Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1159: The Reverse DePodesta

Episode Date: January 6, 2018

Ben Lindbergh talks to FanGraphs’ newest hire, Meg Rowley, about her transition to full-time baseball writing, becoming a professional writer after starting out in a very different occupation, and her gravitation toward increasingly less lucrative industries. Then Ben, Meg, and ESPN’s Bill Barnwell talk to Minnesota Twins Director of Baseball Operations Daniel Adler about Adler’s […]

I hate the army and I hate the RAF I don't wanna go fighting in the Derby Goulet I hate the 7th South and Blue I won't open that phone for you Career opportunity, the one I never knock Every job they offer used to keep you out the dark Career opportunity, the one and never enough. Hello and welcome to episode 1159 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters.

I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs on vacation. So I am joined by the newest full-time employee of Fangrass, and I'm very happy to say that, Meg Rally. Hey, Meg. Congratulations. Thank you. You're the first person in my family, who isn't in my family, I should say, who said that out loud.

It's so exciting. You're part of the Fangrass family. So the plan today, oddly enough, is to talk about football. We're going to be joined by my old Grantland colleague and friend, Bill Barnwell, and he and you and I are going to talk to Daniel Adler, who is the director of baseball operations for the Minnesota Twins, but is also a recent veteran of multiple NFL front offices. So we're going to discuss the differences between the two sports and their cultures and how much or how little they've embraced analytics and how one has been very depressing of late and the other fortunately less so.

But before we do, I just want to talk to you for a few minutes about life. You're still technically, I guess, at your previous job. You've been working for the Trust for Public Land. And it always made me feel a bit better about public land that you were entrusted with it. I'm kind of worried about what this means for public land going forward, but I'm happy about what it means for fan graphs. Well, thankfully, I have many great soon-to-be former colleagues here

who will carry on ably in my absence. So I don't know that you should feel great about public land at this particular moment in history, but it will not be because they have fallen asleep at the switch. Good. So what will you be doing for Fangrass exactly, as far as you know? As far as I know, so I'll be doing two things. By the time this posts, our announcements will have gone up.

So while Thwydon is leaving to start an independent bookstore, which is just like the coolest not-Fangraph thing he could do. So I'm going to be taking over as the managing editor of the Hardball Times and hoping to continue the great work that Paul and his very able editors have done over there for the last couple of years. And then I'll be writing a couple times a week on the main site as soon as I get my feet under me editing wise. So you should, I think, start seeing written stuff for me at Fangraphs next week. And then, you know, we'll kind of step in to keep the ship afloat and running and hopefully thriving over horrible times. And people can pitch you, presumably, often when writers ask me how they should try to get into this or what they can do, I tell them to go to Paul. So now I will just tell them to go to you instead.

Yes, please do. For those listening, I mean, I think Paul, one of the many really great things that Paul has done in his tenure is to use that platform to get some new voices into the baseball writing world. some new voices into the baseball writing world. And I think that's a really wonderful part of the Hardball Times mission and one that I plan to carry on with vigor. So if you have ideas and you're an experienced writer, please feel free to reach out. My contact stuff will be on the site and you can always grab me on Twitter. And if you are new and don't know if you have something to say, you know, let's chat about it. Because I started out because Rob Nyer thought that me saying something about bobbleheads meant that I had something more to say about baseball. So you can start literally anywhere, writing about literally anything. Yeah. I was looking back to see when you started out. It's so much more recent than I remember it being because it's just 2015, right?

It was when you started writing there and then you ended up at Baseball Prospectus and just sort of seemed as soon as you appeared that you had kind of always been there because you just sounded immediately as if you had been doing this for a while. And I guess that's maybe because you sort of came to it later than people who start when they're not fully adults yet and they kind of grow up online in sort of an embarrassing way, which is, I think, inevitable for a lot of writers. You look back at your early stuff and you hate it and you're embarrassed by it. And you sort of skip that phase because you were in the real world and you had real person jobs. And then you were an actual adult and you came to baseball writing. And so by the time we all discovered you, it just sounded as if you had been doing this forever.

And I can't believe it's only been two plus years. Just seems like you've been a staple of the baseball writing world for longer than that. So I guess that is a testament to how good you were at it from the start, but maybe it was helpful to come to it later rather than working out your rough drafts online where everyone could see them. Well, I think that that is probably an overly generous assessment of my early lookout landing post, which, you know, if the Vox servers went down tomorrow and those got lost, I don't know that I'd be particularly sad about it. But, you know, I think I benefited as much from working as I did from kind of coming from an academic background.

Like I was in grad school writing all the time just before I started writing about baseball. So those muscles were not as atrophied as they were after I left finance where all of my writing was in emails in bullet form. where all of my writing was in emails in bullet form. Although I had to unlearn a lot of my academic writing habits because that's just not how the kids consume their content these days. Yeah. When you ended up at BP and you started doing this regularly, did you have an ambition to do this as your primary job or was it just a fun thing that you were doing on the side?

