After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 2

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Yes, I'll be ready. Just buying a car on Carvana. What? It's super convenient. I already got prequalified in two minutes.

All I had to do was answer a few questions. What? That's handy. Yeah. Now I'm customizing my down and monthly payments. What? That's an exquisite deal. And just like that, Carvana is delivering my car in a couple days. What?

Oh, yeah. Sorry, I'll have the burrito. Visit Carvana dot com to finance your next car. Financing subject to credit approval. Delivery fees may apply. For the past 20 years, you've enjoyed the refreshing tropical lime flavor of Mountain Dew Baja Blast. So in celebration of this milestone, we're bringing Baja Blast in stores nationwide. And for a limited time with every purchase of Baja Blast, you can collect coins for a chance to get Baja Gear or a Taco Bell deal. Twenty twenty four is the year of Baja Blast in stores now, no purchase necessary.

Open to U.S. residents 18 plus subject to official rules at Baja Blast dot com and six fifteen twenty four void prohibited. I appreciate hearing from those of you who wondered where I was on our last show. It was kind of a wonky week where I did the first two nights, Sunday night into Monday morning and then Monday into Tuesday. Had last night off into Wednesday morning, working this show again tonight into Thursday morning because I can't miss leap year. And then finally off again on Thursday night. Well, not off, just not working this show won't be here Thursday night into Friday morning because instead I'm doing Friday afternoon on CBS Sports Radio noon to three Pacific three to six p.m. Eastern Time.

So you can catch me there. For those of you who listen to the podcast might be an opportunity for you to hear the show live, although it won't be my show. It'll end up being a show for a different host that Gelb. He's got that afternoon time slot. And so I'm taking over his show, which is a different thing, but it's good. It's good to get out of my comfort zone and and do something new and stretch my broadcasting chops every now and then. So I hope that you'll tune in on Friday afternoon. But for that reason, I'm not doing a double double on Friday.

I'm not doing two shows within the span of twenty four hours. That seems a little much maybe when I was younger, not maybe when I was younger. Sure.

Not anymore. Too old for that. Got to rest these chords.

Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. See, it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. You can find me on Twitter, a law radio, our show, Twitter after hours, CBS. I can't promise you by the end of February we'll have a new video up on our YouTube channel. But how about this? Before Selection Sunday, we'll have a new video up on our YouTube channel. Jay, thumbs up on that. OK, thumbs up on new video for YouTube before we get to Selection Sunday, which incidentally is also my three month wedding anniversary.

Oh, my gosh. Bob and I were looking. Well, I was looking at the wedding photos on Wednesday, Wednesday. Yeah, I was looking at the wedding photos on Wednesday because I'm downloading them and putting them into folders. Of course, you know me like Uber organized. And before we can share them with people, family, friends, that kind of stuff.

We want to have them organized or I guess more specifically, I want to have them organized. So as I'm downloading them and kind of looking at them, I can put myself back in that place, except it feels like three years ago, not three months ago. Gosh, we've packed so much life into the last two and a half months between holidays and packing up his house and moving. Not quite cross country, but seventeen hundred miles and him getting established with work and working every day in January.

That was me. Then the Vegas trip for Super Bowl all along, we've been attempting to get the house set up. I would say we're about 80 percent done and we're really going through every room and not just putting his belongings into it.

No, we're purging. We're moving furniture around. We're getting rid of some of my furniture, which is mostly older, a lot of hand-me-down stuff or stuff that's 20 plus years old. And we called our slide puzzle because at first there wasn't room enough to just put things away. We have to move some belongings to get to other belongings. So essentially we brought all of his stuff and put it into my house, which is smaller than his house. And so we've got a few rooms that are completely done and then we're still working on other rooms. But between my travels and his travels and then just the work schedule that's opposite, we've kind of gone in spurts, right? So I was working on it while he was gone last weekend and we hope to get more done this weekend. But I'm actually speaking at a college conference this weekend and then I have a surprise date night for him.

He doesn't know what it is. I just have to tell him how to dress and we'll go and we'll do that. But just a lot of stuff, life stuff that we packed into the last two and a half months, which makes the wedding feel like eons ago. Maybe at some point it won't feel that way. And it certainly is fun to look at the photos and kind of put ourselves back in that place. And we're almost done with our thank you notes. We are down to our final 10 thank you notes.

