CLEVELAND, Ohio — Welcome to this week’s edition of the Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. In this episode, as they return from a week off, they discuss the Guardians, who are suddenly back in playoff contention as they embarked on a homestand this week.
They also talk Browns, and what Friday night’s strong preseason showing means for Shedeur Sanders. And Terry shares what he’s been hearing about the Cavs and Lonzo Ball this summer.
Highlights:
Analysis of the Guardians’ recent performance and playoff chances. Discussion on key players like Gavin Williams and their impact on the team’s success. Insights into the team’s strategy and upcoming games against Miami and the Braves.
Recap of the Browns’ preseason game against the Panthers. Shedeur Sanders’ impressive debut and what it means for the team’s future. The importance of preseason games in preparing for the regular season.
Discussion on the team’s roster changes and key players to watch. Insights into the team’s strategy for the upcoming season.
The role of sports journalists in shaping public perception. Reflections on the camaraderie and competition among sports writers. A look at the history of sports journalism in Cleveland.
“Midnight on the Potomac” by Scott Ellsworth. A captivating narrative of the last year of the Civil War and the Lincoln assassination. Insights into the historical context and the author’s unique perspective.
Subscribe to Terry’s newsletter for exclusive insights at cleveland.com/pluto.
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 (01:23.43)
What’s going on? It’s the new edition of the Terry’s Talking Podcast. I’m David Campbell, your host. Terry Pluto is joining me. He is just back from his sojourn into the Northern Michigan wilderness. It was so cool, Terry. You sent me a picture of a bald eagle that you saw up in a tree. That was sweet.
Terry Pluto (01:35.788)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:39.566)
Yeah, we’re driving along Lake Superior and Roberta goes, that’s an eagle over there. So we pulled over and took his picture and saw sandhill cranes. The elusive moose up there is really hard to find, but we had a really great time. It was at least like 75 degrees instead of 90, so that was good.
David Campbell (01:56.527)
Awesome.
David Campbell (02:01.714)
Well, the good news is you had a wonderful trip. The bad news is that you’re stuck with me now until the end of football season doing this podcast. So we’re going to be, we’re going to be riding out the fall here. And, it’s the beginning of a long run and, to be serious, we’re looking forward to it. It’s going to be a really interesting fall. And then the Cavs will be starting, once we get halfway through football, but let’s talk some baseball to start here, Terry, because the last time we were together with our listeners, we were talking about how I think the guardians had a 5.7 % chance of making the playoffs and.
Terry Pluto (02:16.898)
Yes, it will.
David Campbell (02:32.034)
This kind of reminds me of, I think 2016, right, when everybody wrote the, was it that year that everybody wrote The Guardians off and they went to the World Series and after the injuries and everything, and it kind of, the, the Ortiz-Classe gambling thing kind of reminded me of that moment where it just feels like they got together and said, Listen, nobody thinks we can do this, let’s do it. And they just, they’ve been getting better pitching and the young guys are coming up and
Terry Pluto (02:39.894)
Yep.
David Campbell (03:01.308)
CAPES is helping. This has been something. I mean, it’s been a pretty dramatic change over the last few weeks here.
Terry Pluto (03:07.616)
Of course it has been and it’s happened with in fact, the last road trip with Quan and Jose were like three for 25 or something or worse than that. I forgot what it was. No more as they did nothing. They’re two stars and they went five out of six. I think that was just a really great sign because they’ll come around. Although we’ll talk a little bit about Quan. have some concerns there. Jose has a periods now and then where he doesn’t hit. Then he goes back and then hits and that’s cause he’s Jose.
And I’m, you know, I’m really excited. Do you think they have an emerging ace?
David Campbell (03:45.682)
That’s a great question. I, I think it has to be Gavin Williams at this point. And I’m not just saying that because of recency bias, but I think he’s got about 120, 125 innings. I think he’s leading the staff in innings pitched. He’s got a, his ERA is like 3.2, 3.17, something like that. I think he’s leading the team in wins as a pitcher. Is it him, right?
Terry Pluto (03:52.782)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (04:04.236)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (04:10.164)
Yeah, I he’s got the stuff to do it also. I mean, if you look at that, the other thing is Tanner Bybee just is plagued by these home runs. Do you have the stats in front of you? Cause I don’t on how many home runs he’s given them. Yes. And you know, for a while he had these great stats on pitching after a loss. But a recent, it’s been a struggle for him. And you turn around and they’ve had, you know,
David Campbell (04:22.288)
I don’t, yeah, but it’s been a lot.
Terry Pluto (04:40.278)
Sleight’s the Coney finally had a bad game the other day because the previous six starts, he’d allowed three or fewer runs and he pitched at least six innings. And all six of those starts, they just, they just find ways and they find these relievers, you know, guys that, know, Kobe Allard, all these types of, not only their main guys, but these kind of rummage sale pickups and they just keep putting the bullpen together. They’ve been doing that for a long time too.
The remarkable thing, you know, they lose Cossay and they’re still saving games and they’re still being carried in some ways by their bullpen. But if Gavin Williams can really develop into that guy, that would be him. He was a first round pick. He would have gone higher than he did well in the first round, but some scouts told me there was some concern that he had some arm problems early on at East Carolina and that maybe that might be a problem.
The guardian looked at him and said, yeah, he might’ve had some arm problems early on, but he’s thrown 95 miles an hour. I mean, he looks, he’s got the part, the looks of uh, ace and we’ll take them.
David Campbell (05:52.69)
Yeah, and he’s got all of his pitches working now and it’s really been something. We talk about this a lot, Terry, but the Guardians, Chris Antinetti and Mike Chernoff and the whole front office, they’re like, they’re so good at their jobs. And how many Major League Baseball teams could lose their All-Star closer, one of the guys in the rotation who was starting to get things together a little bit, and then go on a run and get back in contention? mean, what they’re, we’re taping this on Tuesday afternoon. They’re 61 and 56. They’re six and a half games behind Detroit.
Terry Pluto (05:54.775)
Yeah.
David Campbell (06:21.776)
It was 11 a few weeks ago, so they’ve cut that almost in half. And they’re only a game behind the Yankees in the wild card going into tonight’s game.
Terry Pluto (06:23.38)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. it was 14 and a half when they had lost 10 in a row, the Guardians. And that was, I think, early July or something like that. And so since then, you know, the last thing, I think they’re now 20 and eight since that 10 game losing streak. And as you said, there, think they’re, how about they’re beating down the door for the Yankees for that last playoff spot.
David Campbell (06:33.136)
Man.
Terry Pluto (06:53.646)
And so that’s a lot of fun. they’ll, you know, they continue to, you know, find different ways to win. Maybe KFIS is the guy we’ve been waiting for someone to come from the miners and give them a boost in the lineup. By the way, stop for a moment. You know, who else has done that quietly is Brian Roquiel. Last stats I saw, he was hitting like 280 since he came up. And what about him at second base?
David Campbell (07:22.628)
It’s been a really, it’s hard to measure, but the defense is so important with him. And if you put him at second base, I mean, that was what worked last year, right? Before they traded the guy who was there. So that’s an important defensive spot, no doubt.
Terry Pluto (07:37.614)
Yeah, exactly. he is.
I’m not saying quite like, Andre’s him and us, cause he’s the best second baseman I’ve ever seen. But you watch him and you can see how he could become elite at that position. Whereas I thought he was okay. It’s short, okay to good, but he is just terrific at second. And there’s a lot of history of guys that were sure stops up either became out theaters or second baseman. And it’s a much easier throw for a second baseman. And so you.
If you could add a strong arm on top of that, like Brokiel has or Jimenez has, and they’re shortstop instincts, you could figure it out. And it’s, they’ve been looking for somebody to take that spot. And so he did it almost by accident because they just kind of had to find somebody there. Cause remember he opened the season at short and then they had areas at second, then they flipped them. and that has been a big deal, but KFIS has got a chance.
You know that this is where we talked about Brito. We talked about the water early on. I brought up KFIS real early because I was tipped off by some of the organization about him when he began to play him more in the outfield, but they did not have him ahead of those two guys. But you know how that goes. People get hurt. Here’s your chance. Go with it.
