With the Baltimore Ravens taking a summer hiatus, this was our last chance to take a first look at rookie head coach Jesse Minter and the new operation. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss Loop, Lamar and the fresh offense of Declan Doyle as the team disappears for six weeks before the purple explosion.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Baltimore Ravens’ new offensive strategy under Declan Doyle and the impact of Tyler Loop’s missed field goal in Pittsburgh. They highlighted Loop’s accountability and performance, noting his recent successful 40-yard field goal. They also discussed the Ravens’ need for a starting center, with potential trades or roster adjustments expected. The conversation touched on the transition from John Harbaugh to new head coach Jesse Minter and the importance of offensive line continuity. They expressed optimism about the team’s potential but acknowledged challenges, particularly in the offensive line and quarterback protection.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Bring Maryland Treasure scratch-off tickets to the upcoming Sorrento of Arbutus show and to the Green Mount Station event next week for giveaways
• [ ] Send a text notification to the audience (notify about the July 13 Max Pizza event / related update) when details are available
• [ ] Attend/appear in Owings Mills when the time comes (be present for the event or coverage as planned)

Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Election Day Reminder

• Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning dates and locations.
• Nestor reminds listeners about Election Day on the 23rd and encourages voter registration.
• Nestor mentions giving away Maryland Treasure scratch-off tickets during the tour.
• Nestor transitions to discussing the Ravens and the recent missed kick by Tyler Loop.

Tyler Loop’s Performance and Accountability

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss Tyler Loop’s handling of the missed kick in Pittsburgh.
• Luke Jones praises Loop for his accountability and ability to answer questions about the missed kick.
• Luke Jones highlights Loop’s performance in practice, including making a 40-yard field goal.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of competition for the kicking job and the potential for bringing in a new kicker.

Coaching Staff and Offensive Strategy

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the new coaching staff and the transition from John Harbaugh.
• Luke Jones mentions the importance of having a solid offensive line to support the new offensive strategy.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential impact of the new offensive coordinator, Declan Doyle, on Lamar Jackson.
• Nestor expresses optimism about the new coaching staff and the potential for success in the upcoming season.

Super Bowl Prospects and Team Dynamics

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the Ravens’ chances of winning the Super Bowl and the impact of the new coaching staff.
• Luke Jones highlights the challenges of having a first-time head coach and a rookie offensive coordinator.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of team chemistry and the potential for success with the new coaching staff.
• Nestor mentions the quiet offseason and the lack of major issues or controversies within the team.

Offensive Line and Center Position

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the importance of the offensive line and the need for a solid center.
• Luke Jones expresses concerns about the current state of the offensive line and the potential for issues at the center position.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the possibility of trading for a starting center to address the team’s needs.
• Nestor emphasizes the importance of continuity and stability on the offensive line for the team’s success.

Impact of New Coaching Staff on Team Culture

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the impact of the new coaching staff on team culture and player accountability.
• Luke Jones praises the new coaching staff for holding players accountable and maintaining a professional environment.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the importance of having a supportive and constructive coaching environment.
• Nestor mentions the potential for the new coaching staff to bring fresh ideas and energy to the team.

Lamar Jackson’s Role and Influence

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss Lamar Jackson’s role and influence within the team.
• Luke Jones highlights Jackson’s ability to adapt to new coaching strategies and maintain a positive attitude.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential for Jackson to have a greater impact on the offense with the new coaching staff.
• Nestor expresses optimism about Jackson’s ability to lead the team to success in the upcoming season.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Ravens

• Nestor and Luke Jones discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the Ravens in the upcoming season.
• Luke Jones emphasizes the importance of addressing the offensive line and center position to ensure success.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential for the new coaching staff to bring new energy and success to the team.
• Nestor expresses optimism about the Ravens’ chances of winning the Super Bowl and achieving success in the upcoming season.

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T. Hey, I’m 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive, positively doing the Maryland Crab Cake Tour next week. We moved our Sorrento show. We’re gonna be doing it on the 17th, the 24th We will be at Green Mount Station. By the way, the 23rd is Election Day. Hope everybody gets registered. Make sure you’re voting for democracy and all the good things that that keep us where we are with our flag and our state and our councilmen and our county executives and all the stuff we’re gonna be voting on here in the coming weeks. By the way, Maryland lottery, I will have Maryland treasure scratch off to give away to Sorrento of Arbutus next week, as well as a Green Mountain Station up in Hempstead. Our friends at GBMC put us out on the road, as well as Farnham and Dermer. I’m glad that Zach gave me this. It’s Oriole orange, if you’re watching out on the YouTube or listening on the radio, but this is a purple segment. I don’t know the next time you and I are gonna like sit and do a football segment, right? I don’t, I don’t, you feel a little talked out on Lamar and the center thing, and that is what it is. We did the defensive thing in Matt Abigay, and you know, we did an hour on how important that is, and I thought we were going to do more on Derrick Henry in the center and Lamar, and like all that, but it turns out Ryan Loop was the star, Tyler Loop, I should say, Ryan Loop, Tyler Loop was the star of the show on on Wednesday, and are you shocked that they, that that it is gone as quiet as it has, that it was just a missed kick in Pittsburgh for a play, you know, like this kid’s handled it as well as I think anybody can handle it. I tuned in thanks to Chad Steele, I tuned in on the video late, and I saw him. I thought he reported himself pretty well, you know. He seems like a good kid. He seems like that they still believe in him. To send it back out there,

Luke Jones 1:50
we’re gonna find out about that part of it, you know, the last part of what you mentioned, and how he does. But I mean, go back to the night, that fateful night in Pittsburgh, where that was John Harbaugh walking off the field as a lap for the last time as a Ravens head coach. Remember, he had his arm around Tyler Loop. To his credit, there was no running and hiding from for Tyler Loop. He answered every question in the locker room that day. He talked at length, and not that that’s a big

Nestor Aparicio 2:20
deal, but Mark Andrews didn’t the year before, just so we know, you know,

Luke Jones 2:24
and on Wednesday he answered more than 10 minutes worth of questions, and all but maybe one or two were directly about the kick, the missed kick. Moving on, he was asked about how he felt in the aftermath of John Harbaugh being dismissed, and did he feel in which I thought was a really interesting question, right? I mean, you’re trying to get over that, and then suddenly 24 hours, or less than 48 hours later, you’re your head coach is gone, and you know you’re you wonder about that, there’s there’s so much involved when we talk about sports, and when we talk about failure, right? Failure is a huge part of sports, whether we’re talking about a team losing, whether we’re talking about a sport like baseball, where there’s way more failure than success, when you’re talking about being at the plate, but when you’re talking about a situation, a scenario where someone is on an island and it comes down to them, and they fail. I mean, Tyler Loop failed in that situation, right? I mean, we can talk about, could the Ravens have run another play, should they have done this, should they have done that. He missed a 44 yard field goal. Period. End of discussion. And you were there. It’s not as though the wind was gusting or anything like that. He failed, and be the first to tell you that, but for him to show the accountability he did after the game, for him five months later, six months later, whatever it is, to answer more than 10 questions about it, and to not burr up about it, to not bristle, to not have Ravens PR cut off, cut it off, and say, “Hey, okay, you guys have asked enough about that. What about now? Like, let’s ask other questions. There was none of that. Like, he answered every single question, and he answered it with dignity and respect, and an acknowledgement of, yeah, I missed the kick, but he said all the right things too. I’ll say this, and this goes back to even him being drafted last year putting aside scandal and off the field and all that stuff with with Justin Tucker, not an easy thing to put aside, of course, but just hearing him talk about his craft, hearing him talk about himself as a professional, he does remind you a lot of Justin Tucker in that way, he just does, and he said, look, you can’t carry it like you learn from it, you see what you did wrong, but then you’ve got to get ready for the next kick, and you’ve got to move past it, and he’s saying all the right things now. Wednesday, he made a 40 yard field goal at the end of practice that Jesse Minter and the coaching staff set up that they said, hey, if. Makes this, you guys don’t have post-practice meetings, you’re done. Sayonara will see you in six weeks, right? Other than the rookies, so he made the kick, you know that obviously isn’t remotely comparable to making a kick to win the division. Let’s make you popular with your

Nestor Aparicio 5:18
teammates for an hour,

Luke Jones 5:19
but it does, but it’s also, it’s kind of all you have to go off of right now, and I asked Jesse Minter after Wednesday’s practice, said understanding it’s a collaborative conversation with Eric and the front office and Randy Brown and everyone, what kind of consideration has been made to bringing in competition, because if there’s one thing I’ve been surprised about to this point, and again, it’s June. They could sign someone tomorrow, or bring someone in the second week of training camp, because they’re not necessarily loving what they’re seeing from loop, or they just want to beef things up, and, and see if you know they can, you know, create some competition there, and see how he responds to that. But I’m really surprised they haven’t brought in competition. I mean, let’s face it, we all compared this to what Billy Cunda 15 years ago wasn’t, wasn’t the same exact kick, right? Wasn’t the same exact situation, but it was a similar failure. It was a similar, you know, similar stakes in terms of, you know, whether you’re moving on or not. Now that was for the Super Bowl or tying the AFC Championship game, and trying to go to a Super Bowl, but this was still pretty big as week 18 and trying to win a division goes. So I’m really surprised that they haven’t brought in competition. Minter’s comment was, ‘Look, we don’t play again till September. He said, ‘I think there are ongoing talks and conversations about any position, whether you have what you feel you need to be successful or whether you want to bring someone in, but he said we feel really good about where Tyler’s at. He’ll continue to work over the summer, he’ll continue to work in camp, but again, we play in September, so I think that gives us a lot of time to be able to answer questions as they may come up. So that left the door open, but it certainly didn’t make it sound like, oh yeah, we’re looking to bring in a kicker yesterday. So I’m surprised by that, because I look at it through this lens. By no means do I say you bring in competition as though you’re actively seeking out a replacement, right? I don’t know, because you can bring in 12 other kickers who might miss a kick in a, in a critical spot. That’s why, that’s why Matt Stover was so valuable once upon a time. That’s why Justin Tucker, as a football player, was so valuable for such a long time, right. So, that’s not easy to replace all the time. So, as much as you’re disappointed and concerned that Tyler Loop failed in that spot. You also don’t want to dismiss the fact that look, everyone’s going to miss a kick from at some point or another, and you’re either you’re even going to miss a kick that’s going to cost you a game. That said, we also know the psychological part to that can be, I mean, that can be torment, quite frankly. I mean, ask Scott Norwood, right? Ask any number of professional athletes in a situation where they’re perceived to have choked in the biggest moment. You don’t always get over that. So, that’s where I.. that’s where my urging competition is rooted, because you just don’t know, and I would say this, because I’ve seen some people say this is not too many, but I’ve seen some people say, oh, you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to mess with the kid’s confidence. Well, I’d say that’s baloney to me, if he’s going to be, if he’s going to fold because you bring in competition for him, then he’s not that guy, you get the wrong guy, but he’s not that guy, so I reject that argument, but until they bring someone in, it does lend you to believe that they at least like what they are seeing in terms of the response, right?

Luke Jones 8:51
Whether you’re talking about Randy Brown and the other specialists who sat down with him the day after the season ended and they reviewed it, Tyler Lueup said he hasn’t watched it since then, but he said he knew exactly what he did, you know, in terms of what he did mechanically that caused the ball to sail right, all that right, he hasn’t watched it since then, and I think that’s a healthy thing, probably, you know, deal with it, watch it, and then move on, right, and he said the biggest thing for him was just to confront it, yeah, I missed, yeah, I didn’t do my job in that spot, and it sucks, but I also can’t, you know, he didn’t say this, but you know the implication, you know, is you can’t just lay in your bed for three months and just mourn it, either, you know what I mean, like it’s you’ve got to move on, and the I think the probably the most challenging thing for anyone in that spot is how long you have to wait to truly have a moment that I mean, even the kick in a game, let alone a game of that kind of leverage and those kind of implications. Is that tough, that’s to me, that’s the challenging part, because yeah, if you’re Jesse Minter and Randy Brown, you can conjure whatever drills you want to do in terms of running onto the field and make it seem like you’re simulating a last second kick to end practice early like they did on Wednesday, but none of that comes close to simulating what he experienced in Pittsburgh that night, and let’s face it, not going to get that in a preseason game, not even going to get that if they do bring in a kicker to compete, but to me there’s a little bit of a different urgency there when someone is brought in to hypothetically push for your job, right, so but but he has september 13 is going to be his first opportunity to make a meaningful kick, and even if he has a chance to, that the Ravens and the Colts are tied with three seconds to go, and he has a chance to make a 44 yard field goal. Yeah, he’s going to be thinking in a dome,

