A Clippers Rebrand, an NFL Mini-Mailbag, and Best MLB Story Lines With Rob Mahoney, Anthony Dabbundo, and Billy Gil

24:00I don't know what to make of it.

24:03Bill Simmons:Even though we're five weeks away, what are you the most excited about this season? I think it's got to be Philly. Like every time I look at that, I mean, every time I'm reminded of just everybody they have on that team. Like, I have to see it. I have to see it in person. I need to see it as often as possible. I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if Joel is ever going to be healthy, but the star power, the supporting players they picked up, I mean, is that not your number one? Where are you starting? I definitely number one from, I need to see this a few times just to let this sink into my brain what this is.

24:38Bill Simmons:Yeah. I think out of all the teams that feel different than last year, that's the number one. And I just don't really fully understand how this is going to work. I'm fascinated by it. The upside is so high. The floor is even fairly high just because with their two injuries, their Embiid as an injured guy and LeBron as an old guy, even if those guys aren't playing a lot, you still have those other three guys that can play big minutes. I think the Celtics piece is going to be interesting too because. Well, you would. Well, but I'm saying from a, usually they've been more of a feel good team or the up and coming team, but this is a city that really didn't like that trade.

25:18Bill Simmons:And depending on how those first two, three weeks go, I think could be a team to watch. Now they could come out and be great and everybody could like them. And, you know, Paul George could fit in. And, but if they, if they start out like seven and eight and Paul George looks old, the fans are pretty gamey about this trade still. And they, you know, Paul George did a press conference. He's there. And I think he's saying all the right things. But it's the first really unpopular move of the Stevens era. Well, even if they're, let's say they come out and they're really good. Do you think any of the scar tissue from last season will pop up and be like, you know, this is a really good regular season.

26:00This is a nice run. But is this real? Is that going to be hanging over them all year, do you think?

26:05Bill Simmons:I think that, I think just monitoring Tatum, what we're getting out of him for a full year when he didn't even make it through the Sixers series. And then the thing Steven said about... He said it in so many words. If you decoded it, you knew what he was saying. He was like, we ran our course with those two guys. Yeah. We didn't feel like we were in the title mix anymore, paying those two guys$130 million a year to play basketball. It wasn't going to work anymore. So it's a pretty big bet. I've announced a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you saw, I talked myself into it. Took over 50 days. It's impressive.

26:44Bill Simmons:Yeah. It was, you know, there was some therapy. There was some hypnotic tapes at night to listen to. But how did we not turn? I mean, you kind of did turn it into content. But how did we not just like lock you in a padded room for 72 hours until you came out ready to believe in the Celtics? It sounds like an Apple TV series. It's like the new Apple TV drama from Vince Gilligan. So Philly in the East. Yeah. Who's your team in the West then that you can't wait for? Oh, it's got to be Minnesota. Yeah. I'm ready. LaMelo and Ant. I mean, sign me the fuck up for that. That sounds like exactly what I am tuning in for and the process of who they're going to be in the regular season, how they figure out incorporating Jonathan Kuminga being a totally different style of team, making all these pieces fit together, figuring out how they're going to replace Dante DiVincenzo is probably going to be out for the year.

27:33Chris Finch has done this kind of thing many times of like, here's a new formula. Go figure it out since he's been with the Wolves. But to me, this is easily the most exciting version of that.

27:44Bill Simmons:It does feel Minnesota and Philly have one thing in common where you're going to catch them on the right night where they look incredible. Yeah. You know, it'll be like game 17, whatever location. Like, oh my God, Minnesota made 29 threes last night. That'd be a record. They had an interesting summer though, because it just felt like they were in on everybody. They were like the guy in your fantasy draft that is just bidding on every guy and you're like, what's your plan? You've gone into the 20s on 15 straight guys. Did you come in with any sort of plan? I really didn't. Minnesota was like that too.

28:17Bill Simmons:It's like, Kaminga's available? Whoever? Jalen Brown's available? LeBron's available? Is Kevin Durant available? They just were flying around trying to make anything happen. And on top of it, going through an ownership change that they kept pretty secret. it but isn't isn't that what a team in their position should do like if you kind of ran into the wall and you have one of the most exciting stars in the league and a supporting cast that also worked but also kind of ran its course and the julius thing clearly was over nas reed was valuable to them but they i can understand why they wanted to diversify their roster a little bit thin out the bigs that that leads you to chase every star on the market it's honestly kind of what we want teams of Minnesota's market size.

29:01This is what we want them to do is to chase after things when they get real.

29:05Bill Simmons:I just would have been, but if we're in that meeting and it's getting close and we're starting to really talk about this at some point, you have to look around and go, why does Charlotte want to give this guy up under contract? Pretty fair contract for somebody that is a top 30 guy. Yep. beloved by the fan base, kind of the best driver for whatever engine they had for this three-point kind of up-and-down team. Perfect for that. Why do they want to trade him? I don't know if I would have gotten past that. I understand it as a sticking point. And frankly, look, I'm a LaMelo believer. Like, who he is as a playmaker, very powerful to me.

29:49I see the vision, if you'll pardon the pun. For me, it's the health. It's like the ankles. it's the injuries. Like that's the part that freaks me out more than can LaMelo Ball be a winning player? Because we've seen him have a transformative effect, not just last season, but basically every season he's played on Charlotte's offense. And so that feels real. That is a tangible thing. You can see it in games. You can see it if you want to dig into the data. I think he can be a serious basketball player in a slightly different context. I'm eager to see if this group can kind of nudge him in that direction, but I just need him to stay healthy.

30:21Like that is my biggest concern for the Wolves for sure.

30:24Bill Simmons:Well, I mean, that's the concern. Well, but there's a whole different school that's just skeptical of him as a basketball talent. And I'm saying that's not where I'm coming from. I mean, that's cool too. Yeah. You can have both, I guess. Yeah, I'm in both. Actually, I'm doing a mailbag in the next segment, and I got this email from Brian from the DMV, who I've been talking a lot for football about Justin Herbert and Jordan Love are like the nerd king. King of the nerds, basically, for QBs. All their advanced stuff is great. All the NFL nerds are like, even when they have a bad game, they're here.

30:56Bill Simmons:No, no, it was actually a good game. And the question from Brian was, who is the NBA version of this? And he said, my nominee is LaMelo Ball. Incredible advanced stats has never made the playoffs or contributed to winning. The nerd community will tell you none of that matters, despite the fact that it's parentheses checks notes about to be year seven for him. So do you think, do you think LaMelo is the nerd king of the NBA right now with the NBA nerds? I don't think you could be the nerd king if you're also very popular with like 12 and 13 year olds. Like that's two separate things. But that can't be the split demographic.

31:29That doesn't make sense. I would say the nerd king.

31:32Bill Simmons:Does LaMelo Ball make sense? Well, often not. But to me, the nerd king is much more like a Derek White type than it is a LaMelo Ball type. The difference is Derek White has actually won a title doing nerd stuff. Right. Sure. So I was I was wondering, is it if it's not LaMelo because he might be in this separate camp. Yeah. could Trey Murphy be our nerd king? Oh, I like that one. Yeah. It's like, it's a great, incredible stats. Just put them in anywhere. He'd be additive. It's like, we've never seen him in a winning situation ever. Why are we so sure? Well, and the only thing nerds love more than valuing undervalued players is trying to find them new teams via the trade machine.

32:10And like Trey Murphy has been living in it for five years straight. So he feels like a, if not a king, then certainly a prince of the nerds.

32:16Bill Simmons:I do think the nerds, like, I think Zach voted for, not to call Zach a nerd, but he dabbles in the nerd stats. This is a nerd stat thing, not a nerd thing, but, um, but I think he voted for LaMelo third team all NBA or seriously thought about it because of his impact just for the 28 minutes. Whereas I I'm a profound durability guy. Yeah. I just feel like, yeah, I think if you actually had to rely on that dude night after night for 35 minutes, like some of these other dudes, um, I don't know if you could do it, but we'll see that to me is why it's like what lamello does well is obvious like he's he's a highlight machine he's not i think to me if you're making the nerd king case it's always like oh the secret value of this player is this thing that you're not seeing in the box score this thing you're not seeing when you watch like you know you're shane battier's your derrick whites like lamello is like front and center highlight neon like everything he does is so blatant that i don't think he could take that title yeah because in nfl the qbs are in your face every play because they're the face of the team so that's why lamello like a point guard who has the ball over the time is probably a good analogy um before we go you've been doing a lot of prestige tv episodes what's the show of the year so far we're through mid-september we have a bunch of good stuff going is it is it widows whatever yeah we know what after crushing the emmys you can't even get the full title out widow widow's bay widow's bay has to be the show it has to be the show of the year incredibly decorated this week but also just the best show top to bottom i think the the best formulated the best written incredible performances i think you know you could argue pluribus or you know the pit still is in that running for me um there's there's been a lot of really good tv this year but widow's bay feels the most cohesive i didn't tell you i was keeping it a secret from you.

34:08Bill Simmons:I banged out Furious. Really liked it. I thought it was like an A -. It really was the first one in a while. I was like, oh, I got to watch the next one. I want to see what happens. I had a really good time with it. I thought it was the... There's so many of these that try to do what that show did and you're like, all right, I guess I'll watch another episode, but heart's done in it. That I thought was legitimately good. Well done. It's a little heat-ish. It's a little like banking into Silence of the Lambs by the end of the first season. Like, we're getting into some really exciting places. Furious is very good if you haven't checked that out.

34:40Bill Simmons:And Emmy Rossum basically like, oh, Claire Danes is the queen of the fucked up female lead character who has to solve crimes or some sort of issue. Yeah. Watch this. Watch what I'm about to do here. Market corrected, do you think? Emmy Rossum's coming for the crown? She did some things that I don't even know Claire Danes knew were possible. Yeah. Some faces, some of the choices that character made. It was all from the Claire Danes playbook. It was funny because my daughter watched, she saw The Beast in me before she started rerunning Homeland. She'd never seen Homeland. And they only knew Claire Danes from the other show and then is watching her in Homeland.

35:18Bill Simmons:And she's like, Dad, is this just what Claire Danes does? She plays completely crazy characters that make bad choices. And I'm like, yeah, that's actually what she does. Often so. But until Emmy Rossum does a full-on whale cry, then I don't know if we can give her that particular lane just yet. What a battle. They're definitely head-to-head in the finals. Emmy Rossum, because she did this in Seamus, too. I feel like the whole time she's felt like Claire Danes gets all the publicity for this, but I'm right here, and here I come. What are you looking forward to this fall? Anything? Well, we got Slow Horses coming up.

35:51Very excited about Slow Horses. And then it's like a very, I don't know, costume drama kind of fall, like East of Eden into Gilded Age. I guess we'll kind of wait and see what hits, but anytime Slow Horses comes back on the calendar, I'm psyched for it. Are you up on that? Not up on that one. Come on.

36:08Bill Simmons:Should I be? Yes. Gary Oldman led... There's too much sports. ...fail spy comedy drama. I think you would love it. There's too much sports. The sports, especially this summer with the World Cup, baseball was really good. Yeah. Football's now back. Basketball feels like it's around the corner. All right, slow horses. You're like the 19th person to tell me about that one. Rob Maloney, great to see you. You can watch and listen to Rob on Ringer NBA. plus Prestige with Joanna, who you share custody with, with Mallory. I think that's really nice that you guys arranged that. It's an amicable situation.

36:42I think we've made it work.

36:44Bill Simmons:Yeah, you get every other weekend you get her and Wednesdays and some Fridays. All right, Rob, great to see you. Come back with a mailbag right after this. Thanks, Bill. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Welcome to your most rewarding season ever, and it's only happening on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than an 18-point comeback or maybe even an offensive lineman catching a touchdown? Well, this NFL season, that feeling will not stop on the field. Look out for the all-new FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Exclusive offers, surprises, much more. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you.

