Cubs weird roadtrip and more fun payroll takeaways with Andy Dolan

Tom is joined by Andy Dolan of The Pointless Exercise Podcast, and formerly of The Athletic. 

They discuss the return of the podcast, favorite beers, and insights into the weird opening road trip for the Chicago Cubs, including some very questionable ballparks. 

They delve into recent speculation regarding the Cubs revenue/payroll disparity. The chance Tom Ricketts sees the value in resigning Kyle Tucker and Jed Hoyer's future. 

They also touch on various TV shows, sharing recommendations and personal favorites, creating a blend of sports and entertainment discussions.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome Back to Beers and Beat
02:05 Baseball Season Insights
05:06 Beer Talk and Personal Stories
08:03 Pitch Lab and Player Performance
09:27 Pitching Strategies and Player Analysis
11:30 Bregman Discussion
13:00 Rotation and Starting Pitchers
15:10 Injury Management and Player Development
17:50 Lineup Dynamics and Player Contributions
19:50 Contract Talks and Future Prospects
27:46 Cubs vs. Boston: Payroll Comparisons
30:11 Cubs' Spending Strategy and Luxury Tax Concerns
32:49 Jed Hoyer's Performance and Future
36:44 Ownership Decisions and Team Management
38:11 Revenue Generation and Fan Expectations
41:11 Player Development and Team Dynamics
46:23 Television Shows and Cultural Commentary

Transcript

Tom Loxas (00:01.493)
All right, welcome in or welcome back to Beers and Beat, guys. For those of you who used to follow, welcome back. Otherwise, for those of you who are new, this is the third installment. We had a good run, but some things took us away and now we're back. And you know, just like any good movie series, the third installment's usually the best.

Cryty Kid comes in my... Is that like the worst? Is that the third, is that the... Yeah, there probably will be. My Ewoks are upstairs behaving right now, so. But they usually bark throughout the podcast, Yeah, I mean, but actually in the era of streaming shows, third seasons are usually pretty good.

Andy (00:28.558)
Yeah. Other Ewoks? Other Ewoks on this podcast?

Andy (00:50.688)
Yeah. So you did, what was the first podcast called? Has it always been?

Tom Loxas (00:55.413)
You know what, they've all been beers and be guys. just, we have paused. Yeah, COVID was kind of a problem the first time, right? We were really rolling. Yeah. And then last time it was just a job change that just drove me crazy. But yeah, we're over that. So we've had, yeah, we've had some good guests on the show and Andy's been a regular and I'm a regular on his show. Yeah.

Andy (01:00.475)
I see. This is your two pauses.

Andy (01:09.582)
I see.

Andy (01:18.324)
Irregular. Andy's been irregular.

Tom Loxas (01:22.621)
He's wearing his merch tonight for some people who can't see the pod.

Andy (01:26.444)
Yeah, go to pointless exercise.com click on the shop button and buy a bunch of crap. Also 25 % off sale on the newsletter for opening day. Lots of opening days so far. This is the third one coming up.

Tom Loxas (01:33.759)
there you go.

Tom Loxas (01:42.835)
Yeah, this is the domestic Chicago opener, I guess.

You know, I mean, you know, it's funny because Bruce was Bruce Levine. good.

Andy (01:51.266)
This is a big one. I was gonna say, know what happens? sorry, I was gonna give a terrible joke. You know what happens if they lose the opener? Can't serve beer.

They lost the opener. Huh? Yeah, that's good. Okay, sorry. Stepped all over you to tell a terrible joke.

Tom Loxas (02:05.845)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (02:10.677)
No, it's okay. We were just talking. I was talking early about Bruce Levine was on the score today saying that, you know, that comes here five and four, but he really looks at him as their five and two because he's not counting the two exhibition games in Japan against the Globetrotters.

Andy (02:26.402)
That's great, Bruce. That's not how that works at all. But do whatever you want.

Tom Loxas (02:28.533)
He said it was still spring training basically.

Yeah, and then you kind of have to take the three games away from the RiverCats that we just swept. So, you know, kind of evens out.

Andy (02:44.578)
You the A shouldn't be that bad though.

Tom Loxas (02:46.983)
No, I thought they were going to be better.

Andy (02:48.952)
Yeah. So I did a little math. The last six games that the Cubs have played against the A's in California, they've outscored them.

Andy (03:02.146)
No, that's not right anymore. Shit.

Andy (03:07.79)
After the thumping the other night, it was 62 to 12 and then.

It's 80 something to 17, I think. That was great. Glad I came prepared. I thought I wrote that down. I did the math in my head. I didn't bother to write it down. It's a lot to a little, is what it is.

Tom Loxas (03:28.179)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, it's really great to see the, you know, the offense perform the last few games, but I mean, they did it in Arizona too, but yeah, that ballpark is a, that's a minor league ballpark.

And actually, I was thinking we've actually had pretty much the majority of the games. I would actually consider all of the games so far like in a non real baseball stadium. mean, Arizona's that thing is just a monstrosity.

Andy (03:57.294)
like an airplane hanger that they play baseball in.

Tom Loxas (03:59.975)
Exactly. And then I thought Japan was supposed to be like a technologically, you know, like advanced country. Like, why is their main stadium, like the basically a tribute to the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome, which sucked. It sucked 40 years ago. It's like one of the worst baseball stadiums of all time.

Andy (04:15.054)
It's basically what it is.

but it's got the Japanese, it's got the Japanese baseball hall of fame in it though. That's apparently, that's the innovation I guess. Yeah, you would think they would at some point have torn it down and built a fancier one. Cause it's like 20 years old, right? Well, it's older than that. The Cubs played in it twice now.

Tom Loxas (04:25.641)
Yeah, but I mean, that's the best they can do.

Tom Loxas (04:38.953)
Yeah.

Andy (04:44.43)
2000 and 2025. So it's at least 25 years old. It's older than that. But yeah, and I don't know, maybe when you have a city with 18 million people in it, it's hard to like, find room for, to build a new baseball stadium. I don't know. Can't they build one that hovers? There's smart guys over there, right?

Tom Loxas (04:57.161)
Yeah

Tom Loxas (05:06.089)
Yeah. and this is the portion of the show where we talk about the beer that we are having because you have to drink during beers and be guys have actually had a couple.

Andy (05:15.896)
Yeah, it's a really have to really have to twist my arm.

Tom Loxas (05:19.089)
Yeah, so what are you drinking?

Andy (05:22.604)
I'm having a yingling. Having the lager. I had had it in, when I was in Philly a couple of times. It's pretty good. Now we can buy it here. So my wife and I had it when we were out to eat on Saturday night. And so I picked up a six pack the other day. So that's what I'm having. Yeah, it's just well done. It's good beer. It's nothing, nothing too exciting, but I like it. What have you got?

