Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1253: Executive-Producing Players

Episode Date: August 8, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben’s excursion to a Helena Brewers game, Matt Davidson‘s relief excellence, Juan Soto‘s historic performance, Kole Calhoun‘s resurgence, the A’s acquiring Mike Fiers, Mike Trout’s 27th birthday, and more, then (25:14) talk to former big leaguer (and former live guest) Fernando Perez about the 10th anniversary of the […]

And I've grown tired of traveling alone, tired of traveling alone. I've grown tired of traveling alone, won't you ride with me? I've grown tired of traveling alone, tired of traveling alone. I've grown tired of traveling alone. Won't you ride with me? Won't you ride with me? Hello and welcome to episode number 1,253. I get that right? I'm effectively wild? Yes, you did. The Fangraphs nailed it. Fangraphs Baseball Podcast brought to you by our patron supporters.

I am Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Jooin. As always, by Ben Lindberg of currently Montana. Hi Ben, how are you? How's Montana? I'm doing very well. It's a big sky country and as advertised, pretty big sky. Not really a bigger sky, but it's a more visible sky because there's not much in the way. But I've had a good time out here.

I came to see a bunch of musical acts over the weekend and now I'm just hanging around here for a few days and enjoying the scenery. The sky is the same. You can just see more of it. Congratulations on that discovery. So you are in, what is it, Missoula, Missoula, Montana? I was in Missoula. I'm currently in Helena. And I have no follow-up question. So today, for this podcast...

I went to a Helena Brewers game. Nothing really all that exciting about that, but I did do it. It was maybe my first rookie level baseball game. I'm not sure that I've seen a rookie league baseball game before, but Brewers first round pick Bryce Terang was there. He is a shortstop and he had just gotten to Helena. So I got to see that. And this is the last season that the Helena Brewers will be in

Helena. They are moving to Colorado Springs. And this is kind of the end of an era for minor league baseball because Helena is a small town and there's a very small community park that the Helena Brewers play in. And it was built in the 30s originally and then moved in the 40s, I think. It was built in the 30s originally and then moved in the 40s, I think. And anyway, it is not the typical home park for a professional baseball team. And the Brewers have decided that it shouldn't be. So they will be moving soon. But I got to see that at least. And Helena Brewers, back in, it's like this little wooden ballpark.

It's like the only park that is not actually made of metal or steel or something more solid than wood. It has a wooden grandstand, and yet there is still a trackman system that is pegged to the top of this old-fashioned wooden scoreboard. So it's this interesting juxtaposition of old and new. So two questions then. First of all, does that mean Colorado Springs is going to have two teams, or what's happening? I don't know how much this you've researched. No, I don't. I don't know whether they're just taking over the Colorado Springs team and the other team that is currently there is moving. That seems like the most logical thing.

But Helena, despite being the state capital of Montana, there just aren't all that many people in Montana and there aren't many people in Helena. And so it's kind of a small place to have a minor league baseball team, even a pioneer league baseball team. So I'm kind of glad I got to see it. I would imagine there's a good number of very low level professional baseball players who are going to be relieved to go play baseball somewhere other than Helena, Montana. Just to say nothing about Helena, Montana, but is to say something about isolating young people from their families and communities that they're familiar with. Not many baseball players coming out of Montana. Yeah, somewhat storied history, though.

Gary Sheffield started here. Ryan Braun started here. Jonathan Leucroy, I think, started here. And some other really good players. Did I say Ryan Sandberg? He started here. It's also where Santos Saldivar of the Sonoma Stompers played a couple of seasons ago. Not quite as storied as Braun and Sandberg and Sheffield and so forth.

But it is a place where a lot of guys get their start and it's a lot different from the places that they typically play. But this was the first time that I had seen in person the extra inning minor leagues rule where you start with a runner on second base in the 10th inning and beyond, which was very disorienting. Like I knew that this was a thing and it's a thing at every level of minor league baseball, but it's still strange when the inning starts and there's a guy on second and everyone I was with and me also just had a moment of, did I just black out and miss a double or something? How did that guy get a second base? The inning just started. And then I remembered, oh, yeah, that is what happens in the minors now. I think that by definition, Santos Saldivar is storied.

You wrote a story about him. That's true. So he is just as storied as the others if we assume that being storied is binary. So the Helena Brewers franchise will relocate to Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2019, where it will operate under a new name. It will no longer be the Helena Brewers. That wouldn't make sense. They will replace the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, who are relocating to San Antonio, Texas. So there's that answer. The second question I was going to ask you a while ago related to this was, now you went to your first ever Rookie League baseball game. And I know that when I go to baseball games, if I'm there

with people who know what I do do or they find out what I do they're like oh so who's relevant here who's playing what do you know about these players did you do now what I do before I go to a minor league baseball game is nothing I don't look anything up I don't do research because I'm not I don't consider that work did you do research at all to figure out who to look for I did look to see baseball prospectus has this minor league tracker site where you can look up each day's minor league games, which is kind of handy, and it'll show you whether it's going to be broadcast on MILB.tv and who the starting pitchers are, and it will tell you the count of top 101 prospects

who are playing in that game. And that's kind of cool because you can mouse over it and you can see who those prospects are. The problem is that if prospects became prospects more recently than preseason, they won't be there. So the first round pick of the Brewers obviously was not a top 101 prospect back in February or March or whenever that list came out. So he didn't show up there. So it looked as if there were no prospects in this game. But I did get a roster when I got to the park and it said where everyone was drafted and so it was obvious who the prospects are the guys who just got drafted in a high round but I didn't do any additional research than that and I don't know a whole lot about guys in the Pioneer

League in general you have anything else you want to talk about well I figured we should just mention Matt Davidson because he pitched again and pitch really well again and I know that we're all over position players pitching to a certain extent and if it's just another guy who can't pitch then we don't really even bring it up anymore but Matt Davidson can pitch and we talked about that I think after his first appearance of the season he now has three and all scoreless and he's just good at pitching he's just good at it he struck out John Carlos Stanton on a slow curveball that was really kind of nasty I think he maybe had hung one a little bit earlier in the at-bat and he got away with it but the one that he got the

strikeout on was pretty pretty and he is someone who pitched throughout his high school career and he looks like he could do it if he wanted to be if he wanted to be a two-way player it looks like he could he's a good enough hitter and position player that he doesn't need to but at this point he is like a legitimate reliever when he is used and there was a stat I saw that Christopher Kamka used on Twitter. And Matt Davidson now joins Babe Ruth as the only players in American League history with 15 or more home runs and three or more pitching appearances in a season, which is kind of cool. Shohei Otani, if he homers four more times, will also be on that list.

But Matt Davidson is in some ways more of a two-way player than Shohei Otani is in that he also plays the field. 90 mile per hour average fastball is thrown a slider, thrown a curveball 30% of the time. Matt Davidson struck out stanted, which is, as you mentioned, which is I think that's good. I know I was trying to figure out the other good recent hitters who have struck out against position players pitching and couldn't find because usually it's like okay someone i forgot who was someone struck out joey gallo but that's fine because you or i could strike out joey gallo one out of every 10 opportunities but it was it's reminiscent of last year when jd davis struck out both shin su chu and the oakland good version of chris davis so jd davis was sort of last year's Matt Davidson, and I don't

know, maybe also this year's Matt Davidson, depending on how you want to look at things. Chris Davis was throwing like good stuff. Yeah, and Christopher also tweeted, so Matt Davidson, zero ERA in three innings pitch this year. Every other position player pitcher combined, 10.72 ERA in 45 and a third innings. So I don know what matt davidson's true talent era is it is obviously not zero but it is also obviously not 10.72 yeah so on monday the oakland a's traded for mike fires they finally completed the big move that they couldn't do in time for the deadline and i i tried hard i saw the news and I tried hard to find something I could write about the trade and what I successfully managed to do was spend an hour and a half accomplishing

nothing because there was just nothing to say about Mike Fiers very honestly maybe something will reveal itself to be written about Mike Fiers down the line but what really what I can't get quite enough of is so both the Cubs and the A's are good. The Cubs currently leading the NL Central 18 games over.500. The Athletics are 21 games over.500, and they currently occupy playoffs, but two games over the Mariners for the second wildcard. On Fangraphs, the A's starting rotation has been worth 6.0 wins above replacement. The Cubs are at 3.6 wins above replacement. That's the starting rotation.

