A final Baltimore adieu to the expectations and massive disappointment of Adley Rutschman

After taking a day to let the Adley Rutschman-to-the-Boston Red Sox deal marinate, Luke Jones and Nestor take a deeper look at the intentions of Mike Elias and the Orioles’ organization. They delve into the departures, reasoning and rationale for all of the deadline moves relating to salary, management, ownership and the pending labor war that will greatly impact service time, money and rosters with young players.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ recent trades, including Adley Rutschman to the Red Sox and Grayson Rodriguez to the Angels. They highlighted Rutschman’s underperformance over the past two years, noting his 101-125 record since July 2024. Jones criticized the return for Rutschman, emphasizing the team’s long-term struggles. They also discussed the impact of potential labor issues on future trades and player contracts. Jones suggested the Orioles’ focus on pitching prospects like Anthony Ianson and Kysen Witherspoon. The conversation concluded with reflections on the team’s overall performance and fan frustration.

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Ravens Scratch-Offs

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, sponsored by the Maryland Lottery, GBMC, Farn, and Derma.
• The tour includes events at Fishmonger’s Daughter, Koco’s in Lauraville, and State Fair in Catonsville.
• Nestor mentions giving away Ravens scratch-offs, which were popular last week at Costas.
• Luke Jones joins the discussion, and they talk about the recent trades involving Zay Flowers and Adley Rutschman.

Adley Rutschman Trade and Team Performance

• Nestor and Luke discuss the trade of Adley Rutschman to the Red Sox and the team’s performance over the past two years.
• Luke highlights that the team’s record has not improved significantly with Rutschman in the lineup.
• They mention the trade of Grayson Rodriguez and the return of three pitchers, including Kade Pub Bichtwell.
• Nestor and Luke debate the reasons behind the trade, including Rutschman’s performance and the team’s overall record.

Grayson Rodriguez and Taylor Ward

• Luke explains his initial skepticism about the trade of Grayson Rodriguez for Taylor Ward.
• They discuss Rodriguez’s injuries and his performance for the Angels this year.
• Nestor and Luke talk about the potential long-term value of Rodriguez and the three pitchers received in the trade.
• They mention the Red Sox’s high expectations for Rutschman and the potential impact on their playoff chances.

Philosophical and Practical Considerations of the Trade

• Luke emphasizes the philosophical issues with the trade, focusing on the return received.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the team’s long-term strategy and the impact of the trade on the franchise’s future.
• They talk about the importance of player performance and the team’s overall record in making such decisions.
• Luke mentions the potential impact of the labor situation on future trades and player contracts.

Player Performance and Team Expectations

• Nestor and Luke discuss the performance of key players like Adley Rutschman, Gunnar Henderson, and Jackson Holiday.
• They highlight the challenges these players have faced and the impact on the team’s performance.
• Luke mentions the importance of player accountability and the need for better performance from key players.
• They discuss the potential for players like Holiday to improve and contribute more to the team’s success.

Impact of Labor Situation on Future Trades

• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential impact of the labor situation on future trades and player contracts.
• They talk about the uncertainty surrounding the 2027 season and the potential consequences for the team.
• Luke mentions the importance of planning for different scenarios, including a work stoppage.
• They discuss the potential for the team to make bold moves in the offseason to improve the roster.

Owner Involvement and Team Strategy

• Nestor and Luke discuss the role of ownership in the team’s strategy and decision-making.
• They mention the involvement of Cal Ripken and the impact of his relationship with Mike Elias.
• Luke highlights the importance of ownership’s confidence in Elias and the potential for a new contract.
• They discuss the potential for a reset in the team’s strategy, focusing more on pitching and less on position players.

Fan Reaction and Team Accountability

• Nestor and Luke discuss the fan reaction to the trades and the team’s overall performance.
• They mention the importance of fan engagement and the need for the team to be accountable to its fans.
• Luke emphasizes the need for players to perform better and meet fan expectations.
• They discuss the potential for the team to improve and the importance of maintaining fan support.

Future of the Team and Player Development

• Nestor and Luke discuss the future of the team and the importance of player development.
• They mention the potential for young players like Anthony Ianson and Kysen Witherspoon to contribute in the future.
• Luke highlights the importance of keeping players healthy and developing them effectively.
• They discuss the potential for the team to make bold moves in the offseason to improve the roster.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

• Nestor and Luke wrap up the discussion, summarizing the key points and their thoughts on the trade and the team’s future.
• They mention the importance of maintaining fan support and the need for the team to perform better.
• Luke emphasizes the importance of player accountability and the potential for improvement in the coming months.
• They discuss the potential for the team to make bold moves in the offseason and the importance of planning for different scenarios.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are WNST. Hey, at 1570 Tassel Baltimore, we are Baltimore positive. It is summertime around here. We’re into August, and we are doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. It’s all brought to you by friends at the Maryland Lottery, in conjunction with GBMC and our partners at Farn and Derma. We bring our sports coverage together. Had a good time last week out at Costas. We’re going to be mixing things up here at the Fishmonger’s Daughter in two weeks on the 19th, 26. We’re going to be at Koco’s in Lauraville. Also going to be at State Fair before the month is over in Catonsville. All brought to you by the Maryland Lottery. I’ll have the Ravens scratch offs to give away. This was a lucky batch last week at Costas. We had some people screaming, “I won! I won. Said how much? Only a couple bucks, but it’s okay. Luke Jones is here. He is not been the big winner in this last week of football and baseball, and baseball and football, and Zay Flowers and trading away Rutschman. Was weird watching Rutschman, you know, walk onto the field at Fenway and seeing the video of all that. Meanwhile, the Orioles were piecing things together, and for those who are watching the broadcast, four hours of apologies from the team ownership and everyone else. I I don’t know, and they and they still win. And you and I have even made a case after beating them up for 45 minutes on Monday morning that who knows? Maybe they’ll play 574 ball the rest of the way and make the playoffs because it’s not it’s not that weird. They still have some decent players.

Luke Jones 1:27
They do, and yes, mathematically we’ve talked about that. It’s well within the realm of possibilities. There have been far far stranger things that have happened in the course of baseball history, but I’m going to continue to go back to what we talked about in the immediate aftermath of the Adley Rutschman trade. It’s I also I’m not going to ignore how this team has played for two years, right? With

Nestor Aparicio 1:54
Adley Ruchman, with Adley Rutschman, yeah. I mean, I cited

8

Luke Jones 1:57
it at the time. I said what I said when he’s been in the lineup since the beginning of July two years ago in 2024, the record’s still 101 and 125. Right? I mean, it’s it’s right in line with how they’ve played collectively. So and meanwhile, Grayson Rodriguez is kicking their ass, and the guy that they got for him, they’ve already given away. Yeah, well, and it’s funny. I I wrote I offered a 12 Orioles thoughts@baltimorepositive.com a day later, right? A chance to talk to Pete Alonso, a chance to talk to some guys in the clubhouse, a chance for everyone to just let this marinate for a day at the very least, and it was very weird, right? There, it was very a very strange coincidence that the day after they trade Taylor Ward the day after they trade Adley Rutschman, Grayson Rodriguez, who at one point in time was held with not the same level of reverence as Ruchman, but was their number one pitching prospect, and he was held

Nestor Aparicio 2:54
at the same reverence as Storm Davis was at one point. Sure, and

Luke Jones 2:58
he’s had a terrible year. He’s had injuries when he has pitched for the Angels. He hasn’t pitched very well, but as I reminded everyone at the time of the trade, if you recall, I did not like that trade, and it had nothing to do with Luke continuing to have this obsession with Grayson Rodriguez. It was more the idea of if you’re going to trade him, all you get back is one year of Taylor Ward. Now, granted, they traded him for three pitchers, and we’ll see how these three pitchers pan out. You know, one has been in the majors as a reliever. These guys profile so Rodriguez

Nestor Aparicio 3:31
has turned into these pitchers plus the you know 400 at bats they gave Taylor Ward to hit a bunch of doubles and things. But

Luke Jones 3:37
but the reality for Rodriguez all along that I that I noted with this was he’s got three more years of of club control after this. I mean, he can still go through some very deep valleys and still come out on the other side and pitch well enough to say that trade wasn’t smart. So that that aside, he pitched well, but Kade Pub Bichtwell and obviously the Orioles are facing the worst team in baseball. That certainly helps when you’re coming out of a trade deadline. With

Nestor Aparicio 4:04
Rodriguez, they didn’t deal him because of him or his stuff or whatever. Like Arietta and some of these other guys that couldn’t figure it out. They they dealt him because he was hurt. I mean, they they felt like he was damaged. I I think. I mean, if I’m speak from the outside, I as a fan, I felt like they see something in him in the body that they don’t like medically.

