Play Ball! It's Spring Training Time!

[00:00:00] Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The following is a presentation of Hobson Media. Woohoo!

[00:00:25] This is the Church Pew Sports Podcast, featuring a group of pastors delivering bombastic takes on sports, life, and faith. We're going to attack this day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. Take a knee. Man, it's hard to break us now. It's hard to break us. As a matter of fact, you ain't gonna do it. Lend an ear. These are some of the best questions I've had, I have to tell you that straight up. As the Church Pew Sports Podcast begins.

[00:00:52] We're all supposed to be here together, man. We're destined for this. Just stay the course. Give each other high fives! Hey, they are high-fiving around spring training locker rooms and clubhouses these days as the start of the exhibition season of baseball is upon us. And we're going to talk about that a bit today as we welcome you all into Church Pew Sports, where we connect sports to faith and life.

[00:01:17] And it is great to have you with us. Thank you for subscribing and sharing the link with other sports fans in your world. Bill Hobson here with you. And normally I would next introduce Paul Miller. He's away house hunting today. So I guess we can grant him an excused absence.

[00:01:35] And in his place, since we're going to talk a fair amount of baseball, we bring in our resident Church Pew Sports baseball guru, Scott Holmgren, who is now living in Michigan, but is in Florida again today for the podcast. So I give up trying to find you, man. It's good to see you. How are you?

[00:01:55] It is good to be here, Bill. Thank you so much. Yeah, I seem to have to always check what time zone I'm in, no matter what's going on, because I've spent quite a bit of time in Illinois with family as well. So that's central. I'm in Eastern half the time. I'm going to be in Arizona in a few weeks, so I'll have to set my watch again for that. So I don't know. I don't know where I am half the time. Living in airports, for sure. And you have an Arizona trip planned to watch a little baseball there, right?

[00:02:23] Yeah, yeah. It's going to be great. My brother-in-law has his 60th birthday in March, so there's a whole crew gathering and we're going to be in the Phoenix area and I get to go see my first Cubs game in Arizona. I've never been to Arizona spring training. I've done Florida many, many times, having lived there for a long time. But Arizona, the Cubs, I am so fired up about that. I cannot wait.

[00:02:47] Yeah, that's very cool. Spring training, I was just telling somebody the other day that if you gave me my choice of just a middle of June regular season game or get me down to spring training for a game in the early parts of spring training, I probably would take that. I love the intimacy of the spring training experience and for my Tigers being at Joker Marchant Stadium in Lakeland, it's kind of become an annual tradition.

[00:03:15] So I'll be down in about a week and a half and take my parents to a game. And I don't know what, for you, Scott, what is it about the rebirth of baseball season that stokes your fire? Well, it's just the hope, right? I mean, baseball is so different. It is such a long season, six months. It's a slog. We've talked about this before. It's a marathon. And, you know, when you're at the starting line of a marathon, you're all at the same place. Everybody has the same opportunity in front of them.

[00:03:46] And I think what you mentioned is that intimacy, right? So for several years, I had the privilege of being the spring training chaplain for the Atlanta Braves when they were down in Orlando. And I used to get there a little early and walk around the complex and experience what it was like kind of on the other side of the fence, right? You could have the credentials and whatnot. But the fans love it. The public love it because it welcomes them into the fold, right?

[00:04:12] And so there's a part of the spring training experience that is unlike regular baseball where, as a fan, you feel like you're a participant in it. You know, half the guys out there don't have names on their jerseys anyway. So you're all playing sort of investigator, detective, trying to figure out who's who. And it's such a beautiful picture of the community. A lot of teams will have had like their fan fests not too soon before as well.

[00:04:39] So that kind of all builds into what makes the preseason part of baseball, frankly, unlike any other of the sports, because you have so many games during that preseason time, right? And it's the actual game being played, you know, not some simulation. Well, it's funny because you also, if you're at a game, especially early on when everybody's getting in, they're really evaluating talent. They certainly don't want to expose a key player to potential injury.

[00:05:08] So it might be one at bat. And then you'll see these players with equipment bag over their shoulders while the game is taking place, walking down the first baseline towards their clubhouse. And probably by the time an inning or two down the road begins, they're probably on the first tee somewhere at their favorite golf course. But they also then have this accessibility to the fans.

[00:05:33] If you hang out in the right spots, you can, if you're an autograph hound or if you want a picture, spring training is far more likely to yield that sort of experience than regular season is when everything seems to be a little more serious, a little more intense. I just love it. Not to mention, this has been a pretty cold and not very pretty winter in my part of the world and your part of the world. Last year was pretty mild, so we couldn't really complain a lot.

[00:06:01] We were having 50-degree days in January. Right now, it's bitter cold. And so stepping through that tunnel and seeing the lush green grass and the striped outfield and all of them, and just being able to sit at a game in shorts and a t-shirt, it's pretty special. So let's dig into just kind of some baseball talk. We don't have to do team-by-team stuff. It's too early really to know who's going to end up coming out of spring training healthy and all of those things.

