CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s a holiday-week edition of the Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. In today’s episode, they talk about Shedeur Sanders, the upcoming NFL draft and the options the Browns have heading into 2026.
Also, they discuss the Cavs and whether Terry thinks they are shedding some of their losing habits.
They also get into the Guardians, and some listener emails about making MLB’s financial playing field more fair.
Highlights:
The big question: Is Shedeur Sanders the Browns’ long-term answer at quarterback? His development is a work in progress amidst a poor offense.
A compelling case for the Browns to use a high draft pick on a “sure thing” wide receiver like Carnell Tate instead of a risky QB, providing a reliable weapon for the next decade.
The offensive line is a top priority for a complete overhaul, with a need to invest heavily in the draft and free agency to find a cornerstone “10-year left tackle.”
Jerry Jeudy’s disappointing season raises questions about his future with the team given his large contract.
After a shaky start, kicker Andre Szmyt has become a reliable and above-average weapon, solidifying a key position for the Browns.
Quarterback Dillon Gabriel is largely viewed as a long-term backup, a role highlighted by fan reactions during a recent game appearance.
A debate emerged comparing the calm demeanor of Browns coach Kevin Stefanski to the fiery, culture-changing style of Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, questioning which approach is better for a struggling team.
The modern college football landscape, with NIL and the transfer portal, allows for much faster program turnarounds than the more structured team-building environment of the NFL.
Cavs guard Darius Garland has shown a recent resurgence, playing more like the dynamic, aggressive offensive player he has been in the past.
Despite a recent win, the Cavs’ defense remains a major concern, as they continue to struggle with transition defense and rebounding.
The Cavaliers are criticized for their heavy reliance on high-volume three-point shooting, with suggestions they should focus more on attacking the paint.
There’s a belief that the Cavaliers’ offense functions best when center Jarrett Allen is happy and actively involved as more than just a screener.
Fans expressed grave concern over MLB’s official partnerships with sports betting companies, fearing it compromises the game’s integrity.
Frustration is mounting over MLB’s slow action in the gambling case involving Guardians players, especially when compared to the NBA’s swift response in similar situations.
A top offseason wish for the Guardians is to trade from their pitching depth to acquire a much-needed right-handed power-hitting outfielder.
The system allowing wealthy MLB teams to sign “ready-made” international players is debated as unfair, sparking ideas for creating more parity for smaller markets.
The lack of playing time for offensive lineman Zak Zinter, despite numerous injuries, raises questions about his future with the Browns.
Here’s the podcast for this week:
If you have 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.
Also, a transcript of the podcast is below. As it is computer-generated, it may contain many spelling and grammar errors.
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David Campbell: Talking podcast. This will be the last one we’re doing until the new year. Terry, how are you?
Terry Pluto: I’m getting ready to just have a great Christmas week podcast.
David Campbell: Me too. Let’s do it.
Terry Pluto: How’s that?
David Campbell: Yeah, so we actually have a at least one Christmas themed email. So that’s good.
Terry Pluto: Very good.
David Campbell: Why don’t we get into the Brown since they’re. My head is spinning by the way.
Terry Pluto: You know, my fate before you go. My, my, you know, my calm over the weekend and it’s the follow up, you know, man plans and God laughs. Do you think that might apply to what you’re going to talk about just.
David Campbell: Now with the Browns. The Browns playing and God laughs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you haven’t read Terry’s faith in you column from the weekend, go check it out. It’s@cleveland.com Pluto it’s about how you can plan all you want, but things are going to happen. Right? So.
Terry Pluto: Right.
David Campbell: All right, so why don’t we start here with the Browns lost to the bills 23 to 20. It was closer than a lot of people thought. We have an email here from Harvey C. To start us off. He says, I do believe the Browns need a veteran presence that has the accountability and reliability, but they also need to stop talking about that they need another qb. We have one standing right in our face. Just get more reliable players, especially an offensive line as well as receivers and a coach who speaks more about the situation at hand. Thanks, Harvey. All right, so why don’t we start with Shador Sanders? This is the big overriding question right now. What did he show you on Sunday and how are you feeling about this? All ties together. This is why my brain is kind of scrambled.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: The Browns after this week could be up to number two in the draft order. And we can talk about that in a minute. But it comes back to the most important question is do you go into next season planning to have Shadour Sanders as your starter or are you in the camp of it’s too early to tell or are you out on him? How do you feel right now as we tape this on December 23rd, Terry?
Terry Pluto: I mean, it’s wishy washy, but it’s too early to tell. I mean, you look at his overhaul, stats are not very good. And then you turn around, you look at who he’s playing with and that’s not very good. And you ask yourself though, would they be better off if they decide to go, Shador, I want a veteran. I mean a real veteran. That can play.
David Campbell: Not just, not just Deshaun Watson.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, Bailey Zappy, you know, something like that. I mean, I’d want a real player and I just think that that would be the way to go. I haven’t watched the quarterbacks enough. I watched more for Oregon the other day and that looks like some of the Ohio State games last year where Howard just dropped back to throw and four guys are open all the time and it just, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a good test. I need to look at some film of him and those is pretty good. I don’t know. How do you feel? Let’s, let’s talk about those guys a little bit. We have plenty of time to do more. But initial reaction to the college quarterbacks. Yeah.
David Campbell: All right, well, I guess we can get into this. So here’s what I’m thinking. So after this weekend, so the draft order right now, the Browns are number three, right? And the two teams ahead of them, the Raiders and the giants are both 2 and 13 and the Browns are 3 and 12. The Giants and the Raiders are playing each other this week. So one of them is going to lose and that would put them behind the Browns and the Browns would move up to number two in the draft. So let’s assume, I mean, there’s a lot of things that are going to happen between now and the draft, right? We’re going to be talking about this a lot. But, but here’s, here’s where I’m at, Terry. I want to bounce this off you and see what you think. If you draft a quarterback, let’s say it’s Mendoza or more at the number two spot, right? If you’re number two, you’re guaranteed to get one of those two guys. If you like them both, what happens next season, Right. You’ve already got a 5th round pick and a 3rd round pick from last year that you took in the draft with Sanders and Dylan Gabriel. So I added up those points. Those two picks that the Browns use in 2025 are equivalent to like an early second rounder, like the 36th and 37th pick in the draft. And now you’re going to add the number two pick in the draft to that. So you’ve got three young quarterbacks and if the quarterback pick doesn’t work out or if all three guys don’t work out, what are you left with from this draft? You’ve basically, it’s not a sure thing, right? Quarterbacks are not a sure thing. So here’s where I’m at right now. On December 23rd as we’re taping this. I really feel like the Browns should go like receiver, like Carnell Tate from Ohio State is a. I’m seeing him mocked to the Browns in a lot of places. He’s a sure thing.
Terry Pluto: He’s a big time player.
David Campbell: He’s big. He catches contested balls. And name me an Ohio State receiver under Brian Hartline since he became the receivers coach there, who has underachieved all of those guys. Chris Olave, Jackson Smith and Jigba. Right. You just, you go down the list.
Terry Pluto: It’s.
David Campbell: Every one of them has, has been a good. It’s a great NFL player so far. And I’m, I’m right now I’m of the opinion of like take Carnell Tate. He’s a sure thing grab. There’s a lot of tackles who are going to be available with the second pick that they have from Jacksonville. And if Shador Sanders and Dylan Gabriel don’t work out, what do you have left? You have left two starters who can be on your team for the next seven to 10 years and you’re on your way. So that’s where I’m at today. What do you think of my crazy.
Terry Pluto: I can change. Well, the. Or you, if you decide to do that, you could do the same thing they did with the second pick last year. Trade down a couple of notches. You pick up a first. You pick up a second because remember, they got a second in that trade too.
David Campbell: Right.
Terry Pluto: You get a first the following year and then you say you got your. You know, you got. Basically you probably would have say three picks in the first 40, something like that with your own second, the second from the other team, say the fifth or sixth pick, you fix your line there, you get a couple of guys right there and you could probably get a receiver that would be. Now you have to do it right. You know, Andrew Berry, I think people would generally say did this last draft. Right. Which was not. Something was said about him before.
David Campbell: But we’ve heard from so many of our listeners. Terry, it’s like, no. And you’ve said this, no quarterback would look good playing in this offense.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: And I mean the Joe Flacco factor is all the evidence you need. Like he got off to a terrible start with the Browns. They traded him Cincinnati and he goes down there and he’s thrown for 300 yards a game because yeah, they have two excellent receivers. And I’m just trying to think like, what would Shador Sanders. Look there were glimpses of this on Sunday, like, what would Shador Sanders look like in a comp behind a competent offensive line and with two guys who can go catch the ball. I would be really interested to see that.
