Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 766: The Second Annual Free-Agent-Contract Over/Under Draft

Episode Date: November 13, 2015

Ben and Sam draft the free agents they think will make more or less money than predicted.

Hey everyone, one quick note before we begin. Sam is traveling today, so we recorded before Ken Rosenthal reported that Colby Rasmus would accept the Astros qualifying offer. In 17 minutes or so, you'll hear how well that worked out for me. So sit back, relax, and listen to both of us be wrong about baseball. So hard, wonder why we try at all You wonder why the world is turning around In the end it won't matter at all Good morning and welcome to episode 766 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Perspectives presented by the Play Index of BaseballReference.com.

I'm Ben Lindberg of ESPN, joined, as always, by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hello. Enthusiastic hello. Happy to be here, as always. I'm ready. Serious business. Yeah, this is a serious episode. It feels like there are some stakes to this one.

This is one that we've been looking forward to i guess we can call it an annual tradition in that it is the second time that we've done this it's the jim bowden annual free agent predictions draft the over under draft is there anything you want to say before we start no okay. Okay. So every year for the past five years, I guess this is the fifth year he's done it, Jim Bowden has predicted free agent contracts and destinations. And early on in his predicting, he developed a reputation for being really, really good at this. And I have no idea. Whether that reputation is still justified. It does sort of feel like.

The secret sauce. Yeah right. The silver secret sauce. Where seven years from now. Will quietly withdraw. Yeah so I am not going to pretend. That Jim Bowden is the savant. Of predicting free agent prices.

He was for one or maybe two off seasons, and I don't think anyone has looked into it since. I'm going to guess he's not the best at this by any significant margin. So we could do this with any of the other major media people who predict free agent prices. We could, but he did earn this. I don't know if John Axford is any better at picking Oscar winners either. Yeah.

But he earned the reputation. That's the key thing. Doesn't matter whether he's any better than everybody else. He earned the reputation, and so we're going to keep giving it to him. Yes, we are. In perpetuity, probably. So Jim Bowden picked his top 50 free agents he picked best fits we don't care about the best fits we are only interested in the

projected contracts he gives the length he gives the annual average value we are drafting differences basically from what jim bowden predicted So we are going to pick, we're going to draft seven guys each because we drafted seven guys each last year. I don't know why, but we're going to take seven guys each, and the goal is to accrue the greatest difference between Jim Bowden's predicted total value of their contract and their actual total value of their contract. So we have to predict the direction in which it will be different.

So we have to say over under and that's it. We don't have to actually predict what the contract is. Our job is easy. We just get to sit here like Statler and Waldorf and say where he's wrong and cherry pick the, the weirdest looking predictions. And then our, what last year we got like what 13 of 14, we were on the right side or something like that. Yeah,

I think so. So we did well. Yeah, we did pretty well. And, and I think one of the two that, I think the one that we missed was that we insisted that we each draft at least one over and at least one under,

because we were taking all the overs. So I missed the under, my under pick. Yes, you took Pablo Sandoval under, and he ended up being actually, yeah, so he ended up being $5 million over Bowden's prediction. So I won this contest last year, but it was pretty close, I would say. I was $71 million different from Bowden's predictions, and you were $57.75 million different from baden's predictions so if the direction is if we get the direction wrong then it counts against us right but if you get the direction right then you just get as much

as the difference is and our official statistician of effectively wild john chenier will probably keep track of this In the Google Doc Which you can find in the Facebook group files section Links to all the Ongoing and completed competitions That we've had So we're going to draft people that we think Bowden is wrong about And I will say that

Just perusing the list You missed Aoki as well Ah yeah I still don't understand Aoki i still the giants declined his option i don't get it what why why does everyone hate aoki he's he seems good they had a they had a five and a half million dollar option maybe they maybe i i thought for a second that maybe they declined the option so that they could give him a qualifying offer. Yeah, right.

But no. I don't get it. Yeah. I mean, he was pretty good for them, too. He's always pretty good. He's always pretty good. And then he was pretty good for them. It's not like they could even be like, wow, well, we were burned.

Now the other 29 teams can take their chance at him. He was good for them. He got at him. He was good for him. He got hurt, but he was good for him. He had his exact career in one year. It was exactly the same as everything else. I just don't get it. I want to raise money for him to get the amount that I think he should get, even though he's a multimillionaire.

