Hannah Keyser on Blake Snell, Boras clients, MLBPA unrest | Foul Territory

Hannah Keyser on Blake Snell, Boras clients, MLBPA unrest | Foul Territory

There was an attempted coup I guess you could say the union kind of I guess I mean they they Bruce Meyer who was the lead negotiator on the most recent CBA negotiation some players looked to oust Him AJ in Sunny Sarasota Florida next to our good friend Hannah Kaiser and this is perfect because hi Hannah great to see you AJ always tries to get me kicked out of the hosting chair so why not start with uh a person who has actually

Filled in for me and AJ has put the numbers on the board and said wow our show’s getting a lot more views and listens today with Hannah on board I’m I’m all about it though I like it Hannah it’s awesome to have you and and be back

With all four of us on together how are you I’m good well Scott your job is safe because I have a flight to catch so I can can’t do the whole two hours so they’re going to have to keep you around at least through today haha AJ haha all

Right so then let’s charge them out get right into hey I’m happy I’m here um let’s charge the m so Hannah can hit her flight and we will start with the most relevant news of the past 24 hours we might go a few shows finally without talking about Blake Snell after today or

Tomorrow because we’ve spoken about him for like four months wondering when he’s going to sign so Hannah when you finally saw that news break yesterday what did you think I thought Blake Snell must be like what more could I possibly do I turned in a sa young season to get what is

Essentially a one-year deal I mean I know it’s two years and there’s an opt out but I just I I know that at this point we expected it it’s so late it’s so close to opening day this is what the other Boris clients took some version of

This but for Snell in particular you’re coming off your second sa young season don’t you think like I’ve done everything now the agent should be able to turn this into some kind of job security hey watch out be careful now cuz Scott Boris will blackball you and not ever

Speak to you if you say mean things about him like he didn’t get every client $300 million if that’s what he’s using as his standard for blackballing people this offseason there’s going to be a lot of reporters he don’t talk he doesn’t talk to anymore because I think

People are I think that’s the general consensus I think yeah yeah he took an L he took an L this offseason AJ right we’ve we’ve talked about it listen Scott Boris is the most if I mean I don’t know I don’t want to say the best because

Every person thinks their agent is the best right but he is the most famous agent he’s the one that everybody especially in baseball when you’re talking about baseball everyone’s like oh Scott Boris Scott Boris Scott Boris and he has a lot of power in the game he

Talk to people they’ll say he’s one of the most powerful people in baseball because of his Client List and this year for whatever reason whether it was the market whether it was the teams involved the players involved he just didn’t get the bags that he’s used to getting and

Nobody knows seems to know why but he’ll spin it the way he wants to spin it but Blake snow sign seal delivered he’ll be in Scottdale I’m sure probably today or tomorrow and he’ll be ready to Chuck the ball for the giant soon and that gives them a great one two

For their rotation so for the Giants if you’re a Giants fan this is incredible news yeah and Hannah there’s reinforcements too along the way for the Giants I mean stuff- wise their rotation is as good as any now right yeah like you mentioned you’ve got the Snell web

One two and Kyle Harrison’s got a lot of stuff and kind of can take a lot of pressure off of him Jordan Hicks is converted to a starter how about some of the guys that are coming through later on this season I mean rafy r won a Sai

Young Award a few years back he might look good in August Alex Cobb coming back in a couple months do you think the Giants are a playoff team now are you asking me are you asking asking you I answered this last night oh no what did you say I wanna I said I

Said I said well the Philly Braves the central winner and then there’s three teams coming out of the West so it’s Dodgers Diamondbacks Padres Giants with a four for three spots and I think the Giants just with this signing moved ahead of the Padres so I think they’re going to

Get in you’re moving you’re you’re counting out the Mets entirely you’re like there’s no chance pretty much yeah you’re right Marin I like that I do I think that breakdown makes it look pretty good for the Giants I which in some ways makes me think man maybe the Mets should have

