Ben & Woods On Demand Podcast

6am Hour - Radio Rumors + John Conniff Joins The Show

Ben, Woods, and Paulie are here for you on a Tuesday morning! We start the show with a little foreplay, as the guys address some local radio rumors that were swirling around over the last 24 hours. Then Ben sets the menu for today's show, which includes welcoming our pal John Conniff from Madfriars to the studio, and we pick his brain about the Padres farm system, look back at the 2022 trade with the Nationals, and more! Listen here!

Duration:: 58m
Broadcast on:: 02 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow Nerd Wallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast ad. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep, and when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience, because purple mattresses are made with a gel flex grid. The gel flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips, and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses from the original purple mattress to the Restore Hybrid Collection that combines gel flex grid with coils and the Rejuvenate Lux Collection, the height of luxury, with over 112,000 to 5 star reviews to prove it. Visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast 10 to get 10% off. All right, welcome in everybody, Ben and Woods 97.3, the fan. Let's get our heads right on a Tuesday. Definitely feels like a Tuesday. I can't lie to you. I don't like the off day after a loss at all. It just gets to fester deep inside you, but back at it tonight, it's great to be here with you this morning. I'm Woodsie. That's Paul Rindel. He is the executive producer. Good morning, Paulie. Good morning, chef. Benjamin Higgins, your friendly neighborhood sports anchor joins us as well. Morning Benjamin. Happy Tuesday, everybody. You look great. Are you? What time are you teeing off? I'm not teeing off. I'm just you look like a golfer, man wearing a golf shirt. You look at that shirt. Looks good on you. Thanks. Really does. Doesn't he look like looks like a golfer? Yeah, look like a real the real deal. It's kind of my look. It's true. It's the golf look. It's true. It's going for the golf. I mean, you know, the the mood struck me if the opportunity availed itself, then you would go be nice to be ready for golf at any time. That guy comes prepared. No plans. I work all day. I can't see possibly getting away to the golf course, but it's always better to be prepared. Your sticks in the car? Of course. Oh, they're ready to go. Shoes, everything. Absolutely. Love the whole thing. Yeah. We're good to go. Yeah. Absolutely. They're always ready at a moment's notice to hit the link. You never know when the call may come. You never know. Love that about you. You're always ready. Listen. So, yeah, I got, you know, some interesting news in our business, right? And had a lot of people DMing me yesterday. A lot of people kind of blowing up my Twitter in regards to Darren Smith, who allegedly is is not working anymore across the street. And Darren's a former colleague of ours when we were at the old station. We were not his lead in. We were the morning show. Then there was a national show. But then Dee Smith, but we saw Dee Smith all the time. Dee Smith is a friend of ours. And I had a, you know, saw a lot yesterday online about it. And, you know, the thing about radio is that everybody likes to say radios dying, radios dead. No one talks more about anything than freakin radio. When things happen, you know, the gossip, uh, mill kicks up and the rumor mill kicks up, everybody still likes to talk about local radio. Darren has been a fixture in San Diego radio for 20 plus years. Got a lot of years in the show. If they were going to hand out those player cards, like they do in the big leagues. He's got two of them, right? 10 year service time or whatever. He's got a couple. So Darren, uh, very talented dude. It's 10 and five. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a 10 and five deal and everything. So a lot of people wrote me yesterday. Hey, man, you guys going to talk about this in the morning. And, you know, I thought back to kind of what went down at our station over the holidays. And I thought to myself, you know, so many people, that was a blast. So many people around the holidays last year, took it upon themselves to speak about things, which they had no idea, the full story. None. I never saw it reported accurately once. And that was from radio hosts. That was from newspapers. That was from smaller newspapers. That was from podcasters. No one had that full story. No one except the people in this building. And I thought to myself last night, that's massively unfair for us to come in here this morning and talk about something which we don't know. I texted with Darren last night. I'm not going to share the, the contents of those texts, but I will say this. Darren hasn't made a statement yet. At all. And the company across the street, they haven't made a statement yet either. So it would be wildly gross of us and wildly irresponsible of us to go and do this morning exactly what everybody else did back in December. So we're not going to. I will say this. I loved working with Darren Smith. I hated being a competitor of Darren Smith hated it. I hated when me and I would butt heads because you know why? Because I idolized the dude. I absolutely did. And the guy is effing fantastic at his job. Fantastic. I couldn't listen to him when we were on the same station because I thought to myself, I'm going to steal stuff. Not, not consciously. Subconsciously. Some of this. Here's some nugget. Some nugget. And I'll be able to remember it and then spew it out the next day. So I would be like, I'm not listening. I can't. I can't do it. You know, because Darren's really, really good at his job. And I'm so glad that he and I like reconciled over the last six months or so. Because the dude's fantastic. Funny story. I was at, I was next door at 94.9. And our program director said, Hey, all access, which is like the big media publication. I don't even think it's around anymore. I think it's gone away. But they did like 20 questions with Stephen Woods from 94.9. And it said at the bottom of it, the last one was, who do you listen to in your market? And Darren was my, that was my pick. And this is probably three, four years into, you know, just being a DJ. And when we got the chance to work there with him, bro, I mean, we all know like you've worked with him before Benny, but I mean, I was like, Oh my God, we made it. Like this is really, really special. So I'm not going to go off half-cocked about his company. I'm not going to go off half-cocked about him. Let's let him talk first. And then we can go out and, and, you know, did the UT write a story yesterday full of lies and half facts? Not that I've seen yet. I thought that I missed it if they didn't. I haven't seen anything there yet on that. But yeah, I mean, that was really gross. A lot of people took their opportunity around the holidays to get on their radio shows or get on their podcast, whatever, and speak again about things for which they had no idea the full story at all, not even close. And that's sucked. That sucked for Adam. That sucked for us. It sucked for me. It sucked for a lot of people. So I'm not going to do that to Darren