Did Milwaukee Prove the Pirates Have No Excuses?

Yo. Welcome to the North Shore Nine podcast presented by FanDuel. This is Bucca Brew powered by Defer Coffee and Tea. I'm your host, Anthony DiNardo. With me, we got Jim Rosati. And Jim, as always, happy more. Happy Monday.

Happy Monday, DiNardo. Happy Monday, everybody out there. How about Phoenix Wayne over here in the comments? Spending nine Glendale Devil Dogs games so far.

Also, he's up at 4 a.m. local time.

Yeah, that part, too. That's what I was thinking of originally. man, I'm like, geez, it's 7 o'clock. My time. What are you doing up?

For those who don't know, like we're doing the Arizona Fall League this week. So today's my last day here. and then I do a little bit of work travel and then I head out there. But my plan Is to still work at least, half days while I'm out there. So yeah, I'm not looking forward to starting days at like 5 a.m. local time. But we're gonna make it happen, DiNardo. We're gonna make it happen.

That's all. Sleep can wait till you die. But I'm excited because yeah, you'll be there Tuesday night. I'll get in Wednesday morning.

Catch some devil dog, desert dog games, devil dog games. I could go some devil dogs.

But I'm excited. Yeah, we've had almost every single interview that we did out so far. We saw Brandon Cain's the release this week. So make sure you go check those out. Those are pretty cool. Interesting. You have to learn a little bit more about the guys in the Arizona Fall League.

Yeah. The team itself not doing so great.

No, I haven't checked the last couple of days, but I know the last time I checked, they were one and nine.

Yeah. So yeah, not great. Not great. Maybe we can turn things around for them. We'll see. They are two and 10 right now. Okay. So they won a game.

Well, like you said, we're gonna change things when we get there. Yeah, spark the championship. The Rosati curse actually works in reverse during the offseason.

That's good to know. Yeah, that's why the Pirates always win the offseason.

There you go. Especially in October, right? In October, the Rosati curse is reversed. I'm one and oh, and in October games in person. So yeah, there it is defeated in the postseason.

Yeah, but how are we going to get the Pirates into the postseason again, Jim?

I don't know.

Yeah, you've been you did a lot of travel last week for work. So I feel like you missed out on a lot of the a lot of the hoopla that went on.

But man, if you have if you're on social media, and in particular, if you're on Twitter, this past weekend, I don't know if Pirates fans were the I'm gonna go ahead and say like Pirates fans were like the main character on baseball Twitter this last weekend.

And a lot of it had to do with, the Brewers, obviously, they won the NLCS, they win the pennant, they go to the World Series.

If you haven't checked it out already Friday, Alex did a great episode of offbeat.

It's titled the Brewers just proved the Pirates have no excuse, right?

And so I wanted to make this show to not necessarily counter that argument, but I wanted to just expand upon it, give my thoughts on it, because I think the Brewers winning proves definitely proves some things, right?

But I think there's still some more nuanced conversation that we can have about this.

And I don't know if you know this or not, DiNardo, but Twitter is not the place to hold nuanced conversation.

You if you if you say something on Twitter, I put out a few tweets on Friday, pretty much just putting out some numbers, right?

Because like, we don't know everything in terms of the finances of Major League Baseball teams, but we do know is the finances of the Atlanta Braves, we have that, right?

So just like putting out some numbers there.

And I had to I had to mute my Twitter account on Saturday, what I had to mute it because I was just I can't I can't do this anymore.

I can't do this anymore.

Like every fourth mention in my replies was some slur, like no one's capable of having any actual discussion on Twitter.

So yeah, let's have a conversation.

The two of us, if you're watching in the comments, let's comment along.

If you're watching or listening to this after the fact, leave your comments.

Let us know what you think.

But I'm not having a conversation with a nutting burner account.

Goodbye.

Right.

I was called a Bob Nutting burner account, which I'm like, wow, like that.

I've got some crazy range here because a lot of people, they get mad at me because of how much I harp on Bob.

So it's like, I don't get it.

But yeah, apparently, according to some baseball fans like Pirates fans, just they're the dumbest people in the world because they want a salary cap.

And the Brewers just proved that, you know what, baseball is not broken.

You guys need to quit whining.

Hold your owner accountable.

If Milwaukee can do it, Pittsburgh can do it.

So, the question I want to tackle is like, are our Pirates fans wrong?

Are Pirates fans wrong for wanting to structurally change the economics of baseball after watching Milwaukee do what you like?

What the Pirates should be able to do, right?

I just want to say this, too.

I love I love because I'll say this.

Yes, I've been watching this from a distance and not very often, but I've certainly seen what Twitter has been this week, especially like the main players on Pirates Twitter.

Here's to you folks carrying the torch on that.

But yeah, I love the whole aspect of hold your owner accountable.

Oh, then just hold just simply hold your owner accountable, Jim.

Because, the Pirates fans haven't done anything the past decade to try to do anything to hold the owner accountable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not just simply that easy.

You can't just say, you know what?

I want my owner to spend money, so I'm just going to hold him accountable.

maybe guys, maybe what if what?

Now, hear me out.

Check this out, Jim.

What if we all went to the stadium, had a banner fly around the stadium telling him to sell the team?

We all wore shirts to say sell the team, and then we all chanted sell the team.

What if we just did that?

It's got to work, right?

No, it's not enough.

Yeah, apparently.

I love the whole deal.

Just hold them accountable.

No, you can't just hold them accountable.

They're still going to do whatever the hell they want to do.

They prove that time and time again.

Almost every owner, you know?

yeah, the Angels apparently bullied their owner to selling, but I think there's more to that.

hell, you know what?

You can bully me to make $3.5 billion also.

But at any rate, yeah, I just find that's the problem.

There's way more nuance to this conversation than it's being given on all sides, on all sides, too.

for the pro salary cap to the anti-salary cap, it's just everything's such a blanket statement.

And just, like, it's crazy because I feel like the conversation has gone such a weird route this week, too.