Done this because would that have put them in the giant spot I think you’re right I think the the rotation for the Giants it worked for the Rangers last year this kind of second wave of reinforcement pitchers that they brought in at the deadline the Rangers are

Running back that same plan I think you do have to have this first half rotation second half rotation and the first half rotation got better and the second half rotation looks pretty good I think you’re right I think just the numbers say the Giants have a pretty good chance

Of making the postseason here’s the problem with the Mets your favorite Mets they’re missing their number one starter for I know at least until June if not later I know I’m sure you guys talked about this but I don’t know why they didn’t go out and sign well they could

Still sign Montgomery but when kodai Sanga went down it’s like now what are you doing because I like the Luis srino signing I like the Sha Mania signing but even if those break right you’re still missing the top of the rotation they’re taking a step back this

Year they’re clear I mean if if you’re not going in that direction for more pitching it’s not a play off rotation you know the other part I was looking at comps here crats Sunny gray ended up getting more money than Blake Snell I know it’s over three years versus two

But he got 75 million guaranteed three years older than him than the sa young winner you know I’m just Ken wrote a great article last night about all the comps and just adding things up I mean Lee who is part of a great off season for the Giants so Lair obviously Chapman

Earlier we mentioned Hicks Ray in the trade but Lee alone who’s going to be in center field for them the rookie got what three million less guaranteed than Chapman and Snell combined who had that one on their bingo card absolutely not and maybe they overpaid for him maybe

They were just going all in like I said last night on the pitching in defense in a park where it doesn’t doesn’t really matter you just have to be able to put the ball in play maybe they’re going to strike out less this year and they’re

Like ah you know what we got stair if there’s one person on the planet that can hit the ball out of here we can’t pick up we already tried to pick up John Carlos Stanton we didn’t get him back in the day so we’ll get still there and see

What happens but I mean they’re just they’re doubling down tripling down and just like Hannah said they got a formidable rotation just just for the fact that not even their accolades you’re going to get Logan web slinging it from the right side from here sinking

It then the next day you’re going to get Snell from the left side over the top downhill plane then you’re GNA get Kyle Harris or then you’ll probably get Jordan Hicks running at 100 in on your hands and then you’re going to go Kyle Harrison so it’s you’re not seeing the

Same look night after night so it’s intriguing to me it definitely is and I definitely have them in the playoffs yeah NL West is stacked okay so let’s globalize this conversation then Hannah your overall thoughts on how this offseason ended up I know there’s still

A few guys left that will sign but I think we have a pretty good guess that it’s going to be sub 00 million contracts you know it’ll be less than we anticipated for people like Jordan Montgomery and Michael Loren seems like players are quite pissed we’ve had a few

Of them on the Vets who have kind of unprompted let loose on a terrible free agent experience that they had I I think we need to understand well Boris like you said Boris is gonna spend this as a win and maybe all these guys do better when they re-enter the market

Next year and wor has an incredible class of free agents next year Soto bregman Gonzo so this is not snn so this is not this to me is not about like is Boris bad at his job you said it he’s a great agent he is a great

Agent I’m really curious as to what the factors were because I think it is one of two things or two of two things which is AJ you’re not talking about this the teams that we’re looking to spend this year maybe weren’t the teams that are historically are willing to overspend so

You know the Mets were taking a step back the Padres were taking a step back the Rangers are dealing with the RSN issue whatever we EXC that’s a weak excuse by the way I know but they it’s an excuse and so I’m curious whether or

Not it was that or whether or not it’s that waiting is no longer a good tactic that’s what I think is really interesting because guys did get long-term deals Yamamoto Otani but they got them earlier in the off season and in the past Boris has been able to up

The Leverage the longer he waits the Machado Harper deals that were signed during spring training and now we’re seeing it looks like teams are want to have that that money that cost certainty earlier and so maybe the strategy needs to adjust in how you approach the off season because clearly waiting until

Right before opening day is not you’re not going to get the teams even with the pitchers you’re not going to get the teams that panic and overpay because a guy got hurt so maybe you do have to be more realistic earlier in the offseason and I’m just interested to see how they