Smith. I respect him too much. I respect what he's done in this business way too much. And here's what I do know about him. He's one of the smartest MFs you will ever know. Never meet. You can rest assured Darren's ass is covered and he's going to find something that, you know, fulfills him more if that's what he's looking for. So yeah, that's it. I'm not going to, you know, I have no idea what went on behind closed doors. I just was checking on him as a friend. You good. You know, we talked about the fact that he's got 20 years, 20 years in this game in this town. That is quite an accomplishment. So whatever he chooses to do. It's a shock to the system. It is. Whether you saw it come in, whether you didn't, like, whatever situation. I mean, we were at a station that had the plug pulled, like, literally, you know what I mean? Like, no matter what, whether you're a contract up, you know, money, anything like that, you can see it coming or not, it is always a shock to the system. Your routine is off. Like, I'm glad you checked in on him. Man, like, I don't want to make it sound like it was bad while we've been competitors on competing stations with him. No, he's just competitive. It sucked. It sucked. Because like you, I worked with him. I worked in the mornings and then Darren would come in about 30 minutes later. And I always make sure to go into the studio to fill up my water bottle and I would pick his brain because I was trying to, you know, make myself known into this, try to get a leg up in this industry. Who better than Darren Smith? Right. To have to ask questions, ask advice. And he was always there for it. And I have always appreciated him and looked up to him in that sense. And I wish him nothing but the best if everything that's coming out is true. Yep. Obviously, I get less into the behind the scenes drama than probably you do woods. It's just not as, I just just kind of let it roll off my back. I will say this, though. I like Darren. I've always liked Darren. I like Darren. And the reason why I think he has been so successful, you mentioned how smart he is. And there's a lot, there's a lot of smart people around, but he always treated his audience as though they were smart as well. And I appreciated that. Sometimes I didn't, and even I didn't totally understand exactly what he was saying because he was smart, but he didn't never dumb it down for always appreciated that. I think that's the highest level of radio you can do. He would get smart guests on and ask smart questions of those guests. I try to emulate that as much as possible. If you notice, we try to put some smart people on this radio program as much as possible. And I think that is certainly an influence I've had from listening to Darren over the years being in sports. You know, as long as I have, I've obviously have listened to many of his shows over the last 20 years. And that's one thing I've always absolutely admired. Smart people talking about sports in a smart way that hopefully elevates the conversation for everybody because we spend way too many, way too many hours talking about dumb things in sports. Even here in this market about the Padres, conversations that shouldn't even be had. And I want to try to elevate that as much as possible. And I thought Darren always did a good job of that. So I always appreciated him. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt about it. So, you know, that's kind of where I'll let it lie. You know, once we hear from Darren, it's a different story, you know, entirely. But for now, you know, it's just what happened. What happened in December here was gross and it sucked. And everybody that's complicit. Yeah. I mean, you know who you are. You know who you are. You absolutely clowned out in December. You clowned out. And it's not something I'm going to do. And, you know, it's it's that do deserves a lot more than that. So, yeah, that's that's where we're at with that story. I wish him the very, very best being touched with him certainly. And, you know, listen, it the invite has been extended if he ever wants to come hang out and shoot the breeze. We got couple chairs, couple mics here anytime he wants. So that's where we'll leave that story for the day. But if Darren's listening, you know, not even worried about you, dude, not even in the slightest, you know, not even not even a little bit. But yeah, this is a tough business. It's an unfair business. It doesn't make sense a lot of the time. But, you know, getting the whole story. It's kind of important, kind of important. So that's what I want to make sure we addressed this morning. Certainly we little bit of a slow sports night unless you're a soccer fan, which by the way, last night, soccer was made an appearance. It was a good day for it. Just trying to try to jump in. And then, of course, it ended up being a pretty rotten day if you were a team USA fan. Which I think based on my timeline, you're used to it. If you're a team USA fan, you're not, what were you really expecting last night? We were going through some of the comments this morning before the show, and I go, "This is the same stuff people say about the team every, every few years, every couple years, every whatever." Yeah, you know what Ben said, "Well, this team was supposed to be different." I'm like, "Ah, I've heard that my whole life. I'm 33 years old." My buddy, that's a massive. He's actually, he was in radio with me. He was in radio sales. He was like my radio sales mentor. He's the biggest soccer fan you've ever known. He's a character. His name's Mark Bauman. I would actually like to get him on. He's like, he's so good at explaining it, dumbing it down for me. I texted him last night just to go to him. Because I like to, we go to each other. I go, "Oh, team of the future, every year." And he run, "Dude, that's BS. We're actually hanging with one of the best teams in the world." And he got all fired up. I'm like, "Bro, you're still falling for my stuff 15 years later?" But he said, "Yeah, man, this was supposed to be different this year." And it wasn't. And I watched most of that game last night. I'm glad I stuck around till the end to watch the post game. Because the post game was some of the most dynamic cutting commentary I've heard in a long, long time about the US men's team. So we'll play that for you today, certainly. It's pretty good. Interesting audio to be certain. We will talk about that. We'll set the menu for the show. We've got some guests coming up today on a Tuesday as well as the Padres. Get set to open a three-game series against the defending World Series champion Texas Rangers later today. Padres talk, all that coming up with Ben & Woods. Don't go anywhere. We'll get our first check traffic with Kelly often rolling on a Tuesday here on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3. Good morning. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those, these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why each listing on Homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Homes.com's dedicated in-house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com. We've done your homework. Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet Smart Money Podcast. Get your head in the financial game with smart investing and budgeting tips straight from the nerds. NerdWallet's experts will set future you up for success. With dependable, fact-based insights, no financial misinformation allowed. Learn how to save on your summer vacation. Find your next credit card or loan for a big purchase and invest in your next index fund. Make smarter decisions in 2024. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app. Nothing is more important than getting a good night's sleep, and when you don't get the rest you need, your whole day is thrown off. That's why it's so important to choose the right mattress. Sleeping on a purple mattress is truly a unique experience, because purple mattresses are made with a gel-flex grid. The gel-flex grid is an innovative material that moves with your body to relieve pressure in areas like knees and hips, and support in others like your back. It feels soft where you want it and supports where you need it. Purple mattresses instantly adapt when you move. You don't sink in and get stuck like with memory foam. And thanks to over 1,400 air chambers in the gel-flex grid, you will sleep cooler on a purple mattress. Purple has a wide variety of mattresses, from the original purple mattress to the restore hybrid collection that combines gel-flex grid with coils and the rejuvenate lux collection, the height of luxury. With over 112,000 to 5 star reviews to prove it, visit purple.com to find the perfect purple for you and enter code podcast10 to get 10% off. Now with the MLB app, you can get baseball your way. Pick your favorite team, your favorite players, and get customized highlights, stories, and breaking news right on your home feed. Follow the action with Game Tip, where 3D replays add another dimension. Plus notifications can keep you connected to every pitch, every hit, every game, the MLB app. Baseball, your way. Download it now for free from the App Store or Google Play. Blackout and other research and supply major league baseball trademarks used with permission. [Music] What's left the studio for a minute? And he has left his computer audio on, which I can't-- You did the show. All right, I will continue to do the show. I need to-- The distraction of the audio of my own voice giving out of his computer is a little bit difficult to deal with. Thank you, Paulie. So yeah, so the Padres will move Dylan Sees up as we kind of speculated because he's not pitching on short rest. He's actually pitching on an extra day's rest. He hasn't pitched since last Wednesday when he had his seven inning one hit, no run performance against the Washington Nationals. So he'll actually go on an extra day's rest tomorrow, but move up a spot in the rotation and pitch tonight against Nathan Evaldi. And then Adam Major will move back a day, and he will pitch tomorrow, and then Michael King will move up a day, pitch on normal rest. He went on Saturday, so he'll go on Thursday, 4th of July in the series finale. That will move Randy Vasquez back a little bit after he took the line drive off the elbow in his last start. So just a small tweak of the rotation. The upshot is that Dylan Sees could be able to get three more starts now before the all-star break. As opposed to just maybe two more starts and space them out a little bit because of the off days that they have, so you could end up skipping over later at a major if you wanted or give Randy Vasquez even extra time if, in fact, he wasn't feeling 100% healthy after taking that line drive. I'm coming into this conversation cold. Yeah, well, you left your audio on, which just completely distracted me. It was the show that's coming out of your computer while you were gone. We heard an echo. Where the hell? On fire today on a Tuesday. Sorry about that. That's all right. Dylan Sees is pitching tonight. Yeah. Okay. That was the upshot of the entire conversation. Dylan Sees on the bump. I like that. So coming up on the program today, the reason you weren't here is that you brought in a special guest who we're going to be chatting with during the program today. We got John Connor from Matt Fryer. Hello, John. We will introduce you in a minute, your supreme. Here we go. We will get to that coming up as well. We have some more audio to play. The Washington Nationals just will not let last week's controversy die with the San Diego Padres. It's unbelievable. Can't even seem to get their perspective and story straight on the back and forth in that series with Jurex and profile. I couldn't believe it when I saw this yesterday. They're what they're. Yes. Big night for John Connor. Last night. Talk about the Juan Soto trade yesterday nationally so we can get into that coming up as well. Take on Woods. Don't do this. We've got your opportunities to win prizes and our regular segments coming up in our seven o'clock hour. It is an Incorporated Tuesday. Jesse Agler will join us from Arlington, Texas as the Padres continue their road trip. Voice of the Padres coming up at eight thirty five. Ride a report and more as we take you all the way until ten o'clock today. But just keep the menu fairly simple and we will definitely get into it until a lot of the Padres talk. But do you like the move of Dylan C moving up a day and changing the rotation around a little bit? Of course, man. You want to get, you know, it's not rocket science to get your best pitchers out there as much as you can. You know, there's a lot of concerns moving forward. And I know you were we were talking off the air about, you know, listen, you got Michael King who's going for this. This is his real first year as a starter. How many more innings does he have? He's looked. He's looked really good and he's he has. He looks very beyond serviceable. I mean, he's got he's kind of in that line between good pitcher aces up here. He's kind of he's got that stuff from time to time. So you wonder how much how many more innings can we count over him? He's got some of the filthiest movement in all major league baseball. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. There's no doubt. So like, but how many more innings and I'm sitting there at night trying to do the math in my head going, I can't I can't I can't worry about this. I cannot worry about, you know, things that that haven't happened yet. And but if you on paper before the season, that was a concern. He's answered the bell every time, you know, but how much how many more bells can he answer? So there's a lot of things to be worried about. You were talking about a spot that you heard on MLB radio. It's just how every single team is frothing at the mouth for pitching. Every like nine, ten teams are just in the the hunt for pitching. So what does that do? It drives the price up. There's way more need than there is supply right now for starting pitching. You know, supply and demand. Very simple economics. That's going to drive the price up. Even I understand supply and demand. And you wonder, obviously, AJ Preller has always been very aggressive in going after the players that he wants. But if there are other teams that also now have prospects because the potteries have traded away many of theirs that want to be more aggressive than AJ Preller, he may not be able to do much about it. Unless he's willing to dip into Ethan Salas. And for the most part, everyone believes he's not either willing or not allowed to do that by the powers that be