Tom Loxas (05:24.549)
there you go. It's world famous.

Tom Loxas (05:42.131)
It's just like a standard logger, right?

Tom Loxas (05:47.187)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (05:52.857)
I have, it's launched by Main. It is one of my favorite IPAs. I know it's not ear style, but yeah, it's pretty fancy. It's a...

Andy (06:00.654)
Looks like a wine bottle.

Tom Loxas (06:07.157)
1.9 fluid ounces, so it's a little more than a It's definitely one of the more highly regarded IPAs of all time, and it's not widely distributed, like I guess in the Midwest, but I found it a few places.

Andy (06:31.276)
Yeah, Ling Ling claims to be the America's oldest brewery.

Tom Loxas (06:36.573)
Yeah, they they're big on the East Coast. I remember my my wife's family's from the Cleveland area. And when we're we're up that way, that's pretty much like the standard beer.

Andy (06:50.242)
I guess I'll believe him.

Tom Loxas (06:54.389)
around my equipment.

Andy (06:56.364)
You beer was originally brewed by monks back in the good old days. And so they have these beers called Trappist Ales that try to like follow the original recipe. When I was living in Michigan, my web guy and I had a meeting with the company that was helping us with the website. And we met in a bar right across the street from their offices at like four o'clock in the afternoon. I was going to have a couple of beers, have the meeting and finish up the day.

Tom Loxas (06:59.53)
No.

Andy (07:26.478)
And, uh, I had three beers in an hour because it was so good. And we stood up till the end of the meeting and I'm like, Holy shit. I'm hammered. It was like, I looked at the, I asked the waitress then I was like, can I see the bottle? So she brought the bottle back. It was like 13 % alcohol and I had drunk three of them in an hour. So I told, I went like, Steve, we're going to stay and have dinner and I'm going to buy it because I have to sober up before I can go home.

Tom Loxas (07:46.171)
There you go. Wow.

Tom Loxas (07:58.621)
That'll do it. That'll get it done.

Tom Loxas (08:03.325)
Yeah, we're gonna just in case you're new to the show, we're gonna bullshit a little bit in the beginning and throughout it's not if you're looking for like spin rates, you might want to pass this show. Although Andy, you are a renowned pitch lab expert, aren't you?

Andy (08:19.468)
I love the pitch lab. It's the best. I believe everything that the Cubs tell us about all the stuff they can measure in the pitch lab. And I love the fact that it appears to be designed so that when they get a pitcher and he pitches well, they can claim responsibility. And when they get a pitcher and he struggles, they can just say, well, he just can't apply all the things that we're trying to give him in the pitch lab. It's his fault. So we didn't pick up terrible pitcher. It's really his fault. We're geniuses.

Really looking forward to the Brad Keller, Cy Young campaign this year. That to me is like, this is going to be the ultimate test of the pitch lab because Brad Keller has been around and he has sucked everywhere. Like he was the top prospect, but he's never been good. And people saw things that him in Arizona that I don't know what they saw, but even the Cubs did. They kept him and him and his enormous head waddled out in Arizona and through batting practice for a couple of innings. So.

Tom Loxas (09:18.165)
That was bad.

Andy (09:19.298)
Godspeed. I'll be fine. I'm happy to be wrong, but Jesus.

Tom Loxas (09:27.413)
So yeah, the main reason I had you on tonight is to talk about the difference between the gyro ball and the death ball.

Andy (09:35.298)
What's the,

Tom Loxas (09:37.107)
Are you more of a gyro platter guy or a gyro ball platter guy or gyro ball and fries? Just go with the sandwich.

Andy (09:44.75)
Well, what's the new one? It's the kick change. That's the new pitch that Big Jimmy Tyon is throwing. Yeah, it was working against the A's. It didn't work. It was batting practice against the Diamondbacks. I said that when Jameson throws it, you throw the pitch, you watch it get roped into the gap, and then you kick the ground and you need a change of pants. That's the kick change.

Tom Loxas (09:49.223)
Yeah, the kick change. Yeah. I just read about it like yesterday. Yeah.

Tom Loxas (10:00.051)
He's working on it.

Andy (10:12.814)
But I'm sure it'll be fine. Everybody loves James to tie on. Two years ago, he didn't beat a team of winning record. Last year, he pitched great in Wrigley when the wind howled in and then pitched terribly everywhere else. His numbers look good. That's why I really wanted them to trade him at the deadline. But I have a feeling other teams still have these things called scouts. And they were like, no, he's not that good.

Tom Loxas (10:40.851)
He's okay. Yeah, I did want him to trade him at the deadline too. Yeah, he's fine.

Andy (10:42.562)
He's fine. He should be their fourth or fourth starter, not their third. Like we both agree they're a starter short. They didn't do what they needed to in the off season.

Tom Loxas (10:49.085)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I was going to talk about that later. But now that you brought it up, I was thinking the other day, just because we know they're not going to spend the money to get everything they need. But the fact that they didn't sign Bregman might be a blessing in disguise at the end of the day, because now if Jed can talk Tom into giving them that money, it'll probably be more.

advantageous for him to put that into a picture because I really am starting to think like I know I'm going to completely jinx them, but I'm thinking the lineup might be fine without Bregman. I think that it would have been great to have them, but I'd much rather have a starting pitcher or even a closer possibly.

Andy (11:30.562)
Yeah, I was, I wasn't that heartbroken when they didn't get Bregman. just when I saw what it took to get him from the Red Sox, because I really thought that his market had collapsed to the point where the Cubs could get him on a Bellinger trade where you'd have him for this year and then he'd have an option for next year and he probably would leave. then you saw Matt Shaw would like hang out playing second, some second and some third.

Tom Loxas (11:37.278)
Right.

Andy (11:59.106)
But when you're going to have to commit to him for more than a year, I didn't really like it. What I really though didn't like was that the Cubs, their offer was kind of sad. The one they made, the one they supposedly had to get, you know, extra, you know, like Tom and Laura and Todd. I love when Jed thanked Todd for his efforts. I'm sure he was really working on it. And then they still didn't make an offer that had, they didn't make the offer with the most years or the most money either.

but they somehow thought that was going to win. that's what, that's the only thing that really bothered me at the Bregman thing. It wasn't necessarily not getting him. It was another window into the financial constraints they put on themselves.

Tom Loxas (12:40.413)
Right. Yeah, and I agree with that. And I feel like knowing what the limitations they put on themselves, I feel like maybe it's better that they didn't sign Bregman at this point, because I feel like then Tom would be like, well, you're not going to get a pitcher.

Andy (12:50.946)
Well, yeah, you're right. Yeah, if you had got them, they wouldn't have any money for a pitcher.

Tom Loxas (12:57.671)
No, there's no way. Now.

