Will the Baltimore Orioles be able to keep their young stars after this season?

I'm sure our friend Elliot Johnson, who did not play in the Little League World Series, as far as I know, is glued to the Little League World Series. He joins us on the Adam Gold Show.

Do you even have it on? Yeah, I think the cool thing was having the guys from the Phillies out there to go root them on. And I'll tell you this, Adam, when I was 12, there was nothing more important to me than trying to play in Williamsport. I didn't stop because I didn't earn the right to be there.

It's so stupid in my mind, but it was such an honor to think about being good enough to be there. I mean, I woke up every day and that's all I wanted to do was get to Williamsport. So, the stadium is on our way to, my in-laws have a cottage in western New York, and you have to drive right through Williamsport to get there. And it's kind of unassuming. I mean, just the stadium's on the right. I know it's a much bigger complex than that. But the stadium's on the right, and you could just blow right past it and not even know.

But it is, man. Williamsport is a nice little town in central Pennsylvania. Beautiful spot. And the place just absolutely comes alive this time of year.

I'm not here to critique it or praise it. It's just such an unassuming little town and has given it an identity. All right, let me ask you this, because we have a lot of Orioles fans who are here. And I spent some time in Baltimore and I have a soft spot for the Baltimore Orioles. I know what that town can be when the Orioles are good. And they have the best record in the American League right now.

They are very good and they are very young. And then their owner, John Angelos, their managing partner, son of the former owner, I guess, Peter Angelos. He does an interview with Tyler Koepter of the New York Times in which Angelos goes on to say that I just don't know if we'll be able to keep all these players because, you know, it's really expensive and we'll have to raise ticket prices. And I caution Orioles fans, don't buy this propaganda garbage because they can afford to keep all of their players if they want to. Isn't that right?

100%. I mean, this guy, it's the equivalent of complaining that you just won the lottery. You know, it's like, oh, I've got to pay taxes. The best farm system in the game, all of those guys, they're coming along so well at them that they have to call them up because they're forcing their hand.

I think they, in some ways, what I'm hearing between the lines is they weren't prepared to be this competitive this early on. And so now he's taking a look at what it's going to look like to keep these guys there. You know, Rushman Holliday is knocking on the door. He's a double A, 19 years old and raking, by the way. You know, his dad was here in Cary recently. I got to hang out with him and spend some time with him.

I was grateful. I hit a line drive in front of him when he was in left field in St. Louis one day and I called, I made sure I thanked him for playing it on a hop. So, you know, the Orioles, you know, Kirstad hasn't even gotten called up yet and he's really good. So complaining about having to pay your players is about as out of touch as it gets, Adam. You know, there's a reason why owners aren't great spokespeople, not to mention, you know, his dad was not a great owner, got his hand caught in the cookie jar a number of times. We don't need to talk about it.

But the kid, he has no feel for what it's like. He's on record of claiming that he's going to open the books. Still hasn't happened.

We're waiting for them. And now he's going to complain that his team has gotten so good that they can't afford their good players. Oh my gosh, cry me a river, man. So figure out a way to package them up, trade them off and keep your team successful and sustainable.

Follow the Rays model, follow whatever model you need or create your own. But I mean, I don't want to hear the complaining. Really, what he's doing is just trying to get the fan base to accept the fact that it's going to be more expensive to go watch this team play. But when they stink, are they cutting prices? I mean, I doubt it. Those things, it's just a little bit out of touch from an ownership standpoint.

I think Johnson is joining us here. I keep telling people all the time, every team in Major League Baseball can afford a payroll between $125 and $150 million. Everyone, whether it's money you get from revenue sharing or just national TV money or Major League Baseball's incredibly successful technology, which makes the league tons of money. There are ways where you can afford $125 to $150 million a year payroll, but some teams just don't want to do it because, well, I might lose a little bit of money on the year when if you make the playoffs, you're going to be successful. You don't have to make money. It's okay to be a little bit in the red and win because the value of your franchise goes up.