Luke Jones 4:25
Oh, and it’s I said it to you a number of times as they were going through that with him for an entire calendar year where he didn’t pitch. Right, you you start talking about the kinetic chain where a guy’s having lad issues, a guy’s having a shoulder issue, which you know the lad is very close to that. Started having elbow issues, right? And and not necessarily any things that are oh he has to have Tommy John or oh he has to have rotator cuff surgery. But you just wonder and you wonder how does someone train? What are the genetics like, right? I mean we talk about this all the time, in general in a general sense, the idea that. Human body and the human arm and and the owner collateral ligament didn’t seem intended to to throw a baseball 100 miles per hour. Although I would say, well, but people do it, so I guess I guess you can do it. But we we talk about that. We talk about the idea that pitchers break, and I obviously Michaelias was he’s talked about this in the aftermath of that. They liked Taylor Ward. They liked Taylor Ward for a couple years. They got Taylor Ward. They got a different version of Taylor Ward than he had played than the guy that played in Anaheim. Right? He walked a whole lot. wasn’t bad. Well, this was a factor of the

8

Nestor Aparicio 5:38
off season of trying to replace Santander, trying to get a right-handed bat, trying to get a right-handed power bat. That was the focus of this when it happened, right? It wasn’t. Let’s get rid of Rodriguez. It was he ain’t going to pitch anyway. He’s damaged goods. Let’s win an outfielder. Let’s go try to win the World Series. That that I mean, listen. I’m never. I’ve never said Elias is not trying to win. Sure. You know, or not using mr. Rubenstein and mr. Arigetti’s money in some you conceivable some fashion that you and I could justify it the day after. Like we are the ones. There’s nobody else. I mean, there’s fans on the internet. There’s you and me, and there’s a handful of people that are willing to criticize them. And the the baseball community that comes in and says great trade, bad trade, and there was a little bit of all of that going on the other day. The Rodriguez thing, the minute it happened, it was risky in a general sense, all the way around that he could turn into Jake Arieta or he could flame out. But all we knew all along was you were getting four and a half, five months of Taylor Ward. That’s what you were getting, and that didn’t turn. The first three months didn’t turn out so great. So I don’t know. I it you can’t win every trade, sure. And certainly on Tuesday night, Grayson Rodriguez gives us a reason on Wednesday morning to wake up and say, “Oh shit, they’re going to get 600 innings out of him the next three three years, and you know of at least Dean Kramer kind of pitching. Maybe not Jim Palmer, but like he looked good as our number three or our four. But Jim Palmer would have said that opening day two years ago, opening day last year, you know the Texas start in the playoff game where they tried to throw me out and throw you in. I’m I’m okay with the errors of effort. You know what I mean? The things we beat him up on on Monday was more integrity and more like accountability, but like they can justify all of these deals, right? I mean, the Rutschman thing-we haven’t gone way into it, but I’ve read more on the internet. Like Red Sox fans think we got over. We better win the World Series this year. We dealt for Rutschman is kind of, or next year at least, in the way that they’ve looked at it. But I think when we look at trades, it is always the morning after subjective, and there is some sensibility to all of it because these are really smart guys with computers.

Luke Jones 7:49
Yeah, and I want to be very clear as I’m bringing up Grayson Rodriguez. Even after a a start in which he throws seven innings of two run ball, he’s he has a 7.24 ERA this year. Fair enough. I’m still talking about that through looking through a long-term lens, my issue was never trading Grayson Rodriguez. It was what you received in return, and feeling for me that that was light one year of Taylor Ward, which ended up being less than a year of Taylor Ward. And of course, they flipped it into three potential relievers. We’ll see if one or two of these guys emerge as a part of a really good bullpen in the next couple years when the next general

Nestor Aparicio 8:23
manager gets here after the strike, right? Who knows? Sure, sure. Who knows

Luke Jones 8:26
what’s going to happen at this point? But but but for me, it was just philosophically, I I didn’t like the return for the trade much more than oh my gosh, they need to hold on to Grayson Rodriguez. He’s the future Mike. Philosophically,

Nestor Aparicio 8:36
if Taylor Ward had 23 home runs right now and this thing was on skates, and they had a five-game lead. They wouldn’t have traded East.

Luke Jones 8:44
They wouldn’t have traded. I mean, it’s what I, my overall point about the Rutschman deal, right? If Adley Rutschman had played much better over the last two years and not been hurt, they’re probably not trading him there now. I’m not going to sit here and say that he plays plays out his entire contract. It could have been a situation where, if there are four games, five games, eight games over 500 this year, you know, and Adley Rutschman alone wasn’t doing that, right? I mean, that’s when we get into Gunner Anderson. You just mentioned Taylor Ward not hitting for power, you know, go down the list. But let’s just say this team were playing better. The timeline for trading Rutschman probably gets pushed back to what the winter, right? Because you know there’s been enough reporting out there that they tried to extend them. Now we can sit here and speculate about what the numbers were, what the terms were, any of that, right? But it takes two to tango, and I mean, it doesn’t seem considering they’ve been able to extend some other guys now that on the pitching side, Basayo’s not an. That’s not an app comparison because you’re talking about someone who had just begun his major league career. But if Adley Rutschman’s not going to extend, how do you proceed? Right, and that’s where it is more challenging. Right, you’d hate to hold on to them until next next year’s trade deadline. If they’re not playing well again, then you’re getting a fraction of what they got for them on Monday. So I’ve said it all along. I can justify trading Adley Rutschman the way they did on Monday in a vacuum, but none of these decisions are made in a vacuum, and I think the overwhelming route of a root of the frustration for fans is getting to this point. Right, the idea that where this thing was three, four years, or you know, even just two years ago, and where it’s been since then-that’s where the frustration is, I mean, that’s what we’re talking about here, and as I wrote at BaltimorePositive.com, this is why all along people are skeptical of these intentional, deliberate multi-year rebuild tank, whatever you want to call it. Look at how it played out for the Orioles. Go back to 2022, the trade deadline there, right, where they sell off Trey Mancini and Jorge Lopez. They were in a similar position in the standings to where they are today, in terms of the math, right? Just being a couple games out of a wild card spot. So you looked at that. You said, “Okay, you can make a compelling argument to buy. You can at least make a compelling argument to stand pat. Michaelias chose to to sell, and what did he say at the time? We we don’t want to do things to jeopardize 234, years down the road. And at that point in time, that was certainly defensible, right? That’s not like that was so over the top, egregious. You know, they weren’t 15 games over. Well, you wonder where

Nestor Aparicio 11:48
their window is. What is their real window this year and/or the next two or three years, given Henderson, Ruchman, and Holiday, right? Right, but that’s at the heart of it. Now they got Alonzo. They spent all this other money in the last six months, it’s how can this not be better, and when is the right time to give up on it? And july 31, or actually in this case, august 3 at 6o’clock, whatever it was.