If you look at the runs allowed version of war that they have at fangraphs the cubs are at 7.8 the a's are at 7.1 the cubs have a better defense anyway equivalent starting rotations roughly the cubs starting rotation just a name value alone kyle hendricks john lester jose quintana tyler chatwood mike montgomery you darvish they have cole hamels now. The A's have added Mike Fiers because they think he'll make their rotation better. The rotation is headed by Sean Mania, who's fine. Then there's Daniel Mangdon,

Trevor Cahill, Frankie Montes, Brett Anderson, Andrew Triggs, Edwin Jackson, Kendall Graveman, he's hurt, Chris Bassett, Paul Blackburn, Daniel Gossett, Josh Lucas started a game, Mike Fiers now. I don't have the salary information in front of me but that Cubs rotation is expensive and the A's rotation is it's nothing there's they signed

Edwin Jackson I think mid-season Brett Anderson was a minor league signing Trevor Cahill signed for nothing Cahill is when he's been healthy he's been one of the better starters in the American League I keep expecting that the Cubs rotation is going to start doing better and I keep expecting that the A's rotation is going to start doing worse the A's rotation hasn't been good outside of Minaya and Cahill but it blows my mind that this A's rotation and that Cubs rotation can be so similar to one another because that by all rights that Cubs rotation should be outstanding and this A's rotation should be absolutely terrible but here we are they got Mike Fiers that think he'll help and the Cubs got Cole Hamels and Cole hamels honestly at this point might be worse than mike fires but i don't know weird season maybe yeah

he had a pretty good first start for the cubs but the a's now as we speak trail the yankees by only three games now it's not just a race for the second wild card it's a race for the first wild card which i was not expecting i don't think anyone was expecting that the yankees of course on pace to win like 101 games but whatever this season This season doesn't really matter, and I think it would be more fun. Look, if Oakland or Seattle, but if either one of those teams has to play the Yankees in the wild card, obviously the Yankees are going to be the favorites, and that game is likely to take place in Yankee Stadium, and I don't want to take anything away from Yankee Stadium, but look, the A's unlikely to win that game. The Mariners unlikely to win that game.

Let them play at home. Just let them. I hope the Yankees finish as a second wildcard just because it would be a lot of fun to see an Oakland or a Mariners home playoff game before they're eliminated 10-3 or whatever the score is probably going to end up. Was there anything else we were going to talk about?

Rick Ankeel is thinking about a comeback, but lots of players think about comebacks. Yeah, he seems to be thinking about it more seriously than most, although he hasn't gotten himself in shape yet, so maybe at some point between now and next spring he will think better of this. I don't want to say think better if he wants to do it. That's great.

I read his book last year, Phenomenon, or The Phenom, and it didn't seem at the time as if he was considering a comeback but now he is it would be kind of cool if that happened he's thinking of coming back as a lefty reliever it would bring things full circle or not even really a full circle because he has not been a reliever before, I guess, except when he had to be because he couldn't throw a strike. But that would be quite a career arc. It's already quite a career arc to go from being one of the most talented pitching prospects and young pitchers in baseball to then getting the yips to then becoming a pretty passable outfielder for a few years. Then retiring for many years, coming back as another reliever.

If he were able to make it back and conquer the y years, coming back as another reliever. If he were able to make it back and conquer the Yips, that would be a wonderful story. The odds are probably against it, not because of the Yips necessarily, but just because he's a 39-year-old who hasn't pitched in years. But it could happen, so I hope it does. Speaking of comebacks, update on the Palmerosos 53 year old rafael palmero he's got a 903 ops now for the cleburne railroaders and his son patrick palmero 28 years old he's at 652 not going very well for patrick palmero relative to daddy no and we just got a request from patreon supporter and listener jesse r who wants us to talk about juan soto because you just wrote about juan soto he i

guess wants you to say the same things that he has already read that you wrote but uh not everyone else has read what you wrote so what did you discover about juan soto okay so this is fine i'll just read the entire article on the podcast juan soto looks like the best teenage hitter in history by jeff sullivan august 6th 2018 every so often it's fun to okay so once i was 19 years old and he's been the fifth best hitter in baseball but i mean i could stop there if i wanted to i guess but it's notable that he's a teenager who's played so much in the first place that's very uncommon fewer than three dozen players in baseball history going back to 1900 have batted at least 250 times in the season as a teenager and Juan Soto has already done that

so out of that tiny ass sample Juan Soto has also been and is on pace to finish as the best teenage hitter of all time he's 19 he will turn 20 after the season is over he has a wrc plus of 161 he's on pace based on projections to finish at like 151 i think with one side he was immediately apparent he was he was special because from the beginning he drew about as many walks as he had strikeouts and even now i think he's at 46 walks and 49 strikeouts that's very good he also hits for power it's for a lot of it he's got an isolated power of like 250 or something so Juan Soto is good across the board at the plate he's very disciplined he has a two strike approach I didn't know this until yesterday but he chokes up and he he squats down

lower he widens his stance so he has one of the highest two strike walk rates in baseball and he has a pretty low two strike strikeout rate even when he gets to do a two strike count he only strikes out a third of the time which is comparable to like joey fado and mike trout and a bunch of other good players so one soda was also elite hitting the ball to the opposite field great hitter not so great in the field where he's just a whatever corner outfielder but he's not a disaster he's no you know daniel pulka or some other more relevant notable player that people are familiar with but he's a perfectly know daniel pulka or some other more relevant notable player that people are familiar with but he's a perfectly fine corner outfielder perfectly fine base runner and he is

like an amazing he's an amazing hitter and he is the fastest player to reach the major leagues since alex rodriguez which is good company last season he played only 32 total minor league games because of a variety of injuries and he ended in Class A Hagerstown. So he wasn't even like on—he was on the prospect radar, but no one thought he was going to reach the major leagues until, I don't know, like September. Everyone was thinking about Victor Robles. Victor Robles! Victor Robles! That's what everyone said. And then Juan Soto decided, well, actually, no, it's going to be my time.

He bypassed Victor Robles. And now if you're the Nationals, not only does Soto help your case for the rest of this season but moving forward when you develop a star like that it makes it easier to accept losing a star like harper and or daniel murphy as free agents this offseason so i don't agree with everything the nationals have ever done i think they've been a weird and complicated franchise but when you can develop stars or acquire stars like they have a track record of, then it makes it pretty easy

to stay competitive. And if Soto and Robles are both ready to be really good next season for dirt cheap and they'll be under team control for years, then it's hard to see

the Nationals falling off a cliff. Yeah. And I have one more update to offer, which is about Cole Calhoun so we talked about cole calhoun early in the year when he was just extremely cold and slumping severely and i wrote about him this week maybe the article is up by the time you're hearing this because he has turned his season around in a very dramatic way so i looked looked up some numbers. Cole Calhoun had a 374 OPS through May, through the end of May. That was, I mean, pick a player that you think is having a

rough offensive season or had a slow start to the season. Cole Calhoun was worse. He was literally the worst hitter or the worst regular hitter in Major League Baseball up to that point. I dove a little deeper using some baseball prospectus stats. That was literally the coldest start to a season ever through May. I looked up, this goes back to 1950. Baseball prospectus has a stat called RPA+, which is basically the same as OPS+, or WRC+. It's just the same sort of 100 is average, lower is worse.

Cole Calhoun's RPA+, through the end of May was negative nine. That was the worst of any hitter on record with at least 150 plate appearances. Again, back to 1950. And he was terrible in April, then somehow got even worse in May. So he went on the DL with an oblique injury at the end of May, and he told me, I talked to him this past weekend, he said he was just swinging so much and so hard to try to get out of this slump that he thinks he hurt himself.

And it was partly a mental break, too. He just needed some time off, but it was also not wanting to hurt the oblique worse than it already was. So he went down to Arizona, took a couple weeks off. He healed, but he also worked with a couple of minor league coaches in the Angels system who are former big leaguers themselves, Sean Wooten and Jeremy Reed, and they diagnosed his issues. He had tinkered with his swing over the offseason.

He said he didn't really know what he was doing. He was just making some adjustments. It sounded like maybe he was trying to hit more fly balls, although he wasn't really thinking about launch angle specifically. But he made some changes. It didn't go well. He got into some bad habits. He just wasn't getting into a good hitting position. He was sort of on his backside and not shifting his weight. Anyway, he got down to the minors, they looked at some video, they diagnosed these problems, and they fixed him. And he now has this very pronounced crouch that he didn't really have before, but the purpose of it is just to have him start in the hitting position that he wants to be in. So it's sort of not the way that he used to stand before, he was much more upright, but he would kind of get into this crouch by the time his bat met the ball.

