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You need Indeed. Good morning everybody. I'm Bart Winkler. This is our journey into the Winklerverse. Paul Imig is here and Grant Bills is here.
It's our weekly brought to you by Tupelo Honey. I am back in my dungeon. You can see on the Dan Shaney YouTube stream.
We're still dealing with the ramifications for me punching my laptop screen to make it no longer efficient. Paul's in his normal homestead. Grant is somewhere different. Can you, could you show?
I am, yeah. Here, let me spin you around. We got some fellow radio people right there and then we got the ballpark right there.
Beautiful American family fields of Phoenix. Who's next to you? Heller? We should get him on. Should I ask him to come on into the Winklerverse? I'm not even asking him to come on.
He'll be like, will you join us in the Winklerverse? We do have, before we do some questions, your journey is being followed. I'm not sure if you saw this guy running around or not. Steven Newsman has a report. What? Steven Newsman has a report. He's off the Freeman beat? He's on the Grant-Bills beat.
Here's such report. This is Steven Newsman with another Grant-Bills spring training update. Grant-Bills arrived in Maryvale this week and the first thing he did was approach Brewers beat writer Todd Rosiak to inquire as to why the veteran reporter has such an issue with the Craig Council memes. Grant timidly walked up to Mr. Rosiak, offered to shake his hand, but before the Whisco sports show host could even say anything, the Brewers scribe said, and I quote, if you say one goddamn word about the Craig Council memes, I'm going to go get Kurt Hogue and have him beat the ever living shit out of you, you foolish youth, end quote. Grant was so taken aback, wondering perhaps if Mr. Rosiak was just joshing around, but that's when the journal Sentinels long time beat man took out his mobile, searched for Grant-Bills on Twitter and immediately blocked him.
That will show you now you can no longer see my tweets, said Rosiak. It was at this moment that Grant-Bills realized this work trip was going to be nothing like being at Radio Row. After all, that experience was filled with interactions with top celebrities like Tom Grossi, and sure, I suppose a couple other randos like Bert Kreischer and Jordan Love. No, this spring training trip was bound to be miserable for Grant-Bills. Instead of proudly sharing the council memes that Grant spent his entire plane ride creating, he now had to decide whether to delete them entirely from his phone or risk being outcast from the entire Brewers beat core. Here's hoping that Grant-Bills can find his steve-a-billa moment during spring training and find someone to share his council memes with before it's too late. We've got more to come. This is Steven Newsman.
Shadowfall! Wow off the Freeman beat onto the Bills beat Steven Newsman. Wow. I did introduce myself to Rosiak. He's very nice. It had nothing to do with the memes though. I led with an apology for how many times I've asked him to come on assorted shows, which is always a good way to meet someone IRL.
It's like, hey, sorry for being the most annoying fucking person to ever text you. Has he ever come on? He came on with Bill.
It was either when council left or when Murphy became the manager. But Todd's whole thing was, it's like, well, I like to spread my hits around. And also like, we don't pay.
Like, we don't pay debt. You know, like Clemons is a contributor and Jim Ozarski, but it's not like we pay these people. So I like, I can ask, but for the most part, Rosiak doesn't respond.
That's that's, that's the thing. Todd's one of the people I enjoy seeing the most. I love Todd.
He was super nice. He, he left yesterday, Kurt, if he's not already here to take his spot at the ballpark, he should be here anytime. I will be able to share the council memes with Kurt. Rosiak might be over him, but Kurt is definitely not over him. That's for sure.
Are you refuting portions of Newsman's report? Newsman knows my week better than I probably do. He could probably tell me some things that I've been up to. I like on Monday, I was here by myself and I'm like, but I was here cause I needed the booth space. Like once I have a place where my show works, I don't like move it. Well, I'll do it from home.
No, I'm going to come here with the internet plug and I'm gonna do it here, but it was empty. So I'm putting together like a little, little documentary for the week. So I was just wandering around the park, like recording different things in different right field. I'm calling it Corbin's Corner. Cause that spot is where Corbin Burns did like the angry press conference with all the reporters. I like it.
Right. I was down in Corbin's Corner. I kept walking down to the field because I wanted audio of like the lawnmower going by.
So the guy on the mowers, what the fuck is this kid? I'm the only one here and I'm just holding out my phone. They just went about their business, which is what I wanted, but I've definitely maximized the time and space of the ballpark. We look forward to that. And we thank you for your presence here from wow.
An actual real life baseball stadium. That's very. The Winkler versus large expansive, very expansive, like the MCU. Exactly. Exactly.
Like the MCU where it's not as good as it used to be, but either way, also true. It's good to have you boys. We brought to you by Tupelo honey, downtown Milwaukee, Broadway and Clyburn. You can check them out across from the public market. They do have the spring menu that is going to be rolled out with different sodas, different food option, and just feel more like spring. The food has to match the weather. And now with there being no winter, we'll see if this is a different kind of thing. Winter is officially over, not just this year, but possibly forever.
So enjoy your snowboarding simulators, which we'll have to do soon. Maybe the guys at Carl's place can set those up. But in the meantime, tubelohoneycafe.com make your reservations. And guys, Easter is in March this year. So get your Easter brunch reservations in. I'm still not entirely sure as a Catholic grant, why that's the case.
