In this episode, former Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Scott Karl traces his journey from Carlsbad baseball standout to big league starter and then into life as a financial advisor. He swaps stories with Jeff about golf trips to Bandon Dunes and his recent move from California to Lake Norman, then dives into his baseball career, getting a last-minute shot at the majors after the ’94 strike, surviving as a finesse pitcher in a power era, facing legends like Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, and Sammy Sosa, and living through the 1998 home run chase from the mound. From there, Scott unpacks how he lost roughly 70% of his portfolio in the dot‑com bust while still playing, what that taught him about advisors, risk, and timing, and how it ultimately pushed him into wealth management. He explains why so many athletes blow through life-changing money, how he now builds portfolios using buffered ETFs, structured notes, and private credit, and how he manages client expectations around upside, downside, and liquidity. The conversation widens into NIL and college sports, parents effectively betting travel-ball spending against future scholarships, and the risk of turning college athletics into a minor league money race. Scott also talks about raising two Division I volleyball players, the mental side of high performance, and how those lessons carry into investing, before closing with his favorite baseball cities and parks, from Wrigley day games to the old Jake in Cleveland and nostalgic nights at Dodger Stadium. SEND IT!
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From the episode:
PIVOT PODCAST (Caleb Williams podcast episode)
Check out the complete Transcript from this week’s podcast below:
Painting Corners to Protecting Portfolios: Former MLB pitcher Scott Karl on How Athletes Blow the Money, Alts, the Mental Side of Performance, and the NIL Era
Jeff Malec 00:09
Hello there. Welcome back, everybody, to the derivative brought to you by RCM alternatives, where we put up a new blog post this week, talking right after the tariff tantrum. And through the beginning of last year, we had the mega trade, as people started calling it, make Europe great again. And this year, the top performing stock market is emerging markets, and that’s been driven a lot by Korea and Taiwan, who kind of have the short dollar trade, plus the AI trade, with all the semiconductors and whatnot out of there. So wrote a little post on that showed the stats, some cool charts. Go check it out, RCM, alts.com/blog, on to this episode, we’ve been having a good season so far, baseball wise, here in Chicago, it’s been fun. Cubs are have won like 13 in row at Wrigley here, which is just down the street from my house. So kind of was catching the fever and wanted to talk some baseball. So I met Scott Carl little over a year ago out at a conference, and turns out he was a major league pitcher for a few different teams, predominantly with the Brewers for a long time. So he came on to talk baseball, and now he’s a wealth advisor, so kind of wanted to ask him, or do the pros really lose all their money? So that’s it, and I have good talk with Scott. Send it All right, everybody. We’re here with Scott. Carl, Scott, how are you? Excuse me. I’m doing well. Thanks. You choked me up right from the beginning. So we got to start. I see your band and dune shirt there. I’m going out in September. Been a couple times. Love it out there any good stories or just been there once, twice. Many
Scott Karl 02:04
just went once. But was very lucky to fly in private. So we got to fly right there into Coos Bay and hit the ground running. We played that day that we flew in, and the following day we played 36 on like a picture perfect Hallmark day. And then, of course, the last day was 40 mile an hour sideways rain, but that was on sheep’s Ranch, so that’s kind of the best course to play if the weather stinks,
Scott Karl 02:30
great experience. I just love the captiveness of it. You’re just with your buddies. There’s nothing else to do, no other trouble to get into. And it’s just really fun, difficult golf.
Jeff Malec 02:41
Yeah, they Kaiser’s got a great model there, right? They’ve got one in Wisconsin, here sand Valley. They think they just built a new one outside Denver. But just find a piece of land make it all about the Gulf. And people
Scott Karl 02:52
got one in the middle of Washington too, called gamble sands
Jeff Malec 02:56
of Washington
Scott Karl 02:58
yeah, Washington State. A buddy of mine’s been to it. He really raves about it. In fact, I had a, I had a reservation for sand Valley this year, which was coming up in three weeks, and I had to give it away. Too many things popped up on the calendar. So I had a client who is from Wisconsin and a big golfer. And so I was like, you just take over my reservation. So he’s going in three weeks. I’m very, very jealous.
Jeff Malec 03:21
Well, now that we’re doing the podcast together, next time that I need to be your first call, I can jump from Chicago. Here.
Scott Karl 03:28
Will do let me write that down.
Jeff Malec 03:30
Yeah, done. So we met back future proof, I think a year and a half ago, whatever, in California, and then I you used to live in California, but you’ve since changed your stripes.
Scott Karl 03:43
Yeah, raised in the San Diego. Well, I was born in Riverside area, kind of Inland Empire, and then lived down in San Diego from high school on in a town called Carlsbad, kind of golf capital of the world. You know, that’s where tailor made, Cobra, Calloway, they’re all headquartered here and but yeah, just recently, within last six months, relocated just north of Charlotte on a lake called Lake Norman. Lots of just really, lots of different reasons for making the relocation, but truly enjoying it, and joined a golf course out there, Trump National. It’s kicking my rear end. But, you know, golf always seems to do that. But, yeah, just enjoying the relocation. But I actually am out on the I’m back in Carlsbad right now. At the moment,
Scott Karl 04:29
I’m here for a conference, and then, like I said, my daughter’s graduating from USC here later this week, so we’re gonna celebrate that
Jeff Malec 04:37
love it that’s on my son’s a junior in high school that’s on his short list. But
Scott Karl 04:41
okay,
Jeff Malec 04:42
all these places are so hard to get into. Boy. So was it a tax play to get out of California and or do you have thoughts
Scott Karl 04:50
on things? Yeah. I mean, look, I’m born and raised here. I love the weather. I’ve got family here, lots of friends, good chunk of call. Clients, but it let me see if I can go down the list correctly. So tax play was definitely in the top three, but not the main reason. I have a daughter that’s an adult now, living in Chicago, working in Chicago, she wasn’t coming back to California, knowing she couldn’t afford it. So we’ll be closer to her. We’re closer to my wife’s family. My wife and I enjoy visiting Europe. So we’re closer to Europe. There’s the traffic situation, I would say the just in general, the niceness of the people and the the pace of the lifestyle, is a little bit more to my my taste. And then, you know, frankly, the fiscal irresponsibility that’s gone on in California for far too long. It’s just it’s hard to stomach when you’re paying that much in taxes, that much in cost of living, and it’s all going to God knows where, but certainly not anywhere that seems to be getting any better. So it just kind of made sense for us, and we
Jeff Malec 05:58
know that playbook in Chicago, but that’s kind of my right. Everyone in Chicago fears like, I’m going to be the last one here paying the $6 billion in pension liabilities. Well,
Scott Karl 06:08
my
Scott Karl 06:09
daughter’s with you now. So she, she lives down in, down in Streeterville. So yeah, she’s, she’s, you got two of you now,
Jeff Malec 06:15
perfect. All right, we’ll split 3 billion each. Do you fear for California that they’re gonna, like, gut it out of all the talent and the and the wealth.
Scott Karl 06:23
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, like, look at, I mean, look at all the companies that have left are thinking of leaving, and oil refinery companies already getting sick and tired of it. And, you know, you go to towns like I used to love going to the Bay Area, you know, specifically down into San Francisco. And now I don’t think I have any inclination to visit that town whatsoever, in LA every time I get up there, either to see my daughter or for any other reason, it’s just a hot mess. And I mean, if they didn’t have the weather going for Yeah, I don’t, I don’t really know what the appeal is any longer.
Jeff Malec 06:58
Well, we’ll hold out hope so San Diego, born or like, raised and grew up in San Diego playing ball like is that? It feels like Carlsbad probably turns out quite a bit of of college and pro athletes baseball year round.
Scott Karl 07:16
You know, there have been more now, and I, sad to say, I haven’t kept up with all of them. But kind of in my era, Brady Anderson, outfielder for the Orioles, was the first one to come out of Carlsbad high he was an 82 grad. And then I made it to the big leagues as an 89 grad. And then Troy gloss, the third baseman angels and a couple other teams, came out as 93 so we were kind of the, I guess, the big three. From the beginning, there have been some other professional athletes, some football players, some LPGA golfers, some professional surfers. So there’s been some other athletes that came out, and then since then, there’s been a few other baseball players that have gotten up to the big leagues for a little bit of time, and then, but, yeah, good, good school,
Jeff Malec 08:04
yeah. And then, so give us the whole back story there. So were you drafted right out of high school? Or how did you get into the bigs?
Scott Karl 08:10
No, I, you know, I was, I had a family friend who was a cross checker for the Cubs, and he kind of gave me a heads up. Hey, look, this is where I think you’re gonna fall. What’s a crime changer? I was all academia. Anyways, I was like, Yeah, I want to go to school. And I had some scholarships to at the time the PAC 10. But I also played soccer for my high school, and unfortunately, in my last soccer game, I got cheap shot and had my ankle snapped in half, and
Speaker 1 08:36
yeah,
Scott Karl 08:37
so lost all the scholarships. And then by the time I got back out on the baseball field. We happened to be playing a rival high school, and one of the coaches there was a former University of Hawaii baseball alumni, so he called the coaching staff over there and said, Hey, you got to sign this kid. He’s been really good. He had an injury, but he’s back. He kicked our rear end today. You got to do it. And lo and behold, they signed me full ride, sight unseen. Never seen me pitch, just kind of based on my stats and this guy’s word and Hawaii turned out to be like, yeah. Turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because I ended up playing as a freshman, got my rear end kicked, but great learning experience. And then, you know, slowly got better every year. I think I went three and six, then, like 10 and five, then I ended up second team all American, 14 and three as a junior, and took the draft. Then
Jeff Malec 09:28
nice, and you’re what, how you’re big. I remember
Speaker 1 09:32
crapping
Scott Karl 09:32
six.
Speaker 1 09:33
Yeah,
Scott Karl 09:34
I was six three. You know. Now I’m probably six two and a half, aren’t we all shrinking? But
Speaker 1 09:39
yeah,
Scott Karl 09:39
yeah, I was six three, like 215, playing. And you know, you would think, with a build like that, I would be a flamethrower, but I wasn’t. I was like a paint the corners change the speeds, kind of like a poor man’s Tom Glavine.
Jeff Malec 09:52
Ah, I like it. It’s better than, right, a rich man something else.
