Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1676: New Season, Who Dis?

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about immersing themselves in Opening Day action, Opening Day highlights and oddities, early-season optimism, the divisive automatic-runner rule, the Francisco Lindor extension and why it matters so much for the Mets, the perception of players’ positive COVID tests today compared to last season, what they’re most looking forward to […]

I was wrong, we're frantic and I was wrong, we're frantic and You can dance this baseball diamonds. Take all chances out. Hello and welcome to episode 1676 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm happy to be doing our first episode of the 2021 season. We did it. We made it.

Yeah, it felt good. I don't know about you, but I assume the same goes for you, that you were also happy that the baseball season started. Probably not a great leap, but it was fun. It was maybe more fun than I had anticipated. I just sort of, I was working, but I had baseball on all day. I was switching from game to game. And I know you were chatting all day with the staff at Fangraphs and the readers. And it's just such a pleasure to go from cold turkey, total baseball withdrawal to just bombardment of baseball.

It's like always such a fire hose. I forget what it feels like to go from nothing for several months except for spring training games to almost every team in action at the same time. Yeah, I actually did not participate in our chat, not like in a moment of protest, but just because I was editing a Mets list. But yeah, it feels so nice to have, it feels really nice to have baseball on in the background again.

And we get that with spring training. And certainly, you know, as we've talked about a lot on this pod, like it's not as if MLB is the only game in town when it comes to baseball globally. But like, this is the baseball that we know best and are most engaged with. And I still feel shaky about fans being in the stands.

It does feel a little bit like spiking the ball in the one-yard line. But it was really nice to have the normal sound of a game. And the reduced capacity from an attendance perspective meant that there were a couple fans that really made their voices heard on the broadcast. Yes. And so it was just, it was really nice. And it had silliness and weirdness and many extra innings games. I know, right. Yeah, we can talk about that.

It was a high scoring day. It was like 5.2 runs scored per game, which is unusual on an opening day when A, it's literally snowing in some places. And B, everyone's ace is starting, so you would expect low-scoring games. But there are a lot of bullpen blow-ups and a lot of short outings by those starters because, I guess, people are being extra careful, and people are always careful on opening day. Usually, people are still building up arm strength, but as my friend Zach Cram pointed out on the Ringer Rumble B-Show, I think the max pitch count was 99. And so you had a lot of bullpens that were imploding and made games interesting. And so there was a nice mix of slugfest, high-scoring games, pitcher's duel. You had the one-nothing game between the two Florida teams. It was a really nice variety. And yes, I think eight one-run games and four

extra inning games, which were both opening day records. Yeah. And the Rangers and Royals might still be playing baseball. It's possible that that contest has yet to conclude. Yeah, it was a nice mix of stuff. And it's always so funny when we get a day like this where there's so much baseball, albeit not as much baseball as we had hoped or as the league had hoped, where I watched baseball all day and still feel like I missed a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I know. Right. It was hard to keep track and people were tweeting at me like, hey, did you just see Williams Estadio struck out in his first fight appearance? And I didn't see that at the time.

That was pretty impressive. Actually, Josh Hader came in and struck out Estadio and Luisa Rise back to back and then I think struck out the side. But getting those two guys back to back is particularly impressive. But yes, there was no way to watch it all. So you went from feeling like you have your eye on everything that's going on because there's not that much going on to no matter what you're doing, what you're watching, what you're monitoring, you can't possibly keep up with all of it. There's a lot of baseball, but that is a good problem to have. It's not even a problem. So I did want to mention since you brought it up, not to start on a negative note, but because there were so many extra inning games, there was a lot of automatic runner rule. And I felt like I totally turned on it this year. I don't know how you feel about the rule. I know Sam was pro the extra innings automatic runner rule because he felt like it enhanced strategy.

And I was against but willing to tolerate it because whatever. It was a weird year. It was 2020. I understood there were reasons for it. My concern was that it would set a precedent and that we would never be rid of it. And I do still think that's the case. But the fact that there were four extra inning games and because it was opening day, I resented being deprived of normal endings to those games. I was like, we've waited so long for this. Why are we in such a rush to get these games over with? Do you all

have somewhere to be? I'm just sitting here. I'd like to see these games end the normal way. And we didn't get that. And so particularly, I was watching Yankees-Blue Jays, and that was a fun game. It was 2-2 right up until the 10th, and the last three innings were really exciting. They were scoreless, but it was like everyone was rallying and threatening and escaping jams. And Gary Sanchez threw out a guy at second base and someone else was thrown out at home. And the Yankees loaded the bases and David Phelps got Aaron Judge to ground into a double play. And it was like no one can scratch a run across here. And then the 10th inning starts and Rendell Gritchick leads off with a double, which is an RBI double because there's already a guy on second base.

And that's the game. And it was over after that. I mean, Julian Merriweather came in and struck out the side somehow. So that was pretty impressive. But it just felt so abrupt. It's like we're in this hard fought back and forth battle. No one can push a run across and then extra inning start. And it's something totally different. And it feels fake in a way. It's like scoring a run is supposed to be harder than that. So that's the way I felt. And I heard from some friends who were just like, oh, we're still doing this. Like, this is still a rule this year, because I think they just assumed that it was one of those weird pandemic season things that was not going to carry over.

that it was one of those weird pandemic season things that was not going to carry over. And there's probably no way out of it at this point, but I still am against it. And I feel like I'm entrenching myself further in my opposition. My reaction to the rule makes me think that I will just, given 60 games of anything, come to tolerate a thing that I don't like very much, but can kind of accept. Maybe it shows a lack of fortitude on my part. It's fine. It doesn't bother me. I think that the trade-off that it presents, that that first at-bat in extras has such high stakes and that the leverage in any moment of that frame is so high high maybe offsets it for me in a way that's sufficient to balance out the disappointment of there already being a guy on second base.

I don't know if that is a particularly rational way to engage with it, but it's like, oh, you got to have a good guy for the 10th because you don't want to be undone by like randall gritchick and then they were they were undone by randall gritchick so gotta throw a better guy out there i guess so i think that that's why i've been able to to tolerate it but part of that also might be informed by you know the mariners giants game ended up being the final uh game of the the night i believe that it ended after the a's and the astros played uh or it was certainly the final game of the night. I believe that it ended after the A's and the Astros played. It was certainly the final game that I watched

because my MLB TV was being a little bit touchy. And that did not go well for the Giants. This is one of the bullpen implosions that we could point to. But that felt very normal, if only because Jose Alvarez had terrible command that inning and ended up walking three guys and then issued a walk-off walk and so the excruciating feel of like will they manage it still still came through because Jose Alvarez had a very bad inning so I think that it's context dependent and I will just

tolerate things getting slightly worse if I don't have to think about them for too much longer is maybe the broader takeaway. Yeah, right. You can acclimate to anything, but I think you're right that it raises the stakes. Certainly it does. But I think for me, they're high enough already because it's extra innings and it's a tie game or a close game. So the stakes are already pretty high. So I don't need the extra juice of having a runner on second. And it just feels so artificial to me. I mean, it's all ultimately artificial. This is just a construct that humans came up with. There's nothing that was delivered from on high about the game or the rules, but it just still feels strange to me to go from the first nine innings are played a certain way. And then all of a sudden we change over over and if it were just that games were shortened i would lament the loss of the extremely long extra inning

game but i understand that there is a benefit to doing away with that for the players for leagues for broadcasters for everyone for frankly most fans who don't cherish those things the way that we might so i get that and if that were the only thing, I would drop my objection. But it just really does sort of spoil the end of the game for me in a way, at least at times where I feel like it's this big buildup. And then all of a sudden, the rules literally change and the goalposts move. And now we're playing under a different set of circumstances. And it's just like, it feels like all of a sudden they're in a hurry to get it over with. And if I'm enjoying the game, I am not.