Nestor Aparicio 10:58
in a dome, but it’s in a dome, and it’s also week

Luke Jones 11:01
one that even if you miss that, your season’s not over, right? So, like, it’s tough, and that’s where it’s tough for the team as well, because they clearly have some conviction in this kid, right? They identified him pre-draft last year, Randy Brown went around the country looking at different kickers, trying out different guys, working out different guys interviewing different guys, and he was the guy they identified, right? He was the guy that they said, you know, regardless of how they handled the beginning of the Justin Tucker, you know, that off season and all that. You know, we, we don’t need to rehash that part of it, but they clearly identified him from a football standpoint to say this is our guy if we’re going to move on from Justin, and they did, and I think for him, and we talked about this a lot long before what happened in Pittsburgh. I think the season just did not set up in a way to really test him a whole lot. Think about it, he only made one kick over 50 yards, but I think he only tried four kicks over 50 yards, right? It wasn’t as though he had an opportunity to make 11 kicks from beyond 50 yards. He didn’t have a spot to try to kick, make a game-winning field goal, right? Justin Tucker, his rookie year. Go back, I think, what was it, week three or week four? They played the Patriots on Sunday Night Football. It was a Tory Smith losing his brother game, right? Justin Tucker, albeit it was a short kick, but he made a game-winning kick, which, if you remember, everyone was questioning whether he actually made it or not, right? It’s kind of controversial, but the point is, right off the bat, there was an instance where a rookie kicker in the month of September had a chance to make a kick in a really big moment, and Tyler Loop, I’m trying to think over the course of his rookie season until week 18 in Pittsburgh, like what was the biggest kick that he made all season, probably the kick he made in Cleveland with like five minutes to go, and I think it tied the game, I want to say off the top of my head, or maybe made it a one point or one point game, whatever point is he didn’t exactly have a season where it’s set up for him to be tested a whole lot, and I think that’s where the rub is. If he had made two other game-winning kicks as a rookie, and what happened in week 18 still happened, you would say all right, that stunk, we got to keep an eye on this, but he made the kick in week four to win it. He made a huge kick in week 11 to win the game. He just didn’t have that kind of rookie season, and that’s not his fault whatsoever. But I think it just, it leaves you in this position. At least, how I feel about him is, I don’t doubt the fact that he has talent, but I still don’t know what you really have with him, and really the only truly meaningful data point you have on him, thinking about it in those terms of high leverage and a game-winning situation or something like that, he failed, so you don’t want to overreact. At the same time, I don’t, I certainly don’t think you want to leave yourself unprepared, and then he misses a kick in game three, a week three with three seconds left, and then at that point you say, all right, well, okay, Who’s on the waiver we’ll hire right now, like, who’s on, who’s out on the street, what, what, what kicker could we coax out of retirement, like, whatever the scenario, so, so I have been a little surprised that we didn’t see them bring in competition doesn’t mean they won’t come late July and early August, but, but everything they’ve said to this point, every manner in which they proceeded, you know, it’s not as though they spent a seventh round pick on another kicker, right?

Luke Jones 14:34
They didn’t do anything like that, they didn’t sign an undrafted guy like they did Justin Tucker when Billy Cundiff returned for at least the 2012 preseason, so you know, I’ve been a little surprised by that, but going back to Wednesday, he handled himself well, and again, he answered every question, he didn’t roll his eyes about anything, he didn’t try to say, okay, I’ve addressed this, guys, he answered every question, and he didn’t complain. And to Raven’s PRs credit, they didn’t cut him off and cut off any questions after a while, and say, “Hey, like, okay, guys, he’s asked, he’s answered 12 questions about that, the kick, you know, he answered everything, and that deserves some credit, that doesn’t mean everything’s going to be fine moving forward, right, in terms of performance, but I, as him, as a human being, I do admire that, because, as you pointed out, there have been instances in the past where a Ravens player has been in that position and hasn’t necessarily risen to the occasion in terms of talking to fans and answering questions and being accountable.

Nestor Aparicio 15:33
Well, being accountable, talking to the fans, just sort of like talking to the universe in a general sense of professionalism of what the bar is when you’re making millions of dollars doing this, and then hiding and thinking like, like some sort of dismissive avoidant, and like when Mark Andrews comes back, nobody’s going to ask him about dropping the ball in Buffalo, and you know, and then ask him, Where the hell have you been the last eight months, or whatever, and why are you making commercials about the military, and what a stand-up guy you are when you’re not, so I get to ask, I get to say those things, because I don’t have to beg Chad Steele for a press pass to ask these questions, but the mini camp part of this, and where you are in the scope of all of this, if this is the last conversation we have about the Ravens for the next six weeks, and nobody gets arrested, nothing weird happens. Maybe there’s a contract thing with Lamar and they can’t, who knows, right?

Luke Jones 16:26
Trade for a starting center, you know. Yeah, he’s sufficient like that. Somebody put out on WNSD

Nestor Aparicio 16:30
tech service, brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. Of course, you should get on that. If you’re not, you’ll know when Luke is. It, of course, you’re going to be eating Max Pizza on july 13, when this happens, but Luke will get the text out to you. So, how are you feeling about it? I mean, I’ll say how I’m feeling about it, but I want to give your, you have at it for me, yeah. But, but for me, I’m evaluating where I think they’re going to be. By the way. I was in Los Angeles the other day, and I got in my Uber in El Segundo. I text Joe Ortiz, he was in Vegas, strange, but I was trying to get together with Joe because I was literally in front of the Chargers complex, like literally my hotel was right in front of there, good Rubio’s fish tacos as well, and I took my Uber up to see Rush at the fabulous forum, not going to give you the car dealership, but on the way there, you pass this spaceship going up Manchester, it’s the Intuit Arena. Have you seen this, Luke? It looks like a.. it looks like the sphere in Vegas, crazy. It’s like hanging out in Inglewood, but you go by that and then you pass this enormous spaceship that is SoFi Stadium on the way to this tiny little Coliseum that Rush opened their thing in and played four nights this week with Annika Neils, so I went past SoFi Stadium and I remembered my day there with the Black Crow’s and all the weed in the upper deck and the Rams winning and the Bengals thinking they were going to win and who day and all and that was the, that was the Eminem halftime, that was fantastic. I’m not even an Eminem guy, but it was pretty good. So, I went by there, and I thought, Super Bowl’s here this year. Hmm, NFL Network, hmm, and I thought, Who’s going to be here? And I literally thought this for the second or third time in a row, because I was in Vegas before, and I told John Martin this on our segment this week. I walked around Vegas, and because the Orioles were playing one day, they played at 1030 in the morning, the next day they played at four in the afternoon, because they’re playing 7o’clock games. It’s like I’m wandering around casinos and wandering around Vegas was 110 degrees, and I went into sports books, which are empty because of these, right? Nobody goes to the sports book to bet so much anymore, but they’re beautiful, you know. They have all the lines up, and they still.. you’ll appreciate this as the old fifth-grade school teacher up at Susquehannock. They still have the little dittos where you can take the futures with you on the sheet of paper, so they had the futures for the Ravens, you know, and the futures, I think the Rams are 11 to two, and the Ravens were 11 to one or 10 to one in most places to win the Super Bowl.

Luke Jones 19:12
The Miles Garrett thing has made the Rams the head of the class now, right? Right, they were up there already, but

Nestor Aparicio 19:17
yeah, but like, so as it goes, and I didn’t think about, dude, I spent a day and a half in LA, and think about the Rams, it was all Chargers, where I was in Manhattan Beach, I saw Charger stuff, I didn’t see a lot of Ram stuff, I just didn’t,

Luke Jones 19:30
you don’t hear that, you hear the opposite of that, I did, I but, but

Nestor Aparicio 19:33
I was in El Segundo, it’s like being in Owings Mills and not seeing the Ravens, right, I guess,

Luke Jones 19:37
but

Nestor Aparicio 19:39
for me I started thinking about the Super Bowl, and whether the Ravens could be there or not. What do you think?

Luke Jones 19:46
Could they sure? Because I mean, this last season illustrated what a season can be, right? I mean, going into the year, Mahomes, Allen, Lamar Jackson, right? I mean. How many times have we talked about those three quarterbacks and those three teams to a lesser extent, Joe Burrow, because his team has lacked right, or he’s been hurt, but and you saw how the year played out, right, Kansas City completely fell off the mountain, and then Mahomes gets hurt late in the season, adding insult to injury or injury to insult, whichever way you want to put it. The Ravens have the season they had, where they get off to a one in five start. Lamar, a number of others, get hurt, they rally in the middle portion of the season, and then aren’t good enough late and miss the playoffs entirely. And then even the Bills, who made the playoffs, but we’re flawed, and the year where you look at it, and you’re Josh Allen, and you’re Sean McDermott, and you say, okay, no Chiefs, which means no Mahomes, who has been the team that we haven’t been able to get by, by the way, he just got paid again,

Nestor Aparicio 20:56
right? Like, yeah, he did. Well, we were talking about Lamar, I mean, Lamar wants to be here, I’m sure they’re offering him a lot of money, but you know, I mean, like, that’s the Mahomes thing, he clearly wants to be there, and they like contract for life there, so that’s what they’re, but you’re gonna be dealing with him next five years, no matter what. So, but

Luke Jones 21:10
the Bills were in this position where it’s like, hey, like, you’re the most experienced team in this field, and they didn’t even get to the AFC title game, right, and we’re talking about the Broncos and the Patriots. No one was talking about the Broncos and the Patriots back in September, right? So, so to say, to look at it through that lens and understanding the Ravens, whether we want to say they’re the most talented team in the league or not, right? I mean, like you and I debated that, but

Nestor Aparicio 21:36
Harbor got fired over because the owner and the general manager, Vegas, thinks they’re talented. Vegas has a favorite, right? Yeah, whether you

Luke Jones 21:44
think they’re number one, number three, number six, whatever, like they’re in that somewhere in that space where they’re a talented team. So, can they? Yes. However, they do have a first-time head coach, they do have a rookie play caller as offensive coordinator, who, by the way, I’m, I’m impressed by what I’ve seen from Declan Doyle. Does that equate to an offense having extraordinary success right off the bat? Well, who’s the starting center going to be? If it does, he’ll be the head coach of the Cardinals next year. Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So, so I just, I do have some, I take some pause, I have some reservations just about how much new they’re navigating and what that means in terms of a rookie head coach, in terms of a first time play caller at offensive coordinator, in terms of issues with your interior offensive line, even if you’ve short up guard, now what about center? Right, it was the opposite last year. So it’s been done before, though. When I think about Tomlin coming into Pittsburgh, coming in a year, took him a championship game. So, like, I like.. I mean, look, look at what Liam Cohn did last year for the Jaguars, a team that, perception-wise, nowhere close. Well, you’re hoping to catch that sort of energy, right? Mike McDonald, we don’t talk about him, but so, so, so to answer your question, can they get there? Yes, of course they can get there. Will they get there? I don’t know. I will say this, though, in terms of laying the groundwork, the work that they just completed when, when they started the offseason program. What was it, april 5 or whatever it was? It was the first Monday in April. They were allowed to start two weeks early. The april 6 teams with first-year head coaches can start their off-season program two weeks early. The Ravens have not been in that position under this current CBA. That kind of set that all up, so throughout April through May through June, I mean, really, since the Max Crosby saga, considering how new everything is, it’s been pretty quiet, actually. And I think that’s a good thing, right? You didn’t want to be in a position where three players suffered season-ending injuries over the last month, like has happened elsewhere. You don’t want to be in a position where you have a couple players dealing with off-field arrests or things of that nature. You didn’t want to be in a position where Lamar Jackson was not there, right? I mean, he wasn’t there for one OTA, he didn’t have 100% attendance, but by all accounts, Lamar Jackson was there regularly this spring. That’s a good thing, regardless of the contract questions that will continue to linger, because they’re questions until they’re not anymore. I mean, it’s just the reality of it, but he’s been there, so for me, despite the fact that there is all this fanfare about a new head coach and new coaching staff, and you know, you bring in someone like Trey Hendrickson, for example, he’s not Max Crosby, but still very high-profile signing, it’s been very quiet otherwise, and that’s a good thing to me, it’s been very workmanlike. That’s good, you don’t want drama this time of year. My goodness, you and I just spent 45 minutes talking about Greg Albernaz and Samuel Bisayo. What self-inflicted, by

Nestor Aparicio 25:08
the way? Self-inflicted drama, you know

Luke Jones 25:11
the idea of keeping things in house or not, whether you have an issue or not, all that we don’t know exactly what to keep in

Nestor Aparicio 25:19
house. Don’t take him out of the lineup, dude, you know,

Luke Jones 25:22
or just if you have an issue, keep it in house, right? You don’t talk about it to the media, whatever. But the point is bringing it back to where the Ravens are, and this is where I just, I like the fact that they’ve had a quiet spring, considering how much new there they’re actually. Well, they had Justin

Nestor Aparicio 25:38
Tucker last year and a tired head coach, and you know, this off season began with, I don’t know, dude, I’ve got JT the Brick telling you that it’s been, it’s been tumultuous their offseason in regard to Max Crosby. I don’t think that plays itself out into their building at all. It does on third down if Trey Hendrickson doesn’t get to the quarterback,

Luke Jones 25:59
I mean, that that was tumultuous for the organization, but for the players, once they’re actually showing up and in the building a month later, I don’t think anyone’s talking about that. I don’t think there’s a single player or a coach that’s out there on the back fields that has Max Crosby on their mind whatsoever. I mean, I just.. I just don’t.. I don’t think that’s.. I think I do know Lamar

Nestor Aparicio 26:19
texted out eyeballs that night when, when he thought Max Crosby was going to be on the team,

Luke Jones 26:26
and if you recall, we were at Costas earlier that day, and I was wondering at the time, hey, Lamar, just so you know, because I know you’re not looking at everyone’s Instagram and everything incessantly, Lamar texted this out, this feels kind of, sort of like the SpongeBob thing that he did three years ago, before the contract, so just I don’t know if it’s that, I haven’t heard that, but be on alert, and of course it was Max Crosby later that night, although I have since heard, and not recently, it was a few days after that, I actually heard Lamar apparently didn’t even know about the Max Crosby thing, so it might have been something else in his life that was totally.. again, this is why you don’t read too much into social media, because someone might be, someone might be tweeting or posting about the meal, they just.. I tried out the fake

Nestor Aparicio 27:10
book, exactly what I mean, you know, I mean, you

Luke Jones 27:13
just don’t know. But anyway, point I’m making is, since then, and as much as that looked the way it looked at that point in time I don’t think there’s any fallout that leaks onto the field in terms of other than what you said, other than production and how it looks in September and October and November and December, but in terms of preparation, in terms of team culture, in terms of how players feel about one another, in terms of out of how the players feel about the new coaching staff. I just, in that way, it feels like it’s been very smooth, and that’s what you want, right? You don’t want to be.. we talked about this with nobody’s pining

Nestor Aparicio 27:48
the way for John Harbaugh out there, they’re breathing in the fresh air. No, yes, whatever it is.

