Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 360: Scouting 2013 Hall of Fame Candidates

Episode Date: January 8, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss BP’s Hall of Fame ballot, then review early scouting reports on the players BP would have voted in.

What in the same hill are you doing, Walt? But Atticus, he's gone and drained his dinner in syrup and now he's pouring it all over. Scout? What? Come out here, I want to talk to you. Good morning and welcome to episode 360 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from BaseballPerspectives.com. I am Ben Lindberg, joined by Sam Miller. It is Hall of Fame induction day. We, or I, tried to think of a way that we

might not talk about the Hall of Fame, but I couldn't do it. So we're going to talk about the Hall of Fame. The results will be announced today at 2 p, 2 PM. I think I will, I will listen. I think I'll listen to the conference calls with the people who were just elected. I don't know why, but maybe, maybe someone will say something interesting. Like I did steroids. Yeah. Jokes on you too late. Yeah, jokes on you. Too late. I'm in. But the baseball prospectus ballot is out this morning, Wednesday morning, if you're listening.

And I want to talk about that just for a minute. We had 41 voters between writers and tech people and interns and basically everyone on the staff. And the results for if they could, and then also to rank the first 10 players that they would vote for under the BBWAA rules. So under the actual Hall of Fame voting rules, Baseball Prospectus would have elected seven players. Greg Maddox, Barry Bonds, Greg Maddox, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Frank Thomas, Jeff Bagwell, Tom Glavin, and Tim Raines. And if the 10-player restriction were removed, we also would have elected Mike Piazza, Craig Biggio, and Edgar Martinez. And Greg Maddox would have been a unanimous selection, according to the BP staff, if there were no 10-player voting limit. I think one person did not include him on the first 10 as a game theory thing. Oh my gosh, baseball prospectus writers are the worst. There's always one that's got a game theory at 10. I'm actually surprised yeah i was gonna ask you what's that is a that has been well no i'm surprised that only

one person did the the game theory thing because um that seems to have been talked about and run through various iterations that i've seen and um so i'm actually surprised that only one person voted strategically. If you believe 14 guys should be on there. And you know Maddox is going to be there. Why waste a vote? Especially if it doesn't actually count. He's just so good that I kind of want to be a part of voting for him. I think.

And let's see. Barry Bonds received, uh, 39 votes on the, or actually Bonds, Clemens and Thomas all received 39 votes on the, the 10 player limit, uh, version. And actually, I guess also on the no limit version. Uh, so two people didn't vote for those three regardless. I not even going to say who, because I don't know. But does anything, and you can go to Baseball Perspectives and look at the full results and the percentages on both types of ballots and also every individual ballot if you want to. Does anything surprise you

about the results? Who got in or who didn't? Or percentages? I don't know. I guess I'd say that I'm ashamed that they didn't elect Curt Schilling and Mike Messina. And clearly the system is broken and we need to find a new pool of voters. Yeah. Genuinely, I don't – I think I ranked mine as I voted them. And I think Curt Schilling was like sixth on my ballot, sixth or seventh. I just I'm surprised that Curt Schilling is controversial at all. You and I had seen it, too. Yeah, we 13 and I voted for 14. And I think the only difference was BGO. And you just said something to me about Reigns being overrated. Yeah. And I mean, I voted for Reigns. Yeah. So I'm not you know, I I'm glad that he's he's on. but he was low in my 13.

And if I'd only had seven, or what did we elect, seven? Yes. If we'd only had seven votes, I wouldn't have voted for him. And I mean, you know, Reigns is a phenomenal player and a deserving Hall of Famer. But I don't know. I don't think he's quite as sure a thing as the other guys to me. He's a, he's a second tier deserving to me. There's not a huge difference between, well, to me, there's very little difference between

him and Larry Walker. And, um, I'm not sure there's a huge difference between him and Kenny Lofton, um, and him and Jim Edmonds, who's not eligible, but who will be, think, in a year or two and probably won't get that many votes either. Yeah, I don't know. I guess it's fun to vote for Tim Raines. Tim Raines is the internet cause, the current internet cause. So we all want to be on the right side of that, suppose as of the the last update of the hall of fame ballot collecting gizmo on baseball think factory which was about 15 minutes ago with 186 ballots in which is almost 33 percent

of the vote based on last year's total it's still just the the four guys maddox clavin thomas and bgo so we'll find out do you think. Do you think those 180-whatever votes are all honestly reported? Do you think that – I mean, they're not going to be published. These aren't like MVP votes and Cy Young votes where the BBWA actually releases them. So if you are the guy who didn't want to vote for Greg Maddox, but you also know that the internet's going to destroy you for that, do you think that there's, do you think, I mean, we're just speculating, but do you think there's much kind of two-tiered voting where some guys are actually voting differently than their column?

