CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s time for this week’s Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. In this episode, taped Wednesday afternoon, they talk Browns and predict their record for the season, and why they think the Browns will beat the Bengals on Sunday in the season opener.
They also analyze the Guardians, including Terry’s report on some of the up-and-coming minor leaguers fans should keep an eye on.
And readers weigh in with their questions and comments about the Browns, and sports nicknames.
Highlights:
Our Browns predictions -- for this season, and for Sunday’s opener vs. the Bengals.
Uncertainty around Quinshon Judkins due to contract and legal issues.
Joe Flacco will start; here’s what that might look like.
The Browns’ emphasis on returning to zone blocking and balanced offense.
Concerns about secondary injuries, especially Denzel Ward.
A listener presents a scenario: How good would the Browns be with Joe Burrow at QB?
Critique of past offensive schemes and coaching missteps.
Why new OL coach Mike Bloomgren and a return to zone blocking will matter when the Browns win Sunday (as both Terry and David predict).
The Micah Parsons trade compared to Browns retaining Myles Garrett.
Browns aim to stay competitive without full rebuild.
Terry’s take on Arch Manning, and Bill Belichick.
Could the kicking game give the Browns 2-3 more wins? A listener wonders.
The continued impact of suspensions to Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz.
Underperformance of young position players.
Prospects like Kyle Manzardo, Angel Martinez, Ralphie Velazquez, Josh Hartle, and Cooper Ingle discussed.
Travis Bazzana: A listener sends in a feel-good story.
A listener email about some of his favorite Cleveland sports nicknames of years past.
Here is the podcast for this week:
If you have something you’d like to share, or a question or a topic you’d like to see included on the podcast, email it to sports@cleveland.com, and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line.
You can find previous podcasts below, as well as a transcript.
As the transcript is computer-generated, it will contain many spelling and grammatical errors.
David Campbell : Hey, it’s Wednesday afternoon and we are taping this week’s edition of the Terry’s Talking Podcast. And David Campbell, your host, Terry Pluto is here, as he is every week, and we got a lot of football to talk about. Terry, how are you?
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Terry Pluto : I’m well ready for the season to start, I can tell you that.
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David Campbell : Yeah, I, I don’t know. Where do you want to start? Let’s talk about the Browns first. Then we’ll get into some Guardian stuff. And we got a good nickname email from a listener to end the podcast with today. But. Okay, we’re gonna give our Browns predictions today. We asked for fans to send in their predictions and we got some good ones there. We’re gonna. We’re gonna roll those into the podcast. I don’t know. It seems like Quin. Sean Judkins is kind of the big mystery right now. Do you want to start with Adam? We’ll kind of take it from.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, let’s just. I mean, basically I even interviewed Andrew Barry for some stuff’s gonna be rolling out the next couple of days. And all he just says, we’ll have an update later. Was it.
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David Campbell : I’m trying to remember a situation like this, Terry. I can’t. Have you ever seen anything like this where a guy was drafted and then this off the field thing happened and it was kind of taken care of. It went. It’s going away illegally, but it’s just in limbo. Like the league hasn’t said anything. The Browns aren’t saying anything. It’s. It’s all.
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Terry Pluto : I think I, I now I did have it. I said I heard. I did mention to him. I heard their stuff with the language and the contract in this and basically Barry confirmed that, but that’s all he would say. He wouldn’t get in details or anything else. So that tells me one of two things. There was something that, like if he gets suspended, X happens or like a lot of these agents in the second round, they’re fighting for fully guaranteed contracts. And the Browns, I mean, I’ll tell you this. I don’t know what the Browns are saying. Here’s what I was saying. I know your guy got off, but he spent too much time in jail for me. And I mean, because I said that was an embarrassing thing there and there was a problem. So, you know, we need these certain things in the contract to make sure that we don’t have this problem again. And that would be where my stance was not his agent would be. We wanted fully guaranteed. The. The flip side is that Isaiah Bond or Isaac Bond, the kid? Yep, Isaiah. Yeah. I mean, he. He’s quickly signed. You know, right after his fact, he announced his own signing, which I’m not sure the Browns were thrilled about once, you know, his case was adjudicated in his favor and he wanted to get to training camp right away. And you could argue, yeah, the contract was three years guaranteed, but it’s like three years for 3 million or something. It was a. If he’d have actually been drafted in the second round or whatnot, or even third. That’s a pretty good contract for the team, and that’s what you do when you’re in trouble and you get out, get me to camp, play football. So we could just forget about all this other than hopefully you learn a lesson not to do whatever it was again and. And play ball. So I. This is. I think this is a big deal because they were counting on this guy to. I mean, they kept saying he’s not Nick Chubb, but we want him to kind of have that kind of. They were throwing his name in the same sentence with Nick Chubb to be the bell cow. I kept hearing that. By the way, do you want to hear something about bell cows? Sure.
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David Campbell : I love bell cow trivia.
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Terry Pluto : All right, well, Roberta, a couple. Long time ago, she went on like a city slickers thing out west to Montana to the TX ranch and did this a couple times. I did not want to go sleep in a tent and chase cows. Bell cows? Yeah, they kind of lead the pack, but they’re very sort of slow and plotting. There’s nothing particularly. You really wouldn’t want a bell cot to be your top running back.
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David Campbell : Well, it just means, like, the offense is going to run behind him.
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Terry Pluto : Right.
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David Campbell : Or. Or walks.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, but they even don’t even pay that much attention to the bell cow. It’s just a. It’s a thing that drifted into. It’s kind of like Swiss army knife. If I hear one more, there’s another one. I don’t want to hear any more about Swiss army knives.
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David Campbell : No bell cows and no Swiss army knives.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, that’s it. So anyway. All right. But point is, you got Jerome Ford, you got Dylan Sampson, and you got what, the Rocket. What’s his name that they got from Roberts or something? I forgot his name. They picked up. He was a pretty good player in the sec, but that was supposed to be Juggins, and they don’t have them. And he’s certainly not playing this weekend.
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David Campbell : Oh, yeah, we know that.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah.
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David Campbell : So I guess we should start with the Quarterbacks. Terry, in terms of going position by position here and Joe Flacco is going to be starting the season. One of the things you were kind of telling me you want to talk about today is how many games we think Joe Flacco is going to play and kind of how things might go, especially to start the season here. And let’s talk about that for a minute. How do you see what do the Browns need from Joe Flacco? Can he deliver it? And, and where do you see this thing going?
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Terry Pluto : Well, I’m coming with the obsession about how many games he’s going to play, put a number on or whatever. The answer is we don’t know. And really speculating on it is, okay, maybe it’s good for sports talk or whatever, but in my mind, let’s just see. First of all, quarterbacks get hurt, even though it seems like Joe Flacco never does. Secondly, I don’t know how they’re going to be playing the next three to six games and I am in no rush to get him out of there unless he’s just horrible. But I’m also like, okay, whatever. You know, it seems like I often say this about baseball, but it’s even sometimes a football fans are often and media people are so in a rush to get, get the young guys in there. They can’t wait to see him play. And then they see him play and it’s not real good. You know, it tends to be, oh my goodness, this is whether it’s, you know, some guy coming up from the minors in baseball or oh, you know, let’s give Kevin Hogan a chance. I remember that from 2017. We’ve seen enough that Deshaun Kaiser. Let’s hand the ball to Kevin Hogan. Well, as bad as Deshaun Kaiser was, Kevin Hogan was worse.
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David Campbell : And so well and we saw it even in the last couple years. Yeah, dtr. Oh, DTR looks so good in the preseason. It’s like they need to give him a chance.
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Terry Pluto : You know, I do have a bit of a theory on dtr. I think, you know, Mary, Mary Kay was on the feud to write about this. Remember he had kind of a bad hip injury a couple years ago. There was a Flacco year and he has not been the same since. I don’t think he’s moved the same. And I just, you know, a lot of times when a guy, I’m not saying he would have been starting or anything anyway, but he didn’t even look good in the exhibition season after that. That told me that he’s just not the same guy. And I remember Mary Kay writing that she didn’t have the details but it was a significant hip injury. So that’s, you know, that could be something. But in terms of Flacco, let’s just see what happens. But you know, this rush to go to the rookie guys. Well that you said whether it was DTR Kevin Hogan or take your pick, all the way along the line, Thaddeus Lewis, remember that.
