Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1142: The Shohei Ohtani Assignment

Episode Date: November 28, 2017

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a slow week in baseball and the likely effects of MLB’s impending pitch clock, then talk to former front-office executive (and former FanGraphs writer) Tony Blengino about how baseball brain trusts could and should be crafting their responses to the seven questions that Shohei Ohtani’s agent recently sent […]

Please write the words I long to need Till you come back home, this heart will never roam Oh darling, darling Please, please We all believe These are all Hello and welcome to episode 1142 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast with Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello.

Hello. So teams actually left us alone. Let us enjoy our Thanksgiving. It was a slow end of the week and weekend. Even Jerry DiPoto did not make a move, although he did start a podcast. So he's coming for us now. He's been giving us material all these years, but now he's a direct competitor. So we're gunning for you, Jerry.

And I wonder, he may not realize, podcasts are pretty time-consuming, as you now know. I wonder if he'll have time for as many transactions. I have not made a single Major League trade since I started this podcast. So it can really eat up your time. I hope this does not preclude him from his usual activities. Well, you have run drafts on your podcast, which is effectively the same kind of thing. I wonder, let's say hypothetically, first of all, it's weird. Jerry DePoto was a general manager.

Why does he have a podcast? What is he doing? This seems like it's not a great idea because you probably can't be so candid in every podcast as he was in his first. There's not always an Otani out there. Yeah, it was all about Otani and how they really want Otani. And, you know, and you can do that in this case. It's I mean, it's not tampering or anything. He's a free agent. And as we're going to discuss later in this episode, it's a case where you really have to make that sales pitch to him because it's not about money so much. So there's no downside to

being frank about your desire to have him unless you think like playing hard to get is going to land him or something. I don't know. This isn't really dating or anything like that. So yeah, it's an unusual move, certainly. But I guess, you know, makes him personable and gives you that human connection to your GM. I guess that's good PR, potentially. Also potentially terrible PR if he says the wrong thing.

I guess when Otani is no longer a subject which granted with the Mariners there's a possibility that Otani will be a subject for the podcast for quite some time but you know this whole sweepstakes is likely to play out over the course of about a month and then the probabilities that Otani will not sign with the Mariners even if they are the favorite they're not the majority favorite so i don't know how much more ground there is to cover in more candid terms like i don't think anybody wants 40 minutes of material about ben gammel i could be wrong but you know depoto has an opportunity here there's a lot of frustration around him i think that people believe that if the mariners can sign otani then okay well a lot

is forgiven and uh that's exciting and hey the team could be good now but you know if and when otani doesn't sign with the mariners the response to the podcast might not be so good might not be so positive when you're talking about like marco gonzalez versus erasmo ramirez who's going to be the number three starter yeah but it will be interesting to see a listener emails segment if that's the case they absolutely should do a listener email podcast i would love to hear that like reading mean tweets but it'll be interesting to see how long it takes until depoto a tries to have another gm on the podcast or b successfully has another gm on the podcast right because that would be a delight to listen to. Yeah, it takes listener submissions for moves he should make and then tries to make them and

talks about how it went or something like that. That would be, I mean, that'd be the best baseball podcast there is, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen. So anyway, it was a fairly slow week and it's kind of Otani giveth and otani taketh away because a we can all talk about otani that's what this episode is going to be about but otani also has seemed to put a complete damper on the rest of the market so you know doug fister is signing with the rangers and that's about it signing yeah sure but uh you know that's no no that was not sufficient enthusiasm a good signing oh well we can we can do 20 minutes on doug fister if you want i know that you no no that was not sufficient enthusiasm a good signing well we can we can do 20 minutes on Doug Pfister if you want I know that you've I might need that for Friday you've

written about Doug Pfister before he's he's an interesting player right he's gone from you know the scrap heap to good again to maybe not good again he's one of those guys you can kind of debate what he actually is but that's pretty much it and this has been a very slow to start market and as we'll talk about later in this But that's pretty much it. And this has been a very slow to start market. And as we'll talk about later in this episode, that's probably because every team is occupied with Otani, at least in part. So we're just going to get to that, I guess. Although I do want to ask you just briefly about the pitch clock, because you wrote about it and you made a point about it at the end of last week. And this is something that we've talked about on the podcast before that it's inevitable that it's worked fine in the minors

that we're fine with it and clearly it looks like we're going to be getting it for 2018 in the majors whether the players are on board with it or not so what was the observation you made about the pitch clock that maybe it's not quite as momentous a change as people might be thinking there's really two things about it but the second one is enforcement which we can talk about another day but the the first point is just that the proposed pitch clock would have a timer of 20 seconds i don't know how closely it will hew to the minor league rule probably extremely closely but the rule that buster only reported is at the proposed rule, would be that there would be a pitch clock of 20 seconds between pitches where you have to at least begin your motion after 20 seconds following the previous pitch with no runners on base, which is an important provision in there because pitchers slow down significantly when runners are on base. That is where the game really tends to drag.

