Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1881: Antitrust Us

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a convoluted fun fact, the Cardinals’ anti-vaccination contingent, a historic Red Sox slump, an injury to top draftee Druw Jones, and a Willians Astudillo double-play pitch, Stat Blast (16:00) about Bryan Shaw and late-starting starters (plus an update on zero-RBI cleanup hitters), and share a Past Blast from […]

But if you burn too strong, you might expend your heart Being the first to finish and the last to stop The first to finish and the last to stop The first to finish and the last Hello and welcome to episode 1881 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. Did you see the tweet, which was much shared? I believe it was from Sunday.

It was tweeted by StatsPerforms' Twitter account, at StatsByStats. And I will read you this. I suppose it is a purported fun fact. There have been over 10,000 days in MLB history with 10 or more games. Today is the only one of those where nobody hit two plus homers in a game. Nobody had two plus stolen bases in a game. Nobody scored three plus runs in a game. Nobody threw a complete game.

No team scored 10 plus runs in a game. And no team won via walk-off. Did you notice that just watching games on Sunday? Did you just pick up on that fact or are you just thinking to yourself, you know what? Nobody has hit two plus homers in a game. Nobody has stolen two or more bases in a game. Nobody stored three or more runs in a game. And these nobodies, by the way, refer to individual players. When it means a team stat, then it specifies that. I've been thinking about this one ever since I saw it. I guess for multiple reasons. One, how did they think to look at this?

I guess is my first question. We have so many qualifiers here. So someone, like I want an oral history of how this tweet was written and tweeted. Because someone had to notice. Like did they have like an automatic subroutine that runs every day to check to see whether this is finally the day with 10 plus games where nobody does this and that, or did somebody just looking at the box scores realize, huh, nobody had two plus homers, nobody had two plus slow bases. And then they just like kept adding on more and more and more conditions because it's like, oh, there was another day where everyone did all but two of these things.

Well, let's add another qualifier. Maybe no team one via walk-off. Let's toss that into the stew. Okay. Oh, that wasn't enough. No team scored 10 plus runs in a game. Are we there yet? Did we get it? Yes, finally. So we have individual homers in a game, stolen bases in a game, runs scored in a game, complete games, in a game, complete games, 10 runs for a team or more, and walk off. So this is six different events, six different qualifiers that have to be satisfied here for this to happen or for all these things not to happen. So I'm just kind of gobsmacked by this one because I just can't imagine the process that led to this being discovered, deemed worthwhile, and put out into the world.

I'm just like reckoning with how long it took you to read that tweet. Yeah, they used all the characters here. Yeah, I was just about to say, I am not convinced that they did not defy the character limit on Twitter in order to tweet that. I mean, I know you can abbreviate some of those things. They didn't. Well, I mean, I guess they did. They abbreviated stolen bases to SB and Complete Games was CG and Homer's was HR. So yes, they did.

But if I just plug this into a character counter, huh, I'm being told here it was 277 characters that doesn't seem possible wait a minute hold on so they they were like okay so here's what they here's what i'm given to understand from this tweet i'm given to understand that they have the ability to break twitter and the way that they decided to use that was not to take it down permanently, but to tweet that fun fact. I'm getting 279 characters from a different character kind of tool. I have a grievance.

I think I am demanding restitution. I am here to say that I will run on a platform of no more spam calls, no more ridiculous tweets, and I will run on a platform of no more spam calls, no more ridiculous tweets, and I will win. I will win, Ben. I don't know what I'm running for, but whatever it is, I'm going to win. Twitter's up to 280 now, right?

I don't know. It's too many. So they actually, yeah, you probably shouldn't even test that limit, but it's 280. At that point, write a blog. When you're getting up there, it's 280 so write write a blog you know when you're getting up there it's like go write a blog friend or just leave this one in the drafts potentially too but too long looks like they were somewhere between one and three characters underneath the limit so they just snuck in under the wire there doesn't mean that they should have but they could have and they did and if you are the author of this tweet please email us and just let us know how this came to your attention like did

alarms go off at the stats office like it's finally the day we've been waiting right it's like that gift from the office yeah right people are running for the doors and people are sliding down fire people poles. Jumping out windows. Confetti is coming out everywhere. I hope someone was like just glued to the last game of the night, just making sure we can't have a walk off here because this will spoil the fun fact that we've been waiting decades or centuries to deploy here. All the conditions are satisfied. No one screw this up. No one steal a third base or second base. Just a wild fun fact. It actually, it's like some kind of horseshoe theory thing where it like goes all the way around

from being a terrible fun fact with too many qualifiers to just like, I have to tip my cap to just how incredibly convoluted this is because I actually did have fun reading and thinking about it not in the traditional sense necessarily but in some sense no see you had fun but I am aggrieved I am aggrieved Ben I have grievance I would like to again I am demanding restitution so we have a guest today that will be the bulk of the episode. Evan Drellick of The Athletic is here to talk to us about MLB's antitrust issues and the fact that Congress is kind of coming after MLB's antitrust exemption again, but maybe in a more serious way than before.

And also, there will not be an international draft for now. So Evan has been reporting on those negotiations, which ended up going nowhere, and he will tell us why and how. And then we'll also get into minor league pay with him and a big class action lawsuit that was just settled that led to a big payout for some minor leaguers. So we'll get into all of that and more very soon. There has been some news, but I have nothing new or very nice to say about the latest

round of high-profile anti-vaxxers who have come to light since we discussed the last round. We talked about the Phillies contingent. We talked about the Royals contingent. Now there's a Cardinals contingent, and I'm sure everyone has read the cookie cutter quotes and the fact that it's a team again in contention in a very tight playoff race very core contributors to that team maybe not so much Austin Romine although well he's on the roster too but it did remind me that Austin Romine is on that roster yeah there, there was that. I had forgotten. It's my way to get publicity. So this might be bad publicity, at least in some quarters.

But Nolan Arnauto and Goldschmidt, of course, and the two most important players or position players on that team, they are needed in that lineup. They will not be there for some games in Toronto for the usual reasons. I think the only new wrinkle here was that Myles Michaelis, who did get vaccinated, then came out as not even an anti-vaxxer, but like a vaccine regretter. He was like, I wish I hadn't gotten it. Not because of anything that happened to him. He didn't suggest that he personally had suffered some side effects or ill consequences of this.