Terry Pluto: Right. And I think that you look at him, he’s got the size. I like the way he started to run the ball and slide too after he got the first downs.
David Campbell: Very smart.
Terry Pluto: I like how he’s been starting to throw the ball out of bounds. I mean, he’s had to learn. We’ve discussed this before, but it needs to keep being underlined. He started at a disadvantage because he was in a shelter football environment with his father, playing only for his father and playing in simplistic offenses. That’s a fact. The sure fans could scream, pound the table all they want. That has been a problem. The great thing about Chador is his willingness to basically come in before school early and stay after school late to get, you know, coached up. And he’s learning as he goes along. I mean, one of the things they wanted to do this last week was simply to throw more completions. And they did that, you know, because before it was almost 50% as fast as. Well, I remember when I was a kid, one of those stories. But if you completed 50 to 55% of your passes, that was considered pretty good. Yeah, no, I mean, you got to be almost, you know, low to middle 60s to be just pretty good and even higher. The odd thing is, you know, I believe Shedeur completed 73% of his passes at Colorado last year. But I also think that, you know, it’s just a different ball game and it’s harder for these guys.
David Campbell: So Sanders was 20 of 29 against the Bills for 157. He had a touchdown, two interceptions, one which was the one off of Quinchan. Judkins chest was a Tough1, a 64.9 rating. And we saw some good things. Yeah, I don’t know anything else on Shadow Sanders. Terry. I’m trying to think.
Terry Pluto: People about Dylan Gabriel. Gabriel’s going to be a backup. That’s. I think he’s going to be a backup for a long time. I did write a column that’s up now and be in Wednesday’s paper. I mean, how would you like to be Dylan Gabriel? I mean, you walk in the game, people are booing. And granted they’re really booing because they thought they took Shador out for whatever nefarious reason or conspiracy theory they have. But it’s like the kids coming in there. And of course, I really love how after the game Shador talked about man I put that brawl in a bad spot. You know, remember Shredder got his foot stepped on or his finger stepped on or whatever it was. And because he says, man, you get no reps this, and they throw you right in there. And he said, I know how that is. Now. He didn’t know how that was till this year. And that is another good thing that he had this year was suddenly he is not the, you know, anointed son of the coach and the anointed one on the field. And that is a good thing when people have to go out. And if he ends up being a starter in this league, he’s earned it. That’s what this is going to be about. It’s not like he was handed the position at all. And I think all those things are good. I can’t tell how good he’s going to be, David. I just can’t because it’s a rough situation here. And, you know, he has some. He still has some real flaws. He hangs on the ball too long. He’s getting hit way too much, and we’ll see. But I do like the size that he has. It seems like he could throw an accurate, deep ball. And just like his. I do like his poise and his presence on dealing with adversity.
David Campbell: Yeah, those have all been positives. And it’s. It’s one of those things, Terry. I, I didn’t hear the booing until I was watching the game back. Yeah, but the Shador Sanders fans, a lot of them are very on edge about everything all the time. I just, We’ve talked about this, like, if everybody just takes the temperature down, like, Dylan Gabriel was thrown into the game because Shador Sanders had a giant piece of flesh hanging off of his pinky. Right. Right everywhere. And he needed to get fixed so he could throw the football. But, like, people thought that the Browns were putting Dylan Gabriel out there to. To stick it to Shador or hold him back. All these theories we’re hearing about Browns holding him back. So, yeah, just like, we need to let this play out. I think we might be. We might feel differently about this in a couple of weeks after we see the last two games.
Terry Pluto: But, but, but to the, to the point that you have and the underlying problems of the offensive line, I mean, right now, basically, Batoni will be the only probably starter coming back. I mean, I know they’ll say Dawan Jones, but I mean, what do you make of him? He can’t stay healthy. He’s been hurt the last two years. Conklin’s Done. They’re not going to bring back or.
David Campbell: I think they need to take a different approach next year and assume that just like you said, they can’t. Nobody’s starting. They just assume that they have no starters. Unless like you said, Boutonio comes back.
Terry Pluto: But I mean they gotta go have a couple drafts like when Joe Thomas and Betonia were picked. But Tony, it was the second round pick. You know, Thomas was with the sixth pick or fourth overall. I forgot which. Phil Savage took him. And I remember Phil told me he was convinced that reminded him of Jonathan Ogden that he, he was pounded the table for in Baltimore. He goes, this guy’s going to play left taco for 10 years. And they’re in position up there that you may be able to get a guy that could play left taco for 10 years. And of course some Browns fans will say, yeah, they had Joe Thomas for 10 years or whatever and why they ever win? Well, so I guess it’s not his fault.
David Campbell: It’s not going so good now though either. But, but I think the way the Browns, the draft is going to fall, like there’s going to be some guys like this Kaden Proctor from Alabama, he might be there with the second pick in the first round. Caleb Lomu from Utah. I don’t think he’s given up a sack this, this season. No, I mean that’s the kind of guy you want. Like so basically if you can have Duan Jones be your swing tackle and, and draft a left tackle late in the first round, sign a free agent if the other tackle, like a good price free agent, somebody who’s kind of got some tread left on the tires and spend a little money on and then you can figure out the guards as you go.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, that’s not a bad place. You have to do this. You have to be, you know, you get what you stress. If you stress you’re going to fix the offensive line, then you have to put money and draft resources into it. And if you really believe that, maybe the receivers would even be a little better if the quarterback had a little more time to throw, you could pick that and you may be able to pick up a veteran receiver who just doesn’t get signed in the first wave of free agency. I’ll tell you though, Jerry. Judy, what about that?
David Campbell: I was thinking about this today, Terry. Do you think that Jerry Jeudy is like the biggest failure of the coaching staff this year is to get him going? The biggest failure of him? I mean, the player has to do it too. But this has been probably the biggest disappointment on the team.
Terry Pluto: Right. One of them. And now the question is, is this the reason why Denver was very glad to trade him?
David Campbell: 4 targets on Sunday against the Bills, 3 catches, 12 yards, a non factor. And this is, this is the Browns number one receiver. And they’re paying him like it for another few seasons. So what can they do from here on out, Terry?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, well, they got a kicker, maybe.
David Campbell: No, I mean with Jerry Judy.
Terry Pluto: Sorry, I know, but I just figured I’d throw that in there. Remember we were all the, all the anxiety about Andres Andre Smith and he is, you know, an average, above average NFL kicker.
David Campbell: So let’s see. Andre Schmidt is 20 of 23 on field goals this season. That’s 87%.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, right.
David Campbell: 22 of 23 on point after touchdowns and he’s 4 of 5 from 50 plus. And he’s hit some in some bad weather lately.
Terry Pluto: So yes, that’s been impressive. So I really like. It’s like that was a shame about the Buffalo game right at the end of the half. Remember they messed up the snap and that. I think, you know, he drills that thing. The three points you pick up all of a sudden, are you playing the whole second half differently? It’s just like Buffalo, whether their guy missed the extra point and they instead of being up by four, they’re up by three. And it was, it was not an easy environment to kick in. So three. Roberta. Roberta periodically text me after the game and she goes, well, at least the kicker had a good game. She kind of adopted him because she felt bad. Everybody wanted to dump him after the first week.
David Campbell: Oh, man. And like you’ve said, after that he’s been nothing but excellent.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. So he’s 20 of 23, right? In field goals, you said. So that means he’s, he’s, he’s. He missed one and made one that week. So he’s only missed two since the opening week. And he. And the extra point he missed was in the opening week.
David Campbell: All right, well, I want to go back to Judy.
Terry Pluto: Is there. You can have them. Yeah.
David Campbell: No, but is there anything that coaches should do? Like we’re seeing Malachi Corley getting a lot of these jet sweeps and around and they’re giving it to Bond like. So Jerry Judy was, according to Pro Football Focus, was the Browns fourth rated receiver. He had a 54.3 grade on 48 snaps. And pff. Grades are like grades on a test, right. When you’re in school, like anything above 80 is good. So you know, Malachi Corley was on 30 snaps. Isaiah Bond was second in terms of PFF grade. Larva Dan was third. Judy was fourth. Do you think the Browns should going to need. This is another reason I think they should go receiver early in the draft is with. With Carnell. Tate is like, this is like recruiting over somebody in college. When you bring a recruit in and they’re not performing to what you’re expecting, it’s like, well, you know what? We’ve got a five star kid who’s coming in next year and we’re going to recruit over you. Like, I feel like that’s what the Browns should be thinking going into this offseason is like, you got to have a number one receiver and if Jerry Judy returns to his form, his. His best form here in Cleveland, like, that’s great. But like again, you cannot rely on this guy to be your number one receiver. Right.
