What do you see in, in Dave's handling of this situation?

I think Dave's handling is great.

I mean, first and foremost, Shohei Ohtani has earned the right.

He's not only the best player of my generation, [clears throat] excuse me, Buster.

He's probably one of the best players of all time.

So he's earned the right to have Dave collaborate with him and ask him, "Hey, can you play?" And if he says yes, he's earned that trust in Dave Roberts and the whole Dodgers organization.

I think what Dave is doing now as the manager is being smart about this, saying, "Shohei, look, it's clear that you are not 100% all the way there.

Really?

All right, so speaking of hitters and getting your timing, too, as well, Aaron Judge, is he going to come back and is he going to be effective at all? Because it feels like the Yankees, with the way Ben Rice is hitting and the fact that they have three really good starting pitchers, this does feel a little different for the Yankees than they have in the past few years where they've fallen short.

Yeah, it does feel different, and especially this past series with Boston.

That was a statement series from the Yankees, man.

They protected home field.

Aaron Judge, I think either way, if he's on that roster, in that lineup, I mean, that is valuable.

Just because his presence alone, if he's on deck, you're going to give the guy in front of him pitches to hit, and that's what you do when you're game planning at a a lineup with Aaron Judge in there.

I think he's going to play, man.

I just have to go play baseball or what's that balance like in these high leverage situations?

Is he gonna come back and is he gonna be effective at all? Because it feels like the Yankees, with the way Ben Rice is hitting and the fact that they have, like, three really good starting pitchers, like, this does feel a little different for the Yankees in it, than they have in the, in the past few years, where they've fallen short.

Yeah, it does feel different, and, and especially this past series with Boston.

That was a statement series from the Yankees, man.

They protected home field.

Aaron Judge, I, I think either way, if he's in that, on that roster, in that line-up, I mean, that is valuable.

Just because his presence alone, if he's on deck, you're gonna give the guy in front of him pitches to hit, and he just, that's what you do when he game plan, you're game planning at a, a line-up with Aaron Judge in there.

I think he's gonna play, man.

Right.

Because as we said, you've attained the high, you've lifted the trophy, right? sports are so routine oriented when you're an elite athlete but how do you measure the balance of oh we got to treat it like it's every other game but it's not every other game like this is when it actually matters like how do you balance that as an athlete and and how does that affect the success in the playoffs

Yeah, that's a real thing.

The reality is this is a fresh new season for all those players out there.

So take Kyle Tucker, for instance, out there in L.A. He's been walking up to the plate, looking at the scoreboard for the past four months, seeing numbers up there that he is not happy with.

He's had a rough season.

So now when he's going to that scoreboard, he's going to see 0-0-0.

It's a fresh start.

Like, what's going to happen in this series?

And so it doesn't surprise me that Scooble, I mean, tell me what that's like to go from one team to another, especially when you're talking about a Dodger team that's had so much success.

Yeah, it's different.

It's different, especially, you know, I think automatically of Adley Rutschman as a catcher going over there.

To me, that's the hardest because you got to get on the same page with the pitchers, the starters, the bullpen.

And then the second hardest is that starting pitcher, a guy like Scooble, because all this is happening on the fly.

You know, Derek Scooble won two Cy Young Awards back to back in Detroit.

that's all he's ever known in his big league life is showing up going through that same routine for six seven straight years and then now mid-season that's all changing on the fly you're trying to buy in with your new teammates you know a lot of these old soul school type pitchers don't like shaking off their catchers so to go to a new team you want to buy in to not only you know the staff but your coaches your players as well so he's going over there probably not wanting to shake off his catchers much So it's a little bit of an adjustment period.

And he's been lights out since then.

Is that always said whenever good things are happening for Chicago, or does this team feel a little different?

Yeah, the Cubbies, though, you're seeing PCA go from the dugout, and he's riding into the clubhouse there.

And the Chicago Cubs, man, that support staff that they have, those guys in the clubhouse, VJ, Danny, I mean, you see what they do to the lights here.

It's like a party in there, man.

So every big league win that these guys get, they're celebrating each and every night.

So the vibes are extremely high in Chicago.

It's the 10-year reunion, like you mentioned, for the team in 2016.

Mm-hmm.

Hey, Haas, my friend over here, Nick, should he be concerned about Paul Skeens?

Oh, man.

Nick, you should not be concerned about Paul walking on the beach with his girlfriend.

He looks great.

He's winning at life.

Don't worry about that.

I am not going to lie.

He's just having a really bad season.

It's really cool, man

...

it sounds a lot like y- you had the best of, of both worlds because y- you took this group that you were really tight with and you were able to kinda travel with them, but they were kids that you met when you were 10, 11, 12, 11, 13 years old.

A lot of times now, that gets splintered off.

And as I've said to Justin and others on this show, and we've had managers on this show, and the Pedroias of the world, and Dusty Bakers, the, the stuff that you guys benefit from being in a clubhouse, in a locker room, in a car with five of your friends, i- is such an important part of baseball that you, you, if you're not playing team sports, you don't get.

What, what came first for you? Was it the love of the game, the love for your buddies, the love of winning? 'Cause obviously that happened when, when you grew up with winning state championships.

Which came first? So for me, the, the love for winning.

How did you keep the outside expectations from the big contract, from the early success from affecting the player that you wanted to be? In a sense, how do you block out all the noise at whether you're 12 years old, 22 years old, or 42 years old?"

How did you and your family handle it?