Scott Karl 09:57
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Jeff Malec 10:08
So then you’re at Hawaii, you get drafted your junior. So you left, went straight in,
Scott Karl 10:14
yep, left, went to rookie ball, actually negotiated in that like, hey, if I never make the big leagues, you got guys got to pay for the scholarship. I gave up. So they did that. Went to rookie ball, killed it that year, went back for a semester, then went on, skipped over two single a teams, went to double A, got pitcher of the year there. But that season lasted too long. I couldn’t get back for classes, so I just kind of worked out. Went to triple A the next season. Did good, not great, but good, good enough to get onto the 40 man roster. And that was 94 that was the year of the strike. So, and this is, yeah, this is all brewers organization, yeah. And so I was locked out, so I couldn’t go minor leagues. I couldn’t go to big league camp. I was kind of I was like, two days away from getting a job at Dick’s Sporting Goods, and then the strike ended, and so I got to go to big league camp. And I won’t bore you with all the details, but I made it on the opening day roster at the very last second,
Jeff Malec 11:14
nice and mainly throughout your career where starter or rotation guy,
Scott Karl 11:19
I’d always been a starter, but that year, the only opening was in the pen. So I started, or actually got called out of the pen, like two or three times, then I got sent down, then I got called back up for an emergency two times out of the pen, then I got sent down, then I got called back up. Like 10 days later, some starting pitcher blew out his knee trying to field a bunt. And so I came up to take, take his spot, and then I stayed ever since,
Speaker 1 11:44
nice,
Jeff Malec 11:44
yeah, as a starter,
Scott Karl 11:46
yeah, I was predominantly a starter all throughout my whole career. And then, you know, after that 95 season, so like four years in a row, 96 to 99 I averaged, like 32 starts, 190 something innings, 10 wins. So, like, I was pretty steady Eddie, you know, not, not like the ace of the staff by, by any means, but just somebody could kind of count on to run out there every five days.
Jeff Malec 12:09
And how many right versus today, which we’ll get into more of this. But right you were throwing 140 pitches. How many pitches were you throwing versus what they
Speaker 1 12:18
do?
Scott Karl 12:18
You’re always for 120 or more, depending on the situation. You know, doesn’t mean you always get there. But, you know, the mindset back then was always like, I’m taking the hill. I’m going nine relievers take the day off. You know, it obviously, I only had four complete games in my big league career, so it didn’t happen often. But you’re, you’re definitely, your goal was to get to at least the six inning mark. You know, because they had this, this stat, I don’t even know if it still exists today, but it was kind of called this quality start that you would use for, like, arbitration, yeah. So six, six innings with three earnies or less. So that was that, to me, like that was the bare minimum.
Jeff Malec 12:59
I love you. Call them earnings, earned runs,
Speaker 1 13:01
yeah,
Jeff Malec 13:02
three. So that was the goal, six innings, three earnies or less.
Scott Karl 13:07
Yeah,
Speaker 1 13:07
that
Scott Karl 13:07
was the minimum that, like that to me, that was, like, you got to hit this or else.
Jeff Malec 13:12
And now what today, it seems they’ve gone to, like, four innings or,
Scott Karl 13:15
yeah, I mean, like, I don’t even know how they because, you know, it used to be you had to have, you know, five innings pitched in order to, you know, be eligible for the W and I don’t even know if they’ve changed that rule now, because a lot of these starters are not even getting to five innings so, you know, I don’t know how they create the statistics that They need to go into arbitration or free agency to determine their worth if they don’t have any W’s because they can’t get to five innings,
Jeff Malec 13:47
one of my favorite sports stats, Fall time of Maddox had more wins. I remember the number 300 and whatever, than three and oh counts.
Scott Karl 14:00
Yeah, and some of the most of those three and, oh, counts were intentional walks,
Jeff Malec 14:07
right? Yeah, that counted
Scott Karl 14:09
back. I mean, it was just stupid. I remember, I, you know, I had to, because, if you remember, when I joined Milwaukee, we were in the American League, but then halfway through, we moved to the National League, so then I had to hit and do all that stuff, and I got to step in against him. And it’s like he was throwing a wiffle ball. You know, I watch these little tick tock videos now of like, this whole wiffle ball League and the way the ball moves. And I’m like, oh, yeah, I saw that. But was with a baseball.
Jeff Malec 14:33
It was with the real ball, and he wasn’t putting any junk on it. No,
Speaker 1 14:37
he was
Scott Karl 14:38
just that good. I
Speaker 1 14:38
think
Jeff Malec 14:39
you were telling me the story you had to go against Randy Johnson once. Johnson once box as well.
Scott Karl 14:44
Yeah. Well, I mean, I’m left handed. I grew up switch hitting, but you know, then I took three years off in college, three years off in the minor leagues, three years off in the big leagues. So it’s nine years without hitting, and then all of a sudden you got to hit again.
Speaker 1 14:57
So I was like,
Scott Karl 14:57
I’m not going to try to learn them both. I might as well just. Stick with left handed that way, if I get plunked, they get plunked in my right arm, not my left. I can keep going. But then, yeah, I stood in against Randy Johnson. I was thinking myself, like, you know, I kind of remember, I think it was maybe Larry Walker or John cruck or somebody like, at the All Star game, just like switching batters boxes. Like, why bother
Jeff Malec 15:18
and what was that around the time? And it killed the bird. Randy Johnson, remember that
Scott Karl 15:24
it was, I think he did that before, because when I got with him, it was, he was with the Diamondbacks. So that was, like 99
Jeff Malec 15:35
Yeah, that was
Scott Karl 15:36
and so here’s a real quick story. He early in the season. We’re in Milwaukee, so maybe, I don’t know, maybe second or third week in anyway, base is loaded and I’m up and and there’s one out, so I can’t really bunt, so I gotta swing away, and he jams the absolute snot outta me, but I hit it so poorly to the shortstop that, because it was so slow, they tried to turn two. And I’m not fast, but I still made it to first on time. So run scores,
Jeff Malec 16:11
there you go.
Scott Karl 16:12
I got to second base. I don’t remember, but anyways, timeouts called, and Steve Finley, who I knew because he’s a San Diego guy, he comes in, like, from center field, and he’s like, Hey, do you know that you’re the first guy this season, first lefty, to get an RBI Off, off the unit this year. Are you kidding me? You know, I was like, Yeah, I’ll take it. You know, my bat’s shattered. My hands are stinging, but
Jeff Malec 16:35
whatever, which makes me think, what do you think? Like, what were you throwing? What was he even throwing back then 99 or something? Was he
Scott Karl 16:43
over?
Scott Karl 16:43
He was, I mean, he could get it up to 99 but he kind of was settling in around the 93 to 95 range.
Jeff Malec 16:51
And then what were you throwing in the
Scott Karl 16:53
8788
Speaker 1 16:55
Yeah.
Scott Karl 16:55
And, I mean, it sounds like, what, six, eight miles an hour, but that is a world of difference, like two totally different worlds.
Speaker 1 17:01
And
Jeff Malec 17:01
what do you make of these guys now, schemes and this brewers guy now, who’s throwing, like, whatever. He’s throwing 106, or something,
Scott Karl 17:08
yeah. I mean, I’ve seen them both in person. I was in Chicago, and schemes actually came into town to pitch, so I got to watch him live. And, I mean, look, I’ve, I’ve been in the cage against 100 miles an hour, and you know, eventually you’re going to catch up to anything. So you can’t just sit there, in my opinion, and throw 100 mile an hour straight as a string. Somebody’s going to catch up to it. You got to have a second pitch, or you got to have movement, or you got to have them both something. But I will say, I think the hitters you know are definitely I always wondered, like, why all these guys today are hitting like, 240 and 250 and like, God, when I played, if you were 240 you were kind of waiting to get tapped on the shoulder to get sent out, but I think, yeah, the guys throw harder. But that’s also probably some of the reason why these guys can’t go 789, innings, because they’re just blowing it out on every pitch.
Jeff Malec 18:03
Yeah, but do you think, is it science, or they’re better athletes, or they’ve just been, like, eating right and doing better stuff since they were children?
Scott Karl 18:11
I think it’s kind of, I think it’s that, that last category. I mean, there’s a little bit to the others too, but I think they’ve just been, you know, a lot of these guys have full on trainers, they’ve got nutritionists. They’ve been, you know, they’re playing year round. I mean, I didn’t lift a weight until I got into, like, my senior year of high school. These guys are doing all kinds of stuff from the get go, so
Jeff Malec 18:32
band work at 10,
Scott Karl 18:33
yeah, you know. And you know, not that you want to see it at all, but like, you know, the kids that have to go under the knife for, like, Tommy John surgery. I mean, they’ve almost got Tommy John surgery now to like a drive through, where you get it done, and you actually can come away stronger after a year. I mean, there’s a lot of cases where that’s happened. In fact, I heard there were a couple dads who had it done electively for their kid. Of course, they got in trouble for that. But, I
Speaker 1 18:59
mean, it’s
Scott Karl 19:00
like shoulders is another story. Can’t, haven’t fixed shoulders yet, but, yeah, that whole Tommy John thing, they’ve got it stronger now,
Jeff Malec 19:06
right? And that seems weird to me, that that’s not steroids, or you can’t do, but you can, like, surgically make your arm better.
Scott Karl 19:14
Yeah? I mean, it’s the flavor of the day, I suppose. Like,
Jeff Malec 19:18
and what if you, like, put some carbon fiber in there. Like, what’s the what’s the line? Yeah,
Scott Karl 19:22
that’s next. There’ll be some, like, AI tool in there. Eventually,
Jeff Malec 19:26
exactly you were saying you were painting the corners and whatnot. What’s your thoughts on this rehab this year the automated system? Would you have loved it or hated
Scott Karl 19:34
it? Well, I would have hated it because so, like, when I played the strike zone was rectangular, but it was kind of more on its side, like this. So you used to get, like, you know, this much extra on the sides, but you never got anything above the belt. So, you know, you only had this kind of window up and down, but you had a little bit more this way. And you could get more depending on the umpire, depending on your consistency, and you just kind. Knew it like you knew who the umpires were. With big zones, small zones, all you really wanted was consistency. Now,
Speaker 1 20:05
is
Jeff Malec 20:05
that a relationship? Thing? You were working them, or you just,
Scott Karl 20:08
I mean, I got to know them all, first name basis. Ask them how their kids were. I mean, you know, who doesn’t want an inside scoop? And it’s not, I wasn’t trying to use them. I thought they were, you know, for predominantly nice people
Jeff Malec 20:21
the game within the game,
Scott Karl 20:23
to maintain a relationship. Why not and then. But today, you know now, the strike zone is the same rectangle, but it’s just turned on its end. So you don’t get anything beyond the corners, but you get the higher strike, but higher strike at 8788 is not going to get it done like that’s just going to get walloped out of the park.
