Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1938: It’s All Happening

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

With Meg Rowley on the IL, Ben Lindbergh and FanGraphs author Dan Szymborski discuss the first batch of news from a busy Winter Meetings, including the big-money market as a whole, the blockbuster signings of Jacob deGrom, Justin Verlander, and Trea Turner, the outlooks for the Rangers, Dodgers, and Astros, the Padres’ interest in Turner […]

You know and I, we don't get no sleep. I hear you walk the floor, just like the night before. And I don't know, I don't know how to feel I don't know, I don't know how to feel Hello and welcome to episode 1938 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Van Graraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindbergh of The Ringer, not joined today by Meg Rowley, who was planning to join me this week from the winter meetings in San Diego. As it turned out, she is not at the winter meetings in San Diego because she has the flu, which is also why she is not on this podcast. And so I have turned to another

Fangraphs writer and perhaps the only other writer who is not in San Diego at the winter meetings and does not have the flu, Dan Simborski of Fangraphs. Hello, Dan. Hi, Ben. I'm here by my two skills of not being in the winter meetings and being healthy-ish. You and I don't have illness as an excuse for not being there. We just don't get out much, I guess is what it basically comes down to. And you're a good person to talk to during these busy transaction times because it seems like you must have an in with the person who runs the Zips projections. I don't know how you think you know what the Zips projections are before they're released, but it seems like you make them up yourself or you have some kind of back alley connection with the bootleg Zips. I don't know how you manage it, but it seems like you're always publishing these things before everyone else has access to them. For those who aren't familiar with the running gag, one of the most amusing things that happens to me on social

media is that people are unaware that I do the Zips projections, and they dispute Zips projections, and they question my sources of Zips projections. And it's one of the endless sources of humor. I don't know if that means I was very good at PR for Zips or very poor at PR for myself, but it makes my day a little brighter. If you had just called them the Zimborskis or even like the Zims or something, then you probably wouldn't get these emails. But then we would all be deprived of enjoying them.

So I guess it's better for us, if not necessarily for your personal branding. Anyway, you have access to all the projections and you will see many projections in transaction posts at Fangrafts this week as transaction after transaction comes through. And as expected, we were hoping and thinking that this would be a busy week. Last week, we had to scramble and figure out what to talk about. Not that we ended up with any shortage of topics, but this is one of those days

where there's no need to reach for any ideas because there have been a bunch of sightings and some trades and some interesting rumors and all sorts of stuff is going down here. So this will just be an oops all transactions episode of Effectively Wild, I think. So I don't know where to start, but maybe we could start with the market as a whole because I think the perception is that this is just a boom time for free agents and things are really hopping and the stove is hot. And I think that's all true. I guess we could talk about to what extent it is true and

why it is true. But for example, ESPN newsbreaker extraordinaire Jeff Passan tweeted the Trey Turner signing by the Phillies takes total spending by MLB teams this winter to $1.05 billion. And that's without Aaron Judge, Carlos Correa, Xander Bogarts, Carlos Rodon, Dansby Swanson, the five of whom together will command well over a billion, an incredible market. Now, Ken Rosenthal put it in even,

I guess, more sensational terms when he put it, welcome to the perfect storm of baseball excess, a confluence of events that already has produced more than $1 billion in free agent contracts. Each deal is more jaw-dropping and seemingly more nonsensical than the last. I don't know if I would go that far. And yet none of it comes as a surprise. So I don't know if it can be jaw-dropping and nonsensical and also not a surprise.

There's a lot going on in that paragraph. But the idea is that there's a lot going on in that paragraph. But the idea is that there's a lot of spending happening here. And I think that's true. It's not a surprise in that we talked really when some of the first dominoes started falling this winter about how they were exceeding expectations, it seemed like, and how some market conditions seemed poised and ripe for this to be a pretty free-spending winter. So do you think that there's a lot of truth to that? Is there some just what part of the offseason effect we're in because maybe early deals have a higher dollar per war or projected dollar per war just because

you're paying a premium maybe to sign up certain players quickly or the players who just come off the board very quickly are the most desirable ones. And so if you were to look at this over the course of the offseason, maybe you would see a trend, a difference in the spending at the beginning of the offseason relative to the end of the offseason. And maybe our expectations are skewed or our expectations are skewed because we just haven't had a normal offseason in winter in a while. But what do you make of the market as a whole so far? There's a real Roaring Twenties feel to it. Now, based on what I've read, I wasn't actually alive during the Roaring Twenties. That was like 50 years before I was born.

But, you know, it's the time after a pandemic that spread around the world and a war between owners and players. And everyone feels it just feels very celebratory compared to last year because last year at this time we were in the first week of a lockout where no one even knew if there was going to be a 2022 season and now you you have some very aggressive spending and at least based on the zips projections it is a wilder early going than usual uh while it is normal i i checked after a discussion we had about this uh for zips to tend to underrate the first signings of the offseason okay not by this degree the money does seem to be bigger than this was expecting and obviously it's too soon to tell if this is going to be a trend and what role that the mlb mlb am thus the the streaming

payoff that owners got the additional one how much that has an effect on this is it like you know a shopping spree like like when you give like little kids 500 and send them to do they still have toy stores today i know toys r us isn't a thing anymore, but whatever the equivalent of, of what they have today that I would have had like in 1985. Sure. Right. You would not have prioritized the most efficient spending on the toys, the dollars per fun entertainment hour.

Oh, no, I would not have. Yeah. There would have been, let's see some action figures. And if it was a Toys R Us, back then when you bought a video game from Toys R Us in those days, you would buy a slip of paper and you would pay for it at the register.

And then you would bring the papers to this little room that smelled like cigarettes. And this very unhappy person would get the video games for you. That's how it worked in 1985. How could you be unhappy sitting in a room of video games? That sounds like paradise. Anyway, I think as Ken ran down and as we have discussed, there are a lot of factors that would lead you to believe that spending would be fairly robust. So yes, there's the latest BAMTEC windfall. Every team just got a $30 million check for nothing, essentially. And that's on top of the

many hundreds of millions of dollars that have been paid out and the billions of dollars in earlier incarnations and iterations of that deal. And then, of course, it's defined, I guess, by what is not happening or what is happening that was not happening in recent off-season. So no lockout last year at this time. There were no winter meetings, not major league winter meetings anyway. And there's kind of a post-pandemic, at least when it comes to attendance environment, where there's just a lot less uncertainty about that. And revenue has bounced back there. And there was record revenue in MLB this past season, perhaps not inflation adjusted or it wasn't a huge bump inflation adjusted. And revenue certainly bounced

back after some declines. And so you put all those things together and it makes sense that spending would be big and luxury tax thresholds are higher, right, because of the new CPA and there's just assurance of labor peace for at least the next few years. And there's the expanded postseason format, which I guess we could debate whether that causes teams to spend more or spend less. And it kind of varies based on where you are in the competitive picture. But there are a lot of teams that see themselves as in it and thus are willing to break the bank. And so, yeah, I think conditions are lending themselves to the sort of spending we're seeing. And we will see whether it's just this first initial orgy of just getting the most desirable players off the board or whether this continues throughout the winter. the biggest deals that we've seen so far. And talking about teams that can talk themselves into being contenders and maybe be bolstered by the expanded playoff field, I guess you have to look no further than the Texas Rangers, right? Who struck very quickly and surprisingly to land

Jacob deGrom. And this was one of those deals that it broke over the weekend and with no warning, which I enjoy. It's definitely not ideal for, let's say, Meg Rowley, managing editor of Fangraphs, or people who have to write about these transactions. But I think it's fun when a signing and a huge signing just kind of comes out of nowhere here. And when it's a team that maybe you don't expect to get this player and it's not preceded by days of rumors. It's just almost out of the blue and then everyone gets to experience it and digest it in real time. So I don't think many people would have pegged the Texas Rangers as the most likely destination for Jacob deGrom and the terms of this contract certainly exceeded what people expected Jacob deGrom to get. So this is a five year contract. It's $185 million guaranteed. There's a full no trade clause. It's $30 million

next season and then $40 million a couple of seasons after that and then $38 and then $37. There's also a conditional option for 2028. If he is healthy over the first four seasons of the deal, I think, then that would, if he has Tommy John surgery or he has some elbow or shoulder injury that leads to an extended injury list stint, then there's a club option that would kick in for less money, $20 million, I think. But then there are other conditions too, where if he has a top five Cy Young finish or he reaches certain inning benchmarks, then it goes up to $37 million. So it's kind of complicated on the back end. But basically,

it's a five-year deal for Jacob deGrom and it's the Texas Rangers. So I don't know which of those things is more surprising to you, that it's the Texas Rangers or that it's a five-year guaranteed deal or whether it's just kind of a package of the two. But this is, I suppose, another example of Zips being somewhat surprised by the contract terms. In this case, I was surprised, too. The options are – and there's a lot of fun behind them. They feel like very complex like dungeons and dragons rules like okay if if the if you do a saving roll of 18 then the gron gets paid 40 million dollars unless his armor value is above seven unless it's a paladin attacking him that's that's kind of what

it feels like which which makes it fun because then it's interesting to kind of game theory it all out and how when the rangers benefit when they suffer i think it's it's not the the money that surprised me so much as the years i thought that he would get a massive per per year number per annum but i did not expect a five-year deal and i guess the rangers kind of wanted to clear that field pretty early because i'm surprised to see a deal this long. I went in expecting something kind of like two years, 90 million or something, maybe a little higher than what Justin Verlander actually did get, who I'm sure we'll discuss imminently. So the Rangers are making a real gamble here and that they can build a team around some of these guys because they have Corey Seager locked up. They have Marcus S Seager locked up they have Marcus Samian locked up they now have DeGrom and they don't really have much of a team around them

right now they're still they look a little Los Angeles angelsy which is not a great place to be necessarily once you're talking past Trout and Otani I I they're they're gonna have to do some work pretty quickly I I think, because it's not a situation where they can say, we're going to rebuild and we're going to be good in 2026. Like, you've invested now in being good very soon. Right. So I'm very curious to see how that works out.

Yeah. And I guess whether you think this is smart depends on what you think of the Rangers. And I think there are widely varying opinions there because you had produced some preliminary Zips standings for 2023, which we discussed on the podcast last week. And you had the Rangers as very close to a 500 team prior to, well, most moves made this winter, but prior to the DeGrom signing, certainly. And I think people might look at that and think, well, they just went 68-94 last year or this past season. What did they do to be a 500 team? And I think part of it is just, as we have discussed, just the historically terrible record in one-run games, right?

