Horne is we're
gonna eventually. Antonio Gates is never gonna retire. So he's
the undertaker and he's gonna sit up again. He'll come back.
He'll play again. In three years, the charges will all
and that will sit out. He's forty two, he'll come
back and play again. Four years from now, be forty
six years old, still playing. He'll get to the end
of Bobby Benitas contract with the Mets and he will
still be playing well. As we've talked about Antonio Gates
(02:11):
during our runs doing Fantasy sports and certainly NFL Analysis
low these many years on Fox Sports Radio, it's he's
the best post up receiver you've ever seen. Those college
basketball days were no joke because you want to talk
about a guy finding lean and leverage and whatever going
to his hundred sixteen career touchdowns. That's what it's all
(02:33):
about for Antonio Gates. He was the touchdown maker Philip
Rivers security blanket for all those years. Gates, for me,
he is a first ballot Hall of Famer. I have
seen three great tight ends in my life, and Antonio
Gates is one of the top two. Rob Gronkowski Antoni Gonzalez.
Gonzalez is clearly the best, and talk about athleticism, but
(02:54):
Gates is right there with him, and then Gronk, who
hasn't played very long, and that kind of gets into
the Luke Kickley argument that we're gonna have in a
couple of minutes. But Gates redefined the tight end position
with athleticism. He played until he was thirty seven years old,
and he was unstoppable. You couldn't stop him one on one.
You had to put two players on him because he
was just that much of a difference maker. And we've
(03:17):
said and talked about the career of Philip Rivers a
lot here on the show. And one thing that's always
amazing and always amazed me is every time you watch
the Charges play, no matter who their wide receivers are,
Philip Rivers is not threatened the football in between a
tight window to a guy in a deep out. His
receivers are always wide open. His receivers are always like,
oh my god, they've got five yards and that to
be And these are good defensive backs. Now, Rivers, to
(03:39):
his credit, has found a way just we talked about
Joe Burrow last night. Hey, when he gets guys one
on one, he knows where to put the football. He
has that rapport with his wide receivers that he does
because Rivers doesn't have the strongest arm in the world.
But that's what he did because he would find the
guys one on one and they would make plays and
they would find a way. I'm coming back to the
football on this play. It's very difficult to figure that out.
(04:00):
When you're a defense and you're you're stuck with one
on one coverage, you don't have a lot of Darrel
revis Is, it's gonna be difficult. But why did the
wide receiver seves so much one on one coverage? Because
Antonio Gates in the middle of the field was absolutely
so dominant. You had to have guys around him, and
so you couldn't double guys on the outside. It was
too hard because if you did that, you had one
on one coverage. And what did Philip Rivers say today?
(04:21):
Anytime I saw Antonio one on one, I knew he
was getting the football. So teams couldn't do that. You
couldn't just cover him with a lineback. You couldn't just say, okay,
well it's gonna be him in the safety will pick
him up. You needed to have multiple people on him.
You can only put multiple people on so many receivers.
So when he's that guy in the middle, of the field.
Of course, that's gonna leave the outside open. And that's
what Philip Rivers did for fifteen years. And he's able
to say, Okay, guys like Tyrolle Williams or Keenan Allen
(04:43):
and Mike Williams, whoever it was, gonna wind up being open,
Travis Benjamin doesn't matter because it's really hard to cover
guys one on one when you have a pretty good
quarterback who knows where to put the football. And that's
the genius and the brilliance of Antonio Gates. Yes, yeah,
I always just enjoyed him, especially the last five or
six years when he had that bad, bad foot. He
looked like he was running in mud. Yet he would
(05:03):
somehow find a way to, you know, get it just
enough space right, quick elbow, quick, little shove, forearms shiver,
not enough to extend the arm, but enough to back
off a defensive player, a linebacker or corner or safety
that's trying to cover him, and just enough to to
get it in what I ask of you. And I
brought this up earlier to uh Frostburg as we were
(05:26):
getting ready for the show and and to you, and
I pose it just as a question for the Hall
of Fame voters to decide. He did serve a four
game suspension for p E D S, blaming it on
supplements and holistic medicines that he was using to recover
from prior injuries. But he's got a great Nope, he's
(05:47):
got a great reputation. Everybody loves Antonio Gates. It's gonna
be one of those. Yeah, well he had it, so
we'll push that out other players know. But that's the
thing about having a good reputation. If you have a
good reputation, people will look the other weigh a little
bit on your transgressions as long as they're deemed to
be minor. Let's face it, p DS in the NFL
fans don't really care about it. We care more about
(06:08):
than we do in the National Football I don't know.
We we laugh more at the testing policies. Right this
past week, what was it, Russell Wilson found tags for
both P E D s uh and you know in
street drugs. I think we're both if I'm remembering correctly.
