After the Orioles rebounded nicely at home against the Texas Rangers, Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Orioles obvious pitching deficiencies as the West Coast week begins in Seattle.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
year, pitching, orioles, week, game, team, baseball, elias, win, october, part, talking, rotation, point, give, playing, burns, good, bullpen, corbin
SPEAKERS
Nestor J. Aparicio, Luke Jones
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home we are W n s t test the Baltimore Baltimore positive very festive for the Fourth of July around here at some point I’m going to change my screenshot to be red, white and blue. Our friends at the Maryland lottery you put up the Gold Rush sevens doubler and I sort of feel like we were taking time off on the crabcakes where because I’ve been doing like two a week every week for like a month. We’re just kind of hanging for the fourth. We’ll be back after next Friday. It’s already next Friday. It’s already the all star break. We will be down during the Yankees game. We’ll be at families in the new Lexington market we got some great guest Luke’s gonna come down I’m sure we’re gonna talk about retired Yankees numbers look I’m gonna make a bet right now that there’s not one moment somebody’s not in faith he’s wearing something Yankees that day. Because that’s just the way it rolls when it’s first place and second place and we’re not sure who will be what but we’re sure there’ll be something like that next week. Our friends at Liberty pure solutions making the water clear. Crystal clear, delicious for summertime. If you have well water watching all this rainfall, make sure your waters clean Liberty pure Solutions does that as well as Jiffy Lube, multi care, putting us out on the road. Look at a a tragedy in my life over the weekend. Late at night, I went to put away my coal roofing mug and exploded all over the floor. So I do not have my royal farms coffee in my coffee mug. I do have it in my old Dundalk throw back here. So there’s some good stuff in here like you know Dundalk, Maryland and the roll arena where I met my son’s mother and two guys in East Point mall and all that stuff. But I do miss my coal roofing mug. So I gotta give a shout out to Bill Cole for that. How are you happy for us? I
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Luke Jones 01:35
you know, it’s gonna be a good week here. And anybody listening is going to hear a whole bunch of stuff I did last week, a whole bunch of stuff that I’ve kind of had hiding out and waiting for this week. But the baseball team is gonna go west coast. It’s been a strange two weeks for the franchise and a lot of ways from arms to get in there ASPI to picking it back up to New York. And I mean it. It was quite a June, wasn’t it? It really was a June that had what one off day. Yeah, the entire month for the Orioles. And we talked about it a lot the stretch of 43 games in 45 days, which even by baseball standards, that’s a lot of playing baseball without a lot of breaks. So the fact that they were able to navigate that with a 26 and 17 record, they had a 17 and 12 June and we know what kind of competition they faced in the month of June. They lost John means and Kyle Bradish for the year over that stretch. They lost any Coolum until September over that stretch. And yeah, they lost five in a row. And a week ago at this time, people were panicking not I think most people were not happy about it, but weren’t panicking. But there was a little bit of panic. And lo and behold, they win for their next five right after that. And I said that what this team has been able to do the last couple of years, they’ve had some stretches like this, you know, last year right around this time, they lost six to seven, for example. And then they went on a long winning streak right after that. So was really good to see them respond the way that they did. Sunday night notwithstanding, obviously, Andrew Heaney, dominated them on Sunday night and Texas was able to salvage the final game of the series. But you take three out of four from the rangers who have been reeling you did not give them any semblance of hope in terms of getting off the mat. And I’ll be at the Al West is up for grabs with Seattle, certainly having their issues and, and Houston being on the calm at this point. But you know, the Orioles bounce back as they have done over and over and over over the last couple of years. It’s why they’ve been so good. So now it’s a unique, you know, it’s always weird when you go out to the West Coast and you know that there aren’t gonna be quite as many people watching, even if it is a holiday week, and some people will be off work. But you know, now it’s just a matter of continuing to roll and you know, a Seattle team that’s really struggled to score runs, and then an Oakland team after that. So I think all the issues that this team might have on the pitching side. Were there when they were playing really well a couple weeks ago. They were there last week during the five game losing streak and we saw Sunday night core Irvin struggle once again and kind of feels like he might be the odd man out here as Dean Kramer’s ready to return to the rotation, let alone whoever else they might acquire in the coming weeks before the trade deadline, but some really good baseball team and they’ve really hit the ball. And they’ve done what they needed to do to get themselves straightened out after a rough week that they had. So, you know, it’s I think they’re, you feel as good about them as you have in the big picture for a while now. Just acknowledging Yeah, Mike Elias needs to add some pitching help, but we’ve known that we’ve talked about that for weeks, if not months now. But good to see them get back on track. And, again, it’s what I expected them to do. It’s what they’ve done. all been for the better part of two years now. It’s why they’d been one of the class teams and the American League.
