CLEVELAND, Ohio — It’s time for this week’s episode of the Terry’s Talkin’ podcast, with cleveland.com columnist Terry Pluto and host David Campbell. This week, we take stock of the Browns’ options at quarterback, and what might happen if they skip on a QB at No. 2 overall, or trade for Kirk Cousins. We also share our early impressions of the Guardians, and their first few games on their season-opening road trip. We also discuss the Cavs, and how they are tuning up for the playoffs. And we hear from some listeners about their most memorable moments from Cleveland baseball opening days of years gone by. Do you have any questions or comments for the podcast? Send your thoughts and questions in via email to us at sports@cleveland.com and put “Terry’s Talkin’” in the subject line, and we’ll try to feature it on an upcoming episode. Highlights: The Browns’ ownership acknowledges a significant misstep with Deshaun Watson.Fans often feel powerless in holding ownership accountable for decisions.The current Browns regime is taking a more measured approach to team building.A listener writes in, and says the Browns’ decisions should be made with caution, considering the team’s history of misses.Kenny Pickett, a rookie and Joe Flacco: A good Browns QB room?A listener puts together Kirk Cousins’ Cleveland visit and a potential trade.The good and bad of the Guardians’ season so far.Tristan McKenzie is adapting to a bullpen role after a rocky start. Let’s go inside the 26 pitches he threw Monday night.Luis Ortiz’s struggles raise concerns about how long the Guardians can keep him in the rotation.Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson was smart to challenge his team over the weekend.Cleveland State men’s basketball has lost coach Daniyal Robinson. Here’s what it means for the Vikings, and 3 names who might be next.Terry shares an idea about helping people in a nursing home deal with the loss of a long-time community member and providing some closure.Listener stories about their most memorable Cleveland MLB opening days, including one fan who wrote in from Japan. Here’s the podcast for this week: If the player above doesn’t work, you can listen to this week’s podcast here. 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. The transcript below was generated by a computer, and as such it contains many spelling and grammar errors. David Campbell (03:31.441) Hey, it’s time for this week’s Terry’s Talking podcast. We’re taping this on April Fool’s Day, April 1st, 2025. David Campbell, your host. Terry Pluto’s here. What’s going on, Terry? Terry Pluto (03:42.754) I’m with David Campbell, so we’re ready to go on April Fool’s Day. So what is stranger than fiction that we should talk about? David Campbell (03:52.689) man, well we can start with the Browns I guess, but we got a lot to get through today. Terry Pluto (03:56.308) Yeah, there we go. Exactly. That is exactly right. I try to give you a layup here and you took it. David Campbell (04:01.009) Yeah, all right. Why don’t we start with the Browns? Also Terry toward the end of the podcast I’ve kind of put them toward the end, but we got some really fun emails from fans We asked for spring not spring training for a home opener baseball home opener stories. The home opener is one week from today Down at the ballpark on April 8th, so we’ll get to those and we’ll talk some calves We got some CSU basketball a lot to get to so But our colleague Mary Kay Cabot is down in Florida at the annual NFL meetings Terry Pluto (04:11.596) Terry Pluto (04:15.768) David Campbell (04:29.355) And I know you wrote about this today, Terry, but Jimmy and Dee Haslem spoke yesterday and Jimmy Haslem, I guess for all intents and purposes, has put a closing chapter on the Deshaun Watson era in Cleveland. I guess I can read the quote and then we can talk about it a little bit. But he said, let’s address the elephant in the room. We took a big swing and miss with Deshaun. We thought we had the quarterback. We didn’t. And we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him. So we’ve got to dig ourselves out of that hole. And you wrote today, Terry, and I think we’ve been seeing some emails from some fans and I you’ve been getting them about how do you hold the owners accountable for something like this? And I know you have some thoughts on that, but what was your reaction when you saw what Jimmy Haslam said about the Sean Watson yesterday? Terry Pluto (05:06.945) Terry Pluto (05:15.318) Well, they’re on script because it’s the same thing Andrew Berry said. Remember at the end of the year, he said, well, it took a big swing organizational decision and all that. The only difference was that I think he said, what, in the end, you hold DNI accountable. He said something like that. Didn’t Jimmy, or I think something along those lines. That’s the only difference. But the question that I have and fans get very frustrated by this, whether it’s like they wish the Dolans would spend more or whatever is, well, they want us to hold ownership accountable. And my point always is how? I mean, yeah, we could vent and all this stuff. We live in the age of rage where everybody just screams and emails and capital letters and all kinds of stuff. But if you get real about it. I mean, for example, Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefanski are accountable to the Haslunds. They’re their boss. And with one, we’ve seen it before, one word or two words make it, you’re fired. You’re fired. That’s it. But nobody’s going to fire the owners except the owner. I mean, you once in a great while, you know, like it, and it took forever. Like in the NBA when they forced the the guy that owned the Clippers, it Donald Sterling to leave and took, you know, racist tapes and everything else. It still took like about another year. And it took, I think, like a decade to run Dan Snyder out of the out of the Washington commanders. And it took a long time, even several years for Ted Stepien, who was just, you know, very deplorable for them to force it. But Ted actually was hurt by finances. That’s why he ended up having to sell. So what do you, mean David, how do you hold these eyes accountable? David Campbell (07:11.665) I mean, you can’t, like you just said it, Terry. You can’t really, other than, I mean, we see this in European soccer a lot where fans will just walk out with, you know, three minutes. The team has lost 12 matches in a row and the entire stadium walks out with 12 minutes left. know, like we see that, but the fans do not have a lot of power unless they organize something like that. But not buying merchandise is something we’ve seen fans suggest and not going to games. Those are the only two things that we’ve seen fans suggest. Terry Pluto (07:39.662) pretty much it. David Campbell (07:40.773) I don’t know if that’s gonna happen. I really don’t. Terry Pluto (07:42.806) And suppose it did. Most of their money is coming from TV revenue and all this other stuff anyway. The NFL, just needs to say printing money. Now it’s like a machine that just wires money to these accounts. It’s incredible. Because you could tell how much money they’re making, how much the salary cap keeps going up. 20, 30 million per team per year. Because that is, you know, wind up TV revenues and some other things in a formula. and that just shows, it doesn’t matter whether you’re any good at it or not. Now, I will say this, the Haslam’s want to win, but they don’t know how to win. Cause I get that. Well, they, they don’t want to win. No, they want to win, but that doesn’t make you necessarily a good owner. You have to know how to win. And for example, they may say the Dolans really don’t know. want to win, but they sort of know how to win the way they run their team because the standings are your report card. David Campbell (08:50.001) And for people to say that, I mean, they go to these annual meetings every year and you want to be walking around with a Super Bowl championship. Like