Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2145: Opening Daze and the 2024 Team Fun Draft

Episode Date: March 30, 2024

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Opening Day naps, a Bryce Harper pandering update, Nelson Cruz’s Mariners retirement and the one-day-contract tradition, and Yusei Kikuchi’s latest intriguing revelation, then (21:16) share some highlights and lowlights of Opening Day action, report the results of listener voting on the preseason predictions game, analyze Will Smith’s extension, […]

Let's play ball. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. It's Effectively Wild. Hello and welcome to episode 2145 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrafts presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer joined by Meg Rowley of Fan Crafts. Hello, Meg. Hello. We've both been slightly sick, maybe more than slightly in certain cases and in different ways with different symptoms, which we will spare our listeners. Oh, we sure will. But I bring that up only to say that it has been nice to have baseball for some solace. I saw your tweet about taking a baseball nap as you were convalescing. Oh, yeah.

Which is wonderful. And some people might say you're taking a baseball nap already on day one, on opening day you're taking a baseball nap. And if anyone is saying that, I don't know that anyone was, but if they did, I would defend you and I would say that is exactly how you should celebrate opening day. That is maybe the best thing about baseball, that it is perfect to nap to. Maybe not the best thing, but it's certainly one of the selling points. And when better to luxuriate in the ability to take a nap while baseball is on in the background than the first day it's back. You've been deprived of baseball napping for months at a time. I guess you could baseball nap during spring training if you want, but not all those games are televised.

You can't necessarily nap to them. So I applaud you, whether it was partly because you were recuperating or because you had just missed baseball naps for the past several months, I think it's a perfect time to take advantage of that quality of this sport that we love. Look, if someone decided they wanted to press the point of me napping on opening day, I would say the following, that I observed the terms of the social contract by not describing the symptoms I suffered in detail. And so they should observe the terms of the social contract by not describing the symptoms I suffered in detail. And so they should observe the terms of the social contract by saying, I'm so sorry you're sick. Because if you give me a hard time about it, I'm going to tell you about how I was sick.

And then you're going to come away knowing stuff about me that you don't want to know. And you know what? I didn't want to know it about myself, but I had to experience it. So here we are but yeah i uh i took a regular like bed nap at like 10 a.m my time and then i thought okay i should get up and like observe opening day make sure that you know everything's going okay at the site check in with matt and then i was like i'm gonna take a couch nap to baseball. And it was so nice. It was the highlight of an otherwise less than optimal day for old Meg.

So that's what I'll say. Yeah. That's what you look forward to when you look forward to baseball being back. Yeah. We were excited for opening day, but I wouldn't say I was wired for opening day. It's baseball. It's not like pulse pounding, heart pumping, adrenaline racing through my veins. Baseball is on. Oh, baseball is on. This soothing pastime that I love that you can always have in the background that just washes over you, that is your constant companion for months at a time. And you don't have to worry about

napping during it because it will be on tomorrow. It will be on later. It's not a sport where they play 17 weeks a year. They play over and over and over and over again, six or so days a week. And it's okay if you nap a little bit because there's plenty of baseball in stock. There's a lot of inventory here. And so I think that that is the perfect way to recognize the day. I don't know whether you saw the quote from Zach Mizell, who covers the Guardians for the Athletic, and he had an exchange with a reporter the day before opening day. I don't know if the reporter was him. He just said reporter. But reporter said, you ready for opening day? Jose Ramirez said, when is opening day?

Reporter said, tomorrow. Jose Ramirez said, whatever. Whatever, bro. Whatever, bro. And Zach said, I think that means he's ready. So I'm not saying that's how we greeted opening day with a whatever, bro, and forgetting that it was going to happen. If we forgot, it was the way Michael Bauman forgot where he thought it was a day earlier than it was. Not just that he had no idea it was coming, but that just goes to show like Jose Ramirez, you know, he's ready to go whenever.

You tell him it's opening day, he'll roll right out of bed and he'll be one of the best players in baseball. But you got to keep your pulse in check. he'll roll right out of bed and he'll be one of the best players in baseball but you gotta keep your pulse in check it's not the sort of sport where you have to like amp yourself up that can only impair your performance probably i mean i would describe my pre-opening day experience as being painfully aware of what opening day was if only because in the 12 hours immediately preceding what was technically opening day, I felt like I was racing against the clock to get some stuff done before I knew I was going to be debilitated and unable to complete any of my tasks. So I felt like I was on an episode of 24 and the thing that was about to explode was my gut. But so, you know, that was my pre-opening day experience

where it's like, how much of this staff predictions post can I get done before, you know, no one wants to see the color of my face, a shade of puce that it does not normally assume. Yeah. Boy, I don't know what it was, man, but it was not good. Yep, just stop there. Just stop there. Just stop there.

You said you weren't sharing specifics. Social contract. I'm fine with that. You know? Social contract. People have opted in to this podcast. Let's respect their choice. Yep.

So we'll talk a little bit about the baseball that we've seen so far. But I think one of the really nice things about baseball being back is all the ancillary stuff that it brings that I don't even remember to anticipate. Not just the game action, but all the stuff surrounding the game action, all the silly stuff, all the little quirky kinds of jacket that is made from seemingly cut up sections of jackets featuring every other Philly sports franchise, taking his boundless capacity to pander to Philadelphia fans in an endearing way to new heights. This is best shape of his life pandering we have here. This is almost too much. This is like if someone were to mock Bryce Harper for a way that he might consider pandering and even he might say, this is too far. People will feel pandered to.

No, he just rolled right in there with this patchwork quilt of a jacket that really looks pretty horrendous. Not that I'm a fashion plate or anything. He's much more of one than I am, but I would probably not wear this in public, but he would wear it because he's doing it for the fans. He's doing it for the brotherly love and they love him for it. Yep. I mean, I would put it this way. I am an appreciator of like ugly things. Famously, some of the hats in my cap collection are really dubious. You know, people are like, who's the target audience for some of those newer caps?

And I'm like, maybe me. But I think this is pushing the line. But I do appreciate Bryce like exploring where the edge is, right? He wants to know the real contours of the boundary, like in Annihilation. He wants to get up against it and see how far until he pushes into a place where if he's lucky, he turns into a tree. So, I appreciate that about him. It is an objectively ugly jacket, but it is a spiritually transcendent jacket. So, you know, balance in all things, I think is what we're getting to. I know he is, the way that he has responded to the word pandering suggests to me that he takes umbrage, you know, he feels like he's being insulted. And I hope he realizes, like you said, that we mean this really purely as a positive, where it's like, you know what the people want, you want to give them what they

want. And so you do it, even if it means you wear kind of an ugly jacket. I admire it. Yeah, it's taken on the mantle of sports stardom, in my opinion. Pandering does seem a little derogatory because it sort of implies insincerity, really. And I don't know that he is insincere. Maybe he is just so fully vested in his desire to ingratiate himself to fill his head, but just to entertain them, to please them, to make them feel seen that it's not even like he's grudgingly wearing this thing because he thinks it's going to get him clout, but he wants to bring a little light into the lives of Phillies fans and 76ers fans and all the other Philly franchises by wearing this jacket. I don't know that he is doing it in that conscious, calculated kind of way. I think he just so

inhabits this persona that this is him. This is his authentic self. Yeah. He has embraced where he is. He wants to be there forever. And I think it's great. And that's the sort of thing that we would not have seen probably. He's not going to debut that thing in spring training. He's going to debut that thing in spring training. He's going to save that thing for opening day. That's like an opening day jacket or opening day adjacent. And so these are the treats. These are the delights that we can savor because baseball is back.

It's not just the action that takes place on the field. And then, for example, there's Nelson Cruz retiring as a mariner. And that led to a whole lot of discussion about whether this was an appropriate choice of people being surprised that Nelson Cruz had retired as a mariner, people forgetting that Nelson Cruz had been a mariner. I reveled in analyzing Nelson Cruz's career to judge the decision that he made here and wondering whether we could come up with any comps for this. And you know what? It's a perfectly defensible decision to choose to retire as a Mariner because he did produce the most value in his career war-wise for the Mariners. I personally would not associate him first with the Mariners. I would think of him probably as a Ranger first, just because he was a Ranger for

twice as many seasons as he was a Mariner, but he wasn't peak Nelson Cruz for most of that time. He broke out later. So you probably remember him more as a Mariner or as a twin because he was even better probably for the twins for three years, a lot fewer games. So it makes sense. But I wondered, well, of the players who signed those sort of honorary ceremonial one-day contracts to retire with a certain team, that did seem like sort of a strange choice because usually I think of it being someone who wasn't with as many franchises as Nelson Cruz. And maybe they were with one team for most of their career and then they strayed toward the end. They signed with one or two other teams at the tail end of their career and then they went back to the warm embrace of the franchise everyone associates them with. Whereas Nelson Cruz played for eight different teams in the majors and kind of went year to year for a lot of them.

And so it's not as obvious a choice. It's almost like the equivalent for him of the what cap will you wear in Cooperstown decision. He probably will not have to make that decision, but he had to make this decision. So I don't know how many players in Nelson Cruz's position with that kind of career would feel so strongly attached to one team that he would want to declare his affiliation. Like Nelson Cruz, I'm a true Mariner. That's where my real allegiance lies. And also that they would then choose the team that they played for for half as long as one other team, for instance.

But he's beloved by Mariners fans, right? Yes. You would know. You are one. Yes. People in Seattle have pretty profound affection for Nelson Cruz. I think in part because he was such a— I mean, he was a very productive hitter for Seattle. He seems to have really impeccable clubhouse vibes.

I think that people both in the fan base and just around the game really appreciate like he he seems to take care of younger guys and feel that that's important and a responsibility that he has as a veteran. I know that he's a very committed philanthropist in his home city and country. And so I think that combination of things will endear you to a fan base. I mean, like, I also think that it's important to remember just how scant at times the Mariners' offense could be until that era with him and Cano and, you know, Seager doing good stuff. In his four seasons with the Mariners. Like he was a 147 WRC plus hitter.

Like that's that's good. He hit 163 home runs. So, you know, for a team that had at times just been unable to score to have this like very happy, effervescent guy who seemed like a good clubhouse presence and just routinely walloped the baseball well that was pretty cool you know that was a good fun time the one that i thought of the comp that came to my mind was jose batista who he did the one day contract retire as a blue jay yeah not long ago, because you associated him with the Blue Jays, but then he went to Atlanta and the Mets and the Phillies at the very end in that 2018 season when he was everywhere. And so it made sense for him, even though he played for as many

franchises as Nelson Cruz did, I think the same number, he was collectively below replacement level for every other franchise that he played with, whereas he was a great player and a star for the Blue Jays. So that's an obvious call, even though he was well-traveled. He had sort of a journeyman phase or phases. But if anyone out there can point me to a comp for this, I was hoping there would be some database, some record that this would be some database, some record that this would be stat blastable somehow, the one day contract,

but I don't think it is because it's not a real thing. Zach Levine wrote about this for Baseball Perspectives like 10 years ago. And it's not something where like you have to clear space on the 40 man or something. You know, like it's, it's a minor league contract. It's like a modified form of a minor league contract. There's like a special thing that they let you do. And there's like just an understanding that you will then voluntarily retire. And maybe in some cases you have already retired. And so it's not something that gets like an official transaction

log somewhere. I wish it did. There was someone on Reddit who had a post several years ago where he compiled some examples and I messaged him to ask if he had an up-to-date list. And he said, no, not really, but he might at some point. But yeah, if anyone can come up with a comp for a player like Nelson Cruz, who did the one-day contract retire with Team X thing, please let me know, because this has been consuming my attention. But again, this is the sort of thing that we would not know if baseball season was not going on, because you only do that once baseball season starts. You don't do the one-day contract and retire with the team in the dead of winter. You do it when games are going on, when you can show up at the ballpark, when there's a crowd there,

when you can have a little press conference and see other players. So these are, again, just the little treats that I wasn't even thinking to anticipate. I'm anticipating the actual games. And then we get these little wonders. And the last one in this category for me was that we learned something new and special about Yusei Kikuchi. Oh? Who became briefly famous last year when he disclosed his sleep habits. Yes. Which are essentially to sleep all the time as often as possible. Yeah.

sleep all the time as often as possible, that he's got to get his 12 to 14 hours before his start days or things could go amiss and he is routinely sleeping double-digit hours. Now we learn that he is evidently a voracious reader. And you might wonder, well, how does he have time to be a voracious reader when he is unconscious so much of the time? Well, I wonder that too. But he was asked in this interview on the Boudier's YouTube channel how many books he read last year. And he had the number, just tip of his tongue, 258 books Yusei Kikuchi read last year. Yeah, 258. Somehow he knew, I don't know whether he was prepped for this question or whether the interviewer knew that he, I don't know if he's a good reads guy or what, but he is logging the books that he reads. He says he reads like four books a week during the season and like 10 books a week during the offseason. How? How does he do it?