I mean, I think I, looking back, I thought it would be really great to write about baseball full-time. I certainly had the itch, but I didn't think that it was going to be something that was possible just because there are so few jobs and there are so many people who are really talented, who've been plugging away for a long time. And so I don't know that I really let myself have that professional ambition. And then in the last year, I've been as rewarding as preserving public land is I was pretty ready to be thinking about baseball full time. So I'm very excited and feel incredibly lucky that I have this opportunity to do that and hope I don't embarrass anyone too badly. Do you have any misgivings about it? I mean, you worked at Goldman Sachs for years, right? I guess at like the worst possible time to work for Goldman Sachs, maybe. And then you end up working with public land. I mean, it's a change. It's

certainly a change. I mean, not so much because you've been dabbling in it for years now. But do you have any misgivings about making this a full time thing? Whether it's, I don't know, I guess maybe there's more pressure on yourself when you have to write as opposed to just it's something that you want to do and it's fun, but it's not your main source of income, your main occupation, or I don't know, just family, friends. Are they all supportive of this thing that has started out as a hobby for you and became your full-time gig? Well, family is very excited. My brother-in-law keeps bragging to people that his sister-in-law is now a full-time sports writer. So that's always a fun thing. I mean, I don't know. I think you should always be nervous about the quality of your work, no matter what you're doing, because if you're not, you're probably too settled and need to think about doing

something else. So I anticipate that I will retain that healthy, hopefully a healthy level of writer neuroses about whether what I'm doing is useful or good or interesting. But, you know, I wasn't going to go back to finance because that was not the right career path for me long term. And my master's is in political science and I don't have a particular yearning to be doing politics full time right now. So I think, you know, this is certainly the best option of the things that I know how to do. And hopefully I will keep being nervous that I'm doing it well enough for someone to pay me to do it.

Yeah. Well, you seem to be gravitating towards, I guess, less and less lucrative fields as you go on. Yeah. That's weird. My earning potential really peaked in my early 20s. I don't know how many people say that. Rewarding potential really peaked in my early 20s. I don't know how many people say that. Yeah. Well, hopefully rewarding in different ways. I've found that to be the case. I worked at Bear Stearns for a summer or two just because it was something that my parents were pressuring me to do and I had zero interest in doing it and didn't really have any affinity for it and just knew I wasn't going to stick there. Did it take you some time to realize that that wasn't going to be your long-term thing? Well, just to put my timeline fully on the table, I started full-time out of training

on my desk at Goldman two weeks before the Lehman bankruptcy in 2008. So I wanted to quit every single day that I was there for about the first year because it was miserable. And I also was terrified I was going to get laid off. And then my mom helpfully reminded me that I was much cheaper than anyone else working there. So I would probably stick around, though I would want to quit and get fired. But I stuck it out for five years. I mean, I think when I was working with clients and was sort of helping to consult with them on regulatory stuff, and I was like, this is saying really interesting things about how we value work. And they're like, no, it isn't. I was like, I should probably go to grad school. I don't think I'm asking the same questions as the folks

around here. So came to it, came to it slowly. I came to it slowly. I was fortunate in my time there. I had success, and I stuck it out for five years. But after a while, I just didn't think that it was the right place for me culturally or kind of consistent with the work I wanted to be putting out in the world. I wanted to have some social use. So now I write about baseball because that's very socially useful. You've done it. Yes. Finally, I've arrived.

Yeah. Well, we're all, I'm excited for you. I'm excited for me, just selfishly, because we get to read you more regularly. I don't have to worry about bugging you to come on podcasts all the time because this is your job now. I'm not distracting you from your job, although technically I am right now, but after today, I will not be. So I think that everyone listening is happy to have you in this world all the time and devoting all of your energies to it. And I'm glad you're doing that for Fangraphs where I sort of work in

a way. And I really look forward to seeing all the work that you're going to do and all the work that you're going to commission from other people. It's going to be a lot of fun. So congratulations again. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Well, our guests are ready.

You are going to stick around for the rest of this episode. We will be back in just a minute. And we're going to be talking about football, which is another reason why I have you on today, because you have watched a football game during the past decade or so. So that will be helpful here. I will be right back with you, with Bill Barnwell and Daniel Adler. We're going to talk about the differences between working in baseball, in football, and Daniel pulling off the reverse di podesta. I don't want to play football. I don't understand the rules of the game.

