Joe West joins FT to talk ABS rules, Ump priorities + MLB fan survey on team optimism/pessimism meters

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Snee right.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Hey, we're excited to have Joe West join us right now here. He is a little giggle on the on the animation there, Joe, it's awesome to see you. And for anyone unaware, I mean more big league games worked than any umpire ever. Joe, great to see you though. How you doing and are you kicking back and looking at the current week of baseball with the ABS challenge system going. I wish I was part of this, or I'm glad I'm not involved in this.

00:00:31
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know enough about it to know whether I'd want to be involved or not. I just I just know that they're they're trying to make everything as specific as they can. They're trying to get all the umpires they call the same strike zone. When I first came to the major leagues, we had we had different umpires had different strike zones. We had lee wires got there between the dougolts and in the air it was a strike. And we had Dutch trinter that he had a little postage stamp back there, and so you had to know what umpire was behind the plate to know where to throw the pitches. But from the from the beginning, of the quest tech and the zone evaluation stuff and everything they've they've tried to make it uniform for all the umpires to be trying to call the same thing. I think the idea is a good idea. I don't know if they've gone about it as expeditiously as they can, because I understand that they still don't have a three dimensional box for the strike zone. It's still linear, and I think they moved it to the middle of the plate instead of the front edge of the plate, and that's I don't know if that's good or bad. I don't know enough about it to give you an educated comment on it. I just know that the strike zone is three dimensional and what you're seeing on TV is linear. It's it's one dimensional, and I you know, until until they can get it where there's linear lines drawn up from the edges of the home plate on both sides and in the complete the pentagon, you know, three dimensional issue that it is. I don't think it's as accurate as it can be. I mean, do I like the idea that they're trying to get all the umpires to call everything the same Yes, I think that's great, But again, I don't know enough about it to give you a legitimate answer to that too. Would I want to be there, No, I'd rather be playing golf like I was this morning. And I'm sorry I'm a little late getting on here, but.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: Joe, let's first of all, let's get one thing straight right now. Thanks for joining us. I'm glad we got you off the golf course. But second of all, also, you know how many times you would have got called horse blank if they had this when you were an umpire behind home play.

00:02:46
Speaker 4: You know how many times that we could have told you how bad.

00:02:49
Speaker 3: You were, and then when you tried to throw us out, we could say, Joe, look at the screen, you missed seven calls in a row.

00:02:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well see, that's what's really funny, because all the years I worked, I never missed one. I didn't call them all right, I didn't call them all right, but I was out there for all of them. I never missed me. But the uniqueness of this is it's trying to get all the umpires to call the exact same pitchure strikes and and that's a good idea, but who implemented it? Who did they have? Any umpires or players helped design the system? Or I mean that that bothers me, that that's the one thing that bothers me. But and again, you know, I use that term very lightly. But I never missed one, because I did tell Dick Williams that. One day. He came out and he said, you missed it. Just tell me you missed it and I'll go away. And I said that exact same thing. I never missed one. He said, you can't be that arrogant. I said, I'm not being arrogant. I've been out here for all of them. I don't call them all right, but I've been out here for all of them. He got mad. But that's that's the way it was. Dick. Dick was one of those guys. He was a tough, hard nosed manager and might have been one of the best managers I ever saw. But he was. And and it's funny because when he got out of managing and he started scouting. I think he worked with the Yankees a little bit. I used to see him at the screen when he'd walk off, and he'd holler and come over and say hello and stuff. But he was he was a tyrant when he was on the on the field. Is managing his club and and uh, you look at everywhere he went, he won, everywhere he went. He just got under the management's skin and they could only stand him for a few years, just like me. So but that's uh, it's good to see you guys. This is a this is a nice trifect to have in you guys here.

00:04:51
Speaker 3: You know.

00:04:53
Speaker 4: It's only one of us you've rejected Joe though.

00:04:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you deserved it.

00:05:00
Speaker 3: I was thinking, if we had had abs, we'd still be in that game right now. We'd still be in that spring training game in twenty sixteen because you.

00:05:06
Speaker 4: Were never going to call a strike.