How they being agents but also players kind of adjust to what it is that teams are doing to get themselves that cost certainty some of that’s probably CBA related too and I know there was a little Uprising yesterday that multiple reporters were talking about right so

Yeah do you think that a lot of what’s gone down in the off season has led to players that have votes as part of committees and all that to not get too granular for the audience with the Union you think that’s why suddenly they’re having conversations and talking about

Hey should we make changes on our side and I’m sure they’re already anticipating nice little battle again and just kind of putting this one in the memory bank for the next CBA because you know how baseball works it’s legal battles and CBA fights and then everything else this is the top priority

Always in our support for some reason so all right we we should be careful how we talk about this because this is a very developing situation Jeff passon had the story overnight and then Evan drock wrote about it we’ve looked into this a little bit that there was an attempted

Coup I guess you could say the union kind of I guess I mean they they Bruce Meyer who was the lead negotiator on the most recent CBA negotiation they some players uh looked to oued him and it seems replace him with Harry Marino who had headed up the minor leag or when

They organized over the last you know half decade essentially okay so how much of this offseason is a CBA issue I think probably the players who were disgruntled who were looking to make this change were able to Leverage The disappointing deals signed by Boris clients into some level of wider

Dissatisfaction but I do think that that would be a little bit short-sighted because the it’s tough from a players union perspective to extract any kind of concessions in these labor negotiations just the way that this is again trying not to get too granular on the the sort

Of Labor front but just the way that Sports negotiations tend to play out recently they have really favored the leagues leagues know that they have an entire off season in which they can uh enact a lockout which they did the owners did last year and it doesn’t hurt

Their bottom line because there’s no games in the offseason anyway and it puts pressure on the players because free agents can’t sign and then you immediately come to this question of are players willing to sacrifice games which is going to look bad to the fans so just

The from a leverage perspective the last like two decades have really favored leagues when it’s come to these negotiations and until very very recently this most recent CBA negotiation was looking like a win for the players particularly with their stated goals of getting more money to younger players that PR bonus pool was

Working guys were getting promoted uh on opening day because of the kind of the incentive package that they put in there with draft pick compensation if your guy goes on to win Rookie of the Year it looked like they had gotten some significant gains I think I saw the JD

Davis sort of curfuffle was cited so there are certainly still loopholes and things they should want to address going forward but I don’t think the most recent CBA is in any way to blame for what we’re seeing this offseason which isn’t to say players are wrong to be

Frustrated with how it’s played out I mean they should certainly try to figure out if there is something happening with teams i i people have alluded to the big c-word on this show I know but that’s not a CBA issue necessarily agreed but my my thing is

Like the players are pissed but they they put the people in charge of them like they chose them now all of a sudden they want to switch it up right after and I mean you said they thought it was a win so Bruce Meyer was the one that

Right he negotiated that contract for him basically and he was the lack of a better term Cy he was the hard ass in the room for everything he hired gun I mean specifically they hired him because of how disastrous previous CBA negotiations had gone they thought we need a seasoned

Labor professional someone who has negotiated on behalf of leagues before and they were happy I mean my my thing though is like I read Evan’s article I didn’t read pons but so there’s 62 executive committee members now 38 Major Leaguers 34 minor Leaguers and Harry Marino was the guy who did the minor

League thing right so how much of this is the minor Leaguers pushing for something that they don’t even really know about from the Bruce Meyer end right because these used first of all the miners used to never have an A a union right in the big leagues and so it

Was just separate but now that they’ve kind of combined into one how much is the minor leager saying we don’t know this Bruce Meyer guy but we know Harry Marino so let’s let’s just throw him out and see if he can do better without really ever having gone through a negoti

A real negotiation yes I think the what Harry did for the minor Leaguers and what the minor Leaguers did for themselves was like truly historic I mean just generations of baseball players having to put up with horrible minor league conditions to get any kind of unionization which always seemed like