I feel rushed. But I think we are probably stuck with it at this point. I don't know how fans feel as a whole. I get the sense that there's still considerable resistance to it. But I think the league is in favor of it. considerable resistance to it but i think the league is in favor of it and i think players may have had some misgivings at first but are probably pretty on board with it just because hey they get to leave work sooner so i wouldn't blame them for being fine with it either so i don't know that there's a party at the table that will object to this it's kind of like with

the expanded playoff format when it's like a lot of fans don't want that, but the league wants it and players are using it as a bargaining chip, but ultimately maybe they want it too or at least don't not want it. So it feels inevitable and I will have to just get used to it and not be a ranting old man about it. But I'm clinging to that for now. I think that it's a defensible rant to be clear. I mean, I just extolled the virtues of that Mariners-Giants game. It started the 10th inning with Evan White on second base, which no offense to Evan White, isn't a thing that you see very often. It does have a patina of artificiality to it. So I think that you're within your rights to say that it's not for you. I don't think that it's overly curmudgeonly.

Your reasoning is sound and not just because you like very long baseball games, because I think you're right to say, you know, like we're already in, like we're captured. We're going to just watch because we love baseball that goes on forever and it's our jobs. And so we're occupying a specific niche of the baseball viewing audience. But I think that there are reasons beyond that to be like, I wish that this could go on for a frame or two longer.

So, you know, you're within your rights. Okay. Yeah. The only thing necessary for the triumph of the automatic runner rule is for good podcasters to say nothing. So I'm getting my rant in there. I'm just very tired.

I don't expect it to change anything. No. I'm on record now as being against this still. So sorry, Sam, if you're out there. But not a convert yet. Maybe they'll wear me down eventually. So what else was catching your eye on this day? I guess because we were talking about extra innings rules and bullpen blowups, it is odd to me that there are so many 14-man pitching staffs, which like, weren't we going to have a rule against that? Wasn't there a limit? It was 13 was going to be the number of pitchers that you could have when rosters expanded to 26. And then was that just something that got dropped because of pandemic oddness? I don't know.

Yeah, I think so. I think the reasoning there was they knew that it's just going to be really hard for, you know, staffs are going to be stretched already, even with 14. guys having to ramp up and then still be sort of on maybe not official innings limits, but basically on innings limits this year as they adapt to whatever happened last year. Yeah. There are some teams with like a backup catcher and then a two-man bench behind that. It's like, I hope no one gets hurt because you're going to have to use a reliever at shortstop or something. So maybe that's just temporary. Maybe as workloads build up and

arm strengths rise that teams will cut back. But I don't know. The whole history of baseball seems to be more and more relievers. So if you don't put that limit in place, I feel like teams will probably take advantage of it. But maybe that's something they could restore when we return to normality of some kind and there's no longer some sort of health consideration to it. But I do think that's still a good idea. If we're going to expand the rosters, you got to set some limits when it comes to the number of pitchers. Otherwise, it's going to get out of control.

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, some guys need the ramp up and then some guys are like, I'm Tyler Glasnow, I will throw 100 miles each. Yeah, you look great. And poor Sandy Alcantara is like, excuse me. I did a great job. I know.

He got totally overshadowed, which I get because Glasnow's got a new pitch. And he's huge. And he's impressive. And all his pitches get gift and everything. But Alcantara matched him scoreless inning for scoreless inning with that Marlins rotation. I think they had the two highest game scores of any pitcher on opening day, the two pitchers in the Florida games. And yeah, he was pretty impressive too. And I know that there's a bit of a shoulder scare with

Sixto Sanchez going on right now, which I hope doesn't turn out to be anything more than that. But that Marlins rotation, as we talked about on the preview with Eliezer Hernandez and Pablo Lopez and on and on, and Trevor Rogers and Alcantara yesterday, and hopefully Sixto sometime soon, it's all 25, 26-year-old and under pitchers, which is pretty impressive. I saw Joshian share the stat that this would be the first team since the 2008 raise to get through a whole season without a single 27-year-old starting a game for them. So we'll see if that happens, but that would be kind of cool. Ben, we have to talk about the most MAG event of yesterday. Are you ready? Yes. Did you see the kerfuffle in Colorado where Cody Bellinger passed Justin Turner on the

base paths and thus this is another great thing about it being the regular season this spring there were so many Meg things and then those games were not on TV and we did not get to see them they are the stuff of legend and lore now and I will never be able to have the satisfaction

of going oh my god but this this we could see and and this was delightful. It was. It was a very strange little moment because it was a home run, right? It was a home run. Yes. It was not over the fence initially, I don't think. I think Ramel Tapia, who was the outfielder, I think-

He tapped it back. Yes, he Tapia-ed it over the fence. I'm pretty sure it went in and out of his pocket. So that could be Justin Turner's excuse for why he misread this, but it did go over the fence. It should have been a home run. It should have been a home run. And then there is a rule in the rule book that you have to proceed in order.

You can't pass another runner on the base pass this is not news to our our listeners i'm sure but i have a i have a question for you which is do we think that that rule needs to be applicable in circumstances like this yeah i don't think so when it goes over the fence maybe we can just count it regardless because because i understand why it's a rule at all like you don't you can't have people running past each other and being here and there and everywhere on a play where the ball is in play and you might end up with confusing base situations and you could have guys out of order and cats and dogs living together but when a home run is hit all of those runners

are going to score now we still make them like they still have to hit the bag so we do have rules you don't you can't be a monster out there you still have to observe protocol we're living in a society but i think that this one like we could we could say it's it's fine you were all going to score anyhow like we can assume the score but i having said that i'm glad that we don't do that because then it allows for situations like this i know we would be robbed of moments like this yeah yeah and the the home run rate and the run scoring rate would be even higher if this had counted but i wonder like justin turner was like so single-mindedly sprinting back to the pace even though bellinger was standing right there like gesturing no no go the other way which lent itself to great gifs and stills and memes. But I wonder what he was thinking or not thinking or not seeing there. I guess he was just so focused on, oh, don't want to get doubled off, that he was just not expecting Belger to be there or something. you would do if you were Turner in this situation? How do you make amends for this if you cost your

teammate a dinger? What is the appropriate reparation for that? Do you take them out to dinner? Do you give them a watch? Do you just say, sorry, buddy? I mean, it's a real thing. You cost them a homer, turned it into a single. Who knows what the value of that on the future free agent market is, right? I mean, players care about their stats. Stats matter. Granted, I guess if teams are just evaluating based on your quality of contact, it may not actually matter that much what it scored at because he hit the ball just as hard regardless. But still, it costs you a dinger. It costs you an RBI. It costs you some slugging percentage. So if you're both multimillionaires, what is the appropriate apology? Do you send a card like a singing telegram? What do you do exactly to say, sorry for turning your home run into a single? a chart kind of like how we have like this arcane understanding of what expected anniversary presents are right that your first anniversary is paper and it's like there was a reason for that

at some point but now we're like what does this mean anymore what would i view to be an appropriate amount of reparations for such an act i mean i think a handwritten note is always nice although i don't know that that reads the same way between like very successful male athletes as it does between me and my friends. You know, maybe you could get them like a nice bottle of wine or bourbon or something. I don't know. But I don't know if Cody Bellinger is a drinker. He might not be. And so then maybe that wouldn't be satisfying at all.