Speaker 1 20:40
So, yeah,
Scott Karl 20:40
I don’t know. It’s hard to say, like, every era, you know, you know guys think like, Oh, I could do better in this era, and it’s happened that way since the beginning of time. But you don’t see a lot of guys throwing 8788 in today’s baseball. So I just, I don’t know if it would work,
Speaker 1 20:59
yeah,
Jeff Malec 21:00
but it seems like if you were a lot of them that maybe you painted and it was like, Oh, that was a ball. Like, check it.
Speaker 1 21:06
Yeah, I
Jeff Malec 21:06
nicked it, yeah.
Scott Karl 21:07
Well, they’re smart to to discourage pitchers from checking balls and strikes, because every pitcher would think every
Speaker 1 21:14
pitch
Jeff Malec 21:14
is always a strike.
Speaker 1 21:15
Yeah.
Scott Karl 21:15
I think a lot of managers just say, like, even though pitchers are technically allowed to check, I think most managers told their pitchers, like, don’t even think of tapping your hat.
Jeff Malec 21:25
And you were saying, if you had it high in the zone, someone’s gonna launch it out of there. What was the worst home run you ever gave up? Or the you just, well,
Scott Karl 21:35
I can’t
Jeff Malec 21:36
or was it a head down of like, man that got crushed? Or a pat tip of like, hey, good for you.
Scott Karl 21:41
There were a couple, like, Troy gloss, funny enough, you know, the Carlsbad high alumni.
Speaker 1 21:46
Yeah,
Scott Karl 21:46
he hit kind of a meaningless home run. It wasn’t like, like a game winner or anything, but he, when he hit, it, we were at Angel Stadium, and when he hit, it was so loud, you know, I knew it wasn’t coming near me, but I totally flinched, like as though, like lightning had struck right behind me. It just sounded so loud. And then it turned and it was, you know, probably 30 rows back. So I was like, Oh, that’s really nice, Troy, well done. But I remember giving up in a big game. So, you know, we went to the National League. You know, cubs are obviously a natural rival. So cubs came up into Milwaukee in the summer. This is 98 so this is all the whole Sammy Sosa Mark McGuire home run,
Speaker 1 22:27
nice,
Scott Karl 22:27
you know, Chase and everything. So it’s like the county stadiums packed, and that place holds 50 something 1000, and it was never filled when it was just us. So like it was probably half Cubs fans, but it was rocking a lot of lecture
Speaker 1 22:41
through
Jeff Malec 22:41
today. Sorry, yeah,
Scott Karl 22:42
and I threw, I threw a really good change up to Sosa. I mean, the thing it was, you know, my change up kind of like had some dip in it as well. And it was dipping down. It might have been like mid shins at best. And he went down and clobbered it. I mean, just clobbered it out into left field like massive home run. And I was like, What in the hell? Like, that was an excellent pitch.
Jeff Malec 23:07
You’re like, you shouldn’t be able to do that. No,
Scott Karl 23:09
but you know Sammy. Sammy is a free swinger, so, like, you know, he has holes that you can exploit, but once in a while he’ll run into one, like he did, and then his next at bat, I threw him the same pitch throughout a sequence, and he swung and missed so badly he like, did a 360 so it’s like, sometimes you throw a good one and they get it. You never know.
Jeff Malec 23:30
So you gave up that year. You gave up homers to Sosa and McGuire,
Scott Karl 23:34
yeah. So, like, I don’t know if you remember, but USA Today, after the newspaper did a thing after the season, it was kind of like a Congratulations to the both of them. Like, hey, really cool watching you guys do the home run race and all that stuff. And then it listed out, like, all the pitchers on, like the Sosa side and the McGuire side who had given up home runs. And then if your name happened to be in bold, that meant that you were on both sides. So I think I was like one of 13 guys that was bold info,
Jeff Malec 24:03
hey, you’re in the paper in bold. Yeah, I love so part of why not, right? We’re here in baseball season. The money seems like it’s gotten out of control in professional sports. So you’ve now moved into the investment advisor world. But just, let’s start there. Of like, how did you know? Like, did you think you were you in charge of your money at the time?
Scott Karl 24:38
No, I wasn’t. I had a I had an advisor that I had been introduced to through one of my teammates, and I’d had him for a couple of years, and, you know, he was doing a good job. But in hindsight, a lot of advisors I was late 90s, you know, mid to late 90s. So a lot of advisors were doing pretty well during that time. It. Was, it was in 2000 which was kind of the.com busting, and the last year of my career. So I’m trying to salvage my career. I’m trying to get a new contract. I’m not paying attention to anything. I really had no idea what was going on in the market or anything. Well, as it turns out, as you remember, the market was starting to turn over because of the.com bust, and my advisor, instead of looking at me like a guy that might retire in a year, looked at being like a 30 year old and said, Oh, well, you’re 30, you know, let’s just keep going risk on so he kept
Jeff Malec 25:37
doing
Speaker 1 25:37
both
Scott Karl 25:38
instead of like, oh, you might retire next year. Let’s go to safety. And, you know, see what happens. So I, you know, into the season, I didn’t get my next contract, so that was it. And I went and, you know, opened up my portfolio, and 70% of my funds were gone. And I was like, holy cow. So obviously, you know, he got cut loose. And I was an accounting major at school, so I was I and, you know, I enjoyed my finance classes, and I liked the market, but so I started kind of taking it over myself, and tried to immediately swing for the fences just to get
Speaker 1 26:16
pun
Jeff Malec 26:16
intended back.
Scott Karl 26:17
And of course, that exacerbated the problem, so I quit with that, and then I just kind of got in with some friends. I had a buddy who was a ran his own little hedge fund, and so we kind of had a lot of conversations of like, how, what’s the best way to make my way back and be patient and so forth. And so I was doing it for myself for a while, and finally, took a job in the mortgage industry, all different facets, then went into venture capital. And then, while I was in venture capital, there was a firm here in San Diego that was kind of a marketing advisory firm, you know, big seminar type thing, and they needed, like, a service advisor. So they were going to can one of their advisors, and they interviewed me to take over that book of business. And so I was like, Yeah, I want to be an advisory. I just didn’t want to hunt and gather a ton. So took over that book, serviced it did really well, grew it up, ended up leaving that company after four years, and I’ve been independent for like, the last 12 but that’s kind of how I got into the
Jeff Malec 27:16
route love it. So when you write everyone the well, let’s just ask, is it myth or truth that most of these pro athletes blow through their money?
Scott Karl 27:26
Then it’s not a myth. There’s definitely some truth, but it’s not every athlete. There are definitely some out there that are very heady. They they are smart with their money. They’re they don’t, you know, go crazy with it. But then there is the flip side. There are plenty of athletes, more than there should be, that have blown through the funds and in all different manners. They’ve done it on themselves. They’ve done it on their family. They’ve taken too much risk because they need the thrill of victory. You know, call it whatever you want, but yeah, they’ve made way too much to have blown through
Speaker 1 28:00
it,
Jeff Malec 28:00
the entrepreneurial following, right? If I’m great at this, I must be great at everything
Scott Karl 28:08
it’s but they sure do think it works.
Jeff Malec 28:12
So put a percent on it, like, what? What percent do you think actually get out of their career? Well,
Scott Karl 28:20
well, so let’s, let’s exclude the folks that are just kind of getting a cup of coffee, you know, like they maybe get a year or two make, like a million bucks, whatever. Those those guys, we’re gonna exclude them. We’re gonna talk about the folks that got, like, the the three year contract, like the three for 30 or 40, or whatever the numbers are today. Those guys and and greater, I would say there’s a solid 20% of them that can’t make it last
Jeff Malec 28:52
with and the perception is like, Oh, this guy’s set for life, right?
Scott Karl 28:56
Well, I mean, who? I mean, you ask any Joe Schmo off the street right now, and they’re like, Hey, if you’re going to make $30 million over the next three years, even including taxes, do you think that you can live on that? And most everybody who’s been working a normal budget punching a clock would think that that’s like hitting the lottery. They could make that work.
Scott Karl 29:17
Yeah. But
Scott Karl 29:18
you know, and you know, I just said lottery, like you find lottery winners that happen soon, it mostly comes from people who like go from nothing to a lot really quickly. They just don’t have the wherewithal to be mindful of how to make it stretch, or they don’t have the right people in their corner to help them make it stretch, and everyone’s got a handout. I mean, it’s a myriad of different things,
Jeff Malec 29:40
and does the league help? Or did they in your day? And, you know, if they do today,
Scott Karl 29:44
they didn’t back then, no, there was nothing league oriented that helped. I think now they have something going on. I think from what I’ve heard, the NFL seems to have kind of the best part of that. And, you know, and to be honest, and I’m. Trying to knock NFL players, but that that’s one of the sports where you can go from, you know, nothing, to something very, very quickly. Basketball is another. Like, I found that baseball and hockey tend to have a little bit better, you know, financial acuity, just simply because there’s the minor leagues. I mean, like, I made $850 in rookie ball, so I was eating McDonald’s, living with four guys just to make
Jeff Malec 30:27
a week or a what
Scott Karl 30:29
month,
Jeff Malec 30:30
a month, come
Scott Karl 30:31
- on. So. And then
Jeff Malec 30:34
I just like, hey, if you want, you want your chance of making the show, here you go.
Scott Karl 30:37
Yeah, that’s what it is. I mean, you’re chasing this pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but the whole journey there is, like, you know, eating fast food and living with three or four guys, and that’s just what it was. So like, you understand the value of the dollar and how to budget yourself, because you don’t have a lot of it. And then, you know, and then even, like, my minimum salary when I made it to the big leagues was 109,
Speaker 1 31:00
and 109,000
Scott Karl 31:02
Yeah. And I was, you know, I’m 23 years old, so that’s a ton of money, but it’s not like it is today, and, you know, so I still, you know, I think after that first year, I came home and lived with my parents for like, a month before I bought a little condo of my own. So it’s like, I had a, I had a good sense, and maybe some of it was my, you know, college background and whatnot, but I had a good sense of, like, kind of, how to manage the money. And I think more guys that have gone that route do, but, like I said, football and basketball, you have the ability to go from college, you know, now you got n i l money. So they’re, they’re getting a little bit more beforehand. But it used to be like you had nothing and then you got all this money dropped in your lap, and what do you do with
Speaker 1 31:46
it?