in the potteries front office. He may not even have the capital to make a trade, even if he wanted to, because other teams may simply outbid him because they haven't made any moves yet. And then go, all right, this is the time we're pushing our chips forward and we got more chips than AJ Preller does right now. I watched the Orioles game the other night and they were talking about the absolute glut of prospects that they have, that they're still not quite sure that they're willing to move. I think there are two extremes. You can't do that either if you're the Baltimore Orioles. You cannot. You also cannot do what AJ Preller, if given 100% freedom to do it, you also can't do what he potentially. But I also heard them talking about the Milwaukee Brewers saying, man, we're not really going to trade any of our prospects or go in at all. Again, we don't want to add any money. It's going to be frustrating. They're in first place again. And yet they never seem to be willing to really go for it in the end and try to win a World Series. Pretty simple then. Let's just call, try to get Devin Williams, because apparently they're willing to move people being in first place. So, yeah, man, it's going to be a really, really fascinating month in the game of baseball. As July usually is, this year feels a little bit different. And so we can break all that down for you as well. All right. Let's take our first time out here. Well, second time out, technically. We'll come back. If you want to play some of that audio from the Washington Nationals, we can get into it. We also have John Conoff in studio for Matt Fryer. So we can talk about what is actually in the minor leagues that the Padres could use to try to attract some starting pitching here at the trade deadline, which is coming up later this month. We'll get to all that coming up with Ben Woods on San Diego's number one sports station, 97-3, the fan. July is here at his trade deadline month. AJ Preller is always active. Yet, he's already been the most active general manager this season with the Dillon Sea Steel right before the start, opening day, and then Luis Arise added to the team. What is left to make a big deal for the San Diego Padres, especially with other teams also in the market for the big deals. We got John Conoff from Matt Fryer's. He's in studio. We're going to bring him on for a little bit of a conversation coming up here right after a check of traffic on 97-3, the fan. You're a serious Padres fan. Matt Fryer's and all of their reporters and people who cover the Padres in the minor leagues are a must follow on social media. And John Conoff is here. Now, John, how does the Matt Fryer's structure really work? Welcome, man. Are you like the CEO? How's the organization structured? I guess I'm like the CEO. David Jay is the chief editor. Okay. He calls me an idiot about on a daily basis. Big David Jay fan. But you're not officially connected with the San Diego Padres organization. You're independent fans, people who cover the team who are interested in the minor leagues of the San Diego Padres. And you offer honest perspectives of what you see of the Padres and the minor leaguers. And you actually have people on the ground in the different cities like Elson or Fort Wayne who go there throughout the year to get, well, at times, at least. We have five of us. Also, we have Kevin Charity, who's seat I'm sitting in. And it's kind of roomy. I think if Kevin's going to be. And then we have Mark Wilkinson, of course, Ben Davies. So the big thing about us, we don't have any dedicated person just there. We try to go around and we try to see them. And I think they give you a better perspective. And you can see how different people are progressing. And I think one of the better things about the site. And it's been a big threat to your guys program and the other ones that we've been on. As you let us come on here, I think, and just report. And this is what people are kind of. This is what the players are kind of doing at this level. And this will tell you this is what we think they need to do to get better. This would need to work on. And this is what they're doing well now as opposed to me sitting here saying, let me tell you about the free. He's going to be the everyday short stuff for the Padres in three years. He'll hit 20 hormones. And I think that's what listeners and people get upset about. Because anyone can say that, but no one knows that. I sure don't know that. I mean, we can talk about, we'll get into some of the guys, but they're doing well. And things we need to see them do better. But yeah, thank you for the nice words on Mad Fries. And we always appreciate you guys having a son. Now, me and you go back and forth a lot. John will listen to the show in real time when we start talking about prospects. He'll start texting me. And I love it too, because he gives me information. It didn't have. It makes me seem smarter. But also, he knows that if I had the keys that I would be more like A.J. Preller and less like maybe a more conservative general manager. Well, every time I listen to you and I do listen to you guys in D.C. It might be five or six guys do that. And that's me. And I always, you know, I listen to Paul and Steve. And I always want to sign up for Colonel Budget because I am in his corner more than this. And yeah, I think I should even have a position in Captain CBT or something like that. Let's write below a Colonel. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain. I'm fine because you know, you know, like Steve and Paul, why don't we go get Jan Carlos Stanton. Let's get him very cheaply. But if I can take a shot, I'll take it. Yeah, of course. No, I get it. And I do understand it. And this has been a wild team to cover for the last six years since we've been doing it. It's been a wild team to cover and really no prospect stone has gone unturned. And I think what I, maybe my perspective has changed a little bit and I said it, I'm not, I'm not worried about AJ Preller being able to refill the farm cup because he's continued to do that. And every now and then a trade will happen where you'll see people go, Oh my God, I can't believe we parted with X. Right. And then five years goes by and X still isn't doing anything at the big league level. And it's like, well, they took a shot, you know, and of course, man, to go back with hindsight and look at bad trades, I'm a genius. No one can evaluate a bad trade three years after the fact like I can or Ben can or you can. I know it's hard to part with these guys. And I even I have softened a little bit and said, if you've got two untouchables in your system in DeVries and Salas sit on them, you don't like there's no need to trade those guys. I've seen enough video on both and I've seen Ethan Salas in person where I go, Oh yeah, no, keep him. Yeah, keep him. The problem is is there's just no guarantee. There's no guaranteed prospects after there's something that you feel like are close and you look at and you go that he's a can't miss. How many can't miss guys have there been in the history of baseball in the it's thousands and thousands and thousands of number one draft picks, you know, and it's just really tough. I do like to win. I do like to have an exciting team to cover. I like a team that's all in, but that's how that that's