Andy (13:00.002)
When they go get Sandy Alcantara and win the pennant.

Tom Loxas (13:03.815)
Yeah. I mean, hey, hey, if Jack can pull it off, that'd be great. Now, the bottom line is I'm starting to look at this rotation. I think you and I have always been kind of in the mindset that Imanaga and steel are more like twos, maybe even threes. But lately, I mean, it could just be the early starts that he's had in the velocity, maybe a tick down. But I'm looking at steel as more as a three now.

where I used to think he might even be an ace.

Andy (13:34.946)
He's been bad so far this year. I mean, he got credit and he deserved it for sticking around. And when it looked like he was going to get bounced out of that A's game pretty quickly and he settled in and he got outs, but he was really bad in Japan. He wasn't good in Arizona. I know he's two and one leads the league and wins at two, but, he just hasn't looked good. And maybe it's just a good sign that despite the fact that he struggled early, he still has won two games. I'm sure he'll get it together to some extent.

Tom Loxas (13:37.194)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (13:44.061)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Andy (14:05.486)
I just, I think Cub fans look at Steele and they just expect him, like you said, two good years back to back. And I think they all think there's another level and I don't think there is. I think that's what he is. And I think that's fine. But yeah, that should be a two or a, or like you said, a three in a, on a good team. And then Shota, he just keeps getting people out. mean, it's, you know, he's given up what one run in 11 innings.

so far. He's really fun. But yeah, it would be nice if he was your second starter, your ace.

Tom Loxas (14:43.197)
Yeah, he really is fun. And I think that's that's it. He pitches more like an ace than Steele does lately, but I still see him as a two, which is still a tick up from what I originally thought we were getting with him. I thought he was more of a three four. You know, at least that was the word. Yeah. Now he's been really good.

Andy (14:55.96)
Yeah, I think it's more than they thought they were gonna get. But yeah, if you had one game you had to win with this team, you would want Shota to pitch it. I don't think there's much doubt.

Tom Loxas (15:05.683)
Yeah, absolutely. No.

And then Matthew Boyd actually looked really good in his first art.

Andy (15:15.054)
He did, but I'm worried he's already thrown five innings of his 45 inning cap for the season. Slow down, Matt, you're not gonna make it through May. I really do wonder how many innings they can get out of him. They hadn't pitched for three years. And you can't just go from like 38 innings last year to 170, I don't think, in a year. Maybe you can when you're a grown ass man like he is, but I worry that.

Tom Loxas (15:20.799)
He's good.

Andy (15:45.11)
I kind of look at it like the Giants last year when they made Jordan Hicks into a starter. He was great. not great. He was really good the first half. I know I had him on my fantasy team. And I kept waiting for it to stop, and it did. He just kind of wore out. He was really good in his first start this year. And it was for the same reason. He'd been pitching 60 or 70 innings a year, and now you were asking him to take the big jump. I was trying to think...

If I could think of a starter who did that and it actually worked. And honestly, as much as I hate to admit it, the guy I came up with was Ryan Dempster in 2008 when he all of a sudden they made a starter out of him. I mean, we all know how he's like seven guys in a playoff game. So maybe he was worn out by then, but it's pretty rare for a guy to be able to make that, that big of an inning jump and Boyd, even though he's been around forever, it's not like he had one injured year. It's like.

Over the last three years, he's only thrown a total of like 80 innings. So he could be really good, but I worry. And maybe there's a plan where he gets, he has a, he has a phantom leg injury scheduled for June and he doesn't make any starts in June and part of July. And then he magically hops off the IL and he's ready to go for the rest of the season. I don't know, but they got to do something.

Tom Loxas (17:06.005)
That's good plan. I like that plan. Well, and then that's the guy guys like, you know, Ray and I think the thing I was most excited about what council did was put Brown in the rotation. So I feel like there's a guy at least that gives you some strikeout capability and he's just got upside, you know. So even though I think that he'd be dynamite in the bullpen, I like the fact that they're putting somebody in that rotation that has some different, you know, a different look. They got too many.

Andy (17:33.962)
I like that they, they took their most talented young starter and they actually put him in the rotation. They didn't like, they didn't mess around with it. And that to me feels like a Craig thing. Like, you know, he's like, no, he's going to, he's going to, he's a starter. He's going to Yeah. Although he used him. He did use him in relief in that, in the first game in Tokyo and then didn't take him out as he was getting like beaten up as like, Craig, you have a 10 men in the bullpen. Go get somebody else.

Tom Loxas (17:40.275)
Yeah. Yeah, didn't pussyfoot around with it, right?

Me too, me too, yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing that I like about council the most.

Tom Loxas (18:04.945)
I thought there was a good indicator though that he was going to make the rotation. I felt like they were maybe stretching them out a little bit. So, yeah.

Andy (18:09.666)
Yeah, I think it was. I it was like, this game is lost. Ben's going to keep throwing.

Tom Loxas (18:17.293)
yeah, they look pretty flat in that series. And I was like, here we go. This is going to be right back to where we left off. But you know, no, that the lineup is actually look pretty damn good actually. And that's, that's what a guy like Tucker does for your lineup. He just makes it look a lot longer.

Andy (18:32.568)
Well, he's, he's been amazing. You know, the long history of Cub, in our lifetimes, it seems like, with a few exceptions, like Andre Dawson in 1987, it seems like when the Cubs trade for or sign a player, that player struggles for the first six weeks, no matter what. He just does. And yeah, I was thinking about John Lester.

Tom Loxas (18:36.435)
Yeah, I mean, seriously.

Tom Loxas (19:02.398)
Yeah.

Andy (19:02.636)
He was that was scary because it was like, God, what if he's terrible? I obviously wasn't. And like Derek Lee after the trade, although that was compounded by the fact that Derek never got off to a decent start. But there were a bunch of guys like really good players who became really good players for the Cubs who got off to lousy starts. Kyle didn't get a hit all spring. He had like one, I think. But as soon as the game started, Cal for actually once he didn't hit Japan either, but nobody did. But as soon as they got back here, he's

Tom Loxas (19:06.933)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Loxas (19:15.445)
Yeah.

Andy (19:32.492)
You can't get him out. That's great.

Tom Loxas (19:36.137)
Yeah, he's insane. Yeah, it's.

Andy (19:38.604)
All of his home runs have just a tinge of angst with me. Like, that would be so nice if I thought we were going to get 10 years of this instead of one. But you can't worry about that until later.

Tom Loxas (19:50.791)
It's true. And at the same time, like, I'm starting to think that this has in some way put some pressure on Ricketts to get this guy signed because the fans are going to fall absolutely in love with him. You know, if they have a pact, Wrigley all summer and they're contending. And Marquis numbers go up or, you know, however they go up.

