00:00It certainly is. So let's start off with what we think could be potentially coming in,
00:04wow, about a month from now, which is just all labor discussion all the time. Baseball's CBA
00:11proposal came out. Now, keep in mind, this is the owners. This is the league. Here is what the CBA
00:18proposed. Weekly rosters that would set a 26-man roster every Monday, with exceptions for injuries,
00:25trades, and waivers. Some IL changes as well, and the Rule 5 draft changes too. But really,
00:32the key to all of this, Tom, is really the letter at the bottom here, which if you can't read,
00:37I'm going to read it to you. The new off-season calendar, a quiet period after the World Series,
00:44free agency opens at the winter meetings Monday through December the 21st. So it's basically
00:51a little bit under a month. And then the frozen period until the first Monday in February. So
00:59this, Tom, is what all the fans have been asking for. This is what the league is saying,
01:07hey, we've seen the NFL and we've seen the NBA and the NHL to a degree. Let's go ahead and
01:13create a
01:14free agent frenzy for about a month, which, I mean, how could you not look at this and love it?
01:21Now, of course, there is a downside to this, and that are the players. And so Bruce Meyer,
01:27who is responsible for the players' side of this, basically says it's a bunch of propaganda,
01:31and this is what baseball is doing, is sort of trying to placate or play to the fans through this,
01:41and not making it as friendly for the players, because then they can only sign during a specific
01:46time. You know, Tom, it's kind of hard to say who's right and wrong in all this,
01:51but it seems like every time the owners put something out, it's like, okay, this seems pretty
01:55reasonable. You know, like, oh, this seems like a good idea. I think they have the public relations
02:00end mastered at this point, because they're delivering everything, I think, that the fans want.
02:05Players are going to be in a really tough spot, I think, come December, because it feels like maybe not
02:11100% of the stuff will work, but it feels like the large majority of this are things that the
02:16league probably thinks that we all want. When it comes to these latest CBA proposals,
02:23the off-season calendar one, I like in theory, I really do, like, the NFL is the legal tampering
02:28period. Like, there is a level of excitement. Like, when that day happens at noon, we know it's going
02:33to be an absolute frenzy of free agency, and what team's getting what player, you know, what's my
02:39team doing, you know, what's the rivalry, we all want that, and I think it's great. I will say, I
02:43don't think that can be contrived or forced. I think that's something that just has to happen
02:46naturally, and I think, you know, this could be a step, but it just needs to happen organically.
02:51That's something Sam, our producer, and I were talking about pre-show. It's like, it's a good idea,
02:54but I want to see it come to fruition a little bit more nationally. As for the other parts of
02:59the CBA,
02:59the weekly roster locks, I think, is a bunch of nonsense. Like, seeing all the comments that
03:05people are making about this, this is forcing the teams into doing something that I don't know
03:11is in the best interest of them themselves, which means it's probably not in the best interest of
03:16putting the best product on the field. You can't be forcing the teams to do something. If they want
03:20to make moves in terms of sending players up and down, they have to deal with injuries, and I know
03:24there are exemptions for injuries and trades and waves and all those things, they have to have free
03:28reign to do that. You have to have the options on the players to send them up and down. You
03:32want to
03:32DFA a player and sign someone off of, you know, off a free agency or whatever it is, they have
03:37to
03:37have that ability to do it, to do what's best interest of the team to put the best product on
03:41the field, right? They want to see the teams win, then they got to have free reign to do everything,
03:45and I know that can hurt the players in terms of the contracts and everything, but I don't like
03:49weekly roster locks at all.
