Andy McCullough: Dodgers World Series prep, Shohei breaking records

00:00:04
Speaker 1: Hey, Andy McCulla is back on the show. We love having you on here, so thanks again for the time Andy. Give him a follow app by McCullough. You can also check out his book The Last of His Kind, which is quite relevant right now as we see the very very twilight of Clayton Kershaw's career here. Maybe he'll pop into a game or two in the World Series. Anyway, Andy, good to see you. So, first off, you know, we haven't had a show since the Dodgers absolutely finished dominating the Brewers.

00:00:31
Speaker 2: So your thoughts on the.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: Series as a whole and how they look heading into the World Series because you covered this team you know, on the beat for a while too, Like, is this as good as it gets right now?

00:00:42
Speaker 3: I mean they're certainly playing at an extremely high rate, and they're pitching is so strong right now.

00:00:47
Speaker 4: I mean the starting pitching you know, snow Yamamoto, Glass, now the other I forget the fourth guy's name. They were all really really good against the Brewers. And so yeah, they get a good amount of time off. They're going to a you know team in Seattle or Toronto, who's you know, gonna have to go to a game seven and use their bullpen. Even with the you know, the days off, there will be a little gas. The Dodgers can set everything up, you know, So Snell and Yamamoto and some order are set up for one and two and then back again for five and six, and so yeah, Like, I don't know if this is like the best Dodgers team of this group, of this sort of era, but it's certainly one that peaked at exactly the right time.

00:01:28
Speaker 5: Well, they didn't know what they planned on the whole year. I mean, I don't know why everyone's so surprised.

00:01:33
Speaker 2: Listen.

00:01:33
Speaker 5: Only one of us had them won in their power rankings the entire year, and you know how much I'd love power ranking, So I just want to say that I had him won the entire year.

00:01:40
Speaker 2: Never faltered, unlike a lot of people on this show.

00:01:43
Speaker 5: But this is what they were set up for the regular They knew they were going to make the playoffs.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: They weren't worried about it.

00:01:49
Speaker 5: They said, oh, this guy's a little sore, will give them time off, this guy, this, this guy that, blah blah blah blah blah.

00:01:54
Speaker 2: They got in the postseason.

00:01:55
Speaker 5: Everyone was worried because they had to play the the Reds who they dispatched like two to seven and two games or whatever it was, right, and then they had to go play the Brewers, who had the best record in baseball, and they dispatch them. Then they had to go you know, it's like come on, like it was, there was never the game. The Phillies were the ones where were like, Okay, they have a chance. Right now we're in the World Series. I know they have time off, but did they care who they play? Because this team was set up to win these series with overwhelming starting pitching, overwhelming number of arms in the bullpen, and an overwhelming lineup made up of MVPs at all stars.

00:02:30
Speaker 2: This is the team that they envisioned.

00:02:32
Speaker 5: And now last year they might not have had it, but here they are again and we can see how good they are.

00:02:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure, like you know, from a in a in like a real like small context or whatever, they probably would like prefer to play the Mariners just because their offense strikes out a little bit more Toronto, you know, puts the ball in play, and so that can be a great quality at this time of year.

00:02:52
Speaker 3: But in general, they don't care. They're set up really well.

00:02:54
Speaker 4: They're gonna have Blake Snell going in game one and Yamamoto behind them, and they have Shoheotani leading off every like they're they believe they're the best team in baseball. As you said, you know, it's not that they don't care about the regular season per se, but they have in the past few years really stopped.

00:03:12
Speaker 3: They've just become fixated on, like.

00:03:14
Speaker 4: How do we get to October one as healthy as possible? And so, you know, Blake Snell was given probably a little bit more time this summer to recover from a you know, a shoulder injury than he put he would have had on a team that felt like it needed to do everything he could in the regular season. They have targeted players in acquiring them who have more upside than reliability. So like Snell and glas now come to mind, right, these are not guys who are gonna throw two hundred innings.

00:03:39
Speaker 3: There are guys.

00:03:40
Speaker 4: These are guys though, who if you give them the ball in a playoff game, you feel pretty good about it. You know, they've carried Key k Hernandez these last two years knowing that in the regular season he's maybe not an elite player, but once the calendar turns to October. He's a really, really vital part of their offense. And so yeah, I mean they've made a lot of concessions and that, like they're not trying to win one hundred and ten games during the regular season.

00:04:02
Speaker 3: They're trying to win the last game in the postseason.

