The GM Playbook with Tom Telesco

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Rosters to Rings once again alongside Ryan McDonough.
I am fad Levine first and foremost ran we missed
you dearly while you're gone, Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I appreciate it that it's great to be back with you,
and I'll admit I feel bad about missing a few weeks.
My wife and I went on our tenth anniversary trip.
We had a great time in Croatia and then Amsterdam,
and I thought that was a good excuse to not
do the show. And then I'm listening to the show
as we're bouncing around Europe and having a great time relaxing,
and I hear you recording the show from Majorca, and

(00:35):
so I said, man, being in that time zone, being
six hours ahead of the East Coast, I thought would
get me out of it. But apparently that's not an excuse.
So you know, I was like the guy who didn't
do everything he could, and you were the guy who
like sprinted out the ground ball and got to first
base safely. And now I look bad by comparison.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, our numbers in Croatia, in Amsterdam and in Spain
have really spiked over the last couple of weeks. We're
up to two and three in those respective countries. I
also wanted to say thank you to John Daniels for
filling in at an exceptional job. Really appreciate it. But Rian,
it is absolutely wonderful to have you back. We've got
a tremendous show here today. Equally excited is we're going

(01:13):
to start our NFL coverage. We're going to bring on
in segment two, Tom to LESCo over twenty seven years
of experience in the NFL to join the conversation with
me and Ryan. But Rian, we saved this question for
your return. RF of Southern California wanted us to dive
a little bit into why we think NBA franchises are

(01:34):
selling for so much more than their MLB counterparts. And Ryan,
before you share your thoughts, I just want to give
the listeners a little perspective here. Let's put off to
the side for the second the marquee franchise, the Celtics,
the Lakers. Let's look at like the last four kind
of mid to smaller market teams that are sold in
each sport. The Portland Trailblazers and Phoenix Suns each sell

(01:56):
for approximately four billion dollars. The Baltimore Orioles in the
Tampa Bay Rays sell for approximately one point seven billion.
None of those four teams is a marquee market or franchise.
They're all kind of small to medium market teams. Ryan,
share your thoughts. Why do you think there's such a
disparity right now in the valuations of NBA and MLB franchises.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I think there are a couple factors that. The first
is the giant national TV deal that Adam Silver and
the folks who run the NBA just negotiated. I believe
it was an eleven year deal, seventy seven billion dollars
something like that. That's a huge number. Obviously. The only
league I think that's ever done more than that is
the NFL. And we know the stranglehold the NFL has

(02:39):
on TV ratings. When you look at the top one
hundred year in a year out, I'd say seventy five
to eighty five or ninety of those are NFL games,
and the Super Bowl is year in a year out
the highest rated show. So I think we'd all admit
from a business financial perspective, the NFL is king, but
I think the NBA has slotted in right behind that
that and I think the National TV deals are a

(02:59):
big reason why. I think another you know, significant factor was,
you know, like a lot of assets, whether it's real
estate or stocks. During the pandemic, things just kind of
went parabolic. And I know some of those others have
cooled down a bit, but anybody who's I think looking
to buy a house would say, well, they haven't cooled
down that much, you know, over the last five years.
And I bring that up because you mentioned the numbers

(03:20):
for those franchises, the Orioles and Rays in the mid ones,
say one point five to one point seven. Well, just
five years ago that's where NBA franchisees traded. The Utah
Jazz were I think one point five to one point
seven somewhere in that range. Same with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
And in fact, the Timberwolves deal looked obsolete so quickly

(03:41):
that it was a staggered transaction to a guy that
Major League Baseball fans know very well and one of
the lead owners, Alex Rodriguez, along with Mark Lori, they negotiated.
I think what we'll go down is one of the
best deals in recent sports history.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Thad.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think that was one point five or thereabouts billion
dollars for the Wolves and with a stager your multi
year transaction. They almost got too good of a deal,
and it became very contentious with Glenn Taylor, the owner,
who was looking at some of the teams you mentioned,
including Phoenix, including Milwaukee, which sold you know, kind of
semi control shares in the three to four billion dollar range,

(04:15):
and I think Glen Tailor wisely said, well, if somehow
this deal falls apart, and then I relisted, I could
get double you know, the one point five billion I'm getting.
So that's kind of it from an NBA perspective. I
want to get your thoughts from a Major League Baseball
perspective because kind of two things in particular that stand
out to me. And as you know, I kind of
dabble in the sports team deal space peripherally, but as

(04:38):
I look at the Major League Baseball evaluations, the two
things that really seem to be holding them back, in
my opinion, are the regional sports networks and some of
the struggles they've had that kind of Bally Diamonds and
Claire Triangle. And we won't go too deep in the
weeds on the holding companies the regional sports networks, but
I think about eighteen major league teams are under that umbrella,
and some of those have frankly seemingly gone bankrupt or

(05:00):
not being able to televise game, So that that is
really seemed to be a drag those local TV contracts,
especially when you play one hundred and sixty two games
a year, more games than any other sport, and most
of them are on local TV. So I think that
that that's kind of you know, present or looking backward.
I think looking forward, the threat of a lockout too
is kind of you know, looming and the labor stoppage.

(05:20):
And I've really enjoyed the last three episodes. I think
you and John Daniels did a tremendous job, and you know,
bringing in experts, whether it's Rick Han, Michael Young, Jeff Passon,
you know, some of that talk is really intriguing to me.
So but I want to get your take on it,
just as we, you know, we look at the leagues
kind of from thirty thousand feet, because to me, it
does seem like there's if I were buying a team today,

(05:41):
I'd probably be looking at Major League Baseball first and foremost,
just because of the price point, you know, I put
it a different way. I don't think you'll ever see
an NBA team sell for less than three billion again,
and the first number might be a four, might be
four billion.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
On up.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
You mentioned a couple teams, you know, Oriols, Rays, the
Twins that you know, we're kind I did a reshuffling
your former club, and that was the evaluation there, seemingly
as well the mid Ones. So to me, it seems
like if you're willing to be patient and bet on
the up side, there's pretty good value right now in
Major League Baseball.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Well, Ryan, I think he nailed it. I think there's
some instability in baseball right now, but that also presents
some opportunity. You know, as you mentioned, I think one
of Rob Banford, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, one
of his pending legacies is going to be hinged upon
his ability to nail one of these national television deals
commensurate with maybe what the NBA has done. I don't
think anyone's going to reach the NFL, but if they

(06:32):
could get something close to what the NBA has done,
then that's a huge boon for ownership. But just as
a point of reference, right now, the disparity in Major
League Baseball and television deals is just all over the map.
You know, where the NBA the NFL are sharing revenues, there,
there offers a high floor for every owner in terms
of revenue streams. In Major League Baseball, you know, as

(06:54):
a point of reference, the Dodgers are pulling in over
three hundred million dollars in their TV deal, the Yankees
are pulling in over one hundred and fifty million, and
then a team like the Minnesota Twins is scraping together
to hope to get to fifteen to twenty million in
a year. And I think until that there's stability there,
there's going to be a lot of challenges and volatility
to value these franchises effectively. And so with that, as

(07:15):
you reference Ryan, I think comes a real opportunity. The
collective bargaining agreement currently runs through twenty twenty six. It
seems as if Major League Baseball and the Union are
not making a ton of progress there. It seems as
if there's an opportunity that there may be a lockout,
and if you come out on the other side of
the lockout and there is more leveling of the playing
field from a revenue standpoint, you may buy into one

(07:38):
of these franchises now and find it just catapult forward
in value. And so I think that's a real factor
for Major League Baseball. So if you're an opportunistic person,
and you know, I think a lot of the private
equity firms are and those our entities that are starting
to show up more in baseball than they once did.
You know, baseball's historically than owned businesses, singular wealth. Now

(08:03):
there's much more groups involved, there's some private equity involved.
They are willing to prospect on some of these things.
One other thing that I ran I was hoping you
could shed a little light on, is I think the
NBA has done such a wonderful job or it seems
of appealing to a younger demographic. Major League Baseball still
buy and large is more for you know, the grandfather
taking his son to the game. I'm not sure if

(08:25):
they've nailed taking the grandson with them. And then similarly,
the excellent job that the NBA has done in globalization
of their sport. You know, I think baseball is still
buy and large national with some regional appeal, whereas the
NBA has become international with some national appeal. And I
don't know if you want to speak to those two
points is another reason why I think the NBA franchises
are garnering more in franchise value.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I think you're extremely accurate there that and your assessment.
I think, yeah, historically Major League Baseball has had a
bit of a difficult time with the metrics the advertisers
and sponsors want, you want kind of younger, say eighteen
to fifty something, with disposable income diverse. The NFL is
off the charts in that metric anytime I've looked at

(09:10):
it or read about it, and then the NBA slots
in second right behind. As you mentioned, Major League Baseball
is I think core audience is a little bit older,
probably a little more male dominated, a little less diverse,
and probably a little more American or North American based
versus the geographical diversity of the NBA. And I think
that's one of the things that really has helped the league,
and really that I think as we look at next

(09:33):
levers of growth or areas of growth for the NBA,
and something the league is very cognizant about and very
strategic about doing is trying to tap into the European market.
They're talking about the NBA Europe now where it would
be a separate league, but basically to some extent a
competitor with the EuroLeague, which is the top professional basketball
league outside of the NBA. So they kind of have

(09:53):
teams here. And now is it a precursor to expansion
to Europe? You know, I think that's a bridge too
far at this point. But is it kind of a
trial balloon to say, hey, could we play in Europe
at some point? Could you have a European Division, you know,
with five or six teams and London, Paris, Barcelona, ath
and you know your name your major European city. Is

(10:14):
that possible? But rather than trying to do that, since
the NBA is in such a good place, in a
lucrative place, as reflected in the TV contract, as reflected
in the franchise evaluations, this is kind of a trial
balloon to see how it goes in Europe. And another
thing the NBA is doing strategically that which I think
is pretty smart, is especially on the weekends, you'll see
some early Sunday afternoon games with teams that have European stars.