Luke Jones 27:53
And look, I do.. I will say this: some of the.. and we’re all guilty of this from time to time, some of the observations out there this spring. Well, oh, you know, this is happening, or that’s happening, or they, you know, because there’s an implication that that wasn’t happening before. Like, for example, I saw some people noted Wednesday, Mark Andrews committed a false start. They pulled him up, they pulled him, and look, I like that, because that shows the coaching staff is holding players accountable, but the Ravens have done that in the past, right? I can vividly remember just a couple years ago when an offensive lineman would commit a false start, they were pulled from 11 on 11 and they took a lap, you know what I mean, like, so there is some of that that goes on that, that for me, is a little fatiguing, or it’s just like, okay, like I heard some people making big mention, let us coach the football team in peace. Well, but it’s for me, it’s also they’re not reinventing the wheel, right? Jesse Minter’s not reinventing the game of football, right? That practices look a little different, but it’s not, not something that I think is all that terribly noteworthy, I guess, is what I mean. Well, I think it’s even,

Nestor Aparicio 29:08
it’s even made less, and I would have been predictive about this. They got Harbaugh’s guy, both this guy worked for both

Luke Jones 29:16
of them, exactly. He’s gonna

Nestor Aparicio 29:17
like the system’s not gonna, they did not want disruption. Eric DiCosta did not want something new, you know. He didn’t, he didn’t want the guy from who, who was the old quarterback, Cliff Kingsbury. I’ve said this all along. I think him sit with his feet up in Phoenix, or you know, overlooking Camelback. I’m thinking he didn’t want that guy. He wanted, he wanted this.

Luke Jones 29:39
I’ve said this all along. This has been more refreshed than reboot. I mean, it’s just think about it in terms of software, right? You and I are talking on Zoom right now.

Nestor Aparicio 29:50
Well, they all think the players are good enough to win 13 games, and they won eight last year, so they made a change in that department, right? Literally,

Luke Jones 29:57
but think about it in terms of Zoom, every. Often you download a new update, right, and sometimes it looks pretty different, actually, but you’re not switching from Zoom to, I don’t know, Teams, Teams, or something like Terrible, right? Hey, Teams, right, but that’s my point here. This is still Zoom, but it’s the refreshed, updated version, and it’s a little more dramatic than that, because I, I also want to be clear, and you and I didn’t butt heads about this, but we had spirited debate about this when they hired Minter. Like, look, he isn’t just a third Harbaugh, like he is his own man. He, he, he’s not a literally not a Harbaugh. Well, let’s

Nestor Aparicio 30:33
find out. Time will tell.

Luke Jones 30:34
So, we’ll see how he’s different, right? But because I would also say this, I mean, it’s like I said to you, like you and I work together, but very few people would say that you and I are alike in very many ways at all, right? I mean, we both have roots in watching Baltimore sports and talking about Baltimore sports, and we’re from this area. All your damn

Nestor Aparicio 30:53
wrestling stuff shows up on my timeline because of you. I know that. So, I spend too much time with you, and

Luke Jones 30:57
I both love pizza jobs, but like, there are a lot of things that were very different, and that’s okay, like that’s not a bad thing. And I said, look, you don’t want to

Nestor Aparicio 31:05
go to Boston with me next month, just tell me, all right? I won’t take it, all right. Let’s

Luke Jones 31:09
see how the next few weeks of baseball go, at the very least, right. But, but, but the point is, with that, like, you’re hoping when you make a hire like this, you’re hoping that Jesse Minter is going to take best practices that did work, because look, how anyone feels about John Harbaugh today, and whether it was the right move or not. It was time, in my opinion. I think most people feel that way with how this has played out. Most are not going to sit here, and I’ll continue to reject the idea that the Ravens won as much as they did over 18 years, in spite of John Harbaugh. I’ll continue to reject that notion, but you want to take best practices from him, best practices from Jim Harbaugh, and take some of those molded into your own, and then the things that you, as a coach, said, ‘Hey, you know, if I were a head coach, one. If I’m going to be a head coach one day, I wouldn’t do it like that. You know, everyone does that, right? We can all think some of our favorite teachers or favorite bosses we’ve had in our lives doesn’t mean we agree with everything they’re going to do or everything they do, but you’re going to agree with a lot of things and say, hey, that works, that works. I love that they did that. I never thought about that. That’s helped me a lot as a coach. I don’t like how he handles that, or I don’t like how we do that in practice. I would do it a different way, and that’s what you’re hoping for here, right? I mean, like, it’s not necessarily, you know, this goes back to I remember earlier in the offseason when they, right after the draft, when they signed the Pavia and the other undrafted rookie quarterback, and they have five quarterbacks on the roster. I still say to this point doesn’t make any sense, because you don’t have enough practice reps, and someone pushed back and said you’re thinking about it in terms of the John Harbaugh way. This is Jesse Minter now, said no, I’m not like if you understand how NFL practices work and understanding you only have x number of minutes that you can be out there for various portions of the spring, and even training camp, you cannot get enough reps for that many quarterbacks, that that it’s worth it, and that’s why I fully expect once we get into training camp, they’ll probably be down to four quarterbacks, or maybe even three quarterbacks by then, because especially considering you have one of the best quarterbacks in football as your starter, and you have a an entrenched backup, so where are these other reps going to, other than, yeah, you do want to have another guy or two for preseason games, depending on how you want to do that, so, but, but my, but my point with all that is, I never expected this to look 100% different, and I don’t even know what that would be. Again, like it’s football, like you’re not gonna change

Nestor Aparicio 33:45
the jerseys back in April. They didn’t even do that.

Luke Jones 33:48
Yeah, like they changed, you know, it’s subtle. But well, and

Nestor Aparicio 33:52
it’s like the coaching staff, they made a change, and I, I feel like for now it feels subtle to me. I’ll let you know when it feels less than that.

Luke Jones 33:59
Well, and as expected, ultimately comes back to, are you going to be successful or not? Like I asked Kyle Hamilton this because I thought it was interesting, and you know it was a very broad question, but I wanted to see how he would handle it, not not as a gotcha or anything like that, but just because I think so highly of Kyle Hamilton, and he’s a really smart guy, and he gets it, but I asked them, you know, how different is this defense, you know, not just talking in terms of Zach Gore last year and the year before, but go back to Mike McDonald in 22 and 23 Keep in mind, I mean, those three were part of this process that went back to kind of the end of the Dean Pease, going into Wink Martindale era of Ravens defense, where they really rebuilt the system and revamped it, and they made it in a way that they thought was little more flexible, more complex to the opposition, but simplified in how they teach it and communicate about it as with their players to make it. Easier to learn and easier to communicate and process, and all that. So, I just asked him, I said, “You know, how different is this with it being Jesse Minter’s defense now compared to Zach Gore’s defense, compared to Mike McDonald’s defense, because it’s all rooted in the same system that they all helped design and revamp. It was a system Zach Gore played in. Yeah, yeah, well, sure, but yeah, he said, and I’ll read you Hamilton’s quote, and you know, I’m not saying this is earth-shattering, but it speaks to what we were just talking about. He said, you know, I’m, he said, quote, I mean, in the best way possible, you bring in a new CEO, you don’t want to change the whole structure of the company, well, unless the company was doing really bad, so, and you know, he kind of, you know, brought some laughter there, but you kind of tweak stuff here and there, and say, if you’ve been good in the past, how do we get back to this? If you haven’t, how do we achieve this? You put your own little flavor here and there, and you confront what needs to be confronted, raise up the good, get rid of the bad, so you kind of sift through, like, all right. Here’s what you guys do really well. Here are the things the last couple years that we need to junk, right? And then he continues, or improve,

Nestor Aparicio 36:09
or improve. Sure, of course.

Luke Jones 36:10
Well, but sometimes it’s sometimes you just say, hey, like a pitcher in baseball, if you have five pitches and that fifth pitch that you throw gets, you get clobbered with it. Do you keep trying to improve it, or if you have a repertoire that’s good enough, get rid of it, right? Like, you just get rid of it, right? If you’re not good at it, don’t do it. So he said, but he continues. I feel like Jesse, along with everybody on the staff, has done a great job of that so far. We’re not coming out here like a completely different team or defense. I feel like we have a lot of the same players, a lot of the same bets that we’ve had. It’s just a matter of kind of resetting and getting to what we know that very much aligns with what we were just talking about, like this. It’s not a 100% new system. Now, Jesse Minter has different things that he’s going to prioritize and different philosophies that he’ll have that will differ from Zach Gore, that differs from Mike McDonald, and keep in mind coaches of all of the

Nestor Aparicio 37:06
reasons they hired these guys, especially with Doyle, would be that they felt like they matched him to Lamar, right, like they picked the coaches around the personnel to some degree, Eric has that latitude in the organization because of his tenure to strategize this better with Steve Bashati and Jupiter when they asked Harbaugh, right, to say what, what do we need for Kyle Hamilton, what do we need for Lamar Jackson at this point, that and it’s been built like that, not, we’re going to create a system and make Hamilton and Lamar play in it, right? Like that, that’s other teams have to deal with that. When you’re doing from scratch, you’re from scratch. This isn’t from scratch at all. This is from Hall of Fame quarterback and Hall of something, something, Kyle Hamilton depends on where you put him, but like this team has established great players that have played great in this system. They didn’t want to junk the system so much, so that they hired Harbaugh Junior here to come in. I don’t expect major changes. I mean, like, on the defense, all of this makes sense to me, and I think offensively you don’t, what they, I mean, monkey got, I got a job out of his, his 10 years OC here, you know, but

Luke Jones 38:30
I do think the offense is going to be quite different now. Again, when we say that we’re not reinventing the game of football, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re going to line up in formations that no one’s ever seen before. Now, there might be a little bit of that here and there, and if so, then good on Declan Doyle, but, but I, this is where it’s interesting, because I’m glad you brought up Lamar and Declan Doyle, because you know this, this is a way to transition into this. Lamar brought it up on Wednesday that Declan Doyle custom out at one point during practice, now not in, and Lamar was very good-natured in how he said this. This wasn’t something combative. Point is, the point that Lamar is trying to make is, despite that all the talk about Declan Doyle being a first-time play caller, the fact that he’s only a few months older than Lamar Jackson, this was an example of he’s coaching them, and that’s not to say that Todd Monken didn’t. I mean, Todd Monk, and absolutely coached Lamar Jackson, but I think there were questions when you hire someone that young, how is it going to work? Is he going to have the full accountability and full attention of players as a coach, or is this going to be, you know, you end up being a little bit more of a pushover, right? I mean, big job

Nestor Aparicio 39:44
for 29 year old,

Luke Jones 39:45
it is. I mean, he’s 30 now, so you know he’s older than Lamar, he’s 30, and Lamar is still 29 so he’s got that going for him. But by the way,

Nestor Aparicio 39:52
I went into Denny’s late night the other night, and I qualify for the late night meal. I’m over 55 so I just want to point out, first time my life I. Ever had the discounts, throw that in. I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be disrespectful to 29 to 30, but you can sound it better when he was 29 to me. 30 sounds, that sounds so, so you know, Sean Payton, or so, who’s the guy in LA, Sean McVay? It sounds so, you could be a 31 year old head coach, 29 different, you know,

Luke Jones 40:23
yeah, you can go for the early bird special now, but, but no, I just Lamar saying what he did, and look, that dynamic is going to be there in May and June when you know it’s still new, there’s still a novelty. It’s still the honeymoon period, and that’s, you know, I’ve talked about how quiet it’s been this spring. It’s, we’re still in the honeymoon phase, right? I mean, like

Nestor Aparicio 40:49
seeing your slam. I love how you’re just not even

Luke Jones 40:53
listening to what I’m saying. Just

Nestor Aparicio 40:55
thinking about getting old, and now he’s 30 now, and I’m like, that’s funny to me. I know that’s all. No, no, but

Luke Jones 41:03
I just.. you want that to continue. That needs to continue, and you want that same dynamic to be in place come November. That Declan Doyle is coaching those guys hard when they need to be coached hard, and holding them accountable when they need to be held accountable, and not just calling out Lamar, but anyone on the offense, if they’re not doing what they need to be doing in a certain instance, that is a challenging dynamic that you have to be like, that has to be a thing. So I think Lamar looked