Jeff Malec 31:47
Yeah. What do you ever wake up in the middle of the night or just walking down the street and like, damn it, I wish I should have been in this age, and I’d be making $30 million more. Or is what it is?
Scott Karl 31:59
Well, again, it goes back to like, Yeah, I’d love to be playing today because of the contracts that are that are being thrown out, but it’s just like, Would my 8788 paint the corners, type of game survive today? I don’t know. The answer might be no, so I’m I’m just thankful I got in, when I got in, I got the service time that I got, I made the money that I got, and have worked its way back, and I’ve got my pension, so that’s obviously very helpful. And so, and then, you know, just the memories that come from it. I met my wife through baseball. I
Jeff Malec 32:30
I got to hit, I got to pitch, I got to see most of the fields. I just, you know, it’s a great time. I wouldn’t have changed the So, what would your advice for these younger players, of like, well, I’ll go back for a second. Like, the NFL is interesting, because you start, you’re starting to see players retire super early, right? The bears just lost their center, all star center from last year, who just was here one year. But you can also see that if they’ve taken care of the money, there’s plenty there, they’d be like, Why am I bashing my brain and gonna die of CTE. Like, let me, let me get out of the game. Did you Right? Was that ever a thought in your era? Do you think baseball is different because there’s not as much risk?
Scott Karl 33:11
Yeah, I don’t. You don’t really see anyone walking away from baseball early just because of what you said. There isn’t that risk of CTE or, you know, maybe you’re an outfielder and you run into a wall, maybe you get a freak line drive as a pitcher back at your face, or something like that. But, like those are very, very few and far between. Whereas, you know, football, yeah, you can, you can get run over and CTE, you can get paralyzed. You can break this, that and the other. So if you I kind of get where they’re coming from, if they’ve been good with their money, and they’ve got a good handle, and they look at the financials and say, Yeah, I’ve got what I need, and I can just live off the interest or whatever, then it’s a lifestyle choice. And I don’t begrudge them that at all.
Jeff Malec 33:59
Yeah, the fan in me does, like, hey, get back here. We need you. Yeah,
Scott Karl 34:03
yeah, no, I get that. That’s, you know, you don’t expect a 26 or 27 year old to be pulling the plug on your team when they’re, you know, an integral part of it
Jeff Malec 34:20
now, with your advisor hat back on, is the math simply right? And what’s the average baseball career? Do you even know? Like, I think the average football career is like three years.
Scott Karl 34:31
Well, it was, it was two and change back when I was playing. So for every Tony Gwynn, there were 10 guys that came up for, you know, September call ups and never came back. So yeah, I think now it might be stretched a little bit like into the three something range, but,
Jeff Malec 34:48
but even, for my, sake of my argument, here, say you’re making $5 million a year and the average, let’s even call it four years. So you got $20 million but the advisor math is, hey, you’re making $20 million over. These four years, and then what versus a person with a career is going to make their $20 million over 15 or 20 or 25 years, or whatever the case might be, right? So that mess different because it’s coming in every month into your accounts. Here it’s all put in. You have, like, a lot of path dependency, like you were getting out right at the wrong time. So with your advisor head on, like, how do you think of that math?
Scott Karl 35:24
Well, it’s, you know, some of it’s dependent on the person in their lifestyle, you know, if they’re, if they’re frugal, you know, and they’re they, you know, they come from an upbringing where, you know, it’s not all about the flash and the Keeping Up with the Joneses and all that stuff and, you know. And you can sit them down and say, like, Okay, what? What do you need to live on? You know, it’s most of its math. What we do is math. It’s like, it’s just numbers. So, like, if they’ve got 20 million, what’s, let’s call it, let’s just say they live in California, so between fed and state, you know, it’s going to be closer down to 10 when they’re done. But you know, should most advisors right now should be able to produce five to 6% on a really low risk basis. I mean, I’m talking like two out of 10. So, you know, what is that? That’s five $600,000 so, you know, you just kind of got to go to the client and be like, what’s, what’s your monthly nut? Well, if it’s, you know, 30 grand a month, then we’re well within our means. Yeah, you can shut it down and go into, you know, retirement world, and we’ll be fine. If your monthly nuts, like 70 grand a month, then you might want to go get a part time job, whether it’s like, you know, coaching at a college, or it’s doing private lessons, or open your own batting cage, or, you know, or just go into some other line of work and get a little bit of income going, because those numbers just you’re not going to be able to sustain it with those kinds of returns. But it’s about understanding what their lifestyle is, and it’s that way for every client, but you really have to nail that, that conversation down with an athlete.
Jeff Malec 37:01
And then how you have athletes on your roster of clients?
Scott Karl 37:05
I have a couple. Yeah,
Jeff Malec 37:07
we can’t name names.
Scott Karl 37:08
I will not name names, no, but it’s a union
Jeff Malec 37:11
sports, yeah,
Scott Karl 37:12
yeah, it’s ball players. It’s baseball nice, but it’s um, but they’re, they are, they’re more frugal oriented, so it makes my job a lot easier, and it makes their retirement a lot less stressful.
Jeff Malec 37:28
I just went to a charity event that was at Michael Jordan’s old house up here in North bro that was been trying to be sold for 20 years or something. Yeah, they I think it was listed at 40 some million, and they eventually sold it for seven
Speaker 1 37:42
Yeah,
Jeff Malec 37:43
but this guy who bought it’s just kind of re trying to keep it the exact same, like a mini museum. But two things there, one, the weight room from last dance, where he started lifting weights as like, fourth year in the pros, right? That should answer the Jordan LeBron debate all time. He didn’t even start lifting till he was in the pros. But to the nut on, that was incredible. Like, this is a, I think it’s a 30,000 square foot
Speaker 1 38:09
home
Scott Karl 38:09
compound, yeah,
Jeff Malec 38:10
yeah, it’s a compound. But anyway, I digress. But to me, that’s the interesting that that maybe the athlete, or they don’t even know, they’re like, Oh, I’m gonna the dream is to keep going for 1015, years, maybe, right? And they’re thinking, I’m gonna be making these millions every year. But the reality is probably like, actually, you’re only gonna you have this short window to make as much as possible and then be as cautious with it as possible.
Scott Karl 38:36
Yeah, I remember, like I said, in my last year. So I got a I got a three year contract for years four, five and six. And you know, as I was coming up towards the end of year six, my shoulder was starting to give out, so I was kind of, I was losing some velocity. I could still paint the corners, I could still make the ball move. I was in great shape, but I just was kind of losing some velocity. So I was just trying to hang on and see if I could get that last contract maybe be like a lefty out of the pen, a little lefty, Lefty setup kind of thing. Yeah. And, you know, gosh, if I can just get like two more years, because at that time, you know, the salaries were starting to go up, I probably could have got like, 222, more years for, like, I don’t know, maybe three or four a year, but even that would have been enough to put me over the top, because, again, I didn’t live very flashy. I still don’t live very flashy. So I only needed, like, a certain number to make the lifestyle work. But that contract just never came. And then that, on top of the losses that occurred from the advisor, you know, I had to go back and get into the working world. So, so, yeah, I was, I’m one of the, say, 20% that kind of, you know, lost it not, I won’t say it was a my fault. I didn’t like, gamble it away, or spend it away, or any of that stuff. But. I also didn’t, I guess, watch closely enough to the advisor as he was doing his thing, because I was so worried about trying to save my job. So, you know, shame on me. It’s the cross I bear.
Jeff Malec 40:10
Do the do you think the advisors know better now? Or, who knows? Like some still have people who don’t that are saying, Well,
Scott Karl 40:17
I think, you know, look, I’m I’m not. I get frustrated sometimes at the overarching compliance that’s run through our world. Sometimes I know that they make a lot of these rules for the lowest common denominator, you know, like the dummies who don’t do their job right? And I get that, but I the one good thing I think, about the overarching compliance and regulatory stuff is it’s a lot harder now to do what that guy did without paying the price like now. I mean, there’s so many disclosures that you have to go through with clients about what’s their risk tolerance, what’s their time horizon, what’s their liquidity needs? And you have to re verify this stuff every year. And if you don’t, and you don’t have meticulous notes these days, like you’re gonna get sued. So like, if I had gone through that whole process and woken up and saw that we were like, 70% down, I’d have been like, what the hell you know? That’s what are you doing? Like, that doesn’t make any sense. That’s not kind of what, what we should have been doing. And he would
Jeff Malec 41:26
have, like, well, the NASDAQ’s down 75 we’re doing, we’re outperforming,
Speaker 1 41:30
yeah,
Scott Karl 41:30
I would have, I would have gotten even more pissed at that argument. But, yeah, so he would have, you know, he would have had a lot bigger problems on his hands where, you know, back then, I guess there just wasn’t as much, you know, kind of written down and so forth. So I’m appreciative that there’s, there’s that, and I’m very mindful of it. I mean, it’s one of the first conversations I have with people. Is trying to ascertain, like, you know, where, where’s your tolerance in this whole thing? What do you need? I want to make sure that I stay in bounds with with whatever investments I’m choosing for you that meet those needs, and I’m going to, you know, articulate it, and I’m going to make sure it’s written down
Jeff Malec 42:08
somewhere. Do do you ever want to haircut that doesn’t, it seems to me, always the client has they answer that question this way, and then the reality when shit starts hitting the fan is is somewhat different.
Scott Karl 42:22
They always want, like, you know, 90% of what the market gains. They’re just not willing to take on 90% of what the market loses. So I have to I articulate different scenarios for them. Like, you know, my use of different alt categories now I feel very comfortable, you know, in trying to make a particular percent but only lose a smaller percentage, you know? And it’s kind of that delta in between that they’re paying me for,
Speaker 1 42:48
yeah,
Scott Karl 42:48
you know, otherwise, you know, if you want 90 on the upside and 90 on the downside, then just go get an S and P fund. And don’t use me, like, save yourself a few bucks,
Speaker 1 42:55
right?
