The recent struggles and poor record of the Baltimore Orioles have been glaring signs of measurement but this is the weekend when they’ll be rightly judged against the best team in Major League Baseball. Luke Jones and Nestor discuss the Birds’ West Coast trip, troubles in Seattle and the pending trio of games at Chavez Ravine against the modern machine of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ struggles, highlighting their recent series against Seattle where they gave up nine runs and lost three games. They noted the team’s inconsistent offense and lack of leadership, with key players like Adley Ruchman and Gunner Henderson underperforming. The conversation shifted to the upcoming series against the Dodgers, emphasizing the significant payroll disparity and the Dodgers’ dominance with a 48-27 record and a 144-run differential. They also touched on the broader issues in baseball, including the potential impact of a salary cap and the competitive imbalance in the sport.

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour event at Green Mount Station in Hampstead on Wednesday afternoon to end the series, including giving away Maryland Lottery tickets and watching the game.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour event at Fadley’s in Lexington on July 10 during All-Star Break Weekend.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Decide which Orioles player will represent the team at the All-Star Game in Philadelphia before the July 10 Maryland Crab Cake Tour event.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Work with Coco’s to put together a collaboration that will lead to a return visit to Sorrento of Arbutus.
• [ ] Monitor the WNST Tech Service during the upcoming Orioles–Dodgers series and provide coverage for listeners.

Orioles’ Performance and Upcoming Challenges

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Orioles’ recent performance, mentioning their struggles in Seattle and the upcoming series against the Dodgers.
• Luke Jones highlights the Orioles’ pitching performance, noting that they gave up nine runs in the series against Seattle.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of consistent leadership and the underwhelming performance of the Orioles’ star players.
• Luke mentions the Orioles’ recent streak of losing eight out of 12 games, which has brought them back to six games under 500.

Orioles’ Upcoming Series Against the Dodgers

• Nestor and Luke discuss the challenges the Orioles will face in their series against the Dodgers, who have a much higher payroll and a better team.
• Luke notes that the Dodgers have a strong rotation and a history of winning back-to-back World Series.
• Nestor expresses his pessimism about the Orioles’ chances, given their recent performance and the strength of the Dodgers.
• Luke mentions the importance of the upcoming series as a litmus test for the Orioles’ progress.

Historical Context and Recent Performance

• Nestor and Luke reflect on the Orioles’ recent performance, noting that they have struggled to maintain consistency.
• Luke mentions the Orioles’ 10-4 streak earlier in the season, which was followed by a decline in performance.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of leadership and the inconsistency of the Orioles’ star players.
• Luke highlights the importance of winning two out of three games in the upcoming series against the Dodgers.

Orioles’ Leadership and Player Performance

• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of leadership within the Orioles’ team, mentioning players like Alonzo and Ruchman.
• Luke notes that the Orioles’ star players, including Adley Ruchman and Gunner Henderson, have had mixed performances.
• Nestor mentions the importance of having consistent leadership and star players to lead the team to success.
• Luke highlights the need for the Orioles to find players who can consistently perform well in key situations.

Comparison with Other Teams and Leagues

• Nestor and Luke compare the Orioles’ situation with other teams and leagues, noting the competitive imbalance in baseball.
• Luke mentions the success of teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the St. Louis Cardinals, who have managed to sustain success despite lower payrolls.
• Nestor discusses the competitive balance in other sports like football and basketball, where smaller market teams can compete with larger market teams.
• Luke highlights the importance of smart decision-making and resource allocation in achieving success in baseball.

Impact of Financial Resources on Team Performance

• Nestor and Luke discuss the impact of financial resources on team performance, noting that teams with higher payrolls have a significant advantage.
• Luke mentions the Dodgers’ smart use of financial resources, including deferring money and managing injuries.
• Nestor highlights the challenges faced by smaller market teams like the Orioles in competing with teams like the Dodgers.
• Luke notes that financial resources alone are not enough; teams need to be smart and strategic in their decision-making.

Future Outlook and Potential Changes

• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential changes in baseball, including the possibility of a salary cap and other structural changes.
• Luke mentions the importance of creating a more competitive and fair system for all teams.
• Nestor highlights the need for changes to address the competitive imbalance in baseball.
• Luke notes that any changes need to be balanced and fair, ensuring that all teams have a chance to compete.

Personal Reflections and Experiences

• Nestor shares his personal experiences of attending games at Dodger Stadium and the grandeur of the venue.
• Luke reflects on the importance of historical context and the evolution of baseball teams.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the impact of personal experiences on their perspective of the sport and the teams they follow.
• Luke highlights the importance of maintaining a balanced perspective and not letting personal biases cloud judgment.

Final Thoughts and Predictions

• Nestor and Luke discuss their final thoughts and predictions for the upcoming series against the Dodgers.
• Luke mentions the importance of the series as a test for the Orioles’ progress and potential.
• Nestor expresses his pessimism about the Orioles’ chances, given their recent performance and the strength of the Dodgers.
• Luke highlights the need for the Orioles to find ways to compete and succeed despite the challenges they face.

Luke Jones and Nestor discuss Orioles troubles in Seattle and pending doom with Dodgers in Los Angeles

Transcript

Overview

Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discussed the Orioles’ struggles, highlighting their recent series against Seattle where they gave up nine runs and lost three games. They noted the team’s inconsistent offense and lack of leadership, with key players like Adley Ruchman and Gunner Henderson underperforming. The conversation shifted to the upcoming series against the Dodgers, emphasizing the significant payroll disparity and the Dodgers’ dominance with a 48-27 record and a 144-run differential. They also touched on the broader issues in baseball, including the potential impact of a salary cap and the competitive imbalance in the sport.

Action Items

• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour event at Green Mount Station in Hampstead on Wednesday afternoon to end the series, including giving away Maryland Lottery tickets and watching the game.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Host the Maryland Crab Cake Tour event at Fadley’s in Lexington on July 10 during All-Star Break Weekend.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Decide which Orioles player will represent the team at the All-Star Game in Philadelphia before the July 10 Maryland Crab Cake Tour event.
• [ ] @Nestor Aparicio – Work with Coco’s to put together a collaboration that will lead to a return visit to Sorrento of Arbutus.
• [ ] Monitor the WNST Tech Service during the upcoming Orioles–Dodgers series and provide coverage for listeners.

Outline

Orioles’ Performance and Upcoming Challenges

• Nestor Aparicio discusses the Orioles’ recent performance, mentioning their struggles in Seattle and the upcoming series against the Dodgers.
• Luke Jones highlights the Orioles’ pitching performance, noting that they gave up nine runs in the series against Seattle.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of consistent leadership and the underwhelming performance of the Orioles’ star players.
• Luke mentions the Orioles’ recent streak of losing eight out of 12 games, which has brought them back to six games under 500.

Orioles’ Upcoming Series Against the Dodgers

• Nestor and Luke discuss the challenges the Orioles will face in their series against the Dodgers, who have a much higher payroll and a better team.
• Luke notes that the Dodgers have a strong rotation and a history of winning back-to-back World Series.
• Nestor expresses his pessimism about the Orioles’ chances, given their recent performance and the strength of the Dodgers.
• Luke mentions the importance of the upcoming series as a litmus test for the Orioles’ progress.