Nestor Aparicio 41:32
happy to me, that’s my observation. My observation is all right, John’s gone, there’s new air, you know, maybe I’ll get my contract, maybe I don’t, but I got a quarter of a billion dollars in the bank. This is my team, I have survived this. They brought a new OC in, I’m going to get my input in. However, he felt about Monken, he probably could feel better about a coach than he felt about Monk in. I think you at the end,

Luke Jones 41:56
I mean, like, let’s keep in mind, and Lamar has even acknowledged this, and Todd Monken, I believe, even said that Lamar texted him when he got the head coach job for the Browns. I’m pretty sure Lamar reached out to him and said, you know, hey, congrats, I’m happy for you all. That you know, Lamar was very successful under Todd Monk in the first two years. MVP 2023 should have been, in my opinion, and I voted for him as PFWA MVP, and he won PFWA MVP in, in 2024 right? I mean, that was a historic offense in 2024 so, and that was a minute and a half ago, right? Yeah, I mean, we’re not, we’re talking about one, albeit very frustrated, Glenn Doyle was seen those

Nestor Aparicio 42:33
plays too,

Luke Jones 42:34
shores, right? Yeah, so, but it is going to be different, because you said it’s

Nestor Aparicio 42:38
going to be different, I keep thinking to myself, different, better be how they better use Lamar as a decoy to me. How could they better use him without getting him hit in effing up defenses because of him? And I said the other day, and I made this clear, he’s not going to be as fast as he used to be, but he’s still really

Luke Jones 43:01
fast, but he’s still really fair enough. But I think the biggest thing, the biggest talking point, as it talk pertains to that space, is need your offensive line to be a lot better than was last year, right? I mean, that was so much of the problem. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 43:14
that’s still not the case, if that’s, if that’s where we were most, but it needs to be better enough. Then,

Luke Jones 43:19
well, no, we don’t know that yet, but it needs to be better. It does look, man, you don’t need to have the best offensive line in football to win a Super Bowl, but you can’t have the 25th You can’t have the well, Texan

Nestor Aparicio 43:33
Doro would say I can draw them up, you just got to hold your block for seconds,

Luke Jones 43:37
and that’s, and that can be part of it. How many, you can’t

Nestor Aparicio 43:39
jump offside, you can’t get us into bad down and distances, we can’t have bad first downs, all of those things right

Luke Jones 43:45
there, and some of that might be, hey, maybe, maybe Lamar runs a little more quick game, maybe they run a little more quick passing game at times, right? I mean, and that can be a way to offset some leaky pass protection, right, and and they did that some under Monken, but there are other times where I thought they could do more of that, right? So, but

Nestor Aparicio 44:04
that’s not what it was designed to do. Monkey brought this thing in to have Lamar drop back and become that guy and win MVPs throwing the football, and did two out of the three years. You know,

Luke Jones 44:13
they did have Derrick Henry too. I mean, you know, in 24 not 23 It added up

Nestor Aparicio 44:17
to eight wins, and the coach getting fired, which is why we’re sitting talking about it right now, as a motivation,

Luke Jones 44:22
not in 2024 2025 that was the case, but, but the point with point I’m trying to make here is the Jesse Minter defense is still rooted in the same thing that was Zach Gore’s defense and Mike McDonald’s defense, right, they’re branches from the same tree, or the one that

Nestor Aparicio 44:41
Minter coached him with McDonald’s seven years ago,

Luke Jones 44:44
whereas now we’re talking about an offensive coordinator that is not this isn’t a Todd Monken disciple, right, whereas Jesse Minter wasn’t a Mike McDonald disciple as much as was a Dean P. Slack. Ash Wing, so all terminology has

Nestor Aparicio 45:01
changed, but a lot of homework for Lamar.

Luke Jones 45:03
Yeah, oh yeah, it’s a completely different, and Lamar even said this. I thought it was interesting. It is a

Nestor Aparicio 45:07
different language, as

Luke Jones 45:09
it’s brand new the way Lamar, because Lamar even said when Monken came in, there were elements of the Greg Roman offense that they kept in place. Now it was much different overall, but this seems completely different, right? And, and this is where we don’t know exactly what it’s going to look like, because you have Declan Doyle, who worked for Ben Johnson last year in Chicago, albeit Ben Johnson was still calling the place, and before that, keep in mind Declan Doyle was a Sean Payton guy, so Jacqueline

Nestor Aparicio 45:42
Doll never had his own language,

Luke Jones 45:44
no. So, so that’s where, like, this system, like, it’s going to be interesting. I assume it’s going to be very heavy Sean Payton. That’s what I was

Nestor Aparicio 45:51
going to say. Yeah,

Luke Jones 45:52
and with some Ben Johnson flavors mixed in there. So I’m fascinated to see what it looks like, right? And that’s where it’s.. I mean, we’ve already seen, right off the bat, the Ravens didn’t even try to keep Pat Ricard, like they’re not – they will use a fullback at times, but you know who that fullback’s going to be – it’s going to be one of the tight ends, right? Did

Nestor Aparicio 46:10
John ever step out and hire? I mean, John’s hiring would speak to John’s personality in a lot of ways, I think over 20 years of him hiring old men, to you know, that weren’t threatening to him, that weren’t aspiring to be head coaches again, in some cases of Marty Morning Wig, or, or even Wink, more gritty guys than necessarily,

Luke Jones 46:36
I mean, the Kubiak one was, and obviously, you know, regardless of how it Kubiak arrived, Gary Kubiak had been a head coach, right? Yeah, and became a head coach the next.. no, I’m

Nestor Aparicio 46:48
talking about taking on hot shot young guys that Warren is McDonald’s going to be a part of his trees already won a Super Bowl, McDonald might win three more, but I don’t know, but I’m just

Luke Jones 46:58
for a year, right, and came back, but the notion

Nestor Aparicio 47:01
that you would have a 29 year old OC in the case of Harbaugh, and we’ve talked about this ad nauseam, that Harbaugh was more defensive-minded, but really a special teams enthusiast, never called plays in an offense, never played in an offense, never played an offensive position, probably had a different kind of relationship with Lamar than Gary Kubiak could have with Joe Flacco, right, or whatever, playing the position, or even T Martin, let’s just say, right. So I’m fascinated by the notion that this is the first time that they’ve taken on a boy genius in a while. You know what I mean. Marvin Lewis was a boy genius for March Abroda. I’m just trying to think how many boy geniuses we ever had here, you know. Billick brought in Fossil and Neuheisel, and you know, I’m just trying to think of Rex Ryan, who was younger then and went on to be, you know, like went on to be a head coach, but the Deck Lead Doyle thing very much feels Johnny Bravo to me, like Peyton Johnson, he’ll be a head coach, that’s the pathway for him, and there’s nothing that can make you head coach quicker than an MVP quarterback, I mean, a six tool quarterback, I mean to go back to what you

Luke Jones 48:10
said, I mean, what Marvin Lewis, I think, was 38 when the Ravens arrived in Baltimore, you know, when the Browns arrived in Baltimore, and you know, we’re filling out a coaching staff, you know Mike McDonald, but again he was a homegrown guy, but Mike McDonald was very young when they hand the reins to him as the defensive coordinator. I think what’s interesting, and this kind of lends itself to, you already said this earlier in the segment, they hired someone that they know if this works, he’s very likely to be gone in the next year or two, you know what I mean, like they did not. This was not, let’s hire someone who’s going to be Jesse Minter’s offensive coordinator for the next decade, because that’s

Nestor Aparicio 48:52
where John Harbaugh would get criticized for hiring Zach, or in a, you know, I don’t know about Monk, I mean, Monkey’s a head coach now, right? So, like, I don’t know that that’s a McDonald’s. I mean, Harbaugh has,

Luke Jones 49:05
I kind of think it’s a lazy talking point, not that you’re making, but when people say that, because you don’t know, right? I mean, to your point, I mean, Todd Monken, and I granted it’s the Browns, like it’s a Brown. Did Marvin Lewis

Nestor Aparicio 49:16
make Ray Lewis great, or did Ray Lewis and that group get Marvin hired, right? I mean, it’s chicken or egg, right? I guess the

Luke Jones 49:24
point is you can’t be afraid of success, right? Right, you can’t be afraid of success. I mean, so you’re going to hire an inferior guy just because you don’t want to lose him, because he’s going to become a head coach. I mean, man, that’s a defeatist attitude to have, like that, right off the bat, like you’re cutting yourself off at the knees there, you’re cutting off your ceiling there. It

Nestor Aparicio 49:46
doesn’t feel Bashadi-esque.

Luke Jones 49:48
Yeah, so, and Bashadi

Nestor Aparicio 49:49
is in on all of these conversations, you know. This is the part where he takes this, is his, but, but I think Lean is my specialty, you know.

Luke Jones 49:57
But I think to me it seems very evident. The way this, and Steve said this himself, how this played out. I mean, this is much more Eric’s hire, right? I mean, and Sashi, Eric and Sashi Brown, way more Steve like one in 31

Luke Jones 50:11
I mean, Steve was still going to sign off at the end of the day, right? I mean, like, you know, if Eric hired someone that Steve hated, he wasn’t going to just let him. This was the

Nestor Aparicio 50:20
easiest sign off for Steve, though.

Luke Jones 50:22
Yeah, sure. I mean, I mean, the toughest, the tough part is letting go of John, right? I mean, that was the difficult part for Steve. Steve didn’t want to do that. You and I talked about that for years. I mean, but I think he recognized, like, we’ve got a quarterback who’s going to be 30 next year, and he’s not signed long term, and not that it was all about Lamar, but there were enough issues, and Lamar is your face of your franchise. He’s a franchise two-time MVP quarterback. There was an idea of, we’ve got to let someone else try this before we know, you know, if it comes down to it that Lamar is not going to be here for the next eight years,

Nestor Aparicio 51:00
we’ve got to at least try some more. I think it’s different to like what Buffalo did to McDermott and Josh Allen in the middle of that. I never felt that closest with Lamar and Harbaugh, in that they were lockstep in that way, that that I’m not shocked that life is okay for Lamar, and I said this 20 minutes ago, Lamar looks happy, looks adjusted to be here. Um, if Lamar wanted out, it might have been like, yeah, I’m done with him, I’m done with our ball, maybe. But put me, put me at Dolphins jersey owners, because I do think that that can be.. look, we, we spent an hour today talking about Bisayo and Albernaz, and I know Bisayo is going to, going to survive that, because he’s got $78 million in Albert as a team that’s six games under 500 so, but, but in the case of Lamar, Lamar being happy, it’s the only way they can win, you and I can, you and I can talk to her blue in the face about anything else we want,

Luke Jones 51:55
unhealthy, happy and healthy, yeah, it’s that simple, yeah, and again, just, just to clarify, I

Nestor Aparicio 52:00
don’t like the NBA application of that, that our quarterback has to, but that’s the, that’s the deal that they’ve set up out there, that’s the way that, but I would also,

Luke Jones 52:08
I would also reject any, and I’m not saying that you’re implying this either, I would also reject the notion that, like, that, that this John Harbaugh’s firing was not a power play by Lamar Jackson, no, not this was, this was an assessment of all the dynamics of the entire football team saying it feels like this feels stale, this feels like this is not, this feels like it was in

Nestor Aparicio 52:28
Lamar’s best interest as much as everybody else’s best interest

Luke Jones 52:32
exactly, and look, but but part of the unknown, and this is where we’re going to find out, as much as I talked about how this spring has felt quiet and harmonious and constructive, and all that. We don’t know anyone sitting here with 100% conviction that Jesse Minter is going to be a great NFL head coach. You’re talking out of your.. you know what? You don’t know, right? We don’t know.

Nestor Aparicio 52:56
That’s why september 13 is going to be fun. This is.. this is a little bit more of a delicious off season, and I think that I’m interested to see if the fans are as waved onto it or waved off of it, and again, this has to do with the Orioles being competitive or not, or the Knicks game, and the World Cup, and Ocean City, and what people are into, but the football thing’s going to go away. This, we’re ending this segment right now, and I don’t, we literally don’t know, I mean, the next time,

Luke Jones 53:22
yeah, we’ll talk a few times here and there, but it’s going to be kind of just recent, it’s going to be

Nestor Aparicio 53:26
after somebody gets arrested or they sign a secret, you right, literally,

Luke Jones 53:29
while you hope it’s not the former, the latter will see, I mean, they, I would think it’s

Nestor Aparicio 53:34
the only thing that’s going to put them in the news the next six,

Luke Jones 53:36
I would think in terms of if you’re going to add a center, right, in terms of if you’re going to bring someone else, you know what, via trade, whatever it is, I would think you’d like to have that in place sooner in camp than later, because there’s a lot that goes into communication, the dynamic between the center and the quarterback, your center calling out your protection, identifying the mic, making sure every, you are

Nestor Aparicio 54:00
convinced their center is not on the team right now, right? I mean,

Luke Jones 54:03
I just have a tough man. I mean, I want to make sure we get that in before

Nestor Aparicio 54:07
we get started on this.

Luke Jones 54:08
That is a great to me, telling me that Pinter or Gwen or Corey Bullock, you know, those are the three, you know, those are the three candidates, Danny Pinter, uh, Javon Eric’s

Nestor Aparicio 54:24
doing his, uh, summer thing down in North Carolina here in the next week or two. What does.. does he think he has a center?