Jeff Malec 42:56
But even if someone, well, you have two problems. One’s like, well, I want 100% of the upside and 5% of the downside. Yeah,
Scott Karl 43:02
it’s not gonna happen. We’re not, we’re not the
Jeff Malec 43:04
right mix. I’m not an alchemist, right? We can’t do it. But then even if they’re like, No, I’m comfortable with the 20% drawdown, and they’re down 14 and they’re calling you up, freaking out, like, Well, remember, I have it written down here, here’s what we talked about. Like, well, I changed my mind.
Scott Karl 43:18
Yeah, no, I look as long as I’ve got it written down that like, you know, and again, if they’re down 14% but that’s, you know, 20% of where the market’s down, then I’m technically in the realm of where I should be based on our conversations that we’ve, you know, you know, had over the years and have been documented. But, yeah, you’re right. I mean, everyone has a short memory. They all forget, you know, like 2022, was a bad market year. And, you know, clients market was down, like 18. And I would say my average client was maybe down four. So, like that was a year where that sort of strategy showed its hand, showed its, you know, played itself out. And clients were like, Okay, now I get why we do what we do. But then there’s years like last year where the market’s going up pretty good, and they’re like, Hey, how come we’re not doing as well as the market? And I’m like, You guys just aren’t listening. It’s like, you have it’s like amnesia every day you
Speaker 1 44:20
I talk
Jeff Malec 44:26
through some of those alts you’re using. So, yeah, I think you mentioned buffered. It sounded like you were saying buffered, maybe without, yeah,
Scott Karl 44:33
I’ve got some on the on the liquid side. I’ve got buffered ETFs from a couple different families, you know, tracking the s, p on different, you know, different downside buffers or different time horizons. And then I also use a lot of structured notes that I custom builds that I do those are for a little bit longer in duration, more alpha to the upside. But the longer you do the duration, then the more. Uh, you know, the better your terms are going to be on both alpha and protection. So I like to sprinkle some of those in. I’ve used some private credit funds that I like very much. I’ve got some private credit funds that I like very much. So, yeah, I’m a big fan of, you know, things that have a low beta to the market.
Jeff Malec 45:19
Any worries with the private credit, with some of the lockups AND gates and whatnot
Scott Karl 45:24
that have been going on, yeah, you know. So these are more like interval funds. So they, they, they don’t have, but they can have the gates, like you mentioned. And, you know, you but you have to, again, you have to factor that in. So like, even though it has a, you know, a mandatory liquidity window, a tender offer, you still have to, in my opinion, look at it as a quote, unquote, illiquid fund, because, to your point, if 100% of their people want their money out at that particular tender offer, you’re not going to get much of anything at all. So you have to just, you have to be mindful of that you have to build the portfolio to where you don’t count on that as a source of liquidity. But you know, most of the funds I use, if they’ve ever been gated, it’s been for like maybe a quarter or two, and it’s still been like a 30 to 70% type of redemption. So it’s not, it hasn’t been like, you know, there was one interval fund that I went through in the real estate world where they just their business model went to hell in a hand basket, and they just sucked as a manager, and everybody knew it, and they all won
Speaker 1 46:38
it all. Yeah,
Scott Karl 46:39
I was getting like 5% redemptions every quarter for like, a year. It kind of sucked. In fact, they never even recovered from it. So. But that was, that was that was less, in my opinion, that was kind of less of the makeup of the portfolio and more of the mismanagement from the from the fund people,
Jeff Malec 46:58
yeah, and, but So overall, you’re not overly concerned with private credit.
Scott Karl 47:03
I mean, I think that, like, like, with anything, there are good players and bad players within a particular space. And I, you know, you have to, you have to look under the hood. You can’t just look at a private credit fund and say, like, Oh, here’s the returns. You know, like, I sit with a couple of the funds that I use are in Chicago headquartered. So when I get into Chicago to see my daughter, or any other reason, I sit down with those guys, and I start going through like, okay, break out. You know, I want to know, what’s the default ratios? You know, how many are impaired? You know, what’s your your top 20 loans? What’s the overall exposure to the portfolio? You know, I just kind of, What’s your average duration on these you know, I want to know all of these facts so that I can kind of determine, are you still, you know, looking for the same either Clos or direct lendings in the same spaces, or are you venturing into new spaces that I’m not comfortable with, like, there was a, there was a direct lending kind of fund. A while back, I want to say, maybe six years ago, that I was using that their model was great, but they ended up getting so much money in the door, they started lending into areas that were sort of outside their wheelhouse, because they had too much cash they had to put to work. And, you know, I and some of my colleagues were like, That’s not what I signed up for. I don’t like that. So we bailed out, and lo and behold, about two years later, they went basically belly up and started trying to Ponzi scheme their way out of it. So, so yeah, I’m very, very mindful of I don’t, I mean, I just don’t look at the the returns on paper. You got to look under the hood. You got to kind of know what’s in there. And even then, I’m not going to know everything, but I want to know as much as I can. So I’m, yeah, there’s been some bad private credit out there. I think there was a lot of money thrown in, a lot of things that maybe shouldn’t have been but I think that’s going to get exacerbated in the public credit market more than in the private side,
Jeff Malec 49:01
yeah. And it’s almost like the structure helps in this case, right? Like it the gates are on purpose, so everyone can’t rush out and you don’t see the loan through, yeah.
Scott Karl 49:09
I mean, that’s where, that’s where some people think liquidity is like a bad word, but, or illiquidity is a bad word, but it’s not like it, it saves a lot of people from selling at the wrong time and doing stupid things, you know, whereas, when there’s just a gate there, you know, just let the manager do his job and let him navigate through some turbulent waters.
Jeff Malec 49:30
And how do you think? So, it sounds like you get very involved in the investment process, right? There’s kind of two ra models of, hey, I’m just your buddy that we go out to steak dinners and have golf games, and then someone else handles all the investments, versus like we’re doing golf and stakes, but then we’re also, I’m in charge of all your investments. You seem like you’re the second model.
Scott Karl 49:53
I’m definitely the latter. Yeah, I’m hands deep in it. I mean, I I do a lot of conferring with colleagues, like, Hey, what are some. Me your best practices. What are some investments that you’re using right now? Tell me why? Tell me where they fit. I do a lot of collaboration, but the end of the day, I’m the one that’s that’s picking them again based on all the data and criteria that I’ve ascertained from the client. And so it’s very important for me to know kind of what these holdings are and what they’re doing. I mean, I can’t know everything. I don’t have access to all the CFOs, but I try to be as informed as possible.
Jeff Malec 50:26
Yeah, right, that, and that seems like the hard, like, maybe there’s a scale limit or something, like, I can’t have 7000 line items and all these client portfolios and and have all those meetings and get need to write all that stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Scott Karl 50:39
you’re right. No, I keep the menu, you know, I would say I’ve probably got 70 to 80 different types of holdings, whether that’s ETF, mutual fund, interval fund, whatever that I’m looking at on a daily basis. And, you know, once in a while, I’ll go to a future proof or something like that, and I might try to hear of a new two or three that are out there, because it’s like the old GE model, cut the bottom 10% or replace them. So, you know, I’m looking to do that, but I can’t. You’re to your point. I can’t be looking at 7000 things. So one thing I don’t do a lot of is buy individual equities, because I just don’t have the time or the ability to do the research into an individual stock to the level that a client deserves. You know, if they ask me about like, Hey, should we get in an Nvidia or an apple or an IBM or, you know, whatever, just pick any stock, then I can, you know, I can look and I can give them, you know, a little bit of overview as to what I can see. But it’s like I wouldn’t make a recommendation to them. Either way, I just say, Look, this is what I see about what you’re asking you you make the call. So for most of my clients that want individual equities that’s coming in unsolicited,
Jeff Malec 51:51
you, well, you missed the boat there, right? There’s only really seven equities that they need to know. That’s
Scott Karl 51:55
true. I only need to learn.
Jeff Malec 51:58
And then do you, like, I always bristle on the buffer notes. I don’t know if everyone gets them on the client side of right, like, you’re but you’re not going to get the first 10% of loss, say,
Speaker 1 52:11
but you’re
Jeff Malec 52:12
going to get everything after that.
Speaker 1 52:14
Yeah,
Jeff Malec 52:14
so did the you think your clients? It’s a bad question, because you’re not going to say no. But like, they understand that dynamic, and they’re comfortable with that dynamic.
Scott Karl 52:23
Well, yes, because, because, you know, you’re using growth oriented money. You know, it’s not like you’re taking money that should be earmarked for fixed income and putting it into, you know, a buffered ETF. That doesn’t make any sense. But if it’s money that’s earmarked, you know, whatever your percentage is, 7030, 6040, you know, pick a number, it doesn’t matter. But if you’re picking growth money that’s earmarked to growth, then it shouldn’t be a tough story to sell, because if that was growth oriented money, and it wasn’t in a buffered ETF, and the market’s down 20, well you’re probably going to be down 20, but because you were in the buffered ETF, you’re only down 10. So
Speaker 1 53:01
yeah,
Scott Karl 53:01
you know, now we can either ride this out through the next, you know, duration, whatever that duration is, or we can look at it from a perspective of like, oh, the market’s down 20% things are on sale. We can now try to get more alpha on the way up, because we only lost half as much as we probably could have in a normal growth instrument, so,
Jeff Malec 53:23
but then you’re giving up some upside to capture it right?
Scott Karl 53:27
If you stay in the buffered ETF, that’s correct, because you’re going to have a cap because of the the buffered style. But my point was like, Well, if we now look and the market’s down 20, but we’re only down 10, we should be thankful that we’ve got an extra 10 that we didn’t lose. Let’s, let’s get out of the work. ETF, let’s just go kind of more Alpha hunting now, because things are on sale. Love
Jeff Malec 53:50
that. And then I think a lot of people are understanding like that.
Speaker 1 53:53
It
Jeff Malec 53:55
gets less good. It’s basically what you’re saying, right? If, depending on how it unfolds, even on the upside, if you’re at near that cap. Like, now you have that full downside. Say you’re up 20% on it. The caps, 25
Speaker 1 54:06
Yeah,
Jeff Malec 54:06
right. You only have five more upside and 20 downside. Yes, seems like a good time to get out as well.