Terry Pluto: Well, the other thing that’s nice is whoever it is, you’re getting him on a rookie contract if you take Tate up there. So even though Judy is quote unquote overpaid, which he is, you’re getting a starter and hopefully an impact player on those treasured rookie contracts. That’s another way to look at it. Mines. In other words, they would not be putting other than a draft pick, but they wouldn’t be putting a lot of resources into bringing in what they would hope to be an impact receiver. I love Tate too. I. He just has. Like you said, the Ohio State guys are good in the pros and he looks like he’s another one.
David Campbell: All right. So by the way. Yeah.
Terry Pluto: By the way, I was sitting by you and I’ve wanted the Rocket. Raheem Sanders.
David Campbell: Yes.
Terry Pluto: Because he’s got a great nickname and he’s supposed to be a bullish back. And you know, the Rocket, the Rocket looked like he had a little bit of. A little bit of afterburner stuff there. He looked all right.
David Campbell: Yeah, we have not seen a lot of him and it was. It was a good, a good kind of feature day for him.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, it was because they knew they were going to. They were going to run the ball some and he was still able to get some yards.
David Campbell: Yeah, it was weird also having Sanders handing off to Sanders. That took a little while to get used to.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: That was four carries for 40. I’m sorry, I was reading the wrong one. It was 11 carries for 42 yards. I was reading George rushing totals, but Rocket had 11 for 42 and Williams had 3 for 17. So some of the Browns backup running backs getting some carries and Looking pretty good. So. So we were talking about college football a little bit with Ohio State and everything. Terry, we do have an email here from Tim Gahagan from Sonoma County, California. Tim, I hope we got your. I got your last name right. He says, hey, Terry and David, long suffering Browns fan here. I was wondering if either.
Terry Pluto: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Oh, is there any other kind?
David Campbell: That’s true. I should just say when I do.
Terry Pluto: When I do my. When I do my book signing, they’ll say, you know, to David, a long suffering Browns fan. And I always say, is there any other kind?
David Campbell: That’s right.
Terry Pluto: And they always laugh. It’s not just a suffering Browns fan. Even if the kid’s only 25, it’s a long suffering Browns fan.
David Campbell: It’s like in A Few Good Men is grave danger. Is there any other kind?
Terry Pluto: Exactly.
David Campbell: There’s another kind of long suffering.
Terry Pluto: Anyway, go for it.
David Campbell: Says Browns fan here. I was wondering if either of you had seen last Sunday’s 60 Minutes episode feature on Indiana University’s University’s football program. They interviewed both Signetti and Mendoza, along with the AD and John Mellencamp. Great segment. That IU football program turnaround started with Signetti unquestionably. And when you hear him talk, you can see it. It gave me hope for the Browns. Every coach is different and maybe Kevin Stefanski has an approach he thinks will get results. However, I feel you need a very strong leader like a Signetti that can turn around a culture that is mired in despair and darkness. My hope is that the Browns can find this person because it will take a Herculean effort to turn this ship around. Thank you, Terry. Thank you for your reporting, your books and all your. The faith work you do in Northeast Ohio. Thanks, Tim. Interesting link there between Signetti and Stefanski and what kind of a coach the Browns should have. What do you think about what Tim’s saying there, Terry?
Terry Pluto: Well, there’s always a thing when you bring a coach in. You change the temperature in a room. You know, if the guy is sort of hot tempered or whatever, then you bring in calm. I mean, even Freddie. Remember Freddie kick kitchen? So it’s just way off the hook. So they went with. Went with Kevin. Well, Kevin is. He’s room temperature all the time. I mean, just that’s. That’s how it goes with him. Yep.
David Campbell: Yeah.
Terry Pluto: And you could tell he does have that look in press conferences. Even more like, I just want this to be over. He’ll never admit it, but that’s how it looks. So Yes, I think. But behind the personality, you’ve got to have skill. You have to have all that other stuff in terms of organization skills and putting the right people in the right place and that kind of stuff. So the thing I was going to ask you, do you think at the age of nil now is it harder or easier to turn a college program around because you say we’re talking about the NFL question, you got 32 teams, okay? So in college, say you top 30 schools.
David Campbell: So I think it’s easier to turn around a college program and here’s why. There’s a lot of restrictions in the NFL in terms of salary cap and you only get a certain amount of draft picks and there’s only so many roster spots. And I think in college in the age of nil, there are so many players around the country. I mean there’s probably 100 guys for him to choose from when he’s looking for play. There’s probably more than that. There’s probably 300 guys that he could look to as a pool of players to bring in. And what does it take to bring a guy in? You basically get in contact with them or have your people contact their people to be less tamperish. And you basically say, listen, we’ve got some money here for you. We are a winning pro. We just won the Big Ten or even before they won the Big Ten, we’re Google me was what Sigetti always said, right? I win. Google me, come here from wherever you’re playing in lower tier of big time football and we’re going to take this thing to the top. I want you to be part of it and we got some money for you because people believe in me, believe in this thing and we’re going to give you some money. So I think that’s a lot easier than an NFL roster building enterprise. So anyway, that’s just my initial reaction.
Terry Pluto: What do you think? Well, one of the things I thought whether Saban went to the NFL or Urban Meyer, you could come in and even this is before nil and say, all right, we got 20 to 25 scholarships. You know, we could run almost everybody off that. They would never say it, but that’s what they did. And you know, create 25 guys you could bring in. Then if you’re recruiting at Alabama or Miami or one of those places, you can go get them. Well, that’s still to your point. You could do the big volume approach. Or it’s like Cignetti, who brought all those kids with them, the right kids from James Madison, who were probably under recru recruited. And I heard Rick Newheisle, who I forgot where he coached UCLA a couple other places. He was being interviewed on a, on a show and he mentioned that the James Madison and North Dakota State and those kind of elite, whether they’re the old Division 1 double A’s or lower Division ones, they are. These top schools are just devouring those tapes of those games because they’re thinking this is like getting a guy who’s like a really good in AAA baseball. I mean you got all the, you got all the data there. You got his academics, you’ve got pretty good medical thing of it. And you’ve seen them because even if you’re playing say a James Madison or Akron or somewhere, you’ve got a couple games a year like Harold Fenner Jr. Did a bowling Green, I forgot who was a Texas A and M he chewed up and somebody else where they got the tape against him playing those big games, those money games. And you could really evaluate, which I hadn’t thought about that because I thought, well you can see them there. And he said, but also they’re playing. Most of the schools play a couple of those games against those elite opponents. So you’ve got that tape to look at. Is he look as fast as those guys or as strong as those guys?
David Campbell: So we both agree then we think it’s easier in college. Right. I don’t know that 15 years ago it would have been possible at a place like Indiana because there were roster limits. And I mean, geez, I remember in the Big Ten back in like the 80s and 90s, you could not transfer from one Big Ten school to another. Yeah, they would not allow it or you were ineligible. And now it’s gone to where everybody can go everywhere all the time for whatever the amount of money they can get.
Terry Pluto: Is this, is this a temporary rule or is this going to be a permanent role that now if you play in junior college, those seasons don’t count towards your four years?
David Campbell: Yeah, there’s. I think there’s a lawsuit that’s out there that’s going to let people play six years now or something that I don’t think it’s been resolved yet. But I do remember seeing something about that the last couple weeks.
Terry Pluto: I bet it does. I better go through. So think about that. So then you’re getting a kid plays a year like Josh Allen. He went to a small school, a junior college in Northern California. I can’t think of the name of it. But it wasn’t because of grades it was simply that he was not evaluated correctly. And he went there 42 years, Wyoming hears about him. I think they had. Wyoming had one other grant from somewhere and he goes to Wyoming because the coach there, Craig Bol, head coach. Oh, shoot, the kid at North Dakota State. That was the second round, second pick of the draft, Philadelphia, Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz? Yes. Craig Bowell coached Carson Wentz. And then he was hard at Wyoming and he was able to convince Shasha Allen to go to Wyoming. Where am I going with this? So suddenly Josh is a four year player. By the time he comes to the Bills, you know, he’s, he’s a big guy. Anybody get a chance to physically mature? The other thing is he kind of did some time in the minor leagues, let’s face it, junior college in Wyoming. And I mean, you know, I’m a big Wyoming fan just because my friend Larry Scheidt used to be the basketball coach there and Larry Nance Jr. Played there and I just happen to like the state of Wyoming. But nobody’s going to say that’s a farm system for, you know, a lot of NFL quarterbacks. But that kid, because of this. Now if he’s got, if he had played two years in junior college and they let him play four at Wyoming or he would have played two at Wyoming, then he would have gone like the Dylan Gabriel route. He would have gone on maybe two other division ones, who knows?