How does anyone do it? But how does he do it while also finding time to sleep so much and be a Major League Baseball player? And like a husband and father. There's that too. You know, like the man has responsibilities i want to be so precise and careful with how i phrase what i'm about to because like the book tracking stuff is so weirdly fraught for so many people and i don't want to sound like i'm like denigrating shorter entries or or like there there are so many kind you know— Is he reading kids' books to his kids?

Is he counting those in this total? I don't know. Because I'd probably get up that high if we could count those. I don't want to assume what his literary preferences are and his literary diet is. And I don't want to denigrate stuff that is shorter or what have you. But it is a surprisingly high number i read a lot quote unquote and you know they're just i read a book in march i read a book in march because you know what i had to do so much work you know and i just didn't have time to it

took so long and it wasn't a bad book it just like took forever so i am very curious about sort of what the breakdown of that is but also i don't know like i love reading but i'm resistant to reading as like a personality because that gets obnoxious pretty fast so it's just like a that's you know what i'll say good for you you say i'm glad you have a thing you enjoy and that it it's refilling the the like well of creativity like that's how i feel when i read i'm like oh i feel like i'm restocking the shelves i'm pouring gas in the tank you know it's helping to stimulate stuff that otherwise lies dormant as i make sure the commas are in the right place so yeah yeah good for him that's that's great i am so fascinated by the breakdown of domestic tourists in his household but again it's not really my business so fascinated by the breakdown of domestic tours in his household.

But again, it's not really my business. So it is a thing I wonder about, though. Well, it seems like the motivation for the sleeping and the reading is similar, which is that he says he's kind of consumed by thinking about baseball or he used to be. And so he found that to be deleterious to his production and perhaps his mental health. And so he is essentially either switching off or distracting himself that he has found that to be a way to cope. So it's not that he is less interested in baseball than others. It seems that maybe he is, if anything, obsessed with baseball and he is trying to quiet that part of his brain by occupying it with other things or with nothing, perhaps when he's asleep. And it's still just logistically, how does it work? Is it possible if he's not counting kids' books, is he counting audio books that he's sleeping to? Like if he starts an audio book to go to sleep

and then he wakes up 14 hours later and the book is over, does he check that one off, read that one? I don't know. But there's only so many hours in the day, you know? So that's kind of what it comes down to for me. But everything I learn about him makes me want to learn more. He's just a fascinating figure. I am fascinated. I wonder if

he realizes like how many more questions he tends to inspire with his answers because I continue to want to know just more and more about this guy, you know. Anything that particularly excited you, delighted you about opening day itself while you were napping or not? Here are some things that I liked. I very much enjoyed Mike Trout hitting a home run. Yeah. That was nice. Not a whole lot else went well for the Angels that day. No.

That's probably going to be a familiar sight. Yeah. You know, they were the only game on for the first like hour. And then I, you know, I flipped over to other stuff and then I went to check back in. I was like, oh, dear, this got out of hand or really very fast. But I did enjoy what of Burns I saw. So that's fun for the Orioles. Good job. I enjoy just all of that Cubs Rangers game. I know it had controversy, but that was cool. It's always nice to see a guy have a good debut. boy did Wyatt Langford have one so there's that I quite enjoyed watching Scooble pitch because he's very good and it's a lot of fun to watch Tigers games with Benetti in the booth so that was a nice treat yeah the the AL Central stud pitchers who were the best in baseball for the last two to three months of last season, they delivered right out of the gate. Stupel and Riggins, they looked the part.

Yeah, I didn't see any of Riggins start, but I believe you. And it's not hard to because I think he's good, even if we'll have to see how good relative to what he did last year. One inning that the Diamondbacks had was like a fever dream, but I am given to understand that that was in fact real baseball that counted, which is shocking because I was like, this is still happening. You know, it's like, again, I was sort of in and out. And then I woke up and they were still playing the bottom of the third. 14 run inning with no homers.

No homers. 14 run inning with no homers. That is absolutely just the Bugs Bunny just revolving around the bases Congo line. And, you know, we did the Rockies preview earlier this week, so I feel like I was prepared for that eventuality. When I heard that that happened, I was not watching live. I was like, okay, well, we were prepared for that to be the sort of team that would allow that to happen to it. Yeah, it was sure something. And, you know, those kinds of innings are always interesting, not only for the offensive beats, but you get to a point where, you know, you're still watching, in this case, the D-backs, hitters on the field, and you're like, at what point are they just out there too long for Zach Allen to, like, go back to the mound?

You know, know like he had like a 35 minute layoff i know he said after the fact that he had to go play catch to stay loose but yes i i enjoyed that i need someone to confirm this to me because um again not totally in my right mind yesterday but it does feel like they've upgraded the lights at chase um because the broadcast was so bright. It was just such a bright. I was like, wow, I can see really well. At times last year, the broadcast was not bright enough.

I know it was remarked upon a bunch in the postseason. I didn't enjoy the Mariners-Red Sox game, but Ben, we got to talk about these salmon. We got an email about this. We did. about these salmon. You know, we got an email about this. And I want everyone to know the sound I made when I saw it on the broadcast was one of pure delight. So, you know, like a lot of teams have these races, right? They have like, you know, like the pierogies race. They're pierogies, right? They're supposed to be pierogies. Yeah. Pierogies in Pittsburgh, hot dogs in Cleveland. And like the sausages famously in milwaukee and the presidents

in dc and like we have the legends race here in arizona where you have like franchise legends who race and i continue to think they have to get a new guy to run as randy johnson because randy doesn't win very often and that's weird you should you should make it so randy wins more what are what is that anyway i just have opinions on stuff. And so the Mariners now have a version of this. They are doing a salmon run and they have different salmon and they are dressed up in funny little outfits. And the costumes are fantastic, as an aside, like really strong. And one of the salmon is called Humphy.

Humphy. And, you know, I don't want to be self-focused you know I don't want to assume that I'm anybody's main character when I'm not but I do feel like this was designed specifically for me like I am the target audience for this and I I can only ask in a voice that says please have it be someone other than fanatics where where is my humpy merch you know i'm ready i'm ready for the humpy t-shirt um it's supposed to be a humpback or pink salmon and i guess fishermen call them humpies look just to continue to dunk on the rockies out of the pure blue nowhere this would would get undone by the Rockies in an instant, as we saw with the Grand Junction Chubs. But I imagine that the brain trust in Seattle sat around a table and someone was like, you know that people are going to make jokes about this. And the person

who came up with it was like, yeah, sure do. And then greenlit it. And I think that person should get a raise. Yeah, it's clever. Salmon run. I love it. Salmon run. And they're cool. The costumes are cool. They look really... I am impressed.

I would like it if the Mariners would score a couple more runs. But here we are. Humpy. Humpy. You guys. Brilliant. Incredible. They are great. One of them is a king salmon. One of them has a septum piercing in Major League Baseball in full swing here.

This is not a first. We've talked about this. I've written about this on recent opening days now that we have the prospect promotion incentives. Not everyone is taking advantage of those incentives, but many teams seem to be. And also just generally, it seems like the aging curves have changed a little bit. Player development has improved. Players are arriving more capable than they used to be and perhaps aging faster. So you might as well get things started. I wrote, I forget which year it was, but one of the recent seasons about how there was a record number of top-rated prospects on opening day rosters. And really, a pretty impressive group again this week. Just the people that made rosters, even with your Jackson Holidays and some others who could have been candidates not on rosters just to see the rangers guys i've granted we've seen carter before but langford now the jacksons jared jones in the pirates rotation now

the cardinals have not just mason win but also victor scott filling in for some injured players. You've got Brian Rocchio with the Guardians. There's just so many 20 to 23-ish players who are great and are here and are getting these gigs and we'll see Skeens at some point. We'll see Holiday at some point. But just drink it in like new cast of characters. You know, new season starts, you introduce new characters, and these are compelling characters. I didn't even mention Zidane Raffaella with the Red Sox.

You know how, I don't know if you have this, but there are certain players whose names you just associate with something. There are certain players whose names you just associate with something, and then every time you see their name, you think of that thing, and it's often something sort of silly. Like, Llewyn Diaz, I saw a headline about Llewyn Diaz of the Nationals the other day. The Nationals released him, so I guess he's no longer of the Nationals. But any time I see Llewyn Diaz, I think inside Llewyn Davis, and then I think inside Llewyn Diaz, I think inside Llewyn Davis. And then I think 100% inside Llewyn Diaz. I'll just never like Llewyn Diaz could play for 10 more years.

And I will still be thinking about that. And now with Sedan Rafaela, I think of this Neil Young song on Rust Never Sleeps called Sedan Delivery. Even though you don't pronounce his name that way. But the first time I saw his name, you don't pronounce his name that way. But the first time I saw his name, I wasn't sure how you pronounce it. And so I said in my head, Sedan, and then I thought of a song with Sedan in the title. And now I just think of that every time. And probably he's like 23 years old. So I've only got like 15 more years maybe of making that association every time I see him. Maybe if he

ascends to superstar status, that won't be the first thing I think about. Maybe Llewyn Diaz has never transcended the inside Llewyn Davis comp in my mind because I haven't had that many occasions to think of him. So maybe Raffaella will be a little bit better than just being relegated to the sedan delivery comp in my mind for the rest of our natural lives. But these things happen. But beyond that, it's just exciting to see all these guys show up. Yeah. And opening day, granted, like, you could watch them in spring training.

But this time it counts. And so, especially if you're not a big prospect person like me, you know, if you're you even, like you've seen a ton of these people play probably at future games in the AFL, etc. To me, they're mostly names and stat lines and occasional highlights. And that's fine. I'm okay with that. It's hard enough for me to keep track of everything that's going on in the big leagues without needing to know substantive information about most of the minor leaguers. I'm perpetually in awe of Eric Langenhagen and his command of intimate details on thousands and thousands and thousands of professional and amateur baseball players at any given time. given time. But for me, it's enough that when they arrive, I know something about them. And then it's like, oh, I've heard tell of this character and here he is. And now I get to see him in all his glory. And so opening day is the time when you get to see them all at once and they just sweep over

you and it's wonderful. Yeah. I feel bad that I don't remember whose tweet this is, but your inside Lynn Davis thing is making me think of this. I saw someone tweet, you can tell when someone read a lot as a kid because they know a lot of words and don't know how half of them are pronounced. That happens to me all the time. I don't know what you're saying, this word, though. I know what it means. I could half spell it, but I can't possibly tell you how it's said. Can I share a couple more things that I liked? And then we should do some that I didn't like.

We should do some. We need some lowlights just for balance. Really enjoyed Juan Soto's throw to keep a run off the board. How fun was that? Probably less fun for Astros fans. Sorry, but it was fun. I saw people critiqu off the board. How fun was that? Probably less fun for Astros fans, sorry, but it was fun. I saw people critiquing the throw. Like, okay, it wasn't an 80 throw.

It wasn't the greatest throw I've ever seen. It's not Ichiro's laser to third base or Willie Mays turning and throwing after the behind-his-back basket catch. It's not Yohannes Cespedes down the line.

It was fairly shallow. And the throw was, I guess, a little offline, though not too offline. It was good enough. But it's Juan Soto. You don't expect his first big signature Yankees moment to be a defensive highlight. Yes. That is not his strength. But it seems like he's worked on it. And he's trying to.

We mentioned in spring training, he was diving for balls in spring training. That's when I first had the inkling like, oh, he's going after it out there. I don't know if he's going to get it, but he's going after it. And he did on opening day. And so the timing of it, the leverage, obviously, that was what made it special. And it's his debut game in pinstripes, or I guess not in pinstripes because they were on the road. But, you know, figuratively speaking. So the circumstances made it special, even if the throw in isolation wasn't breathtaking, right?