8

Luke Jones 12:11
It’s still july 31, traditionally speaking. Okay,

Nestor Aparicio 12:14
well, you know, as it goes, that’s the day you have to make a decision, not the day before, not the day after. Keep in mind the day they made the decision, they had just lost 13 to nothing and struck out 30 times in three days in a range-shortened weekend, and are are continuing to move backwards in the standings at that point. So, and Rutchman doesn’t feel to be a big part of a playoff surge for them, although the Red Sox think that, or maybe the Red Sox think they have a two year window with Ruchman, which is kind of the way they saw it with their prospects, right?

Luke Jones 12:42
Yeah. Let me just

Nestor Aparicio 12:43
finish my point, though. But the Orioles’ window was this year because of Taylor Ward and Daily Wright. Like they really did. I mean, Bassett, Efflin, they they they were they were trying to win. I mean, I’m not saying they weren’t trying to win, but I’m saying if I bought tickets in March, I would have believed they could be a playoff team. I there all haven’t been a lot of marches around here. I’ve been here 35 years, dude. I’ve been a whole lot of marches where you and I were talking about playoffs around here. Playoffs, like I I had him at 92 wins. I was a believer. I was a believer in the talent. I was a believer in Grayson Rodriguez’s arm would be a seven and a half yard, like all of that. So anyway, continue on. You were a soliloquy. So

Luke Jones 13:21
so the yeah, the point I was trying to make is, you know, you go back to where they were in 2022, and the message at that point was you don’t want to compromise the future. Even 2023, we’re in the they’re in the midst of the best season in 43 years in terms of the regular season, right? On their way to their first 100 plus win season since 1980, and you look at that, and yes, they bought. They didn’t buy much, right? Jack Flaherty, the the the the reliever, what Fuji, and it just and but once again, the message was, we still have this very bright future. We don’t want to be too hasty and jeopardize that. Well, the problem is then you fast forward to last year, you’re not as good. And then what do you do? You take a step back in in in in the name of what? The future. This year’s trade deadline. You you’re not as good. You take a step back in the name of what? The future. So the point is, you kind of get in this interminable period of, well, we’re building towards the future. We’re building towards the future. We’re building towards the future, whether it looks bright at the moment or whether it looks not so bright at the moment. And the problem is, and this is where people really get cynical about these tanks and long-term rebuilds, and it’s not to say it’s not to say that it didn’t work whatsoever for the Orioles. 2022 did happen. 2023 did happen. 2024 did happen. But just in terms of speaking about it from a philosophical standpoint, you kind of stay in that stuck in between, right? Where. Not really building anymore, but are you really committing and going all in? And when I say all in, there’s there’s varying degrees of that, right? Doesn’t mean that they needed to trade their entire farm system in 2023, but there were bold moves that they could have made to go get a Garrett Crochet or a Tarek Scoubel or you know any of the big names that have been dealt over the last three to four years, right? So that’s where people get cynical about this, and that’s where people don’t trust these types of processes. I mean, my goodness, I’ve mentioned this before. My pastor is a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and not to say that the Pirates have had very many periods of time where they look like they’re on the uptick, but they’ve had a couple over the last three decades, and but but they never really get there, and there are all kinds of reasons for that, right? I mean, payroll and things of that nature, but also, are you willing to make bold moves, right? And that’s where you look at Mike Elias and say, look, when he’s selling off, he’s done pretty well in his trades, right? Last year, those trades were pretty well regarded, and and certainly when you look at it just in terms of the value that he’s fetched in these trades, he’s been pretty pretty universally praised by the the baseball prospect, you know, media types, right? Looking at it in terms of that, people that know way more about minor league players than you or me, but that said, that’s not what wins you World Series at the end of the day, right? That’s not what’s going to guarantee you prolonged success. At some point in time, you flip the switch, right? And when they flipped the switch a few years ago, it still ended up being very lukewarm, right? I mean, okay, they they they did the Corbin Burns trade. That was great. I still do that 100 times out of 100, even knowing how it turned out, right? Joey Ortiz and D. L. Hall. Joey Ortiz is a utility infielder, basically. You know, he he looked like he might be a starting player for about half a season. You know, since then, he’s a role player, and D.L. Hall has continued to have health issues. That was a great trade, whether they extended burns or not. That ended up being a really good trade, but so many other moves that he’s made just haven’t worked out in terms of building and really trying to enhance the major league roster. And I think that’s where all this frustration boils down to.

Luke Jones 17:23
I mean, I know a lot of fans feel felt very warm and fuzzy about Adley Rutschman, and I get that, and I understand what he represented. But you know me; I’ve been out on the idea that Adley Rutschman’s this amazing ball player for two, you know, going on two years now, he’s one of the biggest reasons why they fell off in the second half of 24. He was not good last year either. Even this year, yes, he rebounded and his defense has been great. I’ll give him that. His defense this season has been better than ever. But even his offensive numbers this year, go look at the splits of what he did in March and April compared to what he’s done since then, what he had done since then, much more fine and eh, you know. So I don’t think it’s so much Adley Rutschman. It was the idea of it, and it’s just where they are right now. And fans have every right to be ticked about that, right? This is not what was promised, as I wrote at BaltimorePositive.com, as I said to you when we talked about this in the hours right after it happened, I think there’s really this sounds dramatic, but I don’t think it is. I think fans feel a sense of betrayal in terms of what the current era was intended to be, and then when you pile on four decades of frustration for this franchise, Dio

Nestor Aparicio 18:41
Angelo’s ownership. Let’s throw that in. Just how, just how awful it used to be, and they have not acknowledged any of the trauma that the fans have faced here. It’s like we’re supposed to have amnesia about what they don’t know. They didn’t live. They don’t understand. They just think I’m a prick from Dundalk. They don’t understand this whole thing started with a billionaire being a prick to everyone, and me taking phone calls every day for years-five years, six years-a long time when you’re 30 years old and on the radio every day, four hours a day, trying to explain away the inexplicable, how horrible the Angelos people were in general for 33 years, and they’ve inherited that and completely don’t acknowledge that it ever happened, and we all lived it. So that’s our reality. That’s my reality. It’s still my reality that you have a media pass tomorrow that you’re not using because you’re at the football stadium, and I’m going to be at the baseball stadium looking at the empty seat in the press box with my name on it. After 28 years of doing this, so they’re not normal. Nothing. None of this is normal. Firing your manager and hiding. For four days and showing up in Milwaukee doesn’t get you fired. I, I clearly the labor situation, and I want to get back to this because something we didn’t talk about much on Monday. The Ruchman thing, as I understand it, is as much to think that Elias would believe, or and again, this is Elias Boujo and the the two bosses, the billionaires. If Elias and the bosses get along, it’s a win-win. It’s like Chad Steele and Steve Bashati. Like Chad, I can think Chad Steele’s the most incompetent, worst person I’ve met in sports in 40 years. Steve Bashati likes him. He he he is the bouncer, and in the case of the Orioles, Elias is their guy for now. They’ve allowed him carte blanche, right? They gave him more money the other day to give more money away, right, or pull more money back. But at the end of the year, Ruchman may not put a Red Sox jersey on next year if they don’t play, and we’re going to wind up with all these prospects, right? That’s kind of one of the things we may have missed in the early going, which is hmm, labor. Hmm, I’ve said for three months, labor is going to be a big part of the trade deadline. Money, where you want to sit in the war when the war happens, whether you want a general manager, whether you don’t, how much you want sitting on your payroll, how many young guys you want because they’re going to play baseball next year. The young guys are going to play at Norfolk. The minor leagues are going to go on, right? So the younger guys are going to get to play.