He just said something nebulous about he's heard some stuff or something that he resents having to get it or something. So all he had to say was nothing and he could have not been part of that story. But he came out and kind of lumped himself together with the others even though he actually did get the shots and will get to be eligible for those games yeah i mean like i guess we'll just like i never know like how much we have to say to our audience about this although every time we talk about the vaccine stuff we get at least one email that's like you're right about so many things but you're wrong about that and i'm like no we're not i mean like wasn't nolan arenado's reason that he and his wife are trying to have a baby and he's worried about infertility that's not a thing everyone not a thing not a thing it's important to say nothing i guess i'll just like reiterate my what is your plan because like i just really struggle to believe that that

those two guys are like not gonna if they advance through the playoffs to a point that they would have to contend with the blue jays in the postseason we're talking about world series games and like right now as we're recording this i think they are losing to toronto so that's a thing they are currently two back of the breers and the Central. But if you're advancing to the World Series, are you really going to sit out World Series games because you didn't want to get the shot? I just refuse to believe that that's true. And if it's not, you're like,

we're not making the World Series this year. That's the supposed admission that comes with that, right? Because if it's not a thing- They just don't think the Blue Jays will. Right, but it's like, you confident in that? You really confident in that? I just think everyone should get vaccinated and play baseball games and protect their communities.

You're right. We don't really have more to say about it. I think it would have taken longer to do all of the things in that tweet than it took to read the tweet. I'm pivoting because you're right. I don't really have a new thing to say. I think our position on the advisability of getting vaccinated is pretty clear and how doofy it is to not do that really in any context

is clear and it remains. It's no less doofy if the thing you're trying to do is like beat the toronto blue jays in a baseball game equally doofy in that context yeah i guess they're playing the odds a that they will be fine without the vaccine but also playing the odds that their team will not end up facing the blue jays in the world series i guess which decent odds for that sure yeah you are taking a slight risk there of looking very bad. Very bad. But I guess if you feel so strongly about it, perhaps it's worth it to you.

It's not exactly someone taking a, well, it is perhaps for some a principled stand for others. I'm not so sure, but it's not the principle that I would want to stand on. But yes, I'm sure whenever we bring this up, it becomes big news. Whenever it happens, there's another round of this team and this superstar. But there's probably some small subset of our audience that goes grumble, grumble. I'm with those guys. And then there's a bigger part of our audience that's like, yeah, we're with you. We know what you said about this before.

And you can just assume that we know what you would say about this too but i guess generally i don't know that my position is like i wish i didn't know so much about these players like there are times when it's it's good for these things to come to light there are other times when look i'm not saying that that knowing these things is going to make me unable to appreciate the next Nolan Arnauto backhand stab and incredible throw across the diamond or something. We can still appreciate him as a baseball player or Paul Goldschmidt as a baseball player, but it's also hard to completely dissociate their play from who we now know they are as people at least in this one realm i'm not saying they're like history's greatest villains or anything like that but

it's one thing where you think oh yeah he's one of those you know so again it's like there are so many baseball players who probably have plenty of opinions that we would not share and not only not share, but not endorse. Object strenuously to perhaps. Perhaps in some cases. And so in most cases, we can remain blissfully oblivious of those things and they don't broadcast those thoughts and we don't ask necessarily. It just doesn't come up. We get to just pay attention to who they are as baseball players and leave it at that. But in this one specific issue, it just unavoidably becomes news. Right, we're going to know.

Yeah. Yeah, we're going to know. And I guess that there is something potentially a little squeamish and squirrely on our part for being satisfied with that, right? That we're like, ah, we don't know. So it's probably fine. But we don't know, you know? We don't know. And it's nice when we don't sometimes. Yeah.

Can we ever truly know anyone? Right. Yeah. I mean, we know fun facts about weird confluences of baseball events never previously happening before. And now we know a little something about two players who i think we're both quite fond of watching and so it's disappointing that this is the course that they have charted and i guess we'll see where the rubber meets the road on conviction around

these questions because i gotta tell you i i think that i think we're gonna hear about some some last minute j and j shots if that couldJ shots if it comes to it, right? Because I think that one thing I feel very confident baseball players have conviction in, at least at the major league level, is that they really like to win a World Series. I also think there's a strong possibility that their, at this moment, sort of amiable

and non-confrontational teammates might change their tune if they're staring down like a World Series game without Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt in much the same way that I imagine the vibe in the Phillies clubhouse could be different or the Twins or the Mariners or whatever. There are just a lot of possibilities of postseason potential meeting the harsh reality of not being willing to get vaccinated. So you could join your teammates and I guess we'll see how that plays out. So maybe later in the week we can talk a little bit about a few teams that are on the trade deadline playoff bubble that are kind of deciding whether to stock up or divest themselves.

Don't know whether you noticed, but I think the Red Sox went through maybe a little rough patch since the last time we spoke. Yeah. But we can get into that maybe next time, just noting that it was a historically terrible stretch and one where they often looked kind of incompetent in ways that pretty good baseball teams do not, just in the dropping pop-ups and never seeing fly balls kind of incompetent in ways that pretty good baseball teams do not, just in the dropping

pop-ups and never seeing fly balls kind of category, which has seemingly befallen them quite a lot lately. I know that they have a lot of injuries and they've been shorthanded, but they're in kind of a crucial series right now with Cleveland where they have to decide, both of those teams really have to decide whether they're in or out over the next week. And that's kind of an interesting conversation. So maybe we will save that for next time. I just want to do a little stat blast here that is related to that Red Sox Guardians series.

They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Deist-O-Post! So I don't know whether you know this, but Brian Shaw started the game for the Guardians on Tuesday. veteran reliever who is 34 years young and has been pitching since 2011 and has never started a game in the major leagues. He started that game for Cleveland. They were shorthanded, literally. Aaron's always hurt. They just didn't have a healthy starter ready to go, even though this was a pretty significant series and the Red Sox are losing a lot of players and pitchers left and right, too. So Brian Shaw, as far as I can tell, has not started a game professionally. It looks like since 2010 in AA.

So he never started one of the majors. And I thought to myself, that has to be unprecedented or close to it that someone like that would have his first career start that late in his career because he has pitched 732 games prior to that start. So I wondered whether that was a record for games pitched prior to a first start. And so I consulted frequent StatBlast consultant, Ryan Nelson, and he confirmed that it is a record, although it's kind of close. So Brian Shaw, 732 games pitched before his first start. On September 24th, 2021, just last year, David Robertson made his first career start in his 670th game. And on June 5th, 2019, Joaquin Soria made his first start in his 666th game. So I assume that both of those were opener cases as well. So quotation marks and caveats around start, obviously, in all of these cases. So the opener is kind of

skewing and screwing with us a little here, but still technically a game started. So Brian Shaw does have that record now. However, he does not have the record for most innings pitched before a first start. So that would go to Mark Clear, who on June 30th, 1987, made his first start with 728 and two-thirds innings under his belt. Shaw had 690 and one-third. And Todd Jones, who made his first start June 7th, 2003, he had 710 and two-thirds innings pitched before his first start, too. So he was in second place.