So that makes us feel good. And since we haven't done the honeymoon yet, the goal was get the house set up and have all the thank you notes done and the pictures taken care of by the time we left for the honeymoon. But I got to actually bump up that timeline because I'm teaching a class again at Syracuse in April. So it's it's going to be two days each week in which I'm not at home. So there's just a lot that we're juggling, a lot that we're doing. And I'm so thankful to have him as a partner, an adventure and a person who stuck with me. I tell him all that all the time.

You're stuck with me. So it's after hours on CBS Sports Radio again tonight into Thursday morning, but then not again until next week. I'll be hosting on Friday afternoon and I hope that you will catch me there. 855-212-4227.

That's 855-212-4CBS. One of Bill Belichick's sons gives us a clue as to what he'd like to do moving forward. But also, did you know he had so many hobbies?

Well, Steve will tell you himself. We've got what I consider to be. Blather from Sean Payton, and if you don't know what the word means, you could just look it up, it's blather. Ryan Polz still playing his cards close to the vest, and yet people are sure that he's tipped his hand on what he will do at the number one overall pick. And coming up at our final hour, we're going to head to Chicago and welcome David Haugh, who is part of the morning show on our Chicago affiliate AM 670 The Scores.

We're looking forward to that. It covers the Cubs, but also will join us to talk about the situation with the Bears and their quarterback. Speaking of quarterbacks, we've got the latest from Atlanta, from New York, both teams, of course, and from Washington. All of these teams searching for a new quarterback. If they're lucky, they'll find new quarterbacks. Man, those teams are stuck in QB purgatory. Atlanta's been there since Matt Ryan, right? And really since the end of Matt Ryan's tenure. But their issue was always defense, putting a lot of pressure on their former MVP QB. But once he was granted the right to look somewhere else and he wanted to trade and wanted to get out, didn't want to be part of a rebuilding, they've been stuck in a vicious cycle.

The commanders cycle goes back even farther, even before they were the commanders, for heaven's sakes. Going back to the end of Kirk Cousins tenure in Washington, they've had three different names since then and probably three times as many quarterbacks since then, and they're still looking. The Jets have a quarterback for next season, but what do they do with Zach Wilson?

That's the question that we'll try to answer. We'll let you hear what they have to say about Zach. Even more so than last season, they're putting all of their eggs in this Aaron Rodgers basket.

Even more than last year. Now, I have no doubt that he is going to come back with a vengeance, mentally will be ready. I have no doubt that he will have done everything physically possible to get ready.

But will he be the same dude? I wouldn't call him a running quarterback. He scrambles, he extends plays along the lines of a Patrick Mahomes or Pat is more like him. He's always been brilliant at sidestepping defense and he can throw crossbody and all that jazz. Will he be able to make all the same throws?

It's not just about his arm, of course, got to have that lower body too. So thinking about both Aaron and Kirk Cousins as they come off the torn Achilles. There are a lot of quarterback questions to be answered. Feels like forever since we've done a QB news.

Maybe we'll have to incorporate it that way. But if you missed it, Mecole Hardman went deep on the Jets when he was a guest on the Pivot podcast and didn't just rip the fact that the team has been a perennial loser now for a while. But also the culture and what it was like in the locker room.

Y'all treat certain guys that shouldn't be treated like they should be treated. And I just feel like it's not an established coaching staff there as well. You just got a new coaching staff that came in.

There's no standard there. It's like everybody do what they want to do and defense have a more of a stabilized standard with the coaching staff on that side. So you could tell the defense got a standard, but the offense is just like, all right, we'll just figure it out. It's an Aaron show. Let Aaron do what Aaron do. You know what I mean? But then when Aaron go down, it's like, we don't know what to do.

And this is like the same coaching staff that just was out of a job the previous year that averaged to get a new job. I know for a fact I'm better than him, for sure. I know I'm better than him.

I'm better than him too. Garrett Wilson's the only person. Y'all should just be like, aye. So I have no problem with y'all putting it around Garrett Wilson for sure. I don't care.

That's fine. But when it comes to certain other things, it's like, come on, I don't understand why I'm not in a rotation with that. And y'all never gave me a reason as to why either. This is my thing was, y'all can't tell me about winning. I've been to four Super Bowls in five years. You know what I'm saying?

Now. You feel me? But beforehand, I've been to four AFC championships. I've been to three Super Bowls. I've won two of them. I know what winning looks like.

