Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2094: Double Secret Shobation

Episode Date: December 7, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley (at the Winter Meetings in Nashville) banter about how the secrecy surrounding Shohei Ohtani’s free agency is breaking baseball media members’ brains, what makes free agency fun for fans, the advisability of a winter transaction deadline and whether it’s OK for baseball to just be boring sometimes, and the latest […]

It's a long song to death, but for sure to make you smile, this is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. This is Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2094 of Effectively Wild, a Fangrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangrafts and I am joined by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? How am I? I feel like I'm losing my mind.

Oh, no. Okay. The Shohei Otani takes. Oh. The Shohei Otani discourse is out of control. Yeah, man. I cannot believe what I am reading about Shohei Otani's free agency from the Assembled Baseball Writers of America. Not all of them.

Not all of them. More of them than I would have expected. Shohei Otani has not signed yet as we record this on Wednesday morning. Some baseball media members are upset, not just about the fact that he hasn't signed, but about the fact that he is maintaining his secrecy approach to picking a team. And wow, the rancor, the bile, the condemnation. I did not expect it, and I do not understand it. Yeah, man, it seems like everyone could chill. I don't think that there is a meaningful difference in the kind of content one can generate

based on a rumor that he is going to a particular place versus assessing his fit for other places, you know? Yeah, I completely agree. You can still write about otani you just write about otani you know you can write about how how he might um work as a toronto blue jay or as a los angeles dodger or as a chicago cup or a texas ranger or you could go off the beaten path and be like he'll never be a cincinnati red but what would that be like if he were you know i'm sympathetic to like the instinct that scoops men have when they don't have any scoops you know

they're like running around without any scoops you know it's terrifying for them this is lack of scoops but for the rest of us i think it makes no never mind in terms of the actual kind of of content one can produce and so um i think everyone should relax a little bit and like i don't want to point fingers at particular writers because like you know i i don't candidly have recall one way or the other if this was true but like i do and i might okay okay wait so i would whatever well maybe you have recall for a different thing but like i okay i i remember, let me peg it to a particular time. Like, I remember prior to the 2019 season, you might recall there were some marquee free agents available that winter, right? Bryce Harper, Manny Machado.

Do you remember when they signed Ben? They signed in, like, freaking February. Mm-hmm. Late in the process. And it was not because they were being prima donnas, really. A lot of it had to do with like ownership nonsense and budgets and like a slow moving market that was being dictated by the pace of spending on the team side more than anything else. These things just come and go, right? There are waves.

And it's going to be the biggest deal probably in baseball history. And it's certainly going to be the biggest contract that Otani himself ever signs. And so what if we just let him take his time with it? You know? Yeah. Not only do I think he's entitled to take his time and go about this however he wants to, but I just I don't see what we're missing out on. I don't see what the downside is, really, unless you're someone who is maybe in the business of reporting scoops and your scoops are a little less sourced than you'd like them to be. But beyond that, for baseball consumers, I just I don't see the downside. I really don't.

Is it slightly silly, this extreme secrecy? Yes. In fact, it's to the point of being almost absurd, which frankly, I have found fun and I think I've enjoyed more than I would have enjoyed a traditional courting process. But sillier than the extreme secrecy is being so upset about the extreme secrecy. I don't get it. It's not just the blowhards who've been bloviating about this. It's also some, I think, good writers

and writers I respect. And I just, I don't really understand the stance. Because again, the fun thing, the entertaining thing about free agency for fans is the prospect of signing that player. or even the players' diplomatic kind of cagey comments about being flattered by a team's interest or whatever, or just like the acknowledgments of someone visiting somewhere. That's not exciting, right? Like the exciting thing is the prospect of getting him. You could make the case that it's more exciting that he is being so tight-lipped about all of this because you can at least imagine that he might go to your team, right?

I mean, it's not a total news and rumor blackout. There's still been plenty of reporting. If there were a complete blackout, if everyone were entirely in the dark about which teams might be in the running here, that might be the best case scenario because then every fan base could convince themselves, hey, we might get Otani.

Whereas typically most teams kind of rule themselves out or are ruled out because, you know, there's a list of finalists or you know where the guy is going or whatever. In this case, more teams are theoretically in the running or they could be if we weren't constantly getting lists of alleged finalists as it was, right? But I just, I don't recall, like, I'm questioning my own memory of, like, what is fun about free agency? It's not the, like, yeah, we met with that guy. He seems like a nice guy. We would want to employ him. What are we missing here? I don't think we're really missing very much. I really don't. Oh, there's, like, a new sound in my hotel room, Ben. Can you we missing here? I don't think we're really missing very much. I really don't. Oh, there's like a new sound in my hotel room,

Ben. Can you hear that sound? I don't think so, fortunately. I'm doing the Dean Martin in Vegas one-hand mic thing and I turned the air off so that there wouldn't be sound. We're leaving all of this in because like this is the pod from Winter Meetings as I sit in my hotel room. Yeah, live from Nashville. Yeah, and just a hope that the Wi-Fi stays strong enough for me to not drop out. Anyway, yeah, I find the whole thing kind of silly, and I don't want to speak ill of my industry brethren, but it just makes us seem kind of desperate and petty in a way. You know, it's like, let's just let him have it. It's free agency.

He's fine. Do they want the decision? I think they want the decision, Ben. I think they want the decision. And yet a lot of these columns acknowledge that probably LeBron regrets the decision or the decision ultimately didn't serve LeBron's best interest, but it served the broadcast well for people who are paid to talk about sports, right? But why would anyone else want to do that given the backlash to that, right? So I just, I don't get it. You know, Buster Only had a column about this. Ken Rosenthal had a column about this.

David O'Brien, who covers the Braves for The Athletic, had a tweet about this. And there were some other more measured takes that still struck similar stances, right? I mean, David O'Brien's tweet was, Ohtani and his agent don't want news leaked at meetings with teams, say such leaks will be held against that team. And so many folks normalizing this instead of calling it out for what it is, pretentious BS. We all know he's an incredible player. Just negotiate and pick a team. Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post, who's great, had a tweet.

She said if Shohei Otani chooses not to go to the Dodgers because Dave Roberts told the truth about their unspoken but incredibly obvious pursuit of a once-in-a-lifetime talent, then we will all learn a lot more about Shohei Otani from that than from anything he's said in years, which sounded sort of judgmental. I don't know whether she meant it to be, but it's technically true. I guess we would learn something about him from that. But it comes off as saying like, oh, well, we'd learn something not so nice about him.

But maybe she didn't mean it that way. I suspect not. But, yeah, it's an odd – it's just an odd thing, you know. I don't know. Like, it's not – it's just not unprecedented for, like, the stuff to move slowly or for one player's free agency to be the thing that really sort of is the combination of how, you know, just how incredible and intense and specific the Shohei stuff is on its own, coupled with the fact that like, you know, we had the 18-19 free agent market was quite slow. And then, you know, we had the COVID year and that was weird. And we had the lockout year and that was weird. And we had the lockout year, and that was weird. And like last winter was this, like, it felt like the hose had been unkinked, right? And we had a bunch of transactions, big contracts.

They were kind of nicely paced throughout the winter, right? They didn't all hit at once. Although, you know, Correa signed so many times that it kind of felt like we were constantly in this weird limbo. But I wonder if it's just that this is our first one of these in a while where we haven't had a catastrophe dictating either the level of spending or the pace of the market. And we don't have a particularly robust class. And so you're going to have the guys at the very top, you know, dictating the pace of the market in sort of a non-Ohtani year. And then you add the Ohtani of it all. And it's really kind of slow. And we're sitting here and we're like, we've been in Nashville for days. And this entire hotel smells like chlorine because there's a water park.

