Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1947: The Stories We Missed in 2022 (NL Edition)

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Carlos Correa’s contract limbo, the Pirates signing Rich Hill, the Rangers signing Nathan Eovaldi, the Red Sox signing Corey Kluber, the Blue Jays trading Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to the Diamondbacks for Daulton Varsho, the Braves extending Sean Murphy, and the Phillies signing Craig Kimbrel. Then […]

I overlooked an orchid while searching for a rose. The orchid that I overlooked was you. The rose that I was searching for has proved to be untrue. Hey, Orchid, now I find my dear was you. Hello and welcome to episode 1947 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing great. Enjoying dead week between Christmas and New Year's, although it hasn't been that dead in baseball, fortunately, for our

purposes. Look, I don't like to speculate about the family relationship of people I don't know. I mean, or I don't like to do it publicly. But if I were a baseball executive, I wouldn't invite the question quite as often as baseball executives seem to. If you have kids, they're off from school this week generally. If you don't, you might have some hobbies. Why? Because here's the thing. If you're the Atlanta Braves and you have convinced Sean Murphy to sign what is arguably a slightly below market extension, you've done the hard work of convincing him to do

that and to contribute as many of his colleagues and forever teammates have 1% of his annual salary to the Atlanta Braves Foundation, which I don't know. It's a curiosity of these that I'm always fascinated by. But you've done the hard work, right? You've persuaded Sean Murphy that he has enough downside scenarios in his career that he should take $73 million over six years despite being one of the better catchers in baseball. And we'll talk about the merits and demerits of that. But you've done the hard work.

So like chill, you know, just like that feels like 2023 Anthopolis' problem to announce. And you're the brave. So you always announce your own news. Just keep it a little secret. And you know what? Just keep it a little secret. And you know what? If someone finds out, if one of the intrepid beats on Atlanta's beat discover that Sean Murphy is going to be in the fold for the next six years with an option, like, okay, let him have one.

It's fine. They want to be first. They want to get the scoop. It's true. He's not going anywhere for several years, as it turns out. That's the whole thing of it, is that he's not going anywhere. Yeah. And as for other signings and transactions, we got time.

Opening day is not next week. We could wait until after the holidays. I guess Carlos Correa's deal will perhaps wait until 2023. We will see. But I guess that is the most notable news or non-news, which as we record on Wednesday, there has as of yet been no official signing and no official non-signing. Correa missed did not come early, as it turns out. In fact, it has not come late as of yet either. So what happened was the Mets, who agreed to terms with Carlos Correa shortly after the Giants had decided that they were not going to abide by the terms they had previously agreed to because of concerns that showed up in the physical, reportedly due to his ankle or lower leg that he hurt in 2014 and had surgery on, although it seemingly hasn't hampered him since. But the Mets had their physical, I guess, Thursday into Friday, and it turns out that they have very similar concerns, perhaps identical concerns. And so that deal has not been consummated yet either.

That is still pending physical or, I guess, pending negotiations that have followed the physical. So it sounds like there is still a good chance that it could get done in some form. I think the most recent report came from John Heyman, right, who said that there was optimism that they would work something out. But Heyman's New York Post colleague, Mike Puma, also included a quote from an anonymous source saying that it is 55% likely to work out, which I guess you could say there is optimism if there's any amount of optimism. If there's still a chance, you could say there is optimism.

But that one source is just slightly more than a coin flip that this will actually happen. So it sounds like if it does happen, either there will be some sort of restructuring of the contract, which it sounds like Cray and Boris would rather avoid, fewer years, fewer dollars, whatever it sounds like Cray and Boris would rather avoid, fewer years, fewer dollars, whatever it is. Or there could be some sort of provision, as we've seen in some past contracts, that if he were to hurt himself and the injury was related to this apparent weakness that the Mets and Giants have both flagged, then there would be some kind of clause where they could, I don't know, get out of the contract or reduce the contract or whatever it is. So we will see whether this happens or whether Carlos Correa

will be back on the market yet again. So we can continue to talk about Carlos Correa for a while. This is the free agent signing or non-signing that keeps giving. Maybe Scott Boris needs to familiarize himself like the particulars of the epiphany because then he can like you know extend it to january 6th and oh no what a weird day um i don't have any jokes just discomfort so i'm very curious to see how the Mets think about the ultimate like probability likelihood of Correa and Boris prevailing in a grievance process and I don't want to represent myself as being overly familiar with that process I know that through various people's reporting that part of why the league encourages teams to to not really say anything about a deal being done until it is,

in fact, done and the contract is signed is because of the role that speaking publicly about them pre-Corea-mas, you know, when you try to open your present on Corea-mas Eve. Yes. I don't totally understand that. That has been reported in many places. I assume there's something to it, but I don't totally follow why, for instance, Steve Cohen coming out and saying, yeah, we are so excited to have signed Carlos Correa provisionally, it doesn't sound like that would have hurt his ability to get a job somewhere else. So I don't totally get that, but that has been reported in multiple places. So unless that's just some sort of Boris smokescreen, perhaps there's something to it right yeah it seems like the the physical being sufficiently concerning is what would ding his value and his potential ability to sign elsewhere but i suspect that if it comes to that we will have plenty of time to consult relevant experts and get a better understanding of it but yeah it's just like this thing in limbo i wonder if if they started looking at real estate

in manhattan i also just it seems like i don't know man like i'm not a doctor so i never quite know what to say about these things because it feels like to your point like it hasn't been an issue for him he has had other issues that are health-related since this injury and the surgery that it necessitated. This has not caused a problem for him. Now, maybe they look at it as a ticking time bomb that could be a problem at any point. But when you're signing a guy to a 20,000-year-long contract. Aren't you just assuming injury risk anyway? I don't know. It's just a, I don't know. I find it very strange. I also have a cat trying to step on my keyboard. Bebby, that's not helpful right now. I'm trying to record a podcast. Dylan,

leave it in. This is how the sausage gets made. She's like, I don't know what day it is. You're recording on a Wednesday? Is it Wednesday? How does one account for the calendar between Christmas and New Year's? Anyway, it's all very strange. And it feels like even if they get it done, it does cast something of a pall on the early going. But also, everyone's going to forget that if he ends up a Met and then hits a home run. So yeah, I don't know what to make of it, Ben. of it, Ben? If he does sign with the Mets or somewhere, then maybe we will get actual details about what the condition is. As you said, it's hard to figure. This is a body part that he hurt eight years ago that was fixed, that at the time it was said that this would not be a long-term issue and it has not kept him off the field. Other things have sometimes, but not this. And he's had a great career. So it is hard to figure how this could be kind of this looming threat when it hasn't manifested itself in the majors at all. I asked one doctor for just how that kind of thing could happen. Someone who has

not obviously examined Correa and does not have any specific knowledge about Correa. His name is Christopher Geary. He's an orthopedic surgeon in sports medicine. And I just asked like, what kind of thing could present some sort of future risk, but not have manifested yet? And he said the only thing he could think of is some sort of early arthritis or arthritic condition maybe, which might start to impact him more eventually but hasn't yet again he's not saying that that is what Correa has had or does have he doesn't know he hasn't seen anything he's just saying imagining what kind of thing could be a long-term threat or risk or perceived to be one without having actually affected the player thus far so I don't know

what it could be, but I guess it is certainly some degree of vindication for the Giants, right? Because, I mean, as we were doing our episodes last week, like we were, I think, kind of careful to caveat, but also sort of tongue in cheek, like this is still pending physical, right? Like this might not happen either.

But we noted that, well, if he does hurt his ankle or his leg at some point, well, then maybe everyone will say, oh, I guess the Giants were right or they were onto something or they were wise to back out of this. of the Giants was that they were overly cautious and that they were too hesitant to sign the superstar, whereas the Mets were just like, let's go for it. And who cares about the future and what might happen? Well, clearly the Mets have some concerns too. So it's hard to assess whether either of them has acted the most rationally or rationally at all. Again, we don't know anything about the underlying condition here, but at least you can say now that the Giants aren't the outlier and that even the team

that is very motivated to throw money around and sign superstars is also like, oh, hold on, we're seeing something here too. Let's pump the brakes. So I don't know if that has led

to an easier week for Farhan Saidi and Giants management and ownership. I would think so, probably, just that they aren't singled out. And obviously, I'm sure Giants fans are still quite disappointed that they didn't get a superstar and they didn't get Judge and they didn't get Correa. But at least there are reasons for that now, right? Like Judge just wanted to stay with the Yankees ultimately and Correa, well, maybe he has some sort of issues too. And also maybe we're in sort of a similar situation here where the Mets said, okay, we're

not going to agree to those original terms, but let's work something out, which is maybe what the Giants said too, essentially, except that Scott Boris had a plan B, had a backup plan of the Mets that he could immediately pivot to and say, okay, we don't have to wait and try to figure this out now because we have this other team that's hot for Carlos. Whereas now maybe there are still teams out there that have inquired and who knows, maybe the Twins would still be interested. And supposedly there are other teams that have kind of, you know, asked around what's going on here. around what's going on here. But because this is now the second time and there maybe isn't a Steve Cohen out there waiting in the wings, then Boris actually has to wait and talk and see how this plays out. So it's hard to say whether the failure to communicate was a problem on the Giants part before that deal fell apart or whether it was just that Boris had a viable option that he could say,

okay, we don't need to wait and talk. We can just immediately go back to this other team that we had lined up. Right. And I guess there's still a possibility where the Giants were perhaps a little overly conservative and the Mets are like, look, this is a cherry on top for us. We are willing to splash this money around. We think carlos cray is a great player he allows us to do a bunch of different stuff this is us having like let's go for it mentality but also the mets don't need him as much as the giants needed exactly like we don't need him so if we you know they are in an advantageous position negotiating wise to some

extent because they you know if they walk away they'll just you know play a perfectly good player at third base they still have francisco lindor and they you know they can bank that money to spend next offseason when they try to woo tani or whatever you know so they have some ability here to be like you know like we'll renegotiate or not. I think the ability to walk away is always kind of powerful. Now, you're right that, like, Boris was sort of going to be compromised anyhow, because it's like, when it's a third team,

