Evan Drellich reacts to Rob Manfred’s World Series Press Conference

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Hey, we're back with Evan Drelich, who writes for The Athletic. A lot of business, some CBA talk, what the commissioner says.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: Et cetera.

00:00:10
Speaker 1: Right, lots to get to here with Evan. Evan, good to see you, and we want to start with Rob Manfred speaking to the media. There's a number of topics to cover. The one that I think stood out the most for this series was how he gave a little shout out to Vancouver as he was asked about expansion. You know, we have the Montreal Expost big doc that came out this week too. That was interesting, but he said, hey, don't don't count out the number three market in Vancouver. So I wanted to get your thoughts on how realistic that is or if that's just leverage to push the West Coast team's potential ones up to pay more.

00:00:46
Speaker 3: Look, if I had, if I had to guess right now, I think it's probably a kind of a nice thing to say when you're standing in Canada where a World Series is being hosted for the first time in what thirty two years, we haven't had previously a lot to talk about a Canadian city being one of those two sites. For an expansion team. I guess it's not impossible, But if you're Rob Manver, there's no downside to that comment. You can, you know, get a little bit more leverage, maybe with the Nashville or Portland or Salt Lake City. I think if if it were realistic, Vancouver having a minor league team already probably makes the most sense. But I gotta admit something here. I'm a New Yorker, didn't grow up that far from Canada. I haven't spent that much time in Canada to runt of the lovely city. I don't know enough about the different cities up there. And even it was actually funny when Rob was doing the press conference on the field. When he was answering I think a follow up question about what cities he was interested in. He turned to shy David, who's you know, it covers his blue jats for a very long time, does a great job. It's like, you're from Canada, you would know better than me, and I think that's the reality. I can't tell you which market would be better, but I don't see it as the likeliest outcome that Major League Baseball ends up with a second team in Canada.

00:01:56
Speaker 4: Again, I mean in Montreal, cant aver.

00:02:00
Speaker 5: I've been to Vancouver.

00:02:01
Speaker 4: It's pretty, but that they think Seattle has travel problems, go to Vancouver, that's even farther away from everything else. So I just I don't see it. I think it was a cute little piece that Rob said, Oh where are we? What's that's why he's like, hey, shy, what what country are we in right here? Let's oh, we're in Canada. Let's throw another Canadian out there, because Montreal obviously would be the next one because it's close on the East coast.

00:02:21
Speaker 5: But I don't think it's happened.

00:02:23
Speaker 4: I just thought it was him, you know, trying to add fuel to the fire here of oh, let's throw another name out there, so Salt Lake and Portland have to up the annie. But it's not going to happen. Portland's a wonderful place. I played there in Triple A, I played there on the road. It was a wonderful place to visit for a couple of days. But I can't see it being a next viable So I agree with you having.

00:02:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, every World Series, whatever city we're in, he gives a compliment to the area, to the owners, and oftentimes it's not that it's not true, but it's just it's hard to lean too much into that idea right now.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: Okay, next up on the docket. In your article, twelve team postseason, sounds like Manfred likes that. I personally like that and hope that they don't add Now, did you get the inclination that he liked twelve even when they add two and it's thirty two teams in the league.

00:03:15
Speaker 3: That's a good question that was not asked. My guess is at that point you would probably do something. But that is again so many years away. I mean, he keeps talking, he being man for it about knowing which two teams he wants to add before he leaves, which as of now would be in twenty twenty nine. That doesn't mean the two teams will started playing, right, So you're so far away from that. It's probably a future CBA, not the one they're going to negotiate next year. That said, while you're still at thirty teams, like what you want to let in basically half the league, I mean, you could, but twelve is already a lot of teams, and I think it's I took it as a good sign that they weren't thinking about adding more at the moment, or at least they're not publicly saying that there's always more money and more playoffs games. But at a certain point you kind of dilute your own postseason product. And I think they know that, and you can't go from you know, it was only a few years ago you went to ten, right, I think it got a stay put. And then if you want to go to talk about it during expansion.

00:04:15
Speaker 5: Okay, oh but they want they want the salary cap. Other leagues have nineteen teams that make it and ever so maybe they do want to go that way. But what you talked about was expanding. Let's take care of Sacramento first. Rob had some comments about how players that he talked to were like, Hey, it wasn't so.