David Campbell: Yeah, it would have been a lot. It would have been eight years. These guys are getting friends in college. It took him eight years to graduate. Right.
Terry Pluto: They’re getting a million bucks to stay in school. You know that these, these quarterbacks are.
David Campbell: Yeah.
Terry Pluto: If not more.
David Campbell: Well. And the Josh Allen comparison, like that is the big reason why the Browns should look at Mendoza. Like, what if he’s the next Josh Allen?
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: I mean he’s 6, 5, 2, 25. And if you pass on a guy like that. So anyway, there’s just so much to think about between now and April with the draft. But I just. The Browns have taken so many swings and misses at the position. It’s just you’d hate to see another one and have them be left with.
Terry Pluto: And also, I mean to, to, to the point and I’m, I’m getting a lot of emails along this line. I like it that get these other positions nailed down. It’s not impossible to get. Actually. That was one of the things that started with the drafting of Petonio and then Sashi Brown brought in a couple of players and so did Barry some Veterans, you know, the AD Posik you bring in. Teller was, I think, a John Dorsey guy. I forgot they had a tackle, veteran tackle that was pretty good for a while. And so you, you know, you get these guys in there. You can do this.
David Campbell: Yeah. And I think we’ve talked about the Bears. I mean, they basically rebuilt their line and now they’re the. I think they’re still ranked number one as the best offensive line in the league. And we’re looking at the season they’re having with the same quarterback they had last year.
Terry Pluto: So, by the way, does show though what the coordinator means too, because they took the coordinator away. Johnson’s the coach right at the Bear. Johnson. Ben Johnson. So they take him away from Detroit and Detroit’s not as good their offense, and they put him in Chicago where the offense was all over the place. And. And by the way, you know, they run the ball like Detroit did and they come at you with the running game and they’ve been able to establish. And here we go. Identity because why they went and got that line that you just talked about. They’re knocking people off the block. They know it’s cold. We’re going to run the ball. We got two different backs, we got a mobile quarterback, and we’re going to put them in situations where it works. And I don’t know what the heck ever happened. It’s like Kevin Stefanski, something happened to him between 23 and 24, where they were always, yeah, they were in the top 10 and passes attempted, but they were like in the top five in rushing attempts to. Where they were just attempting more passes than anybody else in the NFL all of 24. And it was that way for the first half of 25. And the rushing attempts were way down.
David Campbell: Yeah. So anyway, I think that’s job one is fixing that offensive line. A couple of draft picks and a couple of free agents. Speaking of the offensive line, I think we’ve gotten three emails on this and I wanted to throw it in real quick. This is from Tom Beringer, and Tom lives in Poland, Ohio. He says Zach, Zach Zinter. Is he another Austin Corbett with all the offensive line entries? Why doesn’t he get a start? It’s a great question. And I have seen Zach Zinter in preseason games and he has had a hard time setting anchor against guys and he must not be good enough to play or they would be putting him out there because they certainly could have used him. I just don’t think that he’s what.
Terry Pluto: They’Re heard A couple weeks ago. But there was plenty of opportunities before that for him to play.
David Campbell: Yes.
Terry Pluto: Right.
David Campbell: So I guess that’s the short answer is just that he’s not. He’s not.
Terry Pluto: I guess not. Now I’ll tell you about Austin Corbett. You know, Dorsey loved him, that Dorsey took Corbett ahead of Nick chubb in the second round of 2018. He comes in the line coach there. I forgot who it was, didn’t like him. And then early in 2019 he’s still not playing much and so they trade him to. Was it the Rams? I forgot where he went.
David Campbell: I think it was. Yeah.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: He might have been a Super bowl winning team a few years ago.
Terry Pluto: Yes, he was right. And he’s had a lot of starts since then. And I remember Dorsey told me, he said I still thought he could play but we weren’t going to play him. So I might as well get something for him now. Is Zinter fall into that category? Nice. At two different offensive line coaches. So I don’t know. I thought it was a good pick when they took him. Most of the time these guys from the Big Ten that are well regarded as linemen tend to be pretty good offensive linemen in the pros.
David Campbell: And maybe it is he just needs a fresh start or the Browns need to take another look at him. You never know kind of what’s going on behind the scenes. But yeah, it’s a great question why he hasn’t been playing.
Terry Pluto: Right. Another coaching staff comes in and they might think, oh, what’s, you know, we liked him in the draft when I was with whatever team I was with and give him a fresh start.
David Campbell: All right. Well, thanks for all the great emails we’ve been getting. We’ve got some great ones on on the Guardians too that we’ll be getting to. But if you want to hit us with any thoughts, questions, Comments, it’s sports. Cleveland.com is the address. Just put Terry’s talking in the subject line and we will try and get it on an upcoming podcast. So I think that’s it on the Browns, right? Anything else you want to get into?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, that’s more than enough. All right.
David Campbell: They’ll be back at it on Sunday down on the lakefront against the Pittsburgh Steelers. And then they’re going to close the season on the road at the Bengals. So we’ll see if the Browns win one of those. That will probably leave them out of the top two spots in the draft, almost certainly. But if they lose those two, we shall see how it all falls and the draft will be here before you know it. So. All right, let’s take a break. Terry, when we come back, you have been writing, I think the over the weekend you wrote a column suggesting how the Cavs can fix some of their problems. I want to ask you if what you saw against Charlotte last night was the beginning of something or how you feeling about what you saw last night. So we’ll get into that and some guardians when we return on Terry’s Talking. Hey, welcome back to Terry’s Talking. We’re going to get into the Cavaliers here. Terry. Last night Cavs scored a win, any kind of win. I think right now is good for this team, right?139,132 over Charlotte. A little bit of different vibe last night. What did you think of what you saw? And I know we can run through some of these things individually. Terry, I know that you wrote a column where you kind of broke down their problems, but just give us an overview of what you saw last night and how you feel. How did you feel about what you saw? If you have to use one word.
Terry Pluto: Here’s the best things about last night. Garland, like the last two games in a row, like the old Garland. Now the old Garland didn’t defend and this one doesn’t either. But he is a dynamic offensive player when he’s at his best, going, you know, into the lane, going to the rim, setting other guys up and then making a three point shots and just playing with a lot of energy. People feed off him. They sat down Hunter, DeAndre Hunter and went over clips of what he’s doing wrong, what’s right, long talk and what. Why do you seem so passive? Anything going on? I don’t know the answers to that question, but I know they put together tapes of also when he’s playing at his best and showed all that to him and they had Kenny talk to him. I think at least twice is what I was told on this because he likes him. What’s going on, man? And when going into the weekend it was awful that you look at Hunter and other than, I mean they were being outscored by 50 points when he was on the four. That was like the second worst on the team. And they wanted to figure out why is that. I mean it’s not just you’re not scoring right. Garland was a minus 53 and Hunter was a minus 47. That’s your plus minus. Now that’s probably changed over the weekend. But Garland was that bad because early on you did not look good at all. And they were defense you know, defensively was terrible and he couldn’t make a shot. Other than that, it was fine. So, you know, you kind of there but that. And yet they knew they had to ride that out. But Hunter, they were just wondering why he just. The team didn’t need gel with him at all. So it was nice to see him have a really big game.
David Campbell: Do you want to hear some of the plus minuses from last night, Terry? I think I got them here. So Garland was plus 13 last night in the win. Hunter was plus nine. Tyson was minus 11, which is a little surprising. And Bryant was minus 13. So two guys heavily in the plus territory with the Garland, Hunter, two guys heavily minus with Tyson and Bryant. But that plus 13 from Garland had to be a good sign, right?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, exactly. And sometimes you, you know, if you’re out there a lot with Donovan Mitchell, you got a chance to keep your plus up there. And if you’re not, because the two highest with the, with the Cavs, there’s nothing tricky about this. Like Mitchell’s for the year, he’s plus 133. That was going into two last night and Mobley is plus 83. So those are your two. But the interesting one, the third guy on the list was Naquan Tomlin. It was plus 54. And that’s. That cries for him to get more time because also he does some things that they don’t do. He defends, he rebounds, he runs around, he causes chaos. And so we’ll see. But basically what I wrote, one of the things was they don’t need to take all these three pointers now. They made a whole bunch of them. I think, I think they were 22 or 44 or something.
David Campbell: Yeah, they were 22 of 44 last night. And so they took 44 last night and they’re averaging just about 44.
