Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2082: Opposing Counsell

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether whether they’d watch the winning team celebrate if they lost the World Series, then (17:09) discuss a trio of managerial moves (the Cubs poaching Craig Counsell from the Brewers, the Guardians hiring Stephen Vogt, and the Mets hiring Carlos Mendoza), the Marlins hiring the Rays’ GM, and […]

Scott Boris nautical analogies of tragedies. Keep them honest. Vroom vroom. Here's your primer. I'm Beef Boys, Baseball's End, Roger Angel, and Super Pretzels. Lillian's Asked a Deal, and Mike Trout Hypotheticals. Waiting for the perfect bat from a volcanic eruption. Ladies and gentlemen, the Effectively Wild introduction. Hello and welcome to episode 2082 of Effectively Wild, a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? I'm all right. How are you? I don't work for the Chicago Cubs, but some people do. Although some people don't. My gosh.

Yeah, we have some hot managerial news to talk about in a moment. How often is that something that we would say? But I have one quick prompt for you before that. There was a thread in our Facebook group posted by someone named Casey who said, I'll never understand why some players on the losing team in the World Series stay in the dugout and watch the winning team celebrate. If it were me, I'd run back to the clubhouse like my hair was on fire the second the last out was made. So I wanted to ask you, tag yourself in the footage of the World Series ending where you

always see the winner celebrating and then the losers. Some guys immediately they pack up their stuff and they head for the tunnel and they get out of there. And other guys sit out there and, I don't know, torture themselves or try to come to terms with the fact that they just lost. Some of them with their heads in their hands. Some of them trying to seem stoic. What would you do in that scenario? I love that you came to me, a person famous for her own self-loathing, for insight into this question.

Where would I be? I'd probably be on the rail. I'd probably be on the rail watching. Do I think that it is purely an indication of self-loathing? I mean, no. I think that people, particularly professional athletes, draw inspiration and motivation from a lot of places, including difficult and dark moments. You know, what darker a moment if you're a player in a World Series than watching the winning team, which is not you celebrate, particularly if it's on your home field. Right. Yeah. You know, but I also think that that moment, while very sad, I would imagine potentially quite frustrating, it also has within it like an important bit of conclusion to an experience that is probably very emotionally complex for players, right? you know you might not be able to sort of tap into this part of the emotional experience

when you're on the losing side of the world series but you know even if you lose i think we said this when we were discussing sort of what does this mean for the diamondbacks like i i hope that they are able to come to a place of sort of pride for what they did accomplish even as they remain sort of unsatisfied by what they were able to achieve in the season and able to use it for motivation for the following year. So, like, if I were Corbin Carroll or whatever, I know he was one of the guys, I think, who kind of hung around for a bit after the final out, being able to sort of have a bookend to that experience and say, okay, like this chapter of my playing career is over now. And even though this is an unpleasant moment, it is

a meaningful one and one that I need to sort of take a second to mark and clock as like having happened. I can imagine that being, even if you don't conceptualize it this way in the moment, like important to being able to close that chapter and then move on to the following season and not always be looking back, but sort of having plans and ambition and momentum forward, right? So I don't think that it has to be dark, but I can imagine it being important for other reasons. And it's probably a lot of things, right? It probably feels a lot of different ways. Disappointing and sad, maybe most profoundly and resonantly in that moment. Resonantly? I don't know if that's a word, Ben.

You know, I'm not confident. But certainly a lot of different things at once. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, as you say, baseball and sports, good low stakes way to be sad. I guess this is among the higher stakes. Yeah. This is as high stakes as sports gets, I guess, the championship game.

But I still think I would watch. I don't think I would watch to burn the memory into my brain so that I could use it to fuel my desire to win, which probably some players do. You know, they're wired a little bit differently than we are. So I'm sure some of them, it's like, I want to sear this memory into my mind so that I never end up here again, which for me, well, I don't think I'm necessarily motivated that way or that I motivate myself that way. But also like you can't really will yourself back there, you know, so you can to a certain extent, but you're probably already trying really hard to win if you're a major league baseball player on a pennant winning team. So you can't just sheer willpower your way back to the World

Series or sheer willpower your way to a victory instead of a loss. So that wouldn't be a big motivating factor for me. I think it would provide some sort of closure. Like that's the end of such a long odyssey for you showing up to spring training in mid-February and here you are in maybe early November. I feel like just to kind of close the book on the season and shift into off-season mode, I would sort of need to see that celebration. I think that would help me turn the page potentially. So maybe it's that. Maybe there's probably some element of eyewash, I guess. Like maybe, you know, you're trying to look devastated. I think probably most players are legitimately like whatever they're emoting is what they're actually feeling. play the part of the team that lost and sits in the dugout and hangs my head and the cameras find me and sees me just with a vacant thousand year stare. Right. So if you were just to leave right away, then people might think, oh, he didn't want it enough. You know, he's not he's not as

devastated as the fans are. He just shook it off and and went right back to the clubhouse. You have no idea if that person could be breaking down in the clubhouse. But if you're there, you know, with a little watery eye, just kind of showing that the moment has gotten to you. I don't want to say they're all phonies and it's a facade and they're all acting. But maybe there's a little bit of just kind of kabuki, like, well, we're the losing team. We have to look the part of the losing team. There's probably some of that.

I think it's probably some of that. I think it's probably just a very complicated mix for guys. You know, I think that there are probably some dudes who are like, let me do this bit of business that I am expected to do. Let me, you know, use this as sort of a marker to move on. And to be clear, like if there are guys who do not want to be out there sitting on the rail, like I don't begrudge them that, right? I don't think there's like a wrong answer here, but yeah,

I bet it's, it really depends on the guy and it's probably a mix of things. And I'd be curious to, to hear how aware of our gaze they are in moments like that. Because that probably varies guy to guy also, right? Like, you know, I bet some of these dudes are like, oh, yeah, like, there's a camera on me, huh? And it takes them a moment for that to like, really register. I don't know. It's a, I bet it's a real mix. I guess there's a sportsmanship or respect element to it potentially. Like, hey, they won. We lost. I don't want to look like a sore loser by just booking it out of there, you know, to recognize them, to give them their due. I have to stand and wait and take it, you know, while they celebrate. So maybe that's part of it, not wanting to look petulant by storming out of there or something.

And maybe, I mean, it might just be kind of an interesting thing to see up close, even if you're not getting to participate in it. And even if it's disappointing and wrenching that you're not after coming so close, I might just sit there for the spectacle of it. I mean, just, you know, seeing people jump around and do dog piles and everyone's milling on the field. It's not something if you've never been in a World Series before, you've never seen that from that vantage point. And some guys go whole careers without ever being in that situation, win or lose. So I think I might just want to see it just to kind of be a looky-loo,

even if it hurt me. Yeah, even if it hurt even more that I could have been the one out there and I'm not, I still think, you know, it's one of a career potentially site. So I think I'd rather sit there and see that than go right back to the clubhouse where I've been a billion times. Yeah, I also think that there's probably a good bit of safety in being in the losing dugout in that moment because, yeah, the camera pans back to them every now and again. And, you know, we certainly get photos of guys on the rail that, you know, all the photo services will capture. But the focus really is on the winners in that moment, right?

Yeah. And so, is your lowest professional moment, and, you know, for some of these guys, maybe it's not their lowest professional moment, you know. Again, I think it probably varies a lot based on your experience of the majors and the pros more generally. But sure, maybe the camera flits to Corbin Carroll for a second. But the guy that everyone really wants to see in that moment is like Corey Seeger, right? So of the public moments you have as a professional athlete, it might be the one of the times when you're kind of the least in focus in a weird way. So, yeah, yeah.

