The Mo Egger Show Hour 2 -- 6/26/26

Mo talks Reds, Bengals and Joe Burrow, Brendan Sorsby, and more on ESPN 1530!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
That's US seven for four ESPN fifteen thirty Moegger, I
hope you're having an awesome Friday afternoon. Thank you so
much for listening today. Brendan and Jones on baseball later
on this hour. By the way, I mentioned during Sports
Hedelines Tony Santion headed to the injured list. Elaboration on
that from our guy Charlie Goldsmith, who was on with

(00:23):
Austin earlier today as well. Terry Francona says that the
issue that Santion is dealing with, which is an oblique,
the MRI showed a significant injury, so excuse me, he
is going to be out a while. Tito also, and
this had been reported on or bandied about, as we say,
earlier this week, but Tito telling reporters in Pittsburgh that

(00:49):
he's told Matt McClain it wouldn't hurt for you to
take some fly balls in center field. The quote, just
have some fun with it. Look, when you're not a
great offensive player, Matt McLean hasn't been a great offensive
player in quite a while, though he's had some nice stretches.
I understand it. It helps you to be able to
do as many things as possible. Matt McLain's a good

(01:12):
defensive infielder, and I think has proven that when he's
been forced to play shortstop because of the Lee injury,
when he's been a major leaguer at second for quad.
It is a quality defensive player. And sure, maybe it
wouldn't hurt to have him available to play center field

(01:32):
when needed. But how about this, Go get a center
fielder next year, like a centerfielder who's like a legitimate,
legitimate offensive threat who can legitimately play the position and
has big league experience playing center field, or at least
a lot of experience at the professional level playing center field.

(01:58):
I mean, this has kind of been a thing for
a while. Go back to Nick Senzell hell if you want,
and it worked out because he ended up being awesome.
Go back to Billy Hamilton early twenty tens, when they
made him a short store. He was a shortstop and
they made him a center fielder, and to Billy's credit,
to their credit, he turned into one of the best
defensive center fielders the Reds have ever had. But I

(02:20):
feel like in the outfield there's a few too many
instances of trying to try a guy who's not played
the position out at a position where he's not best
suited to play. I don't know. Maybe they're just trying
to expand Matt McClain's versatility. That wouldn't be bad for him.
You know, they do have to figure out long term
what they're going to do at third base because key

(02:41):
Brian Hayes, remember him, is still part of the organization.
Still have to let edwind Royo get established as a
big leaguer. But I don't know, man, I've watched him
try to convert Noel fe Marte into an outfielder that
really hasn't taken off. How about at some point we
go find actual center fielders to play center field. How
about that look on the the Terry Francona criticism that

(03:04):
he gets. And you can do this over the course
of a season with every manager in the sport, every manager,
even the most successful ones, even the ones that are
held with the highest amount of regard, where you could
take a game and pick apart a move or two
that either didn't really make sense, that sort of flew
in the face of what the stats would tell you

(03:25):
to do, that completely backfired. Like I used to do
this when Dusty Baker was the manager where we would
talk about Dusty's work on a macro level and somebody
might mention, well, you know, last Tuesday, he took out
Tony Singrani and he put in Sam Lequere and he
should have left Singranni in because Sam gave up a

(03:46):
two run homer. I'm not doing that to pick on Sam,
and I would say, like, look in every city that
the manager gets that wrong. Sometimes it does feel like
for a manager of Terry francona is experience and a
claim that there have been an inordinate amount of instances

(04:11):
where it feels like he's making a little bit of
a questionable move, like constructing a lineup and then making
decisions that resulted in Dane Meyers getting a sixth plate
appearance with the game hanging in the balance on Wednesday Night,
a one run game in the ninth inning, after the
questionable decision to allow Edwin Arroyo to bunt, they load

(04:33):
the bases. Myers is at the plate. Tito after the
game talks about how good Dane Myers is and not
hitting into double plays, when in fact he's actually got
a pretty high propensity for hitting into double plays. It
feels like There's been a lot of that, and that
stuff comes into focus a lot more when you have
a team that's got a very small margin for error.