And so if you look at their underlying performance, they were maybe more like a 77-win team than a 68-win team. performance. They were maybe more like a 77 win team than a 68 win team. I think they were still a sub 500 team even in non one run margin games. So they clearly had a lot of work to do there. So how do you get them essentially or how does Zips get them to a 500 team almost without DeGrom? Is that just projecting better health improvements from players they already had, a pretty good farm system, producing some internal promotions? Do you see them that way prior to DeGrom? Because if that's how you see them prior to DeGrom, then it makes sense for them to go get DeGrom, right? Because then with DeGrom, they're essentially on the cusp of a postseason berth at that point. And you would say, well, they're one of the teams that maybe should be most incentivized to go get someone like DeGrom both to put them in the

playoffs. And then also, if you're a wildcard team, then you want Jacob DeGrom hopefully pitching for you and healthy in a wildcard series, right? Where having him in a best of three, that could be a big advantage. Not that it was for the Mets this past postseason, but we'll put that aside for a second. So how do you see the Rangers, I guess, prior to this deal? Like, were they close enough that this and maybe a couple supplementary moves over the rest of this offseason could put them in postseason position? I'm not always completely on board with Zips, but I think I am in this case. You look at their outfield and they're going to probably get better production out of left field than they got in 2022. The team's OPS plus out there was was absurdly low. I think both their starters were in like the 60 to 70 range. Bubba Thompson,

Josh Smith and who else? Cole Calhoun. There are places there that are simply going to get better. I expect kind of a better season from Corey Seager. Some of the pitching was a little disappointing. And I think that, you know, having Josh Young for a full season instead of the mess they had at third base most of the time between Andy Abanez and Ezekiel Duran, I think he'll be a definite upgrade there. And as you said, they were kind of unlucky. It's always hard to get into people's heads that good teams can be good and lucky and poor teams can be poor and unlucky. Even if we don't think that the Rangers were truly a 68 win team last year, that doesn't necessarily mean we think they were good. It's just that their Pythag was 77 and 85. And generally speaking, over and underperforming the Pythagorean record isn't actually a predictive things that teams have. tagorean record isn't actually a predictive things that teams have i kind of get in fights with this on this subject every single year because i can't resist getting into a fight about things i've been

fighting about for 25 years because i had this this issue from the way i was raised about getting the last word in an argument and so i can never walk away from pythag fights and the like but the rangers are a 500 ish team and they're better now, obviously, with DeGrom than without. You could give him 10 starts a year, and they might not be happy with that, but it's still 10 starts replacing probably a much inferior picture to Jacob DeGrom. Yeah. And now you look at that rotation, and you see DeGrom, John Gray, Martin Perez, Jake Odorizzi, whom they traded for, Dane Dunning. That could be good, right? Like, if DeGrom is healthy, if John Gray is healthy. So already a couple huge ifs there. And then if

Martin Perez can repeat his performance or more or less, that's another pretty big if. So they've, you know, in adding DeGrom and adding Odorizzi, they have raised both the floor and the ceiling there somewhat. So if everything goes right, that could be a really solid playoff caliber rotation. And they might not be done adding to it. Who knows? And there's still a lot that could go wrong there. I think people probably expected DeGrom either to stay with the Mets or to go to another team that really was sort of a playoff lock, right? or to go to another team that really was sort of a playoff lock, right?

So that you could kind of carry DeGrom and maybe even manage his innings or just sort of pencil in missing him for half a season. And that would be fine as long as he was healthy in October, right? Like it seems like that would be the most sensible fit for DeGrom. It's like, okay, we don't have to worry about getting there as long as he's there when we're there. That's what we want him for, really. And the Rangers are not that team. I mean, they kind of need him to be healthy so that they can make it to the playoffs at all. So if he has his half season of Sterling performance, even if

he's healthy when October rolls around, there's no guarantee that the Rangers will be there to take advantage of that if he has not been with them and healthy all season long. So I don't know that they made the most sense. But on the other hand, it's not shocking because, A, they made the big investments in Seager and Semien last offseason, and you don't really do that unless you're planning to build around them and to add to that core. And then, B, they made midseason changes, right? They got rid of Chris Woodward. They got rid of John Daniels. Like there was not tolerance of not winning, right? Like they were clearly by ownership seen as this is a win now team. And so it would be silly to make some win now moves and not do what else you have to do to win now. And then C, I mean, they hired Bruce

Bochy, right? And you probably don't hire Bruce Bochy and lure Bruce Bochy out of retirement for a mediocre team that is not going to spend. So I think the Rangers were already listed as a team that, hey, they could really make some waves this winter, you know, along with the Giants and some other teams that really seemed poised to spend. It's just that maybe DeGrom was not the most obvious candidate. But he was really one of only, I guess, arguably three ace-level pitchers. And that's if you put Carlos Rodon in that class. It's just deGrom and it's Verlander and it's Rodon.

And so if you have to assemble much of a starting rotation and certainly the top of that rotation, then there are only so many options at your disposal. And so maybe if you're the Rangers, you do have to pay more than the market rate to go get someone like Jacob deGrom because he's not joining what has been a contending team. He's not Justin Verlander joining the Mets and joining his old buddy Max Scherzer, right, with a fellow ace there. Like deGrom is the guy there, and sometimes you do have to pay a premium if you're a team that's kind of coming out of a down cycle and trying to send a message, okay, it's ready, it's our team, it's our time. Then you have to maybe pay a premium to go get that free agent as opposed to the team that wins every year and can sort of sell you on, well, we're going to get you a ring

or we're going to give you as good a chance as anyone. So since the signing has happened, we've seen the usual sort of player leaves the Mets and anonymous Mets sources kind of crap on that player news cycle. So it's hard to know what to read into that. You know, John Heyman's writing about how DeGrom looked unhappy and he seemed surly and he didn't like mask mandates and he's not a northerner and all of these things that I don't really know whether they weighed into his decision or not, or whether this is all post hoc or whether this is just people, you know, kind of dumping on the guy

who left in traditional Mets fashion. But these things have come out that make you think, I don't know, who knows? Who knows where anyone wants to play? That's sort of the unsung aspect of the free agent market in general is that we sort of assume that you're going to go for the most money. And I guess that might be the case more often than not. But we don't know. We don't know where someone wants to live and wants to play and who they want to play with and what else might govern their decision beyond just the dollars. So there's kind of a fog of war, fog of free agency aspect to all of this. I did like when Zach Greinke came out several years ago, and he actually just said outright what a lot of players don't say. Yeah, it was about the money. There's nothing wrong with that. People make all sorts of decisions in life for more money. It's not like you're going to have loyalty to a team that just drafted you it's not like jacob de grom like grew up and like went to college and played baseball and coming out of college picked to join the meds i mean they

drafted him and he did very well for them and for a long time they got a pretty good deal for a very long time and then he moved on for once i just like to see these stories of, like, a player. He was grumpy. He was partying too much. I want to see these stories happen before the player signs elsewhere. It's a little like these clubhouse chemistry stories. You always hear how great these clubs, like, they won because of their clubhouse chemistry, which is always after they

win it's like just just i make predictions every year using stats you people make a list of teams and order them by clubhouse chemistry and we'll compare it towards compare it to the projections at the end of the year and see if the clubhouse chemistry was a useful variable in predicting it it's always just kind of an ex post facto explanation. Yeah. The problem there, I wrote an article for Baseball Perspectives several years ago about how every team has good chemistry when the season starts, because I looked and I found it was like 25 of the 30 teams or something had stories written about them in spring training. Just that one year that I looked about how they had great clubhouse chemistry and everyone was getting along and they're doing all these great, you know, there's a new attitude and a confidence and all these things.

You know, then it turns out that some of those teams are very good and suddenly maybe that chemistry is not so great when you start losing and people are not happy. So, yeah. I want to see the opposite article. I want to see a headline, 65-97, 17, great together, love their jobs. Right. You don't see that so much. All right. So once Jacob deGrom departs, and I do hope that we get to see a full, healthy deGrom season again. Obviously, the Rangers hope that's the case so

they can get a nice return on their investment. But just as someone who marvels at Jacob deGrom, like everyone does, and who constantly frets about Jacob deGrom as well, because it seems like he is too talented for this world and for a human arm to support. And so for years now, I've just kind of advocated, Jacob, just like take a couple miles per hour off. It's okay.

You can throw 99 instead of 101 and you will still get everyone out and maybe you'll stay healthy. But I don't off. It's okay. You can throw 99 instead of 101 and you will still get everyone out and maybe you'll stay healthy. But I don't know that that's true. And also, I'm sure that is harder to do than it is for me to say on a podcast. It doesn't seem like that's going to happen. At some point, probably he will start throwing a little less hard unless like he just sort of asymptotically approaches like 110 miles per hour or something and he just pitches fewer and fewer innings per year so you know 10 years from now he'll be throwing like one inning a year but he'll be throwing 108 miles per hour in that inning I don't know it's a very strange

progression but he is just such a cut above everyone else when he's healthy aside from I guess the very end of last season, right? Just the end of the regular season and then into the playoffs. I guess if you wanted to be concerned about this investment that the Rangers have made, you might wonder whether that was a foreshadowing of perhaps a less effective DeGrom. But basically, for a while now, he has been either hurt or by far the best pitcher in baseball on a perning basis. It would be great if he could just put together one more full season of just being amazing, of being as close to a Pedro Martinez, Pete Pedro level pitcher as we've seen,

perhaps other than Pete Kershaw, but maybe even more so than Pete Kershaw. So not just for the Rangers' sake and to make the AL West interesting, but because Jacob deGrom is one of the best pitchers we've ever seen when he is on the mound. I hope we see him on the mound more often. But the Mets, having lost deGrom, having that hole in their rotation, as I just said, there were only so many options for an ace-level top of the rotation pitcher. And really, you could argue that Justin Verlander was the only one out there. And so they did not wait long to go get Justin Verlander. So they don't have Jacob de Grom at home. They have Justin Verlander, which you could argue is preferable. And I saw this

headline at The Athletic from a friend of the show, Andy McCullough, with Justin Verlander signing Mets fill a Jacob deGrom-sized hole with less risk. Now, it sounds extraordinary to say that you are taking on less risk to sign someone who is going to turn 40 before the season starts and who missed two of the past three seasons, essentially, just about entirely due to injury. Like, that is not someone that you would think of as not risky. And yet compared to Jacob deGrom, I guess there is a pretty good argument that at least over the next two years, and yes, this is a two-year deal with a mutual option, whatever that means, right, for a third year. And the AAV is exactly the same as former and current teammate Max Scherzer, right? 43.3 million per year, which is kind of cute that they worked that out.

Usually free agents are all about like topping each other by a dollar or something. And so it's nice that we're at the top of the rotation together and we're at the top of the average annual value leaderboards together. What would you say if you had to choose between I'll make a two year commitment to the almost 40 year old Justin Verlander for a very high dollar amount per year, or I will make a longer term commitment to the almost 35 year old Jacob deGrom for a still very high but slightly lower AAV. What would you prefer if you had your druthers? I think there's something to say for Verlander being a better fit for the Mets than DeGrom, and possibly DeGrom being a better fit for the Rangers than Verlander would be. I see the Rangers as more needing to capture lightning in a bottle. They're trying to, you know, go all in very quickly for a team that's below 500.

So kind of that upside is really alluring for the Rangers. low 500 so kind of that upside is really alluring for the Rangers but I think for the Mets who expect to spend a lot this this winter even past Justin Verlander this team probably values the certainty more than that upside I think the Mets would be happier with someone who they're more sure will have like a three or four win season three or four war season than a guy who could be a seven war player. And if you look at the top pictures available, there really aren't any that are both stars and have a limited injury history. You look back, I mean, the healthiest picture available, like the best healthy picture available in free agency in the fan graphs, Like the best healthy picture available in free agency in the fan graphs, top 50 free agents was either someone like Andrew Heaney or Chris Bassett. Because you look at the top and there's a question about all of them.