Be interesting. I wouldn't really want to be the human counterpoint to that joy, though. You know, like I don't think I would want to be the dejected looking sort of like the sad Keanu meme for sports really were like their famous photos of players being upset after losing. Like there's a famous one people were posting in this thread of the Royals, Freddie Patek after the 1977 ALCS where he's alone in the dugout after game five and just has his head like resting on his balled up hands. And he just looks so dejected. I don't know that I would want to be the human embodiment of sports suffering. Sam recently went back and dredged up all the images of sad Clayton Kershaw after he's been pulled from various unsuccessful postseason

starts. And as Sam pointed out, that became a thing at a certain point where it was almost a meme. It was like, okay, Kershaw got knocked out of the game. Now we need to go find sad Kershaw on the bench. And sometimes the image that he would pull of sad Kershaw wasn't really representative of how Kershaw was looking all the time. It was just, he picked one frame that made him look most sad. So yeah, i don't know that i would want to be that guy and i probably wouldn't be that guy because i'm not super demonstrative so i'd probably be just someone who is sitting there staring expressionist as opposed to yeah doing like the the sad charlie brown walk out of the dugout or something there is a risk even as i'm saying that like there's a safety because it kind of depends

it depends a lot on like how long the absence after that is right like that can be a moment that gets turned on its head you know maybe even the next year um and then all of a sudden the the highlight is from that to you know a, a jubilant Corbin Carroll. I'm just going to use, he's going to be our proxy here, right? He's our avatar in this moment. But you're not guaranteed that. And then, you know, when droughts stretch and grow, you know, that's the last image you have of the franchise from the previous run of success. And it can get, get you know kind of grim

after a while like here i was relieved after a year that some other poor franchises home runs allowed to jordan alvarez in the postseason we're going to be on next year's you know highlight reel assuming the astros make it back can you imagine if you were the guy who gets pictured every time they bring up the, you know, the Cubs World Series drought or whatever prior to them winning in 16? Like, right. Yeah, that was that would sure stink. So, yeah, but I just don't think that people think about moments like that in those terms most of the time. I think that they're, moments like that in those terms most of the time. I think that they're, you know, it's really hard to look past anything but feel it more acutely than others if you're talking about losing a loved one or whatever it is. So, yeah, I don't think there's any wrong reaction. I wonder if it varies based on how you lose that last game.

Like if you got swept, let's say, and it's game four and you're getting blown out, you know, then you've had hours and days to adjust to the idea that you're probably about to lose. Whereas if you're up in the series maybe and you blow a lead or you're winning in that final game, maybe it's a game seven, maybe you have a lead, maybe you lost on a walk off or some terrible come from behind loss from your perspective. I wonder whether that would affect your likelihood of sitting there in the dugout because it's just going to be a more acute reaction, I guess, if it's sprung on you, if it's a surprise, as opposed to just, you know, you've had some time to adjust to the idea before that moment actually arrives. But losing is a natural and inevitable part of being an athlete for almost everyone, right? So you're going to find yourself in some situation like that at some point. And yeah, you might as well just sit with that moment and not bury it, not try to move on immediately. Yeah. I don't know. It's like a funny,

it's a really funny thing that we deal with as people. And like, we can't relate to it in quite the terms that, you know, a pro athlete would, but, you know, I remember having a conversation with a therapist once where I was like, oh, and I just like, you know, I was feeling dejected about something. And she was like, you know, sometimes when people are doing therapy, they have this tendency to pathologize having any feelings at all. And, you know, feeling sad when something sad happens isn't, you know, an indication of anything being broken. It's an indication of things being sad. And resisting, kind of letting that feeling in and dealing with it on its own terms can and often is far more damaging than just, than, you know, sitting with it and having to feel it. You know, the only way out is through a lot of the time and you have to reckon with the emotional experience in front of you. And that, again, that doesn't mean that that moment has to feel all one way or that it feels all one way for all of these guys or that you can't look back afterward and be like, you know, we didn't get it done, but we sure, we sure gave it a good run. I'm proud of what we did accomplish. Like, all of that can be true.

But I think sitting in that feeling is really important. And, you know, that doesn't mean that sitting on the dugout rail is the only place to have that experience by any means. I don't think that they owe us any kind of performance. But I can imagine having to see it, you know, really having to see it to be able to deal with it. I think that that would be important for me anyway. Well, this podcast doesn't take the place of therapy, to be clear to anyone. But if you want some secondhand therapizing, occasionally you could get some uneffectively well. Yeah.

That therapist would tell you, you got to feel your feelings, you know. And having them, that's not a bad thing. It's what you do with them when you get them that tends to determine the path. Well, the Milwaukee Brewers experienced a playoff loss recently on their own home field to the Arizona Diamondbacks. And now they have experienced another loss because they've been forsaken by their longtime manager, Craig Council. they've been forsaken by their longtime manager, Craig Council, and the council sweepstakes have had sort of a surprise resolution, to me at least. Craig Council is staying in the Midwest, staying in the NL Central, but going to the Chicago Cubs, who I did not even realize were in the running for Craig Council. So we talked about offseason storylines recently and what we were interested in. And I mentioned Craig beloved and everything and he's had a lot of success and he's kind of the consensus best

manager in baseball these days and so he was torn between the Brewers we thought and maybe the Mets where his old boss David Stearns is now in charge of baseball operations and of course that brings some added pressures and spotlight and attention. Right. And just general Metsiness, but also potentially a higher salary. And we wondered, would that be worth it to him? And then he was also up for the Guardian's job. Yeah. He was getting interest from seemingly everyone. There was interest expressed by the Astros. I

mean, anyone who had a vacancy would at least want to kick the tires and touch base with Craig Council. And it was also interesting because it was reported that he wanted to sort of reset the salary scale for managers, whether just because he wanted to make more money himself or because he wanted to help out other managers. I don't know. But it would appear that he has done so successfully because he is going to the Chicago Cubs on a five-year deal per Ken Rosenthal worth more than $40 million, which is more than $8 million a year, was reported to be the highest salary for a manager ever. And of course, this means that David Ross is no longer the Chicago Cubs manager, which we learned, I suppose, at the same time that we learned that Craig Council is their new manager. So what do you make of this little merry-go-round here in the NL Central? Well, I make a couple of things of it. First, I hope that we didn't learn that Craig Council had become the manager of the Cubs at the same time David Ross learned that fact, because that seems like a poor way to treat someone. So I am really interested in sort of the process piece of this, which I know is like for Cubs fans are like, Meg, are you serious? That is the least interesting part of this. in place to try to encourage hiring processes to consider diverse candidates. And since we didn't

know that there was an opening here, we have not heard tell of other candidates being interviewed as potential replacements for Ross. So I am curious to see sort of like how the Cubs are dealing with the CELA role of it all, which I think is like, you know, even in moments where it's like fun and interesting, it's like, whoa, big division rival move. Oh, my God, we got to put a real like bit of rigor behind how much does he love the Midwest? Like, you know, this is an important question for us to get a good answer to and hopefully a satisfactory one. So that's interesting to me. Yeah, it reminded me of when the Cubs hired Joe Maddon, who was similarly respected and coveted at the time after his stint with the Rays. He was looked on as, wow, he's kind of the cream of the managerial crop. And then he went to the Cubs and displaced Rick Renteria. Yeah. And I think the Cubs had told Renteria he would be coming back in 2015.

And then they just announced that they had fired him and hired Madden at the same time. And I think they offered Renteria to stay on in some other capacity. But how are you going to do that after the team does that to you? And then he went to the White sox and i think the rays filed tampering charges yeah because they suggested that the only reason madden had become available that he'd opted out was that he knew that the cubs would offer him a deal that would make him the highest paid manager in the game right and and theo said that that wasn't what happened that he had checked and you know he had made sure that madden was a free agent before talking to him and they cleared the cubs of that. But that was sort of a similar case.

I mean, different in the sense that in that case, they were not firing a white guy and hiring another white guy. And so in some ways, it was even more glaring then that they jettisoned Renteria as soon as Madden became available. I guess it worked out okay for them. They did win a World Series. That's what they wanted to do. And obviously Cubs fans are hoping that Council can deliver another one, that going out and getting the best manager maybe in baseball and also taking him away from a team that has been winning that division often lately or making the playoffs at least.

