Is Brandon Hyde the right leader for Orioles?

The pitching is battered and bad. The bats have been silent and morale appears near rock bottom. The Baltimore Orioles are in a bad spot and Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the job of Brandon Hyde – the motivator and manager – as the slump worsens and the left-handed pitchers on the other side stack up on the hill. Twenty four runs allowed on Sunday. One lousy hit for the offense on Tuesday. Something’s gotta give…

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Orioles’ poor performance, highlighting their 9-13 start and recent struggles, including a 24-2 loss and a one-hit game against the Nationals. They criticized the team’s offense, particularly against left-handed pitching, and questioned the coaching staff’s ability to motivate players. They also discussed the Orioles’ new streaming service, its timing, and potential impact. Nestor expressed concerns about the team’s leadership, fan experience, and overall direction, emphasizing the need for significant improvements to regain fan trust and success.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Orioles, Brandon Hyde, starting pitching, offense struggles, left-handed pitching, fan experience, streaming service, leadership, mental toughness, rebuild, front office, coaching staff, player performance, draft week, Bobblehead weekend.

SPEAKERS

Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

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Welcome home. We are W n s t am 1570 task Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, and we are positively reeling around here it is draft week. We’re going to have draft coverage all night on Thursday, if you’re on the W n s t tech service, brought to you by Cole roofing and Gordian energy. It’s very easy to do. It’s free. It’s awesome. Ask your friends. You’ll be getting all the draft picks as they come in. Luke will be monitoring that the Orioles are in DC. I’m at Cooper’s pub. I will have the Back to the Future scratch Also on Wednesday afternoon. Also have some great guests. We’re gonna be talking a lot about leukemia, lymphoma society. Nick Schultz is coming by. Billy Cole’s coming by for Cole roofing, so I haven’t had him on in a minute, so that’ll be a great day. We’re Cocos next Wednesday. I hope the Orioles score run between now and like, the next time you and I chat, Luke, I this has been really quite the week. I mean, just going into bobblehead weekend and the reds and what happened on Friday and what happened on Sunday, and now they got one hit, and they have fallen, and they really are in some danger here of not getting up, and I they just have not at any point, other than six home runs in Toronto, with you and Me, look like a good baseball team. I

Luke Jones  01:21

mean, it’s, it’s obvious this, this is a bad baseball team right now. Now are they going to be over the next 140 games? That’s up to them. I think looking at this thing, a nine and 13 start, the issues are obvious. The most pressing issues are obvious. But there are other issues that can’t use the starting pitching as an excuse. I’m tired of hearing that. That’s why I’ve been taking the offense to task as regularly as I have when we’ve had our conversations over these last four weeks. But they have 140 games to go. You can look at that one of two ways. If you’re this organization, you know whether we’re talking about the players, the coaching staff, the front office, ownership, that’s an opportunity to say, this was a really lousy 22 games, but we have 140 games to go, and we are better than what we’ve shown. Or you can wallow in it and say, oh my gosh, we have 140 games to go, right? I mean, this can go one of those two ways. By the

Nestor Aparicio  02:18

way, I had Lynn Henning on, legendary columnist from the Detroit News, and he joined me for a little bit, because we’re playing the Tigers this weekend. And he talked about the tiger season last year were like, scuba was available. And he talked about the holiday, like, how that would have changed both of the organizations and the Orioles would be better right now, and like all of that. But like, DC, you know, the Astros had a horrible start a couple years ago, like, you can overcome this. This isn’t, they’re not three and 15, right? Couple games under 500 The problem is, they’re not doing this with ace pitching getting beaten up. They’re doing this with, we see what we see with the roster is made of, right now, it’s not made of, of Turkish, scrubbable. You know it’s not,

Luke Jones  03:01

it’s not, but I’m sorry I can’t just focus on the pitching when I’m continuing to see not very good defense. You continue to see lapses. You have an offense that other than Colton cows are is intact yet against left handed pitching, this isn’t an issue where they’re struggling against left handed pitching. This is an issue where it looks like left handed pitching has come from a different planet, and it’s something they haven’t seen before. This team is hitting 165 with a 247 slugging percentage and a two or 225 slugging percentage and a 247 on base percentage against left handed pitching. This was supposed to be a point of emphasis in the off season.

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Nestor Aparicio  03:42

So I’ve already freely given the praise to say they made one guy look like Cofax and one guy look like spawn, and it’s April 23

Luke Jones  03:53

I mean, I’m at a point now where everyone is on notice. I said this to you the other day after the 24 to two loss, this front office, this coaching staff, and, yes, this young core, all these guys that have been hyped for years, guys that were hyped for years before they even got to the major leagues. None of this is good enough right now. Who’s really having a good year right now? Cedric Mullins, yeah. Ryan o’hearns, having a good year. There are a couple other guys swinging the bat, okay, although they’re for every guy swinging the bat, okay? Like Tyler O’Neill, I was,

Nestor Aparicio  04:27

you know, for three weeks to say he’s been a complimentary player, but he’s a, but he’s a bench player at this I got it. I know, right? I mean, I just, but you’re getting a lot, getting more out of him than maybe I thought I was sure out of him. That’s all, well, I was in there, I would

Luke Jones  04:40

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actually just say that he’s kind of given you what you expect to get from him over the last few years, and that’s been a nice thing, but the bullpen has been good, but as we’ve kind of said, they haven’t necessarily had a lot of high leverage spots to really see how good and the innings are piling up for that group because of the starting pitching. My point is. Is who exactly showing themselves to be valuable to this club right now. I mean, we’ve now heard Brandon Hyde say multiple times over the last week that these guys are really struggling to let things go. That’s your job as the manager. If you can’t get them ready to play them, what are you what are you bringing to the table? I mean, this thing’s trending where I’m wondering if Brandon heights can have his job by Memorial.

