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Speaker 1: I'm gonna be quick on this one because the Marlins

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Speaker 1: just need to appreciate what they have. I'm a t Wordal,

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Speaker 1: the host of Big Fish Small Pod here on the

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Speaker 1: Fish Stripes podcast Network. Here with you this postseason every

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Speaker 1: Friday for you know, about a ten minute little podcast.

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Speaker 1: Hope you're aboard for the ride quickly. Where I'm at

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Speaker 1: with just this postseason is a bit like stagnant. I'm

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Speaker 1: feeling very just almost indifferent to it. Looking at the

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Speaker 1: teams in this like league championship series set. After the

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Speaker 1: National League Division Series concluded last night with a two

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Speaker 1: to one Dodgers victory over the San Francisco Giants in

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Speaker 1: Game five of that series, It's looking more and more

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Speaker 1: like there's just stability at the top in baseball. The Braves,

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Speaker 1: the Dodger, the Astros, they were all in the league

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Speaker 1: Championship series last year. Three of the four teams are returning.

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Speaker 1: Three of the four teams out of thirty are returning

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Speaker 1: to the same spot in the postseason. And it's I mean,

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Speaker 1: to be honest, it's been like that. The Dodgers have been,

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Speaker 1: you know, perennial contenders. It's I mean, a dynasty going on.

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Speaker 1: In La. But on top of that, you have the

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Speaker 1: Red Sox even returning after you know, winning the World

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Speaker 1: Series a few years back, trading away mookie bets to

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Speaker 1: those aforementioned Dodgers, giving themselves, like I guess, a year

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Speaker 1: to like recover from that self imposed thing they did.

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Speaker 1: But they're, you know, back in it. The Astros another

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Speaker 1: team that just really will get down just like dismantled

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Speaker 1: the roster and rebuilt it fully, you know, intelligently, like

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Speaker 1: as far as like analytics are concerned, perhaps, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, the Astros. I think we all think

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Speaker 1: that they have a bit of a hole in their approach,

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Speaker 1: but the fact is that they still have like a

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Speaker 1: collective amount of great talent and some baseball players that

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Speaker 1: have been with them for a while, like Jose Altuve

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Speaker 1: has basically been the face of the Astros for like

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Speaker 1: a decade. It's that sort of continuity that holds teams together.

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Speaker 1: You need people to be good at baseball. You need

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Speaker 1: to understand the game at its heights. You have to

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Speaker 1: like reach those heights while playing consistent baseball for one

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty two games, consistent winning baseball. It's a

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Speaker 1: tall order because you need players to reach a physical height,

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Speaker 1: like a like a violent physical height, like just the

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Speaker 1: swing or a pitch that's a lot of force on

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Speaker 1: your body and you need to repeat it over and

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Speaker 1: over again. It makes like all the sense in the

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Speaker 1: world why being at the top of the sport would

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Speaker 1: be so difficult. But it's hard to admit to ourselves

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Speaker 1: that being at the top of the sport is not

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Speaker 1: a lot. There's not a lot of people there year

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Speaker 1: to year. There's a lot of stability. This is a

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Speaker 1: Marlins podcasts. Mostly what I mentioned in is the Marlins

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Speaker 1: winning the World Series, appreciating what they have in reaching

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Speaker 1: that height that they haven't been able to without no

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Speaker 1: much regularity. We had two thousand and three, nineteen ninety seven,

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Speaker 1: and kind of like twenty twenty. You know, I was like,

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Speaker 1: that was fun. I had a fun year. I liked that.

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Speaker 1: That was a great like off season, that was a

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Speaker 1: great postseason, really good tying for it too. It was,

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Speaker 1: you know, just a good time to be a fan.

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Speaker 1: So what I'm looking for as a fan is for

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Speaker 1: more good times to be a fan. It's not I'm

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Speaker 1: not breaking any new ground by saying that. What I

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Speaker 1: do think though, is that we're looking at a Marlin's

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Speaker 1: team setting out on an important offseason. I'm obviously on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: I read what other people write, I hear what other

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Speaker 1: people are saying. Everyone seems to be saying that this

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Speaker 1: Marlin's team needs to make like some changes to get

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Speaker 1: to the point that they want. And that's like a

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Speaker 1: consensus thought talking about like a catcher, talking about a

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Speaker 1: centerfield or talking about potentially like another outfield bat, that

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Speaker 1: like type of player, just like another solid hitter. I've

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Speaker 1: even heard like like Chris Bryant's name like thrown around

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Speaker 1: as like a fit for that. So in my mind,

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Speaker 1: I'm loosening up that like third base spot in some

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Speaker 1: like positional play, loosening up the third base because you know,

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Speaker 1: Brian Anderson could pick up and right certainly has the precedent.

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Speaker 1: And what I want to assert now is that talking

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Speaker 1: about the Marlins, talking about appreciating what they have, they

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Speaker 1: need to commit to their roster like as it exists.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of just uncertainty over this offseason, specifically

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Speaker 1: with the December first CBA just possibility of who knows

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Speaker 1: what in baseball, there could be anything. There's been a

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Speaker 1: lot of discontent among the players among like just different

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Speaker 1: like advocacy groups too, about just like the way things are,

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Speaker 1: so we can expect some change. Maybe that just means

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Speaker 1: the DH that's Maybe that means a lower, well, a

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Speaker 1: higher minimum wage. Maybe it means some different structure as

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Speaker 1: far as like arbitration years or free agent years, or

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Speaker 1: a restructuring of the draft. Like, there's so many possibilities.

