Sharing our takeaways from Alex Bregman's introductory press conference with Cubs

episode

Rahimi & Grote Show 10 min 2 speakers 4 chapters transcribed

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: chapters · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What were the highlights of Alex Bregman's introductory press conference?

Leila Rahimi 0:00

That was the Alex Bregman introductory press conference. You could hear it right here on 670 The Score. And that is courtesy of the Marquee Sports Network bringing us the audio brought to you by your local Hyundai dealers. So he spoke for about... 33 or 34 minutes, I would say. Got introduced, put on his jersey. And I didn't get to see the back of the jersey. So do we know what number he's going to wear yet?

Marshall Harris 0:27

It's number three.

Leila Rahimi 0:28

It is.

Marshall Harris 0:28

Three because he wants a third World Series championship.

Leila Rahimi 0:31

Yeah, I heard that. But because of our vantage point, Matt Spiegel did ask that question. And Nico Horner did come up. I hear he's on the afternoon show sometimes.

Marshall Harris 0:42

Yeah. And I wish Jed, and I understand why he didn't, but I wish Jed would have had a more pronounced answer to the question about Nico's future. And obviously at this time, those two are slated to play together, be in the same lineup, be in the same infield on a daily basis. But even the Matt Shaw portion of the conversation, because he, he talked about specifically Jed Hoyer the way that he sees them having a lot of different people a lot of different position people are going to need a day off which of course Alex Bregman quick to not refute it but to state his intention of playing every single day you don't pay somebody five years and 175 million dollars for them to be a part-time player not even on the Dodgers

Marshall Harris 1:28

No, no. $35 million a year should get you a little bit more. I was intrigued about the conversation because I remember being at spring training a couple of years ago and asking specifically about, why don't you guys do deferments? It's a way of the world, and I guarantee you more teams are going to start doing it because if you want to fight against a team like the Dodgers, who clearly have no problem with doing it, that's how you keep up.

What number will Alex Bregman wear with the Cubs and why?

Marshall Harris 1:50

So I was interested to hear that they had started that even back during the summer of kind of greasing the wheels for this type of contract.

Leila Rahimi 1:58

Well, players want it, too. You know, players want the deferments because of how money depreciates over time. So that's something that players want to be able to have, too, because they feel like they're making more money because of the value of the contract over time. So that's definitely a reason why a guy like Alex Bregman or Shohei Otani famously would want that. That's the biggest example. And you heard... Jed Hoyer referred to it when he said that that was a conversation he had to have with Tom Ricketts because it is the way of the world now, which means if the best in the game are going to do it, Toronto is going to do it. If the Dodgers are going to do it, even if even if the Giants and other teams who are trying to get big free agents do, that means you have to like otherwise you're going to be left out of these deals.

Leila Rahimi 2:43

And he mentioned the history of doing that with guys like Jon Lester, Jason Hayward. So to see that, according to Jed Hoyer, Tom Ricketts is amenable to that, and they actually showed you that they were able to do that, even if it's just for certain players right now, that is a good sign of things to come.

Marshall Harris 3:04

I think it's all about the size of the contract. And once the contract gets to a certain level and you see how it's going to push you towards that luxury tax, that's when you have to. And he said this deal could have been done before kickoff if the deferments weren't involved because you got to take out the spreadsheets and understand what a dollar today is going to mean a dollar down the road. And figuring out the math portion of that, you don't want to get stuck in a Bobby Bonilla situation if you feel me.

Leila Rahimi 3:29

I would love to get stuck in a Bobby Bonilla situation.

Marshall Harris 3:31

An organization doesn't want to get stuck in a Bobby Bonilla situation. A player, of course, he's like, well, let's make sure you're making up on the back end with this deferment how much money I could have made if I had just taken this money out because of the way inflation works in the dollar and everything else.

Leila Rahimi 3:45

Yeah, bottom line, players want it and teams don't.