Nestor Aparicio  05:23

I don’t think Brandon heights a shrink in this right? I mean, my sense, and I don’t know him. I’ve never, I’ve been in a room, literally, with him twice in my life, in the pre game in Arlington 18 months ago, and in the post game in Arlington 18 months ago. And I didn’t have the heart to ask him. It was like when show Walter got eliminated, and I was a kid. I didn’t have the heart to ask him a question. I wasn’t I wasn’t as much as they think. I’m a jerk, I’m not much. I’m professionally I’m not a jerk. I’m not I’m not that guy. But like, I’ve never spoken to him at all, that would be an interesting part of his persona that I don’t see. I see him as a ball coach. I see him as a strategist. I don’t see him as Joe mad. I don’t see him as warm and fuzzy. I don’t see him as, you know, studying the wooden, competitive leadership triangle. You know what I mean, like I I don’t know. I don’t What do you know about him? Could he coach you up if you had to go have dinner with him? Would he give you a good would he be a good contagious? I don’t, I don’t sense that about him. I sense that they brought him in to get young kids better at baseball, and he has for the most and he’s got some really talented people. I mean, these are really, really talented baseball players, aside from all the hype and and I’m with you, when the team sucks for 100 years, all you have is when you pick some cute little blonde boy who doesn’t shave, and say, Let’s get him to the big leagues. Because that’s what you feel good about when you’re drafting young people. And then they get in over their heads and they hit a buck 43 and have to go back with their tail between their legs, because it’s really hard to do. You know, this is rock channel buck and say it’s the big leagues, it’s the big leagues. It’s hard to do now. It’s hard to do now. I mean,

Luke Jones  07:04

it is. But I think the one thing that I would say about Brandon Hyde going back from 2019 through 2022 when things really started to turn around, was even with how bad those teams were in terms of talent deficiencies, generally speaking. And that’s It’s one reason why he lasted as long as he did, and that why he’s the manager today. They played hard, and generally speaking, fundamentally, they they were okay, right? I mean, we knew they weren’t talented, right? I mean, there were so many placeholders, but generally the brand of baseball they played you. You rarely question their effort. I’m questioning these guys effort level at this point. I’m questioning their mindset. You don’t do that much well, I don’t mean it in in terms of like, oh, you’re not running hard to first base. I’m meaning in terms of your focus. I mean it in terms of how mentally tough you are. This this team looks defeated. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  08:02

rushman is a pat on the ass guy, right? I don’t know what Brandon Hyde is. I know they’re waiting on Kyle Gibson to come and be some sort of Yoda for them, right? In some way, I don’t look man, you learn, I learned more about my life when my wife got cancer than at any other point. I mean, when you when you are brought into strife, whatever that strife is, you know, you get challenged. And I don’t think it was easy for them to go win 101 games, but they were showing the best version of themselves, to quote John and and our Creator, right? But I don’t know enough. I’m not privy right? I’m on the outside watching Kevin Brown spin me whatever Greg Bader tells him he has to spin, right? So I’m, by the way, just skip the lead story. We didn’t even do streaming yet, but we’ll get to that in a minute, because I see the smile on your face on that but at some point, who’s going to be that guy? I mean, and I don’t know where cowboy up is, but that’s the reason they brought Kevin Millar in here when they stunk for a minute, right? That you know that there has to be Rick Sutcliffe is, I go back to 1992 and by the way, let me say a moment just about Cheeto Martinez, who was a really good man, and one of the really sweet guys in that clubhouse, and one of the first guys when I was around the team every minute of every day and traveled with the team, 9293 he was a DH kind of guy. He was a as Tom cap, and I would say was a Ford stratomatic, some some people saying a concrete glove. But he had great bad and he lent me his bat in the media game. So I single and struck out looking it was Frank Robinson’s fault off Peter schmuck that was I was swinging Cheeto Martinez is bad So, of all things, when we lost him. So I just wanted to give a moment, but leadership, Rick Sutcliffe was a part of that. Dude, Elrod Hendrix and Cal Ripken and Mike Flynn. Again, back in that era, when I’m thinking being in that locker room, and I’m thinking who those coaches were, the Greg B genies and the ray millers and all of those guys, they all had some Don molar, high school guidance counselor in them, right? And I don’t know where that is. I know I’ve needed that in my life, in my darkest moments. You know you’re a deacon in your church, and we all have different spirits, and I’m not even, we’re not going to Joe booze rum here, or playing any major league things, although i i make quite, quite quote Lou a few times here before it’s all over with. But to your point, dude, come to the ballpark with some energy. I mean, I was there the night Johnny Oates turned over the beans, franks and beans in the clubhouse and we went in. It was it scattered everywhere. Look like it orangut, dang it, the buffet. Um, I don’t, I don’t know, man. I mean, we’ve had screaming managers come, and we’ve had all of that, but this franchise has only really been good twice since you’ve been a teenager, and it was Davey Johnson and it was Bucha. And Bucha had been through the wars. Bucha had been fired four times as Brandon Hyde, and had a whole lot more silver by the time he got buck. Ran a whole organization in Arizona, managed humans. Bucha had emotional intelligence, even in dealing with me after he and his wife were told I was a bad guy, and his wife came and repented on the internet. So like Bucha. Bucha is still that kind of Yoda of a guy, which is why the Mets paid him that money. We’re gonna find out about Brandon height, I don’t know. I mean, there’s certainly blood in the water to want to fire him, right? I mean, and I keep saying he didn’t buy the groceries, you’re mad at the offense. You’re mad at young players for not being able to do this. We’re all kind of looking at it and saying, where’s the leadership, right? Where’s who’s going to come in, and all of those crazy things I just said about leadership, from Kevin Millar backwards. Who’s that guy where that’s Adley rutschman, right, right?

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Luke Jones  12:05

Is it? Who are the grown ups? Who are the grown ups? Not Katie Griggs and Mark fine, well, but this is, you know, and you mentioned, I’m mad at the offense. No, I I’m disappointed in every phase of the organization at this point in time, because this is so below the bar. And it’s not just the nine and 13 start. It’s last year and how they finished last year, again, I go back to where they were last June, right? You and I sitting at Costas and the Orioles winning two out of three from the Yankees in a series where there were hit by pitches and tension. And we saw that tension obviously, boil over, not, you know, a few weeks later at Camden Yards and but I mean, this has been a sub 500 baseball team since last June. They’ve been under 500 since last June. And you look at it now, I mean, they’re well under 500 since last June.

Nestor Aparicio  13:05

Well, they’re way more diminished team now than they were even in like August and burns.

