Diamondbacks Zac Gallen & Merrill Kelly, Joey Chestnut, NBA Free Agency, Hot Seat/Cool Throne Plus Our Annual Dingers Only Fantasy Draft

13:06PFT Commenter:they don't really have any moves because they've paid everyone a ton of they paid Luca LeBron and Bronny I think like 90 million dollars I heard someone uh add them all he added Bronny I was like that's a great move uh I think and this is okay so we're not experts in the NBA so I'm just gonna throw this out there I think LeBron thinks he still runs the league and he doesn't run the league anymore yeah i think that's what's happening right now i think he he he did the whole old lebron of like i'm taking the money and listen no problem with him taking the money he he's lebron james he deserves the money he shouldn't i'm not going to sit here and be like take less money uh i mean if you want to if you want to maybe win a ring and have flexibility you should take less money but that's not never never look at another man's pockets i think the statement where he was like i'm gonna be monitoring the situation he was expecting every team to be like oh shit lebron we could trade for lebron and everyone's like uh why would we want to trade for a one-year retirement toward 53 million dollars for a guy who is going to basically like hijack our entire franchise so i don't think he has the power that he used to have i like to say that

14:15Big Cat:people are scared of the lakers because of lebron uh just because it puts more blame directly on lebron rather than saying like he's uh he's out of his depth right now i think the reality is that the Lakers didn't really have a whole lot of options. They might try to go after Eaton. He's the one big that's still out there that could potentially sign with him. But he did when he signed his contract. He said, I'm doing this because I know it's a challenge, but I want the Lakers to remain competitive and build for the future as I'm also on the team. And when I saw that statement, I thought, I don't know what LeBron's trying to get out of this, but surely he must know that it's going to be impossible to build for the future and win now when he's taking that big contract and getting his maximum value correct correct all that's true he might just be dumb well that could be the case

15:07PFT Commenter:i think he also just setting it up being like i made it clear i wanted you to build a contender he's he's he's tim robinson who you know we're all trying to find the guy who did this who who made it so we couldn't sign any players uh because they can't sign any players but he made it clear He wanted them to sign players. So when they don't sign players, you'd be like, wasn't I clear? I said I wanted you to sign. I wanted you to make a championship team for me.

15:30Big Cat:I just heard Dave McMenamin say on ESPN that he expects the Lakers might get involved with another team that signs a big, thus making their starting center expendable and then move that person to the Lakers. So any center in the league right now that's currently on a team is on the table per Dave McMenamin.

15:51PFT Commenter:yeah windy had the report he was like yeah everyone was shocked by this they were like yeah we don't want to trade for lebron there's no takers right now because obviously it instantly becomes the calves and and everyone talks about the calves i feel like the calves have kind of moved on from that why would they they had they had the one seat i know they got injured and they got bounced in the second round but why would you want to do that with lebron again i don't know he doesn't have a million dollars he doesn't have the pull that he wants if it was if it was 30 not 50 then it's a lot different yeah right that's where he's just selfish right um all right winners i have the nuggets as a winner feels like they finally got bench depth uh got a real backup center and that was a good michael porter jr trade where they got uh someone who's half half the money and then able to actually get some depth they got bruce brown back which is nice uh i also have the Rockets.

16:43PFT Commenter:The Rockets might be my pick. I know that you don't win championships July 1st. The Rockets are going to be really good. I think the Rockets are going to be awesome. They basically have three centers now, and they added Kevin Durant, and I'm a Rockets believer.

16:59Big Cat:I love what Bruce Brown did, by the way, when he left in free agency. After telling the Nuggets, I'm not going to go anywhere in free agency during the parade, and then waking up the next day and be like, oh yeah, I can make, what was it, $30 million more?

17:12PFT Commenter:Like$40 million or something.

17:12Big Cat:somewhere else yeah uh you know what i'm actually gonna go but i'm gonna be thinking about the nuggets the whole time i'll come back as soon as these checks stop coming in and that's a great move i i really i appreciate what what bruce brown did and he's gonna be like really good again

17:27PFT Commenter:because he's gonna play with jokic like he he basically took a sabbatical where he's like i'm gonna make the maximum amount of money i'm probably not gonna enjoy playing basketball the same way and then i'll just come back and it will be awesome yeah no it was a good move why do you like the the rocket so much kd kd their their depth with like their center depth they they have three big they got clint clint capella back obviously steven adams uh shangoon like they're gonna steven adams can just they can just basically rest everyone all year i i think kd's gonna be i think kd's got a little fuck you going tour coming i i don't know i think he's gonna fuck you tour coming it does feel like a let him know season yeah i i let him know just feeling it in my bones I think he's got one more of those in him, and I think this might be the year.

18:14PFT Commenter:And I think the more I thought about it, I know we talked about his legacy and all that stuff. The Rockets is perfect for him where it was a really good team last year, the two seed, and now he can be the old guy who brought the young kids along. I think this might be a KD legacy year. I think he might win it all and then be like, now this one counts.

18:33Big Cat:Is Chris Paul, he's a free agent, right? Yeah. So he's still out there. Played 82 games last year. 82 games, as healthy as he's ever been. I do think that KD's got a lot left in the tank for sure, but I really like what the Nuggets did. I think that the Nuggets, Cam Johnson, that's good. Michael Porter Jr., he's been a great player, but his back is just fucked up right now. You can't really count on him. So I like Cam Johnson, whose brother's name is Puff. Did you know that?

19:00PFT Commenter:No, that's great. His name is Puff. Not great right now. Puff Johnson.

19:04Big Cat:Well, we don't know.

19:05PFT Commenter:True. It's out. We do know.

19:08Big Cat:Four out of five. We do know. Do you think there's any chance that on four out of five charges, they're like not guilty? But maybe on that one. Yeah. Maybe on that one he is.

19:20PFT Commenter:Maybe. The Hawks have done a great job. The Hawks are going to be good. I mean, it goes back to the draft with the pick that they got from the Pelicans. I feel like the Hawks are doing some things. It's all vibe check for me, too. I don't know. Like the Celtics. Hank, you lost Luke Cornett. You did get out of prison, but you were in prison. Yeah, no, it's a sad state of affairs. Yeah, that's it? It's just the championship team is gone. Drew's gone. Horford isn't gone yet, but he's gone. Porzingis gone. You got Luka Garza, though. Big Ten beast. How is that even news? I don't want to be mean, but he doesn't play.

20:07PFT Commenter:but but i think it's news because that was a news it's like he's not did you hear all the reports it was like yeah they've they inquired about luka garza the last two two years and like they were looking at by the way i have breaking moves oh no breaking moves this is bad

20:26i like this halftime injury update red panda fell before getting started left court clutching her

20:33PFT Commenter:left wrist oh no please be okay oh my god not the red panda does she have an off season you think no fuck no dude come on halftime of what probably uh uh the the champions cup the the cup classic whatever the NBA does the world the world cup of clubs yeah yeah no no the champions cup for the WNBA. Oh, okay. Got it. They have one of those too. Yeah, yeah. The Commissioner's Cup. Commissioner's Cup. But I think it's... Is it the Commissioner's Cup in the WNBA? Zach, can you look that up for us, please? It is. It is. It's still the Commissioner's Cup. Damn, they copy everything. Mm-hmm. They want to be us so bad.

21:22PFT Commenter:Wait, are the courts different? He's giving us the thumbs up. He's giving us the thumbs up. What'd you say? Did they make the courts like a thumb on his video. I don't think so. It doesn't look different on the... No offense. Wait, what'd you say? I said Zach looks like a thumb on the video feed. Yeah, he doesn't have the best... Like you can't see his face. Yeah, he's not working with the best Wi-Fi. Zach, what's going on there, dude? My bad, guys. If I look like a thumb, that's on me. If the Wi-Fi's coming out, I've tried to get as close to the router as I could, but I didn't want you guys to get any background noise, so I was trying to stay on different side of the house.

21:58what's what's you look great what's behind you uh like a little office no but what's on the situation oh my uh my mom makes these uh picture frames that are like uh so it's beachwood and a picture frame and then they're like put together i'd like one of those that's uh i can get you

22:18PFT Commenter:one of those if you'd like to man yeah i would like one of those for the for the studio a couple I like that. What's that? We got another one over there. Oh, nice. A little Rascal Flatts action on the wall there. Okay.

22:30Big Cat:That's a Rascal Flatts melt. Great song. I like that you're using a laptop right in front of another bigger TV or bigger computer that's right behind you. Yeah. That's stationary. We already had the one lighting issue. I want to make sure we're mobile for you guys. You need the frames for rivals. Yeah. Also, yes. I need all the frames I can get. All right.

22:52PFT Commenter:I have a couple other NBA notes I wanted to throw at you guys. I'm going to throw a potential trade at you. I want to tell you, you got to say yes or no. If I offered you, you have the one pick in the draft. If I offered you the fourth, fifth, and tenth pick, would you trade? For the first overall pick? Yeah. Fourth, fifth, and tenth. It's pretty good.

23:12Big Cat:Deep draft next year.

23:14PFT Commenter:Deep draft.

23:15Big Cat:I have no idea if it is or not. I'm just saying that. Yes. Yes. Okay.

23:20PFT Commenter:Great. All right. So the bulls should have Anthony Edwards on their team. That's perfect. Okay. All right. The bulls have officially completed the trade. They have the, from the 2020 draft, they now have the fourth, fifth, fifth and 10th pick in terms of players from that draft, because they have Patrick Williams. They drafted fourth. They got a coral from the calves who was drafted fifth and they have Jalen Smith who was drafted 10th. So kind of stack in the 2020 draft boys. That's pretty good. Yeah. The bulls are incapable of trading for picks. They don't actually don't know how to do it. They traded all their good players, Zach Levine, DeMar DeRozan, Alex Caruso, Lonzo Ball.

23:57PFT Commenter:The only pick they got back was their own pick. That's it.

24:00Big Cat:And that was just out of spite just to get their own pick back. Yeah. They don't know.

24:04PFT Commenter:They actually, I don't think that they haven't read that they can do that.

24:08Big Cat:In their defense, it's a lot harder to trade for nobody. To be like, hey, we're going to get nobody back.

24:15PFT Commenter:But it's a good strategy when it's good pick, when you get picks. It is the correct strategy.

24:21Big Cat:It is the correct strategy to do for sure. But if you're a stupid person, it's hard to conceptualize a player that doesn't exist yet.

24:30PFT Commenter:Yeah, but I do appreciate that they – listen, they're going to be bad again, and they're run by incompetent losers and owned by incompetent stooges. But if you can stack multiple picks from one draft class, I always will kind of buy in Because I'd be like, dude, we had three of the top 10 picks one year. That's got to be good.

24:52Big Cat:They probably played McDonald's All-American games together, went to the same camps, familiar with each other.

24:58PFT Commenter:It's got to be good. All right. I like what the Bucs are doing outside of Miles Turner because they now have 66 % of the Garys in the NBA. Okay. Kind of like that. I really do think that if Giannis wants to trade or the Bucs season goes sideways, they have to do everything possible to try to get Gary Payton II on the team. And imagine if the Bucs could basically sell tickets being like, we have 100 % of the Garys in the NBA. Yeah, so there are, I'm guessing, three Garys. There's three Garys. They already had one, and they added another, which is significant in Gary news. Like if you add the second, it's basically playing Monopoly.

25:45PFT Commenter:They have two-thirds of an entire property now. They just got to get the last Gary, and they can charge everyone a ton of rent.

25:50Big Cat:You want to hear something crazy? Yeah. The Lakers have 100 % of the LeBrons in the NBA right now.

25:57PFT Commenter:That's true. That's true.

25:59Big Cat:Corner of the market.

26:00PFT Commenter:They don't have 100 % of the Lukas. The Celtics have half of that share.

26:06Big Cat:What if the Lakers could get a really good player in a trade, but they had to give up like obviously you had to trade probably don't connect and then the other team was like we need brawny or it's a no-go yeah i think they would they'd have to do it right

26:23PFT Commenter:would you trade your own son away you'd have to trade him you'd have to trade him and yeah knowing lebron he'd probably make it like a viral moment where he goes up to him in the middle of a game and does the well he probably didn't get to that part in the godfather too yet but he someone would tell him hey you got to go kiss him like he's fredo and let him send him on his way what

26:45Big Cat:the lakers should do to see if lebron is actually committed they should tell him we have to trade your son because we're getting this great player and then once lebron agrees to it then they say that was a test you get to keep your child very king solomon king solomon yeah king solomon yeah See if he's willing to sacrifice his own child for the betterment of the team.

27:07PFT Commenter:See if he's the true king.

27:09Big Cat:Yeah. And if he won't do it, then you know he's not the true king to begin with.

27:13PFT Commenter:Yeah. Then you rebuild. I like that. Make it a whole decision. Make it like a deal or no deal. Put Bronny in a suitcase. Yeah. All right. And then the last thing, Duncan Robinson, our friend, recurring guest, made a ton of money going to the Pistons. I like that. also crazy because I didn't know, but he is the leader in heat franchise history for three pointers made and by like a large margin, which is something that kind of shocked me a little, but also makes sense with how the NBA has gone with the three pointers. But I did you guys know that offhand? Not offhand.

27:53Big Cat:If you had asked me, I probably would have guessed James Jones, Mike Miller. I'll tell you this.

28:01PFT Commenter:You can't guess number two, which is just as shocking because obviously I've revealed that Duncan Robinson is one. Tyler Hero? Yeah. So you did guess it. Tyler Hero, number two.

28:11Big Cat:Yeah.

28:11PFT Commenter:It's crazy. Eudonis Haslam, just out of sheer longevity. Eudonis Haslam, not on the list. Yeah, Dwayne Wade all the way down at number nine. But shout out Duncan Robinson. He has 200 more threes than the second most threes in Heat history. So records about to be dames. Yeah, it might be dames. Well, no, because Dame, no chance Dame plays enough games. You have to make like maybe if he made 600 threes for two years.

28:43Big Cat:What if he's just so happy to finally be in Miami? It's like, what if Dame was right that he just needed Florida to unlock his best potential? He goes down there, just buries threes all day. That could happen.

28:56PFT Commenter:Hey, Max, did the Sixers do anything? No, they lost Yabu and then signed Tyrese Maxey's friend. Oh, okay. Well, that's cool. Where'd Yabu go? I forgot to do the Knicks. Huh? Oh, you mean John Staley's Knicks? Yep. Memes? She's a good coach. She is a good coach. Good coach. She's a good coach. Philly. trend in watford was the guy who we signed by the way i forgot his name do you like what the knicks did memes outside of maybe hiring don staley yeah the knicks are broke so they got uh jordan clarkson and yabu on uh vet minimums okay that's a nice player though yeah yabu's good jordan clarkson there was a clip of mike breen roasting him during the game but

29:47Big Cat:i'm sure it'll be fine so you're gonna get you're gonna get mike brown as your coach right yeah mike brown's gonna be the guy is he for officially he's he's the only guy coming back for a second interview oh okay yeah i guess rick brunson too is still in the running right yeah and don and don um all right should we talk a little nfl we had a trade

30:09PFT Commenter:these steelers got uh they traded minka fitzpatrick to the dolphins for jalen ramsey they also got John who Smith, which I think was a separate trade, correct?

30:19Big Cat:Yeah, I think it was.

30:20PFT Commenter:The reporting on all of this was a little weird because I don't know how you guys experienced this trade. I experienced it through our good friend, Jersey Jerry, who's will be on dingers only with us. He texted me Super Bowl on and was like, I can't believe this trade. And then the reporting came out that. So I think Jerry thought they just got Jalen Ramsey.

30:42Big Cat:Yeah, because the way it came out, it was just well, it wasn't even that big cat. The way I found out about it was through Adam Schefter. I have notifications on because I need to know what's going on. So I saw his post about a trade. It said Jalen Ramsey has been traded from the Miami Dolphins too. And then it was the dot, dot, dot. It cut off right there. I think that Schefter knows exactly how many characters to use to make people actually click through and look at his tweet instead of just looking at the notification. I think that he's that good. So I saw that. I clicked on that, and then they didn't say what they gave up for it.

31:20Big Cat:They didn't say anything about the details of the trade. It just looked like the Steelers were getting Jalen Ramsey. And then it did come out. Yeah, it was actually – Jonu Smith was – I believe it was in the same trade. Okay. It was – It makes sense it was, yeah. Steelers got Ramsey, Jonu Smith, and they swapped a 2027 seventh rounder for a 2027 fifth rounder. So they ended up with a fifth round pick in Pittsburgh, and Miami ended up with a seventh round pick.

31:55PFT Commenter:Got it. Because if you believe some of the things coming out of the Steelers at the end of last year, there was belief that possibly Minka Fitzpatrick was the guy who – remember there was that – there was a weird press conference. I think it was Cam Hayward. I think TJ Watt said something as well where they're like, it's hard when 10 guys are doing one thing and one guy's doing another and that some people thought might have been Minka Fitzpatrick so maybe that maybe that's an addition right there just getting him back to the Dolphins I don't know I thought it was TJ saying that he's the one guy

32:31Big Cat:doing the right thing and 10 other guys are all collectively doing the wrong thing but yeah Minka is a fine safety but he does freelance from time to time Ramsey is still a really really good cornerback and they have Ramsey and Joey Porter Jr. So I think it's all in all, it's good for the Steelers. It feels like this is the Steelers all in season, right?

32:52PFT Commenter:John Smith is also like that. He was a really good. He's been a really good tight end the last couple of years. So that that part for their offense, I feel like is significant.

33:02Big Cat:Is he Pittsburgh though?

33:06PFT Commenter:I don't always have to worry about that.

33:08Big Cat:I don't know if he's a Pittsburgh tight end.

33:09PFT Commenter:You got to always worry about that.

33:12Big Cat:Because they got Pat Friarmuth, Pittsburgh tied in. He's a guy that you could easily mistake for Heath Miller. And then you got big-ass Washington. I'm mostly concerned that Darnell Washington isn't going to be playing as much because whenever he steps on the field, you just look at him and be like, holy shit, who the fuck is that guy? How is he not the best player in the NFL?

33:34PFT Commenter:Yeah, I mean, Darnell Washington and DK Metcalf lining up on the same side will be like what Bain did to Heinz Field. It would just completely tilt. But yeah, I don't know if Darnell Washington can catch the ball. That's the only problem. But I do like when he gets on the field. I like the Johnnie Smith. He was good last year. He started to come on. Was it the end of two years ago? And then last year he was very good, I feel like. He was really good. And then two years ago, I think he started to pop a little as well.

34:09Big Cat:He had a big season. And then the Dolphins replaced him by getting Darren Waller from the New York Giants. Darren Waller was retired. And so I think they swapped like a sixth and a seventh round pick with the Giants to get a retired guy that was still on their payroll to come down to Miami and play.

34:26PFT Commenter:Yeah. Just don't make him fullback. That's the only thing. Because that clip came out that he basically retired when the Giants made him be fullback in Buffalo for like three consecutive plays. He's like, what the fuck am I doing here? The big story, though, is PFT. We're officially in football month. There is a football game being played this month. I know it's preseason, but that's really it just starts to get that. I was I was walking. I went on a hike with with my kids today. And I'll I'm not ashamed to admit that I started daydreaming about like the first NFL Sunday. And I was like, this is going to be awesome.

35:01PFT Commenter:I'm so excited.

35:02Big Cat:We're pretty much here. We're pretty much here. Like July is it's great at the start. we got you know the fourth of july that whole week feels like just a vacation for america and then you know it's hot outside still going to be we're going to be tan from how tan we are right now we're still going to have that same pantone on our skin once football season kicks off once we get actual live football played yeah it's the hall of fame game but we're going to see all the guys they're going to be wearing the jerseys we see the coaches it's going to be great and we're pretty much there so congratulations

35:35PFT Commenter:it's going to be great should we do Hot Seat Cool Throne and then we can get to all of our interviews and dingers only alright so Hot Seat Cool Throne brought to you by our friends at Truly Truly Unruly Lemonade combines the high elk fun of Truly Unruly with everyone's favorite lemonade Lemonade Let Loose 8 % ABV 100 % delicious 4 % supercharged lemonade flavors Bumpin' Blue Raz OG Original Lemonade Punched Up Pineapple Wild Pink it's the official hard seltzer, pardon my take. Level up your lemonade with Truly Unruly today. I love the wild pink. We were out golfing last week. We had some trulies.