I know what winning is. So y'all keep telling me certain things, it's like, I'm not going for that. Because y'all not doing it right. We got hammers on the ground, we don't got no discipline. People feel like it's too many individual egos in this locker room or whatever. And I'm telling them, that's not going to get y'all to win.

It's not going to happen. Mico Hardman makes reference to the fact that Garrett Wilson is really the only receiver that he feels like is better than him, and that he should be worked in. And honestly, I'm not sure how you disagree. Now maybe he doesn't fit the scheme, or maybe it's not what Aaron Rodgers wanted. But neither Randall, well Randall Cobb was almost non-existent.

He did a whole lot of zero for the New York Jets. And Allen Lazard, in large part because Aaron Rodgers was not healthy, didn't do much either. And so those two guys were brought in as veterans. Now Lazard was signed before Aaron Rodgers.

I guess it could be a debate over whether or not they sign him if they don't hope and pray and believe that they're going to get Aaron Rodgers. But either way, those two veterans really didn't pan out. But that's mostly because they had almost no downfield passing game. A lot of these veteran guys like Dalvin Cook that they brought in, it didn't work because there was no Rodgers.

And he was supposed to be the glue. So Garrett Wilson goes over a thousand yards, but only has three touchdowns for the Jets. Their next leading receiver is a tight end.

Their third leading receiver is a running back. So again, Garrett Wilson goes just over a thousand yards and has three touchdowns. Tyler Conklin, their tight end, is just over 600 yards, no touchdowns. Then you've got Breece Hall, who as a running back is just shy of 600 yards receiving and has four touchdowns through the air. Your next leading wide receiver is Allen Lazard, who barely cracked 300 yards. And then the rookie Xavier Gibson, who had 225 yards. So among wide receivers, you have three touchdowns for Garrett, one for Lazard, none for Gibson, and one for Jason Brownlee.

Randall Cobb also caught one, but he barely played. And so Mikko makes a point about how they were using him. And he also says this coaching staff, you had a reject, essentially, in Nathaniel Hackett, who stunk it up in Denver. Not that he wasn't really successful with Aaron and the Packers when he was in Green Bay, but he talks about culture and you may not like how he delivers the message.

But there's some truth to it. Some truth to the fact that the Jets really did build this entire franchise to be Aaron Rogers' showcase. And when it didn't work, they didn't really have a backup plan. Otherwise, why keep Zach Wilson? They were about ready to get rid of him the year before. He and Aaron had a friendship. I think they were hoping that Zach would learn from Aaron, but never see the field or rarely see the field and not in critical situations, except that hope is not a strategy when it comes to football, when it comes to the NFL. They were hoping that Aaron would be healthy all year, but they built a team around him and really had no backup plan should it not work out. And it blew up in their faces four plays into their season.

So now what was Zach Wilson? I mean, there's all kinds of speculation and chatter. He's not real popular with the Jets locker room. And part of that is just being disgruntled because they don't feel like he can get the job done. But there's some fallout from the year before when he came across really entitled. I believe he's learned a lot. He's been humbled. He sounds like a better leader when he speaks, but it hasn't really improved his game much.

Let's be fair. And I don't know what other job he has in the NFL. Now part of it is on the Jets. They didn't develop him, but part of it is on Zach and maybe he gets another shot.

And these days, if you're a backup QB, I mean, think about Sam Darnold, right? Also a Jets draft pick. Didn't work out with Sam either. They let him go.

He ends up in Carolina, had a shot there, didn't really work out. But then he ends up with the Niners. The Niners. Yes, the Niners. I was going to say the Rams. Wait a minute.

That's not him. Wrong California team. Ends up with the Niners. And even though Brock Purdy is their starter and good for Brock, was able to stay healthy all the way through, that was what they needed, stability at the position. They love Sam there. Is it possible that the Jets and the Panthers are at least partly to blame?

Whether or not you think they're largely to blame for Zach Wilson's faux pas or Sam Darnold's lack of development, you have to look at the two franchises and then realize the stability. Once Sam got out of Charlotte, look where he landed and they rave about him. So there is some truth to me, Cole Hardman and the difference in culture. He can speak to that because he was there with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelsey and some of the others, Tyreek Hill even. He was part of a winning tradition. He was part of that early onset dynasty, if we can even use the D word. So I do think there's some legitimacy or some credence to what he's saying there.

