FTTS 06_21EditedAudio

The speaker discusses various topics, including a road game, the NBA draft, the MLB draft combine, the College World Series, and the current standings in baseball. They also touch on the issue of the changing dynamics in college sports and the impact of NIL policies. The speaker mentions their own experience winning a national championship in college and the excitement of the Omaha atmosphere. They highlight the recent success of the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks in the MLB. And we're back. It's Farm to the Show. We're taking the show on the road today. This is our second road game. Paul, we had a road game earlier. I believe you're in Dallas. I actually took a show at one of your buddies' houses, and I think you had a hotel show the other day. So yeah, we're taking this one on the road. I'm in Palo Alto, California at Stanford University. And we're back. Paul Janusz, what's going on, man? We got action on a number of different fronts. Not so much the big leagues, because I think we've kind of given you all we've got for the week. We've got Otanis on TV right now, which is always must-see TV. But future must-see TV right now, we've got a new prospect in Cleveland who took the mound. But more importantly, we had probably the prospect of the NBA prospect of the generation throughout the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. And I know that everybody's always looking to have that top ten worst. Given the circumstance, I don't think it was that bad. Victor Webbing, I'm going to use prospect number one, shoe-in number one pick, 7'4", just killer. Looking like Jack Skeleton out there. It's not the worst. It wasn't the worst first pitch, but it's on the list, man. It's on the list of top ten. I will say this, it looked like he was holding a title list. I'm trying to explain to people, oh my God, it's bad enough, give a guy a break. He's not out there just playing catch in the park on his free time. Then he's grabbing basically a golf ball. The same rule I try to back up with Shaq. You go to the free throw line, an NBA free throw line, put a softball in your hand and try to shoot free throws. It's not easy. It ain't easy. For that reason alone, I'm not going to put it way up there. I put Travis Kelsey's first pitch spike in the ground as being far worse than Victor's for sure. At least the ball fits in Travis's hand. Okay. Wimby's got a little bit more of a get out of jail free card there for me. Yeah. They had the highlight of him catching the balls when he was on the field and he easily just swallowed two balls. If you're talking about that Sandy Koufax deal, like the seven balls, I got to figure he can get nine balls in there easy. I can't wait to watch this play. It was special. NBA draft is coming up. NHL draft is coming up. But more importantly, both of us have gone through the draft process. What do you got on the draft combine? This was a big deal for me because you know how it is. That last season, that game is over for us. We ended our season in La Tech 2003 on the plane back. And it's like, damn, I'm really sad about this being over. But I also got to get your mind right because you got draft workouts coming up. And so my particular schedule, I had to get back, pack my stuff. I had Atlanta, Arizona, San Francisco, Anaheim, San Diego, and Texas. So I had six workouts in six days. Now that I have this draft combine, you know, it's consolidating everybody into one place. It's so much easier on the player. It's a better program all around. To come out there, you run your 60, you do your weights, you take your BP. It's off the watch. It's off the watch quite a bit. And MLB is doing a great job. They had Lowry out there. They had CY. They had all the guys out there, you know, being around. It's a nice situation they got with this draft combine. It is. It's more consolidated. That being said, there's still workouts across the country for guys that maybe aren't going to be, you know, in the top ten rounds type prospects. It's much more, you know, they're all in one spot. They can get all their stuff done. But it's much different than when you and I played. There's so much more video available. There's so much more information available relative to the metrics of these guys now. So it's a much cleaner process, to your point. It's easier. But there's a lot less uncertainty than what there used to be relative to the evaluation process, I think. So it is cool. I'm sure the guys are fired up to be there at the combine. Obviously it's a group of guys that are very well thought of that are going to have the opportunity to play, assuming health, and get drafted well, which is the goal that everybody starts out with, man. When you're talking about, you know, I've got my son playing Little League right now, going all the way through high school, going all the way through college. Everybody dreams about the opportunity to get drafted, to your point, about college. I was on the field when I got drafted. We were still playing in the postseason. And it's just such kind of an anticlimactical deal because you're still playing. You find out you get drafted by the Cincinnati Reds. But also very cool. And just no different than what we have right now. We'll have to touch on this briefly in a minute, but the College World Series is still going. There's guys that are landing on the line. The Oral Roberts Cinderella story was unbelievable down the stretch here in the postseason. And then you have the, you know, the Florida, the Stanford, the