August 12, 2026 • 38 mins
We got cut off with HUGH MILLEN last week, so we revisit the conversation where it left off and get more of his thoughts on a salary cap. :30- We’re down with OPQ! - Murray gets named the starter over McCarthy in Minnesota and more QB news from around the league! :45- We close out the show with one last thing!
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, we're gonna hop to it. It's like my
mom used to say, hop to it, and did you
ever hop? Yeah? I did as a kid, And then
I realized she was just being colorful with the language.
I never hopped Yeah. Nine o'clock hour, Chuck and Ashley
with you. Last week, as I mentioned, Hugh Millan and
I got into a very interesting conversation about the salary cap.
(00:23):
Major League Baseball is going to try to enforce one
on the Players Association and their new collective Bargaining Agreement
in twenty twenty seven. It could cost us a large portion,
if not the entire season, because the Players Association says
it is not going to Budge well Lo and behold
hanging out with you here. Recently I find out that
he was there drafting the first ever collective bargaining agreement
(00:46):
that included a salary cap and was a major voice
inside that room as one of the player reps, and
then of course was a player rep for most of
his career in the National Football League. And so just
when we were getting to the part of about the
advice that he would give the Major League Baseball Players Association,
we started talking about Scott Boris's role in this last
(01:07):
week and then for whatever reason, technology interfered and pop
he went off the air. He left everybody hanging. We
didn't want to wait too much longer to bring him
back and finish our conversation. So rejoining us now is
our QB one. Hugh Millin is with us here on
the radio program. Hi. You great to be with you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, it's hard to condense in a segment, you know,
years of negotiation and what have you, and there's a
lot of things here, but we'll see if we can
make it clear.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
All right, Well, let's dive in where we left off.
You were basically you told our audience Scott Boris is
a donkey? Was the word that you use for his
reaction to not having a salary cap in MLB and
that the NFL is wrong to have one.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So go go ahead and pick it up where you
left off. Yeah, strong words, right, I better have a
lot to defend that. Well. First of all, I think
there is a distinction in saying, uh, you know, not
not calling him a donkey, but he sounded like a donkey.
I think at some points we all sound like an
ass in our life, right, you know, and and that
doesn't mean we are necessarily an ass or a donkey.
(02:13):
I have a tremendous respect for what he does as
an agent, because his job is to get his players
a lot of money, and he does it, does it
as well or better than anybody. But as as a
mouthpiece for uh, the state of baseball when he comes
on with Softy and Dick Fane and he spews these
these truths, mistruths, omissions, lies, uh, red herrings, and I'm
(02:41):
just exasperated, and so so you know, you you start
with he comes on and he said, you know, Dick
Fane asked him a very reasonable question, well why does it?
Why does the system work for the NFL? And and
Boris immediately says it doesn't. And then he says, uh.
And he proceeds to say what percentage of NFL teams
(03:02):
finished in the top eight in the playoffs? This is
his defense, right, He says, well, in the NFL, it's
fifty six percent, it's baseball, and seventy three percent. Now,
he's right on the seventy three percent for baseball, he's
wrong on the on the football, it's not fifty six
percent is six two and a half percent. But Scott Bors,
I'll give you, I'll give you that baseball on that match.
(03:24):
It sounds like he's walking a plank and trying to
fit a needl, like why top eighth? Why not all playoffs?
Why not top four or the two or World Series champions?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He chose a very specific statistic and then he makes
that the broad leap that that that is going to
define competition. He's going to say that baseball is more
competitive than football. You know, had he said the final
four in the last ten years, fifteen years, twenty years.
By his metric of defining competition, football is more so
(03:59):
he shows that. But you know what, I'm going to
give him that. But here's what I'm gonna do to
show that the imbalance of football versus baseball. If we
say that the teams that come from the bottom half
of the revenue, and this is total revenue for NFL,
total revenue for baseball, this is just apples to apples
(04:22):
his own window. He said, the last five years, teams
that make the final eight, that would be the divisional
round in baseball, right, and football, well, coming from the
top ten, Baseball has twelve out of forty thirty percent.
Football you'd expect if it was dead even it'd be
(04:43):
twenty out of forty, but of football's nineteen out of
forty forty eight percent. You can go through every one
of these charts. Here these statistics. When you say the
bottom half, whether you want to say made the playoffs,
Final eight, Final four, Final two, the champion, whether it's
the last five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years,
(05:05):
that football wins in every single one by an average
of thirty six percent more than baseball. And here's glaring
to close it. In the last fifteen years, football has
had eleven of its fifteen Super Bowl champions have come
from the bottom half of payroll. Baseball has had one,
(05:28):
and baseball has had none out of the bottom third.
So there's a lot of ways to define what is
competition and what is competitive. He chose a very narrow statistic,
and it completely ignores all the imbalances I'm suggesting.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right, of course, from my point of view, like I
can live in a world where somebody's saying baseball's more
competitive than you think it is. But my biggest problem
is the fans don't feel that way. From a business perspective,
if you are running a business and most of your
(06:10):
fans won't watch National Baseball games because they think the
league's unfair. A salary cap just kind of changes the
perspective that your customers have on whether or not your
product's fair. And that, to me is important. That, to me,
is everything about this collective bargaining agreement coming up.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, certainly when a third of the fans feel like
their owners are punting, when the Dodgers pay more in
payroll than sixteen teams, more than half of the league,
they pay more in in luxury tax on the payroll
than over half of the league, and then what does
it result in? We're the immense imbalance. How is that
(06:55):
you go back to how is that impacted revenue? So
in nineteen ninety two, and maybe you'll ask me about
the concerns we had in the room, But let's just
go through the statistics in nineteen ninety two. Now that's
the year before NFL free agency. Reggie White was signed
in early ninety three, So we can go back and
we can look at the revenues of all of all
(07:16):
three sports. Baseball had the lead in revenue at one
point five eight three billion. Then came the NFL at
one point four to nine to two billion, and then
basketball was nine or ninety nine million. So now if
you look at where they are, Baseball has jumped to
twelve point five to three billion. They've gone seven point
(07:39):
nine x sounds impressive. Football has gone to twenty four
point one billion, sixteen point one x. So baseball is
under eight and football is over sixteen. Football has literally
lapped baseball. And so both from us a rev new
(08:00):
standpoint and from a growth you're basically double. So you know,
from a standpoint of the growth of the league, Uh,
it's it's not comparable and basketball. And as I said, basketball,
if if if you take the NFL, the percentage of
the growth, basketball has eighty nine percent of football, Baseball
(08:22):
is forty nine percent. So his system that you know,
this for this romantic language of oh the free market operating, uh,
you know, resembling a genuine free market. You know, the
way they h the way they have their structure from
the the luxury tax and with the imbalance in the revenue.
(08:46):
You know what they're doing is they're defending He's defending
an open, uncapped auction that really has produced an aristocracy
of about six teams that are clustered on the east coat,
each of the coasts, and so you know that's the
system that he defends.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Millan is with us our QB one talking about the
salary cap, finishing our conversation from last week. A lot
of people have asked us, we just can't leave everybody hanging,
and I felt the exact same way. So we've picked
it back up here today. So what were the concerns
that you had as you, you know, like a founding
forefather of salary caps, you being John Adams, maybe what
(09:25):
were some of the concerns that you and your peers
had before you did agree to that a free agency
and the salary cap would be the future of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, and just to paint the picture, you got the
twenty eight teams at the time, and you got the
player reps in the room. Dick Bertleson was the in
house counsel for the players Association. They would hire Jeffrey Kessler.