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:04
So I had a kind of a wild weekend after my wife broke her ankle a month ago. We haven’t done a whole lot and she’s feeling a little bit better hobbling around a little bit, there’s some good concert so went to Hershey See, hooting the blowfish on Friday night. Then on Saturday, after spending the day working at home all day, went down to Annapolis, and spent the evening in Annapolis with Greg hawks in his cars band, which was just unbelievable. So shout out the lower price and everybody ramshead for taking good care of me there. And then on Sunday, I went to the heritage fair and gundogs lifted a ice cold modelo in the beer garden and watch get the lead out and everywhere I went and I’m wearing my Baltimore versus everybody shirt. Some debuting this I bought this for dude for 10 bucks at the corner of RAD and how we’re leaving an Oreo game. It was the game we went to thinking they could clinch and they didn’t clinch last September. On the way out. I have one of the shirts and like give me that $10 So I bought this. The one thing I’ll say is everywhere I went there were Oriole hats, hats, some shirts, do some I saw some gunner Anderson, and they’re in the beer garden on Sunday night. But everywhere I went, you know, despite what the Whistler and Mr. Rubinstein anybody thinks about my baseball dome, people know who I am and they come and talk baseball with me wherever I am. It was all about the pitching dude. It’s like I don’t take phone calls for a living anymore. But when you do it for 25 years, people still want to give you a phone call. Whether it’s down on the field in Hershey, whether it’s in the street at this beautiful festival in Annapolis, or whether certainly in the beer garden it was all Orioles in the beer garden when it wasn’t Led Zeppelin you know they’re pitching is what the fans are talking about more than Mr. Rubinstein dancin, you know, all these orchestrated things as owners do in which I will, that’ll be a whole big bag of leaves that we’ll get to before the summer’s over with but I, I’m taking my chances and we’re where we are with all of that. But I would just say for the team itself and for where July won as you and I get together on the eve of the all star break, they’re gonna go out play nighttime baseball, they’re gonna play lonely baseball out in Oakland this weekend, we’re gonna watch their first place. I mean, no matter what we would say five game losing streak this or that they’re in first place. It’s July, the All Star game. You and I are gonna pick it back up. I mean, you’re going to Wildwood this week, which, you know, I mean, hang in there. Let’s get through the all star break. But this Yankee series next weekend, you’re enormous, right? I mean, like, they get bigger, even bigger than it was a couple of weeks ago, up there and the pitching and every third or fourth or fifth day we’ll see Kramer. But that you know, Bradish isn’t coming over the hill wells isn’t coming over the hill, see where we are with Povich or whatever. But the pitching is on the tip of everyone’s tongue. And whether it’s Mr. Moneybags, Mr. John Denver’s you know whether he’s going to fork out 20 To 50 to $100 million to bring in somebody else’s picture with a deal on it or years left on it. I mean, people are saying to me, who are they going to deal for? I think this is a the bigger issue. The way I answer it, when I’m in the streets of Annapolis are on the field that hooting the blowfish, the way I answer it is there’s a lot of teams out there bidding and the perception is the Orioles have the most to deal from the perception is the Orioles want at the most Corbin burns, new owner Mr. Moneybags cows behind the play starving community here for baseball transitional thing that if this team could just get to the World Series and get swept in three games, it would be monumental for Mr. Rubenstein and his legacy of philanthropy and profit. That this year is really important. Not that you’re going to fleece alias. But the expectations here that I feel on the street when I walk around and I’m not at the ballpark about what they better do to wake up on August 2 with something better than what they have. I don’t want to be disrespectful to Corbin. He’s he loves animals. You know what I mean? Nice guy. But you got to you got to do better than eight, the one on my app Sunday night when I’m watching get the lead out in the beer garden, Lucas. Yeah,
Luke Jones 09:27
I mean, look, there are lots of teams in baseball, lots of good teams in baseball looking for pitching to and that’s what’s challenging about this because it is probably going to be a seller’s market in terms of if you’re one of those very few teams like the White Sox, who we’ve been talking about, since what the third week of April is being definitive sellers because of how lousy they are and how lousy to start the game. I want
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:49