I mean, I think that the best gifts are the are the ones that are thoughtful so what should happen is that justin turner when he's out in the world should have cody on his mind and say oh that reminds me of cody and then he can bring in whatever that thing is because he knows cody bellinger better than we do and i don't want to speculate about what cody likes because i don't know that guy and he can walk into the clubhouse and say hey cody i was i was out and about in, I don't know, I was in Santa Monica. Maybe he goes to Santa Monica. And I saw this thing in the window and I thought of you and I thought of that home run I cost you. And I thought, you know, I should get that for Cody.

I should get that for him and say, hey, I'm sorry about that, man. Here's this thing, you know, that thing you like. I'm sorry about that, man. Here's this thing, you know, that thing you like. And, uh, and, uh, and I bet that Cody would say, oh, that's so thoughtful that you thought of me out and about in the world. Cause that's what, you know, that's all any of us really want from gifts is to know that we're, you know, we have a, we occupy a spot in the person's mind. And, and then when they see a thing that fills in that spot with something that we would like they they feel compelled to to get us that thing because they know it would make us happy so really what what justin turner could get for cody bellinger is like friendship i guess is really what he's he's purchasing in that moment is like an expression of of thinking of him you know yeah yeah don't get a gift card

something right a personal touch here although you know some people really like a gift card sometimes a gift card too yeah yeah sometimes you're like well i need shelving for the garage and now i have this lowes card and it's gonna help me out and that's really thoughtful yeah when you make as much money as justin turner and cody belanger make like maybe that's a little less of a priority you probably don't need a gift card you don't need to yeah you don't have to and you you know you don't even probably go to Lowe's. You probably'm sort of surprised how often this happens. RetroSheet actually has a page dedicated to examples of runners passing preceding runners on the bases, and it goes back to 1915. And if I counted right, there are 100 instances of this happening. There are some famous ones on the list, and there are some ones that no one remembers but i'm surprised how often this happens and sometimes with situations that are exactly analogous to this one and even recent like i saw

a lot of people saying like this is wild like this has never happened before baseball so weird so wacky you see things you've never seen before this happened two aprils ago where jose abreu hit what would have been a home run and tim Anderson was the runner in that case. And there are other recent instances within the past two or three years. I guess it makes sense. There are more home runs. There are more deep fly balls. Maybe there are more opportunities to mistake one for the other and be out on the bases. So this has happened fairly often. So I don't know if there's like a drill you can do in spring training to practice this so that you don't end up passing a runner that you're not supposed to pass or that

runner doesn't end up reversing. But it is a funny situation whenever it occurs. Maybe the future of wearable tech is a sensor that goes, warning, warning, warning. Right. Don't they already have those for like COVID tracking? Yeah. So just set it to when you get too close and you're on the bases. Like, yeah, don't pass each other. That's dangerous. Yeah.

Because you might catch COVID, but just because you might be out. It can be the future of whatever that tech is. Those people are probably sitting around going, gosh, at some point, we're really going to get the pandemic under control and protocols are going to get loosened. And then what do we do with our tech? They're like the people who create unitaskers for kitchens. And then they're like, oh God,

people are going to stop doing, they're going to need to not cut the specific shape of pasta. What will they do with this? I keep reading examples of that. Everyone needed cardboard boxes because everyone's home. And so they're shipping lots of boxes. And so there are these companies that have converted their plants into making cardboard boxes.

And what happens if we actually start shopping in person again and we don't need as many cardboard boxes? Then what? Then what? Have you thought of that, cardboard box companies? But maybe this will change things and we'll all be online ordering forever. And that's what they're anticipating. But yes, that is something that I'm curious to see in a baseball context too. Just the things that changed last year because of the pandemic that we will be stuck with forever, such as the automatic runner rule, which I have already ranted about. What else should we talk about? i guess the most cinematic moment of the day took place

in detroit and very early on i love the doubt that miggy had right the the the hustle to get into second because he's like that's probably not a home run because i'm playing in a blizzard i also did love how it was then just lovely and sunny like four innings later in that game. But I didn't have Miguel Cabrera hitting the first home run of the season in my pool. And I surely could not have written such a gorgeous scene for a home run. But that was really very lovely. Yeah. It's like someone shook up a snow globe and he was just inside it homering off Shane Bieber and not realizing that he had homered

and sliding into second base. Yeah. Miggy looked rejuvenated. He made a nice play in the field too. He was playing first base. So that's fun. But yeah, that was a really nice moment for the first home run of what I'm sure will be many. Yeah. I hope that will be many. Jay Jaffe wrote about that home run and sort of where Miggy is from a pace perspective, because he has the opportunity to hit two very important milestones this year, right? He can hit his 500th home run and he can hit his 3000th hit. And it wouldn't take so many hits to make that happen, although it would kind of take a lot for him given how he's performed of late. although it would kind of take a lot for him given how he's performed of late.

But it's also very rare to do that in the same season. He would be just the seventh player to attain those milestones in the same year. The others, you might say, who are the others, Megan? I would tell you that they are Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Eddie Murray, who I always think – I always read Eddie Murray as Eddie Murphy. Yep. And then i think did eddie murphy have a baseball career that i have missed i think we talked about this on the podcast before but i just like to think of him as eddie murphy which sorry eddie murray i'm sure you're

you're nice too but eddie murphy's very funny uh and rafael palomero and then alex rodriguez so oh and albert pujos those are the other ones so we're rooting for you maggie and and not just because i managed to work a reference to the the big boat and to your DH blurb for positional power ranking. Yes. Yeah. When I said first of many, I meant just in the season in general more so than for Maggie. But hopefully him too. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, when you say Eddie Murray, I think of honest Eddie Murphy who played from 1912 to 1926. That's my go-to Eddie Murphy in my mind. So we all think of an Eddie Murphy, but it may be a different Eddie Murphy. game. So we don't make much of anything that happens other than just being bathed in baseball again, which is always nice. But certain things happen like Josh Donaldson hurts a leg muscle in the first inning and it's like, oh, baseball's back. Josh Donaldson hurt his leg. We did have a couple of, there were a couple of injuries, right? So Donaldson got dinged up and right so Donaldson got dinged up and Nick Senzel laid out for a catch that was really spectacular and robbed Nolan Arenado of a hit but then he left with an apparent injury although they're hoping that that won't be too serious yeah it's you know there's always there are always some you know some scrapes uh on opening day and then we just hope that they don't end up persisting

it's hard to know what to feel super excited about on opening day because i always end up with this strange cognitive dissonance and this happens during spring training for all of us where i excuse sort of underwhelming performances but then get really amped for great ones like i was super excited about tyler glasnow and sandy al cantera but but also i was like well you know you Darvish giving up some dingers like that doesn't matter. But then I also was just like all of baseball Twitter enthralled by the change-ups in the Angels-White Sox game. So you do end up in sort of this weird, the things that I liked mattered and the ones I didn't don't say anything at all. It's like this is the best

month for baseball writing. And I know people are going to say, but you don't know what counts. And it's like, yeah, but it's it's some of the stuff we can start to feel more confident in earlier on. But I like that we spend all of April being like this guy did a thing. Doesn't matter. Don't know. Good. Yeah. There's a lot of confirmation bias early on which can be fun also and so when you know my very predictable rookie of the year pick brian hayes homers then i think oh yeah he's a monster like it's gonna be an incredible year and then really good though yeah he did he always does yeah or like when eugenio suarez screws up a couple chances at shortstop for the reds and it's like, oh, this is a disaster.