There are, of course, pitchers who take a long time even when the bases are empty i did an analysis of pedro baez's career and found that in games where he pitched exclusively with no runners on base he still had like 28 seconds between pitches which is entirely too many although when runners were on base then it skyrocketed to 37 seconds between pitches which is just put him in jail but league-wide there is you that standard roughly eight to nine second difference between pace with runners on base and with runners not on base and the relatively unexplored angle on this but that ken rosenthal and some others have have pointed out is that this will also compel some hitters to speed up because there are some

guys who just take their damn time for seemingly no reason at all and of course the pitchers are giving them no negative feedback because the pitchers take their time too but there are guys like i don't know robinson cano or oduble herrera who are going to need to to pick up the pace i'm probably going to write about this as soon as we're done recording because as you mentioned what else is there to do right now but the kind of big question the pitch clock is inevitable it's going to be in the game it seems like for 2018 and beyond it'll be there the question will be enforcement because from at least anecdotal evidence in the minor leagues it's basically unenforced it's there it's a

suggestion it's helped we know that games have sped up but umpires don't seem to be calling many automatic balls or against the hitter automatic strikes you wonder if in the major leagues i mean first of all it's a higher level it's a more important level so you would think that certainly at first the rule would be enforced pretty tightly but maybe just having the games televised and having like several times more fans in the stands will make the rule enforced more closely because in the minors you can kind of get away with that stuff who's really paying attention who really cares but in the majors maybe you can probably at least you can hope that it would be enforced more tightly so something to

watch and i i am generally supportive although it was uh it was the playoffs that made me believe that they really need to do something about mound meanings as well. Yes, I'm with you there. All right, so we're going to talk about Otani for the rest of this episode. And the news with him, he's probably going to be posted as soon as this Friday. Just has to be approved by the owners, the posting agreement that the league and the NPB and the Players Association agreed on last week. Has to be ratified but it's probably a rubber stamp sort of situation so we're very close to bidding being open and in

preparation for that otani's agent has sent a memo to the teams with seven questions that they are supposed to answer and send back to him they all have homework otani homework and we are going to ask about how teams might go about crafting their responses to these questions how they might differ what considerations they'll all be taking into account and to do that we're going to be bringing on a longtime baseball executive and also former fangraphs writer tony blengino who will give us his perspective on this do you we've we're're gonna have 30 teams submitting memos to Otani's representation here making the case that hey come to us but do you think do you do you suspect what odds you put on Scott Boris's agency also submitting a memo to

represent Otani for his next contract because you know Boris wants nothing to do with this first one there's it's small prize there's no money to be made here. But the next one, come on. Come on, Shohei Ohtani. Scott Boris can get you the big bucks. So I wonder. You figured Boris has got to be sniffing around here. I mean, he must have already been, right? Because Ohtani was in the market for an agent.

Maybe Boris already made his pitch and was rejected. I don't know. But you'd think he must have been involved in that. And I will say that, you know, if we were working for teams, I feel like this is where we would shine. This once in a lifetime free agency that involves a written memo and written responses. This would be our wheelhouse. interned for a team, there were very few opportunities for me to use my writing ability. Like it just wasn't something that the team really needed me to do. Occasionally I would send some memos out about like obscure rules to coaches and minor league managers and, you know, just kind of organizational people just like, hey, be aware of this rule. It's a rule you might not know about. And maybe this situation will crop up and you'll be able to exploit it. So that was like one of my assignments.

But that was kind of the only thing I did that really required expository writing. And if we were with Teams, I feel like we would be the go-to people for the Otani memo, at least for drafting it. Like former, you know, internet writers, this would be the time for us to shine. So I mean, not being able to write much is part of the reason why I don't want to work for teams and also part of the reason why they don't want me to work for them. But in this specific situation, this would be a rare opportunity to showcase those chops. So I'm sorry, I don't get to submit a memo, but I'd really like to read them. So's that if we quit right now how fast do you

think we can get hired by just like as a consultant on the otani memo or just just anything just uh i think uh i think you would beat me to it i think depends if we'd be willing to do total entry level take anything and i guess are we talking baseball operations only i don't know that would be tougher, obviously. But entry level, if we're willing to do like some kind of paid internship or something, I bet we could get in there somewhere for next season.

But an actual desirable position, I don't think that would happen, at least not for me. Okay, as soon as we hang up, I'm going to race you to Otani. I'm going to get, my team's going to sign him first. All right.

We will be right back with Tony. I know you don't think much of it. Someday you'll understand. Where did you learn how to talk, baby? I'll show you how smart I am. I'm going to show you how smart I am. All right, so we are joined now by Tony Bungino, who was the special assistant to the GM in baseball operations for the Mariners for several years, from 2008 to 2013, was a front office

employee of the Brewers before that, and was a writer for FanCrafts subsequent to that. Hello, Tony. Hey, how you doing, Ben? How you doing, Jeff? Hello. Good. writer for fan crafts subsequent to that hello tony hey how you doing ben how you doing jeff hello good yeah so i guess that you must have left the mariners right around the time that the robinson cano pursuit was ramping up but i'm i'm curious based on your experience of signing for agents obviously the otani case is unique and the fact that money isn't really part of the discussion here or at least there's nothing that teams can do, at least publicly, to increase their offer to Otani. So it comes down to all these other factors. But in your time working for teams, how often did it happen that signing a free agent came down to something other than just offering the most money? Or how often was the pursuit of a