Obviously, DeGrom, Verlander. There are questions about Carlos Rodon, who has a long injury history. And the quality of the free agents drop off very quickly after that. Because once you're past Bassett, Nadia Valdi and Jose Quintana and Sean Mania, and these are all pictures with questions. There were only a few pictures, like Verlander and DeGrom, whose pitching quality is nearly unquestioned. And I think the Mets probably got the safer one of the two. Yeah, I think you could say that.

And there's a thread in our Facebook group of people discussing the oldest top two in a rotation of the two. Yeah, I think you could say that. And there's a thread in our Facebook group of people discussing the oldest top two in a rotation of all time, right? Going back to like Nolan Ryan and Charlie Huff and the late Gaylord Perry and Jim Perry and Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson. And sometimes these old top twos are excellent because of course, if you're still pitching at that age and your seat is a top of the rotation pitcher, I mean, you have to be pretty good to still be around at that age and have that kind of job. There's obviously some risk that you're taking on here.

And we've seen Scherzer be less than durable, right? Not quite deGrom level fragile, but he gets banged up. He's going to miss some time at some point. And Verlander, he was on the IL at the end of the season. I mean, by today's standards, he's durable. And certainly he wants to pitch until he's 45. And given that he just won the Cy Young Award, it'd be tough to bet against him at this point. But yeah, you look at guys who are going to be 39 and 40 when October rolls around,

and you have to worry a little bit, right? I mean, we saw the Mets rotation. You could argue that they kind of ran out of gas at the end of this past season. You could also argue that it was just a small sample and it doesn't mean anything. But Scherzer, we've seen him struggle a little when the end of the season rolls around for a couple of years now. And so it's not unreasonable to think that maybe he gets gassed a little bit or just the accumulated wear and tear. It takes its toll by the end of the season. And then Verlander, we've talked about his World Series struggles and the fact that he seemed to be somewhat fatigued by certainly the end of the postseason run. by certainly the end of the postseason run. So if you're the Mets and you expect and you hope to make a deep playoff run, I think it's reasonable to have some level of concern about, well, how fresh is your rotation topped by

Verlander and Scherzer and then Carlos Carrasco, too, for a pretty old top three for that matter. How fresh are those guys going to be by the time you even get to the end of October? Of course, you have to get there first, and these guys will give them a good chance to do that. But you are sort of setting yourself up maybe for some vulnerability at the moment when, okay, this is why we're signing these guys, right? We want Max Scherzer and we want Justin Verlander at the top of the rotation in the games that matter the most. It's possible, though, that by the time the games that matter the most rolls around, you're not that likely to get the best versions of those guys. It is a risk, but I think that the Mets could alleviate that risk somewhat or mitigate it somewhat by, you know, being extra careful during the season. You don't necessarily

need to go all out with a seven run lead or something and of course pictures are throwing fewer innings than they used to uh even verlander's innings were kept relatively low last season 175 i think was his career low in a full healthy season i need to spend more time checking on that i think it's the case but i i mean the astros were careful with him and i think there's kind of an attitude like let's just get to the World Series and then worry about what we have at that point. Right. Yeah. And there's some uncertainty at the back of that rotation now because Bassett's a free agent. Walker's a free agent.

Of course, they could still sign one of those guys or someone else. But right now, I guess you pencil in Tyler McGill and David Peterson and you hope that the top of the rotation carries you there. And the Mets still have more work to do, right, because they have other pitchers who are free agents. Brandon Nimmo is still a free agent. Like they have some some holes to fill still, but it seems like they're going to be aggressive in doing so. And they wasted no time. You know, Steve Cohen, it's just like as soon as you lose Jacob deGrom. And there was reporting that the Mets were offering, what, I think three years at $40 million per for deGrom, which is not really lowballing, I don't think.

And there was some suggestion that they might be willing to go to a fourth year. And from the sound of it, they didn't necessarily get a chance to match the Rangers' final offer. Not that they would have necessarily, but I think it sounds like DeGrom just knew that that was going to be more than he was going to get from anyone. And maybe he just didn't want to be a Met or wanted to be a Ranger. Who knows? But it doesn't sound like the Mets, I don't know whether you could say that they got outbid or whether they didn't actually have that final chance to match or not. But once they lost to Grom, Steve Cohen was like, well, we've got to get ourselves an ace and there's another one out there. So we will go get Justin Verlander. And from the Astros perspective, Meg and I talked about this not long ago.

And I don't think it's a shock that the Astros were willing to let Verlander leave. I mean, they have not really spent a ton in free agency to keep their guys, right? I mean, Carlos Correa left and George Springer left and Garrett Cole left and Justin Verlander left. And so they have managed to keep winning pennants and titles, letting their top players leave. to keep winning pennants and titles, letting their top players leave. And they've developed this great homegrown rotation that was just so deep that they were trading guys like Jake Odorizzi away, right? Like the other Texas team is like, we got to go get Jake Odorizzi so we can have a rotation. And the Astros were like, we have no need for Jake Odorizzi.

We will trade him for a reliever we will barely use in the playoffs. That's just how much pitching depth they have. And yet, even so, if you lose the AL Cy Young Award winner, that's going to hurt a little bit, even if you are the Astros and even if you have a ton of depth and even if you are projected to be the best team in that division. So you lose Verlander and yes, they signed Abreu, but deGrom goes to the AL West. The Angels have been fairly aggressive in the early going here. So I guess you could say that the gap perhaps has shrunk, right, between the Astros and the other top teams in that division, which is not to say that the gap is nonexistent or all that small, even so, I suppose. As you say, the Astros have always been more willing than a lot of other top teams to let their players walk. They're a team that's very confident in their player

development system. And it's hard to fault them for that because it does seem to have worked out. You can let a George Springer go or a Carlos Correa go. If you're developing a Jordan Alvarez or a Kyle Tucker, you look at their pitching and it's just amazing how it came together because you had a lot of guys who were never really elite prospects. They were live arms and the Astros figured out kind of how to deal with, you know, all of their problems. I mean, they still have some problems, but they're mostly polished major league quality pitchers at this point. And that's a hard thing to do. A lot of guys like that that have those skills, you don't see them become major leaguers. But the Astros have kind of, you know, rolled doubles on Monopoly over and over again.

It's worked out well for them. I don't think they're going to make a drastic change in team philosophy at this point because they were going to have to replace Verlander sooner or later anyway uh given his age he's not going to be around in five years probably no matter what uh so they probably think if now that's fine we have other we have other bullets in our gun for so to speak and you know they did win what 97 games in 2021 without verlander so it's not like they've haven't been without him recently before i i do have an answer for another thing uh while while while we were talking i uh looked at top two pictures for teams by age all right uh and the oldest combined top two pictures uh by fan graphs war uh was the 1981 atlanta braves yeah right. Who had Necro, right?

Yeah, at the top of the lineup. And then the 84 Phillies, the 2013 Yankees, and the 1988 Yankees. I guess that checks out. 80s Yankees would be on there somewhere. Was that Randy Johnson, Mike Messina Yankees, I guess? Maybe the 2013 team? As I get older, years run together more. Yeah, no. Randy Johnson was retired by that point. I guess maybe the 2013 team. As I get older, years run together more.

Yeah, no, Randy Johnson was retired by that point. I know there was a Johnson-Masina year for them that was pretty old, but I guess the 2013 Yankees, that would have been, well, I guess Hiroki Kuroda and Andy Pettit maybe if that's how you're counting it. I'm quickly looking it up. It's hard to believe that Masina has been retired for 14 years already that just seems crazy yeah these years are going back a little quickly which is a little alarming as i as i amass more of them uh yeah i guess it depends on like whether you're talking about top two as in these were actually the two best pitchers or whether you're talking

about top two as in like this was our opening day starter and our game number two starter, right? Like these were expected to be our top two. Like the 2013 Yankees, I guess you would say that CeCe Sabathia would probably have been looked on as the top guy, but he didn't have a great year, right? And so Corotta and Pettit, who were even older but were more effective, they might look like a top two in retrospect, whereas Sabathia, that was the year he went from perennial all-star to below average pitcher and injured, et cetera. So I guess it depends on definitions to some extent too. It was in fact Corotta and Pettit.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So I guess the flaw in the, well, let's just ease off Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander plan and we'll just kind of coast to the playoffs and hope that they're fresh and healthy when October rolls around, is that the Mets do have to get to the playoffs and preferably win the division, which is not going to be easy because the Braves bring back their entire team, basically, of course. And then the Phillies made a major move. You could argue maybe the most significant, most impactful move that has happened thus far. And they landed a shortstop, a real genuine shortstop, not a DH playing shortstop, nothing like that. An actual shortstop, maybe the best on the market. And if not the best, certainly the second best, Trey Turner. And this is a long-term deal. This is a Phillies special that is going to go out to some inconceivable year that sounds like science fiction. And he and Bryce Harper, his former Nationals teammate and now current future teammate, will be playing together for a long time because this is an 11

year 300 million dollar contract for Trey Turner and it sounds like it is a blissfully uncomplicated one and there's a no trade clause but beyond that it's just the same AAV every year so just divides the total dollars by the number of years and you basically have this contract. It is refreshingly simple. So I guess it's never a surprise when a Dave Dombrowski team goes out and signs someone who's really good and really expensive. But this is a major, major move. I mean, like the Phillies obviously needed a shortstop. They had Bryson Stott over there replacing Gene Segura, and Segura is a free agent, but

now they can move Stott over to second, and someday they can perhaps move Turner over to second, which he has played in the past. But he is still a competent, if error-prone, short stop, and by Philly standards, that's pretty good defensively. But of course, he gives you so much offensively and projects too for years to come so he's an absolute superstar he is one of the handful of best players in baseball so it's a huge signing yeah i i mean i would be worried about the end of that contract because it is a very long contract for a player who's not one of those 24 25 year old phenoms that hits free agency but i think the phillies... They'll turn 30 in June, yeah.

Yeah, but the Phillies, I mean, they probably enter the season as the third best team in the NL East, whether or not they made the World Series. And I think that if you want to change that, you have to be aggressive and kind of take on an après-moi-le-deluge attitude. Because by the time Turner is going to to hurt the team dombraska is probably five years into retirement yes i think he will be 77 by the end of this deal yeah i mean he could

be someone else's problem yeah i mean he could still be active i mean we have seen some very very aged executives and managers uh without naming names but i think the phillies they really want to get something more out of this team than that one big 2022 that one shining they want world series they want another 2008 and i think they're willing to pay for it and you know they're going to get you know five or six great years out of turner uh but there is you know a decline phase and you are buying into a declining player when you buy a 30-year-old. So I think that there is going to be some preparation for the end of the deal. But if you think about it a certain way, it's like $5 million a year more than the Royals are paying Sal Perez.

