Miami Marlins - Lou Schiff of @BaseballAndLaw discusses Marlins rise & Arraez

 Welcome to BaseballBiz On Deck. I'm Mark Corbett, your host, and with me today I have the honorable Lou Shift. This man, he is a judge, but not just in the courtroom. He is judging what's going on with the Miami Marlins and all of MLB, and he's gonna share his insightful opinions with us today, which I can't wait to hear.

Hey, welcome Lou. How you doing, buddy?

 I'm doing wonderful. Mark, , happy almost middle of June to ya. 

Oh, brother. , no. Can you believe this?  I've been saying time and time throughout the first few weeks of this season. It's too early. It's too early. It's too early to say anything, but good things are happening.

I'm looking at the Marlins right now and wow  that wind column's looking pretty good.   Those two games  they won  in Chicago over the weekend. On, on, on Saturday and Sunday. It's a good thing they got out of town right away because there's a warrant out for the entire team's arrest for stealing those games.

 I have never been more excited watching bad baseball in a sense, and I don't mean it's bad for the Marlins. , I have such empathy. For the implosion , of the White Sox in those two games, because it looks like the Marlins,  I    if all you had to do was put change the jerseys and say  this, it, it looked like Marlin's Braves, they're gonna win.

They're gonna win, they're gonna win. And then the Braves figure out a way to come back and beat us. Marlins met, we're gonna win. And then they figure out a way    the play.  And I'm sure you've seen with, , Jorge Soler  and Luis Arraez and De Cruz  there, everybody is picking it up.

That, and then that's what's such a beauty   of this batting order right now, that they're, everybody is contributing. It's just not one guy. So    if it was just one guy  say it was  Louis Rice, who. Who's now below 400. But you know what, I'll take a below 400 hitter with a team that's winning.

Yeah, he's at 3 97. But       I'll take that   when you're eight games over 500. Good Lord. But you can't pitch around him because right behind him is Sole  and de la Cruz. And now Cooper's starting to hit and Sanchez is hitting.    And then you take guys like Berti and Davis and Hampson  journeyman ball players, and they're all hitting  a above, above two 60.

Pretty much.    The only people that are struggling right now  Segura is struggling. And also  the backup, the, like I call him the backup catcher right now. Stallings.   He and Forte were playing about the same amount of time.  But they're the only two guys really struggling at the plate.

 The team is starting to learn. They're learning how to win, and it's a fun thing to watch. 

Learning how to win. That's a good point.  I've gotta ask you about that cuz  there's a sense of synergy with that team.  You were talking about one right back behind the other, supporting the other.

Do you think the new manager Skip? Do you think he's making a difference with this team? Yeah, 

a absolutely.  You sometimes  I'm watching yesterday and I see him  they pull the pitcher and then  we give up some runs and you say maybe he shouldn't have pulled the pitcher, but  you can always second guess manager.

But I think what he's brought to the clubs  the ball players seem to like him. They're winning.  They, if I would've told you that the Marlins were gonna have 20 come from behind wins and lead the major leagues by the middle of June, you'd say there's there, there's just no way. If I was gonna tell you that the Marlins were gonna have  their first  one run game to win and set a major league record of winning 12 one.

Run games in a row to start a season.   It's just  a bunch of improbable things happening  and  gotta go along for the ride.  I read recently that  the Marlins are going through  a soft part of the schedule.  Good teams have to beat    the soft teams and they have to play good ball because when we start playing teams like the Phillies again and the Mets  and we have to play     the dreaded Braves, we're gonna have to  play 500 ball with them.

     And then again, and then you'll look at the pitch and the pitching has been really fabulous.  Cy Young, Sandy    it's   which Sandy's gonna show up? Is it gonna be Cy Sandy, or is it gonna be. sigh Sandy      and  he's starting to pitch pet. He pitched a great game the other night.

He didn't get the win, but that's okay.  He pitched seven solid innings.  The team came through.     It's okay. You don't have to win a Cy Young Award every year. Yeah. As long as the old Sandy starts to come back and he, we can get seven innings out of him. I think we'll do good.

We need to, one of the things, some of our pitchers are only going about five innings, and they're helping tremendously, but we're gonna need to lengthen them a little bit and go five, six innings.  But overall        I think they're, I think they're a sleeper team.  I really think the rest  of the baseball world, a lot of fans don't realize just how special  this Marlin's team is.

 You look and you see  the Orioles  you look at the standings and you say to yourself, How did the Orioles get there? What's going? Yeah. Yeah. No one's suprised about Tampa Bay. Nobody's suprised about the rays.  The rays are, no matter what, they're a great team. But you look and you see the rays with over 40 wins.

They've got 41 wins, and the Yankees are doing well.  That's a tough division. Yeah. Boston's in last place right now, and they're a 500 club.  But Baltimore's a surprise team.   It's nice to see. Look at the American League Central and the first place team is no better than the last place team in the American League. East. Minnesot   A's    at 33 and 33, and Boston is at 33 and 33. And the difference is Minnesot   A's    in first and Boston's in last. Oh brother. 