8

Luke Jones 21:25
Anyone that’s not on a 40-man roster, right? Correct. Yeah. So

Nestor Aparicio 21:28
I, we’ve, dude, you’ve been at this two decades. I’ve been at it four. We’ve been through a lot of labor, and I’m educated, and it’s really complicated. And the Rutchman thing, I’ll let you explain it, or I’ll try to do a half-ass job of explaining it. But the bottom line is, in May of next year, in nine months, chances are they’re not playing Major League Baseball. According to everyone, according to them, I mean they’re making an appointment for this like it’s a root canal, like not that’s unavoidable. Okay, so if they don’t play baseball next year, we wind up with all the Red Sox minor league system to come back in 28, and if you’re Eric Getty and Rubenstein, 28 doesn’t sound that far away. And you’re a billionaire. What do you care that 729,000 people show up next year for the Orioles, or that the Skyboxes don’t sell, or you fire Katie Griggs and find a new one, or the revenue people leave because they can’t sell anything? How do you go out on the sales force of the Orioles and sell season books this off. Do you want to work there selling a product that might not exist next year? I mean, I’m thinking about the people that wear suits inside the warehouse, Don Rovax people,

Luke Jones 22:30
and but they’re all but they’re also viewing it as we’re talking about that topic. They’re also viewing it through what does the system look like on the other side of a work stoppage, right? Is there a salary cap in place, or something that feels a whole lot like a salary cap, right? With the salary cap, there would be there would be a floor. I mean, the owners are even proposing a floor to go with the with the cap, right? So, yeah, there there are a lot of which means the pirates would have to spend 140 million, which, as you know, as much as people want to scream about the Dodgers and the Mets and the Yankees and Red Sox for years and years and years, I’ve complained about how little, how how next to nothing the teams at the bottom have spent, and arguing that they could spend more. But the point is, as you’re assessing this as an ownership group as a general manager around baseball, yeah, you are trying to put wrap your head around what next year could look like. You you have all kinds of outcomes. Obviously, well, forget

Nestor Aparicio 23:33
the baseball team. I’m talking about the state of the franchise, not just the players, the revenue, the fan base, your your your city, your stadium, your customers, your your landlord-all of that plays into what happens to my rent if we’re not using the stadium. Do I have to pay for that? Am I going to furlough employees? I mean, we don’t have any tickets to sell. Why do I have a ticket sales? There’s going to be all of that that’s going to affect real humans, not Pete Alonso. Just because Pete Alonzo’s not getting a paycheck because he’s off the job, he’ll be fine. You know, it’s everybody else that it’s the peanut vendors literally that get swept up in this. And this is 40 years of me witnessing this over these strikes.

Luke Jones 24:13
Yeah, I mean, there’s just a lot of uncertainty, and I think you know the range of outcomes is the sports shut down for the entire 2027 season, and what does that mean for player contracts? Right? Does does it become everything’s just you know paused for a year and then you resume in 28? That so that’s the extreme. I mean, I guess the extreme would be even 20. You know, it could go on forever. And Rutchman would say, no, no, no. I’m a free agent, dog. But that, but that’s the thing. You just no one can predict that with certainty what’s going to happen there. So if you’re viewing it through the lens of look, we’ve tried to extend Adley Rutschman on terms that make sense. Now, okay, maybe he’d accept an eight-year. Deal, but we don’t think that’s smart. And and I would be the if they gave Adley Ruchman an eight year deal today, I’d say they’re nuts. I mean, seriously, I would have said that. I don’t know that they

Nestor Aparicio 25:09
could give him a three year, $60 million deal, and I’d look at it and say,

Luke Jones 25:14
to me, can’t you

8

Nestor Aparicio 25:15
spend that money somewhere else? Like

Luke Jones 25:18
to me, a three to four year deal at a term that’s not like oh it makes him the you know he’s not getting Tyler Linderbaum center money compared to the rest of the catcher he hasn’t earned it he’s no

Nestor Aparicio 25:29
longer a one one he’s a mediocre catcher with health issues

Luke Jones 25:34
right who’s

Nestor Aparicio 25:34
pushing 30 right

Luke Jones 25:35
but I’m just saying there there was for for all of my anti Adley Rutschman performance discussion of the last year or two. I’m saying sure there were more reasonable medium-term contract extensions that I’d say all right. You know, not sure I love it. Reasonable to you,

Nestor Aparicio 25:56
but not reasonable to his agent, right? Like so, if the Orioles have not indicated that they tried to sign him, they haven’t even said that, right? I mean, they’re too close to the vest to be honest with their fan base. You pay the bills, right?

8

Luke Jones 26:08
Yeah, right.

Nestor Aparicio 26:10
I mean, it’s very easy thing to say. Is we we attempted to extend him and we couldn’t. It’s just a sentence, and that means we offered him something. He said there doesn’t need to be any, but that is a fair question. That’s a real fair question.

Luke Jones 26:21
No, it is, but there’s been some reporting indicating that they’ve tried that. Now, has Michaelias directly said that? Well, Machado

Nestor Aparicio 26:28
looked me in the eye back in ’17 in D.C. and said that they never offered him. I also

Luke Jones 26:32
understand this, but but at the same time, it was different ownership. I I hear that. If it’s a if it’s a player you have an affinity for, and Michaelias, look, it’s the first player he drafted. He didn’t want to trade

Nestor Aparicio 26:43
Adley Rutschman.

Luke Jones 26:44
I don’t think he wanted to trade Adley Rutschman, and I think even now, by even like weighing out that kind of, hey, we tried here and we tried here, and this is what we. I don’t think he wants to throw Adley Rutschman under the bus and make him look like the heel either. I think there’s, as I’ve said, with these kind of scenarios, it’s lose lose. They haven’t performed right. The players haven’t performed. One of the more refreshing, and I’m not trying to change the subject here, but you know, just trying to steer it slightly. Pete Alonso, first thing he said when in the clubhouse on Tuesday afternoon, look, when there are expectations, and you don’t live up to those expectations, there are consequences. And he’s talking about the way the teams played on the field. Colton Kozer, one of the first things he said is, as players, you look at it and you ask, what could you have done more? You know, could you have done more to prevent this from happening? And he’s talking about their performance and not winning. Oh,

8

Nestor Aparicio 27:43
if they’re winning, Adley Rutschman’s not dealable, right? Exactly.

Luke Jones 27:46
Now Michaelias is probably losing sleep at night to say. Well, it’s crazy

Nestor Aparicio 27:50
because if they were two games ahead in the wild card instead of two games behind, it’s four games. That’s a couple blown saves, a couple of this or that, right? Like as bad as they’ve been, and we’ll see later. Talk

Luke Jones 27:59
like that, you know what I mean? But but if they’re two games over,

Nestor Aparicio 28:01
they wouldn’t have dealt Ruchman.

