Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2062: Competing Padres Postmortems

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the five-year anniversary of a Twitter wager about Adalberto Mondesi and Shohei Ohtani, then compare and contrast two in-depth articles about the problems supposedly plaguing the Padres and discuss how convincing they find those reports’ explanations for the team’s disappointing season (plus additional banter about the possible reasons […]

More than 2,000 episodes retrospectively filed, and at each new one we still collectively smile. That's Effectively Wild. That's Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2062 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. If I sound especially jubilant today, it's because it's really a landmark day for me.

You know why. Listeners may remember, but probably won't unless they've set up a Google alert to remind them about this, that five years ago, five years ago today, in fact, a tweet or a series of tweets was sent that I have caused myself to recall lo these many years later. We discussed this first, I believe, on episode 1960 back in late January because the Red Sox had acquired Adalberto Mondesi, which gave me an excuse to bring up an exchange that occurred on Twitter this time in 2018 between Bill James and one at JMC underscore PGH about who had the better career outlook, who would end up with the most career war, Alberto Mondesi or Shohei Otani. And at JMC underscore PGH, sorry, I can't make that sound snappier, said, I would bet a significant amount of money that Ohtani will be greater than Mondesi in career war. Because Bill James had tweeted that although Mondesi was not eligible for the Rookie of the Year award, he seems like, Bill said, obviously the best new player of the year. And that was a year when Shohei Otani was a new player in Major League Baseball, at least.

And in response to that response, Bill said, Commissioner doesn't allow me to bet. He was still working for the Red Sox at that time. Right. And I don't have a significant amount of money, but I'll graciously accept your apology in five years. And five years now have passed. And the reply to his reply was, fair enough, gentlemen's wager then. It's rare that I find myself disagreeing with you. And Bill said, we'll try to remember it.

And I said, there is no try. There's only do or do not. And I set up a Google alert. Oh, my God, Ben. Yeah. This is not something I do regularly, by the way, for the purposes of like dunking on things that people said several years earlier. I'm not the old takes exposed Twitter account. I don't make a habit of this. I believe this is my only or was my only active Google alert reminder for the

purposes of semi-dunking on someone. But for five years, I've just been waiting and waiting for this moment to arrive. It's never been that far from my mind. I probably didn't even need the Google alert. I forgot which day it was. I knew it was coming sometime late this season and I was sort of looking forward to it. Didn't want to look it up to remind myself which day it would be because I wanted it to be a nice surprise. And boy, was it ever. I woke up this morning and first thing I saw in my inbox was notification, This morning, the first thing I saw in my inbox was notification. Bill James tweet about Otani slash Mondesi.

Ben, I wish I, you know, several people sent me your tweet. I want you to know that. It was more than one. Were people praising me for remembering, for being so diligent? Or was it more of a, how could anyone possibly be so petty as to remember this five years later? You weren't called petty. I think that there is maybe a growing concern about how much mental real estate a person you've never met is occupying. I, you know, will admit that my reaction upon seeing the tweet was one of terror, really, you know, pure terror, because one of the ways that my own anxiety manifests is to be convinced that,

anxiety manifests is to be convinced that, you know, people remember social indiscretions, unkind things, awkward things I've said and done in the past. And we get along really nicely, you know, we're friends, friendly. But it did make me go, okay, what does Ben remember that I have done? Yeah, what Meg tweet have I secretly recorded? Yeah, and you know, the good news for me, and really, you know, this is just a bit of sad timing for Bill, because there's gonna come a time, probably in the not too distant future, where this would have just been lost, you know, to the inevitable collapse of Twitter. Thank goodness Elon didn't completely destroy Twitter slash X before the five year anniversary of this gentleman switcher. That's the important thing here. Yeah. Although you can tell that it's coming because every time I log into Blueski now I have like 20 new followers and it's not because the posts are so dynamic over there. But yeah, wow, Ben.

Wow. Yeah. Look, it's not a growing fixation. It was an existing fixation because this was already a problem apparently five years ago when I made a note to remind myself of this in five years. So it was like a nice little time capsule, you know, like you dig up the little box that you buried and you get to reminisce about things that you cared about then. And maybe you don't care about them anymore, or maybe you care about them even more than you did then, as I do with Shohei Otani.

Oh, yeah, boy. Shohei Otani. Oh, yeah, boy. Anyway, I guess the high road would have been not noting this at all. Right. But I didn't say, suck it, right? Right. I added the two parties directly.

Didn't call the attention of all of my followers to the tweet. Really, my purpose here was to congratulate at JMC underscore PGH for his wisdom and foresight. And to this point, you know, because I responded to Bill's five-year-old tweet where he said, we'll try to remember it. And I said, oddly enough, I remembered it. And I wish them a happy anniversary of the tweet. And I said that despite the present injuries, now both of these players are injured presently. And Mondesi has been injured probably most of the time since the original wager. But it would have been nicer if this had come under better circumstances for Shohei Otani. He was recently shut down for the season and is facing surgery. But those injuries aside, I think he has established his edge here. And I did say that

I think Otani has had the slightly superior past five years. You know, it's close. It's Mondesi's within 30 war or so. And people might say that the bet was that Otani would have a greater career war than Mondesi and their careers have not concluded. And so it is not decided and settled. But Bill is the one who instituted the five year window. No one to blame but himself. Yeah. He said he'd accept the apology in five years. And if anyone's extending an apology here, it should be Bill. And as far as I know, he has not seen this tweet. He has not been active on Twitter in the past week or so, which

well done. Congrats to him. I hope he never sees this because it would mean that he wasn't on Twitter and wasn't tweeting, which might be for the best. But at JMC underscore PGH retweeted it, which I thought was, you know, he didn't do any dunking himself. Just a simple retweet. He didn't say, I told you so. He just retweeted, right? Which I think was nice.

I would love to know whether he remembered this. I'm sure he didn't. I should ask whether he remembered it because why would I when the people involved in the pet? For all I know, they both made a note of it and would have followed up on this themselves without my intercession. But I guess we'll never know. Yeah. Wow, Ben. You know?

Wow. It feels good to have this off my mind because there was always some little in the back of my mind somewhere. I was thinking there's unfinished business here. Something still hasn't been resolved. What is it? Oh, right. The bet that Bill James made with someone on Twitter five years ago. You know, I think part of what inspired people to send me your tweet is that you are not a dunker.

You know, that's not your MO. Yeah, I barely tweet for that matter. who are inclined to perhaps be a little less discerning with their dunks and just show that if one picks one's spots, even a fairly anodyne response can have impact, you know. But your impact will invariably be blunted if you're popping off all the time and perhaps don't appreciate the usefulness of a dimmer switch, a volume slider. So really, you're doing a public service in the waning days of that social media platform. Yeah. I think what people appreciated or alternatively were alarmed about was the way I counted Monte Cristo'd this, that I bided my time and that I just came out of the woodwork five years later, long after everyone and anyone had forgotten this.

So thanks to Google for helping jog my memory as well. And look, in Bill's defense, Ohtani's pitching outlook was uncertain at that time, as it is now. And Adalberto Mondesi was a hyped player. People had high hopes for Adalberto Mondesi, right? Now, Bill loved Adalberto Mondesi. This was not just one isolated tweet from him. And, you know, he's a Kansas City area guy, and I'm sure he appreciated seeing Mondesi. He was a fun player. So in April of the following year, he tweeted Adalberto Mondesi as a future MVP, just for those of you not watching. And earlier in 2019, he had a poll about where Mondesi would rank among shortstops. And Bill said, my opinion, he's unlikely to be number one, but more likely than not to be top five. And he said, I'd certainly rather have Mondesi than Carlos Correa or Trevor Story.

I did not set up a reminder about that tweet. That's big of you. Yeah, but Mondesi was a promising player. He had plate discipline issues for sure. Yeah. But he also was very fast and was a good base dealer and a good defender. And in 2018, he only played 75 games, 291 played appearances, but he had 113 WRC plus and two and a half war in half a season or so and was a 22 year old at that point.