00:05:07
Speaker 3: We would have ran out of challenges, Joe, and you'd still we'd still be in the seventh inning right now.

00:05:12
Speaker 1: You know you wanted to get kicked out of that game. In fact, it was really funny the way you did it. You said I got to have that pitch, and I said, the ball's low, and you said I got to have that pitch. I said, why do you have to have it? Am I supposed to change the rules so it can be a strike when you're catching, And you said, well you've been missing them all day. And so I turned around to Freddy and said, we need a new catcher. This was not playing nice in the sandbox, and you go. You got to leave early. You got to leave in the sixth inning, and I had to stay for all nine. That's not fair, so right?

00:05:46
Speaker 3: And that I was home before you got out of that game, Joe, I was home on my couch. It was on ESPN. I was watching the game like this as you were finishing up. I showered, got home. It was the seventh inning. You were still in the seventh inning.

00:05:59
Speaker 1: So thank you.

00:06:00
Speaker 4: I appreciate that, Jo.

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00:07:07
Speaker 1: It's blue Chip.

00:07:10
Speaker 5: Oh no, I was just gonna say, does this abs Do you feel like if you were in it and a player was constantly challenge you and getting it wrong, does it feel like you would have to have some type of I don't want to say ego, but like you have to like take yourself out of it because all of a sudden you think it's a correct call, like everybody makes mistakes, but instantly you're being questioned. Does it feel like it's something that the umpires are going to have to adjust almost their personality, not necessarily just their strike zone in how they react to the situation.

00:07:51
Speaker 1: Oh? Absolutely, because it's a total embarrassment. If you know, you show it on the big screen in the balls the corner of the plate and you called it a ball or you called it a strike and it's off the plate. That's that no umpire wants to miss a play or a pitch. The greatest thing that ever happened when we started putting in replay was that the players now realize that the umpires are trying to get every every play right. That was the best thing that could happen to player and umpire relations was that you could go to instant replay and correct it if they made a mistake. And it was it was like a light coming on that the players really really well, he was trying to make the right call, or he did make the right call. He didn't call me out because he didn't like me. And there was so much of that going on before we put in instant replays. You'd call a guy out and he said, you just called me out because you didn't like me. Well, that's the furthest thing from the truth. And you know, one of the greatest pieces of advice I ever got is an umpire was from Doug Harvey, and I'll never forget Dave Kingman had argued a three and one pitch and I called it a strike and he gave me a little guff behind the plate. It didn't really show me up and then the next pitch was a little bit outside and I called ball four and he says, oh, you might as well have called that one too, And I chased him to first base, screaming at it because I was so mad at what he said that I'm screaming at I just called ball four and I'm chasing him the first base. So Doug Harvey walked down between it and he said, you know what, You're going to be better than they are on your worst day, So why would you let them ruin your day? Don't get mad, Go do your job. If they say something to get kicked out, kick them out, but go do your job and don't get angry. And I don't think from then on I ever got angry on the field. I realized he had said, you know, go do your job. That's what you're paid to do. If they get out of line, kick them out. If they do their job and they don't, you know, affect the game, then let it be. And that was the greatest piece of advice I ever got, you know, And my blood pressure went down a lot because I didn't get angry anymore. And prior to working with Doug Harvey, when Dick Williams and I were there. We were screaming at each other from first inning on and but I never let that affect me. After Doug had that one medium would just say, hey, don't let them ruin your day, and I tried not to. And here's here's another thing. I don't think you guys know because you've been around baseball now and you know what an umpire's job is. And I tell people this all the time. Your first job is a baseball umpire is to protect the game of baseball. And that doesn't mean the Commissioner's office. That means to protect the game as we know what on the field. That's your first priority. Now, your second priority is to protect the profession of umpire, and that might not mean the union, might mean you'll have to make a decision that's not in the best interests of the union, but it's in the best interests of the profession of umpire. And your third responsibility is to do what you know in your heart is morally, honest and correct. And if you do those three things in that order, nothing you do on the field is going to be wrong. And I don't think people understand that part of what the umpire's job is they look at the umpires unnecessary evil, and the crazy thing about it is the umpire may be doing his job. And it's like George Will said that umpire is just like a Republican. He's not concerned at what the result of his decision is going to be to anybody. And he's right. The umpire has to do the best his ability to get every play right and every pitch right. And some of the discipline that we have to hand out as umpires, whether it be warnings to the pitcher or warnings to the dugout or kicking somebody out of the game, that's part of the fabric of the game. And to blame an umpire for doing his job is a mistake. I get. I get more upset with an umpire that doesn't do his job than I ever would for somebody that does what he's supposed to do.