37:23Bill Simmons:Make this your most rewarding season ever. With FanDuel, download the app to get started. FanDuel, play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. It's the small moments where we have the most fun sometimes, like having a friendly little competition with your friends. See who's the fastest or who can put better in the backyard or who can get to somebody else's house or the better route, whatever it is.

38:02Bill Simmons:Even better, if you put some Michelob Ultra on the line or a refreshing way to up the stakes, like me and House are going to pick games against each other on Thursday. It's the NFL season. Maybe we keep track in ways of Michelob Ultra six-packs. I'm happy to do that. Maybe Michelob Ultra will make a special BS podcast or ringer six-packs. And then we could barter them back and forth, whatever it is. By the way, they should do that for us. Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Superior Light Beer. Enter for a chance to win Superior Soccer, Basketball, and Golf Prizes at Michelob Ultra.com slash Superior Access.

38:40Bill Simmons:Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026. Anheuser-Busch, Michelob Ultra Light Beer. St. Louis, Missouri. All right. So much happened the last few days with football. I had to do a little mini mailbag for the NFL before we get to the last part of this podcast, which is a good old-fashioned baseball discussion. My pyramid of teams after one week, I won't read you all the teams, but I have Seattle at the top with Baltimore and Buffalo underneath them, the Niners, Rams, and Houston. And I think that's the top six right now, and then we can argue about it. Bottom four, Atlanta, Tennessee, Cleveland, and Miami last.

39:22Bill Simmons:And I think it's a really interesting argument between Cleveland and Miami, both of whom looked atrocious last week, but I actually think there's slightly more upside with Cleveland because of some of their skill players. I didn't see any upside from Miami. Their defense is terrible. It doesn't look like they're going to be able to run the ball, and it doesn't look like they're going to be able to throw the ball. So I have Miami 32nd. Happily, we'll switch after week two if Cleveland looks as bad as they did in week one. Some mailbag emails. You can email at bspodcast33 at gmail.com. This first one, the reason I bring this up is I got a Browns email from Kev Dog in Cleveland who writes, as a Cleveland fan, the Browns futility has always fascinated me.

40:08Bill Simmons:Fascinated is an interesting word. The Browns stadium, which is currently Huntington Bank Field, if you're scoring at home, that stadium opened in 1999 and it has never hosted a Browns playoff game. Safe to say it won't this year or next year. And here's the thing. That stadium is set to close after the 2028 season when the new Huntington Bankfield opens. So there's a chance, I'm interjecting here, there's a chance that stadium will have come and gone for almost three decades without ever having a home playoff game. Kev Dog asks what's more unbelievable that Cleveland hasn't hasn't hosted an NFL playoff game since 1994 or that Cleveland built a pro football stadium that served a useful three decade life without ever hosting a playoff game in it I think the latter although I guess the Cleveland not hosting a playoff game of any kind since 1994 but I think having a stadium building it and then never having a single great moment in it is like impossible.

41:17Bill Simmons:I mean, even with the Patriots, when we were about to knock down the stadium, which was ultimately Sullivan Stadium, Schaefer Stadium, whatever you want to call it, it had never had a great moment. And then the last game ever in that stadium was the snow game, which is what the Patriots fans call it. The asshole NFL fans call it the tuck roll game. But when they beat the Raiders in the blizzard, And that turned out to be one of the most memorable non-Super Bowl games in the history of the league. And that was the last game in that stadium. So Cleveland, I guess, has a couple years here to have their version of the snow game.

41:53Bill Simmons:And my money would be against it. Kev Dog also, he has a PS. If Deshaun Watson makes it to week three, you're going to see something unlike anything in sports. The entire home stadium will boo the starting quarterback mercilessly from player introductions until the game's over. Maybe that's your playoff game. Deshaun's last start in week three. I can't imagine they'll start him, but holy shit. If they do, if they're 0-2 and they're like, hey guys, here's Deshaun Watson. Good luck. Joe from Denver said, last year Raiders Patriots gave us the classic liar, liar week one game. Raiders won, stunk the rest of the year.

42:30Bill Simmons:Patriots dramatically improved. Which week one game was the liar, liar game? I think we have three candidates. and we talked about two of them on the Sunday pod with Sal. Cincinnati 33, Tampa Bay 27, where Tampa just was incredibly sloppy with the ball to the point that Sal compared Baker Mayfield to the Savannah Bananas. That's one. Everybody's pretty high on Cincinnati, but we'll see. I mean, Cincinnati definitely, the defense did look better. They won a game where Chase had two catches, but I have my eye on that because I think Tampa's better than that game and Cincinnati's worse, but we'll see.

43:07Bill Simmons:So cards, chargers would be the obvious picker because the chargers were terrible and then did the whole. We didn't have a preseason. Maybe that was a mistake. Carbo. Maybe we should have gotten our guys some reps. You think? And the cards look great. But I got to say, like Raiders Pats was just a terrible game where the Pats gave up a couple key third down passes. They couldn't get anything going on offense. And it was just kind of an ugly game. But you didn't leave the game like super impressed by the Raiders. the cards were like putting on drive after drive on the Chargers I think they must have had six 10-11 play drives they were getting third downs they're kind of doing whatever they wanted I don't I think they're a little more for real I'm trying not to do the overreaction and being like the cards are good but offensively that team was as accomplished as just about anybody I watched on Sunday I think the liar-liar game might be Chiefs Broncos for a couple reasons.

44:08Bill Simmons:One is the Broncos were another team that afterwards they were like, man, maybe we should have cared about the preseason. This is something my buddy Gus Ramsey, diehard Broncos fan, who I wish I had talked to before the game, was saying that they have a habit of doing this with Peyton, where the week one, they always look terrible, apparently. So kind of wish I had known that. That was one thing. Casey, you know, completely reinvented themselves with Walker, who was awesome. Um, they're home. It's a Monday night. Um, expectations weren't as high as they normally were for the chiefs. We didn't know where we were going to get from my homes.

44:43Bill Simmons:And they had two touchdowns in this game. It's going to sound like sour grapes. It's a, I I'll be honest. It's a, it's a wee bit sour only cause I lost my, uh, my Broncos tees, but, um, there was holding on the Mahomes touchdown. There was a great video of Kelsey just bear-hugging somebody as Mahomes ran in. And it gets called every time. It's the Chiefs. They don't get it. When Kelsey had that long, lumbering run near the end, and Rasheed Rice is basically just bear-hugging, mauling somebody for 30 yards. I haven't seen a holding penalty for that long in my entire life. He's holding the guy for so long that I think the refs just forgot about the holding and just kept running.

45:24Bill Simmons:Those two penalties plus Bo Nix was just awful, and it just feels like, are the Chiefs really going to do that every week? Like the amount of time, Walker had, I think, 26 touches. I looked at his touches in his career. Played four years in Seattle. He's never had more than 250 touches for them. And I just wonder like, is that one of those, they're throwing us off the scent a little and Denver can't be worse and maybe we shouldn't get too over the top excited about that one. Now the counter would be the Chiefs are back. And I don't know what to think, but that would be my number one suspect for the liar, liar game.

46:02Bill Simmons:I'm not sure the Chiefs are as good as they looked in that game. And I don't think Denver is going to have a game where they set the record for most missed tackles or whatever the hell. Their defense was abominable. Ian from Nashville wanted conspiracy bills take on something. So I brought him in. He said, Mahomes, this was after the Chiefs game against the Broncos. Mahomes running in the first TD and looking completely normal eight months after tearing both his ACL and LCL. Smells fishy. Do you think he faked the December injury when the playoffs were out of reach? So down the line, people look at his legacy and think of it as the season Mahomes hurt his knee instead of the fact that they were 6-8 heading into that game.

46:42Bill Simmons:Even Conspiracy Bill can't get behind this. I will say, I didn't think Mahomes was good in that game. I thought a couple of the scrambles were good, but I thought he missed guys the whole game. And then I looked up the stats after. I think 90 % of his passing yards were yards after catch. So I still have some questions with Mahomes. We'll see how he does. And obviously he's going to get better as the year went along. But I did not leave that game thinking, holy shit, Patrick Mahomes is back. And if you did, you're crazy. Jim from South Jersey was excited that we talked about the Taysom Hill Award for most dropped, picked up player in fantasy on Sunday's pod.

47:20Bill Simmons:He predicts Devin Singletary will finally take the award home. He's sure to be added by millions after tearing apart Sal's dumb team's defense last week. He'll be dropped by millions after he fumbles away his chances coming weeks and then picked up again when Skadabo eventually gets hurt. Dropped again when he has his own mid-year injury. Water with lemon for all, he says. So Singletary, he thinks, will be the number one. I am voting for Don Tavian Wicks on the Eagles, who I think a lot of people are gonna pick up this week. I think he'll be dropped. I think then he'll have another five for 90.

47:52Bill Simmons:he'll get picked up again. I just think that's how it's going to go for him. He's just going to be on and off the waiver wire. My backup choice would be somebody named Caleb Douglas on the Miami Dolphins, a receiver who was 5 for 94 last week when we'll get picked up. I just think in general the Miami receivers are going to get dropped left and right. But I think it's going to be Wicks or Singletary as most added drop guy this year. John from Portland, Oregon asks if Drake May is the next Tony Romo, a supremely talented successor to QB royalty, but also supremely boneheaded. That was hurtful. Tony Romo, by the way, zero NFC title games and finished third in the MVP once in 2014.

48:36Bill Simmons:Drake made a Super Bowl last year. Just pointing that out, the second season ever. There are some questions that will hopefully be answered by the New England Patriots this week against the Steelers. Speaking of the Steelers, Marcus Reid in Edmonton, said, I'm a longtime Steelers fan who enjoyed your Tomlin discussion on Sunday. I was talking about how much I loved how they use Tomlin at halftime. I've watched nearly every Tomlin Tuesday press conference over the years. Tomlin's greatest strength was his ability to communicate. It's not surprising to see NBC figure this out immediately and use him like Jameer Gibbs.

49:07Bill Simmons:I'm going to interject here. It was super surprising because NBC has always botched pregame shows and halftime shows and had too many people and they would cut to the field with Jack Collinsworth and Tony Dungy and Rodney Harrison. I don't think any network over the last 20 years has made me go, what the fuck are they doing more than NBC? So I actually think it was surprising they figured it out and used them like Jameer Gibbs. Anyway, Marcus says he is getting a lot of touches, pregame interviews, pregame show halftime. How long until he's doing Terry McCauley's ref reviews, sideline reporting, maybe even interviewing the coaches between the halves.

49:41Bill Simmons:I like this. Let's use them like Jameer Gibbs. It's like Dan Campbell trying to save his job what Jameer Gibbs. He's Tomlin for everything. I would have him come into the booth for the second quarters. Uh, I thought he was awesome. I think he's going to get better as the year went along. And this is like the first real kick-ass studio guy we've had in a long, long time. Um, and it's pretty rare. Like even in the NBA, I remember Pat Riley when he was between Lakers and Knicks and he did NBC way, way back when, and he was incredible compared to what we had dealt with with studio shows. And it was like, holy shit.

50:16Bill Simmons:Like he's actually staying stuff. He has, there's weight behind it. Felt the same way about Tom. And so hopefully he keeps it going. Ben writes in, I've always loved your theory that sports cities are more in sync than we think. As a diehard Boston fan living in New York, I'm now terrified that I'm watching it happen in real time. Uh-oh. The Knicks finally overcame their demons and won a title. And ever since it feels like the entire city's sports karma has flipped. Oh, no. The Jets and Giants are somehow both 1-0 for the first time since 2009. The Yankees are favored in the AL, and the Dodgers seem more beatable than they have in years.