So the sky was sort of the limit. And really, we never got to see what a healthy Mondesi would do or we haven't yet. Right. So he hasn't played at all this season. He's just been out with injuries the whole time. So in that sense, we never got to see what would have happened if both had been healthy or if Mondesi had been healthy. And I'm sure you could find many, many things that I was wrong about

and probably things I was wrong about exactly five years ago too. Sure. But I was not wrong about this one specific thing. No. No. In this respect, you were correct. All right. Well, now that we've dispensed with that important business, I know everyone like me was waiting

with bated breath for the milestone day to arrive. So I want to talk about two articles that we have just read that are basically postmortems for the Padres, who technically are not dead yet. They're like the guy in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, not dead yet. They're throwing them on the cart. They're still technically alive. And there is a way that they could make the postseason and that way would basically be like winning all their games and most of the other teams that are ahead of them losing a lot of their games. They have won five in a row, which for the 2023 Padres is pretty exciting. However, the season as a whole has been disastrous. And so now we're getting some long reads on what went wrong,

right? Sort of dissecting the failures of the 2023 Padres. And there was one that ran last week by Kevin Acey in the San Diego Union Tribune. And there was one that ran on Tuesday this week in The Athletic from Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin. And I'd say they have different emphases and different explanations for what went wrong. And to their credit, both acknowledge that the Padres seemingly have been historically unlucky and that there's an element of flukiness to their season. But that is not the main thrust of these pieces. Both are pointing fingers in various directions and saying that there's some underlying issue with the Padres, with their management, with their organization, with their clubhouse, with their leadership.

There's one quote about it being toxic. Moore seemed to paint it as sort of rudderless. And the AC piece, the local media piece from last week, that emphasized the clubhouse and an alleged leadership void. And I would say specifically singled out Manny Machado above all other players and personnel as being to blame there. And the athletic piece, I would say, trained its sights on the front office and specifically A.J. Preller. So these are two pretty competing, although they have some elements in common explanations for what has gone wrong. Why have the Padres run off the rails? And I guess we can talk about what we make of these arguments, whether any argument is necessary other than, boy, the Padres sure have been extremely unlucky this season because just to update everyone on that so the Padres as we speak are 73 and 78

and yet they have outscored their opponents 708 to 629 I think they have the fourth best run differential in the National League. Yes. And they have had truly terrible timing. Like, just shocking, almost historic. Are they cursed? Do we need to contemplate supernatural kind of bad sequencing and such. It's like really, it's really a lot, you know? Yes, they are 0-11 in extra inning games. So exceeded only by the 1969 Expos who were 0-12 in extras.

Padres can still catch them or get off that list entirely of most extra inning losses without a win. They are second place all time. And they are 6-22 in games decided by one run. And so if you do away with the double counting there because some extra innings games are also one run games. Sure. Then they are 6-26, as Joe Sheehan noted in his newsletter on Tuesday, in those two categories combined. So truly terrible. And all of the underlying metrics and the deserved metrics say that they should be a winning team, that they should be a playoff team, that they should perhaps be sitting pretty with the top wildcard spot at this point, right? So base runs says that

they are 10 games worse than their record should be. Their record should be 83 and 68. So their base runs and third order records both have them with a 550 expected winning percentage. The Royals, by the way, 12 games below their base runs record. So as bad as they've been, they should only have been bad, but not really, really bad. Whereas the A's who were right there with the Royals, only three games worse than their base runs record. They're earning all of it, you know, for the most part. Yeah. So if you look at Pythagorean record, the most accurate single exponent version of that, which we got to credit Bill James for, you know, if we take away something for his Montessori Otani tweet. We've got to acknowledge his many important contributions to sabermetrics and baseball analysis. You were doing your own little project over there, Ben.

That was a Ben special. But yes, we should acknowledge that. Yeah. So their Pythagorean record, if you use the 1.83 exponent, the most accurate version of that, their expected record 552 winning percentage. winning percentage and their actual, again, is a lot lower than that. Even after the recent winning streak, it's what, 483 is their winning percentage right now. So I think the difference between their expected and actual records is 69 points, extremely not nice of winning percentage, which I think is like the 13th biggest gap ever among teams that have played at least this many games. And when I first looked at this, they were, I think, second worst ever after the 1993 Mets, who were both bad and famously unlucky.

Anthony Young, who had that record of 27 straight decisions that were losses and was very unlucky, he played for that team. Anyway, they're one of the unluckiest teams ever, certainly, however you want to determine that. So you could just say, we don't need any other explanation for why they've been bad, but we've got multiple explanations. So how would you summarize these two pieces, I suppose, and then maybe we can get into which we find more convincing and how convincing we find either. And certainly there are seemingly particular relationships that are being cited as signs of dysfunction in each. manages in places where his input is not necessarily, not that it's not appropriate, but like the constancy of it and the level at which he is engaging in coaching and managerial decisions is counterproductive, right? And Perler has long had this reputation within the industry of being a guy who is always working. I don't think I'm speaking out of turn here.

Like, this is in Eric and Kylie's book. Like, there were times where Kylie saw Preller on a backfield in Florida one evening, and early the next afternoon, Eric saw him on a backfield in Arizona with, like, you know, a garbage bag of clothes and a big gulp. Right. This is a guy who is like, we regularly see in and around the backfields and complexes in Arizona in a way that is like not typical of a GM. And, you know, they are right to point out that he is very well regarded as a talent evaluator within the industry. But I think that I don't know AJ personally, you know, so I don't want to speak. I can only speculate to a certain degree here. But like, it does seem like the thing that AJ does is baseball. And that's it and the idea that other people who work for him might do other things like have families or sleep is like kind of a concept he's only vaguely familiar with right so

his issue as it is being identified in this piece is one of over involvement and an expectation of over involvement from his underlings right so there's that piece of it and then on the machado side of things the piece speaks to a void of leadership it's not that there is you know any doubt about the commitment that manny machado has to playing hard to playing well in contrast to our conversation about rendon from our previous episode, like, no one is really questioning Manny's give a sh**ness about baseball, but that isn't manifesting in active kind of like culture creation. And there are times in this piece where it sounds like when he has tried to step into that role this year and be like the guy leading the players only meeting

that there have been things pointed out in those meetings about like what they need to do to kind of all rally together and push the the team forward and get over the hump earlier in the season when it's like they're just trying to get going and build some positive momentum, you know, that there would be specific things talked about, but then Machado wouldn't be seen necessarily following through on those things himself. And there are a lot of guys in that clubhouse who have big, long contracts, but it seems at least that the perception around the rest of the team is that like all things kind of go through Manny. And so it might not be enough for him to just come in and play well and try to be a good baseball player. It sounds like people kind of have an expectation of more from him.

And you know, there are some quotes in this piece that suggest that there might be discord around that and sort of a gap in his expectations and what he views as necessary and what the rest of the roster does. So, you know, here I'm going to quote from the piece. He made it clear he does not believe that the Padres culture is a problem. And for that matter, strongly indicated he does not put much stock in the importance of cultivating a culture. What is this college baseball? He said at one point, what is this high school? And so I think that when teams are winning, it's not as if winning necessarily fixes culture issues and it's not like it necessarily creates a particular culture. Like sometimes guys who – and it doesn't sound like these guys like don't like each other, right? It's not like there's fights going on in the clubhouse.

