Darren Gurney, assistant coach for Lehman College baseball in New York, joined us for a unique conversation. Also an economics teacher at New Rochelle HS, Gurney shares his views on free agency, contracts and how baseball has changed financially over the years. We covered international baseball (how Dominican players are so advanced for their age) and how American players find themselves behind by comparison. Other topics included mask use for COVID, salary projections in MLB, Bobby Bonilla’s contract, and the future of the COVID-19 stricken MLB season. Follow Darren on Twitter or his Rising Stars baseball camp website.

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TRANSCRIPT – EP44 Darren Gurney of Rising Stars Baseball Camp Talks International Baseball, MLB Economics, Free Agent Contracts, and Masks!

welcome back. I’m assuming at this point we’re live. Uh, we’ve got a good show today. Great show today. Fantastic show today, Bobby, how are you? It’s the best show of the week. Tuesday is when Bobby’s stable. He’s like at home I’m at home wonder it’s nice backdrop. Yeah, they’re in Chicago and we, we have a guest today.

So coach Darren gurney is here. He’s a friend of mine from New York, Darren, how are you? Good morning, Dan. And probably nice to meet you real. Happy to be with you guys today. Yeah. So let me give you a little bit of background on coach gurney. He’s going to fill in the rest of, he’s been all over the place, both as a, as a teacher coach player.

So where are you from the Midwest? You went to Washington university, but is that where you grew up or did you grow up in New York? I grew up in new Rochelle Sama, new Yorker through and through. I did four years out there and then I came right back to the East coast. Just snapped right back. This isn’t for me.

Get outta here, corn. I need people honking their horns at me and. And bagels and great pizza. Yeah. What did you like about the Midwest? What’d you not like about it? I thought the people were extremely nice and I went back for a reunion slash baseball alumni game, and immediately the minute I got off the airplane, it reminded me of how nice people are in the Midwest.

Not that new Yorkers aren’t necessarily nice, but it’s so fast paced. No one has time to like stop and just give you the. Cordial niceties in a day. So in the Midwest, it’s a very different vibe in that sense. That’s fair. So coach gurney is currently a coach at layman college in New York. He’s also a high school teacher at new Rochelle high school.

Um, he runs a very successful baseball camp called rising stars or rising star baseball camp. You guys have had a lot of big leaguers roll through that camp, Palm Marine through your list. And I remember like, I know I competed against Tom Kohler in college. There’s a lot of big names there. So how long have you been doing that camp?

Uh, 22 years. And it’s been a real thrill. Yeah. We’ve, we’ve been really successful in grooming. A lot of NCAA players and six guys have gone on to play pro ball. And right now we got a guy who’s with the Dodgers. He made their 60 men pool and a week go today a week ago today, he struck out our pool holes and show I Otani.

And even Jim, Mike trout with a nasty. Running four-seam or so, uh, yeah, we’re real proud of, of our graduates. That’s awesome. And then, uh, Darren and I, we coached together in the Dominican Republic was that two years ago or three years ago now. Times times moving. Yeah, that was 2018. So that was two years ago.

This, yeah. Almost this week. Yeah. So let’s start there. So. Obviously the Dominican, that was my first experience there. Very eyeopening. Um, how would you compare the way young players are brought up and we’re going to get to economics and we have a lot of stuff we’re going to cover today if you’re just tuning in, on YouTube or on Twitter.

So we have a pretty wide ranging show. Darren’s a economics teacher and a really good one at that. So we’re going to talk a lot about baseball and the way it’s changed, um, in that regard, but how would you compare the way Dominican players are brought up compared to the United States players? Dominican players have to open up eyes at a very early age, meaning they don’t have college baseball till age 21 to hopefully get drafted or sign.

They. Have to be signed by age six 16 in most cases. So imagine an American kid that has to get signed or drafted by his or junior year of high school. So they’re going to show off their arms. They’re going to swing really hard and they’re not gonna look to draw a walk. They’re not going to look to just throw the ball over the first base.

They’re going to let it fly. And I think what we saw, Dan is there was a catcher who was 15 years old on the Dominican team. That had a legit 1.8, five pop time throwing aspirin tablets on the second base. If it was just freaky and, you know, we put the gun on him, we got the three times I got his pops. I’m like, is that really 1.8, six out of a 15 year old.

So they’ve got a game. Yeah. So their tools are just off the charts, but that’s why we have so many Dominican players in the MLB. And if you will get it per capita, meaning the population of that country and how many guys actually make it from that part of the world. It’s just incredible. Yeah. Bobby, what do you think if you had to get all of your kids in your Academy, where they had to be signed by a major league organization by 16, what would you do differently?

Nothing legal. There’s no way a trough full of steroid water. No way we do every year, we do a, we do want to put it in perspective that way though. Isn’t it crazy to think of it that way? Well, there’s I, you can project, right? Like you can look at a kid and be like, Oh, maybe in three, four years, like this kid’s really gonna fill out.

Like we give them a shot, but there’s no 16 year olds rolling through that are like, 88 miles an hour, 92 miles an hour. If they are, they’re like the greatest player I’ve I’ve ever seen at that age. And the rare we do a try out every year, um, Latin American baseball con conference, I don’t know, at some gym parquet runs it out of, uh, it’s a team USA, essentially you, everybody wears USA jerseys.

They go to one tournament, Dominican Republic, and he does a trial with our organization every year. Uh, some kids usually make it. But it gives a speech to all the parents in the beginning. And he goes, look, according to, I don’t know, whatever the, however, they grade this, he like kids that grow up in a Dominican yeah.

Are to physically two years ahead of kids that grew up in the United States for whatever reason, like they’re physically two years more mature. He’s like, so if you’re 12 years old, you’re going down there. These kids are going to look like the 14, 15 year olds here. He goes, if we’re 16 years old, it’s like, these kids are in like their twenties.

And I dunno what, I don’t know how that works or what the, like, what the science is about and that, but it’s definitely trimming. You see some of the videos other than maybe faking an actual birth certificate. These kids, if they’re the true age are way more fiscally to develop them. I would say most of the kids.

I see you’re Brown. Do you think that’s just selection, Darren? What do you think? Is that just the fact that if you’re not that physical and strong, you just get cut and smell you earlier. What, what do you think? I think it’s the rice and beans. They start eating at age two and you and I were fortunate to get a lot of rice and beans and that amazing chicken blessed food.

I love their food. I mean, I, I wish I could eat their food all the time. It’s amazing. Yeah. So I do think some of that might be genetic makeup, but I don’t know if you remember Dan. It was our second game. We were playing a night game and this guy from the Cleveland Indians came over to me. I remember vividly I’m in the third base box and he says, Hey, I got a 16 year old over here.

He wasn’t even playing in the game. He said, we’re, we’re awoken, you know, to sign him, can you. Let him face your picture. And I said, well, I can’t let him face this picture. I just don’t feel safe. Cause he was so developed. And that’s when you took the mound and blew the kid away and crushed his tree. We’re like 92 mile an hour fastball and of filthy slider.

So that was fun for me to watch you dominate. But getting back to your question. It was really amazing to see a 16 year old left-handed stick. That was literally twice the size of our pole players, even though he was only one year older technically than our oldest kid. But is that just because you don’t see the skinny scrawny, not as strong 16 year olds because they’re at home because they can’t play at that level.

I mean, All those teams fielded very competitive teams. And that’s my point. It’s not like every Dominican kid is just two years bigger. That doesn’t make sense. They’re still humans. Right? So is it just the fact that it’s just so much more competitive and they just basically weed kids out way, faster way earlier and only the songs were still still there.

Yeah. Yeah. There’s a real social Darwinism to it. Not to get. That’s what I kind of feel like it is. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And in general, it’s kind of an all or nothing vibe there. Meaning the kid who graduates from Vanderbilt or university of Texas in our country, he’s going to be able to get a job, especially, you know, graduating from a school like Texas or Vanderbilt.

And the demit, they don’t get signed by age 16. I mean, they’re going to be doing some menial, labor, living a very impoverished lifestyle and the likelihood, whereas in our country, it’s not that way. So I think it’s exactly that pyramid of that kid. We saw, he was at the top of the Dominican pyramid. If the Indians were really looking to assign him.

So we’re not seeing those skinny. You know, little nimble guys. Yeah. And then the story to elaborate on what Darren has mentioned. So we’re playing this team and it was supposed to, so we were like a 13 to 15 U team in the gr and we were supposed to play teams that were comparable in agent’s size. I think that was like the agreement, but.

With most of these games we showed up and they were just like 40 guys at the field. And I say guys like kids, whatever. And there, they were like all ages and ranges and sometimes they’re just batting whoever, like guys just get a stick and bat off phones. And our team wasn’t super strong. Our pitchers were throwing like some of them like 70 miles per hour.

And that kid actually got one at bat against us. And he had an absolute seed in the outfield. And after that, we were like, ah, this looks like a sort of dangerous mismatch. So the next time he came up, You guys going to ask and I like volunteer, but I hadn’t thrown a baseball hard. I hadn’t thrown a max effort throw in a long time.

I was like a year, a year and a half retired at that point. Um, and I got out there just to pitch against him. So you could get like legit competition. And I threw like the first 17 pitches were all balls, like head high and like no ability to locate it. And then I finally got them in the zone. I just like punched him out and ended his career.

It was, I was, I ended his career. I don’t know. I don’t know that, but, uh, my curve ball was pretty filthy that day. I’ll tell you what it for our players. It was good for our players to see someone. Take them out. And then I remember referencing on the bus ride back to the hotel, your laser focus out there, your demeanor, your posture.

And I think it was a good thing for them to see early in the week. Well, and those situations are, are interesting because. As an old player, you still turn it on. And like, the way I warmed up was there was no bullpen. It was just a Rocky flat or side, like sidelines, right. There was like hardly any grass.

And it just like, and just like throw it as hard as you can repeat your mechanics, try to throw your stuff and then go out there. And the mound was pretty rough with a huge hole. But the big thing that, you know, you’ll learn over time is that there just aren’t any excuses, you know, and my excuse for the literally literally throwing a million in pitches, head high, like not finding the strikes and was that I hadn’t thrown a ball in 18 months.

Um, you know, you go out there and it’s still all the same. You just like, all right, this is what I have. This is the situation. This is the mountain. These are the conditions you out there and just try to compete. And I think that’s what good players end up finding is just the ability to turn on and compete.

I’ve been watching a little bit of the last dance recently. I’m late to them, late to them, late to the party, but I grew up watching Michael Jordan. And so it’s reminding me of a lot of stuff that I knew as a kid that I saw from him as a kid. But you get it’s cool to hear him talk about all hyper-competitive.

He was focused. He was cause it really was special watching him play. And I appreciate it even a little bit more now hearing from that whole team, the competitiveness is such an important thing. I mean, it’s weird to think, like he was like maybe the most competitive person person in the entire NBA. Which is like the best athletes in the world.

And he’s like the most competitive. It’s a weird, you know what I mean? And so much more than like the next guy. Yeah. It’s not, that doesn’t make sense. Right? Like he wants to be on the bus first guys, come on. It really is weird when you see outliers like that one. So I’ve only been to, I think, one NBA game in person.

