- [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club Forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.

(upbeat music) (audience muttering) - Hello and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland.

Welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Monday, January 23rd, and I'm Kristen Baird Adams, President of the City Club Board of Directors.

It is my pleasure to introduce today's forum, Defying Expectations: The Next Era of Guardians Baseball.

Going into the 2022 Cleveland baseball season, you could say things felt a bit different.

The pandemic was still weighing heavily on Major League Baseball and a lockout delayed the start of the season.

Things looked a little bit different as well.

Here in Cleveland, the team took the field for the first time with a new name as the Cleveland Guardians in fresh gear.

With an average age of 26 years old, the Guardians were the youngest team in the major leagues.

In the beginning, many sports analysts wrote the Guardians off.

It was to be another year of rebuilding, they said, but in the end the Guards would finish with a 92 win season, a division title, and barely knocked out of the playoffs by the New York Yankees.

(audience applauding) Sports Illustrated.

Sports Illustrated credited the team with creating a new brand of baseball.

And Terry Francona would take home his third Major League Baseball Manager of the Year, while Chris Antonetti took home, (audience applauding) for the second time, Major League Baseball's Executive of the Year.

(audience applauding) And all of us, and all of us here in Cleveland took all of this in happily to the tune of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.

Following an unforgettable 2022 season, what is next for the new era of the Guardians and what does it mean for the city of Cleveland?

To answer these questions from team leadership from the Cleveland Guardians are here today.

On stage we have Chris Antonetti, President of Baseball Operations, Guardians owner Paul Dolan, and of course the manager of the Guardians, Terry, or as he is perhaps best known, Tito Francona.

Moderating the conversation is Andre Knott with Bally Sports and Fox 8 News.

If you have a question for our speakers today, you can text it to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

Or you can tweet your question @thecityclub and the City Club staff will do its best to work it into the second half of the program.

Now I wanna hand it over to Andre who's gonna go to questions.

(audience applauding) - Thank you very much.

I appreciate it and thank you guys for all being here.

This should be fun.

I'm sure Tito and Chris are sick of me asking them questions.

I've seen them all weekend long, but we appreciate being here with you guys.

Paul, I've gotta start with you.

With everything that changed last year, if you would've known that SpongeBob would've become, I'm kidding.

Changing the name of a ball club and going through everything that you guys went through last season, just your thoughts on the name change and just everything that went through it and how the season worked out.

- Yeah, sort of Kristen's opening remarks talked about the beginning of the season and sort of the mindset there and certainly heavy on our minds was the impact and the reaction to the name change.

And you know, I won't go into great detail on that, but we changed the name ultimately because we believed it was the right thing to do and we actually think it was a smart thing to do, but we also.

(audience applauding) But we were fully aware that that was not a universally held opinion and that it would take some time, so we went into this season with a little bit of trepidation and we were careful.

I think we didn't throw it in everybody's face.

You might see it more this year, but we're thrilled with what the reaction has been.

First, the community, I think, embraced it initially better than we thought.

But this season, this past season really, really kind of moved us along our timeline where we thought it might be a multi-year and it probably still will be multi-years before everybody accepts it.

But I feel like as we start this year, more and more people see themselves as Guardian fans and Guards and that has a lot to do with the team last year.

I wish we could take credit for planning it this way to have a team that not only was successful in the field but was also one of the most interesting, fun, personable teams that we've fielded, at least in my tenure here.

And I think the community really, really embraced it, and in doing so, they became Guardians fans.

So, you know, we have 106 years of equity in the name Indians, we have one year in Guardians, but I think we're catching up fast.

(audience applauding) - Chris, I think some people from the outside, when you look at the end result of the wins and what you guys were able to accomplish and being the youngest team in baseball, just that was a different strategy.

And I know that you've said to me that the strategy wasn't to be the youngest but to try to win a World Series.

Just your thoughts on all the changes that were going on and also on the field.

- Yeah, I think Paul touched on it, it was a time of great uncertainty for our organization last year.

Paul talked a little bit about that with the name change, but as we looked on the field, there was also some uncertainty.

We probably had great hope and optimism about what the season could be, but the reality was we didn't know.

We were about to embark on a journey with a group of players that really hadn't contributed at the major league level before.

I don't think we sat out there and planned and said, hey, we're gonna have 17 rookies contribute and set a major league record and field the roster that was younger than the average AAA roster.

But we knew we're going to be young.

And I think it was incredible to see that group take advantage of those opportunities, continue their individual contributions, but I think the thing that we all got a chance to observe and cherish was the way that group of individuals came together as a team and formed one of the most dynamic remarkable teams that we've experienced certainly in the last decade or so.

And I know he's sitting a couple of chairs down, but in my view that's largely attributable to Tito.

His leadership and the staff to be able to take a group of really talented individuals, help them succeed and come together and form a team identity that we all got to watch for a good chunk of the season all the way until October.

- Tito, I gotta tell a quick story about just the youth that you had last year and how funny it was.

It seemed like every Friday night we had a new guy getting called up when we were at home, and one night Tito was getting ready to do his post-game interview and he is trying to find whomever it was that pitched and a guy's out in the field taking pictures with his family and there's fireworks going off and Tito's like, where is he?