But I also know it's in bad form and really bad taste. And he comes across kind of spiteful. Sometimes this stuff doesn't need to be said, although it certainly does make for great clickbait. Joe Douglas trying to be careful what he said in response. We're excited to sign Nicole. He's excited to obviously join our team situation. Really Xavier Gibson really came on for us this year and he did an outstanding job for us, so ultimately he made a decision to move on from Nicole. So Xavier Gibson is the rookie that he points to. Now Nicole said he had some injuries, which is why he asked to not return punts. It just, revision is history, right?

Depending upon who you believe, depending upon perspective. But after you're a Super Bowl champion, do you really need to run your mouth and burn bridges? That's not necessary. You got what you wanted. You went back to the Chiefs. You caught the game-winning touchdown in overtime.

You now have another Super Bowl ring. What is to be gained by ripping your former franchise? They gave you a job.

They paid you. And whether or not you like how they used you and the culture, I'm not sure what there is to be gained, what the end game is, I suppose, for me, Cole, making these comments. Maybe he got carried away, the guys asked him questions, or maybe he is just spiteful and bitter and feels like having the Super Bowl victory isn't enough. He needs to throw it in the Jets' faces.

Not necessary. Kind of comes across as a little bush league. I say take your ring and run, man. Although remember, after the Chiefs won their first one, he's out on the field as part of their preseason ring presentation, and he drops his ring on the turf at Arrowhead Stadium. I'll never forget that. Dropped it, thankfully.

He was able to pick it up, but nothing was wrong. Okay, on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence, do we want to get into some QB news? We'll do that in the next hour. But we've been asking the question of why some of the top free agents in Major League Baseball are yet unsigned, even now a couple weeks into spring training. And gosh, inside of a month until the majority of the teams get on the field. Now Dodgers-Padre start early, but it's coming. So what gives with these free agent, free agent, free agent wannabes, free agent want to need a home? Free agent want a home.

Scott Boris is the common denominator. It's After Hours. Your fever is high and the pressure to log in at work is too. But when you finally decide to take care of you, there's Instacart. Just because that one perfect coworker of yours is attending all meetings, camera on while she's sneezing, coughing, and aching doesn't mean you have to do the same. Take it from us.

Trying to stay on top of things will only get you further behind. Instead, get everything from tissues and teas to cough suppressants and comforting soups delivered through Instacart in as fast as 30 minutes. If anyone needs anything, they can just redirect their questions to that one perfect coworker of yours. Shall I take your order or do you need a minute? Yes.

I'll be ready. Just buying a car on Carvana. What? It's super convenient. I already got pre-qualified in two minutes.

All I had to do was answer a few questions. What? That's handy. Yeah. Now I'm customizing my data monthly payments. What?

That's an exquisite deal. And just like that, Carvana is delivering my car in a couple days. What? Oh, yeah.

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Delivery fees may apply. Here's with Amy Lawrence, CBS Porch Radio. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Bellinger hits one in the air, deep center field, Zawinski goes back, looks up, gone! Cody Bellinger with a three run home run.

The route is on. It is 13 to 1, Cubs, here in the eighth inning. Home run number 26 for Belling.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Belling, back to back and belly to belly. Cody Bellinger is back with the Chicago Cubs. That's the call. I think that's Zach Zaidman on Cubs Radio.

Bellinger is a client of Scott Boras. That deal got done. And the former MVP ends up with three years, $80 million to return to the north side of Chicago.

It's After Hours on CBS Sports Radio. Now, according to Cody, Chicago was always the goal. Didn't hide the fact internally that I did want to come back here and, um, you know, I just, you know, loved Wrigley Field. I loved the fans.

Me and my family enjoyed, you know, Chicago and, um, when it was, you know, coming towards the end and everything was kind of coming to light a little bit and this was definitely something that, um, you know, definitely I wanted and both sides agreed on and I'm super happy that it worked out the way it did. Now he was flanked by Jed Hoyer, who's in charge of the Cubs, their front office, but also his agent Scott Boras. Now Boras represents most of the high profile free agents who are left. If you missed our conversation with David Sampson, longtime Marlins president, I asked him specifically, Jay, if you have a chance and you want to go grab his answer about Scott Boras, that'd be great.

Not for right now, but we'll maybe share it in the second half of the show. I asked him what it's like to deal with Scott Boras and how teams truly view him. And also I wanted to know, this has always been a question and there's a lot of debate about this or has been over the course of my career. Does Boras overrule his clients? Can his clients overrule him if they want to stay in a particular market and it means taking a deal that's not the fattest, the most expensive, the richest, can his clients say, no, I'm going to take this deal because it's where I want to be.