It was the play and the player and the timing. The combination of those things, the fact that it was, as you mentioned, sort of an unexpected way for him to notch his first big Yankees highlight, I really enjoyed. We can't call him like a sleeper breakout pick. He broke out last year. He had an incredible like scorching postseason. But I am just like really here for Adoles Garcia superstar. And I feel like, you know, there was the tank of a home run that he hit, and good God. But also, he's just like rapidly becoming one of my very favorite players to watch play in the outfield. And this is not like—I'm not breaking news, right? I'm not really issuing a take.

Like, he rates well as a defender, but like he's just so good out there in his arm. So I'm here for Adoles Garcia, and he is going to allow me to transition to a low light. Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready. Okay. There was a lot of talk about uniforms in spring training, Ben. There was a lot of talk about the pants. There was a lot of talk about how chintzy the whole nameplate thing looked.

They are worse in a big league ballpark. It is more noticeable under the bright lights. Yeah. Ent entry number one i could just see the the nike swoosh on adolos garcia's underwear i could just see it through his pants in the batter's box i could see the tag and then i could on his unit on his jersey top and then i could see this it was like clear as day okay so's that. There's the fact that they do look so chintzy under the big bright lights. You know, the tiny, teeny, tiny letters. They're so you're squinting to see them.

They're so far away. And you're in a context that demands a stepping up, you know. And instead, they look like a beer league softball uniform. Someone pointed out to me that the ads on the uniforms make it worse because it makes it really look like a giveaway, right? Like, you know, here, enjoy your D-backs giveaway for the first 10,000 fans, courtesy of Avnet. I don't know what Avnet is. That's a separate question for a different podcast and like at least the yankees road grays have what i have come to refer to affectionately over the years as the cowboys butt problem where boy did they sweat through those fast and it's just like sweaty they're so sweaty and it's you know it's more

noticeable when it's the the cowboys uniforms and they get the sweaty butts, especially the offensive linemen. And then you're like, well, you're really sweating in your butt. So it's like, yeah, Judge is a big strapping guy. He's working hard out there. But sweat, just sweat, clean through. And I want to allow, I want to allow, Ben, for the possibility that they were hot and they maybe dumped a cup of water on their head. for the possibility that like they were hot and they maybe dumped a cup of water on their head and that that gave the illusion of perspiring where there was regular perspiring and a regular amount of it showing through a jersey top but i suspect that part of this is the new performance

tech and i just think that look we spent two weeks being worried that a generational superstar had maybe bet on baseball right and we're still maybe worried about that but but we should not let that distract us from the original fun scandal of this year which is that i can see through edulis garcia's drawers and i do not think that these men who are in great shape should look like they're sweating that much there is a travesty that something has to be done they look so bad in big league ballparks it's it's so bad it's so bad and like the the Mariners home whites you're just seeing so much of them in the lower half and I I was like, oh, I'm going to forget. It's going to look different on TV.

It's going to look different under the ballpark lights, you know, when they're not in the harsh Arizona. No, it's still bad. And I still notice. Something has to be done. I feel dizzy. It's one thing when you get sweaty umpire crotch, which is another subject that has come up on the pod. Yeah. But, yeah, there maybe it's something you expect.

There's a lot of bending going on. There's a lot of surfaces pressing together. You got crotch, lap contact, and, you know, that's going to come for all of us. That's a human problem, you know. I'm not trying to be mean to the umps. That's like just a human condition that we all deal with, you know. Right. All of us.

It's not always this is what the ideal male body peak performance looks like when you're talking about an umpire. When you're talking about a Dolly scarcia maybe it is and so yes i would agree with you that we should uh respect their privacy by making by obscuring their sweat being able to maybe see their privates yes and that too yeah that's a fair little light from you i think that is a fair quibble and critique i just you know i think that they counted on us like forgetting or it you know oh it's on tv and we're all so excited no no you still have a problem it's still a problem and i think that i didn't make it one of my bold predictions because it doesn't feel bold but i still maintain that we are going to, parents out there, do a mild swear, see a big league dick before the year's over.

I'm sorry. Like, they just don't seem like they're high quality. They seem chintzy, you know? Well, Bowman did bet that that would happen. So he will be vindicated. By the way, we have the results. The results are in from our preseason bold predictions pod earlier this week. We got upwards of 1,200 votes despite the tight turnaround. Yeah,

more than last year, more than the goal. We hit our stretch goal, I guess, of getting even more responses than we had set as a target. So thanks to everyone who weighed in and Chris Hannell, who orchestrated this whole shindig. He has tweeted out the results for all the predictions. If you're interested in looking, they've already been retweeted from the Effectively Wild Twitter account, and I will link to them on the show page so you can see all the details. And your Jordan Montgomery prediction, I believe you were bailed out by the fact that he did not officially sign until the day after opening day, presumably for qualifying offer purposes. So technically speaking, I want to point out that I did not lobby on this question.

I did not ask for a reprieve. I would have accepted either results. I do need to engage in some self-reflection about why it seems to be my predictions that always require further post-ballot scrutiny. This is not consistent with my broader values, but yes, I apparently have been granted it. What a, got to say, you know, we gave Scott Boris a lot of business. We gave him the business this offseason. And as you know, like he deserves some business. He deserved to be given a little. Hey, buddy, you misjudged a couple of big markets here in a way that bears some scrutiny. But I do feel like the smaller procedural things he gets

right. And as many have noted, the fact that Montgomery's contract did not get done until after opening day means that he is, by definition, not eligible for the qualifying offer this year. Look, if you're going to not sign until the eve of opening day, you might as well make it the day after opening day and not compromise your position for your following free agency. So at that point, what do you have to lose really? He's already ramping up presumably to make his debut as soon as he can. So the predictions, the average response. So again, we changed the method that listeners assess these. Last year was a simple binary where listeners just voted yes or no will

come true or won't come true. And this year, it was more sensitive. There was a sliding scale. You could have the exact percentage likelihood that you thought it would come true. And last year, the average vote across all the predictions was 28.8%, just the percentage of yeses instead of nos. This year, the average score across all predictions, the average likelihood was 37.8%. And last year was pretty much bang on because it was like 28.8% was the figure. And then I think 27.5% of the predictions actually came true. So the crowd was well calibrated. This year, I don't know whether our predictions were less daring or whether the fact that the listeners could select actual percentages instead of just saying yes, no inflated the numbers slightly. But 37.8% I think is too high just across the board.

And I guess this is a problem with humans inherently judging the likelihood of low probability events. Maybe we're more likely to think that they're likelier than they are. And also maybe it's just, it's in the spirit of the game. We want these things to come true. It's more fun to say, yeah, this could happen than to say no, no chance. So maybe it's those things kind of conspiring together. But even the least likely predictions as judged by the audience, I think the least likely was Ben Clemens' Someone Will Hit 70 Homers. And then your Jackson Jobe Will Throw a Major League No-Hitter. And the percentages of those were nine and 10, respectively. I don't think there's any way that those are

actually one in 10 shots. Those are pretty far-fetched. Those are fairly long shots. And those were deemed the least likely. So just saying across the board, I think there's a little inflation going on. Yeah. But maybe it's all in good fun. We're all having fun here. Yeah.

It felt like it was all like directionally true, right? Yeah. it was all like directionally true right like people had a a good sense of the relative rarity um of these events but maybe not their their actual absolute rarity but i feel like i succeeded in my goal which was to just pick a bunch of outlandish stuff yeah and hope that some of it sticks you know because if it does i feel like my payoff's gonna be big i still don't know if I totally understand the right way to run this game, but I'm going to try some different stuff. We're going to see how it goes. Well, I think it worked because you were concerned that you had not been bold and daring enough the first time around. Yes.

Yeah. So you wanted to be way out there this time, relatively speaking. And you were, as judged by the listeners, your picks were deemed the boldest, actually, on average. And Bauman's, you think he's bringing the wacky, out-there, off-the-wall energy. His were actually deemed least bold. So he got more chalky, more conventional, and you got more daring. And then the two Ben's were basically as daring as we were last year.

We didn't deviate a whole lot, but interesting results. We got a ton of data and you can see some of it. And of course, Chris will keep us posted on these things as the season wears on and we will revisit them toward the end of the season. It gives us something to follow, something to root for. This is a nice, consistent storyline for us to talk about all season long, all year long on the podcast. I'm glad we do these things now. Yeah, I think it's fun. I do think that the fact that I agreed to a draft right before the season starts at a time when I arguably do not have time to prepare for it is maybe not the best judgment I've ever seen, but I think it's a lot of fun for people. So here we'll go. Yeah.

Well, I guess that's a good segue to our draft today. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, like, I famously am averse to predictions, but this kind of prediction I can get behind. It's the – Yeah. the, like, it's not supposed to be accurate. Right. It's silly. I object to presenting myself as some sort of soothsayer.

I don't think I have any special ability to predict baseball. If you, I mean, granted, I can look at the playoff odds and maybe I can bring some additional insight to them, but it's just as likely that whatever I think is additional insight will actually harm the projections, that my subjectivity will bias the predictions in not a positive way. So if you were to just say, who do you trust more, Ben Lindbergh's projections or the projection systems? I would say the projection systems. And I might even say the projection systems if you give me the benefit of being able to consult the projection systems. So if you're just asking me to predict the playoff winners or the playoff teams or the World Series winners or whatever it is, I'm not going to be good at that, you know? And yet part of me objects to not taking that exercise sincerely and turning that kind of conventional prediction exercise into a wacky one.

But if we start from the premise that this is going to be weird and wacky and that we're predicting things that we acknowledge are not likely to come true, well, then I can embrace the exercise. Then I can get into the spirit of the thing. So this sort of prediction game, this is fun for me. This is not a chore. This does not go against my principles. I love it. We should have done it sooner. Yeah. To be clear, it's a very fun exercise. But the thing about it that makes it at times tricky for me this time of year is that it does require you know prep in a way that is yeah more direct and in advance than like the draft we're about to do where i'm just gonna wing it on the fly if i absolutely had to which isn't to suggest that i did that at all i will suggest that i'm about to do that right yeah like but if one needed to say because and again not in

violation of the social contract you had a rough 24 hours, you could do that. Whereas with the bold prediction draft, like it requires some prep and calibration. You have to think about like what is truly bold, what is, you know, bold but still, you know, potentially plausible. It does require a little bit of work, but it is great fun. And not only because you get to hear Michael Bauman come on your podcast and say, Gooch. Yep. I think I'm transferring my Mr. Chalk nickname that Bauman bestowed on me back to Bauman now that his picks are the most likely to come.

Yes, he will. He's going to be upset by that. I'm going to inform him that I did that just in case he doesn't listen to this. I want him to know that I said that for everyone to hear. Okay. Game of Thrones-ing it over here. Oh, and there was one bit of news that even though we delayed our Dodgers season preview until literally their season had already started. Yes. started and everyone else's season was about to start, we still somehow missed major Dodgers

news, which is that the Dodgers signed Will Smith to a 10-year extension. Oh, yeah. They did do that. Yeah. I got a message from our preview guest, Fabian Ardaia, to be like, we waited until the last possible second and they still made major news even after we talked. To which I said, maybe we should just scrap the previews and do a season review series instead. Oh, yeah.

Maybe. Just with the benefit of hindsight. Or we could do both. We could go from season preview and then roll right into season review. Like we'll just be previewing and reviewing for a full third of the year. We'll never have to think of a topic again. It'll be great. Get out of here.

Not a serious suggestion. We would tax so many people's patience with that. Like all of our guests would be like, I cannot talk to you guys again. You ask so many questions when I come on. No. Well, we would only have them back for the review if they were accurate in their preview.

If not, then they would be punished by not being invited back. Although actually that might be doing them a favor. Maybe it would be punishment to invite them back for yet another extremely long segment. You really want there to be stakes. You want there to be stakes. Yeah. Anyway, I guess this is the biggest catcher extension, not catcher contract, but it's big and yet not that big at the same time. When I initially saw it, I questioned, I wondered why this happened. Ten-year extension, it runs through 2033.