I'm affronted by it. If you ever get the Big Mike Trout contract, the first thing you can spend your money on is Nori Aoki. That's right. I can give him what he deserves. All right. So I will say that just perusing this list, and neither of us has done a ton of research,

but I would say that he looks pretty good on the whole. I don't know. Just based on what i remember from last year last year was not good i think yeah there were fewer this year that i thought what when i thought the thing about him is that like he nailed it that one year right yeah and then last year i think he did pretty i think i i sort of remember like it being pretty easy right it seemed easy and i guess low on everything yeah and it's because he doesn't have a system he just has himself on that day yeah and he's a very like he knows the game he knows the players he knows those people inside of it he knows the quote-unquote players as well the

players you know yeah and so when he's focused he's pretty good but like if he wakes up on the wrong day and like like i really feel like this is the sort of thing where like he writes like he has a list of 50 and then he writes a number on number one okay he's like well number two's got to be lower than that and number three's got to be lower than that yeah and uh and i and once you get off it's like being one one number off on a Scantron test. Once you're one off, then you can't recover. And my guess is that he just had whoever was the number one. Like he probably had Max Scherzer too low.

And then the rest of the time he's like, geez, I said this for Scherzer? Yeah, right. So I will predict an additional prediction is that neither of us will do as well as we did last year. Or that our total, the winning total, will not be as high as it was last year. We should have the rule, again, that you must take at least one over and one under, although I don't think I'll have an issue with that. Yeah, I don't think so either. I feel like it's almost folly to take an under just because it seems like things are shaping up

for there to be a lot of money spent this offseason. Dave Cameron wrote something fairly persuasive about how the weakness of next year's class, which we talked about on a recent show, combined with the fact that every team is competitive and every team is rich and the CBA negotiations are coming up and so teams might have some incentive not to be stingy all these factors seem to be coming together in an off season that would be lots of money spent on the other hand there are also a lot of good free agents this year so while there is a lot of demand there's also a lot of supply so i don't know but i did have the same sort of reaction when i looked at his list it did seem like there were unders so we'll see i don't know who's going first are we going

to do a heads and tails and test your ability to predict whether it's heads or tails now that now that you claim to be able to do that sounds good sounds good all right i'm gonna flip and then i'm gonna i'm gonna call flip and then I'm going to call it and then I'll tell you if I got it right. Now I have double the incentive to lie. I've established that I'm not a liar because you always win the coin flip. I feel like people trust me.

You trust me certainly. New listeners probably still don't trust me but I generally lose this coin flip that I do blindly. I've established I'm Nixon going to China, right? But now I have twice the incentive to lie, and this one's a bigger one. All right, I'm going to do it. I'm going to flip the coin, and I'm going to call it based on sound.

Okay. Tails. Hang on. Tails. So what was it about the sonic profile of that coin flip that told you or is it just it's so intuitive that you can't even analyze how you know it's a little higher pitch really yeah huh all right i'm not like there's no part have i ever told you the story about the guy with the m&ms i don't think so all right so i think this was someone at camp i think it was a camp counselor i had who had a friend that could tell what color

an m&m was just by tasting it so he'd close his eyes and someone would hand him an M&M and then he'd pop it in his mouth and then he'd call the color and his friends would go, ah, he did it again. And this was this, I mean, like this guy, like he would, he would, this, like he'd be like, he'd go to camp and like, this would be his talent. And he'd go up on stage and do the talent show and he'd always win because like, oh man, like what? Right. and do the talent show and he'd always win because like oh man like what right so he goes through his whole childhood with this amazing skill and then finally his friends admit that he actually can't and they've just been pretending to be excited the entire time they just and the loud you know like he thinks they're getting progress like he's like nine in a row and he thinks they're getting progressively more impressed but they're really just like

getting themselves into a frenzy at their idiot friend anyway that's what this made me think of i don't know why this is not the same thing no this is totally legitimate. Totally legitimate. All right. I'm one for one on the coin flip. John Chenier, start a tab. One for one on the coin flip. All right. So I go first. Okay.

I might never have to pick second again. I'm getting all my snake draft picking, non-snake draft advantage back. All right. First pick I will take is Jason Hayward, who is projected at nine years and $207 million. And

there's always this tricky thing where you're like, well, Prince Fielder got $214 million and that was three years ago, or four years, three years ago, and inflation, and Prince Fielder had the bad body, and all that. And so definitely Jason Hayward will get more. And you're kind of banking on nobody in the industry remembering how Prince Fielder turned out. Because that was, like, what GM would be like, well, I should give Hayward more than Prince fielder turned out because that was like what gm would be like

well i should give hayward more than prince fielder no prince fielder was horrible under that contract for a while and uh it was a great achievement for detroit to get rid of that contract but all the same if we're doing comps for superstars who hit free agency at a young age. I think Fielder was 27 when he hit free agency. Cano was actually 30. He had turned 30. Anyway, and so, you know, those guys were in the 200s, well into the 200s, well over 2-0, whatever. And I think that while Hayward doesn't have quite the same

classic superstar profile, type of profile, youth is just so valued in these guys' contracts. You saw one early episode in this podcast, BJ Upton was a free agent, and we talked about how of all the free agent center fielders that were available that year, there were like basically five guys who were all pretty good. And B.J. Upton was by the previous year's war the worst, by the previous three years war the worst,

by the previous five years war the worst. And yet he ended up getting a better contract than all but Josh Hamilton and like double what Pagan got, even though Pagan had been better. And it was basically because BJ Upton was young. People love young. So I'm taking Hayward at nine years, $207 million, taking the over. Okay. That's aggressive, I would say.