David Campbell (09:00.498)
Yeah, so speaking of CAFUS, we do have an email here from Ellen one of our listeners, and she says, Hey, Terry, how much longer are we going to have to watch Nolan Jones bat? It seems like we might be seeing the beginning of that transition, right? CAFUS has been playing the last several games in right field. Nolan Jones, not so much. I think Jones, I think in his last five games is something like one for 11 when he has gotten a chance to play. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (09:18.082)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (09:25.806)
It’s bad. It’s been bad.
David Campbell (09:29.34)
CAFIS’s numbers right now, I just pulled them before we started taping this 269 batting average 821 OPS, one homer, five RBI and whatever shortcomings he might have. yeah, a lot of extra base hits, yeah.
Terry Pluto (09:39.074)
Several doubles too. think I think he might have yeah, that’s that’s what you like to see. Yeah, go ahead, David. But that’s I look at that guys that hit doubles see that’s the thing that makes Jose great for all of Jose’s hitting 35 homers or whatever. He’s always in the top 10 and doubles. He’s in the top two and stolen bases. He does all this stuff. Well, if KFIS can hit just for extra bases, it’s such an increase over
Jones was doing nothing. They kept waiting for him to hit home runs. You know, they would look at that year of 23 where they let him go to Colorado and he had that big year. had over 300 and he had 20 some homers. But after that last year, he heard his back and he just has not been the same player since the power. I think he’s got six home runs since opening day of 2024 and I covered something like 550 at bats.
I mean, the power’s gone. I don’t care. I don’t want to hear anymore. Exit velocity or whatever. You know, I’ll tell you what, KFIS is showing you exit velocity. He hit a wide drive between the outfielders, run to second base. I mean, that’s exit velocity.
David Campbell (10:51.772)
Well, you get right field is one of those spots where you got to have a guy with some pop and his bat like it’s first base third base like you need to have guys who can get the ball to the to the wall in those positions and so yeah, that’s a big upgrade for sure.
Terry Pluto (10:55.862)
Mm-hmm, sure.
Terry Pluto (11:05.504)
And he’s okay in the outfield. He’s not great, but he’s okay.
David Campbell (11:08.454)
Well, mean, especially considering he’s only played like 20, 25 games there, right? Yeah. OK, so you want to talk about Stephen Kwan a little bit, I think, right? In his second half so far.
Terry Pluto (11:12.032)
Yeah, exactly.
Terry Pluto (11:17.644)
Yeah, this is a bit of a concern. know, Roberta’s all-time favorite player that she found in that Class A minor league game where I was fixated on Owen Miller. You know, right now he is hitting, you know, since June 1st, he’s hitting 221. I mean, that’s a concern.
If you go to like since the All-Star break, it’s, he’s sitting with 206 and in the past, last year he fell apart too. No, excuse me, he’s sitting 244 since the All-Star break. And it’s just been a real struggle for him. And when you go back and you look at the previous year and 24, he had 352 before the All-Star break and 206 afterwards.
Um, and it’s been, uh, the last two years that’s been, was talking to somebody with the guardians and, know, is it his wrist that’s bothering him? Cause the previous year it was the hamstrings in the second half of the year. Is that why, or is he small and wears down? That’s a problem. They’re young when you’re a smaller player physically, they always say, well, you wear down physically. I mean, I don’t particularly buy that. I mean, what’s the difference if you’re six foot four and two 20.
or your 511 and 180, I mean, it’s not like you’re a running back taking a pounding. Either way, you’re playing the outfield. So.
David Campbell (12:57.202)
So do you think, I know we had a little bit of a break. Well, not really. I he was there for the All-Star game, but this guy, I think the Guardians have played 117 games and he’s played in 111 of them. And yes, this isn’t football, but you got a night game followed by a day game and it’s 94 degrees and you got to get up and play. Do you think he would benefit from just maybe a couple of days off and not having to lead the game off every day and having to get up?
Terry Pluto (13:00.108)
Yeah.
Right.
Terry Pluto (13:07.0)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (13:26.0)
maybe just a little break. And we’ve seen this with Jose a few times where they give him a couple of days. He doesn’t want to rest, but they’re like, listen, you might need to reset and just, just decompress a little bit and get away from the game for a couple of days. Do think they should do that with Stephen Kwan?
Terry Pluto (13:28.407)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (13:39.054)
Sure, why not? You’ve got, especially now you’ve got Cafus there and you’ve got Angel Martinez and you you could try to fill in with different guys in the outfield and see how it goes. I know when you’re a manager and you’re making out that lineup and you’re thinking, boy, even if Kwon goes 0 for 4, he’s liable to save a run in the outfield because of his defense. You you hate to take him out for that. But now in his first two years,
I went and looked at the splits, you know, in other words, before the All-Star break, after the All-Star break. In 22 his rookie year, he had 279 before the All-Star break and 317 afterwards. And in 23, he had 263 before the All-Star break, 275 after. So the first two years, it wasn’t that, you know, last year, uh, and it was probably the hamstrings. Now he turned around the playoffs, by the way.
I mean, 17 playoff games, this guy’s hit like 370. I mean, he’s been really good in the playoffs. And then, um, but the last two years, so that’s why I think even though they says he’s fine, that maybe that wrist isn’t right for Quan. Um, maybe that’s the thing. It looks to me. Yeah.
David Campbell (14:51.57)
That could be it. And we’ve seen Jose play through injuries too, and his numbers are going down and people are like, what’s going on with Jose? And we find out later, right, that he’s hurt. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (14:58.498)
Generally, generally when he guys are really good player and he’s a good attitude and he’s about all the right stuff when he, you know, falters, that’s the reason. And it’s, you know, it’s a concern. So we’re going to have to see, but I’m just really interested to see how they handle that. And at least CAFIS has given them another option.
to play in the outfield and they could put Schneemann could play out there. Especially now since they’re pretty much set with Roquio and Arias up the middle, you could put Schneemann out there. And the big thing that’s happened is Kyle Menzardal just emerging. It was a big time part of the middle of that lineup. I wrote a thing the other day about.
when the Guardians supposedly punted on the 23 season and they traded Savalli and they traded Rosario and they traded Josh Bell and all these guys from all over the place. You would trade not only those three guys, but also the guys that the Guardians got back like Noelsen de Gaard and Khalil Wilson. Throw them all in there for Kyle Manzaro. You get all these guys from Manzaro. And that is, think,
David Campbell (16:10.162)
Just throw them all in there.
Terry Pluto (16:21.312)
A key thing that they did, they targeted him and they went out and got him. Well, it’s of course, as you say, Sleeson Tampa Bay could do because, they got junior Caminero on that as, as it’s Chris Antonelli. He, when they were asking him bottom, he won’t even discuss that trade. discussed it was a really bad trade. I’m not even going to get into it. And you know what? Sometimes that’s the best way to go. Cause if you try to explain why you like this picture and Caminero was an 18 year old kid and, and their Dominican unit of.
It still sounds bad. You just traded a guy who’s gonna hit like 30 home runs. So just stop and say it was a bad trade. But the flip side, if you’re Tampa Bay now, all of a sudden you’re going, well, you know, that’s the volley deal wasn’t real good too, because he’s gone on from Tampa Bay to Milwaukee to the White Sox.
David Campbell (17:11.974)
Yeah, it’s something. Alright, so we talked about Manzardo. There’s one thing, we’re talking about Gavin Williams, Terry. I want to go back. We’re done with Stephen Kwan, right? We can move on. So Gavin Williams has the pitching appearance of the year so far for the Guardians last week, and I wanted to delve into this a little bit. He takes a no-hitter into the ninth inning last Wednesday, I believe, against the Mets, and he goes out for the ninth.
Terry Pluto (17:24.022)
Yes. Yeah.
David Campbell (17:42.322)
And nobody’s warming up in the bullpen. Do you like that Stephen Voate didn’t have anybody warming up in the bullpen? I know this is, and we talk a lot about Earl Weaver. It was 4-0, Guardians. OK. So.
Terry Pluto (17:50.51)
What was the score? Yeah, what was this? Yeah, I’m fine with that. Yeah, if it was one to nothing, no, because you don’t, but go ahead.