36:14PFT Commenter:It is the best. There's nothing better when the sun starts beating down. You're like, hey, I need something refreshing. I need something to get me loose. That's Truly Unruly lemonade. 8 % ABV, 100 % delicious. Level up your lemonade with Truly Unruly today. Okay. hot seat cool throne hank my hot seat is malik beasley oh yeah he is under investigation for basically what would you call it gambling on games gambling on games it's not insider trading but like okay what was the what was the hard part of that it's not insider trading it's it's called gambling on games gambling on games player props uh the videos that came out after the investigation came out were were very bad to say the least i don't know if it's one of those things where if you you could do this for any player i feel like it's not obviously but the videos that came out were absurdly obvious that he was probably gambling on games there there was one where he

37:22Big Cat:took the ball the full length of the court with like three and a half four seconds left to cover the spread and he was the only one out there trying and and you could see like the relief in his face when he got to the other end there was the other one where uh so he he had also tweeted at anthony edwards to hit what was it like six threes tonight in a game there was that one and then there was another one where he was playing defense where his controller just unplugged yeah and and he had blew by i think it was halliburton blew by him and he didn't move a single one of his feet both feet remained firmly planted in the ground it I don't think you could do that with

37:59PFT Commenter:every player in the NBA and not only that but uh I'm sure you guys saw there was like you know the the gambling circles like people know and and shit gets out there and there were tweets from like January where it's like if you're investigating Terry Rozier like investigate Malik Beasley he's the one and a lot of that stuff where he is still innocent but there's a lot of smoke proven innocent yes we should say that so it's like it's this might not be you know it might not be guilty and the same thing happened when terry rozier the allegations came out there was videos and it was like he was clearly gambling so this could all not be true but would you rather

38:38Big Cat:be in court yeah same would you rather be accused of betting on your own personal unders when you didn't actually bet on your own personal lenders and then being validated and they're like, it turns out you just suck or would you rather get investigated and you did bet on them and you made a ton of money betting on them and they found out that you were gambling. Yeah, I mean, listen, you can make them that when you look at free agency, yeah, he was the greatest like the greatest lottery ticket you can have. Obviously, you have to be an NBA player, but it's like they get paid so much money. There's no way you can make enough money

39:15PFT Commenter:gambling that it is worth doing that it is kind of a compliment to be like you're good enough that you can control the outcome of these things you know yeah if you told me it's your own overs yeah if you told me like hey we're gonna play five on five basketball at the barstool chicago uh like office and we're gonna we're gonna put lines out there and i had and like i wouldn't be good enough to be able to affect the game you know yeah that's like the total point spread i

39:44Big Cat:I agree.

39:45PFT Commenter:I could not make a shot. I could bet. Yeah, you could bet your unders and just not make a shot. But other than that, like you can't. It's basically a compliment. Malik Beasley, you are an impactful player if you're proven guilty.

39:57Big Cat:On the other hand, I feel bad for NBA players. Sure, they make all this money in free agency, get any woman they want. But at the end of the day, they don't get to sit on their couch and hit a four leg parlay on an NBA game like I do. And they'll never have that joy. That makes me sad.

40:13PFT Commenter:Facts. yeah, he's not going to get signed now. That kind of sucks that he was a free agent. Yeah, crazy story. How pissed do you think hockey players are right now? You got to move your free agency if you're hockey. You can't go head to head. What was Luke Cornett's deal? Then he's a fine player, but what was his deal? I don't know. I think he got 40. He got 40 million guaranteed? Yeah, four for 40, I think. so he's getting paid conor mcdavid in the money yeah yeah i mean sam bennett's sam bennett's contract it was like this was guy was the most important player on the on the team he was eight years eight million oh man yeah by the way the panthers are gonna be good again they got everyone biz might be right about the state income tax i also love i'm assuming nba players the same way but like and this is more like we were just with the chicklets guys last week but and like i love hearing them talk just strictly money when they talk about other players like oh how much that guy get like how much he make like that they just talk strictly and like how much they made in their career also when it's public it's very funny whitney told us a hilarious story about how when he was like two years out from retiring and he talked to his financial advisor and his financial advisor was like all right so like when you retire like you'll get a job and he was like what do you mean he's like i wasn't planning on that which is very funny uh the nights got better too yeah they did but the panthers brought everyone back didn't they yeah it's fucking crazy team dinners man i'm gonna talk about the zach talk about the panthers for 20 seconds while i turn the light in this room because i realize that it's just pitch black in here yeah this This one's going down.

41:59So I did see the Panthers did bring all the boys back. They repeated that the whole game's come back. Do you guys think they're going to be this dominant again? Is it going to be that much fun to watch?

42:10Big Cat:I like that. Good question. Great question, Zach. Zach, they all go to team dinner every night. You can't get in the way of that. I think unless this ate into their Dairy Queen money. They keep crafting the success of their wins. So just like we all went to team dinners together. Unless this ate into their Dairy Queen budget, I think that we're looking at another championship for the Florida Panthers. Hey, congratulations. It's July 1st. Congratulations to the Florida Panthers on winning the 2026 Lord Stanley's Cup.

42:37PFT Commenter:Hank, I think team dinners can be attributed. We eat dinner together a bunch. I know. I didn't realize it until all the post-game interviews. I was like, yeah, this team, team dinners. Everyone's there. It's going to force some team that absolutely hates each other to try to do this, and it's going to be so awkward. because like a team dinners work in theory if you like everyone but if they if if you have a team that doesn't like each other it's gonna tear them apart all right your cool throne my cool throne is wnba pettiness yeah caitlin clark was voted number one uh all-star team by the fans number nine by our fellow players.

43:20PFT Commenter:I have some takes. Do you have a take on the Caitlin Clark situation? Yeah, I have a take.

43:28Big Cat:I think that it is good for good for the league. Okay, because we're talking about the league right now.

43:35PFT Commenter:Okay, I agree. I'm going to piggyback on your take. Tag me in. First, this is about this year. Caitlin Clark has missed almost half the games. So, I mean, I know that she's incredible, and I think she's one of the best players, and she's also like the WNBA just expanded. They're bringing back Detroit, Cleveland, and then what's the other one? Nashville. Nashville got a franchise. The Kaitlin Clark defenders are such losers now. Like, what do we care? She's the most popular player. What should her, like, rivals do? Should they just be like, oh, we love you, Kaitlin. Thank you so much. We want to kiss your feet and hope you do it.

44:18PFT Commenter:Just, of course, they don't like her. She's better than them. And she's more popular. Like, of course, they're petty about it. I think that's good for sports. They're trying to hurt her, though. The hurting part, I agree. That's too far. But, like, this is, like, to be like, this is bullshit. I can't believe they don't like her. I can believe they don't like her. She gets all the attention. They're jealous. Who cares? That's good for sports. Kaelin Clark will have a longer career, better career, make more money. she's going to win in the long run it doesn't have to be like a world war three every single time there's a slight on caitlin clark it just it loses all of the uh like oomph for me when you're just when the caitlin clark defenders are crying about her constantly when have we ever cared about

45:01Big Cat:the the breakdown of all-star vote percentages in the wmba right has that ever happened we do care now right so yeah is is she worthy of a higher percentage probably yeah but she also has been hurt and it's also good that the league hates her this much because it it pisses everyone off and it gets more people talking about the wnba and then she's going to go out there with a chip on her shoulder and she's going to be great shove it in their faces and prove to them that she's better and that's going to be great for the league too not only that but what is like one of the the

45:35PFT Commenter:the number one complaints we see online about sports, specifically the NBA, specifically basketball is, well, they, all these guys don't hate each other. Like they used to, they used to hate each other. They used to like the Pistons and bulls, hate each other. The Pistons and Celtics hate each other. MJ hated Isaiah, all this stuff like hate was, was what fueled the league. And now you have that back in the WNBA and you're going to complain about it. Like who cares? Her peers don't like her. Cause she is more popular than them. That's just a fact. And she can just be better and win championships and shove it in their face.

46:12PFT Commenter:I would not be offended if I was a Caitlin Clark fan. I would not be going to my pitchforks because she was voted ninth in a season when she's played half the games.

46:22Big Cat:Okay, counterpoint, though. Isn't it also a sign of the growing league that we have this many Caitlin Clark fans that get this pissed off because of perceived slights? Right? This is like the Caitlin Clark defenders that have to show up and stick up for their person. I think it's all good. I think what we're going to see, though, is we're going to see, like, Caitlin Clark is going to go on a little tear. She's going to be great. The Fever are eventually going to win a championship. She's going to get some players from teams that maybe used to hate her. Can Caitlin Clark win the big one, though?

46:53PFT Commenter:That's a good question. We don't know. I so when she gets like like clotheslined going through the lane, that's what I'm like. Yeah, Caitlin Clark defenders. That's when you need to rally the troops and go after on a fucking vote. Like Tyrese Halliburton was voted most overrated and then he went to the finals. Who cares?

47:11Big Cat:You know, I need to see the athletic poll of the WNBA for most overrated player in the league. What do you think? What do you think the result would be?

47:20PFT Commenter:I don't know, but I just there are 90 percent.

47:23Big Cat:95 % Caitlin Clark.

47:25PFT Commenter:There are definitely pitchfork moments for Caitlin Clark that are like, yeah, you have to defend her. A vote that essentially, it basically should have just been a poll to every WNBA player. Do you like Caitlin Clark? Yes or no. And they would have voted no because they don't because she gets all the attention and she's good for the league and she outshines everyone. Even if she's only playing half the games,

47:47Big Cat:the injury aspect is actually a valid point. That's a good point. If you're going to go just by a sports breakdown of it. But yeah, there's the difference between the fan vote and the player vote was crazy. It was crazy to see. But again, let's not burn out all of our emotion. That's what I'm saying. And defending Caitlin Clark right now. There's going to be – listen, you got to rest up for the playoffs. Okay?

48:13PFT Commenter:She also – if she was not in the All-Star game, I'd be like, pitchforks, do it. she's the captain of the all-star team this was totally irrelevant it was a completely irrelevant

48:27Big Cat:vote that just doesn't matter right i don't even get mad at the hard fouls because i also like sophie coming in coming to her defense and like knocking people out that's also good for the league

48:38PFT Commenter:yeah agree well that is yeah did you see sophie cunningham take a shot at detroit that was a little weird what'd you say she was just like players don't want like why didn't you make a Miami players don't want to play in Detroit. It was like, okay, I don't know. Detroit, like Detroit's kind of, Detroit's kind of back in terms of sports.

48:56Big Cat:And now we're going to see.

48:57PFT Commenter:Haas mode.

48:58Big Cat:That's going to be on a quote card right before they play against Detroit, a playoff series at some point. Yeah. Also, the other team was Philly and those teams aren't coming till 2030.

49:10PFT Commenter:Okay. So yeah. Oh, Philly's the other team, not Nashville. She said Nashville. She's like, why didn't you put one in Nashville? Why didn't you? She's basically like, why don't you put them in party cities? I don't know. I get it. Detroit love their sports.

49:25Big Cat:How successful do you think a WNBA franchise would be in Miami? Probably not that. They can barely get out of bed to watch their Stanley Cup champion Panthers.

49:35PFT Commenter:Yeah. I'm pretty sure Detroit won like three WNBA championships, right? Can you fact check that? Like three or four? Weren't they a dynasty? wasn't bill lambeer the coach am i making all of this up i think the lambeer was they were lisa leslie yeah no no but bill lambeer i remember the nba when they would do the all-star game and it would be like the wmba player yeah the nba team so there's history there there's big history there detroit's back scoobal did you guys watch scoobal on sunday night yeah it was lights out what a fucking hoss detroit shock what yeah three-time wmba champions there you go i know my wmba history 203 206 208 no one's ever said it like that 206 203 why did you say

50:28Big Cat:all right pft what's your hot seat cool throw uh my hot seat is shador sanders yes so the uh the quarterback room in cleveland right now is joe flacco can you pick it dylan gabriel shador and everyone's kind of looking for Joe Flacco to take on some sort of mentorship position, some sort of leadership role for the young guys. I think Joe Flacco is more concerned about just winning a starting job and keeping his career going. But lucky for Shador Sanders, he found a mentor in Cleveland that's taking him, quote, under his wing. Do you know who that person is? I do. It is Deshaun Watson. Deshaun Watson has stepped up to show the young guy the ropes.

51:10Big Cat:that's a bad phrase i should not have used that phrase uh he's taken him under his wing to kind of you know introduce him to the nfl and what it's like to be a pro show him the meaning of being a true professional so um shout out to shador got a good mentor there uh good luck good luck i don't know if this is like a contractual obligation where they're like hey deshaun i know you're not really playing right now but if you could kind of hang out with the young guys and lead by example.

51:38PFT Commenter:You think this is maybe a situation like who saved who? Like an old person getting a pet?

51:44Big Cat:Yeah, it could be. Who saved who here? It could be. That type of responsibility might be good for Deshaun. Also, if Shador is literally under his wing all the time, then he's not going to be getting jacked off in massage parlors because the beds aren't wide enough. So that's good. Well, Shador. but the bed's not wide enough for two at a time door could go skiing he could yeah shador could be shador could be the lucky pierre in between deshaun watson and joe flacco

52:15PFT Commenter:just going to town joe i'll tell you this i've i've i've shaken uh joe flacco's hand i would not want a hand job from him no guy's got fucking monster hands no he's meant to he's

52:26Big Cat:meant to beat off in cold weather that's why the steelers that's why the steelers and the Ravens wanted him out of college.

52:32PFT Commenter:If Joe Flacco gives you a hand job, he'd just be like, whoops, I broke it.

52:35Big Cat:Yeah. This guy's got hands that could jack off a Clevelander.

52:41PFT Commenter:We got to tell Joe that we had this conversation when we see him maybe in Tahoe.

52:46Big Cat:I mean, shake his hand. Shake his hand. Tell me if that could make you come. The answer is no.

52:52PFT Commenter:Mount Rushmore of people you would least like to get a hand job from. He's Andre the Giant.

52:59Big Cat:Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott.

53:02PFT Commenter:No, not Greg Abbott. Jason Pierre Paul. Who's Greg Abbott? The pitcher. No, that's the politician, isn't it? Oh, Jim Abbott. Jim Abbott.

53:15Big Cat:Also Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott as well. Well, he's probably got some strong arms.

53:21PFT Commenter:Yeah. That Indian dude with the 100-year fingernails. Yeah. The ones that curl around. That would suck. That would really suck.

53:34Big Cat:All right, your cool throw. My cool throw is the U.S. men's national team, the lads. Boys, we're in the semifinals now of the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Hank is locked in. I know you watched that PK shootout against Costa Rica. The good news is we got a goalie now. His name is Freeze. He's the ice wall. Oh, that's that actually that plays. Yeah. The goalie's name is freeze and he was awesome in PKs. He was a beast. What I didn't realize, though, is once we got rid of Greg, because we were a Greg out podcast. We got Greg fired. There's another Berhalter. His son is on the team, but his son is on the team because I think he just made the team not through nepotism.

54:22Big Cat:Oh, but he also missed a penalty kick. He Baggio had a penalty kick top left and skied it. So I don't know. Maybe we might be all Berhalters out now. Was Greg there? Greg was in the stands, like upper deck. They had him sitting like in the 400 row, and he was watching his son take the penalty kick, and they got the whole reaction. Tough moment for a dad and a family to watch at the same time. But listen, I think Greg Berhalter, way better human being than a soccer coach. Yeah, I would agree. So he was in the stands for that. So that means that we beat Costa Rica. We're playing Guatemala in the semifinals tonight.

55:02Big Cat:Tonight, Hank. Lock the fuck in. Two teams. Who are the other two teams? Mexico and some team that's going to lose to Mexico. So what's going to happen? Is this your first CONCACAF Gold Cup, Hank? What's going to happen is... Not willingly. You're not consenting to this? No, no, no. Let me break it down for you, Hank. Here's how the CONCACAF Gold Cup works. All right? the U.S. is going to play against Mexico in the finals. We're going to beat Mexico in the finals, and we're all going to be like, U.S. soccer's back. We're good. And then we're going to blow it again in the next tournament that we play.

55:36We're automatically in the World Cup. Who cares? Agreed.

55:39Big Cat:It's the pageantry and the spectacle of the Gold Cup, Hank.

55:44PFT Commenter:Got it. And Saudi Arabia's in this?

55:47Big Cat:So, yeah, they're a famed CONCACAF member. I think Qatar was in it last time, too.

55:55PFT Commenter:Yeah, we just let anyone in it. Just hanging out.

55:58Big Cat:The bag's big enough, yeah.

55:58PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right, my hot seat. I also had Shadur Sanders. I'll pivot. It's my – we're not doing a Firefest this week. Reminder, we don't have a show Friday on 4th of July. This is an extra long show, so if you have to work Friday, save dingers only for yourself. We have two great interviews coming up. Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly in studio and then Joey Chestnut. So extra long show. And then we'll be back three times a week, obviously, on Monday. but my fire fest or sorry, my hot seat is me. I went to dinner with my wife last night and there was a couple of fans. There was like a table of young kids that, that were like asked me for a picture and I was like, Oh, that's cool.

56:38PFT Commenter:And then there was this table with, with this guy with his big beard and older. And I, and he like, was like, what's up? Love your podcast. Like, Oh, that's sick. And I mentioned my wife. I was like, look at me. Like we're doing the, the young kids, we're doing the old guys. and she's like that guy is the exact same age as you and i had like the moment where i was like fuck he totally is because he had a beard i was just like and i i had one of those moments where it's like oh yeah i forgot i'm 40 like he he was he looked exactly the same age that's great i got the old guys i got the young guys so yeah we are old we're old we're old um yeah like i'll see like another guy came and he had like two little kids and he was like big fan i was like oh man like look at this i'm getting getting the older generation like wait those kids are the exact same age as my kids fuck what the hell um yeah go ahead anybody older than hank is is old yeah that's the way to look at it yeah and then my cool throne is uh uh dudes dudes named ryan because this happened this happened a few days ago i think it happened last week but i uh they espn had a article about it did you guys see the uh the ryan ryan's day out uh in colorado it was pretty fucking awesome so the rockies have three ryan's on the roster i think they actually have a fourth who's on il uh and there's a group of ryan's who just like do meetups around the country and they tried to break the record for most ryan's at a baseball game there was like 500 ryan's out in the bleachers and then ryan mcmahon on the rockies hit a home run for him and it was just like such a dude's rock moment where they just basically go around.

58:18PFT Commenter:They did a St. Ryan's Day in Boston. They did another random Ryan's outing. They just get all the Ryans, and they all just meet up.

58:26Big Cat:I like that. That is very cool. Do you think that you said the Rockies have four Ryans?

58:31PFT Commenter:They have three currently on the roster.

58:33Big Cat:One is on the IL. Do you think if two of the other Ryans go on the IL, they'll send Tom Hanks there to pull the last one out and save him? yeah they have to no they'll send ryan day

58:48PFT Commenter:they'll send ryan day out there but yeah it was i mean i don't know it's pretty cool like yeah world's kind of a cynical place these people are just hanging out and they actually have when you go you have to show your id to confirm that you're a ryan by the way our guy russillo not invited it has to be r y a n uh and uh they also have like so they have like a notary public guy there who can legally change your name to ryan if you want to join oh if you wanted if

59:19Big Cat:you want to just be part of the festivities that's i i like that but also there should be somebody that there should be somebody that monitors the ryan's to make sure that they all go by Ryan.

59:31PFT Commenter:Yeah.

59:31Big Cat:Because Ryan is probably a pretty commonly skipped first name for people that just go by their middle name.

59:36PFT Commenter:That's true. They had a St. Ryan's Day in Boston. They had a Ryan Rodeo in Austin. They had an all Ryan's game show in San Diego. They just party with just Ryan's. It's fucking awesome.

59:50Big Cat:I like that.

59:51PFT Commenter:Yeah. All right, Zach, finish us off before we get to our interviews. I do have a cool throne for you guys this week. My cool throne is... Hot seat? Oh, we can go hot seat first. Yep, we can do that. My hot seat this week is recently, gentlemen, we all played Dungeons & Dragons. It did come out in the last couple of days. I did see that in the moment while we were playing together, I did not realize just how indecisive I may have been in some of the decisions, going back and watching the game film. And I would like to say, Hank, I do want to apologize for contributing to messing up your birthday.

1:00:24That's okay. It was a couple of times. It's not your fault. I didn't know how bad some of that went and I just want you to know Hank I'm sorry and I hope it was a great birthday after that man it was a great birthday and I don't want you to worry about it for a second it was funny and I do have a hot seat as well I did think Big Cow was paying you to do that at one point but that's alright Hank was so mad at me there was no

1:00:50Big Cat:hand to hand transactions on that that was just a misstep Zach in terms of like watching the YouTube and seeing how the costume shopping went for Dungeons & Dragons. Any decisions you would have made a little bit differently there? Are you happy the way things turned out? Most of them. You guys didn't have full costumes. That's 100 % on me. I dropped the ball. It's okay.

1:01:09PFT Commenter:Listen, we play Dungeons & Dragons. By the way, thank you for everyone who listens to that episode. Shout out Tim Woods. We play it twice a year around our vacations. You'll have another chance. Sometime in February, you'll have another chance. On the costumes? Yes, on the costumes. I would love a redemption costume if that's okay with you. Can we keep the time limit? No, the time limit starts tomorrow. Yeah, same costume shop, right? Is that cool? Yes, I think we stick to – he gets an hour. He's got to get it done in an hour. He's got to get it done in an hour. I think we also should – next Dungeons & Dragons, we should get one of those sand timers for Zach.

1:01:50Yes, yes, that's great. We walk in, we get an hour sand timer. And once it starts, that's it.

