CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s time for this week’s edition of the Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. In today’s episode, they talk about Shedeur Sanders, his Browns future, and what his game Sunday vs. the Titans might mean for the Browns in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Also, they discuss the Cavs and how they can get back to basics and away from bad shots.
They also break down the Guardians and a listener email about Austin Hedges.
Highlights:
Cleveland.com’s Paul Hoynes has won the BBWAA Career Excellence Award, the highest honor for baseball writers, securing his place in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Terry Pluto praised Hoynes’ “utterly remarkable” work ethic and elite writing talent, noting his longevity in the demanding field is highly impressive.The Browns’ special teams fell down on the job again, with a blocked punt and a long return vs. the Titans.Coach Kevin Stefanski’s uncharacteristically public criticism of the run defense is seen as a sign of significant internal frustration.An analytics-driven, late-game two-point conversion strategy was undone by poor execution, including a fumbled snap and a mistimed trick play.An argument that the Browns should use high draft picks on offensive linemen and receivers instead of a QB, as top rookie QBs often fail without a strong supporting cast.QB Shedeur Sanders benefited from not playing early in the season, as it allowed him to go to “pro football school” and learn the NFL system, similar to Patrick Mahomes’s development, Terry says.Sanders’s impressive performance has revived optimism for the Browns, leading Stefanski to name him the starter for the remainder of the season to evaluate his potential.Terry says Stefanski appears “mentally worn out,” and while his job is precarious, a strong finish to the season led by Sanders could potentially save his position.The Cavs’ 14-11 start is a major disappointment, with the team looking “discombobulated” due to player injuries and a flawed, three-point-heavy “lazy offense.”Darius Garland’s poor shooting and defensive struggles raise serious concerns that he is not fully recovered from foot surgery, prompting suggestions that he should rest.A Guardians fan writes to question why the team re-signed catcher Austin Hedges for $4 million, and cites his low batting average.Outfielder Chase DeLauter is identified as the Guardians’ true top prospect, possessing a rare combination of size, power, and skill, with only his injury history being a concern.A funny listener email about trying to cancel NFL Sunday Ticket.
Here’s the podcast for this week:
If you have a question or a topic you’d like to see included on the podcast, email it to sports@cleveland.com, and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line.
You can find previous podcasts below.
Also, a transcript of the podcast is below. As it is computer-generated, it may contain many spelling and grammar errors.
David Campbell: Talking Podcast. I’m your host, David Campbell. Terry Pluto is here. Got some happy news this morning, Terry, about Mr. Paul Hoynes. He is the 2026 recipient of the Baseball Writers association of America Career Excellence Award. This is the highest honor a baseball writer can receive, and he’s basically going to the hall of Fame in late July. This is tremendous, right? This is a big deal.
Terry Pluto: Really is. I mean, I. I am so happy for him. In 1983 and 84, when Hoynes came on the beat in 83 and I was there 84. So I had hall of Famers to the left of me and hall of Famers to the right, Sheldon Milker and. And Poinsey, and believe me, it’s no knock on Sheldon, but if Shelton’s in the hall of Fame, hoines should be in the hall of Fame. I was there with both of them, and I could tell you they were both elite. And Hines is just. And to be able to do it as well as he’s done it, not just for as long, but as well, with the enthusiasm, is utterly remarkable. I mean, I did baseball for six years and really is five and a half, because I left the middle of my sixth year. I was simply just worn out. I could not. The travel and everything else. And I like baseball, but I found it to be so hard and on top of it. Now it’s even more difficult because of the Internet and all the things you have to file and for Paul to do it with such zest and good humor and, you know, the relentless.
Terry Pluto: He’s a fine writer. That’s what I think is underwritten, is undervalued about Paul because he’s got a great personality and tells funny stories and there’s funny stories about him. And, you know, Paul showing up at a game with two belts because he forgot he had one on, so he put another one on, which is better than showing up with no belt.
Terry Pluto: I remember a discussion one day of the. Of African American catchers and how many there were. And Paul said, well, I think there were some in the Negro leagues. Yeah, well, you got that right. He goes, well, you know what I mean? I said, yeah, you’re right. Actually, there was a bunch of them that would have been very good in the major leagues is really what he meant because we were just talking about how Elson Howard, one of the first and that. But it was. I’m just so happy because. Well, first of all, that he’s still going because I told Hoynesi, I said, if you quit that, I’m the oldest guy in@thecleveland.com. you can’t quit. You got to keep going.
David Campbell: And yeah, it was 42 years, right?
Terry Pluto: 42 years.
David Campbell: And.
David Campbell: He’S joining a long line of Cleveland winners. You mentioned Sheldon, who was 2018 from the Ekin Beacon Journal, Hal Lebovitz, who I know a lot of our listeners remember, he was 1999. And Gordon Cobbledick, who was a legendary plane dealer, sports writer forever, I think he was in 1977. But, man, I was just. I was just going down the list of the people who’ve won this award, Terry, and it is crazy. Like Roger Angel. Right, right. Writer of many books, Peter Gammons. A lot of people know him from his days at the Boston Globe. Sam Lacey and Wendell Smith, two guys in the 90s. They covered Jackie Robinson and his early seasons in the major leagues. So just some giants, Jim Murray and Red Smith and Lynd Rice has won this award back in 1966. I mean, this is a big deal. And as you said, Terry, we’re just thrilled for Hoynsey and long overdue and.
Terry Pluto: Just was worried he wasn’t going to get in again because I saw Tom Verducci was one of the candidates and he has a very high national profile. And the other one, who was a terrific writer, passed away recently. Scott Miller, who had been in LA and Minnesota. I mean, it was a tough, tough field. And he. Last year he missed by eight votes, I think it was. And this year he won big. And I had a feeling the old guard stepped up and voted for Hines. That’s what I sensed happened here. So that was because he was a classic, you know, like you said, 42 years. And, you know, he’ll still be going at it for probably many more years to go.
David Campbell: Yeah. And it’s just wonderful baseball, such a long season, as you mentioned, Terry, with 162 games. And Hoynsey always just finds a narrative thread to carry fans through it the whole way. And, you know, I talked about writing one time, and he carries the elements of Style, that old strong white book around with him and, and reads it all the time because writing, as you said, is so important to him. So congratulations.
Terry Pluto: I remember, in fact, he. It was when we were on the beat in one of those early, early years of the 80s. He. He came up with the bullpen from Hell was There. It was. It was one of those. And it’s like, you know, it was a phrase that kind of ran through the whole. I think he got it like in May, and it just Was there for the whole season, you know, and once.
David Campbell: Again, the bullpen from hell.
Terry Pluto: The bullpen from hell strikes. And it. And he. The other thing, he was such a. You know, he’s a rugby player. He’s a tough guy. And not so much now, but in the old days, those players would really come at you, you know, it wasn’t just a couple times. He kind of hit a rumble with one or two. Mel hall was one and some others. But, I mean, it could be really tough. I mean, I remember being pelted with french fries and being thrown at with.
Terry Pluto: Tape balls or forgot what they were, mad at me about something or other and, you know, just have people bombing you to your face. I mean, it’s that. It’s not like it was. This is one thing I could say, you know, it was tougher in the old days or whatever. That part was tougher dealing with the guys because they would just say anything. Now they’re kind of polished and the media people are around to make sure things don’t go off the rails. But the actual covering, where you have to keep filing up, basically, you’re perpetually on deadline, that is more difficult. And Paul does just a terrific job, as you said, because he really cares about the writing. When you’re writing so much on that, you could just get into, you know, just kind of typing, just kind of putting words out there, hope you get the score right and goodbye. Because, you know, he would write quick, then turns around and go back. The thing that’s amazing about Paul to me is I’d watch him write. And he literally was just almost sweating blood. I mean, he struggles. At least what he looks like. To write to me is fairly natural. I’ve often said if it was half as hard for me as it is for Hoynes, I quit. And that just shows how determined he is.
