CLEVELAND, Ohio — The new Terry’s Talkin’ podcast is live for this week, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. In this episode, they talk Browns, and what the kicking game will look like after Dustin Hopkins was cut on Tuesday. They also get into the quarterbacks after the trade of Kenny Pickett to the Raiders.
They also delve into the Guardians, and the dugout incident with Tanner Bibee and Stephen Vogt during Monday night’s game.
And readers weigh in with their questions and comments about the ongoing MLB gambling investigation.
Highlights:
Browns cut day: Key decisions and their impact on the roster.
Terry’s take on the kicking situation now that the Browns have cut Dustin Hopkins.
Inside the Browns’ roster moves and Guardians’ struggles.
Discussing Kenny Pickett’s trade to the Raiders and its implications.
Exploring how gambling affects players and teams.
Terry Pluto on the Browns’ need for a reliable kicker.
Share Browns predictions for 2025: Email us at sports@cleveland.com, and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line.
How will the Browns’ QB room work with Joe Flacco and two rookies.
Guardians’ losing streak: What it means for the season.
Why the Rays couldn’t have come to town at a worse time for the Guardians and their fans.
Listener emails about the investigation of Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Clase, and the future of sports gambling and its implications.
A listener says it’s time to bring back great sports nicknames.
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 (01:18.184)
Hey, what’s going on? It is a new edition of the Terry’s talking podcast. David Campbell, your host here. Terry, are you going to tell me to wake the heck up as we start this podcast and do a Tanner by B to me or we should just. That’s right. Take it inside. we’ll get into that later. There’s a whole lot going on with the guardians and their struggles, but it’s cut down day in the NFL. Terry, we’re taping this little before four o’clock on Tuesday.
Terry Pluto (01:29.966)
Now I’m going to tell you to take it inside. So do you want to explain that?
Terry Pluto (01:45.326)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (01:45.737)
I gotta apologize. think I mentioned, I had it in my calendar for some reason that tomorrow was cut down. I don’t know why, it’s always on a Tuesday. So I apologize to our listeners for doing that. But the big news that I know you’ll want to get into because you are our kicking expert on staff is Dustin Hopkins was cut. You kind of saw that coming, I think, right? And why don’t you talk kickers, take it away.
Terry Pluto (01:58.542)
Correct. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (02:06.112)
I was hoping, yeah, because I don’t think this guy has been right physically ever since he got hurt. Remember right towards the end of the 23 season. And he came to the Browns with a history of calf and groin injuries, the dreaded soft tissue injuries. And of course, what does he do? He was chasing after some return guy and of course he pulled the...
You know, you’re not a football player. People have listened to this, heard me say before kickers and quarterbacks are not football players. We don’t want you chasing people. We don’t want you trying to tackle people. want you kicking and passing and doing that stuff. Because the other thing is, especially once you’re a kicker and you use your legs like that and you start getting these things, it just seems like it’s very hard to stop that tsunami of.
of injury so he kicked poorly last year then he missed two extra points in training camp and it’s like okay now it gets to be mental and I just didn’t want to watch this guy unravel I’d rather have them take a shot on somebody fresh and see what happens by the way they still can’t get through two full seasons with a real kicker since Phil Dawson
David Campbell (03:18.548)
In the mark, yeah.
David Campbell (03:26.462)
Yeah. And, the Mar I was going to say, Terry, the margin for error with this team is going to be so small that you just cannot afford to have Hopkins going out there and missing extra points and what, and whatnot. so I know you’ve done some research on Andre Schmidt that I’m eager to hear about. And for those who hear us calling him Andre Schmidt, his last name is actually spelled S Z Y T. think Joe Thomas has had some issues with his name during, during preseason.
Terry Pluto (03:31.404)
Yeah!
Terry Pluto (03:42.094)
Right.
Terry Pluto (03:52.686)
Yes, he has. Yeah, you could go down a bad road with that one. But okay. So he’s by the way, not only was Gabriel who played six years in college, so did Andre the kicker. I’m going to call him that instead of Andre the giant, Andre the kicker. He played six years at Syracuse. Didn’t kick much his first year, made 81 % of his field goals.
David Campbell (03:56.03)
But tell us about Andre Schmidt.
Terry Pluto (04:19.534)
The extra point stats mean nothing because unless I’m wrong, they still kick the old fashioned extra point, don’t they? They’re not 10 yards. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re 99 out of 203. So that’s that. He made 81 % of his kicks overall at Syracuse and he didn’t kick that many from 40 to 50 yards. He was eight out of 10 on those. So it’s a little hard, but here’s where I think he caught people’s attention.
David Campbell (04:26.548)
Yes, in college,
Terry Pluto (04:49.518)
In 24, he kicked in the USFL for St. Louis. He was 19 of 21 on field goals. They don’t kick extra points. I think they just go for two all the time in there. And he was eight of 10 from 40 to 50 yards. And then he kicked well in training camp. So why not? I’d rather try him than watch Hopkins unravel.
David Campbell (05:15.604)
Yeah, and I don’t think the kicker’s gonna make or break the season necessarily, but it’s something you don’t want to have to be worrying about, just like you said, Terry. So I think people are not surprised by this, and yeah, we’ll see how it goes.
Terry Pluto (05:27.234)
But you know, but to your point, there it’s like, want this team to feel it’s competitive, the fans to feel, you’re still in the entertainment business. It’s just like these people who wanted to start the rookie right away. Do you really like, how many times do you want to hit your head against a brick wall to realize it’s brick? I mean, mean, please. So give your team, cause you’re trying to create the best environment to find out whenever the rookies do play.
What it’s like when they’re in competitive games and having a kicker is that now they’re not easy to find but other teams do find them and I would now if I were them to you know, there’ll be some guys cut bouncing around you could bring them in on I think it’s Tuesdays are always the tryout days. Of course they have what 10 days or whatever until the season opens. So you could have more guys kick and he throw one on the practice squad.
David Campbell (06:23.626)
And it goes back to culture, right? And, and you, we talk about this on here a lot, Terry, when a closer blows a baseball game, it’s, can be demoralizing for a baseball team. You’ve got these young guys, I mean, you’ve got this draft class that is going to, you hope be the backbone of what’s next over the next few years. And if you establish a culture of losing and having kickers miss kicks and not, the young guys get the feeling that this thing is not being run the right way and their youthful enthusiasm.
Terry Pluto (06:26.306)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (06:31.662)
It’s awful.
Terry Pluto (06:40.718)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (06:50.829)
Yeah.
David Campbell (06:53.55)
is kind of tamped down by bad management or bad coaching and bad results. Yeah, exactly.
Terry Pluto (06:57.79)
And the veteran’s saying, here we go again. And the veteran said, we can’t even kick an extra point. I’m out here, Miles and those guys beating my brains in and this guy can’t even kick an extra point. So it gets bad.
David Campbell (07:08.744)
Yeah, it can set you up for failure in the future. So that’s why this is important in terms of the long term. So, okay.
Terry Pluto (07:15.986)
Besides you want to find a kicker if you could find I mean suppose Andre the kicker becomes the Andre the kicker here solves a problem Meanwhile, I was trying to get exactly the numbers on Figuring out Hopkins contract course. They did one these voidable year things and all that but it looks like though all moly’s two point you cut is gonna count like Two point eight or something on the cap this year and I’ll get some money after that
And I understand why Andrew Barry did give him a multi-year contract because, you know, he didn’t want to go shopping for a kicker. But unfortunately that happened. So that’s the kicker story. What else have we got going on?
David Campbell (08:00.998)
All right, you want to talk quarterbacks a little bit here?
Terry Pluto (08:03.17)
Well, let’s get anybody else interest you where the cuts or anything there and then we’ll talk cord.
David Campbell (08:06.984)
No, not really. we can run down the list real quick and again, go to cleveland.com slash Browns to see all of our coverage with our coverage team. Deshaun Watson was placed on the physically unable to perform list reserve. Mike Hall passed as physical. David Hall was placed on reserve non-football injury. mean, the rest of this is. Yeah. David Bell, the receiver. I did. Sorry, David Bell. I was still looking at Mike Hall’s name. Yes.
Terry Pluto (08:28.182)
David Bell.
You said, that’s okay. Yeah, David. Remember, he’s my guy. That’s why I watch these things. I watch Kickers and David Bell.