(04:56):
That kind of stuff comes into focus a lot more
when there's a premium on the manager hitting the right buttons.
It's interesting, man, like I remember when Tito got hired.
We all do great hire. I mean, if you were
looking at like, who's the best available, who's got the
best resume, the answer was Tito Francona. I'm not even

(05:20):
sure there was another name worth even considering, but if
you remember, then there was this this narrative that built
and it was born out of hope more than anything else.
But the narrative was, well, Tito came out of retirement
because he knows, he knows that the Reds are gonna

(05:40):
change how they do things. And I mention, Tito's pretty
excited about all that money that the Castellini's are gonna
spend it act And Tito wouldn't come to Cincinnati if
he didn't think, you know what, they're gonna do everything
they can financially to give him the best possible to you.
And I remember that, right, And this is not a
criticism of what ownership has or hasn't spent. But I
think there was this belief that Tito would come out

(06:03):
of retirement only to come work for the Reds because
the Reds were going to do things a hell of
a lot differently than they had been. And my take
on it was, actually, I bet you Tito has taken
the gig because he misses managing, but also he likes
what the Reds have, and he thinks he can win
with the way the Reds do things, and he understands,

(06:26):
you know, there might be some growing pains with some
individual players, but he believes he can provide the guidance
that can bring those guys to a level where they
are established big leaguers. Not he's taken the job because
suddenly they're going to spend a billion dollars in free agents.
But he likes what the Reds have. He thinks he
can be a positive impact on the players the Reds have,

(06:49):
and he believes that within the framework of how the
Reds can do business, he can get the job done.
The job that he is doing, or the job that
he has is what is the job that he took.
He was always going to be overseeing a team with
youngish guys, unproven guys. He was always supposed to be

(07:12):
the guy to provide the guiding hand that helped those
players get better, to become established. I would be unfair
if I didn't account for Tito's role in helping Elie
Dela Cruz become a more well rounded player. But aside
from him, does it feel like that's happened. There's a

(07:34):
long line of guys who have been here, either for
all of Terry Francona's two hundred and forty one games
or for the overwhelming majority of them. How many of
those guys are significantly better than they were prior to
the start of the twenty twenty five season. The job
that Terry Francona took was always going to be one

(07:54):
where he managed a team where holes were not going
to be filled with high priced, established free agents, established stars.
They were going to be filled by cheaper players, bargain
basement guys, players who maybe were slightly past their prime

(08:15):
or a year or two remove from their best seasons.
They were never going to have an overwhelming talent advantage.
That was true in October November of twenty twenty four.
The job that Tito had was going to ask him
to win with what the Reds gave him. Is he
doing that job well? Does it feel like he's doing

(08:40):
that job to the best of his abilities? And again,
I cannot emphasize this enough. This is not merely a
reaction to how he managed the game on Wednesday, I
will admit, and I was at the ballpark on Wednesday night.
I didn't understand a lot of it. I didn't understand
letting Andrew Vaughan hit against Sam All the other night.
There was a lot of consternation about that, Like none

(09:01):
of it made a lot of sense. None of the
moves against the Milwaukee Brewers made a lot of sense.
But it's like there are a game under five hundred
since he became the manager. Is that all of his fault?
Of course not is that all of any one person's fault. No,
but the job that he has. Like if you're gonna say, well,

(09:22):
you know, and Nick Kral hasn't given to you, no, no, no.
We sort of knew what Tito was going to be
working with, right, We knew the type of players, We
knew the profile of the type of players they were
going to be working he was going to be working
with and some injuries have obviously unfolded, and that's that's
not helping out anybody. But the job that he has