Luke Jones 28:03
I wouldn’t think so. Right. So a

Nestor Aparicio 28:06
couple of games, like literally, if you are a player, if I just hit a three-run homer in that eighth inning when there were two guys on, instead of striking out or grounding out or popping out, but they’ve all had that opportunity. Sure. Especially Kozler, they’ve all struck out and with runners in scoring position plenty of times this year, all of yeah,

8

Luke Jones 28:22
and I think I think you know this is a bit extreme, but it’s just what’s come to mind at the moment. There’s probably a little bit of survivor’s guilt, right? Where you say, you know, just in terms of like, man, they traded him, and look at how I played this year. Like, you know, I deserve to be shipped off, right? And and obviously when these guys are being traded and they’re going to contenders, right? So it’s not the worst case scenario for you know Adley Rutschman and Tyler Wells and Taylor Ward and you know even Dean Kramer going to Minnesota, right? But but there’s still there’s an emotional side to that. There’s a person, there’s a human element side to that. I was listening to MLB Network Radio and Sirius just a couple days ago, and I I don’t even know who the players were, but they had players, former players, on talking about the trade deadline, and they were just sharing stories about being traded at the deadline, what that meant to their family, how that disrupted their kids, all kinds of stuff, right? And obviously, some of the guys we mentioned aren’t necessarily older players, but you know, some of these guys are married and have children, and and you just see that. But that’s a tough thing being traded in the middle of a season. There, there’s a human element to that that’s tough for everyone. But but again, to go back to the overwhelming theme here, they haven’t been good enough. If the Orioles were four games, six games, eight games over 500 right now, one they’d be holding a playoff spot, and maybe even then we’d still be talking about them having an outside chance at making a push for the division, right? I mean, if. If they were eight games over 500 right now, or something like that, and yeah, you know what, Adley or not Adley Rutschman, Mike Elias might be struggling to sleep at night because he’s looking at where Ruchman is with his contract and still knowing there’s a labor situation that’s that looms this winter, but he’s saying this team’s in a playoff position. I can’t do that now, but when you have a team that’s been under 500 since April 30th, has been 20 plus games under 500 since early July of 2024, at some point you look at it and say, how much more of a sample size do you need? I mean, let’s face it, and you thought they were going to buy at the trade deadline, and that’s fine. I’m not like that’s not me like dunking on you or anything like that. But how many times have you expressed positivity about them over the last three months? Very fleeting periods of time, right? You’ve been mostly negative, as I have been. So I do look at it through the lens of I think people just wanted to be mad, no matter what was going to happen. I think they could have bought on Monday, and I think you would have had a certain segment of Orioles fans really ticked off about that. What are you doing, trying to buy and and bleed away? My case that I made to you

Nestor Aparicio 31:15
and Alan, that’s been made here on the radio, was if there’s a work stoppage next year, you you better fight for your fans right now.

Luke Jones 31:21
Fair enough. And that-that’s

Nestor Aparicio 31:22
to me. You’ve dumped all this money in it, and there’s two months more, and you’ve got 48,000 tickets available for every night the next two months. Pack it in and try to do the best you can do. And you know what? You’re effing billionaires. Go buy some players next year. Strike or no strike. Go spend some more money. Go spend some more money. Go buy another player. You know what I mean? Like that’s that. That’s to me. We’ll worry about next year. Next year, I got money in my pocket and a credit card. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. The way I felt in New York the other night at the Rush concert. I’ll live another day. I mean,

Luke Jones 31:56
you know, they better be doing that regardless of what happened on Monday. Michaelias has said that this isn’t a rebuild, and I’ve said to you this is not. They didn’t tear things down to this. They got

Nestor Aparicio 32:06
two players from the Red Sox. They expect to be on the team next year if there’s a next. Yeah, right. I mean,

Luke Jones 32:10
you know, you you kind of look at this. Pub, there’s probably a decent Michael Ferret, the the pitcher they got back from Tampa. He was in the in the Boss trade, and they got him back for Tyler Wells. Elias even said this. He’s probably a handful of starts a trip away away from getting a cup of coffee in September. I mean, that’s that’s where his development is in in their mind, and probably didn’t hurt him that he went to Tampa for you know less than a calendar year. But just knowing how good they are with pitching, so yeah, you kind of look at this thing. I mean, I mean, I’ve said it to you. The one guy that they didn’t trade, Trevor Rogers, man, I don’t know. I’m guessing it’s not going to happen at least in the timetable of the next couple months. But they’re certainly going to qualify, qualify all for him, and we’ll see what happens. We’ll see what that part of it is. My point is the off

8

Nestor Aparicio 33:02
season they can have any any Rogers they want any pitcher they want they want

Luke Jones 33:07
you know but if they sign Rodgers like think about this if they announced over the course of the next week a contract extension with Trevor Rogers that looks somewhere you know it’s going to be more than Bradish or Boz because this is a guy that’s hitting free agency, not a couple years away from it. So yeah, I think you would expect to pay more if you did that. But think about it: if you did, regardless, and and they have money to spend. Look, Michaelias just saved David Rubenstein and Michael Araghetti money at the trade deadline. Now it’s not extraordinary, but I think it counting what projected salaries were for these guys next year. I think it was in the neighborhood. I think Jacob Calvin Meyer said $30 million. I haven’t looked at it to say the exact number, but point is they save some money. But if you sign Trevor Rogers, think about what your rotation is before even going into the off season. You have in any order you want to throw these guys: Bradish, Boz, Trevor Rogers, and a Brandon Young who’s having a terrific season. That look, I’m not going to sit here and say Brandon Young is going to guarant. He’s guaranteed to duplicate what he’s done, but he’s pitched well enough, long enough now, to at least pencil him into the rotation for next year, unless he performs his way out of it, right? Which is the case with anyone. So you look at it through that lens. If if you were to keep Rodgers, you’ve got four of your five spots, kind of, sort of, and you don’t

Nestor Aparicio 34:30
need to deal for Corbin Burns in the off season or go get him. Yeah, one. You’re not. You’re you’re looking at it like, okay, we can survive with this, and we’re gonna, and we can go sign someone. We can trade for someone. We can make that August deal next year. Could I’m pretending there’s a season next year, and you

Luke Jones 34:46
and you also have that a spot where you say, “All right, well, what about Anthony Ianson, who they just acquired, Joseph Jerwa, who they drafted last year, who is pretty rapidly. I, you know, next year might be too soon, but point in.” He he’s interesting. I mentioned Faret Kysen Witherspoon was the other Red Sox pitcher. This feels

Nestor Aparicio 35:05
like a fleecing for Adley Rutschman, who did not feel like over the last two or three years that he’s really Adley Rutschman. The Red Sox are all shining up on him, and I’m like, I don’t know, dude. We watched him here for a couple years, other than that first four months, and in the first half of the next year, and that was three years ago, it was longer

Luke Jones 35:22
than that. I mean, he, I mean, he he was the team MVP even as a rookie for a year and a half.

Nestor Aparicio 35:27
For a year and a half, 2023,

8

Luke Jones 35:29
he was an all star player, really, really, really good. 2024, he had an excellent first half, right? And again, he wasn’t bad. He he had rebounded this year. There’s no question about that. But the durability concerns have continued, and he’s going to be another year older, and that’s where I just that’s why I was so out on the idea of an extension beyond, you know, three years, four years. People think we

Nestor Aparicio 35:53
got more for him than they got for Scoubol with the Dodgers.

Luke Jones 35:56
Yeah, well, it is the difference of a year and a half of a player compared to a rental, sure. I mean, but I would say, yeah. I mean, you you kind of and and keep in mind the other factor for Scouble, and it’s was a lot of money that you’re paying a guy for two months, right? Where for the Dodgers, it’s a drop in the bucket for other teams, right or wrong. I’m not excusing them. Yes, there are other teams that absolutely could have gotten Terek Skubble, but you look at the margin for error, right? We’ve said this over and over. You know me. How many times have you heard me say it’s not the Dodgers don’t win simply because they have the most money or they spend the most money? They’re really freaking smart on top of that. However, when they have moves that go awry, as is the case with everyone, no one bats 1000. They have such a much wider margin for error to cover up those mistakes. Well, it’s like the United States of

Nestor Aparicio 36:51
America right now. Our our GDP is so great that we can have a a complete tyrannical maniac running the country, and we’re probably going to survive this. Maybe I hope at least the Yankees and Dodgers live differently, and you know I would even say this with going back to the original point, which is Elias loved Adley Rutschman, didn’t want to trade in, didn’t want to do any of that, and then there’s the point where the the old fans, the Trump voters, how you deal in division, eh? Heresy deal? I don’t know, dude. We dealt with the Yankees back in the ’70s and won. We went to two World Series because we fleeced them. So if you’re going to fleece the other team, and if you’re if that’s the feeling

