Kyler Murray has to do his homework

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast. Brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at CapitalFinancialUSA.com. Kevin Garnett. Oh, Kevin's on the bus. Everybody look, Kev on the bus. What up, Kev? Is Kevin Durant that Kevin? Say goodnight, Kevin. Goodnight, Kevin. This is the Adam Gold Show.

Professional outfit that this is. Yesterday's first, really the first hour was just, it was like an outtake. The entire hour was like, are these outtakes? Are they playing outtakes? Nope, it's the real deal. That's how you know it's live.

If it were on tape, we would have redid it. Yeah. It's the Adam Gold Show.

How you doing, everybody? I'm Adam Gold. That's Dennis Cox. He was here for that hot mess of a first hour. Again, I blame your former radio partner.

He threw you off. Well, in reality, you know, Mr. Obvious didn't realize that we were starting the show and he was, but you know, he wasn't here forever. Speaking of Mr. Obvious, if I have this correct, Mr. Obvious, the real Mr. Obvious. Yes.

Joe's father turns 69 today. Nice. So, yes. Happy birthday, Ernie.

Yes. One of my favorite human beings on planet Earth. If you are listening elsewhere, whether you're in Wilmington or Greenville or Asheville or wherever, you can hear this program.

And we are from the mountains to the ocean. Wherever you are, if you don't know who Ernie Obvious is, wait until my birthday. Or the closest show that I will be here for my birthday. I don't even know what day my birthday is. I know what date it is. I don't know what date it is.

I don't know what day it is. It's not, some people are like really big on their birthday. Like there are people who refuse to work on their birthday.

I'm not knocking it, but there are people who do that, right? I don't care. That's what I did this year. If my birthday happens to be a day where I will work, like I haven't planned to take off or anything like that, then whatever. It's just a day. I don't need big celebrations or anything, so don't get me anything. But there are people like, we are going to do it up because it's my birthday and that's fine.

But I'm just saying that Mr. Obvious will sing on the radio, whichever show is closest to my birthday. August 21st, by the way, if you're scoring at home. It's my birthday.

So happy birthday to Ernie. Your birthday is a Sunday. See, I won't be here on a Sunday. I hope.

You might be. It would be a bad set of circumstances if I was on the radio on a Sunday. Last time we were called in, I believe on a weekend to work, which never happens, right? We don't really have weekend programming other than if the hurricanes have a game. The only time I can recall working on a weekend was the day that Dean Smith passed. And I believe that was this Saturday.

So we all came in. I mean, yeah, end of story, right? Somebody like that passes away. So hopefully we will not be called in to work on a weekend. I work frequently on weekends.

Well, you have a lot of things that force you to work weekends. Yeah. I mean, you're a you're an accomplished lacrosse coach. I've retired from coaching. You've retired?

Yes. Why? I got a lot of stuff going on. How do you retire from coaching? I've retired from coaching. Oh, I also retired from coaching this past year. I coached soccer for one year.

That's it. I coached challenge soccer for one year. We won the title.

We topped the table, won our season-ending tournament, went out on a high. Hey, that's time to go out. That's it.

Nine years of college coaching for me. Wow. Yeah. Recruiting too?

Yeah, recruiting too. I don't know, man. How do you give that up? How do you give it up? How do you give that up? Easily. Very easily. Was it a volunteer position?

No, it wasn't. So again, how do you give that up? I was, okay, let's, for those out there who don't know, yeah, the big time college football and basketball coaches make a lot of money. Right. Everyone else doesn't. I just want to go and throw that out there for people. Well, that's true.

That's true. And also just now doing Canes pregame, postgame. It's hard enough doing it with my job with Bali, doing social media and Canes games, but now I add on top of that doing Canes pre and postgame.

Saturdays in the fall with Chris Lee for Culture State, Saturday programming. So just all that stuff, it just became a lot. So something had to go. All right then. Yep. So there you go. I have retired from, you've heard it here first folks. All right, Dennis Cox has retired from coaching.

That's a beautiful thing. Yeah. All right. Well, I can really complain about the NCAA.

Don't retire from starting the program. Okay. Report day. Yes. For the Carolina Panthers at Wofford.