00:04:06
Speaker 6: This team, after they beat the Yankees last year, they got a little bit drunk and talked a little bit of smack on the Yankees. This is the most smack talk you've ever heard from Dave Roberts. His comments when he was on the podium. That does that make you feel like they hear people saying they're ruining baseball and they're saying poo on you guys. And is that the most smack talk you've ever heard from Dave Roberts.

00:04:36
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was That was pretty good. That was pretty strong. I mean I think, yeah, they clearly are aware of what the narratives are. You know, they're not like shut off from the world. I just I don't know how much that affects guys on a day to day basis, because like, playing baseball is extremely hard, as you know, you guys know, and like being good at it is even harder and so like, I don't know how much it's creeps into their like day to day preparation things like that, but yeah, like offspring training all day, they all had to answer questions about how they were you know, quote unquote ruining baseball during the season. You know, they had to deal with the idea of like, oh, you guys are really underplunt performing what your expectations were. And so yeah, when you get a chance to win the Pennant, you know you can do a little bit. You know, you can treat it like it's you know, taste myself Tuesday and really gloat and enjoy it.

00:05:23
Speaker 3: And they've earned it.

00:05:25
Speaker 2: Listen, listen, listen, listen.

00:05:26
Speaker 5: I think the Dodgers are the best team. Okay, I've said it from day one. But here's my thing. There's this whole narrative. Now, if the Dodgers win the World Series, it's more of a thing a case for a salary cab, and it's.

00:05:40
Speaker 2: More it's so bad for a bit.

00:05:41
Speaker 5: I disagree, because you know what it shows me, if you spend you got a chance to win, if you go out and build organizational depth and you do the right things in the minor leagues, because there are a bunch of guys on this team that were brought up through the system and have helped contribute. Will Smith comes to mind right off the top of my head. Right, Andy Piez is another guy that came through the system and now they are here helping. Okay, if you do it right and you spend money the right way, then you actually get to win. The fans come out, the TV market's better, people buy you know, now there's only one show. Hey, I get it, but I don't understand this narrative of oh man, the Dodgers are gonna win, so we need a salary cap. NFL has a salary cap. Patrick mahomes in the Super Bowl every year. NBA has a salary cap. Lebron James and his three amigos are in the NBA.

00:06:25
Speaker 2: Finals every year. Look at Florida.

00:06:27
Speaker 5: Florida owns the Stanley Cup, right, we own the Stanley Cup the state of Florida.

00:06:31
Speaker 2: It's now the Florida's Cup. We give up Lord Stanley. Okay, but why is this such a narrative?

00:06:36
Speaker 5: And I love Dave Roberts pushing back on it because I think it's good for the game.

00:06:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's that's certainly an argument.

00:06:42
Speaker 4: I think just the idea that, look, the salary cap is something that the owners have wanted since the dawn of free agency. It's like a decades long goal that they've wanted to put in and for obvious reasons, it's been a like a red line that.

00:07:01
Speaker 3: The union you know, will not cross.

00:07:03
Speaker 4: And so I think the idea that what happened in the series between the Brewers and the Dodgers would change the opinions of small market owners who want.

00:07:12
Speaker 3: A cap is silly.

00:07:14
Speaker 4: However, it what majorly what the what the owners want is to like, for lack of a better term, see the clouds of an idea of that there should be a cap, that that that there needs to be competitive balance through a cap. There they're trying to win a public relations battle going into you know, sort of the CBA talks like, I don't know if it's going to be successful. But just the fact that we're talking about this now, we weren't having these conversations in like twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen about you know, the necessity for a cap. So I think they're like they're already sort of getting what they want, and that people are talking about a cap more and more.

00:07:50
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.

00:07:53
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00:09:05
Speaker 6: Okay, writers, you have to you have to answers yes or no, and that's it. Writers are fans of baseball teams. No, Okay, that's obvious. We talked about this all the time on the show. I was like, is this a truck question?

00:09:22
Speaker 3: Okay?

00:09:22
Speaker 6: I was like, how can you how can you not be a fan of show? Heyo Tani, like how how is a writer? Is it hard to see what he does day in and day out to not be a fan because fans are in all fans are for fanatic? How can you not?

