Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1637: The 2021 Minor League Free Agent Draft

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the experience of podcasting about baseball in 2020, what purpose they think the Hall of Fame serves, and whether they would consider giving up their Hall of Fame ballots, then ring in the new year by extending an old tradition and conducting the eighth annual Effectively Wild Minor […]

Oh, it's a new year, where there comes new hope and new fears Met a young man who was in tears He asked me, what induces us to stay here? I said, I don't know much and I'm not lying But I think you just have to keep on trying And I know I am naive But if anything That's what's going to save me That's what's going to save me

Hello and welcome to episode 1637 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I am relieved that we have reached the last episode of 2020. And the last day of 2020. Yeah, you may be hearing this in 2021, a different world, but we are recording this on New Year's Eve. And boy, it's been a year. It's been difficult to do this podcast at times this year, but I think involving baseball and reasons not involving baseball at all. But somehow we managed to muddle our way through 150 plus episodes of this thing, despite having less baseball than usual.

And I think it was good. We talked about a lot of things that we probably should have talked about more before 2020. And along with the rest of the world, we were forced and encouraged to have conversations that maybe we hadn't had as often as we should have. And I think that was good for the show. It was not always easy to talk about or easy to listen to, but I think it was a good direction for the show to go in. And I hope that people enjoyed what we did this year. And hopefully we kept it light and silly and fun and frivolous at times too, because I hope that people enjoyed what we did this year. And hopefully we kept it light and silly and fun and frivolous at times too, because I know that we all needed that. Yeah, I think that we all

needed that. We all needed, you know, it's just nice to know I was going to talk to someone three times a week, two times a week, however many times a week. It was a year where conversation was really welcome and valuable, even when it was uncomfortable as it was necessarily, as you said at times. So, um, yeah, we just really appreciate everyone hanging out and sticking with us. And I hope that, you know, next year, which is in 12 hours or whatever, as we're recording this, you know, it's not like it magically turns over when the clock strikes midnight, wherever you are, but hopefully we're in for a year with better health and more baseball and everyone sort of renewing their efforts to take care of one another. And we hope that we can be background noises.

Everybody does that. Yeah, we were just reading a pretty touching post in our Facebook group from a listener named Joe, who was reminiscing about a year ago when he was listening to the last minor league free agent draft while his wife was going through some serious health issues. And fortunately, she is okay. But at the time, he said it was somewhat comforting to listen to something just sort of silly and yet faux serious as the minor league free agent draft. And we heard from a lot of people this year who said similar things. And I know a lot of people found it more difficult to listen this year, probably both because baseball was gone for long stretches of the year and

because we had no commutes and it was just harder to find time to listen to podcasts. But for those of you who stuck with us or were with us or are with us now, we really appreciate it. And it has been great to get your emails and your tweets and your comments and all of that, just to know that we're not talking into the void here, that people are listening. And as you said, it has been nice to be able to look forward to talking to you or Sam or whoever else we're talking to throughout this year, because we all lacked a little structure, even though we're all work from home people anyway. And so in a way, we were more prepared for this lifestyle and had to adapt

less, but it was still strange not to go outside much or see people much. And so this was an even higher percentage of my social interaction than it is in a typical year. And so I appreciated it all the more. Yeah, for sure. Well, happy new year to everyone typical year and so i appreciated it all the more yeah for sure well happy new year to everyone listening and we hope that it actually is a happy new year and not just something we say so we are here to do another minor league free agent draft it is the day the time has come again the eighth annual minor league free agent draft before we get to that just wanted to follow up briefly on the conversation that we had with Jay Jaffe last time about the Hall of Fame, because Craig Calcaterra wrote something

in his newsletter, Cup of Coffee, which is actually available to all. So I will link to it if you want to check it out. And Craig sort of renounced the Hall of Fame, or at least the part of the Hall of Fame that has plaques and gets to decide who the great baseball players are. And Craig is not the first to take this stance. There are other people who have decided to stop voting for the Hall of Fame for various reasons, like Jeff Passon a few years ago. I think in his case, it was largely about the lack of transparency in the ballots, or maybe some of the moralizing and gatekeeping about PEDs and all of that.

And other people have turned their backs on the Hall of Fame for other reasons. I know Joe Sheehan, because Butt Selig got in and he felt that sort of tarnished the place or made the debates that we have about Hall of Fame worthiness sort of silly. And Craig decided to do this for somewhat similar reasons, but really, I think just he didn't want to cede all of the authority to decide who the greats are to this institution. I think he appreciates the museum aspects of it and preserving the history and all, but as he noted, we don't necessarily need the Hall of Fame or the Baseball Writers Association of America to pass judgment on who the good players are and who is not deserving.

And also, I think that as we do, he finds the conversations that we have about the Hall of Fame increasingly sticky. And we got into this with Jay last time, but all of the decisions that we're trying to make about is this person a Hall of Famer, not because of what he did on the time, but all of the decisions that we're trying to make about is this person a Hall of Famer not because of what he did on the field, but because of who he was off the field, or I guess what he was taking when he was on the field, you end up making these impossible choices, really, where we're saying, well, is this guy's career good enough to outweigh these terrible things that he has done or is doing off the field and it's really kind of a ridiculous conversation to have where we're deciding well

can we honor this person for his accomplishments or is he so heinous for other things that he has done that we can't do that and so you end up having these conversations like the one we had last time where it's like well this guy might use the platform in terrible ways. And so we don't want to give him this honor someone on a plaque, you don't necessarily have to make that decision. You can just talk about these players in their entirety. You can say so-and-so was a great player, but he was a not great person for these other things that he did. And you can just kind of talk about the person as a whole without trying to make this judgment of, well, does the play outweigh these other things? Or, you know, it's just an impossible question to resolve, really. And so Craig decided he doesn't want to resolve it.

He doesn't have to resolve it. And Craig is not in the BBWA and doesn't have a Hall of Fame vote. But I might next year. You might sometime after that. And so we might actually have to decide this same thing when it comes to be our turn to vote. And I wonder whether any of these things have crossed your mind or whether you think similarly or might make the same decision someday. I don't know what I will do when the time comes, assuming, you know, I don't goof anything up so badly that they decide they don't

want me anymore. But I think a lot of that will likely be colored by who's floating around the ballot when I get mine. You know, I think that, and Jay noted this when we chatted with him and he noted it in his piece, like this was sort of a bummer year to get your first ballot. The ballot is so fraught for so many different reasons. And I think it does, if you're going to engage with the exercise, with the seriousness that it requires, it does require you to make a lot of really difficult judgment calls and to consider questions that I think were just not part of the way that sports writers generally, not just baseball writers, but sports writers generally thought about their obligations within their profession when the Hall of Fame was first introduced and when writers started voting. This was just not the way that we had really raised prior generations of sports writers to consider their jobs, right? And I think that we as an industry have done a better job of that