He would come in from time to time, but Burtison
would just sit on the side and he would just say, Hey,
if you guys do this, it's this. If you do this,
(09:56):
it's this.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
He would say you second person, not we And and
you know, so the players had to discuss all this.
You know, we had concerns about what the owners said, Hey,
if we get free agency, we're all the player best
players gonna go to the Cowboys and the Raiders. There
was concern about quarterback movement that you know, you know,
and and of course Drew Brees, Jake Diloma's Super Bowl quarterback,
(10:19):
Kirk Cousins. There's been plenty of quarterback movie parody. Would
we thought, you know, if we get parody, is everybody
canna be bored with nine and seven and eight and eight.
At the time, the Cowboys and the forty nine ers
had the best rivalry in football that was driving all
the TV ratings. But you know, you think, well, are
we going to destroy that? That the idea that of
(10:40):
those real those those dominant teams. The Francise tag, Uh,
would it limit the top end of the players? Well, Chuck,
if you look at and I've got the table right
in front of me, if you look at the top
ten players in football right now, the uh, the the
(11:00):
Ulize guaranteed value of the top ten football players is
forty two and a half million. For baseball, it's thirty
eight point nine million, So the NFL has a nine
point one percent advantage. If you go the top twenty players,
NFL has thirty six and a half million, and a
Major League Baseball as thirty four point six million. So
the concerns that we had at the time, and here's
(11:23):
the thing. Back in nineteen ninety two, Scott Boris could
come on and say, hey, in theory, this is nonsense
and this is never gonna work. But we've got thirty
three years of history of showing. And I'm not saying
that the growth that I'm describing is because there's a
(11:43):
salary cap, because you can't make that inference logically, but
you can as sayst unequivocally that the salary cap did
not hinder the league. And because what we're really talking about,
what the players should be focused on is the revenue
pie and the percentage of the revenue. But in nineteen
(12:07):
ninety two, baseball players had fifty two percent, football players
had forty three point eight percent. Remember those numbers. I
know I'm throwing a lot of numbers in this. So
the football players had a much smaller portion of a
smaller pie. So now because of the revenue certainties and
(12:29):
the interest in the game. Now the football had that,
you know, doubled baseball in terms of the revenue. But
now the football players, like Scott bors comes on to
KGr and he says he uses the word cap thirteen
times with Softy and Dick. He he used the word
(12:49):
floor zero. You're you're not giving away the cap that
I mean, that'd be a surrender. You are you are saying, hey,
we'll give you a cap. What are you gonna give us?
Or we're gonna demand this, X, y and z. So,
so the players in football have a forty eight point
eight percent of a twice a big a pie and
(13:12):
baseball has forty six point six percent. And here's the
irony of this. In early twenty sixteen, Scott Boris told
Baseball Perspective that in the prior year that baseball players
were getting forty three percent, So they went from fifty
and he acknowledged that they had gone from fifty five
percent a decade before. Now they're at forty three percent
(13:36):
out of his own mouth. And so, so what does
that tell you? There is nothing locking the owners into
paying anything. They can be at fifty five percent, they
can be at forty six point six percent as they
are now, they can be down to forty three percent
and twenty fifteen, there's nothing. So in theory, you're you're
gonna have, you're gonna compel these owners to because you know,
(14:01):
Boris comes on. He calls the Podreys owner a genius
because of how he spent and he barks about and
he literally tells Softie and Dicky says, he goes the
podraise went from six hundred million to four billion. Well,
it's an agree to pry a sale price a three
point nine billion, which is obviously four billion. I'm good
(14:22):
with that. But so we have a clear starting point
from the August of twenty twelve to now. So that
is six point five times the value. And he's gonna
bark about the the increase. Well, what's funny about that
is if you take the compound annual growth rate of
the the NFL franchise values, the average NFL franchise is
(14:46):
conservatively projected to be at eight point two eight billion
and twenty twenty six versus one point one billion and
twenty twenty twelve. So that's a seven point five to
three times value. So Scott, so let me summarize Scott
Boris comes on. He's got thirty teams to pick from
to try and be convincing about the economic prosperity of baseball.
(15:10):
He chooses the Podrays and he gives you impressive sounding numbers.
Guess what it was. His number one choice was below
the average of the NFL in growth. So every time
he opens his mouth, you can hand him his hat.
Because think of like when you watch the Kentucky Derby
(15:32):
a horse race, you know, and it's kind of muddy,
you know, and the jockeys they get the mud on
their on their goggles and what have you. You know, baseball
might as well just take their goggles off because football
is so far in the distance a susspec. They can't
even see the football out in front, so they're not
getting done mud on their glasses. That was thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, yeah, would you debate Scott Boris on the air
if given the.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Opportunity, Yeah, I would welcome that. Now, if you're sensible,
you would be saying Millan, Scott Boris has made mincemeat.
He's chopped up every GM in all of baseball and
contract negotiations. How do you think you have the chops
(16:18):
to argue with him. Well, my response to that would
be this, if we had to debate what is the
best dinner and I got to choose a ribi at
the met and he had to choose a Boloney sandwich,
I'm going to win that debate. If we had to
(16:39):
debate who made the most musical impact and I get
the Beatles and he gets the Bengals, I'm going to
win the debate. So look, I would know what landminds
not to step on. But certainly he's got an answer
to these very cenral questions that players would have. What
(17:00):
percentage of the pie do we have? Okay, well you've
you've shrunk that. What percentage of how big is the
pie growing? Well, Football's doubled you. And so he's arguing
for something in theory, you know, and we haven't talked
about a couple things. How about this, This is baseball's
own own analysis. You know, baseball players don't get free
(17:22):
agency till they're they're in their sixth year, right, So
the percent the share of the war the pre arbitration players,
the share of the war that's wins above replacement. The
pre arbitration players are forty point seven percent of the war,
they're nine point four percent of the salary. Meanwhile, the
(17:45):
free agents, they are twenty eight point eight percent of
the war, but they're sixty one point four percent of salary.
So the people who are getting paid aren't aren't. The
players that are are are playing playing the best.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Baby, So players getting rewarded for how good they were
with their previous team and aren't good anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, So so I would look to I would even
tell that Bryce Harper. Look, I already gave you the
figure we have. We have thirty three years of data
that the cap with a floor that mandates their spending. Remember,
now they the baseball has to mean football has to
spend ninety percent over a three year period, and if
(18:28):
they don't, they're gonna have to write a check to
all the players in the in the offseason. That's never
happened because the football owners have always paid it. So
so if you take if I were to talk to
Bryce Harper, I'd say, wait a minute, Even you superstars,
you're the football players have a higher percentage that both
(18:50):
in terms of gross money and in terms of the
percentage of the average. So superstars in getting aren't getting
suppressed in football, and So if you do this model,
look at the growth rate and look at the franchise
valuations and the popularity TV ratings. You want to go
through TV ratings.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Since ninety nineteen as a baseball fan, I don't.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, well, you know, look you go through the early
nine the early nineties before free agency, and then the
last five season that average them, and then you say, okay,
the percent change. Football is up five percent because you know,
you got one hundred and thirty million people all as well.
Baseball is down sixty seven percent in just raw numbers.
(19:37):
In the early nineties, they had thirty point two million
for the World Series. Now they're at a twelve point nine.