David Campbell (18:03.066)
Okay, so Juan Soto hits the homer to make it four to one, right? And because nobody was warming up, Gavin Williams had to face two more batters to buy the bullpen time so that Hunter Gaddis could get ready and he got Pete Alonso to fly out and I think Brandon Nimmo walked and then they brought in Hunter Gaddis. But by that time, Gavin Williams is up to 126 pitches. What did you think of the way that went down and
Terry Pluto (18:07.266)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (18:15.896)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (18:22.914)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (18:26.926)
120 pitches. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (18:31.584)
I mean, because of the score, didn’t bother me. And also I doubt that’ll throw 120 pitches again, because I doubt that’ll take a no hitter into the ninth inning again. And that’s, that would be the reason you also kind of trust your pitching coach and that they know more about Williams’s arm and then I do. mean, the injury that he had.
David Campbell (18:32.496)
Yeah, I’m just interested in that whole scenario.
Terry Pluto (19:01.246)
Last year was for throwing weighted balls and spring training. That’s how he hurt his elbow. And then once he came back, he wasn’t, you know, really he was playing catch up all year. You know, this year he keeps to keep, they keep working on his stuff. I don’t have a big problem with it just because it was such an exceptional circumstance.
David Campbell (19:21.808)
Right. Yeah, it’s tough. It’s a tough thing because if you put somebody in the bullpen, Stephen Vought is very big on having his players back, just like Tito was, right? And to put somebody out in the bullpen, you’re right, it would send just a vote of no confidence that you can get the thing done. I saw this really interesting thing, and I wanted to get your thoughts on it, Terry. Joe Madden, was the manager of the 2016 Cubs, who beat the Indians in the World Series,
Terry Pluto (19:25.827)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (19:47.458)
Yeah.
David Campbell (19:50.642)
He was interviewed about this the other day, and I thought this was fascinating. He said he was managing in St. Louis one time and his pitcher had a no-hitter going into the ninth. And he did the same thing. He didn’t have anybody getting warmed up. But what he did was he told the guy that was going to come in from the bullpen to be out in the outfield playing catch with the outfielders in between innings so that he could get his arm warm, which I thought was brilliant. But anyway, I don’t remember who this pitcher was. I remember it was in St. Louis. But the
Terry Pluto (19:52.814)
Mm.
Terry Pluto (20:11.915)
Ooh, ooh, ooh. Yeah.
David Campbell (20:20.134)
the pitcher gave up a hit. so Madden tried to get the catcher to go out to the mound to slow the game down. And he said, Joe West was the umpire and Joe West knew what was going on and he wouldn’t let them slow the game down. So then Madden leaves the dugout and gets into an argument with Joe West for 10 minutes and gets kicked out of the game on purpose. Yeah. And then the reliever had plenty of time to get ready. So I thought that was really funny the way he did that.
Terry Pluto (20:33.838)
You
Terry Pluto (20:40.014)
Yeah, that, yeah. I mean, that would have been your thing to do the old line baseball there. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, that, that, was, and, and, know, Madden was always very inventive going back to his days with Tampa Bay early on and there, you know, Tampa Bay is kind of like Cleveland. They’ve had Kevin Cash and Madden, uh, forever. And they generally overachieve. They don’t spend money.
David Campbell (20:56.178)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (21:09.926)
their attendance is much worse than Cleveland. It’s like, nobody seems to care. Now they’re playing in a minor league park or spring training park. and they’re still, you know, they’re still really good. I always would kind of admire those. I, you know, it, I keep thinking about that. was kind of going through my head, but really since.
Gavin’s been here There hasn’t been any indications of him like really tiring or any of that stuff. I Mean, who knows why these guys hurt their arms and have Tommy John anymore. I almost give up They have pitch counts. They have this they have all these weighted balls They have all these things and 38 % of your pictures have Tommy John surgery
David Campbell (21:55.632)
Yeah, we have more technology and more advanced metrics than ever and there’s more injuries than ever. It doesn’t make sense. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (21:59.668)
Right. they’re, they’re throwing fewer pitch starters or throwing fewer pitches than ever. And there’s, they throw fewer pitches in the minors and they still have Tommy Jones surgery.
David Campbell (22:11.804)
Yeah, there’s some PhD theses to be written here for people who want to delve into that. So, all right, we do have a couple of guardians emails here, Terry. You want to go through those? All right. This first one is from Steve. says, Hey, Terry, I wonder if there’s been any thought given by MLB regarding some sort of compensatory draft picks for franchises that are deemed to have no culpability when their players get permanently kicked out of baseball for gambling. The long-term impact of this punishment, as Paul Hoynes recently wrote about,
Terry Pluto (22:15.597)
Yeah.
David Campbell (22:41.138)
for Ortiz and Klaus A impacts far more than the player at fault. What do you think about that? Steve’s wondering if MLB would ever give compensatory picks like they do for, when you lose a free agent or whatever. What do you think of that idea?
Terry Pluto (22:55.628)
Well, what would you do in front of your players?
kill somebody.
and ends up having to go to prison for quite a while. No, all right, or it’s awesome. So, I mean, the team had nothing to do with that.
David Campbell (23:08.07)
Wow, okay. I know it’s, it’s yeah. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (23:17.016)
to you.
David Campbell (23:17.36)
I was thinking about like, if we see substance abuse or drugs or alcohol type of thing, right? It’s kind of what you’re talking about, a player who’s taken out of usage because of something that was not the team’s, yeah.
Terry Pluto (23:22.006)
Yeah, any of these things. Yeah, right. Right.
Well, there was a player, I think, I can’t think of his first name. His last name was Stallworth. was with the Browns. And I think later he got into a car wreck where someone died and he did some prison time. Dante Stallworth. Yes. So therefore I forgot whether he was with Cleveland or Baltimore, or whoever he was then. Does that team then get a pick because of his behavior? After all, the team had nothing to do with it. My answer is no.
David Campbell (23:42.684)
Dante Stallworth,
David Campbell (24:00.388)
It’s an interesting idea. I know what Steve is getting at, because like the team, it’s just a total loss. I mean, it’s a negative for the team that it happens to. But I think you’re right, Terry, if they were to do it for a betting investigation, like where do you draw the line between that and the other stuff we were just talking about? think it would be tough to do. Yeah. Really, an interesting idea though, Steve. It’s really, yeah.
Terry Pluto (24:02.86)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (24:19.084)
Yeah. Other crimes. I mean, right now. Okay. Right now. mean, say, junks is going to get suspended. You know, or these guys that get suspended.
David Campbell (24:32.442)
And should the team be compensated? The answer is probably no. It’s just the way it goes. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (24:35.156)
No, no, it’s just the way it goes. Yeah, you, you, you hired the guy, you traded for the guy, you signed the guy. He’s your guy. You live with them.
David Campbell (24:45.286)
Yep. All right. This one’s a little bit more lighthearted, Terry. This one is from RFH and RFH asks, what’s with the weird way Carlos Santana wears his pants? A topic for your podcast. What would Herb Scor think? Thanks for that, RFH. Yeah. I love it. I love, I love the high socks. mean, baseball pants should end right below the knee and you should be showing some socks. that’s, I never understood the pants all the way down to the feet thing.
Terry Pluto (24:59.502)
He’d probably like it. He’d like it. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
David Campbell (25:15.226)
It just, it made me crazy. I love the old style look. What about you? All right.
Terry Pluto (25:17.536)
All right, you want to hear a strategic thing to this one? Cause I’m on that players first started wearing cause he used to blame them up higher. They started doing this, you know, pants all the way down to your ankles. Some old line baseball guys said, you guys are stupid for doing that because it loses. You’ll get more low strikes called on you because of that. Whereas when your socks are up higher, it gives the.
David Campbell (25:44.132)
Wow, really?
Terry Pluto (25:45.578)
Yes. Gives the umpire a better idea of where your knees are. And given the fact that Jose, I’m, excuse me, the car was Jose likes to draw walks too, but Carlos really likes to draw walks that might be behind it. Now he may just say he likes it or whatever, but you know, Carlos is an extremely smart player. In fact, I was talking to Tom Hamilton today. were just catching up on different things and he, he said,
David Campbell (25:56.689)
Yes!
Terry Pluto (26:13.998)
Carlos at first base is as good a first baseman as he’s ever seen on like catching that ball and firing a rocket to second base to force a guy off a bunt or you know, whatever he said he’s got that catcher’s arm goes because a lot of first baseman sometimes are afraid to throw it because they’re gonna hit the runner so they sometimes just tag first or They kind of lob it or something. He said Jose just I mean, excuse me Carlos just this flings it right in there
And so maybe it fits in what this is the way Carlos sees the game. I want to walk. And I think he likes being different. And there you go.