There's gotta be a part of them that thinks like, you know, it is good to have a star regardless. And they can afford them regardless. But the fact that they're starting to have some young talent, like fill out the lineup card, you know, with PCA and Shaw, some of these other guys, like I feel like that gives them a little more leeway to do that.

Andy (20:21.976)
course they can afford it. Yes.

Andy (20:36.642)
There is zero.

Tom Loxas (20:38.229)
They shouldn't have to worry about that, but yeah.

Andy (20:41.292)
You can't come up with a good reason for them not to keep him. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't really impact their payroll because they only have eight guys signed for next year. And then in two years, it's like hardly anybody. mean, Seya's gone and Hap's gone and all the, everything goes away. And he's probably what? Is he a eight year?

$320 million player, something like that. a 40, probably 35 or $40 million a year player. We've seen it before with this team that let him go. To me, the best example of this is the contract Bryce Harper signed. When the Cubs weren't interested, he wanted to play for the Cubs and the Cubs didn't make him a serious offer. If they had signed him to that super high pay, you that expensive deal, if he was on the team right now, he'd be the third highest paid Cubs.

Tom Loxas (21:11.1)
at least.

Tom Loxas (21:35.357)
Wow, that's sad.

Andy (21:36.706)
These deals have a way as the market grows around you of becoming reasonable. The only way it becomes a bad deal is if you sign a bad player.

You these guys, the guys who are really good are worth whatever you pay them. And yeah, you might extend it out a few extra years to try to spread the AAV out, but that's a strategy. So if the last two years of a guy's deal, he's really not that good anymore. You did that. You added those two years on at the end for a reason. You knew it was probably going to be that way. So there's.

Andy (22:13.518)
I mean, I'll believe it when I see it, but it would be really nice if they would actually act like a real big market team and actually, you know, they finally got a really good, got a great player. It'd be nice to keep it.

Tom Loxas (22:25.031)
Yeah, I mean, I'm just hoping there's a part of Ricketts that just looks at it as a marketing tool. You know, it's just like, hey, we got to sell marquee. We got to sell tickets. Yeah. I wish I weren't so jaded as to thinking that he didn't want to win anymore, but he wants to win at, you know, on their their model, which I asked somebody the other day because, you know, that that whole thing came out. Who was it that tweeted that out?

Andy (22:30.924)
Yeah, there's a lot of, there are non baseball reasons to keep him. Yeah.

Andy (22:52.69)
I'd never heard of the account before. It was originally, it was on Twitter and then my, my buddy Forklift put it on Blue Sky and that's where I saw it. So I

Tom Loxas (22:57.811)
Yeah, but

Tom Loxas (23:04.895)
But it was sourced from Forbes, and then there was some other source, right?

Andy (23:08.46)
Yeah. Well, it took the Forbes like revenue projections for every team, what they think teams really make, and then just compared their current salary plus whatever luxury tax that they are expected to pay on this year's money. So like the Cubs had to pay a little bit of luxury tax on last year's. That's not factored into this. It would be if they went over the threshold, then they would figure out, okay, here's how much luxury tax they'll have to pay. It's not a flattering chart for the Cubs.

Tom Loxas (23:14.953)
Right.

Tom Loxas (23:38.365)
No, the Cubs were at what, like roughly like was it two, two, two, 19 or something like that, which came out to roughly 36 percent to 13. OK.

Andy (23:45.774)
Salary's only 213 off of like $545 million worth of revenue. And yeah, they were down with, I'm gonna pull it up here. They were...

Tom Loxas (23:51.069)
Yeah, so they were the bottom 10.

Tom Loxas (23:57.084)
Maybe I'll put it up later.

Andy (23:58.702)
so I can remember what column I put it in. Onpondsexercise.com, you can go find it.

Andy (24:09.238)
Anyway, they're down there with the Pirates and the Reds and the Rays and the White Sox and it's embarrassing where they ended up on that list.

Andy (24:27.586)
There it is, I found it. The Cubs are 26th. So what it is, it's a ratio. It's the percentage of your revenue that you put back that you pay in, you pay in salaries. So, or the percentage of your revenue you pay in payroll. And this is what's Tom always tell us. They're just trying to break even. So by that metric, you would spend a hundred percent of your revenue on your roster.

Although we know that's not quite true. We've got other bills to pay, but for example, the Mets have the ninth highest revenue in Major League Baseball, $444 million a year. They have the second highest payroll, $400 million. So they're spending 90 % of their revenue on their payroll. Dodgers are second, $752 million worth of revenue every year on $549 million in salary. That's $399 in their actual

payroll and then 150 in luxury tax. The Cubs are down there 26, 584 in revenue, 213 in payroll, no luxury tax, 36.4%. The only teams less than them, the Pirates, the Rays, the White Sox, and the

Tom Loxas (25:48.437)
That's brutal.

Andy (25:48.472)
That's where you're hanging out. That's a wonderful neighborhood to be in.

Tom Loxas (25:51.573)
Yeah, I mean, forget about the income. I mean, even if you're just talking payroll, they're what, like 13th? 14th? Okay.

Andy (25:57.359)
14th on this list. 14th. I've seen both. 13 and 14, but this one has them 14.

Tom Loxas (26:04.629)
I mean, realistically, let's just factor in how conservative Ricketts is. Where do you think you'd be like realistically happy? Top 10? Maybe top seven? mean, where were they in 15 and 16? Were they more like top five, top six?

Andy (26:21.39)
Yeah, well, they were bragging about how high they were. They were top five. Yes, the salaries have gone up and they seem to be unable to fathom that these costs go up. They want to keep paying whatever, which actually kind of surprising considering the way they look at things that they pay Ian half $20 million a year. In the current baseball market, he probably is a $20 million a year baseball player.

Tom Loxas (26:23.955)
Yeah. I mean, the numbers have shot way up since then, but still.

Andy (26:49.102)
What the Cubs act like a $20 million baseball player now is the equivalent of one like 10 years ago, which Ian Happ would not have been a $20 million. This current Ian Happ would not have been $20 million player 10 years ago.

I mean, I'm simplistic. To me, it's if your team is good and you have really good players on it, your payroll is fine. No matter what it is, if you can build a really good team, $150 million, God bless you. I'll go watch it. It'll be fun. If a team sucks, you're not spending enough because clearly you have, you don't have enough good players. Um, but I would say given the market there and the amount of money they rake in, the fact that this payroll number

You know, they make more money than this on all their other ancillary things related to the Cubs that isn't actual baseball income. They should be a top five payroll team every year.

Tom Loxas (27:37.752)
sure.

Andy (27:46.86)
And if you were top five.

Tom Loxas (27:46.869)
I mean, I've always kind of compared them to Boston, right? In certain ways, I mean, I know they make more, but Boston's.