(09:43):
is the job that he signed up for, and so
it is completely fair to judge him on the results
he achieves in the job that he has so far,
the results he has achieved in the job that he had,
which is the job that he signed up for. One
game under five hundred, not over forty games, not over
one hundred and sixty two games, but a year and

(10:04):
a half. That's a pretty good sample size, one under
five hundred. So, like I remember the fall of twenty
twenty four, the winner of twenty twenty four to twenty
twenty five, if you if you came to the reality
or came to the realization that, all right, well, just
because they hired Tito Francona doesn't mean that suddenly the

(10:25):
Reds are going to be doing a roster construction in
a way that is completely and totally different. Okay, fine,
then then Tito's genius, Tito's tactical acumen, Tino's death touching
the dugout, Tito's guiding hand with the younger players is
going to be the difference between what the Reds were

(10:47):
under David Bell in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
four and what they're going to be moving forward for
the most part, Don't the Reds feel pretty much the
same under Terry Francona as they did David Bell. Maybe
the answer is yes, because the job that David Bell
has is the exact same one that Tito Francona has.

(11:10):
Eighteen minutes after four room for you at five point
three seven four nine, fifteen thirty and eight six six
seven oh two three seven seven six. Uh, it is
absolutely now or never for the Bengals. You can't roll
your eyes when I read to you what I'm about
to read to you next on ESPN fifteen thirty.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty traffic is.

Speaker 1 (11:36):
About thirty minutes away. This is ESPN fifteen thirty on Moleger.
Appreciate you listening today's sports headlines in ten minutes. Reds
and Pirates tonight, Andrew Abbott versus Paul Skeins. A lot
more on the Reds coming up here in just a bit,
because there's a lot there. There's a lot to discuss,
and I think that's kind of part of the problem

(11:56):
that coming up a little bit later on, and I
have a wish and I would venture as much to
say a suggestion for former Bearcats quarterback Brendan Sorosby, who
is being locked out of the Canadian Football League. I
saw this make the rounds on social media where ESPN
does a series called Reaction Overreaction, and the thesis of

(12:22):
the piece, or the theme of the piece is the
authors of it. In this case, Dan Grasiano throws out
a premise about an NFL team, and then the question
is is that a reaction or is that an overreaction
or not an overreaction? And as it relates to the Bengals,
the premise is, it's now or never for this version
of Joe Burrow in the Cincinnati Bengals. And I'm not

(12:44):
going to read the whole thing. You can go read
it at ESPN dot com. But the verdict is, the
verdict of that statement is not an overreaction. And the
last paragraph of the passage reads this way. Cincinnati has
spent a ton of money to get the offense together
the way Burrow wants it, and the front office has
stretched its resources this offseason in uncharacteristic ways to try

(13:07):
to fix the defense. With all of the other three
teams in the AFC North in transition phases under new
head coaches, the opportunity is there for the Bengals to
return to the top of the division and compete for
an AFC championship. If they do not, you're going to
once again hear people on the outside wonder how long
Burrow will want to be there. And next offseason could
bring more significant roster and staff changes than we've seen

(13:28):
in Cincinnati in a while. Now, this gets written and
it's thrown out there on social media, and it gets aggregated,
and a lot of folks here roll their eyes and go,
not this again, or some version of that. Here we
go again with this narrative, and I'm the first to
admit that storyline can be fatiguing. Joe Burrow seems energized, reinvigorated.

(13:53):
I think Joe Burrow is a higher profile version of you,
and I think most of us as Bengals fans this
offseas and we have been reinvigorated by the offseason. They've
had the player additions, the Dexter Lawrence trade, free agency.
Joe seems re energized, and that is awesome. But this
isn't all in season. They did something that was dramatically

(14:17):
different than almost anything they've ever done before, where they
traded away cheap labor and a long term solution for
more expensive labor and somebody who provides more of a
short term solution than Dexter Lawrence. It isn't all in year.
And yes, a lot of the decisions about Jamar Chase
and t Higgins and the money they're paying them and

(14:38):
even the Joe Burrow contract have been aimed at like now.
And so you take all of that with the amount
of rope that Zach Taylor has been given, the fact
that not a lot of head coaches get free or
four coaching staff changes, coaching staff overhauls, where Joe is
in his career, the fact that I'm sure the Bengal

(15:00):
would love to sit down with him sometime soon and
talk about not just a contract restructure, which they've done,
but a long term contract extension. There will be fallout
if this season doesn't work. That's part of what makes
it so interesting. It's part of what makes it so exciting.
It's part of what makes it risky what the Bengals
have done this year, all in without results comes with fallout.