51:00Bill Simmons:My worst nightmare, a Yankees World Series win. Regardless, I'm hating every second of it, so using your sports city theory, what needs to happen to kill the New York vibe? What's the loss that breaks the spell? before this gets completely out of hand. Best regards, Ben. Ben, I think you and I both need to sit down and relax and have some settle down juice, but you did put the fair God in me here. I would hate to see some sort of New York shift. And if you look at the Giants winning the game, we didn't think they were going to win in week one. And their schedule is actually pretty easy the next couple of weeks.

51:34Bill Simmons:And if they can keep Dart and Scadabo healthy, I'm actually worried about them winning the division. Jets will be seven and 10 or eight and nine. Yankees are a favorite. we're talking about baseball later, but the Yankees are almost favored to win the AL. I think the only reason they're not favored is because they have the Red Sox in a best two of three. Maybe the Red Sox, ironically, will be the one that can end this. All they have to do is go to Yankee Stadium and win two of three games with three really good starting pitchers. So it's on their shoulders. But man, you put the fear of God in me with all this.

52:08Bill Simmons:Terry in New Jersey said, I know you think John Harbaugh is overrated. but as a Giants fan, I was thrilled with the performance against the Cowboys, and I think he should have been. I spent all Monday talking about how disciplined they were, how they didn't blow the weed, and how Dart didn't lower his head to take on linebackers. All true. Has there ever been a lower bar for a head coach to clear than, hey, we didn't collapse in the fourth quarter, or hey, we didn't make dumb plays that got our quarterback killed? That is from Terry, New Jersey, and honestly, it's all true. I felt the same way last year with Vrabel.

52:43Bill Simmons:And Vrabel was great, obviously, and one coach of the year. I'm talking last year, regular season, made the Super Bowl. Maybe didn't go great after the season. But he followed Jared Mayo. And I was thinking about that and I Googled Jared Mayo to see what NFL team he was on. And he's not coaching in the NFL anymore. He works for a hedge fund. So Mike Vrabel, he followed a guy who was the Patriots coach for one year and then immediately left football, even though he's like 41 years old. Um, I don't know if you're ever going to get a wider disparity of former coach, new coach than that. And I also, I don't know how bad day ball was, even though the energy wasn't great, but Harbaugh, if he can do half of that, um, you know, he came in, he gave them a real identity.

53:35Bill Simmons:They're just big, they're powerful. They're going to run the ball. They're going to not be idiots. And maybe it'll work. I might've been wrong about the giants. Mike F says, what the hell were Tom Cruise and Taylor Swift talking about at that chiefs game last night? It was funny. There were people writing a lip reading stuff about this, trying to, trying to decipher what they were talking about. I have no idea what they were talking about. Like part of me was thinking it was like when anchorman, when they were filming the TV commercials, like we're laughing now we're serious. or like when they have movie scenes where the extras are in the back and the extras are having a fake conversation behind like our main characters.

54:14Bill Simmons:But I decided, I think he was telling her about all the right moves and he was telling her about how he played Step Georgevich. He was this Pennsylvania cornerback, had a chance to go to college and then Rifleman should have, should taken the safety at the end and the pouring rain didn't. Hands off to the Italian guy who fumbles, they lose the game. He ends up getting mad at the coach. Probably just told her the whole plot of all the right moves. And I don't think she was really listening. Andrew from Hartford, Connecticut said, I'm a lifelong Cowboys fan, but I even need, but I even need to appreciate how fucking psycho Scadabo is.

54:50Bill Simmons:Can we start a Wayne Grow Award for the most batshit crazy guy in the NFL? Maybe it could be portable across all sports. Maybe it could be an ESPY. So you get a candidate from each of the major sports. He's my nominee right now for the NFL. That's Andrew in Hartford, Connecticut. The Wayne Grow Award. I had to get it on. It's definitely Dylan Brooks for the NBA and probably Wilson Contreras for baseball, but that would be a really fun award ceremony. And you're right, Scott Abos probably winning that. Jim Comp wrote in, don't mean to pile on in your time of mourning after the Pats loss, but Romeo Dobbs was every Packers fan drive to the airport guy.

55:26Bill Simmons:Top 10 and drop balls, usually biggest moments. Consistently got chances to be number one receiver, no showed. his Seahawks performance was something Packer fans are all too familiar with. I didn't even mention him walking out on the team during the season of a contract role issues. The Packers spent big money to extend two other receivers, not him. Good luck. That made me a little nervous. Phil in Portland asks, in light of recent podcast revelations, I'm thinking Aaron Rodgers' new nickname should be Cuck Rodgers in the 21st century. Thoughts? I'm going to move to the next email question. Brian from DMV asked that Justin Herbert, Jordan Love question.

56:08Bill Simmons:He thinks it was Lamella Ball from the previous segment with Mahoney. I like my Trey Murphy answer, but we did that one. Andy in Chicago, another NBA question, but tied to the NFL. As a Chicago resident entering a season in which the two most talked about players will be Caleb Williams and Caleb Wilson. I feel like I need some sort of mnemonic device for remembering which last name goes with which player. If you remember on Thursday, house called Caleb Williams, Caleb Wilson, and I can't believe I haven't done it yet. I'm like minus 450 on Fandle to do it before the end of week three. Andy writes, as it stands, This is feeling like plugging in a USB cable where it's 50-50, but somehow I get it wrong 75 % of the time.

56:47Bill Simmons:Can we get our best minds working on this? So when we had the fantasy football show, which was initially Heifetz and Danny Kelly, and we called it the Danese football show and Craig was the producer and eventually Craig became a co-host and now we call it the Ringer fantasy football show. and we called it Danesee and we decided Danny Heifetz would be Danny and Danny Kelly would be DK so that we weren't asking if Craig was talking to them they wouldn't both be Danny and it would be super confusing and now somehow Heifetz is Heifetz and Danny Kelly is DK and we don't have a Danny on the show Caleb Williams is already there I think Caleb Wilson has to be called CW or C-dub I just think that's how it has to play out It's like when OKC had the two Jalen Williams's and one was J-Wall and one was J-Dub.

57:39Bill Simmons:I don't think we can have a Caleb Williams and a Caleb Wilson as the two identifiable Chicago stars. It's too fucking confusing. Just both in both cases, you just want to call the guy Caleb. And I think Caleb Wilson just has to bite the bullet and be C-Dub or C-W or you could argue these are two separate sports and this will never collide. But it is. it's already confusing and we're gonna need a solution so we're gonna need both guys to get together and try to figure this out but I think Caleb Williams should be Caleb Williams and Caleb Wilson should be C-Dub Kyle from Orlando said there's been a lot of dialogue about Justin Herbert and he said his dad's a long time Pats fan who thinks Herbert is the modern day Drew Bledsoe insane individual talent high pedigree West Coast franchise savior destined for greatness but Bledsoe couldn't handle the biggest crunch time moments didn't have the it factor or was never a top five player, made one Super Bowl, that's it.

58:36Bill Simmons:Herbert has never won a playoff game or finished higher in ninth and MVP. It's year seven, it's just Bledsoe 2.0. I actually think Bledsoe was better. The first seven years of Bledsoe, I think, was better than Herbert. And I know that advanced stats will say Herbert was better, but Bledsoe took a team to the Super Bowl. Herbert's never won a playoff game. So in a way, I don't think you can call him Bledsoe 2.0. I think Bledsoe's the slightly rich man's Justin Herbert at this point. But so was really good for a while and took a ton of hits. And I think by the time we got to the end of the 90s, I just think I think his his between offensive line stuff and just how many times he threw and how many times they used him.

59:16Bill Simmons:I just think he started to get banged up. So that would be my take on that. AP in the ATL said, my buddies and I are watching Red Zone. Every time they switch to Jets, Titans, we let out a collective groan. No one wanted an update of this game in any capacity, is there a way to get a feature added where certain games can be deselected from any Red Zone updates like a reverse Red Zone? Can you use your powers at Sportsar, YouTube, CMO to get this implemented? So I thought about this. I think there should be two Red Zone channels and one would be the Red Zone channel that covers absolutely everything.

59:54Bill Simmons:And I think they have a fantasy Red Zone channel just for the fantasy stuff. So I guess we already have two. So I think there needs to be a third one. where it's just like the best five games of the day. And you don't have to deal with Dolphins Raiders. You don't have to deal with Jets. I can't even remember. Jets Titans. That's how bad that game was. And maybe it's like the filet mignon of the red zone. And if you want to watch that instead, it's just more updates for the best games. Just an idea. Andrew Grillo said that Sal and I touched about this briefly on the Sunday night pod, but his biggest takeaway from Ohio State, Texas was zero teammates celebrating with Arch.

1:00:36Bill Simmons:It almost seemed like they were avoiding him as he ran around a la Jimmy V. Question, is this a red flag for NFL teams? If Arch falls in the draft, is this Bo Callahan? And then Arch had the thing with Holly Rowe. That wasn't great either. My bigger question for him, this seems like the most likely candidate we've had in a while to not want to go to the team that drafts him. Because I was looking when I was doing the pyramid and I was thinking about the worst five teams in the league potentially this year. I think it's pretty safe bet Cleveland, Tennessee, Miami are three Atlanta, maybe four, maybe Indy.

1:01:09Bill Simmons:But if you go through like, what would be the perfect team for him? I guess it would be Atlanta. Right. And now we don't know if Arch is going to go first or not, but Atlanta, I don't think he vetoes that. I think he'd be psyched to go there. And you know, he's from the South, obviously Cleveland. I think you're just bummed out. We just did that email before that they have a state in that they're going to have for 30 years, maybe with no home playoff game, Tennessee, the narrative came word Miami.

1:01:37Bill Simmons:Maybe you could talk yourself into Miami, but yeah, this, this could be interesting if he's the clear number one pick and doesn't want to go to the number one team. Tim Gallagher said, I just put on hard knocks off perhaps the least surprising thing ever in the opening scene. Sam Darnold manages to fumble his Superbowl ring opening the box. I know you have high hopes for the Hawks this year, but this feels like an ominous sign. I got this email before the season started and Sam Darnold got hurt in the first series. Maybe it was an ominous side. Two more. Garrett in Oklahoma. My question, when are we ever going to zag on celebrity integration?

1:02:17Bill Simmons:I don't like when a musician show up in WWE I don't like seeing Jerry Seinfeld 50 times during an NBA game I don't give a shit who is the guest picker on college game day I can't be in the minority on this you're not I think the issue is these shows are produced by mid-level TV execs for the most part I used to call them when I was at ESPN the khakis and blue shirt police and all they do is come in and they just want to keep their jobs and And occasionally they'll have an idea. And the idea will be one of the three ideas that people in this exact type of job have had for the last 50 years, which is let's get a celebrity in here.

1:02:55Bill Simmons:Let's add a six person to the table. It's not like they're putting any real thought into any of this. None of them have ever done a TV show, hosted a show, been on anything. They've all been behind the scenes people who worked their way up and now think they know more about TV than anybody else. And if the show doesn't work, they want to be able to blame the host because they don't want to have any blame. And the ESPN guys who are still there, they know who they are. It's always the host's fault. It's always, we just need this person. It's always, we just need more gimmicks. And that's why we get celebrities at the desk all the time, because it's an idea that is born on like a Tuesday and everybody looks around and goes, that's a great idea.

1:03:37Bill Simmons:And then if it doesn't work, it's the celebrity's fault, not the idea of having a guest picker. All right. Last question. Your parent corner contrasting getting a rescue dog or a purebred dog made me think we need an aspiration type company for rescue dogs. What does that mean? Aspiration existed so billionaires could pollute as much as they wanted, as long as they paid for the requisite amount of trees to be planted. Is that true? I never really fully understood what aspiration was. Maybe that's what it was. Anyway, Seth says, we need this for pets. You're in the clear socially to buy a purebred dog, as long as you find housing, vaccines, et cetera, for 10 rescue dogs.