So in that light, could you say, oh, that's not good? I think it's a fine deal for the Phillies. It fills a hole. It's arguably a bigger upgrade than any of the other teams will get over actual players and their signings. I think Trey Turner replaces better or worse production than, say, even Jacob deGrom replaces. So it's hard not to like this. That makes the Phillies the first team to sign two players to $300 million contracts.

Yes. Not the first team with two players on such contracts, but the first to sign two of them to those deals. has studied aging and long-term projections, I have heard two completely contradictory theories about Trey Turner, which is that A, he is exactly the kind of player who will age well, and B, that he is not, that he is exactly the kind of player who will not age well, because I think the first camp says, well, he has a broad set of skills and he's athletic, right? And so if he loses a little here, loses a little there, he has a lot to fall back on and, you know, he could move down the defensive spectrum and he can do a lot of things for you offensively. Then the second camp says, well, he's a speed

player. And so when the speed goes, then his whole game will fall apart. So, I mean, either could be the case in any individual player's profile, but on the whole, would you say that a player with the skill set, with the tools of Trey Turner is a better bet to age well or a worse bet to age well? Because I guess I would tend to err more toward the former camp, like the kind of Mookie Betts skill set that's like, oh, this guy's good at everything and he's not just dependent on one certain skill or one weird trick that could erode with age. But I also see the argument that, OK, well, yeah, he is pretty speed dependent. So if speed is one of the first things to go, then that could be trouble down the road. But here's the thing. He does have more than speed. Yes. He wouldn't be, obviously, as good a player if he were slower, but he'd still be a shortstop hitting 20 home runs.

Right. His slides might not be quite as cool. Yeah, but I think he does have a broad skill set, and I think that does tend to age well, although people, as usual, will tend to overestimate the difference between a player who should age well and a player who shouldn't. We're talking kind of percentage points here and there.

Someone will say, well, like, Mo Vons don't age well. And you say, yeah, but you know who also aged really well? David Ortiz. And he's someone who people would pick as someone who would not age well at 30. And he was still a good player when he retired, you know, more than a decade after that. And conversely with Albert Pujols, you know, had that whole professional hitter label

and people thought he aged well and he did not age well. Great. I think these differences can be overrated. Until he was 42, that is. And then he aged very well. It does, I do hope it kind of quiets the birth certificate rumors that you always hear about him yeah because there's no way a 50 year old would have that

season after stinking for you know seven years right yeah so i i think one thing you could say about this turner deal is that yeah maybe he was projected to get something more in in say the eight-year range right and so he got 11 and so everyone's eyes bug out of their heads but really Maybe he was projected to get something more in, say, the eight year range. Right. And so he got 11. And so everyone's eyes bug out of their heads. But really, they kind of just tacked on three years essentially for CBT purposes. Right. I mean, more or less.

Right. So instead of, you know, getting much more than 30 million per year, he's getting less than 30 million per year. This is what, 27 or 27 and a half30 million per year. He's getting less than $30 million per year. This is what, what, $27 or $27.5 or something per year. So if you told someone that you were going to get Trey Turner for that average annual value, they would say, wow, what a steel bargain of the offseason. It's $27.3, right? So I think it kind of comes down to sort of gaming the luxury tax, right? And there's a certain level of this where you probably couldn't get away with it anymore. And there have been scandals like this in other sports, like in the NHL, when you just sign someone to a ridiculously long deal so that your cap hit or whatever is lower.

And eventually maybe the league steps in and says, no, you can't do that. You can't game the system like that. And in baseball, I guess maybe people are not productive player by that point. But whatever, maybe we eat the money. Maybe it's just not my problem because I'm Dave Dombrowski and I won't be around when we get to that point. And in the meantime, you have a superstar at a level that does not necessarily preclude you from doing other things, right? It's like if Dave Dombrowski's talent is just he's the owner whisperer, he's the guy who can pry open the billionaire's pocketbook and get them to spend some money, maybe this is one way that you do that by ensuring or making it more likely that you won't have to pay as big year-by-year penalties just in the interim right i i like rule breaking

i like trying to bend rules and break games uh it's a passion of mine uh in an there's an online uh multi mmorpg called final fantasy 11 and i found some years ago that there was a recipe in their crafting that you could sell to the vendor for more gold than the cost of the ingredients. So I made a lot about that. They eventually found that exploit and closed it down. But I love this. I just I'd love to see a team try to sign someone to a 600 year deal or something just to have it. Yeah, you keep it within the realm of plausibility so that Rob Bedford doesn't come in and patch that exploit out of the game.

Yeah, don't be too blatant, but I would be entertained because as a writer and an analyst, I also like to be entertained by things. So I like when there's crazy things like that, exploits and teams trying to manipulate the rules. That's fun. I love as I said, I love breaking things. I guess at my heart I'm

chaotic neutral. Right. And I forgot to mention that the Verlander deal, as we all expected, was reported, first reported by Carlos Baerga. Yeah, that was just random. But it's nice to see him still around because he walked out of baseball so quickly. Yeah, sure.

He's a newsbreaker now, I guess. He's scooping Ben Verlander even, let alone Jeff Passan, first to the news, Carlos Baerga somehow. Yeah, poor Ben. He got scooped on his own brother's signing. He doesn't have any other brothers. I'd love a thing like that where players from the 90s or 80s are breaking all the deals. Like, we have rule on the Carlos Rodon signing. Here's Mitch Webster with the scoop.

Right. Yeah, it's not Katy Perry's booty hole in Wet Butt 23. It's just some- Those days, the Gintonic trade rumors, the Reddit. If Twitter died, then old Wet Butt would just, that would- Yeah. It's the only thing that could be better than just some unknown teenagers breaking every transaction for a while there. Would just be like, remember some guys just breaking all the news. That'd be great. So kudos to Carlos Baerga. It's like after free agent A signs with team B, then team C comes in and leaks a report essentially that's like, oh, well, we offered such and such a contract to this guy and we just didn't get him right.

And sometimes it's they expressed strong interest or they were one of the strongest suitors and sometimes it's actual terms. And I agree that sometimes this is just a PR operation. And I agree that sometimes this is just a PR operation. This is pure face saving. And it's just we want to try to convince our fans that we tried to do something without actually doing something. And so we can just sort your pick of players as we were just talking about. Even if you offer the most money, that's no guarantee. There is one recent offseason where we kind of kept ragging on the Bujes because they were in the running for every single free agent and they were not getting one. I think maybe it was the George Springer offseason. Ultimately, they did get guys, but there were a bunch of players they just like missed out on or they were like the runners up for five different guys. And, you know, maybe they just weren't aggressive enough or maybe they just players didn't want to drink their milks out of bags or they didn't want to switch countries or whatever it was. Right. There's maybe a higher bar to clearing players there in Toronto, even in a pre-vaccine world. clearing players there in Toronto, even in a pre-vaccine world. And so there was a report in this genre for the Padres, right? Reportedly, the Padres made the highest offer to Trey Turner or a

higher offer than the Phillies did. And that even if you account for different tax rates and everything, this still would have been the richest deal. And yet they didn't get him. And so a lot of people were going, oh, this is just the we tried. However, in this case, it was reported by Matt Gelb, the Phillies writer for The Athletic. And that, I think, that kind of carries more water for me, because like if this was just Padres ownership or the Padres front office just trying to put a message out there, they probably wouldn't leak that to Matt Gelb. This is probably something that actually came from Turner's camp or from the Phillies office just trying to put a message out there, they probably wouldn't leak that to Matt Gelb. Like, this is probably something that actually came from Turner's camp or from the Phillies side of things.

You know, it seems a bit more legit or reliable that it was not broken by a hometown local media member, maybe, who is perhaps friendly to the team in some cases, right, and willing to, for access, you know, get the message out there that ownership wants. So in this kind of case, I think it is actually notable. And like, especially if the Padres are bidding on Trey Turner, like that's notable, right? Because that tells you something about how the Padres see Fernando Tatis Jr., right? So there's like actual journalistic value to this kind of report i think that that tells you something about the market tells you something about the team that missed out

maybe tells you something about well who else might that team be in on that if they missed out on turner and they wanted him so bad might they then pivot to some other option so maybe we are in the fernando tatis corner outfielder portion of his career when he does return. And it does seem like there's some wisdom in that at this point. It does feel like a plausible thing. And I'm inclined to think well of Matt Gelb. He's an old Baseball Think Factory poster back when the days when he was a young blogger at Mets blog with Josh and Jeremy Height. So I can't imagine that he'd be peddling nonsense. And it does seem

logical that the Padres would make an investment like that because this is the team that acquired Juan Soto. They're not looking small. Now, if the Pirates said, oh, we offered $400 million, I would be very skeptical that the Pirates did that. Did you offer 400 million yen? Because that I would buy. It's certainly plausible given the needs of that team. Because I think that they are kind of looking at a world where Fernando Tatis Jr. isn't their shortstop. Is maybe an outfielder. Might even be a DH depending on how his health stays.

If he runs into walls or something. If he pulls a Pete Riser. I think the Padres do have a lot of holes and I think that they do see that their window isn't quite as open as it used to be because Soto is unsigned currently. They're pitching a lot of it has walked and more of it's going to walk in the next couple of years.

So I think that there's a fierce urgency there. So even if it turns out the team was playing Gelb and other writers, it's at least consistent with what we suspect. And it was not only Gelb, by the way, a buster only of ESPN. He reported not only did San Diego outbid the Phillies, according to industry sources. Their offer would have made Turner the highest paid shortstop in baseball beyond the $341 million that Francisco Lindor got from the Mets and that the Padres previously gave to Fernando Tatis Jr. So they were going to make him higher paid than Fernando Tatis Jr., it sounds like. And it's interesting because I see the case for moving Tatis, right? I mean, he's kind of inconsistent, somewhat volatile defensively, even when he is healthy at shortstop. And you have Manny Machado locked up at third base.

And then you have Hassan Kim, who's a pretty quality, certainly a plus defensive shortstop, and, you know, had a decent bat last year. So it seems like he could be kind of entrenched there. And then you have Drake Cronenworth at second, right? And I guess they have kind of a hole at first. But if you move Cronenworth over to first, his bat doesn't play quite as well there. So I see the case for moving Tatis. It's not as clear that they necessarily need to bring in another shortstop. If anything, they've tended to have too many infielders at most times, it seems like lately.

And I think Kevin Acey of the San Diego Union Tribune, who seems pretty plugged in with the Padres, he then reported that after missing out on Turner, the Padres are no longer pursuing shortstops. So it sounds like it was just Turner or bust, like they were willing to break the bank for Turner, but did not actually want another shortstop. It's interesting. I think only he said that they've at least talked to Xander Bogarts and Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin also said that. So it makes clear, if anything, that the Padres are not done.

Like if you expected that getting Juan Soto and, you know, all the other free agents and all the other major moves that they've made would take them out of the running for anyone. It sounds like no, it sounds like that ownership group is still very much committed to spending and winning, which is nice to see. So they're still major players. It seems like you maybe could have written out the Padres and AJ Preller from being as active as they have been in recent years. But no, it sounds like they might still swoop in and make some huge move at any moment. And if they're willing to spend $341 million in free agency, it does make me wonder maybe this is a suitor for Judge. Because if they had signed Turner, you probably see Tatis in left field.