This is me personally. I've worked with multiple agents over the course of my career. I would never allow an agent to make a decision about what's best for me, either personally or professionally, but Boras has a different way of managing his clients and you sign with him with the promise of making more money than you've ever made before. And he is known as a bulldog. He's known, oh my gosh, he's like producer J, his family, they're bulldog moose who sleeps most of the time.

No, that's not Scott Boras, but he is known as a tenacious bulldog. So here he is representing other clients. I guess it's not so busy.

His phone isn't going off so much that he can't sit there with Cody Bellinger. And he was asked about kind of this tepid market now and why it's taken so long for some of these guys, his clients, to get deals. We have some irregularity going on in this current market. We have close to 11 teams that are spending less money than they did a year ago on competitiveness in light of the fact that we have record revenues in baseball.

And when you have that irregularity ongoing, that obviously is something that we had I think 15 contracts of four year or more signed in 22 and then in 21 the same, this year we've had four for American players and five for foreign players. So when you look at this, there are dynamics that are ongoing and in fairness to owners, they may like to get to spring training, they may like to evaluate, they may like to look at things and then act, but there has been a hesitation in the major league auto where they're using three gears instead of four for competitiveness. So he points to teams spending less money, not quite half, he says 11. And in the case of Bellinger, he admits that there were no long term high priced, so steady excessive money over the course of a long term deal. Like what Boris and Bellinger hoped, or maybe just Boris hoped. And so instead, they decide they'll go for the 80 mil over just the three years. So a shorter deal, that way he can test free agency again in three years. Right, so Boris even admits what I originally wanted for Bellinger, what we were hoping for wasn't there. Now he blames the teams and the fact that baseball franchises are spending less money, even though there's record revenue. And that for Cody Bellinger, since he wanted to stay in Chicago, the best option was to take a shorter deal and get that 80 million now and then think about what the market might be like in three seasons, three years. Now he reps Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery, Matt Chapman, I don't know, Marco Belletti is here in studio. If you're one of those guys, and spring training continues on, and obviously it's a lot longer.

I think I just kicked something under here. Obviously it's a lot longer than what all players need. But I don't know, are you getting antsy without a deal? Depends on which one of those players. If I'm Matt Chapman, I'm a little antsy. I think he's going to wind up in the Cody Bellinger area of short, opt out after one, let's try this again next year. Blake Snell still has the possibility of getting the big money that he wanted. I don't know if it's going to happen and Jordan Montgomery, I think is going to get the contract that he wants. It's just a question of where he winds up.

I still believe that. It's just that I think Montgomery is kind of waiting for Blake Snell. Snell kind of sets it. You think Snell and Montgomery are in the same category? No, I think Blake Snell is slightly above it, so I think Montgomery wants to see what Snell winds up with before he decides on what he's going to settle for. Because Montgomery is a better, see all these things, like Boris blames all the teams.

Every one of them come with question marks. The reason why Cody Bellinger didn't get a long term major contract was because he was garbage for three years. He was left on the scrap heap. The Cubs, he had a resurrection last year and everybody's afraid. Are you the Cody Bellinger that was MVP in LA or are you the guy for three years who couldn't hit $1.60?

I don't know who you are. So that's what every team was doing. That's why he took a three year opt out after one. Prove it again. You might get that money. If you show your Cody Bellinger of last year and the Cody Bellinger that won an MVP with the Dodgers, people will line up to pay you.

They're just afraid. Blake Snell, I've said this before and I will say this probably, if you win another one, he is the worst two time Cy Young winner you will ever see in your life. Why? He's a guy that doesn't throw more than five or five and a third. He walks everybody in the ballpark and he strikes out everybody. Every time he's out there, you have a coronary, you have a conniption fit. He comes out of it with a 2.70 RA, but he only gave me five innings. I need four innings out of my bullpen and the whole time I got to sweat.

I don't need you. Not for that guaranteed money. There's a reason why these guys are out there. There's a reason.

Montgomery, I think is, he wants extra money for the way he performed in the playoffs and for what he showed last year. And I understand it because he's looking at it going tip of the iceberg, I'm better than this. And teams are going, am I paying you for just last year? Because before that you were basically a number three or number four. So am I paying you to be a two or a one?

Are you really going to be that? Everybody's got their own question marks. This is not a collusion. This is not Scott Boris.