I respect that approach, Adam. I think that the issue is they want their cake and eat it, too. I think they want to pretend as though cost of doing business is so expensive. I mean, they had a spinoff earlier in the year, I think it was called BAM, where every owner got $25 or $50 million, and that was really quiet. Nothing to see here. They don't want anybody to know. They're making money over here on this little side venture.

No big deal. So, I mean, I think the cautionary tale, unfortunately for your Mets, is that paying for winners doesn't always work. I think we're a little bit jaded. I'm not taking the owner's side. We're jaded on the way that the boss Steinbrenner used to run the Yankees, how every deadline he would go after Sheffield.

Raul Mondasie will throw for you. He would go get the biggest and best that he could get any time, Gary Sheffield, so on and so forth. So I think that that model, and really just to bring it back, Adam, think of how much smarter it would have been to his fan base if he would have said, look, our plan is working. We've executed, we've built, you know, thank you for your loyalty, fans, for being with us while we rebuilt this thing. We did it the right way. We're here for the long haul. And not only that, but we're beating up on the Yankees right now.

Isn't it a great day to be an Orioles fan? No. Instead, he wants to be both and just be as much out of touch as possible. And, you know, really, they just need to hire publicists or whatever it is because this guy should never be allowed, you know, in front of a camera ever again. And here's the thing. You can keep, you don't have to keep all your players, but you can keep the ones you identify as, all right, this guy we must keep.

Rushmen or whoever, right? We need to keep this guy, this guy, this guy. So we're going to pay them. Look, I'm not meaning to bring up Wanda Franco here and all of the things that are going on there. And who knows, the Rays have already taken down basically any indication that Franco is part of the organization. They've removed his image around town, in the ballpark, Wanda Franco right now.

It's an awful, awful story. But they decided that they were going to invest in him and they gave him an 11-year contract. It's like $182 million, which is not going to break them. The Orioles could do something similar to that with a couple of players. So ultimately at the end of this deal, you're paying the guy a lot of money, but you kind of, you soften the blow over time. The Orioles could do that and keep maybe all of those players if they wanted to.

And then you could always trade a couple of guys later in their careers, you know, in year five, six, seven, as you get other prospects coming up. There are ways to do this, but I think, oh, we lost him. Yeah, we just, we lost Elliot.

Elliot had more to say. We're going to get to that in a second. It is offensive as a fan. And in some ways it's almost ignorant as a fan to buy that propaganda as, well, sorry, we can't do it. It's like they're treating you like you don't know better. You should know better and don't let your team do that to you.

All right, Elliot, where were you? Well, what about the Braves model, Adam? Look at what they're doing. You know, they give $100 million and everybody's like, oh, they're crazy. That's a below market deal. Acuna is worth $500 million, you know, maybe more. No, show Acuna is going to get $600 or $700 million.

Who knows, you know? So there are ways to fix it. OK, now they're going to have to cough it up up front. OK, but that's the only way these guys are signed the deal. I mean, again, you can't say, hey, you know, we own you and we're going to pay you $720 this year.

Thousand. OK, when they're worth $10, $15, $20 million of output. And then when they actually finally get to a point where they're well within their rights to start exercising, getting paid what they're worth for the first time.

You know, in America, you know, I mean, I'm happy and grateful for these guys to be that good, to earn that opportunity, because you see models that go on like the Braves or the Dodgers. OK, where when you have talent, hold on to them, treat them right and keep them loyal to the organization. And they will make you way more money in the playoffs, like you said, or in the World Series or whatever it is. So there's ways where they can get creative. And I realize this is new to them, but this is a new way for them to do business and they can extract as much value from these guys as possible. They're going to have to be creative to do it and they are going to have to pay to do it. But that doesn't mean they have to pay free agent dollars. They don't have to and don't have to raise prices either. They can do it with the revenue streams they have in place today.

