Luke Jones and Nestor take a hard look at Orioles rotation and bullpen and where Mike Elias is going to find solutions as the team stalls in first place.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, year, soto, pitching, orioles, fans, bullpen, dominguez, money, couple, weeks, team, kimbrel, point, thought, trust, games, craig, talking, craig kimbrel
SPEAKERS
Luke Jones, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Music. Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, Dassault, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively taking the Maryland crabcake tour back out on the road as well as 26 oysters in 26 days for our 26th anniversary, beginning in September. That’ll start on September the fifth. This Friday, we’re going to be at not Costas, excuse me, fates, this week I’m wearing my Costa shirt. We cost this next month. We’re gonna be at Cocos on the fourth Luke will be joining me down at fates at Lexington market on Friday afternoon, between about one five, we’ll be down there for a little while before the ball game for the cheatstros come to town. All of it brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. We’ll have the Gold Rush sevens doublers to give away. Also our friends at Jiffy Lube MultiCare, as well as the Liberty pure solutions, putting us out on the road. Luke’s been out on the road all week long. They allow him in Owings Mills. They allow mccamden yards. He’s done both back and forth breakfast with the ravens and fake football on Saturday, and a lot, a lot of baseball. One thing Luke Jones cannot do, he’s a man of many talents. He cannot close games for the Baltimore Orioles that he cannot work long relief in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. They’re going to New York now, right? And they have this thing, and then they’ll play the Astros. They have games coming up against the worst teams in baseball around Labor Day, so there is a little feeling of like they can get well again before the beginning of September, if they can figure this thing out, but the bullpen on nights when they get good starts, um, it’s got to shut the door. And so far, and I heard Jim Palmer say this about the dealings. Um, we’re now three weeks past the trading deadline, and Palmer’s given Elias big thumbs up on the deals. And I thought, Well, ethlin has been really good, sir Anthony’s been good. Um, so no, not so much, right, you know, and Rogers, not so much. But I don’t, we didn’t expect them all to come out and look like, you know, Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, right? Yeah. I mean, I
Luke Jones 01:57
think it’s kind of what we talked about at the time, where Sir Anthony Dominguez has been really good. He’s been their best reliever. It’s kind of crazy that he’s gone from being cast aside by the Phillies, who, by the way, they’re having severe bullpen issues. And they’re probably thinking, Oh, we’d probably like to have Dominguez back at the very least, especially with Austin Hayes being on the IL but that
Nestor Aparicio 02:19
trade was about his option next year too, right? That they, they pretty much decided we’re not giving him 8 million bucks next year, so let’s get something for him, right? That was kind of the idea well, but he also hadn’t
Luke Jones 02:30
been as consistent for them. You know, his era was right around four. You know, long ball had been an issue. We saw him give up a home run on Sundays, given up two home runs, and what’s otherwise been outstanding work by Dominguez. But you look at the state of this Orioles bullpen right now, it’s where you look at it and say, was there another deal to be made? Perhaps what you gave up for Trevor Rogers, and again, we’re going to see how that plays out over the next couple years, because he’s got a couple years of club control. I think there’s some optimism and hope and some idea in mind that not just whatever he was going to give them for the rest of 2024 but also what he might be over the next year or two. But when you look at what they gave up in Kyle Stowers and Connor Norby, was there another deal out there somewhere to be made to give up those two guys for another bullpen arm that maybe would be helping them right now, who knows? It’s hard to say. We know that some bullpen arms were moved that might have been better than what the Orioles acquired, but teams gave up a lot for it. So you know, it’s the state of their bullpen is not it’s not great right now, to say the least, when you’re talking about Dominguez, and even on Sunday, I mean, yen your canoe, we’ve talked about him certainly been more good than bad this year, and overall, has been good, but he’s had his stretches where he hasn’t been as good, and we saw him once again on Sunday, when he comes in with a couple runners on base, it tends To be more of a struggle for him. And I get it. People will say, well, Brendan Hyde should never bring him in when runners are on base. It doesn’t work that way, right? I mean, if you’re a reliever, inevitably, you’re going to have to inherit some runners from time to time. And, you know,
Nestor Aparicio 04:15
come in, you walk guys and stuff. As I in my in my cleverness, that’s a canono.
Luke Jones 04:23
Yeah, it is. But, I mean, we’ve seen that with Jenny or Cano. He’s had a few more issues with some walks and the long ball this year that has prevented him from being as good as he was last year. You know, he’s still on their list of concerns in their bullpen. Cano is still pretty low on that list because he’s one of the few guys left that I actually have at least some trust in, not saying I have complete trust in Him. But
Nestor Aparicio 04:47
we hasn’t been booed off the mound yet this
Luke Jones 04:49
year. Yeah, wow, yeah, so And But even you know, you look at Sunday’s game, how it played out, CNL, Perez comes out for the eighth inning because there are a couple. 50s do up and what happens? He issues a walk, right? I mean, you can’t, you can’t walk Casa in that spot, especially with Devers coming up right after him. You can’t have that from your top left hander in the bullpen. Now, they want Danny Coolum to be their top left hander in the bullpen, but he’s not back yet. He’s not healthy yet. He’s throwing he’s on his way back. It looks like he’ll be back, hopefully, by mid to late September, but see now, Perez is the best they have from the left side, I guess, if, unless you want to throw Keegan Aiken out there and some higher leverage spots, because it’s certainly not Gregory Soto at the moment. So I that’s where I look at this, and I just laugh when I hear people crush Brandon Hyde look we there was an instance a couple weeks ago where I took him to task on a couple decisions that I didn’t really understand, more specifically on the pinch hitting side, but just very few options that you have any trust in right now. I mean, it’s Craig Kimbrell is obviously the headliner, right? Because he’s making the money he’s got, the career that he’s had. They acquired, you know, they signed him in the off season to be the Felix Bautista replacement, even if guys like me were saying at the time that you’ve got to understand what Craig Kimbrough is. He’s not going to be rock solid, consistent for all six months of a season. He’s going to go through some spells where he struggles. Now, what’s alarming about the present one is this has gone on now as long as it has back in late April and early May, that was about two and a half weeks where, you know, he struggled. They took him out of the closer role, they put him into some lower leverage situations, seventh and eighth inning, and he got himself back on track, and then he was really good for the better part of the next couple months. But we’re now talking about him not just struggling, but really struggling for over a month now. And you know, they took him out of high leverage. He did have three or four outings where it looked better, and then it was right back to not looking good. And then to your point on Friday night where he gets booed off the mound, and
Nestor Aparicio 07:10
it’s that’s a rare thing, right from a fan standpoint, you’ve been at the ballpark all your life. I spent the 90s here calling our fan base wimps, because they kind of were, like the Yankees, and Red Sox would come in, we would roll back out. Everybody’s afraid of the now our fans are, especially on Twitter, fighting with this guy that collects baseballs, trying to punch him out. I mean, the fan base has changed, and people were uppity last week about this Birdland, and they should be, you know, like pika is a Birdland holder, and he always tells me, I get discounts on beer. I get discounts. It’s like a good deal. He brags to me about what a good deal it is. I don’t know anything, because I’m all I get is the whistler telling me to shut up three months ago. So I haven’t, you know, I haven’t interacted with them. I haven’t been down to the ballpark. You’re down there because I don’t feel welcome at the ballpark. I’ll be writing about that two weeks from now. Um, but the fans doing a home player. I mean, I Doug Jones, right? I mean, I’m, I’m trying to, that’s the first one for a minute. We’re talking 25 years ago. Man,
Luke Jones 08:16
yeah. And look, I’m not going to get into whether you should or should not. I mean, look, he’s really struggled there’s saying
Nestor Aparicio 08:25
I’m not, oh no, no, I understand. I’m just saying it’s a rare, rare occurrence for our fan base to beat up one of the home players. They’re used to. Beating up the Venezuelan sports journalists is what they’re used to.