Like this is what we thought was going to happen. And you've got the Reds who can't field at all. And they're in this division with the Cardinals and the Brewers who field really well and they're doomed. And ultimately it's one game. And you remember that the Braves scored two runs and they both came on a home run by Pablo Sandoval. Like this probably isn't representative of how they will perform all season. So you have to put the brakes a bit. Although the fact that Sandoval is still in the majors on a really good team in a really

good lineup is kind of incredible to me and wonderful too. Yeah. Beat out Jake Lamb, who we all just kind of, I think, thought would make that roster. And then he didn't. Can we do the um the league leaders rundown real quick because i just love this the the first the the day after opening day so fun so three hitters have a thousand batting average let's see who are they i'm gonna i wonder if you can guess i wonder if you can guess who they are let's see

oh they made me sort this again. What? Okay. Do you have any guesses for who the guys batting 1,000 are? I'm trying to remember. I know there were a few guys with like three hits, I think, but now I forget who. Did Vlad Jr., is he up there? He is not. He did not bat 1,000.

He looked great. Yeah. Still best shape of his life. Still didn did not bat a thousand he looked great yeah you know still best shape of his life still didn't change in a day looks great one of these you will be like oh yeah and then the other two i think you'll be kind of surprised for by so one jay cronenworth of the san diego padres one chris owings of the colorado rockies sure and the third jorge soler okay who has you know been very good at times. He's just very streaky is, I think, really what we can say about Jorge Soler. 29 players hit a home run.

So there's a 29-way tie for first place among home runs. Nate Lowe leads the league with four RBI. Chris Owings also leading the league with stolen bases. Oh, excuse me. He is tied with Mike Tauchman. So, you know, I didn't have either of those. And then we have a four-way tie for runs. And I'm not going to go find them because who cares?

But that's always a little bit of fun to do the day after opening day. You're like, these will not stick. I do not imagine that Chris Owings will factor heavily in the leaderboards, but wouldn't that be fun if he did? Mike Trout, despite his big hit, not at the top of the world leaderboard yet, so we can disregard it all. Although he's 42nd. He had a nice little game.

He's in a many-way tie for something else. He had a nice day. He had a nice day. I think the at-bat of his that i enjoyed the most was actually the one where he ended up striking out on one of uh gilito's many very nasty change-ups but then mike trout earlier in the at bat hit of ball foul approximately 1 000 miles yes he did yeah looking forward to mike trout now that he has fixed his swing. Oh, right. Because it was so terrible before. Yeah.

Just really a frustrating season. I think he described it last year. Really just terrible. He had a what? Like a 160 something WRC plus. 162. Yeah. Just really embarrassing.

And one of, I think, the five top players in the league by war. So that was his down year. But it's okay. He's figured it out now, everyone. So he's back. We were all worried. We're so lucky. We're so lucky to be watching all these guys.

Yeah. What a delight. So I guess we should mention it. This was supposed to be the first season since 1968 that every team in the majors would be in action on the first day or would have their first day of the season on the same day, which would have been cool. And it didn't happen because there were two games postponed, one due to weather, one due to COVID. And so that one is Nats and Mets, and that entire opening series has been canceled. And that's unfortunate. Of course, the Nats have a bit of a COVID outbreak and a handful of players have tested positive. And just a reminder that we're not

out of this thing yet. And yet also a contrast to last season, I think, in the way that I feel about this. Not to diminish the severity of this case, but if this had happened last year, to diminish the severity of this case, but if this had happened last year, and it did happen last year, but when it happened last year, it was like existential threat to the season. It was, they could call this thing off at any moment.

It was, it's irresponsible to be playing. Are we complicit in even watching this? Like it really made you feel bad about baseball in a way and now it's a reminder that like yeah even though there's still some fans in the ballpark like we can't just pretend it's all entirely behind us and yet it also feels like a bump in the road more so than like a dead end to the road where you know you and you've gotten your first shot. And I made my first vaccination appointment this morning. And yeah, we're getting there. And it seems like most teams are getting there, getting to that 85% threshold.

And so this feels like hopefully it will be an early season stumble that will not be as big of an issue later in the summer. So again, it was maybe an important reminder, opening day doesn't mean that the world is all wonderful again. And yet it also doesn't mean that we need to call this whole thing off because I think we're close enough, hopefully, to the end or at least to being able to resume some semblance of normal life that the show can go on, that we can play ball despite the setback. Yeah, I think that it's such an interesting, like the shift in my mood about it, I find really

interesting too. Whereas like last year, just because there was, like you said, there was so much doubt, we felt kind of icky and implicated and like complicit and also like very afraid about, like I was very afraid about my job. And so all of these incidents felt so cataclysmic in ways that extended beyond obviously the most important ways, which is like the health of these human beings. And this year, my reaction to them deciding to like bang that series was like, oh good, this is like the health of these human beings. And this year, my reaction to them deciding to like bang that series was like, oh, good. This is the protocol working, right? Like we're going to recognize an issue and not try to push through it. And there's enough flexibility in the schedule because we are anticipating a full season that it doesn't have to derail

everything, right? This is like just, you know, assuming that the, you know, there are not lingering cases that are merged through contact tracing. Like now this is like a really bad weather system moving through. And again, I don't need to trivialize what's happening to the nationals and I hope everybody's doing okay. And that, you know, they, that they are able to nip this in the bud, um bud before more folks get sick or test positive. But there's more room in the system to absorb this kind of a delay because we're not under the gun to get 60 games in before another wave hits in the fall. So it does kind of recalibrate the way that you look at this stuff while still acknowledging that like

clearly it has to be taken seriously which is why they're not going to play so that part of it really does feel different i'm so glad you have a vaccine appointment yeah me too i was i was joking with jake mintz of cesspitous family barbecue over a text the other day that like every every time i hear about a friend getting vaccinated it's like doing a party drug except i've never done those because i'm a wimp and afraid but um it's just like this very it's just so happy i'm so happy that's great yeah looking forward to it and with ballparks filling up as the season proceeds like i've seen multiple people make the point that like baseball could be our reintroduction to like mass again in a responsible way, which is exciting. It may not be safe to open up an entire ballpark to full capacity today, but by the end of the season,