(10:36):
So if you see the San Antonio Spurs with Victor Wembayama,
the LA Lakers with Luka Donsich, the Bucks you know
obviously with Giannis and others, you know, other top European players.
Obviously the Nuggets with Nicoleiokic. If you see them, that
game start early on a Sunday afternoon or a weekend
in general, but I think they more skew towards Sundays.
The reason for that is so they can be on

(10:57):
primetime in Europe and try to get the American audience
who's watching during the day on Sunday, and the European
audience who's watching at night. That's strategic and intentional from
the NBA putting those teams with European stars in those
early time flots.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Yeah. Ryan, the last thing I'll say is something I
think you said a few episodes ago, which was the
NBA has done a wonderful job in creating parody. Of
the last seven champions have all been distinct like we
haven't had a dynasty. What stands out to me even
more than that is you have to go back thirty
years for a small market team to win the World Series,
and that was the Florida Marlins when they upended the

(11:31):
New York Yankees. Whereas three of the last ten NBA champions,
you would say would be small markets in Milwaukee, Cleveland,
and then Oklahoma City this last year. That I think
reality of parody, the leveling of the revenues on the
top end, the reality of parody in terms of competition,
I think makes these franchises that much more appealing to
a prospective owner. So I'd be interested, great question from RF.

(11:54):
I'd be interested to visit this again in two years
when we come out of the other side of collective
bargaining in Major League Baseball, to see how much of
some of these challenges that baseball currently faces are resolved.
Does that help close the gap between the NBA and
then Major League Baseball franchise valuations stay tuned through the break.
On the other side, we're going to be joined by
Tom Telesco, twenty seven year veteran of the NFL on

(12:16):
Rosters to Rings.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings everyone, Ryan McDonough, joined
as always by Fad Levine, and we have a special
guest today that is Tom Telesco, longtime NFL executive. Tom
began his NFL career with the Buffalo Bills, where he
was an intern from nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety four.
From there, he went on to the Carolina Panthers, where
he was scouting assistant as well as an area scout.

(12:49):
Really made his name with the Indianapolis Colts. He was
a scout in nineteen ninety eight. In two thousand and four,
he was promoted to scouting director. In that time period
that was the cul Heyday. They had a great run.
The franchise drafted some Hall of famers Edgar and James, Reggie, Wayne,
and Dwight Freeney during his time with the organization. Also
obviously had the legend Peyton Manning at quarterback. In twenty twelve, Tom,

(13:12):
who by then was the Colt's vice president of football Operations,
became the youngest GM and the illustrious history of the
Chargers franchise.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
He was general manager.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
With the Chargers for over a decade, with the Bolts
making the playoffs three times during that stretch, while also
selecting stud quarterback Justin Herbert in the twenty twenty draft.
After his Charger's tenure ended, Tom was quickly hired by
the Las Vegas Raiders as a general manager and spent
the twenty twenty four season in Las Vegas. Where he
drafted stud tight end brock Bauers with the franchise's first

(13:44):
round pick.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
Tom. Welcome to Rosters, to rings.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Yeah, thanks for having me on. This is great.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
It's fun when you're an XGM that we have all
the answers. Now we're the experts, right.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
This is certain time.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
No one can shut us off here.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
I got plenty of time on my hands, but this
is this is really cool.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
I thought I've reached out, you.

Speaker 5 (14:03):
Know, maybe a month ago and told me about your
your podcast and kind of pull it up listen to.
I just think it's a great concept to listen to
gms from other sports just to get their different viewpoints.
And through my career, I spent a lot of time
actually with Baseball GM, some NHL gms, just trying to
get learn some new things, get some advice, get some

(14:25):
different techniques, and because obviously you can't call gms in
your own industry and get insider information, so I always
reached out to as many gms as I could. Plus,
I always seem like other gms know what we go through.
But you know, obviously the general public doesn't always understand
you need like a shoulder to cry on sometimes. But
I think this is pretty cool to kind of get
together and just talk about our different industries and you know,

(14:47):
share some stories.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
So thanks for having me on and Tom.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Fundamentally, like I think we're all fans, right, you know,
so like even though you worked in football, I did
in baseball, and Ryan and basketball, we're all die hard fans.
And you know, I do think the NFL is such
a popular sport. Ryan and I would love to have
an expert on to bounce some ideas off of. We
probably have some fantasy trades we have to consider later
in this. But I think you also just like shed

(15:10):
light indirectly on something that is part of the challenge
of being a GM, which is once you ascend to
the seat, there there isn't that inner circle of people
that you can really lean into. You know, it's tough
to go, you know, talk to your direct reports and say, hey, listen,
I have no idea how to handle this situation. You know,
we all I think, developed relationships with some of our
compatriots gms in our league, but there's a level at

(15:33):
which you don't want to overshare with them. There is
a competitive element to this, and so when you find
your community, when you're in these roles. I think the
faster you could do it, the better, because none of
us has all the answers. We've got to lean into people,
and there isn't really a logical group there to start with.
You have to forge your group, you know. I certainly
reached out to people in local markets I worked in,

(15:55):
but it's not only to find best practices, but it's
just you know, sounding boards and to keep you a
little bit because otherwise you're left doing this all by yourself.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:03):
When I was with the Colts, Bill Pollyn, who was
a GM, he was good friends with Jim Hendry, who
was the GM of the Cubs at the time. So
we spent a lot of time with the Cubs, myself
and Bill Sun Chris. We went out to spring training
with the Cubs just to look at their database, how
they kept track of their prospects, how they ran their
scutting department. Learn a ton from from Jim. And then
when I got the Chargers job, I want to see

(16:23):
like this first. A second day, Josh Burns reaches out
to me, and Josh was the GM of the Padres,
say hey, if you need anything, let me know. So
I started a relationship with him, which was great. And
then I started a relationship with Billy Eppler when he's
with the California Angels, you know, right down the street.
And there's just a lot of things, like you said,
like you need some outside council, some outside boye, some
different thoughts outside the box. I used a lot of

(16:48):
Brian Burke, who's a GM in the NHL. He was
awesome as far as not only just roster building, but
just running an organization. So just trying to get some
different opinions and thoughts because you can't do this on
your own obviously.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
I mean I know I can't.

Speaker 5 (17:01):
I need all the help I can get, so to
balance those things out, those people with tremendous.

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Tom It just goes to show how small a world
we all live in. Josh and I went to college together,
played baseball together at Haverford College. He was the one
who got me my first job in baseball, and I
was in Billy Eppler's wedding he worked together in Colorado
with Josh Burns. It's an amazing small world we all
live in. But when you find those people who you

(17:26):
can rely on and who you can lean into, you
hold on to them with dear life, because these jobs
are tough. But Tom, just to go into the wayback
machine a little bit, you went to John Carroll University,
and can you share with the listeners a little bit
of the legacy of this university. Why has it become
such a pipeline of NFL talent both on the field

(17:49):
but front office executives, coaching staff. Maybe you could share
a few of those people with the listeners. And was
that part of your reason for going there?

Speaker 5 (17:57):
No, I mean, at the time, the only speline from
John Carroll to the NFL was Don Shula and that
was obviously back in the fifties, and actually they play
in Don Shula Stadium, but that was the only NFL
connection at the time.

Speaker 3 (18:08):
Yeah, I've gotten that question a lot.

Speaker 5 (18:10):
I mean, it's hard to imagine a Division III school
in Cleveland, Ohio, four thousand students would have this many
people in the NFL. And the thing is, we all
kind of came in different ways and I wouldn't even
be able to name them all. But like one of
my teammates with Greg Roman, who's now the offensive coordinator
with the Chargers, he's been the NFL for a long time,
as a coordinator and quarterback coach. His first job was
with the Carolina Panthers at the same time I was there,

(18:32):
but he came in as a strength coach through a
totally different, kind of totally different door. Josh McDaniel's longtime
NFL head coach and coordinator. He was a GA for
Nick Saban at Michigan State and got our recommendation to
Bill Belichick and ended up in New England.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
And there's just been a lot.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
Of connections, I guess to the NFL, But it wasn't
like someone from John Carroll got in the NFL and
to start to hire other John Carroll alumni. It's just
kind of taken off. And it's kind of hard to
explain because look, if you play Division III football, like
you're there because you love it, you love to play
or not on a full scholarship.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
But you can say that about.

Speaker 5 (19:08):
Every Division III school, like you got to have passion
and work ethic to you know, to play at that level.
But I will say at John Carroll, like they ran
a really well run program, Like it's a top twenty
five program.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
We finished fifth in the nation my senior year.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
They put a lot of resources into it and it
was a good school, and I think once a couple
of kids got in the NFL, I think other kids realized,
you know, hey, I'm not going to play in the NFL,
but if I want to work in the NFL, maybe
I should look at John Carroll as a school that
can help me get there with networking. And honestly, when
I got there, I had no thoughts of ever working
in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (19:41):
Didn't even know it was possible. I was going.