00:12:29
Speaker 3: So first of all, when you kick Mark Burley on Cleveland for not walking because you got picked off, that was personal. I know it was because you were mad at Ozzy. So anyways, we'll get into that another time.

00:12:40
Speaker 1: But you like you saund like Paul Carroll.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: Exactly.

00:12:45
Speaker 3: But here's the thing I agree with you about the three D the fact that the three D stuff is not and I've said this ever since and I and I'll use the game yesterday with the Yankees and U Bolinski behind them or I think it wasn't one who I think it was a Monsky behind the plate. But he's calling balls that are a tenth of an inch low in the middle of the plate. He's actually right if you go by the definition of the rule book, because if that ball is coming down a tenth of an inch is like this. So if you take this far, you move it forward where the ball was. That pitch is actually a strike he's calling it. And that's my biggest gripe I have about ABS is that if the rule book says that the strike zone is a three D thing, that's the three D and it moves with each hitter, then why can't we come up before we implement this.

00:13:30
Speaker 4: A three D box that we can show like they have on TV.

00:13:33
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe I'm way off, but I think I think as umpires get it right.

00:13:38
Speaker 1: No, yeah, and you're you're right as to analyzing what you're seeing and how they're developing this process. Because the strike zone is three dimensional and it's hard to say if that ball is in the front of the plate. If they had measured that pitch from the front of the plate, it would have been a strike. And now the ball is low when it gets to the middle of the plate, and it's not a strike. And and you can't second guess an umpire on what he sees and what he's calling. And that's that's the hard part of this. But the good thing about this process is that baseball is trying to get all the umpires to be calling the same strike zone. And that that's a good thing. No matter what anybody says, whether they like the system or not, trying to get every umpire to call the exact same pitches the exact same way is a good thing. And by the way, Burley said he'd never had a ball called on him, and the office called me and said he had nine call on him before I called that one.

00:14:47
Speaker 4: Such a lie. Such a lie. And by the way, and I'm gonna tell you this right now. I'm gonna tell you this right now, Joe.

00:14:53
Speaker 3: And then the next time, and I'm gonna tell you this right now, and I know this is true. The next time that you had a Mark Burley star was in Chicago and Angel Hernandez was on your crew that year. And Angel Hernandez called a bock on Mark Burley. And we told him before the game, we said, we're gonna throw over and it's gonna they're gonna.

00:15:09
Speaker 4: Call it a buck no matter what you do.

00:15:11
Speaker 3: So we want you to give the worst move ever to first base and he literally gave like I'm throwing over and Angel Hernandez bocked it. I know why he did that, Joe, just to make you feel good about yourself, because you were on the same crew when you were the crew chief. And you can't tell me that I'm wrong, Joe. So when you say that you umpires don't hold grudges, you held a grudge for like two months on Mark Burley.

00:15:32
Speaker 4: So that is some bull crap, Joe.

00:15:34
Speaker 1: No see, and you're wrong there, because all the umpires and even I loved having Mark Burley because he got the ball and he pitched and when he threw, when he threw the glove up in the air, the other three umpires said, oh no, they were yelling at me not to throw him out. What we loved having Mark Burley. Everybody loved having pitched in any game because he got the ball and he threw it. And but you're gonna you're gonna hate me saying this, But Frank Robinson was our boss at the time, and he said that I was right and called him both of those Box. So you'll have to talk to Frank, and he's not with us anymore, so I can't. I don't have to argue with you. And you know what, don't you remember you can't argue box with an umpire anyway.