I mean, this is almost a Braves-style extension. It's a $140 million guarantee, no opt-outs, but heavily deferred because it's the Dodgers. So there's like $50 million or something deferred here. And there's a $30 million signing bonus. But the annual salaries after that are quite low, like $13 million from 25 to 27 and then $9.5 million from 20 to 32, and $10 million in the last year. Then the deferrals get paid out at $5 million annually from 2034 to 2043. And so there's a pretty low competitive balance tax hit, only $12.2 million. And it's really, I guess, And it's really, I guess, nine years in new years and new money because he already had his contract for this season locked in.

But it seemed like a long time to commit to a catcher and a 29-year-old catcher. I guess this was on his birthday he signed this deal. Happy birthday, Will Smith. Oh, yeah. And so I thought, gosh, well, you can't really count on a 39-year-old to be catching. And also, did they have to do this? Because he's not a free agent until after the 2025 here, I don't know how much the last few years of this contract matter. This may be kind of attacking on years to lower the tax hit sort of situation, which was like what people thought maybe was happening with Otani but wasn't really what was happening with Otani. But in this case, maybe kind of is. Seems like it's really what was happening with Otani. But in this case, maybe kind of is. Seems like it's really what's happening, maybe. Yeah.

And like they seem to want to continue to be in business with each other and they've been talking extension for a while. But yeah, this is not like this deal will be a failure if Will Smith is not still the starting catcher for the Dodgers at age 39 in some future year that doesn't seem real. Like this is pretty reasonable terms and he's one of the best catchers in baseball and they're the Dodgers.

So why not, I guess? I do wonder, and I don't really pose this question even necessarily as a criticism, although I know it's going to sound that way, but I do wonder at a certain point if the league office is going to be like, so hey, like we know what you're up to here. Yeah, this one, yeah.

It seems like these are some of these pretty blatant tax dodges. And look, first of all, their name is the Dodgers, so what did you expect, honestly? And second of all, I don't know that I really care because players get paid, even if I think that sometimes they'd be better served taking deals that had more present value. And they all seem to want to be there.

And you're putting together a really good team. And, like, I think that if tax dodges are this easy, it's like, why are other teams doing the tax dodges? But it does make me wonder if at some point the commissioner is going to be like, so look, we let a couple of these go, but the intent here is pretty obvious. So we got to knock it off a little bit. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Well, our draft today is the same draft we did on our opening day celebration pod last year.

So I guess this qualifies as a tradition. We're doing the team fun draft. This is, I think, the fourth time that we've done a Team Fun Draft. The second time we've done it on our immediate post-opening day pod, though it's always an early season pod. And it is just what it sounds like.

We're just drafting teams in order of how fun they are to watch this season. So on opening day, pretty much every team is fun to watch for one game for one day when you haven't seen them for several months. Unless, I guess, they're the Rockies and the game goes the way that the Rockies game goes. But will they remain fun for the long haul? Will they still be fun after 162?

That's what we're doing here. And the criteria are completely subjective. And I think we are both winging it. I don't even have a draft board here. I'm going by vibes because that's what this draft is. fun based on watching them, based on the storylines, based on the characters, based on the talent, based on the narrative surrounding the team, based on how their offseason went, based on whatever we want it to be based on, based on the ballpark, based on the broadcasters. We can define what makes them fun, but that's what we're doing. Okay. Yeah. That is what we're doing. We're Yeah. That is, that is what we're doing. We're doing a vibes. We're doing a vibes draft.

We love to draft vibes. Yeah. And I will say, I think this season is fun. Like there are storylines I'm interested in and we'll of course talk about them. When I was asked by someone like, well,

what are you looking forward to about the season? I was hard pressed to come up with particular storylines that were super salient, like last year when it was, oh, the rules changes, major rules changes. Not quite as psyched about trimming two more seconds off the pitch clock or enforcing an obstruction rule that was already on the books or widening the runner's lane to first base or, you know, we're down from five mound visits to four. That's what I'm looking forward to. So there aren't as many of those sorts of storylines, but I am intrigued by the fact

that almost everyone is in it right now. And that is what you want. And there is this persistent perception that baseball's competitive balance isn't good, which I think is driven probably by the payroll disparities. And the payroll disparities are large and arguably growing larger. And obviously they're larger than they are in other sports where they have salary caps. But that does not mean that competitive balance is worse or better in those other sports. And that is certainly not the case. And it's not purely even just because the playoff system in baseball is kind of a natural guardrail

against buying a championship. You can't even necessarily buy a playoff appearance, as we learned last year. It helps. It certainly helps, but it is far from a guarantee. And as I was making my more conventional picks this year, which I was forced to do, I really thought I was going to get out of it this year, but I didn't quite. So I had to pick my playoff teams and I've never had a harder time doing it than I had this year. I had a hard time too. Yeah. And again, like I don't put much stock in it because I don't think I'm good at it. And so like, I don't feel like my reputation and self-esteem is tied up in this. And I'm probably gonna forget very quickly

which teams I picked and not really return to it and won't be kicking myself if I'm wrong. I expect to be wrong. But there is just, as I said the other day, like this vast, mediocre middle, this amorphous mass of major league teams that are just kind of everyone between the Dodgers and Braves at the top and maybe the Rockies, A's, Nationals at the bottom. Yep. else is like kind of in this narrow band of like yeah yeah i don't know i guess i guess they could be good they're not great but they're they're in it oh and i should include the white socks in that

group of out of it right there are i think four teams that you could say are really out of it at this point yeah i think when i counted for the power ranking summary, we had 17 clubs forecast for between 80 and 90 wins this year. Preseason predictions stemmed from this because I predicted that there would be a three or more team tie that in the past would have required a tiebreaker because these teams are so close together. And I had those numbers in our ringer staff predictions post, too, because there were four teams. There are four teams that have below double digit playoff odds on opening day, and they're all very low single-digit. The four teams that I mentioned, the A's, White Sox, Nationals, and Rockies, everyone else has a real chance. Even if it's sort of a remote chance, it's more than a 10% chance. And most seasons, you absolutely cannot say that. There are many more teams that are, for all intents and purposes, out of it when the season starts. And four teams, I mean, I broke down the numbers in our predictions post here. There's nothing like that in the however many years it is since 2016 that you can easily access the past year's playoff odds on fan crafts. Although more common lately.

Yeah, like last year was seven and then it was like 10, 10, 10, 9. 2018 was the year when it was like the super team era and 13 teams had single digit playoff odds on opening day and and part of this of course is the expansion of the playoff field right you know more teams get in and thus more teams have a chance to get in but it's not just that because 2022 we had 12 team playoffs and there were still 10 teams on opening day with single-digit odds. And in fact, I looked, even in 2020, even after the season was shortened to 60 games and the playoffs were expanded to 16 teams, which was ridiculous. That happened. I remind myself sometimes. There were still, even in a small sample season where more than half the teams made it, there were six teams on that opening day with single-digit playoff huts.

So half as many this year in a regular full-length season with only 12 team playoffs. So Bud Selig always used to talk about how the goal was to have every team have hope and faith on opening day. And all but that quartet I mentioned, they can have hope and faith.

They can't have confidence necessarily. No one can feel confident. These teams are kind of almost indistinguishable from each other. And so it's going to come down to randomness and injuries and sneaking in some signing under the wire. There's just no way to predict this accurately. But I think it is exciting. It comes down to what makes for an exciting race. Is it how good the pace setters are and how spectacular and superlative they are? Or is it

how close are the other competitors to each other? And I could hear an argument for either. I'm entertained by super teams too, but I think when everyone's in it and stands a good chance to remain in it until late in the season i think that's a good thing i agree we've talked a lot about the the payroll part of this so i don't think we need to belabor that point it does concern me pretty greatly and i think the general trend toward teams being um well let me be specific team ownership being content with their revenue picture regardless of the the quality of the play on the field provided it's not like a's level terrible though sometimes you just get a new ballpark in a new city when you're a's level terrible but you know i find that pretty concerning for the long-term trajectory of the sport and i

want teams to spend when they need to so they can play good baseball it's at it's set but i do kind of like it when we have like a super team or two that is really obviously very good and not just good because you know you have teams at the bottom that are bad that that team gets to beat up on oh there, there is some of that at play here. You know, like I do think that an unspoken or underappreciated part of the like last couple years of us having so many hundred win plus teams has been that they have like really crummy competition that they get to beat up on for a couple of games a year.

And so we should like remember that this is not just an expression of like excellent talent, but I think you'd be hard pressed to look at the Dodgers and the Braves and be like, they're not excellent. Like those are excellent baseball teams and they employ very good baseball players and they have spent a lot of money to do so. Right.

So like, I think it's good for us to have some of those, but I think it's good when you only have a couple, you know, cause I do like other clubs having to scrap and there being room for a team that is, you know, that we look at preseason and think, eh, like they're good, but they're maybe not great. Having a guy like take a step forward or having a prospect emerge who ends up being a real difference maker and suddenly catapults them into a different sort of, you know, part of the stratosphere. So out of the stratosphere, into the stratosphere, they're catapulted, but in a way that's good. So, you know, I tend to agree even as I remain

nervous about some of the underlying trends that are maybe moving clubs around on the wind curve. So yeah, I think I generally agree with you. I think part of it is an easily anticipated and forecasted consequence of this expanded playoff field. This is something people were talking about when it was being discussed and when it was put into practice, which is that the incentives are to be decent, to be good enough to get in and not necessarily better than that because getting more wins, spending more on talent. Does it help you in the playoffs? Yeah, it should in theory, but how much does it help you? It is still largely going to be governed by randomness. And so perhaps some of those teams that might've said, let's go get that extra free agent to really seal

the deal here are deciding to sit on their hands and saying, you know what? We did enough. We're good enough to get in. And after that, it's up to fate and chance and who's hot and who's not. And so I guess that's bad in the sense that it might mean that some free agents languish on the market until the eve of opening day because some teams that might have signed them in the past said, eh, we did enough to clear the bar to get into the playoffs. The silver lining, though, is that there really, really are a lot of teams that have a chance, at least, and can sell their fans on

we could be contenders here without necessarily having to rely on a fiction. So pluses and minuses, but I think that's probably what's shaping that to some extent. But that's just to say, I think the baseline fun level is pretty high here as we draft these teams. So keep that in mind that there's a lot of fun to be had. All right. Shall we draft? Let's draft. I don't know or care about the draft order. Oh, you pick.

I don't want to pick. I feel like I'm having to submit so many things to review as a result of my draft picks that I worry people think I'm trying to game the system somehow. You know, this very precise system that we have here. Yeah, yeah. Well, okay. I mean, look, we just said that there are essentially two super teams this year. I assumed that they would be the first two off the board. I don't know if one is really a preferable pick here.

They've both won World Series recently. They've both been good for a while. So there isn't some sort of underdog surprise team angle to this. So I guess I'll go with the Dodgers just because, and I could certainly see some people saying not fun at all. The Dodgers just bought all the superstars. They just signed all the big free agents. That's not fun.

For some teams who hoped to win some of those players themselves. That is extremely unfun. But for someone who doesn't really have a rooting interest, I think it's going to be fun to watch that collection of players on the field at the same time all season long. sue me. Maybe I shouldn't even mention being sued or prosecuted in connection with Otani at this point. But I drafted the Angels high when Trout and Otani were Angels. Every year I would take the Angels fairly high because, look, I enjoyed watching Trout and Otani and there they were on the same team with their powers combined. That was fun for me, even though the team was bad. I did, I think, explicitly acknowledge last year that if Otani did not return to the Angels this year, their placement in the team fun draft would plummet. And I anticipate that that is exactly what will happen. So it was not loyalty to the Angels, and it is certainly not loyalty to L.A. area teams. And it's not in this case even specifically loyalty to Otani.

It's more about just the collection of talent. In fact, Otani will be less fun this year, not just because of the gambling stuff that's going on, but because he's not a two-way player. At least unless he somehow makes a miraculous comeback or becomes a defensive player at the end of the season, which would be fun. But as a DH, he's as fun as you can be for a DH, but that's not as his fun ceiling is considerably lower than it was when he was a full-time two-way player. But that top of the order is just going to be dynamite. We've already seen it's been just unstoppable so far and probably will continue to be. And the pitching staff is full of talent too.