And now he's just sort of starting that way to remind himself to do that. And so in July, as many of you probably noticed, he led the American League in home runs. He hit 10 home runs. He tied in WRC Plus in the league in that month with Jose Ramirez. So he basically went from colder than he's ever been to about as hot as he's ever been and colder than any player in baseball to as hot as any player in baseball. It's an incredible turnaround. And I look to see just whether there's ever been a mid-season turnaround like this. And he does have a chance to have kind of the best post-May rebound ever. But there's only one hitter who has ever had as big a difference

between his hottest and coldest month, calendar month, in a season. That is Ron Fairley in 1966. So what Cole Calhoun is doing is, well, it's about as extreme a season as any hitter has ever had in multiple ways and it's nice to see him get back on track and he's just been hitting so well that his numbers now for the full season are not good but if he keeps hitting up till the end of the regular season like he might end with stats that look more or less like last year's he's kind of in the range where he could get back up to that point which is incredible and And, you know,

he said when he came back from the DL and he was staring at this 374 OPS in mid-June, he, you know, he said, well, I was taking it one day at a time, which is a cliche, but when you have a 374 OPS in mid-June, you really do have to take it one day at a time because you just can't even look at your whole season because it would just be too depressing so it's great that he has turned it around like we mentioned that he was slumping early on and then i think we stopped talking about it because it was like we were talking about last week you don't want to kick a guy when he's down and it was just getting worse and worse and worse and now it has gotten better by an incredible amount so good for cole calhoun and good for good for Jeremy Reed for being involved

because Jeremy Reed was one of the most disappointing professional hitters that I've ever laid eyes upon. And so for him to be able to contribute to a player like this, helping his career, Jeremy Reed is, I don't know how old he is now, like 24 or something. Just, you know, his career went by the wayside, but I'm glad that he's still around

and helping a player like this. And it's going to be funny at the end of the year when Cole Calhoun is very Cole Calhoun looking numbers. And you just look at his player page and you'll be like, yep, just another regular season. No.

You think Ruganet Odor has been hot and started cold, but Cole Calhoun just blows that. He turns that up at 12. Yeah. All right. So we can end there. We have a guest to get to, by the way,

wanted to wish you a happy Mike Trout's birthday. It is Mike Trout's 27th birthday on Tuesday as we speak. I don't have anything else to say except that Mike Trout has accomplished an incredible career before his 27th birthday. Unfortunately, Mike Trout is injured on his birthday, but he should be back before too long. Yes. Yeah. on his birthday but yes he should be back before too long yes yeah and he is going to come back and he'll try to fend off jose ramirez and all oncoming war challengers i suspect that he will be successful and one thing we didn't get a chance to talk about because we pre-recorded last week

but just to throw it out there because it deserves some sort of podcast mention on august 2nd in a game against the baltimore royals rigett Odor drew five unintentional walks. Oh, yeah. That was amazing. I have no real fault. He also homered in the game. He went one for one with five walks. Rugnett Odor, of course, in his major league career up until then, had drawn five unintentional walks probably or something like that.

Total, just one of the least patient, most aggressive players that you could imagine. And Odor's season has turned around, and for him to draw five walks in a game, I got enough tweets that were like, oh, it's against the Orioles, so it doesn't count. But it's literally Rugned Odor. It counts. It counts. Five walks since then. Just incredible.

I probably could use that. I will use that. Probably as a stat blast for the next podcast. So just lay in the groundwork. But we should mention the guest. We should mention the guest because it's time to do that. Last year around this very time, shortly after Saber Seminar, we did our, for you and I, it was our first live venue recording,

also our most recent live venue recording, not counting, I guess, the Saber Seminar podcast. Look, it doesn't matter. We talked to Fernando Perez, which was great. And this year we neither one of us was able to attend saber seminar you because of other plans and me because i didn't want to and we are i had to i had to visit some family it's different i didn't get to fly all the way to connecticut and just miss saber seminar by like a few hours but in any case we are going

to be talking to fernando perez again because he presented at Sabre Seminar. He was just recently at the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays reunion in Tampa Bay. That team went to the World Series and lost. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about Fernando's presentation. We'll talk about where he is, his career in media, and what his future prospects are. But we had a great chat with Fernando last year. Wanted to do it again. So after, I don't know, I finish this sentence, we'll be talking to Fernando it again so after i don't know i finished this sentence we'll be talking to fernando perez again can you hear the drums fernando i remember long ago another story night like this in the twilight fernando you were humming to yourself And softly strumming your guitar

I could hear the distant drums And sounds of bugle calls Were coming from afar Okay, so now we are officially joined by Fernando Perez for the second time in about a calendar year. And Fernando, I, just like last year, understand you presented at Saber Seminar this year. And when I asked you for a self-review of your own performance the other day, I believe you said the word bombed.

Then you gave yourself a C-, but if you could maybe explain in greater detail, what was the theme of your Saber Seminar presentation this year? And at some length, how do you think that you did and maybe what you could have done better? It was an uncomfortable at bat for those in attendance sometimes were wild you know it'd been a long

summer to that point and then also I just came from the Rays party and if you read the thing that came out in Deadspin about what Johnny Gomes said Johnny Gomes just said, every time we won something, it was just like all of these young idiots who didn't know like how to not party hard. And so there was a touch of that this weekend, even though there was just like dads.

It was everyone was a dad basically besides me. And like, you know, many of our parents were there. Anyway, it was a long weekend. I tried my best. The theme. besides me and like you know many of our parents were there anyway it was a long weekend i tried my best the theme before i i started i said i would like to convince you of two things first to like the rays more and perhaps quit your team fandom or at least let's take a moment and question your your team fandom and how how thin this is and then the second one was to engage politically in baseball. And as a disclaimer, I said, I'm just going to let you wonder what that means

while I talk about something else for a while. I actually hope you think it has something to do with Donald Trump that I would be so insane as to pay my own money to come to say Burr's seminar and give a hungover speech in front of mostly white people in Boston about politics. It's clearly not where I was going with that. What I meant by engaging in the political discourse of baseball is that, you know, baseball's dying, as they're saying, maybe, perhaps.

And I don't know. I mean, I think that you guys, you know, you two and others are kind of part of this new intellectual elite of baseball. And people really care about what you think, probably more so than me, I would imagine. we have to not stick to stats and we have to engage here because um you know this is this is for the livelihood of the game perhaps that is um currently you know employing us in a skimpy way or not at all or maybe a little and so and all i meant by that is you know there i've just noticed many times where you know there's I mean I'm not I wasn't asking people to like read the trans-pacific partnership deal or even you know or even you know choose a side when somebody is you know wanting to separate a family or something I would never

ask somebody to do make such a difficult decision like that. It was just really to engage with the baseball stuff like Rob Manfred, bad, bad, bad takes. And then, you know, regrettably, I definitely fell into, you know, some some hot to medium takes on Rob Manfred for a while. But again, you know, I was in front of a lot of people and I'd had a rough night before. But so that was what it was. But the first thing that I did was talked about coaching because, you know, many people are coaches. Maybe I think when I asked for a show of hands, maybe a quarter of the folks were there. And I actually had been planning on writing something about the Rays 10th anniversary celebration, and I really just didn't get to it. I have just so much going on, I didn't get to it, but I'm going to read the beginning of it.

It's pretty timely. I'll just read it. As my best friend explained that his father would not beat the cancer, we wondered, as 30-somethings do, how did we become middle-aged men suddenly sporting our father's hairlines and prominent features who now nag our mothers with health inquiries? The end of life can be ugly, as my friend shared the dogged details of his father's steep decline. Apropos of nothing, he said, what I wouldn't give to go back to Little League. He said, what I wouldn't give to go back to Little League. So for a moment, we're back with Kraft singles, uncharted burgers, MTV party to go volume five, neon diabetes popsicles that cut the corner of your mouth. And of course, the most creative catcher I've ever seen, the catcher of our all-star team,

fielding this errant throw home and diving backwards toward the plate without looking, as nobody realized the catcher could, to tag a runner out in a district tournament. So his father, who actually passed away yesterday, his father threw most of the batting practice pitches of my childhood. These were Ross Ohlendorf-like heavy two-seamers from a low three-quarters arm slot that often hit you, though when I think of Steve Cross, his name, I think of safety. So our fathers, both consummately sane men, stood in as coaches to ensure nobody would ruin what was supposed to be fun as American asshole sports parents were coming into their own.