that is a sign of these people. And we’ve talked about this a lot, Terry. These people are billionaires. They all have money and power and winning a Super Bowl is prestige. Like that’s what they want. So I think they all want to win regardless of what their salary cap situation is or whatever. Terry Pluto (08:57.858) Terry Pluto (09:08.268) Yeah, it is. Terry Pluto (09:13.398) And the other thing is for the, you for the Haslunds, the stakes are high because they are in the middle of the stadium thing. And we’re not going to go into the weeds of that. But in general, when you’re trying to have any sort of project like that go through, you’d rather have the team winning and doing well than being three and 14 and having to get rid of the big, you know, and basically being labeled with, just made the worst trade in NFL history. So that’s what they’re dealing with. Now, when you make the, let’s flip it back to football there, David Campbell. now. You are 3 and 14, you are digging out to quote the owner. What does that mean? David Campbell (09:48.273) So I’ve been thinking about your, from day one, your columns about the Deshaun Watson trade, Terry, I think you have used the word desperation over and over that the Browns, it was a move of desperation for the Browns to do that. And from what I’m seeing, this is the opposite of that. Like this is, they are not desperate for a quarterback. They are not falling over themselves to sign somebody big and free agency. They’re not throwing huge dollars around. Terry Pluto (09:56.106) Terry Pluto (10:06.67) David Campbell (10:18.129) This is the opposite of desperation. And I’ve found that change in mindset to be very interesting right now, because I think it reflects, we’ve talked about this a lot, Terry, the Browns are going back to basics. It’s like, we’re going to do what we know how to do well. We’re going to do it the best we can, or we’re going to try and win games that way. We’re not going to be getting out of our comfort zone and coming up with all these crazy RPO plays. Like, we’re going back to basics. this lack of desperation, I think, just really is reflecting that right now. Terry Pluto (10:47.374) I mean, if you look at, if you look back when they took over in 2020, this regime, what did it do? Granted, they were given some good players by the previous regime. but they basically put Baker in an offense that fit his skill set, you know, Nick Chubb. They didn’t make a lot of big moves. They just tried to get things organized and they brought a sense of calm after the Freddie Kitchens. David Campbell (10:47.504) Are you seeing that? Terry Pluto (11:17.026) You know, all the things that went on there and they won, I believe they were 11 and five. And then the next year is when Baker gets hurt and all those things go on. And what I see there is they rated Kenny Picken. think they sit there and they made a list of, quarterbacks available. Aaron Rogers, Joe Flacco, know, Carson once, Jamis. forgot who else has signed at other places. And I think picking ended up being fairly high on that list. You know, who would you rather have? So let’s go trade for this guy. Let’s get that done first. And then we’ll figure out what we want to do after that. We’re going to draft a young quarterback, whether we draft them at two or we draft them at, you know, eight or we draft them at 30 or whatever it is. We’re going to take one and then we’ll just add a third one, whoever it may be. And then also. I mean, people, I mean, I was not a big Kenny Pickett fan, but look, you could ask me a thousand times, would you rather have Kenny Pickett or DTR? I mean, there’s nothing to discuss. There just isn’t. Of course I want Kenny Pickett on on on a still a rookie contract. I am curious to see. All right. Let me ask you this Dave Campbell, because I haven’t decided, but we’ll throw you out there. do this to me all the time. All right. The first pick is Cam Ward. You had the second pick. You’re the Cleveland Browns and you. David Campbell (12:45.361) So I am getting the sense this with the way they have been talking up Kenny Pickett and again, not desperation. I think their attitude is, listen, we’re going to have some quarterbacks. Kenny Pickett is going to be one of them and we’re going to be fine. So I just, I’m getting this sense that they’re not going to take a quarterback at number two. And I think it’s going to be either Hunter or Abdul Carter. think they’re, they need touchdowns and they need turnovers and Abdul Carter and Travis Hunter, if you play him at cornerback, those guys can help create turnovers, which will get your offense back on the field, get your defense off the field. And you’ve got a couple of guys there that can be just star players for 10 years. That’s just, it’s just my gut. don’t have anything to base that on, but I just, this way they’re talking up Kenny Pickett this week. I just get the feeling that they don’t, they’re not going to reach for stuff anymore. They’re not going to hyperventilate and like, got to do this. We got to, it feels like taking Shador Sanders at number two. Everybody has them evaluated way lower. And I don’t think the Browns want to reach on this. That’s the sense I’m getting. So I don’t think they will. What do you think? Terry Pluto (13:51.118) I would be surprised if they did that with Sanders at number two. Um, it would be interesting suppose, um, you know, they, although somebody moves up to two, they probably want Sanders. Why else would they do it? Unless somebody like say one Abdul Carter and you could drop down to seven or eight and then you could take, um, you know, you could take, uh, Sanders and take somebody else. I mean, I guess that’s a possibility, probably remote. Um, I think when they looked at picket, They thought a couple of things. Number one, he was with Canada, was it Matt Canada, the offensive coordinator there at Pittsburgh. And he is not highly regarded, you know, at all. I, right. And I think they also said, you know, this guy, he, you put him in Kevin’s offense. He might be able to surprise people. Jacoby Berset did some others. And meantime, you know, we can buy some time with him for all the David Campbell (14:34.245) why he’s not there anymore. Terry Pluto (14:52.174) You know, anti Kenny Pickett thing, but what’s his record? 14 and 10, I think is a starter. Now, you know, some of that has to do with, it’s like having a good restaurant. Sometimes a lot of it has to do with location where you are. Cause the Steelers, you know, they were able to certainly keep you in the game with their defense and forcing turnovers. But nonetheless, I think they looked at the fact that he played 20, he had 25 starts or whatever it was. And I believe he had 14 interceptions. As I mentioned though, a lot of times the The flip side is sometimes you’re gonna throw some interceptions if you throw in quite a few touchdown passes. Otherwise, Cody Kessel would be in the NFL still just throwing three yard passes if that’s all it took. Stay away from interceptions. So I think that that’s what they want. Hunter’s interesting to me because he is just a game breaker. On offense, I think if you put the ball on his hands more and that, also as you said, you know, cornerback, such a premier position. And it’s almost like you bring this toy in with two different position things to play and you see what you can get out of it. You might have a star at one or the other. David Campbell (16:05.073) Well, not to mention what he might be able to do returning punts or running some different kinds of plays for him. So I don’t know. Again, I don’t have anything to base this on. I just get the sense that they’re not going to be reaching for things. And number two, they have some good players available at number two. I don’t know. I just think reaching for a quarterback is not something that they feel like they have to do. I don’t know. I could be wrong. Terry Pluto (16:07.928) Terry Pluto (16:11.26) And he