I don't want to play football, I don't understand The thrill of running, catching, throwing Taking orders from a moron Grabbing for the sweaty crutches Getting hit by people I don't know All right, we are back and we're joined by two other people now, one of whom is my former Grantland colleague, ESPN sensation and star of the Bill Barnwell show. I guess it kind of spoils the suspense, the buildup to who it is when you host a show that has your name in it. I've kind of given away who you are. It is, in fact, Bill Barnwell. Hello, Bill. Hi, Ben. I will say, saying the words ESPN sensation first, though,

made people think of thousands of other people before you might get to me. So it balanced it out in the long run. You just did a preview of every possible NFL playoff game, which is the most, I don't know, admirable or just self-harming exercise that I could possibly imagine. Fortunately, that is not a feasible thing that anyone could do in baseball, so no one will ever ask me to preview every potential playoff game. I don't know if you've saved yourself work, I guess, for the next month or next few weeks in that every possible matchup will have already been previewed by you. So maybe this is actually a sneaky, clever scheme to save yourself work, but it seems like a whole lot of work i it was a lot of

work i'll tell you it would have been a lot nicer if the ravens had held on to that 98% win expecting their playoff expectancy in the final two minutes of that game because i had to scrap a lot of raven stuff had brought up a lot of bill stuff at the last moment so that was not ideal but happy i pulled it off gonna level with you here i don't know what you're referring to i don't know what game you're talking about. That's why I have you here, because you're going to be a big help to me today. Because our other guest is Daniel Adler, who is the Director of Baseball Operations for the Minnesota Twins. That is more in my wheelhouse, but his history is not so much.

Daniel, hello. Welcome. Thank you. I'm excited to be here. I'm not a sensation of any sort, but glad to join you guys. Yeah. So I'm going to just run through your bio briefly because you have one of these resumes that if I ask you to read it, will just sound like you're bragging because it's impressive. So I will spare you that. I will just tell everyone what you did. So I guess you started out or maybe you were doing internships during school. You did the intern revolving chair kind of thing for many years in many places, but you were the co-president

of the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective. I don't know if there's a Harvard degree you don't have. It's probably a shorter list than the ones that you do have. I will spare everyone the details. But you started out as an intern with the Patriots back in 2005. Then you were, I guess, also an intern or a short-term employee with the Cleveland Browns, which that seems like quite a transition to go from the Patriots to the Browns. You really, you sampled the full range of football employment possibilities there. Then you were an intern for Major League Baseball in the Labor Relations Department, working on arbitration and contract stuff and all sorts of things. And you interned there again

as more of a legal intern a couple of years later. But then in 2012, you joined the Jacksonville Jaguars as the director of football research. And I believe you were one of the trailblazers in the sport in that type of position.

So you were there for a couple of years and then you were just hired by the Twins to bring everyone up to date this past august so i don't know if i've i've skipped over anything very important there or hit most of the main beats but the point is that you started out in football and you worked full-time in football and then you transitioned to baseball and you're now full-time in baseball so you've done reverse paul de pod. Of course, everyone knows DePodesta of Moneyball and Dodgers GM fame. He now works for the Browns as you once did. So

you've kind of done that in reverse. And I wanted to ask you about that transition and about how working in these two sports is different. So how did you get involved in football first, I guess, and then what made you decide to switch sports? That was a very comprehensive rundown of my history. You missed the only part you missed in there. I think somewhere early, I was with the Browns for a couple summers and somewhere between the first summer and the second summer, I met Bill Barnwell, who is a good friend and has led to many good poker games and some podcast appearances and great football and life discussions over the years. So that's the only part of the resume that was missing there. Yeah, that should be listed somewhere up close to the top. Friend of Bill Barnwell. ESPN sensation.

So I made my way into football mostly through dumb luck towards the end of high school. I happened to meet Bill Belichick's number two consigliere, a guy named Ernie Adams, who's been with Bill for many, many years, starting in Cleveland in the 90s, where I grew up and talked to him a little bit about the Browns and ended up working for the Patriots that summer, driving a van, which is where most people in football get their start. That's kind of the entry level position. And so didn't crash the van. I had failed my driver's test, which was something I even told my boss from the Patriots that, and he was not all that concerned. He gave me his own little driver's test and I passed that. So I drove a 15 passenger van and had an interesting look at

life in the NFL picking up. It was during training camp. So we were picking up players who are constantly churning the bottom of the roster. And these were guys just a few years older than me and just an immense amount of pressure on them to produce. And some would get a fair shot. And some, I remember picking up one guy at the airport, I think on a Monday and dropping him off on a Tuesday night. So it was a very short stint as a New England Patriot for him. But it was a fascinating, fascinating look at life in the NFL from the lowest, lowest level. But then very fortuitously that summer,

and it's kind of what a little bit led me to baseball, or at least got me involved in the baseball world, the defensive coordinator of the Patriots at the time was Eric Mangini. This was before he went to become

the head coach of the Jets. His wife, Julie, is actually Mark Shapiro, the longtime Indians GM and now Blue Jays president. So Eric's wife is Mark's sister. And I happened to, in addition to van driving, I also did golf cart driving and drove around Julie and their son, Jake, when they would come to visit and got to know her a little bit. And she set me up with Mark, which Mark was still in Cleveland at the time, of course. And that led to some friends in the Indians front office who I've leaned on for advice at different career stages. And that also led to meeting Derek Falvey, who's our chief of baseball operations here in Minnesota. So that was a long rambling way, but actually my baseball career kind of