Whether coaches acknowledge it or not, they are executive producing an experience that will never be forgotten. My father was not a great third base coach because he thought it was a game and that everyone should have a chance to score. He just sent everybody home. I run into old friends who still ask about him because he sent them home and high-fived them at their lowest points. As we know, baseball produces some very brutal solo plays. You know, soccer does too. I mean, we can remember Roberto Baggio's moment for Italy. But you know, remember, they didn't let Buckner back into Fenway until they won a championship. My dad was a war veteran who saw more shit than he needed to see in Vietnam. So perhaps perspective was easy for him, though we can be sure Vietnam has inspired some horrible coaching.

My father never so much looked at a kid crossly or showed discontent at any time during any game. So where this ties into the Rays is that sometime during the 2008 season, Justin Ruggiano, who was a few weeks into his stint with the Rays, called me when I was in AAA to say, roughly, I'll never forget this. He just had this glow in his voice. He's like, it's like little league up here. It's just so much fun.

It's just weird. It's so much fun. And, you know, the experience that Joe Maddon was producing was not otherworldly, though in the context of baseball's dank windowless culture, it was totally revolutionary. So this pie in the sky ruled my daydreams in the outfield in triple a and when i eventually arrived there the experience with that team crystallized everything wrong with every team i had ever played on players often directly experience their coaches personal issues and we are so much better at diagnosis today. Looking back, you might see a

coach's depression, insecurities, or temper totally ruin that summer and perhaps a full region of your mind. The uniform normalizes the temper, the racism, the toxic masculinity, and the games always distract us. But looking back, it's a lot easier to see, especially now, and I hope it sticks. It was when Pennsylvania Joe first said to me, he said this, try to succeed. Just don't try not to fuck up. I think I mentioned that to you guys in the first podcast that we ever did together. But he said this to me, try to succeed. Don't just try not to fuck up. And I realized I had been learning sports and possibly everything all wrong my whole life so you know this was a you know a company that i worked at the rays were there were good times there were bad times good pay bad pay good supervisors bad ones

you know i don't need to provide extensive proof of this many of you guys already know what it's like to work for a company good times mismanagement good pay bad pay bosses with emotional problems the Razor less of a franchise than an idea it was a really really bad idea at first and Kelly Green of course there was the accidental tanking and tanking and tanking and then a holy shit we have all of these first rounders with bad goatees and you know as as Johnny Gomes said, and I read the athletic thing where he said, you know, we had all these guys that were just winning in the minor leagues and winning and winning and winning. And then, you know, they all were sort of concentrated there. And yes, a lot of it was just being so bad that there was just this concentration of all these picks.

But the attitude thing was really, really huge because if I think about that team and I think about all those guys like BJ and Kaz and Riggins, you know, the self-confidence that these guys had was just absolutely necessary. beating some of these teams. And when I think about it, I mean, I was very much like I drank the Kool-Aid of all of that. It was like, oh, the mighty Red Sox and the mighty Yankees. And when I think about these guys, especially at that time, like in their mid-20s, they were really actually in this way crazy enough to think that all of this stuff could be done. And so that was really, really, really huge. Can you tell us about the weekend reunion? Was this like a team organized event? Or was it just decided to get together? Yeah, it was a team organized event. You know, we lost the World Series, but we won the the AL pennant. And so they had everybody back and not everybody.

I mean, I was very surprised that we did not have our, we didn't have Cliff Floyd and Pena there. You know, they like work for the network. It would have been great to have them there, but they weren't there. Other notables, Carl Crawford wasn't there. A guy that everybody really, really wanted to see, I'm sure. I mean, I really wanted to see him. Willie Ibar was not there, who was kind of low-key the MVP of some of that. I mean, it's hard to say that, you know, BJ and Evan both hit seven home runs. The ALCS itself was just, to me, it was one of the most, I mean, I was essentially just a fan.

I mean, I did start a game and essentially just a fan I mean I did start a game and I played a little bit and I did some things but you know as a fan it was like the most fun time I think that I've ever had watching sports but it was it was um just so up and down like I just remember in game seven when Dustin Pedroia hit the home run I just remember being so angry and annoyed at him uh and there's this beautiful moment where Matt Garza came in and Garza was obviously quite intense on the mound and you know he's just talking to himself kind of and to his glove and he's he's yelling he's like that's all they're getting that's all they're getting and I just remember thinking I was like wow that's like like kind of so strange and like I don't actually believe him like I thought that he seemed scared but I was just noticing noticing noticing stuff like I was you know I actually like I remember thinking that

the tension in that game was so great that like I did like I couldn't even imagine having you know going in there and actually doing something in the game. So I actually just being on the top step there, you know, and I look back at the tape, I just see like, I just see like this other person who's cheering for these people. And I just remember, you know, there's a ton of pitching changes, like a winter ball game worth of pitching changes. And I remember thinking, as these guys were coming off the mound, thinking like, this is some of the bravest shit that I've ever seen, as they were just going out there and coming back in and had these long walks that were, you know, televised with the camera. This is like the first couple years when they're starting to take the camera all the way out there to, you know, make the pitcher strutting on

and off the mound, like part of, of the media. So I just remember all of that so vividly and yeah, 26 home runs hit. It just was, you know, just like extreme joy or like, oh my God, they're actually going to like the bad guys are going to come back and win. So the other part of it, you know, I couldn't really, one of the reasons I never really pushed to try to publish this is I couldn't really tie some of the other parts together. So another part was, you know, when I see people in New York City wearing Tampa Bay Rays gear, I typically attempt to engage with them, though I've never ever revealed in these encounters that I played for the team. So earlier on when I was still active, it was just a reflex to offer some sort of salute.

So by now, of course, we know the story. The Rays are more or less a small tech company of a baseball team, the bastard stepchild of the AL East. We were kind of, if you've seen the Cardi B meme, the annoying little cousin thing, that's what we were. Bud Selig says you have to play with us and then things change so of course the rays revolution begins with accidental tanking slash and burn agriculture that leaves the farm crawling with all these first rounders with bad goatees like i mentioned who really just need

someone sensible enough to ignore all the old wisdom of not playing them exit chuck lamar and too young andrew friedman exit sweet Lou Piniella, and enter Joe Maddon, a longtime baseball man with enough self-confidence and charisma himself to get away with hipster glasses in, of course, our ridiculously bad culture. That spring training in Legends Field, I remember standing in center field watching David Price throw 100 mile per hour fastballs through all the Yankees that came up. He made Derek Jeter look silly, which is perhaps what possibly what maybe power Jeter, such a competitor to notch most of his major late career milestones off of price. I don't know if

you remember that that in 2008 or nine, just like half of his career milestones happened to be hit off David Price. It just was weird. And of course, I didn't think that this is how the ALCS would end that year when I was standing there. I mean, I remember standing there and in Legends Field thinking, wow, he's really effective. And, you know, you didn't have to even get ready for the pitch. They just could not touch it. I mean, there were shadows and stuff. So of course, we didn't think that this would be how the ALCS would end that year. I couldn't say for sure how everyone else felt at the start of 2008. I was still a successful AAA year away from the Rays.

And, of course, the Rays are very careful with their money. They don't do the credit card media at the deadline or go filling the dugout with September call-ups to help the team finish in fourth instead of fifth. But things were different that year. Of course, Elliot Johnson was down there, this fascinating fellow from Arizona. Elliot Johnson, if you remember that year, he decided to run over Francisco Cervelli at home plate in a spring training game, breaking his wrist. And honestly, when that happened, I could not have been the only one who felt the pressure of the narrative in the media it was this idea like the Rays don't know how to play baseball and then you're just like oh my god am I do am I playing for a real baseball team like it's sort of this weird kind of thing to get drafted by the Rays

you're just like is this real is this legitimate but there was a really important moment that that Joe whether he believed it or not and I'm honestly I don't know whether what he thought of it I think that what Elliot did is like you know he ran him over and I just don't think that he really had a choice. And maybe, you know, that's just like the way that Elliot plays. And, you know, whether Joe believed that it was right or not, it was amazing that he just dug in and defended Elliot. And then this weird thing, the Rayway was born. And that was really at that time. And so for me, it had never occurred to

me that we had to actually stand up to them. So we see in the greatest bully movies, there's a turn where the karate kid or the Marty McFly balls up the fist and he says no more. The Rays couldn't switch divisions the way bullied kids can switch schools if they're lucky. We had to fight. So I remember in the Durham Bulls clubhouse we watched totally slack John at least me as Coco Crisp charged the mound and James Shields through that hard huge slider that missed Crisp but looked really tough things were indeed different better than 500 ball you know and then for me that both the Rays and I could be good enough to be that I could be called up on August 31st not September 1st to ensure I'd actually be eligible for a postseason roster.

