00:00Mauricio Dubon traded to the Atlanta Braves for one Nick Allen.
00:06Who?
00:06Nick Allen is the player that will be returning.
00:10Another utility player, but not, thank you, Snoop, Nick Allen,
00:14who is not the same caliber, but definitely still a utility guy,
00:19more of an infield utility guy, doesn't have the same range as Mauricio Dubon,
00:23has been a gold glove finalist, but not the two-time gold glove winner
00:26that Dubon is.
00:26And so a lot of people go, in fact, we were doing this live on our text
00:31where we were going, what are they saying with this?
00:33What does this mean, John Logan?
00:35Yeah, so you asked what I was doing.
00:37I was watching the Rockets.
00:39I was reading Reggie's very giddy text that he was sending.
00:43Yeah, I just decided to use it.
00:45I don't know if you noticed, I was not even really texting to you guys.
00:48You were just texting the air.
00:49I was like, here's the notes.
00:50Here are my notes of what I'm seeing.
00:52I knew exactly what he was doing to the point I didn't feel pressured
00:55to have to reply and keep up with it.
00:57Well, I was about to reply to one, and literally, it was one of those things,
01:00you know, on Twitter it says, you know, two minutes ago or whatever.
01:04Fifteen seconds ago, Brian McTaggart tweeted.
01:07I just saw.
01:07Holy crap, they don't know this yet, so I'm going to text him.
01:10He's like, I got to be ready.
01:11What's funny is.
01:12I win.
01:12What's funny.
01:14Is he tweeting?
01:17Yeah, it was on the table or whatever.
01:18Yeah, I'm thinking like, okay, okay.
01:19And then when you text, I'm like, damn.
01:22I thought it was on the table.
01:23All right, so I hear all the conversations pro and con.
01:28I do.
01:29Like, you know, it's money saving, and they're all accurate.
01:33You know, until we see their next move, we can't say one way or the other.
01:37But there has been something just gnawing at me, and I'll get to that in a second.
01:41But I hear the arguments, guys.
01:42They're saving money.
01:44Yes, they definitely save money.
01:46What was it, like $5 million or something like that?
01:47They're definitely doing that.
01:49Almost damn near $6 million.
01:50Okay, I get that.
01:51I get, you know, utility player, albeit just an infield utility player that can't hit a lick.
01:57You want an interesting stat?
01:59The two lowest.
02:00You're not going to outstat me, John Lopez.
02:01The two lowest OPS last year in the entirety of Major League Baseball.
02:06Number two, Martin Maldonado.
02:09Number one, Nick Allen.
02:10Yes.
02:11Numbers are hot.
02:14I didn't know we had that drop.
02:16How is that the first time I'm hearing that drop?
02:17All these numbers I've been throwing out here.
02:19That's an OG drop right there.
02:20Yeah, that is an OG drop.
02:22But worse than Martin Maldonado OPS.
02:25So I get that.
02:26So also, I get there's going to be another deal made.
02:30What kind of deal?
02:31Maybe it's a pitcher.
02:32You know, hey, Dylan Seas.
02:34Hey, this or that.
02:35I get all that.
02:36But what keeps gnawing at me, Reggie, is if you are fancying yourself as a legit contender.
02:45And this is the first thing I texted to you last night.
02:47I can confirm.
02:48Yes.
02:49If you fancy yourself as a legit contender, you simply do not trade.
02:56A million dollars difference?
02:58You do not trade a utility player that is that good.
03:01Because every contending team craves, you know, desires.
03:07Jay, they want a utility player like Dubon more than they want their left hand.
03:12I mean, you know, you don't trade a guy like that if you are a contender.
03:17That's what's gnawing at me.
03:18So what are they really doing?
03:20Are they doing what I've postulated?
03:23I think that's the right word, right?
03:25Hypothesized?
03:26Hypothesized.
03:27I think postulated is right.
03:28But this is what happens in my brain.
03:30I'm like, it doesn't feel right.
03:31I'm just going to go with hypothesize.
03:32First of all, you're throwing too many big words at me.
03:34Okay, now, because I don't understand them, I'm going to take them as disrespect.
03:37I'm going to say postulate.
03:38As I postulated, could they be putting together that, hey, we want to be a contender.
03:46We are a contender.
03:47We still have the stars.
03:49Buy your tickets.
03:50You know, we're still going to win games.
03:52We're still going to be interesting on the front.
03:55But on the back burner, are they saying, guys, we need, and this has been talked about as well,
04:01we need more discipline at VATS.
04:03We need to bring up some younger players, which they did just the day before.
04:07You know, they chose Uyola over the other utility guy.
04:11Ramon Urias, who also would have been making, I think, somewhere like $3 million himself.
04:15The front burner, it looks good.