And the same goes for the Championship I mean the
Championships Championship Series. Football is ten times more in the
champion Championship Series, specifically ten point zero nine. And you say, well,
what about Game sevens. There's been five game sevens this decade.
(20:00):
Football still has a six point three x times viewership
against game sevens in the Championship Series. So the popularyer,
oh h, the attendants they set record here. Boris comes
on KGr. He says, well, we're sending setting record attendance. No,
you're not. Two thousand and seven was the record. You're
(20:20):
down three thousand fans per game from two thousand and seven.
So at any event, Uh, he really came on and
sounded like a donkey.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Het a donkey.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But I don't know if Ashley can get that.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Uh uh No, you can say jackass, you just can't
say a hole.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Okay, well all of the above.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, you can actually say a hole, just not the
full Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah say that. Yeah yeah, so all of the
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
So look, and I'll make sure next time to have
a donkey sound. No, yeah, every time you talk about him.
But look, there's so much more. I mean, I got
spreadsheets going on. But what your reaction to that? I mean, well,
I think is the biggest pushback. Well, my reaction in
general is this. This is I can sum it up
in all of this, when is the last time that
a Seahawks fan felt they didn't have a chance against
(21:12):
the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams? And
the answer is probably for some people never where. If
I asked, what are your chances as a Mariner fan
against the Los Angeles Dodgers, ninety nine out of one
hundred people would say that we don't have a chance
against them here in this town, and that's not true,
(21:32):
by the way. Those numbers that you do have a
chance against the Dodgers, but the perception is that you don't.
And until they change it with a salary cap and
a lot of other little adjustments, then you're then baseball's
not going to be able to catch up on a
national perspective. Baseball does fine locally, you know, they fill
stadiums and their local ratings are good, very good. But
(21:58):
nationally you've lost because nobody in Seattle wants to watch
the Cubs play the Cardinals on Sunday night, no matter
how good they are, because they've got money and you don't.
That's just that's just the perception that a that a
sports fan has right now of the NFL versus Major
League Baseball.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Well, you know, I'll tell you what, because I'm looking
at this show. You tell me the last five years,
ten years, or fifteen years. Picket you tell you you
picket ten, We'll go the mist Okay, we'll go. We'll
go ten. Okay made playoffs. NFL have had seventy This
is out of the bottom half of the payroll. And
(22:39):
by the way spow track, the Mariners are in the
bottom half in every year of this decade. Okay, so
this ought to get your attention as a Mariner fan.
So you're these are all coming from the bottom half
of the payroll. The NFL has has seventy out of
one hundred and thirty fifty three percent to thirty six percent.
(23:01):
For Major League Baseball, making the Final eight football is
fifty percent from the bottom half baseball, thirty percent, the
Final four football. This is the championship games football fifty
five percent coming from the bottom half baseball twenty three percent.
How about making the Super Bowl or making the World
(23:23):
Series football sixty percent from the bottom half Baseball twenty
percent and World Series Champion or Super Bowl champions football
eighty percent in the last ten years from the bottom
half baseball ten percent. So those are partially picked by you.
(23:45):
In terms of duration, I could have done five years,
I could have done fifteen years, twenty football in every
single category by a as I said, an average of
thirty six percent. So here the donkey comes on, called
him a donkey, sounding like a donkey, and he's bragging
about an erroneous figures of seventy three percent versus fifty
(24:08):
six percent. Guess what, even though it's wrong, I'll give
it to you seventeen percent. Well what about this chart
where football is thirty six percent average on all of
these cells in a spreadsheet pertaining to the bottom half
of the league. So that therein lies when you say
there's a perception, there's a perception because there's a reality
(24:32):
it when framed when the when the argument is framed
like that, what do teams? How do teams do from
the bottom half of the payroll compared to football? There
is no comparison.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
All right, man, Well, thank you very much. Great stuff
here the last couple of weeks. So I'm glad we
got to the bottom of Donkey and his adventures with shrap,
rock and roll. All right, thanks man, all right, by
now you villain r QB will with us right here
on the radio program coming up on the other side. Oh,
I know what you're down with. See it on your
(25:04):
face OPQ Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. It's
gonna implicate me in some way, and then I won't
ever be able to be honest with your real quarterback
ever again.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Oh we.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Show the proof.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, I know, I know, it seems like you're bragging
about something that maybe you shouldn't be proud of, but
I do know when I take advantage of it. Every
so often you are down with OPQ other people's quarterbacks.
Oo yeah yeah. But before we get to a little
bit of OPQ, I do want to let you know
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(26:04):
I got like six different items in OPQ that we
could go over here.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
But.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
We might not have time. We might only have time
for one, frankly, because that's a pretty big one. Yesterday,
the Minnesota Vikings didn announce that Kyler Murray will be
their starting quarterback, not JJ McCarthy, for this upcoming season.
And I mentioned this earlier, but we get a chance
to expand on it now, I'm I don't think the
(26:31):
story here is the Vikings have chosen Kyler Murray to
be their starting quarterback. The story to me is how
early they made that decision. I mean, that's how far
JJ McCarthy has fallen in a short period of time,
a guy that they overdrafted and then over promoted and
(26:51):
maybe overhyped themselves.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They got rid of Sam Donald because they thought he
was going to be so great.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I rid of Sam Donald and now and a
span of two years. Man, have they soured on JJ McCarthy.
If you brought in Kyler Murray as a free agent
and announced before you even played a single preseason game, yep,
he's clearly better than that guy we spent a top
ten first round draft pick on a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Wow. Yeah, it's wow. So surprising.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That's an abrupt fall.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Yeah, Sori, I mean not surprising that he didn't make
it really, because if you actually paid attention to his
college games, he was just kind of facilitating hand Yeah,
he was facilitating the ball moving around.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
He wasn't really moving the ball around, if that makes sense.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
He was there to accommodate other people moving the ball around.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I mean he won a lot of football games without
throwing a pass.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yes, that's a very distinct, distinct way to put it.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And and yet they were like, no, this is going
to be the guy.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
And we're going to get rid of Sam Darnold because
of a playoff game despite the success he had in
the season. Thanks for that, by the way, Vikings, we
really appreciate it. And and then then they try to
hype him up again. Oh, it was injury and he's
gonna be back. And then it's like, well, you have
such little faith, you're gonna go with Kyler Williams. Kyler Murray,
who literally hasn't really done anything. I mean, he's good,
(28:19):
he's fine. He does more than facilitate moving the ball around.
So you've got that going for you.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Well, like I said, I don't think the surprise is
that Kyler Murray's gonna start for the Minnesota Vikings. But
how far JJ McCarthy has fallen that they didn't even
give him a preseason game before announcing you're not as
good as little Sweet, and so we're gonna go with
him instead of you former top ten draft pick. I
mean that is and it it happened fast. It really
(28:46):
really happened fast for JJ McCarthy's decline there in the
eyes of Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. So that's your situation
that you're dealing with. And so we'll see. I mean,
still time for JJ McCarthy to redeem himself. Probably won't
be in a Viking uniform, I would think. But yeah,
(29:09):
turns out that maybe it takes a little bit more
than just being on a really great team in college.
