Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 372: The Rays, The Red Sox, and Getting Hometown Discounts

Episode Date: January 27, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss Jon Lester and whether the Rays and Red Sox have figured out how to make players reluctant to leave.

And there's nothing left to make me wanna stay And I will never go away And there's nothing left to make me wanna stay Good morning and welcome to episode 372 of Effectively Wild, a daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives. I'm Sam Miller with Ben Lindberg. How are you doing, Ben? Ready to record a podcast.

Yeah, sorry for making you wait. You know, ever since we crossed into the 300s, every episode when I say the number, I feel like that's a famous batting average and then I can't remember who it is and 372 doesn't 372 sound like one of those runs

at 400 that someone made but I don't think it is like DiMaggio's highest average or something oh no here it is I found it didn't take long my second guess Todd Helton 2000 good something oh no here it is i found it it didn't take long my second guess todd helton 2000 okay good yeah uh so uh you know nothing happened

no this uh this is that time when nothing happens yeah Yeah. So I don't actually – I don't think anything rises to the level of wanting to talk about it for 20 minutes. So I thought we could maybe just talk about a few things. Okay. First, I just wanted to note with how much joy I read your David Price trade proposals. Thank you. You did this with John Carlos St with john carlos stanton before and they're amazing they're they're they're so good and everyone is real but you know what i particularly love about the david price ones is that um they are not all uh clear wins for the

team that's proposing them uh-huh you know, like, it's like they miss... They miss... You think that fake trade proposals are always terrible because hometown fans overrate their own prospects or just simply don't want to give anything up. And they usually are. Most of the ones that I find for these things. But you forget that a huge part of what makes these trade proposals amazing is that they are also crazy, just directionlessly crazy.

They can be wrong in any direction. And so sometimes they wander off and get on a bus and end up in Toledo but sometimes they wander off and get on a bus and end up in Atlanta you know like that bus can go anywhere there were a few that would be terrible

for the team that proposed them or the team that the fan who proposed them roots for so yeah I don't know it's uh it's i feel kind of bad after i do it so like twins twins offer um byron buxton and eddie rosario for price it for instance is one that wouldn't work and this is from a twins fan that you were i i take it that you were not cherry picking raise fans ones and sneaking them in no uh no this was yeah they were uh as far as i could tell i mean not all of them uh put their their team loyalty on their

comment name or whatever but you can usually tell that it's often a Twins blog if it's a Twins trade or something like that. Yeah, yeah. He also said Byron Buxton was Brian Buxton. Yes, there are a lot of draft picks being traded. I like that. Yes, that's always a popular solution when you don't want to trade.

One of your good prospects is to trade draft picks, which you can't do, but it's a neat little way not to actually trade any of the players that you don't want to give up. And just out of curiosity, have you considered doing one of Ray's fans and what they would want back? No, but maybe maybe i will um i don't know but it it would be kind of hard to come up with one that was as ridiculous in that direction i think as as these um but yeah it's a it's a fun exercise it's not I don't know, I feel kind of bad about going around the Internet

and just trying to find people coming up with terrible trade proposals because, I don't know, there are people saying silly things everywhere about everything, and I say silly things about some things. Yeah, you know, it's true too because occasionally I will say something that is, I mean, quite frequently, in fact, I will say something that is – I mean quite frequently in fact I will say something that is intentionally just wrong. Like that's the joke. It doesn't make any sense and it's dumb and it's wrong. I'm playing the fool.

And I will get a bunch of tweets like, you're an idiot. And I'm like, you follow me. Like why not give me the benefit of the doubt on this? Like, why not just assume that maybe there's a joke involved? And yet here you are, you know, picking on the guy who says it's weird that everybody wants David Price. He's a one-pitch lefty. I'd rather have Phil Hughes than David Price right now. Yeah.

Yeah. hughes than david price right now yeah yeah there were there were times when i discarded one because it seemed too intentional like the person might be saying it on purpose uh but it's possible that i included some of those by accident yeah all right on to the baseball dang it that only took five minutes. Did you see Robinson Cano at the Grammys? I did not. Was he, like, was he, I mean, I assume he was sitting with Jay-Z? He was. Who else was there? Was Kevin Durant there?

