Nestor Aparicio joins The Dennis Koulatsos Show to discuss the Orioles lease “deal” and the offseason pitching strategy of Mike Elias and the budget with the signing of Craig Kimbrel as a closer.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
games, bullpen, point, team, money, john, year, franchise, orioles, baseball, build, mark andrews, starting pitcher, putting, relief pitcher, night, offseason, win, rob manfred, baltimore
SPEAKERS
Dennis Koulatsos, Nestor J. Aparicio
Dennis Koulatsos 00:01
Welcome back. My next guest is Nestor Aparicio doing great things for our community with his crabcake tour and he’s involved in every aspect of our town. He cares. He loves Baltimore and master Always a pleasure having you on how you
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:15
everything good. It is a hotel room if people watching I don’t have a screensaver, I’m in Toronto seeing the great Geddy Lee. It is snowing outside here in Toronto, as you would expect. I landed in Buffalo was snowing in Buffalo. And you know, it’s different landing in Buffalo when they’re a Super Bowl contender than when they are whatever they are at this point, you know, Josh Allen still on every ad in the airport, but there were less people wearing Bill’s gear in Buffalo than I remember it the last time I was in Buffalo for sure. Yeah, I think
Dennis Koulatsos 00:43
every fan base is similar in that regard. And also the other similarity we have this today. Master there’s some snowflakes here in Baltimore as well. So there you go. We have that in common.
Nestor J. Aparicio 00:52
Well, I guess I brought it to you meet me coming to Canada made it snow at home? I don’t know. But it feels like a long time since the Ravens have played right. I mean, it feels like a little while and certainly the Orioles this week, winter meetings, Craig Kimbrel. That’s their big news. i It’s not selling tickets. Yeah,
Dennis Koulatsos 01:10
you know what, it’s, you have to tell me about this this pitcher. Right. You know, I’m not the biggest baseball fan. It seemed like, it seems like his best days are behind them. Right. I think it’s fair to say 35 years of age. And all I heard was his record last year with eight and six. Certainly not what Felix Batista brought to the table for the Orioles. Well,
Nestor J. Aparicio 01:28
they wanted to make some sort of presence in the bullpen. You know, you lose Felix Batista, you don’t want to go with a what if, and I think would Luke and I get together and you’re going to talk at length on your show and we’ll hear it over the weekend as well. They they weren’t going to spend a lot of money on a starting pitcher. I just don’t where they are in regard to selling the franchise where they are in regard to debt to learner family where they are in regard to revenue because I’m not convinced their revenues wildly up because they sold some tickets last year and certainly don’t have tickets on sale. They don’t have a lease. I mean, we could start with them not having all of this is a factor and I told Luke this and I, you know, yelled at loot this week. I’m like, you’ll see when it comes time to spend money. They’re incompetent shines. You know what I mean? Like this is where John exhibits His will. Much like what Wes Moore is seeing. And Craig Thompson is saying with the stadium authority. We’re going to see what kind of a man John Angelo says what kind of businessman he is where the strategy is. And because he’s running it now is oh man could never do it. He’s all men never really add a strategy a budget. Maybe when MacPhail was there, he came in with some sort of corporate you know, a budget a five year budget, a plan a strategy? I don’t there. If they have a strategy on Henderson or rutschman It certainly isn’t being exhibited. The strategy there is wait and see wait and see. And that was the strategy that led them to Manny Machado. It’s like looks at the race don’t sign their stars for the most part, they sign wander Franco now they may never do it again after his allegations. But there’s a point where this is not a franchise, it’s going to sign on for $150 million extension. They’ll sign on for 13 million for a pitcher for six months to make it look good. They’ll have a guy in the bullpen don’t say they have young starters that said they’ll say means is coming back. Maybe there’ll be a trade at some point of their young players. Maybe cows are in Westberg go somewhere. But it won’t be for Dylan cease because if that was going to happen, that would have already happened. Other teams are making their moves. But I find it fascinating. They thought their first 13 million needed to be in a closer that really speaks to Elias, not believing in anything they have and certainly not believing Batista is going to be ready because he’s not. But it speaks to me about alias saying it’s an alias signing if Elias was only gonna have x amount of dollars. He decided he wanted to have a guy in the bullpen who was reliable every night and I can’t fault that. But I don’t know that Craig Campbell is gonna come out of that bullpen. They’re gonna play the Omar music from the wire again. And he’s just gonna save 54 games this year while they went 103. I I don’t look at Craig. I don’t look at this as some sort of Oh, we got a guaranteed thing. You bought a really expensive Oh, closer. Okay. I mean, I find that fascinating to be what they wanted to do what their splash of a $13 million salary would be. I I’m a little shocked by that. Well,
Dennis Koulatsos 04:35
I saw on TV the other day, I don’t know if you call you probably caught it where the Maryland stadium authority person, whoever he is these days was talking and he said that they might go to a month to month lease since the current agreement expires December 30 of the 31st
Nestor J. Aparicio 04:50
because in March John will be much more reasonable.