Scott Karl 54:11
Well, yeah. So I would, I would, I wouldn’t say the word get out. I would say reallocate. So like, you know, you would go from like the January Series. So like, let’s say, let’s say, you know, I got in at January, and my buffer is 10% my caps 15. But now I’m into, like, October, November. The market’s up 2025, I’m already above my cap. My earnings is, you know, my upside is already at its cap or very close to it because of time deterioration. So to your point, yeah, it might make sense. Then, why don’t we cut this series down and reload into the November or December series and start my my buffer over again? Because if, if we start to pull back in the market, I’m just giving away gains. I’m. Nowhere near my buffer. So and that same, same logic applies into structured notes as well, like we will build structured notes, 345, years in duration, but you get like, a year and a half into it, and your notes up because of the multiple, it’s up like 30% but then it’s like, well, if the market goes down, I’m just giving away all my gains. I’m too far from my protection level. So why don’t we cut the note out early, build the same exact note, and just start our our downside buffer at a higher number.
Jeff Malec 55:30
Any worries on the structured notes of or you have, like, right, that you’re taking on that credit worthiness of JP
Speaker 1 55:38
credit
Scott Karl 55:39
risk, so you
Jeff Malec 55:39
know? Or are you like, hey, if JP Morgan goes under, we all, we have bigger problems.
Scott Karl 55:44
That’s, that’s kind of the thought process. I mean, we’re certainly not building notes from, like, bank on the corner type of thing. But, you know, we I did have, like, the very first structured note I ever built back in 2020. Was with Credit Suisse, you know. And at the time, they were totally fine, and when they were going through their issues, I had one structure note that I ended up kind of getting out of because of some of their issues, and I didn’t take a haircut or anything on it, just moved on. But yeah, we only build with like a handful of banks. We’re looking for like double AAA rated banks, a lot of tier one capital ratio coverage, you know, and all that doesn’t mean that that bank can’t screw the pooch, because they can. But to your point, like, if JP Morgan goes under, then we’ve got bigger problems.
Jeff Malec 56:39
You are on a unique position in this podcast, because you don’t do much, if anything, in managed futures or tail hedging, right? The buffers are sort of it, but tails more way out of the money, in case there’s that 50, 60% down. So try and answer for me, like how your clients view them, even if they know about them whatsoever, right? We’re kind of drinking the Kool Aid everyone that comes on this podcast. But it’d be good to get the view from someone who’s like, they’re I know of them, but they’re not really all that important to me, or I don’t see the value and what. I don’t know if there was a question there, but I don’t,
Scott Karl 57:14
I only know enough to be dangerous. So I’d hate to kind of, you know, expound on it too much because, but
Jeff Malec 57:21
I think that’s the question of why. Why aren’t you interested in learning more about it to be more
Speaker 1 57:26
than,
Scott Karl 57:26
Oh, it’s it’s not that I’m not interested. I guess I’ve just never you, and I don’t think we sat down long enough to to really go through the ins and outs of it. Like I said, I’ve used one fund from the AQR family and but again, I’ve just used it as like another tool. I’ll be the first to say I don’t know as much about the inner workings or what’s under the hood on that one as I might some of my other assets. But it’s, I will tell you immediately, like I’m interested in that area. Because, again, it’s, it’s, it’s an alt, you know, it’s not your mainstay stock, bond, you know, 60s style portfolio. So I’m, I’m interested in any kind of arrows I can put in my quiver that are going to give me that level of diversification where I’m not just beholden to the ebbs and flows of the market on a daily basis.
Jeff Malec 58:24
But you’re for sure, you’re saying your clients aren’t calling you saying, hey, I’m interested in managed futures. Like, do they know one thing about
Speaker 1 58:30
it?
Scott Karl 58:30
No, no. In fact, I would say, in the last three years, I might have gotten one call on a managed future. But you know, the the ones I get now are like, hey, what do you think of this crypto or what do you think of, you know, this type of thing? No, I don’t, I haven’t gotten many on the managed future side.
Jeff Malec 58:50
My quick pitch to you would be the buffer and the structured notes. Those are your first responders. And I’m borrowing this from Patrick Paisley, who borrowed it from another guy that I’m forgetting his name. Those are the first responders, right? The market has this thing. You’re, you’re protecting that first 10% blah, blah that managed futures, 2008 20, 2201 back. If you’d been, if you’d had 30% in your back when you retired, you would have been okay. They’re the second responder. So a long, drawn out, 2008 type sell off. They’re going to kick in because they go short equities, they go long bonds, they go long commodities, whatever’s causing the issue. So that’d be my quick pitch. They’re the second responder.
Speaker 1 59:36
It’s
Scott Karl 59:36
definitely something I’m going to delve into a little bit
Speaker 1 59:39
more.
Jeff Malec 59:39
Yeah, and then tail risk is probably the first responder too. But then you need a covid week or a Black Monday or whatnot. So do you find clients aren’t as interested in I’m happy to pay 2% a year for kind of portfolio insurance, which I know that’s a bad I said, portfolio. Insurance in the same sentence as Black Monday, which
Speaker 1 1:00:02
is
Jeff Malec 1:00:02
that juju, but
Scott Karl 1:00:04
No, nobody’s really kind of expressed that interest again, because a lot of the sort of alts that I’m using right now don’t have that market beta. So
Speaker 1 1:00:15
you
Scott Karl 1:00:15
get that that tariff tantrum, or, you know, things like that where there’s that kind of quick spike down type of thing, they are, I wouldn’t say, completely insulated, but they certainly don’t absorb the majority of that drop immediately. So they don’t, they don’t have that panic. I don’t, I don’t get, I don’t get a lot of those phone calls. Let’s put it that
Speaker 1 1:00:39
way,
Jeff Malec 1:00:40
and that’s interesting. You hearing you say, debate, do you assign? I’ve never thought about it that way, like, once you have that buffer, the beta is totally different, right? It’s like, it’s a one beta, it’s a negative one beta down 40% it’s probably a point four beta or something up 30% right? There’s it’s shifting. It’s dynamic. So how do you think about that of assigning it for the at the portfolio level?
Scott Karl 1:01:03
Well, so I mostly think of the beta on, on the, on the more private credit, private equity side. So, like, you know, how you know, like, kind of, what’s my max upside capture, what’s my my downside capture? Like, does this thing ebb and flow the way the market does? And so, you know, on a on a buffered note or a structured note, it’s going to have a less beta again, because you have to factor in both buffers and caps. But I’m looking at it more from like, like those. I still think of those as market assets, you know,
Speaker 1 1:01:36
yeah,
Scott Karl 1:01:36
but they just, they have a few little highlights to them. It’s
Jeff Malec 1:01:42
on your equity bucket, for lack of a better word,
Scott Karl 1:01:44
yeah, exactly. So I’m looking at things like, if the market goes up or down today, like, what type of holdings do we have in here that just aren’t gonna, you know, beat to that drum.
Jeff Malec 1:01:56
Are you a scoreboard watcher? Are you watching every day, every minute of the market? Or you’re like, hey, this stuff works out. Our portfolios
Speaker 1 1:02:04
are fine. Yeah. I
Scott Karl 1:02:06
mean, I look at the I look at the market every day, but like, I don’t sit here and watch every tick. I mean, I get in, I do my work. I look at probably my top 30 holdings. Is there anything that’s out of place? Anything that’s like, you know, went down more than the market went down or went up, less than the market went up for any period of time. You know, do I need to run through them real quick, see what might be broken, make a few phone calls? But like, No, I’m not. I’m not sitting here watching every tick, trying to capture, you know, up swings or anything like that,
Jeff Malec 1:02:37
right? But that hard for you, because you were used to watching the scoreboard all day, every day.
Scott Karl 1:02:42
It’s not because I’ve, you know, I learned over time that, like you, you know, Rome’s not built in a day. This is gonna, it’s gonna take a while. You got to have a long, thoughtful process to what you do. And if you do have a thoughtful process, you don’t need to look at it every day. You should glance at it, or you should look at it in depth on a periodic basis. But like, you know, if I have a an ETF or something that has a bad day, you know, more so than the market, I’m not going to just jettison it immediately. I’m going to, like, kind of put it on watch. Like, hey, it was just a bad day. Maybe I missed a distribution date, and that’s why I went down and I just wasn’t paying attention. Like, give it a little bit of time. But like, So there, there is one fund right now that, you know, I’ve been looking at is actually out of that AQR family, and it’s had a really good streak for, you know, a lot of years, and then this year, it’s just not performing very well. So it’s kind of on watch for me, like, did they change managers? Did they just have they been not, not been able to ride this up and down, topsy turvy type of year that we’ve had already. They’ve just been on the wrong side of it each time. And so their their their philosophy, which worked for four years, is no longer working like that. That one’s on watch for me and so that one might get punted, but it’s not a I’m not just immediately going to throw it out just because it has a bad day or week.
Jeff Malec 1:04:13
It’s a long season.
Scott Karl 1:04:15
Exactly there, there. That’s your thing. That’s 162 games, man.
Jeff Malec 1:04:20
You gotta give up some home runs. Yeah,
Scott Karl 1:04:23
pace yourself.
Jeff Malec 1:04:24
Do you kind of do yourself now, you’re kind of a manager, right? You’re managing all these pieces instead
Speaker 1 1:04:29
of
Jeff Malec 1:04:29
the team. You’re managing the pieces of the portfolio. Did you ever want to be an actual manager?
Scott Karl 1:04:34
No, no, because I like, I have a good work life balance, you know? I cut down, I cut down my portfolio about six, eight years ago. I have two, two daughters, both ended up being collegiate athletes, and they were both in different, different world. My older one played indoor volleyball, my younger one played beach volleyball. And I’m not a volleyball player at all, but I. Wanted to kind of be there to help them through the whole athletic process. Like, hey, you got to put in this hard work. This is how you mentally prepare for a match. And you know, all the things that I was good at, and I wanted to kind of be there and watch them and and help them as much as I could. And I was so happy to see them go on and have very fruitful collegiate careers. And so I kind of made that that mindset to sort of cut down my my workload, and, you know, have more of a lifestyle portfolio. And now that they’ve both gone through their careers, I’m starting to kind of build it back up, but, but not from a mass marketing standpoint. I’m really just kind of taking on onesie twosies, referrals, people that I know are going to fit the mold of what I’m trying to accomplish and have done for the last dozen years or so for clients.