It sounds even at the All-Star break like a total fantasy. But this was the opening of the window. And though Rays players and staff say that the 2010 team was the best in history, that was what Jim Hickey told me when I went down there in 2014 just to talk to some players. And they got ousted by the Rangers and the ALDS. And so those results underscore that fabled postseason is a crapshoot idea in baseball. And, you know, again, when I arrived back to this culture piece, when I arrived, it felt like I was invited to a great party. I wasn't really expecting to be called on to help at all until the artist formerly known as BJ Upton went down with a shoulder injury. You know, weeks before I was crossing highways to cobble together a late night snack

at a gas station. Now I was starting most nights in center field for the first place raise. I don't know how this happened. I'm talking Jackie Robinson on a plane with Don Zimmer and we're wearing matching affliction shirts that Scott Casimir bought us. I'm on SportsCenter. Everything was just strange. So I don't know if you saw the story that just came out where Gomes was talking about nearly killing all of his teammates in Detroit. So that's like totally true. We clinched the AL East in Detroit. It was weird because we lost the game. But the Red Sox, I think we're playing the Orioles. And it was like a long like a long long game I think it went into extra innings and so the Red Sox lost so then we actually clinched

and so you know we all these like 24 year old guys were just like well obviously we should just like take our clothes off and party it's just like so weird that that's what we did but um johnny gomes takes possession of a very expensive large tv camera and he rushes into the shower slipping breaking the camera unfazed johnny returns to the shower with a fire extinguisher he sprays liberally so this is funny because we're like oh a fire extinguisher but nobody knows really how these work they suck the oxygen out of the air so like the laughing at like oh johnny gomes is in the shower with the fire extinguisher this is an enclosed space this is so funny we're going to the playoffs aha you know the laughing turns into

wheezing like quick quick so picture me 5 11 i'm dry heaving into the closest garbage can. And then picture Jeff Neiman, 6'9", dry heaving over my shoulder into the same garbage can. Now picture us naked. When I think of that first series, I remember laying eyes on Ken Griffey Jr. up close. And when I laid eyes on them both, I just assumed we would lose. And again, I just don't, you know, full disclosure, like I don't, I admittedly, like I don't have the like the mentality, the kind of like bravado mentality. I had to definitely work on that for sure. And so I'm just being honest when I remember just looking at them, I was just like, oh, of

course we're going to lose. That's Ozzy Ghia and that's Ken Griffey Jr we're gonna lose of course everybody's gonna like start peeing down their leg and maybe that's this thing when you've seen a face emblazoned on so many screens especially maybe those cathode ray screens before plasma and LCD it tends to produce a sense in your brain similar to starstruckness and no matter how unimpressed you are with stars encountering the ones from your childhood is really, really powerful. I stared at Ken Griffey Jr. for a full minute until I heard a coach scream my name. It was my turn to hit during BP rookie mistake. I was late for BP. And I forget who it was, but they knew what was happening. They're just like, you were just literally staring at Ken Griffey Jr. and you're screwing up our BP groups. jr and you you're screwing up our bp groups and so again i was i was just moved with all of the you know the performances that you know that everybody was turning out you know there's the weird snafu with balfour and uh who was it orlando cabrera with their staring match i mean all sorts of weird shenanigans that then put us into you know the alcs and if i think of game seven really

quickly i know i've been talking for a long time but i think if I think of game seven really quickly, I know I've been talking for a long time, but I think if I think of game seven very, very quickly, the game began with this amazing play. Coco Crisp, he is, he's going to bunt against Matt Garza. Now, this was definitely a, we want you to know that we are going to bunt kind of thing. It was not a sneaky bunt as a, as a person who's done a lot of bunting. You know, when you're going to bunt for a base hit, you definitely want to play that to your hip. But I just remember, if I look back at the tape, it's probably confirmed, Coco wanted us to know that they were going to bunt because Matt Garza is horrible at fielding bunts. So like I said, in 2013, I had this idea that I was I was going to write like a long story about the Rays. And then what happened was the things that I was being told, I lost my nerve for two reasons. First was that, you know, this was all really special to me, because right after this, I had basically a career ending injury. And so, you know, the the 2008 playoffs is like a quarter

of my career. So of course, I know it all so well. I didn't have many, many other games sort of wash over it and sort of erode my memory of those games. And when I was asking guys, you know, you're you're I sat down, had dinner with Joe and sat down, had, you know, hung out with Longoria and Price and some guys, they were struggling to actually and sat down, had, you know, hung out with Longoria and Price and some guys. They were struggling to actually remember those games because if you'd imagine, I mean, they went to the playoffs again. There's like five more years of games, whereas I'm just sort of privately thinking of these games like this is basically my whole career. But not only that, there was a lot of things that I heard that I was like, oh, wow, those secrets are way too good to tell right now. And I sort of lost my nerve on writing it because it's just, you know, I wouldn't be it would just be sort of a like a boring, like half truths kind of thing.

And I, you know, I just can't really can't really do that. which was really interesting is that sometime between spring, sometime like in, but before the playoffs like began, you know, you have a couple of days off here and there, you know, Matt is just look great pitcher, horrible at throwing the bases really bad. If you look at,

you know, there are some highlights of him in Chicago. I mean, throwing them into the stands. And so they knew that, and that was the plan. And I ended up playing somehow playing paintball with Coco Crisp and John Jaso and Josh Reddick. That's actually amazing. Now I think about that is not a normal thing. But when I was talking to Coco about it, he, you know, of course, he was trying to jog his memory because he's been

in the playoffs 18 million times as well. And he's just like, oh, yeah, we wanted him to know that we were going to bunt and keep bunting. So, you know, Coco drops a bunt and it's not that good. And if you watch on the tape, Matt Garza, he comes up when he fields it. So what we mean by coming up early is that, you know, if you're ever at a baseball game and you hear players yell, stay down when there's just a routine ground ball, an easy ground ball, we just have this tendency, you know, having fielded so many ground balls to sort of start coming up before the ball's in your glove. And that's why they yell, stay down.

It's easiest to do it on those because, you know, especially in the moment when your head is shaking and all the people there, the adrenaline's there, you just kind of come up too easy. Well, Matt did it. But if you watch when the ball goes into the glove, it just barely ekes into the corner of his glove. So even though he comes up early, he has it in his glove. And he basically nervously, I mean, it does not look good. He nervously wings over like a 90 milemile-an-hour fastball at Pena, and it hits him in the chest. And I remember thinking as soon as that happened, I was like, oh, we're going to win the game.

We have to win the game because he's fielded a bunt successfully and thrown it. And I think in that moment, had he thrown it away, it was all over. Yeah, so I've spoken a lot, if you have anything to say. I did something that we didn't talk about when we recorded last year, but something it's easy to forget now because, of course, the Rays beat the Red Sox in the ALCS in Game 7, but the Rays were up 3-1 in that series, and then in Game 5,

I remember watching this, the Rays were up 7-0 in the bottom of the 7th inning, and then the Red Sox scored 4, then they scored 3, and then they walked off with a run on the 9th, and the Red Sox scored four then they scored three and then they walked off with a run on the ninth and the Red Sox came back they won eight to seven then they won game six and that forced game seven but I was wondering you just spoke about how well you remember this playoff run since it was most of your career but how did how did a team like the Rays and how did Joe Maddon actually help the team to bounce back from that defeat because you look at that, and in retrospect, you think about the 2002 World Series where the Giants blew a big lead against the Angels late in the game

and they lost the World Series. It's easy to see how this could have been overwhelming and crushing, especially given that the Red Sox had just won the World Series the year before. So how did the team bounce back from just a devastating Game 5 defeat like that? Yeah, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the narrative that we did a thing to do that. I just think that we just won the next few games. I think that that bravado that I mentioned before, of just all of these dudes who really actually thought we could win,

when then you had also other people who are like you know realists or whatever that is we're just like oh well of course we're probably gonna lose I mean it's the Red Sox you know but we just had all of these guys who were just like yeah whatever we're unfazed but a really good story from that point I mean I just remember um when we lost that game when they came back I was actually sick and I've never felt sick from something that I've seen in a dugout or on a field. Like I felt actually physically sick. But there's another interesting thing that happened. When we're up about 7-0, like idiots on the bench, players begin talking about what we're going to do with all of the time off. And so, you know, this is where

people say, oh, the baseball gods, they came down and they said, you must punish these young, brash idiots and have them lose this game. And there's this man, we're in the dugout, and this guy, the most Boston looking guy ever, you know, like a polo shirt, boat shoes, khakis. He walks up to the dugout, just casually walks up and he just looks into the dugout and he goes, you guys having fun? And I don't remember who said it. It might've been me, but there was a variation of something like, I mean, yeah, look at the scoreboard. And, you know, he said something like, OK, you know, yuck it up. But you guys will soon feel what it feels like to lose three games in a row to the mighty Boston Red Sox. And then he just walked away.