Dennis Koulatsos 04:53
month a month Nestor month a month for it for a Major League franchise that really didn’t resonate well. Have me. Yeah, month to month mean what is that about month a month?
Nestor J. Aparicio 05:05
I met. I met the Jack Torrance level. If you’ve had 30 years to think this over, you know, you’ve been negotiating Tom Kelso is going to come here when he gets well hopefully next week. Eight years Tom Kelso spent 200 phone calls with the Angelo’s family discussing all of these matters to try to get an agreement they’re not people who make agreements and if they make them they don’t keep them anyway so handshakes are no good mo use you’re no good putting the governor up in an oil Jersey up in the box and having him wave and lying to everybody on the scoreboard mean all that’s five minutes ago. So I think that there’s you’re good I remember when Joe Foss told me this for the book when I was in Joe Randy Oreos for the first dozen years that Peter on them. Joe Foss said to me when the guy from New York who was Dick Ravitch, I believe so it was was negotiating with Peter about all the Masson money, you’re gonna get in network DC is gonna get a TV, you’re gonna get hundreds and millions of dollars, you’re gonna do this, you’re going to do that, you know, Joe Foss said to me, they thought Peter was going to be reasonable. Peter was never going to be reasonable
Dennis Koulatsos 06:24
ever hit so to me, that wasn’t his MO what?
Nestor J. Aparicio 06:27
What what is going to make John grab that pen and sign the lease? He doesn’t feel compelled that he has to the thing that’s gonna make him feel that way is when they’re gonna say we’re not going to open the state and your team’s not gonna play baseball April 1, we’re going to call the commissioner and you can go play your games and Frederick John. You can go play your you can pound sand. So until the state and I don’t know what kind of big boy pants Westmore has, I really don’t I mean, I don’t know if he’s ever owned a business put his foot down. He certainly fought in war. I haven’t talked to West since August. But you know, there has to come a point where the governor poses big boy pants up and says you’re you’re not getting a better deal than what our legislature has given you. It is $600 million. And I’ll turn the winds against you. And you can run around town and talk about moving the orange sky. Go to your partners and tell them you’re gonna move them to San Juan. Go ahead. Tell them you’re gonna move them to Nashville where there is no $600 million where they’ve already got $2 billion of state city county debt and Cumberland County in the Nashville put $800 million of the city of Nashville put 800 million up for the football team already. They’re not giving you any money. You’re not getting money that you want to move to Portland. Go ahead. Take that up with Rob Manfred. Go ahead. Try to move the team. That’s what I would do. If I were governor. If I were governor, if I were mayor. I wouldn’t be playing Pat. I wouldn’t. I’m not petting a snake. I’m gonna play patty cake with a snake. I haven’t done that with employees. I haven’t done that with sponsors. I haven’t done that with the community. I haven’t done that with Steve Beshear. I haven’t done that with John Angelo’s array. I would not pet the snake. I wouldn’t I would not allow John Angelos to dictate terms to the citizens of Maryland. I wouldn’t buy from him and he’s not going anywhere.
Dennis Koulatsos 08:10
It’s in his position. Nestor. He feels like it’s a buyers market that he feels like the longer he waits, the sweeter the deal is going to potentially get for him. He already knows he has $600 million in his in his back pocket. He’s just looking to squeeze every single penny out of the Maryland State stadium authority.