1:01:57PFT Commenter:But also in the game, too, when we make a decision, you just flip it and just be like, all right, Zach, here we go. I'm going to become hyper away of time. I promise you. No, I don't want you to change. I don't want you to change. Okay. That, too. I can work on that. PFT, you bounced out for a second. Zach decided that he was going to work on being more decisive. Then I told him, don't change. And he's going to also work on that.

1:02:24Big Cat:Okay, which one are you going to work on first? The decision is I'm going to lock that in for you guys. But I don't want you to change. Yeah, you're right. No, I got that wrong. I got that wrong. The timing stuff. Yes. Good answer. That was a brain fart.

1:02:42PFT Commenter:No, that was good.

1:02:43Big Cat:That was good.

1:02:44PFT Commenter:Which one are you going to work on first? Yes. Okay. Your cool throne. I do have a cool throne for you guys. My cool throne this week goes out to the gentleman at Optic Texas. they defeated the Vancouver Surge or CDO. They are Call of Duty World Champions and Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Shout out to those guys. Back to back. First ever in history, back to back champions. I'm not even an Optic guy, but you can't deny greatness. That's so awesome. Merkulise coming up. They did some roster cuts earlier in the season. Another one doing too good. Kenny got dropped. They picked up Merkulise. Did some shifts in a round.

1:03:17He wins MVP. Shout out to the young guy. Everybody just frying. It was fantastic. Hook, Shotzi, Dashy, all the boys, congratulations. Back to back, never been done.

1:03:28Big Cat:Is Mercules next? He's the new go? He's good. I wouldn't say new go. He's got a long way to go, but he was a great contributor to the team. Jack, didn't he get dropped from the Stallions? It is a little bit of a redemption, yes. Great ball knowledge there, Hank. Fantastic ball knowledge. They get him off the street? He's getting dropped and picked up. But now he's with the boys. Now he's with the hitters. Hex picked him up. Daddy Hex said, look, come over to the green wall. We're going to show you how to do it right.

1:03:57PFT Commenter:And they might do it again next year. Wait, Mercules, that like to Merck someone is to kill him. So that's an incredible nickname, right? Oh, it's awesome. Mashup, Hercules, Merck, Mercules. Fantastic. It's 10. Okay. Yeah, that's a great nickname. Wait, Zach, did you watch it live? I didn't. I wasn't able to catch all of it, but I've watched all the clips since then. Yes. Okay.

1:04:18Big Cat:Zach, I got a question for you. in this Call of Duty tournament, are all the players in relatively good shape? This is a Super Bowl PFC. This is a World Championship. Let's just call it a regular tournament. Okay, all right. World Championship. Are all the players in really good shape? Mentally or physically? Physically. Are there any big boys that are playing? I mean, yeah, there's some big boys at the desk. Hank is like, yeah, for sure. Because in my day, that's how you identified. A gamer usually had a little heft to him. And from what I've been seeing with the advent of speed and ADHD medication, it feels like all the guys are real thin.

1:04:56Big Cat:And I would like to see some of the bigger boys coming back. I think the heftiness isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But maybe some of these guys maybe dial back on the Ritalin a little bit. Maybe get some more carbs in them. They're all short. They're all short? They're all little guys. That's pretty cool. Posture's not the best, but those fast twitch muscles, immaculate. Is there a tall, fat guy that we could call Kendrick Merkins?

1:05:20PFT Commenter:That'd be good. Not on Optic, but I can find you the tallest fat guy they got in the CDL right now.

1:05:25Big Cat:Okay. Oh, PFT, I had a short King stat for you. Fuck. That's weird because I'm not that short, actually.

1:05:33PFT Commenter:No, you're not, but I had a stat for you, and I saw it, and I was like, oh, I'm going to save this. Fuck. I don't think I have it. Oh, no, I have it. Here it is. Jose Altuve, 242 career home runs. every other player listed five six or shorter since integration 241 home runs so he's he's

1:05:52Big Cat:lapped the crew he's literally the pound for pound greatest he stands head and shoulders above the

1:05:56PFT Commenter:crew yeah yeah everyone else combined 241 he had 242 good for him pretty sick uh okay let's get to our interviews merrill kelly zach gallon joey chestnut and then our dingers only draft which I'll just say it not our never our best work but still it's baseball season it was actually way better than last year's last year some of the players too yeah we got some of the players on

1:06:23Big Cat:the phone and also last year we had a lot we drafted a lot more players that had already been taken and we drafted a lot more players that were already injured like on the disabled list right so I'd say like in terms of getting it right for the most part I'd say we hit like 80 percent

1:06:38PFT Commenter:yeah and also uh zach realizing his decisiveness might be an issue we did tape this last week before he realized that so um might still be an issue in this draft i and and as of right now we're all live so all the all the teams are live i've been watching my guys being pissed off every time they hit a home run being like save it save it yep but uh it's officially live and we'll updated every single week. Okay, let's get to the interviews. Okay, before we get to our interview with Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly in studio, I want to talk to you guys about one of the biggest fights coming up on Netflix with two of the most dynamic and fierce female athletes in the world facing off.

1:07:19PFT Commenter:All eyes are on Katie Taylor seeking ultimate glory while Amanda Serrano is fighting for redemption and revenge. Stakes have never been higher for women's sports as we await for one of the most highly anticipated rivalries to unfold in first ever women's boxing trilogy fight. Who will win? Well, the fight is accessible globally and included as part of your Netflix subscription. No expensive pay-per-view fees. I've actually seen both of these women fight in person. They will not disappoint. This is going to be all action from start to finish. It's giving the big cat guarantee that this fight is going to be worth it.

1:07:52PFT Commenter:And guess what? If you're like me, you already have Netflix. You already use Netflix all the time. You have this fight ready to go with just a click of a button. So sit down, watch Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano Friday, July 11th at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time live on Netflix. And I'm telling you, this fight is going to deliver. We're also brought to you by our friends at Chevy. You grind all year, early mornings, late nights, fantasy drafts, hustle mode on. But when summer hits, it's time to chill and Chevy Silverado makes that possible. Well, we're talking towing the boat to the lake, off-roading into the woods like a legend, and still having room for the squad and all your gear.

1:08:32PFT Commenter:Inside, Silverado is comfy like a recliner. Outside, built like a linebacker. Chevy Silverado, work hard, chill harder, football guy approved. We know this firsthand. We've been able to drive the Chevy Silverado a bunch of our trips. It's super comfortable inside, and it can get the job done. Long road trips, hauling stuff, moving stuff, boats, everything. Chevy Silverado. So head to Chevy.com to check out more about the Chevy Silverado today. Chill harder with the Chevy Silverado, the best truck in the world. If you're thinking about being a truck person, Chevy Silverado, tell them Big Cat sent you with the Chevy Silverado.

1:09:08PFT Commenter:Okay, here they are. Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly. Okay, we now welcome on two very special guests from the Arizona Diamondbacks. It's Zach Gallin, Merrill Kelly, best friends. Let's start there. I was reading that you guys are best friends. Are you both saying that the other one's your best friend? Yeah, sure. I would say so. Of course. Meryl said that a lot faster than you, Zach. Well, I didn't want to talk over them. Okay, yeah, yeah. That's best friends. That's a best friend trait. It's like you don't want to talk over. Are we talking best friends on the team or best friends in life? Let's talk best friends in life.

1:09:43Oh. I mean, I feel like we both have circles outside of baseball. We can't trump. But on the team, for sure. Best friends on the team? Yeah. We've been in there longest. guess we've both been here since 2019 so okay it's been a long time okay so if we played the

1:09:57Big Cat:newlywed game right now you guys be really good at it that's a good question that's a good question if it was the baseball like a baseball version of that i think we'd be all right all right so

1:10:06PFT Commenter:what golf what golf yeah what what's uh merrill's favorite pitch zach change it okay what's zach's favorite kerbal okay is that right sounds like you guys are good so far what's uh what zach's favorite movie oh zach's favorite movie yeah that one would probably stump me i don't even know if i know the answer to my favorite movie that's perfect you guys are in sync uh there you go meryl who's the guy that absolutely owns zach in the league yeah

1:10:37they're i i don't know if you get this it'd be it would be impressive actually oh so someone we're not thinking yeah i'll give you a hint they're not active that's it oh they're not

1:10:46PFT Commenter:Some guy on the Savannah Bananas? I might hang him up if that was the case. I don't know if they're retired, but they're just not in the majors anymore. Got it. We used to play them a lot. In division? Yeah. Charlie Blackman? No. Who is it? Rymel Tapia. And what was the reason for him? I should have known that. Rymel Tapia, I think last time I faced him was 2023 maybe. in Milwaukee and I swear to you I think it was like he's hitting 600 off me like 12 for like 20 like whatever that math comes out to be 10 for 19 and I'm like oh at least I never get up a home run to him give up a home run to him that day but what what is that that guy killed us is it in your is it in your head or is it something he just figured out I think it's just something that he does like Like he just.

1:11:41PFT Commenter:10 for 18 with a home run and two RBIs and 19 plate appearances against Gallen. That's pretty damn good. And if you do the AI overview, says Rymel Tapia, has had considerable success against Zach Gallen. Considerable. Considerable is an understatement, I think, if you ask me. I'm like, here comes this fucking guy again. I would imagine if you looked up his numbers against the Diamondbacks in general, they'd probably be really good. Who owns Merrill? We were just talking about this. fuck we were just talking about this someone who's still in the big i know we just played him too right um you can guess you can guess the team the team should be pretty obvious uh you just said it you're like i don't understand i'm drawing a blank no you're thinking of the guy that i think shouldn't be me that does all the time oh who's that But the guy who owns me is different than that guy.

1:12:39Wait, who should – Who's the first one? That's better. I'm going to put this guy on blast. Yeah, yeah. Who is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jacob Stallings. Okay. That's right. Stallings. I don't know. I can't think of him. He's been in the league for a while. And so when he gets you, you're like, this is bullshit? Yeah, I'm like, gosh, damn it. This guy got me again. Every single time I watch him, I'm like, there's no way this guy's getting hit off me. And every single time he does, he'll drop one in for a two RBI blooper over the second baseman's head, knock me out of the game sometimes.

1:13:10PFT Commenter:Yeah, so who's the answer to who owns you? I can't think of who it is. L.A. Freddie? Mookie? Close. Freddie probably does too, but Muncie. Muncie. Muncie. I wouldn't have guessed that. We went on a family vacation with my wife's family, and her uncle's pretty funny. he puts together like these gift bags for everybody but in there there's like a a dark joke for everyone right like and he literally hand typed a letter from max muncie to me and the dodgers thanking me for my services against the dodgers um but i think muncie's probably hitting i would guess 500 off me something like that okay and meryl what's what barstool sports

1:13:56Big Cat:employee has the most unhealthy obsession with Zach? That's a good question. Do you know Zach? Yeah, we know. I'm not the one to ask about that. There's a few teammates that would get this right. I don't know that he would know this. Yeah.

1:14:10PFT Commenter:Okay, so. But there's a handful of guys that would right off the bat would be like, I know exactly who you're talking about. And who's that guy? That'd be Rico. Yeah, so this is a real topic we have to talk about because Zach, I obviously was busting your balls when we were walking in being like, oh, I'd love to see in a Cubs uniform. I won't push any rumors, but you are in a contract year, so it's got to be in your head a little bit. Do you think if Scott Boris walks in and is like, hey, Zach, we're ready to get a new contract, but this guy Rico, he's bringing us down, and teams are going to see this relationship, and they're going to be like, you know what?

1:14:42PFT Commenter:The price went down. I mean, you have to cut him loose because he does. It is bad for you how much he rides for you, and he turtles when you have a bad game. Does he really? Yes. That was the big. Well, I respect that at least. He's just so ride or die? He's so ride or die. He would literally murder you for Nate Oates. So you don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. In the grand scheme of it, yeah, this is a good point. And I never thought that I would be over Nate Oates, so I'm fine with that. Okay.

1:15:12Big Cat:So I don't think he actually rides as hard for you as you think that he does. I think that this season he's kind of gotten off. Oh. He's definitely gotten off this season. Yeah, so. Because I'm probably losing him money this year. So we're being frank about it. Well, first start of the year, March 27th, happy gallon day to all who celebrate. That's what he posted. Then your next start, happy gallon day to all who celebrate. Your next start, happy gallon day to all who celebrate. He hasn't done that since April 7th. Oh, no. Well, I haven't pitched good since April 7th. So that's probably why. He's probably like, I'm losing money every time this guy's out here.

1:15:44No more happy gallon day. But to be fair, he was at least riding for whatever it was. Yeah, it was a long time. I mean, we love Rico. Yeah, we got to bust him up.

1:15:54PFT Commenter:But I think it was the NLCS where I think game one where you got touched up a little. Yeah, I'm feeling it. And then he went silent. And then when you guys won game three, he went after Max. And it was like, dude, where were you game one? He does that. He goes silent on Twitter when things don't go his way. And then game seven. Yeah. Good, too. Yeah. Are you guys? I mean, that did Max. Even that comeback. Game seven. I mean, that was an all time meltdown. He looked ridiculous. You guys. I've heard you talk about Merrill because you grew up a little bit in the area. but Max was just convinced that the bank was going to win that series.

1:16:26PFT Commenter:He was like, they can't go and win two at the bank. There's no way. Because we're pitching against the crowd? Yeah. Yeah, that is how he thinks. I think it actually would have been easier to pitch against the crowd, if we're being honest. Some guys that are yelling at us who bring them down into the box and see how it goes. I don't know, dude. He was the Matt Stairs of the CAA baseball, Hofstra. So he could probably take one off you guys. Maybe we should make that happen. We should make that happen. But you bring you Eric Sim out and we'll make a whole thing out of it.

1:16:55Big Cat:He does have to pitch against a college lineup at some point. Yeah. Because he lost our fantasy baseball league last year. Do you have any advice for him? Pitcher to pitcher? How should he approach that lineup? What lineup are you facing? Who are you facing? We don't know yet because Max keeps putting the punishment off. It was supposed to be Tennessee. And then we had a couple of rain outs. And then I broke my foot on a whatever. We don't have to get into how I broke my foot.

1:17:21PFT Commenter:He broke his foot being drunk. Just walking home. That sounds a little intentional. It sounds like you're trying to get out. No, I mean, maybe. Do you have any pitching background? No. No. We got a radar gun out. I think I was topping out at like 62 at the moment. That might actually be good for you. Yeah, I know. That's below the hitting speed. That's what Scoogle said. If you threw like 85, I'd be like, you might want to wear a helmet. 85? Come on. Yeah, PFT did it against UIC baseball. I only gave up what, two earned runs?

1:17:52Big Cat:Yeah, earned runs, asterisk. I balked a lot. Yeah. I had like four balls. How many innings? Two innings. Two innings, okay. Struck a guy out. Big Cat threw out the strikeout at first base.

1:18:01PFT Commenter:I dropped the third strike, but still threw him out at first. So it's like we both got a strikeout. Yeah, yeah. Which is the stupidest rule in baseball of all time. I love it. I love it. It's so stupid. Really? You think that's the – You swing at a pitch. It's that bad. That is, yes, that bad. And then just because the ball bounced away, you get to go to first base. yeah you gotta you gotta you gotta catch it like participation trophy that's what i thought like i literally made you swing at a pitch that didn't even make it to the plate it was that bad and you get to run to first base it still counts as a k though for you yeah if we get them yeah yeah so you could get think about it this way you could get unlimited k's in a game that is a good thing about the positive way i've made that joke before i'm like you just wanted me to get another strikeout right that's why i miss that one four punches Yeah.

1:18:47PFT Commenter:When you guys like, so Zach, was it, when would, when did you have your 13 strikeout game against the Yankees? Was it last year? No, this year. It was this year. Yeah. In April. Did you, I was probably right after that guy stopped right before that guy stopped tweeting. Yeah. Rico. Yeah. When you, when, when, like, do you know when you have it like that on a given day or how fast during the game are you like, Oh shit, it's, it's different today. Yes. And no. I mean, there's been games where I've, I go back, I throw this game against the Dodgers where in the bullpen I felt like shit. I'm like, well, let's just see what's going to happen today.

1:19:21And then wound up punching on like 12 or 13 that day. So, like, you don't really know until the game's going on. And in that Yankees game, I didn't know that I had 13 Ks. Like, stuff was just moving how I wanted it to. They were swinging at pitches that I wanted them to. So, it kind of worked out. But I'd say, like, probably by, like, the third inning, you're like, okay, like, everything's kind of working how I want it to. Like, you've been through the lineup, like, one time. You're like, all right, I got a pretty good idea of what's going on.

1:19:47PFT Commenter:Do you think the Rex specs help you? Because you do look like a nerd and like guys don't take you as seriously. It's like opposite intimidation. Yeah, right. No way can this nerd strike me out. Yeah, that's probably how I was going to have the long hair. Yeah, the long hair. Yeah, it's yeah, the astigmatism. That's what I'm talking about too. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it's a reverse kind of intimidation thing.

1:20:10Big Cat:Yeah. Have you guys noticed the stitches on the ball being any different this year? i just talked about this the other day the the drag you seen that yeah i don't drag set for you

1:20:20PFT Commenter:guys have to say you don't notice it i haven't i honestly haven't noticed it to be honest with you i've given some far home runs this year so i must be using different balls they must just have the ones specifically for when i'm pitching and the other low drag ones i mean i will say the last couple years i mean i'll get balls back that are exit vilo like 73 miles an hour and the whole half of it is just dented like the whole half is just lopsided when you get it back huh balls that aren't even like scorched it'll be like a little jam shot pop-up and i'll get it back and the whole

1:20:50Big Cat:half will just be like cut off the other thing i'm interested in with like how they prepare the balls is the mud that gets put on them so do you have like a specific way that you guys like to have your balls handled we actually give our bull we actually give our bullpen catchers a lot of shit for this because they're the ones in charge of rubbing our balls up yeah yeah uh some days they don't rub our balls that good yeah and some days they're a little dry yeah so we tell them to get a little bit more moisture on the balls yeah it's a little bit better but i like that yeah yeah you pull one out and it's a little chalky it's like uh come on come on man yeah take some more

1:21:22PFT Commenter:time rubbing those balls please what that mouth do wait so meryl you you you were the i think you're the only pitcher to pitch in the world series in the korean world series is that correct uh i think i saw that somewhere that's crazy that's wild yeah it was fun so what was it like pitching in korea awesome like is it just the same game like is it the talent uh pretty much yeah the talent level is getting there when i was there it's it was still to be desired a little bit like there were guys that could play in the big leagues all the way to guys that probably wouldn't even sniff the field on my junior college team really and anywhere in between that um the game pretty much is the same right once you get in between the white lines it's the same um there's a smoke break after the fifth inning they do a fifth inning break rather than a seventh inning break um because obviously The Koreans just pound cigarettes.

1:22:09So the fifth inning break is funny. All the starters will come off and they'll go pound their cigarette and all the bench guys and the relievers will go out in the field and stretch and run around and warm up and stuff. And then we'll come back out and resume the game.

1:22:21Big Cat:That's weird. And you were on the Wyverns, right? Yeah. Do you know what is a Wyvern? It's like a mythical dragon. Yeah. It's the best way to describe it, I think. We play Dungeons and Dragons a couple times a year. A couple times a year? Yeah, yeah. Whenever you're feeling frisky or less fun. We do it on the show, yeah. And our dungeon master, Tim Woods, is obsessed with wyverns. He thinks that the wyvern is actually the purest form of the dragon. Something to do with the wings and the legs. You think he's an SK fan or what? Maybe. Maybe we need to get him an SK jersey. I don't know if they make them anymore.

1:22:51They sold. It's a different team now.

1:22:53Big Cat:So when you're playing in Korea and you're going up against a guy that you said probably wouldn't even play junior college ball, do you have to lock yourself in more when you're facing that guy? Because you're like, I can't let up a hit to this guy that sucks. Honestly, I just try to throw it right down the middle and want them to hit it. Because they're pesky over there. They'll just foul shit off until they die. So I would rather just, here's a first pitch fastball. If you hit it the best you can, it might make it to the outfielder. And otherwise, it's going to just bloop into somebody's glove.

1:23:23So I'm just going to give you a first pitch heater and hopefully move on. And then focus back on the guys that can actually play. Yeah, basically.