Welcome to baseball. Welcome to baseball.  The other thing, I don't get too much of this, but if you look at Central,  either in National or American League, and it's like, why are you guys there?

I feel like sometimes  right now, if you look at the top four teams in the National League, I mean it's obviously the Braves  what is it you guys in the Dodgers and who is it? The    the diamond back Diamond, diamond backs, Braves, you guys  so I'm looking there. So nobody  in Central.

I

 don't wanna, I don't wanna jinx the Marlins, but right now they have the second best record in the National League. Okay. That's another thing.  I feel like I just woke up and it's  nah    this can't be for real, but they're playing well, and you look even at  Pittsburgh's in first place in the central, if I told you  in April that  the St.

Louis Cardinals would be 12 games under  and one and  the third to the worst team in the National League in the middle of June, you would say, ,  that's, there's a snow way. 

I would've been dumbfound, I'm dumbfounded that the Pirates are where they're at to see them. At the top of that, it was like  I did not, I might as well see Detroit leading as well.

I thought  okay. But I said  I'm glad to see you guys do it so well  in just those numbers that you were stating it, it is amazing to see what a lot of folks didn't think was possible. And I do believe that it takes a synergy of the team. One of the people gotta back up one another. You've also gotta have a deep bullpen.

 You're talking about 5 inning pitchers. So how is that bullpen?  Bullpen's done pretty well.    Puk is back.  I think we     we stole Puk in the sense that  I guess we got    we gave Laday to the    A's    and the    A's    gave us Puk.  And actually the    A's    have won, what, four, five in a row.

They're actually now with a record that if this, if they continue this way   they will not  Be the team, the worst team in the history of baseball that'll still belong to the 62 Mets. I think  the    A's    are now    on pace to win 41 or 42 games.  They've won  a few games in a row, I think four or five games in a row, and they're only about a game and a half off of  Kansas City.

And   it's too bad that  Kansas City is a great baseball town. And St. Louis, these two great Midwest baseball towns  are, we'll see just how much their fans stick with 'em, because they've always had good teams. But it's just a, in incredible  downfall of teams that you would never think  would sink this slow.

Yeah.  I know. And. Thinking about the,    A's    I'll tell you real quickly, I work in the Tampa Baseball Museum some of the time, and a family came in the other day and I didn't recognize the gentleman  and the wife says, do you give a discount for MLB players? I said, sure. And I didn't recognize it was Joe Rudy of the Oakland    A's    back during Rollie Fingers tab and all that uhhuh, right?

And I thought    I wanted to say something, but I was thinking Vida Blue had just passed and all that, and I just  let it roll. But Uhhuh, my gosh, I think of the glory of the Oakland eighties and the history. And man, it, it's sad. I feel so sad for those guys right now.  One other, one thing I did see that was of interest to me, and I dunno if it's today or tomorrow, but I heard the,    A's    fans have a reverse boycott.

They're trying to get like 35,000 fans out in the stadium. So they're want to just , let people know we care. Just sell the tag on team to somebody else here in town. This is what they want. 

  You being a  with the rays and me being   a Marlins fan  I understand  the agony that they're going through in Oakland.

 It's wrong  that the team  is basically a Lame Duck team.  Vegas still hasn't come through the way they say they're gonna come through.   You remember how you  got the team  in Tampa? Yeah. With all the things going on first, the twins we're gonna do something. So we were talking about the    A's    fans and    how really sad it is for  those fans because I am sure, like myself, there are fans that go back with this team when they left Kansas City.

 And then they've been there and there's generations  of fans that feel betrayed. And  you can certainly understand it. And then  I'm thrown back to  baseball's a business and. , the owners break your hearts. 

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.  When you look across and you face say, how many hedge funders, how many hedge fund people have actually bought teams over the last few years   it's a business and it's one that uhhuh  as much as they say they wanna support the fans  they're gonna make those decisions.

 It almost reminds me the way things are going with the,    A's    much like it was with Carlos Correa when he's trying to get a new job. Uhhuh. Oh yeah, we're gonna take you, we're gonna work with you. Okay. Oh, and the Mets are gonna do this. Oh, yeah. No,  wound up back when with the twins after all.

So it's   it feels like that. 

 That was incredible. 

Yeah. People come into the baseball museum here in Tampa and a lot of times they'll say, so the ray's fantastic. So  when are you guys moving? What's your new location? And it says, I'm like, put the hands up in the air. And I said, I love to tell you,  the world changes that we live and breathe and I hope they're gonna be here, but  we'll see. We'll see. But oh  let's get away from that fun. I'll come back  to the Marlins, who I have absolutely adore right now, man.  One thing, what's about a year going?

You and I were talking and Jazz Chisholm looked like a very likely candidate. I think he was a candidate for the All-Star game.   This year, the man, unfortunately,  turf toe and got injured was, but before all that, I guess  he was relegated to center field.   

  And  here's the sad part about it.