No, it's definitely not that. I can't believe they don't want to pony up all of your guys have question marks. If they did not, they'd be on a team in spring training.

Bottom line. Well, they'd be on a team, but with the big money, if they did not have question marks, they would have got signed. There were teams that were willing to throw money around this year.

There were. I think any of these teams now though, when you're dealing with Boris, you get nervous because of the inflated market, but also because he's looking for longterm deals that are, some teams just don't want to hitch their wagon to the, and that's, it's tough when you've got guys who, as you talk about are looking for big money, but you sign that deal and they're guaranteed and think about the longterm deals that have blown up in teams faces recently. And that, and again, look, whenever you're looking for a longterm 10, 12, whatever it is, seven years for big time money, your market is small cause there's only a certain number of teams that are willing to digest that so that you start with. But you had those teams were willing to spend that money this off season.

They were, it's just that all of your clients came with question marks. So when you asked for eight years at 230 million, they went, ah, ah, I don't know if I can really guarantee that I'd much prefer a little bit short. I'll give you more and more money, but a little shorter. And why would Boris want that? He wants what he wants. And that's understandable. I don't think he realized that every team was going to look at it and go, you know what? I think I'm going to go in an easier Yamamoto was the guy. Everybody wants, everybody had the money for that because they felt like it was a, it was a guarantee.

This is the guy that we can lay our hands on and he's going to be an ace for him to start. Everybody went in on that one. All the teams that had money, they all wanted in.

No, you didn't hear any question marks in here about money. Wasn't a problem. Not for the Yankees. Not for the Mets. Not for the top.

All those teams were there. You are not as good as Yamamoto in team's minds. Now that may not be the case. I was going to say, but that's what they think. They look at it and go, this guy is a true bonafide ace. You are a five and a third, 112 pitches and you walk six and struck out seven. I don't care that you only gave up one run. Those numbers look good in fantasy. In reality, I now need my bullpen to give me four innings.

That's a problem for me. Remember the question going back to the Super Bowl, the World Series a couple of years ago, whether or not they should pull Blake Snell. Again, I mean, these are issues that teams have. I mean, when you're looking to pony up that kind of money, you want to feel good about when Garret Cole was on the market, teams were lining up. You want to feel good about he's that workhorse. He's the guy that I put him in front. I feel good about it.

I know it could blow up in my face, but I feel good about it. Blake Snell. The Mets ponied up for two free agent pitchers and they both kind of blew up. I mean, Justin Verlander was hurt in the beginning, but he pitched well.

They wind up pulling the plug because their team sucked. Max Scherzer did not pitch that well in the second year, pitched well in the first year. You got an aging pitcher who was a bulldog. It was a risk, but you're willing to take it because you knew what his track record was. Blake Snell's track record says five and a third, five walks, seven strikeouts. Marco, you're making my eyes roll back in my head. That concerns me.

Again, that's why teams are aware of that. I can't have this much passion in February for baseball. I'm just not there yet.

But I like it. I like that you are fired up. Are you doing a show sometime soon? Not that's in the making right now.

Nothing's concrete. We need to have you do a show during this run-up to baseball. And I'm sure a lot of these guys, Blake Snell, I could see it. Same thing like Bellinger. You could say it's six, seven, eight years.

You could say whatever you want. You can inflate the numbers. It's more the idea of can you get an opt-out after one, can you get an opt-out after two. And Bellinger got it after one and two. The Cubs are smart on that regard, too. If he stinks $20 million, not that big a deal, I can roll the dice again. If he's great and he walks away, hey, what are you going to do? And I think that's what every one of these players, that if they wait really long, that's what they're going to look for.

Big money up front, but it's one year and then I could try it again. The Cubs are really excited to have him back, though. And they were talking about that from their locker room, clubhouse and spring training as well as the dugout and then also at the podium yesterday. And speaking of Yama, that's what some of the Dodgers call him, Teosco Hernandez calls him Yama. Yeah, I think it's a great nickname.

Yamamoto made his spring debut on Wednesday, which is kind of fun. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. You are listening. When something happens to your car, you might say, nooooooo.

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Visit Takovis.com, that's T-E-C-O-V-A-S.com and point your toes West. Coming to the After Hours podcast. We welcome all kinds here on After Hours. Amy, thank you for taking my call. You're great.

As a matter of fact, you won me over tonight. I have tried so hard not to listen to your show and I took it away. Why? Why do you hate me so much, Trey? No, no, no, no.