I understand the whole capping the salaries on the players.

Like, I understand the whole aspect of the capping of the salaries.

like, this is America.

You should be able to get what you're worth, and there should be a cap on here, and, freedom.

The way it's changed the fact of, like, well, if Bob Nutting isn't going to spend now, he sure as hell isn't going to spend when there's a cap.

That doesn't make sense.

That doesn't make any sense.

Well, I think that's a lot of it.

He has to spend.

I think that's a lot of it, is, like, people, I think a lot of people on both sides really just don't understand fully, like, what that means, right?

Like, a salary cap system means you've got to spend a certain amount.

There's a floor.

There's a cap.

It also comes with revenue sharing, like, full-on revenue sharing.

So, like, there is no more of this large market versus small market.

It's like the NHL or the NFL if you're, that's a more popular league, right?

Like, the Green Bay Packers exist in the NFL, and they play football in, a town, just like a village.

You know what?

You saw them last night on primetime.

So, it's having a cap system in place allows small market teams to, at least from a financial and economic standpoint, start at a level playing field.

Now, that's just one part of running a team.

Like, there's still a whole lot more to it than that.

And I think that's where this conversation sometimes gets just, like, blown out of proportion is you see so many people where they're like, well, it wouldn't matter if there was a cap.

If there was a cap, your team would still suck.

Maybe.

Like, they might.

But you know what?

Like, what I love about, what I like about that scenario is I don't know exactly who to blame at that point and exactly what to blame them for.

You take, when you're forcing, like, you're forcing Bob Nunning to spend a certain amount of money because now the league has ensured that he has the money to spend.

None of us know exactly what the Pirates books look like.

We have no idea, no clue.

We have a guess.

We can guess, within probably a few tens of millions of dollars what their revenues are.

We can guess within a few tens of millions of dollars what their expenses are.

Forbes puts out some numbers every year.

We can guess what non-payroll operating expenses are, but at the end of the day, we don't know.

We don't know what those are.

I don't know if the Pirates are making $20 million a year.

I don't know if they're losing $20 million a year.

I don't know if they're making five.

I don't know if they're losing five.

I have no idea.

What I do know is that right now there's so many things that you can look at this team and say, the Pirates are bad because they make bad decisions.

They have poor development.

They draft poorly.

They scout poorly.

They've got, incompetent people running the team, right?

Like, we can go all, we can say all that.

And a cap doesn't change any of that.

What a cap changes is the argument where, well, why doesn't your owner spend more money?

That's what we want him to do.

We want him to spend more money, right?

And what the system ensures is that he spends more money.

Now, he may be getting more money, right, to make sure he can spend that amount of money.

But it's major league baseball.

There's plenty of money to go around.

We're talking about 30 billionaires or, groups, ownership groups out there that have a lot of money.

And I'm not saying a salary cap is automatically going to fix the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Like, it could very much not do that.

But what it does allow is, hey, you know what?

You don't have that excuse anymore that you're a small market team because the Pirates use that excuse.

They do.

In Alex's episode on Friday, he talks about how he interviewed Bob Nutting.

And Bob Nutting uses that excuse where they're going to have to navigate the lean years and capitalize on windows.

It's like, take that excuse away.

Take that excuse away so that they can't use it anymore.

And if you are incompetent and inept and it takes you eight years to build a winning team, or you haven't been to the postseason since 2015, then we can say, no, this is your fault.

This is your fault, Ben Cherington, because you have the same resources as everybody else.

Why aren't you, why aren't you, why is it this your, this is your problem, Ben?

This isn't Bob's problem.

Because right now it's like, is this Ben Cherington's fault?

A little bit.

Is this Bob Nutting's fault?

A little bit.

Like, it's everybody's fault right now.

But we, there's so much like fighting in between the fan base even on like, who do you blame for this?

And this at least allows me as a fan to say, you know what, this is, this is so-and-so's fault.

Now you can still have bad owners under a cap system, right?

Like you can have owners who don't demand excellence.

You can have owners who employ bad people from the top down.

But like, let's look at this a little bit more nuanced.

Like, this isn't saying the Pirates are going to be fixed.

This is saying like, let's take the small market excuse away from them and say, you know what?

You don't have that excuse anymore.

So go out there and win.

And if you don't, then we can, we can be pissed off at the right thing.

Like, let's, I just want to talk about so much like making sure the fans.

It's not like, let's make sure the fans are pissed off at the right thing.

But you are correct in the sense, like, and I said this before too.

And I'll say it again right now.

It's most important because I feel like, yes, a lot of people are attacking Pirates fans.

So, because it's like the Pirates think the salary cap is going to make the Pirates good.

Doesn't ensure anything.

What it does though, is allows them the opportunity to be just as good as the Dodgers, as the Yankees, as the Cubs.

It's the opportunity too.

But guess what?

There is a cap system and in a cap system, the Cleveland Browns still exist.

I'm more on the side that the Pirates are probably going to be more as like the Cleveland Browns than they're going to be of the Green Bay Packers.

And the reason for that is because the ownership group still needs to be competent, still needs to have a culture in place.

When you look at the Browns, what's their culture opposed to look at the Green Bay Packers and what's their culture?

what do they develop?

What do they do?

The Pirates will probably fall more in line with the Browns.

But at least the Browns have the same opportunity to be just as good with no other constraints as the New York Giants.

Why did you shake your head, Jim?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Because I say that because I think, honestly, they're the same side of things.

The Dodgers are probably still going to be excellent.

And why is that?

Because the ownership group.

What they have there.

Like, I'm not saying like, oh, if the Dodgers, if they have a cap system, the Dodgers are going to crumble.

Look at you.

You're going to the Pirates.

No, the Pirates probably get the Browns.

And the Dodgers are still going to be the Dodgers.

But all honestly, the Yankees are probably more like the New York Giants.

Because, like, that's a good, to me, a good example of a large market team that probably is not going to flourish because of money anymore.

Because, honestly, I don't think they're that great of an organization.