He just walked away like it was a it was a fucking movie. He just walked away. away like it was a it was a fucking movie he just walked away and i hope the guy is like a fan of the pod and is listening and can just like actually tell us what he really said but holding his beer he just said that and walked away and you know there was some uneasy laughter like okay that was really weird and then it just started happening and And I'm sure that that man, what he said, contributed to the very, very, very sick feeling that, you know, that I had. And then, you know, like they won another one. And like, you know, Papelbon closed that game and he was doing his like Papelbon-y thing. And I'm like, I hate this.

I don't like the way this story is going. But, you know, obviously we ended up winning the game i think that it's it's easier perhaps it's easier you know once it goes to the three three the one game thing is just a little bit easier but i mean that game it didn't you know it didn't start off well like i said there was the home run you know that pedroia hit that was actually like kind of like it was horrifying uh and matt came in kind of talking to himself promising that you know all of the right things would happen and you know the right things ended up happening so you talked about how coaches executive produce the players experience or kind of curate what it's

like to be on the team in what ways did other coaches, non-Madden, non-Rays coaches, executive produce a suboptimal experience? What are the mistakes that coaches can make? You know, I think that an easy one that I can point to without naming any names is for coaches to forget how hard the game is. And we see that just on the announcing front, even though that's just something that we don't really notice, because I feel like if you think a player, a former player who is not Mike Trout or Barry Bonds or Mookie Betts, who's like, who are like the best players to play the game, you know, those guys don't become announcers.

A-Rod is just doesn't count. That's just a longer story. I don't really think A-Rod has played many seasons, not on drugs, but we won't really get into that right now. I just think that many people, they forget what it's like to play. And so if they're in the announcer's booth or they bad and i think that there are managers that sort of lost sight of how difficult it was to play and if anyone should know it's a former player to know how actually lost you can be at times you know when know, you haven't gotten a hit in two or three weeks. And for the manager to kind of like look at you like somebody that should be quarantined is just it's a really,

really bad look. But I think, you know, the big point that I'm trying to make about the executive producing thing is that in the moment, we're obviously we're trying to win games. And we're always trying to win games. And whether you're trying to win them in little league or you're you know under 14 weird travel team financial swindle thing whatever it is that you're trying to do you know what later on all of these people are going to be stuck with this experience that's either going to be positive or negative and so so from what I had seen, it was the first time that all of that, that experience was like, there was just great care in producing that very, very well. And, you know, if you think about it, when Justin Ruggiano called me and told me that, and again, I mean, just, he had this, this glow in his voice that I had never heard. He was hitting like 150

or something like that and he's just like this is just so much fun and I remember thinking I'm just like I'm like it's comfortable for you I mean like we're all thinking that you're coming back anytime soon and that you know to me that really really said it all and so and it's just it's important I mean we're if if I think with of all these, like I'll just reiterate it. If I think about all these other experiences, it's like there was some sort of fear that was projected onto the team. Now, again, that's just how, if you think about the way people parented 40, 50 years ago, it was just like, well, fear works pretty well. Let's just work with that.

And then obviously that sort of eroded. Well, coaches have done the same sort of thing. You know, there's, you know, you can, I just am thinking of times that I've heard assistant coaches and say, you know, like, oh, I think you got to yell at them this time. I think you got to do it. Just like, well, you're actually uncreative. You cannot think of another way of, of organizing what you need to, you know, say to these players. And you're just going with that one. And sure, that works. Sometimes, I think that there have been times I've been scared into succeeding. But it's sort of, to me dovetails with that idea that if you are, if you're trying not to fuck up, it's definitely not as good as trying to succeed. And I think that really, up until that

moment, I mean, if I had known that and thought of that much earlier, I think that it would have been far better for me. I think that I was, you know, as a result of all of the coaching, or most of the coaching, I would say, up until that point, I was really just trying not to mess up. And again, you know, I have my own bias from my own brain and my own experiences that made me the type of like human on the field that I was, but definitely a game changing moment. So I realized that I dropped the thread of the clothing of watching people and seeing people wearing raised gear in New York. New York. And so, you know, if I think of 25 instances of attempts to engage people in New York City, 20 of them are just sneakerhead types for whom the raised 20 year range of uniform evolution just offers another color scheme or for a fresh outfit. This one woman I talked to had no idea that her throwback rainbow manta ray hat was an actual major league team. I talked to her on

the train and she was just like, she was from the Bay was so cool she's like i just thought it was hella gay and i bought it drunk and and um and and so you know look we took all the fans we could get so again i'm just kind of like trying to read through some of this strange article that i attempted to write if i think there's no more complex and strangely layered crowd noise that I've ever heard than when the Yankees or Sox come to Tropicana Field and David Ortiz or Jeter step to the plate and the 5,000 Rays fans try to boo and beat down the wall of sound of the 10,000 Yankee fans or Red Sox fans that have come to the stadium it's stranger still when A-Rod comes to the plate because he's A-Rod with

everything he means to everyone bouncing against the scaffolded lid of the biggest crock pot you've ever seen. That's really what it looks like from the highway. Tropicana Field looks like a crock pot. So this one story, this one time, this young man wore a Carolina blue trimmed white patent leather Jordan 12s with white sweatpants. And they tapered the way baseball pants used to taper. And he had a white Rays jersey with a Carolina Blue Rays hat. And he was waiting to board the crowded A train I was deboarding, now more slowly noticing him in Union Square.

And it was just a reflex. I opened my mouth to say something. Maybe, maybe like my man, kind of Denzel Washington like though there was a tap at my back more of a football linebacker move someone late for something trying to get off the train so as I pointed at this guy and pounded my my chest twice I didn't really form words but only made a strange noise though at least I was smiling which could have been worse because as the man yanked off his earbuds to try to understand what I was saying to him, this is the guy, of course, with all the raised gear on, the next words he heard me say were, let me see the back. So he thinks maybe I'm

like hitting on him or something. So I wanted to see the back of his jersey, of course, so badly, in fact, that I repeated myself and moaned a bit though the man couldn't help facing me frontward so i couldn't see the back of his jersey while presumably still wondering why i'm talking to him so though in my mind i may have been in full uniform raised uniform you know in reactuality i was just wearing a civilian outfit. I was just like in civilian clothes. So the horde of people between us obscured the view of the numbers. And as the guy, you know, he rolled his eyes and shook his head and disappeared on the train, probably thinking I was sexually harassing him. So it's like this, this moment where whenever I see people in the,

in the world wearing raised gear, because it's like, again, it's like this team that who knows anything about. It's high risk, high reward, because usually it's just, like I said, sneaker heads. It's like another color scheme. But here and there, you meet somebody who's just like, oh, I just love everything about them. I just love what they stand for. And that happens like once in a blue moon where somebody says something. And this one time that I actually did get into a conversation with a guy who just like he just, you know, loved the that, you know, they did so much with so little and that they were so innovative. And and, you know, I I actually did tell him that I played for the team, which was the only time that I've ever done that. You know, usually it's just like kind of like congratulating people for, you know, for kind of like liking that tiny band that you also like, you know. Yeah.

Well, that's something that comes up with us at times because we like talking about the Rays because they do things that no other teams do. And we talk about the opener and we talk about their wachachi swaps and they're playing pitchers at third base and all this innovative stuff that they do. But, you know, I think it's kind of an interesting intellectual exercise. Well, how do you win without spending? But then there's a backlash, I think, you know, in some ways a deserved backlash to teams that don't spend.

