Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 96: What the Winter Meetings Were Like

Episode Date: December 6, 2012

Ben and Sam recap Ben’s experiences on his first trip to the Winter Meetings.

The name of the game is networking. Businessmen meeting other businessmen for the purpose of meeting again at a later date. Good morning and welcome to episode 96 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus. I'm Sam Miller in Long Beach. Back in New York, New York, is Ben Lindberg, who just arrived an hour ago from Nashville, Tennessee, where he was at the winter meetings of Major League Baseball. Ben is, I imagine, quite tired. It's probably going to be a shorter podcast than usual, which is saying something. So, Ben. Yes.

I guess the thing that I'm curious about, I've never been to these. These are your first ones. This was my first, yes. So when a move happens or even really when a rumor happens, you know, Twitter explodes and everybody kind of, it seems to me that for the most part, I think that there is kind of a consensus forms quickly about whether this is a move that the public likes or the public doesn't. And then from there, different layers of snark and analysis flow out of it. Where you are, does the a sort of a mood that is identifiable that you can identify that is kind of the consensus? Or does everybody just kind of bury themselves into a computer? Yeah, it's kind of a

localized reaction wherever you are. And I apologize in advance if I repeat things that I said on Ian Miller and Riley Breckenridge's podcast or broadcast yesterday because they had me on to talk about the winter meetings. And I imagine there's quite a bit of overlap between our podcast audiences. of the day, if you're actively working or writing or responding to moves, most people who are doing that are sitting in the media workroom, which is the giant rectangular room with cameras and microphones and a podium at the front, and then row upon row of desks with computers and people sitting in front of them. So it's kind of a quiet room because people are working. So when something happens, and generally I found out about things happening the same way I would if I had been anywhere else in the world. If I had not gone to Nashville, if I had stayed at home,

the way I find out about things is I see them on Twitter or I refresh MLB trade rumors or someone sends me an instant message or texts me or something. And there's hardly any faster way to find out about those things unless you are the person who is actually receiving the report or the source of the rumor, there's no faster way to find out about a rumor than Twitter, which is instantaneous. So generally I would find out about things the same way. And then the only reaction I would really hear is kind of the people in the rows of computers around me as they heard the same thing. And they would say that they heard that thing to the person sitting next to them. And often there would be some sort of snarky response because these are people who cover teams pretty intimately and know the executives and the players involved pretty well.

So in that sense, they kind of have a more firsthand perspective on how these people operate and have a better sense of when rumors are legitimate, when they're coming from certain people as opposed to others, that sort of thing. So, yeah, I would hear the reactions of the people just in my immediate vicinity. And then by the time I was having a meal with a group or met up with people later, the reaction had already kind of crystallized just in the way that it would normally anywhere else. So the teams each have their own suites, and they're all basically holed up in those suites. The agents, the top agents, also have their own suites, and they're holed up in those

suites. And I would imagine that for the most part, if Dan Heron's agent wants to talk to the Washington Nationals executives, he probably just walks down the hall. And so most of the business essentially is being done outside of the sight of you. And then a couple times a day or maybe once a day, I think it's probably a couple times, right? Each team's maybe general manager will come out and do a little media availability and that sort of thing. Is that accurate?

Yeah, generally they do it with their local beat writers. In some cases, I mean, when Brian Cashman came out to talk about the A-Rod injury on the first day, he came to that giant media workroom and did a press conference for everyone. But the individual, kind of the local group of reporters sort of get their own audience, whether it's the GM comes to them or the GM invites them to the suite for a few minutes to ask them about stuff. So generally, they're not just right out in the open where everyone would swarm around them.

It's kind of more of an invite-only event or a planned thing. Ah, I see. I didn't realize that. So does any news actually get broken in this format, or are these media availabilities almost always kind of after the fact? I mean, is the news pretty much always broken by one reporter who gets a text, as far as you can tell? Seems that way, pretty much, yeah. I mean, there's such a divide between the breakers of news and the responders to news, it seems like. I mean, the people that everyone knows, the Rosenthal's and the Heyman's and the Morosi's,

are out there really doing the bulk of the reporting or rumor mongering, and then all the rest of us kind of react to that or rehash that or follow up on that and try to get more clarity on it. So if you walk through the lobby or something, you see Ken Rosenthal just looking more and more tired every time you pass him. Never without his phone either held to his ear or just held in front of his face as he texts people with it. Does he talk to people? Do you see him actually interviewing people like face-to-face? I did not. I'm sure he did some of that, but I did not.

Whenever I would walk anywhere in his vicinity, he would be on the phone or occasionally on camera because the sets for the various networks, MLB Network or ESPN or whoever else was there, was just kind of out in the open in the lobby. So anyone walking by could see who was on TV and watch that being filmed. So he and Heyman and the other people who kind of do double duty as writer types and broadcast types. We're never too far from the cameras, it seemed. Did you get a sense that people were disappointed by how slow this winter was?