in the last couple of decades, which I'm sure it's not a coincidence that the baseball writing core has sort of diversified in that time. And so you have, I think, folks who aren't white guys taking account of players, which isn't to say that you can't have a principled stance about baseball players if you're a white guy. But I think that this is a really hard slate to have as your introduction to voting i really have admired the way that like jay has approached the hall of fame in a way that i would describe as rigorous and and sort of he's had an an expansive understanding of where he needs to apply that rigor right like i think if people go back and

listen to that episode it's clear that um these issues have been weighty for him and he wants to get it right even if there's not really an obvious way to do that to everyone's satisfaction i think he arrived at a way that was obvious to him but um that's not going to satisfy everyone that's a very long-winded preamble i think that i will be inclined to participate in the Hall of Fame because while it is not a perfect institution and I think that it is not a perfect reflection of the sport as it has happened, which I think ideally a museum is going to tell the story of whatever it is that it's memorializing and that it ought to do that in a way that is exacting and honest, even when it is uncomfortable for it to do so. But it is the one we have. And I think that what has sort of when I read Craig's piece, I think the thing I kept coming back to is, I think it's perfectly acceptable for individual writers to look at that institution and sort of see it as irredeemably as failing its mission, I think that's fine. I think there's a defensible claim that doing the Hall of Fame the way we do sort of misses the broader story of baseball and that valorizing individual players puts folks in an impossible situation of trying to decide what to prioritize, even though folks do muddle their way through that. But I think it really matters to baseball players. Yeah. I think the Hall of Fame is really

important to guys playing the game. I think it's really important to guys who have played the game. And I think that we can find a way to tell the story of baseball, honestly, even within an institution that isn't perfect, because if we don't participate, then we're not going to get a good story. We're not going to get an accurate representation. And so I think that participation is important, even if I don't fault individual voters for finding it sort of untenable for them to do so. So I think that's where I am right now. But who knows what my feelings will be when the time comes. I am entering my third year in the BBWA, so I am seven years out from a vote.

And so, you know, I'm sure there will be some characters when the time comes for me. Yeah, right. I don't think it's going to be. No more moral issues with any of the candidates then. They'll all be just great guys, spotless records. Yeah, baseball players are people. And some of them are going to be great people.

And some of them are going to be terrible people. And they are not immune from their humanity by virtue of being professional athletes. So I don't think that these questions are necessarily going to get easier even if at the moment i struggle to think of someone who's whose case will be quite as odious as say kurt schillings so i think that like this problem will come for me too yeah but i do think that there's value in people who acknowledge the the real weight of these issues engaging with them and doing so in a way that matters to the ultimate result of a given hall of fame election um which isn't to say that the criticism that gets leveled at the institution from the outside isn't valuable in itself. I think that we need people who don't have to cast a ballot on the outside

saying this is what the institution needs to be. But I think we need people on the inside to cast thoughtful ballots too. So I am happy to take up one side of that charge and then to have people like Craig. I mean, Craig sounds like he's gonna try to not care about the hall of fame at all which you know on some level I'm deeply envious because it is such a high stakes way to just make a real ass of yourself yeah this time is gonna come for me pretty soon which is why this is on my mind but I think think as of today, I'm still inclined to participate and thinking

along the same lines that you are. And it's tough. And if you could just sidestep all of these issues and just say, was this person a good enough baseball player? It would be a simpler exercise. And a lot of people think that's what you should do. Although even that is not simple because you have to decide, well, is this person such a good baseball player because of something they were taking or not? And it's impossible to know that. So it's never really as easy as it seems like it should be in theory. And then if you do just decide to at least put the non-directly baseball-related stuff aside, then you have to wonder, well, maybe this is okay for a museum or an exhibit of the best baseball players, but are we sending some wrong message by venerating this person and not acknowledging the other aspects of their legacy?

So it's really tricky, and I'm definitely not looking forward to voting as much as I think I once would have. So there's that. As much as I think I once would have. So there's that. But I do like the idea of at least trying to help in this process in some way. Even if it can never be a perfect process. And one thing that Craig says that I do agree with. And I think I've always subscribed to.

Is that you don't need the Hall of Fame to decide who is good and who isn't. It's a place where we put some people in a hall with plaques And we say they're Hall of Famers But it doesn't change their actual record or their accomplishments So when Harold Baines got in It didn't make me think Oh, actually Harold Baines was a much better player than I gave him credit for And when, I don't know, Bobby Gritch doesn't get in Or name your qualified candidate here

It doesn't make me think Oh, that player actually wasn't deserving. So that doesn't change my mind, what the baseball writers collectively think of this person or the veterans committees or various era committees. And I feel the same way about awards voting, really, and I care less about that stuff than I used to. But I think we are going to have these conversations inevitably, whether we have a Hall of Fame or not, whether the Hall of Fame is in the business of pronouncing Hall of Famers or not. People just like to debate this stuff and argue about this stuff. So that's not going to go away.

It's not as if the Hall of Fame as a concept is unique to baseball. There are all sorts of Hall of Fames. Clearly, we like the concept of Hall of Fames. We like putting people in them. We like deciding who the best were, and it's never really easy to do that. It's probably easier in baseball than it is in some other fields that are less quantified. But I think we're always going to have these debates, and it can be kind of handy to have this body of players, this pool of players, who some semi-qualified at least people hopefully

have decided, yeah, these are the greats and they miss some and they're wrong on some. But I think it's nice just to have that kind of agreed upon by some people group that you can then take issue with and you can say, was this a good choice or not? Or who are they missing? But it at least gives you a starting point or some structure so that we don't have to constantly be having these conversations over and over again and deciding, was this guy good or not? So it's true that baseball existed long before the Hall of Fame existed.

It's not as if you need to have both, but I think it serves some purpose. It fills some need, and it can be good for preserving these players' legacies. And even if some players are left out unfairly, I think it still does do some good to bring attention And it was sort of a way into the history for me, I think, when I would see lists of Hall of Famers or a book of Hall of Famers, and I would read about these guys. And I think that can be good. It's bad if certain players who should be there aren't there. But I think it can be good, at least for the players who are there to get that recognition and you know i think it's more valuable on the whole to have a museum that is preserving the artifacts and showing exhibits about the game than it is necessarily to have this wing with the plaques but i think there's some value to both and i think we're probably stuck with it whether we want to be or

not so if we can help improve it from the inside if uh one ballot at a time then maybe that's worthwhile yeah i think that that's right and it'll never be perfect and all we can do is approach it with care and rigor and sort of an open mind to both what constitutes a good career and what constitutes a worthy person and do the best we can. So I'm grateful to, you know, I feel like when my time comes, I will have benefited tremendously from getting to read a lot of people's really thoughtful and at times, you know, uncomfortable grappling with those questions. And so I think we have a leg up in a lot of important ways on how to approach the problem and, you know, whether that leads us to

good solutions or not, I guess we will see, but I'm at least thankful to have a framework and how to do it. So, you know, in that respect, we continue to benefit and learn from the good work of other smart folks who've come before us and we'll just do the best we can. Yeah, I think that too, whether it's Hall of Fame debates or award debates, they can be pretty tiresome and we can end up saying the same things about the same players year after year and having the same tired arguments. But I think there's sometimes some value to those conversations, and they can be illuminating and educational at times. If you can use a player's season or career to illustrate something about baseball and value, it can be something, I think, that teaches people