column uh i would doubt it they're well you know you know someone will know you're a liar right whoever is counting the the ballots at the bbwa if they if they're even paying attention to what you said on the internet which probably is pretty unlikely i guess you could get away with it and maybe no one in the world would know we We're also all liars, though, so I assume everybody knows I'm a liar. Right. I'm sure you have deduced that at some point in my life I've lied. Sure. You thought about it. So you already know I'm a liar.

What do I have to lose? Yeah. Yeah, good point. I don't know. I'm sure it's happened. I wouldn't think that it's a common thing. Okay, so I thought that what we could do today to talk about the Hall of Fame without rehashing the same stuff about which people's ballots were the worst and what everyone said on Twitter about it, Twitter about it, we could look at scouting reports for the Hall of Fame candidates who would be elected if baseball prospectus had its way. So for the 10 players who would be elected

today, according to the BP voting, I looked up the first, the earliest scouting report for them that is available on the, the Diamond Mines database of old scouting reports from the Hall of Fame, which we've talked about on the show before. And, uh, I have sent you links to those. So I thought we could both, um, just kind of look at them and, and read, you know, most of the blurbs are pretty short, but we can see what scouts thought of those future Hall of Famers at the time. And I almost expect when I'm looking at old scouting reports for Maddox or Clemens or any of these, you know, Bonds, like some of the best players ever, you know, bonds like some of the best players ever.

Although I know how difficult scouting is and understand why no scout would say on a scouting report that this guy is going to be a future Hall of Famer, because that's just kind of a crazy thing to say about a teenager, I'm kind of disappointed that none of them does. None of them says could be the best player ever you know i i was thinking about this uh unrelatedly i was thinking about frank thomas and just quiet sitting and quietly appreciating frank thomas today um and frank thomas is the only guy on the ballot who uh basically from the moment i became aware of him i thought of him as a hall of famer like really the his baseball card his 1990

tops where he's uh in his Auburn uniform and he's sort of like kneeling on the ground to to catch a pickoff throw and like the base runners coming in and he's still taller than the base runner I I mean I've said before that I just would stare at that picture I mean it was a little little kid and and there was just something so amazing about seeing a human being that was so big. And, you know, he destroyed the minors. He had just a phenomenal debut summer. I think they called him up in August. And, you know, he was never not amazing from that point on. So he, I thought, I mean, if you'd asked me in 1992 to name all the players who were active who would be in the Hall of Fame, I probably would have said Frank Thomas at that point.

And I can think of almost everybody else on the ballot. I can remember knowing about them before I realized that they were going to be a Hall of Famer. I mean, certainly, you know, Maddox was a little bit of a slow burn and clavin was a very slow burn and uh you know bonds was a superstar but you i mean at least i knew of him you know before he was an mvp winner and um you know bagwell was he was okay he was rookie of the year but it wasn't really until like his third or fourth year that he became something special so um frank thomas the only guy though, that I would be looking for this scouting report to say, yes, going to be hall of fame. I don't know how you can not say that. Okay. Well, we'll get to his in a minute. And it is, it's a pretty optimistic scouting report,

although it falls someone somewhat short of that boldest statement. but so Maddox is an interesting one to look at because oh my gosh oh wow because I'm actually looking at his second one right now so you're going to talk about his first one but his second one's even better I think yeah I think I have that open also but yeah so so the thing you hear about Maddox all the time now is that he was this wily pitcher who didn't have the greatest stuff but he knew how to read hitters and he had great control and command and he could put the ball where he wanted it and he wasn't blowing anyone away and everything and there's sort of been a backlash to that narrative uh with people saying well no that's what he was at the end of his career. But at the beginning of his career, he had good stuff.