It's not contentious or, you know, there's not rancor in that way. It doesn't sound like. Yeah. Although there are sometimes teams that are at each other's throats and they win. So, but yes. Yeah. And I was just about to say, like that combination of like winning and losing versus like a positive or negative culture. And like, that's such a, that can be a really amorphous concept. Like, what does that, what does culture mean? Like, what are we really doing what are we expecting from these guys if you had a culture you know it's not like there isn't culture when

there isn't a really cohesive one it's just that the culture is kind of loosey-goosey or or rudderless depending on how you want to say it like Like if, if the Padres had their exact culture that they have and there wasn't sound, it sounds like discord between Bob Melvin and AJ Preller, would this matter? I don't know. Cause then maybe Bob Melvin's the one who's supplying the culture. Right. And he's the guy who's like saying what needs to be done and not,

and he has a really excellent reputation with players and has kind of thought of as a, you know, a good leader of players and has had, you know, tricky assignments for different reasons than maybe you have in San Diego. But like, you know, I can't imagine dealing with the realities of the A's, even though they were winning when he was there, the realities of the A's, even though they were winning when he was there, is easy. So all of this stuff can kind of, I think, coexist. I don't read the piece that focuses on Machado and the one that focuses on Preller and think, well, one of these is right and the other is wrong. I think that these can coexist and I could see the disconnect between the front office and the coaching staff exacerbating whatever weird situation there is going on with the players. And like,

you know, it's a tricky thing. Like this gets pointed out in the athletic piece. It's not like Machado is the only guy on a long contract, but given the suspension and the injuries, it would be weird for Tatis maybe to assert himself in that way. Bogarts just got there, you know, and Soto is like a star and a big part of this lineup. He's been one of the guys who's actually been playing pretty well, but like he's a free agent after next season. So it would fall to Machado if we kind of think about it in terms of the natural hierarchies among position players in terms of contract and potential longevity and veteran status. But if he's not interested in doing that, at least not in the way that we tend to think of leadership manifesting, then maybe there is a void there.

I don't know. It's a weird thing to have to try to navigate. Like, it's a weird thing to have to try to navigate. And then if you combine that with a manager who is sort of feeling put upon by the front office and may actually be put upon, then, like, where do you look naturally, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Culture is sort of a nebulous concept. Concept, yeah. It's a fabulous concept. Concept, yeah. And so there aren't that many specific examples in the Machado article that pinpoint exactly what is emblematic of this Padres, none of the starters, appeared to take grounders infield practice before the game during a voluntary infield workout.

And it says it is a recurring scene that has roiled numerous veteran Padres players. And none of the days got under their skin like that one, which I don't totally understand because aren't they the ones who weren't taking the infield practice? Why are they roiled? I don't know. But it says that the Dodgers, they were all out there for pregame work and their stars and Mookie and Freeman. And so supposedly this is emblematic of the different cultures of those organizations. And then there are some other examples about how other teams will rally behind a batter who gets plunked and the Padres in some instances when a Padres batter gets hit, no one is on the top step or stirring or having that guy's back in a really demonstrative way, right? And then there's some other things that are, again, kind of, you know, it just talks about like a lack of engagement.

They've had multiple meetings throughout the season. And Machado, it says it was relayed to him that the types of things that could have been disregarded, the things that supposedly he wasn't following through on after saying that he and other players were going to be better about this, included being on time to meetings and buses, pregame work, executing unselfish at bats, or demonstrating a sense of engagement on the base paths or elsewhere. A sense of engagement. So it's sort of vague, but you could imagine that being a real thing. Now, Machado, I liked his quotes in that piece, right? He did say that, as you said, like he kind of questioned the idea of having to instill a culture like we're big boys, we're

grownups, we're major leaguers. Maybe we don't necessarily need the rah-rah high school college stuff. He said he follows through on everything he said. He said he thinks there is a sense of unity. He said, can there be more? Can there be a lot more? Yeah. I wouldn't say that there isn't any, that we were not together. So I think it's unfair for people to assume that or to think that. Everyone has different relationships, but can there be improvement? Yeah, there's always room for improvement. I guess the closest he came to acknowledging that there was some deeper problem is he said, I think we just didn't want it. I think overall as a group, we didn't want it as bad as Seattle did or as bad

as some of these other teams. I will say that. I think that's everyone's fault. It's everybody's fault. We didn't want it as a team. It falls down to the team. That's not necessarily one player. It's not an individual sport. So I think ultimately it comes down to all of us. We should have wanted it more. So in a sense, that backs up the thesis that the problem is a lack of desire, right? As opposed to a lack of performance or execution, although he then sort of undercuts that and denies that elsewhere, right? And basically, he seems to say that the bottom line is that they just didn't play well enough. He said, I think we did, of the idea of everyone pulling in the same direction.

We just didn't perform well. It goes back to where was this last year? We did the same thing last year. We did not change one thing. The only thing that changed was that we didn't perform. I did not perform. We did not perform. That's what it is. There's nothing else to it. We did not perform. When you

perform, everything is great. Everything is gravy. When you don't, you've got to deal with the consequences. And he pointed out last year, they made it to the NLCS. He said, we have the same group of guys, not entirely, but largely, we have the same clubhouse. I mean, a couple of guys here and there that are mixed in, but the majority of the guys are the same. None of these conversations came up last year when we were winning, but when you're losing and there's expectations and you don't perform at the highest level, this is what happens, right? And I'm sympathetic to that viewpoint.

I don't know that that's the whole story, but I think it's certainly true that if the Padres were playing better, that we wouldn't be talking about this. Now, you could say, well, yeah, because if they were playing better, it's because they didn't have this problem. If this problem is what's holding them back, then yeah, obviously, if this problem didn't exist and they were playing great, then we wouldn't have to talk about it because it wouldn't exist, right? But Machado said, these conversations start happening. Oh, well, there's no chemistry, there's no leadership, or there's no this or that. The clubhouse is getting lost. The manager has lost the clubhouse, the front office, this. There's always going to be stuff. And ultimately, it comes down to one thing. We didn't perform. I didn't perform what I'm capable of performing, et cetera, et cetera. So he said, that's the story.

I don't think there's anything else that can be talked about. And I think it's certainly true that throughout baseball history, it's the eternal question, the chicken and egg, what comes first, the clubhouse chemistry and the culture or the winning and which breeds the other and maybe each breeds the other. Maybe it's tough to pinpoint which is the other, and maybe each breeds the other. Maybe it's tough to pinpoint which is the original. But I think there's a lot of truth to that. Not that I can really speak from experience, my very limited professional baseball experience

of just being in the Sonoma Stompers clubhouse during the 2015 Pacific Association season, which was one short season at a low level of pro baseball that I'm not suggesting is analogous to the major leagues, but it totally fit just to a tee. And we wrote about this in The Only Rule Is It Has To Work. Just everything you hear about how when you're winning, everyone's getting along and clubhouse chemistry is there. And then when you're losing, things start to sour, which was exactly what happened

with the Stoppers that season. We started off great and everyone was palling around and joking. And then we started losing and suddenly people were on edge and getting in dumb fights and complaining about things. And the good clubhouse chemistry came before the bad clubhouse chemistry. It's just that the winning also came before the losing. So I think a lot of that can be chalked up to that. But it's not mutually exclusive, I suppose, to say that there's still an issue here that they haven't handled the adversity as well as they could have because of some leadership void. I don't know. It's tough to single out Machado because he plays so much

and he's been playing through an injury all year. And even last year too, like he's going to have to have elbow surgery. He has tennis elbow, baseball elbow. And so he's been limited to DH a lot. He's had a down year by his standards. And so that's certainly a way of leading by example, right? Just gutting it out and getting out there every day. So there are multiple types of leadership as the story acknowledges. real insight into versus not. But I tend to think that from an outsider's perspective, the pieces of it that you want to pay closer attention to are institutional markers of culture. And that tends to be more the domain of the general manager and the manager than it does individual players. And that doesn't mean that there can't be guys

who are bad clubhouse presences. It doesn't mean that there can't be guys who are like bad clubhouse presences. It doesn't mean that there can't be guys who behave in ways that are counterproductive to the coming together of the team in pursuit of wins. That can absolutely happen. And I think we can think of examples of teams that have experienced some addition by subtraction when guys have left or been traded or what have you. But what I would

say is that I would imagine that there is just so much variance year to year on how the particular soup of how players' individual seasons are going, how their games and skills interact with one another? Do you win at anything approaching a normal clip in one run and extra in games? You know, like all of that stuff is going to be, I think, hard to like solidify into a persistent culture year after year because, you know, so much of it is going to be, are we winning? Does that make us feel happy versus are we losing in ways that feel stupid and that makes us grumpy and so like it's kind of guys aren't putting in as much toward the end of a long season as they maybe should or maybe it's reasonable that they take a little off at the end because

