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Hey Thearon, Welcome back to the Book of Joe Podcast with me, Tom Berducci, and of course Joe Madden and Joe.

I've been dying to know since we last left you.

You talked about the possibility of wearing your raccoon coat to the Lafayette Lehigh game on Saturday.

Complete the story.

Yeah, it wasn't cold enough, so I was hoping for like that, you know, twenty five thirty degree weather.

But it's actually perfect.

It was like fifty sitting on the fifty yard line with Bergie and his wife Carolyn.

Of course Wendy was there.

Second half was in the president's suite with Nicole Hurt, who did listen.

I've never seen Lafayette look that good.

I you know, as when I was there at the school obviously and then where recently it was at the homecoming a couple of years ago.

Went to the Lafia a LEI football game after the World Series.

It looked spectacular.

Place was jammed two undefeated Patriot League teams.

Lee High wins.

They really played well.

We didn't play badly at all, but they were that good.

But I was so impressed right down to the presidential brunch where they exchanged barbs nicole and the president of Lehigh was really entertaining very good in the gym where I once saw.

How about this Tom Young coaching Rutgers versus doctor Tom Davis at Lafia with Gary Williams at his side.

They had called us Copland?

Was it fast?

Eddie Jordan Sellers?

Now all these guys and I'm just standing there looking up at the bleachers.

So that's like the mid mid to early seventies, right, they were like one of the top teams in the country at that time.

Rutgers was.

And that's also the place where at that time freshmen could not play varsity.

We're playing a freshman basketball game against Bucknell, and who's sitting up in the stands with Jim Valvano.

Even at that time I realized it was going to be there, it.

Was all of that.

I'm just like another class whatever.

I walk up next to Me's sitting up there by himself, and I sat down and I told him, hey, you're really a good coach.

I really think you do a great job.

All these things different, and then of course the ballpark, the beautiful stadium we have a great stadium.

Used to run the steps there all the time in the off season to try to get ready for baseball season.

It was just flooded with memories.

It was a great day minus the raccoon code.

Okay, I mean, listen, we both had great nostalgic weekends.

I was in Happy Valley to watch Penn State play probably their best game of the year against Nebraska, and my brother who's on the staff in Nebraska, so I was a little bit conflicted, but same kind of feeling.

I mean, you go back to your campus and just those memories come flooding back, and.

Things changed and everything.

You know, it doesn't stay exactly the same, but sort of the sights, the sounds, even the smells.

It's amazing how it transports you back to those years.

My quick observation on what's changed is, man, the students are so into groups singing, like the karaoke thing.

You know, every time out they're playing these kitschy songs where it's journey or you know, some more present day songs.

I don't know, maybe it's the whole TikTok thing is pretty cool.

The way they just join in this Ronnie really belting it out.

It's like, just imagine like at Fenway Park and it's Neil Diamond there, you know at Fenway when they play that song.

Just imagine that happening every time out.

It's so cool.

Well, even like back in the day we had the bands, right, the bands would in the Lee High band.

We were on the lofty side, so the Lee High band was in our face and they're playing this dissonant kind of sound trying to disrupt the team.

But you can think of all the fight songs we used to have right or at halftime, the band's marching on the field, which really was cool.

It was very cool.

It doesn't happen, I don't think often anymore, but the pageantry of I mean your Penn State, obviously, that's the epitome of college football.

Lafayette is a rung below that, but it's just so pure.

And I'm telling you, our facilities our first class.

The place was first class.

I could have been more proud to have been there.

I met some people had not met before, went down to zeate my fraternity house.

Afterwards, met up with some others, talked to the present brothership there.

It was just it was just really a wonderful day in a twelve thirty kickoff.

Man.

That is brilliant, especially at this time of the year.

Yeah, that is it's Saturday afternoon.

Football is awesome.

Ye, back to baseball.

And while we were watching football, the last opening in Major League Baseball was filled the Colorado Rockies with Paul de Podesta coming back to the game after.

A ten year hiatus in the NFL.

Is sticking with the guy who was the interim manager last year, Warren Schaeffer, which I find interesting, Joe, because you think, when you know you get a new president of baseball Operations comes in, he wants to install his own person.

But in this case, because Paul, I think, has been out for so long, I think it makes a lot of sense to stick with a guy who knows the lay of the land, knows the talent there, and you can decide later on whether he's your guy going forward.

But it would be a difficult transition, I would think to bring in somebody new when the guy in the front office chair is new as well.

So Warren Schaeffer, And I mean you probably appreciate this, Joe.

I mean, he's more than paid his dues.

This is a guy he's sort of like the John Schneider of Colorado.

In fact, you know he's never been with another organization.

Just the same with John Schneider, the way he played in the system in the minor leagues, became a coach and manager in the minor leagues, became a coach in the big leagues and the managing big leagues.

Same with Warren Schaffer.

Drafted by the Rockies in two thousand and seven, he played through twenty twelve.

I started as a manager in a ball in twenty fifteen.

He goes to Double A in twenty eighteen, he goes to Triple A in twenty twenty one because of major league coach in twenty three, major league manager in twenty five, replacing Buddy Black.

So this is a case, and I know he's still fairly young, but you must say, Joe, this is the guy who's paid his due, is working his way up the ladder.

I'm all for that.

I think that's wonderful.

I have never met him, but I've heard really good things, just like you've described right there, working away up the ladder and having that kind of a footprint within the organization where the new GM coming in a deep adesta not really been.

I don't know how strong he's been involved in baseball more recently, but I would almost bet as long as Schaeffer clicks some boxes for him regarding ecquiescence or you know, you know, really being into the analytical game, the fact that he speaks that language, I would even believe that.

