RaysUp - Carlson & Uceta thrive, Siri gets off the Bench, Wild Card & Arm Health

 Rays' Current Performance:

The team continues to hover around.500 mark

Low attendance figures in Oakland

2020 season with cardboard cutouts in the stands.

Oakland A’s, and how they manage to stay afloat despite low attendance, largely through revenue sharing and TV deals.

Rays’ New Stadium Prospects:

Discussion on the upcoming new stadium for the Rays and its potential economic impact, including year-round restaurants and businesses around the stadium.

Concerns about the promises made by politicians versus what is delivered in the final plan.

Local Politics and the Stadium Deal:

Insights into recent local political developments, including Mayor Ken Welch’s controversial bonuses to city employees who worked on the Rays’ stadium deal, which were later rescinded.

Wild Card Possibilities:

Mat breaks down the Rays’ chances of making it to the Wild Card, comparing the American League to the National League in terms of competition.

The Rays only need to surpass a few teams, and their pitching staff gives them a fighting chance if they can regain some momentum.

Key Players and Performances:

Jose Siri’s fluctuating performance and the importance of maintaining hustle and focus.

Praise for Kevin Cash’s tough decisions to bench Siri to send a message, which paid off in the form of a game-winning run.

Shane Baz’s recent performance & the potential impact of his return to form on the Rays' playoff hopes.

Mat provides a hopeful outlook, suggesting Rays can make it into the playoffs, their strong pitching makes them a dangerous contender.

Dylan Carlson & Uceta bringing new successes to the team

Proposed Six-Inning Minimum for Pitchers:

Six-inning minimum for pitchers raises concerns about potential strain on pitchers’ arms.

The implications of forcing a struggling pitcher to stay in the game when they are clearly not performing well

Mat’s Take on the Rule:

Mat expresses his strong opposition to the six-inning minimum, stating that he might stop watching baseball if such a rule is implemented.

He argues that this rule would favor larger market teams that can afford to pay pitchers who can dominate for six innings and suggests that this is another example of MLB’s interference to favor big-market teams.

Strategic and Health Implications:

Proposed rule would eliminate some of the strategy in baseball and further disconnect the current game from its history.

A better approach to protecting pitchers' arms would be to adopt a six-man rotation, similar to the approach used in Japan, 

Teams may be prioritizing financial savings over player health, by overworking young pitchers and avoiding paying them long-term contracts

Pitchers in Japan are managed differently, often throwing more pitches in non-game situations to strengthen their arms, but only pitching once per week in games.

Mark humorously suggests that MLB could learn from Japan by temporarily suspending a struggling MLB team and replacing them with a Japanese team to teach the other teams how to manage pitchers better.

 You can find Mat on Twitter x.com @Mat_Germain_   

 Mark can be found on Twitter x.com  @TheBaseballBiz & at  http://www.baseballbizondeck.com

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Special thanks to XTaKeRuX for the music “Rocking Forward"
Notes in part from ChatGPT

Transcript

Transcript RaysUp 253 BaseballBiz On Deck – from DeScript

[00:00:00] Mark Corbett: Welcome to BaseballBiz O Deck. I am Mark Corbett. And with me, of course, is Mr. Mat Germain. And we're here to join you once again, to share all the wonderful news about those Tampa Bay Rays with a special raise up edition. Hey, Matt, how you doing today, brother? One game of a 500 mark. Oh, I love it.

[00:00:25] Mark Corbett: Bubble.

[00:00:29] Mark Corbett: Oh, 

[00:00:30] Mat Germain: either again, I'm sure. 

[00:00:31] Mark Corbett:, I may have said this before, it's like, you know, like when a person's out there fishing, you got your rod, your reel, and you, you got the little float just right above the water and it keeps kind of bouncing a little bit up and down and up and down beneath the water.

[00:00:44] Mark Corbett: And that's the way I kind of feel that 500 is what the rays just bouncing back and forth. But man, I tell you what, uh, some of us old folks, it's been kind of hard to watch the Rays as late as I'm going, it might've been a better week to, to watch the, uh, the minor leagues. 

[00:01:02] Mat Germain: Well, it's funny you say that because, uh, the, the attendance in Oakland has been very minor league like, um, the, the attendance under for the first game on Monday, it was under 4, 000.

