New Podcast Alert - The Cutoff Episode 1: We're Talking Baseball!

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1:02Ba-da-ba-ba-ba-ba. Welcome in everybody. This is the Cut-Off. It's a baseball podcast. We're talking baseball in the studio. Very new. Very new concept. At least in the back room, Dan doesn't hit too much baseball. He hits the big topics. But we want to get into the nitty gritty here. Yeah. I love talking baseball. I feel like I don't have many people here to talk baseball with. It's part of why we hired you. Is that why? Just to let you know. No skill, just knowledge. Just the baseball. Somebody that I can just banter what baseball about. So. Honestly, that's my dream job. If you're really breaking it down. Just come and talk baseball. That's great. But yeah, I mean, this is new. It's exciting and we're ready to get going. He's Mario. I'm Dan. We got a lot to talk about. Right? The postseason is almost here. Less than a week away. It's on our heels here. Yeah. I'm going to look at that. Who's in? Who's still fighting for a spot? And then we have some WBC news. Remember the WBC all the way back in March?

2:02I may be the number one WBC guy in Connecticut. Just Connecticut. Just Connecticut. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to talk for the other states. Okay. Yeah. Shout out Puerto Rico. We'll get to that in a second. Let's get started, right? The playoff picture is it's shaping up. We got a lot that's already figured out some things that are not. We go to the AL. You talk about the top teams. The AL East as advertised. The Rays, the Red Sox, the Yankees are all clinch playoff spots. They're going to be there in October. That's probably the division that if you looked at, you would pick a team from there to make a deep run in October, right? You would think, I mean, you know, the Yankees, you're not sure what's going to happen there. You don't know if Judge is going to come back. There was some back and forth with Tim and Boone today. Boone called it a moderate, tap injury. He said he shouldn't have used those words. You don't know what's going to happen there. They have the horses, right? The Yankees have Schlitler who's been in the game. Schlitler who's probably going to be the AL-Siong this year. They have the arms to do it. Are they going to have the bats to do it? That's always the question. That's always been the question with them.

3:02They went out. They got hell at Ramos at the deadline. So Luis Garcia has been pretty good. He's had a great season. They got in from the Nationals. Boston had the resurgence, right? They got rid of Cora, my guy Cora. And they seem to figure it out. And they've taken off since then. That's just a young team that seems hungry, ready to get out there, Peyton Tol. I love him. I saw that crochet was... On the comeback, he may be throwing in the playoffs. I think it's still up in the air, but 50-50. Personally, I don't think they should plan for him. If he comes back, it's great. Yeah. Just added bonus. Exactly. And see, we're already doing the thing that everybody else is doing. We're talking about the AL-Siong, we talked about the Yankees. We talked about the Red Sox. We didn't even mention the Division winner, right? The raise of 196 games. They clinched the division. And we're already discounting them. I do think that this is the year, because the AL is so, so mediocre. And we'll dive more into that. Yeah. This seems like the year that they can make a run. I just, you never know what them, because they always have, you know,

4:02they always have these great players. They, you know, we talked about it a little last week with coming year-o and Yan Ideas and Shane McClannahan. They have the young guys, but can they show up in the big moments? You know, we talked a little bit about the WBC, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But they do have that, some of that experience, right? Coming year-o came up big for the DR and WBC, and those felt like big moments, even though it was March. Ken that trends, Lid and October. You know, young guys like that, you got Chandler Simpson, who's had a great season. Yeah. He's hitting what? Over, way over 300. Yeah, for the batting title. Yep. You have a guy like that who's playing very well, Yan Ideas, who's been, you know, as as consistent as it comes. Yeah. But Ken does young guys, do they have that DNA to show up in October? I don't know. I don't know what to say. So here's the thing that I always come back to, and we talked about this before when we were sort of coming up with topics to talk about on the podcast. And in October, you need those stars. You need the guys that have the signature moments that could talked about for years and years and years. Junior Caminaro, if it was for the Epic Bat Flip,

