The Athletic's Levi Weaver on Pete Rose, storylines around MLB

It is the JR Sportbreeze Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. A busy day in a sports world. We found out about Jason Tatum and unfortunately that blown out Achilles.

And then a little bit of a random surprise. We found out that Pete Rose, Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner says, ineligible, no more. Well, we're going to talk about that right now with our next guest. Joining us from The Athletic. He's a staff writer, covers the Rangers, does newsletters, does it all for The Athletic. It's Levi Weaver. Levi, how are you, man? I'm good. How are you, JR?

Excellent. Thank you for taking the time to join us. We heard this news a few hours ago from Rob Manfred about Pete Rose. Was there any significance to today? Is there anything going on? Why this moment? Why are we getting this news in this kind of muted period? As for the timing of it, I really don't know. I mean, this has been a topic of conversation for quite a while now.

I mean, for goodness sake, it's been a topic of conversation for 30 years. So I don't know why now is the time. I'm sure that Rose passing away made some difference and maybe there was just sort of a period of giving it some thought and trying to figure out how he was going to handle it. But timing wise, I wish I had a better answer for you.

I simply do not know. When we move forward into the future, now that he's off the ineligible list, do you think there is a pathway for him to get into the hall, whether it's another decade-ish or a few decades from now? What do you think ultimately happens?

There's definitely a path. The Hall of Fame chairman, Jane Forbes Clark, has issued a statement saying, like she explicitly made it clear, like Rose and the other players who are reinstated are officially eligible to be elected. Now, the path that they would take towards the election would not be the normal path that you see when a player retires and five years later the Baseball Writers Association votes on them. It would be the Veterans Committee. The Veterans Committee is made up of 16 members, and it's sort of a rotating cast, but it's members of the Hall of Fame, it's executives, and then veteran media members, historians. And you'll see players like, you know, this year it was Dave Parker, Dick Allen, Ken Boyer, John Donaldson, Steve Garvey, players like that. No, no, no, wait.

I think I made a mistake here. Yeah, so Dave Parker was one of the ones from this year that the Veterans Committee inducted. So the era that Rose played in, that committee will meet near the end of 2027. So the earliest that he could be in the Hall is 2028. Levi Weaver is joining us courtesy of The Athletic. We heard about that news.

We got to wait and see. I guess this is one shoe to drop and one step forward as it relates to Pete Rose. Levi, I do have to ask you about an active player in Major League Baseball right now. He seems kind of disgruntled now.

It's Rafael Devers. I remember seeing a player this ticked off when he's earmarked for more than $300 million. What's the latest with him and the Red Sox? And is there a real possibility a contract that big can get moved? Boy, yeah, not an easy contract. Frankly, if you're the Red Sox, you're not going to trade him right now. Other teams will see something like this and come swarming like sharks in the water if they smell blood.

So they're not going to sell low on Devers. He's going to be there for a while. And especially if he's playing the way that he is. He won American League Player of the Week last week. So from an on-field standpoint, he's doing great.

But you're right. There's been some very unusual levels of back and forth where this spring, the Red Sox signed Alex Bregman, who, by the way, was the Gold Glove winner last year at third base. Devers was the incumbent to the baseman and the previous general manager had told him when he signed the contract, hey, you're going to be our third baseman in the future. So Devers came out and said, I'm not moving. I'm staying at third base.

This is my spot. And then a few days later, the manager was like, hey, buddy, that was the old guard. There's a new front office now and you should maybe reconsider. And Devers came out and said, yeah, I'm going to play a designated hitter. And now that their first baseman, Tristan Costas, is injured for the rest of the year, they need somebody to fill that spot. He's got a couple of journeyman utility guys playing first base. And it would be very convenient if Devers could play first base because that would allow them to bring back Masatake Yoshida, who can hit right now as he's recovering from a shoulder injury, but he cannot feel, he cannot throw. So it would lengthen the lineup. It would be good for the team if Devers could give it a shot.

So you can see why they would ask. And Devers kind of just basically said, no, I'm not doing it. They told me to put away my glove. I'm not picking it back up. This is not an easy thing to do.