I just remember I have to turn down the PA in here. Give me a sec. What was that, Bart? Why is Easter change? Well, I'm not 100% sure. I believe that it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the first day of spring. I'm like 80% sure that that's how Easter is decided. I'm not sure the biblical, I'm not sure why.
I just think that's, I think that's how it works. I had to go to a, well, I had to, I went to a funeral that was a Catholic mass recently and I did not participate in the communion. Yeah. Did you cross your arms for the blessing? I didn't even get up and go. Did you sit the whole time? Did you at least stand? Tell me you stood.
Well, I stood when they told me to stand. Okay. Okay.
Okay. Because I didn't, I'm intermittent fasting and I couldn't eat the bread. It would have broken my fast.
The food and wine church is specifically designed to have minimal nutrition and alcohol in it. That's how it's designed. Well, all right. Paul, what questions do you got for us this week? I'm going to start with one that I stole from a guy named Grant Bills. Grant asked this question and I said, don't, don't, don't think about this. Don't answer this. I'm stealing this.
We're talking about this. The next time we talk, Grant proposed, you would accept Caleb Williams is about to have a hall of fame career with the bears. If it guaranteed council never has a winning season with the Cubs or that was the exact phrase in that Grant texted to Bart and I had loved it.
I said, just table it. I I've thought about it a little bit. I don't know what Bart's instant response would. Well, actually I know what mine, I think I responded back and don't respond, but I was just like, so I'll just start because Grant posed it and I'll say undeniably 1000% Caleb Williams can go have a hall of fame career with the bears as long as Craig council absolutely sucks with the Cubs.
Great question, Bart or Grant. Well, I think that, um, you know, we haven't really known the bears to be that good much in our lifetime. They did meet us at an NFC championship and they did get to a super bowl. Um, but for the most part, they've not been good. And so if I had to endure a hall of fame career from a bear's quarterback, that would be a new terrain. That would be years of, uh, competition that we're just kind of not familiar with. We we've seen the Cubs kind of the same, but with more success, uh, winning a world series.
And obviously there was a period where it looked like they were going to win a few more. So we know what it's like. I'm thinking from a fan perspective, getting bombarded with Chicago people that are all like, ah, fuck you. We come and shit all over your fucking Lake Geneva and you know, door County. And then we just leave our condom wrappers all over the hotel rooms and go back home. They treat this place like a, like a, like a U S hockey team treats a hotel.
That's like a 14 year old reference. Very specific. Um, uh, Tim will edit that out in post.
It's just not current enough. So I think that it's about who do I less want to hear from? Because there's fans, if they get a quarterback, okay.
Well welcome to the club. We we've had a quarterback, right? If council wins with them, that means he's not winning with us. And there's the, the biggest thing that really upset me over this last three months or whatever is I think that us talking about council is an us thing. That's that's, that's a conversation happening in our home, the Brewers fans homes, the Cubs fans are the neighbor and they hear the conversation. And instead of just like talking to themselves like, Oh, do you hear what's happening next door? They're going through it, man. They then knock on our window, come into our house and say, stop it.
You don't get over it. You they're like, like, this is our thing. We're dealing with this. We had this guy who said, he's Mr.
Brewer, who, who left us. And, and you guys are telling us to shut up. Like there were some council memes that then they found and they're like, Oh misbehaving of a fan base. I mean, what is this high and mighty act from the fucking Chicago Cubs fans who go by the names lovable losers and bleacher bums. And like, they don't just say that because it's cute.
They say it because they play during the day a lot and they're able to fill up a stadium, just get fucking trashed with no regard for the actual result of the game. So stay out of our house. You deal with your own thing. And for that reason, I hope that they suffer. So yeah, the bears, the Caleb Williams can, they can go one, they can go back to back to back hall of fame quarterbacks for all I care. If council, if, if council never has any success there, and I'm talking like losing seasons, what a joy it will be.
And, and not just because of the Cubs fans, but also because I want to see council fail. I want to see this miserable fuck not only left our house to go to the neighbor's house. Like, Oh, he's having an affair with the neighbor. Ooh, he's keeping it secret. No, he's not.
He's opening the window, making sure we see, by the way, Bart is doing a humping. Uh, I love it. Yeah.
So screw them all. I love it. What a great response. Grant. It was your question. I'm assuming. Well, I don't want to assume anything.
So let me reframe your own question to you. You'd accept Kelly. Caleb Williams is about to have a hall of fame career with the bears. If a guaranteed council never has a winning season with the Cubs or, well, sometimes you don't know how great you have it until you don't have it that great anymore. So I've always in my life just assumed that we could beat the shit out of the bears.
I can bank on that. Right. And it's become normal. I don't really know what it would be like to not have that be normal. So I, I don't know. We could go down this hypothetical path and then, you know, half a mile down this path, I could be like, actually, this is, I didn't foresee this.