free agent about more than just submitting the offer and waiting when it came to actually wooing a player and convincing him to sign with your team for a reason other than, hey, we're offering you the most money? Well, I think every free agent is different, but you're right. Most of them do come down to dollars and cents, no matter how much they like to talk a good game during the courtship process. I think this is kind of an extra special case due to the quality and uniqueness of the player, the fact he's from Asia, all kinds of CBA implications, etc. And it's really kind of one of the many things holding up this offseason

from actually getting started, to not have anybody sign before Thanksgiving. It feels like a first to me in recent history. So, um, you know, being with the Mariners, I think there's, there were some comparisons on a, on a smaller scale to say the Iwakuma signing. I don't really feel it would have ever come down to money with Iwakuma. There were a few places he wanted to go. And I think, you know, the fact, the whole thing that he went to LA and then came back to Seattle after the physical issues with the physical with LA, you know, he just had Seattle was the place he wanted to be. And if the money was reasonable, I think that's the place he wanted to go. Now, like I said, there's all kinds of other factors with a Tani that are going to make this, you know, maybe close to the Tanaka situation a few years

ago. But the fact that he hits end pitches, you know, makes it different altogether. So we get emails on the regular, probably several a day where people come in with suggestions on ideas they think that they have discovered ways to get around the restrictions in the CBA to try to promise Otani something, something additional beyond, you know, the bare minimum and the standard minor league contract. The CBA seems to contain an all-encompassing provision that basically says, no, don't do anything, nothing at all. Obviously, you aren't in the game right now, but I wonder how much time have you spent trying to figure out a way around the CBA? Or maybe do you think that baseball has left

open some sort of loophole such that a team can find some particular way, some provision to give Ohtani something beyond just the standard deal? Well, I think teams are going to do that at their own risk right now with a capital R, given the situation that just happened with the Braves. They go trying to pull a fast one here. They're being watched very carefully. Honestly, I don't think it's all that complicated, even though it's going to be very interesting to watch. The money is not a big deal now.

The money is going to be a big deal in two years. I get the feeling from everything I've read and heard about Otani that comfort, fit, especially, you know, being an Asian player, coming to the States in a very unique playing situation, off the field, you know, support from the organization, support from the community, all those things are bigger factors than the money right now. I think the D8 league has a huge advantage because no matter how superhuman he is and can do this hit pitch thing at a high level, there are going to be days he's going to want to take his four at bats from the DH slot. The American League is at a huge advantage here. So I really think that it's going to be a lot of these non-dollar factors that are going to steer him to the American League and probably steer him to one of a small group of franchises

in the American League. So we've heard it's been reported that the agent for Otani, Nez Belelo of CAA, has told teams to basically submit their best pitches for Otani and their seven questions that they are supposed to answer in this memo, supposedly. And it's not anything to do with money. And it's just all the kind of extra factors that you're referring to there. So first of all, I just want to ask, is this unique? agent or an agent would come along and say, pitch us basically, or send us your best whatever memo or PowerPoint presentation or whatever it is. And here are the questions that we want answered. And here are the submissions. I mean, this is a unusual situation for all the reasons that we've discussed, but are you familiar with any other kind of courtship process like this? I think a lot of free agents go some of the way down this path, both from the agent's perspective and from the team's perspective. I can remember going to the winter meetings and on a given day sitting through four or five agents' pitches on their various clients. And they were PowerPoints and they were slick and they were streamlined. And it's been on the other side with the club too. You're talking about a high end

guy. They want to know everything. They want to know everything about the organization from soup to nuts, everything about the community, everything about the support system, especially when you're talking about a foreign player. So it goes on, on a lot of other free agents, but not as publicly and not under such a microscope. So there's the seven question memo. And just generally, I mean, what would your approach to this be? And what do you think team's approach to crafting this kind of thing would be like? Do you want to submit the book length memo to show how much you care and how well prepared you are?

Do you want to go with two pages and bullet points just because it's more comprehensible? I mean, do you want to be totally honest or do you want it to be more of a just straight up sales pitch and maybe you exaggerate a little bit or do you figure every other team is going to do that? So maybe you want to be the team that is being real with Otani in a way that some other teams are, that kind of thing. So what do you think the strategies are? I guess how different might one team's memo look from the other team's memos? Well, I think the first important factor is this is not the beginning of the process.