I mean, guys just started getting tagged all over and
it's become a joke. But it's always you raise it up,
(06:29):
particularly this week since we're talking about rules and integrity
of the game and all that. When it comes to
the Astros, to the Red Sox Dodgers and what it
meant to their players and everything else. Just raising my
hand just to ask the question twitter and out about
a frost because that's okay, the chair recognizes Mike Harmon.
It's gonna be part of the discussion point, that's all. Uh,
(06:49):
Mike has swollen down the Jason Smith Show with my
best friend Mike Harmon. Now when it comes to Luke Keikley,
Keikley retiring very surprisingly tonight made a big statement on
social media. Keik Lee has had his share of head
injuries over the course of the past few years and
a twenty eight years old. Okay, we've got a big
coaching change coming in. We're gonna reboot. It's gonna be
(07:11):
one more year at cam Newton. Maybe it's a new
quarterback and Keickley has decided I'm going to hang him
up now. He leaves one of the most decorated linebackers
in the game. Five time All Pro seven or eight.
I think I think he made the Pro Bowl in
all years he was healthy in the NFL. Seven out
of his eight years, five was Pro first teams. He
(07:32):
also had the I think he has the Panthers record
for interceptions. He was a guy that did it all.
He was a tackling machine. He was able to make
plays in coverage, got to the court, he did everything.
But is he gonna be a first ballot Hall of Famer?
Probably not because the standard centers at the position are
Ray Lewis and Brian are Lacker. I don't think. I
don't think there's anybody arguing that ray Lewis played seventeen
(07:53):
years in the NFL. Bran Or Lacker played thirteen years
in the NFL. Luke Keickley as good he does, he
compares great with these guys. Look all the middle linebackers,
a great middle linebackers. Luke Kicklely compares well with. But
all these big Hall of famers, they all played much longer. Now.
When the NFL led Torell Davison after basically having four
years and winning two Super Bowls, that really, you know,
(08:14):
brought the level down of it as far as how
long you had to play. But his level of dominance
got him in. That could do it for Keikilely, But
first ballot, I don't see that for him, just because
eight years is not quite the monster careers in the
monster years that Lewis and er Lacker both had. And
can you say Luke Keickley was as good as these two. No,
he wasn't as good as he was. He wasn't quite
(08:35):
the difference maker of Ray Lewis and Brian or Lacker.
But was he fantastic? Will he get in? Yeah? But
first ballot the the year with Antonio Gates, I don't
see him getting in. What will be interesting to watch
is because you got both Patrick Willis and Luke Kickley
whose careers are very similar. Right, I've done? After eight
years with Patrick Willis only six games played his final season.
(08:58):
We all remember sitting here on a Thursday night watching
the Keik Lee injury, tears streaming out of his eyes,
and we're all looking at each other going, Wow, that's
that's it. I mean that that could have been the
last we see him on the field, and here we
are another early retirement. When you go to the arlak
Er comparison, you're talking about r Laker thirteen years versus
(09:19):
his eight um about two hundred tackles difference between them.
When you talk about that kind of impact overall, uh
thirty one quarterback hits that he's credited with Keikley against Well,
you're you're talking twenty four for Laker in terms of
stats that they keep in some of those you know
(09:39):
you always wanted because tackles is also on an official
stats or both the Carolina and Chicago folks did their
guys right at the linebacker, you're around the pile, you
get a half, and you get a half, and you
get a half. But but you mentioned Gates reputation, and
that's where Lee reputation right, So I mean that's one
of the things that certainly gonna help him as we
(10:02):
go through. And it's always the question of the log
jam or when we have the next bulk insertion to
the Hall of Fame. I do appreciate this. I'll laugh.
Perhaps you missed Rob Gronkowski. Congrats Luke Kickley on early retirement.
You were a fearless player out there on the field.
So when you're coming back Twitter at how about a
(10:24):
fresco Mike hats swollen him the Jason Smith Show with
my best friend Mike Harman Again, Patrick Willis, you talked
about him very similar career to Luke Kickley, but the letter.
For me, the length of a career is a very
big deal. And and when you look at the who's
in at the top of that list, guys playing that long,
guys playing that long, had the all decade guys. That's
that's the thing that jumps in. You couldn't give Gates
(10:46):
his one damn day? How about that? If he's retiring
on social media? He canna let it tomorrow? You could
have done it. I'm happy for you. You're doing what
you want to do, but really, you couldn't just do
it tomorrow. Yeah, well, I mean there's a lot going
on in Major League Baseball. Tried to sneak in the
whole Astros thing tomorrow on National Title game, thinking they'd
get away with it. Today's Gates day as well. He's
(11:06):
hed a definitive first ballot Hall. I mean, inter Lacker
got in even with hair. But what does the bust
have hair or not have hair? I don't think it does.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart
Radio app. Joining us now on the Hotline, a man
(11:29):
who was just completed fifteen thousand words on Syracuses upset
of Virginia from Saturday CBS Sports NFL Insider extraordinaire Jason
Locking for what's happening to Jay? What's going on? Guys?