1:23:31PFT Commenter:Do you guys miss batting? Were you still? No. Batting was the best. No, batting was terrible. Oh, so awesome. No, but home runs by a pitcher was so cool. Yeah. The only time that the pitcher hitting was good was they'd come up with bases loaded, one out, and a big spot, and you're like, oh, thank God. I can either get a strike out here or a double play. Unless you're facing the couple of guys that could hit, but for the most part, my dad used to get hit. He would be like, swing the bat. I'm like, Dad, they don't pay me any more or less if I'm getting hit. All I can do is get hurt. i remember you and bum got into it that one day at bp yeah because that's his argument like they don't pay me to hit and you know mad bum was a good hitter he liked to hit homer so he like really took pride in it so the fact that he said that like really offended he got mad at you yeah he got mad because there's like no they literally do pay you to hit this is when they were like negotiating between the dh or no dh whatever they were doing and i just was like all all you can do out there is get hurt like i just saw the total downside of it and i like was a decent hitter i a bunch like i was fine it was just more of like this seems like an occupational hazard that and you did you ended up breaking your arm yeah and i had a hairline fracture in my elbow wait for bunting from taking bp in the cage like one of the first weeks in like spring training i was like this doesn't feel right they couldn't figure out what it was and then finally got an mri and they were like you have a tiny hairline fracture in your elbow so you're never going to take bp again i haven't oh i i took it that year because we were hitting but like i had to be like i had to bunt the first like two months of that season because they didn't want me to swing it was like a yeah it was a whole thing wait was hitting sucked was bum gardener like was he actually pissed because that's a guy you don't want to have pissed at you i'm not sure i think he was like i think he was like 60 40 i think he was trying to give me like the young guy like rookie like kind of hazing type of deal but also was like i want to keep hitting yeah yeah he was upset he loved it what is the rookie hazing in in major league baseball i feel like it's just like wear weird costume yeah nowadays yeah nowadays it's nothing really yeah damn how society's gone it's like it's gone yeah you can't really do that much anymore like the last probably thing is like have bring beers on the bus would you say yeah oh man that's real every once in a while yeah exactly every once in a while somebody might get up there and sing we might you know have somebody get up there and tell their life story and sing but even there's a couple guys that don't really like that either so it doesn't really much yeah there's not really much of that that goes on anymore at least in our organization that's the only organization i've been with so i can't speak for other teams i don't know what they do but as far as we go we there's not really much you should just have rico come on the road with you and be like the hazing is you have to stay in a room with him sleep talks he like screams in his sleep night yeah yeah that would be awesome you're with rico about what are the night terrors he screams so he sleeps with the lights on he screams in the

1:26:27Big Cat:of the night and he plays show tunes on his speaker phone yeah that's not real there's no way that's how he sleeps every night he falls asleep to show tunes yeah the rent soundtrack i had to share a room with him for a couple nights and i couldn't believe any of the random soundtrack is so random yeah no i didn't have a sleep mask on or anything it was just like this is this can't be real just raw dog like people raw dog flights you were just raw dog and sleep i was raw dog and rico yeah and and trying to fall asleep in that environment is uh miserable It's challenging. It's like, you can't believe that this is a real human being.

1:26:58Big Cat:No wonder he's fucking crazy. And I love him. But he's nuts because he stays up all night screaming and listening to show tunes. Does Rico know the Rent soundtrack by heart? Probably. I don't know. It's probably absorbed into his brain. Yeah. Right? What is it? Osmosis? Yeah. Just kind of.

1:27:13PFT Commenter:He probably went to see Rent and the lead got sick. He could jump on and just be like, I got this. I got it. I'm good. I got it. I'll handle it.

1:27:25Big Cat:In Korea, did you ever get to see the bunting derby? I was a part of it. You were part of it. To me, that's it. I'm sure there's some YouTube out there somewhere. I don't know. MLB needs to incorporate the bunt derby into the all-star brand. You think so? You think that would draw a crowd? I love watching it. Yeah, so what was that like? What did they have you do doing that? It was cool because I flew my brother over. My brother came over for the all-star game, so he's the one that actually threw to me. But, yeah, they just have these three targets set up, one to the left side, one down the first base side, and then one right in the middle.

1:27:52and you just, yeah, just like it sounds. You just bunt and you try to get it in the target as much as you can. How'd you do? I did all right. I didn't win. My brother was a little amped up, was firing him in there a little too hard. He was a little excited. And then we do it and then we watch the next guys come up and they're literally just lobbing these balls in there and these guys are just like placing him in there. We didn't talk strategy before that.

1:28:17Big Cat:They got to bring that to Major League Baseball. It used to be in AAA. Oh, yeah? In the AAA All-Star game, they would do it. In 18, I was in it. Really? And I was like, this is – Yeah, it was – To your point, like, the BP was coming in too fast. I'm like, you can't stop this. No. It doesn't. Yeah. I mean, I just think it would be the most electric thing to gamble on. Yeah, I could see that. I could definitely see that. Very fun. Because then you're trying to look up stats of, like, all right, is this guy actually a good bunter in, like, the games? Yeah. You take that into the bunting derby? Yeah.

1:28:45Big Cat:Every time you make contact, like, I'm watching to see where the ball is going to land. You have a good five, six-second rush of adrenaline watching on TV. Be like, oh, that's going to – It'd be great.

1:28:56PFT Commenter:How much of your guys' success as pitchers do you owe to Dan Heron? And is it all? Why are you laughing at that? No, I was surprised it took this long to get a Dan Heron question. We give him all the credit. You tell me if that's wrong. But he is a genius. Yeah, I talk to Dan a lot. What does he do, actually? Because I actually don't, like, in real honesty, I don't think he does anything. He puts together, he writes up all of our scouting reports. Okay. All the starting pitcher scouting reports, Dan is the one behind. About the other lineup. Yes. And he's really good at that. Yeah. That's pretty sick.

1:29:35Yeah.

1:29:36PFT Commenter:He's an awesome dude. He's the best. Yeah. Yeah. He puts good reports together. Sometimes too good. What does that mean? Like, there's so much information on there that, like, yeah. I'm like, Dan, how did you find this number? And then I got to go look at it and be like, damn, I don't know how he found that number. Does he come out every now and then and actually talk to you guys about pitching? Because I know he still lives in California. Yeah, he was just with us. Colorado. In Colorado. Yeah. Does he give you tips? Because Dan's career is fascinating because he basically was such a stud and then obviously got hurt with his back, but then continued to be in the MLB for a really long time.

1:30:17PFT Commenter:Yeah, where he basically pitched two different ways. So he kind of knows everything about pitching it, it would seem like. Yeah, the cool thing about Dan is that he always is just like – he never wants to make it about him. He's like, I'm not going to talk about what I did. But if you've got questions, he's got – he'll try and answer them, which I think is cool because people who play a long time could be like, me, me, me, I did this, I did that. And he's like, do your thing if you need questions. I'll answer questions if you want me to. Yeah, that's why we give a lot of credit. All the credit.

1:30:44PFT Commenter:Because we know it makes him uncomfortable. All the credit. He's not that type of guy. He's not that type of guy at all. So we like to really give him a lot of credit. So much credit. You guys should give him a lot of credit just to make him uncomfortable. We do. We do give him a lot of credit. You wouldn't be here without Dan Harris. Should we text him right now? Yeah. He'll give you so much credit. I haven't said it in a while. I love you, man. Just want to say thank you for all you've done for me. He'll get uncomfortable. Yeah, he'll definitely get uncomfortable. Ask him how his pug's doing, too.

1:31:11I'll say. He's got a cool pug. Marrow. R.I.P. Bernie, right? Yeah. And the PMT boys give you so much credit. So much credit.

1:31:19PFT Commenter:He's going to hate listening to this because he just gets so. He doesn't want any of it. He doesn't want any of it. He stays in the he stays in the shadows. Merrill. He'll expect because I told him we were coming. He's like, I know something's going to come out. Well, I asked him. I was like, hey, if you got any good questions for Merrill or Zach, let me know. They're coming in. And he just hearted the message. I was like, thanks, Dan. Thanks for nothing. He was looking out for it. Yeah. If I was a starting pitcher, he would give me a full report, but he didn't give me shit. No. Good for him. I respect that.

1:31:50Because I've gone on other podcasts where they've been like, we know you eat this for breakfast. And I'm like, who is your source? Who are you talking to? Yeah. You call your dad? It's a dad. Yeah. The source was actually kind of out of the blue. I was like, wow. Really? There was actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wait, Mary.

1:32:07Big Cat:What does he eat for breakfast? Yeah. I saw him at Kith the other day in Toronto eating French toast. Oh. oh that's kind of heavy yeah i got a french yeah what do you eat for breakfast no that i like most of the time it's like either french toast i like chicken and waffles or eggs benedict

1:32:24PFT Commenter:are like most of the time a french toast is kind of crazy so that is worth the question being like what do you have no i wouldn't say french toast no i wouldn't every time most of the time is eggs benedict that's what i go with that's my go-to like i start every day with french toast yeah that is a crazy move admittedly i'm not even a breakfast person if you want to pitch in the big eggs benedict goes the theme though it's my favorite too do you eat differently on days that you start um not really like i try to keep it the same like which is not the same every day like just eat breakfast you know go about my day like just try to keep your body off balance a little bit yeah keep it on its toes like make sure do you lose track of what day the week it is Yes.

1:33:10Yeah, absolutely. All the time.

1:33:11Big Cat:I would imagine that would be something that would be different about baseball players. We're in our third city in a week and a half, third time zone in a week and a half. Yeah. Everywhere. You don't know what day you're pitching and then after that, it's like, I don't know. You kind of know by what time the game is. You're like, alright, it's a day game. It's probably Sunday or Wednesday or Thursday. Anything else? Flip a coin and, you know, it ends in Y. We know it ends in Y. Like, yeah.

1:33:37PFT Commenter:Okay, quick break from Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly to talk to you guys about Friday, July 11th. Netflix and most valuable promotions brings you two of the fiercest female athletes on the planet. One ring, one final chapter. Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano's last fight on Netflix was the most watched women's sporting event in history. And this is the third fight in the historic trilogy. There's nothing like a boxing trilogy. Katie Taylor is chasing ultimate glory. Amanda Serrano is fighting for redemption and revenge. I'm telling you right now, you need to be sitting on your couch on Friday, July 11th and watching this fight because it will not disappoint.

1:34:17PFT Commenter:Watch Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano Friday, July 11th at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, live on Netflix. If you already have a Netflix subscription, guess what? You already have this fight. So there's no reason not to be watching because it's going to be that good. I'm telling you, it's giving the big cat guarantee. If you don't like it, you can complain to me on Twitter. this is going to deliver this is going to be an incredible fight katie taylor going up against amanda serrano for the trilogy on netflix friday july 11th at 8 p.m eastern 5 p.m pacific standard time live on netflix okay let's get back to zach gallin and merrill kelly what's your what's your favorite day of like the five day you know like starting and then the like what's the day because I always this is very sad and pathetic that like I'm not motivated, but I always daydream of being a pitcher the day after I had a start because I feel like that would rock just being like walking around the dugout being like, all right, boys, I took care of business yesterday.

1:35:13PFT Commenter:Up to you. That's if you took care of business. Yeah. If you took care of business. Yeah. Well, in my in my dream, I'm always taking care of business. Yeah. Yeah. They call those dig me days. Okay. Spa days. You're a spa day. Yeah. Oh, like, look at me. Like, dig me day. I was like, I got to pro ball. I'm like, dig. What is that? And they explain it to me. But it's got to feel good, right? Even if you're not trying to look for it, like being like, I had a gem. I pitched great deep into the game. And then the next day, you just kind of can chill. Yeah, there's definitely something to be said, knowing that you just pitched really well and walking into the stadium the next day, knowing that there's absolutely zero way that you're going to contribute to that game.

1:35:51Right. Other than cheering on the boys and, you know, doing whatever in the dugout, like there's no way that I'm going to enter the field of play today.

1:35:58Big Cat:Yeah. Yeah, it's got to be great. Like a little mini vacation that you're on. Yeah. Do you guys get butterflies when you have to pitch? Yeah, I would say so. Not as much as when I was younger, but they're still there. Yeah, it's more like an anxious, like, let's go. Let's play. Like the game, sometimes I'm like, I wish this game would start.

1:36:18PFT Commenter:So you must love pitch clock. Especially if you wait five days. Do you like pitch clock or no? Oh, no. Yes. And as a fan watching the game, yes. Yeah. pitching in the game there's times that i would love for the game to slow down a little bit yeah yeah like sometimes you're out there and you're just like this it's five seconds already yeah like what are we doing like you just turned around and it's three seconds you have to throw the ball but to your point you're watching the game and it's over in two hours and 30 minutes you're like this is pretty nice invention of all yeah yeah pretty nice i thought i was gonna hate it but i don't i don't mind it how do we feel about the robot umps

1:36:54uh tough question for i feel like for us to answer because we haven't experienced them yet yeah the guys in triple a have done the whole abs system and they've seen what it does um i like the idea of the challenge system a lot better yeah i think it kind of brings everything together it's like because in my opinion the pitches that are missed throughout the game right like if you miss a pitch in the first inning like is that really going to make a difference in the ninth um but i go back to the world series that strike three that moreno got called out on that was this far off the plate you know if he taps his head right there it's a ball four he's going to first and the game changes in a big way so i think the abs i think is a little bit much i don't know how you make that consistent over 30 stadiums yeah um but i like the idea of the challenge system yeah yeah

1:37:36PFT Commenter:what about uh pitching on uh short rest you guys both done it is it is it brutal i don't think i've ever done it i don't know if i've ever done it yeah i don't think i don't think i've ever because that's one of those things where from a fans for sure i'm like yeah why not just go pitch on short rest like just fucking suck it up dude yeah just just blow your arm i would do it take a couple anti-flams and just run out there but when does your arms start to feel good again is it really does it take the full four days off uh probably depends on the guy yeah you're in theory you probably could like most guys could probably pitch on short rest like one day but over a period of the season like the compounding factor it would be like a problem i think but yeah you could do like i mean you see guys doing the playoffs all the time yeah you get the adrenaline boost like it works out but probably not the safest way to go about yeah how sore are you after a game let's say you go eight innings how sore are you when you wake up the next day um pretty sore for the most part if it's except like if we're in colorado you're like extra sore just from like the elevation the lack of oxygen all that stuff so like you get super sore i would say i get sore on day two for me that's when i'm like like day one i'm like all right like my body's sore like i feel like i pitched eight innings but like my arm is sore on day two like trying to play catch and move and you know you get that delayed onset or something called doms delayed onset muscle soreness yeah i wouldn't know about that yeah what uh where's your least favorite place to to pitch not color not taking out colorado because that's an easy answer obviously in division for you guys but what's and maybe it's like time of day too shadows or whatever but what's the place you're like man this sucks regularly when the wind's blown out yeah that's yeah that one is not fair yeah we were just talking before the the the game you guys played against the cubs this year where it's i think it was 16 runs in the inning and a half where it's just you guys aren't even are you like what What's even your strategy in that?

1:39:36PFT Commenter:Try to keep it on the ground. Yeah. Throw a sinker for the first time. Throw some sinkers and change-ups and cutters and try to get them to hit it on the ground. Yeah. Yeah, it's not good for me. Because for me, I induce pop-ups, fly balls, like whatever. So I'm like, this is tough. Everything's going. Yeah. Is there another one, though, that you're like, oh, this is a tough place to pitch? Or it's like so bad or friendly? Yeah. I got another one. I'm going to do a two-part. Is it because of the team that you face in that stadium or is it the stadium itself? like this place just sucks pitching in give me both um for me i love pitching in the la stadium but i get absolutely shellacked there so i yeah don't like pitching there because the because the dodgers just light me up yeah the lineup's not fun to pitch against yeah um but the atmosphere is my probably my favorite place to play yeah they're either they're petco yeah cincinnati's tough yep that's what i was gonna cincinnati's pretty brutal it's all flies out there ball flies in the mound i know we i know they're supposed to have regulations on how high the mound is but whatever they're doing they're cheating for sure what do you mean it's way

1:40:42Big Cat:lower that mound is so flat oh we have to look into that look into that's crazy like our mound at home feels like a mountain compared to cincinnati and you can notice right away when you stand on it you can notice it from in the dugout you're like that's a flat that mound is flat why would they do that my guess is like maybe their pitchers are like this sucks i have to pitch it all the time well if you think about like they could then try to acquire the pitches pitchers that like pitch best on that type of mound like sinker ballers or whatever it is that works on that mound yeah they'd be like all right we're gonna stick with these guys because it benefits them but it's really disadvantage yeah that's crazy what's the highest mound uh i feel like ours is pretty big ours is pretty big i feel like is san francisco kind of high i never even thought about this miami's high i think miami's a high mountain yeah yeah because

1:41:33PFT Commenter:it is supposed to be all the same right yeah yeah you would think but i don't know that there's a i don't know there's a rule on the the angle of the slope like it just has to be like whatever it is like a certain height but i don't know that it says like okay well then where you land has to be four inches high right i don't know if there's a rule with that you're right 10 inches i didn't You know that off the top of your head or you just throw that out? Yeah, but they can make it 10 inches and then just have it be like 10 inches across. Instead of – Yeah, right. Have you guys been operating with this thing the whole time?

1:42:04Oh, yeah. No idea.

1:42:06Big Cat:Yeah. We got Max back there. I noticed you didn't say the bank. What about the bank? Don't hear like – Not a tough place to play. Yeah. It's definitely – I mean, it's – Those games in the playoffs were the most hostile sporting event that I've ever been a part of, hands down, for sure. but i i don't know it also makes it fun for us you know it's like that's feed off it like covid one of the reasons why playing in covid sucks so much is because it was silent you know it's like you pump in the crowd noise and you see cardboard cutouts in the stands and it's just quiet like yeah for us baseball's fun with fans i mean that's the reason that's one of the reasons yeah why we play you know it's like when it's that loud it's like white noise like you don't realize you don't really hear it at that point as opposed to like i played in new orleans where there was like 30 people at each game and you'd hear that like one idiot like in the corner being like boss and you're like that's way worse than just like 45 000 people just screaming the whole time whether they're screaming for you against you at least it's like it brings energy yeah yeah

1:43:06PFT Commenter:it's fun uh what was it like barrel being called the worst pitcher in the league by your own coach he actually said that yeah he said i'm not gonna lie to you i said he said since the all-star break you are the worst statistical starting pitcher in the big leagues. You should have reversed it. You've been like, well, you're the worst coach for putting me out there in five days, like you moron. Yeah, and then my ass would have for sure been in the bullpen. I was trying to avoid the bullpen at all costs. I literally went to Asia to avoid the bullpen. I wasn't going to try to do it here. Wait, you didn't like the bullpen that much?

1:43:36I mean, that's yes and no. My role in Tampa was like what's called a swing man. It's like I was a long relief, and then if somebody got hurt, I would start, and then when that guy came back, it didn't matter how good I did. I could be the best starter for six straight starts in the rotation. But if that guy came back, I was the guy that went back to the bullpen. That would be frustrating. And I just – yeah, I hated it. Yeah, it wasn't fun. That nine-game stretch was probably the lowest point of my career. I couldn't get – if I made it to the fifth inning, it was a miracle.

1:44:09PFT Commenter:So how did you get out of that? Honestly, my back was just against the wall. I didn't really have a choice. It was like I tried some different mechanical stuff, and I started doing like a Felix Hernandez turn and just started letting the ball absolutely fly, and it worked. Stuff started ticking up. The velo ticked up. Stuff started moving again. And then once I got a couple games after that under my belt, then the confidence started coming back, and after that it kind of just took off.

1:44:36Big Cat:Bullpen pitchers, that's got to be just a complete mindfuck, not being able to prepare like the same way every single time, not knowing if you're going to get into the game. How do you manage that? I understand it sucks, and that's why you're like, fuck it, I'll go pitch in Korea. Yeah, I hate it. But what's that like day-to-day? I mean, one of the reasons I like starting is what you said. Like I know what day I am pitching. I know what days I have to do, but that's how my brain works. Some guys don't like that. Some guys can't handle knowing when they're pitching. Some guys, they work way better in the bullpen because it's just – they turn their brain off, and then once the phone rings and their name calls, then they turn it back on.

1:45:11um yeah it's a different mentality just because you're never unless for me i was a long guy if i threw three innings or four innings in a game i knew the next couple days i was down but for normal bullpen guys like they're pretty much on call every single day yeah so the thought of not being able to turn your brain off is different than like i said that day one it's like i know 100 i'm not getting in the game for those guys they never have that feeling and that's i didn't I didn't enjoy that.

1:45:38PFT Commenter:Who's the best hitter on your team? You got some all-stars coming up. Yeah. You got to get some guys in the all-star game. Yeah, I think for – I mean, for sure, my guess would be Cattell. I think Cattell's leading second base voting right now. Corbin's probably up there too. Gino. Gino. And then Perdomo. And even Naylor. Sneaky like Naylor. Yeah. Having a good year. Having a really good year. Eight-something OPS. Yeah, 300. Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, our offense is so good. Yeah. It's honestly incredible. Yeah. That's been our strength. In my opinion, our best overall hitter is my mind got to be Ketel.

1:46:16Yeah. Yeah, he's an absolute beast. Switch hitter hits for power, hits for average.

1:46:20PFT Commenter:Does he talk to his bat? Was that that clip? Yeah. Yeah, it was. He does talk to his bat, right? What does he say to his bat? I couldn't tell you. It's in Spanish. He's just like, well, tell me this. Is he angry at his bat or is he happy with his bat? I think in that clip he was probably angry with his bat. I think he was telling him to pick it up. I can't remember when it was. There was a clip. They got a clip of him sitting there talking to him. He was having a full conversation with his bat. Did the bat talk to Marty so much? I don't know. But I saw it and I was just like, oh, shit. Seems like the bat did something here.

1:46:53Yeah. Yeah. Marty's funny. Marty's got all kinds of stuff going on.