You're taking it the wrong way. I drive for a living. I'm always on the road. I work nights, Sunday nights or Thursday nights, for about three hours a night, I get to on my reception area.

My favorite color is orange. I'm down whatever it is and I can't get away from it. Call Amy at 855-212-4CBS. A bit of a backhanded compliment, if you will, but I do appreciate that he clarified when he said, I can't stop listening to your show. I try to stop listening to your show, you know, and we like to remind people that the first step is admitting you have a problem. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, ALaw Radio on Twitter. I know I'm supposed to be calling it by a letter, but I just don't.

And also on our Facebook page, I can call Facebook by a bunch of letters, four letter words if you will, but not here on the show. We're talking a bit of a hodgepodge, whether it be Luka Doncic, 25 years old, whether it be a big comeback in LA, we're going to get to some QB news next hour, and Chicago. We're going to head to Chicago in our final hour. But Cody Bellinger, back with the Cubs, he's thrilled.

What's the dealio, yo? Scott Boris under the microscope because he was there with Bellinger, but had to know he was going to face questions about the free agent market. Just after the top of the hour, we'll let you hear what David Sampson, longtime Marlins president and baseball analyst, oh, and now award winning podcast host, had to say about dealing with Scott Boris from the team perspective.

All right, so we'll do that. But Yamamoto made his Major League Baseball debut for spring training, surprise, Arizona. And it was kind of fun to see Shohei Ohtani standing on the rail watching Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

It's got to be the best name in baseball. It's kind of neat, two Japanese stars, they can support one another, of course. I don't know what their relationship was like before they came to the United States in Major League Baseball, but forget that, I mean, they obviously have run in the same circles when it comes to national teams, international teams. The Dodgers win the Yamamoto sweepstakes, and he said that the Dodgers were his choice even if Shohei Ohtani did not sign there. And that may be the case. If you think about it, the Dodgers have a large following from the Far East, right?

So the nations that are on that side of Asia that are closest to LA, I mean, this is a major vacation destination as well for a lot of Asians. And so it doesn't surprise me at all that that's where he wanted to go, not to mention they're a winner and they spend a lot of money. But whether or not that's true, maybe Shohei signing there did enhance his desire to be a Dodger. He's 25 years old, couple of scoreless innings, three strikeouts, Dave Roberts gets the chance to be his manager. Certainly very efficient today. And he just, no surprise that he controls, controlled his emotions, I'm sure he was excited.

You couldn't tell it. And he was just out there professional attacking and he got a chance to use his fastball, the split, the slider, the curve ball. So he was really good today and you know, he's going to go back out there in the third inning just to kind of throw in a couple pitches, but he said he felt good and he did his job. So apparently when Shohei Ohtani was asked about Yamamoto in his debut, Ohtani decides he's going to be the class clown, sports this big smile and says, so-so, now did he say that in Japanese or did he say that in English? Is so-so a phrase they use in Japanese? It sounds kind of universal. Does it?

A little. What about meh? Is that universal? Meh.

Bro, is that universal? I'm not sure if we're there yet with bro, meh maybe. I love what Dave Roberts had to say about the two Japanese players. Roberts says he's a good teammate, meaning Shohei Ohtani. Didn't have to be there, wasn't playing in the game, DHing, wasn't hitting in the game, but he wanted to come here, meaning the facility, wanted to come here to the field and support his teammate, which I think is cool. We know Ohtani loves baseball, right? Even when he was injured, he was there, he was cheering for the Dodgers, Dodgers, sorry, for the Angels. I mean, he's only been a Dodger for 10 minutes. I can't erase his Angels tenure. So $700 million for Ohtani, $325 million for Yamamoto, and that one goes 12 years. So you've got 22 seasons and more than a billion dollars wrapped up in these two players. But as we've talked about, the Dodgers have a master plan. They want young Japanese and young Asian fans to grow up cheering for the Dodgers. You never know how many other major leaguers that might spawn.

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State Farm, Bloomington, Illinois. Okay, picture this. It's Friday afternoon when a thought hits you. I can spend another weekend doing the same old whatever, or I can hop into my all-new Hyundai Santa Fe and hit the road. With available H-Track all-wheel drive and three-row seating, my whole family can head deep into the wild. Conquer the weekend in the all-new Hyundai Santa Fe. Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details. Hyundai, there's joy in every journey. 2024 Santa Fe, available early 2024.