they're exhausted. Like, I just think that that is hard to say, here is the precise formula that we need in order to navigate this. It's just going to be largely determined by circumstance. And you want guys who are working hard and trying. And I do think that there are parts of clubhouse culture that it's good for players to codify. Like, how do we treat young guys when they're coming up? You know, what are our expectations of mutual respect within the clubhouse? How do we have good communication with each other? Like, those things I think should be a little more record and circumstance proof. And I do think that that is stuff that you have to like proactively institute as a culture. I think that's a place where veterans really can have a positive impact on a clubhouse, even if the team isn't doing well, where it's like, okay, we're going to be a place where like, we don't do weird unwritten rules, nonsense with young guys just to do it right where we're focused on mentorship rather than hierarchy right like i think that those things are a little more durable

or should hopefully are more durable year to year but like some of the stuff that is being described as part of preller's sort of expectations of the front office and the way that he conducts himself. Like that stuff that I think can be unfortunately relied upon more year to year and probably does lend itself to some amount of course correction or change. And that's probably going to have to come from ownership because I think everyone who goes into working in baseball is pretty realistic about the demands on time that that requires. But from what I have heard and from multiple people both within the Padres at various points and from other teams, the dude just needs to let people sleep a little bit more than he seems inclined to you know um i don't know that anyone thinks that you're going to have like a nine to five and then you go home like people know that's not how working for a baseball team works but even within

an industry that i think has a pretty unhealthy relationship with work-life balance. Like people look at the Padres and they're like, dude, like come on. So I think if I were assessing what needs to be sorted out, I would be much more inclined to do a hard audit on the institutional practices of the front office than I would be like how well Manny Machado is like modeling a particular understanding of leadership and that's not to say that like what he is doing is adequate but like that feels to me like something that is more for the players and the coaching staff to litigate than it is like an ownership question. Whereas, you know, if your front office is like in disarray and it's not making sense from a process perspective and the expectations that you are setting for your employees are just like patently

unrealistic, that's something that like I think requires a more active intervention. So, yeah. Yeah, it's funny. The Machado-centric article starts with this anecdote about the Padres not doing enough pregame prep, and that's emblematic of them just not wanting it enough. And then the Athletic article, the Preller-centric one, talks about how Preller is the one pushing for more and more pregame prep. Yeah. Because he's obsessed with doing more preparation. And others are saying sometimes it's nice to give guys some time off and take the foot off the pedal.

It's the dog days of summer. It's hot. Guys get run down. There's the grind. Right? So in that sense, in that piece, it's almost like not just doing a ton of practice in almost an eyewash way is a virtue right so right but yes i'm sure it is frustrating to work for a workaholic boss like that who's just always on yeah even if things are going great with

the team and things are going badly for the team and that boss is frustrated, then yeah, there's going to be some micromanaging probably and it's not going to be a great situation. I'm not totally convinced that, say, Preller just working front office people hard or micromanaging Bob Melvin in such a way that they're not getting along and not talking very much. I don't know that there's a direct line between that and the fact that the Padres are not playing as well as they were supposed to.

I think it could be true that maybe he should take it easy and also that that's not really that directly related to the Padres' underperformance of their peripherals this season. So it may just be like, well, we got to find something because people aren't satisfied by just saying they've been unclutched randomly. It doesn't mean anything. They've just been flukily random. People aren't satisfied with that explanation, even though these things tend to be very volatile from year to year, which the Padres from 2022 to 2023 is as good an example of that as any. And so you have to look for some sort of institutional organizational problem. Like, I'm sure that A.J. Preller was just as much a workaholic when the Padres were winning. It's just that maybe it was more tolerable or it didn't rub people the wrong way as much or just no one was doing any digging and saying, hey, what's it like to work for this guy?

Because the team was doing OK. So no one was in the market for like a deep dive expose on what's wrong with the Padres. So not saying there aren't culture issues. I'm sure that there are. I don't know if they're unique with the Padres. So not saying there aren't culture issues. I'm sure that there are. I don't know if they're unique to the Padres, but some of the examples in the athletic piece are pretty anodyne. Like some of it just seems sort of like ruffled feathers,

soured grapes, sort of like front office field staff discord that a lot of organizations have had. Like when you talk about, you know, like Preller hiring certain executives or advisors who have like hung around batting practice or they've like been in meetings and that sort of thing. And maybe that is an example of just not having a feel and being too intrusive. Or maybe it's just coaches sort of resenting those intrusions as coaches always historically have.

Right. Or, or some of the examples like AJ Preller pushing for a move away from traditional batting practice and towards more velocity, high speed training against pitching machines. Like one former Padres official says, Preller wants to have a finger on the pulse of his team. He wants to believe in a Vuelo machine before the game. If you're facing a guy

throwing a hundred miles per hour, he wants to do things differently. That sounds like a good idea. That's what a lot of teams are doing these days. Or another former team official noted that many of Preller's suggestions to the coaching staff say that an infielder take extra ground balls to improve his range were not without merit. I mean, yeah, that sounds like a good idea. So some of it may just be the turf wars that kind of come with this territory on every team. And maybe he's just overbearing because he's just, he never sleeps. And maybe he's texting you at all hours or he's showing up at every meeting. And you just want him to back off a bit. And probably the more frustrating the Padre season has gotten,

I'm sure the more frustrating everyone involved with that has gotten. And if he's obsessed with winning, then the more obsessed he's going to be with trying to find the problem and looking for any extra edge and the more that is going going to chafe everyone around him and these problems are just going to compound. But again, in that case, like the inciting event, the instigating problem is the fact that they've been bad, not so much that they've been bad because of these other existing issues. Right. I think that like, and I want to make clear that I'm not like necessarily saying, oh, this is catastrophic or this is so different than any other team. I mean, I do think that like it's probably a good idea for it to bear a little bit of scrutiny and to see like, how is it different? How might our processes be improved? How could we improve communication so that we hopefully resolve the turf wars in such a way that it's clear that, hey, we're not trying to say anything about the coaching staff by having people down here from the front office for BP.

they're really doing a thing they're working on something they're there in a way that is meant to be helpful right like i think that a couple of things can be true simultaneously right you can have a lot of this being normal turf war stuff you can also imagine micromanagement being annoying and counterproductive and like maybe it's a matter of degree that needs to be resolved rather than anything else where it's like, hey, let's make sure that we all understand why we're doing what we're doing so that we feel like we're pulling in the same direction rather than like litigating turf war nonsense.

But I can see how if your management style is one of micromanagement and also like needing to sit behind home in a bucket hat at like a whole league game, then maybe you're not doing the communication piece of it in a way that is sufficient to sort of smooth out those conflicts and get everyone on the same page. So there's definitely that piece of it. And we have heard tell that the perception of the Padres is that they aren't the most analytics-focused team, and they are very dependent on scouting. And that approach has its merits and it has its drawbacks. And so it wouldn't surprise me if there are places where they as an organization could probably do better procedurally and that those procedural gaps have been papered over in large part by the fact that

they've had an ownership group willing to give them a big budget to go spend and go get guys. And so, you know, maybe it doesn't matter that you can't develop a starter because you can just sign you Darvish and you can, you know, get Joe Musgrove and you can do this and that. But like Blake Snell's leaving now, so, or might be leaving now as a free agent. So, you know, are you going to be able to backfill the other parts of talent acquisition that are important so that your scouts who are very good and go out and get guys who have big league futures, you know, are they being married to player dev folks

who can help to maximize their potential? You know, like those are questions that I think that they're going to have to ask as an organization, because as Ken and Dennis's piece points out, like there are some budgetary uncertainties that they're going to have to navigate. And some of that is out of their control

and isn't necessarily their fault. But if your business model is, hey, we're going to put a really fun, exciting team on the field and we're going to sell out a bunch of games and we're going to have huge gate and they've been able to do that. You have to win to generate the excitement to sort of backstop that. And when your TV situation is in flux because of badly sports nonsense, like it becomes more important that you do that. So I'm not making a case that like they should spend less

or they shouldn't continue to use that as a way of like, you know, filling their organization. But I imagine that they are going to be in a spot where whatever the desire of ownership is to spend, they might have some, you know, stuff they have to sort out. And one way to sort of give yourself buffer as you navigate that is to have like a good, productive, you know, process in place to help you, you know, maximize guys and backfill the role player piece that they, you know, both of these pieces sort of point out they've had trouble doing. It's like, they are not the angels in terms of like how big a void

there is between the stars and scrubs. And I do think they have a lot of good complimentary players, but they are very star heavy. And so, you know, if they come to decide, hey, we can't afford this the way we thought we did, like, what is the approach going to be to continue to make sure you have the guys you need in-house? So, you know, they've got some work to do potentially. Yeah. Yeah. They did just pass the three million mark in attendance this season. They are third in attendance per game behind the Dodgers and the Yankees, despite the on-field struggles. It's all the excitement that was generated by the NLCS appearance last year and how they seem to be in line to be even better this year. And yeah, the fans have come out and supported that. So that part of the plan worked,

but not so much the on-field product. And it's just hard for me to square the seemingly superficially really strong performance that they've had with just the poor record. It's just like if the problem is culture and like motivation and engagement and all of those things. Like how have they been so good individually and yet not so good collectively? Like how is the sum, how is the whole so much less than the sum of its parts? I guess you could say that's one way it would manifest. If you had like a chemistry issue, you just have a bunch of good players who just weren't good at the right time. They just don't come up big. They're on clutch, right?