That's, you know, as much as any managerial move can be, that seems like a pretty big deal when you consider just the intra-division ramifications. Yeah, I think that that piece of it is really intriguing. I think that, you know, his stated desire to basically reset and have his salary be a rising tide that in theory lifts all ships is an interesting one. around that question of sort of manager and coach salaries has put front and center the realization that these folks have had that like they are getting outpaced in many instances by the college game. I think that we can have a different conversation, I guess, about like how what it means that like Vanderbilt and LSU and Georgia are in a position to pay this much to coaches but they are in some respects maybe a pretty useful foil for MLB staff across the league who are trying to be paid in a way that they feel is commensurate with the value that they're bringing so there's that piece of. I think that there is something pretty

cool about the guy who is understood to be the best in the biz and probably has a pretty good idea of how he is perceived, really using that leverage not only for his own enrichment, but in a way that is likely to have important sort of ramifications for the rest of the profession. So, like, that's pretty cool. I think that, like, this says a lot about how nice it is to live in the Midwest. So, there's that piece of it. And I think that, you know, I don't want to take this too far. So, like, you know, hang with me for a sec. too far. So like, you know, hang with me for a sec. But I do think that it is nice to see, even if it's in an area like manager salaries, where, yes, council has set a new sort of standard

for what that can look like. He's the highest paid guy. He's still like barely making reliever money, right? So like, you know, I don't want to overstate the case. This is an area where it's probably easier for a club to challenge other teams. But, you know, it is also nice to see, like, other clubs are interested in being, in some respect, a counterweight to Cohen and his desire to just spend other teams under the table. Like, it is nice to see Chicago say, like, hey, you know, like, we can, we have money too. And then you want to be like, remember that one at Council of Players, please. Like, you know, the job's not done.

But, you know, for them to look at that and really try to sort of punch back, I think is encouraging, even if it's only a little bit encouraging, because I don't want to be had, Ben. I don't want to be taken for a fool. I'm uninterested in that, but I think that piece of it is probably pretty encouraging. I do feel bad

for David Ross, man. I don't have a particularly developed opinion about him as a manager. He has seemed fine. He has seemed fine. And you know what? Most managers seem fine.

Like my take on them is that they're fine. They seem fine. And when they're not making like really intense strategic errors, which most of them don't, it's like, yeah, they're fine. This guy's fine. They seem fine. Ross was in that group for me where it's like, yeah, we're fine. Just like, okay, it's fine. It's super fun. Ross was in that group for me where it's like, this is fun. You know, I know that I think, oh gosh, I'm going to forget who it was now.

So forgive me. But, you know, it sounds like the way that they have started to position this is just like, well, it was such a, you know, it's not really a statement about David Ross so much as it's a statement about Craig Council and what we think he can do and like his availability was something. Oh, you got a statement. Are you ready? We've got a statement here. All right.

I mean, it won't be breaking by the time people listen to this, but this is, I'm reading from Megan Montemaro tweet. Cubs announced they have fired David Ross and hired Craig Council as their manager.

Hoyer statement in part. David's legacy will be felt in Chicago for generations and his impact on our organizations will stack up with the legends that came before him David's contributions to our club, both on the field and off. First as a player and then as manager, David consistently showcased his ability to lead. And then we get the bit about his legacy. Going forward, our major league team will be managed by Craig Council. We look forward to welcoming Craig at Wrigley Field early next week. So that suggests that David Russ is not staying in the organization in some other capacity. Yeah. They had implied or strongly suggested that he would be back. This was in early October. Tom Rickett said, I think Rossi did a great job, et cetera, et cetera. And Hoyer similarly, you know, I think it was clear that he probably had to win next year. Like he wasn't on the most solid footing long term. And certainly there were Cubs fans who were ready for a change. But they had both suggested that he would come back next year. And it wasn't like Craig Council being available was unpredictable.

He could have just resigned and never even tested the waters, but I think it was known that his contract was expiring at least, and that there was some possibilities that he might be seeing what else was out there. So, yeah, I mean, I guess it really is similar to that Madden-Renteria situation where it was like, yeah, you'll be back. And then, oh, this guy is available now. And that maybe does tell you what people think of Craig Council. I guess he's taking over a team that narrowly missed the playoffs. It was disappointing. They won 83 games.

The Brewers, the year before, Council was hired 182 games, and he didn't immediately deliver them. I guess he was hired in the middle of the 2015 season or part of the way into that season because Ron Renneke had started that season as the manager. So maybe you can give him a pass for that. Like Council didn't turn them into winners overnight. In 2015, they finished fourth. In 2016, they finished fourth. And then they finished second. They didn't actually make the playoffs under him until 2018 when they won that division. But they've had pretty sustained success since then.

The salary structure resetting is interesting because managers have become less and less integral or at least emphasized when it comes to team running, right? They're still very important parts of the process, but they're seen more and more as middle managers, as kind of cogs in the machine than people who are deciding a lot of things themselves. It's always a collaborative process now. And the manager is often sort of subordinate to the front office. And so it's an interesting time to say I should be making more than managers ever made. I don't know that this is actually that much more if you were to adjust for inflation. Inflation, yeah.

Some previous might even be less. Not every manager contract is reported. So it's harder to look up the terms. You know, the salaries aren't on their baseball reference page or whatever, the way that we usually can see players instantly. baseball reference page or whatever the way that that we usually can see players instantly so I don't know that it's like wildly out of line with some past big manager contracts right but they must really think Council can make a difference because I think more and more at least front offices feel like managers are pretty fungible and replaceable and that they're just there to

execute the front office's vision. And there's less and less autonomy when it comes to transactions, certainly, but even things like lineups and promotions and starting and sitting. And so this is, you know, I guess, again, an endorsement of counsel if at this time of deprioritizing the manager that everyone wanted Craig Council and were willing to give him large raises that speaks to how he's valued. And it might say something about the distribution of value from the perspective of teams, right? Like we've talked a lot about how you can only, we feel like we're in a position where the stuff that we can evaluate about a manager

is the tactical, the strategic, and then we get glimpses of like the people management piece of it. And I think you're right that when it comes to what is generally understood to be like the distribution of strategic talents in the manager set, that it is probably very narrow. You just don't get to stay in that seat for very long if you're like a real stinker. And even the ones who are maybe a little less strategically adept seem to get such profound support from the front office that they're not like in a position to really be able to torpedo their team's fortunes, right? You know, which doesn't mean that sometimes you don't be able to torpedo their team's fortunes, right?

You know, which doesn't mean that sometimes you don't walk a guy with the bases loaded or like do other weird stuff. But, you know, that's pretty rare today. But it might suggest that there is still a really big well of value that teams see in the ability to do all the stuff we can't see. And that, you know, in addition to being thought of as a good on-field manager that maybe counsels skill away from the field, or at least away from our view, is really superlative, that that is hard to find, and that it is something that is worth compensation, even if, you know, the rest of the job is quote unquote easier relative to what it's been in years past,

or at least not as self-directed as it's been in years past. So maybe, you know, maybe that's a piece of this too, that like he is just so good or thought to be so good at the stuff that is, you know, dealing with the ins and outs, the, you know, the people management piece of it that it's worth $8 million a year. Yeah. Which, again, isn't even really reliever money. Yeah. You know, like it's depending on how you want to peg it and what number you're using, like kind of a one win number. Right. Like if you want to think about it in terms of player salary. So, yeah, I mean, we talked about the Joe Jimenez signing last time.