also, I know that. Terry Pluto (16:26.572) Yeah, well, I mean, but they have to win some games, David. They can’t come back at six and 11, much less three and 14. Otherwise, they’re all gonna be looking for work. Somebody will be held accountable and it won’t be the owners. David Campbell (16:31.025) Definitely. David Campbell (16:43.035) That’s true. Yeah, the clock is ticking. So all right. We got a couple of emails here that are quarterback related. I thought we’d get to those real quick from listeners. Dan Polster is the first one and Dan says, long time follower chiming in on my thoughts on the upcoming draft and why I would not draft Shadour Sanders at number two. My comments are less of a knock on Shadour Sanders than they are the Browns as an organization. For all we know, he may turn into a great NFL player. However, A college player’s success in the NFL can be unpredictable even for the best players being evaluated by the best NFL teams. However, the Browns seem to have a track record of missing on even can’t miss players such as Courtney Brown or Trent Richardson. I have seen no evidence that the current regime is any better at evaluating talent. As such, all the more concern in drafting a player second overall who has as many question marks as should do her. Unlike other teams with a history of success, we cannot simply gamble, make another mistake, and then later sit back and laugh about it. San Francisco can do that after making mistake with Trey Lance because they eventually discovered a Brock Purdy and have a history of success in the league. In order to compete as well as save face with the fans, unfortunately, the Browns really need to be conservative here and not take a chance with a player who has such a potential for failure in the league. My personal desire would be to trade down and stockpile picks, the idea being that the more players we take, the better a chance that some of them will actually succeed. Sad that I feel the need to think in such ways, but I have no confidence they will otherwise make a good choice here. Terry Pluto (18:08.046) Of course, that led to, I’m not saying he would go this far, but that led to the 2016 draft where they traded down twice. They had 5,042 picks and you really didn’t come out with much of anything from that draft because you still have to pick them correctly. But in general, I mean, you’d rather have more picks than fewer because that is why the damaging thing of the Watson trade Was taking six picks right off the top, know, including three first rounders and a possibility using those first rounders to move up. Cause what the Houston did, it’s really hard to track all the players that, Houston got in the, from the drafts from Watson. Cause they were used some of those picks to move up in the draft to take impact players. But that’s yeah, it wasn’t directly, but they, part of the picks are in that. And, but they were just sitting there going. David Campbell (18:58.673) Will Anderson and yeah. Terry Pluto (19:06.818) That’s why the Browns were trying to even give them Baker Mayfield and some other things in those trade talks. And they go, no, no, we want six picks, three, one, three first rounders. And that’s what we want. And of course they also realize that they were about ready to trade everything except Lake Erie for them. And that was, they held out for that. that, that’s an interesting thought. Yeah. I’ll just tell you, David, this is, you know, football drafts whatever, this is not my thing. I’m not, I’m not good at this. I’m not good at evaluating football players. No, they aren’t. They aren’t. and I feel better like watching, you know, a basketball draft or whatever, just because you can’t, and, by the way, people who are sports writers or whatever to, to, act like they have the same degree of whatever knowledge or David Campbell (19:40.453) Well, half the teams aren’t good at it. So I guess we shouldn’t feel bad. Terry Pluto (20:02.1) experience in all the main sports is ludicrous. You don’t, you can’t possibly do that. You can still have an opinion, but once in a while, like now I just throw it out and this is, this is not really my thing. For example, but it was easy for me to, you know, go negative on the Watson thing. Cause that, that’s a general sports business question. Yeah. That would apply to any franchise. You know, when you were looking at that, when he would, when you do those things. So a lot of those times, the things that I’m writing is, this a wise way to do sports business, uh, regardless of the franchise, as opposed to getting into the, uh, like looking at Louis Ortiz, who I did feel I know a little bit more about baseball than football, but I was really watching him with the guardian, but I was really watching him closely. Even still, I couldn’t figure out exactly why he suddenly can’t throw strikes. Uh, and I’m sure a lot of these guys, as you said, they draft these players. And they do look, you got all kinds of film and they look good. And you put them out there and suddenly, you know, every pass they’re throwing is high and wide, or they just get in the pocket and they had, they did have pretty good presence in the pocket in college. And now they just act like they’re, know, they’re not a deer in a head wise. They’re just like running for their life even before anything happens. It’s got to drive them nuts. David Campbell (21:23.099) I mean, we’d have to have our requisite moneyball reference from the movie, but there’s one Brad Pitt says to the scout, you think you can predict how these kids are gonna do when you draft them and you can’t. You don’t know anymore about one guy than you do another. It’s just, it’s so unpredictable. So, all right, so I’m gonna ask you. Terry Pluto (21:29.123) Terry Pluto (21:42.152) Or, and by the way, just to the point, like for example, when the Browns drafted Courtney Brown, by far, I mean, he was the Abductor of that draft and he was on his way to having a good year and he got hurt and he came back, but he was never the same. And I was told, you know, now, if they’d had the kind of micro fracture, micro knee surgery stuff that they do now and that. he would have been able to come back better, but back then the surgery was not very good. And so he just didn’t have the same quickness and burst that he had. And he just basically was a role player for seven years. But sometimes it’s just luck. You draft the right guy and he gets hurt. David Campbell (22:28.261) So I’m gonna ask you a question about the quarterbacks and then we have a really interesting email here about Kirk Cousins. But so Terry, if they went into the season with Kenny Pickett, let’s say late first round, they move up into the end of the first round, they don’t take somebody at two. Yeah, let’s say they get him high second late first if they trade up and then Joe Flacco. Are you happy with that? Yeah. Terry Pluto (22:42.946) Jackson Dart. Terry Pluto (22:46.7) whatever. Yeah. Terry Pluto (22:52.302) Oh, I’ll go for that. I don’t think they’ll take Flacco. I mean, if they wanted Flacco, he’s been like that out there. I mean, he probably feels like this is turning into 2023 again. The phone’s not ringing. David Campbell (23:06.373) Yeah, well, the Aaron Rodgers domino is still waiting to fall. And I think once that does, we’ll see it. anyway, so. Terry Pluto (23:10.858) Yeah, he’s probably telling himself that, I’m not, no, this is, this is like a thing. You you start getting rejected and things that, you know, things haven’t gone well. I mean, it’s hard to keep your mind in a positive place because remember, didn’t he interview with New York? I believe Flacco did. And they took Jamis and he’s probably going, they found the one guy throws winter, winter receptions that I do. And they took him. David Campbell (23:36.399) Yeah, but you never know what’s going on behind the scenes though, Terry. They could be talking to him saying, Hey, listen, we’re just waiting on one thing, but