started, or at least my entry point into baseball happened at about the same time as my entry point into football. So now I know why I don't work in baseball. I don't have a driver's license still. As a Manhattan kid my whole life, clearly that has been holding me back. I don't have a driver's license still. As a Manhattan kid my whole life, clearly that has been holding me back. I can't drive a van. I can't drive a golf cart, at least not safely or legally. So that seems to be my main problem. So I'm going to turn this over to Bill and Meg, who know things about football and can ask you about that part of your life, probably more intelligently than I can. But just briefly, before we get to that, can you describe in as much detail as you're comfortable doing

what your job with the Twins entails? I am still very much figuring that out. I've been on the job for about five months or so now and learning new things every day. This is a hard conversation, especially with Meg here, where I'm probably strictly dominated because she may know more football and more baseball than me. So I'm really a master of none here. But as director of baseball operations, that's a title that can mean practically anything. And so I work a lot with our research and development group, which is growing pretty rapidly. Yeah, I've noticed. Every other day, it seems like the twins are hiring a new analyst. So directing baseball operations seems like it's getting to be a bigger job every day.

And our front office was one of the smaller, really a lean, really strong, lean, more traditional group under Terry Ryan. lean, really strong, lean, more traditional group under Terry Ryan. And with Derek and Thad Levine coming aboard, we have hired a whole lot of people throughout the organization. So just the sheer number of just hiring. I talked to somebody from another team recently and they said during this time of year, you can feel like an HR manager. And that really is true. The amount of interviewing. So kind of day-to-day, if you were to look at my last two and a half, three months, even just the amount of time we've spent interviewing, looking for candidates, both on the research and development side, and also

throughout our player development system and performance related people, strength coaches, trainers. So there's a whole, whole lot of that. And that's probably one we'll get into the kind of football versus baseball differences. But of course, the whole minor league apparatus is something that was very new to me. So working with the research and development group, and then also kind of leaning on some of the law degree and my time with the labor relations group, doing some arbitration, helping out with arbitration, which is led by our assistant GM, Rob Antony. So helping him and trying to learn the ropes there and trying to learn the major league rules and the many rules

about roster transactions, which I had some exposure to, but still very much learning the ropes there as well. Well, Bill, Meg, I will let you take this wherever you'd like to take this, Well, Bill, Meg, I will let you take this wherever you'd like to take this, whichever one of you wants to jump in with a well-informed football question. Sure. I'm a pretty simple one for Daniel. I'll just start with this. And obviously, you know, there's going to be some level of secrecy, I suppose, in your answers to these questions. But I'll let you steer it however you'd like, Daniel. In terms of just the broader experience of having worked in football ops in a football organization with the Jags and then working for a baseball team and working in a baseball organization, just what are the most obvious differences that come to mind in terms of the conversations you have with the people, not only in the analytics department, but then also in the more traditional departments when it comes to baseball ops versus football ops and football.

I think the biggest difference day to day for somebody in a role like mine in football, I was a little bit more on an island. So Tony Khan, who Bill, you know, was my boss. And Tony is still with the Jaguars and enjoying a lot of success there this year. But really, Tony and a couple others were in a small group that really wanted to engage on analytical questions, would think about concepts like expected points, would not fall off their chair hearing, if I say, hey, this team that just lost a game, it actually maybe didn't come down to them having more heart. Maybe it just came down to some bad fumble luck and the ball bouncing the wrong way. Those concepts were more foreign to the majority of people.

to the majority of people. Whereas in baseball, we certainly have a mix of backgrounds and skills and certainly the picture of the old school tobacco chewing scout. There are certainly still plenty of scouts with traditional skill sets and we rely on their views a lot. But I think there's more, just a much greater range. Even those very traditional people are still much more willing to acknowledge the value of trying to look at more empirically derived methods for making decisions, where I think especially just doing, we did a fair amount of interviewing for some major league staff and even the most old school of coaches in football, I would always hear, well, analytics, you know, we can use it to confirm or it's good to know, but it's not going to drive our decisions. Whereas in baseball, even the most traditional people, you know, admit that it's a very significant part of the decision making process.