Terry Pluto: Right.
David Campbell: They’re second in the NBA, as you were just mentioning, 43.7 behind Golden State. So they’re taking the second most. And they matched last night. But like you said, Jerry, they made, they made a bunch last night.
Terry Pluto: You made half of them. You don’t do that. They were like 27 of the percentage so that it still cries more for them to go and into the middle, draw some fouls, all that kind of stuff. What I didn’t like is I know some of it came in garbage time, but they gave up 130 point, 130 points to Charlotte. That’s still a lot. And they got out rebound and they got rebounded by quite a bit. And I Know that the rebounding is something Kenny has been pounding away with them on, and they just need to. They need to do better in that area. But at least the offense, the ball moved better. They were able to throw the ball into Allen and then kind of create some movement off of that. Spacing was much better. It looked more like some of the Cavs offense from a year ago. And I know when you’re making shots, it always looks better, but I do watch for spacing a ball movement, and I’m really. I was really happy about that. Tyson seemed to got lost out there. It’s like he just couldn’t make a shot and the ball didn’t come to him very much. I really like him, but really, it’s one of the things I said that they need to ruthlessly evaluate who’s defending and who isn’t. Now, you got to live with Garland because the offense. But if Hunter was not going to defend well or whatever, he plays less or somebody else. Like, there’s a game like Tyson just seemed to be not. Not with it. Okay, you’re down, Tomlins in or whatever you want to do. You. You have to go at this from a situation of who’s giving it to you, especially with Mobley out. You got to find. I mean, it’s a classic thing. There’s two ways you win. You outscore the other team or you hold the other team to fewer points. You do it both ways, and the best teams do both. I mean, that was the amazing thing about those Golden State teams that were so powerful. I mean, they would be like number one in offensive efficiency and number three in defensive efficiency. I mean, they had every. You thought about them making all the threes and the Splash brothers with Thompson and Curry, but, man, you know, they also had Damon Green, Draymond Green, and some of these others that made it really tough defensively. And they’re there, so I like some of the stuff, but defensively, I didn’t see any progress at all, to be honest.
David Campbell: Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, we saw the Bulls back to back, and I think we were talking about the Browns game, but, like, there were. There were moments during the Bulls games where the Bulls would go on a fast break and there would be no Cavalier in the screen, on the TV screen. Like they were just beating the Cavs up the floor. You didn’t see any improvement last night in that, or did you?
Terry Pluto: I mean, a little bit.
David Campbell: Charlotte doesn’t really run a lot, but.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, well, they. They put up 130, 32 points. They’re a little. They’re a little weird to guard because their. Their ball brother, Lama, he’ll just shoot it from anywhere. And they have some other kids that are talented, but I would have liked to just seen a better defensive effort. The guards have to go back and just get back down the four quicker because the word is Cleveland is slow getting back on defense. And that’s it. Now, the other thing that I would like to see them do, and in the story that I wrote, it was like, there’s this back in the old days where before a game you just go into a locker room and essentially, Magic Johnson loved the whole court. And whoever came in. I just remember, I think I was there with Bert Grave. I was with the Beacon Journal. Bert was at the point dealer and maybe one or two other guys from LA is a small group. We’re talking to Magic. And the subject of pressure defense came up and I said, well, that never really bothered. Seems to bother you much. And he looked right at me. He goes, no point guard likes to be pressured because it’ll. And it’ll slow you down. That’s all he said. But you think about it, even if you have to, you know, or exert some energy to get around the guy, it takes you out of the court. You know, the point guard with no pressures, like a quarterback with no pressure, he’s bringing the ball up the floor. He’s eyeing the entire floor. He doesn’t have to worry about somebody trying to get the ball away from.
David Campbell: Him, calling a play and setting things up.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, all kinds of things. Therefore, one of the things I’d like to see the Cavs do, remember how they were sometimes even given up these long, fast breaks off of made baskets, is you put, whether it’s Kevin Craig, Porter off the bench or Tyson. I wouldn’t deal with Garland because he’s just not very good at it, but let him. Whoever’s bringing that ball in that guy, just get on him, get in front of him. You know, kind of. They can’t play defense as well as Indiana did last year, but they could do some of those things and just try to slow these other guys down, make them, you know, feel that you’re not going to just let them come up the floor, run up the floor and do what they want.
David Campbell: All right, so you kind of ran through all the areas from your commentary, the injuries, nothing they can do about the injuries. Those guys will come back when they come back. Mobley’s got the calf still. The defense, you saw a little bit of improvement, but not A ton. The three pointers, you still think they’re taking too many, right?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, yeah.
David Campbell: And then, you know, Kenny used a 10 player rotation last night. Did you like that? Did you like the guys in the minutes? Yeah, everything was good because you’re still.
Terry Pluto: You’Re still looking for guys. And also it might be his way of rewarding Tomlin or a couple of these other guys. You know, Proctor’s got some ability, not just offensively. He’s got some ability defensively too. And so you need to do this because you see in the NBA everybody gets hurt.
David Campbell: At one time or another. That’s pretty much true.
Terry Pluto: So yeah.
David Campbell: All right.
Terry Pluto: And by the way, having Merrill back matter, because one thing Meryl will do is he’ll get in front of somebody. I think he’s had the most charges drawn the last two years of the Cavs by far. And graphic. Yeah. And. And he’s now he’s a guy you could put on, maybe not pressure full court, but he could take a bigger guard or small forward and just kind of body him up a little bit. And you know what I also liked about Merrill is he actually drove to the rim a couple times. Sometimes he just puts himself in this box of stand there, catch the ball, shoot a three. He’s got some size and he’s got some quickness and he could. All he’s got to do is look up in the air while he’s dribbling. The guy’s going to almost jump. He’s going to shoot. You can get right around him and get to the rub.
David Campbell: All right, well, the Cavs are back at it tonight. They’re playing a back to back home, back to back tonight against New Orleans. And Darius Garland is going to play tonight, it sounds like. That’s what Ethan Sands from our Cavs reporting crew is reporting today. So that’ll be interesting to see how he looks tonight. And then big game on Christmas at New York playing Nick Madison Square Garden as part of the NBA’s day long takeover of Christmas. So I think we’re going to learn a lot in that Thursday game. I want to see how the Cavs come out, how their intensity is, other defenses. Then after that one, they’re at Houston and at San Antonio. Those are Saturday and Monday.
Terry Pluto: So those are athletic teams are facing and that’ll be a challenge. You know, the other thing is, do you have to play the same rapid pace as your opponent? Is that written somewhere Oftentimes battle of.
David Campbell: Wills, when you see that it is one team’s trying to go fast I.
Terry Pluto: Don’T think, you know, you want to go play 80 point ball like Fratello did when he felt he was undermanned and that. But especially when you don’t love with some others, these guys who come down and just fire up threes, you know, on the fast break or whatever it is, it’s. You really want to do this. Even, even mobile. Not, excuse me, even Donovan. And I love Donovan. Donovan’s the second best player Cavs history. I’ve seen them all. He takes at least two three pointers a game. It’s like, what are you doing, man? I mean, just you’re, you almost come, you’re a one man fast break and you stop 28 from the feet, from the basket, just fire it. Because also the thing about Donovan, he is so good going to the rim that I don’t mind him playing pell mell down the floor. But don’t always settle for three because you can get to the rim. They’re going to follow you, if nothing else. And they probably won’t be able to stop you either.
David Campbell: Yeah, that’s something left to watch. Like if the Cav starts shooting fewer threes, will their record improve? And we’ll kind of track that. I mean, there’s number two now three point attempts. So maybe there, maybe that’s something they want to do or maybe it’ll stay the same. They just need to make more.
Terry Pluto: But. Because if you think about it, all right, so Mobley gets healthy that, I mean, he makes some threes, but that’s not going to dramatically improve your three point percentage. And now some of the problems with it being low were that Garland’s been hurt not shooting well and Merrill’s been hurt. You know, those are two guys. Last year there were over 40% or close to it on three, so they were missing those two. You know, I’m getting some emails on Ty Jerome. I believe he still is yet to play for, for Memphis. He got the, the dreaded calf injury. Yeah.
David Campbell: And he’s had a lot of injuries in his career too.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, he has. That was one of the concerns with him.
David Campbell: And the other thing about the three point and going inside more, Terry, I think the Cavs, it just seems like they played better when Jared Allen is happy and engaged and like he had that nice spin move in the lane last night when he’s smiling and scoring a little bit and having fun. Like the Cavs just seem like they win more.