00:04:37
Speaker 3: Bad, right, Yeah, we had the early season. I mean it might have been opening day when Severino was popping off about Sacramento not being up to park. Anybody who walks in that ballpark is Manford himself acknowledged, realizes this is a minor league ballparks. It is not what you want. A pull. Writers will sometimes often cite to each other quoting Joe Gilardi used to say, that a lot. I think it's not what you want, but they what are they gonna do? They got nowhere else to go, right, you know, without rehashing everything that happened in Oakland. This Sacramento situation, I think, frankly sucks. I think people acknowledge that it's nice for the city of Sacramento, but it is not what anybody would have wanted. And you just got to deal with it until the Vegas project gets done, hopefully as they expect it will. But that is the thing that Manford had said for years was, you know, we got to deal with the A's situation, gotta deal with the Ray situation, their stadium deals before we talk about expansion. With the Ray's ownership change, it looks like it looks like they'll they'll have the money and we'll put together a stadium project in that Tampa area. So whether that's Tampa, it South Saint Pete, somewhere, they are as opposed to going elsewhere in Florida. And then if John Fisher's project in Vegas works on time, yeah, you could have your two stadiums dealt with by the time you would you would try to move for expansion. You know, whether that's twenty eight, twenty nine, whatever. But yeah, it's and it's it's also silly in the context of like the Marlins. The Marlins, you have teams that are doing so poorly and struggling in this environment to just, you know, kind of talk about the cash grab of expanding without looking at the broader contact. There's a lot that goes into it, Right, you'd rather have all your current franchises in good, comfortable situations before you go and throw two more in the mix.

00:06:36
Speaker 4: Evan, For first of all, you know, I love this. Oh everyone said it wasn't that bad. Every player I talked to, every coach I talked to. Now I didn't talk to a lot of the A's players. They said it sucked. Okay, every every opposing team that went there said it absolutely sucks. So who is he talking to? I want to know what players he is he talking to the A's guys? Of course, the A's are going to say that because they're happy to be there, they're they're in the big leagues, or a bunch of young guys. Sev Reno was never happy with Sacramento, right, I mean, how many players came out like So, who is Rob talking to is this again, Is this just Rob saying things so like it makes the guy who owns the team in Sacramento happy. So hey, maybe down the road we can talk to him about if Vegas doesn't work, we can try to go there again.

00:07:16
Speaker 3: I mean, he is a politician. He does have to think about all those types of things. I don't know who he's talking to. I mean, look, could somebody have said something along the lines of, hey, you know they try. That could tell they tried, and you know some things are good and other things. A bet somebody, not everybody would have to necessarily throw their arms up and say, God, this is awful. But it is. And I actually give Manford credit. He in the comment that he made to the to the little gaggle of reporters on the field, said it is a minor league stadium, which I actually I can't remember if he'd made it as direct and acknowledgment of that in the past. But that's what it is, and it's not where Major league Baseball should be played. You had two teams in minor league stadums just hear the Rays. Obviously we're a different situation, but both of them ended up with attendance around seven hundred and fifty thousand. It's just it is a strange contrast to have those teams and the situations they're in and also be talking about, Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna build a major league put a major league team in Vancouver. You know, it's it's all ways off. But they need the Sacramento chapter behind them as quick as possible.

00:08:26
Speaker 1: The old card experience was a slow burned, long grind. Right, find the box, find the pack you want, open the pack. Most of the cards, nah, right, you got one that's worth something, Now send it in for grading. I mean, the list goes on and you want to sell it. Now, you got to put it up. Then you got to ship it out. There's one solution for that, and it's.

00:08:52
Speaker 6: Called Arena Club and it's just on a click of a dime. You get on your computer, you type in get the Arena Club app. Go on there, type in, put some money in, and type in exactly what kind of cards you want and while lah, It's a great experience, and I think that's what people miss nowadays, the experience, the excitement of getting a new card. You never know what you're going to get, an autograph card, anything, you could think of really cool stuff.

00:09:15
Speaker 1: You can get twenty percent off your first slab pack or card purchase at arenaclub dot com slash foul. See what gets Todd Father so ex saying when he gets that digital slab pack, It's like butter baby Potter.

00:09:27
Speaker 5: What's going to get over the hurdle of allowing Major League Baseball players to play in the Olympics? Because it says he's close, but you know the whole like, well, you know it's dangerous for players. Can he just flat out say, well, we own the WBC, So after WBC is over next year, then I'll give my answer for the Olympics.

00:09:50
Speaker 3: I don't even look at it.

00:09:51
Speaker 1: I think they're in.