Tennessee, the LSU, just some – UVA was in the World Series this year, these titans of college baseball over the past however many years. So super fun to watch, super fun to see. But the combine is exciting. I'm not a huge fan of the fact that the draft has been moved back to mid-July. That really compromises the schedule for the purpose of, you know, guys that are in college and, you know, college coaching staff that have to navigate through those waters. It's just a little late in the summer for me. I wish it was still a little bit earlier to, you know, create some clarity relative to who's going to be going and who's not and those kinds of things. But super exciting time. Guys are starting their journey hopefully, finding out where they get drafted, which team they're going to go with, and go from playing in college potentially or high school where you're obviously playing for the team and trying to play for that purpose to get and put into the lion's den of a pro locker room where at the end of the day you kind of have to turn selfish because you're – Playing for all 30. You're playing for yourself. You're playing for all 30. And you're playing for all 30, yeah. It sounds ridiculous, but that's, you know, it's, yeah, you're one of many. And, you know, from every level you're going to be one of five, one of four guys that's going to advance to the next level. And for every team that you're on you're going to be one of five people who's even going to get a taste of the big leagues. But, you know, it's one thing you're showing up every day. You're playing for all 30 teams. You're not necessarily playing for the team. Like, you know, you start a Dayton team. We're horrible, you know. But at the end of the day it's like it doesn't matter to you. Yeah, it's going to be rough. You don't want to be out there for three and a half hours getting boat raced every night. But it doesn't matter. Like, your minor league team cares if you lose 90 games in Dayton, Ohio. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, you're going out there being your best self and, you know, somebody will, you know, pick you up. You get Rule 40. You get traded. You know, any of these things, you know. And it's like if you're in the Yankees organization as a kid coming up, like you know you're not getting – you're probably not getting in the big leagues as a Yankee. You're going to be trade bait for some deal. Go out and get a free agent. So, with that being said, you know, best of luck. But what you said about pushing it back, I think it's MLB following again in the ways of the NBA draft, the NHL draft, and making a production, you know, having it at, you know, in All-Star or Seattle or wherever the All-Star game is and making it like a whole production. You know, bringing it to prime time television with the first round picked, which is cool. But like you said, you got drafted in the middle of the game. My senior year of high school, I got drafted in the middle of the game. You come back and you're like, oh, by the way, you got drafted. It's like, okay, cool. It's just, you know, it's not the same. But, you know, these kids will all be getting a call those first to third rounds and, you know, it's an exciting time. Harold Reynolds made an interesting point, is that there are so many draft picks in baseball. I don't know how many rounds they're doing these days. It's got to be, what, 25, 30 rounds now? 20 rounds. Yeah. The thing is, like, about the combine is that there are a lot of guys who haven't been seen before. Like you said, they're going to have their separate workouts for, like, the guys' guys. You know, the guys that are projected top five, the top high school, top college players that they have gravitated towards to do kind of a private workout. But a lot of these guys, it's not like college football where we watch, you know, when we're in the locker room and that combine time comes around. Like, that's an exciting time. The combine stays on all day for three days in the locker room, looking at these dudes, because you know them. You've seen them on a Saturday. You know the defensive back and the linebacker from Texas Tech. You know, you know, you know Josh Allen coming out of Wyoming. You know, you've seen the highlights. And so when you see that combine, you know, you're familiar. These kids that were on the TV today, you know, they're high school kids. They're 17 years old from, you know, Fort Meade, Florida, and, you know, projected to go to first round. You've never seen this kid in your life. So it was pretty interesting, I'm sure, to get eyes on the scout or just kind of TV. These are the top prospects in baseball. It was cool to get eyes on these guys, take DP, watch them throw, watch them move, watch them run, and kind of putting a face to these future stars early. Yeah, that whole dynamic is different in baseball to begin with, right? Because if you're talking about Josh Allen, like, as the example, or a first round draft pick in football, he's going to the major league team, so to speak, right? Like, he's going to go play for the Bills. He's going to go play for the team. Like, the fans that are watching the draft, they're going to see that guy in a uniform on the sidelines in September. So I always think that that's a little bit different for baseball. Like, with the exception of a handful of guys, very few people have the opportunity to go to the big leagues in the same year that they get drafted. Obviously it happens, but not very frequently. So I think there's a little