That's weird, all right. I think that's pretty much. I
got a couple of other things. I think they're going
to take too much time. I'll ask you this just quickly. Yeah,
let's other one, OPQ, because this is real true gossip
here justin Herbert. You got a problem with Madison Beer
being practice and then playing you know, PDA on the
(29:33):
practice field.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I think it's a little weird because it's you're at work.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Like I wouldn't invite five Iron here to play with
my hair while we sat out.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
In the sports pitch.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
That would be distracted, right would It would be weird
if like in breaks he just came in and was
like giving me shoulder massages and like cleaning up the
lint off my shirt.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
That would be strange.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You are at work, even though it's training camp, and
I know it's like more fun and lighthearted.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
They do have family days.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Yeah, so on the family day, like let them practice,
then they get to all hang out.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You shouldn't. I don't know. It seems weird to me.
I don't cat you do a problem with it. It's
just weird.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Don't you do the classy thing and sneaker in after
everybody's gone.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yeah, you guys can make out in the weight room.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, and you can make out on the trainer's table.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Who wouldn't love that?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That's a class move.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
That is how real normal people do it.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I think it's ridiculous. I mean, you're you're a professional
football player. It sort of insinuates you need to act
like an adult. Yeah, and look, I've had moments as
an adult drink or two animulhere, but I've probably showed
some PDA and I look back on it now and
I think it is completely wrong. But you do get
swept up in the moment. You should not get swept
(30:42):
up in the moment at football practice. That's there should
never be a moment.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
And especially because I don't know if you guys are
aware of this, but the Chargers haven't won a playoff game,
and Justin Herbert has been a reason for that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, all right, coming up next, it's one last thing
to close out our show on Sports Radio ninety three
point three kJ r f M. All right, final segment
(31:19):
of the show today. And again, by the way, Talalo
Prisar casino not just for concerts, it's pretty much for
just the overall fun and enjoyment of life. I ate
a Journeys East when I was out there, Little Asian
cuisine action and it was delicious. But I can't wait
to try everything. I want to try everything on the
floor and I have not pulled that off just yet.
(31:40):
But there's time.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
You've got time.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I've got time to get this done. Yeah, they should
give me a punch card, you know that'd be nice. Yeah,
fill that up here in the next I don't know,
day or two.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Let's try them all.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So Talala press or casino when all you want is everything?
All right, we've got time for one last thing. And
then Greg who cannot wait to come talk to you today.
I mean he burst through the doors here moments ago.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
He is excited he is ready to go. He was like,
oh my early whoop. See yeah, yeah, I'll back out.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, so he's ready to fly here into ten o'clock.
What he got, Ashley, Well, we.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I didn't have a chance to mention this earlier, but
I did find it kind of more sad or I
don't know what it is, but we've talked about a
lot of teams, major League Baseball, teams that we have
faced this year where it's the starter that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
You got to make it through the starter.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Once you make it through the starter, you get to
the bullpen and then you can get some runs and
get a win. And I think we've become that team.
And I don't think it's because our bullpen's bad. I
think it's because we don't know how to use them.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's a problem. Also, lately, they haven't help not been efficient.
They've only been getting through like five I think that's
been like three games in a row. They've only gotten
through five.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, it hasn't been good.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
No, I've pitched well, they're just not being is efficient.
And when you're already apparently down another man last night,
it does make it more difficult. But yeah, you just
got to make adjustments. I mean, we got to play
with a little desperation, and we got to manage with
a little desperation. Right now we do we can't count. Well,
let's get host out tonight so we can use them tomorrow.
(33:19):
We might lose eleven to one to night.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Yeah, and we've talked about this for a long time.
You cannot play the game tonight based.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
On what might happen tomorrow. You never know what's going
to happen a mink.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
You you do have to some degree have to play
that game because it's a long season.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
But that's more for the future versus like, oh, if
we've got four games in a row, well, yeah, a
day off and things like that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
But there is an element of managing for tomorrow and
managing for a month down the road. There is an
element of that, but we are way way past managing
that way.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
Would you say, though, if you're managing for tomorrow, it
would be more in a sense of we're managing to
make sure we have enough people, not versus well, if
we're in this situation tomorrow, which would be ideal, we
want to save that.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, I mean you also have like players in their
futures also that you keep in mind and you don't
want to like burn out a guy like I understand
why they cap them, like you've got done with an
inning at five or six innings at ninety plus pitches,
and we're gonna take you. But there does come a
moment in the season where you're like, we're going to
push you a little bit tonight. Yes, especially during the
(34:28):
Piggyback era. We weren't even pushing them. During the Piggyback era,
we weren't. We were still letting them stick to their
same Well, you're at eighty eight pitches and you're through five,
I have no choice but to take you out. What
are you talking about. You've just shrunk the bullpen and
you're going to have one of the five outings where
you're not going to use the bullpen at all. In theory,
(34:48):
you've got to push the start. But they haven't done it,
they haven't changed it. And that some of that is
on the front office certainly. Yeah, because I think that
they share in the philosophy. R actually they run the philosophy.
But like last night, just inexcusable, So I don't know
where it's coming from. I mean, cal said In his comments,
(35:10):
he writes.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
The lineup, Yeah, there was a tweet from a Yankees fan.
It was like, see what score four runs and with
this pitching staff, you're going to be great. I was like,
I remember what it used to think that.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Four runs, that's really all you need with our pitching
staff too, four runs. I would like to see a
world where we scored four runs great the most nights.
All right, I'm going to close. I'll close a baseball
as well. Hughes conversation. I just want to clarify for
my perspective on it is yes, you can win. You
can be competitive even with the lowest payroll in the sport.
(35:42):
Right now, the Cleveland Guardians have the lowest payroll in
the sport, and they're annually competitive and challenging for Division.
I think the well they move the division last year
because the Tigers rallied, but they make the playoffs quite
a bit even with the worst payroll. Tampa Bay Rays
never have a decent payroll and they're a consistent winner.
(36:04):
The Milwaukee Brewers have been as good as any team
in the regular season the last five years. I would
bet I don't have it in front of me. They
have the most wins in the sport the last five years,
and they've got a bottom ten payroll. The point is,
you can be competitive even with a low payroll if
you're smart and you know what you're doing. Right now,
(36:25):
the two best records in Major League Baseball are the
Brewers and the Rays. It's not the Dodgers and the Yankees,
the Brewers and the Rays.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
And we have a higher payroll than both of.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Them, considerably higher those pack Those are two bottom ten.
But there's also this element of that's why I think
it's big. It's it's yes, you have a competition problem. Certainly,
those big market teams have huge advantages over everyone else,
and they're going to get to the playoffs more frequently.
I have a better chance than the postseason quite frankly,
(36:54):
but you do have you do have a chance. Well
from a from a business point of view, When your
customers don't think you have a chance, and nine out
of ten of them don't, how are you able to
create a functioning product and business, a highly functioning product
(37:17):
and business that way, when your customers don't trust the product. Yeah,
that's what has to get fixed. That's why I am
at absolutely all in Chips in the middle on a
salary cap and I hope Rob Manford gets his way
on this, even if it does cost us some of
the twenty twenty seventh season. All Right, we'll talk to
you tomorrow at six am. Greg Bell is next Sports
(37:39):
Radio ninety three point three KJRFM.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
on demand. Their podcast will be up right after the show.
Just click on demand on our website at ninety three
three KJR dot com and click on checking Bug podcast
to replay anytime anywhere. From Sports Radio ninety three point
three KJRL.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
This report is sponsored by Metris firm Cruse
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Have clear to stall out of your way and rented
on northbound four or five near Sunset, but it's still
heavy traffic from one to sixty seven because of it,
there is over a three mile back
All right, we're gonna hop to it. It's like my
mom used to say, hop to it, and did you
ever hop? Yeah? I did as a kid, And then
I realized she was just being colorful with the language.