5:02he had in the Mexican League a few years ago. And then the WBC, where he's celebrating with his teammates and sort of ready for that big stage. Pretty much walking around the big stage. Yeah, I think it was like 40-something seconds, I don't even know at what point it borders from disrespectful to, oh my gosh, just run the bases. Yeah, it was epic. I mean, it was social. Yeah, it is. He's the guy that you look at, and you're like, this is someone that they hit seven homers in October. They lead this team that maybe is not expected to go as deep as they are. They're the one that gets intentionally walked and pitched around because he's the one guy that can change a game with one swing. Yeah, I mean, he's showed it all season, right? He's also been Mr. Consistent this year. He's that he has over 40 home runs. He's been the guy at third base. He's been the guy on that team. I think he could be one of those storylines that we look back in a couple of years, and we look at, like, we still talk about Beltran and having that big, it's a little bit different circumstances. He didn't come over mid season, obviously, but we look at the run that Beltran had with the Astros in couple of years. That's a good pull, right?

6:02So now you look at Caminiero, and that guy, he hit home runs, right? Yeah. He's a power guy. He's a great hitter. It would be nice. I would like to see a small market team make Aeron. I'm tired of seeing the Dodgers, which we'll get into in a little bit. I'm tired of seeing the teams that are expected to get there. Yeah. I want a little bit of flavor, a little bit of fun, something different to expect. And you were doing your research. What, where did Tampa Bay rank in payroll? Bottom five. Yeah. I want to say they're either 29th. Yeah, I want to say they're 29th. I saw three of the teams in the bottom five of the top payroll are in contention for the playoffs, right? And see, I don't even know if that's the Guardians, the Red, the White Sox. And see, most years you'd say, oh, that's great, you know, general manager work and everything. The White Sox have 82 wins, the Guardians have 80, like, it is a different conversation when you say, all right, they're exceeding expectations, like the Red, winning 96 games, that's one of those things where you say, all right, they're doing more with less. The AL Central, which we'll turn now to,

7:02it's mediocre as it is a lot of the time, many years. White Sox currently hold the top spot. Guardian still have a chance to take the division back, but time is running out. Either way, I think they're both close to solidified in. They both haven't clinched yet, I don't think. But right now, I believe the Orioles are the first team out. There's four games out with four to play. A lot would have to happen for one of those two teams in the Central, get knocked out. I do think every time you say don't discount these teams, the White Sox are young, they lost 120 games two years ago. Yeah, they had a surprise season. I mean, their manager is going to be up there for the manager of the year. Yeah, we'll venable. Yeah. And the Guardians, they have great pitching year in and year out. And Jose Ramirez hasn't been as good, but again, he's a veteran. He's played in a world series. He's been there. Yeah, he's done everything you can ask for when he's, while he's been in Cleveland. So I think that those guys, I think you probably put a tear below the AL East, but again, as we've seen in past October, you can be that sixth seed, that last wild card,

8:04and make a run. Absolutely. So they have the arms to do it again. They have Gavin Williams. That a great year for them. Yeah, he did Parker Messick, probably going to be top two in the rookie of the year as well. So it'll be interesting. I think that Cleveland, I would pick Cleveland over Chicago right now. If you're picking a team to go deep. But again, ignorance is bliss. The White Sox are young. The first time a lot of those guys are going to be in the playoffs. For sure. Who knows what can happen? For sure. And then we get to the bronze medal in the American League. I don't think bronze medal does it enough to be the first. But the gold does it enough justice. I feel like we're disrespecting bronze medalists. Should we just vacate the spot? Make it go straight to fourth place. You guys, here's your ticket. Welcome. Yeah. The Astros and the Rangers are both in contention, but they have to go 4-0 to not finish 500. Like they are 78 in 80, I believe. They have to go 4-0, you go 82 in 80. You win probably when you're division with that mark, but in all likelihood, there's a chance that someone's going to finish

9:04under 500 and be rewarded with a playoff spot. And not only a playoff spot, they will host a game in the Wildcard series. The advantage is insane. Yeah, so that moves us to our topic, right? Do we need to recede? Do we need to go away with divisions? This is something that I don't think we've seen before. But it seems really, really wrong to see. The Yankees and the Red Sox have 85 plus win seasons and their wildcards, while as a division winner is going to jump all the way up to that third seed. I think that baseball has been moving in that direction to recede or start looking, making divisional matchups a little bit less important. In 2023, we saw them do away or not do away. Cut some of the divisional games that you had. They went from 19 to 13 teams. That's because they integrated a little bit more interleague play. I think interleague play used to be only about 20, 23 games per team. They've jumped that up to 46. Now you're playing a lot more interleague. I think you're playing every single team, right? You're playing every team, yep. And it rotates between one year your home against something next year or your way.