that's my personality. You know, being careful, tomorrow's not promised to anybody. So I think that if you can you can improve your team again with while hanging onto those two guys in particular, I'm all for it, man. Well, you know, the thing is, I think one, that's a good point. We can have a lot of fun and joke around about prospect hugging and all that stuff. But the point is you're absolutely right that the prospects are suspects, which is I don't like that that commentary. That's true. Yeah. But the thing is you got to turn on the flip side. If you look at Eric Cosmer, someone like me or you would who wants to win with the big club, we go, okay, we're bringing a guy. He's been part of two World Series Championships, good leader and all this. And you're wrong on him. Yep. And you're so paying him. Yeah. Okay. If I'm wrong on someone like Adam Maser. All right. Okay. If I'm off on that, then he's gone. Yeah. It's 600 grand or something. Right. Cause is still centered and more power to him. I have no problem at all as a working man with him being paid $13 million, not to play. But yeah, that that's the biggest problem. I mean, you look at Xander Bogarts and I mean, I lost a considerable bet where I think I caused a minor shortage of pork and lamb to Eric and Danny on signing a Xander Bogarts. You liked the move. Yeah. I did not like the move. You did not. I was against. I said, there's no way they're going to sign Bogarts because that means they can't sign Soto. And the team wouldn't be dumb enough. And then Eric called me an idiot and I got him and I lost. So. And listen, he even Zander's still up in the air, right? The totality of Xander Bogarts has yet to be seen. Great guy. Wonderful person. But I mean, it's a 11 year deal. And even you look at a lot, the biggest problem I have with AJ is I like the trades. I like how the scouting system works and we can kind of get into that. The problem they've had is just have tied themselves up with some extensions. Yeah. And most of the trades, like you mentioned, are like, how many people remember the main guy that gave up for Joe Musgrove was a guy called, I think it was a Texas center fielder. They got Hudson something. Hudson had? No. Yeah. I'll look it up at that. But now he's a he's in his third year of high. Right. Hudson had. Hudson had. Yeah. It was right. It was a tremendous. Yeah. That's been good. Hudson had. It was gracious. Yeah. They gave Hudson three million dollars in the third round. And you know, the one thing Preller, one of the many things they have poders happened good. Is there pretty good identifying which guys are might not do something to the next level, which we were talking about? Yeah. You know, Robert Hassel. I liked him a lot at Elson, I like him at Fort Wayne. Everybody did. He has not hit for power at all. He's kind of one of the guys who's not that doing the well. Garland Cezanne, another guy who hasn't played the well. Now James Wood, that was not a hard guy to sit there and look at that and go, I like that. Yeah. Juan Soto was going to cost you though. He was going to cost you. You're not going to flee somebody on Juan Soto. The question is, would people who are really into getting Juan Soto, which you should, this is a guy who's going to make over half a billion dollars, a chance to get him for three years. And I was for the trade to make sure everyone knows that to be upfront. Maybe people would have thrown Jackson Merrill in there too. Yeah. I'm basically about to bring that up because, you know, identifying the right person not to trade is just as important as identifying the guys that you can trade. Oh, you guys would have loved it. Sorry. Merrill and both big James played a U-ball together in Maryland. And Merrill was posting on his Instagram about James Wood's debut last year. They're friends. Yeah. James Wood would be nasty on this team, but I still do that deal a hundred percent of the time. Oh, it too. Because you got, as a history major in school, that's how you got to look at the facts that you had at the time. That's right. And you can't sit there and go, no, nobody in the, in that tray that you gave away, it was going to be getting big hits against the Dodgers or in the NLCS that year. No. And Juan Soto did. Yeah. Was anybody want the U-dervous trade back? No. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Talking to John Kana from Matt Fryer, she's in studio with us and the tendency with prospects is, you know, you dream on them, you look and see what's the, the ceiling, what's the best they can be if they develop into big leaguers and most of the time, John, you know, they never reach that potential and sometimes they don't get close. Sometimes they get kind of close, get to the big leagues, but rarely do they turn into the full player that you hope that they get. Jackson Merrill, in my mind, has, has almost already superseded some of my biggest dreams of what he could be as a big leaguer in the first three months in the big league. Top. This is Jackson Merrill. Where has this exactly come from? Did we miss a little bit on Jackson Merrill, even the dream of Jackson Merrill, the reality has been better than the dream of like in about three or four years, he might be something close to the player. He already seems to be right now at age 21. Well, since we've been a little critical of the Padres and some of the things have done, you know, you have to also give him a lot of credit. I mean, Merrill was a guy I think when he was a sophomore in high school, I think he told me he was about five foot eight and he grew, he was about five, 11 or six, three, six, four. Big boy, dude. It's going to be a big one. And he was going to go to West Point to, you know, because he wasn't considered that he wasn't a part of the whole perfect game series. Then he got a, the University of Kentucky wanted him and then the Padres got him the first round. But when I talked to Chris Kemp, you know, he's playing in Saverna Park, Maryland, which is between Annapolis and D.C. They're trying to evaluate him when a guy on the mound is throwing like 70 miles an hour. All right. That's adult ball, dude. Pretty much. And so, I mean, they did a really good job of having come over. He got bigger and it grew and the thing too about Merrill is, you know, all right, here's a hot take. So you guys can mark this. Merrill, Merrill never played a game in center field. Now he told us. So I think as a prospect guy, maybe you should play a couple of games in the position you have before you go to the big leagues. Right. That's my wild take right there. That was like one big chrysum. Because we asked him when he went to Fort Wayne, unless he can play him in their position. No, no, we see him as a shortstop and kind of you guys go back to your little website and play around with it. Yeah, right. All right. Sure. Fine. And then in San Antonio, they moved him a little bit. A couple of games left field and to a game or two at second and first. The big thing about Merrill, which I thought he should, I thought to be honest, I'm wrong. I thought he should have been back for about a couple months just in San Antonio to get at least more than 48 games, but he's male to make adjustments on the fly, which is really difficult to do. You know, a guy they have in AAA right now, grand poly, he