Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2112: Signing Snellinger

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about where Blake Snell and Cody Bellinger should/will sign, excoriate the Orioles for their offseason inaction, marvel at Alex Anthopoulos’s lengthy extension, discuss the Giants’ Jordan Hicks signing as part of a trend toward reliever-starter reverse conversions, consider the etymology of “innings eater” and how pitcher usage is like […]

You never know precisely where it's gonna go. By definition, Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2112 of Effectively Wild, the Fangrafts baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Raleigh of Fangrafts and I'm joined by Ben Lemberger, The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing okay. I made a remark last week about 2112, and it's also the name of a classic Rush album. And we got some emails from people saying, hey, you should try to get Geddy Lee on the show for episode 2112. And I will have everyone know I did try. I sent some emails. I did not get responses to those emails, but I did attempt it.

I don't blame Getty. Maybe his people just didn't pass the request along. Totally, yeah. He'd probably jump at any opportunity to talk about baseball. He's a huge diehard baseball fan and collector and historian for anyone who doesn't know. But yeah, would have been some synergy. Would have been a nice little promotional opportunity there, but did not hear back. I tried, though.

Ben, I think you have many very positive attributes as a podcaster and a writer, but I think one of the ones that I am most envious of, and I've perhaps said this before on this very pod, but you just don't have any bashfulness about asking people for stuff. And to be clear, you always do it in a respectful way. You're always cordial, never pushy. But you're just literally like, you know what I'll do? Send an email. What's the worst that happens?

He says no or doesn't respond at all. That's not a big deal. So good for you, Ben. I say good for you. Yeah, worth a shot. Anyway, maybe some other day down the road we'll get to talk to Geddy Lee, but it won't be quite as appropriate. Anyway, we have other baseball stuff to talk about. We haven't talked in a while by effectively wild standards.

So there's been a bit of news and some signings, but not the big signings that people are waiting for. We're now less than a month away from pitchers and catchers reporting. And there are some pitchers, at least, who do not have employers to report to. And there are a couple notable players, I think, that everyone is wondering about, right? Snellinger. Where's Snellinger going to go? Cody Bounder, Blake Snell, where are they going to go? I know that- Is this the baseball equivalent of Barbenheimer? Yes.

I'm going to try to make it happen. Okay. Josh Hader's out there. Matt Chapman's out there. JDM, Justin Turner, other notable free agents are out there. But Cody Bounder and Blake Snell are the headliners. And they're also the ones where we have some sort of skin in the game because of our free agent contracts over under draft. We took the under on both of them. And it seems like teams are taking the under on them thus far, which is why they're not signed.

So there was a MLB Trade Rumors headline the other day based off of Bob Nightingale quote that said that the Blue Jays were monitoring Blake Snell's market. And I think Nightingale said that they're quietly monitoring his market, which aren't we all? I think I've been quietly monitoring Blake Snell's market. I'm sure Blue Jays fan Geddy Lee has been quietly monitoring Blake Snell's market, but it has been quiet. So I wonder now with less than a month to go, where do you think they will sign? Where do you think they should sign? I think Bellinger has been connected to the Cubs, the Blue Jays, the Giants, the Angels, at least, that I've seen. Snell has been connected to the Red Sox, the Yankees, the Phillies, the Angels, the Giants.

Some overlap there. A lot of Blue Jays, Angels, Giants with pretty much all free agents. I never bet against Scott Boris to get his clients' favorable terms, but we took the under on Snell at 200 for you. That was MLB Trade Rumors prediction. And I took the under on Bellinger at 262. I think it was a big number. It was very optimistic. It was a ringing endorsement of Cody Bellinger

and possibly of Boris, I guess. Yeah, but we haven't heard that the demands have come down. Nightingale, for instance, in his piece reported that Snell's camp is seeking at least 240 million. And Sam Wentz did an article for ESPN where he looked at what players actually get when they're said to be seeking something. And I think it was like 87.5% of what they're seeking they get. Apparently, the Yankees offer came in about $100 million below what they are, quote unquote, seeking. So we're still taking

the under on those totals. But where are they going to go? Where should they go? Who should be most motivated to sign these guys? What a good question. You know, one, we are all contemplating, and I'm not just saying that to buy time. I mean, I think... Quietly contemplating until now. Yeah, quietly. Now we're doing it out loud. Yeah, not so quietly that you're not, you know, letting Bob Nightingale know about it, but quietly, you know, like to yourself at home at night with like maybe a snifter or something.

Yes. I remain intrigued by the fit of the San Francisco Giants and Blake Snell. Placing Snell is such an odd thing for me because I don't super love watching him pitch. Like of all the guys one could watch pitch, like he would not be like one of the ones I would be like, you know who I want to watch pitch? Blake Snell. But having said that, you know, they've decided that Jordan Hicks might be a starter. And they have some very smart folks over there. And I think that they are like a good dev organization. So I'm sure that they have some sort of plan for Jordan Hicks and that it will entail something that they view to be meaningfully different than what St. Louis tried to with jordan hicks when they tried to have him start and he seemingly walked the world but i think that it

would sure be nice if they had you know a guy who even when he is not putting up big innings totals which snell does not always do um as we have discussed before is like consistently available um to make starts right and it's not just the the jordan hicks of it all that makes you go huh is that gonna work because like ross stripling sometimes um you know like does he make a full compliment starts not all the time kyle harrison like this is a big year for Kyle Harrison to sort of prove himself and really solidify his position in that rotation. But, you know, he threw 34 and two thirds. Okay. Innings last year as a prospect, they were not great innings. Like he was, he was below replacement level. His ear, I was in the fours. His fifth was in the, you know, mid f you know mid fives you know and then there's like like i said the hicks of it all and then they're like asking a lot of keaton when and so i just think that it would be good for them to have a blake snell to help solidify that rotation because you might look at and say oh oh oh well meg hey meg you know, they

might get Robbie Ray back midseason. It's like, yeah, they might. But first of all, we don't know for sure that they will get Robbie Ray back. He's coming back from Tommy John. And you might say, hey, they might get Alex Cobb back. And it's like, yeah, they might. But again, I think you want to really anchor that rotation with a sure thing. And, you know, to be clear, like Logan Webb at the top of that rotation, pretty sure thing. Really, really quite good. But I think having another guy who you are, even again, if you're not imagining that he's going to go, you know, seven, eight innings every start is going to take his turn every five days. Yeah. Everyone accepts Webb in the Giants rotation, if we can call it a rotation. Webb threw more innings than anyone. Anyone.

But other than that, all of their starters are kind of notional, nominal starters, right? Yeah, they have a lot of, like, guys who, if you told me, actually, we are in

the long man phase of any of these guys' careers, with the exception of Kyle Harrison, I would be like, yeah. Right. Like Sean Minaya, who's no longer on the Giants, we are in the long man phase of any of these guys careers with the exception of kyle harrison i would be like yeah right like sean mania who's no longer on the giants but when he was yeah he started as a starter then he was in the bullpen then he was back in the rotation he was doing long relief he was doing short relief right it's just kind of the positionless baseball, positionless pitchers, just role-less almost. So, yes, I agree that they could use Blake Snell.

It's interesting because both of these guys, and I don't know when they'll sign. I mean, this is turning into like Machado and Harper again. And who knows if they're just going to keep holding out for the best deal. And maybe Boris is saying, hey, someone could get hurt in spring training and then there will be a need for you, right? So it could be one of those situations. Sure. It's not that no one would want these players or wouldn't have a use for them. In fact, most teams would probably have a use for them, right?

Because Blake Snell, okay, saying two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell may oversell how good Blake Snell is or reigning Cy Young winner. Yeah. Excuse you. But, you know, he's still someone who just about any team would be happy to have somewhere in its rotation. Oh, yeah. And Cody Bounder plays a whole bunch of positions and plays them well, right? And has such a good glove that even if the offensive bounce back isn't totally sustainable.