Luke Jones 08:35
Yeah. I mean, and especially when you go through the leanest of the lean times, and more specifically, more recently, with the Elias era, with the rebuild. I mean, you’re booing guys that you know aren’t really major league players, and they’re just placeholders, right? I mean, so you don’t see too much of that, and again, not even getting look. Fans are frustrated. I understand it. I mean, the Orioles are paying Craig Kimbrell a lot of money, and he’s not doing the job. He’s not even doing half of that job, right? I mean, even, even if he was giving them some solid innings in the seventh inning or Friday night, great example. I mean, they’re, they’re trailing in a game, and he comes in and, you know, you’d like to see him keep it at a two run deficit, but because your offense was scoring a lot of runs on Friday night, and instead, he turns it into a bigger deficit, because he can’t get anyone
Nestor Aparicio 09:25
out. You call the low leverage when he comes in two runs down, because it’s not ninth inning, you one run ball game or whatever, but it’s still high leverage when you know you’re you have a chance to help them win, and you you make it a loss. I mean, I mean you’re teetering on that Well, I
Luke Jones 09:42
mean, you’re losing. So it’s not high leverage, but, yeah, it’s not mop up duty either, right? It’s a situation where you have to, you’ve got to contribute something. And this is where I’ll, I’ll stick up for Brandon Hyde a little bit, because you can’t just wait for it to be 10 to one. If you’re going to pitch Craig Kimbrel, you. Gregory Soto, and they just added Colin Selby, right? He took on. He replaced, replaced Kade Povich. You know, who made the spot start? I mean, those are clearly three guys that they have no level of trust in in a meaningful situation. Now, they basically have three guys, at least in Brandon Hyde’s mind that he trusts, ideally in tight games, you know, if everyone’s rested, and we saw it on Sundays, Perez Cano and Sir Anthony Dominguez. Now what it is on August 20, it’s what it is. They have a higher level in Burt Smith now than they did a couple weeks ago. And I think they trust Bert Smith more than Craig Kimbrell right now. But how much do you really trust him just yet? Right? And he’s pitched well to his credit. You know, he’s done a nice job for them at a time where they’ve had, you know, they’re missing some guys and other guys aren’t pitching.
Nestor Aparicio 10:53
Webb came around this time last year and pitched well until pitched the way he’s pitching, quite frankly, right, right? And the same role in the same Hey, we need to sixth or seventh inning. Come in and get us to the seventh get us
Luke Jones 11:04
Yeah, and that’s the thing, but pitching well in the sixth or the seventh is a little bit different than on some nights, needing to see if he can do it in the eighth inning, for example, because you can’t pitch Dominguez and Cano and even Perez, who, you know, has we kind of were viewing CNN Perez as though he’s been great this year, and he hasn’t been right. It’s been up and down for him. But you can’t pitch those same guys. You’ve got to pass the baton around a little bit, and that’s where you look at Bert Smith, and I’ll even throw Keegan Aiken out there, who, frankly, if you look at Keegan Aiken’s numbers, and I know when he’s not at his best, it can look kind of ugly, and I’m not saying he’s great, and I’m not saying I have a great, a high level of trust in Keegan Aiken, but he does strike people out. He does have a three, six era. He has, at times, pitched in not extremely high leverage, but he’s pitched in some tight games and has done the job at times. But he’s your fourth or fifth best reliever right now. And if you’re in that top four or five, you’ve got a pitch. If you’re in the bullpen at all, you’ve got a pitch. It’s like I said, you can’t just wait for 10 to one, winning or losing to pitch Kimbrel. So
Nestor Aparicio 12:16
pitch in New York the next couple nights. We just got to figure out where it’s going to
Luke Jones 12:20
be. He’s right, and again, that doesn’t mean he’s going back to pitching in the ninth inning in a safe situation. I mean, at this point, you know, he’s got to get on a roll. I mean, same with Soto I mean they’ve got to show some semblance of being able to do that at the same time, if you’re trailing by a couple runs and you’ve had a stretch where your starters aren’t going quite as deep, even though the Orioles got good starting pitching over the weekend, save for Corbin burns, which, of course, was odd. But you know, even with those stretches, you know, you’re still gonna have to cover two or three innings every night. I mean, that’s just, that’s the state of where we are right now. I mean, even the best starting pitching in baseball’s not going more than six or seven innings most nights, because that’s kind of, it’s kind of what the how it’s set up at this point in time. But they’ve got to, they’ve got to find a way to get, you know and hides talked about this over the weekend. You’ve got to try to get Craig Kimbrel back on track. I mean, you do it. And I know people will say at some point in time, well, at some point you have to cut your losses. But okay, but who are you bringing up then from triple A that you feel has even a fraction of the track record or potential upside and look, Kimbrel has been awful for a month now. I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat that at the same time, from mid May until early July. Their Orioles fans ticked off that he didn’t make the all star team, right? I mean, that wasn’t that long ago. He pitched that well. So you’ve got to try to find a way to keep giving, picking your spots and giving them chances to work his way back into the mix again, and with hopes that he can look more like that guy again, because they’re going to need that. I mean, they’re going to need it from someone now. It might be Jacob Webb coming back in the next week to 10 days, and he looks like Jacob Webb again. And that will help. Certainly you’re hoping Danny coulomb comes back next month and looks like Danny coulomb, because we remember how good he was for the Orioles last year, how good he was until June this year, and how important he is, and someone who’s a lefty but gets lefties and righties out. So there, there is some potential help and reinforcements on the way, but in the meantime, you’re still hoping to get something out of Craig kimbre. You’re still hoping to get something out of Gregory Soto, who’s got a good arm, and you know, we’re talking about guys that are former All Star closers. Now, in the case of Kimbrel, maybe this is the end of the line for him. And as I’ve said over and over and over, for anyone who’s shocked by this, go look at his last six, seven years in the majors. He’s been up and down. I mean, you’ll see even season era. Would reflect that. So this wasn’t shocking to me. At the same time, this has been a longer period of struggle for him than we’ve seen, you know, in recent years, from Craig Kimbrell. So you know, it might be that age 36 maybe this is getting to be the end of the line for him, but I’m not there yet in terms of saying DFA him, because who else are you bringing up? I mean, do we think Dylan Tate’s going to be a factor, you know, if you bring him back from triple A? I mean, I just, I don’t see anyone that’s at triple A right now that I really have much conviction about that. I think is going to be able to really help them and move the needle at all more than taking my chances, trying to pick my spots with Craig Kimbrel, trying to pick my spots with Gregory Soto in hopes of getting them back on track. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. Nestor, and it’s unsettling, believe me, it’s very unsettling. You know, if you’re trying to name your postseason roster right now, I mean, is Craig Kimbrough even on it, right? I mean, that’s how bad it’s been. But at the same time, he, at least, you know, not that long ago, was on a run where he had pitched really well, and you’re still hoping that he can find that again. But as Brandon Hyde said, yeah, you can pick your spots and try to keep them out of high leverage or even medium leverage as much as you can, but at the same time, you can’t hide people. You know, in an eight man bullpen, in this day and age, you’ve got to have six or seven of them are going to have to pitch in some meaningful situations. You might have one guy that you can hide, but you certainly can’t hide two or three, which is where they are right now. So, so, yeah, as much as you’d love to pitch Dominguez and Cano every single night, they can’t do that. So some other guys are going to have to step up. But boy, it’s just, it’s really been, I mean, struggle is the nice word to use as it pertains to what Kimball’s looked like over the last month. But I I’m not ready to give up on it and give up on him just yet from a roster standpoint. And obviously, when someone’s making $13 million and there’s six weeks to go, that’s still a lot of money that he’s owed, but I’m still looking at it. I’m still trying to look at it as much as I can as an upside play to try to get him back on track, but the trust level is just not there when even on Friday night, when he comes in, down to and he can’t even keep the game where it’s at, where it is at that point in time, and give your offense a chance to come back. I mean, that’s it’s a really low bar when you can’t even trust him to do that much. But you know, it’s where he is right now. It’s where Gregory Soto is right now, and it’s very unsettling. Luke
Nestor Aparicio 17:47
Jones is here. He is Baltimore, Luke. And you know, I guess going back to evaluating the trades of the trading deadline, we’ll have plenty of time for that in the off season, but in the meantime, I wasn’t going to evaluate it on Thursday when he dealt for Eflin, or on Saturday, you know, when the trade started to happen. But you looked at the pieces, and you looked at what we considered, I would say, wholesale changes, but certainly far more changes around the fringe of the roster than maybe, maybe we thought a team that was at that point looked like they were going to win 105 108 games was headed toward right. But all these changes, it’s amazing. Three weeks in, as you look at it, we knew Kimball was in trouble. It’s good thing they have Sir Anthony right now, right? Like it’s a good thing they have him Zach Eflin. Good thing they have him right now, right? And we talk about Suarez, we can praise him all day long. Good thing they did that. Rogers, I listen right now. He’s made three, four starts, right like it is. He’s going to be here a couple of years. We’ll see where that value is over the long term of all of this. But for Jim Palmer to say he did a nice job at the trading deadline, doesn’t feel that way when they’re treading water, winning one, losing one, winning one, losing one, but when effluent takes the ball, or when Sir Anthony comes in in the ninth inning and can get them out of it, even if he does give up a solo rum run. But Soto was supposed to be part of this, and Rogers was supposed to be part of this in some sort of contributory way. You know, I think Eloy Jimenez was another guy that had a couple of, you know, big hits and helped them, at least in the early on. He’ll be a right handed bat they have now i i Give him a you gave him a b minus at the trading deadline. Maybe, I mean, I would almost move it up to a b plus or an A minus if effluents gonna take the ball every fifth day like this, because that unto itself is a savior for them. Yeah, well, him and and Dominguez. Like I said, Dominguez has been their best reliever. I mean, he’s their closer. He’s their closer. He had a four out sable on Sunday, and when they made the deal, they thought it was going to be Soto, I guess is my point. I think when I looked at it, I thought Soto’s the guy here that is going to be a game changer for them. He’s going to be an eighth inning guy setting up Kim role, is what I thought a month ago. I. I thought Soto would be the more effective of the two.
Luke Jones 20:04
Okay, um, I, I mean, I kind of viewed them through similar, you know, a similar lens. I mean, ensemble, yeah, yeah. I mean, and don’t get me wrong, I’m not sitting here saying that I expected Dominguez to become their closer as the way he kind of has, but at the same time, one thing that I did like about the Dominguez trade was go look at his postseason numbers and go look what he did for the Phillies two years ago in the postseason. I mean, it’s a guy who’s pitched in some really big spots and pitched really well in the postseason, whereas Soto came in in Philadelphia last year, and you know, it was a disappointment. You know that he was an all star closer in Detroit at a time when the Tigers weren’t very good. So, you know, you can always get into same way John means was an all star five years ago. Was he really, truly an All Stars? Or is he that team’s rep? But point is, Soto was really good in Detroit, not so good in Philadelphia. So, you know, so and that’s fine. I’m not saying you’re wrong and feeling that way. I think they were both upside plays, right? I think there were two guys that you saw that we talked about, guys like me have talked about a lot, that this bullpen needed more swing and miss, more strikeout potential, and there were certainly two guys who brought that. Now, Dominguez has delivered, you know, he struck out three in the ninth inning on Sunday. You know, he’s struck out more than a batter parenting since arriving in Baltimore, and he’s pitched, well, I also understand and this. I’m saying this as a Sir Anthony Dominguez guy, part of the reason he wasn’t in Philadelphia anymore is he’s kind of been that up and down guy, you know, maybe not as dramatic as Craig what we’re seeing with Craig Kimbrell in 2024 but he’s also been a guy that, at times, has been inconsistent, so we’re going to have to see how it plays out. I mean, it’s frustrating in the case of Soto, because, you know, they gave up Seth Johnson, who not going to sit here and say, was an amazing prospect, but was still one of their, you know, an interesting arm that they acquired in the tremancini deal a couple years ago and had Tommy John surgery, and I think is still someone who has a chance to be a major league pitcher, albeit maybe in a relief role eventually. But you know, point is they gave up something real for him in the same way that the Orioles gave up something real in Austin Hayes. But we know Austin Hayes wasn’t in the same role that he had been in to get Dominguez. But, you know, Dominguez has been really good Soto, not so good. You know, is there same thing with Kimbrel, you’re trying to pick your spots with Soto to try to get him on track, because he is someone that is capable of pitching at a high level and has the stuff to do it. But you can’t sit here and just have these guys on scholarship either. I mean, that’s what’s so challenging for Brandon high, because you don’t want to run Dominguez and Cano and Perez and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Bert Smith and Keegan Aiken into the ground by not, you know, by pitching them in the close games and then saving these guys from mop up duty. Because you don’t always, you’re not always going to have pop up duty. You know,
Nestor Aparicio 23:05
there’s a three two game in the fifth inning happening every night, bro,
Luke Jones 23:09
right? Exactly. And that’s the thing, if it’s three to two in the fifth inning and your and your starters hit his pitch count or is looking like he’s laboring and can’t go much longer, you know you can’t pitch Dominguez in the sixth inning because, well, if
Nestor Aparicio 23:23
your bullpens completely rested and you have everybody available and picked starter a burns whoever’s out of gas in the fifth inning, because they’re at 97 pitches or whatever, what is the Where do you go if you have to navigate three to Five of these relief pitchers all healthy on any given night against a real offense. Call Houston this weekend. Yeah, right. Like, what is ideal and what is October ideal at that point?