Luke Jones  13:10

And I get it look, the starting pitching is horrendous, but that doesn’t give everyone else license to be bad too. And I mean, they have one hit on on Tuesday night. Where’s your professional pride when you lose 24 to two and you stew over that, and you’re embarrassed over that, and you come out two nights later, even with a day off, and you have one hit, one stinking hit. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  13:37

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boy, if I worked on Sirius XM, that’s where you intentionally dropped the F bomb, right there, you know? Well, I mean, one hit, one hit, one hit. I mean just and no facts. I channeled Kofax on the internet Tuesday night, and

Luke Jones  13:53

that’s where I look at this thing. And I’m just like, okay, are these players as good as we thought? What exactly is the coaching staff doing now, it’s not just Charlie Morton. And look Charlie Morton’s 41 it may be an Occam’s Razor situation where he just truly is washed up, right? It wouldn’t be shocking. We talked about that possibility over the off season. Dean Kramer’s not a hasn’t been a six plus era pitcher in the majors yet. That’s what he’s been Cape Ovid doesn’t look any better. You know what’s true? French and the pitching coach, the pitching coach is doing, what’s the front office doing? What? What’s the analytics department? Like none of the this all feels broken. And it’s 22 games, but it’s 22 games of looking like a bad baseball team. This isn’t like after 80 games of looking like a failing baseball team, yeah, after 80 games of looking, you know, they weren’t god awful in the second half of the season, but it was very, very mediocre at

Nestor Aparicio  14:51

both. I mean, the only thing you judged on the playoffs, and, you know, I mean, the playoff effort was exactly what it was like. It was terrible.

Luke Jones  14:58

They didn’t swing the bats at all. So. So I saw someone make this point on social media, and it’s tough for me to argue with this. I mean, they let their two hitting coaches go last year, and who did they replace them with Cody as she who was promoted, Sherman Johnson, who was promoted from a minor league role, and they brought Tommy Joseph over, who was part of Seattle, the Seattle’s coaching staff, and what did everyone say about the mariners last year, they couldn’t hit the ball. So I look at that and look, I’m not saying that means you need to, you know that you need to hire someone that’s been a hitting coach for 40 years, per se, either, but maybe you do need to bring someone in that with a little bit of experience, someone that uses and buys into analytics, but also has a little more in a holistic, you know, a little more meter, yeah, you know. And obviously, you know, you think of Walt radiac, yeah. But, you know, a middle ground between that and what they have right now. I mean, Nestor, they act like they’ve never seen left handed pitching in their life. And, you know, Brandon Hyde was getting beat up about his lineups. Yeah, I was

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Nestor Aparicio  16:13

gonna say, Where were you on that? Because it’s sort of like, let these guys play at some point, but then they get one hit over nine, and he’s sitting there the next morning saying, what truck hit us? What truck hit

Luke Jones  16:23

us? Right? I mean, look, Tyler O’Neill has really good numbers against left handed pitching in his career, but you wouldn’t know it this year, I think he has one hit against I can

Nestor Aparicio  16:32

also see where sigma Dowell on Tuesday night would say, okay, rip the blackjack book up. Don’t play, right? He left, don’t play against. The history of baseball, play your gut just hasn’t worked either way.

Luke Jones  16:42

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Yeah, and, you know? And what? The one thing I would hit on 19, go ahead, right, right. And the one thing, the one thing I would say about the the lefty, righty thing. And I, I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this on the air. I know I’ve talked about it with other people. It’s not as though they’re right handed. Options on the bench are Delman young and Steve Pierce, right? So I don’t want to see Jorge Mateo in the lineup against anyone at this point in time. And I don’t say that to be overly personal or anything like that. He’s just not one of their nine best hitters. He’s not, you know, he, from a hitting standpoint, he probably doesn’t belong in the majors, you know, or he would be on a second division kind of team. Well, although the Orioles are trending and being a second division team right now, but it’s just all the way around. This just feels very broken, like, how is this going to get better? I mean, and that’s where we begin with ball. Yeah, they’re going to hit the ball. That’s where you begin with the starting pitching. And say, Look, if this is all because they’re starting pitching is where it is then, yeah, these next 140 games are going to be, you know what? It’s going to be miserable. Or you can look at it as an opportunity and say, look, we’ve been lousy, but the good news is we’ve only played four weeks of baseball. Got a long way to go. We’ve got 140 games to figure this out. But man, it’s just what I saw Tuesday night that felt like a group that was feeling sorry for itself, and look, Dean Kramer was bad and gives up, what, eight extra base hits. I mean, I understand. I’m not saying that if they swung the bats well, that they win that game, because they gave up seven runs, and that’s below the bar, but got one hit. I mean, good for the you know, good for Mitchell Parker. I mean, he pitched well, and he has pitched well this year, but, man, this offense against left handed pitching, the only thing they’re capable of doing is tipping their cap to the opposition. I mean, it’s pathetic how they’ve swung the bats against lefties, against right into pitching. Their numbers are right up there with the best in the league. So that hasn’t been the issue. You know, there’s been some times where that could be more consistent, but overall, their offense has been fine against right handed pitching, but against coming this weekend, by the way, right? Well, hey, not just him. Take a look at who they’re going to see tomorrow, Mackenzie gore. I mean, talk about one of the the bright spots in baseball. I mean, man, if, if Mitchell Parker could, uh, you know, one hit you over that length of time, Mackenzie Gore might throw no hitter against them, you know. I mean, that’s, that’s what, he’s actually really good. So, I mean, you say I should go to the ballpark Thursday. Where’s the fight? I mean, where’s the fight in this team right now I’m really questioning what’s under the hood at this point, because

Nestor Aparicio  19:23

I’m questioning all of it. When the bobble that out the other day, yeah, even running the team, the optics of that, like just all of it, all the way through of what they’re supposed to be doing. Do you want to talk about streaming for a minute?

