But when you are preparing for their demise, is it fair to blame Dave Dombrowski and the front office here?

here?I think Dave Dombrowski should be getting the blame.

I mean, Mattingly was put in a really tough spot yesterday.

They, they brought in McFarlane, uh, who's one of two relievers [chuckles] on the Phillies bullpen with an ERA under 3.3.

They brought him into the sixth, and he gives up a run.

And so Duran is the only guy left, uh, in there that they can trust.

And obviously, I think he...

Uh, kind of crazy roster construction there, which surprised you more?

will how quickly do your expectations change for the angels because obviously we know the long-term ramifications um i can't be the only one who starts looking at okay southern california free agents like does anybody want to come home when does paul skeens hit the open market um but in the short term i mean how soon can angels fans really expect this to change and that's not just the roster and the competitiveness but also like robert said the things surrounding the franchise stadium upgrades name shifts i mean this is an off season of upheaval we know this is a weird winter where there may be a dead zone and it could be easily you know read as a time to feel hopeless but i think angels fans might feel more hope than anyone else

Yeah.

And look, I do think it's going to take, we're still in the due diligence process of this sale.

So I feel like next season could be more about getting the lay of the land for him.

But when Crockett moved the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles, it took just two years to get back to the playoffs after they had sort of been in a funk in St. Louis for about five years under his ownership.

But once he got them out to Los Angeles and really invested, it took two years to get to the playoffs and, become the franchise that we know them as now, a really successful group.

And I mean, Stan Kroenke is the largest private landowner in the US and he's all about real estate.

So I would imagine that the list of snubs is longer, but is there anyone you were hoping to see that you have yet to see?

Are there any of these borderline buy-sell teams that you would say would benefit from actually just really going for it and trying to take advantage of this watered-down American League?

Yeah, I mean, the first one that comes to mind is not an AL team for me, honestly, but the Pirates.

I mean, this is a team that really went for it in free agency.

They're a few games out of a wild card spot right now, but their offense, all of their upgrades have really hit for them.

Their pitching has actually been The thing that's let them down a little some of their starting pitchers like Jared Jones and Mitch Keller haven't like performed up quite to their expectations, but I would love to see them go for Joe Ryan or another starting pitcher and they there's some bullpen help out there as always at the deadline that could help them out.

But I think also in the AL, I think the Guardians, they could really use a game-changing power bat.

Their pitching is solid as always, but they could use another bat as always.

Couldn't they sell Sonny Gray and still be basically just as potent as a contender? I'm not saying they are going to be in the postseason or make a run, but in this American League, can't they sell pretty hard and still find themselves in the wildcard race anyway?

I'm on the

fence.

I see 200-person fintechs doing what used to need thousands of engineers to do in a similar amount of time, right? The pace of development is actually really fast.

But also, there's still an advantage to established businesses and how they're going to interact with this, right? What that means is that the playing field is not just the model that you have, it's the data that you have.

And so the playing field for established businesses is that huge amount of data that they already have.

But for those new businesses, the playing field means that they can enter that playing field much quicker, right? So I expect that we'll see a large amount of successful fintechs coming up through the pipeline very quickly, but we'll also see major plays by the established industry.

The key thing I think about with this is that trust doesn't get disrupted by AI, it gets amplified.

Wow.

But what executives do you think are under the most pressure come the deadline here?

Well, I think one is Mike Elias with Baltimore.

He's in his eighth year in Baltimore, and they've still never won a playoff game.

Brandon Hyde was kind of the sacrificial lamb for them early on last season, and they made an obvious push with getting Pete Alonzo and making some of the moves with Taylor Ward, where you'd think that there was some sort of playoff directive this year, and they're on the outskirts of the race right now, but they haven't looked like a playoff team so far.

And I think he's going to be under some pressure to make some sort of move and get the Orioles actually in the thick of the playoff race because it's been a long time there and it seemed like they were ready to kind of mature into a contender a couple years ago and now they've swung the other way for two years in a row now so I think he's certainly one of them I think another one is if the Mets we've been hearing Carlos Mendoza is safe so what does that mean for David Stearns can he survive missing the playoffs the last two seasons I mean They have the biggest payroll in baseball and he has obviously is highly respected in the industry with what he's done with the Brewers.

And but he made a lot of moves this offseason, basically cycled out the Mets entire core and it has not gone well.

So I think those are the two main guys who for me have gotten sure I really should have had contenders on their hands and they do not so far.

What do you think his trade candidacy looks like if the Orioles actually do sell?