I couldn't have, I couldn't have fathom this before starting on this, this journey. But Bart's right. If we're just counting rings or we're just keeping score here, the Packers have such a long lead on the bears in terms of high level quarterback play and wins where if the bears got an amazing quarterback and Jordan love and Caleb Williams were to go back to bat, and maybe the bears win more games in the Packers, but it's still not like night and day difference. Like, I think that would be fine. And Packers fans could still say, okay, yeah, now get another one.
Now get another one. We would still have cards to play. Whereas if council goes to Chicago and they go on deep playoff runs, I think I might just not want to be a sports fan anymore. You know, like, I don't know what card I play other than to blast more Craig council memes on brewers, Twitter, and another thing, Barton, you hit on this.
I appreciate it. I don't want to be lectured by Cubs fans. The Cubs and the Brewers historically are the same shitty teams. The Cubs have money.
They choose not to spend it. The Brewers don't have money. The Cubs won their little poverty world series in 2016 and the Brewers failed to win theirs in 1982.
That's like the one difference really between these two teams. So if Cardinals fans want to lecture me, like, how dare you throw mud on your hometown boy with means it's like, okay, all right, fine. Like also Brewers fans aren't demanding respect here. I see all these replies from Cubs fans. It's like, and Brewers fans want to be taken seriously. And we're all like, no one ever has said that in Brewers fandom. Like we don't want your respect. And also we've never said we're over it. I see that comes trends all the time. It's like, oh, and Brewers fans say they're over it.
No, no one has said that. This is just starting. They were telling us to get over it the day it happened. It's like, I haven't even wrapped my arms around what I need to get over.
Like I, you know, we always do the five stages of grief thing. By the way, I think I'm going to go to council's first game back at American. I think I have to that game in a fan capacity or media capacity in a fan. Well, no, I'll cover the game from a fan perspective. That's I'm always, if I'm at a game, I'm covering the game.
It just depends on my perspective. That's how, for example, I covered a badger game two weeks ago from a fan perspective. I kind of want to rock with Brett and Tosa, but I also like, I was going to bring it up. I also wouldn't be shocked if we got like two innings into the game and I'm like, fuck, I'm kind of uncomfortable. Cause I love Brett, but I don't know what he's going to do and what he's going to yell at this game. Like all boom when he's introed and like boot when any time there's a natural opportunity to boot, I'm taking it. But like, I feel like Brett, because he loved, this is so personal to him and it's so personal to a lot of brewers fans, right? Especially those that live in, in the area directly around Milwaukee where I, I wouldn't say fandom is stronger there, but it's more, it's, it's part of the community as Mark out Nacio said. So I need to be at that game.
I don't know to circle back all the way to the beginning. I think I would lock in Caleb Williams hall of Famer. If it guaranteed, not just that Craig council and the Cubs never won a world series, never had a winning season. I want this to be a catastrophe. If I'm giving up the Packers dominance over the bears, I need this to be a nightmare for the Cubs. Like I'm not taking some wildcard appearances and split. No, no, no.
It needs to be a catastrophe if I'm making this deal. Yeah. I agree. I just think that like Cubs fans are coming from this position of, I mean, the only way they can look down on brewers fans is in numbers. There's more of them. This is moral. And so yeah, they can bully us easier, but you're not any better than brewers fans.
In fact, I would argue that you're worse. I would argue that if in 2003, there was a man who tried to catch a foul ball and it landed, then the brewers ended up losing. Like we would, we would ironically turn that guy into like the coolest dude ever. And he would throw out the first pitch and he'd be on the walk of fame.
Yeah. He would be a, he would be a part of the lore. He'd be like, Oh, I saw Bartman down at dugout 54. I got fucking hammered with him. He's the best. Instead of these Cubs fans lead him into exile and they can't even live his life because he tried to, he tried to catch a ball in foul territory, which is, I mean, how many like they, they should do, fans should fill out a questionnaire when they bring a glove into the stadium.
Now you gotta be, well, you gotta be aware of that. If there's a, even a play remotely that could affect the game, you got, you got to put that glove down. Like you're, you're bringing a glove for a reason, or if a ball comes at you, you're naturally just like, you don't just be like so I, I think, I think Steve Bartman would be a hero. Well, I recently heard you talking about like dream interviews and the chances that you might one day interview an alien that has come down from outer space.
If you can get Bartman on the Bart Winkler show, that needs to be the new dream interview. Yeah. I have no interest in talking to that guy, but I thought you wanted to like, even as a non Cubs guy, I thought you wanted him to like help him alleviate the burden that he probably assumed. I'd rather do that by talking to Moises Salud and being like, so you like ruin this guy's life. You come trans followed you and your freak out.
How do you, do you live with the burden? This guy can't walk in public. You probably have a nice life. You're retired.
You don't even, you probably don't even think about it. Some days, every day, Steve Bartman wakes up, thinks he has a nightmare of what his life has become and realizes in an instant, that's his life. You did that, sir. That is, that would be great.
That would be great. Either one. If you get Bartman and again, if there was ever a host who could get Bartman, I would think it would be a guy named Bart. Hmm. Possibly.
That's just an, it's an in, you know, it's a natural. I didn't even think about that. Steve Bartman. Yeah.
The Bart, Bartman interview would make your career, save your career. Some might say, cause it's Rocky. I'm just kidding.
I don't know. All right. That was a great topic, Grant.
