April 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Ned Colletti hops on after the Dodgers overcame Bobby Millers' struggles to complete the sweep of Colorado last night. Nico Iamaleava is not confirmed to go to UCLA quite yet, but one thing is for sure - no matter where he goes, hes not going to make as much money as he was at Tennessee.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, we continue on Fred Rogan, Rodney Peach, seventy
LA Sports. Dodgers off today. They're heading to Texas to
take on the Rangers, a game you'll hear her on
the radio station tomorrow. But right now, let us bring
on the man in the big chair, our good friend,
Ned Kaletti. Ned, good afternoon to you.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, guys. Great to be on with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
All right, Always great to be on with you, Ned, Ned.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's even when things hey, especially when you got to
talk Freddie off the legs. Now he's not on the
legs right now, Ned, because the Dodgers got just what
the doctor ordered and having the Rockies come to town.
But then it got a little dicey last night, and
I could feel him. I could feel the like his
fingers were getting ready to call you, Ned. After the
(00:45):
Grand Slam and then the home run, he was getting
ready to call.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I knew I was. I knew I was going to
be on today, and I shut my phone off. I
was happy to see this morning when I turned it
back on. Nothing there so it should.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That anything anything so far.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I mean, they're fourteen and six, they're you know, San
Diego obviously is off to a unbelievable start. Same thing
with San Francisco. But the Dodgers are right there fourteen
to six, only a game and a half back. Anything
right now that concerns you, is it whether it be
starting pitching, whether it be the way you know, you
know the defense has been shaky from time to time.
(01:27):
Anything in your mind that that that concerns you this
early in the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Season, Well, I'd like to let it shake out the
beginning of May. We're halfway there, you know, I think
right now they have two halves of the batting order.
I think obviously the top half is as good as
it gets anywhere. Bottom half could be better. You know,
you've got a lot of guys sitting in that one
hundred range. You know, that's that's self to sustain. When
(01:53):
we think back to some of the best teams that
they've had, it's tough to get through that lineup, and
one thing feeds another. The next thing you know, you're
into somebody's bullpen in the fourth or fifth inning, and
you're you're putting pressure on them all the time. When
you have three or four guys hitting in the one
twenties or one sixties, one twenty five's whatever, you know,
that makes it a little bit easier for that pitcher
(02:15):
to get through it. And I think, as we've talked
about it before, you know, the key guys for this
team are the guys that hit eight and ninth. You know,
it's not prominent. You know, it's not one, two, three
or four five, but eight or nine leads you into one,
two and three, right and four, So eight and nine
is really important. I'm not sure how you know. Otani's
(02:38):
got eight RBI's and he's got six home runs, you know,
so that means of the eight rbies, six of them
are helm you know, there's got to be some more
with that. So that's a little bit of a concern.
And the starting pitching is almost almost not quite the
same view for me. You've got great accomplished starters, and
it's great to see May come back and what he's done.
(03:00):
That's a huge, a huge benefit for them, you know,
Yamamodel the same thing. We kind of knew that going
in Dustin was a little bit of a question mark.
Sasaki's finding his way, but once he gets his command
squared away, he'll he'll be better. But then you get
some of the young guys and the young guys have
have struggled. You know, whether it's Landon or Justin or
(03:23):
Bobby Miller, you know they're gonna need those pitchers. I
know you got Clayton just threw three great innings in
the minor leagues on a rehab. No, he's gonna be
back at some point. But you know you've got the
other team, San Diego and San Francisco. I don't know
how much better they can get. I think they have
played probably as good as they're going to play all year.
(03:46):
Can they sustain it for another five and a half
months plus, you know, highly unlikely, but you never know.
The Giants did it a few years ago. Doctors. I
think there's there's more to go yet. I think what
I just mentioned about him of the second half of
the order, some of the young pitching, and as you
guys alluded to, the defense, the defense has been okay.
(04:07):
So you know, you're still sitting right in the middle
of it. You're still you're going the best records in
the game, and we can sit here and talk about
a bunch of things that that could be better. We
expect to be better. If this calls in San Diego
or San Francisco. We're overjoyed with little rep but we're
not We're not really thinking we're gonna get much better.
It's more of a question of how long can we
(04:28):
sustain how great we played?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
All right? Now, Bobby Miller goes out there last night,
didn't look good, had a big lead, and you're thinking,
he can go out there, just work on some stuff,
get comfortable, get back on the mount of Dodger Stadium,
and then he's lipped. Uh. I guess it's way too
soon to say no Moss, But how many more chances
do you get Bobby Miller? Now?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, it's like it's like when people get get anxious
about a head coach or a manager. Yeah, it's easy
to say somebody should sit down or go home, but
you better have somebody better that can do it. You know,
his start yesterday was his stuff was good enough to
strike out seven, walk one. His stuff wasn't good enough
(05:13):
that he gave up eight hits and got nine outs.
So you know, it's the stuff is there, as as
as Rodney can tell. You know, the confidence of an
athlete comes and goes, and I think confidence for him
maybe one of the issues. But I think, you know,
he's got the stuff to do it, as Dave Roberts
(05:34):
said post game yesterday. But again, you know, saying you've
got it and doing it are two different things. And
to be to be one of the best, you know,
you got to put it on the field. So but
I don't I think it's too early to panic or
too early to say, hey, who's next, because I'm not
sure who is next. You know, as you start to
(05:54):
get pictures back off the I l Yeah, then then
you have a little bit more flexibility to to what
you're doing, how you do it. You know, he threw
eighty four pitches I think in three innings. You know
that too, without well only walking one one hitter. You know,
that's a lot seven of the nine outs you got
with strikeout. So it's kind of a mixed bag. He's
(06:14):
got good as I said, he's got good enough stuff
to get nine outs and strike out seven of them.
But he's also the stuff is not being hitting the
zones he's supposed to be hidden when he has nine
base runners at nine outs.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right in that. And
sometimes you know this, all it takes is one outing
or one good outing or a couple of good outings
and all of a sudden, your confidence is back and
you're you're pitching at a different level and the different
different mindset. You mentioned the bottom of the order, and
there's some guys struggling, but this this lineup is so
(06:52):
good in so many ways, And we talked about it yesterday.
You know, Will Smith has kind of been a forgotten
guy in his lineup and he's as hot as anybody. Yeah,
you know, you got Tommy Edmund and then and we
also talked about Chris Taylor kind of starting to get
it going a little bit, made the great catch, had
an RBI I and Max Munsey. Guys like that that
(07:14):
you know that have done things for you in the
past and big moments that are struggling right now. How
how long do you go with guys like that as
opposed to a young kid that is struggling, that that
hasn't had the history that has had with the team.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, that's a great question, and it's one of the
tougher decision making moments that you have when you when
you're sitting in that spot. Now, you've got accomplished players,
You've got Max Munsey who's done great work, especially in
the month of October and big time moments and you
mentioned CT three, same three, the same thing. You know,
have they struggled offensively? Yeah, See Chris Taylor has been
(07:54):
better this year and limited opportunity, but really struggled the
last couple of years. Max. You know he's going to
walk a lot. You know he's going to strike out
a lot. You know he's going to change the scoreboard
a lot, although he hasn't been able to do it
with a home young yet. This thus far to put
a young player in that spot unless one of these
players is going to go on the IL, you know,
(08:16):
you can't to release a veteran. You have to be
so sure that the young player you're coming up can
play under the brightest lights of LA, can play in
this lineup, can contribute at this stage at this pace.
It's hard to do. And there's a lot of players
at the second time through the second year through are
(08:37):
really good or the league catches up to them and
then scouting reports and the analytics kind of expose them.
So whenever you take out a veteran, this is just
my opinion, whenever you move a veteran out, whether it's
an IL to give him a chance to catch his
breath and maybe heal up, or whether it's you know,
trade release whatever, which I think is extreme. In both cases,
(09:00):
you got to be sure. You've got to be sure,
and the only way you're really sure is to really
give them a long runway to perform and to see
what they do, to see how they play when when
the lights get the hottest. And again we're sitting in
the month of April, we're halfway through the first months.