1:04:16Bill Simmons:Just a social pressure get out of jail free card for wealthy people who want a clear conscience for buying a purebred dog. That's from Seth from Indianapolis. Yep, these are my readers. Somebody comparing rescue dogs to aspiration. This is why we go through these emails for beauties like that. I don't mind the idea either, by the way. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. Billy Gill, Anthony DiBundo, And we're going to talk about a pretty fun, pretty strange baseball season right after this. FanDuel's making it your most rewarding season ever with boosts and promos and teasers and a new rewards club and so much more.

1:04:54Bill Simmons:We were so excited. We were able to bring back teasers finally on Sundays, minus 110 juice on the Ringer 107, the favorite teasers. I think we split this week because the Broncos didn't come through for a couple, but I hit mine. I had Lions and Jags. For Lions bills on Thursday night, so if you want to do an sgp for this one i just like this one anyway it's it's uh the bills the bills are minus four and a half favorites but bill's money line i think there's going to be a lot of points the over under is really high but uh you can do the alternate total of 46 and a half over for that and then josh allen just to rush for 10 plus yards and that is plus 106 on fanduel and you can add all the player boost tokens or whatever they have going on thursday and i would recommend that one because I don't think the Lions are going to be able to stop the Bills, especially if you saw their secondary last week.

1:05:46Bill Simmons:If you like that one, go ahead and place this SGP on the FanDuel app. Don't forget to check it out and use your rewards all season long. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. You can now get BOGO deals every week on game day favorites like wings, pizza, fries, and snacks.

1:06:25Bill Simmons:But Uber Eats delivers way more than food. Beers and seltzers for your tailgate. Batteries for the TV remote. Last minute gear to rep your team's colors. Basically, whatever game day calls for, you can get almost, almost anything on Uber Eats with deals every week. Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. For alcohol, you must be a legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, haven't done nearly enough baseball on the podcast in the last couple months. Even though I've been watching a ton of baseball, but now it's mid-September.

1:07:01Bill Simmons:We're in the grind. Six, seven weeks here. And then baseball might just go away for a long, long time. Billy Gillis here. Anthony Dabundo is here. I think this has been a really good season. This is the most baseball I've watched really since probably COVID, maybe 2021. Dabundo, what is your number one thing you think happened this season? If you had to say, like, how will you remember this season? What's number one? I think we have to talk about Pete Crow Armstrong. I don't think you could come on any baseball podcast and not talk about one of the best seasons of the century. Right. Okay, make the case.

1:07:36Bill Simmons:Best seasons of the century. Of the century. So since the turn of the century, 2000, I pulled up because he just surpassed 10 wins yesterday. Fangraphs wore. There are only 13 position player seasons since 2000 that have had 10 F4 seasons. This is the name of players he's with. Barry Bonds, Aaron Judge, Mike Trout. Those guys all did it multiple times. Wow. Bobby Witt in 2024. Mookie Betts in 2018. Alex Rodriguez in 2002. and then PCA this season. He is lapping the field. He ran away with the MVP. So Tani has kind of fallen off a little bit here, but really like one of the craziest two-way seasons we've ever had.

1:08:16And as a Phillies fan, I have reminded every Mets fan I know that yes, they traded PCA for Javi Baez five years ago. Oh my God. The trade that will go down is one of the worst trades of the last 10 to 20 years of baseball.

1:08:29Bill Simmons:And on top of it, traded him to a big market that loves him. the billy the crow armstrong thing it's almost like i it feels like it could potentially should be bigger and it isn't but has he reached the status to you it's like oh the cubs are in town i gotta go see this guy in person he's not there yet right i don't i mean not for me but i also have bad feelings towards pca for fantasy reasons where i had him two years too soon i keep him he'd then be bad again. Then I let him go and then he turns into PCA last year and then this year he, you know, is on another level. The best season since the turn of the century is kind of crazy.

1:09:08Like Barry Bonds had a 73 home run season since 2000. Shoei had a 50-50 season like two years ago. He's good, but I don't know. What was the season when Bonds... He's up there in that conversation. What was the season when Bonds just got on base

1:09:22Bill Simmons:like 70 % of the time? Remember that like 0-4-0-5 winch? All of the seasons. Yeah, 2004 Bonds. Yeah, that was, I think, the craziest thing. It was almost like his eyesight became 20-0 eyesight. He just knew exactly where the strike zone was. I've never seen anything like that. Billy, what do you think the number one thing you'll remember about this season is? Man, I put together a list of all of the different things. I feel like baseball this year has been good. And for you, Bill, in particular, we were mentioning right before we started recording. Timing-wise, it was perfect for you, right? You got good baseball and exciting things that you cared about at just the right time.

1:09:59So start out with the World Baseball Classic, which I remember you weren't that interested in. It ended up being a really fun tournament. I got in late. Then things for you started slowing down on the baseball. You had March Madness and then the NBA playoffs. And at that time, the Red Sox were bad. So you didn't really have to focus on the Red Sox. Then the World Cup came. And then your Red Sox turned it on just at the right time to get you all the way through summer where now you're paying attention to baseball. and now, you know, football's here. And unfortunately now baseball starts taking a little bit of a backseat.

1:10:28So hopefully you can kind of keep paying attention to baseball and the Red Sox going to run. But if they fall off, it's the best time for them to fall off too.

1:10:36Bill Simmons:Well, I also had my fantasy, my AO fantasy league that we still have a chance to win. Ooh. Got me watching games, like really every night. My wife was like, what's going on? Are you having like a midlife crisis? And I was like, no, I just enjoy the Red Sox and Cam Schlittler's pitching tonight and I want to see how he does. So it was just a lot of stuff like that. Anyway, I interrupted you. Now, are these the semis for you? When is the finals? Is it next week? We don't. We just go through. It's like Premier League. Yeah, we just go through. So we're in second place right now. We need basically strikeouts, and we need a little bit of a Hail Mary because Kate Anderson has turned out to be kind of a dud.

1:11:11Bill Simmons:And we had to start Patrick Sandoval this week for two games, including, but we're taping this before tonight's games, but in Texas, it's basically the fantasy baseball version of a Hail Mary. We need him to go like six innings, 11 Ks. But that's where we're at. We're probably going to finish second. But I can't tell you how many texts me and my partner, Hench, have done about this. It's basically been half of my texts. A few of them have bled into our chat. Yeah. We're just trying to game the system with this shitty team we had where we basically had Schlittler and three other guys. And then all these Cal Quantrill, Cater Montero.

1:11:47Bill Simmons:Anyway, Billy, go ahead. I interrupted you a second time. No, it's all good. Don't worry about it. But I guess stories of the season, I mean, we've talked about this a bunch of times, but I think 2026 is going to be remembered as the season of ABS. Like we introduced ABS, baseball is, you know, and their fans are not known to really like change and you like to kind of keep the traditions of the game and not change things much. And there was some, I think, reluctance to change with ABS. We saw it a couple of years ago when they made the bases bigger and they implemented the pitch clock. And it's like, whoa, this is not my baseball anymore.

1:12:20And then it wasn't a big deal at all. And all of a sudden, wow, these three and a half hour games are done in two hours and 50 minutes. And now that the bases are bigger, people are stealing more bases. And it ended up working out. And ABS was the same thing. Like, ABS became an exciting spin on the game. And the implementation of kind of figuring out the results of the challenge live in front of everyone on the screen, figuring it out along with the umpire, where there's no two ways about it. I think it was a great thing for baseball. I think it's helped the game. then you have kind of the dynamics of do you challenge do you not challenge who do you allow to challenge who's not allowed to challenge what umpires actually don't know the strikes on what hitters have no idea where the ball is like yeah it's been a fun season with abs and you know this

1:13:05Bill Simmons:is the year that it started well you also when you're at a game it's really fun if your team challenges and you like it's this random crowd reaction you get out of nowhere either way but The interesting thing to me is like when, when, like, I remember when we first talked about this, like two weeks in this season and all of us were like, this is cool. Kind of like it now by September. And you've seen so many of these, you have these instantaneous reactions now where it's like, Oh, terrible challenge. Oh, Oh my God. What a mistake. Oh, this catcher sucks at this. And I think that's been fun too.

1:13:38Well, it's the difference between the live experience and the couch experience, because when you're on the couch, they have the box. So you know whether it was a good challenge pretty quickly. Even the broadcaster now like, well, they're going to lose that challenge. But live when you're sitting at the game, especially if your seat isn't like right behind home plate. I often have no idea. We're kind of guessing. And then they show it on the screen and the crowd ooze and ahs. It feels like the tennis challenges from yesteryear. But my favorite bit of information that I've learned about ABS is actually what happens when a team runs out of challenges.

1:14:10and front offices have found that the umpire will kind of take it out on the team. And the team will get a slightly worse strike zone after you've gone after the umpire and been wrong a few times. That umpire is going to stick it to you. That has been my favorite learning thing. And they noticed it pretty quickly. This was back in May when a couple front office people mentioned it to me. And I was like, really? I tried to find the data for it. I couldn't, but I believe that. Despite umpiring. Which was the game a few weeks ago, de Bundo where there was a there was an altercation behind home plate one of the teams ran out of challenges and the umpire just straight up called someone safe who was tagged out by like a foot at the plate of the plate and he knew like they can't challenge it what are they going to do like they could say hey can you guys huddle maybe have an umpire review and they're like nope we're not going to do that despite umpires have been great this year too i think it's their last stand cb buckner i think was like the first victim right of like just public embarrassment was it like It was a Red Sox Reds.

1:15:07Yeah, I think it was Eugenio Suarez had like three in a row that he got on him. And it was just like, man, Buckner is just going to retire after this season if he doesn't murder someone on the field today.

1:15:15Bill Simmons:I think we should keep going in a circle. So I'll go with my first one. And I don't know where this ranks, but just for me personally, the AL West dumpster fire that we have. And I ran it about the Mariners on Sunday. I'm not going to do a second three-minute Mariners thing. Although it did make me a hero on Mariners Reddit. I was very excited. They ran the clip of me just complaining about the team. Then Kate Anderson last night sucks against the angels who don't even have 60 wins yet. They are just a pox on society. But if you dig deeper here, like we're again, we're taping this for Tuesday's games.

1:15:48Bill Simmons:There's no team above 500 in the AOS. The best team is 7575 Houston, who is minus 44 for run differential. Yeah, so the only time this has come close was the 2005 NL West. San Diego went 82-80. Everybody else was under 500. This year, Seattle's in third place. They're 70-81. The Sacramento A's are 61-89. And then the Angels are 57-93. And what's interesting is the Red Sox have played all these guys and have these guys in different fantasy things. And you watch these teams and they're not that bad. And maybe there's just a lot of good baseball players now. But like, I don't know, Sacramento, like they, they, I, I call them Sacramento derisively, but they lost a bunch of dudes this year.

1:16:33Bill Simmons:Like they lost Kurtz. They lost, you know, their catcher for a while and just in general. And yet they had these other dudes that will come up and hit game winning homers. And then I watched the angels who I've been stuck with a bunch of times with Red Sox games and stuff. Even they're not terrible. I don't, the bundle, is there any explanation for why this division is this bad? Cause like the Red Sox play the Rangers this week. Like their bats have been hot for like a month. And I feel like they could put it on us, this series. But why is this so bad? Yeah, I think it's a case-by-case basis. I mean, I think Houston and Texas came in projected around 82-83 wins.

1:17:08So maybe they've kind of had normal seasons. You've talked about the Mariners. I mean, I, as a better, have been very upset with the Mariners as well. Somebody who bet them preseason, they were the second favorite to win the American League. And I remember it was around the All-Star break. two of my buddies who host a Mariners podcast, Marine Layer, they were in Philly and we were talking and I've never heard a fan base so angry. You know, there's cynicism, there's despair, there's annoyance, but theirs was so much anger. I was like, you guys were in game seven of the ALC. We want the manager fired.

