Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2087: Best in Sho

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the possible significance of this year’s unanimous award votes, the public unveiling of Shohei Ohtani’s dog, what they learned (and didn’t learn) from the new ESPN documentary Shohei Ohtani: Beyond the Dream (21:42), and where they’d prefer for Ohtani to sign (1:01:16). Then (1:10:42) they conduct the ninth […]

Hello and welcome to episode 2087 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. We started yesterday's episode by talking about a unanimous vote, owners unanimously approving the A's move to Las Vegas. So maybe we can start this time by talking about a less depressing unanimous vote, AL MVP voters unanimously approving of Shohei Ohtani. I guess we could say the same about NL MVP voters unanimously approving of Ronald Acuna Jr. Yes, we could indeed.

Lots of unanimity this week. We speculated on our first episode this week about whether all of the major player award votes would be unanimous, the winners, that is. And they almost all were, except for two Blake Snell dissenters on the NL Cy Young ballot. That was it. Otherwise, Cole unanimous and Rookie of the Year is unanimous and Acuna and Otani unanimous. And this is the first player, Otani, to win an MVP unanimously more than once. And it's also the first year that both MVP winners have been unanimous. So this must mean something, right? Yeah. There must be some significance to this. Maybe this is stat-blastable, but there's got to be more homogeneity in voting these days for various reasons. I don't know if that's good or bad. It certainly made me even less interested than usual in the reveals this week just because there was such a lack of suspense. But I would imagine that there's

something to that. Do you think that you would have enjoyed it more if it hadn't been an hour long show? Or would you have enjoyed it more if the entire show had just been devoted to Shohei Otani's dog? Exactly. Look, I didn't tune in to watch the hour long show. No, I didn't tune in to watch the hour-long show. No, I didn't because there's zero suspense. I knew exactly who was going to win. Right. And then I knew that anything of interest I was going to see on social media, and boy, did I. I have seen every possible clip of Shohei Ohtani's dog many, many times in many montages, and I welcome that. Many times in many montages, and I welcome that. And if anything, I'm outraged that we hadn't seen his dog before.

He had a secret dog this whole time, and we don't know the dog's name? How was that not the question? Who is this? Introduce us to your friend here, right? Yeah. I mean, they had a great relationship. They were cuddling. It was absolutely adorable.

But now I need to know more. I am freaked out by that dog. I think that's too perfect of a dog. What's up with that dog? Why is it so perfect? Is it real? Is it a real dog? Is it perfect that the dog be perfect? Because Otani himself is so freakily perfect. And people talk about dogs and their owners looking alike for whatever reason, whether they come to look more like each other or maybe the people pick dogs who remind them of them or something. But that seems perfect to me that Otani would have the cutest, cuddliest, perfectest dog. I think it's weird. I don't like it.

Did I not say early in the week when you asked me how I would receive my award that I said I would just be sitting alone in a room with my dog? So you really just feel kinship now with Otani that you didn't before. Yeah. Knowing that he's a dog guy, I mean, I didn't really like him more, but I at least had no reason to like him less. And now I have a new member of the family to welcome into our orbit here. I just, I want to know everything about the Otani dog. Yeah.

It's, I don't know, something's not right with that dog. You know, it's too perfect. So, I don't know. I don't like it. They high-fived. It was the best. They did. They did high-five. They high-fived. Do you think that Otani is like an enjoyer of dog tricks? Do, is he great at training the dog? I mean, he seems to be good at everything. So I assume he's just a great dog parent. But what do they do? Do they go for walks? Can he even go very different dogs, and they like to do different things and different temperaments and different ways that we play. So, yeah, I want to know much more. And I'm really appalled that most of that interview, most of that segment was not just questions about the dog. I want to respect Otani's privacy as a person because like I can't, it seems impossible to be that famous. It feels like fundamentally kind of violating. And I know that like, you know, he wants to be the very best baseball player there's ever been. And he's, you know, very seemingly single-minded in his goal there, you so i'm sure he made that decision appreciating that it would be one a journey played out in public right you don't become a you don't become a pro athlete

and think that you're going to be completely anonymous even if you know we've talked before on the show about how baseball players in particular seem to occupy like a really nice tranche of fame right or it's like everyone's leaving you alone, right? But also, like, I want to be respectful of the boundary that he, I'm sure, wants to draw, that he gets to have a life. Why do we get to know about his dog? You know, why are we entitled to know anything about the dog? Yeah, I'm almost, I'm flattered that he let us into that little bit of his life, Right. Because I don't know if he's been hiding the dog. I don't know if he's had the dog that long. That's another thing I'd like to know about the dog. How old is the dog? How did they come to be together? Right. But yeah, he didn't have to pull back the curtain and reveal the dog. He very self-consciously decided I want to introduce the dog to the world now. He very self-consciously decided, I want to introduce the dog to the world now. And like, okay, so he decided, I'm going to share the dog.

And I don't think he just got the dog. The way that that dog is interacting with him feels familiar, you know. And dogs can be, I mean, like all animals can be kind of standoffish when they're meeting someone for the first time. Or even recently meeting them, right? So, I suspect that that is not a new dog. That is – No, we're not Otani dog truthers. It wasn't a prop for the segment or something. No, to be clear, we're not truthers in that way.

I might be a truther that that's not a real dog. I might believe that that dog is like a – Animatronic. Yeah, it's like a very advanced furby remember furbies ben sure yeah do they still make those i bet they do i bet there's like been a nostalgia run of furbies you know yeah yeah but anyway uh what were we even talking about you know you were you were saying you don't think it's a new relationship no i don't i don't think it's a new i don't think it's new i think that that appears to

be his dog i mean one thing that i am kind of interested in is like you know are there is the dog like not the the ownership of the dog not the the having of the dog but is the revelation of the dog strategic on his part yeah right because i like i said i would hate to be famous in the way that he is famous i would find it like very said i would hate to be famous in the way that he is famous i would find it like very violating i would hate feeling observed like that and i'm sure that there are people who want to know things about otani the person that he has clearly decided like he's not going to share at least at this juncture right you know he's been pretty consistent in that way in a way that i think you know is admirable. And I'm glad that it has been largely respected. But I do wonder if

he's like, I got to throw them a bone, pun intended. And while there are people out of frame with whom I am sharing this moment that is meaningful to me, I don't want to show the world those people. but you know what people like they like dogs you know except for meg she's she's nervous about this dog and i'm going to hear about it on effectively wild because this is like too perfect of a dog but i'm going to strategically reveal this dog so that i can continue to obscure other parts of my life that i just don't feel are you know part of um the public discourse, you know, maybe it's like me and my cats.

I don't know. Like you gotta throw the people a bone every now and again, because they do have questions, you know, and they're so persistent. Not with me, but I imagine with him, like people don't care about me because I'm pretty boring. Is it a smoke screen? Like, does he have a new romantic partner or something? I don't know.

And he's trying to throw us off the scent by just throwing some red meat in the form of a dog so that we'll all be just following that scent. We'll be sniffing after the dog and not about anything else. So I don't know. Or who knows? Maybe this is something having to do with his free agency. It's like, you know, telegraphing to teams. How are you going to take care of my dog if I sign with you?

Maybe that's one of my top priorities now. He's got to go to a good city for dogs. You know what I've heard is a good city for dogs? All of them. Yeah, I guess that's probably true. I mean, everybody likes dogs. Who are the people who don't like dogs? I mean, like, even people who aren't dog people, I think, generally are, like, fine with dogs.

Although sometimes, Ben, you know, do I want to open us to these emails i'm just saying that like dogs are like kids i mean they're not but like some people think they're but like dogs are like kids where it's like i i want there to be um space in the world in our society for like people to have all of their you know like to have their dogs to have their their kids to you know move about and and be free but do we have to have them everywhere all the time? Like, sometimes we could have them fewer places some of the time. Not all the time, but, like, some of the time, like, because sometimes they're at a brewery and they're barking,

and you're like, this is a dog, and he's barking at the brewery, and then there's a kid, and that kid is at the brewery, and it's like, why, you know, like, do I get to have an adult space that doesn't have a kid or a dog? I love dogs. I welcome dogs wherever I am, but I am also fine with there being dog-free spaces for people who don't always want dogs in their business. To be clear, I know that some folks have a need of their dogs as service animals. This is like the pet kind of dog, the non-service dog, just to be clear. If you have a service animal, you should be able to take that wherever you need to go, you know?

Yeah. So, we want to know more and we want to know if this is an airbud dog, which it should be, right? Like, did he audition two-way dogs, like dogs who are extremely skilled and talented at multiple sports? I would love to know. Wait, hold on, Ben. So ben so like i need to ask a question about your understanding of what actual dogs do which is like playing fetch isn't a sport i mean i think it is actually i think i think fetch is a sport for dogs do you think that he's like oh oh ben i have a new i remember how we were thinking of new two- way of Tani potential. Right. I have I have one. He should be he should train the dog. Dog should do agility like, you know, like AKC, like agility.