Luke Jones  19:38

Sure. Hey, hey, let me be very clear, as as loud as I’ve been about that them introducing a streaming service, even if it’s four weeks into the season which you have plenty of people who paid for MLB TV and got a VPN, or you have people who signed up for satellite, and sometimes a satellite you have contracts and service agreements. And all that. So the timing was not ideal, however, good on them for not just punting and saying, we’ll roll it out in February of next, next year, because they could have easily done that. Everyone assumed that’s what they were going to do at this point in time. So it’s a good thing. You wonder,

Nestor Aparicio  20:15

was there, you know, did the phone lines light up? Right? Like, I, you know, I was wondering about that, like they’re advertising it in the game. And I’m thinking to myself, if you’re watching the game, you’ve already got access to the game. It’s for the people who couldn’t get the games, and whether they went running with their credit card in their hand, the way Katie Griggs needs them to, like, literally, to say that they sign up? 5000 10,000 20,000 people in the first day? My gut is No, and it’s a profit center, you know, I keep going back to where’s the money coming from, and you keep going back to wolf gunner Henderson doesn’t hit the ball. They don’t have to worry about paying him anything, right? So there’s a little bit of that. But I’m, you know, I’m measuring all of this, the empty seats, how they’re marketing, things, who the new owner is, who the new people are. Katie Griggs runs the joint. It’s her first April in this seat. They got a guy from Baltimore running their marketing, you know, and you’re like, Hey, you want to market hit the baseball you want to market. You got good looking young guys. Dude, that’s Star Wars commercial. Just as an aside, that Star Wars commercial is so it, it’s just embarrassing. I don’t know what like. I don’t it feels like minor league baseball out of Toledo putting this together. And I keep thinking to myself, all right, you got money bags, Owner, he’s got his own bobble head cows behind home plate. You got all these young stars. You got, you got things bad enough that the pitching has gone bad, worse that the hitting is not hitting, and we’re losing. I said to my wife in about the seventh anyway, they’re losing to Washington. Washington’s beating them. What would my dad think of that? You know, but like the whole operation all the way down, and now we’re here, firing the manager today, we’re wondering who the leaders are. Nobody’s hitting the baseball like, Whoo Shoe Man, that draft’s going to come right about time for people to avoid Detroit this weekend, right? I mean, but the streaming part is, they get this done, they announce it, and it really should be some sort of financial boon, like signing a player. How many season tickets did we sell today? We signed somebody like there is a point where this woman and her team are being measured on numbers and growing finances and growing zeros at the end of things, for things they’re going to sell and good things they’re going to do to promote the baseball team. They announced this. And I really do wonder. Couple 1000 people, couple 100 people, nobody. I don’t, I don’t know it’s I’m not that guy, right? And you’ve bitched about it so much and yelled and for anybody younger than me, and my wife works for Verizon, and I, you know, so I have a different gig, but I’m not the guy that was waiting on this. And I like to your point, tell me, because I don’t, and they’ll never be honest about the numbers, but like, Are there really a lot of people that went out and had those Monday rejoiced and signed up, or is this something for like next year that might be helpful for you?

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Luke Jones  23:11

I think it’s more of that, because, like I said, people have already made their accommodations. I mean, the timing of it is almost four weeks into the season. Like I said, some people signed up for, you know, they’ve re upped with XFINITY, and maybe XFINITY gave them a deal. And a lot of times that comes with a contract 12 months, whatever it is, like direct team. I’m still getting things from DirecTV. I cut the cord back in January, canceled DirecTV. I still get things in the mail. They they give me the same lousy offer to try to get me back over and over. It’s It’s hilarious negotiating, but I’m still getting it nonetheless. So the point is, if you have Orioles fans who couldn’t, couldn’t felt that they couldn’t miss the games, they stuck with it, whatever option they have. And for me, I’ll say this. I don’t know if you’ve ever used the mass and app, they’ve had more streaming for people who have subscribed to a cable or satellite provider for since 2021 I think it is that apps horrible. I use lots of apps. I stream lots it’s awful. Now, that’s not to say it isn’t better. Now, that’s not to say they haven’t made improvements now, but my point is, I’m subscribed to fubo right now, which is a bulk streaming service that replicates cable. But I’m not rushing to switch to that now, that long term, I absolutely plan to take advantage of that. Am I doing that the first day it’s rolled out? Well, first of all, I’m at least going to wait to the end of my billing cycle for fubo, because I’m not going to pay for something twice, but I also want to see how it rolls out. So I think, and this is where I I’ll stick up for them a little bit, although I’m certainly not throwing them a parade for doing something that 27 other teams in baseball had already accomplished. I. But the fact that they did this now, rather than just waiting until next, next year, you know, this is kind of the, I don’t know that. This is kind of the beta version, right? This, this is the you’re, you’re the guinea pig right now, and it’s better than nothing, if you weren’t going to spend for satellite

Nestor Aparicio  25:17

or shuts everybody up too, right? So even somebody who’s not going to, you know, subscribe to it, sure doesn’t have it as a talking point anymore. No question. So no question. And it looks like progress. I mean, I saw Greg Bader. Didn’t just get his name on the on the press release, upper case and bowl. Greg Bader, so, I mean, I saw he, you know, he’s, he did it. You did it? Greg, good job. Good job, yeah. And

Luke Jones  25:42

also, and I will say this, I acknowledged all along, when you had the mass and dispute, when you had trying to figure out what the NATs remember that the announcement came that the dispute had been resolved. That was March 2 or third, right? So I’m guessing that that cleared a pathway for them to really start to dive into doing this with, with a different mindset. So, you know, they, they did that in a matter of what, seven weeks, something along those lines. But the big, the big thing for me, is it going to work. Are people going to subscribe and is the stream? Do you have the tech? Do you have the server space, all of those things that you need to stream because you don’t want people paying for this and that it doesn’t work properly. So that’s where I think a lot of people who already made accommodations for something, whether it was fubo Direct TV, has streaming that you can get massive on that as well, or one of the many cable or satellite providers where I think people are saying, let’s wait it out so and look they should advertise because during the game, because you have plenty of people who might be watching the game through other means, and saying that would be preferable for me, because I can save some money, I can have more flexibility. I can cancel my, you know, my big pack, big streaming or cable or satellite package

Nestor Aparicio  27:04

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that I know it’s 90 bucks for the rest of the year. Is that what it does?

