 So last year, we had you on, as we said, talking baseball. You skirted around the word that you wouldn't say, but I would say, which was strike. And everyone was. You were saying it. But everyone was saying, it's coming. There's going to be a big dispute. After winter meetings last year, we walked away. Everyone walked away. And then they decided on some new rules. And they said, and we're going to open up negotiations now so we can give ourselves the most amount of time to get on the same page. By the time it comes up in two years or whatever, whenever it is, I thought maybe that would have helped and changed some things. Now we have, there's so many issues. I mean, the arbitration system is broken. The non-tender system is broken. But the big dogs last year, Machado, Harper, they did get paid. Yes, they did. And we are getting a lot of movement this year and guys getting paid. But there are a lot of things broken. So where are we? Better works. So let me ask you a question. I was saving that. You say the big players got paid last year. Why was there no inflation from A-Rod's contract to 2018? Well, I mean, that's a good call. But I mean, no, I'm asking, how did A-Rod in 2000, whatever, get what? What was it, 10 for 250, something like that? Yeah, what, 252? 252, yeah. So, well, I mean, what's in that? So like, that's what everyone looks at. No, that's what agents sell. That's still stupid. Well, I mean, if the luxury cap is going to be a thing, you have to look at that. The luxury cap is going to be what destroys baseball. I mean, wasn't the A-Rod contract. And again, maybe this is wrong, but I feel like it was viewed that that was too much money. And I know that's not how things are supposed to work. But it was viewed that way. Yeah, by who, though? Like, by who? It felt like the Texas Rangers were crippled by that contract. Why were they crippled? No, let's say they were a poorly run organization. No, no, no, no, how did that cripple them? We're going to totally stay on this. I'm taking over. I mean, they were saying that. Who's they? Say these words. The Texas are, no, I don't know. Baseball, baseball in general. I'm not going to say names, because I didn't know the names after that. No, I don't mean names. What side? What are you talking about? We're talking about like fans, right? Or, or, or, or. That's what I'm asking. Or owners. What do you mean? Do you mean fans? I'm saying all of it. I think. No, separate that. Besides, besides agents, everyone outside of agents said that the A-Rod contract was too much. Okay, so like separate the everyone. You say fans and ownership. What the fuck do I care about ownership and fans' input on a contract? Right. Yeah. No, but, but, but say, stay on that. Cause that's part of the problem when you guys say too much. This is what owners have conditioned fans to say. You are saying to me literally that was too much of the owner's money. Why do you as fans even remotely give? Not you guys specifically. No, no, no. But why did fans give a shit about what owners? But this, this happens just in America. But that's because of owners. And it was because of the rich people. Yes. It's like the same problem with the TV show Friends when they were like, we need a million dollars per episode. And the public was like, what the fuck you guys are blah, blah, blah. And Chandler or Matthew Perry went on TV and he was like, we just want a percentage of what everyone else, if we don't get the million, someone's getting the million. Well, that's the point. But yeah, as a society we're conditioned and because they were conditioned by the people with all the money and they're telling it's ridiculous. It's insanity. Every single team could afford every single player without losing anything. But the luxury cap does change that. No, it doesn't. In what you, it only, it changes it in the sense that it acts as a superficial salary cap. That's the only. If you were an owner, if you owned a baseball team and you had those in place, you would, you would duck under that cap every three years or whatever the rules are. Yes. Yeah. Okay. What's your point? So that's hard to give out bigger contracts when you have to balance it every three years, right? That's a choice from ownership. And that's not going to change until fans get pissed off. And you blame the players for this. Not you. So what do you think there should be a minimum then? Do I think there is a minimum? No, for like, for teams, like should there be a. No, because if we enter that Pandora's box, they're going to ask for a cap. If we say we want a floor, the inverse is that we want a cap. And is there a situation where that would be more beneficial to players now versus what the system is currently? Probably, but do you know why that is? Because owners are not