(15:24):
What that fallout is, man, your guess is as good
as mine. My guess is it will cause Zach Taylor
his job. Maybe it doesn't result in Joe Burrow trying
to force a trade out of Cincinnati, but maybe it
compels him to pause on a long term contract here.
Maybe I don't know. Your guess is as good as
mine as to how that may unfold. But I think

(15:49):
we're kidding ourselves if we're gonna push back against the
notion that this is kind of put up or shut
up or now or never for this version of the Bengal.
Not that they're going to move on from Joe Burrow
at the end of the season, but not succeeding in
a season that they've pushed their chips toward. That comes

(16:10):
with some fallout. More than just you know, this player
leaves or they move on from this guy, or they
swap out this position coach. The fallout is probably pretty substantial.
The fallout could include loss of job, reassignment, player discontent,
player getting traded, players getting cut with years left. I

(16:31):
don't know, but yes, man, there's reasons for extreme optimism.
I can't wait for this season. I'm sure you feel
the same way. And you know, Danner and I talked
about this this morning on his podcast, which, because of
his vacation, is going to come out next week. The
re energized Joe Burrow. I'm here for the reinvigorated Joe

(16:52):
Burrow is I think really scary and really dangerous. But
if their goals aren't met, I think, first of all,
if they fail to win a championship, it's just it's
one more missed opportunity. The Joe Burrow era, however long
it lasts, really only works to the degree that everybody
expected in twenty twenty when they drafted him. If they

(17:13):
win a title, his career is not gonna last forever.
His contract is not gonna last forever. If they don't
win it this year, it's one less opportunity remaining. It's
one more opportunity missed. But even if it's not necessarily
super Bowl or bust, for everybody involved, having another season
like last year, having another non playoff year, having another

(17:34):
non winning season comes with fallout, and probably extreme and
far reaching fallout. That's not a lazy narrative. It's the
reality of going all in. It's the reality of having
a coach who's been here for a very long time,
a quarterback who's judged almost solely by how much do
he wins. An expensive roster with a lot of expensive

(17:56):
players that they retained not to sell tickets, but to
win champions with falling short is going to come with
pretty big damages. What they are. Your guess is as
good as mine, and I certainly hope we never go
down the road where we're talking about those things being reality.
But you'll read this a lot as training camp gets closer,

(18:18):
and you'll read it and hear it a lot. Once
training camp starts to unfold, which is a little bit
more than a month away, you're going to hear a
lot about you know, it's put up or shut up.
It's now or never. This version has to win now
or else. Those you may get tired of it, you
may not like it, but part of what makes this
team in this season so interesting is what happens if

(18:42):
it doesn't work. Because I can almost assure you this,
if it doesn't work, that's not going to be met
with a shoulder shrug, and everybody's still content and happy,
and Gotaligi will try to get it next year. That
is even for this franchise probably not going to be
the case. Twenty eight from five o'clock, Brendon Sorosby will

(19:03):
not playing, will not be playing against the Bengals this year,
and now he's not going to be playing with her
for teams like the Saskatchewan rough Riders, Montreal Alouettes, or
Toronto Argonauts. A simple wish and suggestion for the former
Bearcat quarterback coming up on ESPN fifteen thirty Cincinnati Sports.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Station Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic from.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
The UC Health trapic. My, oh no, man, what you're
not here for my show every day? But you know
the rule? Right? Is this? Pitbull? Yes?