Luke Jones  27:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and 20 bucks per per month, which is, I will say, on the low end. If you look, I have not gaged every single team that has either regional sports network that that offers this or does it through major league baseball. But I haven’t seen any that are lower than 1999 a month. Dodgers are 2999 a month the yet I think the Yankees and the Phillies, you know, I tried to gage, you know, some of the bigger market teams think there are $25 a month. So 1999 you know, everyone from the

Nestor Aparicio  27:38

guard again, they have less fans who are going to give less money, which is going to create let you know this is where, when you start to add up, how we as a community pay for baseball players, or whether David Rubenstein is sugar daddy. And again, I had Lynn henigle on, who’s covered the Detroit Tiger since 1979 we were discussing the senses home run in the summer of 79 earlier. But, you know, I think of the Tigers as being one of the franchises that had a sugar daddy. He argued against that. He said that once they signed Pudge, Rodriguez and Magnus, after that, they kind of ran it normally, after going all in, I know they went all in on Mickey tentleton, he, you know, and a bunch of hitters a generation, even before that Cecil fielder, but like the Padres couple years ago with Seidler, that’s why this is such a unique conversation, because anybody out there can poo poo the money and poo poo the money, follow the money in everything, including the White House, follow the money, because the Money, if the Orioles are getting less per subscriber, and there’s way less subscribers, then there’s going to be way less money So, and there’s way less fans in the stadium, and you can see that, and the place is empty, you know, like, so I’m I, I’m trying to get their revenue together so that they can afford to be a better baseball team once they get more than One hit against the nationals this week, right? So, but, but I do look at it from the business part of it and say they’re the 2018 to do this, but you’re level set now you’re with everybody else, but they’re not really level set because they’re getting $10 less ahead than other places are getting, and there’s going to be less people. And to your point, this is where the car can’t go off the road, right? Car, car goes off the road $20 a month. You just pull out in June. You know, if you’re a fan, and that’s the way you’re buying the season, it’s like buying a hotel room. I’m really going to use it. Or, you know, my is it not refundable? Or is it refundable? Where am I on that this season would be the kind of thing where, if it really goes bad with the pitching, and they go 10 games under 500 before the all star break, the All Star break. You know, you cancel your subscription. You know what I mean? Like, and money. That’s money for the team. I keep trying to add up the money for them. And this streaming part was like this north star thing that you talked about a lot for. Process for fans. Now the fans have to pull the credit cards out and be a part of it. And I guess my point is, day one, they’re not making a lot of money off this. Now, where it will be the only way that happens after win baseball games,

Luke Jones  30:11

yeah, no question. I mean, that’s what’s going to drive it. You’re going to have see the difference here is you have an opportunity to really grow and really add to that revenue, if you’re in the midst of a pennant race in July and August and September, and you might have people that wouldn’t have even thought about it before suddenly subscribing. But the downside is you have people that are much have much more flexibility, especially if they go month by month. Because you know, if you do the $90 for the season, then you’ve got the $90 regardless. But for the people going $20 monthly, then, to your point, they can tap out in June or July and say, Okay, this got me to ravens training camp. I’m good. So I’ll go to the bar and watch the game, yeah? Or I’ll just listen on the radio, right? Yeah. I mean, so, so, so there’s definitely, you know, there’s, there’s, there are positives to this potentially, but there’s also a downside to it. And it’s no different than thinking about it through the lens of, you know, 1010, or 15 years ago, most people had cable TV or satellite, right? And you got your $2 a month. And I’m just using $2 as a very simple Gage for it. So you got $2 a month from everyone in the market, from acid. Well now it as you have fewer and fewer people that are part of that model, and that model is completely dying out and will be dead at some point in time. You’re now in a position where you say, all right, how many? We’re not going to get it from everybody, but we can get $20 okay, I need to get, you know, just using really simple math there, one out of the 10 who used used to give me $2 a month. I need to find at least one person that’ll give me 20 then a month, right? So, so, right there, like, it’s a very simple, uh, equation there, and it, it’s more complicated than that, but you get my example that

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Nestor Aparicio  32:00

you got to make sure you’re, well, you’re just gave me fifth grade math. I mean, literally, it’s and obviously

Luke Jones  32:05

the numbers are a little bit different than that. But the point is, yeah, you’re not going to get $20 a month from everyone in the market, right? I mean, it’s good. You’re going to get it from, well, this is where they have

Nestor Aparicio  32:15

to be good at everything they do. They have to be, if you’ve you ever walked through the Ravens ticket office downtown, and where Baker compliments office was there was a art modell thing, and that David clearly wrote it, but it was about, we have to excellence. We have to be excellent at everything. Because we’re competing with the Dallas Cowboys and we’re competing with the Pittsburgh Steelers and we’re competing with Bill Belichick. We have to be excellent at everything we do. They’re competing with the Yankees and the Red Sox and the Blue Jays, who don’t have to be excellent. They have a lot of money. They have a lot of money, and they have a lot of tradition, and they have a huge fan base, and they’re in big markets and all that. They don’t have to be excellent. They can sign throw Shay and have it not go so well, or take a flyer on Garrett Cole and give him $300 million and have him not there and still be in first place, you know, because they do so many other things really well. I wrote this letter to Katie Griggs, and I don’t know whether I I should have been meaner, to be honest, because I’m more angry than the tone of the of the email, really more sad. Sad and angry is like a toxic mix, and I didn’t get one hit on Tuesday night. They did, but it just how excellent they need to be, how much better they need to be than throwing out hats and having this guy have his own bobble head a week. I mean, can you imagine if Steve Bucha gave a bobble head out? Can you imagine if Ted Leone just gave bobble heads out of the wizards game? Like, it’s insane, like, and nobody here, he called it insane because we don’t have John Eisenberg writing the column every day. I’m the only one on the radio coming, maybe locking for who people are questioning him at this point. But there’s only a couple loud people here that look at stuff and say that’s F stop, and I’ll just mean the hitting or the pitching or my press pass, or Justin Tucker or Chad Steele, or not having streaming on Sunday, or just all of it, you know, just watching all of it, not to mention college sports, and then the N i L, and how crazy, trying to get our arms around that. But I’m really trying to get my arms around the business of the Baltimore Orioles, and not just on the mornings when they get one hit or if they score 20 runs or give up 20 Rhino care. I’m trying to figure out what this is, and we’re giving them $600 million to fix the stadium up. I see what Sashi Brown did with it. He threw your ass out of the press box up into the corner and me out of the stadium. And they’re trying to get 500 grand from people to sit in their Blackbird thing, you know. And I’m trying to figure out what they’re doing with our civic money. And I’m really trying to figure what the real plan is here, you. Was Peter’s dad. Bud ceilings gone Cal ripkens gone Boog and Brooks and like you know all of that, none of that matters to the people that are out there right now. I don’t know what matters. You know what? I do know what matters. Free hockey gear that you talked up you thought was a beautiful piece. They gave that out on Friday night. People lined up. But the thing that’s crazy is they get 15,000 and even if you have a ticket for the game, it’s a whose Cincinnati concert trying to get in to get one like I saw it from where I lived for years. I’m like, tell me those pizza to make 40,000 of them and give them everybody like I the experience I’m talking about. I’m talking about for a 56 year old guy that my kid, or my grandkid wants that jersey and I want to go down there. I’m like, I’m not going down there and standing in line for two and a half hours to maybe get one and beat people up trying to get the Victoria August the gate. E say, yeah, it’s just there’s a fan experience and the streaming part of this and beyond, whether you like baseball or not. And apparently, a lot of Caucasians like baseball, based on what I see, despite what their cameras try to find in the crowd every night, it’s just, it’s becoming this contrived reality thing. And when the baseball goes bad, I’m going to the beach dog, you know?