Right. So he got twenty six million for three years. OK, he didn't get as many years as counsel, but on a per year basis, he got basically the same amount, if not more. So so we're talking about the very best at his profession getting that much versus, OK, pretty good reliever, I guess, kind of generic, decent relie important to keep that in mind. And also, even as some aspects of the manager's traditional job have been de-emphasized, there has been more of an emphasis on player development at the major league level. part responsible for continuing to improve those players or at least put them in a position to improve i don't know if you would say that player development at the big league level was necessarily the hallmark of council's time in milwaukee i'm sure there were some successes there but that is something managers are being asked to do it maybe not necessarily like be there in the bullpen session or the batting cage and be giving them pointers, but set up a staff at least that is capable of finding ways to help

players improve and being open to that input and feedback from the front office and all the various liaisons and supporting front office types who tend to travel with teams these days and just be part of that pipeline for providing information. I don't know that a manager can do that on their own, but they could certainly be an obstacle and an impediment to that flow of information if they decide to be. So presumably counsel is seen as someone who can help with that too. It seems like the Brewers made him an offer unsurprisingly, but it topped out at 5.5 per year. So we talked last time about the Brewers trading Mark Hanna instead of picking up that option and what that portended for

Brewers spending and competitiveness in the near future. And I guess you could, no one really would have expected them to match the Mets or the Cubs bid for bid probably. But here's another indication that they are not playing or trying to play in the same sandbox. Yeah, although I think we should be fair to them and also say that like that constituted

a meaningful raise for him relative to what he had been making on his prior contract. So I think it was more than the old college try on their part. And we don't know what opportunities they were afforded to counter. And, you know, again, these are pieces of the process story that I'm really interested in hearing. But the point you make about player dev is a good one, because if I'm, you know, we can say what we want about the manager piece, but as I think through, you know, coaching, members of coaching staffs being quoted,

you know, like I know Bob Nightingale had a piece in USA Today on this question about the difference in the college ranks. Like that is a place where I think if I'm an enterprising pitching coach or hitting coach, like that's, I think, probably really where the rubber meets the road in being able to leverage college salaries and college this and that to try to extract more money at the big league level. Because as college teams are putting a greater emphasis on development themselves, are putting a greater emphasis on development themselves. It's like, well, do you really want me to go be, you know, LSU's pitch? Do you want me to run their pitching lab? Or would you like to pay me another $500,000 a year and I'll stay here and help your big league team be good? You

know, so it isn't just the effect that this has on the manager role specifically, but I think these guys and gals, seeing the value that they can bring to different aspects of the organization, some of which are going to have, I think, a lot more tangible sort of evidence to put forth and say, here's how I helped that guy get better. Here's what I said to do. Here's what he did did and here were the results as you know as he implemented that in that plan like in some ways they have a an easier case to make even if it is you know operating in a lower salary band to say like hey you know i'm the pitching coach for x club and and we've seen defections there right we've seen big league teams in the last year, like lose key members of their dev staff to college ranks, like the Mariners, you know, their, their guy just left. So I hope that

one of the impacts of this isn't just felt in manager salaries, but across all of these coaching staffs, because the SEC means business and they will pay you commensurate with the business they mean, which is real business, Ben. Yeah. Although I guess at the major league level, coaching staffs keep expanding and in the minors too. So they're just more and more coaches. Maybe individually they're not making as much or they're not making more. But I guess you could say that their duties are a little more specific or strictly defined or, you know, you don't just have a pitching coach. Now you have an assistant pitching coach or you have multiple assistant pitching coaches in addition to the pitching coach.

Right. So so there has been that kind of growth, but it's it's maybe not enriching any any one coach. And it's going to push and pull against, you know, what the future size of the minor leagues is, right? We know that we won't see contraction for a further contraction for another five years. But you have to think that when the MILB CBA runs out that, you know, the league will endeavor again to reduce the size of farm systems, although maybe that puts a greater emphasis on continued development at the big league level. I don't know. But there's push and pull to be had here. And not everyone is going to be as is going to be equally regarded. Right. Not everyone, I think, will be able to exercise

leverage to the same degree. But yeah, it's there's it's an interesting time. MLB trade rumors reminded me that Joe Torre earned $8 million in 2007, apparently. So this is really just bringing things back to what they were then for one guy, according to some other reporting here. Terry Francona may have been the highest paid manager in 2023, and he was making 4.5. So that does kind of go along with what I was saying about maybe the role of the manager or the importance of the manager changing and declining. And thus the amount that teams are willing to pay managers also declining in a way that's kind of commensurate with that. So council's kind of going against those headwinds here that there's really been just a flatlining. There's been a stagnation in managerial salaries.

So he is the unicorn, I guess, the one who is able to beat that trend. And speaking of Terry Francona and the Guardians, Francona retired. He has now been replaced as well. Craig Council was not the only managerial hiring. Stephen Vogt, the legend Stephen Vogt, is now a major league manager, as he was foretold to be for so long. Right. And they have hired him now after what, just one year as a Mariners coach and he was always seen as a future manager. And now he is a present manager for the Guardians. So they're going from the ultimate experienced, been around the block, potential Hall of Fame guy to a rookie manager who's just 39 years old. Just turned 39 last week. But it is a happy

birthday for Steven Vogt, who's probably making considerably less money than Craig Council. But maybe, you know, I believe is his nickname. Maybe people will believe in him. He'll have a run of success with them that'll turn him into the next Craig Council. But yeah, I mean, people always expect it. He was like your classic, he'll be a manager, one guy kind of catcher. And here he is. Yeah, he, I don't know him personally. It's rare that you hear someone be like kind of uniformly and universally praised by the folks who have worked with him and a lot of different kinds of roles. But yeah, he's thought to be a very good guy. So I'm unsurprised that even given the recent proximity of his retirement and the limited amount of coaching experience that he has, that he found his way into a managerial role.

that he found his way into a managerial role. You know, we'll have to see like what that really looks like and how it goes. Because, you know, there are a lot of good guys who wouldn't be great major league managers. So who knows? I don't know what we're going to get. But yeah, he has been thought to be sort of in position for that was for someone for a long time.

And even if I didn't think it would happen quite so fast, I'm not ultimately that surprised. Yeah, really rapid ascent, but not a super surprising ascent. So they had obviously been interested in council too, but vote seems like a strong consolation prize. And we'll see, like there have been some managers who've been seen as great managerial prospects and just jumped really quickly from playing to managing. And sometimes they're growing pains there. And some guys have had zero managing experience or even coaching experience. He has no professional managing

experience at the major league level. So, you know, you can't always just bank on someone stepping into that role and being great from day one. There's definitely a learning curve there, even if it's someone who's been seen as a future manager for years now. So we'll see how that goes. But he seems to have the traits, the raw materials. And we've kind of gone through cycles where it's like, you know, a bunch of older veteran retread types get hired. And then there's a trend toward younger guys who can connect with the players more easily because they're like the same age or maybe are just more resigned to working with front offices in the way

that veteran managers who predated the sabermetric age might not be as comfortable with. And so it was seen as like, oh, they'll just be kind of the pawns of the front office would be the pessimistic spin, but they won't hold out for the authority that earlier managers might have assumed was something they could count on. So, yeah, we'll see how that goes. Well, and we should say who the Mets hired. Oh, yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Because like, you know, the place that we thought this day would end would be maybe the Mets saying, hey, we have hired Craig Council. But instead they hired Carlos Mendoza, who's been the bench coach for the Yankees for a while.

So that was the direction that they ended up going, which I don't know. So that was the direction that they ended up going, which I don't know. Again, like it is interesting that of the three that we've learned about in the last couple of days that, yeah, he has the like the second most. He's not been a manager, but like bench coach is like manager in training, right? Like that's a, you know, that's the person who takes over when the manager gets mad and gets ejected. And if you worked for the Yankees for a while, that happened a lot. gets mad and gets ejected. And if you worked for the Yankees for a while, that happened a lot. You know, he's been called upon, I imagine, quite a bit given Aaron Boone's, you know, he also feels his feelings, put it that way, and lets you know. So yeah, they hired Mendoza.