I mean you must be you must be tired, your
hands typing from that. You got the big lacrosse previews,
you had your work. I know you're a busy over.
I did see though, that they tore down the Daily Arms. Yeah, yeah,
(11:54):
they did. They did. I don't know why. Do you
know the backstory of that? I don't remember ruin the
why kind of flashed across my Twitter, but I don't
know if the school bought it. I guess I have
no idea, but I think Otto the Orange is going
to be in charge of the daily newspaper now for Syracuse.
I think that he was a hell of a copy
at her back in the day. Hey, so before we
get to the games, let's start saying we have two
(12:14):
big retirements in the NFL. Antonio Gates calls at Quincy
he didn't play last year, and Luke Kickley a surprising
announcement at age twenty eight after eight seasons in the NFL.
These guys are both Hall of Famers. I think Gates
is first ballot quickly, might have to wait, he only
played eight years. You know, where are you on this
news from today with these guys. Yeah, I think they're
(12:35):
they're both Hall of famers, um, without a doubt. I
wonder I want to get into the minutia of my
you know, Hall of Fame voting in the NFL and
the problems I have with it. But there's so many
guys who caught so many balls, um that I just
I don't know if there's going to end up being
a backlog of tight ends the way there was a
backlog of receivers. But for me Keiley, um, I mean
(13:00):
eight years of doing what he did, knocking heads for
a living, there's plenty long enough. And and you know,
for me, he was a showan on the All Decade team. Uh.
This is a guy who affected the run game, affected
the past game, was an incredible leader, got others around
him to um sort of rise above and buy into
(13:21):
something bigger than themselves. I mean, he was beloved by
the guys he played with and beloved by the guys
he played against, and had immense respect around the league.
So obviously, you know, his concussion issues are well documented,
and he knows his body and his mind better than
(13:42):
anybody else. And if he just got through the rigors
of the season and felt like he may have dodged
a bullet or two and you know what I mean,
and whatever, you know, a lot of life to live,
hopefully for a guy who's twenty eight. And this isn't
you know, I don't know that we should be calling
these early retirements, are saying, you know, it's a surprise anymore,
(14:05):
because we know the risk of playing football. If and
if at any point the mental calculus for any individual
is I don't want to do that anymore, you know,
because of future health and safety, because of how I
feel right now, because of the risks involved, then you know,
I think you have to respect it. And this is
(14:27):
not you know, a fluke or an anomaly. A lot
of young men are coming to these decisions, and I
don't know that we should we should you know, we
as outsiders should be saying, well, that guy retired too soon,
or that guy retired quote unquote early. No, he retired
when he was ready to retire. Alright, Jason. Now we
we've had the coaching carousel has now stopped. We could
(14:49):
move on the last one to join the fray, Kevin
Stefanski saying all the right things, Guys, the limit for
Baker Mayfield. Is he the guy to change the culture
in Cleveland? I don't know. And you know it's it's
it's not just the coach himself, that's who's he working for? Problems?
Who are you working with potentially a problem? You know,
(15:10):
what is this staff going to look like? Who's helping
him pick the staff? How much, say, are the analytics
guys having him picking a staff? And I'm completely progressive
when it comes two numbers and advanced data and metrics.
But I think when we start talking about position coaches
and offensive coordinators, uh, that maybe a little out of
(15:33):
Paul deepodest his debt. I don't know, um, but whatever
they've touched there hasn't worked. And and and I think
Kevin's the fans. He has a lot going for him.
He's been on my radar for a while. A lot
of people I know in respect who know him very well,
speak very highly of him. But he's coming into a
very charged situation where they've been running over um and
experienced head coaches for multiple decades, going back to Mike Patton,
(15:56):
and why this owner in particular keeps hiring the same
archetype from by and large. And I know Hugh Jackson
had one year as a head coach in Oakland, but
it's not like Hugh Jackson had real head coaching chops.
He keeps hiring NFL coordinators over and over and over
and right now, who knows the fancy's walking into a
cauldron where the quarterback's been over empowered. There's a lot
(16:17):
of big characters and quirky personalities that John Dorsey brought
in there, and that's Dorsey's way. But Dorsey's not there anymore.
And it's Kevin Stefancy's problem now. And I don't know
who his bad cop is, but he better have a
couple of bad cops there who are willing to lay
down the law and set some guardrails and what's acceptable
and what's not and people need to know that there's
real consequences. I don't know that Kevin Stefanski, at age
(16:38):
thirty eight can walk in there and do that himself. Um,
and picking players has been a problem there forever as well,
so god speed, UM. I'm rooting for him. But it's
an uphill client. So the fact that Josh McDaniels took
all the interviews didn't get any jobs. He looked like
he was ticketed for the Brown's job, but it wasn't
a real match. Does him not taking a job and
(16:59):
go back to the Patriots? Does this have anything to
do with Tom Brady his dad's what he might decide? No,
I mean, you know, timing did not work out for
Josh m His agents, you know, didn't get him in
front of Carolina before they got their other client, Matt Rule,
in front of Carolina. And I think David Tepper was
gonna don't think David Tepper was going to hire the
first coach. He truly fell in love and he felt
(17:21):
shared his vision, and had he met with Josh McDaniels first,
I strongly believe, based on what I knew they thought
of McDaniels going into an interview, that he would have
hired McDaniels twelve hours later. But you know, he fell
in love with Rule, and Rule had other options, and
so you know, money and and term of the contract
was no object for him. You know, Josh under the
(17:44):
paradigm I just spoke about in Cleveland, where you've got
a baseball executive basically running the organization by proxy from
his laptop in Lahalla, California. That wasn't gonna fly for Josh.