Sam Darnold showed up. He's ready to go. For me, it's just keeping my head down and continuing to work and continuing to learn the system and go about it like that. You know, I think competition is always healthy for everyone. And you know, me and Baker are going to compete and, you know, have a good time doing it. The liberation of having 18.9 million dollars coming your way, whether or not you get to play.

Gosh, that must be a great feeling. Yeah. Like, you know what?

If he wins the job, like I'll be bummed, but I got 18.9 million coming to me this year and I'm good. Yeah. Like, you know what?

That's, that's fine. And then Sam can start on the greatest, the greatest job in the history of sports is a backup quarterback. Gosh, the backup quarterback? Who's got a better, better job in sports than that? I'm envious of Chase Dangle. The amount of money that dude has made.

Yeah. Where is he? I don't know, but he's still in the lead. Let's try to, let's, let's see if we can guess. Kansas City. That's my guess, Kansas City.

Okay. I'm going to go with, I'm going to go out West somewhere. I'm going to say he's with San Diego. All right, San Diego. There is no San Diego.

He's with the LA Chargers. Go figure. Congratulations.

Take a, take another job you don't want out of petty cash. So it is the, it is the best job in sports to be a backup quarterback because the court, no matter who you are as a backup quarterback, you're going to make seven figures. Yeah. Right. So Mitch Trubisky made $2 million to wear a baseball cap and watch Josh Allen play, go to practice, weight training, all of that.

Make yourself in good shape just in case. And then now Mitch Trubisky is keeping the seat warm for Kenny Pickett in Pittsburgh. Yeah. Is Mitch going to start or is Pickett going to start? Dennis Cox, Mitch is going to start. Are you happy about Mitch starting? Yeah, I'm cool with it. What's, what's, what's the goal for the Steelers this year?

I'm just curious. It's going to be a 10-7. Make a playoff. With Mitch Trubisky. Yeah.

Okay. Look, Mike Tomlin has never had a losing season. They went 8-8 with Duck Hodges and Mason Rudolph exchanging as the starting quarterback a couple years ago.

They absolutely did. And they still have two of the, they have an array of great defensive players, whether it's TJ Watt, Cam Hayward, Mika Fitzpatrick, they are loaded on the defensive side of the ball. They've got great wide receivers. They should have quality running backs. Najee Harris. Look, if their offensive line is good, then they should be a competent to very good offense and the defense should be good enough. And maybe they can win 10 or 11 games, but 10 and 7 with Mitch Trubisky, how many playoff games will Mitch Trubisky win?

None. There you go. Because when you get there, that's when it gets real. Yep.

That's when it gets real. I'm fully aware. All right. So, all right. So Sam Darnold is all about the competition. Matt Ruhl called it an open competition between Darnold and Baker Mayfield. But are we forgetting someone?

Are we forgetting about Matt Corral? I'm going to put my best foot forward. I'm going to try to compete and get the starting job by any means necessary. And, you know, like I said, whatever that takes, I'm going to do. And like I said, wherever the cards fall, let them fall where they fall.

All right. I got two questions there. By any means necessary? Yes.

So are we going to Tonya Harding this thing up? I'm just curious what that means. By any means necessary?

Poor Nancy. But I have another question. We have mixed, we have like mixed cliches there. Yeah. Let the cards, the chips fall where they may.

The cards meaning, although, as you pointed out in the open, he could be talking about Carolina's offense being a house of cards. That's right. So there you go. All right. I have an idea, Dennis.

Talk to me. All right. Adam Gold here from my man, Coach Pete DeRuta with the Capital Financial Advisory Group. We are talking retirement.

All right, Coach, simple. When do we start tax planning in retirement? We should start as soon as possible because here's one thing, Adam, taxes are not going away.

Right. And so the game here is we know the rules. A lot of people want to ignore the rules or act like they are familiar with them. But the IRS knows the rules. And so when we get to retirement, they're going to reach in and start taking some of their money out of your accounts. So the secret here is to put a force field around as much as possible by strategically moving some of our money to Roth IRA or some of the other vehicles that aren't taxed, like special life insurance policies.

You can borrow against your money there and never have to pay tax on your money that you build up inside your cash value. So there are a lot of strategies here. The one strategy that does not work is ignoring it.

So let's make sure to not ignore it. The next 10 people will do for you your very own tax and retirement plan that will help you minimize taxation all the way through retirement. 800-661-7383. All you got is call or you can text Adam to 21000 for Coach Pete DeRuta. We don't have contracts in this building, right?