You wouldn't have picked that? No, that wasn't on my board. Would you have taken the over or the under if I'd forced it on you? I might have taken the under. No kidding. Yeah. So we had this exact conversation last year with my first pick, John Lester. And John Lester got the over.

Okay. All right. I think I will take the over on Ben Zobrist. Ben Zobrist is projected for three years and $48 million. On my board. Yeah, he will turn 35 next May. So that's obviously a consideration that limits his earning potential, but no qualifying offer, which helps a little bit. And I think we're past the point where Ben Zobrist is underrated.

And maybe during this contract, we'll get to a point where he's overrated, possibly, because it seems like he's building some good clubhouse leader credibility. And he hasn't really shown much of a decline. And he's versatile. And, well, I don't need to tell the people who listen to this podcast why ben's over is good but it seems to me that it would not be weird for him to get four years and if he did get three years that he would get more than 16 per yeah i mean like uh so just three months ago four months ago he got And in a sense, that kind of gives us a little bit of a marker of what his market value was.

And like Yohannes Cespedes also got traded, for instance, at the same time. And they brought back fairly similar packages for fairly similar time frames. And they were both getting paid fairly similar salaries for the rest of the year. And I would personally, not being a prospect guy, but I would personally rather have the return that the A's got. Now of course, Cespedes largely raised his value in the final two months, but just looking at what Bowden predicts for Cespedes, it's like triple what he has for Zobrist. And yeah, Cespedes has increased his market rate since this trade, and I don't know if Zobrist has or not, but I don't think an $80 million gap has... Now,

of course, age. Age matters a lot more for Cespedes' contract than it does for Zobrist, obviously. So maybe my whole point is illogical. But one thing that you can do that always helps you beat the Bowden is you just look at where he has the player ranked on his free agent rankings, and if he's lower than everybody else on that guy, then there's a decent chance he's predicting a lower contract for that guy. Because at the end of the day, I do think that Bowden is mostly saying what he thinks the guy is worth and what maybe he vaguely intuits. I don't think he's polling 15 guys. Personally, I don't think

he's polling 15. Maybe he is, but I don't think he is. So if he's the low man on Zobrist as a player, and he basically is, I've seen, I think Keith had Zobrist around the same spot, but most guys, most of these free agent rankings have had Zobrist around number 10 or so, and he has Zobrist 21st. So, yeah, good strategy there. Okay. All right, so Zobrist, good one. Thank you.

I was worried you were going to take my next pick. Which is? Colby Rasmus. Yeah, he was high on my board. I am taking the over on Colby Rasmus at two years and $22 million. By the way, Ben, if the guy accepts the qualifying offer... Hmm, I think then it counts as the total. I think, yeah.

All right. Colby Rasmus, two years and $22 million. I'm taking the over. I might have taken the... Honestly, i might have taken the honestly like i might have taken the over before the postseason and uh i don't know how much the postseason matters but i mean we've already said that it doesn't on another guy and yet here i am claiming that it does when it suits me i mean you know he's young it's another one where he's young he's 29 he'll be 29 next year uh he is coming off of a well above average year he's had you know two good years in the last three

he's uh you know got a high a high floor and um and i don't know it sort of feels to me like the difference between him and murphy where we didn't think that murphy, I didn't think Murphy was adding much value in the postseason, is that Rasmus is kind of a guy that you look at and look for signs to see him break out. Like we have seen sort of proof of concept that he can be a very good player. He's had kind of two star-ish years in his career. He comes from a very impressive kind of background.

He's toolsy and he's kind of a guy who has a reasonably high floor and the potential for a high ceiling. And Murphy, just don't, they're like, Murphy's Murphy. Murphy's Murphy. Nobody's ever going to expect Murphy to break out. And so it's like no one's waiting for it no one's looking for it no one's pointing at a thing about him and going that's the thing that's going to do it he's just murphy right and they were doing those things for for a week or two no they were during for a week or two people were going wow look at all those dingers yeah but there was, he changed his swing and his approach and he's doing – He can't change his swing and his approach. He's Murphy.