He could touch 94. Yeah, so looking at these reports, so the first report on Maddox available here is from 1985. He debuted in 86. So this one comes from a scout named Duffy Dyer. Maddox was with the Peoria Cubs at the time. And the scouting report is small, good arm, ran out of gas, did not pitch good last one-third of season. season uh and this guy just does uh like x's like x x minus x plus in the various categories instead of number grades so he gives Maddox a a plus um fastball um let me see yeah he gives okay he gives him a plus fastball and just like a an X in the curve slider and change and then a plus control and then just X's in field and hustle.

So and it says, are you looking at this first one? I'm looking at the first one, yeah. Yeah, there's a little blurb on the right there. Yeah, not strong enough to be a starter. Not strong enough to be a starter. So, okay, so before we talk about this, what does the second one say that you're looking at? I actually, I misread the second one. I was reading the report on Guy Huffman.

And as you can imagine, Guy Huffman's report is amusing for a future Hall of Famer. So, no, his is fine. But even that one. 88 was his fastball. Right. He's going to be a good one. 88 fastball. So, 88 fastball.

And that was in 1986, which was the year he debuted. So that's not, I mean, and then there's one from like 87 where Maddox's fastball gets a present five, future six. So, yeah, and it says strong arm with good stuff. Yeah, and it says strong arm with good stuff. So in a way, I guess the idea that he didn't have amazing stuff sort of has merit. true, but at least based on these scouting reports, I don't know. Because the only one that really mentions the velocity just says 88. And then the others kind of give him, this one says like very good live sinking movement on his fastball uh and gives him a present and future six so plus fastball it wasn't like he was you know some like late career jamie moyer but um he wasn't you know throwing like upper 90s or anything so i guess it's kind of like maybe the people who say that he was just getting by on Moxie and while are exaggerating, but probably relative to how good he was, maybe his stuff was a little underwhelming. Does that seem like a fair statement? I mean, he doesn't, maybe even as a young pitcher,

he didn't have the stuff that would make you say, like, this guy is going to be the best pitcher in baseball. Yeah. No, I don't know. It's hard to know. I mean, it's hard to know. I mean, the one that says he wore down in the last half of the year, it's hard to know exactly how much even then Maddox was capable of.

I'm just looking right now and I see references to him hitting 93 in his early years and 92 to 94 when he first signed. You certainly would think that the scouting reports that are from that era would be more reliable. There's multiple layers of revisionism going on. Yes. Yeah. And this one from like from 1990, which says he's the top right-handed pitcher in the National League and will be around a long time.

That one says good live fastball went down, sinking action with plus velocity. So, you know, plus velocity, but not plus plus velocity, I guess. Joe Morgan in Baseball for Dummies says that he rarely throws harder than 88. What year was that? Well, I don't know, but it's such a timeless book. I don't know if it matters. It would be simpler for all of us if we just had PitchFX from 1988. Uh-huh. But, um, so yeah, I don't know.

Based on my reading of this, I would say it's unfair to say that he had average stuff but uh but relative to to his results i guess you could say that that his stuff was not quite what you would expect if you just if someone told you this guy is the best pitcher ever yeah yeah okay um all right barry bonds uh earliest scouting report, 1985 from the Carolina League by a scout named Herb Stein. And Barry Bonds at the time was a center fielder. And his grades, and there's no difference between present and future on this report. So I don't know what these are. what these are, but he gets, uh, he gets a, a five arm, a five hit, a five power, a seven field and a five hustle. Um, and he was four, one to first base. So, and the little blurb says a complete player shouldn't be moved too quickly. So not a rave review.

More emphasis on his defense and his defensive ability than his offense. I don't know whether those were present grades or not. But, yeah. Yeah, five hit tool, five power. Yeah. Interesting. What does it say on the right oh see below yeah um can you read what it says a complete player shouldn't be moved too quickly major league something uh scrawl major league pro rata That's how I read it. Yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, nothing foreshadowing the greatness of Barry Bonds in that report. Prospect. Major League Prospect.

Ah, okay. All right, well, he was. Does anybody, just kidding, I'm scanning. Does anybody else on this? Yeah, I wanted to – I mean, Scott Fletke has – well, no, I guess seven is it for years. So that's not very good. Bobby Bonilla basically grades out as almost the same,

but he actually grades out as identical except one uh one grade lower for fielding yeah yeah so so that's very bonds um roger clemens report from 1983 by gordon lakey and astros scout um so this one i just talked, I just talked to Roger Clemens' rookie ball, not rookie ball, his first manager, which was a ball. I think he was in the Florida State League or something like that. I just talked to him yesterday. Can you believe it? What did he say? He was telling me that Roger Clemens is one of only two pitchers he's ever had who refused to give him the ball when he would go out to take the ball from him.