I don't think that I would think that deep Adesta didn't have a strong feeling or inkling of who he wanted other than somebody that checks some of these boxes.

I'm sure as he got closer to the job, he probably started to ask around regarding who would be a good manager.

And from everything I'm here and I think all the ras would have pointed back to Shaeffer.

So I think it's great.

I listen, I was a lifer with the Angels for so many years, so I get it.

And when guys like this do work it all the way through, I just think it sends a lot of good messages within the organization.

He gives hope to the other guys that are doing trying to do the same thing, working their way through and to be recognized.

I've always you know, you're always at the mercy of the people with charge within your organization.

To recognize your work.

I mean, there's no you know, you can't pound your own drum.

You don't have an agent at that point, and it's all word of mouth.

So when they when there, when there is recognition within your organization.

According to this one guy Shaeffer being hired, I think the rest of the group kind it's a little bit more puffy, and I think you're going to see I'm sure the work's been good, but you can to see even a higher level knowing that if we do this well, we can be rewarded for it.

I'm curious, Joe, if you believe there's a way to win in Colorado, because no one has really solved that baseball equivalent of the riddle of the Sphinx.

I mean, I really just don't know.

Now it's not the same sort of.

Hitters ballpark as it was pre humidor don't get me wrong, it's still a hitters' ballpark.

It's just not as extreme as it was in the past.

The outfield is just way too big.

There's too much ground to cover out there, balls juice is falled, Nobody gets thrown out in the bases there because of that, and pitching is really hard because the ball just simply doesn't break as much at altitude as it does in sea level.

They had a lot of people come through there, and I know they had that one sort of mini stretch there, the Blake Street Bombers, where they just beat people with offense.

But I think it's the most difficult place to win because it's such a different game at altitude.

Let's see what Paul deep Podesta does in.

Terms of figuring out a way forward in terms of what kind of talent you want to acquire there.

But I listen, I know, in a perfect world you say, oh, just load up on sinker ball pitchers, put the ball on the ground, get athletic defenders behind them.

It's just not that easy.

I mean, just the physical.

Challenges of winning in Colorado are really really difficult, and like I said, I think it's the most difficult place to build a winning team.

Good luck, Paul Dee Pedesta.

I don't disagrebe.

I manage in Midland, Texas for two summers.

Not at the altitude, but kind of short ballpark, really windy, ball flying out.

My description was you're always trying to maneuver your team into position to kick the last field goal because it really always came down to the very end.

It was that impacted by the elements with us there, you know defense.

This is a minor league, double a team, so you can't really build your team accordingly.

But what I found, I mean contact pitching didn't work, you know, guys that and at that time, that was more of the normal component of trying to get somebody to the big leagues.

Pitching wise, the guys with making if you're making contact, it's not gonna work.

Because even bad contact turned into something good for the offensive team.

Yes, ground balls are groovy if you get the ground ball guys, Yes, that does make sense.

And then when you do that, you grow the grass, you soften up the dirt in front of the home plate.

Now you have to make sure it doesn't impact your team or that it does work in your team's favor offensively.

But I mean all these kinds of things.

The thing I like.

If you can and again it's the you know, the flavor of the day.

Anyway, I still like power pitching there.

This is one place where if you could get guys that can miss bats, that would be wonderful because like I said, even the ball and play it's it's gonna be.

It's just so much ground to cover there, which then speaks to speed.

I don't know.

I'm almost thinking like the Whitey Herzog method with the Cardinals in the eighties that was considered a very big ballpark back then.

Of course, the ball didn't carry like it does in Colorado, but big, and those gaps and those lines at Colorado are huge.

Ball goes up in the air, and these guys have so much ground to cover.

So I guess, to be more concise, I do like power pitching there if the guy has an extreme ground ball, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I like speed.

I think speed is not talked about enough to pressure.

Put pressure speed, you know, steal your bases, do all kinds of things to mess up.

Of course, you want power, but guys even without extraordinary power, still going to have power there because the ball does carry differently, and anything defense, speed and defense.

I think, I don't think that's really been the matra out there.

Everybody, like you said, wants to bang it, and but I'm telling you got it.

This is a place.

I think run prevention.

I mean, run scoring should occur, but run prevention to me would be thing that would be high on my list, and I would just go out there and get the fastest dudes they can find they could catch a baseball and really try to create more motion with this whole thing and pressurize the other side.

I know that's I don't know.

I don't even know if that's been spoken about in the past in that regard, But in Midland, man, the other things, you've got to be patient.

You're starting pitching, they're gonna give up some points.

You just can't keep going to your bullpen.

So sometimes you're gonna have to absorb games where you give up more from your starting pitcher, and even if the game is lost, at least you don't burn out your whole bullpen that day.

So there's a there's a patience with your starters there, and also knowing that on your side of things you can also come back.

So that was a different part of it, Just the patient approach with starters and as much power as you can get or or pitchers with one.

I mean a power pitch.

It doesn't have to be fastball, like an extraordinary like say, for instance, split or forkball, just a co ordinary changeup.

I would go for guys either with power or power with one extraordinary other pitch.

Now, now that we've filled all the managerial openings, if this is really interesting, Joe, to look at where the game is going and where the trends are and what teams are looking for.

So we had nine jobs that were open.

That's almost the third of the teams in baseball flipped over the manager's role.

Of the nine managers that were hired, five of them are on their first time job.

The average age of the nine managers hired this offseason is just forty five point one years old.

Seven of those nine managers hired are between thirty three and forty seven.