Which I suspect it is, huh? Yeah. But, you know, he's young and right. Like a lot of teams would be happy to fit those guys in somewhere. It's just perhaps not at the terms that they are, quote unquote, seeking. So you could place them in any number of places. And so it just depends on who's going to be the high bidder or are they going to come down? Will their demands be reduced at some point or who gets desperate, who blinks first,

basically? So, I mean, yeah, Giants having missed out on so many other targets, even though they have landed some, obviously they do have some money to spend and they do have a need. So that's as likely a candidate as anyone. This might be a minority opinion, but I think there was this idea that percolated that once the Cubs traded for Michael Bush, that they were done with Bellinger, that they were out of the Bellinger game. And I feel like they should not be. I feel like they should still be in the Bellinger game and i feel like they should not be you know i feel like they should still be in the bellinger business um and i understand that like you know they have a very a very capable center fielder already on their roster in pca and like talkman's fine out there too but like you're counting a great deal on young players who you know i think there's reason to wonder

where they are with respect to their hit tools are like gonna stick in a in a big league lineup that they say they want to be competitive in the postseason and so if for no other reason than like it might be okay to have you know someone who didn't play in the fall league last year and isn't a top prospect as a bench outfielder. You would just sign Cody Bellinger, and then if things bottom out for Bush and it doesn't work, you have him to play first base. If you need backup in the outfield, you have him available for that. You have a really strong defensive team.

I get that you know he might maybe want to go somewhere else maybe he doesn't think that his path to being the guy is as obvious in chicago now as it might have been but like i feel like they should still be interested in him i don't think that his profile is necessarily exactly what toronto needs like shouldn't toronto just resign matt chapman right yeah shouldn't Toronto just re-sign Matt Chapman, right? Yeah, I don't think so. Shouldn't Toronto just be like, hey, hey Matt, you know,

you like it up here. I've never been to Toronto, but I'm given to understand this is a beautiful city. Yeah, lovely. They have good food up there. When you look at, like, Bellinger as an option in Toronto,

like, I don't think that that really addresses positional needs that they have. They are pretty well set in the outfield. They have redundancy upon redundancy. But I say Akainer-Falefa is not a solution for them at third base. And I know people are crazy go nuts for Davis-Schneider. opportunity among um their non-star infielders for some amount of consolidation and trade and then sign matt chapman and have like a real third baseman and you already know him you know you don't have to get new jersey's done you i'm sure they haven't reassigned his number yet have they no i don't know the answer to that question it's unimportant but like it's a nice little rhetorical flourish so um that seems like the obvious fit there for me but you're

right that like these are guys who they come with a skill that gives them just a tremendous amount of utility to pretty much every team in baseball and there are some fits that are better than others from a positional perspective but pretty much everyone could use like bl Blake Snell's innings next year, even if I personally might not tune in for all of those starts. That's just because of just how far off his peripherals were from his stats. But he has just a really strong baseline value by virtue of his defensive ability and versatility. And so I think that he's an obvious fit. And there are teams, including those Toronto Blue Jays, that need a third base option so

i simply say you should uh sign one of these guys to your roster uh if you want to space it out over a couple of days like you guys could don't coordinate in a collusion way but in like a we have given a a fair market deal to each of these free agents and we have decided to do that on consecutive but not overlapping days that's just a good you know it's a good week for everyone ben you know it's just a good time it's a good time for them for the players for me for you for all of the readers out there and listeners too like it's a great that's a great way to do it i remember the harper machado stuff so clearly because i had to reschedule Ben Clemens' Fangraphs interview because one of them signed, I think it was Harper. I was like, I'm sorry, I gotta go.

Bye. And thankfully, Ben was understanding because. Glad you didn't lose him. Good hire. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. You know, that would have been a bummer.

Okay. So we're saying Giants and Cubs, maybe most likely or at least best fits for Snell and Bellinger, respectively. And then Matt Chapman should go back to the New York Post. And you'll notice that didn't mention the Orioles as a team that has been linked to Blake Snell, let's say. And here's something Heyman wrote. The Orioles have considered every starter from Marcus Stroman on down, parentheses, they couldn't seriously consider

Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery, quote, unless the market collapsed, end quote. Baltimore also has been eyeing James Paxton. So I don't know whether this, unless the market collapsed, which is in quotes, whether that is coming from an Orioles source, that seems to be the implication. Seemingly. But the fact that the Orioles are shopping in the bargain bin here, for starters, that they're eyeing James Paxton, but that they couldn't possibly consider Blake Snell or Jordan Montgomery. If this is accurate, come on. What are you doing here? Are you serious?

You, the Baltimore Orioles, cannot afford to sign one of the best available starting pitchers? This is ridiculous. There is no reason whatsoever that the Orioles should not be in the market for one of these guys. They should be at the top of the market for one of these guys. Like the Orioles have a need. They have all the payroll flexibility in the world. Whole wide world. come up with any passable explanation for why they would not be bidding on these guys. It is preposterous. It is outrageous. I would be outraged if I were an Orioles fan. Their payroll is going

to be a little bit higher than last year, but it's still third lowest in the majors, according to Roster Resource right now, easily the lowest among any likely contender. The A's are dead last, and then the Pirates, and then the Orioles. And in terms of commitments beyond 2024, just about not a zip zilch. They have $2 million in 2025 commitments. And I looked up what the $2 million is. I think they signed Felix Bautista to a two-year, $2 million deal. Okay. So they have a million due to Felix Bautista in his presumable comeback from Tommy John in 2025. Yeah, I know.

It really limits what else they can do, that million that's due to Felix Bautista. And then I think the other million is a buyout of a team option on Craig Kimbrell. Oh, yeah. Remember when they signed Craig Kimbrell? Yeah. Basically the only notable signing that they've made. Weird that that was it. So they've got basically nothing on the books beyond 2024. Obviously, they have ARP guys and everything they're going to be paying. But in terms of guaranteed contracts, nothing, just wide open. They have this base of underpaid,

inexpensive team control year guys, none of whom they've extended, by the way. It would be one thing if they'd like locked up all their young guys Atlanta style. But no, they have not done that. Have not. So what is the excuse here? They just got this sweetheart lease deal from the state of Maryland, right?

Favorable terms. They're locked up there for the foreseeable future. Like, what is the possible excuse here? They need starting pitching. Yeah, they sure do. That's the thing that they need. And they could trade some of their surplus prospects and young guys if they wanted to go get Dylan Cease or someone like that. They could sign someone. They're 25th in projected starting pitcher war right now.

That's not going to cut it. I mean, yeah, Kyle Braddish is good and Grayson Rodriguez is promising, but like that's not a great rotation. It's just you're counting on John Means to be good and healthy and then Dean Kramer and then like Cole Irvin. It's just like go get an ace. Go get someone who resembles an ace to be in this rotation along with the guys you've got. Like what is the possible excuse for not doing that? Ben, it's so nice. And I don't want to cast any aspersions on either the sincerity of your exasperation or imply that it is a recent development. But it's nice when you get mad about this stuff because it gives me a little break, you know.

I'm upset. Yeah, you're as fired up as I've almost ever heard you. And like to add more fuel to your fire, a fire that burns with a righteous, it's a righteous rage, Ben. Like 71% of Baltimore's roster is either pre-arbor arbitration eligible. The bulk of that is arbitration, but like they have so little money invested in this roster over the long term. This is the final season of Adley Rutschman before he is arbitration eligible, right? If you want to make a cold, calculating, beep-boop-bop-boop kind of argument about the best time to deploy payroll, they are using their payroll suboptimally by those measures, in my opinion, because if what you want is to have the best and cheapest roster you possibly can,

this is the year to spend some money on starting pitching. Because even if you were to go to Blake Snell and give him the deal that I took the under the under on from trade rumors you're still gonna have such such a small amount of committed payroll space going forward and this is when your guys are at their cheapest right and to your point they haven't extended any of those dudes so like what precisely um are you doing with the payroll space and flexibility, quote unquote, that having Rutschman like on the league minimum is giving you nothing. You're not utilizing that payroll space to its full potential if what you want is a roster that is cheap and good, right? And so I don't want to impugn anybody's motives, Ben, but it seems to me that a priority has been quietly stated between those two things, right? That being cheap is more important than being good, which isn't to say that Baltimore is going to be a bad roster.