Not that I, I just saw for a second. I don't know. I don't know that I would recognize Kevin Durant if I saw him. So, but he did not look fat he was not fat kano how could you really tell though he was wearing a suit and sitting down uh he was standing when i saw him wearing a suit but uh a nicely tailored suit that you yeah so so maybe there was something to that story about the fat canoe picture being taken outside you know one time uh this is totally unrelated but one time um i read i just had this vision of robinson cano wearing a suit at the grammys and a yankees or a mariner's cap you know like just wearing a cap actually it'd be funny if it was a yaniner's cap, you know, like just wearing a cap. Actually, it'd be funnier if it was a Yankees cap, right?

And I remember a story of, I think it was Jonathan Sanchez was walking out of the clubhouse one day and he was wearing his hat as he walked out and the team just completely blew up at him and like started making fun of him and like what an idiot he was and like who would ever wear your hat out? And so I don't know that everybody was aware that this is one of those things but it is it is it is actually one of those things that baseball players are not allowed to wear their baseball cap in a non-baseball function you mean just uh because because of peer pressure?

I don't know why. It's not an actual rule. It's just who would do that. Yeah, all unwritten rules are not actually rules. Didn't I say unwritten rule? Did I not say unwritten rule? I don't think so. All right, so John Lester says he would take a um toyed with the idea that maybe somebody should write a story

about how the rays one of the rays sort of i i hate using this term because it gets used all the time but one of their secret inefficiencies you know their inefficiencies is um is being a place that people like to play. They cultivate something from the minors up that seems to make people want to play there and stay there, which seems like that sort of thing that would be an unmeasurable, nonsensical platitude that some team would say about itself, like it's the raise way or whatever but when you get evan longoria or matt moore to sign their life away when they're you know 23 years old um it has huge profit margins right and um i mentioned this once to uh tommy renzel and he pointed out that um that when james shields got traded last year

um he like three weeks later or whatever weeks later it was i don't know how long it was after they traded but when the bus left for i guess i want to say that there was like the bus left for spring training from Tropicana Field or something like that. And all the players went to sort of get on the bus and go to spring training. James Shields, who was no longer even on the team, like went out there to like wave goodbye. And like he just he like loved the franchise so much that even after they traded him, he showed up for their spring training send off like he's one of their wives or something.

And, you know, so I still have this idea that this might be a thing that the Rays consider valuable. Maybe it's not the only thing that's valuable and maybe you can't measure it and maybe I'm making it up. But it does seem like if you can convince, if you can create an environment that makes players want to take a discount, then of course that discount goes straight to you. And so the Red Sox got Dustin Pedroia to sign what now I think, well, even at the time, looked fairly absurd. And particularly absurd, I think it looked particularly absurd when Robinson Cano was shopping for offers and, or, and he'd be like, Oh, I want $30 million. And then somebody would be like, well, geez, Dustin Pedroia is making $4,000. And he'd be like, geez, Dustin Pedroia is only making $4,000. Like how did they get him for $4,000? That's like below minimum wage. Um, and so now you have john lester who says quote um i understand that stay

here you're not going to get a free agent deal you're not going to do it you can't it's not possible you're bidding against one team i understand you're going to take a discount to stay do i want to do that absolutely um but just like i wanted to be fair for them i wanted to be fair for me and my family so you have this quote where he says i'm willing to take a discount absolutely and then you immediately after have a quote that is the standard you know but i got to take care of my family too and i'm gonna see what mario says whatever so um we don't know if john lester means this. Jon Lester might be completely full of it.

He might be planning on hitting free agency unless the Red Sox pay him as though he were a free agent. But would two make a trend in your mind? I mean, do you think it's conceivable that this is actually something that a team can cultivate? something that a team can cultivate or is it just impossible to expect um you know people at this level to to take any discount for you except that rare time when you just get lucky and they agree to yeah i i'm thinking of uh that tim wakefield contract that he had with the red sox where he basically just signed all his rights away like they could they could renew him every year at the same price if they wanted to and he had no real say he could either just play for them or no one um so that was another one and it does I mean it seems like the Rays do a lot of those team building exercises that every team does, but they do more of them, or at least there's more coverage of them.