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Speaker 1: You can't know what's going to happen next. So what

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Speaker 1: you need to do is you need to know where

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Speaker 1: you are. You need to make sure that the people

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Speaker 1: who are counting on you, like know that they have

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Speaker 1: your consideration and support. As baseball players trying to reach

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Speaker 1: ridiculous physical heights sustainably over a season, doing incredible offseason

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Speaker 1: work at least, like if you're going to improve as

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Speaker 1: a player, you are doing incredible off season work. So

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Speaker 1: what you need to do now, what in my mind

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Speaker 1: is like the first step of where this Marlin's off

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Speaker 1: season is at? Before looking around, I mean, maybe you

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Speaker 1: are scouting already. You should be looking at video, getting

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Speaker 1: all those thoughts together, figuring out where you want to

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Speaker 1: go out, what you want to look at, who you

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Speaker 1: want to like, try to like you know, just check

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Speaker 1: in with see what they might sign for, just all

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Speaker 1: of those casual things. We had a great highlight when

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Speaker 1: like razel I Gleasias, the uh like hard throwing reliever,

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Speaker 1: said he would sign with the Marlins for like a

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Speaker 1: ten million dollar contract for one year. It's like that's

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Speaker 1: like great praise, It's like good that, Like okay, so

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Speaker 1: the Marlins are seen as a legitimate organization by potential

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Speaker 1: free agents. But like the guy's not saying he's going

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Speaker 1: to take a discount. He's still looking for ten million

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Speaker 1: dollars as a reliever, a high price to pay. So

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Speaker 1: the Marlins looking at their roster, consolidating where they're at.

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Speaker 1: What you have to look at is Sandy al Contra,

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Speaker 1: who's been great. He's deserving of like a long term contract.

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Speaker 1: He's due for arbitration, so they're certainly room to negotiate

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Speaker 1: in that immediately. Brian Anderson as well, he had like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's had a down year. Really uncertain, really like who

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Speaker 1: knows what's gonna happen next. What could happen in arbitration

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Speaker 1: is an ugly battle you want to avoid that you

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Speaker 1: don't want to take, like anyone to arbitration if you

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Speaker 1: can avoid. If so, what you'd be looking to do

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Speaker 1: is like offer good supportive deals. Maybe you give Brian

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Speaker 1: Anderson a two year deal just saying like, hey, you

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Speaker 1: might be in right field, we still believe in you,

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Speaker 1: but hey, just so you know, maybe Pablo deserves something

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Speaker 1: like that. Maybe I mean, he couldn't be in right field,

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Speaker 1: but he's another player that's been good for years. The

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Speaker 1: thing is, when you build your roster, you don't want

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Speaker 1: to like get in the position where you have some

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Speaker 1: people like pinched out just by like a raise or

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Speaker 1: just like a bunch of like backloaded contracts that all

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Speaker 1: like up in the same spot. So you should be

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Speaker 1: like diversifying what you're trying to do as far as

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Speaker 1: extending what you've got, even with like Hazu's Aguilar, Gert

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Speaker 1: Cooper Hayes's agular, like he could be due for like

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Speaker 1: seven eight million, really depends, but that's a guy where

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Speaker 1: looks like there might be some redundancy at first base

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Speaker 1: and potentially dh with like Cooper das Aguilar. But you

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Speaker 1: don't want to give away a good hitter. You don't

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Speaker 1: want to just you don't even want to trade away

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Speaker 1: a good hitter. You want to have good people on

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Speaker 1: your team, so you need to consolidate around that, like

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Speaker 1: Hender Hayes's agular, a contract Cooper as well. Maybe something

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Speaker 1: opens up later in the offseason where there's room for

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Speaker 1: like a trade or something. If you like think there's

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Speaker 1: so much redundancy to me, there isn't at all. Even

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Speaker 1: if one of them just is a great bench that

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Speaker 1: in the eighth then when you need it on it

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Speaker 1: a Tuesday in May, that's like outstanding and that gives

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Speaker 1: you another year to go to in the playoffs. If

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Speaker 1: you could have like a Garrett Cooper come up on

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Speaker 1: the bench, or Hazey's agular or any amount of those players.

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Speaker 1: Even with like Brian de la Cruz filling in at DH,

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Speaker 1: there's an absolute ton to work with with this Marlins team,

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Speaker 1: but there needs to be that commitment to them that

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Speaker 1: you're working with them and then going to sign free

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Speaker 1: agents and maybe trade for some like big talent. But

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Speaker 1: it has to come from that place of support, not

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Speaker 1: in that place of just replacement, that like poisonous mentality

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Speaker 1: that has been floating around, I mean in part because

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Speaker 1: of the analytics movement talking about like replacement value assigning

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Speaker 1: a distinctly different level or attitude about a major League

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Speaker 1: baseball player. The reality, with all of them, you're looking

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Speaker 1: at an amazing athlete, and with the very best, you're

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Speaker 1: looking at just like star talent. At this point in

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Speaker 1: the off season, it should all be appreciated,