Like that was never gonna happen. Um, he took the
interview the cause you gotta he's not in a position
to be saying no, and you want to hear people out.
But I think both sides knew that unless Jimmy HASNM
(18:05):
was willing to go with a different management model, that
Josh wasn't going to be a fit there. And everybody
also knew that the Podesto wanted to hire Kevin Stefanski
last year when the owners, you know, the three owners
and Dorsey picked UH Kitchens instead. So I think that,
you know, and less Kevin Stefancy had a horrible interview,
he was probably gonna get that job. And Kevin Stefanski
(18:27):
is too bright and prepared and he just went through
the process with him last year to have a horrible interview. Um,
keeping Josh McDaniels does that help the New England Patriots
make a pitch to Tom Brady. It does, But um,
the Patriots better realized that they need to rerecruit Tom
Brady Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smit Show with Mike Armen
from the Guy Goes Studios on the Hotline with us
(18:48):
CBS Sports NFL reporter Inside or our buddy Jason Lock
and FA find him on Twitter at Jason Lock and
fora Jason. You mentioned Matt Rule a little bit earlier,
and I gotta be honest the hiring to day of
a new man to his staff. I was hoping he'd
end up in the a f C, so there'd still
be a Brady to Torment Smith forever. Joe Brady, you
know's the Carolina what's it mean for Cam Newton And
(19:10):
how's this offense gonna look? Hey, well, if Joe Brady
keeps doing what he did at L s U, he
might end up as the A s C East as
a head coach, So don't rule that out. Um, the
rise for these quarterback guys can be pretty fast. I'm
excited by the move. I think Matt Roy is going
to have a pretty interesting hybrid mix on his staff
of college and pro guys and Brady. Basically, Um took
(19:33):
the best of what Sean Payton does, which it's easy
to steal from the master. It's knowing then how to
apply what you've learned in the heat of the moment um.
It's it's it's utilizing it in game. And he obviously
showed an ability to scheme people open uh and really
take Joe Burrow's game to another level. Um. You know
(19:53):
you said for Cam Newton, I mean, I don't know,
is it Cam Newton? I mean, could it be Teddy
Bridgewater who Brady worked with and and you know Orleans.
If they decide that, you know what, Um, you know,
maybe we could move on from Cam and get a
guy who's a little younger, um, you know, with with Uh,
I guess you look at it both ways. I mean,
he's young to begin with six and play in terms
(20:16):
of his body because of how much time he missed
and you know how long he's been a backup. He
he's probably from a body standpoint and coming back from
that horrific knee injury's probably more like a twenty three
year old, So, you know, will that resonate with them?
And the other thing about this staff is Matt Rule
having a you know, a bunch of college guys on
his staff. They're going to know the kids in these
next couple of drafts. Inside out, they would have recruited
(20:38):
a lot of them that would have been in their
parents house. They'll know him as individuals. Um, they'll know
their makeup, they'll talk to their high school coaches. It
won't be um, you know, sort of the surface level
that most NFL coaches would know college prospects. So there
might be some diamonds in the rough with the quarterback
position who they're really high on, you know from their
experience at Baylor. So j speaking of quarterbacks, are you
(21:00):
happy for Joe Burrow he's gonna go number one overall?
Are you concerned that he's going to be a banker? Well,
I mean, we have the a f C package at CBS,
and it would be really cool, you know if we had.
We've got all these emerging young quarterbacks. You know, You've
you've got Lamar and you've got my Homes and you
know Sam Donald from week the week looks like he
might make the step up. Can Baker Mayfield get it going?
(21:22):
And in year three? Me, that's an interesting division if
you've got Lamar, Baker Mayfield, um, and then Joe Burrow
and I mean it's look, they've got Joe Mixon. I know,
the benals were a wreckt this year, but the left
tackle at Alabama will be back, and you know that
that's a pretty good starting point. One of the offensive
(21:43):
lineman they've drafted the last few years has to be
half decent. Um. They might be crazy enough to franchise
a j Green because they have Burrow. You know, could
Ross ever stay healthy? I don't know, but boys are
pretty good receiver. If they invest in the offensive line,
I think they can make major games quickly offensively, you know, defensively,
it's probably gonna take some time, and they've gotten long
(22:04):
in the tooth at some key spots there. Um, But
I mean, look, could could Joe Burrow take them from
one win to five or six next year? I don't
think that would be the craziest thing in the world,
based on what else they do in the off season. Jason,
you're there on the ground in Baltimore. I mean, how
what are you doing in the community to help people
get past this past weekend? And us a plastic bags
(22:28):
collecting tears. You can solve a lot of water issues
with that after that. But the local consensus of Lamar
are they wavering? What? What? What's the field there? No?