[00:06:27] The voice, by the way, that you all heard at the very, very outset of the podcast belongs to the late Ernie Harwell. And he would start every season with that verse from the Song of Solomon. The voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. And usually he would tag it with, happy opening day, everybody. This is an interesting era in this game.

[00:06:52] Let's talk, first of all, about which teams you think won the offseason because there were some player movement. We thought perhaps Alex Bregman was going to make his way to Detroit. He turned down a really pretty fair offer and went to Boston instead. Take a look at the offseason and give us a little feel for who you think the winners and maybe losers are. Yeah, yeah. Well, my Cubs were actually in that conversation for a little bit, and they punted as well.

[00:07:19] But it's been a very interesting offseason when the team, the best team, actually gets better. Because I don't think anybody would doubt that the Dodgers, like them or hate them, they're sort of the new evil empire, right, compared to the Yankees of old. They went in and they brought in the next Japanese import. So Roki Sasaki is the big pitcher that everybody's thinking, where is he going to land? Not only that, then they get Blake Snell.

[00:07:47] So they acquired basically two front-line pitchers, which makes their starting rotation insane. They keep the entire core of their offense together. So you got Betts and Freeman and Otani. And now guess what? Otani is going to be pitching again, at least according to the plan. So you just look at that team and you go, I don't know how they did it, but they were able to do it. They were able to keep enough pieces. They kept Blake Trinian. Their bullpen is still strong. They did anything wrong.

[00:08:16] It's really amazing. So they didn't do anything wrong, which in Dodger land means we're right where we are and probably a little bit better. So they definitely were winners. They have unlimited resources, right? It doesn't seem like they're making fiscally prudent decisions, but they're just spending the money. Well, deferment is a beautiful word, I suppose. I don't know how that looks for everyday people, but who knows? So the Dodgers, obviously, they did a great job. The Mets had the biggest signing of the offseason.

[00:08:45] They won the Juan Soto sweepstakes. Probably another big win was keeping Pete Alonso, right? So he was their big bat and they preserved him for a long time. It looked like he was going to leave, but they kept him. My biggest concern with the Mets was the fact that they didn't do much with their pitching. And for as much as we'd love to see the offensive part of the game, the Mets pitching staff scares me a little bit. I don't even know if they make the playoffs. And that's a difficult thing to say when they just signed the biggest hitter.

[00:09:13] With that money on the table, I think you're planning on postseason. You want to believe. I think Steve Cohen is for sure, right? That's the reason you do those things. But who knows? That's why there's a trade deadline and that's why some fun midseason things can happen that can completely alter the course of the team's ship. Yeah. You know, when we look at big name players moving to a different franchise, everybody expects that to produce seismic results.

[00:09:43] It kind of seems like the teams that quietly go about building strength in the late end of their bullpen, especially with the new attitude regarding starting pitching. I don't have in front of me the stats on how many complete games were pitched in 2024. But I can tell you it wasn't very many. I would be surprised if it was more than 20. I don't think it would have been.

[00:10:07] So with that new fangled philosophy on pitching, is it more important to run out and sign Max Scherzer or is it more important to sign a guy who can give you two middle innings four days a week? Yeah. You know, I think it's probably both because I would add them together and say that for a team, what matters in pitching now is depth. That seems to be the sort of the core theme.

[00:10:35] And I'm going to brag a little bit on my Cubs because I was just looking before the podcast. I was looking over some of the projection systems, right? There's two big main projection systems. There's Zips and there's Pakoda. And both of those, one more than the other, really loves the Cubs. They project them to win the central, NL central, dethrone the brewers, which I'm all in favor of. But what the Cubs don't have is like that superstar, like a Max Scherzer. You know, they have Emanaga and they have enough.

[00:11:04] What they have is depth, tremendous depth, because if anything, the new strategy in pitching, not only are pitchers throwing fewer innings, they're throwing harder. And you're seeing far more injuries. You have to anticipate that those injuries may take down at least one or two of your top five from opening day. And you have to backfill with the depth. If you don't do that, then you've got to be prepared to go shell out some bucks at the trade deadline.

[00:11:29] But teams that seems to stockpile that depth, and that was kind of the problem with the Rangers, that Scherzer did go down and they had nobody in there to fill his shoes. I think the strategy around a pitching staff is deeper, experienced. You need the guys who can handle the high leverage situations, which you need some of those older guys who know how to finesse their way and finagle their way out of jams.

[00:11:54] Because as the season progresses, every inning gets a little higher leverage, especially if you're in a pennant race. You know, you talk about that experience and being able to leverage. You also have to have guys who are willing to switch roles. It must be a fascinating time to be an agent. Because for the longest time, forever basically, if you represented a starting pitcher and you went into contract negotiations,

[00:12:22] a considerable part of that conversation was about wins and losses in ERA. That's really what it was. And then they would dig into some of the other, as analytics got deeper, then they would start to broaden that perspective out a little bit. If you're trying to represent your client these days on wins and losses, you're not going to have much to show at all. Who's going five innings?