And then you could have a best in show dog. Yeah. It would be great. Yeah. It would be great. Yeah. But but I have watched like dog diving and fetch competitions, you know, and dog obstacle courses and all that stuff.

The dogs are extraordinarily athletic. Oh, they are. But I'd love to know. I'm just saying, like, we could chill about dogs a little bit. Like, sometimes we're like very intense about dogs. Of course. I'd like to know how the dog fits into his life as someone who's so dedicated to baseball and seems to just be thinking about and preparing for baseball 24-7 and obviously is living Yeah. culture barrier and language barrier. I just, I want to know more about just how the dog fits

into his life because we don't know a whole lot about his life, which I guess we'll talk about again shortly. But before we got sidetracked with the dog, which I welcomed and anticipated, not that invested in that many ballplayers' dogs other than giant Aaron Judge and his tiny Dachshund. But Otani is not just a player. He's a celebrity. So I kind of care about these things. And you were right about Furby. By the way, Furby is back for the first time in several years to capitalize on Furby nostalgia. But how this conversation started, I do wonder whether those unanimous results. That's what we were talking about. Mean something, signify something about voting nowadays, because whether it's that we're all looking at war, and so we have kind of an agreed upon value metric, or at least a metric with

multiple versions that is not exactly a ground truth, but it's kind of the closest that we can come. And so it's harder for people to just be defensively all over the place. Like, well, this is what I think is valuable. And here are the stats that I look at. Right. Right. So it's partly that and partly that we've emphasized that value in performance over, say, do you play for a playoff team, that kind of thing. And then also, I guess there is potentially some hurting, some reluctance to be an outlier when you might get piled on on Twitter or wherever else. a Homer pick or a pick that just deviated from the norm somehow. So I wonder if the incentives are just not really there for people to go out on a limb, even if they have a more idiosyncratic take. So in that sense, it's a little less entertaining. I would imagine it probably is more accurate than some of the votes decades ago that you

look back at now and you really scratch your head. But it's got to be a little bit about that, right? Because I'm not saying that there was that convincing a case for anyone but Otani in the AL, even though he missed time at the end of the season. But in the NL, I think Acuna was a deserving winner. Yes. In the NL, I think Acuna was a deserving winner. Yes. But did he deserve to have all 30 first place votes?

Or, you know, I mean, Mookie had an incredible season too. There was, I think, all the first place votes. I mean, well, all the first place votes went to Acuna. But like the top four guys just, you know, it was just blanket agreement across the board. And those four guys were like clearly the best four guys, I think. So I don't mind it. But just no one really deviated. It's just like everyone thought that Acuna was first and Mookie was second. And then it was Freeman or Olsen.

Just no one really stepping out of line, breaking ranks at all. Yeah, I think you're right that in general, it probably is a more accurate system and proclivity than it used to be, which isn't to say that like, you know, every past MVP winner was like completely wrong. Like those voters got it right a lot of the time too, right? They tended to pick guys who were pretty good. Did they always pick the best guy? They sure did not always pick the best guy. But like, you know, I don't want us to sort of revise history too far in the other direction either, right? There were plenty of very defensible MVP ballots back in the day. But I could see it overcorrecting, where to your point about the NL ballot, like I didn't have a vote this year, I think that I would have ended up casting

my vote for Acuna and feeling pretty good about that decision, or at least not conflicted about it. But I can see there being, you know, as we've discussed with sort of the inherent noise and error within war as a stat, you know, if we are completely reliant on that, I could see us having a false sense of precision in the MVP vote that maybe in future years, you know, results in unanimous votes where there is actually a good bit more ambiguity than we're maybe allowing for, right? So, you know, I could see that being a thing, but I think, you know, it's also some of it is just going to be idiosyncratic year to year. Like, I mean, maybe with the continued presence of Otani, this won't be true, but there isn't always going to be a guy where it's like, yeah, that's the guy, you know.

There are going to be years where things are a lot closer and you have to really dig in and people are going to, after, you know, really giving it the attention it deserves, come to different conclusions and cast votes differently. So I don't imagine it'll be like this every year, but I do think that we don't get a lot of, we don't get a lot of wild ones. We do sometimes get ballots that still seem like they have mistakes on them, but we don't tend to get wild ones. And that almost always happens down ballot. So, yeah. There's probably been greater conformity in Hall of Fame voting as well as people are looking at war and jaws and things of that nature. But I guess that's not that great an argument for everyone falling into line when it comes to.3 and Acuna at 8.2. So if it was that we're all just beholden to war and enthralled a war, then it would have been more of a split with those guys. It wouldn't have been all Acuna. compelling case for non-war related reasons, right? He had the steals. He had the 40-50 and the 40-60 and the 40-70 clubs. And he was just more sensational. And the Betts argument is more of a war-based argument. It's more of, oh, his defense was better and the positional versatility and all of that, right? And so, yeah, if anything, I guess that argues against the point I was making

in this specific case and race, just purely based on the value metrics, you would have thought that those ballots would be a bit more split, a little less homogenous. Like, someone must have thought, Mookie, no? Like, I mean, I know it's only 30 people again. And so if we wanted some people to deviate from the chorus, then maybe opening it up to all BBWA voters, as we've suggested in the past, that might be one way to do it. And if like of all those 30, like every single one of them was convinced, you know, or I wonder if some of them were kind of like, I could go either way, but Acuna is going to win. Right. So why be the one who stands out or why support the guy who's not going to win?

I could have seen someone said, well, I think Mookie was just as valuable and I want him to get at least one first place vote. Right. No one made that decision. Maybe the really galaxy brained in the weeds with war argument is that he, and by he, I mean Mookie's case, as you noted, was bolstered in part by his defense, some of which was like us appreciating the defensive versatility he was able to display, even though he wasn't a really standout defender. He was good, and he was good at multiple positions. But maybe the voters of 2023, smart as they are, know that even though public-facing defensive metrics are better than they've been, and in some cases with fan graphs or informed by statcasts, that there's still a lot

of noisiness in those metrics over a single season. And so they applied an appropriate discount to his war because they are so familiar with the stats. How about now, Ben? Yeah. I just re-bolstered your argument. Could be too. You can tell that I'm not working today because I'm like really loose.

Yeah, you're just podcasting and that's not work at all. It's pure pleasure. Also, just because everyone picked Acuna over Bats doesn't mean that they thought Acuna was way better than Bats. I bet if you asked most or all of the voters, they would say it was close. So unanimous makes it sound like it wasn't close. But really, if everyone just thought it was, yeah, 60-40, Acuna is better than Muki, they might have all made the same decision. And also, I guess if we're talking about whether war would lead to more homogenous results, depends which war you're looking at with Blake Snell, because different wars will give you very different answers. So, I guess that's all I have to say about voting, because it was not super compelling.

But we do have more to say about Shohei Otani, because it's about Shohei Otani because it's the day of Otani. It's the week of Otani. When is that not the case in baseball these days? But there's a new documentary about Shohei Otani that dropped perfectly timed. I assume it's not an accident that this just so happened to come out immediately after the MVP voting results were announced. But mentioned a couple of weeks ago that this was coming and that I was looking forward to it. But there's a new full length feature documentary, almost an hour and 40 minutes called Shohei Otani Beyond the Dream that is available now. And it's on ESPN Plus exclusively domestically. I believe it's available on Disney Plus internationally. It is directed by Toru Tokikawa. And it is about Otani, how he got to this point, where he's going, what has motivated him.

And I thought we could talk a little bit about what we liked or what we thought was lacking from this documentary. The dog was lacking. Yeah, no dog. No dog whatsoever. Where's the dog? Where's the dog? You'd think the dog would be in the documentary. Again, don't know how long he's had the dog. And they were clearly working on this documentary for a while.

But that was a notable absence. No dog. I guess one thing about this documentary is that it is very focused on his baseball career. You get very little insight into his personal life beyond baseball and his hobbies and his other passions. Like you hear it every now and then. Oh, he likes manga or whatever. You know, there's anime he's into. Like you just you don't get a great sense of what he does away from the field or away from practice.