And why is there a gondola ride? And, you know, the big news that we've had is like the jared kelnick trade and the verdugo trade and like i guess kimbrough signed this morning but like it's been very quiet in terms of actual activity like yesterday we were all in the media workroom and bauman dropped a link to a tweet in our slack and you know because twitter is what it is now like the preview doesn't always work and he's like dibs and i thought it was was gonna be something big. And it was like, it was Kirby Yates, Ben. It was Kirby Yates. Right. And so I think all of that is like operating about the sort of shape that this couple of months took. And much more will be said about the fact that you show you, Tony. Yeah, right. This is like baseball cabin fever.

Everyone's just cooped up in the Opryland. They can't get out. Give us news. You really feel like you can't get out because it is a deeply confusing place. You sit there and you're like, why does this exist? Why does this exist, Ben? Why does it exist? You know, there's a gondola ride.

You can take a gondola ride. There's Christmas stuff everywhere. I like Christmas, but there's Christmas stuff everywhere. There is a gingerbread decorating section of the hotel and there is a gingerbread decorating section of the hotel, and there is a gingerbread man mascot walking around. And Ben, can I tell you something? You know how mascots normally have a round head?

Like Mr. Met has a round head because a baseball is round. And cookies are flat often. And so the designer of this mascot costume clearly didn't know what to do. And so the front of it is rounded because you gotta put a human face in there you know you gotta put a human's head in there but then the back of the the gingerbread man is his head is flat like he's been lying on

a cookie sheet it's so disconcerting it feels very he looks like he belongs in Times Square not a compliment derogatory so anyway I think that all of that is combining to make people a little loopy, including some of our most favorite

writers and also us. Absolutely. Yes. The great Jake Mintz, friend of the show, he, at Fox Sports, called Shohei Otani's free agency a lifeless, soulless slog. I gotta say, it's the first week of december it hasn't been

that long do you want me to go beat him up yeah it's not february or march like it's right it's been a month like i didn't expect shohei otani to sign immediately like why would he not take his time, right? Now, I mean, maybe it's a bit more of a slog because we're not getting constant updates, but we kind of are anyway. They're just not confirmed updates, which makes it much more funny in my mind. As soon as he signs, the offseason is going to get a lot less interesting, right? Like, we should want this to continue for a while because he's the big prize. And I'm trying to figure out what they want because everyone's like, oh, it's such a missed

opportunity for Otani or for the sport or something. Here's what Buster only has in mind for what this could have looked like. He wrote, quote, imagine if Otani had concluded his visit with the Toronto Blue Jays, the one that neither manager John Schneider nor GM Ross Atkins would He wrote, quote, complex. He could have talked about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s power, Bo Bichette's aggressiveness at the plate, Kevin Gosman's splitter. He could have mentioned Schneider's humor, thanked Mark Shapiro and Atkins for their time. How exciting does that sound? Otani thanking executives for their time. He could have capped his reflections with an observation about the Maple Leafs, about Joe Carter's home run, and he could have wrapped it up by announcing a donation to Jay's Care. Say $50,000 pocket change for a player who already makes

tens of millions of dollars. What's this teleplay that he's writing? I don't know. Before he gets the richest contract in the history of North American professional sports to help children, he could have deftly answered a few questions from local reporters,

easily deflecting the question of where he intends to play by saying he was still going through the process. What are you talking about? Why would he want to do this? Why would I want this to happen? Like, why? Like, what about this would be appealing to Otani or great for the sport or anything like

having him go from town to town and pander to the fans by like referencing their other sports franchises or the history of their franchise or like thanking the team for its time or something like all that's going to happen is that he's going to just do non-answers because what is he going to say on a call like that and and then if anything he just like get those fans hopes up and then they'd be more mad at him when he doesn't sign there. Like I just it doesn't sound interesting or advantageous to anyone. I just don't understand. I find that little like, you know, play that he wrote to be so strange because it doesn't seem to be connected at all to Otani. Like I think part of this is just that he is

a cipher for a lot of folks. He doesn't talk to the media very often, which I think, you know, always puts writers, it lends an antagonistic air to interactions around him. And, you know, I think some of that is, you know, maybe a little precious on our part. Some of it, I think, is pretty justified because it's like, you're the biggest star in the sport and you know i think some of that is you know maybe a little precious on our part some of it i think is pretty justified because it's like you're the biggest star in the sport and you never talk to anybody and that seems like it's not the best so absent a strong sense of him as a person right a real kind of anchor people like project all of this stuff onto him it's like i don't know what his eventual press conference will look like. It's like,

I guess we kind of have some sense cause he did one with the angels. Right. But like, he's an established big leaguer. Now we know this guy, at least in terms of his play on the field, we know about his little dog. And I just think that like,

we don't know the dog's name and everyone is very mad about it. People are still worked up about that. Yeah. I don't know the dog's name and everyone is very mad about it. People are still worked up about that. Yeah, I don't know. I do sometimes feel very close to people in our industry and sometimes I do feel out of remove. And the dog thing is one of them where I'm like, I cannot bring myself to care about this as a problem, a matter of import. I'm interested in Otani.

Would I rather know the dog's name than not? Yeah. Yeah. But I really like what Otani. Would I rather know the dog's name than not? Yeah, but I really, like, what's going to happen when I know it's not going to change my life? And maybe these things are sort of silly. It's hard to put myself in his place because he's at this extreme level of stardom where he's trying to protect some shred of his personal life. Like, yeah, you know, is it sort of silly to act like the dog's name is a state secret? Maybe, you know, maybe he just feels like, hey, this is like a little sliver of personal life that I have to myself and I want to keep it to myself. If he's going to reveal the dog on a broadcast and get everyone interested

in the dog, then I guess I don't know why he wouldn't want to share the dog's name. It doesn't seem like a big deal. So it's sort of silly, but it's also not something I'm going to get outraged about. I just feel like, you know, he's not purely just being a diva here, like he doesn't want to answer anyone's questions. Maybe he doesn't. He's been answering questions from baseball reporters his entire adult life. So I can imagine why that would have worn thin at this point. But I think, I mean, based on what we can tell, which is very little, obviously, by design here, it seems like this is a test of sorts, that it's not just that he doesn't want anyone to know his

whereabouts and he doesn't want to be asked about his visits or go through this Buster-only scenario. But he values his privacy day to day just because he had so little in Japan. And I think he probably wants to preserve some of it in the U.S. And so it seems like it's kind of a test. Like, can you keep something under wraps if I ask you to? Maybe he's thinking that that will be a sign of whether if he signs with that team, they will be able to keep things quiet and private going forward. I don't know whether it is or not. I don't know whether it's actually a great indication of that or not.

But that would at least be a sensible reason to put teams to the test like this. And I don't know how much of it is Otani's preference or how much his agent, who also seems to be a very secretive guy, is orchestrating. Obviously, Otani is ultimately responsible for how this is conducted and it may very well be his choice. choice, you know, it ultimately turns out to be sort of silly because like you can infer which teams he's meeting with and where he's going just by the movements of various people involved, which when we discussed on an earlier episode, like how is this going to work, this preference for secrecy? Like how do you hide Otani? I mean, he's tough to hide and it's hard to hide like where all of your bigwigs are and

everything. So it seemed like it was going to get out and it's hard to hide like where all of your bigwigs are and everything. So it seemed like it was going to get out and it kind of has anyway. But he just doesn't want, I guess, to hear terms leaked and contract proposals and all of that stuff. And that at least has not come out. And, you know, technically that's not supposed to come out, right, according to the CBA. Like teams are not supposed to talk about, you know, they can talk in general terms about a free agent. They're not supposed to talk about how they value a free agent or like what contracts are under discussion. And so it is technically a violation of the CBA when executives leak that stuff to reporters and it comes out typically.