Thanks for doing, thanks for doing the hard work. I always liked those scenarios. It's like what I, what I'm bartering with in my own sports teams experience is like, would I, would I accept this if it got me to, I always, I think that's a good exercise that sports fans should do. I do think, and I think part of it, I think you guys brought up great points by the way of like ones I had not thought of, which is okay, well, if you have a, if the bears have a great hall of fame quarterback for, for a Packers fan, you're like, you know, yawn, tell me when there's another one or potentially another two, like tell me when this becomes a 40 year trend.
And until then, like good for fucking you, you found one, like after 40 years of being terrible at this, I didn't think of that angle. For me, it was more of like, I'd like the NBA and the NFL as a whole more than I like major league baseball, but I find myself most passionately defending of brewers and anti Cubs that I am compared to the bears and compared to, um, geez, the bulls, obviously, cause the bulls have been relatively, but so like, so for me, it's like, I'd, the Cubs succeeding would is more like, Oh, for me than the bears succeeding. But again, part of that could be the way I feel about the brewers, but also some of it could just be like, yeah, like good for you.
You, the bears have a competent team for a while. Like, cool, man. Good, good for you.
I'm proud of you. So I think that's interesting. We're driven by the search for better, but when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search match with indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent fast and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs, more visibility at indeed.com slash blue wire.
Just go to indeed.com slash blue wire right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast indeed.com slash blue wire terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need indeed. Grant, you are, yes, you were on site.
So I'm going to start with you on this one. Normally one that I think Bart would yawn at, but I think we just have to get your perspective while you're there. As Grant puts on his credential. The Brewers pitching staff obviously isn't what it was a couple years ago with Burns Woodruff and Peralta line up one through three, but you're confident this current pitching group is good enough to still win the division.
Or Grant bills first, please. I think I think it can be. I think there's a scenario in which it doesn't go well. Like I wouldn't guarantee that this rotation can be a division winning rotation. I think the Reds are gonna be a lot better this year, although we've say that shit and then it never happens. So like, I don't know. I pirates will win March, April, the Reds will win May. Yeah.
And then, who knows? Yeah, the the Reds, the Reds are the classic I need to see it. Can I see it? I just like to see it for a month.
Let's see it for a month. That's that's the classic Bill Simmons. So I think they absolutely here's the thing.
They have a lot of arms. Right. And and Pat Murphy has said multiple times, you know, in the last couple of days, like, we're not going to be able to manage this team number one starter number two starter number three. So it's going to be very different in the last couple years.
But we also have proof of concept with that. Like we saw this in 2018, when they had a bunch of guys who could get out to different roles. Yeah, so that actually puts onus on Pat Murphy. Yeah, to best know how to use these guys and you know, he is something he's talked endlessly about. It's like one day we might need a guy to go five innings one day we might need three one day we might need six or seven depending on you know who's going and how they're pitching. I think that they're totally good enough because they have a lot of a lot of bandwidth is what Murphy said the other day they have a wide array of guys. Now the ceiling on each of those individual guys maybe isn't as high as Corbin burns was or a healthy Brandon Woodruff.
But they it's not like they have a shortage of arms. I own a shitload of Aaron Ashby stock. I asked him directly this morning I said would you recommend people buy stock in Aaron Ashby? And he laughed and basically said that's the goal. That's what we're going for. And I know. Nice. I don't know if like is that a ringing endorsement?
I'm not 100% sure. But I really like Aaron Ashby. Dude. People are going nuts over DL Hall. Yeah, everyone everyone in the all these pitchers are gathering around his locker Trevor McGill and Jacob Judas were around his locker yesterday like how do you grip that fastball every time he's out throwing in the bullpen there is there are pitchers not Brewers fans or coaches there are other pitchers on the staff that want to get a look at this guy because his fastball moves in a different way. So I think fan perception and fan excitement around DL Hall is much lower than it is within the clubhouse. So I think that's hopefully going to be a positive surprise for Brewers fans and I think right now you can lock in Wade when he's healthy. Which if you ask him is trending very well for opening day or very close to opening DL Hall and Freddy Peralta. The rest of the rotation comes down Ashby Judas junk. You know some of these other guys.
I like their options but it's going to be a lot on Pat Murphy to manage them in a way where they can succeed like council used to do as much as it pains me to bring that up. Like but you're saying DL Hall you think is locked into a starter spot? I do. Yeah. And others like others like rosyak said that last week.
Interesting. Because I mean, like in the podcast with Jr. The question whenever the burns trade happened a month and a half ago was reliever or starter. And other Brewers were like starter. And DL Hall if I recall correctly said, Oh, yeah, the like when he was first traded. Yeah, the Brewers talked to me about starting but I didn't quite realize it was like, Oh, yeah, he's one of the three locks for a starting spot.
So that's that seems big. I think the Brewers in acquiring him in that trade kind of showed their hand a little bit. I don't know if that's the trade. If they don't think at least with a lot of confidence that he can start maybe they get two months into the season and decide that's not the best course of action. But that's certainly the starting point as much more connected much smarter brewers people have said already. Well, and don't forget to like how miserably bad Corbin burns was in his first full year in the major leagues. Like and like, and if there's things I think a Brewers fan can trust the Brewers to do it's two things.