So Shaw is third on this leaderboard just ahead of where Robertson was as well. So this was indeed historic. I know it's frustrating for Cleveland fans because I think that from what I have gleaned, sometimes it's hard to tell from a national perspective how local fans feel about players on their team. But I get the sense that Guardians fans have run out of patience with Brian Shaw some time ago, or not even with Brian Shaw necessarily, but how Terry Francona thinks of Brian Shaw. This is one of those cases where people wonder whether they're compromising photos involved in the usage of a reliever just because Brian Shaw has a five plus ERA or did entering that start. And his leverage index is lower than it was last year. Like last year,

he led the majors in games pitched and he was somewhat effective, but he was still being used in pretty high leverage roles. And so I think people are kind of convinced that Tito maybe remembers the old Brian Shaw. Brian Shaw from better, younger days, perhaps, and is still deploying him that way. And maybe he is not quite as effective anymore. But now he is an emergency starter as well. And I guess it didn't go great. I think he pitched too scoreless and then maybe they pushed it a tad too far.

And I think he ended up coming back out for a third inning and giving up a couple earned runs. But as we speak, Cleveland is ahead of Boston 7-2. So I guess all's well that it's not quite ending but seems to be close to ending. Look, I mean, sometimes I think, Ben, that I can have three beers and feel fine the next morning. And then I'm like that I can have three beers and feel fine the next morning and then I'm like I'm 36 so I relate to Terry's problem because or Terry I don't normally refer to managers by their first names it's like very familiar I don't know him we're not friends we don't exchange Christmas cards anyway you can leave it all in it's fine um I talked for like six hours today ben a lot of calls several pods here we are it's delightful anyway don't drink three beers when you're 36 you'll feel like garbage the next

morning and also like engage with your relievers where they are because you might end up having a better time of it although as you noted the guardians are having a fine time at least as we record so yes and just one follow-up to the cavalcade of stat blasts from last time. This is not a correction, but a clarification. There was one stat blast among the many that I delivered that day. It was the length of a tweet about obscure baseball events. That's how many stat blasts there were. This is the one from listener Michael, who wanted to know the most plate appearances entering a game for a player who had zero RBI to that point in a season in each lineup slot because he noticed that Adley Rutschman had had quite a few plate appearances before he was penciled in as a cleanup hitter for the Orioles earlier this year. And some numbers I cited then were just games played, not games started.

So if someone had come in, entered the game as a defensive replacement or as a pinch hitter or a pinch runner or whatever, and then was inserted into a certain lineup slot, then that counted. Whereas I think Michael astutely pointed out that he was maybe more interested in games started. So you were actually penciled into that lineup slot with zero RBI and manager knew that before the game began. So Ryan reran those numbers with games started instead of any appearance. And by that metric, the new record, I guess, would be Whitey Witt, June 17th, 1917. He had 151 plate appearances and he was leading off. He actually may have been on the original results. Some of them are the same. And then it's Niger Morgan,

number two in the order. June 1st, 2012, he had 138 plate appearances entering that game without an RBI. And then eight and nine were two players who were mentioned last time to Magnuris Sierra. He would not show up as often on this revised list, but he does show up once in the number eight slot. Last July 23rd, he had 135 plate appearances entering that game, but he was starting in the eighth slot as opposed to starting in cleanup, which seemed weird because it was Magnery Sierra, but he had just been inserted into that game. But he did start one batting eighth with 135 plate appearances without an RBI, and Caleb Joseph had 138 in the number nine slot before

his first RBI, and that was September 25th, 2016. He had 138 entering that game. Also, for the heart of the order, the numbers were a little lower, so the cleanup slot was what prompted the initial question, and that was Luis Salazar, May 5th, 1981. He started a game batting cleanup and he had 96 plate appearances entering that game without an RBI. So that was more than Adley Rutschman ended up with before he got his first ribby this year, but not that many more. So he was kind of close. And then for number three, it's a tie between Carson Bigby and Brandy Davis. They had 86. And for the fifth and sixth slots, it's Manny Moda, both times, June 14th and 15th, 1969, 105 and 109, respectively. And finally, Herb Adams in the seventh slot. He had 125

plate appearances, June 11th, 1950. But thanks to Michael for following up on what he had actually intended with that question. And thanks to Ryan for rerunning the numbers. So still notable. And this StatBlast was, as always, sponsored by StatHead, powered by Baseball Reference. And I have some news to relate on that front because there is a big StatHead sale coming up. I have been reliably informed that StatHead is running a special sale for the MLB trade deadline that will be their best deal on StatHead all year. So it's $58 for a one-sport subscription and $128 for all sports.

So usually I guess it's $20 off. Now it's going to be $22 off the One Year One Sport subscription. That sale is running August 1st through August 2nd. And to get that deal, people can use the codes DEADLINE22 for a single sport or

FREEAGENT22. These are all one word. That's for all sports. So again, we always recommend Baseball Reference Stathead and we tell people that you can use our coupon code WILD20 to get a discount anytime. But if you're someone who waits for the biggest possible sale, then you can save a couple extra bucks if you wait until early next week and take advantage of the trade deadline special at Stathead.com. Cool.

Yep. And now I will leave you with the past blast. This is episode 1881. And so this past blast comes from 1881. This is Mike King Kelly of the Chicago club Cutton Corners. That's what this one is about. This is from Richard Hershberger, as always, historian, saber researcher, author of Strike Four, The Evolution of Baseball. So Boston at Chicago, May 20th, 1881. Kelly is at second. Cap Anson is at bat. And as reported in the Chicago Tribune, it was strongly suspected that Kelly, in his eagerness to reach the plate from second somehow forgot to go by way of third, but slighted that bag entirely by some 10 or 15 feet, thereby saving much valuable time and distance.

The umpire of necessity was fixing his attention upon the play at first base, where Burdock, second baseman, and Deasley, first baseman, were disposing of Anson, and hence that official could not possibly know whether Kelly touched the third bag or not. The umpire was doing his duty, and since he did not with his own eyes see Kelly skip the base, he could not under the rules give him out. The Boston Herald had a different take. Anyone who read the description of the way in which the Chicago-Boston game of last Friday was lost to the Bostons will recognize at once the system of playing favored and petted by the Chicago management. To get a run honestly, if a man can, but get a run is the policy of that club as laid down by its president. It is not a policy that commends itself to honest people.

If a game is not to be won on its merits but is to be stolen, then baseball will degenerate as it deserves. And Richard writes, there was only one umpire with but one set of eyes. Why only one umpire? No one wanted to pay two. Well, that makes sense. It would be well into the 20th century before at least two umpires was universal, and the official rules still include a provision for a single umpire. In 1887, Kelly was traded to Boston. He would continue his little ways, which the Boston press will realize is smart, aggressive play to be commended.

So when he's doing it for your team, then you'll like it, I guess. But when it's your opponent, then he's a no good dirty degenerate. That's fantastic. Yep. All right. By the way, did you see Williams Astadillo is back in the big leagues? Yeah, pitching now. Yeah, he pitched again, as he does from time to time. And I know we've mentioned, I've certainly mentioned I'm kind of over position player pitching at this point, even when it's Williams. But I did appreciate that he got Donovan Solano of the Reds to ground into a double play on a 40 mile per hour pitch. Just can't be a good feeling. Like up there with things that happened this week that could not be

good feelings. Drew Jones, the number two overall pick in the amateur draft to hurt his shoulder. It sounds like taking batting practice with his team just after signing. Their curse, Ben. It's so weird. All of their, and we don't know the extent of the injury yet. But I think it's the last four years of their first rounders have all had shoulder things. Oof, man. Yeah.