Nestor J. Aparicio 08:27
Well, it’s not the Maryland stadium authority, Maryland citizens. They’re trying to disband the stadium authority. He’s trying to get more money, crushed the oversight, and then do whatever he wants with the money including selling the team and keeping the land or the family money grab. That’s what this is nothing about the origins. This had anything to do with yours, they would have taken the first 600 million going back in and said all right now what else are we going to do? Let’s go get me some more money. Here’s my great idea. Let’s go get me some more money. He doesn’t have an idea on
Dennis Koulatsos 08:59
the problem asteroids when you take 600 million. And you still don’t spend money on improving your team. It just brings up a whole host of questions. Right? I mean, right now I just
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:10
gave you $30 million relief pitcher. But look, they can he can
Dennis Koulatsos 09:14
he can turn the team was a small market team, which is inaccurate. That’s false. It’s a mid market team and continue not spend money if he doesn’t have that money in his pocket. It’s just a shell game. That’s all it is.
Nestor J. Aparicio 09:26
Well, there’s plenty of money coming from Major League Baseball to run a franchise. Nobody’s losing money here. Nobody’s hurting here. Certainly where he is not having a higher payroll. They have a higher payroll now they gave crib Kimball $13 million this year. But the notion that they’re going to make the fans happy in the offseason I mean, the fans were Oriole fans understand who they are they go to the games anyway. All the people I know aren’t you know, neophyte to this. We’re not going to have as much money as the Yankees. We don’t have as much money in the bank. He’s 1977 So I’ll be watching Reggie Jackson. Right like it’s why we lost Doug senseis It’s why we lost you know all those guys but it goes on and on the next generation might be seated next generation was Manny Machado, right? So they this crying poor is part of their it’s part of their scripture, you know it’s part of their DNA DNA is that they’re never going to have as much money. And that’s part of this going into the state and saying we need more money to be more competitive to be more. You’re plenty competitive on the field. What is your idea? For non I’ve seen your baseball ID and it’s not that great starting games at 630 Christmas in December, you know, pride night Dog Night Star Wars night. bobblehead night. I mean, they’ve done that. I mean, we’ve seen that routine. What’s your idea? You’ll build a movie theater, you’re gonna build a sphere, you’re gonna bring you to to town, you’re gonna have a boardwalk. You’re gonna sell french fries, you’re gonna sell crab cakes, you’re gonna build a park? What are you gonna do built build another structure that goes up to the moon, you have people live there. And there’s a ramen joint in the in the house at the ground level. And you call that mixed use? And there’s parking, you know, up to the eighth floor? I mean, what’s the idea? Oh, we need another hotel. Oh, yeah, we build the Hilton mad. We more hotels. What what are you going to build? Right? I mean, there’s a half the city, you’re seeing Toronto behind me. I mean, half of these buildings are empty in every city in the world. Because we’ve all gone to working from home. So a lot of the buildings need to become something else anyway. So when they start talking to me about we’re going to build the bright shiny object and everyone’s going to come down here. That is the baseball team was the bright shiny object. That was the reason everybody was supposed to come the baseball team still there. They want 100 gauge they are the bright shiny object. What What’s your idea? John, what’s your idea? Build a Buffalo Wild Wings outside build a casino, you know, Bill build a a golf putting place? I mean, what is going to make people come down to that space and give you money that you’re not going to build from our people?
Dennis Koulatsos 12:01
Yeah, that’s all great questions. So then question, whatever get the answers to right. We’re still waiting for him to open up the books. Remember that one?
Nestor J. Aparicio 12:08
Oh, yeah. And I took a lot of grief for 30 years for talking about the old man in, you know, in the Greek community and the, in the East Baltimore community in the, you know, and all these years later, it really is amazing that it’s sunk to this, where we’re three weeks out on a lease. Everybody’s playing leverage. They don’t have, you know, teams not going anywhere. And I would, if I were the governor, I call the press conference and say, I want to challenge Mr. Angelos here. We’ve given him say, here’s all the things we’re doing for him for free. He doesn’t want anything he doesn’t talk to the media. He bands, media members. He doesn’t he fought with his brother last year. I mean, what what’s your plan Mr. angelos, if we gave you 5 billion? What are you gonna do with all the money to keep your baseball team here? Keep it betting on horses
Dennis Koulatsos 13:06
invested. Invest wisely. Glad you asked Nestor. Well, they’re
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:11
not investing it in in that community. Oh, no. They’re not investing
Dennis Koulatsos 13:15
in Tennessee. We live that right. That’s right.