[00:01:13] Mark Corbett: Okay. 

[00:01:14] Mat Germain: And, uh, and the next game was 4, 300. So, uh, you're talking about, you know, less than 8, 000 fans have seen or just over 8, 000 fans have seen the two games. And at this point you have to wonder, you know, how MLB is going to keep, uh, breaking even. These games that they're showing, um, you're almost back to the 2020 season when they had, you know, the cardboard cutouts in the stands.

[00:01:39] Mat Germain: Uh, they may as well go that route. 

[00:01:42] Mark Corbett: Wow. Wow. Wow. That's hard times, brother. I mean, you got to wonder, you know, if they brought Rick Ashley in or maybe Nickelback play and, uh, uh, something to, to draw some people in the seats. I don't know that of course those probably wouldn't be the best choices, but it is, it is sad.

[00:02:00] Mark Corbett: It's. I got to tell you a quick story. recently when I was at work at the museum, I had a couple of fans come up to me and they said, you know, I don't know how these teams that do so poorly can stay in business. Well, you know, obviously, yeah. With, with the A's, uh, excuse me, the athletics. And that may not be, they may not be, I can't speak, that may not be happening, but here's the thing.

[00:02:24] Mark Corbett: I said, here, here's what you got to remember. Every time one of those Ohtani or Judge jersies sell online, no matter how poor your team is doing, you're getting a piece of that action. So right. You know, if you're the Oakland A's or whatever, and the TV rights. So I had to point out to him, yeah, it's, it sucks when you see nobody out there in the stands, it, it seems hurtful and it's got to hurt the team's morale when they look in the stands and see there's nobody there.

[00:02:52] Mark Corbett: It's like you said, 2020 all over again, get out the cardboard cutouts. 

[00:02:56] Mat Germain: Well, Mark, I'll just put it to you this way. Okay. So when I went to New York and, uh, and we got free tickets from the DFO office, um, I ended up saying, you know, what, like, I'm, I'm just going to spend a little bit more on concessions at the, at the stadium because I got tickets for free.

[00:03:13] Mat Germain: And I got to the thing and you got to remember, I'm a, I'm a Canadian. So I'm paying with Canadian dollars. So right away, you're paying an extra 20%. Um, 

[00:03:23] Mark Corbett: you're paying with Canadian dollars at the, in New York and that must have been something with concessions. 

[00:03:30] Mat Germain: Well, yeah, you're talking about a two bite hot dog, right?

[00:03:32] Mat Germain: Like not, not a huge one and a little cup of beer that might've been, you know, five big sips and, and they wanted 12 American for it. And I'm doing the math in my head. I'm like, that's 18 Canadian just for a little bit of beer and a hot dog. What is the profit margin on that? So, you 98 percent back in profit.

[00:03:58] Mat Germain: Um, and when it goes to parking, it's almost 100 percent other than what they have to pay the attendees to take your money. So the money they split up before the season even starts, you got to remember, there's already people paying for season tickets that are going to do it no matter what. Yeah, all that to say that the, the, the teams make their money from TV deals and, and, uh, and people that buy season tickets more than anything else from the beginning of the whole thing.

[00:04:28] Mark Corbett: Well, and that's the truth. There's, there's no doubt about it. The season tickets are there. The, the concessions, I'm curious sometimes to see how that would actually be measured once we start sharpening the games, you know, if they only had 4, 000 people in the stadium. You know, last night and you've got, Ooh, let's see a game.

[00:04:49] Mark Corbett: That's not even two hours long. Do you close the concessions after the seventh inning? And would anybody be going there anyway? I don't know. 

[00:04:58] Mat Germain: So let me ask you this, Mark, with a new stadium, the rays are putting up, are they not going to have, uh, restaurants around it that are actually open all year long?

[00:05:08] Mat Germain: And they don't, they're not really dictated by the game length. 

[00:05:12] Mark Corbett: Well, if you're talking outside the stadium itself, I would say, yes. Well, I don't have that, you know, as a matter of fact, the whole idea of this business development thing, that would seem essential, you know, that they're going to have to have that as part of it.

[00:05:27] Mark Corbett: Uh, but we know a lot of times what we hear from politicians and what's delivered isn't necessarily what shows up in the final. 