Andy (27:51.362)
Yeah, and Boston is low on this list, that's until this year they were rebuilding. You they had sold a bunch of guys off. Boston's only 23rd. They're only three spots ahead of the Cubs, but they are spending 42 % of their payroll. It's funny, I think if the Cubs had signed Bregman instead of Boston, these two teams would probably be flipped on this list.

Tom Loxas (28:05.182)
Right.

Tom Loxas (28:13.875)
That's what I was going to say too. And it's funny because Ricketts fell in love with the whole Arizona model. They found some loophole. Like, well, look, you can just sneak into the playoffs and win. So if you're looking at Arizona, Arizona's, yeah, their payroll number is close to ours, but their ratio is much higher.

Andy (28:33.314)
Yeah, Arizona is fifth in this ratio. They're spending 66, they're spending literally two thirds of their revenue into payroll. Now, if the Cubs were doing that, if the Cubs were 66.7, given the amount of revenue that they have, they'd be probably third or fourth on this list, where they probably should be. Because that's the thing, they're still pocketing a shitload of money if you only spend two thirds.

Tom Loxas (28:35.699)
Yeah, that's pretty good.

Tom Loxas (28:43.093)
Yeah.

Andy (29:03.022)
two thirds of 584 million is a lot more than two thirds of 328 million and the Cubs aren't willing to do that.

Tom Loxas (29:03.509)
yeah, yeah, I'm not.

Andy (29:13.07)
Part of it I know is the Cubs love, the luxury tax thresholds are their best friends. They're one of those teams that they, we can't possibly go over that because then we'll lose draft picks and then we'll lose this and we'll lose international signing money and we'll lose whatever. And it's like, all right, the Dodgers fuck up your argument every year because they spend a crap load of money. They pay the tax, they pay the penalties and they have like a top three farm system.

Tom Loxas (29:13.205)
Yeah, I'm not going to have any delusion. He's going to go back to that.

Andy (29:41.74)
and they have a great roster, they have just figured out a way to do it. Because the thing you have that they have that a lot of teams don't is money. You can throw a lot of money at these problems and overcome them, but they use it as a shield. They hide behind it and say, we can't. And there's enough Cub fans who are so prospect obsessed that they buy into it. Like, we can't give up those picks. I have a column from a few weeks ago where I looked at, they would have lost a two and a five if they had signed Bregman.

And I went back the last five years and looked at their twos and their fives and there's nobody that's any good. So they kept those precious picks. They didn't do anything with them. So why do we all of a sudden expect they're going to, those are going to turn into gems now.

Tom Loxas (30:24.147)
Yeah. And then I was listening to, I don't listen to much sports radio, but I do listen to some on the way in to work and on the way back. I heard cap this morning thinking that they're going to extend Jed. And especially if they have a good year, I just, look at it this way, like Jed's fine. But at the end of the day, if you're looking to get by the way Ricketts is, and you're looking at Jed's record,

with the payroll that he has versus Milwaukee's? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, now that we might start to see some kids like Sean PCA and Ben Brown, if they start to have real major contributions and Amaya's a solid catcher, then you can say, all right, he's starting to flesh out the roster with some young talent. But up until now, I would have fired him a couple of years ago, because I'd been like, hey, I'd rather go get the GM from Milwaukee, because that guy's beating your brains in.

with what almost 100 million less.

Andy (31:23.64)
Yeah. I feel like it, if they extend him, and I think Cap's right. think if they have, if they have a good year, which I think they're going to have, then I think he's going to get that extension. And I think some of that is an acknowledgement that the Ricketts have had Jed fight with a hand tied behind his back. That they've done it. That the things that Theo was able to do, their unwilling

Tom Loxas (31:33.194)
yeah, he's going get extended. Yeah.

He will.

Tom Loxas (31:48.62)
yeah.

Andy (31:53.678)
to do now. You know, to go out and be real active at the top of the free agent market and go out and do these things and not worry about losing a draft pick if you that kind of stuff they just don't seem to want to do anymore. But on the other hand, you can easily make the case you just said that Jed shouldn't keep his job because he's been spending on average about 225, $230 million a year. For an 83 win team that a good general manager could

billed with $140 or $150 million. It shouldn't be the Cubs aspiration. But basically if you were Tom Ricketts and you're looking at your amount of wins, you're like, why are we spending this extra $80 million to win no more games than a team that with $150 million payroll? So either we give you more money and you win more games, or we'll just go find somebody who can win those 83 games on the cheap.

I worry about who they would hire if they let Jed go. I worry that it would be far worse than what they've got.

Tom Loxas (32:56.797)
Yeah, I mean, if you thought there was going to go out and unearth some guy from, either the Milwaukee organization or Baltimore, whatever that had, you know, a really good idea of how to draft, then I'd be like, Okay, fine, let's do it. But I don't trust him to do

Tom Loxas (33:12.657)
At the same time though, I'm sorry, Cap was saying, if I'm Tom, he's like, I get it. Yeah, I'm seen as cheap, but I've also seen some of the moves that Jed and Theo made towards the end with my money. And for the most part, they all sucked.

Andy (33:12.982)
No, and I-

Andy (33:30.104)
But what were those?

Tom Loxas (33:33.085)
I mean, he was he was naming Chatwood, Brandon Morrow, Hugh Darvish at first. Yeah, I know. There wasn't big money. Darvish was the only one that was big that had a rough start, but he turned out to be fine.

Andy (33:36.472)
that they didn't spend any money. They didn't spend any money on those guys. And part of the reason that they signed. Yeah. Right. And they, and they turned him back into a really good pitcher and then he traded him for salary reasons. the reason that they got Tyler Chatwood and Brandon Morrow and Daniel Descalso was the Ricketts had, had lowered their payroll number from the original projections that they had. You don't have to go farther than the you Darvish

Tom Loxas (33:49.586)
Exactly.

Tom Loxas (34:01.417)
Yeah.

Andy (34:06.178)
The press conference, when they signed you, Theo was so excited because they got you for far less than they thought. And he'd said, we've got money now next year that we'll have for extra to get even better. they didn't, that was the next year. All they signed was Dana Descalso for like $3 million because clearly they were told, no, you don't have that money anymore.

Tom Loxas (34:22.495)
That was the worst off season of my life.

Andy (34:29.902)
I haven't heard, I don't know if anybody's asked the rickets, maybe on opening day, somebody will ask Tom about this chart. Cause in my mind, the first thing he's going to say is, well, that revenue number is way off. We don't make that much in revenue. And then I would say to him, well, you should be able to make that much. So if you're not getting that much, why does Crane still have a job? If you don't have enough revenue to have a high payroll, why does that guy who was tacked onto the sale from the Tribune, he was literally written into the sale for some reason.

Tom Loxas (34:40.637)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Tom Loxas (34:49.224)
exactly.