The Marlins are winning without him. Yeah.  And  that's not sad, but it's sad for him because the, who are you going to demote? Who are you going to take away playing time when this team has built this kind of chemistry? And I think that's gonna be the problem.   And it's not like you miss him because you don't miss him.

 How, and I don't mean it in a bad way.  I, yeah.  He got all this preseason hype with M l b the game and he was  he's  the poster kid for that and good for him.  And he's an exciting player at what he's healthy. But  we got guys 39 year old Gurriel  is playing. He's hitting 2 61.

    He's a leader on the team. He's a leader in the clubhouse.  And he brings things that  that Jazz doesn't bring in, in, in that  capacity.  Hampson, who I think is playing shortstop maybe tonight, also plays the outfield he's hitting in the two forties.      It's okay.

But   he's there and  he's contributing.  So who is going to go down?  Sanchez  is now playing well. So again  where are you going? Going to put him? He's hitting  Sanchez is hitting close to two 80. You've got all these guys that are starting to put to  a solid season together.

And he's certainly not going back to second base. I think we've got the world's best second basement, right? Yeah. Now  so do we use Jazz to trade for something?  We've got  Trevor Rogers  who  Who was trying to rebuild his career, still not there.  Johnny Cueto, who still hasn't come  pitched an inning for the Marlins.

They were supposed to be producers.  Obviously  they're winning without these guys. And I would imagine  that  a player who's supposed to be on the team  who's watching his team win, you gotta feel happy for your team. But somehow deep down inside, you might be saying to yourself, wow, wonder  I w I want this opportunity.

Am I ever gonna get this opportunity? 

Man, I tell you. I know it.  It's difficult sometimes  you want some depth on your team.  And it's nice when you can give a player a rest for a day.  And have somebody  in line. I don't know  that's the thing with Jazz. But second base really looks fantastic, right?

This year. All Arraez.  And we're not talking about Aaron Jones. 

 He's an everyday player.  And then you have Perez   the 20 year old rookie who has, was supposed to just be a quote spot starter.  And I think like  in, he's got a three in one record, in six starts, he has struck out 30 guys in 29 innings.

I don't think he's going down. He's got a two 17 e r a.  Why would you bring him, why would you move him off the starting rotation? So who are you gonna get rid of in the starting rotation to, to make room  for Trevor Rogers?     Or Cueto. You tell me somebody might got hurt.     The se   the thing is  during  a baseball season, we're gonna get some guys hurt  and you just hope that nobody goes down for too long.

But if everybody's healthy, where do these guys go? 

 That's a good question. And I gotta tell you, I saw Corey Kluber last year playing for us, and they moved, he got moved, whatever to the Red Sox, and I thought Neander sees when things have become a little bit over too ripe  and poor Corey Kluber, he's having a tough year.

So they took this starting pitcher and now he is coming from the bullpen, a si young award winner coming out of the bullpen for the Boston Red Sox.  And that's tough.  I don't know what's gonna happen with him. I don't know.  After, if he'll go the entire year, if he'll find something else, they'll find something else for him.

But when you've got great talent, pardon me, and some of it fades, or our greater talent comes up, it's difficult.    Jazz is somebody you love, somebody, A lot of people have embraced, like you said  he's on the game with the, but all of these pieces, Fay still wanna see a winning team out there on the field 

if you got, but bottom line is, that's what you wanna see.

 You wanna see some favorite players, but the bottom line is    you wanna see  you, you really wanna see a winning team. And  but you don't wanna, you don't wanna lose a guy like Jazz. No. Because of the excitement he brings.  So it's  I don't have to, I don't have to make that call, but obviously if something attractive is offered for him  you don't know   somebody can, again, somebody may get hurt.

   I think that one of the, one of the, and I don't wanna say disposal, that's the wrong word to use. One of the players that has done an unbelievable job and probably deserves to stay, but might be the odd person out  is Davis.   Who has done a really good job.  Last night.  He scores that        he scores a big run in the ninth inning.

 He's fast.  He's got smarts.  He doesn't have a lot of experience because he just didn't play a lot in his career, and now he's getting a chance. And so how do you sell a guy like that? Listen, we're gonna move you because  he's done everything right with his team. 

It's tough. And  I'm looking at right now at your roster.

I'm  Berti's, still performing,   you talk about Yuli Gurriel, obviously he's doing what he needs to do. Gary Cooper still doing fantastic. And 

he was out for a few days. They didn't put him on the il, but he was out for a few days and then he hit a pinch, hit home run. And yesterday you had Sunday's game.

He, he came through big   and this is what you want from  your guys. You're supposed to be your star players. 

And I was glad to see when you guys got solar from Atlanta a couple years ago. And I said, man   that's a powerful player as, 

yeah, he's up to  he's second in the league  in, in home runs.

He's  and now  with Pete Alonzo out for the next week or so  but  opened the door for Solair to  to pass him because  he has 19 Solair seems to hit a lot of home runs in spurts. He had a off year, I think last year.    It wasn't  they gave him a big contract.  He hit just a little bit above the Mendoza line last year.