You know, they barely turn the lights on, let alone
(09:21):
get as hot as they're gonna get. So you know,
it's a tough thing to do, and you've got to
hope that that their confidence stays strong. You got to
give them every opportunity you got to. You know them
very well. Max has been here a long time, Chris
has been here a long time, so you know who
they are. You know, Miggy Rojas another guy hitting in
the one hundreds, you know, not limited to bets either,
(09:45):
thirty one at bats. I think you've got to give
them the opportunity to get it hot and to see
if they can prolong it. And in the meantime, you're
hoping that you're young players. If called upon can do it,
because you know, we don't talk about doing it for
a week or even doing it for a month. You
know you got five and a half months to play,
(10:06):
plus another one after that. So are the young guys
ready to do that? And that's where you've got to
count your player development system, and you've got to count
on their evaluation, not just the player, but the person,
the confidence, the ability to adjust, because it's going to
be massive adjustments, massive adjustment going from Triple A or
(10:28):
Double A, even up to the big leagues in Dodger Stadium.
You've got to be sure, and that's a tough one.
But you also have to be honest with yourself because
you can't wish somebody into doing something and find out
they can't. So play development. One of the things I
used to always tell out a group, you know, don't
send me somebody because they're they're the best of the group.
(10:50):
Send me somebody who is ready to play at Dodger
Stadium in front of fifty thousand people all the time
in games that matter from beginning to end. Don't just
send me the best of the group. The best of
the group needs to be able to play in the
environment we're going to put the put that player in so.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Net I believe the way Andrew Freeman and the Dodgers
look at it, they don't. They don't really make any
decisions until the end of May early June. Okay, we've
seen enough now and we can start trying to formulate what,
if anything we need to do. Now. When you were
in the chair, when would you draw that line and say, okay,
by X date or whatever part of the season. Now
(11:29):
I have to start doing something.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, probably again, I would wait till till the beginning
of May to really start to seriously evaluate it. You're
going to evaluate the game every day because you play
it pretty much every day. So you're going to gain
small pieces of information on the fourteenth of April, the
fifteenth of April, the sixteenth of April, small pieces of information.
As you get a month, then you've got a pretty
(11:53):
good body of work. That doesn't mean you make drastic
moves on May Day. You don't do that. You sell
to play out. But I don't think it's necessarily fair
or even accurate to make decisions today on players who
you've known for years. So you're gonna have to give
them time. The young pitching You're gonna have to give
(12:14):
them time, because you know, you guys are right. One
good start, one five inning start with a couple of hits,
no runs, in a walk or two and six or
seven strikeoffs may change the entire personality of the player
and they can start to play to their personality. But
you got to wait for that. And in the meantime,
you watch the rest of your division. You know, the
(12:35):
other two teams, I said, they're playing great, Arizona's playing better.
Are they gonna run away with it? No, they're not
gonna run away with it. They're gonna have the Dodgers
with them the entire year. The Dodgers are still the
only team capable of really running away with it. So
you play the long game. We evaluate it every day,
but we can't make decisions based on what we saw
(12:55):
yesterday or even five days ago. It's a small a
small sample size that you continue to add to before
you get to the point where you really got to
make a call on somebody. Man.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know, the Dodgers went out and made sure that
they got an abundance of pitching this offseason. They didn't
want to have to go through the bullpen scenario like
they did last year, although it worked out. So when
you look up and you go, okay, you know even
those smell is on the il and he's going to
come back soon. You got him, you know, you got Yamamoto,
(13:30):
you got Suzaki, you got Tyler Glass.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Now Dustin May is coming on.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
You're gonna get kersh Off back, and at some point
Gossen's coming back. And then and then you're gonna have
Otani's gonna be a pitcher, assuming all those guys are healthy.
As you stride into July, how do you navigate when
you've got seven to eight guys that could be a
part of your rotation and keep them all fresh? Do
(13:55):
you narrow it down that I got five and then
we're gonna spot start the other three? Or how do
you navigate that when you've got all those guys and
Kershaw's healthy and Otani's ready to pitch, and you've already
got your five starters and five guys in rotation.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, I think you think you're lucky starts. That's what
you got, and then you know they'll end up probably
going to six a six man rotation at some point,
and whether that sixth pitcher is rotates through you will
have innings for everybody at some point might be long relief.
You might have a starter go three or four, and
(14:32):
if somebody else come in and go three or four,
you go from right handed starter or left handed reliever
or the left handed started right handed reliever. You'll get
the guys work. And to me, as you look at
the team and you look at how they do, what
they do and the successes that they've had, it's the
long game. So I don't expect anybody on this saft
(14:53):
they have one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy innings.
I think the other teams in the division, they're gonna
they're gonna run their guys in, so you know, until
they got really nothing left. So well you can say, well,
what are you gonna do? You know, when you got
everybody back, and if everybody's healthy, well you're gonna be
grateful that you do, and you'll find work for them.
(15:13):
And if and if they're pitching five innings and not
six or four innings and not five or three innings
and not four even out of the pen, that helps
you throughout the long one. Can I can tell you
when you get when you get about a week past lay.
Every day everybody is really gassed. Everybody's had it, everybody's
finicky injury wise, everybody's got something going on, and they're
(15:33):
trying to make it to the end. So if if
the calendar is in September twentieth, but your body's telling
you it's August twentieth, well I take that as a
good thing, and I think that that is how they'll
play it. That's one of the reasons they've done what
they've done. Yeah, you think you know Dustin May has
been great. Is he gonna Is he gonna make thirty
starts this year? Is Yamamoto cy young candidate gonna make
(15:56):
thirty starts this year and throw two hundred innings? I
don't think so. Sasaki the same thing. No, everything's going
to be measured, And if they have to go to
a six man rotation, it's not the worst thing because
you got six guys that can pitch. I think it's
one of those great problems, quote problem that teams would
love to have because they'll figure out how to get
(16:16):
everybody work. It's when you when you got three starters
and you're trying to figure out who we're calling up
from triple a you know, to make the fourth day
start or the fifth day start or both, and then
you know, I mean, it just keeps compounding itself. This
is a great situation for their pitchers, and the more
they get healthy, the more competition there is too. These
(16:36):
guys are all good buddies and they all get along
and things like that, but they also want to play.
They also just want to compete. So you know, Dave Roberts,
Mark prior will have great decisions to make because they'll
have outstanding pitching that will have a chance to compete
for a little bit more time, a couple extra innings here.
But I don't expect anybody to get over worked this season.
(16:57):
I don't see if that's not how they do it now.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That's what we were saying earlier. How could that possibly
happen with as many pictures? You know, the Dodgers, as
you well know ned and you were there, and you
know you innovated and tried things. But they've come they
have kind of reinvented the way this works now with
this number of pictures, and you don't need to go
out and throw a certain number of innings anymore. We
(17:24):
can just keep plugging people in here and saving you
to the end when we really need you. By the way,
there is no guarantee that if we save somebody you
put them in at the end, he doesn't get hurt.
There's no guarantee, no doubt. But what you're doing here
is at least battling the battling the odds and hoping
they'll end up in your favor doing it this way,
(17:46):
would you agree.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes, well, without without a question. And the other teams
in the division is as good as they then you
know they don't have this. So as you look at
at Burns in Arizona, okay, you know he's brought in
big signing for that franchise. You know he's expected to
be the horse. He's expected to make thirty some starts
(18:08):
and to get probably close to two hundred innings. Okay,
And you look at the other teams, it's the same
thing going on. And you know, in San Diego's case,
you know they they may have spent part of the
spring trying to move some of their starting pitching for
payroll issues. So if they do happen to struggle, are
they going to end up moving some guys, which again
(18:29):
makes it easier for the other teams in the division.
So there's as you know, fourteen and six people going, Gee,
you know, I guess you thought it was going to
be nineteen o one or twenty oho. But you know,
it's still a great start with great potential coming down
the road. That isn't just raw potential. It's been proven
to be excellent. And I think I think that's that's
(18:52):
where you go, and that's you know, they'll they'll be methodical,
they'll never take their eye off the ball, and they'll
be methodical with what they do. They're in no hurry.
There are in no hurry. They don't need to be
in a hurry. Other teams need to be in a hurry.