I can't find him.

Just for you, as long as you've been in baseball, how odd were those Friday nights of seeing that, but also just having a team that young and how they responded?

- There are a lot of funny stories like that because of the youth, but like Chris alluded to, they're really good kids.

If I was a fan, it would be easy to like this team.

I mean, what you see is what you get, and that's how we felt too.

And, but from a baseball standpoint, when young guys are trying to find their footing in our league, sometimes to ask them to care about winning, what the scoreboard says, again, when they're kind of worried, well man, if I don't get a hit tonight, I might go back to AAA, they did that extraordinarily well and you saw the way they played.

It became kind of their mantra that this is how we're gonna play the game.

And I told them, I said, you guys should be proud of the way you play.

You know, they went up against some teams with some really veteran players and kind of ran them into the ground and it was enjoyable to watch and I was proud of them for it.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) - I will ask all three of you your favorite moments from last season, but for me, I just gotta say his quickly, it was seeing, like, Stephen Kwan coming to Kansas City and literally like a little kid, he's looking, you know, he's looking around and he can't believe he's there.

And we watched that all year long and they never looked overwhelmed when the game started, Tito.

I gotta ask you, like, where does that come from that these kids didn't respond that way?

- I think we need to be careful because when we're in our jobs, we get to talk about these guys after the game to the media and take the bows and we get to brag about them.

But the people that are largely responsible are player development people and our scouts and I hope they are sitting there with their chest kind of puffed out because our kids came up and they knew how to act and they didn't back down from challenges.

And when you told them something once, they did it.

Like there was no babysitting, especially for a team that young and we really appreciated that.

- [Andre Knott] Paul, I'll start with you.

What was your favorite moment from last season?

- I appreciate you giving me a few seconds to think about that.

- I've done this once or twice I with you.

- Well, I'll skip the obvious ones, the SpongeBob moments, and for me, what came to mind right away, so I'll go with it, is a moment that I didn't actually see.

I woke up to it the next morning to see Josh Naylor's grand slam to tie it up in the bottom of the ninth and (indistinct) to win it.

And one that was extraordinarily exciting in itself, but it was really like that moment I said, well, this season may not go the way everybody thought it would go.

We may be in this thing for a while.

And so that's my memory.

- [Andre Knott] Chris, I'll go to you.

Were you awake for the Josh Naylor, awake or not?

- I was awake for the Josh Naylor grand slam.

There were so many.

I will go to the Oscar moment, but it's not, it's partially about the moment but for me it was about the reaction to that.

We were really fortunate, Tito mentioned our player development and scouting staff.

We had them all in Cleveland for those games and it's a rare opportunity because most of the year these are people that are not in Cleveland, they don't get a chance to see our team play every day.

But they were all here and to see the exuberance, the excitement that they all felt and how connected they were to the contributions they made on the field and the videos that they sent along of their reactions, that was probably the highlight for me.

- Tito, I gotta go to you.

What was your, and I mean, you're there every day, and half the time Tito tells me he doesn't see, hear, anything that the rest of us see and hear.

Tito, I didn't see that.

So I'll ask in front of everyone else, what's your favorite?

- I don't know if it would be called my favorite, but I thought that the turning point or the thing that excited me, we were in Chicago for a doubleheader.

We won the first game in real exciting fashion.

The second game, I think we went 12 innings and we lost.

We just ran out of pitching.

It was one of those, but we outplayed them.

I thought we actually kind of, I don't wanna say embarrassed them, that's not fair, but we outplayed them in my opinion and we had a tough loss and when we came in after the game, I told the guys real quick, I said, you play like that and we're gonna be just fine.

And I said, turn the music on and show up tomorrow.

And they looked like, 'cause I mean I was so proud of them, the way they played and you're not gonna win every night.

But I didn't want them going home hanging their heads because I thought we had something special.

- Tito, you tell that story and I've been blessed enough to be around you long enough to know that you know when to hit buttons.

And I don't know if you guys know this, but like there have been years when you lose and you don't play music in the clubhouse and there's been a couple different times over the last nine years where you're willing to go in and say, hey, it's been a long road trip.

Do it.

And I say this because I think as a leader we all have our own homes to lead.

When do you know to hit that button, whether it's in Kansas City after, you know, eight games in six days or in Chicago?

- You know, I'm probably slow on the take, but I try to never do something before, you know, say something wrong.

I want to make sure when I do say something to them, they're ready to listen and it's not something that I do out of being reactionary 'cause I don't think that's fair to them and I don't think it helps.

And again, and we're very fortunate and, you know this, we have so many good coaches with so much experience and I listen to what they say, but we're always taking the temperature of the team all the time.

- Paul, you and Chris, or you, Chris and Brian Barron just announced some renovations that are gonna happen over at Progressive Field.

Can you tell the people here just how that will go about and how that will help in the community?

- Yeah, we announce dour plans for the renovations that will take place over the next two years and they're focused on, well, two general areas.

Obviously the bowl, the fan facing areas of the ballpark, which, you know, as we sit here today, I still think our ballpark is one of the best in the game, but the world changes and you have to keep up with it.