Luke Jones  36:10

8

Oh, I mean, it’s just like anything else. I mean, every everything, from a sports standpoint, is is niche other than the NFL at this point in time, right? I mean, that’s, it’s just the truth.

Nestor Aparicio  36:20

Yeah, the Stanley Cup players are going on. You’re not watching them. You’re not that guy, right? It’s,

Luke Jones  36:25

you know, and they’re more popular sports than others, but they all lag behind the NFL dramatically, but, but in this town, you just shouldn’t lag behind anything here, right? Like, right now, they’re gonna lag behind the ravens, because the ravens are the NFL, sure, sure, sure. But no, you, you made a point. And I, I haven’t done close, you know, I haven’t looked at this closely, but I’ve looked at it enough. Your point about giveaways is so spot on. I don’t know why we see that, and I’ve seen it other places too, where they don’t make it for every you know, they don’t make 40,000 of them, and that it does create this. You got to wait for four hours in line and all this. Why not make 40,000 with the thought that, okay, we may not sell out. We might have 10,000 extra, but then we can use that for so many different goodwill things and care packages for fans that might be going through tough times and things like that, take it as an opportunity. I yeah, that that’s something that’s always been kind of crazy to me, that that

Nestor Aparicio  37:32

fan experience Fanny What the hell is that? What is that spending a lot of money you know, like you and I go to the airport, we expect a certain, you know, at TSA, we expect a certain amount of time invested. You know, I don’t mind giving them the $52 for the ticket to sit wherever the hell they put me if I get the thing that they’re giving me. I you know, I remember back in the blast era, they gave out, I think, low and brown, gave out like a glass mug. I mean, you probably find it on the internet. I find all these kind of weird things, and they because it was a glass mug in a box. You literally got it when you left. Yeah, you literally got it upon departure. Everyone sensed to me, right? Yeah, but everyone got one. And you only get to leave once, and you don’t to carry the issue around all like to bang it up, or get the bobblehead, or those statues they gave out years ago, which are lovely. I mean, look, I look as a swag guy. I mean, I’m wearing some curio swag right now. I’ve gotten it. I’ve given it out. It’s called swag. The essence swag is, is, you know, stands for stuff and, and that we all get and, but they, there’s, they have a fan base that has an incredible appetite for nerdity and that that cows are and look, I’m talking to a nerd in you that likes you have bobble heads behind you, and you like wrestling, and Alan McCall loves Star Wars, and may the fourth be with him, and everybody else And like but at some point, Baseball, baseball. How about we keep score like Getty Lee, how about we care about the like? And I said, you can get drunk. I told Katie Griggs this in my letter, you can get drunks out to that bar in center field. You can eliminate all those seats in left field instead of trying to sell them, instead of trying to fill them. You can eliminate them and make it a bar and make it you make it a Sky Deck and sell it to an airline company. Whatever you’re gonna do, you know, take the $600 million but like the promise is, here’s the pinky promise. You’re gonna fix the city, and you’re gonna get people there. You’re gonna treat them well, it’s gonna be inclusive. Because look around your stadium, I earn a whole lot of people even have my skin tone, let alone Alex. So he, by the way, joined us for an hour this week. So I have Alan on this week talking about baseball, like there’s just so many things wrong with them. And in all of these years, they stacked up to a point where the Greg baders and the TJ Brightman didn’t, didn’t want to hear from me or anybody who was mouth. Or anybody who thought 120 losses was acceptable because they had to go out and sell their club suites to the people that they wise markets and royal farms and the people that bought it right? Like there is a point now where I’m like, alright, you have a new owner, a new leader. Great players. Debatable. You think? Debatable, debatable. Thank you. They won 192 games the last two years. You’d be nice to Mike Elias and Brandon Hyde this week. What have you done for me lately? I got you. They’ve got to win, but everything’s really going downhill. As a company. If you’re going to become the prick here, let me be the bad guy. You wear the you wear, you wear the

8

Luke Jones  40:36

everything you just mentioned about, off the field and outreach and marketing, ticket sales, the fan experience, all of that is completely valid. You know what? None of that matters much if this team’s not going to be good, because that’s just, that’s just the reality, because you’re only going to be able to charge so little for tickets, right? I mean, you’re not going to get by on selling $5 tickets on a nightly basis, right? There’s only so much of that that you can do in the reality of what baseball and major professional sports are in 2025 that if you’re not going to win, you’re not going to get people to come. I mean, you’re just not now that doesn’t mean winning cures all. Either. You still need to make smart decisions in concert with the winning, but they’re not going to win. If this is going to go off the rails,

Nestor Aparicio  41:31

you have to have fans believe you can win right the confidence level you always mention the Cardinals and I think of places like the brewers and the Tigers these places, they’re not Tampa, they’re not Oakland, they’re not Colorado, they’re not half assed, but they’re not San Diego yet either, where everybody sort of all got bought in, because the Chargers left town, certainly conquistadors like, but, but like, there is a point where the Orioles need to be that kind of franchise, not what they’ve been the last 30 years, which is a freaking doormat, an embarrassment, a disgrace, and all of the remnants of that are left over. And I wrote this to Katie Griggs, and I hope everybody reads my letter, you’ve inherited a clown car, and somehow you think you’re on a bullet train. You need to fix things. You need to change people. Change things. Change ideologies, change things. I’m not, and I’m not, I’m not vibing, that I’m not, I’m not vibing. I think they thought, like they came in and thought, Everything’s just fine here. Like Peter Angelo and his kid were never here. Like Kevin Brown wasn’t tortured two summers ago, like John Angelos didn’t embarrass the governor two summers ago. Like this stuff happened two years ago. Man, this is fresh stuff, lots of losses. That’s all fresh too. The playoff losses, those are fresh. The Birdland membership ish being risen and taken away. And find all of that that I’ve heard from fans. But then you get one hit. You lose 24 to two. You make people stand in line for for a shirt for two hours, and the team’s no good, and nobody’s answered for it, and that that’s going to be problematic for them, but the drafts Thursday night, we get to talk football.