David Campbell (08:39.018)
All right, so let’s talk quarterbacks Terry the other big news of the last 24 hours was that the Browns have traded Kenny Pickett to the Raiders for a fifth round draft pick in the 2026 draft I Kind of thought something like this was gonna have to happen because you know Andrew Barry has been saying he’s been asked all training camp Can you guys carry four quarterbacks into the season? Can you carry four? we’re open to it. We’re open to it So he Andrew Barry is a straight shooter. He’s not gonna say
Terry Pluto (08:42.039)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (08:55.405)
Bye.
David Campbell (09:08.724)
we’re going to get rid of one of these guys before the season. Like that’s not what GMs do, but he didn’t say that they were going to carry four. He just said, we’re open to it. And Iree Harris, one of our colleagues, I think I mentioned this before, but a month, a month or so ago, he did a post looking at all the teams that have carried four quarterbacks on their roster for more than two weeks. And I think it’s only happened three or four times in the last 10 years, which makes total sense because if you’re doing the math, Terry, you get 53 spots. You have a starting quarterback.
Terry Pluto (09:29.656)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (09:38.187)
a long snapper, a punter, a kicker. All right, that takes you down to 49. Now, if you take three more guys off that list for quarterback, that takes you down to 46. And now you’re hurting your depth at special teams and a lot of other positions. That’s why a lot of teams don’t do it. They just do not want to go down that much to have three guys holding a clipboard on Sundays. It just doesn’t make any sense. So what did you think of the trade?
Terry Pluto (09:45.825)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (10:01.602)
was fine. know, mean, fifth round pick, you get that form. Andrew also did say that having four quarterbacks quote creates opportunities. and I don’t think he just meant we’re going to play two quarterbacks at a time. I think he meant just exactly what you saw. picket. I’m sure from their point of view, they would have loved to have seen picket play because if you, if you lay out the order of how the quarterbacks came in, that probably was their initial depth chart in their head.
Pickett came first a month later, Joe was signed right after that Dylan was drafted. Shadura was drafted one, two, three, four. And how did it pretty much look in camp? Yeah, maybe early on Pickett might’ve had some, uh, snaps before Joe. I can’t remember because he was, was horribly healthy. But then after that, um, you know, he got hurt the old, what’s the old line. He can’t make the club from the tub and the trainer’s room.
And so that allowed them to move him. Now the quarterbacks all get their work and the so your people could just relax. You guy will get some work in practice and we’ll see how that goes. In the meantime, if they need a practice squad quarterback, you know who that could be. The one and only Snoop Tyler Huntley. They love him.
David Campbell (11:25.116)
And they like they they like having money knows the offense and in a pinch they can throw them in there. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (11:30.44)
Right. And they also knows he knows how to deal with people. And, it’s amazing. He did make a probable one year. It was a year, like four quarterbacks didn’t want to go, but he did get to go. He’s always got that on his resume. So that’s fine. And, Pickett gets to go to Las Vegas, back up, Gino Smith, and we’ll go from there.
David Campbell (11:53.931)
Yeah, so you can already see a little bit here. I don’t know if you’ve been getting emails on this from fans, it’s everybody wants to see Flacco do well, right? If you’re a Browns fan and you can already see people that’s this should do or Sanders, Dylan, Gabriel. These camps are forming where people are already, but it’s like a political race. It’s like guys are buying one can that one candidate or other they’ve picked their person and they’re backing them all the way. Here’s an email from Dennis C that kind of gets into the should do or Dylan Gabriel situation.
Terry Pluto (12:00.758)
Yeah, you should.
Terry Pluto (12:08.29)
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (12:22.73)
Dennis says, I really enjoy the podcast guys. I find your insights and answers far more insightful than what I’ve been hearing from Stefanski. I’m curious. I’m curious why I’m curious why it feels like all I get from him are excuses for Sanders. Whenever I watch Gabriel, he seems so composed and unflustered with a great knack for checking down and releasing the ball quickly. Yet Stefanski never seems to give him the credit he deserves. It’s worth noting that Russell Wilson is only 5′11 too.
Terry Pluto (12:29.07)
That doesn’t take much
Terry Pluto (12:49.043)
no. Yeah.
David Campbell (12:50.026)
So anyway, that’s what I mean. Like I think Dennis would probably say he’s in the Dylan Gabriel camp. we’ve heard from a ton of people in the Chedure camp. You did write a column the other day and I thought it was, it really struck the right tone because it was perspective. And you’re basically asking everybody for patience, right? Like just everybody just chill. Why don’t you talk about that column for a second and where you stand on this Dylan Gabriel Chedure Sanders thing.
Terry Pluto (12:55.872)
I think so.
Terry Pluto (13:08.216)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (13:14.488)
Well, first thing, and this is, I think, a huge point that, all right, I will pat myself on the back, because I have not heard this talked about anywhere near the length that it should be. You always hear, well, Gabriel started 64 games, the most in Division I history. All that true. Three schools. Three years at Southern, excuse me, Central Florida, two years at Oklahoma, one year at Oregon. Played for.
Not one, not two, not three, four different head coaches. Big time programs, especially the last two. So he’s almost like one of these veteran quarterbacks in the NFL sort of bounce from team to team. Like right now, Kenny Pickett is on what? His fourth team, fourth team. Yeah, there you go. And probably less than six years. And
David Campbell (14:03.796)
Fourth team, right? Yeah.
Terry Pluto (14:10.326)
So he already has been exposed to frankly, the business side of how this works, different offenses, you got to get up to speed quick, et cetera. By contrast, Shador, when he was in high school, his father was his offensive coordinator. When Shador went to Jackson State, his father was the head coach. And then when his dad went to Colorado and Shador went there. So he always played.
for his dad. don’t know how it was, you know, junior high or whatever, but it was for this was from high school on. And then on top of that, he’s been the focal point. I don’t think he’s ever really been challenged, you know, walked out on a field where there’s four other all straight state quarterbacks or something where Gabriel went through that. I’m sure it was like that at Oklahoma and was probably like that even at Oregon. Although I heard they gave a lot of money for him to transfer in.
cause by then the NIL thing was in place, but it’s a different situation. right now. So your comes in and I think it was hard for him to wrap his head around that he’s a fifth round pick and that the depth chart comes out. He’s number four and that dad’s not there. And this was the disadvantage. I think of sometimes when you have played for your father or say even your older brother for many years.
It creates a different type of environment. Sometimes it’s harder for the, the way, the kid when you’re playing for your dad, because there’s all that talk too. But in this case, Chidur and his father usually went into depressed situations such as Jackson State and Colorado, where they came in as a savior. It’s not like they had, you know, it’s not like, for example, whoever takes over at Ohio State at quarterback or even Oregon or Oklahoma. mean, Dylan Gabriel was following,
In the tradition of Baker Mayfield and, and, Kyler, with a kid from Arizona, Kyler Murray. so he’s played with that stuff. That has not been the case with Chador. So I just think there was a big adjustment there and there’s going to continue to be for him. He’s going to learn how the other side of the world lives when you’re not the starting quarterback. Now I’m not saying he will fail, but it’s going to be a real adjustment for him.
David Campbell (16:07.018)
Tyler Murray.
David Campbell (16:23.402)
Well, in just a bit, good, sorry.
David Campbell (16:29.738)
Yeah, I was just going to say like, should do her Sanders and Travis Hunter when they went to Colorado, you know, Pat Shermer was the offensive coordinator one year, right? The former Brown’s coach. But when you go there, you know that you have two of the best players in college football and you’re going to build your offense around what they can do. Cause you know, those are the two stars of the team. When you go to the NFL, like Kevin Stefanski has been coaching in the NFL forever at this point. Like they’re going to tweak things, but the.
Terry Pluto (16:39.062)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (16:47.672)
Sure.
David Campbell (16:57.278)
The Stefanski offense is what the Stefanski offense is, and they’ll change it a little bit based on who’s playing quarterback, but the offense is not going to be built around Shadour Sanders with the Browns or Joe Flacco. Things will change, but it is. I think Andrew Berry called it like learning Mandarin after you’ve been speaking English your whole life. That’s what it is. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (17:00.599)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (17:14.602)
Yeah, boy, that was a very revealing quote. said, it’s just like you spent your whole life thinking English. Now you’re on Mandarin. Didn’t say that about Dylan because Dylan had to learn different football languages at those different schools. This is not a knock on Chedure. I’m just saying there’s two totally different roads to the NFL. And part of the reason that, you know, Chedure fell in the draft. Who was his agent?
David Campbell (17:33.193)
Yes.
David Campbell (17:44.254)
is dead.