I'm not doing the thing that people got very worked up about last year where it's like, you guys, there's a reason that their projections are less good than their record. It's not because we dislike them. That's a weird accusation when half of the projections come from a guy who is literally an Orioles fan. But, like, this is not them maximizing the cold calculating dollars per war version of their roster. To do that, they need to spend some money. They don't need to spend all of the money, but they have clear and obvious needs, needs that they cannot address through their farm system unless they are willing to trade those guys. And I think that when you look at organizations that we think of as being sort of like very smart when it comes to properly deploying resource and appreciating the relative scarcity of resources

within the game, again, if we want to just put it in like cold economic terms, it's a lot harder to draft and develop very, very good baseball players than it is to write a check, right? Like, money is a pretty fungible resource. You don't have that same fungibility when it comes to baseball players. And so what if instead of simply having to use them to trade for a Dylan Cease, you just kept your dudes, your very best dudes, and you decide which of them are going to be able to contribute the most to a winning baseball team in Baltimore. And then you go give whoever, Blake Snell or whomever, whomever. And I love James Paxton, right? I think that James Paxton as a sort of bounce back signing, fine, that's fine. But that can't be your frontline addition, right? That needs to be the guy

you sign and view as a nice to have because there aren't any bad one-year addition, right? That needs to be the guy you sign and view as like a nice to have because there aren't any bad one-year deals, right? Like that's the way to think about James Paxton at this point in his career. I think that if he is able to sustain mostly his health, but particularly his performance that he had in Boston, like that's a great addition, but that can't be your big guy, right? That can't be the main headliner. So, I share your confusion. And if they're going to conduct themselves this way and take this Stingian approach to payroll, then it makes the Kimbrough signing make even less sense to me because one year and 13 million, you're almost in like one year, mid-tier, mid to bottom tier starter money. Why are you spending that on Craig

Kimbrough? Not that they couldn't use reinforcement in the bullpen, but it's like, if you're going to have that tight a grip on the purse strings, like why is the the the point and i want to be very clear here because somebody's going to listen to this and be like i can't believe that meg is beep boop bopping i'm just saying that even under the their own by their own terms i think this is a failure of resource and roster deployment and that doesn't say anything about the fact that they have so many good very young very inexpensive guys. Like, go, you know, go do it. Go do it.

You really want, you really want. I'm going to be sassy. Now I'm going to, now I'm worked up. Now I'm going to be sassy. Are you ready for me to be worked up and sassy? There is a very, very good possibility that at least by the, you know, the midpoint of the season, we are going to have a team with Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holiday,

and Adley Retchman all in the same lineup to say nothing of Cedric Mullins, who I still think is good. And they have other complimentary players. You're really going to put those three dudes on the field at the same time and hope your way into a wild card? That's bad management.

I'm sorry. It annoys me. I'm not even an Orioles fan. I'm annoyed on their behalf. They deserve better than this. The fans of the Baltimore Orioles deserve an unimpeachable projection for this team, and I deserve it too. Yes. Especially after the historic suckitude of the past several seasons before they got good again, which granted, they came out the other side. They drafted, they developed. I admire how they Yes! on payroll in the meantime. And when we come out the other side, then we will really invest in this team. I'm sure they have said things to that effect. And if you're not going to do that, then you're not maximizing what you put people through. You're not saying like, okay,

we had a contract, like you would put up with us sucking for several years, and then we would really make the most of having sucked and saved money and waited for our moment. Right. And then we would really seize that moment. Right. And they're not doing that. And it's such a fun team. Yes.

And I want to see that team supported by solid complementary players. And there's no excuse not to do it. And they're good as is, I think, but they're not great. No. I don't think. I mean, look, their base runs record last year was 12 wins worse than their actual. Say it louder, Ben. Say it louder.

Which is probably why the projections were not as robust as one might think. Yes. They won 101 games. Their base runs record was 89 and 73. Now, maybe you think they're a little bit better than that, but they probably were not a true talent 101 win team. How much did we talk about the Padres underperforming? They were nine wins below their base record. The Orioles plus 12 again. So you might expect some regression possibly coming from that, or at least you shouldn't be so complacent and say, oh, we're 101 team and our guys are young and they're only going to get better.

Okay, but there might be a little less luck. There might be a little less health, right? Things might not go so well. And so you have to shore up against that possibility. And especially in the ALEs where you know that it's always going to be stiff competition. So it's really just, I mean, not to do this. I don't know whether it's more of an ownership issue or a front office issue or a combination of both, because we know that Michael Ise loves his prospects and hey, he's had an incredible

collection of prospects and kudos to him. But at some point you got to flip the switch and you got to say, okay, we hoarded prospects for this moment and now we want to get good. We want to have wins. Winning for us now is not having the highest rated farm system anymore. It is converting some of that surplus young talent, again, like redundancy with too many good players at certain positions. Maybe he's thinking, I want to wait a little longer.

I want to evaluate these guys. I want to decide who we want to bet on for the long term and who we want to trade. But at some point, you got to push the chips and you got to start taking a risk. And if it's John Angelos, then it's even more inexcusable. He has to answer for this. And now that MLK Day has passed, perhaps he would. Oh, Lord. And I think that when we think about how to mentally project this team for 2024, here are a couple of things that I think are useful to keep in mind. From an offensive perspective, they have some very talented players on their team. I don't want to impugn those guys, but I think it's important to keep in mind, to your point, toward the end of September last year, they had the sixth best batting average in baseball, but the best batting average with runners in scoring position and two outs they had the second best batting average in the major they were third in wobo with runners in scoring position as opposed to 10th overall so this this offense converted on their opportunities at an insane rate last year they just like cash

and runs left and right do i think that they will be a good and potent offense again yeah i do because they have really talented players and they have more really talented players coming. But will they be able to replicate that exact same level of success? I don't know. That's pretty wild, right? So I think that we should, without saying that the offense is bad or that the young players can't continue to sort of solidify their performance in the big leagues can just expect that they'll score fewer runs by virtue of the fact that they

scored so many runs and particularly in moments where you know they had two outs where they were just they sequenced things so well last year so there's that piece of it and I also think I might have a take you tell me okay okay i think that this front office is very smart i want to know how good at player dev we think they are because it is undeniable that they have a great farm system it is undeniable that they have graduated some very impressive prospects right Adley Rutschman Gunnar Henderson but like is it to the Orioles credit that Adley Rutschman is good right is it to the Orioles credit that Jackson Holiday is good they're good at this I don't want to like overstate the case but like they also have had really good high draft picks.

Now they've hit on those picks and that is a skill because boy, does that not, is that not a given? So again, it would be easy. Hey, you have a high pick, just go get the best player.