[00:12:49] For those of you wondering, that's the minimum number of innings to pitch to be eligible for the win as a starter. You could go four innings, get two outs in the fifth inning, have the lead when you come out, and not get the win. And the guy who comes in and throws nine pitches in the next inning comes away with the win.

[00:13:10] How in the world do you, as a pitcher these days, especially a starter, kind of recalibrate your internal cog to realize that that's your new role? And with very rare exceptions. Yeah, it's really about getting out. I agree. And just to go back on the statistical sort of storytelling that we've all grown accustomed to. When I was a kid and I'd get out my baseball card and I'd flip over the back and it was a pitcher. It was, did they win 20 games?

[00:13:39] When was the last time they won 20 games? And is the ERA under three or whatever? How many complete games did they throw? That's kind of the mindset. I've actually been wondering, at what point do they change the official scoring? The game has evolved to the point where the scorekeeper is just going to have to look at the entire game and pick which pitcher had the greatest impact. Forget about how many innings he threw, right? Or what was the highest leverage situation he was in? Or I don't know.

[00:14:05] Somehow, like, I remember years ago, I always felt like the hold statistic. So hold, if you're not familiar with it, was what a reliever would earn if he entered with the lead and preserved it. It wasn't a save because that would be at the end of the game and it wasn't a win. But, like, you start to really think about that.

[00:14:23] But, like, the hold is the most important thing at that point is how do you hold the lead, not lose the lead, or not make it ineligible for your closer to even get a save because it's all been blown. Right. So, again, I think the evolution of pitching and the way it works, and it may be massage through future rule changes, right? I mean, several years ago they talked about, well, what do we do? Do we move the mound back a little bit or lower it or raise it back up again?

[00:14:51] I mean, there's something core about the brand of the game that makes that starting pitcher important. And baseball's in an interesting place trying to figure out what that is. I don't know if they have the answer because you're exactly right. Yeah, if you come to Detroit and you pick a day when Scooble's going to be pitching, you're probably going to see him go seven innings. I mean, if he's on, you'll see seven. They're not going to take him out early. But as far as the Detroit staff goes, everybody else is fair game for whenever A.J. feels like it.

[00:15:21] I don't think you're allowed to be offended. I don't think you get to throw a tantrum like in the old days where you didn't want to give Skip the ball. You talked about changes, another potential change that's being tested right now in spring training. Is the automatic balls and strikes review system. The robots are arriving in the world of umpiring. Here was, I think, the first one in spring training. Dave Roberts had a discussion with the guys about the ABS and how we're going to challenge everything else.

[00:15:50] However, everybody at the green line except one. He's at home plate right now. They're being Max Munson. And he was told not to challenge and he just challenged. Yeah. So here we go. The Cubs challenged that one. So it wasn't Max. So he's off the hook. Home plate umpire Tony Randazzo. Here's what it looked like. So it was a strike. So obviously in audio form, it loses a little bit of its uniqueness. But there's an eye in the sky.

[00:16:17] There is a superimposed, like we've all seen, the strike zone square or rectangle on the screen. Interestingly, in that particular review, it was a square. It was not a rectangle. So they're testing it now. The particular example that I played, I actually tightened up that sound bite quite a bit. It was about 50 seconds long in natural form. So I can't imagine a system that takes that long in a game that's really trying to speed itself up.

[00:16:46] But do you think we are going to see the eye in the sky helping call balls and strikes? Yes. I think that the availability of technology, the familiarity with technology, the precision, and the way it actually aids the game. And I'm no expert when it comes to tennis. But I remember last time I watched a tennis match, I mean, they've got the zoom in on the computer and the ball. Is it on the line, off the line, like to nobody's business?

[00:17:17] Football is using it now for spotting of the ball right after a certain play. So it's available. It can be done. The question is, is how do you make it seamless in the experience? And yet for baseball, there's always that human element, right? How do we keep, you know, you just don't want to computerize at all. So I have to actually admire what MLB is doing this year by modifying. It is not a total blanket robo call.

[00:17:44] It's basically a challenge system where the human umpire will call balls and strikes, just like he always has. And then if a player, and it's interesting, it's only one of three people. It's either the pitcher, the catcher, or the batter. Oh, I didn't realize that. Only one of those three can initiate a challenge by tapping their head, right? Tapping their helmet. And that's the sign. What's that? That's the sign. Yeah, that's the sign. It's not this.