So to go from the high of, hey, I just got drafted second overall and I'm getting a big bonus and I'm going to embark on my professional career to I hurt my shoulder taking batting practice and now potentially could be out for the rest of the season. So that sucks a lot. Probably sucks more than grounding into a double play on a 40 mile per hour pitch from Williams-Ostedeo. But neither one could possibly feel good, I don't think. Yeah. I think we can acknowledge that these things exist on a continuum and also that they both would feel bad in the moment. How much longer they feel bad probably depends, but yeah. Yeah. I guess you get over the double play pretty quickly. You get to come up again, whereas if your shoulder is hurt, you do not. All right.

Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back've seen me at my best and I guess my worst It's really not so easy to get in and bust But just call me up and you know I'll be around I sure do wish that heaven would ruin me tonight Well, whenever Major League Baseball and the Players Association can't come to an agreement, there is one man, one whisperer we want to talk to. The poet of the impasse, the wizard of stalemates, the bard of bad blood. He's Evan Drellick of The Athletic. Hello, Evan. mates the bard of bad blood he's evan drelic of the athletic below evan yeah yeah there's nothing

quite like the poetry of major league baseball made a proposal today the players rejected it lyrical really beautiful words yeah fewer chances for you to show off your photography skills this time unfortunately you had the like the camera propped up and the angles and everything. You were bringing great photography skills to the lockout, and you were really not able to exercise those skills this time around. There was one writer who texted me and was asking if I was planning a stakeout, and my answer was basically, hell no, I'm not going to do it again. I'm done with the walking back and forth pictures, but I'm glad that if the internet ever needs a picture of Patrick Houlihan of Major League Baseball's labor relations department, as my voice cracks, it is on Twitter somewhere. Yeah.

Well, you got the tripod for next time I suppose in a way, those negotiations weren't really over until the league and the union resumed the talks that they had tabled about the international draft, which had threatened to prevent a deal from getting done until the two parties kicked that can down the road. And now they have finally reached the end of that road, at least for the time being and no deal. I guess we should have brought Passan in for his trademark. There's no deal. There was never going to be a deal, but it seemed like there might be a deal at some point, at least up until recent days. But just to recap for everyone, what was at stake here? Why this got broken out into a separate discussion months after the CBA was hammered out? What was

at stake here? The very basic of it was they were going to institute an international draft for the very first time in the sport. And the kind of the primary trade-off would have been the elimination of the qualifying offer for major league free agents. But there was a lot more to it. And that's mostly because there's a lot more to the international amateur system in general. It's by Commissioner Manfred's own admission at this point, I guess he hasn't used the word corrupt himself, but he used the word abuses. But it is a corrupt system.

Ken Rosenthal, Maria Torres at The Athletic did a really good job reporting on it. James Wagner did another good story the other day at The New York Times, where you've got these early deals that kids sign. You're supposed to be 16 before you sign, the other day at the New York Times, where you've got these early deals that kids sign. You're supposed to be 16 before you sign, and you have teams agreeing to kids well before they're 16. And MLB was positioning it probably rightly that a draft would eliminate a lot of those early deals. The problem is there are other things beyond the early deals.

There's the exorbitant amount of money these kids have to pay to trainers and handlers in countries like the Dominican Republic. There's questions how much money should go to education. They were talking about the union proposed the creation of a foundation during the negotiations. MLB met the union partway on the idea of creating a joint committee to look at issues, basically human rights issues that apply to international amateurs. But the union wanted more of a powerful committee than MLB was granting. So it's just a really complicated landscape. There's a whole legal element to it that I'm not aware of where you're dealing with different jurisdictions, different countries. So it's a mess. And they were trying to sort out the mess.

Why did it wait until now as opposed to before? Why didn't they get it done in March? It's very political for the players union. The players from Latin America are often split on this. You have some who want to draft, some who don't. Certainly, all the players would like to get rid of the qualifying offer. But like anything else, it comes down to money. There wasn't enough money on the table back in March, and the union felt, again, here, there wasn't enough money on the table to do it now. What is your sense of when the Players Association made their final proposal to MLB, what is your sense of how cohesive the constituency that the Players Association made their final proposal to MLB, what is your sense of how cohesive the

constituency that the Players Association has to satisfy is now or has become over time? Because to your point, there are a lot of different stakeholders represented within the union who have gone through this process. Of course, the kids themselves are not really at the table in a direct way here. So what is your sense of if MLB were coming to the union with sufficient money, did things feel solidified within the union such that everyone is sort of on the same page or are there still dissenting voices in terms of how advisable a draft is at all? I think there would have still been dissenting voices. I can't put a percentage on it, honestly. I don't directly know the answer to the question other than it is something that has always had a lot of mixed feelings.

And one of the things the union was harping on was if you look at the amount of money that is committed to domestic amateurs, so rule four, the standard US draft that would be committed in 2024 when the international draft would have started under MLB's proposal, the amount of money in the Rule 4 bonus pool would have been above $300 million. You know, MLB's proposal to the players, the last dollar figure was $191, and the players were asking for $260. Now, the amount of money that's currently in place, it was in place last year as well, is about 167. So it would have been a step up from the status quo either way, but the players union are looking at that and going, there's a very large disparity here. We don't like that sense of fairness that that conveys, right? Why are the international amateurs getting 190 compared to 300 plus for US amateurs. So look, I think if they

had done it, ultimately, you probably would have, if the players had agreed to some sort of system, even if they'd gotten their 260, if they'd gotten the money up, I think you could have sat there and said, well, is the primary trade-off here something that doesn't benefit the players in Latin America directly, the Latin American players. Did they sell them out to get rid of the qualifying offer? Certainly, there would have been other things that if they did get the education, if they did get – and both sides did – MLB proposed a minimum of $5,000 for every player. The union was at $10,000 for every player for contributions to education. It's not like none of it would have helped players in the Dominican and other

countries. But there's something, I think, in a bird's eye view, if the primary trade-off is ultimately the qualifying offering, the elimination of it, well, that's for Major League Free agents. That does not help the 14-year-old in the Dominican Republic. Eventually, it might someday, but it doesn't upfront. And so that was always a tricky balance. And to use one of your phrases from the lockout times, was this a case of heated talks? Was there acrimony going on here? Were there accusations of bad faith or was it just, you know, we're not seeing eye to eye in this case? I mean, was there like a continuation of heated talks that happened months ago so that the heat didn't die down? Or was this, I don't know, more civil, I suppose, at least on the surface?