[00:05:36] Mat Germain: That's a, that's a fact 

[00:05:38] Mark Corbett: it's it's speaking of politicians. I know I'm jumping around here a bit, Matt, but my gosh, buddy, you know, I saw a colleague, right. Who has been on the show with us before a journalist with the Tampa bay.

[00:05:49] Mark Corbett: com. I was interested to see that Colleen had did a story about what's happening. The approval of the stadium and that mayor Ken Welch over at St. Pete had given bonuses, pardon me, had given bonuses to a lot of the people there in the city of St. Pete and the government offices. But that didn't go over well with a lot of people and those.

[00:06:16] Mark Corbett: Bonuses have been rescinded and the city saying, you gotta pay us back. 

[00:06:21] Mat Germain: So the timing is everything on that one, because if he does that in March next year, probably nobody blinks an eye or it's just noted, no big deal. 

[00:06:32] Mark Corbett: Well, plus we had the primary yesterday or in now, I think there was one right after the vote.

[00:06:38] Mark Corbett: Yeah, I just, I was wondering how that was going to play out, man. I mean, evidently one of the guys who, you Oh, who did approve everything with race. He was one of the folks that was going to be voted back and he was very, very critical. Well, when that came out about that money going to people inside the government who helped get the raise in place.

[00:06:57] Mark Corbett: So he was trying to play both sides against the middle and I think it worked out for him. I think he did win his election. So there you go. Interesting. So a couple of other things being here in Tampa, it's been great seeing Lake Mary from his Vance in the little league world series, watching where a young.

[00:07:16] Mark Corbett: He's, uh, from the team is trying to impress or make an impression upon the opposing pitcher. He gets up there and he does his little Juan Soto shuffle. It's like, all right, kid, go ahead. Give it to him. 

[00:07:30] Mat Germain: Yeah. Anything with flair people love, but as long as it's measured and it's done in the right instances, people, people will eat it up for sure.

[00:07:38] Mark Corbett: You know, we, we talk about flair and I always think of when I hear that word. And I think Ray's the first thing I think of is how was a Siri. And I guess maybe he just had a little too much, not enough flair or at least not enough push. You know, I saw him the other day and I guess it was, I should say last week and I thought, Hmm, it reminds me of Machado a few years back.

[00:08:00] Mark Corbett: I wouldn't seen the hustle. Pardon me. I wasn't seeing the hustle. 

[00:08:04] Mat Germain: Right. And it's sad to see because the, I think I noted on a. A tweet after that that you know if you put the talent that jose siri has With the work ethic that mike brossel has and the the you know, the focus that goes along with his His demeanor you probably have an all star player like you're not You're not going to get cheated on a daily basis.

[00:08:27] Mat Germain: I think you know because of his his Personality and his lack of focus. He's kind of missing out a little bit on on some performance that could help out the team You Um, in a lot of cases, so I do like to have the CM have success, but I think twice getting benched in the season. I know it happens and some teams do it.

[00:08:47] Mat Germain: You're talking about Machado. I remember him calling out Fernando Tatis Jr. for doing similar kinds of things and I think it's all settled down now, um, where you don't hear about it in the news at all. So you've seen Machado go through the maturing process. You're seeing Tatis Jr. go through the maturing process.

[00:09:05] Mat Germain: The issue with, with series that he's a About to be 29, if not already there. So, you know, he's not a young guy anymore, or you should be mature ish. So it'd be nice to get some consistency between now and the end of the year. So that raise don't have to make tough choices next year. 

[00:09:22] Mark Corbett: Yeah, I have to applaud Kevin Cash for doing something for making a, what I would say is a difficult decision, but after, you know, if he, he was out the other day and after sitting on the bench for a few games and he, he brought us the one run that won the game for us the other night, man, that was, that was amazing in and of itself.

[00:09:40] Mat Germain: Oh, yeah. So he's done that a lot this year where he's kind of taking the team on his back, um, you know, probably a good three weeks total this year, you could say. 

[00:09:48] Mark Corbett: Yeah, we've been very lucky to have him, I think overall. And I mean, I kind of like some of the cutups that he does and everything else to boot, but you've got to have spirit.