something about the sport, or at least raises interesting questions about what we value or how we value it. And so I think some of these debates are valuable to have. And maybe if Curt Schilling were not a Hall of Fame candidate, we would just be talking about Curt Schilling less, which would probably be a good thing on the whole. But I think there are other conversations that are spurred by this that maybe it is useful to have you know would people be talking about these aspects of roger clemens's legacy or barry bonds's legacy or omar viskell's legacy you know domestic violence things that in the past would have been ignored swept under the rug now they're coming up and it's not fun to talk about those things, but it's also probably good that we're not just

saying, oh, Omar Vizquel, what a wonderful guy and ignoring other aspects of his legacy. So I think that can be valuable if unpleasant. It's maybe less fun than it was when we could just talk about, I think this guy was great. I think he was less great. And we could throw the stats out there and the numbers and say, I saw him play or whatever, and have those conversations. It's, you know, it's a little more weighty now, albeit still baseball and ultimately meaningless in some ways. But it's probably good that some of this is coming up and that we're grappling with these things and that in some ways it is a little less fun than it used to be. Yeah, I think that we need to, you know, having a museum that reflects the sport is the byproduct.

But you don't get there if you don't have storytellers responsible for the sport who grapple with it and engage with it honestly. And I do think we've gotten a lot better about that. and engage with it honestly. And I do think we've gotten a lot better about that. Although there have been some, you know, every year, this time of year, there are a couple of notable examples where it's like, oh, we have some work to do for you, don't we? Yeah. And I don't know if the public shaming aspect of that is helpful or not. Like it seems like the research out there says that public shaming is not like a particularly useful tactic when it comes to changing people's minds but you know i don't know if that just tamps down on debate or makes people be even more set in their ways or not but yeah i i think it can

be valuable at times like even if it's just know, someone's bad ballot is like the Twitter main character of that day that everyone's dunking on. Like if, you know, maybe someone sees that and thinks, huh, why is this ballot drawing so much attention and disdain? Maybe it's some opinion that I also hold that I should also revisit. Or maybe not. Maybe you think it's an okay opinion, but maybe that attention makes people question things that they thought. So I think we're going to be having these conversations anyway. And the fact that we're doing it through the Hall of Fame, yeah, it's maybe giving this institution and this body a little too much power or authority. You can care about Baseball history or not on your own You can look up players on your own But it is something that a lot of people Care about and it's going to be something

That people continue to talk about so If we do have the opportunity To help shape that debate In some way then I guess that can be a good thing but We'll see how we feel in a year or seven years or whenever it is that it's our turn oh man i oh gosh i'm so i'm proactively nervous well don't worry about it yet a lot can go wrong between now and then that would

prevent you from having to make that decision so maybe you'll be bailed out by something even worse. Who knows? That's a nice thought. Yeah. All right. So let's move on to the business of the day. This is one of our favorite episodes to do every year. And I think it's one of the favorites for people to listen to improbably.

I don't know that there's any other baseball podcast or podcast in general that would have a tradition like drafting minor league free agents who are generally like anonymous and invisible and no one cares at all. And the fact that we care so much about this, I hope it's endearing. There are other people who are probably like, what in the world? Why do they do this every year? Why would I want to listen to this and i can understand that too but we always enjoy this exercise so just reviewing last year's results sam cleaned our clocks oh yeah he sure did mine more than yours but sam won so the the way this works for people who need a refresher have not been with us through this exercise before, we draft minor league free agents, which is a particular class of free agents. Generally, players who have been in the minors or with one organization for several years

and they're still not on a 40-man roster and they are freed and they're able to sign a deal with another team now. It's a way of encouraging player movement and turnover and not having certain players locked in with a single organization for their entire careers. So at a certain point, they've served enough time in the minors, they get to be free agents. And so this is different from major league free agents, but sort of the same in the sense that they are now able to sign with anyone. They're on the open market. There are also some minor league free agents who have not been stuck in

the same system for six years, but they were just on a minor league contract in the preceding season. So when that contract expires, they become minor league free agents. And so these players are less famous and less accomplished than the major league free agents everyone pays attention to. But the market works in some similar ways. So we draft minor league free agents. We pick 10 apiece. There's a big list that comes out from MLB, courtesy of Baseball America, every year. And we draft from that list.

And it's all about playing time. We are trying to pick minor league free agents who will actually be big leaguers the following season. And we get credit for each plate appearance or batter faced, and we add them all up. And the person who drafts the most combined plate appearances and batters faced wins the minor league free agent draft. So Sam won handily last year. He ended up with 488 combined PA plus BF.

And of course, this is in a shortened season. So that's a pretty impressive total. And he actually hit on eight of his 10 picks, which is pretty impressive because this can kind of be a crapshoot. So to hit on 80%, that is really good. He got great work from Jose Marmolejos and Kyle Finnegan and Matt Harvey and others. That's the other thing we enjoy about this list every year is that it's a mix of lots of players we've never heard of, lots of surprisingly prominent players you have heard of who are on this list, and then

other players who were big leaguers eight years ago and are somehow still around and you haven't thought of them for years until you see their name on the list of minor league free agents so sam had a mix of those and he ended up with 488 you ended up with 177 terrible well not as terrible as my lowly total of 94 i hit on only two players i am very embarrassed by this showing so it's been a while since I've won one of these things I'm kind of questioning my process here I I won back-to-back drafts in 2015 and 2016 and I've just been shut out since then so don't know if experience is actually improving me here or maybe it's just not improving me as much as everyone else or

maybe it's all chance who knows but not feeling confident entering this draft i think that it is a tricky exercise there is so much luck involved i do think there is good drafting to be had but i do think a lot of it comes down to fluky stuff that we can't control and that was probably true in 2020 more than any other year. And so while I applaud Sam's drafting acumen, I will use my position as second place to encourage you, the third place finisher, to let yourself off the hook, Ben. Thank you. Yeah, I was trying to make excuses in my own mind.

I was pretty happy about my Cole Stewart pick, and I was feeling good about that. It looked like he was in line for an Orioles rotation spot. Could have really helped my team. And then he opted out of the season because he was in the high risk category. He's a type one diabetic and certainly can't blame him for not playing during the pandemic season. But that hurt me. But, you know, not to make excuses because I think I did a pretty poor job on the whole regardless. That might have made me look a little more respectable if he had played out the season.

But on the whole, just not a great showing. And we've always gone back and forth on what the best approach to this draft is and what type of player do you want to pick. And you can listen to episode 1590 from this past September when Sam and I talked to Justin Hollander, the Mariners assistant GM, if you want to get a sense of how teams tend to approach this. I was just looking back like the 15 combined players we picked last year who did make the majors. So on the whole, we hit on half of our picks collectively. We picked 30 guys, 15 of them had some big league playing time, and 12 of those 15 had previous MLB service time. So, I mean, that seems to be a pretty reliable way to go here is to pick players who have been in the big leagues before. Past performance, past results, no guarantee of future results, of course.