Now, if you look at the four managers who actually have managed before, and that's Walt Weiss in Atlanta, Derek Shelton Minnesota, Skips Shoemaker in Texas, and Warren Schaeffer back with the Rockies, their combined winning percentage in the major leagues is four nineteen four, nineteen seven, seventy one and one thoy sixty nine.

So, in other words, there is nobody of the nine managers hired who has any kind of a track record of success in the major leagues.

I just find that fascinating and I'm not get your take on this, Joe, but my take is we hear so much now about these front office dudes talking about connecting with players, and I think there's a lot of truth to that that the way to run a game now is basically a shared responsibility.

There's so much help that the front office gives the manager and everybody's pretty much doing it the same way.

That the top priority now is how do you get the players to play for you?

Well, if you're younger, you can relate better to the players, speak the same language, and they'll play for you.

That's my take on what managers are looking for essentially, And we've talked about this in the past, Joe.

They're looking for the next Stephen vote.

And when you look at you know, Craig Stamin in San Diego, Lake but Tera Washington, Greg Galman is in Baltimore, Tony Vtello with the Giants, and Kurtsuzuki with the Angels, they're all looking for the next Stephen vote.

Right, flavor of the day stuff.

Yeah, I mean, in today's game, the media component of it is way more important than the experience of actually running a baseball game.

Whether it's the social media component of whether it's the media media component of at the multiple press conferences you have to run, and also the furthermore the just the interviews you have to do, whether it's radio, TV, zoom, whatever, there's all kinds of commitments on a daily basis when you walk into the building.

So I think that again, like you're saying, the way the game is administrator right now, where there is a way more heavy hand coming from top to the to the middle, which is the dugout in the field.

They they, like I said, we talked about it.

They being the front office, who prefer somebody that could be more influenced than just telling you the truth.

They want that that influence from top to middle.

And with that, as long as these guys like you said, it's it's just different.

I mean even actually you're just bleeding into my thought for the day afterwards already.

You know, it's just a matter of this this connection process, the way we connect and the the the shorter attention spans that we're we have developed.

I think it's intentionally, but it's been unintentional that my my my attention pen has been shortened a bit, but intentionally done through algorithms et cetera.

So it's it's got to be a different tact in a sense.

These players don't really they don't connect to the past as much.

They don't, you know, the history of the game.

I don't think for most of them really is that important their history really pretty much will be talking about what they saw on their phones after the game, whether it's Instagram, whatever, Facebook, I don't care, whatever they're connected with.

So there's a different kind of connection involvement here as compared to the past.

So I understand it.

That's exactly what's going on.

And again it's just it's what's in vogue right now.

Will it eventually pass?

I don't know, you know.

And again talking not giving it away, but what I was going to mention afterwards, it's just how we're being trained as a society right now.

And whether you're a baseball player or a plumb room my guy Aaron's going to show up in a little bit or whatever, that's just the way the world's working.

We were getting these these short sound bites and these short little thoughts, and listening skills are really being becoming evaporated.

The ability to focus and concentrate on one thing for a period of time has been become lesson than it's been trained to be that way.

So speaking the same language I think probably is important.

Probably it is important, it's just a different method being incorporated.

So I think the way these guys are being chosen is the sensibilities that they may have in common with the players, and the fact that everybody's doing it.

Of course, because it's such an ancestual situation.

All these GM's presidents talk among one another and they're all after the same thing.

Yeah, that's a big part of it as well.

If you go out and hire someone like, you know, a Blake Butterra thirty three years old, never been in a Major league dugout personally, I like the hire.

I mean I do.

I think if you're looking for leadership, and I do think that is that's I think that at the top of the wish list, you have to be a leader.

In today's game experience, maybe not so much.

We talked about that with all the help that these managers are getting running a game and choosing a staff even but if you're a leader that's a parent at thirty three for the really good ones, now it may not work out, But I I don't mind the fact that they're taking a flyer, so to speak.

But that makes it easier for the Padres to hire a guy like Craig Stammitt, a former pitcher who's never managed before at forty one, to run a team that's expected to compete for the National League Pennant and on down the line Craig Almernez, Kurtzuzuki, and on and on.

It goes right, you see other teams do it.

I'm not against it, Joe, but I do think that communication and again that we're connecting, connecting with the players is really driving these decisions, and that means skewing younger.

Yeah, and again it's just it is.

It's what's happening now.

It is the church of what's happening now, and it's readily accepted.

And again we'll we talked.

I think we've talked about this.

But the outside of the box thinking of the last twenty years is now in the box.

These kind of things are becoming so commonplace you can't say it's outside of the box anymore.

Almost conservativism is becoming outside the box, where this more progressive approach to doing things is more of being in the box.

So yeah, that's it's unique time to be proven whether it's right or wrong, or it's going to be successful or not, like an like anyc change, whatever you always have, it's going to take time to find.

Out the results of all this.

And it's and again it's like the whoever is in charge gets to create the rules.

And that's just the way it is right now.

The way the thing is being constructed is based on a set of guidelines that you know, probably started with moneyball to a points filtered into the rays when we were there, and then eventually I still didn't feel a lot of it.

I don't think twenty fourteen fifteen, I think it really hit the ground running post that, like twenty seven eighteen nineteen.

I think that's when this really became an accelerated method of front office to managers becoming middle managers.

So it's just a gradual transitions that's been occurring.

Like most I don't think it's something that we've talked about.

It.

It's not like ripping the band aid off.

It's just slowly pulling it off and eventually you expose whatever you want to expose.

