Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1929: Double Your Drafting, Double Your Fun

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Scott Boras’s opinions about postseason pitch clocks and a neutral-site World Series, discuss Meg’s NL Rookie of the Year vote (14:16) and the rookie class, and then conduct two drafts: the eighth free-agent-contract over/under draft (35:37), and the fifth World Series odds movers draft (1:29:46), plus a Past […]

🎵 Hello and welcome to episode 1929 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I'm joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, who is joined by other people sometimes. Yes, but always disappointed when I have to settle for someone else. So welcome back. Thank you. Well, a lot has happened since we last spoke in the world, not as much in baseball. Some things in baseball too.

Some things in baseball. You missed Scott Boris pun week round one, or you didn't miss it. I'm sure you are aware that it occurred. In fact, I know you are because I messaged you to joke that we should record an emergency episode. Instead, I pressed James Wagner into service and made him talk to me about some Boris puns because he was on the scene. He was in the room where it happened.

But one thing we did not talk about was an actual substantive comment Scott Boris made, which I thought was interesting. So Scott Boris suggested that the pitch clock should not be used in the postseason. So I'm quoting here from one story. Boris also said he wasn't against the pitch clock, which will be instituted next year at the major league level after the Miners experimented with the system, but argued it would be a mistake for the playoffs. after the Miners experimented with the system, but argued it would be a mistake for the playoffs. It's a different scenario than the regular season, and we do not want the players' performances rushed, he said. We understand why they would probably do that during the season for the efficiency of the game and what they believe to be a fan-positive move for the shortening of games.

But for the postseason, we don't want these men in a completely different emotional environment and where the settings mean so much more. So he is essentially arguing for the zombie runner treatment for the pitch clock., you know, like if you look around the majors now, like a lot of these guys, I think are going to be pretty comfortable with the pitch clock from having personally experienced it, either for extended stretches when they were minor leaguers or, you know, having familiarity with it

as they've gone down on rehab assignments and whatnot. So I don't know, We've been proven wrong before and there have definitely been times where the league has implemented a rule change and then we observe unintended consequences and we have to either roll the rule change back or alter it. But I don't think this is going to be a place

where people say, oh no. The thing is they're just going to abide by the pitch clock and it'll be fine. So I don't think as a rule that we should try to have a ton of difference in the way that the postseason is formatted from a rules perspective versus the regular season, because so much about the postseason is already strange, right? And it already has idiosyncratic kind of incentives that aren't present in the regular season.

And it would be one thing if we were actually seeing games, say, decided by a zombie runner in the postseason. I went to the Fall League Championship game this past weekend. It was cold, Ben. It was mostly cold. It was sloppy. There was cold, Ben. It was mostly cold. It was sloppy. There was some good stuff in it, but it was kind of a sloppy evening of baseball.

Both teams ended up being kind of error prone. And the catching was really bad. Oh God, the catching was really bad. But it also, it went to extras. And they played with the zombie runner in extra innings. For a championship game, Ben. For a championship game. Don't love that. a championship game don't love that yeah i don't love that we don't like the zombie runner even in the regular season but like when you are thinking

about the stakes of the playoffs versus the trade-off of a little extra time saved you don't want the zombie runner right it feels weird to have a gifted runner decide the postseason cursed runner not yeah cursed cursed gifted to the the hitting team yes my point so like there it's important for there to be a rule difference between the two formats for the competitive integrity of the postseason right so i get that argument plus we hate the zombie runner anyway. So, you know, any instance where we get to escape from zombies, we were in favor of that. But I think for something like this, it's going to become so natural to the way that baseball players just play baseball that it will end up by the time the regular season is over striking folks as odd if we were to go back it would be like if suddenly i don't know that it's quite like this but i feel like it is much closer to what it would feel like if we suddenly said no in the postseason you have to actually throw the pitches for an intentional walk versus the regular season it's like well okay but why would we do that like we're just used to this

other thing now you know it's not quite like that And I think the opportunity for us to need to, you know, maybe tweak how long they have might exist. And we have to think about how it interacts with some of the pickoff stuff. And so like there might be stuff that we end up, you know, finagling a little bit there. But I don't, this doesn't strike me as wholly necessary. Nope, me neither. And I don't think it's just because I'm anti-Zombie Runner and pro-pitch clock, though that is true. But I think, I mean, if he's saying like,

well, we need to not mess with these guys in the moments when it matters the most, I think if they've been pitching with a pitch clock the entire season, it would be messing more with them to go back to no pitch clock at that point. So there's that. And also, I think the Zombie Runner,

much as I loathe it, it doesn't actually affect how you play the game so much, right? I mean, for the actual pitchers who are pitching and the hitters who are hitting, they're largely doing the same thing. There might be more bunting or other strategic changes, but the actual swinging and pitching and your routine, that stays the same. Whereas with a pitch clock, that could be different or you could be tempted to have it be different. So I think it would be more disruptive to have a change from one to the other, from the regular season to the postseason than it would be for the zombie runner, which is just like all of a sudden at some point you just decide that it is

easier to score now and you just get free runners on base. But other than that, you're basically just playing baseball. So it makes a mockery of the sport in my mind, but it doesn't really change all that much what the hitters and pitchers are actually doing mechanically, whereas the pitch clock could, I think, maybe in beneficial ways. The other thing is that you could make a case that the postseason is when you most need the pitch clock from an entertainment and spectator standpoint, right? Because the postseason bogs down. I mean, that's when games are longest and slowest. So that's when you want your jewel events that everyone is watching in theory, most eyeballs on those games. Well, you want them to be snappy and you want them to be entertaining. And it's not great if when

everyone is paying attention to baseball, your best advertisement for the sport, it's a slog because everyone is slowing down because of the stakes. So I would argue that if anything, as long as it isn't too disruptive, you would want to speed games along even more during the postseason. So yeah, I disagree. I think Scott Boras, he's got a lot of good ideas. He's got a lot of good proposals for the sport. I don't agree with him on this one. And I also don't agree with him. He's been a longtime advocate of a neutral site World Series. warm weather city and agreeing in advance where you're going to play it and then having it be this party and showcase and big event. And I think that would be bad. I think that would be bad for a few reasons. I think for one thing, I don't know that you could actually fill a ballpark like four to seven times in a neutral city. I mean, just because baseball is a regional sport, largely, more so than the NFL, at least. And there are just many more games. So I just don't know that you could

sell enough tickets. You might have empty ballparks by the end of that series, and that would be a pretty bad look. And then, I don't know, on top of that, I mean, I guess you could make a case that it's not great for fans, right nice, which is often an issue when October or even early November at this point rolls around. But other than that, I don't think it makes nearly as much sense for MLB. Yeah, I think that that's true for all the reasons you just said. And, you know, I think that when you're trying to have an event like the Super Bowl, like it is understood that one of the primary motivations of that event from a ticket sales perspective is going to be maximizing revenue. And it's not like World Series tickets are cheap, right? And they're there to make money. I'm not naive to that idea. But I know that when Seattle, for instance, had their home division series game, they had a raffle

for students and those tickets were like 40 bucks. And if you were a student and you won, you know, you could go and it was reasonable to do that from a price perspective. And I struggled to think that that would be as big a priority if it were being centralized through the league, because you're right, you don't have the same connection to the fan base that is sort of you know actually physically present and seeing their team and you know we've seen what raucous home crowds can be like in baseball's postseason in a way that you know it just doesn't translate quite the same way for the super bowl like that's always like a weirdly quiet and sort of staid crowd and when there is a fan base that that manages to travel really well, which I don't say to

try the fan bases that don't. It's god-awful expensive to go to the Super Bowl, but it's notable when you can hear a particular fan base sort of breaking through what is largely a corporate event. So I'm not about it. Plus, I think that the unfortunate reality is that the number of ballparks where you really know for sure you're going to have sort of protection from weather, I think is maybe not as expansive as people seem to think it is, right? Like a lot of the warm weather ballparks are in an area of the country where you're going to be

vulnerable to tropical storms. And we've seen the effect that that can have, you know, in recent years. So, you know, i don't know that the weather benefit is quite as as starkly laid out for a neutral site versus not i mean i guess that if we did all of them in you know i don't know arlington but even there you can still end up with funkiness so i don't know i think keep them keep them at home you can't scott you can't be taking away home playoff games when the mariners just got some home playoff game. No, can't do that. Yeah, and I don't really see why he says that it would command more attention if you had it in a neutral site.

I think he proposed this at least ostensibly because he thinks that baseball should be more than a regional game and that it should command national or international attention. And I'm with him on that, but I don't really see how holding it in one city would achieve that. Most people are just going to watch on TV anyway. I don't know why they would be more likely to watch just because it's in a warm weather place and in the same ballpark or the same city the whole time. So I don't really see the benefit. I could see the benefit if you're Scott Boris, maybe, and you're going to go and you can plan in advance on where you're going and you can have a big Boris Corp presence and you can have a nice reception and a party and everything and you don't have to wait until the last minute

to know where that's going to be. So for baseball bigwigs who just kind of want to be seen and press some flesh and everything, I see why it would be preferable. And maybe you get to go somewhere warm instead of somewhere cold. But yeah, I don't really see why it would notably be in the best interest of baseball. Yeah. And I mean, first of all, any opportunity we have to use the phrase, press the flesh is one that we should decline. I'm not criticizing your use of it. I'm just saying.

Yeah, it really depends on what flesh you're pressing specifically. Oh, no. Yeah, it really depends on what flesh you're pressing specifically. It did have an energy to it, but I don't see how like that energy outside of the game would necessarily outweigh the experience you'd have watching it on TV or even being there in person when you just have like home fans who can go. Yeah. So I don't like that one. I like a lot of Scott's ideas, but I'm going to pass on that one, I think. Yep. Me too. We like his big picture ideas, but perhaps not as they pertain to the postseason, at least in these two cases.

All right. So we're going to do a double draft today. This is something that has been done on Effectively Wild in the past. We've had this double draft, this start of the offseason. And it is, one, the free agent contracts over-unders draft. I believe this is the eighth annual instance of that draft. And then we're also going to do the World Series odds movers draft, which has been done several times, but I think it's been a few years since the last one of those. So we're bringing it back and we'll be

combining both of those in this episode. Just before we get to that, now that the midterms are over or mostly over, I guess we turn our attention. You're saying this to a person who lives in Arizona. Yeah. More over in some places than others. But we will turn our attention to baseball voting and elections and results, not just Hall of Fame, but this is Awards Week. And we don't make that huge a deal of Awards Week.

I think we're less awards forward than some. I've kind of moved on from awards and adopted the general stance that what happened happened and I can come to my own conclusions and who wins the awards doesn't sway me all that much. But it's still something to talk about and something people pay attention to. And you had a vote. I did. So we teased this a while back and you haven't been able to divulge it, but we are recording just a few hours before the announcement of the Rookie of the Year votes. Yeah.