[00:09:56] Mark Corbett: You got to be committed to what you're doing out there, running up the bases. You know, there's the potential. Somebody will drop a ball. It happens, you know, get, get out there, man. Show the hustle. And Siri, you just make sure you can stay on that game, brother. So we'll see how that continues out. Uh, let's see what else.

[00:10:19] Mark Corbett: Wild card. Talk to me about the wild card, man. Is it still a possibility? We're six and eight half games back, my friend. 

[00:10:28] Mat Germain: Six and a half. But here's the thing. Okay. So if you're six and a half back in the national league, you have a lot of teams to go through to get there. So just as an example, the reds are six and a half back and they have to go through the Cardinals, Cubs, Giants, and Mets in order to challenge the Braves.

[00:10:45] Mat Germain: Okay, so that's the road to getting into the wild card spot. The Rays, conversely, are six and a half back. They only have to go through the Red Sox and the Twins. That's it. Those are the only two teams between them and the wildcard spot. So the question is, where do those teams stand? And to be honest, it's the Royals as well.

[00:11:07] Mat Germain: We're tied with the twins in that wildcard spot. So three teams right there, the Rays are just challenging those three teams at this point. You could see the Mariners as well because they're tied with the Rays. But I think the Rays have the pitching to get there. They there's an interesting development where Jonathan Aranda just came back to the Durham Bulls.

[00:11:31] Mat Germain: There's some hitting that is. warming up, heating up in triple A, the Rays seem to be getting a little tiny bit of mojo before they went to out West and in their lineup. So it was there against the D backs, you know, in key moments, whether or not they can actually rekindle that again, you know, sometime in this series, again, with the A's and, uh, and afterwards, um, I think, There's a little bit of hope that they could actually scratch together enough wins on the back of their pitching, mostly, to get back into that race.

[00:12:06] Mat Germain: You know, you could see them chew maybe two games between now and the end of August, so now they're four and a half games back. And then anything is really possible in September because the call ups, the scheduling, the Rays are playing a lot of games. The Royals, you know, the Hauser pitching going to hold up.

[00:12:23] Mat Germain: Minnesota had Joe Ryan and a bunch of their pitching go down. Uh, the Red Sox have, have similar issues with their pitching. So they're starting to slide a lot. So it's, it's a matter of who is going to get hot and who's going to start falling. So those two opponents ahead of the Rays and the Red Sox, the Twins have lost three, the Royals just lost their latest.

[00:12:44] Mat Germain: Can they slide enough for them to catch, uh, the Rays to catch them? We've seen bigger gaps get covered by teams on the way to the playoffs. And then the point is, let's say they do it, let's say they pull it off somehow, okay? However you want to paint it. They squeeze into the playoffs. How much pressure is there on them at that point?

[00:13:06] Mat Germain: There's no pressure. And to get there, you've, you would have had, the Rays would have had to beat some pretty darn good teams to get to that position. So they would be hot. That's what you consider hot. And, you know, have no pressure to the point where they can actually go out there and just have fun and perform in the playoffs.

[00:13:24] Mat Germain: And then you'd never know what will happen. Um, you know, they're good enough to beat a lot of those bigger teams. Uh, the Red, the, uh, To give you an example, the Yankees, you know, Jerry Cole's been on and off health wise. They just had Lewis Keel go down to injury. They have other injuries that are kind of prominent as well that I won't run through them all.

[00:13:45] Mat Germain: The Astros have had a lot of pitching issues. They have some older pitching. Guardians, same thing. So, you know, the playoffs are always about the pitching. And if you have the pitching in the playoffs, you're a dangerous team. I would contend that the Rays, if they Make it into the playoffs would have one of the top two pitching staffs going into the playoffs in the american league So, you know anything can happen at that point It would be really fun to see it happen whether or not it does it depends on the hitters really?

[00:14:15] Mark Corbett: Well, yeah, it doesn't be you can have a great great great game as far as pitching and if nobody's putting anything up on the board It hurts. I mean shane boz the other night. What a great game he had I mean was it seven and two thirds innings and there was no runs In score by the ace, but. We barely got a run in there in that game.

[00:14:35] Mark Corbett: And to talk about pitching overall, I mean, with Shane coming back, with the way the other, other guys come back, drew there, there, there is a beacon of hope from that 

[00:14:46] Mat Germain: and Pepio, just from that spider bite, he must be superhuman at this point, right? 