we’re really want to keep you in the mix here. don’t know. You never know what’s going on behind the scenes. Terry Pluto (23:46.612) Never know, but I guess maybe I’m just, to me, it’s just a no brainer. Pick it, flacco, and you’re picked. That’s it, go play ball. David Campbell (23:53.829) Yeah, yeah. Okay, so Kirk Cousins was in Cleveland last week, kind of taking a tour of barbecue restaurants and Chipotle. So we got a really interesting email here from Carl Carlson. Carl is a listener who lives in New Hampshire. He says, Hi guys, as you continue to ponder the Browns QB plans, could this scenario be playing out? The Browns and Falcons have worked out a deal for Kirk Cousins, but Cousins doesn’t want to get penexed again. So he won’t waive his no trade clause until he knows that he’s Terry Pluto (24:01.397) David Campbell (24:23.109) the clear starter and won’t be upstaged by a highly drafted rookie again. He’s going to use his power to make sure he likes his new situation. Meanwhile, the Falcons don’t want to wait until after the draft to execute the trade because they’ll miss out on a 20-25 pick. So what’s stopping the Browns and Falcons from making that trade during the draft just before the pick that they’ve agreed upon in the trade? Cousins sees that the Browns don’t take a QB high in the first two rounds. And he waves the clause, the deal goes through and the Falcons have their pick in this draft instead of 2026. The Browns then have cousins pick it in a rookie that they grab in the later rounds along with number two pick Travis Hunter and one of those explosive running backs at number 33. What do you think? Terry Pluto (25:05.774) I think he thought better than I did and deeper on this, I like it. It’s very, yeah. First of all, you gotta remember Cousins, by the way, Cousins’ father, I forgot his first name, but he was a well-known non-denominational pastor and was in the early days of a big church called Woola Creek in Chicago and then later on to somewhere else. And he was... David Campbell (25:08.867) It’s really interesting, isn’t it? Way to go, Carl. Terry Pluto (25:33.006) They were up at Willow Creek. They were always known for kind of their two and three stage thinking and how to build a church and everything. Stay with me on this. So if you watch cousins, remember how he kept letting himself get franchised and all that other stuff that keep his options open. Then, I mean, if you’re Atlanta, why did you give him a no trade along with that contract? But of course, he asked for it. He’s got it now. He’s got you. There. So you could be correct. mean, if he is thinking about Cleveland or whatever, it’s like, you know, let’s see what they do. Cause I I’m not in the mood to, have this. have a couple of bad games or whatever and I’m done. And I really think that, there’s some, you know, some real possibility with that. I’m not sure how that works on the cap, David, because it doesn’t matter. Remember, it’s not about we’ll pay half his salary. That’s not the question. The question is the salary cap numbers. David Campbell (26:38.203) Yeah, Mary Kay wrote a lot about this over the last few days that there’s basically three big hurdles and that’s one of them. The no trade clause is one, the salary cap. So anyway, there’s a lot that would have to happen for this deal to come through, but hey, it’s an interesting thing to think about and. Terry Pluto (26:42.924) Terry Pluto (26:48.152) Terry Pluto (26:52.012) Well, is, and actually if you’re cutting out to go to, I’m sorry, was the, who sent the good email? Who was that? Carl. Yeah. Carl Carlson got it right because if you look at cousin’s entire career and kind of how he was trained, say by his dad on that, you play by the rules, but you also are very, very strategic in how you look at this. It’s a business. David Campbell (26:59.1) it’s Carl from New Hampshire. Yeah, Carl Carlson. Terry Pluto (27:20.574) And you want to make sure they’re how about this though? I don’t I’m not sure I would go this way, but the cousins, I forgot the year of the draft, but it was the year that Washington took RG three number two. And then they took cousins in the fourth round. Terry Pluto (27:41.608) And you know, RG three is long gone. Cousins is still playing. How about taking Will Howard in the fourth round, third round after somebody else? Yes. Pile them up. Is this the only time I’ve seen that where you took a guy real high and then you took another guy like that? I think that was the Shanahan. David Campbell (27:49.521) in that church. David Campbell (27:58.971) Yeah, take two guys, yeah. Terry Pluto (28:11.328) Mike Shanahan for an office that did that. David Campbell (28:15.697) All right, well, the draft is coming up in, well, boy, three weeks from Thursday. Already, Terry, the first round will be on April 24th. I guess we could run through some of these rule changes real quick. I don’t know if you have any thoughts on them, but I think I was saying a couple months ago that they’re probably gonna move the touchback spot on kickoffs from the 30 to the 35, because it wasn’t punitive enough. And they did that. So from now on, when you kick a ball off and it goes into the end zone, instead of in the landing zone, it’s gonna come out to the 35. That’s the way the rule was in the... Terry Pluto (28:35.458) David Campbell (28:45.777) XFL, UFL, I can’t keep those leagues straight. But anyway, they brought it from that other league and now it’s gonna be the 35 yard line. They’re projecting that’s gonna boost the kickoff return rate up dramatically from 32.8 % last season. Terry Pluto (28:58.286) Yeah, and they projected all the excitement from their kickoff rolls last year too. David Campbell (29:02.993) Well, we’ll see what it does. They think it’ll be a lot, that extra five yards will incentivize people to hit the landing zone. So the tush push has been tabled after getting some support. They’re not going to vote on it. They’re going to let it sit for now, but it might be brought up again in May. And they are going to in overtime, let both teams have the ball, regardless of what happens on the first possession. So I think that was to make playoffs in regular season the same. Not that big of a deal there. Yeah. Terry Pluto (29:29.484) Yeah, well that just makes sense. mean, yeah, that, cause then basically you lose the game, you lose the game on a coin flip. David Campbell (29:38.629) Yep. Yeah. Alright. I think we’re done with the Browns, right? You wanna take a break here? Okay. When we get back, we’re gonna talk some Guardians and I wanna ask you, what do you think they should do with Luis Ortiz after a rough start last night? We’ll get into that more when we return on Terry’s Talking. David Campbell (32:40.805) Hey, we’re back on Terry’s Talking. Quick plug for Terry’s weekly newsletter. Comes out every Wednesday at noon. It’s chock full of great stuff. Insider information, contract breakdowns, fun stories about Earl Weaver and other things. Always a good read. So check it out. You can go to cleveland.com slash Pluto and subscribe. It’s at the top there. You get two weeks free trial. Click on the blue bar at the top of cleveland.com slash Pluto. At the top, you’ll get a link that’ll take you to subscription. You can sign up and you get two weeks free. Terry Pluto (32:54.296) David Campbell (33:10.097) All right, Terry, the Guardians, two and two after their first four games and they are tied for the division lead with the White Sox. I never thought I would say that. Terry Pluto (33:14.926) Terry Pluto (33:19.362) We’re you’re white socks weren’t you a white socks fan growing up? Yeah. Yeah. Well, David Campbell (33:22.385) I kind of like both teams. I like the Cubs and the White Sox. I don’t know if that was allowed, but yeah. What are you thinking so far? I think there’s probably some good things to talk about, some bad things to talk about. We need to get into the Luis Ortiz situation, but what are your general impressions