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David Campbell : I think when it comes to Flacco, my big question is how good is the Browns run game going to be? I mean it’ll probably be two parts of the season. One will be before Judkins arrives and one will be after Judkins arrives in terms of the people to have available. And you mentioned Rocket Sanders in terms of being the third guy. Maybe a change of pace back coming in. But you know, if Kevin Stefanski could run the ball 45 times and win a game, I think he would do it.
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Terry Pluto : Absolutely.
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David Campbell : I really do. So are the Browns going to be playing from behind? Is the running game able to get 3, 4, 5 yards at a crack and how much is Joe Flacco going to be asked to do? And you’ve written about this a lot here and we’ve talked about on here, Flacco throws a lot of touchdowns when you ask him to throw a lot and he throws a lot of interceptions when you ask him to throw a lot. So if you can keep the game close and if you can keep the ground game important enough to use and if it’s productive, I think Flaco could have a really good season. But if they get behind early and he’s got to be throwing the ball all over the yard like it, it could, it could be what we saw in Houston where things just fall apart very quickly. So that’s my, that’s the big thing I’m curious about is how good is the Browns running game going to be? So you’re especially Sunday in that first half.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. So you’re hoping that when Ken Dorsey left he took his playbook with him, his play calling sheet.
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David Campbell : Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt that that playbook is far away from Cleveland.
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Terry Pluto : I’m still stunned. I was looking at the stats again. How could the Browns have led all the NFL and Pats has attempted? And I think the stat that I found in there that is revealing is of the 10 teams that threw the ball the most, only one made the play playoffs last year, Kansas City, and they ranked ninth. So this obsession with throwing the ball all the time the it’s swinging back towards having a pretty good running game and, and, and basically having a balanced attack.
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David Campbell : And I’ll tell you, Terry, I think this Browns offensive line is pretty upset with how last year went and they feel like their toughness has been questioned because they that team didn’t run the ball like you said. And with Mike Bloomgren, the new offensive line coach coming in, they sound like they want to play for this guy and they want to show people that this is the Browns offensive line from a couple years ago that and we’re going to impose our will on people. I think they really want to show that on Sunday and that’s what I’m going to be watching early in the game.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, they wanted to show the problem was the scheme, not the players. And we’ve all had that in our, our. If you’ve worked at enough places for a long enough time, you’ll all of a sudden be your department will be doing pretty well and you’ll be doing pretty well. And then some guy comes in or some woman with some brainstorm of we’re going to go from good to great. By the way, when you hear that, hide under the furniture because that means they’re going to do something really stupid to try and fix something that’s not broken. Because one of the ways to go from good to great is to be really good and then just kind of, you know, work around the edges is not to change something dramatically. And when you dump a successful zone blocking scheme for a coach, head coach that actually is very successful running it and do something completely different. I wasn’t really sure what the blocking scheme was other than we don’t block real well. That was the scheme and it, it did bother those guys and Bloom Grimm who did work for for Callahan, Bill Callahan, the Mr. Mr. Zone blocking, the godfather of it and then was a head coach at Rice and ran it there is and I think he brought some that toughness of Callahan back in was welcome and so we’ll see how it goes.
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David Campbell : Oh, and just think about last season. Joel Petonio is one of the most loyal team first guys you will ever see. And when he’s basically calling the scheme into question, you know you have big problems and that’s exactly what happened last year. And I remember Dan Lobby Carly writing about this last year. But Joel Batonio says things aren’t working and they don’t like what they’re running. That was pretty much the message. And these guys are going to be out to show Sunday that they are back and Joel Batonio didn’t come back and, and stay out of retirement to go out the way they went out last year, so.
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Terry Pluto : Correct. I mean you can, you can buy a lot of, buy a lot of extra yards with that zone blocking. Why does it work? You’re. I’m gonna the defer to you on this, David. Why is it working the running game and what does it do?
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David Campbell : Well, there’s what you’ll see. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of down blocking which means you block away from where the ball is going to be going and a lot of pulling. So you get these guys like Petonio, Wyatt Teller out in front moving 300 pound guys and then the running back gets to pick a zone to run in rather than you got to run through the four hole, right? He gets to go around, let’s say he’s running around, right. And he gets to see where Wyatt Tellers kicking a guy out or pushing a guy inside and they get to read it’s basically running toward zones instead of into a given hole and letting the linemen take the guys whichever way they can. That’s the way I understand it. I’m no offensive line expert but so you’re going to see a lot of what the old style Stefanski stuff is down blocking and pulling guards, pulling linemen, pulling centers. They’re going to be pulling, pulling guys and trying to get these running backs on the move and able to pick a hole.
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Terry Pluto : I mean San Francisco, San Francisco runs it. You go back to when Denver was really good, they ran it. And if you really want to go all the way back, this will predate you. They always talked about the Browns with their pulling guards during Paul Brown and Blanton Collier. Their guards get out in front of Jim Brown or Leroy Kelly and off they go. That was a form of zone blocking indeed.
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David Campbell : So. All right, Terry, I know we want to spend some time talking about one of your favorite topics, kickers. And we do have an email here from listener Russ Gantos. And Russ is from Texas. He says, hey guys, I was thinking about the Browns 23 and 24 season records and in 23, Dustin Hopkins pretty much made every critical kick. In 24, not so much. I think if you look at last.
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Terry Pluto : Not at all.
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David Campbell : Yeah, pretty much. I think if you look at last season, you could make the argument that if he had been as good as the previous year, maybe four or five more wins in the NFL you have your top six or seven good teams, six or seven bad teams and the rest Battle around records that reflect winning close games and the kicker is often the difference. I believe that if Schmidt has a great year, the Browns can win seven to eight games. Too much credit to the kicking game. Thanks longtime listener Russ Gantos. Thanks, Russ. I don’t know, Terry, what do you think about Andre Schmidt, the new kicker? And in Russ’s point about like if you make some big kicks at the end of games, you can flip a few losses into wins.
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Terry Pluto : Oh, you absolutely can do that. You can add a couple wins, two or three. I mean we know nothing about him in terms of how he’s going to kick in the NFL. He what he was good at Syracuse and then he was terrific in the unit. Was it United Football League? I think it was the ufl. The Browns had him in to training camp or excuse me, practice squad last year they liked them and then when it came time this year they really were going decided let’s run an open competition. And when Hopkins started missing extra points, which led to his kind of downfall a year ago, they figured well, why not let’s, let’s try him. And I really believe Hopkins hurt himself when he was chasing the, I think a guy running back for a touchdown. Remember that at the end of 23 he missed a game or two and he’s never been the same kicker since. And he had because he had a history of groin pulls and hamstrings and calf muscles and all that stuff problems. So we’ll see.
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David Campbell : Well, great. Good idea, York.
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Terry Pluto : Make a team.
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David Campbell : I have not checked on him.
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Terry Pluto : I’m going to check as you are. Yeah, I’m just wondering.
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David Campbell : All right. Hey, so let’s move on to the next thing. Terry. The, the big story in the NFL, of course over the last week or so was the Micah Parsons trade from the Cowboys to the Packers. And I thought you did a wonderful breakdown of this today in your newsletter. By the way, if you want to Get Terry’s newsletter, cleveland.com Pluto There’s a blue bar at the top. You and subscribe there. You just went really deep on this and I wanted to kind of turn it over to you and let you talk a little bit, a little bit about why you’re getting letters from Browns fans and emails from people saying couldn’t the Browns have made a similar deal and gotten two first rounders and a good steady starter for Miles Garrett instead of doing what they did, which was keeping him and signing him to a long term deal? What were the differences and what is the Brown strategy behind keeping Miles Garrett this offseason?
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Terry Pluto : Could they have done something like that? The answer is probably yes. You probably could have got a couple of first rounders. Of course, there are first rounders and their first rounders. In other words, there’s first rounders from Jacksonville or somebody like that, and there’s first rounders from Green Bay or Kansas City. You know, in other words, the top five, the bottom five of the first round and the two first rounders that they got, Dallas got from Green Bay are probably going to be in the bottom five to bottom seven of the first round. And though that probably could have made that. That trade. And then they got Clark, the defensive tackle.
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David Campbell : Kenny Clark.
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Terry Pluto : Yep, Kenny Clark, who’s had some injuries in that, but he’s also made a couple Pro Bowls. And meantime, the packers gave tremendous contract, $47 million to. To.
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David Campbell : Mike Persons. Yeah, Parsons.