He's not – like he doesn't have that in him. Like he does not have the ability – like there is no way that Daniel Murphy is ever going to hit 45 home runs. Never, right? No. There's also no way that Rasmus is except maybe like one like one in 800 universes he does like you can see it you can see it in there yeah so anyway so I'll take I'll take Rasmus I will say that his post season slightly at least convinced one manager to pay a little bit more yeah it's a good pick I might have taken that with my next pick it's possible that we're overrating how much people in baseball like Colby Rasmus,

like we did in the Jerry Krasnick poll, right, where we thought that they were going to predict the opposite. And they didn't. I don't remember what the question was involving Rasmus, but we were way off on what the executives would think. Yeah. So maybe we'll be way off on this also. But it seems like a good pick to me. And does he even, I mean, if it's 222, does he even take the qualifying offer? I mean, I don't know. Well, no.

I mean, what happens, he doesn't know it's 222. He thinks it's 448. Right. And then he gets out there and everybody goes, I'm not giving up a pick for Colby Rasmus. Yeah. It's Colby Rasmus. Right. Give me Murphy. Rasmus. Right.

Give me Murphy. I want Murphy. Murphy's the one. Okay, good pick. I think I'll take an under with my next. I might be way off on this. It feels scary to pick an under so early. But I'm going to take the under on Matt Wieters.

Oh, yeah. an under so early but i'm gonna take the under on matt weeders oh yeah i i i i had a sort of an argument with you saw you saw this argument where i had a sort of an argument with rj about this i think i think under is appropriate on on leaders yeah i don't remember the argument but four years and 64 million and he did get a qualifying offer and that just that seems like a lot for matt weeders i mean he could end up being worth that but it's hard to imagine that someone's gonna pay that for a guy who hasn't played more than half a season for three seasons and hasn't been worth one win above replacement since 2012 by baseball reference war and is very tall and that seems like a reason why he might not stay at catcher and obviously he had the tommy john surgery and has never hit the way that people expected him to hit at one time and really I mean he's never been

more than I mean he's been a well above average hitter for a catcher in a couple of seasons but nothing that would blow you away and it just seems hard to believe that given his height and position and durability issues coming off the couple seasons that he's coming off with a qualifying offer seems hard to imagine that he could get 64 million dollars i do think that a lot of teams war models are very similar to publicly available war models and matt weeders over the last three years which is basically two full seasons worth of games has produced a total of two war he hasn't been an above average player since he was 26 he has had the health problems and even if there was no tommy john based on his performance based on the fact that he's a cat a

big tall catcher over 30 with his, with his numbers, with his performance, I wouldn't expect much more, if more, than that total for him. So then the Tommy John is just, like, there's no fat left to cut to have that prediction be correct. Yeah, and the last few years he's been a below average framer so it's not like there's some defensive thing he does spectacularly well that isn't captured in war i don't think he shows up as like a great game caller or something so i i don't know i don't know how he gets to boris he's boris he's boris and as bowden mentions there's the possibility of the pillow contract. And if he takes the pillow contract, then I really cash in.

You are ice cold. I don't even feel guilty about my next pick, man. Okay, go ahead. I am taking Ian Kennedy's under on the hope that he's a, you know, wakes up. He's a qualifying offer. I mean, come on, bro. No one's signing you. No one's giving up a pick to get Ian Kennedy. No one's doing it.

You're not playing until June. Dude. Yeah. Take the QO. Take the QO. We want to see you play. We want to see you out there on the fifth day of the season. So please, play play take the qualifying offer

ouch fifth starter shot yeah whoo yeah ian kennedy actually no like legitimately ian kennedy's projected predicted salary seems crazy high to me uh it's bowden has him at three years and 42 and even if i wasn't hoping he'd take the qualifying offer even if he didn't have a draft pick attached to him i would never give him that like i i maybe i'm in kennedy is what's going to late in the last week or so i don't i didn't feel like i was low on ian i've always liked ian kennedy like i definitely was i think i was that i was high on him when he got traded from Arizona and his career looked like it was practically over.

And I never realized I didn't like Ian Kennedy. I liked him when he was on the Yankees a lot, but not very good. And so three years and $42 million seems like a lot for a pitcher that I don't like. And there is the possibility he'll take the qualifying offer. And there is the possibility that he'll just get sucked into Stephen Drew land and never come back up. Yeah. And if he has to sit out some time, then obviously he will get fewer dollars because he's missing time. And the guys who have sat out time have both taken one year's when they've done it.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Good pick. Thanks. I think, I don't know, you might differ with me here, from me here, but I think I'm going to take the under on Scott Kazmir. I, yeah. You like Scott Kazmir. I, yeah. You like Scott Kazmir, I know.

I'm surprised. I was surprised at how low Kazmir rated on a few of these free agent rankings. And then finally Keith's had him higher where I would have had him. And so I feel a little less insane. But yeah, everybody's low on Kazmir. Kazmir's four years 66 million no qualifying offer because he was traded mid-season so I can I can envision a world where he gets something like that but there is a lot of pitching on the market this year. And Kazmir is, you know, he's going to turn 32 in January. And given all of his issues in the past, I mean, he's been good. He's been good.