But when you've been there once, it seems to improve your chances of being there again you convinced one team that you were a big leaguer maybe you can convince another team that you were a big leaguer and i think of the three who had no previous mlb service time two had major league contracts which is something that happens sometimes so that seems to be a tell so don't know if we know what we're doing here but i think think we're better than just picking off just a dartboard because there are like four or five hundred of these guys every year. And most of them, I would venture to say, do not go on to play in the majors. So we're at least better than, I don't know, random number generator or monkeys throwing darts or something. So we beat that baseline.

Yeah. We do try to impose some sort of order on this, but yeah, there is just always going to be a, it's a funny exercise too, because so often it is a function of someone else's bad fortune, right? These guys get called up because someone else gets hurt yeah right and so that part of it is always a little bit of a you're like well we can take we can take solace in losing because it suggests good health for the people above right yes perhaps maybe yeah i don't know about you but i found the prep pretty tough this year because of 2020 like one way that we do this usually is we look at minor league stats i mean sometimes there are guys who've been in the big leagues the last year but often not often you're looking at

someone who is in triple a let's say at least for part of the season and so you can look at someone's triple a performance and say oh that projects well and some team will be looking at that and think this guy can be a big leaguer in 2020 there's no minor league season so for a large number of the guys i was looking at here they had just no 2020 stat line and so i don't know what to do with them like what were they doing all year i know what team they were with and maybe they were at some alternate training site but did they pitch well i don't know they didn't get called up like what were they doing did they have well? I don't know. They didn't get called up. Like, what were they doing? Did they have some sort of injury? Who knows?

So I don't know how to evaluate all these players. And I don't know how teams will evaluate all these players because how do you sign someone who just didn't play last year? So I think probably even bigger error bars and greater uncertainty than usual this time around. Yeah, I think that that's right. I looked at some 2019 stuff. bars and greater uncertainty than usual this time around yeah i think that that's right it's uh i i i looked at some 2019 stuff i looked at our prospect lists you'll be unsurprised to learn that a lot of these guys did not factor into those even in the very exhaustive work that eric does but yeah i i think that sort of potential weakness on the big league roster played if it's possible

an even bigger role in my process this year than it would have um in a prior year because again we just didn't really have much in the way of of anything to to lean on but yeah and not all of my targets are former big leaguers but i probably gave even greater deference to that because if you were in the big leagues in 2020 then that seems like a good sign or at least makes me more confident compared to someone who just didn't play professionally and i've got nothing to go on there so all right well i think we've added enough caveats here that we have lowered expectations and we have told everyone that we are bad at this and everyone is bad at this. It's just an inherently difficult thing to do.

So don't be surprised if we suck, but we're going to do our best as we do every year. And I don't know who drafted first last year. I think you should get to go first, Ben, because you came in third. I guess so. I don't know. I think that's fair.

You answer more of listener emails. That's a better reason than I do. I don't know. I think that's fair. You answer more of listener emails. That's a better reason than I do. So there you go. Earned myself a higher draft order for that. That's good. It was all worth it. All right. Well, with my first pick then, I suppose I will take one of the bigger names on the board here.

Mike Fultonovich, who was with Atlanta last year. Briefly, at least briefly in the big leagues, he pitched one game. He made one start. It did not go well. He showed greatly diminished velocity, and then he was gone, vanished to the alternate training site for the rest of the year. And now he is a minor league free agent. So I couldn't really tell you what the state of Mike Fulton-Evich's arm or velocity is. We have one terrible start to go on when we look at his performance from last year. But it's rare that you get to draft a guy who was an all-star as recently as two years ago, who got Cy Young votes as recently as two years ago, who was a competent average major league starter

in 2019. And he is 29. And so for all I know, he's dealing with some injury still, or he's not throwing as hard as he used to, and there won't be interest. And I don't really know. He has not signed yet, I believe. But given the recent credentials and success and just the name i think he's uh gonna be my first pick here okay i i um i didn't know what to do with faulty he was definitely on my board he was not as high as he clearly was on yours because I am haunted by the fact that he passed unclaimed through waivers. Yeah. But you are right that he was very recently an all-star. He has had some injury stuff, which can make you nervous about a guy,

but can also help to account for diminished performance. He definitely would get, I would imagine, starter innings if he is signed and then called up. Because I could see Fulton Evich pitching for the Seattle Mariners this year, right? There are just enough teams that don't have a lot of major league depth and aren't viewing 2021 as their contention year that I think that this is a perfectly solid and defensible first pick, even if I really struggle to know what to do with Fulte. Yeah, me too. Yeah, it's tough. And you also have to be wary of might they sign overseas somewhere, which is something that's, I don't know if it's happening more often. It seems like maybe, I mean, just more players are willing to go to KBO or NPB and with the continued concerns about the pandemic and when the season will start

and whether MLB teams are actually going to be willing to spend anything this offseason I think that's something that might encourage players to take a job elsewhere and if they do good for them good for their teams not good for us as minor league free agent drafters. So not saying that he is entertaining thoughts of that, but there were a few players I looked at only to discover that they had already signed somewhere. I think Sam has actually drafted players in the past. And then after we drafted, we discovered that they had already gone to NPB or something.

So hopefully for my sake, at least that won't happen. And I don't even care if Fulte starts. If someone wants to say, oh, well, maybe he'll work in the bullpen and he's had arm issues and lost a little velocity, maybe we'll put him in the back of a bullpen and his stuff will play up. That's fine, too. I just I want to get on the board here. I want batters faced. They can be in relief or in the rotation. Prefer rotation because more batter faced but i'll take anything so faulty it is i think that that's a good pick and i am going to to go a different way i am taking with with my first pick one of the guys who has a major league deal um so i am going to take jason vosler, who signed with the Giants. He is a third baseman, but in chatting about him with industry sources, I think the consensus is more that he's likely to be a first base guy. And I expect two things to be true of Vossler. I expect that the Giants are going to give Vossler a go, probably at the major league level, given the contract and just their organizational philosophy right now. I think that they are inclined to see what they have with guys like thisossler have a relatively short leash.

So there is risk inherent in this pick because I think that if he shows up and he's bad, then he will not play very much. And then I will have wasted a top pick. But I think that the combination of his existing deal and sort of where they are as an org makes him likely to get something of a shot. And so I am going with Vossler. All right. Yeah, makes sense to me.

Yeah, it's funny. Speaking of sources that you consulted, I was talking to someone last night and I just happened to bring up the minor week free agent draft. And that person said, I don't think I can help you because one of your competitors

already reached out to me about this. So that just goes to show how competitive this is. We're working the phones, working the G chats here, try to me about this. So that just goes to show how competitive this is. We're working the phones, working the G chats here, try to get some Intel. Yeah, we are. We are committed to exhausting the patience of our friends who work for major league teams the day before New Year's Eve. All right. While we're taking guys on major league contracts, then I guess I will take one of them, too. I'll take Sam McWilliams, who was a player who was in the Rays system. He was drafted by the Phillies in the eighth round in 2014, but been with the Rays for the last couple of years. And he was signed by the Mets to a Major League deal, and not just to a Major League deal, but to a Major League deal with a $750,000 salary, which is above the Major League minimum salary, which maybe just goes to show that there was some competition for his services,

or at least the Mets thought there might be other suitors out there. He is only 25 years old. I think he went over to the Rays in the Sousa trade with Colin Poche, but he's six foot seven. He was a starter in 2019. And I like when I get a guy who's a starter because then there's somewhere he could still go, right? If you're bad as a reliever, then you're probably just not going to get a shot. But if you struggle as a starter, well, maybe they can move you to the bullpen and you'll be good. And he did not struggle as a starter.