Historical Context and Recent Performance

• Nestor and Luke reflect on the Orioles’ recent performance, noting that they have struggled to maintain consistency.
• Luke mentions the Orioles’ 10-4 streak earlier in the season, which was followed by a decline in performance.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of leadership and the inconsistency of the Orioles’ star players.
• Luke highlights the importance of winning two out of three games in the upcoming series against the Dodgers.

Orioles’ Leadership and Player Performance

• Nestor and Luke discuss the lack of leadership within the Orioles’ team, mentioning players like Alonzo and Ruchman.
• Luke notes that the Orioles’ star players, including Adley Ruchman and Gunner Henderson, have had mixed performances.
• Nestor mentions the importance of having consistent leadership and star players to lead the team to success.
• Luke highlights the need for the Orioles to find players who can consistently perform well in key situations.

Comparison with Other Teams and Leagues

• Nestor and Luke compare the Orioles’ situation with other teams and leagues, noting the competitive imbalance in baseball.
• Luke mentions the success of teams like the Tampa Bay Rays and the St. Louis Cardinals, who have managed to sustain success despite lower payrolls.
• Nestor discusses the competitive balance in other sports like football and basketball, where smaller market teams can compete with larger market teams.
• Luke highlights the importance of smart decision-making and resource allocation in achieving success in baseball.

Impact of Financial Resources on Team Performance

• Nestor and Luke discuss the impact of financial resources on team performance, noting that teams with higher payrolls have a significant advantage.
• Luke mentions the Dodgers’ smart use of financial resources, including deferring money and managing injuries.
• Nestor highlights the challenges faced by smaller market teams like the Orioles in competing with teams like the Dodgers.
• Luke notes that financial resources alone are not enough; teams need to be smart and strategic in their decision-making.

Future Outlook and Potential Changes

• Nestor and Luke discuss the potential changes in baseball, including the possibility of a salary cap and other structural changes.
• Luke mentions the importance of creating a more competitive and fair system for all teams.
• Nestor highlights the need for changes to address the competitive imbalance in baseball.
• Luke notes that any changes need to be balanced and fair, ensuring that all teams have a chance to compete.

Personal Reflections and Experiences

• Nestor shares his personal experiences of attending games at Dodger Stadium and the grandeur of the venue.
• Luke reflects on the importance of historical context and the evolution of baseball teams.
• Nestor and Luke discuss the impact of personal experiences on their perspective of the sport and the teams they follow.
• Luke highlights the importance of maintaining a balanced perspective and not letting personal biases cloud judgment.

Final Thoughts and Predictions

• Nestor and Luke discuss their final thoughts and predictions for the upcoming series against the Dodgers.
• Luke mentions the importance of the series as a test for the Orioles’ progress and potential.
• Nestor expresses his pessimism about the Orioles’ chances, given their recent performance and the strength of the Dodgers.
• Luke highlights the need for the Orioles to find ways to compete and succeed despite the challenges they face.

Nestor Aparicio 0:02
Welcome home. We are W N S T A M 1570 Towson Baltimore. We are Baltimore Positive, positively getting the Maryland Crab Gate tour. Back out on the road, we had such a blast at Sorrento of Arbutus on Wednesday. We had great, great guests. You’ll be hearing that at AM 1570 Finding it out at Baltimore Positive, and all of our social streams, all of it brought to you by our friends at the Maryland Lottery. It was a everybody wanted the horses. I’m going to run out of the horse tickets here pretty soon. I thought the boardwalk tickets would be more popular this time of year. Maybe it’s the heat, if the heat does get to you. Farn and Dermer is there for you at the Comfort guys, as well as their plumbing help. 410 36777 Zach came on this week, Leonard Raskin, all of our sponsors came on. I spent the evening over at The Fishmonger’s Daughter on Thursday night in Catonsville. They’re open for business and lovely. We’re going to be back down to Fake Lee’s on july 10, which is Getaway Day for this guy. Luke Jones joins us now. The Orioles headed to Chavez Ravine, and for everyone who is staying up late, or maybe on Father’s Day watching the game on Sunday in lieu of the soccer or the or the golf tournament. I love Dodger Stadium. This is a rare weekend that the Mass and crew’s going to run around. It was a game on Apple TV, I don’t even know, but either way, we’ll try to watch it. I don’t know, but when you see Chavez Ravine, just know that it is, you know, Luke. It’s a place you ought to go watch baseball games, so every time I ask you, like, you want to do something. We were, I’m like, gotta go to the LA, gotta go to Dodge Stadium. So, you know, watch it this weekend, watch them get mauled this weekend by a team with three times the payroll and about 100 times the thought process, and all of this. But Seattle, you know, some good on on Wednesday night, obviously not so good on Thursday when they’re striking out and not hitting the ball and not hitting with runners to score a position on the rare opportunities they had. It Thursday was a PU for me and Boz was decent. It’s just it’s a scuffle right now. There’s no question about

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Luke Jones 1:59
it. Yeah, they didn’t hit, I mean, they gave up nine runs in the series, right? You gave up three runs per game, literally, in each of these three games. You’d like to think you can win the series, and I know Seattle pitches well. I mean, Brian Wu was very good on Thursday. I’ll give him credit, I’ll tip my cap, but not to the degree where you’re shut out and you had what, two hits until very late in the game, but I mean it’s just that they were built, and we’ve talked about this at various times, going back to the second half of 2024 This thing was constructed for the offense to lead the way. Now, that doesn’t mean the pitching has been good enough for large portions of time over the last two years, but they pitched well over the course of this series. I mean, Brandon Young wasn’t sharp on Tuesday night, but he gave them a chance. Certainly, Bradish was phenomenal on Wednesday night. I mean, that was, you know, in terms of swing and miss, that’s the best we’ve seen Bradish look in a long time. Was the only way they’re

Nestor Aparicio 2:55
going to win? Yeah,

Luke Jones 2:56
yeah, and Boz on Thursday afternoon, even with not, you know, not giving him an excuse of unraveling to the degree that he did after the first inning with two outs, you know, Tavares makes a lackadaisical play, but even so, it was still two outs, you need to get out of that and not give up three runs, but he settled in really nicely and gave them every chance after that, so I can’t sit here and be unhappy about the pitching. I mean, they pitched well enough to win all three games, and you win one of them, and that’s that’s not how this team’s built to win with any level of consistency, and even though, yeah, you look at the overall statistics and say the offense is better than the other cat main categories of this ball club. It still has its stretches of time where it’s just not good enough, right? Whether we’re talking about runners in scoring position, whether we’re talking about swing and miss, it doesn’t feel like