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Terry Pluto : Jeez. Because I was already going on to my next point. That’s what. You’re really old. In other words, that’s how. That’s how Joe Flacco throws an interception. He sees a guy that’s open, but he’s looking for double coverage. And so anyway, yeah, to the point, yeah. Parsons got 47 million a year. The Brown’s point is this, that you really don’t trade Miles Garrett because you want to draft players like Miles Garrett. And their feeling is, are they thrilled about Miles Garrett driving 100 miles an hour? No, they’re not. But Miles Garrett hasn’t missed only five games in the last four years. And you know, he comes across funky sometimes in his interviews or whatever, but the man plays, plays every game. You know, he plays hard. And they also, I believe, don’t want to go 3 and 14 again. This is not about going back into the days of 1 and 31. They don’t want to do that. They’re doing the thread the needle thing that the Guardians have done for years and years. That was a. A phrase coined by Terry Francona, which means I’m playing young guys, so I’m also playing to win or at least be in playoff content. Should be relevant because I. I also outlined this in my newsletter. All right. Since they went 1 and 31 and 16 and 17, they’ve had seven seasons. And they’ve had how many winning records in those seven seasons?
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David Campbell : Three.
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Terry Pluto : Two. Two, Two. So what did you accomplish? We’re just talking winning seasons. I’m not even talking playoffs. Although the two years they did make the playoffs, right?
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David Campbell : It was 2020 and 2023, of course. Yeah, yeah. But then 21 in my head is a winning season. But they were 8, 9 that year.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, they were 8 and 9. They were 7 and 10. Baker’s year in 18, they’re 8, 7, 8 and 1. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, you’ve got, so you’ve got a, you got a 7 and 10 in there. You got a 3 and 14 in there. This is supposed to lead to some sort of sustained success. Vague term, intentionally, but I don’t think two winning seasons out of seven is sustained success by anybody’s definition.
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David Campbell : Do you think that if the Browns hadn’t gone through the 1 in 31 in the rebuild, they might have considered trading Miles Gareth? You think that that recent history factored in that they didn’t want to put fans through something like that again?
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Terry Pluto : Yes, I think they know how painful. I think they know how painful it is. And it, and it is no guarantee. They got good players, some good players out of it. You know, if you kind of roll it back, you got, you got Baker and you got Miles and you got Denzel Ward, although that was in a draft day trade. And then you also, you could say Nick Chubb, but remember, Nick Chubb was actually that weird deal where they took Brock Osweiler’s contract, he got a second round pick for it and they took Chubb. So that really had nothing to do with losing other than you could say, well, they were willing to take on Oswald because they were tanking. Actually. How about this? I got this from a top source. The Browns were planning to start Osciller in 2017 to take a punch, but Hugh Jackson hated us while this, didn’t like him, wasn’t thrilled about him personally, and really did not like him at all as a player. And you said, let’s go with the Sean Kaiser almost. We’re going to be bad, let’s be bad. Well, you were bad. That was the year of, you know, 0 and 17 and, and there. So 0 and 16. Excuse me, but that it was painful to watch. And I really think they’ve decided, you know, they’re going to try and do a little bit of both. You could say a little bit of both get you nowhere. No, I want to see some decent football. You have to put a team on the field that is watchable. That’s kind of my theme for this, should be watchable and likable. I’ll tell you this, when desean Watson was playing for me, it was hard to be told, quote, like the Browns. I didn’t like his body language. You know, he brought all the baggage with him and it was just. And Then I kept hearing, they got to fix the Sean. What about the Sean this, what about the Sean that? It’s not how you win football games. Yeah. You got to tailor your team to your quarterback. But no, it can’t be all about the quarterback who came in here and hadn’t played in 700 days in the. Oh, I’m not even gonna go down that road. But the. It’s this. I think one thing will help the team is this really is a fresh start for the coaching staff, for several of the players, I really believe. When Miles Garrett, remember, he was asked about, do you know who the Browns are going to have it? Quarterback. This was right after he. He resigned his. His extension. Yeah. You’re gonna tell us. No, but it was Flacco. He knew. He loves Flacco. Yeah. And so that was a lot of those guys do. Yeah.
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David Campbell : Yeah.
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Terry Pluto : Well, they think at least he’ll get his lined up right.
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David Campbell : Quarterback play.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. He’s not gonna go and run 120 miles backwards. I mean, what happened with Desean? I’m thinking about it now. His athleticism went. And as it got worse, the things that he used to do to evade tacklers and throw on the runner, he just couldn’t do it. And was it because he was out for so long? This is even before the Achilles stuff and everything.
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David Campbell : All right, we have a really interesting question here, Terry. I want to get into our season predictions and our prediction for Sunday, but this is a really interesting question from listener Terry Ramey. And Terry says, hey, Terry and Dave, I’m wondering about the Browns and just how good or how bad they truly are. And I have come up with my qualifier. If the Browns had Joe Burrow as their quarterback, would they be legit super bowl contenders? Everyone says our defense should be solid this year. We think our offensive line will be good again as long as the starters stay healthy. Our running backs and receivers shouldn’t be liabilities with this adequate offensive line. If we compare ourselves to the Bengals, the only shortcomings I see are the wide receiver room and Joe Burrow. What do you think? Are we only a good QB away? I love listening to your podcast. Thanks for keeping us informed. Thanks for that, Terry. This is a fascinating question, right, Terry? What if Joe Burrow was the quarterback of the Browns?
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Terry Pluto : You’re at nine wins.
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David Campbell : Nine wins.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah.
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David Campbell : I think Joe Burrow would be worth at least three more than whatever they’re gonna get. Yeah, I’m not sure what that number is going to be, but nine might be it, Terry. Right?
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Terry Pluto : Yeah.
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David Campbell : If they were gonna win six or seven. They might win nine or ten.
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Terry Pluto : The secondary really, really worries me with the Browns. And it worries the Browns, I can tell you that Emerson’s injury on and that.
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David Campbell : And Denzel Ward, he. I don’t think he’s played a full season.
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Terry Pluto : No.
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David Campbell : In the last four years.
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Terry Pluto : No. And if the poor guy has another concussion, that’s really scary. But the rest of the front seven, they’re thrilled about and I think we should be pleased. What I did like this year, I was talking to somebody with the Browns too about this and I. And they keep track of this stuff too. It’s like you remember last year in the preseason, the, the defense didn’t look very aggressive and they just. Nothing looked, nothing looked right. You know, this year in the preseason, granted, the starters hardly play, but they were back to that aggressive style of play like they were in 23, when also that was the backups playing. I, I don’t know why this is, but I had a better feeling about that and I, I really believe it’s just a sense of. Well, they’ve injected more talent, you know, with the, with the draft picks. You got Mason Graham and you’ve got Schlesinger. They love Slushinger and some of the others. So they, they really think. I think Malik was saying Molly Collins on the line. They really like him and they’re just. And you see McGuire and Alex Wright at the defensive ends growing and they actually think they’re going to be okay at safety. They think Hickman from Ohio State could. Is going to take a step up. But they are worried about the cornerbacks nonetheless. I, I liked how that defense looked in the preseason. I mean, that’s not everything, but I’d rather have it look good with backups than look bad like last year. Everything looked bad at this point last year. If you go back and assess it how. In terms of like how they looked in the scrimmages and how they looked in the, the preseason stuff.
(00:24:37 - 00:26:14)
David Campbell : Well, and Terry, just like we were talking about, I think the quarterback play in the run game is going to help the defense if they can. If they can get some production out of the offense. Offense, I mean, it is demoralizing when you’re a defensive player and your offense is going three and out every time and you’re having to go out there and every game is long for you. I think if anything the offense can do to shorten things for the defense. I think that’s going to do just a world of good for those guys.
(00:26:15 - 00:26:39)
Terry Pluto : So I would say nine. I mean, they have a winning record with Joe Burrow. 9 and 8. I think that’s what they would, they would do. Yeah.
(00:26:39 - 00:26:46)
David Campbell : I mean, Joe Burrow is just a cold blooded assassin out there, man. Like the thing that the Bengals have not been able to do is keep him upright. They’ve just, their offensive line play has been so bad that it’s just hurt everything that they’re trying to do there. And I don’t know that they’ve solved that. I don’t, I don’t think they have.
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Terry Pluto : I’d like to see him in Kevin’s system too.
(00:27:02 - 00:27:04)
David Campbell : Oh, for sure. With that Browns offensive line. That would be really fun to watch at any rate. So.