He was quite successful for the Rays AAA team in 2019, mostly out of the rotation. And again, it's a question of what did he even do in 2020? I don't know. I probably should have asked Jeff, but didn't. And so that's kind of a black box, but I'm hoping that because the Mets saw something there that he could be good

and seems like there might be some role for him on that staff. So Sam McWilliams. Okay. Well, I am going to continue our trend here, and I will take another Sam. I am taking Sam Clay. Sam Clay signed a major league deal with the Nationals. I am intrigued by Sam Clay,

not just because of the major league contract, but he's a lefty. He'll be a lefty out of the bullpen, but he's been up to 96, and he has an absurd ground ball rate. And I don't imagine that the Nationals will be especially good next year but that gives some some leeway to these relievers that they bring up and so yeah Sam Clay it is yeah Sam Clay yeah I was going back and forth between the Sams there

and I don't know if I picked right or not because i like clay he's like a grounder guy he doesn't give up a lot of home runs he's got pretty good strikeout to walk ratio former fourth rounder has been to triple a and last year i think the gnats gave kyle finnegan a minor league free agent a major league deal and he was actually sam's first pick and he got 107 batters faced out of kyle finnegan who was quite good out of the nationals bullpen so maybe history will repeat itself and sam clay will be the new kyle finnegan and if so you will be the beneficiary so we'll see who gets the better sam. Yeah. All right. My next pick, I think I will go with a known commodity here. Kind of a boring pick, but I'm going to take Pedro Stroop, who has been around forever.

He's 35 years old. He has pitched in the majors for the last 12 consecutive seasons. He was with the Reds in 2020, albeit briefly, and then I think he was with the Cubs, and he had some groin issues, but he was really good, great as recently as 2018, and sometimes you just have to bet on the track record of a guy who's been in the big leagues forever.

At some point, that streak will be snapped, obviously, but I'm going to hope that it will not be this year and that there's still something in pedro strope's arm and that'll catch on with some team and be in the middle of a bullpen somewhere and give me some batter's face and he is a free agent currently i believe so he has not signed yet yeah okay i with my next pick i'm going to take joe gatto uh-huh another major league contract guy major league contract guy i'm i'm interested in joe gatto for a couple of reasons so he has signed with the rangers who i really don't expect to be especially good next year joe gatto is interesting like he was a guy who had a really good a couple of really good breaking balls but like terrible control and was an early round high school pick and then has done some work i guess in recent years to sort of remake his arsenal with data we love guys who

are interested in data and he signed a major league deal with the rangers who are having a very strange off season of competing and not competing they're like schrodinger's baseball team of competition but i imagine that a guy like gato gets a fair amount of of leeway probably out of the bullpen although he has starting experience and so uh i have gone with joe gatto i also enjoy saying his name yeah it's got good strong syllables um i look i didn't win the major the minor league free agent draft last year but i won the name draft because in addition to i had skrnoff loop stuck and that's the best name in the on the planet really not just in baseball joe gatto is not as good a name but i am optimistic will be a much better pick is it skirnoff or is it sick narf maybe it's sick narf i don't know which i think is even better

it's marvelous either way yeah really marvelous all right well gatto was high on my list too it gave me some pause that he's not pitched above double a and wasn't particularly good when he did but again i mean for all i know he was great at the alternate site last year who knows what he was up to and yeah the major league contract always moves a guy up the board wouldn't it be funny if we had a way better draft this year with much less information? Yeah. We have to reconsider our entire approach to baseball if that ends up being true. I know.

Well, at least there's more season. Hopefully there's more time for players to get promoted. Let's hope. But all right. Although I guess, you know, I don't know whether, I think we talked at some point about whether it would be good or bad for our hit rate when it came to minor league draftees, because on the one hand, shorter season. So you'd think fewer opportunities, but also bigger rosters and more turnover and guys

opting out and just fluid rosters. So on the whole, obviously it suppressed playing time, but maybe it didn't hurt our actual rate of finding big leaguers. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, I am going to take Dwight Smith Jr. Dwight Smith Jr. is a 28-year-old outfielder. He has been with the Blue Jays and the Orioles in the big leagues

for the last four years, and he has now signed with the Reds. Not a major league deal, but he is young enough, and hopefully, I guess the Reds will be depleted enough that he will steal some playing time there. He's more of a corner guy, I guess. He's played like one game in center in the big leagues. So that doesn't help. And in his brief playing time, he has not hit like a corner guy. He has a 93 OPS plus career in, oh, just a little bit more than a full season's worth of combined playing time, but he's young enough. He's got enough of a track record that i hope he can find his way into the reds outfield picture in 2021 i respect this pick he was in the mix for me as well yeah i uh i think you did well here okay yeah okay i am going to now start to engage in one of uh my long-standing and by that i mean last year strategies of taking a

catcher because you know you just always need catchers i am taking actually one of i believe sam's picks from last year i'm taking tyler heinemann yeah he was next on my board yeah who is uh was recently in the last two seasons has seen major league time with the giants and the marlins has found his way to the cardinals and this was you know if you if you look at his um production in the majors so far it has been you know not incredibly impressive he had a very nice five game sample with the marlins in 2019 where he had a 130 wrc plus but then in you know slightly more playing time with the Giants last year was pretty underwhelming this pick was driven I'm gonna say largely by the depth situation at the big league level you know the Cardinals will famously unless

they re-sign Yachty will be without Yy or Molina. I think right now Jason Martinez has Heinemann projected as a bench player for them. And mostly, I just am not much of a believer in Andrew Kisner. I think that he is not very good and that there is opportunity for Heinemann to get playing time here just based on that alone so yeah I will take him you know like Kisser can't hit and also the defense seems kind of spotty to me so I just I'm content with this yeah no I think it's a good pick and I wish I had moved him up a spot on my board now I thought I could wait one more round but I couldn't and yeah I mean I guess I still sort of expect Yachty to be back in St. Louis.

There just hasn't been much movement there. And I know there has been interest from other teams, so that might not happen. But there's just such a long history between those two that I would think that maybe the Cardinals and Molina will work something out. But even if they do, I mean, he's 38 and maybe will not be as durable as he has been in the past. And so Heinemann could get some playing time, even if Yachty is back. So I think it's a smart pick. So I am envious that you got him. All right.