1:17:40We're rooting against them. We're sick of this entire situation. And the irony of the whole thing is that DiPoto, the general manager, is the guy who went out and said, we want to be a consistently good team that wins 85, 90 games every year, gets into the playoffs, and then plays playoff roulette. That's our goal. So we're not going to sell out. And this year, the irony of that is that they had just been a 52 % team and won 84 games. They probably would have walked away with this division and honestly been maybe the favorite to win that little half of the American League bracket. The A's ran out of pitching and all their young hitters got hurt and the Angels are a dumpster fire.

1:18:18So it is the NFC Southification of American League baseball. The Central, by the way, is not that much better. You know, like the AL in general is like the East and everyone else. Not to go too deep into Mariners and all that, but that was one of the stories, I think also of the season, not to cut the line, but is Cal Raleigh just fell completely off from last year. We're like, wow, this is like one of the best players in the AL to then he goes and he in the World Baseball Classic decided that he was going to be the fun police and he wasn't going to shake hands with his teammates. And then, you know, you go into the regular season, like, no, there's there's nothing going on here.

1:18:53Like Julio Rodriguez is like, oh, winning the World Baseball Classic would be more to me than winning the World Series. And you're like, what's going on with the Mariners? Are they going to be OK here? And they're like, no, no, everything's fine. Don't worry about then. And here we are halfway through September. There are 11 games under 500. They're going to miss the playoffs. And it's like, whoa, like this team last year looked like they were going to be kind of contenders for a while here. And it all just fell apart. And part of it is Cal Raleigh just disappeared this season.

1:19:18Bill Simmons:And Munoz was the other one. Like, 10 blown saves. It's pretty hard for a closer. That's about it. Throw in 101. Yeah, when you think like the Blue Jays, who I think have been another weird story this year, where they actually signed Dylan Cease, who's been awesome. I mean, the three best pitchers I've watched this year the Red Sox go against were Schlittler, Cease, and weirdly Detmer on the Angels, who's like been lights out for two months. But they nailed the Cease signing. and then they nailed their closer. Like, Barlan came out of nowhere and has been completely lights out for them. And then you look at Munoz, and he's been one of the worst closers in the league.

1:19:57Bill Simmons:I don't know what to make of anything in this division. Everyone's kind of afraid of the Astros, but how many guys are left from the Astros from eight, nine years ago? It's a completely different team. It does lead to one other thing I wanted to mention quick. The Jordan Alvarez with the most half-assed triple crown run of all time. Have you had one conversation about this? He's leading in batting average. He's two back in homers, and he's four back in RBI. And with one good week, could be going for the triple crown, which seemed impossible, Billy? Well, okay. I'm glad you brought this up because I remember when Miguel Cabrera won the triple crown.

1:20:34And I think it was him and Trout. It was going back-to-back MVP, and it's like, well, all the metrics say Mike Trout's had a better season. We can't give it to Cabrera. And it's like, well, Cabrera got a triple crown for the first time in like 40 years or whatever it was at the time. Like there's no way that you can't give it to him. And then all of the metrics, people were like, that doesn't matter. Like RBIs are not a thing. Like we're looking at the wrong stats. Yeah. Like these are the wrong things. These are the wrong measurables. And then about a month ago, I tuned in and I was watching MLB network.

1:21:01And I was shocked with like refreshing, a refreshing take that I wasn't expecting, which was Brian Kenny advocating for the triple crown mattering again with Jordan Alvarez. And he's like, listen, I know you're going to be surprised by this. I wasn't a Cabrera guy at the time. I thought Trout should have won that MVP. But man, Jordan Alvarez gets this triple crown. I think that he should easily win the MVP. And I mean, he never really went away. Like you mentioned, if we if he gets hot here for two weeks, he could end up winning the triple crown on a team that's 500 without him wouldn't even really be in contention.

1:21:38He's probably going to win the MVP. It's him and Kamenero, right? If he wins a triple crown, I think that the old school voters will give him the MVP regardless. If he makes the playoffs, yeah. I think he's got it either way now, by the way. It's a very quiet, anonymous triple crown, which is not that common. And it's been what? When did Cabrera even do it? Like 2013? Yeah, it was early 2010s.

1:22:00Bill Simmons:Yeah. I mean, he's definitely the scariest batter in the AL. Like, if you're just watching all the teams, he's the one when he comes up. You're like, if there's a guy on base, you're like, oh, shit, what's going to happen? All right, DeBundo, your next thing. What do you got? Well, I want to talk about, so you mentioned Trout. It actually was a debate because Trout had one of those seasons, one of those 10-win seasons, those unicorn years that don't really come around very often. This year, there really isn't that person. And it's worth saying that even if you take out home runs and RBI on average, Alvarez is 18 % better at the plate than every hitter in baseball.

1:22:32Wow. It's Pete Crow Armstrong, 157 WRC+. Jordan, 175. 75. So he is way above everybody else at the plate this year. It's not really particularly close. And so I think for that reason, you have to, you have to give it to Jordan. Like, I think it's over regardless of what happens in the last two weeks. Billy, what do you have for your next one? Okay. So this one, let's, let's stay in the West because this was a moment of the season and it happened so long ago. It goes all the way back to April 4th. And at the time it felt like a baseball is back moment where we had the world baseball classic, we were riding high.

1:23:07Then everyone saw this moment. Everyone reacted the exact same way. The Joe Adele game where Joe Adele robs three homers goes into the crowd, takes that incredible picture, steals one from Cal Raleigh, Josh Naylor, JP Crawford. And then someone with their iPhone just takes the picture of him standing in the crowd, holding the ball defiantly up in the air. They ended up winning that game one to nothing. And then after that, like the baseball season just went on. All of a sudden the angels said, you know what? We're going to trade him at the deadline. He's a guardian now, but also we already made these giveaways for him.

1:23:44So, you know, we're still going to give away the Joe Adele giveaways. So they gave away a Joe Adele angels football Jersey, August 30th and tomorrow, September 16th is the Joe Adele bobblehead commemorating him robbing three home. Oh wow. They're really riding it. Yeah. He hasn't been on the team for nearly a month and a half now, But if you want to remember that moment forever, go to the Angels game tomorrow and you can get a Joe Adele Angels robbery bobblehead. Are you guys aware of the Joe Adele lore? Like this guy has been crushing fantasy owners for years. He's been the great hope as a Joe Adele fan.

1:24:19I think I've been rooting for this guy for so long. I remember when I went to a game, Angels-Phillies, and he hit a home run off the Phillies. And I was actually excited to the point where Phillies fans and Angels fans who were sitting around me were like, why are you happy that Joe Adele hit a home run? I'm like, you don't understand. I'm here to see Joe Adele do something. He did it. And the three home run robbery, I'm convinced I will not see that happen again in my lifetime. No. It's pretty hard. The amount of luck and skill,

1:24:45Bill Simmons:it's pretty impossible. It's got to be one in a million chance. Do you think if he was Joe, J-O-E, Adele, different career? Is it intimidating enough to be a Joe with just a J-O? I don't know. I love tweeting Joe in all caps. Okay. He was also, by the way, like a bad defender when he started. Like, he's probably given away more home runs than he's saved by them bouncing off of him and going over the wall. Well, that happened earlier. A few weeks later, he had one bounce off of his glove out of the park. They said, well, he's still plus two for the season. Was it Tampa or Sacramento? I think it might have been Tampa where somebody knocked the home, not caught the fly ball, but then it knocked it over into, it became a home run, but it landed in the brunch setup.

1:25:35Bill Simmons:There was like a left field, I think it was Tampa, right? It was in Tampa. It was the visiting team. I think it was the ninth inning and I believe it wasn't a walk-off. I think that ended up tying the game. Or a game tire, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it was like Nick Fortes, their catcher or something, hit it, he catches it, then he hits the wall right next to the foul pole and then it hits like this picnic area for like corporate events. Like chicken and waffles. Yeah. What a place for the brunch, by the way. Pretty funny. Right in the first row. Here's my next one, and I almost led with this. I think it's a really interesting debate.

1:26:09Bill Simmons:Mizorowski, has he replaced Ohtani as the number one kind of must-watch guy in the league? And is this more because we've done the Ohtani thing now for a few years, and he's been on the Dodgers for a couple years, and we take it for granted? It's a little like the Emmys last night where the pit cleans up the first time and then it's like, oh, I know the pit. So they win one Emmy, but they don't win any of the acting stuff. Otani fatigue, you're saying? A little Otani fatigue combined with like this Mizorowski thing, with what we know about these flamethrowing pitchers. This might be a year of this.

1:26:45Bill Simmons:Might be a year and a half. I don't know if he's doing that. We're watching it with Skeens down in Pittsburgh where you're just not the same. So I don't know. Do you agree with this, Dabundo? This is the number one must-watch guy right now? In terms of pitching ninja, nerd, pitching lovers, not even close. I don't know if the average MLB fan is excited to tune into the Brewers to watch Miz during the regular season, but I do think it produces a difference maker for them in the playoffs because my next thing was going to actually be what Milwaukee's done this year, which is remarkable yet again.

1:27:17And this year, it does feel like they go into the playoffs with more firepower to go toe-to-toe with these superstar teams because they now have a true 1A superstar of their own that can go up against anybody else in the league and be competitive with them. And that feels like something that was lacking. I mean, last year he pitched in the playoffs, but they didn't trust him to the point where they had openers for him. He would come in for three or four innings. They weren't really sure. Then he shoved, and it's like, okay, this kid has arrived, and now he's gone out and just won the Cy Young.

1:27:48Well, they're going to get the one seed,

1:27:49Bill Simmons:so he won't have to pitch for five, six days, so that's good. And in general, like, I agree with you. You agree with that, Billy, that it feels like even though the diehard baseball people know what's going on and they care, does feel like he needs, like, playoffs, like an NLCS against the Cubs or the Dodgers where he just comes in and strikes out 12 of the first 15 in game four. Needs a moment like that, I think, to go really on the map. Yeah, I mean, I think if he does it on the national stage, because baseball fans know and Brewers fans obviously know, but if he does it in the playoffs, you know, on TBS or wherever the playoffs are on now, like in front of everyone when there's only one game on, I think people are going to be blown away and be like, whoa, who is this guy?

1:28:30Like he's arrived. I have an idea that I want to float past you guys because of kind of like baseball has become somewhat cyclical where now we're seeing like, oh, small ball is somewhat back and people are bunting and people are stealing. And like there was a time where we thought like that just is a part of the game that we're never going to see again. And now people are bunting because they don't know the defense. So every team has someone that throws like 101, 102. He obviously throws harder than everyone, but every team's got these guys. Even Aroldis Chapman's like 55 years old. He's still throwing like 100 plus, right?

1:29:02Are we headed to a world where we have someone like an R.A. Dickey or a Tim Wakefield or a Charlie Huff come back and they become the sought after guy who can go in there with a knuckleball, who goes in there with like perfect precision at 85 miles an hour. And the hitters now are so conditioned to swing at pitches that are coming at 103, 104, that they're just so thrown off by slurs and knuckleballs and balls that they just can't get to.

1:29:32Bill Simmons:I'm really glad you brought this up. I don't know, because I grew up with knuckleballers. I grew up with the Negro Brothers. We had Wakefield on the Red Sox forever. And it really just feels like there's a way to learn how to throw it, right? If you're a good enough athlete where you can be the repetitive nature and how you use your fingers. Your hand needs to be a certain length. With how unreliable pitchers are for innings, and you look back at some of the knuckleball innings that these guys throw, where some of them would throw like 270 innings. You know, Wakefield, year after year, was 200 innings.