David Campbell (26:55.75)
I don’t think he used to, I think he used to wear the pants longer down and I think he changed over the years. Yeah. But that’s really interesting. So if you have your socks going over your knees, as some guys might even do, it makes the umpire. Yeah. Yeah. It makes it look like your knee is higher than it is, which tightens your strike zone. I had never thought of that.
Terry Pluto (26:58.91)
Longer. Yeah, I think I think the pants have gotten higher and higher over the years. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (27:08.8)
and way down almost to their ankle. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (27:15.36)
And then, yeah, and the other is when it’s up high, like his are almost on the kneecap.
Now I know we’re all going to the computer box anyway, so I guess that’ll change it, but no more of that. yeah, so that I think that’s part of it.
David Campbell (27:26.214)
Yeah, there’d be no more grace period for the Sox.
All right. Thanks for the questions, everybody. We really appreciate them. And if you want to hit us, we’ve got some more we’ll get to next week, but you can send those to sports at cleveland.com and put Terry’s talking in the subject line and we’ll try and get it on an upcoming podcast. All right. So the guardians are playing Miami the next few nights at home. And then they have the Braves at home this weekend. Then they will go on the road for a week long road trip at Arizona and Texas, where I am sure it will be balmy and pleasant. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (27:56.718)
David, David, David, there’s no such thing as a road trip. Hell, leblets, you’re either on the road or a trip. You’re not both.
David Campbell (28:04.156)
That’s right, I did it again. They’re taking a trip. They’re taking a trip. They’ll be not at home. So, all right.
Terry Pluto (28:14.548)
I have another thing. I have my own now. I am tired of hearing people say it was surreal.
What exactly does that mean?
David Campbell (28:29.714)
It’s a long explanation, Terry, but it is used a lot, probably to the point where we should scale back.
Terry Pluto (28:33.664)
A lot. You know, this might be a surreal podcast, but I’m not sure.
David Campbell (28:40.914)
Alright, that’s a good one.
Terry Pluto (28:42.004)
And are we talking just like running downhill? Nobody is running downhill in the NBA or the NFL unless they have doctored the field.
David Campbell (28:53.97)
We’re going to hear a lot of running downhill very soon.
Terry Pluto (28:54.73)
It’s very surreal when you think a guy is running downhill.
David Campbell (28:59.89)
If I say we have a surreal road trip coming up for the Guardians, then I will really be in trouble. that’s right. He’s going to come after me.
Terry Pluto (29:03.054)
how liberal it’s from his grave, will come by and knock on your door and give you a grammatical lesson in redundancy.
David Campbell (29:15.298)
All right. Well, let’s take a break not a surreal break just a normal one and when we come back We’re gonna get into the Browns Terry. We haven’t had a chance to talk to you about should door Sanders I want to know what you think about what you saw the other night We’ll get into that as well as some cavs and some more of your emails when we return Terry’s talking
David Campbell (30:45.682)
All right, we’re back. More Terry’s talking. I did want to do our quick plug real quick for Terry’s newsletter, which will come out tomorrow on Wednesday at noon. Always jammed full of interesting thoughts, contract stuff, behind the scenes things Terry’s hearing. You’ll get it first in the newsletter. Go to cleveland.com slash Pluto. There’s a blue bar at the top. You can subscribe by clicking on that blue bar and the rest is easy. So, all right, let’s talk some Browns here, Terry.
The Browns went to Carolina last week. They had practice with the Panthers and they played them in a game, preseason game. I think I saw some numbers that there were 2.3 million people who watched that game the other night, which is a big number for preseason. Browns win 30 to 10. And the story of the night was Shadour Sanders, 14 of 23 passing. That’s almost 61%, 138 yards, two touchdowns. He took a couple of sacks, a 106.8 rating.
What did you think of what you saw, Terry?
Terry Pluto (31:45.059)
I was really impressed and I wasn’t expecting anything like that. Not a knock on Chidor, just that it’s his first game. He’s in a brand new offense. He never took a snap under center in college. and let’s face it, it’s the first time he’s even away from his father. I mean, maybe somebody else coached him at Pee Wee Ball, but from like junior high on, he always played under his father. Sometimes the father is the offensive coordinator. Sometimes they had coach.
And he was ready to go because, he was kind of thrust in there. Only it seems like only in Brownstown can you get like two guys in the same week, or quarterbacks pulled their hamstrings. I mean, where else does that happen? But it opened the door for him and the poise was really good. And his ability to, for the most part, throw on balance, I thought was impressive too, you know, create a little window to throw in. He seemed pretty comfortable in the pocket.
David Campbell (32:26.171)
Right.
Terry Pluto (32:43.566)
What did you think?
David Campbell (32:45.412)
I agree with everything you just said. The Browns really wanted to see him run a huddle, get the plays off on time, that kind of stuff. that looked easy for him to me. Like I don’t think he any problem with any of that. But the things that I thought I would see, I saw, and like you were saying, Terry, he would kind of shuffle to the right a little bit when there was some pressure coming and he would open a window for himself.
Terry Pluto (32:51.618)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (32:57.783)
Yes.
Terry Pluto (33:08.504)
Yeah.
David Campbell (33:13.116)
that he could whip the ball through. And I think it was everything a Browns fan could have asked for from the guy. And it was a really good start. I just want to say it was a preseason game and preseason football is very vanilla looks. want to see who can, know, the coaches want to see, you beat your guy one-on-one and can you do your job at a high level? And there’s not much trickery. There’s not much blitzing. There’s not much exotic looks from a defense, but
Terry Pluto (33:33.911)
No?
David Campbell (33:42.256)
Chadoor Sanders looked at what was there. He read it and he found the open guy. every time that pretty much every time it was there, he did, I thought. And so that’s all you can ask for. It’s just don’t please don’t go from there to like he should be starting week one. Like that’s not, that’s like going A to Z. Like there needs to be a progression here. If he knows that the Browns know that I just, I wish everybody would just kind of relax and you put it perfectly, Terry, just have fun with this.
Terry Pluto (33:58.158)
Thank
Terry Pluto (34:11.332)
Yeah
David Campbell (34:11.504)
Right? It’s really fun. Brown’s fans should enjoy it and not project this guy into week one against the Bengals when that’s a lot to ask of any rookie.
Terry Pluto (34:18.126)
No, please, please. No, don’t do this. How many times you have to watch rookie quarterbacks in Cleveland when a team knows back, go out there, start early on and they turn into Sean Kaiser or something. I mean, how many times? And the first six games, 71 and 41, that’s the opponent’s record. Three guys a year or more play for the Browns quarterback anyway. So there’s no reason. You’ve got, you know, daddy Joe Flacco there. The man can take a punch.
And I’ll tell you what else to me was encouraging. If you’re a Choudure fan and a Browns fan is Flacco seemed to spend a fair amount of time with Choudure on the sidelines. Flacco is a really nice guy and all that in press conferences, but Flacco does not suffer fools well. And he would have gone over and done the token stuff, but he wouldn’t have been doing as much where they had, you could see they had the iPads there and they were really, I mean, they were doing some work.
He was doing as long with Tommy Reese. They both are really school in this kid. And that told me that he has earned Flacco’s respect and he and Flacco’s watching those games and he knows where these guys are supposed to line up and what they were supposed to do far more than we do. And I believe that that all those were very positive, but we should do it because he’s I’ve never seen anything like it. This is a brand new thing for me that
The social media influencer who becomes the fifth round quarterback who sells more jerseys than any other rookie and has a high TV ratings. I mean, it’s just, it’s a phenomenon that’s unexplicable to me who, mean, it shows he shouldn’t have gone in the fifth round. I mean, I thought maybe a second or at worst the third round, but he, he and his fan base, you know, how they’re just beyond rabbit. I mean, they are just so taken with them.
David Campbell (36:10.279)
yeah, they’re behind him. I think the Flacco thing is just fascinating that you point that out, Terry. I didn’t really pick up on that, but I did want to mention something I have kind of picked up on and get your thoughts on it. I mean, Chadoor has already been out in the Cleveland community in Northeast Ohio, talking to students.