When I look at our Fangraphs depth charts, it's rare when the current starting player on a contender is a player who's not even completely positive how to pronounce their name. That's just kind of where the Padres are. I don't actually know if it's Taylor Coley or Taylor Covey or Colvai or whatever because I can't remember hearing his name ever said. And I can't imagine that the Padres went and go into the 2022 season with him as the starter in left field on a contending team. But wouldn't a judge and Soto corner outfield be a lot of fun?

Yeah, right. And I think another team that I wanted to ask you about that missed out on someone here. So the Dodgers did finalize the Clayton Kershaw contract that had been reported some time ago, but they missed out on Justin Verlander. So the Mets have outbid the Dodgers for another old ace. It was Max Scherzer last time, former Dodger. This time the Dodgers were reported to be meeting with Justin Verlander and very interested in Justin Verlander. And they have lost out on Verlander, and now they have lost Trey Turner. So that's a pretty big hit to take, even when you're the Dodgers. And Meg and I talked about when we ran down your projected preliminary standings, that there was a little less daylight between the Dodgers and the Padres and the Giants,

other teams in the NOS, the Diamondbacks right up there too, then I think there has been certainly going into seasons. I don't know about at this point in the offseason, but it seemed like the Dodgers were maybe a bit more vulnerable. And now that it is official that they have lost Trey Turner and that they're not getting Verlander and they're not going to have Walker Bueller this season. I mean, this is, I think, a bit more vulnerable than the Dodgers have been for a while. And they could still make some major move, of course.

You never count out the Dodgers and they could very well go get Aaron Judge or go get someone else of that kind of caliber. Because, like, not that there are any other players of that kind of caliber really but like they have room to spend I mean relative to recent Dodgers payrolls they are way down there like they're at the point now where they could try to reset their competitive balance tax penalties if they were to stay under the threshold this year and that might be appealing to them I mean any ownership tax penalties if they were to stay under the threshold this year. And that might be appealing to them. I mean, any ownership group, like if they can get by and win without triggering those penalties, and in their case, resetting those penalties, which benefits you for years to come, I could see how that might be alluring to them, especially because

they just put together one of the best regular season teams of all time and then they got bounced in October, which is nothing new for them. So, you know, if the Phillies example sends the message, well, everyone should spend enough to get into the tournament because after that all bets are off, the Dodgers example sort of sends the opposite message, which is, yeah, like get there, but there may not be that much benefit to winning 110 games as opposed to winning 90 at this point, right? So I don't know. They may very well restock and recharge and enter as a prohibitive favorite and a juggernaut again, but it seems like they might be taking a step back here.

And I will be curious to see whether they decide to go for more of an austerity, like our core is good enough that we can contend and we can make the playoffs and then we'll see. Or whether they do bring in some top talents, because they certainly have been willing to spend for the elite players. But there are only so many of those guys left. The Dodgers are a team that they are very willing to spend, but they're also a team that's willing to spend on their own terms yeah when things happen they don't tend to panic uh when they had a rash of injuries early in 2022 they did not sweat you know going into a season with tyler anderson getting a lot of starts as you heaney getting starts that did not phase them at all And so I could see them spending on, say, Carlos Rodon. And there's that additional value of poking the eyes of the Giants, kind of like with the Brett Butler signing, I guess, 25 years ago now, more than that.

God. But I can also see them either go the surprise trade route. Like, what if they convinced the White Sox, apart with lucas giolito or something the white socks i think might be prone to doing something that you wouldn't expect is a good idea for them uh or the dodgers could you know pick up a couple guys for five million a piece and and turn them in number two starters for a year because they seem to have as good a track record of doing that kind of crazy stuff that works out as any team in baseball. Again, Tyler Anderson, Andrew Heaney. So it's a team that's not too predictable.

And I think with having Kershaw locked up for a year, they might be more inclined to roll the dice and something like that. Like maybe they sign Michael Waka and turn him and he he has an area of two and a half for a year. That's sure. You know, Chris Archer, Luke Weaver. There's just a lot of opportunities for the Dodgers to pick up something cheaply. Yeah. And, you know, they have waited sometimes for their moment to strike and they will go get Mookie Betts or they'll go get Freddie Freeman late in and offseason. So, as you said, they're not necessarily in a hurry and they have the talent that gives them the luxury of waiting for the right moment. But you look at their depth chart and their projected lineup right now, and I don't want to say holes, but by Dodger standards,

there are some question marks and certainly putting some trust in some less proven players, right? I mean, you know, Trace Thompson becomes great when he's a Dodger, of course, but, you know, if you're trusting Gavin Lux at shortstop and then that kind of, you know, weakens you elsewhere so that, well, now you're maybe starting Chris Taylor at second and then you're going with Miguel Vargas at third and you have maybe James Outman in a corner, right?

Like, I mean, these are players that could certainly start for a lot of teams and could be very good and could add to the Dodgers depth. But it just seems a little unlikely that they go into the season with, you know, half a lineup that is sort of shakier or unproven thus far players. So I would expect that they will do something. Will that be Carlos Correa level something? I don't know, but something. They have a lot of room to spend if they want to do that. I think Correa would be a fun fit with Los Angeles. He's kind of one of those modern analytics friendly players who I think the Dodgers would do very well with. I think that there'd be a good give and take between him and the front office. I think

he'd be more open to being used in a creative way than, say, he might be with other teams. Like, I don't think you want to sign with, say, the Rockies, and the Rockies say, oh, don't worry, we're going to be creative about using you. You'll think, oh, God, I'm going to be a starting for his basement, aren't I? The Dodgers are one of the few teams that they do have the ability to spend a lot of money and the willingness to blow through that luxury tax threshold if the need be arises and if they see a reason to do so. I don't think they're – well, it's always nice to reset penalties. I don't think they're necessarily wedded to that as a must-do thing. Sometimes you see teams do that like, we are going to be under that line this year no matter how little sense it makes uh it's it's a it's a flexible organization yeah some of the pressure is probably off the front office since

they do have the world series win under their belts which is a nice thing to have so i i wouldn't worry about the dodgers yet but i do think that they do have some vulnerable spots if the season started today except the season doesn't start today, sadly. Yeah. I knew you were going to get a Rockies dig in somewhere when I invited you out. I was just waiting for you to pick your moment. It happened organically. I don't plan to bash the Rockies, but then the moment comes. Yeah, though they're asking for it. It is interesting that the two teams now that are maybe most likely to say something sort of negative or noncommittal about analytics publicly are the Rockies and the Astros all of a sudden because the Astros, they don't have a GM.

What they have is Jeff Bagwell coming out and saying that the Astros are too analytically oriented, which is quite an argument to make after the run of success that the Astros have had. Now, if he's saying, well, there are ways that the Astros should treat players in a more humane way or, you know, we've gone too far in the sort of Lunau, like, treat everyone as a commodity kind of direction. But it sounded like he was commenting more from a, you know, numbers, bad, grit, good kind of, you know, this is how we did things in the 90s when the Astros did not win a World Series, as I recall. Yeah, nothing so disappointed as that failure stat head team that only went to four World Series in four years and only won half of them. Right. So just a couple more minor things to touch on here. So before all these big blockbuster signings, there was a Brewers Mariners trade that was kind of intriguing until we all forgot about it because Jacob deGrom signed with the Rangers. So what do you make of this trade of Colton Wong from Milwaukee to Seattle in exchange for Jesse Winker and Abraham Toro. It's almost a boring trade in a way because I think it actually fits both teams' needs very well. I think the Brewers needed another bat at kind of an offensive heavy position.

I was unimpressed with most of their players in that role last year, and I think Winker will fit in just nicely as a DH since they don't seem to be committed to Keston Hira in any way at that position. Hopefully that doesn't mean he's the second baseman, but that's most likely to be Bryce Terang, Abraham Toro, so on and so forth. And I think the Mariners getting a second baseman was probably more useful because they do have options at corner outfield. They did pick up Teoscar Hernandez. They're not giving up on Jared Kalanick yet. They are going to use DH to get a lot of time in for guys like Cal Raleigh and Ty France. So I think that Winker was probably almost superfluous on the roster

and getting a second baseman where they aren't deep, because otherwise it would have been, right now it would have been Dylan Moore as a starter. I don't think they actually want to go into a season as that being the case. And you look at free agency, and there are not a lot of second baseman available in free agency unless you're going to start convincing some of the short stops to move to second base uh which is easier said than done uh carlos correa may not want to be a second baseman uh xander bogarts may not want to be a second baseman and i think it's better than you know signing uh jean segura or bringing back Frazier, which I didn't think was going to happen.

Or, you know, looking at Josh Harrison. It's just not a deep market for second baseman in the major. So I think the Mariners, even if it's not as exciting a move, I think it was a reasonable swap for both sides. Yeah. I mean, I think the fact that Toro and Winker both coming off bad years or at least down years in Winker's case that made people think, well, the Mariners are getting the best of this. And I think probably for the Brewers' end of this deal to look good, like they're banking to some extent on a Winker bounce back, right, which is not an unreasonable thing to expect because he was banged up last year and his actual numbers were worse than his expected stats, etc.

And the Mariners could use someone with the offensive profile of Jesse Winker, which is why they acquired him. But they did not get the Winker that they thought they were going to get. They could use some on-base ability, which is not exactly what Wong gives you. I mean, by modern standards, he's an okay on- base guy, but it's not necessarily a strength for him. And I think the concern, I guess, you know, after years of being an elite defender, the defensive metrics across the board were down on him this year. but down as in he's average or a bit below. And so who knows whether that's just a small sample single season fluke. He obviously has a long track record of being a great defender,

although he is 32 now. So who knows? But I think you have to do less projecting maybe to imagine him being a plus on your team than Toro, who everyone has been expecting to be a breakout or positive contributor for years now. And it just hasn't quite happened yet. Or Winker, who I guess you could put Winker in the category of, you know, you were saying like, well, why don't we hear negative things about players before they leave instead of after? Yeah, we got the report of Winker a month before the trade, so they already thought the grapes were sour. It wasn't an afterwards thing, and I appreciate that. I'm not sure Winker appreciates it, but I appreciate it. Various rumors about him not trading.

You complained about a player while you had him, and then you traded him. Right, which usually it makes sense, I guess, to save your complaints until after they're gone so that you don't tank their value. make sense, I guess, to save your complaints till after they're gone so that you don't tank their value. But there were various reports floating around about him just not fitting in well in that clubhouse or not doing what he needed to do to get better, etc. Anyway, it was a disappointing season. So now it's a change of scenery. And I think DePoto raised some eyebrows in a recent interview because he was talking about the Mariners' long-term payroll commitments and how much money they have on the books for like 2026, right? And he was kind of using that as an argument for them not being big players in free agency, which is, I think, somewhat disappointing if you're a Mariners fan and you feel like, hey, this is a good team. We

finally got back to the playoffs. Let's continue the push here. This doesn't seem like the time to stand pat, but if it is the case that they are not going to be big players in free agency, well, you go get Colton Wong on the trade market and that will maybe make you a bit better. from the Rockies to the Angels. And he's a guy who I think is kind of a popular, you know, if he leaves the Rockies and goes to a smarter team, they could maybe make more of him or at least a team at lower altitude. I don't know whether the Angels are that team necessarily, but, you know, he's been pretty good to very good at times. And so there's some hope that get him out of Coors and get him away from the Rockies.