Terry Pluto (17:45.166)
Yeah, and he was not prepared for that stuff. Fact. And it was.
something he now has to catch up. That’s all. Now flip side, do happen to think that Kevin’s offense is a lot of, when we saw in that first pre-season game, when Chedur kind of keeps his cool in the pocket and that, he could thrive in that offense. I don’t think it’s something that’s, it’s not like supposedly, know, Deshaun could never figure it out or whatever it was. I think it could work for him. And you also saw when
Gabriel’s in that offense Kevin put more rollouts in there to to help Gabriel so there is there is Flexibility built into it and of course Joe just fakes it and then fires a downfield Now what I will want to see see this will be new for sugar too, so he’s gonna be basically battling Dylan to try and see if you could be the backup or get more snaps and practice and
Again, it’s not built around him at all.
David Campbell (18:58.44)
Yeah, and I totally could, I mean, I could see Shador Sanders playing 10 or 15 years in the NFL and I could see Dylan Gabriel playing 10 or 15 years in the NFL. there’s a
Terry Pluto (19:06.284)
Yeah, Colt McCoy played like 13. I looked it up the other day.
David Campbell (19:11.186)
Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of football ahead of these guys and the story is still to be written. And I think your message of patience for both of these guys.
Terry Pluto (19:14.199)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (19:18.526)
Right and and please look at the background it explains some of what we’re seeing it really does. I just I cannot think of another NFL quarterback of any note at least that played for his father from like high school on.
David Campbell (19:38.622)
And this theoretically could be the first quarterback battle that Shadour Sanders has ever been in, in his life, right?
Terry Pluto (19:44.018)
Oh, It was certainly was the first one word, you know, Oh, what? mean, he walked into high school. That’s Dion’s kid. I mean, he’s getting, you know, here. I mean, he could say he should have went higher in the draft as fans can say he should have went higher in the draft. He went fifth and he was passed over 143 times. That’s, that’s the life. The fact, and you come in and you’re treated like a fifth round pick. He caught a break and he made.
a lot of it where everybody got hurt and you got to start that first preseason game and you know, they kept it simple, but he really looked composed. That’s why I was so disappointed in the second game where he was back to those rolling out backwards to avoid a rush and just looking discombobulated, Lenny Wilkins, his favorite word, but I was thinking discombobulated when he was doing that and it
really see that’s the bad part of the film that i think haunted him with other
teams now David, what do you think of this? I believe when he got in there and he looked at Joe place the first quarter, what’d he complete? Nine out of 10, know, Dylan had and then Dylan had a really nice second quarter. So then he’s in there and he goes, I’m not, I don’t like going to get a lot of snaps and then sort of things go off and I got to make a play. That’s what I saw. I got to make a play. I got to make a play. And of course, when you say I got, got, I got, I probably won’t won’t won’t.
David Campbell (21:16.874)
Well, we saw that from some of Dylan Gabriel too in the second preseason game with the inter when he was trying to make a pass to the sideline and the pick six and everything. So, hey, you know what? It’s a clean slate like the roster set this real season starting and I think everything that’s happened is kind of going to be put in the past now and it’s a new it’s a new thing for all of these guys.
Terry Pluto (21:19.672)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (21:25.632)
Yeah, in his first game. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (21:33.538)
Mm-hmm.
And frankly, this is the Browns. They’ve used nine different quarterbacks in the last two years.
David Campbell (21:43.879)
And we’ll see. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (21:43.884)
That’s one you just tell these guys guys Dylan should or nine nine
David Campbell (21:50.41)
You
Terry Pluto (21:51.918)
Bailey Zappi played a game. You odds are you’re going to play. Who is Jeff Driscoll played a game. This is in the last two years. Yeah. There are 40 of these guys have started since 1999. I mean, it’s not like we’ve got, you know, Patrick Mahomes sitting there. We got a 40 year old. Now Joe, Joe’s a mate. I don’t know. Has Joe Flack ever been injured?
David Campbell (21:56.616)
Yes, your time will come.
The Snoop Huntly Corollary, as it’s known, you will play.
David Campbell (22:06.73)
you
David Campbell (22:19.03)
Yes, but I can’t remember not very often. Yeah Yep
Terry Pluto (22:21.358)
I’m not worried he missed like eight games or anything.
David Campbell (22:26.568)
All right, other rookies. Terry, we should talk about some of these other guys. So who are you looking for to have kind of a good rookie season? There’s three guys at the top of the draft that are very good. We still don’t know what’s going on with Quinlan Judkins. He has not signed a contract. He was not waived or cut. And that’s kind of all hanging out there. But who else are you looking at in terms of rookies you’d be keeping an eye on?
Terry Pluto (22:27.574)
Okay. Yeah, please.
Terry Pluto (22:48.588)
I mean, it’ll be fun to watch Mason Graham in a real game.
where we see him with the rest of that line together. They’re not rookies, Isaac McGuire and Isaiah McGuire, Alex Wright at that other defensive end spot. They both have had nice moments. They’re both talented. So I do want to see those guys. Schlesinger, they love the guy and you can see why he’s in the middle of everything. linebacker from UCLA.
David Campbell (23:04.775)
Isaiah?
Terry Pluto (23:22.574)
And then finally, you know, fanning that was a classic flat flat go play. Wasn’t that David where he dropped back to throw the tight ends climate. just fires one right in there. And it’s like, yeah, that was 2023 right there. Of course, the tight ends are like, uh, Joe, you want to go out and have pizza with us? You know, it’s like the Joko goes, it goes into his press conference to, you know, be an encouragement to Joe Flacco. Like he really needs it, but
David Campbell (23:28.34)
Ha
Terry Pluto (23:51.582)
It is a thing that you see. Flacco has that ability to, think, connect with players younger and older and cross racial lines and all kinds of stuff. and it’s not cause he, he doesn’t change. He’s just Joe and he’s genuine and they connect with them. You know, miles, you know, as tremendous respect. Remember miles kept saying from them, I think I know again, the quarterbacks going to be, and I don’t think it was Kenny Pickett.
And it was, it was Joe. And so those are things that are important. And I believe that, um, I wrote a column off of the second or the last preseason game, you know, with the headline, did the browse of a quarterback who could take a punch? And the answer is yes. And that’s Joe take a punch. meant, not just physically, but the emotions that come from, um, I keep, by the way, I’ve been corrected. keep saying the first six appointments are 71 and 41 upon further review. It’s worse. It’s 71 and 31.
I just miss added the, the, the nuns Beckett, holy family and Parma are not happy with me at the moment, but, um, yeah, 71 and 31. And that meant, you know, there’s going to be some rough games in there and, Joe can handle that. Now, if there’s some really bad games, Dylan better be ready. Cause he could end up in there in the fourth quarter and somebody can get hurt and should or better be ready.
There’s this tremendous opportunity for these kids. It’s not like two rookies are behind Mahomes or behind Lamar Jackson or any of these. You’re behind a 40-year-old. He’s a placeholder till whoever becomes the quarterback is the quarterback.
David Campbell (25:38.859)
So you mentioned the rookies at the top of the draft and to me, the quarterbacks, I agree, Terry, it’s, it’s they’ve instead of putting everything in the Deshaun Watson basket, like it has been the last couple of years, we’ve got, it’s, it’s more like survivor right now, right? Like we’re going to draft some guys we think can be good and we’re going to see who rises to the top. And to me, the, the other big storyline of this season is going to be, I mean, the Browns took a real hit in the draft because of the Watson trade with all the first rounders and everything. And I think.
Terry Pluto (25:41.187)
Okay.
Terry Pluto (25:48.712)
lord.
Terry Pluto (25:53.144)
Yeah.
David Campbell (26:08.958)
the approach of this roster for this season is like we’ve drafted a bunch of guys who’s going to rise to the top. And one of the big storylines is going to be can Mason Graham, Swessinger and Harold Fanon Jr. Can those guys be good to very good NFL players? Like that’s, they’re back in the draft. They’ve got multiple picks from the trades they’ve made. And like this is, this is like I said earlier, this is like the foundational unit. It’s kind like in the drafting movie.
Terry Pluto (26:29.772)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (26:35.534)
Yeah.
David Campbell (26:35.718)
at the end when they’re lining up in the tunnel, like they’re trying to put that group together where it’s not one superstar and like who else can we find? But we’re gonna put, we’re gonna try and put 22 really good NFL players on the field. Like the Eagles do, right? Like there are not many holes in the Eagles starting 22. And I think that’s where the Browns are trying to head here.
Terry Pluto (26:52.106)
No, and Baltimore’s Baltimore’s done that forever too. Pittsburgh’s done it, but you know, maybe not quite as good as those other two teams, but they’ve done it. I mean, they keep having winning seasons. now on the rookie front, by the way, you know, from what I can tell, unless I am incorrect, Ford and Dylan Sampson are the only two running backs on the roster at the moment.