hopefully we could be at that point, or at least you could hope that the people who are filling up that ballpark will be people who've been vaccinated and it's safe for them to be there. And man, it'll be great to have a full ballpark again. And I think people are eager to get out there and eager to cheer. And when you can watch that without having any lingering reservations about it at all, that'll be awesome. And just because of the quirk of the schedule and the timing and everything, baseball could be kind of leading the way there where we've been at no fans and low capacity fans. And baseball could be the trailblazer, the thing that actually announces once and for all when it's actually true that we are more or less back to normal. And that'll be a great thing. So I'm excited for baseball to be in that role when we reach that point. Yeah, it'll feel really nice to,

this is such a weird way of putting this, it's going to feel really nice to feel less. So many of our very small moments as people in the last year have just been fraught and filled with discomfort and anxiety. And it's exhausting to have every little moment feel potentially perilous and to have every small decision seem like one that you might have to look back on as monumental. And so the idea that we will get to a point this year where folks can safely go back to the ballpark and do so in numbers and be able to have that experience after the initial sort of rush of being back in this place that means so much to us be about, you know, little silly stuff that doesn't have to carry so much weight. It's just going to be great, right? I think that's part of why the rush of finding out about

friends and family getting vaccinated is so intense and last, you know, it persists through each person because it's like just, you know, it's one more, it's one more little bit of weight lifting as you navigate, you know, life, not returning to normal, but looking more like it used to. And, you know, you're not worried about one unlucky trip to the, you know, to the grocery store, like altering the trajectory of somebody's life. And that's a heavy thing to carry with you all the time. And so that we might have both room for like happy feeling and then just less, less. Yeah. I feel a lot of stuff i've been told to just like invite myself to feel less stuff because it's exhausting to carry around all these

feelings but it's it you know sometimes the moment calls for that and so it'll be really nice to just be able to like chill the fuck out and have a beer yeah right I feel the same way. Without being too Pollyanna-ish about it, I really hope that this can just be kind of a feel-good season coming out of the storm clouds of last year. I'm not under any illusions that the inequities that were exposed and exacerbated by 2020 are gone now or anything, but I am kind of hoping that it will be possible to just like watch a baseball game without that being forefront of your mind necessarily. And so like, you know, looking ahead, we know that when it comes to baseball, there are some storm clouds on the horizon with the CBA. Like, I don't even want to think about it right now, but there's a possibility that there won't be baseball next year. I certainly hope that's not the case, but the risk of the CBA

negotiations culminating in that is higher than it has been for some time. And probably the months leading up to that will not be the best vibes about baseball. There's going to be strife, there's going to be public back and forth and sniping. And even if it does lead to a deal getting done. But for right now, trying to just put that out of my mind and just say, you know what? We are blessed with a full baseball season right now. And there are some fans in the stands. And soon there will be more fans in the stands.

And we'll all be able to go back to the ballpark. fans in the stands and soon there will be more fans in the stands and we'll all be able to go back to the ballpark and we can actually just like watch the baseball without worrying about any other kinds of like moral issues at every single second that you're watching the game or like having to caveat every conversation with that like it can just be a pennant race it can just be like a lazy sunday afternoon when you're just watching baseball and you have baseball on in the background. I really hope that we can sort of savor that because we got baseball last year, but it was a lot less baseball than we usually get. And it was not guilt-free, concern-free, anxiety-free baseball when we did get it. And so to the extent that we have that now,

I'm pretty happy about it. And not that every conversation we have will just be sweetness and sunlight, but I think probably a higher percentage of them will be than they were last year. And I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. I think that part of the power of baseball to like expose us to some of the serious issues the game has in it is that we get these breathers in between those, right? That we get to admire great play and we get to love G Alito's change up and we get to be super excited about Cabrian Hayes and we get to watch these guys be so incredible at what they do and really appreciate them. And I think that being able to do that and then use baseball as a way to understand other really important issues that face society, like the combination of those things is really powerful. And I, you know, this might surprise people to hear given some of the conversations that we've needed to have over the last year. conversations that we've needed to have over the last year but i have some sympathy for the people who like want to stick to sports because i get wanting to just immerse yourself fully in this thing i don't think that we can do that without you know sort of ignoring the reality of the sport itself and the society it exists within but i i get wanting to be able to just unwind and unclench and i think that when you have a balance of both the, you know, the engagement with what

the sport is and how it came to be the way it is and why it, you know, takes on the structure that it does while also appreciating all of the great play that we get to see, like, that's a really, that's a really special thing. And I think really powerful. And we don't always, you know, society doesn't always live up to the potential of sport to like be transformative and teach us stuff. But I still think that that transformative power like exists within it. And so I'm looking forward to a year that has more room for the full range of things that are baseball to sort of manifest themselves. And like you said, it doesn't mean that we're not going to take on the parts of it that are baseball to sort of manifest themselves. And like you said, it doesn't mean that we're not going to take on the parts of it that

are less savory because those are really important too. But having room for the rest of it is really exciting because we've all had a really bad year. We should get to watch some dingers. Let's watch some dingers and some great change-ups, please. Yeah, I'm feeling good about it. And I was looking forward to seeing the first Mets game for Francisco Lindor, which we will have to wait a little longer for. But we should talk, I guess, a little bit about the extension, which happened before opening day, but not long before opening day, like minutes before opening day. So Francisco Lindor will be a Met for a very long time. He signed a 10-year extension that takes effect in 2022. It's $341 million because Tatis' was $340 million, and you've always got to beat the

other guy. At least that certainly seems to be why that extra million was tacked on there. So this seemed inevitable right up until the last week. Like as soon as they traded for him, it seemed certain that they were going to extend him. And it got a little dicey there in the last few days, just based on the reporting. At least there was a little bit of an impasse and there was a gap between the two. And you had Steve Cohen tweeting through it and it wasn't entirely clear that the deal was going to get done. But I still thought it was likely that it would.

And it did late on Wednesday night. And so Lindor locked up for maybe the rest of his career, certainly the rest of his prime, most of the rest of his career. And that's great. I was thinking of that because the bets trade and the Lindor trade, there was a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth of what that meant for Red Sox fans and fans of Cleveland. I mean, teams that got to see these guys come up and follow them as prospects and then see them blossom and flourish and then lost them in their primes. But they didn't disappear. They do still play for baseball

teams and there are other fan bases that love them and now get to cherish them for the next decade or more. So I think it was really important for the Mets to get this deal done, and they did. happened. Yeah. Yeah. New York was certainly highly incentivized to get this done and not let Lindor actually hit the market come the offseason. I think that it's interesting. Some of the reaction to the reported figures, both that the Mets had offered to him initially and then what he expected, there was, I think, a lot of consternation. Like, does Lindor really think he's worth $385 million? That's a ludicrous amount. And I think that it just goes to show that there were two parties here that were incentivized to get a deal done. Lindor, I think, rightly understood that he probably could have done better than $325 in the open market. And if he wasn't able to do better than 325, he probably wasn't going to do that much worse than 325.

