Friday Four-Pack 2.27.26
MLB's ABS system is awesome for baseball. President Trump wants to fix college sports. WEEI eyeing a lineup change. Horse Tournament Troubles. Notes!
Note from Owner of MutStack.com, Dave Portnoy:
No note from Dave this week. Good luck and safe trip for his Go Go Greys’ Silver Syndicate Sunday in Race 8 at Oaklawn. Some thoughts on the race Saturday in Kentucky Derby Prepping with Mut Volume 7 on the Barstool Blog.
Author Earl Nightengale is credited with the saying, “You become what you think about most of the time.” At least that’s what Google says.
For most of the last week, I have been thinking about qualifying for the NHC.
When Dave gifted me entries into the “First Chance/Last Chance” event here in last week’s Four-Pack, he gave me a great opportunity to qualify for the biggest handicapping tournament in the world. I was on cloud nine…for about 24 hours. Then the reality set in.
It’s really freaking hard to qualify for the NHC.
I’ll have three chances out in Vegas on March 11. Turns out that event is one of the wildest shows of the NHC season. “A mini-NHC,” one veteran told me. And you end up getting the best tournament players in the world because it offers the first chance to qualify for the 2027 NHC. Players who are already double-qualified for this year’s event are playing for a seat next year.
And I might just be a shitty tournament player. It’s why I was not qualified yet and had sort of given up trying. Losing over and over has a mental toll. It was easier to just write it off as a lost cause. But over the last nine days, I’ve recommitted and started to prep for Vegas.
🏇🏻 Have talked to multiple people who have been in or part of the event, taking notes like I was in college again. More calls scheduled.
🏇🏻 Listened to hours of tournament-related podcast interviews with good players, taking notes on their strats for the NHC and tournament play.
🏇🏻 Watched hundreds of races, either for replay notes or as part of these tournaments I’m playing in now.
Oh yeah, the tournaments. I’ve played in six over the last week. The results have been abysmal. Finishes of 36th of 99, 62nd of 69, 111th of 418, 12th of 33, 13th of 58, and on Thursday, 19th of 19. I cashed one place bet of 10 total bets in that one. Dead last.
The ONLY sweat I’ve had came on Wednesday, when I needed to finish 11th or better to earn a ticket to Friday’s BIG $75 tournament. I was in position all day until a photo finish in the finale at Tampa Bay. I needed the #8 to beat the #3. Shoutout DK Horse for the excellent video feeds for these races.
Not an awesome headbob for your humble handicapper. I did get my $18 bucks back, which I fired into Thursday’s 19th of 19 finish. Sweet, sweet churn.
When I’m not thinking and working on this, I’m doing actual work and occasionally coming out of the basement to say hello to my family. I’ve ordered a handicapping tournament book online, which arrived Friday morning. Another is on the way. And I started listening to Denis Whitley’s "The New Dynamics of Winning - Gaining the Mindset of a Champion.” It was suggested in an old handicapping book I found. Gotta be mentally prepared to win if you want to win.
Of course, this will all get much more intense on March 12, when 800 people with over 1000 entries are packed in The Horseshoe Las Vegas ballroom, battling for 50 or so NHC entries. That’s a live event, too. I’ll have three shots, and that’s another issue - how to play with multiple entries? I’ll have to attempt that before Vegas. But these are not free events, and MutStack is on a budget.
Friday afternoon is a big qualifier, $75 to get in. That’s the one I played in last week and ran 111th of 418. I’ll be back in there today, and if there’s any sweat, we’ll go live on Twitter. I’ll probably go live either way.
If I don’t text or email back, please take no offense; this is why. Comments and DMs are open with all your advice. Based on the results this last week, I’ll need it.
Meanwhile, I love this new MLB feature. President Trump tries to save college sports. My sources have weighed in on the next move for Sports Radio WEEI. And I made my Dozen Trivia debut.
All ahead in Friday Four-Pack #161
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On the brilliance of MLB’s new ABS system…
Brilliance is a strong word. But I mean it.
As MLB’s Spring Training ramps up, more and more people are getting this first look at the new ABS system, myself included.
The Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system allows teams to challenge umpire balls and strike calls using technology. Players can immediately challenge by tapping their head, with teams receiving two successful challenges per game. Once you get two wrong, you’re out of challenges until extra innings.
A batter, catcher, or pitcher can challenge. They’ll have to do it pretty quickly after the pitch - the umpire can wave it off if they wait ot long or they think they got help from the dugout; managers can’t challenge.
Then they’ll go to their sponsored replay view, and as you can see in the video, we eventually get here - it shows where the pitch was. If the ball touches any of the strike zone, it’s a strike. Based on what I’ve watched so far, the whole process takes about 10-20 seconds. It’s similar to a line challenge in tennis. So if it happens, say, 10 times in a game, you're adding about 2 minutes back into the game.