Andy (34:59.81)
I wonder who he's got pictures of. Why is he still here then? If you can't bring, because the answer is A, Crane is bad at his job and B, they are making this much money because it's not hard to make money on the

Andy (35:16.376)
So, but I'm guarantee that would be his defense. Well, that revenue number's way off. know, Forbes just guessing.

Tom Loxas (35:25.321)
Well, don't know if you remember a long time ago, and I used to write for Chicago. Now I put out a report that that once Ricketts got the team that he would push, you know, crane aside. And I didn't source it well enough as I should have because the next day I got a phone call from somebody who really knew and said, well, the real story is, that they're just going to tell him to stay the fuck down the hallway. And he can't even mention the word baseball operations like Theo.

The only reason Theo's coming is that he knows that Crane is not involved in any way. But the reason they kept him was because Tom felt loyalty to him because he helped him get the team. I don't know how that happened, but that was what I was told.

Andy (36:05.356)
Yeah. Well, write him a check and send him off. Put him on his little yacht.

Tom Loxas (36:10.416)
totally. But it's way, way past that.

Tom Loxas (36:16.24)
At the time, I could see keeping around. Yeah.

Andy (36:16.436)
I had heard that was the I heard the same thing that that Theo actually wanted a elicited a promise that crane wouldn't interfere in baseball. And you notice that as soon as Theo left, Jed actually has to thank Crane like when they sign a player like to thank Tom like think Crane for the business operations. Bring in me. Bring in this. It's like stop kissing his ass. The org chart. You two are next to each other. Tell Crane to go fuck himself.

Tom Loxas (36:41.533)
You could probably bring in the same amount of revenue.

Andy (36:44.29)
I could do better.

Tom Loxas (36:46.749)
Yeah, it's just not.

Andy (36:47.116)
And I'm willing to try.

Tom Loxas (36:50.037)
You

You know, and I asked somebody recently, I was like, you know, have you ever seen an owner like Rick? It's like come in here, guns a blazing, hires the best baseball guy that he can. Wins a World Series in a couple of years. He was like everything that we could possibly ask for in an owner at that time, right? And then a couple of years later, pull the plug and it's, I know there's probably a lot of reasons for it, but he said, well, think about it. Like it could have been their plan the whole time. I mean, this is just speculation, but like, what if they thought

Eh, we'll tear the team down to the studs, the team will suck and we'll buy up some, you know, stuff around the park while things are bad. You know, turn them into a winner. And then when people get all cozy, then we kind of coast with, you know, middle of the pack payroll. And who's going to say anything?

Andy (37:41.612)
It's incredible to me that the guy who owns the team, well, I mean the team, the family, whole family owns the team. Dad, they didn't put a penny in, dad bought it for them. They're a little team to play with, but that the, the family that owned the team when the Cubs finally won the world series could be this vilified and they were this vilified, what, by 2019, three years later, fans were already fed up with them. It's unbelievable that you could screw up your that much goodwill that fast.

And I do think, I think it's, I don't see how you could argue against the fact that once they won, they felt like we did it. Now we don't have to, they tried really hard to win a world series. They deserve credit for that. But once they won, they took their foot off the gas on purpose. Like, no, now is when we make the big money. You know, now we, we don't have to do all these extra things. These rubes got their championship. They're happy. They can, they can wait another hundred and eight years.

Tom Loxas (38:29.29)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (38:36.393)
Now, let me ask you this though. If the TV thing would have worked out better, maybe things may have been different, but that was pretty fucked up, they're telling me.

Andy (38:46.902)
Yeah, but they, cost themselves with that timing. Like they, they sat there for two years trying to cobble together the non-superstation part of their TV thing, because what they should have done, they had two options. What I would have done was said to the other partners in Comcast Sportsnet, NBC, Sportsco, whatever it was at the time, the White Sox, the Bulls, the Blackhawks and

Tom Loxas (38:50.131)
definitely.

Andy (39:16.494)
TomCast, because they own a big chunk of it too. I would have said, we are by far your most valuable asset. And the fact that we only get 20 % of this station is ridiculous. We want 50%. You guys can divvy up the other 50. And we're taking 50. That would have put them in a much better position than they were. Now, Grant, I'm sure those entities would have told them to go pound sand. But then the play was to leave immediately. Start marquee two years before they did.

because they, by the time they, and you could see it coming, by the time they went out on their own, the RSN model had collapsed and they got a fraction of the amount of money when they distributed. And then for some reason, even though Crane is this genius, they had a partner with Sinclair to get themselves distributed. So they had to give Sinclair a big chunk of it to take money off. It's just like the bears having to go hire a fricking Ernie O'Coursey or what's his name from the Colts.

Bill Polian to run a coaching search because nobody could do it. You know, if Crane is such a genius, he should have been the one to figure this out. I also liked the fact that Crane for years would blame the terrible media deals that they had. I was like, well, you're the one that signed them. I mean, I know you were doing it from the inside with the Tribune and cutting yourself sweetheart deals on GNTV and radio, but you don't get to complain about it then when you're working for the team.

Tom Loxas (40:49.621)
I'm just noticing on the camera for the people who can see the podcast, Andy's setup is so much nicer than mine right now. I'm just, pardon our dust, we're gonna get this setup going here soon. This video stuff is for the kids, we're adding that. You gonna start going video soon?

Andy (41:11.832)
Yeah, one of these days. I don't know why we don't. All I have to do is turn the damn thing on.

Tom Loxas (41:14.037)
Yeah, just want you to go video so that I can see what's his name walking around during the podcast. Yeah.

Andy (41:20.332)
Oleg? Yeah, get up and...

leave, go to the bathroom, come back. We had to remind him to go give his dog her pills. He told us before the podcast, 7.45, I gotta step aside for a second and go give my dog her pills. It's about almost eight. And Pras and I are like, oh, like, don't you, wouldn't you forget to do something? He's like, oh shit. And he runs out of the room and goes and gives the dog the pills. Yeah. Oh, it's a very first rate. So what were you all excited about? Were you gazing at my, at the line score up here? Was that the thing you were?

Tom Loxas (41:26.729)
You

Tom Loxas (41:31.26)
Ha ha ha!

Tom Loxas (41:45.365)
That's good TV.

Tom Loxas (41:51.431)
I do dig that, yeah, I do dig that.

Andy (41:53.248)
I had that made, I had to design that myself. I had it printed, yeah.