Sort of related to the difference question, I have one, which is you mentioned sort of adjusting to the minor leagues and their existence is something that was a change. adjusting to the minor leagues and their existence is something that was a change. And I wonder, you know, if it has presented a challenge or how you've dealt with a challenge, sort of thinking through the differences in the timelines that are present in football versus baseball, because obviously, you know, you get a new draft class in football. Those guys are going to be on the field, hopefully in the fall, contributing to the team, whereas you might not see your draft class in baseball for a couple of years. Has that been a challenge for you? Have you had to make some adjustments to your thinking as you think about new guys that could be contributing to your

organization? It's definitely a different approach. And it's something that I think is really, it's a fun opportunity. When I was in football, we always talked about, gosh, can we acquire like an arena team or a Canadian team to try things out, whether it's trying out different game strategies or just certain players who we might think are really high upside. In football, we had the practice squad, which I think the intelligent teams are using those spots to develop players who maybe aren't quite ready, but it's nowhere near, obviously, the player development system in baseball. So it is very different trying to

reading scouting reports, talking to our scouts and learning about how they view guys. I think one thing I've seen is probably baseball scouts, because they understand that their guys are so far away, they are maybe a little faster to admit that there's a whole lot of guesswork involved when you're, especially if you're looking at international guys who can be 15 when you're, when you're first looking at them. I think, whereas in football, there's probably, and in my opinion, usually too much certainty around, okay, this guy's going to come in. I remember we would draft guys and immediately, you know, your first few draft picks, you throw them up on your depth chart as starters. So it's a very, it is a, it's a really different

mentality that I'm adjusting to, but I think also a place where I think smart teams can, can utilize the minor leagues to, to gain advantages and maybe take some guys who have very different skill sets that we, we have a particular knack for training. So it's, I think, a really – it's a fun opportunity and something that I think would probably make working in football a lot more fun is if there were some type of a JV squad opportunity. And, Daniel, you mentioned the cultural resistance to the more quantitative approach. And of course, there are obstacles to doing the actual analysis in football that don't exist or much lower barriers in baseball. And maybe we'll get into that.

But could you, you know, and Bill, feel free to weigh in here too, but for people who aren't familiar, could you kind of appraise where the culture is in football with respect to stats and analytics compared to baseball? Like in 2012, when you started working for Jacksonville, is there like an equivalent year that that would have been in baseball as far as the cultural embrace and maybe where

are we today even in 2018? That is a tough one. And I'm not really familiar enough, I think, with the history of baseball statistics and especially how obviously everybody knows Moneyball and Bill James. But I'm not 100% familiar with how teams were using stats in the mid and early 90s. I think football has an interesting legacy that like film study, for example, and really rigorous breakdown was very much a part of the football DNA, probably long before I shouldn't say I don't know enough about baseball to say this for sure,

but I think probably before baseball really caught on to that wave. So people were very analytical, but probably some of the concepts trying to move one order further down the line from winds to yards to maybe even the components of things that make a play good that don't always turn into a successful play, but trying to say we did some good things. I think that concept is probably takes more time to make its way to the football world, if that convoluted response makes any sense. I mean, my guess, and I obviously Daniel would know better than I do, having worked for organizations, but I would say just in terms of when I talk to people, and I talked to, you know, not only people who are quantitatively inclined,

who are who are on the analytic side of things, but people who are not necessarily as quantitatively inclined. I would guess mid-80s somewhere. Maybe that's not fair because there's more data to work with. I mean, there's not that element of Bill James sitting there and having to spend all night manually entering data into a, you know, into a spreadsheet. Yeah. So maybe, maybe it's maybe you push things forward from that perspective to the early to mid 90s. So certainly a lot of data to work with, but the ability to analyze that data, and definitely the amount of teams who are using it and making meaningful decisions based off of it. I mean, it's just not, it's not frequent enough. And there's

not as many, you know, there are so few teams who are actually incorporating that into meaningful decision making based on what, not only what I've known privately, but then also what we see them doing and saying and how we see them acting on the field publicly. I have a theory in one of the reasons, and Ben, you've touched on this in your question, you know, talking about the limitations of the reasons, and Ben, you've touched on this in your question, you're talking about the limitations of the data. And I do think football, there's just more going on with 22 guys running around the field and allocating credit and blame is harder. So that's part of it. But then another part is just with the 16 games a year, not only lessens your sample size to accumulate data and build good models. But then just as importantly, it really makes it much harder for people to feel the kind of quote right or most expected outcomes play out. So for example, if you look at the shift in baseball, if a team were allowed to

shift just one game, there's a really, there's a very real chance that the shift would not help them in that game. And if it happened just one game and Ben, you obviously lived this when you guys were running the stompers, like players and people have been around the game a long time. It doesn't feel good to them. And if you only get one game to do it, there's a very good chance it doesn't work. And they're going to remember that a whole lot more and it's going to be really tough. And so if you think about something like fourth down, you only get a few of those opportunities a year. And so, yes, it's a great call. But if you only get to do it a few times a year, the chance that you actually see a large enough sample size that the coach who was skeptical says, OK, now I'm coming around to this

is just a lot harder. So that to me is a big, if you could only shift one game a year in baseball, I don't think it would, I don't think teams would be quite as fast to embrace it. Whereas once you get to do it over 162, even the most skeptical person starts to see it play out. And so that's, I think that's one of the, one of many reasons that football has been slower to embrace some of these concepts is you just don't get enough of a chance, even though it's the right move, you don't have enough time to really observe it. Yeah. In that same vein, I wanted to ask you, Daniel. I mean, obviously, you know, from a team perspective, you were in the press box or you were in, you know, in the jam box or you were, you were in, you were in, in the building watching.