It was a 70 Sixers, Oklahoma city thunder game. Let me like 10 years ago. And I just remember seeing Kevin Duran, he was pretty young in his career. Like not super well known, but I just was watching him and I didn’t really care about basketball. I was like that dude is more athletic than everyone on the field, on the court.

Like he’s, he sticks out amongst NBA players and Michael Jordan was that back in his day. I’m not saying Kevin Duran and Michael Jordan are comparable. I think they kind of are they’re in the same maybe same realm. Maybe not. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not going to be in the same gym. But there’s Kevin Duran, super athletic to the point where he stuck out amongst the world’s best athletes.

So that’s my only real point there. But, um, anyway, so back to the Dominican, um, it’s a crazy experience. So Bobby, you said you’ve got a, so some of your guys, did they go on that trip with Jim parquet and they’re there for a week? It’s essentially a international tournament. So the team from Mexico will come like Cuba will bring a team, Venezuela, the Netherlands and the USA they’ll bring the team.

Uh, the jerseys don’t look necessarily like the real USA jerseys. They just say like a black letter USA on it, but it’s, you’re still representing the United States. Um, and the kids seem to love it. I mean, are the 16 new team. Two years ago, one at, we had a kid on the team, he played a ton and he said it was, you know, unlike the, you know, mob the field when they win the game it’s so it was unbelievable.

And you’re probably at that age, not getting the best Dominican players on the field. You’re going to get the kids that got passed over that. Aren’t in the academies already, but you’re still getting good baseball. And some of the younger guys that go the dads, just say, how, how big and how strong some of these arms are that they’re facing?

Like the 12 year old, we had a 12 year old kid go last year. And he was just blown away by the, by the velocity, the size of the 12 year old kids. And that’s just from the Dominican. I mean the other countries as well, he said the U S is like, we were probably the smallest team coming from the U S and you have teams, you know, Mexico.

Venezuela. I mean, some warm weather, probably baseball, having countries, and they’re all funneling into baseball. All the bus athletes are just funneling into the sport. Maybe not Mexico cause of soccer, but all the other countries are baseball, heavy, Cuba, Venezuela. I mean, those are baseball countries.

Yeah. And I guess, I think we talked about this in the past, but if, if there was like a handful of teams for New York or only a handful of teams, for sure, for Illinois or Chicago, those teams would be big. You know, like if there was one regional team for New York for 14, you’d just like one, those kids will be, there’d be monsters.

Right. I mean, cause they’d be, like you said, they’d be selected. From all the best to just be at the most physical, ridiculous team, but there’s so many spread out. That would be a true, that would be a true travel team, Dan, and by the way, you know, because I have an economics perspective on everything. One thing I think your audience know about is the baseball academies in the Dominican are so powerful.

When a kid gets signs, when a kid gets signed, they basically turn over 50% of their signing bonus to. The cademy, which would never date. For instance, I work with a kid named Edwin Peralta. He’s a cingulate player with the white socks and it wouldn’t got 1.2 million drafted out of the, um, Dominican. And he had to give 600,000 to the Academy that would never happen in America.

So it’s kind of a sad plight for them as well. Is that how he felt about it? That it was, I mean, what, what were, what were his thoughts about it when you talk to him about it? I did his English. Isn’t very good. So whenever we train together, there’s an interpreter there and we haven’t done a lot of talking about it, but his father who I do speak to whose English is a lot better.

Is a little frustrated. Cause you know, that’s a lot of money for them, 600,000. But when they come to the States, they have to really husband that right money and make sure they don’t blow through it. So in terms of his training, whether it’s going to a gym. A baseball facility. They really have to watch it.

And I think losing half that signing bonus. Cause as we know, and we’ll talk about this minor leaguers don’t make any money. They really that’s kind of their nest egg as a family, including his siblings and extended family. That’s 600,000 is really going to be used for the next punch of decades for the whole family.

I mean, do you feel like that’s wrong the way they do it that way? Because from, it feels kind of like venture capital in a sense where they’re invent, they’re investing a lot of time and resources. They’re like feeding and clothing, these kids for the most part, right. Driving them around like. These kids have a chance because of these academies in large part.

And I, I certainly don’t know all the ins and outs of them, but most of those kids are not going to get a signing bonus at all. And these academies have spent a lot of resources in their own money and time on all of them, hoping that they get a couple of kids like him who can then basically pay everyone’s bills.

Right. I mean, is that, is that wrong for them to take such a big cut when that’s sort of the system. Yeah, I think the metaphor of a venture capitalist firms, a great one. Hey, we’ll throw all these kids against the wall and hopefully out of the 300, we’re going to claim it’s IPO. Yeah. Yeah. One of them, one of them is black Guerrero.

Pedro Martinez. Absolutely. So you bring up a good point and whether it’s a 50, 50 split or a 75, 25 split, I don’t know what the fair amount is. Yeah, but 1.2 million or in this case, 600,000 goes a long way in the Dominican. It goes a real long way. So I don’t know, 50 50 is exactly fair. I mean, $600,000 could fund an Academy down there for probably 40 years.

Yeah. So I don’t, I don’t know the right figure. Hmm. That’s interesting. Yeah, it’s a, I don’t know that much about it. I know there’s probably all sorts of positives and negatives, pros and cons and yeah, I don’t know Bobby, you should run your Academy that way. Like, it’s come for free. If I have them, there would be litigation.

There would definitely be litigation. If I had the money, I would definitely eat. I would do a lot more for free. If it, if money was no object, I would teach probably a lot more baseball to a broader. Group of kids, like a more diverse group of kids in all parts of the city. I mean, Chicago is loaded with baseball.

There’s just not like, I wish I had money like that. Like just throw away money. It’s fine. And then to kind of how you said, you’re like hoping one of these kids hits down in Dominican wool that like cost of living down there is so inexpensive. Like you could probably run that Academy for pennies on the dollar.

Whereas like, I’m like even my facility in, in Chicago, it’s like, Scraping to make ends meet through, you know, some of these baseball facilities because of square footage is so large, you know, you gotta have a lot of indoor space with the weather. I mean, I’m sure it’s if he did something like that and maybe in like the South where you could, you know, you could do a lot more outside, you could save a little bit of money.

Yeah, Aaron, Darren used to with us, or just maybe mute as per you can’t mute a video, but there you go. I’m here. I’m here. Okay. Yeah. It’s so you guy the wrong way to, so have you guys seen the new blade runner blade runner? Have you, neither of you guys have seen it, Darren, you haven’t seen the new blade runner.

Well, he lands, so he’s looking for his, like, Birth parent, I think, is that what it was this plot line lands on this. He lands on this planet where it’s like a trash planet and he, he finds this guy who’s runs like an orphanage. And in this orphanage, there’s like a massive room of kids and they’re just picking apart electronics for like the precious metals inside of them.

Bobby, you could do that, where they do like five, five hours picking apart old iPhones for the gold. And then that money funds the rest of the it’d be like the IMG Academy, but you know, terrible child labor. Have you thought of this? It’s not off the table. If that’s what I’m saying, I don’t know why that came to mind, but it’d be funny if they’re not funny.

That’s not a good scenario. Obviously I’m joking. It would be interesting. If there was some way you could teach kids like vocational skills that actually even brought the Academy money that could then be used for their own benefit. I don’t know what that looks like, what that is, but like, what if they were doing like day trading and you’re teaching about financial times.

They’re just day trading in the morning. Hey guys, you did great. You brought in 1.2 mil this morning. Really? Really? They hit it hard and keep it up. All right. Let’s go to the baseball fields for four or five hours. Like everybody wins. You have all the money. You need to get them all to the big leagues.

You know, Bobby’s dance ratings. We got to teach them some life skills team NASDAQ. Yeah. Look, you guys, you guys stock market takes one more day. You guys are done playing baseball. Exactly. How could you bet on JP Morgan chase? You know, you know, their CEO is unstable. Come on. Have you learned nothing at the school?

So Darren let’s let’s shift into economics a little bit. So this is your background. Um, give us the state of baseball and then we’ll kind of backtrack from there. Is baseball. What do you got? What’s up with baseball? So I would say 1995 is when I really became entrenched in coaching baseball. So I have the business of baseball of economics from 95, which we know has changed so much.

When you look at well, let’s start with the 1970s and the birth of the free agent. And then you have the strong players union, which is a stronger union than any other sport. And you’ve got these players getting gigantic salaries that are guaranteed unlike the NFL, right? Unless you’re the Peyton Manning or the Tom Brady, every salary in MLB is guaranteed.

And now you’ve got the merchandising and the TV revenue from those contracts. And that has filtered into youth baseball. And when you look at showcases and training facilities, like Bobby’s, and you’ve got, um, the summer travel circuit and you’ve got the technology and the equipment these kids have. So there’s, there’s the business of baseball.

And then the way I look at it, and I’m a trained history economists kind of guy, I go back. To Adam Smith in the 1770s writing the wealth of nations. And those are like the classic traditional models of economics, which compare and have a lot of the tenants of baseball where you’re allowed to say fair, no government interference similar in baseball.

There was no MLB interference, which is obviously very different. Now, MLB is doing things like the designated hitter being mandated or, or instant replay being mandated, or you have 20 seconds to release a pitch, which is probably going to be mandated or. We’re going to do extra innings where we start a runner on second base, where we have a limited amount of conferences, obviously, to speed up the game because it comes back to economics and profits with all those initiatives.

And then we have other economists that come along like John Maynard Keynes, who says, no, the government should interfere to rescue things. And certainly we’ve had a lot of that. Yeah. Then the MLB, and then there’s economist like Karl Marx who in 1848. Wrote this communist manifesto where he said, we have the haves versus the have nots.

And if we look at professional baseball, I think you would agree. There’s a lot of halves, whether it’d be the Bryce Harpers or the Garrett Kohl’s of the world, versus, you know, as a minor leaguer, the average salary, I think is something like eight to $12,000, or even the MLB minimum right now is 563,000, which sounds like a lot of money.

But unless you got a good signing bonus and you knew of an injury you’re out of the game, there’s definitely a real discrepancy between those elite players making millions and millions. I believe the average salary in the MLB is like 4.5 million, but there’s all those minor leaguers and those bottom tier guys that never see a million dollars in their life from playing the game.

Yeah. That average, how deceptive do you think that averages. It’s very deceptive because you, the elite three or four guys on each team, and they might have a contract that’s worth, you know, 80 to $250 million over the course of the contract. And then you’ve got the AAA guy that’s kind of bad and back and forth between the MLB and AAA.

And I think I saw the average AAA salary for that. Veteran that journeymen is something like $83,000. Yeah. They make, once they make it to the 40 minute or one of the 20 men, 25 man roster at all. And when they go back down there, salary changes for forever yet because it’s like a minimum of like 83 and then it scales up from there.

You could be making a pretty, a pretty significant amount of money. You go from Megan, two grand, a month, 15 grand a month or more. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, the other economists that really, I think parallels economics and baseball well, or puts them side by side is Joseph Schumpeter who came up with this concept of creative destruction.

And the best way to maybe make that example come to life is remember when blockbuster video was the company and then Netflix came along and just drove them out of business. And I think if we look at major league baseball, You see a lot of creative, you know, the concept of bunting, the concept of choke up with two strikes and put the ball and play the concept of, of pitchers throwing down in the zone.