And so by the time this episode is posted, those will be out there and your vote will be too. And thus we can dissect it now. And I don't know whom you voted for. So this will be a surprise to me too. And again, like we don't know who won as we speak now. And there's not that much suspense for me, even though these are extremely close races in both leagues. I guess for me, it's just whoever wins is fine. Basically, there were so many good choices that if it's one of the Atlanta Braves candidates in the NL or if it's Rutschman in the AL or if it's Julio in the AL, these are all good players who will probably go on to good careers.

And so I guess the only thing that would really surprise me if it was very lopsided one way or the other, it seems like it probably should be pretty close. But you had an NL vote, so not an easy decision. I did. I had an NL Rookie of the Year vote, and I voted for Brendan Onovan. No. I did put him in- Joey Manessis. In third. Yeah, Joey Manessis. So I ended up casting my vote for Michael Harris II. And I want to preface what I'm about to say with a couple of things. I want to reiterate just because I think that it is something that is useful for people who consume the results of these votes to be aware of how the electorate might engage with some of the issues that are sort of tangential to the vote. So it luckily did not end up being an issue in this case, because Michael Harris II signed an extension. Spencer Strider signed an extension. And both of them were likely to be top two vote

getters regardless. But I just want to say again that when I found out that I had a Rookie of the Year vote, it was prior to both of those things being true in terms of the extensions. And again, it seemed likely that they were both going to end up in the top spot. And Strider was up, you know, from the get-go this year. So like his, him attaining a year of service time wasn't really on the table. But it did make me very, very uncomfortable that I was potentially going to help set the timeline for when Michael Harris reached free agency or not. And, you know, in talking with my fellow BBWA members who had votes, that seemed to be a recurring theme for them as well. Right. And it ended up not mattering.

It doesn't matter in the AL race either because you know julio signed his big deal it seems likely that if julio wins that rutschman will be in the second spot and so he'll just get a year of service time right but i want folks to know that like we think about that part and it is a weird position to be put in it doesn't seem like the purpose that we originally envisioned as an association for these votes so like that made me nervous and then relieved. So there's that. I also want to say that like I went back and forth on this, Ben. Oh my God. I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And I will be completely candid. I think my vote is defensible. I think that Michael Harris II is a worthy rookie of the year. But if I had gone back and forth on it one more time,

I might have talked myself into voting for Spencer Stry. Yeah, either one is obviously worthy, like, yeah, in many years. Yeah. So and a couple of things I think that recommend Michael Harris also recommend Spencer Strider in that, you know, Michael Harris. So first of all, we should remark on the fact that like Michael Harris is as of this moment, 21 years old and eight months like he was doing what he was doing in the big leagues at the age that like a lot of college draftees are still playing college ball, right? So there's that piece of it. There's the fact that he had a very limited time in the minor leagues, you know, he lost the 2020 season entirely as everyone did. And he just didn't have a lot of minor

league run. And then he comes up to the big leagues. I think that we kind of knew where some of Harris's vulnerabilities stood in terms of his profile. And we saw the overcoming some of those vulnerabilities and still being very good version of him in his rookie campaign, right? He doesn't walk a lot. He tends to strike out a lot.'s chase in the profile right and you worry about

him getting sort of figured out and if you watched him in the early going like he underwent a swing change early in his big league tenure in front of everybody and it worked and that's incredible especially for a guy where like the swing and miss was like the thing we were kind of worried about with him. So I found that in conjunction with just the variety of places that he was able to bring really profound value to his team to be sort of the thing for me. Right. Like in addition to posting a 136 WRC plus, he stole 30 bases. He played really great defense in center field so he just had a variety of of ways that he could bring a lot of value to the club and you know when you're i hope that no one is looking at rookie of the year or any vote and just saying well here let's rank the wars but

like he and he and strider i think had 0.1 win of difference between them by our version of war. The gaps were wider for other outlets that have a war. So there's that. But the way that I was thinking about it is these guys really brought the same amount of value to the Braves. They brought it in different ways, but they brought a tremendous amount of value. Now, Strider, he went from being a bullpen guy to being what he was as a starter. So he also had to undergo a transformation at the big league level and did it, you know, with aplomb. Right. So, again, I went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. But, you know, to me, sort of just the completeness of Harris's campaign, the variety of ways that he brought value to the team ended up being the thing.

But again, if I had had one more turn, maybe I would have been like, yeah, but look at Strider. And I will say it would not surprise me if Harris, you know, has a lot of seasons in his big league career where he accumulates less war than this, right? I still think that there is vulnerability in his profile at the plate. that there is vulnerability in his profile at the plate. And so if I had to take a sort of bet on who is going to have the more productive big league career, I don't know how I would answer that. I still think that Harris is vulnerable. Strider is a pitcher, so they're always just prone to breaking. And we saw the injury stuff for him a little bit this year. But for me,

and I think this is true for everyone, the rookie of the Year vote isn't a forward-looking vote. That's not its purpose. We're not casting a preemptive Hall of Fame vote. We're saying who had the best rookie season. And so I ended up going with Harris. I think he's a tremendous player. I mostly think that this vote just illustrates the incredible position that Atlanta finds itself in when it comes to the young contributors on their roster. And we've talked about that as every single one of them, except for Dan Zubis, signed an extension, right? So we don't have to believe her at that point, but they really are just in a very enviable spot from a core perspective. We might look at each of the individual extensions that their young players have signed and hoped that maybe in some cases

they had signed for more money, in some cases a lot more money. But it's a really, really good group, and I'm excited to see what they do. But that doesn't matter for the Rookie of the Year vote. Among that really, really good group is Michael Harris II, and he got my vote. Yeah, that's perfectly understandable to me. I'm so stressed about it, though, Ben, which is stupid because it's not about me at all, and it's a defensible vote. So it's not like I'm going to, you know, but like I had a really hard time. I really struggled going back and forth between them because Strider had such an exemplary year. And, you know, if this is one of those years where they ended up tied, they won't. But like if they did, I'd be like, cool, everybody gets what they want. And hopefully Atlanta fans look at this and appreciate the difficulty that we all had in ranking them. I imagine Strider's going to get a fair share of first place votes. And I wouldn't be remotely surprised if he won. I don't think I will be in Dan Zimborski's position from last

year where he was a voice in the wilderness. So that's nice because I am at my core anxious and praise seeking. So being alone on an island would feel bad. But I think that given how great Michael Harris's season was, I'm not likely to be in that position. Yeah. He voted for Trevor Rogers, right? He was the only one who gave Trevor Rogers a first place vote. Correct. I believe that that's right.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think anyone will give you grief for voting for Harris. I don't think anyone would have if you'd voted for Strider. I don't think anyone will give you grief for voting for Harris. I don't think anyone would have if you'd voted for Strider. I have not analyzed this in anything like the depth you did because I did not have an award vote. So I don't know what I would have decided had I had one, had I had this one in particular. But my sense, my gut is that I probably would have leaned the same way.

And it could have gone either way. have leaned the same way. And it could have gone either way. Like if Strider had even made a couple more starts at the end of the season, right? Because he hurt the oblique and he missed a couple of starts. Like who knows, maybe that swings it. I guess you could say also he could have made the rotation a little bit earlier, but you could also say Harris could have been called up earlier. So if either one of them had gotten significantly more playing time or a different role, then that might have made it an easier decision. But as it was, it was a really tough decision. And they were both just transformative. Atlanta was so, so much better after a slow start once Harris was up and once Strider was starting. And there were other things

going on as well that made them better but those two yeah those were huge mid-season internal upgrades that that changed the complexion of that roster so yeah they both had huge impacts and obviously atlanta wanted to be in business with both of them for for many more years to come and they even got sort of similar at least total dollars committed to them in their extensions that they signed so yeah there's just there's not a lot of daylight i guess like maybe i i like strider's skill set slightly more but also i trust position players more so just in general right so i again it would be it would be tough to even choose one or the other. But they both exceeded expectations.

Oh, yeah. I mean, they were prospects, but they were not prospects so elite that you would expect them to come up and be four or five win players or whatever on day one, essentially. So they both exceeded first season expectations. And that had a huge deal to do with how well the Braves did. So, yeah, it was fun to watch both of them. didn't play a totally full complement of a season, right? Like Harris had 441 plate appearances and Strider threw 131.2 innings. So it wasn't, you know, so you had that to contend with. You had the sort of obvious transformative impact

they had on the roster that they were on. They both checked that box. They, as you said, were both like, you know, prospects, but not top, top prospects. Michael Harris II was a 50 future value for us. So he was on the top 100, but, you said, we're both like, you know, prospects, but not top, top prospects. Michael Harris, the second was a 50 future value for us. So he was on the top 100. But, you know, Strider was, I think, a 45 plus. So they were guys who were on the radar, but not, you know, they weren't top 10 guys.

They weren't. Neither of them was the number one overall prospect. Right. You look at Harrison. It was funny as I was doing my research. You go back through, you know, I went and I read everybody's prospect reports on him because I was kind of curious. And it's like all of them say, well, we won't see him in the big leagues this year. Yeah, right.

And then there he was, you know. And so it was a real challenge. I feel kind of tortured about it, but that's not really the point. The point is that both of these guys put up incredible years. And I think this entire rookie class is just such a joy to watch. Yeah, I was going to say that. Like, regardless of which one of these guys wins in the NL or which one of the great already superstars wins in the AL, this really was a historic class, at least for elite rookies. And I wrote about this and I think mentioned it on the podcast at the time. But

just the depth of the top of the class of this year's rookies is just really formidable and unparalleled. There were six rookie position players who had four or more baseball reference war, which was two more than in any previous season. There were four rookie position players who got to five baseball reference war. That was a first. So really, just like the number of players who played at an all-star level or even above as rookies was really impressive, particularly the position players. The pitchers, a little thinner behind Strider, and whether that's just because teams are careful with pitchers these days or some post-pandemic hangover and post-lockout hangover or just

the reduction in the role of starting pitchers in general. I don't know. But for hitters, for position players, it was really a banner year. And I will also say just because there is a sizable differential in Fangraph's war and baseball reference war when it comes to Strider. Or, you know, it's not like huge, but it's enough that it makes it a toss up, you know, war wise. Yeah. Whereas it seems like a clear cut decision according to baseball reference war.

And I'll just say, like, I look at both. I just cited baseball reference war. I'm not a company man here. I don't even work for Fangraph. So I wouldn't be working for the company even if I were just citing Fangraphs war. But for pitchers, I really do prefer Fangraphs war. And look, it's sort of a philosophical thing. And I don't mind having the two of them with their different ways of arriving at answers. But I really do find that Fangraft's approach to pitcher war is preferable in my mind. And not just because it's more predictive, although it is, but I think it's just more descriptive also of past events because people

I've talked about this before often in awards week, and maybe this will be relevant to some other awards conversations this week, but people say, well, FIP, which is what fan graphs were is based on is this imaginary stat and it's like a what if, and it's here's what could have happened. Whereas baseball reference were, which for pitchers is based on runs allowed. Well, that's what actually did happen. And so that's retrospective and FIP is forward looking and for awards votes, we should only care about what did happen. But in that's retrospective and FIP is forward looking and for awards votes, we should only care about what did happen. But in my mind, that is a misconception and I don't see it that way because FIP, the whole idea of FIP is that it's what's under the pitcher's control

directly. And obviously like there's some squishiness there and yeah, there are some pitchers who have some slight ability to actually induce weaker contact and beat their BAPIPS and everything. But in general, like if you want to tell how a pitcher did, not just how they will do, but how they did, you have to look at the factors under their control. And so we look at home runs and strikeouts and walks, and that's a pretty good guide. And there are more complex and fancier stats out there. But FIP does a decent job of that. And so for me, it's predictive because it is more descriptive. Like it's not predictive because it's some abstract, here's what could have happened, like imaginary scenario.