I don't think I'm being mean here to say a pretty bad Jaguars team for three years. And you were sitting there through a lot of losses. And of course, you've been in baseball now for different jobs for several years, but this is, of course, you have the most perhaps input on day-to-day operations, obviously, in this job in terms of your baseball career. And so being in a pennant race last year and making it to the postseason, I mean, how difficult was it for you to sort of change the way you approached watching games and interpreting results on a day-to-day basis in baseball versus football? It's a really, the idea that you play 10 times as many games. First couple of weeks, I started in mid-August, and it was a real outside shot for a wildcard spot at that point. It took you about six weeks to make your first postseason appearance.

And there was about six minutes where we were leading in New York, where I thought we might play a full series. But alas, that was short, short lived. But it was a it was an incredible bonus. And I think as you can see from our moves at the trade deadline, probably better than even some of our internal expectations. But certainly learning to modulate that each game is not, you know, total life or death is was something that was new to me and especially kind of down the stretch when it seemed like we had a real chance and we were starting to watch the scoreboard and checking out all the West Coast games. I remember taking some of the games, getting quite frustrated at different points and watching.

It was interesting to watch Derek, who is extremely even keel and obviously has been at this a whole lot longer than I have. And I think spending a little bit of time in our clubhouse, little time around our coaches, I do think people have a pretty good perspective. Although I will say in football, I was very impressed at how well people, and unfortunately we had a lot of losses to deal with, but I was very impressed with how quickly our coaching staff in particular could turn the page to the next game. I remember making a blunder related to I did some clock management stuff, making some kind of blunder during a game and thinking people would be mad at me forever. And I was really pleasantly surprised with how

well our coaching staff in particular could kind of put mistake, learn from mistakes, but put them behind them. And I think baseball, it's just a requirement that you have to do that, obviously. On that point, you know, I know you're, you're in the front office. And we always think of baseball ops people as being a little removed from players on the field, but how have you sort of seen the communication styles you've needed to employ with football players versus baseball players?

Sort of very, obviously you just pointed out like the difference and how quickly you have to let the losses go. But has it been an adjustment? Is it just you jumping in? Are athletes just athletes? Like what have been the differences there? To tell you the truth, in Jacksonville, I talked to our players a little bit. And here I have had a handful of substantial discussions with players, but I haven't gotten that deep. I think it is fascinating. Actually, one of the things that inspired me and really fueled my fire and interest to go into baseball was when Ben had Craig Breslow on his podcast, I think probably around this time last year. And I think players who are really analytical like that are probably more common in baseball. And it is from talking to people in the front

office, it sounds like every year the players are getting savvier and savvier, which is great for us from the perspective of trying to work with pitchers and convince them that maybe they should be altering their pitch mix or changing their arm slot. And I think having players who are data savvy is going to be really advantageous. And in football, I don't think that was, it wasn't really on the radar for players. Maybe one day it will be. It seems like from what I've read about basketball, it seems like that's more common these days. But I really, in football, there were not a lot of analytical discussions with players. Most of the time I was talking to our coaches. I was reading an old ESPN story from 2013 about Gus Bradley, the then coach of the Jags, and

talked about you and Tony Khan. And it does seem as if one way in which maybe you were a bit ahead of baseball at that time, at least, is that you really did have a direct line to the coach. You were kind of in his ear. You were traveling with the team and that's something that has happened more and more on the baseball side but it took a while. There were years there where those worlds were sort of siloed a little bit and you'd have the the quants upstairs and they wouldn't necessarily speak directly to the manager and the coaches and the players and now there's more communication i think between those two worlds but i guess football is different in that in-game adjustments and an analysis is really important not only because there are only 16 games, but because you're adjusting on the fly to what the other team is doing.

Like in baseball, it's a little more set it and forget it, I guess, than football is. Do you see any potential for that kind of communication in baseball? Like whether it's, you know, the future of baseball, you have managers with headsets and players on the field or the catcher or the pitcher has something in their ear where they're listening to the manager. Maybe someone in the front office is speaking to someone in the dugout, which is forbidden now, but maybe at some point in baseball that could come to the fore also. Certainly a possibility. I mean, there will – a lot of the current structure is just driven by the major league rules and the Red Sox found found that out the hard way this year. Yes, but certainly I think there's more and more the the front office involvement in advance work is more at least at least here, something we have spent a lot of time on and put a lot of resources. Because if you, you know, we could have the greatest models possible, but if we're not getting it down on the field, it's pretty, it's pretty useless. I think a difference with football and baseball, baseball things are happening quickly and there's more going on during a game than somebody like myself, who's new to the