And if you look at, I mean, they certainly have been on clutch. If you look at Fangraph's clutch measurement, which is basically like comparing the team's high leverage performance to a neutral time. They are dead last in the fan graphs clutch stat on the offensive side, and they are 26th out of 30 in clutch on the pitching side. So it's a double-barreled clutch problem there. And I guess they've gotten better over the course of the season because they started so terribly in that category. And I guess to return to a rare prediction that I made that thus far has held up, I believe, on episode 2012. This was May 26th.

You remember I went way out on a limb. You didn't consider this going out on a limb at all. I think I gave you grief about how not out on a limb it was, in fact. Yeah. But to that point, the Padres had been extremely unclutch offensively and the Rangers had been extremely clutch. And I predicted that over the remainder of the season, the Padres would actually be better, clutcher than the Rangers. For the purposes of this bet, I just used batting average with runners in scoring position,

which is not the most telling metric probably, but it was an extreme disparity at the time. So through May 25th, which was, I think, the last day of games before we recorded that episode, the Rangers were leading the majors with a 333 batting average with runners in scoring position in 524 plate appearances. And the Padres were trailing the league by a lot with a 184 batting average. So that's, I mean, that's a huge difference. Like the Rangers batting average with runners in scoring position was almost double what the Padres was, and that was in 480 plate appearances. And that has come true, actually, since then.

So May 26th through September 18th, the Padres have batted 269 with runners in scoring position, which is 11th in the majors. And the Rangers have batted 250, which is 18th in the majors. So they've both been kind of blah, middle of the pack, but the Padres have been better than the Rangers in that category.

So I guess we'll have to see there's enough time left that maybe that could still change. But the spirit of the prediction was basically that this will stop being so extreme that they will be basically the same or the Padres will be even better because maybe they're a better offensive team at the heart where they were certainly projected to be. And that has happened. And I guess that maybe might make you feel optimistic about the Padres in the future if there's any shred of optimism left about the Padres. It's just I think when you fail that many times in those important high profile opportunities, you maybe come to think that it's a reflection of your character, even if it isn't like remember when Juan Soto made that statement in mid-August where he talked about how they were kind of quitting he said like we've got to play as a team this was after a loss to the Mariners Soto said we've got to play as a team we've got to go out there and grind every day grind every at bat it's really inconsistent. Some days we do, some days we don't. We got to do it every day.

Days like this series, we just give up. Like literally, we just give up instead of keep grinding, keep pushing. We've got to forget about yesterday and keep moving, which is a pretty extraordinary statement. And everyone was really chill about it too, you know? Yeah, right. Padre Smith took that in stride.

Yeah, like he's right. You know, giving up and also uh we will move on from that and it'll be fine and no one is going to freak out at all yeah and juan soto he's played for bad teams in dc he played for a championship team in dc so he's seen both ends of the success spectrum but for him to come out and say, we're giving up like that, that's that's notable, right? I mean, that supports, I think, what the Union Tribune article is saying about there's something lacking here. He then did come out and apologize for that and retracted. He said, I that up just shitty days, really frustrating. I shouldn't have said anything like that. I trust in these guys.

I think everybody's trying to do their best trying to go out there and win games. I guess that's not a full retraction. He's just saying I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, it wasn't much like the way I characterized Rendon's communication. Not strategic on Juan Soto's part, perhaps. Yeah. But the fact that he said that seems to suggest that he felt there was some sort of problem because it was if it if he thought it was pure randomness and flukiness, then he might rage against the baseball gods or the universe or something. But he wouldn't say the team quit.

quit. But I guess the question is, if you're living through that and you're right there on the field, not only do you have a front row seat, but you're an active participant, then it must be really hard to maintain this clinical remove of me sitting over here saying, well, it's very volatile season to season. I don't know why I'm making myself sound even more nerdy than I typically do, but I don't need any help in that department. You're trying out some voices. It's fine volatile season to season. I don't know why I'm making myself sound even more nerdy than I typically do, but I don't need any help in that department. You're trying out some voices. It's fine, Ben. Yeah, it's easy for me, a neutral, impartial party in this situation to say, oh, yeah, it's just, you know, the lightning sometimes strikes and doesn't strike. And it's harder for Padres fans to do that.

And it's harder for Padres to do that. And it happens enough times. All the doesn't strike. Yeah. And it's harder for Padres fans to do that. And it's harder for Padres to do that. And it happens enough times. All the dads are furious. Yeah. It happens enough times to your team, then you start to believe it. Yeah. Soto, of course, is in the clubhouse. And when he says we're giving up, then maybe he is actually seeing some sign of giving up.

Like if, you know, now Juan Soto has like the best plate appearances of anyone in the majors consistently. Right. He's not giving away plate appearances. So maybe he has high standards in that regard. But but if he's seeing people in those situations suddenly wildly swinging at everything and losing all their discipline or just, you know, trying to be the hero and not trying to when all you need is a single trying to hit a home run or whatever, like maybe he's observing those things and is actually putting his finger on something real. Or maybe it's just that how can you not feel that way when you're so historically unlucky seemingly or have such terrible timing as these Padres? It's just like the team is good. You look at the individual players, they've got a lot of star seasons. Shouldn't be like this.

No, it's not even just that the names of the players are stars. It's that they're having star seasons a lot of them. We've talked about Hasan Kim, what an incredible season he's having. If you just go by Baseball Reference War, which I have the page open, you have Kim almost at 6 War, you have Tatis at 5.5 War, you have Snell at 5.5 War,

you have Soto at 5 War, you have Xander Bogarts at 4 War. I mean, these are star seasons for a team to have that many 4 and 5 win individual seasons and still be a losing team.'s unusual extraordinary I think and and if you look at the team as a whole like just their sixth in position player war on the season and their tenth in pitcher war and you put those two things

together they should not be a losing team. That's actual production that they have had. That's not like just projected, predicted performance. That's actual performance. It's just it's been at such suboptimal times that this is their record. And like to be clear, when I say and everyone took it really well, it sounds like I'm like snarking on Padres fans. And I don't mean to. Like that's a – if Julio came out tomorrow and was like i don't know these mariners just aren't

trying and like we're giving stuff away like i'd be like i'd be mad at the mariners i don't know that i'd be able to bring myself to be mad at julio but um you know i'd be like whoa that's alarming what's going on because it's an alarming thing to hear from a pro. I do think you've maybe hit on something that is, I wonder if this is part of the perception of Manny that we should consider, where it's like, you're Juan Soto, you don't give at-bats away. You don't do that. That's not in your nature. And I do, I wonder sometimes,

when you're like a highly, highly talented player, and you are put in a position of having to have some leadership and do the like, here's how we can all rally together. Here's what you should be thinking about stuff. There is potentially a real difficulty in doing that because it's hard for you maybe to relate to people who aren't as good at the thing you're doing as you are. And I don't say that like, you know, all of Manny's talent is like a natural thing. There's no hard work there. That's clearly not the case, right? Like he is, he works hard, you know, he seems to be very engaged with the game. You know, when you look at the way that Juan Soto approaches baseball, like part of what