It's more predictive of what will happen in the future because it actually does a better job of capturing what that player did in that year, not what the defense did, not what the luck was, but how responsible that pitcher was for his success. And in fact, Tom Tango just did a little study at his blog this week, which I will link to on the show page, but he looked at the year-to-year consistency of fan graphs were versus baseball reference were, and he found that for position players, it seems to be roughly equivalent that each one does about the same job of predicting, you know, fan graphs were from this year predicts fan graphs were next year, roughly as well as baseball reference were this year predicts baseball reference war next

year and adding one to the other doesn't really add a whole lot of signal they're essentially doing sort of the same thing with some different inputs but with pitcher war there is a difference where not only does fangraphs war predict future fangraphs war better than baseball reference war predicts baseball reference war but current f fan graphs were actually predicts future baseball reference war better than baseball reference war does, which usually a stat would predict itself better than some other stat, but FIP is predictive. It's a better guide of future ERA than ERA itself is. And it's a better guide of future baseball reference war even than baseball reference war is because of the luck and the defensive support and all these things. And baseball reference adjusts for some of that, but a lot of it is just like the

sequencing of how things happened is kind of baked into that stat. And that may not be predictive, and it may also not be indicative of the performance of the player as opposed to just these extraneous factors so all those things combined to make me think that fancraft's war is better i kind of default to it when it comes to pitchers and so that makes this rookie of the year race look closer than other metrics do, which made your job harder. But I still think you came to a good decision. Thank you. Yeah. I think it's useful to look at everything and try to discern signal through the noise because every site does it a little bit differently. There are going to be places where, I think if I remember correctly, when you look at Michael Harris's warp,

it's quite low compared to the other side's war. Part of that is because DRC Plus doesn't believe in Harris. And, you know, like, okay, that's fine. I get why there's some reservation there, but also it's in part because FRA hates his strong, but isn't a huge fan of his defense. So, you know, you got to like look at each of these things and then sort of discern what you think the real answer is, because everything is giving you useful inputs. It's just that some of them I think are

closer to how I understand allocating and attributing value than others. So, yeah. I don't know, man. It's hard. But, like, it could be. Here's the thing. Like, next year, it wouldn't be surprising to me if, like, we see Chase and then it's like, oh, God, that, you know,

that ground ball rate for Harris is terrifying and he's not able to leg it out the way he was this year. And then we see, you know, the power not really take a step forward, even though he did manage to hit 19 home runs this year, which given that a given, I would probably prefer to have Strider next season alone. But that doesn't invalidate your vote. That has no bearing on your vote, really. So yeah, I mean, I think it's nice when someone who goes on to have a great career also was recognized as a rookie. Not that like it's bad if someone who has one year, one season in the sun also gets to take a bow and celebrate, even if the rest of their career is not really commensurate with that. That's okay, too.

Either way is fine. It's just you look back in retrospect and you say, huh, him, right? He won? Okay. Whereas with some guys, it's like, yes, he won. And that was the coronation and the beginning of a long and illustrious career. But one way or another. in the beginning of a long and illustrious career,

but one way or another. Anyway, anyone who's listening to this knows or has the capacity to know who won this vote by the time you're listening to this. For anyone who Effectively Wild is your sole news source about baseball, which that's very flattering, I will mention at the end of the episode

who actually won. There are other places you could obtain baseball news, so that information is out there. But thank you. And yeah, I was spared a difficult decision. Again, I've never had an awards vote, an end of season awards vote because I'm in the New York chapter of the BBWA. And there are many, many other writers in that chapter. And the vote just rotates.

And it's just a subset of voters, a small subset who gets to vote on any individual award. And so I still have never had one. This would have been a fun year to have one, but also a challenging year to have one, which reminds me, I got to figure out what, if anything, I'm doing with my Hall of Fame ballot this year. But that's a conversation for another day. We got a draft. So the first draft that we're doing, that we always do, is the free agent contracts over unders draft and for

this it's tradition we use the mlb trade rumors top 50 free agents list which has predicted contracts and the idea is that we find places where we differ with their predictions and their estimates of what certain players will make and we either take the over or the under on those. And then we get a $10 million bonus if we pick in the right direction. And on top of that, if we pick in the right direction, then we get the difference between the estimate and what the contract actually was just going by total guaranteed dollars that is what we use for that so if someone is predicted to make 50 million dollars and we think they'll make 60 and then or we don't even have to say what we think they'll make we just have to pick

directionally over under so if we think they'll make more than 50 and we are right they end up making 60 let's say then we get a 1010 million bonus just for being right and for choosing the right direction. And then we get another $10 million bonus for the difference between the predicted $50 million contract and the actual $60 million contract. And then we each draft eight players and we add up just the cumulative. Did we get everything right? We add up the positives and the negatives and hopefully we were right in the right direction. But whoever gets the most amount of money in the end wins the draft.

So we've had some tough ones in recent years because we had just no idea what was going to happen with the offseason in general and the market. And I guess there's more reason for optimism this year when it comes to that. I looked back at our drafts from last year, and we did this with Ben Clemens last year, and we all had more underpicks than overs. I don't know whether that will be the case this year or not, but there was pessimism just because we were coming off pandemic and we were heading for a lockout potentially, and just no one knew if anyone was going to be willing to spend

this off season. I'm more bullish about spending in general. I certainly still have some unders on my board, but I think given just the prevailing environment here now, of course, you have not the greatest economy in the country. So that's something. But in baseball specifically, you're coming off an offseason where you aren't anticipating any attendance limitations next year, and you're not anticipating any work stoppages. So things can kind of proceed as they used to normally in a quote unquote regular offseason. And I think some of the early returns, some of the deals that have been signed so far were maybe above my expectations. Edwin Diaz was maybe a bit more than I would have expected, more than Zips projected, although we learned that some good deal of dollars in his deal, those are deferred. So that brings down the present day value of it.

But between that and the Rafael Montero deal and the Robert Suarez deal, right? Like those both sort of surprised me. In fact, Ben Clemens just wrote about that for Fangraphs because he didn't have either of those guys on the Fangraphs top 50, right? Correct. And in retrospect, he regrets that maybe. But it's, you know, those guys, like each of them has one year of being a back-end dependable guy in MLB, and Suarez has a longer track record in international ball. But they're 31, 32, and not long major league track records, and yet they got paid. So, I mean, they got multi-year deals.

They got – what was it? Suarez got five years, was it? I think that's right. But there's some wrinkle to that deal, if I recall correctly. Like there are some opt-outs and options. Yeah, it's five years, 46. And right, there's some other stuff. There's always some stuff.

But there's that. And then Montero re-signed with the Astros three years and $ 34.5 million so yes just all those deals just kind of made me think okay like i don't know that we're we're heading for for boom times but i'm not pessimistic about the amount of money that will be spent at least so yeah yeah suarez was three years 30 million to start and then there's a opt out before two more years that are at 8 million a piece that's how that actually shakes out and there are also some incentives in there based on how many games suarez ends up finishing so all right well there are a few contracts here that are already off the board yeah because i was like can i draft Rafael Montero? I'll take the over.

Yeah, that would be a great pick because their estimate for Montero was three years and 24. So the over would have been good, but we're too late. And we should say we're drafting a day before the qualifying offer decisions are due. Correct. So there's some uncertainty there, as there usually is when we do these drafts. And Clayton Kershaw is is off the board as well right and uh he was a what one year 20 million dollar prediction by mlb trade rumors which is what he got yeah that leads me to a question i had which is ben i struggled

picking my overs and unders because a lot of these i looked at and I was like, that seems about right. You know? Yeah. They know what they're doing over there. Yeah. You'd think that they would. I mean, they've been doing this for many years. Right.

And they pay, if anything, closer attention to these things than I do, at least. So you'd think that they would know what the market is. So yeah, there weren't so many that I thought, that's wild. That's way off. And I think that's been the case with some of these recent drafts. So, yeah, they know what they're doing. We're not mocking their predictions or anything. I'm famously averse to predictions and don't think I'm especially good at them. So, I don't want to dump on anyone who puts their numbers out there.

And also, like, they're predicting contracts for many players, and we're just cherry picking and looking for a few that seem off to us. So it's easier to be right when you can pick and choose that way. Yeah. I guess that's enough prelude to this draft. Yeah. We didn't decide who's going first here. I won this last year so uh if this is going like like mlb draft style then i i guess you should get the first pick

does that make sense sure um i well i oh our listeners are like oh great we get to listen to meg interacting with the draft again our very favorite thing your On your first pick. So, okay. Part of my hesitation is that I don't want to be a downer, but I'm going to be a little bit of a downer. Yeah, we should say we're not rooting for players to make less money when we choose an under. I hope they all get lots of money. This is a zero stakes draft.

It doesn't matter that much. So we're not rooting for less spending. We're just trying to predict which way the market will blow. And just to reiterate, we are drafting based on the total contract value listed here, right? Not the average annual value. Correct. That's important for my first pick. I am taking the under on Justin Verlander, 120 million. That was on my board.

Yep. I think that Justin Verlander will sign a rich contract, to be clear. We have all of the usual caveats. Well, we have very unusual caveats when it comes to Verlander, I guess I should say, because in addition to his age, it is super unusual for a guy his age coming off of Tommy John to, well, to pitch big league innings at all, let alone to pitch as good of ones as he did this year and as many. I imagine that he will kind of clean up from an AAV perspective, but I imagine he will get maybe two years and not three. And so I imagine that he will fall short of the $120 million that they have predicted for him here. see verlander pursuing as as ben wrote when he wrote him up for the top 50 like maybe pursuing something kind of novel from a contract perspective and maybe

wanting to go shorter himself so that he can prove that he can pitch a bunch of innings again and good ones and then maybe wants to hit the market again so there's a lot of ways that this could end up falling short of three years, but I think that most of the likely scenarios seem to have him there. Although I guess we should allow, when it comes to Verlander, particularly because he is, well, he's not currently an Astro, but was most recently an Astro, that we have some surprising unpredictability

when it comes to what Houston will do with themselves this offseason because they are no longer helmed by James click. I paid attention to baseball news while I was on vacation. I know what happened. I was, I paid attention, you know, how much of Raphael Montero is,

is, you know, like, yeah, Kramer wanting to like have his say. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see, but I think that he Verlander will end up making less than 120 million so i think you said jim kramer did i did i i think you did yeah just

different different money guy different um yes if you want to re-say that i don't know i do want to re-say because the guy who runs the Astros is Jim Crane. Yes. He's the principal owner. I think you should leave it in. Can I give a small side and then I'll let us get back to the draft? Sure. I wonder if other people have noticed this, that whenever you watch a documentary about terrible corporate malfeasance, like say you're watching something on the Theranos folks or

any of the number of Netflix docs. FTX folks. Right. Perhaps. In the any of the number of Netflix docs. FTX folks. Right. Perhaps. In the beginning of the doc, there's Jim Cramer saying, bye, bye, bye. And at the end of the doc, there's Jim Cramer being like, I don't know. They sure ended up being wily.