[00:14:52] Mark Corbett: Yeah. Oh, I'm glad to hear that, man. That's no fun. I'm sure you time or two, you'd be in the military.

[00:14:57] Mark Corbett: You've been out in the woods and had to. Fend off a beast or two, or the insect world. It can be practically venomous. 

[00:15:05] Mat Germain: One of the things I love about Canada, there are no venomous spiders. They're far and few between. Anyway, we're not like Australia. 

[00:15:15] Mark Corbett: It's just too daggone cold for a man. I'll tell you what.

[00:15:19] Mark Corbett: So far. So talk about the new gas. Let's, let's take a peek here. At who we've got on board you were remarking on x. com the other day and folks you can find matt at matt and that's m a t underscore germaine g e r m a i n underscore on x twitter and you were proposing you know not proposing you're actually just acknowledging The people who have been really rising up with offense.

[00:15:49] Mark Corbett: And you were talking about Dylan Carlson and you're talking about Christopher Morrell and how many of us first say, well, look, you know, Brandon's doing really well and he's doing okay. But the impact that Carlson Morrell was making was much, probably larger than we might've guessed. 

[00:16:05] Mat Germain: Yeah, and it's like we've said before the comfort level and how happy they seem and easygoing like Dylan Carlson But at that point when I tweeted it out, was that a 160 WRC plus he was leading the race in August Josh Lowe Who's always seems to be hot in August and September had a 153 And then third on the list was Taylor Walls.

[00:16:27] Mat Germain: Taylor Walls was a surprise or is a surprise contributor, uh, offensively for the raise in August. And that's so great to see. Uh, it's especially his approach at the plate. Uh, so he's among the top two, uh, in terms of, uh, strikeout percentages in the league. So you have Luis Arreaz at 3. 2 percent and then Taylor Walls at 4.

[00:16:51] Mat Germain: 5. So that, I mean, that's an insane, insanely low strikeout percentage for someone like Taylor Walls who, you know, he wasn't atrocious when it came to the strikeouts, but he was normally somewhere between the 15 and 20%. And that's it. That's it. Um, so when you cut that by 66 or 67 percent, um, you know, and you're second in the league for the month, that's really significant.

[00:17:16] Mat Germain: Whether or not it continues, we'll see. I don't know what he's changed at the plate, but obviously something is clicking and that's great to see. And then right behind him you have Andy Diaz and Junior Caminero. Christopher Morale, I think, you know, he's having solid at bats and he's having some contributions here and there.

[00:17:33] Mat Germain: Um, just by having those strong at bats and actually getting on base sometimes. Uh, I don't think he's getting much to look at, to be honest, and he's missing some of the things he should be getting. But, uh, He seems to be comfortable and growing into the second base role, uh, more and more and more. And I think that's probably what the Rays want for, I think there's a competition right now between Curtis Meade and Christopher Morrell being right handed bats at second base for 2025.

[00:18:02] Mat Germain: So they'll take a look at Morrell at MLB this year. They'll let Curtis Meade improve his defense in AAA and that's where he's playing in AAA. And then they'll see what they want to go with next year based on that, if either of them. Because like I said, Jonathan Aranda is coming back from injury and he may have a role where he's playing almost every day.

[00:18:23] Mat Germain: Um, you know, if he sticks with the race, if he goes elsewhere, then it opens up room for others. All that to say, August hasn't been stellar once you get behind those five, right? So they need more. They need the depth to step up. They need the look at a chip in. They need, um, you know, the, the series and, and, uh, the, the catchers and everybody to get involved just so that they can actually get the bar, all parts of the lineup chugging, uh, because the, the competition is just going to get tougher all the way through the rest of August and then in September.

[00:19:01] Mark Corbett: And it is a tough game. You know, these aren't machines that we can turn them on and oil them and expect the same results all the time. It in my ignorance, once upon a day, that's exactly what it should be. You know, I, I would look and say, Oh, look, Oh, here's the July American league picture of the month.

[00:19:18] Mark Corbett: Taj Bradley. Oh man, this is fantastic. He is going to be like this throughout the rest of the year. And then I see, Oh, wait a minute. Since July 31st, he's lost four games. It's four different teams. Yeah. You can be on the top one month and then you can be suffering the next. So I don't know that you we've, we've done, but coming to pitching.