00:16:30
Speaker 2: Hey, while we're on it, last one for you, Joe, how do you think you know you worked with Angel rnandez Lot, how do you think he would have handled the system and the change, because this is probably the biggest change we've seen in the game's history for for umpires and another guy, I think he worked with a ton of n CB Buckner who went viral on social media this weekend for you know, getting six of eight wrong on the overturned on the challenges.

00:16:56
Speaker 1: Well, you know, these guys adjust to the system that you gave him the first time, the Quest Tech Zone evaluation system, and they'll get better. And you got to realize they're throwing this on them now without having any what you call dress rehearsal. And that's the funny thing about umpire. We don't have bad practice. We don't have the ability to go look at pitches before the game starts. And so, you know, I feel for guys whenever I whenever I see a call where I think he made a mistake, or any umpire makes a mistake, I feel for him because we've all been there. It's like, uh, and you you guys, realize that the guy throws a pitch right down the middle and you swing and miss it. You go, what was I doing? How did I miss that? And uh? And umpires are the same way. They're human beings and they're going to make mistakes. And let's let's be realistic. They're going to be some umpires that are going to be a little bit better than other umpires. But in the scope of things, the professional baseball umpires in the major leagues are the best officials in all the sports all over the world. And you can't deny that. And do they make mistakes, yes? Are they human? Yes? Are they going to make mistakes? Yes, There'll be times that you'll scratch, you hit and see what was I doing? You know? And but this is human nature. People are not perfect, but we're making every effort to get him as good as we can get them, and I think that's a good thing.

00:18:30
Speaker 2: Well said, Well, Joe, it was awesome to catch up with.

00:18:33
Speaker 1: We love having you on.

00:18:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, hold on before we let Joe go, do you have any albums coming out anytime soon? Burley ever gets into the Hall of Fame, he wants to know if he can play your new album when if he gets into the Hall of Fame.

00:18:46
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'll write a song for him.

00:18:50
Speaker 3: You know he did that Burley one time when you knew your umpire and he made the sound people when he walked out, play your You're one of your albums, so you would hear it.

00:18:58
Speaker 4: Did you ever know that story?

00:19:00
Speaker 1: I didn't know that story. I knew John Smoltz would call and asked what what's Joe West's favorite song? And I always said Merle Haggard's Fight Inside of Me. So whenever I walked out and Smoltz was pitching, they were playing the Fight inside of Me all the loud speaker. That's smart, that's a good tactic. There. I gotten a you're talking about the box earlier I called a ball on Clayton Kershaw and I almost kicked him out of the game. I was going after him, and uh, the second basement for the Dodgers got between us, and he went and told Brian Roberts. He said, look, you don't want to make him mad. Let's try to make up. So the next day the Dodgers decided we're going to play Joe West walk up music. We're going to play his songs from his album. And don't you know they batted around. Maybe they should have played it more often.

00:19:57
Speaker 3: Wait you wait before we I know he got to go, But do you still go to the place? Is a place in San Francisco used to go play after the games. It's still there.

00:20:05
Speaker 4: Do you ever.

00:20:06
Speaker 1: Get the gold dust?

00:20:10
Speaker 4: Gold gold dust and then go sing afterwards? You could? You could buy him a beer and you might get a straight called against you.

00:20:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. See, you keep trying to bribe people.

00:20:21
Speaker 4: Why why would you do that?

00:20:23
Speaker 1: I don't understand that you have a bad attitude. I'm gonna have to call Hawk and talk to him about you. You know. But there was a place across the river in Cincinnati called Bobby Mackie's and John Kidler and Bruce Freming and Dick Stell and I went in there the first year they opened, and Bobby Mackie was an old time country singer. In fact, he came to my record breaking game in Chicago when I set the record for most games umpire and uh. We went to Bobby mckie's from the first week he was open till I retired, and it was we were talking about that today because Bobby could play anything that was ever recorded on the radio or played on the radio. And John Kibler's favorite song was lay Down Sally, And so one night Bobby went up to our table and said, what's your favorite song? And John Kibler jumped up right away and said, lay Down Sally. He went right up on the stage and played laid Down saltn And I talked to the band members after that, and I says that the first time Y'll ever played that. He said, absolutely. But we used to go to places like that where they welcome us. And there was who was the picture that pitched for Cincinnati, Homer Homer Bailey. He said one night he sent the waitress over to our table and said, by Joe West and the other umpires of beer, because I'm pitching tomorrow and I sent the waitress bag and said no, tell him no, thank you. Bobby gives me drinks because I get up and sing.