Luke Jones 37:30
that Elias has, and you’ve just made some points that maybe he has fleeced the other team, and I think both you and I would look at Adley Rutschman and say you can have him at this point. You can have him at this point. I don’t want to sign him. I don’t want him long term. I don’t know that I want Pasayo being my catcher. But to think of Adley Rutschman as a quote unquote superstar, nah, nah, nah, nah. He’s just he’s just an above average catcher for me. I mean, and on the decline based on his age alone, on the decline based on what I’ve seen with my eyes as well. Well, and you mentioned you use the term superstar, and that’s what triggered this. I mean, let’s call spade a spade. From july 1, 2024 on, Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. Now, Gunner this year may way more extreme his struggles, of course, but those two guys on july 1, 2024. Anyone asked who are the Orioles superstars, who are the faces of the franchise, who are the aircraft carriers for this franchise moving forward, you’d say two names: Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. How have they played since then? Have they played like superstars? No. That is the biggest reason they haven’t played like superstars. They haven’t behaved like superstars. They haven’t much been fielded like a superstar. But

Nestor Aparicio 38:46
but Henderson looks like he’s not out taking ground balls at 2o’clock today. Like so, I I don’t I think these guys were anointed superstars before they were to some degree, and I think that that that plays differently in Baltimore and in this town, that it would play in Philadelphia, Boston. If you’re hitting 212 at the All Star break,

Luke Jones 39:05
I mean, I don’t know about your point about ground balls at 2o’clock. Where’s that coming from? But

8

Nestor Aparicio 39:09
no, the Henderson becoming a better fielder, becoming a better fielder doesn’t feel like that’s going to happen or that that’s a priority. When you’re hitting 212, all you care about is getting the cage and fixing that, I like. I’ve been around baseball long enough. Okay, the only thing he could do is hit the ball. I just don’t think he’s a well-rounded superstar for me. Doesn’t mean you’re a liability in the field, even if I put you third base. I mean, but there’s a a point in all of this for both of these guys that they were aircraft carrier superstar, and they both put numbers up for a very short period of time in the baseball, in the annals of baseball. A year or two of being a superstar is Joe Charbonneau to me. Mike Young did that one year. You know, like that. That’s it. That’s different than you have this incredible value to the franchise over five to 10 years. Let’s say the way Adam Jones did, or you know the way players consistently were consistent. Both of these guys have had a real problem with that, and that’s really caused the franchise to spit up.

Luke Jones 40:12
Yeah, I don’t argue. I I I thought you were questioning their work ethic, which I think no, no, no, no. I’m I’m questioning whether he’s ever going to be a

Nestor Aparicio 40:19
good defender.

Luke Jones 40:21
He’s he’s been a good defender in the past. I mean, like we we can sit here and a great

Nestor Aparicio 40:25
hitter in the past, but but I have to say now, right?

Luke Jones 40:28
Go back and there were strong sentiments about moving Gunner to shortstop three years ago. One, Jorge Mateo wasn’t hitting at the time, but two Gunner was showing he could handle it, and I would still say there are stretches where Gunnar plays really good shortstop, but it’s so up and down, right? It’s not a lack of ability. Point, but that aside, just going back to the bigger point. Look, people want to be mad at Mike Elias, right? In the same way that Ravens fans just wanted to be pissed at John Harbaugh for everything that went wrong for the Ravens, right? At some point in time, you do have to hold players accountable, right? At some point in time, look, Michaelias put together a team. Do I think Michaelias should continue on, considering they’re in this kind of second phase, second era of, you know, and it’s not a full rebuild. It’s not. They they still have a lot of players on this team that hypothetically should be important winning parts of a of a ball club, right? Including Pete Alonso for four more years, right? So including the the pitchers they’ve extended, but I I just look at it and say, where does you know the the player accountability also has to kick in, right? The kicker misses the kick, and the and the owner fires the the coach, right? And and let me be clear: this isn’t me saying that Michaeliah isn’t accountable. Ultimately, Mike Elias is the one who constructed this. He’s the only one that can be accountable at the end of the day for hiring and firing because he has as much power as anybody I’ve ever seen here. But I, but I would say in terms of the reaction to trading Adley Rutschman, Adley Rutschman got himself traded too. He didn’t play well, right? If he were playing much better over the last couple years, I’m guessing the Orioles aren’t in this space at least on august 3, 2026, right? They might be trading him, but maybe it’s not to the winter, right? It’s it’s something along those lines. He was a better

Nestor Aparicio 42:23
player; they would have no reason to want to get rid of him.

8

Luke Jones 42:26
Sure. So, and and you know, it’s not that they wanted to get rid of him, but you just look at the reality of how much do you want him? Can you keep him? And if he balks at what you’re offering, what other what’s your other choice here? Just let it play out, get pennies on the dollar like they did with Manny Machado,

Nestor Aparicio 42:46
and then there’s the labor issue. Are we going to play baseball?

Luke Jones 42:48
Sure, sure. I mean, and that goes

Nestor Aparicio 42:50
back to the original part of this, which is the Red Sox have

Luke Jones 42:54
rented even less of Rutchman if there’s less of next year, and that’s more of a haul for the Orioles franchise to have younger players, and five of them. I mean, I would say this: if you’re the Red Sox, don’t you? Unless Adley Rutschman just completely crashes and burns from here as a player, they kind of almost have to extend him, don’t they? I mean, think about what they just gave up for a a year and two months at most, and potentially way less than that. And oh yeah, he’s still not playing yet, right? He’s still in the IL. It doesn’t sound like, you know, maybe in the next week or so, maybe two weeks, he’s back. But you just look at that, man. They are pot committed for for this year for them to win, and for you know what they gave up for him. I mean, well, and

Nestor Aparicio 43:45
he he’s going to find a whole different bag of bones in the Boston media if he doesn’t

Luke Jones 43:50
perform. If he doesn’t perform, I mean, if he performs, they’ll love him, right? And by

8

Nestor Aparicio 43:54
the way, he didn’t go there when they were asleep. He went there after they won 15 games in a row, and they’re expecting to make the playoffs.

Luke Jones 44:00
Yeah, and

Nestor Aparicio 44:01
and they’re expecting him to be a huge part of it.

Luke Jones 44:03
It’s funny. I don’t know if I made this to point to you the other day, but since we were on the by the way, he’s

Nestor Aparicio 44:07
hurt for the third time this year. Is that right? I want to be after that. Yeah. Okay. So he’s hurt for the third time. You just took him on, and he was your savior to some degree, or going to be a catalyst to continue this surge that the Red Sox are on, right?

