Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 586: The Winter Meetings Moves We Missed

Episode Date: December 12, 2014

Ben and Sam discuss the deluge of signings and trades during the last two days of the Winter Meetings.

Good morning and welcome to episode 586 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectus, presented by The Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Howdy. Apologies if I sound a little echoey or if there's some atmospheric music in the background. I'm in Los Angeles, so it's just echoey here, and there's music here all the time everywhere. I like, what is that music? That is a Christmas song.

I think it's Let It Snow. It's haunting. It's not, yeah, it sounds like, it sounds like the background music from Bioshock or something. So it's not snowing, but it is about to rain, right? We're bracing for some West Coast extreme weather or so I hear. Oh, really? You see, it's past us.

How was it? Nothing notable. It was a good rain. It was a solid day of rain. California needs some rain. California needs some rain. The thing is that people sometimes mock California for getting crazy about the weather, but it's really anything that affects traffic. We're not actually afraid of the weather, but we're afraid of what it will do to traffic. So anything that will affect

traffic is huge, huge news. Whereas like a 7 7.0 earthquake we will totally roll with it it's just like this this makes our dancing more fun that's what earthquakes are it just earthquakes are dynamite all right uh well we should segue into baseball's seismic activity activity. So last time we talked, we stopped recording about, what, 20 minutes before the Lester to the Cubs deal became official, and that seems like a long time ago and a lot of trades and signings ago. You've written about some of them, I haven't. I'm about to write about something. I don't know where to start. There are probably too many things to cover in a single podcast, but if there are some that interest you in particular or that you feel more prepared to talk about, I will start anywhere. Okay. Start anywhere. Start anywhere. I'm reading Plasky. I'm very good about not reading whatever thing Twitter is freaking out about.

I've read every possible troll job. I'm not interested in them. But this is a little bit of majesty here. This is really incredible. I have not seen it. I've been out all day. Is this a reaction to the Dodgers' many moves? Yeah, the headline is literally

heat is on after unwisely trading matt kemp heat is on andrew friedman like already he's he's on the wobbly chair on bill plaschke's wobbly chair uh-huh okay well maybe we should start there then this does this i mean i was i was somewhat surprised i was not at all surprised that a dodgers outfielder was traded i was somewhat surprised that it was kemp i figured the most likely outcome was one of the the less skilled outfielders would be trade that it would just be easier for all sides for the dodgers to just eat some money and trade Ethier or Crawford or someone. But this Kemp to the Padres for Grandal rumor had been going around for some time, so that wasn't shocking either. And I mean, from the Dodgers perspective, it seems easier to explain from the Dodgers perspective to me than the Padres perspective, right if if friedman is on the wobbly chair then

i wonder what aj preller is on right now yeah i get i i guess i i would just maybe argue with the semantics of it i think that it's i i i prefer the dodgers side of it i think that most people that we read and are read by prefer the dodgers side it. But it is easier to justify in a kind of outside of our particular sphere. It's much easier to justify getting a superstar than giving up a superstar. And that is, I think that's what Plasky represents. He represents the uh what i like to call the uncle cohort who likes to who doesn't get why they would trade the superstar um and uh you know so for that reason you can sort of see like where if plaschke were making some sort of meta argument about uh keeping the dodger casual dodger fan interested or something like that,

or winning the hearts and minds of the population, then he might have a point. I don't think it's a... I don't particularly... I wouldn't make the trade if I were the Padres, but I don't think it's absurd either. I'm surprised they made it. It doesn't seem like the sort of deal that I expected from the Padres generally or from Preller.

