Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1245: Moving Manny

Episode Date: July 19, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan break down the five-for-one deal that sent Manny Machado to Los Angeles, discussing the players changing teams, the short- and long-term implications for the Dodgers and Orioles, and the ripple effects for the rest of the trade market. Then they reflect on the latest national discourse about marketing Mike Trout, […]

The midnight rain follows the train We all wear the same thorny crown Soul to soul our shadows roll And I'll be with you when the deep goes down. Hello and welcome to episode 1245 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello, Jeff. People have always complained that the day after the All-Star game is the deadest day on the sports calendar.

So at least now we are seeing the maybe greatest ever rental position player ever traded at the trade deadline. Rental? Did I need to say rental? I don't know how many good position players have been traded at the deadline, but Manny Machado is one of the best, best in recent memory. I don't know. He's great.

He's being traded. He's going to the Dodgers. There was, of course, the unavoidable sn. I don't know. He's great. He's being traded. He's going to the Dodgers. There was, of course, the unavoidable snag that happened earlier Thursday. We're recording this, by the way, as things are literally developing right now. This timing is very obnoxious.

So we don't actually know. What we know now, and we'll maybe have more details as this podcast goes, we know Manny Machado's going to the Dodgers. We know he's been notified via Ken Rosenthal. We know five players are being traded for him. We don't know who they are. We have a strong assumption.

One of them is Yusniel Diaz. So, yeah, this is an awkward time to be podcasting. But it's fun. It's energizing. At least we know the player and we know the two teams. And that's a start. So we actually waited to record this because we thought, well, this deal will be done and we'll have to write about it. And this way we'll be able to take our time and podcast at leisure.

And of course, what we didn't count on is it's the Orioles. And so naturally there was some sort of snag with the medicals. And evidently, as we speak now, it seems to be done. And whatever that snag was seems to have been resolved so yeah we know that mini machado being traded no surprise there but we know that it's the dodgers so what can we say about this other than the obvious which is that mini machado is good and the dodgers are a first place team without mini machado and now they're adding the best player available and

so thus they are better that's kind of what every trade analysis boils down to unfortunately we kind of try to dress it up and put on our analyst hats but good team got good player yeah that's why i'm actually i'm look i'm not thrilled maybe you're not thrilled either to be doing this podcast right now instead of having to to work on the article i'm sure we'll both have to write i don't know why we can't just go in on one but whatever but what i what i like about the fact that we're podcasting about it and some other stuff is that at least this gives us both an opportunity to kind of talk through it and maybe come up with some angles because yeah the the i was thinking about this on on tuesday night when i was at the gym just reading news and and waiting for for the trade to become official i thought I don't know how to talk about this aside for,

yeah, that sounds about right. And something that's going to be, look, for anyone out there who's thinking about reading about this trade, first of all, thank you for your consideration. Please read the articles that go up at The Ringer and fan graphs in whatever order you prefer. But also know that the fundamental bottom line will be, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, right. I mean, the ringer, we already have multiple

Manny Machado articles up that are not written by me because we knew the basics, or at least we thought we did. And so I don't know, maybe it's almost more interesting to talk about, as my colleague Zach Krem wrote, the ripple effect of teams that did not get Manny Machado and maybe wanted him and now have to make another move. But really, I mean, the Dodgers, of course, they started the season terribly and they dug themselves a pretty deep hole. And we talked about that at the time, but they came charging back and the other teams in the division aren't great and things went back to normal.

The Dodgers have been playing well they're in first place even without cory seager whose loss and absence obviously is kind of the instigator for this trade so now they have someone who is basically just as good as cory seager and uh that brings them back i guess to what we thought the dodgers were coming into the season and they are now in the position that we thought they were coming into the season. So I don't know whether this makes them a favorite. That is what my colleague Michael Bauman wrote, that this makes them a World Series favorite. I guess it does if you mean getting to the World Series because I'm not sure that there is an NL team I would now take over the Dodgers. I don't know that they stack up to the cream of the AL crop either, but point is the Dodgers are good.

They had a hole. Now they do not. They filled it with one of the best players in baseball, and they have a really overpowering infield now. I don't know whether they move Max Muncy to second or to first, or then they move Bellinger to the outfield. But whatever alignment they go with, and of course they tend to mix and match, it's going to be really good. They have a heck of an infield now. Yeah, it's going to be a little weird. So in part, because the Dodgers had such devastating injuries early on with Corey Seager and Justin Turner, that allowed them to discover that Max Muncy is apparently one of the best baseball players in the universe so that's great for them that's an upside now it is a little

confusing to me I don't know what they're going to do with Chris Taylor now whether he moves to second or whether he goes to center field there's going to be a lot of moving parts here and it seems like this could in theory set up the Dodgers to make another move where they trade and probably an outfielder I don't know who that would be maybe yeah Jock Peterson assuming nobody's going to take Matt Kemp but they can make a trade out of the outfield because now they have Andrew Tolles back and he's pretty good and then they can upgrade their team elsewhere but yeah it uh when when the Dodgers were what was it 16 and 26 and Kenley Jansen didn't look quite right and Clayton Kershaw had his concerning injury.

We could look at the Dodgers and say they seem to be in the most trouble of any of the favorites who aren't in first place. But what the Dodgers have reminded us is that they are deeper and scarier than any other team in baseball without Machado. I think they're the best team in the National League with them. It's even easier to say such. uh yeah it's just kind of I don't know frightening isn't the right word but they look incredibly strong and I know that the the front office has had the reputation of not actually selling prospects to go get the big piece at the at the deadline or even in the winter but I don't know when you get you Darvish and then you get Manny Machado the next year I think that reputation goes out the window right yeah I mean back--back deadlines, they've gotten the best or highest profile player available, so I would say so.

And in both cases, they kind of used the fact that they have held on to prospects in the past. They've developed this deep farm system. They seem to have set up a player development machine here, and they've used it. So they've held on to their top guys. They have resisted the urge to trade Alex Verdugo or Walker Bueller in the past. They've kind of held on to the blue chippers, but they've just managed to accumulate such depth in the farm system and not really traded those guys for short-term fixes for the most part, so that when they do want to make one of these midseason moves,

they can do it and they can put together a competitive package and go get the best player available if they want to. So since we started recording, it seems like the names are out there. Ken Rosenthal is now reporting the five names of prospects who are evidently going to Baltimore. This will be old news to most of you listening, but it's new news to us. So it's Yusniel Diaz, Dean Kramer, Zach Popp, Rylan Bannon, and Breivik Valera. And now we can start Googling, I guess, because neither of us is totally a prospect expert here. But just kind of scanning the list of MLB.com top 30 prospects for the Dodgers,