A lot of that has it’s really been overturned recently with the notion of strikeouts. Right? I don’t mind striking out with an O to count one, to count. I’m still going to swing hard. I mean, I was watching. Cody Bellinger swing the other night. He was not getting cheated out too. Uh, and so there are changes and we talked a little bit about the survival of the fittest down in Dominican.

Okay. I think that even exists in America, where if you’re going to stay in the league, you got to drive in runs. You got to have a strong ops. So striking out, it’s not a big deal pitchers. They gotta, they gotta strike guys out. They got to hit 95 on the gun, et cetera. So it’s a little bit of this all or nothing mentality.

And I think Schumpeter and economics came up with this concept that does have three lines to today’s modern baseball. Yeah. It’s, it’s funny that you talk, cause I was just reading something about how. Five years after for retirement, like 60% of NBA players have either severe financial distress or broke.

And that’s not uncommon with all these major sports, apparently just because guys spend most of their salary during the season. And then when the season is over or the off season hits, they’re still spending the same amount of cash, the cash burn rates, the same. And, uh, they don’t have any income in the off season.

And then lots of guys will only earn a couple hundred thousand dollars. I know Bobby and I had a bunch of teammates like that who. Played a couple of years in the big leagues and cross paths with us in the Atlantic league. You know, in a couple of years in the big leagues, you make, you know, your 450,000 salary at the time.

And then, you know, maybe you’re out for the whole Susan. Maybe you’re not. So maybe you get 200,000 for that year and then taxes and then, you know, pay your fees and you live in a nice place and all this other stuff. And then suddenly like, you don’t have that much money, that much money left. And then three years later you’re bounced out and it’s like, okay, I have like a hundred grand maybe left.

And art real-world like, here we go. So nobody really taught. I mean, I don’t know. I have never been in the big leagues, but the cost, like the cost of being in the big leagues is significant as a player. Like you’re everything you pay for everything and you pay through the nose for everything. I mean, there’s guys that some of the friends I have that have made it to the big leagues, it’s not like an inexpensive lifestyle.

It’s not like a minor league lifestyle where you’d go to. Chipotle before the game. And like that, it’s like a treat like that’s like that’s similar, you’re spending 10 bucks and that’s your, that’s your money? Like the dues are unwritten 50 bucks a day, and everybody, you can never allow to carry your bags.

Whether you get to the hotel, to the field, everybody’s getting tipped. You go out with the guys, like it’s not, it’s not your local talent. It’s keeping up with the Jones is too, I’m sure. Like tenders, like it’s an expensive lifestyle. You’re living in a major city. You’re probably on a short term lease.

That’s going to be, you know, you’re not sharing a one bedroom apartment with four guys. Like the lifestyle is expensive and then obviously you make it. You’ve probably gonna to treat yourself a little bit, I would think, um, So the money’s to Lula pants. Yeah. You get us to get a second for yes. You know, everywhere you go, you travel in suits.

Like you’re going to, you’re going to have to buy suits if you don’t have it, clothes are different. So it’s an expensive lifestyle. I mean, you gotta, especially for someone who’s on the minimum. I mean, you’re probably. You’re probably spending a lot more money than you’ve ever been used to spending just to keep up with being at the level you’re at.

Yeah. And the other piece, the other piece to that guys is these players acquire assets, whether it be cars, homes, jewelry, and then when they do file chapter 11 bankruptcy, they have to liquidate those assets and they get them for pennies on the dollar. So I got to dump my car or my mansion because I’m broke.

I’m not going to get even 50 cents on the dollar for those items. So that, that adds to their, you know, personal bankruptcy. Yeah. That’s rough. You’re. I mean, you got your, you get that Lambo for 160 GS. You’re only going to sell for here. You know, the bank’s only going to get 48 for, to the auction. Yeah, exactly.

That’s rough. Well, let’s talk about the free agency stuff. Cause we were talking off camera and I don’t remember the specifics, but, uh, for those of out out there, those of you out there who are listening the book ball four by Jim Bouton and Jim Bowden passed away, I think two years ago, but that’s one of my favorite books.

A really amazing read. Uh, there’s still so much of what he’s said. He’s just talking. So if you don’t know about ball for probably if you’re 40 years old or older, you do, but ball four was Jim Bouton who was a major leaguer. He was chronicling his season as a Seattle pilot, which was a. Um, they actually became the Malki brewers, not this year Mariners, but he was chronicling his season as a knuckle ball or converting into a knuckle ball or after he had like a pretty outstanding first couple of years in New York, Yankee, like he won a world series game, him and all this other stuff, and then he hurt his arm and then he was trying to reinvent himself for the pilots.

Any basically was offered to write this, like sort of tell all books. So he was keeping a little journal throughout the entire season. And the book is like written like that, these hilarious anecdotes, but he was also, he just like gave no F and when they were trying to basically force him to sign, um, Salar, like sign his next contract.

He’s like, no, I’m not, I’m not signing that. And then they’re like, don’t tell, okay. All right, we’ll give you more money. Jim, but don’t tell anyone. He’s like, screw that. I’m telling everyone how much you gave me. Like, he was very disruptive to the system. And again, I haven’t, I listened to it, I think a year ago.

So I don’t remember the exact specifics, but he was, he was very involved with advocating for players for free agency for like getting that train, moving. Um, Again, I wish had, I did a little more research before we started chatting about this, but Jay goes through free agency and the evolution of that, cause it is kind of, it’s kinda crazy these days, like players get played, paid so much, but I mean, take us through it, Darren.

Yeah. So early 1970s is really where we see the advent of the free agent and some of the early contracts where catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson. And those players and you look back to those Oakland. A’s the early seventies that were the best teams in baseball, and they lost a lot of their players to free agency.

Reggie Jackson being the marquee name. And that’s where team started making the decision. Hey, if we can sign or Reggie Jackson type of player, not only does he give us a chance to win, which Reggie helped the Yankees win a championship in 77, 1977, 1978. What we’re going to sell his Jersey is going to put people in the stands.

We’re going to get a great TV contract. So it’s not just winning and losing. And you see that across all sports now. You know, in our area, the New York jets signed an aging Bret farm to a one year deal. It was a very lucrative contract for far, but to the jets, really think he was going to bring them an NFL super bowl title.

No, I don’t think so. But they sold a lot of number four jerseys. And that right there is going to make it profitable. And I see it with my mixed teams that are always losing in New York. Why they signing all these aging veterans that are not going to lead to even a playoff? Well, make some, the gardens sells out guys.

They sell out every single year, even though the team has a below 500 record, I’ll stare for a year in the last decade. So. The free agent thing for teams is sometimes about profitability, more so than winning and losing. And if you walk at the MLB premier free agent signings, most of them don’t lead to winning, right?

These guys get hurt. Their performance starts to lag as they get into their mid and later thirties. There’s been very few of those contracts, especially if we look at pictures that worked out. I mean, yeah, the  10 year, $250 million contract. I think you could argue that was worthwhile for the organization, but so few of them actually pan out that way.

So, I mean, look at Bryce Harper. I mean, it’s early in that contract, but. Towards the end of that contract. Do you think that’s going to be a good return on investment for the film I be doubtful? You know, so I think, I think it’s interesting to look at and you will get the teams that win the world series guys.

It’s not that it seems that have a lot of those big free agent signings. It’s the teams that are young and lean. They put the ball in play, they run well. They play great defense. They don’t swing and miss much the free agent signings, especially for offensive players. There are a lot of swing and miss players, those big free agent signings.

So I don’t think it equates the world championships. It does equate to nice revenues for the organization. Well, let me ask you both of you a question, uh, and this is going to tie on, I have a couple of things that tie into the last dance. Well, number one, one of the things maybe laugh out loud. Like I literally laughed out loud.

Was it? And they’re talking about his shoe Jordan’s shoe contract when his agent was saying, yeah, our hope after they inked Jordan was that they would sell $3 million with the shoes within four years. And then he says we sold 126 million in the first year. Laugh out loud, out loud. Which is just insane, but, um, so there’s two main people that state that stick out.

And this is my question to both of you. Phew. So Salvador Perez signed a pretty low. Yearly contract. I don’t remember what it was. Something like six years and like $15 million. Right? A couple of years ago, Scotty, Scotty Pippin fell prey to sort of the same thing. And he talked about it. He said that he, you know, he started like seven years, 18 million or something.

And he became very bitter about it at the end because he became one of the premier players in the NBA and realize what that has market value is maybe, you know, 10 million a year at that point, are our teams under any obligation to renegotiate. Such a contract when player like Salvador Perez sign that I’ve I remember reading about it.

Like he’s like, look, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be healthy. This gives my family economic security and Pippin said the exact same thing, but yet still soured on it. So the teams, the teams have any obligation to renegotiate, stuff like that. I’ll throw it to you Bobby first, and then we’ll go to Darren since he’s smarter.

Uh that’s what’s gonna get carried away. I would say absolutely not. They have no obligation to renegotiate it. Um, I think it just goes back to regular. You’re like, you’re worth what, someone I was willing to pay you. If it’s it’s Scotty Pippin situation sucks because yeah. Yeah. $18 million when he signed the contract was pretty good.

But even in the evening, in that example, you’re talking about Jerry Krause told them not to take it. He’s like, look, if you want more money, like you can’t take this deal. And he said, no, I’m going to take it. That’s true. That’s true. See, you see what happens with the white Sox? Lot. I feel like the white socks are the best team.

As far as locking up. They’re really young players probably like a year early, so they overpay a year early and they underpay the next seven years. They did it with Chris to say, Oh, they do Jose Cantana Louie Robert on the team now. Um, you online CATIA, like these guys are making maybe $50 million contracts over the course of six, seven, eight years.

That’s nothing in baseball. Like those are real, especially if they pan out like you bill $50 million on a two year contract for a guy that might never play for you. If he blows out his arm or something like that. Um, in which case he’s not giving them money back anyways. So I don’t think that, that I don’t think that the organization from a business standpoint is under any obligation they might in good faith, extend you and give, you know, tack on a couple of years in some, some heavy salary.

I don’t think they’re under obligation because there’s plenty of scenarios where you can go back. And this guy signed for 130 million and he got one decent year out. I’m like Albert pools. This contract right now is absolutely absurd. Like he, he he’d arguably be. Released and out of baseball, if he wasn’t making $30 million a year, right.

Howard Chris Davis. I mean, there’s a, there’s a laundry list of them. So many examples of guys that have totally underperformed and they’re not, I mean, I wouldn’t give the money back. I would be crazy to give them money back. So I don’t think you’re under any obligation. It’s nobody forced you to sign any contract?

I wouldn’t, I don’t think so. Okay. Darren, what is your thoughts on this? So in the New York area, there’s a classic signing of a guy named Bobby Bonia, who you guys remember? And we just, we just, they’re still paying him a million dollars a year. All these years later, um, they deferred the money down the road so they could use it in the present.

So like you said, there’s countless examples. Bobby’s response was a traditional Adam Smith capitalist answer. Hey, supply and demand what the market will bear. It’s interesting. Salvador Perez and Scotty Pippin. I’m not going to say they’re blue collar players, but they are guys who aren’t as flashy, but they are essential for winning.