And I think that's what's happening, and that's how I see it, and again, I'm not arguing whether it's good or bad.

I'm just saying from my perspective, I wrote something down when you were talking about this in the beginning, I never wanted something before it.

Was my time.

I was so aware of, Oh yeah, I wanted to be a manager.

But am I ready to be a manager?

If I am?

I a leader?

I know leadership qualities.

I think to me, those are accumulated over time.

And you know, whether you start as a quarterback in midsured football and eventually end up as a major league manager, you're calling your own plays on your tin.

Does that groom lead?

What?

What does groom leadership?

And what does that actually mean?

So I think.

Sometimes those terms are thrown out there very casually without really understanding.

You know what, Okay, when you say the guys regular, what does that mean He's a great communicator, is a great motivator?

Does he have this ability to connect?

Is he a great listener?

What are these qualities that you're really digging on them?

And then how does react in the pressure moment, a moment that he's never really been confronted within the past, or has he been that You've seen this grace under pressure where where he's really developed experience.

All these things are this is how I evaluate these moves, and as I'm watching them, this is what I think, and so I'm curious.

I listen.

I really want them all to do well.

To shoot.

I was I was fifty one and I was considered young in a sense when I got my managerial job in two thousand and six, and think, I thank god I didn't get it before them.

Just think about that, you are fifty one and the average age of managers hired nine managers hired.

Is forty five.

It's really changed quickly.

Hey, there's been a one on one from one old fashioned baseball trade.

We need to talk about this between the Mets and the Rangers.

It's a fascinating one.

We'll do that right after this on the Book of Joe.

Welcome back to the Book of Joe.

Trade season it's already been in full swing, I think.

I mean, we talked about Grayson Rodriguez and the Orioles going to the Angels for turned Ward and now this was I think as surprise for a lot of people.

Joe brandon Nimo, lifelong Met gets traded to Texas for Marcus Simeon, who's sort of the heart and soul with Cory Seger their World Championship team just a couple of years ago.

This was an interesting one for me, Joe, because I think it boils down to this.

Both teams don't like the players under the contracts they're currently playing for, so they're basically choosing the lesser of two evils, and it more directly guys that probably more fit the makeup of their team.

For Texas, with Adulas Garcia getting non tendered, the outfielder of Brandon Neimo makes sense, whereas Josh Wilson just Smith and go play base.

Uh.

And for the Mets, who were a terrible defensive team last year, Simeon gives them elite defense at second base.

So what was your first reaction when you heard about Nemo for Simeon.

One hundred percent?

I mean they're both older.

I was at thirty three and thirty five something like that.

Yep, I mean I I you know, when you look at that, the only guy I could compa that with is when we got Zo with the Cubs.

But he was not I don't think quite thirty five, or maybe he was, but I thought it was an exchange of contracts and players that you know, almost equal in age and money zoed and all that kind of good stuff.

And so.

But then it probably fits a need.

I mean, the Mets wanting to improve their defense.

I get it.

Marcus was not as good at the play lash Man when this guy was like hot a couple of years ago.

Well, that was like one of the better offensive players in the league.

So I didn't watch them last so I don't know what the difference is.

And on the other side, Nemo, I mean, he gets hurt a little bit too, So I don't even know how that played into it.

And maybe they thought, you know, at thirty three, starting to lose some of his juice.

But I think they also have some people in the outfield coming on up that they would prefer to get a look at.

So I just think it was one of those like, you know, exchanging salaries and ages and let's give it a different look.

We need to we'd like to improve our defense.

Marcus kind of checks that, Nemo.

You know, he's kind of this this raw rock kind of dude that flies all over the place and that's cool, and so there's probably some kind of I don't even know, like it's a need, but an ancillary need that kind of checked a box, but I think the salary and age component of it made it more amenable.

And then the slight need on both sides to improve like thirty five.

I mean, that's to really believe that he's going to be that guy.

And actually I read in the paper today where Sterns was talking about not necessarily looking for the offense, but they believe their defense was so inaddict with that, he's going to provide even if he doesn't hit as he had a couple of years ago, that he's still going to provide what they're looking for through defense.

I don't know if that was a rationalization or totally believe in it.

I think he totally believes in it, because if you look at the Baseball actuarial charts, you cannot trade for a thirty five year old second baseman and think you're going to get offense.

I mean, you mentioned it down here.

Last year he had a foot fracture, so the injury was related to this, but he has been trending down.

It's amazing to me, Joe and I've seen this happen time and time again.

Those middle infielders, especially second basemen, who play a lot talking about Dustin Pedroia DJ Lemayhew with Maryfield, they go quickly.

I saw it happen to Robbie Alomar, And it's been funny that you mentioned Ben Zobrist.

He is the last second baseman at age thirty five or older who was even average in terms of adjusted OPS playing one hundred games at second base.

That was in twenty six team.

So we've gone eight full seasons in which there has been sixty two second basemen who've been at least average offensively.

None of them were thirty five or older.

So the idea that you're trading for Marcasimion after a down year and you're taking on years thirty five, thirty six, and thirty seven to play second base and think you're going to get offense from him ain't happening.

I think David Stearns, he's a smart guy.

He knows that, but he also knows that this guy can still play defense.

The Mets defense was bad.

It was bottom ten last year in the big leagues, and Stearns realizes to get more out of his pitching, he needs better defense.

I mean, look around the Mets field and what they put out there last year.

They just don't have enough rangy athletes to cover ground in the outfield and infield behind their pitching.

And that included Brandon Neimo, who can't throw and to me as a below average defender.

So David Sterns figures, you know what, we've got to improve our run prevention.