was a big guy. He's struggled. You can kind of see he only had 10 games in AA. And that's a big difference. The AA compared to high A, guys are much more consistent with their breaking stuff and off speed. And that's a lot to do as, you know, someone who played, so plays baseball. Yeah. I mean, those pitches get a lot more real at the AA level. It is, it's staggering that anyone ever puts the bat on the ball. Sometimes when you watch some guys throw and you go, how do you even approach this AB? No, it's, it's been awesome to watch Jackson play and look, I think, you know, you do have to give them credit for that too. But again, for me, I always give the majority of the credit to the player of like saying, yeah, I mean, cause we straight up asked him the same question. You ever play center field? Never. Not once. Oh, okay. And, you know, his, his words were essentially, yeah, but I'll, I get to play in the big league. So I'll, I'll play wherever. Same with Jake Croninworth. He's like, I don't care where I, you think I care where I hit. I was bounced around and you can hit me 70, you can hit me 90, you can hit me 30, you can hit me second. It doesn't matter. As long as I'm in there, I don't care where I play. We know it. That's the makeup of the player that July is here. It is trade deadline. Mom, AJ Preller is always active yet he's already been the most active general manager this season with the Dylan C steel right before the, the start opening day. And then Louisa rise added to the, to the team what, what is left to make a big deal for the San Diego Padres, especially with other teams also in the market for the big deals. We got John conna from mad friars. He's in studio. We're going to bring him on for a little bit of a conversation coming up here right after a check of traffic on 97 through the fan. You're a serious Padres fan, mad friars and all of their, their reporters and people who cover the Padres in the minor leagues are a must follow on social media. And John conna is here now, John, how does, how does the mad friars structure really work? You're a man. Are you like the CEO? How's the, how's the organization structured? Ah, I guess I'm like, I guess I'm like the CEO of David Jay is the chief editor. Okay. It calls me an idiot about on a daily basis. Then you have a big David Jay fan. But you're not officially connected with the San Diego Padres organization. You're a independent, you know, fans, people who cover the team who are interested in the minor leagues of the San Diego Padres and you offer honest perspectives of what you see of the Padres and the minor leaguers. And you actually have people on the ground in the different cities like Elson or Fort Wayne who go there throughout the year to get, well, at times at least, yeah, we have five of us. Also, we have Kevin charity who see that I'm sitting in and it's kind of roomy to give Kevin and then we have Mark Wilkinson, of course, Ben Davies. So the big thing about us, we don't have any dedicated person just there. We try to go around and we try to see them. And I think they give you a better perspective and you can see how different people are progressing. And I think one of the better things about the site and it's been a big cred to your guys program and the other ones that we've been on as you let us come on here, I think, and just report. And this is what people are kind of, this is what the players are kind of doing at this level. And this will tell you this is what we think they need to do to get better. This would need to work on and this is what they're doing well now as opposed to me sitting here saying, let me tell you about the free. He's going to be the everyday shortstop for the Padres and three years, he'll hit 20 ones. And I think that's what listeners and people get upset about because anyone can say that, but no one knows that. I sure don't know that. I mean, we can talk about, we'll get into some of the guys, but they're doing well and things we need to see them do better. But yeah, thank you for the nice words on, on Mad Fries and we always appreciate you guys having a son. Now, me and you go back and forth a lot, John will listen to the show in real time when we start talking about prospects, he'll start texting me and I love it too because he gives me information. I didn't have. It makes me seem smarter. So he knows that I'm, I, if I had the keys that I would be more like AJ Preller and less like maybe a more conservative general manager. Well, every time I listen to you and I do listen to you guys in DC, it might be five or six guys do that and that's me. And I always, you know, I listen to Paul and Steve and I always want to sign up for Colonel Budget because I am in his corner more than this. I mean, I think I should even have a position to the captain CBT or something like that because let's write below a Colonel. Yeah, Captain. Captain. Captain. Captain by CBT. I'm fine because you know, you think is, you know, like Steven and Paul, why don't we go to get Jan Carlos Stanton, you know, we'll get 33 million on that. Listen, listen. You'd be sergeant budget. We non-commissioned officers as well. Okay. I can do that. Yeah. I'm just. I do not want John Carlos. No, I know. I mean, very cheaply, but if I can take a shot, I'll take it. I'll find it. Of course. No, I get it. And I do understand it. And this has been a wild team to cover for the last six years since we've been doing it. It's been a wild team to cover and really no prospect stone has gone unturned. And I think what I maybe my perspective has changed a little bit and I said it, I'm not, I'm not worried about AJ Preller being able to refill the farm cup because he's continued to do that. And every now and then a trade will happen where you'll see people go, Oh my God, I can't believe we parted with X. Right. And then five years goes by and X still isn't doing anything at the big league level. And it's like, well, they took a shot, you know, and of course, man, it took to go back with hindsight and look at bad trades. I'm a genius. No one can evaluate a bad trade three years after the fact like I can or Ben can or you can. I know it's hard to part with these guys. And I even I have softened a little bit and said, if you've got two untouchables in your system in Devries and Salas sit on them, you don't like there's no need to trade those guys. I've seen enough video on both. And I've seen Ethan Salas in person where I go, Oh yeah, no, keep him, keep him. The problem is is there's just no guarantee. There's no guaranteed prospects after there's something that you feel like are close and you look at and you go that he's a can't miss how many can't miss guys have there been in the history of baseball in the it's thousands and thousands and thousands of number one draft picks, you know, and and it's just really tough. I do like to win. I do like to have an exciting team to cover. I like a team that's all in, but that's how that that's that's my personality. You know, being careful tomorrow is not promised to anybody. I think that if you can you can improve your team again with while hanging onto those two guys in particular, I'm all for it, man. Well, you know, the thing is I think one, that's a good point. We can have a lot of fun and joke around about prospect hugging and all that