Yusnel Diaz, who is an outfielder, is the Dodgers' fourth overall prospect. And scanning down the list here, doesn't look like we're talking about any of their other top, top guys. Bannon is number 27, a third baseman. Dean Kramer, right-handed pitcher, top guys. Bannon is number 27, a third baseman. Dean Kramer, right-handed pitcher, number 28. So seems like it is one of their top guys and then two mid-tier guys and then a couple more throw-ins. So it seems like less than maybe what was initially reported, very insubstantially, but there were other names in the deal that made it seem more impressive than this potentially. And now those names are no longer in this deal. So Fangraphs thinks before anything is adjusted, Fangraphs thinks the Orioles will end up winning

55.3 games. Manny Machado, the rest of the way is projected for 2.3 wins above replacement. So if you just want to do a straight swap and assume the orioles get nothing good to replace machado then that would knock them down to 53 and uh and whatever 162 minus 53 is that's 109 that's the i know i know math so the orioles would uh get kind of a you i don't know you want to call it a leg up on the first draft pick for next year they're they're kind of locked with the royals now i i like just off the top of my head, I'm interested in Breivik Valera. I think that he's a relatively unknown major league ready prospect who can handle the middle infield. I think he has an interesting bat. But something that has been not bothering but weighing on my mind for the last couple of days since it seemed like the Dodgers and the Royals were going to come together on this is imagine being a young baseball

player you're in the Dodgers player development system and then you go from that system and then you a few days later you wake up and you're in the Orioles player development system and that's that's bad that's bad for you it's bad for your career now the the obvious upside the obvious silver lining is oh I'm with the Orioles I have a much clearer path to the major leagues. Like you could make the argument that Yusniel Diaz should be in the major leagues tomorrow or whenever their next game is because the Orioles are just that bad. So that's something to be excited about. But I do genuinely think we're at a point where there are meaningful differences between teams and how good they are at getting the most out of their farm. And this is not to say that the Dodgers are

unbeatable or perfect or that the Orioles are absolutely dreadful. That's not fair. Orioles have had their successes and the Dodgers have had their failures. But I have a strong suspicion that the Dodgers are a lot better than the Orioles are at getting the most out of their players. And related to that, I have a strong suspicion that the Dodgers are going to be able to make subtractions like this on a semi-regular basis because they can just make decent players or make decent prospects out of ingredients better than most, not all, but better than most other teams out there. And if you're the Orioles, I don't know.

I don't know if you want to go down the list. The only, I know Valera, I think he's interesting. He's kind of stuck with the Dodgers, so it makes sense for him to go. He's already in the majors. He's kind of a utility guy, mid-20s. He's played a bunch of positions already this year. Yeah, so he's got the ability. I think that he might be one of those sneaky guys

who could be an average player real quick. He's 26 years old. I'm just trying to load some stuff as i'm i'm talking here but in in triple a he's been an average hitter that's granted worse than i thought but he walks but he doesn't strike out he's a contact guy he's i don't know i think that he'll be interesting and he can help the orioles immediately he will probably be the orioles shortstop who even will be we don't this is just sad to talk about anyway the real headliner here it's Euston LDS right he is uh he's the guy now I was talking to the the fan graphs

prospect team now fan graphs did have a mid-season top 131 prospect update list I know that's a weird number but we're going with it and uh and Euston LDS did not make it as I recall he was not listed among the top 131 he is obviously one of the dodgers better prospects there are 30 teams in baseball so you figure if there are 131 prospects lost in this post and that's barely more than for a team so it doesn't it's not damning that he was left off the list but having he's the one who we've suspected was going to be included for a couple days now so i've done enough research on him and he is he's clearly good and he's made he's taken a big stride this year and that this year out of nowhere he has more walks than strikeouts in double a which is a very very good sign

but having asked around and having done some research he's not a guy who hits the ball super hard if i think there are concerns that his his power is not exceptional and that he's not a center fielder it's not even that good of a base runner so he's he's an interesting somewhat disciplined hitter who's likely to play right field he's probably ready for the majors now or or soon but kind of a low upside thing so if you're the Orioles and you're looking for sort of a superstar return for Manny Machado I don't think it's in there I don't know anything about Kramer or Pop or the other guy you said? Kramer is actually a Carson Sestouli fringe five guy. So that means that he'll be good in a few years, probably. But yeah, he's a 22-year old righty. He's in high A and he is a fringe five guy because this year in high A, he has 114

strikeouts against only 26 walks in 79 innings. Those are very impressive rates. So he evidently has been promoted just recently, I think, to AA. So he's someone who could, you know, not a high ceiling upside guy or at least not perceived to be, but definitely someone who could contribute soon, particularly given the state of the Orioles rotation. So it seems like there's depth here. And yeah, Diaz, to just provide some comparison, the MLB.com top 100 list has him at number 84 right now. So he's the only guy who might sniff a top 100 list in this package,

and even he might not make it depending on the prospect ranker apparently so I guess that's what was out there and Jason Stark just tweeted that he doesn't know exactly what an Orioles Phillies deal would have looked like but the Phillies probably could have matched the depth of the Dodgers offer but not the upside of Diaz so it doesn't seem like anyone was out there offering like a top 50 guy for Machado that just wasn't really available to the Orioles. Right. When I was trying to ask around as much as I could just the other day, I was trying to figure out, first of all, who else was going to be included with Diaz? Because even a day in advance, it seems like the Dodgers were an inevitability.

And the response I got was that, yeah, this isn't like a huge blockbuster deal for the Orioles, but the big blockbuster deal just hasn't been out there. I think we know that from the fact that they accepted the Dodgers deal in the first place. But yeah, teams just aren't going to give that up for a rental. Certainly a team like the Phillies or Braves, who are a little more concerned with trying to keep players around for next season and seasons after that they probably they didn't want to go over the top to overpay for manny machado and and if you're the dodgers you look at kramer for god's sake he was a 14th round pick just two years ago and all of a sudden he looks like he's an interesting prospect

and if you could do that reliably then you were able to make trades like this pretty reliably i'm looking up zach Pop now. So live on the podcast, I can tell you that he's, well, he's fine. Whatever. He's a reliever. So he's a minor league reliever who's made it to high A. He has an ERA and high A of 0.33. That's good.

But obviously, you can just assume it is not supported by the other stuff. And so we've got Kramer. We've got Valera. We've got Diaz. We've got Pop. And who's the fifth guy've got diaz we've got pop and who's the fifth guy rylan bannon the third baseman rylan spell that rylan r-y-l-a-n rylan bannon rylan bannon is uh he's 22 years old and he is uh he's a second baseman third baseman he's in high a he's been good he's uh he's got a wrc plus in high a of 159 but if you were the dodgers so

valera is a guy who's major league ready now he's in the majors but maybe a low upside guy diaz in double a and then you've got kramer who has just bumped up to double a bannon in high a and pop in high a so this is when you have a five player package you could say it's good because it gives the Orioles more of a chance of hitting on one of them but also no team ever gives up five really good prospects for a red doll just doesn't happen so uh whatever I don't know it's going to be a long dark period for the Orioles but at least this is behind them now right so if you're a Dodgers fan you're probably thinking hey we just got Manny Machado and we didn't have to give up Verdugo or May or Ruiz or, you know, any of their really top guys other than Diaz. So I think you have to look at that as a victory, probably.