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:19
I love Baltimore so much. I left it. I left it right, right, left it left it? Well. I mean, from the baseball perspective, I I didn’t expect anything. I’m shocked. They spent 30 million on a relief pitcher. I really am. You know what I mean? I see that as sort of a an olive branch to the fans to say, we’re not going to let the bullpen go naked. We’re going to have a real relief pitcher coming out of the bullpen in ninth inning. And the Phillies fans would tell you you know Kimbrel is fine, but it’s not. Don’t expect him to be better than Bautista because it’d be really hard to be better than about how
Dennis Koulatsos 13:51
about a starting pitcher somewhere a nice well, that’s
Nestor J. Aparicio 13:54
gonna be the trade thing. Right? That’s that’s going to be something where they trade out of so that they don’t have to pay a lot of money. I mean, they’re not gonna they’re not signing Blake Snell for $220 million. They’re not. They’re not, they’re just not and we’ll get your phone call. I took phone calls for a living as an art form your 30 years ago. So people would call me back in the day and you know, Can we trade Alex a Chola for Barry Bonds, you know what I mean? And the trade part of this in the modern era is really all about saving money. It’s about getting rid of players that are cheap to them to bring players in here that are cheap to us. And, and the other part about the the Orioles and I’ll say this ahead of time and I’ll say this the loot to be kind, whatever they are on April 1 Isn’t what they’re going to be in August. You know, if they win games, they still have the big trump card of having young players that they feel from so they could do for a starting pitcher August 1, they didn’t last year. They’ve Scherzer thing and all that. But that’s also I don’t think the offseason is the only thing they have going for them. I mean and I’ve talked to a lot more about the lease than I’ve talked about improving the team, you know, they won 101 games, as Luke said, they don’t have to do anything, they can roll the ball out, they can say, they can say, we already have a pretty good team, we already have a pretty
Dennis Koulatsos 15:11
good team. They’re here older, bigger, stronger, faster, more mature, great offseason and you expect better, you know, bigger thing from his team.
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:19
We expect to understand to be better next year expect Westberg to be better next year, he expect everybody to be better next year. I think you also expect Mullins and Hayes to maybe be getting to that point where like, they’re expensive players, and those are the guys you’re going to get rid of to give their money to Anderson in the end, because Anderson is going to have all their monies you’re gonna keep them
Dennis Koulatsos 15:42
100% Evo,
Nestor J. Aparicio 15:43
I mean, you’re gonna keep them you’re, you’re gonna leverage the company to 150 to $200 million today. So it makes your your makes your company worth less than a resale. Right, right. So you know all about this. So anything they do, to add payroll, to add real payroll to add payroll into 2627, you know, a couple years out, would diminish them at sale time. And I don’t, there’s so much mystery in all of this. I mean, Jon’s such a. out. I mean, he’s not a serious human being. He’s not a serious baseball owner. He’s not here every day. He’s not on it every day work in it every day out in front of people answering questions. But deep down in the recesses of his mind, he knows if his father dies tonight, tomorrow morning, his worlds different. I mean, it’s just it’s it’s going to be wildly different in regard to whatever his Father’s Will is. Whatever Major League Baseball is going to try to do to wrest control the franchise or stabilize the franchise in some way, in a way that this isn’t stable. John Angelo’s negotiating on behalf of the Baltimore Orioles has not created a stable situation for Rob Manfred in Baltimore. There is no stability. I mean, we get we get the stadium authority guys say, well let you play the April games, we’ll think about May. Alright. I mean, like, Major League Baseball can’t function that way. You know, and at some point, somebody from from the state government you get on the phone with the commissioner. I’ve been told that by everybody who knows everything that Angelou says intimidated Westmoreland Craig Thompson, to not talk to the commissioner of baseball, he is forbid them from talking to the commissioner of baseball
Dennis Koulatsos 17:22
can never let the tail wag the dog. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening. That’s true. Like you said, the the need to be deadlines they need to get serious about putting, putting the deal together.