I never hopped Yeah. Nine o'clock hour, Chuck and Ashley
with you. Last week, as I mentioned, Hugh Millan and
I got into a very interesting conversation about the salary cap.
(00:23):
Major League Baseball is going to try to enforce one
on the Players Association and their new collective Bargaining Agreement
in twenty twenty seven. It could cost us a large portion,
if not the entire season, because the Players Association says
it is not going to Budge well Lo and behold
hanging out with you here. Recently I find out that
he was there drafting the first ever collective bargaining agreement
(00:46):
that included a salary cap and was a major voice
inside that room as one of the player reps, and
then of course was a player rep for most of
his career in the National Football League. And so just
when we were getting to the part of about the
advice that he would give the Major League Baseball Players Association,
we started talking about Scott Boris's role in this last
(01:07):
week and then for whatever reason, technology interfered and pop
he went off the air. He left everybody hanging. We
didn't want to wait too much longer to bring him
back and finish our conversation. So rejoining us now is
our QB one. Hugh Millin is with us here on
the radio program. Hi. You great to be with you, Chuck.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yeah, it's hard to condense in a segment, you know,
years of negotiation and what have you, and there's a
lot of things here, but we'll see if we can
make it clear.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
All right, Well, let's dive in where we left off.
You were basically you told our audience Scott Boris is
a donkey? Was the word that you use for his
reaction to not having a salary cap in MLB and
that the NFL is wrong to have one.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
So go go ahead and pick it up where you
left off. Yeah, strong words, right, I better have a
lot to defend that. Well. First of all, I think
there is a distinction in saying, uh, you know, not
not calling him a donkey, but he sounded like a donkey.
I think at some points we all sound like an
ass in our life, right, you know, and and that
doesn't mean we are necessarily an ass or a donkey.
(02:13):
I have a tremendous respect for what he does as
an agent, because his job is to get his players
a lot of money, and he does it, does it
as well or better than anybody. But as as a
mouthpiece for uh, the state of baseball when he comes
on with Softy and Dick Fane and he spews these
these truths, mistruths, omissions, lies, uh, red herrings, and I'm
(02:41):
just exasperated, and so so you know, you you start
with he comes on and he said, you know, Dick
Fane asked him a very reasonable question, well why does it?
Why does the system work for the NFL? And and
Boris immediately says it doesn't. And then he says, uh.
And he proceeds to say what percentage of NFL teams
(03:02):
finished in the top eight in the playoffs? This is
his defense, right, He says, well, in the NFL, it's
fifty six percent, it's baseball, and seventy three percent. Now,
he's right on the seventy three percent for baseball, he's
wrong on the on the football, it's not fifty six
percent is six two and a half percent. But Scott Bors,
I'll give you, I'll give you that baseball on that match.
(03:24):
It sounds like he's walking a plank and trying to
fit a needl, like why top eighth? Why not all playoffs?
Why not top four or the two or World Series champions?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:34):
He chose a very specific statistic and then he makes
that the broad leap that that that is going to
define competition. He's going to say that baseball is more
competitive than football. You know, had he said the final
four in the last ten years, fifteen years, twenty years.
By his metric of defining competition, football is more so
(03:59):
he shows that. But you know what, I'm going to
give him that. But here's what I'm gonna do to
show that the imbalance of football versus baseball. If we
say that the teams that come from the bottom half
of the revenue, and this is total revenue for NFL,
total revenue for baseball, this is just apples to apples
(04:22):
his own window. He said, the last five years, teams
that make the final eight, that would be the divisional
round in baseball, right, and football, well, coming from the
top ten, Baseball has twelve out of forty thirty percent.
Football you'd expect if it was dead even it'd be
(04:43):
twenty out of forty, but of football's nineteen out of
forty forty eight percent. You can go through every one
of these charts. Here these statistics. When you say the
bottom half, whether you want to say made the playoffs,
Final eight, Final four, Final two, the champion, whether it's
the last five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years,
(05:05):
that football wins in every single one by an average
of thirty six percent more than baseball. And here's glaring
to close it. In the last fifteen years, football has
had eleven of its fifteen Super Bowl champions have come
from the bottom half of payroll. Baseball has had one,
(05:28):
and baseball has had none out of the bottom third.
So there's a lot of ways to define what is
competition and what is competitive. He chose a very narrow statistic,
and it completely ignores all the imbalances I'm suggesting.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Right, of course, from my point of view, like I
can live in a world where somebody's saying baseball's more
competitive than you think it is. But my biggest problem
is the fans don't feel that way. From a business perspective,
if you are running a business and most of your
(06:10):
fans won't watch National Baseball games because they think the
league's unfair. A salary cap just kind of changes the
perspective that your customers have on whether or not your
product's fair. And that, to me is important. That, to me,
is everything about this collective bargaining agreement coming up.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, certainly when a third of the fans feel like
their owners are punting, when the Dodgers pay more in
payroll than sixteen teams, more than half of the league,
they pay more in in luxury tax on the payroll
than over half of the league, and then what does
it result in? We're the immense imbalance. How is that
(06:55):
you go back to how is that impacted revenue? So
in nineteen ninety two, and maybe you'll ask me about
the concerns we had in the room, But let's just
go through the statistics in nineteen ninety two. Now that's
the year before NFL free agency. Reggie White was signed
in early ninety three, So we can go back and
we can look at the revenues of all of all
(07:16):
three sports. Baseball had the lead in revenue at one
point five eight three billion. Then came the NFL at
one point four to nine to two billion, and then
basketball was nine or ninety nine million. So now if
you look at where they are, Baseball has jumped to
twelve point five to three billion. They've gone seven point
(07:39):
nine x sounds impressive. Football has gone to twenty four
point one billion, sixteen point one x. So baseball is
under eight and football is over sixteen. Football has literally
lapped baseball. And so both from us a rev new
(08:00):
standpoint and from a growth you're basically double. So you know,
from a standpoint of the growth of the league, Uh,
it's it's not comparable and basketball. And as I said, basketball,
if if if you take the NFL, the percentage of
the growth, basketball has eighty nine percent of football, Baseball
(08:22):
is forty nine percent. So his system that you know,
this for this romantic language of oh the free market operating, uh,
you know, resembling a genuine free market. You know, the
way they h the way they have their structure from
the the luxury tax and with the imbalance in the revenue.
(08:46):
You know what they're doing is they're defending He's defending
an open, uncapped auction that really has produced an aristocracy
of about six teams that are clustered on the east coat,
each of the coasts, and so you know that's the
system that he defends.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
You.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Millan is with us our QB one talking about the
salary cap, finishing our conversation from last week. A lot
of people have asked us, we just can't leave everybody hanging,
and I felt the exact same way. So we've picked
it back up here today. So what were the concerns
that you had as you, you know, like a founding
forefather of salary caps, you being John Adams, maybe what
(09:25):
were some of the concerns that you and your peers
had before you did agree to that a free agency
and the salary cap would be the future of the NFL.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, and just to paint the picture, you got the
twenty eight teams at the time, and you got the
player reps in the room. Dick Bertleson was the in
house counsel for the players Association. They would hire Jeffrey Kessler.