Terry Pluto (36:12.246)
Yeah. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (36:26.231)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (36:31.622)
jumping into the community, getting to know people, letting them know, Hey, I’m here for you, which has been great. But the thing I’ve noticed so far, just watching him at camp and some of the stuff on the sidelines, like you’re talking about the other night, a lot of times a rookie will come in and they won’t, they won’t gain the leadership role in the locker room until they become the starter. And then when they become the starter, it’s like, All right, I’m the starter. I need to lead the locker room.
Terry Pluto (36:54.722)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (36:59.492)
And I feel like Shadour Sanders has already begun kind of building his leadership in the Browns locker room with the players, even the veterans, the guys who’ve been around a long time, so that when he does get a chance to start, like that’ll already be there waiting for him when he actually gets the title of starting quarterback. And just the way he talks to guys on the sidelines and, and during camp, and he’s, he’s always, he’s always got a smile on his face and he’s trying to build relationships.
Terry Pluto (37:18.338)
You it?
David Campbell (37:28.016)
not only in the community, but also with the guys on the team so that when he does get the job, like that is there already waiting. I think that’s really interesting.
Terry Pluto (37:36.418)
Yeah, he’s doing the right stuff. You just have to make sure you continue. That’s all. I mean, my guess is he will, but this is, it takes a lot of energy to do what he’s doing. And by that, I don’t mean just physical, but emotional energy and that, because yeah, you can be in the community, but you better be doing your homework. You better be doing your film stuff. Like I mentioned, things like Flacos in there, but they’re going to be watching if that drops off and you, this is where, you know, your main job is your main job.
And so that’ll be fun. It’ll be fun to see how he plays in the second preseason game. Be fun to see Dylan Gabriel. I don’t know what to expect from that. I always have had a real hard time other than watching the scrimmages when they’ve been here with other teams. That told me a lot. But, you know, those scrimmages this year are both on the road, correct? They’re in Philadelphia and then one in Carolina.
David Campbell (38:28.592)
Yeah, it was one practice last week with Carolina and then this week the Browns tomorrow and then Thursday they’re going to be scrimmaging the Eagles in Philadelphia.
Terry Pluto (38:36.14)
So, so we can’t don’t get to see those. mean, our media does, but I don’t. And we’re watching them. They had two practices with Minnesota last year. And it was like, is this bad? Everything that you saw when the regular season was showed up in those. think guys jumping off size Watson throwing these awful passes. Everything we can, as Lennie Wilkins would say discombobulated and it stayed discombobulated. Never could get combobulated.
And so you go from there. And the year before, I remember they had one with Philadelphia and that was your Philadelphia went to the, uh, the super bowl and lost. Wasn’t that a couple of years ago? that, whenever that was, when they lost in the super bowl and you could see Philadelphia was really going to be good. And at that point, again, it was Watson was playing and he was erratic and that, that was the lot of alarm bells went off. But.
David Campbell (39:06.418)
You
Terry Pluto (39:35.022)
So that’s a nice thing. in terms of where you go out, watch Browns 1, play Browns number 2, play the third unit, for me it’s hard to really draw lot of conclusions from that.
David Campbell (39:44.838)
Yeah, well, we’re going to learn some things this week and you’re right Terry won’t get to be watching the scrimmages but we have a full team of people out there and I’m not sure how much I’m not sure how much they’re going to be able to send in terms of video and stuff because of NFL rules but be sure to follow all the coverage Mary Kay Cabot, Dan Lobby, Ashley Bastock, Irie Harris will be there Lance Ryslin is going to be there. We have a big crew and you can follow all their stuff at cleveland.com slash Browns.
Terry Pluto (39:52.587)
Yeah, got everybody there.
Terry Pluto (39:58.314)
Yeah, yes.
Terry Pluto (40:09.326)
Well, I remember sitting at this to make that point again. this is, uh, they’re playing Minnesota in these scrimmages and I’m sitting there with, it’s with the late Jimmy Donovan. this point, Jimmy had not, um, decided to, um, uh, to, uh, to retire. then of course, uh, but he had, they had just come back from Greenbrier and there.
And they’re throwing these stupid sideways passes. I’m sorry. That’s what they are. Those like 20 yard floating passes, two yards behind the line of scrimmage and they’re doing it over and over. I said, is this the offense? He goes, so it looked like in West Virginia time after time. I said, oh my gosh. Yeah, they do that. And once while they try to go downfield, he said, it’s Terry. It’s bad. I mean, that’s what Jimmy told me. And I’m like, Oh,
He knows a lot more and saw a lot more about this than I did. And then he was getting very disgruntled watching them not get lined up correctly in that. See what I think has been such a breath of fresh air is they don’t have to fix Watson anymore. Can Kevin can pit whatever quarterback he wants to play. They’re not invested in any of these guys. One year contracts and picket, one year contract on Flacco, third round contract, fifth round contract.
There’s no trade that has to be made to look good. Nothing. This is like play who you want, play who you think will fit your offense and give this team. And the players won’t be sitting there going, well, that guy’s playing because they got to make this look good. The players were players knew more than we did that whole agenda. And so there’s no agenda other than pick the right quarterback. It’s great being out there because you don’t have to have questions about Watson and how’s he coming from this surgery.
David Campbell (41:49.294)
they know, yeah.
David Campbell (41:57.666)
I’ll be back on this show.
Terry Pluto (41:59.638)
Is this coordinator going to fix him? it’s like, just shut up already. You know, please.
David Campbell (42:07.314)
All right, so do you want to talk about the speeding tickets real quick? Terry, you just put up a column today about Miles Garrett and just questions he should ask himself. And the point of it was, like, would you tell a friend or somebody like, yeah, it’s fine to drive 100 miles an hour? And the answer is no. So Miles was, they landed after the game in Carolina. He was given a ticket. He was driving over 160. And of course, this is just a few years after the terrible accident that he had that could have been worse.
Terry Pluto (42:09.74)
Sure. Sure.
Terry Pluto (42:19.862)
Yeah, exactly.
David Campbell (42:36.443)
And he admitted that he’s, Miles said there was an angel looking out for him that day. So anyway, talk about your column and kind of how you’re feeling about the latest speeding ticket for Miles Garrett.
Terry Pluto (42:36.641)
Much worse,
Terry Pluto (42:44.61)
Well, one of my, I wrote a faith column about this a long time ago and it’s one of the things that somebody else has helped me says, if you really want, you’re facing a tough decision on something, would you recommend that, you know, your spouse or your friend or whoever it is, is close to you do this? Would you recommend they would pay this much for that car and take on that payment? For example, given what their finances are, would you recommend whatever?
And basically it’s like, would you recommend anybody should be driving a hundred miles an hour? I don’t care. And on top of that, you know, he had tickets from like 20, 21, remember all that before the wreck where he was going over a hundred. And then he flipped his Porsche over and down on Medina on a County road there. And he was fortunate that he got out of it, just getting banged up.
I believe he had his girlfriend with him in the car, didn’t he? I think she was. that, mean, all this could have been terrible. And now to be going a hundred miles again, you’re 29 years old. And just that’s, we sometimes need to ask yourself, you know, is this what you should be doing?
David Campbell (43:56.794)
Yeah, and we talk a lot about if you have young guys with fast cars and money like they want to drive fast, but you’re right. Miles isn’t so young anymore. He’s a little bit away from 30.
Terry Pluto (44:00.417)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (44:03.854)
No, he’s 29 and, and, and look, it’s not just about the speeding tickets. It’s about the damage that could be done. Um, he’s, or it’s two in the morning. You’re driving on 71. If you come in, you come into work on 71 or 77, how many dead deer do you see on the side of the road every day? I mean, if you hit one of those things, I hit a deer at 55. This was decades ago. And fortunately.
David Campbell (44:24.333)
yeah. Yep.
Terry Pluto (44:33.016)
There was no rec, we had our seat belts on and that Roberta and I, it came out of the fog on 90 near Asherbula and there was nothing you could do. But if I were going 100 miles an hour, it’s just, we’re as much flat as the deer. I mean, you can’t, you can’t react. I don’t care how great you think your reactions are. So that’s a thing that, if I’m, and of course I’m sure Andrew Berry is like.
Do we really have to keep telling them every day not to drive 100 miles an hour? Is that what we’re down to? Yeah. I mean, well, we talked about stalwart. I forgot what the deal was when he was in that fatal accident with somebody, but it happens. you could still be in a fatal accident going to speed limit, but you increase your odds of something terrible when you’re driving 100 miles an hour.