This is well into the process. Teams have been planning for this for quite a while. They didn't know exactly when he was going to come over, but when you've got a guy who can do what he can do on both ends of the baseball, this is a guy who's been drawing scouting resource, higher upper end front office resource for quite a while now. The teams that are serious about Otani have been working this for a while in terms of building the relationship. And ultimately that's very likely what's going to carry the day is the relationship since the money is only going to be in a very narrow band. So sure. The, the, the, the nature of the

presentation will vary from group to group. You will have some that will take the, look how smart we are. Look how official and corporate we are. We, you know, you know, we're, we're just the salt of the earth type approach to the, you know, I'm your buddy. Come be, come be one of us. We're building something here approach to the, to I think what ultimately will be the most successful one, which is the people who have gotten to know him already kind of know, or at least got to know his reprisation, know what makes them tick, know what buttons to push, and, you know, maybe can hone into which of those seven questions are the most important and build their presentation around that. Do you think with all this time, teams have been throwing resources at the Otani pursuit,

as you mentioned, for years now with an indefinite arrival date. But still, this has been a full court press. I know Jerry DiPoto, I think his specific words were full court press, but I'm sure the Mariners are not alone here. And would you or do you have any amount of concern at all that this is going to be, at least in modern era, an unprecedented situation with a highly sought-after player who's going to try to do two different things. Do you have any amount of concern at all that Otani could just,

this whole pursuit could be making a bad first impression for future teammates? Do you think that there could be some sort of resentment over the special treatment being granted to a player who's never played in the major leagues? I don't think so. I mean, alpha dogs respect other alpha dogs. Think back to Ichiro coming over. I mean, each row is only a one-way player, not a two-way player, but here's this small guy who comes over his first year and does what he does, what he did in the Mariners win 2 million games. So this is that generation of players

still who know they've played in world baseball classics. They know who the best players in the world are. This isn't some guy just coming down in an alien spaceship and nobody knows what he is. He is already respected as a world-class player. Can he do what he's going to attempt to do on the biggest stage will be very interesting for everybody to see. But I don't think respect from teammates or respect from peers is going to be an issue. And what do you think about the actual mechanics of writing this memo or the responses to this memo? Like if this had happened five years ago and you're the special assistant, are you the one who's sitting down to draft this thing? I mean, it would vary by team, of course, but would a GM be handwriting this thing? Would the whole front office be having meetings and then one person who is maybe the best writer gets delegated to go do it?

Is there some kind of Google Doc where everyone is collaborating on the Otani memo? How do you think this works? Well, I think it's a team effort. I think there'll be some some liaison with the baseball department, you know, with the PR people, you know, with the, you know, owners and presidents offices. This is a organization-wide pursuit. But I think one key is you got to remember who you're doing this presentation for. You're not doing it for Nez Belelo. You're doing it for Otani. So you better have somebody who writes in Japanese. You better have somebody who understands, you know, the colloquialisms in Japanese. So you don't make any, you know, snafus of sorts,

where you're using words in a way you shouldn't be using them. You've got to take that aspect of it very seriously as well. Right. Yeah. It has to be submitted in both English and Japanese. But of course, you want to make sure that you're not just plugging the English version into Google Translate or something. So let's go point by point here. So number one is an evaluation of Shohei's talent as a pitcher and or hitter. And what would you do here? Would you go super advanced stat on this? Would you go full scouting report? Do you just say generally we think Otani opinions might vary on Otani as opposed to a typical free agent who has major league service time and also is not both a pitcher and a hitter? I mean, I'd imagine that with most free agents, you're getting them after they've had several years in the majors. And, you know, maybe one team thinks, oh, this is a four win player and another team thinks this is a three win player or something. But it's probably not going to be differing that dramatically. But with Otani, do you think there is a consensus? Do you think that teams, for the most part, agree on what he is or what he can be? Or maybe in the memo, you just

say, well, he's going to be the best at everything anyway, just because you don't want to say too much negative stuff in here. But I wonder how much agreement there actually is. Well, as far as the memo goes, I would, I would just make sure you believe what you put in the memo. If you were going to puff him up as the greatest thing of all time, you better, you better mean it because the first time he hits a patch of adversity and you want him to, to not, not take his four at bats every day,

he's not pitching. They're going to say, Hey, wait, you thought I was the greatest thing from sliced bread. So mean, mean what you put in the presentation would be the most important thing. Secondly, I'd say from an objective evaluation of his ability, I think the stuff pitching-wise plays, there's no doubt about that. There's always some doubt about whether an offensive player is going to translate to the best league in the world. And I think he will probably have more growing pains as a hitter than he does as a pitcher, uh, health being, you know, being a given assuming he's healthy. So my gut is that's

probably how teams would evaluate him. But as far as they, what, what they put in the presentation, I mean, I think you want to be positive in general, but don't go blowing him up into something he might not be because it might come back to haunt you pretty quickly. I mean, he can always, he can sign with a team for now and then leave in two years or whenever he becomes a free agent. So he's got, he needs to be happy once he gets where he's going. And I guess since he's the target of this memo, you're probably not going to be drowning him in advanced stats or something. You're just going to want to say, we see you as a, you know, top of the rotation starter and the middle of the order hitter,

you know, or a regular DH or whatever. And I would probably want to compare him to some U.S. players, which would probably honor him on some level. I don't want to get too far ahead trying to project what Otani is going to be as a player. But, you know, if he is going to be getting the double playing time situation, I know the Mariners have already said that they'd be willing to play Nelson Cruz a few days in the outfield, etc., just to try to find some room. Let's say, hypothetically, Otani comes out and he sort of establishes himself as, you know, a pretty good hitter, even a great hitter for a pitcher.