And he said that no pitcher he's ever had has been as adamant as Clemens, who would simply say, I'll be done in three pitches. Well, this report from 1983 gives him only an average grade in aggressiveness. Interesting. He should talk to the manager. I know. So it says things that sound like Roger Clemens, strong, extremely well-proportioned frame, mature physical features, ideal body for a pitcher with no known injuries. Ideal body for a pitcher with no known injuries. The summation is that he is worth $38,000 and his delivery can be helped. Could solve a lot of problems by taking wind up from him and getting more plate drive. Can become power pitcher.

Would consider as second or third round draft. Like his velocity and breaking ball can be helped um so his grades present five future six on the fastball present two future four on the curve uh present four present two yeah present two i wonder if that's not two eight what i mean two it two is like unheard oh oh um on a two eight scale yeah uh well he projected a two grade jump for it he said it could be helped i don't know um gives him future average control future slider, future six poise. So, again, I guess this is kind of akin to the Bonds one, just sort of a, well, I mean, this guy says he would take him as a second or third round pick, which is, you know, Roger Clemens. You should go back someday, like right now.

You should go right now and look at Rogerger clemens a ball stats okay uh because he debuted in the florida state league through 29 innings in four starts 36 strikeouts zero walks zero home runs and a 1.24 era yeah not bad 36 strikeouts zero walks Zero home runs and a 1.24 ERA. Yeah, not bad. 36 strikeouts, zero walks. Yep, pretty good. Okay, all right, so now we get to Frank Thomas, and this one is pretty interesting.

This scouting report was filed by Mike Rizzo, that Mike Rizzo, who eventually did sign Frank Thomas. He was a White Sox scout at the time. So this scouting report is from 1988. He calls Thomas a B-plus prospect with a 55 OFP. plus prospect with a 55 OFP. But so the interesting thing is that he, he gives them an 80 future power, which is, you know, it's pretty rare for a scout to put an 80 on anything. Not knowing Mike Rizzo's scouting scale, but, but it's rare to see that.

He gives them a future 70 70 if i'm reading that right and a or a present 70 and a future 80 the interesting thing is that he only gives him a a 55 future hit tool and just just kind of browsing the the other scouting reports from that era on thomas i mean it everyone emphasized his power and didn't really didn't say much about his ability to hit for average and a future i mean a 55 grade according to my my little scout school manual would be like a 270 hitter or so and thomas was a lifetime 300 hitter who won a batting title. So it seems like scouts didn't necessarily see that from him.

They saw that he was a giant and that he hit balls really far, but not necessarily that he was going to be an all-around threat on offense. He actually considered him at the time to be a better fielder than hitter does he say that well he's great he had a 40 yeah he had a 45 on his field and a 50 on his base running yeah though 40 on speed and i think the the following year he he filed another report on him and it was sort sort of, I think, basically the same grades, but said that he should be a first-round pick, and he was selected seventh overall. And the first six picks in that 1989 draft were Ben McDonald,

Tyler Houston, Roger Salkeld, Jeff Jackson, Donald Harris, and Paul Coleman. Not a great first round that year. It was Thomas and Mo Vaughn and Chuck Knobloch. And that's why Mike Rizzo is famous now. Yep. Okay. Jeff Bagwell, 1989, filed by a Padres scout named Donald Labassiere. So this one, he calls him the best everyday player in New England,

which I don't know how high a compliment that is, really. His bat is what everyone likes because he can hit for average in power. He also stands in good. Scouts don't like to say that people do things well, I've noticed. Stands in good and can hit curveball, which many people can't do. Very coachable with excellent work habits. I've liked this kid since he was a freshman. He has improved every year.

He told me he wants to sign a pro contract and begin his career this year. But as much as he likes this kid, he gives him future 50s in pretty much everything. Future 50 hitter, future 50 power, future 40 runner, future 45 fielder. 40 runner, future 45 fielder. Do you know, what's interesting is that every grade is the same present and future, except for base running. Yeah, that is kind of, so he thought he was pretty much a finished product. And it also says, where's contacts?