 Solair has more home runs  this year than he hit all of last year in less games  played. He has more rbis already this year than he did last year.   His numbers   are way up.  The strikeouts  are. Just about even maybe a little bit down.  Yeah, so  he's coming through his amage percentage  is so much better.

 His op PS is  over 900 this year. Wow. Compared to hundred 700  last year. And  he's, I don't know if he'll ever be the  world Series MVP because  again, that was lightning in a bottle, short series  anybody's capable of doing anything, but he's certainly capable of  hitting  more than 20 homers a year.

 Kansas City that one year he hit close to 50 home runs. So  he certainly       he's four years older than he was then, but he's certainly capable       of hitting.  He's on a pace to, to hit 40 home runs this year. I don't wanna jinx him, but   he's really on a pace to hit 40 home runs, which, no, we haven't had a home run hitter.

Hitters and Stanton left. 

Again, that goes to a lot of excitement. And look at the last game you played when y'all took White Sox. Remind me, wasn't it like    long ball and just, 

yeah. Yeah. Four Solo home runs was the most home runs they've had in the game this year. So Air had  two of them    yeah, it was it.

Yeah.  And they, and I'll tell you what hurt the White Sox. So when this happened yesterday, as I'm watching the game, it was the catcher's interference  on what was a Strike three swing. And when that happened, I said to myself, this is over. It's over. They just, they, this, it's the li again, like we said at the beginning of the conversation, these were the things the Marlins are capable of doing, but they're not doing it.

They're letting other teams do that for them this season. And    but when that catchers interference occurred, it was like      the crazier things have happened. Absolute crazier things have happened and  it, it was  and you feel bad for the Chicago fans because they're 

good fans? Oh, yeah.

Oh yeah.  They care. They care a lot. They don't have to see their team play. I  have  I had Nick Moroski on here a few times. He's does the  podcast, good guest talk back?  He lives like, about less than a mile from the stadium.    The man's passionate about it.  And when I listen to him, he also does locked on socks  podcast uhhuh  the passion he and other ones have with it.

 I know it's painful. Chicago's been a painful place for both Cubs and White Sox. But  the White Sox gotta find something besides carrying around long black coats for home run to, to juice up that team. But good. Getting back to Sunday's game 

watch.  Did you happen to hear the call?  The Marlins radio call.

Oh, yes. 

Go ahead.  Say something, bits. 

Kyle Coff's call.  I got it queued up for you. If you want the listeners to hear it, please do.  Let me let here, this is Kyle Coff  who is the Marlins play Byplay guy.  He's about 32 years old, young fella.  And here's his call on the ninth inning. First chance.

It's not coming through, but  I've got it. And I'll insert it here, Lou. Okay. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, man, that was crazy.  I loved it cuz I saw it on YouTube.  And the man's, he's sitting there and he's got pined ba, he's looking down there, he's doing his business, getting ready to call the call.

And from this very almost calm person, he just erupts as you heard there. It's my God. 

  And you watch him and you could see it. And then he pauses and he writes something down and then he goes, they're going nuts. Or something like that.  You gotta be kidding me.  He, he didn't curse. I thought.

It sounded like he almost was gonna  say anyway. Yeah, it was a  it was one of his, one of his really good calls. 

No, I love that man.  Said, it has to be exciting. I wanna talk to you about something. I thought it brought energy to the raise this year. And I think maybe doing the same for you all as well.

And that is the Latin community because of what happened with the World Baseball Classic. Looking at these teams like Mexico, Venezuela  the Dominican Republic, and seeing these teams perform so well and so many of the major league baseball players that are out there. And when they came from that environment straight into the regular season or the last part of spring training, it seemed like there was a fire within those players as they came onto the teams.

So I had a chance to go to a couple of the  games in Miami. I went to the  I went to the  Mexico, Japan game where it looked like  Mexico was going to win. And then in the last moment Japan won  Marlins Park. Has never been a more excited ballpark, which goes to what I've always said to you when we've talked about baseball in  Miami is definitely a baseball town.

Fans in Miami love the game. If you put a good product on the field, they will show up. Now, let's see what happens  on this next home stand. Let's see if they can  keep winning because  Miami fans  are really fickle a as    and so just because they're eight games over 500 now doesn't mean that they're going to draw people if they don't keep on winning.

So  you    they've gotta finish up with Seattle  this, and then they have to play Washington and then they come home  and they've got three games with a good Blue Jays team, and then they have another. Four games with a very good pirate team, and then they have four ga then they go and then they go on the road and then they come back  for 4th of July and they have four games with the Cardinals and maybe they can  do something with it, but it, with their next home stand, even though it's a short one, they have two very good teams in for  for seven games.

 And they've gotta go two and one  and two and  things like that. Just    to keep things going.  And you hope the fans are gonna show up. Cause I don't know what else.  Again, fans are fickled.   They, Miami loves baseball, but sometimes they just don't love the Marlins because of what's happened in the past.

I'm really curious to see, pardon me. I'm really curious to see  when I come down to visit with you guys and the razor playing at Lone Depot, and I think, again  of the energy of a lot of these players who came from the World Baseball Classic. I know. Looking at Siri, looking  at  a rose arena  from our team.