He would come in from time to time, but Burtison
would just sit on the side and he would just say, Hey,
if you guys do this, it's this. If you do this,
(09:56):
it's this.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
He would say you second person, not we And and
you know, so the players had to discuss all this.
You know, we had concerns about what the owners said, Hey,
if we get free agency, we're all the player best
players gonna go to the Cowboys and the Raiders. There
was concern about quarterback movement that you know, you know,
and and of course Drew Brees, Jake Diloma's Super Bowl quarterback,
(10:19):
Kirk Cousins. There's been plenty of quarterback movie parody. Would
we thought, you know, if we get parody, is everybody
canna be bored with nine and seven and eight and eight.
At the time, the Cowboys and the forty nine ers
had the best rivalry in football that was driving all
the TV ratings. But you know, you think, well, are
we going to destroy that? That the idea that of
(10:40):
those real those those dominant teams. The Francise tag, Uh,
would it limit the top end of the players? Well, Chuck,
if you look at and I've got the table right
in front of me, if you look at the top
ten players in football right now, the uh, the the
(11:00):
Ulize guaranteed value of the top ten football players is
forty two and a half million. For baseball, it's thirty
eight point nine million, So the NFL has a nine
point one percent advantage. If you go the top twenty players,
NFL has thirty six and a half million, and a
Major League Baseball as thirty four point six million. So
the concerns that we had at the time, and here's
(11:23):
the thing. Back in nineteen ninety two, Scott Boris could
come on and say, hey, in theory, this is nonsense
and this is never gonna work. But we've got thirty
three years of history of showing. And I'm not saying
that the growth that I'm describing is because there's a
(11:43):
salary cap, because you can't make that inference logically, but
you can as sayst unequivocally that the salary cap did
not hinder the league. And because what we're really talking about,
what the players should be focused on is the revenue
pie and the percentage of the revenue. But in nineteen
(12:07):
ninety two, baseball players had fifty two percent, football players
had forty three point eight percent. Remember those numbers. I
know I'm throwing a lot of numbers in this. So
the football players had a much smaller portion of a
smaller pie. So now because of the revenue certainties and
(12:29):
the interest in the game. Now the football had that,
you know, doubled baseball in terms of the revenue. But
now the football players, like Scott bors comes on to
KGr and he says he uses the word cap thirteen
times with Softy and Dick. He he used the word
(12:49):
floor zero. You're you're not giving away the cap that
I mean, that'd be a surrender. You are you are saying, hey,
we'll give you a cap. What are you gonna give us?
Or we're gonna demand this, X, y and z. So,
so the players in football have a forty eight point
eight percent of a twice a big a pie and
(13:12):
baseball has forty six point six percent. And here's the
irony of this. In early twenty sixteen, Scott Boris told
Baseball Perspective that in the prior year that baseball players
were getting forty three percent, So they went from fifty
and he acknowledged that they had gone from fifty five
percent a decade before. Now they're at forty three percent
(13:36):
out of his own mouth. And so, so what does
that tell you? There is nothing locking the owners into
paying anything. They can be at fifty five percent, they
can be at forty six point six percent as they
are now, they can be down to forty three percent
and twenty fifteen, there's nothing. So in theory, you're you're
gonna have, you're gonna compel these owners to because you know,
(14:01):
Boris comes on. He calls the Podreys owner a genius
because of how he spent and he barks about and
he literally tells Softie and Dicky says, he goes the
podraise went from six hundred million to four billion. Well,
it's an agree to pry a sale price a three
point nine billion, which is obviously four billion. I'm good
(14:22):
with that. But so we have a clear starting point
from the August of twenty twelve to now. So that
is six point five times the value. And he's gonna
bark about the the increase. Well, what's funny about that
is if you take the compound annual growth rate of
the the NFL franchise values, the average NFL franchise is
(14:46):
conservatively projected to be at eight point two eight billion
and twenty twenty six versus one point one billion and
twenty twenty twelve. So that's a seven point five to
three times value. So Scott, so let me summarize Scott
Boris comes on. He's got thirty teams to pick from
to try and be convincing about the economic prosperity of baseball.
(15:10):
He chooses the Podrays and he gives you impressive sounding numbers.
Guess what it was. His number one choice was below
the average of the NFL in growth. So every time
he opens his mouth, you can hand him his hat.
Because think of like when you watch the Kentucky Derby
(15:32):
a horse race, you know, and it's kind of muddy,
you know, and the jockeys they get the mud on
their on their goggles and what have you. You know, baseball
might as well just take their goggles off because football
is so far in the distance a susspec. They can't
even see the football out in front, so they're not
getting done mud on their glasses. That was thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah, yeah, would you debate Scott Boris on the air
if given the.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Opportunity, Yeah, I would welcome that. Now, if you're sensible,
you would be saying Millan, Scott Boris has made mincemeat.
He's chopped up every GM in all of baseball and
contract negotiations. How do you think you have the chops
(16:18):
to argue with him. Well, my response to that would
be this, if we had to debate what is the
best dinner and I got to choose a ribi at
the met and he had to choose a Boloney sandwich,
I'm going to win that debate. If we had to
(16:39):
debate who made the most musical impact and I get
the Beatles and he gets the Bengals, I'm going to
win the debate. So look, I would know what landminds
not to step on. But certainly he's got an answer
to these very cenral questions that players would have. What
(17:00):
percentage of the pie do we have? Okay, well you've
you've shrunk that. What percentage of how big is the
pie growing? Well, Football's doubled you. And so he's arguing
for something in theory, you know, and we haven't talked
about a couple things. How about this, This is baseball's
own own analysis. You know, baseball players don't get free
(17:22):
agency till they're they're in their sixth year, right, So
the percent the share of the war the pre arbitration players,
the share of the war that's wins above replacement. The
pre arbitration players are forty point seven percent of the war,
they're nine point four percent of the salary. Meanwhile, the
(17:45):
free agents, they are twenty eight point eight percent of
the war, but they're sixty one point four percent of salary.
So the people who are getting paid aren't aren't. The
players that are are are playing playing the best.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Baby, So players getting rewarded for how good they were
with their previous team and aren't good anymore.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Yeah, So so I would look to I would even
tell that Bryce Harper. Look, I already gave you the
figure we have. We have thirty three years of data
that the cap with a floor that mandates their spending. Remember,
now they the baseball has to mean football has to
spend ninety percent over a three year period, and if
(18:28):
they don't, they're gonna have to write a check to
all the players in the in the offseason. That's never
happened because the football owners have always paid it. So
so if you take if I were to talk to
Bryce Harper, I'd say, wait a minute, Even you superstars,
you're the football players have a higher percentage that both
(18:50):
in terms of gross money and in terms of the
percentage of the average. So superstars in getting aren't getting
suppressed in football, and So if you do this model,
look at the growth rate and look at the franchise
valuations and the popularity TV ratings. You want to go
through TV ratings.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Since ninety nineteen as a baseball fan, I don't.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Yeah, well, you know, look you go through the early
nine the early nineties before free agency, and then the
last five season that average them, and then you say, okay,
the percent change. Football is up five percent because you know,
you got one hundred and thirty million people all as well.
Baseball is down sixty seven percent in just raw numbers.
(19:37):
In the early nineties, they had thirty point two million
for the World Series. Now they're at a twelve point nine.
And the same goes for the Championship I mean the
Championships Championship Series. Football is ten times more in the
champion Championship Series, specifically ten point zero nine. And you say, well,
what about Game sevens. There's been five game sevens this decade.