Maybe he could be even better. So there's some hope that get him out of Coors and get him away from the Rockies. Maybe he could be even better. And the Angels, as I recall, they just gave away their closer in the middle of last year. So maybe they want to make Carlos Estevez their closer. Anyway, every little bit helps, I guess, with the Angels. And then the Red Sox signed Chris Martin and the Yankees brought back Tommy Canely, another guy the Red Sox had reportedly been pursuing. But Chris Martin is quite good, a good reliever. So, you know, you could make the case he was one of the better guys left on the market.

And, of course, the Yankees re-signed slash extended Brian Cashman. So he's there for four more years. Nothing surprising, I think, to the dismay of many Yankees fans. years nothing surprising I think to the dismay of many Yankees fans the brain trust is back but given the long long history of success under Cashman and even under Aaron Boone it is not so shocking that those guys are back and now Cashman has a pretty big job ahead of him in that he's gotta persuade Aaron Judge to stay and dissuade him from signing elsewhere. And so if the first like official occurrence of his newly extended tenure is that Aaron Judge leaves, that would not be an auspicious start to the new extension. But I'm sure he's doing everything he can to keep him in

pinstripes. It feels really kind of weird in a way to have this this very stable era of the new york yankees because when i i grew up in in a time where steinbrenner was the owner the original steinbrenner uh and you know billy martin was fired every couple months and then planned to come back in six months yes in and brian cashman has been you know as much a fixture as any of their great players in the organization in history just because of his tenure he's been you know, as much a fixture as any of their great players in the organization in history, just because of his tenure, he's been, you know, in charge of these things for a very, very long time now. He might be the longest running Yankees executive in recent years. In fact, I believe he is now the longest tenured head of a baseball operations department with a single team in an unbroken run ever, which is amazing. I mean, for any team and to have it be the guy in New York who came up under George Steinbrenner, like what would the percentile projection for Brian Cashman's tenure as GM of the Yankees have been in, you know, 1998?

If you're running the simulations at that point, that he would be the all-time record breaker for longest tenured GM. I mean, non-existent. So I think that speaks well of him. Now, some Yankees fans would say that that means he's got too cozy a relationship and everyone's complacent and he, you know, he has like a lifetime appointment at this time and there's no urgency, etc. But I think given the fact that the Yankees are very good and make the playoffs every year and that everything after that kind of a crapshoot, I think he's doing a fine job. Or at least I think if you got your wish, Yankees fans who were upset with Brian Cashman and you got someone else, I think that might be kind of a monkey's paw situation. You know, like, be careful. Is the grass actually greener? And I'm with you, like people who were talking about, oh, if the boss were alive and all of that, like there's an element of truth to that in the sense that I think probably George Steinbrenner prioritized winning over making money, maybe more so than his son does, right? Like, it'd be hard to imagine George Steinbrenner wanting to abide by the competitive balance

tax threshold or whatever. But I think net-net, if you add it all up, the fact that Steinbrenner, the elder, was constantly meddling and that the Yankees only got good when he was suspended from the team multiple times. Like, he was just constantly trading all the young players and refusing to trust the young players and, you know, firing the manager every day. Like, be careful what you wish for. Maybe you think the Yankees don't make enough changes now, but this is probably the happy medium compared to the way it used to work. And the Mets, too.

Growing up, it's just so weird that the Yankees, both New York teams, have stable, non-traintrain recce organizations at the moment. And it feels like a piece of my childhood died. All right. And I guess we should acknowledge also that Brian Reynolds of the Pirates demanded a trade. Now, this is not unheard of in baseball, but it is less common in baseball for players to demand trades than it is for players in other sports to do it. And I guess you could say that it is both understandable that a Pittsburgh Pirate would want to demand a trade and also almost unnecessary. Because if you are a good player on the Pittsburgh Pirates and you start to make more money, you probably will be traded. Yeah, it's like Brian, it's going to happen anyway, no matter what you say.

So don't worry. Just chill. I mean, you rarely see these kinds of like holdouts in baseball because the contract structure that's common in baseball doesn't really make that beneficial to a player. Derrick Bell could threaten not to play and the Pirates are like, fine, that's fine with us. Alfonso Soriano, when they wanted to move him off second base or move him to second base in Washington before, I think, 2006,

he threatened not to play. And they said, okay, well, fine, we'll put you on the restricted list and then you'll lose a year of free agency. So, okay. And then that died off quickly. Reynolds doesn't have much leverage i mean what's he gonna do tank i mean does that really improve his his position in the eventual free agency shut down part two yeah i don't i don't think so i mean i'll teach them i'm gonna hit 180 it's like okay fine well you're going to be playing next year for the washington nationals right and then you're going to sign like a the minor league, a minor league contract the year after that. So good luck with all that. Yeah. And the Pirates issued a statement and they said it was disappointing, but that the request will have zero impact on our decision

making in this offseason or in the future. Our goal is to improve the Pirates for 2023 and beyond with three years until he hits free agency. Brian remains a key member of our team. We look forward to him having a great season for the Pirates. So I don't know. Like there were trade rumors already flying about Brian Reynolds, and he may have been traded anyway, and he may be traded now despite that statement. If not, then I think things will just kind of be awkward, I guess, because he will have demanded a trade and he will not have been granted one. They're obviously under no obligation to trade him. And I think by coming out with that statement, like you can imagine that even if the pirates

were privately telling him, we will trade you or we'll comply with this request, or they were already intending to trade him, they would not want to come out and issue a statement saying, OK, fine, like we'll trade you because then they would have no leverage in trade talks. So they almost have to say that that they're going to keep him regardless whether they actually do. I don't know. But obviously he would be an attractive player. He's 27 years old. He's coming off two very strong offensive seasons. At least he had like a superstar level war season in 2021. And yeah, I mean, a lot of teams would be happy to have Brian Reynolds. So could they commit to

him long term? And, you know, with all the good young talent that they have in the farm system, like, I don't think it's he's not so old or advanced in his career that they would say he can't be part of the next good Pirates team. It's just that he will actually be making some money by the time the Pirates are good again. And I don't know whether that is acceptable to Bob Nutting. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, I think Bob Nutting looks askance at any player who's making a lot of money because that's his money that they're taking. How dare he?

because that's his money that they're taking. How dare he? But I think he's still mostly interested in his bottom line, that he wouldn't say, well, we're not going to trade him out of spite. Right. And lastly, I guess we should acknowledge, the Winter Meetings officially kicked off, I suppose, with some Hall of Fame news, right,

with the ERA committee met and voted on the contemporary players, and Fred McGriff is now a Hall of Famer. So not surprising. I think it was fairly widely predicted that McGriff would get in with this group of media members and players and executives that seemed quite crafted to get Fred McGriff into the Hall of Fame. And he sort of perfectly fits the bill of a Veterans Committee era committee candidate. And frankly, he's one of the better ones, I think, by the standards of the Veterans Committee and the era committees in the past. Like Fred McGriff is, you know, a borderline Hall of Famer by jaws and statistical standards. He's not Harold Baines. You know, I guess you can use Harold Baines as the baseline. I know, poor Harold Baines,

like, seems like a nice guy. Everyone's happy for him. But it was just so far below the statistical historical standards that if Baines is in, then you can say, well, if Baines is in, then this guy and that guy should be in or you can say well he's better than Harold Baines and that is certainly true I mean Fred McGriff was a really good player for a long time and probably would have gotten in earlier if he had hit seven more homers if there had not been a strike during his career whatever right and it's sort of silly to to keep him out based on the fact that he got seven fewer homers than 500. It would also, I suppose, be sort of silly to put him in solely because he got 500, but that's the way that things tended to work pre-PEDs.

But look, even by the advanced stats and everything, like he's, you know, a little on the shy side of the Jaws standards and the positional standards, but not so much that it causes a Baines-level uproar. And everyone seems to like Fred McGriff. So I think generally everyone is happy for him, and there has not been a big uproar about it. I would have put him in if I had been a voter, and I would have liked to vote for seven of the eight. I think Don Mattingly was slightly on the no side for me. His prime just wasn't long enough. But I mean, McGriff kind of suffered in a way in that he had his best years during kind of that 1988, 90 to 1992, between the years of the home runs where offense was actually really, really low around baseball. And I think people forget that period and kind of think of like 87 to now is like the one homogenized era of the home run uh so he probably suffered a little

there my my problem with the whole thing is if the hall of fame just wants somebody inducted did you just go ahead and induct him instead of this real sham of a ballot yeah because i don't see the purpose of putting bonds and clemens and bell on a ballot if you have voters who under no circumstances are going to even consider voting for them it just defeats the purpose it's like then it's just it's just like wasting everyone's time yeah either have a ballot of players that the voters will all actually consider or have voters who are willing to consider all the players on the ballot. Yeah, I'm totally with you on that. Right. I mean, McGriff, really good player, like despite the Tomomansky videos, not a great

defender, which is one thing that held him back. Not terrible, but, you know, more of a bat than someone who is going to help you in the field or on the bases. But it wasn't a shortstop. So who cares? In a way. Yeah. OK.

So, yeah, totally fine with with McGriff being in and seems like he's a really good guy and everyone likes him. And so that's that's fine. You know, he's given the standards, the the moral strikes against all of the other candidates these days, like Fred McGriff seems like a saint. So that's wonderful. But I'm totally with you on just sort of gerrymandering the committees to get guys in and exclude other guys. It just if you want to put Fred McGriffin, that's fine. But it just kind of like it takes away from the whole process. It was the same deal with Baines, right, where you have, you know, Tony Russo in the group and you have all these other people who like, you know, were executives with Baines or teammates with Baines. Like, you know, we're executives with Baines or teammates with Baines. It's the same deal with McGriff here, where you had Greg Maddox on the committee, you had Chipper Jones on the committee. These were people who played with Fred McGriff, won a World Series with Fred McGriff. Kenny Williams is on it. He was briefly a teammate of Fred McGriff. Paul Beeston, the former executive who was integrally involved with Fred McGriff's career. I mean, you know, these people are appointed.

It's a 16-person committee. And first of all, like the way that it's organized almost makes it impossible for multiple people to get in just because of the way the votes work. And just like it's set up in such a way that it seems like they just did not even consider the implications of, you know, you have this many people and this many votes, like there just aren't that many votes to go around and it's really hard to get multiple candidates in.

So that's one issue. But also, like all these people are just appointed by the Hall of Fame and it's very clear that they're putting their thumb on the scale here. And it's like, how can we either get McGriff elected or make sure that the PED guys don't get in? Because a lot of the players on this committee, like what is Frank Thomas and it's Ryan Sandberg and it's Jack Morris, like these are people who have come out repeatedly and have publicly said, like, I don't think anyone who took PEDs should be in the Hall of Fame.