And that's not just about going out there and buying more pitchers on the free agent market.

It's about improving yourself defensively.

Now they've done that, They've improved themselves defensively.

Listen, this is early in the winter.

There's more moves to make.

But there's no way that you can go into twenty twenty six, twenty seven and twenty eight and think that Marcus Simeon is going to be an above average player.

It's not happening.

This guy rarely misses time.

I know, I just spoke about his injury last year.

That's the anomaly.

This dude plays every day.

I mean he's taking more than six hundred plate appearances every year, year after year after year.

Now he's a great clubhouse guy.

I mean that's a part of it too.

It's not the reason you make a deal because the guy's a good clubhouse guy.

But that's a nice ancillary bonus you're getting with Marcus Simeon.

So I get what David Sturns is doing here.

But folks, I'm telling you this guy is a dead pole hitter.

He's not going to be a three hundred hitter, you know, getting on base thirty five percent of the time of the time to lineup.

That ain't happening with Marcus Simeon.

Starts right there.

You just mentioned it.

The fact that he plays so much and you're seeing a decline.

I mean, I'm just going to try to means Zoe, see, Zoe, you had to give some time off.

But I'll tell you one thing about Zorrilla.

His post game workouts were phenomenal.

What he did after games after he played, getting ready for the next day.

If I'd let him know, of course, if he's going to play tomorrow or not, if it's a day game after night game.

Tried not to.

However, there's times, maybe late year, you wanted to make sure that he still had him out there.

So that was a part of it with Zoe.

Now Simeon, you got to you're going to have to.

I would just start with that.

I would create some kind of a plan and have a backup of course at second base, probably primarily because if I have a fly ball pitcher pitching that day starter, you know, that might be the better day to give him off.

But I would really see if I could get more offense out of him by rescuing him a little bit.

And then, of course, as you get to be thirty five, if you want to fulfill this contract in any way, shape or form that it at least comes to something where it feels acceptable, I would really and I'm sure they've already talked about it, you I would really develop a plan for days offer him because I'm telling you, when that bat is alive, but ball comes off hot.

And I didn't realize he had played that many games on an annual basis, So moving it forward, you know, just I'm sure you know he works very hard.

Like most of these guys.

Do Zoe was a postgame freak, which always impressed me.

Bob Boone was a postgame freak as a as a catcher back in the day, and he played until he was forty years old.

I don't know what this guy does, Marcus does, but I would really pay attention to giving him his rest and see we get more bat while we're still feeling the benefits of his defense.

On the Texas side, I talked about the fact that non tender Adolice Garcia, who's just gone hit basically his game has cratered since twenty twenty three.

I mean, the guy just cannot catch up to velocity at this point.

Way too many strikeouts in the Texas lineup.

They're trying to change that.

They're trying to get younger, trying to get more athletic.

Now, it's interesting Nimo actually strikes out at a higher rate than Simeon does.

I mentioned he's not a great defender in the outfield.

I imagine they'll put him in left field.

You know, you've got Carter, You've got Wyatt Langford there also in the outfield.

It's interesting.

I don't know where Texas is going here, Joe, other than trying to put the ball in play a little bit more.

They're trying to get a little bit younger.

Do they try to now trade Corey Seeger and just full on in terms of, you know, moving on from the championship team from.

A couple of years ago.

They're in a transition period here, you know, like the Mets, let's wait and see how the rest of the offseason plays out.

But listen, I believe the Mets are.

Happy to be out from five years of Brandon Nimo watching him age as an outfielder.

The Rangers are taking on that aging curve of Brandon Demo.

It's just a fascinating trade.

Again, I don't think either one is a true impact player that's going to change the fortunes of the team.

It's sort of shuffling the cards a little bit here based on what positions they play.

But I can tell you both teams seem to be happy to be out from under the commitment they had left on these contracts.

Yeah, but they still have a commitment left both sides, right, I mean there's still things, There's still numbers and dollars left on both sides.

So again, you'd have to like look under the hood the Rangers hood, look under the Mets hood, and really try to understand completely why they did this, because again, it looks like a push kind of a thing.

On the surface.

We're getting better defense, We're getting this energetic outfielder.

How does it fit into our plans?

I mean, somebody liked them for whatever reason, or like I said, it was just I don't know why, but this even Steven Exchange, just this mooth guys on and see if it has any kind of ceber rattling effect and all of a sudden we get somebody get something better out of it.

Just it's a curiosity thing.

We'll see what happens.

But it is it's kind of like was a head scratch when I read it too, other than the fact that the age and the salaries kind of matched up.

And meanwhile, hal Steinbrenner made a little bit of a news the owner of the New York Yankees, was talking about competitive balance in the Yankees payroll, a couple of things that I found interesting.

And listen, anything that he says, it's.

Going to be parsed by not just Yankee fans, but baseball fans because it is the New York Yankees, right.

He talked about how he would consider a cap as long as they had a floor.

And listen, there's no way if the owners ask for a cap that there would not be a floor associated with it.

So that's a given.

So he's on record essentially as saying, I'm okay with the idea of talking about a cap, and he talked about the idea that baseball needs improved a balance, and as he said, most of the fans out there would think the competitive balance is not good enough.

Now you can argue that there's been great competitive balance in baseball when it comes to who wins the World Series.

I realized that teams with higher payrolls have much better chance of winning.

But it was interesting that the New York Yankees owner came out and talked about that.

He also said he he used the word ideal.

It's ideal that their payroll next season would be less than it was this season.

I mean, that was a head scratcher of me.