disconnect there with the ability to really promote it in the same fashion. I mean, people are going to get fired up about their draft picks, don't get me wrong, and there's a couple of guys at the college level. You know, there's the kid from LSU, Paul Skeens, who's throwing the ball 102 miles an hour with a slider at, you know, 90-91. That's like a real guy. Like, he could be in the big leagues at the end of the year, there's no question. But that's uncommon, especially when you talk about the high school kids. Some of them are supremely talented, as we know, but it's very unlikely that you're going to see them in the big leagues in the next two years. Like, it's still going to take a period of time. So I think that's why it's different than any of the other sports that we're talking about. You're not going straight to the major leagues in most cases. There's still going to be a buffer period that the fans have to wait. Now they're going to follow you in the minor leagues, and you're going to get coverage and all this stuff. But to your point, there's a development period that kind of just comes with the invite relative to baseball and the way that the draft works, which is just part of it, man. It just is. I don't see that changing. Yeah, and we've seen very little of it. I think Ryan Zimmerman was one of the few people that did a half a season in minor leagues, went straight to AA, raced, was in Washington right after the school. He was labeled as one of the best pure hitters coming out of college of all time. And then, you know, one of our former teammates, Mike Leak. Arizona State. He played essentially no minor league baseball, and they said that he was probably the most pro-ready pitcher in the last 25 years because he was so polished. And so he had a couple starts, and by, geez, May, he'd gone from Arizona State, did the College World Series, and he was with us in May. Yeah. And that's when I sprained my wrist and ended up having to have wrist surgery from trying to save him from a double down the line. Right. Yeah. Anyway, call the ambulance, by the way. But it's just not that – it's a little different dynamic. Baseball and the other sports are different. Not going to change. That being said, the draft coming up is pretty cool. Very exciting time for a lot of people. That's just based on the Omaha deal, man. You got these guys playing for the national championship. We got Florida's in the final. They beat TCU today. They eliminated them. You got LSU and Wake Forest going at each other to get to the finals to play against Florida. Such a cool dynamic. It's a possible SEC showdown like we were talking about before we got on. The landscape of college sports is changing. Obviously, the element of parity is tough. But, like, we mentioned Oral Roberts, man. They, you know, from a resource standpoint in a completely different league than these other teams that we're talking about. But they got to Omaha and had a really good run. They won, like, 19-21 down the stretch or something crazy. So it can still happen. It can still happen. But cool to see. Yeah, I hope it continues to happen because, you know, you've experienced your national champion. And, like you said, the parity, it's gone. And, you know, I'm here in Palo Alto at Stanford and, you know, talking with the Pac-12 and we're discussing how the college dynamics have changed over the last five years. And now with USC and UCLA getting out, you know, the Pac-12 has fallen off a little bit. You know, where USC used to run the show along with Oregon State, that's, you know, that's not the case. The parity that you have and the mix of teams in the World Series, I mean, it used to be in the Coastal Carolina, another great example. Yeah. You had Coastal Carolina. You probably always had an Oklahoma, a Texas Tech. You had a Big 12 representative. You had a Pac-12, Oregon State, Oregon, USC, UCLA. And then, you know, like you guys, you guys from the WAC, you know, now it's when you have these teams that are stacked at the top in the SEC, for me it's a little bit of a concern looking at the dynamic because it's not just baseball, it's football and it's basketball where it's becoming a monopoly of talent with some of these schools. But, you know, Oral Roberts, shout out to those guys. It turns into a little, for sure, for sure. It turns into more of a macro conversation though, man, right? Like the NIL stuff has gotten so goofy, you know, the amount of money that is, you know, that the bigger conferences have access to is just in a completely different realm. So, and you're right, it's not just baseball. It's basketball. It's football. It's all the stuff, right? It's really interesting for me to think about the next couple of years, two to four to five years to see exactly how the dust settles. Because right now we're just getting going. The snowball's rolling down the hill. Nobody's really sure what's going to happen or how it's going to stop. Everybody's just saying, you know, you got their alumni bases throwing tons of money at these kids. And, you know, is it the best way to handle this situation? I don't know. You know, I heard an interview that the president of the NCAA did on air the other day at one of the College Road Series games. And he kind of alluded to the same thing. Essentially saying, like, we're not real sure how we're going to get a handle on it or wrangle it. But we do know that something has to happen. We're going to do the best we can to try to, you know, for the greater good handle it the best we can based