And it's, you know, you're celebrating the fact that they can win anyway, or they can at least put a respectable team on the field. But on the other hand, it would be nice if they spent some money. And as a former player, I don't know whether you think about that in a different way than we do or that most people do because you know you were in a position to perhaps make some of that money potentially so it's kind of a conflicted feeling because on the one hand you want to recognize the cleverness with which they construct their roster and yet on the other hand you don't necessarily want to celebrate their being miserly or just not spending what, in theory, they probably could. Sure. I mean, not to be a centrist, but I think ideally you want it to be

a little bit of both. Ideally, you'd want them to do the same things that they're doing, but then spend a little money. I mean, one of the biggest criticisms of Andrew Friedman during that playoff run is that there were two September call-ups. There was basically two or three September call-ups. It was like me and David Price. And they didn't really make any move at the deadline. And, you know, did that cost us the World Series? I don't know.

I mean, everybody loves this blame culture. I think what's interesting is everybody felt, when you get close to something everybody felt like damn there's something else that I could have done for sure I remember eating lunch after the game was over and after game five was over and Evan Longoria was just like I forget what he was trying to eat and he's just like I just feel sick and you know I think he felt sick with regret. I mean, he made some mistakes. Everybody made tons of mistakes. I mean, you know, I didn't play much in the World Series. I just, I pinch ran and I stole a base. But, you know, I started a game in the ALCS and I went over. Aki and I both went over in a big lopsided win. But, you know, maybe it had I gotten a hit or two, maybe I could have been in a position to

start a game and, and make a difference. And, you know, there was, of course, you know, people disagreed with, you know, how we how we pitched and, you know, decisions that we made. And so that's just, you know, that's just like a part of it that everybody really does feel like there's something that they could have done. But back to the what you initially said, you know, my personal sensibility is, is such that when we're talking about, you know, net people with net, you know, eight to $15 million, making like net 25 to 30, like, don't really care and it's it's hard for me to even pretend to care and i could imagine like being on some sort of baseball show like pretending to care about this you know this this issue i think what's amazing is that through good decision making and being very conscious about you know. The Rays are playing 500 baseball

and look where some of these other teams are that have not made such great decisions. So that is really, really impressive. If you just think about what it means to fans to go to a game with a chance to win, that's really, really powerful. Now, the collusion thing, I think is kind of, I think it's a little bit silly. Because if you're paying attention to our game, there are ways to win without spending a lot of money. You know, in a way, I think part of what we should be looking

at is the fact that, you know, even teams like the Yankees are just like, you know, we don't need to go over the luxury tax to win, We can actually just make some smart decisions. So if free agency time comes and the market, which is this another just very, very funny concept. But if the market says that this player deserves $100 million and in your honest, you know, numbers driven, stats driven analysis, this guy won't be worth it. Why should you pay it? Why wouldn't you get around that in some way? And the Rays have always done that. Now, has it angered people?

Of course. I think that the first time that Andrew Friedman did one of those hometown deals, there was cringing. You know, it was essentially what Andrew did is exactly what Phanteks was where you come to a guy and you say we think you're gonna make 30 million dollars over your career would you take 19 right now and for many people that is really. I was at MIT Sloan last year and I met somebody from one of those fan text type companies. And he looked at my numbers and said, I would have offered you $6 million after your high A season.

And funny enough, I had a career ending injury. And at that point, maybe I should have taken it or something like that. But, you know, there's the union. It's tough to say this because as much as I love baseball, Morpheus, a.k.a. Tony Clark, there are many things that I it's it's hard to kind of agree with about the direction of of the union. So we haven't even mentioned in this whole direction of the union thing is is you know the minor league players thing yeah so you know what whenever i hear either the league or the union or anybody talking around that i'm like wow you like you guys sound like goldman sachs people or you guys sound like people who are validating insane things and so and

so I can't really listen to that but the union you know the the first gains of the union of course like the heyday of it the first gains are extraordinary and when you have owners making all of this money and you have players that are basically driving the popularity of the game who are working off seasons to make ends meet, of course we need that. Well, we're at a position now where guys are just being extremely overpaid for. And everyone knows it. Nobody just wants to say it. Now, who is running, you know, the union? Are there are there, you know, like first year guys or like, you know, up and down minor league guys? Like, no, the people that are really involved in that are essentially the one percenters of baseball.

So they're advocating to get more and more money and they're advocating to be more a part of the picture you have teams i just think personally you know maybe there is collusion who knows but to me i just think a team like the rays are acting rationally in an irrational market that's all that i see you know maybe i'm wrong but a lot of that stuff like i just can't it does not hold my attention because we're just talking about you know it's so unfair that this player worth you know 1.2 war and declining like it's so unfair that he didn't get a six-year 100 million dollar deal that's so unfair i'm like i can't even i can't even look at that seriously so i think it's easy to criticize a team like the Rays for not spending because you can talk about how the free agent market might be dying. I was talking to a baseball person over somewhere last winter, last spring, and he said that he didn't really care about all the conversation about free agency and the free agent market because he figured, like you said, it's all just a matter of compensating the the one percent so would you sort of taking your answer and and stretching it forward what the rays do do because they have a 25 man roster a regular

40 man roster even if they're not spending a lot on major league players they are affording major league opportunities to just as many players if not more than every other team so would you say that more than the free agent market more than anything anything Tony Clark has talked about, the real economic crisis, if there is one in baseball right now, is the fact that no one is paying players in the minor leagues? That's, I mean, that's all I care about. I mean, I certainly am not worried that, you know, a guy, you know, look, here's a guy who's going to enter the market soon. Isn't Zobrist going to enter the market soon? I'm not sure. I mean, somebody, I'm trying to think of like a next year kind of free agent guy.

To me, I'm more interested in the plight of the minor leaguers than I am the number eventually that Manny Machado will get or that Bryce Harper will get. Now, that's just me. You know, I think that to label that as a crisis, it kind of, it's, it's just a really bad look. You know, I think, you know, I think that a lot of this can't really change and probably won't change. And that's, you know, when we talk about some of these changes to baseball, it's really fun to talk about to you know for instance to mention like rob manfred for

instance is just not the personality to take baseball where it needs to go he simply isn't he's a lawyer and there are lawyers who are really dynamic personalities and i'm sure rob is a great guy and a great father and a great husband but he's just not the guy and he shouldn't be if if baseball is to sort of escape its own death he's not the guy now I don't think how should I explain this I just think that talking about that for a while is you know it's more of a fantasy like is he going to be displaced no is that even up for for you know discussion not really at all now the major league baseball players association is too strong you know nobody wants to say that why even talk about it because they're not going to get less strong

perhaps they're headed for labor strife, which will work that out, you know, in its own way. But that's just sort of what you know, they went from zero to one 1060, they had zero power, and then they became the most powerful union possible. I think really what I see now, I think, you know, I've met with Tony a bunch of times and I've had some, I've even met with people at Park Avenue and I'll tell you that, talk about an uncomfortable at that, I would say that going to Park Avenue and talking to people was probably the worst professional experience of my entire life. professional experience of my entire life going there and just talking to some of the people that work there I was made I mean I remember one part of one leg of this whoever it was it was I mean I'm not going to name the name but like a high up person is just looking at me like I'm some sort of alien for having any ideas for baseball and you know, now obviously when we think about the things and initiatives and things like that that are coming out of Park Avenue,

it's, you know, not all of us have like a face to put to it. And I do. So for me, it makes perfect sense why there's just like, there's like a lack of innovation and like this lack of touch, you know, that Manfred could go on this rant about Mike Trout being responsible for not being popular is insane and out of touch in many, many ways. And he was just like, he was just allowed to do that. Now, what I guess really what I mean to say here is that there are so many things that we can talk about when we're talking about changing baseball that won't really change.

Rob Manfred is just there. Nobody's going to put him out of that. You know, the owners are going to keep him there. You know, the union isn't going to say, well, guys, I think that we've we've gotten a little bit too powerful. Let's give up some of our power like that's not happening either. I think they may have unintentionally given up some of their power. Yeah, they may have unintentionally. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. But something that was really interesting to me is that the dialogue between the union and the league was non-existent and it's bad. And I understood and, you know, in those conversations, I've more typically sided with Tony and the and the Players Association just and a lot of that is just because of, you know, Park Avenue, like policies. And again, that, you know, the experience of, of going there and talking to some of these people and them being just like, what makes you think that you are of any value to us? I mean, that's what it felt like. And I'm telling you, in my, I mean, my short professional life of just being in

offices and talking to people, I was never made more uncomfortable than I was in that office to the point of, I was like, you know, I think I'm never actually, I'm going to make a point of actually never going back there. I had a great talk one time with Tyrone Brooks. Guess why? I mean, it's more of a joke, but I just thought, I was like, all right, well, this is really not for me really at all. But there's no dialogue there. And it feels often like when it comes to the game, it feels often like you have two very, very powerful forces. If you could imagine like two bodybuilders and one bodybuilder is Park Avenue and the commissioner's office and the other bodybuilder is the Players Association. And like the game is like something on the ground and neither side wants to pick it up.