(00:27:04 - 00:27:08)
Terry Pluto : I mean, thanks for that question. We, I think we. If you don’t watch a lot of football, you just kind of watch the Browns. I think I fully don’t appreciate how good Burrow is because I’m not a casual NFL fan that goes from game to game to game. I pay attention to, to my team. So fact in general, how I do my job, where you’re supposed to follow all the teams is I pay a lot of attention to the three teams in town in the various sports. But if I just watched all the games all the time, my, my brain would be mush and maybe I’ve seen a lot of games but I couldn’t put a sentence together. And so that’s, that’s why. But I just know talking to other people know a lot more about this than me. How good they believe Burrow is, how respected he is. Like you said that, you know, he’s a big time player and that’s what, you know, it would be nice to have him here. But that’s, it’s a fun, that’s a fun question.
(00:27:08 - 00:28:05)
David Campbell : Yeah. Again, that was from Terry Ramey in North Carolina. And a quick reminder, I don’t think I did this last week, but if you want to email us at Sports Cleveland Cal with any questions, comments, thoughts on the podcast, we will love to get you on next week.
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Terry Pluto : Is it sports? Is that what it is? Sports?
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David Campbell : Sports cleveland.com okay. All right, Terry, do you want to do season predictions first or predictions for Sunday’s game first?
(00:28:19 - 00:28:27)
Terry Pluto : I’ll do Sunday’s game.
(00:28:28 - 00:28:29)
David Campbell : All right, you go first.
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Terry Pluto : Browns win. Could be, could be four to three. Could be 32 to 30. I don’t care. Browns win. Here’s why. Two things. Number one is the Bengals are one and 11 in first and second games this season under Zach Taylor. That’s hard to believe, isn’t it?
(00:28:31 - 00:28:54)
David Campbell : That’s an impressively bad number. And they know it like, they know it. They played the starters a lot more early in the preseason than they normally do because they’re trying to break that cycle. So it’s funny, I was just kind of chuckling when you said the Browns are going to win, because I have him winning, Terry. 20 to 17 on Sunday. And you mentioned the Bengals slow starts to the season. I think if you look at Kevin Stefanski’s time here, the Browns are ready to play in Week one and they’re healthy and when they’re home. So I looked at the. The home openers under Kevin’s defense.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. Because, I mean. I mean, last year, that. I’ll tell you, the other thing that told you was over last year, that game against Dallas. Remember that? The opening game.
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David Campbell : Yes.
(00:29:36 - 00:29:37)
Terry Pluto : Everything I’m throwing last year out in terms of valuation.
(00:29:37 - 00:29:40)
David Campbell : Well, I got. Let’s run through them one by one.
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Terry Pluto : Hold on. Yeah, go ahead. Stay with me. You know what last year was. I’ve had some friends that grew up in really dysfunctional families, and, you know, and. And they’ve ended up doing well through some hard times. And I said, well, what did you learn? He goes, almost my whole growing up in that family taught me what not to do when I became a husband or a wife, what not to do. You know, on the job, it was a whole lesson of what not to do. Last year it should be. And I think it has been more of a lesson for the Browns and what not to do. And furthermore, they weren’t that far away from what to do. So hopefully it’s not like they’re going from what not to do. And I have no clue of what to do now. You know what to do. Go back to doing the things that you try to fix for no good reason a year ago. Go back to 23. Okay, go ahead.
(00:29:41 - 00:30:34)
David Campbell : Outstanding analogy. I love that. Yeah. And it’s. They’re not that far removed from the playoffs, so they do know how to win. So. All right, 2020, they won their home opener. 2021, they won their home opener. 2022, they lost their home opener. And I think that was the jets game when Joe Flacco and the crazy stuff happened at the end. And they lost 31 to 30. Right. So you can barely. I mean, they played well that day. They should have won and they choked it away at the end. So they should have been three in home openers. They won their home opener in 2023. And then you mentioned last year. So I Think the Browns are going to be ready to go, and I think they’re going to want to show people that this is not last season. I think you’re right. I. I don’t know that the talent is going to be there to get them as far as they want to go, but I think they’re going to be ready to go. And now if they were playing 2017, I think you’re right, Terry. It’s going to be close.
(00:30:34 - 00:31:21)
Terry Pluto : Yeah. If they were playing Baltimore. No, I mean, Baltimore, I would take Baltimore. They were playing, you know, Green Bay. Probably not and probably take Green Bay. Although the, you know, I know that, you know, I deplore sports gambling. Just deplore it. But when I talk to these people who actually do all this, they, some of them really are very cautious. These, these people are heavy gamblers. And, and this comes from a long time ago. I mean, this is probably 30 years ago or so back when the Stardust was like to set the lines for the books out in Las Vegas. They were like one of the first to do it. And there was a guy named. I believe his name was Joe Lupo. But anyway, his first name was Joe. He was from Stowe. And a friend of mine was a. This is now a Las Vegas story. I’ve never told one of these. The guy name was Jerry Crawford. He was head of the drama department at unlv. He used to write me when I was like baseball writer at the Point Dealer. And he grew up in Iowa and he loved Bob Feller and became a Cleveland Indians fan. And so I got to know Jerry. I got to see him in spring training. And so I went to Las Vegas to visit him. And he knew these guys at. This guy’s a, by the way, playwright that was off Broadway. He’s in the American Theater hall of Fame for his acting tv. I mean, this guy’s a big deal.
(00:31:21 - 00:32:46)
David Campbell : Theater. Yeah.
(00:32:46 - 00:32:47)
Terry Pluto : So he says, you want to see how this works? So he takes me over the sports book. I meet Joe. He talks about setting the lines or whatever. So we’re talking about different things and, and, you know, he said things like where we really get beat up is on mid. Mid major football and basketball. Oftentimes those gamblers know a little more about that than we do. He also said that Brown’s fans were basically suckers and he could put a line where it shouldn’t be to take their money because I grew up there. And he also said that these guys that are hardcore guys, they tend to be very careful in that first week. I Mean, yeah, these guys, I mean, the betcha is the next guy coming through the, you know, through the door, a man or a woman, they’ll put five bucks down on that. I mean, you know, they’re these. These guys got to have some action in the game. But they were very guarded because he says, you don’t know what you’re getting in. In week number one. And then you get a better idea because he said. And that this was back then when they actually played these guys more in the preseason than they do now. So don’t bet on this week.
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David Campbell : Well, yeah, and I think the Bengals are five and a half point favorite right now, which is. It’s. It’s such a hard game. But if. A lot of times, you know, you have some friends and they make these pools where all you have to do is pick one game a week and who’s going to win, and you go on. You’re right, Terry. The first week, half the field goes out because it’s so hard.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. And what Joe would say been a pizza or something.
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David Campbell : Yeah.
(00:34:11 - 00:34:11)
Terry Pluto : And they. Whatever. Yeah. You know, I’ll throw for the loser. The loser has to buy pizza for everybody, whatever it is. That would be the best. Look at what tips you’ve gotten.
(00:34:11 - 00:34:23)
David Campbell : What do you mean, what tips I’ve gotten on gambling. Oh, yeah.
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Terry Pluto : Skip the first week. Buy pizza.
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David Campbell : Oh, yeah. Only on Terry’s talking. I thought you meant me particularly getting Betty.
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Terry Pluto : No, no, that was it. That was just. That was the best I can do.
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David Campbell : I mean, the only podcast where you can get Earl Weaver stories and gambling tips.
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Terry Pluto : Gambling tips on. Yeah. Le Leaving Las Vegas or whatever it was. And I mean, all right, yeah, he was. It was a very interesting guy. Jerry Crawford. He had two plays that made off Broadway. And it was. And he loved. He absolutely loved baseball. And it was just. It was fascinating to spend that time with Joe because it. And this now, this is before all the algorithms and everything came into play already. They had so much more data to kill people betting on top of it. Now it’s just got to be incredible what they can do.
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David Campbell : Cannot even imagine.
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Terry Pluto : No, we can’t. I couldn’t imagine that stuff. Yeah. But it was. It was interesting. He was talking about the psychology of Browns fans, too. And he goes, and I’m one of them.
(00:35:18 - 00:35:27)
David Campbell : Okay, so let’s do our season predictions here. This one is. We have one from Dave S. And I’ll throw that in there before we do ours. But Dave says Brown’s prediction for 20, 25, 6 and 11 at best. And Stefanski will be sacked finally. So Dave is not predicting a good finish for the Browns or Kevin Stefanski. Want me to go first or do you want to go?
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Terry Pluto : I’ll go.
(00:35:51 - 00:35:51)
David Campbell : All right.
(00:35:52 - 00:35:52)
Terry Pluto : Seven, seven and ten.