For years I’d been hearing like that’ll never happen it’s too disperate guys just want to get promoted it’s a Cutthroat industry in the miners so what they were able to accomplish is huge but I I think you’re right it’s not the same thing as extracting Financial concession from Rob

Manfred Dan halem Morgan sword the the powers that be at Major League Baseball the the the minor Leaguers they did this Union for themselves they had they agitated they spoke to the media extensively about how bad things were they got the government in involved in potentially forcing Major League

Baseball to pay them more so that campaign was really successful but you’re right I think that doesn’t necessarily mean the person who headed up that campaign is qualified to lead you know these like billion dooll negotiations when it comes to the majors is this a AJ versus Eric kind of

Thing AJ a superstar me kind of more representing the 85 to 90% of big Leaguers not just minor Leaguers but big Leaguers too that never reach AJ status never reached 10 years and as a player I always felt underrepresented because of stuff like you said under represented no

Minor Leaguers it’s never a thing I always heard it from the executive board no it’s never a thing we’ve never represented these guys and this was during all the way up to covid and I was like this has to change because there’s things that are going on there is this

Something that Harry has kind of ridden like talked to these guys and like banded together The Peasants to topple the the higher-ups because when you if you remember when they finally agreed to the CBA the executive committee which was represented the highest executive committee which was represented by eight

Of 12 Boris clients rejected the CBA and then the union ended up pushing it through as a whole but if anything that speaks to the fact that the rank and file were more satisfied with this most recent CBA negotiation than the highest paid players I mean I think it that was

A very interesting factor in how this most recent one played out I think you just have to assume that the guys who are on the executive bargaining committee are probably always going to have the most extreme stance they’re the guys who have taken up this fight very

Personally and so and they are also just higher paid guys they’re veterans they’re Stars Max Sherer was one of the most prominent of that Committee in this most recent negotiation so their willingness to kind of hold out probably just reflects a more radical labor stance whereas the rank and file were

Like you got a lot for us in this deal and we don’t want to miss games but if that’s the case those guys they said they were happy with the deal they shouldn’t now say actually we wish we had had a different labor negotiator because I’m sure if they had voted to

Reject that contract that they eventually accepted Bruce would have gone along with that and respected that and he you know is more in line with that radical executive committee so I think the rank and files spoke and they said we like the deal you got us in this most recent

Negotiation um all right Hannah let’s move to some upcoming work you’ve got going on so give us something that you’re you’re writing up as you hit the spring training camps that we should look out for pretty soon okay so I’m down here working on some reporting for a story about designated hitters

Specifically looking at the way that that role has changed it used to be we had the big poppies Edgar Martinez Nelson Cruz guys who were true dh’s and the league as a whole has really moved away from that to it being this rotating half off day and I wanted to look at

Whether or not that works because a lot of guys who are good at hitting when they’re playing the field are not as good at hitting when they’re dhing because they just don’t like dhing so I was talking to guys who have done it who have gotten better at it who are good at

It from the GetGo just sort of about what is the the skill that goes into dhing that maybe uh fans and Executives and people who are like he you just slot this guy in that day and this other guy in another day maybe they don’t appreciate

The adjustment it takes and AJ and I were having a lovely conversation about this right before we got on because I was just like I don’t know I’ve never played the numbers say the guys who don’t DH as much aren’t as good at it and the guys who DH more are better at

It but it’s hard to tell what’s the chicken what’s the Egg and I thought you had some really interesting perspective on yeah it is tough to make that transition it was hard for me I got I DH a few times and the hardest part for me

Was finding something to do because as a catcher you can speak to this as a catcher in between your bats you’re on the field you’re involved and everything and then you’re like oh I got to go hit like I’m up third desending and you’re talking to the pitcher you’re

Talking to the pitching coach you’re talking to everybody about what’s going on in the field and then all a sudden you’re like oh man I got a hit and you don’t have a lot of time to think about when I was dhing you have all day to