00:09:40
Speaker 4: Well, what if you're just jealous of other people? What if you're just like I wake up and I'm thirty eight and my left foot hurts constantly, and you know, I have to take like medicine for my gout and this guy, you know, can do anything he wants on a baseball field on command, Like, yeah, I would that would be a little frustrated with that, But yeah, in general, right, like he's he's a freak. Like there's you know, there's never been a player like him, or at least I mean the Babe Ruth stuff. It's like that was a long time ago, and Ruth didn't do it for all that long. You know, he stopped doing it. He went to the Yankees going, you know, being a two way player. So I think just Otani's flair for the dramatic, his ability to put exclamation points, you know, on games and to take games over, it feels unprecedented. It's it's remarkable to watch. And I've just you know, been I was at the first greatest game ever he played in Miami last year, and I think he was able to top that the other night in LA That was that was something else.

00:10:43
Speaker 6: That's why I was gonna ask you that was gonna be my question. Did he top that fifty I think it was the fifty to fifty game we had ten RBIs and all that stuff. Did he top it because of the stage or did he top it because of what you saw out there, in the fact that they were running their best pick out there? The Marlins I think he hit one of his own. I mean, it's the position player not to be rude.

00:11:05
Speaker 4: To another big league club, But he did that in like a day game against the Marlins in September.

00:11:08
Speaker 3: I mean, this was game four of the NLCS.

00:11:11
Speaker 4: You know, the Brewers had the best record in baseball and we're playing for their, you know, their postseason lives. I mean, so yeah, to hit three home runs and throw you know, six scoreless with ten strikeouts and look really really dominant at times as a pitcher, I mean, yeah, that's that's the greatest. I'd love to see a better postseason game. I look forward to what the World Series has has in store for us.

00:11:34
Speaker 6: Is should he have pitched Game one in the sense that he was ready? And I know, if we look back at it, he you know, Blake Snell and Yamo they did what they did. I'm saying in that moment, man, if they had lost that game and they felt Shoho Tani was their best option, should he or maybe he's not their best option.

00:11:53
Speaker 2: Maybe they I just don't think he is.

00:11:55
Speaker 3: I just don't think he is their best option.

00:11:57
Speaker 4: And I think there are you know, there are there are like not there's ancillary effects to him pitching, Like the data is what it is, that like he is in general, you know, last Friday night, notwithstanding, he is generally less effective as a hitter when he pitches, and there also is a cost the next day. So setting it up the way they did so that he would go, you know, game four makes sense. And look, I think Snell is probably their best pitcher, but like we're really picking a knits between him, Yamamoto, and Otani. They're all really really good. But I just think you set it up to have Snell and Yamamoto in one and two so they can come back for five and six. It just makes more sense from a scheduling perspective.

00:12:44
Speaker 1: Andy, this is gonna sound crazy or maybe not, but do you think that other owners around baseball are watching show hey right now and going, you know, maybe we should have called his rep a few years ago and been like one billion dollars right, like, just say something so crazy to see if it was all about signing with the Dodgers, or if he would have considered some other option from a team that said we love you even more than they do and we're going to do something crazy. Because marketing wise, obviously, what he's doing on the field. I mean, he's might be the biggest bargain in the sport. And even forget the deferral stuff, right, Like, his contract in net present value is worth less than Vlatty juniors and Laddy Junior is great. But when you look back, I'm like, damn, I think more teams should have gone after him, and I think there are teams that would have made money off him marketing wise to make the books even up. I mean, the Dodgers are going to profit like crazy oft of him.

00:13:39
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think though the deferrals are everything though, because it wasn't a matter of like he wanted a historic contract, right, but he did not want a historic contract that he felt would hamstring the team from doing anything else. And so they, you know, he along with his agent, you know, Neiswellela, they created this sort of structure that he's getting paid two million dollars a year during the ten years. The first ten years of his ten years was actual playing career. And so that's a structure that any owner probably would have been okay doing. I think the thing is, though, it's not like every owner had a chance, because not every owner runs a team like the Dodgers, who are in the postseason every year, who have you know, a good farm system, who have shown the ability to add at the deadline, who made themselves a destination you know for all these other teams and have the you know, the sort of history, and so yeah, I just don't know if, like you know, Steve Cohen said like we'll give you two billion dollars or something like that, I don't know if it would have made a difference because he wasn't in it for making immediate riches. He was in it for sort of a bigger legacy sort of idea, if that makes sense.

00:14:46
Speaker 1: All right.

00:14:47
Speaker 6: It was kind of easy for them to say this because they were up three to zero and show Hey was pitching Game four, and they said, yeah, he might be available for the bull for out of the bullpen in Game seven. Because of how this is working out, Do we see him out of the bullpen? We've all talked about it, how they can't because he's dhing he comes in out of the bullpen, do we see it? Because if there's something I'm looking forward to this in this series because I think the Dodgers are going to win it pretty handily. That is what I want to see. I want to see shohe Otani come out of the bullpen. Why. I don't know why, because like he's just done everything, and that's the one thing we haven't seen him doing in a big league game yet.