Luke Jones 54:29
I’m guessing not, because,

Nestor Aparicio 54:31
okay,

Luke Jones 54:31
because of how he spoke immediately after the draft. I mean, he was flat out saying

Nestor Aparicio 54:35
we’re not done,

Luke Jones 54:36
we’re not done. He, he acknowledged the possibility of a trade, but assuming they’re going to do that, and I don’t know what the 100% I mean, a deal’s got to be there, right? Like, you’ve got to make, you can’t force it if there’s a starting caliber center that is on the market, then great, but at the same time, if there’s a starting caliber center, how many teams are willing to trade that, right? You know what I mean, like, so, but I would think. If you are making that kind of move, I’m guessing you want that in place by, I don’t know, second week of August at the latest, like that’s not something you want to do after final cuts, right? That, that doesn’t sound, that sounds very suboptimal, especially on top of all the newness you have with the coaching staff in general, so that doesn’t mean it has to be in place for day one of training camp, but I would think that’s something you want to try to have in place as early in camp as you can, because you want, you also have a rookie right guard playing next to that guy, so no matter how much we think of a want you want, a, and how good he’s going to be, and all that, and you’d like

Nestor Aparicio 55:40
to have continuity, just whatever it is, whatever we’re gonna have, let’s have it. It’s an offensive line, it’s the most important part in sports to have continuity. You change hockey lines, baseball’s an individual game, basketball, you know, you sub, you sub in on positions, you know, you know your role. Football on an offensive line, it’s a ballet, it’s a completely different

Luke Jones 56:00
exactly, it’s like

Nestor Aparicio 56:01
being in, it’s like being in rush and being the drummer, you know. Literally,

Luke Jones 56:05
and I’ll say this again. I mean, I’ve said this to you before, not in this conversation, but in earlier in the off season. I think Dwayne Ledford, their offensive line coach, beyond the coordinators and the head coach, is the most important man on staff, right? He’s got to have that group playing at a high level now. Again, going back to what we said a couple minutes ago, this doesn’t mean I don’t think the Ravens are going to have a top five offensive line in football, but it can’t be bottom 10, right? It needs to be solid at the very least. Give me a higher floor than what you had last year with ballet and Voorhees as your guards, right? The guards are in better shape on paper. I mean, you’ve got one in, you get, you gave John Simpson a $30 million contract, right? Three years, 10 million a year, so guards should be markedly better. Your center can’t be an utter liability, right? And let’s be clear, I don’t think they’re gonna go.. I don’t think they’re going to be trading for a Pro Bowl center. I don’t think that’s in the cards, but it’s got to be someone that is solid, someone that Jesse Minter and Declan Doyle, when they go to sleep at night, when Declan Doyle’s head is hitting the pillow, he’s not thinking about his center completely screwing up the operation and getting your quarterback killed, right? I mean, you can’t have that kind of scenario, because then to go back to your question from at the beginning of our conversation, then I’d say no, I don’t think the Ravens will be good enough to win a Super Bowl, if that is that big of a problem. So they’ve got to, they’ve got to figure that out, and I’d be lying to you, it’d be disingenuous of me to say that I think that that answer is on the roster right now, so we’ll see again. No disrespect to those guys, but you’re talking about undrafted guys, and in the case of Pinter, someone who has 10 starts under his belt over multiple seasons in the NFL, I mean, just not, he’s a backup, he’s been a career backup, so you, you can’t sell me on the idea that your O line is better when, okay, you’ve upgraded the guards, but you go from a Pro Bowl center, three-time Pro Bowl center, you know, to now having a complete unknown career backup lining up there, week one. I just, that doesn’t work for me, and I think the Ravens privately understand that as well. So, we’ll see what Eric DiCosta can cook up here between now and, you know, first couple weeks of training camp, because once you get beyond that, then then I really start to have my concerns about even if you make a move, is it then too late in terms of wanting to have this thing gelling and cohesive by the time week one rolls around,

Nestor Aparicio 58:42
all right. Luke will be in Owings Mills when the time comes, but for now it’s Camden Yards and it’s Machado Mania over the weekend. We got World Cup fever around here. I’ll be watching the games as well, NBA and Stevie Nicks, as well as the New York Knicks Stanley Cup Finals. Lots, lots of things happening around here, but football, nice and quiet, is the way Chad Steele wants it at Knowings Mills for the next six or seven weeks. He is Luke, I am Nestor, we are WNST AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore, and we never stop talking Baltimore positive.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Nestor Aparicio 0:01
Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore Positive, positively getting you ready for a hot weekend here in Baltimore, Maryland. San Diego Padres coming to town this weekend, of course. The Ravens now off the field at mini camp. All the information up at Baltimore Positive. Luke has been out in Owings Mills. He’s also been down at Oriole Park at Camden Yards the last couple days for the Seattle Mariners, who seven games with the Mariners, and doesn’t feel like a great time to run into them, although was nice for Jackson Holiday to run into a home run riches Grand Slam on truest sweet night of all things with the Maryland lottery, but we all know the real story. We’re the Knicks, right? Stevie Nicks specifically, as opposed to I don’t know, the Nick Cave that was down on the court at Madison Square Garden.

Luke Jones 0:50
It was incredible. I mean, I’ll openly admit I kind of tuned out when they’re down almost 30 points. It was 30 points, yeah, 945

Nestor Aparicio 1:00
at night, 10 o’clock, it was like, nah, I’m not putting that on, yeah.

Luke Jones 1:05
And at one point, and obviously I was checking in, because it’s the NBA, I know you’re not a big NBA guy, I’m not a, you know, I’m not a number one, you know, it’s not my top thing, but I was certainly checking in, and I had seen the Knicks had cut it to 15 or 16, and I’m like, okay, I mean, we’ll see. And then gets to the fourth quarter, and I absolutely dozed and woke up and saw, I mean, I, I didn’t miss the end, but boy, I mean, that was OGN and OB with the tip in that is going to go down in not just New York Knicks lore, but NBA lore. If the Knicks go on and win their first title in 53 years, they better not lose three in a row. Yeah, sure. Well, it was already, it was already trending in such a bad direction. I mean, you win the first two in San Antonio, and then Trump shows up, that Taylor Swift shows up, you’re losing by 30 and a half time, and it’s just, you know, the garden’s insane, and all of that, and you drop game three, and game four’s looking terrible. I mean, I, I remember I was standing out at not OTA, mandatory, mandatory mini camp for the Ravens on Wednesday afternoon, and a couple of us were flat out saying, whoever wins this game tonight, you know, whoever game wins this game Wednesday night, that’s momentum, it’s going to win the series. It really felt that way. So, we’ll see, but boy, was that an impressive, impressive moment, whether you’re a Knicks fan or even a big basketball fan or not. But I will say this, you know, Jalen Brunson is he fits that team in that city, and just the idea of New York basketball, he fits that perfectly, and for him to kind of, you know, obviously he didn’t have the tip in there, but for him to lead that kind of comeback, I mean, he’s already become a beloved figure there over the last few years, but he’s the new Clyde, pretty, pretty special, pretty special, and it’s not

Nestor Aparicio 3:02
over with, though. So

Luke Jones 3:04
they’ve got to finish the job, no question about it. But, but, yeah, that’s, uh, we came to talk baseball.

Nestor Aparicio 3:09
But how do you talk baseball after that thing? Well, I mean,

Luke Jones 3:12
they’re still funny to talk about with the Orioles. I mean, obviously they

Nestor Aparicio 3:15
won. That’s that’s the big news.

Luke Jones 3:17
They are now nine and one, and Brandon Young starts right. I mean, it speaks to it’s funny. I was thinking about this earlier in the game, you know, as he was already on his way at that point. He’d already thrown four or five shutout innings, and I was thinking, wow, if someone had told you in March that Brandon Young was going to have 10 starts under his belt by June 10, you would have said, oh, things aren’t going very well for them. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 3:41
things aren’t going well, very, and

Luke Jones 3:45
they’re not, but it has nothing to do with how he’s pitching, right? He’s been one of the bright spots, he’s been their number

Nestor Aparicio 3:52
two.

Luke Jones 3:53
I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 3:53
maybe they’re number one, really, over the balance of all of it. Yes,

Luke Jones 3:57
I think it’d be tough to argue that he hasn’t been their number one, just in terms of performance, now, is he the most dominant of their pitchers? No, Kyle Bradish has the most electric stuff when he’s right, and I put Shane Boz into that category when he’s right, but in terms of the guy that’s been the most consistent, in terms of the guy that’s giving you the steadiest performance, I mean, the one game they lost was the night cap of the double header against Houston, the game that you went to, where, where, if you keep in mind, Brandon Young certainly was not good in that game, but the defense also let him down early in that game, and what was not a good start for him was made even worse by the defense. So,

Nestor Aparicio 4:32
who was that left fielder, mr. Wilson? West

Luke Jones 4:36
was that a Weston Wilson left field game? Yeah, I think that was.

Nestor Aparicio 4:38
Well, he was playing third base that day. It might,

Luke Jones 4:41
yeah, well, some something like that. I mean, let’s face it, most of their outfielders aren’t very good, so

Nestor Aparicio 4:45
because Floyd Rayford wasn’t available, but,

Luke Jones 4:47
but, but he’s just, he’s been a heck of a story, and the thing that guys like me talked about a lot with him last year, even when he pitched well, right, even when he was in Houston and had the no-no late into the game, and we were. Sending out the WNST text alert. I forgot about that. Yeah, we talked a lot about his inability to miss bats, and don’t get me wrong, mean the strikeout numbers aren’t great by any means. On Wednesday night, he struck out five over seven innings. That’s, that’s solid, but it’s not, you know, it’s not something in the modern day that’s impressive. But he’s missing enough bats. He has a splitter that’s getting him some swing and miss. He got a swing and miss with the slider on Wednesday night. I mean, he’s just.. you’re seeing someone who’s more comfortable, you’re seeing someone who’s given you consistent performance. He looks like he

Nestor Aparicio 5:36
belongs. Yeah,

Luke Jones 5:37
he does. And I don’t want to.. I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, and I, I think in terms of if we’re going to make the argument for him belonging, you’re still talking about someone who still best profiles as a back end of the rotation guy. I’m not going to sit here, but I don’t know that Dean Kramer’s shoving him out of the rotation at this point. He might be shoving Rogers out of the rotation. Sure, sure, I absolutely, I mean, especially Trevor Rogers in a contract here. I mean, if he’s not gonna, and he’s pitched better of late, right? I mean, okay, like I’ll hear that. But yeah, I mean, Brandon Young’s been a heck of a story. And when you consider everything going on a four game losing streak, Adley Ruchman banged up with the hamstring, who knows what’s going on with the Samuel Bisayo thing, I mean, it feels disciplinary, I mean odd, bizarre, however you want to classify it. Point is, there’s a lot going on in addition to them just suddenly not playing well again. So, for Brandon Young to go out there and do what he did, and frankly, do it without much run support until finally the Orioles broke through late. I mean, they leave the bases loaded early on with nobody out. I mean, it was that was

Nestor Aparicio 6:48
ugly. I was sitting at Coco’s, I went to Coco’s, got myself a Greek salad, a little bowl soup. I didn’t put anything on social media, but I was sitting there at the bar watching that. I’m like, hey, bases loaded, nobody out for it, let’s go, man. Everybody in the bar is watching. I mean, out of the, but you know, holiday hits the Grand Slam, right? You talk about belonging, or what has to happen here, man. Where they are with Henderson right now, and especially with contracts with the two of those guys, with Henderson and Ruchman, not you’re not in any position to give either one of them hundreds of millions of dollars right now, you would make a case for Henderson, it doesn’t matter anyway, because Boris isn’t doing that, Posio signed, he’s the only guy that’s sort of signed amongst all of these, this thing’s going to work out, let’s say post Michaelias, let’s say after mr. Rubenstein’s book on sports ownership comes out that Jackson Holiday needs to emerge as being the next great thing around here. Did a lot of losing to get that guy. I just want to continue to point that out, that when he does good things, that starts my clock for well, whether they can be any good without Henderson and Ruchman, whenever they’re gone, because holiday will be the guy on the point at that point, two three years from now, right.

Luke Jones 8:05
Well, I mean, I only get

Nestor Aparicio 8:06
two three years from now, and a team had one in 43 years, sure. There are five games under 500 I don’t like the general manager, I don’t like the manager, I don’t like the owner. I’m not sure that I love their collection of star players. Neither one of us love the pitching, so neither one of us like the injuries, so I just keep thinking like when all of this is gone, when Araghetti and Rubenstein sell off to the Gypsies, the Saudis, two years from now, for whatever, they wouldn’t want baseball, but Holliday will be the out of all of this the guy that’s better still be standing here four or five years from now, where I mean, as I look at it, for me, I’m moving into that range now to say, all right, they’re not going to win with these guys, they’re going to win a World Series right now. What’s the next thing? Holidays a one one, and I know you may make the case that you know he might turn out to be an adequate baseball player, but he doesn’t look like he’s going to, he doesn’t look like Robbie Alomar right now, so far.