Not that I know of. No, we don't have contracts. But imagine, imagine if I had a contract. Okay. And in that contract, as somebody who covers the Carolina Hurricanes, in that contract, there was a clause that mandated that I watch at least one Hurricanes game a week. Okay.

Imagine, imagine that. Okay. And imagine making it public so that all of the people who already don't agree with my opinions on the Carolina Hurricanes knew that, wait a second, he has been told that he has to watch at least one Hurricanes game a week? That must be telling the world that Gold doesn't watch the Hurricanes, so why should I believe anything he has to say?

You followed that line, right? That makes sense. Okay. Imagine if a lifeguard, as part of their employment agreement, had to take classes learning how to swim. Interesting. A lifeguard. Or if an EMS driver, you had to go and take CPR classes, right? I mean, it seems essential for the job. Yes!

It does seem essential for the job. Now, Kyler Murray just signed the new contract. $230.5 million strong. $160 million of it guaranteed. I believe $101 is guaranteed. That's the real... $105. $105.

That's the real number. The other $50 million is for injury purposes, or $55 million is for injury purposes. And there's a clause in the contract that mandates that he must watch four hours of game film per week at home, and that triggered a ton of thoughts in my head, including, what a freaking red flag that is! Here's Jay Williams from Keyshawn J.

Will & Max. I think this is an embarrassment for the Arizona Cardinal Organization for this to get out and for that independent study clause to come out. Four hours a week of studying film as a stipulation to mandate that you end up getting your $250 million. People out there struggling, grinding to make ends meet. People work their asses off day to day. And this is a stipulation that gets out?

That's embarrassment number two. I'm going to invoke the late Kobe Bryant. He told me something one time that really blew my mind.

It was everything about life. The more you learn to fall in love with the process of work is the more successful you will be. Put in the time. So obviously there's language stipulated in this contract that proves that this dude is not in love with the process to be great. And you reward that with one of the biggest contracts in the history of the NFL? That is unbelievable.

So I read through that clause. So while he's watching game film at home, right? And this is home study. This is not at the at the facilities.

This is when he goes home. Yeah, I think this is outside of mandatory team film. It's actually independent study. Yes. Which has nothing to do with the University of North Carolina. I just want to throw that out there.

Independent study. While he's watching film, he can't also have other things going on around him that might distract him. So he can't have game film up.

Let's just say on an iPad or I guess the Microsoft Surface they get, right? He can't take a Microsoft Surface home with him and have game film up there while at the same time being playing Fortnite. OK. OK. Or watching, I don't know, Bambi. I don't know why I could use that as a movie. I really don't. Maybe he's watching Bambi to get footwork skills. Don't slip on the ice.

Could be. Look, so he can't have anything around him that's distracting him from the job of watching game film. Four hours a week at home.

Four hours a week. Also, this is the honor system. It's the honor system, right? Ryan Clark was baffled on Get Up this morning. Like, are they going to put a camera in his house or is there a place where he's going to like like is it going to be 24 hour? Kyler Murray surveillance. Does he have to do this in the building? And why, why, why would you ever have to ask the quarterback of a football team to do four hours of independent study a week?

Listen, I played football back when you had a DVD and I had the big fat white Mac laptop and I would just put the DVD in. You could do four. You supposed to do four hours a day, four hours a night. This is a God bless his soul. Jamarcus was on our show. Is this the Jamarcus Russell rule that now we have to mandate this and you mandate this to somebody?

You gave one hundred and sixty million dollars guaranteed. Right. And so now when I think back to early on in the off season and I think to some of the headbutting we had and some of the putting out the narratives or the anonymous things we heard out of Arizona, those things were true. That Kyler Murray didn't work the way that they wanted that college. He's big into gaming. Maybe they want to get him off the game sometimes.

But this is not a good sign to me. It's just sounds to me like the Arizona Cardinals should have just grounded him and taken his Xbox away. Yeah.

Or whatever system he plays on. My gosh. What an absolute clown show this is.

All right. More more from Ryan Clark, because there's something else that this screams and it would be obvious to the to the people that would already know. But now everybody knows that they're going to know. And the other part that it does for me is now in the locker room, which a lot of times, you know, these things. Right. When something goes wrong in and Kyler Murray doesn't make a play or they don't pick up a blitz because he doesn't slide the line the right way.