And the bullpen is great. It's just top to bottom. It's a pretty darn strong team. And I want to watch Mookie Betts at shortstop all year. Like, will that work? How well will that work? Will he just look like he's been playing shortstop his whole life by the end of the season? Or will there

be growing pains that linger? Just lots of interesting storylines here. So yeah, Dodgers. Yeah, and as long as he stops running into outs on the base pads, it's going on, shall we? Get it together, guy. A little over-eager. Yeah, very excited to prove he can go fast.

Okay, well, I am in a move that will be thoroughly unsurprising taking the Atlanta Braves. Because the only thing I am resenting about having to record today is the fact that we are missing out on this start. He's throwing it. The Strider is throwing against the Phillies. So, they're really good. They got a lot of goodies. So they're really good. They got a lot of good players, and they're really fun to watch. And, you know, there you go. What more do you say about them other than they're great?

And I can't believe that so many of them are on the same team and for so long. You know, it's pretty remarkable. Well, one thing you could say, I think, is that when you watch the Braves, you know you're going to get the varsity squad because those guys play every damn day. Every day. Yeah, they play every day. It's really remarkable. They are the exception.

Yeah, it's the trend toward load management, volume management. They are uninterested in that. They could not care less about that. And partly, I guess, it's a product of the makeup of their team, the fact that their first stringers are so good and they don't have a whole lot of depth.

The only way that things could really go wrong for Atlanta is if a few of their really good guys go down, it's a steep drop-off to the next tier. They don't have like a B squad of superstars waiting in the wings and they've had fairly good luck at least with the position players health-wise recently. So do they wear down? Does that take a toll? I don't know, but I love how out of step they are with that trend, you know? And so not that it's gotten to the level of the NBA before they really cracked down on the load management where it was like, you couldn't buy a ticket with any kind of confidence that you were actually going to get to see the players that you were really going to see.

But with Atlanta, like you pretty much know who you get. Like it's going to be Matt Olsen, 162 games a year, you know, unless something happens, like he's not just going to get a day and maybe you should, like there's a method to that madness. Like Russell Carlton just wrote about it the other day at BP. Like there is a perceptible improvement when players take a day off and

presumably come back feeling a little fresher. Like it makes some sense, but yeah, not only do they have the star studded lineup, but they are running that star studded lineup out there every darn day. So they're always going to give you what you want. It's, it's kind of, I was thinking it's like sort of analogous to when people say the season itself is too long. And personally, I don't mind. But, you know, when people say, oh, what if you just trim back to what it used to be, 154, let's say, or even fewer, if you could make the money work, if you could make up the revenue schedule and you decrease the supply and it increases the demand on a per game level and it increases the stakes of every game if there are fewer games. And so maybe more people will tune in.

Maybe more people will come to the park. Maybe you'll make up that expense that you're losing or you'll save some costs or whatever. But that's sort of the idea of people who think it would behoove baseball to shorten the season. And that's, I guess, sort of what people are saying when teams are resting their regulars. It's like, yeah, you're getting less of the regulars, but they'll be better when they do play and it will all even out, at least in theory, in the end. I don't know if it would even out with the Braves because, again, it's a big step down

from your top-tier guys to your second-tier. But, yeah, we'll see. Because that group is together for so long. If Snicker continues to manage that group and they grow old along with him, we'll see if he adjusts his strategy at some point. Will they make concessions to age with these guys as they get a little more mileage and wear and tear on them? Or will they just be Iron Men forever?

So that's an interesting storyline to monitor. It was fun when I was editing the positional power rankings because the depth charts behind all of these guys were like, you know, Matt Olson, and then like 10 plate appearances to someone else. And I was like, great, this is less for me to edit. Don't know if this is a sound strategy from a roster construction perspective, but we're going to go with it. Oh, Brandon Parsons and Obrun of Spencer Strider.

Sorry for spoiling the outcome of this game potentially several hours in the past. Man, like Spencer Strider's pants are painted on. Lordy. Man's got some quads. He got quads he'd like sorry but like as a brief aside and then i'll let you make another pick um we already made a brief aside about adoliz garcia earlier yeah like that was about his briefs though yeah it was it was literally

a brief aside it was literally a brief aside um spencer strider i think can pull off this level of tight is the most um like a neutral way i can describe that i think it might be time for rappy ray to rethink some things because it's like you know these pants and i continue to worry for it yeah i continue to worry about everyone's digestion just yeah you know it's top of mind for me in this particular maybe but yeah it's like you're wearing Spanx out there. None of you had to be constricted office work girlies, but, like, that was a bad era for everyone. So just, like, let some stuff go. It's fine.

Yeah. Anyway, it's your turn. It is my turn, isn't it? I just had so much to say about Atlanta that I forgot that wasn't my pick. Yeah, and you just talked for a while. And it was just fine, but I'm just saying, like, here we are. Okay, you're up. All right.

I'm keeping track of our picks, by the way. Okay, thank you. I guess I'm going to go with the Phillies because past fun is no guarantee of future fun. Sure. But how many teams have been more fun than the Phillies over the past couple years? Very few. And the thing is that not only is this still largely the same Phillies squad or the ones who have contributed the most fun, but also I think this is the best addition of these Phillies teams.

Now, I guess that might not necessarily make them more fun because part of the fun was that they did seem like just a strangely constructed roster and it was like the oops all DHs team for a while and the pieces didn't totally fit together and they just were going to mash through it. You know, like someone trying to tweet through some sort of scandal, they were just going to mash through it. And they did.

And at first they weren't that great and they just sort of got into the playoffs by the skin of their teeth, and they made deep runs and everything. But they were a better team last year than they'd been the year before, and I think they're a much better team this year than they used to be. And they're actually a decent to good, above-average defensive team. They just fit, at least as long as Rojas can hit enough to leave him out there and not have to go back to outfielder Schwarber. But it's just so many fun personalities, so many fun ways of dressing and undressing, so much moistness and hair product. And also, yeah, just a lot of talent and maybe the best pitching staff in baseball possibly it's funny Zach Cram my colleague in pilot the ringer he did his power rankings the

other day and he had the Phillies high and someone on Twitter replied to the tweet of the article and I sent this to Zach because I was so incredulous that this person had said, why are the Phillies rated this high? Their pitching staff stinks. I was like, you, sir, have high standards for pitching staffs because I'm not sure there is a better one currently than the Phillies.

They literally, at least heading into opening day yesterday, had the top-ranked bullpen in baseball, and that was even after we realized that we were maybe over-projecting their arms a little bit in terms of innings. And the second-ranked rotation in baseball. Like, they're very good. Their arms are excellent.

They're currently number one in both categories, it appears. So it would be hard to be better. And also, Craig Kimbrell's gone, and Craig Kimbrell was not like the fun kind of unpredictable and chaotic. That wasn't even fun for me as a non-Phillies fan to watch those high wire acts. So it's just a whole lot of flamethrowers out there. Just the anti-old school Dombrowski bullpen. If his weaknesses were defense and bullpen before he's addressed them,

it's just, you know, you never know what Bryce Harper's going to wear to the ballpark any given day. Right. I mean, you know, it's going to be some ugly, but it's going to be great. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Oh yeah. I'm up. Oh crap. Ah, I've been caught flat footed by this completely predictable turn of events. What am I going to do, Ben? Who am I going to take? I thought you'd keep talking about the Phillies for a little bit longer, and I wasn't ready. I'm not prepared. I'm ill-prepared. Oh, no. What am I going to do? I'm going to take the Baltimore Orioles. I'm taking the Baltimore

Orioles. Look, am I still worried about how the pitching is going to fare over a full season? Yeah. I mean, like we just talked about Craig Kimbrell. Did he end up pitching in that game yesterday? That game yesterday is a perfect Craig Kimbrell game. Cause you know what? It doesn't end up mattering. But the offense is really something. Burns is really something. The vibe in that ballpark yesterday on a day that looked, you know, not like the most fun day for baseball, candidly, because it looked cold. But their fans looked like they were having a great time. They're still spraying them with water.

I'm like, isn't it like 50 degrees there? What are you doing? Like, I think that that team is going to be tremendous fun. I think that that team is going to be tremendous fun. And, you know, every time I watch the young, good players on that Orioles team, I come away appreciating how good they are. You're a catching man. You're a catcher man, you know, Ben.

Yeah, catching concert. Isn't it just a joy to watch Adley catch? It's a joy to watch Adley catch. He is so good back there. You know, he had a, just in the early innings yesterday, he blocked a ball to throw out. I don't remember who the Angels hitter was, but he like, he just had a perfect block to throw out a guy on what would have been like a a drop strike three it was it was beautiful the technique was so lovely and that's that's not all of it you know so i'm taking the orioles i'm taking the orioles orioles fans relax okay okay this team is so fun they couldn't find room for jackson holiday on the roster okay there may have been some ulterior motives there. I have commentary about that.

Their next rung of players that are not currently on the roster is incredibly fun. You could take the Norfolk Tides high on the team fun draft, right? There's just so much talent here and so many young guys. And even without Holiday, you still got Westberg and you still got Gunner and you still got Rutschman, you still got Colton Couser and it's just on and on and on. And they still have sort of that new car smell about them. I don't even really like the new car smell personally, but I like the new prospect smell, I suppose.

What a weird way to put that, Ben. It was. You picked a weird one. You did. I did. And also, it's still sort of like they're coming out of the depths of tanking and being so totally terrible. And unless that stains the way that they went about this, unless that tarnishes their current talent for you in some way. And I think most Orioles fans are probably like, you know what?

We suffered through that. We earned it. We deserve to reap these rewards. I agree with that. So, yeah, enjoy it. And you got your good ballpark that just ages gracefully. So, yeah, Orioles, good pick. Okay.

Which team is slightly less fun than the Orioles? You know, I guess I'm going to go Diamondbacks. Oh, Ben! Yeah, sorry. That's rude. You get to see the Diamondbacks in person all the time, which I guess gives you a stronger claim to take them

here, but as a consolation, you can actually see them play in person regularly. That's true. So I will take them in the team fun draft. And they're fun because they do have a core, which is young and exciting. It's not on the whole that young a team. But they do have some guys who are good and young.

And they are really, really good. And so Corbin Carroll is incredibly fun, obviously. And Gabriel Moreno is extremely fun and has the potential to be even more fun. And Quetel Marte is always really good. And also, they just made so many moves. And also, they just made so many moves. Like, they were one of the most improved teams of the offseason coming off a surprise season when they won a pennant. And then they don't get complacent.

They say, no, we're going to go get Eduardo Rodriguez. And, oh, you're just going to leave Jordan Montgomery sitting out there to the point where we can sign him for $25 million in one year, essentially, well, we will take Jordan Montgomery. Yes. Happy to have him. And now they've gone from being a thin rotation toward the end of last year to being one of the better rotations in baseball, especially if Fott pitches like he was at the very end there. And Gallin is great. And once they get Rodriguez back from his lat strain, and once Montgomery is ready to

go, there's still some assembly required here. But when it is assembled, it will be an extremely strong unit. They've taken what was a weakness of a pennant-winning team and turned it into a strength. And no, it's not a super team, but, you know,

they went to Lourdes Gurriel. Like, you know, they spent some money. Like, they did what you're supposed to do. They raised their payroll to a record for the franchise by a lot, I think, to capitalize on the core

that they've developed and the interest in the team after maybe being a bit ahead of schedule and exceeding expectations last year. They weren't like, well, we were ahead of schedule, so we can afford to regress a little bit. No, they were like, let's seize the offseason here. Let's make the most of this opportunity and let's get after it. And they did. So that's fun. Ben, they took the Ocean's Eleven approach to roster construction this offseason. I think we need one more.

I'm going to go get one more. They did it. I don't know if Jordan Montgomery counts as a greaseman. I don't remember who the last guy recruited into the troop. Are they a troop? Are you a troop of thieves? Is that the technical term? Gang of thieves.

You're a gang of thieves? I like troop technical term? Gang of thieves? You're a gang of thieves? I like troop better. It sounds fancy. Oh, I have to go now, don't I? Wow. Are you done talking about the Arizona Diamondbacks? I am. Yes, I cede my time. Okay. Wonderful. So, I'm going to take the Texas

Rangers. All right. Because why haven't we done that already? You could have taken the Texas Rangers and left me the Diamondbacks. You would have been polite. Yeah, I took the runners up. You took the champions. I think that this team is, at least its lineup, is unimpeachably fun at this particular moment. I think that the rotation will come to be very fun, hopefully.