the only team we know has seen Carlos Correa's medicals recently and was like, A-OK is the twins. Yeah, although I don't think they did, they didn't do a full physical this off season right they did correct last off season they did one last march yeah right and presumably this injury was known to them then you know obviously a shorter term deal one that they obviously had an expectation

he would opt out of so like the risk calculus is different there but like they weren't like oh my god his legs just gonna fall off tomorrow it's amazing you know yeah so right it was short of that at least yeah some people pointed out that there was an incident on september 20th where korea he slid into second base and he came up kind of hobbling and it was like a short-term scare and he said he just hit my plate he still got a plate in there i had surgery and he hit it just kind of felt numb vibrating so i was just waiting for it to calm down it was a little scary but when i moved i knew it was good so that might have been nothing at all or i suppose it's possible that something was jostled in there so such that it would show up as a concern now but wouldn't have in march who knows

so yeah it's really tough to say but we will uh wait and see eventually he'll sign somewhere you know like he's not gonna retire no every team can take a crack at carlos correa between now and opening day he could just uh go from team to team pending physical fail the physical go somewhere else just be a journeyman before the season starts and we can just play out this whole drama and soap opera through the slow rest of the winter and have something to talk about. It's working out

great. We got the extreme excitement of the giant signing and then the extreme excitement and drama of the Mets signing him and now more drama. This is just a story that will not die, but eventually it will sign somewhere officially. So we'll continue to bring you updates. What do you think the odds are that the Giants are back in conversation

somewhere? You know what I mean? Do you think that they might have said, look, we're just going to, what if we run it back? You know, you're going to have to take less money and fewer years anyway, because this is now two teams that have flagged this. What if we, like, think about the self-aware jokes you could tell at the signing press conference, Ben. You could make a funny out of it. You could be like, look, we were nervous. We've re-engaged you know like a like a lot of young people carlos

entertained life in new york for a while and then decided to go west you know like like some of us do yeah some of us do that you know i didn't i stayed longer and made a lot less money but otherwise it's an identical scenario though i didn't have to take a physical when i started working for goldman i did have to take a drug test but other than that yeah well he has to do that too yeah different drugs maybe we'll see anyway so there have been some other transactions that have actually gone through so i guess we should touch on those briefly the most notable being obviously that effectively wild legend, Rich Hill, has signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. So get your Twitter hype video ready.

This is absolutely worthy of a hype video. Rich Hill, 43 years young in March, will sign with the Pirates on a one-year $8 million deal. And this is great for a few reasons. First, it makes it official that rich hill will be back we knew he was interested in pitching although he had suggested that maybe he would take the first half off and come back in the second half so this means we get a full season of rich hill yeah so that's good and he adds yet another team to his record so this will be his 12th team once he pitches for the Pirates. And that leaves him just two away from Edwin Jackson's record of 14.

And that's if you exclude the two other teams that Rich Hill has pitched for in the minors. He pitched for the Nationals and Cardinals organizations without pitching for the big clubs. But he will get up to 12. pitching for the big clubs. But he will get up to 12. And you have to figure that the Pirates will probably not be his only team of 2023, right? Assuming he stays healthy and effective. Yeah, if he's any good at all, you have to imagine he's out of there come the deadline. Exactly. So he gets paid, he gets his job, he gets a rotation spot. And then if he holds up okay, then he can probably have his choice of destinations and contenders and someone else will get the gift of Rich Hill. So multiple cities, multiple fan bases may get to enjoy the legend in what could be his last season, although record, I would try to set it. Maybe he is. Maybe that's why he signed with the Pirates. The Rich Hill farewell tour should just be he gets to play a game for every team. 30 starts, 30 teams works out perfectly. There is a fun article by

Chris Cotillo not long ago where he quizzed Red Sox people about which teams Rich Hill had played for and no one could name all of them. Everyone missed like the Angels and the Orioles and the Yankees, the more the merrier. So love it. This is Rich Hilmes has come late. I was surprised that he, you know, was entertaining the idea that he would only pitch the first half. Because, you know, Ben, famously, if you want to climb a mountain, you got to go up and come down. And so and my understanding is Dick Mountains operate the same way. Yeah.

Oh, my God. There's a signing. While we were recording, Ben. Oh, my gosh. What was it? Corey Kluber is going to be a Boston Red Sox. Oh. Man, I don't get Boston's off season at all.

That team is doing weird stuff. It is doing weird stuff. Yeah. Well, I don't have a whole lot to say about that. Yeah, Corey Kluber. They needed some pitching. He's pitching. He's pitching.

All right. All right. One year deal. One year deal. Not nearly as exciting as Rich Hill. Sorry that you're overshadowed there, Corey Kluber. But Jarrett Seidler of Baseball Perspectives pointed out on Twitter that since Sam and I started playing the What Should Rich Hills Contract

Be game in September 2015, when he miraculously rehabilitated himself, he has signed eight years of contracts for $72.5 million, plus many millions more in incentives. So I think that's even more than we were estimating at the time or any subsequent time, I think, if you put career. So I hope it continues. Effectively wild guest and legend. Long may he pitch. And I don't know if you can say, is Bob Nutting still nutting if he signs Dick Mountain? I guess he's still nutting. Oh, no. I didn't even think of a combination of jokes.

Oh, boy. We also got another pitcher signing, Nathan Ivaldi, who will be 33 in February. He signed with the Rangers for two years and $34 million, plus the rare vesting player option, an innings-based vesting player option. So the Rangers, their rotation, it's like the all-volatility team. It could be really good. It could be completely unavailable just looking at the fangraph starting pitcher depth charts the rangers are number two right now although barely ahead of the mets who as i've mentioned i think kodai sanga is not yet on the

depth charts so at worst you could say that the rangers are probably the third best projected rotation and just huge error bars around all of these guys, basically, because you've got Martin Perez, you've got John Gray, you've got, of course, Jacob deGrom, you've got Evaldi, you've got Andrew Heaney, and then you've got Jaco DiRisi, and I guess Dane Dunning backing everyone up. So that is a very solid top five or top six, but also a lot of guys who are either good or injured basically. So if they get the season where DeGrom is healthy and Heaney and Ivaldi and Gray are healthy and Perez is healthy and effective, like that could be a dominant dominant rotation not a lot of on base in the lineup but some good gloves in the outfield you try to win with pitching and defense if you think

you have some knack for keeping pitchers healthy then you get these undervalued arms their top five or six or seven make their regular turns in the rotation and you win or it could be it's just they end up needing 10 starters because those guys are never healthy. So who knows? But I guess if you're trying to unseat the Astros in that division or at least go for a wild card, then you want to roll the dice a little bit. You want to go for the upside and the ceiling and bank on getting good health out of those guys. So it's an intriguing bunch to be sure. It just makes me feel really sad about the Mariners offseason, candidly.

Yeah, I think that even when they signed DeGrom, they had sort of put themselves in potential wildcard territory. But when you look at that roster, you're like there's still stuff here that doesn't quite work, right? There's all of this potential injury risk in the rotation. Pieces of the outfield don't really hang together that well. You don't have reliably good contributors out there. But they've invested in guys who they think are going to be good for them in the long term, right? And you can see that particularly

on the middle infield and then they've been like let's have some potential for positive variance and i think that that's a good strategy right like they they are still going to need to do work to you know get this team in a shape where it can really challenge the astros but this team is definitely a problem for the Mariners and the Angels. Yeah, the Angels had been rumored to be interested in Ivaldi as well, so they get him instead of the Angels getting him. Right, and so I think that when you look around the American League, there aren't as many teams that are like, you know, the the astros are gonna be really good in all likelihood next year like the yankees will be good the blue jays will be good the rays will do ray stuff the

orioles will kind of be pesky but like i think that there is room and then you have whatever the hell happens in the central but like there is definitely room for a team that experiences sort of positive variance to be in a spot where it's like oh we've snagged a wild card and we can kind of go see what run we're on and then you look you look at the rangers and you're like and in the service of that we have literally jacob de grom yeah you know and maybe de grom isn't i think we talked about this at the time of the signing like maybe he isn't able to double up in a short series because he you know you have to be sort of ginger with him you have to you have to treat him gingerly like ginger is

both a way of describing hair color and then also like a you know plant but what i mean is like a tenderness you have to bring a tenderness to bear with your treatment of de grom potentially but you know a couple starts out of de grom even if you're not able to have him go again on short rest is like i think pretty good like that's the thing that you enjoy uh in the playoffs if i were like just you know speculating so i like it i like their off season a lot they've just it's all pitchers exclusively that they have added at least on major league deals it's just all pitchers yeah and you know like they could have continued that strategy further like i think that they could have entertained variance plays in the outfield like maybe texas could have approached one joey gallo and said hey how about it you know but they didn't do that and that's fine like they were

like our thing here is pitching. You know, we're going to do the pitching thing and then like add, I guess, Joe McCarthy who can kind of pretend to play outfield. So it's like, that's a thing. He signed a minor league contract. Have I been thinking about minor league guys? Who could say? Like, is that on deck for this week? I don't know.

Do you know? I don't know. Anyway. on deck for this week i don't know do you know i don't know anyway so kluber goes to boston yeah all the leaves boston and the only other moves we should mention i suppose well we didn't get to talk about this last week i mentioned it on the outro but i love the dalton varsho trade it's just my favorite trade of this offseason or any other recently. It's just so much fun. The Diamondbacks and the Blue Jays connecting on this trade where Dalton specifically a left-handed hitting outfielder, and they had too many catchers. Yeah. Whereas the Diamondbacks could have used a catcher and also had too many outfielders. Yeah. So they just matched up their respective strengths and needs. And you get Dalton Varsho going to Toronto, who's just perfect for them because he can give their lineup some balance and he can play outfield and he can also be like a third string catcher. And then the Diamondbacks get Moreno, who is, I guess, no longer prospect eligible, but was one of the best prospects in baseball and is still one of the best young and most promising young players and catchers in baseball. And so he can be the Diamondbacks catcher of the future. And Varshow,

who's one of the most fascinating players, period, in baseball, the fact that he not only plays catcher and outfield, but is one of the best outfielders in baseball, which is just wild. So the Blue Jays reconstructed outfield now without Gurriel and without Teoscar Hernandez and with George Springer moving over to a corner. That is quite a defensive unit there. If everyone is healthy and effective, you got Varshow, who led all outfielders in outs above average in 2022. Then you've got Kevin Kiermaier, if he comes back fully effective. And then you have Springer, who's been a center fielder, shifting over to a corner. There will not be a ball that drops in that outfield. That is really impressive.