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David Campbell : That’s what I have.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. I mean, just. I look back at. They still won three games with, I think, the dumbest play calling you could possibly have had, you know, leading the NFL and passes thrown with a completely dysfunctional and discouraging quarterback situation with. With desean. And finally with this around mid season where they just said, well, we’re just gonna lose and they still won three games. It just shows you in the NFL, if you play organized, competent football, just like, oh, Kevin was able to win a certain amount of games. I forgot whether one, one or two with dtr, he won a game with pj. What was his name? PJ Walker. You can just. Just be normal. I want normal. Normal.
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David Campbell : I think that’s what we’re gonna see. It’s exactly what you’re saying a few minutes ago, Terry. They’re going to go back to what they know best. And what they know best is, is zone blocking, running the ball, play action, you know, and. And good defense, like that’s it. That’s the formula. And they’ve been successful before, just like you were saying. And that’s what we’re going to see.
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Terry Pluto : And I have a lot of.
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David Campbell : Do they have enough talent and how many injuries they’re going to have. Those are the things that are going to determine when. Whether they can win eight games or three. So. Sorry.
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Terry Pluto : No, that’s right. Kick a few field goals when they matter. And then I have a lot of confidence in Schwartz that he’s going to take these younger guys. And I was glad to see that. Gave. They gave him some. Some new toys in the draft.
(00:37:28 - 00:37:42)
David Campbell : All right, so a couple other football things that I wanted to touch on here. Terry, you wrote a column about Arch Manning over the weekend, and the Browns sent a bunch of people to go to the Ohio State Texas game on Saturday, which osu impressively won 14 7. And what did you think of the whole Arch Manning thing? And it kind of taps into this whole hype versus reality thing. But what did you think about the whole Arch Manning experience?
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Terry Pluto : I was talking to an NFL guy and he was just saying how he goes. First of all, he’s talking about the Browns and a lot of guys. He goes for you. You want to. Because you want your people at that game because, well, last year those two teams had 24 players drafted. 24. And the Buckeyes had seven in the top 45 picked. And he says there was probably 20 draft choices out there. Again, Arch Manning is probably not one of them because he needs to play. You know, he had two. He had a grand total of two college starts. One against Louisiana Monroe and the other against Mississippi State. And then he, he came in off the bench and against some of these other teams, I think, like Texas, San Antonio and that, and, you know, kind of patted his stats. So how many people would have been there if his name was Joe Smith?
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David Campbell : I think the same. I do.
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Terry Pluto : I mean, take what he did last year, those stats. Okay, Call him Joe Smith. How many people would you mean?
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David Campbell : How many people from the Browns would have been there? Or scouts? I think. Yeah, I think. And it’s just what you talked about, Terry. Arch Manning, he has not even ruled out going back to Texas next season.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah.
(00:39:29 - 00:39:29)
David Campbell : And people are already penciling in, pencil them into the Browns. And why are the Browns going down to look at this guy, it’s like they’re going down to look at Arvell Reese and Caleb Downs and all. Like you said, there’s, there’s 10 guys on each kid.
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Terry Pluto : What was his name? Donald or Donaldson? The running back from West Virginia.
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David Campbell : Yep.
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Terry Pluto : The NFL guy I was talking to said he thinks he’s going to be a second round pick.
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David Campbell : Yeah. So that’s why the Browns were there. They have an off week. It’s a nice time for them to take a two hour drive.
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Terry Pluto : Bunch of guys. Yeah. And you’ll look at a Manning too. I mean, you can’t help it be intrigued. But I’ll tell you, I watched Belichick play and the, this kid, I think his name was Hoover, that was playing for tcu, he looked like a heck of a lot better NFL prospect right now, today than Arch Manning. I’m not saying that will be a year from now or whatever, but today that guy did well, I, I have.
(00:39:57 - 00:40:22)
David Campbell : To step in and speak up for Arch Manning here because I, you, you did mention his last name and that’s an important thing, I think, like Arch Manning has done nothing but say, listen, I haven’t done anything yet. He’s not one of these guys who comes in, he’s like, I’m the second coming. No, you look at Bryce Underwood, the new quarterback at Michigan, who’s, who was the number one player in, in this year’s recruiting class. He’s starting as a true freshman at Michigan and he’s basically saying, nobody says a true freshman can do anything. But nobody’s ever Seen anybody like me. Right. Arch Manning is not saying that kind of stuff. He’s agreeing with you. Terry says, I have to. I have played very little football, and I haven’t done anything, so I don’t know why people are getting so hyped about me. And he played arguably the best defense in the country.
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Terry Pluto : Yes.
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David Campbell : In his first game of the season. And Matt Patricia, I know he’s getting a lot of credit for what he did with. I could not believe what that Ohio State defense threw at him on Saturday. There were NFL things in there. Usually, you know, you see this with a college team, a new defensive coordinator comes in and it’s like, all right, well, we’re going to start with the basics, and as the season goes along, we’re going to be different in week 10 than we are in week one, because we’re gonna add a bunch of stuff. Well, Ohio State hit the field Saturday and was throwing, like, NFL defenses at Archman that he had never seen before. They had Caleb Downs lined up as a defensive end. The best safety in the country was lined up as a defensive end on one play and then rotated into coverage from that. Like, you don’t see that.
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Terry Pluto : No.
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David Campbell : In week one, it’s.
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Terry Pluto : It was fun. And this other top NFL person I was talking to, and. And I always. The same thing. I’ll say in the broadcast, football is not my game. I mean, I like it and all that, but I feel much more confident talking about baseball and basketball, because those are the two sports. A combination of 13 years I covered full time. My father played in the minors. My brother was an excellent high school basketball and baseball coach. So I grew up with that culture. But nonetheless, I said, just. I said my novice thing, watching that. I said, you could have told me. Other than the quarterback play wasn’t particularly good on either side. I thought, you know, it looked like an NFL game. I said the rest of it, the way. How. How athletic, how fast, how hard they hit, how organized. And you. I said, I didn’t know. They’re like you. You were able to recognize it. They threw a bunch of complicated stuff out there in the first day. He goes, you’re right. He goes, that’s why we watch those teams.
(00:41:53 - 00:42:44)
David Campbell : Yeah. And Joel Clad and Gus Johnson, they’re so good. But there was a play. Joel Clatt pointed this out, and I saw it, too. Arvel Reese, Ohio State’s young, outstanding linebacker from Glenville High. There was one play where he was lined up on the line and he looked out into the flat like he was going to Go into coverage. And then he blitzed.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah.
(00:43:02 - 00:43:02)
David Campbell : And got in there and got a tackle. And it’s week one.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah. Let’s just know they were.
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David Campbell : Dude, I’ve never seen Ohio State do that with Arvella Reese before last season or with many other guys at all.
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Terry Pluto : I mean. I mean, what a. You bet. When Michael Lombardi took the job at North Carolina, he said he’s a general manager, by the way, for Bill Belichick at North Carolina. They have these general manager guys now that basically they watch the portal. Everything else, he goes, we are going to be the 33rd NFL franchise. Well, I got news from Mike. You just saw 33 and 34 out there. The opening day for Ohio State in Texas. And you could throw LSU and you could throw a bunch of like six or eight others are to get up to 40 NFL franchises before anybody’s even going to think about you. And because these have been the farm teams for a long time, I mean, okay, they lose. What’s his name? Knowles. To. Where did it go? Penn State.
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David Campbell : Yeah.
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Terry Pluto : Okay, fine. We’ll just go get an NFL head coach who studied under Bill. Bill Belichick is defensive coordinator.
(00:43:59 - 00:44:04)
David Campbell : Yeah. And just how they installed all that stuff during the off season was. It was. It was really impressive, I gotta tell you. Aside from the results. Just the fact that they were able to do all that stuff and have those guys play so fast the way they did.
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Terry Pluto : Yeah, that’s. That’s what struck me there. And that’s what struck the NFL guy that he. He said, yeah, they ran a lot of interesting stuff and just that it looked like a midseason game.
(00:44:17 - 00:44:28)
David Campbell : All right, well, let’s take a break here, Terry. When we come back, I want to ask you, is it over for the Guardians? And also, I know you want to talk about some of these young guys coming up. We’ll get into that and more when we return on Terry’s Talking. All right, we’re back on Terry’s Talking. Terry, I think during the break, you had another Brown’s thought, an epiphany.