Right. Salvador Perez is defense. Is probably the best defensive catcher when they sign that contract. And you, and I know it leads to winning baseball and help them win a championship. In 2015, with the Royals Scotty Pippin. Wasn’t the big billing guy because of Michael Jordan and other guys were more flashy.

But when you will get Pippin’s defense and his length as a player and his unselfishness, he created so many yeah. Of those winning championship teams. So back to the contract. No, that’s the only, the only exception to them renegotiating would be if the public outcry was so intense that the organization felt like, wow, we better kind of renegotiate this.

Cause the fans and the media are really coming down on us. And we saw that recently in New York with Jacob, the grom where the Mets, I would say be grudgingly. Gave him a new contract with additional money because he’s the best pitcher in baseball, arguably, and he wasn’t making the deserving money. And we saw with Matt Harvey, by the way, guys, Matt Harvey never made big money, even though he was the most dominant pitcher.

The dark night of Friday night game at city field with Matt Harvey pitching was the biggest spectacle in all baseball. Yeah. If you look at his career earnings and he’s basically out of baseball, I think the Royals just signed him to a minor league contract. You look at his career earnings, Matt Harvey never made big money.

Yet his stuff played as good as any pitcher in the game for probably three years, which I like that story. I liked, I liked the Matt Harvey being sad story. Cause I think he was a huge jerk. I mean, he was just like very in, he was like very smelling his own farts. So I’m, I’m, I’m on board with that. Like Matt Harvey really loved Matt Harvey.

It was clear. So yeah, I’m on board with him, you know, life can and I think that’s why the public outcry. For him. Wasn’t what it was for Jacob Graham. You know, Jacob, the grom puts his head down. Seems like a God that dude professional just goes out there and pitches and yeah. Yeah. We’re talking for showing up late to practices and he wanted everyone to know that he was a superhero.

Yeah. He very much slipped into that persona. He was dating supermodels and out partying and there’s not going to be as much empathy for a guy like that who doesn’t get that renegotiated deal. So I think it’s a great question. And it ties in with traditional economic theory with supply and demand and let the market, Hey, what it will bear as, as probably mentioned, well, does a business have an obligation to pay people what they’re worth or what they will accept most would say what they will accept.

However, as I mentioned, when the public outcry and you start getting negative PR on it, And you do have the notes of conspicuous consumption, which is an interesting economics concept where in this case, people are paid because they are chic or they are fashionable. So giving that contract to pool hosts, who was already going to be a hall of Famer, made sense to the angels, they’re going to be able to put his number up for the history of the franchise.

On their back wall and retire his Jersey because he’s someone that carries a lot of cache. Um, so they overpaid in a sense to be able to have that player. And I think it also was a similar, was a similar example. I heard, I think his name is Tom Tippett. So he used to work for the red Sox as like a front office.

And he would be actually do these, like these models to try to determine what a player was worth. He was one of the front office guys key on like contract negotiations. You gave a really interesting talk at saber seminar, I think two years ago. And he was talking about watching players trends, like, all right.

Here’s the five years before free agency. And then he like blacks it out. He says, all right. So what did this player do after free agency? How well could we predict based on what came before, what will come after? And it’s very, very difficult as you know, like. Humans in general, aren’t going to predict in the future from past events, but he used us in Virginia as an example.

And he’s like, yeah, we could maybe say like, we should pay a that’s for Dustin  or we should do this. But he said, there’s other human factors such as what is he, what does this say to younger players? When we sort of like. Stiff him, because maybe we think he’s going to decline. He’s been such a leader for our team in lots of other ways, you know, does doesn’t, Rajoy bring value as a human, like helping other players along, even, even if he’s not as productive in the dugout, does he, that leadership role like that David Ross role, does that provide an intangible value beyond just the X’s and O’s on the field, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And so he. Eventually he said like, so in his example, we paid what we thought Dustin for Georgia was worth in the sense that we probably overpaid compared to maybe other teams, because we saw these other things that he did for us as an organization, which I thought was interesting. Yeah. It also begs the question about psychology do players when they inked that 10 year deal or seven year deal, do they lose that motivated?

And that’s why a lot of teams have gone to the one year model. Josh Donaldson, I believe was signed to a one year deal. Nelson Cruz has been signed to a bunch of one year deals and in both of their cases, they actually produced really effectively. Whereas if you had given Nelson Cruz an eight year contract before all those one year deals with those various teams, what do you have gotten placement?

And you know, I’m looking in New York at Yolo and assess for this. The guy has amazing. Season’s typically in his contract here. But for the two or three years leading up to that contract here, his production and his injury rate is not where you want it to be as an organization. Right? Yeah. What do you think about that Bobby?

One year model’s tough, right? Because if someone like Nelson, Cruz, like somebody has the, you know, the money to spend, we’ll give them two years at 60 million instead of one year at 30 million, and then you lose them. For a guy that maybe wanted to stay with you, like who’s gonna turn down guaranteed money in that aspect.

And it’s part of the poo hole sign on with the angels, right? Like he was mr. Cardinal. I mean, Albert pools was the face of the Cardinals that longevity winning. I mean, they were really, really good. And then he just jumped ship to the angels cause they threw buckets of money. Yeah, Adam, that the Cardinals just said, this isn’t going to be worth our investment.

So I don’t dislike the one year model personally. I don’t know if guys ever recouped the amount of money they should. They could have made it a longterm contract. Like Nelson Cruz probably should have signed a contract. That’s every bit as comparable as Chris Davis or some of these other guys. So I don’t know if he’s ever going to get that money, but he’s definitely outperformed Chris Davis year to year.

It hasn’t,

that’s not exactly true, but. But it’s the one year model makes sense for the organizations. And if players are handcuffed, I mean, the players, they’re only gonna make that money in major league baseball. It’s not like Adam Jones just went to Japan and the Twilight of his career, obviously like he’s had a productive, big league.

Cruz made his money, but I don’t think Japan is a, is a realistic alternative financially for any of these guys. So you’re kind of stuck and what the big league teams are going to pay you. And if they do pay it, they decide to pay you a longterm deal. Like you’re lucky, you’re lucky player. You’re Bryce Harper.

But if you’re Nelson, Cruz, where they pigeonhole you and they’re like, look, you’re a one year guy, like at any point you’re going to break down. You don’t play a position you’re kind of screwed. So that there’s tough. Yeah. MLB is a monopoly, essentially. They don’t have competition. You can’t go to the independent leagues.

And make anywhere near the amount of money and get more years or they don’t have an alternative. So, Darren, where do you fall on the Bobby Bunia deal? Who’s. Is that a good deal for Bobby or a good deal for the Mets who came out on top? Well, Bobby came on top just because his production didn’t end up equaling the amount of its contract, but it made sense at the time for the Mets to defer the money.

So that they could sign other guys at the time. So they were in a sense, shortsighted, Hey, we want to free up the money now so we can have it for our operating expenses. Now it ended up being a windfall for Bobby Bonia. Although with inflation going to bring that up. Yeah. He’d be a million. I don’t know that much about economics, but you beat me to the one thing I knew he’s making less money every year.

Yeah. However, we haven’t had horrible inflation in our country. You know, it’s been pretty much 2% or less on average. So thanks to our federal reserve and other factors, a million bucks 20 years ago. Isn’t what it was, what it is now, but it hasn’t been wrote it that badly by inflation to be fair. And, you know, back to the short term, long term paradigm of contracts, if I’m a major league baseball franchise, I would like to overpay for two or three years.

Rather than giving the guy the seven to 10 year deal. So I’ll, I’ll pay a guy 20 million bucks a year for three years readily rather than give him a 10 year deal for 15 a year, just because of body breakdowns and what I believe his motivation levels for a lot of guys decrease once they get that crazy money.

Yeah. It’s it really is a weird thing. You’d hope that like, Just as an athlete, you wouldn’t stop competing as hard because you’ve got security, but. You just have to know that there’s just going to be this level of RA. Well, I’ve got a wife and two kids now, so I’m going to take it a little easier in the off season.

Like your, your family dynamic changes over time. Your body starts to break down over time. Maybe you’re like, you know what, I’ll take it a little easier this off season. Like I don’t have to make the team. I remember the first year I didn’t have the only year. I didn’t have to make a team. It just fundamentally felt different.

In a way that I didn’t like, honestly, I didn’t like it. I liked feeling the intense fear and anxiety of spring training and having to make the team. It was an exciting yet terrifying and unpleasant kind of thing. But the only year that I came back that I essentially knew I had a spot. It was, it was strange.

It was like, there was something I didn’t have to compete. And maybe that, like, when that continues to add up every year, like you never have to compete for a spot and. It just starts to erode some of that, you know, it’s like, it’s like when you’re sprinting and no one’s chasing you, you just can’t possibly run as fast when someone’s chasing you.

You know, it doesn’t matter how well you motivate yourself. I just don’t think you possibly can. Yeah. And I love that perspective, Dan, the player perspective. Cause I often look at the business angle and I’m looking at the New York Yankees, the premier organization, certainly in my state of New York, obviously.

And they’ve won one. Championship in the last 19 years, yet time and time again, they sign that big guy Jacoby Ellsbury. Now that contract is going to go down. The history is a nightmare, and I think Jacoby Ellsbury is a hard worker. You put up that incredible year with the red Sox before the Yankees signed him, whether his body broke down or there were other factors.

No. What I heard about him though, you want to hear a little anecdote? Yeah. Uh, someone said, uh, Y I don’t know the timeline. This is irrelevant, but they basically said, Hey, I’m was talking to Jacoby. Ellsbury they said, Hey, with your speed, if you learn to get better jumps, you can steal 50, 60 bases a year.

Let’s work on this together. And he’s like, nah, I’m good. It’s like, Oh, okay. That was the kind of guy he was. He was just like, nah, I’m good. Right. And you wonder if that’s a cue to why he’s no longer playing in that contract’s been a disaster for the Yankees, but the Yankees don’t learn. You know, they just ain’t Eric Cole, is that really gonna equal a championship in year in and year out the Yankee fans around me, like, Oh, they got the lineup this time.

This is going to be our year. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here. Power hitters that come post-season strike out against frontline pitchers. It doesn’t work. John Carlos, Stanton’s going to strike out a lot in the post and that’s not going to equate to winning playoff games. It seems like year in and year out.

There is no learning. We got to get more five tool guys who play defense, who run the base as well. We’ll make things happen without hitting the three run Homer. Did you guys see that ball? Stan hit against the nationals? The other day, it was like 120 exit velocity. It was like such a low and yet 40 rows, deep home run.

It was terrifying. Do you see a Bobby? I see it, but I imagine more. I can imagine the punishment he puts on the batting practice balls. It was, it was like, it was lower than a home run of that distance usually goes, it was just like clearly he’s. I mean, he hit, he hit it 128, hit 121. So it speaks for itself.

But yeah. For the last, the last, uh, six guys that hit the ball 119 miles an hour or faster are all judged and stent and home runs. No one else in baseball since we’ve been tracking exit Vilo. And how many, how many world championships has that brought the Yankees? Is he going to hit 120 mile an hour? Exit VUL home run in the postseason.

I would argue not that many. We don’t get extra points for hitting it that far, you don’t get extra points. We’re hitting it for eight. You only get one point plus the men on the basis. Yeah. Maximum of four points, no matter how far you hit it, you should get some more, you should get a few more runs for hitting the ball at breaks breaks.