(20:00):
Football still has a six point three x times viewership
against game sevens in the Championship Series. So the popularyer,
oh h, the attendants they set record here. Boris comes
on KGr. He says, well, we're sending setting record attendance. No,
you're not. Two thousand and seven was the record. You're
(20:20):
down three thousand fans per game from two thousand and seven.
So at any event, Uh, he really came on and
sounded like a donkey.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Het a donkey.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
But I don't know if Ashley can get that.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
Uh uh No, you can say jackass, you just can't
say a hole.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Okay, well all of the above.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, you can actually say a hole, just not the
full Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah, yeah say that. Yeah yeah, so all of the
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
So look, and I'll make sure next time to have
a donkey sound. No, yeah, every time you talk about him.
But look, there's so much more. I mean, I got
spreadsheets going on. But what your reaction to that? I mean, well,
I think is the biggest pushback. Well, my reaction in
general is this. This is I can sum it up
in all of this, when is the last time that
a Seahawks fan felt they didn't have a chance against
(21:12):
the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Rams? And
the answer is probably for some people never where. If
I asked, what are your chances as a Mariner fan
against the Los Angeles Dodgers, ninety nine out of one
hundred people would say that we don't have a chance
against them here in this town, and that's not true,
(21:32):
by the way. Those numbers that you do have a
chance against the Dodgers, but the perception is that you don't.
And until they change it with a salary cap and
a lot of other little adjustments, then you're then baseball's
not going to be able to catch up on a
national perspective. Baseball does fine locally, you know, they fill
stadiums and their local ratings are good, very good. But
(21:58):
nationally you've lost because nobody in Seattle wants to watch
the Cubs play the Cardinals on Sunday night, no matter
how good they are, because they've got money and you don't.
That's just that's just the perception that a that a
sports fan has right now of the NFL versus Major
League Baseball.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Well, you know, I'll tell you what, because I'm looking
at this show. You tell me the last five years,
ten years, or fifteen years. Picket you tell you you
picket ten, We'll go the mist Okay, we'll go. We'll
go ten. Okay made playoffs. NFL have had seventy This
is out of the bottom half of the payroll. And
(22:39):
by the way spow track, the Mariners are in the
bottom half in every year of this decade. Okay, so
this ought to get your attention as a Mariner fan.
So you're these are all coming from the bottom half
of the payroll. The NFL has has seventy out of
one hundred and thirty fifty three percent to thirty six percent.
(23:01):
For Major League Baseball, making the Final eight football is
fifty percent from the bottom half baseball, thirty percent, the
Final four football. This is the championship games football fifty
five percent coming from the bottom half baseball twenty three percent.
How about making the Super Bowl or making the World
(23:23):
Series football sixty percent from the bottom half Baseball twenty
percent and World Series Champion or Super Bowl champions football
eighty percent in the last ten years from the bottom
half baseball ten percent. So those are partially picked by you.
(23:45):
In terms of duration, I could have done five years,
I could have done fifteen years, twenty football in every
single category by a as I said, an average of
thirty six percent. So here the donkey comes on, called
him a donkey, sounding like a donkey, and he's bragging
about an erroneous figures of seventy three percent versus fifty
(24:08):
six percent. Guess what, even though it's wrong, I'll give
it to you seventeen percent. Well what about this chart
where football is thirty six percent average on all of
these cells in a spreadsheet pertaining to the bottom half
of the league. So that therein lies when you say
there's a perception, there's a perception because there's a reality
(24:32):
it when framed when the when the argument is framed
like that, what do teams? How do teams do from
the bottom half of the payroll compared to football? There
is no comparison.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
All right, man, Well, thank you very much. Great stuff
here the last couple of weeks. So I'm glad we
got to the bottom of Donkey and his adventures with shrap,
rock and roll. All right, thanks man, all right, by
now you villain r QB will with us right here
on the radio program coming up on the other side. Oh,
I know what you're down with. See it on your
(25:04):
face OPQ Sports Radio ninety three point three KJRFM. It's
gonna implicate me in some way, and then I won't
ever be able to be honest with your real quarterback
ever again.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Oh we.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
Show the proof.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Yeah, I know, I know, it seems like you're bragging
about something that maybe you shouldn't be proud of, but
I do know when I take advantage of it. Every
so often you are down with OPQ other people's quarterbacks.
Oo yeah yeah. But before we get to a little
bit of OPQ, I do want to let you know
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(26:04):
I got like six different items in OPQ that we
could go over here.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
But.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
We might not have time. We might only have time
for one, frankly, because that's a pretty big one. Yesterday,
the Minnesota Vikings didn announce that Kyler Murray will be
their starting quarterback, not JJ McCarthy, for this upcoming season.
And I mentioned this earlier, but we get a chance
to expand on it now, I'm I don't think the
(26:31):
story here is the Vikings have chosen Kyler Murray to
be their starting quarterback. The story to me is how
early they made that decision. I mean, that's how far
JJ McCarthy has fallen in a short period of time,
a guy that they overdrafted and then over promoted and
(26:51):
maybe overhyped themselves.
Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
They got rid of Sam Donald because they thought he
was going to be so great.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Yeah, I rid of Sam Donald and now and a
span of two years. Man, have they soured on JJ McCarthy.
If you brought in Kyler Murray as a free agent
and announced before you even played a single preseason game, yep,
he's clearly better than that guy we spent a top
ten first round draft pick on a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Wow. Yeah, it's wow. So surprising.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
That's an abrupt fall.
Speaker 6 (27:22):
Yeah, Sori, I mean not surprising that he didn't make
it really, because if you actually paid attention to his
college games, he was just kind of facilitating hand Yeah,
he was facilitating the ball moving around.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
He wasn't really moving the ball around, if that makes sense.
Speaker 6 (27:38):
He was there to accommodate other people moving the ball around.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
I mean he won a lot of football games without
throwing a pass.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yes, that's a very distinct, distinct way to put it.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
And and yet they were like, no, this is going
to be the guy.
Speaker 6 (27:55):
And we're going to get rid of Sam Darnold because
of a playoff game despite the success he had in
the season. Thanks for that, by the way, Vikings, we
really appreciate it. And and then then they try to
hype him up again. Oh, it was injury and he's
gonna be back. And then it's like, well, you have
such little faith, you're gonna go with Kyler Williams. Kyler Murray,
who literally hasn't really done anything. I mean, he's good,
(28:19):
he's fine. He does more than facilitate moving the ball around.
So you've got that going for you.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Well, like I said, I don't think the surprise is
that Kyler Murray's gonna start for the Minnesota Vikings. But
how far JJ McCarthy has fallen that they didn't even
give him a preseason game before announcing you're not as
good as little Sweet, and so we're gonna go with
him instead of you former top ten draft pick. I
mean that is and it it happened fast. It really
(28:46):
really happened fast for JJ McCarthy's decline there in the
eyes of Kevin O'Connell in Minnesota. So that's your situation
that you're dealing with. And so we'll see. I mean,
still time for JJ McCarthy to redeem himself. Probably won't
be in a Viking uniform, I would think. But yeah,
(29:09):
turns out that maybe it takes a little bit more
than just being on a really great team in college.
That's weird, all right. I think that's pretty much. I
got a couple of other things. I think they're going
to take too much time. I'll ask you this just quickly. Yeah,
let's other one, OPQ, because this is real true gossip
here justin Herbert. You got a problem with Madison Beer
being practice and then playing you know, PDA on the
(29:33):
practice field.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
I think it's a little weird because it's you're at work.