(00:44:28 - 00:44:56)
Terry Pluto : Yes, epiphany from above. Paul Brown just whispered this to me from the grave. He said, do you realize what the Browns did in 24? They wouldn’t bring Joe Flacco back, even though he wanted to, because, well, we don’t want to upset Deshaun Watkins. Deshaun Watson. Excuse me. And so then they realized in the off season, well, that was dumb. Now they’ve brought him back now. But just think how dumb that was. I mean, to their credit, they decided to go back and not to say that Joe’s going to go four and one and throw for 321 yards a game and at 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions in that period. But they also knew, as you mentioned, that line, I think actually was kind of unfairly tagged to, you know, Baker, that we need an adult in a room. Then you go out, go for Sean Watson. I mean, that was. That was crazy, too. But they said, why did we do that? Why did we not take flak? He was sitting there, his agents calling.
(00:44:56 - 00:46:09)
David Campbell : And, yeah, no more bending over for Deshaun Watson.
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Terry Pluto : You’re right. Stop all this stuff. And so that’s. That was again, where I talked about dysfunctional family thing. What we learned to. At least to their credit, they learned. Well, that was dumb.
(00:46:14 - 00:46:24)
David Campbell : Yeah. They’re not bending over backward for desean. They’re not bending over for anybody else. And what. They’re going back to what they know, and I think we’re going to see that. So it’s going to be an interesting season. They might not win a ton of games, but I think we’re going to learn a lot about what’s going on. So. All right, Terry, the Guardians are they. They’re back under 500 after yesterday’s game in Boston, 68 and 69. There are four games out on the wild card, but they’re chasing Seattle, but also Texas, the Royals, Tampa. Do you have any hope, should Guardians fans have any hope here that they can climb back into this and it’s baseball and so crazy things happen. But I’m just having trouble putting it together at this point.
(00:46:25 - 00:47:07)
Terry Pluto : I think we’re at the point where you are what your record is. There are 500 team. The crazy thing about them was, remember they lost 10 in a row. Then I believe they won 20 out of 27. Then they lost nine out of 10. That told you right there. So in other words. But if you put them all together. So they were 1 in 19 and they were 20 and 7, then of course they finally won, what, four in a row, I think it was. And then they turned around and now, you know, they’re losing again. So base. That’s kind of what they are. They just don’t hit enough to sustain it and say what they want, oh, we’ll be fine. Without Emmanuel Cost. Say, no, you’re not. No, you’re not. You found a lot of class A. If he was doing some of the things he’s, you know, accused of or whatever, but in general, you were always able to build that bullpen from the back, back end from Class A going forward. And you see K. Smith now is struggling. And you’re also seeing the manager using these guys over multiple innings after they’ve been trained to go an inning at a time because he doesn’t have classic.
(00:47:09 - 00:48:32)
David Campbell : And going to six starters, right, in an attempt to maybe ease the load on the bullpen. You know, we, we all the time here in the NFL, Terry, about how the quarterback is the most important player in the game. And you could probably make an argument that the closer is the most important player on a baseball team, right?
(00:48:32 - 00:48:49)
Terry Pluto : One of the most. Yeah. I mean, your closer, your, your, your, your queen up hitter, all that. I remember John Hart telling me that. He said, if I can get a closer, I will have a good bullpen. If I don’t have a good closer, I won’t have a good bullpen, even though I may have some other guys that are pretty good. And that’s why the biggest thing went back into in 1995 was when he put Jose Mesa in as a close or failed starter with a good arm. Because in 94, they went through a bunch of guys who. I forgot, doesn’t matter. And Mesa had a year, one of the greatest years ever, closing games. And then all of a sudden, Asa Macher, Eric Plunk, all these other guys kind of fit in right behind him and they had just a great bullpen. And if you look here, you know, different years, even when Joe, Joe borowski somehow say 41 games with like a five ERA, because remember that the ninth inning basically is pass fail. Either either do it or you don’t. Wickman, you get those guys they, you know, scare in a save. Earl Weaver used to call it with a guy named Stanhouse, but that, but you either do it or you don’t. But you just see, to me, I see the bullpen worn down and I also look at, you know, guy pitches a third of an incense out for the next day. Now one many of us growing up, that was not a big deal because guys were expected to throw multiple innings. Isn’t it strange, you know, Carter starters can’t go more than 90 or 100 pitches. Guys are only supposed to pitch one inning and they still get 40% of them have Tommy John surgery. Just throw that in there.
(00:48:50 - 00:50:35)
David Campbell : All right, well, you’ve been talking a lot about Class A here. We do have an email from Jan Oros. I hope I got your last name right, Jan. And Jan says, hey, Terry, now that the paid leave suspensions of Emmanuel Class A and Luis Ortiz are continued indefinitely by MLB and agreed to buy the Players Association. Who exactly is paying the salaries? The guardian solely. Is it insurance backed? Doubtful. Is MLB sharing in this cost of players for whom the team did not trade or play? I agree that MLB gained financially from the new sports betting agreements. So they did have a hand in creating this environment of player temptations. What a deep mess on so many fronts ditching the season. I also wanted to say that I grew up in Cuyahoga Falls reading the Beacon Journal sports pages and my mom who passed away two years ago would go to your book signings for the Faith Series and made sure year I had the book to read I was a caregiver for both my mom and dad now passed away. And your writings in the Sunday Faith columns ring so true. Kind regards, Jan Oros. Thanks Jan. Very touching.
(00:50:37 - 00:51:38)
Terry Pluto : Paul. Didn’t Paul, didn’t Hoyncy have a thing that the team’s paying it?
(00:51:39 - 00:51:42)
David Campbell : Yeah, the team is paying it. I, I’m trying to think of this, Terry as this is not much different than if a player gets hurt, right? It’s kind of the same deal. You, you pay the salary and that’s just the way it is.
(00:51:42 - 00:51:53)
Terry Pluto : I mean to, to the point here for in baseball standards with all that between Ortiz and Class A, maybe this is costing the team $2 million for the last couple months they missed not a whole lot of money. But it’s more importantly it just, I just think it rock the bullpen even though they, they got by for a while. And that also means, you know, next year, you know, whether you’re gonna go with Kate Smith or not, you know, that ninth inning. There’s a reason there aren’t that many good closers out there and it isn’t because the guys lack the physical ability. It is a mental situation. It’s walking into that room after you blew the game and feeling about 2 inches tall and can you get yourself back together for the next day?
(00:51:53 - 00:52:47)
David Campbell : Well, I’m looking forward to Terry. I know that Hoinse and Joe Noga on their latest Cleveland baseball talk podcast. This is going to throw the off season into just chaos in the bullpen because like you said, they had Class A locked up on a team friendly contract. I think it was 10 million next year.
(00:52:49 - 00:53:06)
Terry Pluto : No, 6.
(00:53:06 - 00:53:08)
David Campbell : 6.
(00:53:08 - 00:53:08)
Terry Pluto : 6. And then. No, I mean this is incredible. 6. That’s why I was against trading him back when that talk was coming up. Then you have two team options for 10 and 10.
(00:53:08 - 00:53:18)
David Campbell : That’s right. It was 6, 10, 10.
(00:53:18 - 00:53:20)
Terry Pluto : So yeah, he’s at 4 this year. So here’s the crazy thing that he just did. He probably just threw away $26 million.
(00:53:20 - 00:53:28)
David Campbell : One from we don’t know point of view. They. They have to reshuffle this whole deck in the off season. Assuming they have to assume that he’s not going to be back ever.
(00:53:30 - 00:53:38)
Terry Pluto : Right. And. Or, you know, in the. Suppose they decided, see this year just didn’t go well and you end up around.500. Now, offseason comes, you say maybe it is time to trade Classe and you look at what those other teams are getting for closers. And on top of it, his contract is so team friendly you could have got a boatload of guys. Because Classe, to his credit, has never really been hurt. He remember he had a little bit of a tired arm early in the season. I mean, the crazy thing is I had his stats from like June 1st or whatever to when he was. I keep saying suspended, whatever you want to call it. He had an area like 1.8 in there, so I don’t know what he was doing. I. This is. The whole thing’s nuts. Yeah.
(00:53:38 - 00:54:27)
David Campbell : All right, let’s move into kind of what’s next here. I know you’ve. You’ve been writing a lot about. Oh, yeah.
(00:54:27 - 00:54:35)
Terry Pluto : Good. Before we get to the prospects.
(00:54:35 - 00:54:36)
David Campbell : Sure.