participating in good faith in what the actual system is supposed to be, which is a free market, which it is not. Well, yeah. So the biggest problem with the system, besides like owners not wanting to spend and fans being conditioned by the owners, that's a whole bigger thing. But the actual, the actual bargaining agreement that is in place right now, it favors kids that make the big leagues at 19 to 22 and hit free agency at 26 to 29. And if you break in. Reggie McClain, my client, 26 year old rookie. Yeah, he's fucked. Luke Voight for the Yankees, 28 year old rookie. Yep. Fucked. We'll never get paid. Doesn't hit free agency until he's what, 34? Yeah. And then he's never going to get paid. So, and I think the goal was to protect young kids, like if you make it to the big leagues, you're going to have the security of seven years. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The reason. There's Tori. You want to ask him for your autograph? I would, but we're working. Oh, that sucks. So. He'll like this conversation. This is going to be hilarious. Oh my God. I would tell him. I don't give a shit. He passed out. I was going to say something so bad right now. We'll reel that in a little bit. Yeah, I don't care. What's he going to do? Write me a letter. And I'd respond. Can you sign this card? Thank you. Sorry, Mr. Tori, here you go. I wouldn't say sorry. No, go back to your point. I got distracted by Joe Tori. My point is, why was the system in place? Okay, yeah, yeah. So the system is in place. System was in place always to protect the veteran players. As long as the veteran player's salaries were preserved, the PA didn't care about selling out the younger guys. So you have a situation where draft picks, minor leaguers, pre-arb guys, all get eaten up by the system and very few guys make money and that's capital. So I'm horrified to ask this question. Commissioner for a day. You get to rewrite the rules. I mean, is it just so much less team control? Like what is the solution? Oh, how would I fix that? Yeah. Get guys to free agency sooner and eliminate arbitration. Eliminate the arbitration system as it is and change it to something better over less years. Just cut it down, like cut it in half. Yeah, but what incentive does ownership have to do that? None. None. Did you see what, this is public, so I'm not breaking anything here, but did you see what Manfred said to the PA? No. It was in Calcuttaire's article a few weeks ago. I saw it online. Craig wrote that there was a meeting with the PA and MLB and Manfred said, or I'm sorry, the PA said, you know, we're not gonna give up stuff. We need to make gains. We need to make gains in the next CBA and MLB's office goes, or Manfred goes, well, we're not, you know, what do we get? And PA's answer is we give you labor peace, so there's gonna be no work salvage. And then Manfred's answer to that was we're not giving you anything for labor peace. So that's cool. That's how we start. Tough negotiation. That's not much of a negotiation or like the other thing that everyone's, you know, it's like, you know, the owners are totally open to changing the system as long as it doesn't change the finances. Like, oh, okay, thanks. For anyone that's watching or listening that is completely unaware of what we're talking about, the system that's currently in place is once a player breaks into the MLB, you're not supposed to say the MLB and people always correct me. MLB. Yeah, because it's not the Major League Baseball. So I'm sorry to those people on YouTube who love to leave that comment. Once you break into MLB, you basically have three, it's correct me, it's three years of team control where you're just gonna make the minimum, which is around 500. 535, yeah. 535, 535 grand. And then you have four years of arbitration? Or is it three again? Three. Three years of arbitration, which basically the system kind of just takes what you've done, your age, whatever it takes into account. Your baseball card stats that are super irrelevant now because you're not allowed to use analytics, you're not allowed to use most data, like analytics in arbitration. So you can't use spin rate, can't you? Yeah, so there's arbitration if you agree on this number and then that's year by year, every year you have to go and if you guys disagree, you have to go to arbitration, you have to. Well, like the way the hearings work is, you pick a number as the player and the agent and the PA and then the team picks a number and then you have your case and then the arbitrator picks one of the two numbers. He can't pick in between. Nope, yeah. And you gotta settle for that to happen. But there used to be a negotiating period before arbitration where you could negotiate with the ball club right up until the hearing started. Like you could be there