8to tell a funny story. Because I am always interrupted as the YouTube crowd says Orlando Brown, the great late Orlando brand not good Little Zeus Zeus, his dad, I’ll never forget this is after he had chased Preston on the back fields out there, one day pissed off. I remember his locker was right on the left on the way inside. And this is before we went to Cleveland, and had the I think this is before any of that. This is when he was here, and he got paid to be here before he even got like a big contract. He said to a bunch of reporters, and this is six foot nine, Zeus, saying, you know, an older Zeus when there was a young John Ogden saying, you know, y’all put my salary in the paper. You know what happens when you put my salary into paper, kids come cut my lawn, next door. $50 next door $75 They want to under bucks for me because of how much money I make. And I think the Oriole situation is there such expectation here. And there’s such a thought of send them nor be send them or curse that send them this and the max and the mayo throw Povich and do whatever we got to do. And I’m part of that, in that they’re not going to have Corbin burns next year. Unless, you know, Steve Martin’s doppelganger reaches in for whatever money you probably wouldn’t give him and maybe my clients wouldn’t love that either. But you’ll start to do things differently under new ownership in regard to I have more money, let’s This guy wants to win. He’s dancing on dugouts, let’s get he’s a billionaire, he wants to win. I don’t know if we have that or not. If we have that we’ll find out if it’s not gonna take an interview with me to figure that out. But I would just say the perception is not that you can fleece allies, but that you can get more from here than you can get from anywhere. And I think that’s the perception to the fans of this level of expectation. That is building in my mind as the crowds grow. As I go out on the street, and everywhere I go, people are talking about the baseball team, not the football team, not Lamar, the baseball team the next 60 days, there’s a real high expectation here. And I think throughout baseball that the Orioles have more to give, you can get more out of them, you can get an extra $100 out of them. And that’s a really weird, we’ve never had that. Look, I’ve been doing this 33 years, there’s never been a July, where we’re expected to buy expected to buy big in first place with a clear deficiency a clear need because of injury and because of this depletion, that this is big stakes, I think for the future the franchise, as you’ll point out, because you may take the other side and say, Don’t be given away the young guys.
Luke Jones 12:38
Well, you shouldn’t give them away. You don’t want to pay a Ferrari price for a minivan. I mean, let’s Let’s call a spade a spade when it comes to that and pitching. I mean, we’ve talked about it the just how fragile it is. I mean, look at the Orioles, the current state of their starting rotation and what we thought it might have been or what it was on opening day, or what it was on May 5. So you always need to stay disciplined with what you’re willing to give up. And yes, ownership is a major part of this in the sense of what payroll is going to look like what the payroll projections look like, what how high it can go. Because it’s not just oh, spend money. It’s also when David Rubenstein is talking about this with Mike Elias. And not to say that he’s sitting there and having extensive conversations, but just laying out the realities of it. But you know, from a business standpoint, if you’re Mike Elias, it makes it easier to deal maybe a little bit more than you’re willing to deal. If you know that you’re going to be spending be able to spend more money in free agency or you can take on a veteran pitchers contract that might have another year owed on it where there’s a real salary commitment there. So, you know, that’s part of it. But at the same time, Mike Elias and sigma delta did not get where they got in terms of what they’ve done here in terms of being in Houston or St. Louis before that, or working under other good baseball people with just artificially raising your value of how you’re going to suddenly acquire players right. Again, you don’t want to pay a Ferrari price for a minivan. And Mike Elias is going to stay discipline. Now that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna sit here and say I don’t think they’re gonna make moves. I think they are at the same time. And we talked about this a few weeks back when they played Arizona, Texas is a perfect example here. The Rangers were not the best team in baseball last year. We’ve seen what’s happened to them this year in terms of falling off, and it’s not as though they gutted their roster in the offseason. So they won a World Series last year, right. So it’s also a reminder of the goal here isn’t to be a 105 win. And outfit. Now you want to win the division, let’s be clear, there might take 105 wins to do that, and the Yankees are thinking the same thing right now. But the end goal, the end game is to get to the World Series. And the Dodgers who’ve spent insane money, who’ve had insane success in the regular season, for what, 789 years now, what do they have to show for it in terms of World Series championships? So the point I’m making here is yes, they need pitching. We all know that at this point. And again, we knew that before the five game losing streak, we knew that before they took two out of three from the Phillies, and two out of three from the Yankees the week before that, and everyone