[00:18:14] But it can't be the bench. You know, it can't be the chirping from the hitting coach or the umpire or any other player. It's only the pitcher, the catcher, or the batter. And if they initiate it, then what happens is the ump turns around, says we have a challenge to it. I watched the video briefing of the MLB rules committee as they were outlining it. And they said, as they've been testing this in the minors of the last couple of years, on average, it's about 15 to 17 seconds. Okay. Not 50. And I get it. It's the first game.

[00:18:44] They got to figure that out. So again, yeah, you're adding a little bit of time in. But it was fairly seamless. You know, over time, everybody gets used to it. You adapt, you can adjust. And basically, each team gets two challenges at the start of the game. And if their challenge is favorable, they keep it. They retain both challenges. If it's not, they lose a challenge. They only have one. And if they lose that, then they're done. There are no extra challenges for extra innings either. It's just two and that's it. Okay.

[00:19:13] And you've got to get it right or you lose them. Correct. And then with the layer of strategy, which was really interesting, I was listening to a podcast. They were talking about how teams are already trying to coach their players. Like, depending on your catcher, you might say, if you've got a great catcher behind the plate, say, you know, back in the day when Yachty was catching for the Cardinals, it's like, you tell your pitching staff, none of you will challenge. You let your catcher do it, right? That's a strategic shift.

[00:19:41] Or coaches will tell their batters, hey, don't challenge in the first three innings. It's not worth it. Wait till higher leverage situations because you don't want to risk losing it. Like, you've got to be really good to eyeball that situation. So it adds another layer of strategy in game management and sort of how you manage those who's at bat and who's pitching and all of that. To me, it adds an interesting dimension to it without completely stripping away the human part and just making it so automatic that it's boring.

[00:20:11] The one thing I will say I love, though, is they talked about the ways the system could be manipulated. Because if they show that strike zone with the square, remember, that's been my holy discontent, I think, on this show for years. They said this may do away with the K-zone. Because if during the regular broadcast that is shown and there's a way to see that or watch that, well, then obviously you're going to challenge when you know.

[00:20:37] This may force the retirement of the K-zone, which I am a massive fan of losing that thing. So I'm all for it. Well, and I would guess, much like the yellow first downline on football games, which is not official, that's close, not official, I'm guessing the K-zone would also be slightly different from the one they used in the reviews. It's not. The K-zone is much more of a vertical rectangle that stays pretty much the same.

[00:21:05] I think the actual square that they're using will adjust if it's El Tuve versus Judge. That thing's got to move a little bit. The knees and shoulders are at different levels. It does. They've measured every player. So it's customized per batter, for sure. Okay, speaking of seismic changes, pretty big news this week in the ESPN Major League Baseball divorce. And ESPN decides at the end of this season they're out.

[00:21:33] They're going to renege on the contract or buy it out or cancel it. They had that option. Baseball is going to get back a bunch of inventory. ESPN had really, in many ways, they're paying $575 million a year for baseball. And they were only showing 30 games. They had really cut down on the stuff that they were showing. Obviously their coverage is minimal.

[00:21:59] Ever since Sunday Night Baseball left its initial iteration with John Miller and those guys. I mean, it's a different product than ESPN. So I don't know that ESPN or that Major League Baseball is heartbroken over this. They'll probably find some very creative Netflix ways to recoup that money. But who do you think wins in the ESPN-MLB split? Yeah, I was so curious when I saw that happen in the news. I wanted to ask Bill.

[00:22:28] I said, I got to ask Bill his perspective. Because you have a far better scope on the business side of it and how it all works. It seems like from a financial standpoint, it's a win for ESPN, right? Because they're not shilling out all the money for the minimal number of games. And we all know viewership as measured through ESPN seems to be on the decline year over year. The MLB now loses a massive chunk of change, right? So it seems like it makes sense for this to happen.

[00:22:55] But you did touch on what I think is the biggest thing is the opportunity for Major League Baseball to develop new distribution channels. The fact with the new streaming services, I don't know if pay-per-view is even the right term anymore. It's just pay-per-stream or whatever it is. They call it DTC, direct-to-consumer. That's the DTC. Okay. Well, a new acronym I'll have to pick up on. Here's all I care about as a baseball fan.

[00:23:23] Like, I haven't watched ESPN in decades. In more than 20 years. I don't even watch ESPN. And a lot of other people I know are cutting the cord, right? So they're not even getting local cable subscriptions. So if they're watching baseball, it's either Netflix or Apple TV. They had a bunch of MLB games. I think Amazon Prime had a bunch as well. I'm a subscriber to MLB TV, right?

[00:23:49] So I just pay the $149 a year, and I can access every game. And because I'm a Cubs fan living in Michigan, I get to watch every Cubs game, right? No blackouts. No blackouts, right? To me, that's always been my problem is that just doesn't seem fair. So those couple times when the Cubs play the Tigers, I won't get to see the game. Heck, I would pay an extra $20 to get all those games. Just how do we, how do the economics work? And I'm not quite sure how that fits.