One of the chairs and the bleachers. I, I really think with this stupid season, that’s probably gonna collapse. I really think they should put like things in the outfield, like in the stands that it’s like, you hit it, you get like a bonus. Like let’s make it fun. Let’s make it like, you know, like ski ball or something where there’s, that actually happened.

Then at city field, Michael Conforto. And, um, Jeff McNeil’s cutouts were of their dogs in right field. And, uh, someone on the Braves I’m forgetting who hit, who hit Conforto’s dog and right field. So that’s a hustle. So maybe they should have given him some kind of a donation to the canine society for doing that.

Mm Hmm. Bobby, you’ll be pleased to know, and it is a side note. I’ve got 17 Twitter notifications right now. Cause I’ve been stirring the pot Bobby. Right? So Dan’s, Dan’s real person there. And you spent some time with Dan Dan’s. Twitter has taken a sharp turn from like sarcastic Dan speak to like.

Personable Twitter conversation lists. It’s not like if it’s sickens as it has. Yes. Yes it has. And I read these tweets and I’m like, Dan, didn’t write that. Dan did Dan didn’t write this tweet and it’s baseball conversations. It’s usually posting like a clip or something like a one podcast or article something you wrote.

And my dad did write that cause that’s snarky enough. It needs to snarky Twitter. Not really. I’ve always used it. She needs to, she needs to pick up on your tone. My wife’s in marketing. So I know this, like you have to have, you have to, you have to, Uncompaghre the tone of the person you’re tweeting is. So I’m going to start responding to all your tweets as Dan or not Dan.

Well, what Bobby’s referring to is I just have a, an assistant she’s just helping me with my social media and really what she’s just doing is posting articles like the links to them and just like, Hey, in this video, there’s bop up. These three things, check it out below. I write about half of them and she writes about half of them and you’re not really going to know which, cause they’re just like, they don’t really have any personality in them.

They’re just like description of. The piece of content that I’ve created, but Bobby does not like this. He wants me to be like, Hey, screw, you watch this video idiot. That’s about it. Even that it’s it’s she like, she definitely doesn’t. She has a different tone than you would use in your, in your tweets. And I can pick up on it right away.

Oh, there’s been a couple of things she’s put out there. Yeah. That’d be like poll kind of questions. Well, but the thing that’s being stirred up now is the front squat stuff. So I didn’t see your friend squad tweet or her friends. Well, I have a video about whether front squats are good for pitchers or not because from the rack position, this is a pretty ooky position for your elbows, right?

This is like not great. And it’s very difficult on your wrists and your, and your finger flexibility. Uh, and so when you start talking about what’s good for pitchers, and what’s not, you can do the front squat with straps like this, which is the way easier because you’re holding a strap to the bar, or you can do the cross arm grip.

So there’s three variations where you can do a front squat. And I think front squats are really excellent varieties of the squat that are safe for younger athletes. Like they’re really tough and they build. I mean, there are, they’re my favorite version of the squat. And we did, it was all the time with all of our athletes.

Not all because always like personal, like, which if it’s appropriate for one kid or not. But anyway, my point was, this is a really tough one. Elbows and pitchers really valued their elbows. And if we can take some of this strain, which there’s clearly strain, why would we not do this other variation or another variation that are just putting less stress on the elbows?

And so I’ve been like continuing to stir the pot on Twitter about this. And some people are like, Oh, they’re saying you’ve done properly. I’m like, just because you do something properly, doesn’t mean it’s okay for a certain population. Like you’re doing clean and jerk in the Olympics. Yeah. This is proper, but Olympic lifters, aren’t baseball pitchers.

You know, like who’s to say that extra bit of elbow stress, isn’t making their elbows a little bit more barky during the season. And they’re like citing research studies that say Olympics lifting Olympic lifting is safe for athletes. It’s like, that’s not the point. The point is, should you be adding more elbow stress during training to a pitcher who already stresses the crap out of his elbow by doing what he does for a living, which is throw baseballs.

I think the answer is no, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense. Just, I don’t know. I woke up to 20 notifications and now there’s a fresh new 20 now. So Bobby, could we say that the transformation and evolution, evolution of dance tweets is a sign of him, just aging and maturing. I mean, for me, I was, you would know better than me, but for me.

Dan was a great dichotomy when he was my roommate in the Dominican. And here’s a guy hitting towering fungos that the players were just marveling at, you know, he’s a pitcher by trade yet. He’s sending these mammoth fly balls that they were probably a little scared to get under. Yes. Yep. We’re back at the hotel having intellectual.

Debates about, you know, books that have been written. So I see the sky as someone who’s a real interesting dichotomy and I think what’s happening to me. Yeah, go down and I think what’s happening on the Twitter thing is she’s just kind of getting in touch with his more intellectual side. Maybe now I couldn’t disagree more.

I think Dan, I think Dan has, has thrown Brooklyn to the fire and I’m going to, I’m going to quote, tweet her. We’ll just. Oh extensively now. Yeah, just kinda, she does a good job. She really, she really does a good job cause she does put out a lot more content than you’re used to seeing from Dan, just in a daily basis.

I go out of. Links to tweet or links to articles, links to the podcast, not just this one. He’s got other podcast softball, I guess. So she does a good job. It’s just the tone you can like if you know Dan. Yeah. I wouldn’t say that specifically. He’d say it. But he wouldn’t say it like that. I think she’s surprisingly good at, uh, she we’ve known each other a long time North since she was 14, maybe.

And she’s 22 now, so thanks. She does a pretty good job of shadowing my personality as a, as a softball player. She’s she’s she’s like right on the cusp of like Dan speak, but she hasn’t masked. It’s not like, Hey guys, did you love front squatting? Have a great day. Like, it’s not bad. It’s not that, but that’s all I read it in my head.

That’s how I read it. Yeah, I got ya. So, Darren, do you think this bubble of free agency and like guaranteed contracts? Like what do you predict for the future? Is it going to burst? Is it going to keep us going up? We make 50 million a year playing baseball. I think it continues to go up so long as the American economy is going.

I mean, the teams, aren’t going to make the same revenues with no fans in the seats and having cut outs of dogs. But the bottom line is it’s not about winning it’s about profitability. So, you know, the Yankees and the angels, haven’t been winning championships with these gigantic. Free agent signings and these huge payrolls, but boy, they’re selling a lot of Mike trout jerseys and show IO.

Otani, you know, different kinds of merchandise products. So whether the Yankees win or not, they’re still going to be profitable. So I say, yes, the bubble continues to grow and it doesn’t burst. What about a year ago? Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off. It’s different. When you have a home, like a Mike trout who came up through your system, you had them for those quote unquote free years.

And then you pay him as opposed to the Yankees who it’s every year. All right. Who are the Yankees going to pluck from some other team or who are the maps going to try and sign? I think it’s, it’s a little bit different in that aspect, but yeah, I mean the big money contracts haven’t necessarily been paying off.

Well, last year, there was just all these calls of collusion, right? Like they were waiting like Dallas cycled in and get signed until April. I mean, what was your take on all that? Was that a normal thing? I mean, was that a right or wrong thing to do for, I don’t know if there was actual collusion. I mean, what was your take on last year’s weird free agent period.

Yeah. So I found that really interesting in the world of economics. There’s this concept of game theory where corporations and firms tend to compete with each other. And try to outdo each other without the other, knowing what they’re doing. And it seemed like the opposite was occurring. They were cooperating a guy by the name of John Nash about this concept of cooperating with each other.

And it seemed like because we never had free agents that were unsigned or holdouts like you have in the NFL so often. And you mentioned . And I believe there were several relievers in that, in that realm, Kim, Kim Kimbro, I think, right? Yeah. I think it’s Kimbrell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if papel bond was one, but it seemed like there were a few other parts, but the point, the point being, it was new territory for MLB baseball and it certainly seemed like the owners were colluding.

We don’t know for fact, but it was like they had enough, but the bottom line is those guys that were talking about them. Are not the premier guys. They’re not the Garrett Coles. They’re not the Bryce Harpers. It’s those lower, wrong end of a level free agents that it was occurring with kind of guys at the tail end of their career.

I mean, Kimbrell was a little bit friends because he had had a rougher season, but gold wasn’t. I mean, he was still. One of the best starters available. Right? I mean, but you’re probably right on the whole, I mean, I think probably everyone else besides those two was probably what you said. They were like the seven or $8 million guys, right?

Not the $20 million guys. Yeah. And we don’t know what their agents were doing within negotiations. And if there was a little too much arrogance, I don’t know who represented Kayako, but certainly those backdoor negotiations can be part of that equation as well. Hmm. Hmm. Maybe we should like start throwing like livestock into it, like, all right.

$7 million, 300 head of cattle, you know, a thousand chickens and a, you know, a family farm in Wyoming deal deal. We gotta, we gotta start hedging our bets. You know, if the world ends, um, if our current president gets elected again, you know, ha had, you know, livestock might be the new currency. Gold,

um, Bobby, we need your one minute take. Is your president gonna get elected again? Uh, I think so. That’s not a, it’s not a confident response from, from Robert. I think he does. I don’t know. I mean, who knows? There’s. Literally 45% are going to vote one way 45 or the other. There’s like 10% of people that decide to every election.

I think he gets elected again. I think. Well, here’s my question. Here’s my question for you. Does anyone who didn’t vote for him the first time? And it was very, obviously it was a very narrow victory. Does anyone who didn’t vote for him, vote for him this time? Um, I think so. Really? I think so. I think he loses votes.

I don’t think he gains any new votes and I think that’s why he loses probably, but I don’t know. I don’t follow. Like I don’t, you don’t follow Donald Trump. What’s your take? I don’t follow like elections like that. Um, my take is it’s all about the virus and I’m not optimistic about the virus improving. I mean, maybe we get a vaccine that’s more definitive by November when the election occurs, but I don’t think the virus is going to die down between now and November.

If anything as the cold weather and flu season is upon us, things might get worse. Sadly. So I think if the virus situation gets worse, it’s going to be harder for him to be reelected. I, I think your question’s an interesting one, Dan, and that is, are there going to be more people that vote for him or don’t vote for him then last election?

And I think there are a lot of people who are Donald Trump’s supporters that don’t openly admit it. Whereas people on the other side of the aisle, I think they’re more readily to admit and be outspoken about supporting their Democrat candidate. So Bobby might be right. There might be people who don’t want to transition and president during this very volatile time in our country.

And there are a lot of people who love Donald Trump’s economics just to come back to something I’m familiar with. He has, he did a $2.3 trillion spending plan, which helped our economy. He did a tax cut that helped our economy. He’s definitely trying to influence the federal reserve and Jerome Powells, adding liquidity to the economy.

And he’s been a Sage to the stock market and a lot of people, and you guys are talking about stocks in a comical sense with the Dominican before, but the stock market’s pretty much at record highs, especially the NASDAQ. And we have this horrible unemployment, a GDP shrinkage. So a lot of people vote with their pocketbooks.

So I think there are people, as Bobby mentioned that may vote for him who didn’t previously because of financial reasons. I wonder how many people will vote, period, based on the two options that are presented. Like you could not like Trump and also look at whether it’s going to be buy in or somebody else and think.