I mean, he was excellent, obviously, with Oakland this year. And then not so good with the Astros. And the way that he finished the season could potentially hurt him. And, you know, he's not a guy who goes in, goes deep into games, obviously, and has the injury issues in his past and the being terrible issues in his past. So I can see why a team wouldn't want to give that much money to scott casimir for that long a period i uh i actually had scott casimir on my list as an under as well huh okay so my pick i'm going to take another under and i'm going to take jeff Samarja. Hmm. Okay. Samarja is, he's a,

I think Bowden had him one spot below Kazmir. Is that right? Yeah, he did. And he had him at four years and 62 million. Mm-hmm. And it's interesting, isn't it,

that Kazmir and Samarja are right next to each other. They're both projected to make more or less the same amount of money for more or less the same amount of time for more or less the same amount of time and we both just took the unders and casimir was like a seven war player last year

and samarja was 0.2 yeah it's a and they're the same age more or less they're one year apart it's kind of just crazy how guys get to the same spot in their career it's also crazy to think that next year they're going to be in two totally different places that like this is so unpredictable baseball players careers are long and they're so unpredictable and there's so many points in a long career where you think a guy is gonna is about to do something else and then he does it but samarja i sort of feel like is is another pillow contract candidate he is a guy who it's risky for him to do that but he's a guy who um you know with a good year this year if he went 17 and 9 with a 3.2 era then he'd be in line for 100 million next year easily i think and he

actually strongly reminds me of where Justin Masterson was last offseason where he basically was a guy who was coming off of who had had a you know a few good years was coming off of his you know probably his best year and I gave Masterson it was coming off his second best year and then into his walk year had his worst year and basically everything was a disaster uh he had changed teams he was bad the peripherals weren't as bad as the ra but they weren't good either and then he went out and he got what a one year and eight million dollar contract or something like that basically by a team that was looking at him as you know a flyer as a number three starter.

And that's kind of what Samarja feels like to me right now. There was no real positive trajectory upward throughout the season. There wasn't really anything positive to take from it. And he is going to be 31 next year. He was a guy who basically started late and kind of kind of getting a little older so uh i could see i could see uh i could see a pillow contract uh i could also see like uh four and 52 or something like that three and three and 48 three and 48 i think i would see three and 48 maybe from him if he goes multi-year. But maybe I'm wrong. Alright.

I think I will take... He's only, by the way, only one year younger than Kazmir. Kazmir seems old. Samarja seems young. Kazmir started young. He did. Alright. So did you.

I think I'm going to take the over on Cespedes. Wow. Yeah, I think I'm going to do that. So he's projected for six years and 126, which is a substantial sum. But he just feels to me like a guy who's going to get too much for one reason or another. He feels like a guy who an owner is going to want him more than a baseball operations department is going to want him. They'll think that he brings a spotlight or he's clutch or he is marketable and maybe he is those things.

He's center field. Yeah. He's center field. He stood in center field. He's the Shinsu Chu He's center field. Yeah. He's center field. He stood in center field. He's Shinsu Chu. He's the Shinsu Chu of this. Yeah. Yeah.

Obviously, he can play defense better than Shinsu Chu, but doesn't get on base like Shinsu Chu. But yes, the same sort of idea. He just seems like a guy who's going to be closer to 150 somehow. Maybe it'll be a an additional year or something so i'm i'm just gonna bet that he doesn't get under that and it's not gonna hurt me and hopefully i'll i'll get a bit on the top how old is he 30 just turned 30 okay yeah i that seems he's obviously coming off his career year and he's a power guy if you believe in the power scarcity is i mean let me ask you this hanley ramirez was 30 a year ago

does there do you see a lot of daylight between i can definitely see him getting uh you know 150 like the chew press then or also any you know any number of hitters but like uh you know Hanley last year got 88 and I guess he was coming off uh well he was he'd been injured that really phenomenal year he had in 2013 and was a little brittle and no defensive home but I don't know I don't know what I'm saying I don't know why I'm comparing those two I just thought of a name. It's name to name. I'm doing the Bowden. Yeah, this is how he does it.

Two guys next to each other. Well, he got 88. All right. But Bowden's last line, he seems to love the limelight and a big stage, and he can handle the pressure that comes with it. That just seems like some owner will think that and pay him too much dude he was horrible in the playoff yeah sure was looking at his playoff line just to make sure that it's as bad as i remember that one's bad that one's bad that one's bad yeah they're all bad

yeah uh all right he was a little banged up also, but yes. Not a good thing. No. Not a good thing. Mm-hmm. I want your free agents to be a little banged up. He's got those armbands, though. He's strong.

Those neon armbands. I'd sign him. Mm-hmm. All right. I will take the... How many have we done? I have done four. Four, and I've done four.