So there wasn't pressure for him to necessarily get this deal done now, although he seemed to want to and clearly did because he signed it. Meanwhile, the Mets, like you don't trade for Lindor if you're not going to extend him or at least you're not going to do it and then say you're going to extend him and then fail. Like that would be a failure of an offseason objective for new york whatever the value of the deal ended up being so i didn't expect him to get 385 i thought he could do better than 325 he ended up doing better but not 385 so this all seems to have worked out pretty well there's some deferred money in there and there's a no trade clause and no opt out. So he's probably going to stick around. And I think this really does represent a change for the Mets. And Steve Cohen talked in his introductory press conference about how he likes what the Dodgers are doing, which who wouldn't

like what the Dodgers are doing? It's pretty good to win the division every single year and win a bunch of pennants and win a world series. But I think that really there was a difference in how the Mets and the Dodgers operated for the last eight or nine years, you know, post Madoff when the Wilpons sort of stopped spending and post Guggenheim group when the Dodgers really started spending after their TV deal. after their TV deal, those teams which had tracked each other pretty closely for the first decade of the century in terms of payroll and wins really diverged in both because of the difference in ownership. Just ownership controls everything. More and more, I just appreciate how much ownership matters. Ultimately, yeah, it's good to have a good GM and a good front office and good players, but a bad owner can sabotage all of that, can make it so that you don't have those things, you know, like the GM, to run the front office and empower them to use the tools and have the resources that they need to sort of win by spending a small amount of money efficiently or a large amount of money inefficiently, but you can't really win without an ownership group that picks the right people to do one or the other,

or in the Dodgers case, both, having smart people and also empowering them to spend. And with the Mets, they just didn't have those things. And it really just comes down to, I mean, a team signs Lindor or Betts or trades Lindor or Betts. That's an ownership level decision usually. And it's just in this case, I think Cohen recognizes that what the Mets failed to do was supplement their really strong homegrown core and talent, which is really impressive. They've done almost as good a job as anyone over the past several seasons putting together a homegrown championship caliber core. Guys they drafted and developed, guys they signed as amateur free agents, guys they traded for

before their big league debuts. I mean, DeGrom, Harvey, Lugo, Conforto, Alonso, McNeil, Murphy, I mean, DeGrom, Harvey, Lugo, Conforto, Alonso, McNeil, Murphy, Smith, Emilia, Sindergaard, Wheeler, like the list goes on and on. The fact that they have not made the playoffs for four seasons running, that they haven't change that, which now they have, I think they have the third highest payroll behind the Yankees and the Dodgers. So so that that did not continue to be a problem because the lack of non-homegrown contributions, which comes down largely to lack of spending, that was the thing that was holding them back. And I think that was extra frustrating for Mets fans that they were so close, like they were most of the way there. They had the young core that everyone wants, and all they had to do was surround those players with a competent supporting cast, and they just repeatedly failed to do it. So maybe now they have not. Right up until this deal was signed, I think there were still concerns like, why James McCann instead of JT Real Muto?

Or why not George Springer? Or, oh, we lost out on Bauer to the Dodgers. Still seemed like, well, he hasn't totally backed up his words yet. But now with the Lindor deal, I think they have. Yeah, I was going to say, I mean, their off season, it's not like they did nothing. They did bring in major leaguers on contracts, many of which went more than a year, but they're the top of their shopping list. And we've talked enough about Bauer, but they made an earnest effort to sign Springer and he went to Toronto. They made an earnest effort to sign Bauer and he went to L.A. And so I think that, you know, if they hadn't gotten this done before opening day, you could have looked back on their offseason.

And despite trading for Lindor, you could have said that they, you know, they failed to achieve some of their stated offseason goals. And this reshapes the entire context of that offseason. I mean, this will always be a very strange winter to look back on with the Mets because they signed good players and got a Lindor deal and then extension done and also were riddled with scandal that really made you wonder

how different the culture of the organization is and will be in the future. But I think that, you know, a lot will, a lot righted on their ability to get this one deal done and get it done before Lindor hit the market this winter. And they managed to do that. So that part is good. And I think that they're in a really good position for a long time, provided they can keep, as you said, like developing well and, you well and bringing up the parts of the core that have previously been there but not been supported by a cast that they needed. So I don't know.

It's good to be a Mets fan. That feels weird to say. I know. Yeah. And there's a path for them to kind of take over the city for a while, I think. The Yankees are the better team currently, but there are some Yankees who are getting on in years. I do think that Aaron Judge is 29 or about to turn 29, and he's a free agent after next season. And so he sort of owns the New York

baseball market now. But if he doesn't stay, which is possible, the Yankees let Robinson Cano walk at the same age, and maybe they think, well, judge, because of his build, because of his injury history, maybe we don't want to commit to him. And if he were to walk, then Francisco Lindor, like he could just own the city, at least when it comes to baseball fans, because he is so good and so charismatic. and so charismatic. And if he leads a Mets resurgence, then I could see this being one of those times when the sentiment flips from this being a Yankees town to a Mets town, which it really depends how the two teams are doing. Speaking of which, Andrew Yang, who we talked about his Mets tweets the other day, he was cited at the Yankees home opener wearing a Yankees scarf. So he's doing it.

He's playing both sides again. I think maybe it was like a one-day thing, but it's the classic politician pandering to both fan bases. It just doesn't work. You can't do it. Don't they know that we are eagle-eyed observers who will. Oh, you know one thing that we didn't talk about that we probably should? Where do you fall on this Bally Sports score bug controversy? Yeah, it's big. It's a large...

You can't even call it a bug. It's like a score bar, right? It's like, for those who didn't see it, it takes up a sizable percentage of the screen because it's not just like this big bar, but it's also a ticker that like repeatedly tells you which games are coming up and there's like this gray bar underneath the thing. And yeah, I'm not for it. I mean, it's not really providing more information than a smaller, less obtrusive score bug would. So I guess I'm with the mob that was calling for its ouster. Okay.

So I think that the mechanics of how the score bug records baseball events need work. Like, for instance, you can't start out on the right side when we've done it on the left forever and ever. We read left to right. You just need to orient stuff toward the way that people read. So I think that there's work to be done there. But I have the following hot take. I think it's good. And here's why.

This is when you know that you have very specific use cases. As a person who takes a lot of screenshots, it's nice to not have the bug in the camera shot. It's nice to have it at the bottom because then I can just craft it out. Oh, okay. So for that reason, with less clutter on the screen where you're actually viewing the game, I think it might be okay. But they have to change how they do the outs

because that part is an abomination that will thorn us the whole season. Interesting. Yeah, I guess that is a fairly specific take. That's my very – Most people not taking as many screenshots, but I had not considered. I just want to look at faces. I get to look at faces again.

I mean, they won't be as expressive in the early part of the season. They better not be, everyone, because you should be wearing your mask. Even though you're outside and fully vaccinated, they tell you to still wear your mask. But pretty soon, you're going to have faces again. Ben. Oh. I engage with this sport in such a weird way sometimes, but I'm thrilled. It's going to be great.

Yeah. I guess some people just resent the Bally's just being there at all. It's very strange. Independent. Yeah. Like the continued gambling infiltration of the way baseball is covered and just like baseball as a business because it's not just the media partners, but it's like links to bet on games like in the MLB app and everything.