00:09:53
Speaker 3: I think they believe in the value of the Olympics as something that can boost the value of the WBC. I don't think they look at it necessarily competitively. There are what what's the hold up? Or whatever your exact question was. Ninety nine percent of the time in my line of work, the answer is money. It's always money. It's insurance. It's making sure that the very you know, if you're going to have this long break is every other player in the majors. What are they doing, Are they being paid? You know, it's you got to work out all these details of what that extended All Star break, presuming they end up doing both the Olympics and the All Star Game in a single break, which is unless something's changed. That is what they're trying to do, and there is a reality that you're going to stretch the schedule anyway to do that. And so one of the things that around the All Star Game this year I reported on was their conversations with LA twenty eight, the organizing body, about making sure there's basically as little time as pos possible between that All Star Game and the start of the Olympics. Because the schedule that came out starts July fifteenth, would be the first baseball game at the Olympics. The All Star Game, if it's a normal year, would probably be July eleventh. It's always a Tuesday, right, so that's four days in between. You don't need four days in between, you need a day of travel. And the opening ceremony for the Olympics is the fourteenth, So really, if you start the thing a day or two earlier, that probably makes it as efficient as possible. But Eric, you know, it's always money. There's just money to be worked out when you have a project like this, and owners worried about their investments, and there's a long list of issues they got to figure out.

00:11:45
Speaker 1: Having back to the World Series for a moment, did we Oh sorry, Aj, where you at?

00:11:51
Speaker 5: No, It's fine.

00:11:52
Speaker 4: I was just gonna I was gonna say, first of all, Devin, I guess you just don't believe in practicing as a team.

00:11:57
Speaker 5: You're gonna end.

00:11:58
Speaker 4: That first half and then you're just gonna throws from all over the world together without at least getting together.

00:12:02
Speaker 5: That'd be tight.

00:12:03
Speaker 4: So you might need at least a couple of days here to at least throwing a little bit of practice. I think CRAFTSLD agree with me. But my question is is like we're every time you hear Manford talk, grow the game. Grow the game, Grow the game, Grow the game. Grow you know, grow the game. Okay, look at the numbers for baseball where we're at. The ratings are through the roof for the World Series. The ratings for the DS's and the CS's and everything are for the room. Attendance is up, viewership is up, every revenue is up. And then all we keep hearing is salary cap, salary cap, salary cap. Why can't the two sides just sit down and get together and figure this out so that I can stop answering questions from every person I know about why there's going to be a labor stoppage in twenty seven, Like, does anybody ever ask Rob like, if everything is going so well, why do we have to have a salary cap?

00:12:46
Speaker 5: Has anyone asked him that question?

00:12:49
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's been put exactly in those words, but it certainly will be coming up. He ducked labor. I think that was probably smart. He's indulged those questions more recently. You know, if you go back to even spring training, he answers when people ask about, you know, revenue disparity and the Dodgers, and he kind of pushed it aside for the moment, which I think was a good idea. I think the answer is, you have owners who want this to happen, who have always wanted this to happen, and he has to demonstrate a good faith effort to them to try to get it. I think it'd be virtually impossible for him to go to those owners and say I'm not even gonna try this. I think that's too bad because one of the things that's not really talked about or looked at as much as is kind of the opportunity cost of planning for this. Everybody has to plan for this. Major League Baseball top down has to consider, Okay, if we're in a lockout, what are we gonna do?

00:13:46
Speaker 6: Right?

00:13:46
Speaker 3: And that draws away attention in any division, you know, marketing, sponsorship, whatever. And I think at the end of the day, there's too much money involved in this sport. It is not a rational decision to miss any real number of games. I mean, you want to miss a couple games, fine, but in an industry that will probably be about thirteen billion combined going into twenty seven, it does not make sense. I don't think for the owners to hold out, and assuming the players are steadfast, we're not gonna have a cap.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: But I think Rob.

00:14:25
Speaker 3: Still knows he has to try. And I don't think Rob is Manfred is a lot of things. He's not dumb. He certainly understands. I would believe. I haven't asked him this, but I believe the momentum that the sport has, and that a workstoppage would be damaging there's no way he doesn't realize that, which is why I think when push comes to shove, the owners will propose a cap. I am very little confidence at this moment that anybody's gonna want to really drag this out for months where you're in a real workstop where people can turn away from baseball. This is not nineteen nineteen ninety four, ninety five. It is much easier to find other entertainment options. It's a bad idea to shut baseball down when things are going well, and it's so obvious to us as observers, then I think it must also be obvious to others in baseball as well. That doesn't mean they won't try to get what they want, but you can try to get what you want and also end up playing baseball.

00:15:30
Speaker 1: One other wrinkle that I think is worth bringing up now. Obviously, we're gonna have a lot of time to talk about this over the course of the next whatever it is fifteen months until there is actually at least a temporary lockout. It'll definitely happen, just for how long does it dip into games, et cetera. Right the one part that I think is relevant right now, Evan is related to what AJ is saying. It's not just ratings here, it's ratings in Canada, it's ratings in Japan, right, and those are all very sellable assets. Something does happen in the US after or what is it? The twenty twenty going.