So I love that satisfying feeling of teams, just their roster excesses and shortages just matching up perfectly and it just it made sense like people had pointed to these two teams as potential trade partners and you can't always predict those things but in this case it was like yep that makes perfect sense and it happened yeah i think like if we want to pick a knit you can say like okay does some of varsho's value get sapped a little bit by putting him in left field as opposed to having him patrol center? But then you have a 32, almost 33-year-old Kiermaier. And so the odds that he only plays left field seem low because Kiermaier might get dinged up. And this allows you to preserve Springer's health in right field if Kiermaier might get dinged up. And this allows you to preserve Springer's health in right field

if Kiermaier does go down or isn't, you know, gets to a point where he's truly not playable at the plate. It's like, well, that's fine. We have a perfectly good Dalton Varshow. We don't have to fret about, you know, the rigors of center for George Springer. He can certainly stand up to them. But, you know, part of them wanting to move him to a corner was

to like keep him healthy and whatnot so i i think it's it's great it's great fun i don't imagine how many games next year do you imagine dalton varsha will catch yeah see that's the only downside is that it's been so much fun to have him as the dual catcher outfielder. And I know he's moved more toward outfield as it is, but on this team with Kirk and Jansen, there's no particular reason for him to catch regularly unless someone gets hurt. So if you like the weird positional dual catcher outfielder, like I don't play fantasy baseball anymore, but I imagine Dalton Varshow being catcher eligible has been a lot of fun.

And that probably won't completely come to an end. But, yeah, that's not going to happen often. We got a question from Patreon supporter Milner who wrote in to say, Does having Dalton Varshow as a third catcher allow some flexibility for the Blue Jays that other teams don't have? It seems like you don't need to be afraid to pull your starting catcher for a pinch hitter or runner or even defensive replacement as long as Varshow is in the game. I know teams are reluctant

to pull starting catchers in case the sub gets injured, but with a credible replacement in the outfield, you don't need to worry about this. That is true. I think it's, you know, probably a little extra value,

but that's more of a break glass in case of emergency. I mean, it's the best emergency catcher in baseball. Oh, yeah. Can he's the best emergency catcher in baseball. Can you count the third stringer as emergency or does that need to be beyond third string? I don't know. But they've had a lot of catching depth and they still have a lot of catching depth. So the fact that their outfielder can easily slide over there, that's a nice little perk.

Yeah, for sure. He played 31 games at catcher or he caught in 31 games. Yeah, for sure. He played 31 games at catcher or he caught in 31 games. I don't know if all of those were starts, but he caught in 31 games for the D-backs last year. So, yeah. And I got to say, like, as a catcher of the future,

you know, you feel better about Moreno than you do about, I don't know, what do they have, Cooper Hummel, you know? Now they don't have to, you know. Cooper Hummel gets to be Seattle's problem. He gets to be Seattle. You know, that's the thing that they get to deal with. catchers you led with this but sean murphy yeah 28 year old braves catcher and now will be braves catcher through i don't know at least uh 34 or so because he signed a six-year 73 million dollar extension with a 15 million dollar club option for 2029 so he was a first year arbitration eligible eligible player heading into next year. So this buys out his remaining three ARB years and up to four free agent years. And boy, they don't take long. They work quickly over there. He was just traded to Atlanta this month and immediately he joins the pod people over there and wants to be an Atlanta Brave forever. So now it's Murphy, Austin Riley, Matt Olson, Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Spencer Strider, Michael Harris, all players who've been extended

and who are under Atlanta's control through 2027 with Acuna and Albies, I think another year or two beyond that. And then there are the pitchers too i mean almost everyone in that lineup like what has taken von grissom so long what's the hold up here come on is it like awkward in the clubhouse if you're like the one guy on the team who has not i don't know sign the long-term extension but ask max fried i guess yeah there seems to be like a peer pressure element here or not i don't know maybe not peer pressure but we could put that in a more positive way like i i just i want to be like a peer pressure element here or not i don't know maybe not peer pressure but we could put that in a more positive way like i just i want to be part of this group it's not even like murphy knows this group of players or has like been in that clubhouse or something or has won on this

team it's just like being added to the roster is apparently sufficient to want to stay with this team forever. So they really must have. I'd love to read just a behind-the-scenes, what is Atlanta's pitch to these guys? Do they have some amazing presentation that they keep deploying? Is it purely word of mouth that everyone's like, one of us, one of us, one of us, stay with the Braves forever? But it's really working out in their favor. I mean, this one, I guess with this one, they have just slightly exceeded the competitive balance tax threshold, I think, maybe for the first time. Because this deal is it's backloaded to some extent. So he's not making that much in 2023.

But the average annual value goes up. So this is, I guess, a payroll high for them. And I think they've indicated some willingness to perhaps go past that limit. So that's good. I guess that they should do that coming off of a World Series and another division title and a bunch of division titles. But really, as a Braves fan, you kind of know what you're going to get for the next several seasons. So settle in. Yeah.

I mean, I imagine that some of it is definitely a hey, we like this group. We want to hang out together. We think that this is a good competitive team. You are able to have some amount of certainty about, you know, sort of what your floor is in a way that other players don't, right? Even when they're signing long-term extensions, they don't know what their team's going to look like in 10 years, right? Like who could know such a thing? And in this case, you are able to lock that in. I imagine that part of what they're doing here is strategically targeting guys, not only for their production on the field, but for their potential willingness to sign contracts like this.

It's not surprising to me that a guy who just had to play in Oakland is like, yeah, I'll take $73 million. That sounds great. For catchers, I think that the calculus is, I imagine, a little bit different. They are sort of akin to pitchers in that you can understand a desire to lock in guaranteed earnings because it's such a grind on your body when you're catching, right? It just takes a huge physical toll.

And Sean Murphy's played a bunch of games at catcher. So I can understand, especially as a 28-year-old, him being like, yeah, you know, I want to make sure that I'm making close to $100 million. And if it works out, then I'll stick around for, you know, another 15. And I get it. to really scrutinize deals like this just in terms of what they do to the overall spending environment, which feels silly to say in an off-season like this where there's been a record level of spending, but it does put these guys in a position where when they eventually hit free agency, they're hitting free agency later into their lives, their odds of earning, you know, big, big money or lower. But I also understand like, you know, this is $73 million that Sean Murphy just gets to count on

now, you know. So it's a tricky, those ones are tricky because you don't want to deny these guys the agency, but we can to sign long-term extensions and say like, hey, I just want to be an insert team name here for the bulk of my career or the bulk of the prime of it. But I think it is worth thinking about sort of what it does to the broader labor environment, even in an off-season like this that has been really lucrative for free agents. So I don't know. It's just a thing that we got to keep being like, meh. And also, spend some time with your family how bad could they be you know like probably fine and i'm sure that anthopolis did that but also it's like this is supposed to be you know other leagues have a transaction freeze

this week you know and and there are rules in the off season about when you can do waiver stuff because they know that these folks are all workaholics and will just waiver claim away the weekend. And it's like, stop it. Rest. You don't get to rest during the regular season. Rest. Just rest. It's important. Ben, it's important to rest.

So I hear. So I'm told So I hear. So I'm told. I know. You're bad at this too. And it's not like I have tremendous work-life balance. So I get it. But I also think, again, you've done the hard part, which is to persuade this young man to sign this deal.

You've done that part. You actually did the hard part as it pertains to Sean Murphy a couple weeks ago when you got the trade for him done. You've already done the hard stuff. Your big project's completed. So you don't have to do this other stuff right now. You could just relax. So relax. We say that as we're recording podcasts.

Unfortunately, we wanted something to talk about, although we had enough to talk about without all the transactions this week so that they didn't actually have to do this for our sake. But that happened. And also, I guess, the Phillies signed Craig Kimbrell for one year and 10 million. Yeah, they did do that. All I have to say is that I can't think of any way to enhance the chaos energy of the Phillies more than adding Craig Kimbrell to the mix, who could be dominant, could be unpitchable. Who knows? So that'll be fun to

find out which is which or whether he's won at one part of the year and another at another part. Yep. All right. So what we had planned this week, so all of our episodes this week are themed episodes. As you teased, we will have the minor league free agent draft

coming up later this week. But another exercise that we've done at the end of some years, not every year, but many years, is a Stories We Missed episode or two episodes where we talk about something that we didn't talk about, about each team in that year. Because despite doing a lot of podcasts and talking about a lot of things, we don't discuss everything. And there are certain things that just aren't on our radar as national level baseball people. That makes us sound so fancy. I put the call out to people in the Facebook group and elsewhere and say, hey, what did we not talk about this year that was interesting about your team?

And it could be a weird fun fact. It could be some nice or strange or heartwarming off the field story. It could be an individual player season that was interesting in some way. And we just run them down and quickly list a story or two for each team. So I have all of them. And we can, I think, do the NL teams today. And then we'll do the AL teams later. So we can start with NL because the senior circuit has seniority. And we'll just go in alphabetical order here.

And we were just talking about the Braves. So we can start with the Braves again. And this is one of my favorite ones this was nominated by listener Matt who noted that Atlanta carried Guillermo Heredia for the entire season to basically be in Matt's words a plastic pink sword wielding cheerleader yeah I just was not aware of the season that Guillermo Heredia had. He played 74 games and got only 86 plate appearances, in which he did not do much. He had a 55 OPS plus. And as Matt said, those are forced to be on the roster rule five draftee numbers, not full season 31-year-old veteran numbers. But basically, the story with him, I, he he hit pretty well in 2021. So maybe they expected him to hit better, but he did not. He still had a 79 WRC plus in 2021. OK. To be clear. He did not hit pretty well. He hit better. But yeah. OK. Yeah. Like, you know, it was it was better and, you know, better, I think, against left-handed pitching than right-handed pitching, as I recall. But not like, like he had a 101 WRC plus against left-handed hitting in 2021.