They don't need to be in a hurry.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, man, you said this that you prefer the way
it is now where the division is strong, and and
then Dodgers don't run away with it. They gotta work
for it and they gotta you know, there's there's a
rear view mirror that they can see somebody right behind
them that they got to keep pushing all the way through.
Is better than you know, them being twenty games up
(19:28):
in August and just cruising all the way to the playoffs.
As you look at the division and you mentioned burns
in Arizona, but you look at the division and we
said this earlier that is as good as San Francisco
is playing right now? Are they for real? Are they
going to be there in the end? I don't know,
but I do feel San Diego will be there in
the end. I think Arizona will be there and the end.
(19:48):
Do you agree or do you think? Do you think
it could be a four a four team race in
the West in terms of all four of these teams
that are right there now, you know, competing all summer
long and into September.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, it would be rarety to have four teams out
of five that are battling to the end because you've
got so many games inside the division that are gonna
be worth two games every time you play them. But
you're talking about four good clubs. I spend a lot
of time in spring training visiting teams with the team
Italy thing, working on that, and you know, I mean,
(20:23):
the Giants have got a whole different perspective. They are
so riveted and Buster Posey, who's who's learning on the
job in a lot of ways. In the role he's
in now, but he's instilled a lot of confidence in
that group and a really get after a type of attitude,
a fierceness to it. San Diego, you know, I think
they've lost one game at home, and they've they've played
(20:45):
more at home, probably twice a minut at home. They
play on the road, but you know they've been great
at home. Can they maintain that?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And the Dodgers have been great at home. You know
that's that's kind of typical. So there's a chance. But
they're gonna have to play each other at some point
in time, and I think the more that they can
beat the teams that are down Colorado and obvious, you know, Pittsburgh,
you know, they're they're kind of an obvious although you
(21:12):
know they can do some things for you. Atlanta's off
to a tough start. You're gonna have to beat all
those teams, the teams that you're supposed to beat. You
can't lose many games to those teams. And I think
that all these teams are capable. But I think that
all of them except maybe Arizona, I think the other
two sanything on San Francisco, I think they're playing as
(21:34):
good as they can play. When you're twelve and one
at home, you can't be much better than that, right,
And the Giants, you know, are nine and three on
the road, you can't be much better than that. So
that's about as good as it's going to get now,
you know, can you sustain it for another one hundred
and forty some games? You know, that's the trick and
(21:54):
that that remains to be seen. You know, I would
probably bout that more than I would think it would happened.
Whereas I said, you know, the Dodgers are we can
talk about the defense a little bit, we can talk
about the bottom of the second half of the order
a bit, and we can talk about some of the
young pitching of it. But they have they have more
to go yet, They've got more more coming, and that's
(22:16):
that's the separator. That's probably why they did what they did.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You're right.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I mean, you look at the other teams, the Giants,
they're they're you watch their games, they're playing out of
their mind. They're making big hits and they're getting every
break and all that kind of stuff. Same thing with
San Diego where you look at the Dodgers, it's like
they're cruising. But you know, they're not even coming close
to the potential that this and an explosion that they
(22:41):
can have exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And you know they're going to get red hot at
some point in time, you know, and a lot of
the Giants' success and then you know, good for them,
but you know they have they have a lot of
young pitching too that they're going to be counting on
throughout the entire season, and we know how that can be.
You know, it's it's tough to do. It's tough to
do it, you know, for months on end. For a
(23:04):
few starts, yeah, you can do that, but to do
it for months, you know. And you know they got
Justin Berland or Hall of Famer, but you know he's
you know, he's not twenty five years old anymore. So
you know who's making those starts as if he if
he needs some time off. You know, they've got questions.
And as good as they play, think about running if
(23:25):
we were running track and we weren't favored to win
the four forty or something, and after you know, the
first hundred yards, you know, we're leading the pack, but
you know, like we're sweating profusely doing it, and you
look behind you and there's a guy that's a favorite,
that's just kind of jogging and he's a step behind you.
(23:45):
How do you feel? You know what I mean? That's
that's almost the NL West.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You're looking over your shoulders, what you're doing. You're like,
oh my god, he's coming, he's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And you know you know, so all right, well.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Net thanks for jogging up today for us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Okay, Oh, he's a pleasure, guys, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
All right, say stay, it's all fine, Ned at least
for now. You're gonna play your hands. You better play
it right otherwise you crap out. That's right.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Oh yeah, come on. Throw back Thursday. Rodney Pete free
Rogan solid solid, Rodney, very solid. So we talked about
this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Nico I Mayavah, the kid from Tennessee to quarterback that
held out because he wanted a bigger nil deal. He
held out, uh and then of course it didn't work
his way, and now he's off trying to find a
place to play. And it could be UCLA. But these numbers,
these numbers, when I actually he read them this morning,
(25:02):
it makes me shake my head. You talk about overplaying
your hand or being naive or not understanding. Before I
give you the numbers, I want to tell you a
quick story. There's a kid that he goes to a
Xavier prep out in Cathedral City, Okay, in the Desert Areas.
High school kid sophomore gets hurt and the father claims
(25:26):
that they have mishandled the injury on the field. The
airlifted him to a hospital. He suffered a concussion. He's okay,
but the father was very upset with the way they
mishandled this. They thought he did a poor job and
he needed to talk about it. I said, okay, you
know I have a little knowledge of sports, so I
looked at the situation. I said, well, come on and
(25:48):
let's do this story. And the guy says okay, okay.
So the day before, because this happens on a Saturday,
I talked to him Sunday he calls me. He goes,
I can't go on. I said, well, well, why can't you
go on? The father he goes, wen't listen. You know,
I'm talking to my advisor. And I went, you have
an advisor and he goes, yes, I'm talking to my advisor.
And he doesn't know if it would be a good
(26:10):
idea for me to talk about this publicly because it
could hurt my son's NIL. I want your son suffered
a concussion, you were upset with the treatment he received,
and you don't want to come on because you think
it's going to affect your son's future NIL deal. He said, yeah,
I do. I said, okay, well I get it first,
(26:31):
that kid's going to get an NIL like I am.
I'll just tell you that.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Oh so he's not a prospect prospect no, but Dad
thought he was.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Okay. Of course, of course that family don't think that, right,
So Dad thought he was. So now we flash forward
two weeks later and the guy calls back and he says, hey,
I'm ready to talk about it. You know. I said, well,
what about the NIL? And he said, well, you know,
I just think I'm ready to talk about it. And
I said, well, you got to go somewhere else and
talk about it because the moment has passed for me.
(27:02):
The story, it wasn't a great story to start with,
and now it's already passed. You missed your window, you
missed your opportunity. Please go talk to the other station,
be in the newspaper, whatever. But we're not going to
do that because I know when that window exists, and
I know it would have helped you and your son
the most.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So he tried to talk to having to come on
right after he had the concussion. It was right, you know,
it's fresh in everybody's mind. That yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
In other words, he's upset right now about the treatment
of sun God right two weeks later. That doesn't do
you any good, sir. It's kind of like Jacob im Ronnie.
You get into a car accident and then you know,
two months later you call an attorney. It doesn't work
that way. You got to strike right now, and that
would have helped you and your son's case. Bottom lying
(27:49):
this guy, this guy decided he wasn't going to do
anything because he didn't want to jeopardize his sons. Nil deal.
That kid's not getting in an IL deal, it's not,
I mean, he's not. So now we look at this,
the story we're talking about, and you have a kid
that was making that was making two point four let's
(28:13):
call two and a half million dollars a year, two
and a half million dollars a three year, three year,
eight million dollar a year deal. I think he signed right,
maybe two a half million dollars a year. And this
is out of high school. Yeah, this is this is
this before he even played, right, right, I think he
came in to Tennessee with a three year, eight million
(28:33):
dollar deal. So I'm sorry, go ahead, no, no, no, no,
I think about it. Yeah, think about that now. I
gotta be honest with you. You played in the NFL
in the day. That kind of deal for you when
you started, that would have been a monster deal back
in the day. Unbelievable, right, unbelievable deal. Okay, this kid,
(29:00):
it's coming out of high school and they just gave
him a guaranteed eight million dollars. Now, maybe he doesn't understand,
or maybe most people don't understand, or maybe everyone does
what eight million dollars means? Eight million dollars. You're coming
out of high school guaranteed. Do you know what that
(29:24):
means that much money? Is that going to be create
generational wealth?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And is that going to set you up for the
rest of your life? Probably not. Is it going to
put you on a path where you may not have
to work very hard down the road? Yes, yes, if
you manage that money properly, and they turn around after that.