Think about it it was like to it was like four pinch hits and I mean at one point I I told Hannah this that you know my best my best way to stay ready was I would have a beer in between my bats I wish someone had said that to me

Mostly they said you gotta hit the bikes you gotta hit the cage you got to stay on your feet uh I was talking to Andrew McCutchen who has sort of made that transition from position player to almost essentially full-time DH and he said that he first started doing it a

Lot in the covid season and he was like because there was no one there he would run out in the half Innings he’s like I would run out like I was gonna play the field and then just like you know stand in the stands or something just to keep

That that rhythm going because it is tough it’s tough to make that adjustment I agree I couldn’t find a routine because it was like do I hit do I get on the bike do I run do I what do I do do I sit in the Dugout like like with

Everyone else and then all of a sudden man I got to go hit it just it’s a hard and I agree with what what you’ve said is that the guys who find a routine find a way to do it and become used to it that’s their job and then they don’t

Worry about anything else they’re like all right I have four bats and five at bats I’m going to use these abats the best of my ability so it’s a it’s a challenge and I’m interested to see what you found out from all these because I I

Saw you talking to Mike Elias you were here to interview and he and he was like well I don’t know I don’t know if yeah he wasn’t really buying you know but then again he never really had to do it either so he doesn’t understand the difference in yes especially like in the

Minor leagues I never DH in the minor leagues until then you get to the big leagues and they’re like oh by the way you’re gonna face David Price today is the DH you’re not catching it’s a day game after a night game but we need your

Bat you’re like oh but I’m still tired from Catching nine innings the night before well then okay I I gotta ask you and I want to know you guys opinion too because I spoke to him for this story how impressive is it that Bryce Harper

Was able to be a great DH having never done it before and being forced into it by injury because he was kind of my like I was like I got to know how you did this because everybody else there’s some adjustment period how impressed were you

Just what with what he was able to do when he was coming back from injury and DH but didn’t play the field and for like days at a you know weeks at a time you had no chance to go out there and play the field and get back into a

Rhythm I mean that’s that’s impressive but I I I I hesitate to always go to like the superstars because those guys they they’re they’re on a different level it’s like they have like this like they have this ability that just goes beyond what a regular player who has to grind

It out and that’s what I’m interested to see your article is like where’s the where where’s the GMS the people who are making these decisions like Hey we’re not going to go out and pay $8 million for JD Martinez who has done for a long time we’re just going to throw Wyatt

Langford Evan Carter Corey Seager we’re just going to throw like adolis Garcia all those guys into DH and hope it works out like do they feel like that’s going to be the most value for them and that’s where I want to know because I don’t think that’s it because of there’s a DH

Out there who can do it that is a skill just like playing first base is a skill or playing right field is a skill all right cool so then you’ll read the article because that’s what we’re looking into we’re looking into what are the factors why are teams not paying for

It if teams are not paying for it then guys don’t want to do it because they know they’re not going to get paid for it like how how did we get to this place where I think something like 13 teams last year got below average offensive output from the DH position and there’s

No reason for that you should have a good hitter dhing every day that’s the whole job yep I agree and Hannah I know you got to catch a flight we’ve got uh Dane Dean Kramer I think waiting right on the side yes so let’s get to him by

The way I got I gota say this for Hannah her outfit matches amazingly in the camera blue hat the hair matches the shirt like perfectly I know it’s not the color she’s going for but it’s not it’s faded this is what spring training sun does to my hair it’ll look better on

Opening day I promise touch up for opening day tomorrow’s opening day yeah that’s true that’s true good call Hannah good to see you good to see you guys thanks I’m glad this thanks for swinging by hey everybody be sure to like And subscribe for more content we’re back here every

Weekday all year long so do not miss an episode the videos are coming in all day here’s another video you might enjoy baseball the way it should be Covered

Baseball writer Hannah Keyser joins #FTLive to discuss Blake Snell signing with the Giants, why it was a slow offseason for Scott Boras’s clients, and all the drama surrounding MLBPA deputy director Bruce Meyer

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