[00:24:16] I think MLB would have, and because baseball is such a regional sport, right? You're going to watch the Tigers. Are you really going to watch anybody else? No. Not until maybe the pennant drive if there's some exciting games in the playoffs. Give people the opportunity to subscribe to all your team's games, right? There's no blackouts. No blackouts. Thank you. But none of the others. Right. They'll do it. Or, so it was interesting.

[00:24:45] I was talking to my son about this, and he's a huge Brewers fan, right? I said, Jack, if you can do this, how much would you pay? How many games? He's like, well, Dad, I work so much. Like, you know, I don't know if I even watch 30 games a year. I'm like, well, why couldn't baseball say buy a 30-game package for your team? And just keep track of how many you get to watch. There's revenue out there aplenty. They just need to have some creative ways to capture it and to market it. Yeah. So a couple things have transpired.

[00:25:12] The ESPN Major League Baseball split at the same time. I just heard a report earlier today, actually. ESPN at its peak had roughly 110 million subscribers, which is 110 million households. As we sit here today, they're at about 59 million. So you talk about cord cutting. You talk about reduction of eyeballs.

[00:25:36] And so they have to weigh this equation on, are we going to lose more audience if we give up Major League Baseball? And knowing that they're spending $575 a year for it, so you've got to do the math. They are, they've decided, obviously, that from an economics ROI standpoint, we'll let it go.

[00:25:56] But what they've also decided is that ESPN is planning to break away from the streamers, from the cable packages, from everything, and launch itself as a DTC subscription-only network. I can't think of a more foolish move ever because who's going to pay for WNBA?

[00:26:26] Who's going to pay for cornhole championships? And for the versions of SportsCenter and the Morning Program? Like I've said a million times, I'm not smart enough to be a billionaire. It seems like a really strange route to take. At the same time, we'll set all that off to the side. At the same time, this week, Amazon Prime announced that it is now offering for $19.99 per month

[00:26:54] a subscription to your regional sports network. So in our world, that's called FanDuel SportsNet. It used to be Bally Sports. It used to be Fox Sports. It's owned by the nightmarish Sinclair Broadcasting Corporation. But it now allows fans of Michigan teams to watch the Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings every game for $20 a month. Now let's take this out one layer further.

[00:27:23] For all of you who are trying to figure out what to do in your cable cord cutting world, take this out one layer further. YouTube TV has raised its prices to $83 a month and dropped all the regional sports. So you can watch tons of Judge Judy on YouTube TV. Congratulations. And you'll still have ESPN. Or you can slide over to like Fubo TV, which has all those channels, plus the FanDuel Sports Regionals.

[00:27:52] And it's a little more customizable. You can choose the four games in your multi-screen. You can size the screens as you want them. So I say that because a conversation I had earlier today at lunch with my friend Dan, this whole universe of distribution and consumption is not settled. And so for the sports fans, it's a highly volatile time.

[00:28:19] And I would just, from a standpoint of advice, if anybody cares what I think, if your provider, whoever, whatever that is, is requiring you to lock in to a 12 or 24 or 36-month commitment, don't do it. Don't do it because they maintain the right to take your channel selections and just reset them, delete them, throw them out the window.

[00:28:47] You could end up with five Hallmark channels and no sports and still be stuck in that whole thing. So it's fascinating. And for ESPN to make that decision, that's a pretty big deal. I mean, baseball at one point, baseball tonight was as big for ESPN as Sears was at the mall. It was an anchor program. Yeah. And that means nothing to them. So I don't know where it all plays out. We're probably three or four years away from figuring that out. I have my guesses.

[00:29:16] But right now for 2024, wait, what year are we in? 2025. Very well. You've got this final year of ESPN. And if you think that a network that has announced it's departing from a sport is going to spend extra time talking about that sport in its final year, you haven't been paying very close attention. So, okay. Another big news item. Probably the biggest news item of them all.

[00:29:43] This really was inspired for the most part by, I think, the Simpsons. This would be kind of the shocking, the biggest change of culture in sports in 30 years.

[00:30:00] And I bet, Scott, that not very many people knew that the New York Yankees in the year 2025 still had a no facial hair policy. Dating back to the time when Montgomery Burns was yelling at Don Mattingly. Mattingly. Mattingly, get rid of those sideburns. What sideburns? You heard me, hippie. Mattingly, for the last time, get rid of those sideburns.

[00:30:29] Look, Mr. Burns, I don't know what you think sideburns are, but... Don't argue with me. Just get rid of them. Mattingly. I thought I told you to trim those sideburns. Go home. You're off the team for good. Fine. Still, I can better than Steinbrenner. By the way, for those of you who never, ever, ever, ever watch The Simpsons and find it detestable, I get it. Watch one episode.

[00:30:54] Watch the baseball episode called Homer at the Bat, and it's the funniest thing you'll ever see. So, we still have these little cultural touchstone moments in this grand old game, don't we? We do. It was interesting because, you know, that story was actually based on an actual event. 1973, Steinbrenner did go to his team because Steinbrenner went to military school. He was very clean cut and proper and thing, you know, and he demanded it of the team.