David Campbell (27:17.982)
Yeah, Pierce Strong was let go, right? Injury designation, so he was waived, yep.
Terry Pluto (27:19.63)
Yeah, he’s on the physically unable to whatever it is. So they’ll probably bring in somebody. I mean, I don’t know what’s going on with Chuck is my guesses are waiting for the NFL to suspend him or at least get word of whether the NFL is going to suspend them or not.
David Campbell (27:36.02)
That could be, and then they’ll determine what kind of contract they’ll get.
Terry Pluto (27:38.21)
I mean, look, they were able to get a deal done for, my goodness, the kid from Texas. The Bond, yeah, I was going back to Bell and I go, no, you’re stuck on David Bell. know, Isaiah Bond, his agent was very, his agent, by the way, handled that very well with that. Other than he should not have let Isaiah announce his own signing.
David Campbell (27:47.911)
Bond, Isaiah Bond. Yeah, the receiver.
Terry Pluto (28:07.348)
Afterwards, but I think the kid was so excited that he did. I wish they would have, you know, it’s a small thing, David, but that preseason game, I think bond had eight eight plays. He was on the field. I would have done an end around with him or something just to get him the ball and see what he would have done.
David Campbell (28:24.627)
they will. They’re working on that this week and that’s something that a new guy on the team can run pretty easily. I think we’ll probably see that in the opener.
Terry Pluto (28:28.862)
Mm-hmm. Here’s why here’s my thought because he’s coming in late and Let the veterans or whatever see why they did what they did Now maybe you see it in practice, but they would have you know Say you do a little jet sweep or something. He takes off for 12 yards. I got to go Okay, I could see why they were a little enamored with that guy. So that was just granted. It’s a nitpick, but that was my thought
David Campbell (28:58.378)
Yeah. All right, Terry, what about?
Terry Pluto (28:59.042)
But really, what about Ford and Samson? This offense is predicated on the run, and this thing is, this cupboard is almost bare.
David Campbell (29:08.788)
Well, they’ll bring in some more guys. You’re right. mean, when the cuts settle, you need running backs and linebackers for special teams. So they’re going to bring in one, maybe two running backs. I wouldn’t be surprised. So yeah, we’ll see. That’ll shake out the next day or two.
Terry Pluto (29:12.587)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (29:20.27)
Now, maybe some of these guys will thrive there, but the Junkins thing is a big deal not having him. I mean, you took him at the top of the second round. You took him and even talked about, say, well, we don’t think he’s, we’re not saying he’s like going to be as good as Nick Chubb, but kind of like Nick Chubb that you could build the offense around him on the running game. You know, they sang his praises. They said he was underused as a receiver at Ohio State. We think he could do more in that area and he’s nowhere to be found.
David Campbell (29:51.657)
It’s a weird thing and I think a lot of fans are wondering what’s going on. Terry, not a rookie, but let’s talk for a minute. I wanted to ask you about a younger player that you think might break out this season and who that might be.
Terry Pluto (29:53.048)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (30:06.182)
okay. I hope I’m not just falling in love with another receiver again. That’s probably not going to be any good, but I’ve liked Jamari Thrash. What I’ve seen from him. I think he’s, he’s made some nice tough catches, for yardage. I mentioned the two defensive ends. I like McGuire better than, than Wright, but you know, they could combine them, but Thrash would be one.
David Campbell (30:06.716)
second or third year guy maybe is what we’re looking at here,
Terry Pluto (30:34.418)
And I wish there was another younger running back with the kid from Appalachian State. I forgot his name showed a little bit of promise. I can’t remember his name. He was an undrafted player. He was running back, but it wasn’t like, stand up and notice your thoughts. Do you want anybody?
David Campbell (30:53.928)
I’m Cedric Tillman is going to be my pick for this and I think he’s going to have more yards and more catches than thrash. I just have a feeling. It’s just a gut feeling. I could be wrong, but that’s like one of my predictions for the year. Both of these guys are going to get plenty of balls thrown their way. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
Terry Pluto (30:56.213)
Okay.
Terry Pluto (31:09.806)
I’ll tell you one thing about that. You ready? He better run the right patterns. Cause remember when Joe was here, he ran the wrong pattern twice. One was the interception and one was almost the interception. And Joe gave him the cold veteran stare. You know, it’s kind of like when I played for coach Aguibas Sugran. It was baseball at Benedictine. He was the same thing there. You know, he was not a yeller once in a while, you know.
David Campbell (31:13.15)
Yeah?
David Campbell (31:17.572)
yeah.
David Campbell (31:26.602)
Hahaha
Terry Pluto (31:38.104)
The worst thing you would say is hell’s bells, you’re better than that. But he had the, he had the Augie stare and you know, you let Papa down. And I think Flacco, so he’s going to probably be paying attention to Cedric saying when you better know where you’re going. Cause the ball’s going where it’s supposed to go.
David Campbell (31:59.317)
All right, so maybe next week we will make our season prediction. How’s that sound for the Browns? That’s right. You’re under pressure now. You’re on the clock.
Terry Pluto (32:03.831)
That means I have to come up with one. Will Andre the Kicker last five games, ten games?
David Campbell (32:13.205)
So we’ll come up with a couple of predictions other than the ones we just made and also a record prediction next week. How’s that? All right. And we’d love to hear from you too listeners. If you have thoughts on maybe a player or something you think is going to happen during the 2025 Brown season, email us or a record prediction just like Terry was saying sports at cleveland.com put Terry’s talking in the subject line. If you want to put Brown’s prediction in the subject line, that’ll help me find it.
Terry Pluto (32:14.979)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (32:19.256)
Very good.
Terry Pluto (32:25.998)
And predictions too.
Terry Pluto (32:31.31)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (32:38.618)
And yeah, we’ll roll a lot of those into next week’s podcast. That’ll be fun. So as we close in on September 7th, the season opener Browns Bengals down on the lakefront 1 p.m. kickoff. So, all right. I think we’re done with the Browns, right? All right, let’s pay some bills. And when we come back, we are going to get into the Guardians. And I want to hear what you think about the the by the vote.
Terry Pluto (32:52.238)
For now.
Terry Pluto (33:04.811)
Thank you.
David Campbell (33:05.396)
confrontation last night in the dugout. It was very interesting. think there’s a lot to talk about there. We’ll get into that and more when we return on Terry’s Talk.
Terry Pluto (33:15.125)
Keep going if you’re good.
David Campbell (33:17.248)
OK.
David Campbell (33:26.676)
All right, here we go.
David Campbell (33:33.236)
Five, four, three, two, one.
David Campbell (33:39.85)
Okay, we’re back on Terry’s talking. I did want to mention Terry’s newsletter. You just, we’re working on your newsletter for tomorrow, think, Terry. And we can talk about that first if you want. It sounds like it’s loaded this week.
Terry Pluto (33:46.85)
Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is a and I’ll mention a little bit. It is a deep dive on what happened with Junior Caminero and the tribe back then. How we got why he got traded and what what happened to the player. got back and why the trade was made and. Tell you one interesting thing though I found he played only one year he played on the Dominican Summer League.
team that Cleveland had. There were 32 players on that team, David. This is according to baseball reference. How many of them do you think made the majors?
David Campbell (34:28.234)
How about 14? Really?
Terry Pluto (34:30.03)
How about one? Yeah, according to baseball reference.
David Campbell (34:35.955)
Very interesting.
Terry Pluto (34:37.026)
Yeah, because that’s the lowest of the low part of the, you know, guys that roll in here. Now, some of those, some of those kids were so young, they still may make it. I mean, what was junior 22. So, and this was 2021. So some of these guys may make it, but thus far, according to not just me, but baseball reference, well, like.
David Campbell (34:52.641)
yeah.
Terry Pluto (35:03.202)
capitalizer highlight players on these minor league teams eventually made the majors, only junior’s name. And so they picked him off of that roster. Tampa Bay did, even though he had really good numbers on that, but it was, you know, one of the all time scouting things ever. they picked, unfortunately for the guardians, the player that they, they were in love with a pitcher named Tobias Myers. Yes. Who
At that point was anywhere from the 15th to the 25th prospect, on Tampa Bay’s list. the year he had had was primarily AA, little a AAA, but he has struck out 146 at 117 innings and only walked 28. So he already was like 3.4 or something. I mean, he was the kind of pitcher the guardians like. Strikeouts, not that many walks, on kind of on the cusp of coming into his own.