Yeah, I did. And I feel like we get so spoiled around winter meetings time. Like more stuff happens during those couple days than than that really at any other time of the year, except possibly the trade deadline. And yet if, if one or two big free agents don't sign, it's, it's slow and nothing's happening. Um, I mean, as, as someone who is writing about stuff that was happening, there was more than enough happening for me. Uh the fact that Granke didn't sign and Hamilton didn't sign, or at least haven't as we are recording, seemed to make the consensus that this was a slow meetings, I guess, just because the top guys are still sort of on the board, even though there were

many, many smaller moves made. But I haven't been to previous ones. So I can't really compare to how the pace of news was this time, as opposed to other times. I would, I would guess, I haven't like actually done a study on this, but it seems to me that the bar for what constitutes a publishable rumor gets a little lower. There is no bar. There's nothing. Yeah. I me that the bar for what constitutes a publishable rumor gets a little lower. There is no bar. There's nothing. Yeah, I think the classic one this year was the Upton-Cliffley talks, which were reported as the teams are talking about it, and then it was actually just an internal discussion on one side,

which is halfway halfway i guess but i just wonder do you are there rumors trickling around that um that don't even pass the the bar for being published i mean did you hear did you hear sort of really outlandish rumors that no writer would put his name on? Not really. Most of the stuff that I heard that wasn't public was just if I was talking to someone with a team that I knew or someone with MLB that I knew or something and kind of just would say something off the record that was interesting. I didn't really hear any rumors that made the rounds that didn't go public. I'm sure there were some. Maybe people weren't telling them to me because I'm not really a rumor guy. And to some extent, I'm not even really paying attention to the rumors until they become news or reality. So I don't know. I can't unfortunately report any crazy rumors I heard

that everyone else didn't already hear probably. And I was kind of, I guess, cynical about the whole winter meetings experience. The past few years when I haven't gone, the past few years when I haven't gone, I have felt like I was almost just as aware as everything that of everything that was happening as as everyone who was there. Because if you follow the hundreds of people who are there on Twitter, and they're tweeting every time they hear something or make a move, you see so many pictures of the place that you feel like you could navigate it yourself without ever having been there. And you just are able to follow the news so well.

And most of the stuff that I wrote about while I was there was stuff that I could have written about just as easily at home, with the exception of the Brian Cashman press conference, uh, with the exception of the, the Brian Cashman press conference, which I was at and, and reporting stuff that he said and putting us some audio up other than that. And I guess the BBWAA meeting where I broke the biggest news of the winter meetings that you were admitted. Um, other than that, I probably could have written about everything I wrote about just as well than that, I probably could have written about everything I wrote about just as well in my pajamas in my office at home. So I mean, what what people told me before I got there, mostly that it was kind of a networking thing for writers was was the case. And that was great to meet all the people that I know from the internet and have not met in person or have met in person but see very rarely,

that was definitely the best part of it for me. Not just in a professional sense in that I met more people that I can talk to for future pieces but just in a personal sense, just getting to know people off of Twitter and email was nice. Yeah, I think that probably the winter meetings is really, it's two conventions in one. One is the team's meeting in order to kind of do business. And the other is, it's kind of an industry conference. It's a trade show. It's like we have the Sabre Convention here in Long Beach a year ago. And I imagine that in a lot of ways, it's a lot like the Sabre Convention here in Long Beach a year ago.

And I imagine that in a lot of ways, it's a lot like the Sabre Convention. Half of it is a lot like the Sabre Convention. It's just that there's also coinciding with that. There's this other thing in the same hotel that's just churning out news after news after news. But I would imagine that they're in a lot of ways sort of almost separate conferences. Yeah, it seems like that. And then there's the minor league stuff going on, which is completely separate from those other two things. But probably most of the people there are minor league people. I was in a taxi to the airport that I split with a guy who was just there,

uh, with an A ball team and had come in to talk about his, his league's rules or whatever for a day or two. And then there are people who are going through the trade show and it seems like kind of a writer tradition to wander through the trade show and tweet pictures of the weird items that are there. Um, but those people, it's their business. I guess it's one of the most important parts of the year to them. If it's a company that

sells seats that go into a ballpark or sells, I don't know, in stadium entertainment or some sort of mascot company or something. They set up their booths in this gigantic room, and it's just a free-for-all with all the minor league personnel that come through there and browse and look for what they want to invest in for next season. So the event is actually organized, apparently, by the minor league teams and leagues primarily. But they are kind of in the, in the shadow of everything going on on the major league side. All right.

Well, that's that. So why don't you go to bed and we'll talk again tomorrow. All right.