And, 

oh, he was unbelievable.  He made catches  the, he made  a spectacular catch in the Japan game. He came from outta nowhere and went up to over the fence to  to bring down a ball.    It was watching, it was like watching a World Series game.  It was that kind of level of play and commitment that the ball players had.

 Don, do you think that affected, actually  how do I wanna say this? The Latin community, did you see the Latin community really come out and support. These games  I saw more than just the Latin community.    The baseball, it was just baseball. Didn't matter where you were from. Okay. The Latin community was there.

Folks from Japan were there, Anglos were there.    The whole world was there. It was just one big fruit bowl mix of just baseball fans. Doesn't matter. It was just people coming out to watch good baseball. Amen.  It wasn't a typical Thursday night, Marlins are playing the Nashvilles no one showing up.

Okay.  Okay.  And if they do show up, there'll be more national fans than Marlin's fans.  I just saw great baseball. I  it was just, People coming to watch baseball.  And of course there was patriotic pride in the stand. Bands were going through the stadium and playing and people waving all kinds of flags.

The Dominican flag, the Mexican flag, the American flag  the Japanese flag, people were cheering. And  I was really nice. There wasn't the kind of, how, it wasn't a red, so Yankees rivalry, okay, you understand I do it.  It wasn't, hey   it wasn't, it was people were like jovial to see fans     of an, of another team because they res there was a lot of respect.

You would see.    They weren't doing the kind of taunting that a red, so Yankees series would have Okay. That  that there wasn't that kind of a rivalry. It was a respect. Yeah.  And    but the.

You froze up Luke, but      it wasn't Yankees, red Sox  rough. 

 No. I, and it's, its 

interesting you said it's things like that. Yeah 

 It's interesting you said it cuz you and I both know living in Florida, there's not as many natives as there are all of us imports.  Go ahead.

Yeah, 

go ahead. You gotta  go ahead. Go. You go. No, I was 

gonna say    it gets to the point where if you, I go to a Rays game, I can see more Yankees fans there cuz of all the transplants from New York that have come down.  I, 

that's it.  I go to a Mars game against the Mets. I'm a Chase stadium.

   You go to the Phillys game and you're  citizens Bank of Ballpark.  But that's the nature    of South Florida. That's just, but then again, look what's going on in sports in South Florida in the last few months. You had  the Miami Hurricanes. And the fas in the basketball finals.

Then down the street in, in, in Davey, you had Nova Southeastern University men's basketball team win the division two national title. You have  right now you've got  a, a Florida University of Florida  is playing  in the College World Series.    You have  even though they're on oxygen    you have the heat.

And who, tell me who had the, okay. I wanna know who took the heat and the panthers and the owls and the hurricanes to make it to the finals. If anybody raises their hand, lightning's gonna hit the dead. There was nobody on this planet that  could have picked all four of those teams to go  to the finals.

There's just  there's just nobody and there's nobody that picked the heat on the panthers, nevermind throwing in the hurricanes and the owls. It's been an, it's just been an incredible last few months of sports in South Florida. 

Oh, man, I love it. I absolutely do. No, it's, and  it's a lot to celebrate.

 I, and I said, looking at both of our teams, I think they're both really gonna excel. I feel both of 'em will be there in the playoffs. 

I think that I don't  you are gonna be there in the playoffs. So the reality is, as a Marlins fan  I, I'm optimistic, but my heart's been broken before. Yeah. Okay. So my heart's been broken before, and  it may get broken again, but the rays have proven time and time again that they know how to win.  They, they know how to win  and they've shown it      and right now there really isn't  Is there a better team in the American League than the Rays?

And the answer is there, there isn't there. There just isn't.  And then the same question holds true. Is there a better team in the National League than the Rays? And the answer is there isn't. The rays are the absolute best team in baseball. But if you talk to, but if  but Mark, if you talk to fans in New York or California, in, in the Midwest, they don't think of Florida as a baseball state.

 No.  They think of it, oh, they have football down there and  they dabble in and they got the heat and now all of a sudden the panthers  no one looks at Florida as a baseball state.  Not for professional baseball, maybe for college baseball, but not for professional baseball.    And I love the story I of the rays   and the Marlon.

I'm hoping that  when August rolls along the end of August, when you come on down to Miami and we'll go to a ball game that. Our two teams    are just  where they are now, where  by then  maybe the rays will be close to clinching, the central  and the Marlins will be close to maybe  clenching  a number one playoff spot.

But    they gotta  beat out the Dodgers. They have to beat out the Mets. They still have to beat out the Phillies. The Phillies aren't gonna go quietly.   They're a great second half team. Oh yeah. The Mets. The Mets were the Mets.  How do you stop the Mets from winning?

You give 'em a baseball bat. That's how you stop the Mets from winning. 

Oh wow.  Who would ever thought Steve Cohen in meant putting all that money in there would be struggling as hard with that team.  I think it was like 245 million or something like that is his payroll. And I was like, good lord.