It's the fact that they have a $300 million payroll that allows them to.

Because they don't do a lot of things that's great.

And, actually, they're uber cheap compared to other things.

But, at that same rate, though, like, it's, again, the opportunity to.

Right?

When you look here, like, you see Buffalo.

The Buffalo Bills are an outstanding team.

Like, every year, Josh Allen just signed a $330 million six-year extension to stay in Buffalo.

That doesn't happen.

Buffalo doesn't have a baseball team because it's a shit town that no one wants to be in that doesn't have an economy.

That's not shit on Buffalo.

So, here's the thing.

I'm doing that to prove a point.

Yeah.

Because if little lone Buffalo, that all they can do is jump and break tables.

That's all that you can do in Buffalo.

If little Buffalo can have a successful football organization, it just proves, like, maybe this thing works in that sense.

Everyone has the same opportunity.

Buffalo's not crying because the Chargers, the Chargers, shit team, is just buying up everyone and being successful in that sense.

Like, Buffalo has the same opportunity, and they're capitalizing on it.

Yeah.

And like I said, I think what the Brewers just proved, and it's something that we've known for a while, right?

Like, you can win in this current system.

It's not that it's impossible.

You can do it.

The Brewers have been doing it for the better part of a decade now.

The Rays have been doing it for a while.

You see Cleveland.

Like, Cleveland's always in the mix there, right?

Like, it can be done.

I guess the question that I have is, like, should Milwaukee have to be significantly better than every other large market team out there at drafting, developing, trading, roster, construction, whatever that may be, to have that same opportunity as everybody else?

Like, because right now, the current system, it doesn't make it impossible, but it does, like, you have to be significantly better at everything else than your counterparts to get into the situation that they are.

And guess what?

For Milwaukee, they are.

Like, Milwaukee is significantly better.

But you look at, and let's just use the Dodgers as an example, because I want to.

The Dodgers can make up for millions and millions of dollars worth of mistakes.

They can do it, right?

And teams like the Brewers can't.

The Brewers have to operate almost perfectly to accomplish what they did this year.

The Dodgers, meanwhile.

Yeah.

A great example, Kyle Tucker.

Well, I'm using that as, yeah.

So, like, not only Tucker, but, like, you look at Kyle Tucker.

You look at Teoscar Hernandez.

You look at Edwin Diaz.

Those three guys for the Dodgers roughly got paid $100 million this year.

Those three guys.

You know what?

They produced less war than Nick Gonzales.

So, like, those are not good baseball decisions that the Dodgers made.

But guess what?

They were easily able to overcome that and have a really good year that they went to the NLCS in because, oh, well, you know what?

That's just $100 million.

I'll just spend another $300 million on these other guys that'll make up for it.

And other, like, Milwaukee can't do that, right?

If Milwaukee, quote, unquote, wastes $100 million, they're done.

If Milwaukee has four players or three players make $100 million and they combine for two war, they're done.

They're a 60-win team.

They're not capable of making a mistake like that, whereas some teams are able to make mistakes like that and overcome it.

And, it really just comes down to, like, do you think that's fair?

Like, is it fair that the Dodgers are allowed to make $100 million mistakes?

And it doesn't really affect them, whereas, a good portion of the league, if they were to make a $100 million mistake, their season would be completely ruined, right?

So, like, let's just take that out of it.

Let's just eliminate that.

Just eliminate that as a thing and figure out a way to make this so that it's a little bit more level playing field on the field.

And then it really just comes down to, okay, how good are you at putting a baseball team together?

Like, I'm not an econ major.

I'm not a finance major.

I don't want to spend time as a baseball fan talking about finances and economics, right?

I'll leave that to Ethan.

Like, that's Ethan's thing.

Like, let Ethan handle that part.

I just want to talk about baseball.

And this topic basically forces us to just, like, have a – it's an entire discussion that no other fan of any other sport in the United States has to have.

Like, they don't – the Steelers fans don't have to talk about this.

Like, Steelers fans don't have to do this.

Penguins fans used to.

And guess what?

They filed for bankruptcy and almost left the city, right?

And then you saw what a salary cap system was able to do to a team like the Pittsburgh Penguins as they were able to, have a few years where they drafted really well.

They got some really nice players.

A cap system was put in place that allowed them to keep those players for an extended period of time.

And you saw the Penguins, put together a few – some really fun Stanley Cup runs, some titles.

And that was something that they would have not been able to do under the previous system in the NHL.

And going back to, like, shifting this to a Pittsburgh fan standpoint, like, I think a lot of Pittsburgh fans, especially ones maybe our age, they have seen what a salary cap system can do for another one of their teams, right?

Like, we saw what it did for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

And it's like, man, that would be cool to do that for the Pirates, too.

It just – again, it allows you to – it allows you to just focus on the sport.

Like, let me just talk baseball.

I don't want to have this conversation.

And I think the biggest thing, too, is we were talking about, this will make the Pirates better and such.

Like, I know we're a Pirates podcast, and we're talking about this because of the Pirates.

But I want to make it very clear this isn't just a Pirates thing, and that's not what I'm, having this discussion for.

When you look – if there were to be a cap system, the Dodgers' biggest worry, if you're a Dodgers fan, it's not, oh, you guys think the Pirates would be good.

It's Milwaukee's going to kick our ass.

Tampa is going to kick our ass.

Cleveland's going to kick our ass.

Because I look at those three organizations, I don't – like I said, the Pirates are probably closer to the Cleveland Browns if there's a cap system.

And, it is what it is because also at the end of the day where this does, it's not even so much let's just allow fans talk about this.

But fans at least can have hope because you're not sitting here saying, well, we have an $80 million payroll.

We're not going anywhere this year.

like how many are checked out right away?

That doesn't happen too often, I feel like, in football.

Not too often, not too often that, like, from day one, you're like, we're out of here.

This is it.

Like, is you a Dolphins fan this year?

Like, sure.

But probably in, like, two years, you probably have some hope again.