They were three hundred and nineteen or so million dollars, and he wasn't committing to saying we're going under or we're going over.

He just said, in an ideal situation, we would be under.

He thinks it's enough to spend three hundred million and still have a World Series contender, and I think he's right about that.

But if you're a Yankee fan, it's probably nothing you wanted to hear that the ideal situation for New York is to have a payroll less in twenty twenty six than they had in twenty five.

You know, I've been involved in that where you you know, you leave camp without hope in a sense, I mean you're leaving spring training and you know and your fans, no, we got no chance, bad bad method.

It was my primarily my first year with the with the Devil Rays, and you're taking over this situation that once I got there, realized how kind of dysfunctional it was, and then you know, the obviously the transformation, however, it was really that's that's where your your acumen really should show up.

And at that time, people were constantly saying, you know, an added defendant.

I just gave my take on it.

But the Rays need to move out of the Devil Rays need to move out of the American LEAGUEES.

And my my thought was, no, this is the best place for us to get better, quicker.

When you face better competition, you got to raise your level.

And and again I I'm just saying, like, if you try to do everything the Dodgers do or the Yankees do, or remember these these these juggernauts do, and to try to match them step for step going to happen.

That's why, That's why I don't understand why more teams don't zag.

I mean, it's like everybody wants to be the same and the same methods and the same construction, and we want the same dudes and all this other stuff.

And if you want to ascend quickly, you have to be able to again get out of this box a little bit.

And so I'm just curious as too why that doesn't have I can't even imagine going to camp and not be able to stand up in front of the team and talk about how we're going to get at least get to the playoffs this year, and always the goal should be able to play the be in the last game of the season and win it.

That has to be your mindset going into it.

I know it may be unrealistic sometimes I get that, And with the Devil Rays, I was never able to say that when I first got there, but I did say it going into season two thousand and eight, and now that it's like after a seventy or seventy one win season the previous year, So you got to get yourself out a little bit more.

You've got to be willing to take chances, alternative routes, methods, the roadless traveled by, and not just get on this busy highway that everybody's the same.

So that that to me is like the guys that really felt they.

Have no hope.

To me, that would be the most interesting place for me to end up if I ever wanted to come back again or got a chance to come back again.

Would be the group that feels like they have no hope, or they can't really win, or they're they're they're they're afraid to talk about expectations in the preseason.

That's that's the most interesting place to be.

So I that's that's how I look at it, this whole thing like right now, to me, you know, it might be the most interesting job in the game, is Warren Shaeffer.

That might be the most interesting job.

I know, I know, I know, I know.

And if pet Peppy was there, Buddy Black was there, I know, I know, I know.

They have a tremendous spring training facility, they got a great ballpark, they get a wonderful fan base.

The the the atmosphere of the altitude does present problems, and that to me is why it's so interesting.

That's that's the perfect laboratory to incubate and try different and new things and go out there and play the game even as simply as listen, boys, every time you put the ball on the ground, I want your best time the first base.

I'm not talking about getting hurt when you make a turn at first base.

I want to see the best turn theoretically fundamentally proper baseball.

And everybody talks about, you know, doing it right, but then at some points you give up on and coolness takes over.

So the best or most interesting job to me right now is Schaefer's, and I wish them nothing but the best.

I love that idea.

I mean, essentially, you're talking about taking what are perceived to be disadvantages into advantages, right, And in some cases I think Milwaukee and Murph do that really well where they know the expectations are against them, but they actually play that up and become better than a lot of people think it's not easy to do.

But I like that idea in Colorado, that there's an opportunity there to zag when everybody else is zigging.

And by the way, I mean, we're essentially now the clock is only about twelve months away from the expiration to the CBA, and I know everybody wants to know right now, what's going to happen, and will there be a lockout?

I can tell you I'm not sure the owners know exactly what they want to present and whether if they do want to significantly change the economic system of baseball and ask for a cap, well, yeah, then we're probably going to see trauma of some sort.

Things like that don't happen if they happen at all easily.

But baseball's kind of in a weird space where we just talked about that, Joe, where if you're one of the teams where you go to spring training and you don't have hope, man, you're hoping that the system changes.

But at the same time, baseball is on this high right now, and a big part of it, let's be honest, is you have the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs, the Dodgers, and the Mets, these teams in the biggest markets with the biggest payrolls, who are really attractive and doing really well.

So you're going to I have to choose at some point here which path you want to go down.

And again, that's crazy as it sounds.

It's only twelve months, but still too early to predict how this is going to play out.

And I don't think it's that cut and dried.

I would have our girl back in the day.

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

I would have Janis Joplin's I would have That would be the walkout music for the whole team, to inspire the group, the groups that really feel like there is no hope or you know we're going to be out of it by Memorial Day.

Whatever.

You have to understand there's a certain there's this high level of creativity, involvement and ability to just to throw it out there when you are perceived to be not as good.

There is a freedom about it, and to not take advantage of that freedom.

To me and just stay with status quo is absolutely the wrong way to go about your business.

Create that new path.

I listen, I'm telling you this.

You're getting me jacked up right now.

I understand you're talking about like some of these coastal teams that are very good, But I'm a hinterland kind of guy, you know, I want to see this.

I want I'd love to see the resurgence of that.

The guys that kick out the big teams in the shins constantly or step on their toes and eventually by the end of the season, you go in the Fenway Park, where you could not win in the beginning, and all of a sudden you could.

You could beat Boston and Fenway where you went into the old Yankee Stadium, and my god, you sit there in the top round in the dugout is to like to send a top step.