That's another good question. I never asked that question, and I should have. And I don't know if that was post-lockout exhaustion. And I didn't see anybody else. There were a few other reporters reporting on it. I guess put it this way. Neither side, if it got heated, both sides wanted to keep that quiet. It didn't get to the point that they were kind of, not that they always volunteered it,

but sometimes they would. Sometimes it would be one side or the other, like making clear like, today, woo, woo wee. And so we didn't have that. And there weren't that many talks. There were only a handful of meetings. And I think in the end, was it two proposals apiece or maybe one side made three? But there wasn't anything after March until July, July 8th. And then July 15th was a counter. And then you had over the weekend. And that was it. And then Monday. quite as expeditious with this side of things? Or maybe it's just like, I don't know, the incentive wasn't there so much to get a deal

done because it wasn't as clear that it could be disastrous for both sides as people were saying at the time. Well, the lesson of the lockout in some ways is they show you they never get anything done to the last minute anyway, right? The old 43-day period we had in the winter before the league made its next proposal, I think that was, what, December to January, or right after the lockout started into January. And again, you didn't have, like, the fate of the baseball season rested on the lockout. This is a situation where, I think, particularly from the player's side, you can look at it and

go, well, you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. There's a cost to doing it, there would probably be problems from doing it as well even even under any sorts of terms you know tony clark has talked about he doesn't like the amateur draft and what i mean by that is he was starting a league today i think i don't want to put words in his mouth but i think he would prefer that no drafts exist at all because they're not a player-friendly system, right? There's this core economic component to it as well where the owners want a draft because it removes teams from bidding against each other. Even in the current system, you still have to compete. There is a pool of money, right? It's capped in the international amateur system right now.

But the Mets can still outbid the Orioles or vice versa. And this is what I was saying at the beginning, why it really was a complicated thing. You don't want to, if you're the players, go from anything that resembles a market to a draft system without it being, quote unquote, worth your while. And clearly, the union had a conception of what was worth its while and did not think that the league was anywhere close. And clearly the union had a conception of what was worth its while and did not think that the league was anywhere close. And their statement reflected that. They were making clear this is not in the ballpark for us. It's funny because I think we're right to say that from a major league baseball perspective, the stakes are dramatically different from the stakes of the lockout. But

obviously, I think we'd all agree that the human stakes of this are really high for the kids involved, right? The amateurs who, you know, are being, you know, in some cases subjected to pretty obvious abuse on the part of either the people they're training with or the teams in terms of deals being agreed to verbally that are then not carried through. So where does this leave the players association and the league in terms of trying to more directly and thoroughly address those abuses? Because there are rules in place now that are supposed to govern the signing of international amateurs. And you're right, Ken and Maria's reporting was excellent that a lot of the time those rules are being circumvented. that a lot of the time those rules are being circumvented. So what is the current state of affairs in terms of trying to actually curtail abuse in the international market if a draft is not going to be introduced for 2024?

Yeah, you're making a good point, which is that this is much more serious. As far as things that can be bargained over, the number of playoff teams doesn't quite have the same impact on, meaningfully impact people's lives the way the corruption and a player for the Dominican Republic who gets signed early maybe not for a particularly great bonus then flames out at whatever you know 1920 and has not much of an education and then is facing difficult career prospects it's a much more serious nature and it's the reason I wrote a column I don't know maybe a month ago at this point you know saying look this should be treated differently by the league and the union in terms

of their public communication where they you know they they they most of the time don't want to say anything directly you know sourced stuff background off record all that fun stuff that comes with the territory here you know i i did think this was was a topic of a different nature that should have had a lot more direct public communication. Both sides would say, well, you know, we're talking to our constituents. You know, we don't know the public. And it's not about the public. It's about the constituents, yada, yada.

You know, going forward, it's an open question as to does MLB now try to newly crack down in that Ken and Maria piece, and as well as my own reporting and I think others. There's certainly a suspicion and a feeling among people in the industry, agents and others, that MLB let this go. And that particularly after the last round of bargaining in 16, that they were less of a mind to police it. And the idea being that they were to position themselves to bring the water to the fire. They helped grow. Right. If you have a problem and you can say this is a massive problem, well, doesn't that help you to change it? And they wanted an international draft.

Right. international draft, right? And so that's, you know, MLB was known to be, and it is a fact that they, for some number of years during the period of the last CBA, they were working with trainers. And working with trainers, you can take that to be a lobbying effort. You know, they were trying to build a groundswell of support for the international draft inside the Dominican Republic with the people on the ground. You wonder if at some point, does a government agency take a little notice of this? And I think we'll get to antitrust stuff. It was the international amateur system was mentioned in the letter from the four U.S.

Senate Judiciary Committee senators that was sent to advocates for minor leaguers, the nonprofit fighting for better pay for minor leaguers, and it was mentioned as well in the letter sent to Rob Manfred. So yeah, at this point, I don't have anything as to like MLB is newly going to do X, Y, and Z to fix this. I mean, what will be true at the next round of bargaining is that MLB will still want an international draft. I would expect – if nothing else, this will be a topic again next round, right? It's possible they start talking again sooner, but it's always possible. Likely would be that it waits till the next CBA. Yeah. So I guess it's sort of a setback. Obviously, it's a setback if anyone wants an international draft just because in theory they could have agreed to one now.

But maybe it's also a setback in the sense that there could be more hesitation about revisiting it in the future. The fact that they got closer at least or were talking about it in a more concerted way and still couldn't come to an agreement or even come all that close. And it nearly sabotaged the CPA talks initially, it seemed like, until they decided to put it off for a while. So is it now just like such a headache for everyone involved that people will be wary of even bringing it into the next round? Or is it like, well, once more into the breach? Yeah, I think it's once more into the breach. The international qualifying offer trade was kind of being newly publicized at the very end of the lockout. It had been discussed the whole time. It wasn't really made a public issue. And I think there was some strategy behind that. I think it was, look, the league wanted it. And I think they were trying to get it at the last minute. But the answer from the union had been all along to the league. We're not interested in this as is. I'm trying to remember if there was one that might be contested.

It might be that the league felt there was some indication that the union wanted it at one point. But either way, as it is an economic element as well beyond the corruption, you know it will come back up in bargaining. The league wanted it prior to this round. They wanted it in 16. I think it's been proposed in several rounds. I should remember this, but it's not like 16 was the first time they tried. So they'll try again the next time. And if anything, maybe the fact that you had the union even making proposals for an international draft suggests that, well, maybe they actually could get it done in the next round. And I'm not saying that either side should want to, but once you kind of have an alignment on a concept, well,

then it's about alignment on dollars and a broader negotiation, maybe you get there. Well, and I wonder if it will continue to be tied to the qualifying offer in whatever their next round of negotiations is, because that always struck me as something of a monetary mismatch. Like whatever you think of the draft, when you look at the pool of money that is associated with that, true, that's new spending on the part or at least increased spending on the part of ownership in theory. on the part or at least increased spending on the part of ownership in theory. But it is something that ownership really, really wants, even if they end up spending more when a deal is done than they had initially proposed.