Luke Jones 9:02
Yeah, I mean, and I would, I would use more than adequate. I mean, he’s an adequate player now. I mean, he’s last year was a solid year for him. It wasn’t tremendous. It wasn’t what you’re projecting and dreaming of when you draft someone one one, but we’ve also talked about that. I mean, we’ve talked about recent one ones across baseball, who been sent to the minors recently, right? It happens a lot. I mean, Tim Beckham was a former one one, and the Orioles had him as a retread, right? I mean, like, you also look

Nestor Aparicio 9:32
at Bobby Witt, and you wonder, like, did we get Ryan Lee for Peyton Manning, right? Like, and this is where you start to measure all, and it wasn’t,

Luke Jones 9:39
and it wasn’t that, because you know, even if Adley Ruchman wasn’t the right choice, there, using hindsight being 2020 he’s, he’s already been a lot better than Ryan Leaf ever was, right? But yeah, like you’re looking at this and you’re trying to figure this out, and I mean, that’s why I look at the Bisayo thing, and I say, okay, either you have a manager that’s alienating one of your best. Young players, that’s actually been a success story to this point, as a 21 not quite 22 year old, or you have some level of an attitude insubordination issue, something right, that we’re seeing this because Craig Alberna’s explanation doesn’t make any sense if he’s healthy enough to come off the bench and even catch on consecutive days. Why is he not starting three straight days, especially when Adley Ruchman is out of the lineup and unavailable for three straight days with a hamstring issue? It doesn’t make any sense, and the only thing that makes sense is it’s some kind of a disciplinary issue. Now I’m not saying that it’s a dire thing, and that it’s something that’s beyond repair, or anything like that. I mean, that would be crazy to say, but how can you not look at this and ask the question, you know what’s going on here with this, and you know, of course, to the to the credit of those that were there for pregame, obviously, I’ve been at Raven’s mini camp the last couple days, and haven’t been there for pregame. He was peppered with questions, I mean, it was six questions in a row, like, why, why is he available. Well, this is where, when

Nestor Aparicio 11:10
real media gets involved, and I saw people complaining about the Ravens media on Twitter, and literally on the YouTube feed, is I’m a media member that’s watching the press conference on TV, because they banned me, but for no reason at all. But the baseball team, this is where we get into, are they going to be honest? Are they going to lie? And you’ve already said, well, Craig Albernaz says doesn’t make sense. Well, they’ll take your press pass for that, dude. You know what I mean? Like, you’ll call him a liar now. Like, I, I, if they lie, they lie, so to some degree, here, and again, stadium sleepy, they’ve lost four games in a row, they’re five games under 500 Oh, look at the Knicks, oh, look at World Cup, there’s million, oh, Luke’s not even here, he’s at mini camp, whatever that is. So, like, they just put you

Luke Jones 12:00
to sleep, but it, you said it feels disciplinary. Okay, I mean, what else would it be? I mean, what else would it be if he’s hurt? He’s hurt, and he can’t play, but he’s come in and he’s played, and, and we’re not even talking, okay? He’s got some kind of a leg, ish, not saying he did, or that he does, but the scenario exists of a Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series, right? The pinch hits once and hits a home run, and he hobbles around the bases because he can barely walk. He wasn’t going out to play right field in the bottom half or the next inning if the game continues, right? If it goes into extra innings, so that’s where I look at this, and it just.. it doesn’t make any sense, right? I mean, it doesn’t. When you

Nestor Aparicio 12:42
reference the Kirk Gibson home run, that was a great.. I’m just saying, I

Luke Jones 12:45
mean, like, there’s.. there’s pinch hitting. I thought that was the

Nestor Aparicio 12:48
greatest thing I’d ever seen in my life at that moment. 20 years old, it was tremendous.

Luke Jones 12:52
I mean, I’ve.. you know, I don’t have a memory of watching that live or anything like that, but I certainly.. you know, it’s one of the storybook moments in professional sports, right? I mean, I

Nestor Aparicio 13:04
never thought about him not having to go back out, play the outfield till you just brought up, but that’s my point. I mean, think

Luke Jones 13:09
about, he didn’t play again in the series, yeah. So, but that’s my point with looking at the messiah thing, and I’m just, okay,

Nestor Aparicio 13:17
you’re calling bullshit, that’s fine, you’re allowed to do that, especially allowed to do that at WNSD. Well, a few places were still allowed to do that around here.

Luke Jones 13:23
Albert S didn’t even give anything, you

Speaker 1 13:25
out.

Nestor Aparicio 13:25
No, I mean, but this is the issue, you know. But six questions for the manager, and you still think he’s lying. Well, it’s not even about lying, that’s just not

Luke Jones 13:33
saying anything, like, like there’s not. He didn’t say anything to even call BS on, because it’s just like, let me give you the I’m not going to read the entire transcript, but the very first question, why? Here’s the key, why is Samuel Bisayo on the bench again, but available late in games, and his answer, and I’m reading this quote, and this from this is from Jacob Calvin Meyer transcription, and look, I mean, the video was online, everyone can see, and you know, see the comments here,

Nestor Aparicio 14:00
watch him,

Luke Jones 14:00
yeah, you could take him talking, and but his answer was yes. Sammy’s had great work days the past couple days, and today as well. He’ll be available off the bench today as well. That, I mean, that’s not remotely an answer, right? So this to me sounds like if we’re trying to read the tea leaves, and look, I also understand if it is a disciplinary issue. Well, then you say

Nestor Aparicio 14:24
to him, is it disciplinary? Simple question, isn’t

Luke Jones 14:28
it? And that would have been my..

Nestor Aparicio 14:29
that’s why they need me in the locker room. I’ll point that out again, but go ahead. They need me in the locker room for days when I’m banned from both of them, and you can’t be at both of them. How about that? How about as simple as that, that we have two reporters and there are two teams. So today’s the day I’m allowed to be pissed about that, especially when you think the manager’s lying to everybody, not lying to you, not lying to Jacob Calvin Myer, who I’ve never met. I don’t just

Luke Jones 14:52
not saying anything. I mean, there’s, you know, well, they’re not being

Nestor Aparicio 14:55
honest to their fan base, and that’s, you know, above and beyond all the rest of it. It’s just, but we

Luke Jones 15:01
also understand that claim to

Nestor Aparicio 15:02
the fans what’s going on, that’s all. And if you don’t, we all do, then say you’re not going to tell anybody. Well, and I guess maybe he did,

Luke Jones 15:08
right? I mean, that was his way of saying we’re not going to, we’re keeping this internal, and look, keeping it

Nestor Aparicio 15:14
internal is disciplinary,

Luke Jones 15:16
right? Like it is, but my point is with that, I understand that they’re not going to air all the dirty laundry, and we don’t know. Again, could this be an issue where you have a manager that’s being unfair to a player, or do you have a player who absolutely has an issue and needs to be addressed? Right, and doesn’t mean it’s not helping a

Nestor Aparicio 15:38
team win. Okay, that’s where you and I come at, right? And that’s where, at it, on behalf of the fans who are listening or watching that on the internet, that that is our job. That’s become my number one goal, is figuring out when they’re bullshitting me, when they’re not. I mean, that’s literally the job these days, and to sit here and argue about it, and take phone calls over at the fan about it, and make excuses for it. If you’re Brett Hollander, you’re Rob Long, because you have to, because that’s your job, because that’s what you get paid to do. So they peppered all of this, but it doesn’t make any sense. It make any sense to Joe Enoch when the lineup came out at 430 yesterday, and I’m on there like the lineup doesn’t make sense to the people who support the team. This isn’t this isn’t rocket science, dude. You go down there with notebooks, and you ask questions, you expect an answer, and if the answer is no answer, then we investigate further, because that’s what we do. Somebody you know, if somebody would figure out if he was out late drinking, or if he broke a rule, or if he’s 21 years old, so I mean, but disciplining a person publicly on a public team that’s losing that could use said player, that’s why we’re here, that’s what we do, that’s what, that’s why we have a radio show, that’s why we, we created sports radio here for the masses 35 years ago, like I don’t, I don’t understand what we’re doing there. If they’re not going to be honest, and if they’re not going to be clear, then they should all expect us to call it what it is, and we’ll sit here and guess until we find out. You’re like, you didn’t think it was anything off the field, on the field, I mean,

Luke Jones 17:17
well, and this is where I do want to offer the proper context, especially, especially for those who aren’t necessarily watching every single night. What makes us speculate

Nestor Aparicio 17:26
more than anything else, which is all I want to give the proper

Luke Jones 17:29
context here. He did get banged up recently, right? He had the issue, they called it abdominal discomfort, and he came out. He know, if you’re the manager, can I talk? Sure, I want to lay this out for people who don’t, because I don’t want to make it sound like it’s disciplinary out of the blue, right? He’s dealt with a couple things here, minor things, right? He had an abdominal issue here that they even ran imaging on, and it was fine. Then he had the play at the plate in Toronto, had his wrist kind of bent a little bit, reacted to it in a way that made you fear the worst at first, but then they said that looking at his wrist, he has a bony growth on his wrist that apparently he’s always had, and it’s something that I, and I, and I think it’s something along the lines, probably of I’ll use one example, I on my arm here, I have just a little bony thing. My doctors look, you know, looked at it numerous times. There’s nothing wrong with it, right? It’s just like a cyst, or you know, it’s not any anything to be worried about. It’s not anything that needs to be removed or anything like that at this point in time, but if I happen to bump it on something, it really hurts for a couple minutes, right? So I assume Visaya was dealing with something like that, and could he

Nestor Aparicio 18:49
say he can bat, but he can’t catch,

Luke Jones 18:51
or like, but he can catch, but this is what this is what I’m getting to. So if you feel he’s not understanding the difference between hurt and injured, and if we’ve seen some of the comments, if you’ve seen some of the comments from Albernaz the last several days, it’s implied that, right, there’s been some implication of Sammy needs to understand over 162 you are going to get banged up some here and there, and sometimes you can’t play, but other times you can play, and especially in the situation, and he didn’t go into this detail, but we know Adley Ruchman is legitimately can’t play for a few days here, and it seems like he’s going to avoid the IL, but we’re going to find out over the next couple days, because if he’s still not ready, then you need to IL him, but point is, you do get into some situations where your team needs you, we need you, like this isn’t – we’ve checked you out, you’re fine, like there’s not – you’re not dealing with a muscle strain or a sprain or whatever it is, and we don’t know exactly how Bisayo reply responded to that behind closed doors, the fact that it has. Even been suggested publicly would lead you to believe that there’s some frustration there, definitely on Alberna’s part or the team’s part. The frustrations they’ve

Nestor Aparicio 20:09
lost four games in a row in the middle of part

Luke Jones 20:12
of it. Sure, no question. So, is there a scenario, and this is where, as much as I’m saying it does feel disciplinary, is there a little bit of all right, Sam? You say you’re banged up. We’re going to sit you down the next few days. We’re going to, you know, you’re available off the bench because we might need you, but so I don’t know. I mean, that’s the best I have for you, in terms of I’m not sitting here saying that he’s 100% I’m not sitting here saying that he hasn’t been banged up a little bit here, but there’s been a clear implication that he’s healthy enough to play, and he did play on Monday night and Tuesday night, albeit coming off the bench, but even coming off the bench and getting three at bats total, and even catching, so that tells me if he’s healthy enough to do that, why isn’t he starting, and that’s where you go back to the non-answers that were given on Wednesday to a series of questions, and saying, you know, this feels like it’s punitive to some degree, right? So, no, watch me

Nestor Aparicio 21:12
in all of this, by the way, like he’s got,

Luke Jones 21:14
he’s got a hamstring issue, he tested it out Wednesday, it sounded like it went okay, it sounded like he could maybe have been available, so probably seen

Nestor Aparicio 21:26
before the Padres. So,

Luke Jones 21:27
well, if he does, if he’s not ready to play now, you need to IL him, right? I mean, you can’t play a man down for, you know, you can do that for two or three days, you don’t want to do that more than that. So, we’ll see, but, but, yeah, it’s not, it’s not a great look, because, like I said, if you take everything that we’re trying to interpret here, and if it is a disciplinary thing, albeit a minor one, again, you’re not sending them to the miners or anything crazy like that, you’re not suspending them, but you either have a situation where you have a manager who is being over the top potentially, and alienating a player that is young and impressionable, and other players on this team aren’t playing well or aren’t doing things you want.

Nestor Aparicio 22:10
He’s also the only guy that’s gotten paid, and he’s there’s there’s an issue. I’m thinking about this like a 21 year old here, which is, I mean, I was 21 a long time ago, but like sense of entitlement. There’s the sense of he’s got $78 million Craig Albernaz has his $1.8 million contract, or whatever it is, and Craig Albernaz was a guy who would love to have had the skill set that Pasayo had behind the plate, and all of that. I think about this as rookie manager, right? We’re losing, we’re getting our ass kicked, my pitching is not good enough, you know. Just the ballpark’s empty, the man, the owner’s absent again now. Writing a book, apparently, got married last week too. So, there’s all this going on. It’s failing for the manager, right? Like, on a nightly basis, this is a sweat for him. It’s his first job. It’s not going well. It’s not going hundreds, yeah. It’s not going well, and as much as somebody, Brian Roberts said he was doing a great job last week on the broadcast. I’m like, dude, there are seven games under 500 at some. I’m like, like, Brian, no, you know, come on, you work for the team, but I mean, come on, dude, get Greg Bader out of your earpiece, or whatever you’re saying there, don’t embarrass yourself.

