Sometimes, if you don’t know what you’re talking about, you probably just shouldn’t actually talk about it.
Colin Cowherd is living proof of this concept.
On Friday’s episode of The Herd on FS1, Cowherd found himself in a debate with Jason McIntyre about what MLB teams should be trading for Shohei Ohtani.
If you haven’t heard, the Angels’ star is on the cusp of being traded as we get closer and closer to the MLB’s trade deadline. He’s probably not coming back in free agency, so it’s best for the Angels to get a return now to make their team better moving forward.
So, the question becomes, what would you ask for if you’re the Angels in return for the best player in baseball? Self-proclaimed baseball casual Colin Cowherd thought he came up with a brilliant answer.
Five (!!!!!) first-round picks, two prospects and two solid starters. That’s what his best guess was for the question of how much you could get for Ohtani.
Colin Cowherd and Jason McIntyre have an entire conversation about trading draft picks for Shohei Ohtani… which you can't do in Major League Baseball. pic.twitter.com/nnCzKcUCkj
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 21, 2023
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But you actually can’t get that much. Not because Ohtani wouldn’t be worth it — he definitely would. But it’s actually just not allowed!
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As it turns out, in baseball, you can’t trade draft picks. Particularly first and second-round MLB draft picks.
You can trade competitive balance picks. But comp picks are different. These are 14 picks that are dished out each year to the 10 smallest markets and the league’s bottom 10 revenue teams. There’s always some overlap there, which is how you get to 14 picks instead of 20. Those picks can be traded one time and one time only.
Cowherd’s producers eventually corrected him, but by then the damage had already been done. The take was spewed and now it’s all over the internet. Yikes.
Look, it isn’t easy hosting a television and radio show. We all get that. And baseball is sports — you’ve got to talk about sports on these shows. We understand that, too.
But, yo. Maybe don’t come with the scorching hot take if you don’t know the sport that well? Just a thought.
Fans thought this was hilarious. And, of course, they did. Because it totally was.