Tom Loxas (41:55.733)
No shit. That's pretty cool. I got some cool shit I put up. I just gotta steal it from the other walls. This is the best room in terms of privacy. otherwise, yes, not aesthetically as pleasing. Well, that covers a lot, but you know, a long story short is right now, I mean, I'm pretty pleased with the way this team looks. I mean, I can tell like after nine games, like,

what kind of vibe it is. And I feel like PCA is starting to really look like he's getting it. You know what mean? Like just the little things. Like I just see the at bats. see him like, you know, that when he reached down and got that pitch the other day for the double, that was a really nice piece of hitting. And that's just something, you know, you see as a hitter develops and yeah, Miguel Maia has actually been pretty, pretty solid. So if those guys,

contributing and Shaw doesn't look nearly as overmatched as he did in Japan. Yeah, and that's another thing that council does is council puts Shaw, what, like fifth in the lineup, you know, and I thought that was a little bit of a stretch. But that's something David Ross never would have done. mean, Shaw wouldn't even be playing every day.

Andy (43:10.858)
No. Right. And once Nico came back, then Shaw dropped to take a little heat off of him. Nothing like having Nico and his 300 slugging percentage hit sixth, but still. Yeah, what Pete put

Tom Loxas (43:15.731)
Yeah, and that's fine. I think that was the right thing to do.

No, no, that's not great, but yeah.

Yeah, again, I would I would love to have Bregman too, but at the same time, like, yeah, we know the starting pitcher is going to be the most important.

Andy (43:32.558)
Well, it was Keith law who kept saying, if the Cubs develop, you the Cubs use him right, they're going to get similar production out of Matt Shaw that they would out of Alex Brigham. And you're to do it for Farley and you can spend that money on something else. you see Pete put so much pressure on the other team because of his, because not just his speed, because of how hard he plays. mean, it's one thing to be fast, but he, oh, he's always pushing it. And

Tom Loxas (43:46.78)
Amen.

Tom Loxas (43:53.394)
yeah.

Andy (44:02.914)
He scored on a, on a sack fly to deep center that Amaya tagged up from first and got to second on. And I thought if Amaya can tag from first to go to second, if Pete had been on second, he would have scored on that sack fly. Cause he can get from second to home faster than Miguel Amaya can get from first to second. So he didn't even have to be a third to score on that one, but he was. And then I was trying to remember on my podcast, I think.

I think Sam Fels was the one who wrote about this, but Steve Berthoum was doing the Diamondbacks games was talking about, said from our vantage point, after a few games of watching Pete Carr Armstrong, it feels like you can't hit the ball by him in the outfield. Like there's no place in right or left center where you can get the ball past Pete. And it reminded me of when I was, when we were far younger.

going to see the Cubs play the Braves when Kenny Lofton had come over to play for the Braves and he would play so shallow that and after a game or two of watching him play, you felt like there was nowhere you could hit the ball in the outfield and Kenny couldn't get it. And that's how Pete is. And then he's got, you know, it was great to see him finally get to show off the arm. I mean, that the throw that got Naylor a third is was amazing.

Tom Loxas (45:21.201)
He's an amazing alfie-ler.

Andy (45:23.214)
He threw a 220 feet and he threw it was 92 miles an hour.

Tom Loxas (45:27.155)
Yeah, you mentioned Lofton. I also thought of Andrew Jones. mean, guys, just pissed me off because it would just get to everything. Willie McGee.

Andy (45:33.89)
But with Kenny, Kenny would, Kenny just decided you can't hit the ball over my head in Wrigley Field. And I'm just going to play like, it felt like he was standing right behind second base. And no Cub, of course the Cubs were lousy. No Cub could hit the ball, could get it past him. By the time he got to the Cubs, wasn't quite the same, but he was, you know, he was still very good for the 03 Cubs.

Tom Loxas (45:44.714)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (45:58.549)
Well, I can't let you go before we talk. We got to talk some TV. mean, we've had we've had a pretty good run of some shows lately. Where do you put?

God damn it. The neighbor always say, anyway, where do you put severance in the last five years? It's got to be.

in my Mount Rush Marr but

Andy (46:26.05)
Yeah, it's really good. It's, it's got a lost, lot of the lost feel to it, but it, where lost felt like they didn't exactly have a plan to wrap it up. And we found that out when they got to the end and it didn't make very much sense that you feel more confident that this is like, they know where they're going. It just depends how long they're going to take to get there, but it's a very good show. Yeah.

Tom Loxas (46:48.565)
Yeah, Ben Stiller said they have a plan, so we'll see. Because they could have ended it the way they did.

Andy (46:58.252)
Yeah, it could have ended with this season. That could have been the series finale. But like, it's...

Tom Loxas (47:00.531)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (47:05.343)
But we've had Succession, The Bear, I mean, this has been a hell of a run. The Last of Us.

Andy (47:12.962)
And last but not least, 2 is next week? Two weeks?

Tom Loxas (47:18.069)
Yeah, I think so.

Andy (47:20.76)
feel like Star Wars and or is a really good show. And that's coming back for its second and final season because we know how that ends because we also have Rogue One and everybody dies, but they have to get to that point. and then one of my all time favorite shows of righteous gemstones on max NHPO max. my God, that show is Oleg and I, Oleg and I rambled out about this on our podcast on Tuesday, the season four, it's her final season.

Tom Loxas (47:37.658)
I have not seen that.

Tom Loxas (47:41.779)
How many seasons is that?

Andy (47:49.666)
That's a show that should, it was, when I heard about it, it's either, that show's gonna be hilarious or terrible. There's no in between. And it's, it's, and it's, it's right on after the White Lotus on HBO.

Tom Loxas (47:55.989)
How do I not know about that?

Tom Loxas (48:00.645)
OK. Yeah, we're obviously watching that too. Which is just ridiculous of a show, but you can't help but watch it.

Andy (48:03.98)
Andy (48:07.66)
Yeah. And Danny McBride said, he goes, we're going, yeah, he goes, we're a lot of, we're going to set the record for DONGs in the season. And so far they have, it's amazing. I mean, if you thought that, is it Jason Patrick? Why does it feel like that's not his name? Who's the guy in the white Lotus that's playing the guy from North Carolina who's taking his wife's Larazepam?

Tom Loxas (48:12.174)
Danny McBride, okay.

I know that show.

Tom Loxas (48:34.493)
Yeah, I cannot think of his name, but

Andy (48:35.808)
Anyway, if you thought him accidentally flashing his family was on, wait till you see an episode of The Righteous Gemstones. Walton Goggins is in both, so it's a double header. He plays the greatest character on The Righteous Gemstones, Baby Billy. And it's amazing.

Tom Loxas (48:51.573)
All I'll check it out. There's your tip. Andy usually gives good TV tips, you do know your TV. OK.

Andy (48:57.272)
I'll tell you a great show if you have prime video. So do I.

Tom Loxas (49:01.875)
We have everything. mean, we cut the cord and then we get every fucking streaming service known to mankind.