I don't know that that means you should look at it as a loss if you're an Orioles fan, other than the fact that you could say, well, if we had traded him over the offseason or if we traded him a year ago, maybe we actually would have gotten more of a return. And that is certainly true, but I don't know, just kind of snap judgment. I don't know that there's anything to criticize the Orioles about given that they are trading a guy who has two to three months left on his contract here, depending on the playoffs. I mean, I think we just kind of have established the level for what you can get back for a guy with that little time remaining, even if it's a guy like Manny Machado. And you're just almost certainly not going to get the best prospect in any good organization.

I mean, you can point to the Aroldis Chapman Glaber Torres deal, but that was sort of an anomaly, I think, just in that the Cubs were really, really going for it. They needed that World Series win. They were going to pay through the nose for Torres. And at the time, it seemed like maybe they didn't really even have a place for him. So that was sort of a special circumstance. And so if you're trading Mimicato at the 2018 trade deadline, this is what you're going to get. And probably they should have traded him a lot sooner. But given that they held on to him this long, this is kind of how it goes. And if you're an Orioles fan, I know just from speaking to my editor, Mallory Rubin, who is heartbroken by this whole thing. It just kind of is a rip the bandaid off

moment. They weren't going to bring him back. There almost wouldn't be a point in bringing him back given what else they have right now. So you just have to move on and be grateful that you made the playoffs a few times with Manny and you won some games and that's how it goes. He probably did more with Manny than the Angels will have done with Mike Trout by the time his tenure there is over. Don't let's not talk about trackers. That's going to be later in the podcast. That's much less important or far of greater importance conversation for us for us to have. I can I can speak to I know.

So I am I am a fan of the Ottawa Senators in hockey and and they also are bad, and they are likely to remain bad. And they have one of the five, ten, five, one of the five best players in the sport. His name is Eric Carlson. He's a defender, and he is an incredible defender. He's in his last year of being under contract with Ottawa. So he's looking ahead at free agency, has not signed an extension, probably will not sign an extension. And so I, too, will soon know the pain of trading a player like that and getting back a lesser return that you would want because the only return that

you really want for something like that is for the player to stay and to stay forever and to be great and then the team rallies around them and it just doesn't happen like that it's got to be extra frustrating too if you're the orioles to look at manny machado and as a person as a player it looks like he's finally now developing into sort of the uh the highest upside version of himself that's it's realistic he's become just outstanding I know that his defensive numbers are bad but I would assume that part of that is just bad positioning and adjusting back to shortstop I think there's no reason to believe he's a really bad defensive shortstop long term so you've got machado who's blossomed in and approached his ceiling and right in time for the team to move him to a team on the opposite coast and it sucks i

don't it just it's it's so hard to develop a player internally like manny machado or like mike trout or like any of the best internal players on any team not only does it take so much work but it's so uncommon just there's so many different ways for a career to go off the rails, not unlike a trade with the Orioles front office. There are just so many different paths that a player can take that when you get someone who makes it through the system and succeeds, maybe the Orioles, despite the things he was being taught or coached, I don't know, to have them become so good, to have them become a superstar, and then you have to give them up and and you never really got over the hump with him. It's so dispiriting.

It's just an angle here that no one wants to dwell on. I don't think you're going to see a whole lot of national writers talking about, well, it's a rough day for the Orioles fans, because I don't even know how they feel anything at this point in the season anymore. But it's the part that is under all of this. But realistically, there is not a chance Machado was ever going to return his tenure with the Orioles was going to be up whether it be now or or in the offseason so at least now something comes back and I don't know if in theory this gives the Dodgers a leg up on maybe signing Machado to an extension

that gives him advantage over I thought the Phillies were the best fit this whole time because I kind of figured they were gonna make a push for assigning Machado in the offseason, maybe get a head start on that now. So I don't know. If you are the Dodgers, this at the very least prevents the Phillies from getting that advantage, and maybe they are going to seek it out themselves. I really don't know. Yeah, I don't know whether the Dodgers even have the most need for Machado beyond this season,

given that Seager's coming back. I mean, any team would be better with Machado, but I don't know how much of a push they'll make to try to extend him or work something out before other teams can take a crack at him. But I thought the same thing. The interesting thing is that evidently, according to Jeff Passan, there's no cash in this deal. So no international bonus pool money either. The Orioles often just put their bonus pool money into trades because they're certainly not going to use it to actually give an international player a bonus.

That would be wild. So they just use it as a trade chip. But evidently they haven't here. And evidently they aren't sending any money to the Dodgers. Do we know what the implications are for the Dodgers and the luxury tax threshold here? Because they were right up to the line, right coming into the year, and so that was one constraint on them, wanting to reset that tax and not trigger the higher penalties again. Right. So this is one of those things where, since we're recording this live, I would be leading on the responsiveness of Dodgers authorities,

beat writers, analysts, whatever it is, who would tweet out that information. I am not on Twitter right now because I'm podcasting, so I don't know what the word is, but I am trying to pull up the Dodgers tax sheet for right now. What's the threshold this year? Was it 207? Is it still 197? I don't remember off the top Dodgers tax sheet for right now. What's the threshold this year? Was it 207? Is it still 197? I don't remember off the top of my head.

It's 197. The threshold is 197. And so looking at the Dodgers, according to the COTS contracts, their projected competitive balance payroll is $181.5 million with a tax threshold of 197. But now I think there are things that are probably not folded into that. Like I think Maeda, for example, if he hits his incentives and gets more money,

pretty sure that factors into this. So I would assume that if you're the Dodgers, if you make this trade and you don't take any money, I would assume that they are still below the threshold. I don't think that they would be willing to make this trade if they weren't, but they also have some money that they could try to clear in theory if they wanted to. If they were going to trade, for example, I don't know,

Jock Peterson for a league minimum reliever. Well, Peterson makes a few million dollars. If they wanted to get rid of, say, Tom Kohler or something and package him with a prospect and send him to some other team. I think there would be ways for them to clear money so that they wouldn't go or stay over the threshold. Maybe they'll just package a prospect with Logan Forsyth and have some other team eat it because Logan Forsyth is apparently getting $9 million this season, which is, I think

he has about nine hits. So that would be another way for the Dodgers to clear space. But yeah, I'm surprised it hasn't come up on three yet bill plunkett just tweeted two minutes ago so before the trade he says the dodgers had six million to ten million dollars of room under the luxury tax threshold depending on bonuses and accounting manny machado takes up 6.3 million of that so he says dodgers still need bullpen help but won't be for high salaried relievers. So it sounds like they are just, just under the threshold,

even with Machado. Okay. So that, that makes sense. And they can go get some minimum salary reliever, I'm sure, or just make a lateral move to get them. If you give up a prospect and you trade Forsyth.