game can even appreciate, but we can probably create charts and hopefully instruct our coaches. And our coaches are, many of our coaches are extremely data savvy. So we can kind of arm them with the right things. Whereas in football, a lot of the stuff I worked on in Jacksonville was related to in-game, just being fast on your feet and being the person who can do arithmetic pretty quickly to make sure we're using the clock right and running plays at the right speed or calling our timeouts at the right time. And so those are things that you can, certainly we had a number of charts and tried to guide people, but sometimes having somebody who maybe comes from a little more analytical background, you don't even need to necessarily be the person who's reading the coverages. I think anybody who's watched a football game has seen a coach botch the clock in one way or another, and you don't have to have the greatest football IQ to get that down. It might be actually a hindrance to be watching too many other things. And so you can put somebody like myself in that role to really just concentrate on that one thing, whereas baseball, at least that aspect is probably not quite as, or that role is probably

not quite as necessary. So we mentioned the hurdles in football to analysis, the data, the fact that there's so many players on the field and it's less of a one-on-one-ish confrontation, series of discrete events, all of that. But is that changing at least? I mean, Bill, there's a chip in the football now for the first time this season. Is that right? Or am I outdated? Has football made any strides towards sort of a stat caster or sport view style analysis? They have tried to start tracking player movement data, but the last I've heard of it, and it could change as soon as this offseason perhaps, but I believe the networks get it and they have no idea how to use it. I don't know if ESPN gets it. I believe CBS, I know for sure, gets it. I think NBC uses it as well. But from what I understand, the last time I talked about it with someone in the league, as a team, you get it for yourself, but you don't get it for anyone else. So you can't really use it on a league wide level. There definitely is a resistance to some extent to sharing league wide data. So I think that data does exist now. But it doesn't seem like teams feel like it's very useful, because it's not

very helpful to know that your wide receiver went 20 miles an hour because what's the context for it? Does the difference that a good analytics department can make, do you see it as being bigger or smaller, Daniel? I mean, in baseball, obviously, every team has one. So in that sense, maybe it's harder to get an edge. It's more about keeping up with everyone else, or it's as much about that as it is setting yourself apart. Whereas in football now and certainly when you started full time, I guess it was a real differentiator, at least had the potential to be. Yeah, I think in baseball, it's definitely more table stakes at this point that you're

falling behind if you don't have that group. Whereas in football, there's probably still, I think at this point, most teams nominally have somebody in that role. But if you really utilize the information coming from that person, you would immediately probably put yourself in the top five or so teams

in terms of what I would consider good decision-making. So I think there's probably more room for upside investing in this in football. And that's not saying baseball doesn't help. I mean, I just think baseball, there's so many smart teams out there who have made really significant investments. And yet, I think I've been pleasantly surprised. And that was one of the things I worried about going into baseball is this pretty efficient market. Are we all just kind of flipping coins at that point? And the people with more money are That was one of the things I worried about going into baseball is, is this, you know, pretty efficient market? And are we all just kind of flipping coins at that point?

And the people with more money are probably have a little advantage. And I think I've been pleasantly surprised that the things happening inside of a team are deeper. And then the opportunity, especially Meg talked about this earlier, opportunities on the player development side for good decision-making and really, and it's not all necessarily quantitative, but there are more opportunities than I expected, but it is hard because you've got 29 other clubs that are also armed with some really smart people and significant budgets. So what do you think it's going to take to sort of push football over the edge to considering this more seriously? Because, you know, it seems if the difference it could make is as significant as you're suggesting,

it's sort of surprising that they haven't taken full advantage of that yet. I think the, we touched on this earlier, I think football will not be as kind of, quote, solved as baseball and baseball is by no means solved. We're learning tons of new things every day. Football, there will probably be, there's always going to be, in both sports, there's always room for traditional analysis. But I think in football, I was hopeful, especially as a Clevelander and somebody who knows a lot of the people in the Browns front office, that I was hopeful that they would have a little more time to see how that approach would play out. Unfortunately, when you get a sample size of one, even if you're, you know, when you get a sample size of one,

even if you're, you know, if you say an average regime has a 50% shot of being successful, maybe the Browns made it 65, which would be hugely valuable, but you only get to flip that coin once and clearly it did not come up as a winner for them. So I think, yeah, it's a copycat league and people will, if somebody has success there, that will help. But there's also a lot of things happening behind the scenes that I think there are a number of teams that are maybe not quite as public as the Browns that we're certainly not as all in on these concepts, but that are certainly using analytical concepts to make decisions during games or about drafting players. But there's certainly, I think a lot of, there are, I'd say more obvious, there's more obvious low-hanging fruit in football than baseball for sure. Daniel, in terms of the data itself, I know that independent of you and the Jags, talking to analytics people or people who just work in

non-analytics jobs and other NFL organizations, there's a real concern about data security and the sharing of data within an organization. So as an example, I can make an NFL team where an analyst was not able to do a study on the reliability of scouting reports because the team didn't want to share the scouting reports with him. He just did not have access to the data to begin with. So is there a significant difference, at least from what you've seen or what you've spoken about in terms of sharing information and comfort with sharing information within baseball organizations as opposed to within football organizations? I mean, I'm probably, I'm generalizing from really a deep experience with just one football organization and really a relatively shallow experience.