Okay. I will take the over on Zach Granke. Okay. I don't feel like his age is going to stick to him. I feel like the narrative around Zach Granke is age-proof. He is an extremely good athlete. He is extremely smart. He is not in any sort of decline. He has been very durable. He is the kind of player who more and more people are calling the Greg Maddox of the era, and Greg Maddox aged extremely well. And he's hitting free agency.

Look, this is not a guy who had one good year. He's had a long career of excellence, of very goodness. But then he's hitting free agency with the lowest ERA we've seen in like 30 years. Or second lowest or something. And so I just feel like you only need one and i feel like six years in 186 uh is a perfectly reasonable figure but uh he'll get his seventh year and he'll clear 200 million does his cerebralness translate to contract negotiations maybe his his intelligence helps him more as a free agent he wants to be a gm so maybe he sees this as a challenge right

uh he's miles better than lester yes and lester got 150 lester got six years basically let's talk because years is more important than dollars he'll get get more per year than Lester. He's a $30 million pitcher right now. It's very easy for him to say, it's very easy for him to say, I am right up there with Kershaw. I am a $30 million a year pitcher. So now he's just got to convince you years. And Lester got six. Lester got six. Greinke is miles better than Lester So I think he gets his seventh Okay And Les, the only fear I have Is that he's so smart

That he'll do the thing that I always want people to do Which is take fewer years For crazy money And that he'll take Like five and 180 Which would be a push for me But he'll ask for five and 180 and i won't get the full cash out actually if it's five and 180 i lose six million yeah that'd be the smart

thing to do though i want somebody he's the he might be the only guy in baseball who's smart harper is cocky enough but he might be the only one who's smart enough and cocky enough yeah you're right huh okay all Well, you are playing at the top of the starting pitcher market. I am going to play at the bottom of the starting pitcher market, and I'm going to take the over on Chris Young. And this is... I thought about having a Chris Young requirement that each of us had to pick a Chris Young. Yeah yeah so this is probably not a place where i'm gonna make a huge profit but it seems to me impossible that i will lose money here and likely that i will gain chris young projected for one year and five million dollars yeah and that seems very low

i'm going off a an andy m McCullough tweet from a few days ago where he said that the Royals were interested in a reunion with Chris Young, but the price must jump. He's looking for pay commensurate with his performance, which has been good. I guess every player is looking for that. When you think about how much we pay teachers, though. Yes, he's overpaid by that standard.

And he knows. He went to Princeton. That's true. He knows the value of teachers. Yeah. But Chris Young, got to make more than that. It wouldn't be totally shocking if he got like 2 in 20 or something, would it? Oh, no, not at all.

Right. So that could happen. Ah, it would be. It would be surprising. I'd go 2 in 16 is what I'm looking for for him. Yeah. So I'd turn a tidy profit on that. Right.

You're a supermarket. You're just happy to take your 2% profit year over year. Right. Year after year, I should say. Yeah. And I think people have fully come around to the idea that Chris Young is weird and FIP doesn't work for him and what he does is real in some way, even though it's confusing.

And he looked kind of impressive in the postseason. He showed that he could pitch out of the bullpen and suddenly strike out a ton of guys. So he has the Swingman ability now also And he's just coming off Two very strong years So I think this is the year That he makes more than

Five million dollars It's a good pick I envy it I envy you, I don't envy it Pick has no qualities going for it And I didn't feel like there were still any picks left on the board That were going to turn dozens of millions of dollars for me So this felt like the time to take the conservative pick

I've got maybe five more picks that I'd'd feel confident making so with uh four to go between us combined feel okay here i'll take the under on daniel murphy okay for all the reasons stated over and over loudly moments ago yeah so four years 48 yeah that's what it said i mean i feel like i i we had the discussion about we had the discussion about a week ago about how much he would make and i stated a number then and it would be cowardly to not acknowledge that my number was lower than bowden's number and so i'll stick with it i'm frankly disappointed in you for not taking? For being a little cowardly. Uh-huh. All right. Well, we've gotten to the point where I don't feel incredibly comfortable

with any of the picks remaining here on the board. I kind of want to take the over on Jordan Zimmerman. Okay. I think I'm going to do that. He is projected for six years and 120, and he did get a qualifying offer. It's not crazy, but he is only 29, and I could see him getting a seventh year. And if he got a seventh year, then I think I'd do well here. He's made at least 32 starts for four straight seasons, and he's generally been good in those starts, and I'm a believer. So he's younger than some of the other top arms available,

and I could see there being more interest in him. All right. Fun. Fun stuff. Yep. All right. I'm going to take the over on Mike Napoli. Hmm.