And whoever his advisor was be it his father, be
(29:50):
it his friend, a guy in the corner, I don't know.
And he said, wait a minute, we're now going to
make six million dollars year year. That's what we need,
that's what we need. We gotta make more. This is
not going to work for us. He wanted four. He
(30:12):
needed to be around six. So he's making two point four.
He goes, you know, what the hell with it, I
don't need six. Just give me four. Give me four.
That's a million and a half dollars more. Do you
think that grows on trees? Wait?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
They gave him for or they were that's what he
wanted for He wanted at least he wanted six. And
he goes, I'll take four. I'll take me four year. Yeah, four,
And he was making two and a half. Yeah, right,
as a college kid killers as a college kid on
a Tennessee campus where he doesn't have to do anything
on a college campus anyway. You know, there's that money
(30:51):
going to be spent in Tennessee, in Knoxville, is not
going to be spent anywhere unless he's you know, sending
it back home for them to spend it. But for him,
his expenses are not going to be anything. It's as
Tennessee is a is a tax free state.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
On top of that. Right, so right, but I mean,
what's he think? All? We'll go outside and pick it
off the tree. Where's the president? That done? In the basement?
Will just start printing out more money because it doesn't matter.
It's all funny money. A million and a half dollars. Now,
I understand in professional sports where a guy makes sixty
five million dollars a year, you know what is that?
(31:28):
But to you listening right now, a million and a
half dollars is very real. It is. It is a
difference making amount of money. And they're throwing it around like, well, hell,
let's give me an extra million and a half and
Tennessee look finally decided what the hell is this? No, no,
(31:49):
we're not giving you four million dollars a year to
be the volunteers quarterback. So now the guy finds himself like,
now what am I supposed to do? He could end
up at U c l A. But then the story
became well, you know, he was upset with the offense
Tennessee was running. That's not his call anyway, so who cares?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That was the family narrative now that it got so
much backlash that he wanted more money, that they said
it wasn't about the money, right, So his dad's an advisor,
and and they gived you know, because people killed him
for saying, oh, just like you, you know, talked about
you're making two and a half and and and that's
(32:34):
not good enough yet and you want another million and
a half after the school has already given you this.
And yet it'd be different if you went out and
you were in the championship game and you got a
loaded team coming back next year and you are the
focal point and you lit it up, and now next
(32:54):
next season, you got a chance to win it all.
Maybe you got to you got a little bit of
a case. But but that wasn't the case for them.
And you're still in You're you're you're still in college.
But at the end of the day, don't don't hold
out from spring practice. Go through it. There might be
(33:16):
some good faith along the way where they may meet
you in the middle. They may say, hey, you know, okay,
we'll give you a few shekels more. But you played
hardball in college. You played hardball in a world where
(33:37):
you know, transfer portal and nil and getting somebody. It's
easy to replace college football players and basketball players nowadays.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Easy. We're gonna finish this up. On the other side
of the break, two o'clock, the Salta Adam Austlin jumps
on the program. We'll talk some NBA.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yes, it is home of the world champion Dodgers. Rodney
Pete Fred Rogan on Throwback Thursday and yeah, yeah, Freddie,
did you know finish up that we were talking about
with Tennessee and NIM guys holding out and all those
type of things. I think it's a it's a it's
a it's a slippery slope that I think needs needs regulation.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Look, I'm all for guys getting paid.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Look, I am one hundred percent behind college kids getting paid.
When you look up and see I think they were
reported at Tennessee, you know, made over one hundred and
forty million dollars one hundred and thirty million dollars last year,
and the athletic program and and you know, coaches got
big deals and contracts and all that kind of stuff
(34:49):
and the kids are not getting anything. You got to
give these kids something. I just think that it's got
to be there's got to be some sort of and
maybe it is a salary cap.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Maybe he is a pool that they gets, you know,
needs to get spread around. But certainly the transfer portal
part of it is god to be. It's got to
be changed because kids are able to just move around.
And I know people are coming come at me and say, well,
coaches do it all the time. Yeah, but but for
(35:19):
a kid to go to college and compete for a
job and he doesn't win that job and training camp
and he's the backup quarterback, and we know football and
in any sports, there's a chance to get hurt, and
you don't win that job, and all of a sudden
mid season, you're deciding, okay, I didn't I'm not the starter,
so I'm going somewhere else, And you don't. You go
(35:41):
somewhere else. You're not the starter there. You want to
go somewhere else. And then you don't get that starting
job and you're trying to go somewhere else. It just
it turns into just a free for all. And right now,
and I've said this time and again, the town without
a SUREFF, I'm all for a movement of guys and
kids that don't situation may not be right for them,
everybody's over the years, it's transferred. But to have it
(36:06):
willie Knilly with no absolutely no regulation to it, I
think is a problem. And you're going to get kids
and things like this happen more and more if if
you allow this to go as a status quo, I
would agree. I think there does need to be regulation.
But also I do think it speaks to and the excuse, well,
(36:30):
trying to cover yourself, well, trying to alter what really happened. Well,
he's not happy with the offense. And then there were
some conversations, well it needs a better offensive line.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Let me.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Let me tell you something. When people say that kind
of stuff, and I find that in other things, I
do you know something is staring you right in the face,
you know the answer, and then they come up with
some absurd reason. You know it's a lie, you know
it's a lie, but what it makes you seem is
(37:02):
not very smart. It's like you haven't even thought about it.
So you come up with something that is so absurd
that you're looking at what's wrong with you? What are
you talking about?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, it's not like he went to it's not like
he went to a school like Safationship for instance, like
air Force, who runs the old school triple option, right,
and they throw the ball two times a game. You know,
Jushhipel is one of the rightest offensive minds in college football.
He is, you know, former quarterback. The quarterbacks that have
(37:37):
played at Tennessee. I've put up big numbers and played well.
And so that's why, on top of what you just said,
to throw it out there like, oh, I don't I'm
unhappy with the offense. That's a conversation you sit down
and have in January with the offensive coordinator and the
head coach and take care of my skill set and
(37:57):
I think we should be doing more of this and
more of that. But to come out afterwards, after you've
decided to transfer or decided to hold out and say, oh,
it's because I wasn't happy with the offense, it's just
what are you taking us for.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Well, let's put it like this. It's stupid. It's just stupid. Yeah,
everybody knows that. But then you think about it. It
was stupid to walk away from eight million dollars, wasn't it.
That was pretty stupid too, because now you realize eight
million dollars isn't out in the backyard where you just
go pick it off the train, bring it in.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, now you know that because I think it was
another two and a half million. He was gonna be
get paid. You know, he had already gotten some of it,
so okay, so he's not going to get that at UCLA.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
No, he's not. He's not gonna get four million at UCLA. No.
And now he's moving to a state with taxes just
really poorly played and just and you could say naive,
you could say that, sure experienced, Yeah you could say
that as well. But you see, this is how when
(39:04):
you have opportunities in life and you're guided improperly, how
it all goes to hell and you end up with nothing. Yeah,
it all ends up. You end up with nothing. And
one more thing is that.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
You you better be lights out the next place you go.
You better be lights out because now you've got you've
got to you've got a mark on your name right now,
because at the next level they're gonna look up and go,
is this guy worth it to take a chance on.