But say he's like a, I don't know 90 to 100 ops plus kind of guy where he's just sometimes he kind of looks like an average hitter but i don't know maybe he strikes out too much doesn't hit for enough power whatever how much patience do you think a team would be willing to extend to him if he is a below average designated hitter when he's not pitching do you think that teams would be willing to convince themselves that it's just sort of the cost of doing business and this is what you have to live with when you have Otani as a pitcher? Or how soon do you think a team might approach him if he is not a good enough hitter and say, you know what, we kind of need to cut down on your hitting playing time here? Well, I look at the DH. DH is an advantage that it's there, but it's a fallback. To me, this is only long-term really attractive, this two-way experiment, if he can play the field

and play it fairly well. Am I going to spend in a couple of years $250 million on a long-term deal for a DH slash pitcher? And like you said, the DH is a 9,100 guy and you're throwing Nelson Cruz or someone or the equivalent of Nelson Cruz in the right field. That may not be where you want to go. If this is all about winning, if this is all about building franchise value, and if this is all about opening up a pipeline of players from, from the far East, then maybe you'd, you'd swallow hard and you do that. But if you, if you get a 90, 100 right fielder who can throw and who can play defense and he pitches every fifth or sixth day, that's a different story.

That's an asset. But if, if you're, if you're going into it from the get go saying, okay, well, he's going to be our DH when he doesn't pitch. That doesn't sound like an,

unless he, unless he can hit like Nelson Cruz, that doesn't sound like a tremendously interesting long-term situation. Short-term, a couple of years when you're paying him the minimum, sure, whatever. But long-term, if I'm going to write the big check for this guy, I want him to be able to play the field too. Well, he has done that to some extent in Japan, but not recently really, because I think there was just a concern about how much of a strain that would be and how much fatigue there would be. I mean, I'd have to imagine even if he could do it and supposedly he has, I mean, we know he has a great

arm obviously, and you know, supposedly he can cover ground too, but that's a lot to ask when you're having a guy not only pitch every fifth or sixth day, but also be in the field in the interim running around and standing. And I mean, that's, that's, I don't know. It is, but that's, that's, that's what this is all. That's what this whole Otani thing is, right? It's something special, something unique, something different. He's in the prime of his athletic life. Maybe he can't do that forever, but you know, can he do it in the short term?

All right. And then the next item on the memo is player development, medical training, and player performance philosophies and capabilities, which is pretty broad, pretty open-ended. I don't know what you would want to try to stress there. Maybe this is the place if you have a team philosophy, like your Cardinals way equivalent, maybe you put that here. This is an area where maybe you could get into some sort of proprietary stuff that maybe

you wouldn't want to be sending to an agent that you you don't know exactly where this memo will end up so what kind of information would you be comfortable putting in there and what what do you think you would want to emphasize well it seems to me what he's talking about here is is not so much player development in the way the day-to-day American fan thinks of it, like minor league system, promotions, et cetera, you know, how we, you know, what we want our minor leaguers to do. It seems to me that this is more or less, he's talking about keeping people healthy, uh, how that's kind of worldwide, probably even more so than in the United States, you

know, with, with soccer across the world, there's so many, you know, you want to talk advanced analytics. Uh, this is where probably the next edges are going to be gotten is keeping players healthy and keeping them at peak performance. I mean, I know that the Philadelphia 76ers just hired, I forget which I think it's, it's, um, either at Real Madrid's medical director to kind of oversee their program. So I think the rest of the world may be a little bit ahead of us here. And Otani's people may want to see who's on the cutting edge in terms of, you know, medical, you know, wellness, you know, keeping players healthy, keeping them at peak performance, et cetera. That's where I would focus here. And if you don't have, if you don't

have an advanced approach here, you need to get one quickly and at least have plans for one because this is where the sport's going. And that's why I think that there may be a few reasonable contenders weeded out on this one. you know, good organizations can take advanced metrics and get actionable data, you know, swing mechanics, et cetera, you know, deliveries, release points, et cetera, turn that data into actionable intelligence. And this is where you may want to show what you've done successfully with a player in the past. You know, like if Houston would be in the mix here, what they did with Verlander when he came over to make his stuff play up more. So this is where you might want to show off a couple of those analytics, both batted ball, you know, pitch FX, hit FX type metrics, and also some medical stuff. I think that the medical could be very key here. Okay. So what you're saying is Otani will not sign with the Mets.

So we're going down the list and if we're just going to hit on point number three, point number three highlights major league, minor league, and spring training facilities. Obviously, teams have different facilities. One of the best things about baseball is all the ballparks are different, but it's 2017. It's about to be 2018. The Cubs even found a way to renovate Wrigley Field. To what extent is there even really stratification, I guess, between major league organizations in terms of the facilities that they offer? Well, this one is probably just going to probably cut off a few teams at the

bottom, maybe, because I think you're right. I think most teams have stepped up their game in this area. But I'll go back to Ichiro again. Ichiro, the Mariners from the get-go, made a lot of adjustments for Ichiro in terms of there was a batting machine that he brought over from Japan. This is the batting machine he wanted. He used it. No one else used it. They're probably looking for some flexibility because Otani may have had great success doing things his way. I'm sure there are going to be some things he's going to be open to with the club that he plays for, but there's going to be things that he's done, quote unquote, his way that he's going to want to continue to do his way. And he's going to want the flexibility to be able to do that.