And it's like, why do we keep listening to this guy? He seems to get had a lot. Anyway, I don't know if Jim Crane gets had a lot. He's probably ruthless in a way that prevents that. But yeah, I think leave it all in, Ben. Okay. Yeah, I was going to make the same pick for the same reasons. And Scherzer got three years when he was considerably younger than Verlander is now. Like Verlander now is about a year and a half older than Scherzer currently is, but Scherzer signed

that deal last year. So Verlander is going to turn 40 in February, and he has said he wants to pitch until he's 45. And given that he is the presumptive Cy Young award winner, you know, and he's got a fresh UCL, I wouldn't totally bet against him pitching in some form until then if he's really committed to doing that. But I don't think unless he's like so committed to doing that that he's like, give me the five-year deal now. I want to make it official or whatever. I don't think that is going to happen now.

Like he could command three. He's, you know, coming off a Cy Young year probably. Like you got a lot of leverage. So if he were willing to go lower AAV, I guess it's possible that if he were going to go lower AAV, then he might not make it to this total anyway. So yeah, I think it's a good pick. And he seems happy in Houston and maybe he'd give them a discount or he'd just not want to test the market really. So yeah, good pick. All right. I'm also going to go with an under for my first pick

and that is josh bell yeah he was on my list too yeah four years and 64 million i just i don't see it i just i don't i don't see that happening i i see that happening like a decade or two ago maybe but now i i don't and he ended the season in a big slump right so after he got traded from the nationals of the padres he had a 79 wrc plus in san diego and he was like half a win below replacement level and he had started the season great with the nationals so the fact that he ended the season the way he did and just the fact that he's kind of a limited player, you know, he's just a slugger and he's not going to – he's going to hurt you on the bases and he's not going to help you on defense. Like he's – each of the last two seasons, he's been a two-war player. And I guess you could say that if the dollars per win going raid is 8 million or something like that, I've kind of lost track of what it actually is because things have been so weird for the

past few years. But if it's something like that, well, then you could say that a two-war player is worth like $16 million a year. And this is just $16 million a year for the next four years. But that is presuming that he's not going to get any worse over that time, even though he is 30 years old already. So between that and the way he ended this season, I just I don't see any team committing to that kind of length or that kind of dollar value. So, you know, sorry, Josh.

I hope you can beat my expectations here. But, yeah, that that seemed that was the one that stood out to me is like, huh, this seems like it's hailing from a different era. I don't know that this type of player is being paid that kind of way anymore. Yeah, I think that that's right. He was on my list for those reasons. All right. Am I going to be a bummer again? I think I might be a bummer again, Pat.

Okay. I'm going to take the under on Aaron Judge. Oh, all right. Interesting. How confident do I feel about that, though, Ben? It's out there now. No backsies. No backsies? I can't even have

one backseat? So, look, he just had obviously a... Okay, to be clear, I don't think he's going to be under by a lot. Eight years, $332 million. Eight years, $332 million is the estimate that they have. I think he'll sign a $300 million deal, probably. But I don't think he's going to get a $332 million. I don't.

I don't think he will. I think that he had a remarkable season. I think that it has dramatically changed to judges' benefit the projection that certainly that Zips had for him in terms of anticipated contract but i also think that while he was remarkable with the bet and that is likely to sustain itself even if it's not likely to reach these same highs again you know not that he won't be great he just probably won't be you know the second coming of barry bond's great right although not in terms of how

many home runs he hit in a single season. That's not what I'm doing. I'm just saying he had a remarkable offensive year, even when you set aside the home runs, which would be crazy to do. But even if you do it, it was a great year. But I do think that teams will be cognizant of the age, right? I think that while he was totally respectable in center field when he was required to play center field this year, he is not a natural center fielder. And I don't think that,

you know, if he ends up signing something like an eight-year contract, he's certainly not going to be playing center field in the back half of that deal, right? So there's that piece that you're paying for a corner guy, a lot for a corner guy, but a corner guy. And so I think that he will be someone's very splashy signing, if not the Yankees, which I don't know how likely I find it that he will be in Yankee pinstripes. We say in pinstripes a lot.

And there are a lot of pinstripes, Ben. Yeah. It's not just Yankees. All these teams, they have a bunch of teams, they have pinstripes a lot. And there are a lot of pinstripes, Ben. Yeah. It's not just Yankees. All these teams, they have a bunch of teams, they have pinstripes. Yeah, East Coast bias, New York bias. They shouldn't get to own pinstripes. Yeah, ridiculous. But yeah, I could certainly see the Yankees saying, look, we offered you what amounted

to 213 million and seven years of new money and contract, right? And you had this incredible year and your value to us as a face of the franchise is actually a little bit higher than it is for other teams. It means something for us to be able to retain you, but I don't know that it'll be 332 million. I could see the Giants saying, hey, come be our first big splashy signing in what we anticipate will be a raft of new spending as we try to challenge for the West. But I still don't think that's $332 million. Basically, I think unless the Mets sign him, he's getting the under of this total value. Yeah.

I don't feel confident. Yeah. I feel somewhat confident because I took him second overall in my draft pool. But 332 just feels like a lot. 300? That feels fine. Ben's estimate of 315. Could see that.

But I think 332 is just a little rich for my blood. Yeah. I think a lot of teams could come to that conclusion too. I definitely like if I were a team and I had a need at these players' respective positions, I would totally go for Carlos Correa or Trey Turner over Judge given even equal money, I think, let alone a significant difference in money according to these predictions. They have Turner at eight years, 268. They have Correa at nine years, 288. I mean, give me one of those over Judge at eight and 332. Again, like we're just talking about next year.

I think Judge probably a better projected player than anyone on this list or almost anyone in baseball. on this list or almost anyone in baseball. But over that period of time, just given his age and his injuries prior to the last couple of years and everything, yeah, I just, I don't know. Like, he could get there, you know, like maybe the Yankees just act like the old school Yankees again for a winter and they just blow him out of the water because there really would be a big PR backlash if they do not keep him. I don't know how sensitive they are to that. Brian Cashman, I feel like he has such job security. Now he's still currently unsigned as we speak, but it seems like he kind of has that job for life if he wants it.

And the Steinbrenners, I think they're sort of sitting pretty and just enjoying their appreciating franchise. So I don't know, like they've let other players walk or they haven't spent on the big free agent in the past and they've taken a lot of criticism and they seem to have just weathered it and mostly they've continued to win at least during the regular season. So it wouldn't totally shock me if they drew the line at some point, but they would definitely get flamed for doing that. And I could see Steve Cohen or someone else coming in even just to drive up the price for the Yankees and make them really have to pay to keep him. But I think the height, like people talk a lot about his height. You know, I've seen Joe Sheehan and Keith Law argue that hitters that tall don't age that well.

age that well. And like quoting here from Keith's free agent ranking, and he actually had Judge at fourth on his free agent list. He had Dansby Swanson at third. But he cited the height thing also. He said, the history of position players six foot seven or taller as they age into the 30s is not promising. Only three players that height have even had 100 at-bats in a season at 31 or older, Frank Howard, Richie Sexton, and Tony Clark, and the three accounted for just six seasons worth one war or more, four from Howard and one each from the other two. All were effectively done by age 35, etc. I don't base my prediction for Judge on that so much because you talk about such a small sample to begin with when you're talking about six foot seven hitters or taller. Like they're just there haven't been that many of those guys, period. I mean, I just stat headed. I think there have been 16 total non pitcher hitters who are sexson and clark are like almost the only ones who were any good really other than judge so you know and and maybe like o'neill cruz will be

another and there are some others who were okay but like the fact that those three who were actually stars at at some point didn't age all that well i I don't know how predictive that is. I mean, it's somewhat intuitive to me that maybe a bigger, taller player would be more susceptible to breaking down or having their swing go out of whack or something. So it's not an unreasonable hypothesis. I don't think I'm just saying I'm not that convinced by the small sample of three or so. And you can look at like 6'6", that different from 6'7",

and Dave Winfield seemed to age pretty well and was a productive old hitter. I don't know. I'm just saying like I guess I base it more on Judge's health track record than his height, especially because as Keith acknowledges, he's just more athletic than

Howard Sexton and Clark and he plays different positions and he's faster and he's good at defense and he can run the bases and everything. But yeah, it's definitely worrisome, I think, to have to commit to Judge for that long, or at least relative to some of the other guys who might get deals in the same range. So I think it's reasonable. I definitely see a scenario where he just gets bid up to that amount, just coming off an amazing season. But it is totally possible that that's partly at least a media creation and teams, they just, you know, they don't pay for past performance and they don't pay for future performance by people who are past 30 as much as they used to. And that could apply even to someone who had as otherworldly a season as Aaron Judge just did. Yep.

Someone who had as otherworldly a season as Aaron Judge just did. Yep. I think too, and it's hard to separate these things because one could argue that part of why he's had the injury issues he's had is because of his size. But to me, the prior track record of injury concern is a bigger going forward red flag. Although he's been pretty healthy the last two years, right? going forward red flag although he's been pretty healthy the last two years right but the going forward red flag is more like this is a guy who has been hurt than this is a guy who's tall and i know there's more to the argument there than that i don't mean to be dismissive of it but it's like well he's just been hurt before and we tend to see guys who have been hurt before be hurt again

especially when they get into their 30s where it's like you can just sleep wrong and then you're useless for a couple of days. All right. I'm going to go with a smaller deal here and I'm going to take the over and that's Taylor Rogers. I'm going to go over on Taylor Rogers at 3 and 30. And this is partly based on the reliever contracts, the aforementioned reliever contracts that we've seen so far. And Ben Clemens was on recently singing the praises of Taylor Rodgers as a free agent when we talked to him. And I found that fairly convincing. And I just think like given the track record, if Montero is going to get more than this and Suarez is going to get way more than this, then I could see Rodgers getting more than three and 30.

getting more than three and 30. And really, like, I know that the numbers weren't that great at the end of last season, but depends which numbers you're talking about. And it seems like he was just really, really unlucky late in the season when it came to balls in play or even balls out of play over the fence, just like the BABIP and the home run per fly ball rate just totally skyrocketed at the end of the year with the Brewers. But really, like the strikeouts and everything, we're still solid. Like he misses a lot of bats. He's been fairly consistent. He's done this. He has closing experience if you want him to do that. He could

be a setup guy. I just I feel fairly confident, I guess, about him doing better than a couple of the guys who have signed deals so far, at least relative to three and 30, just three and 30. It seems like he could, he could beat that. I think that that's a good pick. I like that pick a lot. All right.