I mean, they were not even close to thinking about
(39:41):
the long play or the future or anything like that,
because I guarantee you NFL execs right now are looking
at him going unless he's a can't miss, I don't
know if we're gonna take a chance on him. So
shame on as advisors. And again, ready, I just want
(40:08):
to say real quick, it's not it's not and we're
not trying to come hard down on the kids.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
The system is broken right now. It is.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
The system is broken. Yes, the kids and the family
advisors made and they made some poor choices, but the
system has to change, and so that's that's kind of
also a big part of this
All right, we continue on Fred Rogan, Rodney Peach, seventy
LA Sports. Dodgers off today. They're heading to Texas to
take on the Rangers, a game you'll hear her on
the radio station tomorrow. But right now, let us bring
on the man in the big chair, our good friend,
Ned Kaletti. Ned, good afternoon to you.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hey, guys. Great to be on with you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
All right, Always great to be on with you, Ned, Ned.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
It's even when things hey, especially when you got to
talk Freddie off the legs. Now he's not on the
legs right now, Ned, because the Dodgers got just what
the doctor ordered and having the Rockies come to town.
But then it got a little dicey last night, and
I could feel him. I could feel the like his
fingers were getting ready to call you, Ned. After the
(00:45):
Grand Slam and then the home run, he was getting
ready to call.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I knew I was. I knew I was going to
be on today, and I shut my phone off. I
was happy to see this morning when I turned it
back on. Nothing there so it should.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
That anything anything so far.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I mean, they're fourteen and six, they're you know, San
Diego obviously is off to a unbelievable start. Same thing
with San Francisco. But the Dodgers are right there fourteen
to six, only a game and a half back. Anything
right now that concerns you, is it whether it be
starting pitching, whether it be the way you know, you
know the defense has been shaky from time to time.
(01:27):
Anything in your mind that that that concerns you this
early in the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Season, Well, I'd like to let it shake out the
beginning of May. We're halfway there, you know, I think
right now they have two halves of the batting order.
I think obviously the top half is as good as
it gets anywhere. Bottom half could be better. You know,
you've got a lot of guys sitting in that one
hundred range. You know, that's that's self to sustain. When
(01:53):
we think back to some of the best teams that
they've had, it's tough to get through that lineup, and
one thing feeds another. The next thing you know, you're
into somebody's bullpen in the fourth or fifth inning, and
you're you're putting pressure on them all the time. When
you have three or four guys hitting in the one
twenties or one sixties, one twenty five's whatever, you know,
that makes it a little bit easier for that pitcher
(02:15):
to get through it. And I think, as we've talked
about it before, you know, the key guys for this
team are the guys that hit eight and ninth. You know,
it's not prominent. You know, it's not one, two, three
or four five, but eight or nine leads you into one,
two and three, right and four, So eight and nine
is really important. I'm not sure how you know. Otani's
(02:38):
got eight RBI's and he's got six home runs, you know,
so that means of the eight rbies, six of them
are helm you know, there's got to be some more
with that. So that's a little bit of a concern.
And the starting pitching is almost almost not quite the
same view for me. You've got great accomplished starters, and
it's great to see May come back and what he's done.
(03:00):
That's a huge, a huge benefit for them, you know,
Yamamodel the same thing. We kind of knew that going
in Dustin was a little bit of a question mark.
Sasaki's finding his way, but once he gets his command
squared away, he'll he'll be better. But then you get
some of the young guys and the young guys have
have struggled. You know, whether it's Landon or Justin or
(03:23):
Bobby Miller, you know they're gonna need those pitchers. I
know you got Clayton just threw three great innings in
the minor leagues on a rehab. No, he's gonna be
back at some point. But you know you've got the
other team, San Diego and San Francisco. I don't know
how much better they can get. I think they have
played probably as good as they're going to play all year.
(03:46):
Can they sustain it for another five and a half
months plus, you know, highly unlikely, but you never know.
The Giants did it a few years ago. Doctors. I
think there's there's more to go yet. I think what
I just mentioned about him of the second half of
the order, some of the young pitching, and as you
guys alluded to, the defense, the defense has been okay.
(04:07):
So you know, you're still sitting right in the middle
of it. You're still you're going the best records in
the game, and we can sit here and talk about
a bunch of things that that could be better. We
expect to be better. If this calls in San Diego
or San Francisco. We're overjoyed with little rep but we're
not We're not really thinking we're gonna get much better.
It's more of a question of how long can we
(04:28):
sustain how great we played?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
All right? Now, Bobby Miller goes out there last night,
didn't look good, had a big lead, and you're thinking,
he can go out there, just work on some stuff,
get comfortable, get back on the mount of Dodger Stadium,
and then he's lipped. Uh. I guess it's way too
soon to say no Moss, But how many more chances
do you get Bobby Miller? Now?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Well, it's like it's like when people get get anxious
about a head coach or a manager. Yeah, it's easy
to say somebody should sit down or go home, but
you better have somebody better that can do it. You know,
his start yesterday was his stuff was good enough to
strike out seven, walk one. His stuff wasn't good enough
(05:13):
that he gave up eight hits and got nine outs.
So you know, it's the stuff is there, as as
as Rodney can tell. You know, the confidence of an
athlete comes and goes, and I think confidence for him
maybe one of the issues. But I think, you know,
he's got the stuff to do it, as Dave Roberts
(05:34):
said post game yesterday. But again, you know, saying you've
got it and doing it are two different things. And
to be to be one of the best, you know,
you got to put it on the field. So but
I don't I think it's too early to panic or
too early to say, hey, who's next, because I'm not
sure who is next. You know, as you start to
(05:54):
get pictures back off the I l Yeah, then then
you have a little bit more flexibility to to what
you're doing, how you do it. You know, he threw
eighty four pitches I think in three innings. You know
that too, without well only walking one one hitter. You know,
that's a lot seven of the nine outs you got
with strikeout. So it's kind of a mixed bag. He's
(06:14):
got good as I said, he's got good enough stuff
to get nine outs and strike out seven of them.
But he's also the stuff is not being hitting the
zones he's supposed to be hidden when he has nine
base runners at nine outs.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, yeah, you know, you're absolutely right in that. And
sometimes you know this, all it takes is one outing
or one good outing or a couple of good outings
and all of a sudden, your confidence is back and
you're you're pitching at a different level and the different
different mindset. You mentioned the bottom of the order, and
there's some guys struggling, but this this lineup is so
(06:52):
good in so many ways, And we talked about it yesterday.
You know, Will Smith has kind of been a forgotten
guy in his lineup and he's as hot as anybody. Yeah,
you know, you got Tommy Edmund and then and we
also talked about Chris Taylor kind of starting to get
it going a little bit, made the great catch, had
an RBI I and Max Munsey. Guys like that that
(07:14):
you know that have done things for you in the
past and big moments that are struggling right now. How
how long do you go with guys like that as
opposed to a young kid that is struggling, that that
hasn't had the history that has had with the team.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, that's a great question, and it's one of the
tougher decision making moments that you have when you when
you're sitting in that spot. Now, you've got accomplished players,
You've got Max Munsey who's done great work, especially in
the month of October and big time moments and you
mentioned CT three, same three, the same thing. You know,
have they struggled offensively? Yeah, See Chris Taylor has been
(07:54):
better this year and limited opportunity, but really struggled the
last couple of years. Max. You know he's going to
walk a lot. You know he's going to strike out
a lot. You know he's going to change the scoreboard
a lot, although he hasn't been able to do it
with a home young yet. This thus far to put
a young player in that spot unless one of these
players is going to go on the IL, you know,
(08:16):
you can't to release a veteran. You have to be
so sure that the young player you're coming up can
play under the brightest lights of LA, can play in
this lineup, can contribute at this stage at this pace.
It's hard to do. And there's a lot of players
at the second time through the second year through are
(08:37):
really good or the league catches up to them and
then scouting reports and the analytics kind of expose them.
So whenever you take out a veteran, this is just
my opinion, whenever you move a veteran out, whether it's
an IL to give him a chance to catch his
breath and maybe heal up, or whether it's you know,
trade release whatever, which I think is extreme. In both cases,
(09:00):
you got to be sure. You've got to be sure,
and the only way you're really sure is to really
give them a long runway to perform and to see
what they do, to see how they play when when
the lights get the hottest. And again we're sitting in
the month of April, we're halfway through the first months.