I don't really locally. There's a lot of heat on
Greg Roman um and I think educated fans who watched
that game um justifiably so. I mean on a day
(22:48):
where um, look, guys are dropping balls left and right,
and Lamar in the first half was sort of two
amped up again, so the mechanics were wavering throwing some
fluttery balls. But I mean the first drive ends on
the interception on the ball that Mark Andrews caught about
twenty five times this year, and he's banged up and
he doesn't quite high pointed. Lamar needed some help, and
(23:11):
Greg Roman decided down one score to start going five
wide empty set on a team that has no wide receivers,
and they were a ninety two plays offense. The fullback
um only played seven snaps. I mean, they're worried about
Ingram's injury. Gus Edwards comes out of the shoot, looks
like a house of fire. He didn't even play of
the staffs. They got a completely away from the mess
(23:31):
point r p O game. They just abandoned their identity
and we're chucking it all over the place. Lamar dropped
back seventy times. I mean, come on, it's it's it was.
It was kind of seismic and I wrote a column today.
You know, I looked back at that. You look back
at the Bills with Brian Dable, another guy who was
(23:52):
up for a head coaching job. And sometimes these coordinators
get too cute when when when the world's watching and
their perspective new owners watching. I mean, Buffalo ran thirty
five plays for yards after getting a sixteen nothing lead.
They're running for six yards to carry and they throw
twice as much as they run. Um Josh McDaniels the
week before, you know, that same weekend with New England,
I mean they had three hundred total yards. They had
(24:14):
no plays over twenty nine yards. Now, I know they
were limited all year, but that could have been Tom
Brady's last game, you know. With with the Patriots and
then Gregg Roman crapped out and Kevin Stefanski they average
six yards passing head coach Year Cleveland get the job.
I mean, so, I just I do think that's real
(24:34):
human nature. I mean, you can try to block that
stuff out, but you've got fat friends and family. You're
getting the job, and you know the owners are watching
and the whole league's watching, and you're the only game
being played. And I do think it got to Greg Roman.
All right, hey, j real quick ten seconds. When we
talked to you. Next week, we're talking about what two
teams in the Super Bowl? Casey in San Franz. Here
we go. I like that. Pick. I like that. Pick
(24:57):
Jason lock and For. You can follow him on Twitter
at j Soon lack and for and for a history
of Otto the Orange as well. He's got that coming up.
Jay is always my friend. Appreciated buddy. We'll talk to
you next week. You got apparently go get any buddy up.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
(25:17):
pm Pacific. The order of the day, and really the
order of the last two days, interrupted by l s
U and Clemson last night, has been the cheating scandal
that as rock major League Baseball, as the Houston Astros,
after Rob Manfred's investigation was completed, were found to have
been guilty of stealing signs electronically in the two thousand
seventeen season, a very sophisticated form where they would electronically
(25:41):
they would get the signals in the center field UH
stands and relay that to the dugout, relay that and
and relay that to just outside the dugout where staffer
or someone would sit near a drum and pound it
to let the batter know that it was either a
fastball or an off speed pitched that was coming. Sometimes
it was whistling. And this was just an absolute bombshell
(26:03):
that was dropped on baseball. A. J. Hinch was suspended,
so was Jeff Luno, the of the Astros, the g M.
Then they were both fired by the Astros. They want
to move on. This is a huge controversy that's going
to envelope the league. Alex Cora, who was a bench
coach for the Astros and was named as the ringleader
of the operation, it was his idea. He's the one
(26:24):
that's keeping track of everything and making sure the signals
are relayed from center field to the guy eating peanutshell
sitting outside the dugout banging on the on the trash can.
And as a result, he is now the ex manager
of the Boston Red Sox as he and the Red
Sox have agreed to quote part ways in the wake
of this controversy. And this is why Rob Manfred blew
(26:50):
it by not taking the World Series away from the
Astros because none of this is enough. There is not
one person that thinks this is enough punishment for the Astros.
The Astros cheated their way to a World Series, and
you have a litany of teams who were ready to say, WHOA,
you did not beat us fair and square. The Dodgers,
(27:11):
you're gonna have two World Series parades because they lost.
They lost to the Astros, then they lost to the
Red Sox, who Alex Cora was managing in two thousand
eighteen when they won. The Yankees are upset. Everybody that
the Astros played the A. L. West is upset. Teams
are extreme. It's like a class action lawsuit. I'm upset.
I want MLB and investigate the Royals that they were
stealing signs in and the Mets get the World Series.