But I don't think it's quite as bad as some of the responses to it were. I don't think Kemp is necessarily a bad ball player. I'm sort of skeptical of the idea that he's a minus-20 corner outfielder. That just seems impossible to me. It's practically impossible to me it's like practically impossible to imagine that that's true and if you regress him to you know to average which seems like i mean he's a you know he's a young guy who runs well and played center field it's hard for me not to imagine that he's somewhere close to average and he is still a very good hitter yeah or he is

sometimes a very good hitter the bp and i the very good hitter. The BP, I don't know why I brought that up. He's had three MVP halves in the last three years. And three very poor halves in the last three years. And if you average it together, he's essentially the same hitter that he was the three years before he signed his contract, when he got that contract. And the only thing that's really changed is that, A, it has become this weird flip-flop half-half thing that he's doing that is kind of disconcerting and makes you uncomfortable about the guy, and that the defensive metrics have cratered. Clearly he's not as valuable as he was when he was playing center field,

and so he's never going to be a seven or eight win player again. But for $15 million a year, I'd be happy about it. Now the fact that they gave up some quality pieces to get him is what makes it a little harder. But, you know, Kemps is a fine ball player. Fine enough. He's not my favorite. I like him a lot less than most people do, and I still like him. Yeah.

It's not my favorite. I like him a lot less than most people do, and I still like him. Yeah. I mean, his contract looked awful a year ago, and now it looked not so bad. Enough that you can kick in some money, and they did kick in some money. And, yeah, at the rate that they will be paying him, that's a fine player to have. And you understand why they wanted to trade a catcher. They have lots of good catchers.

And so if they were going to deal for something, then you can understand why they would want to use one of their surplus catchers to do it. And you can see why the Dodgers would want that catcher. So that makes perfect sense I guess it's just uh it's a timing thing it's the Padres are not very good even with Kemp they're probably not very good unless they do a whole lot of other stuff and and they've been talking about adding a hitter for a while and then right after they talked about adding a hitter they signed Clint Barmas which I thought was amusing he probably would be one of their better hitters last year he's one of the probably one of the worst hitters in baseball but they were a team of terrible hitters last year so Kemp makes them better but it's just kind of uh they're not very

good right now and maybe he'll be good for a couple more years, but maybe they won't overlap in the way that you would want, and maybe he gets hurt again or something. So that seems... Yeah, maybe. I mean, it's $15 million. It's not crippling money, and if you're going to say,

oh, well, they're not going to be good in his three years well then why keep grandal right i mean grandal's basically got three years too he's a he's a catcher what you're not gonna count on him past that probably um so yeah it's just a why not a a prospect's deal or something Why not just get a bunch of young guys? Yeah, I guess. Makes sense. Yeah, I mean. It's not a trade I love, but it's not a trade that I. For either side or do you love it for one side?

I guess if you look at the Dodgers as basically trading a player who's worth about like a quarter as much to them as he is to anyone else in the sense that they have so many outfielders on the other hand you could look at it with the dodgers as they can afford to have a four win player at every position and so if they end up having um you know a heisei ethier platoon or something like that going on at some point that's i mean that's lower than their what their bar is at any position i mean with the dodgers you almost just you get so greedy you think uh if you have five players uh for one position uh just keep the best one if you have to pay the other four to do nothing fine but keep the best one you should like they have so much money they should just almost always keep the best one.

On paper, yeah, they definitely got good value out of it. It's a coup for them, I guess. For any other team, it would be a coup. With the Dodgers, you don't quite know how to think about money with them. But, you know, Grundahl's an upgrade.

Yeah, certainly. And so, I guess, since we're's an upgrade. Yeah, certainly. And so I guess since we're on the subject of the Dodgers, we can talk about some of the other Dodgers stuff. Yeah, you know what watching the Dodgers last night reminded me of? Remember, like, I don't know, 15 episode or whatever we did was Puig's first game. Do you remember that? Yeah, right. We were reacting to a Plaschke article, weren't we? Oh, were we? Oh, I don't remember.

So Puig threw a guy out at first to end the game and the world just completely... I guess it must have been later, huh? It must have been because he debuted in the spring. It must have been like episode 200-ish. Anyway, he threw a guy out to end the game,

and everybody was just so excited by Puig. And just to see him in game one was an event. And then for him to do something was especially great, and everybody reacted, and I thought maybe overreacted. I was the overreactor yesterday, just watching what was kind of like the first game of the Friedman zaidi uh regime in a way and to just see them do this thing which i don't know that it was perfect uh

it was it sort of uh was more it was kind of like there it was more exciting i think early on to some degree but it was still it was. They did a lot of amazing things. But to just see the way that they were able to control all these different moves that had to be negotiated at once, thought about as interrelated, that had to be basically, like, had to be coordinated both mentally and actually logistically in a way that I think would be extremely challenging for a lot of people.