If I had any say in this, they would not be in the Hall of Fame. And it's like, oh, well, we'll put them on the committee. Like you know exactly what outcome you're going to get here. And I don't know whether Bonds and Clemens and Palmero and Co. even got votes, right? They didn't even report that because they got so few. So it was – McGriff was actually a unanimous selection. And then Mattingly got eight votes right of 16 and then Schilling got seven and then the PD guys were like you know it didn't even register I mean

Susan Slusser was on this committee and Lavelle Neal the media members and I believe they had voted for Bonds when they were still on the BBWA ballot so maybe they didn't get shut out but it was obviously crafted to to keep those guys out and And like, it's impossible, you know, if you're going to essentially come up with a jury of your peers sort of situation here and you're going to have some Hall of Fame players in there and a lot of Hall of Famers have strong opinions about PDs and they don't want cheaters in the hall, even though there are already cheaters in the hall, like, OK, you know, you're not necessarily like there's no like voir dire sort of situation here where like, you know, you exclude anyone who has any kind of bias or stated position. Like it might be hard to fill out a committee with former players if you wanted no one who had any opposition to PDs. And, you know, if you're going to leave the decision up to members of the Hall of Fame in part, well, they're going to have opinions about keeping guys out. So I guess that kind of comes with the territory. But it really seems here like they went for some of the more

vehement anti-PED people that you could possibly find, like people who under no circumstances were even going to consider those players. So why even put them on the ballot just for show? I think one of the things that might have happened is I wouldn't be surprised if the format of the voting actually cost the PED guys even more votes than they would have otherwise lost from PED resistors simply because when it was it was clear going in that they weren't going to get in. clear going in that they weren't going to get in and as a voter who wants say like me i want seven of those guys in the hall of fame uh if i know there's no chance that bonds or clemens or bell are going to get in i'm going to vote put my three votes to guys who can actually get in so i probably would have voted for uh mcgriff and and shilling and i'm not sure who my third vote would be i'm forgetting who was on the list all of a sudden. Mattingly, Dale Murphy.

Murphy, Murphy. I couldn't remember Dale Murphy for some reason. I probably would have had a Murphy, Schilling, McGriff ballot simply because you didn't have, they were already disqualified. I'm not going to vote for Bonds if there's no chance he's going to win. And that kind of encourages kind of the game playing,

so to speak. I think if they want to get players who fell through the cracks let the voters vote everyone who they think should be in the hall of fame and then take 75 of that there's no reason to have these artificial boundaries you just create more log jams more problems down the road and then the hall of fame becomes about who's being left out rather than who's getting in. Yeah. One thing I will say, you know, some people will say, well, I don't think Fred McGriff should have been in. I'm happy for him personally. It's nice. He'll have his day in the sun, etc.

He had a very good career. I think, you know, there is a school of thought that is just not like the Matt Kemp once famously said, like, put them all in. Maybe not that, but just, you know, like big hall people are like, let's not be Scrooges here. Let's just kind of, you know, let everyone who had a nice career in, like, why should we oppose them? Why should we deprive them of their nice day and everything? I think there's a certain limit to that, right? I mean, you do have to draw the line somewhere unless you do literally put them all in. And there's the cliche that's like, well, it's not the Hall of Very Good, right? And that is a cliche, but at a certain point, it would kind of become the Hall of Very Good if you were to just put in a bunch of Baines-level players, right? And I think the

Baines selection was seen as sort of beyond the pale, even by, you know, Veterans Committee, Era Committee standards. But if you were to kind of water down the standards so that you did put in just very good players, I do think that at some point it would start to detract from the significance of the accomplishment, right? I mean, the fact that it is so special, the fact that we talk about how, well, it's just going to make these guys lives. And so we've got to do it while they're still around to enjoy it because it's just the crowning achievement and it's such a great feather in their cap. It is all those things. And I think it is those things in part because it is as selective as it is. put in just a bunch of very good players, then getting in to the hall would just mean I was a very good player, which is nice. But currently it means, or at least is perceived to mean, that you were a truly great elite, one of the best of all time players, which is obviously not true of every player who is in there, but is generally true on the whole. So that's the argument I think in favor of drawing the line

somewhere, even if it means that you have to be a meanie and you have to be a miser and you have to say you don't get your day to celebrate and give a speech and take your bows, because I think there is some benefit to actually keeping it kind of exclusive so that it will actually be a special, significant honor. But was it really since like the first couple of years? Because if I tracked this some years ago, in a couple of years, in the late 30s, something like 25% of plate appearances by position players were made by Hall of Famers. Well, yeah. So we're already extremely non-selective.

The Frankie Frisch years and the veterans, right, just put in your teammates. I mean, it really is like you can draw a distinction between BBWA inductees and veterans committee inductees. And most of the eyebrow-raising selections in the history of the Hall have been made not by the writers. I mean, Jack Morris is in the Hall. I mean, we're talking about essentially in terms of performance like a number two number three starter who was very durable he's not the best tiger on his team team's pitching staff to not be in the hall of fame he's not the best picture named jack to not be in the hall of fame who should be he is the best picture with the last name morris at least because i don't think ed mor or Matt Morris were more deserving.

But, I mean, you can't say we only allow the elites like Jack Morris with his 105 ERA plus. He was slightly better than the league average, making him a legend in baseball. And he made up for his averageness by kind of being a jerk after he retired, too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, if you just if you put in every borderline candidate, if every McGriff and Jim Rice and Jack Morris and Harold Baines wouldn't have even been considered a borderline candidate before he got in. But like I wrote the you know, what would the hall of Harold Baines look like if every player who was as qualified as Harold Baines would get in, which I guess you could say was sort of mean

spirited, but it would really like open the doors wide open to like hundreds more players. And then I think that would dramatically change the way that the Hall is viewed and what it means to be a Hall of Famer and how much your autograph value goes up once you're a Hall of Famer. So I'm just saying there's some value maybe in keeping it kind of an exclusive club, even if obviously there are many deviations from that. But basically, I'm sick of the sanctimony essentially after all these years. And that's why I've kind of come to care less about the process and have withdrawn from the process personally and didn't vote last year in my first year of eligibility and probably won't vote again this year. Because even some of

the people on this committee who were just really staunch anti-PD people, they will cite the character clause and they will cite the integrity, right? It's not just character, it's integrity and character and sportsmanship, et cetera. And people use this as a grounds to keep qualified statistical candidates out. And that's OK, I think, if you're going to say that it is really about character and make it all about character. But everything is just so arbitrary. And it's clear that the hall really has guys that it wants in and guys that it doesn't want in. And I just I don't really want to abide by the way that they do things anymore because it seems like they they have a real agenda here. And it's not an agenda I am really in line with.

And I was actually emailing with with Susan recently, not about this committee or about the voting that she was doing, but just about the hall in general. Because I was wondering, has the BBWA approached the hall about maybe repealing this character clause and just getting rid of this nonsense and not having to deal with this every year and the different ways that people apply it? Because this rule has been on the book since 1945, right? And it wasn't observed for a long time, but recently rule has been on the books since 1945, right? And it wasn't observed for a long time, but recently it has been much more of a priority. And Susan was on the BBWA committee that several years ago brought some concerns to the hall about expanding the ballot so that you didn't have only 10 slots and making all votes public,

et cetera. And the hall just rejected those things. And she said, we also have had conversations about the character clause, and the hall is absolutely set on the character clause and the ability to keep votes private. And so Susan has decided to, you know, accept the conditions that the hall has imposed, as I think many writers have, and that's totally fine. You know, she, I think, once Bud Selig got in and Tony La Russa got in and Bobby Cox, like these people who presided over the steroid era and to some extent enabled the steroid era,

she decided, okay, all bets are off. Like, how can we put those guys in and then draw the line at the players? So she then decided it's open season and i'll vote for all of these guys which is totally fine i think but you know she wrote to me my impression is that the hall does as the hall pleases and public opinion and bbwa petitioning doesn't seem to have much effect they'll do as they like which is fine it's their hall that's why i'm following their lead and i guess i have just kind of decided to opt out instead. And, you know, Susan said she understands that. And, you know, it's tough because you have to put in the work to get the vote and you want to vote on some level. but a lot of other writers too. And she said, I respect that thoroughly.

I think the only way to look at this consistently is either to say I'm going solely on numbers and ignoring the clause or to never vote for anyone you deem problematic or to choose not to vote. I think any of those make sense, she said. And that's kind of where I come down because my basic stance on this is that like, A, I don't feel qualified to judge character and integrity

the way I do on-field performance. B, I don't feel qualified to judge character and integrity the way I do on field performance. B, I don't want to have to weigh being good at baseball against having, you know, domestic violence allegations or multiple DUIs on your record or whatever it is and say, well, you were a good enough player that it outweighs being a bad guy. C, I feel like if I vote, I feel like I'm tacitly agreeing to abide by the instructions that are on the ballot that they're telling me to consider these things. I guess I could just ignore them. And historically, they were often ignored. But I feel like if I put my name on come out about them after they're inducted, like Kirby Pocket E. I'm getting a lot of letters here, but there's no indication like on the hall website or in the plaque room or anything that anyone didn't have a Sterling character. And so if character is one of the stated criteria for induction, then you go to the hall and, you know, you would be excused for thinking, well, these must just be fine, upstanding citizens all, right? Even though they haven't been historically. But if you're saying that all these guys passed the character and integrity test and here they are, and yet you don't have anything in the plaque room that's saying, also, he

did this or he's alleged to have done this, then that sort of maybe misleads people. And then beyond all that, like, I totally get the argument that I'm overthinking this and I'm putting too much stock in the character clause and being too precious about the ethics of all of this. But I don't think it really serves anyone, the fans or the writers or the hall, to have what most people view as a pantheon of the best baseball players be determined in part by whether those players were or weren't good guys or perceived to be good guys. I think most people, they want to go to the plaque room and they want to say, these are the best baseball players ever. And so you would want your Barry Bonsas and your

Roger Clemenses in there, right? Even if they weren't good guys and even if they did cheat, I think that's not really what people want the plaque room to be. Like maybe elsewhere in the museum, you could kind of convey that. But in the plaque room, it's just like what people want the plaque room to be like maybe elsewhere in the museum. You could kind of convey that. But in the plaque room, it's just like these are the best baseball players. And that's not what it is because of the character clause. And so I both don't want to abide by the character clause, but I also don't want there to be a character clause. And the last thing I guess is that the baseball hall is sort of the outlier among similar institutions in putting such an emphasis on character.