was going crazy, because, hey, they beat the best team in the NFL. And they beat the best team in the NFL at that point in time. But we also know that so much of October hinges on not just being the best team on paper, or having the best pitching staff on paper are the best lineup on paper. So much of it is going to hinge on. How are you playing at that point in time. And Arizona and Texas got hot, late in the regular season. And then they carry that on into a World Series run for, you know, for both those teams, because again, they weren’t Oreos won more games in both those teams last year. So it’s tough, because yeah, you want to improve your team? There’s no question about that. And I fully expect Michael eyes to do that. But at the same time, even if they add a starting pitcher, even if they add a reliever, they’re still no guarantee here. So the point is, you’ve got to balance what you want to do this year. And I fully, wholeheartedly agree with you, you want to take advantage of this because Corbin burns. I’m still skeptical, even if the Orioles are willing to do it, even if Mike Elias thinks it’s a good long term investment, despite what we know about how fragile and how injury prone pitching is. And just knowing looking at all the big contracts around baseball right now. And knowing how many of those pitchers have been hurt, but at the same time, still doing it and still being in a position where, you know, that’s going to make the most sense to do that. You want to take advantage, you know, you’re not gonna have Corbin burns, you know, you’re not gonna have Kyle Bradish until best case scenario, maybe August of next year. And so you can’t really expect anything from Kyle Bradish next year either. So, but that’s also part of why I’ve said, go out and get a starting pitcher that is controllable beyond this season, you know that it’s not just a rental, but we also know, that means it’s going to cost more, you know, in terms of what you give up in a trade. So they we know that the system has been built in a way that they loaded up on so much position, player talent, so much hitting talent, that the whole point was you would have a surplus, you know, perception wise to then go out and make moves. And we’ve seen them already do that, you know, when they traded Joey Ortiz for Corbin burns, but they’re going to do that, again, you know, whether it’s this trade deadline, whether it’s this coming winter, you know, to acquire maybe your next Corbin burn, so to speak, whatever it might be. But you know, that’s that’s part of it. But at the same time again, you don’t want to overpay for something that’s not going to necessarily move the needle to the degree that you hope so. That’s where you do need to have a lot of discipline. I think the point that you made and we talked about this a little bit last year with the White Sox, you know, with the whole Dylan CeCe thing and all that where the White Sox, you know, by multiple indications sounded like they were asking for the absolute Moon from the Orioles and the Orioles said, Look, we want to get better. And we yeah, we liked Dylan seats, but we’re not paying you a hall that would be you know that we think Dylan ceases Pedro Martinez in 1999. Right so you know, you still want him
Nestor J. Aparicio 18:54
versus been better this year than then CeCe would have been this year. Yeah, measure these guys in three to five years sums, especially with the arms because you can’t you can only measure them in. How good are they right now? I mean, we don’t measure you know, Cano based on May of 2023. It’s more a body of work. And I think the body of work the same thing with Kohler. And I think the body works the same thing with Dean Kramer, you know as to what you’re expecting to get out of him in August, September. that’s any different than what you got out of him in April or last year, expecting anybody to be a white horse. And I know, we went through we did a half an hour on Grayson Rodriguez last week. And Burns is just we just pencil him in as a horse. He’s our jack Morris. He’s our Roger Clemens all of a sudden, and their days it feels like he’s all you got once you get past Rodriguez. And at this point, when you’re in first place, everybody would say well, we’ll relax. They’re fine. They’re in first place. I don’t think it’s the job of OSS in the media or Mike Elias to relax or say what they have is good enough when it’s pretty obvious it’s not it is not going to be in October as comprise.
Luke Jones 20:02
We’ll see. I mean, I’m not I’m not even willing to say that entire that you know that it’s obvious that there because you do have Corbin burns, you do have grace and Rodriguez, you know you’re not using a five minute rotation in the postseason, you know you’re not using you know, you don’t need studs as your number four number five starters. Do they need a guy that is going to emerge as the legit number three, you know, or, you know if you want to say number two and Grayson Rodriguez number three, whatever. Yeah, yeah. But that said, you don’t need that guy to be as good as Corbin burns. You need that guy to be someone that’s going to give you five good innings in a postseason start because you’re, then you’re going to turn it over to your your bullpen. Okay.