Okay. So Napoli is at one year and I think 9 million or maybe 9.5. Hang on. 9.5. Oddly specific. Yeah. That's probably the best reason not to take the over. It really does feel like Bowden found an envelope somewhere.

Is that the only.5 he has on there? Hang on..5. No. Mark Lowe, one year, 5.5. Gerardo Parra. Oh, no, no. It is. Actually, they're 2 and 11. He has...

Okay. All right. Parra's three years and 25.5 that might that might be strange even more strange otherwise that is the only other 0.5 he has by the way ben i have a question for you we were talking yes we were talking uh on wednesday's show about uh round numbers do you think that they're called round numbers in reference to the zero at the end of them? Or are they called round numbers

because it is as though the number has been rounded up or down? Or secret option C, do you think we call it rounding numbers up and down in recognition of the roundness of the zero? I would guess rounded. Rounded. That it's because we round to them that they're called rounded numbers.

Even with the, so you think that the idea of the crooked number is a post-round number, is actually a reference to round numbers. It's just a response to round numbers. And that those two were not invented at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's just, that's so baseball specific. Yeah. Ones and zeros are not at the same time. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's just so baseball-specific. Yeah.

Ones and zeros are not crooked. Good point. Yeah. All right. Okay, then. Napoli, I did not bother to investigate his injury or whatever he had that cost him playing time, and that could be significant because Mike Napoli tends to get some freaky injuries.

But over the last four years, if you want to pick four years, he's 33, by the way. Nelson Cruz last year was 33 when he hit free agency. Over the last four years, Napoli 115 OPS plus, Nelson Cruz 119, almost the same. If you go the past three years before free agency, Nelly Cruz 121, Mike napoli 116 pretty close they're pretty close to the same player napoli is not as durable napoli had the injury this year that cost him some time he wasn't

very good with boston but then he went to texas and he absolutely destroyed everything as he does he is a hitter he's a constant hitter always will hit. And if you look at his wars over the past, you know, three years, last year was only one, which isn't, isn't zero by the way, it's fine. I mean that if you're a one war player and no, and people know your name, you're going to get one year and 9.5 million, you'll probably get two and 14 or something. But one year last year, 3.3 the year before, 4 the year before that, the dude is just a slugger. This is basically his

last chance. He's not going to get a multi-year deal any time after this. So I think that he'll be patient. I think he'll go for the two-year deal and I expect he'll get 2-20. I would be surprised, I think, if he got that much

because he hasn't he hasn't hit right-handed pitching for it doesn't matter i just gave you his overall numbers what does it matter whether but there's a there's a trend he's like a i think he's seen as a platoon guy now which limits him maybe and he was i mean he was uh he was essentially given away by the red socks he was traded with cash for cash basically or for a player to be named or cash and he maybe and then rehabilitated himself with the rangers probably but yeah okay mike mike morse got two years and 16 million a year earlier. And Mike Morse is a worse hitter and a worse player in the same age. All right.

Am I down to my last pick or do I have two more? Two more. Two more. I'm going to take the over on Ryan Madsen. That one's going to be mine. Okay. So projected contract of two years for $10 million. Although Bowden then says that the average

annual value is $14 million, which is not the way math works. So yeah, two years, $10 million, and he is $35 and I didn't pitch for a few years before this most recent season, so those are reasons why he wouldn't get more than two years or wouldn't get more than 10 million.

But he was really good and he had been really good in the past. And so teams might conclude that he is now the same guy that he was before his injuries. And he's worth more than 5 million per if he's what he was last year. Yep. And that's about it. It doesn't seem... I have a hard time thinking he doesn't get 3-21. Yeah.

I mean, he is a little old and a little fragile for a long contract. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. He had some other reliever getting... Well, he had Joaquin Soria getting 3-21, and he had Darren O'Day getting 3-21. And I guess I'd rather have O'Day than Madsen. I don't know if I'd rather have Soria, maybe. Anyway.

There's a lot of money in the game, Ben. Sure is. Table contracts. Mm-hmm. MLBAM. Yep. Good investments. Mm-hmm. Attendance. investments mm-hmm attendance yep cut four all right last pick for me

i'm gonna take uh the under on i guess i consider this kind of a safe pick uh more than anything but i'm gonna take the under on austin jackson okay who is uh 2 and 20 and i just feel like austin jackson is like almost minor league contract at this point like in a lot of people's minds like he's i don't think he was on our top 50 he's fallen very far very fast he's fallen very far very fast he you He's fallen very far, very fast. He, you know, he's not an average hitter. He's no longer an excellent fielder. He does not any longer run very much. He does not have, like, you can't point at him and go,

well, we're building our team around X, and that guy has X. He doesn't have X. He's the opposite of a well-rounded player. I mean, I don't know. Look, if my team signed him for 2-20, I'd go, okay. Guys, he's 28. Guys have come back, certainly from much lower depths than Austin Jackson. I don't know that he's not worth signing for two years or whatever.