And so to see them, it was like seeing the guy flash his actually, logistically in a way that I think would be extremely challenging for a lot of people. And so to see them, it was like seeing the guy flash his 80-grade arm or his 80-speed, and you're like, oh, my gosh, they really do have this tool. I don't think that they've necessarily guaranteed that they're going to the hall of fame or anything like that it's only one game but it was really an impressive show to me just to see this like to see them just knock off one after the other and to see it like the plan emerge it was incredible it was great maybe that's i mean it's such a logistical challenge maybe that is something they're able to do because they have three GMs in the front office and maybe I don't I would love to read just an in-depth article on what that day was like for

them or what what the winter meetings were like for them and just how they divided up the the planning and the communication with other teams because all those things were happening more or less simultaneously they must have been and so i mean that you they must have been delegating to to the other gms to talk to other teams about those moves so maybe that is maybe that is one of the benefits of having many of those guys who have been the primary person in a front office, having them be the subordinate people, is that you can just trust them to go run trade negotiations or talk to free agents or their agents while other people are tied up doing certain things. I guess there aren't many days in a year where that is necessary, where you would need like five people talking to teams at the same time. But if that day ever happens, ever comes,

then they are probably better equipped to do that than anyone else. So the individual moves, so the Phillies actually traded a guy. That was sort of shocking to actually see that happen. And so what? I haven't even been out all day. I feel like I have to sit down and understand how all the puzzle pieces fit together. But Brandon McCarthy, we like Brandon McCarthy. What was the Bowden prediction?

It was much lower, right? 20. It was 20. Did I take him? Did someone take him? I took him. Oh, that's a crushing blow. I saw, so four years, 48. Yeah. Oh, that's huge.

That is big. That is big. I still think, I mean, you're going to cash in on Headley, but, oh, dude, the other, I'm going to pull that up while I'm doing this. But the latest thing is that the Mariners won't go past three for Melky Cabrera. And Melky was your under? Is that right? Maybe. I didn't write it down. Hang on.

Yeah, he might have been. I felt like I had to go with an under. Yeah, you did and my i missed on my under everything has been over so far we've hit all of these except for my under and uh yeah you have milky as an under so uh i really need that not that like i need him to get his fourth year from someone but uh yeah so uh mccarthy was at 20 he signed for 48 and masters McCarthy was at 20. He signed for 48. And Masterson was at 7. He signed for 9, which was mine. And I feel like that's kind of a lost, a wasted opportunity.

And then Gregerson was at 14. He signed for, I think, 18. And that was yours. Okay, great. I'll bank that $4 million. So, okay. So McCarthy, I mean, we like McCarthy as a pitcher. The only question about him was health,

and so they have made a fairly significant bet that he will stay healthy, that this last year is an indication of future years. And he... It's also, I mean, he's... He hasn't really ever been worth much more than $12 million in a year, is the other thing. Even if you're sort of banking on him missing a year but making it up by being so good, he might be.

We like him as a pitcher. He's a good pitcher. He was really good with New York, for instance. But if you're expecting him to be like a three or four win pitcher the first couple years or the couple of healthy years, he hasn't really demonstrated that, which is part of what makes the four years so surprising. It's like they're going long on a guy who's, I don't know, maybe not that high impact a guy in addition to not being that safe. That was sort of surprising. That's right.

So what is the latest with Dan Heron's retirement watch? They gave him a watch already? Geez, he hasn't even announced. Very good, very good. He's thinking it over. So that's interesting that you make a trade not knowing. Is that, I mean, do they not care? Is Dan Heron just like neutral $10 million or whatever it is?