Terry Pluto: I also can move the ball to him, give it to him around the foul line and he could Throw it to somebody in the corner or whatever. Gives Chris McCarthy tight. Jerome is still out and create more movement. So I’m, you know, I’m more positive on Jarrett than everybody else because the, the Cavs would always put him in the core four, but the other three guys, frankly are maximum contract guys. Jared is not Jared. The last time I looked was the 88th highest paid player in the NBA. And as you see now, just imagine if they didn’t have Jared Allen and all they had was Thomas, Bryant and you know, guy like Allen. All right, he’s not great, but he’s pretty good and he can hold the fort for you and give you a decent effort inside. And I think more as he goes along and gets his confidence in his hands, in his, that finger that was broken because he hurt the other hand somehow the wrist or something. That’ll be better too. I’m curious. It’s a good test coming up for them and we’ll see. But I, I know they’ve been working on this stuff, but it just hasn’t shown up a lot on the court.
David Campbell: Trust the process and we’ll see where they’re after the first of the year.
Terry Pluto: Thank God they don’t say that stuff.
David Campbell: All right, let’s talk some baseball. Terry, we have a lot of baseball. I think I mentioned last week we have a lot of baseball emails from our listeners and I’m going to try and see if we can roll through them here the next over the next few weeks. So I’ve kind of been holding this one from Jim Mullen. Jim’s a long time listener. He says hey guys, thanks for the podcast. I can’t tell you how upset I am about MLB actually partnering with a gambling site. This is inviting the fox into the hen house. I’m still sort of shocked with the whole Class A situation. I feel MLB must mandate that there will be no so called prop bets allowed under any circumstances. I think gambling being embraced by MLB could be the tip of the iceberg down the road to the great detriment of the game. Also, you guys mentioned recently that organized crime could have pressured Class A. I I just know where there is gambling. Organized crime has always been involved. I might be overreacting here, but I see no upside here for the game itself. I know there’s a clause in MLB operations that behavior detrimental to get to the game can’t be tolerated. How can gambling partnerships not be detrimental to the game itself? Lastly, I’m not smart enough to be able to follow the money or figure out Cui Bono, who benefits? But the whole idea is dangerous. Again, that’s from Jim Mullen. How do you feel about, like, you know, these various sports books being sponsors of MLB and having ads on the outfield walls and commercials and all that stuff? Terry, bad, bad news. Yeah, they do away with that.
Terry Pluto: I just, I’m actually even more concerned on a bigger picture thing of a lot of guys who maybe wouldn’t gamble heavily in a casino or some of those other areas or lottery tickets will think, you know, let’s see, the Cavs are seven and a half. You start doing that. And then to Mullen’s point about the prop betting, this is right after the gambling became legalized and I was driving and there was a talk show and they were talking about that night the Cavs were playing, I believe it was in Memphis and Donovan Mitchell was out. Garland. And I said, Darius Garland, I think 23 and a half points is the line, the prop bet. So in other words, if he scores 24, you win. If he scores 23, you lose. And I’m thinking, you know, he’s going to get a lot of shots. That would be a pretty good bet. I’m smart enough, I’ll say this never, but it would be easy. You know what he scored that night? 23.
David Campbell: Really?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, it was, whatever it was. It could have been 24 and a half or whatever it was. He was there. And it’s like I’m thinking, and I don’t know, he probably missed a free throw in there somewhere. So then if you’re watching the game, think how it takes you into a bad place.
David Campbell: And we’re seeing, I’ve seen a lot of studies and news come out the last month or two about problem gambling is way up. And there’s a lot of people who say they can’t watch sports now without betting on it because it’s no fun.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. And then those are college, college kids. And that I had one person tell me who quote in the know, they just think the next big scandal is going to be college basketball. Because it’s always been kind of the breeding ground of big time scandals going way back in the old days. Because it’s easy, you know, there’s fewer guys. You have to. It’s hard to fix a football game. You got to really get a lot of guys. Now you could do some of the. That’s the problem, the prop bets. You just got to get one guy to just not show up or whatever he’s going to do. Yeah. And it’s because, see, the thing about A prop bet. Suppose. All right, suppose I’m. I took a guy, an average player, you know, 15 and a half points and is the thing and he’s not playing particularly well. But even if the team’s winning, he’s not. You could like we’re talking about DeAndre Hunter having problems there for a while. You just bench them. So in other words, they would never know the coaches take them out as opposed to trying to fix an entire game, which is a lot harder.
David Campbell: All right, well, back to Jim’s point that MLB has pretty much set it up so that after all this, that there’s a 200 limit now on prop bets in Ohio and yeah, MLB has made its partners limit the Prop bets to 200.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, man, I’m serious. Cut that crap out.
David Campbell: Oh, no, for sure. I think it’s on the right track. They should just get rid of all the prop bets.
Terry Pluto: Oh, that kind of. Yeah.
David Campbell: But they did make a move to.
Terry Pluto: Do that because It’s. All right, 200 hour limits. But how many places can you lay the 200 hours down?
David Campbell: We saw from the indictment. The indictment says these guys were doing, you know, alleged. The charges say that they were doing it for just thousands of dollars. And the 200 adds up pretty fast. You’re right.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. Because you’re moving it to different. It’s not just fanduel. You can. God, you know, Caesars, I don’t know. Yeah, yeah. They’re all over the place. So. All right, what else?
David Campbell: Next one. This one is also gambling rated from Steve Ronsky. Steve’s a long time listener from Grays Lake, Illino. He says. Hey, Terry and David, I was hoping you could provide some clarity on the Class A Ortiz case. I’ve heard and read that it’s possible that the guardians would have to pay at least part of their 2026 salaries because the trials don’t figure to end until around Memorial Day. It could be even later, I think because the May trial date has been set since Steve sent this in. So he says this raises some questions. Why would they owe Ortiz anything? Wasn’t just on a one year contract for 2025. Number two, the burden of proof needed for Rob Manfred’s to issue. Okay, you want to do these one by one?
Terry Pluto: All right.
David Campbell: Ortiz.
Terry Pluto: No, no, Ortiz. Yeah, he’s. He’s on a contract next year for. I think it’s six and a half, isn’t it?
David Campbell: So Ortiz doesn’t have a contract for next year?
Terry Pluto: No, not Ortiz. I thought class A.
David Campbell: Class A does. Right.
Terry Pluto: That’ll be Good. You let Ortiz go to arbitration. Oh, man.
David Campbell: All right, number two. The burden of proof needed for Rob Manfred to issue whatever discipline is to be meted out is far less than is needed to convict in a criminal trial. Why would they wait until the trials are over? If the guardians end up having to pay two months of Class A’s 2026 salary just because the trial isn’t over, I’ll be really angry. Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but I don’t believe that they would ever do that to the Dodgers, Yankees or Mets. Anyway, thanks again for the opportunity to vent a little and keep up the good work. Thanks, Steve. All right, so let’s go back to this. Ortiz is done with the guardians. They, they don’t have, they have no more agreement for 2026 or beyond.
Terry Pluto: It’s just incredible. Now the NBA, meanwhile, they suspended their guys without pay. Rozier and the coach, Chauncey Billups, so they didn’t wait very long. You know, these guys got indicted or whatever and that was enough for them. Why can’t baseball do the same?
David Campbell: Well, I think because the union is probably a lot stronger for baseball and we have to ask this question like, what if these guys are cleared?
Terry Pluto: Well, then if you do that, the basic, well, you can give them back pay. That’s the way Classe is at 6 million for this upcoming year, then he has two options for 6 million and.
David Campbell: Then 10 million in 2027 and 10 million in 2028 team options. Thanks, Terry.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, that’s what I thought. So but to the point, you know, with the, with the guardian. Six million. Six million. They can go get a guy for that. Suppose they didn’t. They knew for sure they weren’t going to pay class A this year. Lane Thomas, who I know they were thinking about, I believe signed for either four and a half or five million with the Royals. You know, I was somewhat interested in bringing Lane Thomas back. Depends on the medical. They would know more about his foot problems than anybody else. But he, he’s a somewhat athletic outfitter who can hit left handed pitching and we saw he could help you win. And that’s the kind of again, that was be the kind of contract. I don’t know how their budgeting goes, you know, so you, you trade out Quasi and you bring back another right hand hitting veteran outfitter and hope he.
David Campbell: Stays Thomas, somebody like him.
Terry Pluto: Right, sure.
David Campbell: Yeah.
Terry Pluto: It’s like they don’t want to fight the Union because at 26 they’re going to be fighting the union on a labor agreement. My Feeling is you’re going to be fighting the union in a labor agreement anyway. Do the right thing about the gambling, it’s going to be ugly either way. I don’t think they’re going to say oh we’re going on, we’re going to go on strike. Only because they wouldn’t take class A. I mean that’s not right. I mean do you really want to make that be your main cause if you’re the union guy, his two guys indicted and gambling or.