1:30:08Bill Simmons:He could come in. There was years where he started, but then also could come out of the bullpen. Yeah. I don't understand why more people aren't trying this as a way to game the system. Because even if you figure it out, you have a four ERA, but you can throw 220 innings a year and you can pitch every five starts, but then also come out of the bullpen and pitch. Wouldn't that make you insanely valuable by today's pitching standards? I mean, is it just like an ego thing, like the granny shot at the free throw line where just no one wants to do it now? Cause like, hey, it's not cool to throw knuckleballs.

1:30:41Like the best knuckleballers were the ones where the catcher had no idea where it was going to go. And the catcher was guessing just as much as everyone else, just as much as the hitter, where it starts up here. It's down here and the catcher is like just trying to not have a pass ball on this thing.

1:30:53Bill Simmons:Well, that was the Red Sox Yankees. There was when we had Wakefield and he always had the backup catcher was always his knuckleball. Yeah. But then in this game, it had to be Veritech. And then there was like guys on base and it's extra innings. And we all knew that Veritech didn't have a lot of experience catching Wakefield. And it was the most harrowing, you know, 10 minutes of that entire season. I don't know. DeBundo, why can't we have a knuckleball again? Do you have a take or you just think we've had bad luck? I think it's really hard to do. And I don't think if you're coming up now, you're going to try to bet on yourself to be the one outlier pitcher who can pull off this incredibly difficult pitch that even when it was in its prime, nobody really understood.

1:31:39Right. The pitching labs, they don't know how to teach it. It's kind of just like a thing that existed. and there has been talk about like the seams have changed on the ball which makes it less wobbly i don't have like uh definitely a ton of knowledge on that but that was something that was has been talked about in the past but there's basically no no guys left i mean waldron from san diego was around a couple years ago he kind of threw one but even his knuckleball was like a part of a pitch mix that didn't really uh wasn't like the main offering more on from the padres kind of throws like a knuckle-y type change, but there's basically nobody left.

1:32:15I would not bet on its return. How much time does it take to perfect a knuckleball? I don't know if it's possible to perfect it. That's the beauty of it.

1:32:23Bill Simmons:I think Wakefield got the closest. The thing is, though, you still need to throw a fastball hard enough to mix it up on the hitters so they don't time the knuckleball. But yeah, I'm looking at Wakefield's career stats. In 05, when he was 38 years old, he threw 225 innings. right? He had 33 starts. Even in 2008, 2007, they won the world series. He was 17 and 12 that year 31 starts, 189 innings. And he was 40 years old. And that's the other thing with the knuckleball thing is you pitch forever. Once you figure it out, which was the Necros, those guys looked like your grandfather when they would come in.

1:33:03Bill Simmons:So, um, I don't really fully understand it, but I, It feels like a documentary somebody would make and then try to sell and nobody would buy it. It's like, I'm writing a documentary about the knuckleball. And then everybody turns it down. So I forgot about this because of COVID. But remember Brian Wilson with the beard from the Giants? So in 2020, he tried to have a comeback as a knuckleball pitcher. But we all just kind of missed it because he didn't come back and because COVID happened. And it was a forgotten season. But I guess Brian Wilson had the same idea six years ago and it didn't pan out for him.

1:33:38Bill Simmons:Damn. My next storyline is just looking forward to the playoffs. And it's weird because the NBA fans are so upset about this Clippers-Balmer thing, even though the Clippers made one conference finals with this Kawhi thing and it completely destroyed their franchise. They built other contenders. Pretty much every piece of it was a catastrophe. whereas with the Dodgers this led to them winning back-to-back World Series, right? This led to them being able to spend all this money on all these guys, overpay for you know, even some of the guys they got recently who I don't think exactly turned out well and it feels like they are now really a supervillain and when we get to the playoffs, unless you're a Dodgers, it's either you're a Dodgers fan or even if like you're an American League fan or you don't really like you're just gonna be like i hope the dodgers go down and i'll be interested to see how that goes for them like especially like if they play a place like if they're in philadelphia right in philly the fans are are great anyway but with the combo of that and the super villain dodgers there's no feel-good left from any aspect of this even though they have a lot of likable guys otani freeman betts people like these guys but i i think the ship has sailed the bundle oh it's totally sailed.

1:34:56And right now, with the way the bracket sets up, they would play in a best of five, either Atlanta, who they have a ton of history with from the early 2020s, back-to-back NLCSs, those teams had those crazy wars back then, not as much recently. And then the Padres, who are the other team that are sitting there, who they played in back-to-back seasons, or 2022 and 2024. Padres beat them in 2022. Dodgers came back to get them in four. And over a long series, you would certainly favor the Dodgers. But in a short one, with how good San Diego's bullpen is, they're going to be right there. So I really think people have kind of given the Dodgers this aura of inevitability because they won the last two, but they forget how close they were to not winning each of the last two.

1:35:41And they don't really quite realize how flawed this team is. Kyle Tucker's been below average. Mookie Betts has been average. They don't have a closer that they rely on right now that they trust.

1:35:50Bill Simmons:Otani seems like he's hurt. Otani is definitely hurt. Dodger fans are worried about the Dodgers just in general. And then you have like you had two years in a row where you had to play all the way through October. You know, you got that piece, too. What do you think, Billy? How do we think the Dodger story ends? Right. Because like what you're saying is true. There's no real good feel good left with this team, even with likable guys. They clinched the playoffs earlier this week. It was like the most subdued celebration ever where they just like had a toast with champagne glasses. No one looked particularly happy to be there.

1:36:19Yeah. But when we when the Mark Walter story kind of came out, it wasn't revolving around the Dodgers. It was OK. He sells the Lakers and he goes and his soccer team might be up for sale. And then like the team president Dodgers came out and like, well, we're fine. Like nothing's going to be for sale here. And then stories are coming out. It's like, well, this guy owes like billions of dollars to a lot of people. Like, I don't know that we can just take his word for the fact that this team is not going to be sold and something else isn't going to come out or happen. in the offseason. And then once that happens, then what happens with Shohei Otani, who has clauses in his contract where he can just void his contract if Mark Walter is not the owner, if Andrew Friedman is not running the team anymore.

1:37:01So there's a lot going on with the Dodgers because they were also kind of like the centerpiece as the example for the lockout. And, hey, you can't do this. And then the pass is over. It's like, well, hey, anyone can do that. And then it's like, well, I guess, yeah, anyone can just commit fraud and, you know, sign these crazy deals and, like, just cheat your way to paying everybody everything that they want and hope no one catches up to you. So in that sense, yes, but they get Scooble at the deadline. People are like, what's going on here? He goes to the team two days before the deadline when it's like, where they're not going to be any better offers.

1:37:34They just decide. And then Scooble also goes, like, major villain while also trying to keep one foot in, like, the good guy pond where he's like, well, I want to end my career as a Tiger. It's like, well, that was an option. Like you could have, you know, resigned with them if you really wanted to do that and saved everybody the trouble. So when he leaves, he says like, oh, you know, I don't like all this hate that everybody's getting people like the Dodgers aren't the villains. And also he secretly stole an espresso machine that he bought the Tigers and put in their clubhouse and took it with him for some reason, because like he's not making enough money that he can't buy another one.

1:38:09I don't know why he had to take that. So there's a lot going on with the Dodgers. And I feel like even after the season's done, there's going to be more that comes out here, you would think.

1:38:19Bill Simmons:Well, especially some of the deals he was making, like the deal with the TV station. I'm surprised more people are mad at this. I think it speaks to baseball's place as like an internet sport versus basketball and football. Whereas basketball - People are pretty mad. But I think this should be like, we should be, shouldn't we be having conversations about if they game the system and this guy did all this stuff illegally, what do we do about the two titles they want. I haven't even really heard that conversation. I think we're distracted, though, because I think there was the crescendo that happened around the deadline when they make the deal, and then we had a whole week of is baseball ruined over, canceled, a joke of a sport.

1:38:57Then everybody got distracted, right? The Clippers thing happens. NFL starts up. People get distracted, but hey, we got about two weeks until the Dodgers play a playoff game, and inevitably, Scoobal's going to shove, or Snell is going to shove or Otani is going to hit two home runs in a game. And that is going to start a whole new round of discourse as we get into the, I think that's what's coming. I'm here for it. I mean, relative to the Clippers, I feel like this is kind of a bigger deal. Like the Clippers just circumvented a salary cap that was arbitrary and it was made up by the league. And like everyone seems like they're doing it.

1:39:32They were just doing it. They didn't win anything either. They just were the stupidest. Yeah, they were the stupidest and it got them nothing. they got absolutely they cheated for no reason they cost themselves all of this money the dumbest

1:39:44Bill Simmons:motherfuckers on the planet the dodgers won two world series in a row well and the worst part is kawaii now they're just like okay kawaii you know what you want to go to toronto like sure go to toronto like and he gets no he i think he paid like a 700 000 fine yeah for like 60 million dollars he shouldn't have been making it's not even like one percent is what his fine was and then just go on to the next team while this franchise essentially has like the death sentence for like the next five to seven years because they can't do anything about this yeah if i'm a player i'm trying to negotiate backroom deals as much as possible oh stick one over on the owners it's no risk all reward well especially in baseball doesn't seem like there's a lot of risk i wonder like the dodgers debt sheet is scary i mean whoever if they do end up selling they owe like a billion dollars to otani and tucker over the next seven to eight years it's a lot of money yeah it's funny you go to the Dodger games, the Dodger fans just seem like they hate Tucker.

1:40:39Bill Simmons:I don't know if that's changed. I haven't been to a Dodger game in a month, but this guy's attitude's not great. He seems miserable. They're miserable with him. It's always funny when that happens. And it seems like it happens more in baseball than every other sport combined, where you get this guy that you paid a lot of money for and it just immediately goes bad. And you're like, what the fuck? You were like our big free agent. Like this was Bichette with the Mets. This was basically everybody the Angels signed. Randal is probably the best one. Does he count? Well,$500 million extension, and he hit one.

1:41:13He's now hit one home run. So he's been on my AL keeper team.

1:41:15Bill Simmons:He just doesn't hit home runs anymore. But he's not 38. He's 27. And you look at him. He seems like he looks the same. I don't understand what happened to his power. Very, very strange. This next segment is brought to you by PNC Bank. Like dynasties are not a flash in the pan. They're more of a log fire, blazing bright for seasons and seasons. It's hard enough to win one, much less to actually become a dynasty. But staying committed to steady smart planning is one of the best ways to do it. Just like our sponsor for this segment, PNC Bank. All right, so how do you become a dynasty? You need to have a principle that you believe in.

1:41:55Bill Simmons:And like, look at the Celtics with the Red Auerbach and Bill Russell in the second half of the 50s in the entire 1960s. Arbac, he knew he had lightning in a bottle with Bill Russell. I am going to build everything around this dude. This is the best defensive player we've ever had in the history of this sport. He's the best rebounder we've ever had in the history of this sport. He's a really good passer. I'm going to build a really fast team about all the stuff he's good at. I'm going to play through my guards, and then Russell can protect the guards the other way. And everybody I bring in are going to be athletic, and they're going to fit in with Russell and the way we play.

1:42:30Bill Simmons:And that's how they did it. And guess what happened? By the mid-60s, Russell got older. So what kind of team do you want at that point? Well, we got to slow it down a little. Got to be a little more methodical. We need to be bigger. And all of a sudden, the Celtics guards are bigger. They're playing people like Larry Siegfried at point guard with Havlicek and Sam Jones and Bill Russell. Just more size because they needed to be more physical. That's the kind of stuff you do when you think about when you're trying to put together a dynasty. So it's pretty clear that consistency won over the long run in the Celtics case with Bill Russell.

1:43:02Bill Simmons:And it's just what you need if you're going to have sustained excellence. It's won over the long run for PNC Bank too. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes. yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming.