Like, when you talk about rebuilds in football, you're not saying this is year eight.

This is year eight.

But, yeah.

there are some completely inept NFL teams out there, right?

And that comes down strictly to just, like the Browns.

But even the Browns fans a lot of times have hope because they made moves.

They spent money.

They did X, Y.

Like, oh, they had this.

Listen, guys.

This year, the Browns have $100 million in cap space.

They are going to go out and ball out.

And actually, the Dolphins are notorious for that.

Just think about being a Dolphins fan.

Okay, let me talk to you about being a Dolphins fan, right?

So, it's like, oh, my God.

They got so much cap space next year.

Like, think about all the free agents they're going to target and go after.

And then they do.

And they're excited.

But they can't put the team together.

So, of course, then they go 4 and 12, whatever.

But you had hope because they had this tremendous offseason.

They signed that guy.

They signed that guy.

It was fun.

It was awesome.

It wasn't, well, they're not going to sign anyone.

They can't sign anyone.

So, I guess, again, we're coming back to opportunity and such.

But, like, yes, as a Pirates podcaster, again, they align more with the Cleveland Browns, I think, than anything.

So, I think the cap space is going to change so much from that sense because it's just still not great ownership.

But teams like the Rays, teams like the Brewers, teams like the Cleveland Guardians, those are ones I'm saying look out for.

And Milwaukee has done a great job.

But imagine Milwaukee with the same opportunity given to them as the Dodgers.

If Milwaukee's sweeping the Dodgers right now or a whore on their own almost year after year, getting to the playoffs, imagine them on the same playing field with the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sox.

Yeah, I think if you look at those small market teams that are operating really efficiently and they're doing a good job, this is like a supercharge for them, right?

if you automatically give everyone a level playing field, then, yeah, like Milwaukee, you're looking at Milwaukee as a potential just like powerhouse, for the short term, I think.

So, the Green Bay Packers?

So, yeah.

And, again, like that's the thing.

I don't, I don't, I honestly, I don't even want to say that I think the Pirates will be inept under a salary cap system.

I think, I think they're in like an okay spot right now to take advantage of something like that.

But I don't, I don't know how it would turn out because there's other, because there's other factors involved.

Like, I don't want to sit here and say the Pirates will still suck under a salary cap or that they'll be great under a salary cap.

I have no idea.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I think they are positioned where they've got some young talent.

They've got a solid core in place where, yeah, if you force this team to spend $60 million right now, they probably could put together a pretty competitive baseball team right now, right?

But I think the, but I think the biggest thing is just this, the argument is like, well, your owner just needs to spend more money.

Your owner just needs to spend more money.

Well, that's what this is doing.

It does force our owner to spend more money.

Now, there's a catch to this, right?

It, if you're spending $400 million or for $350 million, if you're the Mets or the Dodgers, right?

Like, yeah, like there's gotta be some a trade-off.

You, if you can't spend 400, you can't spend unlimited money, right?

In this type of a system.

You can still spend more if you want.

All right, there's a range and you can, you can go above that, but guess what?

Like you can no longer use population and geography as just an advantage.

Like you've got to be better than the other team in multiple ways.

And if you're a Dodgers fan, you shouldn't really be worried because you have a pretty well-run organization that will probably figure it out.

Like they're going to, they're probably going to still be good.

They've got a good farm system.

They've got a good scouting and development system.

They do the right things for the most part.

So like, I don't think a lot of these large market teams are going to have too many issues.

I think if you're like a Mets fan, right, who you already struggle with your existence, like you're probably in trouble because you do a lot of dumb stuff.

And, the years that you do have that are okay, a lot of it's, saved by the fact that you are in New York.

But I think it just, and I, going back to this is the only sport where we need to talk about this with, and like the other sports in the, in the United States have proven that this is a thing that works.

It keeps fans engaged.

It spreads parody throughout all of the league.

Like, and I'm not saying this is like a parody argument, but like make the teams actually prove that they are better at building a team than everyone else.

Because right now it's some of that, like some of that's involved, but that's not the whole story.

It's not the whole story.

And Ethan's in the comments here saying, doesn't work for the players, doesn't work for the players.

You know what?

I'm like, I'm to the point now, like you're, I am as pro labor as you can be.

Like if the, if the local teachers union or electrical union wants more money, like let's figure out a way to pay those guys.

You're not going to, I'm not saying Ethan here is gaslighting me, but you're not going to gaslight me into treating a major league baseball player, like a teacher.

Like, I'm sorry, but you're just, you're not going to do it.

You're not going to let me feel bad that, Hey, you know what?

Under this system, Juan Soto, you can only make $400 million instead of 800 million.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

Like, you're not going to make me feel bad about it.

You won't.

I'll say this.

Like, that is the one argument that I understand.

It's not that I feel bad.

I can't say I'm not going to, I'm weeping right now because I heard Juan Soto was only able to have a $400 million contract.

I am in my feelings.

I have Drake on right now in the corner of my bedroom, just weeping.

No, that's not going to happen.

That's not what's going to happen.

But the same sense, like, I get the understanding, like, this is going to cap how much I could possibly make.

I guess the other onset of that too is just like, but like also, does this better the league?

Let's use the NBA as an example, right?

NBA has a cap.

There's a little bit different.

And that's, I'll say something too.

Like, I like the idea more NBA-ish on this cap.

I think this blends the two with some concessions, where it's like there's maybe a soft cap.

there's maybe ways that you can go over the cap.

Like, if you're giving your own players, like incentivizing you keeping your players, right?

To allow, okay, you'll go over the cap or other thresholds of like some nuance there of the cap that we can maybe do to maybe blend both things in here with.

But regardless of that being said, player salaries have just skyrocketed.

Just skyrocketed.

Like, do you see what these guys in the NBA are getting as far as contracts go?

Like, is that also maybe because the league is bettered and it's just now making more money in how they've structured?

Like, does that maybe happen to baseball?

we see the RSNs just collapsing.

There's an economic issue that is there.