Maybe I don't like it that we do drafts. It's always such a stressful experience for me. I find it really hard, especially because I don't want to be such a, well, I just don't want to be such a well. I just don't want to be. I don't want to totally be like a downer. But, you know, I'm nervous about being a downer.

We're fine with being wrong. We're fine with with people get me over if we predict the under. It's OK. I guess that's true. I guess that we are. We are OK with that. I mean, I that we are okay with that. I mean, I know we're okay with that. I think that I'm going to do this. I'm going to take the over on Carlos Correa, who trade rumors estimate it's at nine years and $288 million. I think that Carlos Correa will cross $300 million. So I'm taking the over. I think that when, you know,

this is such a deep class when it comes to shortstops. And I know that Correa has had his own injury, this and that in the past, but he is the youngest of the big four, right? He's younger than Bogarts and Swanson and Turner. I think that he will be disinclined to pursue a short contract after what he experienced last year. He had a great, he had a very good year in Minnesota. The reason he was taking the shorter deal with opt-outs wasn't because he was coming off a lousy season or anything like that. He was just trying to

reach a more favorable spending environment. And I think that he has one here. I tend to think that he is just a very good defender. I don't think that he is quite as superlative as his 2021 numbers necessarily suggested he was, but I certainly don't think that he's kind of where he is from an outs above average perspective this year. That feels more like a one-year sort of aberration than it does what I witnessed when watching him. And he's just a real darn good hitter. I think the one thing that could end up constraining his market a little bit this year is that like you know you think about who are the teams that need a short stop well one of them is new york yankees and they might be a big player

but are they gonna be who could say you know if they spend a bunch of money if they end up they could end up torpedoing two of my pickspin yeah right because they could give a big old deal to aaron judge and then you know then a meaningful part of korea's market might dry up and then they could tank this one too but yeah i'm taking the i'm taking the over on carlos crea i think he will be a 300 million dollar. And I think that whatever team signs him will be pretty happy that they did if I had to offer a hot take. You're shopping at the Dior store. You got to go 300 or higher, I think.

So yeah, this is- Dior store, man. This is smart, I think, because Seeker got 325 last winter, right? Yeah, and I like Carlos Correa better than Seager. Me too. Yeah. Seager seems like he's going to be a big beneficiary from banning the shift potentially because he's the guy who lost the most hits to the shift it seems like last year.

But I don't know that they expected that when they signed him. And also I think Correa is just like half a year older now than Seager was last offseason because Correa is like half a year younger than Seager is now. So, yeah. And Correa, I think he's underrated, you know, like he's I think people understand that he's good. But I think maybe because he's had some durability issues more so in the past than very recently. He's had some durability issues more so in the past than very recently. And because a lot of his value has come from defense and he's just kind of well-rounded, you know, not someone who has much, if any, black ink. Right.

But he's on a Hall of Fame trajectory, at least, you know, putting sign stealing aside. Right. So I think he's been really great. So I think he's been really great. And he's an example of a former Rookie of the Year who has had the career that one expects for a Rookie of the Year award winner. And, yeah, I think that makes sense. You're playing in the deep end of the pool here. You're splashing around with the big dollar deals, which is – I guess it's a high-risk reward. It's smart. Like if I get my over on taylor rogers right i'm

not going to get that much from that because he's not going to make that much more than 30 million if he makes more at all but yeah yeah you could potentially you know if he really strikes it rich with the right deal yeah yeah because you could look at him and go okay so of the guys in that top four i would probably rank them actually in descending order of likelihood to stay at short the longest. Correa, Turner, Swanson, Bogarts, right? Where it's like Bogarts seems destined to move off the position in a year or two. Turner, we'll have to see how Turner's speed interacts with the fielding. There have been times where he has been less good, but he's also had hand injuries. You're like, what do you do with that

when it comes to trade Turner? Swanson's just been fine. He's just been reliably good. I know the metrics kind of go up and down on him, but you watch him and you're like, that's a solid fielder at shortstop. And I think Correa, you know, he'll stick there the longest and he's also, you know, the youngest of them.

So. Yeah. And he can hit by third base standards. Like it's not going to be a problem if he has to slide over. Right. Yeah. So here we are.

It's a good pick. I wish I had made it. I'm going to heist. You know, I got burned with the unders on the big deals last year. Did I overreact to that? Who could say? All right. I am going to go under on Sean Minaya at four and 52.

Now, there was definitely a time this year when it looked like that would have been reasonable. Yeah. But now, given the way he ended the season, given just always the uncertainty with his health, and like he was on a playoff team and they basically weren't using him in the playoffs by the time the end of the season rolled around. And when they did one time, he got shelled. He sure got shelled. Yeah. And so if he's not being trusted in that situation, is a team going to trust him now for four years for that amount of money? I mean, he probably has been worth that amount over the past that number of years.

But I just I don't know, just given the durability concerns, given the way he ended the season, no qualifying offer, which at least he's not held back by that. But that could be a sign. Why no qualifying offer? Right. Because, well, they didn't think that it was wise to give him one that that he would necessarily make more than that, I guess. Or they didn't want him at the qualifying offer amount, even on a one-year deal potentially. So that makes you think. Now, you could have a Carlos Rodon situation where they should have given the qualifying offer, but I don't think this is as clear-cut as that one is. And Rodon, he had lots of injury concerns too.

That was probably a big part of the reason why the White Sox didn't extend him one. But performance wise, there wasn't as much of an issue, although he did tire down the stretch in the 2021 season. Anyway, I'm just saying it seems like he might even be a shorter term rebuild the value type after the way he ended that season. So I just I don't know if this combination of length and AAV is attainable for him now. Yeah, I agree. He was definitely on my list. All right. I'm going to

kind of do a similar, I'm taking the under on Andrew Heaney. Ah, yep. I was going to do that too. I'm taking the Andrew Heaney under. Trade Rumors has him projected for three years and $42 million. You know, Heaney and Tyler Anderson are going to be interesting to consider sort of in conjunction with one another. They're both guys who went to LA and, you know, reworked their repertoires and then had some success. And I think we're going to get some interesting sort of perspective on how sticky Dodger pitching changes are from the perspective of the market. But the injury history alone with Heaney, I think is going to prevent him from getting three years. I don't

think he'll, I think that he'll end up signing something pretty far off of 42 million. And, you know, I don't think he's going to get to this AAV. And, you know, he has had stretches where he has been really effective and teams want to believe in him. They want to believe in him, Ben, because there is interesting stuff in the profile here. And you'll look at him, and you're like, do you ever really give up on a lefty? And I don't think they'll give up on him,

but I don't think they're going to give him $42 million either. It would be one thing if he had pitched an entire healthy year with la and to his credit like when you saw him emphasize the fastball and then adopt the new slider like there were times really on there where you're like holy crap like yeah look at this andrew heaney and then he hit the injured list and he didn't end up pitching all that much i think he threw like 72 innings so he's's definitely, I think, going to sign a deal and every team needs pitching, but I don't think that he's going to get 42 million. Yep. Yeah, this is a smart one. I had that on my board. I probably should have gone for it sooner. So yeah. You thought I'd go with another big one, didn't you? And you're like or a bad pick probably. But I don't really see the case for Heaney at 342 and Anderson at one year with the qualifying offer. Now, maybe that is more a testament to Heaney being an overestimate than Anderson being

an underestimate. And if he accepts the qualifying offer, well, at least I won't lose anything, right? That'll just be a push. But it seems like coming off the season that he had, he could command a multi-year deal if he wanted to, right? I mean, I know that he doesn't fit the profile of, like, you know, top of the rotation pitcher these days because he just does not strike out a ton of hitters. But he also doesn't walk anyone. And, you know, like, he was another Dodgers reinvention. But like even prior to being with the Dodgers, at least like he'd been more durable, let's say, than than he like he had a season where he pitched 167 innings last year. He pitched 178 and two thirds this year.

So there's less of a durability concern and more of a performance stuff concern. But coming off the season he had, I just like, I don't know, maybe he'll just decide, hey, the Dodgers were good for me and I want to stay and I don't want to take my chances. And this is a lot more than I've made in any one year before. So I'll just be happy with that. Totally possible, but no downside risk, it seems like for me here, and at least some upside potential. So I'm going to bank on his market being a bit stronger than this. see him taking the qualifying offer because it sure is nice to make almost 20 million dollars to put another year of track record in place to say it wasn't just a one-year blip with the dodgers it was a two-year blip with the dodgers yeah so you know i could see him doing that but he's only going to get older and this coming season will be his- He turns 33 in December.

And so if he thinks that there is a market for him that is more lucrative than that, then I would imagine he will try to take it. Yeah. I'm not saying he's getting an enormous amount. I'm just saying if he signed a two-year deal with a lower AAV, it would still be over the one-year qualifying offer. So let's just bank it on him not taking it. But if he does take it, and we'll know quite soon that it's not the worst pick in the world, I won't take a loss. No, I think that that's a, well, that feels like a defensible pick to me. Okay. Okay. I'm going to take the under on Andrew Benintendi. Gosh, there are a lot of Andrews in this list. There we go.

Trade Rumors has him at four years and $54 million. I know that Benintendi was someone who, when Ben Clemens was getting the top 50 in order, he really struggled with exactly where to place him. I get it. i think that you can look at his season this year and say okay we saw a recovery at the plate for him he posted a 122 wrc plus he put almost three wins he was an all-star for whatever that's worth and he's you know he had part of his season sort of cut short by injury and so so, you know, we don't really get to see what he might have done if he had had a more extended run with the Yankees. But, you know, he's also a guy who doesn't really hit for much consistent power and he's not a defensive standout. And

apart from that 2018 he put up in Boston where he was worth about five wins and he had another year kind of like this at the plate, he sort of vacillated between being league average and being 20% above. And I'm always struck by him being older than I expect him to be. In my mind, I think he's still like 25 and he's gonna be 28 next year's his age 28 season so he seems like the kind of guy who might end up signing like a surprisingly shorter deal than people expect given the name and so I just I think I'm taking the the under here I mean he he does get on base a lot so like that is always going to give him something of a floor. And he doesn't strike out a ton, but I don't know.

I just don't feel like the defensive profile really buttresses him in the way that it might. And he doesn't have enough else in the offensive profile where you're like, wow, there's really a standout tool apart from the on-base percentage. I don't know. I just am kind of down on Andrew Benintendi. Yeah.