So players don't want that stuff out there. It's not just Otani. He just is able to actually command adherence to that because he's Shohei Otani. Yeah, I think that it's not that the biggest star in the sport can't be, you know, preening or annoying or whatever. Like, those things can be true. I don't want to, like, carve out an exception. being more annoyed by a player exercising agency than we are by teams exercising agency in a way that we just read as like them doing business right like standard operating procedure because this guy should extract every last concession bit of value whatever that he possibly can because he's that good and do i think that like otani's

contract is gonna like set a new standard i mean yes and no um there aren't a lot of otani's out there right and so the ability of another player to kind of really like go to school on his shot when the time comes is going to be limited by like how not otani that person is but like he he should do this you know he should he should get his way and you know teams get their way a lot and they get their way in ways that can be um kind of pushy and can be dehumanizing and can be like you know all kinds of not awesome stuff. And so, like, this guy getting his way and not doing that stuff is like, I think it's fine. I also, not to call out, like, David specifically, but it is funny that, like, the beat writer for the team

that just announces their own transactions without any leaking is like, I can't believe Otani is doing this. It's like, I don't know, go yell at your guys. They're the ones that are like, and here's the donation to the Braves Foundation and never leak anything. Yeah. I mean, you run a risk, I guess, of a potential PR backlash here. I don't get the sense that these complaints by the reporters are really resonating with people just looking at the replies to tweets, which isn't really a great indication. get the sense that these complaints by the reporters are really resonating with people

just looking at the replies to tweets, which isn't really a great indication. But most of them are like, stop whining, you know, not like, yeah, you know, you tell him, right? I mean, it's like, yes, it makes him look like, oh, he's asking for special treatment. Well, he's a special guy. You know, people make many special accommodations for him as it is. They let him pitch and hit, right? And in the same game, even, they changed the rules so he could do that. They're going to give him a very special contract.

There is a special level of interest in him, which is why he's trying to maintain his privacy, right? And man, who could be further from pretentious typically, right? Like Otani is not someone who seems like he's putting on airs. I mean, yes, would it maybe be better for baseball if he were more transparent or forthcoming or we're talking to the press all the time? Maybe, you know, I would welcome more insights into Otani's personality that we would get if he talked to the press more often. But he seems like he is, you know, for someone who is so uniquely talented and accomplished, at least like everything else suggests that he is very much like still has his feet on the ground, right? So I just don't know that I would use that

term for him based on this. But again, it's December 6th. It's not like pitchers and catchers are reporting tomorrow. And you know what? It's okay for baseball to be boring in December. And I say that as someone who co-hosts a three times a week baseball podcast. And so I also have a vested interest in there being baseball news, as do you as the editor of a baseball site, right? But like, it's the off season, you know? And I know every sports league wants to turn itself into a 24-7, 365 attention getter,

some sports more successfully than others, but it's the off season. It's okay to be off sometimes, right? Like, I don't mind if news is a little slow. It's, well, yes, I say that as someone who never wants to be off on this podcast. But the point is, like, even if there is not a steady drip of baseball news, we find other ways to talk about the sport that do not require just Shohei Otani talking about what team he visited. So, yeah, I don't really understand it.

And, you know, it's led to Rosenthal and others again calling for maybe we need a transaction deadline, right? We need to liven up the winter meetings. deadline, right? We need to liven up the winter meetings. And this was a big talking point a couple of years ago, because when there was an artificial deadline of the lockout that the owners imposed, we saw a whole flurry of activity in the day or two leading up to that. And people said, oh, this is great. We should maybe do this all the time. And the league had proposed that previously. And the players, almost unanimously, according to Rosenthal's reporting, shot it down because they felt like it would hurt them that having this constraint on when you can negotiate would is in favor of it, then there's often a good argument that maybe it's not so great for the players from an earnings perspective. MLB to the NFL and the NBA, neglecting the fact that, you know, those sports have salary caps, right? And there are reasons why everyone comes off the board more quickly. Like you only have so much to spend and there are so many guys.

Yeah. And so it all happens more quickly. But like there are only so many moves that can be made. And if all of the moves are made in a day or two, that's great while it lasts. But then the hangover sucks. The comedown from that is not fun. Then you have months and months with no news, which we experienced during the lockout for lockout-related reasons. And that was not fun, right? So I don't want every team to shoot its shot and blow its load on December X.

team to shoot its shot and blow its load on December X. And then there's nothing to talk about for the next however many months until spring training, right? Like you could do some sort of staggered deadlines, I guess, multiple cutoffs or freezes. And sure, all else being equal, maybe it's better to have business done sooner so excitement can build and teams can sell season tickets and players can get their situation settled. But still, there's a finite number of transactions to be made. And I think it's better this way. Yeah, you don't get like the attention getting everyone's paying attention to baseball because every free agent just signed at the same time. But you also get steady news

instead of just nothing for months at a stretch. Right. Now, are people tired of hearing me complain about the Seattle Mariners? Yeah. And so the danger of having no news is that we're going to talk about this Jared Kilnick trade in a second. I'm going to have some words. But in general, I agree. I think that these things resolve having a steady stream of news over the course of the offseason keeps baseball in the bloodstream in a way that I think is probably the optimal way for us to approach a long winter, both from a content generation perspective and in terms of maintaining interest in the sport. I think that it would probably have some exert some downward pressure on salaries if these guys had to sign by a particular date.

I would be in favor of a transaction freeze between, say, Christmas and New Year's because, you know, this winter meetings aside, these people are freaking nuts and can't help themselves. Right. And want to take us away from our families because I don't know if they like theirs. And so we could introduce some provisions into the offseason to make it nice for everyone, but I really just don't view this as a particular failing of the sport. And I candidly like the idea that with very rare exceptions, the Harpers, the Otanis, the Machados, like Trout, if he had really been a free agent and not just signed a big extension, right? Like the idea that baseball transaction news in December is going to meaningfully compete with like the NFL, I just think is delusional. Like what is is the what are we actually trying to accomplish here? Right? Like, I think that for baseball fans, again, having, you know, a steady stream of news

to keep them excited is good. But you're not like going to convert anyone to the cause in January, when they can just go watch the Niners or whatever, you know? So I just don't know what we really want to accomplish. And I don't want to, again, ascribe like any silliness or bad motives to our colleagues in the industry, but it just feels like, just write your pieces, man. Like you can write about his fit anywhere. Like you can just go do that. Just go do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell some off-season stories. There are a lot of stories to tell that are not directly related to transactions. Right? So the other thing is that I'm tremendously enjoying the people getting their yarn and their cork boards out and trying to piece together where Otati has been and where she will be. Right? Like, this is so silly, but silly in a really fun way, I think. This is so silly, but silly in a really fun way, I think.

And so the fact that the Blue Jays executives are mysteriously absent from the winter meetings and they're Zooming in but refusing to say why they're Zooming in, this is very funny, I think. And we've reached the point of the offseason and the Shohei Otani sweepstakes where people are bringing back the flight tracker, right? The Cliff Lee Memorial flight tracker from 2010 when everyone was like, Cliff Lee's going to the Yankees because they were looking at charter flights. And then he ended up signing with the Phillies. Now we're getting that about allegedly Ohtani's charter plane going from here to there, right? And then we're also getting the O Otani followed Logan Webb back on Instagram, must mean he's going to the Giants, right? And, you know, it's been reported that he visited with the Giants, that it's been reported that he visited with the Blue Jays. It's just that we don't get confirmation from Otani or the team. It's just that we don't get confirmation from Otani or the team. And then most entertaining of all, we have the Dodgers-Dave Roberts saga where, look, absolutely everyone knows that Otani has been or will be meeting with the Dodgers.