[00:31:24] And for me, the fun of it was every season, it was like, can you recognize this player? Because they just got traded to the Yankees, and they looked nothing like the way they looked. Like, I remember when Johnny Damon went from Boston, he had the long flowing hair and the big beard. And next thing you look, you're like, who is that out in the center field, right? It was always a fun game of transformation. But it sort of works the other way as well.

[00:31:50] I remember back in the 2000s when the Red Sox first embraced the beards, and every guy on the field looked like a Civil War general, right? Because they had these massive bushy beards. I'm like, where did these guys come from? I think it's fine. I mean, it's kind of a funny, quaint thing that the team, in their press release, it says, we will allow, quote, closely manicured beards. So I can just picture as the guy comes up the tunnel, there's going to be somebody there with a tape measure saying, oh, a little long.

[00:32:20] Let me snip it. Let me give you a trim here. Okay, now you're good to go. So it's just one of those fun things, right? It is so hilarious. And it was a Steinbrenner that enacted the policy change, right? So dad would be rolling over in his grave to some degree. You know, in my world, as a Tiger fan, we ended last season on the highest of highs. I mean, we're one game away from advancing into the ALCS.

[00:32:46] And the run that they put together in August and September was kind of historic, came out of nowhere, really. Hard to know if we should expect a team that comes out of the gates in a weak division, right? So that helps, but comes out of the gates contending and maybe, maybe somehow providing moments like this again. Guardians won game on.

[00:33:14] Tigers trying to get one on the road before they return to Detroit. Runner goes, pitches swung on, a high fly ball to right field. This one is going to fly! A three-run home run! Kerry Carpenter into the bleachers in right field. What a moment! Yeah, what a moment is right.

[00:33:38] I know we're not going to do team-by-team analysis, but is it wise for Tiger fans to think that that lightning is still in the bottle? Yeah, I mean, if you look at the leagues as a whole, you kind of touched on it. It really depends because of how the league is structured. Divisions still matter in baseball, right? And that's one of the things I do love about the sport. You have to win your division. With the added wild cards, it does sort of spread the feel a little bit more, which was exciting to see the Guardians and the Royals and the Tigers, right?

[00:34:09] The weak division really have a lot of playoff teams. I think the Tigers have just as much of a chance in that division as the Twins, the Royals, or the Guardians. We won't even mention the White Sox. They should be relegated, I think, to AAA. But the same goes for my NL Central, which is probably the weakest of the National League divisions, which is why I think the Cubs might be able to match some of those projections.

[00:34:37] Because once you get into the playoffs, like we know, anybody can win, right? You're going to have upsets in a three-game series, a five-game series. And that's, I think, again, what Tigers fans, Cubs fans, Royals fans. I even look at Seattle. So the Mariners, and this will be the one team I did want to give a shout-out to. The Mariners had the best pitching staff in baseball. And yet they didn't even make the playoffs because they had no offense. And everybody was waiting. What is Seattle going to do in the offseason?

[00:35:06] Who are they going to bring around to surround Julio Rodriguez? How are they going to do it? And they did nothing. So you've got to wait and watch in that AL West because, again, you've got this little thing called the trade deadline, which is like the horizon, the horizon line that all the teams are rushing for in this marathon. If they can get to the horizon line, at least somewhere near the front of the pack, boom, hopefully they bring on the right pieces to push them into the playoffs. And then it's anybody's game.

[00:35:33] So how far into the season before you think you've got a feel for how good your team's going to be? Sparky Anderson used to say, after the Tigers went 35-5, he said, you get me 40 games in, I can tell you what our team's going to be. Yeah, I would say two months. I kind of take the season and block it into chunks, right? So you've got April, May, then you've got June, July, the trade deadline, and then you've got August and September.

[00:36:01] So the first two months are who are we, how good are we, what do we need to do? The summer is the grind. Those two months in the summer is where the real – I think that's really where the season is won or lost, is in June and July. Because by then you've got to make a decision whether we add or subtract at the trade deadline. Do we sell off? Do we jettison? Do we look towards next year or do we add to the team? And then the pennant is my two favorite months of the entire year. It is the best baseball.

[00:36:31] If you're a huge baseball fan and you just want to dig in, plan on watching September, October baseball. It is the best. It makes up for what others call us slow. I think it's all fantastic. That's how I break up the season is really by the end of May, by Memorial Day, you should have a good idea. Yeah, well, that's why you're our baseball guru, right? So, all right, we're going to leave baseball for a moment and slide into our other segments. Here's Holy Discontent.