I think that they're going to score a bunch of runs. I think that they are going to give up some runs probably sometimes. But they have some, they have okay stopgaps. I will say that Evaldi did not look happy his entire start yesterday. Sort of concerning. There's not a lot of swing and miss happening there. But that's neither here nor there, Ben, because provided everyone knows what a foul ball is

and goes after ones that are contested, they're going to win a bunch of baseball games and probably make a lot of people happy while they do it. I think the thing about them is that, look, they've engaged in what we have already discussed as a high-variance strategy when it comes to the pitching. And I don't think that they need all of those guys to come back They've engaged in what we have already discussed as like a high variant strategy when it comes to the pitching. And I don't think that they need all of those guys to come back and be like maximally effective.

It would be nice. But I think like two out of three and then you get a couple of like good innings out of DeGrom come October. Like that's a that's a fearsome unit there. And I think we should remember that they still have, even with Langford being in the big leagues, like that's not a bad farm system. So presumably if they want to be aggressive at the deadline, they can be. And so I'm taking the Rangers because I am exhibiting restraint with regards to my Seattle Mariners. And I worry I'm going to come to regret that on your very next pick, but here we are. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mention Jordan Lawler in my Diamondbacks pick because I know he's out for a couple

months now. Got a little injury. Yeah. What's with all these injuries on like routine plays, baseball activities? He's trying to pick up a ball with his throwing hand and he jams his thumb and he has to have surgery and he's out for months. How does that happen? That's not great.

I will say I don't imagine his bat will continue to play quite the way it did against the literal Colorado Rockies who I don't know if you heard this gave up 14 runs in an inning. But talk about fun baseball names. Blaze Alexander. Get out of here. Like, how did we get so lucky? He did a little, it did seem like he was doing a little toke thing when he got his first hit. I don't know.

He might have been zipping his lip, but I think he held it in a minute that it was supposed to indicate to people, I know what my name sounds like. Yeah. What was the other one? Oh, it was Nixon Zell was the one I was thinking of. Poor Nixon Zell has already sustained an injury here. He fractured his right thumb. I guess that was, it was like his throwing hand was struck by an errant ground ball while one of his teammates was taking BP. That's wild. That's what happens. It's, you know, baseball injuries. Anyway, I feel really bad about doing this. You're taking the Mariners? Yeah. I'm not only taking your original team. I took your

adopted team. Assassin out here. Yeah. I'm taking your hometown team, your new town team, taking them all. But hey, you know, you could have had the Mariners earlier on. And what can I do? They're fun. They have, I think I saw they had, I actually, I cited a betting odd,

which, you know, I don't like, I know, I know, but it was such a good fun fact, which was that they had, I think,

three of the top nine favorites for A.L. Cy Young, which pretty impressive to have three of the top nine in the same rotation. And so... Particularly given how young so many of those guys are, you know, like they got youngins there. Right. So it's Castillo, it's Gilbert, it's Kirby, and it's no slaps the rest of the way either.

So those guys, I mean, imagine in a short series facing those three. That's a tough assignment. And they have, I think, some other fun players. You know, you get Ben Gibbard in the deal here. He shows up to sing the national anthem on opening day. So that's fun. But you also get really like the underdog rooting interests. We're the one team that has never so much as won a pennant, right?

And so that just makes you super sympathetic. Like how can you not root for the Mariners? Everyone rooted for the Mariners when they had the playoff drought going on. And I know that they ended the drought, but they still have this other quite serious and extended drought of just never so much as sniffing a World Series. And that just cannot be allowed to stand. And so if the Mariners were in the World Series, how fun would that be? That would be the most fun. That is the most fun potential outcome. And I say that as the non-Mariners fan,

co-host of this podcast. So just for that alone, for the ultimate underdog story, got to go with the Mariners. And it's also, I think, a pretty good and compelling team too. Yeah, I think that that is right. We got Mitch's back hitting home runs.

It's exciting business. Julio. I got Julio. You got Julio. Yeah, I know, Ben. I know you know. I just shouted out the starters. But also, they have Julio.

They do have Julio. Boy, he's good. And they got the fish. They got the salmon run. Yeah. They got the salmon run. Yeah, they got the salmon run. I just got humpy in my draft. Where's my humpy merch? You know, where is it?

I'm sure it'll be there. I mean, it's only a matter of time. I'm going to take the Cincinnati Reds. Okay, yeah. I'm taking the Cincinnati Reds. You know, we spent a lot of the offseason being like, wow, they got way too much infield depth. And now I'm like, I don't know if they have enough infield depth,

which is weird to be in that spot. And, you know, sorry, Matt McLean. I hope that your recovery from surgery goes swiftly, but it doesn't sound good. Yeah, so much for the too many infielders issues with that team. That fixed itself. But I also think that they have a lot of other really dynamic, exciting players,

and I think that we're going to hopefully see a step forward from that rotation. You get Ellie, you know? You get a bunch of fun young guys. And, you know, lest we forget, this was a team that was very close to being a playoff team last year, and I think that they did get better. Frankie Montas had a really strong opening day start.

At some point, they will get Marte back, although he won't be postseason eligible if they make it that far. Nick Martini hit two home runs yesterday. That was the thing that happened. He hit two home runs. That's so cool. So I think that this is a fun, exciting group, if a little less fun and a little less exciting, given the injury to McLean and to Friedel. So the cruise of it all is sort of the headliner, but I think there's a lot of other really fun stuff here. And so, yeah.

All right. I will take the Toronto Blue Jays, who have, I think, fallen short of their fun potential over the past few years. But it still feels like they're so projectable from a fun perspective. Yeah. And it feels like they might. Theyable from a fun perspective. Yeah. And it feels like they might— They're reading a lot, you know. Yeah. They're hitting home runs.

Well, yeah, I get Yusei Kikuchi, who's just the sport's most fascinating man. And who knows what we might learn about him next. So that's nice. But you also get Vlad, and there is some buzz building about maybe Vlad is back. That's fun. Bichette has been great and fun. So it's a different team. Like if you still think of the Blue Jays as like an offensive powerhouse, you kind of need to update your priors.

Not that they're a bad hitting team, but they've transitioned into more of a pitching and defense mold. The outfield defense has been fantastic. So that's fairly fun. And yeah, I mean, I guess that's all I really need to justify this pick. I think, you know, we get Canada's team. We get a whole country behind us here. I'm half Canadian. I had a little thing for the Blue

Jays. I had a brief flirtation with the Jays when I was a kid before my longer, more serious, more committed Yankee fan phase. So it's just a lot to like. I'm not a uniform guy, but I've always enjoyed Blue Jays

uniforms. Been quite partial to that color scheme and look. I don't like the red-topped ones, though. Those are bad. You're the Blue Jays. Stick with the blue. But you also potentially get Joey Votto at some point. So if things go wrong,

you break glass and you call up Joey Votto and immediately you get even more fun. And Justin Turner's fairly fun, too. So, yeah, there's a lot of fun top to bottom here. Toronto Blue Jays it is. I think that's defensible. Daniel Vogelbach, pretty fun.

Maybe he'll steal a base. Sure, yeah. I'm going to go with the San Diego Padres. I was going to take the Padres next. I'm disappointed. Look, I don't know if they're going to be good. You know? I don disappointed. We get to see another year of Fernando Tatis Jr., outfielder. At some point, Manny Machado will be back at third base, which will be great because I really enjoy watching Manny play third base.

But we still get to see him DH in the meantime, right? We get to see the team made entirely of shortstops playing out of position a lot of the time. We get to see Jackson Merrill try to flourish in in the majors we get to you know we still get to watch you darvish and joe musgrove and dylan cease speaking of players whose names you like immediately think of something else even though it's not how their name is said so like whenever i hear michael king i think of michael kane introducing himself at like award shows going like, I'm Michael Caine. Yeah, sort of stuffy. Yeah.

Yeah. We get another year of Ha Sung Kim. We get to see if Jake Cronenworth can turn things around. Lest we forget, they did sign Xander Bogarts, who is very good. I think they have a really interesting bullpen, even if parts of it, you know, maybe were hurt or underperformed last year. So I think this is like an interesting group. And I really struggled over whether or not I should include them as an NL wildcard team when I made my staff predictions. I did, too. Ultimately, I didn't. But I included them as my surprise team. So I sort of split the difference. I had it both ways. Yeah, I thought about I thought about it a lot, though. I really, you know, grappled with the question. So, Padres, come on down. Yeah, the ratio of star power to performance, it's very

high. I mean, that's what you get with a Stars and Scrubs roster. But man, there are a lot of really compelling players on this team. And they could be less talented and still be better than last year's team was or less unlikely or win more games. So at a certain point last year, I think it wasn't so fun. Well, it certainly wasn't fun for Padres fans. It wasn't even fun for me, even though I was marveling at how unlucky or unclutch they were. It was kind of a statistical quirk and curiosity. But by the end, it was just like, let them know peace.

Like someone have mercy, baseball gods, lift the curse. But not only do you get all of those prominent players, but you also just get the incredible chaos energy of A.J. Preller. Like you just never know what he's going to do. Like, if the Yankees start slow and fall out of it, would I put it past AJ Preller to reacquire Juan Soto at the deadline? No, I would not. Like, that could happen, you know? I thought about doing a troll preseason prediction of the Yankees trade Soto at the deadline. I don't think that will happen. But you know what?

If they did, if things didn't go great for them, if they dangled Juan Soto, I would not be shocked if AJ Parler was like, let's run it back. Let's get Soto again. So it would be incredible. I want it to happen so badly. It won't. i don't think but i really you know i'm rooting for it in a way that i think would probably be like career jeopardizing for aj but that's that's aj's problem you know like that's not my problem he gets to decide what he wants

to do he's a grown man all right gosh where am i gonna go go next? This is tough. I feel like now it's starting to get tough for me where I'm questioning the fun quotient with anyone that I'm picking at this point, but I guess I'm going to go Tigers? Is Tigers?

Oh, okay. All right. I'm heartened by that reaction. I thought it might be a bit of a reach here. It might be a bit of a reach here. It might be a bit of a reach, but maybe that's fine. Okay. Well, Tigers just have a little bit of that. Are they ready to make the leap, turn the corner, whatever expression you want to use here? They have the core in place. There's still some question about how good the core is going to be, but that question could be answered this season. And that makes them compelling. Like, are we going to get the Torkelson breakout? Is Green going to get better and be healthy? Is that homegrown part of the pitching staff really going to live up to the billing? Like, is Scoobo really going to be a legitimate Cy Young contender? And is he going to be backed up by, like, is Mize actually going to give them something? Is Manning going to be back up at some point?

Is that trio actually going to be performing together and producing? Can they fix Flaherty somehow? Like, there are just a lot of storylines that I find fascinating here. And you also have Colt Keith up on opening day. You have the riddle and enigma of Javier Baez to try to unravel. God, very lustily booed during the game yesterday. It's just a lot going on here. during the game yesterday.

Yeah, it's just a lot going on here. But they're a team that could change the narrative, that could kind of have a Reds-y sort of Reds in 2023 style season where it's like, oh, everyone's here. They've arrived. I don't know that that will happen, but there's at least the potential for that to happen. Yeah. And just the potential is fun.

Plus, Benetti. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, it's so nice. Also, Ben, they delivered to him in the booth because, you know, they opened the season against the White Sox, so they had, like, a very nice, you know, recognition. Yeah, Benetti got a nice ovation. Yeah, it was very nice.

Like, the boos against Xavier, which which as as i said lustfully booed um just like hardy boo but they delivered to to jason in the booth a deep dish pizza and i was lying there and i was like oh my god i want that deep dish pizza so bad i i would i would i would kill a man for a deep dish pizza i might just give him this virus and let that do the work for me. But I want a deep dish pizza. Oh, man. What am I going to eat today? I'm so excited.

I still need to keep something down. I still need to keep it, you know, pretty down the middle. Don't get too adventurous. I know. Stay within yourself and keep your food within yourself yeah there were also commercials for a habit burger and i was like oh i want a burger and a milkshake boy boy it was a good banana though that i had yesterday i was like oh yeah this banana's doing doing god's work here that'll settle your stomach what a rough 18 hours 24 hours, here we are.