Like the NFL, the Football Hall of Fame was just like, who cares? Like if this was a good football player, we will put you in. And I can see the argument against that too. But I think on the whole, like most Halls of Fame just kind of do it as were you one of the best ever to do it? Okay, then you get in and then we can provide the context in other ways. And when we talk about that player, we can mention the bad with the good at everything, but not just entirely exclude them. So I feel like the whole process is just sort of a mess and everyone has

their different standards and different definitions. And I just, I kind of want it to be reformed in some way. And it doesn't seem like the hall has any interest in reforming it in those ways. And so I guess I just have less interest in being a participant. Our Hall of Fame discussion has been so much of a downer that if there was a game going on right now, Nick Castellanos would have hit a home run already. That already would have happened. I'm still a couple of the discussions surrounding that. But it does put one in a pickle. The 10 player cap is still a problem for me.

that I wasn't a voter earlier because I would have voted for more than 10 players on the year in the year that cheater was inducted and I would not prioritize given these limits of putting a player who was a slam dunk to get over 75 I wouldn't be motivated in any way to vote for them and in which case I would have been the only public vote against cheater, in which case I could never safely go into New York again, which would kind of stink because I do enjoy the city. And I got a little taste of Cincinnati fans hating me last year when I kind of was the Cincinnati voter who kept Jonathan India from being the unanimous rookie of the year. I got a lot of that from Cincinnati fans,

and I think that if it was a Hall of Fame vote in Jeter, I think I would be hearing about it for the rest of the Year. I got a lot of that from Cincinnati fans. And I think that if it was a Hall of Fame vote in Jeter, I think I would be hearing about it for the rest of my life. So I'm fortunate that it wasn't the case that I had to do that. Yes. All right. We've talked a lot and somehow it seems like no major news has happened. While we have talked, we will see if that actually holds by the time we post this episode or whether we have to reconvene for some buzzer-breaking last-minute news. But you can find Dan writing all the time at Fangrass, breaking down transactions and also doing his team preview Zips series, most recently the Nationals, which is, you know, not the sunniest team when it comes to projections. Although I did enjoy that as a Joey Manessis enthusiast,

the number three comp that Zips spat out for Joey Manessis was one of those borderline Hall of Fame candidates we were just talking about, Jim Rice. I don't know how that happened because his top comp is Xavier Nady.

His second comp is Jose Guillen and his third comp is Jim Rice. So one of those is not quite like the others. Well, remember Jim Rice at the point of age that we're talking about from an SS. Now we're talking like 1984, 1985 Rice, who is kind of towards the end of his career. Yeah, true. Yes, I'll take it.

Anyway, you can also find Dan on Twitter where he makes fun of the Rockies and dunks on people who don't understand how he has access to zips. That is at D Zimborski, S-Z-Y-M-B-O-R-S-K-I. Dan, always a pleasure. It is my luck that you were not in San Diego or did not have the flu this week. Thank you. That is the benefit of not being ambitious about putting on pants and going places. That is the benefit of not being ambitious about putting on pants and going places. Well, as is always the case when we try to record during a busy news time, lots happened after we finished recording.

The more minor stuff is that Josh Bell signed with the Guardians. Andrew Heaney ended up signing with the Rangers. So as we speculated, the Rangers were not done. We're not even done improving their starting rotation. They clearly are not prioritizing durability. They are prioritizing stuff and potential and peak. So add Heaney to the mix in Texas. But that was really the least of it because Scott Boris took his makeshift stage and he held court and delivered his stand-up routine.

Probably the best line from Boris on the day on Xander Bogarts and the Red Sox. Everyone knows the socks without X are so-so. Really, they'd just be so, but still, excellent line. And according to our pals at Cespedes Family Barbecue, this was a Boris special. He came up with this line on his own because Stephanie Epstein dropped a piece for Sports Illustrated about the creation process

for Boris's material, which of course we talked to him about on episode 1903. But Stephanie went long on that as well. I will link to her piece on the show page. Boris also had a nautical analogy, or at least a water-based one. He compared free agency to various bodies of water, infinity pools, lazy rivers, inflatable pools. The Yankees are in the infinity pool, and there's certainly no shallow howl in New York. Very topical, timely reference there.

He also had one that I read out of context if there was context, and I have not endeavored to discover what the context was. And I don't care. I don't want to know. So it was tweeted by our friend Fabian Ardaya. I think the artful Dodger came to San Diego in a submarine. They run silent and they run deep, but I don't think there's anything about the Dodgers that's unusual in their quest to win and to be competitive and seek the best players. I suppose that is somewhat self-explanatory if you read it many times. We were just talking about the Dodgers and what, if anything, they're going to do. That's what he's saying there, except he's using a nautical analogy, as usual.

The Dodgers came to San Diego in a submarine, sure. And then John Heyman blew up our best of baseball Twitter draft by tweeting, Arson Judge appears headed to Giants. Not only an all-time typo, but an incorrect report, or at least a premature one. He then deleted Arson Judge appears headed to Giants, tweeted Aaron Judge appears headed to Giants, and then tweeted Giants say they have not heard on Aaron Judge. My apologies for jumping the gun.

Just quite a comedy of errors there, which really led to an all-time afternoon on Twitter. And that wasn't even the biggest Aaron Judge news or non-news because our friend Bradford William Davis of Insider dropped potentially a bombshell report produced in concert with another former guest of Effectively Wild, Meredith Wills, about the baseball, or should I say baseballs, we have had both of them on the show to talk about their previous insider report about how there were multiple baseball models in use last season, as in 2021. Now they are alleging that there were in fact three different baseball models in use during the 2022 season. And that's just the tip of the iceberg because there are also some implications in the article

that MLB may have been using the new so-called Goldilocks ball, as they put it, not juiced, not dead, but somewhere in the middle in some of its jewel events like the All-Star game, but also in the postseason and in some Yankees regular season games. According to their findings, which would, of course, contribute to conspiracy theories about arson slash Aaron Judge. There were also some other pretty sensational claims in the piece about MLB threatening people who were interested in sending baseballs to Meredith for testing. MLB strenuously denied all of this. Just a lot in that article to discuss, and we will discuss it on an episode that I have no doubt we will record sometime soon. And by then, there may be actual news about arson or Aaron Judge. Just really a lot happening here. There was also a report that

MLB will be experimenting with adding a PitchCom remote that pitchers can attach to their belts to call pitches back to the catchers. So pitchers calling their own pitches instead of catchers calling the pitches, which is something that occasionally pitchers have dabbled in. Greg Maddux, Zach Granke. And we actually talked about this back on episode 1577, whether pitchers should call their own pitches. Maybe we will reprise that discussion sometime soon. I think we've touched on it at other times, too. I got to give you an update on the free agent contract over-unders draft because we've had some movement. And so far, Meg and I are doing great here.

So I took the over on Tyler Anderson at 19.65 million, the qualifying offer amount. He ended up signing for 39 million, so that was correct. I also took the under on Josh Bell at a predicted 64 million according to MLB trade rumors. He actually signed for two years and 33 million. I took the under on Carlos Estevez at 21 million dollars. He ended up signing for 14. All correct so far, but so is Meg who took the under on Carlos Estevez at $21 million. He ended up signing for 14. All correct so far, but so is Meg, who took the under on Justin Verlander at $120. So that's quite an edge for her. She also took the under on Andrew Heaney at $42, which was wise. He got a two-year $25 million deal plus incentives. And of course, she took the over on Zac Eflin at $22 million.

So that worked out for her too. So we're calling all the contracts correctly thus far. I forgot to say, by the way, Cody Bellinger also signed with the Cubs. One year, $17.5 million, which is slightly less than he was in line to make via arbitration. Just so, so much happening. And just a few minor notes here. One, I speculated in the outro of our last episode about the Reds and the A's and why they drew well on the road. According to one of our last episode about the Reds and the A's and why they drew well on the road. According to one of our listeners who analyzed which teams did best in road attendance, adjusting for the home attendance of their opponents, it was the Yankees and the Dodgers as you'd expect, but then teams like the Reds and the A's also did well, which was kind of confounding. And I gave some potential

reasons there, but as some of you have written in to point out, this also could be a product of variable pricing, right? So when you have undesirable draws coming to town, then teams may slash ticket prices. Therefore, people will be more likely to go. So that could be a part of it. Could also be that teams arrange giveaways for those days, right? You got to get people to the park somehow. So that's a possibility too.

So essentially, it's artificially inflated because maybe teams know which are the least attractive opponents and thus they do what they can to juice the numbers. Also, we talked recently about the fact that MLS and the NHL, they have awards that they give out to teams for the best regular season record. We suggested that something like that might make sense for MLB, even though probably most people wouldn't care about it, at least initially. Well, it turns out that the NBA has just decided to introduce such an award, the Maurice Potiloff Trophy, named after the first commissioner of the NBA, whose name I may or may not have pronounced correctly, awarded to the team with the best record in the league after 82 games. I think MLB should get on this train, even if no one cares, even if people just make fun of teams that win it without having postseason success. If the NBA is doing it, MLB definitely should, because the NBA doesn't

have such a problem with postseason randomness. Though I suppose it does have a problem with tanking, but I don't know if anyone will stop tanking so that they can win this trophy. Also, thanks to everyone who has recommended disc golf as a possible recreational sport for me, but I gotta say, I live in a disc golf desert, apparently. I for me, but I gotta say I live in a disc golf desert, apparently. I have checked and there is no good disc golf in New York City. I'd have to go way outside the city. So thanks for the recommendation, but I don't think I can take you up on it now. And finally, I was informed by Rob Etman on Twitter that the announcer Joe Micheletti during a recent New York Rangers game called Tyler Mott, Taylor Mott.

So the Taylor, Tyler issues happen in other sports too. Good to know. I will leave you now with the Pass Blast. This is episode 1938, and so the Pass Blast comes from 1938 and from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and expert on the Black Sox. And this is Winter Meetings themed, 1938 out of the hat. During the 1938 winter meetings in New York, National League owners met for their annual dinner, which was organized by the winner of that year's pennant. At some point during the night, Larry McPhail of the Brooklyn

Dodgers proposed a new tradition to liven things up, according to a report by Dan Daniel of the Sporting News. Quote, let each club throw the name of a player into a hat. The host furnishes the hat. The player has to be some bird who was on the active roster on August 15th. Then everybody digs in for a player. If you get your own man back, you throw him into the pool again and wait for some other sucker to get him on the hook. In that way, we do some trading. P.K. Wrigley of the Chicago Cubs says, Whom do you throw in if we have this?

And Larry replies, Pitcher Fred Frankhaus. Wrigley then asks Bob Quinn, And Bobby from Boston says, infielder Joe Strip. So Wrigley says, well, why can't you two go ahead? So McPhail nods and says, Bob, old boy, you got a new pitcher. And Quinn says, Larry, you just traded yourself a third sacker. Sam Breeden refuses to join in, as he says the Cardinals do not have a player whom he would toss into a hat, not even a $10 bonnet. Jacob concludes what happens at the winter meetings doesn't always stay at the winter meetings because when the new season opened, former All-Star pitcher Fred Frankhaus was in a Boston Bees uniform, Jersey Joe strip was released by the Dodgers before the 39

season began, and never played in the major leagues again. Needless to say, the owner's trading hat tradition did not last for long. Probably for the best, if the trading hat had caught on, that would have reminded me of another ignoble winter meetings tradition of the WWE belt that used to be handed out to the team that did best in arbitration, at least until it was publicized and became embarrassing and was ceased. The things these teams get up to. We will leave it there and shortly return with another episode with more news and updates in your feed.

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You can find our subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins, who is editing and producing from San Diego. And we will be back with another episode very soon. We'll be right back. Outro Music