(27:34):
I mean, this is how big it is. And all
that the punishments did for Rob Manfred was push forefront
the argument to let Pete Rose and all the other
cheaters like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens into the Hall
of Fame. Well, if you let these guys cheat and
there's no punishment for them, because there was no punishment
for the players, then how can you keep Pete Rose
and all these guys out. This completely got out of
(27:56):
Rob Manfred's control because he did not want I'm gonna
be the commissioner that took the World Series away from
a team to be the number one line on his
resume and his legacy. That's the only reason why anybody
else that was strong enough as a commissioner would say, Hey,
I'm sorry, I'm gonna have this job for a long time.
I'm taking the World Series away from you, and you're
forfeiting that because you were found to have cheated in
(28:16):
that season. And if Rob Manfred had the guts, he
would have done it. But he's I don't want that
to be it. I don't want Rob Manford, who most
famously took the World Series away from the Houston Astros,
he did not want that, and that's the reason why
he thought, I'm coming down hard enough with these punishments,
but not realizing what the reaction was going to be,
not having the foresight to know, oh boy, this is
(28:37):
just gonna piss people off. This is why we sit
where we are right now. Why you go to I mean,
first off, Baseball Hall of Fame. It's a separate ality.
So that's writers and that that's run independent of Major
League Baseball obviously, but but that's that. The conversation you
didn't think it was gonna spark, was, oh, now we
gotta let Pete Rose and these guys in the Hall
of Fame. Well, Pete Rose because I went lighter on
the suspension. Pete Rose in his own little little box.
(28:59):
And at this year, you're gonna start seeing more guys
get into the Hall, at least from the early results
of the the pulling of the hundreds of guys that
and women that have votes, that the potential is there
that more players get in because I think there's the
expectation and little soul searching of well one, you've got
(29:19):
no positive tests, regardless of what happened to the size
of hats and batting helmets and the ping pong balls
flying out of a Major League ballparks and band boxes across.
You've got a number of guys that you went after hard,
but you didn't find anything in proof, right, a lot
of allegation, and that's what you have here. You've got
(29:41):
the goods, right, You've got everything on them. You've got
Alex Cora because he was the guy that left the
organization from Mike Fires, and he became the easy guy
to point out and people celebrated saying, look, Rob Manford,
this was a great day for baseball. They don't know
what strongly worded letter five million doll this is nothing. Right.
We saw report yesterday the economic impact of the World
(30:04):
Series victory was over sixty million dollars. Say nothing of
player contracts. People think that no one cares, but no
one cares about the money. But it does. But it's
part of the But it's part of the circumstance because
you also have guys whose legacies are killed forever. I mean,
Dave Roberts spent a year on the hot seat, he
(30:25):
had a World Series title. He gets to sit on
his ask series. Just give him the first one. Kershaw's
legacy was altered. But I mean he's been fantastic in
World Series, the most clutch picture in history of baseball.
But we don't have to lead twice in Game five,
But we wouldn't have gotten to where where it's become right.
(30:46):
It's look, they win, maybe maybe they win, maybe they don't.
But the reality is when you come now with this
kind of thing, it's it's more the five million. You
didn't take anything from their international pool of players. No
players got punished. The need to be punished, The players
need to be punished, need to find the players who
needed to be punished. And instead you said, I'm gonna
(31:08):
go heavy on the people in charge. And that's going
to that's going to put this to bed. If I
if if I suspend a GM and a manager for
a year, who are probably gonna fire those guys, that's
gonna be big enough. And he completely misread the room.
He misread what the reaction was going to be. And
that's the thing is that you can get a lot
of controversy surrounding sports and and you will find a
(31:30):
way to have people split on it. And and when
something is split, you can see the controversy go away.
But cheating in sports is still the forefront of many
people any part Middle America, East Coast, West Coast, cheating
to win, going over the top to cheat. Nobody likes that.
And if you don't come down hard enough, everybody's gonna
hate it. And that's where that's one. He completely miscalculated
(31:52):
the impact of what his punishment was going to be.
Cost of the World Series was five million dollars and
two executives. You made a lot of money, and that
doesn't go away. That's a clown show. Be sure to
catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on
Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio app. Joining
(32:14):
us on the hotline, no one better to talk to
Fox Sports MLB Network baseball insider John Paul Morossi JP.