Just like you pick it up, you pick it up, you pick it up, you pick it up. They have mutual interests, but they won't even get together to discuss them you know maybe since i've spoken to some of these people maybe that's a little bit better but they're just so generally opposed they're in this like stupid cat fight and you know while this is happening you know things are just boring across the board and bad across the board and there are lots of things to talk about. I mean, I mentioned fan experience. I mean, announcing, you know, there's so many different things that can happen. I guess my whole point of my speech before to Sabre is that there are so many levels at which like actual change can take place. And again, I actually don't care. I just, I just know that

other people care because, you know, in, in a future world where baseball costs $20 and I can have many seats to myself and it's just affordable and fun. Like I'm cool with that. I actually like that. I said in the speech, I said, you know, imagine your favorite band. So for me, you know, if I could imagine like going to see Kendrick Lamar or like Radiohead or Sigur Rós or something like that, and actually having it like buying a $10 ticket and being able to like have a few seats to myself, that's awesome. And that's where baseball is going possibly, where just everything is cheap and nobody and because nobody's there and there are many many ways that i just see that we can you know avert this sort of thing and i

think that there's the the analytics crowd who has become the intellectual elite in baseball i would love to see them more readily engage with some of those things you Announcing. I remember two opening days ago, I'm pretty sure, I mean, I don't remember who was in the booth, who cares even at this point, but it was, I believe, Cubs St. Louis. And in the fourth or fifth inning, the announcers were having a talk about balding, already getting into their kids' little league games. and it was just a snooze fest on opening day it was opening day there's no chance that a person can turn that on and think oh this is so exciting let me engage with that and that's what we're looking at and so there's so many different places in which i think like the suggestion of actual solutions is helpful. And so, you know, a solution that I've entered with my agent is,

next year, I want to announce a game with HQ Trivia host Scott Rogowski, who is an incredible baseball fan. He just sent me some pictures from, he went to the National Baseball Card Convention, and he bought 350 hats, because he's a baseball freak. He knows about it so well. And frankly, I would rather like, perhaps it's time to, you know, get rid of the old model. There's no there's nothing that says that you have to have a color guy and have to have a play by play guy. You don't have to at all.

There's nothing that says that you can't fill a little bit of silence and there's certainly nothing that says that you don't have to have announcers who are who believe that they're endearing themselves to the to the listener and the viewer that they believe that they're endearing themselves by admitting that they don't know about other things in life that is part part of it. Every broadcast is listening to somebody, you know, sorry to call him out, but like I'm just thinking of him, Paul O'Neill, for instance,

who almost every broadcast talks about like being out of touch with the world. Now that's fine to be out of touch with the world, but perhaps you're not supposed to be the guy on TV talking to me for three hours. Now, great. I think that he's good with baseball, for instance. And now we're talking specifically about him, which I don't really want to do.

I just think perhaps it's time to change some of these things. Now, these are things, these are not original thoughts. I mean, I've had them for a very, very long time, but they're not original thoughts. They're thoughts that everybody has. But there is this, you know, mentality of sort of sticking to stats and sticking to stats, sticking to stats. If there's one interesting thing that stats has done, and I'm not, I wonder if you guys might agree with this, is that, you know, the stats and analytics have certainly, they have, in a way, they have, they sort of check stardom.

We often are taking the analytics to pump somebody up, to gas somebody up and say, look, this guy is more fantastic than you think. But then we're also using them very often to curb enthusiasm and value in players. to like curb enthusiasm and value in players. And I think that we are, the culture is so parsing obsessed of doing that, that I just think that as a group, we are all less enthusiastic about players. The point is that our culture is perhaps getting so parsing obsessed that the players really are more,

more so than in any other sport. They are so regular and maybe perhaps now less worthy of adoration. Like have we perhaps chewed and parsed the players so much that they are, that they are less marketable. I'm not really sure if you think like a culture that like we have one thing that always annoys me so much is like the whole like like the Mike Zanino is good thing. And those are like my buddies that that are all over that. And it's funny because what what I dislike so much about it is that, you know, there's the whole we we are really, really obsessed with the like, is this person elite and is this person good or are they great and this and that and it's I think it's a good intellectual exercise of course obviously to to be able to correctly value people but I wonder if that is part of the lack of marketability

of players which is perhaps one of the main things that is sort of allegedly killing baseball one thing that i'm not sure of is whether there's a play around that it is a humbling game the players they know not to say much the jd martinez comments that were just really vanilla true comments about facing arroldis Chapman. As soon as I read that, I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, Aroldis Chapman is going to have an extra mile an hour or two for you next time you face him. It's not really valuable as a player to kind of come out and say things like that. And so anyway, I just think the marketing aspect of it, perhaps the lack of marketability, perhaps is just part of the game. The baseball player himself becomes so humble that he is he's not marketable.

Now, that is clearly never been cited by Park Avenue or anything like that. I don't think that they're thinking about that on a level like that. It shouldn't really matter to them. They should be marketing players anyway. But there are two things that I think, you know, should happen. And again, it's just easy to say that they should happen without trying to think about the great array of things, mountains that would have to move for this to happen. Well, there's two of them. The first is raising the roster level to 27 or 30. If you did that, I think that you'd see a lot of things change. We wouldn't see these jokes of position players pitching and things like that. And I think that those are, they're fun,

but they're about as fun as pitchers hitting. You also wouldn't have this thing where you have to take this start for us because we don't want to make this roster move. I think you'd see injuries go down. We have a lot of kind of like senseless injuries where a guy is in the lineup, shouldn't be in the lineup. He really should be resting the hamstring, but he's in the lineup. Now he's got a pulled hamstring. We lose him for a longer amount of time. And then of course, right, the season, it's long. Cutting 20 games and adding them to a playoff schedule, of course, you'd have teams that would be angry because they wouldn't get those gates. The teams that are not playoff bound wouldn't get those gates. But you would then have a day built in for media and for things like that.

It's so hard if you are a Sports Illustrated or a Fangraphs or whoever you are to do things with baseball players, they just don't have time. It's not that they're just totally stubborn assholes. They just don't have time. So if you have one day off or two days off a month, you're not trying to spend three hours doing some sort of shoot. That is a little regarded to me, a very, very little regarded fact of why some of these other sports, you have these media campaigns that these football players and basketball players are doing. How do they have the time for this? Well, they have days off. But, you know, another thing that would never perhaps happen that, you know, should and could happen.

Okay, I rarely say this, but we are literally out of time. We have actually exhausted the time available to us on our current recording account. So we will have to stop you there. But Fernando, thank you very much for coming back on. All right, that will do it for today. By the way, when Fernando was talking about not being able to care all that much about whether a millionaire is a multimillionaire or a multimillionaire is a multimultimillionaire, I was thinking of

Evan Longoria, whom he mentioned. Longoria, of course, signed a notoriously team-friendly extension with the Rays, for years was underpaid relative to what he would have earned on the open market. Now, on the one hand, Evan Longoria, by the time he retires, probably will have made, oh, $130 million, maybe more than that, playing baseball, which is pretty good. And maybe in terms of quality of life, there's not all that much difference between $130 and $150 or $130 and $200 even. So I do understand that perspective and certainly think that the more acute issues are minor

league pay and pre-arbitration player pay. But even with the wealthy guys, the problem is that if the player's not making that money, it's just going to the team owner who has even more money. So yes, it's a matter of making either one wealthy person more wealthy or one incredibly rich person even more rich. I understand that that may not excite the passions, but I do think that's why people care about it. It's not a matter of the money going to the player versus to the fans, for instance. It's to the player versus to the fans for instance it's to the player versus to the owner you can support this podcast because we do not have evan longoria money by going to patreon signing up pledging some small monthly

amount at patreon.com slash effectively wild following five listeners have already done that ira aranin mackenzie watton daniel delosich arjun b Bose, and Andy Monaghan. Thanks to all of you. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcastoffangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We will probably take your emails next time.

Talk to you then. Out there the blues will never find me Oh, I'm going to Montana to rest my soul