Like it's very tightly integrated these days. And I think you and I are kind of in the camp of like, we don't care about that. And so all I care about, like, I don't, I don't really begrudge anyone else doing that, you know, if they do it in a responsible way, which I know not everyone does, but like, assuming that it's just for fun or whatever, like I have no problem with that, but I guess I just want it not to impact my, like the way that I watch the sport or pay attention to the sport. So if it's kind of cordoned off and you're going somewhere to get your gambling analysis and your prop bets and whatever, fine. But if it's in my baseball media consumption diet, then I'm not very interested in it for whatever reason. I don't know exactly why I'm not interested in it, but I'm just

interested in it for whatever reason. I don't know exactly why I'm not interested in it, but I'm just totally uninterested in it. So I think the upside is that it might bring more eyeballs to baseball. It might make people more interested in baseball, although perhaps in a different way than I am. I don't know if that's a positive or negative, but it does seem like baseball is very well positioned because there's so many games and there's a lot of dead time between action, which allows for a lot of wagering in theory on just like every pitch or whatever. Like in some ways, it seems like it's constructed to be a good gambling sport. And I do want people to like baseball and pay attention to baseball and for baseball to be popular.

And so I have mixed feelings because if it helps with that, then I'm on board. And if it just kind of like supports initiatives that I care about and makes it more feasible for people to have writing jobs or whatever, like there are definitely good aspects to that. But also like if I'm just reading about baseball, I don't really want to have the gambling-oriented coverage. So I hope it can be sort of separated, but I am not optimistic that it will. I just am confused about ballet as a – wasn't it a sport? They gyms. Wasn't ballet total fitness a thing?

And now there's gambling. I just don't under – and they made pinball machines at one point. And now there's a gambling component, right? Yeah. It's a weird thing. When you Google, when you Google Bally Total Fitness, Bally Total Fitness Holding Corporation was an American fitness club chain. At its 2007 peak, prior to the filing of the first of two chapter

11 bankruptcies bally operated 440 facilities located in 29 u.s states mexico canada south korea china and the caribbean under bally total fitness crunch fitness gorilla sports pinnacle fitness bally sports club and sports club of canada brands so i understand that i'm just not like totally getting the the corporate structure that brought all of these things together. But they use the Ballybee. They use that Ballybee. And I'm like, this was a fitness chain. And then they went belly up. And have you had to get a Netflix documentary? But I imagine that that is. Yes, if I go to the Wikipedia page for Bally Technologies, which is, I guess, the manufacturer of the slot machines and the other gambling technology and casinos and such,

it doesn't even mention Bally's Total Fitness on there. So I don't know if they're totally separate things always or whether they just are now. Anyway, we can do some further research on that at some point. Bally Total Fitness is one of the last surviving non-gambling ex-subsidiaries of Bally manufacturing due to the acquisition of Bally Technologies by Scientific Games Corporations in 2014, aside from Bally Pond, the Japanese division. Okay. Well, now they've got the Bally score bug. Now you know.

Now everyone's like, wow, I had burning ballet total fitness questions, but I've learned about them. I know what's what now. Thank you, Effectively Wild. Anything else that you're looking forward to this season that we haven't touched on, storylines, teams, players? I'm going to take the controversial view that I am excited to watch the Padres and also the Dodgers. I'm excited to continue to get to know this baseball better. You wrote about this baseball a little bit for the ringer. So I'm excited to see that.

Excited is a weird way of describing the continued lack of faith in the ability of the sport to control the most important piece of equipment on the field. But we'll go with exciting because it's the day after opening day, and we want to strike an optimistic tone. So I'm curious is a better word. I'm curious to see how that unfolds. I hope that we have just a season of good health, mostly, in all manner of ways, both COVID-related and, you know, I hope that we manage to avoid a bunch of pitcher injuries and that all the soft tissues remain intact. Yeah.

But I'm mostly just excited to have a better sense of when in the calendar I am. even though baseball being on in the background every day can give you sort of a displaced feeling, it at least orients you in like the seasons and the time of year. And I have felt pretty unmoored from that for much of the last year. And so I just look forward to some familiar beats. It was a very strange experience to do the lead up to the season stuff that we always do at the site because, well, one, we did them very recently, like it was eight months ago when we did it last. And as I went through each activity, I also was reminded of like how it felt when that activity was postponed and how scary that was and anxiety provoking and like, you know, just how the early months of the pandemic, I'd get to the end of the week on Friday and like, you know, just how the early months of the pandemic,

I'd get to the end of the week on Friday and like, and finally be able to just relax a little bit because the site didn't have to operate the next day and we were so shorthanded. And so I'm just, I'm looking forward to like normal stress, more normal stress and the sounds that, that we rely on throughout the year. And I think we're going to get a lot more of them and they're going to increasingly, they're going to sound increasingly familiar as more people get vaccinated. And so more people can go to games safely. And I think that that will be a really nice backdrop to having the game back. And so I just look forward to feeling a little more normal and settled into a routine that I know and like and know how to navigate. Yeah. Yeah. It does feel like we're

kind of recalibrated. Opening day in late July, it was like having Christmas in March or something. It just throws off the whole calendar in a way. So April 1st, okay, I've got my sea legs again. We're back to when that usually happens. So agreed with you there. And yeah, probably excited for some of the same things that you're excited about. I am interested in how the ball behaves. And yeah, Rob Arthur and I wrote something the other day, just looking at spring training. And we found that at least based on spring training, there didn't really seem to be any evidence that the ball has been de-juiced in any significant way. In fact, the spring training home run rate on contact was higher than in any previous

spring training dating back to at least 2006, which was the first year for which we have easily accessible data. So it's always tough to tell because there's a mix of balls used in spring training. It's the previous season's balls, it's the next season's balls. And so we had some stat cast data this year and we tried to separate those things and figure out which was the old ball and which was the new ball, but it's not a perfect process. So you do have to sort of wait and see how the season goes. So I don't expect it to be any dramatic cratering in the home run rate. And to its credit, MLB didn't suggest that it

would be. They said it would just be a small adjustment and we'll see whether even that actually happens. But based on the spring training results, there were more strikeouts than ever and more walks and just more three true outcomes surprise surprise i know that's been the case for like 15 consecutive years but you know looks like we're heading for number 16 but in addition to that like you know obviously everyone knows that this is the summer of shohei for me and uh that will make or break this season basically not to put all my eggs in one two-way player, but I basically have done that. He starts Sunday.

I hope this blister thing is not a problem, although it worries me because he uses his hands for hitting and also pitching. And so blister issues seem like that could be problematic. So they say it's not. I hope that will be the case. But at least it's a blister instead of an elbow or something as of now so holding out hope i didn't message you about the blisters because i wanted to respect your privacy in a potentially difficult time it's good because on

my other baseball podcast we've got bauman who his bit this season is is being down on otani yeah mocking me whenever something bad happens to Otani. So I feel like this is my safe space to just be unreasonably excited about him. And we'll see how that goes. So I am, of course, excited for the Padres too, but also for the Dodgers. I really am excited to see because it was one of the things I lamented about last year is that we were deprived of the chance to see them do their thing for a full six-month season and to see if they could have sustained that pace. And I think there's a realistic chance that they could do that despite how opening day went for them. And I am curious about whether they will be the villains if they do do that, whether everyone

will turn on the Dodgers and decide that actually we're sick of seeing the Dodgers win the division every year and knock off the lovable underdog Padres. I would think that the Padres having gone 0 for 52 in championship runs thus far and as likable as they are, if the Dodgers just steamroll them and we end up with the Dodgers winning the division and back in the World Series again without the narrative that they had leading up to this year, which is that, oh, they can't quite make it and it's their tragic sympathetic figures and poor Clayton Kershaw and all of that. If it's just that, no, they're just the bullies now. They're just dominant and we want them to go away. This might be the year that everyone turns on the Dodgers and decides that they're the villains. Although, how can you not like Clayton Kershaw, Mookie Betts, and co.?