And sometimes that might require adjustment of, you know, physical plant in both your spring training facility and, or at the ballpark in the batting cage or something small. It might be something very, very minute that is very important to Otani. And he's just probing to make sure he's going to be able to do things the way he wants to do them. He's not looking for like an extra box for his family or something, probably he'll get something like that. But I don't think that's what this bullet points about. Yeah. I wonder if this comes down to aesthetics at all. I mean, it's easy to sell your ballpark if it's AT&T or something, you know, if, if you're in the Coliseum or Tropicana or something, maybe you just don't include pictures or something in

this presentation. I don't know. But maybe this is a place where you could work in how you think Otani's skills would fit in your park for whatever reason, particularly if you think they would enhance his swing, if you have his spray charts or whatever, or you know where guys hit the ball against him. Maybe that's something that at least certain teams could emphasize here and impress him that they've actually looked into his performance and projected how he would do. And maybe that is both flattering and also appealing if there is a strong case that it would actually enhance his value to that team or his stats in some way. Well, I think one thing that probably

might fly under the radar on this one is I really think training in Arizona is a big advantage over training in Florida. And it's just day-to-day life in spring training. You take a 45-minute drive at most of the ballpark you're going to play at, and you've got the rest of your day. In Florida, you are on I-4, or you are on the Alligator Alley, or you are in traffic, or you have a thunderstorm right at game time. In Arizona, it's on autopilot. So four and five on this memo seem like they're somewhat similar, maybe have a little overlap.

Four is resources for Shohei's cultural assimilation. Five is a detailed plan for integrating Shohei into the organization. And this seems like an area where a team like the Mariners, for instance, as Jerry DiPoto has mentioned, would have a leg up just because they have had a Japanese player on their rosters for many years now, and there's a long legacy. And I assume there's some infrastructure built up there to ease that transition. But what kind of things are teams doing in this area? And this is maybe a little bit different from, say, a 16-year-old Dominican kid who's just coming over to the States for the

first time or something. And Tani's an adult, but it's still potential for a culture shock. So what kind of things could teams do or have teams already done to differentiate themselves here? Well, I think there's one thing that teams probably have had to have done already, and there's another one that they could do moving forward. I'd say at this point, teams like the Mariners have an advantage because they have personnel who've been translators. They had the same guy translating for Ichiro for a long period of time, and then Ichiro left, Iwakuma came, the same person, and then I think another person has been there for a long period of time. And then Ichiro left, Iwakuma came, the same person, you know, and then I think another person has been there for a few years as well, too. They have people

been doing these jobs for periods of years, procedures in place for how, you know, the club and the player interact. It's all about keeping the player comfortable. And it's one thing for a team to say, okay, we've done this since 2001. And it's another thing to say, okay, well, we're going to try, we're going to do this. We've never done it before. We're going to try to hire people who work for other clubs, but there's going to be a learning curve there. I mean, Texas did it with Darvish. You know, there's that have done it and there's teams that haven't done it.

And the teams that have done it have an advantage there in terms of what was the other piece of it? It was the, uh, yeah. Integrating him into the organization. And that's something teams you don't necessarily have an advantage if you've done it already. You know, you pitch once a week in Japan, and you pitch deep

into the game, and a lot of times you're expected to finish the game. So I know when Iwakuma came over, he was brutal at the beginning of spring training. And there were people who didn't want to keep him, who wanted to eat the money on Iwakuma. Now we couldn't do that. I mean, we wouldn't do that with a free agent from the U S let alone, you know, someone from, from Japan when we had Japanese ownership at the time. So we had to just basically shut them down, start them up. It was a totally

different spring training than he was used to. And he had, you know, once you get him built up, you have to get him into that every fifth day versus every seventh day mode. It's something that a team can, that hasn't done it before, can plan for. I guess it's a small advantage, at least to have been through it before with a player, but it is a different world for a pitcher pitching every fifth day versus every seventh day, no matter, no matter how much physical talent you have and no matter how clean a bill of health you have. It's just different. Related to integrating Otani into an organization, I've asked this of a few people because the pessimist or I guess cynic in me tries to win out. And a few people have reassured me, but

you don't have to be explicit. You don't have to name any names. But how many front offices in baseball, even if the number is zero, do you think might have the, let's say, stones to have Otani start the year in the minor leagues to get that extra year of service time? Wow. I think that's something that would be addressed in the buildup, in this whole process. Yeah, don't put that in the memo if you're going to do that. I think a player, a team that wants to keep him for the long haul, considering the limited financial outlay at the beginning here, you roll with him in the big leagues.