So a lot of these changes are designed towards making it more fan friendly and being more inclusive in that we wanna bring more people, particularly young people to the games in the way they want to consume it.

Then what you're gonna see underneath it, well, you may not see actually underneath it is, is what we're doing with the clubhouse and with our offices.

Those are two areas where really the work gets done and they really haven't been touched in a meaningful way since 1994.

And with respect to the clubhouse, I mean, they play a game for hopefully next year two and a half hours.

But they're there for eight, 10, you're there there all the time and that's where the work gets done, and to keep up and to be competitive, we need to make sure that our clubhouse meets the current standards, if not create some new standards.

- Do you believe these changes will help with attendance?

- Yeah, I mean that's the goal.

To my comment about it being more inclusive, but it should make it, I mean, you saw what happened with the district.

That really has electrified us.

The young people in the community.

I think we're the hottest bar in town, at least from 7-10 on weekend and, yeah, yeah.

And I think that's the experience that we're trying to create in other areas of the ballpark and particularly in the upper deck.

I mean, we were talking about this earlier, you know.

We have no problem selling the most expensive tickets in the ballpark 'cause that experience right in the lower bowl between the bases is a phenomenal experience.

We have a harder time selling our cheaper seats, which are in the upper deck.

And so a lot of the investment that we're making in the ballpark is to improve the experience in the upper deck to attract more people to sit up there.

- Chris, what will the changes in the clubhouse mean for you and the people that are working around you?

- Paul touched on a little bit, but in our last round of renovations we really didn't touch any of the player or staff facing areas.

This time we'll be making some investments in those spaces because they've been untouched really since 1994.

So it will allow our players a better opportunity to prepare, perform, and recover, to help us with our goals trying to win a World Series.

So the way in which our athletic training facilities, our strength and conditioning facilities, some of what we're trying to do with nutrition and sleep, all of these areas will be enhanced in our clubhouse and hopefully give us a competitive advantage on the field.

- [Andre Knott] Tito, as I hear Chris say that, watch it from when you play till now.

(audience laughing) And watching when you talk about sleep and guys doing yoga and, like, there's things like the way they eat.

What will it mean to see the changes?

Because we always already see these guys are doing things you weren't doing when you played.

- When I was here in 1988, the game would be over and (indistinct) ran the clubhouse and he'd have bologna and potato chips and he'd say, dig in boys.

(audience laughing) Times have changed a little for the better.

Our guys do a really good job, but it will be really welcome.

I don't know if anybody's ever been down there, but my office is directly next to the kitchen and so they have fans blowing this way, this way because whatever we're eating is coming right in my office.

There's days where secondhand smoke is so bad you can't see down the hallway.

So that will be welcome from my point of view.

(audience laughing) - Chris, let's turn our attention to what you guys have been able to do on the off season?

Bring in Mike Zunino in as well as Josh Bell.

Just can you take the people through the steps, so the process of who they are and what you guys expect from them?

- Sure.

Maybe rewinding a little bit.

We went into the off season in a really strong position.

We've all saw what our team was able to do last year and it was a group that largely was going to be returning.

We only had a couple of free agents, so we went in with a position of strength.

But there were a couple of areas where we really wanted to try to add to our team to give ourselves a better chance.

One was to add some offense somewhere, whether that was a first base, DH, corner outfield spot, and we felt we were able to bring in someone in Josh Bell who checked so many of the boxes for us.

He's a switch hitter, controls a strike zone really well, can be a presence in the middle of the order against both left and right-handed pitching and should provide some protection for some of our other hitters.

And then turning our attention behind the plate, I mentioned one of the few positions where we did have some change was Austin Hedges was our one free agent.

And so catching was the position we wanted to try to improve, and in Mike Zunino, I think we've been pretty open about how much we value defense behind the plate, leading a pitching staff.

And Mike comes to the organization with an extraordinary reputation for not just the way he controls the running game, but the way he leads a pitching staff.

And he is also only a couple years removed from being an all-star with 30 plus home runs.

So we think he can contribute on both sides of the ball.

So adding those two guys to the mix with players we've already had gives us great optimism heading into the year.

- [Andre Knott] Speaking of great optimism, you could break a story and tell us if you're gonna sign anybody else before the season starts.

- I'll let you keep guessing on that one.

- I had to try.

Tito, I never thought I'd be sitting eating lunch with you and taking health courses from you, but it seems like you feel pretty good.

I think most people around Cleveland and most people around baseball are just curious how your health is.

- I think I'm trending in the right direction.

I dragged that boot.

(audience applauding) I dragged that boot around for about a year and a half and I had some other things go wrong, but I've had an off season for the first time in about three years where you can actually be healthy and work out a little bit and play a little golf and recharge for the next season.

And I feel like I'm ready and I don't know if I could have said that the last couple years with this much enthusiasm.

I can't wait till we get started.

- What excites you most about the upcoming season?

- The chance that we can get better and I know our guys and, you know, I mean it was five minutes after we lost to New York and I had to talk to our guys and I told them, I said, hey, this can't be just a little feel good story about a young group of guys that kind of overachieved.