But you have Dave Roberts coming out and acknowledging that the meeting did happen, that it was a good meeting, that it lasted for two or three hours, right? And then immediately after that, you had Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers saying that he couldn't comment. And then you had Brendan Gomes, the Dodgers GM, saying that he couldn't comment and also expressing some surprise and perhaps consternation about the fact that Dave Roberts did comment so frankly. And then there was, I think it was a snippet of Nightingale's piece about this where he talked about how Roberts was speaking very openly. But then immediately after his comments, he looked at his texts and had a very grave face and then was huddling with Dodgers PR people, which who knows what that was about. But it's very amusing to think that immediately after that, everyone was like, Dave, what are you doing? You're screwing this up for us, right? And yeah, like if Otani ruled out the Dodgers because Dave Roberts acknowledged that he met with them. That would be very silly, but it is probably unlikely.

And also, I think highly, highly amusing that this has become so controversial. Although, you know, wherever and whenever Otani signs, we may never know why he picked the team he did. Sure. Because we still don't entirely know why he picked the Angels. And Otani himself is just like, it felt right. So he may very well say the same thing about this new team. If he doesn't go to the Dodgers, who have been supposedly the favorite all along, then you know Dave Roberts will be blamed for that one way or another. Which, like, you know, by the fans, right?

Which it probably will not be Dave Roberts' fault, but unless Otani comes out and was like, yeah, that wasn't why I didn't sign with the Dodgers, that everyone will forever assume that Dave Roberts blew it by acknowledging that they met with him, which would be extremely silly, but amuses me to no end. Yeah, it is. It would be very silly. It would be extremely, extremely silly. And Roberts, you know, everyone else has perfected the art of deflecting and maybe not denying that they met with Otani, but not confirming it either. And Dave Roberts was like, I don't feel like lying is something I do. I was asked a question. It's going to come out at some point.

Now, that's the same Dave Roberts who, like, a couple months ago was saying that he didn't think that Kershaw's health had anything to do with his disaster start in the postseason. Roberts had acknowledged that there was something going on with Kershaw's shoulder in August and September. But in October, he said, it's nothing to do with the injury to the shoulder, nothing. I still stand by the fact that he's healthy. And of course, Kershaw had surgery immediately after that. And all of us watching it were like, yeah, there's something wrong with this guy, right? And Roberts was standing up there telling us that he was fine. So I don't know that he practices radical transparency in all cases, nor do I expect managers or team executives to do so. So he very well could have done the same thing that every other person connected with the Otani courtship has done and just refused to be so frank about it. But I love the idea that he just didn't get the memo.

And so everyone else is aligned with like, OK, now we cannot say that we met with Otani. And then here's Dave Roberts coming out. Yep, we sure did meet with him and it was a great meeting too. I think that the likely intent of that was, like you said earlier, don't leak contract terms. I don't want to have a public negotiation around the contours of a deal. I doubt that they are irrational to the point am saying like this, they should extract everything they can. That doesn't mean that like players or agents for that matter can't be a little like dramatic and prima donna-ish. Like, they're human too and they're capable of that. And so, I don't know, maybe I'm misreading it, but I think that it's more a take me seriously, not literally kind of a situation. But I don't know. We've managed to talk about it for 45 minutes despite there being no real news. And so, I would just invite our esteemed colleagues to consider that maybe their lack of juice around this is a skill issue. I don't know, man. Get hyped. No shortage of content to be had here. Yeah. I mean, Dave Roberts says, as George Washington in the cherry tree story, he cannot tell a lie. I think my two favorite people trying to read tea leaves that probably weren't there, there was an exchange with Ron Washington, Angels manager, that Sam Blum reported on. And he tweeted, caution, I wouldn't read into this too much, but I thought it was interesting, which is why I asked the follow-up. So here's the exchange between Sam and Ron Washington. Question, how much attention are you giving to signing Shohei somewhere?

Ron Washington, I don't have much to say about that yet because I don't want to let anything out the bag. Follow-up question, is there anything to let out of the bag? And then Ron Washington, I don't have anything to say about that right now because I don't want to let anything out the bag. So that's Ron Washington doing what Dave Roberts didn't and just refusing to say anything either way, really. But people were interpreting that as like, well, there must be something in the bag. If he doesn't want to let it out, maybe that means that Otani is going back to the Angels. Oh, my gosh. If he doesn't want to let it out, maybe that means that Otani is going back to the Angels. Which, by the way, would be the most amusing outcome of all of this. If Otani returns to the Angels after all of it, that would be just hilarious.

It would be very funny. And look, I think that we shouldn't underrate the desire not to move. You know, people have said the Dodgers are the favorites for a long time. And they make that about money. And i think that that is the primary driver and i don't know what shohei's like living situation is i imagine he is closer to you know la proper than anything else but so he really wouldn't have to move maybe he'd have to move within the greater los angeles area and as we've discussed when you have that much money, moving becomes a lot less onerous. But he wouldn't have to move, you know, and like and wonder where that mug he likes best is for like two months.

Where did it go, Ben? Where's that mug? Where is it? The other one was Alex Cora saying, I called Aaron Boone yesterday, FaceTimed him, and he gave me this kind of like smile, this look. He was very happy. So something big might happen over there. So I guess in retrospect, they were probably calling about Alex Verdugo. But Cora saying that Boone was mysteriously Mona Lisa smiling over here, which led people to believe that maybe the Yankees are going to swoop in and make some major moves.

Swoop in and make some major moves. So we're like reading smiles and no comments and the color, the shade of paint on the wall behind Ross Atkins on the Zoom call. I just – I can't get enough of it. So as far as I'm concerned, please just loose lips, sink ships here. Just keep it all quiet and make everyone keep grasping at straws and being on tilt and writing cranky columns about it. But what everyone wants to know, I think, is whether you got to eat your Branzino this time. Because famously, infamously, your Branzino dinner was interrupted by the Garrett Cole signing in 2019. And I don't know whether the Opryland offers Branzino or whether you ordered the Branzino again.

But if you did, I'm guessing you got to eat it this time. Ben, I didn't have Branzino. That was not on offer. And we did not eat dinner at the Opryland, which meant that it was really good. And we had two lovely dinners as a staff, which was so nice because we had not all been in the same place. Really, we've been in the same place, but not at winter meetings. But we hadn't all been together since a fall league trip in 2021. a fall league trip in 2021. We had not all been together at a big industry event like this since those 2019 winter meetings that you referenced where I famously did not get to have the Branzino. And then last year's winter meetings, I couldn't go because I got the flu and was just sick and

didn't want to like, you know, infect the entire media room room branzino was served last year because they were back in san diego and i didn't get to have any of it because i was busy having a fever but this time we ate at a place in nashville called audrey and i gotta say if you are in nashville and you want to have like a a really nice meal you know, a splurge meal, but a really nice one, go there. It was a top five meal of my whole life, actually. And I got to eat every bite. And it was funny because like we sat down and all of the people there who had AT&T, reception didn't work. My reception worked. I'm on Verizon. It's not an endorsement.