Why even bother? Well, I think there’s a realistic consideration for a lot of people. I think it was a very prevalent attitude before, because Hillary was clearly awful. I think Biden is a lot less awful. So I think people before were like, ah, I don’t want him to vote for Trump, but Hillary is the worst. So I’ll just vote for him.

Now. It seems like pretty lucky, like acts against her as you had. She would be the first woman president, like. She would have, she would have a group, like probably a pretty prevalent group of people that were pushing for her to be president just based on, you know, gender equality. And she’d be breaking down a lot of barriers like in the front.

I think she would have done fine. I don’t, I didn’t have any like really negative. I just like you just start to see like the, just the dishonesty of like everyone. In that was my general. Yeah, my general feeling about her. It was just like AF, but I think she would have been a good president. I don’t know.

Dan, let me ask you a question. Who do you think wins in a debate Biden or Trump? Because their personalities are different. The way they speak is different. So I think that’s going to be interesting to talk about without a doubt. I think without a doubt strong, I do think Biden is like, Kind of slow to the punch for sure.

And Donald Trump is a very, a very powerful persuader. Can I raise that’s as big as biggest asset? Can I rephrase that question? How entertaining would that debate be? Just from a wow. Look at this guy. He’s half asleep. He’s Joe, you need some, you need some warm milk, Joe, let me get you one chill. As he drinks his water with two hands, it was just easy one.

Like if, if he’s one thing he’s. He is funny. Like he says funny things like he’ll tweet, funny things. They’ll tweet funny memes. Like that would be pure entertainment. Even if you don’t like him, you’re still gonna watch like it’s entertaining. Like people watch his show all, you know, it’s like a show. He’s a, it’s a reality show.

The last it’s, that’s all it is and it’s fully, but, and that’s where the thing is, people are tired of that. Like it’s, it’s the thing is it’s not a reality show, it’s their country. So are you going to watch that debate? Uh, I don’t have a TV, so probably not. And I, and I really enjoy being less plugged into all of the interwebs.

So probably not, but maybe, maybe Bobby, let me ask you, you talked about Hillary. Do you think the Democrats are going to make sure there’s more of a grassroots voting presence? A lot of people thought the Democrats became compliant in 2016 because Obama had won back to back terms and they took for granted and they just assumed Hillary was gonna win.

And they kind of slept on Donald Trump as a candidate. Do you think that’ll be different this time around and they’ll really galvanize the masses to come out and vote? Uh, I don’t, I feel like the, I feel like enthusiasm around by, I don’t think Biden is going to be the one on the ticket personally, but I don’t think, I feel like the guy from vendetta is easy in the running to be like somebody, somebody like the guy that hosts the bachelor or something.

At this point, uh, I think it actually is going to be Kamala Harris or, um, who’s the woman. He just beats, uh, in the primaries. Oh no. Trump calls her Pocahontas. Oh, Elizabeth Warren Biden has the nomination doesn’t he does. He does, but I just, I think they’re going to ride out his, like, if you let him take all the lot, I mean, this is very political.

I don’t . Yeah, I, if you let him ride out and take it, call the lumps from Trump all the way through like September and then just take them off the ticket. Like, Oh, he’s mentally, you know, in camp, he can’t hear. And then you throw somebody else new in there. It’s basically like a, uh, like a shot of adrenaline.

You don’t not even Trump, just Republicans in general, don’t have a chance to basically dig up as much on her as they might want to attack her as much as they might want to. Like she brings up, she, whoever, or he, whoever, maybe we’ll bring a little bit more energy. Cause Biden is essentially been in his basement.

I feel like he has no energy. Yeah. So I think, I think that either, if he does make it all the way to the ticket and maybe wins, I don’t think he lasts more than a year in office. Like I think they just, I don’t know what the amendment is, where you were president is incapable of performing the job that you pull them off.

And give it to the vice president, but I feel like he’s, he’s short in the tooth for whatever in whatever capacity is going to be in politics. Yeah, I don’t know. Um, let’s get back to baseball real quick. Although it’s this was probably the most sane, most sane political clip that we’ve had. Bobby has changed.

I’m bringing it, I’m bringing it. The heat here. No, you brought no heat at all. You brought warm milk. You brought warm Biden. Oatmeal. Yeah. That’s that’s fine. That’s good. Typically there’s at least a couple theories. Bobby, are you going to take the coronavirus vaccine? Absolutely not. No.

Just go around sneezing and coughing on everyone and yelled at. I didn’t even bring this up. I got yelled at, in a, in a Starbucks yesterday. Cause I had my mask like. Like, right, like right here. Cause I was on the phone, but I was also like 20 feet. I was in the corner. Like I stood away from everybody and this guy yelled at me and I yelled at him because I’m not, I’m not, I’m I’m, I’m like itching for confrontation at this point.

So I’m like, okay, of course somebody yelled back at this guy. I’m like mind your own business. And then they’re like, well, bring your drink outside. I’m like fine. Bring it outside to me. I don’t care. And I walked outside. So I got, I got reprimanded in a Starbucks. Well, did you hear what they did in DC? Have we talked about this yet?

No. They, you have to wear a mask at all times. Indoor outdoor outside of your home. Which I just like, I agree with wearing masks. I wear them all indoors. I can do it supposed to do. I don’t complain about it. It’s fine. It’s not a big deal, but I just don’t see the logic. And the fact that restaurants are still open where you can sit down and just eat and be Merry and whatever, laugh on each other.

Uh, but if you’re walking on the sidewalk by yourself, you have to have a mask on. Like, I just don’t really understand. The logic there, the logic is business. Stan. The logic is we have to save our economy, so restaurants need to stay open and I support and I support the restaurants staying open. I don’t think they should close.

I think that’s fine. It just seems like a strange double standard where you can sit, like I’ve seen some of these outdoor patios and they’re packed with people now, which is fine, which again, I have no issue with that whatsoever, but then if you’re looking to like, say that I, I have to be. Mast up on the sidewalk outside around no one.

I don’t get how that logically makes sense. Wait, so there would be lots of consistency. Like I could be, I could be, I could be fine up to a thousand dollars, which I’m sure will never happen, but I could be fined for not wearing a mask walking down the street. No way. It’s time to move, but you could sit, but you could sit on an outdoor patio and have five beers with your friends, you know, six feet from the next table.

That’s it. I’d be fine. Huh? I mean, 15 beers, whatever you want. I just like, I just feel like that’s a strange overreaction where she’s like, well, numbers are climbing a little bit. I think our mayor has done a really good job, but numbers are climbing a bit. So you have to wear a mask at all times now. It’s like, is that really the reason that they’re climbing people like passing each other on the sidewalks, like out in the park, And outdoors.

Like I breathe out of my nose and I, and a lot of the research on mask use switch, I think is interesting. And they talked about how important mass can be at, at, at, uh, stomping down a cough, but they’re talking about an explosive. So there there’s this one study that I read was about, you know, an explosive cough.

So without a mask, it’ll go, it’ll shoot particles up to 10 feet away with a mask on only like two feet away, which is a great reduction. But what if you’re just walking around, breathing out of your nose? My air is going down. I mean, what, what is the radius it’s extending and I’m not coughing or, you know what I mean?

Like, I don’t really, that’s why I don’t really understand. And again, I’m not going to complain about it. It’s not a big deal. I just like that doesn’t make logical sense to me. Like is decent, all follow rules. I’m not sure. I don’t know. So I put it on, um, I mean, when I’m like, there’s times outside when I don’t, you know, but when I get to closer where there’s a lot of people around, I’ll put it on, like, it’s fine.

It’s not a big deal, but at the same time, it just like, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Okay. How many people do you see out that are just not wearing them or is everybody just the vast majority were masked outside? Really even when they’re jogging by themselves, which again, it’s like that doesn’t make sense that if that was, if it was that contagious, we’d all have it by now.

Whereas if that’s your prerogative, that’s fine. But I disliked. I want it. I want, I want them to be logic. What constitutes covering your face? Could it be like. Poorest crocheted mask.

it’s not like, Hey, you need to have an  mask or you need to have a, like those, the masks that I have this thing is like a piece of tissue paper, and I don’t even wear it. And I’m not sure, I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, but like, if there’s no. You know, like seatbelts have mandated, like you need to be able to sustain a certain amount of whatever for pressure impact to be safe.

There is no safe mask. Like you could, can I wear something, cover my face and then cut a hole for my mouth. Like, is that that’s a map, honestly, no idiot, but that’s a mass, but you see my, you see my point though. Well, there was a good one. Yeah. If you’re wearing something that’s covering your face, but it’s got holes in it, like, cause it’s crocheted.

I mean it’s yeah, there’s been no mandates on this. A lot of the Gators I’m coaching my son’s twelve-year-old team and we have to have masks, but these little thin Gators that people wear around their neck and then briefly pull above their nose. That’s not going to work as well as, and then 95 and then everything in between.

So the mandates and even the  for not having a scan, there’s so much variability and hands off approach that it’s so hard to say it’s going to help society unless they’re actually going to mandate what mask works. And there’s going to be real punishments for people who don’t wear them. And some of that is the production.

The supply side, we don’t have enough and 90 fives. We just don’t have enough effective masks. We have a lot of those paper dust masks that probably don’t work that well. Yeah. Well, I think the overall thing is, yeah, there’s no specifications. Like, Hey, your math needs to be four by six, like a index card.

And it’s gotta be two millimeters thick and whatever. I mean, I dunno. I dunno what it meant. Well, they could never possibly check everyone. Like they’re not gonna stop people on the street. And like, sir, is your mask one millimeter? Or is it two millimeters, sir? Why is your, why is your mask? I’m a big cut. I did see an article about a lot of people who are wearing like these respirator mask that you would wear, like doing sanding or painting, and they have a, a one way valve.

So when you breathe out, the valve opens up so you can push that air out. And then the valve closes. So it filters air coming in there, like. That’s not the one you want to wear, because now you’re breathing out your bad air out through that valve. That’s the opposite of what we want to have happen. We want the air filtered both ways.

So I saw that article, which was reasonable. Cause a lot of people have those, those one way valves. Cause that makes sense. If you’re doing painting in your home or your sanding or something, there’s a respirators. Right. But um, I mean the, the study that I read, which was interesting, it was just like, look even a cloth mask does a really good job of stopping these bigger particles.

That are, you know, these liquid particles that you’re going to spit out when you’re laughing or talking or sneezing or coughing, which is definitely a good thing. Like I get that. That’s completely fine. Um, I just, it just there’s so much, I don’t know, insane to wear it outdoors. With, like with you, we’ll start with distance from people.

Well, like just in general, like if you’re, I’m almost at the point where like, it needs this, this would need to be like people key. Like if you got it, you need to be like, in like shock, like epilepsy, epileptic shock for it to justify. What, what are you saying? You’re saying like, if you’re walking down the street and you cry, you come across somebody that has it, like, it needs to like affect you instantly.

And like, Noticeably wearing mask to wearing a mask outside in public. I mean, I don’t know about that. I don’t know about that. I’m just saying it doesn’t, there’s so much an open air. They’re just, I don’t know, gun, I shot a Darren’s leg, but I’m like, I got to show it indoors. Like, did you see the Delta flight turned around because two passengers refused to wear the mask.