For me, it's two things. One is to take a toolsy pitcher and develop him in their lab. Check with DL Hall, right? Am I saying that you can't give me a look there grand that made me wonder if you know you said to you said tools he and Bart reacted so I'll be acting tools II internet issue. Okay, and then the second the second thing I would say is taking a bad defensive catcher and making him at least a serviceable defensive catcher if not a very good defensive catcher like these are the two things the Brewers consistently do. So yeah, so wait, Bart, before I kick it to you real quick, Grant, you got to I know this is not gonna be a typical year. You said that about Pat Murphy.
Right now the one through five of opening week of starters in the end of March early April will be in your projection. Oh, I would say Freddie, DL Hall, Wade Miley, who am I forgetting? I'm gonna forget someone really important. I think Judas is probably in there. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, I would like to believe that Ashby is in there. I'm not 100% sure those would probably be my those would probably be my five, Colin, right? Colin raising their tea. That's what I'm forgetting it my dumb ass. He's literally on the mound right there. Pat Murphy really he talked about not just keep bringing this up, but I'm here.
So it'd be stupid to not reference. Yeah. I'm hearing and seeing like, Pat Murphy this morning is talking about all the innings I think it was like 125 126 innings that Ray ate last year. He thinks he can be better. He just gave up a double down the line. So it's he's to run two runs are going to score because yellow chain getting this ball back in in time.
Yeah, they're both gonna score. You know, if you could if you could edit the highlight over grant saying it, that'd be good for the YouTube. Thank you, Tim.
We'll make it into a short. But Colin right. Very Murphy talks a lot about his players personality.
I think that's interesting. He's like he's calm, cool and collected. Mr. relaxed and that kind of fits his role on this team and talked a lot about how he bonded with Woodruff and Wade Miley last year and really kind of found himself. I think he's firmly a member of this rotation too.
That was the one I'm forgetting and he's the one who's literally right. Yeah, but then he gave up that double down the line. That's a that's bad. You know, that's just grooms grooms scored at a triple. I heard on the intercom I thought I yell it kicked around in the corner but it's spring to you know, throw the throw the kid a bone grooms the official score.
That's what the scorecard says. Let me check. Oh, wow. Okay. Oh, my old colleague.
Okay. Bart, you are not boots on the ground. You may have less insight from day to day conversations with Pat Murphy, but you're confident this Brewers pitching staff can be good enough to still win the division or yes, but I think but I think my level of like I don't know anticipation or I just I don't think about the pitching staff too much. It's going to take it for maybe granted or assumption when we're thinking of the Brewers.
We're thinking of okay, yeah, let's add Amis charios up Reese Hoskins. We're thinking of these guys. So then the pitching staff is what we were thinking about when the offense was bad. But I think the offense is better. And then the pitching staff, there's just so many questions that I think will work themselves out.
I don't know that we have like a one two punch or even a one. I mean, we're not gonna have a one two three punch, like Burns and Peralta and Woody, but then like with Corbin Burns, I don't I didn't have the visceral reaction that a lot of people did to that trade. And it came after the Reese Hoskins deal. So maybe people thought, Oh, World Series. Yeah, Corbin Burns were like, worst team in baseball. It just was a real weird pendulum swing. Yeah. Also, I think people were kind of going through it with the box at that time.
So everything seemed like it was piling on. Corbin Burns last year was a he was worth three and a half wins. His wins above replacement was three and a half. Look at you. Oh, this is great.
Year before. Well, that's the one new stat. I like I think it actually tells you something that a boy keep going. These other it helps by the way that war is like a super easy small round number. Like it's not like a decimal point percentage like oh three war like I can my dumb ass can work with that. Yeah. Yeah. And it sounds it's like, what's his fucking war, man? What's his war? Not?
What's his bad pimp? It's baby. But go ahead. I know I fucked it up. I was actually funnier.
It was funnier being incorrect as even but yeah, go ahead. Okay, so you're saying burns as well. I'm trying to think was so that the way that he pitched was worth three and a half wins.
Yeah. But was he worth three and a half wins last year on this team? I mean, how many games is like, Oh, Corbin's on the mound. We're not getting any hits. And that shit happened. I don't know that we see the season out and be like, Well, we're 87 and 75.
But had we had Corbin burns, we'd have 90 wins. I don't know that that's the case. So I don't.
I don't know. I think the pitching staff like I'm just not gonna worry about it. And I'm gonna see what happens. I think like, if you are thinking from an investment strategy, wow. Sometimes like when I play around with Bitcoin or whatever.
I look at that shit seven, eight times a day. I'm like, Well, what is it this half hour? But if you play around with stocks, you're just like, I'm gonna let them maticulate. And then I'll look back later and see what is mature. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna let the pitching staff mature.
Paul, do you have another Bruce question? Are we gonna move on? We're gonna move on. But I just want to say like, even just like, you know, you we don't know what DL Hall is going to produce wins above replacement or any other stat. We don't know what Ortiz is going to do for the infield yet. But even like if you were trading air quotes, burns is three and a half war. Reese Hoskins in his most recent season was 2022.