Speaker 5 (19:43):
I was a business major playing football there and I
just got a call just because Bill poyn, who was
a gam with the Bills, his sons. They weren't my age,
one was older, when was younger, but they went to
the same high school as I did, in the same college,
and they needed some college players to help in training
camp for the summer. So one of the two, I'm
not even sure which one, said hey, once you asked Tom,

(20:03):
maybe he'll do it.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
That was.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
It wasn't like I applied.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
It wasn't like we didn't even know these jobs existed.
And I did that for three summers, not even thinking
that would lead to a real job. I was more
focused on, you know, whatever job was I get after college,
probably in the business world. And Bill goes to the
Carolina Panthers. It's an expansion team in nineteen ninety five
and they have to start a whole he has to
hire a whole staff from scratch. I get another call,

(20:28):
Hey do when I come down to help out for
the summer? Get us going, And I'm like, yeah, I'll
do that. Like I hadn't had a I have a
job yet, I just graduated, So I go down to
Charlotte kind of like liked being on a team again.
And honestly, no one told me to go home after
this training camp ended. So I just kept coming into
work every day like I was a full time employee
even though I wasn't. And then before I knew it,

(20:48):
there was enough going on with an expansion team that
I just ended up working, end up in the scouting department,
and then kind of the rest is history.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
I love stories like that. There was a guy I
won't say his name. He's actually a current assistant coach
in the NBA. He's a friend of mine, but we
lovingly called him the Trojan Horse because he just kept
showing up every day. It would be on the couch,
you know, when you'd walk through the lobby and he's
actually older than I am, but he's like, hey, you know, Ryan,
if you need anything. I was like, oh, no, thanks,
I'm good, I'm good. This is when I was with
the Celtics. And then sure enough you see him on

(21:16):
the court rebounding, and then it's like, wow, we have
an entry level player development. He's here anyways, and sure enough,
you know he's been a long time successful NBA assistant coach.
But I think it's amazing to a lot of folks,
especially to some of our listeners. They think there's this
grandiose plan and strategy and there was this big kind
of unveiling or you know, gate that opened and you

(21:36):
walked in and it was this this thing that was
kind of laid out. Usually that's not the case. Usually
it kind of twists and turns. And so the fall
up question that I have off of that is what
I think, you know, seems like a really special time
to me was your run in Indianapolis. I was, you know,
just out of college working for the Boston Celtics at
the same time. And the reason I bring that up

(21:58):
is because I think one of the best Rydevalries in
the last couple of decades in all of sports was
the Colts versus the Patriots in that era, Tom Rady,
Peyton Manning, you know hall of At, Bill Belichick, Polly
and you know Tony Dungee, et cetera. It was really
remarkable to the extent where it was a surprise if
one of those two teams, well maybe if both of

(22:18):
those teams were not in the conference championship, and if
one of them was not representing the AFC in the
Super Bowl. So if you could take us back, you
know a little bit, what stands out to you about
that time, It seems like a pretty special time to
be a member of the Colts franchise.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
It was, and when you talk about their rivalry, I mean,
it was real. There's no doubt. It was the two
best teams in the AFC at the time, the two
best quarterbacks, two highly successful head coaches who are polar
opposites on how they ran their football team, but both
highly successful on how they did it. And you know,
we're both just built a lot differently. The Patriots were

(22:52):
built for outdoors and the elements. They were big, physical,
but not necessarily the fastest team in the world. They
were on the slower side. But they were big, strong
and physical. And we were an indoor team played at
the RCAA Dome at the time, then moving to Lucasohol,
but the indoor stadium, and we were on the smaller
side our team. Our team size was like we used

(23:13):
to joke, like our defensive line or two defensive tackles,
we sometimes line up at two sixty five and two
seventy five. It's like, boy, there's high schools that play
bigger than that. That was not ideal, by the way,
but that's just how we ended up sometimes. But we
were fast, and we were athletic, and we were quick,
and that's kind of how we played. We had an
offense that could run, and our defense was extremely fast.
They were built to play with the lead in the

(23:35):
RCA Dome and rush the passer. So you know, we
were built different ways, but tremendous competitive rivalry and and
I'm sure you guys go through the same thing. When
you're building your team. You're always looking at your division,
how you match up in the division. In the NFL,
your first way into the playoffs is win your division.
So as we're building our team through free agency through

(23:55):
the draft, you know, you always talk about how a player,
if we bring them in, how we line up our division.
But with us, it was always like, hi's the line
up against New England. We used to always talk about that,
and I sensed, I don't know this, I sensed they
did the same thing. I know the year they drafted
a safety, Brandon Merriweather from Miami, we were convinced they
signed they drafted him in the first round to try

(24:17):
and slow down Dallas Clark and to head hunt in
the middle of the field against Marvin Harris and Reggie Wayne,
Austin Colley, you know, Brandon Stokely. So I don't know
if they did, but I know we we really tried
to build because we knew if we don't get home
That's why homefield advantage was so important because there was
two different dynamics. You go play in New England and
it's ten degrees wet and a muddy field that I'm

(24:38):
sure they they probably watered down before the game to
slow us down. And an RCAA Dome had that old
astro turf and it was fast, really fast, and you know,
we're just built different ways.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
So home field.

Speaker 5 (24:50):
Getting home field was so important. But that that was
a fun time and both teams won a lot of
a lot of games. You know, we won, uh we
went to two Super Bowls, won one. They won more
Super Bowls than we did. But that was a special
time to be a part of.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Yeah, Tom, I heard a rumor.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I'm not sure if this is public knowledge, but I
heard the Patriots may have also deflated some footballs to
slow you guys down. I don't know if anybody knows
that or from breaking news here on rosters to rings,
but that was, you know, something that got a little
a little bit of buzz in New England when I
was living there and working there at the time.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
That one was kind of ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (25:21):
But no, there were always like you always have these
with the teams you compete with, about hey they're doing this,
Hey they're doing that. Hey they're breaking this rule, they're
breaking that rule. You know, it's that competitive fuel.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
We all have it.

Speaker 5 (25:34):
There are some other stories I don't even want to
get into a signs stealing that we but anyways, it
was a great robbery and it was two really good
teams that were built differently but built well, playing against
each other every year, and like I said, it was
a special time to be a part of, and thankfully
I did realize at the time what we were in
that just wasn't common. You know, we had a ten
year run. We had the most wins in NFL history,

(25:55):
Like that doesn't happen very often, but yeah, that was
pretty special.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
When I worked for the Colorado Rockies, Peyton Manning came
to Atlanta to visit us and visit Todd Helton specifically,
who was a friend of his from University of Tennessee,
and he took ground balls at shortstop and he did
that double tap trying to go across the plate. You
go across the field, and all of our basemarts like
I beat that out every time. What's that guy doing
out there? It's like, maybe he'll stick with football. I

(26:21):
don't know if he's got a chance out there. Yeah, Tom,
I know. One other bond that ties us all together
is that we constantly get asked by people who are
trying to get into our sports how do you do it?
And I always tell people, don't get too fixated on
the title, don't get fixated on the salary or even
the job responsibilities. Really focus on the people you're going

(26:41):
to get a chance to work with and will they
truly invest in your growth and development? And I just
wanted to ask you specifically. You mentioned him earlier. Bill
Pollian was in your first two stops. How fortunate were
you to be aligned with Bill Pollian as you were
cutting your teeth getting to become an executive in the NFL.

Speaker 5 (26:58):
No, I owe my whole NFL career to Bill and
his son, Chris. Bill was the president and GM. When
Bill moved to president, Chris took over his GM, but
you know they both worked together. Yeah, I owe my
whole career to those two guys. I mean, I learned
the x's and o's of football from my high school
coaches and college coaches. But as far as like working

(27:18):
in the NFL, building a team, evaluating a player, you know,
like you know, having a vision of the player, putting
on paper that other people can read and understand, and
then everything that goes into running a football team, you know,
more than freeency in the draft, but working with the coaches,
working with the video guys, the trainers, the support staff,

(27:40):
agents and salary cap and contracts and all that. I
learned all that from Bill, and that you hit on
it perfectly. As far as you know when you get
in the league, or you know, whatever your entry level
job is. I was always more concerned about whatever my
role was. I was doing the best of my ability,
and I didn't It was never focused on what the
promotion could be because you guys knowing pro sports, like

(28:02):
if you don't contribute to winning, they'll go find somebody else,
Like there are no favorites, like if you don't win,
you don't have a job. So we all rely on
each other. So as I moved up, and I was
lucky enough, there two things. One, we are a really
good team. We want a lot. My progression just happened organically.
And then you know, I was on the road scouting

(28:22):
when when I got brought in house, my office door
was within like six feet of Bill Pollion's door, and
Bill's Bill's door is always open, and his son Chris
is right next door. I learned a lot just by listening,
because you guys don't know if you guys know Bill,
but he's got a pretty big voice. So if he's
on the phone with an agent, well, actually, if he's
not a FOURD with an agent, the whole building here is
it anyways, But I would learn so much just by

(28:46):
being around, and Bill would have this, you know'd I'd
sit in his office while he's on the phone with
the League office. I'd sit in his office while he's
on the phone with an agent doing a contract. I'd
sit in his office if he's talking with Tony Dungee
or Jim Moore or Jim Caldwell about a transaction. You know,
I got a Hall of Fame GM that I'm just
learning from. I mean, you talk about lucky just by location,

(29:07):
it was.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
It was pretty amazing. Bill was good with that.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
He was really good at teaching young people, myself and Chris,
So yeah, I learned so much from him that. Honestly,
when I first took the charger job, and whenever you
get your first GM job, as you guys know, like
sometimes a little overwhelming the things that come across your desk,
and there are a lot of things I would just
kind of remember inherently of how Bill handled things and
how did it work, did it not work?