makes him so extraordinary is his ability to marry his underlying sort of natural talent with, you know, what seems to be really intense preparation and regard for the game. So I don't mean it like, oh, they're so naturally talented. There's like, but like, I think back to, and I'm not going to remember who it was now, but there's a story about a guy who, you know, he's a young player coming up and he he asked Granke to like watch his his bullpen because he was like, I really love some, you know, pointers, man. Like, what do you think I should do differently? And Granke came and he watched his bullpen. And at the end of it, he was like, I think you'd be a lot better if you just threw like three miles an hour harder than you do and it's like well yeah man thanks you know and he didn't respond that way because he's trying to be a pro but i do wonder sometimes with these guys if there's just like a they're kind of flummoxed by what even to say because they are so skilled and so talented and they're just like well i don't know just be

better right it's like how you know barry bonds's reputation as a hitting coach was not good because he was just like well just don't swing at that you know and it's like well yeah barry but how like you could just do it but like they can't do it that same way you need to tell them how and yeah you know it sounds like there was sometimes not always maybe but sometimes a disconnect there because he was just like well just don't swing at it like that's clearly that's not a strike so i don't know man just lay off of that one it's like well yeah but again how so you know sometimes i you know maybe if we want to put it if i want to put it in a more positive light like it underscores how useful

and important and intermediary the manager can be because they can assume that like coaching you know more obviously mentory kind of role in a way that can be helpful whereas like if you're juan soto you know and you're like well how do you not swing at that and it's like well yeah he just you know he just works really hard and has a great eye like then so he's like i don't know i mean just yep right yeah so i think we'll probably find out or at least we'll get more information about was this a culture problem, a pervasive problem, or was it just a weird, fluky, random year? Because most of this team will be back next year, right? Yeah, Snell is a free agent. Hater is a free agent. But a lot of this team is locked in long term, right? Oh, they sure are, yeah.

There's a ton of extensions here and they're really kind of married to this current core because they traded away tons of prospects to get guys, right? So there's a lack of depth in the upper levels and they've got to win

or lose with this team. And last year they won with this team and this year they are losing with this team, but they almost have no choice but to run it back next year, more or less, right? So we will see if they go from NLCS to disastrous year where they missed the playoffs to maybe they're right back in it next year. in it next year, then maybe we'll look back at 2023 and it'll seem even more likely that this was just a total fluke, which isn't to say that they can't course correct and maybe do some things differently from an organizational and culture and chemistry standpoint going into next season.

But if suddenly they're clutch next year or they're just unremarkable in that category with sort of the same group of guys, then that'll just lend credence to the idea that sometimes things just go wrong for no real reason that anyone can do anything about. And sometimes things go really right, kind of like the 2021 Giants, a hugely successful season sandwiched between two 500-ish seasons on either side. And that year they led Charmed Lives and won 107 games. Did it mean that everything was always going to go great for them? No. So I would think that if we could somehow just rerun this season, you know, if we could somehow sim this season a zillion times, but like actually do it if we had a multiverse scenario where there were just infinite 2023 Padres with the same group of guys and the same GM and the same manager.

And really, who was more respected than Bob Melvin, right? Right. He came to the Padres. He was supposed to be like, oh, this is the veteran manager with a lot of standing in the game, not like the prior managers under Preller who had been first timers and younger guys and inexperienced. So if he's having issues or the team is having culture issues with Melvin, then that's even worse because you'd think that he'd be the best guy to handle that sort of thing. He's like the sort of guy you'd bring in to correct that problem. guy to handle that sort of thing. He's like the sort of guy you'd bring in to correct that problem. Anyway, if they do largely run it back next year, I would think that if you could just play this season over again a zillion times, that they would be good most of the time. But it's hard to say. Like if culture means everything, then no, You could submit a zillion times

and if they still had the same kind of culture, then they'd still be bad and they'd still be unclutch. But if culture is not at the root of the problem, if it's more of a byproduct or an ancillary issue, then they would win despite it or it wouldn't even be a problem because everyone would be getting along great because they'd be winning so many games.

So we'll find out, I guess, maybe, or we'll get more information. Rob Maines wrote about this recently, just looking at past teams that had struggled in extra inning games and one-run games. And he found that it's certainly no guarantee that the Padres will play better just by trying again and getting better dice rolls. But there are certainly a lot of examples that teams that have done that. Right. So I would not be surprised if they are one of them. Yeah, I think, you know, I didn't come away from either of these pieces feeling like,

and I don't know that this was really their purpose. So I don't mean it really as a criticism even, but like, I didn't come away from either of these pieces being like, and now I understand the Padres. That wasn't, I still think it's hard to account for exactly what the balance of any of these things is when you're trying to do the accounting of why the season went the way that it did. I think all of this stuff matters,

and the extent to which it matters is really variable and it can change in the course of a season. Like, you know, just to point to a team that I feel like I have a slightly better handle on, you know, in terms of just watching it all the time, it's like the vibes for the Mariners were really bad at the beginning of the year, right? They were not great.

And everyone was like, these vibes are bad. And then they started winning and it's like these boys love each other so much. They want to give each other little kisses on the cheek, you know, and to being what, three wins away from the World Series, there were still things about the culture that didn't always go super great, but they got papered over by winning. You know, I think this stuff kind of ebbs and flows and people are people. And I think it's good to sort of interrogate what of it is sort of a more temporary, amorphous culture thing that will be fixed by winning? And how much of it is something that's more sort of institutional and persistent? And what of those things really needs fixing? And then, you know, you do your best to go into the following year with your best shot to win, having addressed what you can. You know, culture stuff and process stuff, it isn't totally dissimilar from roster construction in that, like, what you do has an impact on that. And, like, you know, sometimes people just don't get along or sometimes people aren't providing the quote unquote leadership you need.

I mean, like, I think you can be a good leader and still like have bad sequencing. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. You can have incredible leadership and still just be like, why can we not? Can't buy a hit with a runner in scoring position. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, I kind of wonder how much of this has to do with the Dodgers just being, for the Padres and for Padres fans, so frustratingly great every year that they exist close up as the example of this is what we're trying to do and failing to do repeatedly, right? Of course, even last year, they ended up beating the Dodgers in the playoffs, but certainly didn't win a division title. And part of it is this year, like the Padres preseason projected winning percentage, according to fan graphs, was 565. And I said that they're expected their Pythag right now is 552, right? So basically they've played like they were projected to play or they have the run differential of a team that was close to what they were projected to have. I mean, that's just a winner two or whatever off, right? Like no one would be writing articles about what's wrong with the Padres and what happened to the Padres if they had their Pythagorean record right now. And yet, even if they did, the Dodgers would still be blowing them away, right? Even if the Padres played to their run differential, they would not win the NL West. They would still just, I mean, the Padres would be the Friars' daddies, right? The Padres' daddies. So I, like that would- Ben, I mean, the Padres would be the Friars' daddies, right?

The Padres' daddies. So I, like, that would make sense. Ben, you're trying so many different things today, you know? I'm excited for you. I feel like you're, you know, you're in a generative moment. You're really trying on some stuff. Yeah, right. Like, this was supposed to be the year that the Padres maybe would pass the Dodgers.

The Dodgers had a preseason projected winning percentage of 545. They've obviously blown that out of the water. So if the Padres were the current owners of the first wild card, maybe they'd still be seen as slightly disappointing just because the Padres would elap them. But it wouldn't be like we're devoting an entire episode to talking about what went wrong. It would more be about how did the Dodgers do this again than what did the Padres do wrong. I still want an answer to that question. Still would like to know how the Dodgers do this every year. Yeah.

All right. Well, we covered that. I mean, did we? I don't know. We're going to, this is the kind of thing where I feel like we're going to need to look back on this season at regular intervals years from now and see if our assessment of it is still the same because I could see it shifting around. If they were winning in the way that their underlying, you know, their statistics suggest that they should. And even if we weren't talking about this because there were two big reported pieces on it, I would still be out here encouraging both A.J. Preller and his staff to sleep more than they do because I worry about that guy. I think it's, you know, you got to your body needs to sleep. How much varies person to person? You know, like there's a lot of, there's a lot of room.