Really. Wow. It just happened just yesterday. I think, which is fair. Like, look, if you know the rules and that’s the thing like here in DC indoors, it’s been a rule for a long time. You have to wear masks to go in to a store. So it’s just like, don’t complain about it. It’s fine. Just put it on, go about your business and this the same thing with these flights.

Like you have to wear a mask. On Delta and then two passengers after they took off, we’re like, no, and they’re like, all right, we’re going back, which is crazy. But I think that’s reasonable. Like at the end of the day, like we’ve had no shirt, no shoes, no service for forever. Right? If that’s the rules that you, you gotta put a shirt on before you go on in a store, like they have those in all those beach towns someplace, you can go without a shirt, some places you can’t, and he’s got a.

Abide the rules that’s fair, right? Fair for the, like you’re going, you’re using their service, but like walking outside is that somebody’s service. Like you’re, you’re just, no. And again, like, I, I think if you’re maintaining your distance, if you’re not sick, if you’re not coughing and sneezing, I think you should be fine outdoors out of mask.

So that’s again, that’s where I like, kind of get off it a little bit. Yeah. Fringing on my right to run shirtless and mask lists through the city. Well, at the end of the day, I still don’t understand like the intense anger about it. Like I’m not in, I’m not angry about it. I think it’s a little silly, like, I think it’s a little necessary.

The outdoor thing that’s just happened here, but it’s not a big deal. It’s just really not. The people are like, raging. Why is it the ranger? Because that, cause when they take a little bit of your freedom away at a time, like you don’t get that back, you don’t get your freedoms back. Like what does that mean?

You don’t get your freedoms back. You don’t get your freedoms back. Like we used to use to go. Like a go to the airport and check in for the, it, like checking in from the airport is drastically improved. Like, uh, not improved. Um, it’s become much, much stricter after nine 11, rightfully so. Right. But it’s not like, Oh, this is going to go back.

Like nothing’s ever gone back to the way it used to be. Like, the more they take, the more it’s permanently taken away from you. So if you’re gonna have to wear masks, like at no point. I don’t, I don’t see in the foreseeable future, like what, at what point is the mayor of DC be like, okay, you don’t have to wear masks anymore.

That’s fine. Right. It will happen. Right. Is being taken away. And people see that as like, Oh, well, like gun rights, people argue gun rights all the time. When they make them more strict and more strict at some point, like you’re not getting lesser. Restrictions on, you know, God like being able to own a gun.

You’re only getting more. So to the point where they’re going to make it impossible for you to make, you know, get a gun. That’s at least where I think people are coming from. Like, you’re, you’re taking more and more of my rights away and I’m not going to get those rights back. And it’s over the course of us history.

I feel like when they take rights away, they’re not giving them back willingly. Like the more government has control, the more they can make you do what you, what they want you to do. Let me ask you guys, this, is it a, is it a rights thing? Think people feel their rights are being infringed on or is it a discipline thing?

For instance, I was at a driving range, hitting golf balls, and I would say four of us had masks on and about 40 people. Didn’t and we’re about five to seven feet away. I don’t know the number I in these golf stalls. And I heard some people saying, Oh, you know, I can’t really hit the golf ball with my mask on.

Oh, it’s so annoying and the heat. So is it a discipline thing or is it more of a, my rights are being infringed upon as an American and this is what our country was built on my Liberty by discipline. What do you mean? Well, what I mean is we have the highest per capita rate right now among developed countries of the current buyers.

If you will get the rate of infection per capita, per person. The U S leads the world, the develop world in it. So my question is why is that? Is it because what Bobby’s saying, people feel their rights are being infringed on, or they just don’t have the darn discipline. Did you put it on when they need to?

Yeah, I’d say it’s the latter. I’d say, I’d say it’s the ladder.

I think it’s, I, I honestly think it’s the former, I think it’s, I think it’s people feel like their rights are being infringement. I think everybody’s got this one to wear a mask and kind of what I was trying to get across before. If people were seeing like 60, 70 million people hospitalized because of this, I don’t think there’d be any question that a hundred percent of people would be wearing a mask and probably staying locked down in their house for as long as possibly needed.

But when you’re, when you’re talking about like 99.8, some percent of people are fine from it. Like no issues, you know, after the fact, whatever the number is over nine, 9%. And then now they’re like, like Illinois, I just went like, well, you can’t travel to Wisconsin and come back without quarantining yourself.

14 days. You can’t travel to Indiana, Iowa. So if you leave it Illinois, essentially, and you try and come back to your home, you have to stay quarantined in your house for 14 days. And that’s like, that’s an affront. Like, so now basically locked in my house. I’m locked in my cell. Say I have no freedom to travel, even though we’re in a free country.

I feel like the outlook of it is this isn’t as serious to take away my right to do certain things to walk outside without a mask too. To be able to travel to different, you know, drive to a different state, go see family. Like I can’t, I can’t hold a service. If my relative passes away, I can’t have people come watch, uh, or come pay their respects to let’s say a parent, but I can riot and protest in the street at all hours a night with thousands of people.

Like there’s a, I feel like people sensibilities are being juggled. And if people are getting angry, I just think people are getting angry that they’re being told to do certain things, but a certain section of the population is not being held to those same standards, whatever. I mean, I just think it’s more, it’s more freedom based and it’s, we’ve been also, it’s been like this for over five months now.

I think it’s run its course. As far as patients is concerned, I would say that we’re Wiener than probably any other country though. We’re more spoiled and whiny and I think undisciplined than any other country probably. Oh, I can’t do this for a month or two. I mean, that is America. Is it not? Is there any country, Bobby?

Is there any country that you think is more whiny than America and insightful? Um, maybe Canada. There’s no way, no way there, no way. No way. Canada is a way more discipline, tougher people, England, probably not. They’ve been around. You have to bash one of those two countries. I just think we’re the windiest country by a huge margin in the, in the whole world.

Darren, I think

it’s hard to argue with that. Especially as someone who, um, You know, teachers school systems and gets a lot of parent conferences and emails. Yeah. It’s an interesting too, cause you see like Italy is, is basically wide open again and Italy was just, all you heard about in the beginning was Italy, how bad it was.

Ravish. Yeah. And China is essentially open for the most part. And Shane started in China. So it’s like, why is the U S different, like. I think people are just waking up and are asking questions. They wouldn’t normally ask of your government leaders like your local government leaders. Why, why are we different?

Like we’re the most essentially we’re the richest country and the most medically advanced country to some aspect, like why are we locked down? And everybody else is essentially open and some places never closed. Thank people just asking questions, which I’m totally for ask. That’s like my thing anyways, maybe it’s not, that’s your thing when you just want to stir the pot and you’re like, Hey Darren, is there an alien in your house right now?

Maybe there is maybe there isn’t a, Darren’s like, absolutely not. There’s not an alien. Maybe there’s no check the fridge. My four year old dog behaves like an alien. So I will say yes, there is an alien here. Say, well, maybe he’s an alien. Gotcha. Um, so Darren, what are your, what are your predictions for this, uh, this season?

Do you think? I mean, the Marlins thing is a very big nail on this coffin. What are your predictions? I wish I could be more optimistic, but within the first few days of the season and the Marlins already had that outbreak or that. Pocket of virus and it shut down the Yankee Philly game because the Marlins played the Phillies and it leads to that whole snowball spiral effect.

And I can see that continuing. So it’s hard for me to believe that we’ll get through even 50% of the 60 game season. Yeah. Bobby, what are your, what’s your take? I think unless somebody gets seriously hospitalized or potentially dies, I think it’s going, I think this season, I, it was a world series and everything.

Such a profoundly bad take. It was just like no shot. That’s the real, that’s an option though. It’s on the list of options. Maybe it does. Maybe it does. Maybe they play the opposite. I think that, I honestly do think they play the whole season. I, they knew they knew this was risky and whether they got to postpone games, played double headers.

There’s no way that they sign that paper saying we’re gonna pay you guys to play and not play. Like I said, it’s going to have to be something drastic, just cause these guys would be quarantined for two weeks. That’s not drastic. Most of them are healthy, you know, middle, you know, mid twenties adults. Like they’re going to be fine in the end.

Somebody gets hospitalized. And so, and it’s, it takes sound like a real form. Or if the players decide we’re not going to play, then I think it goes through a hundred percent. I don’t think there’s any way they stopped season and stop making money. I mean, you don’t have to be in good shape to be a, to be a manager or to be a coach or to be an athletic trainer.

So one of these guys, one of these guys with a beer belly, he gets sick. And I’m saying if one of them gets seriously ill or at risk or whatever. Yeah. Because I don’t get seriously. I think they, I think it’s not just the players, it’s all the peripheral people that make the, I mean, there’s so many people that play a supporting role.

Right. But that’s, I think that’s the only way, like, just cause of Marlon’s had a, uh, Do you know, a dozen people have it and they gotta be quarantine, just a D just a, just a dozen. It’s like 10%. It’s like 10%. They’re not, they’re not stopping. Like there’s no, they’re not stopping for that. I think just a couple players that speak out on Twitter against it.

And it’s, and it’s a wrap. A couple of players are like, we gotta stop doing this. But if Sean, if Sean Doolittle used his platform some more and it’s like, I’m out, but there’s so many guys there’s just guys that will take his place. And that’s the problem with being the player like the players are, the players are temporary.

Like the ownership is essentially permanent. Like they’re good. Season’s going to go all of the players. Like it’s gotta be a collective walkout. I don’t think you’re like, I just think they’re going to, I don’t think they’re going to say no to the money. I think you have to play. They’re going to play at this point.

Karen, what do you think when, I mean, there’s a, there’s a point when the product is great too, right? Yeah. Probably. But you still watch it. I mean, we were watching cornhole tournaments and darts on I wasn’t the guy wasn’t, I wouldn’t watch cornhole. I’d rather, there’s so many things that you would, if you gamble on it, Darren, what’s your take.

Yeah, the business of it’s interesting. You follow companies like Penn gaming and draft Kings. Those companies are thriving off of the gambling. That’s occurring on these sports, including baseball. And then, then you’ve got the notes that it might get shut down in those stocks. You talking about stocks before they immediately take a pullback.

What I’d like to pose is what’s going to happen to our three cities. Then you’ve got the Washington nationals. Trying to repeat Bobby, you’ve got a white Sox and Cubs team that are trying to get back to the big dance. And I’ve got the Yankees who are the five to two favorites or seven to two favorites to win the world series along with the LA Dodgers.

So I want to hear from you Bobby, since you think the season’s going to go through the world series, who’s going to win at all. Bobby, is it, is it your Chicago Cubs or is it my Yankees? It’s just going to be my Chicago white Sox. I don’t think there’s even. I can’t believe they’re not the favorite already, but I guess I think it’s the season’s going to happen.

I know who it’s not. Yeah, it’s gonna be, it’s not gonna be the Marlins because half their team can’t play currently. Uh, I do like the Yankees. I think the Yankees have a shot. I think the nationals Hamish, I think anybody with two solid starting pitchers and, uh, the decent lineup, like I liked the twins lineup.

I mean, the twins just mash. But if you’re gonna, I gotta pick one team from each league. I’m going with the white socks. And I do like the nationals. I really liked it. The white Sox are thriving because they’ve been playing in front of no fans for like a decade. So they’ve been bold. This is their moment.