If I'm sitting on the bench and I'm the safety who does a ton, that's the first thing I think. Yes. He probably didn't get his four hours. Yeah. Now I'm in the meeting. I'm asking Cliff. Cliff, can we see the video of Kyler doing his four hours of mandated study?

Because I knew that blitz was coming. And so this is to me, this is not a good thing. And for it to now, because you put it in there and you sign it, it's now public. Yeah. And so every week we get up here and be like, I wonder, you know, if Kyler studied this week, because, you know, that's in this contract, I don't like it. It's a terrible thing. Yeah.

Gosh, it's such a terrible thing. Like if you sign him to this contract, you can't you can't put this clause in. Like it would be one thing if in, in this clause, in this contract, if he were a different position player, or actually if he were a quarterback, like if he would, if you put a weight clause in. Yeah.

That would be one. I was like, yeah, man, we're going to give you all this money. But when you report, you must be this weight, you must be this percentage body fat, all of these things.

You must be able to run a mile in, in this time. Yeah. They have workout bonuses where if you show up to OTAs in the off season, here's 200 grand. You know what this bonus is? You know what this clause is? This is a please do the bare minimum to do your job. Yeah.

That's what this is. You're not a parent. I'm not. Let me speak to all of the parents out there. Your children are supposed to do their homework, right? They're supposed to do their homework. If they get rewarded, if they get like, Hey, I did my homework. If we go, Oh my gosh, what a wonderful boy you are.

What a wonderful girl. No, they're supposed to do their homework. This is meeting the minimum requirements. Now, do they do extra? Do they like, that's the praiseworthy stuff. That's the praiseworthy stuff.

Now, doing their homework all the time is a little bit different. That's a standard. That is a high standard. They are asking, they are mandating that Kyler Murray do the bare minimum.

That is egregious. I'm speaking from somebody, my point of view is, I think Kyler Murray is an incredible athlete and a wonderful talent who is just an okay quarterback. I don't believe Kyler Murray is ever going to be that guy that takes you to a Super Bowl.

However, Kyler Murray could be part of a team that goes to a Super Bowl. Not saying he's bad. He is certainly a fascinating player to watch play, fun to watch play, because he does things on a football field that very few players can do. He's got a great arm. He's tiny, but he has a great arm. He's pretty accurate, but he's just a fun player to watch.

I have to think he is also maddening to coach, because it's clear that he doesn't always do what you want him to do. This is a developing situation in Arizona. I'm looking forward to it. Alright, one more thing before we get out of here. We're actually going to talk a little bit more about baseball at the bottom of the hour. But the defending champs were in Philly last night and looking to close within a game of the Idol New York Mets 4-3 lead. Two down, two on in the eighth. Jay come set. There go the runners.

Bryson Stott. Three run bomb. Phillies win it 6-4. Tough loss for Atlanta.

Atlanta had taken a 4-3 lead. I think a couple of innings earlier and they now trail the Mets by a game and a half in the East. The subway series starts tonight in Queens. Yankees and Mets. Depending on what you believe, who you believe the best team in the East is, Mets or Braves, and there's not much to choose between the two. Braves are probably better offensively. Mets are better on the mound. Jacob DeGrom will pitch a spring training game. A minor league rehab start.

Wow. What happened? We went back yesterday.

We almost got through the segment. I got Jacob DeGrom just pitching. Just has made me a little bit warm.

It's steamed up. So DeGrom will make another rehab start tonight. He hasn't started in like a little bit more than a week.

He had his side sessions derailed by a sore shoulder. Remember he has been on the disabled list or what they call the injured list now since the beginning of the season with he had a stress fracture in his scapula of his right shoulder. And he has not pitched in the big leagues in more than a year.

They shut him down last July. It has been more than a year since DeGrom has pitched in the big leagues. The Mets are where they are having gotten zero pitches from Jacob DeGrom and they missed Max Scherzer for seven weeks, I believe. Now, the Mets have depth and Steve Cohen has gobs of money so they have been able to piece together a pretty good starting rotation. Tawaun Walker, one of those guys who has pitched really well for them, he will pitch tonight against the Yankees, Jordan Montgomery. But depending on whether or not you believe the Braves or the Mets are the best team in the NL East, one of those two teams is one of the best four teams in baseball. Dodgers, Yankees, Astros, the other three.