I mean, well, what I can say now is now that Machado is gone, the trade deadline sucks. There's not, I mean, I don't think Jacob de Crom is likely to get traded. Now that could happen, but I don't think JT Real Muto is going to be traded in the middle of the season. So, uh.

Yeah, pretty thin. Yeah. And so the teams that were interested in Machado and then would have benefited the most from adding him, you know, the Phillies, the Brewers, I guess now they've set their sights on Mike Moustakas, who started the season well but hasn't really hit lately. Or maybe they turned their attention to pitching

and just try to shore up the roster in some other way. I mean, Wilson Ramos is out there, I suppose. There are some relievers. There are some starters. You mentioned the appeal of Nathan Evaldi and Cole Hamels, Jay Happ. These kinds of guys are out there. So unless the Mets really do decide to trade some aces, yeah, not a lot of marquee names remaining here. Right. I mean, you could see a team go get alvis andrews for example i think that maybe a fun sort of under the radar move if a team could do it would be to go get eduardo escobar as sort of a multi-position guy but

if you're looking for someone who could handle a short or handle third i think he'd be fun but he's not he's not manny machado there are no manny's machado still out there you mike masakis doesn't do it i wrote about iovaldi then the next start out he allowed eight runs so it's just it's not a it's not a real promising landscape so i don't know who if the is the best player likely to get traded now brad hand i suppose so yeah mean, unless you have a bias against relievers because of their role, but I guess relative to his peers, yeah, there's just not all that much appealing out there. So what do you do if you're the Phillies or the Brewers? I mean, the Brewers maybe need pitching more than they need Manny Machado if the pitcher's good. But I don't know, is there some obvious player that these teams pivot to? If you're the Dodgers, you have gotten a leg up on signing Machado if you're interested in doing that, but you've also kept him out of the hands of potential playoff opponents. So there's a double benefit there. I mean, I guess that's kind of built into every trade. You get a player, other

teams are not getting that player, but, and you. And the Dodgers seem to have a fairly clear path to the division title at this point. Yeah, so I think that in this case, the ripple effect is of particular interest. It is always true. When you get a guy, no one else can get that guy unless it's, I don't know, like Greg Dobbs, I feel like, or Wes Helms. I feel like a bunch of people had Greg Dobbs and Wes Helms at the same time. I think he just kind of made the rounds on various benches. But the ripple effect here is real because there is just no one like Machado who's still out there. I think if you're the Brewers,

I don't know if you still try to get an infielder. Maybe they talk themselves into, and I know this is going to sound funny when I say it, but I am going to say the name Tyler Saladino. I think they actually kind of like him. At least they want to see a little bit more out of him. He's only batted 84 times this year for the brewers but he's been good he's hit for power he's done everything with them so far so that could be a thing i know they got brad miller he has not been good eric sogard has been absolutely dreadful orlando arcia has been no better so i think the brewers would probably still there's just there's not the impact player for them to go get on the position player side,

I don't think. I'm not convinced anyone is going to pay through the nose for Scooter Jeanette. So it really does feel like it's going to be a pitching thing. And for the Brewers, they could use a starter and their bullpen is good, but every bullpen could get deeper. We'll talk about Josh Heater, I'm sure within about 10 minutes. And if you're the Phillies, I mean, I don't even know how you get up for Mike Moustakis. So I don't know if you're the Phillies. You can still, there are still trades to be made. And I will, again, mention that Eduardo Escobar is interesting. He'd be a good multi-position kind of solution.

But for them and the Braves, if you're the Braves now, you probably look at Johan Camargo and think he's a little better than he did yesterday because he's actually been fine. And Dansby Swanson's a good defender. And if you're the Phillies, maybe make a bench move, maybe make a bullpen move. But remember, these are teams that arrived ahead of time. So what was it that the Brewers did last year when they were in a similar circumstance? They just kind of made little tweaks, right, around the roster. They didn't make a big splash and they saved that for the offseason. Yep. so i don't know is there anything else to add about the dodgers about this trade about the orioles it seems like we've kind of covered it there may be more news that comes out that changes this in some way but basically we talked for half an hour and

as we said it did kind of boil down to good team, got good player, gets better. That's kind of that. So now we can put this behind us, I suppose. And, you know, Manny Machado now gets to go to an even bigger market and a better team and perhaps become a bigger star. And the Dodgers lineup is just extremely deep and powerful right now. I mean, it is good. That is a heck of an infield and just everything at this point. You take Seager away from this team, and that's about as big a hit as a team could possibly take to lose Corey Seager that early in the season. One of the, I don't know, five best players in baseball over the past couple of years. And yet they have survived and surmounted that and now just about made up for that loss with this addition. So Dodgers are good.

Talking about the biggest impact, nearly the biggest impact you could make on a team, I think I and many other people on Twitter, so the Angels had a tweet, I guess we'll talk about Mike Trout now. The Angels had a tweet that went out two hours ago as we were recording this, and the tweet was a screenshot of text and the text in the tweet itself read, from the Angels verified account, today the Angels

released the following statement on outfielder Mike Trout. And I think when we all read that, we thought, oh no! My heart skipped a beat when I saw that. What terrible, frightening, crazy... Out for the season! Yeah. read that we thought oh no because even my heart skipped a beat when i saw that yeah what terrible out for the season yeah yeah is in prison just anything like a trove of terrible tweets discovered whatever it is yeah i was fearing the worst fortunately it was not the worst right now i'm pretty sure the tweet itself has been recommended for tommy john surgery but the angels, they tweeted this in support of Mike Trout because, now, I don't think it's

fair to say that Rob Manfred was, like, overtly critical of Mike Trout. It's not like Rob Manfred went out of his way to say, hey, Mike Trout, you're being a prick. Market baseball better. But the explicit implication, that doesn't make any sense, the explicit statement was that Mike Trout would need to engage more if baseball were to be able to market him more as a face of the game. His words were, needs to engage. Yeah. Manfred said he's made certain decisions about what he wants to do and what he doesn't want to do and how he wants to spend his free time and how he doesn't want to spend his free time. That's up to him. If he wants to engage and be more active in that area, I think we could help him make his brand really, really big. But he has to make a decision that he's prepared to engage in that area. It takes time and effort.

And Lindsay Adler and I talked to Jeff Heckelman about this very thing on a recent episode, not just about Trout, but about all players. But now it's really come to the fore because the commissioner is actually mentioning Trout by name in the context of this discussion. And yeah, now the angels are warring with the commissioner. It's sort of a strange thing that has suddenly erupted here. So I was not privy or I was not present for the podcast that you did about marketing players and about marketing Trout, which was quite disappointing. Now, sure, you could say, well, why not just listen to the podcast and get yourself caught up? But I'm a busy man. I have things to do. So I'll get around to that. But it is true from the major league baseball perspective. And it is objectively true from any perspective, that baseball would benefit as an industry

if Mike Trout were more prominent, I guess, as a player who's one of the faces of it. Now, I might argue that Mike Trout already is one of the faces of baseball. He is a household name. I think he's broadly recognized now. It's no longer, I think, controversial to say that Mike Trout is the best player in the world. I think enough people have seen it, heard it, or have come to believe it that it doesn't cause ripples like it used to. He's just been amazing for it for six years now.