You don't hear from his friends. You don't hear from his family. They're mentioned. They're credited. It's interesting how he talks about his parents. He's like, I really love them and I'm grateful to them, but I don't think of them as mentors. You know, he's like other people were mentors to me. It's like his parents obviously had a huge impact on him and he's appreciative of that, but it doesn't seem like they really guided his baseball career, which in a way

seems healthy. Yeah, I was just going to say. Yeah, like they weren't sports parents who were like drilling him and driving him to do what he did. It seems like a lot of what he turned out to be is self-directed and then other baseball mentors he's encountered along the way. Yeah, I was thinking a lot about that as I was watching it, because when you think about like sport parents in the U.S., and this is true in all kinds of sports,

and it's certainly true in baseball, like particularly young athletes who are thought to be on a trajectory that might result in them being in the pros, like facilitating that for their families is often like a full-time job in and of itself, right? Like navigating the travel ball circuit and all of the money that that takes and the time. And I always wonder, you never want to like disparage anybody's family, but there are times when you'll hear parents talk about their kids and their kids' aspirations to be pro athletes. And you are left kind of wondering, like, whose dream is this really? Like, is it your kid's dream or is it yours? And who, you know, in your mind's eye, when you're envisioning, you know, your son stepping to

the plate, are you envisioning your son or are you envisioning yourself? You know, you know, your son stepping to the plate, are you envisioning your son? Or are you envisioning yourself? You know, and there, I think that that can sometimes be in question, certainly not always. And, you know, I think that for parents who want to help to facilitate their kid's dream, like there's a lot of selflessness and sacrifice that goes into that. So I don't want to like besmirch people, helping their kids kind of find their way in the world. But it was sort of refreshing to not have like rabid, weirdo travel ball parents be his parents, you know? And I think the amateur structure is like, there are ways in which it's similar in ways in which it's really, really different in Japan. So, you know, some of this is where he was growing up

versus growing up in the States. But, you know, it was nice. It was kind of nice. I was like, I don't know what his parents look like. I don't know. And, you know, they've never been in a prospect writer I knows mentions even one time. So, you know, good for them.

Yeah. But I'd love to hear from them. I get it if they don't want to be big public figures or he doesn't want them to be in something like this and wants to keep that stuff private. But what could be better than hearing stories about Kid Shohei? Like, was he a prodigy? Was he, you know, throwing and hitting amazingly in the crib or whatever? Like, you know, seeing childhood photos of him is part of the pleasure of this documentary.

Now, have I seen most of those already? Yes, just because I've sort of obsessively followed Otani's career. And so on a purely informational level, there wasn't that much that was new to me here. I've written about his origin story and the path he took to becoming a two-way player. And I interviewed a bunch of people for that piece and read books about him and stuff. So the basic facts here are pretty familiar to me. And the documentary has to lay those things out for an audience that may not have obsessively followed Otani for several years at this point. So some of that is

just standard, effectively wild listeners, if only from listening to this podcast, probably won't be familiar with a lot of those things. But I never mind retracing those steps. You know, I'm always going to be interested in watching an Otani documentary. Now, the structure of the documentary is largely just talking heads, you know, it's just people talking about Otani and Otani talking sometimes too. So I didn't find it very visually arresting, you know, it's just kind of people sitting in nicely appointed rooms saying stuff with occasional highlights, but it's not like extremely animated or just, you know, anything very visually adventurous, right? Do you, when you're watching a documentary, do you wonder which of the well-appointed rooms people are sitting in are like actually their well-appointed room. Absolutely, I do. Versus not. Like, I wondered that a couple of times in the course of watching. Is that his house? Like, is that CeCe's living room?

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes they looked, they didn't look lived in. They didn't look like homey places. And so it seems sort of staged. But then again, when you see ballplayer real estate listings, they do just kind of look like that, or at least in the listings they do. Right, right.

So I don't know. I couldn't tell. But yes, I was curious about that. Well, yeah, they let them know that they're coming. It's not like the camera crew showed up and CeCe Sabathia's like, that's today? Oh, no. Yeah, let me just toss this laundry in the closet. Yeah, but it's told largely through other players' commentary.

So it's narrated by Pedro Martinez in English. I believe there is a Japanese narration version that Hideki Matsui does. And I find that a little off-putting just because Pedro is the narrator, but he's also one of the most frequent interviewees. So it's kind of weird when... It's a little weird. Yeah. He'll be interviewed speculating about, you know, I wonder what he was thinking or something. But he'll also be the one doing the voiceover. It's kind of odd. And also a lot of the players interviewed, I mean, I love Pedro, I love Sabathia, like happy to hear from them, but they don't really have like

close relationships with Otani. It doesn't seem like even Matsui didn't either. Like Matsui was an idol of Otani's, but it didn't seem like they had hung out a lot. And so there's a lot of commentary by Matsui and Sabathia and Pedro, et cetera, where it's just kind of like speculating about what Otani thinks or what he must have been feeling or hoping. And it's like, we have Otani right here. Like we could just ask him about those things. I don't know. It's interesting to hear other great players talk about their appreciation for Otani. That's one of the things. I don't know. It's interesting to hear other great players talk about their appreciation for Otani. That's one of the things that I've enjoyed most about his career is that he turns these other elite talents into like little kids watching him and being in awe of him.

But there's only so much insight, I guess, you're going to get from other people who don't even know him that well, just talking about him. And you do have people who do know him. So you have Kuriyama, who is really his big baseball mentor and was his manager with the fighters and is as responsible as anyone for the two-way path that he ultimately followed. And he obviously knows Otani really well and has seen him his whole career and is a very animated guest. So I enjoyed him quite a bit. And then you had Joe Madden and Mike Socia, of course.

And you had his agent, Nez Bolelo. And you had Hugh Darvish, who I thought was one of the better interviewees because he actually knows Otani. He's trained with him. And also he's been in a similar situation. Like he's been the big ace for the fighters whose number Otani inherited and, you know, was a Ballyhooed player coming over from Japan to the U.S. and had a personal connection. So, and, you know, played with him in the WBC.

So that I thought was a helpful perspective. But it is largely just stringing together soundbites from all of them and Otani. You know, no historians, no stat heads or anything. I'm not saying that there should have been. Usually you see that in documentaries, but maybe with Otani, it's just we know the stats. Like there's one stat at the beginning that's just, you know, he's the first player to have however many homers and wins as a pitcher and stolen bases in a single season. And then that's it. And I'm kind of okay with that because as I said said this past season, he's gone beyond fun facts now.

So I didn't necessarily need to hear about his wars or other combinations of stats to make the case that he's great. The documentary just sort of assumes and presumes that we know. Yeah, and that if you're watching this, you're watching it because you know he's incredible. he's incredible it it did make me wonder though like that that sort of broader assumption of familiarity did make me wonder like who is the target audience for this documentary like who yeah is this really for because you're right that for us and i imagine particularly for you like there isn't a lot of new sort of grist for the mill here i think that you do, even if the purpose of the documentary does not seem to be, you know, a full, transparent sort of accounting of him as a person, which I don't say negatively, really. him that they are putting forth and i don't have any reason to think that like the the the quote unquote real otani is like so different than yeah um the version that we're getting here but like very conscious choices are being made about like what they talk about and who they interview and

you know who they expose us to and like we've said like we don't meet his parents we just hear about them we don't hear from anyone in his life who isn't really associated with baseball. You know, it's not like his high school best friend. Yeah, right. Does he have friends? I assume so. It's not just the dog, but. What if it is just the dog? only guy but right like we're not we're not getting that we're supposed to really be by the end of the documentary convinced that this is a person who like lives and breathes baseball and that is the purpose of this stage of his life and despite joe madden saying he needs to have you know interests outside of baseball and be a complete person i love how many people in this were like did a version of screw off joe you know, like, let him be baseball obsessed and like, let him be whatever he wants to be,

right? Like, that's Otani's decision to make. But I did find that kind of funny. Like, it's like, you don't have to lock Joe Madden in a closet. He's not going to like teach Otani like, you know, basket weaving, and then he's going to go be an artist somewhere like it's fine. But all of that to say, like like the version of him that we're getting here is is meant to be a guy who mostly who you would be like really excited about your team signing but that's true of everyone all the time already right like we're so it it did make me wonder you know these yeah this is sort of i think, the most harmless in a series of sports docs I've watched recently where it's like, clearly this could not happen without a ton of input and control from the subject of the documentary. You don't get access to Otani or his agent or maybe even some of these other players if, you know, he isn't able to kind of craft what it is meant to look like and again in otani's case like that seems largely harmless because you know we're

not yeah there's no dark side they're sweeping under the rug that we know of right yeah you know it's not like when i watched the johnny menzel doc and i was like but there's a lot more to this that we are maybe not grappling with so you know you know, it seems pretty harmless, but it is very carefully manicured. And it made me wonder, like, kind of who's that for, you know? Yeah, yeah. You don't hear from Ipe in this, his interpreter. You know, it'd be great to hear, like, the behind-the-scenes stories, like the day-to-day life. But he's not going to break that confidence if Otani doesn't want him to.