And the qualifying offer affects like nine guys a year. It always seemed like a trade-off that wasn't quite balanced in the union's favor. So I wonder if it will continue to be tied to the qualifying offer going forward. The estimate that either Ken or I or both of us reported during the lockout was that the qualifying offer was valued, I think at least by the player's side, at $50 to $100 million annually. Because it is affecting the best of the best and those markets, I guess, theoretically have a trickle-down effect. It's not insignificant. But yeah, the fact that MLB is willing to dangle it tells you how much they think going to that it really is more the dollars and cents of the system. I don't think MLB likes a corruption. I'm not saying that they actively enjoy it.

But at the end of the day, that switch is significant. When a team can just sit there and say, this is my player. He cannot sign anywhere else. That's no joke, as the kids say. My last question on this. Do kids say that? I don't know. We're probably the wrong people to ask. My kid's too young to say anything. Did you kids say that? I don't know. the winter, at least as well as I was able, but it's kind of complicated. And every now and then we get the question of, well, why is this matter that directly affects amateur players primarily,

whether it's the international draft or the amateur draft? Why is the MLB Players Association bargaining about this when those players are not members of the Players Association? Hypothetically, they are potential future members of it, but that's a long way away in the case of a 16-year-old signee, right, or even an 18-year-old draftee or someone coming out of college. So what is your understanding of how this even became a bargaining chip here? Yeah, I think the answer, I would have to confidently answer that question, I would have to check. It becomes a matter of history at a certain point. Once something is a part of bargaining, then it's a part of bargaining.

And it's rare that one side would agree that, well, we bargained over in the past, but now going forward, we're not going to. And this comes up a bit with revenue sharing, where there are definitely people on management side who think it was a mistake to have ever allowed revenue sharing to be collectively bargained. I don't know the answer to the question, well, would the players have been willing to fight very long and hard for it to be? But beyond that, it's an entry system, right? And that's usually, the times I've asked about it in the past, and I'm thinking years ago at this point, that's usually what, that's what I remember it coming back to, is that the system of entry of entry it becomes logical at least to the parties that they bargain over it uh you know and the sides can more or less bargain over what they want to and so you know could there have been a point in time where the league would have tried to say you don't have the right to do this yes and then

the players could have said no we do and then it's you know it becomes well how much do you want to fight over that like anything else in bargaining whether it rises to the level of a mandatory subject of bargaining which is a technical term in bargaining i don't know i feel uh all the time that i should have just gotten ajd and uh bitten the bullet and learned all these things but yeah but then you'd be a lawyer. Yeah, nobody wants that. There's still time. You can always go back to law school or go there for the first time in your case. So we wanted to transition to another topic, which you alluded to there, which is the antitrust issue and also to minor league pay.

And these issues are very tightly tied together. So Monday was the deadline for the international draft talks. Tuesday was also supposed to be a deadline. That was the day when Major League Baseball was supposed to respond to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and its questionnaire about MLB's antitrust exemption. And then I guess Rob Manfred just said I didn't do my homework or something and they just gave him a few more days. So now he has until Friday morning to send back a response. But what is at stake here? Because I've heard people say this is actually not that huge a deal. I've heard people say it's an existential subject. And obviously, MLB is fighting to keep its antitrust exemption. And

there was also recently a large settlement in a case, a class action lawsuit, minor leaguers and MLB that had been working its way through the courts for years and years. And so all these things are kind of tied together. So for people who don't know, can you give a very brief summary of the antitrust exemption and what it actually enables MLB to do or not do in theory? Yeah, right. So baseball has this antitrust exemption that's now 100 years old, turned 100 this year. The other sports don't have it. It allows MLB to do things that in other businesses would be illegal. You can't have all businesses in another industry, i.e. Google and Facebook, getting together and setting a wage scale for different employees, right? It's anti-competitive and the law is intended to be anti-anti-competitive, right? Is that what I'm trying to say? So there have been several attempts over time by various politicians to attack this exemption.

You've had different courts say that this is really anomalous. And it is. Factually, it is. It is not looked at as a particularly good piece of judgment by the Supreme Court. But it's always been kicked back to the legislature and saying, you know, the Congress has to repeal this, that it doesn't have to go, that it shouldn't go through the courts. And it just hasn't happened. Obviously, getting any legislation passed in this country these days is particularly difficult. is you have bipartisan senators, two Democrats, two Republicans, who sit on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee who are taking an interest in this. And the real question that we don't

yet have the answer to is how serious are they? This is a midterm year. They have sent a letter to this nonprofit Advocates for Minor Leaguers because certainly that organization posits that the antitrust exemption negatively impacts minor league salaries. If all the 30 major league teams can get together and say, well, this is what we're paying minor leaguers, that's the kind of thing that would be challenged in court. Whether it would be successful, I don't know. I think it's reasonable and furthers a decent chance. But so you have these senators who have sent this letter to advocates and to Manfred.

Manfred's response has been delayed. And the question is, after Manfred sends his response, is there a hearing? Do they drag Manfred to Capitol Hill? Do they wrist slap him in front of everybody on C-SPAN? And after that, if that happens, is there any legislation that's introduced? So we're kind of at the early steps of a process where people are saying, involved in the process, look, they're serious, but it's politics. And you just don't know how meaningful it is until you actually start to see some results

because each of these senators has, or at least some of the senators have, might have their own angles. One of them, Chuck Grassley of Iowa. Well, he doesn't like MLB's blackouts because like six teams are blacked out in Iowa. Right. And you have the Republicans in general were mad after Manfred moved the All-Star game from Atlanta last year. And maybe that's where Mike Lee comes in.

So we got to wait and see a bit here. But it is interesting. They're being loud about it. And it is bipartisan. It is interesting. They're being loud about it, and it is bipartisan. And so relative to other things that have happened, like last year when the Republicans introduced a bill, this does seem more serious. Is it serious enough to actually do something? I don't know, man. We're going to find out. And what's your sense of how that would interact with other legislative action that Congress has taken in recent years? To my knowledge, and maybe I'm wrong, the Save America's

Pastime Act, we sure know how to name bills in this country, don't we? It's still on the books, which exempts certain employees from the Fair Labor Standards Act. So how does that interact with a potential repeal or removal of their antitrust exemption? Well, unless they were to introduce legislation to directly remove or amend that, it might not. What legislation related to baseball's antitrust exemption would do, it would remove the protection, right? So all of a sudden, you could bring a lawsuit on antitrust grounds and MLB would be exposed. And there have been lawsuits regarding relocation of major league franchises where it's been thrown out on the basis of the exemption. There was a lawsuit, I forget how many years ago at this point, sometime in the last decade, related to scouts with the Cubs or the Royals. I keep forgetting

this off the top of my head. But basically, the treatment of club employees. And that's another area where all of a sudden, you would be exposed to lawsuits. And just because a lawsuit is brought doesn't mean one would be successful. You'd have to still fight it out. But because of that exposure to it, you could see MLB changing its practices. That's kind of the thought is that to avoid getting sued in the absence of an antitrust exemption, MLB does X, Y, and Z differently. And what impact might removing that antitrust exception have on minor league pay and working and living conditions?