It's just a statement of fact. And I had the thought, I was like, I know what's going on. And other people at this table don't. And so if I really wanted to and something broke, I could just eat dinner and blame it on reception. And we'd sort it out later. But everybody kind of cooperated and oh boy, oh boy, Ben, that food was, that was sure something. It was sure something. I mean, you're not a foodie guy, but I think it would have moved you. It would have moved you to consider

a new life, you know, so. Okay. Well, everyone who's upset about the lack of news at the winter meeting should consider that counterpoint. Meg got a great meal. Yeah. I got a great meal. the Eric Fetty sweepstakes. But I guess, you know, not a ton of actual moves to talk about, but we should probably start with returning to the Mariners. Now, I guess I could probably, if you were unavailable, I could just, you know, copy and paste from our last discussion of the Mariners when you called them not a serious franchise making not serious moves. Unserious. And much of what you said then would probably apply. But the specifics are different this time.

And I must say, I got permission from Fangraph's own Michael Bauman to play a little ditty to introduce this segment. Wow. That was first heard on the Ringer MLB show, the now defunct, dearly departed Ringer MLB show. We are porting over here with Michael's permission to introduce this. And this is his classic, his legendary tune, What Did Jerry DePoto Do?, which was introduced on the Ringer MLB show

when you were a guest, I believe. And so it's all coming together here. I'm going to play the very short version now. And then our outro song for this episode will be the full remixed version of what did Jerry DePoto do, which like I remember an email exchange that we had with Michael where he was like, I'm hearing a counter melody. I'm hearing an accordion. I have to go back to the studio. Like he sent us an email late at night, like with a new version of the theme that was way longer. So you will be treated to legitimately, I think one of the best baseball songs ever, the full remix version of What Did Jerry DePoto Do? at the end of this episode. So stay tuned for that.

But here is a short, the initial version, to lead into your latest review of Jerry DePoto's work as Seattle Mariner's Popo. What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? We're going to talk to Meg Rowley about a trade or two. Because what did Jerry DePoto do. We're going to talk to Blake Rowley about a trade or two. Because what did Jerry DePoto do? Okay. You have the floor to explain the latest trade.

Well, I'm going to keep this relatively short because speaking of Michael Bauman, he wrote a good summary of this transaction for us. And did I sit there and say, is having may God have mercy on their soul in the headline a touch dramatic? I mean, yeah, it is, but I feel like it fits the moment. Basically, the Seattle Mariners engaged in what we in the industry like to refer to as a salary dump. So they sent Jared Kelnick along with Marco Gonzalez and Evan White to the Braves for Jackson Coar, who was a brave for one hot minute and Cole Phillips. Yeah. And,

and Marco Gonzalez was a brave for like a even hotter minute because he has since been flipped to the pirates. Yeah. Now, now a pirate. And so this was done really to get rid of the Gonzalez and White salaries, which, you know, the thing is didn't actually amount to all that much. Folks might remember that Evan White was one of the players

who was given a pre-debut extension by the Mariners and has had a really troubled big league career. You know, he's just been constantly hurt. He's been wildly ineffective as a hitter when he hasn't been hurt. He was sort of thought to be their first baseman of the future when they drafted him in the first round. But, you know, that never has actualized, obviously. And Gonzalez has been sort of a really reliable, good innings eater for them. He was injured for much of last year. And so I think you can, you know, ask some questions about like, what is he going to look like when he comes back? He's supposed to be ready for opening day, but, you know, he missed much of

last year with an arm injury. And so there's that piece of it. But I think that, you know, he missed much of last year with an arm injury. And so there's that piece of it. But I think that, you know, what has come into more specific relief around Seattle's situation in the wake of this trade is that they are dealing with a good deal of RSN revenue uncertainty. So what has happened is that Root Sports, which is their RSN, which carries the Mariners, it also carries the Trailblazers and the Seattle Kraken, was moved out of Xfinity's basic tier and into a premium tier of subscription. So you now have to elect to pay, I think it's like 20 bucks a month for access to Root, and they are projecting some meaningful shortfalls in as a result of that, at least on the TV revenue side. And so they moved Kelnick to offload Marco and Evan White's

salaries. And I think the point that Bauman made in this piece, the you know I think the one that really just makes us all feel so terrible is like okay so they move they move these three guys right they they send you know Suarez to the Diamondbacks they do all of this stuff and it's like it's not that much money you know it's just not that much money that they're saving. And so the idea that they have to do all of this stuff to make the roster, in my opinion, worse than it was on the last day of the season when they had work to do in order to compete with the Astros and the Rangers, that they are in a spot where they have to, you know, save every penny and then end up only what, like 20 to $25 million lighter at the end of the day is really discouraging. Cause like, what are you, what kind

of flexibility do you possibly have to improve this team? Very little. And you still have work to do. And I'm not, you know, like indifferent to the, the way that having the revenue uncertainty around the RSN stuff might scare an owner. But I and I, you know, it's not my money. So I feel free to spend it. It's like John Stanton, what's that Microsoft money for? You know, what's the purpose of that you have Julio Rodriguez and a rotation that is under team control for a long time, much of which is very inexpensive relative to the value that it's generating, you know, like, write a check, just like you, I feel like the way that they approach their team is they are so risk averse at the possibility of losing any money.

And they are failing to see potential revenue opportunities. You know, it's like they assume that they will, if they do anything to bolster the roster, if they have to expend money and salary, that it's just like money lost, rather than thinking, yeah, okay, we are dealing with this weird RSN issue. We have to figure that out for long-term sort of financial stability. But in the meantime, you know, what if we did really push our cards in for Ohtani? You're going to make so much money on gate. You're going to make so much money on advertising potential. You're going to make so much money just on merchandise.

How many, Ben, every human person in the city of Seattle would buy an Otani jersey, right? And so it's just like, I don't want to downplay the very real work that not only the Mariners, but the sport in general has to do to figure out how to like bring, you know, a stable financial picture back into clear focus for at this point, half the league, because it has been such a reliable model for so long. And it has been upended, whether it's the Bali stuff, whether it's stuff like this, where, you know, you're just have a change in your cable package that apparently no one in your, you know, like biz dev group was like, what if we model it with like significantly different stuff and see where that lands us? Like, I don't know who's working over there,

but I'm like, that wasn't a scenario you, like, contemplated as a possibility. Anyway, I think that, like, there are some very real questions that need to be answered here, and there's going to have to be sort of a rejiggering of the landscape. And that might mean a couple of years where we are in sort of unstable territory from a revenue perspective. But it's like, I don't know the particulars of John Stanton's portfolio or the rest of the Mariners ownership group for that matter. But I don't know if I were a billionaire, backstopping payroll for a young, exciting team to like get you through a couple years while you figure the rest out would seem like a good use of money to me and you know i i've been critical of

depoto i'm critical of this trade but i worry that what we are what we have landed at in the aftermath of this is that like we need to add that mariners ownership group to the list where it's like until something there changes either with the composition of that ownership group itself or their mentality about what their responsibilities are vis-a-vis this franchise like they are in a spot because they don't have another Julio in the farm system right now. They have some interesting guys. They can definitely develop pitching. But they don't have, you know, there's no Jackson Holiday here, right? Like, they don't have that guy.

And so they got to figure something out. And I worry that the answer is just going to be, we're in the wild card race. We'll see how it goes, you know. And that's a problem. That's a problem. So it sucks. It's not likely to change. And I think that we're at this point where unless one of their guys in the minors really pops or ownership fundamentally changes the way that they think about the team, this is what it's going to be for a while. And that really stinks because, you know, this fan base only just got to enjoy the postseason. And they're not the worst team in the American League by any means. And when you have really good pitching and the ability to develop really good pitching, and you have, you know, a Julio and a Cal Raleigh and a JP Crawford, you have, you know, part of a

really good core, but all it takes, and I, I, I dread even speaking this into existence, but like all it takes is Julio running into a wall in spring training and breaking his wrist and being different for a year for this team to just have very little offense to speak of. There's just no margin for error. They're already operating from an offensive deficit, and if anything happens, either in terms of injury or underperformance to the guys they do have, they are in very rough shape. So the Mariners. Yeah. Yeah. I guess their response to that would be, and in fact was, hey, the offseason isn't over yet, right? And I know Mariners fans, you've heard it before, right? We're going to spend and we're going to invest.