10:06And what happened there is just the divisions, you know, those divisional matchups are the ones that took the hit from that, right? Yeah. So we've already seen a trend going in that direction of let's make those divisional games. Let's take a little bit less. You know, who's to say that the next step is not taking away the division games. Yeah. And, you know, making that more important. It's a shame that you have the Yankees raised blue jays all kind of fighting at the top. And then you have, you know, the Rangers and the Astros backing their way into a home field advantage. That's big in October. Having your, you know, playing at your home field, having your crowd there is a big advantage. And the fact that the Yankees or the blue jays are not going to be able to do that. And they're going to have to travel to, you know, Texas, either way, probably Texas. They're going to the state of Texas. In terms of where in Texas, that's still to be determined. The fact that they're going to have to travel today and, you know, having one significantly more games to them is a shame. Because, you know, the Yankees have a great crowd. I'm not a Yankee fan personally. I actually can't stand the Yankees, but that's me.

11:06Well, that makes two of us. So we're on the right. We'll see. We're clicking already as co-hosts. Exactly. I will say this though. I'll jump in. I do think every division should be represented in the playoffs. I do think that should, that should not change. I think the way that you can do it is a little different. I think going away with the seating of the division winners get the top three seats. I think you go record straight. Like you mentioned, division games got taken away because of the inner, like which, by the way, unpopular opinion. I do kind of like that. I love it. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a baseball fan. And I like seeing every team. So when you tell me the red socks get to go play the reds and they get to go play the Padres. And even if it's regardless of the area, you're going to get to see every team. You're going to get to see the stars, whether it's for a series or if they're in the American League multiple series. Yeah. I like it. I think that there's a way that we can sort of switch some things up, change it that the teams that play the best and have the better records should be rewarded as such and not having to play in a wild card. So you're like, again, this is the second year in a row. The red socks and the Yankees are going to play in the wild card. The winner of them plays the race.

12:06So you're telling me the top three records in the American League, but two of them are going to get knocked out before the ALCS. Yeah. That doesn't seem fair to me. So you're not as drastic as getting rid of divisional divisions in general. You just think that we should have a receipt system after those teams qualify for the play. I think the division in terms of the structure is fine. I think tying those to playoff spots and seats. Maybe is where we find the difference. I could I'd be behind that. Yeah. All right. Let's go to the NL. Arguably the more loaded league out of them, the NLEs, the Braves have clinched the division. The Phillies are in a wild card spot. Yep. Quick glance around the Brewers. Another franchise record in wins. They're one shy of 100. We'll talk about how they're doing and what they're going to look like in October. The Cubs are going to make the playoffs. And then you go to the West. You got the Dodgers who we all knew would be there. And the Padres who kind of turn things around late in the season have been picking up a little bit of momentum. We'll go to the three wild cards first. The Cubs, Phillies, Padres are all there.

13:06I believe the Padres have a one game lead over the Cubs and the Phillies right now. Out of those three teams, you're Los Angeles, you're the Dodgers. Who do you least want to see down the road? Well, so let's go one by one. Let's go team by team. Sure. You've seen the Padres the most. And if my research stands correct, it could be standard. I'm pretty sure they ate in four against the Padres throughout this season. Yeah. So you know those guys, you want to maybe see them. Maybe the Padres are hot. You know that October. They had a bet on them, right? I did. What was the win told over 85, which they've won that about a week ago. Yeah, bring them your money, man. But do you want to see a hot team like that going into October, right? Those teams seem to be the ones that make the runs, right? I think they've only won or lost one game in the past two weeks, three weeks. They're like 13 and 114 and 11, something like that. So maybe you do, maybe you don't want to see them for that reason. Then you have the fillies. Fillies, here's why Philly scares me.