Man, so it's, it's a very, very hard decision.

And, and, uh, you know, we took college, believe it or not, very seriously.

Like, I was really pursuing going to college because, you know, those years in your life, 18, 19, 20 years old, they're such key years of development, you know, not only as a player, but as a person, too.

So you know, you have to think there's- When you go into Minor League Baseball, this is, again, I know times have changed.

I got drafted in 2008, but when you become a professional baseball player, there is a tremendous amount of accountability that becomes on the player.

And, and at 18 years old, I don't really know if I was ready for that.

How did you keep the outside expectations from the big contract, from the early success from affecting the player that you wanted to be? In a sense, how do you block out all the noise at whether you're 12 years old, 22 years old, or 42 years old?"

But as of right now, if PCA keeps up doing what he's doing, he's gonna have one of, like, the most historic seasons of all time.

Yeah, PCA's killing it.

There's no dou- no doubt about that.

He's the odds-on favorite now at minus 120 to be the MVP.

So this is, this is tough, man.

This is a really, really hard debate because before yesterday's game, I was still on Shohei Ohtani to be the MVP.

He's pitching and hitting, and then you watch the game yesterday, it was a day game.

How, how hard do you think it is for Bryce this late in his career to move back out to right field? How do you feel about that switch? And the Phillies with Luis Arias, uh, have been pretty hot lately.

Is that an accurate read, Hoz? Or how do you think we should be viewing this from a player's perspective, but also understanding the business behind the sport?

Yeah, I think the business and where baseball's at, the whole CBA, that's completely separate in my opinion from everything that's happening with the Dodgers and them getting Tarik Skubal.

Because in my opinion, the Dodgers are just head and shoulders above every other organization when it comes to every- everything about the team, the development, the way they scout.

I mean, when you think about international free agents and draft picks, there's salary caps there.

There's caps for both of those, and the Dodgers still continue to do both of those head and shoulders above every other organization.

So I can see the narrative, and that's definitely the narrative going on throughout fans and baseball, it seems like.

But in my opinion, I don't think the Dodgers ruin baseball.

But why is this such a big talking point, and are players looking for this in their contracts?

Do you think that, like, are players like, hey, this is going to suck? Like, we're in a war right now, and they're going to do everything they can to try to get this salary cap.

Yeah, I just think it's a tough situation because I think for the players, it is the hardest time to be a player in this negotiation right now because the players have always prided themselves on guaranteed money and not having a salary cap.

And I think that's going to be tested more than ever this offseason.

And I hate to see it, man, because baseball, it's got so much momentum.

Everybody was all in on baseball.

The World Baseball Classic was great, so you would hate for that to stop.

But...

Well, you know, doing a good job with their farm system so that they can have the guys to trade for a Scooble.

Mm-hmm

... today.

So when he gets called up today, the team has you for seven years right now, is what the current CBA is.

And usually those first four years you got the rookie salary, and then the last three you go to arbitration.

Once the players start going to arbitration, that's when you start making big money.

So what these small market teams do is, that first year of arbitration they try to lock a guy like Tarik Skubal down before that because that's when they know they're gonna get expensive.

And if they're not able to lock them down, that's when the GMs in the front office know, "Hey, okay, this is where we're gonna have to get a return for our investment." So now you guys were at the Derby promoting the game, which is awesome, and you saw Junior Caminero out there.

But when you look around the MLB, how many teams do you think can legitimately do something at the deadline to compete with the Dodgers this year in, you know, October? Or is it, do you think it's kind of a foregone conclusion and that, you know, they're gonna add Skubal, and they're probably gonna win a World Series that's potentially gonna lead to a work stoppage?

Yep

... a good blend of the numbers and still personable with his players, but how do you tackle this? How do you go about continuing to motivate these guys, and at the same time the elephant in the room is Skubal.

And it's day, it's day to day right now for you guys, and how do you go about motivating or just navigating through all that? And AJ was like, "Listen, first and foremost, we've been playing game seven since May, and that's what we've been telling our club.

And the second thing is I told my guys before it can happen, once we go about three or four games where we lose in a row, you know the news is gonna be that Tarik's gone.

We're losing him, and that's gonna be the news.

So internally we need to just understand that's gonna happen.

Let's focus on here." But at the same time, he's done a great job of that up until now.

Right

What, uh, what do you see?

It's tough, man, because they definitely have the guys.

You know, I, I certainly...

Them being on the West Coast, it's hard to watch daily.

You certainly, you watch the highlights but you're not watching the at bats and, um, I just know kind of looking at the outside, from the outside in, if I'm a young guy like Steven Souza and I'm going in there as a hitting coach, first time hitting coach, first year, that's a tough assignment because not only you have a, you have a lot of veteran guys, you have to go now and learn their program, learn their routine.

And then at the same time you're trying to establish your own routine as a hitting coach.

Then you have young guys coming in that you have to teach them.

[upbeat music]

I, I mean, you know, if this plays out the way that they're hoping that it does, man, what a difference it would make for, not only for the Detroit Tigers, but for Skubal as a free agent in the fall.

Oh, man.

Yeah, so th- you're right.

There's, there's dad jokes and then there's Scott-isms, right? So the [laughs] the Skubal Scope is, is spot on with that.

But I am very, very interested to see how this goes.

This could be...

I mean, this could be life-changing for our game.

Because they thought the Red Sox were so good at discerning pitchers' grips and then relaying that information to the hitter.