stuff. But the point is you're absolutely right that the prospects are suspects, which I don't like that that commentary. That's true. Yeah. But the thing is you got to turn on the flip side. Derek Cosmer, someone like me or you who wants to win with the big club, we go, okay, we're bringing in a guy. He's been part of two world search championships, good leader and all this. And you're wrong on him. Yep. And she's and you're so paying him. Yeah. Okay. If I'm wrong on someone like Adam Maeser. All right. Okay. If I'm off on that, then he's gone. Yeah. It's 600 grand or something. Right. Cause is still sitting there and more power to him. I have no problem at all. It's a working man with him being paid $13 million, not not to play, but yeah, that that's the biggest problem. You look at Zander Bogarts and I mean, I lost a considerable bet where I think I caused a minor shortage of pork and lamb to Eric and Danny on signing Zander Bogarts. You liked the move. Yeah. I did not like the move. You did not. I was against. I said, there's no way they're going to sign Bogarts because that means they can't sign Soto and the team wouldn't be dumb enough. And then Eric called me an idiot and I got him and I lost. Well, and listen, he even Zander's still up in the air, right? The totality of Zander Bogarts has yet to be seen. Great guy. Wonderful person, but I mean, it's a 11 year deal and even you look at a lot, the biggest problem I have with AJ is I like the trades. I like how the scouting system works and we can kind of get into that. The problem they've had is just they've tied themselves up with some extensions. Yeah. And most of the trades, like you mentioned, are like, how many people remember the main guy that gave up for Joe Musgrove was a guy called, I think it was a Texas center fielder. They got Hudson something. Hudson had? No. Yeah. I'll look it up at that. But now he's a he's in his third year of high a right Hudson had yeah, yeah, it was right. It was a tremendous. Even Bednar. Yeah. Bednar's been good. Hudson had. They have a lot of my great fellows. Yeah. They gave Hudson three million dollars in the third round and you know, the one thing preller, one of the many things they have poders happen good is they're pretty good identifying which guys are might not do something to the next level, which we were talking about. Yeah. You know, Robert Hassel. I liked him a lot at Elsonham. I like him at Fort Wayne. Everybody did. He has not hit for power at all. He's kind of one of the guys that's not that doing the well. Yardlands is on. Another guy who hasn't played the well. Now James Wood, that was not a hard guy to sit there and look at that and go, I like that. Yeah. Juan Soto was going to cost you though. He was going to cost you. You're you're not going to flee somebody on Juan Soto. The question is, would people who are really into getting one Soto, which you should, this is a guy who's going to make over half a billion dollars, a chance to get him for three years. And I was for the trade to make sure everyone knows that to be up front, but maybe people would have thrown Jackson Merrill in there too. Yeah. And Merrill, yeah, I was just about to bring that up because, you know, identifying the right person not to trade is just as important as identifying the guys that you can trade. Oh, you guys would love this. Right. Merrill and both big James played a U-ball together in Maryland and Merrill was was posting on his Instagram about James Wood's debut last year. Yeah. That's good buddies. Yeah. James Wood would be nasty on this team, but I still do that deal a hundred percent of the time. I would too. Because you got as a history major in school, that's how you got to look at the facts that you had at the time and the deal. That's right. And you can't sit there and go, no. Nobody in the, in that trade that you gave away was going to be getting big hits against the Dodgers or in the NLCS that year. No. And Juan Soto did. Yeah. Well, does anybody want to use the harvest trade back? No. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Talking to John Connor from Matt Fryers, he's in studio with us and the tendency with prospects is, you know, you dream on them, you look and see what's the, the ceiling? What's the best they can be if they develop into big leaguers? And most of the time, John, you know, they never reach that potential. And sometimes they don't get close. Sometimes they get kind of close, get to the big leagues. But rarely do they turn into the full player that you hope that they get. Jackson Merrill in my mind has, has almost already superseded some of my biggest dreams of what he could be as a big leaguer in the first three months in the big league. Talk. This is Jackson Merrill. Where has this exactly come from? We miss a little bit on Jackson Merrill, even the dream of Jackson Merrill. The reality has been better than the dream of like in about three or four years, he might be something close to the player. He already seems to be right now at age 21. Well, since we've been a little critical of the Padres and some of the things they've done, you know, you have to also give him a lot of credit. I mean, Merrill was a guy, I think when he was a sophomore in high school, I think he told me he was about five foot eight and he grew. He was about five, six, three, six, four, six, four big boy, dude, and he was going to go to West Point to, to, you know, because he wasn't considered that he wasn't a part of the whole perfect game series. Then he got a, the University of Kentucky wanted him and then the Padres get him the first round. But when I talk to Chris Kemp, you know, he's playing in Severna Park, Maryland, which is between Annapolis and D.C. They're trying to evaluate him when the guy on the mound is throwing like 70 miles an hour. All right. It's pretty much. And so I mean, they did a really good job of having come over. He got bigger and it grew and the thing too about Merrill is, you know, all right, here's a hot take. See you guys can mark this. Merrill, Merrill never played a game in center field. Now he told us. So I think as a prospect guy, maybe you should play a couple of games in the position you have before you go to the big leagues. Right. That's my wild take right there. That was like one big Chris. And we asked him when he went to Fort Wayne last year, he can apply him in a position. I don't know. We see him as a shortstop and kind of you guys go back to your little website and play around with it. Yeah, right. All right. Sure. Fine. And then in San Antonio, they moved him to a little bit. A couple of games left field and to a game or two at second and first. The big thing about Merrill, which I thought he should, I thought to be honest, I'm wrong. I thought he should have been back for about a couple months just in San Antonio to get at least more than 48 games, but he's male to make adjustments on the fly, which is really difficult to do. You know, a guy they have in AAA right now, Graham Pauli, who was a big guy, he struggled and you can kind of see he only had 10 games, a double A and that that's a big difference. A double A compared to high A, guys are much more consistent with their breaking stuff and off speed. And that's a lot to do is, you know, someone who played, so plays baseball. Yeah. I