Now, again, this isn't me trying to tell you that the owners are poor now, that there's a problem.

They're all going broke.

That's not why I'm saying this.

What I'm saying is there is an economic shift.

There's something that's happening right now with economics of baseball.

They are losing revenue in certain ways.

So how do we maximize this?

How do we change this?

How do we fix this?

How do we better the league to go on the other side of this and all make more money?

And does this do that?

Like, again, when you have more teams that have hope, does that buy more fans?

Does that make more money?

Does that produce things?

If you have a national, broadcast situation to post these little RSNs and stuff, like, you're sharing, like, how does this bring this business and move it forward?

So we're all eating.

So maybe today you're worried about the $40 million contract, but in like a decade, that's nothing.

Because like how NBA players, they're just.

Like, it blows my mind right now what they're making in salaries per year.

Yeah.

So like there is that aspect of it.

And I do want to say that too, because it sounds like Ethan brought up, right?

Because I've seen this argument a lot as well.

If there's a cap system, the pirates can't keep skeins in Griffin.

Sorry, you got to pick one.

Says, well, first off, they can't do that right now.

So that doesn't change anything.

They can't do that right now.

But why can't they do that in the future?

Does the penguins, did they not have Malkin and Crosby?

And the Steelers.

And Fleury.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Because I'm not the biggest hockey fan.

Did the Steelers not have Ben and Brown and Troy?

Like, why not?

Sure.

Maybe you had to think differently.

Right now it comes into, do you have a cap guru?

That's where the money talks.

Like you said, the fans don't talk about that.

They do in some sense about cap.

But okay.

So now every team has to make decisions.

But it's not because you can't, like, I don't want to see this.

Well, the pirates still wouldn't be able to keep skeins.

Yes, they absolutely, they could.

They might have to choose, skeins over something else or whatever.

But you tell me the, a baseball team can't, if it's a cap system and they all have the same money, no team can keep two stars.

Why are there 60 stars in baseball and that's it or less like no team can keep two players.

That doesn't seem like it would make any sense.

I feel like you probably would be able to keep two guys.

Yeah.

that's a whole conversation for like a whole other system.

I feel like a system would easily be able to allow you to do that.

And again, like going back to the stars conversation, I think, I think a cap would certainly maybe limit some things there, but like your star is still like you mentioned in the

NBA stars get paid a lot.

I think, I think an MLB system would probably need to more mirror like an NHL type system, just because the amount of players on the roster, the amount of like up and down movement that you have, like the NHL, I think most closely fits like what a, what a major league team goes through over the course of a season.

but yeah, you look in the NHL and yeah, the penguins were able to keep four hall of famers for a really long time.

Ultimately, they had to let one of those four hall of famers go in order to fit things into a cap, but they were able to hold on to four for a pretty long time.

I think for me to like going to going back to the anti-player thing is I think there's a way to do this too, where it's not anti-majority of player.

It's maybe anti-some player, but I was, I was doing some research going into this, like the average major league baseball career is three years.

It's three years.

That's it.

That's your average major leaguer.

Three years.

Your average major leaguer isn't Juan Soto.

It's not Bryce Harper.

It's not Shohei Ohtani.

Your average major leaguer is Jared Triolo or Jake Mangum.

Like that's your average major leaguer.

And those guys career last three years on average, which means they don't even get the arbitration.

They make 700,000, 800,000.

They make $2.5 million or so in their three years.

And then they're done.

Like if you want to do this in a way that can help the average major league baseball player, like let's figure out a way to like substantially raise those minimum salaries.

Right.

So your average player makes more life-changing money earlier.

Because I think there's, like I said, I think there's a way to do this and still help out the average guy.

Right.

Like set a $1.5 million minimum salary.

Set a $1.5 million minimum salary.

So that way that guy who's in the majors for three years is guaranteed to make $4.5 million.

That's a substantial increase from what that average major leaguer makes right now.

Substantial increase.

60% of players on the field right now are pre-arbitration guys.

60%.

Those guys aren't making over a million dollars right now.

Let's raise the salary for those 60%.

Let's figure out a way to give those people more money.

That's your average major leaguer.

57% of players on opening day roster this year were making the league minimum.

We're at or near league minimum.

Okay.

Let's figure out a way to bump that pay up.

Let's give those people more money.

And that's going to help raise, like I said, that's helping teams get to the floor.

That's giving the average guy more money.

At the end of the day, you should be looking out for the average guy, right?

And if a rising tide raises all ships, then eventually what's going to happen is you're going to create a system that works for the league, the betterment of the league, which means that the revenue of the league is going to increase.

And the payrolls are tied to the revenue as revenues, payroll increases, like money keeps going up and up and up.

That's what's happening in the NBA.

That's what's happening in the NHL.

When the NHL put a salary cap in, I think it was $38 million.

It's a lot higher than that now.

Because what happened?

The NHL was not irrelevant, but it was very much like not as popular 20 years ago.

Then all of a sudden, you put a system in place where it makes everybody pretty good.

More and more fans around the entire country start paying attention to it.

Your fans in Columbus, your fans in Dallas, your fans in Tampa Bay, your fans in Miami.

All of a sudden, these teams that before were struggling, they're now on a level playing field, and it helps them, helps their fans get involved.

Everybody makes more money.

And now the NHL's got a national TV deal that it didn't have before.

The NHL's raking in a lot more money now than it was 20 years ago.

And I think you have to attribute a lot of that to them putting a salary cap system in place.

Because it was getting to the point there, I know you're not a hockey fan, but it was getting to the point there where it was like Detroit and New York.

Those are your teams.

So, it was getting pretty bad there for a bit.

Like I said, the Penguins almost, they literally filed for bankruptcy, and then they almost moved.

Right.

That was the reality of the situation.

And now you've got the Penguins, obviously we know what they're doing, but you've got the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Like these teams were like, no one in Florida before cared about hockey, and now they're doing well.

The Carolina Hurricanes, you've got teams in the South.