And, several other teams were half after him. The reason Tampa Bay was going to trade him as they were on that 40 man roster thing and the draft that rule five draft was coming. So they kind of ran an auction on them, but they, they picked Kaminaro and I understand it’s hard to look at a 17 year old and project out what he’s going to do, but they did.
David Campbell (36:30.122)
So we had an email last week, Terry, at the end of the podcast about why do fans get so upset if the other team’s guy in a trade does better than your guy that you got in a trade? this kind of encapsulates why I think fans get upset because we got some emails from our listeners around the time of the All-Star Derby about Junior Caminero, because he was in the finals of the Home Run Derby, right? At the All-Star game. And last night, they come into town.
Terry Pluto (36:44.236)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (36:52.931)
Run.
Terry Pluto (36:59.351)
Ugh.
David Campbell (36:59.978)
The Rays do and the Guardians. mean, it could not have been a worst time for this to happen, right? We did our podcast last week and the Guardians have not won a game since then, right? They’ve lost six in a row. They’re 12 and a half games out in the division. They’ve lost nine of 10. They haven’t scored a run since Friday, 28 innings. And, and so.
Terry Pluto (37:04.297)
No, it was awful.
Terry Pluto (37:09.614)
Yeah.
Nine of ten.
Terry Pluto (37:18.381)
What year?
Doesn’t it feel like that Friday, 1984 was the last time they scored a run.
David Campbell (37:26.442)
I mean to fans it feels that way but if you were to pick any team in major league baseball to come in last night and play here and win the nine nothing the Rays would be the last team you would that the Guardians would want to come in because here’s junior Kevin Arrow the guy that you were just talking about with the trade and everything that they let let go too early 261 batting average 847 OPS 39 homers he hit two last night against Cleveland 94 for RBI
Terry Pluto (37:28.525)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (37:49.932)
Yeah, that thing he hit into the tight out one into the bushes reminded me of Albert Bell. Does that laser shot the center? Yeah.
David Campbell (37:55.391)
Oof. And then Yandy Diaz, another, another former Cleveland player, 280 batting average, 805 OPS. He’s got 22 homers and 74 RBI. It’s the, these are the two guys that I think have been in guardians fans minds for years that like, wow, our team can’t score and they have two of our guys that we could have had here in a Cleveland uniform. That’s got, that’s, that’s what’s so hard, right?
Terry Pluto (38:11.054)
Yeah, sure.
Terry Pluto (38:19.03)
And in the newsletter, yeah, go ahead. In the newsletter, I look at, take a deep dive also into the Yandy Diaz trade, which involved three teams and involved Carlos Santana, it involved $5 million. It involved all kinds of stuff going on. By the way, I wrote that trade at a McDonald’s in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Diaz. I was, the Browns were playing in Denver. I was.
David Campbell (38:41.118)
Really?
You
Terry Pluto (38:47.732)
I had a friend in Laramie, so I was going to go up and see him. So I came in like a day early. I used to go to Wyoming for me, it doesn’t take much. And so as I’m driving up, the phone starts blowing up, there’s this trade. It was in November of whatever it was, 18.
I remember pulling over and I’m in this McDonald’s and Cheyenne get off the interstate because I knew I had a bit get somewhere over there where the cell service was good. And, you know, I just kept ordering. I remember ice teas and eating bad food and texting Chris Antenetti and all that going, explain this to me again. Cause people go, well, they traded Yandy Diaz for Jake Bowers. No, no, no. was, it was a long, basically they traded Yandy Diaz.
to Tampa Bay for Jake Bowers and $5 million. They took the $5 million and they shipped that over to Seattle along with Edwin and Canarsi. They were trying to dump that contract. And so that went to Seattle and then Carlos Santana came here, which Santana then made the All-Star team in 2019. Now, the nice thing for Tampa Bay is,
You know, Yandy was younger. He just basically, he hit three 30 a couple of years ago, but generally he is two 80 and he, you know, it hits between 15 and 24 homers and drives in about 70 80 runs. And, now I found my notes cause I thought, I didn’t like the Diaz part of it. And the headline even said it’s interesting straight. hated trading that Yandy Diaz. So, and I think a lot of fans have saw enough of Yandy as a young player to realize this guy could be pretty good.
So that, that, those are all taken care of there. But as you mentioned, they go back and forth. In fact, I remember when they made the trade Savalli for Kyle Manzardo and everybody, not again, never trade with Tampa Bay, which I understand some of that. But now this one is a good one for Cleveland because Savalli is on his third team and his ERA is almost five since he was traded. And you can see Manzardo, you know, ascending upward. think it was, he’s got 21 homers this year.
David Campbell (40:48.841)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (41:05.422)
I think he’s sitting 270 since the All-Star break with six homers. So, but I would be careful trading with Tampa Bay. admit that I’m in that camp.
David Campbell (41:18.024)
Yeah, I mean, you the Guardians could win 19 out of 20 trades. And if this is the one that they and they admit that was the worst one they’ve had like this one is going to carry a lot more weight than the other 19. And there’s just there’s just no way around it. And they know that.
Terry Pluto (41:25.014)
Yeah, right.
Sure because Myers and Myers then turns around And he was I mean he was a legit prospect on the cusp of the majors when they trade for him He goes one and nine were to six er eight It’s so bad in triple a for him. They they put them off the 40-man roster san francisco claims them They have them a couple weeks that they dump him He then gets playing by the white sox. He still stinks
I think for the year he was like one in 15 with an ERA of seven in triple A. Then he starts bouncing around. Milwaukee picks him up. Milwaukee is kind of like Cleveland. They’re pretty good at rehabbing pitchers and they’ve turned him into sort of a major leaguer. He had a pretty good year in 24. And this year he’s kind of a spot starter reliever. mean, at least he’s a major league pitcher.
But I mean, that’s the tough thing. You trade you in your common arrow and you don’t even have, you have zero to show for it. Nothing.
David Campbell (42:31.7)
Yeah, it’s rough. It’s rough. And the thing is, like you said, he’s so young. He’s going to be around for a while and it’s not going to be easy. man.
Terry Pluto (42:35.854)
Yep. I mean, what’s he going to, yeah, you look at him and go, he’s going to hit 600 homers. You you start thinking stuff like that. Yeah, it does drive you nuts. So those are the tough things there. And, and when you’re losing it, it’s all the more highlighted by that. And, um, that ball he hit it, it just reminded me of when, uh, Albert would hit those balls into the picnic area and to the bushes and all that stuff.
right handed bat and those shots. think Hoyzee might’ve compared on a Manny Ramirez. I mean, take your pick. All those guys, those right handed bats get really hit. And then here you can’t score a run.
David Campbell (43:18.442)
And you mentioned Manny Ramirez. Hoynsey had this in his story today. The last right-handed Cleveland batter with at least 39 homers was Manny Ramirez with 44 in 1999.
Terry Pluto (43:26.99)
Yeah.
I’m have to look up one, it was the last with 30.
David Campbell (43:33.194)
I think he had, Edwin, you mentioned Encarnacion, he had 38 in 2017.
Terry Pluto (43:35.446)
I cannot see on that.
Terry Pluto (43:40.13)
Yeah, that was like, that was the weirdest 38 home runs, you know, it just seemed like he was a weird guy. mean, I’m saying he was a bad guy, but he was kind of like, I’m here to hit. I use a DH is sort of on his own program. And yeah, yeah. He didn’t, most of the guys, know, they kind of get into being in Cleveland and that’s actually back then they were coming off being in the world series. I mean, that was their big move to try to stay in the world series. spent a bunch of money on him and, it just,
David Campbell (43:54.142)
He seemed a little aloof from what I could tell.
Terry Pluto (44:09.878)
Obviously didn’t didn’t work out and he ended up after he left Cleveland got traded to Seattle he bounced to the Yankees and the White Sox and he was out of baseball by the end of 20
David Campbell (44:27.358)
All right, all right. I want to get into this Bybee Steven Vogt thing last night. So just to set the table here, Bybee went six innings last night, came in for the seventh, gave up two home runs. I think the second one was to Yandy Diaz. And he gets pulled, Vogt pulls him in, Bybee goes into the dugout, is walking down the dugout and starts barking at his teammates to, from what I could tell from my lip reading, my amateur lip reading, wake the bleep up. That’s what I think I saw.
Terry Pluto (44:31.276)
Mm-hmm.
Terry Pluto (44:37.966)
Cheers.