1:43:39Bill Simmons:PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 as a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, member FDIC. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, NFL Sunday Ticket. Kickoff's coming, and with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place. New users can get NFL Sunday Ticket for eight payments of just$30 a month. New users pay$240 or eight, eight non-cancelable payments of$30 a month. First charge of purchase, availability varies. With NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games, YouTube TV required.

1:44:21Bill Simmons:Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded, no refunds. I have one other thing for you that, uh, oh, the, just quickly. I know we talked about this before, but I really enjoyed the Sacramento stadium. And I thought the games there were super fun. And like when the Red Sox went there, I felt like I was on vacation from the major leagues and we were just playing this goofy thing. And over and over again, it seems like the energy has been really good there. And I just wonder, like, could this, as we start figuring out new stadiums, could this be a model people look at? Should stadiums just be smaller?

1:45:00Well, do you want to do a thing maybe where one team a season has to play in a minor league affiliate stadium? So, like, you can alternate a team a year. Because last year we had it with both the A's and the Rays because the Trop's roof blew off in a hurricane. So they were playing in the Yankees minor league stadium in Tampa. So we had like similar things where like balls are flying like way out. It's a smaller, more intimate venue and the crowds are into it. I love what's been happening in Sacramento. And I liked when they played that weird series in Las Vegas that they were also playing in a minor league stadium.

1:45:36Yeah, that was fireworks. The energy's been great. That Las Vegas series, I feel like they were scoring like 15 runs each team a game. Like that was one of the highest scoring series in baseball. And it's these stadiums. If you could throw that in there and just alternate, like, okay, you know what? This year, instead of, like, getting the Field of Dream games, like, you had the worst attendance last year. You were in the bottom. You know, you'd have to do it with, like, the bottom third of the league. Your stadium gets relegated?

1:45:59Bill Simmons:You have to move somewhere else? Yeah, stadium relegation for a year. And you do it based on attendance because, like, you can't do it to a team that sells out$35 ,000 a night, right? You have to do it, like, this has to be, like, the Marlins, the Rays, the Pirates of the world. Angels would have been good. The Angels have to go play at some weird stadium in San Bernardino. We're not going to get into it today, but the Angels were sold. I know. I had that on my list. Harper Eno is gone. One of the villains of the game is now out of baseball. And this is a team that could maybe turn things around with new ownership.

1:46:32Bill Simmons:I thought the Athletics had a big feature about it that had... I just wasn't following it, I got to say. the tidbits about how cheap he was, but then these giant contracts he would give out. I'm always fascinated by those owners where they basically do like three or four splashy things and then they're just doing dumb shit and trying to make payroll decisions and, you know, driven financially. But basically because of these giant contracts they gave out, never understood his game plan. It's the idea that like people are just going to come see the big star at the game every week, every night. Right, it's like a movie where it's like, we have Tom Cruise.

1:47:11But the movie sucks. Yeah. But they also gave him Anthony Rendon, who was not a star. And that was like... Well, he was when they signed him. He was one of those immediately went to shit deals. He was the best free agent. Yeah, it was like the Bichette deal. He was the best free agent available that year, and they decided to treat him as a superstar in the league, which he wasn't. And then he just probably didn't want to play baseball. Like, he was getting injured, but like he could never play baseball with any of these injuries. It was kind of crazy. Yeah, that deal. And what you're saying about like the bad spending of money is one of my biggest concerns with the lockout and with the potential of a salary floor where you now have teams that are required to meet a threshold and they're just going to be giving dumb money to whoever's available that off season just to get them up to the minimum.

1:48:03And then they're going to be handcuffed with these bad deals with people that shouldn't be making that money.

1:48:07Bill Simmons:It's like if you have a golf, like a country club membership and you have to eat$250 a month and you go in and you're like, I'll have the steak and I'll have a steak because you just have to get to the 250. Anyway, the angels are going to be like, I'll have an expensive outfielder and another one. But they are being bought by the Cronkies who, you know, I have been pretty successful as owners across the board. They'll certainly probably be successful with them. They have a case for best owner anywhere right now. Yeah. The Avs. They love them in St. Louis. The Rams. Wow. Wow. A little different there.

1:48:45Do you remember when the Angels drafted 20 pitchers in one season?

1:48:49Bill Simmons:Yeah. That was in that athletic thing. I had forgotten about it. 2021. They're just throwing darts, hoping to nail anybody. None of them are any good. Well, in this weird ale keeper league, I mean, you kind of notice they wait from the Angels prospects because they'll be like, oh, he's the number two prospects on the Angels. Like, I don't even know what that means. They never have good prospects. They can't develop anybody. The only guy that four made the majors. Sam Bachman was their first round pick. He's basically a bullpen guy that's been injured a bunch. Chase Silseth, Brett Kerry briefly debuted and Kai Bush.

1:49:23Like I said, none of these guys were good.

1:49:25Bill Simmons:You mentioned the Padres earlier. I had this written down too, because we do this with the Padres all the time. We get to mid late September and they become the sleeper in the NL. And they're the, I just was reading a piece on ESPain about this this week. Who's the sleeper in the NL? Everybody's like Padres, look out for the Padres bullpen. I think I've lost money on this, like at least three of the last four years, um, talking myself into the Padres. Is there anything that could be different about them this year from a sleeper standpoint to bundle? Well, the bullpen is really good, Bill. I don't know if you've heard.

1:49:57It was good last year. It's good every year. They don't hit home runs. And look, the Brewers are making it work. They're one of my storylines. Brewers are 28th in home runs, and they are one of the best offenses in baseball. But they've done a lot of different things, getting on base all the time. They seem to have broken clutch hitting in baseball. They're kind of like a separate case. The Padres are your traditional, like, we don't hit home runs. Our hitters are not good enough at hitting the ball out of the park. And usually we get to October, and as good as our pitching is, we don't score any runs.

1:50:24You do the three-run every once in a while.

1:50:26Bill Simmons:the three-run thing. They haven't had it. And that's why they lost to the Cubs last year. It's a big problem. My fear for this playoffs is that the super smart Tampa Bay Rays, who we thought we had finally gotten rid of and they had had their little run and it was over and we didn't have to worry about them being basically Sam Presti of the AL. But now all of a sudden they're really good again. I don't really fully understand it. And then the Brewers who have the GM who is the one that's being compared to Sam Presti. And could we have like the smart guy finals, Billy, where it's Tampa, Milwaukee, two teams with all these obstacles and the big markets and the Dodgers spending money.

1:51:05Bill Simmons:And these two teams just out thought everybody because Tampa, Milwaukee, I'm sorry, would not be a fun finals. I mean, I hope it doesn't happen just because Tampa is always used as the example of, look, there is a way to do it on the cheap and not have to have pay run do it and we can be the raise and it's like but you can't be the raise because you're not the raise and you're not smart enough you're just a cheap team and also andrew friedman was great with the raise and look how great he is when he has a lot of money right first opportunity he got when he had the opportunity to either have no money or have all the money to build a baseball team he said you know what i'd like to do have all of the money to build a baseball team and I'll spend 60 million dollars a year on an outfielder who hates being here and it doesn't really matter whether he plays or not because we'll just figure out a way to plug that hole another way so the 30 million dollar backup outfielder you know another thing about the race that bothers me as like someone down here in Miami who now has like a bunch of rays like former executives running the team and they're gonna be the new rays and then like wow look they really know what they're doing because they had a hot June, but since have had losing months ever since the thing that bothers me about the raise and why I hope the raise never win the world series is similar to my, and this is just petty hatred is similar to like my petty hatred of the money ball a's where it's like, look at this revolution.

1:52:33This was great. And at the end of the day, they never won a championship. So this was like a nice theory that worked out that got them through the regular season and only got them so far and it never got them over the edge. And the Rays have been to the World Series twice, I believe, and have still not won a World Series. So we keep pointing out the Rays as like they've figured out, look, this is the way to do it. It's like, except they haven't been able to do it yet. You know, like they have these nice runs in the regular season, but they can't close the deal and they shouldn't be using an example for all the other teams because again, you are not the Rays and you do not have that front office running your team.

1:53:11You're just cheap.

1:53:11Bill Simmons:Well, and then they, the Camonero trade is probably the most one-sided baseball trade of this decade. And it flew, it flew under the radar when it happened, but they gave up, uh, Tobias Myers, right-handed pitcher who was stopped playing baseball four years ago. The trade was in 2021 and they just stumbled on a Cameron arrow who, the moment he showed up on the raise, if you were watching them or your team was playing them and you're like, who's this guy? He's terrifying. and he's been terrifying from the moment he showed up and now it's probably the second or third most terrifying guy in the AL.

1:53:46By far more than any other sport the star player that came out of nowhere was actually on a different team. Bill, do you know who had Jordan Alvarez first? Was it the Yankees? It was the Dodgers. They traded Jordan Alvarez. The Phillies got one over on the Rays. Chris Sanchez who's one of the top pitchers in the National League they got one they got him from the Rays for basically nothing. Curtis Mead, who's now a national slash Red Sox.

1:54:12Bill Simmons:Our worst one ever was Jeff Bagwell, which somehow my dad was focused on it when we traded him. He was like a double A hitting 320, and they traded him for Larry Anderson for a pennant run. But there's, and I'm sure the Mets fans feel this way with PCA too. There's nothing worse in baseball than when your guy gives up a guy who eventually becomes a superstar. I don't, doesn't really happen in other sports. Tatis, I think, was a White Sox. Yeah. Tatis was a White Sox too. We went for James Shields. Like in basketball, it doesn't, it's really hard for it to happen. It's hard to - SGA? Yeah, SGA would be the closest, right?

1:54:47Bill Simmons:But even when the Clippers did that trade, I think they knew like, ah, shit, they're on it. But I didn't think they know it was going to be what it turned out. Billy, how excited are you for Yankees, Red Sox, best of five, round one as somebody who lives in Florida and doesn't care about the American League as much as you do nationally? Best of three, Bill. It's a sprint. Best of three. I'm more excited for Yankees Red Sox best of three than I am for an Astros Guardians best of three. I'm disappointed by the fact that the result of the Yankees Red Sox best of three leads to a Yankees or Red Sox raise best of five.

1:55:23And on the other side, we're going to have a White Sox Guardians or Astros best of five. Like, it's kind of a shame that the East have to eliminate themselves and that there's a possibility that one of the teams not in the East will make it to the World Series. We'll definitely get to the ALCS and may somehow outlast and make it to the World Series just because of how bad the AL is. I can't. AL is so bad. Like, the fact that there's only four or five teams that are barely above 500 in some cases, it's weird.

1:55:56Bill Simmons:Well, like right now, the White Sox and the Guardians are playing a series that's basically probably going to determine something. The fact that this is a big playoff series or a big regular season series in mid-September is kind of bonkers when you watch the guys on each team. You're like, really? These guys are battling for the three seed? Can Joe Adele rob three homers, please? Or something exciting happen in this series? Well, the Red Sox fans, we can't do this, obviously. and it seemed like there was an outside chance to catch Tampa, but really a chance to catch the Yankees, and they couldn't do it.

1:56:29Bill Simmons:They would have been better off just being the sixth seed, right? And having like five less wins and playing whoever was the three. Just throw every game the rest of the season? Yeah, basically. Like in basketball, you would probably think about it. We've seen people do it in basketball. Baseball's harder. Where does this season for you rank if the Red Sox are eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in a best of three? because they gave you a nice, fun two months. You got Mickey Gas that you've been very excited about. Do you look back and remember this season fondly or has it just become forgotten?

1:57:01Bill Simmons:No, totally fondly. It's like we had a Morgan Magic season. There's been a couple of these where the team just felt like they were going to suck and then all of a sudden, magically, it was the most fun two months. You guys were watching from afar. Every single game was like a nine or a 10 out of 10. right it was all these comebacks late innings so it was just super fun i think there's real optimism with the fan base with this just it's a three games only and we have three starters right we and we can throw and totally who's been lights out it's like a question of where he goes but it's probably going to be sunny gray suarez game two who's been all the philly fans tell us like lights out as a playoff guy and then for era in his career he is the coolest pitcher in baseball He's not the best.