8Nestor J. Aparicio 20:46
And that’s where we talk about the bullpen. Yeah, right. Who are the three guys in the bullpen? That are your are your your October guys or even your September guys, you know what I mean? Like, right, who are the three that we love in our bullpen? And
Luke Jones 21:01
what I need to because I don’t love three in that capacity. But go ahead. But yeah, look, I mean, we don’t need to sit here and debate that they need pitching anymore when everyone knows that. I mean, if people keep telling me that on Twitter, it’s like guys, I know that, like Mike Elias knows that. But at the same time, they are really good. And they do have an offense that let’s face it. And let’s Let’s call a spade a spade here. And Seattle is a great team to talk about here just to use as a case study. mariners are leading their division now, their leads, not as big as it is it had been. But both of those teams, the Orioles and the mariners going into this series, have the same number of runs allowed the Orioles? I think it played two fewer games. Point is they both had been very good from a run prevention standpoint, in the aggregate. Now, would I take Seattle’s pitching overall compared to the Orioles? Yeah, but at the on the flip side, the Orioles have a much, much, much better offense. I mean, they’ve scored 100 more runs than the mariners have. So part of this is also going to be Yeah, the Orioles need more pitching. There’s no doubt about that. No one’s debating that if the biggest orange Kool Aid drinker on the planet right now would acknowledge Yeah, they could certainly benefit from some more pitching. I mean, that we’ve all watched how it’s played out. At the same time, the Oreo is going to make a deep October run, their offense is going to have to be doing a huge part of that. And that’s done. We’ve seen that I mean, when the Astros won, cheating part of it aside, and I understand that that was part of it. But they did win multiple periods, they lose
Nestor J. Aparicio 22:34
if they lose in October three to one, because they did care and Sofic Eric Cole and seven innings and they’re swinging at bad pitches, they’re not getting on base, nobody’s drawn walks. Everybody’s striking out, they’re playing in the twilight, like any of that. I’m gonna live with that in the offseason and say, like I did when Eddie Murray didn’t hit 1979 I’m just gonna say You know what, then hit the ball. And I would almost feel a little bit like that last year last year, as you went into the clubhouse, and I was restricted. And, you know, on that night when it all went down, and we got on the plane and flew home from Arlington. By the way I was telling the guy about our tour of the of the star he a Cowboys fan in the beer garden the other day, you know, as we’re coming back from that I felt like they didn’t do they were young. Hey, you know what I mean? It that’s how it felt last year to me, it felt like I’m not down on rutschman or down on Henderson or down on Santa any of the guys who didn’t get 10 runs you know, in hit three home runs in any of those games. I I chalked that up to experience last year and that’s why I didn’t get my feelings hurt. Now you go out and you get corn burns Peters dead you got a new owner he’s running around dancing with the bird wants to win scored and fans and they’re, you know, they’re selling tickets and people are coming. And this expectation that they have this incredible farm system, they can do anything they want to get, they can win any trade they wanted to win because they have more money because they are that right? That there is an expectation that they’re going to try harder than maybe they would and I’ll tell you this if at the end of it, they don’t get enough pitching and they lose because of that. That would be a shame if they lose because carrot cold shoves and you know whomever they play the marriage whoever it is, the pitching shuts down the offense and the offense doesn’t hit the ball and they lose three to one games. I’m gonna live with that in the office all season because I think the the offensive part of this I’m willing to go to sleep every night thinking that’s good enough it can be good enough I hope it’s good enough. It turns on and off, but I hope it turns on and mountcastle you know hits for home runs at the polls, you know, like all the things that we know they’re capable of. I see the I see the possibility of the offense. I see the detriment of the pitching right now.
Luke Jones 25:10
8It’s fair. I mean, again, I mean, we can keep talking, having the same conversation every day. And I’m not going to disagree with you on it. But I mean, again, you can only go out there and get what’s going to be available and how many how much pitching is going to be out there. And again, I will continue to say, if there’s only a minivan out there, you better not paid for a Ferrari price for it. I mean, I’m just gonna gonna say
Nestor J. Aparicio 25:34
that in the history of the game is back in the 90s, when all these deals would happen, and the oils would be a part of the wells in the this in the van and they’d miss out on the Chris Winter and like, there was a lot of wild wild west going on during that period of time. And a lot of guys got rented for eight weeks, and none of it met. And because August 1, there were 10 teams trying hard back in those days making not blockbusters, but BJ seraphs go in there, real players, all star caliber players moving around in a lot of seats everybody trying to get right. And in the end, a lot of guys wore hats. For eight weeks, Mike Piazza Charles Jami, just all these guys were hats you don’t remember him wearing, and it didn’t make a difference. So there is a little bit of that. So, you know, impact players, we talked with Andrew Miller, he made impact we didn’t win. Yeah, well,
Luke Jones 26:25
and that’s where that’s where I still look at this. And look, because of the Bradish injuries, specifically, so much of the attention has gone back on the rotation. Right? And understandably so. And you still have three months to navigate here, right. And so much of I was even thinking about this on my drive home from the ballpark late Sunday night. I mean, the game was very forgettable, right? I mean, the last game of the series that they took three out of four, so it wasn’t something to be distraught about, but certainly was a disappointing night. But I just thought about this. And over the last month and a half, where they’ve had this stretch, where they’ve only been two off days. And at the beginning of the stretch, they still had John means they still had Kyle Bradish, they still had Danny Colome in the bullpen, who’s obviously been one of their best relievers over the last two years. And I just started thinking about him just like, so much of baseball season is just about surviving it. It really is. I mean, we talk about attrition a lot in the NFL because of the injury factor. And just football being the sport that it is with a high injury rate. But in baseball, it’s similar in the sense of you just it’s a grind, it is an absolute grind. It’s a grind physically. And I think really mentally, it can be that kind of a grind when you don’t have many off days like they did and the fact that they pitch are not pitched the fact that they played so well. And I mean, obviously June all the homeruns they hit the offense doing what it did, but still getting good pitching performances, you know, and certainly having some guys step up, you know, I mean, Albert Suarez pitched well, this last time out after a couple starts where it didn’t look so good. You know, Kay Povich got his first win over the weekend. That was nice to see, you know, not not sold on him as an answer it certainly in October, but he’s, you know, he’s given them some, you know, it’s given them some decent outings at a time
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:14
where they really needed it to answer the next four weeks every fifth day.