[00:19:41] Mark Corbett: I was concerned, but, uh, about three relievers when Adam, you know, see Jason Adam when he left and I thought, well, I thought we might have lost Pete Fairbanks and I didn't realize that we would lose him not to the trade, but to an injury because, I mean, you've seen this because the last few games out, but he had a, uh, A two run home run and another one, a three run home run against him.

[00:20:06] Mark Corbett: And you knew something just wasn't right with Pete. He wasn't well oiled machine that all you got to do is add oil to it. He's going to run like that all the time, but he's a big part of that. And I feel like we've got. The strength of this new guy who say that I think he is, he's been helping out quite a bit was, I think, looking at the last 5 games, I think he's given up 0 runs and he, uh, see the raise of 1 for the, those, the games as well.

[00:20:36] Mark Corbett: So that's, there's a method there to address. When you have either injuries or players just having difficulty, I think the rays are very adaptable. They're going to try to make, you know, good changes between cash and the front office. I think they've been faring. Pretty well, 

[00:20:56] Mat Germain: the rays have the second best pen in And major leagues for august and that's after all the moves that you noted And I think a lot of it has to do with people have having a high level of comfort with the roles that they're given And and the rays have have gotten back to be quite honest to the the whole clock angle thing again So i'll give you the guys and you think of where they throw the ball and how they throw it kevin kelly, you know kind of a You Really low down right hand side manuel rodriguez a little bit higher on right hand side Then you have garrett clevenger who's really low on the left hand side Love lady who's a little bit higher on the left hand side You've got you say that who's a lot more like over the top kind of guy, you know, you you've got so much Uh different looks and different, you know speeds that they're using and and strengths that it that it works But you said has just been out of this world 

[00:21:55] Mark Corbett: Yeah, he has.

[00:21:56] Mark Corbett: I'm like I said, I'm daggone glad we got him. I have been wondering though, Matt, and I haven't dug enough into it. We're going to probably do more a future show about it. And that is the proposed six inning minimum for your pitchers. Yeah, I mean, we had the pitch clock and all that it came with a few years and matters before it made it up to the major league and I'm sure there'll be a lot of ironing out what that will be like, there's going to be people who say, well, you know, yeah, we want to make sure these young men have a chance to play as long as they can, but are we going to be straining those arms more?

[00:22:32] Mark Corbett: Are we going to have a pitcher who just completely Seems to be failing and, and hit after hit, you know, is, is happening to him. And that's going to be the game that a manager can't pull him out after five innings when no matter how bad he sucks, those are some questions that are going to be, have to be answered, but I guess they'll be answered in the minor leagues once they come up with a model.

[00:22:55] Mat Germain: If they bring in the six innings pitched model, I will stop watching baseball. I really will. Like I, I just, I've had enough with the whole tweaking of the rules to the point where it, it favors the larger market teams. 

[00:23:07] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:23:08] Mat Germain: They are the only ones who can afford those players that can dominate in those roles.

[00:23:13] Mat Germain: And this is all rigging to make sure that those teams end up in the playoffs the most consistently. The Rays, been able to circumvent that by tweaking some things. Now, to be honest, they haven't used the opener very often. They're using it for the fifth starter for the most part and it's not even all the time.

[00:23:30] Mat Germain: It's just when they need to. Um, I think there's strategy to baseball. There will always be strategy to baseball. The interference coming from Major League Baseball is growing exponentially every year. Players anymore. You can't compare careers you get, which people love to do. It's all arbitrary now because everybody grew up in different eras with different rules to the point where the game is not recognizable from one year to the next.

[00:23:57] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:23:58] Mat Germain: It has to stop, like stop it. Just leave the game alone for a while. See how it goes. It's not broken. There's no emergency if you want to instill a rule. Make it six man rotations. Make that the rule because that's going to save arms and keep stars. on the mound instead of this stubbornness about having five man rotations which is ludicrous when you can look across the ocean see japan where the tommy john surgeries are way below what they are in major league baseball and that should be the goal It shouldn't be, Oh, we have to wear them out even more and make them throw six innings at this rate, that way they're broken quicker and we never have to pay them sort of like what we're doing with Shane McClanahan.