Makes sense. All right. I don't know how I feel about this one, but I'm going to take the over on Wilson Contreras at 484. Now, I don't know. That might be in the right range. And also, he'll have a qualifying offer attached. So maybe this isn't a good pick, but I just made it. So here's my case for it, which is that he's coming off an excellent

offensive season, his best, and he's been a dependable good hitter. And you almost certainly will have robo umps at some point during this contract, right? I mean, we've got ABS system coming to AAA next year. It wouldn't be unreasonable to expect a challenge system or some form of this in the majors as soon as 2024. I don't know how much teams will be banking on that and factoring that in when it comes to someone like this or on the other side, someone like Austin Hedges, for instance. But it seems to me that you might factor in that framing is something he does not excel at, and he costs you some value in that area, and perhaps he will cease to cost you that value, or as much of that value, at least. And so between that and him coming off the year he has, and the fact that he could DH DH or he could even potentially play an outfield corner if you want him to. And it's not a deep classic catcher this winter. Like you have Christian Vasquez, but it's about it. I mean, there just, there aren't a lot of marquee catchers out there and there certainly aren't a lot who are as good hitters as he is. There aren't a lot

of hitters at catcher who are as good as Contreras, period, league-wide. It's a low ebb for offense for catchers. So putting all that together, and look, he's 31. He's getting up there. So that could limit him. Would it be impossible for him to get a five-year deal? I could see that happening. Actually, he's 30. He's not 31. He won't turn 31 until mid-May. So I could see him potentially getting five if he held out for that. And I guess he might be shooting for the Osmani-Grandal, beating the Osmani-Grandal contract. And I think he could. And Grandal was not coming off as good an offensive year when he got his deal, though obviously he had more framing value. So I'm just I'm going to say that someone will pay Wilson Contreras, but we will see. different if i thought that we were like three years out from robo umps instead of like one or two right yeah but yeah i think we're close and then you know he's got a good arm and the battle carry him at a position you know further down the defensive spectrum so i get it i think that's a

defensible pick all right where am i gonna go next do i want to be contrarian at catcher well i just took contraris i know you hang out with me too much well it's not that i i did do prep you know i did i did it i did some prep and yeah now i'm wavering this is why my drafts always go so badly. I don't stick to my convictions, Ben. I don't show conviction. What are we, five in each? We've done five? One, two, three, four, five.

Yeah, this is my sixth pick. I am going to take the under on Mitch Hanegar. All right. I feel bad doing it. I want to make that clear because mitch seems like a nice guy who we know entirely too much about medically yep i think that the issue with hanager like there's you know in some ways like there are parts of his injury history that you can kind of discount. Like, you know, hopefully he doesn't have same testicular issues. Yes. Had in the past.

One can attribute that to kind of being fluky, but there are other parts of his injury history that are more like a little bit more persistent, right? Like he missed the bulk of his time this year with a high ankle sprain. Maybe you view that as fluky, but like there's been back stuff off and on for him for a while now. And so there's that issue, but you know, I don't think that he is an elite or even a particularly good defender anymore. So that's going to limit his ceiling. And then you look at the last couple of seasons with him and you might say well if a team signs him and they get the version of hanager they got last year where you know he posted

100 121 wrc plus and hit almost 40 home runs well that's you know that's good in a corner and even though he's not a great defender like okay that that's workable but if he misses a bunch of time and he is closer to the home run totals he posted in you know some of his gosh he really hit 39 home runs last year that's crazy good for mitch hanegar i don't remember that i remember him being good at the plate but i don't remember him hitting that much anyway i'm just saying like the guy's about to be playing his age 32 season he has like an injury history longer than my arm he's not an elite defender anymore he is an above average but not superlative bat and so all of those things combined make me think that like three years and 39 million pieces. He's coming off a nice year. He's hitting free agency at the

right time. And he's just, he's kind of a good guy to have around. Like he's a nice sort of swing man type. He can be a credible starter. He can work in relief. Like he's coming off a year with a three ERA and a FIP like right in that same range. And just like he's pretty solid. He's pretty dependable. Like he's durable-ish. He doesn't have huge innings totals because he has been in relief sometimes. But generally like a good dependable starter. And I think probably could have started more for other teams. You know, like he was with the Dodgers for years when they just had a lot of pitching generally, and he's only 32. I guess he's about to turn 33 later this month. And just kind of like in the Tyler Anderson school of like, I think he could do a little bit better than sub 20 million if he wanted to. So yeah, I don't know. I don't think he'd exceed it by a ton, but I could see some team going over 18 for him, which is all I want at this stage of the draft. Yeah, that seems reasonable to me.

All right. Man, some of these reliever predictions they have on here. I don't know if I want to monkey with that. I don't know if I want to mess with that, but I got to mess with somebody, Ben. Yeah, two more. I'm going to take the over on Zac Eflin. Ah, okay. Yeah, I considered that. Two years and 22 million. I think we're playing with small money here. So I don't think he's going to sign like a hundred million dollar deal or anything. He obviously has had injury issues. He has been solid, but not spectacular in the course of his career. And I get the sort

of uncertainty when it comes to the role. He obviously pitched very well out of the bullpen, or pitched well out of the bullpen for the Phillies when he came back from injury because they wanted to manage him carefully given the injury history. He would make more money if he can start, but sort of like stripling, there seems like there's some versatility there. And the thing about it is that everybody needs pitching and they need like solid and reliable pitching. And so if you think that his health woes are behind him and that he can either be like your number four or be a guy who pitches better than he starts out of the bullpen, then maybe you pay him a little bit more than $22 million. So I'm taking the over on Zac Efflin,

who I always want to call. I either want to call him Zac Effron, or I assume that I'm misremembering his first name because Efflin and Effron kind of sound alike. But whatever his name is, I think he'll maybe make more than $22 million. Yep, I consider that one. All right. For my penultimate pick, I will take the under on Carlos Estevez. Yeah. That was one of those pitchers, relievers. I was like,

three years and 21 million. I had to confirm that I knew who Carlos Estevez was. like confirmed that I knew who Carlos Estevez was. I'm sorry, Rockies fans. But I mean, he hasn't been a particularly distinguished reliever. I mean, you got to course adjust a little bit, obviously. And, you know, like he throws hard, but who doesn't these days in the back of a bullpen. And, you know, without park adjusting, like he's never had a sub four VIP and he's pitched exclusively out of the bullpen. So I'm just I'm not really bowled over. Like, I guess he presumably will be a bit better away from Colorado and maybe miss some more bats. But for like a late inning type, he just seems sort of

generic. So I guess they're just other relievers with lower projections who seem more impressive to me. I guess partly it's that he's 29, but I don't know if he's a candidate for a very long term deal anyway. So yeah, Carlos Estevez. I think that's a good pick because I wouldn't be surprised if there are teams out there that are like, we can probably help this guy figure stuff out more. But the thing is you don't pay a premium for those guys coming out of Colorado. So, you know, that's the thing about them. All right.

Last pick for you. This is my last pick? Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm. Mm. God, how are we going to value catchers, you know? Yeah. How are we even going to think about them as a kind of player? I'm trying to balance obvious positional scarcity

with the not actually a good hitter of it all. Relative good hitter of it all, but not actually a good hitter of it all. Maybe I just think that this projection is like right on the money. Maybe I think that. Maybe I don't though. I think I'm going to take the under on Christian Vasquez. Okay. Yeah, sure.

I'm going to do that because here's the thing. Yeah, sure. I'm going to do that because here's the thing. On the one hand, he's probably the other guy who you could start for most of a run and feel kind of okay about it. But I find it really interesting. Vasquez isn't a bad defender, right? He's not the best, but he's not a bad defender. And he is, for a catcher, a reasonable bat. He had a 99 WRC plus this year.

He's almost a league average hitter at catcher, which is, as we have noted, not good. Yes. But he still mostly backed up Martin Maldonado. Martin Maldonado, didn't he have a broken hand? Yes, and a sports hernia. And a sports hernia. And a sports hernia. Yeah.

And so I know that they love Martin Maldonado in Houston and that he is thought to be very good with that staff. But I just find that like it's interesting that he backed up there mostly. I know that there are teams that need catchers, but I don't know. I think he might do a little bit worse than this, not from an AAV perspective, but from a year's perspective. I could see him signing a two-year deal that takes him through his age 34 season for a similar AAV, but three years feels like maybe one more year than I would imagine he gets.

And so I think I'm taking the under, you know? Yeah. I guess a decent amount of his defensive value comes from framing. I'm not sure that that will matter over the course of the contract he gets. Although he has a reasonable arm. He's not like a – I don't know. I mean, he's been a very good defensive catcher at times.

At times, yeah. I would say, yeah. And like they felt like they needed him. I mean, a great team, the Astros, won a World Series. They felt like he would be an upgrade, and you're right. I assume that that is partly loyalty to Maldonado, and Maldonado just being the incumbent and being the veteran. And where else are you going to play him, right?

If he doesn't catch, then what value does he have at all? Yeah, and your pitching staff has been so successful with Maldonado, maybe you don't want to mess with that so much. He literally had a broken hand. Yeah, right. So there's that. I don't know. Maybe they didn't know about all the injuries he had all that time. I'm not sure. But anyway, all right. That's that pick. That's your last one. I will pick... Oh, and by the way, I meant to mention Contreras, despite some defensive shortcomings, he's got a good arm. Contreras, despite some defensive shortcomings, he's got a good arm.

He can throw guys out, which I think could be handy given the new pickoff rules and maybe more of a running game. So there's that. Anyway, I think I'll go with the over on Brandon Drury at 2-18. I don't feel great about anyone who's left at this point. I haven't felt great about my picks in a while, Ben. Yeah. So look, he's kind of a one-year wonder. I mean, he's been bouncing around. I think he signed a minor league deal last year,

and then he had this great career year, silver slugger, right? And hit well, and also, like, the batted ball metrics were much improved, and he gives you some defensive versatilityatility too. I mean, he doesn't play shortstop, but he played a bunch of positions and he can play second and third and first and a little bit of outfield even if needed in a pinch. And I guess he stood at shortstop for four innings. But, you know, like between the versatility and the hitting and he's only 30, I guess I could just see him beating this by a modest amount. I just don't really like no one else is calling to me right now. I thought about Adam Adovino over 214. I thought about, gosh, I thought about Martin Perez over at the qualifying offer, but then I read a rumor that he was leaning toward accepting the qualifying offer.

Yeah, I think he really wants to stay in Texas. Yeah. So that's what we got. Yeah. Look, they did a good job predicting, or at least they did about as good a job as I would have done, I guess, because there weren't that many that stood out to me as being far from the mark. But I like your draft. I actually predict that you win this one. I think I But I like your draft. I actually, I predict that you win this one. I think I feel better about your draft than I do about mine. I never feel good

about my drafts. And, you know, historically, that's been smart. So it's interesting. Like, I feel like I know stuff about baseball and I have reasonable takes and then I draft and it all falls apart, Ben. Sometimes it all falls apart. Yeah. Well, I hate to tell you this, but we got to knock out this other one quickly. Let's do this quick. All right. This is the World Series Odds Movers Draft.

So again, to remind everyone what this is, we'll do this. This can be almost like a lightning round. Maybe I say that. No, we can do it as a lightning round, I guess. But the premise here we we got the world series odds as they stand today and i don't know anything about odds and betting and either of us does yeah i looked up the fan i didn't have to ask you what they mean i didn't have to google what they mean why would you say that but i looked up the fan

dual odds and i looked up the draft kings odds for the World Series winners in 2023 as they stood today, Monday, as we are recording. And I will put that online so everyone has it for reference. I think they haven't been updated extremely recently, but that's how they stand today. And then we will see where they are on opening day. And our goal here is, again, to be directionally correct. So we want to pick teams that will have either better World Series odds at the end of the offseason than they do now or worse. And we just want to pick right, whether it's better or worse. And, again, this is just the odds today and the odds then.