I'm picking a team. Okay. I don't like any of the teams left. That's not true. We can make it more of a rapid fire from now on. I'm going to take the Yankees just because they do employ both Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. Whatever might end up happening with the pitching is they have those guys, so should probably have them on the board before, you know, in the top half of the draft.

So there you go. Yeah. It's amazing what a difference, even one superstar, transcendent superstar, guy who's maybe the best in the game or one of the best in the game and can really make a run at a record. Just having Judge, like even when he was kind of carrying the team, or Judge and Cole, like even if you have a couple guys, that makes it so much more compelling. Even if you're not necessarily better, like all else being equal,

there is something to be said for star power. You know, there aren't that many guys who really, as they say, put butts in seats in big numbers but yeah like judge and soto just putting on a clinic at the plate that's going to be fun and also i'm interested in like will the new volpe be an improved volpe and by how much and will they cobble together this pitching staff will they get get the Carlos Rodon they thought they were going to get? How despairing will Yankees fans be if things don't go well? Actually, I guess there's no suspense about that.

We saw how last season played out. That question has been answered sufficiently. But yeah, I'm kind of drawn in by this Yankees team too, even though they were actually my flop pick. Partly just because like anything short of making the playoffs is a flop for the Yankees and really short of going deep into the playoffs, if not winning World Series. They're kind of perennial flops at this point.

But, you know, they brought that on themselves by setting that as the standard. They did. They did do that. I am going to go with the Pirates. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you were the one who did the bold prediction about the Pirates winning the Central. Yeah, I'm not saying that I think that's going to happen. And even you did not say that.

Yeah, I was going to say. When you made your picks. No, yeah, I did not. The picks that counted. But this is an example of like just a couple of guys who were super, super fascinating can really put a team over the top fun-wise. And O'Neal Cruz, man, like that guy is lightening up. He lit it up in spring. He lit it up on opening day.

Seeing what he's going to be, that alone, and seeing if Brian Hayes can be the Brian Hayes from late last season. Because if he is, he is an MVP candidate. Just that. And not just that, because you're going to get skeins and you have Jared Jones. And you've got Henry Davis and Kenny Ketch. And will that work? Like, this is another one where it's like, are they ready to turn the corner? Is the core in place?

How substantial will the strides be? You know, it's not much tension or suspense when it comes to will they spend will they make the big move but will the guys that they have be good and also andrew mccutcheon is around so that's fun yeah yeah hayes made a really great play at third yesterday and i was like just hit a little bit dude just hit a little bit i think he will i a little bit. I think he will. I think he can. Yeah, it's such a special glove. It's just a really special glove. I guess I'm going to take the Chicago Cubs. Yeah, I'm going to take the Cubs.

I'm taking the Cubs. No. Yeah, I'm taking the Cubs. They fell here because the Cubs are a good team. Yeah, they kind of did. I think they're going to win that division. The Justin Steele injury is potentially really bad, so fingers crossed that he's not out for very long.

As soon as, as soon as he went down and he grabs the back of his knee, he was like, ah, I bet that's his hamstring. And then he sat up and the trainer was there and he's like, it's my hamstring. And then on the broadcast,

they're like, we think it might be his hamstring. And I was like, it seems like it's pretty obviously his hamstring, you guys. I like that they don't speculate about injuries, but, but yeah,

like they got Bellinger back. They have one of the most exciting infield defenses in baseball. They at least have, you know, their rotation beyond Steele is, I don't know, the whole thing is pretty suspect, candidly. It was suspect, I know, with Steele. But I think that this could be interesting. I'm so interested in how Imanaga does and like yeah does the fly ball thing end up mattering is he able to keep the ball in the ballpark because i think if he can he's gonna be like i mean this is one where i i was kind of kidding a little bit um when we did

our bold predictions draft but but not really like i think that people might look back and be like why did he not sign a bigger contract this offseason like i think that people might look back and be like why did he not sign a bigger contract this offseason like i think that possibility really exists christopher morel just looks like a little kitty cat out there with his his eye black and as an aside like at this point that's not doing anything to shield you from glare you little kitty cat um and and i like that you know i think it's adorable i think uh i'm excited to see what say a Suzuki does this season. Does Michael Bush take a step forward when he's given like a whole year's worth of playing time?

Do we end up seeing, yeah. Well, we'll balance your B do we see PCA sooner rather than later? Like how does that outfield end up reconfiguring itself as the season goes on? So I think that there is. Bust potential with this team just because the rotation does make me nervous. But if Steele isn't out

for very long, like he is very good. He's really, you know, for a two-pitch guy, like he's a really good two-pitch guy. So yeah, the Cubs. Yeah.

Good defensive team too. Very strong up the middle. Should help make up for any pitching deficiencies. And my man, Nick Madrigal, can he make it work? Yeah. I still believe. Actually, I don't know if I believe. I don't know if I believe.

But I'm still willing to watch, just in case. The good news for Nick Madrigal is that I think that at this point in time, Christopher Murrell can still not play third base at the big league level. And so, as long as that remains true, I think that Nick Magical is going to have a job on that team. But if he improves even a little bit, I do worry

for him. Will Craig Council work his magic? Yeah. Lots of storylines here. Alright. Lots of storylines, yeah. You know, we haven't drafted the Tampa Bay Rays. Yeah. And now that we're drafting the remaining good teams that fell down our board for whatever reason, I'm going to go with the Rays because, well, A, they do have some excellent players.

You can count on them being competitive, being in contention. I enjoy Yandy Diaz. I enjoy Randy Rosarena. I enjoy Isak Paredes. I enjoy finding out who this year's Zach Littell will be. Will it be Tyler Alexander? I think maybe. But whoever it is, maybe it's a mid-season pickup. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's a converted reliever. I say converted reliever when

it's someone who's gone from reliever to starter, but it frustrates me how ambiguous that is. Cause you could say converted starter and that would mean that it's a starter who was converted, but it could mean converted reliever could be, it was a reliever who was then converted to starter. I usually go with converted reliever. However you say it, the Rays will certainly pull some, if not ace at least, maybe some mid-rotation starter out of their sleeve. And we will all marvel at that and shake our fists and say, surely they can't do it again. And they will have done it again. at that and shake our fists and say, surely they can't do it again, and they will have done it again.

And they are sort of like the Rangers in that their rotation in the second half may be dramatically different from their rotation in the first half. I mean, there's, again, like some guys on the mend who could be back in the second half of the season that could really transform that rotation, potentially. the season that could really transform that rotation potentially your shane bozzes and your drew rasmussen's and your jeffrey springs's so some of those guys like they could turn this into a strong rotation because at the moment pending ray is magic it looks like maybe their most vulnerable group that they've had in some time yeah Yeah. I guess I'm going to take – people are like, why aren't you taking the Astros? They're probably going to be good.

And I'm going to say, I don't have to refer the Astros to be good. I am not constitutionally obligated to fulfill that chore. That can be someone else's chore, someone who isn't me, Meg. You know? I don't have to do it. I'm not required. So I'm not going to do it. I'm not required. So I'm not going to do it. I'm going to take the Minnesota Twins.

Yeah, it's a good pick. An unspoken thing that I did not like about opening day was Royce Lewis seemingly getting hurt again. I just, you know, I don't want anyone to get hurt. I'm not rooting for injuries for anyone,

but it's like, hasn't this poor guy been through enough? So hopefully, whatever's ailing him will be short-lived and he'll be back soon. And after he had a couple of hits and a homer, another trolly preview prediction I was weighing was that he would go over with the bases loaded this year just because he's been so incredibly spectacular

with the bases loaded. And that can't keep up. And I feel like it's going to be one of those weird things where we all reminisce, like, remember all those grand slams? Wasn't that wild that that happened? But it can't continue to happen. There will probably be some point in Royce Lewis's career when we look back and reminisce about that happening,

because he will have sustained it. And so I was going to forecast, yeah, the regression just hits him hard all at once. And he's like incredibly unclutch, not necessarily bad. If he's healthy, I think he'll be good, but he just won't have that knack for coming up huge with the bases loaded. But how fun would it be if he did somehow right if he if he just kept hitting on 16 and drawing a five is that how blackjack works if that i have no idea that would be fun so yeah a lot of a lot of good fun guys on this team yeah like we get to see what version of byron buxton we're gonna get and hopefully get a full healthy season of him we get to see what version of Byron Buxton we're going to get and hopefully get a full, healthy season of him. We get to see year two of Edouard Julien.

We get to see what becomes of Carlos Correa. I like watching Kepler play. I think that some of their—this is a pretty good rotation. You got Lopez, you got Ryan, you got Ober. I want to keep seeing good stuff from Paddock. I think the bullpen's pretty okay. Like, I think this is a fun team,

and they have guys who hopefully they will get back from injury to help reinforce things, but especially when Duran and Topa come back to that bullpen, like, that's a good group, so I like it. You know? Matt Wallner? What's Matt Wallner gonna do? You know? What is... He's so tall, Ben. You know? Yeah. Matt Wallner? What's Matt Wallner going to do?

You know? He's so tall, Ben. You know? He's like 6'5". He's a big, tall guy. You know? And he had a really... Was it only 254 plate appearances last year?

I mean, sure. But like 144 WRC+. Take it. See it. Let's see what it does. So, yeah. Hopefully, Royce Lewis gets better soon and the twins

go do twin stuff. That sounds fun. Yep. Best of luck to Royce Lewis. Best of luck to Byron Buxton. Everyone, stay healthy out there. Watch out for walls. Protect your knees, etc. I also really enjoy that Carlos Santana

has had almost the same career as his mentor, Victor Martinez. Carlos Santana has worn Victor Martinez's number 41 for much of his career until very recently because he came up and he was kind of taken the wing of Victor Martinez. And they've had extremely similar careers, like shape of their careers, length of their careers, war wise, just extremely, extremely similar. They're like a few baseball reference war apart from each other. That just tickles me that that worked out that way. So yeah, that's a good pick. Okay. Who have you left me to draft who is fun at this point? You know, look, if you're not going to do it, I'll take the Astros. I'll do it. I'm getting good value here.

This is an Astros-esque strategy to draft the undervalued commodity of the Astros in the team fun draft because, you know what, they can be fun at times. Sure. Are we still holding the signs dealing against them? Sure, maybe a couple guys, but not more than a couple guys at this point. And you know what, Jose Altuve's fun. I'm sorry. He's fun. Sure.

And Jordan Alvarez is fun. Not even going to apologize. Who would dispute that he's fun? Oh, yeah. He's incredible. Not even going to apologize. Who would dispute that he's fun? Oh, yeah. He's incredible.

Can Justin Verlander continue to defy father time to some extent at least? Sure. Fun to find out. Fun to find out. Can the younger version of Justin Verlander, at least aesthetically speaking, Hunter Brown, turn into something closer to him in performance? Sure. Can Frambois bounce back? Can Javier bounce back?

Can those guys be as good as they have been and looked at times in the past? Can Jeremy Pena, who, as someone pointed out on Twitter, I neglected in my rundown of Mount Jackmore the other day on our predictions pod when I was... Look, if we're doing that, there are a lot of guys who, when you see them with their shirts off in the clubhouse, you're like, holy shit. You know.

Oh, sorry. I did a swear. But like. That's okay. But yeah, Jeremy Payne, he's up there. That guy, he's built. But I guess I would say and, you know, like Kyle just, like, maybe he doesn't get credit for being fun. Supposedly he's, like, kind of a fun guy and no one knows because people don't pay attention to Kyle Tucker.

He's a really talented guy. Yeah, most underrated player, right? And people have been saying that about him for so long that you'd think it would no longer be true. But it still somehow is true. And, yeah, I'm just, you know, Dusty is not there anymore, but still, there's enough talent on this team and enough guys who are very watchable that I'm going to go with them. I don't know if Jose Abreu will be good, but seems like a good guy, seems like a well-liked

clubhouse character. Sure. Sure. Okay. And, you know, you don't have to watch Martin Maldonado makeouts anymore. You got Yonard Diaz that should be a little more entertaining from an offensive standpoint. Oh, yeah, for sure. Okay.