[00:24:46] Mat Germain: We already has two Tommy John surgeries. And the next time he has another one, he's gone forever and he may never make the big money because of it. So, you know, the whole premise of, of. The stubborn athletes who need to be on the mound every fifth game has to stop. And to me, the ideal way to do it is to have the scheduling change so that it forces that into place.

[00:25:10] Mat Germain: So if you don't have baseball on Mondays, which nobody goes to games on Mondays anyway, and you have baseball from Tuesday to Sunday, that's six games, you have six man rotation, you fill the And the story, then, you know, it doesn't give the chance for somebody to pitch two games in one week, the majority of the time, and maybe you make that the rule.

[00:25:28] Mat Germain: They can only pitch once as a starter in that six day period. That's the way I would do it. But if they do that six inning minimum, I stopped watching. I don't want to watch a game. You know, there's a reason I don't watch formula one because they allow these teams to dominate with the engines, the car, they're not even comparable.

[00:25:49] Mat Germain: It'd be like me going out there with a, you know, a ladder and then the next guy going on with the Lamborghini. Well, of course he's going to win the race. So why would I watch? Like it's the same thing in baseball at that point. And you're seeing, you know, the Astros in there all the time. The Dodgers in there all the time.

[00:26:04] Mat Germain: The Yankees in there the majority of the time. So then it gets to be tiresome. Like they're not getting higher ratings. So stop trying to rig the game to the large markets and start rigging it to be fair and have those stories. It's exciting to see the Brewers, you know, getting closer and closer to possible, um, World Series appearance.

[00:26:26] Mat Germain: Same thing with the Orioles. Let those things happen. Nobody argues in a Super Bowl when a smaller market team makes it to the Super Bowl that it's a bad thing. So why does baseball have to be any different? 

[00:26:39] Mark Corbett: I'm concerned about there being injuries there. There's no doubt about that. That's, that's one major consideration.

[00:26:46] Mark Corbett: And when you think as far as the number of years that a team has control of a player, then, and they can have as virtually as many pictures as they want half of their half of their roster practically can be, you know, pitching. That why not? Why not just grind them out? And as you grind out and their arms no longer good, bring up another one.

[00:27:06] Mark Corbett: We've got a great farm system. Good. Let's bring up another one. And that sounds cold and callous. And maybe, maybe the, uh, the teams and front offices are not that cold hearted, but I know that virtually every one of them, it comes down to that dollar, that that profit margin and they, the players are seeing, I think sometimes just as a commodity and not as people that you want to take care of.

[00:27:30] Mark Corbett: I don't know. 

[00:27:31] Mat Germain: Yeah, I, uh, I have no faith. Just because when you look at baseball right now, the last five to ten years, right? And number of injuries increasing, et cetera, what's been done to fix that? Anything? Has anybody done anything to help the pitchers out? No. So what is that telling you? They don't care that all these, we're talking big names.

[00:27:52] Mat Germain: We're not talking small ones. We're talking Scherzer, DeGrom, like all the top names in the game that should be on the mound, putting on a show are out. And you don't hear one owner saying, Oh, we need to tweak this. Cause this is getting ridiculous. Why? Because they're saving money. The more that these young pitchers blow out their arms early, they never have to pay them.

[00:28:13] Mat Germain: They don't have to pay out extensions. And that's it. Then they just turn on to the next. This one, the Astros are going and Dodgers, especially the Dodgers are chewing through arms. Like, like a dog on a bone. They're just going through them like crazy. And it's, it's insane. And we used to, I remember this like back from my blogging days and, and a little bit beyond, um, We used to dissect what pitcher, uh, pitchers were throwing and what may be hurting them.

[00:28:41] Mat Germain: So what may be causing the Tommy Johns, et cetera. So for a while they blackballed the splitter and they said, okay, nobody's allowed to throw splitters anymore. Cause it's causing too many injuries. Do you hear the same thing now to say, is anybody saying that is anybody? 

[00:28:54] Mark Corbett: No, I mean, there's, there's not a voice not 

[00:28:56] Mat Germain: to do this, that, or yet nobody's saying anything.

[00:28:58] Mat Germain: Yeah. It's, 

[00:28:59] Mark Corbett: uh, sad. And sometimes you think of the, these young players too, they need to cement their position with that team. They don't ever really want to see a manager come out and take the ball from them. So sometimes they don't even, the pitcher doesn't necessarily have their own best interests at heart as far as their health, because they want as a player, they're competitive and they're aggressive and they're going to do what it takes.