And I think he's hesitant to put himself forward to talk about Otani, too. I've requested an interview with him, not even to talk about Otani, just to like talk about him and his life. And he was just like, no, you know, I don't really want to be a public figure in that way. And that's fine. But yeah, and it'd be fun to hear also something about his silly side, right? Because that doesn't really come through in this documentary. It's all about how he's so dedicated to baseball. And you don't get a sense of like how big a prankster he is, as some stories have said. how big a prankster he is, as some stories have said, and other players talk about him just being such a goof and kind of like, yeah, supremely dedicated, but also like laid back

and a jokester, you know, like, give me Lars Nutbar talking on here, you know, it's just like someone who can tell me what he's like in the clubhouse. But yeah, we just don't really get that here but you know it's it's kind of like a hype package i i guess like oh it's a well choreographed rollout oh his free agency is getting underway not that this is going to make anyone more interested in signing otani or or in rooting for him necessarily unless you just didn't know anything about him already. But yeah, you're just, you're getting that very sort of sanded down, sterile public view. And I don't know how much more there is to him behind the scenes, but this documentary doesn't answer that question. It's refreshing to get a baseball documentary about a contemporary player in the middle of

his prime because there's no shortage of baseball docs and we've talked about a contemporary player in the middle of his prime because there's no shortage of baseball docs and we've talked about a bunch of them but it's always like about yogi or reggie or willie or whatever right you know it's it's not someone who is midway through his career and that reflects maybe the the difference in the place that baseball occupied on the national stage in earlier eras compared to now. And Otani, again, is the exception there. So he can get a documentary made about him. In fact, and I know you probably cringed when you heard this, but one of the first lines in the doc is Pedro saying, this is the story of the most unique player in baseball history, which is quite a claim apart from the grammar issue

that you might question. But most unique player in baseball history. There are a lot of unique players in baseball history. My pet peeve also is the MLB. And I'd love to hear from a Japanese speaker who could tell me whether Otani, because every time Otani references MLB, the captions say the MLB, but I don't know whether he is saying the, which would be one knock against him. That'd be my biggest complaint, I guess, that and hawking crypto. Other than that, he's pretty much perfect. But yeah, that I would need some insight from a Japanese speaker.

Yeah, there were a number of instances where the Japanese speakers in the doc, I noticed that too, because there's a reason that we're co-hosts, right? And it was pretty consistent across the Japanese speakers in the documentary. You're right that it wasn't 100% consistent because there were a couple of times with Darvish where it didn't seem like it happened. But yeah, it did make me think that it was a,

it made me wonder if it was something that was like being translated that way by the person who actually went through to do the subtitling. Yeah, there were a few interesting tidbits. And it's nice just to hear from Otani in an extended conversation or multiple. He sat for at least three or four different interviews for this thing, it seemed like. Yeah. just to hear him talk, even if he's not saying something super revealing, is always interesting. And there were a couple things that I thought were kind of eye-opening. One is that he admitted that he considered dropping the two-way play when he struggled in 2020. So, you know, when he was coming back from the first Tommy John surgery and then also knee surgery and he was struggling and he wasn't

able to train the way he wanted and he just didn't have a good year. He did say, and I don't know that he has said this before, it's possible that he has, but he did say that he considered not being a two-way player at that point when a lot of other people were questioning that as well. Although at the end in, I think, a different interview. Yes. He also said that also. Yeah. He's never considered limiting himself to one role. So I don't know how to square those things or whether it was just a fleeting thought that he had in 2020.

But it's so rare for him to even concede that the thought might have crossed his mind after he embarked on this path that that was noteworthy he just seems like a really thoughtful guy i don't imagine it's easy to like strike the balance and again we don't know him personally we don't know how you know much if any daylight there might be between the version of him that we see both in this documentary and in other press he's done and you know him at home with his dog um but to be as talented as he is to be able to do what he is able to do and not seem overly i don't even want to say like arrogant it's more like self-serious you know like he's he's doing this very hard thing and you know it's not positioned this way exactly in the documentary but like doing that seems like it does come at some personal cost to him in terms of his ability to have a life outside of baseball

and again like how how much that's true i guess we don't really know. But by the way that, you know, others talked about it in the documentary and even the way he talked about it, it seems like it comes at some cost to him, right? That he has to just do this. Like he does mostly just this. Not like CeCe Sabathia, who talked about how having life outside of baseball and other things to think about, like his family and other interests, helped him to be a good baseball player. Because if he had just focused on the baseball, he'd kind of drive himself crazy because of a tendency he expressed to obsess over things right and so you know it comes at it comes at this cost so it is like a weighty thing that he is dealing with like his own skill and potential and and possible position in the history of the sport but he doesn't he doesn't seem self-important to me and that's really nice you know again like we don't we don't really know the man, but this is the impression that we were left with is a nice thing. Because I don't know, if I were the very best at something in the world, I'd probably be a total pain in the ass.

I'd be a complete monster. I think about how much worse my personality would have been if I just gone to law school, you know, let alone been the best at something. So, that was nice to see. Like, he just seems like a thoughtful guy who has a very real understanding of the amount of work that is required to do what he's trying to do and how tenuous that situation can be for him. Like, I do wonder for someone like him to have had a rough spring training when he came over and then an early season marred by injury and have that recovery not go, you know, he talks about it not going the way that he thought it should. I'm sure that he would love to have had those seasons be just like healthy, productive, good seasons because the other thing you're you get a sense of in the documentary both from otani and from you know the other former players is just how fleeting this can all be for these guys yeah but i wonder if there wasn't a silver lining in

that that he just was able to kind of peer into that void and know like hey i gotta i have to both maximize this but also appreciate it because it might just be this very fleeting thing that yeah could go at any minute you know so yeah and i thought the most interesting thing in the documentary they do this thing that comes from the last dance and jordan right of of the subject watching something that someone else said about them on the iPad. Right. It's not nearly as dramatic here because Otani is not Michael Jordan and he doesn't do that. And I took that personally.

And no one. Yeah. Like there's nothing to take personally either is the thing. Like I'm going to do a swear, but like, you know, they're not reliving like talking. Right.

It's like, and then he was even more awesome. I know. And that's one of the things that fascinates me about Otani is that he is the Jordan of baseball in some ways. He's the best player and he does things that no one else even attempts. And yet it doesn't seem like he's an egomaniac and that he is just fueled by perceived slights. And, you know, just like those aspects of Michael's personality. It just doesn't seem like Otani has that or is fueled by that same whatever it is. And so I appreciate that he is able to motivate himself to be as good as he is without having to have this harboring resentment, right?

But there is some slight element of that where it comes up twice that he doubted that Hideki Kuriyama and Joe Madden believed in him. Those are like two of his biggest supporters, at least publicly always said they believed in him. But Otani says, like, well, now I can confess that I doubted that Kuriyama really believed in me when he said I could be a two-way player for the fighters. Maybe he was just saying that to get me to sign with the fighters. And maybe he thought, well, there's a chance, but maybe he just ends up being a hitter or a pitcher and then we will have him. Right. But maybe he just ends up being a hitter or a pitcher and then we will have him.

Right. So some part of him, it seemed like, didn't fully believe that Kuriyama was speaking with conviction and showing his true belief. And then later on, it comes out. This is when Madden and Perry Manassian, the Angels GM, met with Otani and just removed all the restrictions, all the Otani rules and usage guidelines and said, hey, just do your thing. We're setting you free here. And that was seen as a sign at the time, I thought, of their faith in him. But Otani said that in that meeting with them, he actually interpreted it as an ultimatum, with them, he actually interpreted it as an ultimatum, as maybe a sign of some doubt that they were saying, this is your last chance. Like, we're just going to let you do it. But if you fail,

then you're probably going to have to specialize. And so in both cases, that clip of Otani saying that is played for Kuriyama and then for Madden. And they're both like, no, not at all. Like, I totally believed in him 100% the entire time. And then Otani's like, oh, that's nice to hear. There's not that much drama or conflict or anything. But still interesting that he interpreted it not as absolute faith, but as an angle or even as a form of pressure. Like he said that the pressure caused by his maybe misinterpretation of what Madden was saying actually helped him and made him better. So I didn't know that he had had any doubt.

And his agent says, well, that shows how humble he is, that he thinks that even these big backers of his didn't really believe in him. I kind of interpreted it, he's just so used to being doubted by everyone and people have been telling him his whole life he can't do it, that even the people who were saying that they thought he could, maybe he still just had some doubts that even they really believed what they were saying. Yeah, that's closer to my read on it, too. I also, can I offer a non-Ohtani thought for a moment? Did you come away from this wanting to know, like, what you Darvish went through when he first came over? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. you know, environment away from the field, because I could imagine, like, maybe your experience as an international player is different, like, in Texas than it is in California, although he's, you know, in a big city. So, I don't know. But, like, there was, you know, he references sort of a change, a cultural, an ethical shift that has gone on in clubhouses. And, you know, Otani talks about how his experience with

the Angels was like very positive and everyone was really kind and he had good working relationships with everyone. And, you know, that he, you know, he is quick to say like, I've only played for one major league team, so I can only, you know, he can't say that like bad stuff doesn't happen with other clubs but it made me want to hear more if he cares to share it which you know he's not obligated to but hear more from darvish about like what his experience was as a young player and there might be there might be stories there that i'm just not familiar with from not being in the that media market but it sounded like he had hard, he was maybe given the business a little bit in a way that was uncomfortable and perhaps, unfortunately, as much about him being an

international player and an Asian player as anything else. And so I'm happy to hear that Otani at least suggested that has not been a problem for him. But I was like, you, what happened, man? Like, yeah, right. And I guess it could be. I mean, there's been, I think, a move away from some of the hazing that has historically gone on of rookies, let's say. Just in general. Yeah, the form that that has taken. Yeah. And young players are such a big part of the success of teams today.