Nestor J. Aparicio 17:29
Well, we got football this weekend, too. So once that happens, and the Ravens go out and win this week at home. And they’re I mean, Gemma Catbird. See, there’ll be no one talking about the baseball team around here the next six weeks if the football team wins every week. And even if they lose, they’re not going to win five games. But if they win, if I were predicting right now, I think they’ll go two and three the rest of the way. I think this is the time of the year where things really get tough. And I think these five games in a row, these are not this isn’t a five and o thing. This is a they’re going to play bad one week and lose, they’re going to play good one week and lose. And they’re going to be unlucky one week. And I think that’s what happens when you go out on the road. The next couple of weeks this whole this is a huge game. For them. This might be the easiest team they have left. And it’s not easy with Aaron Donald and with Stafford Steelers at the end, we’ll see. But the next three are real games going down to Jacksonville despite what happened with Trevor Lawrence. And I think certainly Christmas night becomes it’s if they got San Francisco win on Christmas night, that would be an amazing thing for the franchise for them for what they’re trying to set up for January especially because everybody in the world we’re watching that game on Christmas night. So these next couple of weeks, I mean, it it is fun. It’s it’s a lot of fun, and they’re not having this much fun and a lot of other places in the NFL.
Dennis Koulatsos 18:50
Now there’ll be I’m thinking their floors two and three, ceiling three, and to some point somewhere between there and that will certainly make a difference in the in the playoff standings and home field advantage and things of that nature.
Nestor J. Aparicio 19:02
Like I say questions they go for and one, there’ll be the one seed right? If they go three and two, maybe if they go two and three, they’re gonna need some help. And it’s going to depend on who they lose to losing to Miami. I mean, the Miami game might be for home field advantage by the time Kansas City loses another game or two, right? I mean, if the Ravens win to win this week, and then you know, next week’s a winnable game for them in Jacksonville for sure. I mean, especially with Lawrence being maybe if Larson played them when they should win They’d better not lose the backup quarterback down there. So you know they stack two more wins up now they’re at 11 and three it’s like you know, that San Francisco game becomes something nice to have it but it’s not the end of the world. Let’s focus on beating Miami because beat Miami would be the thing that pushes you over the edge to maybe rest starters against Pittsburgh or
Dennis Koulatsos 19:51
the Frisco games one of the very, very physical game I’m really curious to see how they stack up against them. Of course Niners just took down the Eagles in Philadelphia A Big Boy game. Big, big big game. Gotta
Nestor J. Aparicio 20:02
keep Lamar healthy man, you gotta, especially with this offensive line situation and and Mark Andrews I mean, they’re, they’re going to miss Mark Andrews the next five weeks Isaiah likely is not going to be Mark Andrews and I think that’s going to it’s going to cost him 1/3 You know, it’s gonna cost him the ball a couple of times, you know, there’s gonna be some drives that are gonna get stalled because they don’t have Mark Andrews and when you start adding up the drives in their games, the way that their games, they don’t have a lot of drives, they don’t get the ball 10 times a game, right? You know, they get the ball 678 times a game one or two times third down. Mark Andrews isn’t there. You’re punting instead of maybe scoring a touchdown on a drive and that was something for them when they got in fourth and short and they go for and they were doing all that crazy stuff a couple of years ago. A lot of that is having a binky in Mark Andrews it’s not going to be there on third and 5/3 and eighth and we’ll see how Lamar does with this but citing time for sports man, I mean, won the Division in baseball bat to win the division in football. no reason they shouldn’t. I mean, they better win the division, right? I mean, nobody better catch them out of this
Dennis Koulatsos 21:05
pack. Not Not at all. We’ll keep having fun up there in Toronto. Have fun with Geddy Lee and we’ll catch up with you when you get back.
Nestor J. Aparicio 21:11
Hang in, have some eggnog and relax. How about that everybody? More
Dennis Koulatsos 21:16
than usual here lately. With that we’ll take a next break 15 to 70 Am WNYC we’ll take a quick break and come back right after this