We played a double hitter, and I don't know if the combined scores of both games might have been like thirty something to five.

And you're standing up there in the sun all day, just getting your brains beat out all these all these moments.

So what do I do?

Do you just continue to try to play Yankee style baseball?

Or do you go gorilla warfare with these guys?

And that's that's what I'm saying.

You have this opportunity when you're not perceived to be that good and you're trying to ascend, you have so much freedom to be creative and try new things.

That to me is really the definition into being progressive.

The status quo has become staid to me right now, I want to see this progressive approach from the Rockies or these other teams, even you know the Angels.

Right now, they were trying last year in different ways.

You can make the argument right now that the Nationals are trying another method right now.

This is what I like to see from the other guys, the group that is there just to support the group that's supposed to win at the end of the year.

So we could play one hundred and sixty two game schedule.

Don't be afraid to try something new on your own circle your wagons.

Come out with a different approach that really on a nightly basis.

By the time you play, you're done playing.

The big boys.

Their shins are black and blue.

By the way, thanks for the Genis Joplin reference.

Because you're setting me up.

I want to talk about one of the great all time songwriting lines that was written, and of course we will get to.

Your thought of the day.

We'll do that right after this on the Book of Joe.

Welcome back to the Book of Joe.

Finishing up here great songwriting lines, lyrics, Joe, how about this one?

I fought the Law and the long One.

I know you gotta love that one.

Right absolutely.

I mean I've done it my whole life.

Well it's been the song has been covered by so many rock and rollers, but Originally it was written by Sonny Curtis.

Back in nineteen sixty six, he played with Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Had an incredible songwriting career.

He passed away recently.

It's the reason I bring it up here.

But just imagine writing a line like that that basically lives on in perpetuity and it is something that other artists want to celebrate and bring their own take to.

I think that's just amazing, the way you can.

Find the right sequence of words, you know, just tap the right vein and it can last forever.

And he did that.

Also in nineteen seventy, he was asked to write the opening song for a new sitcom that was starting known as The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

And you got to remember that one, Joe, right, that's got to be in your playbook.

Love that show?

Are you're kidding?

Absolutely?

It was wonderful.

You're going to make it, after all?

You know who can set the world on with her smile?

Right that he wrote the words of that song.

They actually redid it after the first season because it was sort of almost like an open ending question, like whether she was going to make it or not.

And once they knew this was a hit show.

They sort of played up the positivity end of it that, yeah, you've made it, Mary Tyler Moore of course throwing the hat at the end of it.

Just an iconic opening.

I'm just blown away by the fact that someone like a Sunny Curtis passed away to eighty eight can leave us with these just iconic in this case songs.

But it's more the words and the way that you know, we talked about going to Lafayette or going to Penn State, and the nostalgia comes back.

Well, you know as well as anybody, Joe, that music and songs and words can do the same thing.

No question.

One man's see, I think, is another man's floor, right, I mean that's I've such a sum in a Garfunkle fan growing up.

I still listen to them every morning.

I put some in a Garfunkel radio on the Pandora as I wake up, wake up slowly, sun hasn't there's not even don yet, And I love that, and I love watching the dawn break and the peaceful nature living out here in the country like that.

These words stimulate and they're absolutely while yes, I can go on and on and which I had time to write down all my different favorite We all have our favorites, but I am a big I've been motivated a lot by music we both have and words within music, and when you're able to slow them down.

Sometimes as a kid it was more visceral.

You would just like the beat and song whatever, you went along with it.

Then as you get old, you've kind of slowed it down to oof and let's start listening to the words and how well thought out they were.

I recently watched Laurel Canyon a little bit and all the different great groups that were involved there and talked about their different songwriting.

We've talked about.

I'm huge Linda Ronstein fan.

Even though she never actually wrote music, she made them all her own.

All the songs that she sung, she would put her own twits.

JD.

Salder and her were like really tight and he would write music for her and this lady would make it her own, and then the lyrics live on forever a long long time.

It's still that's probably my favorite song by Ron's stats.

So yeah, every morning, whatever it is, I mean, I don't know, you're probably the same.

I get in the car, the radio has got to be on I wake up in the morning and the radio's got to be on the songs that their music has got to be on.

I don't know, like if there's a if there's a down moment during the course of my day, or if I'm not even in your golf cart.

Now we put music on the golf cart, right.

Music is such a part, the central part of our existence.

And when you it is the visceral part of it to beat the sound whatever, which is really more prominent now than ever.

But when you're able to slow it down and really, these people are such crafts making.

My man Eddie veter Eddie, when he writes me a text, my god, it's like it's like he's a composing it's just it's next.

He's going to save it for his next album whatever.

It's just that when you're an artist, man, artists, it's a different breed.

Their vision is different.

They see they see these four trees in front of me right now, they would be able to describe it in a way that makes you want, where are those four trees?

I got to go see them, whether in Pennsylvania somewhere.

It's truly astounding.

I'm a big fan of that.

Yeah, it just brought me back to the days buying albums and uh, back in the day on the beat with the Yankees, you know, going through Milwaukee, we used to go to a place called Radio Doctor, Milwaukee, great record shop.

Used to come home with a stack of LPs, and I was always disappointed if when I opened it up and I looked at the liner notes, there were no lyrics.

You know.

Nowadays, of course, and for a long time, you get the lyrics, which is great you can get on your phone while you're listening to a song.

But back in the day, you know what this was like, Joe, if you got the album.

I don't know about you.

I wanted to see the lyrics as well, because listening on you know, your your transistor AM FM radio, you couldn't always make out the words.

And now again, going back to my day at Penn State.