Terry Pluto (44:54.222)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (44:56.278)
And immediately, Voet went over and basically said, we don’t do that. If you have anything you need to say, you can take it downstairs. Joe Noga from our staff was all over this last night. And that was the quote. think take it downstairs was what Voet’s message was. The quote from Steven Voet after the game was, was one of those fiery moments that happens in competition in a long season. And Tanner has been, and will continue to be one of our best. We know that competitive fire is what drives him. Emotions are high right now.
Terry Pluto (45:08.748)
Yeah.
David Campbell (45:26.312)
What did you think of this whole episode, Terry?
Terry Pluto (45:29.646)
was interesting, minor league compared to some of the stuff I saw over the years. All right. I haven’t told Earl Weaver story in weeks. Okay. Yeah. All right. the or now the year I covered the Orioles, 79, they won 103 games. So keep that in mind. They were really good. Rick Dempsey was a catcher and Dempsey, it screwed up something. Um, my guess is either.
David Campbell (45:33.642)
Hahaha!
good, here’s our weekly Earl Weaver segment, here we go.
Terry Pluto (45:56.206)
a sign from the dugout or whatever. So he comes off and he’s taking, uh, his shin guard off. He’s got, it was like the third guy up at the inning and weaver starts saying something to him. He says something and he slams it. A shin guard weaver’s picks it up, slams it to the shin guard and now everybody’s just watching that, you know, two, two five year olds in a, in a fight like this back and forth. And I mean, they’re nose to nose. That’s like an umpire. Finally.
I forgot who stepped in the middle there. think some of the players did. And, Earl did tell Dempsey to take it downstairs. And this is by a very clean version. And I think they pinch hit for them. but I remember I’m a young writer going, wow. And a couple of the veteran writers go, yeah, that happens a couple of times a year with her. And there was another time, you know, you have through stuff against the wall, but it was a little different age, but I vote handled it well. Number one, don’t let that go on because.
Yeah, your team was playing sloppy defensively, but that doesn’t tell you just go throw home runs. And secondly, you know, he walked down after him and vote has a presence. I mean, he’s a big guy. You can see it next to Ivy and he kind of turned around and he took it downstairs. And of course, then they worked it out. the way, the next day Dempsey was back in the lineup and you know, Weaver was gone. Yeah, we just screwed it up. We worked it out. You know, that was kind of how it people, the average person looks at this goes,
What do mean? The next day there’s like no fall out, but nah, you know, it’s 162 games. You’re with these guys so much and it’s just how it rolls.
David Campbell (47:32.147)
I liked the whole thing. really did. And I’ll tell you why. this team, it’s hard to show excitement and energy when you can’t hit and you’re not scoring runs for games at a time. And it was good to see a little bit of fire and that somebody was upset and angry and lashed out. I think that shows a healthy approach that they still care. A lot of teams check out in August, halfway through August when things aren’t going good.
Terry Pluto (47:33.388)
Yeah, I did too.
Terry Pluto (47:41.506)
Yep.
Terry Pluto (47:51.981)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (48:00.139)
Tanner Bybee still cares. I mean, we know that as of today.
Terry Pluto (48:03.252)
And better than Tanner by be just grabbing his jacket and then just walk it, which I’d seen from other pictures go right, right downstairs before the innings even over or anything else. I thought that was, that was good. And I thought vote vote was good the way he handled it. Yeah.
David Campbell (48:08.187)
definitely. Yeah.
David Campbell (48:15.658)
I think you’re right. I think it was good on both ends and it’s like this is not how we do things. The Guardians are a very button-up franchise. They don’t like to have their stuff out in the open like that. And I like both parts of it. I really did. And I think it shows that this is a, I don’t know if healthy clubhouse is the right word, but it was just good to see. think if you’re a fan, it’s good to see that these guys care and that they don’t like what’s going on.
Terry Pluto (48:40.088)
Mm-hmm, that’s correct. And Bybee’s got to be just so frustrated this year because he can’t keep the ball in the ballpark. Do you have your stats there? How many home runs has he...
David Campbell (48:48.208)
I don’t, I could probably find it, but yeah.
Terry Pluto (48:49.868)
by 28 or something like that, it’s crazy. I don’t know what’s with him on this. Last time I worked his ERA since the Ulster break was like 4.8, it’s probably higher now. you know, he’s a guy, they gave him, I think it was a five year, $48 million extension or something like that, buying out some free agent year and all these other things.
And I thought it was really good move at the time. It probably still is, but he’s really struggled.
David Campbell (49:23.528)
Yeah, and if he emerges as one of the young leaders in this clubhouse, I think yesterday’s going to be an important day for him to kind of learn how to lead in that clubhouse. there’s older guys that do that. Jose’s certainly in his own way. But he could be one of those guys. And we’ll see what happens.
Terry Pluto (49:29.132)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (49:39.596)
Well, the pitching staff does need some leaders because they don’t really have any veteran starters or anything. you know, we also are seeing now, you know, fan, I’ve always defended Klaus A, not on the gambling, but defended Klaus A as a closer, because I liked his demeanor. I thought he really was able when he had bad stretches to bounce back and pitch well, and he could handle the ninth inning.
Well, all of a sudden K Smith is finding out what it’s like in the ninth inning. And he’s it’s a different deal. And I remember John Hart always told me if I could get the ninth inning guy, I can build a bullpen. He goes, but what I’m not, he goes, I am just, you know, one of my firm. It’s like you’re, you’re the man wearing a blindfold in a dark room, looking for a light switch. You don’t even know which way to go. You know, you’ve tried this guy, you’ve tried that side.
David Campbell (50:12.35)
Different animal.
Terry Pluto (50:35.34)
You don’t know where to go. You feel almost lost. And so that’s now if you’re vote, then you got to ask yourself, do I go back to Kate Smith some more? Do I switch to somebody else? You know, cause we got to win a game here. mean, now also what’s happened there in the, got to win a game here is you see that he’s been using Gattis and Kate Smith multiple innings a couple of times. And that’s not gone real well because.
You know, you train all these guys to pitch one inning going back to the minors and you ask them to pitch more. even if they only threw nine pitches or whatever, it doesn’t always work. I mean, I have all kinds of problems in how they train pitchers. That’s yet another one. Why in the minors are you just having guys pitch one inning and set? Why? Yeah. Why not have them pitch two innings?
And then if you have to sit them the next day because they threw 44 pitches, fine. But stretch their arms out, get them thinking that I can do more than an inning if asked. Because you always, you know, it’s always somebody like, what’s his name? Kobe Allard or Matt Festa that’s, know, pitching more than one innings. It’s almost like the guy you don’t care about pitches more than one inning. Yeah. But he’s not even that. He’s just the guy you don’t care about. I’m just telling you, know, now Brian Shaw was, was,
David Campbell (51:51.644)
old guy. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (51:59.246)
He could do more than one inning and he could pitch every day. That’s why it drove the fans nuts of me sometimes because he was pitching every day. That’s why Frank Kono loved him. And it’s hard to find guys like that. And right now they don’t have a guy like that, but that gets back to my theory. They are not teaching these guys.
David Campbell (52:22.762)
All right, well, you mentioned Klaus A a minute ago and we promised last week, that we would get to some emails about the betting situation. So why don’t we do that? And then I know you want to talk about some prospects since you wrote your column over the weekend about some of the prospects that fans can look out for. all right, and just a real quick reset here. Ortiz and Klaus A are still under investigation by MLB for the betting thing. The investigation is supposed to be maybe done on August 31st, which is coming up faster at the end of the week.
Terry Pluto (52:28.418)
Sure. Yeah. Absolutely.
David Campbell (52:51.818)
It wouldn’t be surprising if MLB extended it. So anyway, we got some emails with some questions and as usual, some very interesting perspectives from our listeners. first one is from Neil Housh in Akron. Neil’s a long time listener. says, Hey Terry, we’re just days away from August 31st, which unofficially would end the Luis Ortiz and Emmanuel Classe pay to leave time period. We have not heard a single update at all for Major League Baseball. I want to believe this is similar to when managers challenge a play on the field and they appeal to New York.
When it takes a long time for MLB in New York to review a close play, we can easily get hopeful it might be overturned. When the umpires quickly announced an answer, there was clear evidence the call on the field stands. Since New York is taking a long time to review this, do you have any hope that they can return? Or does this speak to the importance of being extremely thorough in this investigation? Thanks as always. Thanks, Neil. What do you think, Terry?
Terry Pluto (53:42.899)
We ain’t pitching this year, that’s for sure. And I don’t, I’m not optimistic about anything about it. I’m just not.