This is their moment. Let’s wrap this up. Now we’re just getting below the belt jokes, the Orioles and the Marlins and the white Sox were the front row. If, if in a perfect world, the world series this year would be either Mets, Yankees, or Cubs white Sox, because that would be. A national, that would be a thing.

I think that, cause it’s not, as it happened, it happened with the Yankees and Mets. Correct. And to like 2000, 2000, 2000, I think a Cubs white Sox world series. I think something to that magnitude is, is, would be the best situation for the, for the major league baseball. So I’m going to predict white Sox, Cubs.

Okay. Website in a suite. I’m going Yankees, Dodgers, which I think would be a fascinating world series as well. And that Dodger lineup one through nine would they’re pitching stuff to me is the best in baseball. It’s yes. That’s an, that’s an unfair lineup and depth. I mean, they can probably feel two starting nines that would make the playoffs.

Yeah. Yup. They got three, four possible MVP candidates in that line. It’s crazy. Milky bets, 10 years. Darren, how do you feel about that contract right now? Oh, you love Lukey. Betsy, look what he’s done. It seems like it’s, he’s really good at baseball. He’s very good at baseball. Yeah, I’ve heard that, but I would bet seven years from now that contract gets the negative vote.

Well, and is that how they, I mean, is that how they’re thinking about this? They’re like, Hey, he’s worth 50 million a year for five years. So, or whatever, you know, whatever I know he got what three 50 for 10, 10 years, that right. He’s worth 70 million for five years. And then the rest of that, it’s just like, whatever.

I think the Dodgers are super thirsty. They’ve been close. They’re knocking on the door. They haven’t gotten there and now we’ve got our lead off hitter. And this is going to put us over the top is their mentality. So that’s why they did it. We’re finally going to get the chair string because we got our, you know, MVP slash lead off style player.

Mooky bets is pretty good. I was surprised at that contract, but he’s a good player. And so it’s just Toby Elsberry. So it’s degraded four years ago, who was better going into their contract. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s hard to argue against Jacoby. I mean, we forget about it, but he was stealing 30 plus basis a year and hitting for power and playing a phenomenal center field.

So I’d have to give, I’d have to say that’s a toss up, which is, I mean, that’s saying something because I’m looking at Milky bets of stats right now for 20. It was a 20, 15 to 2019. I mean, they’re pretty good. Like he’s got some solid numbers. Does that make be year was crazy, but Jacoby Ellsbury. I mean, speed, power, like planned center, the field.

I mean, he was, he was the guy in Boston. Like he was the Petrolia was the, was like the heart of that team, but that was very, was the production. We lost Aaron. Now he goes, he just comes in and out and he’s like an outdoor cat, you know, just comes and goes as he becomes it comes and goes as he pleases that’s classic coach gurney.

Um, so Bob, what do you have on tap is, uh, this coming week for your teams. Got a lot of tryouts it’s tryout. See it’s crazy trial season already. Wow. It’s insane. This is honestly, some teams did tryouts the week after the 4th of July, they keep pushing it up. That’s I hate that. Terrible, because we’re going so late this year and there’s going to be overlap of guys that go other places that are still playing and, and I’m doing tryouts without even getting out a chance to go watch some of these kids play.

Um, you know, live games would get an idea of how they perform in games. Like it. It’s cool. What’s your ridiculous, what’s your, uh, I mean, everyone essentially does. They try to get their trials in first and then they force kids to give them an answer before they can go another trial. Is that sort of the way it works in Chicago as well?

Yeah, exactly the way it works. I try and give everyone at least a week to make a decision and it’s not because it’s. It’s Hey, you commit to us or we know, get the hell out of here. It’s like, if you’re not going to commit to us, that’s fine. I just need to know because there’s other kids that, or I need to hold another tryout or, you know, I just don’t want to get stuck with a situation with like seven players for an age group.

And that’s you normally need 12 and now we’re searching for five kids, which is very difficult to do. And then you have to go back to those seven and say, Hey, I’m sorry, I can’t fill the team for you guys. That’s that’s the worst situation. So, yeah, it’s a tough situation, but we’re doing them. We’re hardcore tryouts, no masks.

That’s rabbits also no touching coaches. How do you not do math? I feel like you have to do masks, no masks. Uh, we take the temperature. Is that just because you’re you or no? I mean, there’s no mask mandate, like. For youth sports. Um, I don’t come anywhere near the players that the other two coaches that are there don’t come anywhere near the players.

Uh, we kind of just direct from 20 feet away or whatever, and take their temperature before they come in waivers. No parents allowed groups. You know, the group’s gotta be under 50 now that’s the phase I think ran under 50 players. So we’re just try and get them in and out. I try not to have them there.

Long hour, 40 minutes, two hours max. I mean, once they finish the train of like, Hey, good luck, you know, thanks for coming. Here’s the info. We’ll see you later. Yeah. Yeah. The trial situation is tough because, I mean, what do you advise your parents to do? Do you say, Hey, try to hit a couple of trials, try to hit, like what, what, what would you advise a parent who like, wants to try out for you and maybe we’ll start off for two other teams?

Uh, I tell him to just go, I’m like, Hey, go try out. If you, you know, I always say at our Triumeq or at our, to our teams, you might not put, you might play for us next year. You might not. Yeah. Like, this is what you need to know. You know, if you go to another team, they’re gonna expect you to do these things.

Like they’re expecting you to show up to the trout. When your shirt tucked in and properly equipped go, they’re going to expect you to know how to throw the ball around the end field. I said, it’s not just, it’s not exclusive to our program. You know, there’s plenty of programs I actually offer, especially for the high school guys, because that’s, that’s a big one, like 15 you to 16 UT kids decide what team they want to try and push them to college, essentially.

I’ll tell you, look, I’ll tell you everything. I know about the other programs I’m friendly with most of the guys in the area. Uh, we’ll give you the, I’ll give you the best, you know, the best advice I can, but I’m like, if you’re, if you’re worried about getting, like, what are your issues for leaving? Is it planning time?

Well, is it the team you’re on? If you’re on the B team essentially, like, is that, are you going to go there and be on the team? Is there 18 plan, the same tournaments that are beating plays in, you know, That’s it, you can’t, don’t just leave because you want to, you want to leave and you think you’re better than, you know, player B that’s playing over you like way.

What’s going to get me to the next level and I’m open with it because players come and go all the time. It’s not personal. Like I don’t take it personal. I know you didn’t take it personal. If guys wanted to leave. Yeah, I feel it gets a, it should be clear that look, you don’t owe us anything. You know, it’s one year contract, essentially do your job.

We’ll do ours. You don’t always say anything. You don’t, you know, we don’t know anything. Just, you know, I think loyalty is always good, but people should do what they need to do. What’s best for what’s best for them. Um, So as we wrap up your coach gurney, uh, what advice would you have for parents out there?

You’ve worked with a lot of kids over the years. What advice would you give parents? Whether it’s, I don’t know anything. What, like what, what’s your little podium here to, uh, your Hill to die on as far as things that are good for young ballplayers. Yeah, it sounds pretty simple, but I would keep it fun.

It’s so important that baseball and sports and activities, let’s not lose concept. That has to be fun. It can’t be all about, I want to build his or her profile so that they get into a good college and possibly get a scholarship. It can’t be all about productivity. And building your resume. It has to be about fun.

And it also can’t be about the parent trying to relive his or her dreams through their child. So those would be the two things I would say, um, and make sure it’s healthy. That’s all. Is it a healthy activity for them physically and emotionally? So those would be my, my little takes on that. Yeah. What do you think are some of the emotional pitfalls that parents should say, okay, what does that mean?

What are some emotional pitfalls they should avoid? Just like comparison on social media. Is this like, like what is it too much pressure? Well, I think social media is going to occur regardless of the kid playing sports. And there’s unfortunately, a lot of that. Social media bullying, cyber bullying that occurs.

But what I mean is the parent putting a lot of undue pressure on the kid because they’ve invested three, $4,000 in this travel team and a hundred dollars for a hitting or a pitching lesson over the years. So they’re, they’re invested time wise and monetarily wise. So then they put a lot of pressure on the kids who perform, and that leads to a lot of angst and stress for the, for the player or the kid.

Yeah. That’s fair. Bobby, you agree with that? Yeah. I definitely agree. Pot pot committed kind of essentially. Yeah. I mean, it’s more than just getting a scholarship or, you know, trying to make it to the big leagues. I mean, it’s hopefully you’re with, uh, either an individual or a team or a bunch of coaches that are trying to, you know, bring more value than just my son might make it to division one and that’s.

Do you try if a good organization will do that and you should try and seek out those guys, but it’s, I agree. It’s you can’t throw all your eggs in one basket and hope like full ride or bust and it’s, it feels like you’re walking your kid into failure essentially. Cause nobody gets full ride, especially in baseball.

Yeah. So Darren, appreciate you coming on the show today. It was a really fun conversation and definitely, you know, with you pitching a sort of the economics talk. Um, and I’ve gone a lot of cool directions today. I think it was really unique for the shows that we’ve had, and it wasn’t too much on the coaching side, but a nice different perspective on baseball.

So we appreciate you. Where can people find you on the web? Where would you like to direct them to? So my Twitter handle is coach gurney and that’s also my email coach gurney@gmail.com. And I’d be happy to continue the discussion with any of your listeners. Feel free to hit me up on either of those two mediums.

And this has been a lot of fun for me, Dan, reconnecting with you since our trip to the dr. Yeah. And good times, Bobby, really, and your perspective as well. I’m definitely different than most people’s perspectives. You know, in my area here, but there’s definitely a lot of people like you out there. I’d probably just don’t hear from them.

Bobby and I have a healthy, we have a healthy debate and we’re very polarized, opposite ends of the spectrum. So if you’re going to follow coach gurney, it’s G U R N E Y. So at coach gurney, G U R N E Y on social media or coach gurney@gmail.com. Right. I get that. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And hopefully you, and I’ll be doing some international coaching.

Once all these travel restrictions and the virus gets under control. Well, I’d love to do a trip to Japan with you or possibly Cuba in the coming. Yeah. Tell, tell Pete, tell Pete our travel broker put us together. I want to go to Japan quite, quite badly, but yeah, if you’re a parent out, there is a last note.

These international trips can, are definitely expensive, but I know that the kids that went with us, um, really had a profound experience as far as just, I mean, they wanted to essentially give every piece of equipment that they had a way to these kids just helping them and. Just seeing just how respectful and humble and hardworking the players were with nothing.

It was really a worthwhile experience, even though it was expensive because, you know, flights, a foreign country, hotels, all this stuff, uh, not a cheap trip, even compared to the expense of traditional American travel baseball fees. But the kids were just, so I think moved by the experience, just seeing how, like I said, the way they live and yet still are hard.

They play in what good people they are. And it was pretty cool. Yeah. And our players, Dan really got a sense of what it was like to be on a college or minorly baseball team with long bus rides and basically 18 hours a day of baseball. It’s a lot of, a lot of baseball. Yeah. That was a, it was a good experience.

So thank you out there for listening. We appreciate you being here on the morning. Brush bag. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen. Obviously we’re here every Tuesday and Friday at nine Eastern on Twitter and YouTube. So. Thanks again for being here and we will see you next week or on Friday on the morning and rush back. .