So I can see it from both sides, right? Like Devers is right. It's not an easy thing to just learn first base on the fly. The team has not really set him up for success there.

What would have been really great is if they had had him do some drills at first base during spring training so he could be a little more prepared. On the flip side, I couldn't tell you what part of playing in the big leagues isn't hard. It's all hard. It's all difficult.

So for him to make the statement like this instead of giving it a shot, I can see both sides of this. And Levi Weaver joining us from The Athletic. You talk about baseball being hard. Is it harder anyplace else right now than out in Colorado? I mean to try to win seven and eight games. How could a team after what we saw last year from the White Sox actually be worse at this point in time? And then they get rid of Bud Black. What are the Rockies going to do?

Suffer for a few more years? Probably. There's execs around the game and anytime the topic of the Rockies comes up, it kind of turns into a head-scratching conversation. We really don't know what they're doing over there. Somebody described trying to deal with the Rockies as the most confusing part of the job if you're trying to hook up on a trade. I don't know what they want.

It doesn't seem that their direction is very clear. So it's not Bud Black's fault. I mean Dave Roberts said, I'm not sure Casey Stengel could have fixed this team this year. I don't know how much of this is on the GM.

I do know that ultimately it falls at the feet of ownership if they have been mediocre for a long time, which they have. Their strategy has been very confusing. A couple years ago they were losing. They had an aging closer with Daniel Bard and everyone's like, okay, this is the most obvious. They're going to trade Bard. He's 35 years old. They don't need a closer because they're not worth the games.

They didn't trade them and they signed him to an extension. I don't know, man. It's very confusing what they're doing and I don't think if this is the first step, then great. If this is the first step of really trying to turn things around, fantastic. If this is just one move and they think this is going to fix anything at all, then I think they're woefully mistaken.

Yeah, I think they don't know what the hell they're doing. Levi Weaver here with us from The Athletic on the JR Sport Reef show. Teams that do look like they know what the hell they're doing, what teams have impressed you out of the gate? I know we got a lot of players who are putting up some big numbers, but what are some teams that have really captured your attention for positive reasons? The two I've been really surprised by are the Seattle Mariners and the San Francisco Giants. The Mariners last year had a really good rotation, but for whatever reason could not hit. They were just abysmal at the plate. Well, they've been hitting this year and they are winning games.

Go figure. You start to hit the ball well. With that rotation, you're going to win some games. Another AL West team too, the Oakland A's. Well, sorry, not the Oakland A's, the A's. You would sort of expect that they would eventually have to get better, and they have. They spent a little bit of money this year.

They extended some of their stars. They've been pretty good. I didn't think the Giants had any shot in the NL West.

The Padres, clearly the favorites. The Padres were very, very good last year. The Diamondbacks brought in Corbin Burns, and it's like, man, good luck, Giants, keeping up with that. Well, they have been. They've been keeping up just great. Their pitching staff looks really good. They've kind of hit a little bit of a lull with their offense release, so let's see how that goes. But those are some of the teams that, for me, I've been pleasantly surprised by. When you talk about the NL West, we know it's crowded already with the Dodgers, the Padres. What do you expect?

How do you think this is going to shake out? Ooh, good question. It's May 9th, May 10th right now.

I have no idea. Those are some very good baseball teams. I will say this. It wouldn't surprise me if we see four teams from the NL West in the playoffs this year. That would be really weird. Now, listen, the NL East is no slouch either with the Mets and the Phillies and also got the Braves who got off to a rough start, but they're going to get Ronald Acuna back.

They're going to get Spencer Strider back. So do I think there'll be four NL West teams in the playoffs? No, but it's a possibility.

Everything is a possibility. Yeah, you talking about it's May. We haven't even hit Memorial Day yet.

We got some time. Speaking specifically of players, every day I look at the numbers of Judge and then Otani and I go, what the hell is going on? And then we got Judge who just, how do you improve?

The guy continues to improve every single year. He's like, hey, number one OPS, number one home runs. I got a 400 batting average. I got all the RBIs and who's playing around me? Okay, Goldschmidt is hitting the ball. Maybe he's not.

