Jeff Passan Explains MLB’s Off the Field Challenges

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4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 February 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

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Summary

As ESPN MLB Insider Jeff Passan tells us, spring training should be about hope and new beginnings. Relaying the smell of freshly cut grass, enjoying the Florida or Arizona sunlight, hearing the crack of the bat and the slap of the leather. But for Major League Baseball, there are still a number of issues that have caught people’s attention, and none of them relate to position battles, or players making debuts with new teams. The Athletics are still trying to find their way to Las Vegas, and with the city of Oakland less than enamored with them, they don’t even have a clear home beyond this season. Commissioner Rob Manfred has announced that he wants to retire in five years time, but first he wants to make sure that the league is ready to grow through expansion. And there are concerns about the new uniforms that players will be sporting this season, and how much they - ahem - reveal. So today, Passan tells us where the league is on all of these issues, and helps us clear the way for talk about baseball, on the field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jeff Passen, a resident MOB connoisseur, spring training is here. You are live in Venice, Florida.
0:06.5	Pre-season games are underway. What does this time of year mean to you, sir?
0:12.0	It means hope it means sun it means that finally we
0:18.1	are all emerging from a long winter Clinton. In Major League Baseball, let me tell you, this was a particularly long winter that continues
0:30.2	on in terms of free agency but the idea that we have so many different
0:36.7	possibilities for a new season you've got the returning champions in the Texas
0:41.5	Rangers you've got the Los Angeles Dodgers who went out and spent a billion dollars to bring in
0:46.0	Chauhotani. In Yoshinobu Yamamoto, you've got the Yankees with Juan Soto, and you've got the Braves looking to do what they did a couple years back.
0:56.0	It's just a wonderful time of year and every baseball fan right now is just waiting for opening day.
1:03.4	A billion there, not hyperbole, actual numbers.
1:10.7	We know not to look too closely at stats and performances obviously this time of year, but as an expert, what are you looking at this spring?
1:17.0	I'm looking at the changes across the landscape, Clinton.
1:22.0	And you know, sometimes it's big changes with Otani moving up the five.
1:29.2	And as recently as we saw the deals that have been going down in free agency, you know, Cody Bellinger.
1:38.0	Yeah.
1:39.0	Going back to the Chicago Cubs, but more than that, I'm looking for the little changes you know
1:45.6	Tyler Glass now is throwing a two-seem fastball now it comes in at 99 miles per hour
1:52.0	if we thought he was unfair when comes in at 99 miles per hour.
1:53.5	If we thought he was unfair when he was with the Tampa Bay
1:56.1	Rays, what he could be with the Dodgers,
1:59.7	and really what the Dodgers could be, period,
2:02.2	is exciting and tantalizing and and all of those
	...

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