And definitely not a given. And so this is why I don't want to overstate the case, but I don't think that we have seen them like, for instance, I don't think that we have seen them, for instance, be able to actualize at the same rate on the pitching side that we have seen them do on the position player side. And someone might say, hey, Gunnar Henderson was second to Clay's second runner. And you know what? That's true. That's true. But he got a $2.3 million bonus. He was a good prospect. I understand that some of their pitching is sort of, as far as I'm concerned,

being graded incomplete at this point, right? Because we don't know what a full and healthy season from Grayson is going to look like. He definitely seemed to improve as time went on. He did not look good in the postseason, but that's incomplete as far as I'm concerned. But D.L. Hall is a reliever, right? D.L. Hall is a reliever, and Mike Bowman is a long guy. So I think that, again, I don't want to overstate the case. They have great prospects, and I think they have a lot of really smart people working for them. they're good. They have great prospects. And I think they have a lot of really smart people working for them. But I think that they would be making a mistake to sort of rest on those laurels

when you can't count on that success necessarily continuing. It hasn't actualized on the pitching side. And again, it's just money. It's local spectrum. And then you have margin for error. This is always the point that we make. If you are going to be the draft and dev team, you better do it really well for a long time. Because even if you're really good at it, you're still going to miss on some guys. Some guys are going to get hurt. Some guys are going to be great in AAA and they're just not going to be as good in the majors. So unless you are doing this year after year after year after year, I don't think that you can count on it filling in the gap that like a small payroll leaves in the quality of your big league roster. It fills in some of it, but it's not going to fill in all of it. And why not give yourself some wiggle room for, you know, like, what if what if Grayson doesn't take a step forward?

You know, what if God forbid, what if Grayson gets hurt? You know, then where are you going to be? Yeah, that has happened before. You're down a Kyle. That's right. Yeah. And what if you could replace that Kyle with a Jordan, right? A Jordan Montgomery, just pencil in a 180 innings of 3.5 FIP.

Like, that would just be such a perfect fit for them. And you're telling me that they can't be in the bidding for Jordan Montgomery unless his market collapses? We're not talking about even like Yamamoto or Ohtani or something here. We're talking about Jordan Montgomery. Come on. And candidly, shame on us for not talking about Ohtani and Yamamoto. That like, you know, concedes the point with Baltimore in a way that like I do not think that they have earned concessions on. So not you and I. We were different Ben we're built different and somebody's gonna email and be like Meg doesn't think that the Orioles are good at player dev she thinks that it's all about

them drafting high I'm just saying give yourself some wiggle room and then show me that you can really do it on the pitching side with your starters for a while. If you can do that, I'm still going to say you should spend money because I love that song, you know, but they're not the Rays and they play in the freaking AL East. Like, you know, you just have to set your sights higher. We're both worked up. Oh, boy. I know. It's really frustrating. I can't imagine what it is for Orioles fans who I'm sure are thrilled with the collection of talent that they have, but gotta be getting antsy and impatient here. I would be antsy and impatient. And I want those Orioles fans who listen to this podcast to hear us.

We agree with you. We're on your side. You deserve better. And so do the guys who play for them, right? Like, imagine having Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Henderson. And Cedric Mullins is so fun. What a good, you know, like, you have those guys. You owe it to them to put the complementary pieces around them to help them win. And to front that rotation with a starter that is worthy of the position players who you have around you. That's what they deserve. So I hope that somebody listens to me and goes and does it

and doesn't get caught up in me saying, I'm a player dev. Is it good? I mean, like, is it though? I mean, but like, you know what I mean, Ben, right? You know what I mean? They've made investments off the field in player dev and elsewhere, right? They just opened their big Dominican academy.

I mean, that's great that they've made that an emphasis after years of not doing that as an organization, which hurt them. But again, like you got to spend on player payroll at some point. Come on. So if they don't sign one of the major free agents remaining, that's just pretty disgraceful, to be honest. And like one of the things that we talk about when you have an org that is perceived to be like behind right and i don't know that that's quite the way i would have characterized baltimore prior to the elias regime i don't know if i would have been like they weren't the rockies or anything but like one of the things that we talk about there is that it can be a little hard to catch

up like it takes longer to catch up than you would expect because, you know, once you're catching up to where the Dodgers were five years ago, well, guess what? The Dodgers have been doing other stuff for five years. And so they're going to be in a different place. They're going to be thinking about a new question. They're going to be investing in a new thing. They'll have hired new people, right? And so it can take a while to really catch up. And I think that because they do have smart people working for them, they do have like a modern front office in place, right? And they are behaving for good or bad, like a lot of other smart, like good teams, you've done presumably the hard part and you've put your fans through the hard part so like go go make use of those intellectual and monetary resources and like you know what tell the tell the yankees and the blue jays and the rays and the red socks that you're coming for them you know and again again with a projection that matches the talent we think is on this roster. Because Ben has already written the piece about how we've under-projected the Orioles. I can't ask him to write that piece again.

I mean, I can, but I'd rather not. So, like, you know, go make your projections match what you think your team is. All right. Glad we got that off our chest. Wow. We have, you know, yesterday I got busy with something and we had to stop and record today. And I was like, do we really have much to talk about? And you were like, I have some banter.

And boy, I can't believe I made you sit on that for 24 hours. You must have been bursting. Stewing the entire time. Yeah, just steam coming out of my ears. So there is a team that has invested and also has signed all of its players to extensions. And that's the Atlanta Braves. And they just signed their Popo. They did.

Anthopolis, he's a Popo, right? Sometimes it's hard to remember who's a Popo, who's still a GM. I think he's a Popo. But Alex Anthopolis, he will be the Popo now for a really, really long time. He was set to be a free agent after this coming season. Now he's been extended through 2031. So the extensions that

he has handed out to all of his players, now one of those has been handed to him. And I don't know that I can recall an executive extension or contract for that long a term in baseball. Maybe it's happened, but that is a really long time. I mean, usually even a GM, a Pobo contract at the outside, we're talking like five or six years or something. It's often like two or three or, you know, in that range. So to go through 2031, that is an extreme vote of confidence. And I think that takes him through really,

I think beyond almost all of the players he's extended, except Austin Riley. I think Austin Riley runs through 2032. And then maybe there's a Michael Harris club option for 2031. But basically, he is now going to get to see out this entire era that he has put in place, right? And I guess that is an endorsement of the job he's done. And how could it not be? How can you complain about the job that he's done? I guess people have pointed out that there didn't seem to be a 1% tithe there. I guess it's technically not a tithe, but the usual Atlanta Braves Foundation donation was not mentioned here. So maybe that's only for players, not for executives.

The plot thickens back. Yes. Yes. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I'm here to tell you that, yes, we are correct. He is the pobo, pobo and GM.

And it is a very long time. And, you know, there are plenty of front office folks who end up, you know, being in the seat they're in for a very long time. And, come in, they're fresh-faced and they're going to oversee the return to being a contender, right? And they talk about a five-year sort of plan. They're not generally under contract for that entire time. Right, yeah. I think Theo Epstein got five-year deals with the Cubs. Like that's usually what we're talking about. Yeah, at the very outside.

And even that, unusual. Yeah, David Stearns, five years with the Mets. Yeah. Sure. But, right, they had to outbid some. They had some bidding to do. Yes. But, yeah, very long time.

But truly the most interesting part of this to me is that he did not have to promise to donate 1% of his salary to the Braves Foundation. I don't know what to make of that. You know, I don't want to say that it's bad leadership. I don't want to say that it sets a dangerous precedent to have your pobo out of sync with your players. But I'm not not saying that. It's weird, Ben. I feel like there's something weird with Otani's dog and there's something weird with that Braves Foundation. You know, I'm here to say it. Well, how could they not be pleased with the job that he's done convincing everyone to sign? Also, it's hard to come up with a major move he's made that has not worked out pretty well, whether it was a free agent signing or a trade, right? Even like the Freddie Freeman saga, his comeback kind of fell apart.

But then he goes and gets Matt Olson and then just signs Matt Olson to an extension and then the Sean Murphy trade and on and on, right? On and on. Yeah, he's done an excellent job. He runs a tight ship there in terms of leaks and rumors, obviously, as we have noted. Yeah. And this is a job well done, I guess. Keep doing this job for us, Alex.