Nestor Aparicio 3:52
there’s any leadership either. It feels like there’s nobody that is the middle, the aircraft carrier, whatever the word you’re going to use for it, whether it’s Alonzo Henderson, Ruchman, whoever it is, it doesn’t feel like there’s anybody doing this consistently enough to confuse me with Eddie Murray, you know what I mean, like, or, or anything like that, to be really good enough to get over the hump, all of their star players have, including Alonzo, it’s just been really underwhelming as they go into LA, and they’re not even CEOtani, so you know they have that going for them, I guess. Although pick your poison with the Dodgers rotation, right? Yeah,

Luke Jones 4:30
I mean, look, we’re going into this series looking at the Orioles in terms of bracing for the worst, right? No different than when the Yankees came in the Baltimore, the week after they thoroughly humiliated them, no different than when the Rays came into Baltimore after they swept them at the Trops. So maybe they’ll surprise us. That’s what this team seems to do, at least in shorter spurts, but I think for me it’s really just everything we talked about over the course of their stretch. Where they went 10 and four, which included the seven and three home stand. They started their the last road trip with a series win in Boston. They won that Friday night game in Toronto, which was a nice heartening comeback victory. And they’ve lost eight of 12 since then, and they’re back to six games under 500 And now, as you pointed out, they’re going to Chavez Ravine, and you’re facing the world champions who just swept the Rays this week, so you know not that you needed a litmus test for a team that’s won back to back World Series, as you pointed out, they’re not going to face Ohtani the pitcher, but I seem to recall them having their issues against Yamamoto last September to sixth until a miracle come back in the ninth inning, so it’s not as though they’re going to get a complete pass there. I mean, Roki Sasaki doesn’t have impressive numbers, Emmett Sheehan has a 4.7 ERA, so it’s not as though they’re facing elite starting pitching, but I mean it’s the Dodgers, right? I mean, they do so many things so well, and you know it’s going to be a major struggle, right? I mean, look, it’s baseball. I’m not going to sit here and say that they’re 100% going to get swept, and I just cited two examples of times where it looked like it was going to be lopsided here recently, and they ended up winning those series, but it’s just in the big picture sense. When they had the stretch that they had when they had that home stand a couple weeks ago, that was supposed to be the jumping off point, right? That was supposed to be the point, not that you were going to continue to win, go 10 and 410, and 410, and 410, and four, but I said at that point they had gotten themselves back to what, two games under 500 and then it’s just, can you be steady, right? Win two out of three, win two out of threes, split a four game set, right? And instead, over the last four series, they’ve lost three of them, and they had to win the last two just to split with Seattle and Baltimore last week. So it’s once again trending in a bad direction, and it’s hard not to feel like this thing’s really starting to teeter again, in terms of, and I get it, the Al’s mediocre, I get it, you can cite the wild card race till you’re blue in the face, but the eyeball test is just not giving you nearly enough to be encouraged by, you know, you, you have something that goes well for a while, and then that stops, and then something else will pick up, and you’re heartened by that, but then that other thing that was going well doesn’t go well, right? I mean, that they just, they, they spring a leak.

Nestor Aparicio 7:35
Well, they get one thing last weekend with the Padres, and then Ruchman thing last week, it was Pasayo. It’s, it’s every kind of drama except the good kind of drama for me right now. Yeah,

Luke Jones 7:46
I mean, it’s, it’s, and fire

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Nestor Aparicio 7:48
the general manager, and whether the manager’s in over his head is a real question mark. When you get to be 10 games under 500 which is where they’re sailing toward here anytime soon, because it doesn’t feel like they’re about to turn things around as they go to Chavez Ravine, although you know, I mean, you can make your case for them, and it’s baseball, anything’s possible, but this, it feels like by the time we get together for the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, presented by the Maryland Lottery GBMC in Farno and Dermer on july 10, I told my friends over at Fishmonger’s Daughter, the whole fat least group. Alicia, by the way, Alicia’s make her to baby next week, so we’re done with Alicia for 90 days or so. So she’s 8.89 months pregnant, whatever it is. So by the time we get there on july 10, it’s All-Star Break Weekend. You’re going to eat your Max Pizza. I don’t know who they’re sending to Philadelphia as an all-star representative, I will, we’ll decide that between now and then, but I mean that’s three weeks from now. I don’t, I don’t expect this to be going well, you know. I don’t expect them to be a buyer at that point, and that we’re talking about them three weeks now. We play 18 games or whatever, that somehow they’re going to go, dude, 11 and seven would still put them two under 500 you know. They still wouldn’t be anything great, and I don’t know how they’re going to do that.

Luke Jones 9:08
Yeah, and I mean, and it’s not necessarily that I think they’re going to completely unravel, and we’re going to be talking about them being 18 under by that point in time either. It’s just kind of just feels like who they are, right? I mean, at some point in time, what the saying goes, you know, when someone keeps telling you over and over who they are, believe them, they’re a little less

Nestor Aparicio 9:26
than average.

Luke Jones 9:27
Yeah, I mean, like, they’re not horrendous, but they’re not good, you know what I mean? Like, that’s just.. I mean, it’s Mike and go home for the next night and come back in like August and pick up some Ravens. Oh, and they’re not good, I mean, that’s just, but that’s what’s depressing about this, because they’ll, they’ll play just well enough for the shortest period of time to give you this little sliver of optimism, and then it’s just right back to, you know,

Nestor Aparicio 9:54
that speaks to them not being the 2019 Orioles with Rio Ruiz, and sure. You know, this, I mean, they have talent, have talent, right?

Luke Jones 10:03
Yeah, I mean, they’re not completely devoid of talent or anything like that. We’re not sitting here saying they’re horrendous, but it’s wild, man. I’m working on it at Baltimore positive.com right now. I mean, nothing, nothing earth shattering, but you and I, how many times have we cited, you know, that that week where they take two or three from the Phillies in Baltimore, they go to the Bronx, there’s some bean ball drama going on, and they finish off that series at Yankee Stadium with an absolute blowout. They’re at that point in time, I think they were 49 and 25 right? And that stretch, and I looked, I looked at this, I went back to 2022 July 3, which was right around, I believe that was the start of they had that 10 game winning streak, which turned them.. it’s almost like a switch got flipped, you know. Ruchman had been in the majors at that point, what, six weeks, something like that. Trey Mancini was still on the team at that point. There were some feel-good moments from him, even though we knew he was going to be traded in a matter of weeks, but that team really started to gel and play at a high level, and I looked at that. I mean, we’re talking July 3, 2022 through June 20, 2024 Their record was 198 and 121 77 games over 500 It’s a 621 winning percentage. They were 100 win pace kind of baseball team for close to two calendar years. Since then, they’re 152 and 174 466 22 under 500 It’s a 75 win pace. I mean, they, they kind of almost overnight, and of course, over the last two years, they’ve had some stretches that have been uglier than, and some other stretches where it was okay, right? But I mean, it was you, and I’ve talked about this a lot, and as much as we talked about fire the manager, fire the GM, this, that, whatever, they’re still a big part of my baseball brain that still hasn’t quite processed what the heck happened, where it was so good and going so well for so long. Playoff, you know, 2023 playoff series sweep aside, like you know, like just because you’re good in the regular season doesn’t mean you’re assured of anything in October, right? So I’m not saying it was all, you know, all you know, the cherry on top, and everything was perfect, but it was really, really good for a long time, you know. Two two calendar years is not a small sample size, but the on the flip side, now we’re at two calendar years of a really disappointing sample size, and again we said it throughout, throughout July and August and September of 24 we said it last year, especially early on, when it was just so awful, and that’s, you know, why Brandon Hyde was gone, and but it’s just, it’s still, I still don’t fully grasp why it broke almost overnight, and they’ve never recovered. I mean, they just.. they haven’t recovered. They’ve had a couple, a couple months here and there, right? Not many, like literally a couple months of baseball where you know they’ve won a couple more than they lost, right? They haven’t had months where they’ve gone 17 and six or 17 and eight, you know, they haven’t had anything like that over an extended month long period of time, where they’ve looked anything like that team we saw in 23 or the first half of 24 and you know, I mean, there was a report from The Athletic that came out, you know, Cal Ripken sounds like he’s a little bit involved with some of the minor league stuff, you know, the minor league fundamentals. I mean, I like seeing some details like that, that it shows that there’s an awareness, right? It’s not as though Michaelias is just sitting in the warehouse just saying, “Oh, we’re just going to turn it around any day now, this is just a lot of bad luck and a lot of injuries.