They don't know what ice is in the South, but they're playing good hockey now, right?

And people care.

So, no, it's, I think that's how.

That was a huge, like a huge hockey following.

I think the NHL is a pretty good example to look at here.

And like I said, from a roster construction standpoint, it's the closest.

Like the NFL is the NFL.

It's its own animal.

The NBA, you're dealing with, what, 11 guys.

There's not a lot of up and down movement between the G League and the NBA, but like the NHL, you've got two-way salaries, you've got minor leagues.

Like it's a pretty similar developmental system, at least in terms of, comparing it to the other leagues.

But it worked.

It worked for them.

And it's saved hockey in a lot of towns.

And baseball is not, at the point where I think that many teams are on life support.

Like that's not what I'm saying.

Like baseball is in a pretty good spot right now, but it could be in a better spot.

It could be in a better spot.

Like give fans in every town more reasons to be excited.

And they're looking, you talk about that, like they're looking to expand.

Do you also want to like just not give those two teams any hope off the bat?

Sure.

You give a team to Salt Lake City and all of a sudden you put a team in a tiny media market like that.

Or, the A's are about to go to Vegas.

Vegas is going to be the smallest media market in Major League Baseball.

Like you're just, if you're expanding, you're expanding to smaller markets.

The bigger markets all have teams.

Let's cut to a little break here.

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One thing I want to talk about here, too.

we talk about parity and such.

And, again, like, it's, this isn't going to solve all things.

You still have a competent organization.

But looking at the large markets, basically, there's like 14 large markets in MLB.

All of them but one didn't make the playoffs in the last decade.

That's the Angels.

But with that being said, they all made a pretty decent rate of making the playoffs.

The Dodgers made the playoff ten times.

The Yankees, nine times.

Astros, nine times.

Braves, eight times.

Cubs, Red Sox, Phillies, five times.

Blue Jays, four.

White Sox, three.

Mets, two.

Nationals, two.

Giants, one.

Rangers, one.

So, that's what?

Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, Braves, Cubs, Red Sox, Phillies.

Five times or more.

Seven teams.

So, half of them made the playoffs half the years.

We look at the remaining teams.

And this goes to the whole thing of, like, well, the Brewers just shows you can do it.

Well, yeah, a small market can do it.

The Brewers, again, I think we're not shocked.

Who's going to top this list of the rest?

The remaining 16 teams.

Brewers, eight times.

Guardians, seven times.

Rays, six times.

After that, Padres, which act as a large market.

They show what money can do.

And they still have five times.

That's it for the five.

There's four of them.

Then Twins, four.

Cardinals, four.

A's, three.

Mariners, two.

Tigers, two.

Diamondbacks, two.

Orioles, two.

Marlins, two.

Reds, two.

Rockies, two.

Royals, one.

Pirates, zero.

Of course, Pirates, zero.

But again, like, yeah, all those teams show, hey, you can make the playoffs.

Is there a correlation?

I know it's just 10 years, Jim, but is there maybe a correlation of the teams that have more money?

I've seen it more often.

Yeah, I think there's absolutely correlation.

Okay.

So, yeah, the Brewers show you can do it.

Hey, remember way back when the Royals actually won the World Series?

Yeah.

It can be done.

It can be done.

I get it.

You know what?

A guy with one arm can pitch in Major League Baseball.

Are you calling the Pirates like the Jim Abbott of Major League Baseball?

They might.

They might be.

Yeah.

there certainly is correlation.

And I'll say this.

I respect the large market fans who understand that.

And, I'm selfish.

I'm a fan, right?

If I were a fan of a large market team, I wouldn't want this.

I wouldn't want to willingly give up, one of the advantages that my team holds.

And so it's funny.

I can at least, like, if you're a fan of a large market team and you're like, no, you know what?

Why would I want to eliminate my advantage?

I can respect that argument 100% because it's the argument that I would be using.

It's weird because they really favored the capped drafting system.

That's weird.

Huh.

Why can't you spend as much money as you want in the draft anymore?

Why is that large markets?

Why can't, why can't the, this, why can't you just go and spend as much money on the draft anymore?

Why not?

Players, right?

Go players.

Well, I'll say this.

I don't think the fans necessarily drove a cap to amateur spending.

I think that was more than the teams, right?

Well, yeah, I think that was more than the teams.

I'm talking more from a fan standpoint.

Like, no, I can, I can understand.

How can these pirates get away with that?

How can the pirates get away spending all this money in the draft?

I think, I think most fans wouldn't even, wouldn't even be able to recognize that argument.

They don't even know what happened in the 2000.

But, you know.

But they sure can't ignore that argument.

2014.

Or they're making the same argument.

It's, I'd say it's a more complicated situation and it's something that's going to be, it's going to be a heated debate all off season, like a super heated debate.

And I'm not, I'm not so pro salary cap that like, I'm going to be getting involved in Twitter fights nonstop.

I just, I'm not going to do that.

But I am, I am very much pro cap because I think, I think you got to take that excuse away, like make it so that Bob Nutting can't use that excuse anymore.

Take that excuse away from him.

Make this team actually be good at baseball operations.

Like that's what I want to talk about is baseball operations.

and yeah, Milwaukee just proved that you can do it.

Milwaukee just proved you can do it.

But I want to talk about why Milwaukee has, is better than Pittsburgh, and not really debate this anymore.

This is a, this is, I don't, I don't like having this argument.

It's silly.

It's silly because it's not, as much as you want to look at it's just, it's not fair.

Right.

And what sucks about this is like, I don't want to give Bob Nutting an excuse, but like, it really is a built-in excuse.

Well, it's, again, you can overcome it.

You can overcome it, but it is an excuse.

And I want to take it away from him.

Bob, you can't use this excuse anymore.

You've got to employ competent people, plain and simple.

You need to demand that they win, plain and simple.

Take like this is, this is not an excuse that you should ever use.

Yeah.

I agree, man.

I agree.

This just puts everyone more on a level playing field.