Yeah. So it's just all the managerial business of being taken care of at once. I guess this was a case. Yeah. This is maybe kind of a case of like one guy holding up business. Not that it's been a long time. The season just ended. But when when everyone wants one guy, then you kind of have to wait to see where that one guy is going to go before you decide what else you're going to do. Yeah. And, you know, we still have a few vacancies remaining across the league, right? So, the Astros don't have a manager. The Padres still don't have a manager. Obviously, the Brewers, how could I forget? Well, it's very new, you know, officially. So, I'm forgiven. And then the Angels. So, we still have a couple of seats that have not yet found a new occupant. But I imagine that it'll kind of speed up from here given that council has been sorted. Yeah.

Yeah. Mendoza is taking over for Showalter, who has been connected to that Angels job. Apparently, he just reached out and was like, yeah, I want this job. And everyone else is like, no, thank you. Apparently, he just reached out and was like, yeah, I want this job. And everyone else is like, no, thank you. That just tells you Buck Showalter must really like managing, even after all these years, because that's not the ideal situation. I mean, both with Artie Moreno and also just with the fact that the Angels have not been able to put a winning team together and don't seem to be getting closer to that with Otani as a free agent. So you could see if you're Showalter, you're like, yeah, I

really just want to win that World Series and there are only 30 of these jobs but that doesn't seem like it's one that's going to get you closer to a championship unless you really stick around for quite a while or you're a really amazing manager. But maybe he just really, really likes

doing it. he's uh been fired plenty of times before and changed teams plenty of times before so i guess he's like if it happens again i've been through that before so whatever but what a what a way to put that ben what a way to put that did you see that phil nevin was a name that had emerged in the pottery search oh no i didn't yeah that's definitely the vibes you want to fix, the bad vibe situation, I think. Yeah, Carl Sandoza, minor league player, not a major league player. Right. Always interested in those guys.

And also, we got an email from listener Aaron, who said something I found particularly interesting about the vote hire is that he played for six teams being a utility catcher naturally, but Cleveland was not one of them. And he said, it's obviously common for longstanding catchers to ultimately manage in the big leagues, but it seems less likely for a former player who made that many rounds to end up somewhere he didn't play, which it is sort of surprising, right? Because like at all his stops, it was like, oh yeah, this is future manager material. And yet all those former teams he had did not hire him to be their manager. Now, maybe there wasn't a vacancy at the right time. Right. But but yeah, you would have thought it would be one of the teams that experienced that up close and personal, you know, firsthand that he would have just graduated right into that role.

I was almost surprised when he went to the Mariners to coach instead of the A's, just sticking around where he was or where he had been. So yeah, that's a little unusual, maybe. Yeah, it is a bit surprising that that's how that worked out. I hadn't really thought of that until we got that email. And in part because maybe I was like, wasn't he with the Guardians at one point? I think that if you had asked me to name, like, I obviously knew, you know, about the Tampa piece of it. And I knew about the Oakland piece. And I remembered weirdly, like the Arizona piece. But if you had asked me to name, you know, Milwaukee and the Giants and the Braves, I bet I would have gotten those wrong. So, you know, I would have said, oh, yeah, remember his half-season stint with Cleveland? And I would have been wrong about it, Ben.

Right. Yeah. And Aaron included a list of managers and where they played, especially the journeyman managers like Alex Cora played for six teams. He spent four seasons in Boston. Mark Kotze played for seven teams, but he had four seasons in Oakland where he's the manager.

Aaron Boone played for six teams, but he had one very memorable season with the Yankees. And I guess there's Tori Lavello played for seven teams, but not the Diamondbacks. But his career barely overlapped with the Diamondbacks. So that's a little bit different, I think. And then we don't even have to go very far. David Ross played for seven teams, including, of course, a couple in Chicago. And David Bell is one. He played for six teams, but did not play for the Reds, which you kind of might think, didn't he at some point? But no, I mean, even Bob Nelvin played for seven seasons.

He played three seasons in San Francisco. And then, yeah, I mean, I guess Davey Martinez played for nine teams and four seasons in Washington or Montreal. So most of them, it seems like they did kind of map on to where they ultimately played, but not in this case. But I guess word traveled about just how well-liked vote was. I think part of it, you know, a big part, obviously not everyone on that list that you just named was a catcher,

but like for catchers, I don't know, you just feel like they bop around so much it seems because if you are remotely productive as a big league catcher you're probably going to be able to find a job and so yeah i think it can lend this impression that like yeah that guy was there for you know like a post-deadline kind of moment even if he in fact in fact, was not, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I misspoke, by the way.

Melvin played for seven teams, not seven seasons. He played for 10 seasons. And yeah, he has, I'll link to all of the research that Aaron did here. It's not unique, but it is somewhat unusual. So I guess the other hiring bit of news is that the Marlins hired a replacement for Kim Ang. Yeah. And they did not go outside of Florida to find one. They have hired Peter Bendix. Yeah.

The former Rays general manager. And he has now ascended to a po-bo role. Po-bo. He's po-bo of the Marlins. Po-bo. Pobo. He's Pobo of the Marlins. Pobo. Pobo. Pobo. Like Breslow, Craig Breslow in Boston, he went from assistant GM straight to Pobo.

Pobo. He just skipped GM. But I guess Bendix was the GM in Tampa. I mean, it just tells you how much every owner covets a raise executive because it's like, I want to win. And also, I don't want to spend much money. So where am I going to go? I'm going to go get a raise person who has done that there. And sometimes that works out great and sometimes not so great. Although apparently Heimblum was maybe their top choice for this job. Oh, really? I didn't see that part.

Yeah, that they were very interested in Bloom as well. So I guess the Bloom is not off the rose when it comes to Jaime and his prospects for getting, hey, we already used that as a, I think that was our episode title. It might have been. Just calling back to the first time we used that terrible. Yeah, I'm mostly just conscious of how bad an influence I've been on you, you know, like, I don't know that it's worked out great for you hanging out with me so much. Yeah. But Bendix, I mean, I knew of him as a blogging type, much like Heimblum. Blog, hide, assemble. Yeah. It's like Bendix was a Beyond the Box score SB Nation guy back in the day. Right. So he was, you know, sort of running in some of the same circles. And some of those people are running teams now. And we're still hosting this baseball podcast. Well, I was feeling fine about myself until you said that.

Yeah. No, I mean, to be clear, I chose this course and I'm happy about it. And also don't think that I would be running a team necessarily if I had stuck with the team track. But it is striking when kind of your peers, your cohort are now like, oh, a po-bo. Peter Bendix is a po-bo now. Yeah, geez. I wonder if, what is the, I mean,

like I guess the po-bo equivalent on the writing and editing side would be editor-in-chief and we've never had an editor-in-chief. Yeah, you're managing editor. You got to get the promotion to ENC, then you'll be the Pobo of fan crafts. Yeah, Pobo, Pobo. But we wouldn't call it a Pobo. And like EIC isn't as fun to say.

That sounds like a doctor thing, if anything. So, you know, Pobo, Ben, Pobo, Pobo. Yeah, Pobo. Now we need, we need, you started it, so I get to make this joke. So now we need the Marlins to be really interested in a player whose last name is Beckham. And then we can have a Bandix-like Beckham headline. I'm like, I'm laying claim to that. It's like when there's a plate of cupcakes and you lick one to make sure that everyone knows that one's mine.

If that ever transpires, when do you get to use that? Hello, Google. Look. Mine. So we'll see. He's going from a team that doesn't spend a lot to another team that doesn't spend a lot. Whereas you had Andrew Friedman goes to the Dodgers and suddenly he can run higher payrolls or Haim Bloom, higher payrolls, maybe not as high as the Red Sox had before. But between those guys and then Matt Arnold with the Brewers, James Click, formerly of the Astros, there's just a raise executive tree where that's what you want if you're an owner, especially if you're an owner that doesn't spend that much.

And you're like, can I get the results of the other Florida team without spending more? That would be nice. Maybe I'll just go hire one of their people and they can do that for me. So I don't know. It's hard to say, obviously, anything about a specific executive who is just part of a larger front office that has been successful. But obviously, if you're a Marlins fan who was looking enviously at the success and the track record of the other Florida team, well, now you went out and got someone from that team.