David Campbell: All right, here’s one more from Neil in Jamestown, New York. Neil’s a long time listener. He says, hey Terry, my Christmas wish is for the guardian, for the guardians is that they trade a starting pitcher and hopefully Arias for a right handed hitting outfield bat. If Arias is the shorting starting shortstop again next year, Santa is going to be very unhappy. Yeah, what do you think of that? You want Arias back or would you like to see him package with someone for right hand?
Terry Pluto: I’m fine with trading him. I like Rocchio better. And you’ve got second baseman coming, you got Brito coming, you’ve got whatever they do at Bazano, you know, I want to make him into an outfitter. I don’t know what their plans are. Whenever I bring it up to the powers that be there they kind of, well, we need to get them healthy, we need to get them playing and see my thing, my thing is if you think he was going to be an outfitter, hand him a glove day one of spring training or even right now he is healthy and have him be playing the outfield in Goodyear and get ready to go just like they did a few years ago with Miles. Not Miles Straw, it was Freeman. Tyler Freeman was a shortstop. He started working out in the outfield like right around now, right after Christmas. And that year, remember he played center field and did a nice job. Probably didn’t hit but he played well defensively.
David Campbell: Yeah, like they’re doing with Cathus right now. Trying to get him used to playing in the outfield but.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, but Cafe, you know. Well, you know, maybe is, maybe is. I hope Bazana is more athletic than Kis. That’s not to say he’s terrible but I’m an athlete. But just, I’m just talking about in terms of playing the outfield, I will say this for Cafe is he caught stuff that was hit to him?
David Campbell: Yeah, he looked pretty good.
Terry Pluto: By the way, are you Christmas sad about there’s no Noel under your guardian’s Christmas tree?
David Campbell: That big Christmas is no longer part of the operation. Yeah, that was one of the funnest nights of Guardians fans in probably the last 10 years when he hit the home run.
Terry Pluto: He had a great six weeks. When he first came, I remember the.
David Campbell: Spanish language broadcast that night, the guys were going crazy and they were yelling feliz Navidad. It was so memorable.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, it was. You could look at his stats in the minors and that and see that this could be fool’s goal because of the high strikeout rate. Actually, he had a much higher strikeout rate and kind of more warning signs for his minor league career than did Oscar Gonzalez. The only thing that he had above Oscar was. You knew how the Guardians love this. Exit velocity. Exit velocity. Nolan Jones, exit velocity. You know all these guys. I asked you how much exit velocity does Quan have? Not as much below average, I tell you, but you know, he hits him where he ain’t. He also hits the ball a lot, you know, just puts it in play well.
David Campbell: And you can’t have exit velocity if you don’t hit the ball.
Terry Pluto: So that strikeout velocity, the windmill, that would be good. She caught the windmill. You know, thing when you swing and miss, how much air are you force? You G force. I’m sure somebody.
David Campbell: All right, here’s one more. This is a good time to get into this kind of stuff in baseball because it is the off season. This is from Steve Schneider and Steve says, I listened to your comments a while back on the need for a salary cap and floor in baseball. I think there are two other factors which need to be addressed. Clearly most of the other sports have taken full control of the television rights and have most of the money fairly evenly distributed. Football probably has the best setup, but the big market teams have the advantage of larger markets and more money. Somehow baseball needs to redistribute some of that money. Perhaps all teams should pay each visiting team half of the revenue generated per game. Probably half of the amount the team collects for the season divided by 81 home games. The second issue is the major league ready players coming to the US primarily from Asia and possibly Cuba. Baseball needs to define what a major league ready player is and either put them in a draft with college players or penalize the teams that sign them. Perhaps a system where the weakest teams get to draft a player from the organization that is not on the 26 man roster. Possibly allowing a total of two players to be taken by other organizations. Say the Dodgers were to sign another Yamamoto. Then starting at the top of the college draft ranking, first and second teams would each Be able to select a player from the Dodgers organization then say the Yankees sign another major league ready player in the same off season then the third or fourth teams in the draft order would pick from the Yankees prospects. What do you think of all that, Terry? It is kind of a weird thing where you get. I think this might have happened today or yesterday. The, the White Sox have signed this Japanese player named Munetaka Murakami and he was a triple crown winner in Japanese baseball a couple years ago. Two years, $17 million per year and he comes in as a free agent from Japan. It seems like players do come in. I think he sacrificed length of contract for higher salary for the first two years is what I saw is why he went to Chicago. But it is kind of weird that you get these. You talked about players being ready for, you know, from AAA up. But this guy’s a proven professional in the prime of his career and has a proven track record in pro baseball and he just goes to the highest bidder. It doesn’t seem very fair. Right.
Terry Pluto: Steve’s idea, there’s all this posting stuff so that the Japanese teams make X amount of money and that I’m more interested in that than the. Here’s your problem with the. The TV revenues is simply that your big market teams are not going to, for example, want to give up half of their gate receipts to the visiting team and the union. If I were the union, I would be against that because in my mind what it would do is it would increase the tendency of the terrible teams to stay terrible. And you know, even if you have a 4 it’s still the maybe would create this thing of well, you know, we’re playing in Pittsburgh or Cleveland or whatever and they’re in the bottom five or six of attendance and every time they go to Yankee Stadium and go to the Dodgers, you know, because you’re dividing revenue and remember that that’s a big number that we don’t see. You see attendance, you don’t see revenue. And those Boston and the rest of those places, what they charge for tickets compared to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Kansas City, it’s, it’s a huge gap so that, that they would never go for the rev. I don’t think that’s one thing that the teams would fight it, the big teams and then the union would certainly fight it. But I’m interested in the idea of the, the elite players from Cuba or especially the Orient because some of the KBO guys have been coming in and playing pretty well too from the Korean KBO. Those of us who watch that at 6 in the morning during the pandemic. I remember watching some of those guys. But some of those players have come over and they’ve done pretty well. I mean Ben Wide will use a KBO guy and you. So they are. Because I’ll tell you this, if you’re playing over there or you’re playing in Japan and you’re playing at a high level in those leagues, you are at the very least probably going to be an average major league player. And the good thing is you bring them in, you don’t have to spend all that money developing them through, you know, three or four years of the minors.
David Campbell: So going back to Steve’s idea, like, I think you’re right, Terry. The union doesn’t like it when there’s a restriction of money changing hands.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: Because that hurts the amount of money going to the players. But I think to go back to Steve’s email, like the NFL has a setup where if a free agent signs, depending on what they sign for, there’s extra draft picks. Right. The teams get. And sometimes you, I think you lose a draft pick if you sign a free agent for a certain amount of money.
Terry Pluto: And there is some of that in baseball too. It’s kind of complicated.
David Campbell: There is the compensatory picks that teams get at the end of the first round or whatever. But I wonder if there could be a similar thing like MLB could rejigger the draft a little bit in this way by, you know what if, if the White Sox sign, you know, Murakami for 17 million for two over for two times two years, maybe they. All right, it’s 34 million over two. That counts as a second round draft pick and the White Sox forfeit their second round pick. Like that, it just skips or something. You know what I mean? Like it doesn’t happen.
Terry Pluto: Right. That’s what I’m saying. If you take it from them, I guess you could, you’re more likely to skip over it rather than. So who do you give it to?
David Campbell: Yeah, that’s the question. Maybe you give it to the teams that have the worst record like you suggest in the number one and number two teams. There’s got to be something there that could front load the system to help them.
Terry Pluto: Well, they would never do it or else you basically, you set a. Of course they set a salary cap for guys coming in. The maximum that could be is three years at X amount of dollars, depending how they are. And then teams could, you know, the worst teams could pick them first. But there’s no way. See, that’s the kind of thing football would do, but they won’t do it. And I’ll tell you, baseball won’t do this, but it’s a, it’s a way to really fix this. They’re part of their system. Not just salary cap, a maximum contract. I’ve been yelling about this probably for 10 years or more, that this is a way to help baseball. Like in the NBA, you know, most of these guys, four years max or five there is big money. But as two different MLB executives from mid markets told me that, you know, if you’re sitting there and say you’re Cleveland, you’re looking at one door and all right, so it’s going to be, you know, 200 million for five years. I mean, it’s a lot. But you think I could at least go into that? Because if we’re two years into this and it’s not going well, I could trade him and I won’t have to pay part of that contract to anybody. Unless he just fell off a cliff. You know, he still would retain his trade value and the whole maximum contract. Instead, he’d get out of these 13 years and 10 years and all these ridiculous contracts. And they, those things take all the, they take all the middle market teams right out of it.