Not what I thought we'd be calling to talk about
at this point in time, but this is what the
new cycle brings us. So happy to hear to both
of you, nonetheless, And uh, it really is a remarkable
statement to say that now the teams that have accounted
(32:38):
for the last three American League pennants are now all
looking for a new manager, both both those teams of
Red Sox and Astros. Here a month before spring training
just really speaks to the unprecedented nature of this situation
the baseball has in really all the way around. So
if let me just start here, if the beginning of
(32:59):
this story was yes today when the penalties were announced
and now we are today with Alex Cora, if zero
percent was where we started and a is where we're
going to end when we finally put the astro cheating
scanal to bed. What percentage of the story have we
heard so far? It's an excellent question. And if we're
(33:20):
going to use the parallel to the p D era,
which I think is apt in many ways. Um, here
we are all these years later, and we're still talking
about it right in one way or another. Uh, the
steroid era through the Hall of Fame UM is certainly
part of the conversation this week has the chance to
(33:41):
affect the game for years to come and and maybe
even more than a decade. Not necessarily on an everyday basis,
but the legacies of the players involved will keep coming
back up to your mind, and you'll you'll wonder what
percentage of it was quote unquote real, What percentage of
it was UM artificial in the in the sense of
(34:05):
UM numbers that were achieved based on information that they possessed.
That was not fair. And we don't know, certainly in
a global context, how many other teams, how many other
players were guilty of similar misdeeds of of stealing signs
using technology. And again, much like the stereod era, we're
(34:27):
probably never going to have all that information, Um, we
just have to I think as a sport um and
I think the MLB is taking a very good step
this week showing just how seriously the Commissioner's office regards
UM these violations and and I think there's obviously a
tremendous um disincentive for others to try and moving forward.
(34:51):
But if you were to ask, what are the odds
of another team being mentioned in the next year with
evidence brought forth, we have to say that that remembering
back reportedly, the Astros made the point that the initial
outside of of the UH, the individual that they had
(35:12):
stationed next to the dugout in the playoffs, the purpose
of that person being there was to try to catch
other teams who were cheating. And at the time, I
believe a half dozen or so UH what was the
number that was cited in media reports at the time
of being what the Astros suspected other teams were doing
at that point in time that many other clubs. So, guys,
(35:35):
it is it's a difficult UH story for Baseball to
wade through because to your point, Jason, what we simply
do not know where the other bank of this river
truly is. It is very foggy, and uh it is
not yet clear c JP as we we do the math,
and I mean, you've got a couple of guys that
(35:56):
lose a job. I get it for an ownership, five million,
a couple of draft picks. You get to keep your
international pool. I said, they went off pretty light. Nobody, nobody,
no player faces any kind of retribution for this. All
it is is hints and whispers. He's shrugging you move on. Well,
I I would disagree there. I guess, first and foremost,
the five million dollar fine is the most that is
(36:18):
allowable on her baseball rules to sanction any particular team.
He made sixty thought, but then go if they wanted
to find him five million and one dollar, they couldn't
have done it. Okay, they got to the very maximum
level that they could go. First and foremost, I think
(36:39):
on the conversation, I know it's a popular one in
Los Angeles right now, should they have to vacate a championship?
I simply I don't think that that is something you
could do, because, uh, then you have to start to
reverse engineer the entire steroid era. Who might have won
(36:59):
a certain empionship in a given year, was anybody else
on the other side of any of these championships over
the last three decades in which uh there may have
been p D involvement with anybody else on the opposite team,
Uh involved at all m p D s. It's just
it's a it's a very untenable position to put someone
in to ask the commissioner to do that, and I
(37:20):
think regarding players there there are two different um reasons
for this. Number one is the commissioner came out and
said in I am holding the field manager and general
manager responsible for adhering to the rules that are set
forth that fall regarding the Apple watch that came out
with the Boston Red Sox. He put that on the management. Okay,
(37:45):
that's first and foremost. The second part is, as a
practical matter, UH, if you suspended players that many, all
those that were potentially involved in guilty here, first of all,
the union would grieve it, and second of all, how
many straws are then left okay to play the season
had I mean, it really is a remarkably prevalent scenario
(38:09):
based on what was knowing and who knew it was
going on apart from actually participating in it. Who knew
about it. One had to assume a very substantial percentage
of the team, So it is a it's a tremendously
difficult penalty to legislate. I think the commissioner did quite
(38:29):
a good job of doing it under very difficult circumstances.
All right, so let's take you this the next part. Now,
the Astros part ways with a J. Hinch, the Red
Sox part ways with Alex Cora. Who are we going
to see take those jobs? Well? Again, another key question,
and the question is as well, which teams would even
permit their field staff members to interview for these positions
(38:54):
this close to the start of the season. You've already
had meetings about spring training. UM. I do think though
that given the nature of of uh what has transpired here,
MLB should encourage their member clubs that if of a
bench coach, or a third base coach, or a heading coach,
(39:14):
pitching coaches being requested to interview, I think it's important
to let those people do it. So one name to
mention right here, Matt Cortrouro, who did a very good
job with the UH Tapa Bay raise on their other
coaches half at the major league level, and also interviewed
at least one other job during the course of the
winner and interviewed very well. He would be a good
(39:37):
candidate in Boston because of the familiarity there between him
and Higham Bloom. The new chief baseball officer there in Boston,
of course, has come from Tampa Bay Watch that name,
but in terms of the two names that we know
well in this game that I think in the back
of my mind maybe this would be a good fit
for them, just given their experience. Bruce Bocci, Dusty Baker,
(39:58):
and I think they both have a great reputation as
being players managers who do a good job of lowering
the temperature in the room when things get hot, when
there's a lot of pressure on. They do a very
good job of helping people feel comfortable with themselves, and
I think both of these teams need a lot of
that right now. They're both still very good teams, especially
(40:20):
in the case of the astros Um, and I think
it's simply a matter of bringing in someone unless you
feel like you can really provoke from within, bringing in
somebody who you trust to just steer the ship during
what's the difficult you're maybe it is just a one
year assignment but I think for Dusty Baker and Bruce Bocci,
there would be appeal given these two organizations, these two rosters,
(40:43):
to bring in two veteran managers boac is going to
the Hall of Fame who could potentially navigate the very
choppy waters of the season for these two franchises. Right now,
the other managerial domino yet to fall, because you know,
the Mets are going to find their way into it.