One of them might get Juan Soto. June 19th, 2006, but it all started May 6th, 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now.

Find Canes 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcast. Cardinals will be playing at the Blue Jays tonight and only missing their two best hitters. No one, why I can't say his name suddenly, Aaron Ondo.

I completely blew that. And Paul Goldschmidt. Ryan Fagan, who actually is based in St. Louis, Sporting News.

He can say their names better than I can. But neither of them are making the trip north of the border because they can't as unvaccinated players. Why do there seem to be more unvaccinated baseball players than players from other sports?

Well, I think it's put up kind of on a spotlight every time Toronto's in that equation. I think that's the biggest thing. You know, I mean, the players union is strong. Players union isn't going to force players to do anything that they do not want to do. And I think that's part of a result of that. If it was a union that wasn't as strong, maybe, you know, the sport could have strong armed them into force compliance, but that's not the case with the MLBPA. You know, and that's a good thing and a bad thing in some situations, but it's one of the results of it now. I'm sure there are fans of other teams in the ALEs that are not thrilled that the Jays get to face the Cardinals without, you know, Goldschmidt and Arnotto and, you know, the Royals without half of their roster.

It seems like a competitive advantage, but, you know, that's just kind of the state of baseball that we're in right now. I mean, all four major sports had the same thing going into the season. So the NBA had one player that ended up being unvaccinated, and that was Kyrie Irving.

And we all know what that happened, how that, what led to that. The NHL ended up with one player who wasn't vaccinated, Tyler Bertuzzi of Detroit. And I think there were players in football, but we don't have cross-border travel. But you, I mean, we did have, we do have games in London.

Anyway, I don't know why we started there. I just saw the fact that the Blue Jays are playing at Toronto, but the Blue Jays are one of the, not the Blue Jays, the Cardinals are one of those teams that might be in the running to land one Soto. Now, this is not a concern of the Nationals. It would certainly be better for the Nationals to trade him to St. Louis than to trade him to the Mets. But are the Cardinals a candidate, really, to extend Soto beyond the two more years he has left on his contract? I would say if the Cardinals trade for Juan Soto, it's almost as much for the next year and a half as it is for the next 15 years, right? I mean, the Cardinals already have a lot on the books in Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, the two guys who are not playing in Toronto this week. You know, but here's the thing. There's a couple things to keep in mind when a team like St. Louis is thrown about.

You know, I mean, first of all, you know, I wrote about this yesterday. Remember that Juan Soto is a Scott Boris client, right? Scott Boris does everything he possibly can to create leverage, to get his clients more money, to get his clients to drive up the value, you know?

And let's not fool ourselves. If Juan Soto goes for this incredible package, more than people expect, that boosts his price when his eventual extension talks or his free agent talks hit. Because let's say you trade the farm for Juan Soto and then, you know, Boris is at the negotiating table saying, are you really going to let him walk after you traded all these players, right?

So, I mean, I think that's all part of it. I think that's why the Cardinals fit in so well with that concept. Because they do have all of these young players, both in the majors and right on the cusp of the majors, that would make for an attractive package for Juan Soto. I think, you know, the Cardinals at the moment, I think as much as anything, are almost the boogeyman, right? They're the mystery team in the free agent market, you know, that kind of scares other teams into upping their offer.

So, you know, I think, you know, that's one thing to remember. The other thing to remember is because Juan Soto is still under club control for two and a half years, you could legitimately trade for him right now, make a World Series run in 2022, another World Series run in 2023, and then trade him that offseason and get back a pretty good haul of prospects for a full year of Juan Soto. And that's the thing that, you know, everyone's talking about, okay, well, the Yankees and the Mets are in the best case to extend him.

But, you know, I mean, MLB.com ran something and they talked to turn off his executives and the Rays came up with three votes, the same number as the Cardinals, Yankees and the Mets. And the Rays aren't going to extend Juan Soto. But I think that just goes to show there's value in trading for Juan Soto, even if you have no intention of giving him a dime after 2024. Well, I think you bring up an incredible point because Soto is a guy who's, especially at 23 right now, his value, unless he gets hurt somewhere in the next 18 months, his value is not going to diminish.