David Campbell (53:50.559)
I’m trying to think of what’s involved here and we’ve got law enforcement and Hoynsey has been talking to people with the state betting commission who are investigating this and MLB people. there’s a lot of tentacles involved in this investigation that we don’t even know about at this time. So I think that’s why it’s taking so long is because there’s so much investigating to do.
Terry Pluto (53:57.182)
Yes, talk about that David.
Terry Pluto (54:12.334)
What about on the legal front? What could happen? I think you’d more familiar with it than I am.
David Campbell (54:18.92)
Yeah, I mean, under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, they could both be barred from baseball forever and that’s it, right? Their contract’s terminated and what am I missing?
Terry Pluto (54:25.858)
But also he isn’t like the Ohio, the Ohio gambling commission and all that. mean, these guys could be fine than everything else. Can’t they? They could be, they could end up in jail even the pain pun. Yes. Yeah. That’s what I meant. There’s, there’s this two layers of it your point. Yeah. There’s the baseball one, which basically what they say goes. but if you notice they, I think right on the day they said they would update.
David Campbell (54:33.733)
yeah, could be legal ramifications beyond that for fraud and interstate commerce and the whole bit.
Terry Pluto (54:55.214)
Or tease they did and they pushed it out again because wasn’t that July 15th or something like that and I see that again say all right done for the year and We’ll come back with that. But the meantime of course these guys maybe they’re throwing somewhere. I don’t know, but they’re not in Goodyear they’re not allowed to Do anything baseball wise organized with the the Guardians or any team? So that’s that’s a tough one, but I’m not optimistic at all
David Campbell (55:00.862)
Yeah. And we might see that again, right?
David Campbell (55:24.17)
All right, here’s one from Bill Maris. Bill says, greetings guys. Hope you’re both doing well. I really enjoy the podcast and Terry’s writing. As I’ve been observing the guardians issues with possible gambling involved with class A and or a T’s, couldn’t help but think of a singular event that happened when JB Bickerstaff was coach of the Cavs last year and what appeared to be a surprise. He talked at length about the way gambling had affected his players, the team and the NBA in general. He spoke candidly about players and coaches being pressured to meet gamblers prop bets.
Terry Pluto (55:45.347)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (55:52.361)
sometimes receiving texts or threats on social media if the gambler’s needs for their bets were not fulfilled. What was odd as well were his comments were a bit of an isolated incident then and not spoken of again. Part of me wonders if he was pressured from above to not bring it up again. It makes me wonder if this is simply an ongoing problem that in the past was hidden, now is ramped up all across most major sports that they’re in bed with the gamblers. Isn’t this activity from gamblers pressuring the teams?
that pro sports were trying to avoid by keeping gambling and gamblers away from them? What do they think was going to happen when they linked up with gambling companies? It’s like they let Pandora out of the box. Please give me your thoughts. Thanks again for all the great content. You guys rock. Thank you, Bill. A lot there, Terry. And you’ve written, yeah.
Terry Pluto (56:35.63)
Most of what he says is correct. I don’t know if they shut JB off or not. Sometimes JB would get something, I’m going to talk about it and then I’m done. And maybe he was hoping that some other, and some people did come out and said they heard about it, but to the point.
in the past. mean, right now you could just bet during games. I think that’s a big deal that didn’t exist before. I mean, you had to find a bookie in this. And I mean, the only time I remember making a quote bet on a game, I was working at Fisher Fazios. And this is when I was in college in the warehouse. And there was a guy, his nickname was Cadillac Joe. And he had a little book thing on the side and some other stuff. And
I made a bet on Georgia Tech was playing somebody. don’t remember who it was, but Georgia Tech was getting 28 points. And my friend from high school, Pat Moriarty, who later went on to play briefly with the Browns and then became the Raven salary cap guy forever. In fact, he has like he’s salary cap emeritus now. He was a, they took a guy who’s a track star Benedict and they made him into a fullback at Georgia Tech, which was not a good thing, but he was on that team.
And so I bet like five bucks to win 10 or something on that. And I remember it was like 28 there and they’re driving down and of course, something happened. They could have like scored right at end of the game, but somebody fumbled or something happened and I lost my five bucks to Cadillac Joe. That was how you kind of had to do it. You had to find a Cadillac Joe.
David Campbell (58:10.954)
That was the last one.
Terry Pluto (58:16.814)
And he was, ah, kid, don’t worry about it. go, no, Joe, mean, you you would have had to pay me to 10 bucks. It was like two to one. But I mean, doesn’t that sound so innocent compared to this? It really was. And people have other stories. And so this is, I’m just overwhelmed by it. The things you could bet on, how quick everything moves, how the players, you know, I wrote a column early on when this is like people said, well, why don’t
David Campbell (58:27.359)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (58:46.648)
How did players, how would they fall for this? And I mentioned how, cause over then I’ve talked to like how gamblers work and red. It’s like, all right, so Ortiz knows somebody who knows somebody. And he says to Ortiz, look, all you got to do is third inning now, you just throw a ball. That’s all. Just throw a ball. What is it? The big line that gamblers always use is who gets hurt? Nobody gets hurt on this. Who gets hurt? Nobody gets hurt.
Well, then what they do is you do a couple of those and the next thing you know, it’s like, I need you to do something more than may impact the game. And then the player says, I ain’t doing that. you’re, you will want to do this and I’m not doing it. And the guy says, well, we know a guy who will make a call to commissioner’s office. How do you like that? You’re on the hook. They get out there hooks in you.
David Campbell (59:37.45)
Then you’re on the hook. Then you’re on the hook.
Terry Pluto (59:41.83)
And it’s the same thing like with umpire. Remember there was a thing with an NBA NBA official years ago. I can’t remember his name, Tim Donahue. Correct. And, that was some really bad stuff. They looked at that the way he was controlling point, point spreads. And, there might’ve been others involved or not, but that he was the only one that got named. And, it’s. So it’s, it’s right there, but with all the, see the thing now where it comes out.
David Campbell (59:50.004)
Tim Donahue, right?
Terry Pluto (01:00:11.554)
with social media and that first of all, it’s easier to find people on social media to threaten them. Secondly, it’s easier to make bets on social media. And thirdly, it’s almost like it’s socially accepted. I mean, every day on talk radio, hear, well, you know, I’m last night, you know, I got 50 down on this or that. Now this is my opinion and whatever. think if you’re into sports media business, you should not bet on sports. Period.
That’s my opinion. know it’s legal, but here’s why I think it affects your coverage and how you view the game and how you view the players. But nobody else cares what I think, but that’s where I stand on that. It’s not like, he’s just a moralist or whatever. No, I mean, if you had, for example, if you had some bets down on some guy and you know, say you had best on Tanner Bybee last night and you know, he had a bad game.
And suddenly you rip him like he burned your house down.
And there was some of that. Yes, exactly. You know, or how it could change.
David Campbell (01:01:14.982)
the emotions of it. Yeah.
And the other thing is reporters are out covering the beat every day. They get inside information before anybody else. Yeah. It’s a very tricky situation, no doubt.
Terry Pluto (01:01:23.026)
Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s another reason. Yeah, mean, to me it’s not tricky at all. You don’t do it, but that’s me. That’s my stance. And I mean, I understand that you can’t babysit everybody, but boy, boy. opportunity, I could tell once in a while I’ll be talking to a fan or something and they’re really interested in like in football, especially who’s gonna play? And I mean, really interested in this.
It’s not just, oh yeah, is it going to be out there? My answer is usually, I don’t know. They got him on the thing. And I always say the NFL lies about injuries anyway, so it beats me.
David Campbell (01:02:01.802)
All right, we got a couple more here, Terry. This next one’s from William Quinn and William says, with regards to monitoring college sports, Wright State at Eastern Michigan men’s basketball was investigated due to unusual betting on Wright State to be up at halftime. Eastern Michigan magically came storming back in the second half and won. This is as obscure a game as it gets. I was there and as a fan, I was confused watching it play out so unusually.
Terry Pluto (01:02:10.702)
Hmm?
David Campbell (01:02:25.598)
Gambling and honest sports can’t exist. Legalizing gambling and putting it online simply added fuel to an existing problem. Anyone betting or fixing to pay off bookies is tearing down the sport. Culture was moving on from sports before betting was more widely legalized, but this new lease on life may be the drunken binge that buries the games. Where aware is Mountain Landis? Thanks for that. William Williams lives in Fairborn.