So it would help baseball if he were more engaged, I guess, in trying to market it. But at no point should that be, or at least do I think that should be considered an obligation of a player who's in the league, who's in the union. He markets the game by virtue of playing the game extremely well and not seemingly doing anything untoward off the field or on the field. Really, he's not doing anything horrible anywhere. So there are so many other players that you could market, other players who are presumably more interested in getting that attention, that I think that focusing on Trout alone is, I don't know, am I using this expression right? Missing the forest for the trees? Whatever.

I used it. It's out there. You know what I'm getting at. Yeah, no, it does seem sort of unfair to single him out or persecute him for not being more attention-seeking. And, you know, the angels are saying, well, we should be praising him for not putting the focus on himself. I don't know whether we should praise him or criticize him. I don't think we should do either necessarily.

That's just the way he's wired, and that's fine. He is the best player of baseball. He is not necessarily the best or most interested in marketing himself. And that is totally fine. And I do think it has kind of become a brand for him, right? Like he's the star who isn't seeking out stardom. Like that feels like that is one thing we'll remember him by like when we look back decades later we won't just look at the stats but he'll say man i mean you know assuming he doesn't do something terrible in the interim man he was just this really wholesome guy and he just kind of showed up every day and he worked hard and he was nice to everyone and he signed for kids and he was just a good role model and influence and yeah he wasn't the most charismatic or magnetic personality and wasn't really self-promoting, but he is kind of the player you model yourself on.

Like if you're a kid looking up to players, like not that athletes necessarily need to or even should be role models, but they are whether you like it or not and whether they like it or not. And Trout to this point has been a really good one so i think baseball could do a lot worse with its face than mike trout and again it's not just a mike trout issue so to single him out i mean yeah he's the best player so in that sense maybe he has the most potential to be famous and bring attention to the sport but this is a sport-wide

issue. And as we talked about with the other Jeff, I mean, there's kind of this whole culture in baseball of tamping down individualism and not showing too much emotion and has to do with the racial makeup of the league probably and just the tradition and the emphasis on kind of being buttoned up all the time. And that's not Mike Trout's doing or Mike Trout's fault. I think it kind of came to the fore because it's All-Star Week. And earlier this week, the Washington Post published an article about Trout. It's the one we mentioned on the previous episode by Adam Kilgore. And it had these Q scores, well, scores, I suppose, and Mike Trout, according to the Q scores company that just measures how well

known people are, Trout is as well known by Americans as NBA forward Kenneth Farid, who was with the Nuggets for seven seasons and is now, I guess, on the Brooklyn Nets bench. And Trout's Q score was 22, which means that just more than one in five Americans actually knew who he was. So this is a baseball problem more than a Trout problem. And I don't want to rehash that whole discussion, but you know, baseball teams are bigger than basketball teams and they don't matter as much individually. And it's a regional sport and not a national sport. And, you know, the reasons go on and on, but it's not regional sport and not a national sport. And the reasons go on and on. But it's not something that Mike Trout, I think, personally deserves all that much blame

for. And at some point, we just have to accept that Mike Trout is who he is. And he could be a lot worse in a lot of ways. What is it to market baseball? what is Mookie Betts doing what is Francisco Lindor what doing what is Corey Kluwer doing what is Chris Sale doing right now we just had the opportunity to talk to Randy Johnson I don't remember what Randy Johnson did for baseball besides be great and then he had like a deodorant commercial when he was older and now granted he was a funny commercial don't play dodgeball with Randy Johnson, but I don't remember anything in particular he was doing above and beyond whatever Mike Trout has done. He's just, he was dominant on the field. He was dominant in an intimidating way such that everyone knew who Randy Johnson was. I don't know

what kind of Q score is realistically reachable for a baseball player. I don't know what was in the Washington Post article. I have to assume that they had like Bryce Harper's Q score in there somewhere. Yeah, I was sort of surprised to see that Bryce Harper and Mike Trout have the same number of Instagram followers, even though Harper seems to be more famous and also just uses Instagram a lot more. And Mike Trout has a lot more Twitter followers than Bryce Harper does. So I wonder if the whole Harper versus Trout disparity in celebrity that we perceive is kind of overblown. I don't know whether that's the best way to measure it or not, but I can look up the article and see. I know that baseball players just generally do terribly in all of these measures of fame compared to athletes in other sports, whether it's followers on social

media or awareness or whatever it is, you know, post Jeter, there just really isn't anyone in the stratosphere that athletes in other sports seem to get to. Right. Jeter and I don't know, maybe David Ortiz were some of the last. No one. It's not realistically possible, I think, at this point for any baseball player to reach the level of 1996 Ken Griffey Jr. whenever he was on the Fresh Prince. That was just a level of almost cultural saturation. Everyone knew who Ken Griffey Jr. was, but I don't know. They don't still license baseball player names to video games, do they?

It's just like MLB the show. I shouldn't be the one talking about this. Well, there are cover models on those games and they are actual players. So that is still a thing. But yeah, it's just, you know, it's a baseball wide problem. And Mike Trout is suddenly the face of that problem because I guess he's the face of baseball. He's the face of what is wrong with baseball, I guess, in a sense, from a marketing perspective, which means he's the face of the face of what is wrong with baseball i guess in a sense yeah in a in a from a marketing perspective which means he's the face of something related to baseball did you see

the outfit that mike trout wore to the all-star game i don't know what it was but when he showed up to the red carpet it kind of looked like he thought red carpet was the dress code instead of the setting because he was wearing this like maroon suit with no tie and he didn't have a baseball cap on obviously so he has this sort of spiky patch of hair that is sticking up from the top of his head and he was like mostly unshaven i don't know i i'm not a fashion expert by any means but i didn't think it was the greatest Look so I guess We can criticize his sartorial choices Too maybe it's sticking with the Angels thing and it's not like

A bright angels red but I don't know I mean honestly we've talked about Manimichado for half an hour you've seen his hair Like this just there are things that the kids are doing these Days that they just I don't Understand I Think that if we talk about this any longer, we're going to seem very out of touch. So if we're done with seeming out of touch about

this, maybe we can try to seem out of touch with Josh Hader. That's something that we can't not talk about, I guess. Yeah. Well, first, let me acknowledge that I thought the All-Star break was good for the most part. I mean, neither of us was super enthused about the Home Run Derby or the All-Star game. And I can't say that I watched every second of either. I don't want to sound like a baseball hipster who doesn't watch popular things. I'm glad that people like them and enjoyed them. And I will say that they both seemed like the best version of what they could be under the current format, right? I mean, the Home Run Derby, for what it is, was exciting.