For my next pick, I think I'm going to go sort of the Pedro Stroop route again. of the Pedro Stroop route again. And I'm going to take Luis Avalon, who is in that same genre of 30-something reliever who has been everywhere and has been pitching in the big leagues for a long time. So Avalon has been in the big leagues for the last nine seasons, and he was with the Yankees this past year,

only pitched in 10 games, but pitched fairly well in those 10 games. And gosh, he's been with, what, seven teams, I think, in the big leagues, or six, I guess, so far. And he has now signed with the Nationals. So I think he had some shoulder issues of some sort last year that may have contributed to his only appearing in 10 games for the Yankees. And also they're the Yankees and they had a bunch of good relievers. The Nationals, as we have already covered, not typically a bastion of great relief work. And when they are, they send it away so fast.

Yeah. So I'm hoping that Avilan can sneak in there. And, you know, up until this pandemic shortened season he'd been a fairly reliable source of 30 to 40 to 50 to 60 innings a year and so i'm hoping that will continue for at least one more season he is uh still only 31 years old i think that that is a good pick he was kind of lefty although i yeah i guess he'll be competing with sam clay for playing time so you know i i like it when there is a little uh potential competition between draft picks it makes it more exciting yeah okay well i with my next pick i am going to take

i want to say first of all i'm so pleased with how little i've deviated from my board yeah last year i got oh ben do you remember i got thrown for a loop and it never recovered it just never got better that guillen pick just killed me killed me okay so with my next pick i'm going to take michael anoa you know what I should, you know how to say his name. It's Inouye, who is a reliever. He has a minor league deal with the Phillies. He is another one of these guys who has sort of bounced around and has been, you know, he was, I think, originally sent by Oakland and has gone to the Royals and the White Sox.

And this pick is being motivated by a couple of different things the first of which is that he and I don't know if this is a good draft strategy or not Ben this might prove to be the smallest of small samples but like I've been watching him pitch in lead him he has pitched pretty well for Aguilas down in the Dominican Winter League it is all of 12 and two-thirds innings, but he has pitched 2-1-3 ERA. He has struck out 18. He has only walked four.

He's, you know, he's a reliever who is going to a Philly team that was truly terrible. And while his recent big league experience with the White Sox is nothing to write home about, you know, I'm betting on a turnaround. Yeah, it's been a while since we've seen him in the majors. I guess it's been a few years. So that sort of concerned me.

But he's still around. He's still pitching. Still got that name and former prospect pedigree and still some stuff, I guess. So, yeah, that's uh it's an interesting one all right for my next one i think i'm going to take yet another reliever i'm going to take nabil chrismat okay love what i could steal one from you yeah that's a good pick stolen a couple from me here today already so ch Chris Mott was with the Cardinals this past year. He made his major league debut for them, got into not a whole lot of action, but six games, pitched pretty well in those games.

And he has signed with the Padres. And he's a 26-year-old Colombian right-hander, just turned 26, shares a birthday with me which gave me some affinity for him and he has also pitched pretty well in the Dominican Winter League as well so I'm hoping that that carries over and I don't know exactly what the Padres bullpen picture will

look like for all I know AJ Preller will go trade for signed three closers and Chris Mott will have no chance to pitch in that pen but i like his track record and his youth and hopefully he'll have an opportunity can i say something that might be considered a take ben sure i think chrismont has like sneaky starter potential for the padres in 2021 and you're gonna say i like that take that's absurd their rotation is stacked and that is absolutely true but here's what i have to say i think that like denelson lamette is still kind of

hurt and i think that morihan was often piggybacked uh in his usage last year which could change this year granted but i think that like if they're looking around and they're like who amongst our guys could come up and start for us a time or two when these dudes are hurt and they don't want to bring up Gore and they're like iffy on Lou Casey, which I would be because you should be iffy about Joey Lou Casey, even though he is a fellow Italian. I think that they might look to Chris Mott and be like, yo, come out for a start or two. So I think that this is a good pick and you did well.

From your lips to Jace Tingler's ears. I love this take. I don't know whether it's absurd or not but i sure hope you're right yeah okay so i i am going to continue the reliever train if only because i want to see it happen and so i'm hoping that i am like helping to um actualize by putting this on my minor league slash vision board for the year. But I'm going to take former outfielder Anthony Gose. Ah, okay. Anthony Gose is currently with Cleveland, I believe, on a minor league deal. He has just very little control to speak of.

But he has some crazy power stuff. And so I just, I want to see it. He was terrible to watch as an outfielder but has been much more intriguing since he moved to the mound and uh yeah i i am taking anthony goes yeah okay yeah i thought of him i don't really know like what he was up to last year it's like one of those cases where yeah is he still trying to do a two-way thing is he completely converted what did his stuff look like i have no idea but i like the story and uh that would be cool so yeah like i don't know what it necessarily looked like in 2020 i know that when

eric wrote about him for the others of notes in the cleveland system which like he was not a prospect he was not prospect eligible he had exhausted his prospect eligibility as an outfielder but he was like touching 100 in the spring of 2019 and he has a good curveball but he also like i said just very poor control he had struck out nine in like five and two-thirds innings before everything got shut down. So I guess that was this spring. I'm looking at the springs list. So anyway, it's intriguing. I have no idea what it looks like right now.

All right. Well, you referenced the Guillen pick from last year that screwed you up. And that was Alexander Guillen, right? Who I took with my second overall pick last year. And you and Sam, as I recall, were interested in him too. And so that sort of screwed up your draft board. As it turns out, that pick did not pay off for me because he got zero playing time. And I do not know why.

He was very appealing to me because he had zero playing time, and I do not know why. He was very appealing to me because he had incredible numbers for the Rockies in AA in 2019. He had a 1.53 ERA with almost 11 strikeouts per nine. Then he continued to pitch just as well in the Arizona Fall League, and it seemed like he was perfectly positioned for a big league job, and he did not get one. He was at Colorado's alternate site throughout the year and i don't know if there were injury issues or performance concerns or what but he is with a new organization now he is signed with the marlins and i would hope that the marlins will recognize the talent here or at least the talent that the numbers from 2019 suggested and it seems

like if you're with the Marlins, that should be a good opportunity to get some innings. I would hope, even though the Marlins are seeing better days than they used to see, still should be some openings in that bullpen. And I would hope that Don Mattingly and Kim Eng see what I saw last year. And so I'm going to do it again. And maybe he will burn me for a second consecutive year but maybe this will be the year that that pick pays off I just remember it throwing my

entire draft into chaos I made several panicked picks although my my panic picked immediately after this was Jakobonus who was one of my guys who actually saw big league time so you never know you can't get too upset about any pick in this draft because even the good picks could very easily not pan out and the next one that you get instead could pay off even better so gian is uh only 25 he turned 25 in november and i'm hoping that this will be the year okay i i respect it with next pick, I am going to take, I've been Googling while you were talking, and now I'm going to go off my draft board ever so slightly,

and I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not. But I'm going to do it, Ben. We're going to be bold. I am taking Connor Joe. Ooh, okay. Who signed a minor league deal with the Rockies, who plays some infields, he plays some outfields. The Rockies are rudderless and directionless,

but might endeavor to do something here. I am not deterred by his negative 46 WRC since 2019 with the Giants. He ended up with the Dodgers. He did better in the minor leagues for the Dodgers. And I think that he has some legitimate power and he will get to play in course. He's a non-roster invitee for spring training. And so I am going to be excited about the slugging and the minors

rather than being terrified by the WRC plus and the majors. And I am going to take Connor Joe, who now is employed by the Colorado Rockies, who are just the weirdest organization in baseball. Yeah, they really are. There's just no telling. I mean, with the Rockies, you might think, oh, well, there'll be some playing time to go around, so that's good, but you never really know

if they will appreciate the good players that they have. So even if there is a player you draft who should get playing time, they might not. See Alexander Guillen, as we just said. So yeah, who knows? I thought about that a couple of different ways. should get playing time they might not see alexander guillen as we just said so yeah who knows yeah they that i thought about that a couple of different ways one that it might end up hurting me but who knows it could end up helping me too yeah but uh you know they they've they've moved on from some some expensive vets i don't know about fuentes, and I think that Joe could end up playing it first.