David Campbell (45:04.572)
well yeah he’s talked about other teams have had guys seriously injured in in career threatening stuff from correct
Terry Pluto (45:26.122)
And you don’t think a cop’s going to pull you over over there. And I don’t know about you, how many times have we all been, just totally frightened. Some bullet car comes up behind us. It’s like a blip in the mirror. Next thing you know, it’s a right on top of you and then cut you off or whatever. It’s just nuts.
David Campbell (45:45.968)
Alright, well the Browns will be talking to miles about that I’m sure if they haven’t already and we’ll see hopefully hopefully that’ll be the last of the speeding tickets.
Terry Pluto (45:51.522)
What would you tell him? I’m serious. All right, you’re Andrew Berry. What do you tell him?
David Campbell (45:56.018)
Just I would just talk about hey look what’s happened with these other teams like it’s yes, it’s fun, but this is what can happen and Learn from what’s happened before and don’t do it again That’s I don’t know. That’s about all you can say,
Terry Pluto (46:08.118)
me.
Terry Pluto (46:11.744)
It’s like, why would you want to do this? And I would go back to my question, would you recommend anybody else on your team do it?
David Campbell (46:20.716)
Yeah, and you know it is just speeding tickets and nobody was hurt in this instance, Terry, but it’s just you know you don’t know all the times when somebody wasn’t caught and it’s just it’s just you’d hate to see something happen. That’s I think that’s what Andrew Berry’s trying to
Terry Pluto (46:29.515)
Yes.
Terry Pluto (46:33.568)
Yeah, I mean, this is not about putting them down as people or anything like that. Just like it’s a behavior that’s just dangerous. That’s all. Yeah.
David Campbell (46:41.242)
Yeah, there’s enough risks in life already, right? Yeah, so all right. We we do have a email here on the Browns from Dennis K. And so I’ll read that right now. He’s Dennis says, Why do the Browns consistently face off against the Panthers and Eagles in interleague matchups and play in all three season all three preseason games? It’s no surprise they kick off the season plagued by injuries. So the Panthers and Eagles feel a little different to me this year. I think last year, the
Browns had the Packers, Vikings, and Seahawks. So it’s different this year, but they have played the Eagles in the past. I don’t know. The Eagles are the Super Bowl champs and the Browns are going to be facing them in like live scrimmages the next two days. But the Bengals are going through this right now, Terry. The Bengals are notorious for starting the season slow because they’re not ramped up enough to play. And I think the Browns would rather this season, especially after last year,
Terry Pluto (47:33.036)
Mm-hmm.
See you later.
David Campbell (47:41.17)
air on the side of being overly prepared in terms of game speed and live action than underprepared. anyway, getting back to Dennis’s question, I think the NFL usually tries to have teams play a team in the other conference because they don’t want to have these teams play too much because it’s in also geography. So it’s closer, right?
Terry Pluto (47:54.914)
Yep.
Terry Pluto (47:59.798)
And also I know the Browns like playing the Eagles because they Andrew Berry and Holly Roseman are close. Roseman is the GM of the Eagles. Kevin has a relationship with a lot of the Eagles coaches. He’s from there and they can then when they cause they, make up how many red zone plays are going to do all this kind of stuff. See, that’s what you don’t see. So like you watch a preseason game, you know, maybe your team only gets that red zone once or twice. So you want to run your stuff here. It’s like, okay.
David Campbell (48:12.068)
And he’s from there.
Terry Pluto (48:28.59)
We’re going to have run 10 different red zone plays and then you get to run 10 different red zone plays. So you get to really practice your plays. You’re off and your defense. That’s why they, there won’t be a lot of video on that stuff. And that’ll be things that, uh, uh, really can, uh, they said, leave, make it, make it sharper, but you also have to have a relationship with the opposing coaching staff so that you guys could agree on what you want to do. And, the Eagles are a place where there are, that’s a real comfort zone for the Browns on that.
David Campbell (48:59.29)
All right. Well, the Browns will be doing that with the Eagles the next two days. And then the game against Philadelphia is Saturday at one and then the Browns the following Saturday the 23rd will be playing their last preseason game and that’ll be down at the stadium against the Rams. That’s also set for a one o’clock kickoff. So that’s it on the Browns, right? All right. I guess we can talk a little calves, even though it’s August and it’s kind of the dead time, but the schedule is starting to come out and
Terry Pluto (49:18.434)
That’s it. Okay.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
David Campbell (49:27.714)
calves are going to open the season on October 22nd against the Knicks. That’ll be fun and also the calves are going to be playing on Christmas which is also yeah they’re playing the Knicks on Christmas so it’s the first time the calves will be playing on Christmas since the 2017-18 season so that would have been Christmas of 2017 but yeah what else do want to talk about on the calves Jerry?
Terry Pluto (49:36.258)
I think they’re playing it aren’t they playing the Knicks again on Christmas?
Terry Pluto (49:46.696)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
I was talking to somebody with the Cavs the other day and I was, were talking about the summer league team and I asked them, what do you think of Naquan Tomlin? You know, the kid that came out of the G league and in the interesting story, he didn’t play any high school basketball at all. Played a lot of Rutger league and Harlem, Harlem pickup. there was some family reasons for that. Then went to a couple of junior colleges, ended up, at Memphis state and.
guard of the Cavalier assigned him as a non-drafted free agent. Average 20 points a game in the G league. So I said, can he, he goes, we think he really can become a, a rotation player. He’s six, eight, six, nine real long. So the one thing is he really needs to get physically stronger in his lower body. didn’t show up in the G league or summer league, but it will, in the NBA thing. that was one. Secondly, they were disappointed that,
Craig Porter Jr. got hurt. Second time the Summer League had happened just because they really want to, they want to get a better line on him. Kenny Atkinson doesn’t feel he’s got a total grasp of like how good is Porter. He really wants to because they need that extra point, especially early on with Garland’s probably going to be out for a while. So that was a disappointment for them. Jalen Tyson.
They realized they put him basically in a point where he was trying to play point and probably try to do too much. But, know, Tyson, they think could fit in to that, Ocoro mode. they’re, you know, they’re pretty much. pleased with what they have and, we’ll, we’ll see where it goes from there, but that was, what he was saying, but Tomlin is intriguing and they need somebody like that. You know, teams like Indiana or the good teams.
Terry Pluto (51:45.334)
Golden State when they were rolling, some of us, they get these guys from the G League or they get some guy that’s on his 13th. Nick Cavs did it with Sam Merrill, he bounced around, came here and he’s become a valuable player. They did it with Ty Jerome. This is what the good teams can do. And the Cavs have to continue doing that because we have a second apron, all this stuff. Sometimes you’re not going to be able to keep these guys.
David Campbell (51:47.826)
So I did want to ask here the big offseason move was
Lonzo Ball, right? Have you been hearing anything about him in terms of how his health is this summer? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (52:15.254)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah, so far I heard he’s healthy. I talked to a guy who watched him play a couple of their pickup games. By the way, Donovan Mitchell was a huge proponent of this trade, I was told. He really likes ball, likes his game. Six, six point guard, defends anybody. The players love playing with him because ball doesn’t care about scoring. You know, it’s all pass the ball up the floor.
And where he used to be just hopeless from the outside, he has fixed his shot enough where he’s like, okay, I’m not going to go any farther than that. But the rest of it, his ability to see the court, willingness to take on, tough guys for the defense and just, he would have been really helpful in that Indiana series when the pressure came. Cause he could also pass over some of those passable over the heads of some of those defenders.
I think Indiana hurt the cows with their lack of size in the back court. So anyway, all good on on ball what I’ve told so far, but then again, it’s August.
David Campbell (53:20.646)
Yeah, yeah. I did want to mention Chris Feodor was at the Darius Garland celebrity softball game two weekends ago and caught up with both Kenny Atkinson and Darius Garland there and Darius was talking about his injury and how he felt like he was playing on nine toes and kind of what he’s been through. So be sure to check those out at cleveland.com slash calves and yeah.
Terry Pluto (53:27.234)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (53:37.046)
Yeah. I have to, I have to admit that I can’t quite tell what the surgery was that he got, but it sounded fairly serious. It’s like they straighten the toe or something. mean, I don’t, you know, they won’t put a name on this. It’s, I find that interesting. But to me, it’s like, wow, this is, you know, pretty serious business here. I know Kenny is desperately trying to figure out.