mean, those pitches get a lot more real at the double A level. It is. It's staggering that anyone ever puts the bat on the ball. Sometimes when you watch some guys throw and you go, how do you even approach this this AB? No, it's been awesome to watch Jackson play and look, I think, you know, you do have to give them credit for that too, but again, for me, I always give the majority of the credit to the player of like saying, yeah, I mean, because we straight up asked him the same question. You ever play center field? Never. Not once. Oh, okay. And you know, his words were essentially, yeah, but I'll get to play in the big league. So I'll play wherever. Same with Jake Croninworth. He's like, I don't care where I, you think I care where I hit? I was bounced around and you can hit me 70, you can hit me 90, you can hit me 30, you can hit me second. It doesn't matter. As long as I'm in there, I don't care where I play. We know it. That's the makeup of the player that you want. Right. But we know his agents pretty well and he spent the whole off season out field, out forward. The thing about Merrill, I think I've told the story a couple of times, been a mold so I can get away with repeating myself is, you know, when Merrill got hurt in Lake Elsnor, he was hitting like 325 with power and he nails, he gets a slide on the glove hand and risks breaks it. Now, if I was 19, I would have just been so upset. I would have been just inside my own head. He went back to the complex league and he said, the thing I got to work on is getting quicker lateral playing shortstop and he spent four weeks working on his lateral movement, getting stronger, doing everything he can. So his mindset is just, is incredibly impressive. I mean, as someone who has a teenager, I don't think that he's from the same planet, let alone the same species. Right. I mean, you know, it's amazing how hard this guy works. John Conif is with us from Mad Friars. Let's talk a little bit about James Wood and his debut last night and kind of revisiting the Juan Soto trade here down two years after the fact, you know, the Padres don't have, it's not like they have nothing to show for Juan Soto. He may be gone, but they used him to help rebuild their pitching staff for this season. I don't think in any stretch of the imagination though, you would trade Michael King and Randy Vasquez and Johnny Burrito and Kyle Higashyoka for Mackenzie Gore and CJ Abrams and James Wood, even if Drew Thorpe was thrown in there. So in terms of the players they have now versus the ones they gave up, that's not a successful exchange. Now, you also had Juan Soto for a year and a half and made a run to the National League Championship Series, which is worth something in value. But how do you now evaluate that based on the continued development of the now former Padres prospects with the Washington Nationals and what the Padres did ultimately get out of Soto? I think it's like kind of, I said earlier, because you don't want to run into like, would you still go to the play, Mrs. Lincoln? I mean, you have to look at the information you had there. And I look at this way. Once we moved here, when I was a kid in 1976 up in a San Diego Padres fan, in that time my team has won one World Series game, not one World Series Championship, one World Series game. So as much as a, you know, prospect hugger in chief that I may be when we saw a chance that they could get Juan Soto and at that time you thought you were going to get a healthy Fernando Tatiz coming back, you know, with Manny Machado in the middle of a big contract and you had a chance to win a World Series. I think is another radio host said is, okay, if you get a chance to take a World Series and you have to have eight bad years, I'll take it, I'll take the flag. And I mean, that's, and for me to sit there and, you know, I get what you're saying, Ben, and Heinz say, yeah, I agree with you. It's not not a good deal, but I can't sit there and say, hey, I wouldn't do the trade, because I think that's the only way that you do a fair evaluation is would you do the trade at the time? Yeah. And I love James Wood. The best race on James Wood is like Elsner one time, he leads off the first inning, hits a home run to dead center over the park, about really 500 feet, but it's 30 bad. This is a guy who's six, seven, two, 50, he hits a ball to the second baseman, makes the second baseman go to about three steps to toward the bag, and he beats it out. And the guy, and the second baseman's looking at him like, that's not fair. Bro, he's a tight end. He's in the wrong business. No, he can go. Because he may be. He's a tight end. No. He's playing for the Guardians. The best guy. And not the Guardians, the commanders. The best guy who had analysis on him was one of our writers, and a good friend of mine is Mark Wilkins, who's six foot eight. And Mark said, you know, he taught me how to look at a guy at Satoi, because you know, tried looking at him when he's away from everybody else. And what you see on James is, hey, he's a really good athlete. Yeah. He moves well. Yeah. And then you see him come with everybody else, and you go, he's that big. The thing about James is interesting, and his parents are from DC. I got to have lunch with his parents one time is he's always been, people say him as a big guy who's athletic, who's a baseball player. When really with James, it's more he's a baseball player who's athletic. Yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. I mean, again, like I, it'll be fun watching him, him play. I'm not going to get too revved up about it because Juan Soto was here. I'll never forget that day as long as I live, you know, when I'm on my death bed. No, he'll be one of the memories that comes washing over me as the day we traded for Juan Soto, didn't work out. It happens. I'm so glad that we, we did it. You know, I'm so glad that we did it. I can't, I can't worry about what the nationals are going to do. We will be talking more about the nationals though here, here pretty soon. Johnny, thank you, man. That's good stuff. As usual, dude. We really appreciate you. Hey, thanks for having me on. It's all pleasure, man. It's fun to see, uh, see the place they listened to in the morning to my, uh, in my cube. Thank you. Yeah. You're welcome to stick around. You know, uh, we could actually, uh, pick your brain a little bit more going forward. I do want to get John lives in the Washington area. I'm sure he's got thoughts and thoughts as well. Yes. Stick around. We'll talk about the Washington nationals. We got take on woods coming up as well. New prize this month. Got the, uh, the Rio get away, including the day bed at the pool, a dinner for two as well, chance to take on woods coming up in our seven o'clock hour in our next segment as we, uh, the first hour flew by here on a Tuesday morning. More Ben and Woods coming up next on San Diego's number one sports station, 97.3 the fan. What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com, those, these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why each listing on homes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by homes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's also you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com. 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