in a suit, getting ready for it and then see them in the room and get it done. That's happened. And now teams are all something called file and trial where once you decide to go to arbitration, they won't talk to you anymore. And then you get shit-talked by your own club. Yes, they'll be there. And they tell the judge how bad you are. In front of you. That's such baseball. Derek Jeter had to do it. And he said like, you know, it sucked and Delin Betanso swore Yankee background. And then recently, what the Yankees just did last off season is they bought out and a lot of people doing it. The Braves are doing this. A lot of guys are doing this. They're buying out the arbitration. That's a thing. Low AAV, which is average annual value. That's not just a low AAV. That's a low total. Yeah. So they're buying it out. I, as a dumb fan or whatever, I'm like, good, don't go to arbitration. Cause then like- You don't want our pitchers getting yelled at. I don't want Severino to go find, I think some players are fragile. And when they go to that meeting, I think, yeah, I think a lot, I think a lot of humans are fragile. How about that? I wouldn't want to go to a room. AJ Burnett cried after his hearing. Did you hear this? And then vowed never to play for the Marlins again. Yeah. Well, Delin Betanso was like, fuck that. Everyone was mean to him. And no one would want to have to go to court against your boss. And your boss is telling you how much you suck. In fairness, teams don't want to do that, but that's how the system is. I think that's why they're trying to like, let's just buy out arbitration. Yeah, but they're not. Yeah, but that's still so. Every single one of those is club friendly. But I mean, there is like an injury. There is a fail safe. Cause like- That's the excuse every time, isn't it? But I was saying, in this current system, which we agree sucks and is bad. No, the system's fine. It's just broken. They're not participating in it. If they did it in good faith, we wouldn't have these issues. But wouldn't like Severina, what do you get, 70? I don't remember what he got. Whatever. He's not like, I can't comment. You say, so like he's got four years left. He's going to make 535, 535, then probably like- Whatever it is. It's like 12, 11, 10, 11, 13, 17. It's like kind of a clue. Yeah, whatever. I saw it. So if the total over those years is higher than what that would be, isn't it smart to just sign that? And then you're still a free agent. When you're a free agent, you don't have to argue after every season. If you get injured- That's everybody's individual choice. I mean, some guys like it, some guys don't. I don't ever, I don't know what everybody's situation is in their lives. Well, as an agent, you probably want to bet on the player. Always. But like there is injury risks. Like I understand buying out arbitration. I do think that they need to just- It doesn't feel like those deals that last year, in my opinion, all of them in the totality, not one specific deal. I feel like all of those were a reaction to what happened last off season. I think so as well. Yeah, oh, absolutely. So that's not good. No. No, because the owners created this marketplace where no one was getting an offer and then they benefited from it from like, did you see what happened? Here, why don't you just take this? And it's like, oh my God. They're fucking puppeteers. The ones that were ridiculous were, I think the Braves guys, Alby's and Akuna were like, they're the guys that we talked about who they're what you said, the perfect storm. They got called up young. I mean, they're stars. Those are guys that, if they hit it right, I mean, they could have been star free agents at age 27 and they took these kind of odd team friendly deals. Yeah. Yeah, I can't. Josh's face was very exciting during that. I can't, I just, I can't talk about players I don't work for specifically or I'll get not being, I'll get kicked out of being an agent. But I just, everything's broken. And then we got two years to figure it out and- It is better that they, they agreed like, we need to figure this out. I mean, it's gonna be worse. They didn't agree to that. I thought that was what, I thought that's what came, it happened. It's so superficial. Okay. Like, if you're in ownership's position, what incentive do you have to open up these negotiations legitimately in good faith? And in my opinion, there's none. And I think it's all just window dressing. So is that why- Scared of a strike. I'm not scared of it. It's going to happen. I don't know, the owners, they're only- No, they're not. They're not. But they should be. That could be the only thing that they're like, okay, we need to do this. They're not, as long as these owners don't lose money, they don't care what happens in my opinion. Okay. It