Where's contacts? All hats. Yeah. uh, where's contacts? All the hats. Uh, yeah. All of these, uh, people were very glasses, contacts phobic, which I guess makes sense because they didn't really have the, the laser eye surgery that they have today, or at least not as, not as reliable. So, uh, yeah, there's a whole field on this sheet of paper for glasses. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the ones that we're going to get to also had that or specified that someone didn't wear glasses or contacts. Big, big plus. Good mark in your favor if you could see. Does this answer any of your – there's been somewhat of a back and forth about Bagwell's early years and whether his power development as he became like, you know, just a massively strong hitter is suspicious because he hit like, you know, two home runs in a ball or something like that.

Or not at all, because he was considered a good power hitter at the time and he played in a park where, you know home runs was enough to lead the team and i'm exaggerating a little and um and that the the sort of uh the idea that he developed his power late in his career is too simple and and false it is actually false does this does this this is such a this is such an across the board and yeah i mean it's all average everything is just average yeah all the way down i'm not sure it tells us anything yeah This is such an across-the-board eh. Yeah. I mean, it's all average. Everything is just average all the way down. I'm not sure it tells us anything. Yeah, not really. It says medium body, big strong legs, sturdy and rugged.

So there's that. There is that. And, yeah, I mean, there's also some people who say he didn't grow until later, that his muscle came later, but I don't think that's necessarily true either. He was a big guy when he came up. Yeah, not Frank Thomas big, but... I'm going to Google that card right now. Tom Glavin.

This is from 1985. This guy was Larry Monroe, and I might need your help deciphering this if you can open it. He just needs a little more on all three pitches and to get consistency on his spots. 84 with good sinking life, and it's enough. He raps curveball and needs more sharpness and pretty good screwball he stays down stays down with all stuff and he will pitch in the big leagues but whether he will really help a club depends on improvement of stuff and consistency overall um so you know pretty pretty lackluster report uh he will he will get there but he won't necessarily help and he was throwing 84 uh in

in 1985 uh when he was i guess 19 years old or so, a couple of years before he debuted. This Bagwell report, by the way, a year later, gives him 60 power, 70 hit tool. Huh, okay. Compact, very muscular build, big, thick shoulders, stocky lower half, heavily muscled legs and butt, maybe just a little tight, I think. Okay, well, that suggests that he was always... Smooth, fluid, powerful swing, explosive line drive power to all fields. Balls he hits really take off. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. All right. All right. Well, that sounds like Jeff Bagwell. Our nose in the hustler. Tim Raines, 1988, by a Mariner scout named Steve Vrablich, says, above average ability, above average hitting ability with above average power excellent running speed and a very good base dealer average fielding skills with very good

lateral range has shoulder problem and then surgery question mark um so that sounds about like uh tim raines the profile at least. I don't know about you, but I just cannot read the grades on this thing. They're way too far away from the column headings, which are too far. I can't read them either because I accidentally clicked on Mike Piazza's. There's nothing about Tim Raines on there at all. But this scout gives Raines a good. So he gives guys a one-word rating that ranges from fringe to, or I guess chance is the lowest, and then fringe, and then good Good and then Excellent. So he gives Reigns a Good,

which he also gives Tim Wallach and Hubie Brooks on the same scouting report. But he gives Andres Galarraga an Excellent. And he says that he is a premium player. This is from 1988, though. Yeah. So Reigns come up? This is from 1988, though. Yeah. So, what year did... This is... Yeah.

Raines come up? I mean, Raines was already, like, past his... Yeah, why is that... That's weird. Past his very best years, in fact. So, I mean, this is old. Forget it. Yeah, that's a weird one.

So that... Well, that's interesting. So, that sort of suggests that he was underrated at the time by this one scout. Oh, yeah, that's true because he's basically Hubie Brooks and on his Galarraga. Yeah. Although I guess 88 was not a great year for Reigns, it looks like, relative to his other years from that time. But, I mean, 85, 86, 87 were all really good years. And, like, top 10 MVP finishes almost.

But never a great year after 88, right? Yeah, I mean. Never a great year. Just some good years. Yeah, well, let's see uh he had looking at at baseball reference and he had a yeah i mean 80 80 or 92 he had a six win year i guess um but yeah even at the time not a premium player just good and that 90 92 seasons kind of padded by a outlier defensive rating for what it's worth yes but yeah right good player i mean this scout might have been onto something he had he had gone from superstar to

um above average more or less that offseason. So the scout got it just right. So the Piazza report, which is by Brad Kohler, who is a scouting bureau report. This is from 1986. I think I've written about this before somewhere, possibly. Because, I mean, the Piazza origin story is that he was like a non-prospect who was just drafted as a, a favor, uh, in the 62nd round. And I mean, obviously he was drafted in the 62nd round. No one thought he would be what he became.