I'm not saying all of them are because there's still other things, but that comes down to a, you issue specifically, not a, what you're given.

Do you have a silver spoon or not?

In the sense of the riches of the rich.

Again, I'm not trying to say Bob, that he does not have a silver spoon.

That's not, again, I'm just trying to put the perspective compared to other owners.

He did.

That's why I put out there just the other day too.

Like if billionaires are billionaires, they're all billionaires.

They all could spend with the Dodgers too.

Elon Musk makes every one of those owners look like the ramen noodle for lunch.

Elon Musk.

Like if Elon Musk own a baseball team, he could own all 30 clubs payroll.

And then what, I hate the, I hate the whole mindset.

I hate this, the no intellectual integrity when they're talking about this, when they keep going and saying like all of them can afford everything and all of them can do it.

No, there's still levels to this.

There's still absolutely levels to this.

Yes.

They're all billionaires, but every billionaire isn't the same, especially you're talking billions.

So there's still levels to this.

There's still billionaires.

Steve Cohen owns the Mets outright.

He didn't need an ownership group to come huddle together, to put all of our finances together to file the active job by this.

He spent all of his money.

He's the only owner.

It is his little toy.

And because of that also, he can, he can treat it however he wants.

It's his, it literally is his money.

It's not a business.

It's not an entity's money, like a lot of teams, because it's an ownership group.

And that's also the difference where you're saying that they can't, they can't just put their money.

They can't, oh, I'm a billionaire.

So I'm just going to put a hundred billion dollars in my pocket in this.

Also can't do that.

Can't do that.

You're an ownership group.

The other owners don't want their share of this ownership devalued.

Now you can give them a loan, but you have that entity got to pay back the owner that loan.

It's a loan that you can give.

But anyways, yeah, man, I just want to go back to just one thing here.

The NBA, the whole new cap revamp system, its growth went up 4.3% year after year.

The average value in 2015, 16 was 1.25 million.

The average value right now is salary.

I'm talking about, I'll talk about like team values.

Okay.

So you're talking about billions, not millions.

Yeah.

So 1.25 billion in 2015, 16.

And right now the average team value is 5.4 billion.

Cap went from 70 million to 154 million in a decade's time, basically.

Doubled.

Back in 2015, 16, the highest value team was the Knicks at 3 billion.

Right now it's the Warriors at 11.

And, but with that being said, we saw the Knicks.

Now, I'm sorry, the Lakers.

Now you can argue, but we're talking 12 billion.

Is there an MLB team that's getting 12 billion right now?

Maybe.

But, that's not what any valuation says.

Now, is that why the owners want this?

Sure.

Sure.

That's the reason, right?

Like, the owners want to increase the value of their- And I get that.

But can also, this, I love this.

Can two things not be true?

Can two things not be true?

Is that why the owners want it?

Sure.

Salary cap went from 70 million to 154 million.

Did that not also, does that not help the players?

Do we not see what the salaries the NBA players are getting now?

Did that not help out everybody?

Maybe the top of the top isn't getting the top worth, what they're actually getting.

But they're still eating.

They're eating better than they were a decade ago.

And there's a lot more people that are eating, too.

Yeah.

Steph Curry's family isn't going hungry.

No.

But they're certainly not less hungry than they were a decade ago.

No.

70 million to 154 million.

More than doubled.

The cap more than doubled.

That's a split.

You doubled the money available to everybody.

Well, I think, like I said, I think there's a way to, like, if you're the Players Association, and this is, like I said, they're just, they're very anti-cap.

And I understand why they are, right?

But I think there's a way to make this where, like, you do get, like, you guarantee yourself a certain piece of the pie under this system.

Because right now, they don't.

Like, they don't guarantee themselves.

And you're going to see, I think one thing that you could see is maybe the players keep getting a smaller and smaller piece of this pie.

Because as we've also seen, like, these teams are dumping more and more money into analytics and hiring people off of the field.

Like, if you're, if you're a team like the Brewers or the Rays, and you have a huge analytics department, because that's what they do.

They're two of the biggest analytics departments in baseball.

Not according to a lot of comments we get.

What if you just, hey, you know what?

I'm going to spend my, I'm going to spend my money on these guys.

Because these guys are the ones who are going to allow me to find the Jake Bauers of the world, right?

Those guys are the ones that I need to be pumping money into.

Whereas with a, with a cap system, you can say, you know what?

This is, this is based off.

If you make X amount of money, we get X amount of money.

Baseball is the only sport where that doesn't exist right now.

They don't, they don't get that.

They can, they can tie this.

So like, Hey, you know what?

Yeah.

If you make more money, we make more money.

Cause it could go the other way.

Teams could say, you know what?

The brewers just proved I can win without spending money.

I can just pay a bunch of MIT and Harvard grads and they'll just build me a team that doesn't really cost me all that much.

That's going to win.

Right.

So, that's, we're talking about, we're talking about billionaires here, right?

They didn't become billionaires because most they, yeah, it's most of them, but like they became billionaires for reasons.

And one of them is sometimes making business decisions that make them money.

Right.

And if you look at the brewers and the rays and you see, man, why are these teams winning?

They're winning so much and they're not paying their players.

Well, it's because they're paying the other guys.

Maybe I should do that.

So I think players have an opportunity.

I think the players, yeah, the Dodgers do both, right?

Like that's the thing with the Dodgers.

The Dodgers pay the players and they play, they pay the guys, they pay the nerds.

Right.

But if you're a team and you see the brewers or the rays, you're like, why do I have to pay these players?

Maybe I should just pay the nerds more money.

Maybe I should get better nerds.

Give me a better nerds.

They'll build me a better team for less money.

That's what, that's what some people might do.

Right.

But if you, if you tie this to revenue, you've got to give the players a certain amount of money.

And if you're the players association, I think you can get a lot out of this deal.

And again, you're giving up a lot with the cap, but like you can get a lot with this too, I think.

And we'll see how it goes right now.

The player association is just that they don't, they don't even have the conversation, right?