So there won't be any change. Incredible continuity there, both on and off the field for the Braves for the better part of a decade to come. So we'll see if their success continues. Now, as for actual player signings, so you mentioned Jordan Hicks. The Blue Jays did make a move. They signed Yariel Rodriguez, the Cuban and NPP pitcher for four years and $32 million. I wanted to talk about the Hicks signing. So you talked about that in terms of him as a starter and whether that will work this time.

I wrote an article about innings eaters that came out this week. I mentioned that I was workshopping that topic in a stat blast on episode 2106, and this is the final version. And one thing I noted in that piece is that there has been, I think, a trend this offseason toward relievers, established relievers who maybe started at some point. Most relievers started at some point, but they have become rotation curious again. They have either dabbled in the possibility that they could start again. They've gotten interest as starters. Maybe they've really committed to starting.

So this is the situation with Jordan Hicks, Reynaldo Lopez, Atlanta acquisition was said to be stretched out as a starter. Now, I don't know if he has a rotation spot as it is right now, but it was discussed with him at least. Brent Suter, who ended up signing with the Reds, it was discussed.

You know, There were rumors, oh, there's interest in him as a starter. A.J. Puck with the Marlins, same deal. And we've seen it happen. It's not just perspective. This could theoretically happen, but it has happened in recent years. We talked about the Rays doing this over and over, doing it with Zach Littell, most surprisingly, but Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen before them. Michael Lorenzen did this with the Angels a couple years ago. Seth Lugo, notably, with the Padres this past season. Michael King with the Yankees.

And then he becomes the centerpiece of the Juan Soto trade. So I think this is an example of what I was talking about, how the inning ceiling is lowered so dramatically now that, yes, some teams are going for upside over certainty or what passes for certainty and dependability with pitchers. You're not even really choosing between the low volume, high performance guy and an innings eater. They're just, there aren't really innings eaters anymore or what passes for an innings eater so many fewer innings than it used to be that, sure, why not take a flyer on a Frankie Montas or a Luis Severino or why not go get Chris Sale or Tyler Glass now and just hope that they're healthy when the postseason rolls around. But also, why not try Jordan Hicks or Reynaldo Lopez or Seth Lugo or Michael King? Because, hey, just tweak their pitch mix and maybe they've got a good pitch.

And in the past, you might have said, oh, they don't have enough pitches to thrive as a starter. But then Spencer Strider comes along and, I mean, you know, if you have a couple elite pitches, maybe that's enough. Maybe you can get by because you only have to get by for five innings now, right? And so you don't have to get through a lineup three or four times and show people all sorts of different pitches. If you get through twice, okay, job well done. Hit the showers, right?

If you even need showers, if you worked up a sweat pitching that much, right? If you even need showers, if you worked up a sweat pitching that much, right? So I think the bar for starters is so low that now even pitchers who've washed out of a rotation, well, the distinction between relief and the rotation now is smaller than it's ever been. So yeah, maybe you could fake it as a starter. I don't know if that's going to work for Jordan Hicks specifically. He just throws so hard. It just seems like he's kind of built for the bullpen. But why not give it a go, I guess, or at least tell a free agent, yeah, you can try. We'll entertain the possibility. At least we'll give you an audition because, again, the bar is so low when it comes to workload now. So I think that goes kind of hand in hand with what I was talking about.

Yeah. And I guess we'll see what Seth Lugo can manage with Kansas City. I have greater confidence there than maybe anyone else because he like did it last year, right? He threw 146 innings. Yeah. And because they let Jordan Lyles throw like 180 innings. So why not let Seth Lugo do it? But like he was like a three-win player for San Diego last year. So he was good. But yeah, I think that if you view your payroll as kind of elastic and are willing to, you know, just pay not top and frontline starter money, but maybe a little more than you would pay a reliever to a reliever to like do this experiment, like there isn't really a lot of downside here it there's downside if that

is the fix to your rotation right if you don't give yourself um enough wiggle room with your other guys to field a full complement of starters innings so you know you have to be willing to to say you know what jordan hicks like this just isn't working. We thought that we were going to be able to fix this, but you're still walking the world, so to the bullpen you go. It doesn't strike me as having a ton of downside, provided you have some depth, right? Because Jordan Hicks is a really good reliever, even if he doesn't end up being a particularly effective starter,

and the same is true for Lopez. So and, you know, like when Bauman wrote about Hicks for us, he made the point, which I think is a good one, that he's still relatively young. And so even if he ends up being a reliever with all the volatility that can come with reliever performance, like you're not eating his like age 35 season, right? Like just not so it's interesting i do on some level hope that it doesn't work in a way that scares teams away from doing it just because i worry that it will further erode the starter reliever distinction in a way that will continue to equalize the innings between those two parts of the roster. But I'm not like rooting against Jordan Hicks, to be clear. I don't know if it's quite a trend yet,

but it's trend-like. It's trend-adjacent, you know? It's a trendlet, yeah. It's a trendlet. It's a, that's terrible, trendlet. We sound like we're on TikTok. Don't they talk about stuff like that on TikTok? I don't know what's on TikTok.

I'm too old. Another thing I discovered, or I think I discovered while I was working on TikTok. I'm too old. Another thing I discovered, or I think I discovered while I was working on that Innings Eaters piece, I think I found the etymology of the term or the originator of the term. So in the 1985 book, Nine Innings by Daniel Okrent, the reliever Jerry Augustine was described as an inning eater, an omnivore who could occupy the mound when it was hopeless to waste a truly valuable pitcher. And that was the first reference to an inning eater or innings eater I could find anywhere in the baseball literature, in newspaper archives.

I enlisted the help of listener and Wall Street Journal language columnist Ben Zimmer to search as well, and he could not find a reference that predated that. So I think that Daniel Okrent, former Effectively Wild guest, who is well known for a number of things. He's in Ken Burns' baseball. He wrote Nine Innings. He invented Rotisserie League baseball. He was the first public editor of the New York Times. I think he invented, coined the term innings eater. And I emailed him to say, hey, did you invent this? And he said, I think I did. He said, every time I see that, I wonder, did I coin that? I think I did.

So I think he did. And it's interesting because initially he was using it to refer to a garbage time reliever, basically, like someone who would be in a role that a position player pitcher would probably occupy now. And in those early years, it was kind of interchangeably used to refer to just relievers who were kind of like the last man on the staff and were just sucking up low leverage innings. And then it came to be quickly applied to what we think of thing forever. that was sent to me by Richard Hershberger, historian and former pass blaster for Effectively Wild. And I just love this article. It's from 1884 in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. And as Richard explained to me, the pitching rotation, just the concept of a rotation was new then because in the 1870s, teams would have just a regular pitcher and then a change pitcher. It was kind of like a starting catcher and a backup catcher. So you'd have two pitchers basically to get through the

entire season and it would be one regular pitcher and then your backup. And there weren't player substitutions then. So the change pitcher would play the whole game in some other position, maybe in a corner outfield spot. entire roster was just 11 players so you weren't going to get much specialization but then in the early 1880s they had overhand pitching that came in and then curveballs came into fashion right and so there was suddenly more strain on arms and you couldn't just have one guy throw all your games except that in 1884 old hoss radborn famously did do that basically so they started the season providence started the season with radborn and charlie sweeney and then charlie sweeney just left the team mid-season jumped to another team and so old

old hoss said i'll just pitch the rest of the season. I'll just do it myself, basically. That's insane. And he did. And he threw 678 and two-thirds innings in 1884. Yeah, it is for the Providence Grays. That's a cool 19.2 baseball reference for Alt-Haas that year. Yeah, not bad. Volume, baby.

Yeah. But however he did that, he made everyone else look bad, I guess, or at least like the baseball columnists of the day who are like, oh, pitchers these days, they can't pitch every game anymore. You know, they're soft. Right. And so they would point to old Haas Radborn, like showing them up like, hey, he can do it. Why can't you? So this story, September 23rd, edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1884, headline, Lame Pitchers. Subhead, How High-Priced Twirlers Shirk Their Duties. Twirlers. It starts, according to a Brooklyn writer, Radbourne of the Providence Grays has exploded a well-accepted theory which has gained ground of late years.