8Luke Jones 28:18
I mean, if he’s an answer every fifth day, I mean, I think that’s possible. Do I feel so good about him that I’m ready to start them in game three of a postseason series? No. And nor would you really feel that way? I mean, we’re not talking about you know, this isn’t Paul skeans being called up as a phenom prospect for the for the pirates. I mean, you know, Kay Povich was still a fringe maybe top 100 prospect around baseball, depending on what you know what publication you subscribe to,
Nestor J. Aparicio 28:51
but Well, let’s be honest, he’s only here for one reason. Everybody else got hurt. He wasn’t sure. I
Luke Jones 28:58
mean, in your first case, I mean, that was why choice literally at a spring training. And that’s kind of where Tyler Wells was, you know, I mean, he was there number three or number four started open this season, but it’s because Brad it should means we’re on the IRL, right? I mean, title wells, ideally, would have been in the back end of your bullpen. So Suarez
Nestor J. Aparicio 29:16
8and bourbon are way line in front of him, and we’re months in line in front of him. Sure.
Luke Jones 29:20
I mean, you need pitching depth. I mean, there’s no question about it. But pitching depth for the next three months, is not the same thing as what the pitching staff looks like, in an October series, right? I mean, we know that I mean, you’re not gonna have a five game rotation four, or a five band rotation for a five game series, you know, you’re, you’re gonna have four and you know, that fourth guy depending on off days, or if there’s a rainout, or anything like that may never even may not start depending on how it all plays out. But the overall point that I was trying to make is it’s just it’s such a long season to survive it. You need arms in the back end of your rotation that aren’t necessary. They’re really going to factor heavily into outcomes in October, but they’re going to factor in getting you there. That’s where Cade Povich is important in the sense of Kenny be a number four number five starter that gives you a chance to win even if he’s not going to start in the postseason if he even if he’s going to work out of the bullpen. But, but as I think about this more and more, and as I said, you know, so much of the attention has moved to the rotation. And yeah, I want to say I’d like to see them get a really rock solid number three starter as much as anyone. But it’s where I keep coming back to the bullpen. And, for me, I still prioritize adding a couple arms to that bullpen. I still think that’s still more important than adding another starting pitcher if we’re talking strictly looking strictly through the lens of October, because and
Nestor J. Aparicio 30:49
also on a cost level. Generally, relievers cost less Yeah, generally,
Luke Jones 30:55
generally, but but they’re also less predictable, right? I mean, it’s a lot more like that. That’s a really unreliable stock in the sense of, yeah, you’ll have someone like you and your kiddo, for example, who looked incredible the first three months last year didn’t look as good but still look better than he’s looked this year. I mean, younger can Oh, right now and and I know he was better on Saturday, but Friday night when, you know, he puts guys on and really puts the puts the bullpen and the Orioles in a major bind. And, you know, they were able to navigate it. And Craig Kimbrel got his first save of the year where he came in with a one run lead and, and all that. But you know, you I mean, you tell me where’s your confidence level and Cano relative to the rest of this bullpen? Right now? He’s pretty low on that list for me. I mean, not I’m not very confident in them right now. And he’s supposed to be one of your best relievers. So, you know, the point I’m making is, yeah, I’d like to see them at another starter. I mean, that’s the captain obvious statement. But I still think in terms of biggest impact in October, Boy, you better go get two arms. And one needs to be a serious, serious, high leverage arm that I want to at least be able to put side by side with Craig Kimbrel, let’s say, you know, and depending on the matchup, depending on workload, all those different things, that someone that either has been a closer or is that good that can do that on the right night. And you better add another arm. But because I mean, you just look at this right now. Kimbrel despite fan angst, and media angst, since that two and a half week stretch that he had in late April, and May. He’s been good. And he’s been really good at times, you know, in fairness to him, you know, and I get it. And I’ve been the one saying that
8Nestor J. Aparicio 32:46
you’re gonna need a good version of him in October, you’re more than you’re paying the whole rotation. You know what I mean? So other than burns? Right? I mean, you know, so I would think that he has to be an is in October for the Orioles to be? Yeah, I mean, I don’t want to put it like it’s Lamar with the ravens, but he has to be upright. I mean, he has to be upright and ready to go in and get three outs in October, or we got real problems if Chronos that guy, you know, once you get there.