You know, they barely turn the lights on, let alone
(09:21):
get as hot as they're gonna get. So you know,
it's a tough thing to do, and you've got to
hope that that their confidence stays strong. You got to
give them every opportunity you got to. You know them
very well. Max has been here a long time, Chris
has been here a long time, so you know who
they are. You know, Miggy Rojas another guy hitting in
the one hundreds, you know, not limited to bets either,
(09:45):
thirty one at bats. I think you've got to give
them the opportunity to get it hot and to see
if they can prolong it. And in the meantime, you're
hoping that you're young players. If called upon can do it,
because you know, we don't talk about doing it for
a week or even doing it for a month. You
know you got five and a half months to play,
(10:06):
plus another one after that. So are the young guys
ready to do that? And that's where you've got to
count your player development system, and you've got to count
on their evaluation, not just the player, but the person,
the confidence, the ability to adjust, because it's going to
be massive adjustments, massive adjustment going from Triple A or
(10:28):
Double A, even up to the big leagues in Dodger Stadium.
You've got to be sure, and that's a tough one.
But you also have to be honest with yourself because
you can't wish somebody into doing something and find out
they can't. So play development. One of the things I
used to always tell out a group, you know, don't
send me somebody because they're they're the best of the group.
(10:50):
Send me somebody who is ready to play at Dodger
Stadium in front of fifty thousand people all the time
in games that matter from beginning to end. Don't just
send me the best of the group. The best of
the group needs to be able to play in the
environment we're going to put the put that player in so.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Net I believe the way Andrew Freeman and the Dodgers
look at it, they don't. They don't really make any
decisions until the end of May early June. Okay, we've
seen enough now and we can start trying to formulate what,
if anything we need to do. Now. When you were
in the chair, when would you draw that line and say, okay,
by X date or whatever part of the season. Now
(11:29):
I have to start doing something.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Well, probably again, I would wait till till the beginning
of May to really start to seriously evaluate it. You're
going to evaluate the game every day because you play
it pretty much every day. So you're going to gain
small pieces of information on the fourteenth of April, the
fifteenth of April, the sixteenth of April, small pieces of information.
As you get a month, then you've got a pretty
(11:53):
good body of work. That doesn't mean you make drastic
moves on May Day. You don't do that. You sell
to play out. But I don't think it's necessarily fair
or even accurate to make decisions today on players who
you've known for years. So you're gonna have to give
them time. The young pitching You're gonna have to give
(12:14):
them time, because you know, you guys are right. One
good start, one five inning start with a couple of hits,
no runs, in a walk or two and six or
seven strikeoffs may change the entire personality of the player
and they can start to play to their personality. But
you got to wait for that. And in the meantime,
you watch the rest of your division. You know, the
(12:35):
other two teams, I said, they're playing great, Arizona's playing better.
Are they gonna run away with it? No, they're not
gonna run away with it. They're gonna have the Dodgers
with them the entire year. The Dodgers are still the
only team capable of really running away with it. So
you play the long game. We evaluate it every day,
but we can't make decisions based on what we saw
(12:55):
yesterday or even five days ago. It's a small a
small sample size that you continue to add to before
you get to the point where you really got to
make a call on somebody. Man.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know, the Dodgers went out and made sure that
they got an abundance of pitching this offseason. They didn't
want to have to go through the bullpen scenario like
they did last year, although it worked out. So when
you look up and you go, okay, you know even
those smell is on the il and he's going to
come back soon. You got him, you know, you got Yamamoto,
(13:30):
you got Suzaki, you got Tyler Glass.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Now Dustin May is coming on.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
You're gonna get kersh Off back, and at some point
Gossen's coming back. And then and then you're gonna have
Otani's gonna be a pitcher, assuming all those guys are healthy.
As you stride into July, how do you navigate when
you've got seven to eight guys that could be a
part of your rotation and keep them all fresh? Do
(13:55):
you narrow it down that I got five and then
we're gonna spot start the other three? Or how do
you navigate that when you've got all those guys and
Kershaw's healthy and Otani's ready to pitch, and you've already
got your five starters and five guys in rotation.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, I think you think you're lucky starts. That's what
you got, and then you know they'll end up probably
going to six a six man rotation at some point,
and whether that sixth pitcher is rotates through you will
have innings for everybody at some point might be long relief.
You might have a starter go three or four, and
(14:32):
if somebody else come in and go three or four,
you go from right handed starter or left handed reliever
or the left handed started right handed reliever. You'll get
the guys work. And to me, as you look at
the team and you look at how they do, what
they do and the successes that they've had, it's the
long game. So I don't expect anybody on this saft
(14:53):
they have one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy innings.
I think the other teams in the division, they're gonna
they're gonna run their guys in, so you know, until
they got really nothing left. So well you can say, well,
what are you gonna do? You know, when you got
everybody back, and if everybody's healthy, well you're gonna be
grateful that you do, and you'll find work for them.
(15:13):
And if and if they're pitching five innings and not
six or four innings and not five or three innings
and not four even out of the pen, that helps
you throughout the long one. Can I can tell you
when you get when you get about a week past lay.
Every day everybody is really gassed. Everybody's had it, everybody's
finicky injury wise, everybody's got something going on, and they're
(15:33):
trying to make it to the end. So if if
the calendar is in September twentieth, but your body's telling
you it's August twentieth, well I take that as a
good thing, and I think that that is how they'll
play it. That's one of the reasons they've done what
they've done. Yeah, you think you know Dustin May has
been great. Is he gonna Is he gonna make thirty
starts this year? Is Yamamoto cy young candidate gonna make
(15:56):
thirty starts this year and throw two hundred innings? I
don't think so. Sasaki the same thing. No, everything's going
to be measured, And if they have to go to
a six man rotation, it's not the worst thing because
you got six guys that can pitch. I think it's
one of those great problems, quote problem that teams would
love to have because they'll figure out how to get
(16:16):
everybody work. It's when you when you got three starters
and you're trying to figure out who we're calling up
from triple a you know, to make the fourth day
start or the fifth day start or both, and then
you know, I mean, it just keeps compounding itself. This
is a great situation for their pitchers, and the more
they get healthy, the more competition there is too. These
(16:36):
guys are all good buddies and they all get along
and things like that, but they also want to play.
They also just want to compete. So you know, Dave Roberts,
Mark prior will have great decisions to make because they'll
have outstanding pitching that will have a chance to compete
for a little bit more time, a couple extra innings here.
But I don't expect anybody to get over worked this season.
(16:57):
I don't see if that's not how they do it now.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
That's what we were saying earlier. How could that possibly
happen with as many pictures? You know, the Dodgers, as
you well know ned and you were there, and you
know you innovated and tried things. But they've come they
have kind of reinvented the way this works now with
this number of pictures, and you don't need to go
out and throw a certain number of innings anymore. We
(17:24):
can just keep plugging people in here and saving you
to the end when we really need you. By the way,
there is no guarantee that if we save somebody you
put them in at the end, he doesn't get hurt.
There's no guarantee, no doubt. But what you're doing here
is at least battling the battling the odds and hoping
they'll end up in your favor doing it this way,
(17:46):
would you agree.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yes, well, without without a question. And the other teams
in the division is as good as they then you
know they don't have this. So as you look at
at Burns in Arizona, okay, you know he's brought in
big signing for that franchise. You know he's expected to
be the horse. He's expected to make thirty some starts
(18:08):
and to get probably close to two hundred innings. Okay,
And you look at the other teams, it's the same
thing going on. And you know, in San Diego's case,
you know they they may have spent part of the
spring trying to move some of their starting pitching for
payroll issues. So if they do happen to struggle, are
they going to end up moving some guys, which again
(18:29):
makes it easier for the other teams in the division.
So there's as you know, fourteen and six people going, Gee,
you know, I guess you thought it was going to
be nineteen o one or twenty oho. But you know,
it's still a great start with great potential coming down
the road. That isn't just raw potential. It's been proven
to be excellent. And I think I think that's that's
(18:52):
where you go, and that's you know, they'll they'll be methodical,
they'll never take their eye off the ball, and they'll
be methodical with what they do. They're in no hurry.
There are in no hurry. They don't need to be
in a hurry. Other teams need to be in a hurry.
They don't need to be in a hurry.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
Yeah, man, you said this that you prefer the way
it is now where the division is strong, and and
then Dodgers don't run away with it. They gotta work
for it and they gotta you know, there's there's a
rear view mirror that they can see somebody right behind
them that they got to keep pushing all the way through.