[00:29:25] Mark Corbett: And They're gonna, a lot of times, maybe that's why we're not hearing as much about it. I don't know. 

[00:29:33] Mat Germain: There's just something not right. If it was dollar related to the point where it was hurting teams, you would hear about it, right? And, and it's true. But, but if, since it's not, and it's actually helping their bottom line, they're silent about it.

[00:29:44] Mat Germain: They're like, yeah, okay. You want to blow out your arm? Go ahead. We'll keep putting Kyle Snyder out there telling you to throw harder with your slider. And when you end up on the Tommy John list for the third time, I don't have to pay you anymore and I'll move on to the next guy. That's why we have a draft.

[00:29:59] Mat Germain: So it's really, it's sad to say, but I see it and and like Shane Baugh's being back out there as a starter throwing 7. 2 innings. Outstanding. Love the stuff. Love the kid. He's just going to be IL bound eventually again. Because he's not, he's not at the point right now where he has the stamina where he should be going that length.

[00:30:23] Mark Corbett: Yeah. 

[00:30:24] Mat Germain: It would be different if they were growing up that way. And, and if they had the builds and the things like Nolan Ryan and the guys. So they used to, uh, toy a lot more with velocity. Right? So he could hit 97, but he would never sit at 97 consistently. He would throw 90. 93, 92, 95, and then, Oh, he needs the 97.

[00:30:46] Mat Germain: He brings it out. You have to be able to toy with, with the speeds and that's going to throw the hitters off way more than a high velocity consistently. 

[00:30:55] Mark Corbett: Well, you're, you're absolutely right. I mean, we're trying to find out, you know, what it takes to keep those arms healthy and the six, any rule doesn't sound like that's moving in the right direction.

[00:31:05] Mark Corbett: To look at this front offices, seeing players as a commodity that health is not concerned. I've got a farm system, you know, for four teams deep and I can keep bringing them up and bringing them up. People need to be considered about that. I mean, as fans, we need to be considered about that, about, Hey, it's okay to not let a player go to a hundred pitches or expect them to be throwing 95 to a hundred.

[00:31:31] Mark Corbett: All of the time, and then there needs pitchers who have more finesse will emerge those who, I mean, you take Nate Leovaldi, you know, he has more different pitches and probably has more control of where he puts that ball than most. Part of that's because he has to, and part of it's because, you know, that is, That's how he, he grew.

[00:31:53] Mark Corbett: So I think that's something we need to see more of in the future is, is people who can execute a better pitch. 

[00:32:00] Mat Germain: Right. And just to be clear, like in Japan, they throw more pitches than, than the guys training in the U S do. They just do it in non game situations and to strengthen their arms for the.

[00:32:09] Mat Germain: Majority of the time, and then they only have one in game, you know, per week. So I think I'd love to see one team do that through their system and in the major leagues for a period of time and see how it goes. I think once one team breaks the mold, then you'll have the rest of the people copy that. And we'll be, we'll do away with a lot of the injuries we have now, which are unfortunate, because I want to see the best on the mound.

[00:32:34] Mat Germain: I want to see, you know, the high talents stay healthy so that we can see them. 

[00:32:39] Mark Corbett: Here's a thought, take one of the 30 teams and they're failing and all the other owners, they cannot stand that manager, cannot stand that operation. So what we're going to do is they will be suspended for two years, that team.

[00:32:55] Mark Corbett: And during that time, we'll bring one of those Japanese teams into the major league baseball. And then the rest of the 29 teams can learn what it means to play it differently. 

[00:33:10] Mat Germain: Oh, man. That's a, that's a huge thing. No, it wouldn't 

[00:33:14] Mark Corbett: work for him, but it's just the idea. You see, you sell me on the idea about looking more closely about how they do.

[00:33:23] Mark Corbett: baseball in Japan and how they're able to keep healthier arms. And I think that's something well worth more, uh, discovery. We'll see what MLB decides to do. Thank you all again for joining us here today on Baseball Biz on the Deck. Matt and I want to say thanks. Keep yourself healthy. Keep your arms straight.