Luke Jones 33:17
Well. And this kind of goes back to the point I was trying to make with Texas and Arizona and where they are now. Nestor we know and we’ve seen it now over and over and over. And it’s only getting worse now in terms of expanding the playoffs and having a bigger field and knowing that baseball is such a day to day high variance sport where every team, even the lousiest team wins 50 games a year, even the worst or the best team loses 50 games a year. We know that whole story. We know over and over that we’re seeing more frequently the best team does not win in October and so much of it is just frankly some luck. And a big part of it is who is playing really well at that point in time at the ball. Yeah, so it sounds so flippant to say this because yeah, in a perfect world Mike Elias adds a number two starter and adds this year’s version of Andrew Miller and
Nestor J. Aparicio 34:14
I’ll be back under Henderson being pissed off for greatness in it in three home runs in game three or something right? That’s what it’ll be like that’s my point, the batting it they’re gonna win the World Series because they hit the ball, but they better figure out the pitching. Or at least be good enough that if they score five or six they don’t lose nine to six. Yeah, yeah, that’s fair.
Luke Jones 34:34
8That agreed at the same time. Ken Grayson Rodriguez and I don’t want to use I don’t want to put this name on him in terms of career expectations because this guy did not have the kind of career that people thought at the time. But does Grayson Rodriguez have a Jarrett right Brian in him? No. I mean, we did that for Cleveland all those years ago where he was this suddenly he’s a stud. Now that didn’t last and that that was very fleeting for him. But again, And it’s kind of you know, who gets hot at the right time who gets on a roll at the right possible time. And, and that’s where you made the point, all these trade deadline deals that you can remember from 25 and 30 years ago, Rickey Henderson was in one every year. You know, so Sinfield, a few of them. A few of them pay major dividends, yes. But so many of them end up being
Nestor J. Aparicio 35:24
not great. I have a long history of taking phone calls for 32 years, where it was Lonnie Smith and Craig Lefferts and bass Randy bad was Randy, and like, just deals that you look at. I mean, whether it was Pete inconvenient, Todd Ziele. You know, like, I remember all of these things. And the game’s not that way anymore, in regard to that much dealing being done. Because everybody’s coming to fleece, Mike Elias of five guys that are in Norfolk, that would three of those guys will be here next year. And they’ll be playing like Ortiz, and there’ll be doing it and like minimum and under control. And that’s where Mr. Moneybags and the new ownership and where are we going to be in 26th and 27th? And what’s our attendance is going to be and what’s our media model? And what’s our revenue model? And where are our sponsorships. And that that’s the big picture of the baseball business side. That is responsible business guys a billionaire. And I’ll get to him I watched the Squawk Box thing last week, Rubinstein, but I’m not going to be gotten him up like everybody else around here, because I, I watched the political stuff that happens on the weekends. And I sort of scratch my head at a guy that one minute, talks about making money and being a philanthropist, and one minute talking about how he’s best friends with Joe Biden, he just interviewed Trump, but he’s not a political guy. It wasn’t like an unbelievable conversation. I heard on Squawk Box last week. But whatever he is, is what this is going to be. And I don’t know what he is because we this thing’s under new control. And that is the ultimate, it’s not a wild card. That’s a joker in the deck. I mean, to me, I have no idea. It’s an ace, I don’t know what his role in the next 30 days is going to be other than dancing on the dugout, and you know, like, this is their his assets. Now, all of these young players. He’s a billionaire, he sort of understands how the game works. And he’s also like, by every account a pretty miserly dude that’s made a lot of money by making a lot of money, he ain’t gonna be given money away or given away assets or given away cheap real estate, or he’s gonna see it all in that way. Because my sources tell me he doesn’t know a whole lot about baseball. Like he does. He ain’t stuck. He doesn’t know who’s in the mariners rotation this week. Like he’s not a baseball fan like that. And that’s one of the reasons they’ll never have him sit with me, because I’ll start talking about stuff and he’ll be lost. Because he just bought the team wants to run around with a hat on. He’s not the guy in with alias the way, Angelo’s his kids were 30 years ago, that I my vibe is Elias is gonna get to do what Elias wants to do. But my vibe is also like, this guy’s counting beans and assets and money. And that’s the most important thing you can do is make sure you’re not giving away guys, especially when you got to pay Henderson and rutschman. And these guys are expected to where all the money’s coming from. And part of that is playing with cheap help that you’re going to be given away in this pennant race. Because these guys arms fell off. We love. You said that date back in May whatever the date that the press conference was, we have six starters. And means and that that and they period where it was all right, right around Preakness, like, that’s where if I’m writing a orange dynasty one and they win the World Series, man, that’s where the rubber meets the road is they add six starters. And now it’s July 1, and they have to figure this out. Yeah,