so far? Terry Pluto (33:40.974) Well, the good thing is Arias has played better than I thought he would. It’s early, but he has. Manzardo, I had high expectations, but I mean, just, just been just crushing the ball. It’s like he started when he came back up from the minors in September, it carried him the playoffs and went into spring training and just, I’m not saying, you know, let’s get a Cooperstown ready, but he, you know, he had the pedigree of an impact hitter when they got him. In fact, I know some people from Tampa Bay, because I was talking to some of them, not one of them to trade, and they go, well, it helps a lot. helps us because he said, you know, we really like this guy, you know, that and they were surprised, you know, they were in the media that Tampa Bay traded him. And one of the reasons was he’s not very good defensively, but, know, David, fact, all right, it’s another Earl Weaver one, but I can’t help, but we have to have the weekly one. When somebody would say to Weaver, well, all he can do is hit. We’ve got, stop right there. How many guys can really hit? I could get a whole bunch of guys that get field, but how many guys can really hit? And. David Campbell (34:39.217) Terry Pluto (34:59.938) that always stuck with me. Just like in basketball, hear, all I can really do is shoot. We’ll stop right there. Especially now, more than ever, that’s a prize skill. So Manzardo, thank goodness, when the Guardians insisted on him in that Savalli trade, it ended up, believe, just one for one, because they just really believed that this guy, whether they could probably make him at doing okay for his face, but all he can do is hit. So that’s been two good things, areas that. David Campbell (35:29.263) Yeah, I just want to say Terry, the opener, the Royals, think went to went to the left-hander in the bullpen twice when he was coming up to bat and man, he made them pay twice, which is really good to see because, you know, he’s he’s great against righties for sure, but he has had an up and down time against lefties and he’s got just he’s hitting everything right now. Terry Pluto (35:35.148) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Terry Pluto (35:46.102) Yeah. But if you watch this swing, cause I remember when they made the trade, found a bunch of videos online. Now this is like I said, where I feel more comfortable talking about it. you know, covering minor league baseball for a year and then the major leagues for six. you could see him hitting all these balls in the gaps, left center and right center. He was not a dead pole hitter whatsoever. And thinking, you know, this guy, and he has a shorter swing. It’s not a big. strikeout prone swing. Why can’t he be respectable against lefties? There was no reason to simply dismiss it. when you watch certain guys, I you watch for example, Will Brennan, I mean for whatever reason, hopeless against lefties. I mean I his career is like 180. And I was a little surprised there, but I kind of watched it break down. It just seems like he bailed out a lot on lefties and was swinging just with his arms and his front foot was going one way and the hands were going the other. And, you know, right now we’ll see how it goes, but you know, big Christmas is having big trouble against right-handed pitching. It even goes back to last year. and so we’ll see, but yeah, this guy there and we’ll, I’m not a big areas guy. mean, I, I’m a, a, I’m a doubter, but, I give him credit. He’s come out and he’s looked good early. Go ahead. Who do you like? David Campbell (37:08.353) yeah, I mean, you talked about Manzardo. I think the defense has been really good and that’ll be, what do they say in football? Defense travels or whatever, but I think defense travels in baseball too. And I think that’s going to serve them well down the road. yeah, I do you want to get into Tristan McKenzie now? I guess we could do that. So he was not happy about starting the season in the bullpen and last night comes in in a seven to two game, they’re losing and Terry Pluto (37:13.078) Terry Pluto (37:17.592) Terry Pluto (37:29.326) David Campbell (37:36.977) puts in kind of two important innings, I thought. What did you think of Tristan McKenzie? Two innings last night, one hit, one walk, one strikeout, 26 pitches. I got some other data here I thought might be interesting. I can throw that out if you want. Okay, so I was looking back to 2022, which was I think the year when he went 11 and 11, right, with a 2.96 and. Terry Pluto (37:39.566) Terry Pluto (37:49.41) Go, keep going. Terry Pluto (37:57.027) David Campbell (38:00.355) If you look at the breakdown, he threw his four seam fastball 1575 times, right? It was 56 % of his bitches. And then his curve ball and slider were exactly the same. He threw 616 of each of them. So that’s about 22%. So 56 % fastballs and then 22 % curve balls, 22 % sliders, right? And that’s, that seems like when he was most effective was when he didn’t have to just run that fastball up there all the time and guys would catch it. Terry Pluto (38:13.899) Terry Pluto (38:27.246) And the other good thing about his curve ball back then was sort of an over the top, um, you know, 12 to six. And it was, I don’t know how many miles slower than his fastball, but it was a significant difference because one of the, I’ve to worry about this in the column I did on Ben Lively over the weekend. And okay. Second weaver reference number two, but remember he was the first guy ever to use a radar gun. And the, and the reason being he. I mean, he said, do you like to see you tired? goes by Whirly wanted to see the difference, the variance between the guy’s fastball and whatever his off speed pitch was. Cause he wanted it to be at least 10 miles difference. And I think Tristan was back then that curve ball was a 10 mile difference from his fastball. And that helped him. David Campbell (39:18.181) Yeah, so I was just looking last night to see what he was throwing, right? And of the 26 pitches, there were 20 fastballs, which is 77%, and three curve balls and three sliders. And if you look at the heat map, I think this is from baseball, Savanna, I wish I could show it to everybody, but like his four seam fastball, he was just pounding the strike zone with it. And when he missed, it wasn’t by much. The three curve balls, one was in the strike zone, two were kind of down, down and not really close. And his slider, three sliders, Terry Pluto (39:21.421) Terry Pluto (39:28.664) Terry Pluto (39:38.135) Terry Pluto (39:43.854) David Campbell (39:48.027) two in the strike zone, one that wasn’t close. anyway, but I guess my point is 20 fast balls, three curve balls, three sliders. Like that’s not the mix that he is gonna want, but it was a start, right? It was a good two innings where, yeah, exactly. Terry Pluto (40:00.998) No, that’s how you pitch out of the bullpen. That’s how you do the bullpen is the John Hart theory of you put a guy who especially the starters in the bullpen and he would say you give them a pitch and a half numbers one main pitch who basically you want to use it like two-thirds of the time or however you want to break it down and Then another pitch would be a much smaller percentage you do that So you could have his guy this guy build up this confidence by sticking with his best pitch for a couple innings, get some people out and put them back together again. So that is the big thing there. That’s what was encouraging there is that Tristan didn’t go out there and try to pitch like a starter. He went out there to go get outs. Remember he said he was willing to do that after he, I mean, I have to admit I liked Tristan, but I listened to that about I was disappointed about, you know, not being out of the rotation or whatever. Hey. The only reason you weren’t in the minors is because you’re out of minor league options. And I think they didn’t want to risk somebody grabbing you and maybe putting you in the bullpen for somebody else. David