It might actually get greater, get higher. So, yeah, you could basically buy him now and sell him for pretty much the same price. You could basically just be borrowing him for two playoff cycles if it works out that way. I don't know if the Mets have the prospects to do it, at least the prospects that the Nationals want, but they have the owner who would not only do it, but would pay him tomorrow.

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think if you're the Mets, you almost hope he goes to Tampa, or to St. Louis, a team that's most likely not going to extend him because then you can go ahead and set your sights on signing him as a free agent. I mean, like you said, I mean, in 2024, his last year under club control, that's his age 26 season.

I mean, that's peak of peak of peak, right? So, I mean, I think that, yeah, that's why this fascinates me because most people are looking at it, you know, where is he going to be long term? Well, I mean, there's two and a half years before that. You know, I think that's what makes these trade talks so interesting. And the other thing to remember is that trade like this with this many moving parts, this many big piece people that are going to be involved, these things take a long time, you know, and to think that they that two teams are going to get it done. And what's a week left before the trade deadline?

I mean, it seems more likely to me that he sticks in Washington the rest of this year and then gets traded in the off season. Ryan Fagan, Sporting News, joining us here on the Adam Gold Show. All right, we have Subway Series Part 1 starting tonight. Just the two games set in Queens. Normally, it's just a fun series, Yankees, Mets, it carries whatever it carries.

But you might have, I don't think you might, I think you have two of the best four teams in the league in going at it in this game. Does it matter? Does it, other than for like both teams, and if we were talking about George Steinbrenner being alive and being the owner of the Yankees, it would definitely matter.

But what kind of importance do you put on this? First of all, can you imagine George Steinbrenner going against Steve Cohen? Oh my gosh. That would have been the greatest thing ever.

It would be phenomenal. Yeah, I mean, look, I mean it matters. It matters because every game matters. It matters to the Mets because the Braves are right on their heels, right? It matters for playoff positioning for the Yankees because the Astros are really good too and you'd rather play, you'd rather have home field advantage in the ALCS. Is it easy to put too much importance on this series? Yeah, it is because it's important but it's not capital I important, right? It's not smashing all caps important, but it's going to be fun.

You know, I mean, it's a series that it's kind of a kind of a tale of the tape type thing. Okay, where are you right now? You know, I think of it a little bit, you know, the Mariners obviously played great baseball going into the All-Star break and they looked at that series against the Astros and hey, this is kind of our test. You know, where are we really? And then the Astros went into Seattle and smacked them around, you know, so it's kind of a wake-up call.

These are the things you need to adjust these areas. You need to get better in, you know, I think it's kind of that case for both of these for both of these squads the Yankees and the Mets because it's going to be Yankees have been right. They could be better, you know, they have they have areas that they can improve on especially with you know, guys like Michael King going down. I mean, there's bullpen help they could they could use I think the Mets are in the same position needing bullpen help the Mets that might also need a bat. Here's the other thing about the Yankees. They go to Houston, they lose a doubleheader to like that Thursday. They they get swept in a doubleheader and because the Astros I think took five out of the seven games between the two.

Aaron Boone's answering questions. Imagine the questions that they'll answer if in fact this series doesn't go well for for the Yankees and that to me is kind of like it puts a little bit of extra heat because in the American League. There's really only one challenger to New York. I think and that's Houston and to be honest.

I think it's almost the other way around. I think that I think the Yankees are the challenger to use them. That's fair, you know, I mean, I know I saw some powerful that talked about MLB powerful had the Astros fourth. That's crazy to me, but I interrupted you there. No, no, actually I was just wrapping up the question because it I think it adds some importance to the Yankees because they have struggled with the Astros by the way, the Mets have struggled with Houston as well.

But I agree with you. I think I think Houston might be better than the Yankees. Yeah, I think they are I think it's you know, I mean look the Yankees as good as the Yankees are right there not over the long haul a team that is going to win a hundred and fifteen games or whatever pace they were on for a month and a half and it's you know, a month and a half two months. That's not nothing right there an excellent team, you know, I think but right now in baseball there are three teams on pace to win at least a hundred seven games, right? And if you're trying to if you're looking at October and you're saying okay. Well, you know the team that won a hundred and nine games is significantly better than the team that won a hundred and seven games.