(00:54:36 - 00:54:37)
Terry Pluto : I sent a thing of. I sent you of the position players, young position players. Arias, Rocchio, Naylor, Manzardo, Martinez. You know, they opened the door for a lot of these guys to play. Nolan Jones. Which of the young position players would you say at least met expectations this season?
(00:54:37 - 00:55:03)
David Campbell : The only one who I would say clearly past that line is Kyle Manzardo. I. I’m trying to project forward and I think Rokio, there’s something there. If they can just get more consistency out of him, I think he could be a really good major league middle infielder for them for years. And you’ve talked about him and how impressed you’ve been with his defense.
(00:55:03 - 00:55:23)
Terry Pluto : I really. At Second base?
(00:55:23 - 00:55:25)
David Campbell : Yeah. Yeah.
(00:55:26 - 00:55:26)
Terry Pluto : But I like short, but I really like him at second.
(00:55:26 - 00:55:29)
David Campbell : But the rest of these guys, like, I’m trying to think like a Guardians fan here and find reasons to be excited and I’m just not seeing much. What are you seeing, Terry?
(00:55:29 - 00:55:36)
Terry Pluto : I’m seeing disappointment. I mean, Antonetti talked a lot about we’re going to open up opportunities for these guys. That’s what he called it. Well, they did Angel Martinez, who I liked, I thought would do something. He’s just been horrible, especially since the All Star break. I think he’s hitting like 200, you know, areas. I don’t know. I just got a bad feeling. He’s sort of going to be a te. You know, that’s. That’s kind of it. Nolan Jones. I’ve just. I’m Nolan Jones doubt, you know, I just have seen so much. You know, Cafes is really struggling now. I think he’s hitting.180 or 190, but he hasn’t been up that long. But they, they did create opportunities and no one took it.
(00:55:37 - 00:56:22)
David Campbell : And that’s rough because like you said, when they come, when they go to thread the needle, they need veterans who are going to produce and then they sprinkle in these young guys and if they’re not getting any production, them for. From the young guys. Nolan Jones reminds me of when I go to play golf and I shoot like a hundred, but on hole 18, I get a par.
(00:56:25 - 00:56:41)
Terry Pluto : Yeah.
(00:56:42 - 00:56:42)
David Campbell : And then I want to come back and play again. And I just. Yeah, I just. I don’t see like consistent production coming from any of these guys in the future. I. I hope I’m wrong for Guardians fan sake, but. Yeah, they’ve got to reevaluate everything this offseason and decide how they want to go.
(00:56:42 - 00:56:59)
Terry Pluto : So, I mean, I’m looking at a couple of things. This is as of a couple of days ago. I mean, Manzardo, while I was hitting.233. His OPS is.780. And I think he’s got 24 homers since the All Star break. He’s hitting.270. And. But the other guy since the All Star break. Listen, these batting averages. Rokio.268. And I don’t want to get into OPS or whatever, but the. When the batting average is out, well, you’re bad. Okay. Jose’s only at. 247. Quan at 247. Both of them. Schneemann. 224. Martinez. 200. This is all since the all star break. Areas. 198. Bull neighbor sitting. 191. But that’s better than his regular season average. This is in the 170s. Austin Hedges. 189. Nolan Jones. 188. K. Fitz. 184. David Fry. 160. All since the All Star break. And when you have talk about young players, sometimes they begin to play better in the second half. Not now.
(00:56:59 - 00:58:08)
David Campbell : All right, well, let’s look ahead to the future, Terry and I know you’ve been talking to some people in the Guardians organization about some of the guys coming up through the minors. Anybody you Want to kind of highlight on. I think there’s a couple here. Yeah, that’s right. You just went, you went to see the Rubber Ducks play. I forgot about that.
(00:58:10 - 00:58:26)
Terry Pluto : Okay. Ralphie Vasquez, who to me was in that annoying Mic’d up commercial, remember that? The start of the year for the Guardian season. Not his fault. There’s just the way they presented it. This guy, second round pick a couple years ago, he’s hitting, he’s got 22 homers now between quasi and double A.261. Batting average.880 or something. OPS. Here’s what’s even more impressive. He moved from Lake county to double Akron and 17 games at double Akron hitting.348 with five homers. And generally Eastern League is kind of tough. For example, Rosario, the guy that they got for Eli Morgan. I do like Rosario for the year he’s hitting, he’s hitting like 251. He’s got 20 homers. But since he moved up, it’s only 89 point appearances. But since he moved up to Double A, it’s 191 with 35 strikeouts in 89 at bats. I think he’s a guy. He. He’s got a little bit of the kind of Noel, you know, big swing, big guy, but he’s more athletic. Although Noel’s pretty athletic too. I. I gotta hesitate on that. He is good there. But. So those two. But they’re. They’re intriguing. Vasquez, a guy.
(00:58:26 - 00:59:55)
David Campbell : Velasquez.
(00:59:56 - 00:59:57)
Terry Pluto : Velasquez, yes, Velasquez. Ralphie. I like Ralphie. That’s a cool name. Yeah. And then now here’s another thing where we talk about going A to double A and this is sometimes double A to Triple A. Connor Inge, the catcher that could hit overall hitting.259,798 OPS, nine homers, just moved up to Triple A from Double A.156 and 45 at bats. But this is only his second full year as a pro, so we’ll wait to see.
(00:59:57 - 01:00:31)
David Campbell : So Cooper Engel, I think his defensive skills have kind of been what they really want to focus on developing. But we’ve seen a lot of guys move from catcher to other positions. Outfield, first base, Carla and Santana being one of them. Do you think Engel projects as a catcher down the road or do you get a sense of that yet?
(01:00:32 - 01:00:50)
Terry Pluto : Yes, they definitely want it to work because I think they look at their catching prospects and what do you got so that they want to work on that? And as he Said that very few organizations. Now he was a catcher at Clemson so he played big time ball. But very few organizations throw as much at their catchers as these guys do. Now a guy that I like when they got him simply because I have some friends at Wake Forest and they were telling about Josh Hartle was a guy. This is the loan, maybe the lone hope in the trade for Andres Jimenez because it was, it was Ortiz they got. It was a three way deal and they also got this guy Josh Hartle and another high school pitcher named Kennedy Hartle started the year at class A. I think he was 9 and 1 and he just moved up to double A and this is his first full pro season and his last start out 2 runs and 6 innings on the year he’s 10 and 3 with a 254 ERA left handed pitcher. Again, first full year he was a, it was a, it was a strange career. David is in 2023 he was terrific. He was like first team all American and all this. At Wake Forest he stayed and his ERA was under three. Then in 24 he decides he’s going to try to get more velocity or something. This was, this almost sounds like the Browns offensive approach. So he changed his stuff around which was working fine for him. Era almost a five.
(01:00:50 - 01:02:33)
David Campbell : Oh I think, I think you said wrote recently 5.79. Yeah, it was closer to six even.
(01:02:34 - 01:02:39)
Terry Pluto : What was going on with this guy? So they, the Pirates drafted him anyway I think second or third round. And so he was getting that he was taken there and he’s back pitching like he did when he was a first team all American. And I saw him pitch the other day. He’s kind of got the three quarter sidearm thing from the left side but he buries that stuff in on the right hander’s fist. He’s the kind of guy that could come up quickly. So there’s just a couple of guys. Another guy that.
(01:02:39 - 01:03:10)
David Campbell : Sorry Terry. So he’s like six six right Hartle. Does he come across when you watch him as like a hard, hard, physically dominant left big lefty or does he see more finesse?
(01:03:11 - 01:03:21)
Terry Pluto : Okay, finesse. Yeah. Middle 90s. I mean low to middle 90s more there but more like knows what he’s doing and that probably was it. He probably wanted to go throw. Not like all these guys. I gotta throw 97. No, you don’t just stop unless you good or else go get your Tommy John. I mean I’m sick of this stuff. They get these guys, they go to these, you know, these super a Clinics and they’re going to get all this new methods of gaining velocity and when really the bottom line is to get people out or not. And so Hartle is encouraging a guy that I have not seen pitch but I hear good things about. His name is Austin Peterson. He’s more again of a Ben Lively type or whatever. He doesn’t throw super hard. He started this year at akron. He was 4 and 2 at a 147. He’s just gone up to AAA and his ERA there is 422. So those are just some guys to look at. And now there’s Travis, Travis Bazzano. I don’t know what to make of this, Dave. I’m just going to tell you his stats from AAA. He’s got 89 plate appearances. He’s walked 22 times. He struck out 21 times. Remember, 89 plate appearances. He’s batting 194 with three doubles.