Speaker 3 (29:30):
How would I handle it? So I was extremely lucky
in that fashion.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Bill Pollian's a legend in an NFL front office circles.
He and my father, Will McDonough were pretty close. In fact,
I remember going to a game at Boston College on
a Thursday night, and Bill said he'd liked going a
Thursday night games because then you could go to another
game on Saturday when ESPN had, you know, the eight
o'clock kickoff, but BC was playing somebody and sat up
in a suite with Bill. I think it's probably two
thousand and two, somewhere in that range when he was

(29:54):
with you.

Speaker 5 (29:55):
They probably went out after that. I bet too, too, irishmen,
there's no doubt.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Probably so, probably so, Tom. One of the questions I
have for you is I feel like you and I
have a relatively similar pass in terms of the origins
and starting in the NBA a low level scouting kind
of working our way up the scouting trail and going
on to become general managers.

Speaker 4 (30:18):
The question I have for.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
You is, you know most of the pods so far
with that, and I has been NBA in Major League
Baseball focus, how common is that path in the NFL
do a lot of your your peers, you know, you
guys you've didn't done the job with and against? Do
they follow a similar path? And what are some of
the different ways now in twenty twenty five that people
become g and where did they start if they go
on to later become a general manager.

Speaker 5 (30:40):
You know, it's funny like in the NFL, i'd say,
and I could do the math, but you know, seventy
seventy five percent of gms are probably a scout background,
which is a lot. But and then one of the
things I learned from Bill and I totally one hundred
percent believe this. The GM job, to me is not
a scouting job. It's not a director player personal job.
It's a leadership and decision making job. So to me,

(31:01):
you could have a background whether it's you know, football operations,
whether it's analytics, whether it's cap and contracts, anything where
you have to take in information to make decisions. But
in the NFL that the draft is such a focus,
and you know, if you come up that scouting slbum
My side was draft was college and pro scouting, But

(31:23):
it tends to get a lot of focus. And yeah,
a lot of guys that I came up with, a
lot of us started as interns with different teams. I
think you kind of rise up the ladder and then
you end up in that GM role. But I think
moving forward more so than ever, I think we'll see,
you know, more and more people with less a scouting
background and maybe more like I just said, analytics, cap

(31:43):
and contracts football operation. I think it was probably maybe
two out of football ops, a couple out of cap contracts.
I think we'll see females and NFL GM jobs at
some point. Like any it's a decision making job and
you have to lead people and you've taken a lot
of information. And there was times where I felt like
it was a benefit I had a scouting background. There
are times I felt like it was maybe a detriment
because if I have a big staff of people and

(32:05):
we're talking about a player and they see it all
one way and I see it differently, and I'm the
only one who sees it differently, and I'm the one
has to make the decision. It's like, you know, do
I go with them? And then if it doesn't go right,
you know I kicked myself or hey, look it's you know,
it's on your butt in the end. But that's kind
of leading the group and trying to make good decisions
with the people you have. So but yeah, it's predominantly

(32:28):
a scouting background. I think it will start to it's
going to start to change more so. Actually, when I
looked at it, I thought i'd be a little more
than it was, but it's still about seventy seventy five
percent that came up, you know, through some sort of
scouting side.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
You know, and Ryan, I'd love to hear your perspective
on the NBA having come up through the scouting side
yourself as well. I would say in Major League Baseball
when when I started, and I think we all started,
probably roughly around the same time, there was a real
emphasis on having a scouting background as well. And I think,
in hindsight maybe it was for two primary reasons. One
was you just instantly had more credibility with uniformed people,

(33:04):
the coaching staff and the players. If you kind of
got into the trenches, you went out and watched a
lot of high school baseball games of you know, college
baseball games, and even international baseball games. I think you
just had instant credibility. Also, I think it taught us
a skill, which was that did pervade being a general manager,
and you talked about the executive decision making and leadership,
but I felt like our jobs were also talent evaluation.

(33:26):
It just came into a little bit of a different format,
Like I had to be able to do scouting reports
on agents and other front office executives, so that when
I was negotiating deals, I kind of understood how to
be most efficient and productive with those people. So everything
we did kind of had a scouting component to it.
I think in baseball, obviously people are more in line

(33:47):
with understanding like, oh, they're three starting pitchers there, how
do you rank them? One, two, three? But I also
was able to do that with other chief negotiators that
I had to work with. And then I think there
was a transformation in baseball that you're seeing in football now.
I think it already happened in baseball, which was there
was a huge pendulum swing to now it is more
analytics based. You know, the people who have scouting backgrounds

(34:08):
are far fewer between, you know, in Major League Baseball
right now. When I started, you reference Jim Hendry earlier,
he was kind of the prototypical GM, and now all
of a sudden, it's much more of an academic background,
much less of a clinical baseball background, much less of
a scouting background, much more of an analytics background. But Ryan,
how does that compare to the NBA in Europe bringing

(34:31):
as a scout in the NBA.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, it's so interesting to hear the different stories across
leagues because, like anything else, I feel like it does
go in waves and it kind of ebbs and flows.
When I first started in the NBA two thousand and
two three season, there were a lot of former players,
you know, there was some school that thought, well, how
can you garner respect in the locker room if you
didn't play, you know, how can you go and address
the coach and the players if you didn't play the

(34:54):
game at the highest level, you know, at the NBA
level yourself. Fortunately for me and other some of my
peers have gone on to do great things Sam Presty, Messi, Usierie,
Tim Connolly, Rob Hennigan. Then it kind of became people
looking for, you know, the young up and comer, you know,
the young up and comer, and Tom nailed it earlier.

(35:15):
Like his run in Indianapolis. We had a somewhat similar
run with the Celtics where we were pretty good for
a long time. We had you know, great players and
Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo, et cetera.
And like any other industry. If the group does well,
you know, rising tide lifts all ships. So then they say, okay,
we're not gonna be able to hire Danny Angels GM
doctor as head coach.

Speaker 4 (35:35):
Who are their next guys?

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Right?

Speaker 4 (35:37):
So that I think probably benefited me.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
And know I imagine to some extent you Tom, you know,
working for the great Billpollon and the success you had there.
So yeah, now with that, I'd say, you know, certainly,
you guys major League Baseball were the pioneers from an
analytical perspective. You were way ahead in terms of it.
You know, obviously Moneyball brought up more into the mainstream,
but even you know what when I was coming up
the ranks in the Celtics front office, what the Red

(35:59):
Sox front office led by theo Epstein those guys were
doing over twenty years ago now was pretty revolutionary. And
then you know, Daryl Morey to some extent and others
you know, brought it to the NBA, to the analytical
three point revolution. So I think, like Tom said, you'll
see a lot more diversity going forward. And I say diversity,
I don't necessarily mean racial diversity, but people from all

(36:20):
different backgrounds like you said, maybe even some women, guys
who played the game at a high level, guys who
didn't play the game beyond elementary school. I think all
of that is going to come in to play. And
one of the things that I don't think is going
anywhere from an NBA perspective, And i'd love to get
both of your takes on this year years in particular
Tom from the NFL is I thought, I think one
of the things that's important to keep in mind is

(36:41):
think of how the owners who are now buying into
these teams made their money. A lot of it was
analytical driven, you know, whether that's the stock market or something,
you know, some kind of financial aspect of it, some
kind of technology aspect of it. How do they think, Well,
they skew more toward data in the numbers than you know,
trust me, my gut. I've been doing this a long time,
so Tom, I'd love to get your take on that.

(37:01):
But that's been a recent shift in the NBA, and frankly,
this new wave of owners who, as we discussed in
the first segment, that they're paying three, four or five
even up to ten billion for the Lakers. They want input,
they want to be involved from an NBA level, the
days of hey, you guys, just do whatever you want
to do and I'll just sign the checks. And you
know those are over. But Tom, i'd love to get
your perspective on all that.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Yeah, you're on your side, You're probably right.

Speaker 5 (37:24):
And when you spend you know, five six, seven, eight
billion dollars in a team, you should have some saying
what goes on? But you're right, it's it's you know,
most of them made their money using data to make decisions,
and they understand that part of it. They understand the
money part of it. They may not understand the ex's
knows the football part of it. But part of the
GM's job is to educate. So but yeah, I can
definitely see that with that new generation of owners.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
And frankly, it should be that way.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
I mean, you shouldn't be in a meeting and you know,
why do you like it? Why do you want to
give this player one hundred billion dollars as a free agent? Well,
I think he's uh because I like him, because I
think he's a really good player.

Speaker 3 (38:02):
I think he can help us.

Speaker 5 (38:03):
I think he's strong, and he's like you need a
little more than that, and he's a you know, draw
all the way down not only to this production, but
all the way to the durability and the character and
all that. So, but yeah, you need to be able
to give reasons why, Hey, this is why we're making
this trade, this is why we're making this signing, this
is why we're releasing this player. Because with all those
with every trend that actually make, there's always a money

(38:23):
component to it, not only cap wise, but cash. I mean,
every team works on a cash budget. Not I know
that these teams make a lot of money, but it's
not like unlimited cash budgets.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
For these teams. So and you have to work with that.
And that's different on team the team.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
But I think it's always been the GM's job, no
matter what the owner's background, is to educate the owner
on the reason why, this is why I would like
to do this, this is why we're doing this. And
with some owners, it's getting some feedback what they think.
I mean the owners, I mean Jim Mersey, you know,
grew up in the NFL. He knew football really well.
Dean Spanels essentially grew up in the NFL, been you know,

(39:01):
he was a great resource with different things that happened in.

Speaker 3 (39:03):
The league office. And then Mark Davis.

Speaker 5 (39:06):
You know, his whole life was the NFL, so it
was always, you know, it was important.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
To get some feedback from those guys.