Yeah, it's something. It's something. Yeah. So he was basically around as an extra outfielder and was needed even less once Michael Harris came up. Right. And so as the Braves SB Nation blog Battery Power put it, with most of Heredia's on-field purposes reduced or taken away altogether, his primary job became keeping team chemistry, dugout energy, and clubhouse morale all as high as possible. And he ranked in the 99th percentile at it with his random pink swords, seemingly endless

amounts of energy, constant chatter, and infectious smile. His teammates loved him the fans loved him and basically without any on-field contributions heredia became one of the most popular players in the organization it's just great i'm always fascinated by players who managed to stick on the roster despite not playing and yet they justify their playing time or their presence somehow yeah and really it is extraordinary playing this many games just primarily as a defensive replacement without getting many plate appearances it's really like no one has done this in a while yeah just looking at at stat head and searching for like you know 74 games, fewest play appearances. Obviously, you have your

mid-70s A's pinch running specialists, Herb Washington and Don Hopkins at the top who got no played appearances or barely any. But really, no one has had this kind of season since, I think, 2005 when Lenny Harris, pinch hitter extraordinaire, he played 78 games for the Marlins and had 83 plate appearances. That is the last time someone has played this many games and had so few plate appearances. And he was on the active roster almost the entire season. So there was a five game period where he was demoted to AAA. And then I think that was because they had to call up an extra catcher because Travis Darnot maybe was day-to-day and had hurt his leg and x-rays were negative, but they called up Chadwick Trump, one of my favorite baseball names, and also a pitcher

because I think Ian Anderson went down to AAA. So that was just a brief little AAA interlude. But then Heredia was called up, I think, just like five days later because Ariadrianza was placed on the injured list. And then Heredia was back for the rest of the way. And Robert Au and Lucas Apostolaris, they helped me look this up at Baseball Prospectus. I was interested in just like the least played appearances, fewest played appearances by someone who was on the active roster all season or most of the season. So former Effectively Wild guest Garrett Stubbs, he was the player who was on the active roster the entire season and had the fewest played appearances, 121 as the Phillies backup catcher. But if you limit it to players with at least 142 days active and Heredia had 167 of 172, then no one was really close to him in few plate appearances. It was like Charlie Culberson, Ryan O'Hearn, who has just pushed off the Royals roster finally, Hanser Alberto, Kurt Suzuki, you know, like utility types and backup catchers,

and Guillermo Heredia, who was just sort of a mascot for much of the season. And even going back to 2021, Robert looked at this data from MLB about who was actually on the roster on any given day. data from MLB about who was actually on the roster on any given day. And if you go back to that, it was Tyler Wade, someone else we've talked about a lot. He had the fewest played appearances of anyone who was active that many days. But it's pretty rare to stick around on a roster and play that little and play such an inessential role. So congrats to Guillermo Heredia for pulling it off. And just recently, he signed with the SSG Landers of the Korea Baseball Organization. So he's going to earn $900,000, up to a million with incentives, and presumably have a starting job. So more money, more playing time for Guillermo Her heredia in korea but wow

legendary season for him how much of him being on the roster the whole year do you attribute to the braves needing to figure out needing to figure out if it was a sword or a dildo. Because Ben, I got to tell you, the first time I saw Guillermo Heredia waving the pink plastic sword around in the dugout, I was like, does Guillermo Heredia have a dildo? Is that part of the celebration here? And then I was like, it's a sword. And I was like, was the sword selected?

Because it kind of looks like it might be a dildo. Dildo, I'm saying it again. I said it quietly the first time so that parents could be like, oh, we have to put little things on the ears of the children. And now you have to parent actively. I don't know.

Sorry about that. It seems like a word that children would enjoy without necessarily knowing what it refers to. That's probably why it's so dangerous. Yeah, exactly. Because if you'll forgive a terrible sentence, great mouthfeel. Okay. We're trying to make the show hornier so that we rank better in that you know perception of horniness amongst the other baseball brats well wait till we get to the dodgers entry oh no

i'm so afraid all right so the brewers entry so some of these are like dugout celebrations. That's something I'm not all that aware of as someone who's not following a particular team closely unless it's a team that's playing in the playoffs. And then it's like beaten to death how they do a specific hand motion or whatever. They put someone in a grocery cart or they wear a cowboy hat or whatever it is. Every team has some weird thing. But this one was kind of entertaining that Andrew McCutcheon of the Brewers brought an infinity gauntlet to the Brewers' dugout, as in Thanos' jeweled hand. Yeah, a glove or whatever. Yeah, right. And the reason for having an infinity gauntlet in the dugout, so this is a quote from McCutcheon, it's not supposed to be for a celebration. It just became that. It was used ultimately to celebrate home runs. But originally, he says, it was Lorenzo Cain and Keston Hura. Anytime Cain would be hitting, he'd line out or hit a ball hard. Everyone always has the same, hey, man, way to swing player in general, no one wants to hear that after you just lined out. After you just did everything correct and someone's standing there

and catches the ball, you don't want to hear, way to swing it. So basically I was like, you know, it would be funny if we got some like huge hand or something every time we would line out, we'd be like, hey, way to swing it. We're all laughing about it, but you need that in those moments because you're so mad, especially if you're struggling struggling that's why we have the hand i need that personally because i tend to sometimes get a little too frustrated when i line out so if i turn to my right and i see somebody with a thanos hand how can i not laugh at that it's just like comic relief it's like oh you just lined out don't be sad here's a big funny hand with Jules on the knuckles. Wow.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Weird, Ben. I'm here to say. It is weird. Weird.

Would that make you mad if someone said, wait, swing it? I could see it getting old after a while, right? I could see it starting to feel kind of patronizing. I guess so. I could see it starting to feel kind of patronizing. You know, if your lack of success is protracted, I could feel it being like, just don't talk to me. You know what I mean? I could understand that. Yeah, I guess so. Because you're probably only saying way to swing it to Lorenzo Cain or Keston Hira, right? Who you think needs the positive reinforcement because they're not hitting so well.

So if it's a great hitter who lines out,'re probably not like don't feel so bad actually look keston europe he hit pretty well actually in 2022 but he had a nice little bounce back keston he did yeah so i see how i guess that could get frustrating after a while it's just it's a frustrating situation period whether someone says way to swing it or not on the one hand you you'd think on the Thanos infinity gauntlet hand, you'd think that it would be nice that people would recognize that you hit the ball hard. And in this day and age where everyone goes by expected stats and stat cast stats and hard hit rate and all of that, in terms of results on the field and winning games, it doesn't help you.

But in terms of how you're evaluated and how much money you might make, it actually does help to hit the ball hard. So there's a benefit to that that there didn't used to be necessarily. So the Brewers had a Thanos hand, and they also at some point they had a bell in the dugout that they would ring, and the bell would be rung, I guess, not just for good things that happen, but also like baseball moves. Like this was a first base coach, Quentin Berry. He installed a bell in the Brewers dugout to recognize, quote, ball player moves. So when a player shows good instincts and awareness or makes a heads up play, but you can also ring it like after a home run. I think everything morphs and evolves into just making it a home run celebration like it might start as let's

distract you from having lined out or let's celebrate these little smart heads up instinctual plays but ultimately it just becomes hit a home run wave the infinity gauntlet and ring the bell yeah all right okay for the cardinals there were a few different nominations here. One was just the season of Lars Knutbar, which I think we have mentioned. This is supposed to be basically things that we never talked about on the podcast, but things that we didn't talk about much,

like Lars Knutbar had a great second half after struggling in the first half. One thing I was not aware of about that season was that he basically went to a hitting clinic kind of over the all-star break. So while everyone else was resting and relaxing and sometimes probably taking a break could be the thing that gets you back in the swing of things, but he got back in the swing of things by swinging a lot and was just like in the cage and working and seems to have solved something and came back a new man in the second half and also related to large new bar and dugout celebrations he had a pepper grinder

in the dugout that they would grind this is apparently something that andrew kisner started it's a pepper grinder because you're grinding out every at bat so So that was why they had the pepper grinder. I guess that makes some sense. Okay. Also, we were informed that was Tyler pointed out Lars Neupahr. Brian Johnson listener pointed out the brief season of Kramer Robertson of the Cardinals who debuted at age 27. A lot of meet a major leaguers in this group here.

So Kramer Robertson had two at-bats and one chance in the field. And in his one fielding opportunity, he committed an error and then he was designated for assignment shortly thereafter. So he's not quite Moonlight Graham, but one official at-bat with an RBI, but has a negative 0.1 career war probably from that one error in his one chance. So hopefully he gets another cup of coffee at some point that would be nice and also zach thompson cardinals pitching prospect who came up he became the first cardinal to wear number 57 since the death of daryl kyle and it was appropriate because kyle of course, famous for his big

bending curveball, and Zach Thompson also throws a big bending curveball, so he got to inherit number 57. And then last Cardinals nomination, Jeff Albert, the hitting coach, who will not be back. Apparently, part of why he decided not to return is that Cardinals Twitter was mean to him, very mean to him. Yeah. So according to John Mazalek, Jeff Albert had frustration, quote, about the frequency with which he took blame for the team's offensive struggles and mentioned the tenor of social media comments as a factor in that frustration. So Jeff Albert does not officially have a Twitter account, but he must have a burner in there somewhere.

He must have, he's lurking. And I guess he did not like what he saw on Cardinals Twitter. And so the team was prepared to offer a new contract to him, but he decided not to return. And that was cited as a reason why. So, you know, people are pretty mean to hitting coaches when the team doesn't hit. It's certainly not always their fault, but Cardinals Twitter was especially hard on Jeff Albert for one reason or another, rightly or wrongly. And he took his leave and that was one reason why. I'm sure that wasn't the entire reason, but that was a reason. Wow.