But it's SO worth it. Not only do we get more accurate calls on close pitches, but this is going to become a little game within a game itself. We’ll have stats on every player and ump. There might be a streak of four or five of these that go against the umpire - now the crowd is into it.
How about in a real big spot in the game, 3-2, strikeout to end the inning…wait a second…challenge…BALL 4. You can’t manufacture that drama in a spring training game. But Red Sox / Yankees in September, 8th inning, Judge at the plate. Sounds electric. Sign. Me. Up.
In the short term, it will make umpires better. MLB will weed out the bad ones with this system, too. And long term, I’ll say it because you’re probably thinking it too: yeah, ABS might just replace umpires on balls and strikes altogether. I could see that happening. But that won’t be anytime soon.
Umpires have a hard job, totally get it. But based on just a few games this spring, they miss a shitload of close calls behind the plate. This helps clean that up and make umpires - and the game - better. And gives us a little ABS Mini Game in the process.
The addition of the Wild Card. The Pitch Clock. Now ABS. They do it kicking and screaming, but baseball does eventually make changes to improve the game.
In or Out on ABS? Hit the comments and let me know.
On WEEI’s plans for afternoon drive…
On Monday, as New England was battling the Blizzard of 2026, WEEI rolled out an afternoon drive show of just producer Dan Bahl and co-host Nick ‘Fitzy’ Stevens on a remote. It was a tough listen.
As we close in on Red Sox Opening Day and the station works to revamp that show, I feel confident that one of those two will be part of the new afternoon drive product.
I believe that, once again, change is coming to that timeslot. Multiple people I talked to this week outlined what a new WEEI Afternoon Drive show might look like in the next weeks and months.
Ted Johnson is a favorite of WEEI Market Manager Mike Thomas and would stay on as a co-host on the new show. I rooted hard for Teddy J when he wore No. 52 for the Patriots, but I can’t say the same about Ted Johnson, the radio host. Zero sense of humor and far too much 'remember when’ radio for me. Thomas likes that “back when I played” stuff - based on the last year of ratings, the Boston radio audience does not. But I’m pretty confident he stays. Maybe he even joins the show full-time now!
Paired with Johnson could be one of the names I mentioned last week, Phil Perry or Chris Gasper. Perry and Johnson work together on TV, and that might be a draw for management. He’s pretty solidified as a “Patriots Guy.” Can he pivot and host a show full-time? The current WEEI Afternoons is already pretty football-heavy. This just feels like a different version of that.
The Boston Globe’s Chris Gasper is the other potential co-host for Johnson. He’s more well-rounded and has more on-air experience than Perry. It's wild to think that, after all the battles between the Boston Globe and WEEI over the years, Gasper would come aboard full-time, but I’m told there is interest from both parties. One source confirmed what I had reported here previously: that Thomas and Gasper had discussed this move before. Both money and Gasper’s Boston Globe Today commitments were hurdles too high to clear. Half of that is no longer an issue, as the TV show was canceled last March.
My question to both guys would be simple: why? I’m serious. Perry is on the Pats beat, on TV a ton, and co-hosts one of if not the most-listened to Patriots Podcast in the market. Isn’t the next logical step NFL Network or ESPN?
Gasper gets to go to all the big games, write a few columns, and do some easy-lifting shifts with Jim Murray at 98.5 The Sports Hub. I guess if the money is crazy, sure. I can’t imagine it is.
On this new show, the current WEEI Afternoon hosts, Andy Hart and Fitzy, are out. But producer Dan Bahl is the other piece of this. Audacy is doing this nationally, where many of their shows are going to two hosts and then a producer who acts as a host (but gets paid like a producer). Bahl is someone WEEI really likes and would stay on as producer/host on this new show. I guess this was a topic among Boston radio people out at the Super Bowl.
So Perry or Gasper (I don’t think both, but maybe?), Ted Johnon, and Dan Bahl.
Your bonus checks are safe, Mazz.
I ran this by former No. 1 Boston Radio host and current Barstool teammate Kirk Minihane this week. His point was that right now, The Sports Hub is ripe for the picking, saying it felt like WEEI when The Hub first came along. But it would need this new show to go after Felger and Mazz and mock them for their takes. Perry and Johnson both have to work with Felger over at NBC Sports Boston - they’re not the guys to do that. Even if Perry left and went to WEEI full-time, I’ve not seen that in his personality.