Maybe it's partly that or maybe it's just a way of being more humane. But yeah, that was interesting. This documentary did just make me want to hear more from you Darvish in general, like give me the Darvish documentary because that's something I was going to say about Otani. There's one point where he says, I think I'll only be able to reflect

on what I dedicated myself to at the end of my career after giving everything I have as a player. Because I don't get the sense that he's not a thoughtful person, that he doesn't have an inner life. He seems like a pretty introspective guy. Seems like for now he really just wants to focus on the future and on what he's doing more so than talking about the past or, you know, reflecting on the significance of his career or that sort of thing. Which made me then wonder, like, what are we doing here? Why are we doing a documentary now? Yeah. But it did make me want to watch the documentary that comes out in 15 years or something or read the memoir or co-write the memoir. I'm here.

Call me. But yeah, you know, when he's willing and ready to open up and when he's older. And that's why it was helpful to have Darvish here because he did delve deeper. And maybe it's just that he's 37. He's closer to the end of his career. Or maybe it's just who he is 37. He's closer to the end of his career. Or maybe it's just who he is. But he's a very thoughtful guy. And I wanted to hear even more from Shohei.

And there's the point where they're talking about why he chose the angels. And everyone's like, well, you'll have to ask Shohei because I don't know. And then ultimately – I'm sure everyone who works for the Angels currently is like, yeah, yeah. And then Otani comes out and he says that he relies on gut feeling and intuition and everything he does. He compares his decision making to your batting stance. It's just it's not arbitrary, but it's about what feels right to you. He said it's about choosing what matches the vision of your future self.

And then he said it's a little bit difficult to explain. And he said the same process that led to him choosing his high school or initially deciding to try to go to the States instead of signing with an MPP team. Or then when he decided to sign with the Fighters, that's how he decided to sign with the Angels too. And it's just, it felt right. And then Darvish says, I expected a more specific reason than that. And I'm like, yeah, me too. Not that it's

incomprehensible. I get it. It's a West Coast team and they were really willing to let him be a two-way player. And he had faith that they were willing to let him do that, which given the suspicions he revealed about even Madden's motivation and Kuriyama's motivation, clearly that is on his mind. Like, are they just saying this to get me to sign with them? And then they'll change their minds. him and they may very well have stuck with him longer than other teams did, which is why I'm not sorry that he signed with the Angels, even though he hasn't made the playoffs yet in MLB. He has been a two-way player and he has been a two-time MVP and who knows how things could have been different if he'd signed with some more competitive team. But yeah, when he says it just kind of comes down to gut feel, you want him to be like,

well, it was this one specific thing that someone told me or someone said in the meeting or I crunched the numbers and this. But no, it's just not that. is, you know, sort of like what I would maybe refer to as like informed intuition, right? Where he's clearly assessing all of the arguments and presentations that were made to him. And then, you know, he only had so long. It's not like you have forever to make a decision when you've been posted. Like the clock is ticking on that, right? Like Yamamoto's clock, it sounds like is going to start on Monday. And so, you know, you do have to sort of rely on your sense of like, who are these people? How did I feel interacting with them? Was that a good thing? Do I believe them when they tell me that I'm going to be able to like do both things and that they're going to support doing that? Like, it's not just, you know, putting a finger to the winds. It is being

informed by all of this stuff but you do kind of have to feel it out ultimately like that made a lot of sense to me i also do wonder too if you know they obviously know when this is coming out relative to his actual free agency and so i wonder if he was like no i like behind the scenes maybe did have a more specific set of criteria but is trying to obscure that so that he is in the best negotiating position he can possibly be in going into free agency which to be clear i would not begrudge him having a little bit of strategy there um but i i did wonder i was like i wonder if this is the answer that we will get you know a couple of months from now when

he's putting on somebody's jersey and hat and is asked, you know, what made you go to the... And if it'll be the same, if it'll kind of have the same contours, or if there will be something more specific. And of course, like, what informed the one decision doesn't have to be precisely what informed the decision he's about to make. You know, he has just a lot more context for Major League Baseball, for all of the people who work in Major League Baseball, for, you know, what's important to him as a professional. I suspect that that is a more refined shopping list than it was a couple

of years ago. And, you know, which is good for him, you know, to be able to make a decision that has more information, I imagine is a great comfort. It would be to me. And he's probably feeling a little more secure in his two-way status these days now that he's proved that he could do it beyond all doubt. Although, I guess with the injury, there's always going to be, you know, he's always going to be one injury or one struggle away from people from that refrain returning. Oh, he should specialize. And he may have to at some point during the life of this next contract. So which team he chooses may determine when that is.

But yeah, just a couple other tidbits that stood out to me. We answered a question once, I think, about, well, how could he be more impressive or how could some other player be more impressive? And I think one of the suggestions was, well, you could he be more impressive or how could some other player be more impressive? And I think one of the suggestions was, well, you could be a player manager, too. He said he couldn't handle being a manager, that the manager's impact on the team goes beyond that of any one player. So I guess Shohei Otani would say Craig Council should have gotten more money. It's more important than any individual player, even Otani himself, but seems to have healthy respect for the role of the manager. Didn't sound like he's aspiring to be a post-playing career manager either, but who knows? He did say, I do have a vision for my future, but nothing is set in stone. But he did not divulge what that vision is or what he envisions doing

in his post-baseball life. But it sounds like he has some thoughts or hopes along those lines. And then when people were asking what else could he accomplish, Kuriyama said, well, he could win a World Series. But also he said, I'd like to see him become a three-way player with defense, right? Play defense as well, play in the field, which, you know, I would love that also if that somehow happened at some point. Even if it's not concurrent,. We never got to see him have an opportunity to field a ball out there, which I regret. But I'd love to just see him make a great catch out there or make a great throw from the outfield. So I hope there is some point in his life where he becomes a good corner outfielder or even first baseman or something, whether that's after he's pitching or maybe when he's a reliever or who knows how it could happen. It would be too much to do all three things at once, I think, but I'd love to see that. Yeah. I would be intrigued by that too.

What other things struck me? I mean, I want the CeCe documentary. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the other thing. I was like, wow, CeCe, you know, unsurprising, but like, you know, just a thoughtful guy. I want to hear him talk about his life. I guess. Yeah. I guess there is a CC documentary. I have not. It's a shorter one.

Oh, well, shame on me for not knowing that. Yeah. A few years ago, there was a Under the Grapefruit Tree, the CC's Bathia story on HBO. So I guess I know what I'm watching this weekend. Yeah, you can go check that out. Bathia story on HBO. So I guess I know what I'm watching this weekend. You can go check that out.

But one other thing I thought was missing was like, this was all about Otani and about his baseball career. There wasn't much of a sense of his popularity. Like the existence of the documentary is a testament to his popularity, but there wasn't much about like just what a phenomenon, what a sensation he's been. Like you didn't get a sense of, you know, like the number of reporters who follow him around or the number of fans who track his every movement. Like there was, you know, no one from the Otani fan community who could talk about like his impact on baseball fans or making new baseball fans or how he's increased attendance or how he's broken through in a bigger way than most baseball fans do. Again, that was just sort of

almost presumed that you would know that or just taken for granted. But it just didn't really convey that he's been a sensation off the field as well as on. So, you know, it's just it's a narrower view of him than it could have been. That's probably what he wanted it to be. And it's a worthy entry into the Otani canon. It's just, you know,

there's more to the man. So I hope we get to see more of that at some point. Same. All right. Well, I'd give it at least a qualified recommendation. I think, you know, I enjoyed it.

And I think people who aren't as immersed in Otani as I am probably will get even more out of it. So, yeah, check it out. And I guess before we leave that topic behind, we did get a question from Peter, Patreon supporter, who said perhaps an obvious question but curious to see how you answer it. supporter who said perhaps an obvious question, but curious to see how you answer it. Excluding the Mets and Yankees for Ben, given proximity desires, and the Mariners and Diamondbacks for Meg, given rooting interest and proximity desires, what team would you want Otani to end up with? Is there any team you think would be most preferable in your mind that you'd be extra happy to see him hitting and pitching in that team's colors or any team where if he somehow signed, you would scream in agony?

Oh, no. I don't think so. I don't think so. No. But yeah, like, obviously, I would love to have him in my city. I mean, it would be incredibly cool to just go watch him in person and cover him in person regularly. That would be great.