doesn't need to make, tell me, okay, so this is important. So what is the difference now between 1994 and that labor stoppage and what's going on now? Is that the composite of the ownership membership, that club of 30 owners, the makeup of it is very different. In the 90s, you had Bud Selig and Mark Schott and Carl Lindner and all these small, but you know, Selig, who was a car dealer and you had all these less rich people owning these ball clubs who were financially dependent on their club. And now you have billionaires who own teams and literally don't care at all as long as they don't lose money. Yeah, don't tell Mets fans this because they're about to get the richest owner, Steve Cohen, and they think he's going to pour money and really care. But now you're saying- No one cares about anything. It's just all, it's a business. You know, it's a business. And the lowest valued franchise in Major League Baseball is the Marlins at a billion dollars. And then I hear from fans who are all financial experts on Twitter, which is super cool. Oh yeah. You're like, oh, you know, the Marlins, just because they're franchised, valued at a billion dollars doesn't mean they have a billion dollars. Like wow, thanks for tweeting that. Really eye-opening stuff. I was like, did you mean to send this to me? So I've got a question and I think the- You accidentally just sent some stoop. It might be the window dressing and stuff you were referencing before. Well, what's changed? How long have they been talking? Well, that's what we don't know. In 94, there's also better music that we've already agreed on. So we can agree to that. But last year at winter meetings, and there was like no action. Third won't be here either. But the whole buzz was, well, already this free agency, there's been more than at this point last year. Yes, I agree. And Moose got paid and he hasn't been paid in two years. But do you know why? Because everyone saw last year that waiting didn't do shit. But the numbers aren't that bad either. Like Moose got paid pretty well. No opinion, no opinion, not in years. You're asking the wrong guy. Moose got paid pretty good, Wheeler got paid pretty good. No comment. No opinion on players that I don't work for. If, so last year it was the hot, like everyone we talked to, and this isn't a side of you, but everyone we talked to was like, yo, like this labor shit is real. Like, so it's gonna go down. Now it has gotten quiet. I know Jimmy mentioned that like the two sides agreed to open up and talk. And I- That's not new. I don't want, well, I do obviously want you to overstep your boundaries. I'm going to. But you're, you are the only person in our Circle. 40 hours of being here. With this perspective. That have hurt. Oh, they're all lying to you. Okay. So that's the window. There's no way you spoke to Calcuttaire and he told you everything was fine. We had him on our history podcast. There's no way Craig didn't tell you exactly what I'm saying. Craig and I- We'll have him on later. I was gonna say Craig and I- But he wrote it off. I feel like, okay, so that's the difference. People would open with that last year. Like people would look around, give like, man, things are- Because they can only see what's right in front of them. And I'm not saying like, I'm this sage, but you know, they- I would like if you called yourself a sage. Seer. I have. I've called myself lots of things. They haven't stuck. You can't give yourself a nickname. Jake tried it with Rocky, but actually what stuck was the toilet and no Stradamus. That's funny. Yeah, mine's stupid. My player's just started calling me Jay-Cause. Oh, that was. Jay-Cause. I know. Hey, Rod. It's so easy. It's so easy. This would be Jay-Store. Your job. Jimmy O'Brien. Well, it'd be J-O-B. No, that's a good one. That's a good one. Jay-Store's not bad. It sounds like some shitty family- Mine sounds awesome because there's a Z in it. Because. It's a good letter. But they, I- Anyone call you Cuzzo? Like Lizzo. They have actually. No, I just, yeah, I have nothing more in depth than that. They're all lying to you. Everyone's lying. Be worried, as baseball fans. Yeah, every single person should be worried. Like, I mean, not even a little. What can fans do? They just nothing. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I lived through the 94, man. I was 12, it sucked. We lost baseball and I went to spring training games to get autographs of replacement players. It was terrible. Well, at least we have a scandal to help us out right now. No comments. Hey, man, the steroids got us through the last strike and now every team will just be legally allowed to cheat and that will get us through this next labor stoppage. There's always gonna be, as long as there's rules, people will always try to circumvent them.