Luke Jones  43:07

Well, I mean, if they continue on this path, that’s why I said and look, I’m not saying this is all Brandon Hyde’s fault by any stretch of the imagination. Let me be very clear about that. I’m down on all of it right now, front office, coaches and players, because I’m seeing too much evidence of this feeling broken and again, it’s 22 games. They start playing like a playoff caliber outfit tonight from this point on, then they’ll be fine, from a mathematical standpoint. Now we can certainly debate whether the starting pitching is ever going to get to a point this season where they could one make the playoffs and two look like any kind of threat to do anything in the playoffs? But hey, how about start by scrapping together 234, wins in a row at this point, which they haven’t even done that so far this year. You know, they have one two game winning streak all year, but, but you, you just look at this thing right now, and you’re not going to fire Mike Elias on april 23 and when I, when I am saying, fire people, this isn’t me banging the table saying, you know, with wanting a pound of flesh. You know me, man, I’m not Mr. Overreaction about things, but I am concerned with what I’m seeing. I absolutely am concerned with what I’m seeing. And when I continue to hear Brandon Hyde say that these guys are struggling to let go and move on from bad things happening, then that tells me two things. One, it tells me you don’t really know how to get them out of this. And that’s the whole part of the one of the major jobs of a manager and two, it makes me quench question just how mentally tough these young players are. I mean, look

Nestor Aparicio  44:49

8

jacked all along, right? I mean,

44:52

they’re all one

Nestor Aparicio  44:56

when you’re a one when you’re a failure. Time. You get extra hitting. You get anything you want you really do. I mean, that’s the truth of sports, though, right? That’ll be true for whoever the Ravens take on Thursday will get more rope than the kids they take on Saturday. That’s the way it is. But,

Luke Jones  45:11

but you’ve got to be able to deal with failure also. I mean, that’s a big part of the game and, and, I mean, I keep hearing Brandon Hyde say how young they are. I’ll buy that for Jackson holiday. But these other guys have been around a few years at this point in time, like, Adley rutman is not young in terms of baseball anymore. Heston kerstadt is not young in terms of baseball anymore. Gunner Henderson, this is his third season, right? I mean, like, at some point in time, like you don’t get six or seven years to figure out if you’re any good or not Major League Baseball, right? I mean, it’s it’s go time like I again, Jackson holidays, the the exception to that, but he’s got to perform, right? So when I hear Brandon Hyde saying this multiple times now in the last week or two, it makes me wonder what exactly he and the coaching staff are bringing to the table at this point, because if you can’t get these guys out of this funk, then they’ve got to make a change and see if someone else can. And you know, Buck Britton managed these guys at triple A would he do any better than Brandon Hyde? He’s on the coaching staff right now, not Sandy wood. And again, this isn’t me picking on Brandon Hyde, that 100% of their issues is his problem. So much of this goes back to they had a lousy off season. I I’ve gone from underwhelming to lousy at this point in time. I’ve seen enough to say that that was a bad off season. Well, underwhelming was the kind way of me describing it. Where we are

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Nestor Aparicio  46:33

right now we have to rate the off season for Mike Elias F

Luke Jones  46:37

How could it be anything else? I mean, they signed Tyler O’Neill to hit left handed pitching, and he can’t hit left handed pitching all of a sudden. Look, and let me be clear, I think at some point they’ll start swinging the bats better against left handed pitching. Then 165 247, 225, which is their slash line right now, against left handed pitching. I don’t think Dean Kramer is really going to continue to have a six plus era. You know, I mean, Charlie Martin at this point. I don’t know how you keep sending them back out there. If you do, I I suppose he’s not going to continue to have a 10 plus era. Some of this stuff is going to there’s going to be some positive regression that happens here. I’ve mentioned Adley rutschman. You look at his overall production, it doesn’t look good. You look at his stat, cast and batted ball data, it tells you he’s hitting into a lot of tough luck right now. And I’m not I’m not saying that to 100% excuse him. My point is this all can’t be this bad. Everyone thought the starting rotation was going to struggle, so the fact that it struggled, and you’ve lost effluent, it looks like Grayson Rodriguez may not even throw a pitch this year, the way things are trending, we’ll see. But that’s not surprising, right? That’s not surprising. But even that, even acknowledging that that doesn’t turn a team that you thought maybe you could win 90 games into 100 loss team without everything else failing in the process. And that’s where I look at this thing, and say, from a talent level standpoint, this isn’t a 90 or 95 loss team. Now, it may only be an 80 win team, right? It may be a team that is sub 500 they might finish 77 and 85 you know if, and that’s even acknowledging that they’d improve some from this point forward, but based on the pace that they’re on right now. But this just looks really bad, and it’s a bad look for everybody. I’m not exsolving Anyone other Cedric Mullins has been great, right? Cedric had their one hit against the lefty on Tuesday night, got on base. He’s been terrific, and if things continue to trend this way, they’ll be trading him at the deadline. Forget for something for the future. I mean, but you just look at this thing, and everything needs to be better. But you can’t change everything on the fly. There’s one thing that you can kind of do on the fly, other than look, you can make some changes to your roster, like you can DFA a guy or two if it if that tickles your fancy and you get someone else up here, fine, but in terms of things that really carry weight, there’s basically one thing you can do in season, and that’s looking at your coaching staff. I’m not saying I want that. Let me be very clear. You know, I think Brandon, I did a really good job through the rebuild and did a really good job two years ago, but what’s happened since then? Because even back in 19 and 20 and 21 the thing that I would say more often than not, was, man, these guys are not good, but you can tell they play hard for their manager. They play hard for the coaching staff, and generally speaking, it felt like they kind of mostly knew where to throw the ball and do that kind of stuff. They just weren’t good enough. But this team, they’re sloppy, they’re deep. Has been bad. They don’t run the bases particularly well. Starting pitching is an utter disaster. We all know that. That’s that’s the headline, in terms of on field. We all know that. But this offense, I get it missing Colton cows are absolutely hurts your outfield defense. And he’s a guy that does bring some energy, you know, has that personality that we’ve all seen, and, you know, some of the social media and whatnot. But you can’t tell me that losing one guy just makes everything else fall apart, because if it does, that tells me you’re not mentally tough, and it makes me question whether you’re cut out to succeed at the major league level. As someone who’s never done any, you know, didn’t even play varsity baseball. You know, I’ve JB was where I maxed out. You know, it’s not about that, that I know better, but I’ve watched enough major league baseball in my life, and I’m really starting to have concerns about the resiliency of this team. And just, I mean it just because Brandon heights telling me that, Brandon I’d saying that, that they’re struggling to move past when things when, when things go badly, that you can’t have that mindset in baseball, as I said, they’ve got 140 games to go. That can be either an absolute blessing, because that’s most of the season, and if they, from this point forward, play at a level that they’re more capable of playing, even with understanding how much of a challenge the starting pitching is going to be, then we’ll still forget how bad these first four weeks were. But if you’re not in the right headspace as a baseball team that 140 games to go, that can be daunting, as you know what as well. So which direction is this going to go? And I they that the options are limited. If this is going to continue to go down this path, if it is Brandon high is going to lose the job now, I will it be Memorial Day? Will it be June? Will it be the end of the season, whatever, I don’t know, right? And again, I don’t earn