on what's already happening, you know. So the next couple of years will be interesting in college sports. You know, the concern for me is that you get away from, it's becoming a little pro-like. And that, to me, is a very slippery slope. Yeah, yeah. It's a slippery slope. But we'll see. I mean, like I said, at the end of the day, you got to play by the, within the rules, the parameters, if you will. And, you know, it's just that those rules are getting a little looser as we speak. So to your point about the Pac-12, I think that's a good example. The USC is the world. But it's, you know, we'll see what happens. With that being said, it's still college sports. It's still exciting. Everybody gets fired up about, you know, whatever their sport of choice is. Yeah. And your experience in Omaha, you know, what was that like? Like best ever? Best thing ever? Is that what you mean? Yeah. It was super unique. Like we joked about it a couple of shows ago. But the winning the national championship, you know, that's good every time, man. Like that will never go away, you know, with your college team that does a completely different emotional, you know, attachment, dynamic, whatever you want to call it. So it's just something that you can't take away, regardless of, you know, the fact that you and I had the opportunity to play professionally and play in the big leagues. The Omaha thing, the national championship thing, is just like super unique, man. Yeah. And having that turnaround and sitting in and kind of watching and maintaining your time in the schedule is completely different. Like they're going to be huddled around the TV, you know, tomorrow watching that elimination game. And then going into that game, doing that, you know, doing that workout and kind of going back to back. But when you have those double headers and you're just, you know, you've got to adapt. And really that's what it is. It's the teams that can adapt and come out, you know, have the depth and move forward. But that particular, you know, with that pressure, with the unique schedule, you know, tournament schedule, it's certainly a unique place to be. But it's so much fun to watch. The atmosphere is incredible. Omaha is an amazing place. And, yeah, really looking forward to that game tomorrow. For sure. For sure. With that being said, man, there's still a lot of action at the major league level like we've talked about. The Astros have struggled a little bit since Jordan has been injured, but they're kind of treading water. We talk about the ALEs all the time. Tampa and Baltimore seem to be kind of in the driver's seat there, holding strong. The centrals are struggling, man. But we talk about the Reds, five games over 500. I mean, they're 10-0 in their last ten, 1-11 straight. And the Diamondbacks, man, three games up over the Giants. So, you know, there's still a lot of action at the major league level, man. Yeah, but watching that game, watching that Reds game, I mean, Joey's right. I mean, there's no doubt we discussed it, the energy level. But, you know, Wednesday, it's today's Wednesday? Yeah, Wednesday day game in Cincinnati. People came out for that old business special. You know how that used to go back in the day. You know, you have the businessman special, they come out, and that lower bowl was packed. The energy was amazing, the 5-3 in the home run to break it open, great defensive play to kind of seal the deal. And, you know, they're coming back, man. They're doing their thing. They're fired up. Eleven in a row. I don't know what the exact stat on the last time they did it. It was 1957. That's right. 1957. Yeah. Hey, weird fact of the day, okay? You ready for this? Great. The NL Central, the Reds are in first place. The only team in the NL Central right now with a positive run differential to the Chicago Cubs, who are two games under .500. They're only three and a half games out of first place, but they're two games under .500. They're the only team in the Central with a positive run differential. It's like a trick math question, right? Yeah, truly. Well, we didn't necessarily say that the Central was real strong. You know, that goes for their counterpart, the AL Central. I mean, I don't know where they're Cleveland, but that entire division is kind of just trying to tread and keep their head above water right now. I think Minnesota's only two or three games over .500. Minnesota's a game under .500 in first place. Oof, oof, that's bad. That's bad. That's what we call RPI. If we're doing college baseball RPI, you're in the Central. You're not looking real good when it comes down to that, getting it into the old tournament. Oh, you guys are coming from the Central? Sweet, you guys got a combined record of, you know, 25 games under .500 as a whole division. Right, right. Well, it's been real, man. Hey, enjoy Palo Alto, man. It's nice this time of year. It's probably a little cold out there because here in Houston, we're like at 104 with sink with the humidity, but enjoy the weather. Yeah, your weather right now is a Jordan Hicks fastball. Zero part of it. Zero part of it. I can't imagine what a day game with the roof open would have been like today. It would have been absolutely miserable. Like one of those games where you run straight off the field, straight into the ice bath. Yeah, you got to get a little cold tub in your life. Believe it. All right, until next time, Mr. Janusz. Yep. I'm Chris Gibson. Keep it real, bud. Always. Later. All right, we're getting better on our time frame, bud. Yeah, we are.