You know, they do a lot of those wacky, like, dressing up as some theme and everyone wears the same sort of thing, or they do if you think of like teams doing themed facial hair or like haircut things those would probably be the two teams that you think of the red sox and the rays are always doing beards or mohawks or shaving or all that you know that kind of activity. Um, so sure. I don't know. And you can think of lots of examples of, of Red Sox and Rays who didn't take a discount and didn't stay. Uh, I mean, Karl Crawford didn't stay. Jacoby Ellsbury didn't stay. Um, so yeah, but those are the only two you can name i thought about it a little bit longer i bet you can't i bet you can't i bet you can't i'll wait uh well how far back can we go um uh to 1985 well johnny damon said that he would not sign with the Yankees, and then he did sign with the Yankees. So I'm sure you could.

I cannot believe you took that challenge seriously. You could increase the odds of having a player come back slightly by fostering that kind of attitude and presumably the same attitude that would be likely to make a player want to stay would also be the attitude that would contribute to good chemistry in the short term. So you kind of win both ways. If there's such a thing as chemistry helping a team perform, then, then you help your, you help yourself in the short term and maybe you also help yourself in the longterm.

But, uh, to have to, to, to think there was something to it. Really. I, I have to go back and see whether there was a difference in the rate at

which they re-sign their guys or, um, or the prices at which they get them. I would think it'd be sort of a, a case by case thing. You'd be more likely to get the odd person who would do it now and then. Uh, but if you're a Scott Boris client,

you're probably not going to do it no matter what. Yeah. I wonder if it's as easy as we sometimes make it, or I don't know know maybe we don't but we make it seem to build this sort of thing i mean i imagine that if you don't do it right in fact i know for a fact that if you don't do it right team building stuff sucks it's like it's if you're like working in an office. I would hate all of it. I would like if I had to do some hair thing, it would be the worst.

I would hate that. There would be no way I would make that something that I would want to do. And especially if you already don't like your coworkers that much, then it just becomes torture. much uh then it just becomes torture like to the idea that somebody is going to uh that somebody put on their agenda makes sam have fun with guy he doesn't like like that that's actually deliberate that it's not it's not it's bad enough to get like trapped in an elevator with somebody you don't like but to actually have like people watching you to see if you're having a good time it's terrible it's horrible team building things are just the worst but the thing about team building things is they are exactly the things you do at camp summer camp and summer camp is the best there's nothing better than summer camp it's the exact same thing except there is just a there's like a touch that you have to have that makes it perfect

and if you put a little too much pressure on it becomes degrading and demeaning and infantilizing and tedious and horrible and russell is actually i didn't just totally make up that summer camp analogy russell carlton is fond of saying that um he would run a team like uh well he would hire a camp counselor if he were interested in building um clubhouse chemistry he would hire a camp counselor and basically like because camp counselors there's a this american life actually about this um maybe a year ago um camp counselors are extremely good at this because if you don't make the week super fun, then nobody comes back. So it's like they have this huge market incentive much more than almost anybody else. They have this huge market incentive to figure

out a way to make groups have fun and have it not just be fun, but to be sort of transcendently fun. So he would have a like a camp counselor basically come in and figure out a way to run the team like a fun way to do it and that's how joe madden essentially does it but um like you don't get the sense that that's how the red socks do it right the the red socks if you were if you're if you looked at baseball and said well the way to do this is the raise way you would not end up like the Red Sox. The Red Sox are, for one thing, they're a much more grown-up club. You get the feeling that there are a lot of guys who are not all that uncertain

about their place in the game, like the Rays might be. They have a lot of guys that could be, either by temperament or certainly by service time and status and salary, could be the leader on any other team, which can go either way, right? You can have too many leaders or whatever. And they have a much more bottom-up culture than top-down. Their culture, it seems like the people who kind of drive the clubhouse are in the clubhouse.

They're not Joe Maddon, right? At least it seems that way. I don't know if it's true. But they're completely different teams. And so when you start thinking, okay, well, is this an inefficiency? Can you build this culture that makes one player sign for $10 million less than they should simply by investing $5,000 in balloon animals? Well, it's actually really complicated,

and it's super difficult to predict how teams are going to react to various things. It's interesting because when I wrote the chemistry piece, it never occurred to me that there was this secondary possible benefit, like that having players that are happy might actually lead to having one player who wants to stick around for less than he's worth. I don't know, though. How many discounts can you really think of? I can think of basically two. I can think of not counting pre-arb guys who have different economic incentives.