14:08They have the arms. I say it about baseball all the time. Who has the horses and the horses being the arms? You have Christopher Sanchez who's having a career year. Yep. Awesome year. You have Luzardo who's thrown 200 strikeouts. Then you kind of, you know, you fill it in, but you got two guys at the top there. Any of Wheeler. I don't know how I forgot Wheeler. You're going, all right. Sanchez, great. Luzardo is great. You're forgetting about a guy that year and a year out is top three in the second, but that tells you how good of a rotation. Good they are. Yeah. Yeah. So you have three guys at the top of your rotation like that. And again, Philly is a team that I don't like as a Met. As a Met's friend. Yeah. That must have pained you to say that, right? It did hurt, but you know, we got to be objective as journalists here. That's right. We must keep our integrity. Is the reason you just, you forgot about Zach Wheeler's because you're still visualizing him on the Met. Yeah, I think I've kind of blocked that whole thing out. He was on my fantasy team this year. I don't know how I forgot him, but he started the season hurt. That's right. Yeah, I think the Philly's, if you're going from a pitching perspective,

15:08and it seems like for the last few years, we've said, all right, they have the veterans. They have Shorver. They have Harper. They've been to a World Series within the last few years. But it seems like ever since they reached that World Series, they've taken steps back. They went World Series, championship series, division series, and they've just kind of stalled there. And these guys aren't getting any younger. Well, that's the issue with them, or the issue with them, is that they don't hit when they get to the post season. You know, Harper disappears. Shorver is nowhere to be found. Trade Turner. I mean, where did he go? He was having, you know, sort of the bank to cash that $330 million. That's where he's going. You know, bomb is another guy. They kind of just, they don't show up when they have to show up on the offensive side. You have the horses and you have the arms to get there. But if you can't hit, you're not going to do anything in October. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's go and I'll central the Brewers. We talked about franchise record, almost 100 wins. They are sort of the poster child for doing more with less. The Razor there as well, but they've missed the playoffs a few years. The Brewers have just kind of been this consistent year after year.

16:09They win 100 games. Jacob Mizorowski is probably going to be this side young. But it seems like after all that it's always met with the, but you got to get past the Dodgers, which last year they got swept in four games. It didn't even look close. Have they gotten better? And even in the same breath, have the Dodgers looked a little bit more vulnerable with their aging stars where you could see the Brewers finally getting over that hump and getting to a world series? I don't, again, and back to my point from before, do they have the arms to do it? You got Mizorowski who's, you know, your horse, your ace. Who else is there? Yeah. I think they went three and four against Dodgers this regular season, the Brewers. So, you know, they, you know, somewhat 500, you know, one game under 500. What scares me about the Dodgers is that they haven't fully been healthy all season. You know, they, they've had missing arms here, missing arms there. They've, you know, a guy like Kike Hernandez has him played all season. There's your Puerto Rico plug again. He shows up in October and he just becomes, you know, Barry von.

17:09That's, he does. That is true. I want to say it's like an 850 OPS. Listen, he helped my Red Sox for a postseason. I can, I've shared in that joy of watching him play in October. But you're right. It's, it's a guy that they signed to be basically on the bench all year. And then the minute the calendar flips to October, all right, go, go hit in that seven spot and give us a couple homeers. It's these guys that have the intangibles for them, right? We talked about Tommy Edmund last year. Yeah. But, you know, he ended up being the World Series MVP. I believe those CS MVP, but he was, you know, they were calling him Tommy Tanks. Yeah. Like he was hitting home runs at will during that playoff. They got him from nothing, for nothing from the Cardinals. That's the argument, you know, everybody talks about what the Dodgers breaking baseball, that the Dodgers didn't get these trades. You know, they didn't hold the other GMs hostage, right? Like they're doing these things to basically sustain the success. Yes, they're spending the money and they're getting the stars. But they are filling in along the margins to of these guys that, you know, like you remember, like KK Hernandez was a guy that the Astra basically gave the Dodgers for nothing.