So we'll see if that is sufficient. I think there's probably other work that needs to be done to turn the Marlins into a second race. Yeah, I think that's right. Man, people who can deal with humidity. What's that like? You know what? Yeah. Like you're saying, I at least don't mind, you know, or I don't mind it so much that I won't be a po-bo.

Po-bo. Ben, po-bo. it so much that I won't be a po-bo. Po-bo. Ben, po-bo. Po-bo. Ben Dix is a couple years older than I am, but he started as an intern in 2009 with the Rays, which was the same year that I was interning for the Yankees. And, you know, our roads diverged from there somewhat.

I think of you as the po-bo of this podcast, Ben. Does that make you feel better? Yeah, I guess that's nice. You're the po-bo, I'm the GM, you know? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess that means no other competing baseball podcast can hire me away unless they invent a new title for me that's even higher than po-bo. Yeah, like, you know, Galactic Emperor of Podcasting.

That would be one that you might be interested in because it feels like it's from Star Wars, even if, you know, I don't know if it's quite. Did he call himself the Galactic Emperor or he just called himself the Emperor, right? There was no Galactic in there. That was sort of implied. It was implied, right. It was the Galactic Empire. But, yeah, you're the emperor of the galactic empire. You're just, yeah, you're the galactic emperor by default, I suppose. Yeah, you're the pobo of this terrible Death Star, you know? there for so long that he's really steeped in the Rays way of doing things that's like almost going back to the beginning of the Rays being good so totally inculcated in in the Rays operations and we'll be bringing that

knowledge with him to Miami so I guess that brings us to the end of our front office and managerial transactions and hiring news. And so there was only one bit of transaction news for players that piqued my interest, caught my eye, and it was the Padres declining Michael Waka's option for two years and 32 million, because that was kind of in the Mark Canna class of maybe this tells us something about how this team is going to operate because otherwise you'd think Michael Waka on that contract would be someone you would want to have, right? Especially if you're the Padres and you are losing some players to free agency and you have some vacancies in your starting rotation. And Waka was pretty good for them. You know, he's been pretty good the last couple of years. He's been around 130 innings and around 130 ERA plus. You'd think you'd want more of that. And they decided no, which maybe tells you something or reinforces something that we already had an indication of, which is that the Padres are tightening the purse strings just a tad potentially here.

So that may make you think that that one Soto trade, like, I don't want to say it's inevitable, but it certainly seems like, I mean, John Becker of Fangraphs tweeted this, that the Padres were at a $197 million payroll and reportedly they've wanted to be at $200 million. And they seem to need some pitching health, right? Because like almost half of their innings from this season hit free agency. Yeah. And they elected to let Waka leave. So if they are going to import some pitching

and also want to stay around 200, I don't know how that really leaves payroll room for Juan Soto. Yeah. Oh, boy. Wow.

That'll be sort of a sad end to it if that's what it comes to. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. A bit of a defl to it if that's what it comes to, huh? Yeah. Yeah. A bit of a deflating parting if that's what happens. But then we would have another Juan Soto sweepstakes to talk about and speculate about.

So that would add some intrigue to the offseason, especially because the class of position players is so thin. Yeah, it's so poor. Yeah. You inject Juan Soto into that. It's like, okay, that's interesting. poor yeah i mean that is one soda into that it's like okay that's yeah that that does change the uh dynamic ever so slightly if you can go from a soto-less experience to a social full experience but yeah i mean like you would imagine that it would be an interesting push and pull because you're only getting him for a year so that clearly makes him less valuable than the last time around

from a prospect return perspective. And his seasons have been kind of weird, but he's still been a very good hitter. But also, if you're guaranteed to get him for the full year rather than waiting around to the deadline, and there aren't a lot of position players, that's pretty exciting. Plus, depending on what you think of him long term we talked at the time of his potential trade like does this put a team

sort of on the inside track to be able to ink him to a deal and i think that we at the time said you know he's a boris guy they don't tend to do extensions and when they do they tend to be huge and so does that even really matter very much but maybe you know if you're his representation and you're him your understanding of what his ultimate free agent market is going to look like might be a little bit different than it was so i don't know that would be fascinating so i'm voting i well i don't want to like deprive padres fans fans of Juan Soto. That feels unkind, but it would be nice to have something like that to talk about. So, you know, the podcaster's curse, man. Like, we just end up being weird little vultures at times, don't we,

Ben? You know, you're the pobo of the vultures. Yeah. We want to live in interesting times. Yes. Right. Yeah. Well, I'll save my Soto Voce headline for whatever episode when we really talk about Soto trade rumors if that comes along. Yeah. It just occurred to me, there are a lot of Yankees fans who do not, they do want Juan Soto to be clear, but they do not want Aaron Boone. And they are seemingly stuck with him. I wonder whether it's more frustrating that they had a managerial prospect, Boone's number two, the bench coach behind Boone, who was seen as such an appealing manager that the crosstown rivals would hire him. Like if Carlos Mendoza goes on to be super successful with the Mets and the past three Mets managers have lasted two years apiece. So he's going to hope

to extend that. Do a little bit better, yeah. Yeah. If he has some success and some staying power, then I wonder if Yankees fans who are frustrated with the staying power of Boone,

whether they're feeling extra frustrated because it's like, oh, the next in line, the guy who was seen as manager material, now he's gone and the Mets got him even. And we're still stuck with Boone. To be clear, I don't know that Boone is a bad manager. I just know that a lot of Yankees fans are convinced that he is. Oh, yeah. People have things to say. They got some stuff to say, Ben. Yeah. And I don't know that the Yankees, if they had made a change, whether they would have hired Carlos Mendoza or promoted him. Who knows if they saw him that way or not.

Sure. But, yeah, the fact that another organization and a rival, one no less, cross-down rival, thought so highly of Carlos Mendoza that they wanted him to be the manager. I wonder if that gets the goat of Yankees fans who had enough of the Boone and the Boone Cashman tenure. I don't, yeah, that's a great point. Boy, they sure have, they have a lot of things to say about Aaron Boone, don't they? They do. They really do. It's always interesting, like one, you know, often when internal candidates like that find their way to managerial openings in other organizations, I think the general perception of the manager who remains is more universally favorable than it is with Boone. So that is a

kind of an interesting wrinkle to add to all of this. Can I ask you an unrelated question? Have you ever said Michael Waka's name without thinking Waka, Waka, Waka immediately after? I don't think I have even one time in my entire life. I've always thought Waka, Waka, Waka's name without thinking Waka Waka Waka immediately after. I don't think I have even one time in my entire life. I've always thought Waka Waka Waka. Naturally. All right. I have one more thing to ask you. It's related to an email. It's kind of topical. Are you following the NBA in-season tournament at all? Which is, that is the name of it. It's not the NBA in-season tournament called X. It is just called the NBA in-season tournament. But it's a brand new thing that the NBA is running during this regular season.

I have heard tell of it. I know it exists. But the thing that I have mostly been thinking about when it comes to NBA basketball is Wembley. So tell me a tale, Ben. Tell me a tale of the tournament. Since we have already discussed Wembley briefly, this was a question from Jason who said, in light of the NBA's inclusion

of the new in-season tournament, what would you think if this idea were added to MLB as well? If it's a success in that league, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like it implemented since Rob Manfred is clearly willing to implement rule changes geared toward creating a more entertaining quote unquote product. My biggest problem with the NBA's idea is that the cash prizes for players don't seem like a great motivation. Is a player making tens of millions of dollars a year really going to care that much about a 200K cash prize or 500K?