I think the time-based format is definitely better. Our pal Jason Benetti was doing commentary on ESPN News, and he's the best. And there were a bunch of rounds that were won by one home run, and you had Harper winning in his hometown, and he seemed psyched about it, and Kyle Schwarber was hitting bombs, and Reese Hoskins was hitting bombs, and the lineup of sluggers was not impressive on paper. But I thought the event itself delivered. There was even a faux controversy about whether Harper cheated, which Cheryl Ring wrote about well at Fangrass,

and she found that, yes, he probably did violate the letter of the law, but also it's the home run derby, and who cares, and there are no penalties associated whatsoever with breaking the rule that you're supposed to wait until one ball lands to have the next pitch thrown. Anyway, it was fun, I think, for what it is. That's the home run derby. Lots of home runs were hit, and then the next night, lots more fun, I think, for what it is. That's the Home Run Derby. Lots of home runs were hit. And then the next night, lots more home runs were hit. And the All-Star Game had, what, a record 10 home runs were hit. And this was like three true outcomes baseball or at least two true outcomes baseball.

Ten home runs were hit. There were, what, 28% strikeouts, I think, 25 strikeouts in total. There were more home runs than singles. So if you don't like the way that baseball is played today with not much contact and home runs and all of that, you probably thought this was a terrible vision of baseball's future hellscape. But on the other hand, Trout homered and Judge homered and the Stars did star-like things and there were a bunch of comebacks and ties and extra innings and it was all pretty exciting, I thought. And it was kind of overshadowed, at least on Twitter, by the constant Machado rumors

and, as we'll discuss, by Hader. But I thought the game itself, the events themselves, were a pretty good showcase for baseball. Ever since when i when i was maybe i've relayed the story before but when i had my first full-time job writing about baseball with espination they they made me live blog the home run derby every year they were like this is the thing that you're doing not only do you have to actually watch the whole thing this is before the format changed and it was much worse they they made me write about it constantly and so since i

left that job in a hurry, my silent protest has been to not watch the Home Run Derby and to be very happy about it. So just now, on principle, I won't allow myself to watch it, but that's just my own thing. It seems like the format change has gone over very well. As you said, this year's Home Run Derby seems like it was extremely entertaining.

I mean, for God's sake, Max Muncy was in it. Max Muncy was in the home run derby. And then, yeah, with the way that Harper won, he's not even necessarily the one who broke any rules. It was his dad who was doing the throwing, and then Bryce Harper's dad could be the subject of a whole podcast on his own. So there's a lot there. And as far as the All-Star Game itself is concerned,

this one is particularly, I think, emblematic of what you're going to have when you have an All-Star Game right now. It's a game where nobody wants to get hurt, so we know that first and foremost, This one is particularly, I think, emblematic of what you're going to have when you have an all-star game right now. It's a game where nobody wants to get hurt. So we know that first and foremost. And a lot of players will get hurt when they're doing base running. Players aren't really interested, I think, in doing a lot of base running during the all-star game. You have mostly really great starting pitchers who are allowed to air it out for one inning stints.

And then you have hitters who know they're probably not going to be throwing a lot of off-speed stuff, just going to guess. They're probably not going to be throwing it 100%, off-speed stuff just going to guess they they're probably not going to be throwing it 100 although maybe they will and they were the velocity was high and you have hitters who know well we're not going to be like moving base runners along no one's going to bunt we're not going to string together three singles whoever is just up there trying to hit home runs for the most part anyway so you get more home runs and you get more strikeouts you get some velocity you get a weird situation where j-hap is like pitching in extra innings for the american league but whatever it's 2018 anything can happen but this just not every all-star game that you see at this point is going to have a third of the batter striking out and a fourth of the batter hitting home runs but that's pretty much what you're going to get when you have

the absolute best players in a completely meaningless exhibition, and the starters don't have to pace themselves at all. So I get why maybe that's sad, but whoever has watched an All-Star game for the fundamentals, when would that ever be the purpose of viewing? Yeah, no, it doesn't bother me a whole lot. So I can see why people wouldn't like that brand of baseball, but I think that's kind of what you get with the All-Star game. When you have the best pitchers in baseball coming in for an inning at a time, that's the kind of baseball you're going to get.

And that is what baseball itself is getting closer and closer to, so it's not entirely separate. But look, you know, it was fun and it was an exciting game. And the AL won again because the AL almost always wins, and Stars did exciting stuff, and that's that. That's the All-Star break. It was good. I think it was fine. So what we wanted to talk about, right, Hayter sort of overshadowed the All-Star game as it was going on. Of course, Hayter pitched in the All-Star game and gave up a three-run homer, but that was not at all the worst story concerning Josh Hader on that day, because as the game was going on, I don't know what the initial impetus 17 or so, and unearthed just a vast repository of truly

terrible tweets. And even by the standards of bad teenager tweets, these were bad tweets. I mean, I'm not going to read out any here, but just, you know, the worst thing you can imagine. I mean, racist, homophobic, misogynistic, it was all there, really, just one after the other, worse and worse. Some of them were quotes from songs or movies, you know, free of context, but others weren't. them there were, it was hard not to assume that these sentiments in some sense reflected his worldview at the time. So the conversation here, you know, of course, he quickly deleted everything or locked his account or both, and he has apologized. MLB has said that he will undergo sensitivity training. A lot of people have thought, well, that's not enough, but these were tweets sent when he was in high school, and I'm not sure what the legality of punishing or suspending someone for tweets that were sent before he is a member of your organization

would be. So I don't think it's an unexpected response. And the conversation surrounding this—now, I'm not equating at all the crime that Luke Heimlich committed with the tweets that Josh Hader sent. The severity of those actions and their consequences are really not on the same channels and touched on some of the same debates about, you know, how long should a person be held responsible, punished for actions that were committed at an early age, you know, a somewhat later age for Hader than Heimlich in this case. But, you know, basically, how responsible are you for what you did when you were a teenager and what you said when you were a teenager? And how does your current day remorse play into that? Hater has actually apologized for this. And, you know, just what can you conclude about a person today based on something that that person did or said years ago. And that is a really difficult conversation to have, I think. You know, a lot of people said, well, teenagers say stupid things, and I said

stupid things, and you said stupid things, and we all said stupid things. And sure, that's true. But obviously, not everyone said or thought these things. And not everyone was stupid enough, frankly, to say them in this setting. And I know this was a while ago and Twitter wasn't then what it is today, but you say these things in a public forum, whether it's then or in the years since, since you've become a high profile professional athlete and have professional representation. I don't know how you never think to scrub this stuff but you know that's kind of a side story i suppose to just what we think of hater now i am shocked i guess by a few things not not the first but one of the being that i can't believe it took until now for this to come to light and then there were yeah people were pointing to tweets from like