The other day, I was blown away by the fact that all these young students are word by word, this turning Beaver Stadium into the largest karaoke bar of the country.

Every one of these songs, they knew every one of the words.

So I'm a big word guy, and I was always disappointed if I bought an album and opened it up, and I saw that the ors were not included.

Just as important as the music.

We've gone into the wordsmith that you are also.

I mean, we've been influenced in so many you know, you've probably read a thousand books.

I did you listen to a zillion songs?

I did, And even going to church and having the priest give a thoughtful and sightful kind of a sermon.

I will any time I could go somewhere and here's somebody talk about I don't care what it is anything, and if this person is into.

It, I am too.

I think I've developed good listening skills over Tom, and I think that's still when you talk about managers, coaches, leadership qualities.

While I still believe good listening skills where you really lock in and it's just you and that person and you're not formulating your next thought.

You're not you know, the person standing next to you wants to speak with you also, but you stay here, you stay present, tense, eyeball, the eyeball locked in this moment.

I know when I have a conversation, I'm communicating with somebody and I believe I have their full attention.

My god, they got every every ounce of me.

So now that we've talked about the importance of words and lyrics, the pressures on you, Joe with our thought of the day, as you always do, to bring us home with some words of wisdom.

Yeah, I was reading The Post, of course this morning.

It was an article, you know, about information and how it's generated these days.

We're talking about the social media component of it.

And the rapidity with videos, videos, videos, short burst, shortbor short bursts.

And I had this conversation with Scott Harris is now the head dude with the Tiger Scott he was with the Covees at the time.

He sit in my office.

I remember in Cincinnati, and this when I was really becoming annoyed with myself because I really felt my attention span was diminishing and I didn't I couldn't pick up a book and read it from cover to cover in like a week, and I thinking myself, what's wrong?

What's wrong with me?

I read all the time, like from the moment I woke up this morning to like this, I've been reading all morning.

I read Laura Wong's book a little bit.

It was a part of what I thought was outstanding.

You already know, and I highlighted, and then I wrote my own little interpret rotation.

I've already senator.

So I'm always reading.

But the ability to pick up a novel and sit down every night normally before I went to bed.

It wasn't Netflix, it was a book.

Wow, I missed those days.

And that was my conversation with Scotty.

And this is like, so this is like, I don't know, last ten years, I think it's really been building.

So today I got this one article and then I blew up on one part of it because I really thought, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

So from today's times, out of this post and I don't remember who the author is.

I should have written it down.

But repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast paced content may contribute to habituation, in which users become desensitized to slower, more effortful cognitive tasks, such as reading, problem solving, or deep learning.

The researchers hypothesized this process may gradually weaken the brain's ability to sustain attention on a single task.

My god, that's like the tremendous explanation of what's going on, and you know, relating to what you were talking about earlier, the method of matching up managers with players today, it's all incorporated in that nobody reads books anywhere, very rarely, that they don't read it from cover to cover.

And then when you don't do that problem solving, you don't have to mean right now, we're you know, considering AI to the point where you don't even have to deep think anywhere, you don't have to be creative anymore.

All this stuff is going to be done for you.

That's to me where the danger lies.

So when you're quote unquote seeking leadership, what are you seeking?

Are you seeking somebody that's really there to point out life's lessons and give advice based on again experiences the really relaying of intuition.

Is that what we're looking for with with leadership like this courageous method of putting yourself out there?

Or are we trying to communicate with somebody and understand that listen, they don't listen, and they're gonna they're gonna check out very quickly.

And how do I get my point across in short bursts?

Where really it should take longer than a short burst.

But I don't have that because if I do attempt to do that, my audience is not it's just going to turn me off.

And we have created this.

This is not something it's something new.

It wasn't the process in the past.

I much prefer the slower process where my mind still does leap.

I brote this really long evaluation to Laura today based on what I read on her book this morning.

I still got it, but that was from my years of I mean, man, I don't even know how many novels I've read, and I don't know how many conversations that have had whatever, But that's that's the difference.

And I thought this paragraph really puts that in perspective and explains exactly what's going on in today's world.

Yeah, and we're probably going to have to save all of this for an entire episode, Joe.

The way to talk about this, because.

I think I believe the scientific term is brain rot, where people just basically turn off their critical thinking and just scroll, scroll, scroll.

You got put down your phone, man, I mean it says it's as scary what's going on we talk about the environment changing, what we're doing to our brains is just about as scary, if not more so.

And you're dead on with that evaluation because our brains literally are changing.

This is not hypothesis, just that the physical the chemical makeup of our brains are literally being rewired to think less.

I mean, we have a society that's built on convenience and unfortunately that is also taking part inside our head.

And it's something we need to wake up about.

So that's a lot to unpack, Joe.

But I'm glad you brought it up because it's it's super important, and you'd like to think that we're going to realize in time that we need to have the penduluin come back the other way and slow things down, especially when it comes to our reading and critical thinking.

But we have to hear those alarm bells first.

Agreed to me.

You don't want to wait for a catastrophic moment to make you do those kind of things.

This is one of those things to me that you have to stay ahead of perspective.

When I do pray, I pray that I am able to stay ahead of perspective.

Meaning you get so carried away with something that something has to come and slap you in the face and say, hey, hey, slow it down.

That's incorrect, you're getting off track.

Let's get back on the rails right here.

Let's do what we know is the right thing to do, is opposed to the expedient thing to do.

That's what I pray for.

Great words brought us home as you always do, Joe, flawlessly, So thank you for that, and we'll see you next time on the Book of Joe.

See your brother, Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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