Thursday: MLB Awards Season and MVP Race

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's between Raleigh and Judge. I don't think he can
go wrong either way, and whoever wins, the other guy
is gonna there's gonna be people in the other camp
that are going to think the other guy got robbed,
especially if Judge wins.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Because he's a Yankee and that's the Evil Empire.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
So there's more people in the United States that probably
want Raley to win just because he played in Seattle.
I think the fact that he hit sixty home runs
as a catcher is pretty remarkable. And I'm a huge
Aaron Judge fan. And other than a couple of weeks
in late August that he missed, he played a lot
of baseball this year. I hope he plays a lot

(00:35):
of baseball in the future. I don't think he's I
think he's too old to get to seven hundred home runs,
but I think he's going to get to about six
fifty or so in his career. Maybe he has another
another couple of sixty home run seasons to get closer.
There's only a handful of guys that ever hit seven hundred,
and I think it's Bond's erin Bond's Aaron Ruth and

(00:57):
I want to say Pooh Hools is in that group too.
They're all kind of in that and maybe a Rod.
I think ay Rod was at six p ninety nine.
But anyway, I don't know that he has enough shelf
lifeflef to get there.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Is that the four?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Uh yeah, a Rod is the odd man out. He
got to six ninety six, but pooh hosts seven oh three,
Ruths seven fourteen, Aaron seven fifty five and then bonds
the record.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
I'm kind of shocked that Albert Poohols wants to be
a manager, or at least people are talking about him
becoming one.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
It just doesn't seemed like that's a fit for him.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, well, certainly you know some of the organizations that
like if he I could see him being involved in
the Cardinals again, but I don't know necessarily like he
feels more like it just be a hitting coach and
absolutely pass that knowledge down. Uh. But again, if if
you had the chance to take over the dumpster fire

(01:50):
that is the Angels and know that Ardi Moreno is
not going to really help you much when it comes
to building a roster, I don't know why you would want.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Well, the biggest upset in Southern California is when Arti
Marino decided to sell the team and then decided not to. Yeah,
that pissed off every Angel fan in the world. Hey,
we've finally got somebody else that's going to care. Well, no,
the guy pulled it off the off the market.

Speaker 3 (02:12):
Even just as bad. You know, the Suzuki who they
just hired, the former catcher. He only gets a one
year deal. Yeah, as a first time manager's.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Not spending any money on people.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
He doesn't have to now and well and now it's
all analytics anyway, So why do you even need to
spend any money on a manager. Just get some guy
from the front office to do what you're doing.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
It's a shame that that team with Trout and Otawni
could never do anything.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Well, you know, Trout's given his entire life to that
organization and they've done nothing to help him out.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I you know, going back to the MVP chase, you
will rarely ever hear me defending or coming to the
defense of the evil Empire of the New York Yankees.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
But I think the if you're.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Only judging it by value of the player and what
the numbers say over the course of one hundred and
sixty two games. I don't see how Aaron Judge is
not the MVP based on numbers. I think it's it's
your brain versus your heart. When it comes to baseball,
writers love their heart. Yeah, but see the thing, here's

(03:17):
the deal.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
If it was somebody they didn't like in New York,
Cal Rowley wins in a landslide. Everybody likes Judge. All
the baseball writers love Judge. He answers, he calls you
by your first name. When he answers a question. He
makes it as personal as possible. He knows how to
play the game. And so if there's ever a situation
where he needs a unanimous vote to join Marianna for

(03:39):
Hall of Fame, He's going to get everybody's vote because
they all like him.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, he's doing a good job of playing the media
game up there.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
All right.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
So there was a story today that Paul Skens has
told the Pirates that he would like to be traded
before his contract is up so that he can get
an extension with a different team, most notably.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
The New York Yankees.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
So Paul was asked about it and he said, now
I'm focused on the Pittsburgh situation here. We got a
season to get ready for. I can't wait for the
season to begin.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Well, let me pull.

Speaker 1 (04:12):
Back the curtain here and let's read between the lines
a little bit. I can tell you who's promoting Paul
Skeens to the Yankees, and that would be Olivia Done
because Olivia Dunn has as big a brand as Paul
Skeens does, and that brand is worth a lot more
in New York than it is in Pittsburgh. And they
are boyfriend and girlfriend for now. I don't know that
they're engaged. But my guess is is Olivia Dunn saying,

(04:36):
if you want me to become missus Keenes, we're going
to New York.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, this is the unfortunate. I mean, you could even
if Tarik's Scubaele had a influencer girlfriend that was more
popular than him, I think she would be trying to
find a way to get them out of Detroit too.
And that's the bad side of baseball right now, where
you just when you see a guy Skeens in Pittsburgh

(05:01):
or a guy like Scooball in Detroit, you just know
it's a matter of if not, it's a matter of
when not if they move to either LA or New York.
And and that's why I don't I don't blame Yankees
fans or manager or management, or Dodgers fans or management,
uh for throwing the money around like they do, because