Campbell (41:06.865) Yeah, but again, a good first step. His foreseen fastball was coming in at 94 last night, which is, that’s the fastest that he’s had, I think, in his career. I mean, it’s only one game. But the slider was coming in at 87.8 average for the three pitches and the curve ball was coming in at 80. Terry Pluto (41:09.11) Yes, absolutely. Terry Pluto (41:14.426) huh, couple miles more than normal. Terry Pluto (41:25.654) Okay, there’s your difference. Remember we talked about that? 94 to 80. There’s your 10 plus. Yes. Go ahead. David Campbell (41:31.441) the variety and no, was just going to say, like, I’m just wondering, I keep thinking about Avila last year. I think there’s going to be some appearances coming up where Tristan McKenzie will get maybe three or whatever. And like, when, I’m interested to see when he starts maybe getting longer, if he is going to try and work that curve ball and slider more as he goes along. And yes, first thing you need to come out and pound the strikes on the fastballs, but how’s he going to mix it up and mix his Terry Pluto (41:39.342) Terry Pluto (41:58.444) David Campbell (42:00.923) Cause that’s what’s going to get him back in the rotation, think, is being able to throw those other two pitches. Terry Pluto (42:05.294) My view is I just want him to pitch well. And if it’s going to be bullpen, do this fine. You know, and you sit them down and say, first of all, maybe the bullpen would be better for you because you won’t be hurting, putting your arm in those stressful situations. You’ll five, you know, start throwing 80 to a hundred pitches. Cause that remember that hangs over him, that elbow thing. Secondly, you can make a lot of money out of the bullpen too. David Campbell (42:26.745) David Campbell (42:32.571) That’s true. Terry Pluto (42:33.582) And especially in the age of bullpen games and everything else, just cool it, pitch and a half, have at it. And that’s to me, the fact that the velocity was up and that he was getting it over the plate. Cause remember how last year when he was sent to the miners, he had the terrible combination of leading the American league in home runs and walks. I mean, just the absolute worst that you could have. So that was. You’re right, that was a pleasant one. Okay, go ahead. David Campbell (43:07.131) So now, so yeah, I was just going to say, Terry, so, you know, like in basketball, if somebody’s getting minutes, somebody else isn’t getting minutes. I’m just wondering about this kind of tug of war, yin and yang, Tristan McKenzie and Luis Ortiz, right? So Luis Ortiz has struggled in spring training. He goes out last night in his first start, seven to two loss to San Diego, four and two thirds innings, nine hits, seven earned runs, four walks. Terry Pluto (43:13.133) Terry Pluto (43:20.504) Terry Pluto (43:30.338) David Campbell (43:33.713) two strikeouts, 90 pitches in one game area of 13 and 50. But there’s going to kind of be this, it’s kind like a sliding thing. Like when does Luis Ortiz hit the point where they can’t try him out there every fifth day if this continues? And when does Tristan McKenzie get longer? And there’s going to be like a point, a mesh point where they might need to flip rolls. How do you see this playing out? Terry Pluto (43:58.198) Maybe or else or else you got Nick hazy in the miners who they like very much and you may You know, sometimes when you’ve had a guy that struggled for a couple years, he finally has some success. You don’t mess with it I’m very serious on this if they could finally get something when was the last time they got anything out of Tristan? It was really good 22, wasn’t it? I mean that is three years ago And that’s, if I were sitting down with Tristan, I would say, look, this gives a chance for you to rebuild your career. Just go with it. It’s not about what you want. Sometimes what we want is not good for us parents. How many times have we said that to our kids? And so that’s the same thing here. Meanwhile, Ortiz, I do not, I would be loved to sit in a meeting with, David Campbell (44:39.301) Get out. Go get out. Terry Pluto (44:58.446) Carl Wills or somebody to break this down. What happened to this guy who averaged fewer than three walks per nine innings with the Pirates and, you know, pitched what it’s not like he’s, he was terrible for Pittsburgh at all, but it’s like, he can’t throw strikes. Um, he’s, he’s just sort of all over the place. His velocity is fine. Was it like 94 to 96? That’s what I remember watching last night. Um, I will say this. No, I don’t think there’s a big variance there maybe in speeds, but there was nothing that jumped out to me other than he’s not throwing strikes, but it wasn’t like, sometimes you watch the guys wind up and you know, the left hand’s going this way and the right arm like behind and you don’t even know how the heck he’s getting the ball to home point without it bouncing. That’s not this guy. His wind is pretty camp compact, but he’s a mess. And cause this is the same, same junk from spring training. I saw, saw. David Campbell (45:51.665) Alright, we do it. Terry Pluto (45:56.268) parts on TV, a twice from spring train. looked like the same guy. It’s like, yikes. David Campbell (46:01.489) Okay, so we do have an email, listener email about Ortiz. One of our readers from Tom Byler, long time listener, Tom says, while the guards front office has a decent track record on trades, dumping Andres Jimenez in essence for batting practice pitcher Ortiz may be their worst. Mr. Jimenez is batting cleanup for the Jays and already has three homers and five RBI in addition to his platinum glove second base. Apparently Jays hitting coaches were able to find a way to help Jimenez that guardians gurus missed. Terry Pluto (46:03.757) Terry Pluto (46:14.38) Terry Pluto (46:19.475) I know, can you believe that? David Campbell (46:28.763) Good for Andres, I hope he has a long successful career. Meanwhile, the guards pitching factory is getting nowhere with Ortiz, who followed up a horrible spring training with a horrible first start. When a pitcher struggles over several straight appearances like Ortiz has, it often turns out they were trying to pitch through an injury. Hope that is not the case and I hope Carl Willis and crew can get him figured out. Thanks for that time. Terry Pluto (46:44.835) That’s been in the back of my mind too. Has he been hurt? Now what we have seen sometimes with guys who are hurt, it’s their thrown heart anyway. We saw that last year with Shane Beaver. That was a stunning thing. Remember about Beaver. He pitched 12 innings, scoreless, struck out 20. And then they call a press conference, he’s having Tommy John surgery. And I remember I was on it, there’s only like five or six of us on this call, you know, that they have with Chris Antonetti and, know, they asked him basically and said, Chris, now I don’t mean any like disrespect or whatever, but. David Campbell (47:13.626) Then the injury. Terry Pluto (47:32.514) I’ve been around a long time, two of you, because have you ever seen a guy throw 12 scoreless innings with 20 strikeouts and need Tommy John surgery? And he said, Terry, all I can tell you, he said, before the last start, he said his arm didn’t quite feel right. And then when he was done, it didn’t feel, it goes, and we did the MRIs and the tests and it came back. needed it. David Campbell (47:54.289) incredible. Terry Pluto (47:55.17) And that was he passed the eye test before the MRI. and so is there something wrong with Ortiz on that? I don’t know. David Campbell (48:06.129) All right, well the plot will thicken there. I’m guessing as things go along, they’re gonna have to decide if it, and who knows, you might turn it around the next couple of starts, but we’re not. Terry Pluto (48:10.082) You know, it was amazing. You brought up a Vila who I liked and you liked and the fans liked is it wasn’t just that the guardians passed on him. No one picked him up. I think he’s in