18:11Right? Like those are guys that help you win those games. Those are the real October legend. Everyone looks at the stars, but you got those guys that sort of are hiding in the shadows. I guess I'll follow up. If the Dodgers don't win a third world series, what do you think is the reason why? It's hard to stay that consistent. I mean, you know, we haven't seen a three piece since the Yankees in the, you know, late 1990s, early 2000s. We haven't seen anything like that in, you know, a couple decades at this point. So I think it just comes bound to that the numbers are not, you know, they're not in their favor at that point. But I wouldn't put it past them. I think the one team which we haven't gone to in kind of smooth transition here is the Braves. So you look at that. See, we're doing a little bit, you know, you direct on the show during the day, but then you're still kind of working it in. I like that. I'm trying to, you know, just a little bit. It's like Ryan a bike. You never forget it, right? They've had the, you know, the Dodgers have had the thing the worst out of the playoff teams. The Braves have had the most success against them this regular season.

19:12Yeah. It's interesting. Like the Braves are very hit or miss. Like there's no strider. There's no Spencer Schwellenbach. There are guys that you went into the season thinking that, all right, if the Braves are going to get back to the Braves of old, you know, probably in the last five, six years, they're going to have everybody healthy because that was the one thing that was deterring them from postseason success. They still haven't had that and they've been back. Maddleson has been great. Acunio, when he's been healthy, has been stellar. But other than that, there's a lot of other pieces that are sort of, you know, we talk about star power. Their star power has not been as consistent at the top is when they were winning 100 games year and a year out. But sometimes you don't need that. Like we just talked about the Kike Hernandez of the world where it is the role players that come in and do their stuff. I will say they have a tremendous bullpen. Their bullpen is probably one of the better ones, probably behind San Diego. But outside of that, you get into the late innings against them and you're trailing. It's very hard to come back. So I will give them that as a benefit to them as you get into the, into the postseason because you know starters don't go along.

20:18No, and we saw that we saw them do that a couple of years ago when they won the World Series, right? Jorge Soler was the World Series MVP. Eddie Rosario, Eddie Rosario, another Puerto Rican. Was the NLCS MVP? Should we like mix the gambling podcast with this and have Dylan come up with a line like over under Puerto Rican plugs? Yeah, I think we could get some lines. We can probably come up with something like that, right? If it's fitting. Maybe there's some insider trading there so we may not reveal to him the number. That would be a good bit, right? We'll write that down. We'll figure something out. All right, so postseason starts on Tuesday. Regular season ends on Sunday. Give me a bold prediction. I know we're not going to do hot takes. Give me something bold here. What do we think maybe whether it's how the playoffs look, the wild card series because we'll do another episode before them. But kind of give us something to get us looking forward toward that playoff picture. Depadries make the World Series. Really? Yeah. Wow. Again, we talked a little bit about having the arms, but when you're this hot and this is the best time of year to be hot,

21:20you're going into the playoffs. You know, they played themselves into the playoffs essentially. They were on the outside looking in two weeks ago, only by a couple games, but now they are the number one team in the wild card after this run that they've gone on. They're hot. Yeah. You can't. I'm not betting against the hot hit. That's right. If they didn't broke, don't fix it. All right, exactly. I will stick this because we did, you know, disclaimer. We're not one-take-wondering this. We did do a test show to see everything. I'm going to stick with the same prediction I had on the pre show. I don't think the Dodgers win a third consecutive. Now, I'm not going to be as bold as you and say, who's going to make the World Series instead of them? Got on the list, Dan. No, I can't. We'll save it for the Monday show. We got to preview it. I won't give it away yet, but I do think this is the most vulnerable they've looked. Their stars have not been as productive, and I think the brewers have taken that step up. The braves I think are going to be in there, and these wild card teams are loaded. Each one of them, if you told me they were going to win the division instead of who actually won, I would have believed you. I don't think the Dodgers win a third.