00:22:06
Speaker 2: Everybody trying to butter you up. See I say the sme here. Yes, they knew what they were doing, or at least trying trying. Joe, enjoy the rest of your day. Thanks again for joining us. Great to catch up. Appreciate you.

00:22:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good. Now I gotta call Hall Carrolson. Can you imagine that we could record that phone call?

00:22:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, all day?

00:22:31
Speaker 1: Report back.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: Maybe we'll report back after that one.

00:22:34
Speaker 1: Thank you, Joe, take care so yeah, you too.

00:22:42
Speaker 2: I love these surveys. Stephen Nesbit puts many of these together. In the athletic Over eleven thousand fans participated in their fifth annual Hope O Meter how fans are feeling about not just the state of their team now but going forward. And you'll see why this is interesting in a moment, and he said, seventy two percent reported that fans are optimistic about their favorite team this season, compared to sixty six percent last year, sixty four percent in twenty twenty four. It was seventy five percent in twenty twenty three. In the first year they did this, fans felt sixty six percent. So obviously, you know, more fans optimistic than not. That's a good thing. But he said some fans are just as juiced about a rebuild as their team being contenders. And that is why with this meter you will see the optimism scores closest together for the Yankees to the White Sox. Yes, believe it, so it starts with the Dodgers, that makes sense. Ninety nine point eight percent. That's about as high as you can get that are optimistic. I have no idea what game the point two percent are watching or what substances that they are having fun with, but you better be damn happy about the Dodgers right now. The Blue Jays at ninety six point two percent. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but just giving you an idea of the teams that are in the nineties meaning fans are really feeling it. Mariners, Tigers, Royals at ninety four point five percent, Cubs and Red Sox. That's the cutoff there at ninety percent plus. When you go on the other end of the spectrum, the teams in the nineties for pessimism, Twins at ninety five point seven percent, the Angels at ninety four point three percent. Then there's a huge drop off and you go to the Nationals at seventy five point eight percent and the Rockies at seventy four point seven percent. Of course, we have to go right to our White Sox expert Aj Persinski to get your take on why your most famous former team, the White Sox, are close to an Aer Kraft's former team in the Yankees, in terms of optimism, your thoughts. This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Go get that new app, stream baseball, stream football, stream World Cup action.

00:24:51
Speaker 1: You'll be watching.

00:24:52
Speaker 3: Oh definitely, I can't wait. I actually want to try and get to a game. But well, and there, I'll still have my Fox one app. I'll have MLB, the shows, the great shows that Fox has, college football that I love, college basketball, they have it all.

00:25:03
Speaker 4: This really is the app that you can get all of anything you want to watch on an app. Fox one has it and they are great at.

00:25:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, the big sporting events. And by the way, the World Cup is June eleventh to July nineteenth. You can get a free seven day trial of Fox one, so go check that out and you can start your seven day free trial. Today, offers are subject to change. Go to Fox one for complete terms and conditions. Fox one streaming now.

00:25:30
Speaker 3: Sixty seven point two percent of people are optimistic about the White Sox. That's good because every white A lot of White Sox fans I talk to are excited about the young core they have. And then Mark Commy hiting three homers in three games. There was a lot of people that are excited about the direction of the White Sox. Now do they wish they'd spend money? Yes, I was talking to some White Sox fans yesterday. They were like, man, we need to spend some money, get some veteran pitchers in there to lead some of these young guys. A little word about the bullpen. But they see hope right. Whereas to me, the more surprising thing is the Yankees. Why because they brought back the same team or people that are fans just inherently more negative than others. You would think the Phillies would be down there with the way they treat sometimes their players. But hey, listen, the White Sox fans are I mean, I think you know, optimistic. Sixty seven that's two out of every three people are optimistic about the White Sox.

00:26:13
Speaker 4: I think the White Sox will take that right.

00:26:15
Speaker 3: The Twins, there's like nobody optimistic about the Twins or the Angels.