whit merrifield and some other players like there Like there's just going to be a lot more of this and it's going to continue. That's something that my fiancee works at a college campus and she works alongside lovely college students on a regular basis. And one of the things that we talk about so often is just the pressures and the psychology of being surrounded and consumed by social media from a very, very young age. And this is something that's not going to go away. We're going to have people who have speech documented semi-permanently for them on the internet from now until the end of time, or at least the end of social media, which I think we could all hope would come not a moment too soon. As far as Josh Hader is concerned, I think, firstly, maybe the most important point to acknowledge is that you and I are two pretty ordinary, privileged white

guys, and we cannot speak to any of the communities who would be offended by his language directly, because we do not belong to them. So those who are genuinely offended and are rightfully offended, I think that they rightly require an apology and a sign that the apology has substance to it and actions taken. I think it is no less significant to see how haters' teammates, current teammates, and maybe more importantly, some teammates of color have come to his defense and said, well, this isn't really reflective of my interactions with him. I know Jesus Aguilar has come out and tweeted some things. I know Lorenzo Cain has said some things. And it is important that no matter what you think of what Josh Hader, who he was or what he said six or seven years ago, that version of Josh Hader is of far lesser significance than what he is now as an adult human. And the fact that I think at least some of Hader's teammates, I haven't seen statements from all of them, but given that some teammates have so quickly come to his defense and rallied around him,

I think it's important because it implies that he is better than that, that he has learned something. I think it's absolutely true. You said that we all definitely said stupid things, did stupid things. We all badly could have hurt ourselves or other people when we were teenagers, I'm sure. And if you dug into my own internet history, I'm certain you could pull up a bunch of old comments I left when I was in my teenage years that would be genuinely offensive to people because it's not on Hader's level. And this is – it's important to recognize that not –

just because people said and did stupid things does not mean that they've reached this degree of stupid things. But if you are going to make a general argument about the stuff that the Hader said, I think the argument would be that I don't know much about Josh Hader's youth or community or growing up, but I do think that when you are 16, 17, 18 years old, you generally have not advanced to the point where psychologically you can fully understand the extent to which your words can actually hurt other people. You are more likely to say things, not necessarily just for the shock value of them, but just because like, oh, this is maybe a taboo word or I'm just I'm free to use it. And if somebody else minds, well, the hell with them, because it doesn't really matter. Just grow a thicker skin because you just haven't really gained the worldly experience to have interacted with other communities, certainly other communities that are very different from your own, and knowing what those people have gone through. So I would suspect, certainly, for Josh Hader as a professional baseball player, he has presumably interacted with far more African Americans than he did growing up. Now, I do not think that he's interacted with very many more gay people than he did

growing up because, you know, that's a whole other problem with with baseball today but i would assume that his mind was broadened pretty quickly when he joined the professional ranks and the most important work here needs to be done behind the scenes and maybe it's already been done in terms of his own personal development what i really don't know is how much more he has to do in public because i just uh this is i don't know how this has been handled in other sports or with other players. He owes more to the public, I suppose, but it's hard to know how much of that can actually mean anything because a series of statements or press releases really don't solve anything. Yeah, no, I mean, it's hard to know what to think because in some sense you have to know

Josh Hader's mind. I mean, what you say and what you do is often a good indication of what you think and what you believe. But when you're talking about tweets from several years ago, no one wants to think that what you said at some point will always reflect what you think. And so we want to think that people can change, and yet you don't want to just give someone a pass and say, well, that was six, seven years ago. So naturally he's not that person anymore.

Some people don't change ever. And so it's really hard to know. And he says he's learned from this and he's different, and his teammates seem to think that that's the case. And neither of us can really judge that so i mean it colors what we think of hater and i think it should until we know otherwise but you know you do want to allow some possibility for a person to evolve beyond the things that they said when they were 17 no matter how horrible those were and certainly if you grow up in certain communities and you just aren't exposed to people and ideas, there are ways that you can be close-minded and have your mind subsequently opened.

Now, you would hope that if his mind had been opened at some point, he would have said, hey, I remember these terrible things I said back when I was 17. I should go delete those, not only for self-preservation, because I don't want anyone to see these, but also because they no longer reflect who I am. So for one reason or another, obviously, he should have wiped these things away. And I don't know whether the fact that he didn't just means that he forgot him and moved on or whether he didn't change. I don't know. Again, it's really hard to say. And, you know, one of the reasons that we never really talked about Heimlich in depth, I think that's a different situation. And there are aspects to that conversation that, frankly, I don't even feel completely qualified to talk about

because it's not my training and background. And there's just a lot of nuance to that discussion that being a baseball writer doesn't really prepare you to talk about. But to some extent, it always comes down to the fact that there are things that are hard to judge from outside. And I'd recommend the conversation on Hang Up and Listen a few weeks ago about that, because I thought they considered all angles and aspects of it. But, you know, one thing that differentiated that was that Heimlich showed

no remorse and in fact protested his innocence, which if he is lying about that has a real harmful effect on his victim. And in this case, there is no direct victim in the same way. And Hater is expressing remorse and apologizing. And I guess each of us just kind of has to decide whether that is good enough or whether we can watch him and root for him and ever feel the same way about him. But, you know, once those things are out there, it's really hard to get past them, and you probably shouldn't get past them in a day or so. It's kind of a long process of atoning for that.

An important consideration you might not be able to understand is that you are blessed with a memory unlike that of most other people on the planet. People will ask me if i've written things or they'll send me links to things when i write an article i spend hours on it i put a lot of of effort into every article i write and i have forgotten 98 or 99 percent of them and to think about a tweet even like a tweet that's that's quoting lyrics that's just a tweet that you fire off in a second you don't really think about it i don't want to speak for josh hater maybe his memory is fantastic as a pitcher you should know how you've attacked certain hitters before but i i'm going to guess that it would be very easy to have absolutely zero recollection of the things you tweeted six

or seven years ago i would uh i'd be floored if he actually did remember doing that very well now we are probably living in a uh an age of transition the the first transition was having access to players and then the next transition will be those players recognizing the the consequences of having old things dug up and so i don't think it's going to necessarily go as far as players all hiring their own pr firms to like do their own like self oppo research but you probably will have a lot of people just like scrubbing their accounts, if not permanently, then at least selectively

before they really enter the public sphere. I know, I mean, for God's sake, if you're applying for a job, you should not have like, I don't know, a public Facebook or a public Twitter account. Nothing should be public for any potential employer. And then if you're going to be a public figure, like a major league baseball player,

I can see why Hader wouldn't think that this would happen because he probably did forget about the things that he tweeted when he was not even employed by anyone. But as soon as enough athletes see this happen to enough older athletes, then they're going to collectively make a note to, oh, right, either I shouldn't tweet this or more realistically, I have tweeted some stupid things. But now that people are going to start to notice, I'm going to go back and get rid of them and then we won't see those things anymore. So I don't know how far it'll go. Maybe people will just delete their entire accounts and start over. But I do think that this is going to be a sweeping change over the next five or 10 years. Yeah. And hopefully that changes more. I shouldn't think this, then I shouldn't tweet this, But I shouldn't tweet this as at least a step, I suppose. But yeah, this is a story that's come up in all aspects of life. I mean, you know, even this season on The Bachelorette, which I watch, it's been a storyline because things come up during

the airing of the season, where, you know, when you have everyone watching the show, they dig into all of the contestants' pasts and social media personas, and they find unsavory things that didn't come up when the studio was doing a background check. And then suddenly that is kind of coloring what you're thinking of the people that you're watching. And so that maybe has to evolve as well. I mean, this is everywhere. Everyone is tweeting stupid stuff constantly. And so we're never going to get away from this. I wonder to what depth people will want to consider someone like Josh Hader moving forward.