Yeah. Now the Cubs. So listener Aria pointed out that the Cubs went 21-10 against NL East teams and did not have a losing record against any team in that division and actually swept the Phillies in the season series. So 28% of the Cubs' wins came against NL East teams, and that ended up impacting the playoff race. So that's interesting. I did not know that the Cubs owned the NL East. And also, listener Nicholas nominated, and I know we may have mentioned him at some point, but he wrote, for the Cubs, I nominate Christopher Murrell, who was such a delight. He always smiled and hugged opposing players every game.

When he came to bat, he fist-bumped the home plate umpire, or tried to. Some umpires did not want to do that. And on top of a very successful season for a player who was not a top prospect being called up from AA, he deserves some spotlight just for being the positive guy he is. He also had a very fun case where he pinch hit homered in his first at bat. And supposedly he called his shot an inning earlier to Wilson Contreras, who had hit a homer in his first at bat years before. So this was one of the many instances of players predicting something, which happens so often that we don't discuss it that much anymore.

So that was a fun moment. What do you think, if you were a home plate umpire and a batter come to the plate went for the fist bump would you leave him hanging or what oh man it's so it's so fraught in both directions right it is yeah if you do it in a game that counts right like nelson cruz took a selfie with joe west during the all-star games like that's all you know that's the all-star game he had his phone in his pocket. We're not doing anything serious, right? But if you do it in a game that actually matters for something, you're going to be accused of bias toward the hitter.

But if you don't, people are going to call you grumpy, you know? And they might accuse you of bias the other direction. So I think that the only answer you have in that moment is to like immediately start doing your home plate chores, right? And be like, well, I didn't see it. Sorry, I was cleaning the plate, you know? Like I'll get you next time, but I won't. So it's a fraught situation. Yeah, it's tough.

He's being very friendly. Yeah. Yeah, he's putting them in a tough position by being so friendly. I'm sure umpires appreciate it on some level because players often not so nice to them, fans often not so nice to them, but they have to maintain some remove, some sense of impartiality and objectivity. him and then you immediately fist bumped like the catcher and the pitcher if you fist bumped everyone right then maybe you'd be seen as unbiased but otherwise it's tough right and then if you're like you know you fist bump the hitter you just hit a home run and then you turn to like fist bump the catcher and also the pitcher they're gonna be like what are you doing that was terrible like i i didn't want that to happen we're're not rewarding that. So I think that someone should pull the young man aside and be like, look, it is a nice thought. You're clearly trying to be, you know, like a generous kind of co-worker,

sort of co-worker, right? Then, like, I get it. But also it's like you got to not do that. They do have chit-chat often, you know. Like hitters will come to the plate and they'll go, you know, hey, how's it going? You got to not do that. They do have chit-chat often. Hitters will come to the plate and they'll go, hey, how's it going? If it's someone who has been their home plate umpire before.

I think that a whole book could be written about the relationship between catchers and umpires because they are at odds, but also have an appreciation unique to each other about what it feels like to get hit in the face with a freaking baseball you know so they have they have care and consideration but also antagonism so like it's a there are a lot of ways in which that relationship is fraught but you have to at least allow people to maintain the illusion of you know complete divorced objectivity you know right allow for that so i wonder if he held grudges like i don't know whether he fist bumped just before his first at bat of the game or whether he fist bumped every time he came to the plate but

if he got rung up on a borderline pitch and he disagreed with the call would he still fist bump the next time up or like if the the umpire, if the previous batter had had a call go against him, would he still fist bump? I wonder whether he withheld fist bumps just based on the situation or how the umpire was performing in that game or whether he just turned the other cheek and fist bumped regardless. Anyway, interesting. Yeah. All right. We're up to the Diamondbacks. Not a lot of on the field nominations here. I don't know whether there weren't interesting stories or whether we just talked about them. I think we talked about some interesting Diamondbacks stories. They are perhaps overrepresented based on my proximity to the big league club. And we talked about the elite first base defense of Christian Walker and his scoops and such.

People nominated rookie Seth Beer hitting a walk-off home run on opening day, which happened to be National Beer Day. But I think we did talk about that or at least mentioned it in passing anyway. Now we've officially mentioned it. But listener Paul had a couple of good suggestions here. So according to a 2022 study by a website called The Hustle, based on data from the Fan Cost Index, the Diamondbacks, and you can probably testify to this, had the most affordable games of any team. So the study here, this was the cost for a family to go to a baseball game. So the total cost for four tickets, four hot dogs, two beers, two sodas, and parking in 2022. And according to this analysis, the average was $204.76, and the Diamondbacks cost was $126.34 for all of those things. So the ticket price was, I think, also the cheapest at $22.12, and then they break it down by the beer cost and the soda cost and the hot dog cost and the parking cost. Anyway, for all of that, it added up to $126.34 for the Diamondbacks,

which was the lowest, even lower than the Marlins, the Pirates, the Rockies, the Rays, the Reds, the Tigers. Those were the teams that were next a lot of teams that need to lower prices because they didn't put a particularly compelling product on the field i guess rays aside and the diamondbacks were pretty decent too so yeah good bang for your buck i don't know whether that mirrors your experience but pretty affordable to go out and catch diamondbacks games yeah i find them to be pretty reasonable. I do have a D-Backs gripe. Are you ready, Ben?

Okay, sure. The concessions at Chase Field could be better. Some of the food, good. But it is shockingly poor from a beer selection perspective. So, you know, Chase folks, get on that. I will pay a little more for better beer. Just saying. According to this, though, $2 hot dogs, which was the cheapest of any ballpark.

So that's something. Yeah. If you're not there for fine gourmet dining. Oh, yeah. You're just there for a hot dog, then you can get a lot of hot dogs for your money. And I will say, I think that the food concession options are much better. They are far superior to the drink options. I think that there is a meaningful gap in quality there, both at the low end and the high end. So

I'm just saying. Part of this though, Ben, is I've reached a point in my life, even as an IPA enjoyer, where I can say, we don't need so many hazies. We could do with a few fewer of them. They're too many. I know that some people feel that way about IPAs in general, but I'm from Seattle, so I don't feel that way. I am here to say, some of them could just be normal IPAs. They don't all have to be hazy IPAs. Anyway, on to the next. Okay. I gave you the least expensive teams, the most expensive, unsurprisingly, Red Sox. They were up at 324-37 and then Cubs, Yankees, Astros. Fifth was the Washington Nationals. So not only are you going to see a pretty terrible team,

but it's going to cost you. You're going to pay for it. Yeah. I'll put that full list online for anyone who wants to see where their team ranks. And Paul also suggested there's a tweet last month from a Twitter account called D-backs facts and stats at D-backs facts. Wow. That's hard to say. I know. Diamondbacks raise comparison through 25 seasons now because these are the two 98 expansion teams. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. through 25 seasons now because these are the the 298 expansion oh sure yeah yeah so the diamond

backs have played 3948 games the rays formerly the devil rays played 3946 games extremely close yeah much closer than i would thought so the diamond backs cumulatively are 1914 and 2034 and the rays are 1912 2034 so they both have career 485 winning percentages they're uh 120 and 122 games below 500 five division titles for the diamondbacks four for the rays one pennant for the diamondbacks two for the rays one championship obviously for the diamondbacks none for the rays six playoff appearances for the diamondbacksant for the Diamondbacks, two for the Rays, one championship, obviously, for the Diamondbacks, none for the Rays, six playoff appearances for the Diamondbacks, eight for the Rays. So I would not have guessed this just based on the fact that the Rays have been so good for so long lately. Yeah. Right.

But maybe I've forgotten just how bad the Devil Rays era was. Yeah, it was rough there for a stretch. Yeah. Whereas the Diamondbacks came out of the gate pretty quickly and won a World Series a few seasons in, so they were respectable early on, whereas the Rays were truly terrible. But the narratives have changed, obviously, in the past decade plus because the Rays have been so consistently good in a tough division and the diamondbacks have been up and down what i could say but yeah if you you look over the full 25 year span almost identical records

which is surprising to me very interesting interesting all right dodgers so this is what i i teased here that this one was going to be horny so chris nominated the dodgers graphic and homoerotic home run celebrations. I'm not sure if it was celebrations or just one celebration. It may have been- It's all coming back to me now, though, that you say that. I'm like, oh yeah, they were quite, they were a little Cinemax at night. Very much so. There was one notable example, and this was sometime in the middle of the season that the dodgers they had a home run celebration i think this was bats i i assume it was a home run celebration but mookie bets was the player celebrating and he came back to the dugout and the entire team gathered around

him and essentially jacked off yep this is basically what happened yep everyone like bent over yep they made a jerking off motion yep and one player in particular was holding i suppose a carbonated beverage yep or it looks like water but i don't know it maybe it was carbonated water but after the jerking off it did and and it sprayed all over moookie Betts' face. This was a facial sort of situation here. And I don't know whether this was something they always did or did regularly or whether they had other celebrations like this or whether this was a one-off. But wow, somehow this has escaped my notice. Somehow this has escaped my notice. Oh, it did not escape mine.

And I was like, oh, okay. Well, that's a lot. And I want everyone to express themselves. But I wonder how, you know, it's like, is that a thing you all planned? Or was it spontaneous? That's an interesting, it's interesting in both directions right as a thing that you orchestrate and also a thing that you as a group spontaneously use as an expression of your excitement over a home run i'm not saying it's a bad thing i'm just saying it is a thing it's an interesting thing that they did there yeah yeah some people on reddit dubbed it the mukaki celebration

so the cardinals had their nice innocent pepper grinding yeah for grinding it out at bats yeah the dodgers uh have a different kind of grinding entirely anyway that's very good ben that's very good a very a different kind of grinding i mean i'm just saying to the Cardinals, like, don't be so boring. You can, you know, like, I'm not saying to be hornier than you feel, but I'm saying to be as horny as you feel. And I imagine that it is hornier than the pepper grinder celebration suggests. That's all I'm saying. Very much so. Yes.