1:46:57Big Cat:Yeah. I read that you guys had a – was it officially a players-only meeting? Yeah. Yeah. What happens at a players-only meeting? For starters, it's players-only. Well, pretend we're players. We're in here. It's just us. Yeah, we struck out UIC.

1:47:14PFT Commenter:Yeah, yeah. You struck out UIC? UIC. Oh, I thought you said UIC. UIC, yeah. I don't talk in the meeting. I'm not a very vocal leader. I'm just like... Oh, you snitch? Yeah, I'm a snitch. I just dry snitch on it. I run right to the floor, and I'm like, listen to him. He's got his recording out on the back. He's got his phone. um it's more just like it's try to it's basically try to nip whatever's going on in the bud like right if anybody's got something to say say it now if if you got something against you know if you don't like what a teammate's doing if you don't like what the manager's doing if you don't like how whatever you don't like or whatever you think is going on at that time it's just a it's just a come to Jesus meeting and try to figure it out most of the time it doesn't always work you know it's like a it's kind of a thing that we just feel like I feel like it gets to the point where you feel like you have to do something right right somebody needs to say something because it's just gotten to the point where it's just that bad um but yeah it's just kind of like air it out if you got something to say say it pick your stuff pick your shit up and let's go all right very important question if dan heron was in town when he would not be running that meeting would you would you invite him to the players only no he would what if he was like please guys he wouldn't he would never what if he did not want to be he would not want to be a part of that if he was just like please guys i just i want to feel like a player again for one second

1:48:42Big Cat:uh probably not okay yeah i can imagine like maybe 10 percent of the time a players only meeting works really well and the other 90 it just turns into like just an argument yeah honestly not because the players only meeting happens and it's like all right the a veteran calls the meeting and then it's like that veteran calls it talks and then there's probably like two or three other veterans that talk and then it always the question is if any young guys want to say anything get up and say something and then no one says it's like unless it's perdomo yeah like so it's one of those things of just like all right let's talk about this i guess i don't know but it's not a yeah it's a weird thing it is a weird thing zach is it true when you were uh five

1:49:25PFT Commenter:years old you refused to play t-ball so that you could play little league yeah i i didn't want to play t-ball so you're just like i'm not doing this and uh well i just thought i was like okay well because okay so my brother's a few years older than me so i kind of knew like the lay of the land of how it worked and i was like every game ends in a tie everyone gets like a dollar at the snap i'm like that it sounds terrible and my dad coached the seven eight nine year old team so i was like why would i go play t-ball when i could go play real baseball that's so funny that was you at five yeah that's like it fits perfect i'm like i want no part of that's so fun i'm not a baby even though i was like i was like this tall and like the grass was taller than me in right field it was yeah did your brother play baseball like continue playing baseball yeah my brother played all the way up until college um through college and then just was he was a good player just undersized yeah like just he was if dustin pejorio would have came a few years earlier maybe he would have had uh a little different career that's good yeah the undersized guy wasn't getting any love

1:50:28Big Cat:then yeah so where you're five years old and you start playing with seven-year-olds yeah seven eight nine how were you like you were facing off against nine-year-olds as a five yeah i didn't get a hit the first like when i was five like i didn't get a hit like i was just up there the entire year the entire year like and the 24 all the nine-year-olds are saying there's no way i'm gonna look at this guy like there's no chance i would have drilled you if you're like a five-year-old and i'm nine so like who is this fucking exactly yeah i'm just gonna drill this kid yeah i had to wear like a i think they i forget if it was like five and six or whatever you had to wear like a vest like if you got hit with a ball like because like you stop your heart or whatever yeah wear that with like the face mask like batting helmet it was a it was tough but i never got a hit so i'd come back to the dugout and be like upset like cry like because i want to be good so i get to six and i struck out at six and like the first at bat i came back and my dad was like no more fucking crying like we're not doing that shit anymore and i was like all right and then i got a hit and i was like all right all is well is good so yeah but yeah he was like we're not doing that shit anymore Dan here needs to include that in your write-ups like hey no more fucking crying I can see your dad saying that too he didn't actually curse but he said we're not doing that anymore like that was five-year-old stuff this is six-year-old this is big this is big league I could have seen him I could have seen him cussing at you I could have seen him saying no but it was good and yeah they made my dad draft me like in the in the town draft my dad was like let me just give him a uniform put him I'm gonna put him in right field like he's gonna play like once every other game yeah and the commissioner was our next door neighbor he was like uh-uh he's like you got to draft him my dad's like i gotta draft a five-year-old and my dad gives my brother credit he's like listen he's like take him with you got to take him in like the third round or whatever he's like take him in the third round he's like because next year you're gonna take him in the first round he's like so if you take him to third this year you'll get your first round pick next year too yeah so my brother gm'd it and it worked out yeah That's incredible.

1:52:28PFT Commenter:I love that. I think that's fair though. GM in Little League. Yeah, GM. Yeah. I think that's fair to make your dad draft you.

1:52:34Big Cat:Yeah. If you want him to play at five, if you don't want to play T-ball, you got to do what you got to do. This five-year-old is not going to be somebody else's problem. You have to take him. You have to take him. It's your problem. Imagine if I got drafted by somebody else. Somebody else's dad was like, no, no, I won't. I want the five-year-old.

1:52:48PFT Commenter:Give me the five-year-old. Yeah. Well, this has been awesome, guys. I got one last question. Rowback question. r-h-o-b-a-c-k.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q zips polos hoodies joggers shorts roback.com promo code take i pitch this to every pitcher but uh ephus come on just once honestly what's so i think about just like the one position players go out there and pitch yeah and they they get everybody out yeah sometimes when i'm like getting hit kike hernandez the best pitcher in the league maybe i should just throw an e-fist up there it would screw them up you know they would be like what the hell was that maybe i'll mix a palm ball in there from time yeah you actually have one that's like a real pitch i would be throwing like a just yeah rookie of the year oh yeah rookie of the year like yeah just float it in are you guys do you guys get pissed when someone pimps a home run no not so much anymore yeah yeah you just got to pimp a strikeout back yeah if it's directed like at you like there's some sort of stairs at you yeah something like that but like if you want to do a cartwheel like around third base like whatever like cool like it's it's just the game now it is what it is yeah it kind of goes back to the rookie stuff like that stuff is acceptable now it's not like oh you watched it for a half a second too long now i'm gonna drill the next guy in the head like that just doesn't happen anymore yeah you sound upset about that though i'd be upset about that uh yeah i mean i don't love it but i mean what are you going to do you know yeah don't give up the home run don't give up the home run have you guys been kicked out of games before i've gotten tossed twice what'd you do yelled and both of them were the same way it was a check swing happened this year check swing no call walk i forgot you got tossed this year uh check swing and it was like a like blatant blatant swing like and it was uh last check swings by the way we agree the umps are just guessing yeah they're not they're not paying attention they're not paying attention there's no total guess because this swing was like almost if he hit it it would have been a double yeah so no call last diaz at first base and no call next pitch walk him and i think i got taken out of the game after that and i just turned around and told him as you're walking as i was and the two times i've gotten thrown out in my career actually are funny it's because i've been leaving the game so it's like all right cool buddy like i'm literally fucking walking to the clubhouse right now and you're gonna toss me it's like what does that do you should just make that your thing that's the good thing about being a pitcher yeah you could you're out and you're like i'm just gonna get yeah you should make that your thing every time you get pulled from just yell at the umpire for no reason start chirping at him did you get fined for the last one i don't know honestly i have no idea i think it comes out of the check i think it's only i think it's like 500 bucks something like that yeah there's been times on check swings i've seen the umpire like they're just like looking in the stand yeah it's like no they're not always guessing the games over here some of the calls they miss it's like dude i don't know how you didn't see that it was right in front of you you have one job in that moment you're supposed to be looking right at it and you missed it By the way, I didn't mention this, but Meryl, do you know that you're the only Meryl in MLB history?

1:55:44PFT Commenter:Which is kind of crazy. I didn't. I feel like 100 years ago, there had to be Meryl just walking everywhere. Yeah, right. And you're actually, Zach, you're only the second Zach spelled Z-A-C. There was one before me? Yeah, there was. Hold on, I'll find it for you. That's crazy.

1:55:58Big Cat:We got a Zach of our own that's Z-A-C. Yeah, yeah. Really? See, I thought Z-A-C was just very uncommon. That is. But there's more people now that I've Z-A-C. Do people think that your name is Zach Allen? lot uh what's funny about that is that there was the the guy that plays for the broncos now yeah zach allen my dad's watching the game back when he's the cardinals and he's like zach allen with the sack and my dad was like huh like is he playing football now like not realizing that there was another play like so a little bit of a confusion there but zach curtis who debuted for

1:56:34PFT Commenter:the Diamondbacks in 2016. He hasn't been in the league. His last appearance was in 2018. When I was in AA, there was a bench-clearing brawl that I think he was involved in at one point in time. Zac on Zac Crime? I was not. But I think there was something that happened where the bench is cleared for some reason. I do remember that name. Yeah, he got called out from high A. I remember Zac.

1:56:56Big Cat:Do you guys have a move ready to go if somebody charges at you? No. You got to throw the glove, I think. Yeah. That's the first. Disorienting a little bit? Yeah. Or just try to get the ball back as fast as possible and act like I'm going to throw it to them.

1:57:08PFT Commenter:We gave Cal Raleigh the tip that what catchers should start doing is just throw your leg out there and triple. Because if you get tripped and you fall on your face, you're so embarrassed. You just kick their foot, it's over. You just tell your catchers to do that. Yeah, just stick your foot out. Yeah, right. It's done. You guys ever seen the video of the guy judo kicking the catcher in the chest before he ran out to that? Yes, yes, yes. That was pretty gnarly. Have you guys been charged before? No. No. Yeah. I mean, you would have fucked him up. Most of the time I try to hit somebody. I miss, honestly, that's like the worst thing.

1:57:42It's way harder than it's way harder than it looks. Yeah. Like intentionally trying to hit somebody. It's the, it's just a terrible part of the game.

1:57:51PFT Commenter:Yeah. Yeah. The only thing you can't do is just run. If you run, then it's bad. You have to just, what the infielders tell you is like, just give us enough time to get there. Right. So you kind of like hold them off. So you got to throw the glove to like stun them a little bit. And then just, you know, If you want to get a punch in, throw the rosin bag at him.

1:58:06Big Cat:Yeah, rosin bag, pick up some dirt, throw it in their eyes. Gladiators. Just try not to get hurt, I think. Yeah, basically. Don't get hurt. I think the move is like – Like, what's his name? Granke. Yeah, broken collarbones. Granke broke his collarbones. That's right. You do like a little sidestep to the left, and then you swing after he runs a little bit past you. And then by that time, the shortstop should be there. To wrap him up. For the first baseman. I can see Naylor. And just like – Yeah. Just put him in a headlock. Yeah. Yeah. beast i can see jay naylor getting over there and tackling somebody for sure yeah uh all right well

1:58:35PFT Commenter:thanks so much boys we appreciate it it was awesome having you guys here and uh best of luck rest of the season appreciate you guys yeah it was fun cool before we get to joey chestnut

1:58:44Big Cat:is brought to you by great friends and netflix big news friday july 11th netflix and most valuable promotions bring you the fight the world's been waiting for katie taylor the bray bomber she's from Ireland going up against Amanda Serrano, the real deal from Puerto Rico. We've seen the first two parts of this trilogy before. I'm going off the script right now because this is whenever they get together. It's my favorite fight to watch of the year. An awesome fight. Great matchup styles between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor. Katie is seeking the ultimate glory against Amanda Serrano, who is fighting for redemption.

1:59:19Big Cat:It's the final bout of their history making trilogy. If you like watching people punch each other in the face, this fight is for you. Great matchup. I'm going to be watching it Friday, July 11th on Netflix. Katie Taylor versus Amanda Serrano. 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Live on Netflix. Check it out. And now, here's our great friend, Joey Chestnut.

1:59:45PFT Commenter:Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, recurring guest. The greatest athlete of all time, which we have said for many years on this show, It is Joey Chestnut ahead of his return to the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest on 4th of July, Coney Island. Joey is back. So let's start with that, Joey. How good does it feel to be back? And are we feeling like this is, hey, this is going to be a special one. You got to prove, hey, whatever happened last year, there's an asterisk there. The king is back. Oh, yeah. It feels really good. It's last year, things didn't go as I wanted, but we worked it out.

2:00:24And yeah, I'm hungry. This is what I love doing. It's Fourth of July, hot dogs, competition.

2:00:30Big Cat:Yeah. How did it feel last year not being a part of Nathan's? Did you feel like an absence? Did it feel unusual for you? It was weird watching the guys eat. And I told people I didn't watch, but I watched. And then I went off to do my own little event. But, yeah, so it was weird watching them and like, oh, man, I could have. It's just that's life sometimes. Sometimes you're on the wrong side. When you were watching it last year, did that make you hungrier? Yeah, it made it easy. So last year I was at a military base, Fort Bliss in Texas, eating against some soldiers, where they were awesome. And it was the group of five versus me.

2:01:11I ended up almost beating what Pat did in five minutes. Wow.

2:01:21It motivates you to see people when you're not there.

2:01:26Big Cat:I have a question that you probably get a lot, but I'm genuinely curious how you break this down. How much further can you push yourself? How much further is within the realm of human possibility to go when it comes to eating hot dogs? because every year I see you eat, and I'm like, well, he'll never beat that. That's insane. How do you approach that? Yeah, the last record, 76 in 10 minutes, is a tough record to beat. It's going to be a hard one. It'll take perfect conditions, like not too hot, not too windy. If it's windy, the hot dogs get cold. But if you have enough warmth, like 78 degrees, 75, and then if it's kind of dry outside the buns get stale so you need to have fast buns warm dogs and not too hot I'm getting older, I'm a little bit fat so once I start sweating really hard I'm in trouble

2:02:24PFT Commenter:I like that the wind comes into play like an under in football where it's like they're not going to be able to pass the ball today The wind is going to really dry out the buns, and we're going to have problems, and they're going to get cold. Yeah. The wind affects – everybody has special – their water temperature that they like for drinking water, for dunking. This year, I'm thinking – I did that event with Netflix last year when that was a no-dunking event, and I learned that towards the end of the contest, it's actually a little bit easier to not dunk. There's less movement involved. So I'm trying to plan it out.

2:02:59So I'll make the switch because sometimes I slow down bad when I'm dunking.

2:03:05PFT Commenter:Yeah. So you're tinkering. I like that. So like, you know how marathon runners, they'll, you know, a couple weeks before they'll try to run 20 miles. What is the lead up? Like what is there a lead up where a week before or two weeks before you're pushing yourself as hard as you can to see where you're at? Or have you done that yet? Oh, yeah. Every fifth or sixth day I'm doing practices. And so I'm in the cycle, I call it. Before every practice, there's a cleanse. After every practice, there's a recovery period where it's super high-fiber food, trying to get back to normal. And then there's one day of normal eating.

2:03:40Then there's the cleanse again. Then another practice. Last two practices, it's go time. It's close to breaking records.

2:03:54I don't need to break the rest of the record necessarily in the last two practices, but it would help. There's been years where I smashed the record in my last practice and then didn't get the record in the finals. But we'll see. I'm feeling good.

2:04:12Big Cat:So can you describe your ideal setup? Like if you were to plan the weather for a day or two leading up to the event and the event itself, what are the perfect conditions for slamming hot dogs? Oh, perfect conditions. 75 degrees, a little bit of cloud cover. Not completely, but it was sunny. And then not windy and not too humid. A little bit of humidity is good. But if it's too dry, the buns get stale real fast. and then uh yeah maybe rains the night before like a golf course like soften soften the air up a little bit a little bit yeah yeah soften the air up so um you were talking about your training regimen uh what's the most that you've ever eaten in training like outside of competition oh i said so what oh for the end for the fourth of july contest i want want to say it was jeez i think i think i hit up 82 in practice one time and that was just perfect eating and well that's eating indoors fresh perfect hot dogs and then that's just not realistic uh when uh fourth of july everything's cooked ahead of time everything's sitting for a little bit uh and you got those outdoor conditions so so it's i've learned to actually i've been eating outside in indiana so it's uh it's hot right now yeah and uh i'm uh last practice i was sweating so bad.

2:05:39The numbers went down a lot. But I'm hoping I can... Yeah, it's... I'll be alright.

2:05:45PFT Commenter:Alright, so we have this debate in football. Kurt Warner always says that football should be played in a dome in perfect conditions. Do you think that hot dogs eating should be an outdoor sport? Or do you think it should go to dome and we should be playing this in a dome? I think it's... When there's history involved in Coney Island, you've got to keep it outside. But I think for a lot of other events, like I did the net netflix event that was indoors they wanted a record so they made fresh hot dogs and uh really fresh hot dogs indoors we we smashed i did 83 that day and they're a little bit smaller than on the fourth of july so they're different record but uh indoors you're seeing some massive numbers so when you get there on uh the fourth of july are you are you even thinking about anyone else or are you just going against yourself because like it's it's crazy how much further you are than everyone else in terms of the hot dog eating and like the winner last year at 58 i don't think i mean you i don't think you've had a a fourth of july where you've been under 60 right so are you or maybe like 10 years ago 12 years ago but are you are you even thinking about the competition you're just like it's me versus myself yeah it's i think i think that's the best anybody in this kind of uh yeah and this kind of competition you need you need just really you're going against yourself if you worry about other people you're you're uh you're not focusing on your training your numbers you've hit uh the things if i'm worried about what anybody else is doing it's taking away from what i'm doing so it's uh i'm really just trying to go back to good practices and yeah i'm not if i if i if i'm doing if i'm doing okay i should blow everybody else away are you in your prime right now for eating oh fuck i mean there's different primes there's uh like my physical prime shit that was probably that was that was like 35 uh i was i was a beast i could get away with doing less practice i i uh i could recover quickly my body was just an animal but but and i know my body's so much better now it's it's ridiculous i like i i can i make a choice If I'm breaking my diet, I know when I'm gaining weight.

2:08:03I know what it takes to lose weight. And also, I know how to train muscles in my throat to make them stronger. So I just keep swallowing the meat.

2:08:12Big Cat:It's like sports science at this point. Yeah. I hate to ask the question, but is retirement on the horizon anywhere for you right now? I don't know. Retirement would be death. I'm doing this thing until the wheels fall off, baby. Actually, yeah. No, if you retire from eating, you do die. Yeah. Or somebody knocks me off. And if they knock me off once, they'll have to do it again because I'm going to come back. But, you know, to be the man, you've got to beat the man. And I'm not going to walk away.

2:08:42PFT Commenter:Yeah. Well, I don't think I've ever asked you this, but is there one record or competition that you did that you can think of and be like, I would never do that again because it was so disgusting? Oh, fuck. there was i did crab cakes in delaware and and oh this casino they did us dirty they had them all sitting out there and they were uh as soon as we got on stage it was um you could smell fish and like people got sick during the contest i i got sick right after the contest i almost it was the closest i've ever been to getting disqualified and uh and it turned me off to the food for like two years and so i it's weird because like it was the grossest contest but now now that now that i'm eating crab cakes again i was like all right i really want i want to make a crab cake record this is uh so it's so i want it now yeah what what how many did you eat that day oh i did 39 and sonia thomas this was like my first year in eating and competitive eating 20 years ago uh yeah so i did 39 i think she did 42 or 41 oh wow and there's nothing worse than eating knowing you're going to get sick and not winning.

2:09:54It's just painful.

2:09:55PFT Commenter:What about you ate 141 hard-boiled eggs in eight minutes one time? That had to be gross. No, it was actually really good. I liked hard-boiled eggs. It was perfect weather. It was weird. This weather was perfect for this food. We were in Kentucky, and it had this downpour. It was raining on us, and all the hard-boiled eggs were slippery, and they were sliding down. It was like, and it was like, oh, yeah. And then I smelled like sulfur for two days. Oh, God.

2:10:27Big Cat:Is there a record that you've attempted or a competition that you've done where the aftermath of it is especially bad? Like I'm talking about, you know, the toilet situation afterwards. Is there one that was so gross that you're like, I'm not doing that again? There's a couple that like I know going in, they're going to be rough. Like anything with bratwurst. Bratwurst, man, they add extra fat in there. And it's running through you. You're not in control. There's accidents bound to happen. This slides right out. What about a food that you've never competed with that you would like to try? Oh, dang.

2:11:05I want to go to Alaska, eat king crab. Yeah. They have big, big-ass legs, and they cut them in half with a saw, with like a circular saw. So that'd be rad to get it like a thousand dollar, rack up a thousand dollar bill at a restaurant.

2:11:21Big Cat:They should put you on the deadliest catch. Like as a punishment, you have to go on on one of the guy's ships and then you eat the crab as they bring it in. So you deduct from their total points of the season. Oh, yeah. That would rock.

2:11:35PFT Commenter:So if you win on 4th of July, that would be your 17th title, which is incredible. Will it be the most gratifying one because of the one year ban last year? or is there one that you look back at and you're like no this one was the one that I always think about like that was special they're all special in weird ways like it doesn't have to be records or just different parts of my life like the year I had the protester I was there I was competing that was your year yeah I got covered in yeah the first one was rad that was a long ass time ago yeah it was like 10 years it was almost 10 years ago yeah They got you with paint.