(05:23):
there's no reason if you're a if you own the
Detroit Tigers or the Pittsburgh Pirates, there's no reason you
should let either of.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Those guys leave your organ Absolutely not.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
There's no number that would be too high.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
I'm basically gonna go to Paul Skeens and say how
much do you want? And and I'll give you more
than the Yankees. Well, and it spends a lot better
in Pittsburgh than it does in New York, So I'll
give you any number.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
You talk about celebrity girlfriends and wives, it's Kate Epton
that's married to Justin Verlander, right, yes, yeah, yeah, And
I to me, the greatest tweet in the history of
tweets was back in twenty fifteen when Justin Verlander did
not win the Cy Young Award.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I can't remember who they gave it.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
To, but there was an outrage from pretty much all
of sports media, and Kate Upton tweeted, I thought I
was the only one that got to blank justin Verlander.
Look and to me, I mean, I'm not a Twitter person,
but somebody showed me that and.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I was like, that is the classicest tweet of all time. Yeah, look,
if you're going to if you're going.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
To date the popular athlete, I do appreciate you having
some understanding of what his status or what he's going
or what the politics are that he's dealing with. And
then if you can even better, then if you can
make it funny without making it about yourself, that is
a plus work, absolutely a plus.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, that to me was one of the best of
all time. All Right, I got a few minutes before
we get to Derrek Pittman here at the bottom of
the hour. This is a basketball take. So I heard
you tell Shane the other day. I think it was
maybe yesterday or whenever I was listing me last week
when I was listing before we went on for whatever

(07:12):
it was.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
But you said you're a fan of the Emirates Cup.

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, we're thirty three days away from the Emirates NBA
Cup Final.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Now does that go back to your soccer fandom? Because
they do this in Europe.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
It's a little.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's it's more of my just fan of the unnecessarily
silly bit.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
I mean, that's what it is. It's an unnecessary silly bit.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Sure, But it also I will say, though, the fact
that Friday night games are now not just it's not
just a regular season game like Friday night when the
Spurs are rematching against the Warriors, it's it's game number
eleven twelve on the season. But the fact that it

(07:54):
does have a little extra value to it, I think
I think that there's no reason that's a negative now.
Whether it entices more people in mass numbers just watch
now when they wouldn't have watched if it wasn't an NBA,
I don't think that's happening. But I do think there
is there is value to increase some competitive level around

(08:20):
what would normally just be the thirteenth game in an
eighty two game regular season.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yeah, but the basketball courts, David Stern is looking down
from above and going, really, yeah, that's the silly thing
that were not that would never have flown in the
David Stern era. If you'll remember, when the Rockets opened
the Toyota Center, they had a court that was mostly
red and the paint area was white. It was just
the color of the court and everything else was red.

(08:45):
It was brutal, and David Stern took one look at
that one. No, no change the court. I don't care
how much it costs, get rid of that court. We're
not doing that. And now you've got courts that are
way more psychedelic than that, way more outland.

Speaker 3 (08:58):
Have you seen the best one this year I've seen
so far is the the Timberwolves court is the like
highlighter fluorescent like neon green, and it's so bright neon
that the guys that are wearing white undershirts, it literally
looks like they're standing next to a neon green bar

(09:20):
sign and it's reflecting all it makes it look like
they're wearing neon green shirts because it's so blinding. I again,
the courts are the unnecessary.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Less, aren't cheap.

Speaker 1 (09:33):
It's like, has all this money to flaunt it on
getting new courts, and then the Spurs the other night
they've got their regular court, then they have the Fiesta court,
and now they've got their their city edition cup court.
I mean, those are what five hundred grand apiece for
the courts.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
That's a good question.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
I would actually I need to we should follow the
money and figure out exactly how much those are. I
will say though, if anyone says a bad word about
that Fiesta court from last.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Night, that was awesome. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
The the NBA Cup courts, yeah, there's again it's the
unnecessarily silly part of the bit. But if you at
the same time, if you think once these teams get
to Vegas for the single elimination knockout tournament with the
million dollars each on the line, you're.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Crazy at they're playing it.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
And again it's what would have been just a regular
season game in the middle of December. Now you're getting
to see it's not playoff basketball, but it's somewhere in
between a playoff series and a regular season game. And yeah,
I mean, like the European soccer leagues, I do like
the end season cups because it does it just raises

(10:44):
the level of competition.

Speaker 1 (10:45):
You never see the court at the University of Oregon,
the trees trees. Yeah, yeah, yes, played a game there
years ago that was that was interesting to be a
part of it.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
There's some there's some there's some wild ass college courts
that that might be even worse than the NBA couple.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, they could be all right.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
We'll visit with Derek Pittman, u TSA soccer coach. They're
going to the NCAA tournament that's next five, twenty eight
on the ticket