Speaker 6 (29:36):
Like I wouldn't invite five Iron here to play with
my hair while we sat out.
Speaker 3 (29:40):
In the sports pitch.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
That would be distracted, right would It would be weird
if like in breaks he just came in and was
like giving me shoulder massages and like cleaning up the
lint off my shirt.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
That would be strange.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
You are at work, even though it's training camp, and
I know it's like more fun and lighthearted.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
They do have family days.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Yeah, so on the family day, like let them practice,
then they get to all hang out.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
You shouldn't. I don't know. It seems weird to me.
I don't cat you do a problem with it. It's
just weird.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Don't you do the classy thing and sneaker in after
everybody's gone.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
Yeah, you guys can make out in the weight room.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
Yeah, yeah, and you can make out on the trainer's table.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Who wouldn't love that?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
That's a class move.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
That is how real normal people do it.
Speaker 1 (30:22):
I think it's ridiculous. I mean, you're you're a professional
football player. It sort of insinuates you need to act
like an adult. Yeah, and look, I've had moments as
an adult drink or two animulhere, but I've probably showed
some PDA and I look back on it now and
I think it is completely wrong. But you do get
swept up in the moment. You should not get swept
(30:42):
up in the moment at football practice. That's there should
never be a moment.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
And especially because I don't know if you guys are
aware of this, but the Chargers haven't won a playoff game,
and Justin Herbert has been a reason for that.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yeah, all right, coming up next, it's one last thing
to close out our show on Sports Radio ninety three
point three kJ r f M. All right, final segment
(31:19):
of the show today. And again, by the way, Talalo
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But there's time.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
You've got time.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I've got time to get this done. Yeah, they should
give me a punch card, you know that'd be nice. Yeah,
fill that up here in the next I don't know,
day or two.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Let's try them all.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So Talala press or casino when all you want is everything?
All right, we've got time for one last thing. And
then Greg who cannot wait to come talk to you today.
I mean he burst through the doors here moments ago.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
He is excited he is ready to go. He was like,
oh my early whoop. See yeah, yeah, I'll back out.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, so he's ready to fly here into ten o'clock.
What he got, Ashley, Well, we.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
I didn't have a chance to mention this earlier, but
I did find it kind of more sad or I
don't know what it is, but we've talked about a
lot of teams, major League Baseball, teams that we have
faced this year where it's the starter that's the problem.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
You got to make it through the starter.
Speaker 6 (32:31):
Once you make it through the starter, you get to
the bullpen and then you can get some runs and
get a win. And I think we've become that team.
And I don't think it's because our bullpen's bad. I
think it's because we don't know how to use them.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
That's a problem. Also, lately, they haven't help not been efficient.
They've only been getting through like five I think that's
been like three games in a row. They've only gotten
through five.
Speaker 3 (32:55):
Yeah, it hasn't been good.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
No, I've pitched well, they're just not being is efficient.
And when you're already apparently down another man last night,
it does make it more difficult. But yeah, you just
got to make adjustments. I mean, we got to play
with a little desperation, and we got to manage with
a little desperation. Right now we do we can't count. Well,
let's get host out tonight so we can use them tomorrow.
(33:19):
We might lose eleven to one to night.
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Yeah, and we've talked about this for a long time.
You cannot play the game tonight based.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
On what might happen tomorrow. You never know what's going
to happen a mink.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
You you do have to some degree have to play
that game because it's a long season.
Speaker 6 (33:34):
But that's more for the future versus like, oh, if
we've got four games in a row, well, yeah, a
day off and things like that.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
But there is an element of managing for tomorrow and
managing for a month down the road. There is an
element of that, but we are way way past managing
that way.
Speaker 6 (33:52):
Would you say, though, if you're managing for tomorrow, it
would be more in a sense of we're managing to
make sure we have enough people, not versus well, if
we're in this situation tomorrow, which would be ideal, we
want to save that.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, I mean you also have like players in their
futures also that you keep in mind and you don't
want to like burn out a guy like I understand
why they cap them, like you've got done with an
inning at five or six innings at ninety plus pitches,
and we're gonna take you. But there does come a
moment in the season where you're like, we're going to
push you a little bit tonight. Yes, especially during the
(34:28):
Piggyback era. We weren't even pushing them. During the Piggyback era,
we weren't. We were still letting them stick to their
same Well, you're at eighty eight pitches and you're through five,
I have no choice but to take you out. What
are you talking about. You've just shrunk the bullpen and
you're going to have one of the five outings where
you're not going to use the bullpen at all. In theory,
(34:48):
you've got to push the start. But they haven't done it,
they haven't changed it. And that some of that is
on the front office certainly. Yeah, because I think that
they share in the philosophy. R actually they run the philosophy.
But like last night, just inexcusable, So I don't know
where it's coming from. I mean, cal said In his comments,
(35:10):
he writes.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
The lineup, Yeah, there was a tweet from a Yankees fan.
It was like, see what score four runs and with
this pitching staff, you're going to be great. I was like,
I remember what it used to think that.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Four runs, that's really all you need with our pitching
staff too, four runs. I would like to see a
world where we scored four runs great the most nights.
All right, I'm going to close. I'll close a baseball
as well. Hughes conversation. I just want to clarify for
my perspective on it is yes, you can win. You
can be competitive even with the lowest payroll in the sport.
(35:42):
Right now, the Cleveland Guardians have the lowest payroll in
the sport, and they're annually competitive and challenging for Division.
I think the well they move the division last year
because the Tigers rallied, but they make the playoffs quite
a bit even with the worst payroll. Tampa Bay Rays
never have a decent payroll and they're a consistent winner.
(36:04):
The Milwaukee Brewers have been as good as any team
in the regular season the last five years. I would
bet I don't have it in front of me. They
have the most wins in the sport the last five years,
and they've got a bottom ten payroll. The point is,
you can be competitive even with a low payroll if
you're smart and you know what you're doing. Right now,
(36:25):
the two best records in Major League Baseball are the
Brewers and the Rays. It's not the Dodgers and the Yankees,
the Brewers and the Rays.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
And we have a higher payroll than both of.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Them, considerably higher those pack Those are two bottom ten.
But there's also this element of that's why I think
it's big. It's it's yes, you have a competition problem. Certainly,
those big market teams have huge advantages over everyone else,
and they're going to get to the playoffs more frequently.
I have a better chance than the postseason quite frankly,
(36:54):
but you do have you do have a chance. Well
from a from a business point of view, When your
customers don't think you have a chance, and nine out
of ten of them don't, how are you able to
create a functioning product and business, a highly functioning product
(37:17):
and business that way, when your customers don't trust the product. Yeah,
that's what has to get fixed. That's why I am
at absolutely all in Chips in the middle on a
salary cap and I hope Rob Manford gets his way
on this, even if it does cost us some of
the twenty twenty seventh season. All Right, we'll talk to
you tomorrow at six am. Greg Bell is next Sports
(37:39):
Radio ninety three point three KJRFM.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
You can't miss a thing from today's show because we're
on demand. Their podcast will be up right after the show.
Just click on demand on our website at ninety three
three KJR dot com and click on checking Bug podcast
to replay anytime anywhere. From Sports Radio ninety three point
three KJRL.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
This report is sponsored by Metris firm Cruse
Speaker 5 (38:05):
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on northbound four or five near Sunset, but it's still
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