Luke Jones 13:59
I mean, there’s an awareness of things being broken, but that doesn’t mean that they have the answers, and it doesn’t mean they have the solutions, specifically talking about this regime, meaning the president of baseball ops and all the lieutenants and their philosophy and the things they prioritize with development, so I mean, it’s just, it’s very disheartening, and again, you were hoping 10 and four was going to lead to, I don’t know, 20 and nine, you know, something like that, I mean, that’s not, it’s not unheard of, you know, even a decent, a decent team to play well for a month, but it just, it feels the success is so fleeting, and then they have these longer pockets of mediocre to bad, you know what I mean, like, and again, it’s just, you look at the full body of work, and it’s, it’s sub 500 you know, it’s not, it’s not 110 loss, uh. You know, rebuild era, awful baseball. I mean, they, they did that for six weeks last year, right? I mean, early on, I mean, that it was that bad, but it’s just a lot of this, you know, like we’ve talked about all year. You know, one step forward, one step back, two steps forward, three steps back, right? I mean, like, you win a series, you lose a series, you win two series, you lose the next three, right? You win three in a row, but you can’t break through and have an extended winning streak, but then before you know it, you’ve lost four in a row, right? I mean, it’s just, just that. Well, thinking you’re

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Nestor Aparicio 15:31
gonna start winning streaks at Dodger Stadium is a whole different game. Oh, sure,

Luke Jones 15:34
of course, of course. And that’s where maybe it’ll

Nestor Aparicio 15:37
start on Monday in Anaheim.

Luke Jones 15:38
I mean, maybe it will, but, and like I said, I mean, you and I both talked a lot about that Yankee series, like the rematch series after the disaster in the Bronx, and they won two of three, you know, they swept the Rays after they were swept down at the Trop. I mean, if we’re reconvening on Monday, talking about them somehow winning two out of three, it’s not like it’s, I mean, it’s baseball, but at the same time, what’s the evidence that this is really truly turning around? To your point, I mean, you have players that are having good seasons. Yes, I mean, Adley Ruchman is having a really good season, especially relative to where he was the last year and a half, and you asked about the All-Star game, that might be my bet right now, that Bricsman might be their all-star rep, right, even though there’s some other good catchers in the American League who certainly are worthy, but, but, yeah, I mean, Gunner Henderson, we’re still waiting, right? I mean, he hit a home run Wednesday night, that was great, big home run, big reason why they won the game, you know, he’s not, it’s not terrible, but he’s not the aircraft carrier that he needs to be, he hasn’t been the superstar that he needs to be. Pete Alonso’s dabbled in being the big bat, but we’ve also seen him kind of be the headliner for failures with runners in scoring position, right? And he’s the first to tell you that, like, he knows it, you know. They’ve Blaze Alexander has been a great story, my goodness, I mean it’s one of, I think, only 11 hitters in the majors with a 300 average, with a, you know, I think it was 170 plate appearances. He has, you know, he’s not qualified, but, but he’s been a great story. But for every great story they have, they have guys that are middling and disappointing, and at times just playing bad, and guys that are hot, but then cool off. I mean, it’s just, just no consistency. I mean, just no consistency whatsoever. And it’s why they’re 35 and 41 and now going to, and you’re bracing as they’re going to play the best team in baseball this weekend.

Nestor Aparicio 17:35
Luke Jones is here. He is Baltimore. Luke, we’re going to be out on Wednesday at Green Mount Station in Hampstead to end this series, and on the 10th of July, we will be at Fadley’s back down to Lexington. Mark, we’re putting something together with Coco’s, and we’re going to get back at the Sorrento of Arbutus. I hope we had a great time out there this week as well. All are brought to you by the Maryland Lottery, our friends at GBMC and Farnon and Dermer. Also, the WNSD tech service was talked about at length. Bill Cole join me at Sorrentos, because his business is based in Arbutus, and Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy’s worldwide HQ is in Arbutus, and I talked about the tech service, and of course, Cole Roofing sponsors it, and Gordian Energy, we appreciate that, but I told some fun stories, so even Luke, you’ll like hearing that as you send out these WNST texts, I don’t know, it’s not going to be magic number stuff, just we don’t play the Dodgers much, right, and I can whist about Dodger Stadium, Chavez Ravine, and Janet Marie and Tommy Lasord and Steve Garvey, and going out there with my dad, 1985 and loving, and I thought all those stories, and I’ve called it the best ballpark in baseball before it was remodeled twice, the Dodgers, and what they represent in the sport, for whatever my broken Maryland heart would represent with Duke or North Carolina, or whatever Kentucky and UCLA, or the Blue Bloods of college sports, or I don’t know, I mean it’s really not Blue Bloods in the NFL or the NBA, or the NHL, because of the salary cap, and in the modern era, we can now go back, I don’t know, 40 years in football, right? We can go back 20-530, years in basketball and hockey, and see that the Lakers and the Knicks don’t just beat everybody’s ass, and in hockey, the richer teams, which at one point, were the Red Wings and the Rangers, Canadians, even though the money’s funky with Canada, they don’t ever outpace everyone. The NIL has destroyed college, destroyed it, just completely destroyed it. We’ve seen the Saudi blood money mafia, you know, murderers come in and try to destroy golf. We’re in the middle of this World Cup tournament that’s a disgrace. I mean, it’s a, it’s a mafia disgrace. They’re gonna let Trump bandy around with Messi if he wins the tournament somehow in LA, but um, the political, the politicization of all of it, baseball has been the most tired old um. The labor fights, we’re going to spend the whole.. no, we’re not. We’re gonna talk about the Ravens, because they’re gonna win the Super Bowl, but we’re gonna spend any of our time in the offseason not discussing Araghetti and Rubenstein making the team better, or how Katie’s working with the All-Star game. We’re going to be discussing whether there’s even going to be a game next year, right? So that’s how effed up the sport, is I don’t know whether the game’s on TV. Is the game on TV tonight or is on Apple TV? Do we know

Luke Jones 20:25
it’s on Mass at all weekend?