Yeah. If indeed the league were to be fearful of a lawsuit on antitrust grounds, the league could, I think you could start seeing teams potentially competing as far as what they're paying minor leaguers. Something about the system would change. It is very rigid right now where you have, I believe in the minor seven years until you have any ability to move around or negotiate your deal. You're on a very fixed scale, 700 a week at AAA, down to 400-week in rookie ball. And you could see teams paying differently. And that's one thing we've seen advocates for minor leaguers already try to angle at with meetings with the Mets.

They've held a meeting with the Mets to talk about ways they think the Mets could better pay and create better working conditions for their minor leaguers. And MLB's position has been, well, teams are free to do things differently. But in practice, that's not really the case. You're not seeing that because it's a wage scale. So the exposure to another lawsuit, I think, would probably change something about the way minor leaguers are paid. Exactly what mechanism? Somewhere in one of those things I named probably would be right, but it's hard to say exactly what the alteration would be.

I'm going to ask you to speculate on something, so I apologize for that. But I'm curious, let's imagine the perhaps most extreme version of events here. So Manfred is brought before Congress to testify. The antitrust exemption is repealed. What happens to Rob Manfred then? Does he remain commissioner if baseball loses its antitrust exemption? It's an interesting question. And I can't say that I've never thought about it myself. What does that do to the legacy and his standing with owners if he's a commissioner under whom this exemption is reduced? You know, to be clear on what the – I think probably what would happen would be a bill tailored to just exempting the minor league players from the antitrust exemption.

Right. It would be a more narrow intervention than a full repeal of the exemption. Right, right, which might be more palatable for the senators, etc. I'm sure the owners wouldn't be very happy with it. And we know that ultimately, and Rob Manfred is upfront, ultimately, that his job is to represent the interests of the owners. And the question probably for the owners at that point, and the thing that Manfred would probably have to try to sell them on is that, look, this was inevitable and no one could have saved this off longer than I did. And if it's not a full repeal, if it is just on the minor league side, that probably helps him. But yeah, I think anything that's going to cost his owners more money, which is what the repeal

either in part or full of the antitrust exemption would do, isn't going to look good on him to his bosses. It's probably the best I can give you. So tell us a little bit about this class action suit that was just recently settled, $185 million settlement, although I guess only about 120 goes to the players with the rest going to the lawyers. So there's a reason why you could have or should have gone to law school. That's a pretty big chunk of change there. But this had been in progress since, what, 2014. I mean, several years this had been working its way through the legal process.

And finally, I guess there was a settlement that was favorable toward the players or forced this concession from the league in addition to the money. There's also, I guess, what clubs can now pay minor leaguers in spring training or extended spring, et cetera, which is something that you wrote about last month. So how much of a victory is this actually? Was this worth the wait? Yeah, I think so. It's hard to, you know, a trial you can imagine to borrow what Meg just said, you know, in the most extreme scenario, they go to trial, the players win, you know, the amount of things that come out in discovery and the amount of money would certainly be larger. to be eligible to receive money from this. And so that ends up being something like five, six grand a player out of the 185 pot that you're right, does get dwindled down to closer to 120 after the lawyer's fees and all the other, there are other fees involved with a class action. I do think it's a major victory because it's still a very large amount of money, even if divided by 30 teams, does it cripple them? No, certainly not. But it does prove and show that you have people who are A, willing to pursue this and B, can do it successfully in on day one upend the minor league system and change everything overnight.

It's the kind of thing that eight years ago when it began, even three years ago, right? If we go back just a few years before Advocates for Minor Leaguers existed, this has been a very rapid change in this scene and the amount of attention it's getting by fans, by press. And so I think it is significant. It's all about your criteria of what's significant, right? But from where I sit in this space, I wrote it was major and I do think it was major. Do you think that, and I'm going to ask you to speculate again, I'm the worst. You know, this kind of victory, I think probably demonstrates to some of the players who, even the ones who weren't part of the class, but who were able to observe this, the power that collective action can have. Do you think that victories like this maybe

change the likelihood that minor leaguers seek to unionize themselves and enjoy the protections of unionization? They are seeking to unionize themselves and enjoy the protections of unionization? They are seeking to unionize. I don't think at this point there's any question about that, that advocates for minor leaguers and others would love it if minor leaguers could be unionized. Ultimately, the goal of that organization and probably the goal of organizing would be, or a primary goal of organizing would be to get better pay and get better working conditions. You don't have to organize to get to that point. Collective action outside of a formal labor union clearly can have some impact, right? Even in the housing policy

that MLB has undertaken here. So I don't think it's inevitable that the minor leaguers get unionized it's it's a very steep task when everybody is young and wants to impress and just wants to get the big leagues and and uh yada yada but there is an effort underway there and even if they don't get to that point that doesn't mean they couldn't be successful in, if not getting to a place of, quote unquote, fairness, of at least raising the standard. And MLB will tell you left and right, oh, we've increased minor league pay. And so you're starting to see that creep up, but you could probably get more if you had a union, right? There is power in collective bargaining. You talked about this becoming a bigger and bigger story and it became a big story again during All-Star Week when Yahoo's Hannah Kaiser asked Manfred if the owners don't pay minor leaguers a living wage because they can't afford to because they aren't interested in doing it. big flare up in this ongoing story. So something like that. Do you think his position, I mean,

is his justification for saying that essentially that he is not taking into account the parts of the year when they are not playing? Obviously, they're training and preparing to be baseball players, but they're not actively playing. And so they're just sort of not counting that. And that's how you could kind of make that technically correct, I guess. And then just saying that, I mean, from a PR perspective, what do you think he should have or could have said other than just saying, hey, raises for everyone? this matter further because I've got to think that that quote, which was bandied about quite a bit, probably a lot of minor leaguers and even major leaguers paid a lot of attention to that. And if they are not making much money themselves, then obviously they're going to take some offense to that and maybe that strengthens their resolve. It seems like maybe a big factor behind the

Players Association not caving as quickly on certain things as it had perhaps in previous rounds or just having greater resolve at least was partly due to just enmity toward Manfred personally and just some of the bad blood there. So this seemed like another case of Manfred maybe just sort of stepping in it, like even if he wasn't going to do something different, maybe he could have said something different. And we always wonder, why is he not better prepared for press conferences? Questions that he seems just ill-prepared to answer, even though you have to know that you're going to get them. And it just seems like he's not coached for those. So maybe extemporaneous speaking, not one of his strengths. He does have strengths,

certainly from the owner's perspective, at least, but speaking publicly has not been one of them. And this seemed like another instance of that. No, that's 100% correct. At this point, there's enough body of evidence. He lacks a charm and a touch winning over hearts and minds of the public and fans and players that that's doesn't mean he can't sometimes do it, but it is not an innate skill of his or an innate characteristic that he has. An interesting question to him would have been, well, how are you defining a living wage?