2:12:15PFT Commenter:Yeah, they got me with paint, and I was next to the guy who – I can't remember who he was. He was kind of a hippie guy. He only ate one dog. He was like – he said he was going – Crazy Nate, Connie? Yeah, he said he was going back in time to the first Coney Island hot dog eating competition. He was going to eat one single dog. Yeah, yeah, he's definitely a hippie. Yeah, yeah, that was wild. Yeah, that one was crazy. But, yeah, there's some special ones. Like, yeah, there's the first time I beat Kobayashi or even the next time, the overtime year. So it's weird. Like, this is my 20th year going. So it's a lot of weird memories, a lot of history.

2:12:53PFT Commenter:It's awesome. I mean, 20 years, 17, hopefully getting 17 this year is going to be special. I'm excited. It didn't feel like the 4th of July without you in it. I'll say that. I think we said it on the show, but it did not feel like. I kind of canceled 4th of July. in my mind last year the fourth of july is always gonna go on and i was eating hot dogs somewhere but uh it is good to be back on coney island and uh thank you so much yeah yeah so a couple last questions um people don't know this but like how quickly after you finish the contest are you drinking beer because you go out that night a little bit late yeah usually my goal is to try to make it out uh right right after fireworks sometimes i get out of the hotel room and oh oh yeah, fireworks are still on.

2:13:40It's a good recovery. It depends on the year. Some years if it's super hot, then I'm not going to do anything, but it takes a long recovery. But yeah, right around 10 p.m., I'm on a liquid diet and things are, I'm trying to get there.

2:13:57PFT Commenter:How many beers do you drink after eating 70 hot dogs? I don't think we should say this. No, you can say it. I mean, how are you having? It's not going to make it. I ended up time traveling. There was one time when I woke up and I was like, I think I'm in the green room for the Today Show.

2:14:20Big Cat:That's incredible. There are a few haters out there of the entire sport of competitive eating. I don't like to give them the time of day. I don't like to give them any mental energy of mine. But do you have a case that you can make to any of the haters out there that might have in the past not watched the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Do you have a case that you can make to be like, hey, this is actually a competitive environment. It's athletics. This is sports. And we're pushing our body to the fullest limit. It's really easy to be negative. I can't think of offhand of anybody I've had a conversation with, but it's been a while.

2:14:55But yeah, there's people who are always going to be negative. I remember there's people who used to say golf wasn't a real sport. And there's people who just knocked and knocked and knocked WNBA for years and years. and now it's uh people eventually they they eat their words and uh while i'm still eating yeah

2:15:14PFT Commenter:um all right my last question uh is the roback question rhoback.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts roback.com promo code take uh so we were we were texting i was going to try to get you up here for the first day that we opened our ice cream machine so we have a full soft serve ice cream machine in the office we're still going to do it uh man versus machine how many ice creams do you think you can eat do you think you put the machine out of business uh with with the amount of ice cream you can eat i want i want to try it's uh it depends like some ice cream machines that it comes out super frozen and hard some of it's a little bit not ours not ours we're soupy we're soupy oh a little bit soup oh soup and cream i like it uh yeah i i would i'm thinking close to close to two gallons worth it'd be it'd be like so i did an ice cream contest and after the contest i was like shivering it was like everything was cold so i think close to two gallons would be uh in about eight minutes it'd be close to yeah okay maybe that's what we'll do yeah fill the machine up with two gallons and be like have at it i i mean it would be awesome if you broke the machine like this is john henry

2:16:29Big Cat:This is the story of John Henry against the steam-powered driller. You can do this. I wonder if it does a slowdown. Yeah, if I hit the – The machine starts shaking? Yeah. That's when you know you've got it.

2:16:40PFT Commenter:Yeah, you've got a beat. Oh, man. Well, Joey, we're so pumped to have you back. Want to say a number you're going for? Are you going for the record? Are we going to get a record? I'm trying to hit that record. 77 would be perfect. uh the last anything above 70 is really really really tough uh so but yeah if it's if it's good conditions uh i'll be feeling good is there a is there like a minute mark where we we should look for you to be at a specific number to make 77 possible oh man should i say it yeah if i if i'm 50 hot dogs in five minutes. That's almost a lock. That means I have five minutes left.

2:17:24All I have to do is average just over five hot dogs a minute, five and a half hot dogs a minute, and then I'm there.

2:17:30Big Cat:Is 100 possible? Will we live to see 100 hot dogs? Probably not by me. But, yeah, I think competition. I'm a little bummed out there's nobody pushing me that's the best way for me to get 77 last year when I did the contest against Kobayashi I didn't know what he's capable of so I was willing to really just go all out no holding back on the 4th of July I'm a little bit worried if I have a bad burp it might look like a barf especially towards the end I have to be really careful to make sure I don't have those burps. Yep. So it's, yeah, 100 be up there. Like, even eating after the 10 minutes, the most I've ever gone up to is 90.

2:18:23Big Cat:Okay, we're going to push ourselves. You eat after the 10 minutes? Like you're not full yet? No, you have to. So I do the 10-minute practice, and then I take a breather, and then I start eating. I try to convince myself, all right, let's eat like you did in the beginning. so you have to practice eating fast while you're full so then you convince yourself that you can do it again you're a beast you're a monster I'm so glad that you're back on the 4th of July at Nathan's we're all going to be rooting for you let's set some records

2:18:55PFT Commenter:greatest athlete of all time greatest athlete of all time we'll be saying on 4th of July thank you thanks so much Joey thanks Joey

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2:21:27PFT Commenter:Okay, it's time. Dingers Only League. Third year in a row. For anyone who's not familiar with this, we do this. So this is a third year. Dingers Only. It's our fantasy baseball draft that we do halfway through the season. And the only stat is home runs. That's it. Every team has to draft nine positions. Every position on the field, obviously DH instead of pitcher. and home runs is it. Whoever has most home runs wins. Whoever has the least home runs loses and has to get six outs against a college baseball team like PFT did, like Max did. Oh, wow. Attempted to do. Attempted to do. Did you get there?

2:22:10Attempted to do twice, and then there was an unfortunate accident that prohibited that up until baseball season.

2:22:16Big Cat:Whose fault was the accident? Mine. Hand up accountability. Why don't you explain to people what happened? I was actually no I was over served Oh so it's the bartender issue I don't have to shout out the exact bar That's also on you because you should just be able to drink more I was over served There's no such thing as me being over served You also could have not drank anything Because you were in training for the baseball Yeah well whatever Brandon Oh fuck By the way I don't know why I said it like that Brandon was in it last year he's in it again

2:22:47PFT Commenter:Jerry was in it last year He's in it again Zach is a new entry and Steven Che is a new entry who was a commissioner last year are we worried at all about Steven Che being the commissioner and also participating yeah I am I'd just like to say I am you know what I'm going to match

2:23:02Big Cat:yeah because really I'm not but if he wins somehow I'm going to be very very concerned would anyone like to double the concern

2:23:09PFT Commenter:I'll sign off on that I'll match Jerry's double I trust Steven I'll say it

2:23:14Big Cat:if Steven wins I'm going to be going like this remember who trusted you by the way So, Max, are you going to do this ever? Yeah.

2:23:24PFT Commenter:Because it kind of ruins dingers only. No, we're going to.

2:23:27Big Cat:Like, imagine that you're in a fantasy football league, and the person who finishes in last, they don't do their punishment for your friend's fantasy football league until after the draft for next season. What do you think should happen to that person? I'm willing to take last pick, although that will make things more confusing.

2:23:41PFT Commenter:No, and also it's snake draft. Yeah. So you kind of just gave yourself an abandonment. That was a terrible. Are you going to do it? Yes.

2:23:48Big Cat:How are you going to do it? What steps have you taken recently to advance ourselves into doing this? Where are you going to put it? What do you mean? What? Where do you want it? Probably out on YouTube. We'll probably film it, record it, and put it out. Is that what they call your butthole? When do we start talking about butts? When is this happening? It's happening maybe after Grit Week. Okay. So maybe two months from now. Maybe. That's what you're telling the AWLs.

2:24:19PFT Commenter:Well, yeah, the AWLs are upset.

2:24:20Big Cat:I know. I know. And they have every right to be.

2:24:23PFT Commenter:Rightfully so. And they have every right to be. But we had two dates set, two dates got rained out, and then I broke my foot, and then the college baseball season started. And teams aren't going to do that in the middle of the season. Okay. So it's not like I just didn't try for a year. There was ample amount of trying.

2:24:42Big Cat:There was a lot of trying. I think you should have to do four innings. Three. I think you should double it. Three. You've waited the whole year. This is a negotiation test. Shake his hand. Three. Three. No deal.

2:24:52PFT Commenter:Shake his hand for three. Four. Two. No, he's going backwards. You're losing it. Get three. Get three. Get three. Get three right now.

2:24:59Big Cat:Two college baseball and then two.

2:25:02PFT Commenter:Softball.

2:25:02Big Cat:Women's softball.

2:25:04PFT Commenter:Two innings each. But that will make it so hard to plan. Two innings each. Two. One and one. Okay. How about three plus you have to wear one? What? You gotta get beamed. With what? A baseball by a pitcher. All of us. What? All of us get to throw one at you. No deal. Why? We can't throw that at you. That would hurt. All? Yeah. No deal. Not at the same time. One. Four. One. The winner of... No, that's... The winner of this... I know, because that would just be buying myself more time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:25:45Big Cat:I think three innings. You have to think about getting hit by a pitch for the next year. Three innings, two. One. Two people. One. Three innings, one. None of us can throw hard. I try. If I went through this entire year and just didn't do a single thing about it, I would be more. Well, this year, 2025. Yes, the teams were playing. But you said this year. Yeah. You tried last year.

2:26:09PFT Commenter:Three innings, one of us gets to be in you, but they get multiple pitches until they hit you.

2:26:20Five pitches.

2:26:22PFT Commenter:You can't duck it, though. It should be. You got to stand in the box. You can't jump around and shit. No, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's fine. Deal. Everyone good with that? Deal. All right. So three innings. You're going to pitch three innings. Okay. All right, good. Good negotiation. Should we get to the draft? Anyone got a question about the rules? Zach you got a question about the rules Steven you got a question about the rules We discussed outfield as long as they've Played that position left field Center field right field at least 10 games We're good and they can be in that position

2:26:53Big Cat:You said it you do get a drop Right you get one drop if your player Is accused of pedophilia

2:27:00PFT Commenter:That's the what's his name Rule wonder franco I had wonder franco I had to drop him

2:27:05Big Cat:Had to take a stand for what's right you also get an injury Right you get one injury one injury slash pedophilia but you have to specify if you're dropping the person for injury or for pedophilia

2:27:13PFT Commenter:okay but it's only one injury so if you drop someone and then another guy gets injured you can't if another guy gets pedophilia it's also one pedophilia okay you know those are separate all right yeah you have to keep the second pedophile okay all right exactly so if you draft two pedophiles you're just out of luck you're in a you just hope that they don't get caught okay but you do hope they get caught eventually i hope they get caught you don't want them to just not ever get caught you just don't want them to get caught while they're on your team where's wander franco these days i think he jail did he did i think he went home did he do a dui recently i think he did something else i think he added something onto his charges went home tampa no that wasn't what i was talking about that's not where he's in court i mean the

2:27:53Big Cat:smartest thing he could do is to get another charge and then everyone's like wander franco

2:27:56PFT Commenter:isn't that the guy that got the dui yeah yeah wander franco he's from the dominican republic I think he went, oh, yeah. Prosecutors seek five-year prison term for Franco. At least he blew above. Oh, that was 42 minutes ago. He's in court literally right now. Okay. Hey, he's currently on Major League Baseball's restricted list after initially being placed on administrative leave. Okay. So he's restricted. But for the record, I dropped him before MLB acted. That's true. You were the first person to speak out. So credit to me.

2:28:30Big Cat:Did you hear about Juan DeFranco? or at least he blew above.18 this time.

2:28:36PFT Commenter:That's the jokes that would happen if you got a DUI. All right. We ready to go? Let's do it, boys. Let's get some juice in here for the Dingers Only League. All right. Jerry, you have the first pick in the Dingers Only League draft, and we're going around the horn here, snake draft. So, Stephen will have the eighth and the ninth pick and then coming back around. Yes, sir. Okay. All right.

2:28:59Big Cat:My first pick Tough one But Looking at the at-bats right now Blows everybody else out the water without at-bats I'm going Shohei Ohtani Okay D-H Why did you say that was a tough one? I like that Well because Do you have an extra pen? Judge, you know Judge is there too Best player in baseball I got you I got you I got you

2:29:20PFT Commenter:Oh nice

2:29:21Big Cat:I wanted to pick my guy Judge I'm going to cross off I'm going to say Jerry

2:29:24PFT Commenter:For a few minutes And then I'm going to stop

2:29:26Big Cat:You blew that first pick Just absolutely blew it. You blew that first pick. Wow. People are going to be studying this draft for years to come, and they're going to look at your first. That's like Darko Milicic going in the top three. He's got 27 home, 26 home runs. Good. Good for you. Was that the Otani draft? Zach, you're up. What position does he play? DH. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Positional value. Zach, you're up. I think that's pretty good positional value, to be honest with you. Okay. Shut up, Max. I would like to take Aaron Judge as my first pick in this draft.

2:29:52PFT Commenter:Okay. Is that a bad pick? No, it's a great pick. That's an awesome pick. Great pick. Great fucking pick. So I have him as a right fielder. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because he plays right field. That would be where he plays. Okay. So I am going to, once again, I was rewarded with nothing. I won dingers only in a rout last year. What? That's how all of, winning means nothing. Max, shut the fuck up. I'm just saying. I am simply talking. Okay. Go ahead. A member of my team I got in the eighth round last year, I'm getting him in the first round this year. No, don't. I am doing it. Why wouldn't I do it? I'll trade picks with you.

2:30:31I have to do it. I'll trade with you. He's so far above everybody else in his position. I wanted to call him. You can't call him. I had him last year.

2:30:38PFT Commenter:I had him the year before. I know, but I had him last year. I'll make a trade for you. How are you going to trade? When we come back around, I'll let you pick in front of me. I don't think that we can do this. Take his whole second round pick. Steven? Make him skip his second round pick. Trades are allowed in drafts. Yeah, trades are allowed. So I get your first round pick and your second round pick? No, no, you get to jump in front of me. I'll let you jump in front of me the two times in a row that it comes back around. So you move up twice. Yeah, but I won't be able to get anybody this good.

2:31:05I can't. Why?

2:31:07PFT Commenter:Why do you get to just play the guy? Three times I'll let you jump.

2:31:11Big Cat:I'll just give you my second round pick. For what? Not even a pick swap. Just give it to you for this guy. For this guy? What are you guys doing? How come you... That's a pretty good deal. That's a pretty good deal from PFT.

2:31:20PFT Commenter:I'll give you my second round pick.

2:31:21Big Cat:My second round's more valuable.

2:31:23PFT Commenter:Just take him. Just take him. Cal Raleigh. Fuck. Fuck. It's stupid. I couldn't not take him. No, he's 1-1. Yeah. I know. I am a little worried he's hit too many home runs so far. Yeah. It's going to be tough to keep the pace up, but. Correct. What are you doing? Ask him to be on your team.

2:31:44He's probably at the ballpark or something already.

2:31:47PFT Commenter:He's probably pooping. He's big. Might be pooping. If he doesn't pick up for Brandon, then he's back. This is your phone. He's back on the waiver wire. He's not checking your pick. He's back on the waiver wire. He's not answering. He's back on the waiver wire. No, because that's your phone. Fuck. Kyle Raleigh. Catcher. He's got 31 home runs. I know. That was the 1-1 pick. The second best catcher had 17. Yeah, Jerry. He's a catcher. There's Logan. Logan O 'Hope is good, too. I'm less here. I'll take my guy Kyle Schwarber, then. DH, right? Left field. What'd you all for? Wait. Because I was going to pick him.

2:32:21PFT Commenter:Schwarber's played more than 10 games left field. He wasn't coming back to you. He listed his left field on ESPN. How many games has Kyle Sturge played left field, Max? He's played left field a bunch. That's right. He's a little squirreling. I think you would prefer him at DH. You think so? I don't know, Max. I think for sure. There's so many left fielders. There's so many DHs. They're about the same. Okay. PFT, you're up. Okay, so I guess he's my DH.

2:32:50Big Cat:I got to take my guy. I got to take James Wood. Mr. National Left field Hitter of the highest pop flies you've ever seen James Wood 22 years old Future face of this league Good pick That's beautiful I will be taking

2:33:09PFT Commenter:This is where it gets really boring for the listeners I know You know what You know what I will be taking PCA It's a good pick

2:33:21Big Cat:Inside the park runs count too It's a great pick. Who's that guy, Max?

2:33:26PFT Commenter:MVP. And Steven was going to take him. I was. I wanted to take him bad. It's a good pick. Centerfield, a good positional value. Yep. Yep. All right, I'm going to go.

2:33:41Positional value. I'm up in the air. I guess I will go with Eugenio Suarez of the Arizona Diamondbacks. Third base. He's got 25 fingers. Not even close to how you say his name. Good pick. How do you pronounce it, Brandon?

2:33:57Big Cat:Eugenio. Eugenio. Okay. That was way off. Eugenio. Suarez. That's my pick. 25 dongs. 19 second plays, so that's good positional value. That's a lot of dongs. Nice. Did he say he's third base? He's third base.

2:34:16PFT Commenter:Okay. Steven, you have two picks. Eugenio. Eugenio. with New York Met, Pete Alonzo. Okay. Oh, polar bear. First base. You get home run derby, home runs? No, I think it did. I think we said it counts as one home run. If you win? Yeah, it counts as one home run if you win. Oh, sick. Okay. I think we did make that rule. Very dumb rule. And then I am also going positional value. I'm going Logan Ohapi. Great pick, Steven. That's great. Terrific. Great pick. Great pick. You guys are picking well right now. Yeah. A lot of good picks. All right. My next pick, we won last year. We were doing a Stella Blue thing at the Cubs game.

2:34:55We were there during BP, and I watched this guy legitimately hit 15 straight home runs during BP, and I was like, Big Cat, who the fuck is that guy? His name? Sayak Suzuki. Sayak?

2:35:09Big Cat:Pat Sajak? Sayak. One night in town. Wiz Khalifa. Left field. Sayak Suzuki. So you can do left field or DH. You choose left field? I choose left field.

2:35:20PFT Commenter:Okay. Good pick.

2:35:25PFT Commenter:I'm just going to say I'm going to say good pick for the Cub. Yeah. You said good pick for every player. I think your pick was bad. You wanted my pick tremendously. Very badly. We'll still talk.

2:35:37Big Cat:Zach, how do you think this is going so far? We could make a post. I think it's going great. I'm ready for my pick. Yeah, it's going great. It's going all right. All right. A couple of missteps. I am going to make my second pick with shortstop from the Cincinnati Reds, Eli De La Cruz. Good pick. Just terrific pick.

2:35:52PFT Commenter:That's a great pick. That's a fun pick. You've got two fun guys. Max's team is fun right now.

2:35:58Big Cat:I want him so bad. That's fine. I'm going to go with Mr. National, World Series champion Juan Soto. Good pick. Right field.

2:36:08PFT Commenter:Good pick. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I will go with I need him I'll do Kyle Tucker right field you can say good pick that's a damn good pick hopefully they resign him I will take a right fielder as well he's way down the board as far as home run list but this is a future list Ronald Acuna Jr. that's a good value good pick Brandon good value Brandon in. Yep, all his home runs are ahead of him. Zach.

2:36:50Zach. I would like to go with Salvador Perez. What position is he? He's a catcher. He has not caught this year. Wow, Max. He hit you with that one. I'm pretty sure that most of it... Check that, but I'm pretty sure they switched him to DH this year.

2:37:07PFT Commenter:Wow. He got you on that one. Shane? He did. All right. You're back up. So he's DH? Are you picked? Did you get any stats on that, Shane? According to Shane, he said he's caught 40 times. Oh. Oh. Okay. I might be wrong. Yeah, he is one of the most. I know. I remember there was a story. That should be a fourth inning for that mistake.

2:37:33Big Cat:There was a story that he hadn't caught at all this year. If he wasn't going to catch off, he'd be playing. Didn't we talk about it on PMT that he switched it? All right. No. Salvador Perez? No. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He was on the Seamhead Express. He's a great player.

2:37:47PFT Commenter:Okay.

2:37:49Big Cat:Jerry. Yes. I will go with first baseman Spencer Torkelson. Yep. The Tigers.

2:38:00PFT Commenter:Good yak gauntlet time. No, bad yak gauntlet time. Okay. And you have another pick. Oh, okay. Perfect.