So we are essentially betting on who has a good offseason or who is perceived to have had a good offseason. And some of that obviously is baked in so that if you expect a team to have a great offseason and add a bunch of good players, then presumably that would have been factored into these odds that these sites developed. And I averaged the two sites, but they were very close in almost all cases. So I really could have flipped a coin, but whatever. So we're just going to choose who we think will, I suppose, exceed expectations this winter. And we're defining that by them getting more likely to win the World Series.

Or worse, you could pick either. Yeah, I should say we're not actually just choosing exceed expectations. It could be either. So you can choose in either direction. Just like we did

with the contracts draft where we can go over under, we can say that Team X will be a longer shot, will be considered a longer shot to win or a shorter shot.

Shorter shot. Yeah. So that's the premise here. And I guess, well, you went first last time. Please go first. Okay. All right. I don't feel any more confident about this one than I did about that one.

But here we go. So I think I will start by taking the Guardians to be better, to have better odds by the end of the offseason. Right now, they are plus 37.50. That's the average of the two. And with these odds, with these pluses, because we don't actually bet on sports, I always have to remind myself what these things mean. And there are all the different odds versions of presenting these things. But basically, this is like it ranges from the Dodgers at plus 550 down to the Nationals, A's and Pirates at plus 15,000. And if I understand this correctly, what that means is that if you bet $100 on the Dodgers, then you win 550. And if you bet $100 on the Nationals and they win the World Series,

then you win $15,000. So the longer the shot is, the more you make, obviously. And if you translate this to probabilities, I think this translates to the Dodgers have a 15.4 chance to win the World Series, and the Nationals and those other teams at the bottom have a 0.7% chance. So that's the range. So I'm choosing the Guardians at plus 37.50, partly just because the Guardians just seem too low to me as it is. They're 16th on this list, and that just seems too low. Or I guess they're tied for 15th with the Giants and I just I think they're better than that I mean they exceeded expectations this year but

they played well like they deserve to win that division title and they had an extremely young team and they're not losing a ton of guys presumably I guess there are rumors about a Shane Bieber trade potentially so maybe that is playing a part here but when aren't there rumors of a Shane Bieber trade?

Yeah, sure. There are going to be rumors about any Guardians player probably. But I think that is unlikely. I would not expect that to happen. And who knows? Is this going to be the winter when the Guardians actually spend? Just bolstered by the fact that they have this good young team and they just won the division and the division still seems winnable. by the fact that they have this good young team and they just won the division and the division still seems winnable and if they would just shore up a few spots like and do anything which they

didn't do last winter then maybe it would really make them a tough contender maybe maybe this is the winter when they actually spend some money who knows but but i think even if they run it back like they'll they'll still have a better shot than this probably. I'm just like, they're one spot above the Angels here. Like I don't see how that is right. Yeah, that seems wrong. Yeah. So it's just, they seem underrated and maybe they will have raised expectations by the time the season starts. Yeah, they were on my list also.

Okay. I'm going to take the Giants to have better odds of winning the World Series. Am I? Yes. Shorter shots. Shorter shots. Yeah, that was on my board as well. Yeah.

Yeah, because I think that it's fine to look at this year and be like, okay, this year demonstrated that you don't always have a bunch of guys in their late 30s have career years all at once to challenge the Dodgers for the division. But I do think that this Gi giants team is likely to spend money i think that they will do what they can to retain radon for instance i i do think they'll take a run at judge even though i don't know for sure he'll want to sign there you know we have heard for a while now that like san francisco is getting ready to spend money and it feels like given the fit of some of the guys who are out there and where they are as a club that maybe this is the year

that they do that and I think that you know even one like good signing or even just re-signing Rodon should put them ahead of like the Red Sox they feel like they should be ahead of the Red Sox because I think the Red Sox are not very good so should be ahead of the Red Sox. Because I think the Red Sox are not very good. So I'm picking the Giants for the over, shorter shot. To raise their odds? Yeah. To improve their odds?

Yes. If we ever have to do really, I mean, like, Appleman doesn't seem to have any interest in this. But man, if we ever really have to cover gambling specifically, I'm going to have to learn so much. Yeah. To be clear, we're not endorsing anything here i'm not suggesting that you do bet we're just we're using us oh i'm saying don't bet i'm yeah i am giving a negative endorsement it's just a way to measure expectations now and at the end oh yeah yeah don't don't bet i'm gonna say don't bet based on their odds,

not because I think their odds are especially good or bad, but just I think do less betting and don't bet based on what I say. That seems like a terrible idea. Listen to how I'm talking about it. Yeah, so yeah, the Giants, as I mentioned, they're tied with the Guardians now plus 37.50. Now, all of what you said in theory should be priced in.

Everyone knows the Giants. They seem like a candidate to spend. Farhan's idea said this is going to be a big offseason for us. So all of that should be accounted for, but maybe it isn't, I guess is what we're saying. And if they got Judge, I could see that even more so than maybe it should, bolstering their odds, right? Everyone being like, oh, they just got the guy who hit 62 homers. Like, of course, they have better chance now. So yeah, I will be with you there. All right.

I'm going to say that the Phillies become longer shots by opening day. So the Phillies right now are at plus 1550. They are the eighth best odds of winning the World Series. And I don't think they're the eighth best team. I don't think they were the eighth best team this year even necessarily. So like maybe this is just, you know, playoff enthusiasm and hey, they just won the pennant and maybe a little bit of that wears off. And look, they very well might break the bank again. And I've seen rumors about Xander Bogarts going to Philly, right? Like maybe that could happen. So I don't think they'll be complacent and maybe they will improve. But boy, they just they barely made it to the playoffs this year. And so I don't know that they would go into next season as the eighth best chance to win a World Series, especially in a division with the Braves and the Mets.

And they're very unlikely, I would say, fairly unlikely to win that division. And so then you're in the wildcard spot again, and they just showed what you can do from there. But yeah, I'm going to say this is like a little bit of post-Pennant enthusiasm that perhaps will subside slightly by the time the offseason ends. Yeah, that feels fair to me. Okay.

Okay. I am going to take the... How did you say it? To be better odds? Yeah, to improve their odds? I'm gonna... I'm gonna take the Orioles to improve their odds.

Yep, that's a good one. I'm taking the Orioles to improve their odds. They still face the gauntlet that is their own division. So there's that. And, you know, I get that there are still holes on the roster. And I don't know how the sportsbooks are pricing in the seeming desire of some quarter of that front office to win as cheaply as possible. So I don't know what kind of spending they're going to do. I know that Elias hasn't sounded like he's going to open the coffers or anything.

No Brinks trucks being backed up, it doesn't sound like, but they're close to a good team, and they have a lot of exciting young guys, and they have more exciting young guys coming. I think that they have a better shot to win than they're currently forecast for. Better than the Angels. Yeah, plus 42.50.

They are 18th best odds to win the World Series. Poor Angels being this pivot point for us, the axis around which we base all of this. But yeah, okay. Yay. I did it. I did it. Okay. I am going to take the Rangers to improve their odds.

Oh. So the Rangers right now, even worse than the teams we were just talking about and the Angels as well. So the Rangers, they have at plus 6,000. So their 20th best odds to win the World Series. And this just feels to me like you probably don't spend all the money that they spent last winter. Fire your head of baseball ops and your manager. Bring in Bruce Bochy to just sort of sit on your hands again.

So I could see them adding pitching and shoring up this roster and just improving from within a bit. And I've said, like, there should be some regression to the mean here just from the historically terrible one run record that they had last year. Now, that should be already factored into this. And I don't know if it will be factored into it anymore in late March than it is right now. But given that, and I'm just going to project that they are somewhat active this offseason. So I will say that they improved their odds a bit by opening day. Yeah, it could be true.

It could be true. Okay, I'll take it. I'm going to take the under, the downside, they will get worse for the Red Sox. All right. They're at plus 3,500, 14th best. I know that, like you said, this is taking into account the current state of the roster. These odds know that they currently no longer have a Xander Bogarts, for instance.

no longer have a Xander Bogarts for instance but I think a lot of that rotation is still pretty bad and hurt and I think that their offense is worse even if they get more out of Trevor Story which I imagine they hope they will they're like willingly employing Eric Hosmer so and they don't seem like they're primed to spend a bunch. So I think if only to have a logically consistent board with Baltimore improving, I think Boston will get worse odds. Okay. Yep. So that's what I think. All right.

Hmm. All right. This is my penultimate pick here. I'm going to go over on the Marlins. I don't know, but I'm going to go over on the Marlins. They're right now at plus 72-50. That's 21st. They're right behind the Rangers. And it just like it feels like they got to make some moves at this point, right? Like they just feel like a team that needs to do something. I don't know whether Bruce Sherman is going to actually decide to do that or not. But they just seem like they got to put up or shut up at this point. Like they got to maybe convert some of that pitching into offense or actually spend some money. pitching into offense or actually spend some money. Like, I don't know, I guess it's not a great bet to bet on the Marlins to like invest in their team, historically speaking. But like,

if they're going to do something, if they're going to change their outlook, it kind of has to be now, like this is the time. So I'm betting, not really betting on that happening, but if it does happen, then I think they could improve their odds by the time the season starts. So there's at least some chance that they will. That logic feels sound to me. Okay. This is my penultimate bet. Mm-hmm.

I'm going to take the Diamondbacks to improve their odds. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they have some fun guys, those Diamondbacks. Did you know? Yeah. And, well, a lot of the fun ones they have coming

are probably a little bit further away yet. But I think that when you're going to have a full year of Corbin Carroll, like, that seems good. And Varshow kind of seemed like he took a legitimate step forward. And Gallen has looked good and they are in a position where you know they just they really don't have very much committed when it comes to to payroll and like 23 million of it is going to Madison Bumgarner so you know mistakes have been made but it's a new era of D-backs baseball. They're certainly not in a position to challenge for the West.

But I think that they are going to do better than these odds see them as doing. So go D-backs. Okay. Well, I guess for my last pick, I'll take the Angels to fall. Yeah. We were just talking about how they sit too high. Yeah. Neither of us did that earlier.

The Angels at plus 4,000, that's 17th. Again, they're right between the Guardians and the Orioles, and that doesn't seem to make much sense. And I don't know that, like, DraftKings and FanDuel will know anything about the Angels in late March than they do now. We'll know more then. than they do now. We'll know more then. But like, I don't see why they're this high now. And maybe it's because there's some hope that like, you know, Otani's last year under contract, maybe they will go spend big and actually try to win or try to convince him to stay. I don't think there's any chance that they're going to convince him to sign an extension. Like he said as much recently that he's just not even thinking about that really. And given the uncertainty about ownership, just not even thinking about that really. And given the uncertainty about ownership,

like the franchise is in the process of being sold. So is Moreno going to want to invest money this winter? Like, is the sale going to happen in time for whoever buys it to invest? And I know Perry Manassian said they won't be trading Otani, but I guess there's some possibility that he ends up not being the one to make that decision because the franchise is sold or something. And I don't know why you would buy the franchise and then immediately trade Otani. I mean, I think there's a good case to trade Otani because I don't see him staying at this point and I don't really see the Angels winning or having a better chance to win than they did this past year. But yeah, it just seems unlikely that they're going to make any sort of big splash. And I don't know whether this is pricing in some expectation that they will be more active than I think that they will be.