Luke Jones 23:22
Well, for

Nestor Aparicio 23:23
me, with, but go ahead.

Luke Jones 23:25
No, I was just going to say, there are, there are multiple ways to judge a manager beyond wins and losses, right? There can be, there can be teams that have that win and don’t have very good managers. There also can be teams that are really bad, but do have good managers. I would say I would put it way more in the bucket of, and let me be clear, I understand where you’re going with that. I don’t really know yet. Here’s

Nestor Aparicio 23:47
where I’m going with it. It’s been seven months, eight months since they’ve hired him from press conference to today, and everything, the body of work I’ve seen. And again, they’ve denied me a press credential to know him, so I come on the air, you sit in a room with him five days a week, I don’t, so I don’t. I got no dog in the hunt. It’s a television show for me, except when they turn it off and put Tom Davis on in the middle of the game, like they did the other night, too. So they’ve had a hell of a week around here in a general sense. And now we’re questioning the integrity of the manager, which is fine if he’s gonna lie, let him. I mean, I question the integrity of all of them on a day when you can’t even get there to be at the press conference for a 30 year operation that’s served fans and served their customers here much better than they serve their customers, I assure you, certainly with much more integrity over the body of work. I always think about the baseball team in the last two years, and I know they don’t think about it this way, because I’ve met them. I thought about, like, if you and I bought the Orioles, and we were going to clean up the Angelos thing, having been here, how many things we would have to do to take over a dirty operation. I thought about this when I was running for mayor of Baltimore, right, like. What place had a worse reputation than Baltimore? The first thing you need to do is work on the reputation, and part of the reputation is work on the reality of it. I don’t have to come out here and say that Rush was good the other night in LA, good for 72 good for old guys. She played good because she was a girl, and she did okay for she wasn’t Neil, but she, like, I can brag on that, because it was great. The Orioles are the same thing for my money, for my $20 beers, and for my tickets, and for sitting here giving them all the time that I give them. They pulled the television, the game off the television in the middle of the night. I mean, they didn’t even give me the game the other day as an entity. The owner’s off writing books about sports ownership, when that guy forget about him. I mean, like, I’m just.. I’m over the top on how bad the ownership has been, but part of this goes down to the manager and Sam Bisayo.

Nestor Aparicio 25:53
When the lineup comes out, that Joey knock and I, and you, and all the rest of the old white guys that are still left of us and Alan that still care about the team and are into it, into it, like you’re at the ballpark, you’re driving down, you’re running around on behalf of the fans, on behalf of me, and all of our sponsors to get answers for, for all of this, to cover sports, to create excitement around the team that can’t get 7000 people to the ballpark on a Wednesday night when they’re giving their dogs $20 to get dogs in, I mean, I don’t, but the manager to be playing games in the dugout about communicating with the fan base about why players are playing or not playing, the fact that we’re sitting here talking about that when they’re five games under 500 a night when Holiday hit a home run to me, the trust level of the operation, the integrity level of the operation, is where I get on all of this, and it’s so broken over three decades by the dead guy that I can’t blame it on anymore, that I can only point at Katie Griggs and Greg Bader and the Whistler, not even a Rubenstein and Araghetti, because they’re absentee, they’re not even a part of this Don Rovax, you know what I mean, like these are the people that have an empty stadium, have a television network that took their game off in the middle of the game, so much that I had to go out in the car and listen to Brett Hollander, and then the next day the manager’s not even being honest with the fan base about why guys are playing or not playing, and then we’re sitting here the day after they win and speculating about, like, they just need to be better, they just need to be better at everything again, all over again. My 34 years with Angelos, they need to be better than this, and in a lot of ways, and I just don’t, I, I’m not impressed by Craig Albernas, not on television, not on television, not on strategy, not on intellect, not on explanation, not on being a Baltimore guy, or like, be like rally in the, like, I don’t know, their stadium’s empty, Minter doesn’t have to worry about that, I mean, Minter, the Chad Steele doesn’t worry about that. I mean, they don’t worry about that. The baseball team has an optics issue. I mean, I’m sitting in Coco’s, I could have gone to the game. I went down to Coco’s and dropped 90 bucks on fun dinner, like I could have gone and spent 12 bucks. It was a beautiful night after the rain cleared. By the time I got in the car, went down Bel Air Road got to chocolate, chocolate chip cookies. I got a chocolate chip cookie, free plug for Woodley Bakery on Bel Air Road, old neighborhood, Moravia, right across from the late great Scottie Donahue’s Ford dealership. I mean, I was driving down Bel Air Road, and I swear to you, listening to the game, and because I was kind of shocked, started on time, because I kind of arrived at Coco’s at 645 like two at bats in, and I could have gone to the game, and there were people at the bar wearing Oriole hats, and I’m thinking, you’re here, you’re not at the game, games 12 bucks, it’s three miles away, there’s no parking issues, like to go to the game, like it depresses the ish out of me to sit just to see how empty it is on television every night, and then to think the night before then you put it on, and then that sit here the day after, and you and I talking about the manager not being honest with the fan base, and it was all over my social media because I covered the team whether they like it or not, so at 430 when the when the lineup’s out and Enoch’s on a thread yelling about it on Facebook, and I’m yelling about it, and we’re wondering. In the old days, we’d say, well, that’s why Rosenthal’s down in the dugout asking questions, or that’s why they let Luke or Nestor, or whoever, down there. If you’re not going to get a straight answer, then they’re no better than the Angelos people.

Nestor Aparicio 29:36
They really aren’t. I mean, like all the way around, all the way around, other than the obstinance that the old man had, and the complete incompetence of all of it, I don’t know. I don’t smell good on TV. It doesn’t smell good from where I am. The manager having guys like you that just wanted to be honest, and we have to sit here and question whether what’s going on. Scio, and I even have to say, was he out drinking? You’re like, no, no, no, and I’m like, well, I don’t know, there’s 21 year old guys, I, you know, I’m thinking it’s like a fan, I’m, I’m just, I’m just a fan with the beer at the end of the bar, you know, like, be clear, be or be clear that it’s disciplinary, we’re not going to get into, and then that’s the end of that, then you can just say, well, something happened, and sniff around if you wish, but not answering questions when you’re Craig Albernaz, and you’re trying to win integrity and fan points, and get people to the ballpark, and get people excited about your baseball team. It’s poor, it’s as poor as Jennifer Grand Doll or Chad Steele being communication specialists who don’t communicate. It’s just poor, that’s all I’m gonna say. Because I care about the baseball team, they’re in the middle of a home stand, that the only thing that matters here, they’re not the Knicks, they’re not the Vegas Knights, they’re not Team USA or any Somalia, they’re not the World Cup, they’re what we care about here, and it’s poor, and I just want to say that out loud. It’s poor that in the middle of the home stand where I’d like to go down and go, go see the Padres. It’s poor

Luke Jones 31:11
to bring it to bring it back to the micro of the actual situation. I’ll go back to what I said, I mean, and everybody

Nestor Aparicio 31:17
listening is happy, you just did that. It

Luke Jones 31:19
feels like you either have a manager that is struggling to get through to a young player, or flat out alienating a young player, or.. and again, I don’t want to make this that it’s all Craig Abernas, because for all we know, Sam Pasayos being a, you know what, behind the scenes, right? I mean, but you

Nestor Aparicio 31:40
can’t go up to Sam Bisayo and ask him after the game.

Luke Jones 31:42
Well, he was at, he was asked about this, not about being benched, but about the comments that have been made recently. That’s why I’m trying to give the full context. Sam,

Nestor Aparicio 31:52
are you healthy? Yes, I played. So, right?

Luke Jones 31:56
Or you have, like I said, in some kind of an attitude, insubordination, something going on right, and like I said, it’s not completely out of left field in terms of some of the comments that have been made going back to the Toronto series, but at the same time, it’s it’s not ideal either, either of those situations, whether it’s on the manager or whether it’s on the player, it’s good, right? And I don’t want to make it out to be that it’s this dire thing that he’s going to end up being traded, or losing four games

Nestor Aparicio 32:28
in a row, you’d like to have your best players on the field,

Luke Jones 32:31
and that’s where I wanted to bring up what Jim Palmer said on the air, and you know this was his direct quote, and I saw Andy Costa of the Baltimore banner transcribed it, but the quote was, “He’s the manager. He said it’s about accountability. He’s the one responsible for wins and losses. All I know, and I said this Monday night, “If you don’t play Adley Ruchman, you don’t play Samuel Bisayo, and you’re trying to win games, I’m happy if I’m one of the Mariners pitchers. I’m elated, I’m joyful. I would send them flowers if he’s able to play late in the ball game. I’m surprised he’s not in there, that’s all. I don’t think this is the time when you’ve lost four in a row to teach a lesson. I don’t care how young you are, but that’s just my opinion. And leave it to Jim Palmer, who is 80 years old. And so Jim Palmer’s

Nestor Aparicio 33:14
talking out loud about them teaching him a lesson. So then, then that tells me all that we need to know, that it is disciplinary.

Luke Jones 33:19
I mean, and look, I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 33:22
and by the way, Jim Palmer has told me that they treat him as poorly as they treat me. I just will say that out loud. I want to say that on behalf of Jim Palmer, who played with my cousin, whom I love, who I love watching on TV, who I feel awful that he’s been has had to endure 30 years of Greg Bader and John Angelos and Peter Angelos, and really lousy baseball on behalf of all of us, and have to make excuses for these people, and can is not allowed to even talk to me publicly because they would fire him. He’s Jim Palmer.

Luke Jones 33:58
Yeah, I mean,

Nestor Aparicio 33:59
I prefer what he says to what Craig Albernaz says in some, in some way of integrity. At the very beginning, Jim Palmer knew Brooks, he has integrity.

Luke Jones 34:10
Well, Jim’s 80 years old, and he’s not worried about what other people are going to say about it, right? He’s going to, he’s going to speak his mind. He’ll

Nestor Aparicio 34:17
eat a chicken wing when he damn well feels like

Luke Jones 34:19
so, right. So, but his point about them having lost four in a row, and you’re trying to win games, and is this the right time to teach a lesson or not? I mean, look, I’ll also say this, I would, Jim might be privy to more than what you and I have talked about, but to the point that you just alluded to, doesn’t mean he necessarily knows the whole story either, but you look at it from face at face value of what we’ve seen. They don’t want him to know this truth, because

Nestor Aparicio 34:49
they’re afraid that he’ll say it to me and I’ll say it on

Luke Jones 34:53
the air. They’re not afraid of that. They’re afraid of Jim just saying it. Period. Because Jim doesn’t have. Filter, he’s going to just say it, right? He’s going to speak his mind about it, and that’s why we love Jim Palmer, right? He’s been the highlight of Palmer more than Craig Albert, as so. But just again, to bring it back to the here and now, and to not be at the 30,000 foot perspective, they did win, they won, I assume. At I assume we’re gonna see Bisayo back in there today, because if he’s not back in there for the finale, then now it’s just becoming a complete S storm, because people are very aware now and are asking questions and are wondering, kinda like when Kevin Brown disappeared for two weeks, you can get away with it for the first day or two. I mean, think about it, I mean, even Monday night, Posia wasn’t in the lineup, and I thought, oh, you know, he was banged up, you know, they’re giving him a day for the wrist, I think you said that on Tuesday, yeah, and then when he’s not in there again, you’re like, okay, but, but he pinch hit the night before, why isn’t he? And then when it’s the third straight day, then that’s when you’re just like, all right, like, what, seriously, what’s going on here, especially because Richmond’s not in there, I mean, no, nothing against Sam Huff, dude, it’s very

Nestor Aparicio 36:04
easy if I’m a 21 year old guy with a $78 million contract to say to the manager, dude, and I was 21 and let’s be clear, Jack Gibbons, how I went, assist, I want to be very clear

Luke Jones 36:17
about this, and this is where I’ll defend Craig Albernaz, in terms of what, how his, whatever they are dealing with internally. One, you know, me, one of the biggest things I don’t like about current fan culture on social media specifically is it tends to be very pro player. When you lose, what happens? You blame the coach, you blame the manager. It’s never the player’s fault. And let me be clear, that doesn’t mean it’s always the player’s fault either. I’m going to be very clear about that. So, my point here, in trying to assess this, if it is a disciplinary matter, and it really feels that way, because otherwise it just doesn’t make sense. Like, if he’s not healthy enough to play, he wouldn’t be pinch hitting and then going into the game and catching. So, well, the lead story is that

Nestor Aparicio 37:00
Luke Jones came on here and said the manager’s being dishonest about this, that that’s where this began, that’s where the conversation began. I mean, it

Luke Jones 37:07
just, I was

Nestor Aparicio 37:08
going into Jackson Holiday and giving away John Martin’s money, but yeah, but I’m listen, I think this is a communication issue for their brand and for Albernaz’s brand and their young guy that they’d like to put on the side of the warehouse at some point and say Sam Bisayo is going to the Hall of Fame, he’s gonna hit 500 home runs, like this is weird, and if you remember Machado had a lot of problems early on too, just, you know, like being a young guy, and we’re talking about Jackson Holiday, you’re gonna bring him young and have him play 2122 23 you know, wine, women’s song, girls, late nights, young, dumb, and full of testosterone, and like all of that plays into all of this cultural, all of that plays into all of this for baseball.