Nestor Aparicio 20:26
Okay, good. At least I can watch him from Chavez Ravine, watch Kevin Brownie hot dogs, and Jim Palmer sleep in his own bed in Newport Beach, or whatever. But the Dodgers are everything the Yankees were going to grow up to be, to be the bad guys, 25 years ago, that they sort of turned out to be in the evil empire. I mean, Lukino’s dead, the Red Sox are dead, you know, Patriots fat and old, so it’s big Poppy with the hose on TV, and like shillings off his rocker. This is 20 years removed from the Yankees being the evil empire, and every time I would hear Seelig’s Bojah, or I hear Manfred’s Bojah, and or your Bourjah, by the way, and saying, well, we have a good Babadity, we’ve had this team made the World Series, and that team made there in Arizona, and everybody gets a chance, and everybody gets under the rope, and all you have to do is win 88 games, and you’re in, you can be the Rockies this year, you can be the Diamondbacks last year, you can feel good about yourself in October, and catch lightning in a bottle, or you can be the A’s or the Rays, and sort of half get there some of the time, and then never get there, and move your franchise eventually, because they peter out on you. They’re petering out in this joint, by the way. This isn’t going well anywhere for anybody. How empty the stadium is, that even you acknowledged that the other day to say I’m there feels different, it feels less everything, and the Dodgers feel like Seinfeld and Elaine on the flight, more of everything, more of everything, more of anything, and they f their fans with television games aren’t even on in half of Southern California, and all they do is just stuff money in their pockets, give Janet Marie money to make the ballpark a playground, and win. And when they don’t win the World Series, which they didn’t for a couple years, right, it’s all like the Yankees, they don’t win every year. But, oh, as we go in there this time, feels like they won, and they’re going to win again, and they’re going to win and win and win and win, because they’re going to be the ones that sign Adley Ruchman if he’s really any good, or they’re going to be the ones that are going to sign Gunner Henderson if he turns out to be any good. If Bradish is really good, you know, and it puts his arm back together and wins 20 games next year, they’ll be the ones that give him the money. So, I don’t, and they’re the ones that go to Asia and bring in Yamamoto to kick our ass all night Saturday, so just on and on and on. Oh, Tony, we’re gonna watch him play all weekend. Freddie Freeman didn’t even want to sign there, and he signed there, and it turned out to be the best thing he’s ever done. So Mookie Betts, every Red Sox fan in the world I have, like, what was that, and the Dodgers, just the sun is shining on, you know, in Hollywood, it really is, and you’ll see it all weekend, but it’s gonna say it’s messed the sport up, but it’s the sport’s really an outlier in regard to competitive balance, in a way that you and I, as sports fans, or even better yet, your let’s say your brother-in-law, who loves the Philly teams, where they’re all there and they’re all around, you have options with all of it, and they even have a Villanova there and a Penn State to love in Pennsylvania, that keeping up and competing and being great competitive greatness in baseball, it really is about money. I mean, you know, you and I are blinking and effing around here with the Orioles, like maybe they can get good for a minute or two. Can it really be sustained when you’re competing with $400 million a year? I mean, I don’t, I don’t know that it really can be sustained for any of these Baltimore’s, Milwaukee, St.

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Nestor Aparicio 23:58
Louis, you know, for any of these other teams that kick it around for a minute, like Kansas City did, but then it’s the Yankees and the Dodgers, and this is the existential issue for me for the sport as we go into the labor stoppage in the off season. I’ll crank up the meter on that a little early on, but I was out in LA, I mean, week ago I saw the Dodgers, their grandiose. I went to a game last year at Dodger Stadium as a guest at Janna Marie. If you’re going to go on a road trip to see the Orioles play, this would have been the one you want to go to for me. See the great team and a great place and see the best of baseball.

Luke Jones 24:40
Yeah, I mean, I don’t know what you want me to say to disagree with that. I mean, I’ll also say they’re really smart, they develop well, not everything they do turns to gold. You can find lots of things that have happened

Nestor Aparicio 24:56
when you’re playing with Foreign Minister,

Luke Jones 24:58
but they’re also really smart, and go look at the. Their farm system is still the envy of a lot of teams in baseball, and that’s not, look, I’m not saying a farm system doesn’t require any money whatsoever, but that’s why the Tampa Bay Rays have been more good than not over the last 20 years, because they can do it. It’s a decision,

Nestor Aparicio 25:18
it’s something you decide to do to be great, right? Like, literally,

Luke Jones 25:21
I mean, you just.. well, I mean, you, you need smart people, you need to keep smart people, you need to develop smart people. We think of development in terms of just players, but we.. I mean, we’ve seen it with the Ravens for their entire existence, right? Times where they’ve had better scouts and kept people, they’ve been really good, and then there have been some periods of time where not long, obviously, but they’ve lost some people, and you have to replenish that, but you know that that development process, I mean, that’s still so important. Yes, the money is massive, right, but we’re also seeing the New York Mets, right, go look at the Mets payroll compared to the Dodgers, and go look at the Mets record right now. So, money’s not the end all be all if you’re not smart with that money, but if you’re smart, then of course money’s going to give you a colossal advantage over franchises that don’t have that. Also, point out they defer a ton of money, too. I mean, go look at some of the, you know, don’t ask me how it all works in the grand scheme of things, but you have so many of their contracts, they’re deferring absurd, obscene amounts of money, but, but they’re also really smart, and, like I said, I mean, they’ve had injuries. Go look at some of their rotations over the last couple years, including even in the postseason, where you know they’ve used openers and bullpen games and duct tape together, guys that barely pitched, and suddenly they’re healthy in August and September and October, almost, almost to the point where you makes you feel like that they kind of slow play some of these guys, you know, where they’ve done that, where someone you know is dealing with some kind of arm issue, and they just say, hey, we’re going to, you know, we’re going to take our foot off the gas with you, you’re going to rehab, you’re going to de-load, and then we’re going to get your ramp back up for August and September and October, which is what we really care about, right? I mean, the funny thing about the Dodgers, you’ve had some of these years where you know people have talked about, are they going to win 115 games, 120 games, and you know they’ve had some years. I mean, like, look at last year, for example. I mean, I’ll bring it up right now, because I want to be accurate here, but last year there was so much talk that the Dodgers were going to be, you know, 115 wins, something like that. They won 93 games, they, they won their division, and the Padres were kind of right on their heels, but they’re, they’re not built to, they don’t care. Let me, let me rephrase that. Of course, they’re built for regular season success, but they’re truly built to win championships, and yeah, that’s when you do look at the pitching depth that they’re able to assemble, right? And I mean, you look at their regulars right now, like Mookie Betts, for as great as he is, and you know, guy that’s going to be in the Hall of Fame one day for my money and all that, he’s been awful at the plate this year, right? I mean, Kyle Tucker was their big signing, go look at his numbers, you know, we’re complaining about Pete Alonzo, uh, Pete Alonso’s got way better offensive numbers than Kyle Tucker right now, so it does speak to no, not everything they touch is going to turn to gold, but when you have a treasure chest of gold to spend to fix those issues, yeah, it’s going to go a lot farther than you know if the Rays, like, like how the Rays were the last couple years, right? I mean, you saw the Rays take a step back last year and the year before, because of all the, you know, losing the clan, a hand, and, and so many of the different pitching injuries that they had. So, but you know, they’re at this point, I’m not going to hate the Dodgers, they’re they’re maximizing a system that’s in place for them to maximize it, right? You know, and that’s why we’re going to see a work stoppage of some length, right? I hope it’s not canceling out all of that. They’re