Okay. I will link to the video for anyone who wants to check this out for themselves. All right. For the Giants, a friend of the show, Mark Simon of SIS, he nominated Wilmer Flores, leading MLB in the Fangraphs clutch stat, which I had not known. He was, by that definition, the clutchest player in Major League Baseball this year. He had pretty extreme splits. He was with runners in scoring position. He had a 940 OPS compared to a 596 OPS with no one on, which was not historically extreme, but quite extreme. I did stat head to see how extreme it was. And just for anyone who had at least as many plate appearances with runners in scoring position, it was like 135 or something in his case. I think it was only like 76th all time. So not really that extreme. The most extreme runners in scoring position split was Leo Cardenas for the 1966 Reds. And he that season had a 198 TOPS plus with runners in scoring position.

I didn't even know that last year, Adam Duvall, who weirdly led the majors in RBI or led the NL in RBI, one reason why he did that was that he had a 185 TOPS plus with runners in scoring position. He had a 1124 OPS in those situations and that clutchness got him up to 113 RBI, I think it was. So Wilmer Forrest was quite clutch, not historically clutch, but very clutch. And he had a 71 WRC plus in low leverage situations, 128 in medium leverage and 201 in high leverage so if you had a high leverage plate appearance in 2022 on the giants you hoped that wilmer flores was up and yeah i'll also just shout out camilo duval who became something of a sensation late in the 2021 season and he was not a one-year wonder he had a good year and he was like neck and neck with Ryan Helsley for the fastest pitches thrown in baseball this year.

So Helsley had the record at 104.2, but Duvall was the only other player to hit 104. He had a 104.0 pitch. And interestingly, he had a much better second half of the season because he just developed a sinker like in July, just started throwing a sinker and it became his primary pitch. And he was throwing the sinker way more than any other pitch down the stretch. And he was really, really good down the stretch. So he kind of went away from the cutter and to some extent the slider and he became just this hard sinker pitcher yeah and was uh really hard to hit late in the season so i'm always interested in people who pick up pitches in the middle of a season and just drastically change their pitch mix and for him it worked out quite well yeah it's impressive because like some guys you can tell that the tinkering ends up being a detriment it exacerbates an already bad situation and some guys were like oh i can figure this out kind of on the fly in a way that's pretty impressive. It's been a popular item. Maybe it was a big Christmas gift. But yeah, $149. That sounds pricey for a Lars Knutbar autographed pepper grinder, I'm just going to say.

It's more than I would pay for that. Yeah, that seems like I get that there is a novelty associated with it and there is the value of his signature, right? Which is presumably worth something. Something. But it does seem like kind of a lot when you think about it. Because if you were to say buy a pepper mill from Le Cousin, which is fancy, it's $46. Is the newt bar name $100 worth? I don't know.

Yeah, you can get a set. You can get a salt and pepper mill set for, well, $92, but $75 on sale at this exact moment. And how is it that the wood one is the same price as the not wood one? Anyway, this has been Meg looking at Le Creuset. All right. Next up, we have the Marlins. And this is kind of an interesting one. This will be a little impromptu

stat blast here in the middle of this other segment. They'll take a data set sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length,

and analyze it for us in amazing ways. Here's to Deistaplast. So the suggestion, again from listener Paul, the Marlins had only one player with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. So you need, what, 3.1 plate appearances per game. That's 502 plate appearances over a full season. So the Marlins had only one player clear that bar. So did the Reds, for that matter, Kyle Farmer. Since 1998, there have been 18 teams now to have had only one player qualify for the batting title. But no one has failed to have a qualified player.

So we've talked about qualifying from a pitcher perspective and how maybe they need to change the definition of qualifying for the ERA title because fewer and fewer pitchers are doing it every year. And we've talked about how some teams have almost had no one on the staff with 100 innings pitched even. We haven't really talked about this so much from the position player side. Because it's not normally a problem. Yeah, but Paula's pointing out that we may be getting close to having a team that does not have a single batting title qualifier. And the only Marlin to qualify this year was Miguel Rojas. And he barely made it. He had 507 plate appearances.

So that's like one game basically over qualifying. Other Marlins got hurt. They released Jesus Aguilar in late August, and he went on to barely qualify as a member of the Orioles. But Rojas, the sole Marlin. And this is not a joke about the Marlins being bad at hitting, although they were. They still had some hitters who were qualified to be big leaguers, just not qualified for the batting title. And I looked at the other 17 teams that had had only one qualifier, and Rojas was easily the closest to not qualifying. So the Marlins came closer than any other team has come to not having a qualifier.

And this put me in mind also of a listener email we got from Matthew last month, who said, I wonder if 2023 might be the year, the first full year with a full 162 game schedule, that we lose another cherished baseball tradition, the 700 plate appearance hitter. Glancing at totals over the years, it seems there is a general decline, something I'm sure Stathead could better confirm or deny, more scheduled rest for players, late game defensive substitutions, rest during blowouts, all seem ways to decrease total plate appearances, perhaps partially offset by the NLDH. It just seems to me another sign of the times

to keep an eye on with one low offense here being all it takes to dip under the threshold because that's another factor, obviously. The less offense there is, the lower the OBP is, the fewer plate appearances you're going to get per game. So I think we might actually be getting to that point. Like there were 37.5 plate appearances in the average game in 2022 and 2021. And it's like, it's not like notably down really, but it's

down by, you know, a plate appearance or two from higher offense eras. So that's part of it. And I think probably part of it is, as he said, you know, position player pitchers and resting people in blowouts, just generally load management, right? And giving guys days off because there've been studies that show that that does actually enhance performance. And I asked Ryan Nelson, frequent StatBlast consultant, to take a look at this. Find him on Twitter at rsnelson23. And it is true. So we looked at both the number of qualified players per team per year, and we looked at the number of 700 plus PA players per team per year. And I will preface this by saying that you can find all the seasons in the spreadsheet that

I will link to on the show page. But for the purposes of this StatBlast, I will preface this by saying that you can find all the seasons in the spreadsheet that I will link to on the show page. But for the purposes of this stat blast, I will just skip over and omit the shortened seasons, strike shortened or pandemic shortened. And I will acknowledge that the pandemic and the lockout and the compressed spring trainings may have exacerbated this trend toward less playing time for position players. But it does seem to be something that preceded the pandemic. playing time for position players, but it does seem to be something that preceded the pandemic. So this season, there were five 700 plate appearance players, and leading the way was Marcus Semyon, who had 724 plate appearances for the second consecutive year. So he actually had the same number of plate appearances last year. He's like a real Ironman because he's playing all the time and he's batting toward the top of the lineup. In 2019, he had 747 plate appearances. He didn't miss a game. He didn't miss a game in 2021 either,

and he missed one game in 2022. So he's still the plate appearance Ironman. Freddie Freeman, Trey Turner, Francisco Lindor, and Vlad Guerrero Jr. were the only other players to clear 700. In 2021, there were only two, maybe because of like a post-pandemic hangover or something. But Semyon and Whit Merrifield were the only two to get over 700 played appearances in 2021. So it is indeed true that this year, so Ryan did like a five-year moving average because this spikes and decreases a lot from season to season. But 700 plus PA players per team, we're down very low now. It's like 0.1 or 0.2 now. And even looking at it as a percentage of qualifying players, it's it's very low it's now the moving average is like under four percent and that is uh just about a record well it's the record low since 1957 which was when you still had 154 game seasons so we are at the the lowest number of 700 plus PA guys in the 162 game season era. And then as for the qualified players per team, that's now down under four on average. And that is the lowest, I believe,

with the exception of 1946, which I assume was because that was the first year after World War II and probably players were returning from military service and displacing other players. So aside from that, we are now at the lowest number of qualified players per team, at least going back to like 1916 or so, like the dead ball era. And then we looked at it one more way, plate appearances per qualified player, just like the average number of PA per qualified player. And this year that was down under 600. The last couple of seasons, it was under 600 on average. And it's the first time that it's been this low since 1972, which was

the last season before the DH. so lowest of the DH era. So I think it's a combination of rest and load management and also somewhat low offense, especially in 2022. the lowest rate of 700 plus PA players in the 162 game season era, and also the lowest rate of qualifying players with the exception of one weird outlier year that was related to World War II, and also like fewest PA per qualified player since the DH came in. So I think it is true. We are heading toward a situation maybe where we have a team that does not have a single qualified hitter and maybe the 700 plus PA hitter

goes extinct or offense could bounce back and things will go in the other direction. But I think we're heading for that as of now. Yeah, yeah. All right.

Interesting observation from Paul, prompted by the Marlins of all teams. All right. We have the Mets here. So the Mets, one interesting thing. We didn't talk about them at all this year. Like not even a little bit. Finally, given the Mets some airtime. Some airtime.

But one suggestion from George, and this was kind of your meet a major leaguer genre, but Nate Fisher, a former banker, he made his major league debut for the Mets August 21st. A year ago, Nate Fisher was employed by the First National Bank of Omaha, determining whether to approve commercial loans. On Sunday at Citizens Bank Park in his major league debut, he issued a denial to Philadelphia Phillies hitters. Good one. in his major league debut, he issued a denial to Philadelphia Phillies hitters. Good one. And he pitched three scoreless innings that day.

He said it was surreal. He's so thankful and so blessed, and it's his dream. But he was 26 years old. He was undrafted out of the University of Nebraska. He pitched in 12 games in A-ball for the Mariners in 2019. And then COVID came. And so he went into banking in Omaha, worked there until June of 2021. Then he re-signed with the Mariners, made it to AAA.

And then he wound up with the Mets and made his major league debut. And the quote in the story from Buck Showalter is, it's pretty cool. Great quote, Buck. And Mark Canna said said his teammate quote i didn't even know who this guy was when he came into the game today anyway oh boy yeah so someone asked him whether the tougher work environment was this or the bank he said probably the phillies lineup but those days can get long

at the bank too so i missed that story this is why we do meet a major leaguer and this is why we do this as well and and that ended up being his only major league game of the season sadly but it was it was a good one it was a good debut yeah and then the other metsets nomination from Corey. So the Mets kind of dominated the league in replay challenge efficiency. And the Mets replay guy, Harrison Friedland, became a cult hero among the team and the fan base for being so good at deciding when to challenge. So I was not aware, but the Mets, if I can find the correct tab here, they had the highest percentage of overturns, right? So the highest rate of their replay challenges that were successful, that were good challenges. not only the highest rate this year, but it was the highest rate on record for any team that had as many challenges as they had. So the Mets went 26 for 33. So they had a 78% replay overturn rate, which is quite impressive. I think the next best team was down at 60%, the Cardinals, and I think the MLB average was just under 48%.