If he decides not to retire, great, we have Dan Heron. And if he does, you still have to pay him, though, is the problem, unless he gives you a Gilmash deal. Well, you don't have to pay him if he retires. But even if they consider Dan Heron at $10 million to be neutral and they'll take it either way, I think they would want to know. It's really hard not to know. Most teams' budgets aren't that fluid and not knowing whether you're going to spend $10 million is a lot of money.

Especially for the Marlins, yeah. Yeah, and so it feels like it could be a huge pain if they don't know. I can't figure that one out. I mean, I just assumed that the theory that everybody has, that basically it does the Dodgers a favor. You're doing the Dodgers a service, so you get some sort of credit from the Dodgers for doing them a service at no risk

because you think Heron's going to retire. That's the first thing that came to my mind. That's what I sort of was thinking, but that's awfully risky, given that he doesn't seem to be locked in on that. He seems to be thinking it over more than I would want if I were in the Marlins situation. I forget who mentioned this. Somebody, somebody i think who covers the angels suggested that it's also possible that they plan to flip him to the angels yeah maybe

okay so so we've we wondered what they would do to follow up the stanton contract because obviously they they indicated to Stanton that they would be doing subsequent things and they'd be adding and he deferred all this money or backloaded all this money so that they could do things or we wondered whether they actually would or whether they were just tricking him into that or what. So they've done some things i don't know whether the first move makes them notably better i mean the the d gordon heron deal i mean that's i don't know gordon seems like probably more of the guy that he was for most of the year or the second half of the year and probably more than half of the year

after he had that sort of anomalous good-hitting start to the year. And so they've got that guy, and they had to give up Heaney, who was their best prospect at one time recently, the best left handed pitching Prospect in baseball For a brief time there One time recently Like 48 hours ago

Yes So that's Is that An upgrade I guess Not particularly Is it an upgrade? If they hadn't traded Heaney for Gordon, you're asking if that's an upgrade

all by itself? Like not taking into account contracts or anything like that, but just in 2015 is Heaney better than Gordon? Yeah. That's close. I think I would rather have Heaney than Gordon in 2015.

That might be an insane thing to say. I don't know. I don't know how to. I've never been able to compare non-rookies to non-rookies. It's always hard for me. But I think I would take Heaney over Gordon. Yeah. Gordon's not good.

Well, no one thought he was good for a while there And then briefly It looked like he was really good And suddenly he was like The better Billy Hamilton or something Last year Last year The Dodgers were talking about

Miguel Rojas Being their second baseman And just for fun You should go look at Miguel Rojas being their second baseman. And just for fun, you should go look at Miguel Rojas' career stats to see how insane it is that a year ago, they were talking about Miguel Rojas

not Dee Gordon being their second baseman. That's how bad Dee Gordon was, except for like seven and a half weeks of his life. Well, I guess that's not B. Gordon was, except for like seven and a half weeks of his life. Well, I guess that's not true. He was a top prospect, too. He was a 30 prospect until three years ago.

So I guess that is relevant data, too. Yeah, Miguel Rojas has a, well, he hasn't really played all that much in the majors or in the upper levels, but he is a career 300 OBP 282 slug in AA. Yeah, in AA. In AA. He's been kind of, like in 2013 he had a 610 OPS in AA and he was old for the level. So, I mean a little old.

Yeah, of course the Marlins went into last year with Rafael Frical as their presumptive starting second baseman. So that wasn't much better. But so I don't know. So if they get Heron, I guess getting Heron would be a good thing. So we don't know whether they did yet. It's not totally clear. That's true. I don't think Heron's been above replacement level for three years, according to reference. Now, there's different wars are very different on Heron because he's still kind of a little bit of a fit monster. But you could make the case that Heron is worth nothing, that Heron is retirement bait at the minimum.