Terry Pluto (01:02:45.998)
Yeah, yeah, he was the guy that the eight men out by the way, if you’ve never seen the movie eight men out It’s not totally historically accurate, but it’s good the atmosphere and everything in there is tremendous. I love that movie and It’s really worse, but it gives you a feel for what it was it’s almost like now there were like three different guys trying to fix the World Series not just
Arthur Robenstein, or I can’t think his name was exactly who was the main fixer. There were other guys had their pieces of action.
David Campbell (01:05:14.878)
Yeah. All right, we got two more here. Terry wants from Raleigh. Drussey Raleigh says, Terry, maybe it’s my skepticism from years as a journalist, but I find it incredibly hard to believe the only two players in all of MLB who place bets just happened to play for the Guardians. Maybe they can blame it on their interpreters like Otani got away with. I smell major league. I spell I smell MLB cooking up a fire for a couple of sacrificial lambs. MLB’s coziness with gambling corporate interests, as you have pointed out.
Terry Pluto (01:05:33.678)
That’s a good one, I like that.
David Campbell (01:05:43.976)
shames the game. So thanks for that Raleigh.
Terry Pluto (01:05:46.762)
Okay, and that’s an interesting point. Will, when they do rule on this, as he said, will these be the two bird at the stake, or will they come out with six more names?
David Campbell (01:06:00.725)
We shall see. They take this incredibly seriously and they’re not going to mess around.
Terry Pluto (01:06:06.542)
I probably have told the story before, but I’m going to tell it again just because the day that Clausé signed that contract extension, I was in camp then and it was done quietly off to the side. was just a couple of reporters there, but he had about eight or 10 family members and friends. This was in 22, I believe. And he was so excited and they were so excited.
And he just trashed $26 million. Because it was, he made 4 and 1 this year, which he’s going to get paid. But next year, 6. And then the team had two options at $10 million each, which they would have gladly picked up. Or another team would. And I mean, was wealth, generational wealth, for who knows how many generations. And.
That was part the reason I kind of got on the class A thing. I just sort of saw that. The only other time I saw that is when a young Carlos Santana signed a extension, his first one with the tribe way back when. And he had a young agent named Moda was handling him. And I talked to him and I said, well, know, some of the people were saying, Carlos signed early. He goes, Dominican Republic, what this means to Carlos’s family and friends, you have no idea. He goes, even if you think you don’t,
And I grew up there and I’m like, wow. He said, in fact, we try to get most of our younger players to sign because it, it just is, it’s life changing for so many people. And so I, that always stuck with me and that’s why I’m just, I’m so sad about the class, especially the class a thing. I don’t know anything about Ortiz, but the class a thing.
David Campbell (01:07:53.961)
Yeah, and just as a disclaimer, Terry, like he they could be reinstated later this week. Like we don’t know what’s going to happen. So I just want to make sure we’re clear about that. Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:07:57.832)
It could. We don’t know. That’s fascinating. Yeah, I say right. But you know, now the other thing is you are tainted by this.
David Campbell (01:08:08.498)
Yeah, even if you’re found to be not responsible,
Terry Pluto (01:08:08.768)
you right I mean just in terms I think Honeys he was the first to write this that you walk into the clubhouse you know and then weird stuff happens when you’re on the mound even if you’re out it’s like well you know what was all that about
David Campbell (01:08:21.374)
Yeah, eyebrows are raised always. So, all right. Here’s the last one from Barry. Barry says, if the players are being paid, why aren’t they allowed to play? and right, Terry. So, so Barry, the, this is all preset in the major league baseball collective bargaining agreement with the players union. And it, lays out if this happens, the players would be suspended with pay. And if they’re banned from baseball, the CA it’s all laid out in in the, in the CBA, if their contracts are terminated, if they’re, if they get a lifetime ban.
Terry Pluto (01:08:23.075)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:08:36.098)
Right.
Terry Pluto (01:08:50.199)
Mm-hmm.
David Campbell (01:08:50.558)
That’s all, it’s all laid out there and there’s really no wiggle room and that’s what the two sides have agreed on. So that’s where it’s at.
Terry Pluto (01:08:56.79)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely that that’s what that’s exactly what it is. so there because in fairness to the players, your point will suppose it turns out that somebody was trying to torpedo these two players for whatever reason. And you punish them while you’re investigating, I mean, no, it’s.
It’s almost like you get charged with something and this is like bail, where you’re out on bail. You still get your contract. But you are being hurt. You’re being hurt because you can’t be with your team and you’re being hurt in your reputation and you’re being hurt probably for future contracts.
David Campbell (01:09:40.127)
All right, well, let’s move on to a happier note to close out here today. You ready, Terry? Here’s our final email. It’s emails from Peter Miller and he writes about nicknames. And he says, hey guys, giving an athlete a nickname has become nothing more than slapping doctor, mister or big in front of a characteristic. It’s lazy and contrived. These nicknames rarely travel. Doctor Smooth, Mr. Smiles and Big Harold.
Terry Pluto (01:09:42.22)
Yes. Yes.
Terry Pluto (01:09:49.281)
Okay.
David Campbell (01:10:04.2)
have not followed Brantley, Lindor, or Ramirez to new teams, nor will Dr. Sticks ever follow Tristan McKenzie. Consider these absurdities. This year, the Guardians have had three bigs, Big Rig, Big Christmas, and Big Nasty. David Bell was Mr. Reliable. One announcer apparently is trying to saddle Jose Ramirez with Mr. Inevitable. The Big Train, Walter Johnson,
Terry Pluto (01:10:10.734)
you
David Campbell (01:10:26.718)
Dr. J, Julius Irving, and Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks may have been the first such nicknames and remain among the best. Let’s demand original nicknames. Sudden Sam McDowell, Super Joe Charbonneau, Daddy Wags for Leon Wagner, Hammer and Hank, The Say Hey Kid, Charlie Hussle, The Ryan Express, Ruth DiMaggio, and Ted Williams each had three unique nicknames. and let’s never forget the late, great, big Chuck Shadowsky.
Make nicknames great again. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. And again, that’s from Peter Miller in Vienna. What do you think of Peter’s take on nicknames,
Terry Pluto (01:10:57.646)
Very true. Well, Bob Dolgan nicknamed Sudden Sam McDowell and I nicknamed Super Joe Charbonneau. That was my Super Joe from Kokomo. I just did. I was talking to a guy named, I think his name was Steve Wolf. last name was Wolf and he was with Sports Illustrated and
David Campbell (01:11:03.44)
It’s true, former plane dealer sports writing legend. That’s right. I forgot about that.
How did you come up with that?
David Campbell (01:11:23.219)
Yeah.
Terry Pluto (01:11:24.91)
I said, you know, I’m thinking like he’s super Joe, you know, it’s like early on. he said, yeah, you know, it was like he had hit. He came straight up from double way. He had hit like three 30 and able on double. This is like 1980, you know, the tribe stunk. And, and it was, it was some excitement and he had a big spring training. He was hitting like crazy. So I just started calling him. You know, I said something, I think I’m something like super Joe or he’s been super.
And Wolf said, Super Joe from Coca-Mama. Yeah, yeah, Super Joe. So I just started calling him Super Joe. So it was kind of a combination of things.
David Campbell (01:12:01.694)
And so Joe Charbonneau for our younger listeners became Rookie of the Year with the Indians back in, what year would that have been? 1988. So, and there was a song about him too, right?
Terry Pluto (01:12:08.694)
1980, 1980, 80, yeah. And then, no, 8.0, yeah, Super Joe, Charbonneau, all this, yeah. Burke-Griff and I did a quick book with him that I think his agent and I believe his mother-in-law also wrote parts of it. I do not look at that book nor highly recommend it. This is one of those early stories in collaboration that every writer should have to go through to learn a few things along the way.
David Campbell (01:12:15.37)
David Campbell (01:12:25.438)
Ha
Terry Pluto (01:12:36.27)
Yeah, Joe, but really what happened with Charbonneau was in spring training of 81, he slid into second base and really hurt his back, badly disking that. And they were never really able to get that fixed. And he had a chance to be a really good player for a long time. I mean, he a nice right-handed swing with some power. And it just, if you look at his stats, that was it. One glorious super year.
David Campbell (01:13:02.506)
Super Joe Charbonneau, there’s the story behind the story. all right. Well, thanks for all the great emails we got today, you guys. Again, if you want to hit us with something, sports at cleveland.com, just send us an email, put Terry’s talking in the subject line. I think we’re done here, right, Terry? All right, be sure to send us your Browns predictions, both for players, things you’re expecting, and also for their overall season record. We will try and work that all into next week’s podcast, and we will see you then on Terry’s Talking.
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