Granted, he was a 2.3 war. You think the Brewers had the 2.3 war first baseman like it doesn't mean that that's what's going to happen again. But I mean, it's I mean, there's other pieces to it, Bart, right.
And I think that's part of what you're hinting at. Can I can I put out a Bruce thing before we move on? I just want to get this in before I had to interrupt mid topic change. Bart, you talked about all the things you think about with the Brewers, right? Reese Hoskins, yellow, cherry all this. We don't talk about William Contreras. I forget he's there.
Because when I'm thinking and getting ready for the season, I'm like, well, it's gonna depend on how cheerio looks and like who's gonna win the right field spot. William Contreras. Like Pat Murphy cannot stop talking about this guy. He thinks he's on his way to being the best catcher in baseball.
Oh, wow. This is a super he is a superstar in the making was already close. His motor his drive, like the way he interacts with teammates. He has coming into this game. He had 16 spring training at bats. And for reference, Yelich up until today had six. He wants to play every game and he wants to be in every drill like we all need to buy William Contreras stock and I and I don't bring him up in my like preseason calculus of trying to figure out. Yeah, I didn't mention him.
We all know there. It's not that we forget that we have William Contreras a catcher. It's that we like, forget mentally like, Oh, yeah, we have a really good catcher. That like counts too. Because for the most part in my life, it's been like Manny Pena and Jason Kendall and marker. Yeah. Except for like when Luke Roy was like getting MVP votes for a year or two.
But yeah, buy stock. Everything that's said about William Contreras is that he is like on his way to being a bonafide superstar, which is really exciting. By the way, I mean, speaking like let's just let's just build off of Bart's new passion for the war stat. You know, William Contreras was a 5.4 war guy last year.
Wow. I mean, and if what Grant is saying and reporting from Pat Murphy is true, and that this is just the beginning, like I wouldn't say I forgot or took for granted what Contreras did or is going to do. But I also, you know, maybe it's a good thing. I kind of assumed like, yeah, this is this is William. I think like this is William Contreras. If there's another level that he can unlock. Yeah, like that would be crazy. He wants to be playing every game, every drill, like for example, Eric Haas is catching today.
William Contreras is d hing in a split squad game. And he played yesterday like he hit. So he just always wants to me and I think it's that motor and I even noticed it last year during the season, where he was more animated behind the plate and he was fired up after straight like he could really tell you he started to buy into being a brewer and I think at the catcher position exactly, which is so central to everyone and everything. I just think that's and we forget about it. We sleep on it.
We don't talk about it enough. What again, we had mentioned catchers that were bad defensively that the Brewers can figure out like Contreras was like, okay, like that. And so it's like, yeah, like he's gonna be a he's probably a DH with the Braves. He'll still catch for the Brewers, but he'll still be probably a net negative defensively hit on me all of his advanced metrics last season as the catcher just strictly defensively were incredible.
Last let me just say this last quick, maybe pseudo Brewers question. There's more than a 1% chance that Snell or Montgomery become Brewers in the next month, or more than a 1% chance. Or I think on some percent is pretty good.
Okay, you're gonna push on 1% as I think that number hits it right on the head. Pretty, pretty close. I thought I well, I was gonna say I thought if they were going to do a, like a three year deal with player options after each year deal with Boris, it would have been with Chapman because they could have just done Hoskins on one corner Chapman on the other and we'll figure it out again next off season. Yeah. But like, I think they don't have a shortage of all you meant Matt Chapman because there's also a roll this that I meant I meant Matt Chapman.
Yeah. Like, they don't have a shortage of arms, they might have a shortage of really high level, high end arms, except for Freddie and maybe I think it depends. I think it depends how much Mark wants to like, stick it to counsel. And like, obviously, the Brewers working like, you know, the Zach Wheeler extension shows just how obscene the burns number will likely be. But in this realm of like, you can maybe do like some super heavy one year with BS year two and three type things with a guy like Snell, like, the when when Atanasio gets involved with guys that you thought were out of the price range, it's because he's like, Oh, sure, I'll do a crazy one year deal, right. And all of a sudden, it's like, you know, it's gonna be reported as like, three years and 100 million or something. But then it's like, it's really a one year deal. And then Snell will, you know, re hit the free agency market, and he'll make 35 million for his one year with that team.
There is, I don't think it's crazy. And you know, I actually think 1% is low. So I would say more than a 1% chance, but only in the sense of like, this is when a non Yankees, non Dodgers, non Mets team gets involved. When it's early mid March, and a big name is still out there. And he's like, Okay, sure, like, give me a huge, huge, huge one year deal.
And then I'll try again next year. Okay, that was a lot of brewers. That was great brewers.
And why not grant his boots on the ground? Well, we'll go we got I'll do we'll do one more with grants. And then before that, I would like to just remind you remind what happy place at calm. Now that's a starting lineup that you can get behind the Delta eights, the THC, the CBD CBN. That's the cleanup hitter because it cleans your brain right to sleep. The big acquisition is the seltzer as they've teamed up with 1840 brewing to bring you the trans bird watching and it's like, yeah, I'm getting a good look at terrain who struck out.