Jeff Malec 1:05:55
So you touched on the kids sports, which we didn’t touch on, were they just before n i L, did they get a little
Scott Karl 1:06:05
bit the older one was at DePaul. There. She played volleyball DePaul. And de Paul is a small enough school, and they, I think n i l technically existed, but she might have got like a smoothie from the local smoothies type of thing. And then my youngest was a beach volleyball player at USC, which, you know, they were four time in a row national champions, but USC did
Jeff Malec 1:06:28
just two women on the like, how big?
Scott Karl 1:06:31
Yeah, two, two females on the court. Yeah, playing, playing two man, two man teams on the sand. But USC was so hyper focused on their football program. They really didn’t dole much out to other places. So again, she got a little bit here and there, but not to the degree that, like Texas, for example, Texas got a ton of money coming into their program. They have spent a lot of money on their women’s in beach volleyball program. They build them a new facility. They get, like, to my understanding, they get some housing, they get some stipend, they get all kinds of stuff beyond a scholarship. That’s all you know, titled n i L. So there’s a program that’s investing in other sports besides just football, whereas I kind of found USC to be very singular, focused, unfortunately.
Jeff Malec 1:07:19
And we know a girl who went to, like, Belmont or something for softball, and got 400 grand. Like, the numbers are getting, yeah,
Scott Karl 1:07:25
it’s, it’s crazy. I wish they never opened that Pandora’s box, but it’s open now, and you’re never going to close
Jeff Malec 1:07:31
- it. Well, that was my question. Like, do you are you like me, old man, yelling at this guy?I’mlike, This is wrong. This isn’t college sports.
Scott Karl 1:07:38
I am yelling at it, but, not. I have no problem with like, you know, athletes getting something, because for every one athlete that makes it to the pinnacle of their sport, there’s hundreds of athletes that don’t make it. I mean, hell, the NCAA creates a commercial around that fact that most of them don’t make it. But when you open Pandora’s box like they did, the two main problems that they were trying to solve for the whole time now become the main problems that you can undo, which is, you get these kids chasing the dollars. So it’s not about the love of the school, it’s not even about the love of the sport. It’s how much are you going to pay me, and am I going to be a starter, and if I’m not liking the answer to either of those, then boom, I’m out of here. I’m on to the next school. And so, which I
Jeff Malec 1:08:27
don’t understand exactly how that works, because are there? I was under impression there’s no contracts. They’re just giving this money. But then someone’s telling me, No, there’s definitely
Scott Karl 1:08:35
contracts. There are leads, absolutely, you know, but you you serve that contract out for that year, and then you’re gone. It’s not like, multi year deals,
Jeff Malec 1:08:43
you know, they can’t force you to play. And there’s no structure of, like, whatever in the NFL, like you’ve been tagged and you have to do this. And
Scott Karl 1:08:52
it’s funny, like, you know, I’ve had this conversation ad nauseum with people, and we’ve, you know, sometimes sober, sometimes not sober, tried to come up with, like, a solution. And one of the ones I thought, I don’t remember if I came up with it or somebody else did, so I won’t take any credit for it, but it was, I thought it was kind of interesting, which is, like, you know, when I was playing ball in college, the rules were very much in favor of the of the university. Like, if you tried to move schools, you had to sit out a year. Like, yeah, it was very, very penalizing, and now the needle swung the whole other way, like, you can just bail on the school without them even knowing, and they get screwed. So I’d like to see it where, like, to me, the happy medium would be like, okay, look, if you are gonna move schools, you can do that. But if you received any n, i l money, you got to give half of it back to the school.
Speaker 1 1:09:45
Yeah,
Scott Karl 1:09:46
so and then you can do that one time. If you want to move schools a second time,
Jeff Malec 1:09:53
gotta give it all back.
Scott Karl 1:09:54
You got to give it all back and or sit out a year. So it gives those kids like the first. Year, because, I mean, look, a lot of these kids don’t know what they want out of a school, or they don’t know as much about the coach or the city because they haven’t done their homework. And they get there and they find that they’re home sick, or they broke up with their boyfriend, or they’re not getting the playing time that they thought, and maybe they’re at they should be at a different university. So I give them a one time pass to move and try something else, but if you’re just jumping ship because you’re chasing $1 then I think that that’s wrong on so many levels. And I
Jeff Malec 1:10:30
don’t get how the money keeps coming in. Because if I’m a booster and I give the school whatever, $10 million to get these players, and then that guy gets that money and then leaves the next year. I’m like, Well, that was a waste of money, right? Yeah, I wanted them, like, I wanted them for these next four years, win a national championship, all that stuff. Yeah. And now the boosters, but now it’s going to revenue sharing, so you might not need the boosters anymore, but
Scott Karl 1:10:53
yeah, again, there’s, there’s a lot of evolution going on in there, but I just, I’d like to see where the athlete still has the ability to move because the circumstances warrant it, you know, be good for him, but if, if he’s just chasing the dollar or whatnot, then he should have to give back some, if not all, of what he got, because he did make a commitment to that school, and now he’s not honoring it. So there’s got to be a level of penalty, but not just like, hey, we’re going to hold you captive and mess with your eligibility.
Jeff Malec 1:11:25
And then I see a, and I think we talked about this in California, a spot where it’s like, becomes the Rams license, UCLA image, right? And they run the whole program, they have the agents, they have the training. And then who does the UCLA students or alumni care if they’re actually students, so now they’re just yeah, now
Scott Karl 1:11:45
they’re just coming up with all kinds of new solutions that I think are gonna come down the pike, like I’ve had this conversation with some people before, and this is just pure guess guesswork on my part, but the way that the SEC and the big 10 have grown as the one A and 1b powerhouse, it wouldn’t shock me at all if at some point in time those two commissioners just got together and just said, screw the NCAA. We’re out. We’re going to go do our own thing, because we honestly don’t need them. We don’t need them to tell us what’s eligible and what’s not. We don’t need them for their money. We’ve got plenty of money, and now we can set our own schedules with whomever we want. And it wouldn’t shock me if something like that starts to happen 100%
Jeff Malec 1:12:31
then that opens the door of like, well, then why do they need to be students?
Scott Karl 1:12:35
Yeah.
Jeff Malec 1:12:35
And then why is there a four year limit and all that? Right? You could have,
Scott Karl 1:12:39
like, the whole
Jeff Malec 1:12:40
family getting paid $10 million a year to play quarterback for Notre Dame for 10 years.
Scott Karl 1:12:45
It becomes like a G league or a minor league or whatever. Now it’s just this probing ground to get up there and do you need? Because, I mean, that’s part of the shame of it is now the education’s become an afterthought. You know, the whole scholarship education things become like that doesn’t that’s just a means to an end. It’s like not even important to a lot of these kids. And that’s unfortunate. That’s not the way it should be.
Jeff Malec 1:13:09
And that brings it back to okay, you maybe you’re making $5 million for these three years in college. Maybe you blow out your name. Maybe you know all those problems we identified before get accelerated into 18 year old?
Scott Karl 1:13:23
Yeah, see what I mean about Pandora’s Box? Like, look, we are deep in a rabbit hole right now.
Jeff Malec 1:13:27
Yeah. But right that. Are they getting financial advisors? Is this school helping them out with how do you manage this money? How do
Scott Karl 1:13:33
you, I mean, they should, I mean, somebody should be in these kids ears who are getting seven figures, you know, like, there, there was a and I’m sure it’s true, but like, My daughter, who’s at SC, she told me a story, and I, I got to believe it’s true that, like, Caleb Williams stuck around sc for an extra year because he was going to make more money through n i l than he would have made in his rookie contract.
Speaker 1 1:13:57
Yeah. And
Jeff Malec 1:13:57
he, he had, he actually had a great podcast me, I’ll try and find it put in the notes where he was talking about, like, I’ve been getting like, I’ve been getting paid my whole life. He was like, they put me up in a apartment in DC for his high school. He had a super cool condo in LA when he went to USC. So he’s like, No, I’m not worried about being the number one pick and handling the money and the pressure, like I’ve had it my whole life. Way to bring in Caleb, he’s her.
Scott Karl 1:14:21
I’m all better. I’m all about your hometown there.
Speaker 1 1:14:23
Yeah, I just
Jeff Malec 1:14:34
want to circle back because you mentioned helping your daughters mentally and everything. Where do you like? What? What would you do on that? And you consider yourself, like, you got your mental game strong.
Scott Karl 1:14:44
I was, I was a very cerebral kind of player, like, you know, baseball, you know, there’s two ways to watch a baseball game. You can be like the fan with a dog and a beer in your hand, and like, you see the ball hit to the gap, and you follow the ball to the gap. Yeah, I’m watching it from the perspective of. Like, where did the outfield start? Who’s going to get there first? Is it a double cut? What kind of route is the runner on first base taking? Where’s the pitcher backing up? Like, the 10 other things that are going on in the play, because they all make a world of difference. And then, you know, as a pitcher, especially a starting pitcher, you pitch one and you watch four. So there’s a lot of times to watch, like, what kind, you know, I’m gonna be pitching tomorrow? So what kind of lead is this guy when he gets on first base? Is he, you know? Is he gonna? Like, is he where he’s standing? Like, okay, he’s not stealing. But then he moved an extra step, now he’s stealing, like, watching that stuff, like watching, you know, who’s got
Jeff Malec 1:15:40
would you not do film? Or would there be film?
Scott Karl 1:15:43
Film? Was just kind of jumping in when I was playing, like, we would get, like, some VHS tapes, how about that? So, but
Jeff Malec 1:15:50
that’s cool. You get a four game series. You get live film, basically, if you’re pitching,
Scott Karl 1:15:53
yeah, yeah. Now you get everything’s at your fingertips. So, but I was always studying that stuff, like, Where’s the guy standing in the box, you know, like, is he leaning out over the plate? Is he opening up early because he wants to pull the ball like I was just, I just like studying because I wasn’t a phenom. I wasn’t Randy Johnson. I couldn’t just stand there and blow up past everybody. I needed all the help I could get. So I’m like, why not help myself? Let’s study these guys. Find their weaknesses, find their tendencies, find which umpires were helpful, which umpires were hurtful, just all of it, you know, and just try to use as much. And I’m not a big analytical guy, per se. I don’t like how that’s kind of overtaken the game today, yeah, but I did like having as much information on my side to help me make, you know, good choices.