But this report from, from 1986 is, is kind of cautiously optimistic about him. It says, great size plus youth to go with potential above average long ball pop. Average student in class. No solid college offers a long way to come with overall ability, but worth selection on bat and power and he does give him a a future six power um future five arm strength and accuracy which is oh well this is this is as a first baseman this report um but, kind of, I mean, thought he was a prospect at least thought he was worth drafting. Um, and yet no college offers. Yeah.

Even though he was a good student or average student. That's right. Um, yeah. So I don't know that the, I mean, he's a 62nd rounder, and before I read this, I would have thought that maybe no one would have even bothered filing a report on him or wouldn't have thought anything of him. But this report has him as an overall future potential of 44.6. So there was something there that this guy saw. I would pay $400,000 if this scouting report used the word BACNI. Yeah, that'd be nice. Okay, a couple more to go.

Biggio, 1986. This is by the same scouting bureau scout who just wrote that Piazza report. Same year. Same year, too. Might have been the same trip. Might have been. He liked Biggio much better. Gave him a 65.5 OFP.

Said he was worth $85,000. Definite major leaguer with great body control, speed, arm strength, sound fielding potential, plus bat and line drive power, make up. That's just a one word sentence. Very aggressive, take charge type player who can also take the extra base with his plus running ability. And he gives him a seven uh present and future running speed and base running grade gives him a a six range six aggressiveness six arm strength uh and a five five power four hit um so that is that's a pretty good report what was he playing right now was he playing what position was he he's a catcher report. What was he playing right now? What position was he playing?

He was a catcher when this report was filed. He was, huh? And he still put a 7 on his future base running and running speed. That's optimistic. I mean, it turned out to be right, but... Uh-huh. Yeah, this is the one. Outstanding athletic makeup with no glasses or contacts.

Gotta get those no glasses guys. But yeah, so that's that might be the closest we've come to seeing a really optimistic report here. Definite major leaguer.

A through and through rave in this report. Yeah. And then the last one is Edgar. And this one is from 1990. And Edgar had already been in the majors at that point. I guess 1990 was his first year as a regular at age 27. And so Edgar Martinez, it says,

good contact bat, solid defense. And that's it. And it says that, yes, he can help. There's a column for help. Yes, no. I just want to note that on this scouting sheet, Edgar Martinez and Omar Vizquel are back-to-back. And Edgar Martinez' defense is praised and edgar martinez defense is praised

and omar vizquel's defense is not yes good point um and this one has this brian giles wow brian giles veteran triple a player no that's a that's the there's a there are two brian giles right there's a different uh yeah uh are there yeah at the same? Wow. Yeah, different Brian Giles. What a weird sport we follow. I know, two Brian Giles. So this one has a category column with the lower number being better. The only one on this sheet is Ken Griffey Jr., who says can do it all, future star. Edgar is only a three on this. So it looks like four is like a,

a triple a guy, maybe a, maybe a fill in. Um, Edgar gets a three and Vizquel also gets a three, which is like, I don't know, maybe like a,

like a, an okay player below average major leaguer. Tino Martinez gets a three slash two. Uh, he liked Tino better than Edgar. So, which I guess is maybe not... Was this guy

trying to... So, this guy, I don't know if he was a Mariner scout or not, but I guess it would make sense for scouts not to have loved Edgar because he didn't really get a chance until he was 27 or so. So that's this exercise. I might write this up also for the site just because it will probably work better visually than it would listening to us talk about it.

But we talked about it anyway. I liked it. Yeah, it was fun to us talk about it, but we talked about it anyway. I liked it. Yeah, it was fun for us at least. So results will be announced later today. We will maybe touch on them briefly tomorrow, and then we will forget about this for the next 11 months or so, maybe. But we'll be back with another show tomorrow. We could use some listener emails for Friday at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.

Are we doing the scouting reports? Yeah. Yes, that's good. I like that. That's a good topic. I don't dislike this one at all. Okay. That's the greatest endorsement that I would ever expect from you.