00:26:18
Speaker 4: You know what that is.

00:26:19
Speaker 3: It's a long time of not doing much to make the fans happy and not being any good for a long time.

00:26:25
Speaker 4: So I mean, if I'm a White.

00:26:27
Speaker 3: Sox fan, two out of three White Sox fans are happy, it's pretty darn good. You can't get two hundree people to agree on anything that's fair.

00:26:34
Speaker 4: I like that.

00:26:35
Speaker 5: I like that, But I think the optimism is in two different things. The White Sox optimism is in the fact that just like Ajay says, Ken any worse than it was two years ago. Like they're optimistic because they're like, hey, we're moving in the right direction. But I would caution White Sox fans, you can't make chicken out of you know what. So my thing is the Yankees, the pessimistic fans and the Yankees, and people be like, oh, Yankees fans are always so tough.

00:27:06
Speaker 4: I don't think that's what it is.

00:27:07
Speaker 5: I think it's the fact that they're running this same team back and so they're like, well, we didn't win a World Series last year. Why are we going to win a World Series this year? And to me, that's a negative, a negative thinking like I think if it was do you think your team is going to win the World Series? I think the numbers would be completely skewed. But this is just optimism and pessimists like, hey, yeah, we're moving in the right direction. As World of White Sox Yankees, I don't know if we're moving in the right direction, but our only successful season is going to be a World Series championship. So that's where I think it's ironic that they're very close, but in a lot of ways they are extremely far apart.

00:27:52
Speaker 2: And just giving you some context on reading fan comments that were included in the article themselves.

00:28:00
Speaker 3: The Rockies, by the way, are twenty five percent. Yeah, so one out of every four Rockies thinks they're going in the right direction. Their hope what's they're hoping? I guess it's Paul Deepedesta, right and Burns, Yeah, yeah, they I mean, what if the Rockies given them in the last forever to be optimistic about. I love the Cliffs too, by the way, the Cliffs and by the way, the Cardinals fans, you know, forever were optimistic. But now they're down and they're starting to come back up because they see Heine Bloom and Allie Marmel.

00:28:29
Speaker 4: Those guys can maybe figure some stuff out.

00:28:30
Speaker 3: But I mean, the Rockies are pretty flat that they're just not very optimistic about anything.

00:28:35
Speaker 4: They don't make a change.

00:28:36
Speaker 5: They haven't made a change the Rockies. I guess that would be the one optimistic part is the fact that they stopped they stopped employing all the exact same people that have been Buddies since whatever year they came in, and they're like, oh, man, remember in two thousand and four the run that we made and twenty eighteens not that long ago, like it'll come back. No, there was no optimism before for the Rockies, So maybe that should be a little optick in the chart, because yeah, they actually made a change, unless Paul did. De Podesto is just you know, a mouthpiece for all the people that were there before. But I think they're willing to make the change. To me, they're years behind, and so it's going to take a little while.

00:29:19
Speaker 2: The two biggest factors here are either growing young talent that turns into a young star or one of the top prospects in the sport. That's why you see the Pirates surge back up. It's not just schemes, it's Connor Griffin that make people excited with the Red Sox. We just talked in an earlier segment about how some fans feel as if they didn't do enough for the lineup, but Roman Anthony kind of overrules a lot of this. This isn't just optimism for this year. This is kind of here and going forward. So that helps for the Orioles. They're very high up coming off of mid seventies win season last year. Why because they did a lot in the offseason, including picking up Pete Alonzo. So I'm just going off some of the fan testimonials that we see in these articles. So that's a big difference. Guys. The A's are skyrocketing with the young talent they have and the fact that they're keeping a lot of that young talent. So if you're a fan, you finally get to see some guys their long term aj We don't have to go too far back to look at Matt Chapman, Matt Olsen, et cetera, and a number of star players that they weren't able to keep.

00:30:17
Speaker 1: They're locking guys up early.