Get to root for John Singleton, you know? Yeah, sure. That's fun. Ben, I have terrible news, which is that Sean murphy was removed from today's game with left oblique tightness and i worry that we have cursed the race we just jinxed should have given him some more days off i guess lights out back of the bullpen on those astros that can be a fun thing a team that's not going

to cough up a lot of leads all right we got We got some choices down here. I love how fans of all of these teams are like, why are you being so mean about our team? You know, kitten. I'm going to take the Milwaukee Brewers, you know. I'm really curious to see, like, how the rotation stuff sorts itself out. I think that based on what I was able to watch of that game before we got on mic, like,

boy, Cheerio's going to be a lot of fun. I can appreciate why Jeff McNeil took exception to the slide that he endured today. I will say, you seem like a real crybaby, though, so maybe relax about that, buddy. That's just related to the Brewers because that's who they were playing. But Reese having a little Philly moment with his wah-wah. You know, I guess you can take the boy out of Philadelphia, but you can't take the Philly out of the boy.

But I think they have a really exciting position player core. I want to see, you know, what kind of year we get from Christian Jelic this year. But I think that their young guys are pretty interesting, and they have more outfielders than they know what to do with. And, you know can they make deal hall of starter i don't know um if i were gonna pick a team to maybe be able to do that they'd be on the list i think freddie peralta is great fun and you know i wish that they were a club that could um work with a budget where they could do a little less you know coming and going

at the same time which they always seem to be doing. You know, they're planning for today, but also having to grapple with the realities of their budget a couple of years from now. But I think that they have some exciting players, you know, obviously like I'm always going to have a soft spot in my heart for the, the fan graphs, alum clubs, but I don't know. I think they could be, they could be fun.

What if Ben, what if we, what did we get? What did we get? We get a, we get a Mariners Brewers World Series and then we have the sausages fighting the fish? Yeah. Magical. My prediction about another first-time World Series winner, that'll be guaranteed to come true. It will be guaranteed to come true. It will be so exciting. I'm getting excited about it mostly for the Mariners side of things,

but I feel happy for Brewers fans, too. I feel like I say Brewers weird. Brewers. I have also had that feeling. Brewers. Brewers. Brewers. You know what? Given how sick I was, like, 12 hours ago, 24 hours ago, and the fact that it is the day after

opening day, and we are both tired and have had a lot going on, I feel like we've been pretty coherent this whole time. Brewwers might have brewers it's like we're flying along i didn't expect this pod to be so long but oh my god we're overflowing with oh no okay we gotta opening day i know we gotta be quicker with our picks we can't we're gonna take a baseball nap they could take an effectively wild nap but But yes, we'll wrap it up. Okay. Yeah.

I'm taking the Giants. Yeah. They changed the narrative of their offseason. It started out depressing. It ended up pretty uplifting. They were second in net war, net 2023 war added after only the Diamondbacks, according to Neil Payne the other day. I'm excited to see what the guys they got do. And also Bailey and Harrison, etc.

I'm going to take the Kansas City Royals. Yeah, sure. Mostly for Vinny Pasquitino. And someone reminded us that we, well, maybe this came up on our preview pod, but I know we got an email too that like the past Squatch gets to be back. So that's cool. He's just a fun, charming guy. Glad he's healthy.

Hope he has a great season. They extended Bobby Witt Jr. I think a lot of the rest of that club is pretty confusing, but you know, what are you going to do? I will take, gosh, it's getting tough now. I guess I'll go with the Cardinals just to see if they can bounce back. Can they turn it around? They don't have quite as many players who are sort of stacked on top of each other and blocked by each other anymore. I mean, that's good because that sounds uncomfortable. Yeah. Maybe they have too few with some of the injuries going on here. But yeah. Does the ancient innings eater

plan work? I fear that it won't. At least it sounds like a spell. I know. It's at least a compelling storyline to follow. And you know, you got Lars Neubauer and you got Sonny Gray and you got Tommy Edmund and of course you have Arnauto and Goldschmidt.

And can they bounce back from relative down years? And Wilson Contreras, can they put all that nonsense from last year behind them? And Nolan Gorman, I think he's going to rake if he's healthy. And Jordan Walker, can he be better out in the outfield? And Mason Wynn and Victor Scott, right? There's some youth here, some serious tools. And Ali Marmel got a preseason extension, so we don't have to be on Yachty Watch immediately. So that takes some pressure off him.

So, yeah, there's enough here. I'm going to take, just after I made fun of Jeff McNeil, perhaps ungenerously, I'm going to take the New York Mets. Yeah. Like, you know, they're clearly in like a step back, mini rebuild kind of a situation, but they do still have a ton of very fun players. And even though I have no idea how this rotation is going to work out. I don't think very well. You know, they have Francisco Lindor. They have Brandon Nimmo. They have an ascendant Francisco Alvarez.

They have, you know, we're going to maybe get to see Harrison Bader do some cool stuff in center field. We get to see what, you know, Starling Marte hit a home run today. They didn't win, but he hit a home run. Pete Alonso. Pete Alonso hit so many home runs, right? So that's exciting. Soon, they will have J.D. Martinez. Totally going to forget about that

until the day he shows up to Citi Field, as an aside. I'm remembering it now, and then I'm going to forget again for two weeks. And we get Edwin Diaz back, and that is so nice, because we've all missed him. And at some point, hopefully, Cote Sanga will come back and be able to pitch.

So, yeah, I'm taking the Mets. And here's the thing about it. I'm not going to delight in it because these are human beings who have aspirations and families. They have hopes and dreams. But if it falls apart, it will probably fall apart in a way that is at least 10% funny. Maybe 90% tragic, but probably at least 10% funny. So, you know, the Mets, same as they ever were. Maybe. All right. Stay in the Nets, same as they ever were. Maybe.

All right. Staying in the NL East, I'm taking the Marlins. Yeah. And this is largely, again, based on the value of one or two really compelling players, even if the team isn't great on the whole. Luis Uribe is just one of the most fascinating, watchable players. Wrote a big feature about him last year. Fun to follow.

Yuri Perez, if he pitches, will be electric and riveting. I'm worried that he won't pitch, but if he does, then that'll be super exciting. And if they do get all of their injured starters back at some point, then that will be a reason to tune into Marlins games. And, you know, also like Max Meyer is back. Sixto Sanchez is back. You know, Jesus Lizardo is really good. Yeah.

So, yeah, a lot of compelling, you know, can Tim Anderson salvage things? Can he be back? Can Jazz Chisholm really put things together? So, yeah, a lot of individual reasons to watch, even if the team doesn't come together. So, yeah, a lot of individual reasons to watch, even if the team doesn't come together. Brian De La Cruz, will the breakout happen this year? Friend of the show from my alma mater,

Declan Cronin is also on the Marlins now. The only Regis High School in New York alum ever in the majors. Declan Cronin sounds like a character in Outlander. Yes, yes, it does. Well, thatin sounds like a character in Outlander. Yes. Yes, it does. Well, that makes me like him even more. Yeah. All right.

Let's see. Oh, boy. We got some boy. Some boy. Well, I guess I'm going to take the Red Sox. I think this is actually a much easier choice than I was making it out to be. You got some interesting young pitching, even if it's not like really super solid rotation uh you get to watch Devers do Devers stuff you get to watch Tristan Casas Tyler O'Neill was like the underrated uh Mariners revenge game participant yesterday we talked about Rafaela already

I don't think that this team is remotely the best team in the AL East, but I do think that they're kind of sneaky interesting. In some ways, you're able to set your expectations at an appropriate level because of the Giolito injury and just look at it and say, okay, let's see what Brian Bellow has. Let's see what Pavetta can do. Let's see what Pavetta can do. Cutter Crawford. I mean, like, come on. His name is Cutter Crawford, right? Like, we're kind of – there's some stuff here that's interesting. Yep. So there they are. Nice.

I'm going to go Guardians. And I'm going Guardians because you get J-Ram. What else are you going to do? Yeah. You get Jose Ramirez. You get Stephen Kwan. Who doesn't love watching them? You get the Nailer bros.

You get Bieber. Is Biebs back? You get Bybee. Bieber and Bybee. Is Bybee as good as he looked last year? Tristan McKenzie is a personal favorite. Yeah. Cookie Carrasco back on this team back in Cleveland, right?

So what a nice, heartwarming, compelling, good individual players here. Again, we're picking out the individual standouts who grab us at this point. And on that note, I will take the Los Angeles Angels because they have Mike Trout. And he hit a home run. Body looks great, by the way. I was like, okay, you get it, Mike. Yeah, nothing more you need to say. They have Mike Trapp.

That's an excellent reason. All right. Boy, who's even left on our draft board at this point? The White Sox, the Rockies, the A's, and the Nationals. The four teams I mentioned that are DOA at the start of this podcast. Okay. Well, then I guess I'm going to go Nats. Wow. podcasts. Okay. Well, then I guess I'm going to go Nats because yeah, you know, they at least,

they've got some good prospects who could be coming at some point this season, you know, your Woods and Hassles and Cavallis, et cetera. Like, you know, there's the C.J. Abrams breakout in progress, perhaps. There's questions about Ruiz and Gray and what those guys will be. So, Joey Manessis. Hmm. Boy. Yeah. You pick a favorite and you know what you do?

You stick with them. You stick with your faves. I'm loyal. Joey Gallo. Joey Gallo? Yeah. There you go. The Joes.

I'm going to take the White Sox. They have Luis Robert Jr. They have Garrett Crochet, who I will say, impressive in his big league starting debut yesterday. He looked very good. They have those two guys. They have a bunch of hurt guys who might be interesting if they're good and not hurt. But here we are. Those are the reasons.

Anyway, moving on. Good enough. I forgot to mention Mackenzie Gore. I was talking about the Joeys. My pal's Joey. But, moving on. Good enough. I forgot to mention Mackenzie Gore. I was talking about the Joey's. My pal's Joey, but yeah, that's a reason. All right, and then penultimate pick in the draft, gotta go Rockies. Yeah. Right? Just have to

go Rockies by default. It's not really a compliment, but they're not the A's. And as we covered on our Rockies preview, it apparently is fun to go see the Rockies, because Rockies fans keep doing it so Coors Field yeah nice vibe and this is a vibes draft

so Nolan Jones I guess and Coors Field that's enough yep and I have the A's and that wraps up the draft they have Brent Rooker they have Brent Rooker he They have Brent Rooker.

He's fun. We get to see what Mason Miller can do if he can stay healthy and really thrive in a closer role. And none of what's happening is their player's fault, but it does really diminish the vibe. And I imagine that the vibe on TV will be terrible because their fans are

very understandably like not really participating this year and yeah anyway here we are at least you got Jenny Kavnar on the call making the best of a bad situation all right well we had fun drafting we have told you which teams are fun have fun following them all right I'll leave you with this email we

got in response to our discussion of Ipe Mizuhara on the Dodgers preview last time. This is from listener Molly. In episode 2144, you were speculating about what qualifications an interpreter should have. As someone who works for a language service provider and trained as an interpreter, I can tell you that while educational requirements may vary, professional interpreters certainly do have a standard of qualifications, a combination of experience, certification exams, and education. There's an international organization for interpreters, the AIIC, French acronym for the International Association of Conference Interpreters, that promotes ethics and best practices in the industry, and one would expect a professional interpreter to be a member. Shohei's former interpreter is not. former interpreter is not. While the interpreter was pre-selected by the player, his salary was paid by the organization, and I think it is incumbent upon them to do due diligence upon

hiring them to ascertain whether this person was a true professional. I'm baffled that they didn't. My hope for the future is that the league will establish standards for hiring qualified language professionals rather than best pals and drivers of players to represent them linguistically as accurately as possible. Thank you, Molly. I don't know if Ipe's education and non-membership in that organization made him an outlier in MLB, but in principle, I agree. I was getting at this with Fabian when we were talking about what reforms might come of this.

I also think, though, that as with many situations involving Otani, it is sort of a one-of-one thing. We're taking some chutzpah in the midst of that free agent sweepstakes to say, hey, by the way, we want you to use a different interpreter. Then again, if Ipe had huge gambling debts and you knew that and you told Shohei before this blew up, maybe he would have been grateful for that. You know what we would be grateful for? Your support on Patreon, which you can provide 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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