And now they've kind of lost credibility. It's like the boy who cried higher payroll. I'll read a quote from GM Justin Hollander. We need to go out. We need to get better. And before you can do that, you need to create pathways to go do that. And this just opens up more pathways for us to do that. There were seemingly plenty of pathways already, but this is perhaps referring to

financial pathways. And it had been reported that the Mariners had talked and inquired about Randy Rosarena and Isaac Paredes, but that maybe the money was too steep, which again, that comes back to Stanton and just not investing as maybe he could. But look, if he's given the front office some number that they can't exceed, and this is the way they're going to go try to get better while staying under that number. Yeah, obviously you have to wait and see what else comes from this because presumably they're going to do something like it would be really unforgivable if they just didn't make any upgrade whatsoever. So maybe this is just the worst looking time of the offseason after they've done the salary dumps, but before they've made use of that payroll room to go get some good players. And, you know, are they going to go get Otani or Juan Soto? Sure seems unlikely that they're really in the running for players of that caliber, which is not to say that they couldn't be, but no one can count on that at this point.

But will they go get someone to be better than they were before they made these moves? Maybe. So some judgment, I suppose, must be reserved, at least about the specifics, if not about the larger payroll picture that you're painting here, which I'd agree is not pretty. But the specifics of these moves, the Mariners players that they gave up here are better known than they are productive, or at least than they have been productive, because Kelnick, who's the best player in the deal, he's arguably not good, right? I mean, he had a great April and it looked like, okay, the Kelnick breakout is maybe here. And then he was pretty bad for the rest of, yeah, he was not good.

Like it fell apart. And then of course he broke his foot in frustration and that was that, right? So I wouldn't put it past the Braves to unlock whatever latent potential is there. And maybe Kevin Seitzer works with him and gets him to make a little more contact and make the most of his power. And the Braves needed some help in left field. And even if he's just average, he might be better than what they had. And he's young and there's still some upside there and everything. But there's obviously some pretty steep downside that we've seen in the majors already. So,

you know, he's because of his history and the fact that he's now been in multiple major Mariners trades where he was like the guy who, you know, was involved in sort of a salary dump with someone else who was making all the money. You know, there have been high expectations for him and I still don't know who won that Mets Mariners trade or whether it's too soon to say. won that Mets-Mariners trade or whether it's too soon to say. And it would be funny if you're someone who likes to laugh at the Mets' misfortunes if he went on to be great in Atlanta and just was terrorizing the Mets tons of times a season. But who knows if that will happen or whether it would have happened in Seattle. So it's quite possible that they didn't actually give up much here in real production and that they could improve themselves. But the onus is very much on them to show that they're going to do that instead of just making all these other moves to set up some move that never comes. Right. Yeah. I think that in terms of like projected 2024 war, you know, we're probably not that far off from them being in largely the same

place today that they were, you know, before they moved Suarez, right? Like, it's probably close, right? Because I think the projections are still, like, kind of okay on Luis Urias and, you know, might be a little bit down on Suarez. And like you said, like, they're not getting much from Kelnick. They're certainly not getting much from White. You know, they didn't get much at all from Marco last year, but that was because he got hurt. He was pitching fine before he got hurt. But I think that when you take a step back and look at what this really means for them from a budget perspective. It just does not paint a picture that suggests they are going to be in a position as a front

office to go do what they need to to really fortify this roster. And I have a lot of thoughts about Jerry and how he communicates this stuff. And I think that part of why all of this rankles to the degree that it does is because he has not been able in the past, nor is he seemingly capable now of like shutting up. And so like he sets, he creates expectations for what they're going to do, for how competitive they're going to be, for how much money they're going to spend. And then he has to walk those expectations back because of mandates from ownership. I don't know that he was like, I don't want to accuse him of being insincere in the expectations

he created. I imagine that Jerry thought that they were going to be able to increase payroll. And now they have this situation that they're dealing with. But because he's out there saying stuff, people remember. People remember what he said, and they want to lay it at his feet. And I don't think that fans do a great job, nor should they really be expected to do a great job of distinguishing between senior front office personnel and the ownership group. I think that that is a distinction with a difference. And when you get a budget, you have to operate within that budget. But we've talked before about how getting your owner to spend is a skill. That is a skill that GMs either have or kinds of owners having particular kinds of GMs versus not. Because those owners select for the guy who says, I can do this on a budget.

And then there are the owners who are like, I want to go win a World Series and I have a bunch of money. And then Dave Dombrowski says, great, let's go get Bryce Harper. And so there's a, there's a skill there. And I want to, I want to be fair to front office folks, particularly the more junior front office folks, because ain't none of this a thing that they can change, right. But I also think that we, we shouldn't be too Pollyanna ish about like the distinction we're drawing here, because, you know, Jerry has a budget and he has to operate within it,

but he has not been able to get John Stanton to budge on that budget. Budge on that budget. It's a terrible expression. I have, I don't like that at all. It's bad mouth feel Ben. Do you want to talk about the other? I kind of don't necessarily want to talk about the Verdugo trade yet,

at least on the Yankee side, because I have a feeling that we should grade it an incomplete until we know if they have a Juan Soto. It does seem that way, right? Yeah. Right. That's the most noteworthy trade, but it's kind of a confounding one if it's not the first domino that falls. Yes. Although there's smoke. There's a shuttle butt. Yes. There's there's there's smoke there's yes there's yes there's

tweets there's movement there's me mobilizing people in slack to be like i think this might but um should we maybe talk about verdugo and then a minor signing or two and then ben i have fantastic news for our listeners you already know this but like yeah i gotta i gotta be in position for for the highlight of the winter meetings which is scott boris's stand-up which is gonna be in a little while here so um yeah maybe we do a little more transaction business yeah i am yeah i'm gonna be there in person yeah so so for dugo the the yankees uh got him a rare Red Sox-Yankees trade. And three pitchers were sent from the Yankees to the Red Sox. Not high ceiling pitchers, thought to be more middle reliever types. Greg Weissert, Nicholas Judas, also Richard Fitz, who very understandably doesn't go by Dick.

who very understandably doesn't go by Dick. And I guess what's noteworthy here is that Verdugo was at one time a big prospect and thought to be a rising star, and he hasn't risen. He has stagnated. He was obviously the centerpiece of the Mookie Betts trade. You hope that that guy becomes a superstar and a centerpiece and a cornerstone. And he's been okay. He's produced about as much in four seasons with the Red Sox as Mookie typically did in one. He has been basically bang on average for several seasons now.