No, that's crazy, right? So I think you use series like the like when you're playing the Astros when you're playing the Mets you look especially now heading into the last week before the trade deadline you use them as to size yourself up and I think that's as much as anything. But the Yankees are going to take out of this series against the Mets is okay. Where do we stand in relation to these other good teams? What do we need to beat these good teams when it comes to October? I think that's what's interesting to me braves or Mets Ryan Fagan who you got in the NL East.

That is an excellent question at the moment. I think I still have the Mets slightly. We'll see what things look like in a week though. In a week meaning after Jacob deGrom makes his big league debut. He's going to pitch I believe tomorrow in in triple-a and then if all goes well, he should return to the big leagues. Well that and after the August 2nd trade deadline.

Yes, but yeah, okay. Yeah, the ground is this huge giant massive wild card, you know, if he's healthy and pitching in October. Yeah that you know, you're throwing him and Scherzer out there one too.

And you know, that's that's pretty good place to start it. I mean traditionally if you have those two weapons, but do you think the Grom if the Grom doesn't throw another pitch this year is the Grom still going to opt out of his contract? That's an excellent question. I don't know.

I wish I could say definitively. I know you are don't know but I don't know, you know, there are a lot of teams that would love to take a chance on him. But are they going to give him the guaranteed years and dollars that he would probably want in exchange to for opting out? Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, that's that's a lot. That's that's something that I'm I'm not sure those teams are quite ready to do. Yeah, and I think he can opt out at any time. I think he even if if he goes opt-in for one more year, I think he can opt out the following year. I think the contract is structured that way.

But I'm not I'm not a hundred percent sure but I couldn't remember exactly in that case. So there's not that after next year. He definitely wouldn't and then he would do it again. Because the thing is like if Jacob the Grom is healthy. I don't care if he's 33 or he's 37, right? We see what Max Scherzer can do at 37 and 38, right? If he's healthy, you know, I think the Grom could could have a future of two-year contracts as an average annual value at, you know, 40 million dollars for as long as he wants it. Quite honestly, he could he could they could franchise tag him every year.

Yeah, there you go. What does Atlanta need to catch the Mets assuming no team neither team does anything spectacular at the deadline? Well, I mean, I think if you're looking at the deadline, I think if you're Atlanta, you're a little concerned about Ian Anderson and that rotation spot, right? You know, it's a Striders thrown a lot more hours on pace to throw a lot more innings that he has previously and obviously both have electric arms and Ian Anderson's track record in the postseason is nothing short of amazing, but he's not very good right now, right?

And right now you're trying to catch the Mets. So I think that's one of the biggest things they need, you know, I know a lot of Mets fans would love the club to go out and get someone who hits right-handed pitching, you know, they would love to get sorry left-handed pitching. They'd love to get J.D.

Martinez bring him in, you know, I know a lot of Mets fans are salivating or Josh Bell, even though I'm not sure he makes the greatest fit there. But yeah, I think they're both their teams are very good. But I mean, let's be honest, Atlanta caught a lot of magic last year. You think you know, I mean, it's just like like you could you could play out that 2021 postseason 15 times and that's the only time that winds up like that.

You know, it's just it and that's not degrading what they did at all. I mean most post seasons are like that, you know, you you catch fire, you know, Cody Ross goes crazy for the Giants, you know, you have Mark Lemke having great, you know, great at bats great series, you know, that's just what happens. But yeah, I don't think that the Braves are in position where they can just count on that that type of magic happening again, which is why I think they'll probably go out and add another arm to that rotation. Real quick to Grom cannot opt out after 23.

There's a club option for 24. So I don't know. I think he opts out either way and goes to market and basically makes the Mets just add two more years to the deal at that rate, maybe even a little bit higher.

But we'll see what happens there. Ryan Fagan, Sporting News baseball writer. I appreciate your time, my friend. Welcome back from the all-star break and we'll talk soon. All right. Sounds good, man. Thanks. You got it. Ryan Fagan, the Sporting News. Looking forward. When do the Mets and Braves play again?

Those are awesome series. And then we have Braves fans here in in the radio station and there are Mets fans. I don't know. Other than me. We got Mike. Yeah.

Back in one of the the office. There's a few of you all here. Really? A few of us. Do we have like a cabal? Yes.

A cabal of Mets fans? Yes. Oh, man.

That would be that would be fantastic. This is the Adam Gold Show. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now. You can find Canes' 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts.