Utah Football Wide Receivers, NHL 84 games season, Jazz Summer League, MLB Allstar Snubs, MLB Umpire
pressure. Yeah. Yeah. You are looking live here in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah here at DNA HQ. My name is Darren. That is episode and this is that is episode Wow, Darren. Way to go. Hi, I’m episode. That’s episode. This is another AJ of the DNA sports recap. That’s great. All right, let’s try one more time. You are looking live here in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah here at DNA HQ. My name is Darren. That is AJ. And this is an episode of the DNA Sports Recap. How’s it going, my friend? I’m doing good, buddy. I’m doing really good. I’m apparently just being an episode. How are you? You just be an episode. I like it. I like it when you’re an episode. It’s It’s always nice. That’s what I’m here for. That’s right. That’s right. Absolutely. Just know where you got to be. Um, all right. Well, on this episode of the DNA Sports Recap, we have the University of Utah has some question marks in the wide receiver room. Let’s talk about them. The Utah Mammoth, we have an 84 game season coming up, not next year, but the year after that. Let’s discuss it. And the Utah Jazz are in a flux period. Let’s talk about what their potential rotations look like in Major League Baseball. Was there any snubs at the All-Star game? All that more. My name is Darren. That is AJ. And this is the DNA Sports Recap. Roll the intro. How’s it going, AJ? I’m doing good, buddy. I’m doing really good. I’m I’m excited to be here. Had a good week. Ready. Great. Great. Well, once again, folks, if you are watching this, if you’re tuning into the live stream, we want to hear from you. Jump in the comments, let let us know where you’re watching from. Sorry, jump in the chat. Let us know where you’re watching from. Uh we’d love to hear your take on what we’re talking about because that’s kind of the whole point of this show is to basically just pull up with a glass of whiskey, say what’s up to your buddies, and start talking sports. That’s what we’re here for. And that’s the whole reason for the live stream, man. Exactly. Exactly. And now for course, let’s go ahead and do an intro. Cheers here. Cheers to you. Cheers to you guys. All right, let’s go ahead and jump into our first subject of conversation. Uh let’s go back and let’s do a little bit of old school, man. Let’s go ahead and start with uh college football this time again, shall we? Yeah. Yeah. I I I like it. It kind of gets me off off balance a little bit. Pause. Yeah. Pause on the on the language there, AJ. Uh anyway, uh phrasing. Okay. So, let’s go ahead and first start with a little bit of college football. Uh so, EA college football. Let’s go ahead and start there. So, yeah, when it comes to sports video games, Madden is king, basically, right? Yep. Uh it’s been around since 88 and it’s been since 93 since it’s had its full NFL license. uh with minimal changes uh for each game each year. Still the hottest sports release every single year. Well, in the world of NIL now that the players can be paid, we are now in the second year of ELA Sports CFP26. And this is the first year, my friends, where the coach is going to be on the sidelines. So, Whittingham is in EA Sports College football. I’m kind of s I was kind of surprised to hear that he opted in. I just don’t see Coach Whit being that guy that’s like because I mean Deion Sanders opted out. Well, I don’t I don’t think it’s about opting out. I think it has to do with licensing like you’re part of the when you’re paid. I guess when you’re in a private institution versus public, I think it’s a little different. But I think it’s more about like other licensing issues. like he’s probably already licensed, you know, for his likeness with Madden, which is not an is Madden EA Sports product. I don’t know. No. What the [ __ ] I don’t know. I think so. Either way, but I think it’s it is he is not he is on there, but there are about 15, I believe, or 12 or 13 or something like that. They’re that are holdouts and I believe it’s due to licensing issues. But, uh, yeah, man. I think it’s pretty awesome. I think it’s pretty cool that we have, uh, Coach Whit as the option here. Although, however, While I think it’s really cool that he is ranked third overall in conference, which is really cool, he’s got the archetype of program builder versus talent recruit uh talent development, which is interesting. Um program builder I think is a better fit. I think if you really think about it, he’s good about building a program than he is necessarily developing talent. Absolutely. Yeah. No, I mean he he definitely I mean he’s definitely built this program from, you know, over the last couple of decades to to be what it is. And I mean, he’s kind of got his set, you know, how he runs his program. You come here, you’re going to play for you. These are the things you’re going to do. These are how you’re going to be. Um, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I did see that he was got an overall rate uh rating of 58. Um, which is not in the top 10. I wasn’t able to see anybody outside the top 10. Were you able to see like the full list? I wasn’t able to find it. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, yeah. I mean, outside the list, it actually it it doesn’t rank them all the way through, but it it goes in and breaks down each conference. Yeah. Yeah, I got that part. He was ranked third in the conference, but overall, yeah, I didn’t see any I didn’t see anything any other rankings outside of the top 10 for overall rating. Yeah, other than diving into Reddit and that whole rabbit hole, which I’m more than happy to do. Uh, but I didn’t really see anything that was really jumping out of me to where he was saying, “Hey, these are the rankings from top to bottom.” Um, but yeah, I thought that was very interesting, man. Thought it was cool to see. Um, love to see that uh he is uh going to be in the game, man. and it’s going to be awesome that you’re going to be able to pick uh your head coach uh for your team or actually have something to do with it. But I don’t know, I just think it’s really cool that he’s ranked so high in the in the Big 12. It’s just more recognition for the program and I’m absolutely for that. Yeah. No, I totally agree. All right, let’s go ahead and move on over and talk a little bit about uh the wide room, wide receiver room. Man, this something we want to jump into. There’s been uh a little bit of talk around that. We’ve actually had some comments in our in our channel. So, first of all, thank you very much for jumping in and commenting on our Utah football DNA. As a reminder folks, for those of you who don’t know, we did launch a channel specifically for your youth’s content called Utah Football DNA. It’s a channel specifically for all your U content. So if you want to see your U content, all of it will be posted here first. Uh so be sure to check it out. A link will be in the description down below. Uh again, subscribe to the channel if this is the type of content you’re looking forward to seeing. Uh with that said there, um we did do a video a while back on the wide receiver room. It’s something we talked about coming into the spring, I believe, spring camp. Yeah, we talked about a couple because we had a couple wide receivers that had transferred in. So, we talked about a couple of guys coming in and yes, there’s been some updates. There’s been some changes. So, uh one of the biggest question marks coming into spring camp, I believe. Uh like I said, we already talked about a little bit uh was the wide receiver room. Uh but we definitely think that there’s an update warranted there. Uh of course, we need to start with uh the we start with the headset, right? There’s a new man underneath the headset. Uh Mike Simmons is the new wide receivers’s head coach. Yep. Uh he’s been and he’s going to be shaking things up a little bit. Uh from last we talked about this. We have two returning um receivers from last year and that’s Dan Zapiier. Zipper. Zipper. Yep. I was going to go Zapi. Zipper, but Zipper. Yeah. Anyway, uh 128 yards on eight catches, right? Yep. And then we also have uh Luca Caldera uh who has uh 26 yards on two catches. Those are two hold outs from last year. Yep. Uh you got anything on those guys? Yeah, I mean Lucas Caldera, this is this is a big body guy, right? Six four six foot four inches. He is a red shirt senior. He transferred in from Cerritos College in California. So he’s been with the program ever since he transferred in in 21. Um yeah, he hasn’t had a great, you know, regular season for a couple of years, but if you did watch the 22 forever game, uh or the Forever 22 game, he made a couple really nice catches. Um he moved into the open field really well. uh it looks like he could be a really nice like kind of big target to catch on that wide receiver side. So, um I’m you know, Drien Zipper, this this guy has played in a couple of, you know, actual regular season games, had some great catches, um you know, in the in the end of the and the end of last season. So, he kind of kind of started gaining some traction um and and he’s another guy to kind of be excited for. So, yeah, I mean, as far as the two guys that are coming back, he’s the those two are are really solid. Yeah, I’m I’m looking forward to seeing the development there from that. I mean, Drian, like you mentioned, has seen a little bit more time than Lucas, but um I want to see some of that development on there. And you know, the only problem is they’re going to be fighting for some time. There’s been a lot of higher talent that’s come in since then. Yes. And we talked about a little bit about this here u when we talked about this at spring ball time, but Ryan Davis is coming over from Albuquerque um with Dampier. Uh they had 747 yards last year, three touchdowns on 54 catches. Yeah, for for Ryan Davis there, making him probable for the number one choice there for QB1, but not only just for QB1, but also for the OC, Jason Beck, right? Um, he already is going to be familiar with how he likes to run this offense, is probably going to be somebody who’s going to probably predominantly, unless something jumps at you or somebody just comes out gang busters, probably going to be, you know, your first option there for not only for the quarterback, but also for the offensive coordinator. What do you have on Ryan? Uh I I mean I think you’re absolutely right. I mean obviously he’s going to come in and be more familiar with the offense than anybody else you know coming in. So you’re kind of getting a fresh start which is kind of a good thing to see because everybody with the exception of him is all kind of learning the offense together. Um I think the player that I probably like the most to be wide receiver one might be Larry Simmons which is um the six foot one junior. He transferred out of Southern Miss. Uh this is a guy that started his career out at, you know, at Old Miss. Uh he only played in one game as a backup in 2022. He didn’t play any games in 2023. And I mean, I just I know the question here. Everyone’s like, “Well, if he wasn’t good enough to play at Old Miss, you know, he had to go to Southern Miss to get it uh you know, to to finally get some playing time. Why Why are we thinking this guy’s going to be good?” I just I just want to I just I checked this a little bit. I’m like, why didn’t he play at Old Miss? Okay. Okay. The Old Miss roster in 22 um included Jonathan Mingo which is now in the NFL for the Cowboys. Right. Malle Keith who’s now in the NFL for the Packers, Jordan Watkins who is now in the NFL for the 49ers. All three of those guys were on the roster at all miss and 22. So what are you trying to say AJ? Trying to say this this guy was this guy was stashed a little bit. Okay. Behind some NFL talent there at Miss. You think they just continue to push wide receivers into the NFL. So that’s awesome. the fact that he was recruited there. You know, obviously he ha, you know, he has a bunch of raw talent. He, you know, at six foot one, he’s got a ton of speed. I like this guy a lot to to to excel in this in this new offense. So, nice. Nice. I one of my favorites I have looking on this one that I think is going to be the transfer from Cal. Yeah. Yeah. Tobias Merryweather. Tobias Merryweather. Just specifically because of that name. Tobias Merryweather. That just sounds like a University of Utah football player name. It sure does. you know, I mean, it just just sounds like with 11 receptions, 125 yards, and a touchdown, he’s 6’5. Yeah. Big dude. Big dude that can run. And I definitely think he’s going to be challenging for some targets, I think, this this uh this camp. I I totally agree. I mean, this guy was a four-star recruit out of high school. He was the number 79 player nationally out of high school, the number 11 wide receiver nationally when he came out of high school, and uh also the number two player out of the state of Washington. So, he does have a ton of talent. Um he did kind of have a disappointing season at Cal where he he only saw action in five games. Only caught like you said 11 passes for 125. So he he is going to be out there challenging because he’s going to want to get as many catches as he can. Right. This this guy’s a junior already. You know, he’s got the he’s he’s got the build. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Like he’s got the build to be talented at his position. Yeah. I don’t know if it’s just he doesn’t have enough runway or he just didn’t show well in camp. I don’t know. But I I just I’m looking at this guy. He’s got the he’s got the buildup. He’s got the name, you know, he’s got the size. I think he’s going to be a good pick. Yeah. You know, to see some targets this year, I think. I don’t know. Someone to look out for. What do you think about Nate Johnson listed as a wide receiver on Utah’s database? I saw that. How much do you think he’s actually going to be used there? So, that’s actually probably the best the best question you could have asked. I mean, that’s really just a great runway, dude, because realistically in the in the in the Forever 22 game, he was he he set up out at wide receiver quite a bit, right? I mean, all the way out. And I think my biggest concern was he he had a lot of balls. Hit him in the hands and and just couldn’t come down with them. Like balls that should have been clear receptions and run. I mean, we know the Nate Johnson story, right? That the dude’s a freak athlete. He’s got elite speed. Uh he’s very crafty. I I don’t know how much wide receiver he’ll actually play because, you know, they they said it really early when he came back. This he’s going to be a Swiss Army knife kind of guy. I kind of see him setting up in the slot, you know, maybe moving out. If if you can get if if you’ve got anybody that doesn’t have 44 speed on the outside, right, you’re setting up Nate Johnson and just sending him out because he’s he is that fast. And I think with with this off seasonason, I do think he’ll work a lot on his hands and making sure that he is more used to catching footballs and, you know, running down the way. So, I do see Nate probably helping in a lot more ways than just the wide receiver room. But yeah, he is I mean he is a great another great option for um you know for Jason Beck. Yeah, for Jason Beck and the offense to just, you know, kind of have another option out there. So no, I agree, man. I agree. And like I said, I just don’t see his use being there predominantly. I know that’s where he’s going to be listed, at least for now. Yeah, I think that might change coming out of fall camp. Just saying. But I think that’s probably where they want him. Uh, I don’t think they’re going to be putting him underneath uh in the quarterback room just because they don’t wanna I think that’s just gonna be bad juju. Don’t put him in there. Like you’re just asking for it, right? Put in some sage and, you know, do some stuff. Keep that room clean. Um, but next to that, man, we also have uh Creed uh Whitmore uh was a transfer from Mississippi State, red shirt last year. And we also have Justin Stevenson uh who was a transfer for Wyoming. this kid 204 yards on 17 catches. Um I don’t know what I get out of this kid. I think that maybe he just he looked good, but it might just been inferior competition he’s playing with a lot. But yeah, I mean Wyoming had some tough games last year. You know what I mean? Like the the the Mountain West Conference last year wasn’t as weak as it had been in previous years. So, they had some pretty good competition all the way through that season. Um he was kind of one of their go-to receivers. You know, like you said, he played in all 12 games. Um th this guy, he’s really quick. Has great hands catching the football. I mean, he’s a he’s a legitimate wide receiver, right? You’re not gonna have a a Nate Johnson issue where you hit this guy in the hands and it falls out. Great hands. I watch a little bit of tape on him. He I mean, he has the ability to run and, you know, create yards after the catch. I I like Justin Stevenson a lot. I’m I’m curious to see how he’s, you know, going to be listed on that depth chart. Yeah. No, I’m I’m looking forward to it, man. I don’t know. I think we pretty much have a good idea of where it’s going to start with. I think I think you know you and I’ve hit it high hit it earlier in this video, but um yeah, I’m looking forward to it, man. I I really want to see where this depth shakes out in fall camp and and probably more to come. You know, we’ll probably see some an some definitely more to come. Yeah. Yeah. So, we’ll see what happens there. Uh we want to hear from you folks. Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. As a reminder, folks, we did just start a channel specifically for your University of Utah football called Utah Football DNA. All of our Utah Football content will be posted here first. So, if you have not yet, jump into the description if you’re watching this on our main channel, DNA Sports Recap, or catch us on our live stream. Uh the link to that video, sorry, a link to that channel will be in the description down below. So, be sure to uh check it out. We look forward to uh hearing from you on that one. Yes. Um now, uh before we jump into the next comment here, or sorry, before we jump into the next piece there, uh we got some comments we want to hit up here real quick. Greg Hawkins, channel legend. Sup, Jensen? I just watched the Cubs uh lose two lose two games to the Twins. Uh only up a game and a half in their division right now. Please put me out of my misery, dude. Let’s we we I don’t even want to hear it, man. Greg, you know, I’m a Braves fan, man. Okay, I don’t I I can’t We’ve got a lot of hurt going on on this side on this side of the camera, dude. We We’ve got We’ll talk about in baseball, though, for sure. Uh which leads me right into here. Uh really could have used the Dodgers showing up at least once in the past three games, Darren. Um, and then Tammy, uh, friend of the channel would have been nice. That, that have been nice. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, yes. Uh, and we’ll definitely get into that when we talk baseball for sure. Yeah, dude. Oh, it’s it’s been painful for for us fandom on the baseball side. Yes, AJ. Yes. Absolutely. Not great. Not great. Um, all right. So, we want to go ahead and talk a little bit about uh Utah Mammoth. Let’s go and pivot on over. Yeah. All right. Let’s go ahead and talk a little bit about your Utah Mammoth. All right. Well, first of all, again, appreciate thanks for uh joining us here on Utah Mammoth DNA. This is a channel that we have specifically for your Utah Mammoth. If you are watching this on our main channel, DNA Sports Recap, or you’re tuning into our live stream, a link to the in the description down below to Utah Mammoth DNA will be listed in the description below. So, be sure to join the channel and uh join the conversation and talk some hockey, man. Absolutely love it. Um, all right. So, first thing we want to talk into, which is something we actually want to discuss last week, but we just kind of got derailed on it. Didn’t get around to it. Uh, which is something that popped out last week, which was a change uh during the collective bargaining agreement. I believe this came out July 1st or something or somewhere around then. Um, that they’re going to be changing things. Um they are changing things to uh well let’s first talk about the schedule. They’re changing it to an 84 game schedule next year in the NHL. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So they’re going to change it. They’re going to expand the season from 82 to 84 games starting in 26 into the 27 season. Um which is going to reduce the preseason games uh to four exhibition games per team. Um and then the extra regular season games will be intraivision matchups to ensure four games per season against each division. rival. So, the last time the NHL had an 84 game season was in the 93 94 season. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, appreciate we got a note from executive VP uh saying that the music is loud, but we aren’t. So, I didn’t know we had any music on. Oh, our background music whenever we turn stuff on, like our intros and stuff like that. Oh, okay. So, it’s nice and loud. Mic volume. Let’s just crank that up a little bit. All right. Let me know if that’s a little bit better. Um, Greg said we sound fine. Okay. All right. Sorry. We’re just getting a message from the EP there saying that we had an issue with audio. So, we’ll just take a look at that and and and get back to that. So, yeah. I don’t know, man. I think it’s pretty crazy that they’re switching this up. I mean, there’s a lot of changes going on when it comes to um the NHL. I mean, there’s talk about expansion, even potential four more teams, four more cities coming into the league. Does this league really have that type of growth in it right now? I think the league is is trending upward and I think it’s something that they have to look at because you want to be one of the major sports in the country, right? And it hasn’t like I didn’t I mean I guess I didn’t really follow hockey at all until it came to Utah, right? You know, until it talks the potential of it. Yeah. But but now all of a sudden they’re pushing into these markets and you know, making a stride. And I mean I think you know getting out of Arizona that that helped them, right? right? They had a team that was just really suffering down there and they brought it to Utah and the team’s flourishing and they’re they’re showing that they can move teams strategically into markets and they’re getting a ton of support. And when you have that kind of support moving into any market, what are you going to do? You’re going to go find new markets, right? You’re like, where else? Where else can we put an NHL team? If they’re going to keep supporting it like you know what just happened in Salt Lake, let’s keep going. Isn’t the risk of expansion causing the problem that you just avoided in the first place by relocating the team? It it is, but I mean you’re you’re all risk versus reward at that point, right? Like if you can find markets that are fighting for teams, fighting markets that have, you know, I mean that that are looking for the opportunity to support a team full-time like just like Utah was, right? We sold out every single one of those home games. So, and we don’t want to hear it in the comments, by the way, about the minimum seating capacity. We don’t want to hear it. All right. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I don’t know. I think I think it’s great for the NHL. I mean, honestly, I I think it’s it’s really cool to think that they’re that they’re growing at that rate where they they need to, you know, potentially look at more expansion. Yeah, we’re looking to we’ll discuss it in a future episode about which potential teams might be uh up for expansion and where where that can look like and what that can end end up being. Um I think I’d prefer to actually make sure that we have existing cities fully to full capacity. Make sure that we have the teams where they need to be. Yeah. And I don’t I don’t know the NHL good enough to know that there if there’s any teams that are just really struggling. There were some comments in a previous episode like way back when we started to say that the league is already diluted in talent because of how many teams there are already. Yeah, we were seeing comments like that. And I think I don’t know expanding an additional 14s which is for another uh conversation for another day. We’ll jump into that. Sorry, we’ll jump into that at that time. But uh circling back to the 84 game schedule, this is actually going to start next season in the 202627 season in the NHL. Part of the collective bargaining agreement that passed. Uh that means the preseason has been shorted to four exhibition games uh due to the expansion of the regular season. Do you think four expansion a full exposition ex exhibition games are enough uh to really get a team ramped up? Uh I think so. I mean I think you’re going to play a ton of preseason hockey as it is. You know what I mean? And you you hate to say it, but like the more the more full exhibition games you’re going to play, you you just start worrying about injury and all that kind of stuff, right? I mean, that’s that’s the reason all, you know, most major professional sports teams like have ramped down their preseason stuff because the games mean nothing. It’s just to get out there and, you know, get on the ice, you know, start running through some of your basic stuff. You’re not trying to give anybody tape or, you know, trying to put together any schemes on ice that anybody could watch. So, I think fours is probably just enough. Yeah, I’d have to say with our first inaugural season, I was watching some of the preseason games and around three, definitely four, I’m just like, “Okay, let’s let’s get going here.” Yeah, we’re good. You know, we’re good. Yeah. You already knew what the what the starting lineup on the ice was going to be. You’re going to know what the you know what the switch outs were going to be and all that kind of stuff already, right? Yep. Um but at the end of uh Yeah. So, just a few things I want to talk about here that also was included in that collective bar agreement. They probably don’t warrant a full episode. If they do, uh let us know what you think. uh if he wants to cover that in a little bit more detail, but uh there was a reduction in the max amount uh the max time a contract could be given out which was seven years to current players on a on their current team. So the max you can extend a player is seven years. Um and then there’s also a reduction to six years for max contract extension for free agent not a contract extension but the max term they can give uh players was six years for free agency. Right. Yeah. And those are down from eight and seven respectively. And this I mean that shift in contracts is kind of leading more towards like short-term highv value deals. Try to get players paid in a shorter time. Yeah. Um but but with that same thing happening, they also introduce a salary cap, right? But the salary cap does increase each and due to the TV deal that it does increase every year, right? So, and it’s just a playoff salary cap is actually what it is. So the playoff celebration, right, they closed that loophole. That was a big part of it. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Um, the other thing that I want to me, so on that though, who do you think got the win on that one? Was it the owners or the players on that one? Because we could talk about this stuff in baseball and in basketball and have a pretty good idea. But on this one, I don’t know who really wins that one. Is it the owners or the players on this one? I I think I don’t know. I think everybody wins in this. I mean, as crazy as that is, I think everybody kind of wins, right? because as as an owner, you’re allowed to give a little bit more money in a shorter term so you don’t lock yourself in, right? It’s a little bit easier to manage your your books. As a player, you get more money on a shorter term if something happens. Um, you know, you’ve got your money locked in and and you can also move out, you know, and move on to a new contract in in a shorter time frame. So, I think it’s a great move. Yeah, it gives players a lot more time to get to the next free agency contract deal. There’s a potential next big deal versus a lot of these hockey players, which an eight-year deal, dude. You can spend your whole career in one place. Yeah. On a 20-year contract on a no. On a 10-year cont, eight-year contract with one team where the salary caps got up three or four%. And now your contract’s like a steal, you know? So, I think it’s pretty good. I think it’s a good idea for both the players and the owners. I could see it going both ways there when it comes to who’s getting the better deal out of that one, but uh I just was curious of what you thought there. Um, one more thing I want to note. By the end of this particular CBA extension, which would need to be ratified by the end of next season, but they got it done either early. Congratulations, NHL. You doing something that the NBA and the MLB can’t do. Um, but by getting that extension handled early, the minimum salary by the end of this CBA is going to be a million dollars a year. Really? Yeah. million dollars minimum salary for an AHL player by the end of this contract, this collective bargaining game. That’s actually a pretty decent salary though. That’s not in the NBA. That’s not in Major League Baseball. Yeah, they don’t hit a million dollars. No, I think I think the minimum NBA salary is 775. Yeah. And I think it’s around 860 870. Correct me friends of the channel on if I’m wrong on that one, but yeah, I’m just like a million dollars is going be the minimum salary for the AHL. So again, I have to stress this growth mode. Sure. Expanding more teams, lengthening the season, higher AV salary cap going up every year, million-doll minimum salary. Like what’s going on, man? Like, I don’t know. Maybe they just the exponential growth in hockey is just there and we’re not seeing it. But, um, if if Utah helped in any way to kind of help push that forward, I think that’s that’s great. Um, but yeah, I don’t know, man. We want to hear from you folks. Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. I want to hit on a few of these comments here. We got one from Pacific Northwest Ute A4 games. Uh that’s a mammoth season. I saw what you did there, dude. Saw what you did there. Uh excluding uh fight equivalency uh to two games per season, NHL seasons will be the same length as the NBA. Weren’t they the same length as the NBA? It’s like excluding fights equivalent to two games per season. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. I’m just I’m slow. That’s how it works. Uh but yeah, I think that’s awesome, man. Appreciate appreciate. Thank you, Pacific Northwest. You for chiming in there on that. One thing we also want to talk about when it comes to uh the Utah Mammoth is also going to be our new guy, man. Uh we talked about this a little bit last week. Uh JJ Peter, uh is it Peter? Peterka. Peter. Peter. Peter. Okay. I got to get better at these these hockey names, man. They’re killing me. They they just get you every time, man. Yeah. Even though I listen to it like a thousand times before we get hit record and I’ll put a phonetic spelling in my notes, I still trip over it every single time. It’s just it drives me nuts, man. I think it’s a great idea that I decided to, you know, you just got to own it, though. You I mean, like once you say it one time, just go with it and then we can get tore apart in the comments for the next week. Yeah. You know, this is I picked a great I picked a great thing. You know, when a friend of mine said, “Hey, let’s start a sports podcast.” You know, that guy’s an idiot, dude. I don’t know why I listen to that guy. Anyway, so there’s a reason why we want to bring this up. Uh, I know we talked about a lot last uh a lot last week, but we’re bringing up again because um we did acquire him in a trade for the saber uh with the Savers. Um and uh we did talk about a lot last week, but there’s a reason why we’re bringing up again and that’s because we’ve heard from him since then. Yeah. Uh he’s actually had an interview with the Zoom um with the the press here and he had a chance to talk. Uh he found out when he was on a golf trip in Spain when he found out about the train. Did you hear about this? I did see this. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, apparently it was reported that he actually requested a trade from the Sabres. I don’t know if you read into any of that or not, but, um, it was reported by The Athletic that he actually requested a trade from the Savers. I don’t know, um, if that was verified or not, but I don’t follow too much on the, you know, scuttlebutt there on NHL, like as close as I follow other sports. So, we’ll have to see on that. But, yeah, man. Do you what did you uh hear from him on how you thought about when he was coming to Utah? Yeah, I mean he he pretty much just went straight into the media and talked about how excited he was about, you know, the mountain environment in Salt Lake City and how it was, you know, really reminiscent of his hometown in Munich. Um, and uh, how he viewed the five-year contract as a sign of mutual commitment and a belief in Utah’s long-term potential. And, uh, I mean, he talked about how eager he was to meet his new teammates and contributed to the team success. So yeah, I mean we chat about this a lot last week how we not only did we make the trade, but he immediately signed a contract extension. Yeah. And the team came to him with that. So the fact that that he saw that as a mutual um you know like you mentioned a mutual what’s it called? Commitment. Commitment to to both sides. I think that’s awesome, man. I mean I want to talk about this a little bit more detailed because there’s he’s like first of all he’s like they were pretty happy is what he was quoted to say. Uh playing there once just the atmosphere was great. He said the fans uh felt like they were so tied in right right on the ice. Uh it’s going to be really exciting. Um he said it’s going to feel like home because of the where he is in the Alps there in Munich, Germany. It’s very similar to how it is in Utah. And he’s really excited about that. And we chat about this a little bit before in a different in a different video, but the main reason why we’re bringing this up and we’re talking about this is because this isn’t the first we’ve heard about NHL players wanting to come or looking forward to coming to Utah, which we’ve read reports that poll that there are polling inside the league that Utah is actually a top five preferred destination right now for not only players who are requesting trades, but also free agents. Now, from a town where we’re usually having to overpay for free agents to get them here and having players block trades, uh, which we’ll get into that a little bit later, uh, when we talk about Utah Jazz basketball, but this is really refreshing to actually have this kind of of excitement around players actually wanting to be here and how this is something that we’re not used to seeing in this market. Yeah. No, and it’s and I mean, you you nailed it though. It’s it’s super refreshing, right? because we finally got a team where where where players want to come and they want to spend, you know, a better portion of their careers here. But I think it’s, you know, we kind of got to give, you know, props to Ryan Smith and his investment into the program. And you, I mean, they’ve got a brand new practice facility coming at the Southtown Center. Um, you know, obviously they’re making all the renovations to the stadium to make sure that hockey and the Jazz both have their own locker rooms. And, um, probably another video we probably should do. There is an update on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean just just doing a lot of really cool stuff to make sure players get here and feel comfortable. Um, you know, Salt Lake does feel more like a hockey town than anything else. I think like as weird as that is, it’s already swinging that way, man. Yeah, it’s just starting to feel that way. I mean, you see more and more people wearing Utah hockey club or Utah Mammoth gear all the time. Yeah. Um, and it’s just it’s just really cool. It’s it’s nice to see, you know, once again, you know, the the valley get kind of behind whatever, you know, major league teams or professional teams we have here. Yeah. and also have that same thing coming from the players too. And we’ll get into the whole Ace Bailey thing and and how the how it works in the NBA. You know, if you need us to explain to you why the uh players in the NBA don’t want to come to Utah and why it’s why people from the NHL seem to want to come, you know, we’ll leave that conversation for somebody else to answer for you. Yeah. To ask one of your friends and they’ll tell you. Yeah. Well, we’ve covered that enough. We got enough into the weeds that we feel comfortable going on that one. Uh, but also on this one, I didn’t get a chance to talk about this last week, so I want to bring it up on this trade here. Uh, this move to me was the move. Yeah, this was it with Logan Culie, Dylan Gunther taking a step forward next year and obviously the captain and Clayton Keller by adding JJ. I think this move was what pushed them into playoff contention. I think this was the move. I don’t know. What do you think? I I totally agree. I mean, this guy had 68 points last season, 27 goals and 41 assists. That’s in 77 games of, you know, playing with Buffalo last season. Um, he played on the top line. He was the first power play unit. I I just I think this guy is, like you said, we were we were kind of on the brink, you know what I mean? Like we we weren’t quite there yet. We needed a little bit more. This move really pushes that offense in. Um, you know, Coach Treney is going to demand two-way play. He’s going to demand that this guy gets in there and plays defense. He talks about it all over the media and uh I mean JJ Peter acknowledged like straight out the gate that he needs to grow defensively so that he can continue to thrive in this system and you know he kind of got insight on Trigney’s coaching style from you know one of his former teammates Jack Quinn and and he kind of praised Trigney as tough but fair. So for for JJ to say that he recognizes that and he’s willing to grow on the defensive end, you know, he’s already he’s already there offensively. this this kid’s a stud offensively. It’s just it’s just a perfect match really and and it’s something that that we we’ve now got a you know a younger a team on the younger side um that’s full of talent and and is really probably to make that next probably ready to make that next push into the playoffs. 100% 100% agree with you on that one, man. Love it. Love it. Once again, folks, we did just launch a channel specifically for your Utah Mammoth uh hockey club called Utah Mammoth DNA, formerly Utah Hockey DNA. AJ did a very nice job on this. Look at that. Looks great. Uh if you have not yet, check out that channel. A link to the description will be uh a link to that channel will be in the description down below. If you’re watching this on our main main channel, DD Sports Recap, or if you’re catching us on the live stream, uh we’ll link to that as well, uh in the in the description down below. So, be sure to check us out over there. And uh all of our Utah Mammoth content will be posted there first. So, be sure to check us out u on that channel if that’s what you’re here to watch us for. Um all right, let’s go ahead and move on over and talk a little bit about the Utah Jazz. Boom. All right, man. Let’s go ahead and get into it. Man, I’m excited to talk about this. Let’s go ahead and get this first one out of the way. Let’s talk about the trade. Now, the Jazz traded John Collins to the Los Angeles Lakers for Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson, and a second round 2027 pick. What are your thoughts on the trade, AJ? They moved him to the Clippers, right? Yeah, John Collins went to the Clippers. Sorry, I thought you said Lakers. I could have. Okay, so yeah, he moved to the Clippers. Says Clippers on my notes. Could have said I’m sorry. Okay. Um I just wanted to make sure that my notes weren’t messed up because I’m like, wait, did he go to the Lakers? I’m like, cuz that changes everything. Okay. Sorry. We’re not that professional of I could have said it. Who knows? Um yeah, I mean I mean obviously Collins had just opted into his player his player option, which really as soon as he moved to to accepting his player option, you knew that he was on the chopping block. as if they haven’t been trying to move John Collins for the last couple of years already. Um, like I said, they get Kevin Love, Kyle Anderson, and a future second round pick in this trade. Obviously, the Kevin Love and Kyle Anderson are are mostly just to match salaries. Kevin Love’s only worth four million a season. Kyle Anderson must make mucho more than that to match John Collins$ 28 million contract. Um, yeah, I thought it was really funny. Did you see his tweet? John Love’s tweet. Yeah, I just I’d never thought I’d be a math pro a math problem or something like that. Yeah, welcome to the NBA. Yeah, you’ve been in the league 18 years, dude. Don’t there’s no welcome to the NBA now. Yeah. Um but yeah, dude. I I don’t know, man. I obviously love going to get bought out, right? He doesn’t want to play here. It it’s already rumored. I mean, that was that was rumored pretty much immediately as soon as he was traded here on a $4 million contract. You You have no room for Kevin Love to ever step foot on the floor for the Jazz. Not only that, I think the Jazz are a little burnt because he did block a trade here. Yeah. Years ago. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We had a chance to add Kevin Love to a very early Gordon Hayward um team, Gordon Hayward led team where he could have helped push the team over the edge and really made this team uh a legit threat in the West. And he said, “No, I don’t want to. I don’t want to go to Utah.” Yeah. So, he blocked a trade. So, I don’t I think the Jazz are going to take that a little personal. They’re just like, you know what, we’re just going to buy you out. You don’t want to be here, we don’t want you here. So, he’s going to be by out. I honestly don’t know if Kyle Anderson ever sees a Utah Jazz jersey. Um, as a Rudy supporter on this channel. I’m pretty sure he got punched for a reason. So, I’m just going to support Rudy Ober on that one. And, uh, wouldn’t be surprised if he even has if he ever sees a Utah jersey put on himself either. Um, I don’t know. So, we’ll see on that one. U, but what do we really get out of this deal? Uh, obviously other than getting out of the Collins contract, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you you move the Collins contract and you you capitalized on any bit of value that he still had before he hit free agency, right? Oh, yeah. Whatever team is going to get him gets him for a full year under contract. Um, you know, they can move him as they please. Obviously, not our issue now. I actually was It’s It’s crazy because I was super excited for John Collins when we did originally acquire him. You know, it was a salary dump move from the Hawks. They were just trying to get rid of him to to move that massive contract. But I had I had so much hope for John Collins and what he could potentially bring. Um and and he had I think that that trade is what threw me for a lube in the first place. Yeah. Because we weren’t in a winning now situation, right? What that was after the Rudy and Donovan trade. So what were we doing s I mean I know we got him for practically nothing. So wasn’t that bad? Why was that even a trade we even made? Yeah. Yeah, in my opinion, and this is something we’ve talked about at length of the show, so I won’t spend a whole lot of time on it, but once you got rid of those two guys, Rudy and Donovan, that’s when you sold out for everybody and you went to play young guys, develop young talent, you don’t try to win and, you know, bring in vets and and kind of see what happens. You don’t do that. Yeah. You know, you clear the deck for these young guys and you move forward. Especially because he helped us win games. That was the problem is we brought him in and we got better and you’re like, he had he had a plus 11 when he was on the floor. And when you have a team that’s trying to lose games, you don’t want that on your team agent. Absolutely not. You’re you’re scoring way too many points. Yeah. So that frees up a lot of time for our young players to develop. I think the most important thing we got out of this other than the than the second round draft pick was the $26 million trade exception. Yeah. Which is huge. That is huge. And it’s not just for this season. It will be allow we it will be available to us going into next season. Yeah. Which is I think the most important piece there. I think that’s huge. Um I don’t know, man. Although I’ve heard a lot of national talk about this one, how this trade we got like a C minus or a D+ from a lot of people saying on this one that we really didn’t get anything. Honestly, man, as a Jazz fan, we just need to get out of that contract. We need to get out of that player. We need to free up some cash space that we just needed some room on the court for these other guys. Yeah, that’s really what we needed to do. And we got and it was better than what we had to do with uh John Collins. We had to give up a second round draft pick. Yeah, Colin Ston. Absolutely. Colin Sexton. We got a second round draft pick on this one. So, at least we’re not trading away prospects for this one, you know? So, yeah. I don’t know. I I kind of like it. I don’t What do you think? No, I mean I love it. I I I think that I think that moving out of that contract was really important. And I I mean, you just as a Jazz fan got to remember the Jazz are not positioning themselves to win now. They’re positioning for long-term contention in future years, right? And I hate that. And John Collins was just not part of that equation in any way, shape, or form. Ryan Smith, I’m going to say this till I’m blue in the face. Ryan and now Ames Jr. Okay, you got to win one. Okay, you need to win one first before you start talking about long-term development of being a successful contender year in and year out. You know what? Your fan base needs to win one first. You know, we don’t care about a first round out team every single year. We’ve done that, been there, done that for 25 years for this franchise. We don’t need to do that anymore. Don’t tell me about this persisting a long-term development. Just be honest. This is the only way that you’re going to get the talent you need in this in this organization. Just be honest with it. That’s what I want to see. Anyway, so pivoting on over with that trade, throws a wrench in what we talked about last week, which we all assumed was going to be, you know, he was going to be traded, so we didn’t put him in our starting lineup anyway. But just in case, how’s this change your starting lineup, if at all? Um, I don’t know if it changes mine at all. I think the thing that changes my starting lineup more than anything is probably the way that Bryce Sensba performed at Summerlake this year. We’re gonna have fun on this one, dude. We’re gonna have fun on this one. But that’s gonna be for the next subject. We’re gonna get on that one. Um, I still have Isaiah Kier as starting point guard. Uh, Kiante George as a starting two guard. Uh, Taylor Hendris as your, uh, small forward, Larry Markman as your power forward, and Walker Kesler as your center. Yep. And off the bench, uh, first off the bench are going to be Bryce Sensah and Walter Clayton Jr. uh, for the guards. And then you have Flip for four, Cody Williams at the three, and Nerk at the five. That’s what I have there. Yeah. And I I disagree with you. I think Ace Bailey is probably the first person off the bench if he doesn’t start. If he doesn’t start in Ace, I don’t have Ace there. You don’t have Ace at all. You didn’t even say I didn’t put Ace. I’m sorry. That’s not right. Oh my gosh. Ace isn’t even playing anymore for Darren. I would I would I’m sorry that that’s a change there. I’m going to put Okay, that’s wrong. That’s wrong. Ace Bailey is going to be on there. Well, again, we’ll talk about more of that in the next segment. Actually, let’s just go ahead and do that. Let’s go ahead and pivot on over and talk a little bit about that. Before we get into that, let’s hit some comments here because I want to get to it. I want to freshen out the pallet and let’s clear that a little bit. Okay. So sick of the Jazz man sell the team. Great take there. Uh Greg, easy, Greg. That already happened like five years ago. So, you know, the team got sold and you know, they’re just still here. A great car. Yeah, the Jazz uh the Jazz to the Cubs organization. I like it. I like it. Um, let’s see here. We got also uh Pacific Northwest ute. Uh, Jazz getting love and a replacement in Kyle and Slowmo Joe. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, I don’t think Love touches the floor there. Pacific Northwest. You, but um I like where your head’s at. You know, we do need a slow mojo replacement because we we missed Joe. We missed Joe for sure. Yes. Uh we also have uh response. Brilliant. Appreciate it. McKinley Cutler, thank you for joining, man. Appreciate it. Love to see it. Um I’m really impressed with Cody’s improvement in the summer league. Not enough to start him over Ace. Uh but I like uh the look so much stronger and assertive. Yes, let’s go ahead and do that. Great segue there uh to talk about that. Let’s get rid of it. Now, the biggest talking point for everything, not only locally, but nationally, was the first game of a head-to-head matchup between the two top between two top five picks. Yeah, which was Ace Bailey versus VJ Edge. Now, in this game, obviously, we’re not going to run it over too much. I’m just going to hit the hit the stats. VJ was 28 points, 13 for 27 with four assists, 10 rebounds. Uh on 30 minutes, he is plus 11 uh on that plus minus for that game. Ace Bailey had eight points on three of 13 shooting, seven rebounds, one assists, one steal for a negative 12 on the plus minus. Yeah, everybody’s gonna be talking about the head-to-head pick on that and how obviously VJ Edgecom dominated that. Um, before I move on to that, give you what I think on that. What do you think about that? Well, I think if you’re talking headto-head, these two players play completely different positions for one. So, it’s not like they were actually playing one-on-one versus each other. Well, that’s not how basketball works. That’s always a comparison that people are going to make in the Absolutely. Absolutely. Um, I mean, I think BJ Edgecom is a just ridiculously freak athlete. Uh the the kid is is really a stud and that’s how you that’s how you make it to be the number three pick in the NBA. Um his his 10 rebounds were actually really impressive. He moved up the ball he moved the ball up and down the floor very quickly. I mean he dunked the ball with dominance multiple times. Um but but that efficiency is just is just absolutely crazy, right? I mean he he was one for seven from three. So he’s got some work to do. He’s he’s really he’s lucky because he’s in a situation with the Sixers where he doesn’t have to come in and immediately produce, right? you’ve got Joel Embiid and Paul George and Tyresese Maxi on that team. You can come in and be a piece that’s off the bench, you know, kind of get your bearings and get into the get into the NBA a little bit easier, uh, you know, on a smoother transition, but but at the same time, Ace Bailey’s, you know, I guess kind of pick your poison, right? Because Ace is coming into a situation, you know, with that number five pick where you could be relied on, you know, for for your scoring and, you know, you you’re going to need to come off the bench and be effective right out the gate. So, kind of interesting to see, you know, how different these two picks are. Well, that’s kind of what I want to talk about. VJ Edgecom is in a situation where he is a number three pick. Um, would have been number four. No way he was coming to Utah anyway. So, Utah fans, don’t worry about it. We are never going to get him in the first place. The only reason why he is he dropped to four is because Ace Bailey’s draft issue. So, the Charlotte bocked on it and got with Canipple instead. Yeah. And so, that messed with the lineup a little bit. So, we were able to get Ace. We were never going to get V VJ. So yeah, he was gone at three regardless. He was gone at three or four. You know, he was not going to make it to five. Yeah, I think Ace Bailey was going to be three. I think he had a good chance. I actually thought he had a good chance to go too if he actually worked out with teams. But I’m not going to go there because he fell to us and I’m happy about it. Yeah. Um but what everybody’s talking about is the head-to-head matchup. These two teams are completely different in summer league, man. Um right now BJH come looked like the man on the team he’s supposed to be. He’s he is the number three pick of the draft. A freak athlete. Probably the best athlete in the draft this year. Um that you know was probably that’s not Cooper Flag. I would say he’s better athletically than Cooper Flag. I think Cooper Flag is a better talent. Has a better talent. Okay. Okay. I see where you’re coming from there. I could agree with that. Better athlete. Maybe not better talent. Yeah. Okay. I’m fair. Cooper Flag’s a better talent and he’s got a better all-around I better IQ. But as far as free athlete, I don’t think you’re beating VJ on anything on Yeah. You know, this guy could have, you know, picked a sport and been dominated, right? Yeah. So, um and he’s playing on it and he’s playing with a bunch. There wasn’t a single player on that team last night that literally saw more than 15 minutes a game of NBA time last year. Yeah. For for uh Philadelphia. We’ll have to check with our guys at uh JK Philly and find out about that. But I’m pretty sure I’m right on that one that he was playing with a bunch of drafties and non-G guaranteed contracts. Yeah. bunch of players that are up just to sign on summerly contracts. Yeah. However, the Jazz pretty much had almost a full NBA roster on their team that we had last year. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Bryce Sensoff saw significant time in the season last year. Isaiah Collier, Isaiah Collier significant Kyle Filipowski significant minutes last year. Yeah. So, these are these are players that saw a lot of time last year. Even Elijah Harkless, I mean, realistically, he was up on the roster for half the year last year. Yeah. I mean, he he got mostly garbage time, which most let’s face it, most of the team was garbage time most of the year anyway. But yeah, most of the season was garbage time, Darren. Yeah. But but my point is here is he’s coming into a much different team. Yeah. So that first game, I don’t think there was any head-to-head match up to really consider there. Yeah. I think what Yeah. You know, Ace Bailey, I think he said all the right things after the game, and I think he came into game two, which is what I really want to talk about when it comes to Ace Bailey. Uh so I think we need to put game one to to rest there. both teams were in a completely different spot. I think Ace Bailey did exactly what he’s supposed to do. Take lead from the other players on his team and learn to be a team player, which is what I love to see from a guy. Yeah. Who basically pre-draft was talking nothing about us but wanted to be the star on the team. You know, that might have just been coming from his team, not actually from him. So, I think so. I think it’s a lot, dude. Absolutely love that. So, whenever he’s talking about, oh, you know, Ace Bailey just like he’s not living up to the talk. I just don’t think that was his talk. I I like to see what he’s doing. And that’s kind of what I want to talk about, which is game two against the Grizzlies. Two guards from the Grizzlies, uh, from the Memphis Grizzlies had 23 points. So, not much more of improvement for what’s been affecting the Jazz since the D-wheel era, which is a lack of perimeter defense. Um, GG Jackson led Memphis with 27 points. Um, but this game, uh, from what I saw, uh, from Bryce, uh, let’s talk about Bryce Sens. You probably want to go into this. So, I mean, let’s let’s hear it, man. Let’s hear your grazing on uh Bryce Sensbah for this game. I I mean Bryce Sensba was just he he looked exactly like he was supposed to in that game, right? He was he was a man amongst boys. He’s played more NBA minutes than any other person on the floor at that point. Uh he came out he he kind of commanded the offense. He is a little hesitant on I mean not not shooting the ball but bringing the ball up the floor. I feel like he needs a little bit more confidence just moving with the basketball. Um he he gets to his spots pretty well, but for some reason just taking the ball up the floor just seems out of his comfort zone. Um and he kind of struggled to get into his spots. He wasn’t moving super well off the screens. But Bryce Sens just he just looked great. He had a great game. Um he made shots when he needed to. And I I mean I was ve very impressed with Bryce. I mean this this that was exactly what we wanted to see out of him in that second game. Sure. Sure. I’m going to throw some cold water on this. Okay. Uh he had 37 points, 64% from the field, a blistering 67% from three. And that’s not like he shot three and made two, right? He made nine attempts and made five of them, right? Like he was shooting very very well. Um uh so his performance astounding, right? However, a negative 12 which led the team in plus minus, right? Negative 12. Um, so part of that had to do with I’m gonna give him uh an out here. Part of it had to do with the fact that he had six personal fouls in summer league. There’s no you don’t get kicked out. There’s no limit. No, you get 10. You You’re out after 10. Oh, in summer league. Yeah. My apologies. Uh David Lock let me down there in that one. I thought he said that there was no limit. So if there’s 10, then I agree with you there. Yeah. Um so six fouls, not a big deal. Um but he did have five turnovers, which is not great. Um, he also, you know, when you’re leading all scorers with 37 points and you actually have a double digit negative plus minus, that tells you that there’s the problem that Bryce Sens has, which you are, if you’re going to be a shooter and you’re going to be an elite shooter, which I think he can be, right, which he is. This guy’s a bucket maker, right? He’s got better size than most of the Jazz guards that we have on the team right now. Yeah. At 6’5, he’s he’s good size. Yeah. The issue is is his assists aren’t high enough depending on how many turnovers he’s making. He’s got he’s fouling too much. If you have a negative double digit plus minus when you’re scoring that many points, that shows that the opposition is outscoring your team when you’re on the floor by 12 points. Yes. So that is a very very bad look. So, I can I can tell you why that why that number is so drastic because he I mean, the reason that he had so many fouls is because he was actually playing really aggressively defensively, right? I mean, he was he was he was guarding up on people. He’s reaching for the ball. He’s getting steals. He had the game-winning steal to end the game. Um, you know, before that crazy shot that came down and finished game two. I don’t know if you saw that, but yeah, it was great. I mean, crazy. But, um, when he was on the floor a lot of time, he was out there with Kyle Filipowski. Now, I don’t know what Kyle Filipowsky’s plus minus ended up, but Kyle Filipowski is one of the worst defensive players that I have probably seen come through the Jazz organization in a really long time. I want to talk about Kyle. I want to talk about Flip in a minute, but I want to get back to the Bryce Sensoff thing because I think what you’re talking about is spot on here. The thing that, and that’s my point, is I think the reason why he even played in the Utah summer league is because he was tasked with by the coaching staff like, “Listen, dude, you want to be on this team, you need to improve on defense.” Yep. And that’s what I saw of that. I saw the points. I saw that. But the negative plus minus of 12, you know, obviously again those points, those fouls do throw it off a little bit. But when you’re that lead of shooting talent, guess what? Everybody in this league can shoot. You need to have something else. You need to have something else. You’re not a facilitator. You’re not a passer. You’re you’re in year three with a bunch of drafty players right there. 37 points maybe by might be excessive, but you should be a men amongst boys on that on that floor. Yeah, which he was. I mean, offensively, he was a man amongst boys. Yes, but we need to see something other than you can shoot the ball. And I think that’s what the Jazz are asking from him. And I think I actually did see that. I mean, I I saw his defensive his pressure stepped up a lot. He wasn’t just a revolving door. He was, you know, I mean, he was actually playing defense, staying in front of people, applying good pressure as they’re grinding through shots. I mean, he had a couple. He had one where he jumped up and, you know, was really contesting a three-point shot that he kind of got burned a little. the guy jab stepped him and stepped back on a three and he jumped up and you know they ended up they called a foul and then reversed it because he actually like played the ball clean. The guy missed a shot. So I don’t know. I really like the effort that I saw from Bryce. I think you know one one thing you don’t have to worry about so much is when you have better shooting talent on the floor. You know obviously it is much better to be more it is much easier to be effective when you’re on the NBA floor. So yeah, but again on his on on on the take away from that Bryson Spa has been playing with the team that played mostly NBA games all year last year anyway. Yeah, but my point is is I got some texts from from friends who basically saying I have a hard argument to not letting Bryson spa start and like look dude unless you’re the starting shooting guard and we’re not going to play Kee and he’s coming off the bench again. Like is that what you’re going to do? You’re gonna start Bryce Sensib over Keonte George? I I don’t think so. I mean, there’s a reason that Senza is playing in summer league and Keonte George is not. Yeah. They were drafted in the same year. Yeah. So, that’s kind of like I’m like, pump the brakes, dude. He might eventually be there. He might be the better talent between the two. I I honestly think Keonte has the pos the potential to be great. Yeah, we just haven’t seen it yet. So, I don’t know. I I I love to see him. I love to see the effort, but yeah, we definitely need to see him finish efficiency on some of that. Same game, switch to Ace Bailey. Now, this is something more than I want to expect out of him. Ace Bailey shooting 50% from the field, 18 points, seven rebounds, three assists, 60% from three, three of three on five attempts. You love to see it, my friend. Yeah. Yeah. No, and and Ace played really good. He actually chose his spots really well. He had a, you know, one of his one of his release, one of his three points had a really quick release on it, caught the ball chest high, just fired it up. It was nothing but net. Um, it’s great to see that offensive prowess because we’re going to need that from Ace this season, right? He does his his defensive energy is a little bit spotty. He’s not, you know, sometimes he’s in there, sometimes he’s not. He does put a lot of energy into rebounding, though. I mean, in some of those putback jams, you know, catch the ball two steps from the hoop and he just goes up and slams it down hard. Like, you love to see him just putting the ball in the basket with authority in some of those spots, especially as a rookie. And it just kind of shows his confidence. It just gets you more and more excited about Ace Bailey, man. I’m excited about Ace Bailey. I think more of the next game, dude. More in the next game. Yeah, and I think that’s absolutely what you’re going to see. I’m going to see you’re going to see this talent continue to develop in this system. He took the first game to figure it out. Second game, he’s right in there shooting 50% from the field, 18 points, three assists. I mean, come on, man. Like, what much more do you want? Actually, I will say this. I’m actually not as impressed on that one as I am about the next player, which I want to talk about, which also had 18 points in that game. Your boy Cody Williams. Yeah, Cody Williams. 18 points, 100% from the line, by the way. a five for five which gave him a plus minus a plus six. Yeah. Uh which was uh the highest of all the uh non-guards for that game. Uh which is super awesome. And we talked there was a comment in there uh earlier uh there. I can’t remember what’s from was it Pacific Northwest you? I can’t remember who said it but um yeah uh I think it was Pacific Northwest you talking about a bunch of comments to read too. Damn. Yeah. Talking about um talking about him but uh correct me if I’m wrong on that one guys in the comments. I think it was actually McKinley. Oh McKinley. Yeah. So, McKinley was talking about that. Dude, the boy put on some weight and he is playing much better in this game. He’s still a little slow. Still having some defensive issues there. He’s not really helping the helper, which I think is something I want to talk to you about flip hair after that. But I was really impressed because he actually had a higher plus minus than Ace Bailey um who had a plus two and this one was a plus six because he was so efficient from the line. Um really excited to see Cody Williams development over the year. Yeah, I mean Cody Williams needed to put some weight on. Um he’s still got to work on that that lateral quickness. He’s just he’s just not fast enough for as long as he is um to be super effective defensively. And you you need him to have Taylor Hendricks type lateral speed for him to be to for him to see significant NBA time, right? He he does shoot the ball well. Uh he has great touch. I mean, I think he’s he’s got all those tools that he needs besides that lateral quickness. I’m sure the Jazz have very quickly identified that and I’m sure they’re working to improve his lateral quickness and defensive ability. He’s available for consultants. I’m more than happy to consult um at DNA Sports Recap. Yeah, I was going to say at dnasportsrecap.com. Reach out to us. Yeah, let us know. But yeah, dude, I think it’s super awesome on that and uh it is huge to see that and I honestly I have not been so excited about from a year one, year two development that fast from a player like I saw there. I was super excited about that because he had one of the worst uh seasons for a lottery pick rookie player and he just looked really out of place most of the season, right? Like he wasn’t he wasn’t doing anything bad, but he wasn’t doing anything good either. Like his minutes were I like if if I would have just watched the season and not looked at anything statistically. I would have guessed that Cody Williams was a net zero the whole season. Like just because he didn’t hurt the team, but he didn’t help the team at all. He was just out there taking up minutes on the floor. Yeah. I mean, speaking about a body on the floor, Isaiah on the second game went five for five, uh, five assists, five turnovers for a negative, seven on the plus minus. That game, dude, I he had 18 points or sorry, 15 points or 13 points, something like that. And the stat sheet won’t show it, you know, because he had some decent stats, but honestly, when you’re watching the game, it looked like he was kind of playing some selfish basketball. I think he was I think he was playing like he was above everybody else, right? Like those those turnovers were not good ones. Yeah. It was like, I’ve got a guy in the corner, you know, he’s got a guy one step off of him. I’m going to sneak a pass to him. Like, even if you can get by with that in summer league, you’re not doing that in the NBA, right? You’re just not making that pass. And I get having confidence and finding guys that are even remotely open. And in the NBA, a player can probably get a shot off that quick, but also in the NBA, a defensive player is going to is is going to get in that passing lane every single time. So, I hope Isaiah kind of, you know, watches that film and and sees kind of where he missed some of that stuff and and just just learns, you know, to have players, you know, call for him to take two steps towards you because that pass is just fine. Yeah. So, I don’t know. I Isaiah is a freak, though, man. I mean, that dude is the guy’s the guy’s great on the guy’s great on passing. His vision is insane. His vision is insane. He’s defensively lacking. um has some issues with three-point shooting, which in the NBA, if you’re going to be a guard, you got to be at least 35% or above from three-point field. I don’t know. We’ll have to see what happens there. But I do want to talk about one more thing before we move on for the Jazz, and that’s going to be uh Kyle Philipki. I was chatting with my buddy Rich over text message. By the way, thank you Rich for bringing this up because it’s something I want to talk about. So, thank you very much for bringing it up. Kyle Filipowski is very much almost a carbon copy with a better jump shot of Aniscanter. Oh my gosh, that’s actually kind of crazy. You’re absolutely right. Isn’t it crazy? because him and I were on the same wavelength on this one because he said that I’m like exactly he’s going to put up 30 points on he he’s going to put up about 30 points on a game where they lose and when he does put up a lot of points his offensive his plus minus will always be the negative because he’s a turn style on defense. He lets more people blow by him than anybody else. Yeah, I’ve watched a lot of now some of it in the summer league has to do with the fact that there’s not a lot of help the helpers. Some of that’s on Cody Williams. some of that is some month. So, there are players there that don’t realize that when he cheats over to help do some help defense, you need to be able to avoid the back pick there and and jump on that. And some of that just has to do with the talent on the on the floor. But oh my gosh, man. I have not watched a guy play worse defense on a team in a while since Caner, which I believe is almost a perfect comparison to that guy. It It’s like the ball moves and he has no idea where it’s going. You know what I mean? like like they pass the other side of the court and he’s just like like it takes him three seconds to process that it’s on the other side now and by the time he processes that it’s over there they’ve already passed it again and he’s just like oh no right and they’re going to score in his defense and Caner was a number three pick and we got him in the second round so we got some time to develop this kid we’re not exactly and Caner was also like 18 when we drafted him and stress like fresh out of like you know the the highest European league level of play and he was and Kyle Filipasky played college for like three years at Duke. Yeah. Well, that’s true. Also true. Also true. Uh but yeah, well, I don’t think they really need to play much defense over at Duke. Correct me if I’m wrong. Uh with except I guess you don’t need to when you have uh Cooper Flag on your team. Well, he didn’t. But he didn’t. Exactly. So, he was a year before that. So, I don’t know, man. Uh I I have to agree with that assessment. I do think that he’s very much an anticanter type player there where he’s basically just kind of not playing defense, which is something he’s going to have to fix. You can’t be a backup big in the NBA, especially on the Utah Jazz, and not play defense, dude. That’s just not going to happen. He’s got to figure out. Yeah, totally agree. We want to hear from you folks. Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. When it comes to the Utah Jazz, we did just launch a channel for your Utah Jazz called Utah Jazz DNA. All of our Utah Jazz content will be posted here first. So, if you’re watching this on our main channel, DNA Sports Recap. Link to Utah Jazz DNA will be in the description down below. Be sure to check it out, join the conversation, jump in the comments, all that good stuff. Drop a like, subscribe, uh hit your notification bell on that so we can uh chat with you more on that. Uh before we move on from the Utah Jazz, let’s hit some of these comments, man. I want to get into some of these here. Uh we’ve got uh a lot of them coming in here. So, uh let’s go down to um this was a comment there. Uh, I really liked the improvements on Cody Williams. Oh, no. We talked about that one already. Uh, this was the one I want to talk. This is the one we cut off. Pacific Northwest ute. Uh, Cody Williams. Been doubting that fry sauce. Great, great local. Fry sauce is delicious. I mean, I’m just saying I You remember when Matt Harping was on the broadcast and didn’t know what fry sauce was? I mean, that’s just that he played here for like 10 years, dude. How did you not know what fries? Fry sauce is delicious. I kind of want some right now. It was great. It was great. Uh, summer league has always been uh large. Athletic guards uh h have always been for large athletic guards. Guys who don’t uh pass. Everyone is playing uh selfish basketball. VJ is much easier sit it is a much easier situation to look good. Uh Ace has to hustle to get shots. Yeah, dude. I have to agree with you on that one. I mean anytime you see like blowouts in summer league, uh Darren Williams is a big one. Uh Donovan Donovan Mitchell was also a huge one. You see these players come in summer league, play two games, and be like, “Okay, great. That’s you’re good. We’ll shut you down.” Absolutely right. 100% agree that this is kind of like a league for uh athlet crazy athletic guards. We got another comment here from McKinley Cutler says, “It’s funny hearing interviews with Cody. He’s uh he is tired of eating and apparently has been eating Yeah. 5,000 calories per day.” Did you hear that? No. Oh my god, that is nuts. He is eating so much to put on weight and that’s probably all going to fall off throughout the year because you just can’t keep up with that. Um, we also got another comment here. Honestly, I am uh super impressed with Bryce. I’m not super impressed with I’m not super impressed with Bryce. He didn’t show anything we haven’t seen before. Yeah, still turning the ball over like crazy. Still up bad on defense. Uh, already knew he was a good shooter. Yeah, kind of goes to my point there, man, is you got to have what else? you know, like this league, you got to have not only one skill, but if you’re a guard, you got to have another one. You either got to be an elite passer like Isaiah, or you got to have elite defense, which he has neither. So, we’ll have to see what he develops on. Like you mentioned, did put some effort in. Uh has six fouls to prove it. So, we’ll see uh where he does, but I’d like to see the effort. I like to see the effort from him on that. And lastly, from Michael Cutler here, um maybe Kyle does see where the ball is going, but there is no lead foot. What do you say? But he is so leadfooted that he can’t act on that information. That is possible. That is very much possible. Appreciate that. Thank you all very much for chiming in on the comments there. Love the interaction with you guys. The whole point of the show, man. So, absolutely love it. Keep it coming. Uh that’s what we love to talk about. We love to interact with you guys in the chat and also on comments uh when we post these videos, etc. So, absolutely love it. All right, let’s go ahead and pivot on over and talk a little about Major League Baseball. Before we get in the content, folks, we want to encourage you to join the conversation in the comments down below. Just go ahead and jump down there. And while you’re down there, consider smashing that like button for your boy AJ right over there. Consider subscribing if this is the type of content that you’re enjoying watching. Uh so, let’s go ahead and first start by talking about um MLB Allstars. So, the All-Star selection has been completed. Um, everybody’s going to be on the team is on the team. Some players are off the team, some players are on the team due to injury, and some players just aren’t going to start because of the way pitching works in baseball. But, um, let me ask start with this. Do you see anybody that was snubbed from the All-Star game? Yeah, I mean, there’s a couple. There’s a couple. Yeah. I mean, I think, uh, and Greg, I’m sure you probably agree, but I think Michael Bush from the Cubs was snubbed. Man, dude, you took my guy. How was this guy not snubbed though, Darren? 297 average. Um, 18 home runs, 944 OPS, and more importantly, more importantly, what’s the most important stat for baseball? Oh, I stolen bases. Boom. There it is. There it is. But yeah, I actually really p I’m actually really impressed that you picked this one. Yeah, because you realize who he’s who he got snubbed for. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Freddy Freeman and Matt Olsen. Yeah. Out of those two, which player doesn’t deserve to be there? Freddy Freeman, nice try. Hasn’t played enough. Nice. That hasn’t played enough. Played all season. What are you talking about? All the Dodgers are hurt, man. That’s true. He’s been playing like absolute dog dookie lately. But yeah, dude. Um, in defense of your guy, Matt Olsen does have a 3.64 and Bush has a 3.5. However, Bush leads in uh batting average, OBP, which is on base percentage, slug, ops, ops plus, and most importantly, stolen bases. Yeah, dude. Michael Bush, I 100% agree with you, dude. I think that between him and Matt Olsen, honestly, even you can make an argument on Freddy Freeman, too, but he started off the season so hot when the fans were actually voting that you couldn’t keep him out. He was batting over 3:30 time. He only recently over June has kind of fallen off a little bit. Um, Mson’s kind of picked up over the last couple Exactly. That’s kind of I think Ken Rosenthal talked about that on fair territory how it’s kind of tough because you got the fan vote which happens towards the end of beginning of June and and it’s your basically from May forward uh May previously and then then you got the the press and the players and all that kind of stuff that comes into it which is later. So I don’t know man I agree with you there. Uh I think Bush definitely is a snub. You got anybody else? Um I think uh probably Kodai from the Mets. Okay. The pitcher has a 1.7 1.47 RA in 73 innings pitched and has the lowest ERA among all starting pitchers with 70 plus innings. Okay. So, who got in over him? I don’t have the all-star list in front of me. So, I think I actually can pick one. I think I know a guy who should have been left off. Who? I hate to say it, but Yamamoto. Really? Yeah. If I even having that good year, it’s just it’s just so I mean the fan vote turns into a popularity contest. It does. It really does. And even and same problem. Yamoto was shoving had one of the was literally the best pitcher in the National League uh through May, right? Was one of the best. I mean, obviously you got some other ones like Paul Ske, but they don’t let that guy out of the fifth inning. And even when they let him pitch in the fifth inning, they you know, as soon as there he walks the guy, they pull him out. Like they give him the kick gloves. So, um, it’s just what I picture. Like, oh, come on, Paul. Come on out, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t I don’t know, man. Like, I I have to talk. We could go in all day on that, but I will go and save that for later. That’s a good one, man. My My pick is Trey Turner, dude. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Trey Turner for the Philadelphia Phillies, man. I think he’s been playing such good ball, too, man. Like, he’s been hitting he’s been hitting the cover off the baseball. Like, I don’t know. I the other one I actually really I mean as far as relief pitchers Johan Duran. Oh dude. Yeah. 1.56 RA. He’s got 45 strikeouts in 40 innings pitched. I mean he’s just elite closer. How does this guy not make the All-Star team? Was that Is that enough of I don’t for a reliever that should be enough though. You’d think. You’d think you know. So dude that’s interesting man. Yeah I have to agree with you on that one. Cody Singa definitely is one that got snubbed. There’s some people who think Fo Verdez from the Houston Astros got snubbed. Yeah. But I think there’s a reason for that. Didn’t he get banned for using a foreign substance or something last year? So, I just think that it doesn’t matter how good you are, you’re going to be having an issue there. Yeah. I I think Yeah, that problem is in the media. I mean, when you’re when you’re looking at when you’re relying on fan votes and anybody that’s just reading MLB headlines, it’s just like, yeah, no, that guy Yeah, I think that’s a good point there. Uh Spencer Swanbach, which if he was, he he started off the season pretty well. Um really well. He’s actually still pitching really well. Yeah, I I haven’t really followed over the last couple weeks, but um yeah, I think he you know, he could have been on there for sure. He was borderline. I mean, I don’t I don’t know. He’s just not a well enough known name yet. You know what I mean? Yeah. Even last year, like we’re starting Spencer Swellenbach. Like, who’s that guy? Yeah. I mean, and really last year he he had a couple starts where he was just really really bad. But, you know, the tail end of the season he really picked up. I mean, obviously this season he he’s actually hurt right now, but um he’s got a fracture in his elbow. So, do you think Wanoto should have made it? No, I don’t think so either, man. I don’t I think he had such a terrible April, you know. I think it was like middle of May before he got his first home run. I think some of his first extra base hit. Yeah. I mean, I think some of his problem is is people were so sick of hearing Juan Sto’s name all summer long or all, you know, I mean, all off season it was all about Juan Sodto and, you know, how the Mets are going to be this and that. And I I I think he probably just got too much media attention for for fans to be like, yeah, no. Yeah, like I’m just going to pass. I’m not voting for Sodto into the He’s having he had a great June. He did. I mean, and he’s actually I mean, he’s he’s picked up the way he’s playing for sure. But yeah, but on the same concept like it’s just like I’m saying like the fans vote at beginning of June and if you haven’t been playing well all season up in June, it’s kind of too little too late on that one there. Uh one Dodger I think did get the snub and that’s just because you know Yeah, we got like five Dodgers going in. But I definitely think that Andy Paw has deserved a shot, deserve to be in there. I mean he’s just Andy Paw has played really really well. Yeah. Um I definitely think there was an argument to be made that he should be in the outfield uh for uh for the Dodgers there and I just you know he had the batting average again towards the end of June did kind of fall off a little bit more towards the norm but this guy was batting you know over 300 and the thing is RBI the problem is is that voting window right being that it’s is the month of June that it’s happening but that first window if you start falling off in June and people are watching it’s like maybe not well the funny thing is was that he was so terrible at the beginning of April and just completely turned around towards the end of April and just on fire all of May. Yeah, I thought that he would have gotten a shot, but uh unfortunately a little bit too late. Um but yeah, I just thought that was super awesome. Uh we want to hear from you folks. Let know Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. Uh do you see any All-Star snubs there? Uh we’d love to hear from you. Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. We do have a comment from um or was it the Ast Okay, so what happened with Yamamoto’s versus the Brewers or was it the Astros? uh Suzuki uh got snubbed. Um yeah, I believe that was one of the you know, if you look at the um there’s an article on the Athletic by Ken Rosenthal that talked about uh some of the players who got snubbed and I believe he was on his list, too. I think it was in my notes here somewhere. I don’t know. Um yeah, Seuzuki from the C Cubs on the outfield. He was one of them that uh also got snubbed out out of there. Uh yeah, dude. I think he had a I think he did have a pretty good argument there. Um, so, but yeah, outfield’s crowded, man. Especially in the National League. Definitely in the National League for sure. Um, all right, let’s go ahead and pivot on over and talk a little bit about uh the New York Mets versus the New York Yankees umpire making a bad call on purpose. Did you see this? I did. Oh my gosh, dude. Okay. Do you want to break down the call? No, you can you can break down the whole thing, but I I’ve got some input on it. Okay. So, basically what happened in this game, right? and uh the Yankees were playing the Mets, which by the way, what’s the point of rivalry week if these teams are going to play each other again later in the you know, if these two are going to play each other again, what was the point of having them play in rivalry week? I I’m not sure. And I was kind of wondering that same thing. Why, you know, I just feel like rivalry week, play them again. Yeah. It’s just like, oh, this did really well. Let’s make sure they play each other again. Which obviously the schedule’s made way before that. So yeah, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense again why we chose that weekend for rivalry week. It’s just geographical thing and I think it was kind of lame. Anyway, so the New York Yankees were playing uh the New York Mets and when it comes to that there, one of the things that happened was the umpire um just this is a you know, honestly, dude. Okay, you go into it. You go into it. I’m a little I’m a little heated. You go into it. Okay, so we’re talking ninth inning here. Yes. Um the Mets are down. The Mets are down 6-4. I think that’s how the game actually ends. Obviously, I I don’t know if it’s one out or two outs where this call happens, but he he makes some pretty he makes some pretty bad calls. I mean, the first pitch is is probably a borderline strike that actually didn’t show up on the Empire Report, so I think the first pitch is a borderline strike, but it’s on the outer end of this of the strike zone, right? Yeah, I would call it a ball just simply because a few things. One, it was outside the actual zone they had on TV. And two, the catcher had to move so far from his position, right, for where he set up to where even if the refs saw it, there was enough movement there to where if it was borderline, majority of umpires would have called it a ball, right? But he calls strike one, right? The next pitch is way further outside. Way further outside. And he calls that strike two. After strike two, I mean, he’s he’s getting an earful from from the general manager for the men’s. Yeah. I mean, and he’s he’s telling him that he’s he’s missed this. He’s making sure he is well known at this point. The third pitch comes and it is it is nowhere near the strike zone. Yeah, it was under by like a ball and a half. Way low. Way low. And I mean, he he rings him up and calls strike three. Just I don’t know if that ended the game or if that it ended. And there was one more hitter. I think that was only one out when that happened. Yeah. But it ended it ended. It was. It doesn’t even matter. This could have been the first inning with a runner on first in an O game with all the baseball left happened to it. What the point is is that this is an example of an umpire making the game about him. Yeah. And then saying, “Look, I’m going to make a bad call just because you pissed me off, so I’m going to intentionally make a bad call.” This guy, I’m tired of the union for umpires, but this guy should be fired just for this alone. This was petty. Nobody’s going to the baseball games to watch you umpire game. Nobody. Not even that little kid who wants to be an empire. Have you seen that kid on Instagram? No. Oh my god. So cute. So cute. This kid like wants to be a professional umpire. He’s got the whole gear and everything. He’s calling softball games and stuff for grown-ups and like arguing calls. It’s great. Uh check it out if you get a chance to. It’s it’s adorable. But even he’s not watching Major League Baseball to watch He can’t tell you who all the Major League umpires are. The fact is that this guy made it about him and he’s affecting how the game’s being played late in the innings. Doesn’t even matter when it is. He should never make the game about him and he did. For me, this is inexcusable. This type of stuff is right up there with with betting on on the game that you’re umpiring with. Did you see the umpire scorecard for this game? Uh, no. I didn’t watch it. I I didn’t dive that deep into it. I Okay, so I I got the umpire scorecard in front of me. Okay. Okay. So, his overall accuracy on calls in this game per the electronic strike zone, he actually was accurate on 92% of calls. He called 155 of 168 taken pitches correctly. Okay. So, what’s the average? I think it’s higher than that though. The average is 90%. Oh, so he was above average for the game. And then his relative accuracy, so what his actually calls, he’s actually 2.5% above the expected accuracy call for what he’s where he’s usually at. So he had 4.3 more correct calls than your average umpire does. Mhm. So his overall factor was plus 07 runs for New York. So he had a 0.22 for the Yankees, minus22 for the Yankees and minus.15 for the for the Mets. So that’s he called this game pretty pretty evenly. Uh and his overall consistency was 88%. So does does that make it better or worse? To me, I think that makes it worse. I I think the most telling sign and I I wish we could put it up on the screen. I should have sent it to you, but the calls that we’re specifically talking about, he was calling all game, dude. All those outside pitches. We will throw up on the screen if we put this video if this makes it. But he was calling those outside pitches all game. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, at some point, whether they’re outside or not, you have to adjust to the umpire. Yeah. But here here’s the problem is that was the that one right there. That was the strike two. That was strike two. Exactly. And and that is the issue is that was strike two. Way outside his zone. But but one of those was strike three that he’d been calling and strike one and strike three. I thought it was below the zone. I didn’t think it was inside and and low. I thought it was below the zone. Whichever it was, it was not. It was either not a strike. I think the first one was a strike. So maybe that’s not why it’s in the missed calls. Okay. But I know that the third one was a missed call and it was on the outside corner. Yeah. Yeah, it was really really bad. I don’t I don’t know, man. I think it’s worse, dude. I think you c called the game so well. You had a decent efficiency rate, but you let your own ego get in the way. I don’t know, man. What do you think? I I think that Yeah. I mean, I I I think that his ego definitely got in the way. I mean, I think he tossed a he tossed a a head coach and he was ready to get that thing, you know, he was ready to be done there. Yeah. Um, but I I think he was I think he was consistently calling those outside pitches. And I think as a as a professional baseball player, if he’s going to call 10 pitches on the outside, you’ve got to be aware that if it’s going to the outside, you might want to at least try to foul it off, right? That’s not your pitch, fine. But if the guy’s calling them all day long, but it’s still a ball. Put a bat on it. Yeah, but it’s still a ball. It’s still a ball, but what? You’re just going to get struck out? They’re just They’re not close enough in my opinion. Right. I mean, and some of these are real bad, dude. Like, look at that. They’re not close enough. If you got that much air way outside. Yeah, you got that much air. Some of them are just not close enough. I don’t know, man. I think Yeah, you’re right. You know, if he’s been calling it that whole day, you need to put some wood on it. Uh but honestly, man, when they when both dugouts are chirping at you and you’re not calling it, dude, I don’t know. And then you call it a spy, dude. You’re done. I think you’re just done. Yeah. That that you’re you’re basically letting your own ego influence how you’re going to call a game, you’re just done. I I don’t think there’s there should be no reason why that guy ever should get to a Major League Baseball game again. Yeah. I don’t know. That’s just my opinion. Um, yeah, we also have another one here. There’s another comment here from umpiring is seriously needs to face the consequences for calling bad games. This getting absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, and that’s kind of what I I actually normally side with the umpires on this one, right? Think about it, dude. These guys are like at least 15 years older than me, right? They’re behind the plate there. And it’s not like the 90s or the early 2000s where the fastest fast ball is what, 96, 97 miles an hour. Yeah, not only the these balls are coming in at 100 and something miles an hour, they got crazy movement. You’ve only got a half second to make that call as well, right? You got 4/10en of a second to to decide whether you’re swinging. You’ve only got a half second to decide whether that was a ball or a strike. And think about it, they’re seeing the same uh pitch that’s coming out as the batters are, right? So, you’re watching that pitch come out of their hand. The batter is making a judgment. Ball out of hand or strike out of hand. When that ball comes out of their hand, like, “Okay, that’s a ball. That’s a strike.” that umpire ball out of hand with so much crazy movement is going to have to decide within a h less than half of a second if there’s enough information in their brain before they call it that could argue against that. So if it’s a ball out of hand and it goes to the strike zone, he calls a ball, you know, and that thing came in at like 97 miles an hour and it was a freaking cutter, you know, like I I normally sign on the rest with this. There’s so much emphasis on spin rate and velocity right now. It’s almost hard. It’s almost inhuman to ask these player these umpires to do what they’re doing. So I think a little bit of assistance with some ABS would be warranted there. But in this case, man, it was simply just ego. And I just there’s no call for it. I I think the biggest thing with with the automated strike zone, right, is it forces umpires to stop making bad calls midway through the game, right? Like like with these eight strikes that are outside of the zone, if they challenge one of these and it gets called back and then they challenge it again and it gets called back, you know what I mean? Where he’s going to be like, “Okay, maybe I’m not seeing this correctly. Maybe I’m set up not over the center, right?” Like it forces umpires to think. I I don’t want I don’t want umpires to be out of the baseball game because it’s that’s not what baseball’s about, right? I think it should be the other way around. I think it should be the umpires policing the automatic strike zone. Yeah. I think it should be the umpires like he’s like, you know, the ball comes in and it’s a strike and he and the ABS calls the ball. He’s like ball and the batter and the batter’s like, “Dude, what the He’s like that was way out.” He’s like He’s like, “Yeah, I agree with you there. I agree with you. I would challenge it if I were you, but the call my ear was a strike. So, I would suggest you challenge it. I think that would be a better use for that because then the umpire’s eye is is judging the ABS because that thing’s not always going to be accurate. It’s going to be mcalibrated, you know, and it needs to be, you know, I don’t know if you can have any miscalibrated, right? You Oh, absolutely you can. Yeah. I mean, I’m sure it can be what I’m saying. You watch you watch the you watch the game and the strike zone for each broadcast is completely different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But I don’t think I don’t think the the AB I don’t think the automatic strike zone will be miscalibrated. I think I think the the the frames that you see on TV on where where pitches are landing, that’s just somebody in the back trying to kind of judge where they’re landing. Well, they’re taking the feed from the cameras. But what I’m talking about is that those again are just cameras. Those are just software. It’s going to The reason why it’s taken so long for it to get here is because it was really, really bad. Yeah. Like there was curve balls that were dropping in the dirt in front of the plate and there were call strikes, you know, because they were trying to calibrate when the sensors were picking it up and the umpires will be like, “Dude, are you okay? This is going to replace me.” And they got in the point now where it’s refined. It could be so easy that a pigeon landed on one of those cameras and and knocked it out of alignment. And you know, it needs to be corrected. I think if the umpires are policing the ABS system just as much as the ABS system is policing the umpires, I think it’s the best of both worlds, man. Yeah. See, I feel like you have to have like laser sensors directly over the plate. You know what I mean? Like where literally any touching through that is I don’t know. I guess that’s like how I pictured in my mind, right? Is like the the strikes how the lighter senses the cameras and the lighter. Exactly. Like where it’s literally like if you had you know I mean like in like right now where if you break the plane, you know what I mean? Like that’s all it takes is to break the plane over the side. And then you’ve got another one from the side that’s saying this is the this is the percentage of strike zone hit like width wide or heightwise on this hitter. This over this is is the strike zone for this hitter like Yeah. I I had to agree with you there because the issue that you have is right now is it’s down the center of the plate. Yeah. The the the little thing. Exactly. And it’s so easy for it to just clip the front of the plate and fall out and then it’s a ball. Or the other way around where it’s a ball at the beginning of the plate and then it happens to fall in the strike zone on the back end but it’s called a ball because the ABS saw it higher. Yeah. Like there’s just too many uh too many they they need to figure it out, man. They just need to figure it out. I’m surprised they don’t. We got a comment here from Tammy Price uh saying it seems like it’s getting worse this season. Yeah, I have to agree with you. It is getting worse and the worst part is we suspend the best umpire in name will be history uh because he is well he’s gambled on his account but uh it’s neither here nor there. Had to agree with you on that one Tammy Price. Appreciate thanks for jumping in the chat there. Uh also I believe that players should be uh all plays should be reviewable. Reviewable. Yeah. Um and accuracy consistency should be uh rewarded over seniority. Yeah. I think the MLB already does that though. Like isn’t that like a big deal for why Angel Hernandez sued the league is because he wasn’t getting any playoff games and MLB basically just said he didn’t score high enough to warrant having playoff games? Yeah, I mean I know that I know that you like these these strike zone or like these scorecards are part of how umpires are judged, right? Like so they they come up with these strike zones, they compare them to the automatic ball strike zone. You have to be a you know in the top x amount of percent for you to make playoff games. So I think they are doing that. But I I do agree that all plays need to be reviewable, right? Like some of these pickoffs, like everything if there’s a play happening on the field, you should be able to review it for correctness. And umpires shouldn’t be able to make mistakes on some of that stuff because you’d have you’d have to make those reviewable plays as fast as the ball strikes situation, though. Yeah. The way they have it now is like it’s reviewed, it’s on the board, boom, boom, done. Over in 15 seconds, right? Or 30 seconds at the most. some of these like big bang plays where they’re tagging people out. It’s like five minutes where they’re reviewing this, man. Yeah. Because they’re so close. Yeah. So, like they there needs to be a way to improve that efficiency in my opinion. I don’t know. I I this is a conversation we can continue to have all night long. I absolutely love it. This is fun. This This is fun. Uh one thing I want to talk about before we move on is we want to go ahead and tip our cap and say congratulations to Clayton Kershaw. Uh we were watching his uh game, his start last week against the White Socks on our live stream. Yep. And unfortunately, we moved on for baseball when he actually hit the hit the third strike. Actually, we were off the third strike off. Yeah, we already off air. We were already off air when he did it. So, we wanted to go ahead and tip our cap. That’s actually not why he’s on there for congratulations, Kershaw. You know why he’s on there? I do not. So, congratulations to Kershaw because he actually made the uh All-Star game this year. Did he really? Yes. uh is a thing, a new thing for the last couple of years where the MLB commissioner gets to pick a spot and is given to the legend of baseball, living legend of baseball. And he gave it to Clayton Kershaw this year and he thought it was absolutely stupid. He didn’t like the idea. He was going to turn it down. Then he heard the previous award they got it which was uh Miguel Cabera and uh Albert Puhol who got that invite. He’s like, “Okay, well, if I’m among that type of of credibility, then yes, I’ll take it.” Yeah. I mean, abs. Absolutely. I mean, bringing the whole family down to Atlanta, down to the battery. Yeah. Having a good old time with it, man. Yeah. So, congratulations to Clayton Kershaw, living legend, first ballot hall of famer, Mr. 3K. Uh, only the fourth ever lefty to get 3,000 strikeouts and only the third to do it with just one team. Uh, which is super awesome. Love to see it. King Kersh, can you believe that he’s actually in a situation where he is like the one of the best players on the Dodgers pitching staff when you have a rotation that should be Blake Snell, uh, Tyler Glass, now Yoshu Yawamo, Roki Sasaki, Shi Otani, show Otani like and yet the player that’s and Kershaw’s your and Kershaw is the player that’s going out there and getting the job done. like it’s just insane. Um anyway, I thought that was super interesting. Congratulations to Clayton Kershaw on making it uh it’s going to be fun. Uh having the game in Atlanta, Georgia, man. Yeah, this was supposed to happen in 200 I think this was supposed to be, but then that whole uh MLB changed it um because of Georgia laws and stuff like that. The voting laws. We won’t get into that. It’s not our thing. Not our thing. Uh but that’s why I was in Colorado randomly uh one year. They’re like, “Yeah, no, we can’t do it there.” Yeah. So, uh, congratulations to Atlanta for getting to host the All-Star game. I think that’s the perfect exa perfect place to have the All-Star game because you had the battery downtown, so a lot of options for folks to go enjoy enjoy the All-Star game. So, it should be fun. Braves. Um, yeah, dude. What do you feel about that, dude? Like, there are some Braves that deserve to be on the All-Star team, but I honestly think that Matt Olsson got the nod because it’s going to be in his home city. I 100% agree. I I think he it is I think it is 100% because it’s in his home city. I mean, Ronald Akuna getting the all-star nod is one thing. He hasn’t had I mean, he’s he’s having an okay season. He’s legit. He’s playing legit, but he missed a lot of time. He just missed a lot of time, right? So, um but I think it helps to have it in your home city, you know what I mean? And I you know, one thing I found out that I was not aware of, every MLB team gets an all-star representative, which is ridiculous. I did not know that. I was when I was googling today, I found that out. I was today years old when I learned that. Yeah. So, can you believe it? We actually have to have a Colorado Rocky or a Pittsburgh. Well, obviously you’re going to have a Pittsburgh Pirate. Call Paul Skis exists, but yeah, we have to have a Colorado Rocky on this team or someone from the White Socks. Yeah, someone from the White Socks has to be represented because every team needs to be represented. Even Major League Baseball, we have a participation trophy situation going on. It’s good times. Good times. There’s always a good play a good player on every team. Okay. No. Not in the Rockies. Not in ma Not in current Major League Baseball. I would normally agree with you there. Going back maybe 10 years, you might have an argument, but lay lady with these ownerships, some of these people using these like move them all. Yeah, it’s Anybody worth the [ __ ] move them. Exactly. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, folks, we want to hear from you folks. Let us know what your thoughts are in the comments down below. Uh, as a reminder, folks, this channel did just hit 1,000 subscribers. So, if you have not yet, hit that subscribe button, hit that notification bell. We’re giving the first $500 that we earn in AdSense revenue back to our subscribers. So, if you’re not yet, make sure you subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss out on that giveaway. Yep. And if you’re watching on YouTube on one of our short videos, just know this is available as a podcast in its entirety wherever you get your audio. With all that said, my name is Darren. That is AJ. And this has been an episode of the DNA Sports Recap. Till next time.
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