David Campbell: Oh, and if people have never seen his keyboard, he goes through a keyboard a season because he’s so intense, as you said, he’s trying to get the best copy down on his computer. His keys are just all cracked and missing. And, like, we have to get him a new computer, like, every year because of how art. He goes at it. So.
Terry Pluto: And I think it shows when you look at that list of. From Cobbledick, who is a great, great writer, by the way, my father’s favorite growing up. And he was very close to Rocky Colito. He wrote the. The book Don’t Knock the Rock on Rocky Colito. And then to Hal Evow, to Sheldon. You know, I’m just saying from our area. And now Paul, for a, you know, we don’t like to hear small market or mid market city. That’s real journalistic royalty on the baseball end.
David Campbell: Tremendous, tremendous. If anybody listening wants to send Hoynsey a quick note, it’s. You can email him at P. Hoynes h o y n-e s@cleveland.com. i’m sure he’d love to hear from some fans.
Terry Pluto: So send him out of hey, Hoinsey stuff. That’s all.
David Campbell: That’s right.
Terry Pluto: Hey, Hoynsy, how big is your crown gonna be? Who’s in your court since you’re now the king of the king of the writers? Nobody will have more fun with this than Paul. We know that.
David Campbell: Indeed. And that’ll be again in late July. I’m sure we’ll be talking about it more before then. And yeah, last year Tom Hamilton got the broadcaster version of this and this year Paul Owens is getting the writer version. So it’s a great back to back for Cleveland. Of course, Mary Kay Cabot, our colleague, went into the Football hall of Fame this past summer, so that was, that was exciting too. So. All right, well, should we go from the, should we go from the bullpen from hell to the special teams from hell? Terry, do you want to get into the Browns? We’ll kind of like to where things are. Where do you want to start with the Browns this week? There’s certainly a lot to get into here.
Terry Pluto: It’s been a long time since I seen a guy block a punt with his stomach.
David Campbell: Well, we saw that Sunday.
Terry Pluto: That’s what I meant. That’s why I thought he did. And then I think, John, I think Koontz got a great picture. I believe it was Koontz’s picture, which I ran with my story. Sure enough, that ball is being punted right into. I think the class guy’s name was Williams, his stomach. And I did look at that. You. And I looked at it a couple times there and I did again, looking at it. And two guys, I think. What’s his name? Muhammad Diabate. Diabate. And somebody else. They blocked two of these. Two of them blocked one guy and they just missed William. Just missed them.
David Campbell: Yeah. We have an email here from Rich in Columbus. He says, hey, Dave and Terry, if you were the Brown special teams coach and you wanted to be fired, could you do anything more than all of the special team’s mistakes that have occurred nearly every game? And you know, obviously Bubba Ventrome, that’s not what’s happening. But I mean, every week it’s something different. And the Browns say they’re going to get it fixed, and it never gets fixed. And it’s just. It’s just. It’s hard to win football games when you’re giving up a big play like that every game. I mean, the opening kickoff the other day, they gave up a big return, 41 yards.
Terry Pluto: I was going to say that. Then after that, they just start kicking on the end zone because they’re afraid. What’s his name. Dk. Dk Was going to run it all the way back.
Terry Pluto: There were some things you could do in special teams and some teams is hard fixing. Kicking is hard. Kickers live in their own world. That kind of stuff. That’s Phil Dawson told me that.
Terry Pluto: And I was talking to Kevin Spencer, who’s a longtime special teams coach. He’s now retired. He lives in Cleveland. He’s on WTAM’s pregame show with that. He said the same thing, but he said the one thing you really work at that you can coach is coverage. Coverage teams. And that’s, you know, because it has to do with filling lanes and technique and that stuff and that. They’ve been abysmal with that. And then you turn around and I mean, when a guy catches the ball in the five yard line and steps out of bounds, I mean, that’s. That’s on the player. I don’t care if he’s a rookie or what, they know that. But the coverage thing has been just a real, real problem. Yeah.
David Campbell: And like, you know, Lance Riesland, who does film breakdowns for us of the Browns and Dan Lobby, they were on the Browns pregame preview podcast last Friday and Lance said this team loves to block punts. Like, that’s how. That’s all they hang their hat on big special teams plays because they know at 11 on 11 on offense and defense, they can’t match up with the rest of the league. So they try to win games on special teams and they’re coming after, like every punt. So, like, the Browns knew that going in and they had guys running down the field to cover the punt before the ball had been punted. And I know that happens, but, like, you got to make sure against a team like that that everybody’s accounted for and you’re going inside out on that. You take the inside guy first and then you take the outside guy.
Terry Pluto: What did you make of Bubba? Basically, I thought he taking a shot at the front office about. Well, we had different players and young guys and personnel and.
David Campbell: Yeah, it’s. I mean, it’s got to be hard. Kevin Stefanski took a shot at the run defense in his post game press conference after the loss Sunday. I just feel like people are kind of getting a little worried about their futures maybe, and it’s, it’s starting to show a little bit, which is. It’s just hard. I mean, it’s December, you’re on a losing team. Things like that are happening.
Terry Pluto: I would say this. Kevin was right to do that. I would say, I mean, maybe he could have there. But to ignore the fact they gave up, what, 170 yards on the ground or whatever it was. And I looked at a couple of those runs and it seems like once you got past the line of scrimmage, nobody was there. And besides, the defense is good. They just didn’t. They just didn’t defend the run very well.
David Campbell: Oh, no, for sure. Like I would for, for Kevin Stefanski to say that was a little unusual because usually he comes in after a game and he’s like, well, we got to coach it better, we got to get better. We’ll fix it. We’ll get back to work tomorrow. That’s pretty much all he ever says. And for him to say like, our run defense was terrible.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: You know, and just paraphrase.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: That kind of raised a little bit of a red flag that he was not happy about that. No, again, that’s like him screaming on a mountaintop, like, yeah.
Terry Pluto: You wonder if there was a discussion on how they wanted it played. Who knows, internally. But actually that didn’t, it didn’t bother me, him saying that, because sometimes you can get them to admit that the game was played on Sunday, you know, afterwards.
David Campbell: Oh, for sure. I’m not faulting him for saying it. I was just surprised that he did because he goes out of his way not to say.
Terry Pluto: But the special thing, Bubba, you’re right, he’s feeling the heat. And.
Terry Pluto: There are things you can, you can coach and things you can’t. But as you said, they knew they were coming after on a punt. I wonder if they block punts the same way as they block that one too. It’d be interesting to have somebody break that down.
Terry Pluto: But, you know, there’s just so much stuff like that. To me, this is. I, I realize the team is young and, and therefore. But when you just see central teams breakdowns, whatever was going on with those two point conversions and.
David Campbell: All right, so you want to get into the two point conversions real quick.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. Why don’t you take the lead on that?
David Campbell: Well, no, I. So I wanted to hear what you thought about it because. So the question is, when you’re down 14, do you want to go for the win or do you want to go for the tie? I kind of think that when you’re scrambling and fighting and scratching and clawing to get back into a game that you know and you’re at home, maybe you play for the tie, but like, you can debate that, right?
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: So the Browns analytically driven team decided to take the approach that a lot of teams take is we’re, we’re down 14, we score a touchdown, we’re going to go for two. The first time they’re going for the win is basically what they announced. Everybody. And if you get the first two point conversion, you kick an extra point, you win. If you miss the first two point conversion, then you still have a chance at the second one. I think it’s, what is it, 58% two point conversion, something like that.
Terry Pluto: 60%. Almost two thirds depending upon the team. Yeah.
David Campbell: So if you make the second one, then you’re in a tie and everything’s. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s the analytically driven way to approach the situation. So there’s the theory of it and then there’s the execution and the execution was what we saw. But I mean, what did you think about the decision to go for two twice?
Terry Pluto: It didn’t bother me that much. I was thinking the same thing and I was expecting something like, all right, they’ve been very good. Just put the ball in Junkin’s hands and letting him get two points. It’s worked. And other thing is at that point, Shedor’s cooking, you know, and you know what Shador’s going to become. This is something I didn’t know he had in him because he didn’t do that much, much of it in college under center. His play fakes are good, if you notice that. And that that’s the kind of stuff around the goal line that works very well. You know, he could have faked it to Junkins and thrown a pass to the tight end. You know my favorite play, you sit by me with games. You know, I’m always crying for that around the goal line, especially since you got two, got two tight ends that could catch the ball. Well now I guess at that point Junkin the joker was out, but.
Terry Pluto: Maybe that was the play. I don’t know. He fumbled it. The first one.
David Campbell: Yeah. The first one was a fumbled snap.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: In the. So the play just kind of fell apart from the beginning. So on the Second one. Here’s what I was seeing, Terry. So Judkins got the. I appreciate that. And coaches talk about this a lot. Like anybody can come up with a random play and have it work, right? But when you’re building on what you’re doing and there’s kind of a method behind what you’re doing and you’re trying to build, you’re trying to build an identity of what you want to run. So the Browns have been running Wildcat for weeks now with judges and short yardage. So they came back in a crucial play on a two point conversion. I appreciated the thought behind it. They put the ball on the left ash and Judkins was supposed to get the snap and start running around right end and looking at the defensive back. That was on Larva Dan, right? And watching him. And it was man to man coverage. And Florvidan goes if, if Larva Dan’s defender goes with him, Judkins has a walk in touchdown because there’s nobody out there. If the defender goes with Larva Dan across the formation to the left side, then Judkins is supposed to pitch it to him. But the problem was I just wonder if the Browns ran this full speed in practice during the week because Larva Dan, it needed to happen slower because by the time Judkins saw the defender was staying, Larva Dan had passed him already and he was out of luck. He couldn’t pitch it. So Larva Dan needed to delay like a two count and then go in motion. But like the Browns did not have the timing on that play synced up and it cost him if he’s a huge win.
Terry Pluto: It’s almost like he started to pitch it and pulled it back too. I looked at that a couple times. So now you’re in trouble. You’re almost ready to fumble it. And.
Terry Pluto: Well, I can see he probably. Probably why he’s not going to be the next quarterback anyway. Don’t worry about him throwing the ball.
Terry Pluto: I don’t blame him. I would have done the thing. I might have just heaved it into the end zone. But what are you going to do? And in the end though, see, that’s the kind of stuff to me, two rookies trying this trickery.
Terry Pluto: Your thoughts?
David Campbell: Oh, I thought you were going to continue there. Sorry.
Terry Pluto: No, that’s it. Yeah. Am I off? No. Again, like ridiculous.
David Campbell: Again. It is so easy for you and me to sit here and be like, well, they should have done this and they should have done that. But I think what a lot of fans are saying is right Like, Shadour has been throwing beautiful balls right to the end zone with some great touch. And like, I, you know, I think Browns fans wish they would have just gone with some play with Shadour and given him some options. He already had run in for a seven yard scramble. So anyway, if you’re going to call that play and not keep shadow on the field, you. It needs to work. And it didn’t work for them, right?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, yeah. It’s just the whole thing like, you know, you’re trying to squeeze play with a rookie and, you know, to tie or win the game in baseball, he better get the bunt down and the guy better leave third base at just the right time and all that kind of stuff. I just used a baseball analogy, but.
David Campbell: So can I ask you a question real quick? Did you, did you watch the Ohio State game on Saturday night? Okay. I can never see a play like that being screwed up. With Indiana and Ohio State playing each other like there was such a clean, beautifully run game by both teams. There were hardly any mistakes. There were, you know, I’m saying there’s no, like, guys in the wrong place. The pitch wasn’t on time. Like, it’s, they’ve coached those teams so meticulously. And then to watch the Browns on Sunday, it just, it really struck me how, how close to perfection that game was in terms of execution Saturday night and then to see what happens Sunday. Maybe it is the rookie thing, I don’t know, but it was just, it was a very stark contrast for me to watch.
Terry Pluto: Absolutely. Maybe it could be what they’re running opposed to what they’re trying to do in the pros too. They were trying to do too much. Now, Tennessee tried desperately to get the Browns back in the game, that’s for sure, with all their penalties and everything else. My goodness.
Terry Pluto: I don’t know how many times they kept grabbing the player’s face mask. I think there were at least three. And the thing there, it’s kind of like a thing you can’t debate. I mean, you’ve either grabbed the face mask or you didn’t. And I understand sometimes you’re kind of going across it, but if you feel that face mask, you don’t grab it.
David Campbell: Oh, well, it was an interesting game and I guess we should get into the quarterback thing.
Terry Pluto: Why not?
David Campbell: While we have some time here. All right.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: Why don’t we start with an email?
Terry Pluto: Okay.
David Campbell: All right. This is from Skip Redhwani. And Skip writes in and says, hey, Terry, I’ve been fortunate to follow you since your years at the Akron Beacon Journal and I’ve read several of your books. Thank you for your wonderful work. Two things I wanted to tell you about my cousin, Jack Borrell. He was the ultimate Cleveland Indians fan and died early this year. I believe you’ll appreciate just how devoted he was from this story. In 1948, when he was only 12 years old and living on North Hill in Akron, Jack decided that he must attend a World Series game. He and a friend rode their one speed bikes from North Hill in Akron, 36 miles to Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
Terry Pluto: Wow.
David Campbell: And attended the game. That is devotion. I still can’t believe that my mother, who was caring for him at the time, allowed him to do this, nor that he was able to make it. So that’s number one.
Terry Pluto: He should entered. What’s that race in the. In. In. In France. The. The. Whatever.
David Campbell: The Tour de France.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, yeah. He should have won the Tour de France if he could do that.
David Campbell: The Tour de Muni lot.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. There you go.
David Campbell: All right. Number two from Skip. He says whether or not Mr. Sanders continues to show promise as a quarterback. The Browns should not draft a quarterback next year. They need to draft a stud offensive lineman and a stud receiver with those two first round picks. This does not reflect recency biases. I have thought this was needed throughout the season. We don’t need to damage another young quarterback by hastily inserting and buying the porous offensive line. And receivers who drop balls even if they’re able to get open, starting with drafting a good lineman, a good receiver is the best path to sustainable, high quality football. Many thanks for your continued work. And again that Skip Redwani. Thanks for that, Skip. Great story and a nice take there on the second part. So what do you think about all that, Terry?
David Campbell: We still have more games to watch here.
Terry Pluto: Oh yeah, we do. But just a little history. To his point.
Terry Pluto: The last four quarterbacks drafted number one. I had this in my notes over the weekend. Of course you have Cam Ward and his coaches fired at mid season. Caleb Williams and his coach was fired at midseason. That was 24, 23, Bryce Young and his coaches fired at midseason. These are quarterbacks drafted number one overall and in 21, Trevor Lawrence and his coach Urban Meyer is fired at midseason. Now there’s, I think somebody in between. But in. And of course in 18, the Browns drafted Baker and Hugh Jackson was fired. To the skiff’s point, though, I don’t think it was all coaching. I’m sure there was little support, you know, on the line and everything else. And also the difficulty now. I mean there’ll be. The Shabir fans will say, well, the Brown should have played him earlier. This just shows that and everything else.
Terry Pluto: I could counter with. Exactly how was he hurt by not playing the first half of the season?
David Campbell: He wasn’t.
Terry Pluto: He wasn’t. Yeah. You’re far more likely to damage a quarterback by playing him early than playing him later. You know, you look at Patrick Mahomes and started one game. Maybe he would have been better off starting more games as a rookie. But by the time year two came around, he was ready to go. They also felt that they had because John Dorsey was drafted him and told me that because he came out of a.
Terry Pluto: Situation at Texas Tech very similar to Chador, you know, no huddles and throw the ball over the place and kind of simplistic that they felt they had to school him in pro football. They felt he had the aptitude and everything else to learn it, but that he needed to go to pro football school. Well, so did Chador and Chador was staying after school and coming in before school to get lessons. So that when he got in there.
Terry Pluto: You know, he looked like he’s did some work. Especially. I’ve been very impressed with the way he’s handled the snaps directly from center. I know he fumbled the one at the goal line, but overall he’s done a really good job with that and play fakes from that position. He wasn’t doing that stuff at all in college.
David Campbell: All right, well, Shadur’s numbers, of course, 23 of 42, 54.8%, 364 yards, three touchdown passes, one touchdown run. He did have the one interception and his passer rating was 97.7. I’m interested in this. So Skip’s point is, you know, again, we have more data. We have four more games to watch here. But I am going to be really interested to see what the Browns do with that first pick because if anybody watched Mendoza play against Ohio State, I mean he looks the part of an NFL quarterback. He’s 6, 5, 2, 20. There were not, there was not a lot of separation that the Indiana receivers were creating against Ohio State’s defense and he was dropping dimes. So pretty impressive performance. We get to watch him throughout the playoff now too. But one of the things that I think is interesting for fans to watch is it is easier to build an offensive line through free agency than it is to find a franchise quarterback. And if you, you know, if you look at the Bears this year, I Think they might have the best, best offensive line in football. They drafted maybe 12 of those guys and the rest they brought in through free agencies. So I could see if the Browns really like Mendoza or one of the other quarterbacks have taken that player at 5 or wherever they end up coming back late in the second round and getting your left tackle of the future, maybe going in the second round with another receiver, you know, receiver and offensive line.
Terry Pluto: Right.
David Campbell: And then building, you know, Skip is right. You have to build a team for whatever quarterback is going to be here in the future. But I do think building an offensive line is something you can do better through free agency than you can like finding a quarterback. Because that’s, that’s tough, right?
Terry Pluto: Well, finding a quarterback is hard, period. And generally when I did that thing a couple weeks ago, the top 20 quarterbacks rated by ESPN, you know, their QBR writing 17 of the 20 for first round picks. Eight of them were picked in the top five. So when you’re. That’s why if Shador ends up being a really. I’m not even talking about a franchise guy, but a viable quarterback who’s, you know, starts 50 or 100 games in his career, that’s a big upset. I mean, that he’s the outlier. You know, that’s Dak Prescott and that’s Brock Purdy, you know, Julian Justin Hertz. Those are the guys that, those are the three that were not in the top first round. I mean, Lamar Jackson was the end of the first round. So now, you know, we, we need to see more of, of Shador because the, the two games where he’s really played, well, let’s face it, was Tennessee and it was against Las Vegas. Now I’m not knocking. I’ll take a good quarterback game against anybody in the NFL because other quarterbacks had trouble doing that against teams that struggle. But when you start looking long term, that. Let’s see here. Buffalo. You got Buffalo. You got the Bears. I was surprised the Bears defense doesn’t ranked as high as I thought it was. It’s in the middle 20s.
David Campbell: Yeah, they make a lot of turnovers, but they create a lot of turnovers. But they’re not great statistically. You’re right.
Terry Pluto: And you know, they have Cincinnati, Pittsburgh. I know Pittsburgh’s rated low, but you know, they will be blitzing him before he even gets out of the tunnel for the introductions. And then, you know, Cincinnati at the end. So it’s a. Cincinnati’s defense is deplorable. But that game may be very meaningful for Cincinnati, too. The way that AFC north is. Who knows?
Terry Pluto: All right. Thank goodness this is happening. Do you know how dreadful this would be if we’re watching Dylan Gabriel or if Shador were playing, you know, thrown for 130 yards and getting sacked 17 times and all that kind of stuff? Now he’s got. He went. I had three of. I did go through the. The tape. He had three of the wandering backwards in the nowhere moves, which. He’s got to watch that. And he.
Terry Pluto: Once or twice, he’s. He sort of. Sort of threw it in a complete no man’s land. But I, I kind of. And Pro Football Focus, they had the real number five throwaways. Instead of being sacked. That’s progress. Just throw it away. Get rid of it.
David Campbell: Absolutely.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: You watch somebody like Aaron Rodgers, like, he does not hesitate to throw the.
Terry Pluto: Ball into the third row.
David Campbell: He’s like, you know what? That plays not working. Let’s go on. I remember. That’s good.
Terry Pluto: Alex Van Pelt said he had a drill in the Baker Mayfield, your best pass may be incomplete. To me on the sideline. He said, that’s fine. He goes, I don’t want you firing in the three guys and hoping, you know, that something happens. And that doesn’t mean you simply throw the A check down. Say, you know, they used to call Charlie check down. You don’t want to be that guy, but you. You don’t want to be stupid. And so that’s. Those are. Those are things to watch, I guess. One interception, he was wandering around all back there and then throwing off the back foot.
David Campbell: Well, I don’t think that throwing downfield is something people to worry about with Shador Sanders, like, he loves to get the ball down the field. I think his yards per attempt the other day was 8.7, which is the highest we’ve seen from a Browns quarterback in a game in a long time. So the throwaways are good. Yeah, I think you’re right. That’s. That’s a good point, Terry.
Terry Pluto: Yes. And it goes against his character because he’s wired to make a big play. I got to make a big play. That’s what a lot of that running backwards. More backwards. Now he is. According to Pro Football Focus, he is taking 3.36 seconds to throw and sounds quick, but the average quarterback is about 2.7. So that’s Deshaun Watson territory, 3.3. And I don’t like a quarterback taking that long because it puts a lot of stress on your offensive line. So, you know, he does have the ability to drop back and make that quick throw. And I don’t mean just a quick throw to somebody off to the side. I mean, no quick slants or whatever. He’s an accurate passer. But the cool thing is they could, they could work on all this these last four games. Put this in the, in the game plan. Take that out. I mean, you’re sitting there suddenly go, this guy’s got a chance to be an honor student. That means Stefanski should be all fired up by this.
David Campbell: Yeah. And Kevin Stefanski did say yesterday on Monday that should work. Sanders will start the rest of the game. So they will have a pretty good.
Terry Pluto: Idea of what he can do. Yeah, it was a wise thing to say. So he doesn’t have to answer that question every week. And besides, he might have a. You know, he might. Maybe I’ll throw two picks this week. Who knows?
David Campbell: All right. Anything else on Shador Sanders or the quarterback stuff, Terry?
Terry Pluto: No, no. Just other than. It’s. It’s. For me, it’s revived the season to watch and see what happens.
David Campbell: Yeah, I do want to ask you. So Jimmy Watkins today, our colleague had a column up about there were two things about Sunday’s game that makes him that make him think that Kevin Stefanski won’t be around after this season, that he’s going to get let go. I want to read you an email from Keith Coleza from Virginia and then I want to get your take on whether you what’s your feeling on Kevin Stefanski’s future here. But Keith says this is from a couple weeks ago, but I kind of pulled out the relevant parts, he says. I’d like to add my 2 cents to the conversation about the Browns leadership. When I look at the leadership of the team, I look for how have they grown in the job starting at the top. Haslam started off with wanting to be involved in the decision making, which resulted in some disastrous decisions like Johnny Manziel and DeSean Watson. It seems to me that he learned his lesson and is now leaving the top decisions to his management team. Andrew Berry just had his best draft in years and hopefully has figured something out when it comes to drafting. But Kevin Stefanski seems lost out there. The team lacks direction, consistency and discipline. I feel like the team has regressed under him. If any changes are made in the off season, let’s start with him. And Keith says the Terry’s Talking podcast is my favorite. I look forward to it every week. Thanks, Keith. We appreciate that. Again, that’s Keith Coleza. He says, longtime fan from Midlothian, VA.
Terry Pluto: How do you feel about what did Jimmy say? What did Jimmy say? Let’s do that.
David Campbell: Watkins just the, the, the lack of execution was the one thing, and the other thing was the lack of explanation that he’s giving to fans about why things didn’t work Sunday. Those were the two things that Jimmy Watkins wanted to, that kind of struck him. If you want to check that out. Cleveland.combrownshaft Jimmy’s column, but I don’t know, Terry, what’s your temperature feeling like with Kevin Stefanski and whether his future is secure here or not?
Terry Pluto: I think he’s really just worn out mentally. And I think just about any coach would the sixth year here, the desean Watson burden was on his shoulders.
Terry Pluto: Haslam could say, it’s a big swing and miss. You can blame us. Barry could say, it was an organizational decision. I had part of it, just like Dean Podesta said that. But it really was Kevin had to live with it. And Kevin had to hear, you got to get them fixed. And Kevin had to fire, you know, Van Pelt and a couple of offensive assistants. And, you know, Kevin had to then hear, oh, we can’t do this because our salary cap situation.
Terry Pluto: And that’s, that’s a lot. And then sometimes when you’re just tired and beat down, you don’t.
Terry Pluto: You don’t think straight. You’re just, that’s. He sounds very weary to me and I’m sure he never imagined after his first year ago on 11 and 5, coach of the year, that he would have two back to back years where he goes 3 and 14 and now he’s what, 3 and 10, that that would ever happen to him. And farther on because it looked like that they had gotten the thing straightened out and they were on their way.
Terry Pluto: By the way, the, the answer to the question was if you’re a good coach like Belichick. And they asked, you know, when Belichick was going well, and they would say what happened on display? And Melachiko mumble, it didn’t work.
David Campbell: Right?
Terry Pluto: And then he would ask him a question. I said, it didn’t work on the Cincinnati, you know, or whatever he would say after that, right? You could get away with that. But when I think Kevin didn’t want to.
Terry Pluto: Whether it was Tommy Reese’s call or what. But remember this, how this works is Kevin is on the headset when those plays are being relayed from Reese to the quarterback and he has about three or four seconds to change it. And I, and I Pat Shermer was the one who explained this to me. He said, this is how it’s usually done because one year he gave the play calling over to Brad Childress. And, and he said, in the end, I am still. Pat was the head coach. I’m still the head coach, I’m still responsible and I’m on the headset. And I said, how many times you change your play? Goes maybe three or four, not a lot. He goes, because we kind of know what we’re doing. But if you’re sitting there going, do we really, at this point in the game want to have.
Terry Pluto: Quintron flipping a blood of larva to end to do new. Who knows what you could. No, I don’t think so. Or, you know what you could always do? Call time out.
David Campbell: Yeah, I’m trying to remember if they had one left, they, they might have. I got to go back and look at that. Yeah, it’s funny. Like, Urban Meyer, he had, I think Kevin Wilson was his offensive coordinator and there would, he would talk about. There would be times in a game where he’s like, listen, Kevin, let’s ride Carlos Hyde on this series. Like, let’s just ride him because he’s have. He’s finding holes and he’s running hard.
Terry Pluto: Yep.
David Campbell: Head coaches can do that. Where Kevin Fancy could say, hey, let. To Tommy Reese. Like, hey, let’s, let’s, let’s focus this series on getting so and so the ball or running this kind of stuff.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, they’ll have three.
David Campbell: This is the theme of what I want, right?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, they have three or four. Those plays set for two point conversions. You don’t just have one or two. Right. Besides, they never did run whatever the first one was because Shador fumbled. And you can’t just say, well, he fumbled, wants a fumble again. He was taking all these snaps directly from center all, all game. And he was taking them really since he became the quarterback.
Terry Pluto: I just think, I just think it’s hard for him then he’s watched, you know, special teams problems and I don’t know, it’s. It’s very. That part to me is very sad because they don’t look well coached. And, you know, I’m sure there’s reasons for that that are beyond the coaching, but you’d like to see them be able to coach around it. I mean, my goodness, you’ve won six games. So you what, you’re 6 and 24.
David Campbell: That’s a lot of losses. Yeah, but like you’ve said, Terry, a coach is a coach until he’s not the coach. Anymore. Quarterback’s a quarterback until he’s not the starting quarterback anymore. That’s how you got to do it. Things could change these last four games. If the Browns win two or three.
Terry Pluto: Of these, you know, if they win three of the last four games, let’s say, sure, they’re placed pretty well. Everybody can say, no, wait a minute. We don’t. We don’t really want to. Yeah, let’s not change that. Get a new special teams guy or something. Let’s just call it, you know, Looks like Kevin’s developed some mojo with Shador. And so that’s why I’m not ready to just say it’s over. But I’m. You asked me how. This is what I see. But also a couple ones could revive Kevin real fast, too. Now, it’s going to be difficult with that offensive line the way it is, you know, because Postic, what, Blue and Achilles. And so you have what, Whippler and KT Levinson and who else is in there? And Cam Robinson, Is he still down on the team?
David Campbell: And Kevin Jenkins. Yeah, it’s a patch.
Terry Pluto: Jenkins and. Yeah, so you got Teller and Batonio. Are it.
David Campbell: All right.
Terry Pluto: No, Petonio’s not playing because he’s got a. The dreaded calf muscle, which could go on for a while.
David Campbell: And Denzel Ward is out.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: All right, well, let’s take a break here. Terry, I’m going to ask you, going to the Bengals game, the same question. How are you feeling about Kevin Stefanski’s future? But we’ll see where things stand then. But let’s take a break right now. When we come back, we’re going to talk about Darius Garland and how things are going with the Cavs, which a lot of people and fans think they got booed the other night. Not so good. So we’ll get into that and more when we return here on Terry’s Talking. Hey, we’re back on Terry’s Talking. We need to mention, Terry, this is the last book signing that you have coming up for your new book. Why can’t this Team Just Find a Quarterback? And other thoughts on life in Brownstown. It’s going to be taping this on Tuesday and it’s going to be Wednesday night in Westlake, right at the Barnes and Noble at Crocker.
Terry Pluto: Yep. 6:30. Yeah, Crocker Park. Usually the crowds are big and I’ll even try to get there a little earlier around 6:15 to start signing and hopefully there’ll be a lot of people there. But Crocker Park’s nice. Around Christmas time. Anyway.
David Campbell: Yeah, they got the huge tree. You can walk around. It’s very festive. So, yeah, make a nice evening of it. Again, it’s December 10th, which is tomorrow, Wednesday 6:30 at the Barnes and Noble at Crocker park in Westlake. And if you want to check out Terry’s new book, terryplutobook.com you can see it all there and everything you need, if you want to order one, makes a great Christmas Christmas present. So get in on that right away. All right. Cavaliers, Terry, 14 and 11. They lost to the depleted Golden State warriors on Saturday night, 99 to 94. There were some booze heard. Fans were not happy with the effort or the outcome.
David Campbell: This has been. I know I knew people thought it would be a little bit different than last year because of the winning streak last year and just the missing parts this year. But this has been way tougher and way more jumbled than I think people thought it would be. Right. What do you see?
Terry Pluto: The. Well, one of the things that happens is when you bring players back off injury, oftentimes they have a good game or two. Darius did, for example. But I remember Lenny Wilkins, by the way, Lenny Wilkins got quoted in my Brown thing because if he were coaching that game the other night afterwards, he would say we were discombobulated. That was his word, discombobulated. Because we also got. How do you spell that? That was back before. You just go right on the Internet and come up with it. But they look discombobulated, which is you don’t know you’re right from left or up from down, I think is one of the definitions. But Lenny would also say you have to be careful. When a guy’s been off for quite a while and he comes back, has a good game or two, you think, oh, he’s going to be fine. He said, no, those are adrenaline games. He goes, the guy’s body is not ready for, you know, consistent NBA minutes and that. It’s going to take a while. And really, Darius, to me, I think he’s only shooting 34% from the field and also on three pointers.
Terry Pluto: He always has struggled on defense, but if you watch him, he’s having a hard time dribbling around guys, too. I mean, he had major foot surgery. It was major foot surgery. And then on top of it, Jared Allen played all 82 games last year. And, you know, fans always get mad at Allen and this and that. But one thing, Allen, when he’s out there with Mobley, that gives you a much better defensive presence. And he. Those two guys, they can really help you clean up the message that when you have two small guards, like you have Donovan and you have Darius in terms of being able to defend the basket and jump out on click and rolls, all kinds of things. So those are two things that are causing problems. And then also I think the. Let’s unlock Evan Mobley and had him, remember, handling the ball and firing up three pointers and all that stuff. Suddenly you almost had him playing into his weaknesses.
Terry Pluto: And by the way, he’s not a bad passer at all. And there’s. There are times when it’s okay for him to bring the ball off the floor, but I don’t want him to try to turn into this guy that’s like going to just dominate the ball. That’s not him. You want him scoring kind of the flow of the action and the best things he does.
Terry Pluto: Is defend. And also when he has his mindset, he can score inside with his little jump hook. I mean, Brad Dougherty beats it to death every time in the broadcast, but Brad’s right. The jump hook is a really nice shot. And the other thing happens when you miss a jump hook sometimes you yourself are in position to get your own offensive rebound, or at least it’s not banging 20ft off the rim where they’re taking it down the other end and making a layup. And it’s. So in other words, and something that seems like nobody cares about anymore in the NBA, you never hear it mentioned. You can draw files.
David Campbell: So we’ve kind of been talking about Mobley the last few weeks, Terry, and to sum up kind of where you’re at, you would rather see him be the player he’s been.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: Instead of the player everybody wants him to be. You want him to go back to doing well what he’s done before and grow.
Terry Pluto: I mean, doing well. Yeah. 18 to 20 points and nine to 11 rebounds would be in defensive player of the year. It’s an all star.
Terry Pluto: It’s an all Star. And then as he continues and if his game continue. Yeah, he could take a three pointer now and then or take one or two a game. I don’t want to see him shooting six. Because I’ll tell you one thing, when he misses it, it’s a line drive off the front of the rim. I mean, it’s like something off of Jose Ramirez bat. I mean, it’s just banged up going, I’m not this telling the truth. And you know, he has a tendency, if you watch where he gets into some bad Habit. Sometimes the foul line, his legs get real stiff and he just firing it off. He’s not a natural shooter. He’s really made himself a lot better. But I also would like to see him develop more moves around the rim because the league is smaller. He’s one, you know, he can play center in that. And, and I, I, I’m glad Kenny is, is been beating them to death about their.
Terry Pluto: Heading into the weekend. I haven’t looked at stats the last few days. They were leading the league in three point attempts and 22nd and three point percentage. As I wrote, even my Benedictine math, which may not be analytical, but Benedictine math says that is not a good thing.
Terry Pluto: And Kenny has been saying a couple times, he goes, there’s at least four or five three pointers every game. We think, well, you know, if we were just a little more patient, we could have got the ball inside. And I know he’s been after them where sometimes you see a guy’s four feet from the basket and he fires the ball over this guy in the corner for, you know, I know they Koshek for the open three pointer from the corner. But my favorite line, yes, three is better than two, but two is certainly better than none. And when you’re three feet or four feet from the basket, you’re probably going to make that shot 80% of the time.
David Campbell: And take known as the Jared Allen corollary.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, take the two. Right. You know, and Evan does it sometimes too. He’ll fire it out there. You’re not going for the assist title here.
David Campbell: All right. Can we go back to Garland for a second?
Terry Pluto: Sure.
David Campbell: So I would like. What would you do with him? If you’re Kenny Atkins, I want to run through the last five games.
Terry Pluto: Go ahead. Yeah.
David Campbell: All right.
Terry Pluto: Go ahead.
David Campbell: November 23rd against the Clippers, Darius Garland was 3 of 10. From the field he was zero. Plus minus. He had eight points. All right. Against Atlanta on the 28th of November, he was 6 of 14. From the field, he had 15 points. He was minus 18 that night.
Terry Pluto: What was he from on threes in these games?
David Campbell: You want me to just run, want me to add him up at the end or go, let me go through this and I’ll add them all up at the end.
Terry Pluto: Yeah. Okay.
David Campbell: November 30th against Boston, Garland was 7 of 16. From the field he had 21 points. He was minus 27 and plus minus. The December 3rd game against Portland, the Cavs lost 122 to 110. He was 2 of 13. From the field, he was minus 8 and he finished with 6 points. And then the Golden State game the other night, he finished 6 of 15 from the field, 17 points and he was minus 14. To go back to your question about the three pointers, he has made seven. I’m just adding these up in my head now.
Terry Pluto: Out of 30.
Terry Pluto: More Benedictine math will tell you that is not even 25% because 7 times 4 is 28 and he’s 7 out of 30. So we’ll say he less than 25%. It’s not good. He. He’s. See the foot things a problem.
David Campbell: So he’s. He’s been playing 32 minutes. 29, 31, 33, 29. The Cavs have been resting him on back to backs. Like, what do you do? How do you. How do you get him back into what he.
Terry Pluto: I mean, if that foot’s not right.
Terry Pluto: And he’s playing like something’s wrong.
Terry Pluto: Sit him for a couple weeks.
David Campbell: And let him get right.
Terry Pluto: He let him get right because he’s part of the reason for that plus minus being so bad is his defense.
Terry Pluto: You know, Chris Fedor does a good job of breaking down how they quote, target him. You know, they’ll set a pick and roll thing and put him and he ends up on the, on the. On a really tough scoring guard to defend. And. But he’s. He’s. He’s just struggling and see, he’s not. The reason the shooting percentage is down too is he’s not getting to the rim for his kind of floaters or whatever. It’s just not happening for him.
David Campbell: I wonder if they would have him spend a few games with Canton just to get some minutes and they could.
Terry Pluto: Or, or if this footage.
Terry Pluto: If he’s not really in public hall now. Yeah, I don’t know. I’ve that. By the way, that I am going to a charge game this year. I got to see the new public call.
David Campbell: Oh, yeah.
Terry Pluto: It looks like a remarkable place.
David Campbell: Yeah. Yeah. Lovely building. So.
Terry Pluto: So. And then you turn. Because if you look at that.
Terry Pluto: You can go a couple ways. If you don’t start Garland. I mean, you could put. You could put Tyson, Jalen, Tyson, the backcourt and go big back there with him because he’ll guard anybody. You could, you could start Porter, you know, if you want to go more athletic. And this is not. I’m just. You have to accept what you got, what you’re looking at. You just did the stats and him playing 30 minutes. I mean, probably the plus minus average, there was about minus 17.
David Campbell: All right. Anything else on the Cavs. Terry, there’s a lot there to think about.
Terry Pluto: I’m glad they have some time off and you know, so the Kenny could work on some of the things they want to do. I remember the game that.
Terry Pluto: Where they really just started going to the rim more and that you just. I what I think.
Terry Pluto: When you keep stressing take the three pointers, take the three pointers, it eventually leads to some very lazy offense. Especially if your ball handling isn’t what it was last year. Their spacing and throwing the extra pass was so good that most of the time the three pointers they took were in really good flow of the offense. But when you’re lazy with it, then you’re just kind of dribbling down and some guy fires up a three they haven’t even got set up or whatever or you know, he’s not just at the arc, he’s about another five feet behind the arc. But I could take one from here anyway and it really wrecks your percentage and also I just think impacts your defense. It’s just not as good. So that’s good week.
David Campbell: Yeah, it’s a good week for the Cavs to be able to get some practices and a lot of times back to backs and three and four nights or four and seven, you don’t get to do that. But the Cavs not playing until Friday they are playing at the Wizards. Then Sunday they’re home against Charlotte at 3:30. Then next Wednesday and Friday they have an at Chicago and versus Chicago.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, I mean that’s one time to win some games without with those opponents. But if you play like you did, it gets going state. It doesn’t matter.
David Campbell: Yeah. All right, let’s talk some baseball. Terry. The Guardians are down at the winter meetings and that’s actually where Paul Hoynes found out last night that he had been elected to the hall of Fame.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, how about that.
David Campbell: We learned some stuff about some of the prospects from Chris Antonetti yesterday, including that Travis Bazzano, the number one overall pick in 2024 in the draft, is going to play for Australia in the World Baseball Classic. Some other, you know, options being picked up with George Valera and and things like that. They also said Chase Dilaudor is going to get a chance to play in center and right field in spring training. They want to make sure he stays healthy, but I don’t know. There’s kind of a lot of a lot of tidbits here. Corey Kluber is going to be back as a pitching consultant, which was good to see anything Else you wanted to get into here out of what’s going on with the Guardians?
Terry Pluto: Well, their center fielders last year hit.211 with a.617 OPS. But the right fielders, they hit.200 exactly with a.602 OPS. I’m open to suggestions. In fact, I would ask Chase. You want to play both?
Terry Pluto: I feel better about you than whoever that conglomerate conglomeration was.
Terry Pluto: The. So that’s. Did you have a thing? An email you sent me from Elliot. Go get to that one.
David Campbell: Oh, sure.
Terry Pluto: Yeah.
David Campbell: This is from Elliot. He says the Guardians tried to bolster their offense a couple years ago with Lane Thomas, a good base stealer, decent outfielder who had a bit. Who had hit a bunch of home runs. It didn’t work out very well, but they need to try it again. Also pencil Dilaudoran and give him a long shot at making center field. Lots of guys to sort out in spring training. Shortstop, second base, outfield. With the Yankees keep on their roster a.161 hitter with 10 RBIs in 65 games last year. I’m sure Austin Hedges is a great guy and a good defensive catcher. But morale is the job of the manager, coaches and stars like Jose who earn their teammates respect by the way they play. No way is hedges worth 4 million. The fifth soon to be fourth highest salary. He should have been non tenured. And if every other team passed on him, very possible consider bringing him back for a lot less money. And that is Elliott’s two cents.
Terry Pluto: All right. Who is the Yankees backup catcher?
David Campbell: I have no idea.
Terry Pluto: Okay. Juan Oscaro. And you know what? He hit 202.
David Campbell: Oh, okay.
Terry Pluto: Okay. And you know the Dodgers backup catcher is.
David Campbell: I don’t tell me.
Terry Pluto: Dalton Rushling. He had 204. All right. Is Hedges a little worse than these guys? Yeah, I would venture to say he’s probably better defensively than them because he is one of the most elite defensive catchers. And that’s not just an opinion. There’s a lot of stats to show that to me. Sweat the backup catcher. When I just read the stats. You don’t have a center fielder and you don’t have a right fielder. And if you say let’s just not pay Hedges, let’s go do a $3 million plug in the or $4 million plug in that outfield spot isn’t going to fix it.
Terry Pluto: If.
Terry Pluto: Voter thinks Hedges is worth it and the pitching coaches think he’s worth it. And that is fine with me. I’m just. That’s it. And I just. He is A great defensive catcher. The Earl Weaver thing that he was. Been a while since I get an Earl Weaver story, but I forgot what player it was. And I say, you know about this guy and he’s at Pluto. What does he do? So what do you mean? He goes, well, tell me one thing he does is like above average. One thing. What does he do? And a player was like, sort of, you know what he is? He’s mediocre, to bad and everything.
Terry Pluto: He goes, I want a guy that I know there’s one thing he can do. Then I got something to do with him. They know, for example, Hedges could take us. They’ll put him behind the plate when there’s a younger pitcher who’s struggling back there. And they know that he can. He makes a difference. Remember when Bo Naylor was having problems blocking balls? He was coming into the game in the ninth inning to catch. And by the way, now in the light of what we see, he was to catch classe because he was throwing balls in the dirt.
Terry Pluto: On purpose.
David Campbell: How about that all comes around? Yeah, I know. It’s easy for. Oh, I know. I go back.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, but just think about that for a minute. It’s like he voted and nobody knew he was throwing pitches intentionally. He just knew they were going in the dirt. And he knew that I needed my best guy to tackle these pitches in the dirt. And so he actually was subbing out for his catcher. He did that a couple of times.
David Campbell: Last year, and we’ve seen the videos of the pitches that were in the indictment. It’s like Hedges is just getting crushed by, you know, 96 mile an hour.
Terry Pluto: He was like the Secret Service tackling the guy to the. You know, it’s just like that. There’s no way I could do any. But the. The point is, what’s the one thing he could do? He could do that. And he also throws out runners and he calls a good game and all that.
David Campbell: You have your Earl Weaver reference. I’m going to throw it. We haven’t had a Moneyball reference in a while, but there’s the scene where they say, are we going to win more games with Scott Hatterberg or, oh, my God, who was the first?
Terry Pluto: Yeah, yeah.
David Campbell: Are we going to win more games with Hatterberg or Pena at first base? And he goes, well, it’ll. It’s Hatterberg, but just by a little bit. And it’s like, what are we talking about? So that’s what the guardians do. Like, they know. They know what Hedges is batting average is in his ops. But they. They figure out runs saved and the pitcher’s performance when he’s in the game versus when he’s not. And it’s like, will we win more games with Austin Hedges on our team or one of these other backup catchers? And they’ve decided Austin Hedges is the answer. So that’s what they went with.
Terry Pluto: And they decided, I know this for a fact, that Jose was not happy when Hedges was let go a couple years ago. And he was thrilled. And he made this known. And he was thrilled because he believes you could say morale. But you need certain guys to help run the clubhouse. They have some kind of chemistry there where you come from 15 back in August to win the Central Division. I mean, there are some guys, not just vote, but some guys run in that room said, we are not quitting. And, you know, you got to kind of get through me if you think you’re going to quit.
David Campbell: All right, okay. The winter meetings are still going on and Hoynsi will be covering that. We’ll see what comes out of it. It seems like a lot of times, Terry, the guardians don’t do something at the meetings, but sometimes shortly after, as the discussions happen. So I guess we will see how that all goes.
Terry Pluto: So, you know, I wrote my. My pro, my prospect thing over the weekend because I saw the Baseball America came out and somebody else it’s, look, I get Travis Bazzona was the number one pick in the draft. Travis Bazan is not their best prospect. I’m not saying he’s going to fail. He’s not their best prospect. Their best prospect is Chase the Water. I mean, the numbers show that when Chase could just stay on the field, not break his foot or pull a hamstring, he hits. And, you know, you can look at him. He could play center, he could play right. I mean, I remember he made a play in the playoffs. I mean, this was like he had no regular season games. He throws a guy out of third base. I mean, his baseball instincts are there. He threw 92 miles an hour as a closer at James Madison when he wasn’t playing the outfield. I mean, this guy, I fell in baseball love with them on his first year. And he’s playing at Lake County. I saw him in a doubleheader and I see him with. He’s 62 or 63 and 215 or whatever he is. I mean, I just like, they haven’t an outfit are looking like this in a long time. And you just. He passes the eye test. He doesn’t strike out a Ton, you know, he’s their, their best prospect. I mean, Valero, who I never was particularly high on, did show some stuff when he came up later in the year, you know, he finally got healthy. Rafi Valisquez is a guy that I wrote about. If you haven’t read this, my prospect story, go look it up. Was over the weekend I watched him a double header at Akron. And what he’s a left hand hitter. But what I liked, it’s something that I saw in Kyle Manzardo on the tapes. When they traded for him before he even played a game, he hit like doubles to left center and that it wasn’t just pulling everything to right. And the ball seemed to make it, as they say, a good sound off the bat. And so those are things that I looked at. You know, Valoquez is a first baseman. He was originally drafted as a catcher out of high school. I don’t know if he could play the outfield now. Interesting. You know, Breido’s finally coming back, you know, because he’s been my guy. You know, he had just had a year of a broken thumb and then what must have been some sort of torn hamstring because he did surgery on him and now he’s back. You know, they played him a little bit in the outfield in the minors. Now he’s been a second baseman mostly, but.
Terry Pluto: I’m just saying 211 and center. 200 in right field, you got, you got to be really open to options for out there.
David Campbell: Yeah, and Cafe is too. I mean, they’ve been really grooming him for a shot.
Terry Pluto: He’s not bad. He’s not bad in right field. We’ll have to see if he could hit. So there’s a lot of, you know, first base is open there whether you want to play Manzaro or the dh. What they need to do though, is if they go for one of these guys for 7 million or 9 million, whether it’s Paul Seawald at 7 million or Carlos at 9 or 10 million, you got to kind of hit on them that they, that they can help you some and they’ve missed on some of those guys.
David Campbell: All right, well, be sure to follow all of Hoynsey’s coverage from florida@cleveland.com guardians and Terry, you mentioned your discombobulated column.
Terry Pluto: Yes.
David Campbell: Is just. I love when you tie the different sports together and that certainly wraps up what we discussed.
Terry Pluto: It’s like when you can’t even explain what’s going on. It’s discombobulated.
David Campbell: Go to cleveland.com Pluto and you will see that column there. And also while you’re there, you can sign up for Terry’s weekly newsletter. Go to the blue bar at the top. Click on that. I think you get two weeks free. The newsletter comes out every Wednesday and it’s always jammed full of good stuff.
Terry Pluto: Right. And if you’re a subscriber, you get it, right? You can get it.
David Campbell: Yeah. Subscribers get it automatically. So. And if you don’t, email us@sportsclevellevan.com we’ll help you get it sorted out.
Terry Pluto: Well, I just wrote a faith column and I asked readers for suggestions for different Christmas gifts. You know, it’s always good to let the readers write the stuff because some there were different ones. But one guy said to me, said a cool thing. He said, he goes to. He picks like 10 different kind of gas station, convenience store type places. He says he goes in during the holidays, he picks 10 of them and he buys like coffee or some water and he hands the guy a 20 or the woman behind the thing and they go to give him. He goes, no, you keep the change. And so that reminded me now those of us of a certain age. There was a song called Taxi by Harry Chapin, who was a folk singer and all that, 60s and 70s, and he was one of my favorites there. And Harry has a line in the song Taxi where he’s a cab driver and he picks up his old girlfriend and she’s married to a rich guy. And, you know, like it’s one of those what could have been things. And he’s driving his cab and he goes, she hand me $20 for a 250 fare. And she said, harry, keep the change. And then she walks off, you know, up to her gated house, and he’s there in the cab. So this was a Harry Chapin keep the change moment. It’s a 250 thing for the 20. So Harry gets mentioned in my there. But I did get to interview Harry because I was back when I was at the Point. You were the first time they had the Sunday magazine. So sometimes I wrote stuff that was not sports, just things I was interested in. I remember I also wrote a story one time went to. I didn’t realize it was kind of a preclude to me my interest in the penal system, that I went over to one of the juvenile detention homes and spent some time there for a story. But I wanted to write Harry. So I forgot how I got the opening. And he was at the old front row in there. Oh, yeah. Come on down. So it’s like, you know, I spent like, the whole afternoon and day with him, and he was just. You know, he’s like. He came across as the Everman guy. He kind of like the folk version of Bruce Springsteen. You wrote about working class guys and this. And I learned two things from him that stuck with me. Number one, afterwards, I watched how he would sign autographs. He’s watched, like, for an hour or so, just, like, all these people that came. And his brother was in the band, I guess. Yeah, Harry does that all the time. We gotta wait for him. And the other thing I said to him, because he worked a lot, you know, the different concerts. And I said, well, it looks like this is exhausting because, you know, you put yourself out there. And I know when I do public speaking and that it is. He says, you know what I do? Because they don’t know. But maybe about 15 minutes or so before the show, he goes. I just go. And I kind of peek from behind the curtain or the stage, and I look out there and I see all those people. And I think, this is maybe the only time they ever see me. And they came to see me. He says, I’ve got to give them what I have. And that stuck with me. Like, when I go out to speak at a library or jail or wherever it is. It’s been a while for jail, but the Haven arrest. I look at them sometimes coming in and I think, you know, these people now, the Haven arrested coming anyway. But still, these people are here to see. And I am blessed to be in that spot. And again, I learned this from Harry, and I’ll tell you, less than a year before, after I did that column, was when he. Or that. The long story is when he passed away in a. In a car wreck at the age of 38. And so, anyway.
David Campbell: They always talk about the most valuable thing we have, and time is the most valuable thing.
Terry Pluto: It really is.
David Campbell: People are giving you their time. I really love that. So he used to look out and he would just appreciate all the people spending their time.
Terry Pluto: Because sometimes I go, I wonder. I know some came from far away and in. My guess is probably Springsteen. Some of these other people that, you know, are really good performers and do that have the same mindset.
David Campbell: Yeah.
Terry Pluto: And I know some of the baseball players. I can’t remember who was Willie Mays or somebody like that said that. I realized this may be the only time they’ll get to see me play.
Terry Pluto: Yeah, it was one of the greats. Yeah. Yeah.
David Campbell: Of course, his most Famous song was Cats in the Cradle, which is a long time favorite, a lot of people. So it’s yes in the day with him.
Terry Pluto: Really? Yeah, I did. And.
Terry Pluto: He was, he was telling me, you know, I said, how’d you get going? Or whatever. He says. And his brother yells over, you’re gonna tell him what you did, Harry? I’ll tell him. He goes, so we get into town, this is when he was starting out. He goes, we may have like a week gig someplace. He goes, so the first night we’d play and it wasn’t that good. He goes, I called different radio stations ago. Hey, I went and seen this guy, Harry Chapin, you know, he’s down at the Blue guy. He’s great. You know, in fact, you ought to get him on the air. I’m telling you, he’s gonna be a star. It was Harry doing it himself, you know, grassroots. It was. Yeah, it was kind of like he and I could just. His personality, whatever. Yeah, I could see that. It’s like, well, you know, one of the things I’ve learned in the book business is nobody cares about your book as much as you do because a lot of people write books or whatever and they think that, oh, there’s publicity’s machine or whatever. Yeah, fine, if you’re Stephen King or whatever. But for the most part, the average author, nobody cares about your book as much as you do. And you better realize that the same thing when you’re those. Unless you’re the superstar level or you’re starting out, nobody’s going to care about you as much as you do and your music. So you better figure out how to get it out there.
David Campbell: Yeah, call the bookstores and tell them about this great book that somebody.
David Campbell: All right, I do have an email here at the end. Terry, I think we’re about ready to wrap up here. But Browns fans could use a little bit of encouragement and levity here. Certainly Shador Sanders gave them something to look forward to on Sunday. But here’s a wrap up email from David Looked from Wilmington, North Carolina, and he says, hey guys. I’m really enjoying, though, getting depressed. At the same time, reading Terry’s new book, it brought to mind a funny story. After the 2020 season, I signed up for the NFL Sunday Ticket Package, wanting to see the new and improved Browns down here in North Carolina. Next came the disastrous 2021 season. When it came time to renew the Sunday ticket package for 2022, I called customer service to cancel. As they always do. The customer service rep started to say, before you cancel. Let me see if you’d be interested in I interrupted her and I said, ma’, am, I’m a Browns fan. She responded, I’ll cancel you right away.
David Campbell: Fastest cancellation of service ever. Thanks for all you do. Go calves again. That’s David Looked from Wilmington, North Carolina. So I thought that was a little. It was a great funny story.
Terry Pluto: I’ll tell you one thing, I wish I could have canceled covering that 22 season two, by the way.
David Campbell: All right. We got Browns playing on Sunday at 1 o’ clock in Chicago. And I do want to mention if you want to hit us with an email thought or comment on the podcast again, the email is sports cleveland.com if you want to send a note to Paul Hoynes. So congratulate him. I will get it. Make sure it gets his way, too. So anything else, Terry? I think we’re done, right?
Terry Pluto: That’ll do it.
David Campbell: All right. We will see you next week on Terry’s Talking.