Nestor Aparicio  52:03

the right to get to get that right, right? I mean, at this point, he’s 192 games. But you, you’ve done the What have you done for me lately? If you wake up this morning, you feel like he’s lost the team, right?

Luke Jones  52:14

8

And that’s and that’s and that. But that’s where you look at this thing. Does Mike Elias have his finger on the pulse. Does the front office have his finger? Their fingers on the pulse? Does ownership have ownership?

Nestor Aparicio  52:25

Ownership doesn’t know what you know, but if that would say they have their head up their ass, but they have their head up their ass, but if nobody there to tell the owner he shouldn’t have a bobble head the first week of the year, then there’s nobody there to tell the owner anything. And I, believe me, I dealt with the owners emissary, the guy who whistled the national anthem, and they’re telling that guy anything he knows that he’s invented baseball. I don’t know any about it, but, you know, they’re the ones putting Rubenstein up to all of this. And like I I just feel like the whole thing, I’m starting to get some totality on it. And I fired my first missive today, when they’re calling Ron Shapiro’s son up in Toronto, and telling him I’m not a media member who I’ve known Mark for 25 years. I’ve known Ron for 40 and you know, when you start to pollute the water like that, if that’s going to be their intention to continue this Angelo stand, we all saw Greg baders name on the streaming thing that, because Greg did a great job, and we can all stream now, like if they’re going to run it like that, and they’re going to continue this, they are what they are, and that’s top down. That’s again, they won’t keep good people around. Angela’s had a hard time. I mentioned Buck earlier, 30 minutes ago, in this thing, but, you know, nobody else wanted buck. Let’s start with that. So it was Buck’s only thing, but, you know, Buck turned out to be savior for them in that way, in the way you’re talking about, like, Bucha, get this thing straightened out, because Buck leads, leads men and women, I should say, at this point, so buckles, get this straightened out. But I to your point, you’re like, well, Brandon, I get this straight. I don’t know. I don’t know, you know, I don’t know.

Luke Jones  53:59

I mean, and again, I don’t, you know, I’ve defended Brandon Hyde plenty of times. And let me be clear again, this is not all his fault, remotely, all his fall, but I do have to recognize the piece that I do think he’s responsible for. And we’ve seen a team that’s been sloppy, thrown to the wrong base, got guys not lining up, you know, properly, but you know, we’re cut off men, all that we’ve seen base running lapses and just a team that and doesn’t feel like they’re showing I mean, you come out of, you come out of an off day on the heels of losing 24 to two, and That’s what, that’s how you play on Tuesday night. Man, that’s sad again. Where’s the fight for this team? And no, you can’t fire the entire roster. You’re not going to fire your general manager in April. And I’m not saying you should fire everybody, but I am at a point now where I’m starting to look at this thing and I’m really starting to be skeptical. Of whether they have everything in place to truly succeed and succeed, not just in 2025 but for the long run at some point in time, you do question whether the guys that went through the rebuild, they got them to a certain point, what’s next? And that answer for Mike Elias has been pretty darn underwhelming over the you know, going back to the deadline of 2023 other than the Corbin burns trade. Basically, not saying it’s been all bad, but it’s hard to put point to too much other stuff and say, Wow, that was a great move. But between that and now, what feels like some backsliding, not feels like has been a backslide since last June, where, you know, what is Brandon Hyde and this coaching staff doing to fix this? Because, you know, the starting pitching is one thing, but when you have a lineup that’s consistently looking like left handed pitchers are aliens from another planet, and you’ve never seen it before. I mean, what gives like? What is going on here? Have you lost the clubhouse? Are these guys not buying in? It’s not good. I I’m not saying the change has to happen today or tomorrow. I’m not saying that. But you know, what does need to start happening today or tomorrow? Needs to start looking like a more inspired baseball team, because that what we saw the last couple times out, they look very defeated, you know, all the way around. And it shouldn’t feel that way in late April. It’s late April. Got 140 games to go, but man, feels like it’s the dog days of April, the way things are going right now. And that’s, that’s just that’s not a good thing. And I can’t just put all of that on the status of the starting rotation. I just can’t.

Nestor Aparicio  56:45

All right, maybe when they wear the all orange uniforms again, hey, they’re two and Oh, two and oh in those city Connect. No no, no, no, no. Rhymes with city, um, bitty, yes, um, he’s, I’m going to get thrown off the radio. He is Luke Jones. I am Nestor. We’ll come back talk some more draft. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us. You.