[00:37:00] It's time to blow off some steam. Get it off your chest. Rant about what's most bothering you. I got a lot of problems with you people. Now, you're going to hear about it. It's time for Holy Discontent. It's been a while since we've had you on, so I'm going to let you lead us off. Well, it was funny because it's so early in the season, I really don't have anything to complain about. So, if you'll permit me, I'm going to actually take my Holy Discontent and make it a Holy Content. Okay.

[00:37:31] Because, and this story may have flown under the radar. I don't know if you remember last year, the big hullabaloo about uniforms. Yes. It was an absolute fiasco. And if anybody watched a game where the Yankees were on the road and Carlos Rodon stepped out in his solid gray Yankees road uniform, and by the second inning, he looked like he was wearing camo because it was all splotchy with sweat stains and everything.

[00:37:59] It was a joke. It was ridiculous. See-through. And then you had players complaining about their pants, and the names weren't big enough, and the colors didn't match. It was a complete dumpster fire from a uniform standpoint. And Holy Content is that they did something about it. So, the good news is that the uniforms are back to the way they were. We should have none of that silly distraction. We want our players to be comfortable and breathing in their uniforms and flowing like the wind and performing at maximum capacity.

[00:38:28] So, that's a good thing for the sport. Thank you, whoever listened to the voice of reason. You know, I'm starting to think that Manfred might have hired somebody he's willing to listen to. Because, you know, in our hierarchy of commissioners, Manfred was probably right down there with Bettman. And now, in the last couple of weeks, well, last year, with the pitch clock and all that, baseball has done very well. Hockey just redeemed itself with the Four Nations Tournament. It really did. I mean, it was just incredible. The whole thing was great.

[00:38:59] And you can have your own opinions about Goodell, but he's sitting atop the throne of the most powerful sports in the world. My Holy Discontent is a combination of the one that I was going to bring and the one that Paul Miller sent me. It has to do with the NBA All-Star Game. Not that any of us were going to watch it to start with, but it's become more of a farce than it was last year. And last year, it was such a farce that the commissioner yelled at the players on the floor while handing out the trophy.

[00:39:29] My Holy Discontent, shockingly, connects us to LeBron, who decided he was not going to play in that game a few hours before the game, which I don't care. I wasn't going to watch either way, but he deprived somebody else who would have played of the chance to be on the team. And then when they took the team photo, he couldn't even bring himself to put on a uniform, so he's in the middle of the team photo wearing his sweatsuit and everything. It just looked silly. It was ridiculous.

[00:39:59] It is the height of narcissism. And to combine that with Paul's holy discontent, we go to Brian Windhorst from ESPN defending the NBA when it's being compared to the electric All-Star Showcase that hockey provided. Number one, congratulations to the NHL. It was a terrific event. Why does the NHL success have to be called the NBA's failures, which I've seen repeatedly over the last few days? Why does that have to be? What does one have to do with the other? That's one.

[00:40:28] Number two, while this was a great event, they are not having it next year. Next year, they are at the Olympics in Milan. I read a report today that said the NHL said they will not hold it in 27 or 29, and in 28, there's going to be the Hockey World Cup, so they're not having it. So this is the last one of these for the decade. Congratulations. It was great, but it sounded like the NHL has now got an annual event. Number three, it's an in-season tournament. You're talking about how inventive it is and everything? It's an in-season tournament. The NBA had an in-season tournament first.

[00:40:58] The NBA stole that idea, too, but it's an in-season tournament. Now, it's an effective in-season tournament because it's countries, and maybe the NBA should look at that, but the idea that the NBA is getting put down and denigrated because of a great thing the NHL did, I don't get it, and I don't think it's fair, and I'm not going to participate in it. Listen, I get it. He's on the NBA beat. He's got to sing the song. Listen, all the fans care about isn't precedent. It's not the other things that he cited. It's passion, right?

[00:41:26] All we care about is that the players look like they're invested in it, that they care about the outcome, and the NBA has continually embarrassed itself in that regard. Adam Silver, if David Stern were still the commissioner of the NBA, I don't believe you'd have All-Star Weekend. I think he would just pull the plug and say, you guys don't deserve it. We'll name an All-Star team, and congratulations.

[00:41:55] We're not going to insult our fans with this, but the NBA currently has no qualms about doing that. I saw on X, somebody said, does anybody have a suggestion for how to improve NBA All-Star Weekend? And several responses were, don't have it. That would be the way. Baseball's done it well. The All-Star game's pretty fun.

[00:42:21] It's hard to half-effort yourself through a baseball game, right? I mean, really, you're so exposed. Can you play flag basketball? Is that a thing? Maybe Nerf. Maybe get a Nerf hoop, two-hand touch basketball. Do the NFL version, right? It'll just three-point competition skills or whatever. Something like that. All right, let's go on to our that guy. Right now, this minute, today, this week, I am...

[00:42:52] Yeah, I'll lead us off with this one. It follows with what I just said. I just, that guy for me are the players on the USA and Canada teams. They invested in that showcase. Nice. And now, if neither team had made it to the finals, that would have been a tough look for an American television audience. But as it turned out, the two arch rivals got together. The largest hockey audience, I believe they said in history, but it might have been in some period of time. It was over 9 million people.