Speaker 3 (19:42):
I honestly did not know that. It says Moe Bumper. Yeah,
this is like in the system as one of yours.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
Okay, that's fine. Doesn't mean it gets aired, doesn't mean
it should play. Delete it. I'd delete it right now,
take it out of the system.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
Honestly, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
You're not allowed to. I mean that you can know
the rule. You know the rule. You know the rule.
I know the rule. Anything post nineteen ninety one Will
Smith and Pitbull, the rest of the entire musical catalog
of all time, completely inbounds. Play whatever you want. I
do not care. Okay, I'm gonna delete that right now.
My apologies. Sports headlines are a service at Kelsey Chevrolet,

(20:18):
home of lifetime power train protection to guaranteed credit approval
from their family to yours for life, Kelsey chev dot Com,
Reds and Pirates. Tonight in Pittsburgh, Andrew Abbott will throw
for Cincinnati against Paul Skens. It's a six forty first
pitch tonight. The game is live on seven hundred WLW.
Red's embarking, as they say, on a seven game roadie,

(20:41):
three in Pittsburgh and then four against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Tomorrow's game is a four oh five first pitch, then
the one thirty five tilt on Sunday. Your starting lineup
for it Tonight's game Blake Done, Eli de la Cruz
JJ Blade. Blade is playing left field. Stewart's at first,
low DHS Suarez at third, Enter Steer plays right field,

(21:01):
Tyler Stevenson behind the dish. Matt McClain plays second. Although
maybe today's day he took some fly balls out there
in Pittsburgh in centerfield and he'll be starting in center
field soon. I have no idea.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
You know, the other part of that quote from Terry
Francona was that nobody has a crystal ball.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
That's not true. I have one back to you elsewhere. Oh,
Tony Santien is going on the injured list. He's got
a pretty severe oblique injury. Zach mccambley is up from
Louisville Florence, Yaws after a twelve game road trip or
home tonight for Evansville. The Canadian Football League is not

(21:39):
allowing any of its teams to sign Brendan Sorosby the
latest league to tell him thanks, but no thanks for
the former UC quarterback. France leads Norway three to one
as they enter the seventy eighth minute. This game will
decide the winner of Group I. There's also a game
unfolding between Senegal and Iraq. Senegal leads that game for

(22:02):
nothing to keep. Assuming they win this game, they will
keep their knockout stage hopes alive. The Brendan sooresb thing,
I probably, and I was thinking about this over the
weekend and earlier this week when I was off. I
probably devoted more time to the Brendan Soorsby story than
I should, because much of it is not a UC story.

(22:25):
I think it's a fascinating story because I think it's
I think it's it's fascinating when you have somebody here
with so much upside, who was held in such high
regard by so many people, who has at least temporarily
thrown away a pro football career. Now I hope for
his sake there's a next chapter or it becomes a
UC story. Is when his agent says, we'll blame Cincinnati.

(22:48):
They knew, and I said this on this show over
a week ago. Let's see the evidence, and so far
nobody has done that. I went to the Reds game
on Wednesday night and somebody stopped me and said, and
they weren't being jerks about it, but they were like,
do you really think U s knew nothing about Soresby?
And I said, I'm going to guess that the fact

(23:09):
that the NCAA hasn't, you know, put in a satellite
office in Cincinnati in the two months that we've seen
this story unfold, I'm I'm going to guess that the
NCNBLA is satisfied with what they have come to find
out about UC's knowledge of Brendan Sorosby's gambling and that
the NCNBA is satisfied that I'm satisfied. And this dude

(23:29):
kind of gave me this like a skew look, and
I go, look, man, if you believe Brendan Sorosby's agent,
it became abundantly clear to me. And this was not
a UC fan like cool, Let's see the evidence. There's
show show me the concrete evidence to suggest that that
you see is culpable here, that they did something wrong,
that they did something that would rise to the level