00:16:03
Speaker 3: To seventy nine, it's going to twenty nine.

00:16:06
Speaker 1: It's going into twenty nine. The TV deals, I thought it's sooner.

00:16:09
Speaker 3: They run through twenty eight.

00:16:11
Speaker 1: They run through twenty eight, Okay, so if we have an issue, it would be going into twenty seven, so a year before, and that's usually when you're having those conversations about TV deals. Some people might not know. So the holy grail nowadays is when you can package up all your rights and then work on getting a bidding process going. I think that alone, being such a huge part of any league's revenue would probably cause all parties to be like.

00:16:39
Speaker 2: We hate each other, we have a lot of differences, but it's not good timing, So let's just feel a little bit uncomfortable and roll with the status quo for another deal.

00:16:50
Speaker 3: I think that's right. I mean, look in a worst case scenario, because they are a year apart, you know you could you could miss twenty seven. I'm not saying they're going to you and you could still end up, you know, negotiating. All right, Baseball's back. We got you know, we got the CBA that we wanted and now we get our national TV deals. But no, there's no way it is what you the image you want to plant in the heads, in the minds of the executives at Fox and Amazon and NBC and go down the list of the potential streaming bidders that MLB wants to court, and MLB a lot of the time Rob Manford a lot of time I think looks to what the NBA is doing, and he's been he's been open about this with with specifically television. Is that MLB wants to replicate what the NBA just did. The NBA got seventy seven billion dollars in deals. How much would a lockout or workstoppage that actually drags into the season impact that amount of money is a question. I think they'll debate and consider, and they need to again all these factors. You know, the owners, if you're if you're a major leaue baseball owner, they're looking at the NBA and going those franchise values are highed look at the NFL and going those franchise values are higher, and then they look at other arguments around competitive balans, and that's where it gets a little bit trickier as in terms of is it reality right? And I think I told you guys before, made the point before that you know, you go to a salary cap unless the range of salaries is so close together. The Dodgers are still going to be the Dodgers. The Pirates are still going to be the Pirates. And MLB keeps hanging its hat on what it's calling a perception issue. Is percept this perception that fans have in smaller markets that the team can't compete. Okay, but is the reality of the fix that it is fixed or are you just giving people something that they perceive to fix a problem but does not actually fix the problem. And so yeah, as Manford himselves said on the field at Rogers Center, gonna have a lot of time to talk about labor. And I think largely this is what I will be paid to do for the next year is sort through this impending mess which will produce an off season lockout. And the question is, like last time, are they going to miss games?

00:19:13
Speaker 1: Yeah? And my last point here. This happened like twenty something years ago, late nineties. But when they decided on the luxury tax, great, that's a soft cap. The fact that they didn't add a soft floor, I think screwed over the game and caused all of these owners on the one side, like the Nuttings of the world, to be bad actors. There's no accountability on the other side in my mind, like we have we have a soft cap, and that does and if you believe in a hard cap, that's fine, but we don't have a soft floor for a long time, so we never saw what that looks like. I know that they're not going to give in on that. I understand that part, but just throwing that out there, I do think we scold the game up a little bit by not doing that.

00:19:52
Speaker 3: If you want a floor through the players, the owners will never grant it unless they get a cap. And they've always gone hand in hand. It's funny like every time I write a story about a salary cap, people are like, what about a floor? And I think, every time I write it, I got to say, these two go together.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: But we don't have a soft floor and we have a soft cap. That's My only thing that I do think is misbalanced right now and.

00:20:14
Speaker 3: Here and here's I think the irony of this whole situation. Let's say the owners don't get a cap, right, if I were a betting man, unless unless all the players have suddenly changed their minds, and aj and and Crabs would know it would take a huge amount of miss games to get to a cap. But the owners, if they don't want to miss those games, I bet you will come away with something that makes them happier in a better economic position than they were in before. And that's over time. It's kind of a vice that closes, and you know we want a cap, Well, we're not going to eat a cap. We'll give you the Steve Coen tax. And then it just it grows and it grows and it grows, and long term, that's something the players have to always tend with, is you know, you're you're fighting off a cap, but what else are you giving up to fight off that cap?

00:21:08
Speaker 2: Right?

00:21:09
Speaker 1: Having good stuff obviously not the last time we will talk about this, whether people like it or not. Thank you that good to see it, man.

00:21:16
Speaker 3: I'll ask about that practice. That's a good that's a good question. Ajic I'll ask about that practice, all right, See you guys, guys, see it.

00:21:24
Speaker 1: Thanks Evan,