You stick with him. If you put him in the minor leagues, you're losing him. I can't imagine a scenario in which he shows up in spring training just flat, not good enough. I can imagine a scenario where he comes and he gets hurt or something along those lines, and it certainly impedes his ability. But if he comes over as the player that everybody's been watching, I don't think there's a team in baseball that would stick him in the minor leagues to save

what they think is a year of control when that year of control ain't going to be theirs. It'll be somebody else's. So number six and seven, the last questions on the memo, somebody else's. So number six and seven, the last questions on the memo also somewhat interrelated here. So number six, why the city and franchise are a desirable place to play and seven relevant marketplace characteristics. And so I guess this is kind of the tourist board portion of the memo here where you have to sell your city, sell your franchise history. And it kind of depends maybe on what Otani is looking for. I don't know if he wants the biggest spotlight and the most exposure and the best potential to be famous and have endorsement deals or whether he wants the opposite of that. I don't have a great sense of that. Maybe teams do, but that might influence

what you emphasize here. So who gets involved in something like this? I mean, this seems like something that would be the whole organization or maybe even some source outside the organization that you would want to consult and say, what's the best thing about our city and our market? Well, I'd say there's two points here. The first one is a little bit under the radar. Picture yourself being really at the top of your profession and something and now going to practice that profession in a foreign land where you don't know the language and you know I don't even know if Otani's married and

has children and you know all of a sudden this is your lifestyle no matter how you good good you are at what you do there's a big percentage of the day where you're not doing that. And you need to be comfortable that you're going to, you and your family are going to enjoy where you are, are going to be accepted where you are, and are going to thrive, you know, personally where you are. So that's a big deal. And I, you know, I don't, is there a market in the U.S. where you can't build a scenario

where this person would be happy? I think even the markets that aren't attractive could build a case and could build a support system that would satisfy a player here, but maybe not excite a player. This is where I think the organizations on the West coast have a big advantage and some of the large markets, you know, potentially New York, maybe Boston, Chicago, will probably have a little bit more upside here than the other organizations. And the other part of it is pure business. How are you going to build your brand, you know, beyond baseball?

Can you become an icon? I would assume if they're asking this question, that's kind of what they're going for here. They've seen Ichiro before them do that. So it's a chance to really, I mean, the amount of media that follows even the lesser Japanese players around is amazing. It's just, it's a multiplier effect on how many players are paying attention to you when you go beyond the traditional U.S. market. I mean, I saw some list of the 100 most bankable athletes in sports. There are only a handful of baseball players on it. Who's going to be that baseball player

that does what the soccer players have done, that does what LeBron has done? That could be what they have their eyes on here. Is this the guy? I mean, Mike Trout is great, but for whatever reason, Mike Trout hasn't become the bankable, mega recognizable person. Mike Trout could still walk down a street in the town he plays in and go unnoticed, I'd bet you. I mean, Mike Trout sits in the front row at Eagles games every week and nobody bothers him. I mean, Otani's going for something beyond that, I would have to think.

And what you do in that situation, you get the bigwigs in business from your, maybe you get them to a lunch with some of the, you know, the heavy hitters out, you know, in sports and outside of sports in your area, just get them for a meet and greet with those people and put them in a situation where, you know, I know these people, you know, there are deals to be made if deals need to be made in this city. And again, there are cities that are going to have advantages over other cities in that regard, both because of the ethnic makeup of certain cities, as well as the thriving metropolis nature of certain cities compared to others. I think, again, the West Coast is going to have an advantage over the Rust Belt here. It's just the way it is. So, you know, I do think that this is bigger than

baseball. And I think Tanaka was bigger than baseball too. Back in 2001, was Ichiro bigger than baseball? No, I don't know that it was. It became bigger than baseball. I think Tanaka was bigger than baseball too. Back in 2001, was Ichiro bigger than baseball? No, I don't know that it was. It became bigger than anybody thought it would be because of how good he was and how quickly he was good and how quickly the team got good because he was there in large part. So, but now there's players in every sport who, you know, LeBron's done his thing a step of the way. His performance, his productivity has never suffered, but he's

become one of the five or 10 most valuable athletes in the world. And Otani on one level is challenging himself, going into the biggest stage and seeing how good he can be. But he doesn't need to do this. He's doing this for, I'm sure, a lot of reasons, many of them personal that he won't share with anybody. But on some level, there is some sort of world stage that he wants to conquer. If you flip that around from the team's perspective, the potential for Otani to become this transcendent star, how do you value that? If you were consulting on this process, would you attempt to put a number on that publicity value? Maybe sometimes it's called marquee value. There have been various analytical attempts to try to put some dollar figure on that,

but it's an imprecise science. So, I mean, if you sign Otani, obviously you're guaranteeing yourself basically the biggest baseball story of the offseason, the biggest baseball story of spring training, maybe the biggest baseball story of the 2018 season. And then after that, it depends on whether he actually plays well or not. But you're at least having the potential for a real crossover star, not only the most visible player in this sport, but someone, you know, fans of other sports, people who don't usually pay attention to sports or to baseball are going to be aware of Otani if he is actually doing the two-way player thing and having some success. So how do you put a number on what that is worth to you, not just in terms of

on-field performance, but maybe the marketing and the brand awareness? I don't even know that you need to put a number on it. I think you focus on the transformation. I mean, everybody who likes baseball knows baseball is a global sport, but the people who aren't really into baseball don't really have a sense of that. They look at baseball as mostly an American sport. He can be the one who can change that. And there is no price tag on that. You don't have to put a number on that. You just say, if you can do this, you are the face of baseball worldwide. And there is no limit. All the parameters change. I mean, will that actually happen? Who knows? But if you're trying to sign

this guy, you have to put that out there and say that you can be the one who can transform the international perception of this sport. And coming here gives you the best chance to do that. From the outsiders or I guess pseudo-outsiders perspective that we have, it's of course very difficult to identify who might be favorites in the sweepstakes. We can assume that Shohei Otani probably doesn't want to sign with like the Tigers in their current franchise situation. Now, we don't actually know that for sure. He might want to give himself the biggest challenge possible.