Is better than you know, them being twenty games up
(19:28):
in August and just cruising all the way to the playoffs.
As you look at the division and you mentioned burns
in Arizona, but you look at the division and we
said this earlier that is as good as San Francisco
is playing right now? Are they for real? Are they
going to be there in the end? I don't know,
but I do feel San Diego will be there in
the end. I think Arizona will be there and the end.
(19:48):
Do you agree or do you think? Do you think
it could be a four a four team race in
the West in terms of all four of these teams
that are right there now, you know, competing all summer
long and into September.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, it would be rarety to have four teams out
of five that are battling to the end because you've
got so many games inside the division that are gonna
be worth two games every time you play them. But
you're talking about four good clubs. I spend a lot
of time in spring training visiting teams with the team
Italy thing, working on that, and you know, I mean,
(20:23):
the Giants have got a whole different perspective. They are
so riveted and Buster Posey, who's who's learning on the
job in a lot of ways. In the role he's
in now, but he's instilled a lot of confidence in
that group and a really get after a type of attitude,
a fierceness to it. San Diego, you know, I think
they've lost one game at home, and they've they've played
(20:45):
more at home, probably twice a minut at home. They
play on the road, but you know they've been great
at home. Can they maintain that?
Speaker 1 (20:52):
You know?
Speaker 2 (20:52):
And the Dodgers have been great at home. You know
that's that's kind of typical. So there's a chance. But
they're gonna have to play each other at some point
in time, and I think the more that they can
beat the teams that are down Colorado and obvious, you know, Pittsburgh,
you know, they're they're kind of an obvious although you
(21:12):
know they can do some things for you. Atlanta's off
to a tough start. You're gonna have to beat all
those teams, the teams that you're supposed to beat. You
can't lose many games to those teams. And I think
that all these teams are capable. But I think that
all of them except maybe Arizona, I think the other
two sanything on San Francisco, I think they're playing as
(21:34):
good as they can play. When you're twelve and one
at home, you can't be much better than that, right,
And the Giants, you know, are nine and three on
the road, you can't be much better than that. So
that's about as good as it's going to get now,
you know, can you sustain it for another one hundred
and forty some games? You know, that's the trick and
(21:54):
that that remains to be seen. You know, I would
probably bout that more than I would think it would happened.
Whereas I said, you know, the Dodgers are we can
talk about the defense a little bit, we can talk
about the bottom of the second half of the order
a bit, and we can talk about some of the
young pitching of it. But they have they have more
to go yet, They've got more more coming, and that's
(22:16):
that's the separator. That's probably why they did what they did.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You're right.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
I mean, you look at the other teams, the Giants,
they're they're you watch their games, they're playing out of
their mind. They're making big hits and they're getting every
break and all that kind of stuff. Same thing with
San Diego where you look at the Dodgers, it's like
they're cruising. But you know, they're not even coming close
to the potential that this and an explosion that they
(22:41):
can have exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
And you know they're going to get red hot at
some point in time, you know, and a lot of
the Giants' success and then you know, good for them,
but you know they have they have a lot of
young pitching too that they're going to be counting on
throughout the entire season, and we know how that can be.
You know, it's it's tough to do. It's tough to
do it, you know, for months on end. For a
(23:04):
few starts, yeah, you can do that, but to do
it for months, you know. And you know they got
Justin Berland or Hall of Famer, but you know he's
you know, he's not twenty five years old anymore. So
you know who's making those starts as if he if
he needs some time off. You know, they've got questions.
And as good as they play, think about running if
(23:25):
we were running track and we weren't favored to win
the four forty or something, and after you know, the
first hundred yards, you know, we're leading the pack, but
you know, like we're sweating profusely doing it, and you
look behind you and there's a guy that's a favorite,
that's just kind of jogging and he's a step behind you.
(23:45):
How do you feel? You know what I mean? That's
that's almost the NL West.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
You're looking over your shoulders, what you're doing. You're like,
oh my god, he's coming, he's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
And you know you know, so all right, well.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Net thanks for jogging up today for us. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Okay, Oh, he's a pleasure, guys, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
All right, say stay, it's all fine, Ned at least
for now. You're gonna play your hands. You better play
it right otherwise you crap out. That's right.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Oh yeah, come on. Throw back Thursday. Rodney Pete free
Rogan solid solid, Rodney, very solid. So we talked about
this yesterday.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Nico I Mayavah, the kid from Tennessee to quarterback that
held out because he wanted a bigger nil deal. He
held out, uh and then of course it didn't work
his way, and now he's off trying to find a
place to play. And it could be UCLA. But these numbers,
these numbers, when I actually he read them this morning,
(25:02):
it makes me shake my head. You talk about overplaying
your hand or being naive or not understanding. Before I
give you the numbers, I want to tell you a
quick story. There's a kid that he goes to a
Xavier prep out in Cathedral City, Okay, in the Desert Areas.
High school kid sophomore gets hurt and the father claims
(25:26):
that they have mishandled the injury on the field. The
airlifted him to a hospital. He suffered a concussion. He's okay,
but the father was very upset with the way they
mishandled this. They thought he did a poor job and
he needed to talk about it. I said, okay, you
know I have a little knowledge of sports, so I
looked at the situation. I said, well, come on and
(25:48):
let's do this story. And the guy says okay, okay.
So the day before, because this happens on a Saturday,
I talked to him Sunday he calls me. He goes,
I can't go on. I said, well, well, why can't you
go on? The father he goes, wen't listen. You know,
I'm talking to my advisor. And I went, you have
an advisor and he goes, yes, I'm talking to my advisor.
And he doesn't know if it would be a good
(26:10):
idea for me to talk about this publicly because it
could hurt my son's NIL. I want your son suffered
a concussion, you were upset with the treatment he received,
and you don't want to come on because you think
it's going to affect your son's future NIL deal. He said, yeah,
I do. I said, okay, well I get it first,
(26:31):
that kid's going to get an NIL like I am.
I'll just tell you that.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Oh so he's not a prospect prospect no, but Dad
thought he was.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
Okay. Of course, of course that family don't think that, right,
So Dad thought he was. So now we flash forward
two weeks later and the guy calls back and he says, hey,
I'm ready to talk about it. You know. I said, well,
what about the NIL? And he said, well, you know,
I just think I'm ready to talk about it. And
I said, well, you got to go somewhere else and
talk about it because the moment has passed for me.
(27:02):
The story, it wasn't a great story to start with,
and now it's already passed. You missed your window, you
missed your opportunity. Please go talk to the other station,
be in the newspaper, whatever. But we're not going to
do that because I know when that window exists, and
I know it would have helped you and your son
the most.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
So he tried to talk to having to come on
right after he had the concussion. It was right, you know,
it's fresh in everybody's mind. That yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
In other words, he's upset right now about the treatment
of sun God right two weeks later. That doesn't do
you any good, sir. It's kind of like Jacob im Ronnie.
You get into a car accident and then you know,
two months later you call an attorney. It doesn't work
that way. You got to strike right now, and that
would have helped you and your son's case. Bottom lying
(27:49):
this guy, this guy decided he wasn't going to do
anything because he didn't want to jeopardize his sons. Nil deal.
That kid's not getting in an IL deal, it's not,
I mean, he's not. So now we look at this,
the story we're talking about, and you have a kid
that was making that was making two point four let's
(28:13):
call two and a half million dollars a year, two
and a half million dollars a three year, three year,
eight million dollar a year deal. I think he signed right,
maybe two a half million dollars a year. And this
is out of high school. Yeah, this is this is
this before he even played, right, right, I think he
came in to Tennessee with a three year, eight million
(28:33):
dollar deal. So I'm sorry, go ahead, no, no, no, no,
I think about it. Yeah, think about that now. I
gotta be honest with you. You played in the NFL
in the day. That kind of deal for you when
you started, that would have been a monster deal back
in the day. Unbelievable, right, unbelievable deal. Okay, this kid,
(29:00):
it's coming out of high school and they just gave
him a guaranteed eight million dollars. Now, maybe he doesn't understand,
or maybe most people don't understand, or maybe everyone does
what eight million dollars means? Eight million dollars. You're coming
out of high school guaranteed. Do you know what that
(29:24):
means that much money? Is that going to be create
generational wealth?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
No?