It's just not even, it's not even a conversation at this point.

So we'll see what ultimately ends up happening.

But right now they're the only league without a cap only league.

And guess what?

I'm pretty sure major league baseball, and I'll have to research this, but I'm pretty sure the NFL, the NHL and the NBA, the players make more percentage of the revenue than major league baseball.

Let me see that.

We know somewhere, but yes, but yes.

And it's probably even worse.

That's the thing.

Like that number is based off of what we know.

Well, we do know, we do know for the most part revenues, right?

Like we have a pretty good idea of that.

just based off of TV deals and such.

And I just said, it's not an exact number.

We don't know an exact number.

but to go through this, major league baseball, makes 40 players make 47% of the revenue in major league baseball.

According to major, according to Rob Manfred, the players associations say it's closer to 50.

but it depends on what you count as baseball revenue.

NFL is a 48%.

NHL is a 50%.

NBA is at 49 to 51%.

But, it's not like baseball players are getting any bigger piece of the pie than any other sport.

I, we do know that, right?

Baseball players aren't getting a bigger piece of the pie than anyone else.

So like guarantee it, guarantee your piece of the pie.

I think you can, I think you can do that.

Yep.

Yep.

I just want to end this, like I'm for a major change.

I've, I've said this for a long time too, I don't have to be hard cap by any means, if they want to have some stipulations here, because at this point, if all teams are getting the same money and you have a group that says we really want

to go for it and they make that decision, it's not just because they have more, it's because they are willing to make the risk.

if you want to have ownership, they're going to spend more than others, given they all have the same amount of money, then good for them.

But I do say like good for them, but it's also not going to be someone where they're, you're spending $500 million and this team's only spending $80 million.

if they're all mainly spending about roughly 200 million, you got a team out there saying, let's spend 275 this year.

And they do it within their rules of maybe it's keeping the players, internally they extend them and they're able to offer a different type of max contract because it's an internal homegrown to keep them right.

Incentivize that way.

Like that, then good for them.

It's not just simply because they can avoid giving revenue sharing on their TV deals because they went through bankruptcy once and MLB saved them.

And, they're in this market and they give insurance claim fraud to people and, they make their money this way.

Like it's not just simply because they do all this stuff to make more money.

So again, I'm cool with a lot of changes.

It does not have to be a hard cap.

I think if you want to incentivize teams for going over certain ways by offering different types of contracts to their homegrown talent, like a schemes or whatever, then sure.

And if they don't want to do that, then fine.

Trade them or let them go to free agency.

You're right.

But I'm cool with that.

I'm cool with establishing a way to spend over the cap.

Like, yeah, I'm great.

I'm great with that.

Like if a team wants to spend more money on somebody, go ahead and let them do it.

but there needs to be a system in place where everybody can spend up to a certain point because right now that doesn't exist.

so if that's the, if that's maybe the, if that's maybe what has to happen, that's fine.

Like force teams to spend up to a certain point and your major league baseball, you need to ensure that every team can spend up to that certain point.

And you can put, if you want to call it a soft cap, you want to call it a luxury tax threshold, whatever you want to call it.

Cause let's be fair.

There really is a quote unquote soft cap that exists right now.

If you go over it, you just have to pay way more money and the Dodgers go over it and they pay way more money.

The difference is that the Dodgers don't share their money with everybody else.

So everyone else can't spend up to a certain point.

and yeah, I do want to mention, the percentage of revenues here to mention that Ethan says it's disingenuous to say that we know exactly one way or the other major league baseball says players make 47% players associations say

it's well over 50.

So one of them's lying.

We don't know.

It's possible they're both lying a little bit.

but all we, but we do know that the other leagues, they guarantee that their players get a certain cut of the cut of the pie and baseball's not like that.

And I said, and I could see teams shifting more and more to let me pay the nerds.

They're cheaper and give me a better ROI.

There it is.

Well, we probably could talk three more hours on this or more.

We could, I think we're done.

I think we hit all the points we really wanted to hit.

Yeah.

I think, I think there's a way like just in conclusion, like I don't want to, I don't want to, I'm not pro cap because I don't think it's possible for the pirates to win.

And I'm not pro cap because I think this fixes all the pirates problems.

I want to take that excuse away from them so that they're forced to spend a certain amount so that if they don't win, then like we know exactly why.

And I also think there's a way to do this so that your average major league baseball player comes away with far more money than they come away with right now.

I think there's a way for both sides to win.

I really do.

And I know that like the hard pro no cap people are going to disagree with me there, but I think there's a way for the majority of baseball players to win here.

I agree.

And again, if you're talking expansion anytime soon, it's just going to be so much tougher for the, if this isn't like Tampa, to try to start, I think a new market and a small market right now is just, that's going to be tough to build fans.

Vegas is different because you don't need fans.

You just got people coming in.

So at any rate, Vandal world series odds right now, Milwaukee minus one 70 Tampa Bay plus one 85 Cleveland plus 1200.

There's your odds.

So liking Milwaukee a lot, which I agree.

I agree.

They are damn good.

So do what you want with that.

Baseball is almost over.

We're getting close.

We're getting close.

And then it's over, but we'll be back again Wednesday for, a special edition of Arizona fall league.

And it's not live.

Yeah.

I'm excited for this week.

Hopefully, Phoenix Wayne says that it's supposed to rain down there.

So let's what was just crazy.

Yeah.

So we'll, Zoddy curse continues.

Yeah.

We'll see how that goes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wayne, if you're, if you're at any of the games, we'll be at the games on, what?

Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

So yeah, come say hi to us.

Come say hi.

If you're in Arizona right now too, and you're going to be at the games and you see us walking around, say hi.

Yeah.

And I think Saturday is when they're all the same place, right?

That's like triple header.

They have, I think so.

So if you're watching Saturday, we'll definitely be wherever you are.

Cause we're all in the same place.

Yeah.

So, we'll see you guys then.

Bye-bye.

See you guys.

All right.