And it would also be nice for Otani as an icon, as a celebrity. Not sure if he has any interest in coming to New York. I haven't gotten a great indication that he does. Like his finalists back in 2017 when he was doing his grand tour, Dodgers, Angels, Giants, Padres, Mariners, Rangers, Cubs, no East Coast teams. Make of that what you will. But I resent when people mind when a superstar signs with a less prominent team or like in the Midwest or West Coast or whatever. And they're like, oh, this is bad for baseball that you should have the big stars on the biggest stage, that sort of thing. I think it's good for baseball to have stars spread around and for a lot of teams to have stars and especially some

teams that haven't had them before. So I hesitate to say that, yeah, Ohtani should just go to the team where he'd be the most visible. And yet, as someone who has derived so much enjoyment from his career, I want other people to share in that enjoyment. And so if he were to go to the Yankees, it would make him more famous than any other team, probably. The downside is that a lot of people would then feel obligated to root against him because he's a Yankee, right? And I wouldn't want that. So like if he went to the Mets and, you know, assuming there's no like Mets injury curse or anything, I could see that being good because he's on the big stage and he's in New York

and he can do any endorsement deal he wants and he can show up on Saturday Night Live or whatever it is, right? And I don't know how much of that he's interested in, but all of those opportunities would be available to him. And being on the East Coast, it's just, you know, sorry, East Coast bias, but the population is overrepresented and disproportionately concentrated on the East Coast. And so in the interest of the most possible people getting to see Shohei Otani. I would support that in addition to my selfish desire to have him near me. But what would you say? Like, is there any place you think where he'd be best served? like not in particular i think that um if if for no other reason than he has a pretty good idea it seems of what he kind of needs to do to be able to sustain what he's up to um you know i don't think that it's like when he came here and you were like how is he going to adjust and he does

talk about that in the documentary right right? Particularly on the hitting side. And his swing is really different than it was in Japan. But I don't know. Would he look bad in any uniform? Ben, no. He'd look good in any uniform. I guess I don't want him to go to the Rockies

because I'd like him to play October baseball. The home runs would be picturesque. Yeah, but selfishly, I would like it if he signed with a team that did their spring training in Arizona so that I could see more of him. If he wanted to play in the NL West so that I was guaranteed to see him either as a Diamondback, which seems very unlikely to me um or as a dodger giant which seems pretty plausible um that'd be fine uh i'd be into that like i'd like him to be a mariner but based on reporting today it doesn't seem like that's particularly likely shockingly yeah i'd like it if he were here in some capacity because i'm a selfish girly i guess but no like i i don't know

like the thing about otani is that he is such a draw we're not gonna struggle to see him play you know maybe we will see more of him in person if he signs with particular teams versus others but we're not gonna struggle to see Otani play. He's appointment viewing. You watched so much of the Angels, Ben. Just a shocking amount of Angels baseball. I hope that he goes to a place where he feels like he can continue to do the two-way thing as long as possible and where he feels like he has a really good shot to play October baseball. And I think my sense of him, both from this documentary, but just in general, is that he has a pretty good idea of what that looks like. And so, yeah, like, I don't think any

team is so much better at injury prevention than another that like, you know, that that makes a difference. I guess there are ones that, you know, maybe I just want to keep him away from the Mets for the lulls, but not really, you know, like if be on central time. A lot of people pay attention to the Cubs. They're on the upswing. He could lead them back to the playoffs because I do want him to make up for lost time when it comes to making the playoffs. And so I do want him to go to a good team that it's really hard to project more than a few years out with any team. But yeah, I mean, if you went to the Dodgers, I wouldn't be heartbroken about that, even though their perennial playoff team, well, now they'd be an Otani perennial playoff team, and that would be fun.

So like dark horse, like off the board, no one's expecting it. Tigers would be kind of cool because then I'd get to listen to Jason Benetti call all of Shohei Otani's games or most of them. Like that alone, selfishly, would be great.

I did wonder while I was watching the doc, you know, they had a bunch of his home run calls and I was like, I wonder if he's asking any of the teams

that are courting him to like send a, you know, like get a guy, i'm not gonna even name an announcer get an announcer in the booth and like have him call a home run see what that sounds like i'm sure that that does not matter in the in the least but it would be fun to listen to all their home run calls so yeah or you know orioles like it seems like they're set to to be contenders for years to come just to put him I mean that ballpark is is not offense friendly the way that it used to be so that would be kind of a

concern but just to surround him with that young core and he could be like the veteran coming in to put them over the top that that would be kind of fun and you could be confident that they would be a winning team for a while. Again, like I'm not expecting the Orioles to break the bank for Shohei Otani, but there's no reason why they couldn't or shouldn't. So among the, the obvious candidates in the short term,

at least the Phillies vibes would be fun. Like there's, there's no fit for him with the Phillies. I don't think really, I mean the DH situation would be even more crowded, but like, seeing him play with Harper. Who cares? You know what? Here's what I have to say.

Who gives even one single solitary damn about that? Who cares even a little bit? Zero. I care zero. That's a Phillies problem. That's not a Meg problem. I think the Blue Jays would be a great fit for him roster-wise. Yeah?

I think the Giants would be a good fit. Yeah, the Giants would too. Boy, do they really want to write a big check. They want to write a big check so bad. They've been trying so hard to write a big check. Yeah. It'd be fun. I'm not rooting for this, but if he went to the Astros, I don't think any—

I don't want that. Actually, no, I don't want that. No, thank you. I'm just saying, if anything could help that franchise turn the page and differentiate, like, we're no longer the sign-stealing Astros, we're the Shohei Otani Astros. Like, we're lovable now. No, thank you. Yeah, no one would want that. I'm just saying, like, to change the narrative about that franchise, what could be more effective than bringing in cuddly, fun-loving, excellent Shohei Otani? But yeah, I'd be fine. I think that the Cubs would be good. I think the Giants would be good. I think the Mets would be good. I'd be fine with the Dodgers. It would be the most predictable thing, but at least he would be with a team that seems to win every year. unpredictable thing but at least he would be with a team that seems to win every year there are very few teams where i'd be like upset i just i want him to go somewhere where he can be as big a star as he wants to be and as his talent allows him to be and and just be in the playoffs every year and if he's somewhere where the most people possible would be watching and enjoying him then that would

be great all right so we're finishing here with a draft and it'll be, I guess, related to free agency as we're talking about. This is an annual tradition. It's our ninth annual free agent contracts over under draft. And we do it more or less the same way every year. We take the MLB trade rumors list, which we use just because it's such an institution. They've been ranking the top 50 for agents for almost 20 years at this point. So we peruse their list and we find contract predictions that we disagree with one way or another. And then we just take the over or the under. We say, I think they're going to get more than MLB Trade Rumors predicted or less. And we each draft eight players, and then we see what they signed for.

And there are a couple components to it. So one is that we want to get it directionally right. So if we pick over and it is over, or we pick under and it is under, then you get a $10 million boost just for getting the direction right. And then you also get the amount in the direction that you were right, right? So if you have someone who's predicted to make $50 million and you take the over and they make $60 million, then you get $10 million just for being right about over, and then you get another $10 million for the difference between $60 and $50. However, if you are wrong in the direction, then you lose see whether we were good at cherry-picking incorrect predictions or not.

So we're not picking on MLB trade rumors. I think they generally do a good job with these predictions. I don't think I'm especially great at predictions and don't enjoy making them, but it's easier for us to just go down the list that they have to predict for all these players. We just have to say that one looks a little off. And historically, we're usually more right than wrong with this. But this year in particular, there does seem to be a clear number one pick maybe that is the most obvious number one pick. And so that could swing the draft. And I don't know what to do about that. I went back and listened to last year's draft

and I gave you the first overall pick that time because I had won the previous year. And now I did win again. So I guess on the same grounds I could give you the first round pick this time, except that I gave it to you last time too. So I don't know what to say here. We could take it off the board. Oh, wow. Take it off the board entirely. I don't know.

Do you want to flip a coin? Sure. Okay. I don't have a coin handy. Do you? No, I don't. I don't have a coin.. Do you? No, I don't. I don't have a coin. We could do a random number generator. Oh, wait. Hold on. Wait. Here's a coin. Okay.

Alright. I've got a diamond and a nickel. Which do you prefer? Whichever you prefer. I guess do a nickel. I think they're more flippable. Alright. Nickel it is. And you'll have to take my word for it here. Do you want to call it in the air?

Sure. All right. Okay. It's in the air. Tails. It's heads. Oh, boy. All right.

First pick is yours. First pick is mine. Well, with the first overall pick, I will be selecting Cody Bellinger. Yeah. And I will be taking the under on MLB Trade Rumor's predicted contract of 12 years and $264 million. And again, we go by guaranteed dollars here and total contract. Right. So forget about opt-outs and any other clauses or options or anything. It's just

guaranteed dollars and the total amount, not average annual value. So they have Bellinger as their number two overall guy. And that's a big number. That is a really big number. And I think he's going to get a big number, but not that big. That's $264 million. That's a lot for a guy who got non-tendered a year ago. Yeah. Yeah, it sure is a lot. And I know that the hitting market is bad, but it's a lot. Yeah. And I guess we were talking about this before we started recording, but a lot of unders. So many unders. Yeah. Almost exclusively, in fact. And I am worried about that, actually.

Yeah, I feel bad about that. Yeah. Because we're not rooting against players making money, obviously. No, definitely not. Like, I'd rather be wrong and have someone cash in because the stakes here are not high. But, yeah, going down the list here, and I don't really do research or projections or anything.