Club after club this season has time and again been obliged to place their change pitchers in positions owing to the alleged lame arms and lame shoulders or some other lame excuse presented by their leading pitchers to avoid work in the box, which they ought to be made to attend to considering the high wages they are paid. So that's another constant refrain. Players make too much money, right? This little game was worked so successfully that pitcher after pitcher was allowed to lie off every other match. This racket was worked in the Providence Club.

It's a racket. These lazy pitchers, they're taking every other game off. Old Haas Radborn, he made it work. And this columnist says, what is the work of a first-class league pitcher during a season's campaign? Why, nothing more than nine innings of pitching once a day. Occupying less than two hours of labor out of the 24 during an average of four days a week. the 24 during an average of four days a week. Why, it is simply nonsense to assert that this is an arduous task for any man of the healthy class of athletics who composed the leading pitchers of the day.

What Radbourne has done, they can all do. He did it to fulfill a boast of his prowess as a pitcher. Let the others be made to earn their high wages just as much as Radbourne has his. So this would just be disgusted that the high man in innings these days is like 215. I mean, just absolute disgrace. I mean, in fairness, he'd probably also be scandalized by women wearing pants.

So like, you know, different era. We were so, our language was so sensitive back then, you know, we were so careful. Our language was so sensitive back then, you know, we were so careful. It's amazing that his arm didn't just fall clean off, really. I mean, I know that there was so much about the game then that's different than the way it is now. And the velocity he was throwing with, I'm sure, was, you know, unrecognizable to us as a, as that of a professional baseball player, even one who like at times, uh, moonlighted, uh, toward the back end of the day. Right.

You know, but, um, it's crazy. It's wild. I think that there's something reassuring about the fact that we've always been searching for the appropriate equilibrium between starter and reliever usage. And we haven't found it. So that part might be a little more disconcerting, but it suggests that we are dealing with a game that is open to change and adaptation. Maybe we'll change and adapt our way into something else. And I always want to be sensitive to the idea that, you know, like nine innings, four days a week, that's too much, you know?

It does seem like a little too much, yeah. It's too many innings, too many days a week from the same guy. I think that the place we are now, aesthetically, it feels like too few. And I also want to be mindful of injury stuff and i want to be sensitive to the fact that like you know it's not like all these guys are the same just because they get bucketed as starters and relievers doesn't mean that they're capable of going as many innings all of them all the time right we need to allow for variability um but it is nice to have the driving force of the starter as a narrative device but also don't nine innings four days a week that's that's too many yeah old hasa i think was a weighted ball

guy although in his day it was an iron ball that he threw underhand but you know driveline guy for the 19th century yeah there you go um yeah. Yeah, he was at TREAD, you know, he was doing the TREAD program. I'm sure it was like made out of lead, you know, and then his hand turned a weird color or something. Right. Yeah, I did consider,

yes, the aesthetic argument is different from the performance argument. And I did consider whether from a performance standpoint, perhaps even the pendulum has swung too far and that you could make a case that innings are underrated to some extent now because bullpens are just overstretched, right? And there's sort of a soft underbelly of bullpens. And of course, there's position player pitchers and some teams are less good at filling those bullpen innings than others. those bullpen innings than others.

But I came down, I found this extended analogy that I ended the piece with, which I will try out on you here, because it struck me that the end of innings eating and the evolution of pitcher usage, it reminds me of the evolution of scripted TV. So stay with me here. Okay, I'm waiting so far. It used to be there were only so many channels and there were only so many shows, right?

And so the same few shows were always on and they would air all the time, right? I mean, so many episodes, right? They were just in constant circulation and syndication. And so to get through these long seasons, they had to take something off, right? They couldn't always throw their best stuff every time out. So they would stretch their material and they would recycle storylines. And there would be episodes where they'd be throwing junk, right? Filler episodes and clip shows and the like.

And some of those shows were not so good. And people watched them anyway because there was no alternative. They were the only thing that was on, right? There were only so good and people watched them anyway because there was no alternative. They were the only thing that was on, right? There were only so many choices. And you might look back and nostalgically think they were great, but maybe they weren't actually so great. But then came the onset of prestige TV, peak TV, too much TV, whatever you want to call it. And the seasons shrank rapidly. And we went from 22 plus episodes per season to now we're almost on the British model where it's like six or maybe eight or 10 or 12 or something if you're feeling expansive. And on an inning per inning or episode per episode basis, the show is way better than before.

Right. I think higher quality TV. and this model was a success. And so the series kept multiplying. And so instead of not enough TV, there was suddenly too much TV to keep track of, right? You have experienced this strain. Too much TV. Yeah. The shows, they come and go too quickly to keep up.

And just when you're getting attached to a character, they clear out and the seasons are whittled down so far that you feel like things are kind of crammed in or at least like they leave you wanting more, which is good, but maybe they leave you wanting too much. They just didn't give you enough. They give you eight episodes and then they disappear for two years and forget everything that happened already. Right. But they throw heat in short bursts. And so there have been advantages to that. And it's led to room on the roster for shows that might not have become shows before because maybe they aren't built for a long TV season.

But they have six episodes in them. You know, maybe they're a miniseries. That's great. They have six episodes in them. You know, maybe they're a miniseries. That's great. In the same way that, say, relievers who might not have had jobs on a major league staff before, well, now throwing an inning every few days is a job. So they get to be a big leaguer.

Sure. And that's nice in some ways. But there are some costs to that. And I think from a TV's perspective, you lose the chance to see what the standouts can do with an extra long season. So a show that actually could hack it over 22 episodes and was just on half the year, that was nice. And also it kind of endangered the comfort TV that you could just count on to be always on. And maybe it was unspectacular, but it was just nice background stuff to, you know, kind of calm you down at the end of an evening. Right.

And the thing is that in TV, it seems like things are sort of swinging back. So in 2023, there was a realization. It's like, oh, maybe people like suits still, you know? Oh, yeah. People are really into suits now. Yeah. The show, not the article of clothing. I think we're at an all-time low for clothing suits, I would argue.

Yes, yes. But, you know, people are watching like suits and young Sheldon and these things, you know. Wait, I'm sorry. I have to interrupt you. Are people watching young Sheldon? People are very much watching young Sheldon. Yes, they are. He doesn't even look that young anymore. He looks like he's now pre-teen Sheldon. People are very much watching young Sheldon. Yes, they are. He doesn't even look that young anymore.

He looks like he's now pre-teen Sheldon. I think young Sheldon hit streaming like Suits did, maybe, and so it had a boost, right? But, you know, on networks, sitcoms and procedurals and old school dramas, like, they have continued to be

a thing, and maybe they've been a little less visible in the culture, but suddenly it's like, oh, these shows with giant libraries that just, you know, kind of a baseline enjoyment level and maybe they're not going to win any awards, but they're just going to provide a lot. Young Children's definitely not going to win any awards. The innings eaters of TV, right? The hours eaters, the episodes eaters. And suddenly, according to a bunch of reports that I've read, like TV networks, even streamers are buying these things now. It's like, oh,

old time TV is back. Like these formulas still work. So I wonder whether there's a future, whether that could be the case for innings eaters. And we realized, hey, if we have someone who's a bit below average, but is always available, maybe that's better than just having to fill 100 in400 innings or more somehow, somewhere, some way. So I hope there's a future for innings. It might just require rules changes that bring that back into vogue. And again, sometimes, you know, it's Kyle Gibson, it's Jordan Wiles. I'm not, this is the young Sheldon of pitchers. I'm not suggesting that.