And why should i as a fan celebrate my favorite millionaires making more money if the in-season tournament was added incentives should be added to make it worthwhile for both fans and players is this a good idea at all so the nba in season tournament as i understand it is partly a response to the fact that the NBA regular season really was losing a lot of luster in recent years, especially. Partly because of load management, which the league is also trying to crack down on now. They've come out and said, actually, there are no studies that suggest that load management actually prolongs your career or enhances your performance, which was previously believed to be true and is still believed by many to be true. And now there are all these rules and recommendations about how often you can rest superstars and if you can rest them on the same days and in the same games because it was turning into the situation where it was almost like a status symbol if you would get an off day it was like a sign that that okay you're elite

right and and you're saving yourself for the playoffs and because so many stars were doing that often you know in nba games if you rest one or two stars that's like a big chunk of your team you know it's not as big a deal in baseball when you have more players on the field. There aren't so many on the floor. So they're trying to make the regular season more interesting. And it's been a lot less interesting because even though it doesn't go on as long as MLB's regular season in terms of games, you know, it's like half as many games, but that's still more than it needs to be. It's like overdetermined because in basketball, it's not as random as MLB. And so like a best of seven series in the NBA playoffs, the favorite is going to win so much more often than a best of seven in MLB, where you'd need to

play many, many, many multiples of seven to get the same predictive power. And it's the same thing with the regular season where you just don't need that many games to determine who the best teams are. And so people were getting less interested in kind of tuning out in November, December before you got close to the playoffs. And meanwhile, the NBA is negotiating gigantic media deals and broadcast packages. And so they want to zhuzh it up a little bit. They want to add a little intrigue to suggest that, oh, actually people will watch

the November and December games. So pay us a ton of money for the broadcast rights to those games too. So that's part of the motivation. Basically, this is the format I'm just going to those games too. So that's part of the motivation. Basically, this is the format I'm just going to read from Wikipedia. So it's sort of like in-scene tournaments that they play in soccer in Europe or in the WNBA, I believe, where each conference gets divided into three groups of five teams each. So six groups total. And then it's a round robin. So like Tuesdays and Fridays this month

feature each team playing one game against each of the other teams in their group, two at home and two on the road. The games still count as regular season games. So it's not like, yeah, it's not like a separate tournament that they don't stop the regular season and say, we're going to go play this tournament and then we'll resume. It counts towards the regular, regular season, but it's also

a tournament and four teams from each conference advance to a single elimination tournament. And then the three pool winners, it's the three pool winners with the group runner up as a wild card. And then I guess they play a semifinals and finals in Vegas. And then as Jason said, there are cash prizes. Basically, all it is is bragging rights and cash prizes for the players. So the players on the championship team each receive $500,000, which doesn't sound like that much. It's, I guess, about as much as someone who's like on the back of a bench would be making for a full season. So for them, it's meaningful. Like it's close to the minimum salary for a season.

But for your superstars, it's not going to be a big raise on a percentage basis. And then the players on the two losing teams in the semifinals get $100,000 each. And the players on the four losing teams in the quarters get $50,000 each. So it's not an enormous amount of money. And it also just is counted as regular season games. So it's kind of odd. I think there are some fans who are wondering, like, why is this happening? Like, why should I care about this?

And I think a big part of it is just that the players are, in theory, more motivated to play their hardest for these games because of either wanting to win a tournament or just getting a raise, which for some players might be meaningful. And it's weird because, like, they're playing on these courts that are kind of garishly colored and so that's become a meme like people's eyes being burned by the courts that indicate that these are tournament games and not just regular regular season games so they're still sort of figuring it out and i think they're trying to tinker with this and see whether it works like they considered other incentives like maybe you'd get a guaranteed playoff appearance or draft picks or cap exceptions or something and at least for this first time around it's just cash prizes for players so i don't know how interesting that is but how do you how do you feel about this for mlb which has an extremely long regular season with

a ton of games i do wonder like does it being about money really address like provide any sort of powerful incentive for the load management stuff because aren't the guys who are most often getting games off because of load management like the lebrons of the world yeah and so like what it what does lebron care about a tournament check right like i don't i you know and i don't say that to like doubt his competitive spirit or anything like that but it's like if the primary motivation is is supposed to be like you get an additional financial incentive and the the secondary motivation is you win this like in season tournament don't you if you're like a very good veteran player who is trying to like do load management to to balance your health versus wanting to win in the regular season say

like you know what would really be nice is to win like an nba championship and load management might help me do that now like i haven't looked at the the stuff that you're referring to about um whether load management works or not it does make sense that like having time off every now and again will probably help you especially if you're an older player so like intuitively that feels like um it's wrong but like i don't know like you know sometimes your intuition is wrong too so who do i know right but all of this is happening against the backdrop of yeah we're negotiating rights deals and we want to get an enormous windfall and so we can't have players just not playing a lot of the time and the games get boring because the people you want to see are not in those games or they're not trying very hard so they're trying to counteract that however they can.

Yeah. And I guess I get that. I mean, like I get why they're doing it. I don't really have like a developed opinion about it. I don't know. I think that wanting to inject the regular season with additional meaning is nice. And I want teams to feel like they have a powerful incentive to win but when i think about the stuff that gets in the way of like a competitive landscape the movie lives up to what i want i don't think that the problem is that like players are improperly incentivized to do well on their own you know the things that get in the way of competitive balance. And in general, like we've talked about this, like the league has pretty good competitive balance, but like, you know, the thing that is contributing to, I don't know, like the A's and

the Rockies and the Royals and the White Sox losing 100 games or more, that's not because like the folks playing for the Royals are improperly incentivized to win. And if you gave them an extra X amount of money, they'd be more incentivized to win. Like that's not how I think it plays out in baseball. You know, the issues are broader if for no other reason than you have just so many more guys and the impact that an individual player can have is somewhat limited.

So you do have to sort of like build rosters that are more competitive front to back and you want good players in that mix, right? It's helpful to have a Corey Seager, right? But Corey Seager on his own can't do it. And so, you know, when we talk about trying to get teams to really commit to putting a quality product on the field, we're talking about something much broader than that. And I don't think that, like, financial incentives are really all you know like the guys who play for the a's are trying it's not that they aren't trying that's not where our problem

comes in right so yeah yeah we have talked about people have asked us about having some sort of international tournament that is not the wbc but like having the World Series winner play the Japan Series winner, that kind of thing, right? Or having something that has like teams from the leagues playing each other, not just players every few years matching up in the WBC. And in theory, something like that sounds like it would be fun. But then it's always like, well, when do you host it and where do you host it? And how do you not have it interrupt the respective regular seasons of those teams? And you can't really do it before the season because then guys are trying to get ready.

That's always the issue with the WBC. And then you can't really have it after the season because everyone's tired and they're just going to want to go home and they're going to be fatigued at that point anyway. So baseball already takes up so much of the schedule and the calendar that it's hard to find a time that is not already occupied by baseball that would work for players. This kind of tournament, I mean, if you were to just like break in the middle of the season and do a little round robin or something instead of the all-star break or along with the all-star break, maybe that could be kind of interesting. If I were an NBA fan, I don't think I would be super intrigued by at least this implementation of the in-season tournament idea. I might be kind of confused about why I should care about this.

But it's true that there are a lot of games in the regular season that don't have high stakes. Although that's especially true, I guess, late in the season when some teams are already eliminated or you have some idea about whether, because like the fact that this is happening so early in the NBA season is sort of jarring.