Carlos Beltray and who was named in the report one
of only two people named in besides he and Alex Cora,
(41:06):
Mets have not said anything. Does Carlos Beltrand manage the
Mets this year? Or do the Mets say, listen, we
have to move on from you. This is too big
a scandal. I think Beltron manages the Mets. I do
because again, part of it is he is not going
to be disciplined at all through the MLB process. Based
on what we saw, the Mets and and perhaps if
(41:28):
they have any issues with it, uh that they with
the situation, they would say was Beltron fully accountable and
forthright in what they told him? Um during the interview process,
We don't know that information, to be honest with you,
We're not sure, um, where all the information was at
(41:48):
the time and what he was sharing with the Mets
at that point, But I think he is going to
be safe. I really do. Uh. There may be some
pressure on the Mets to do otherwise, but under MLB law,
he is now treated as the player, which meant he's
not going to be penalized for it, and I really
have a hard time seeing the Mets moving on from
(42:09):
him in that particular setting. Of course, of course, his
work pointing out Brody van Wagen and who hired Beltron
very close with a J. NH So, so Brody and
a J know each other very well. I'm sure in
that in the process of just vetting out the information
that there would have been a conversation between Brody and
a J about Carlos and and obviously the report back
(42:33):
from a J to Brody was strong enough of the recommendation,
strong enough that the higher was made. So um, it
really is a multi layered question. But I do believe
that Carlos Beltron will be the manager of the Mets
on opening Day. There you go, you made Jason happy.
His punishment is manager of the Mets. Uh yeah, wait, wait,
(42:53):
Baseball just brought in JP. Wait, you might want to
write some words on this. Baseball just punished Carlos Beltrand.
They have extended his contract but the Mets for four
more years. So that that that I really don't think
it's gonna be that bad of an experience to manage
a team that has Jacob Deground, that has no synder guard,
that has Marcus Stroman, that has Peter Wanzo coming out
(43:15):
the rookie home run record. It's gonna be a great
year in Flushing. I can assure you that. Well when
he's playing with house money because he got to skate
on any disciplined off of this, So I mean he
gets to just manage on the seat of his pants.
Who cares? Just Jonaldson four year deal with Minnesota after
the redemptive year in Atlanta and that strong lineup, they
(43:36):
hit a lot of home runs, added another guy. What
do they add here? Well, they were trying for a
lot of the winter guys to to find a way
to upgrade the rotation. Could not do that really in
a big meaningful way. Uh, they wanted to whether they
wanted bum Garner couldn't get either one. They're just gonna
try to outslid teams. We're gonna see some ten eight
games and some twelve ten games in that beautiful ballpark
(43:59):
there in one of the great cities in our country.
They're Minneapolis here in twenties. But I've got some questions
about their their rotation and their bullpend too. And you
look at the White Sox getting better and better. Um
and oh, by the way, at the same time, the
Donaldson signing means that we could now see some clarity
on the trade market for Nolan Ronado and also for
(44:22):
Chris Bryant. I do think Arronado gets moved. I really do. Uh.
The Cardinals have been mentioned very heavily, as have the Rangers.
The White Sox maybe on the periphery there as well.
But I do think that even if the Braves do
not step up, and they should, by the way, to
make a move for Ronado or Briant, still a decent
(44:43):
chance that that that one or both of them is
moved to a club like potentially the White Sox, the Cardinals,
or the Rangers. You can follow on Twitter at John MORROSSI.
That's at John Morrossy JP is always my friend. Appreciate
your time with us and when when the Mets fire
Bell Trent will play back. Well, I hope it doesn't happen, uh,
(45:03):
And I hope there's a better day head for the
game that we can visit on. But yes, I always
love talking with you both, no matter what the circumstances.
And I did uh you know, I tell you what.
Michigan basketball great stuntner under Juwan. I am still a
believer they're gonna make the tournament, have a very good
second half play. Hey, you're a basketball school, now see
you're okay whatever before my friends are youre exactly right?
(45:26):
Take it easy, je. People talk to you, some of
you guys, thank you your money.
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Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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