 But it's, you can try by a good team and  some of your best players can get injured too, or they just, Aren't necessarily going to perform to the level of the dollars that you invest in them. And that's 

true. That  and that's the, and that's the, and that's the success of Tampa. Yeah.  That's the absolute success of what you have going on there.

 A small market team  constantly winning. 

 Alex said a lot of it, it's taken a long time to get there, and  it's taken a good farm system too. And looking at your farm system. I see. I know there's one player who's came up to the show, but who's down right now, maybe still injured. And that's, was it?

 Six. Oh  sanchez six. Oh, Sanchez. Yeah. And.  Is he, you think you'll see him come back  up this year? Or what are you 

I    don't know. They really don't need 

him right now. Yeah. It's Cause I was wondering 

it's always isn't, it's based on, it's based on need and injuries and right now there's no need    and there aren't any significant injuries  other than Jazz.

Gotcha. And  and  the pitching is solid.  The, it's  it's all  it's coming all together.   I just  it's been a fun, I could tell you it's been a fun first 65 games or so.    It's, yeah. I just hope the next two thirds of the season or so we're as much, will be as much fun  as the first third has been.

Wow. So you guys are playing tonight in Seattle, right? 

Tonight in, yeah, tonight, tomorrow night. And    Wednesday, let's see, today's  yeah, good day. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And then they have an off day Thursday to go from west to east. And then they play  the Nationals for three games.  And that's where you gotta say to yourself, okay  if you're the Marlins, you're playing it on the West Coast.

   They swept the angels on the west coast, but you say it yourself, okay, we gotta take two outta three in, in Seattle, and then we  gotta come down and take two outta three from Washington. That's    that's what you gotta do  one, one game, one game at a time, though you really gotta take one game at a time.

But because not every game is gonna be  Saturday, Sunday against the White Sox. Wow. Hitting too out, hitting good relief, pitching. 

 I'm looking forward to, like I said, to see how you guys continue to move on. It's looking good. And you said there's really no need to bring anybody up, so I imagine there's really not much as far  as you guess looking at trades either.

 And I'm sure they're looking to make things healthy    will they offer a Jazz  for prospects?  Will they offer  Trevor Rogers for prospects? Because unlike the Rays, we're not loaded  a as far   as guys in the minors. So who do you say  if you had a crystal ball right now, who are gonna be two or three  of the rays that are gonna be playing on the All-Star team come next month?

 If you would just for popularity, I'd say a Rose Serena. 

Okay. No matter what. There you go.  That's the no-brainer. Okay. And then who else 

who joined?  Then it had to be Shane McClanahan pitching Uhhuh, and he's just been  stupifying, you go after that. Oh, geez, where'd I go?  I love to see Taylor Walls, but I don't think he's there yet.

 He's been kinda off and on Siri for entertainment value. Uhhuh. So I, I say, so I say McClanahan, Rosana, and then in my heart, I'd say Yandy Diaz at first.  Those three. McClanahan, Rosa and Yandy Diaz. 

 You all play late games this week too. You're out against the, one of the hottest teams in baseball right now.

The Oakland days. Okay. 

Yeah. You 

don't like, I know you're not kidding.  They, they've played 500th ball the last 10 games and they won, what? Four in a row? They won. They swept their first series. They're, they, like I said before  they're above the  the Mets right now from 62. They're    a couple of weeks ago they were looking at winning about 30 games.

Now they're over 40. 

We will see brother. Yeah. They're  at least our guys got a chance to take a breath for a day before going across the country.  Is 

el     is Zach Lin even human?   I've watched him pitch   and it's just    I think the batters know what he's going to throw  and they still, they just can't hit him.

Yeah. 

Yeah, he's, he is amazing. And  that shows veteran experience plus talent.  You sometimes you have a young talent who can execute certain things, but how he's able to measure with what he's looking at that better. Go ahead. So how 

do you explain, how do you explain Last year,  a, a terrible year with the Phillies.

Okay. How did he, how does he turn around? A plus four e r a  just not good numbers.  And all of a sudden, and even the year before that, With the Phillies, it was another plus four era r a and the year before that it was a four era r a and  he's been nothing his whole entire career.  He has never had an e r A except one year lower than four.

It was a 3 97. So how do you explain 2023?  I'm an alien. I just came down from outta space    and I see this guy pitch. How do you explain the fact that up until this season, he was just a average, mediocre pitcher of  a number four or five guy. I don't know 

what his relationship was with his last team, but this group and organization is very welcoming of everybody that comes in.

I think the respect that they have for him elevates him, but maybe even more so it comes down to that pitching coach, Kyle Snyder, Uhhuh, he has seemed to bring in a lot of young players.  Obviously Zach's not, I. And help give them control and confidence. But I think with Zach, pardon me? I think with Zach, he doesn't have to instill confidence.

Cause Zach already has it. I think he just, they say, here's the ball. We trust you do what you do. 

 Do you think also it's because he's a local kid?  He was  he's an Orlando kid, he grew up here. Do you think that part of that is that he's playing at home because the Rays were the closest team to him when he grew up?