He can contribute. But it just feels like he's completely forgotten. And he sort of feels like the guy who three years from now, we remember that we left him at home when we went on vacation. And he's just totally unsigned. Like Jim Edmonds. He's not as old as jim edmunds obviously but like you know jim edmunds or jermaine die or these guys who just like they're good and they they're okay

they're pretty good and then they go into the offseason and they just never sign i don't know austin jackson kind of feels like there aren't going to be a lot of rumors around him yeah so i don't know not a lot of buzz on Austin Jackson right now. Yeah. I don't know. I like watching him play. I hope he does. I hope he signs.

Mm-hmm. But, you know, the guy was basically on the bench by the end of the year. He, like, essentially did not play after the trade deadline.

Yeah. And he was healthy. He just didn't play. He wasn't good enough to play. Mm-hmm. He was a defensive replacement in a corner. Yeah. So.

All right. My last pick. I don't want anyone. Batten did a good job. I'm six picks in and I don't really want anyone. Last year, you got a guy who retired, which was a nice way of just holding the line. Who did I get? Who did I get?

The guy who retired. Corota. Oh. Yeah yeah that's a good idea um i don't know if there's a an obvious retirement candidate on this year's list there's only i only have i think i only have one other said i had five but i then i deleted so now i don't remember there's only one more that jumps out at me as a guy i would probably take one way or the other but even that it's obviously it's my the one i'm least confident oh well tony sip at two years and 10 seems low that seems like an easy couple million tony sipping signing for 10 million dollars come on you're just handing me tony's it take tony said dude tony sip ain't signing for $10 million.

Tony Sip, there's going to be 12 teams trying to sign Tony Sip. He's going to get three years. He's going to get 18. Easy money. He is a lefty. Rich Hill? Rich Hill at five? Rich Hill ain't signing for $5 million.

You don't think? No. I have no idea what rich hill is i don't either no idea whatsoever but look there's some chance that they'll give me a team before the end of the offseason and i can promise you he's not signing for five million if that happens yeah mike mike leak mike leak seems high to me yeah i don't know maybe i mean it's not a slam dunk i wouldn't right like i also didn't pick him denard span seems like a upside play like you could imagine denard span failing his physical and signing for five million right so he's an upside play at an under

uh could burn you but seems like it uh probably not but well no Estrada ain't and Anderson ain't is anybody gonna is anybody any threat to take a qualifying offer besides maybe Estrada at this point probably not and I think he and the Blue Jays are talking about a multi-year deal so is Ian Desmond a pillow contract candidate it's possible that'd be a huge huge upside for you if you took the under on him and he did. That's true. And, I mean, I think that projection, 5 and 85, seems about right. I don't think it would be way over, so there isn't much downside. Oh, Chris Davis.

Yeah, I thought about Chris Davis. Chris Davis at 120 felt way low. Yeah, he's on my list. I think Davis signs for more than Cespedes. Huh. So plenty of good picks here. Yeah. I kind of like rolling the dice with Desmond.

That sounds fun. Yeah. That's something to root for this offseason. Hmm. Probably, I mean, when was the last time? Pillow contracts are not that common, I think. last time Pillow contracts are not That common I think Pillow contracts never really happen

I can't think of one since Carlos Pena Yeah so I don't know whether Betting on the pillow contract Is that smart but it would be Fun if it paid off That'd be the best day of my off season Really we're gonna submit a book Yeah That'll be a good day.

If I'm happy with the book. Yeah. Chris Davis was on my list. So maybe I'll just go with Chris Davis six years and one 20 qualifying offer, but sure. He seems like a, he's like, he could be a, a one 50 type. He's got the most power of anyone on the list so maybe that stands out to someone so sure chris davis all right all right fun times yeah god i love the i love when espn just tells us what to talk about it's an hour show it flew by that's the fastest hour i've ever spent on this podcast yeah that was fun. I wish he had worse picks so we could pick more players, but we're about tapped out here. So thank you, Jim Bowden.

Wait, Ben, let me ask you something. If we had to go, if you had to go through all 50 and pick over and under, would you end up plus or minus? I'd say dead even probably i mean i don't i don't have any reason to think i'm better or worse at this than he is well no but the guy who gets to say over or under is an advantage because yeah that's true yeah like if you had to pick put the numbers and then he went over under on you i would think he would win i'd like i think he'd be definitely plus so you're asking if the advantage of being able to do that outweighs the knowledge gap between me and jim bowden that's explicitly what i'm asking you could not be more clear

um all right i guess i'd say i'd i'd be better if I get to know What he picks Yeah I do too Alright so thanks Jim Bowden For our most fun podcast Of the year for us You can send us Emails at podcast Baseballperspectives.com

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