Japan or Korea. I forgot which one, which league he went to. Yes. Yeah, he was. He, and he was a guy that was had a high year array with San Diego and they had given up on him and they got him over here and fixed them right away. That’s what they talk about the pitching factory. and. David Campbell (48:26.597) Yeah, it’s something. He would come in and give them three, four innings at a shot and really save the bullpen some days. Terry Pluto (48:43.298) By the way, you’re right about, I’m sure you see Andres hitting these home runs. This is the guy that they gave all the money to. I mean. David Campbell (48:51.183) Yeah. But go back to Oveela, like that’s what I could see Tristan McKenzie moving into is when somebody gets knocked out in the third inning, he comes in and does three, four innings like that and stretches it out. Yeah. Terry Pluto (48:56.245) Terry Pluto (49:01.94) Even two, three, you I mean, you get, you get nine outs in modern baseball. That’s a very valuable. You could pitch forever doing that. I’m very serious. And that’s one of those things. Sometimes you just sit these guys down and say, look, this is how the world works now. And you do have a history. He had arm problems in the minors also. So if this bullpen thing could work for you, you’re going to make a lot of money and you’re going to help your team. David Campbell (49:29.285) All right, got one more email here. This is from Neil in Jamestown, New York. Neil writes us quite frequently. He says, Hey Terry, it struck me who Kyle Manzardo reminds me of. The video game characters Super Mario. We’ve already had Super Joe Charbonneau and SpongeBob. Something to consider for a Manzardo moniker. So there you go. Super Manzardo. Terry Pluto (49:40.631) Terry Pluto (49:46.69) Well, that would be... I forgot, Kwan went like way over the top of Manzaro. Didn’t he say he’ll anchor the lineup? Call me anchor. Yeah. He’ll anchor the line. you look, but I see, you know why Kwan likes them. He’s a left-handed hitter, you know, a compact swing deck. So Kwan probably see, he knows that stuff. I Kwan’s such a smart hitter. I mean, you could see it again. David Campbell (49:58.255) Yep, that was his exact words I think. Terry Pluto (50:21.56) That was an interesting thing. a re Risa, a Risa, I’m getting the name wrong. The guy that was a batting title every year for a different team. They said he and Kwan let the majors in singles last year. And I know base modern baseball doesn’t like singles, but modern baseball does love walks. And I would ask you actually ask them, what’s the difference? What? Yeah. It’s kind of like you get up, you get our first base either way. David Campbell (50:56.945) So there is no difference is what we’re deciding on this one, right? Terry Pluto (50:58.254) But they kind of downplay singles, but he walks a lot. Well, he gets on first base however he gets there. I pay you to get on base. That’s another money ball thing. But it is funny on how that I think it’s just a analytics reaction to too much emphasis on the batting average. All right, Jose Ramirez. David Campbell (51:04.195) David Campbell (51:07.729) I pay you to get on base, Yeah, exactly. That’s right. David Campbell (51:23.109) All right, anything else on the Guardians, Terry? Terry Pluto (51:28.906) It’s just amazing. Remember his arm is falling off or the wrist is broken or whatever it is. And then he comes back. He takes a day off and apparently wanted to play anyway. And then he comes back and what he hit a home run and a double or something. And he made that play a third base. And I mean, we are watching. one of the greatest players in Indians history. We are now, he’s now four years into that seven year deal he signed. And I just marvel at him because of, I mean, look at him physically. I mean, this is not Aaron judge. This is not Jim told me it’s not Kenny often. This is little guy and he steals 39 bases and he hits 30 home runs and he plays every day. And he yells at these guys to hustle. And it’s just, he’s even underrated in this town. David Campbell (52:35.451) Yeah, might never see his like again. Taking the contract like he did to stay here. Terry Pluto (52:37.964) I don’t think so. This is, it’s an incredible baseball story. It also is a person who does know, knows what matters to him. Cause he was oblivious to anything that majorly baseball union would want or what other people would say about you. should have got more money or what he’s like, leave me alone. Let me play ball in Cleveland where they leave me alone and let me play ball. And then I go back to the Dominican and I have my friends and my youth league and. You know, as he told Andre, Andre not, you know, $20 million is a lot. It’s like you want to go flip that up and, know, every locker room, $20 million is a lot. David Campbell (53:22.641) Yeah, he’s one of a kind. He is one of a kind. So, all right. So the Guardians are wrapping up this series in San Diego. They got a game there tonight and then they are finishing that on Wednesday afternoon. And then they are going to be playing the Angels out in California this weekend after an off day on Thursday. And then they’re off on Monday the 7th and the home opener on Tuesday, April 8th against the White Sox at 410. So, all right. Yeah. Terry Pluto (53:23.502) Terry Pluto (53:46.274) By the way, did you look at that forecast for when they come back? Bring your earmuffs, baby. Yeah. David Campbell (53:49.647) No, bad. Really? No, we’ve got some cold weather opening day stories coming up here in a minute. So all right, Cavaliers. What do you want to talk about the Cavaliers? guess we’re kind of in get to the playoffs mode and keep everybody healthy. Jared Allen had a nice game. Yeah. Terry Pluto (53:56.406) Terry Pluto (54:07.126) Well, Kenny got mad, I guess, for the first time this year. Really, really got mad. I know, because I have pretty good relationship with Kenny. So we kind of communicate back and forth. he was getting real, because he’s been trying to be pounding away on this rebounding thing for over a month. And I mean, one of I, and you know this from listening to the podcast, if you have, I’m a big team rebounding guy. It’s not just the big guys. for two reasons. Number one, they shoot a lot of three pointers, three pointers when they missed in the bang way off the rim, long rebounds. Secondly, we live in the age of big men switching off onto little men. So hence your big guy, you know, is not under the basket where you want him to be. He ends up guarding, you know, some little guy way away. So those guards or whatever have to go and help. And Donovan Mitchell went in there and got 12 rebounds the other. That was the hit. think it would have 38 the night before or whatever the game before against Detroit. Then he had 12 rebounds and 20 some against the Clippers, which I think was Mitchell sending the message that coach wanted sent that we got to get going and start playing this game the right way. And they won from giving up nine offensive rebounds, 19, excuse me, 19 offensive rebounds a game for it was either two, two games in a row or three to 10. And then finally, they remembered that Jared Allen hardly ever misses. David Campbell (55:39.909) Yeah, he has one of the all-time high and field goal percentages in the history of the game. Terry Pluto (55:41.804) I’m kidding. Yeah, just, you know, look for him and just keep telling the big guy, you know, it’s almost like he’s afraid to miss. It’s like, no, you’re allowed to miss a couple of shots a game. You don’t have to go 10 for 11 every game. and, and so I was excited to see what happened over the weekend, even though they lost to Detroit. But I think it was a thing that got them in the right frame of mind to go out and play the Clippers the right way. David Campbell (56:14.949) Yeah, I’m seeing some things, you know, on our subtext, which is basically Chris Fedor, Ethan Sands and Jimmy Watkins. Cavs fans can sign up for 399 a month and