You could make that case. And the Dodgers sent a bunch of money to them. They sent them $10 million, and then they're going to cover the arbitration cost for Gordon also. So that makes it a little bit better. But that move in isolation, eh don't i don't know that seems like sort of a lateral move and getting getting latos is is an upgrade i mean you can latos is kind of has been trending down too and has lost some velocity and had was kind of banged up all year and his peripherals

were worse and so that's that's kind of hard to to say what what he is either but in the short term he's probably better than what they had or what they gave up so i guess they got a little bit better there but not not so much that I would be sitting back with a satisfied smile on my face if I were Stanton. It's almost worse. Like they did something and now they can say, well, we did something, and yet they didn't really get much better. If you're the Marlins and you build up and it doesn't work,

then that's license to tear down. Yeah. And so, yeah, so the more they invest in a bad team, the more likely that bad team gets stripped for parts. And so you almost maybe if you're Stanton, maybe wish they'd waited a year and done it a little better in my opinion. And, okay, so what else should we... Depends on Latos, though. I mean, Latos could be, you know, sure, Latos could be...

Not only could Latos be very good this year, but Latos could be very good this year, and if the Marlins happen to not be, he could bring back, you know, maybe he brings back something. I mean, they gave up nothing for him. Yeah, pretty much. I mean they gave up nothing for him yeah pretty much I mean they basically they they're if late oh so is healthy in July he ought to get back and bring back more than they give up for me like he doesn't

even have to be good in July just healthy yeah and if he is good at least there's a qualifying offer there so so yeah a little a little bit better there uh okay and what else red socks red socks got some pitchers they weren't necessarily the caliber of pitcher that has been attached to the red socks uh coming on the heels of being a finalist for Leicester maybe maybe Red Sox fans are not overwhelmed by Justin Masterson and Wade Miley and that sort of pitcher but and Rick Porcello so these are they suddenly have a very ground ball heavy rotation um with Joe Kelly also and so I don't know these they they kind of have a rotation now it's still a rotation that is sort of without a number one guy or even maybe a good number two guy but if you assume that they will add Scherzer or Shields or or trade for one more guy then... Wait, did any pitcher on their team

end last season as a number three? I don't think so, no. They really didn't even have a... They didn't even really have a mid-rotation starter, so now they have three, I guess you could say. So that's pretty good. They got guys who... No, no, no.

I mean, like, because... Yes, that too. But I mean, like, Porcello was, you know, like a number five on his team. Uh-huh, I see what you mean. And Masterson was like, didn't get a playoff start. And Kelly was out of the rotation. And Buchholz was, was Buchholz starting? I mean, I guess he was by default.

Yeah, and... And then Miley. Yeah. So it's not the most impressive group still. No, but I don't mind it. They invest elsewhere. I like to see teams that don't care about balance. I love a team that invests in one thing and doesn't mind if they're weaker in another spot.

I hate the tyranny of balance. Yeah. if they're weaker in another spot. I hate the tyranny of balance. Yeah, if you have the best offense in baseball and looking at their lineup right now, they have a pretty good chance to be that or be close, then you don't necessarily need a great rotation. I mean, unless you buy into the offense doesn't win in the playoffs or whatever,

and I'm sure if they go into the year constructed like they are right now, then you'll probably hear a lot of that. They don't have the number one guy. They don't have the shutdown guy, whatever. But they'll probably be pretty good with a really good offense and an okay rotation. That is better than most teams. So I guess if they have a few mid-rotation guys,

which now you could say that they do, then suddenly if you add one top guy, and they have the money to do that, then it looks okay. Then suddenly they have a starting rotation, whereas they entered the winter meetings with essentially no starting rotation so even though the guys that they got are not big names and are not individually all that impressive they're fine they'll they'll throw some innings they'll throw some league average innings and and that's good when you have no one who has thrown a 200 inning season before or even like a 150 probably.

They just had no one, so now they have someone's. So that's progress. What else? What else do we talk about? We are notorious for not talking about the Reds. Do we have anything to say about the Reds? Just that we have to completely rewrite the BP annual essay that was finalized and ready to go.

I had lunch with Jason Wojciechowski today, your co-editor, and he was lamenting how many of the essays were affected by like the last 24 hours of winter meetings. It sounds like a nightmare. They were, although the Reds more than any, I think, because just by chance, just because of what the Reds topic, what the theme of the Reds one was. And also the Reds was, it was done. I had filed it away. Was never going to look at it again. Wasn't even going to read it when the book came out.