David Campbell (54:01.553)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (54:05.922)
How can we keep everybody healthy? And that’s been a thing this plug them. By the way, I was just looking up something else.
Cause you know how I am about three point shooting, the obsession with three point shooting. So, and I was talking to another NBA guy about that and he knows where I stand. I know where he is. And so I decided what I was like, all right. Of the 10 teams that took the most three pointers this past year.
David Campbell (54:17.138)
Let’s hear it.
Terry Pluto (54:39.5)
how many made the playoffs or how many missed? Pick one number and then the other one is it.
David Campbell (54:44.624)
All right, I’m going to say missed the playoffs, and I’m going to say three.
Terry Pluto (54:47.405)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (54:51.744)
Well, you say wrong. The answer is six. How about that? Okay. Yeah, well, this is I would have went with the other way. would have went six, six, six and four with six being taking more three pointers. The only ones in the top 10, a three point shooting, Boston, Golden State, Cleveland.
David Campbell (54:53.478)
No, no, I continue my streak of getting questions wrong when you ask me, so that’s good.
Terry Pluto (55:20.846)
in Minnesota. Now, all of those teams did make the playoffs. But where was Indiana, you ask? Number 20. Where was OKC? 12th. New York’s down there too. I forgot where it was. So in other words, to shoot. fact, the Mr. Big Volume approach in the top four of teams taking the most shots. Yeah, they made they made that. But then like teams like
David Campbell (55:33.51)
Huh.
Terry Pluto (55:51.042)
Bat teams are taking a lot of three-pointers. Chicago, Utah, San Antonio, because they had problems there. Brooklyn, Washington, Charlotte. They took a lot of three-pointers. They just didn’t make them.
David Campbell (56:06.194)
That’s a good stat. I like that.
Terry Pluto (56:07.446)
Yeah, it is. And I also think sloppy three point shooting. And that was just going down there and gunning up least a sloppy defense on the other end of the court.
David Campbell (56:19.322)
All right, well, I’m going be interested to see how the Cavs are different this year in terms of that. And will they try to play a little bit more of a playoff brand of basketball during the regular season? I don’t know.
Terry Pluto (56:21.838)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (56:30.67)
I think that’s what they’re wrestling with because yeah, they took the fourth most three pointers, but they made, they had, think they had the best percentage. So, I mean, they were good at it. If you’re really good at it, take a lot. That’s fine. But a lot of these teams that.
David Campbell (56:43.888)
Well, two years ago, Boston won, playing exactly the way they want to play, which is just shoot, shoot, shoot from three. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (56:47.338)
Right. And that, and that seemed, and that seemed to get everybody enamored with this. but you know, it’s a couple of years ago, Denver, I think was like 29th of three pointers attempted and they won it. so it’s, a lot of it has to do with who your players are and, that kind of stuff. But I know they’re looking at this and. Yeah. The calves are at the point where.
They don’t want to get stalled here in the second round. know that really is is plaguing them.
Five wins two years in a row in the playoffs I believe because once they eliminated in five games by Boston to I think and so it’s injuries hit again and Yeah
David Campbell (57:35.174)
Yep. Injuries hit again. Yeah. And the clock is ticking. I know they have this long one way, but Donovan Mitchell, I think can opt out in two years. So it’s got to happen.
Terry Pluto (57:45.512)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, there’s a lot of that and just, you know, you want to do that and then the whole Garland thing. But I mean, the nice thing we’re talking about a really good team and I think Kenny’s a good coach. And so we’ll, see what happens from there. But I was just looking at that. So my campaign against, I mean, I don’t want to go back to don’t shoot any threes or any of that, but I will, I will simply say, for example, some guys are very good at mid range shooting, but they don’t want them to shoot mid range.
There’s you could look on basketball reference and I’ll break it down into the mid-range shots what I call from 10 feet to 16 feet. Okay. And Darius Garland shot 54 % between 10 feet and 16 feet. What’s wrong with that? Even though analytics says don’t shoot from there. Maybe it shouldn’t just be a blanket. Don’t shoot from there. It depends on the guy because
Shane Alexander, SG, the MVP of the league, I think it was like in the top three or something, of taking those shots, of which of course he shot 54%.
David Campbell (58:57.202)
I wonder if it’s a thing where, all right, you know, back in the day, oh, you have the green light to shoot three pointers whenever you want. And they could make it so that some guys have the green light to shoot mid-range, right? Otherwise, you’re shooting a three or a layup. You only shoot 32 % on mid-range. So you do not have the green light in that area, right? Would that be the way it would go?
Terry Pluto (59:07.05)
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah
Terry Pluto (59:16.594)
Absolutely. like I look, Mowgli shot 35 % on that shot. You don’t want that shot from Mowgli. He’s actually better off taking a three than that. but yeah, but a lot of the defenses are programmed to take away the three point line and take away the rim. And that middle of the floor is just wide open. And if you’re good at it, shoot it. I mean, that’s, that’s my feeling. And.
David Campbell (59:24.912)
Yeah, that’s a great example.
Terry Pluto (59:45.58)
Maybe that’ll be something, for example, Garland, he’s so good at it, perhaps not going to the rim all the time and taking a physical pounding that he does. Just take, shoot your floater, shoot your little jump shot and run down the floor with two points instead of trying to, yeah, your, you know, your body takes a pounding. And that’s one of the things, even Magic Johnson, I remember talking to him.
David Campbell (01:00:03.014)
Call it a day. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:00:13.614)
after a Okay, it’s a bad name drop, but it’s true. He was saying how when he was younger, that was in the old days when these stars would be available for a game, like he and Mike Magic and Michael and several others, and they would just talk for 20 or 30 minutes, because they were hanging around while they were doing whatever. He said, man, I used to go in there all the time, try to get 12 rebounds and this. He said, by about my third year, my body’s getting beat up. He said, so.
In fact, he talked about how he keeps memory kind of developed a set shot and a hook shot sort of to just to take it. And, know, this guy was six, nine and two 40 or whatever. And he said he was feeling it. He goes, you go in there, they beat you up. And so if you’re talking about little guards, I know Chris fall used to go to the rim a lot more when he was younger and he got tired of getting hurt.
David Campbell (01:01:03.878)
Yeah, Magic took a lot of the jumping out of his game as he went along. He was really smart.
Terry Pluto (01:01:06.508)
Yeah, I was shooting flat footed set shots at the end and everything because one is knees and things are starting to feel it. And secondly, he had to learn how to reconfigure himself as a player because he was so athletic and big, you you just get to the rim at will. but you know, they, knocked you down and you look how physical the playoffs were. And you think maybe this would be a way to.
take some of that out of the game. Some people like don’t go in there where they beat you up.
David Campbell (01:01:43.25)
Interesting stuff, Terry. Thanks for finding that. All right. Well, the NBA schedule will be rolling out soon here. Keep an eye out for that. And we’ll see what other interesting games there are. So at least we know two, opening day and Knicks on Christmas. All right. You mentioned you’ve one of the things I love when you go out of town is usually you read and you come back with a good book of the week. Yeah. Yeah. So what’s your new book of the week here?
Terry Pluto (01:02:02.816)
I read it at home too, but read more there. Yes. It is called, this thing is true earlier. yeah, this is a book called midnight on the Potomac by Scott Ellsworth. The last year of the civil war, the Lincoln assassination and the rebirth of America. That’s the subhead. What I loved is it’s history, but it reads like a novel the way he did it. Very character driven. What he has done is he documented.
more of how James Wilkes Booth, know, assassinated Lincoln. He wasn’t just as lone wolf at all, who then got together with a couple of drunken friends and they almost pulled this off. That’s kind of been the standard history. Booth was meeting regularly. The Confederates had a secret agency in Montreal and he would go up there periodically and meet with these guys.
They were even looking at trying to start early gas warfare on how, about that? They had signed and he’s got all this. He’s found in letters and things like that. That how this thing could have really went badly. And so, but it’s, it’s told just the way that he uses the different characters. granted. I love the civil war and you need kind of some basic.
David Campbell (01:03:03.654)
Whoa.
Terry Pluto (01:03:25.098)
knowledge of the Civil War for this thing really to click, but Ellsworth is a terrific writer. I had never heard of him before, even though he had written a book called, The Groundbreaking about the Tulsa Massacre and a thing called The Secret Game, both of which I guess sold pretty well. I just wasn’t unfamiliar with them, but I was in a bookstore in Marquette, Michigan up there on Lake Superior and I saw Midnight on the Potomac. kind of liked the cover.