So most challenges are not successful, but the Mets were 78% successful. And they challenged 33 times, which was on the low side, but not extremely low. It wasn't like they were just so sparing in their challenges that they only did it when it was super obvious. They were something like maybe bottom third, but not extremely low. And so they had the highest success rate for a team with as many challenges in the post-2014 replay era. And their replay review guy, Harrison Friedland, became so known among Mets fans that Buck Showalter earlier this month went out of his way to announce that the Mets had re-signed replay guy Harrison Friedland. And I looked at his LinkedIn and Harrison Friedland, before he joined the Mets in the spring of 2021, he was a replay operator for Major League Baseball for like four years.

So, yeah, he's worked on that side of things. He's been a replay operator for the league. And then they signed him. He knows the system in and out. He knows the inner workings. And he has been able to put that to use to give the Mets a great replay overturn rate. So we'll see if he can keep it up this season or if it's a one-year wonder. But impressive performance by the Mets and Showalter and Friedland.

We've gotten the question in the past a couple of times of like, where can teams spend money to try to like eke out marginal advantages? And it's like maybe one of the places is to like really overpay your replay guy or personally it doesn't have to be a guy right it isn't like there's such a disparity like the the twins led the majors with 51 challenges and they had a 50 success rate the red socks had only 18 challenges and they had a 44% success rate. So it wasn't like even they were picking their spots. They just, it depends on the manager. It depends on the replay operator, but the success rates range from 78% to 34%.

That was the Rangers, although they were one of the more prolific challengers. So it really does vary quite a bit by team. All right, for the Nationals, there weren't a lot of great stories to go around. And so really the best suggestion we got was something about Sean Doolittle, who doesn't love Sean Doolittle, but he was back with the Nationals, of course, and he didn't actually pitch much because he got hurt and he only got into six games. But off the field,

He got hurt and he only got into six games. But off the field, he and his wife, Erin Dolan, are advocates for many causes. And one of those causes is D.C. statehood. So they've gotten very into the D.C. statehood movement, which I don't think I was really aware of. And so there's a Washington Post piece from August by Barry Svrluga about their D.C. statehood advocacy. And they were also, Sean and Aaron, they were named two of the 10 Washingtonians of the year by Washingtonian Magazine, which is not even a sports magazine. Very cool. And they are just full-time DC people. They love the city. They have bought a place there. They live there year round, even in the off season.

Even if he's not on the Nationals, I guess they live there, although I think that they resigned him, so he's going to be back on the Nationals. But they just love DC and they're advocating for statehood. And one thing that I learned that I didn't know from this article is that the slogan of DC that's on the license plates, which used to be taxation without representation, that has changed to end taxation without representation. Oh, good. Yeah, it's a good edit, I think. Because if you didn't have end there, you might think they're proud of it. Like, hell yeah, taxation without representation.

But the end, I think, is pretty important. If you're against taxation without representation, then you probably want to make that clear if you have room on the license plate. So that's good. And they laid out how important it is to have that representation and how historically it hasn't been the case for many reasons, obviously, like politically motivated, racially motivated reasons. But they are big advocates for getting DC representation. So I was not really aware of their work on that particular issue. Yeah. I don't want to begrudge ballplayers who live in the city where they play during the season and then have a, I was about to say an ancestral home, which sounds so much more

highfalutin than I think anyone probably thinks of it as but like you know they have their home where they go during the off season like that's that's a fine arrangement and i get why folks do it and like for a lot of these guys they don't get to pick where they live during the season anyway so i get it but it is it is always so cool when a player and his family like really make the place where they're playing home and and invest in the well-being of that community it's nice when that works out that way and yeah like an incredibly important issue that impacts like one of our biggest and most important cities and they just don't have adequate representation in congress it's freaking wild man so yeah it's really cool that that has become a philanthropic

and political priority for them. Very cool. All right. The Padres, the suggestions were about Joe Musgrove and his trip to Antarctica. So Joe Musgrove made a trip to Antarctica after the season. And this was partly for charity and partly just because I guess he thought it would be fun to go to Antarctica, which does seem like it would be fun. My mom went to Antarctica not long ago. I'd like to go to Antarctica sometime. I would not want to have some horrible environmental impact, but it sounds like Joe Musgrove's trip to Antarctica was about as environmentally friendly as it could possibly be and that that was a priority and so he set the world record for fastball speed in antarctica which i don't know if that was uh particularly

competitive but he wanted to throw at least 80 miles per hour ultimately he got his way up to 86 which is not bad for a guy who topped out at 95 during the regular season. There's a video of him throwing the pitch and he's wearing boots. He's on flat ground. You have Antarctic temperatures, probably not a full warmup. So pretty impressive Velo, though I guess he didn't have to hold anything back for the second and third time through the order. So that is the new record. It's not yet Guinness certified, although it has been submitted. It's pending approval by the Guinness World Records book for the fastest pitch thrown in Antarctica. I really don't know what the previous record was, as the stories do not say. But one thing I didn't know, like apparently in order to do this, I'm quoting from the MLB.com piece.

It was a trip months upon months in the making. It was a trip months upon months in the making. Musgrove and polar exploration guide Neil Drake spent five months simply applying for permits to throw a pitch on Antarctica, a process to ensure that nothing they did would damage the environment or local wildlife. Musgrove was required to submit numerous bits of information, including his average release point and his career stats. Wow. including his average release point and his career stats. I don't know whether his ears were shiny when he threw this pitch or not, but I'm surprised I get getting a permit to go there, but specifically to throw a pitch there, I guess you wouldn't want to hit a penguin with a stray pitch or hit a polar bear or something.

I don't know if that was a real risk, but apparently everything was cleared and on the level. And this was for fundraising as well for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. And he was able to bring some people with physical challenges with him on the trip. He turned 30 when he was in Antarctica. And really, the story buries the lead because it says that Sean Minaya, his teammate on the Padres last year, caught the pitch. So all the headlines are like Joe Musgrove goes to Antarctica, but Sean Minaya went to Antarctica too, and he caught this pitch apparently. So that was kind of an interesting story. It's more interesting, I guess, than what most athletes do on their off seasons. He conceived this idea during an off day fishing trip and I guess just decided why not go to Antarctica and throw a fast pitch there for charity. Yeah.

All right. And he really committed to the bit. Ben, if you ever do go to Antarctica, you know, you don't have to do the pod when you go. Yeah, that might be tough. Yeah. We will find some guests, co-hosts, and then you can tell us all about your adventure when you go we yeah we will yeah we will find some guests co-hosts and then you can tell us all about your adventure when you get back i just you know you're prone to not taking days off

yes i'm just saying you can take those days off if the time ever right thank you i don't know what the wi-fi situation is probably i mean i hope it's bad i mean i guess not for the sake of the researchers who work there but it seems like if if ever there's a time to be like, no, I'm busy, leave me alone. It's when you go to literally Antarctica. Yes. And let me clarify before we get emails, penguins are in Antarctica, polar bears are not in Antarctica. Polar bears are on the other side. They're in the Arctic, penguins. So only one of the two could have potentially been hit by that. It's good you said that because we definitely would have gotten emails. Absolutely would have gotten emails.

And we should have. Yep. All right. And Musgrove also, he took Polaroids of the Padres season all year. He documented it via Polaroid. And took like close to 200 Polaroid pictures and wants to turn that into a coffee table book with proceeds also going to charity. Cool.

Yeah. A very philanthropic person, Joe Musgrove. So we should celebrate that and not just mention the potential unproven sticky stuff. Yeah. Okay. All right. For the Phillies. So the Phillies had a save in five of their 11 postseason wins.

This was pointed out by listener Jeremy. Five different pitchers obtained those saves. Oh. And Jeremy asked if that was a fun fact. And I think that that is a fun fact because the Phillies are only the second team to have five players each record a save in the postseason. The only other was the 2020 Dodgers, who went all the way. Obviously, if you're going to do this, you probably had a pretty deep playoff run to give more pitchers chances to get saves. But the Dodgers, they had more of a designated closer. Kenley Jansen got multiple saves for that team. Whereas for the Phillies, it was one save a piece.

So each of the five just had one save. Jose Alvarado, Serenity Dominguez, Zach Eflin, David Robertson, and Ranger Suarez. Each of them had five saves. So they kind of had a closer by committee sort of in a playoff run where they won the pennant. So that's kind of cool. And also Justin suggested that we should note that Andrew Painter tore up the minor leagues this year, the Phillies' top prospect.

He really was ridiculously good. Yeah. And I don't know that we mentioned that, but he's very young. He's very good. Painter is a great pitching name. Oh, yeah. Just like Lance Painter, although I think no relation.

But Andrew Painter, I think no relation but Andrew Painter he led the minor leagues minimum 100 innings pitched he led the minors in strikeout minus walk rate and I think it wasn't all that close he was I think second in strikeout rate behind Kyle Harrison of the Giants, but first in strikeout minus walk rate 32.4. And yeah, he went from A to high A to double A in his age 19 season. And he was just totally dominant. Like he struck out 39% of the hitters he faced and walked only 6% and had a 156 ERA and a 2.02 FIP. So he was just totally dominant. And I think Baseball Perspectives was the only place to rank him in the top 100 coming into the season, and it was not high on the top 100.

So he just he had a really fantastic swing and miss here. All right. The Pirates. Matt pointed out that after trading for Jiman Choi, the Pirates briefly had three Korean inf they tend to broadcast games with Korean players playing. And because the Pirates had three Korean infielders at that point, they were like, oh, man, we're going to have to watch Pirates games now. So that was the takeaway for them. And also, Andrew pointed out that Jason Kendallason kendall pirates legend was hired in a player development role for the pirates so that was a nice little homecoming for pirates fans because

kendall was the bright spot on a lot of terrible pirates teams and a great homegrown pirates success story who if he hadn't hurt himself i i think really could have been a hall of fame type player and was a hall of very good player as it was. So he's back in the fold and perhaps helping to develop a new generation of productive pirates. So that's nice. All right. The Reds, our second to last team, and we will talk about them. So a few things. Aaron suggested that we talk about the fact that the 62 and 100 Cincinnati Reds had a winning record against the AL East. Okay. Small sample, but impressive.