Uh-huh. Well, that's a shame. That's what they pay you to edit. You are earning your money. No, the Reds are, the Reds are, they're punting, right? That's what they pay you to edit. You are earning your money. No, the Reds are punting, right? That's good. That's good for me because I bet on their odds, their World Series odds to drop. We evaluate pretty much everything that happens over the offseason by some meaningless draft episodes that we do at the beginning of the offseason.

Well, okay, let's think about this question. Because I think this is probably what matters most for the Reds. Is this a clear white flag? And if so, does the next week, is all the rumor oxygen over the next week basically

going to be who else on the Reds can be traded? Is it going to be a full-on, like, everybody on the Reds? Like, am I going to hear a Joey Votto rumor? Will I hear a Joey Votto rumor? Is that possible? I don't, yeah. Will I hear a Chapman rumor?

How long has Chapman been? I've heard Chapman rumors. I've heard interest. Yes, true. But who wouldn't? I'm interested. It was the topic of our first episode. Who's not interested in Chapman?

Four years service time, two more years. Do they trade? I mean, if one of those years is done, do they trade Chapman? So is the next week going to be Chapman, Bruce, Frazier? Cueto, Leak. Cueto, Leak, maybe not Phillips. Phillips is unmovable, right? Jay Bruce.

Although I'm sure they would love to move Phillips, I'm sure. Right? Probably, yeah. They probably would love to move Bailey. Maybe so. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the division is, it is hard to envision any way that they could compete this year. Like, I was surprised that they were not more competitive last year. I more or less like the Reds going into the year. And so, yeah, I mean, now that the Cubs are committed to contending now

and seem to have a reasonable chance of doing that, and the Cardinals are still the Cardinals, and the Pirates should be better than the Reds, so it doesn't seem like there's a great route to contention right away for the Reds, at least now that they've made these moves. I could have kind of bought it if they had kept what they had and maybe added to it but now that they have started to subtract i guess they might as well keep going yeah they didn't it's not as though they got back anything useful

next year right i mean there's it's not like they were hedging in any way this was not the a's for instance right yeah so yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So the Reds are capital R rebuilding now, maybe. Maybe we can say. It always seems too simplistic these days to declare anyone a rebuilder or not a rebuilder. But maybe that's where they are right now. And, I mean, there are this, like, this winter meetings winter meetings there were it kind of struck me just how few teams there are who are in that stage of the cycle right now. I mean, the Astros bought some bullpen guys. They are presumably coming out of of a nadir of a valley and maybe it'll take them some time to to climb up the other side but they are heading

towards that and the twins signed Santana and they've got the good farm system and and presumably they are heading up they are on the upswing so how many teams really are there and the white socks and the cubs obviously spent big and intend to contend right away so who's who's left even you can't i mean the a's have been like the big seller of this offseason and yet not in not in a way that would make you rule them out for 2015 so who? Phillies. Yeah, Phillies. Phillies and Reds, I guess, are pretty much the only teams that you can declare out of it right now, which is nice. Maybe Brewers? Maybe Brewers, just because they haven't done anything. Maybe Rockies?

The Brewers were in first place on, like, August 18th. Yes, I know. That's a date I just made up, but I mean, I don't think. The Rockies, yeah, wait, the Rockies did something. What rumor did I hear about a Rocky recently, very recently? About acquiring, well, they did the Rutledge trade. No, I heard a rumor. I don't remember what it was, but the Rockies, yeah, the Rockies are.

I guess they're not rebuilding because they're not actively doing anything about it. Yeah, they're tough to classify. They're just settling. They're just resigned to it. They're not going to rebuild. They're just going to coast along at 66 wins every year. Yeah. All right. What other interesting transactions have we not? No, no, no. We're done. We're done with transactions. I want to hear about your. We're done with transactions. Tell me about the winter meetings then. What was it like to be there? Do you want to know about the winter meetings? Have you ever been to the winter meetings?