22:21We'll get to who I think is going to win on Monday when we do a show to recap everything and look at the... See? We're doing more directing, right? All right, let's change gears. Last thing we're going to talk about today comes from the WBC. We've teased it a couple of times. Great for baseball. Everybody loved it. The popularity grew. You saw the personalities. One benefit was we saw the stars, right? In the United States, we saw Paul Schienes take the mound in what were... Whether you call them exhibition games, high leverage games, however you want to label it fine. He came out this week, and he was not quite complimentary about the WBC in terms of what it meant for him into the season. Let me read the quote here. Luckily, we could throw a graphic on here so I can just read straight off of it. He said there are a lot of other factors, so I don't want to put everything on that. But I feel like there was kind of the root of it a little bit. It definitely affected the year. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm the only one. Now, we've heard comments like this before where the WBC impacts how a player ramps up to the start of the season

23:22because those games are in early to mid-March when usually teams are just doing spring training and things like that. What were your thoughts on those quotes? It's unfortunate, you know, because I think there's already a lot of questions surrounding that tournament. I personally love that tournament. I think that it helps grow the game. You see stories like Czechoslovakia, you know, countries that are not known plumbers, striking out show Hey O'Tani. Exactly, and you see, you know, those guys go up against these stars, and you know, I think it's a great opportunity to kind of grow the game and see where the game is around the world. I don't think anybody should be doing anything at this point to tear that tournament down. It's already gets enough, you know, negative attention sometimes with people leaving spring training or not reporting to pictures and catchers or not being there, you know, being with the team. I think it's very unfortunate, you know, we've seen both, right? We've seen players who have played in that tournament who haven't had the best seasons.

24:23We saw Logan Webb who hasn't played the best. You know, he's had one of his down years, probably the worst year of his career. He was battling some injuries to throughout the year, just a couple of things. But I do want to sort of jump on that as well and say that this isn't the first time that injuries have been tied with the WBC. Like I'll put you on the spot here, 2023. Ed Windyas goes down with his knee injury. As a met fan, that was a year that the met head high expectations for sure. You lose your closer for the year. Did your thoughts in that moment change about the WBC? Honestly, no, because it didn't happen while he was pitching, right? We've seen spring training where managers are reenacting, winning the World Series and jumping on the mound. That could happen in spring training where one of these managers are doing an exercise like that. You throw the last pitch, everybody celebrates on the mound, everybody's jumping up and down, oops, my knee. So that could happen in spring training, that could happen walking down, you know, the steps going to the dugout. That's why, you know, I wasn't, yeah, it sucked. He missed the entire season, the met's weren't what they were supposed to be that season, so on and so on.

25:28But it seemed like a fluke injury, you know? I do understand where skiing is coming from regarding all of that because athletes are creatures of habit. And you're telling me that I have to start my ramp up, my bullpen's, everything. Probably two or three weeks earlier than I normally would to get ready for a season, there's got to have some impact. I definitely want to acknowledge that. Exactly. I want to put that out there that I see that. However, this is at the tail end the last week of the season when he has not been good. And now good, not good by Paul Schien's measures, right? Less, you know, an IRA that's under four. Less effective. Less effective. His velocity was down. The way that he said it and when he said it is where the antennas kind of go up a little bit that, okay, you didn't have a good season, your velocity was down. Are we just going to blame it on the WBC? Is there nothing else that you could have said that played a role in it? I just think it kind of came out as, you know, like you're trying to find certainty in something when you could have just had a bad year.

26:34Athletes have those down years. I guess you're making an excuse, you're embarrassed for lack of a better word that you'd perform up to expectations. But it's not like they won into the WBC and they overthrew him. They threw him probably the same way that spring training would have thrown him. 40 pitches, four innings, you know, just to get your work in and they back ended with the bullpen. But we've seen, you know, like I said, we see Christopher Sanchez had a great season. He did for the Dominican Republic. Eduardo Rodriguez, one of your old Red Sox, he had a career year with Diamondbacks. We saw Brian Bellow who didn't have that great of a year played for Dominican Republic. See now, if he said the WBC was the reason he was not going to, I'd be like, yeah, ban the WBC. This is ridiculous. The other point about it is, we look back at 2023, the United States made it to the final and lost to Japan. Do you know who the starting pitcher for that team was for the United States that year? I'll be actually really impressed if you, if you, is it Michael Waka? No, that's a good guess. It was Kyle Freeland of the Colorado lefty.