  The rays were probably his team. And so do you think   that's made him    a better  pitcher as well because  he's probably been to that stadium dozens of times when he was a kid watching baseball. 

I think that definitely makes a difference.  Because anytime you're  at your home, whether it's physically where you're at, where you've lived as a kid, but a place that you're familiar with  whether it be the, just the environment, the weather, but certainly a team that you grew up with.

Yeah.   I think that definitely matters. 

 Yeah.        I think that matters too with him because, and I don't know the young man, but  it, it just seems that    what's different? He's playing in a, he's  he's only, he's playing half his games inside with his, with the Phillies    they were more than half obviously outside.

 So what's the difference between here  and Philadelphia?   Maybe less fans to boo    how tough  you know how tough fans can be in Philly? Oh, yeah.    Here   it's a little bit, it's a little bit different, but he's  Eight and one  just    if he's not the, if he's not the start, if he keeps these numbers up, if he's not given the ball to start the All-star game in the American League    then you've got a good case for robbery over in Tampa.

 Pardon me. It's gonna be interesting, Lou  I'm real excited about this season and it tickled me at the beginning of the year, there was some guy who thought he was like John boy and said that the rays were cheating.     They're only playing these weak teams and there's something wrong there.

I was, I thoughts, sir, I'm not going to address you at all.  Just go ahead and say that and just watch how the season progresses.  Absolutely. And you're gonna be embarrassed later on because  I'm not gonna give him  the cred to even address him, but  it was interesting. It goes back to, I think a lot of folks, and certainly with the Marlins, people just tend to forget Florida and.

We don't have to care about what they think. We just have to 

win. Yeah.  It's been fun watching the  you guys up in Tampa. It's been. Joy  to go down to the ballpark    to, to my phone's ringing a little bit more from friends now wanting to go to ball games. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, all of a sudden the phone's starting to ring.

Hey. It's  Hey Lou       hey, what's going on? Hey, you going to games? Yeah, I'm going to games.  You wanna come? Oh, I'd love to come along. Yeah. All of a sudden, all of a sudden  all of a sudden  folks, some folks wanna   come along to a ball game.     It's funny  the fair where the fans are coming out, but that's okay.

 That, that's quite all right. It's  it's just fun going to a ballgame. I hope that  I hope they fill up the ballpark.      I hope they, they get some more people      the team  the players   are worth the reason to fill up the park.  They're here    they're the ones that deserve to have  people letting them know that they appreciate what they do.

Agreed. Wow.  Lou, we could go on and on about this, 

but  sorry about the internet. Hold up 

earlier.  Geez. Then what'd expect it's the internet, but, and oh, I did  I don't know, we'll co cover this today, but I would sometime like to talk about the whole thing from Sinclair to Diamond to B to m l b  and that could be a whole other show, but if you get some time in  about 

coming  we can do that.

I'm actually this summer  I'll be back up in Minnesota the end of next month.  And one of the  areas that we're going to be talking about is the  Sinclair bankruptcy. Yeah. With the baseball law kids.  Got a couple of things. We're gonna  ex  major league umpire, Clint Fagans coming in from  Texas  to talk to the class.

 And  there's a book  that I just finished reading

the author of this book  Dan Levitt is gonna come talk to the class. It's called Intentional Bar, baseball's line between innovation and cheating.  He might, he probably, if you one, I'll get you  his fans' informational off the air.     He would make an  excellent guest. Oh, I, he's an, he's a Minneapolis attorney and    he really knows baseball.

He's a Saber guy.  He's won SARE Awards.      He's gonna come in  and talk to the class. Melissa Lucky's gonna be back  this summer via Zoom  and talk to the class  Stu  thorn Lee's gonna come in live      and talk to the class about baseball rules and things like that.

 Should be a fun class. Yeah, again, this summer. 

Man, I'm also ready to come up here in a minute. What  up north to here. Is it Hamlin? Is that where you  yeah. 

Mitchell, Hamlin  Mitchell Ham St. Paul. 

St. Paul. Yeah. Wow. 

First day of the class. The St. Paul Saints treat us like saints. We do the class in the press box of  c h s field.

 Tom Whaley  welcomes us who's the    executive Vice President and chief legal counsel for the Saints. He's gonna talk about the sale of the Saints. He's gonna  talk about how it got, how they got sold, because Mike Vex group is no longer the ownership. Tom was part of that group, but he's, he stayed behind to, to help run some things.

And  then Sunday  we go back to the law school and  Bob wit it's gonna come in and talk about the    Sinclair bankruptcy.  Hell yeah. So it should be a  fun two days with the students. Should be a good two days. 

 I wanna remind folks too, they can find you on Twitter at baseball and law.

Is that correct? 

Baseball and law, right? You say baseball and law and baseball 

and law, right? Baseball and law and folks   I highly encourage you to go check that every day cuz Lou digs up some really interesting facts about baseball of the past and some, not so far back, but  the legal aspects of questionable  what's happened and how it's impacting baseball today.