But I just I don't see how they stay in the tier where they are currently placed. Yeah, that feels right. I think I agree with that. All right. I have a kind of spicy one, Ben. Okay. Last pick. I don't know if it's actually spicy.

Let's see if it's spicy. I think I think that not by a lot, not by a lot, but I think that the Mets might fall a little bit here. Uh-huh. Okay. I know that they know about all the free agents. Yeah. I know that they also know what we know,

which is that Steveve cohen might just be like screw it right here's a bajillion dollars i'm not gonna look at the the luxury tax payrolls as anything more than a nuisance not as something i have to like you know budget for screw it he might say that yep but they have they sure have a lot of holes that they have to fill now. They got a lot of holes. And they have some older guys. And I think that right now, this is sort of price directionally, I think correctly, where Atlanta has better odds of winning the World Series than the Mets do. The Mets are at plus 1,075 average.

That is fifth best. Right. but I think that they might fall a little bit not a lot but I could see them falling a little so I'm taking those Mets make sense to me yeah I mean the Yankees are right ahead of the Mets and look if they lost judge somehow and and it would be tough to make up for losing Judge. Then I could potentially see them falling too. So either New York team would be a pretty decent pick. But all right. Well, that's that draft. So we will put that online and you can make your own picks.

And then in theory, we will remember to follow up on this shortly before opening day. And hopefully they will update the numbers. You have to remember. Yes. If you don't remember, I probably won't remember, Ben. Okay. I'll remember the other one, but not this one. This one I'll probably forget. Well, eventually, these will

appear on our Magic Competitions and Drafts spreadsheet maintained by John Chenier. I will link to that so you can find all our old ones as well. And we will end now with the Pass Blast. This is episode 1929. This comes from 1929 and from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee. And this leads off 1929, a dying art.

Throughout the 1920s, as more teams tried to copy Babe Ruth's Yankees and add home run hitters to their lineup, stolen bases fell off as a popular strategy. and add home run hitters to their lineup, stolen bases fell off as a popular strategy. The American League leader in 1929, Charlie Gerringer of the Tigers, had just 27 stolen bases, a record low at the time. Of course, he also led the AL with 45 doubles, 19 triples, and 131 runs scored too. J.G. Taylor Spink of the Sporting News came up with his own unique theory on why nobody was running anymore. Quote, Major League managers quite concertedly agree

that the art of base running is dying out. The number of stolen bases recorded for the best base runners of today is far lower in number than it once was. The principal factor in curtailing base running has been the increase in the number of umpires who have charge of a ballgame. Umpires are so many now

and so located on the diamond that the runner cannot get the shade of a decision because an umpire is too far away to see whether the runner is safe or out. Hence, the more umpires, the fewer stolen bases because the runners will not take chances. There must be an education of runners

into outwitting the pitcher so that the decision on a stolen base shall be clean and not in doubt. Jacob ends, as offenses continue to score runs at a record-setting pace into the 1930s, stolen bases stay down for many years to come. In 1938, Stan Hack led the National League with only 16 steals, a league record that wasn't broken until the Rockies' Trevor Story stole 15 bases in the shortened 2020 season, if we're counting that. So this is interesting. I would not have identified

that as a factor here, and I'm still not sure I would, but he is arguing that stolen bases were down because there were more umpires on the field, and therefore runners were not just getting the benefit of the doubt because apparently he thought when umpires were far away, they would just kind of give the edge to the runner if they actually couldn't tell because they weren't close enough to see. And so the more umpires he thought, the less likely the runner was to get the benefit of the doubt, and thus the less likely they were to steal or to be successful when they did steal. So I don't know if I'd buy that explanation, but it's an interesting one, at least. Like Craig Wright in his excellent newsletter, Pages from Baseball's Past, like he wrote about how stolen bases dramatically decreased around

this time. And he wrote, the radical decline in steals came about due to the reaction and eventual overreaction by managers to the rise in both batting average and power hitting in the live ball era, which made it easier to rely on the player's bats rather than their speed to advance runners around the bases. So that was my understanding. And that is still my understanding. So I don't know that I accept this as an actual explanation, but it's interesting. I hadn't thought of that affecting the decision about whether to go or not, like whether there's

an umpire who's close enough, because I wouldn't have even known like which side would get the benefit of the doubt because if you're not close enough to see the slide might you not just go by did the ball beat you as opposed to like did you actually manage to evade the tag and then would that favor one side or another I don't know anyway yeah well that was one explanation all right well that will do it well like the rest of you I now also know the results of the Rookie of the Year voting. And it turns out that on the NL side, Meg was very much in the majority. She was one of 22 first place votes for Michael Harris II.

Spencer Strider got the other eight, including one from Dan Simborski of Fangraphs, who voted for Strider and wrote about that for the site. So that's a somewhat wide margin, but not so much that it shocks me. I did say that the only thing that would really surprise me was if we got really lopsided results, and we actually did on the AL side, where Julio had a convincing victory over Adley Rutschman. Julio got 29 first place votes, the lone first place Adley Rutschman vote from Ben Nicholson-Smith, former Effectively Wild guest. And Ben had a Twitter thread about why he supported Rutschman, and it was completely reasonable, so much so that I'm just surprised that it was this lopsided. And Ben based his case on intangibles, or at least things that are currently intangible, or difficult to quantify, at least. The fact that the Orioles did so much better once Rutschman was called up, of course, and the pace at which Rutschman played from day one, or not quite day one because he sort of slumped at first, but also the performance of the Orioles pitching staff.

He's clearly an excellent defensive catcher as well as a good hitter. So yeah, sort of slumped at first, but also the performance of the Orioles pitching staff. He's clearly an excellent defensive catcher as well as a good hitter. So yeah, sort of surprised that it was as clear cut a victory for Julio. Does seem like Julio is more famous than Rutschman, maybe in part because the Mariners made the playoffs and the Orioles didn't, but they were so close right up until the end of the season. Just seems like Julio is a bigger personality, maybe more magnetic on a national level. He was in the Home Run Derby. He got that spotlight.

So he's just broken out a bit more as a personality, I would say. I don't know whether that swayed anyone consciously or unconsciously. Anyway, you had Stephen Kwan in third, and then Bobby Witt Jr., Jeremy Pena, and George Kirby also receiving votes. On the NL side, it was Brendan Donovan third, and then Jake McCarthy, Alexis Diaz, Nick Lodolo, and O'Neal Cruz also mentioned on ballots. No Joey Manessis, sadly. Also been thinking about our second draft since we concluded. I could see the Royals rising as well. Seems like they're breaking from Royals tradition if one of the breaks is that they go out and sign some prominent free agents. You could see them being sort of a dark horse come opening day, what with all the young talent that they have. Speaking of Bobby Witt. And I was also thinking maybe the Dodgers could fall. Not that they're not going

to go into the season, probably projected as the most likely World Series winner in the NL and certainly division title winner in the NL West. But say they lost Trey Turner, say they didn't quite compensate for that. Don't go get a big name guy. I could see their odds maybe taking a slight step back. So you could say they were also in consideration for me. And finally, just wanted to follow up on our last episode. I had Jeff Perlman on. We talked about his new Bo Jackson book, The Last Cult Hero. And he told a story about how in high school, Bo Jackson had a game where he hit a fly ball so high that by the time the left fielder picked it up after he lost it and it dropped, Bo Jackson was at third base already.

And Jeff, of course, caveated how preposterous this sounds and how difficult it is to believe. But he talked to many sources, including the actual left fielder who picked up the ball and said, yeah, he was at third base already by the time I got it. And so Jeff presented this as a difficult to believe story about Bo Jackson that sounds mythical, but maybe isn't. And he had actually told this story on another show. And it came to my attention that someone asked Tom Tango of MLB and StatCast whether this could possibly be true, how high you'd have to hit a ball for even the fastest MLB player, let alone a high school player, to be at third by the time the ball came down. And Tango said, easy enough.

First, you need to know how much time it takes to get to third base. Since we know inside the parkers from the fastest runners max out at 13 seconds, or I guess it would be min out at 13 seconds, you can remove the last 90 feet at 30 feet per second, which is about three seconds. So the ball needs to be about 10 seconds in the air. Gravity is 32 feet per second squared. A ball hits straight up at 160 feet per second. That's 110 miles per hour. With the entire force going straight up means the ball will have a final velocity of zero in 5 seconds. That's 160 over 32, ignoring air resistance. So that would be 5 seconds up, 5 seconds down. That's 10 seconds. That's 160 over 32, ignoring air resistance, so that would be 5 seconds up,

5 seconds down. That's 10 seconds, so that sounds plausible that you would hit the ball. 110 miles per hour, Tenko says that gives you 400 feet high. However, air resistance is real. That ball will go to 240 feet in reality, and up in 3.5 seconds and down in 4 seconds. So, including air resistance, to make the story plausible, you need it to go straight up at 160 miles per hour. Don't think even Bo Jackson could do that. We don't have StatCast for him, but we know that the hardest hit balls now are just a little bit over 120 miles per hour. So 160, don't think so.

And there was another physicist in that thread who had their own model and they had some graphs and had a calculator including air resistance. And they also found that to get to 10 seconds of hang time, exit velocity needs to be about 167 miles per hour. So yeah, judging by that, it doesn't sound possible. However, that's just for the ball to go up and come down. In this case, the fielder didn't catch it and so had to bend over and find the ball and retrieve the ball and then look up and see Jackson, right? So I guess it depends how long you think that could conceivably have taken. Did he take one second to do that? Two seconds? Three seconds? You know, if you start to get into, well, that takes an extra few seconds,

then I think we're potentially in the realm of plausibility. Still sounds like a slight stretch, but maybe it just took a little while for him to pick up the ball and spot Jackson, in which case the story is a little less incredible, but also more plausible. And of course, it's a good story one way or another. So there are the numbers. You can come to your own conclusions. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going,

help us stay ad-free, and get themselves access to some perks. Cal Liss, Amy Lee, Anthony, James Eberwine, and David Foster, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group, where the hot stove discussion never stops. You also get access to monthly bonus

episodes that Meg and I record, plus discounts on merch and ad-free Fangrafts memberships and more. Anyone, of course, can contact us via email at podcastoffangrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can all join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild.

You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, at least if you're not locked out of your account because Elon shut off two-factor authentication. You can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectivelywild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back in the middle of the week to talk about qualifying offer decisions and 40-man roster deadline decisions and who knows what else. Talk to you then. And I've waited long enough for you. Honestly, I might be stupid to think love is love.

But I do. And you've waited so long. And I've waited long enough for you.