27:36The lefty, right? I'm sure Kyle Freeland has had, he's had a great career. He's had a lengthy career. If you're thinking of the star US pitchers, I don't think Kyle Freeland is coming to your mind. No. Why though? It's because no starters, no pitchers from the American, or from the United States wanted to participate in this. Yeah. Paul Schien said, I'm committing to play in 2026. Everybody else followed, Tarek Schuble, Logan Webb, all these studs that were pitching. And all of a sudden, you're looking at him saying, the United States has a real chance to win this thing. For sure. And so when Paul Schien's the first guy to sort of start this domino effect, comes out at the end of the season saying, yeah, the WBC impacted me. And my performance, it kind of damages what you just built. That was the last thing that you need to overcome. The hitters, you didn't really need to worry about who is playing because you always had that star power. But from the pitching side, it was discouraging to see that. You're not going to, you know, we're going to go into the next one in, I believe, 2029 or 2030. And now this question is going to be here. And I can guarantee you, when we get to that point, this quote is going to be brought up again.

28:37And the questions are going to be there for every pitcher that is, you know, at the top of their game from the United States, are you going to pitch? Did you see Schien's comments from 2026? All those things. So it's frustrating. We kind of took a little bit of a step back. And we may have to sort of start from the bottom again in terms of getting people to get over that home. And maybe not worry about the injury concerns or something just because Schien said so. Yeah, it's bringing, you know, we take two steps forward with that tournament and then three steps back in my opinion. Every time there's a headline, a negative headline attached to it, you got the Edwin Diaz stuff from 2023. At the beginning of the tournament, you know, a lot of players were getting the insurance to play. That's right. That's right. The tournament. And it's unfortunate because not that I have anything against like a Kyle Freeland or Michael Waka. But is that the best that the US can put forward? It's clearly not because those guys are, you know, you look at the numbers. Those guys are not even maybe top 30 pitchers in Major League Baseball. So you should be having, you know, this is something that the M.O.B. has invested in. They put it in the CBA. They should be putting their best forward, their best foot forward to have the best players out there.

29:42Around the world. Yeah. Not only for the US, for the Dominican Republic, for Puerto Rico, for Venezuela, for all these teams that are competing. Why not put your best against my best and let's see what happens. I think you sent shivers down the spine of every baseball fan when you said those three letters. CBA, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. I know. I know. Hopefully we get to a point in this podcast where we can sort of digest that and maybe start going after them. And hopefully it's not too long of a stoppage and everything. But right now we're focused on the postseason. And we have actual baseball to talk about. Yeah. See, I'm already getting to, I'm getting too gloomy. What am I doing? No, I don't want to waste time in that. We have all off season that we may not have baseball next year. We're going to have plenty of time to talk about non-baseball. That's right. Let's talk about having baseball now that we have it. Yeah. So we're going to do another show on Monday when the regular seasons done. We'll preview the bracket. We'll, you know, give more picks on players that we think are going to click and everything like that. We'll give you that whole rundown. And then the games begin in October. So that'll do it for episode number one. I'm excited to do this. This is going to be a really fun month. I'm excited to bet. Let baseball take over for a little bit.

30:42Yeah. Let it begin. Right. We need more of that in the studio. Let us know if there's something you want us to talk about. If you hate our takes or want to have a, maybe if you hate us, just say it. I promise I won't be too upset. I'll only cry about it once the camera turns off. But anyway, that'll do it for us. He's Mario. I'm Dan. We'll see you guys next time. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a Big Mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese, McGrittle's, make it a meal and save. Your favorite is now your wallet's favorite too. Extra value meals are back. Get a big something extra with a Big Mac or 10 piece McNuggets, fries and a medium Coke all for just $9. Limited time only, promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Bada bada bada bada

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33:07This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.