All of this could fall through over money, and Hart and Fitzy stay. But multiple people have told me that these talks are happening now. If they do convince Perry or Gasper to come aboard, it would be the fifth different afternoon show on WEEI since the end of 2022. None of them has come close to Merloni and Fauria’s Fall 2022 ratings. Each new version of the show has helped push more and more listeners away, based on the ratings.
Sounds like the station is looking to make a change. Based on the ratings, I don’t blame them. I like both Perry and Gasper, but I don’t see this as the show that helps get WEEI back on track in the afternoons.
If there is a change, it will happen here pretty soon, I would imagine. Like last week, I’ll update here in the next few days if we get any further info.
On President Donald Trump trying to fix college sports…
“Shit is absurd. We’re just gonna keep doing things the way we’re doing them at UConn. If at some point, the sport has changed so much that I can’t be effective doing it that way, then I’ll get out of college coaching.”
That was Dan Hurley last month, when asked about the loophole that allows players who were drafted but never played in the NBA to return and play in college. James Nnaji was drafted 31st overall but is on the Baylor roster. BYU and Louisville have former G League players.
College basketball is broken.
Do I think President Trump is going to fix it? I don’t. And a celebrity meeting with Tiger Woods, Nick Saban, Tim Tebow, Jonathan Kraft, and others feels more like a PR stunt than a solution. But it’s something.
The sport feels unrecognizable from when I was growing up. And I know, I’m a dinosaur, but this version of college hoops is tough to embrace. And my team is good! How about the good-to-great mid-major teams that have their roster pillaged of their best players each season as the haves come calling with big NIL money. Locally, UMass Lowell saw a roster turnover of 12 (!!!) players this past offseason. You’re having to rebuild your team every year. Why would you want to do that?
Shit, Bill Self and Kansas pay Darryn Peterson all this money to come play for you, and he’s begging out of games. There has to be a better way.
To be clear, I have no real answers. One might be that you have to stay at a school for two years before you can get drafted or transfer. That might mean the NBA creates its own feeder program for players, and you might lose some college talent to that format. Or more players go play overseas. You’ve started paying players - and you should be - but I fear there’s no going back now.
It’s been a great season of college basketball. But this doesn’t feel like college basketball anymore. We’ll get some funny photo-ops at this Trump thing next week, but I doubt it will do anything to help fix college sports. I hope I’m wrong.
On your weekly MutStack notes…
⚾ Fasoli! I don’t know why I look so angry in this thumbnail. It was a very fun Episode 14 - Dirty Water - A Boston Sports Podcast. I was watching the beginning of UConn vs. St. John’s on my phone at the end of the show, that might have been it. We talked about Roman Anthony, ABS, and so much more. Watch and subscribe on YouTube and then listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
⁉️ This thumbnail…I don’t know what to say. But yeah, The Ice People played in our first Dozen Trivia Match this week. I gave some terrible answers. Elio and Hog were awesome. David Andrews showed signs of multiple NFL concussions. Very funny. Check it out and don’t hold my terrible answers against me.
🏀 MutStack Trust Tree: Watching Duke and Michigan last Saturday, I’d have told you UConn can’t beat either one. Then Tarris Reed Jr. woke up. That blowout of St. John’s on Wednesday showed this team has a higher ceiling when Reed is locked in. That UConn team and that Reed can beat anyone in the country.
📰 I’m no fan of the Boston Globe, but I can’t get worked up about their decision not to print or deliver a paper on Tuesday, in the aftermath of the blizzard. They still printed one and delivered it the next day, so this didn’t save money. It just avoided employees having to go to Tauton, MA, where they got about 30 inches of snow. In 2026, anyone made about this is pretending.
🏈 Drake Maye to Isaiah Likely? And A.J. Brown? Yes, please.
🏇🏻 We have the official dates for Saratoga 2026. Opening Day is July 3. Closing day is Labor Day, Monday, September 7. DraftKings Travers August 29. This will likely be the last summer of extended Saratoga, with the new Belmont Park slated to open this fall.
That’s enough Stack for this week. Three Derby Preps this weekend, so a busy post tomorrow at the Barstool Blog.
Good luck with all your bets this weekend. Thanks for reading. And watching.
Great debut for The Ice People. Although I do question the Monica Seles guess on celebrity mash up.
On WEEI I think Kirk is right, as usual, that to beat The Hub any show would be smart to mock the show they’re up against. None of the names you dropped are going to get me to tune in. Ted Johnson is not good on the radio, I know that he has football credentials but he’s a bore. It’s not good radio. If they could get him to play the bad guy maybe but that’s hard to maintain. WEEI isn’t going to win with the guys you talked about. They need a name with personality plus. If they want to win back up the Brinks truck to Kirk’s house, make nice with him and give him free rein to do his thing. Then you might win.