I mean, Pedroia clearly took a discount. Can you even say that Matt Moore or Longoria stayed because they liked the atmosphere of the Rays? I mean, they really hadn't even been, at least at the major league level, with the team when they signed their extensions. So unless there's just a pervasive thing all the way down. Well, I think there is something of a pervasive thing all the way down. But you can't say it based on what we know. But that's why I say that there's different incentives for them.

And so, no, you can't say it. It might have just been an economics thing for them. Although I vaguely recall that it was one of their quotes, which means nothing. Quotes mean nothing. But that it was one of their quotes that got me thinking about this. But, no, you cannot say that. So we've got Pedroia, who loves Boston, apparently, and likes being on that team. And so he basically is one.

And then you have Jared Weaver, who likes pitching in front of his family and wife, who likes pitching in front of his family and wife, who's a Southern California guy, who seems to benefit from the park. So it might not have anything to do with that club or anything that they've done. It might just simply be a matter of being comfortable where he lived. And can you think of anybody else who's signed a high-profile contract that was like a true hometown discount that's currently going?

I was going to say Jose Molina until you said high-profile. I am shaking my head over here, Ben. Shaking my head at your gratuitous Molina reference. Thrust him into the conversation with no provocation. It is often a case of a player wanting to stay close to home, which really doesn't have much to do with the team itself. Like Felix, I feel like it is sort of framed as that, and there is an element of that simply that he didn't really aggressively test the market. And he's Felix.

Everybody knows he could have gone to the Yankees. And you expect a guy like Felix not to stay with Seattle. It's just staying in Seattle when he could have escaped. I love Seattle, but as we've talked about for some reason baseball players don't I don't know why, it's weird that's why I think it was branded that way but he also didn't really

take a discount it didn't seem to me yeah, no he got his yep I think Felix probably got the Mariners to pay as much as the Mariners would pay. I don't think Dustin Pedroia or Jared Weaver got their teams to pay as much as their teams would pay. And I don't even know why we're – I don't even know why we're lauding.

Oh, we're not lauding that. No. So when somebody says, why are you lauding this? Why do you want to hear about the owners? We're not. We're talking about the the strategic advantage of saving money at the expense of your dumb players money balls right um yeah off the top of my head i i don't know i'm thinking about the the huge blockbuster deals and the huger they are the

more likely i am to think of them and the less likely they are to have been discounted one rule is that if you think you've thought of one and there's a player opt out in three years you haven't thought of one yeah well we'll probably get 20

emails about this don't email us do what Ben wants you to do, which is to go to our Facebook page. Where Sam won't have to read what you say. I'm happy to read. If you want to email, email me. That's fine. But I think Ben really wants you to go to our Facebook page.

I do like when people do that. Facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild. And is there anything else that you want to promote? I don't usually promote things on a Monday, but I'm always happy to have people rate and review us and subscribe to us on iTunes.

Huh? That's good. All right, so that'll do. Oh, and another thing is that we should, since we made fun of the Phillies for hiring a stat guy who was not actually an employee of the Phillies at the time and was sort of on loan from the labor relations department, that stat guy, Scott Friedman, is now a full-time employee of the Phillies. So they've got one. Yeah. So that's good.

I feel good about that. Yeah. You feel like you had a hand in that, like that you were part of the mockery that led to them doing that? Nope. I don't think so. doing that uh nope i don't think so it was it's kind of uncomfortable because i i met him uh shortly after that episode um we were judging at the the nyu case competition where where the students put together like they put together cases for how much a certain free agent should sign for

and then they're judged by people who work in baseball in some capacity and he and i were were judging them and i don't think he had heard what we talked about but he he was certainly aware of the the internet reaction to it uh and was amused by it, I think. So anyway, the Phillies did a smart thing, presumably, by bringing him on full time. Good. People turn out to be nice in person, usually. Yeah, almost always. All right. All right.

That's the end of the show. Okay. So send us emails for later in the week at podcast at baseballperspectives.com.