And, you know, I don't know. I think it could be fine. I think that he's probably as good as Link. That's not, I can't say what I was about to say. That would be too much. But anyway. We all knew. Yeah.

So Connor Joe. Yeah, okay. I think it could be fine. That's what you should aspire to with basically any pick. I think it could be fine. That's what you should aspire to with basically any pick. I think it could be fine. It could be fine. Yeah. Okay, well, I think this could be fine.

I'm going to go with Scott Schebler for my next pick. So, Scott Schebler has been in the big leagues for each of the past six seasons. He kept his streak going by getting one at-bat in one game for Atlanta in 2020. Has generally gotten more playing time than that and was really like a starter for the Reds in 2017-2018. He's 30 years old. He can play all three outfield positions. He has basically been a league average hitter in his career to this point in about 1,400 career plate appearances, and he has signed with the Angels. And I would think that that's not the worst place for a versatile outfielder to sign right now.

He is depth behind Joe Adele and Justin Upton, who struggled quite a bit in 2020. And I don't know whether Upton still has something left or whether Adele is ready. And so there's some uncertainty there around Mike Trout and maybe Schepler will be the guy who benefits from some of that uncertainty. So hoping that he keeps his streak alive. Okay.

Yeah, I looked at Schepler. I had it in my head that he had gone overseas for some reason, but that was wrong. I hope not. No, I thought that last year, and I was incorrect. And yeah, I think that's a good defensible pick. Okay, I'm going to take, with my next pick, I'm going to take Michael Hermosillo, who is an outfielder. going to take michael hermasio yeah who is an outfielder he has a deal with the cubs he has recent major league experience with the angels it didn't go great but i think that he is he might be an interesting complement to some of their aging outfielders aging or less effective outfielders so i am going to not be deterred by the underwhelming line he

put up in all of 10 blade appearances with la last year and i am going to instead think about how he might fit on a roster that features guys like you know jason hayward who bats left where Harmasio bats right so maybe there's some you know opportunity there and it's just generally listless as an organization so yeah we're gonna go with Harmasio all right I think I'll take someone in a similar class and that is Rafael Ortega yeah and Ortega he was actually drafted before I think he was Sam's first round pick in the 2018 draft and it paid off for Sam that year he got playing time and he's uh sort of in a similar boat here he is a left-handed hitter outfielder 29 old. He's been in the big leagues sporadically, you know, debuted with the Rockies in 2012, was with the Angels in 2016, was with Miami in 2018, was with Atlanta in 2019,

and now he's with the Cubs. So I don't know. He hit well in the Venezuelan Winter League. He hit well at AAA in 2019. He has not hit well in his big league playing time. But I don't know. I hope that with the way the Cubs are going right now, he might get another opportunity there. So we'll see. Rafael Ortega. Okay. That is good.

That was my ninth, I think i think yes that's correct okay so then with my next pick i'm going to take gerson batista okay who is a reliever who was with seattle he had some injury stuff last year but i think he's gonna be okay for next year question mark so i am taking gross and batista who has been at times a promising prospect he has had some injury stuff i mostly think that that mariners bullpen which was horrifically bad last year is not likely to be all that much better this year even though they have made some smaller free agent acquisitions and done some trades that move a couple of guys around but i think that should he be healthy he has an opportunity to you know slot into a bullpen that right now is while i like will vest gonna give some time to will vest he's gonna get will vest sometimes as an aside will vest needs to be good enough to have a contract

with a vesting option because i want that tweet for you yeah i want that joke in my life give it to me and so i'm going with that and i'm very excited to get a text from our mutual friend john chenier who works for the mariners once this is done and posted telling me some horrible injury update about him I don't say that like I know because if I did why would I take him John Chenier despite working for the Mariners is still the effectively wild official statistician and scorekeeper and the person who records these picks in our spreadsheet of drafts and competitions so thanks to him for continuing to do that even though he has a real baseball job yes he's he's a peach and yeah this is one of the ways so yep all right last pick for me boy oh man there are a couple ways i going to go with Zhu Wei Lin.

So Zhu Wei Lin has been with the Red Sox to this point in his career. He was with the Red Sox in the big leagues every year from 2017 to 2020. And he is now with the Twins. And he's 26. He's played every position, including pitcher and catcher, I think except first base. And he has big league experience. And I guess he would be the first or second utility option for Minnesota going into next season. So hoping that he continues his streak and can get another big league look.

Has not hit particularly well in his big league playing time but only 200 plus plate appearances so i hope there's more in there yeah certainly not me certainly not me okay well with my final pick i am going to take junior marty was a reliever with the Giants, who has reasonably good velocity. You know, he pitched well at AA. He had like a sub-3 FIP. It ballooned a little in 2019 when he went to AAA. He has made various, say, like others of note sections for our prospect list. He was like 93 to 97 on the last prospect list

for the Royals that he made and pitched well out of bullpens last year, which I imagine will be his role in San Francisco, where as I have previously stated, they are sort of keen to see what they have with a bunch of guys. He's 25. He has a really fast arm.

So I suspect that he will get some opportunity. How long that opportunity will last I suppose will determine how good of a pick this is. But it is the pick that I am making with my final pick. Alright. Well, we did it. We did it. I don't know how I feel

about my picks. I feel like you stole some I wanted. I feel like there's some guys still on my board who I wanted just as much as the guys I took. And I don't know if I made the right call or not. Do you want to name anyone else you were considering just so that if they pan out, we look like at least we thought about them? Sure. I had like 35 guys on my initial list and you took some of them and I took some of them and there are quite a few on there that I'm sort of lamenting not finding room for yeah there are a couple like I I thought about

on the position player side I looked at uh Jose Godoy who's a catcher for Seattle I looked at Bethancourt who has a minor league deal with Philly. I still think optimistically that they might end up bringing Real Muto back. And I think there are other guys ahead of Bethencourt on the minor league side, even though their catching depth is not good. But Bethencourt is taking catching time away from Francisco Mejia in Lead Home right now, which should make everyone nervous about Francisco Mejia. But I don't know that it makes you especially confident in Bethencourt. So I thought about him. I thought about Max Moroff, who has been a recent pick in these drafts.