Speaker 5 (39:11):
And I was lucky with those three owners is you know,
they would give their opinion to give some feedback, but
they always said, but you do what you want to do,
but here's the information. So I don't know if every
team has that, but I've been I was lucky in
that regard. So so you get the input from your ownership.
But yeah, you got to show the reasons why. And
it can't be just because it can't just be a
subjective hey, because I like this player and those days

(39:32):
are long long gone.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Tom. I think you've also shed light on two of
the additional challenges as GM from an executive decision making standpoint.
You referenced earlier the notion that you have maybe some
of your trusted advisors who are on one side of
an argument and you're on the other, and how do
you handle that situation? And you know, I think the
best gms I've worked with and four John Daniels comes

(39:55):
to mind. I thought he was just exceptional at this.
He never kept a scoreboard, he never said came back
to you later and said, hey, you led me down
the wrong path. But what he also did is he said, hey, listen,
if I ask your opinion, you know, give it. But
understand I'm asking five to six other people their opinion too,
So don't booboo lip it if I go in a
different direction. But you know, I think that is part
of the art form of these decisions we make, which is,

(40:17):
you know, you know, inherently, Okay, that's my left hand
person over there, or that's my right hand person. I've
kind of gone against them the last three or four times.
We're compromising our decision making on behalf of the organization
when we then say we have to make this decision
from a popularity standpoint rather than from what we think
is the best information that we have. And then the
second thing I think you shed light on was the

(40:38):
notion of the engagement with the ownership and part of
what we have to also give them in addition to
the why is the risk analysis. And you know, in baseball,
I'll just use my example is you know, we sit
down with players and say, hey, this guy throws sliders
in two counts sixty eight percent of the time. The
guy then gets busted in with a fastball, strikes out
comes in what the hell you told me you throw

(40:59):
a slider one hundred percent of time? It's like, no,
we actually said sixty eight. That means thirty two percent
of the time something entirely different happens. Well, it's same
when you talk to an owner, you know, like we do,
we're kind of honor bound to give them a risk analysis.
And I don't know about you, guys. I never did
anything where I said, hey, this will one hundred percent
work out, and so I do think sometimes owners like
players here, well, you told me this was definitely going

(41:20):
to work out. It's like no, I said it was
likely to work out, but there was also an outcome
other than that.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Almost realistic to say that, Yeah, you're just being realistic.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
Right right. And I think the other thing that owners
should be concerned about is when we manage the risks,
such as we're trying to just keep our own jobs
rather than further the cause of the franchises. You know,
we could sit there and rationalize the way never taking
a risk because but but once we do that, I
think we no longer are useful to the franchises. For
which we work, we're supposed to take some risk along

(41:52):
the way.

Speaker 5 (41:52):
One hundred percent agree with that. I would never, never
make a decision based on how it's going to affect me.
There's just no way I could do that. I don't
care what anybody would say. Every decision you make is
for the good of the organization and if the costs
of your job, hey, that's part the part of the business,
as part of professional sports. So I never had an
issue with that at all. But the one part I

(42:14):
loved our meetings because was we talked about like the
risk reward and trying to mitigate the risk. I used
to love being the meetings, whether it's with a small staff,
bigger staff, or with ownership, and just frame up the discussion. Okay,
this is what we're talking about. These are the pluses,
these are the minuses or the strengths and the weaknesses.
This is how we could hit hard, is how we
could really miss on it. But just frame it up.

(42:35):
We'll discuss that, we talk about it, and then when
we leave the room, whatever decision was made, we're all
one hundred percent behind and if it doesn't work, you
know we did the process. We'll kind of evaluate the
process after. But if if all you feel good about
the process, every decision you make isn't going to work.
I mean the draft, if you hit fifty percent of
the time, you're going to go to the Hall of Fame.
It means you're wrong half the time. So but I

(42:58):
was always big. I'm make sure everybody had the information
to give their opinions. Listen, everyone's opinions. Obviously some have
more weight than others. I mean, the head coach has
you know, more weight with his decision than you know
than an area of scout. But you know, like but
you also know as a GM what guys you really
depend on in certain areas. Some guys are better in
certain areas than others. Obviously, the owner has a big
say in what goes on. Taking the information, make the decision.

(43:21):
If it doesn't work, then I'll get back to the
better box and I'll I'll swing again. I got that
was always the mentality that I had.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
That's great perspective, Tom. You know, knowing your staff strengths
and weaknesses I think is so important as well. You know,
in Boston and Phoenix, some guys are better from a
scouting perspective in terms of relationships.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
Intel. You know, they know everybody. Then get anybody on
the phone.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
They'll know everything about a player off the field, as family,
his habits and all that. But in terms of you
know this guy better than that guy might not be
as good. And then there's some guys on the other hand,
they aren't really you know that that they just like
going to games, maybe they love grinding film. They don't
know as much about the player, but hey, this guy's
more talented than that guy. Overtime, the rights and knowing
kind of you know your staff strengths and weaknesses, I

(44:04):
think is so important. And the question I have for
you guys, you know we've all been with multiple teams.
We're all out of the league's our respective leagues at
the moment, but you know, likely to be back in someday.
The question I have for you, and that I'm going
off script here little we haven't discussed this. One of
the challenges I see right now, and I think this
cuts across sports, is the higher you get up on
the totem poll, especially if you're a president, general manager,

(44:25):
the farther away from the field or court you get,
so in the less time you have to evaluate players
and so I think as as media, you know, it
get gets more and more potent, and there's more and
more people to want information answers, and as your staffs expand,
that's going to get harder and harder to manage. You know,
how does Tom Telesco with that levine spend time evaluating players, which,

(44:47):
let's be honest, that's ninety percent of the way the
public judges us in these jobs. But you're getting pulled
away from that because of the size of the organization,
because of all the peripheral responsibilities. So I just wanted
to get your take on that, your two guys take
on that certainly something that's an issue in the NBA,
and some of my other peers and I would kind
of vent to each other. So I was at the
office fifteen hours today. I only watched ten minutes of film, right,

(45:08):
and you know, all this other stuff going on, but
when the stuff hits the fan, that's what you're going
to be judged on. The draft picks, the trades, the
free agent signings and all that. But in the reality
of it, if if people looked at our day to
day sometimes especially in certain organizations, I think they'd be
shocked how little time were allowed or allotted to spend
on player evaluation.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
No, that's a great point when I first when I
first was hired by the Chargers, And I think.

Speaker 3 (45:35):
Maybe this eporate to you guys too.

Speaker 5 (45:37):
You know, when you get hired by ownership, you feel
like they hired you for a reason and you feel like,
you know, I need to do everything. And I kind
of had that first mentality when I first got there,
is I got to have my hand in everything. And
then you realize really quick like you got to hire
a really good staff and kind of give them a
vision of what you want to do and just let
them work. And it took me a little bit of
time to figure that out, but I did because, like

(45:57):
you said, there would be days that I come in
early in the morning and I'm leaving at night and
I didn't watch one ounce of film because things come
up fires you have to put out. I mean, my
first day and the job with the Chargers, I was
learning about Bermuda grass and how it doesn't grow as
well in San Diego.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
I'm like, we're in San Diego.

Speaker 5 (46:15):
How can our grass not be like pristine, like a
like a like a fairway. And I'm meeting with the
groundskeeper to talk about the grass, and like we got
to get this improved. I spent a couple of hours
the first day working on grass. You know, that wasn't
part of the GM handbook, you know, before I took
the job. Because so, yeah, you're you're dealing with a
lot of things in the organization because you're the leader

(46:36):
of the organization, Like you have a lot of discussions
with doctors and trainers. I feel like I know a
lot about orthopedic injuries, even though I haven't taken one
class of biology to know anything about it. But I
talked with doctors so often you have to make decisions
on players, with the player, with the agent, with the coach,
and the doctor about kind a player player not. So

(46:56):
I learned a lot there. So it has a lot
of non scouting none value, even though you usually got
the job because you're a quote unquote good evaluator. But yeah,
there's just a lot of aspects of the job. Estimate
maybe twenty five percent of my job was the draft
and seventy five percent was everything else.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
That's a total guess.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
But you have to have really good people, like the
good scouts, Like you said, knowing the scouts that are
good information gatherers, the scouts that are good evaluators, and
a good coaching staff that can teach and develop players.
And if you the better you put together that whole process,
the better team you're going to be.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Yeah, Ryan, I would echo everything Tom said. Now, I
think baseball is a little bit different than your two
sports because with the average high school kid doesn't get
to the big leagues for five to six seasons, the
average college kid at about three years, So there's less
instant gratification from the draft. So there's a little bit
less emphasis placed on our deliverable in terms of our
sense of worth to the franchise based upon what happens

(47:53):
in the draft. It's important, but it's just a little
bit further removed. But you know, I looked at the
job of g as far from the most pure baseball
job I ever had. I think that probably peaked out
when I was like a director of baseball operations or
something like that. You know, I was far enough below
the senior decision making that I wasn't drawn into the
marketing in business. And we're going to do our mission

(48:17):
and vision retreat this weekend, and you've got to be there.
I wasn't part of that, but you know, when I
got to be a GM, I almost equated the job
to being an emergency room doctor. I thought, if I
was doing my job well, I could take the next
thing off the board, not the easiest thing off the board.
And sometimes that showed up in the form of negotiate
the next one hundred million dollar contract that we're offering

(48:38):
to Byron Buxton. But it also maybe go speak to
an eighth grade class a local school to try to,
you know, energize the future fans of the team for
which I'm working. And sometimes it was, as I'm sure
you guys can attribute. You know, we had vast staffs.
It was talking to a double a pitching coach whose
daughter was really struggling from a health standpoint and he

(48:58):
just needed somebody to talk to. And you realize you're
in these positions and you think like, well, this isn't
on the job description, this isn't at all what I
signed up for. But you realize you have good judgment
and feel and you're being put into a position where
you can impact people's lives and you take the win
for the day. But that doesn't you know, that's time
that you're not spending with your major league coaching staff

(49:20):
or watching video of future potential players that you may
draft down the line. I always felt, and I don't
know how you guys felt about this, but Tom touched
on it, like, you've got to be able to delegate.
You've got to genuinely empower people, guide them, but give
them the resources to excel. Get in the boat with them,
row towards a common goal, but challenge them beyond what

(49:40):
they ever dreamed, and then give them new responsibilities when
they choose show that they can really excel. And I
always thought I could really effectively mentor about seven ish people.
I tried to do it where I was mentoring everybody,
and I just was spread too thin and I don't
think I was delivering value. I settled on a number
of somewhere between seven to eight people that I thought
I could affect a mentor, and then I kind of

(50:01):
got to get out of the way and let them
do their jobs, because these jobs are so significant. I
don't know how you guys told about it, but I
always looked at Major League Baseball and the manager gives
a press conference before and after every game. He is
availing himself to the media more than the President of
the United States is. And it's like, but yet we're
also asking him to develop our coaches, to develop our players,

(50:22):
to bring together this vast performance staff, and it's like,
no one individual can do these jobs. Once you kind
of embrace that and really delegate, I think is when
you have a chance to really find success in these roles.