You can either take the time and try to figure out if he has evolved, continue to follow him, continue to monitor his progress and and just really think about it in depth or i wonder for how many people this is this is it this is the end of of the josh hater story and they've decided well this is we we will not forgive this guy he's the guy who had the the racist and homophobic tweets which look that's a pretty strong foundation for an opinion of a baseball player i i certainly do not want to come to his defense on this because, again, I do not belong to one of the communities, either of the communities that he would have offended. But I do wonder how many people will care

about Josh Hader's progress, whether it be behind him or whether it be something that he attempts now versus how much his reputation is just permanently in tatters because this is as bad a twitter archive as i've seen dug up for an athlete i have not read all of them i don't follow other sports and i certainly don't follow this stuff in other sports but short of like actual threats or videos of of threats or i guess you know it's not actions so in that, this is better than had he committed like an actual hate crime. But just as the written word goes, this is as bad as

you could realistically get, or at least that I've seen. Yes, I agree. All right. So closing thoughts here, just wanted to mention, I wrote on a happier note at The Ringer, just wanted to recognize Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, because we've talked a whole lot this year about Trout. We've talked about Betts. Well, if you look at the war leaderboard at either baseball reference or fan graphs right now, you find Jose Ramirez right there up at the top and Francisco Lindor just behind. And actually, listener Patreon supporter Corey Rubin emailed last week to ask, is it historic that these two guys are this good and are on the same team? And I got an article out of that because, yeah, it actually is. These guys right now have combined for 12.2 war at baseball reference and almost the same at fan graphs through the All-Star break, through less than 60 percent of the indian

season and if you extrapolate that it's over 20 war if you add their projected rest of season war total it's more than 17 war and that really does get them up into historic territory so if you want to look at the full list of best teammates and best position playing teammates ever, I link to it from the article. You can do that. But basically Lindor and Ramirez have a real chance to be the best position player combo since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. that good it's not i mean there are many like 19th century tandems that had higher war totals because pitchers would throw you know 500 innings back then and so you could get these ridiculous war totals and otherwise though i mean if you just look at position players only it's really ruth and garrig in 1927 and then there's a pretty steep fall off to like Ruth and Gehrig two other times and then there's another fall off and Ramirez and Lindor it really would not take I mean they could play even a little worse than they've played to this point in the season and they could actually be

potentially the best position player teammates since Ruth and Gehrig and both of them have just taken big steps forward just as hitters. I think, you know, you've written about Lindor and his power potential. He added a lot of fly balls last year, more than doubled his home run total. This year, he has become a much better opposite field hitter for power, and he's still a great defender. And Ramirez, of course, kind of came out of nowhere in that he was not a top rated prospect and just kind of scuffled offensively for his first few big league seasons. And suddenly he is a legitimate superstar. And these two guys, I think they are fourth and fifth in war among position players since the start of 2016. So this is not a one-year wonder type of thing. These are two of the best players in baseball on the same side of the infield under team control for years. This is a core that is really kind of powering the Indians right now. Not that it takes that much power to be good in this

division. And I did address the weakness of the competition that they've faced, but even so, they're really, really good. Yeah, I saw that at the end of the competition that they've faced but even so they're really really good yeah i saw that at the end of the article unveiling potential new statistics at baseball prospectus but did uh i didn't i didn't actually notice as i was reading so you've got looking at fan graphs now jose ramirez at 6.5 worth that's great francisco lindor at 5.4 those are the position players trevor bowers at 5.1 among pitchers diders. Did you consider the top three? I did not, but I probably should have because, yeah, they might be up there. I think, I don't know, I guess Bauer probably fares better in fan graphs war than baseball reference war. But

yeah, I should have probably expanded it because those guys are really good. Yeah, to be revisited near the end of the year i you get looking at this team you get kind of a like a recent years of nationalsy vibe where it's been like anthony rendon bryce harper daniel murphy max scherzer steven strasburg and oh no hopefully the rest of the team is able to to keep up but the nationals have been just so loaded with stars they haven't had to worry so much about having more limited depth in recent years now like last year the depth is pretty good and their depth isn't as bad as it's been before but nationals are a team that's been carried by stars and when you look at the indians right now especially given the the struggles that they've had out of the bullpen and how so much seems unsettled but they have a like a pretty good

four maybe even five deep starting rotation and like two awesome position players and some other pretty good role players. Definitely get a National Z5 out of them. Now, what does that mean moving forward? Not much of anything. It just means that they're a differently good team. You could say that the Marlins were really top-heavy, although the White Sox were really top-heavy,

and they had to sell off because they weren't good enough. But the Indians are like if the White Sox had one or two more stars. When they were good, not now. The White Sox have no stars. The White Sox are terrible. Yeah. All right. And last thought, Jeff Passon just tweeted about Machado. Rarely is there a consensus in deals like this, but every evaluator I've asked think Baltimore did well in the Manny Machado trade and also think that with the strong market, Brewers, Phillies, Diamondbacks, and others, and deep system, the Dodgers could overpay mutually beneficial deal. I guess that is essentially what we were saying.

And Jeff also points out that the deal is kind of a product of the different ways that the Dodgers can assemble talent in that Diaz was a free agent out of Cuba for $30 million. Not every team can or will pay for that kind of player. So that is an example of the Dodgers having a financial advantage. But the rest of the package is late round draft picks or mid round draft picks. And the Dodgers have just been very good at developing promising prospects and players out of those kinds of lottery tickets. So it's an example of the Dodgers just being good at everything, which basically they are. They have the most money, but they're also really good at developing prospects and holding on to young players. And I wrote an article years ago for Grantland about how the Dodgers were just building this

juggernaut that would be really hard to derail. And I was talking to Stan Kasten at the time, and he said, you know, we can just make this machine that just keeps chugging along because we can spend, but we can also be smart. And the Dodgers are doing that. So this is a product of that approach. Yeah. And I think this is a trade that makes a lot of sense. All right. Well, now you can go write about it.

Makes a lot of sense. All right. Well, now you can go write about it. You can, and we hope you will, support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild, signing up, and pledging some small monthly amount. The following five listeners have already done so. Derek Wisner, Skylar Thompson, Jenny Lansdowne, Philip O'Hara, and Frederick Hines. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash

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Tonight in L.A. Tonight in L.A. Well, it's got to be that way Tonight in L.A. And I think of you And we own each other