David Campbell: Yeah. It’s like money is no object.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. At that point.
David Campbell: And yeah, it’s just how much you. Who you can get and how much you can spend.
Terry Pluto: I mean, look at the, look at the NFL that what they did, their system. Yeah. The Browns went way, way off the financial cliff with Deshaun Watson and they’re still going to pay for it. He counts 82 million on the cap next year. And even if they rework it somehow or other, I mean, I mean, you and I may be turned 100 years old and they’ll probably still have some sort of Watson terrorists. Yeah, right. Yeah. But the thing is, it’ll still be on their cap somehow on how they did this, and it penalizes you.
David Campbell: All right, well, that’s some great baseball talk. Thanks for sending those in. And we have some more. I’ll try and get them going here the next few weeks. It’s a great time to talk baseball, salary structure, drafts and all that stuff since.
Terry Pluto: All right, Dave Campbell, middle of winter.
David Campbell: All right, I’m ready.
Terry Pluto: Will the Guardians make a at least somewhat significant trade as they made two of them last year when they traded Jimenez, Remember that ended up being Ortiz deal. And when they traded Josh Naylor for.
David Campbell: Saccony, I’m gonna Say they’re gonna make one. I don’t know what it’s gonna be. That’s a tough one to put together. What do you think, zero, one or two?
Terry Pluto: They have to make one. They have to. If they have to. I mean, I don’t want to give a. Parker Messick, you know, is my favorite of the young prospects. I’m not because I don’t count, you know, Gavin Williams or the. We’re talking about that. The next level starters, they have to. You have to go get a real right handed bet. Doesn’t have to be great. That’s why I said at least somebody like hit 20 homers in their life once, something like that, and could play a decent outfield. I’m not this guy. Who’s this guy? They just signed Fairchild or something. I don’t know. I mean, what 220 career hitter? And we don’t even need to get in the OPS. It’s not. When you’re hitting 210 or 220 unless you’re hitting 40 homers, there’s no reason to talk about OPS or anything. You’re just. You’re just another guy.
David Campbell: Yep. All right, well, that might be happening soon. I’m trying to remember when last year’s trades happened.
Terry Pluto: It was right around, I’ll tell you one thing. One was towards the end of the year because I remember why they traded Naylor and the Browns are playing Cincinnati towards the end of the year. And I remember writing it in the bar at the DoubleTree Hotel in Sharonville, Cincinnati. Even though I don’t drink, the guy kept bringing me more iced tea and with my burger and I’m like. And I’m like texting with Antonetti and you know, and other people trying to like, what. Who’s Saccony and what is this and why are you doing this? And that’s what I. So it was towards the end of the football season. So I remember that distinctly. But just like, by the way, it’s a long story, but I went up to visit my friend. The Browns were playing in Denver and I went up to visit Larry Shiat and Duncan, his assistant coach in Laramie. And it was an off day or whatever, so I went in. Sorry, I went in two days early. It’s a Friday. So as I’m driving up, I get the word this is in 2018 or going in the 18 season. The tribe has just traded for Carlos Santana. It was a 14 incomprehensible trade. Gandhi Diaz went here and there. And the same thing. I pull over into a McDonald’s outside of Cheyenne and again texting everybody going, what did they just do? Why are they doing this? And that kind of Encarnacion went somewhere and Gandhi Diaz went somewhere and Jake Bowers came here. Oh, I’m remembering too much about this trade because it was like a nightmare. It was the same thing. You’re sitting there like with really bad food in a very dirty place. The Cheyenne McDonald’s was not an award winner, but they had pretty good Internet and was able to deliver that story to cleveland.com scribbles at the Cheyenne McDonald’s.
David Campbell: It’s gonna be the name of your new novel, I believe.
Terry Pluto: Where the Browns still couldn’t find a quarterback at the McDonald’s in Cheyenne.
David Campbell: All right, we got one final email to wrap up for the podcast here. Terry, are you ready? Here we go. This is from John. He says, Dear Mr. Pluto, first of all, I enjoy all your articles. In my humble non professional opinion, you’re the preeminent sports analyst around. I have a couple of simple questions. Number one, why don’t NBA teams use oxygen masks during games as the NFL players use? They work harder physically than the NFL players.
Terry Pluto: Interesting.
David Campbell: Number two, would it make sense, would it make sense to have NBA players wear shoes that mimic the color of the floor they play on? It would seem it would be more difficult to be called for traveling. And number three, in the same vein, wouldn’t it make sense if legal for NFL players to wear gloves on defense that are the same color as the opponent’s jerseys? It would seem like it would be more difficult to be called for holding and pass interference. Thanks for the time. Keep up the good work. Here’s hoping you and your family have a great holiday season. So thanks for that, John. I love the oxygen idea. I don’t understand that either.
Terry Pluto: Well, the colors of gloves do they have, are they required to be a certain color? I do not know.
David Campbell: I don’t think so.
Terry Pluto: They have, you know, they have two or three former players, Felix Wright is one of them that goes down play for the Browns before the game when they’re warming up and they’re looking at the jerseys and looking at the gloves and stuff they’re going to wear. But you know, you can maybe wear the one there. But if the, you know, you’re playing.
David Campbell: The stewards, Odell Beckham got in trouble for a visor a few years ago and that’s kind of what you’re talking about. They kind of, they keep it on the rest. Keep an eye on that stuff so there are.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, but he. But he wore $150,000 watch during warm ups. Yes. Yeah, you do that, David. I mean, right now, you know, on your podcast, I. I can see the diamonds glimmering on their screen. Oh, yeah.
David Campbell: Just wear my. My Rolex next time we do the podcast. So. All right. Well, hopefully there’s some nicely colored gloves.
Terry Pluto: I mean, one of those things, you sit there and go, okay. Oxygen makes a lot of sense, by the way. The NBA. The problem is players want people to look at their shoes. So they want those bright colors. And Nike and Reebok and New Balance and all the rest want people to see their shoes. They don’t want to blend it into the floor.
David Campbell: But it’s like, I remember when Nike put their logo on the bottom of shoes.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: Like, why would you do that? Well, the players are getting tackled up in the air. You get to see a big Nike logo.
Terry Pluto: That’s what they want.
David Campbell: It’s all about visibility.
Terry Pluto: We’re paying you all the stuff to wear our stuff. You’re gonna. We don’t want people not to be able to see it.
David Campbell: Yeah, yeah. Well, we’ll see the. The NBA benches now. They’re not benches anymore. They’re like lazy boys. Like, they could just have a little oxygen mask come right out of the side and they’d be on their way.
Terry Pluto: Right. Surprised. They kind of, you know, in between, like. Well, it’s. I mean, oxygen helps.
David Campbell: Yeah. They might be onto something there, John.
Terry Pluto: Odds are there in the NBA, okay, you got 30 teams, you got 15 guys. That’s 450 guys. Out of 450 athletes, how many of them you think have asthma? Oof. Some.
David Campbell: Yeah, definitely some.
Terry Pluto: Fifteen. Yeah. You know, that would help. I don’t know. And at times, and on top of it, you’re pointing Denver. You’re pointing to Salt Lake, by the way.
David Campbell: Not hurt.
Terry Pluto: Not that you would care. The sense that. There was a Wyoming reference that I made earlier when you played in Laramie, 6,750ft above sea level, this towering over the mile high city of Denver. And that was one of the advantages when Larry Shiat went there and turned around that program and made the NCAA one year, that they used that into their advantage and they talked about how they were way above mile high. And although they didn’t run a lot, but still it was, you know, you come here, you got to be a man. You got to be ready. You’re going to be tired. You can be really tired because this is 6,750ft.
David Campbell: They could have used John’s advice with the oxygen masks.
Terry Pluto: Yes, they should. Yeah.
David Campbell: All right. I think we’re done here. Terry, anything you want to add?
Terry Pluto: That’s it for me. All right.
David Campbell: Well, we do want to say merry Christmas, happy New Year, happy holidays to everybody. We are going to take off next week. We’ll be back two days after the Browns game in Cincinnati, their season finale. Do not forget about Terry’s newsletter. If you go to cleveland.com Pluto and go to the blue bar at the top, you can sign up for Terry’s newsletter. I think you get two weeks free. Comes out every Wednesday jammed full of great stuff behind the scenes things he’s thinking and you get stuff first which is always fun. So. And email us sportslevelin.com put Terry’s talking in the subject line happy New Year. Enjoy the holidays. We’ll see you on the next episode. Terry’s talking.
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