Luke Jones 39:06
no question about it. And I’ll leave you with one final question as it you know, to kind of piggyback what you were talking about with David Rubenstein it and where they’re going from a payroll standpoint, business standpoint, all those different things. If you’re Mike Elias, are you going to be the St. Louis Cardinals, which I’ve, you know, I’ve used them as to me, a realistic long term model to aspire to a team that’s been built, and I don’t mean in 2024, but the last 25 years specifically, they’ve always paid farm system guys
Nestor J. Aparicio 39:37
and paid guys,
8Luke Jones 39:37
and they brought in Kyle Gibson. And they’ve had they’ve had a payroll, that’s, you know, kind of been somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe as high as 17 baseball on the stray year. But somewhere in that, you know, and April’s, yeah, right, but but like, you know, they’ve been maybe as high as six or seven payroll, but they’ve probably been somewhere More in the neighborhood of 1011 12, somewhere in there. So top third, let’s say a baseball, and they’ve been a team that’s really taken a lot of pride in having a farm system. Are you going to be that? Are you going to aspire to be that, which is a nice mix a healthy mix of player development and augmenting and resigning and going out and getting a free agent here and there? Or are you going to be more like the Tampa Bay Rays, which is a heck of a farm system. They’ve had a lot of success for 15 years doing that. But it’s been a lot of roster churn a lot, a lot, a lot of roster turn and turnover, were one of the big complaints. And obviously, that’s a different market, terrible location for the ballpark all the different things about St. Petersburg and Tampa, but you really have had struggles for fans to identify with certain players because they’re not really there longer than a few years here and there other than I guess maybe Evan Longoria was kind of the exception for a long time. But, you know, what are you going to be and that’s where it’s still TBD. In terms of David Rubenstein and what him and his partners what what they envision this Orioles franchise being not right now when things are so great, but in the next five to 10 years, what is it going to look like in terms of payroll and all those different business decisions?
Nestor J. Aparicio 41:16
Luke Jones was actually a passenger in our rental car as we passed Tropicana Field and St. Pete And literally, you looked at it and laughed out loud said look at that dump is what you said. So, you know, we certainly do better than that from your press box angle at the Camden Yards. I don’t enjoy the press box too much dude. I I hear some changes may be a float as far as $600 million is being paid to send you out the left field and enjoy the games in the corner of the endzone in the new ballpark down at the football season to Luke Jones who was a credentialed media member here on behalf of wn St. Baltimore positive. He will not be will be uncredentialed and will be just like the rest of us watching Kevin Brown. On television from Seattle this week in Oakland dia almost went to Oakland this weekend just for old times sake but instead I’m going to be here. Nursing my fourth of July, American patriotism and fun and we have a sister festival I was over Catonsville had dinner at the Beaumont the beautiful dinner over there. They already have the chairs out in Kaysville it is Fourth of July week. Luke Jones is around we’re gonna be bringing the Maryland crabcakes we’re back out on the road next Friday. I called it like a week off. It’s like 90 It feels like Blink and we’re there I was at Pappas a minute ago last week as well. We had a heck of a June all the stuff up at Baltimore positive.com Our friends at the Maryland lottery giving us the Gold Rush sevens doublers we’ll have these two giveaway at fade Lee’s next Friday as the second place. First place New York Yankees come to a Baltimore that’ll be on the 12th we’ll be doing that looking after talks and baseball. We got a great stuff on the air this week. A lot of great conversations. It is the fourth of July and we’re having fun around here I am Nestor we are wn st am 1570 Faster Baltimore and just like my shirt says Baltimore versus everybody at Baltimore positive
