00:00And I want to ask you, is there frustration around the league that the conversation is condensed to four to seven teams about the top of the league?
00:10Really? I mean, we're talking about the guys that can sign nine figure deals.
00:14We float the same seven or eight teams.
00:16Where's the level of frustration, especially on the heels of the Tucker and the Bechette News?
00:21Well, every time we get like a Tucker contract, there's always talk about, you know, is the baseball model broken?
00:28I mean, the baseball model, financial model has been broken since 1901.
00:34I mean, for years and years, the Yankees had advantages that other teams didn't have.
00:39That's just built into where baseball is.
00:41If you are looking for a level playing field and you're a baseball fan, you know, you're a fan of the Guardians, you're a fan of the Marlins, you're a fan of these.
00:50It's never going to be level. It has never been level.
00:54And yet there's frustration.
00:55I think the key question is, you know, is it to the degree that you can stand together and to make a push for a salary cap the way they did back in 94, 95?
01:08When that really was not a fight between player association and Major League Baseball.
01:12That was a fight between small market, big market owners.
01:15And how can we make this work?
01:17I don't know if it reached that level yet because big picture, this is a lucrative sport.
01:23This sport is doing great.
01:24Franchise values are going up.
01:26In the end, when we get through the labor situation, are they going to be willing to go to the mattresses to steal a line from the Godfather and potentially risk the sport going forward?
01:36I don't know.
01:37I don't have a sense of that yet.
01:39And on that note, I know the last time we talked around the winter meetings time, we were all pretty much aligned.
01:47We don't think that we're going to miss games due to any sort of a lockout.
01:51But I guess I'm just nervous.
01:53I'm nervous after Kyle Tucker just signed with the Dodgers for $60 million.
01:57And Jack, you even said right after we signed, that was the most visceral reaction that you've had to a Dodgers signing kind of in this era.
02:06And to me, it did feel a little bit different.
02:09Diaz, I felt okay.
02:12So you're at 60.
02:13I'm worried we're going to lose games, even though my brain is still telling me we're going to be fine.
02:18But my heart is scared.
02:20My heart is scared.
02:21Yeah, real quick.
02:22The one that I equated it to, because Kyle Tucker, I stand by that.
02:25That was kind of the most frustrated and angry that I've been with the Dodgers signing in the last couple of years.
02:30The other one that jumped out to me was Tanner Scott, because everybody wanted Tanner Scott.
02:35Everyone was in the market, and then they just shoved $70 million at a lefty reliever that had two breakout years and was an all-star of the year prior.
02:43So those were kind of the two that jumped out to me.
02:45And oh, by the way, when Tanner Scott has a bad year, the Dodgers shrugged, as opposed to a lot of other franchises that would be interested in him.
02:54Look, I still think no matter what happens, you know, any other moves to come, let's say that the Dodgers are the team that Lance Freddy Peralta or Tarek Skubal.
03:04I mean, our heads would explode if they were the team that makes a trade for Tarek Skubal.
03:07If, you know, let's say wins arbitration, they're paying him $32 million, gets a drop in the bucket, the Dodgers probably be like, sure, we'll take him.
03:14It still comes down to this.
03:17We saw in the last labor negotiation, I think we've talked about this before, that the players, you know, there was talk about what the leadership wanted.
03:26The executive committee votes 8-0 against the owner's proposal, last owner's proposal for a deal.
03:31And the rank and file among the players voted overwhelmingly to go back.
03:36I see it reported now, it says the players, you know, are against the salary cap.
03:41I shake my hand and say it's not the players yet, it's the players' leadership.
03:46That's a very different thing.
03:48And so I'm still curious, when push comes to shove, if the player association says we cannot have a salary cap, if the rank and file will go along with that to the point of they're willing to miss games the way the player association did in 94-95, my sense is there was a greater bond between the players back then than there is now.
04:11But I don't know.
04:12We'll see when it's actually put to a vote.
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