1:57:49He's an old school junk baller for the most part, but he's the best.

1:57:52Bill Simmons:Trying to set it up so Toe is the third guy in a do or die game three Yankee Stadium, or you miraculously win in two and you can push him over and he can start game one. But they have these three starters and they do have a really good bullpen. My question is the bats. I just don't... Contreras has not been the same since the All-Star break. Roman Anthony came up. He was a house of fire. Now it's like he strikes out every other time, it seems like. So unless we get this magical Mickey Gasper renaissance to continue. Rafael is coming back. Maybe Contreras, who's never been the same since he had the concussion.

1:58:31Bill Simmons:But it's going to be the pitching. It's going to be the pitching. I'm not. I'm worried about it. I don't like that Judge came back like right now. And as the two weeks, doesn't seem like they're going to get Stanton back. They have this random jazz got hurt. and Volpe came up, who I think all the Yankee fans had quit on and has actually been pretty good for them. But Schlittler's incredible. I mean, he's going to clearly cruise to the Cy Young and where they pitch him. Did you know there's a Yankee debate about do they pitch Cole or Schlittler in game one? How do you pitch Cole over Schlittler?

1:59:04Bill Simmons:Like that would be a miracle if they did that for us. It's not going to happen. Yeah, I would think Schlittler would start game one, right? That feels like a WFAN debate. Oh, we got to go with the experienced guy, even though Schlutler shoved into game three last year when it really counted. Got to outthink the Red Sox with that play. No one's expecting it, so let's switch up the order there. If it were up to me, I would pitch Gray in game one and Toley in game two. Because I think Toley's like, he's just, the bigger the moment, the bigger he is. Like, he was awesome at the Dodger game I went to.

1:59:33Bill Simmons:He just loved being in Dodger Stadium trying to shut them down. So I would do, and then I would have Ranger in game three as the, all right, show us. You're this allegedly awesome playoff guy. I don't think it's not alleged Bill it's just somehow factual I know but nobody really ever understood it right and then I don't know if the Yankee fans love this team is the other thing that gives me solace who loves their team that's a fun debate how many teams love their team I think the Brewer fans love their team I would say they're they're and I know a couple Brewer fans I think they're just like nobody's talking about us like big chip on their shoulder I think the Cubs fans have loved the PCA experience, right?

2:00:17Bill Simmons:They haven't had like... They had a lot of homers. It's pretty fun to watch. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, for the most part. I'll tell you what, it's not the Phillies. It's not the Braves. I don't think it's the Yankees. It's certainly not the Astros, the Rangers, maybe the White Sox because this is their first year being competitive again. They shouldn't be in it. There's not a lot of teams. The White Sox? Yeah, like the fact that they are going to win the Central just shows how poor the AL Central is. They should not have been in it. I will say one thing about the White Sox because we've played them a few times.

2:00:49Bill Simmons:They have some feisty young guys. Yep. They have... This Inannacci just wants to get in a fight every game. I think in the playoffs, guaranteed he slides into somebody at second base and he's just one of those guys. He's trying to get... It's a little bit of an irrational confidence young team. Billy, who do you think is favorite in the American League? on FanDuel right now. Don't lie. Ooh. Who do you think is the American League favorites? Is it not the Rays? It is the Rays. They're plus 290. The Yankees are plus 320. I personally think the Yankees should be favored. It's like really that price is probably, they're probably not favored to Bundo just because of the best of three Red Sox, right?

2:01:33Bill Simmons:It's like so scary. You just blow two and you're gone. Dodgers are - I would make the Yankees a favorite. over the Rays if they played head-to-head, and I suspect the market would too. NL, Dodgers are plus 125, Milwaukee is plus 300, and DeBundo's Phillies are plus 750. We're the third favorite? Well, Atlanta's plus 700, so you're fourth. Okay. The one thing with the Phillies, there is like a Schwarber roadmap. Because I would say, for most beloved Phillies, how high is he up there now? if we're talking last 35 years? He's not on the level of Utley, Howard, and Rollins, but he's probably of this era.

2:02:17He has certainly passed Bryce Harper. Yeah, he's sniffing. He's passed Bryce Harper. It's not even close. Did you listen to the Home Run Derby? I thought that was telling. I got a bunch of texts about that. When they announced Harper, everybody's excited. When they announced Schwarber, it was a different level of crowd pop. And I got a few texts from people saying, wait, wait, Schwarber over Harper? I'm like, yeah, this is just kind of how it's been for the last year and a half. He's so lovable. We had, I was going to say, is he just lovable fat guy? Like respectfully to the Schwalbers. Yeah.

2:02:44Bill Simmons:He slimmed down this year. He has slimmed down, which is kind of like you're losing your brand there. You know, he's, I gotta say he's a little bit of an artist. That was my takeaway from when we had him. Like he, he basically does two things. He's like a restaurant where you go in and it's like, they're really awesome at these two things. Get definitely get the smash burger and definitely get the chicken parm done. Like that's it. Him, it's like incredible command of the strike zone and then this crazy power, and that's really it. But there's like a real presence about him. And in big games, you just feel like, I don't know.

2:03:18Bill Simmons:You just have complete confidence in him. So I feel like he could vault up. If I had to bet. So Bill, he has a chance to do something pretty wild this year. What is it? He's currently the heavy favorite to lead the league in homers. He's also 14 strikeouts away. So 12 games to go. if he strikes out 14 more times, he will break the MLB record for strikeouts in a season. Wow. What's the number for that? 223. Mark Reynolds. That is unbelievable. Can you imagine striking out? So Schwerber's at 210. He bats at the top of the order. He plays every day. Yeah. And he strikes out 34 % of the time and hits a home run about 7 % or 8 % of the time.

2:03:57It's pretty amazing to watch. So if you clinch and it's at home and he breaks the record for strikeouts in a season but you're already in, like you're good, do you give him the standing ovation? Like, do you commemorate it? I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think there's going to be a commemoration.

2:04:11Bill Simmons:Rob Deere comes out, presents him with a plaque. Mark Reynolds comes out. He's been traveling around with a team like the Merritt family. Mark Reynolds pops the champagne and says, not me anymore, baby. All right. Let's all make World Series picks, and then we'll go just for what we think the matchup is going to be right now. Feel free to change this in two weeks. But right now, knowing what you know, what would be your World Series, Billy? I'm going to go with I'll go Cubs Cubs and Yankees. Cubs, Yankees. Okay. What do you got, Dabundo?

2:04:49I don't want to pick the Dodgers. I really don't. Me neither. The Brewers, Kyle Harrison, just fell off a cliff in the last two weeks. Last month. Last two weeks. It's been the last two months, basically. Yeah, more than that. But now I'm worried they don't have enough pitching. And it's like, how did we get here? This was supposed to be their thing. and they have the top two guys, Miz and Henderson, and then it's like Dustin May might be the game three starter for the Brewers. So unfortunately, yes, if you give me the Dodgers versus any other team, I'm still going to take them and I'm going to take them against the Rays.

2:05:22Bill Simmons:I would go Yankees-Phillies. Ooh. It would be funny. Phillies fans are in a meltdown right now because they've had a shitty September. Yeah, I know. They've had their shittiest September since 2022. That doesn't scare me at all. When they made the World Series. Sometimes you need to get it out. You need to get that shit out before the playoffs. It's a little different if your team stops hitting and you don't know where the hits are coming from, which is a little bit of the Red Sox problem right now. All right. The important thing was all of us picked the Yankees to make the World Series. Hopefully that will backfire.

2:05:55Bill Simmons:I got the Rays. You have the Rays. So you have Rays and Dodgers. Yep. The Rays, huh? They're going to out-execute the Yankees in a series and win it. out-execute. Yep. All the little things, Billy. Every Yankee fan, I can already picture the callers. I can't believe they struck out 12 times in an elimination game again. I can't see it with the bullpen, but maybe I'm just too close to it. Like, even we have Kevin Kelly on our team. He's been lights out the whole year. He's one of their best setup guys. Got completely shelled a couple games ago. It was like, oh, that's... The Russian is cut for the for the raise because they've had all these relievers just, you know, do their thing.

2:06:40So baseball is one of those things like so none of us pick the Brewers either. And the Brewers are the one seed in the NL. And I feel like it's kind of like Indiana last year in college football. Right. Where it's like, I just don't see it happening for them. You know, like I just and until it happened for Indiana, like the whole way is like, I don't think they're going to this is Indiana. They're not going to win the national championship with the Brewers until they do it. I feel like it just goes back to like something's going to go wrong for them in the playoffs. It just always happens. And they're just not going to get over the hump.

2:07:11They're not going to beat, you know, either the Phillies, the Cubs or, you know, the Braves or the Dodgers down the road.

2:07:17Bill Simmons:I don't trust the starters with them. The Dustin made Harrison combo. I just in an actual playoff series. I don't see it. What were you going to say to Bando? I mean, they scored four runs in the NLCS last year. And I think people cannot get that out of their heads because it's like, Oh, here's this great Brewers team. And we got Pat Murphy doing all the self-deprecating jokes about how they're just the average Joes. They had that great series win against the Cubs in five. They get to the NLCS. They scored four runs in four games. And I think people are just like, well, you know, that's what they do.

2:07:47Their offense goes to shit against better pitching. I don't know. Part of me says, Hey, the Dodgers had elite, elite starting pitching last playoffs. They kind of look like they will have again. Yeah. But I mean, And it still was just four games. We shouldn't overreact to that. Does Craig Council regret that move from the Brewers to the Cubs? I don't think so.

2:08:07Bill Simmons:I'll leave you guys with this. I think it is lined up amazingly for the Yankees. You know, they haven't won since 09. Judge is going to be back in time, which seemed questionable. All their starters that they paid a lot of money for are all going to be there. When they actually have their whole lineup, they're pretty terrifying. I mean, Ben Rice is terrifying. Judge is terrifying. When they have Jazz back, I know he's feast or famine, but he's scary. Their bullpen's really good. Like, they have multiple guys that I would trust in a short series, a long series, whatever. And it just feels like, it feels like this is their best chance, especially with the Dodgers and a little bit of disarray.

2:08:51Bill Simmons:But I just have to bank on the one and only Aaron Boone and some history from the last 17 years screwed up. All right, guys. Billy, give us 20 seconds on the Marlins season before you go. It was a fun season for a month there in the middle. There's hope. It's a fun team. They have exciting parts. They just won a series against the Dodgers. So they're young. Hopefully, you know, they can hit their stride. And maybe this whole race thing that we've brought down here with Peter Bendix running the team for the Marlins, we figure things out. And if there's a season next year, maybe this is a season you build on, but there may not be a season next year.

2:09:30Bill Simmons:I wonder, like, does the Dodgers, them imploding with some of the money stuff, does that help or hurt the season next year? I'll say no effect. Okay. It's lame to say that. I just think the issues run a whole lot deeper than just the one boogeyman. Yeah, but then Manfred's like, we're thinking about expansion. It's like, wait, can we figure out if we have a season? They need to not expand. Please don't expand. I promise you don't need to expand. Yeah, we have enough. And as a Floridian down here, when you see like Orlando's in the mix, it's like, we have two teams right now. We're just fine. Can't fill a stadium.

2:10:10Yeah, we're fine with those two. We don't need to add another one to the mix there. We're still figuring that out.

2:10:14Bill Simmons:Yeah, that would be stupid. All right, Billy, AD, good to see you guys. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Billy Gill and Dabundo. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo and Chris as well. I'm going to be back on Thursday night after Bill's Lions. We're going to be live right after that game on Netflix if you want to watch it, or you can listen to it later on that night. I will see you in a couple of days.

2:10:49I don't have feelings with them On the wayside

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