Luke Jones 23:51
I mean, what’s ideal in the present as it’s currently constructed? It’s those five guys that I mentioned that. Okay, Dominguez at the back, Cano at the back, you know, CNL, Perez, if it’s a pocket of lefties. But we saw even on Sunday eighth inning, two lefties do up to begin the inning, and he walks one and gives up a double to Devers, right? I mean, so you’re even seeing it with him. Burt Smith in the sixth or seventh inning. Keegan akin in the sixth or seventh inning. Gregory Soto mop up duty right now. Craig Kimbrell mop up duty right now. And you know what we’ll see about Colin Selby, who didn’t exactly have great numbers at Norfolk since the Orioles acquired him in a one of those deals for cash. You know, 5567, weeks ago, whatever it was. So it’s not ideal in terms of October, my goodness. I mean, you’ve heard me say, how many different times now you need how many relievers that you feel really, really strongly about using in just about any spot, at least four, ideally, five, right? And I’m talking about four or five guys that you can throw at any point depending on the match. Show they have two right now that I I feel good about Dominguez, and I’m still gonna give Cano the benefit of the doubt, you know. And Sunday struggles aside, again, he’s still been way more good than bad. But Cano, in an ideal world, might be my fourth or fifth rather than my second. And that’s, you know, that’s where you’re looking at this thing and saying, Boy, you hope Jacob Webb looks like Jacob Webb when he comes back. And how you kind of realize how important he’s been to them in 2024, and, you know, I’ve been a Jacob Webb guy this year, kind of pointing out how valuable he’s been. And you’re praying that Danny coulam comes back and looks like Danny Coulomb. Because if he does, then he’s a guy that in October, that I trust and feel really good about, you know, based on what he’s done the last two years. So Craig Kimbrel, they’ve got what, realistically speaking, about a month to try to get him back in order. And not saying that, even if they do that, I’m going to have 100% trust in Him, but I’m still going to have to go with it. Same with Soto, you know, you’re trying to get these guys on a roll. You’re trying to see what works, you know, Drew French and the, you know, pitching, pitching coaches are working behind the scenes, trying to get them back on track. You know, because you need it. You know, as as this, bullpens presently constructed, no, I don’t like their chances to go deep in October whatsoever. You know, I see the same thing everyone else does. I’m not trying, gonna try to put a positive spin on it. You know, Dominguez looks October ready. Cano, I think is October, you know, will be October ready, right? I mean, at least in that top four or five after that, it’s, I have no idea, you know. I mean, Bert Smith, is he ready to to be in some higher leverage situations? Maybe, you know, he’s been, he’s been better than I expected. You know, he’s done a nice job. You know, maybe he’s this year’s version of Jacob Webb, but he hasn’t proven that yet. So, I mean, it’s tough. I mean, even look at this series, the two games that the Orioles won. You know, with Eflin pitching the way that he did on Thursday night and Suarez DOING what He did on Sunday. You it still felt dicey in the final winnings, and that was even with the Brandon Hyde being able to use his top guys. I mean, it just nothing feels easy right now. Even in games where they’re they have a three or four run lead, it just does not feel easy whatsoever. And that’s why it’s such a tough place to be. That’s why it’s why, you know, we spend so much time talking about the offense, despite the fact that it’s still one of the best in baseball, and saying, hey, you need to be more consistent, because you’re certainly not getting that consistency from your pitching staff right now. So it’s hairy, it’s dicey. It is unsettling. That’s the nicest term I can use to describe it, because you look at where this bullpen, where this pitching staff, has been since the beginning of July, and you know, it’s bottom five, bottom six in baseball. I mean, it just is, you know, and that’s not even a
Nestor Aparicio 27:59
series like that. I’m sorry. I mean, you can’t navigate October that way. You can’t.
Luke Jones 28:05
They have to be, of course. This is all about projecting right now, right? But this is all about trying to figure out, trying to get Craig Kimbrell back on track, trying to get Soto on a roll, trying to see if there’s a more consistent version of Cano, like I said with Cano. I mean, I understand people say, Well, you can’t bring them in with
28:25
runners on base. It’s like
Luke Jones 28:27
Brandon Hyde can’t if everyone has, like, this special condition, you know. And some of this is, you know, we haven’t touched on this quite as much. But when you look at some of their relievers that are, you know, kind of platoon dependent, right? I mean, Cano hasn’t been awful against left handed hitters, but certainly is better against right handers than lefties. You know, Perez, we’ve talked about him, and you know how he is against right handed hitting, you know? I mean, he’s bet, obviously, better against lefties, but, you know, with the three batter minimum that we have with with relief pitching in 2024 I mean, you can’t afford to have all these guys that are just so split dependent, right? I mean, you’ve got to have guys that can defend themselves against either side of the plate. So I don’t have the answers Nestor other than they’ve got to try to keep picking their spots with Kimbrel, picking their spots with Soto in hopes of getting them back in order. Because I just, I don’t know, like, what’s the upside at triple A that you feel better about? I just, I don’t know who that is. I really don’t, I don’t think it’s still in Tate. I just don’t, and I’m not trying to pick on him individually, but you know, I start
Nestor Aparicio 29:39
trading Kimbrough for him right now, right? In regard, no
Luke Jones 29:43
especially understanding he would have to lose Kimbrel right now. I’ll say this, and I kind of joked about this privately with a couple of my friends over the weekend. You know, I think back to the story of aldmeda stepping in a pothole a decade ago, right? I. Are we getting to a point where something like that for Craig Kimbrel to kind of give him a reset? You know, you put on the IL for two weeks, not going to sit here and say, Absolutely not. I’m not saying that you can just conjure an injury,
Nestor Aparicio 30:14
then you’re going to bring him back in the middle of the pennant race on
Luke Jones 30:16
September 10, and that’s the thing, right? So how do you, how do you navigate that? I
Nestor Aparicio 30:20
mean, it’s not like he doesn’t know that he is more veteran than anybody on this team at pitching in these situations, right? Exactly.