This has to be a jumping off point for us so we can get better and go farther.

And I think they believe in that and we tell them all the time the more experience you get, you know, the game slows down for you a little bit, which is good, but we don't play the game at a slower pace.

We gotta try to make people still keep up with us and if they can't, good luck.

- We're gonna get to the rule changes real quick.

I told this story to season ticket holders the other night after you two had left.

After that last game in New York, we're getting on and it was pretty cold and rainy.

You remember it was like when we got on the plane to come home and you're waiting for everybody to get on the plane.

And Josh Naylor was one of the last guys.

He lets everybody go in front of him and we kind of were going back and forth.

No, you go, no you go, no you go.

And it was just him and I out there and he starts crying and he gives me a hug and he goes, I love these guys and I don't want today to end.

It was one of the coolest moments I've ever seen because, you know, we all see them on the field and we all see them running in the dugout and headbutting Tito, (audience laughing) but there's another side to him and I thought that team fell in love with each other and I was almost worried when he got on a plane he was gonna cry the whole time.

And then like 15 minutes later I heard him yelling and screaming like, all right, we're all right.

But for all of you guys, Chris, what does it mean to know that that's how those guys felt about each other last year?

- Yeah, it was a group of individuals to start the year and then you talked about that feeling that they had at the end of the year where it was a team in every sense of the word.

And I think to have the vast majority of that group back is really exciting to think about so they can build on those relationships, and as Tito said, hopefully this can be a jumping off point for the group.

- Tito, your thoughts of who Josh is, and how he helped become a leader a little bit as a younger player.

- You know, he's been through so much physically.

I mean, he had a devastating injury a couple years ago, and so we needed to remember that last year.

But being another year removed from it, I think you're gonna see a better player and I think probably a more mature player.

The more he knows he belongs and he's respected, we'll see maybe less of the outbursts and more of the good Josh that brings so much to what we do.

I mean, This kid's heart is as big as there is, and he does care about his teammates.

Every once in a while that button goes off and you gotta reel him back in.

But he's a good kid and I don't ever want somebody to think otherwise.

We're very fortunate here.

- [Andre Knott] All right.

There's been some rule changes in baseball if you guys have not been brought aware of that, and heck, I'm still trying to learn them before we get to our first time on the on games.

So I'll start with Chris.

We know that there'll be bigger bases, we know that also the pitchers will only be able to throw over to first base two times before action has to happen.

Just how do you take that all in and how do you give that to the players so they're prepared for this when the season starts?

- So there's another element.

So those are two of the key role changes.

The other is there will be a pitch timer that's now in place which they've experimented with that in the minor leagues, which the results of that have been awesome.

It gives us the best of what baseball is, which is quick paced action, things happening on the field and less of what we probably don't want, which is that dead time in between pitches.

So I am really excited that that will bring some quicker paced games, as Paul said, hopefully more along the two and a half hours rather than three hours, three hours and 15 minutes, and allow us to get back to a better brand of baseball and action.

And I'll turn it over to Tito for the on-field components.

- Can I say something though first before I get into that?

I just want to thank everybody here.

I was just looking it was so nice of you guys to have a picture of me and Paul.

(audience laughing) - I think we're too young.

- Which one is you?

(audience laughing) - You guys know how to make people welcome.

Thank you.

- All right, let me reel this back in.

We're gonna have a balanced schedule this year, which means we won't see Minnesota, Chicago, we won't see them 19 times.

Detroit.

How does that play out for you?

- Truth be told it probably hurts us a little bit because we've been so good in our division, but I think it's the most fair way to come up with playoff teams because the wild card, there's so much put into, you know, maybe playing a best out of three where you can get a buy.

Playing all the teams is fair for everybody or the most fair way they can do it.

So again, it may not help us, but I think it's good for baseball.

- It's also, if I can add, it's the most interesting really for the fans, for the core baseball fan.

They get a chance to see every team in baseball either here in Cleveland or watching our games on TV when we play them away.

- [Andre Knott] Paul, I agree with you.

I think, I mean we love going to the places we go to, but we even saw it last year, you were able to travel to San Diego or places that we haven't been.

It will be cool to see some teams come into our ballpark that we usually do not see.

I think we all look forward to that a little bit unless they got their number one pitcher starting.

Before we take questions from the audience, I have to ask all three of you about José Ramírez and just the impact that he has had, not only, you know, here but we had the opportunity a week ago to go to the Dominican Republic and see him at home.

And I hope when we get this all produced and put together on Bally Sports you guys are gonna be able to enjoy this around spring training of just seeing José in his own element.

And I've sent a video back to Tito of the field that he played on as a young kid and the field is, doesn't really have grass, has garbage, and things.

I think when you see this field and you see the film, you'll have a better understanding of why José Ramírez is José Ramírez.

But for Paul, for you, I'll start with you.

Just the impact of his decision to want to be here.

What did that mean to you and as a group knowing you have a player that talented that wants to be here?

- Yeah, there's a choreography to these situations where when we have an elite player who's approaching free agency and goes something like they really wanna stay, we really want them to stay, and then we talk about what we think that means in terms of how much they wanna be paid and that usually brings an end to that dance.