One hundred percent. And just think of how much more the Orioles will be making in terms of luxury suite sales and everything else you've got going on around the ballpark. And they're talking about doing what Tom Duncan wants to do with the Hurricanes around PNC Arena. The Orioles are talking about doing that in the Inner Harbor, right where they are and building up and having retail and hotel space and office buildings all around Camden Yards. They should do that. They don't own that property, but if the Orioles wanted to develop it and maybe along with the Ravens because it's basically in one big parking lot, they could absolutely do that. Elliot Johnson is joining us here. What kind of chance to give the Orioles of representing the American League in the World Series?

Wow. I mean, it's amazing that we're talking about that, but, you know, I think that they are young enough to where it almost seems like they're impervious to the pressure. You ever see those teams kind of run?

They just don't feel a thing that they're just out there. You know, I remember the Red Sox teams early on. They almost were impervious to what was going on. They didn't care about the curse. I remember even the Rockies that ran against those Red Sox were really impervious.

They were perfect. In fact, I think they swept everyone in the playoffs until they ran. Did they get swept by the Red Sox? I think if they hadn't run into that snow issue, they may have been able to keep that momentum going, but unfortunately it worked out the way it did. So the Orioles are young enough, talented enough to play and beat anybody.

I think over the course of what, where are we at right now? 130 games? We've got five weeks left. So I think they've proven that there's a sample size there that they can compete with everybody. Will their staff hold it together? We don't know that, but I don't know if they're good enough to beat the Astros and the Rangers.

We'll see. You know, the Rays are always good. I mean, the Twins are somehow going to limp into this frigging thing, Adam. And I mean, the AL Central is a dumpster fire.

Somebody's got to win it. Yeah, it looks like it's going to be the Twins. So I think they're a better team than the Twins. I don't know if they're as good as the Rays right now, record-wise they are, but are they as good as them? You know, I think the Rays have been used to doing this type of thing and the Orioles, it's new to them, but I think in some ways being young and dumb as it pertains to the playoffs is a good thing.

And I think that's what they're going to ride this year. Right now, the two best teams in baseball in terms of record are the Braves and the Orioles. Like, I love watching the Braves. The Braves are just, they're exactly what you want your team to be. I mean, you're a Braves legend.

I don't like any of their fans, but I love watching that team and their fans should be incredibly excited about what this team could do this year and next year and the year after. Because I don't know how you get your players to accept below market value contracts like they do, but they do! How do you explain that? How do you explain, not only Acuna, but Ozzie Albee's contract?

Matt Olsen's contract is probably a little bit below market. How do you get them to do that? Well, there's a number of factors that go into it. I think you've got to first recognize the talent, okay? You have to have a model that shows this guy's going to be really, really good. You're taking on some risk that he's going to come up with some sort of catastrophe. And then, one of the things that doesn't get talked about enough, Adam, but would be some good insider information for your listeners, it really is going to depend a lot on who their agent is as well. We could have a whole segment about that another time, but a lot of that has to do with the people that are representing them, the information that they're given, and whether or not they sign these types of deals.

So, that plays into it. Obviously, that plays into the strategy, what the Braves have done. Getting Matt Olsen and Freddie Freeman, giving up Freddie Freeman, who's probably going to be the MVP of Acuna, not missing a beat is just fascinating. Freddie Freeman might be having his best year ever. He's a tremendous player. And he's, I mean, he's one of the best hitters that I've ever seen, Adam. He's incredible. Matt Olsen is doing just as good. I wouldn't say they're missing a whole lot in terms of production because the guy's incredible. Maybe a little bit more streaky than Freddie is, but overall, at the end of the year, he still does.

I mean, I think he's got almost 40 now. So, great job, Adam. Yes, he has done a great job, and we'll see if their starting pitching holds up, but maybe you don't even need great starting pitching if you have a good bullpen. We'll talk throughout as we get down the stretch and into the playoffs, Elliott Johnson. I appreciate your time, as always. Pleasure as always, Adam. We've got Elliott Johnson here on the Adam Gold Show.