Speaker 5 (50:35):
Yeah, I can imagine with like you know, with football,
especially this time of year, there's ninety players. There's twenty
plus coaches on your scouting staff. I don't know, twenty
to thirty people, and then you have support staffs of
you know, trainers, video equipment. Baseball, you've got different levels
and coaches at every level and players at every level. Brian,

(50:55):
I hate to say basketball, you got twelve players and
what six seven coaches in your role in couple of scouts.
I know, I know that's not true, but but yeah,
a lot of the job is just managing people. That's
why people ask, you know, what does a general manager do?
I said, he generally manages a lot of people. That's
it in a nutshell. Now, you can't do it all yourself.
You have a really really good staff and that's part

(51:18):
of your job is a higher talent to people. But
it's just keeping a ship moving and just keeping moving
moving forward.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
No question. Tom.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
As we joked in Boston, you know, the job is
other tasks as assigned in air quotes. So the other
task may could be just about anything. The other tasks
as assigns. And one of the the examples that I
use when I speak to two groups who want to
get into pro sports and all that is Eric Spolster,
the legendary head coach in the Miami Heat.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
You know, widely regarded as one of, if not the
best head coach in the NBA today, won multiple championships
in Miami's going to the Hall of Fame and all that,
but his nickname as a young coach was no problem.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
And I love this story.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
It's a cool story because he started the video room,
you know, probably similar to kind of how the three
of us started. And when they'd ask him to do anything,
it could be pick up dry cleaning, it could be hey,
come back at eleven o'clock on Sunday night because this
guy wants to shoot and he needs a rebounder, you know,
load the gatorade, cool or whatever. No, problem, you know,
and they said no problem. He said no problem enough
that he would get more and more responsibility because they

(52:20):
knew whatever he threw out him, they threw at him,
he would be able to handle it. So I use
that example because you know, it's for anybody who wants
to get into sports. The last thing any of the
three of us want to hear if we're managing a
team is well, I'm not going to do that. Well,
if you want to get it, yes you are. You're
going to do it. You're gonna do it with the
smile on your face because if not, somebody else is
going to do it.

Speaker 4 (52:38):
Really well.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Pro sports is hard.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
It's hard to get into because the supply of people
who want to work in pro sports is huge and
the demand is very small, especially in the NFL because
there's really no minor leagues. I mean there's the UFL
right now, but there's a lot of there aren't a
lot of jobs. There are as many jobs as people
think with the NFL teams. So if you do get
your foot in the door, which is the hardest part,
then it's just you just got to work card you know, listen,

(53:01):
work hard, and usually in sports.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
If you work hard. People notice that's just the way
that it is. That's what you're you know. You notice
players who work hard.

Speaker 5 (53:09):
You notice employees who work hard and do what they're
supposed to do, and it can take on more than
maybe their job description says.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
And that's that's the key.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I think, I think our generations have changed a little bit.
I led with the work ethic. I tried to do
as best I could, you know, in terms of just
keep your head down and just do whatever is asked
of you, and then you find yourself in these amazing
learning opportunities. I will reflect upon a couple of years
ago somebody who is an intern for the team I
was working for, who came up to me and said,

(53:37):
I don't feel like I should have to prove myself anymore.
And I said, how often have you had to prove
yourself so far? And they said once. I did it once,
and what I recommended actually was the right recommendation. I said,
I've been working in baseball for twenty four years. I
feel like I'm trying to prove myself every single day.
But I think if you don't have that ethos, these
these jobs chew you up and spit you out because
there is somebody who is willing to go above and

(53:58):
beyond and to say no problem. And if you ever
start slipping into that sense of entitlement and self worth,
I think it's really it's a slippery slope. Tom, I
wanted to just to shift topics for a second. We'd
be remiss your equivalent to spring training preseason right now
going on, I would love to hear your guys' perspectives
on what did you use preseason four, Like how much

(54:19):
of it was player development, how much of it was
competitive analysis setting up your team for success, and then
how do you manage playing time versus risk of injury
especially in the NFL.

Speaker 5 (54:30):
Yeah, age old problem. I mean, so really what we did,
like our OTAs, which are basically our spring practices, so
no pads, just shorts and T shirts sometimes helmet. That
to us was the big player development time. We really
work on your technique, a lot of strength and conditioning,
but then a lot of technique work on the field.

(54:50):
Less competitive, I mean, we're out there, it's full speed.
But to me, it was never about comparing this corner
to that corner and that type of environment. Coaches kind
of saw it differently, but really GMS personnel wise, to me,
that was a learning period. Then once you get the
training camps where that's where the competition is. That's where
guys are competing to make the fifty three active roster,

(55:12):
competing to make the practice squad, maybe competing for a role,
say they're already going to be on the fifty three,
but competing for a role, competing for a starting job.
So that's very competitive in training camp. And then you know,
trying to manage the risk reward on playing players in
the preseason, it's really difficult. A lot of it just
depends on the type of team that you have at
the time and how you want to handle it. It

(55:34):
seems like most gms don't want to play anybody in
the preseason because they know, you know, if a star
gets hurt, I just can't go to the star tree
and pull off another star left tackle and put them
in there. Coaches usually want to get their team ready
to play, But most of the coaches I work with,
we're always on the same page as far as get
our guys enough work, our starters enough work, which a
lot of it was done in the combined practices with

(55:55):
other teams.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
Where you could.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
Control the tempo a little bit, where it was a
higher intensity than a regular practice, but it wasn't live
to the ground. We could work on certain situations specifically
that may not even come up in a preseason game,
and we can go ones versus ones rather than a
preseason game. You may have your ones out there, but
the other team has there twos and threes and you know,
maybe not be a great look, so.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
But you have to.

Speaker 5 (56:18):
Then you're balancing player evaluation who makes a team with
getting your team ready to play opening day against wherever
you're playing, you know, getting your schemes on offense and
defense ready to go, and you know, preparing to win
that first game.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
So it's it's a constant battle.

Speaker 5 (56:32):
And then just managing injuries and training camp is always
a huge part of the job because you get a
couple players who heard at one position and you want
to keep practicing at the same pace, which means you
got to bring somebody else in, which means somebody else
to be released. So that's just a constant, you know,
hamster wheel that you're on throughout of training camp.

Speaker 3 (56:50):
I remember.

Speaker 5 (56:52):
Myself and Chris Pollian made a trip out to Spring
and training to meet with the Angels and Buddy Black,
because we were researching quarterbacks and you know, how many
throws do they need to get ramped in? How does
spring training work compare it to our preseason practices? And
Buddy Black went through the whole progression of pitchers going

(57:13):
to spring training, and then we told him that, well,
in the NFL we have an off season program.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Then the quarterbacks take six weeks off.

Speaker 5 (57:19):
Then the first day at training camp at throw one
hundred balls, and he couldn't believe it.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
That's just the way that it is.

Speaker 5 (57:24):
I mean, obviously the throwing motion is completely different for
football and baseball, but still and not that quarterbacks take
six weeks off, but you know, we're high intensity day one,
probably a little bit too much. So I'm sure there's
a lot of differences. We learned so much from baseball,
not just analytics, but just how you know, even player
development and that sort of thing. So we use baseball
a lot, but yeah, training camp a probably little bit

(57:46):
different probably than spring training. A lot more practice, a
lot less games.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
One of the things that we started studying guys in
the NBA, especially as my tenure went on in Boston
and then Phoenix in particular, was are we doing too
much year round? And what I mean by that is,
you know, when we talked to our mentors, you mentioned
Bill Pollian, you know, Danny Ainge, you know some of
the great executives we all work with. You know, I
have frank conversations privately that I don't think the three

(58:12):
of us would ever have publicly.

Speaker 4 (58:13):
But is man this job? How did you guys do
these jobs? Back in the day?

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Jeff Hornseck who was our first head coach with the Suns,
and basically they said, well, it was a different time,
a different era where once the season ended, especially as
a veteran player, you were pretty much off until training
camp the next year. You know, you had two three
months off and the executive said, you know, you'd have
the draft and then you'd have free agency, and summer
league wasn't really a thing. Maybe had a minor one

(58:38):
after that. You had a couple of months, you know,
in say July, August, maybe in September where there was
a quiet period. As you know now, none of these
three leagues want any kind of quiet period. They want
to be in the news cycle. Three hundred and sixty
five days a year, that is a stated goal. We've
seen that with the schedule unveilings, with the multi day
drafts that the NFL started, you know, and then the

(58:58):
NBA is copied in others, and if you look at
any of the three leagues, I think I think it's universal.
There's something every month of the year. There's not a
month off. So I think that is so important. And
one of the other things not to shift yours too severely,
but but Tom touched on that, I think is really important,
especially to any folks who are listening or are rising
the ladder or want to come up the ladder in
one of these three sports. One of the things I

(59:20):
would have done more in himsight, Tom and you touched
on it is when I was with the Boston Celtics
as assistant GM in charge of worldwide scouting, I would
have tried to learn a lot more about the medical
piece with the team doctors, the orthopedic doctors, the trainers,
because that was primarily a scouting based role. I was
the Celtics' top talent evaluator, so I was all over
the world and obviously no a player would be injured,

(59:42):
but I could be in Greece or Serbia or Durham,
North Carolina, and they'd be dealing with that back at
the practice facility in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
So and so.

Speaker 2 (59:51):
Then when I got the GM job, and as you
hit the nail on the head, Tom, it's, oh Jesus,
this guy's potella is a little strained and there's a
little tendonitis. And I'm saying, well, what does that really mean?
I was that's a journalism major. Can you explain it
to me?

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
Like I'm showing MRIs and X rays? But it's it.

Speaker 5 (01:00:05):
But you know, from August until December, I spent more
time with our doctors than our college scouts, believe it
or not.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
And that's just the way that is.

Speaker 5 (01:00:13):
I mean, college scouts are sending in reports and I'm
reading them, but as far as I face to FaceTime,
you know, I'm with the team doctor. Certainly, you know
a good amount of Monday and then then Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday at least ones at practice and you're always talking
with those guys. And we had a great staff in
Indy and a great staff with the chargers where they'd
set me down and show me the MRI, show me
the X ray, explain you know, just so I could

(01:00:35):
have some frame of reference to make a decision. I
never held them to Hey, you said four to six weeks,
we're at week seven. What's going on. It's like that,
you know, their doctors are making just like a scout,
you know, giving opinion on a player, like you're not
going to be exactly right on every timeframe, but just
to give me the information. And yeah, those are things
that you don't learn when you're on the road as
a college scout. I was lucky as a pro scout

(01:00:56):
where I was in the office every day, and you know,
I see the doctors come in and meet with Bill
and discuss it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
But that's a huge part.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
Of the job, is managing the injuries portion of it,
probably all three of our sports.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Yeah, and you know, I always felt it was such
a challenge for the manager of the major league team,
which was you know, when you have a player who
is sometimes hurt, like the one hundred percent version of
that player unequivocally as a starter for you. Maybe when
he's at ninety percent, he's still better than the alternative
at eighty percent. It starts becoming a little bit dicey.
But you just don't know, like there's it's an inexact science.

(01:01:28):
There is a point in which when we tell these
players we want to encourage them to maybe play through
some discomfort, not play through injury, but play through some discomfort.
But then we also ask them to wave their hand
and say like, hey, listen, I'm at sixty two percent
and my backup is better than me at sixty two percent.
It's a really tough thing to do, and so that
falls on the manager and the head trainer oftentimes to

(01:01:49):
really decipher those things. But you know, you see people
chasing that all the time. You know, I'm watching games
right now and a good friend of mine was asking
about how Kyle Tucker's doing. And Kyle Tucker is apparently
dealing with some injuries right now, a relative to a
finger injury, but they're trying to play them. And it's
like that age oal debate of like do you want
to keep playing them through the injury because you know

(01:02:11):
the alternative is not great and if he can heal fast,
then you want him on the field. But then all
of a sudden, you're compromising his ability. And in baseball,
if you put him on the il, he's down for
ten days. Maybe we can't afford the ten days. It's
all part of the Rubik's cube. And I never envied
the doctors because they felt like hockey goalies to me,
while you were only noticed when they made mistakes, you
didn't give them as much credit when they unless they

(01:02:33):
were pitching shutouts for you. And it's really tough on
a medical side to pitch you shit.

Speaker 5 (01:02:36):
Yeah, there's there's no good news or bad news. Just
give me the news and I'll decipher through. I never
held anything to a doctor, And I remember way back,
Marv Levy used to say this that one hundred percent
of a backup is better than eighty or ninety percent
of a starter, which made a lot of sense when
I was younger, But when I was at GM in
that same situation, I'm like, I don't know. I know

(01:02:57):
this backup pretty well, and I know the starter pretty well.
I don't know if he's better than ninety percent of
the starter, So you have to kind of make that
that decision. A lot of times we'd make that decision
on game day, which I never really enjoyed. We bring
a player out, work them out three hours before the game,
and make a determination. Then okay, where exactly are you.
Those are never good Huh. Those are difficult conversation to
have to try and figure that out. But it's all

(01:03:19):
part of the part of the job of managing people,
managing injuries, and you know, taking in information and make
a decision.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
To Tom, I think I could say for all of
us that we we did just want the medical staff
to give us the news. It's not good news, it's
bad news. But then we reserve the right to say
a lot of cusswords. Yeah, it wasn't directed, It wasn't
directed at the medical staff. That was just right. It
was just coincidental that we decided to say a lot
of cusswords in.

Speaker 5 (01:03:43):
The The worst part was always like, you know, after Sunday.
On Sundays, after the game, I'd get a run down
from the doctors of the injuries. The worst parties you
come in Monday. They'd come in and like, hey, something
popped up overnight, and it's like, you got to be
kidding me, you know. It's just like, you know, because
at least you have some time to kind of plan out. Okay,
this Monday, we got to get moving on these transactions.

(01:04:03):
And then they hey something came up this morning, all right,
here we go.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Well, I think I think we all preach the next
man up mentality, but we also know sometimes the next
man up isn't as equipped as the guy that're replacing,
and we also understand that. But we've got to put
a good face on Tom. Ryan and I just want
to say thank you so much for spending fifty minutes
with us today. It's been awesome to include the NFL
and as part of our conversation, we hope to do

(01:04:28):
more of this moving forward. Thanks to Tom Tellusco staying
with us through the break on Rosters to Rings.

Speaker 2 (01:04:44):
Welcome back to Rosters to Rings everyone. Ryan McDonough alongside
Thad Levine that that was a great segment with Tom
to LESCo. You know, obviously a longtime NFL executive, work
for a number of franchises. And the thing that you know,
I'm kind of, you know, hesitant to say right now
is we only got into about half or maybe a

(01:05:04):
third of what we had in the can for Tom.
We had a lot of questions for him, we didn't
really get into his time with the Chargers or the Raiders.
He drafted Rock Bauers, who looks like he's going to
be a great tight end, one of the best in
the NFL, and obviously San Diego we drafted Justin Herbert,
so I'd love to have him back on at some
point to get into some of that. But I really
enjoyed our conversation with Tom te LESCo.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know what I've loved
about our relationship Rane is the fact that we're all
doing the same job and there's some commonalities. I think
there's some common themes to what we all do, but
they're all different enough, you know, so I don't feel
like we just sit here and say, hey, listen, I
agree with Tom, that's exactly how we did it, or
you agree with me or with Tom. There's a little
bit of a nuance to each sport. And I think

(01:05:45):
it also speaks to our intellectual curiosity when we were
in these roles. I was always trying to find best
practices from other sports. Well, we're still doing it on
the show. I think there's enough difference between how we
all did it that it hopefully is a compelling listen
for the people who are listen and dialing into roster strings.
And I agree with you, like I think, at the
heart of it we're sports fans, but we're also NFL fans.

(01:06:08):
I mean, we have a lot more questions for them.
I can only imagine what the listeners would want to
pepper this guy with. So hopefully we can get it
back on second half of our questions and start diving
into more listeners questions that are specific to the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
And we're recording this show in mid to late August.
We're in the heart of NFL preseason. We know what's coming.
The NFL does a great job, you know, launching starting
on Thursday night right after Labor Day and then into it,
so we'll certainly have an NFL heavy slant in addition
to our usual talk about the NBA in Major League Baseball.
But we'll be talking a lot of NFL on this
show over the next few months as that league ramps up.

(01:06:42):
That one of the things we did in the first
segment that we'd like to do again. I think this
is the first time, maybe ever, that we've had multiple
listener questions. We love the listener questions. We hope our
listeners keep sending in questions, you know via social media.
We're on x or used to be Twitter, Instagram, So
please keep the questions coming. This question is from Matt
in Louisville, Kentucky, and he's asking about the Major League

(01:07:04):
Baseball trade deadline. You did three great shows while I
was off with John Daniels, a number of interesting guests,
Michael Young, Jeff Pass and Rick Hahn. But as you've
got some time fad to now kind of digest and reflect,
how would you define the winners and losers? And I
know that can be difficult, We're only looking back a
few weeks, but how would you define the winners and
losers of the Major League Baseball trade deadline?