Wow, that is the meanest thing we've said about the Kyles in the run of this show. Yeah, you might be more entertained by the Max Effer bullpen guy who comes out there throwing bullets, potentially, if you know who that guy is. But, like, you knew those shows. You knew those characters. You know, they were staples. And now that teams are basically streaming pitchers the way a fantasy owner does and they're just constantly cycling through guys got hurt, or you're just shuffling and bringing up guys from AAA. Maybe if you root for that team, you might know who those guys are if you're a hardcore fan who's watching every night.

If you're kind of a casual fan or you're interested in the game on a national level, a lot of people are anonymous now, and that might not be the best thing. So I'm just saying, you know, I hate to be the guy who's like, things used to be better. I generally don't feel that that's the case. But there are some ways, aesthetically speaking, that maybe I preferred the old model. And I think you could make the case that at some point, even though we're continuing to trend in the other direction, I'm not saying like, yeah, people should just face the same hitters three or four times in a game. We know more now about the fact

that that doesn't work and that bringing in a fresh reliever, that's going to be better for you, even if you've been cruising in that game. I'm not denying any of the numbers. I'm just saying maybe there is some value to bulk. Maybe things have gone so far now that guys are just so low volume and inevitably a little less valuable on an individual basis that perhaps there could be some correction coming.

Maybe better starters should pitch much more than mediocre starters. It's a bold idea. I'm going to continue to tax your metaphor. You want room for mythology and Creature of the Week episodes week episodes right you need time for an away mission or two sure are those always everyone's favorite episodes i mean who knows like some of them are some people really like the mythology episodes of x-files those people i think are wrong but they do exist you know and um i want them to get what they want, provided I can kind of pick and choose my rewatch. I refuse to believe people are watching Young Sheldon.

But, you know, I've sorry, this is Meg, who has like was really proud of herself for being up to date on two whole shows in the last like 18 months, giving her TV takes. But you know where you brush up against the wildest TV, Ben? It's when you're watching the football postseason. That's when you're like, there are how many FBI shows on CBS? They're different than the NCIS shows on CBS?

Yeah. There's a major market for those, yes. And that's the thing, right? They advertise them as the Fbi's plural and i was like i am given to understand that there is just the one you know and like it has field offices you don't have to pluralize the entire like investigative body and some of those folks are international i feel like this is some sort of crisis that we are and it's like they can't if they are going abroad they can't investigate the naval crime in Australia.

Why is there so much naval crime? What is going on with our, I mean, like I could offer some theories, but like, what is going on with our Navy? They have to do like, there are like five of those NCIS shows.

Anyway, people are really watching Young Children. Is that even on CBS? There's a market for all of that. Yeah, I'm just saying. And look, maybe The X-Files is a good counter to this because I enjoy mythology episodes, but I enjoyed them. Finally, the first season. But after that, it was clear that he just didn't know what he was doing.

Hey, if they hadn't had to make 24 or 25 episodes of The X-Files per season, then they would not have had to run through their material quite as quickly. And then they wouldn't have been laying the track as they went, right? Maybe they could have plotted that out if that was a 10-episode show from the start. Maybe you actually know where it's going, right? As opposed to where you're just, you know. Yeah, that's such a nice thing for you to say about Chris Carter. I'm still convinced that he didn't really know where the mythology was going.

And then, like, would we have gotten the Jersey Devil Creature of the Week episode? Yeah, that's the risk. That one's not very good, but I still like it. That's what you potentially lose. So, just saying. Anyway, I'll link to my piece if people are interested in diving into that. Okay, I will end with a couple of fun facts I saw here. One, I saw this-

I'm going to get an email from someone being like, I love Young Sheldon. That young man and his hijinks, that entertains me every week. The truth is out there. The people who like Young Sheldon are out there. The ratings don't lie. I'm just saying. The FBI's, plural. Get out of here.

That's just bad copy. The FBI's plural. Get out of here. That's just a bad copy. So there is a tweet by Lucas Borja on Twitter who tweets about NPB mostly, who tweeted, NPB foreign hitters struggled in 2022. So this is imports. This is non-Japanese players playing in NPB, some American, some not.

NPB foreign hitters struggled in 2022. They were basically invisible in 2023. In 2023, every foreign hitter in Japan combined for 1.3 war. The rest of the league had 178.5 war. The days of foreign sluggers dominating Japan are long gone. I've not checked the math here, and I don't know what the typical war total was for foreign players, but I was corresponding with Jim Allen, who's covered NPP for decades because he responded to that tweet to propose some reasons why this would be the case. So he was not disputing the facts. And,

you know, even if you don't follow NPP closely, you're probably aware of the Tuffy Rhodeses and the Vladimir Blentians and randy basses who've gone over there and it's sort of like a superman coming from krypton to earth and the sun's rays turning him into a superhero and you know quad a players or players who had not broken through in the big leagues they went over there and suddenly the triple a slugger is an npb slugger like that happened in the past and apparently is is not happening so much right now and i was wondering and speculating earlier this offseason like could it take a toll on the quality of play in npb the second highest level league in the world that so many japanese stars come to the

majors now apparently not though yeah apparently yeah the level of competition there is as high as ever. So Jim speculated that the number one reason why this would be the case is not so much about the quality of competition in Japan as about the quality of player evaluation in the U.S. So he thinks the number one reason is that fewer extreme minor league talents are slipping through the cracks without getting serious MLB trials. So I mentioned Randy Bass. When he was 23, he was the best hitter in AAA, Jim said, and he only got 79 plate appearances in four MLB seasons before he was 27. So there were some guys then before it was maybe widely understood that minor league performance is pretty predictive of major league performance and teams had minor league equivalencies and projections and all the rest, right? That some guys would just languish in the minors even though they had the talent and maybe they'd be blocked by someone, whatever it was. And so Jim's suggesting fewer of those guys are slipping through the cracks, right? But Jim's suggesting fewer of those guys are slipping through the cracks, right?

Like deserving big leaguers who just do not get a chance and thus have no choice but to go to a league overseas, right? Because they can make more money and get more playing time there. So that's one. He also said that NPB's talent level, though, is inching closer to MLB's. That's his contention. He says also, and I guess these are related, that pitching analytics and metrics and design have allowed pitching quality to improve more rapidly than hitting quality in NPB.

And we've seen that even with some American pitchers who've gone over to NPB or KPO and they've come back to the States as new men, right, with new pitch mixes. And so the teams there have gotten pretty adept at pitcher development, and maybe the hitting development has not kept pace. So I just was not really aware of that trend. And I might have even guessed that things were heading in the opposite direction, but no.

So not such a rosy outlook lately for the exports or from MPB's perspective, the imports there, they are not standing out as a fleet. I imagine that this will be fairly minimal in the aggregate because, well, I think that the odds that big league organizations are going to mis-evaluate low-level minor leaguers or non-zero. I do wonder what the contraction of the minor leagues in the U.S. is going to end up doing to that sort of balance of war. Again, I imagine that it'll be pretty minor in the aggregate, just because the odds that you're going to get a really, really great player out of that mix are probably still pretty low even though again i think that the the odds that like a big leaguer is going to slip through the crocs are non-zero but i do wonder like there are just fewer slots for guys and some of those

guys are going to filter through any ball here in the u.s um but particularly in the foreign leagues that have dedicated development slots um that don't count against their foreign player total, I wonder what they'll make of those guys. But I suspect that a lot of it is just that, particularly in NPB, the overall level of play is pretty high. It's really high. And I think that the way that we talk about the quality there, I think is probably a little bit different than what your typical fan understands of that quality. And so I don't say that like we're so smart. It's just that I think we've I think they're able to just develop their own guys and have them occupying really important roles on their rosters.