Luke Jones 37:52
So, so what you’re hoping happens with this is both sides learn from it, right? You have a first time manager, and you have a 21 year old who’s in his first full year in the big leagues. I’m guessing the truth lies somewhere in the middle, in terms of maybe Albernaz, and again, I’m not talking about his pub front facing, I’m talking about what’s actually happening behind closed doors with the team. They’re getting

Nestor Aparicio 38:16
their ass kicked, and they had a fight in the room behind closed doors, they had some words, and I’m the manager, and you don’t speak to me that way, and like, like, I look, yeah, I’m

Luke Jones 38:26
just saying, like, and again, I don’t even want to speculate what exactly happened, or what exactly said, or what the exact reaction is, but I’m guessing when, when you look back at it, when both parties look back at it, I’m guessing there’s some truth, and there’s some fault that could go both ways, where, yeah, Sam, you probably do need to toughen up a little bit, in terms of not that you’re not tough, but in terms of recognizing what it takes to be a big leaguer over dude, if you’re gonna challenge a

Nestor Aparicio 38:53
Latin guy about his toughness, who’s 21 I just went, I just used the word culture, I just use the word culture, I just use that word, and if Craig Albernaz has been around white guys and black guys and Latin guys and all guys and total guys and nothing but guys and baseball guys and dudes and Trump voters and bearded guys and guys who shoot things, and like that’s the culture of baseball, that’s what he’s been doing his whole life, and if he’s got a 21 year old kid who’s paid, and you’re gonna start that, that’s why I bring up Machado, because Machado was considered uppity, and this and that, and arrogant, you know, mr. Miami, and mr. Hialeah, and like all of all of that, it, you know, it all worked out great for him, he’s got a billion dollars, he’s coming to town this weekend. He’ll either get cheered or booed one way or another, but he dusted this joint years ago and just said, I’m gonna, you know, it’s my money, and I just think when you’re.. if we’re 40 minutes into a segment, and if this is about a young Latin player. Being questioned about his manhood and his toughness, I could see that being a burr up saying that could be a burr up, dog. Okay,

Luke Jones 40:11
but what if there is an issue with it? Okay, do you just not address it? You know what I mean, like, you know you’re going into $78

Nestor Aparicio 40:17
million I didn’t, Mike, that’s what I would say, dude, you know, I’ve employed a lot of people. If I gave, if I gave any of my employees $78 million I trust me, my relationship, then

Luke Jones 40:28
I guess that’s what they

Nestor Aparicio 40:31
think when you give them $78 million But that’s human nature. This is managing humans still need to have accountability. Okay, but I don’t understand. So, so you’re so then you’re saying it is all Albernaz and Besayo is not at fault. I’m saying I have no idea. I’m saying they lose in games. The manager’s under pressure because he’s the manager. The kid’s not under any pressure at all. He’s going to survive all of this. He’s got 78 million. Well, if he, he’s under pressure. I’ll tell you this, though. When you’re, if he has

Luke Jones 41:02
any integrity, he’s under pressure, because he wants to play, and then he wants to live up to that contract, and he wants to be a great brother, and he wants to make 300 million in his career, not just what he’s.. and

Nestor Aparicio 41:10
you know what he doesn’t want to do? Go out and go over five tonight, and be hurt, and know that he can’t hit the ball, and say, I can’t, I can’t perform. You know what he also did? You know what he also

Luke Jones 41:18
doesn’t want to do, he does, he also doesn’t want to let down his teammates if he is healthy enough to play, and he needs, and he does need to toughen up. I’m just, it can go either way. And my point in saying that, you’re on the BJ

Nestor Aparicio 41:29
Surrhof side of the locker room, for sure. You know, I mean, look around this the whole time. Now, the gamer side, I’m saying, like, I hear all, I hear all of what I’m

Luke Jones 41:39
saying is, I think there’s a scenario where both sides have some fault and maybe need to handle, how many times

Nestor Aparicio 41:46
did John Harbaugh in the 18 years, and you only covered him for 15 or 16 of them? How many times did John Harbaugh privately, privately, I’m talking about the breakfast, and or when I got together with him, how many times did he privately question the toughness of one of his players? It happened a lot, happened a lot, a lot, a lot. That’s who John Harbaugh was. You’re not tough enough, Elemenor. I’m trying to think, all the guys he didn’t like, and the guys he liked, the Ben Cleveland’s, or whatever, Jermaine,

Luke Jones 42:23
Illuminaz, actually back with him with the Giants, man. If you want to talk about things that I never would have guessed, I would have never guessed that guy would have had the long NFL career that he’s had, because he, yeah,

Nestor Aparicio 42:38
but what I’m saying is John routinely questioned the manhood of the men, the mighty men of his locker room, sometimes for better or worse, right? You know, sometimes that works, sometimes it didn’t work. I, you know, depends if it was a white guy, black guy, young guy, an old guy, smart guy, a dumb guy, you know, a made guy or a not made guy, a guy that’s working on a contract, or a guy that never got a contract, like Zach Gore, never got a contract, you know? Like, so for me, there’s so much involved with money, there’s so much involved with culture, there’s so much involved with having testicles, and it being a dude thing that Katie Griggs will never understand, nor will Jennifer Grandal, because they just won’t. I mean, and if that makes me a bad guy, it does make me a Republican to say that, but women and men, this is a mighty men’s game, baseball, right? I mean, I guess, I mean, the hardball thing, questioning, you know, it’s like I should ask Trots one day if he ever questioned the toughness of one of his young Canadian men, or one of the Russian kids on his team, or, you know, the Swedes were always soft, they were always considered, they didn’t want to fight, that’s the hockey thing. Yeah, I know, you don’t know the hockey thing, right? It’s like we’re watching World Cup, oh, he’s Latin, he’s going to dive, that’s what they do, Latin guys dive, because that’s what they do, like there’s all this cultural stuff that goes on to that every time Craig Albernaz opens his mouth, I hear culture, I hear Eric DiCosta, strange enough, because he has the.. they’re from like 10 miles apart, they have.. they are like listening to me, and anybody from Dundalk, you know, like little different than if you grew up in Colombia, it’s 10 miles, but it’s.. it’s 100 miles on an accent, but Albernaz culturally I can even hear him barking at me in that New England accent, and it burns me up. It doesn’t, when my wife gets two beers in there and her R start to float. So I’m telling you, man, it is when you’re losing and the kids got more money than you’re ever going to have, and you’re battling over this, and the minute manhood gets brought in to a 21 year old Latin kid who’s in the big leagues, I don’t know, dude, like if you’re questioning his toughness, if that’s where this is, and other guys in the locker room are doing that, that’s bad, that’s just bad,

Luke Jones 44:58
and that’s where we kind of get into Samantha. Is it toughness? Is it not understanding your body to the point where, look, in a 162 game season, you’re going to get banged up some here and there, and there are times where, yeah, you’re, you might need to miss a game or two, and, but there might be some other times where, hey, our other catchers hurt worse than you, you do need to suck it up and play tonight, right? That exists, you know, but you’re not going to punish the guy. Well, if I.. well, that’s why I’m saying what has had something

Nestor Aparicio 45:30
else to lead to

Luke Jones 45:31
this, right? Yeah, and that’s.. and look again, I’m not trying to take a side here, I’m trying to acknowledge it’s very well possible that both sides have mishandled this to some degree, that it’s gotten to this point, that that something like this even gets out right. Teams have issues internally all the time, all the time. I heard something recently about the Ravens that I’m not going to share, and it’s not like, let me be clear, it’s not a bombshell or anything like that. It’s just an issue with the player last year, that again was off the record. It’s not a big deal or anything, but it’s something that I had no idea happened last year, you know. So, but it happened, and if you’re writing

Nestor Aparicio 46:07
proper reign three in February because they win the Super Bowl, maybe, maybe not, you’ll have a piece of that. Yeah, maybe it is, or

Luke Jones 46:14
maybe it’s something that’s completely irrelevant to what happens in 2026 As hard as it is

Nestor Aparicio 46:18
for people to believe, all I’ve ever done with my life is cover sports, and try to know the stories, and try to give the why, and try to give the real reasons. So, if I’ve been a little uppity here in the last 45 minutes about this, that’s fine. I’m the Latin guy who’s been treated like shit by these people, been thrown out, so I don’t like that. I don’t like.. I don’t.. and I’ve been around these teams to hear how other people talk about the Latin players. I’ve been at this a long time, and I know that there is a burr up factor. I saw this when Robbie Alomar and Palmeiro and I got into it 4030 years ago. Like, there is a serious thing going on in baseball with black, white, and brown, and it’s gone on from the beginning of time back to Jackie Robinson, and way before that, Satchel Paige. So, like, I’m just saying, if you’re questioning the manhood of a Latin player, or saying he’s not tough enough, and you’re going to discipline him, I don’t know that anybody’s going to the ballpark and getting over today, and just moving over the mountain, but we’ll see. Winning helps, winning helps a lot for all of them, you know, because when you’re losing four games in a row, and you’re benching his ass, and we’re all talking about it. Jackson Holiday’s Grand Slam aired the place out a little bit for five minutes, right? But now they got, they got the Padres coming in. This is, they’re very vulnerable right now. We’re talking about six, seven games under 500 to a week will wipe them out. A bad, they play the Dodgers next week. I mean, you know what I mean. They got to go. You and I are going to be getting out of bed at four in the morning, going to bed at 230 And next week, talking about them, you know, this is, they’re vulnerable right now. The whole thing’s vulnerable. Albernaz, Elias, Rubenstein’s off getting married, writing his sports ownership book. The team is this close to last place again, and nobody’s going to the ballpark, and they can’t even get their games on television, because Greg Bader doesn’t know his elbow from his arm. I mean,

Luke Jones 48:09
look, I mean, this goes back to what Palmer said, and that’s where you look at it and say, okay, whatever the issue is, is it something that that very much needed to be addressed, or was it something that wasn’t that big of a deal, or was it an overreaction, one side or the other, or did both sides overreact, or is this something that’s been an issue at times in previously? I don’t know, right? I don’t know, but it doesn’t smell right. And again, when you look at the comments that were made, again, regardless of toughness or pain threshold or hurt versus injured, or whatever, whatever, again, that’s like semantics, right? There’s some kind of, some kind of disconnect, or some kind of question here of not being on the same page exactly, and you hope that these last few days will be the end of that one way or the other, right? Because you don’t want this to be something that continues. Certainly, you don’t want there to be a disconnect or a falling out or player who doesn’t trust his manager or a manager who doesn’t trust his player. You don’t want any of that, because Sam Vision is really important to this team. There’s a good chance he’s going to be around long after Craig Albernaz, especially if we see ownership clean house. If the Orioles don’t succeed the rest of the way, right? You’ve already fired Michaelias, right? So you know if Michaelias gets fired, chances are Craig Albernaz is not going to be the manager of the Baltimore Orioles next year. I mean, that’s just how this works. The reason I think

Nestor Aparicio 49:40
Michaelias is fired is because I just, I think this team’s gonna have a real hard time getting up and running at this point.

Luke Jones 49:45
No, but I’m, but my point is, I’m not, I’m not pushing back on you, I’m saying that Sam Visia is going to be here, right? Yeah, but in Craig Auburn has his case, he’s not, so look again. Man, I don’t know. Craig Albernaz could be 100% at fault, or Sam Pasaio could be 100% at fault, and this should have been done three weeks ago because of some other issue. I don’t know, or it’s just a complete overreaction, right? But you need to get him back in the lineup, right? I mean, if he’s not back in the lineup now, after the discourse of the last 24 hours or so, and we’re gonna figure

Nestor Aparicio 50:21
out where Richmond is, or he’s going on the ILS. Then,

Luke Jones 50:24
then it’s a big issue, right? I mean, this is something that is an issue. You don’t want it to become a big issue, and that’s where I assume we’re gonna see Bisayo out there, and we’re gonna move on, and hopefully he plays well, and the Orioles get back to winning. It was a good win on Wednesday night. They need to win to salvage a split, and if you just

Nestor Aparicio 50:42
got here, we praised Brandon Young and Jackson. Now we did all of that, but this Messiah thinks it was a real

Luke Jones 50:47
story. I mean, how can it not be a story? I mean, fans were utterly confused by the comments that were made, right? Jim Palmer laid it out there, right? So this isn’t this isn’t the media trying to conjure something. He sat three straight days when you know your starting catcher is unavailable, and he pinch hit, and then even caught in those, you know, the first two games of that series, so you know if he’s.. I’ll leave out this will be my drop the mic moment, and he actually had a good game, so maybe that’ll indirectly be a happy accident. The Orioles, Craig Albernaz, and the Orioles willingly DH Tyler O’Neill over Samuel Bisayo on Wednesday night. Mic drop, I mean, like seriously,

Nestor Aparicio 51:34
he got a hit, didn’t he? Yeah, it’s two hits, two hits, like I

Luke Jones 51:37
said, good, good night for him. I mean, my goodness, when was the last time you had a multi-hit game? I mean, it’s so

Nestor Aparicio 51:42
I’m standing on second base at one point. He is Luke Jones, I am Nestor. Mariners are in, Padres are in, Ravens are off, World Cup is on, Knicks fever is on, and if you like the Stanley Cup, that’s happening too. Lender and I talked about that earlier in a week. He’s Luke, I’m Nestor, we’re WNSD AM 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking controversy, because it’s what we do in the media, we’re Baltimore.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai