The Browns without Deshaun Watson; Cavs’ high hopes; Guardians’ most important decision: Terry’s Talkin’ podcast

David Campbell (00:46.156)

Hey everybody, welcome to this week’s Terry’s Talking podcast. I’m David Campbell, your host. I’m a little under the weather. If I sound like Barry White, you’ll know why. And I’m joined by Mr. Terry Pluto, award winning columnist from the plane dealer in cleveland.com. How are you, Terry?

Terry Pluto (01:01.982)

You dated yourself with Barry White, but I am fine. Everybody’s going, who did he play for?

David Campbell (01:08.354)

That’s right. Yeah. was a great running back for the lions. If I remember Barry white, right? Yeah. There you go. we got a lot to do today, Terry. I think we should probably start with the Browns, but I know we want to talk about the calves. do you want to make a calf season prediction or we’ll, we’ll figure that out later or I don’t know how you feel about the calves. You want to make a prediction and number wise or should we

Terry Pluto (01:13.727)

One of those berries, Sanders, yep.

Terry Pluto (01:30.272)

I give them 49 wins.

David Campbell (01:36.206)

Okay, that sounds good. So we’ll get into that too. We’ve got a lot of Brown’s emails from people this week. And so let’s start with that, Terry. A one in 16 that loses their franchise quarterback on Sunday to an Achilles injury. You got a very interesting email about what happened with the fans on Sunday. I thought maybe we would start with that. We’ll just talk about the Sean Watson here just to get into it. So this first one is from

Terry Pluto (01:42.111)

Yes.

David Campbell (02:05.042)

I’m just going to read the letter. It’s from Tony and Tony writes, Hey Terry, I just read your article. I was there in section 118 for the couch event. I am still there in 118 and this was much louder and widespread. If people want to cheer for the backup QB when he trots out after the injured player has taken off the field, that is fine with me. In Cleveland, everyone loves the backup QB, but to hear people cheering and to see them high-fiving when the cart comes out on the field to cart someone off is disgusting.

Terry Pluto (02:06.42)

Yeah.

David Campbell (02:34.122)

I said something to the guy right in front of me, but he kept right on going. It’s a shame our society has gotten to this point. It seems like the internet trolls are now bleeding into the real world and people think behavior is acceptable. Thought I would just confirm what you had heard from others. Makes me ashamed to be a Rounds fan. Not because of the team’s play. I can deal with that, but because of the fans behavior. If this is what sports is becoming with all the vitriol and gambling, I am at the point where I just want to opt out. Kind regards, Tony.

Here’s another letter and then we can just talk about Deshaun and the whole situation. Terry, one, hey Terry and Dave. This is from Jefferson Wolf in Chester, Virginia. Jefferson says, at this point, I’ve gone from disinterested in the team to watching through binoculars from behind lead-lined walls as the whole season goes up in a mushroom cloud. It seems like maybe Deshaun Watson has played his last game with the team and if so, he may sweep everyone in the front office and coaching staff with him.

You heard it here first, this off season Haslam will hire Tampa Bay assistant GM John Spitek as GM and offensive coordinator Liam Cohen as head coach because of the great work they did bringing Baker Mayfield’s career back from the dead. I’m not sure there’s any reincarnation anytime soon for this franchise though. There may not be much in the smoking crater that will be left after this season. We may have to wait several half lives before it can support any kind of new life. Maybe after the Guardians lost.

Terry Pluto (03:44.881)

Hahaha!

You

David Campbell (04:00.728)

In the latest entry in this awful Brown season, I’m being too negative, but I’m almost at the point where if the Haslams decided to move the team, I might just volunteer to help load the moving vans. I wish I had something brilliant to end this with and tie it all together. I would just love to yell, I quit and walk away. But like all of us Cleveland sports fans, can’t, or maybe I don’t really want to. In my youth, my mom was extremely dedicated to watching the Indians. She would stay up through the most horrific of losses. I’d ask her why she did that to herself.

Maybe at age 54, I need to answer that one for myself. And again, that’s Jefferson Wolf from Chester, Virginia. So.

Terry Pluto (04:35.956)

Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson, never let the millionaires ruin your day. It’s one of my sayings and it goes back to Joe Tate and I both kind of came up with that together one time. And basically you won’t ruin theirs. The moving the franchise thing is like way over the top because no matter how bad it is or whatever, anybody who lived through

David Campbell (04:42.908)

That’s right.

Terry Pluto (05:04.832)

95 when they left until they returned in 99 and then the ramifications of that know that that was very traumatic for a community that got beyond the millionaires doing stupid things and and that that was a We don’t need a replay of that. We actually just need somebody to get the football right. That’s really what we’re talking about

David Campbell (05:28.942)

All right, well, let’s unpack this one by one here, Terry. The fan reaction, and again, it was some fans at the game, and as we just heard, it happened, and some of the fans were high-fiving. have an eyewitness account.

Terry Pluto (05:30.76)

Okay.

Terry Pluto (05:35.189)

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (05:44.342)

I wasn’t surprised with how the players banded together after the game called this out. What have you been hearing from fans and what was your reaction to that?

Terry Pluto (05:46.796)

Sure.

Terry Pluto (05:50.944)

A vast majority of them basically agreed with Miles Garrett was very thoughtful about how we all have to do better and that sort of thing. The vast majority I heard about that. Others said, well, you don’t understand. We weren’t booing Deshaun. We’re booing the whole team because they stink in that. I just think that that’s a, you could boo every time they go three and out, you could boo they throw an interception, you can boo all those things, performance.

It was very evident within a minute that Deshaun was seriously hurt. All the ready gathering around them and that, and I just don’t buy it. In my column, I wrote, even if it was only 10%, let’s just say it was. That’s still 6,000 people. And when this rest of everybody else is very quiet because of a guy hurt on the field and the players are very sensitive, that sounds like a roar to them. And it’s just, these are people, they get hurt.

there aren’t too many jobs other than, know, law enforcement safety, you know, maybe the guys that go up on the telephone poles and that kind of stuff, you know, up on top of skyscrapers. mean, you know, a small percentage of people where they go to their job that day. And there’s actually a decent chance. And that’d mean decent in terms of more than just minuscule of an opportunity. can get seriously hurt. Football is one of those jobs.

And especially players I know get very freaked out when they see a guy who isn’t even hit and just goes down. Cause in the back of their mind, it’s like that could be my knee, that could be my Achilles, that could be my whatever. so, I mean, it’s indefensible for that. And my column did not indict all the fans at all, but it just said, Hey, I thought Garrett made good points and

And most fans I think do get it. I mean, the, email I used in that, you know, got, got wrote, don’t even like to Sean Watson, but Hey, that was just bad.

David Campbell (08:00.704)

Okay. And then, you know, one of the things to mention, Terry, in the press box, it’s very hard to hear that kind of thing because it’s encased in glass and we can’t really hear the, we can kind of hear when the crowd’s going really loud cheering, but that kind of nuanced thing was very hard. So I think some of the reporters were really taken aback with how prevalent this apparently was. Yeah.

Terry Pluto (08:05.843)

Yes, very.

Terry Pluto (08:19.264)

I was, yes, yeah, I was, but I, but it definitely happened. Too many guys brought it up and then, you know, some fans have been writing to the couch thing was really bad. Cause I remember actually hearing that at that game, Tim got slammed in the, in the, end zone by Baltimore, suffered what turned out to be pretty significant concussion. The mistake they made back in this is 2002 is Tim was always very responsible.

I need to do my job. So afterwards, even though he didn’t come back in the game, he wanted to talk to the media. And Todd Stewart is a friend of mine with the PR guy back then. Todd said, no, you don’t have to, got to, but no, Tim insisted. And the middle of it, Tim just kind of broke down in tears. And I mean, he was all beat up. He was scared because of the concussion and what it’s doing to his head. As Todd Stewart told me now, we never would do it because you know a lot more about concussions. I mean, back then it was, he got a ding in the head.

You know, well, then we know what that means, but that was ugly too. And, know, as couch mentioned, you know, he came in in 99, he took, you know, your record number of sacks, you know, the pounding he took for the Browns. And the interesting thing about couch and I’ve written about this and, both in the paper and, and online and also at length and, my browse blues book is how much Tim still left the Browns. He watches the games all the time.

I mean, I made him tell me that that’s true. I kept saying, are you kidding me? Cause I expected him to be kind of distant, but he lives down in Lexington, Kentucky and still loves it. And he says that, fans, send him an email or a on Twitter all the time, X all the time from Brown’s fans. And whenever he’s in town, they’re great to him. So that’s the really good thing there. Cause I think people look at couch much differently than.

Watson, know, couch was drafted there as a kid. He took a beating with that expansion thing. In a sense, he’s almost was like a victim of the move because he had to go in there and try to help pick up the pieces. Yeah. No, anything really. I remember one time this is I’m talking to Chris Palmer and I don’t know whether it was 1999 or 2000, but regardless. I said to Chris one time, I said,

David Campbell (10:29.11)

No offensive line. Yeah.

Terry Pluto (10:45.984)

You know couch is getting killed. Can’t you do some play action or something? He says first of all, goes you sound like my wife then he says secondly Our running back right now is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar not the center the running back and I think he buddy He goes now pretend you’re the opposing defensive coordinator if you’re watching Tim couch and he fakes the ball To Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, you’re probably saying fine. Give it to him

David Campbell (10:54.042)

Thank

Terry Pluto (11:16.5)

He said, and then, and actually it was a great point though. Danny went into a lesson with me. He was by nature. He was a teacher. said, how, know, how you value your own team. pretend you’re the opposing coordinator. And then he actually made me all right. You’re facing the Browns this week. Who are worried about on offense? I said, well, Kevin Johnson’s pretty good. goes, okay, I’ll give you that. And I forgot they made me one other player that was pretty good or two, but the running backs were terrible. And, you know, Tim was just taking a beating. said,

David Campbell (11:16.578)

ready. Yeah.

Terry Pluto (11:45.14)

Well, that’s really how you evaluate it. So that’s a fun thing, by the way, for fans to do. right, before the game, know, mean, pretend you’re the Ravens this week. I who are you worried about? You know, all that kind of stuff.

David Campbell (11:56.608)

Right. I got to say, Terry, that there’s between the contract and the way the signing was happening. You wrote about this in your newsletter today. If you want to sign up, click out, check out cleveland.com slash Pluto. There’s a blue bar at the top, but, the, the way the signing and the, the contract, there was so much baggage that was brought into this situation. But when I was watching and Watson was being carted off and he broke down in tears.

Terry Pluto (12:18.172)

Ugh.

Terry Pluto (12:25.813)

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (12:25.964)

Like that was the first kind of human moment that I feel like that, that if you’re a Browns fan and you see that, that’s like the first human moment that you’ve felt about your quarterback because everything else has been, you know, 230 million and all the lawsuits and just, just bitter, bitter relationship for a lot of fans from day one. And that was like, it was a very human moment. And I don’t know how Browns fans are going to feel. It might not change anything a year from now.

Terry Pluto (12:30.026)

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (12:55.586)

when he’s had his Achilles surgery and come back. say what you will about the Sean Watson, but I think in that moment, you had to realize he has tried to make this work and he’s worked very hard to make it work and it’s not working. And I think we saw in that moment that he broke down and realized that this experiment may end up being a failure and it’s not going to work and all that hard work that he had put in. It was just a very human moment, I thought.

in terms of the relationship between him and the fans.

Terry Pluto (13:27.444)

I also thought too, it’s different, maybe slightly different. As somebody who’s actually blown an Achilles, first of all, you feel like someone either stepped on the back of your foot and it wouldn’t go forward or you got shot in the back of your foot. In fact, when I was just dribbling the ball at the court, like at the Y, there’s nobody around me and down I went and I kept looking around like who stepped on me? Because you, like he took, you take one step, suddenly your foot won’t work at all. Then you know,

this is really, really bad. Something bad just happened to me. Now, if you’re D’Shawn, something bad just happened to you last year with your shoulder. So now it’s the shoulder, now it’s the foot, and part of it is knowing here comes surgery, here comes rehab, you don’t know the full extent, but you know something right then and there, terrible, and all that that meant. So it’s not just there, I just think that…

He went into a very dark place of like.

He’s not in just to cash the check and I don’t like Watson at all. But I mean, I never had any indication he was just there to cash the check and you I ran a game on the Browns and I win. He wants to play and he does want to win and he wants to be successful. He’s tired of people making fun of him. I’m sure of that. And he probably knows the only way he can get back, you know, quite a bit of credibility with people at the very least rebuild it.

David Campbell (14:45.783)

And he wants to win.

Terry Pluto (14:59.328)

is to play well and now you look at the fact his grand total of games with the Browns is now 19. He’s only finished 17 of those. Two of them he got hurt and so there you go. That’s that’s it.

David Campbell (15:18.626)

All right, Terry, where do you think the Browns should go from here? There’s short term in terms of the rest of the season, and then there’s going to be some roster building that’s going to be happening at the quarterback position as this thing goes along. But what do you think they should do going into next season? It’ll probably take the better part of a year for Deshaun Watson to rehab and come back. So anyway, let’s talk about the short term first. Who do you want to see start Sunday?

Terry Pluto (15:26.154)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (15:43.936)

I want to see, want to definitely Jeff James Winston. want Winston to play several games among other reasons. I just want to, and we talked about this a few weeks ago. I want to see what the offense looks like with somebody else besides the Sean in there. Is it this awful just because the team is just awful or was there something about the way to Sean played that led to, they couldn’t even score 20 points a game.

David Campbell (16:09.09)

I like that, Terry. And I’ll tell you why, because this season is over and the rest of it is all about gathering data. And if you want to learn about DTR, a good way to do that, I think you’re making a really good point is like, let’s find out what this offense looks like with a competent NFL quarterback that we know can play running it. And then maybe later in the season, you put DTR back in and see what it looks like then with a different quarterback running it. So I think that’s really smart.

Terry Pluto (16:15.668)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (16:35.178)

By the way, you know, I’m a little concerned about DTR’s durability now too. Remember last year, didn’t have a concussion and he got something else, a shoulder or something else. Because he likes to run the ball and he’s slight, you know, he’s not well put together. So that’s something else to keep in mind. I don’t think, maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think anybody looks at DTR and jumps up and they go, boy, this guy could be a starting quarterback in the NFL for a long time.

Now he could be a backup. could be viable that, that’s cause I liked DTR. So I’m, really do. did from the beginning, but I never was jumping up and down and say, give him the ball and let him run the show. so I do want to see Winston play. Winston is sort of a poor man’s Joe Flacco and that strong iron good out of the play action. could even see a little bit of it at the end of the Browns game. when he got in there now.

It’s going to be lively. I’ll tell you that that ball is going to fly all over the place. did with Flacco too. know, 13 touchdown passes, eight interceptions. At one point he was kind of keeping both teams in the game, but you had a feeling you had a chance of something good happening. I just think that Sean had been almost in such a shell offensively. He hardly threw the ball downfield. When he did, he generally missed and he was just kind of.

dumping off passes and he had lost all confidence. So I don’t know, David, do you bother to bring him back? I have very serious question.

David Campbell (18:11.886)

You mean just let them go and just pay the money for next season? I think it would be good to get a fresh start. So I think that’s what they should do. I think what they will do is they will try again because they don’t want to let this, they don’t want to admit they were wrong. seriously, when we saw Deshaun Watson at his best this season, what did we see? Missing open guys and passes of 15 yards or less.

Terry Pluto (18:35.817)

Nothing.

Terry Pluto (18:41.428)

Yeah.

David Campbell (18:41.666)

like over and over and I don’t think that’s a winning formula in the NFL going forward.

Terry Pluto (18:47.232)

That’s not why they signed him. brought this guy in to make big plays and big throw. By the way, I know this was talked about in the inner sanctum. mean, they felt Watson would help them win more games. mean, start with that. Okay. But they also thought he would bring an element of excitement and big plays and entertainment value to the team. I mean, I could argue that Watson, especially this year, was like the most boring thing to watch around here in a long time.

You know, the nickname they used to give Charlie Fry was Charlie Checkdown when he was here. And that was sort of what that means. Just thrown to the, you know, the five, five pass is third and 12 and you throw a five, five yard pass, you know, that kind of thing. And it was, it was difficult to watch. Now I will say this again, I, now I’m not an elite athlete and surgery has evolved since 1992 when I had my

surgery done. In fact, my Achilles is very serious because there’s two other ligaments in that area that’s soleus and gastric. I probably misspelled them, misspoke them, but there was three right around there. I tore them all. we don’t know actually, sometimes you don’t know that there’s other stuff that gets torn too, besides the Achilles, which they don’t really know. So they totally get in there. And they had on my thing, they actually did a form of Tommy John where they took a tendon off the side of my foot, rebuilt my whole Achilles.

which is work great, but I don’t play quarterback. I don’t even play basketball anymore. Thank God. So banned from that. Yeah. Just, just basketball. Yeah. you know, when he look is blue his and just playing a little bit of a pickup and what the Olympics and practice. I forgot what year I think it was, I think it was the year one. Chuck Daly had the team and when he was the assistant, the Olympic, the, you know, the first NBA team, he was said he would do same thing. Yeah. He was just kind of bringing up the ball and just doing.

David Campbell (20:16.462)

That’s how you did that, right? was basketball. Yeah. Yeah.

David Campbell (20:37.582)

1992.

Terry Pluto (20:41.226)

Boom, you know, so enough on the Achilles. My point is it’s a serious injury on top of that. You take the fact that he’s supposed to be an athletic guy with his legs. You know, you have to deal with this salary cap consequences whether you keep him or you let him go. You got to deal with it either way.

David Campbell (21:02.958)

So the Browns are probably going to be picking in the top five or eight of the draft. And so you would see them bringing somebody in and keeping Jameis Winston around, re-signing him, and letting Watson go. That’s what you think should happen.

Terry Pluto (21:15.945)

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m not a hundred percent there, but I’m close. I need to think about it. Or whether a Winston type guy, if it’s not Winston, somebody else, Joe Flacco. I’m serious. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, do I have to bring up the fact that Joe Flacco has a 102 quarterback writing with seven touchdowns and one interception for the Colts?

David Campbell (21:32.716)

And I know and let the rookie learn for a year and then see how goes. Yeah.

David Campbell (21:47.938)

I think most Browns fans will be keeping track of that and of Baker Mayfield’s stats this season.

Terry Pluto (21:52.99)

Yeah. Baker’s right. But the, the Flacco thing was one that like, just had them in your back pocket and you let them go. Cause you didn’t want to get into the whole thing of people yelling for Flacco. And when Winston, I’m sorry, when Watson fails to do things and this is a, a messed up situation. I have to admit, I wrote to my thing. I hated it from the beginning. I just felt in my bones. It was going to go wrong in so many directions and it has, so now they got to dig out of it.

They’ve got their own pick. They have to deal with the salary cap consequences of this. and I think by the way, I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe not this week against Baltimore, but in some upcoming games, the Brownster around and win some of these games with Winston, because I do think Kevin Stefanski often is very good in these situations.

David Campbell (22:50.52)

Well, we saw that during the COVID season when obstacle after obstacle came up, guys getting ruled out before games and they just found a way to get into playoffs and win a playoff game.

Terry Pluto (22:54.633)

Right.

Terry Pluto (22:58.304)

And they found a way in last year, you know, four different quarterbacks won games and he won a game of DTR. He won a game with, what was his name? PJ, Walker. Yeah. And of course, and he got Flacco up to speed quickly. So, it wasn’t that the only year that the really phenomenal year was in Minnesota where they went through, they were supposed to start Teddy Bridgewater. Then they went to Sam Bradford.

David Campbell (23:09.176)

PJ Walker.

Terry Pluto (23:27.744)

And they ended up with case Keenan McKinna won something like 11 and three. They rolled through three quarterbacks in a year that, that season when he was quarterback coaching, in Minnesota. So he’s got a track record of doing that. I I’m curious to see that. And by the way, just for the heck of it. All right. got Jamis Winston, you got Nick Chubb play action.

David Campbell (23:53.55)

You have a running back that defenses can be afraid of.

Terry Pluto (23:56.032)

and a career map dole jabbar back there i mean fifty percent of the job is probably better what we’ve been watching and why did you think he looked at it

David Campbell (24:04.598)

Not like himself, but it’s week one back and I’m sure he was trying to get his legs back and get his rhythm back. he’s, he’s a patient runner and I think he was a little jumpy on a couple of plays. I’d like to go back and watch him again, but I think he’s going to get better. And by the end of the season, we should have a pretty good idea if he’s Nick Chubb or if he’s how many notches below Nick Chubb he is. So what did you think?

Terry Pluto (24:16.852)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (24:27.198)

And also keep in mind, he had not been tackled to the ground since that day in Pittsburgh when they carted him off. Cause they did, they, they had all these drills where he got kind of hit and whacked them with pads and all this stuff and knock them off balance. But they really, I know where they were after all the work he’s done, the two operations and all this, the last thing you want to do with some 300 pounder slams into him and practice.

and knocks him down and that’s the end of it. If he’s going to get hurt, they want it to be in the game.

David Campbell (25:01.912)

Yeah, I mean, Andrew Berry promised him that he would get it. He would have his next carry would be as a Brown and it was so.

Terry Pluto (25:07.808)

Yeah, he’s not going to end on that cart in Pittsburgh and to Barry’s credit and to Chubb’s credit, it didn’t. And now we could see, mean, look, you’re one in six. So you’re into like, well, what do you want to watch? And part of my job too, isn’t like, I can’t just say, well, I’m tired of the Browns or one of six. I’m not watching it anymore. I’m done. no, my job now is like, what are the storylines? What could be interesting? What could point towards next year? And so,

You know, Chubb is a, is a very fascinating story to see how it goes. Winston could either at least give us some clues about the offense or maybe he placed himself in a position to be in a backup for next year. I don’t know. And how about, you know, we heard about Jerry Judy. They went out to get them. They gave him a long-term contract. Let’s see what he does. And Cedric Tillman and this whole group of other receivers, was it Watson or was it,

the receivers just aren’t any good.

David Campbell (26:10.67)

Alright, hey, we do have one more email I wanted to get to here while we’re on the topic. This is from Jerry Prokupec and Jerry says, Hey Terry, among the numerous off season transactions that Browns will be involved in, would you make a concerted effort to sign Justin Fields? I think he will be a free agent after this year in Pittsburgh. What do you think about Justin Fields, Terry? The former Bears quarterback. I don’t see him as a solution. I think he could be a backup.

Terry Pluto (26:28.81)

I’m gonna throw it to you.

Terry Pluto (26:33.631)

Yeah.

David Campbell (26:40.878)

was surprised like I you know the Steelers were four and two when he started right. And before they put in Russell Wilson and after they went four and two he was interviewed last week and he’s like you know I don’t know if I’ve played well enough to be the starter. And I thought he should have gone harder after it. It’s like if you if you want to be a starting quarterback you got to push your case and really put yourself out there as the leader of the team that surprised me a little bit because I think in Chicago he was a pretty good leader but I think.

Terry Pluto (26:45.588)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (26:58.314)

Yeah.

David Campbell (27:09.934)

the, you know, the ramp on Justin Fields is the same thing we heard about Watson this season, not seeing the field, not seeing guys open and not getting the ball where it should be going. And, we didn’t really see much different in Pittsburgh. thought, I thought he played well enough to win. He’s a great runner of the football, but if you need someone on a third and 12 to hit a deep end cut, like for a first down, like, I don’t know if he’s the guy to do that. So I think he’d be a backup.

Terry Pluto (27:16.8)

Yeah.

David Campbell (27:36.618)

and probably not old enough to be what the Browns would be looking for. I think they’d want someone with some more experience to kind of guide whoever they bring in young.

Terry Pluto (27:41.62)

Yeah.

So yeah, it’s fascinating. And so we’re back into the Brown Super Bowl. It’s draft day, 2025.

David Campbell (27:54.968)

Draft matters again. So, all right, Terry, I did need to ask you about pre-SNAP penalties because I know you’ve been watching that. The Browns are, I haven’t checked, but the Browns are number one in the league. I haven’t.

Terry Pluto (28:01.062)

jeez.

Of course they’re number one. You’re watching the games. 32. 32 pre-snap penalties are jumping off sides, illegal motion, illegal formation. 32 in seven games. So that’s, you you’re looking at seven divided by 32 is about four and a half per game.

They’ve got 60 total penalties are also number one in that, but over half of them are pre snap. That’s just abominable because you know, other penalties holding, I don’t know. I still don’t know what holding is. mean, sometimes you see, you know, defensive end. Of course we sometimes see people tackling miles Garrett. don’t call it, but in general, a lot of these, you don’t know what you pass. What is roughing the quarterback? Sometimes you know what it is. Sometimes you don’t, but they’re all.

plays of I say just in the heat of the moment. It’s not like I don’t know the snap count. The Browns aren’t even trying to be all that tricky and these guys are jumping off size.

David Campbell (29:13.72)

So I gotta admit, I was watching the game and I thought of Eric Mangini, your story about Eric Mangini. it’s like, Kevin Stefanski was asked about this on Sunday after the game and then Monday in his Monday press conference. How do you get rid of these? And it’s very simple. Like it’s, out of the Eric Mangini school. You line all the guys up on the goal line and you’re like, here we go. Ten and back, 20 back, 30 back, 40 back, 50 back, 60 back. Every time we get a pre-snap penalty.

Terry Pluto (29:19.07)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (29:24.298)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (29:39.104)

Yeah.

David Campbell (29:43.234)

We’re doing that for everyone. You’re going to do a ladder drill after at the end of practice when guys are already tired and we’re going to do one for every pre snap penalty we get. And you know what happens when you start doing that? The guy who made the pre snap penalty starts to hear about it from the other guys on the team. And there’s peer pressure that happens. And pretty soon those things go away or else you have a really, really well conditioned team. Yeah.

Terry Pluto (29:44.448)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (29:59.818)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (30:04.446)

Yeah, he had all kinds of devious, devious ways of that. That was one that others were, I, well, he started in training camp, but it was a good thing where I give you were one, had to run a lap around the field. got to the point where he did a coaster. have to tell a guy if he jumped the flag flew and they had, you know, the kind of the amateur officials in he just took off and

David Campbell (30:24.942)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (30:27.904)

It really became a tremendous amount of peer pressure and the two years that he were there, they were like in the top three, the fewest penalties. You know, it’s the old thing, you get what you stress. And Kevin has had a high number of penalties over the years. I’m not sure it’s quite, this is Freddie Kitchens level. And I have to look to see if even Freddie was this bad. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I’m just stunned in fifth year of him here and that, but I’m going to write about it again.

David Campbell (30:57.58)

Yeah, and Kevin Stefanski just keeps saying, well, we need to coach it better and the guys need to stop doing it. But this has been seven weeks of it not getting any better. you want to, you know, as a coach, you want to treat these guys like professionals, but sometimes you just have to run.

Terry Pluto (31:04.297)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (31:11.456)

Yeah, there’s ways of also honing in on, mean, who are the big repeat offenders here? And then actually almost sitting down with the tape, with the guy, why are you doing this here? What is it that’s making you jump? You would approach it just like you ran the wrong pattern or something, as opposed to you’re a moron, you can’t line up right. Maybe they need to go the other way with it.

David Campbell (31:42.028)

Yeah, I think the other day Dunn was called for being in the neutral zone down near the goal line because he put his hand right down next to the ball. Like one spot over on the offensive line. You could see there was the center holding the ball. It Posik and then right next to him there was a hand. And I’m like, whose hand is that? And that’s why he was called in the neutral zone. It’s just, it’s anyway, it’s not getting any better. So I know you’ll be watching that. So all right, anything else on the Browns, Terry?

Terry Pluto (31:50.366)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (31:58.047)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (32:03.827)

Okay.

Terry Pluto (32:07.418)

That’s more than enough for this week.

David Campbell (32:10.22)

All right, the Browns have the Ravens at home on Sunday. It’s a one o’clock kickoff. And yeah.

Terry Pluto (32:15.604)

By the way, Ravens had very bad pass defense this year. They’re struggling in that area. So it could be interesting. know, what they’re doing is they’re just beating the heck out of it. They’re actually, think, 31 points a game. so it’s, you know, I mean, their defense is, by the way, 23rd overall, okay, the Ravens’ defense, number one against the Run. This is hard to believe.

Number 32 against the pass, passing yardage alone.

David Campbell (32:47.278)

Huh. You don’t see that too often. I do have to mention, Terry, I was driving around listening to sports talk. I forget which station it was, or I would say. some caller called in and said, hey, here’s a silver lining. It’s a great time to bring your, if you have kids, bring your kids to a Browns game, because the tickets will be cheap and the weather’s nice. And if you haven’t had a chance to bring them to a game before, this is a great chance. So that was one positive that this fan saw out of the whole situation. I think that’s a good idea.

Terry Pluto (32:49.969)

No. So.

Terry Pluto (33:15.646)

Well, mean, you know, if you have kids that actually is a good point.

David Campbell (33:19.074)

Yeah, yeah. All right, let’s take a break. When we come back, we will get into the Guardians, both wrapping up the ALCS and the season and also looking to what’s ahead. I want to ask Terry what he thinks the most important decision the Guardians have to make is heading into next season. We’ll get into that and more when we return. Terry’s talking.

David Campbell (36:03.554)

Hey, we’re back on Terry’s talking. David Campbell, Terry Pluto. Don’t forget, if you want to hit us with an email, a question, a thought, a comment on anything sports or faith in you, Terry always likes to reader feedback for his faith in you column. You can hit us at sports at cleveland.com and just put Terry’s talking in the subject line and we will try and get your email on. All right, Terry, guardians.

I don’t know, where you want to start with the guardians? We have a couple of good emails here I guess I could start with. Yeah, let’s do that. This first one is from Howard Butensky. Howard’s a long time listener. says, hey Terry and David, while it’s sad the guards are out, I need to express my admiration of the entire organization for the pure joy they generated this season. This team turned the cliche doing more with less into an art form. While the salary behemoths move on.

Terry Pluto (36:32.426)

Go, start with oath.

David Campbell (36:53.304)

There are a few of us who find enjoyment in winning right. I hope we can keep the band front office specifically included together. In 1998, the Indians beat the Red Sox in the first round. The clincher was at Fenway. After the game, some of the Red Sox came back out of the field and saluted the fans. From what I read, see, and hear, the guards’ relationship with the fans is such that it would be a nice thing to see in Cleveland to win or lose. If we stay and get, if we get and stay healthy, we can do great things. So thanks for that, Howard.

And this second one is from Brian Kirkendall. Brian’s a long time listener. says, thank you, Gartos. It was fun. It was exciting. You were easy to cheer for such a likable team. My heart broke for class a so glad he shut them down in the last game. My heart broke for Gaddis and all the, all of the Klee in the 10th, my takeaway, the youngest team in baseball. And at times it showed so many players who were rookies or first few years in love where they are headed.

Terry Pluto (37:36.394)

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (37:49.548)

Memo to Noel, Manzardo and Delater, we need two out of the three of you to stick around and bring some power to the lineup. Thanks for that, Brian. Yeah, go ahead, Terry. Where are you at here with everything?

Terry Pluto (37:55.614)

He’s right. He’s right.

Terry Pluto (38:01.278)

Well, first of all, about keeping the line together, just saw today Rob Cerfaleo, I keep his name, I know Rob and I’m butchering his name. He was the minor league director basically. And he just got hired as assistant GM by the Cardinals. So they lost him. I mean, he’s good, but they seem to be able to, you know, that they keep the top two of Chris Antonelli and Mike Chernoff. Who knows how many jobs Chernoff turns down. I mean, it’s got to be a lot.

keep them together and they seem to come up with guys underneath them, including the guy that put the best Stearns was once with the who’s running the best Stearns was once with with the with Cleveland. And they just find just like they find players, they find people for their front office and they develop them. So but that’s something to keep an eye on. That was a true point that he made about keeping that together because these other guys, whether it’s an analytics or

You know, the scouting department that they have an interesting combination of some old fashioned scouting along with a lot of numbers, numbers geeks going. It curly works and the pitching factory. talk about, I guess Matthew Boyd mentioned that, it was real. He talked to in his exit interview. He mentioned that because, I forgot what there was a vote or one of them we were talking to yesterday at the press conference. And he mentioned it.

Boyd really wants to come back and, that it really is a fishing factory. Now, when it comes to Boyd, by the way, most of us, his agent is.

David Campbell (39:38.414)

my God, just read it. Scott Boros, Scott Boros. Yes.

Terry Pluto (39:40.19)

Scott Borough was yes who will run an auction on Boyd and you know board Boros is the master of getting the biggest contract so Now maybe Boyd will be able to convince Boros to work on more of a team-friendly deal and because there’s a lot there’s risk taking Boyd I mean he look good here, but he’s had two arm surgeries in last three years So there’s there’s some there, but boy

You know this, as they say, he had a slow heartbeat. He was in those big games and no problem. I mean, he was throwing the ball in there and didn’t get rattled. And that was, that was impressive to see.

David Campbell (40:23.054)

So most years, Terry, I would say that Matthew Boyd will not return. It just would never happen. And we’ve seen it happen time and again in Cleveland. But if you’re Matthew Boyd and you kind of stumbled into this thing this year and you’ve got kids and a family and you’re in Cleveland and it’s been enjoyable and you like the guys and you like the manager and you like the situation, it might be a time in his career where maybe he does take like a Cleveland hometown.

Terry Pluto (40:52.168)

Yeah, especially if he likes the medical people.

David Campbell (40:52.248)

type discount. Yeah, but usually with borrows, like you’re saying, you’re right, it’s whoever pays the most gets the guy. And that might still that might hold true here. But I think there’s some other variables that this isn’t somebody who’s, you know, getting their first big contract and hasn’t been around a little bit. So

Terry Pluto (41:07.376)

Right. And, and Matthew may have enough cache to, and it confidence in his own mind and respect from the agent, just to say at this point in my career, my middle thirties, I don’t really want to go anywhere else. the other thing they talked about quite a bit at the thing was lane Thomas. and right away, vote mentioned he hadn’t played that much center, at least not that they had.

seen in their scouting reports. And he was very excited about Wayne Thomas and center because of course they’ve been looking for a center fielder. And so that was the thing. Then, you know, Wayne Thomas, all these guys, they keep saying how they’re all great teammates. guess most of them are, but you know, they always rave about the different guys. And, I do think Wayne Thomas is, and he was, you know, delighted to be there. And, and he was another one that he got into the playoffs.

And the moment C was ready for some big moments. Remember they played the Tigers. Yeah, it was kind of a no name group, but from the middle of August on those last 50 games or whatever, they were the best team in baseball, the best team. Then they run into the Yankees or the Yankees who are the best team in the American league. You can make a strong case that they ran into two of the best teams in the American league. thought Baltimore had more talent than these guys, but

who was playing the best at the time the playoffs came. That’s who they had to be. Because if you remember, the Tigers just took the Astros right out. Astros are a more talented team. there was nothing easy about the Guardians even reaching New York. And that five game series was so much fun and so tension filled with the Tigers. And then you had to beat Scoobel. I mean, it was great. Just great baseball drama.

David Campbell (42:59.352)

Yeah, it was. it’s one of the great things in sports, Terry, when you don’t expect something to happen and it happens and it just speaks to just what you were talking about. It’s such a well run organization over there. They know what they’re doing. They draft a ton of pitchers and they develop them and they wait for the cream to rise to the top. it’s now that it always happens. Like you said, you get guys hired away.

Terry Pluto (43:04.489)

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (43:22.786)

But it’s such a well-run operation and it has been for years and they’re doing everything they said they would do, which is compete every single year.

Terry Pluto (43:29.886)

I think they late, by the way, I think they laid down the law to a couple of younger pitchers that they, they didn’t name, but said that for several of the young pitchers, this is a key off season for them to, you know, get in the best shape possible, really work on certain things to get better. as the, as the old Jack Reynolds would say, this is before you were here late night thing, no names please. But I’m going to name some names that I think Logan Allen is one.

I think Gavin Williams is another that they want these guys and Tristan Tristan’s always in great shape or whatever, but that arm is of concern. they and Nick Hasey is a young pitcher who didn’t come up. I was talking after the press conference informally with Matt Furman. Furman is their assistant GM and he was very, very, very high on Nick Hasey. He also thinks

You know, they’re holding their breath a little bit, but the water, they think they finally got him past the foot problems. And, then of course, when he was coming back and he started to hit really an act at triple A, he pulls a hamstring. I mean, it just was one thing after another for him, this year, but the guys, the guy’s got a big bat. He’s your classic right fielder. He’s fast. can throw. I’m assuming that this foot thing didn’t really mess up his speed. and he’s got power. So, you know,

David Campbell (44:55.894)

and he’ll be going to the Arizona Fall League again.

Terry Pluto (44:57.83)

Yeah. And he’s, I saw he’s like six for 17 or something. They already said a home run and driven in some runs. you know, whenever he’s been healthy, whether it’s at Lake County or in spring training or that he’s hit. So they’ve got him, they had big Christmas who, you know, pictures began to really figure out at the end. we’ll see how that goes. And, you never know, but, all right. What do you think for you? What’s one of the biggest issues for the audience?

David Campbell (45:28.418)

Well, they have to get the rotation figured out in some sort of way. And we’ve talked last week about how much it changed from the beginning of the season to the end. But I mean, the first decision they have to make really is Shane Bieber, right? Like in terms of what is going to happen with him and what the market is for him. I think that’s probably the biggest decision hanging out there. Really.

Terry Pluto (45:32.981)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (45:39.616)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (45:50.164)

No, I think a bigger one. Josh Naylor. Last year of his contract.

because if you’re not gonna be able to sign him.

You have to trade them now during the off season. Here’s why. I’m always fearful. I know he got through the year without a major injury. Although when I asked about conditioning and that, they wouldn’t address the conditioning issue, but Voet stepped up and offered how fans don’t realize what all the kind of minor injuries they were played through last year and how tough he was and everything else.

and I have no doubt about that. And it’s 100 RBI seasoning head. But do you make, know, first of all, you can’t pay him more than Jose Ramirez. You just can’t.

David Campbell (46:46.222)

Yeah, just for some background here, Terry, he’s what 28 years old, his contracts up. He’s in his last year of arbitration. And I think, I’m on SpowTrac here. They estimate that he’s going to win arbitration of 14.2 million, which would be far below Jose. and then he’d be a free agent in 2026. So you see them moving him this off season if they don’t sign him long-term and. And really they probably won’t sign them long-term, right? Because Manzardo is right behind and.

Terry Pluto (46:54.528)

We’ll see.

Terry Pluto (46:59.507)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (47:08.455)

I would.

David Campbell (47:15.896)

They want to probably have him play every day.

Terry Pluto (47:18.032)

Yeah, and also just that

I you put a hundred million into that guy, it’s a real risk. You’re not the Yankees or some of those that could just Dodgers. It’s like, well, so what? I remember when…

the Cub when the Yankees did a fire sale and that’s when this is in 16 and Andrew Miller came to Cleveland and Rolace Chapman went to the Cubs and I’m talking to a top person with the with the Guardians the tribe back then I go man, you know Yankees just got rid of their bullpen and goes don’t worry. They’re gonna read they’re gonna resign Chapman’s a free agent. They’ll sign him back next year and they did and they did you know, it’s like

That’s how they did business. even though, and then they got a couple of pros, think Torias or something, they got actually a pretty good prospect in that package. I can’t recall what it was, but the point being they do business one way, Cleveland does business another. And it’s just the reality of how baseball set up. So in the NFL, because of salary caps or NBA, you can’t just do that junk, but you can here. And so I think that the big decision is,

You have to sit down with Jose and his agent and see what they want to do, see what you can offer, and then figure it out. But really, otherwise, then you just got like Bieber. They are going to offer Bieber some sort of contract. Now, Bieber, I had the Tommy John surgery in April. I asked Chernoff about the timeframe. He says it’s 12 to 18 months. Matthew Boyd came back in 14.

Terry Pluto (49:01.596)

So that means you would get him sometime in the middle of next season probably if you sign him. So you would really be aiming for 2026. So if you’re going to sign him, you have to sign him for at least a two year deal of some sort. Cause you’d hate to rehab him kind of like they did for Matthew Boyd, then for some other team to sign him.

David Campbell (49:25.26)

All right, real quick, Terry, there’s an email here about the pitching situation and what he calls the three B’s. is from Jim Brazdol. He’s from Leland, North Carolina. And he says, Hey Terry, the Guardian starting rotation was a mess this year. It’s to Stephen Vogt’s credit and the organization’s credit that they went as far as they did into the ALCS, which without the gift runs they gave to the Yankees, they could have won. How do you see them fixing the rotation next year? It would be great if they could have the three B’s, Bieber,

Terry Pluto (49:33.354)

Yeah.

David Campbell (49:52.504)

Boyd and Bybee as the core. How likely do you think they will dole out the cash to do that?

Terry Pluto (49:59.294)

Well, Bybee’s here. Boy, does iffy because of the agent situation.

And I mean, Bieber should just, if he likes the medical people and everything here, he should just tell Drew Rosenhouse’s agent, well, you just cut a deal with Cleveland because he’s got to know in the past, the contracts he’s turned down from Cleveland in spring training would look real good to have right now. These guys that turned down these multi-year contracts when they’re younger in their pictures is far too risky. It’s just stupid. I’m just.

Just that it’s ill-advised and stupid because right now there’s, believe it’s 35 % of pitchers in the major leagues have had Tommy Jones surgery. 35 %!

David Campbell (50:51.702)

And one guy that we haven’t mentioned at all is Ben Lively, Terry. But just to give you on the salary end of things, like these guys are that I’m going to read right now are all under team control until through 2027 at least. All right. All these guys through 2027, Tristan McKenzie, Ben Lively, Logan Allen, Tanner Bybee, Joey Cantillo, and Gavin Williams. All those guys, the next three seasons are under team control. Some of them beyond. So that’s the list that doesn’t include.

Terry Pluto (50:54.495)

Yup.

David Campbell (51:22.336)

Boyd and Bieber. anyway, you can see there is some team control involved here, which matters.

Terry Pluto (51:23.69)

Be pretty, yep.

Terry Pluto (51:28.094)

Yeah, that’s a really good thing. It’s like, lively, you you can bring him back next year. He’s probably, I think he’s finally eligible for arbitration. And just see what you can get out. That’s their hope. Bring in a whole bunch of pictures and find some and have some waiting to come up. I mean, it just shows how tenuous it is. Cause remember, they brought up three all at once cause we had Bybee.

Alan and Williams and you this really looks like boy they’re going to be in really great shape for for 24 with those guys and look what happened. Mackenzie was before them but that group was all sort of came up at the same time.

David Campbell (52:10.254)

So Terry, what did you think of Steven Vogt’s year? I think we’re looking at the AL manager of the year when the awards come out. What did you think of his performance this year and what do you think you’d like to see from him moving forward real quick?

Terry Pluto (52:15.007)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (52:21.952)

Well, they’re going to have a real discussion about how to get more length out of the starters. I’ve got to look through some data on this, but I know guys that pitch around 80 games a year or more. Now, remember if you’re Cleveland, you have to include the playoffs in this. They run the risk of arm injuries and real fall back and that kind of stuff. they, you know, they talked about how they watch pitch counts and this kind of stuff, but

you know, he was, it was a tough spot because he was going to the bullpen quick because the starters were not giving him much. So that would be the only thing. it’s, the hardest thing. Handling your pitching is one of the hardest things you have going. The other thing you have, which he masters is handling personalities and people. I mean, he’s got the Francona touch. He does. There was, remember how there was like no garbage with Francona if there wasn’t when the

David Campbell (53:13.442)

Definitely.

Terry Pluto (53:22.922)

Trevor threw the ball over the center field wall. He was gone 48 hours later. That was it. And there just isn’t any stuff that goes on. So that’s a great sign of a manager.

David Campbell (53:36.686)

Yeah, I thought he did a wonderful job keeping everybody engaged and involved and being honest with guys. know Lane Thomas during the playoffs talked about when he was in his slump and he got sat and vote just basically told him like, listen, you’re not hitting. We’re going to give you a break. get other guys that we can put in like until you start to turn it around. so, and the other thing I thought he, he really, it was a very, I don’t think I heard him use the word I the whole season.

Terry Pluto (53:40.276)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (53:52.724)

No.

Terry Pluto (54:04.01)

No.

David Campbell (54:04.076)

Like everything was about everybody else. And I thought that was a really effective strategy as a manager to kind of make it all team based and that he believed in his guys. Like I thought that was something that he would put people no matter how experienced they might be into situations and he believed in them. And I thought that was all good.

Terry Pluto (54:24.232)

He said, he says he still wants to do his policy. says, not, you know, every skip series, but he said, he goes into a series thinking, I want to get everybody into one game. And I’d like to get everybody in the bullpen into one inning. And cause he said, he just remembered when he was a bench player and he’d sit there for eight days and then the dog go pinch head against the other team’s closer. And it’s like some guys throwing 97 miles an hour because you can’t even though they have.

pitching machines for an hour, they could crank up stuff, the velocity and that is nothing like game preparation and certainly hitting off a 60 year old coach is not like getting you ready for the game. So he wants to continue to do that and he thinks as part of the reason they did get pretty good production from their bench.

David Campbell (55:12.898)

Yeah. And there was, you know, we don’t want a Monday morning quarterback, everything, but I know that Stephen Vo took some, he heard it, he heard about not, not intentional walking guys at key points. And I think that’s something going forward that, that he could learn from because like, so Terry, was like walking my dog a few weeks ago and I found this milk bone on the sidewalk that obviously fell out of somebody’s pocket and I gave it to my dog and I got home. told my wife about it and she’s like,

Terry Pluto (55:28.137)

Yeah.

David Campbell (55:42.486)

Listen, it’s probably fine to give her that, like, why take the risk? Like we, we have milk bones here at the house. I’m like, yeah, you’re right. So, but it, that’s what I thought of when I saw the sixth inning of game five the other night. Like you can believe in your guys and still not take unnecessary risks. Right? Like this is our strikeout reliever, or this is our guys who I believe in to do this. But like, listen, when it, when it’s the sixth inning of game five,

Terry Pluto (55:47.71)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (56:01.076)

Yeah.

David Campbell (56:10.094)

and first base is open and Giancarlo Stanton comes up, it’s okay, respect him, respect him and put him on first base. How many times do we see Jose Ramirez get intentional lock during this playoffs?

Terry Pluto (56:20.052)

Yeah. And he should have been intentionally walked more. don’t care if Josh Nailor is behind him or not. I mean, that’s, that’s a, and by the way, Rizzo, at least in one of the two cases where he should have been walked was behind him and Rizzo was coming off of a broken fingers in his hand. And I mean, I forgot who, what game it was, but, where they, did, cause Stanton hit the home run and, and I’m like, this

David Campbell (56:25.196)

Yeah, so.

Terry Pluto (56:48.042)

Bust Rizzo in on his hands with inside fastballs with those fingers. That’s why he was struggling. Just do that.

David Campbell (56:54.444)

Yeah, but just like, let’s don’t let him beat you. It’s like you talk about football, Terry, all the time. You talk about what player on offense keeps a defensive coordinator up all night. Well, if you’re playing the Yankees, like they have three guys and Giancarlo Stanton keeps you up at night. So don’t pitch to him. And it still means that you believe in your guys, but believe in your guy against jazz chisel coming up with guys at first and third instead of Giancarlo Stanton.

Terry Pluto (56:57.64)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Pluto (57:08.292)

Mm-hmm. I mean it’s just like

Terry Pluto (57:13.542)

Well, I mean, I was even good with when he walked Aaron Judge, that was an Earl Weaver move. I’m, excuse me, watched, walked Juan Soto to pitch to Aaron Judge. Soto is extremely hot. Judge is fighting himself in the playoffs. And, he brought in, Kay Smith, I believe to pitch to Judge. And I think Judge popped up or fly it out or something. that was, that was a, that experienced manager move.

because you could look really bad if you give up, you you want the guy to pitch to the guy’s got 58 home runs. Yeah, I did. But the other guy is right now killing us and that guy’s fighting himself. So, so you have to take all that in.

David Campbell (57:55.938)

Yeah. And again, like Steven voted so much right this year and, this is a small thing, but I just think going forward, like it’s okay. You can still believe in your guys and not take a risk that you don’t have to take to prove something like let it go. It’s okay. And then go to the next thing and let your guy prove themselves there.

Terry Pluto (58:00.445)

Yeah, he did.

Terry Pluto (58:09.344)

Sure.

Terry Pluto (58:14.112)

I’m sure at some point knowing how the guardians operate they’ll have like five printouts of you know analytics of intentional walks versus this versus that and And just tell them it’s something to think about

David Campbell (58:32.598)

All right, anything else on the Guardians here? I know that was kind of a wrap up press conference yesterday that you were at. I know in your newsletter you were writing about that the MLB is going to take over the Guardians TV for next season, which is, yeah.

Terry Pluto (58:33.664)

Okay, now that’ll do it.

Terry Pluto (58:43.058)

Yeah, and it’s very unclear what all that means. It really is. Other than they will be on some streaming services and that. The other thing that’s unclear is how much money is going to be worked to the teams. So they’re going to wait to see on that. don’t anticipate the guardians are going to, you know, way jack up their payroll or anything. I think they’ll spend more, but they added.

think it was 11, was either 9 million or 11 million during the season. Chernoff said that was as much as any team added during the season to their payroll. So he says they like to hold some back for that because they added, well, they added Boyd, they added Alex Cobb, and they added Wayne Thomas. Thomas was making like five million grand. was kind of half of those contracts. But so when they budget, they like to save some back for moves during the season.

David Campbell (59:40.654)

Right. Okay. Well, Terry, the Cavs start their season tonight. We’re taping this on Wednesday afternoon. They are playing at Toronto tonight in the home opener at 730. I mean, in the season opener at 730, the home opener is Friday at the Fieldhouse against Detroit. Last week, we talked about what you were going to watch during the rest of the preseason. And I know you’ve been kind of checking out the Kenny Atkinson offensive approach. And you wanted to kind of tell us this week what you have been seeing. What have you been seeing from the Cavs offense?

Terry Pluto (59:58.953)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (01:00:09.866)

well, number one, their spacing is very good. You don’t see no be a lot of guys crowding, whatever to their creating room for Mowgli to operate rather than taking. He’s not comfortable in the low block, throwing the ball down there and shooting the hook shot. So just it’s not working. So don’t give it to him. Nor is it all about just, he’s got to make three pointers. I mean, he could take a couple, but that’s not his game. His game is he’s, he’s a really good ball hand or he could, he could shoot with either hand. He can go in different directions.

quick with those huge strides. So they’re creating room, especially on the wing for him. Yes, they’re talking about when he gets the ball off the rim, the defensive rebound, take it down. But even in the set offense, you could tell there’s sets in him for to get the ball with some room so he could operate and go to the rim. So that’s all good. Garland, they’re trying to run some stuff with him off the ball. I’m not sure where that’s at yet. I think it’s…

He’s made some shots and that, it’s more come like off the fast break. Just take, you know, fire up a three. I mean, I’m still adjusting to that mentality in the NBA where you have a three on one and a guy takes a 28 footer. mean, I just, it really bothers me, but that’s, that’s how it’s played. and so all that’s good defensively. I’ve not, I’m not pleased. I don’t like how they look. We’ll see when when it counts, but it.

just seems to be that the defensive intensity isn’t there and guarding the rim isn’t as strong as it was. By the way, Jared Allen, who gets totally forgotten in offense when he’s not being forgotten, is just killing people out there. He’s dunking on him. He’s making his little flip shots. He’s all over the place. I mean, it looks like he is really set to have a monster year if he’s used right.

And the other thing I just kind of look at because remember Donovan Mitchell had a Knee problem last year and then he at the end of the year. He went down with the dreaded calf muscle Well, he looks healthy. He looks quick. He strong. So so that was a good thing Garland does look healthier and he’s been But I still think it’s going to be a challenge working those two guards The when now the defense and things did look better

Terry Pluto (01:02:32.372)

when they went with the big front court. Now I’m partial to size under there, so I know, but when Dean Wade was out there with the other two big guys, that looked much better to me. Like this is a good team. it’s a good, it’s talented team, it’s a good team. know, Kenny’s working through some stuff with them, trying to change things around somewhat to improve the offense. And he keeps preaching, he doesn’t want to lose the defense. And I think he’s going to have to really accent that because these guys are going to…

It’s so easy when you’re given the freedom, just fire up threes anytime you want on fast breaks to just kind of jog back on defense and get into that mentality of, we’ll just outscore them.

David Campbell (01:03:14.306)

Well, we’ll see what the defense looks tonight. like tonight. And Terry, you said earlier how many games you predicting that they will win?

Terry Pluto (01:03:21.376)

49 is pulled out of the air. I don’t know why not

David Campbell (01:03:24.142)

Yeah, I’m going to say 50. I think Chris Fidor, our colleague said 52, if I remember. you know how it is though, Terry. It all depends on injuries. I the calves are so banged up last year, that all factors in.

Terry Pluto (01:03:28.274)

Yeah, somewhere in there.

Terry Pluto (01:03:33.148)

Yeah. Now let’s watch how many guys play because he’s promising to play. Now they don’t have strews. So, 10 or 11, he said that that’s exact quote that he said a couple of times, during that press conference and other times. So let’s see if he does that. By the way, I thought JB, I know I’m I’m like, I’m a JB fan. liked it, but I watched him when they played the calves.

He had his guys ready to defend that day and they went at Garland hard bringing the ball up the floor. And JB will do a good job with the, don’t know whether they went 14 games or some crazy thing last year. I mean, not that they’re gonna make the playoffs or whatever, but he’s gonna make them into a team that is viable and they’re not gonna just be a joke anymore.

David Campbell (01:04:25.57)

Yeah, they will play defense if nothing else.

Terry Pluto (01:04:27.248)

And it’s got a couple of veterans and things like that.

David Campbell (01:04:31.435)

All right. All right. So I think we’re getting to the end of our baseball foul ball autograph thing. So now that baseball has ended.

Terry Pluto (01:04:36.638)

Yeah, you can’t have any more foul ball stories until next spring after this one.

David Campbell (01:04:41.112)

So we do have our, I want to get this last autograph story and then we’ll move on. I was thinking, Terry, we should try and make next week’s podcast, like just as many questions as we can get from fans. And so let’s try and make it like as much of a Q and A as we can next week. So send your emails in with questions, things you want to talk about, be a good time with the seasons moving from one to the other, send it to sports at cleveland.com and put Terry’s talking in the subject line. We’ll try and do an all Q and A one next week. We’ll see how that goes. But.

Terry Pluto (01:04:45.152)

Okay.

Terry Pluto (01:04:50.729)

Yeah.

David Campbell (01:05:08.878)

Alright, well we have a final autograph letter here. This is from David Tuckie. David’s a long time listener He says David and Terry I’d like to share my most memorable autograph growing up in Parma and Cleveland in the 70s was a great time to get autographs The players actually had to walk the concourse of municipal stadium to get to their cars and buses Nothing like nowadays and the secured lots of progressive field Most players were nice about autographs and the fact that my father grew up with former umpire Nestor Chilac

Terry Pluto (01:05:27.008)

Mm-hmm.

Terry Pluto (01:05:38.594)

Shylock, yeah.

David Campbell (01:05:38.826)

and long time first base coach of the Tigers, Dick Trzeczewski. Trzeczewski, okay, I thought I got that name right, but I butchered it. He said that helped as well. I even received a real blank autograph book at Christmas as a Christmas gift to fill up. My mom and dad signed the first two pages. My most memorable player autograph was signed on the last page. After a game in May 1973, my friend Doug and I were autograph hunting. We went from player to player. It didn’t matter who.

Terry Pluto (01:05:43.338)

Trzezinski.

Mm-hmm.

David Campbell (01:06:08.054)

It just mattered that they were a player. We went up to this real tall guy. We asked politely for his autograph and he said he wasn’t a player. We just knew he was. We had seen him walk out of the clubhouse exit door and you could just tell. We persisted. He politely insisted he wasn’t a player, but we just knew. He finally said he was a player, but not anymore. He agreed to sign my book, but insisted on using the last page. He also said it would probably be his last autograph ever. He filled the last page in beautiful script.

unlike some of the other autographs that my father referred to as chicken scratch. Mike Kilkenny. I immediately knew who he was from the baseball cards I had. A lefty relief pitcher, we thanked him and moved on. A couple of days later in the PD, I read where Mike Kilkenny was demoted to the minors and had later learned he had refused to report. He never played in MLB again as the Indians held his contract and didn’t release him until 1975. Things kinda made sense now. He signed my book,

Terry Pluto (01:06:41.78)

Mm-hmm, Michael Kenny Wow

David Campbell (01:07:07.746)

during a life-defining week. It opened my eyes to some of the realities of baseball being a business and that life smacks you in the face sometimes. I always remembered Mike Kilkenny and as the internet exploded, I learned more about him. had altercations with Billy Martin while with Detroit and with tribe skipper Ken Espremonte in 1973. The latter was probably part of his demotion. I saw that he landed on his feet. owned and trained harness horses and actually was later a golf

Terry Pluto (01:07:12.096)

Yeah.

Terry Pluto (01:07:26.386)

Espraniok. All right.

David Campbell (01:07:37.038)

pro and swing coach who trained PGA golfer Ted Potter Jr. Mike died in 2018 at the age of 73. Keep up the great podcast guys. And again, that’s from David Tucky. So I thought that was a nice story.

Terry Pluto (01:07:45.363)

Wow.

It’s always, mean, clearly, Kilkenny back then, he didn’t make any, that was just a job. He didn’t make any money. You know, the big leagues back then bouncing back and forth. It’s always interesting to see how they recreate themselves.

David Campbell (01:08:00.428)

Yeah, post career and a lot of those guys had jobs during the season too back then didn’t they? But they would spend into post career jobs. Yeah. Well, thanks for that letter. And it’s a little detective work there and might kill Kenny. So, all right. Well, let’s try and do a full Q and a episode of the pod next week, Terry and anything else you want to get into. All right. We will have some interesting Browns to talk about it next week. LeBron and Bronnie are going to be playing.

Terry Pluto (01:08:03.238)

Yes, they did. yeah.

Yeah.

Mike, Mike Kilkenny, boy.

Terry Pluto (01:08:21.072)

Nah, I’m done.

David Campbell (01:08:29.623)

cavs at the field house next Wednesday. So that’ll be interesting to get into as well. We’ll have that to go into and more next week on Terry’s Talking.