But I also think that there's not as much room as he seems to think there is. So you should sleep. You should let other people sleep and like, you know, let them see their families. Families are nice. I mean, some of them suck, but a lot of them are cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. I might keep Preller-esque hours at times, but I'm not keeping anyone else up when I do typically. So it's my problem, but it's not a problem I'm imposing on anyone else.

People might wake up to messages from me at three in the morning at times. You have certainly done that. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, I worry about you also. Yeah, but I'm not expecting you to answer those messages when I send them. And I always have a mental struggle of like, should I wait until a more reasonable hour?

Not that I'm worried about waking someone up with a G chat or something. I'm just like, how will this reflect on me that I sent this message at this hour? I appreciate, just to have a small little aside on this, like Slack lets you schedule messages now. Look, I'm sympathetic to the idea that like sometimes you have to send a message right that minute so that you don't forget to do it.

Or set a Google alert to remind yourself five years later. Ben, wow. What a little window into you we got today. But I am conscious of the fact that, you know, especially because like I'm a managing editor, like I don't want people to feel like I expect them to respond. And so I do sometimes avail myself of the schedule feature in in slack i try not to like slack sometimes i know people are going to be up and about and then it's different but you don't want people to feel like oh god i had to you know that's stressful for folks you don't want it to be stressful so the schedule thing is it's rad you know because i'll be like and then hit send at nine and And then I,

and then I haven't forgotten and they don't feel stressed. Hopefully. Yeah. Modern life, man. It's full of all these little decisions that we have to make. And all of them should involve not having people think they have to answer your messages at three in the morning. That's a, that's a hard rule for me. It's, you know, it rule for me. Well, we'll link to these pieces so you can peruse them yourselves and come to your own conclusions. And I'll link to Rob's piece on the Padres at BP and Ginny Searle

just wrote about the Padres at BP and what they have to do to course correct and will it be enough to just keep their players, have a healthy Machado, have a healthy Udarvish maybe and maybe a better Bog, and maybe everything will just be fine next year. We'll see. But maybe some people are like, you're devoting an entire episode to the Padres, but I think it's one of the most noteworthy stories of the season, despite the fact that they're not going to make the playoffs almost certainly.

Wouldn't it be amazing if after all this, like they just, they keep streaking, they win out the rest of the season, they're just incredibly clutch. And then weeks later, it's like we revisit these pieces. Like, what were we talking about? What were we even talking about? Yeah, it would be very funny.

But I can't cross my fingers or my toes in service of that because I have to save all of my fingers and toes for the Mariners. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I think it's relevant even if you're not a Padres fan and you don't particularly care about the Padres' plight. They're one of the teams of the season. They've dominated the narrative since the offseason and they're going to continue to be postmortems. And what does this mean?

And we've talked about the fact that there's this incredibly low correlation between spending and winning this year, and the Padres are a very important part of that. And because they were like, oh, they're the example of, look at this. This is not a gigantic market team, and they're spending and they're going for it. And so to have that backfire or at least not pan out the way that they were expecting or the way that it could have, if you look at those underlying numbers, maybe that changes everything. What if they don't win this year and then they decide to break it up or they don't win again next year? Like, is this entire experiment seen as a failure? And is it fair to see it as a failure of process and planning if so much of it is about this flukiness that has happened?

Like, the Padres have been cited by a lot of people as examples of what to do and what you can do and what you can accomplish. And so if it doesn't work out for them,'s not just a padre specific issue it's something that people will hold up rightly or wrongly as sort of a referendum on can this work and was this ill-advised and should other teams try to do this so that's why i think there are larger stakes to this story than just a Padres specific problem. Yes, I agree. Yeah. I have one more question about a former Padre, a recent Padre to go along with this Padres

themed article. You know how Mike Clevenger was among the players who was placed on waivers at the end of August and then went unclaimed, which at the time I was semi-surprised by that just because he had been one of the more recently productive players. And so I was wondering, is this about the contract or is this about Clevenger and who he is and the baggage that comes with Clevenger? Because, of course, all sorts of things swirling around Mike Clevenger and was the subject of an investigation into alleged abuse, which did not lead to a suspension.

But that was a big part of the story surrounding him this spring. And even when he has success, I mean, he just pitched a complete game this week and was still sort of red-assing it up and was yelling at Dominic Smith, who was the one player to tag him, hit a home run off of him. And apparently Clevenger didn't appreciate that Smith was standing at the plate for too long and was admiring the shot, despite the fact that the Nationals and Smith himself had not done well earlier in the game. And so Clevenger was yelling some stuff at him. And then Smith wanted to know, what are you yelling at me? And so he turned toward him and then I think the benches cleared and nothing happened. But it was extremely Clevenger. But I've wondered about this because on purely a performance basis, you could make the case that Clevenger could have helped teams, right?

Like in his six starts preceding when he was placed on waivers by the Guardians, he had come back from injury. He'd been out since mid-June, and then he came back in late July. And in his six starts after that, he had pitched to a 2.31 ERA, 3.37 FIP in 35 innings. And since he went unclaimed on waivers, he's had four starts. He got tattooed in the first one. He gave up eight earned runs in four innings. And since then, he's had three straight strong starts, including the complete game, one run outing against the Nationals. So even if you include the blowout game, he still had a 3.81 ERA, 3.10 FIP since he went unclaimed. And if you go all the way back to since he came off the IL, which is a span of 10 starts and 61 innings, 2.95 ERA, 3.26 FIP. And in fact, if you look at the Fangraphs Pitching War leaderboard, since the day he came off the IL and made that first start, July 29th.

He is fourth among all pitchers in FanGraph's war. Wow. After, of course, the incredible Cole Reagans, who we've talked about, and Freddy Peralta and Tarek Skubal. So just ahead of Sonny Gray and Spencer Strider and Logan Webb and Kodai Senga and Justin Steele and Jordan Montgomery, right? So Clevenger right there so i i wonder now do you think it was that teams just did not want a malcontent on their roster that they just didn't want to add clevenger to the team although i guess the

padres won with clevenger last year not winning winning without him this year. Or, and I should add, this is another potential explanation, is it the way that his contract was structured? Because he had sort of a wrinkle here where he had signed that one-year $12 million deal with the White Sox, but it was like an $8 million salary and then a $4 million buyout on a $12 million mutual option for next season. So at the time he cleared waivers, there was only a little more than a million left on his salary for this season. However, if a team had claimed him, it also would have been responsible either for exercising

that option or for the buyout. And so if they didn't want to exercise that option, then they would have had to pay a little more than $5 million just to get Clevenger for a month plus potentially the playoffs. And the White Sox couldn't have even have offered to eat some of that as part of the waiver process, right? So I wonder whether it was one or the other or some combination of both. I guess given his recent performance, putting aside all the character questions, you could say $12 million for Clevenger next year might not be that bad a deal given how he's pitched since the All-Star break. But I wonder whether one or the other was the main hang-up for teams.

I am going to say a couple of words in concert that I'm sure I'm going to regret just because of the visual it's going to paint. But I think here's the thing. When you have a complicated situation and then you throw being a turd into the soup, people are just like, this isn't worth it. I don't want to give teams a pass and say that they are always so upstanding and they care about being a turd because there are a lot of players who are good and who are relatively inexpensive and are turds and have jobs.

But I think that when your performance has been up and down and kind of streaky, oh boy, that's an even worse word in concert return, isn't it? Yeah, and injury issues as well. But I don't think that his reputation as a clubhouse presence is like particularly Sterling. And, you know, like he's been buddy-buddy with Bauer. And I think that as we contemplate the sort of ephemeral, shaky, delicate nature of culture as a concept that like if you're a winning team and you feel like your vibes are good and you have like a weird, complicated, I mean, potentially complicated contract situation and you have a guy who's been

hurt and at times not very good and inconsistent. And then you throw on top of that, that he's just like perceived to be kind of a turd that you're like, eh, then we don't need that turd, you know? Yeah. Maybe that's recent enough.