I just scroll down the list and I'm like, I bought it. Yeah, that seems high. That seems low. I wrote down 17 names because we have to draft 16 between us. And of those 17, 14 are unders. And of those 17, 14 are unders. So I don't know what that says about our pessimism relative to MLB trade rumors.

It's like you'd think they would have their finger on the pulse. And I don't know that we're right about this. But yeah, these seemed a bit over-exuberant to me. But yeah, these seemed a bit over-exuberant to me. Yeah. I mean, I'm hoping that, like, I feel like before last offseason, we took the under on a lot of contracts. And then it was like everybody got paid. And we were happy to be wrong. You know, it's nice to be wrong.

Yeah. A year ago, we took plenty of overs because it was coming out of, you know, post-pandemic and lockout and everything. And it was a great class too. And this year, not so much. And so it's almost like MLB Trade Rumors is not really downwardly adjusted for the fact that it's not a great class, at least on the position player side. It's like they've kind of projected what the top free agents would tend to get in a typical class. And this isn't really a typical class.

So you could say, well, scarcity, maybe these guys will make more than they would have in some other offseason because they're the only ones available. Or you could say, well, there aren't many available because players have already locked up players and signed players to extensions, etc. So they have fewer needs. I don't know. It's just I kept having that feeling like, oh, that seems a little rich. I don't know if it's that I'm wary of just what teams will do in the wake of the broadcast bubble bursting in the cable bundles and MLB backstopping the broadcast deals and all the uncertainty about that revenue, which teams could be legitimately concerned about or could use an excuse for not spending.

And then a lot of the top players signed last offseason. I don't know that teams would do those deals again. They didn't immediately work out for various reasons. Didn't immediately work out for various reasons. The return on investment was not that great across the board, even though there were just a ton of long, rich deals last year. So maybe a bit of buyer's remorse going on. Anyway, we'll see. I'd like to be wrong about that.

But yeah, continue. Okay. I feel bad about this, given the first hour of our podcast. Oh, okay. I'm taking the under on their Otani. I strongly considered this myself, yeah. They have him 12 years, $528 million. And I think that the logic that Ben Clemens and the trade rumors themselves applied here is is defensible where it's like he is so singular he has so much um he brings so much to a franchise beyond even his play on the field and much of what

he brings has like very real um like profit implication for a team and so it is totally possible that an owner will just say just what are we doing write the check like come on you know and they'll sound exasperated with their povo like why are we having this conversation but i do wonder if the the arm issues give them just enough daylight to lowball him a little bit. And it could end up being that the way that manifests is just that this deal ends up being a little bit shorter. But I'm kind of skeptical that that's true because this is the time to strike.

He's only going to be older if he takes a six-year contract and then has to reenter free agency. So I think this will be like his forever home, much like his dog has found its forever home. And I hope that I am wrong. I really do. But I'm taking the under on Ohtani. Yeah, I think that's smart. I think if he did want to just maximize his total take and go for as many years and dollars as he could. I think this is not an unrealistic range. I could see it being lower between 400 and 500, but I could also see it ending up right around here. The reason I might have taken this too is that there is some chance that he'll go

short term, that he'll just say, I want to rebuild my value as a two-way player. I want to be fully healthy. Then I'll hit the market again. I'll still be in my early 30s, and I'll be the fully operational two-way Otani again. And so if he did that, if he just did like a high AAV two- or three-year deal with opt-outs or whatever it was, then this could win you the draft right here because this is for double the amount that they're predicting for Bellinger. Right. And if he says, I don't want a 12-year deal, I want a short deal, then it's going to be a fraction of this amount, and you're going to win walking away here. And I don't think the downside isn't that low, because if he does try to maximize the dollars, I don't think it's going to be that much less than this. If it were over, it couldn't be that much more over.

So, yeah, I think it's probably a smart pick just on the pure upside play for you of him deciding to go for a short-term deal. All right. You're up. Okay. So I guess I will take, gosh, how do I choose among the many under candidates here? I'm going to make room

for an over or two on my team somewhere because I don't want it to be all unders. Yeah, because that's a crummy team to root for. Yeah. I guess I'll take

the under on Jordan Montgomery. Hmm. 6'150". I mean, maybe he'll get something like that. I just... Under on Montgomery. I don't know. Like with Bellinger, it seems like there are just too many concerns about just like the quality of the contact and, you know, the health track record and the inability to hit high velocity last year.

Just, you know, he's still going to be valuable as a defensive player and everything. But, yeah, that's a lot to commit to that. With Montgomery, I guess, you know, I could see him getting something not too distant from this. We talked about just how fascinating his free agency is because he's coming off being such a big game pitcher and yet he's not a big bat misser. So I don't know how he'll be evaluated. I don't think I'll make a killing here. If he's under, it won't be by an enormous amount, but I guess I don't expect it to be over that amount. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I hate taking unders, but so many of the ones I have like conviction in are unders. I'm going to take the under on Snell. They have him at seven years and 200 million. And look, I am admitting to the fact that i simply don't super

enjoy exactly um maybe like watching blake snell play baseball like it kind of makes me frustrated um so like there might be some bias there but i think i don't know 200 million i know that he just want to say young i understand that uh you know he was a guy as we talked about last time who like we you know maybe uh that it wasn't properly understood at points in his career right wasn't properly appreciated for what he was able to do but i just um think that um he's terrible to watch and um you know he did throw 180 innings this year so like you know he did that and that was a big question mark for him like how often is he going to be able to do that he had not previously thrown that many since 2018 but i just feel like there's potential um for the skill set to curdle a little bit as he ages.

And I don't want to watch him. So, I wouldn't give him $200 million. So, I'm taking the under. And I'm not rooting against you, Blake. Like, you're a fellow Pacific Northwesterner, even though we still need to talk about why you talk like that. But, you know, so here we are. Yep. Why do you talk like that?

But, you know, so here we are. Yep. No, I was strongly considering that. And I'm actually now regretting not taking Snell instead of Montgomery. I think he's probably an even safer bet to be under. Yeah. It's just, you know, coming off the Cy Young, he's going to want to cash in and feel like he should cash in. But I just I don't know if 200 million would be out there for him because there are other pitchers available.

Right. Not many position players, but still. Right. And there's so many starters who are very good. Yeah. All right. I'm going to take the under on Matt Chapman at the same amount as Montgomery, 6 and 150. I don't know.

Same amount as Montgomery, 6-150. I don't know. Again, it's a weak position player market, but he's 30. He's had his injuries. His value is very dependent on defense. He is a good hitter, but not a great hitter. And at times, he's really struggled offensively. So I just, I don't know. really struggled offensively.

So I just, I don't know. I don't know that teams will want to buy into the defense or think it will age that well and that he won't just turn into Josh Donaldson or something at some point. I mean, I guess Donaldson didn't turn into Donaldson until he was later into his 30s. He was quite good for several years or so. But still, yeah, I don't know.

150? Eh. He was like, he was really like rough into the season too. Yeah. I know he had a sprained finger. Maybe that was responsible. Yes. But, yeah.

Okay. sprained finger maybe that was responsible but yeah um okay well i am going to take another under yeah i am gonna take the under on teoscar hernandez who they have at four years and 80 million dollars um teoscar's season was interesting like it started out really rough he came on well later and you know i think that there is still a valuable offensive player there i know that his arm is good i know that people have talked about how like the defensive metrics have improved look he is a he's a corner only guy and like i if i had the opportunity on my roster to like maybe play him in a corner or definitely play him at dh that would be my preference because like i just don't it's not always great it's not unplayable he is i would say he's bat first not bad only but i would if it were

me wouldn't would have him mostly dhing and i think that even in a weak market, four years and 80 is just pretty, it's pretty rich. Although he comes unencumbered by the qualifying offer. So like, I don't know, maybe that helps. All right. Similarly, I guess I will take the under on Jamer Candelario at four and 70. And I, you know, he's been quite good in two of the past three years.

He doesn't stand out in a star-level way, but he's a solid all-around player. He kind of projects to be probably average. And he turns 30 later this month. And I just, I don't know. I don't know if I see 70 million in his future. Fair. Okay. I have one. I'm going to take the under on Josh Hader. Yeah, I thought about that too. He is with, so I want to apply some caveats to this that might leave people being like, why are you taking this guy? You know, so as we have talked about on the pod, like the reliever market is super weird.

It tends to behave in a way that we are often a little perplexed by. It is clear that it is a place where at least some teams are not doing like a straightforward sort of dollars per war calculus it which i continue to find somewhat flummoxing not because dollars per is perfect like it's a very rudimentary way of understanding these things but just because like relievers are so volatile and if you're going though to pay one you pay a guy like josh hater because josh hater is very good even though he has had stretches in the last couple of years where he has been like clearly going through stuff and not able to perform well. Like he is very good. He is arguably one of the better relievers of his generation.

But I will say this. Last offseason, Edwin Diaz got five years and $102 million. And there were like a bunch of escalators and incentives and whatnot baked into that to make it more palatable to the Mets. But five years and $102 million. And he was a year younger and he had a stronger walk year than Hayter did. So I don't think that, you know, is the margin here for me like really significant? You know, candidly, probably not. Like I think he will still do well.