Andy (49:08.994)
I wrote a whole column about this couple of weeks ago. There is a show on Prime that's a BBC show. It's called Unforgotten. And it is a, it's a show, I think this is the sixth, they just aired the sixth season in England, so we'll get it later this year. But they're short seasons, they're like six episodes, so you can plow through them fast. It's basically a cold case show. In the very first episode of every show, of every season, somebody finds a...

Tom Loxas (49:10.901)
You

Andy (49:38.134)
a very old corpse in some weird place. And then this team of detectives has to figure out, they have to go and figure out what happened. And it seems like a pretty run of the mill show, but it's so well done. And what happens is in that first episode, you meet like four or five people who seem completely unrelated to the case. And they are all directly related somehow to when this happened. And

Tom Loxas (49:40.499)
You

Andy (50:03.02)
this case is going to ruin all of their lives. The stuff that gets dredged up, even if they weren't the killer, it's just so, it's amazing how well done it is. And the actors are great and they change the lead detective changes after three seasons and the person they bring in to replace her is just as good. It's a great show. just watch an episode and see if you can stop. You won't be able to, you'll have to, you will want to know. And

Tom Loxas (50:27.412)
Okay.

Andy (50:31.642)
They always end satisfyingly too. Like it's always a realistic ending that doesn't seem like you feel like I should have seen that. How did I not figure that out instead of, I don't know, do you ever watch, there was a show on, I think it was only on Hulu. I don't think it was on ABC. It was called Paradise. It's relatively new. It's a

Tom Loxas (50:53.171)
I've heard of it, but I haven't seen it.

Andy (50:56.134)
It's a show where the president gets murdered in the first episode. And there's a huge twist at the end of the first episode where it changes the whole thing. It's an eight episode season and the seventh episode is one of the best hours of TV I've ever seen. It was so good.

The finale was terrible. You find out who killed the president and it's the worst. You're just like, you gotta be kidding me. So they went from, oh, this is a great show. If you stop watching after episode seven, think it's one of the best shows ever. You watch episode eight and say, oh, it's coming back for season two. And you're like, ah, I don't care. You screwed it up. I don't care. Well, I didn't give it away.

Tom Loxas (51:39.135)
So if you just started Paradise, can thank Andy. I'll give you his email. That's true.

Andy (51:44.632)
But we'll at least have episode seven to look forward to, because it's really good. And I don't even want to tell you what happens, because if you don't, most people know the twist, but if you don't, I don't want to be the one to spoil it. You find that out right away. They set that up right at the end of the first hour. Everything changes because of something that you learn. And then in episode seven, they show you what happened to get to that. And they do such a great job of it. And then they crap the bed. So that was.

Tom Loxas (52:10.357)
Before I let you go, will say we also just started watching the studio, Seth Rogen, enjoying that. They give a lot of spoilers to movies, if you haven't seen a movie in the last 20 years, in the last episode, but that was pretty funny.

Andy (52:15.458)
Yes, very good.

Andy (52:21.774)
That's right.

Andy (52:26.368)
I thought the, it's not a spoiler to say that in the first episode, he gets, they, you they have to make a movie, he has to get a movie made with some terrible IP, it's Kool-Aid. But what happens in the next scene that relates to that was so good. The fact that it was like, that is so perfect. I didn't think of that, in fact, I didn't even realize it at first. When Martin Scorsese explained the movie he wants to make.

Tom Loxas (52:48.117)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (52:51.732)
Yeah.

Andy (52:54.22)
I didn't even make the comparison for a second. And then finally went him like, my God, that's amazing. So yeah, that's a really good show. I have another show that I, that I have to, if you haven't seen this, have to watch it. It's on Netflix, a show called adolescence.

Tom Loxas (52:54.292)
Yeah.

Tom Loxas (53:00.765)
And God, Bryan Cranston, I just, my God.

Tom Loxas (53:09.98)
yeah, my wife actually just started watching it last night by herself.

Andy (53:12.134)
my God. That show. I'd heard. I watched. I listened to the pilot TV podcast. This is British podcast where they talk about TV shows. They're great. They do a great job and they were going on and on how great this was. And I thought it was only three hours long. That was three one hour episodes. So one night at like seven o'clock I'm like well I'm gonna start watching a lesson. If it's any good I'm just gonna finish it.

The basic conceit of the show is a kid gets charged with murder and every episode, every one hour episode is one long shot. Like everything that happens happens in that hour. It happens in real time and you follow the whole thing. They don't, they're not cutting from location to location, scene to scene, everything happens. The way they do that is so well done because it could have been a gimmick, but it really works.

get to the end of episode two and I realized there were four and I was so excited that there was an extra hour. So I knew I liked the show and I'm like, there's not three, there's four. I get four hours of this instead of three. It's so good. And episode two happens in a school and I've been trying to get my wife to watch because she works at a high school.

It's an amazing hour of TV. First, I don't know how any kid today is learning anything in school. But when you realize that the hour you're watching happened in real time at a real school with all these other, you know, there's obviously actors in it, but everybody else is an extra. And the things that happen and the timing that it all happens with that somehow it didn't get all screwed up.

is amazing. And after you finish watching it, then you can watch on Netflix and on YouTube. There's like a making of adolescence show that shows you how they made it and how many takes it took to get through these things. And it's incredible. It's a it's a great it's a it's it's a great TV show.

Tom Loxas (55:05.589)
Yeah, that's crazy.

and the last one I have to say, even though like some people think it's completely wacky, can't I everything John Mulaney makes, I have to see it. And I just think his his show on Wednesday nights on Netflix or just they just hit me the right way. I don't know what it is.

Andy (55:24.332)
I haven't seen this, I haven't seen this one yet, but I watched all the five episodes. They did it when Netflix was having their big comedy festival in LA. That's why it was called Everybody's in LA. Yeah. And I know it's the same, like Richard Kind is the sidekick and they're following the same format. It was so good. It was such a great, you know.

Tom Loxas (55:37.609)
Yeah. and not only is it so just weird, it kind of reminds me of like the early Conan years where you're just like, what the fuck's happening? But then the next day it hits you and it's like, that was brilliant. But some of it's really strange. But what's even better than the show are the shorts they put on Instagram or whatever, like on social media to like pimp the show. And he and Richard kind are like in some like 70s, like style or 80s style, like drama.

And it's just ridiculous compared to what they're talking about. And it's just, you have to see them. They're funny. Yeah, I just think John Mulaney is brilliant. All right. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, yeah. All the Chicago people, Funny people, Amy Poehler. I'll let you go. But yeah, thanks for being the inaugural return of the Jedi.

Andy (56:13.816)
Yes, is. Evanston's very own, right?

Andy (56:27.864)
Yeah, I'm glad you're back.

I don't have to carry you every Thursday now.

Tom Loxas (56:33.619)
No, yeah, but I'll see you on your show.

Andy (56:36.876)
Absolutely. Thanks.

Tom Loxas (56:38.409)
Thank you.