So did wiemer really, really good back to back events there. Keep going. Happy place at calm the promo code is Bart, as you guys know, 25% off every order, they are in Musko, but really, if you want more info, just go to the website, browse around a little bit, they've got the gummy packs that are in sample form. So I've talked about these, you know, the CBD CBNs, which helped me sleep, I've talked about whether it's the THC seltzer now or some of the stronger ones, you know, try it. This is something where it's like fun to try. And then you can decide what you want more of, you can still use the promo code the next time you go. So it's no like, hey, I'll give you a one time 8%.
No, no, no, 25%. Every time promo codes, Bart, happy place and calm. Emmick, Grant, do you want for your final one, you want bucks or Packers?
Man, there's a scenario in which I could get really amped for either or really bummed by. Let's do bucks. Let's do bucks.
Let's do bucks. The bucks are on an impressive winning streak without Chris Middleton. Because of this, you believe they could still win the championship even if Middleton is unavailable or just not playing at his previous level. So, again, this has inspired confidence that, hey, it would be great to have him back.
But he's not, as I have previously said to the two of you guys, he's not as being proven maybe in the last couple weeks. They don't need, need, need the previous version of Middleton available or playing at that level to still win the championship. He would be nice to, of course, add, duh, but he's not the difference between winning and not winning the NBA finals. So just to say it again, because of this recent winning streak without Middleton, you believe they could still win the championship even if he's unavailable or maybe on some significant restriction. Or Bart, I'm going to let you go first.
I just want to say that halfway through your question, after I immediately selected bucks, I thought you're about to ask if Middleton should move to the bench. And I was going to say, fuck, nevermind go. We're going to do Packers instead, but this is, this is good. This is a good one, right? This is a good one. This is great.
Go ahead, Bart. No, I think like Middleton's not required to do as much because Dame can score in ways that Drew couldn't. I mean, if there was an, if there's, there could be 20 offensive possessions where Damian Lillard picks up the ball, takes it down the floor, doesn't look at anyone, parks up a three. And if he's over 20, it's like, do it again. Yeah.
But after one or two of those from Drew, I would light my hair on fire. Whatever's left of it. I mean, Middleton, they do need Middleton. They may not need him against every team. Go ahead.
Make the joke. Cause we're all trying to, I wasn't trying to, we may not need him right now, but we need him right now. They're going to need him against Boston. They're going to need him against Boston. I hate Boston. I think that people are too poetic about Boston, but even I, on the show on Tuesday night was talking to a guy from the Boston globe and I was, and I was saying, look, I, as a Bucks fan, I, I'm not going to freak out for this. They were up 20 and lost to a team that wasn't without some guys it's a regular season, but the Celtics are deep. They've got, I mean, what did you think that, you know, Tatum should not be the MVP and Derek White should never been the all star. And there's a weird narrative around all that, but they are a deep team and they are good and you will need Middleton against them.
Maybe closer to that version that we had, but not, not, not the whole time. So I'm very eager to see Middleton back. I think the thing I'm the most excited about the thing that a lot of people are excited about, and again, we're releasing this before the Bucks play Golden State, but this Patrick Beverly, Bobby Portis combo. Oh yeah. Fun. Cause John Horst, he just, that's what I didn't get. I was talking about this yesterday. John Horst is like, yeah, I'll go, I'll go with this team and a rookie coach.
Sure. But then I do think he was like, this team needs something. What if I got Pat Bev here? I do think there was some of that.
So the answer is, the answer is they need him in varying degrees, but I would say if they're going to win a finals this year, there's going to need to be games and possibly series where you do get that level from Chris and that's going to be against Boston and maybe, you know, whoever it gets out of the West Denver, maybe whoever grant the recent winning streak without Middleton has you believing they could win the championship even if Middleton's unavailable and, or on a significant restriction or, I don't know if I will confidently say they could win a title without Middleton. That's just grooms letting us know what's going up in the, going on in the bullpen. I would have to go to the back wall to mute it. I'm all plugged in. I don't want to do that. I'm not going to say a little more there, a little more inflection, a little bit more excited about TJ shook or whoever is more likely to succeed at a high level in the post-season without Middleton than past teams.
I don't know what the high end of that is. I think maybe we'll, you know, as Middleton misses more time, we'll learn that especially this week as they're playing a lot of really good teams out on the West coast. That was part of the reason they made this trade, right? Is because Middleton is getting less reliable.
They've been burned by him in the playoffs the last couple of years, not being available. And if Middleton goes down, what creators do you have, right? To step up and, and, and to create offense other than Giannis and withdrew holiday, it, it just wasn't enough. Drew holiday at times wasn't enough when Middleton and Giannis were both healthy, right?
Right. So if we can't trust Middleton, we need to have a viable option, ideally out there with Middleton. But if he's banged up or not 100%, that was the reason they brought in dame, right?
So I like that. I like seeing a trade, the idea of a trade confirmed on a basketball court in front of my eyes. And we're seeing that with dame, especially as doc starts to actually run dame Lillard sets. Like, Oh, what a, what a fucking novel idea. Like the dame Lillard things and put it on a better team with better players.