He'll absolutely be the highest paid reliever on the market this year. But something about six years and $110 million just is too rich for me. So, yeah, I'm taking the under on here. And I think just because he comes with such rigidity in how you can use him. by that i so i think that you're right like that part is why are all of these teams doing trade i mean today's the non-tender deadline that's why they're doing this but also like leave me alone i am not working today i think that like the role that he has been in where he's been a one inning guy is how people want to use him and And I think that in the right circumstances, he will show flexibility. Like if he's in the postseason, I imagine he would be willing to throw.

Yeah, maybe. Although he won't have trained for that, really. He won't be practiced at doing that. Sure. But I think, you know, I think it's fine. I think it's fine. Jake Bowers. Huh.

Okay. Man, Brewers. You're sure Jake Bowers. Huh. Okay. Man. Brewers. You're sure filled in a cheap team. Okay. All right. My turn. I'll take an over just for fun.

Okay. Yeah. I'll take the over on Marcus Stroman. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to take the over on Marcus Stroman who predicted 2 and 4444. He could do better than that. He signed a three-year $71 million deal with the Cubs. He just opted out of the last year of that contract, which was for $21 million. 21 million. So he must think that there will be interest and there should be interest. He's pitched well for them. I know he had a hip issue that derailed his 2023 when he was looking like a potential Cy Young. But even with that and some of the struggles that caused, he's been a dependable pitcher and fairly effective, and he's not old.

I think he could do better than this. Okay. I like that. I think that that's defensible. I'm going to also take an over. Returning the page. I am taking the over on Jung-Hoo Lee, who Trade Rumors has at five years and 50 million. My expectation of Lee's contract is that it will be, I thought that Ben's, other Ben's sort of contract estimate here where he had him at four years and 60 is probably around where I'd expect him to be. 60 is probably around where I'd expect him to be.

You know, like, there are questions around Lee, not only because, you know, obviously he's going to be coming over from the KBO and he has to adjust to a new league and environment and what have you, but also, like, he had a pretty serious injury that ended his season last year. The floor of his profile, I think, is going to be dependent on

what kind of center field defender he ends up being. And, you know, it was an ankle injury, so we don't quite know what that's going to look like. Is that going to lead to diminished speed? If so, is that going to be a persistent issue going forward? Is it something that he'll just have he's only 25 and the version of him that plays good center field defense is really valuable just for that because good center field defense is really valuable you know he's not going to be as we talked about with Ben when we were talking about the top 50 like he is a back control guy he's not going to be like a huge power hitter, but I think that there's a lot of value here and he's still so young. And so I think that that will result in more than a $50 million. And, um, you know,

we, we might look at like Hassan Kim's contract, which was four years and 28 million. But like, as Ben noted, that was kind of understood to be light like at the time and baseball is a lot more expensive shown to be light right right since so yeah and baseball is more expensive now than it was so i imagine that even if it's just sort of adjusting up to an

appropriate contract in 2023 dollars that he can do better than this. All right. Well, two of my three over candidates are off the board now. So with my sixth pick, I will take the under on JD Martinez. Yeah, he was on my list too. Yeah. Two years, 40 million. I just think at his age as a DH, I just, I don't, I don't know that I would see him getting two years, but if he got two years, I don't think it would be that much per he, he signed a one year, $10 million deal with the Dodgers. And it was a bounce back year for him offensively. It was,

it was a really good year, but still just being a year older than that that and he's 36 now, I just, I don't know. I don't know that he would get that much. Yeah, I think that that's fair. He was on my list also. I am going to take the under on Jack Flaherty's contract. Yep. Three years and $40 million is what Trade Rumors is projecting. Yep. skeptical of this guy being able to recapture anything more than like fifth starter form um you know the fact that he ended up being in the bullpen like albeit very briefly but in the

bullpen sort of at the end there for baltimore is is kind of telling the fastball has just never not never has yet to recapture anything like the form that he had previously. I think that he is pretty vulnerable and that the difference between being like a 30% strikeout guy and a 23% strikeout guy is meaningful. And I think it is meaningful for him. So I would not be remotely surprised if he ends up signing like a one year deal with a very pitching savvy organization to try to figure out need a guy who can take the starter innings. And I think the thing that he managed to do this year that really bolstered his profile, if we want to talk about that side of things, guy that he was in 2019, but he has shown an ability to kind of carry a starter's worth of innings over the course of a season. But I really am skeptical that he'll get a three-year deal, and I don't think it'll be anywhere near $40 million. So I'm taking the under on him. Yeah. Yep. All right.

Then I think I will take the under on Robert Stevenson. Is it four years, 36? Would you take the over if he was Robert Louis Stevenson? Then he'd really be in for some treasure. But no, I think he was really good after he got traded to Tampa. He was really good after he got traded to Tampa, and maybe he could sustain that uptick in performance when he changed from his slider to his cutter and got razified. So maybe teams will say, yeah, it was sort of a small sample, but he had the skills and we think he can continue to be dominant. But I don't know about capitalizing to that degree that he would get four years or that much per. If he did get four years, I could just see a shorter term deal in his future. He obviously stepped up at the right time and

changed his expectation. I just I don't know if he raised the ceiling that high. So this is my second to last pick, right? Correct. Okay. Oh, do I want to end on two unders? I feel so lousy, Ben. It does feel kind of lousy. But I also think that it's like maybe the right direction.

Oh, I know what I'm doing. I'm taking the under on two years and 24 million for Aroldis Chapman. Oh, okay. what I'm doing. I'm taking the under on two years and $24 million for Aroldis Chapman. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. No. You go, all right. Do you think he's – doesn't that seem wrong to you?

I mean, he didn't even make the Fangraphs Top 50, right? No. But I don't know. I guess it wouldn't blow my mind if just the name value of him like he he was the most highly coveted reliever available on the trade market, but then he was just so shaky for Texas, especially down the stretch and in the postseason that if you were watching that, I don't know that you would want to bring that to your team. But he is a big name with a long track record of being good to great. So I think it's a perfectly reasonable pick.

I guess it wouldn't totally shock me if he got something like that, but there are probably better players to spend that kind of money on. Yeah, I wonder if I'll be right. We'll find out, I guess. All right, so my last pick. I'm going to end on an up note. I'm going to take my last over candidate here. I'm going to take the last over candidate here. I'm going to take the over on

Yuki Matsui, who is predicted for a meager two years and $16 million. And I think given his track record, he could come in more than that. I know he's a short king, right? I mean, people talk about Yamamoto being short. Yuki Matsui is listed at 5'8". Yeah. So there will certainly be concerns about how that will translate. But I think his stuff is good enough and his track record is impressive enough that he could get more than that. I like that. I like that a lot. I'm going to take the under on Tio Urshela. Two years and 20 million.

Yeah, he wasn't ranked on the Fangraphs list either, right? No, we didn't rank him. I'm taking the under on Gio Urshela. I don't know. He's been hurt. I don't know. I don't know if I love... I like a lot of my picks. I mean, I'm sad about a lot of my

picks, but I like a lot of them, but I don't know if I love, I like a lot of my picks. I mean, I'm sad about a lot of my picks, but I like a lot of them. But I don't know if I feel great about the last two. I guess we're going to find out. Yeah, that's fine. I only considered a couple other guys. I thought about like Kenta Maeda, 236, but I think he could, maybe he could get more years, even if he got lower AAVs. So I didn't draft that.

I thought about the under on Mitch Garver at 339 just because he's almost 33. And he can be a backup catcher, I guess. But if you're signing him to be a DH primarily, that kind of limits the landing spots. But, you know, maybe. And I really didn't consider that many other players. I think most of the estimates looked more or less right to me. And, you know, I considered Yamamoto just because you've got to consider any of the big money predictions because you have the greatest potential rewards there if you're right.

But 225 over 9 for him didn't seem unreasonable. Yeah, I just didn't really have anyone else I strongly considered. With Kiermaier and Bader, I thought about like, maybe, you know, you really love centerfield defense. But I think both of those guys are just going to end up getting one year deals. But I think both of those guys are just going to end up getting one-year deals. So even if I think, you know, they had Kiermaier at two years and 26 and Bader at two years and 20, and even if I could see them doing a little bit better on like an AAV basis, I don't feel like they're going to get two-year deals.

So I was like, eh, I can't really do that. But like, we should all be more excited about good center field defense when we see it because, boy, does it make a big difference. I thought about taking the under on will perhaps make reference to this draft as some of these guys sign and we see whether they were indeed over or under. And for the sake of the market, I hope that we were overly pessimistic. Yeah, me too. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks as always for listening. And thanks to those of you who support us on Patreon, which you can do by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get yourself access to some perks,

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wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk to you next week. La place, le bifo est so chouette Les avis pétantes, est super une fête Je pense que c'est Effectively cool Je pense que c'est Effectively wild Effectivement sauvage Effectivement sauvage