Luke Jones 30:27
And you know, that’s where we get into Friday night. And look, I’m not, I’m not going to sit here and bash the fans. I mean, fans are frustrated. I get that. He’s making $13 million and he’s not doing his job at the same time as I’m around this, you know, as I’ve been around this long enough, these guys know when they’re struggling. Do I think that really helps the player motivate? I mean, maybe it might motivate some guys, you know, and we’ve all heard guys that have been asked about being booed, and they’d say, Yeah, I’d boo me too, you know. Does that motivate some guys?
Nestor Aparicio 30:55
I like to think of myself as Terrell Suggs. I sort of like being booed. You know what? I mean, maybe, maybe. But point is, I
Luke Jones 31:02
don’t if Craig Kimbrel needs to hear booze from the fans, and that’s the magic trick to get him back on track. Then I’ve seen it all. You know, he knows the Orioles know, but, but again, if you’re trying to massage this situation to get him in a place where you can trust him again. You know, even if it’s just it might just be that, Sir Anthony Dominguez, you hope, you pray, you cross your fingers, all that you hope that he continues to be as effective as he’s been, and if he does, he might just be the closer the rest of the year. But at the very least, can you get Craig Kimbrel back to a point where you can trust him in the seventh inning, if you can trust him in the eighth inning, you know, even if it’s not becoming the closer again, I’ll take that at this point. And you know, forget about the money. You know, it’s a sunk cost at this point, right? You’re paying them either way. So can you at least get him back to a point where you can trust him in some close games? Because they’re going to need more of that. Going to need more of that. Again, it can’t just be Dominguez Cano and CNL Perez. And again, I keep mentioning Perez as though he’s earned this great deal of trust, but it’s kind of where they are, you know, it’s the best of the rest at this point in time. I mean, that’s where they really are with their bullpen. So there aren’t great options. And yeah, they need Webb and they need Danny coulomb and yes, they need it’s going to be impossible for me to have confidence that they’re going to make a deep run. If they can’t at least get one of Kimbrough and Soto back on track. Ideally, you get them both back on track, and they’ve got upside, and they’ve closed games and pitched in postseason and all that. But if they don’t, at least get one of those guys to a point where you can trust them in higher leverage, then it’s really difficult for me to envision this going well even forget about October, talking about September and holding and being able to edge out the Yankees for the division and all that. So it sounds flippant, because I know, I know people, you know, fans want a pound of flesh when, when things aren’t going well, right? But I really don’t know if they have much of a choice other than just to continue to do what they’ve been doing, which is, try to pick your spots. Try to, you know, in the case of Soto, if it’s a sixth inning and it’s, you know, not a blowout, but not a two to one game, you know, you if there’s two or two out of three lefties or do up, you know, you try to put him in that spot and see how he does, but you also have to have someone ready to replace him. And you know, same with Kimber in some of these spots. So it’s not ideal, and it’s not something that’s inspiring much confidence, but it’s where they are right now, and that’s why we keep coming back to boy. They better hit the ball. They better hit the ball. They better hit the ball. Because you just look at the state of this pitching staff, and they are just not deep enough, rotation wise, or especially bullpen wise, as it stands, as we’re going into these final what, 11 or 12 days of August. All right,
Nestor Aparicio 34:01
I’m gonna move the conversation your direction, that you’re not all you don’t always love this one. It’s more of an off season thing for ticket sales and where they are and the positioning of the brand. I have not has Katie Griggs made herself known to you or anybody else? I mean, is she been a part of the media thing?
Luke Jones 34:18
I don’t, I mean, and obviously, with me doing double duty, I’m not, you’re not there all the time for every minute, but I don’t believe so Nestor. I mean, I don’t you know if she hasn’t
Nestor Aparicio 34:29
greeted everybody in the back of the press box or done any of that. So I don’t even know, physically in Baltimore, I don’t know anything about Katie Griggs, other than they hired her and I’ve read her resume. Um, she’s got her hands full. I mean, you got a team here since second year of being really good, really competitive and winning, they have television problems all the way around with mass and they have a new ownership. I see things that they’re changing. And if I were writing about this, I see they have put, um, a camera on a string around the base of the state. If they’re getting new angles for television, that’s
Luke Jones 35:02
great, by the way, just seeing that in the press box and seeing the I commend them on that, because that’s some of the best production I’ve seen from massen. So that I do like because I’ve
Nestor Aparicio 35:13
seen, yeah, I please, I interrupt you all the time. Um, so I’m watching it on television because I have been abused by the new people, and I’m I will be writing about this in the next two weeks before Labor Day, as you labor and I sit here watching the games on TV as a radio station owner, a lifetime local journalist, and everybody seems to think that’s okay. It’s not okay. Wouldn’t be okay if they did it to you would be okay if they did it the bo small wouldn’t be okay. If they did it to Jerry Coleman, it wouldn’t be okay. So all of that being said, I’m watching it from $65 come see us all month, right? For two months, 130 bucks. You go every night. You don’t get a seat, but there’s plenty of seats to be had. My boy, Ozzy Hazel was in one of them, and I featured him on Sunday because he’s probably the biggest sports fan I’ve ever met. I’ve ever known who’s still there. They put him on television, and Jim Palmer doesn’t know who he is. And I’m like, that’s kind of a shame that Jim Palmer’s never met. Ozzy doesn’t know who the real fans are, like Ed Lauer, the guys that are out there every day, not the press box, people like you that are there free. Get paid to be there. You know, get free part. I’m talking about people that pay and go every night and buy concessions and get on a bus, a plane, a train, park their car, all of the ancillary, let alone go off to Toronto or Tampa and put the Baltimore B hat on with the floppy hat that, apparently, you got me a couple of weeks ago that I didn’t really want, but I’ll take it. I’ll wear it. Um, I see a lot of empty seats. I see the Red Sox in town. I see on nights when they bobblehead, a lot of people are there. I had some flippant conversations in Ocean City with people who are Oriole fans, who were mistreated by Angelos in regard to government, who come up to me in different ways and say things. And I had a really sort of off the cuff conversation over, like, the third beer secrets on maybe Thursday night with an old friend, and I said I was I was a dick. And I’m like, what are they going to grow the brand? They have a great team. They have great young players. They do run the bases. They do. Kids are free. They do. Here’s a bobblehead. Here’s another bobblehead. They do. Here’s a selfie. Day. Their television production is K Fay. It is, it’s, it’s almost laughable in the way that ravens media is. It’s just so much cheerleading and so much all the social medias that way. In regard to sports teams, it’s it’s become usurped while sports writers who criticize them, or fans that are pissed at Craig Kimball or wherever that is. But the the bottom line is revenue. The bottom line is intro, I’m interested in the Orioles. They haven’t gotten a nickel out of me. Didn’t even get any money that day. I went down and sat in the box seats because I got the tickets for free. And other people and other people bought me beer, thinking maybe I did buy a beer earlier this year because I wanted to honor Mr. Rubenstein, until I met his people, and then I stopped spending money, and my wife stopped watching, and she’s on the hiking and breaking her ankle and doing other things. I’m 55 years old. I’m not going to go down there and be mistreated, but I’m a media guy whose last name’s Aparicio, and I’m the pariah and the free the birds guy and the anti Greg Bader and Auntie Jennifer grandall, although I’ve never met her and never spoken to her, so all of this being said, That’s my ax. But I sit here and I watch it on TV and say they’re really good. They’ve had all year to sell tickets. The Red Sox aren’t down. The Red Sox usually take up 1012, 15,000 tickets. I know