2:38:07Big Cat:I will go with I have DH and I have first base next up I will take shortstop Francisco Lindo

2:38:18PFT Commenter:good pick thank you guys thank you

2:38:26Big Cat:how do we feel about taking how do we feel about taking Mets it's the worst podcast we do every year how do we feel about taking Mets knowing that Frank the Tech is going to scream about how much they suck for the entire season Won't do it. Will not. I might just take all bets. Cannot do it. Will not do it.

2:38:43PFT Commenter:Okay. Who's up? Zach. I would like Brandon Lowe, second base. Lowe? Brandon Lowe. Correction. Okay. First, second baseman off the board. Good pick.

2:39:00Big Cat:How do you feel about that pick, Zach? It was a good pick. I feel decent about it. I'm sorry about the Salvador Perez thing Oh good man I appreciate all the information It's huge All the information

2:39:11PFT Commenter:Someone took Junior Kaminaro No Shit

2:39:22PFT Commenter:Yes Brandon I'm working on two guys Oh yeah That's normal That's so hot You going skiing

2:39:36I got to keep my Mississippi State boys together. He was also on the team last year. He's going to get hot again. D.H. Brent Rooker.

2:39:43PFT Commenter:Okay. A little early for him, but I want him. That's a reach. That feels like a reach. He hit 38 home runs last year, Hank. We're in 2025, man. He said it felt like a reach. He didn't say it was a reach. I'm going to take center fielder Brian Buxton. Okay. Byron Buxton, sorry.

2:40:05Big Cat:Buxty. I'm going to go with a friend of PMT, Atlanta Brave, first baseman. Good pick. Matt Olson. I feel great about that pick. That's a great pick. I feel really good about that pick. That's a great fucking pick, PFT. Good guy. First team all good guy, too. Shout out to everyone who's listening right now.

2:40:23PFT Commenter:You're trudging through.

2:40:24Big Cat:Voted least likely to be a pedophile amongst his peers in the athletic. Hell yeah.

2:40:28PFT Commenter:We are putting Joey Chestnut and Zach Gallin and Merrill Kelly in this show, So it's not, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. This wasn't a total loss of a show. I don't listening to us just say names over and over.

2:40:39Big Cat:I don't think I saved Matt Olson's number. Big Cat, can you call him real quick?

2:40:43PFT Commenter:Yeah.

2:40:44Big Cat:I just want to tell him. Because when I got a chance to talk to him in Milwaukee, I said, I'm looking at you for dingers only.

2:40:50PFT Commenter:I'm going to say. You made a case. I'm going to say I got your coach on the line. Okay. Like they do in the drafts.

2:40:57Big Cat:Yeah. Okay. Hold on one sec. We're 0-for-1 on these. Is he playing right now? It is pretty close to game time. Yeah, it is. Which is...

2:41:12PFT Commenter:Also, I don't think I've ever called him.

2:41:16Big Cat:He's got three hours.

2:41:19PFT Commenter:He's hexed, dude.

2:41:20Big Cat:Playing the Mets. Yeah, I don't think he's going to have his phone. Hello?

2:41:24PFT Commenter:Matt, big cat from the Dingers Only League. I'm going to put you on right now with the manager that drafted you. Okay.

2:41:32Big Cat:Hey, Matt Olson, this is PFT Cometor. I just took you in the Dingers Only draft. I want to say we're excited to have you as part of the program. Let's give them hell this year, buddy.

2:41:40PFT Commenter:Hey, it means a lot. Happy to be a part of this program.

2:41:44Big Cat:And part of being a part of the program is you get unlimited ice cream at the office whenever you want to stop in. I'll send you a card. I did notice that it worked for somebody recently. Yep. Cal Raleigh. There you go, Cal Raleigh. So anytime you want, 24-7, you're in Chicago, let us know, and you get the ice cream machine.

2:42:04PFT Commenter:Can we, like, move it to the clubhouse for a series? No. Absolutely not.

2:42:09Big Cat:I'm hearing from the cream team that we can't do that. But you do get access to it on site here at Parcel Sports. Okay.

2:42:16PFT Commenter:Sounds like a deal.

2:42:18Big Cat:All right. Glad to have you part of the program. Give them hell. All right.

2:42:21PFT Commenter:Thanks, Coach. Thanks, Matt. God bless. That was nice. See you, Matt. Thanks.

2:42:25Big Cat:That was a nice moment. Dingers only. It just means more.

2:42:27PFT Commenter:Steven has a lot of phone numbers of baseball players, so he will have to call anyone who drafts one of those guys. That's fair. Okay, great pick. Max? That's your name. I'm going to go with second baseman Cattell Marte. Good one. Is that how you pronounce his name, Brandon? Good one. That's a really good pick. Yeah, sure. Really good pick. All right, I'm going to go with the guy. He missed a lot at the beginning of the year, but he's back now. I think he's going to go on a tear to end the year. We're going to right fielder Mike Trout. Okay. I was just looking up his stats. All right. Steven, would you like to call him?

2:43:12PFT Commenter:I knew that was coming. That's why I said that beforehand. Yeah, I mean, I can call him. Yeah, give him a call. I don't want to hear this. You're going to get awkward. You don't have to call him. Okay, no. I thought I had an outstanding text to him. I do not. So, yeah.

2:43:28Big Cat:An outstanding text. What do you think he's doing right now? Do you think he's reading, like, Eagles season previews? Is he playing? He's been playing. He's playing. Yeah, he came back recently. He's got 12 homers. I'm sure that'll continue. All right, here we go.

2:43:43PFT Commenter:You got to tell him he's live or he's on air. Yep. Is he going to pick up, you think? I don't know. We've talked on the phone a couple times. There's a lot of pressure on you.

2:43:52Big Cat:love to be a fly on the wall. I mean, we've I knew this

2:43:56PFT Commenter:was going to get picked. You see, we would have to call

2:44:04PFT Commenter:don't answer. Please don't answer. Probably not.

2:44:09Your call has been all right.

2:44:11PFT Commenter:No, take a picture of Hank and send him a text saying, Hank, just draft you and dingers only. Let us know if he gets back to you. Okay. All right. I'm disoriented now.

2:44:27Let's go with Corbin Carroll is injured, so I'm not going to go with him. I'm going to go with right fielder, L.A. Dodger, Teoscar Hernandez. The Oscar. That's not really how you say his name, Steven. Teoscar Hernandez? That's not it. How is it? It's the Oscar Hernandez. The Oscar Hernandez. This whole draft was leading up to me picking the Oscar Hernandez. Damn it. You're a real fucking asshole. All right, you have another one. I share his birthday with my son.

2:44:56PFT Commenter:Oh, great. Wow. I'm sure he's so excited about that. Who do you share a birthday with, Stephen? Elmo. Yep. Perpetually three and a half years old. I'm going shortstop.

2:45:10Big Cat:It's Spanish for the Mo. Shortstop, Dansby Swanson. Okay. Okay, good pick.

2:45:16PFT Commenter:Good flow. Good pick. Thanks. All right, this might be a reach probably, But I'm going to go first baseman, local kid, South Shore, Cohasset, Mass. He is a New York Yankee that goes by the name of Ben Rice.

2:45:31Big Cat:Okay. Sure you have the name right? We say local kid. You meant to you specifically. Yes. Okay. What position is he? First base. Southie? Coho. Donnie's. Southie. They call that Southie. Coho. In Boston. He's a skip. He's wicked strong Clippers, skipper I forget what their mascot was in high school

2:45:57PFT Commenter:Okay, you're up I am going to go with Outfielder Specifically right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. Oh, good pick A lot of aura I'm going for aura on this squad So much aura That's a good pick All right, you're up. Skippers.

2:46:19Big Cat:Really glad this guy fell to me. Colorado Rocky, first Rocky. That's what I was going between. Positional value, Hunter Goodman. Catcher playing at altitude.

2:46:30PFT Commenter:All right, I'm going to play a little defense on myself here. Let's see.

2:46:37Big Cat:Are any of these guys hurt?

2:46:39PFT Commenter:I don't think so. Quite possibly.

2:46:41Big Cat:Yeah, I'd say it's a high probability.

2:46:43PFT Commenter:Definitely. Definitely some hurt guys.

2:46:49PFT Commenter:You're trying to get my pick before I get my pick. You have the pick before me. What value would it be to me? What if I lose my time on the clock? You're running the clock. Your call has been forwarded. All right, I'm taking a friend of the program, Christian Yellich. Yeah, that made sense. Is he right field? Left field. Left field. Okay. So I'm going to take a risky pick here. This guy is hurt. I think he's coming back within a week. Two weeks. Three weeks. I don't know. Whenever he's coming back. Yeah, I'm doing it, Max. God damn it. I thought no one was. Of course I'm doing it. I was looking at you like you should do it.

2:47:25You had plenty of time to do it. I know. I know. I understand. I think I'm getting great value if he gets back healthy. Bryce Harper, first baseman.

2:47:31PFT Commenter:Oh, that's great value, Brandon. Great value. You really love Philly, huh? Great value. That's my first Philly.

2:47:39Big Cat:Yeah. I do? It's important, Philly. Great value. Unlike Dax. How are we feeling? I thought I was going to be feeling okay. If it's possible, still on the board, I would like to go with Junior Camonero from the Tampa Bay third base. They just cut him. That's terrible. We're confirmed. Okay, well, I'm not going to go with him. No, he's fine. Okay, I'm going with him then.

2:48:01PFT Commenter:Zach, how would you feel pitching against the team, the college team? Head gear or no head gear? You could have a net in front of you if you wanted. I just don't I don't know if I can keep it strike so I might hit him with the ball I wouldn't want to do that I don't throw too fast but I wouldn't want to hit anybody Okay but you could do it You're worried about them I'm not too nice on the mound yeah I don't want to hit anybody with a ball Alright Jerry you're up Okay I'm gonna go with He was on my squad last year I believe Yes he was Third base Jose Ramirez Okay Good pick Thank you so much. And I believe I have another pick, correct?

2:48:48Big Cat:I will go center field. O 'Neal Cruz. Damn good. Good one. Thanks, guys. Fun player. Appreciate that. That's an aura pick, too. Yeah, it is. That's a great pick. I had him on my board.

2:49:04PFT Commenter:I had him on my board as well. I think he was on my board. Everyone had him on the board.

2:49:11Okay

2:49:14PFT Commenter:We're about to get to the portion where we start picking guys Who've already been picked And super hurt guys Just like really hurt guys Some guys might not be alive Okay, you're up Is it possible to go Byron Buxton Centerfield Is that perfect timing I picked him two rounds ago Oh, that's terrible, my bad Sorry, okay I'll go Trent Grisham Okay. Okay. Has been picked. What's the position? What position is that? Tringerson, he's a center fielder. Okay.

2:49:49Big Cat:Back-to-back center fielders. It's about that time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

2:50:01PFT Commenter:Mm-hmm. You better believe it. Yep. It is about that time, Brandon. Let me call this guy. Ooh. Yeah. All right.

2:50:12PFT Commenter:got him whose number does brandon have mississippi state guy all right uh uh let me just okay let's call him right now sorry guys yeah you got this i had to look it up

2:50:35who's he calling who do we think he's calling i'm calling my guy who do we think he's calling

2:50:40PFT Commenter:Oh, is this us? Not Stowers. Shit. Oh, no. Is it? It's an Oriole? Mississippi State? Checking Bobby Witt Jr. Oh. Shortstop. Doesn't have that many home runs yet, but he's going to get hot. He will get hot. BW. Bobby Witt Jr. Takes BW. He will get hot. All right. I'll go. Wait, let me make sure he's not hurt. Shortstop. I'll go third baseman Manny Machado Aura Fun to watch Big time Aura

2:51:17Big Cat:Podheads Alright I'm going to go center fielder for the Milwaukee Brewers Jackson Churio

2:51:26PFT Commenter:Nice pick Fun name to say too Churio Nice pick

2:51:35I have a guy that I'm struggling with position. Okay. Rafael Devers is the pick that I would like to make. He struggles with position. He's listed as a DH. How many games has he... We clarified before. Shane just said all of them. He's been a DH.

2:51:54PFT Commenter:All of them has been a DH? That was the thing, right? All of the DH. Okay, fine. I'll keep him at DH. That's fine. Wait, he's listed as third base in baseball?

2:52:01Big Cat:In his own words, he said, I am a third baseman, right, Hank? Yeah, but he hasn't played there. But he said. I'm fine with keeping him at third base. Are you fine with keeping him at third base? At DH?

2:52:14PFT Commenter:Yeah.

2:52:14Big Cat:It should be up to him. Would you think he'd want a DH, or do you think he'd rather play third base?

2:52:19PFT Commenter:Yeah, you might have a clubhouse cancer on your head. That's fine. That's tough. All right. Similar to Mike Trout. This guy missed a big chunk of the season. I think he made his return on – he had six at-bats this year, but he hits bombs. He's going to hit a lot of bombs. No, he's had 19 at-bats, zero home runs. Giancarlo Stanton.

2:52:44Big Cat:All right. DH. Battling back from double elbow to the night. I didn't know he played baseball still. What position is he? DH. DH.

2:52:55Big Cat:He'll probably stay healthy. Does he go by Mike now? No. That's been eight years. Actually the opposite. That's him though, yeah. All right. You looked him up and it still says Mike Stanton? No, my memory reference bank.

2:53:10PFT Commenter:Your memory reference bank. Your brain? Yeah. All right, it's on me. Does anybody? Yeah, no, it's memory reference bank.

2:53:24Let's go center field.

2:53:27PFT Commenter:Nope. Let's go Andy Pages. Whoa. That's a reach. Big time reach. Really bad pick. Is he hurt? No. Just a reach. Back to back. Alright. Let's go. Center field's off the board. Right field's also off the board.

2:53:50Big Cat:I love my squad right now. I do too. Let's go

2:54:02third base Isaac Parides Isak Isak hopefully he doesn't suck Cub for life

2:54:15PFT Commenter:he was on the Cubs last year oh hell yeah alright I'm gonna keep I'm going for just sex appeal I'm just going for a lineup that pops off the lineup card I'm going to go Mookie Batts shortstop He's had some injuries I was just looking at him He's had nine home runs this year He lost a lot of weight He had a toe injury But he's back, he's playing But I was looking it up Because I was about to maybe take him But then I looked at it And I was like, oh, maybe it's because he didn't hit home runs When he lost all his weight He only hit one home run this last month He's had a toe and he's battling But he's, again, these are all big time players That are going to have to contribute Going down the stretch and live up to their names.

2:54:56Yeah. I'm also going to go with Mookie, Mike Stanton, Mike Trout. That's a power. Set this one out, Mike.

2:55:04Big Cat:You just interrupted Max. It's okay. I'm also going to go for a vibes guy. Again, I'm struggling with his position, but I'm available at both of his positions right now. I will be going with Vladdy Jr. Okay. Team is he on? He's on the Blue Jays. I believe he's a first baseman now. Not a third baseman anymore

2:55:26PFT Commenter:How many homers does he have? Not as many as you would think He has 10 But you know you gotta go for talent at this Yeah you gotta go for upside You're drafting for upside right now 100 %

2:55:41Big Cat:I'm gonna go with a sabermetric pick I got deep into the math on this Ideally you want your players To get as many opportunities to hit home runs as possible Yes? Why not take a guy that hits lead off Shortstop CJ Abrams He's going to get like four more at bats Than some of your guys clowns That's good saber metrics Why would you say clowns Because you guys got a bunch of clowns on your team

2:56:04PFT Commenter:He's right It's true I will go with shortstop Jeremy Pena From the Houston Astros

2:56:16PFT Commenter:Pena

2:56:23Big Cat:Spanish for pineapple. Seven of eight teams right now have a shortstop. It's a big swinger.

2:56:26PFT Commenter:Oh, that was a mistake then. I'm going to go... I wish I knew that you could wait on, but just no idea. I'm going to go... Whoever doesn't have a shortstop, don't. I have a... I'll pick them. That's me. Yeah. No, I got Bobby Wood. No, you got Bobby Wood. I got... Left fielder? Okay. Has anybody picked Taylor Ward? No. Then I'm picking Taylor Ward. Who does he play for? The Angels.

2:56:53Big Cat:Well, that's a bad pick. Taylor Ward? That is generic player number 45.

2:57:00PFT Commenter:Shit, can I change my pick? This is just called dingers only, right? We're just hitting dingers? Why don't I do that? I'm not worried about sex appeal. I'm not worried about noise. Taylor Ward?

2:57:08Big Cat:I'm drafting player first name, last name. If you met a girl named Taylor Ward, she's hot as fuck. Yeah, if she's a chick. Yeah. How do you know mine isn't a chick?

2:57:17PFT Commenter:Can I switch my pick if the person picks up? Yes. No. If the person picks up? He's going to get his next pick. No. What are you talking about? It's a shortstop. Everyone else has a shortstop. Who are you throwing back? I would have rather had Gunnar Henderson just because I can root for him instead of Jeremy Pena. Oh. Can I just do that? You have to call him. I'm actually fine. He has to pick up. I'm actually fine with that. I mean, everyone has a shortstop. I know. But I just wanted to see him pick up. All right. Fine. Fine. Fine. If he picks up. Otherwise, I'm keeping Jeremy Pena. And whoever doesn't have a shortstop, just pick Gunnar Henderson whenever you want.

2:57:51Gunnar hasn't responded to me since I asked him to go on his bachelor party. Well, you're not, Dan. Well, since you what? You guys made me ask him that. Fuck, he's not going to pick up.

2:58:02PFT Commenter:Damn it. All right, I guess I got Jeremy Pena.

2:58:07Big Cat:He's a fine player.

2:58:08PFT Commenter:Yeah, I know. I just wanted to root for Gunnar Henderson. I was stupid. I don't know why I did that. He's only hit eight home runs. so I didn't see him on the board. Fuck. That's a strong message.

2:58:22Big Cat:All right, Jeremy Pena, be a hero. Hey, it's me, Gunnar Henderson. But you already knew that.

2:58:28PFT Commenter:He's going to be so mad when he finds out he didn't get drafted. He might still. Who still needs a shortstop? Does anybody know? Okay. Don't draft him right now, but... You know what? If you draft Gunnar, I'll trade you Jeremy Pena. Can I think about it? Yeah. Awesome. All right. All right. What did you decide? I'll go next, right? Yeah, but what did you decide about the trade? Oh, right now? Yeah. Oh. You feel good about Pena this year? I mean, he's got 11 home runs. Obviously, he doesn't feel good about it, Zach. No, it's literally, I do feel good about him. I just would rather have Gunnar Henderson, but it's fine.

2:59:11You don't have to. Is it cool if I keep – can we think about midseason maybe a swap? Can we table it until now and I go gun it later?

2:59:16PFT Commenter:The deal is now officially off the table. Okay, that's fine. Okay. All right, we won't trade in. All right, go ahead. Make your pick. I got you. Sorry about that. I'm going to go with – has Ezekiel Tover been taken? Nope. I would like to take Ezekiel Tover. Okay. What position is that, young man? Shortstop. Wait. You son of a bitch. You're not taking the pick. And you also were taking the shirts off when you didn't need to. Everyone else already had one. We just had this conversation. It's three home runs. Why are you taking him? I was just trying to keep track of who was taken and who wasn't taken.

2:59:56I know he was on the non-taken board. Ezekiel sounds like a strong name. I was really going off first name. I thought you were like friends with this guy. No, I don't have too many guys. I don't know too many guys in MLB, but I feel like he might. Okay He might be a stick later in the season

3:00:10PFT Commenter:Terrible pick That's fair Yeah Okay Jerry you're up Alright I need a second baseman I will go Ooh okay I will go with Jackson Holiday You bitch motherfucker Yeah I'll go with him I like him It's a good pick Good pick And then

3:00:32Big Cat:This is gonna be a reach Cause I don't think this guy has zero home runs this year Okay He plays left field Oh

3:00:41PFT Commenter:A left fielder with zero home runs is hard to do Jordan Alvarez Oh

3:00:46Big Cat:Oh that's pretty Is he hurt? Yes He is hurt He is returning sometime in the next two months A month and a half Okay That's good

3:00:56PFT Commenter:He hits home runs Yeah Astros, Jordan Alvarez, no progress I'm pretty sure they found him I think I drafted him last year

3:01:06Big Cat:right when he went on the start of like a 60-day deal. Yeah. He's a great player when he plays. Yeah, he's returning, though, they said. Yeah, that's what they said last year. What is the last update? No progress. No progress. We'll see. I read a different report. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. I mean, listen, if he – We don't know. Nobody knows. Yeah. I know he was supposed to – I think he was a setback. Yeah, we'll see. Yeah, we'll work in. Well, no progress means no bad progress either. True.

3:01:33PFT Commenter:All right. Back up, Zach. All right, would it be possible to take Brent Rooker? Has Brent Rooker been drafted? He's been on my team for about 45 minutes. I missed that one on the lineup. That won't happen again. Sorry about that, Brandon. That's how you end up with Ezekiel. Won't do that again. He's just picking guys that no one would have drafted. Ian Happ of the Cubs. He's available. Yes. Great pick. Very much so. I'll take Ian. That's a great pick. It's red hot right now. Two home runs on Friday.