And frankly we thought we were having the same dance with José until he stepped up right close to the 11th hour and said, no, no, no, I really, really meant it.

And then he stood behind that by pretty much dictating what it is that we would pay based upon what we told him we could.

And he pushed us but he gave a tremendous amount and this off season just highlights how much he really gave in order to remain a Guardian, and I think, you know, we talked about what the mindset was at the beginning of last season.

I think it began to change when José stepped up and did an extension.

I think that changed the whole perspective on this team, certainly from the external perspective.

And Chris and Tito can speak better to what it meant inside the clubhouse, but I think it was a game changer.

- Chris, for you, how many times have you had a negotiation like that and just the impact that it helps you in building a team knowing that he wants to be here and it will be here?

- Yeah, José's story, as Andre said, I can't wait for everyone to see some of the footage and video that Andre and the team captured because José's story is so unique, right?

Young, five foot six, seven inch maybe, infielder from Baní and the Dominican Republic coming from really humble beginnings to the point of, you know, now being one of the best players in baseball, and making a choice to want to be here and to be the leader of our team on the field and off for the foreseeable future.

And it's, you know, would we talk about it all the time.

No one would've guessed when José signed with us at that point in time who he would emerge as one of the best players.

But there is not a player who cares more about the game, how important it is to him, how much he loves to play, and how important his teammates are than José.

And having that type of person leading our team moving forward gives us a, you know, a great building block and starting point.

- Tito, when we were in Dominican and I asked José about the year you played him in left field and all over the place and he kind of stopped me halfway through to question he goes, (indistinct), told me just get on the field and get in the lineup.

Who cares where you play?

I say that because you know that every young player doesn't react that way.

Just what does it mean to be able to put his name in the lineup knowing who he is and what he is?

- You know, anytime I talk to our team, I want to be organized because that's how much I value when you're in front of them.

I don't ever wanna stumble.

And I had a team meeting I was working on for the first day in Kansas City and when I found out that José had signed that last day of spring training, I ripped that up and I changed it completely because we had our guy and he's like, I mean, he makes us go, he's our engine.

Like I said this before, what you see is what you get.

This kid lives, breathes, eats baseball, and his internal clock is amazing.

And when you have your best player that does it the way you're supposed to, it makes the messaging so much easier for everybody else on the team.

- He told me last week, he says, I go, what do you think when you see other guys running bases like you?

And he goes, that's when I smile.

(audience laughing) He doesn't say a lot, but when he says something that kind of tells you all you need to know.

You guys ready to ask some questions up here?

We'll start it off.

- We're about to begin the audience Q and A. I'm Kristen Baird Adams, President of the City Club Board of Directors.

We are joined by team leadership from the Cleveland Guardians discussing what is next in this new era of Guardians baseball.

We welcome questions from everyone, City Club members, guests, students, and those joining us via our livestream at cityclub.org.

If you'd like to tweet a question, please tweet it @thecityclub, @thecityclub.

You can also text your question to 330-541-5794.

That's 330-541-5794.

May we have our first question please?

- [Audience Member] Just wondering, Mr. Dolman, thank you for your leadership and everything you brought to the community and your leadership with the name change.

I'm just wondering if you could talk about the process of adding the new minority owner last year, what that means.

Obviously you benefit from having a Cleveland family owned team, what it means for the future and if it'll help us compete with Steve Cohen.

(audience laughing) - Help competing with Steve Cohen will come from hopefully a new economic arrangement in our game because until then that probably is not gonna happen.

But I mean the process to find a a new minority partner started when our old minority partner went out and bought the Kansas City Royals, and John, I had a great relationship with, forged a nice partnership with, so John obviously had to sell his interest in our team when he bought the Royals.

And so we started a process back in '19 and we took our time with it because to me it was important that I find the right person and have the right fit.

So it was a year and a half, two years, before we settled with David and we settled with David, one, because of who he is, but two, because he brings a lot to the table for the organization.

For those who don't know, he has interest in multiple sports franchises, obviously in different sports.

He couldn't own another Major League Baseball team, but in basketball, hockey and soccer all over the globe.

And those are great resources for us because it allows our folks to talk to others in other sports and develop best practices and we think in the long run that'll be good for us.

But the goal here is for me as it was with John before and I believe we're there is for me to forge a partnership with him.

A partnership that we sort of, to the extent the owners are involved in the running of the club, that we do that together and that whenever that day comes in the distant future, whenever a member of my family is not in control because David took over, it'll still be a partnership 'cause we're not going away.

No matter what happens here, we're not going away and we'll still be part of this franchise for a long time.

- This is for Paul and Chris.

Any thought whatsoever about a 27 year contract for our manager?

(audience laughing) - Well we hope we are at the beginning of a 27 year.

One year at a time.

- [Audience Member 2] We have a a text question regarding the rule changes.

Sports Illustrated, I'm just trying to find the text question.

It went away, but I'll remember it.

Sports Illustrated said that the teams like the Guardians and specifically the Guardians are very, very well situated in light of the rule changes with the banning the infield shift and and so forth.