It's like the regular season just started. You're already throwing these bells and whistles at us. Like when MLB starts its season and opening day happens, I'm good for a while. I'm happy to have baseball back and be a daily staple again. And I don't necessarily need something at that point that's going to increase my interest because I'm already interested. But then maybe I'm not the sort of follower of the sport that the league has to be concerned about not paying attention. Right. So

this is for the more casual people who might not be tuning in and might be saying it's a super long season and these games in April or May don't mean all that much individually in the grand scheme of things. I do worry sometimes when we get these questions where it's like, do we just suffer from from sicko syndrome? Like it's like, I don't need this because like I'm already, you know, part committed to the whole endeavor. But it does seem weird to be like, to the whole endeavor. But it does seem weird to be like,

no, these games are different. How? Well, the court hurts your eyes to look at, mostly. Like, that seems like a weird, it's like, are you doing it or not? You know, what about this is really different? And again, like, I don't know, the financial incentive piece of it might play differently for the NBA

than it does for MLB, I don't know. But something like this is maybe putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable, as it were. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think something exactly like this would be all that compelling, but it is a very long season. So if there were one way to spice it up or, I mean, you know, we've talked about lottery systems. We've talked about Sam's proposal back in the day where like everyone makes the playoffs and you start kind of playing a tournament earlier and everyone has a shot at it. It's just harder for some teams. There are various things you could do. But I at least like that the regular season is just the steady background hum. It's just the soundtrack to your summer. And yeah, it's really long. And I certainly see the arguments for shortening the regular season,

especially if you're going to just place so much emphasis on the playoffs and let so many teams into the playoffs and have people chalk up who wins the playoffs, make that so meaningful. Then why are we going through this six-month tease before we even get to that point to try to determine who the better teams are? So, yeah, maybe you might just shorten the regular season sooner than you would actually have some sort of sideshow running alongside it. I think it's a worthy question. I just don't like this answer.

I mean, the WBC rules. So like we and everyone got super into it, especially this past spring. And I have advocated, I said the WBC should be every year. Just do it every year. Don't make us wait three or four in between. This is so much more fun than spring training, right? So I'm into that because spring training is kind of boring, right? Like you get excited when pitchers and catchers report because, oh, it's a milestone. We're closer to the end of the offseason. And then when they start playing spring training games, maybe you're excited for a day and oh, it's actual baseball. But then it goes on for four weeks, six weeks, whatever it is. And it's just, it's dull, right? And you don't care about what's happening other than if someone gets hurt, basically. So during that time, then it makes

sense to do something sexier, do something that you're actually going to tune in to see that has stakes. For me, at least, the regular season is stakes enough. But yeah, not necessarily for everyone. It's a lot of inventory, all those teams, all those games, all those months. So that is a big asset for baseball. And I'm sure if they could make it an even bigger asset, they would not be averse to that. Right. Yeah, I think that that is very likely true. One last thought on the manager salary thing. Jeff Passan tweeted that prior to council signing this eight million ish a year deal, the highest paid manager, as I said, four and a half million

Terry Francona, lower than basically every other major American sport. Right. So you have Bill Belichick making 20 million in the NFL. You have Monty Williams making $13 million in the NBA. You have college football and basketball coaches making $8 million, $11 million, even in the NHL, Todd McClellan, evidently $5 million. So the highest paid NHL manager was higher than the highest paid MLB manager. And there's more revenue in MLB and players make more money. And so in a way, MLB, its managerial salary structure was kind of an outlier on the low end,

which again, I guess, just says something about the role of manager in baseball, or at least the perception of the role of manager in baseball, where in the NBA and the NFL, you have managers who are really doing the game planning and the X's and O's and matching up with opponents and everything. And in MLB, there's a perception that you're just kind of penciling in more or less the same names every day. You know, you're just keeping harmony in the clubhouse, but it's not so much

anymore about your tactical genius and you're pulling the strings from the dugout. And so people aren't paid as much even relative to coaches, managers in other sports. So I guess council's kind of breaking a baseball salary ceiling for managers here, but he seems to be the only one right now. Yeah.

I just, I mean like Belichick is also like the GM of his team, which is not going well for all the reasons. Like, if I were the Patriots, I'd be like, uh-oh, gotta make some changes. I like how I said it in that voice, as if anyone who works for New England talks like that. But yeah, I mean, it's like, it is a surprising thing.

I think part of it is, I don't know, I just think that it is hard for them to maybe make the case in like really concrete terms at times because so much of their jobs involve soft skills. I don't know. It is an interesting, it's an interesting bit of business. They need a union maybe, you know? Maybe so. Or they have Craig Council. Yeah, they're their standard bearer. Yeah. All right. Well, after we recorded Brewers owner Mark Adonacio commented on the likely NL manager of the year, Craig Council. He said, we're all here today because we lost Craig. Sounds like something you'd say in a funeral, but it was a Zoom call. But I've reflected on this. You know, Craig has lost us and he's lost our community.

It's a really special place to be. So who's to say who the real loser in this situation is? And you know, Craig may have lost one community, but perhaps he's gained another. And he's also gained a really special salary. Probably eases the pain of leaving a really special place. A few follow-ups. If you have looked at Stephen Vogt's Wikipedia page and noticed that it's extremely exhaustive? We talked about that just about a year ago on episode 1913. I corresponded with the Wikipedia editor who is primarily responsible for making Vogt's Wikipedia page so thorough. It is one of the longest baseball player Wikipedia pages, certainly relative to Stephen Vogt's baseball career, and it'll need some updates now. Also, when we were talking about Nelson Cruz's retirement the

other day, we raised the question of whether Nelson Cruz is the prominent player with the least remembered PD suspension. Few listeners suggested Bartolo Colon, who of course also went on to play for a very long time and be a productive older player and be well-liked. So people don't hold the PD suspension against him so much, or some of the other things in Colon's past for that matter. We also got some responses to the email we answered about what to call seasons when a player wins a gold glove and a silver slugger. A few listeners, Joe on Patreon and Dennis, they suggested an electrum season because electrum is a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, which was used in the classical world for coinage, among other things. Electrum

season. I like that a lot. Not that anyone would know what you were talking about unless you explained it. Similarly, Discapades suggested alloy athlete. Listener Clive suggested a podium player, because gold and silver have links to the respective medals won at the Olympics and many other events. And Patreon supporter J. Wade Edwards suggested that we should have a third qualifier and a word for gold glove plus silver slugger plus playing all 162 games. Because then you have the Gold Glove, the Silver Slugger, and the Iron Man. And the winners of that award would be Dale Murphy in 82, 83, 84, and 85.

Eddie Murray in 85. Don Mattingly in 91. Cal Ripken Jr. in 97. Craig Biggio in 98. Rafael Palmeiro, 2002. A-Rod, 2005. Mark Teixeira, 2007. Jimmy Rollins, 2018. And Nick Markcas and Marcus Simeon in 2021.

Jay says if MLB had any sense of fun, Metallica would present this the most medal ever award. Also, since we talked about Martin Maldonado being devoted to backup catcher, Wes pointed out to me that Carlos Correa in 2022 reportedly told a Twins coach that Maldonado is worth 15 wins to the Astros because he knows what he's doing behind the plate. He knows every hitter's weaknesses. He's going to try to exploit them. So a 15 win estimate for Martin Maldonado's game calling, at least in 2022. I collect lofty appraisals of how much certain players are worth, which were very common before we had war and other win value metrics. You could kind of say anything and you can still say almost anything about game calling because we don't have a commonly available stat that says you're wrong. I don't know if Correa would say that Maldonado was worth

that much this season, but if the Astros suddenly inexplicably lose a lot of wins next season, well, maybe we'll know why. Finally, after we recorded today, qualifying offers were all extended or not. Only seven players received them. Otani, Bellinger, Chapman, Gray, Hader, Nola, and Snell. That's the fewest since after the pandemic season, there were six qualifying offers extended in 2020. The only other year with this few after 2018, there were seven, but the average over the previous 11 years was 11.3 qualifying offers, or the median was 10. 2018, there is a downturn in free agency. 2020 was the pandemic year. So the fact that there are seven this year, I think probably reflects the quality

of the class. It's fairly low. If you want to make an offering to Effectively Wild, we would welcome that. You just got to go to Patreon, patreon.com slash effectively wild. That's where you can sign up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay almost ad free and get yourself access to some perks, as have the following five listeners. MCS, Maxwell Elkis, Tom M., Jim Stewart, and LP, thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, prioritized email answers, discounts on merch and ad-free fan graphs memberships, and so much more, patreon.com slash effectively wild. Thank you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod.

And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Shane McKeon for his editing and production assistance. We'll be back a little later this week. Talk to you then. From two hosts to other girls I'm just a fan for once Nothing less than effectively wild Oh, wild, oh, wild Oh, why, oh, why, oh, why, nothing less than effectively wild.