[00:43:22] I know that in the landscape of the Super Bowl and all that, that's a blip on the radar screen. But for hockey, that's a pretty big deal. And the championship game delivered going to overtime. And while we wish it would have gone the other way. It was spectacular play. There was real hitting. These were guys who, 48 hours later, had to play for their teams. I just watched the Red Wings play.

[00:43:49] Dylan Larkin was back with the Wings and they lost today in overtime, probably because he's got no gas left in the tank. But man, kudos to everybody and to the NHL. And I have to give praise to the commissioner who I don't normally praise. Bettman's not my favorite guy. They did it right. They did it well. And I understand they're not going to do it every year. Maybe that's what makes it so special, though. Maybe the NBA All-Star game should be every two or three years instead, too. So, all right, you're that guy.

[00:44:18] Yeah, I think recently, you know, the Bregman signing, going back to baseball, that was a big thing. And the question was, when he goes to Boston, like, where is he going to play, right? Because Boston has Devers at third. And there was some contention there about him. Who's going to move? Who's going to play or whatever? And I just want to acknowledge Bregman. His response was really, again, professional team focus. He said, look, I'll play wherever which is best for the team.

[00:44:43] So, it's nice to hear a guy admit and understand, look, I am good at any position, but I'm here to win. You know, the team mentality. I think we should celebrate that any time that we can rather than the individual because, again, the parallel within the church, right? We're all supposed to work together as parts of the body. You know, the elbow and the hand, they're supposed to work together. They're not there to compete with one another. I think that's just an appropriate thing to call out and celebrate. So, kudos to Alec Bregman for his attitude.

[00:45:13] Yeah, good stuff. We'll wrap things up with the three-minute message. Homer, I'd like you to remember Matthew 7, 26. The foolish man who built his house on sand. And you remember Matthew 21, 17. And he left them and went out of the city into Bethany and he lodged there. Yeah. Think about it. There you go.

[00:45:41] Somebody asked me, why do you have so many Simpsons soundbites on your podcast? I'm like, because that's what I grew up watching. I'm not saying that I couldn't have found better things to infuse my brain with, but between Simpsons and Seinfeld, that's kind of what's up here. That lead-in is perfect. I love that. Colossians 3, 23 and 24.

[00:46:03] Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. We think about spring training and while it used to be more conditioning oriented, when guys had other jobs and they would roll into the spring probably 30 pounds overweight and hadn't really worked at their craft, now they largely do. They're coming in, they're playing winter ball.

[00:46:32] There's too much money to come into it ill-prepared for the most part. And so they're working. They're trying to make a great impression. They are trying to make sure the manager and the general manager know I'm here to play and I'm going to get my work in every day. And yet, it's a different kind of work. We, as followers of Christ, are called to do our work as unto the Lord and not for human masters. Not that we don't have bosses.

[00:47:02] Not that we don't have responsibilities. But there are things that I can get away with that I can maybe not be caught or seen by a person who is in a position of leadership over me. When I used to work at a big broadcast company, yeah, you could slough off. You could do that. You could skirt the edges of your responsibilities and still kind of get by. But that's not the standard to which we are called as followers of Christ.

[00:47:32] We are called to honor Him with all that we do. We are called to probably give extra effort so that if the world is watching us, they see something different about us. We are working for the Lord, not for human masters. And the reminder that it is the Lord that we are serving.

[00:47:49] Even if we're doing something that's outside of the faith-based realm, if we're not a professional pastor, if we're not a professional ministry-related staff member, we're still being watched. We're still observed. We are still serving the Lord in all that we do. And we're utilizing the gifts and the talents that He has been gracious enough to bless us with.

[00:48:12] And I don't know, Scott, how you feel about these things, but one of the prayers that I offer every day, I ask the Lord to help me honor Him with all that I do and say. Because I talk way too much in my various forms of broadcast, right? And it's easy, and I should probably add to that things that I would post and things that I would do on social media. It's easy to slip over into another mindset.

[00:48:39] And if I'm careful, if I'm not careful, I can blow a lot of testimony in a couple of tweets or a couple of thoughts or a few sentences. So whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord. It is the Lord that you are serving, and that's our reminder to close things out today. Good stuff. Good to see you, my friend. Yeah, likewise. Thanks for this. This has been fun. I'm ready to go. We had to get some baseball out in the air. I mean, it was all pent up, and we're almost there.

[00:49:08] So have fun in Arizona, and we'll probably talk again before the regular season and get a little bit more of a team deep dive as to who to keep an eye on this season. So safe travels. Thank you. Thanks so much, Bill. Appreciate it. And thanks to all of you for being a part of Church Pew Sports. Make sure you check us out online at churchpewsports.com. We'll talk to you again next time.