04:17And we're doing all the right things.
04:18And see, we're going to contend.
04:20We're never going to rebuild.
04:21Back burner, though, you're starting to do things like this.
04:24I just can't.
04:24That's just gnawing at me.
04:26Yeah.
04:26I think that that is an interesting subplot of this.
04:30But I think the first and foremost thing is we know about Jim Crane.
04:34Jim Crane is not going to be at is the collective, not the collective, the competitive, competitive tax.
04:42The luxury tax.
04:43Right.
04:44Like the, I forget what, the CBT.
04:46Yeah.
04:46Those are the letters.
04:47I can't remember what it stands for in this moment.
04:48Sue me.
04:49But, yeah, he's not going to play above that.
04:52Right.
04:52That is one of the things that we know about him.
04:53Or if he is, he's going to do it very intentionally for a good reason.
04:58I think that this is, all of those things are wrapped into it.
05:01But I think the chief thing amongst that is if we want to get better because we clearly need to, it's going to happen two ways.
05:09With growth of young players, but then also with additions.
05:13And those additions aren't going to come out of nowhere.
05:15So we got to take a little bit of a mortgage out of this somewhere.
05:18In this franchise.
05:20And this is a smaller place to do it.
05:22I will not argue with you that Nick Allen, I almost called him Nick Miller from New Girl.
05:28Nick Allen is not as good of a dude at a bat as Mauricio Dubon.
05:32But you wasn't putting Mauricio Dubon at the plate for that.
05:35I mean, I think.
05:36But you could put him anywhere on the field.
05:37You could put him anywhere.
05:38That's the thing.
05:39That is the one thing that gnaws at me.
05:40He was all over the place.
05:42You have a lot of infielders.
05:43You don't have a lot of outfielders.
05:44And that was one dude that you could use as some level of spackle or what have you.
05:48To fill in the gaps.
05:49And now you don't have that.
05:50And I imagine Jesus Sanchez is also soon to be going outside out as well.
05:56So you will need to find some answers in the outfield.
05:59Is that just some of the young guys that you have had out there before?
06:03Is that sufficient?
06:03I don't know.
06:04And we can get to there at some point.
06:07But I think that that $6 million savings.
06:09I think that can go a lot further than that utility place where you have it.
06:12That's more of a luxury to have a utility.
06:16I think it's.
06:17And so I think I'm okay with this.
06:18But that's before I start getting to the emotional.
06:20I'm going to miss having a Mauricio Dubon in that team.
06:23And things that he clearly brings to being a gap in that.
06:28Or being a glue guy in that clubhouse.
06:30Being somebody that, again, for a manager is an easy answer.
06:33That easy button.
06:34And I think that those are the things that I'll miss to a great degree.
06:36No, again, I hear that argument as well.
06:38I've also heard, and you mentioned Bryce Matthews.
06:40I've heard the argument, okay, it's Bryce Matthews time.
06:44You know, he's going to be one of those guys in the outfield that can cut.
06:46Yes, I don't disagree.
06:48But that's another little mark on the we're kind of rebuilding side.
06:53You know, young player, pretty much unproven up here.
06:57So, like I said, I just keep going back to that.
06:59I don't know what it is.
07:00Only they do.
07:01But, you know, you crave players like Dubon.
07:06I mean, the guy won a gold glove.
07:07I distinctly remember some plays at second base, at shortstop, that just flat out saved games.
07:13Like won games, Dubon.
07:15And so, it is an emotional thing because he was very much well-liked.
07:20But I think X's and O's, so to speak, in terms of baseball.
07:24Well, it's going to be, I'd be hard-pressed to say that Joe Spada said, yeah, let's do this.
07:29Yeah, but I think Joe Spada knows, right?
07:31At least in this organization, it's a zero-sun game.
07:34And I think that this is going, or at least in this moment, it feels like they have, this is going to be something that they put back in.
07:42Right, like this will come back into the ultimate, you know, spreadsheet of what they do.
07:49If it isn't, I think that that will be an interesting thing to return to your initial reaction, which is, oh, is this kind of...
07:57Not a bench switch, but just sort of a, sort of an interesting soft, a soft opening, so to speak, of a rebuild.
08:03Yeah, they're not doing a fire sale or nothing, but they're just slowly kind of renovating a little bit.
08:10Exactly.
08:10Yeah, I just keep thinking of house renovation.
08:12Just the kitchen.
08:12Just the kitchen.
08:13Yeah, it's just like, hey, man, do we really need the garage to look super nice?
08:16You know, like, let's just take some of this stuff out of here, use that to maybe, because again, the kitchen is going to be more important.
08:22And I think that that's where, in this really tortured metaphor in my mind, the kitchen is the pitching, your starting rotation, which clearly you need to.
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