their brand has been in decline ahead Dan Shaughnessy on last week about that this is their time to grow. It’s not October when they’re charging $400 for playoff tickets and then you’re only going to get rich people. Ozzy can’t afford that. My girl, Melanie and Don talk has been a season ticket order for 30 years. She couldn’t afford playoff tickets last year, so somebody else will be in those seats in the playoffs, and they’ll sell them, and it’ll be, God forbid, they have empty tickets for playoff games. I don’t think that could possibly happen. Uh, it happens in other places, but I don’t think it could possibly happen here, but there is a price point for them to really piss off their Birdland membership people. I’m not one of them. I mentioned pika earlier. He’s one of the few people that I’ve ever had a conversation with ever in my life about Birdland memberships or discounts, and it’s only because I went to opening day with pika, and he was telling me, I go over there and I get my beer for that. I go over there and I get a discount. I use my points, and I can get a free ad or a ball or like, I don’t know, I’m Marriott reward member Southwest Airlines, and I know the value of all that and credit card, but I’ve never examined the Birdland thing because I’ve never thought about giving them a nickel, let alone giving them $1 because of the way I’ve been treated from the old group to the new group. That being said, I watched this. I wonder when the there is going to get there. And it’s going to really get built and be as mature as it needs to be, because when fans are getting nickel and dime for $1 here or $2 there, that’s how they’re keeping Adley rutschman. That’s how they’re keeping gunner Henderson, they need to generate revenue from you, the public, the fans, everybody needs to go give them a lot of money in one way or another, whether it’s cable television, whether it’s buying a tchotchke, whether it’s going down there to eat boobs barbecue. Happy birthday, Boog, I’m honoring you number 26 of 26 oysters. But do you feel like it’s growing or do you feel like it’s plateaued in a point where everybody who was ever an Orioles fans run back because they’re good now they’re good. I’ve run back. I’m watching them every night and giving them money. And there’s a lot of people like me that could sit here and watch the games on TV and never go down there and still be very supportive of the team. But just the optics are one thing. The revenue is the most important thing, because at the end of the day, this Birdland membership thing last week was about somebody recalibrating, oh, we’re good. We can charge him more. And I’m thinking, dude, I grew up in Dundalk. I mean, I’m I’m ball, I I’m as Dutch Ruppersberger once said he’s real bomber. I don’t know where this money’s coming from. And that was my thought to you. That was my thought that Kurt battenhausen is we’re talking about franchise values, because this team’s really good, and they need to grow this thing, and they can’t wait till next year to do it. This is it. They, they’ve, they’ve got people’s attention. I was down at Secrets Oriole hats. They got people’s attention. Now, when are they going to get their money?
Luke Jones 41:37
Yeah, I mean a couple things. And full disclosure, I have not studied the Birdland membership information and price points and all that into all I
Nestor Aparicio 41:46
know is everybody’s pissed off. So it must be something. These are the fans who are the biggest fans.
Luke Jones 41:50
Correct? Yes, correct. So I couple things. Look, prices are always going to go up in anything, right? Prices are going to go up. However, when there’s a price increase coupled with a diminishing of what you are getting, which is what I understand. A lot of people seem to be upset. I’ve seen multiple people, whether it’s just on my social media, a couple articles I’ve seen, you know, whether there was a banner or the sun, whatever, people that have mentioned that. Look, I understand that I’m going to pay a little bit more. But then when you reduce my discount in concert with that, it’s the same thing as, like, when people are ticked off at the grocery inflation and tax, yeah, exactly. Or, or the bag of chips is more expensive, and I look at it, and the bag’s gotten smaller also. So it’s inflation and shrinkflation, right? So, you know, when you hear some of that stuff. So I so I think that’s, you know, that’s part of it. I think there is absolutely a big picture, you know, tug of war going on here, where you say, You know what look I stuck with you. I was there even when fans came back in 2021 and I was there at the beginning of 22 I was there back in 2018 and 19 and more. So specifically 19 because 18, they actually tried to win. That was, that was the mistake at the end of the
Nestor Aparicio 43:05
video. Paid to watch Rio Ruiz play their face. You were there, right? So
Luke Jones 43:10
there’s a thought with that. When you say, look, I gave you money in 19, not 20, because of covid, 2122 I gave you guys money then you were, you deliberately were not trying to win at that point. Yes, they, they didn’t enter tanking in terms of, they were really good and then got really bad on purpose, because we know that it completely fell apart. But they did nothing to push that process along at the major league level in terms of getting better, in terms of spending money on veteran players or anything like that. You know, we know that understood as a paying customer who was still supporting the team financially at a time when they were not trying at the major league level, they’ve gotten good. That’s great. I’ve enjoyed it. I understand at some point in time that the prices were going to go up. But where is your where is the commitment from ownership in the front office to ensure that my money is going to be well spent in terms of an extension for a gunner Henderson, or maybe more in the more immediate let’s talk about Anthony Santander on maybe a three or four year contract for him that we wouldn’t have talked about three months ago. Where is the commitment when it comes to something along those lines, to say, Hey, you’re going to be charging more money, but we we’ve given gunner Henderson a contract extension. Well, the
Nestor Aparicio 44:31
crazy thing is, they’re charging more money, and the understanding between you and I is Corbin burns isn’t going to be her opening day next year. They’re gonna, they’re gonna, they’re not gonna go with an opening day. They’re gonna go with the strip state shrimp station going, they’re good. I mean, I like them. They’re fine, but they’re not filet mignon and, um, you know, and because we don’t pay for that here, we can’t, we can’t afford that. We’re small market. We are. We gonna afford this if we don’t afford so this shell game. And this guy, Rubinstein for the hats, and Mr. Dancy and Mr. Magoo running around and all that. Dude, I have you under review. You and the Whistler, you’re all under review, like my press credential, and I’m reviewing this with the public right now, and I’m concerned. And my flippant friend who loves the Orioles, he says they’re not gonna grow the brand. It’s an old white people’s game. And he looked around everybody here’s old and white. He’s talking about the politicians that were in the room. They’re watching the baseball game. Go down the street and see what’s going on down, you know, anywhere else in Ocean City where young people are and other people have other things to do. And I thought about this from the ocean city standpoint. I thought, when you’re Ocean City and you charge too much for a hotel room on Friday or Saturday night, the general notion is somebody else to come along and pay for it. So everybody loves the beach. Everybody loves the beach. They’ll go down. They’ll pay for it on fourth of July weekend, upcharging all of that, paying a little bit more to convenience store, which we’re all, can we’re all but there are, is not an unlimited amount of baseball fans. There’s you and me and the people you see down there. They are the ones who love baseball and recruiting new people to baseball. Okay, I’ll hear that. I mean, my elementary school’s celebrating 100 years on Thursday, Colgate Elementary in the east side of town. My son still lives there. My son lives in the house my parents lived in. He’s second generation Venezuelan and Hispanic living in a neighborhood. He’s a gringo like me. He’s living in a neighborhood where 72% of the people are Hispanic, and it’s a Hispanic sport. We talked about Suarez, we talked about Santa all these guys you want to give money to, they’re all they all look like me and boxed out of the press box. By the way, I’m the only Hispanic journalist here. So if you’re talking about a population that likes baseball, there’s a Hispanic part here. There’s an African American part here that is non existent in their in their scope of fandom, except for Ozzy. You