That question did not have a chance to get asked. There's only so much time in there and many different people. I said this to Meg during, I think during during the All-Star Game itself we were talking. My read on it is it's kind of a binary choice where you can do two things. I have a caveat for that. You can do two things if you're the commissioner. You can stand up there and say, we are horribly underpaying our minor leaguers or simply we are underpaying them.

We do need to do better. And if you do something like that, probably at this juncture with the four senators paying attention to the antitrust exemption, with the public paying attention to it more than they have in the past, you might be giving entree to further action sooner. I think given a choice between admitting they're not paying enough or that they need to do more and denying it, I assume someone in Manfred's position is always going to deny. That he's always going to take the stance that, no, no, no, nothing to see here. Everything's great. In an attempt to stave off whatever, the sharks that he sees in the water coming after, you know, the owner's profits. The caveat within that is that he could still you can imagine a way to deliver that message of, you know, we're doing enough. Right. If you want to sum up what he's trying to say, there isn't a problem here.

You can deliver that message in a way that is not so inflammatory. And that's where his testimony from the PED oversight hearings, he is always aggressive. I actually thought in this press conference, he was making a very discernible effort to be calm for a time. It didn't last the whole time. But you can tell when he's – he has an ability to get revved up. So I don't know. I don't know how premeditated that specific wording was. But I do imagine, because one has to imagine, they made a decision about, well, we're not going to say we're underpaying them. And so I think from there, that's where it went. And he just doesn't know quite how to land it.

So last question, you mentioned the blackout issue and you've written a bit about streaming bundles and how MLB wants to come up with some sort of solution there. And I guess this could play into the whole antitrust issue as well as could maybe ballparks and teams being able to move certain places and use other cities as leverage, et cetera. But as for the streaming issue, what do you think MLB's ambitions are there or any ideas on what the plans might be to do away with this blackout issue? Because they're going to be locked into some of these local cable deals for years to come, right? So even if they know that they have to future-proof the sport somehow in the league because the cables are getting cut, then it might still take a while to extricate themselves from that arrangement. And we've talked a bit about their efforts to put MLB on Peacock and Apple TV Plus, etc., and how that can kind of suck for fans if you have to keep track of where these things are and you have to sign up for a bunch of different streaming services.

On the other hand, maybe there's some benefit to just putting baseball in places where it hasn't been historically, and in theory, at least reaching new audiences and setting yourself up for a post-cable bundle future. So do you have any idea how this will shake out or at least how the league would like for it to shake out? You know, real quick related to whether the antitrust exemption applies to it. So last year, I think it was last year, they blend together. I did a story on the antitrust exemption and I talked to a lawyer at Penn State who was making an interesting point about prior litigation over blackouts, over territorial rights. And this is the guy, the fellow named Stephen Ross, and he said, the first thing the court said is the baseball exemption doesn't apply because this is not about

the business of baseball. This is about the business of broadcasts. So the first thing the courts have done is somewhat circumscribe what constitutes the business of baseball for purposes of the antitrust exemption. So yeah, I don't know well enough. I think there could probably be more challenges to the blackouts if the antitrust exemption went away. But there's also been some precedent in court saying that that's not going to matter that much anyway., basically. You know, I live in New York. I cannot, based on my current provider, watch Yankees games. You know, that's just silly, right? I would have to switch to be able to do that. I can't just somehow order it.

And they're waiting for all these different contracts to expire, the contracts between the distributor and the provider, the regional sports network and the cable company that carries the regional sports network. And once those deals all come up, they can put in different terms that allows them to do different things. So my understanding is the contracts are the real holdup. And then at that point, I don't have a specific on what it would look like, but I think it's not difficult to imagine that it's it's mlb tv without the blackouts right you can whether that's for one team or whether that's you know maybe there's a

one team package maybe there's sure they do a bunch of different packages and you know that'll have interesting over time could have interesting effects on the economics of the game because one of the fears or alleged fears was always that, well, you know, if you're in Florida with a lot of New York transplants and a lot of Yankees fans, you know, if you had the choice when you're signing up for your cable provider of whether you wanted Rays games or Yankees games. Right. Probably the Rays, many people wouldn't be signing up for the Rays. But the way it works in the cable industry now is you're forced to. Right. You sign up for whatever the distributor is in South Florida, I don't know, Time Warner

or whatever, they're carrying the Rays Regional Sports Network, whether you're a sports fan or not. And so cable will still exist at that point, I think, the point that they get to a package. And he was asked in this press conference, I think Meg was also at how many years it would take. I think it was like one of the last questions. I think he said he was hoping it would be in fewer than five years. I think that that's right. So yeah, I mean, they have a problem with reach and with growing the audience. And the fact that people can't get games as easily as they want to is really central to that. that people can't get games as easily as they want to is really central to that. Mm-hmm. Well, it's not the lightest of subject matter that we tend to bring you on to discuss here, but it's important stuff and we always learn a lot and we recommend that people seek out Evan

at The Athletic. And you can also find him on Twitter, of course, at Evan Drellick, D-R-E-L-L-I-C-H. So I don't know when the next time these parties will be at Lockerheads is, but maybe we can bring you back. Before then, the Lord of Leaks. I don't know. I don't have any other monikers to apply to you, but hopefully I came up with enough. But we enjoyed Respect Your Work and are always happy to have you. Thanks, Evan. Yeah, maybe I can go live in a cave until

the next lockout. I might enjoy that, frankly. Thanks, guys. You have a book to promote in the spring. You can't be in a cave for that. That's true. Can we talk about my book in the spring? That'd be nice. Of course. Astros, right? I have a new cover to unveil,

a new pub date coming out so those things are all pre-orderable yet it is pre-orderable there's no reason not to say it it'll be out on Valentine's Day so it is my love letter to baseball and cuddle up with it please on February 14th a banging scheme indeed yep all right we will have to have you back next year to talk about that.

Good luck. Thanks, guys. All right. That will do it for today. Thank you, as always, for listening. And thanks to those of you who choose to support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going,

help us stay ad-free aside from our StatHead sponsorship, and get themselves access to some perks. Devin Rutan, James Roche, Matthew Belwar, Richard Skryka, and Alexandria, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild patrons-only Discord group, now more than 700 strong. It's a really great community. People talk in baseball and everything else under the sun and sometimes under the moon. It's kind of a 24-7 type of place. You also get access to monthly bonus pods, one of which Meg and I will be recording

and releasing this coming weekend, as well as discounts on T-shirts, playoff live streams, and more. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcast.fangraphs.com. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our

Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with another episode soon.

Talk to you a little later this week. Go down the stage, just throw it all out There is you and then there is your money