that you kind of get insider information and behind the scenes stuff. But Chris Fedor was texting about how it was the first practice they’ve had in weeks today. Yeah. Terry Pluto (56:21.475) Terry Pluto (56:32.64) Yeah, almost a month. I think since February 28th or something like that. It was crazy. David Campbell (56:38.147) And Chris was suspecting that they were going to be working on some playoff stuff today in terms of special sets. And between that and Kenny Atkinson’s just devotion to giving these guys a lot of time off to recover, I get the sense that the Cavs are going to be ready when this playoff starts. I think they’re going to be ready physically, and I think they’re going to be ready in terms of strategy and just gas in the tank. think it’s on the right track from what I’m seeing. Terry Pluto (56:53.506) Terry Pluto (57:06.846) And also where he can. look at his rotations you know kind of play with some different things and all you know yeah and then if it doesn’t work you could always cut it down now the one advantage to keep intending the rotation you don’t want it to happen well what if somebody gets hurt so then if you go to nine you still have had guys that are getting playoff minutes and I’ll tell you one thing David Campbell (57:16.591) He says he wants to keep 10 guys in the rotation of the playoffs to start, is kind what we’ve been talking about. Terry Pluto (57:42.284) I mean, he’s been kind of buried because of Ty Jerome or whatever. You could put Craig Porter in a big game. He plays with poise and he’s smart and he’ll he’s athletic. Rebounds analytics though doesn’t like him because even though three point shooting percentage isn’t isn’t bad. He’s just not a three point shooter. He’s a basketball player in that, you know, I mean this guy you go back to Wichita State, he led the team and scoring. David Campbell (57:49.585) You can handle it. David Campbell (57:55.589) Any rebounds? Terry Pluto (58:11.982) rebounding and block shots and might’ve let it in the cyst. I don’t, you let it like every, everything you could lead it. And it’s not like he played at Hyrum and not no knock on Hyrum. Roberta was on the very first women’s team ever there. You know, he played at Wichita state. They play a good schedule and he wasn’t drafted. And I love guys like that. And I think a guy like that can help you in the playoffs of need be. David Campbell (58:38.321) Alright, yeah, I wanted to mention something real quick, Terry. So I don’t know if you know this, but Jared Allen has a couple of cats and Ashley passed out. Yeah, so you know the calves’ big motto is let them know, right? And so Ashley tracked this down and did just a fantastic job with the story. She found this fan named Dan Campbell, no relation to me, who saw that. Terry Pluto (58:46.646) What is that Meow stuff? What’s that about? Yeah, what am I gonna do? David Campbell (59:02.501) Jared Allen had two cats and he’s a cat owner and he got a picture of Jared Allen with his two cats and instead of let him know, he put, him meow and brought it to the arena Sunday and gave it to the security people. And they got it to Jared Allen and he was just beaming as he wore this t-shirt that a fan gave him. And it’s just him and his two cats, let him meow, which is just a wonderful play on words. Terry Pluto (59:17.902) Terry Pluto (59:21.998) He has this fun innocence about him. He reminds me a little bit of Carlos Carrasco who always wanted contract extensions to stay in Cleveland. It’s like apparently his agent went to Kobe because he still had like two years left in his contract and said, know, Jarrett wants to stay with all these guys here and he likes it here. You know, he doesn’t have to get a max contract like these other guys. of course, Kobe was wise to jump right on that baby before anybody. But he, he just likes to be part of the group. By the way, he is Roberta’s favorite player is Jared Allen. I think cause of that, she, she likes to the enthusiasm and that, and she was very upset last year, even more than I was when they were talking about him being soft or whatever, when he was playing with broken ribs and then finally just couldn’t handle it anymore. David Campbell (01:00:00.293) Terry Pluto (01:00:16.341) And I think we see he’s played every game this year. He had played 76 games in a row last year before finally, because he broke the ribs in the game before that. He just couldn’t go anymore. So the big man, let him meow. David Campbell (01:00:32.564) All right, so the Cavs are playing the Knicks on Wednesday night at home and then they are at San Antonio on Friday home against Sacramento on Sunday and then next Tuesday they are home against the Bulls We should spend a couple minutes talking about Cleveland State basketball Terry Daniel Robinson I think he won 65 games in three seasons with the Vikings and they were in contention for the Horizon League regular season championship He’s leaving for North, Texas, which is a bigger job with a bigger salary and it’s Terry Pluto (01:00:45.665) Terry Pluto (01:00:50.123) David Campbell (01:01:01.263) You know, it’s hard to keep a good coach at Cleveland State. It is kind of a launching pad for a lot of these coaches when they come through. What are you seeing and what are you hearing? Terry Pluto (01:01:07.586) Well, the first time in history it is. David, do you know that? They never had a coach go to a better job until Dennis Gates. David Campbell (01:01:15.429) Yeah, that’s true. Who went to Missouri? Terry Pluto (01:01:17.174) So it should be a launching pad, it wasn’t just to show, because the only other really good coach, Ray Derringer wasn’t too bad way back in the old days, but was Gary Waters. they brought Gary in in his 50s. And so that was going to be Gary’s last job, which it was. But the rest of these guys, I forgot some of these guys, had a, the coach there, you know, they were just, it was really bad news. So what happened here? is two things. Number one is nobody’s going to dress from Daniel’s campus, talk about it directly. But the fact is, Cleveland State just cut three sports. Big time budget. Secondly, the NIL stuff at mid-majors is just causing chaos all over the place. Thirdly, and I did not realize how good of a job North Texas was. They’ve really kicked their money up. They got Texas oil money and some other things involved there. and they’re in that American is, is American athletic conference, which is a good conference with Memphis state and temple and many others. and they came after him and I believe he thought, you know what, I got a chance to win cause they had, they had, they were second in the league and, the last two years, the previous two coaches, one went to Texas tech and the other, just took the West Virginia job. David Campbell (01:02:22.257) American Athletic Conference, yeah, AAC. Terry Pluto (01:02:46.732) So that’s a real launching pad for him. And meanwhile, now Cleveland State, they don’t have Scott Garrett, who was a previous AD, picking the coach. He picked Dennis Gates and he picked Daniel Robinson. And both times I had to do a lot of research on these guys because I knew zero about them. But I remember Scott telling me that he wanted a guy who’d been around. He didn’t want a training wheels coach in that, you know, in other words, a 20 something assistant. He wanted a guy that had paid his dues and really recruited a lot of junior colleges and. Is it cultures yet kind of hard ass guys. They really are. And, um, cause before that they had like a 2.2 GPA. Some of the guys that got mildly in trouble under Dennis Felton. David Campbell (01:03:27.961) And culture, knew what culture is, you’re right. Terry Pluto (01:03:42.476) And when Scott Garrett took over, goes, we can’t have this. and how about this? When Dennis Gates told me this story, now he was with at Florida state, I think for eight or nine years before he came here, he, he had interviewed a few times, didn’t get a job and he had been at o