they put on television, they like to put the people of color and kids and, you know, people that don’t look like all white people on television to say, Hey, you’re welcome to that’s great. You know that that’s cool, but they’re not coming, and they’re not I don’t know if it’s interest price point. I hate downtown, all of the usual tropes. The bottom line is they should be growing their brand, and part of growing your brand isn’t scalping your own pissing off your own customers in the middle of a penny race like whatever they did, they didn’t piss me off. They pissed me off for 25 years, by the way they behaved, but they’ve angered their own people who are writing these checks, and they’re the only ones that are going to write these checks. There are no fortune 500 companies here. They finally got T Rowe on board. It took them years to do that, and they’re going to do a naming rights thing for the stadium, I guess, to try to get some revenue. But this is no longer Peter Angelo’s checking out and his goofy kid that we’ve seen for years be goofy. This is now Major League Baseball coming in with these billionaires. I saw Eric get his own with ripkens kid this week I met that guy didn’t meet, didn’t get the guy that was given the free beer out when I met him. Now that being said, these are the people running this, and they don’t live here. And Katie Griggs is she didn’t know where Dundalk or Highland town is, and she’s coming in here and relying on Greg Bader and Jennifer grandall and TJ Brightman to say, Well, what do we have? What’s the situation where our fans, we discounted this, we discounted that. We got a television problem. How are we going to do this? We’ll charge them more. Wow. Or let’s go find new fans. Well, I don’t even see him recruiting dude. I didn’t see a billboard on the way to the beach. I don’t see them doing anything outside of having Melanie Newman eat chips and and and and the games themselves, where the pregames Terrible, they have nothing, no programming all day, and they’re they’re catering to the people they have. And now, last week, they just said, we’re gonna give you less value and charge you more. Come on in, because it feels to me like they don’t know where the next 50 or 100,000 Oriole fans are coming from. And a couple of years into this, I’m worried about them, about that, for them, on behalf of their ability, and their ability to step up and say, We’re small market team Rubenstein. Three years now, we’re we bought a small market team. We only paid 1,000,000,007 for it. We’re small market team. Sorry, gunner had to go play for the Dodgers. Well, and Scott Boris will be the bad guy. I’m thinking like Angelo’s would think, well, 25 millions enough for Mr. He’s agent. You know, like, it’s easy to do that when you don’t sign a player. The the Red Sox are doing that over bets right now? Well,
Luke Jones 49:42
I mean, a couple things that come to mind. I mean, kind of going back to what I said a few minutes ago. I mean, you had your base, small as it might be, but your base that was continuing to support the team, they were sold this idea that the money that was being. Being saved in terms of Major League payroll, yes, was being reinvested in other aspects of the organization. But we know that not all of that, you know, not all of a, what was once a $150 million payroll, goes into player development, right? It’s
Nestor Aparicio 50:13
a, it’s amazing. You go down to Sarasota, and I haven’t been in there because I’ve been boxed out. I I’ve never had a media pass in Sarasota since they mean, they’ve been there 15 years, and I’ve never, never been allowed in ever, right? But I see that facility when I drop you off at the front door, because I’m like, driving Mr. Luke, when I’m in Florida, I drop you off at the front door, and you go into that building, and you’re like, hey, it’s really nice. And they spent, yeah, they spent the kind of money. They spent 3 million for. They spent nothing. They spent a backup middle infielder like I mean, but things are, they have improved things. I know there’s no doubt about it, but improving the team is the ultimate capital expense to think about what it’s going to cost to sign any of these kids.
Luke Jones 50:54
So this is so this is where you start to run into the problem, though, specifically with the perception of fans, when you raise prices and you cut amenities in what you’re getting is there was a perception. And this is why people not and this isn’t a Baltimore thing. This is a major league baseball thing. This is why people, fans are leery me, media members are leery of these long term rebuilds because they sell it as though they’re saving up this treasure, treasure chest in the meantime of rebuilding and focusing on player development and drafting and and growing arms, growing bats, not spending at the major league level, with the idea that when the time comes, you’ll have all this money to augment and to retain your young stars, so you’re sold that, and I’m not well here, it’s
Nestor Aparicio 51:44
even worse, because we’ve had Angelo’s. I mean, we’ve been lied to openly forever. It’s a little different than the trust you would put in the St Louis Cardinals or even the Kansas City Royals, or some of these other friendly midway where ownerships been trying hard, maybe a little can’t get out of its own way. Ownership here has been derelict for a generation of horrific Ness, like all the way through. So these people have to be extra better, extra better. Like Mr. Rubenstein given out hats behind home, place like that, something. It’s almost like Trump thrown at toilet paper down in Puerto Rico, like, Oh, that’s nice. And it they’re all about the Johnny Bravo optics. I mean, that’s who they are. That’s what I’m seeing from the Rubinstein people. Is everything has to be look good. It has to look good. Well, looking good and being good is different. You know what I mean? Well,
Luke Jones 52:37
and I will say, and this is where I’ll stick up for them a little bit. They have not owned the team for an off season, yet at the trade deadline, they did take on salary. Now, was this a salary to push it into top 10 payroll, or top 12 or even top half of the league payroll? No, of course not, but they took on Zach efflon contract next year, which I don’t think would have happened two years ago, with John A in charge. So there are signs of that. But again, you’re asking people to spend more and receive less, and there still hasn’t been that smoking gun. Oh my gosh. Look at the financial commitment that they just made. You know if gunner Henderson had been extended, if they had announced a contract extension for Anthony Santander for, I don’t know name your price point, three or $75 million before they announced to their but they
Nestor Aparicio 53:29
did put Tickets on sale for 130 bucks for the rest of the year. I thought the place, and they did not mobbed, but I thought like, oh, I mean, they’ll they’ll get the optics they want. They’ll get asses in the seats. They’ll be people in the upper deck. There’ll be people there. And that didn’t feel the feeling for me over the weekend, like, like the way I thought it would, especially with college kids going back to school and whatnot, I thought, like, there would just be a lot of I thought people would start coming and make me wrong. I’m not wrong. I’m right. They they have and I’m gonna write to the owners soon about all of this. Katie Griggs has a lot of work to do to undo damage caused by Angelos. The notion that we’re not a big market. We don’t have a lot of money. The fan base is limited. There’s a team in DC, the all. There’s a team in Philadelphia. You go up to Aberdeen and go past there, there’s another team. So they have a this is a challenging economic environment for them, and especially challenge when they basically say you can come for almost free, for a couple bucks, for for one check will let you come for two months and sit anywhere you want. And the most important games of the year when the weather’s good and people aren’t, people didn’t take advantage of that in the way that optically I thought they would. And I I’ve spoken to you for 11 months now, since last year, when my wife and I went down there for the clinch games last year, and there were 18, 20,000 people there. And I thought, it’s not the way it looked in major league in the movie, you know, night they clinched, the place got packed. Everybody came. You know, everybody wanted to be in on it. Everybody want to have that Delman young moment, you know what I mean? And you don’t have a lot of moments like that. Come on, man, you’ve been watching, you’ve been watching baseball your whole life, waiting for anything to happen ever like look, you’re, you’re still waiting to see a playoff win other than Delmon young, you know, so. But I would say those moments for fans, and just said it, though they haven’t had a moment. Okay, fair enough.