Nestor Aparicio 29:09
at the crux of it, right? Like, literally,

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Luke Jones 29:11
but, but at the same time, you know, I’m also not going to give all the other owners a complete pass. Like, you look at Bob Nutting in Pittsburgh, shameful what he’s done with that franchise. Shameful, how little they’ve even tried. And I will not back off of that part of the argument either. I mean, you can talk all you want about salary cap, all that kind of stuff. There are there are owners in this game who have acted in terrible faith and have not been good stewards for their franchise here for

Nestor Aparicio 29:41
three decades, so what I’m just saying is empty right now is because Rubenstein sucks, it’s because Angelo sucked, that’s but

Luke Jones 29:48
I’m just I just want to be clear on that, right, because there’s the other side of that, right, so you know, as much as the system

Nestor Aparicio 29:54
sucks too, you know, I would say that, I mean, one of the reasons Bashadi over, you know. Lassen Merlot, and his second cigar said to me the reason he never wanted to invest in baseball is it wasn’t fair, like he just there, he is a billionaire, he didn’t see it as like I don’t want to own a team where I can’t win, you know,

Luke Jones 30:11
although it’s funny, I will push back a little bit about the NFL with parody, and it has nothing to do with the financial system, of course, quarterbacks, right, if you have a franchise quarterback, I mean it’s hard to say there’s a lot of parity when we’re coming off of a 20 year period where the Patriots won as much as they did, but that’s just that’s just the nature of the sport, more so than a faulty system in place, of course, but, but yeah, I mean, we’re we’re gonna see how this, you know, I haven’t had a chance to look at all the details, but you know, on Thursday, there was more leaked out as far as some of the ML, as far as MLB’s proposal, as far as you know, change, you know, having an international draft, making high school players ineligible for, you know, just all these different things, and it’s just like, I mean, okay, I’m bracing for a war one way or the other, right, and bracing for the worst on that front, but, but, yeah, I mean, in the meantime, I mean, Dodgers have had an incredible run here, and you know what, until the last couple years, however, their even their run was all this regular season success and disappointment in October. Right, I mean, you know, they won the COVID World Series, right? I mean, if there’s a World Series that was an asterisk, it was that one, right, with a truncated season and all that. But the last two years, yeah, they’ve won, and they should be the favorite right now. And okay, we’ll see about the Yankees, who have done a heck of a job without Aaron Judge the last couple of weeks, and they, they pitch so well. Atlanta’s had a great year, right? I mean, Milwaukee has been really, you know, there’s your argument, as far as you know, a smaller market team, but they’re really well run. But will they be able to.. it’s short

Nestor Aparicio 31:56
term, five years from now, come back to me and see if it’s sustainable. Well, it’s really sustainable, maybe the new economic reality that these are the kinds of franchises they’re trying to save in this war is to say that you can’t have a franchise that’s whole window is three or four years, the Orioles are in year four of their window right now, literally right, they’re in the fourth year of the window and they’re failing miserably, and we’re all, but it has nothing to do with spending window. It could be over in six weeks if they go seven and 14 here, right? Like, they will have to become sellers at that point of any of their assets and burn it down to the ground again, probably. If they’re smart, they would. Now, Eric Getty might not see it that way. Rubs like they may think their money back coming back after this with a new baseball genius, and they’ll shine it all up, but it doesn’t feel close to me, dude. It doesn’t at all.

Luke Jones 32:45
I don’t disagree, although I, I will push back on the idea that it’s financially driven. Why they failed, I mean,

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Nestor Aparicio 32:52
no, but they might be dealing Gunner Henderson if I, oh sure, might have to. Well, but it might be in their best interest, but that’s the same globally to do that at this point. And then at that point, you are in rebuild the

Luke Jones 33:02
argument for a salary cap is then every team has to do that. Every, I mean, we’ve, we’ve seen that in the NFL.

Nestor Aparicio 33:07
Tampa Bay Rays have made a thing of 20 for 20 years, right?

Luke Jones 33:11
I mean, they’ve just found they’ve had roster churn, and they’re smart, and the A’s

Nestor Aparicio 33:15
did it for about 15 years, didn’t win, but they managed to play over their punch over their weight. Okay, how about that? Is that fair?

Luke Jones 33:24
Fair enough, but, but I’ve also cited the St. Louis Cardinals, though. And look, look at how successful they were without being a team that was

Nestor Aparicio 33:31
money, though they’re a richer team because of their, because of their footprint.

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Luke Jones 33:35
I mean, yes, but they, but they were.. go, go find me, how many years they were a top five payroll team, few, and I mean, I don’t know if they were ever top five, they might have been like seven walk, they

Nestor Aparicio 33:47
let guys go,

Luke Jones 33:48
point, you know, the point is, and I think, you know, I don’t think we’re arguing here, I think it, you know, you have to be smart, the Mets, we’ve seen plenty of teams spend a, you know, what ton of money, but I

Nestor Aparicio 34:01
don’t know that it’s not smart thinking signing Peter Alonzo wasn’t smarter, Gunner Edison, or at some point they need to play at some point, whomever you sign for, whatever amount of money, whether they’re one one or whether they’re a one $50 million pick, whatever they are, if they’re your starting players, you have to have three or four stars, three or four pitchers that can pitch, two or three guys in a bullpen. You got to be able to field your position. You have to have some level of depth and some Blaze Alexander’s to, you know, fill in the holes, you know, whether it’s Steve Pierce’s, for crying out loud, whatever, right? But at heart, the stars need to be stars.

Luke Jones 34:39
Yeah. Well, and we’ve talked about it. They’ve spent a lot more money the last two years than they had in the previous years, and it hasn’t gone well. You know, some of it’s been okay, and a lot of it’s been a lot of wasted money for

Nestor Aparicio 34:53
Tyler O’Neill. Right?