Yeah, I drafted him last year. I thought about him again. Yeah, so I thought about that because, you know, I think that there's some possibility that he gets bench infield reps for St. Louis. So that exists. I thought about Jose Siri, who has a minor league deal with Houston. I don't know what's going on with their outfield.

You know, they clearly have guys in house who are better than Siri, but they also have this hole to fill with Springer probably leaving and Radek. And so, but he's just not been able to, to stick anywhere. He's been in a bunch of orgs,

but never been able to actually stick anywhere. I think that he's just in his own way a lot of the time. You took some of my guys. Yeah. I'm looking down my list. You took some of my guys. I thought about Jared Robinson, who just has nice velocity

and is going to have a deal with the Mets. I thought about T jared robinson who just has nice velocity and is gonna have a deal with the mets i thought about trey supak yeah had it on my list yeah who has a deal with oakland and like throws strikes and has four pitches but doesn't have great velocity and you know if their rotation is healthy probably no role but their rotation is often not. So I thought about him. Yeah. Who are some of your guys? Let's see.

Well, I seriously considered with my last pick there, and I wonder whether you considered him Felix. I thought about it. Felix is on the minor league free agents list. I don't. on the minor league free agents list and i considered it because uh one disappointment of the 2020 season was that we did not get to see felix make a comeback which i know would have been a bit bittersweet for you as a mariners fan seeing him pitch for another team but it was kind of intriguing like he made four very solid spring training starts, like sub-two ERA, more strikeouts than innings pitch, and it seemed like he was probably going to get a chance maybe for a rotation spot. And given the way things worked out, Atlanta certainly needed starters at various times in the year and arms of some sort. And so I wish we had seen what Felix could have done. And supposedly he's still interested in pitching so I don't know I thought about it just because I want to root for him but I don't know if he'll actually get a shot

or if he'll be good enough to stick even if he does get a shot yeah I had all of those thoughts and then I thought to myself you know what's the what's the real link of emotional attachment i still have to my fandom in seattle that like really grabs me and it's felix and so then i thought what if it's bad yeah it's just gonna make me sad and there's gonna be enough reasons to be sad in 2021 i don't need another i don't need another one so So I decided to be optimistic. And look, wouldn't it be great, Ben, if Felix is fabulous in 2021? He latches on somewhere and he has a renaissance and the year away has done him well and he is just fantastic. And then we can feel silly for not having greater faith.

And that'll be so nice. So there's no downside here for me. Yeah. So there are some other recognizable names I thought of. Shelby Miller is on this list. And Kian Broxton and Fernando Abad and Jorge Bonifacio, who's only 27, was with the Tigers this year. Who else? Ryan Buckter.

A bunch of relievers like Buckter has been pretty good, pretty effective on the whole, but he's also sort of a loogie or has been a loogie in the past, and so what's the ceiling there playing time-wise? Danny Holson is on this list. Yeah, Holson is on the list. But I decided not to do that for sort of similar reasons yeah felix zach littell who was uh good for the twins in 2019 and i think sam and i talked about

this spring because he's like a cruise ship obsessive like he he spends his whole off seasons cruising with his family yeah and i actually i emailed his agent earlier this off season to see if zach latell would want to talk to us about what he's doing this year like is he still cruising despite covid or has he found some other way to spend his offseason i was thinking like wow what if he's not cruising for the first time and he's just like getting in shape and throwing because one thing we wondered about was like how do you keep your arm in shape on a cruise ship is he like throwing on the deck or something so who knows maybe if he's a landlubber this winter, it might actually benefit him. Or who knows, maybe he's still trying to cruise. Anyway, his agent did not respond to that email, unsurprisingly, but he's only 25. And I think he had some elbow issues. But thought about him and some other relievers like david hess and sean gilmartin i uh

the name crossed my mind but didn't do it derrick rodriguez who's with the rockies now son of avon brendan mccurry who was in the astro system and was is with the angels now might have more of a shot luke farrell the reliever who's been with the Royals and Reds and Cubs and most recently the Rangers and is now with the Twins. A couple like former prospects who are still bouncing around, like Dylan Cousins, who was with the Phillies, now with the Brewers, former second rounder, got a little big league action, only 26. Nick Williams, the former Phillies second rounder.

He was with the Reds and the Cubs. I think he's still a free agent. Jonathan Lucroy is on this list. Boy, Jonathan Lucroy, only 34. He was with the Red Sox and Phillies like Eric Kratz paid off for you in last year's draft. And he's much older than Jonathan Lucre, although perhaps better preserved. So, yeah, I guess that's about all I have. Luis Ortiz, another reliever type. Joseph Odom, who was with the Mariners briefly this year. Domingo Acevedo. So, anyway, lots of names who were on my initial cut here and for all I know you could take the best 10 names that I didn't draft

and they might be just as good as the 10 that I did draft but yeah I'll hope for the best yeah I Eric Kratz was like my one good hey here's here's a random catcher who's going to get some time. And that proved to work. Plus, we got to learn that Eric Kratz seems like a deeply good human being. So in that respect, it was one of my better picks. But yeah, man, I don't know if Jonathan LeCroy is number one. He probably is not. But he has to have had just one of the most poorly timed free agencies in the history of baseball. Poor Jonathan McCoy.

Yeah, I think I wrote about that at one time, like the way his career was sequenced and his earning opportunities just really did not line up well at all for him. No, it did not. You even got nine batters faced from Eric Kratz. You probably were not banking on that, but you pitched a couple innings. I definitely was not. That did not remotely cross my mind.

Yeah. Andrew Velasquez was on my board. Multi-position guy, 26 years old. Was with the Orioles, now with the Yankees. Anyway, we could go on, but we won't. This was fun, as always. And gives us a little something extra to root for and pay attention to and trash talk each other about throughout the year

and gives us a reason to be excited about some players who probably would escape our notice if they were not on our minor league free agent team. So our best to them and to all the minor league free agents and let's hope there is actually a minor league season for people to play in but also that there's a a minor league season for people to play in but also that there's a full big league season for some of these guys to get a shot yeah amen to that all right so thanks again to everyone for listening in 2020 we hope that you continue

listening and enjoying in 2021 happy new year to everyone else and to you, Meg. Thank you. Happy New Year to you too, Ben. Okay, that'll do it for today and this week and this year. Thanks as always for listening. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Marcus Ackerman, Todd Peterson, Jason Nassi, Brandon Lee, and Daniel Thrasher. Thanks to all of you, and thanks to everyone who supported the podcast this year. We know contributing to a podcast did not fit into everyone's budget in 2020,

and it may not in 2021. But if you do enjoy the show and have some disposable income and want to help us keep doing this on the same schedule and without any ads the way that we want to do it and you want us to do it, please consider signing up. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcast at vangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance, both on this episode and throughout 2020. Check out his fine work on Fangraphs Audio as well. And we will be back with another episode next week.

Once more, Happy New Year, and we will talk to you soon. The New Year. So this is the New Year.