Luke Jones 55:25
You just said it. They haven’t won anything yet. And I’ve said this to you over and over, and I’ll continue to say it. This is a dial. It’s not a light switch. When you have as much damage was done to their brand for as long as it was, people don’t come back overnight. I think, a good comparison right now. Couple things here. First of all, two years ago, when they first started getting to the point where they were respectable again, there were 23rd in attendance. They were averaging 17,000 people. They’re up to 28 so there’s there’s been growth now. Has it been amazing growth? Has it been earth shattering, shocking? Oh my gosh. This is a powder keg kind of growth. No, not at all. There are 18th in attendance. I think I’d say a relative, relevant comparison right now is go look at what they were in 2014 a similar point that were two years into being good. 2014 was the peak of the buck Showalter era in terms of wins and losses on the field. And they got to the ALCS that year. By
Nestor Aparicio 56:29
the way, Master was printing money at that point too. I mean, they were very flush, sure, and they weren’t putting up the team. The money never went to the team. I’ll make that clear for anybody that knows that. I know, because of the poison pill, anything they gave themselves they would have to give to the nationals. But they were the angels family. Was very, very flush, feeling so good that they gave Chris Davis money, quite frankly, right? Sure.
Luke Jones 56:48
And we saw the payroll go up the following year, and they raised ticket prices, if you recall, and that probably that kind of, you know, they probably missed the mark there. And then, then it certainly didn’t help that wasn’t soon thereafter that they got bad again, and obviously. But you know, in 2014 they were 13th in attendance. They were at 30,800 was their average attendance. 2024 a decade later, at a similar point in time, in terms of they’ve been good for a couple years now, they’re 18, 28,000 so you look at it, that’s, you know, roughly 2500 people. Has that been what they lost, in terms of, you know, just that the five years of some of them are dead. I mean, like over 10 years, well, I mean, I, I
Nestor Aparicio 57:37
hear, you know, whatever, gone, just gone. There are
Luke Jones 57:41
still young people do like baseball. I mean, like, you know, that’s like it enough to pay for it, and I Well, and that’s fair, that’s fair. But I think you look at all of these factors, and I think there needs to be sustainability here. They haven’t won anything yet. We’ve talked about this kind of with the rave we’re having, the conversation about the ravens, not so much in terms of attendance or anything like that. I mean, the Ravens have been what they’ve been for a quarter century now,
Nestor Aparicio 58:14
on Friday. So be careful. I
Luke Jones 58:15
don’t care. I don’t right, I don’t care about that. Though, you know, it’s preseason. It’s not, not real, not you couldn’t give tickets away for that at this point in time. But in terms of the Orioles, like I said, it’s a dial. Has it? Has attendance improved? Has their following improved? Of course, it has, you know, couldn’t have gotten much worse than it was five years ago, especially throwing covid into the mix there and considering that. But they’ve got to continue that. They’ve got to maintain. And that’s why I’ve said to me, raising prices is one thing, or cutting back on the discount is is one thing, doing both in concert without having made that smoking gun. Oh my gosh, they just made a massive financial commitment in terms of extending gunner Anderson, or resigning Anthony Santander or extending Adley Ross, you know, pick. Take your pick. You know, whoever you want to pick in that conversation that, yeah, tick to tick some people off. And I can understand that. I certainly can do I think that it’s a fatal blow. Do I think that means they can’t continue to grow their their brand, no, but they’ve got to continue to work hard. And I’ve made the point to you. I said this a couple weeks ago. Houston Astros, they’ve had a decade now. They’ve won championships. They’ve been in the playoffs every year all of that. Go look at their promotion schedule. They do bobbleheads and all kinds of stuff all the time. I think that’s part of what you just need to do in this day and age. You’ve got to incentivize people to come to the ballpark. In addition to the understood part of this, that is the biggest part of this, of it’s got to be a good product, it’s got to be a winning product, but you need bells and whistles. Whistles. And I think people will pay money for those bells and whistles, but you have to have bells and whistles to go with it. So they’ve got to continue to maintain that. And again, for these fans, for these Birdland memberships, for these people that have been their base, you know, the people that were out there in 2021 or 2019 when they were god awful, they’ve got to realize that they’ve got to continue to work hard to attract more people like that, and it’s a dial, and yeah, they’re going to have to break through. It’s going to be tough for them to get where they might want to go, from a brand vision standpoint, for them to not at least make a World Series at some point here in the next few years. Because you know, otherwise, then you get complacent, even as a fan base, you know, we’re Ravens. That’s, that was the point I was trying to make, the Ravens waiting for Lamar and this current era of ravens football to break through in January. You know, it’s not good enough just to get to the playoffs anymore, right? It isn’t. I
Nestor Aparicio 1:00:55
think if you asked, yeah, there’s no game in October that’s going to matter for them this year or right? That’s, that’s a fact.
Luke Jones 1:01:01
Well, I mean, yeah, right, for the ravens, for the Orioles, all the games matter, and they got, they’ve got to break through. So look, this is, we’ll continue to talk about this, because this is, there’s a lot of meat on the bone here. But, yeah, I think for me, it was the double whammy of raising prices and lowering the perks. Yeah, that that’s a double whammy that ticks people off when you haven’t won anything yet, when you haven’t truly made that. Oh my gosh. Look at the financial commitment they just made to resign gunner Henderson, or to resign Anthony Santander. You do those things before you’ve done that. That’s where people, you know, their skepticism lingers. Not saying it’s all skepticism, but it lingers until until you show otherwise. Luke
Nestor Aparicio 1:01:42
Jones is covering all things Orioles baseball all week long. I’m Nestor. He’s Luke. We are W, N, S, T am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop talking Baltimore positive.