Can you guys talk about that, whether or not that's true, how you feel about how it changes the game that you will play?

- I can do it, I can start it.

I do think we're well situated for a couple reasons.

One, and we've alluded to it, how young we are, but our youth, it won't take nearly as long to adjust to some of these newer rules because a lot of these guys that come up through the minor leagues where they've already had it in place.

Two, like with the ban on shifting, we have some very athletic defensive players, which I think will help.

And again, we run the bases so aggressively, and what I hope is intelligently and with some of these rule changes that should only enhance our ability to steal bases.

- Chris, will it change how you guys go about scouting and doing things or do you not know yet?

- It will have an impact.

I think as Tito said there are certain players that it will advantage a little bit more.

Some of our players and Josh Bell's been a guy as a power hitter that's talked about some of the advantages he might now have because there won't be other defenders on the poll side of the infield.

So there will be some impact on acquisition and development strategies, but I think we're all heading into the year with a lot to learn.

- [Audience Member 3] Good afternoon.

Thank you for being here.

Slight tangent here.

For youth baseball programming and especially in older cities where parks are dated, infrastructure's older, leveling the playing field can take on two meanings, both literal and figurative, especially when you consider that many of the parks where underperforming diamonds are located are in communities of color.

Wondering where the Guardians stand on leveling the playing field, and then secondly, how do you strike the balance between supporting all communities, but especially African-American communities when Major League Baseball has been trying to reverse the trend and representation for so many decades.

- Maybe I'll start.

There are sort of two questions in there.

Certainly with respect to making the game more accessible to girls and boys in the inner city, you know, we have been very active in developing and or redeveloping playing fields.

I think the most recent one in partnership with José Ramírez was the Clark Fields over on the near west side.

And we've done that all over town and that will continue to be a priority for us to encourage young people, particularly young people in the city, to play.

I think it's fair to say that there would be no baseball in the CMSD schools but for what we're doing to support those.

Then at the major league level, you're right, there's a tremendous focus on reversing trends both on the field and off the field in terms of African-American participation in the game.

And I think we're making progress as evidenced on the field by the fact that for the first five draftees in the last draft were African-American and I think there was even, going down further, there was a fair amount of participation.

Every one of them played baseball through programs supported by Major League Baseball.

And then on the off the field side, there are any number of programs that we are championing to to attract African-American, well, all minorities to be as inclusive as possible to be engaged in the game.

- Hi, thank you for being here and on behalf of Cleveland Clinic I have to thank you, our table, for everything that the organization and all of you as individuals have done for our patients.

Some which are well known and others that you just do out of the goodness of your heart and that's culture.

And we talk about culture a lot.

Can you talk a little bit about the culture not with the players but in the back office and with everybody that really makes it happen throughout the day too?

- Yeah, it's a little bit uncomfortable for me to talk about with Paul sitting next to me, but.

(audience laughing) But it actually does start with ownership and the environment that Paul and the Dolan family have allowed us to create because in professional sports it's often an immediate focus on the next game's outcome or one season's outcome.

And what Paul has really encouraged us to do is be thoughtful about how do we build a culture that's sustainable, and that's not common in professional sports.

And what that means is we invest a ton in bringing in great people into the organization and then creating an environment of development.

And development isn't something that happens overnight.

It takes time and effort and we spend a lot of time not only in developing our players on the field, but our staff members in creating a great environment for them to thrive and succeed.

And there are a lot of places where people talk about who gets credit or who takes blame and that's just not how we're wired.

We are all looking for the same outcome and that's how do we find a way to win a World Series?

And we know given the challenges that we have within our market the only way we're gonna do that is if we come together and have a better culture and a better organization with the right people pulling in the right direction.

- [Audience Member 4] All right.

Thanks gentlemen for coming.

To the community thing, a piece someone mentioned earlier, I really wanted to thank you.

My wife is a teacher at a school in Collinwood and Ty Freeman and Will Brennan came last week and the kids were ecstatic, so thank you for that.

And I think to wrap it into the new era of Guardians baseball last year we had a unprecedented amount of rookies come up in, you know, and play for our team, which was super exciting to watch.

But I recently saw some prospect rankings that have us with as many top 100 prospects as the entire American League Central combined.

So do things get trickier in 2023 trying to manage with all of these stud kids coming up behind them and guys like Will and Ty, you know, still trying to find their way into everyday playing time with all these great players behind them?

So just kind of how tricky is it to move move all these different pieces around and find playing time for all these guys?

I mean, you can't have 37 middle infielders in triple AAA.

- [Andre Knott] Good question.

- Well, in our view, we can never have enough talented players.

It's really hard to build a successful major league team.

Inevitably there are going to be some things that go our way, some players may get injured, some players may not perform the way we might hope.

So it's important to have some depth beneath that.

And you know, one of our goals is to be not just a good team in 2023 but beyond.

And the way in which we will do that is with players that are coming through our minor league systems.

So for us that depth that you talk about is critically important for our future success.

- [Audience Member 5] I have a different question and it's not really a question, it's kind of a comment.

So I am a die hard baseball fan.

When I go to the game, I wanna watch the game.