Luke Jones 44:21
Yeah, well, and I’ll say this again: the three times he’s been on, the second time, remember, he got hit in the side of the ear with an errant throw, right? That’s not, that’s not. Oh, this guy can’t stay healthy. That that’s bad luck, right? That could have happened to Cal Ripken at some point in his over the course of the streak. Who knows? But but I I think with Ruchman. I mean, look, he could be the next Jason Veritek there, and they re-sign him, and they love him, and maybe the Red Sox win two more titles, and and maybe he has a resurgence to no, not become the player that everyone dreamed him becoming in 2019 or 2020 or 2021. But the best version of how he looked this year when he was healthy, Carlton Fisk. Can we say that? You know, I’m not ready to say Carlton Fisk even, but but there’s a scenario for that. But there’s also a scenario that he continues to get hurt. Maybe they don’t extend him, and then a year from now at this time, assuming they’re playing baseball by next August. I man, I hope so, but they’re looking at that and saying, “Ooh, man, we Breslow really jumped the gun on that. We we wanted him to be more aggressive, and that’s been the story in Boston. The last few trade deadlines. Look at them, you know, they they they’ve really operated a lot more like the Orioles, right? Craig Breslow. As far as their go look at their trade deadlines, they they got some players where you know okay guys that they thought would help and didn’t really help that much. I mean, it was great. I I know you’re not a streaming guy, but Netflix did kind of kind of a hard knocks documentary with with the Red Sox going over the 2024 season, it was over the course of that season. It was like six parts, something like that. And they did the they did a whole you know episode on the trade deadline, and it was really interesting just to kind of see how that works, how that looks. But you kind of looked at the players that they acquired at the deadline two years ago. Didn’t really work out for them at all. You know, kind of reminded you of things the Orioles have done at the trade deadline when they’ve been buyers, so they obviously made a really bold move. We’re going to see if it works out. But on the flip side, look, you can sit here for the Orioles and say, “Hey, we really like Anthony Ironson, and we we really like Kaisen Witherspoon, and we like the guys we got in in the other deals we made. But can you one develop finish developing them, and two can you keep them healthy, especially pitchers? Right. I said it to you the other day. You look at this system now. You look at their top 30 or let’s say top 15 prospects right now. I’m looking at the MLB pipeline. Their top 30, number one in the system, pitcher. Number four in the system, pitcher. Number six and seven, pitcher number 1011, 1213, pitcher. Number 15 in the system, pitcher. That is a stark contrast from where this farm system has been, which was

Nestor Aparicio 47:22
Ortiz, Kerstad, Cal’s, or that was all position players, almost all, and other than Grayson Rodriguez, D.L. Hall, who was a

8

Luke Jones 47:29
holdup, who were holdovers from the previous regime, right? Right. So, so I said to you, if I’m trying to lay out an argument here, if Michaelias is going to stay, and look, I’m not making the argument that he should, but to your point, all that matters is how David Rubenstein and Michael Arreghetti and the rest of the ownership group feel. If they if they continue to be confident in Mike, he’s going to be there, good, bad, or indifferent as far as how I would think Cal

Nestor Aparicio 47:52
Ripken’s opinion matters a lot to these guys because he’s their mole. And if Cal Ripken gets along with Elias and and there’s Detente there and they want to work together. And again, this is all. I’m not even convinced Cal Ripken’s even working there. Other than sitting behind, like, does he go to an office? Does he scout? Does what is what it? That’d be my first question for all these people because all of it is shrouded in boujee secrecy, losing and raising prices and lying and their social media nonsense, and the mr. McGoo owner that shows up, and all the money they’re throwing out. Nobody’s coming to the ballpark, like on and on and on. But if I had a real question at this point, I’d ask Ryan Ripken because he knows everything. What’s your dad doing? What what what what is Cal’s role in this? Because I don’t really know, and I don’t know how to explain it to listeners. If anybody asked me, I’d only be guessing. So I mean, to me, the fact that they are so secretive about everything, and then the menorah hits the fan, and it’s not Ko’s fault, it’s not Rubenstein’s fault. Well, it’s got to be Elias’s fault. Well, it was Ruchman’s fault. It’s playing the players. Like it goes around and around and around. But

Luke Jones 49:05
but it’s it’s Elias’s fault. I mean, okay, you you don’t. And I don’t think Cal

Nestor Aparicio 49:09
Ripken wants to hear from me or anybody. I don’t think he wants to be involved in that way. But he is on the streets. Fangilik, well, Cal’s are going to pick their new general. I I don’t know what Cal does other than pap a wave and stand behind home plate make commercials when they ask him. I literally don’t know. I’m not being flippant, but he’s not Brady Anderson in this. He’s not that role, you know. Although it’s perceived, he’s Cal, and I’m like, I don’t think Cal’s watching baseball all day to like be up on all this and putting his life aside to shadow Mike Elias around. But fans seem to think that in some way. I don’t think that many fans think that. I think I think some fans want him to be more in that role. I think you know, there’s been what I guess the Athletic a few months, you know, two months back, let’s say that he’s, and I and I don’t even know if this is handy.

Luke Jones 50:00
Hands on, he’s had some input in terms of things they need to be doing differently in the minor leagues. You know, Mike Schult is part of their organization they hired back in the off season, former major league manager. So I think that shows an awareness of what we’ve seen at the major league level, which I think stems from things not being taught a baseball issue in the minor league, no, but in the minor leagues and in these guys’ development,

Nestor Aparicio 50:26
an Oriole Way Ripken something like that. Now

Luke Jones 50:30
that said, does that mean Cal’s putting in 40 hours a week doing that? I don’t think anything remotely like that, right? I think it’s probably more in a an advisor, maybe taking a look at things here or there, like that would be my guess. I don’t know that for certain, right? But the idea that Cal Ripken is suddenly working full time in baseball at age 66 in a couple weeks, no, I no, but but but when they fire Elias, I’m sure he’s gonna at least be dusted off to be one of the people involved in finding a new person. I guess because you would assume, like you know, Cal’s been in baseball his whole life. You would hope if, and I’m not remotely convinced they’re firing Mike Elias, nor

8

Nestor Aparicio 51:19
am

Luke Jones 51:19
I. If you ask me right now. I think he’s their general manager of at least for next year, and part of that is also, well, think about it. They promoted him the president of baseball operations last year. Generally speaking, when you are promoted to a new title, doesn’t that entail a new contract? Usually, some kind of bump or so. You think he’s got three more years on the tab at least? I I would. I mean, these guys are billionaires. Giving him $5 million in this way is

Nestor Aparicio 51:46
nothing.

Luke Jones 51:47
Well, I’m going to use the same point that we were just talking about as it pertained to roster building. Are you really, you know, hot and heavy about the idea of hiring a replacement if the sport’s shutting down, right? And then you’re just sitting there. You bring in a new GM, and then guess what? You can’t conduct any business. There are no winter meetings. If you know, like all that stuff gets shut, gets banged if there’s a lockout. So you can hire a new GM, and yeah, you could do things here or there, and infrastructure this or reshuffling this. But

Nestor Aparicio 52:18
you’re running a minor league operation next year if you’re and if it were a lot worked, so that’s so

Luke Jones 52:23
that’s where you kind of look at look at it through the lens of maybe again I’m giving ownership a lot of credit here. I don’t know if they know what they’re doing at all, right? No one knows. We’re gonna, you know, I

Nestor Aparicio 52:34
can’t ask them questions to figure out whether they know what they’re doing, and based on what I see when they show up. They don’t. They don’t. I have no confidence in them. I wouldn’t give them my money. They won’t allow me to ask questions. And if I did, they’d answer them with bulljaw. And I’m not down with bulljaw, so they won’t sit in front of me. I mean, I noticed the other day, dude. And I don’t. I’m not here to defecate upon them. I’m telling you what I see. There was a wide-angle picture. I think in the banner of Elias sitting in the dugout holding court on whenever it was Tuesday, whenever it was, and Melanie Newman’s on one side of him, and Rock Cabaco’s on the other side. He’s got coworkers in on him, and there’s I’m wonder, and I hear the press conference stuff, and there’s not much coming out of it, but it’s just-it’s so incestuous. The Orioles and the the Greg Bader Angelo’s fallout world of whatever Aragueti and Rubenstein think they bought, and where Elias has job for life now, according to you. A minute ago, like he’s going to survive all this. No, he’s going to survive all this because he’s their baseball guy. I

8

Luke Jones 53:38
said for next year because of the lockout.