Speaker 1 (29:30):
And is that going to set you up for the
rest of your life? Probably not. Is it going to
put you on a path where you may not have
to work very hard down the road? Yes, yes, if
you manage that money properly, and they turn around after that.
And whoever his advisor was be it his father, be
(29:50):
it his friend, a guy in the corner, I don't know.
And he said, wait a minute, we're now going to
make six million dollars year year. That's what we need,
that's what we need. We gotta make more. This is
not going to work for us. He wanted four. He
(30:12):
needed to be around six. So he's making two point four.
He goes, you know, what the hell with it, I
don't need six. Just give me four. Give me four.
That's a million and a half dollars more. Do you
think that grows on trees? Wait?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
They gave him for or they were that's what he
wanted for He wanted at least he wanted six. And
he goes, I'll take four. I'll take me four year. Yeah, four,
And he was making two and a half. Yeah, right,
as a college kid killers as a college kid on
a Tennessee campus where he doesn't have to do anything
on a college campus anyway. You know, there's that money
(30:51):
going to be spent in Tennessee, in Knoxville, is not
going to be spent anywhere unless he's you know, sending
it back home for them to spend it. But for him,
his expenses are not going to be anything. It's as
Tennessee is a is a tax free state.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
On top of that. Right, so right, but I mean,
what's he think? All? We'll go outside and pick it
off the tree. Where's the president? That done? In the basement?
Will just start printing out more money because it doesn't matter.
It's all funny money. A million and a half dollars. Now,
I understand in professional sports where a guy makes sixty
five million dollars a year, you know what is that?
(31:28):
But to you listening right now, a million and a
half dollars is very real. It is. It is a
difference making amount of money. And they're throwing it around like, well, hell,
let's give me an extra million and a half and
Tennessee look finally decided what the hell is this? No, no,
(31:49):
we're not giving you four million dollars a year to
be the volunteers quarterback. So now the guy finds himself like,
now what am I supposed to do? He could end
up at U c l A. But then the story
became well, you know, he was upset with the offense
Tennessee was running. That's not his call anyway, so who cares?
Speaker 3 (32:12):
That was the family narrative now that it got so
much backlash that he wanted more money, that they said
it wasn't about the money, right, So his dad's an advisor,
and and they gived you know, because people killed him
for saying, oh, just like you, you know, talked about
you're making two and a half and and and that's
(32:34):
not good enough yet and you want another million and
a half after the school has already given you this.
And yet it'd be different if you went out and
you were in the championship game and you got a
loaded team coming back next year and you are the
focal point and you lit it up, and now next
(32:54):
next season, you got a chance to win it all.
Maybe you got to you got a little bit of
a case. But but that wasn't the case for them.
And you're still in You're you're you're still in college.
But at the end of the day, don't don't hold
out from spring practice. Go through it. There might be
(33:16):
some good faith along the way where they may meet
you in the middle. They may say, hey, you know, okay,
we'll give you a few shekels more. But you played
hardball in college. You played hardball in a world where
(33:37):
you know, transfer portal and nil and getting somebody. It's
easy to replace college football players and basketball players nowadays.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Easy. We're gonna finish this up. On the other side
of the break, two o'clock, the Salta Adam Austlin jumps
on the program. We'll talk some NBA.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Yes, it is home of the world champion Dodgers. Rodney
Pete Fred Rogan on Throwback Thursday and yeah, yeah, Freddie,
did you know finish up that we were talking about
with Tennessee and NIM guys holding out and all those
type of things. I think it's a it's a it's
a it's a slippery slope that I think needs needs regulation.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Look, I'm all for guys getting paid.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Look, I am one hundred percent behind college kids getting paid.
When you look up and see I think they were
reported at Tennessee, you know, made over one hundred and
forty million dollars one hundred and thirty million dollars last year,
and the athletic program and and you know, coaches got
big deals and contracts and all that kind of stuff
(34:49):
and the kids are not getting anything. You got to
give these kids something. I just think that it's got
to be there's got to be some sort of and
maybe it is a salary cap.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Maybe he is a pool that they gets, you know,
needs to get spread around. But certainly the transfer portal
part of it is god to be. It's got to
be changed because kids are able to just move around.
And I know people are coming come at me and say, well,
coaches do it all the time. Yeah, but but for
(35:19):
a kid to go to college and compete for a
job and he doesn't win that job and training camp
and he's the backup quarterback, and we know football and
in any sports, there's a chance to get hurt, and
you don't win that job, and all of a sudden
mid season, you're deciding, okay, I didn't I'm not the starter,
so I'm going somewhere else, And you don't. You go
(35:41):
somewhere else. You're not the starter there. You want to
go somewhere else. And then you don't get that starting
job and you're trying to go somewhere else. It just
it turns into just a free for all. And right now,
and I've said this time and again, the town without
a SUREFF, I'm all for a movement of guys and
kids that don't situation may not be right for them,
everybody's over the years, it's transferred. But to have it
(36:06):
willie Knilly with no absolutely no regulation to it, I
think is a problem. And you're going to get kids
and things like this happen more and more if if
you allow this to go as a status quo, I
would agree. I think there does need to be regulation.
But also I do think it speaks to and the excuse, well,
(36:30):
trying to cover yourself, well, trying to alter what really happened. Well,
he's not happy with the offense. And then there were
some conversations, well it needs a better offensive line.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Let me.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
Let me tell you something. When people say that kind
of stuff, and I find that in other things, I
do you know something is staring you right in the face,
you know the answer, and then they come up with
some absurd reason. You know it's a lie, you know
it's a lie, but what it makes you seem is
(37:02):
not very smart. It's like you haven't even thought about it.
So you come up with something that is so absurd
that you're looking at what's wrong with you? What are
you talking about?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Yeah, it's not like he went to it's not like
he went to a school like Safationship for instance, like
air Force, who runs the old school triple option, right,
and they throw the ball two times a game. You know,
Jushhipel is one of the rightest offensive minds in college football.
He is, you know, former quarterback. The quarterbacks that have
(37:37):
played at Tennessee. I've put up big numbers and played well.
And so that's why, on top of what you just said,
to throw it out there like, oh, I don't I'm
unhappy with the offense. That's a conversation you sit down
and have in January with the offensive coordinator and the
head coach and take care of my skill set and
(37:57):
I think we should be doing more of this and
more of that. But to come out afterwards, after you've
decided to transfer or decided to hold out and say, oh,
it's because I wasn't happy with the offense, it's just
what are you taking us for.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Well, let's put it like this. It's stupid. It's just stupid. Yeah,
everybody knows that. But then you think about it. It
was stupid to walk away from eight million dollars, wasn't it.
That was pretty stupid too, because now you realize eight
million dollars isn't out in the backyard where you just
go pick it off the train, bring it in.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yeah, now you know that because I think it was
another two and a half million. He was gonna be
get paid. You know, he had already gotten some of it,
so okay, so he's not going to get that at UCLA.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
No, he's not. He's not gonna get four million at UCLA. No.
And now he's moving to a state with taxes just
really poorly played and just and you could say naive,
you could say that, sure experienced, Yeah you could say
that as well. But you see, this is how when
(39:04):
you have opportunities in life and you're guided improperly, how
it all goes to hell and you end up with nothing. Yeah,
it all ends up. You end up with nothing. And
one more thing is that.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
You you better be lights out the next place you go.
You better be lights out because now you've got you've
got to you've got a mark on your name right now,
because at the next level they're gonna look up and go,
is this guy worth it to take a chance on.
I mean, they were not even close to thinking about
(39:41):
the long play or the future or anything like that,
because I guarantee you NFL execs right now are looking
at him going unless he's a can't miss, I don't
know if we're gonna take a chance on him. So
shame on as advisors. And again, ready, I just want
(40:08):
to say real quick, it's not it's not and we're
not trying to come hard down on the kids.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
The system is broken right now. It is.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
The system is broken. Yes, the kids and the family
advisors made and they made some poor choices, but the
system has to change, and so that's that's kind of
also a big part of this
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