 Lou  what are we looking at? What's coming up soon that you're gonna have on  baseball law? 

 So baseball and law coming up the next couple of days. I will give you a preview. Hold on right now. I will tell you what we've got going on. So usually get these ready in advance. Give me a moment and I will tell you what we have.

 Here's a speak peak of    unless there's breaking news tomorrow we're gonna talk about  Farewell to Babe Ruth. On Babe Ruth Day in 1948, June 13th, 1948.  We're gonna talk  on Wednesday about the  1869 Cincinnati red stockings and the longest professional winning streak in  professional baseball history.

And  Thursday we're gonna talk about an Oklahoma Supreme Court  decision about Peewee baseball, not peewee Reese, Peewee baseball.   And I'll  and  and again, it's always the parents and the parents filing a lawsuit. Oh yeah. Cause they didn't like the outcome of a peewee baseball game. And I talk about what the.

Oklahoma Supreme Court said, okay, and you won't be disappointed what they said.  Friday, we're going to talk a little bit about a lawsuit that the Chicago Cubs got involved in   about 20 years ago where a fan was b a. Actually, it was in, in 2000 where a fan was beat up by Dodger players. Oh. And he filed a lawsuit against the Cubs claiming their lack of security    and the lawsuit that happened and the surprising jury verdict.

And let's see, to finish out the week on Saturday, I'm going back to Oklahoma. I don't do a lot of stuff about Oklahoma, but  I found some pretty interesting things about Oklahoma. And this is an Oklahoma little league. And again, it's about the parents and it's a story about how parents were upset because their kids didn't get participation trophies.

   And  it's an article that I, that goes back to 2013 from the New York Times.  And so we'll talk a little bit about that. So  that's what's on tap for the rest of the week  on baseball and law.  If you missed it, I had  a tweet the  the other day. This was funny. Somebody had a better tweet than I did.

   The headline that I used was, that Must have Hurt. It was a story from  1904. A couple of guys were playing cats. A guy comes walking by, the ball hits him in the groin and he files a lawsuit to recover his $12 and 50 cents  medical bills. But there was a  one of my readers. Came up with a better headline and I'll tell you who it was.

 It's  Rick Mirai. Rick is a Chicago son Times sports columnist, and he came up with a better title. I wish I thought of it. He came up with the title instead of That Must Hurt. He said it should have been called. The Count was Two Balls and One Strike. Oh. 

Oh. 

That's why he's writing headlines professionally for a living and I'm not.

  Those are some of the things I write about.  I once in a while, I'll talk about my Marlins this week. I also talk a little bit about  the price that was paid for the contract  that sent  babe Ruth from the Red Sox to the Yankees, how that was sold at auction.  And so I talk about things that are like that.

 Earlier this week talked about a lawsuit that was  that about some of these lawsuits that have been filed regarding fans who are not disabled, winding up in, in the disabled seats  because they're able to get their tickets on, on, on secondary markets      and things like that.  This past week was also the anniversary of Steve, how Steve Howell entering a guilty plea  regarding his  cocaine  use.

   And then the last one we talked about was a guy in Jersey who built a ballpark in his backyards for the neighborhood. It cost him $300,000 to build this back in the late nineties. The city claimed it was a nuisance and they shut  the field down so the neighbors couldn't play there, but like maybe once a week.

And he wanted, he built this whole thing, he wanted the kids to play in this backyard and this city cried foul and  a judge agreed with the city. So that's some of the things  that I write about and we talk about.  And    it's always, I try to put something fun up there and  I cite to our book    our book  baseball and the Law Cases and Materials, and I always give a page, a reference number where you can find something in the book that either talks about this  exact topic or something very similar to 

it.

And that's actually available online. If somebody wants to 

purchase that, print it. It is available online. That's the good news. The bad news is  the hard edition    the regular edition  is out of print right now. The hard covers out of print, but they're, my publisher is running a sale till July 1st.

Thanks for reminding me. My publisher is running an electronic sale  and if you go to  Carolina Academic Press and you use the code, B Ball 2023, all in caps B ball 2023 at checkout, you'll get a third off the  the list price. That's through the publisher  Caroline Academic Press. 

I'll make sure I put that in the show notes too, folks, so you can look down there as well.

It's, right now it's pinned to my tweet for the month of June, but   that's what they're doing. Excellent.  Yeah, so  that's what they're doing  for the month of June for the electronic edition. Wow. So   it's been a fun run doing this stuff. It's great always to talk to you, mark.

     It's nicer for this month because of how  not only your team's doing, but  My team is doing, 

that's honorable Lou Schiff, Miami Marlin's fan extraordinaire.  And you can find him again with some of the great stories on Twitter with base at baseball and law. That's at Baseball and law on Twitter.

 Lou, thanks again buddy. I appreciate you joining us here today, man, and enjoy the rest of this season. Thank you, mark. All right, I'll put a little foot on here real quick. I'll say, okay, thank you everybody for joining us today and hope to luck to you all real soon. You can find us on every directory on podcast anywhere.

Also, wanna thank X, take UX for the music rocking forward.