Bob Pompiani

I want to know by July where you are in the standings and whether or not you have the ability to, you know, finishing the deal.

That was remarkable.

That's kind of how I do it.

Even a little bit before the All-Star break and when you see what teams are, they kind of reveal themselves over the first couple of months of the season.

Out West, you have the Dodgers doing what they do.

They keep winning, and they're going to keep winning no matter what.

I wonder if the Pirates would ever employ a deferred payment plan like the Dodgers specifically have done with some of their big-time players.

Now, many of the owners I've seen have complained that the Dodgers have circumvented rules by doing it.

I look at it as, okay, we got away with it.

No one's going to tell us we can't do it.

We're doing it.

We're deferring money.

That would be something that the Pirates could do.

I don't know how much of it they'd be willing to do.

But if you want to do it, it's available to you.

I'm not talking about Yamamoto deals or Otani.

What I'm talking about is even if you have a $100 million deal and you want to defer some, ask the player, can we arrange this for you?

It's not bad when you're out of the game.

You can still get some money as you're done.

That's a vehicle I may look into a little bit more, even if it's not at the big-time money, which the Dodgers, that's what they're doing.