I wanna see what's happening on the field and I know you're trying to attract younger audience and we're gonna have more bars and we're gonna have places where you can watch football games during a baseball game, which I don't understand, (audience laughing) (audience applauding) but my biggest concern is this is Cleveland, and I think anybody that I have talked to about why don't you go to more baseball games in the beginning of the season, I'm there opening day to closing day in my long underwear, my fleece, my winter coat, you know, and now you're taking away spots where we can go and get warm in closed spaces and you're gonna open those up.

You know, when I talk to people and say, oh no, it's too cold to go to a game.

Oh I never go to games until May because it's always too cold in March and April and yet, you know, we know what the weather's gonna be like.

Is there any way that Major League Baseball can start the season later and do you have any input on that?

- Well, we tried that last year with a lockout.

(audience laughing) (audience applauding) That was one of the benefits I think starting on April 15th rather than March 31st.

You know, one of the things that we do talk about is the length of the schedule.

162 games is a lot and it's taxing on players and so that in the future, I don't know when we get to that, we may have a slightly shorter schedule and hopefully that might result in regularly starting in April 15th.

April baseball's not fun for anyone I think, but it's part of the 162 games.

- The Guardians and none of Cleveland's professional sports teams pay property taxes on the facilities that they've been given use of to make millions and millions and millions of dollars.

And true, technically they don't own it, but they derive the benefit of it.

This is at a time when a lot of people are looking at their new property tax bill and going, yikes, how am I gonna pay it?

We have just seen the deluxe new facilities or the renderings for the expense of upgrades that are going to be going into Progressive Field.

Discussions are just starting now about what are we gonna do about improving or replacing the Brown Stadium.

So what do you say to those people who don't think it's fair and equitable that the Guardians and other teams don't pay property tax or some equivalency of it?

Do you foresee that possibly changing because the city, the county, Cleveland schools, have so many pressing needs?

- No question those needs exist in the community but the community made a decision a long time ago that it was in the best interest of the community to have professional sports in it.

And that generated economic activity that supports the broader community.

We do by the way pay property tax on the land that the building sits on and we do pay 8% on every ticket that comes through.

So we do put back in the coffers some revenue that comes in.

If we were actually forced to pay a property tax on top of that for the value of the improvements, it would be that much harder for us to be competitive in what's really a very dysfunctional economic system that we operate in.

But again, going back to my other comment, I think the community benefits, we know the community benefits from our presence and our activity in it.

- [Audience Member 6] Oh, okay.

Back to baseball.

Question is a little bit longer term and it's just baseball in general, but how soon do you think we will see balls and strikes called electronically and how do you feel about that?

- So that process of experimenting with technology to call balls and strikes has already started in the minor leagues.

I think Major League Baseball has tried to be really thoughtful about learning through experimentation and having, you know, experimenting with different systems in the minor leagues.

And this year for the first time there will be automated balls and strikes called throughout AAA under two different systems.

One in which all of the pitches will be tracked through balls and strikes, and another one where it will be a challenge system where either the pitcher or the batter can opt for a challenge and if they're right then they get to continue to keep that challenge.

If not, then they lose it.

So Major League Baseball's experimenting with that in the upper levels and we'll learn from those experimentations to decide whether or not that might make sense at the major league level in the future.

But not for 2023 but at some point on the horizon it could be there.

- [Andre Knott] So who would Tito fight with?

(audience laughing) - We'll find somebody.

- I'll toss you more of a soft ball.

With the new schedule this summer playing every team, if my sister and I are gonna plan a road trip, who's anyone most excited about looking to playing on the road?

- I can answer from my standpoint, the team who is playing the worst.

(audience laughing) - I don't think there's any other answers after that.

- So we have the reality that we are a small market team and we have the small market realities here in Cleveland, unlike other sports where small market teams don't get penalized as much.

So what is your reaction?

How do you deal with being a small market team and the challenges it presents?

- Want me to start?

- Sure.

- Alright.

Yeah, it's interesting.

Those two of us who watched some football this weekend, like we play in the American League, the Browns play in the American Football Conference.

The four remaining teams in the American Football Conference were Kansas City, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, and Buffalo.

Jacksonville and Buffalo can't even support major league teams in Kansas City and Cincinnati are perennial losers, but in the NFL model they can be successful as we saw.

And and that's largely the case with most professional sports, at least in North America, other than baseball.

It's a challenge that from the ownership perspective, I think the good news is that there's becoming more and more recognition from inside our ranks from the commissioner and and ownership that it is a problem.

That's the first step towards the solution because the revenue disparities that exists between the large and small markets continues to grow.

But internally, here, while we are aware of the problem, it's not anything that we focus on.

You know, we're focused on winning and doing what we can with what we've got.

And I'll maybe turn over to Chris or Tito maybe to talk about that.

- Yeah, I would where you stopped.

There are challenges inherent in any market.

Ours might be different or more enhanced than others, but the end goal's the same, and that's to win a World Series.

If you spent 30 seconds around Tito, you have an idea of how hyper competitive he is.