Is Judge an alien? Does it help to be six, seven and 280 pounds? How can I be like him? Yeah, uh, that is a great question. I think there are a lot of major league baseball players asking themselves the exact same question.

How can I be more like him? Uh, it's man, I don't, I don't know. I, I remember being a little kid and you know, I grew up in the eighties and nineties watching baseball and I remember wondering like, man, what must have been like to watch Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in the league at the same time? Like that must have, boy, that must have really been something, something else. And I don't really wonder that anymore because now I'm writing about baseball in an era where we have Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, two of the greatest baseball players of all time.

And you know, for as long as those two are with their teams, I mean, Judge is a little older, but like, you know, good luck finishing in first place for an MVP vote. Like I think it's a race for second place behind those two guys. Just it's, it's truly special to watch. And for me, like I, it's, I just, it's just enjoyable. Like there are very few things in this world anymore that you can just watch and be like, this is great. And I have no reservations about enjoying it. Watching those two guys play baseball. Absolutely a joy to watch. Yeah, no, no drama, no nonsense. They just show up and go to work.

Hey Levi, last question for you. We know about Judge, we know about Ohtani. What else should we pay attention to as the season continues on?

Anything that we should, that captures your attention that doesn't get talked about a lot? Well, the Royals are in Kansas City, so they don't get mentioned a ton just because it's, you know, that's the, the central divisions are the flyover divisions, right? But they've got Bobby Witt Jr. who might be the second best player in the American League. They got off to a little bit of a slow start, but they've been, they've been winning more games lately. And I think that AL Central is actually a really interesting division between the Royals, the Tigers, the Guardians are still good. The Twins have started to bounce back from their really horrible start. I think that's going to be an interesting division for the rest of the year. And you know, I also, the St. Louis Cardinals, this was supposed to be a rebuild year for them. The biggest disappointment they had was that they couldn't trade Nolan Arenado over the off-season.

Trying to get rid of all these salaries. Well, now they're on a nine game winning streak and they're not far behind the Cubs in the NL Central. So that's a fascinating storyline to watch.

I don't, I don't think they have the horses to do this long term, but who knows? Yeah. And it's, it's May.

We'll see how long all of this lasts. Hey Levi, thank you so much for coming by with the perspective of sharing some news and information as it relates to Pete Rose. Where can people follow you and all of your work with The Athletic? Oh man, this used to be easier when I was on Twitter, but it's just, you could just Google my name.

It's Levi Weaver. I'm on The Athletic. We have a free newsletter. It's myself and Ken Rosenthal. You don't even have to be a subscriber to The Athletic to get the newsletter every day.

It's called The Windup. And I think if you just sort of Google all those terms, you'll, you'll end up in the right place. And Google is a great thing. Hey Levi, thank you so much. A pleasure to have this chat with you. Thank you.

Happy to do it anytime. No doubt about it that Levi Weaver, you just heard him courtesy of The Athletic. Drop some gems and some tea. Like nobody, he's right. Nobody talks about the Kansas City Royals. Nobody does.

And then this, I feel bad. Think about The Athletics, formerly of Oakland. By the time they get the hell up on out of Sacramento, are they going to be a decent team? Like this is bittersweet for everybody up in Sacramento. I can't predict the future. I think that they'll eventually, you know, kind of bottom out like they typically do. Not, not like what we have now right now with the Colorado Rockies.

But would you imagine they're actually good? And then the next thing you know, it's like, all right, see you. Bye.

We only sleeping on the couch for a couple of weeks. It's time for us to go out to Vegas. That very well might be a possibility. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. Levi just talked about the central divisions and the NL and the AL being just kind of flyovers. We're just going to go up. OK, whatever. Not West Coast, not the East Coast.

OK, whatever. We got a football team from the Midwest. They're about to spend a good amount of time in the regular season playing overseas in Europe. Yeah, an NFL team doing double duty. It's the Minnesota Vikings. I'm going to explain on the other side of the break what the Vikings will be doing this upcoming season that has never been done before in Europe. It's the J.R. Sportbreeze Show here with you coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network.