Luke Jones 34:55
Yeah, I mean, Tyler, Tyler O’Neill’s at the top of the list, no question. And you know these. One year contracts for pitchers on their last legs generally haven’t worked out right, and but we could also play the hindsight 2020 game, maybe Corbin Burns signs, and well, Corbin Burns hasn’t, and it sounds like he’s not going to pitch until late this year, because he, I think, he had a lad issue, a setback with his, so you know it also speaks to even with all that money, I mean, on the pitching side, there’s, there’s a heck of a lot of volatility, I mean, there definitely is, so yeah, that, that’s where the Dodgers and the teams that do have, you know, practically limitless financial flexibility, they’re they’re more equipped to be able to endure that a little bit more, as long as they’re competent, right? I mean, the Mets, I think there’s a question about their competency. Well, for all

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Nestor Aparicio 35:49
those years, they’re never playing their level of drama is different, because their drama sits when they lose two out of three to the Orioles this weekend. There’s a little bit of drama for them when they’re 18 games over 500 or whatever. It’s like the Yankees were always playing from so far above 500 that you penciled them into the playoffs, even before same thing with the Red Sox for a generation of that, you know, that era where you wake up on April 1 and they’re in the playoffs because there’s not much they can do to play themselves out, and they’re very, very few things teams like the Orioles can do to enable themselves to play their way in, including Tampa, that played over their head the first 45 days of the year, to your point, to be like, well, if they just play 500 the rest of the way, they’re going to get in. There have been very few opportunities for any teams to chase these teams down, even the Padres that have loaded up, Arizona has been good for a minute and a half here, and again it’s been a little while for the Giants, right, the Rockies, you know, that’s enough, that’s a woebegone mess for the most part, over 30 years, quite frankly, other than a couple of blips, a couple of months that they put, I mean, the Rockies have had about four good months of baseball in 30 years, and it just happens at times when they catch a little lightning, but in a general sense the Dodgers aren’t being chased there by anybody, so therefore they sort of do wake up as a playoff team on opening day in a way that maybe the Yankees are that I can’t make you think of the Phillies or the Braves or some of these automatics, and they’re not. They got to go out and play, and then they, you find them trip. I mean, the Mets thought they were automatic and go and bought them. Now he’s gloating over their nicks instead, but it’s, it’s such an advantage, you know, seeing this Dodger team and seeing how the sport is tilted. It reminds me not as much of the like the Terps playing pick mr. Big, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, and football, whatever one you want, but there is the next level down, and this is not one level up, it’s the only level there is, there’s the Dodgers, and kind of everybody else, right now. Would you agree with that? Right, like the Yankees have backed up, the Red Sox have backed up, the Cardinals aren’t there, the Padres can’t get there, the Cubs decided not to, the White Sox are woe-begone. I mean, I’m talking about markets where they have money. Houston played for a little while, that you know, Houston got in on it, their big market, and made their money, and had their one, you know, surge of the in the history, 65 years, 70 years of baseball in Houston, they’ve been good for a minute, and this has been the minute for real where they’re engaged, maybe, maybe Jose Cruz, or in 1980 or whatever, but Northern Ryan, but so far back, it doesn’t matter, the Dodgers are so far ahead of everybody in the sport right now, I don’t know what to compare it to, you know? I mean, maybe I’m trying to think of, like, when Lance Armstrong was cheating, beating every, you know, Tiger Woods is beating everybody. I don’t know, it feels like a real big bad wolf situation, and it feels like this is going to be the thing we gang up on collectively, as fans, as media, as whatever, when the baseball strike goes down, to say, all right, let’s get this a little more fair, like it is for the Ravens, where we don’t sit around here as Raven fans and say, well, the can’t get by Patrick

Luke Jones 39:10
Mahomes and the Chiefs. The

Nestor Aparicio 39:11
Rams are going to sign Lamar because they have more money than us. That’s all I’m talking about. Just on a competitive balance over my lifetime, this has gotten quite frustrating with baseball, and then I see the Dodgers right now, and I say, well, this is what’s wrong with the sport, and this is what’s right with football. As we never have to say that we could say the Browns are incompetent or dumb, or the Bengals are cheap and lousy, or whatever, but it’s not because they’re spending $250 million less on football players, or hockey or basketball or anything else that this country’s interested in.

Luke Jones 39:46
Agreed, I guess. I mean, I guess I mean, I’ll continue to say, I mean, not every team in football has a chance, because there are about six quarterbacks capable of winning the Super Bowl, unless they have a historic defense. But I look, I’m not not. Gonna argue with you, but I’ll continue to say that there are, there are other ways to do it, and we have seen other teams that have sustained success, and yes, the Dodgers, right now, feel like what the Yankees were, you know, pre-George Steinbrenner, you know, before Steinbrenner died, you know, the Suns aren’t quite as interested in being in that tax bracket, I suppose, but they’re still, you know, let’s be clear, they’re still spending plenty, but yeah, I mean, we’re gonna find out, and you know, I mean, this is labor specifically in major league baseball, I mean, this has been a talking point, and it’s been consistently more contentious over the course of my lifetime, you know. Obviously, the 81 strike predates me by a couple years, but I certainly remember 94 I certainly remember what was it, was it oh two when that they had a deal at the 11th hour, when there was going to be another work stoppage, oh 203 whatever that was, you know. Feel

Nestor Aparicio 41:00
contentious yet. As I can tell you, it doesn’t feel contentious, but it’s going to get contentious. And the reason I think contentious is the competitiveness and balance. This competitive imbalance to me is even more problematic in places like Baltimore. We haven’t won for 43 years, and we look up and we see this circumstance this weekend. That’s all I’m saying,

Luke Jones 41:22
I guess. I guess I mean, I, you know, I hear what you’re saying, but well, if you just

Nestor Aparicio 41:29
accept that it’s never been fair and it’s never going to be fair, that’s fine. But I just..

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Luke Jones 41:33
but what’s fair? I, you know, you keep telling me about the NFL, the Patriots just won, you know, how many different Super Bowls over a 20 year period? I mean, you know, I do it

Nestor Aparicio 41:46
because they had more money.

Luke Jones 41:48
I understand

Nestor Aparicio 41:49
that, that’s that. I guess I mean, I

Luke Jones 41:51
don’t know what you’re wanting me to say. Like, I, okay, I agree with you. I don’t know.

Nestor Aparicio 41:56
Fair enough. We can, I mean, I just. I’m saying, glaring issue when you see this, that’s all this weekend

Luke Jones 42:05
wasn’t that the case 25 years ago. I mean, I mean the Yankees and Red Sox were spending a heck of a lot more than the other teams in the American League 20 years ago. I mean, you know, is it, is it more dramatic now? I mean, I guess you know, I don’t know, taking into account inflation and all the different mechanisms, you know, I mean, sure, I mean, look, not going to sit here and say I am against the salary cap, I’m all, but I’m also very, very, very dis, you know, not trusting that all these small market owners who’ve cried poor all these years are necessarily get then going to be

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Nestor Aparicio 42:48
third generation, know what I mean, like, and that’s going back to the Marlins and the Padres, look at expos, and look at the Browns, and

Luke Jones 42:55
look at the Brown family, you know, the Bengals, okay, like Joe Burrow, okay, you know, they, they were good for five minutes with Marvin, right? And, but they’ve, they’re notoriously cheap, right? And that’s something that’s still going to exist next speaks

Nestor Aparicio 43:14
to their facilities, and like other parts of it, right?