Nestor Aparicio 53:40
That’s a long time. You know, that’s that’s two. That’s four seasons. Four seasons into the new ownership. You know, let’s

Luke Jones 53:48
let’s you know. Let’s not put Luke. Let’s not put words in Luke’s mouth. I didn’t say forever. I said because potentially he had a brand new contract, and if you have a work stoppage anyway, in the same way you’re talking about the Adley Rutschman thing. What? So you’re going to pay two general managers to not play baseball? Fair, I mean, yeah. And that-that’s the point I’m making for that. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m just trying to spitball here, looking at this like anyone else, right? But you know, just to go back to what I was-you know-I was talking about the pitchers before we went off on a tangent here a little bit. You know, it does really feel like they’ve subtly shift shifted to being more pitching centric. Quite frankly, first of all, it’s been their strength this year since late May. Their starting pitching’s been their best the best phase of this team since you know may 20 or whatever that that the date is that we’ve all kind of circled on the calendar and looked at the numbers since then. So, and it is interesting to look at their system now and say, yeah, you kind of look at the top 15; it’s littered with pitching prospects now. Are all those guys going to work out? Of course not. And we can all remember the Andy McPhail with the throw the arms by the bats and how underwhelming that ended up being. And. You know the the position talent is actually what kind of was the only thing that kind of saved Andy McPhail’s legacy, right? Because those pitchers largely didn’t work out. You know, Tillman was about the only one that from that group, and and Zach Britton becoming a closer, right? Not but not a starter. So you know we’ll see how that works out. But if you’re talking about a second act for Mike Elias, as the trade of Adley Rutschman signifies, right? It’s not a full-blown rebuild, but it’s a reload. It’s a little bit of a, I don’t know, a reset, if you want to call it that. If he’s going to continue, and again, that’s not me endorsing that. I’m just speaking reality and what kind of feels like this is going to happen, it does look like more of a pitching bias in terms of more than it used to be. Let’s say I don’t want to say you know they it’s not like they drafted a pitcher in the first round this year, right? I mean, like

Nestor Aparicio 55:51
Elias knows his own deficiencies at that point. I don’t think he’s that unaware that the pitching has always been the hardest job he has to do in the off season because they haven’t done a good enough job in the season, right? Well, they’re always having to get a Corbin Burns or sign an Efflin or sign it, and other organizations have that too. But it’s because they haven’t had it. We didn’t talk about Cade Povich. They haven’t had enough Cade Poviches and Brandon Youngs come through the system and be Miguel Gonzalez, be something that’s a surprise as opposed to a disappointment, in the case of Grayson Rodriguez. Well,

Luke Jones 56:24
and and I would also say this. I mean, I I don’t disagree with what you just said, but what was supposed to be the strength of all this hasn’t been the strength of this relative to expectations. What has been the superstar position players, a superstar catcher, a superstar shortstop, a superstar second baseman. You bought a superstar first baseman. That was how this was going to happen for them. They haven’t hit relative to expectation, right? Yes, at last year the pitching was worse than the hitting, right? But relative to expectation, their offense has been the most disappointing element of this ball club for two years now. Am I wrong? Strikeouts, runners in scoring position, ducks on the pond. They don’t hit high balls. They don’t hit for as much strikeouts. They haven’t hit for as much power. Now they walked more this year, although Taylor Ward was a big part of that. But Jackson Holidays walked way more. You know, Jackson Holiday’s, I wrote it. I’ll say it. These final two months, if there’s one thing that can happen that can spark some hope and optimism moving forward, it would be Jackson Holiday looking more and more like the guy he wasn’t, like a star, not a superstar, but just a star. He had a great July. He’s not going to have a 500 on base percentage the last two months. Like you know, I’m not like let’s not get nuts here. It’s not Barry Bonds, but if he can look more like that guy, I mean that was the best offensive month of his career by a wide margin. If he can look more like that guy over the last two months, boy, that would ease some of the sting of the idea of Adley Rutschman going away, wouldn’t it? I mean, it absolutely would. And obviously, Paso needs to come back. It’s

Nestor Aparicio 58:07
funny a holiday’s because he’s still expectation on him is less than it was on Rutschman. There’s a there’s less fire on him as a one one than there was for Ruchman. I

Luke Jones 58:18
mean, I think the thing that gives him a little bit of cover is he was a high school player compared to a college player? He’s young. Adley Rutschman, my goodness, Adley Rutschman was already what 24 when he came to the majors. Now, COVID interfered with that. the The idea that the Orioles weren’t trying to win Rutschman’s first couple years in professional baseball, so they weren’t in a rush to get him to the majors, obviously. But I think for Jackson Holiday, he’s younger. He moved through the system so rapidly. I think that’s where there’s, you know, and look the difference. Rutchman was the savior, right? They’re six years apart. He was anointed

8

Nestor Aparicio 59:00
in age. I’m saying they’re six years apart. So six years from now is where Jackson. What is Jackson Holiday going to do? Well, six years from now, he could be on the Rangers and making a lot of money. But like, there’s a lot of tread for Jackson Holiday. A lot of that bats in the next three years to get him to catch up to Adley Rutschman to say he could far outperform Adley Rutschman’s body of work here over the next three years.

Luke Jones 59:23
I mean, or even just say, “Hey, can you get closer to where Adley Rutschman was at his peak? He’s he’s got a long way to go for that, right? I mean, Adley Rutschman’s a three-time All-Star. Whether, but Holiday finishing the season on a high note-that to me, that feels like, and and it’s not just symbolic because he’s a real player, right? I’m not, but from a symbolic standpoint, because I think we all see the writing on the wall for Gunner, he’s gone at some point in the next year, year and a half, right? I mean, you would think, you know, he’s a Scott Boris client on. Top of everything else, right? So, but and Holiday is too. Like, but he’s much further away, right? He’s he’s much earlier in his major league career. He’s right now where Gunnar and Adley Rutschman were back in 2023, 2024, right? Compared to now, so is there more runway for Holiday to start looking more and more like an All-Caliber player, rather than what he’s been to this point, which is, yeah, I mean, at times very much below average. But you know, for me, he’s looked much closer to just being an okay player, which you know that’s obviously not what you’re looking for when with a one-one, but a lot of season to go in, and it’s going to be, you know, for those who keep paying attention. I mean, they’re game and a half out of the wild card after winning against the Angels on Tuesday night. But you know, there there are still things to look at and wonder about and ask questions about with this team the rest of the way, and you just want to see the young guys, as I’ve been saying for two years now, play better. If those guys can play better going into the off season, no matter what happens with the lockout, none of us know exactly there. Then you can at least feel better about things. But you know, I I think a lot of fans right now are ticked and pissed off and mad, and I don’t blame the one bit because where they stand right now is not what was advertised 234, years ago. Let alone when Mike Elias first began and laid out his master plan to rebuild the franchise.

Nestor Aparicio 1:01:33
He is Luke Jones. He is Baltimore. Luke, we are going to be doing it all week long here with baseball, with football. Getting into August, we’ll be doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour presented by the Maryland Lottery. Have the Ravens scratch-alls. Luke will be out in Ravenlandia here this week. I’ll be at the Orioles game on Thursday afternoon with Robbie Leonard has invited me. You know, when I go to day games, it’s got to be 90 degrees, so I’m sure it’s going to be warm. We’re going to be down to Fadelies before the game, having a beer and a crab cake as well. So, getting ourselves out and about. Our friends at Farnham and Derm are always there for you. They are the comfort guys. Zach Dermer stopped by last week. We talked about how do you teach your six-year-old how to play baseball by watching the Orioles play defense. That was a little bit of the comedy. That’s when Rutchman was still here. Plenty of baseball ahead as well, and we get the crab cake tour out. I’m bringing by lots of different folks, we have a political season here. I’ve got some rock stars coming on later on this month as well. So it is a good month around here. We are celebrating our 28th anniversary as of Monday at WNST. Big appreciation everybody out there who supports us, shares us, likes us, and even if you like Luke and don’t like me, I appreciate you. We are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Plenty of Zay flowers ahead. Stay with us.