(23:51):
of NCAA issues for the athletic department and for the school.
So the the while I was gone though, the supplemental
draft is now kno going to happen. The NFL has
told Brendan Soresby, no, and maybe yes, twenty twenty seven
draft you're eligible to enter. We'll let our teams have
their way with you, and maybe you'll get drafted, and
maybe you have a successful pro football career. And by

(24:12):
the way, that's the outcome that I'm rooting for. I
take no pleasure in watching someone's downfall, but I also
believe in accountability, and my sincere hope is and it's
not just a hope, but it's also a suggestion for

(24:33):
Brendan the CFL now has told you know, the NFL
has told you no. We'll see how much that gets challenged.
But spend the next i don't know, nine months working out,
working on your craft, but also looking in the mirror,
and I think at some point publicly demonstrating some level

(24:57):
of remorse or at least understanding that you are in
the position you are in solely because of your actions.
I have seen not just Brendan Sorosby's camp, but I've
seen a lot of folks make excuses for Brendan. Point
the finger at schools, point the finger at legalized gambling.

(25:18):
I've heard people point the finger at folks who do
commercials for gambling companies. By the way, I'm one of them.
The sole party who is responsible for this is the
former quarterback at the University of Cincinnati, and I think
what has been frustrating about this is it feels like

(25:38):
there's a refusal by Brendan Sorosby, or at least his representation,
to acknowledge that. And my suggestion for him would be
in a public forum somewhere, just own what you did.
I hope it's not a football death sentence for him.
I'm not convinced that it has to be. I also

(25:59):
can not blame a pro sports league for not wanting
to employ somebody who's an admitted gambling addict who just
got done with the rehab program, who has seemingly not
shown any inclination to accepting one hundred percent of the
responsibility here. I hope this isn't the end of his
football travels. I sincerely do, and I think that's what

(26:22):
we should all be rooting for if we care about
human beings at all. But it's it's hard to root
for somebody who doesn't accept responsibility for what they do.
And I don't know that he has done that. He
certainly hasn't come out and done that, as far as
I'm concerned. Once you accept responsibility, Americans are pretty forgiving people, man.
I mean as as people go like we're one thing

(26:44):
we are is forgiving. But I think we start to
forgiveness when there's like actual responsibility. You are where you are,
not because of the Big Twelve, not because of the NCAA,
not because of the University of Cincinnati, not because there's
a ton of gambling commercials, not because of your addiction.
You are where you are because you chose to do

(27:04):
something that you were told is not legal by the
letter of the NCAA rules. You are where you are
because you willingly and knowingly broke rules, and I think
until there is a very public, very effusive acknowledge of that,
then it is hard to root for the guy. And

(27:26):
you're going to have a lot of folks who want
a stiff arm. I mean not see him play, including
pro sports teams, maybe an entire pro sports league. So like,
the next step should be not a court room, not
a legal filing, not an attempt to play in the
Arena Football League three or the IAAL or some semi
pro league, but like, sit down, maybe do this with yourself,

(27:48):
look in the mirror, and accept responsibility for what you did,
and then express to the rest of the world, not
through your agent, not through your attorney, not in a
court case, express using some vehicle. You know what. I
fed up. I am the reason why this happened, and

(28:08):
I want it to be a cautionary tale for others.
But I accept the responsibility. This is my problem. I
created it. I'd like the opportunity to solve it. I'm
going to do my best and hopefully that gives me
a chance to play pro football, and then once that happens,
if he gets a chance to play pro football, good luck.
Hope it works out. But the just striking lack of

(28:33):
just personal responsibility really makes it hard to be on
his side, and it makes it hard to argue that
anybody should give him a job in pro sports. The
next step, right now, the only step is publicly express
that you have done something that it doesn't seem you've
done yet. That's accept responsibility for your own actions. Brendanman
and Jones on Baseball is

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Next Cincinnati's ESPN fifteen thirty Traffic