But yeah. If I can interrupt for one second, that's the only thing that maybe surprises me that is missing from this memo is just kind of like how good is your team or like you know what where do you see your team in five years that kind of thing i mean maybe they figure the team isn't really going to be able to be honest and objective about that anyway but you know are you going to rebuild are you actually going to surround otani with a winner for his whole time with team control that's the one thing that i would be wondering about that is not explicitly covered in here although you could probably work it in at some point anyway go ahead jeff i mean along those similar lines i was just wondering if what you tony think within the game if do you

think that teams perceive that there is some sort of like hierarchy of favorites here do you think that those perceptions are are even necessarily accurate like how much more insight do you think that the teams who are involved in this have on who does and doesn't have a shot at otani versus how much of this do you think is is really kind of a complete mystery like the mystery that it it seems to be from our perspective? Well, I'm sure the teams themselves have a much better feel for contact, for who's been in ballparks, whether the GM has been in there, high-level conversations. Every team's doing their little high-level intelligence

and getting back to their people with what they know. A lot of times that just creates as much disinformation as it creates information. But it's a unique circumstance. Money isn't necessarily the object. So in theory, all 30 teams on some level are involved. Maybe Baltimore is not because they don't have any international money.

And there are a couple of teams that have almost no international money. But hey, if you're going to make over $100 million in a couple of years, maybe you're going to make over $100 million in a couple years, maybe you'll take a $3 million haircut now if you're going to the place you really want to be in. But I think you can read between the lines and some of the questions that they're asking

that there may be eight franchises that have a legitimate shot here. When you talk about the city, when you talk about history with Japanese players, when you talk about being a place where he could build a brand. I would probably say we're talking Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Boston. Did I forget any of the big ones? And there's probably a wild card out there somewhere. A young up and coming team who, you know, could Houston because they won, could they be the dark horse? Could Milwaukee, with their young team and their recently developed history of turning Chase Andersons into really good pitchers, be able to show them something on an analytical level and say, you know what, we can make you this much better than you already are.

So I do think there's probably the eight or so consensus favorites. consensus favorites. And there's probably one or two teams paddling like ducks to be that one outside dark horse candidate that I think will be in the mix till the very end. Yeah. And it seems like a case where if you're a team, you want to kind of signal to your fan base that you're doing everything you can to get them. Because this is a situation where every team is theoretically in the running and teams that are not normally even remotely in the market for the biggest free agent available are in the market, at least, you know, in theory. So everybody can afford it. Right. And I think a lot of teams, some fans may not realize that I, you know, I've seen tweets to the effect of, oh, they'll, they'll never shell out the money

to get Otani, you know, just people not understanding how strange a case this is, where money is not really what's going to land him. But if you're a team that is not historically in the running for this type of guy, well, you might not be in the running even now, but you can at least send a signal that you are and back it up with an offer because you can afford it. So you might as well just make your fans think that you put the effort out there and you tried to get him at least, just seems like good PR to do, even if you don't really think it's going to work. So anyway, this is a fascinating process. I would love to see these memos. If anyone feels like leaking us the memo responses, that would be great. We'd get a lot of material

out of going through these. And I'm so curious to see like just how much they vary, you know, just like how do the fonts vary? How do the, you know, paginations vary? Is one like 30 pages long and another is two pages long? I'd love to know the differences in how teams are approaching this sort of thing. But you've helped us shed some light on how you would do it based on your experience. So it's been a pleasure. Tony, thank you very much for coming on and talking to us about this.

Not a problem. And I would say at the end of the day, it's going to be the team. It's not going to matter what their presentation looks like. It's going to be the team that establishes that personal relationship that isn't just a sales pitch. You can tell when you connect with somebody and the team that is most able to do that will ultimately be successful. Yeah. And that's tough because this is a compressed process, right? It's all unfolding. I mean, you know, within a few weeks here in that he just hired this agent and the actual bidding is going to be going on very quickly. And so, you know, if you don't already have that relationship, it would probably be tough to establish it. Now you'd have to write a really perfect memo, I guess, to get their attention. But otherwise, teams that have been

in Japan and have had people in the stands for his starts going back years, maybe it will turn out that that will actually help them out in the long run way down the road here. So that'll be interesting to see too. All right. Well, thanks again, Tony. It's been a pleasure. All right. Enjoyed it. Have a good day, guys. Thank you. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who've already done so include David Goetz, Tom Dever, Will Brown, Steve Cashore, and Graham Stewart.

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