But still. Yeah. I will be very curious to see not only if that happens, but then how the Dodgers respond to it. Because I think that there are some folks on that roster who might enjoy playing the heel. Perhaps. Perhaps. the heel perhaps perhaps and so i will be curious to see kind of how they as a squad respond to that

if that's the narrative that emerges i think that there are yeah they seem i think they're going to get a year of of grace i think they'll get a year of grace although you know the cubs won the world series after you know a famous stretch of futility. And I think that we went turned around and were kind of irritated at their fans in pretty short order. So, you know, maybe I'm being overly generous, but I bet they'll get I bet they'll get a year of like, ah, those Dodgers, especially because even though we aren't looking back on 2020 as like an asterisk year, it was only a 60 game season. So I think that they also will be afforded the like, yeah, like you should, you should get it. You know, you should get a chance to do it over 162 and like

really cement the legacy. I think that that will be the logic that a lot of people use. Yeah, I hope so. There's just a lot of teams that I'm looking forward to seeing. I'm looking forward to seeing the White Sox, who I think of as kind of like the AL Padres. And I'm looking forward to seeing the Blue Jays, even though because I was forced to pick a flop team, I picked the Blue Jays as my flop team, which I'm not as down on them as flop suggests. But you had to pick someone. Yeah, I had to pick someone. They made me. And I just don't know if they have the pitching to be a playoff team in a 10-team playoff format. Perhaps they will surprise me, but they're a little bit banged up to start the season. And just that rotation behind Hyunjin Ryu right now is just, it's thin.

So I worry that this won't be the year. And even if it isn't, they should still be a fun, exciting team. And they should hit a ton. And they have this great position player core and like clearly they're heading to the promised land. I just don't know if this will be the year for them, but really all the teams, I'm looking forward to seeing the Mets. The Braves are always fun. Like there are a lot of teams that like there's been a lot of turnover. I'm not sick of anyone particularly. I assume most people are sick of the Astros at this point, but the Astros are not the powerhouse that they were, although I still think they're likely to win that division.

And they're getting the boo treatment finally, too. So we saw that in Oakland on Thursday and saw some signs and saw some boos. And so especially as ballparks fill up up people will have their chance to get that out of their system finally so if there is some creativity to that i would enjoy that as well yeah i think that we also will have more time for like stuff to emerge and become the the narrative of the season right there's always something many things that surprise us and it'll be nice to have 162 games to kind of see what those are i'm mostly you know what i'm actually looking forward to the very most i'm looking forward to at the end of the year looking at a leaderboard and being able to say that guy

was good yeah feel confident about it and you know there will always be guys who get unlucky or get really lucky and their stats can be kind of fluky but i will just have stats to a scale i understand and i'm used to and that's gonna be so nice because sometimes i look back at 2020 this happened when i was doing my positional power ranking blurbs for dh I was like, were you good last year? What does this number mean? And so I look forward to feeling a little more confident that that guy was good or that guy had a bad year. And yeah. Yeah.

Oh, God, that's going to be so nice. I look forward to not multiplying by 2.7 this season unless I'm looking at stats from last year. But yeah, that will be nice. That will be really nice. All right. Last thing I wanted to mention, just to tie a bow on our season preview podcast series, Darius Austin, Baseball Perspectives contributor, former Effectively Wild guest. He does a roundup of the projections every spring at Banish to the Pen, the sister site of effectively wild with effectively wild listeners as the staff and he does a recap at the end of every season but he puts together what every team preview guest predicted on their preview appearance and then

puts that up against various projection systems and at the end of the year sees how they all stack up so he wrote this, the effectively wild guests top the optimism charts once again. This is sort of a perennial staple of the team preview series is that our guests, they tend to be perhaps as a group, a little more optimistic than they should be. But Darius continues, while not quite so enthusiastic as some previous years, they still came in at a collective 2,489 wins, so 59 over the possible total. That could have been even higher were it not for the very final prediction of the series also being the lowest win total of any set included, Joe Trezza's 51-win Orioles prediction. Orioles prediction. So nice job, Joe. You single-handedly depressed the projections. But yeah, basically, because I know people wonder about this, our preview guests were about two wins per team on average over what they should have been, let's say. They allocated 59 more wins than will actually exist. And there are various reasons for that, as we've talked about,

and various incentives for them to be perhaps a little more optimistic. And they may believe in that optimism, but that is a hallmark of that series every single year, that people just hope for the best. So we're all in an optimistic mood these days relative to what we were. As well we should be. All right. So I guess all in an optimistic mood these days relative to what we were. As well we should be.

All right. So I guess we will end there and maybe we'll do some other fun early season stuff next week and maybe a draft and maybe some emails and we'll see where we go. But we're back in the regular routine of the season and the podcast now. So it is a relief that baseball is always on again. Yes, it sure is. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. One quick note on our ballpark naming rights draft from our previous episode. We drafted all the ballpark names that are corporate sponsorships from least to most objectionable, and a couple people followed up to say, why didn't you draft Wrigley Field? And it's true, we didn't draft Wrigley Field.

That was not an oversight. It was on purpose. And the rationale was that Wrigley Field was named after the team's owner, not the company. Now, maybe that is a distinction without a difference in that case when the team's owner also owns the company. But the Cubs haven't been owned by that company for 40 years, and there's no naming rights deal, crucially. So I think those things set it apart from all of the other parks that we drafted, though I certainly see the argument for including it, and I should have at least mentioned why we weren't including it. But if we had included it, easy number one pick. Obviously, you would take Wrigley Field first overall. Also wanted to mention that we recorded this episode before the news broke on Friday that MLB would be moving the All-Star Game and the draft away from Cobb County in response to the new voting law enacted by the Republican Legislature of Georgia.

It's ironic that Meg mentioned sticking to sports earlier in this episode. and have that be somehow separate from politics when the sport makes an announcement and a decision about one of its showcase events and where it will take place based on the actions of politicians. These things are pretty inextricable. I know the league plans to honor the memory of Henry Aaron at the All-Star festivities, and of course All-Star games are all about voting. And this decision came after other prominent corporations had expressed similar sentiments about the bill, which probably put pressure on MLB, regardless of how the league office and the commissioner actually felt about this,

President Biden and others had called for MLB to make this move. The press release cited conversations with clubs and former and current players and the Players Association and the Players Alliance, among others, but MLB had not yet weighed in on this when we spoke, so that'll have to be a subject for a subsequent episode. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. 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. Mitch Goldich, Thomas Reiner, Dwayne Potts, Allison, and John Doherty. Thanks to all of you.

You can 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.fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. I'm gonna get myself straight

I feel it's never too late To make a brand new start To make a brand new start. To make a brand new start. To make a brand new start.