Luke Jones 43:17
So, so that’s where, yes, you’ll, you can, you can create a more even playing field in terms of payroll, I suppose, but you’re still going to have the haves and the have-nots. Well,

Nestor Aparicio 43:29
and I guess a great point would be that I’m reading Ken Belson’s book on the NFL, it’s really good book on the business of the NFL, it’s got a lot of Jerry and a lot of Robert Kraft and a lot of Goodell, right, that’s that’s the nature of the books the last 25 years, and I love that you and I have traveled a little bit, because when I bring things up, where you and I’ve been places unlike Dodger Stadium, where you haven’t been, and I talk about it in these glowing terms, or whatever, and you’ve been to Fenway Park, and we’re hope they go there in a couple of weeks, but you, and just a grandiose part, I think, of all of the new stadium and the construction and all that stuff. The thing in Dallas that we did that day in Frisco, Texas, is an otherworldly thing. Now, I have not toured Penn State’s football facility. I haven’t toured Nebraska. You know what I mean. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing in Iowa or in these places where they just turn these football facilities into Taj Mahal, so you know, for lack of a better expression, but I’ve been in Dallas, and you’ve been in Dallas, and you go to work every day in Owings Mills, and you know what the other facilities look like, the Dallas thing to me in regard to spending, spending, spending, spending against away from the cap hadn’t helped them. I mean, they haven’t even been

Luke Jones 44:49
to an NFC title game, let alone,

Nestor Aparicio 44:52
so you know, spending all the money on the Academy in the Dominican, or the Academy in Venezuela, or scouting, and you. Whatever you’re spending all of that on, the Orioles would say, over the last decade, they’ve spent more, and they’ve done this, and they’ve done that. Well, okay, tell me, how it shows up in the wins and losses. Really, I mean, that’s where it’s.. oh,

8

Luke Jones 45:12
I mean, and those were all things that they needed to do, and I mean, that’s why you get a player like Sam Bisayo, who looks like he’s going to be at least a good player for you for an extended period of time. My apologies, my cat is just.. you’re not.. that’s

Nestor Aparicio 45:24
hilarious. It’s funny, it’s fun.

Luke Jones 45:27
Oh, it’s ticking me off because I’m losing my train of thought, but.. but I mean, you still.. you need to be smart. You need to use your resources. You need to use your resources wisely. You need to maximize. I mean, you know, you have teams like the Mets, and there have been other examples of that over the last, over my lifetime, of teams that spent a ton of money, the Mets a couple different times, in fact, go back to like the 92 Mets, right, where they signed Eddie Murray and they signed Bobby Bonilla, and you look at, and they were a colossal flop, right? I mean, that happens a lot. So, so you know, I again, I’m not sitting here, not going to sit here and champion anyone having a $350 million payroll at the same time. I’m also not going to sit here and think that that’s going to be the end all be all, either. In terms of, like, all right, all you small market and mid market teams, you better. I better start seeing you win, because you know that’s been the, you know, you’ve, you’ve been able to use that as a crutch to not even try, then you know to not even try, right, to not even spend what you could reasonably spend, and have a more competitive team, because they’ve had that, that example, which again I’m not saying it’s not legitimate, but at the same time they use it to not even play the game, then, right? You know, you don’t even take a swing, right? And in terms of, you know, some of these teams, I mean, it’s it’s shameful how they’ve operated at the bottom, as, as low as they are, as high as the Dodgers and the Yankees and the Red Sox, and some of those franchises have been, you know, some of these teams, how little they’ve spent, but, but they still, they’re still cool with taking the revenue sharing check, right? I mean, they’re, they love getting maybe money

Nestor Aparicio 47:16
or whatever, they love getting that right, so,

Luke Jones 47:18
so I guess for me it’s just, you know, I’m just trying to look at it from a balanced perspective, in terms of, like, all right, if we’re gonna have a salary cap, you know what, it better be a heck of a salary floor too, and that means all these formerly small market teams, it’s time to step up and actually try, then, because if the Dodgers aren’t going to be spending the, you better be spending a heck of a lot more, because, because I also view it through the lens of, you know, I do want it to be as fair as possible for players. Salary cap is not, you know, in a vacuum is not fair for players, right? But you can look at it in terms of what structural changes can, can be in place, in terms of, for example, can players get to free agency faster, and you don’t have as much gaming of the service time, right? And things like that. If you’re gonna have a salary cap, I don’t see any reason why teams will have six years of club control anymore. To me, if there’s gonna be a salary cap, players, it should be more like the NFL, where you’re talking a three or four year kind of deal, and then hey, you can become a free agent, right? So I’m fascinated, as much as I’m dreading the downside and the fallout of if this becomes very nasty and very contentious. I’m also, I am interested to see what changes they could make across the board that could make things maybe not the best for the Juan Soto’s and the Shohei Ohtani’s, and you know, go down the list of whatever highest paid players you’re going to talk about, Paul Skeens, right, but if it means more players at the bottom getting the free agency a lot younger than age 28 or 29 or 30, which is the case for a lot of players in baseball, then bring it on, right, bring it on, and and let’s, let’s figure out a system that’s going to be better and make it a better sport, make it more competitive, as, as much as it can be, and then you know a team like the Dodgers, as smart as I’m saying they are, they should still be a team that’s going to be way better than most out there, even if it’s just going to be not quite as crazy from a payroll distribution standpoint. Orioles of Chavez been all weekend long, Dodgers 48 and 27 that’s 21 games over 506 40 pace to begin the week, and 144 run differential, they’ve given up the fewest runs in the sport. Orioles begin the weekend at 11 and a half games off the pace, 35 and 41 461 ball, 33 games below pace on runs against, they’ve.

Nestor Aparicio 50:00
Given up 382 runs, only scored 349 runs. They will be out of Chavez Ravine all weekend, and then down the road, down the five or the 405 to beautiful Anaheim with Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and we will be monitoring all that all weekend long. Luke is around, he will be monitoring the WNST Tech Service, brought to you by Cole Roofing and Gordian Energy. My pal Bill Cole joined me from Cole Roofing over in his homeland of Arbutus. Sorrento of Arbutus was our stop on Wednesday. We will be at Green Mount Station in Hampstead, beautiful pastoral Carroll County. I’ll give some horses away in Carroll County. We’ll do that on Wednesday at Green Mount Station. The cap of the series is at 4o’clock on Wednesday afternoon. We’re going to watch the game at Green Mount Station to give away some Maryland lottery tickets. It’s also brought to you by friends of GBMC and Farnin and Dermer. I hope everybody has a lovely weekend, stays cool out there, enjoys the World Cup, enjoys the baseball stream from Chavez Ravine, and you know, if you don’t take anything else out of this, forget me bitching about baseball with all that. Whenever baseball heats up again, after they cancel it next year, and come back, go to Dodger Stadium sometime, and see a ball game. You’ll really appreciate it. I’m Baltimore Positive. Stay with.