He might be the most average player in baseball. Like over the past five seasons, the average of his fan graphs in baseball reference war is 20.2. And, you know, we say as a shorthand, average player is like two war a year. So that's what he's done. I know one of those years was a COVID shortened season, but also he missed time in another one of those years. So he's like a two war guy. I guess he fits on the Yankees if they make no other moves because he's left-handed and he makes contact. And they are in the market for left-handed hitters and contact hitters. And he is a decent to good defensive corner outfielder. But that's about all he's going to give you, right?

that's about all he's going to give you, right? Like unless he changes his stroke somehow to take advantage of Yankee Stadium, he's not like a big pull hitter or fly ball hitter. So unless he's able to change to take advantage of the short porch and really, you know, it's short down the line both ways in Yankee Stadium. But unless he starts pulling a bunch of fly balls,

I don't know that there would be a huge power spike. I guess there potentially could be. So otherwise, he's just there and he's not under team control for much longer. He doesn't hit lefties well either. He's basically a platoon player who tends to play every day. And of course, he wore out his welcome in Boston. And Cora benched him after he showed up late for a game. So there are questions about makeup and effort level, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, it's not really like the big signing that Yankees fans were wanting and hoping for. And if that ends up being their outfielder corner outfield acquisition, I'm sure they would be quite dissatisfied by that. So everyone who roots for the Yankees is hoping like this will be a flip situation and they'll send him to San Diego or somewhere. Because as it stands, they don't really have a center fielder.

I mean, they have. They super don't have a center fielder. Like I know that they've said that they're comfortable with judge and center, but like they do not have a center fielder. I know that they've said that they're comfortable with Judge and center, but they do not have a center fielder in my opinion. center and won't like embarrass themselves, but also you probably don't want them to be your everyday center fielder. Not that Soto will help with that. There was some speculation that maybe Trent Grisham would come back with Soto and that maybe that would be a center field stop gap. But yeah, we'll talk about this obviously more if there is a Soto trade to anywhere and to the Yankees specifically. But yeah, as a final move, not so great. As an intermediate move, maybe. Still kind of head-scratchy for me as an intermediate move.

But I think, like we said, we've got to put an incomplete grade on it because we don't have the full picture. And particularly if Soto comes with some sort of real centerfield reinforcement from San Diego it like changes it pretty dramatically but um yeah I mean like Verdugo seems to wear out his welcome a lot of places and obviously there have been some pretty substantial makeup concerns there for a while now to get back to his prospect days so there's that it is interesting like I think those things are well known across the league regardless but it's i would imagine something that particularly an indivision rival is aware of so it does feel like it might be intermediate but i don't know um sometimes

san diego has a willingness to take on those guys so i don't man, it's so funny. But that one broke. And then I guess the other big signing, the signing of the morning is one Craig Kimbrell, Ben. Yeah, the Orioles. So nice to see the Orioles spending, although Craig Kimbrell, I mean, he's right up there with Blake Snell, I guess, when it comes to the spectator experience, not matching the stats. Not that Kimbrell has been as good or valuable as Blake Snell. Snell lately, yeah. Lately, right. But if you look at the numbers, like Craig Kimbrell had a pretty solid season.

But then when the playoffs rolled around, did Phillies fans want to see Craig Kimbrell on the mound? No, they did not. Not at all. And it turned out that they were justified in their concerns a couple of times. Yeah, right. So I'm not saying the Orioles didn't need bullpen help, but it's you're signing up for a high wire act there with Kimbrell. And that's like the best case scenario, right? So, you know, they were connected to other guys, Josh Hader and Jordan Hicks, and people who would probably inspire more confidence. And I guess this doesn't entirely take them out of the running

for those players or any players, but they, we've talked about it, like they have so much payroll room, just so many prospects that they have no place to play. They are like the number one team that seems like they should be either trading some of those guys for good players or signing some good pitchers, some good starters, Otani, whoever, right? Like they have room for that. So Elias is also very much in that category of like, okay, you got to graduate from assembling the talent, which he's done a fantastic job of, to then converting your excess talent into other talent that fits your roster better or

spending some of the Angelos' money if they will let you. So it's a big offseason for the Orioles. It's kind of like a prove it, put up or shut up. Are you actually going to do what it takes to make this team better other than drafting and developing, which obviously is pretty important. But, you know, extending some of your guys, supplementing some of your guys, just filling out some of the weak spots in the roster.

And it starts with Craig Kimbrell, reportedly. Reportedly. I mean, I would have liked to see them. I hope that I can get this right. Stick with me, Ben. Like this thought might take a couple of drafts. A way for them to have spent money, but not big money, which it seems like they are committed to not doing, would have been for them to play at the top of the reliever market. Like, we don't know precisely what Kimbrell has gotten. I don't think we have terms out for that.

I would imagine there will be a gap between what Kimbrell ends up getting and what say like Josh Hader ends up getting. Now, I think there will be a gap between what Josh Hader ends up getting and say what Edwin Diaz ended up getting because of reasons we talked about when we were talking about our top 50 free agent rankings, but like he's a little bit older, his walk year wasn't as good, but he will get substantial money. And so it feels like they could have been like, we're going to be in the Josh Hader business. It's not as expensive as being in the Otani business. It might not even be as expensive as being in the insert starting pitcher who we think they need to sign because they need starting pitching, but they haven't actually signed. It could have just been like a, you know, like a way station for for wayward payroll.

And instead they got kimbrough and kimbrough's fine but i i just think that they need to do more to your point this is a big off season for them they have an opportunity to really take a step forward within that division but like their their real needs like the needs that will determine where they finish in the ale standings are on the starting pitching side. If they're not going to do what they need to to address that via free agency, like, what if you had a really good reliever as a treat, you know, and then use some of your prospect stuff to consolidate and go get a good starter that way. But like they need they need starting pitching.

So this is like, okay, okay fine you you have an injured closer you need bullpen reinforcement okay fine but like kimbrough is not going to determine what happens for them in the al east in 2024 and i'm sure that like michael is knows that and i'm sure that the rest of their front office knows that but like you should give you should give your fans something nice as a as a treat and then actually go get starters. These are my thoughts about the Orioles at this time. Yep. Good thoughts. Yep. And the rest, just a smattering of minor moves. As you said, Kirby Yates to the Rangers, Victor Caratini to the Astros, which I guess officially closes the book on the Martin Maldonado era.

Or opens a new chapter because it's like sort of the same, but a little bit different, you know? Yeah, right. He's framed much better of late, according to the metrics. Maybe he doesn't have Maldonado's mysterious powers of picture communication. Who knows? But as I think I said on a previous episode, like Carlos Correa at one point claimed that Maldonado was worth 15 wins to the Astros. So if they mysteriously fall off a

cliff this year, then retroactively, maybe it will turn out that Maldonado did have superpowers and Correa and Dusty Baker were right. But Caratini can hit a little bit, at least by catcher standards, and he can play defense too. So that seems all well and good. And then, gosh, if you thought Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson to St. Louis was a couple of unsexy starting pitcher acquisitions, well, meet Wade Miley and Joe Ross to Milwaukee. Right. So, all right, there's that. And I guess also somewhat notable, Joe Kelly back to the Dodgers, much to Craig Goldstein's chagrin. And also Dave Roberts, who, as we know, cannot tell a lie.

He said that Mookie Betts will be the everyday second baseman for the Dodgers in 2023. And, you know, they hope to have a shortstop who is not Mookie Betts playing productively. So I guess that's not an enormous surprise. But I do get a kick out of the fact that Mookie Betts, one of the very best players in baseball. And still, you know, you never know where Mookie is going to be playing any given season or any given game. He could be at short. He could be at second. He could be in right field. He could play center if they wanted him to.

I would be a little sad if he is tied down to one position, but they have Hayward back, so it makes sense for him not to be moving all around. But it's the Dodgers. I'm sure that there will still be some versatility in his future. And they still need a platoon partner for Hayward in all likelihood. So I imagine they're not done done. But yeah, it's a second baseman. What a thing, you know?