That was, that was how this was always supposed to go. That just took a little while longer because of the coaching. Well, Bart, like Bart often says this about NFL coaches, but I think it should be mentioned here that like they're just not, they're thought of as like these genius guys, like, Oh my goodness, the football coach, but like doc rivers, right?
Like been better on basketball his whole life, all these things, but it shouldn't take this tenured former championship winning numbers in the rafters at his alma mater and college guy to come in and be like, Hey, you know those sets that dame ran to such great success on his previous team. We should use those. Oh, you're right. Like, no shit. Like, and that's kind of one of those things where like, you know, like, you know, revisionist history with Adrian Griffin, but where it's like, Oh my God, like what the hell? Like that should not, if that should not have been, it should not have taken until March to uncrack that, that, that riddle, you know, like, I don't know that, sorry.
I interrupted grandpa, like two innings, one hit and two strikeouts to Mackenzie. I think Gruman has, he's no Bob Kozlowski or, you know, whoever else they have doing voice work at AmFam field, but he, he could step in in a pinch. Speaking of speaking of succeeding at a high level without your number one or number two guy, I think there's something here with, with Gruman that needs to be explored also really quickly on confirming trades and like general manager ideas and plans on the, like seeing it confirmed. There are some parallels between this year and the title year.
Now the coach change is that's an added link layer, an added whatever wrinkled layer. Yeah. But adding the shaking up the point guard before the season saying Eric Bledsoe is not good enough. Let's get Drew Holliday. And then going into this, you're saying Drew Holliday is not good enough.
Let's get Damian Lillard. And then adding the fucking nuts guy halfway through the season to come in and like Brooke is mild mannered, Giannis, Chris, these older, more accomplished guys bring in the guy to light a fire into be a little bit of an insane guy. There are a lot of parallels between this year and the title year.
There's a lot of differences too, but the similarities are striking. I think the crazy thing about too is that it was the Sixers who gave you Pat Bev. Like I know since MB has been out, like their expectations for their season have changed obviously. And it's not that like on a one to one Pat Bev is like so much better than campaign. Like, Oh my gosh.
Of course. Like, I mean, they're relatively similar ish players in the same tier or so, but it's what they contribute. That's not like box score. That's mood and attitude and demeanor. And yeah, it's very, very clear. It doesn't take us to be like, Hey, it's kind of like the PJ Tucker acquisition, but it's nuts that it was the Sixers who said, yeah, yeah, sure.
That's fine. Like if you're a Sixers fan, and again, I don't know what a Sixers fan's expectations are now in this, you know, MB injured season, but you should be like, what were you thinking? Like you, you had to think this guy would provide an emotional spark. You just gifted this to the bucks. You know, I don't know.
I don't know. I'm not losing my mind over Grayson Allen and I watch him, you know, start eight of eight from three, like sometimes playing or he's not working on a team and you move on and I don't know, you can't like, Oh, Pat Beverly was what the 10th or 11th guy on the team and he wasn't playing. And Milwaukee needs him. Milwaukee needs when they lost PJ Tucker, that big deal he signed in Miami, everyone around the bucks was like, man, we're not paying him that much money.
Come on. Like, I remember talking to Justin Garcia about that. He's like, man, that's a, that's a wild contract.
The bucks probably shouldn't do that. And then like a year later, we're all like, Oh yeah, this team, like from a personality standpoint, you needed a Tucker. You needed him.
So hopefully Pat Bev can be that same guy. Yup. All right. Well, grant you're dismissed.
Keep up the good work. Before I go, would you like some, uh, unadulterated ballpark audio? I can stick my mic out the window. Hold on. Yeah. Get a load of this. Yeah.
Yeah. Opening the window now changing the mic position. I don't know why this has to be muted.
I'd like to hear all this too. Yeah, I heard some claps. Take that off. Get it out. Thank you gentlemen for having me.
We'll talk again soon. Yes. First few seconds though. That was, that was, there are a few things that are, are baseball, right? That noise, that quiet, like chatter, like that almost like golf, like, but it's unequivocally baseball. Like that is what you, in those first three seconds of your mic out the window was baseball.
And man, it sounded good. I want to see if we can get that to fall before I stop. He's checking the second. I'm not, the bit is dead. I'm going to drop off and let you guys continue.
That was a great bit. Bye grant. Well, and so, uh, thanks grant. So I'm going to wrap up the episode. Keep an eye out. Grant.
If you see any like British journalists in your peripheral vision, if I see newsmen, I'll keep an eye out or talk soon. Bye. I don't know what it's like on there. I got to wrap this up.
The internet on me is so bad. You've been mostly good. Like when grant was doing the mic thing, you kind of froze for five seconds, but all of you froze. Okay. We were good. We kept talking. It kept going.
I don't know if that picked up and now I don't have the editing software on this computer. So I got to leave this all in. No, it was fine. You shouldn't.
I shouldn't episode. Fuck this. Fuck this. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Fuck all of this. I got a good picture. I got a good picture of you while you're frozen with your finger up. Good.
Please tweet it. I'm fucking pissed. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye everyone. God fuck this. Fuck God. Geez.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-03-06 18:22:35 / 2024-03-06 18:44:53 / 22