I read that. So I just kind of paged here and paged. go, this guy’s on to it. So if you like the Civil War, it’s easy reading, but there’s a lot of good stuff in there and highly recommended.
David Campbell (01:04:00.69)
more. It’s easy reading but there’s of good stuff in there.
David Campbell (01:04:08.53)
Nice, yeah, you told me you wanted to talk about this. I was reading a little bit about it. And one of the cool things is that he found, I guess there was this newspaper reporter from Michigan named Lois Adams, who was there observing a lot of what was going on. And some librarian today, these day, a current day librarian at Central Michigan University had found this reporter’s letters and put them into a book. And so I guess Ellsworth said he was using that to kind of...
Terry Pluto (01:04:16.984)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (01:04:29.463)
Yeah.
David Campbell (01:04:33.958)
provide perspective that maybe hadn’t been out there before from this Lois Adams, the reporter, observing different things. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:04:38.558)
And a lot of African and African-American, you talked about how like on Sherman’s march to the sea, the free slaves began to follow him, which I was very aware of. mean, you get thousands of them, but they began to lead the union troops to where food was hidden, were different. Yeah. They knew the secrets of all these plantations and that, and they were like serving as.
you know, spies for them. would be out front. They were reporting on troop movements, everything. And it shows the
All the stuff that was going on behind the scenes, you know, the Confederates want to see the good poison gas. were trying to create something like a torpedo and some other things to blow stuff up. And the union was using everybody they could for their own version of skullduggery. There were spies are over Washington. That’s been written about before for both. It’s is there. And of course they were planning. They wanted to kidnap Lincoln. The big plan was to kidnap Lincoln, take him down to Richmond.
hold him and hope that that could end the Civil War. They’d let him go if he would do this, but they can never quite pull that off. They took some shots at him before this that were like way off, you know, mark, but go for it. Yep.
David Campbell (01:05:47.826)
So we can.
David Campbell (01:05:58.002)
Talk about drama. All right. Midnight on the Potomac, Scott Ellsworth. So great stuff, Terry. Thanks for mentioning that. I’ll have to read more on that. So, all right. We do have one email to wrap up here from longtime listener, Brian Kirkendall. I kind of saved this for the end. I thought it was really interesting. Brian says, Hey guys, all the awards that local sports writers and personalities are getting lately inspired me to comment and question on a few things. I listened to a few other shows from Cleveland and it seems like the different people all support each other.
and say nice things about each other, supporting Mary Kay or Hammy, et cetera. I like that there seems to be respect and not just a cutthroat atmosphere. I wonder if it’s the same between rival cities. For instance, did you get along with Myron Cope in Pittsburgh? I wonder if the field rivalry moves to the booth. And again, that’s from Brian Kirkendall. Thanks, Brian.
Terry Pluto (01:06:48.374)
I didn’t know Myron at all, that’s...
David Campbell (01:06:51.004)
So I should say, let me say to you, Myron Cope was a long time Pittsburgh radio person, right? Radio announcer and is credited with inventing the terrible towel for the Steelers, I believe, right? So anyway, sorry, just wanted for people who might not know who Myron was.
Terry Pluto (01:06:56.718)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (01:07:02.04)
Yeah.
there, but, but, but really like when I was a young baseball writer, Peter Gammons was not only my mentor, but mentor to a lot, you know, the, with the Boston glow and Bob Ryan also with the glow was a mentor for me when it turned to the NBA B generally writers tends to get along pretty well. Now in Cleveland, the, the old days of papers competing against each other and that
Bob Sudek of the Cleveland press and Rush Snyder of the Plain Deer are absolutely loathe each other. They would hardly speak. mean, there’s stuff hiding each other’s typewriters and things like that, but it was not done in good fun. It was like really to stick it to each other. So that was, and then the biggest one in the radio booth in the sixties and seventies, were two guys named Jimmy Dudley, who’s in the Hall of Fame by the way, and Bob Neal.
David Campbell (01:07:46.276)
like, man.
Terry Pluto (01:08:02.018)
they got to the point where they did not speak between innings. And Joe Tate told me the same story as Pete Franklin when they both came to town. They went to the game and they’re sitting in the booth and they realize once like Neil’s talking to Joe and then Dudley’s talking to Joe, but he’s watching in. They never speak to each other. They don’t look at each other. Half the time when the one started to speak, the other guy just got up and left the booth.
David Campbell (01:08:14.642)
I’m
Terry Pluto (01:08:31.262)
And then, this went on, so we had a lot of internal battles then. And see, I came in after that where it’s really kind of.
It’s a hard enough job when you just start hating on the other guy and everything else. It’s not really worth it.
David Campbell (01:08:50.618)
I have heard, I get the sense, I mean, I’ve only been here since what, 1998, but I get the sense that Cleveland is like that. Like Brian’s talking about where the writers seem to be and once the newspaper wars went away, but I have heard that a lot of cities like Philadelphia, like the Phillies beat or the Yankees beat in New York where there’s a bunch of people covering a team and they just hate each other. And it’s the same kind of old school rivalry among the papers.
Terry Pluto (01:08:55.032)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:08:59.96)
Yes.
Terry Pluto (01:09:09.767)
Yeah.
David Campbell (01:09:18.616)
outlets within a town, but not so much from town to town, I think, is within a specific beat where people just don’t like each other. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:09:22.446)
Yeah. Which then the thing. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That pretty much is it. And so I think that because it’s like, yeah, all right. Myron cope is not the reason that Steve was kept beating the Browns, that kind of stuff. Um, but it’s a fun question. And I also think you look now where, you know, hammy goes into the baseball hall of fame. Mary Kay goes into the football hall of fame. Hoynes missed the writers wing by eight votes. And there was like 300 people that voted.
David Campbell (01:09:35.687)
Right.
Terry Pluto (01:09:52.686)
So we’re blessed to have these people right now, current Hall of Famers and an almost Hall of Famer, reporting and doing the games for us. that’s, and Jimmy Donovan should go, there is immediate, isn’t there a broadcasting wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame?
David Campbell (01:10:15.42)
well they give mary k received the prince award and the bill none award and then brent must burger was honored the same night and he received the people’s all were neck goes to t v radio
Terry Pluto (01:10:18.808)
Yeah.
There it is.
Terry Pluto (01:10:25.546)
Right. Jimmy, Jimmy should get that, you know, his, family should. So we, I would argue that we had, and then you had Joe Tate recently, but at one point, you know, you had Donovan, you had Tate and you had Hamilton. had three hall of fame broadcasters, three at once going on here. Cause I think Joe retired in 2000 and a year or two before LeBron came 12, came back 12 or 13. So there you go. And it’s,
It’s a very special place. I’m, you know, I am glad, I mean, I look at the people that I’ve worked with and it’s been, because I bounced between the Plain Dealer to the Beacon back to the Plain Dealer. And always it’s been, you know, a really good reception. And to me, especially watching Mary Kay go from being an intern when I was here the first time with the Plain Dealer to this is remarkable.
And, you know, Hoynes is the, I’m the last baseball writer before Hoynes. So that means he’s, well, let’s put this like, I’m 70 and he’s older. I’ll leave it at that. But I think, I think he’s, I think he’s going to the year until he’s 90.
David Campbell (01:11:31.186)
You’re right, Terry. We are lucky.
David Campbell (01:11:39.142)
Well, I have already booked the room and near is near to Cooper’s town as I can get for next year because I think he’s gonna make it next year So we’re gonna keep our fingers crossed. So thanks for that question Brian I think we’re done right Terry All right, I won’t say road trip anymore. I promise We’re gonna be back next week. We have a lot to talk about the Browns. We’ll have another game in the books and Man, we’ll see what happens with the Guardians. I wonder if they’re bring any of these guys up I was gonna mention that Cooper Engel
Terry Pluto (01:11:43.348)
Yeah, I hope so.
Terry Pluto (01:11:51.362)
That is it.
David Campbell (01:12:08.242)
was promoted to Akron this week along with Bizanna. So two of the guys went from Akron to Columbus, I should say, Columbus, AAA. exciting times. We’ll have a lot to talk about next week. We will see you then on Terry’s Talkin’.
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