It doesn't matter if it's a game of cards, ping pong, golf, he desperately wants to win and so he wouldn't be doing the job he's doing, I wouldn't be doing the job I'm doing if it wasn't all about finding a way to overcome some of those challenges to win a World Series 'cause that's what we're doing it for.

- [Audience Member 2] Questions submitted via text.

What are you hearing about Major League Baseball's relationship with sports gambling and do you a foresee future where MLB will allow onsite sports books?

- Well, this is the first year for sports betting in Ohio.

And we're certainly at the table.

We've announced a relationship with Bet365, which we we're issued a license by the state and we've sub-licensed it to Bet365 and I think that's gonna be part of the game going forward.

In terms of physically present, we can't, we're not allowed to have a sports book inside the ballpark.

We may have one nearby, more to come on that.

But we will be inside the rules of Major League Baseball when we do so.

But it may be a while, a few years before we actually activate what we think is the future for that.

- [Audience Member 7] So clearly this year was a really fun and exciting year for baseball in Cleveland and if I can't get to a game or watch it on TV, I absolutely love listening to it on the radio.

(audience applauding) And we are really fortunate here to have some great announcers.

Mr. Knott, take a bow.

But who determines who are those people are?

They're fantastic but do you or does the station determined that?

- You know, Tom Hamilton is one of our longest standing Cleveland Guardians employees and he's gonna be with us, sort of like the guy to the left to me here, as long as he's wants to be.

'Cause I think between Tito and Tom, we've got two Hall of Famers coming down the pike.

(audience applauding) - [Christine Nelson] Hi, good afternoon.

Thanks for being here, Christine Nelson.

My question is going back to the equity question.

So my sons had the privilege of playing on the RBI team and, you know, really appreciated all of the diversity on that team.

What I noticed and what I noticed across baseball is that pitchers especially tend to be white and from the US and there isn't, even on the RBI team, there isn't as much pitching development that occurs at the younger level in the communities.

And so I'm just wondering if that is something that you have also noticed in your player development and recruitment and if there's, you know, any way that we can start to make that pitching development wider spread?

'Cause it's very expensive.

Let me tell you.

- Yeah, go ahead.

Sure.

- So I think you highlight, I mean, one of our challenges systemically is we need to do a better job of recruiting and identifying and supporting more players from minority communities to participate in baseball.

They have been probably disproportionately underrepresented as pitchers rather than hitters.

Exactly why that is I'm not sure I could place my finger on it, but I do think there are opportunities for us to do a better job of supporting it.

If you think about pitching at the major league level, there is a mix between probably white pitchers and typically pitchers from Latin American countries with a much smaller percentage of African-American pitchers.

- [Paul Dolan] We've got a pretty good one on our rotation though, Triston.

The back end of our bullpen looks pretty good with Clase too, so.

- [Audience Member 8] Hi, we have a text question.

With an additional owner What kind of flexibility is there in the plans for the future?

- Well, if you mean financial flexibility, it really, I mean, how teams spend is really tied for the most part to the revenues it generates and maybe its capacity to handle debt.

It has very little to do with the size of the pocketbooks of the respective owners.

Now there is an example out there right now that is little, I mean, what's happening in New York with the Mets.

I can't tie to anything that's actually happening in the economics of the team, so it does happen, but you really should not expect that to happen with most franchises.

It really is tied to the market and what the market allows the team to spend.

- [Audience Member 2] This is gonna be our last question.

It's a question for the manager.

What about being manager for the Guardians brings you joy?

PS, I'm so glad you're healthy and feeling well.

- Well that brought me some joy.

That was nice.

(audience laughing) Not to be overly sentimental or, I love working here.

I came here for the right reasons 11 years ago.

It was for the people, and those relationships have only grown stronger.

That's not always the case.

I think from listening to these guys talk, we get challenged every day and we're gonna continue to, but so often the first thing out of somebody's mouth is not who screwed it up, it's how are we gonna make it better?

And I love trying to figure things out with people that I respect and that I know people that care about me.

And that's right here.

(audience applauding) - [Kristen Baird Adams] Thank you to Chris, to Paul, and to Tito, and of course to Andre for moderating today.

The City Club would also like to thank guests at the tables hosted by the Cleveland Clinic, the Cleveland Guardians, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Shaker High School, Shaker Heights High School, the Trust for Public Land and Wickliffe High School.

Thank you all so much for being here and for your support.

Tomorrow, January 24th at the City Club we will welcome Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who will be speaking on the War in Ukraine, and her recent visit to Kiev with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy.

Then, on Wednesday the 25th, Cleveland City Council President Blaine Griffin will join us to discuss his priorities for City Hall and those of his colleagues.

Concluding the week on Friday, January 27th, we welcome two international leaders who were instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.

You can learn more about these and other forums at cityclub.org.

And that brings us to the end of today's forum.

Thank you once again to Chris, Paul, and Tito, and to Andre and thank you members, guests and friends of the City Club.

Go Guards.

(audience applauding) - [Narrator 2] For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to cityclub.org.

(electronic noises) - [Narrator] Production and distribution of City Club Forums on Ideastream Public Media are made possible by PNC and the United Black Fund of Greater Cleveland Incorporated.