3:02:04PFT Commenter:Which, if you're listening to this right now, was like two weeks ago. Yeah. Center fielder of the Seattle Mariners, Julio Rodriguez. Ooh, good one. Has 10 home runs, but is averaging 29 over the last three years. J-Rod. Good one. Good one. All right, I'll take Michael Bush, first baseman.

3:02:28Big Cat:Okay. I'm going to go with Matt Chapman. Third baseman, Giants. Good pick, PFT. Good pick, PFT. Has anyone taken Riley Green, left fielder for the Tigers yet? That's a hot-sounding name. Yeah, that chick has got cannons. I would click on the Ole fans just to see. Super shiny lip gloss. PFT, who did you just take? It took Matt Chapman. Okay, thanks. I feel like this person's been taken from the Colorado Rockies catcher, Hunter Goodman. Yep. Yeah. Wild. I got him a long time ago. It felt like it felt like that was true. Yeah.

3:03:10PFT Commenter:Good intuition. How does he play into really good intuition?

3:03:13Big Cat:Your aura team, Hank? He didn't. He just was high up on the board, which is why he had been taken already. All right. Oh, man, this is tough now. All right. I'm going to go just because I loved his walk-up song in 2016. Javi Baez.

3:03:32PFT Commenter:Nice. I'm in love with this. He's back. What's his position? He's a center fielder for the Tigers. Good pick. Oh, he got traded for PCA, right? Yeah. Correct. I am going with. It's great being around Steven because his baseball knowledge literally started this year. I am going with what's his left field New York Mets Brandon Nimmo okay Frank's gonna be mad about that one and then I will go with designated hitter I believe that's his position let me double check

3:04:15Big Cat:we should give Frank a team Yandy Diaz and have it be all Mets yeah He just gets all the Mets. This is going to be analytics. Good pick, Che, by the way. Analytics pick, short porch in right field, Jazz Chisholm, second base. That's just a real solid pick. Good value, Hank. It's a real solid pick. I will be taking catcher, not to be confused with actor, Will Smith. Which one are you taking? The catcher, not the actor. Okay. The actor also hits.

3:04:54Big Cat:So I'm up We're only taking that right Mmm I gotta pick a DH here Actually my favorite part of this dingers only draft Is when they do the team that we didn't draft Yeah Shane are you working on that?

3:05:09PFT Commenter:Or memes? It's memes? That's right Shane just tried to talk I don't know I don't know how I can Okay do it right now

3:05:18Big Cat:Okay so I'm up And I am going to be taking – has anybody took Wilmer Flores yet? I have not heard his name. Designated hitter Wilmer Flores. You sure he's still in the league? He's hit 11 home runs this year.

3:05:37PFT Commenter:Yeah.

3:05:38Big Cat:And the 11 is red, which I think means – Good. Good. Also, fun fact about him, Wilmer Flores bio, he is the brother of Wilmer Flores. I'll be goddamn.

3:05:48PFT Commenter:Wow.

3:05:49Big Cat:So there are two Wilmer Floreses. That's sick. Which one did you take? I took Wilmer Flores.

3:05:53PFT Commenter:Cool. Has anyone taken Mr. October Tommy Edmond? I have not. Dodger? Okay, yeah. He's good. I'm going to take him. Great pick. Mr. October Tommy Edmond. I have an issue. By the way, just so we're all clear, the official first day of this league is July 2nd. Wednesday, July 2nd. So these home runs don't count. No home runs count for the next eight days. Last year, y 'all did the same thing, and then you start a text message saying, should we just start now? No. You going to do that again? No. Just depends on how many home runs you're doing. Yes. Yeah. I think last year it was like, should we just start today?

3:06:29PFT Commenter:Should we just start today? No, whatever. Okay. It doesn't really matter. I have a guy who I – Who would like to vote yes if you'd like to start today. What's today? Today. Today today or today when it comes out? Today tomorrow? Today. Today today. This day? June 23rd? No, it should start July 2nd. Okay. Whenever Bryce Harper gets back. All right. What position is your guy? Second baseman. Okay. Tell me. Who'd you say? Mr. October. I have a problem. I have a guy that has almost assuredly been picked, but I haven't heard him be picked, and I haven't scratched him off. So I'm going to ask, and he's definitely been picked.

3:07:05So just tell me he's been picked. Okay. Who's got Jose Altuve? He's not been picked. He's not been picked. I'd like to pick Jose Altuve, second baseman for the Houston. Good pick. Good pick. Not as good as Tommy Edmund. He has way more home runs.

3:07:21PFT Commenter:Than Tommy Edmund? Yeah.

3:07:26PFT Commenter:Are you sure about that? No, because Tommy Edmund's not even on my second base list. How many home runs does Jose Altuve have? Twelve. Tommy Edmund has ten. Not way more. A few more. Yeah. Zach? Has anyone drafted a Ben Rice from the New York Yankees? How do you keep doing this? I got my list swapped. There's my fault. Good kid, local kid. Yandy Diaz. Taken. Also been taken. Has Jose Altuve still been playing all second base? He's been playing left field, too. It said second base on the thing that I Googled. Yeah, but he's been playing left field. I think he's enough second base that he should be a second baseman still.

3:08:02Correct, Stephen? I'm looking. All right, can you all look?

3:08:05PFT Commenter:Okay. All right. Okay. We good? Yeah. That's why I was more upset at myself, because I didn't see him on my second baseman list. Vinny Pascantino Who's that? First base Royals That is correct Yep Pick him That's who we're picking Alright Jerry Perfect I will do I need a catcher This is the last round Or not This pick Oh there's one more round

3:08:32Big Cat:I need a catcher But yeah Fuck it Let's go with Let's go with Wells God damn it Austin Wells. God damn it.

3:08:44PFT Commenter:He wasn't going to make it to you, Hank. Austin Wells. Let's go with him. God fucking damn it. Catcher. Okay, now I need a... Oh, ooh. My right fielder. My right fielder. Okay, I will go... Man, I don't know much about this guy. But the name sounds like he hits home runs. I remember a couple postseasons ago he was hitting home runs. Nick Castellanos. He's had a good year. His power numbers have been a little bit down. All right.

3:09:17Big Cat:I'll go ahead. My right foot there. Perfect. Zach, you need a DH. Is Asaya Suzuki available? No. Not there. Are you just looking at my draft? I think he was a second-round pick.

3:09:35PFT Commenter:Was he a second-round pick? Third or fourth, yeah. Great pick. Tenth overall. Solid pick.

3:09:39Big Cat:Tenth overall. Great value. I mean, that would have been an awesome. I'll go Jonathan Arada. Okay. Okay. Doesn't hit her a 10-bay double raise. Okay. Just the raise now. 10-bay raise. Yep. Brandon needs a third baseman. Eight years ago? Eight. Maybe more. Another injury guy coming back.

3:10:11Jordan Westberg. Baltimore Orioles, third base. Where'd he go to school? Mississippi motherfucking state.

3:10:18PFT Commenter:All right. I'm going to take a injured player, but he's got a lot of pop. He's got 10 home runs in how many bats? 200 bats. Shea Langoliers. Okay. From the A's. He should be back. I just Googled it. He should be back in the next week or two. Yeah.

3:10:45Big Cat:So Jackson Holiday, we've ruled him as a shortstop. No, someone already picked him. I picked him. He picked him. He's a second baseman, right? Yeah. You need a second baseman. I need a second baseman, yep. So I will be going with, at second base,

3:11:03Big Cat:Ozzie Albies. That's a good pick. Atlanta Brave. Good pick. That's a good pick. That's a good pick.

3:11:08PFT Commenter:Thanks. Mostly because it's a name I recognize. Yep. Yeah. I guess this is the injured round here where someone takes someone who is going to be off of injury soon. I will be taking third baseman Alex Bregman. Good pick. Great pick. Would you like to call him, Che? Damn, I should have done that. Bregman? Yeah. No, please don't answer. He'd be likely to pick up.

3:11:36Big Cat:Every article about Ozzie Albies is about how bad the current slump that he feels. He's been awful. But he's going to be better. He should be better. He only has six home runs. No outstanding tests. He's going to hit 25. I think getting drafted on this team is the spark that he needs.

3:11:53He's betting 100 for June.

3:11:55Big Cat:Ugh. Ooh. All right. I'm going to go recurring guest, friend of the program, catcher for the Seattle Mariners, Cal Raleigh. Damn good pick. Great pick. Great pick.

3:12:11PFT Commenter:Oh, Bregman's calling back. Oh, there we go. Hand it to Max. Tell him we're doing the Dinger's Only League. Alex, what's up, buddy? You call? Yeah, we are doing – you are on part of my take right now. I'm going to pass you to Max. You've just been drafted in the Dinger's Only League. Hey, Alex, pleasure to speak with you right now. I just want you to know that you've been drafted by Team Max to the Dinger's Only League and part of my take. Do you accept? I don't even know what that is. All right, that's cool. Tell him what it is. It is a fantasy baseball league between the members of part of my take plus a few more, and it's just a fantasy baseball league homers only.

3:12:50How's your health? You feeling good?

3:12:54You'll be back soon. I love that. Love that. Thanks for joining my team. Have a good one. I don't know if he did join your team. I don't think he accepted it. You were too nervous, Max. I was nervous. You couldn't wait to get off the phone.

3:13:07PFT Commenter:I was nervous. I was nervous. Damn, dude. Maybe send him a follow-up text, Che, and be like, sorry for Max. He's a loser. I thought that went pretty smoothly. No, you blew that. I thought that went pretty smoothly. Zach, what do you think? You were so fast. I thought it was on our first interaction with somebody. I thought it went pretty decent. I was pretty, yeah. I don't know why. I don't know. Che, clean that up. There's something about a phone call that's more nerve-wracking. Max, clean that up. I don't want Bregman to hate us. Dude, give me a thumbs up. What? Your thumb is completely blocking your face.

3:13:37Okay. All right, Steven. Gregman's been drafted. Wait, who did you pick? Wait, who'd you take? Cal Raleigh. What are you doing? Fuck. I thought we were going to move on.

3:13:50Has anyone taken Augustin Ramirez of the Miami Marlins? No. All right, I'll take him.

3:13:58Big Cat:Good pick. Great pick, Hank. I had him on my board. He's actually better than Cal Raleigh.

3:14:05PFT Commenter:Steven, last pick. Mr. Irrelevant. Mr. Irrelevant. I'm just checking to make sure this guy is healthy. He's got an absolute dynamite name. Oh. Yep. He's hitting like 150? This could be anybody. He might be. Second baseman, Arizona Dynabacks, Tim Tawa. Oh. Dynamite. That's a dynamite name to you, Tim? Dynamite. Tim Tawa? Yeah. Okay. I feel like we left a lot of order. Wait, who's your picker? Yeah. Yeah. Augustin Ramirez. I don't want to say third base. We left a couple guys. Well, Corbin Carroll. Corbin Carroll's out there. But he's hurt. How hurt, though? I don't know. I think he's getting an MRI, but he has 20 home runs.

3:14:48Big Cat:I think I drafted all guys from the National League. How is that possible? Yeah.

3:14:55PFT Commenter:Entirely National League team?

3:14:56Big Cat:Everybody on my team is in the National League.

3:14:58PFT Commenter:Corbin Carroll is a big miss. Big miss. Big miss. He's hurt. Stash him. Well, you can't stash him. We don't have any. Oh, you're saying. Stashing him, just eat his non-home runs until. Yeah. So it's a race to see who's right fielder gets hurt first?

3:15:16Big Cat:Yeah. Memes, who did we miss?

3:15:22PFT Commenter:Anybody take Freddie Freeman? Nope. Nope. Yeah, first base.

3:15:28Soderstrom is a really good hitter, too.

3:15:32PFT Commenter:Okay. Who else? Want me to go down the list right now? Yeah. Yeah. Sean Murphy, catcher. Okay. Braves. Tommy Edmond. Nope. Got him. Yes. That feels good.

3:15:44Big Cat:Sean Murphy might not be the best hitting catcher on that team.

3:15:46PFT Commenter:That feels really good, knowing that I got a pick that the baseball guys knew. Daniel Schneeman, the Guardians, for second base. Zach Netto for shortstop. Yeah. Austin Riley, third base. Okay. It's not a bad year. Tyler Soderstrom, center field Joe Adele. and then right field Corbin Carroll. I think we did pretty good. Yeah. I think that was a good draft, boys. I love my team. My team pops off. I love my team. Yeah, Hanks, you said something earlier of like. If you posted this lineup card. Yeah, that you wanted like a star power, and that's what I kind of went for. Read your team real quick.

3:16:29Eugenio Suarez. Uh-huh. Nailed it. Sia Suzuki Mike Trout Ben Rice Drew and Carlos Stanton Mookie Betts Javi Baez Jazz Chisholm Augustin Ramirez Everyone say their name You want to say all of their names? I'm Brandon I actually think if you put my lineup

3:16:48Big Cat:Next to Hank I think mine pops with aura just as hard I think mine pops better I think mine pops more as well Are you doing a pop-off? Yeah, let's pop off Hank, you listen to this Tell me guy for guy James Wood Juan Soto Matt Olson Hunter Goodman Jackson Churio CJ Abrams Matt Chapman Wilmer Flores Ozzie Alves Yeah no there's The end of that I'm popping so harder Than y 'all No I'm popping harder I'm popping harder Zero pop You pop first And then I pop Cal Raleigh Cal Raleigh pops Ronald Acuna Bryce Harper Pops Julio Rodriguez Bobby Witt Jr. Jose Altuve Pops Now I go Brent Rooker, Taylor Ward, Jordan Westbrook Taylor Ward brings his time Can I pop?

3:17:34I'm popping better than that Will Smith Vladdy Jr. Marte Bregman Bregman pops Bregman pops Bregman pops Ellie De La Cruz, Riley Green, PCA, Tatis, Devers That's a good pop You want to hear my pop? There's a lot of pop in there

3:17:55PFT Commenter:At the start I'll just throw these Shea Langlier's whatever uh michael bush is good uh tommy edmund uh gunner henderson pop oh wait did you make that trade oh wait oh yeah yeah fuck uh jeremy pena manny machado pop christian yelich pops kyle tucker pop kyle schwarber pops byron buxton all right decent pop in my outfit i mean i have two i have the kyle guys i think kyle kyle kyle schwarber and kyle tucker this is gonna be the most competitive

3:18:25Big Cat:year of dingers only ever. You want to pop, Jerry? I'll pop a little bit. Pop it off. First base, Spencer Torkelson. D.H. Otani. Short stop, Lindor. Center field, O 'Neal Cruz. Third base, Jose Ramirez. Second base, Jackson Holliday. Could pop. Left field, Jordan Alvarez. Well, he's dead. I don't think he's going to play for the rest of the year. The name is pop, though. The name is pop. Ketcher, Austin Wells. The pop is his labrum. Okay. And right fielder, Castellanos. That's pop. Yeah, pop. What do you got, Steven? Say a little pop. Ketcher, Logan Ohoppy. Sick name. Your definition for a sick name is just names.

3:19:09Really weird. That's a cool name. Pete Alonzo, first base. Second base. That pop. Yeah. Tim Tawa. That's a cool name. How could that be the coolest? Tim Tawa. Shortstop, Dansby Swanson. Swag.

3:19:22Big Cat:Oh, God. Third base, Ice. Isak Paredes. Isak Paredes. No pop. Left field, Brandon Nimmo. This is the least amount of pop. Can we agree that this team? Well, we haven't heard Zach's yet. Center field, Andy Pajes.

3:19:38PFT Commenter:There's no pop. Right field, the Oscar Hernandez. Incredible amount of non-pop. You know who's sex appeal is. Here's the thing. You don't know 90 % of your team. No, yeah, absolutely do. Pete Alonzo, Logan Ohapi, and the Oscar. And Dansby, I know all of those guys.

3:19:56Big Cat:If you were to make a team logo for your squad, it would just be beige. It would be beige and gray.

3:20:02PFT Commenter:Toby Flindersen. Zach, end us with a pop. Aaron Judge. Pop. Salvador Perez. Pop. Brandon Lowe. Pop. Wow. Junior Caminero. Trent Grisham. Okay. Ezekiel Tover. Pop. Ian Happ. Pop. Pop. Vinny Pascantino.

3:20:23Big Cat:I think if you said it right with the Italian hands, it pops. Vinny Pascantino. Pascantino. Yeah. All right, gotcha. And Jonathan Arada. Why didn't you take Gunnar Henderson? It was a mix-up. Self-misscommunication. Memes and Shane, do you have any grades? Which team pops the hardest?

3:20:50Big Cat:Give Max an A. Let's go. Give Brandon an A. Yeah, Brandon's really good. Why didn't you say that was really good? Max, yours is really good, too. All right, thanks. I like Big Cat and PFTs. Yeah, you do. Wow, Hank, you're not going to pop. No. Hank's was good. No, it wasn't. You don't mean that. Who's bad? That's a better question. Unfortunately, my man Zach had a tough time. A lot of ball left.

3:21:16PFT Commenter:A lot of ball left. A lot of ball left. We also last year picked pitcher tiebreaker. Yeah, we're not doing that anymore. Oh, it was just tiebreaker. It was just strike. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We could do that, I guess. Okay. Tiebreaker. We could just go same one through eight. Okay. And it's strikeouts. It's just strikeouts. Most strikeouts. Purely tiebreaker for last place. Correct. And last year we just spoke up, so. Paul Skeets. Give me Garrett Crochet. Max Fried. What are we doing? We just spoke up. Cy Young. Just take it. Oh, give me Scoobble. What? All right, fine. Go in order. I'll take that.

3:21:50Big Cat:All right. Well, I don't know his name. Who? It's the Asian guy. Wait, no. It should be going back. Shohei Otani? Otani? No, no. Who had the last pick? No. I did. Yeah. All right. He's right. Okay. All right. Paul Skeens. Wait, what is this? What are we talking about? It's not going to happen. Paul Skeens for me. Good pick.

3:22:09PFT Commenter:Hank? Yeah. Sorry. I'm looking for any pitcher that's in a home run this year. No, no. It's just a break out. It's only in the event

3:22:21Big Cat:They're all dh's heck Otani would be a great pick Alright give me Scooble Good pick It's a great pick Crochet Brandon was the one Actually no give me Zach Wheeler Mackenzie Gore

3:22:35PFT Commenter:Why can't I get this for For strikeouts Where are the strikeouts Let me see let me see let me see let me see here crochet uh chris sale not hurt thank you what didn't he hurt he got hurt the other night logan webb um hunter brown i don't know who that is I think we fucked up, too. So many names got thrown around. Is Crochet still not picked? Crochet's picked. Max picked. No, he was not. I switched to Zach Wheeler. We both made up. I switched to Zach Wheeler. There's so many names thrown around. Take Crochet, Matt, or Zach. I'll take Crochet. There you go. We got Chris Sale fractured rib cage. Yeah.

3:23:27PFT Commenter:That stinks. He got it doing a diving play with two outs in the ninth of a shutout. I just wanted a fill. And it's not going to matter unless it does matter. Good. You got a pick there, Jerry.

3:23:40Big Cat:I can't find him. The Asian guy on the Dodgers. Yamamoto? Yamamoto. That's the name, right? Yoshinobu? Yep, yep. There's definitely like five Asian guys. I'm pretty sure he's talking about Yamamoto. He's a pitcher. They have another guy that just got hurt, right? Sasaki.

3:23:58PFT Commenter:No, I'm not thinking of that guy. He's talking about Yamamoto, right? The guy with the most strikeouts. Yoshinobu. Yep, him. It's like the... Whatever. That's like the one team that you can't say that You can't say Asian guy Are they just filled with Asian players? Yeah I don't watch baseball Yeah Alright, good job boys Alright That was a great draft I think this was guy for guy The best draft yet Yeah It's going to be a slugfest in the league this year It's going to be scenes Who do we think does the pitching challenge first? The loser of this year or Max? The loser of this year

3:24:29Big Cat:I think Zach's going to do it before Max does Yeah You are saying Zach's going to lose? I was making a joke Ezekiel he's going to lose we haven't gotten to the second yet

3:24:40PFT Commenter:alright okay that was our show reminder no show Friday numbers three no show Friday for the 4th of July 99 I'll be back on Sunday night for a show on Monday and then it's chill week you got one there memes did you get any of your memes one for four

3:25:01Big Cat:wait no I got it No, I know before. Yeah. Out of the four we just did.

3:25:05PFT Commenter:Oh, God.

3:25:06Big Cat:He says it so quick. Yeah.

3:25:08PFT Commenter:I'm going to go with 59. Oh. Oh.

3:25:11Big Cat:That's not going to hit.

3:25:12PFT Commenter:Okay.

3:25:13Big Cat:That's a terrible number. I'll take 11.

3:25:15PFT Commenter:What did you guess last memes? Last show. 21. All right. I'll do 21. What the fuck is wrong with you? 27. Come on, 27.

3:25:37PFT Commenter:71 71 I've been meaning to fucking take 71

3:25:44Big Cat:Love you guys Love you too

3:26:05Thank you.

3:26:34Thank you.

3:27:05Thank you.

3:27:36Thank you.