Yeah. I're always monitoring where teams land on the performance versus character question and what are teams willing to tolerate when it comes to that, which I guess is related to what we've spent the bulk of this episode talking about, right? So there's obviously been an evolution there in terms of what teams are willing to tolerate or even seek out as kind of like this is, you know, to use business language like distressed asset, like, you know, undervalued commodity. Right. There have been teams in the past that have been very much like, OK, you don't want the guy with character questions. We'll take him because he'll be cheaper. Right. There have been teams in the past that have been very much like, OK, you don't want the guy with character questions. We'll take him because he'll be cheaper. Right. Whereas now there's certainly some of that that still goes on.

But I think teams are maybe a little more reluctant about that. If only if it's a guy with Clevenger. Yeah, it's like, OK, maybe he wasn't suspended about that specific incident. But who knows if something else comes out, right? It's like with Bauer where it was just one thing after another kept surfacing, right? So then there's a fear of will that be the same story with this guy? And I think there's more of a PR backlash and a condemnation and a public outcry about those things than there used to be, which is, you know, I think entirely appropriate. But you have to factor that into, is it worth it for us to take this on? But yeah, also maybe teams didn't actually think they could count on him to consistently

be this good. So there's that too. So I don't know which is more salient here or explains it. But as you said, it's probably multiple factors as it usually is. It's a turd soup. It's a turd soup. then kind of fundamentally maybe unfair about this because I think it's really important to deal with each of these character questions on an individual basis because the circumstances are so specific and you know I think the best way for us to for teams to sort of act in and for the league to act in support of the you know the family members and partners and spouses who are

more directly impacted by this is to like, take them all case by case. But I do wonder if some teams are like, what if this guy does it again? Like, what if this becomes an issue again? And then we're in a weird situation. We've alienated a portion of our fan base. We've exhausted goodwill. It's hard for us to get that back because we're going to be the team that was willing to do this. And like, what if this guy just does whatever nonsense again and is harmful

to somebody else? So I do wonder if teams are kind of thinking about that, particularly given a couple of Los Angeles pitchers lately, you know, like the Dodgers have been tagged with this twice. So yeah, I do wonder about that. All right. Well, we've talked about character and performance. We've talked about

culture. We've talked about how you decide how to apportion praise or credit or blame for team performance. How do you reckon with a seemingly unlucky season? And what does that mean about deeper, more persistent problems? Just really reckoning and wrestling with the big questions on Effectively Wild today. Yeah. I mean, like, it's not easy. It's not an easy thing to sort out. I don't, I mean mean i don't envy teams having to wrestle with these questions and i don't envy baseball players having to think about like how do you construct culture like how do you get a bunch of very well compensated highly competitive dudes all on the same page and rowing in the same direction in a way that is like, you know, productive and healthy. Like, it seems like

it would be a hard challenge. So, you know, I don't, I hope no one comes away from this thinking that we think it's like an easy problem. You know, the character stuff, I didn't read any of the Padres stuff as like really character based. It was more leadership based. And like, that's a, I think an important distinction. I don't think anyone, I know that there have been times where Manny Machado's like character has very much been like a conversation. And that was not my read of either of these pieces. I don't think that that's really what's at play here. But yeah, it's, I mean, culture building is hard.

It's hard when the stakes are a lot lower than like, you know, billion dollar franchise. I mean, it's just a hard thing to do. Well, an update for you on the Padres after we recorded. They won again. That's six in a row. Maybe belatedly that clubhouse chemistry is rounding into form. They did go 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position. But Blake Snell and also Robert Suarez held the Rockies hit list for eight innings.

Josh Hader gave up a couple hits, but no runs. And then the Padres walked off the Rockies hit list for eight innings. Josh Hader gave up a couple hits but no runs. And then the Padres walked off the Rockies in the bottom of the ninth on a home run by Xander Bogarts. It was a 2-0 win, so it doesn't go down as either a one-run win or an extra innings win. But I think the Rockies will take it. Also, after we recorded, we got an update on Shohei Otani. Yes, he's still better than Adalberto Mondesi. And also, he had surgery. Oddly, his agent's announcement did not specify the exact type of surgery. I'm sure more reporting will surface at some point. But the statement says the final decision and type of procedure was made with a heavy emphasis on the big picture.

And also on the big picture. The statement didn't say that. That wordplay would have been out of place. His agent isn't Scott Boris. Here's more of what the statement did say. Shohei wanted to make sure his direction taken gave him every opportunity to hit and pitch for many years to come. The surgeon said the ultimate plan after deliberation with Shohei was to repair the issue at hand and to reinforce the healthy ligament in place while adding viable tissue for the longevity of the elbow. I expect full recovery and he'll be ready to hit without any restrictions come opening day of 2024 and do both hit and pitch come 2025. That language makes it sound sort of like it may have been an

internal brace repair instead of a complete reconstruction. There had been some previous reporting or an announcement by his agent that the ligament that was put in place in 2018 was intact, but that it had become detached, which he seemed to present as a positive sign. So either way, no pitching next season. But if it is an internal brace, then that would theoretically shorten the rehab, at least. That would qualify as good news under the circumstances. Anyway, unsurprised, but happy to hear that he still plans to play two ways and that at least in theory, that's still a viable path for him. I noticed that the statement didn't say that the procedure was a success.

I'm sure it was a success as far as they know now. But I always take note of how they always say that. The person would pretty much have to die on the table for them not to say that the procedure was a success. You never really hear that so-and-so underwent surgery and boy, they bungled that one. Although occasionally they do and you just find out about it long after. But I suppose the types of surgeries typically performed on athletes usually are successes or do seem like successes in the immediate aftermath. As long as you survive, that's a success of one sort. Hopefully this one will be a resounding success in multiple respects.

And Otani's Instagram post about it said that his procedure went very well. Imagine being the surgeon entrusted with repairing Otani's unparalleled elbow. I don't know if surgeons get nervous after performing hundreds, thousands of the same procedure, but how often do you do one on a two-way player? Also, a couple of follow-ups. Last time, we were talking about players who announced their retirements officially long after they stopped playing or at advanced ages. I mentioned that I didn't think Jamie Moyer had ever officially announced his retirement.

I saw an article from April 2013 when the 50-year-old Moyer said, I haven't closed that door yet. But a listener let us know that later that year, in October 2013, he was asked in an NPR interview whether his career was over. And he said, it is, it is, I'm done. I don't think I'll be playing again. Not exactly an announcement, certainly not a ceremony, but he did at least acknowledge the inevitable.

So I suppose we can't tell ourselves that the now 60-year-old Moyer might make a comeback. Though, who knows? Maybe he'll change his mind. Lastly, last time, we had a little fun with the name of the district where the new Rays Stadium is supposed to be built, the historic Gas Plant District. As we said, we knew nothing about the Gas Plant District, but as we noted, it doesn't have the most inviting name. Well, we got an email from listener Carter who wrote, I heard y'all talking about the new Ray Stadium deal on the most recent episode and would like to pass along some information about the Gas Plant District as the name is misleading about the actual history of the area.

I've grown up in the Tampa area, going to Ray's games throughout my life, and went to college in St. Pete. It's called the Gas Plant District due to the two natural gas cylinders that were in the neighborhood. I understand this does not do much to dissuade you from thinking of this neighborhood as being a bit rough, but please bear with me. It was a thriving black neighborhood before the 1980s that had been around for over a century until it was, of course, displaced and torn down by the government building the monstrosity of an eyesore that has been Tropicana Field. There were, again, of course, unfulfilled economic promises made to the residents affected by the building of the stadium and the destruction of their homes and places of work, and if not in the ideal Tampa-based way that makes more sense, but also realistic about

and aware of the moral implications of the Rays continuing to occupy a stolen space previously occupied by a seemingly wonderful and tight-knit community. Thank you, Carter. I will link to some extra info on that as well. No, it's not just Chavez Ravine where people were displaced to make way for a ballpark. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Sam White, John M. Morrisrow, Adam Wentz, Lauren Farrar Cartwright, and Eric Fetter. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only,

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You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EW pod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. Thank you.