And some of it might just be like an idiosyncratic, like this is the particular mix of foreign pros playing there now this year, and maybe those guys are just not as good as you might see in a typical year. But I bet a lot of it is just that the quality of play is good. Yeah. Or there could be more viable foreign markets where those sorts of free agents are willing to go or they can get paid well. So maybe it's a bit of a watering down among the talent going to NPB specifically. Yeah, it's probably a confluence of factors. And one byproduct of this could be, I saw the Twitter account Yakyu Cosmopolitan tweet this. It's an informative NPB Twitter account. With import players struggling more than ever, this is going to become the cutting edge of NPB player development. Compete

with MLB teams to sign young prospects and mold them to fit Japanese baseball. Yomiuri, the Giants are doing this to some extent. The SoftBank Hawks have several Latin prospects in their system. So that's something to watch. But thought that was interesting. Also thought it was interesting that yet another NPB pitcher who was posted and came over this offseason, Naoyuki Uesawa, he has been with the Nippon Ham fighters for years. He signed with the Rays on a minor league deal or a split contract. Yeah. And he passed up major league offers for the opportunity, he said, to play for the Rays specifically in part because of the team's success and in part because of the rich history of pitching development in that organization. Yep. And it just reinforces something we've talked about

with the Dodgers this winter. I wrote about this recently with them. And there was also a big LA Times article about their pitching lab efforts. It is such an asset to a team when that team is able to make players better. Now, it's not always like the Otani or the Yamamoto who's necessarily going to sign with you, although it could have played a part. But when you have that track record of improving players, even if you are a superstar, superstars, sometimes they are superstars

because they are so motivated to get everything they can out of their physical talents. And so they'd be interested in what the Dodgers could teach them. Or if they're signing a long-term deal, they know, hey, I'm gonna lose some stuff at some point. I'm gonna need to compensate. Maybe the Dodgers can help me do that. But even more with marginal pitchers or marginal players,

it's just example after example after example of players who have passed up richer, longer offers to sign with the Dodgers and maybe the Rays, too. If you can cultivate that reputation as a great player development team, not only does it help you because you're just making players better, but it helps you so much as just an inducement to free agents and saying, hey, sign with us or extend with us. Because players know and agents know and they see. And if you're Uesawa, let's say maybe he spent some time in the minors and comes up at some point, like if he's able to make himself better, he's going to make more money down the road,

presumably, right? If he can become a better pitcher because the rays teach him something it's far from a guarantee in any particular case but that is just such a powerful thing you know it can really help with recruitment and obviously like money still talks but if you can combine money and winning and this player development acumen as the Dodgers do all three of those, the Rays do at least two of them, then it's tough to beat that. Like that is not only a tiebreaker, maybe better than a tiebreaker. You can actually be outbid and someone will say, no, we're going to go with them because we trust them to improve me as a player. And I'm betting on myself by betting on them.

I think we saw some of this with and granted the the rules were different in this instance it was very clearly about at times differences in player dev because you were sort of limited in the bonus that you could give but we saw some of this in 2020 when the draft was truncated and signing bonuses for undrafted guys were capped that like you know if you wanted to sign with a professional organization, it seemed like sort of your perception of that org's ability to make you better was a big deal for the guys coming out in the amateur draft because they're like, well, I can I can wait. But if I think I'm going to be a fringe dude anyway, and I want to get into pro ball right now, like, yeah, I want to go be a Dodger. I want to be a Ray. I want to be, you know, there were, you know, if you're a pitcher, I want to go be a guardian, right? Like it does matter. We tend to associate players exercising their agency when they have it as being about maximizing

earnings. But you're right. Like it, it manifests in a lot of different ways. And sometimes a lower level guy will be like, I just want to go be a Dodger because I know that they can make me better. And even if it, it doesn't result in a place on this roster because it's so stacked, my ability to go out and then be good for someone else is just going to be a lot higher and it's going to redound to my benefit in pretty measurable ways. Yeah. And then the last thing I saw this tweet from Matthew Trueblood, former guest. Fun fact, there has never been an MLB contract signed for between $190 and $199 million or between $281 and $299. million or between 281 and 299. Once you get to a certain point, he said the agent will get to that milestone number. Damn it. So he's basically saying if you get close to the big round number,

no one has gotten really close to 200 or to 300 without just going all the way and topping it. without just going all the way and topping it. Like no one's almost there. No one's between 190 and 199 or between 281 and 299. There are some, I think, close to 100 just because there are many more contracts in that range. It's not as small a sample, but I think Pablo Sandoval was a 95 million. Adrian Beltre had a 96 million.

But once you get up into the rarefied air of $200, $300 million, you're not getting close. It's kind of like Fred McGriff having 493 homers. That seems rare. Often, you're going to stick around to get to that round number milestone. Early wins going to get his 300th win, no matter what it takes. He's not going to retire with $299. Sort of similar with big contracts, which we've remarked on this. I'm always kind of amused by it, like the one-upsmanship. And I never know whether it's more at the agent's behest or the players, but whether it's like Yamamoto getting $1 million more than Garrett Cole, $325 versus $324. And so often it's like, well, if you adjusted for inflation or other contracts and

everything that it wouldn't even be bigger, but just that surface number, you know, it's like, it matters to someone involved in that process. And so when you get close enough to one of these big round numbers, I guess it's just like, hey, you know, we're almost there. Why not just push it across the finish line there? Just, you know, we're almost there. Why not just push it across the finish line there? Just, you know, let's get us to 200. Don't leave me hanging here. So, if you're Blake Snell, you know, maybe he breaks this streak. He doesn't get his 240 or his 262. He's like, I'll settle for 193, you know, just give me 193. That sounds good. I think I would do this if I were a free agent making some unimaginable amount of money to me currently. I would not insist. I mean, I'd want to get as much you know what? I don't care about this number that is not meaningfully different than this other number, and I'm just doing it for ego. Yeah, give me $287 million.

That sounds good. So you would be in the market for essentially contract score-agami? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Yes. Just cross off the contract total that has never been awarded before. There you go. All right. That will do it for today. Thanks, as always, for listening. One follow-up. Last episode, we talked to Michael Mountain about his all-time tier of player value.

And the Farrell brothers came up, Wes and Rick. And I mentioned that Wes Farrell was a more valuable ballplayer than Rick. He's got double the baseball reference war, even though Rick is a Hall of Famer and Wes is not. So I made some offhand comment about I wonder whether that was awkward at the Farrell family gatherings. Well, we got a message from listener Scott who said, I got a real kick out of Ben's comment about the Farrell brothers on episode 2111. Rick and Wes Farrell are my great-great uncles. That side of the family is hopelessly addicted to baseball,

and any time we're together, it usually devolves into a lengthy remember-some-uncles. That side of the family is hopelessly addicted to baseball, and anytime we're together, it usually devolves into a lengthy remember-some-guys session. Without fail, someone will mention that Rick is in the Hall of Fame, and again, without fail, my dad or uncle will chime in that, you know, Wes was actually the better ballplayer.

I can't speak to the family conversations at the time, but as of 2024, yes, their families are still talking about how the wrong brother got the call. To which I responded, I realized after the pod that Rick got into the hall via the Veterans Committee after Wes died. So Wes never knew that his brother was a Hall of Famer. Thus, it couldn't have caused any tension. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that.

You could say, oh, Wes never got to celebrate his brother. Rick never got to impress his brother and receive the congratulations of Big Bro. On the other hand, no sibling rivalry was exacerbated here. Wes may have felt spurned and snubbed by the hall, but he didn't have to be bitter about the fact that Rick, the little brother who wasn't even as good, got the call and he didn't. Maybe it's better this way. Neither brother got much support from BBWA voters, but Wes did quite a bit better than Rick. They were on three BBWA ballots together, and Wes got about six times more votes than his future Hall of Fame brother.

Though still had a very low level of support, low single digits. But Rick was under 1%, I think. So the BBWA had the ordinal ranking of Farrell brothers, right? Though even they probably overlooked how good Wes was. I hope you won't overlook how much we need your support. This podcast is Patreon-powered, and you can support it by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already signed up

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