00:30:19
Speaker 3: A great and Langolear's and Kerchivy next, let's let's get that. Let's get those two done next. You have a hell of a hell of a core there if you lock those two them for a long time. But yeah, fans are fickle. We all know that fans are fickle, as they should be, and they go with the flow. They go with the the ebb and flow and the tides and up and down and how they feel that day and how the day goes or how that week goes. We've already talked about guys like, oh, the Red Sox are trash, they're pitching stinks right and Tony iv I tell it doesn't know what he's doing this and that I mean, we'll see it's it's so early in the season. But I do like the hope because this should be about hope. And the teams at the top are usually the best teams. And then there's teams like the Yankees that people are just like, what are we doing? But Yankees are pretty good people. Let's give them a chance. They're going to be pretty good this year.

00:31:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I see a trend. Also, I mentioned the A's and then some of the other teams that operate, you know as low budget teams, all jumped at the same time. The Pirates last year were nineteen percent. They go up to seventy nine percent. The Marlins were sixteen percent last year, they go up to sixty eight percent. AJ's White Sox from nine percent nine last year coming off the brutal record season the year before, now they're sixty seven percent. You see a number of these smaller market teams that are jumping up, some of them due to young talents, some of them due to a little bit more spending this past offseason. So yeah, those are those are the biggest jumps that we saw AJ, and they're all from those teams that operate in that way. Really, the one team that stands out on the other side, like we mentioned, is the Twins, who two years ago were eighty six percent coming off the playoff performance their first playoff series win getting themselves to the DS, then fifty two percent last year, dropping down to what AJ mentioned four percent. So those are some of the risers and the fallers on this list. But to me, that's what stands out if you're looking for a trend. Some teams that have been picked on that haven't had a lot of success lately and haven't done much about it have all skyrocketed. It also shows how quickly you can win your fans back.

00:32:17
Speaker 3: Yes, be good, spend some money and get the right player, and you'll spend And by the way, the two percent that didn't vote for the Dodgers being pessimistic, optimistic, whatever it is, those are the same people that didn't vote for like Derek Jeter in the Hall of Fame or Ken Griffy Junior to go into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot. They just said no because they wanted to be the person that said no.

00:32:35
Speaker 4: In reality, they should have just gotten it.

00:32:37
Speaker 3: I mean right, said yeah, who's mad at the Dodgers. They went back to Backworld Series. They have the best roster again, they have the best player, They have everything going for them.

00:32:47
Speaker 4: What is there to be pessimistic about. They're not going to not spend money anymore. They clicked on the wrong button.

00:32:53
Speaker 5: They clicked They were like, oh, can't take that back, and it just said form submitted.

00:33:00
Speaker 1: He's like, oh, dang it.

00:33:02
Speaker 2: It might be that small of a number because I'm looking. So they surveyed about eleven thousand people here. I'm using some AI to help me out. So if you take an average of three hundred and sixty seven people and take zero point two percent of that, that's how many people press the wrong button. Let's see er point two percent of three sixty seven. So it's one. It's one person on that survey.

00:33:25
Speaker 4: That was the one guy.

00:33:26
Speaker 3: One guy who didn't vote for Ken Griffey Junior, the one guy who didn't vote for Derek Jeter, the one guy who didn't vote for guys that are surefire first ballot Hall of famers like that's that one just because they wanted to say I was that guy, and they also didn't put their ballot out there so people could say you're an idiot for being that guy.

00:33:42
Speaker 2: Or it's just that one person that shouldn't be texting people at two in the morning. Maybe they're a little bit rocky and they're doing it and they do this survey at two in the morning and they messed up.

00:33:52
Speaker 1: It's that's the.

00:33:53
Speaker 2: Only reason you can look at that, because otherwise you should be one of the happiest fan bases of all time in turn of your optimism for what's ahead. It's not even just what they have AJA, they too have one of the better farm systems in baseball, So if you're looking at the future, it's not even just the spending. And even if you're worried.

00:34:10
Speaker 1: Oh and they develop a change.

00:34:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, they take the thirtieth pick and make them into a stud. They take this guy and this guy make him into a stud.

00:34:17
Speaker 2: So yeah, so cool, cool exercise. It actually shows that the game is in a pretty good place when three quarters of the fan base of the fan base pretty much are very happy and optimistic about the team's chances right now.