00:15:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:15:28
Speaker 4: I mean you are asking for a big hurdle though, and that the Dodgers have to lose twice in order to at least get there, right, Yeah, I mean I think it's it's certainly within the realm of possibility, and I suspect that the Dodgers are, you know, sort of drawing up contingencies of like if they can do it, if you could start you know, game four and then be available in some capacity in game seven. But yeah, there is the whole sort of warming up aspect that is somewhat challenging, you know, when he's dhing. So yeah, it's it's yeah, I suspect that if they make it to a game seven, he'll be available. Like what the mechanics are of that, I'm not totally sure to be honest.

00:16:07
Speaker 5: Okay, Edie, you were talking about show Hey. Forget show Hey. Let's talk about something.

00:16:11
Speaker 2: A little more near and dear to your heart. That's what I want to see happen.

00:16:14
Speaker 5: The Dodgers are about to clinch the World Series and you know who they bring in to clinch it, Clayton Kershaw.

00:16:20
Speaker 2: They have a big enough lead and they bring him in.

00:16:23
Speaker 5: Now, wouldn't that be a cool like, wouldn't that be the best way in the world to go out for him?

00:16:27
Speaker 2: Is say they're whatever game they're in and they're winning.

00:16:30
Speaker 5: This thing, and they have a five or six run lead, and they bring in Curse to get the final out and the crowd gets to, you know, give him his flowers. He gets to get his flowers, and he's the one that gets Wouldn't that be the best ending to a storybook Hall of Fame Dodger career?

00:16:45
Speaker 3: That would certainly be, yeah, the movie version of how it ends? And I wouldn't I don't know.

00:16:51
Speaker 4: I mean, Dave Roberts does have a flair for the dramatic in sometimes in his managerial moves, but he's been pretty coldly efficient, say, and there's also you know, the the rookie Sasaki factor. He's been quite good for them. They really really like what they're getting out of him.

00:17:09
Speaker 3: In the closing role. So I don't know if they'd want to mess with that.

00:17:12
Speaker 4: But if you were drawing it up and like how to put a bow on Kershaw's Hall of Fame career and to do something that you know would be remembered forever, that would certainly be up there.

00:17:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be good for book sales.

00:17:26
Speaker 2: You could write another book.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: On the roundtable to his pod, so it would help you the little chichin.

00:17:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're still doing book plates. Someone send me an email, please book plates.

00:17:38
Speaker 2: There you go.

00:17:38
Speaker 1: I hope. And there's no code because we have a lot of codes on this show. No code, but the code is make Andy happy.

00:17:45
Speaker 3: I think they're just giving them away at this point. I think that.

00:17:48
Speaker 4: I think there's just there's thousands of copies still available. They're just being donated to libraries everywhere.

00:17:53
Speaker 6: They're propping up tables that are uneven.

00:17:57
Speaker 3: Exactly.

00:17:57
Speaker 6: I mean, I know somebody, I know somebody. He wrote a book. So I'm just just saying that's true. That's true. Well for our two authors, A J. And me are saying bye and thank you. Andy, you're the man.

00:18:09
Speaker 1: Thanks for hopping on with us, appreciate it and we'll catch it soon.

00:18:12
Speaker 3: Okay, no problem, Thanks for having me.

00:18:17
Speaker 1: This episode of FT is presented by Fox one, which is where you can go to watch Game seven of the ALCS and it is also your destination for the World Series. I actually saw numbers.

00:18:31
Speaker 3: I think it was yesterday.

00:18:32
Speaker 1: There have been seven figure number of sign ups for Fox one, not all due to us.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: But I think I think so too. Yeah, you do too?

00:18:42
Speaker 1: Okay, great, So even if I don't think so, I'm overruled two out of three. Start your seven day free trial at foxwe dot com. But if you're one of those people that's like I don't have cable anymore or whatever else right, and you haven't digested all of the sports in the Fox one app, now is the time. Or maybe you're coming off a big football weekend and you're like, okay, I need to take more control. Fox one is the spot, But ALCS Game seven is there for you if you're looking for a streaming option.

00:19:10
Speaker 2: The app is super smooth, it's brand new.

00:19:12
Speaker 1: They've been doing a great job.

00:19:16
Speaker 3: Thank you.

00:19:17
Speaker 1: I need that every time