What a thing. And lastly, I guess the other LA team, technically, the Angels said that they will definitively not be trading Mike Trout. Yes. Which, you know, he wasn't likely to get traded. But you really could, especially if Otani signs elsewhere, you could come up with a good case that it would be in their best interest and in Mike Trout's best interest for there to be a trade for them to part ways. But it sounds like, according to Angels GM Perry Manassian, that that is not happening. So, I mean, not a shocker.

Trout has already decided to stay there multiple times and to sign up for potentially the rest of his career. And, of course, he has no trade clauses. He can stay. He has the option to. And it sounds like he's happy there. So, you know, if he had come out and demanded a trade, which would be out of character for Trout, then maybe they would have obliged him. And there would have been a good case that they should have obliged him, just like from a competitive standpoint, even apart from appeasing a great player who's certainly put his time in there. But yeah, sounds like he's going down with the ship or staying down with the ship.

Oh, that made me so sad, Ben. Yeah. That made me so sad. Although in better news, they got under the luxury tax threshold. So shoot off the fireworks, release the balloons. They got under there by $30,000 roughly, reportedly. So all those late season maneuverings that they made actually got them under the wire. They didn't know.

No one knew whether they would get under until like the official figures came out. And that means that if Ohtani leaves, they get a better draft pick. That's basically what that amounts to, more or less in the short term, at least. But anyone who was like on the edge of their seat wondering, did the Angels get under the luxury tax threshold? Yes, they did. So congratulations. Mission accomplished. Artie Moreno.

And I mocked the the fetty signing as the centerpiece of the the winter meetings yeah you know he had a generous he had a great season in korea and he picked up some new pitches and he could very well be the next guy who comes back from overseas and and looks like a different pitcher than he was the last time we saw him with the nationals and if so then he will be doing that with the white socks which is not super exciting but uh but nice for them that maybe they get a better pitcher than we have known eric fetty to be before yeah like he he changed his body he changed his mechanics he altered the shape of his pitches like he's he's been boosted

and i know that um they were really keen to bring him back in the kbo but you know there's a limit on how much you can pay foreign players and obviously the white socks were able to do better i mean it doesn't move the needle on like the white, but they definitely needed innings. And I think that Fedde is, it seems like he is better than he was when he went to the KBO. And, you know, it might end up being a nice little bit of business because either he'll be good and they'll just keep him around and he'll fill innings and do well. Or, you know, I could see him being a really attractive trade deadline target for an actual contender when the time comes, particularly because it's a two-year deal. And if he's good,

you get, you know, you don't just get the rental, you get another season out of him. So I don't know, like I'm not, like I don't want to praise the White Sox too much. That feels unfamiliar and unreasonable, but I think it's a good little bit of business for them and it shows some foresight in terms of what they might be able to do come deadline time. So good for Eric Fetty. I hope it goes well. It's nice when guys come back and they are able to sort of be a different version of themselves. So there you go. All right. Well, I will let you go to be in the presence of Scott Boris and let his wordplay enter your ears. And you will be back next time soon when you're in Arizona to give us the first person account of what it was like to be in the Boris gaggle.

And we can grade his attempts to be clever this time around. gaggle and we can grade his attempts to be clever this time around. And of course, we will monitor and report on any developments in the Otani and or Soto sweepstakes and any further developments in the pearl clutching of baseball media members related to Otani. We'll be on top of that too. So talk to you after your trip. Bye. All right. Well, as I speak these words, the Juan Soto trade to the Yankees is not yet official, as Bob Nightingale would say. No one is moving as the two sides moving ever so closer. Certainly seems like it could be done by the time you hear this. And if it is,

then we will discuss it in full and at length on our next episode, which will be soon. However, I do have one follow-up to one of our stat blasts on the last episode, episode 2093. This is exciting to me, at least. As you may recall, we got a question from listener and Patreon supporter Jonathan, who spied an item in a May 1998 issue of Baseball Weekly about a game between Baltimore and Cleveland on May 13th of that year, in which reportedly the first swing and miss of the game did not come until the 146th pitch of the game, a David Bell whiff in the top of the fifth inning. This was corroborated by a couple of contemporary accounts. However, it was contradicted by the Retro Sheet and Baseball Reference Playlog, which suggested that there had been three prior whiffs in that game, including one by Bell.

And there was no publicly available video of the game, so there was no way to get to the bottom of this. But I mentioned that I had reached out, thrown a Hail Mary, I know that's the wrong sport, to an MLB Network producer I have worked with, Micah Karg. I have worked with Micah Karg, and I asked him if that game was somewhere in the voluminous video vaults of Major League Baseball and whether he could have someone check it out for me and verify whether there was in fact a whiff or there wasn't. We talked about how, hey, this is 25 years ago. It's not ancient history. And yet no way to verify what happened without pulling some strings and having some connections. And of course, before easily searchable baseball information was as accessible as it is now, sometimes people printed things that weren't true and there was no way to confirm or refute them. So Micah passed this request along and struck gold with the help of associate producer Dylan Kanner of MLB Network,

whose job I envy, except that if I had it, I would get nothing done because I would just be browsing old baseball games. And Dylan tracked down the video from this game, combed through it, and sent me clips of all the pitches in question. So supposedly, according to Baseball Reference and Retro Sheet, there were whiffs on an 0-1 pitch from Doug Drabeck to Omar Vizquel in the top of the first, a 1-0 pitch from Chad OJ to Jeffrey Hammonds in the bottom of the first, and an 0-0 pitch from Drabeck to Bell in the top of the third. I will link to the video of all of these clips on the show page, but here is the audio of those three alleged whiffs. Error of the season for the five-time Gold Glove winner. He bounces the changeup into the Baltimore dugout.

Shows butt, but looks at a breaking ball. That's a strike. Breaking ball is strike one to David, who is 5 for 22 on this road trip. Well, as you can tell, no whiffs in the bunch. A foul ball and two taken called strikes. Here's the sound from the actual first swinging strike to Bell in the top of the fifth. And finally, in the bottom of the fifth, here strikeout by Bell to end the fifth inning is the first time in the ballgame that a hitter has swung and missed the ball. That's something. Almost five innings, isn't it? A hundred and some pitches.

A hundred and forty-six, I think. So thank you to Micah and Dylan for helping us correct the historical record. And it will be corrected because I have submitted this error report to Tom Tress of RetroSheet, who is very happy to have it, and said that this corrected data would be included in a future RetroSheet update. Tom wrote to me, honestly, I love edits like this. It's amazing the details that people pick up on, and that can be tracked down. Of course, I wish that all available video were digitized and available to everyone everywhere. But this is not a time to complain about what we don't have. This is a time to be grateful for what we do have. But this is not a time to complain about what we don't have. This is a time to be grateful for what we do have. Now, of course, we can reach out to all the players involved to alert them, let them know that their career swinging strike rates are about first whiff. But the record was far more than 146 pitches, but at any point in a game, on record at least? And again, we have this complete pitch-by-pitch data going back to 1988, though clearly it isn't perfectly accurate. And Ryan determined that that game with 191 whiffless pitches to start, that was actually the longest sequence at any point in a game without a whiff.

point in a game without a whiff. And in fact, the four longest stretches were all to start games, which maybe makes sense because you probably have higher whiff rates later in the game when the relievers come in. To help fund more great, albeit inconsequential research like that, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free, and get themselves access to some perks.

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more direct you to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. But even if you're not, you can contact us via email at podcastatfangraphs.com to send us your questions and comments. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectivelywild.

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for his editing and production assistance. And take it away, Michael Bauman, with his classic composition and performance of What Did Jerry DePoto Do? Thank you. What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do? We're gonna talk to Meg Rowley about a trade or two What did Jerry DePoto do? What did Jerry DePoto do?

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