I have not. I've never been to anything, but I've definitely not been to those. I don't know. I mean, if you're, it's the thing about them is that it seems like it should be the best possible time to write something really interesting. Like you've got the entire industry there. Every team is there. Every writer is there. It seems like a great time to do some reporting and do a feature or something, but it's really the worst time to do that, I think, just because everyone's busy. Like even if you have a friend with a team or something and you say, let's meet up for a while, it's always like, oh, I got to run back to the room. We're having a meeting and someone's asking for my opinion. So everyone's harried and rushed and sleep deprived. and sleep deprived. And the same, like you can write about the job seekers or something or like the vendors at the minor league fair or something, but that kind of piece has been written 20 times

already. And I don't know, I've thought about doing something more in depth. Like I was hoping to shadow an agent for the few days or something just to see what that's like and talk about the offers and the negotiations and everything. That didn't come together. Maybe I will do it in a future year. But even so, how would that work? Would I be sitting in meetings with the agent and the team and the team wondering why I'm there and if I'm going to tweet about it? and the team wondering why I'm there and if I'm going to tweet about it. So I don't know.

It doesn't seem like the best time to do a feature that it seems like it would be a good time to do. And so you, I mean, every writer just goes and sits in a giant room and writes about transactions. And sometimes you have a press conference and someone who got traded or signed comes up to the front of the room and gives you some quotes and everyone gets exactly the same quotes press conference and and someone who got traded or signed comes up to the front of the room and and gives you some quotes and everyone gets exactly the same quotes and puts them in their similar stories but it's uh it's a fun time to catch up with people

yeah okay all right so it sounds it's bad. So we didn't get to every transaction. If people want to read about Urban Santana and Kendris Morales and Rastetweiler, they can. Some hot Rastetweiler content in post-production right now. Yeah, they can write. So you wrote about Santana and Morales. The moral of that article seemed to be they made how much money? It seems sort of surprising that they made that much money, at least relative to what they were not making last year.

And I don't know. We covered all the major stuff. I guess we didn't talk about Howie Kendrick. Do you have any 30-second take on the Howie Kendrick trade? I guess my only take would be that it's shocking to me how much one year of Howie Kendrick got, whereas one year of Samarja and Latos got so little. Because it seems to me that pitching is what you would want only one year out of. So if you were going to pay for one year out of any guy, pitcher would be the position

I would think you would do it. But as Billy Bean is finding, or I guess as multiple people are finding, these one-year pitchers are just getting like nothing back. Even Price last year for two years, everybody was shocked at how low the return was for him for two years, or I guess for a year and a half. So I'm surprised that Kendrick, I mean i didn't think that that they would if you told me kendrick rohini i wouldn't have thought that was possible yeah that that feels like an internet trade to me uh-huh yeah and it's and it's good i guess in that we've we've talked before

about how locked in the angels were to their whole roster and didn't really have parts that were under control for a long time at least when we talked about it, and were kind of inflexible. And so now they've got a young guy who's under control for a long time and can start contributing right away. So that's nice for them. Although Kendrick is also really good. Who replaces Kendrick?

Well, Rutledge. Uh-huh. Okay. Probably. I mean, they've got Rutledge. Why not Rutledge Yeah sure Alright

So that is it We've got some work to do We talked about Plenty of transactions There were more than We could cover in depth But we could always Bleed some over

Into next week If you have questions And want to send them to us Send them to Podcast at Baseballperspectives.com Do they need a Third baseman

Do they need a third baseman? I can't remember what Freeze is called. I thought that Freeze was a one-year when they got him. But then we haven't heard anything about him. So he must not be. They must have Freeze. They must. That seems like a solid conclusion.

You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectivelywild. You can rate and review group At facebook.com Slash groups slash effectively wild You can rate and review and subscribe To the show on iTunes And you can support our sponsor The Play Index by going to baseballreference.com Subscribing to the Play Index

Using the coupon code BP To get the discounted price of $30 On a one year subscription And we will be back Next week They do have freeze okay because we could clear that up so that our listeners weren't wondering all weekend whether david freeze is an angel