Jeff Malec 1:16:42
And then what would you impart to your daughters?
Scott Karl 1:16:46
Well, kind of the same thing. Like, look, study, you know, study your opponents, like, and again, sometimes they had access to, you know, previous matches with people. But mine was more like, watch what’s watch what they’re doing in warm ups. Like, are they talking to each other? Maybe they’re pissed off at each other, and they’re not, like, communicating very well. You know, watch, like, what like when they go up to hit a ball? Like, is their hand turning? Because if their hand is turning, then a lot of it’s going to cut across the court, and you you can be ready for that, no matter how hard it’s hit. Like, focusing on the little things that a lot of people just take for granted, and it helped a lot. Like, you know, if this girl like, if you block this girl, what’s her tendency the next time? Well, most of them don’t want to be blocked again, so they’re going to try to do these little fancy shots around you. So yeah, if you end up blocking a girl, maybe next time, don’t go up to block her again. Pretend like you’re gonna block and then, because she’s gonna Dink it. Like thinking like, why do things happen? Like, if, if x, then y, type of thing. Like, you know, it’s a thinker’s game.
Jeff Malec 1:17:53
So you were, you were bound to be an advisor and think through all this. Like, if
Scott Karl 1:17:58
I was asked to be a coach and but I kind of left baseball with a sour taste in my mouth, and I just didn’t want to ride the bus leagues along with, kind of the way everything ended. So I kind of let that go. And I did a lot of I did a lot of training, like I did a lot of lessons for youth kids in my area. And, you know, because, again, I I like to pick up on the small stuff, and I hopefully imparted some wisdom on on some of them, one kid ended up, you know, getting to the big leagues for a cup of coffee. So that was kind of cool, but nice. I like looking at this, at the small little nuances. And you’re right. It does work very well in the financial world.
Jeff Malec 1:18:35
You think youth sports is, is in a good place or bad place, ignoring the n, i L, even earlier than that of the white my son went through travel baseball. My daughter some travel softball, and it’s like, you’re gonna be pitcher only at 13, and, yeah, and all this stuff.
Scott Karl 1:18:51
I don’t like that. Don’t like this hyper focused, singular sport type of stuff. I mean, most of our era grew up playing multiple sports. I don’t. I certainly don’t, like a lot of the the parent mentality that goes into that world. I mean, I went through the whole Volleyball Club World for multiple years, and I always tried to, like, sit in the back and, you know, just people watch. But yeah, you can get some fanatical people, and then that that trickles down right into the kid, the athlete, and it’s like setting a bad tone. So I think it’s gotten a little crazy. I think everyone’s trying to chase this whole dream of either getting a scholarship or getting to the pros of whatever they do, and chasing Almighty dollars. And it’s like, yeah, I don’t know it’s, it’s not in the it’s not in as good a place as I’d like to be.
Jeff Malec 1:19:44
What we I think I was last year out in Colorado for a softball tournament, and I overheard some another team. We’re in between games, and these moms are talking, and the one mom’s like, Oh, we don’t save for college. This is our college savings paying for this travel ball. And, you know, then we’ll get the NAI. Money and all that. And I was like, yeah, in the financial world, my head’s exploding, and I almost wanted to tap them on the shoulder. Be like, Hey, that’s super unresponsible. And yeah, I let it go. But I’m like, that’s kind of what this Pandora’s box we’re talking about. That’s what’s happening all the way down to single digit, eight, 910, year old, yeah,
Scott Karl 1:20:17
but that’s that is. It is such a sad but true conversation that you overheard, and it goes on a lot of places,
Jeff Malec 1:20:24
and that the travel teams are all called, like, pro prospect, elite training. Oh,
Scott Karl 1:20:28
they’re
Jeff Malec 1:20:29
MLB this, right? The names are all branded to, like, you’re gonna be a pro, and then they’ll give, oh, you little Johnny made this E team, right? He’s not even a B, C, like you’re the fifth team in Chicago, which isn’t even good baseball. Sorry, you’re,
Speaker 1 1:20:43
you’re 100%
Scott Karl 1:20:44
right? Like, it’s, it’s sad, but like those, the club owners, like, they are lapping it up. They are feeding that frenzy.
Jeff Malec 1:20:53
It’s crazy. And last but I need, I need advice. So your daughter’s, are you done? They played their last games now?
Scott Karl 1:20:59
Yeah. So my, my oldest is she’s been out for a couple years. And my youngest, she medically retired here in her senior year, so she didn’t play. But yeah, she’s gonna graduate college here this week.
Jeff Malec 1:21:12
So how do you my son actually, this year stopped playing his baseball, retired and so, but I’m seeing the finish line, right? They’re in high school. They’re not going to play in college, so I’m seeing the finish line. It’s making me a little sad. I’m like, Man, that’s been such a part of our lives. So how’d you handle that?
Scott Karl 1:21:28
Yeah, I’ve had some withdrawal. There’s no doubt about it, you know, I do miss it. We, we ended up watching the NCAA volleyball national championship down in Gulf Shores on TV this year. And you know, USC was in it again, but they got they got bounced. So I’m still kind of watching, you know, bits and pieces of it. But, yeah, it’s, it’s tough not watching my kids anymore. It was a big part of of our life. It was kind of how I shaped my practice and and so forth. But, but I’m happy, you know, at the end of the day, I was hoping that it would give them the characteristics that would take them further in life, like teamwork, hard work, dealing with pressure, you know, all those character traits that I think are going to make them good individuals. So, yeah, I’m glad that they had the experiences that they did, met the people that they did, got the educations that they did, but just as importantly, I’m glad it kind of taught them some of those skill sets that will hopefully carry them into the next chapter.
Jeff Malec 1:22:36
We’re gonna end. Give me your Mount Rushmore for your top four baseball cities, I won’t say stadiums, but cities, so mix the city experience plus the stadium.
Scott Karl 1:22:47
All right. Well, then I’m gonna, if they ever expand, Rush more to five. I’m gonna, I’m gonna
Jeff Malec 1:22:52
go ahead, we’ll give you the four and a half. Boston’s
Scott Karl 1:22:55
definitely in there. Chicago is definitely in there.
Jeff Malec 1:23:00
You would play at a Comiskey and Wrigley.
Scott Karl 1:23:04
I’ve done them both. Yeah, I love the vibe at Wrigley though. I mean, there’s just nothing like a day game at Wrigley. And thank God I only had to pitch there once, because it seemed like it was a boat race every time, like, 10 to nine, the
Jeff Malec 1:23:17
wind’s blowing out, you’re just like, oh gosh,
Scott Karl 1:23:19
yeah. So I got, I got off the hook there those two for sure. And then, as
Jeff Malec 1:23:24
part of it, you’re going out to dinner and everything after like, you’re getting that, or you’re just,
Speaker 1 1:23:28
oh
Scott Karl 1:23:28
yeah, oh yeah. I’ll have to tell you another story about about that one time, because we walked in and there was, like, a literal head turn because we we had a table reserved for us in the middle of Gibson’s. It was a game that went to, like, the 13th inning or whatever, so we were an hour and a half late, and they held that table empty in the middle of Gibson’s, yeah, on a, like, a Saturday, and then we come walking in, and everyone’s like, What in the hell is going on? Who are these people? So that was kind of funny, but let’s see, yeah, Boston, Chicago. At the time, can’t speak for it now, but at the time, going into the Jake in Cleveland was awesome,
Speaker 1 1:24:11
really, yeah,
Scott Karl 1:24:12
like sitting down in the flats, the Jake was so loud that team was so good with Tomi and Ramirez and Albert bell. And I mean, they were ridiculous, how good they were. Let’s see those three. My fifth one is LA, and it’s not because of the town. The town is not my favorite, but the stadium was nostalgic. I grew up watching games there, and unlike Angel Stadium, Angel Stadium, Disney had gotten a hold of by the time I was in the big league, so it looked a lot different, but Dodger Stadium was still the Dodger Stadium as a kid, and like I’m sitting behind the cage at batting practice, stretching and Vin Scully and Ross Porter just hanging on the cage, shooting the breeze. And I’m looking around, and the stadium looks exactly like it did when I was a kid. Plus, I pitched pretty well there, so nothing on the city but, but great. I
Jeff Malec 1:25:09
grew up, but actually in Vero Beach, Florida, so I was a Dodgers fan for
Scott Karl 1:25:13
a little bit. Yeah, got
Scott Karl 1:25:15
that. So let’s see, what’s the last one I can throw in there. You know, I got to give it to a combination of, I got to say Milwaukee. It was a, you know, obviously, spent most of my career there. Old county stadium wasn’t really the best stadium,
Speaker 1 1:25:33
- no.
Scott Karl 1:25:34
And I will tell you that a lot of the the atmosphere when I was there was very pessimistic as a town, but I have now been back since, over the last like five or six years, and that town is awesome. The people are much more vibrant the park, which was Miller Park now am fam. It’s a great baseball stadium.
Speaker 1 1:25:55
I can’t
Jeff Malec 1:25:56
believe Miller gave that up. Yeah, I don’t
Scott Karl 1:25:59
understand why. I’ll tell you a field you got to go to is Petco in San Diego.
Speaker 1 1:26:04
Yeah,
Scott Karl 1:26:04
that is a fantastic ballpark. The team’s finally starting to really get after it and give it a run. But just the field, the food, the drinks, there’s not a bad seat in the house. It’s a it’s a great experience.
Jeff Malec 1:26:20
Love it. Awesome, Scott. I think we’ll leave it there. Thank you so much. We’ll put your info in the show notes, where to get all of you. Anyone wants to reach out,
Scott Karl 1:26:29
I appreciate Jeff. It’s really been a blast,
Speaker 1 1:26:31
man.
Jeff Malec 1:26:33
All right, that’s it for the pod. Thanks to Jeff burger for producing. Thanks to Scott for coming on. We’re going to have a good one next week. Dr, Pat Welton, from Welton, longtime managed Future Shop out in Carmel, California. Super nice guy. Doctor, living, that good California, living, so that was a fun one. Stay tuned. Come listen to it next week. Peace. You’ve
RCM Alternatives 1:27:01
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Speaker 1 1:27:22
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