(01:03:21 - 01:04:42)
David Campbell : That’s rough. Overall pick in the draft.
(01:04:45 - 01:04:48)
Terry Pluto : Yeah. And what’s with all these walks and all these strikeouts? It’s strange. They’ll always say, oh, he’s coming around and this and that and he had the oblique. But they were hoping for more than this.
(01:04:48 - 01:05:03)
David Campbell : We do have a little good news on Travis Bazana if you want to hear this email from Listener. This is from Listener. Dean Mahavlik or Mahavlich. I hope I didn’t get your last name wrong there, Dean. Dean says, I live in Columbus and my 9 year old grandson and I go to a lot of Clippers games. Last Friday we got to the park early hopefully to see batting practice, but there was no batting practice. Instead we watch the players warm up and stretch and throw. Your favorite, Terry, the weighted balls against the wall. And the players, especially the pitchers, were throwing the football around to loosen their shoulders and some.
(01:05:05 - 01:05:37)
Terry Pluto : Okay, I’m okay with soccer ball.
(01:05:37 - 01:05:39)
David Campbell : Yeah.
(01:05:39 - 01:05:40)
Terry Pluto : Are you okay with throwing football? I’m okay with throwing football, yeah.
(01:05:40 - 01:05:43)
David Campbell : All right. And Dean says at the Clippers ballpark there’s four big windows, especially out in right field where you could watch the game. Of course they have bars on them, but it’s a nice feature. So we were there talking to the players who were warming up and my 9 year old grandson asks Travis Bazan if he could sign his bobblehead. Travis said, are you going to the game? We said yes. And Travis said, be sure to come over to the dugout before the game. So we went outside to the dugout and unfortunately there were too many people and the game was about to start. So Travis Went into the dugout to get ready to play. Now here is the cool thing. After the game, there were a few autograph seekers by the dugout and Travis remembered my grandson and told him to get his bobble out and he would sign it. Luckily, I was two rows behind them and I handed it to my grandson and Travis signed it. So Travis found my grandson in the small crowd of autograph seekers and signed the bobblehead in my book and my grandson’s book. He’s a great guy who honors what he says. I hope he has a great career.
(01:05:43 - 01:06:38)
Terry Pluto : Okay.
(01:06:38 - 01:06:39)
David Campbell : He made a nine year old boy very, very happy and me extremely happy. Thanks, Dean Mihavlich, I love your podcast. Thanks, Dean. That’s a wonderful story. Give us news on guardian prospects.
(01:06:39 - 01:06:50)
Terry Pluto : Yeah, when I went out to interview Bazana, this is in 23, after he, excuse me, last year, after he had signed in 24. And he’s playing at Lake county. So I’m waiting for him. There was like 15 or 20 kids. They had just played a double header, I believe, and he signed the 15 or 20 kids. Autographs went in there and then he knew I was waiting for him, came out and talked to me for about as long as I needed, like 20 some minutes. And then when I said Akron the other day, I was asking the Akron people, how was he? Great guy. He worked super hard, great with the fans, if anything. What I hear is he’s so obsessed with video scouting reports, all that. It’s like he almost needs to take a deep breath. He’s pushing so hard to be good. I mean, he had a great career at Oregon State, which is where Steven Kwan went. And a lot of great career players went and did very well in the majors. So I think there’s hope for them. But the stats are just really, really odd.
(01:06:50 - 01:07:56)
David Campbell : Well, you see this a lot too, Terry. With number one overall picks, like, some guys get it right away and some guys, it takes them a while. Look at what Nick Kurtz is doing with the A’s this year. Like that he was drafted behind Travis Pizzana, right? And he’s already having an incredible major league season this year. It might take Pisana a year or two.
(01:07:58 - 01:08:19)
Terry Pluto : I asked around that why.
(01:08:19 - 01:08:21)
David Campbell : Might never happen. You never know.
(01:08:21 - 01:08:22)
Terry Pluto : You know, why didn’t somebody else take Kurt’s higher too? I asked around some people. He had had some shoulder problems earlier and there was a little bit of a. I would say a caution flag, not a red flag for him. Medically, it’s. It’s just odd. The whole thing’s odd.
(01:08:23 - 01:08:40)
David Campbell : Well, it’ll be an important off season for him, there’s no doubt about that. So. And for a lot of these guys you’re mentioning. So, all right, you got anything else on the Guardians or do you want to wrap up here?
(01:08:41 - 01:08:50)
Terry Pluto : I think that’ll do it.
(01:08:51 - 01:08:52)
David Campbell : All right, here’s our final email and it comes from Steve. And we were talking last week at the end of podcast Terry. We got an email about nicknames and how there’s not a lot of great nicknames in sports anymore. So Steve writes in he says, hello, Terry and David. Last week you read a letter that was pleading for new and better nicknames for athletes. First of all, I agree 100%. I love creative and catchy sports nicknames. They add fun and flavor to the game and can make otherwise somewhat forgettable athletes memorable. I have zero reason to remember obscure Browns running back Tim Manoa, but he was nicknamed the Tonga Truck and that still makes me chuckle to this day. Likewise with Big Daddy Carl Hairston, who I mostly recall that he would take a break after plays, always the last guy to get up off the ground after a tackle. Eddie the Assassin Johnson is another solid one. And I think the nickname master himself, Chris Berman of espn, coined Reggie Foghorn Langhorn.
(01:08:52 - 01:09:46)
Terry Pluto : Oh, yeah. All right, I got one.
(01:09:47 - 01:09:50)
David Campbell : Let me finish here.
(01:09:50 - 01:09:51)
Terry Pluto : Oh, well, there’s more.
(01:09:51 - 01:09:53)
David Campbell : Yeah, there’s more. Yeah. And of course, who can forget Gerald The Ice Cube McNeil? Probably the best and most apropos Browns nickname as it works on two levels, Ice cold coolness and size. I have two more for you, my buddies and I always like the Tominator for Jim Tony. I don’t know if that was ever used more than once in public, but it was and still is used in plenty in my group. And possibly the most ridiculously obscure one that I think is so funny, MLB journeyman Ron Kittle, who played for the Indians only one season in the mid-80s. Somewhere out there on the radio, TV or TV, someone called him Ron Kittles and hits and he hit a homer in a game I went to. So of course I’ll always remember that and how to navigate and not how to navigate my phone settings. So he’s saying he’ll always remember that nickname but not how to work his phone. Good luck having good luck having to ingest and discuss the Browns every week until January. I pray for you both. Thanks, Steve.
(01:09:53 - 01:10:46)
Terry Pluto : All right, here’s one.
(01:10:47 - 01:10:48)
David Campbell : All right.
(01:10:48 - 01:10:48)
Terry Pluto : Player obscure nickname and was kind of a one that was the reflect clubhouse humor which there this is in the early 80s the Indians had a player named Rodney Craig. It was an obscure outfielder. He had a big head and a big helmet and they all just called him Buckethead.
(01:10:49 - 01:11:12)
David Campbell : Nice. Like that one.
(01:11:13 - 01:11:15)
Terry Pluto : Yes. And poor Buckethead. It. Unfortunately for him it did stick. And also unfortunately for him wasn’t much of a career. But I do remember when you talk about nicknames that have that. So.
(01:11:15 - 01:11:31)
David Campbell : And now he’s a famous musician. Buckethead the musician. Terry, you might not have seen Buckethead. He actually wears a bucket on his head. Oh, yeah. I don’t think it’s the same.
(01:11:31 - 01:11:39)
Terry Pluto : Rodney had only known that.
(01:11:39 - 01:11:41)
David Campbell : That’s right. He could have made it big. Could have been a contender.
(01:11:41 - 01:11:44)
Terry Pluto : Don’t they. The. The Guardians were giving away Jose Ramirez bucket hats. Remember that? Those kind of floppy hats.
(01:11:44 - 01:11:53)
David Campbell : Yeah, the old bucket hat. So. All right. I think that’s it. We good, Terry?
(01:11:53 - 01:11:58)
Terry Pluto : Yes. All right.
(01:11:58 - 01:11:59)
David Campbell : Send us. Send us questions, emails, nicknames, some of your favorite nicknames from over the years in Cleveland Sports. We’d love to read some more of those again. You can hit us@sports cleveland.com and put Terry’s talking in the subject line. We’ll have a lot to talk about next week. Browns. We’ll see how the Guardians are doing if they can get back in it. We will see you then on Terry’s talkin.
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