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Well, first of all, I think it's a great question,
and I think a lot of articles are written about this,
a lot of journalists weigh in on this. So I'm
going to take a little bit of a different tech
and I'm going to echo an article written in Fangrass
by excellent journalist named Dan Sarborski, and he wrote from
the perspective of how much did your World Series chances
chance of winning the World Series were impacted by the

(01:07:50):
moves made at the trade deadline? Just a level set
for the listeners that the team that has the highest
World Series percentage chance to win is the Los Angeles
Dodge and it's fourteen point seven percent I believe, so
these numbers are never that big. Well, the San Diego
Padres actually improved their chances by three point four percent
by just what they did at the deadline, and keep
in mind they had just over thirty percent of their

(01:08:13):
games remaining. So my view of that is they effectively
did what the equivalent of a season long impact of
one of the ten best players in the major leagues.
They were able to add that at the trade deadline.
That is a significant, significant hull that they recorded at
the deadline. Hard not to put them in the winners categories.
Other teams that really improved their chance of winning the

(01:08:34):
World Series included teams like Seattle, Philadelphia, believe it or not,
the Yankees, and the Mets. The Yankees have faltered a
little bit sets in, but they did address their needs
exceptionally well at the trade deadline. I think that's worth noting.
On the other side of the spectrum, and I guess
they shouldn't come as a shock, But the Dodgers are
on the other side. If the Padres improved as much
as they did, well, there has to be someone sitting

(01:08:55):
on the other side of that Seesaw, and I think
it was the Los Angeles Dodgers, not that they harmed them,
but they didn't help themselves as much as their chief
competitor did in San Diego. Interestingly, Milwaukee also was considered
a team that lost value in terms of their chance
of winning the World Series. All they've done in the
last thirty five games is go twenty nine to six.

(01:09:16):
So sometimes maybe it's equally good to be lucky and
good at the same time. They're really leaning into that
right now. Detroit's an interesting team on this list of
teams that did not necessarily help them their World Series
odds because they didn't make a flurry of moves. But objectively,
I would say probably most of their moves were not
really impact moves. They were more moves to help you

(01:09:38):
get to the playoffs and build out team depth than
it was to actually help you once you do get
to the playoffs. Well, I think Dan and his analysis
would attest to the same. The Chicago Cubs also show
up on this list, and I don't think that's because
they didn't help their team. They genuinely did. They added
some really quality, complimentary players. But what it's suggesting is

(01:10:00):
their biggest need was starting pitching. They didn't address that
at all, so as a result, the numbers don't support
that they helped their chance of winning the World Series.
And I think those are some of the teams of
note on the winning and losing side that I think
are least worth considering as we look at the assessing
the winners and losers of this year's trading deadline.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
Yeah that I'm an Arizona Diamondbacks fan, but with them
in the National League, in the American League, I think
I'm rooting for the Detroit Tigers. And the main reason
is because your friend Aja Hinch came and joined us
here on rosters to rings. So I think it'll help
as a recruiting tool. If they go on to win
the World Series, we can go to other head coaches
and gms they see, you know, if you come on
with us, this will we'll take credit, and of course
if they don't win, we won't take any of the blame.

(01:10:42):
It's kind of like you know, owners due to some
extent in pro sports that The next question I have
for you about the trade deadline that just passed in
Major League Baseball is how often the deals that were
made at or around the deadline impact the championship race
in that season. In the NBA, I think it's a
little bit overrated from a fan media perspective. You look
at the history of it, it's rare that a team

(01:11:04):
acquires a player and then goes on to you know,
take off and go on to win the championship. Usually,
if a team acquires a player who contributes to a championship,
it's either the previous offseason or multiple seasons ago to
build that camaraderie. In chemistry, I imagine baseball might be
a little different, you know, given the individual aspect of
it from you know, isolating pitching and hitting, especially from

(01:11:25):
a pitching perspective. But how often in Major League Baseball
does an acquisition made it the deadline impact the World
Series winner a few months later?

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Yeah, and Ran, I think you've heard me say this before.
I always personally felt the impact moves were when you
were slated to win your division already and then you're
making a move to really enhance your chance to win
once you get to the playoffs. It's really tough to
add that player at the deadline when they're only fifty
ish games left, about thirty percent of your season that
who will vault you from non contention to contention. I

(01:11:55):
just don't think there's singular players that tend to do that.
There are players that win. You are prohibitive favorite to
win your division, do accentuate your chance to win in
the playoffs. And I think we all remember those deals,
but I do think they're few and far between. You know,
I'll just name a few. You knowron so Too getting
traded in twenty twenty two to the Padres trade Turner
and Max Scherz are going to the Dodgers in twenty

(01:12:17):
twenty one. Eraaldis Chapman was traded in twenty sixteen to
the Cubs and a famous deal that really really helped
the Yankees moving forward. They get Labor Torres back in
that deal. The Cubs go on and win the World
Series that same trade deadline, Andrew Miller got traded to
the then Indians now Guardians. He was extremely impactful for
that playoff race. They also show up in the World

(01:12:37):
Series that year. When I was with the Rangers, two
deals come to mind. We acquired Cliff Lee in twenty ten.
He unequivocally helped us win in the playoffs. We had
never won a playoff series before we go to the
World Series that year with Cliff Lee. I'm not sure
he really changed our fortunes of making the playoffs. We
were really slated to do that already. On the other side,
in twenty seven, we traded Mark Tescher too. Braves helped

(01:13:01):
them get to the playoffs and certainly was a rebuilding
force for us moving forward. So I think those are
a handful of c. C. Sabathia was probably one of
the best performers after the trade deadline that we've seen.
Many Ramirez and a resurrection deal to the Dodgers towards
the end of his career really vaulted them forward. You know,
cec ends up in the actual Cy Young conversation for Milwaukee.

Speaker 3 (01:13:24):
Hell.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
I think he even hit like five home runs after
he was traded. Many Ramirez got into the to the
MVP conversation In the NASH League, those deals are so
so few and far between. And then one thing I
just wanted to kind of express about this deadline, Like
every one of them, everyone's trying to acquire relief pitching
because there's nothing more painful than losing a game when
you had the lead in the last three innings, Three

(01:13:46):
teams made demonstrative steps towards improving their their bullpens. Milwaukee
acquiring Mason Miller, Philadelphia acquiring John Durant. The New York
Mets got Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers, Gregory Soto. Here's the
volatility of the reality of how much a bullpen can
impact the last fifty games of your season. The Padres

(01:14:06):
have the fourth best bullpen since the deadline, the Phillies
have the eighth best. The Mets have the worst in
the major leagues ever since acquiring those three players. So
I think sometimes we chase these impactful deals, but in
practice there's a finite number of them that truly truly
impact your fortunes down the stretch and in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Yeah, and I think one of the important things in
the NBA that I'll go back to the statement I
made earlier that in season trades usually don't impact the
championship winner that year. And the reason for that that
is because of the preseason training camp and more than
half of the regular season that elapses before the trade deadline.
With basketball, obviously, as a team sport, all five guys

(01:14:47):
need to function symbiotically, so one of the challenges that
I've had with different organizations and I've seen across the
league is coaches are hesitant to make a huge move
in season because you can't say, in May and June
playing in the playoffs, Hey, remember that inbounds play we
ran in November and the guy said, no, I was
playing over here. I don't remember that at all, or
how we shifted to his own defense and the other

(01:15:08):
four guys did this and you did that, well, no
I wasn't here. And so that's why for these earth
shattering moves, some of it may be self protection, but
the coaches in particular say, hey, look, let's do that
in the offseason if we can, especially if it's trading
for a superstar that you think vaults you into that
championship pretending category, and then have time to reset it,
to build our systems around him, to teach him everything

(01:15:30):
we do offensively, defensively, after time out plays, you know,
in terms of signals, all of that kind of stuff.
I think all of that is important, and all of
that is impactful in the NBA. And that's why I
think if you look at the history of the league,
at least since I've been in the league. Very rarely
does a team, especially a mediocre slightly above average team,
make a move to acquire you know, say, a star,

(01:15:51):
big name player and then go on to win the
championship a few months later.

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
Well, you know, I harken back to the conversation we
had a couple of months ago Ryan with Greg Anthony,
where he said, from a player's perspective, he was singularly
focused on not necessarily the talent of the guy who
walked in the door, but his ability to gain chemistry
with the superstars and the scheme with which that team
is running. I think that's a real perspective that you
have to offer too. I also think of a conversation

(01:16:18):
that I have with a good friend of mine, Scott Servis,
who's longtime manager. From a manager's perspective, like how much
turnover can you have in your roster and still maintain
a level of chemistry and morale on your team? You know,
he always felt like you could probably handle four to
five players, but once you get into the seven to
eight turnover in your team, you don't have spring training

(01:16:39):
anymore to bring guys together, and it's like it either
gels or doesn't gel. And so I think sometimes from
a general manager's perspective, like you have to know when
you've made enough impact and when there starts to be
diminishing returns from matting the next new body to the clubhouse.

Speaker 4 (01:16:54):
I completely agree.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
And just one example of the giant trades not moving
the championship needle. Just go back to February with Luca
Donsi said, Lakers. You know, people got excited about it,
and it is exciting long term, there's no question about it.
But short term, especially after the Lakers voided the deal
with Charlotte, they did not bring in Mark Williams. I
think they had probably the weakest center rotation in the league.

(01:17:15):
They ended up benching Jackson Hayes, who was their starter.
Lakers lost in the first round pretty quickly and pretty
decisively to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who were a good, you know,
rock solid team. They had that chemistry and continuity. So
as exciting as it is from a fan media perspective,
it's not fantasy basketball or fantasy whatever sport. You can't
just put a bunch of talented guys out there. As

(01:17:35):
the Phoenix Suns and Brooklyn Hets and other other teams
have learned over the last couple of years. That chemistry
and continuity usually develops over time, and we saw that,
I think most recently just watching the NBA Finals last year.
Oksee in Indiana. Those two teams Buy and Large have
been together for a number of years and they just
played one of the best finals in recent history.

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
Well that I really enjoyed this show. Great to be
back on with you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
I'm glad you're feeling one hundred percent or if not,
you know, ninety percent muscling through here, maybe with the
help us some painkillers, but but we are. You're gonna
be back on every week. You know you can listen
wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify. He is Dad Levine.
Thanks to Tom Telesco for joining us.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
Stay tuned. Come back again next week on Rosters to Drink.

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