I also wanted to point out, Joe Sheehan mentioned this in a recent newsletter, but Hunter Green, whom we certainly did discuss this season. Yes, we did. But he had a really interesting arc to his season because he came up as this flame throwing top prospect and he got tattooed initially yeah and his fastball was getting creamed yep which was ironic because he threw it so hard but it wasn't well located or was straight or whatever so then he moves away from the fastball and starts throwing his slider more and and that was good that was effective but then his fastball got good and so he kind of backed away from the slider a bit and started throwing the fastball more and was incredible. So after the all-star break, and I didn't realize this because he missed some time with a shoulder strain. And so he made only six starts after the all-star break. But in those starts, 1.02 ERA, 1.7 FIP, 37% strikeout rate with a 51 to 8 strikeout to walk ratio. So he looked like the totally dominant ace level pitcher that everyone had hoped Hunter Green could be.

So if that's a sign of things to come, then watch out. It could be a really interesting 2023 for him. watch out. It could be a really interesting 2023 for him. But it's cool because I was struck by that story early on because you'd figure, oh, he's going to be great with his fastball because he throws it so hard. But then he kind of went in the direction that everyone in the league goes, which is like throwing fewer fastballs, even if you do have a good one. And it was just another example of the old adage about how major league hitters can hit velocity if they know where it's going to be or they know it's coming. And he didn't have that much unpredictability. And once he started mixing in the slider, he was good.

But then once he started locating the fastball, he was also really good. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he does in 2023 because it could be quite exciting. Yeah. seeing what he does in 2023 because it could be quite exciting. And also, and I can't believe I missed this story, but another meet a major leaguer genre for the Reds. So Chucky Robinson made his debut. Yeah. At what age do you stop going by Chucky? Apparently not age 28 because-

Zero days old. Never go by Chucky. No. Chucky Robinson who turned 28 this month so he was 27 when he debuted and he's a third generation player his uh father and grandfather had also been professional baseball playing chuck robinson's he's from danville illinois so big chuck chuck senior played one season in the White Sox organization in the 60s, and then Little Chuck played in the Cubs system for a season in the 90s. And here's the interesting thing. They were all catchers. Chucky Robinson is a catcher, and he is Black. He's African-American, so he's a Black catcher. And we have talked about how few

Black catchers and African-American catchers there have been in Major League Baseball and the reasons for that. We did an interview in an episode about that. And I can't believe I missed this somehow because Chuck Robinson, in August, when he debuted late that month, he became the first, I believe, African-American catcher since Bruce Maxwell from 2016 to 18. And then there was Russell Martin, who was Canadian, who last played in 2019. And then there had been a drought. And then Chuck Robinson came along. And he only got into 25 games and 60 plate appearances, and he did not hit at all at the major league level. but he got there and it was a big story for big Chuck and little Chuck.

And I guess littlest Chuck or Chucky. Chucky Robinson. It does sound like a name from a different era of baseball. Yeah. Or from like Little League. Yeah. Or Sandlot or something. Something. Yeah. 21st round draft pick Sandlot or something. Something.

Yeah, 21st round draft pick by the Astros in 2016. As a four-year-old, he went to Big Chuck. His grandfather told him he wanted to be a baseball player when he grew up, and Big Chuck and Little Chuck were both there and around to see him make his debut. So that was just a wonderful story for multiple levels and i i blame everyone for not alerting me to this fact because you all know we don't talk about the reds so you have to inform us you have to tell us stuff about the reds you know something newsworthy happens with the reds you gotta let us know yeah Thank you. All right. And lastly, we got to the

Colorado Rockies. And we really didn't get any suggestions for the Rockies. I was like, anyone, Rockies? Good, good Rocky stories. And there just wasn't much out there. So fortunately, I saw a story that was very well-timed, published this week by MLB.com, that supplied me with a fun little Rockies entry here. So this was published on Boxing Day by Sam Dykstra, and it was, These Five Minor League Systems Improved Most in 2022. So this was going by the preseason and end of season MLB pipeline organizational rankings, which probably mirror other systems, other sites and outlets. But the Rockies were number one on this list because their preseason rank, according to Pipeline, was 24th and their

re-rank at the end of the season was ninth and so they made the biggest climb and the blurb mentioned that at the beginning of the season they had only one top 100 prospect Zach Veen whom we have discussed he is still at the top of the Rockies list but now they have Ezekiel Tovar and Ariel Amador and Drew Romo. And Tovar had a big season. He was known as a defensive shortstop. And then he hit better at AA. And he actually made the majors toward the end of the season, which we may have mentioned. And then they drafted Gonzaga right-hander Gabriel Hughes 10th overall in the draft.

And so that gave them a good high ceiling pitcher to go with the other guys. So the Rockies now, at least according to Pipeline, have a top 10 system after being almost a bottom five system to start the year. So that's good. Congrats, Rockies. That's a nice positive story. And the other teams that had the biggest improvements, the Reds, were second, the Guardians and the Cubs and the Nationals. So other than the Guardians, pretty uncompetitive teams, which is what you would expect, I guess, that those would be the teams making farm system gains. So the Guardians, I mean, even more encouraging, right, that they had such a young team and then also an improving farm system and they won the division just but we'll get to that in the al edition of this but something to feel good about on the farm at least for rocky's fans i maintain that the most exciting thing was wenton bernard making the majors

in 2022 but i've already made my case for that in a major, major leaguer. We talked about it. Yep. So, you know, what are you going to do? All right. Well, that concludes that exercise, or at least the NL edition. And we will wrap up with the AL teams later in the week. And I'll just give you the pass blast. This is episode 1947, big year in baseball history. And this pass blast comes from Jacob Pomeranke, Sabres Director of Editorial Content and Chair of the Black Sox Scandal Research Committee.

And he writes, 1947, and then there were two. For nearly two years after the Dodgers signed Jackie Robinson in 1945, Brooklyn was the only AL or NL team that seemed to show much interest in signing black players. Before Robinson made his historic debut in 1947, the Dodgers also went out and signed future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella and star pitcher Don Newcomb, along with several other Negro Leagues veterans, but no other teams followed Branch Rickey's lead. The Dodgers also might have added a third Hall of Famer to their roster in Larry Doby, who instead became the first black player in American league history when he made his debut with Cleveland on July 5th, 1947. One week later, on July 12th, 1947, Wendell Smith of the Pittsburgh Courier

wrote about how close the Dodgers came to signing Dobie. Quote, If Cleveland had waited a little longer, they would have missed getting Larry Dobie's signature on a contract. At the time, Cleveland grabbed the hard-hitting second baseman of the Newark Eagles. The Brooklyn Dodgers were trailing him night and day. Although Dobie did not know it himself, the Dodgers had a scout eyeing him in every game he had played for the past three weeks.

It could be that Cleveland knew the Dodgers were hounding the Negro second baseman and stole a march on them by snatching him from right under Branch Rickey's nose. The Dodgers planned to sign Dobie and send him to Montreal. On the Dodgers' last trip to Chicago, Rickey dispatched a wire to his Brooklyn office and ordered his scouts to, quote, get back on Doby's trail and also to start negotiating with Mr. and Mrs. Abe Manley, owners of the Newark team, for his contract. Bill Veck, the liberal and personable owner of Cleveland, has been interested in a Negro player ever since he purchased the club. He first heard of Die last winter when Bill Nunn, managing editor of

the Pittsburgh Courier, went to Cleveland and discussed the entire idea with him. At the time, Vec assured Nunn that he wouldn't hesitate to sign an Negro player if he were good enough to make the grade. Nunn sang the praises of Dobie and urged Vec to look the kid over real good. And of course he did and signed Dobie and doby went on to his own great hall of fame career although he struggled initially and uh there was an incident with a former effectively wild guest the late eddie robinson who was initially upset that he had lost his job to doby and felt he had been told something different and guaranteed job security but eventually doby became a regular and solidified his spot on the roster the following

season and went on to a great career. Jacob concludes, Dobie didn't see much playing time in 1947, but he switched to centerfield and emerged as a star in 48, helping Cleveland win its most recent World Series championship. He played 13 more seasons and was elected to the Hall in 1998. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Browns became the third AL or NL team to field black players in 1947 when they signed Hank Thompson and future Hall of Famer Willard Brown from the Kansas City Monarchs in mid-July. Although that didn't go quite as well because they hadn't really laid the groundwork for that the way that the Dodgers and other teams did.

Anyway, the Dodgers could have had Campanella Robinson and Doby, but I guess it's for the best that those players were spread around a little bit more and that other teams got in on the action, however belatedly. Yep. All right, update on the Lars Knut Bar Pepper Grinder. This product at fancave.com is actually listed $169, but it is currently on sale for $99.99, and there are only four left. So act now if you just have to have the Lars Knutpar St. Louis Cardinals Autographed Red Pepper Grinder 8 inches with inscription.

The same website has an autographed framed photo of Lars Knutpar with a Grind That Pepper inscription for $169. Really, if you're so into the Lars Knut Bar pepper thing, why would you spend the same amount of money to get a photo with that inscription instead of that inscription on an actual pepper grinder? That seems like a much better buy in the realm of this questionable buy. Or if you want the discount options, you could get an unframed photo with the Grind That Pepper inscription for a mere $79. Or a signed baseball, again, Grind That Pepper, quite a catchphrase, $89. The same website is actually selling a Lars Knutbar autographed baseball without the inscription for $69. Nice, but the Grind That Pepper inscription is evidently worth $20 just by itself. Fascinating. You could also save all the money that you could spend on a Lars Knutbar grind that pepper related item and spend

it on Effectively Wild instead. You can become a Patreon supporter and support the show by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up to help us keep doing the podcast and help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Thank you. and playoff live streams, plus discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships and more. You can contact me and Meg via email at podcastfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at

r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We will be back with another episode soon. Talk to you then. I missed it. I missed it. I missed it.