Just barely more than an intern's timeline at this point with the Twins. So this is still pretty new. I think there's probably just a little more, I think in baseball, you know, scouts first stats battle is largely, I wouldn't say fully settled. There certainly are still different perspectives, but I think both sides, at least in an organization like this, both sides, I think appreciate what the other side can offer. And I also think maybe even calling it sides is the wrong, the wrong way to approach things because we have people who are extremely quantitative, but also have the traditional skill set and will go across the country looking at players or go visit our minor

league affiliates and talk to the talk to players and coaches. So there's maybe not exactly a sides thing, but I do think in baseball, there's maybe just a little more trust. Whereas in football, the view that I've heard from some organizations and seen a little bit is thinking of the analytics people as people who are looking to take over jobs and get rid of all the scouts and change the game entirely. Whereas I think baseball is maybe settled into an area of a little more trust. I was talking to Meg just a little while ago about working in the financial industry in 2008 and how demoralizing that was. And I would imagine that working in football right now has to be demoralizing in certain ways too. And I'm curious about the difference in injuries, obviously, between the two sports. In football, you're talking about career-threatening and often life-threatening injuries routinely,

whereas in baseball, typically, you're not. And I'm curious about that both from a team perspective when it comes to preventing injuries and player health and the relative importance of that or the efforts that teams have taken to try to keep their players healthy. I mean, is there anything you can even do in football about that? and the respective cultural conversations around those sports right now. I wonder whether if that wasn't a motivation for you to switch sports, whether it has been at all a relief in any way not to be part of an industry that seems so beset right now with all of these concerns. Oh, goodness. This is the question that will ensure if I ever wanted to do a reverse, reverse, reverse DePodesta that I will not have that opportunity. So I will be somewhat careful here, but certainly the injuries and the long-term

effects of football was something that I thought about a lot when I was in Jacksonville and still think about a whole lot now. I think one of the things as a team employee, part of the attitude I had then, and I think hopefully the attitude the people in the league have now, is that the game is inherently going to be unsafe, but there are things we can do. So that's limiting hits during practice, which I think during my time in Jacksonville, the number of times we went full hit during practice, like actually tackled to the ground, maybe five plays total in three training camps. So we have reduced things a lot and made it a lot better. That's not to say it's perfect

but if you can at least be the team that is more careful that you're the team that is taking guys out when there are signs of a concussion and not rushing guys back to play either in game or between weeks i think that is something at the team level you can do and you can look yourself in the mirror and say i think the world is in a better place because I have, you know, prevented harm, at least compared to what the average team would do. So that was sort of how, how I approached that, but definitely the long term effects were something I thought about a little bit, but then there's also a, you know, putting the legal hat on there, certainly at the NFL level now, I think a very fair assumption of risk. At the college level and below, I think it gets a little murkier. But I think the NFL has a really long way to go.

They're doing better. People like Chris Nowinski from the outside are doing a good job of really giving them hell when they deserve it. And they often, often deserve it. But I think that is, it's a problem that the league is doing an okay job of lately and probably did a horrendous job of in the past. And, uh, yeah, now I will be sure hopefully nobody from the NFL hears this. Um, in terms of your interactions on a day-to-day level with other people, uh, how can i phrase this without rooting my chances of ever working for an nfl team actually now that i think about it um we should probably just delete the last four minutes of the uh if no one listens to this from football

i thought you already ran the brown oh yeah if anyone does listen to this from football this is the first time they're actually hearing football on the podcast so they must be excited they've probably passed that person has been really disappointed for a long time or like i know it's gonna turn at some point just waiting for that day okay so i'll phrase it this way so there is a culture i think it's fair to say in football of even more so than working effectively, just working of being the first person there in the morning and being the last person there at night, to a point of parity, where it's almost like you people who are sleeping regularly in their

offices in the middle of a week for a bad team that's not going anywhere. So in terms of the culture of the baseball front office versus a football front office, I mean, do you find that the people you interact with are more likely to be perhaps aware of major news events that are happening outside of their building? Do they feel more like human beings, I suppose, than people who are strictly obsessed with their job and the success of their team? I think that is a, I'm going off of a sample size of just one baseball front office. But I do think it's a it's a telling thing that when Derek and Thad took over the twins, one of their first announcements was that they were going to encourage coaches, minor league coaches, and I believe also major league coaches to take some time off during the season for major life events, if that's kids graduation or wedding or a high school reunion, whatever it is, or some kind of family trip. But, you know, go and take a few days

if you need them. And we have other coaches, we have coordinators who can fill in and take over. And there's actually some advantages to sometimes exposing some different voices to our players. And we get to know players in a different and deeper way. But I think that kind of idea is less, certainly less common in football. I knew plenty of coaches who would miss major life events and front office people as well, who maybe the excuse is probably not quite as good that, hey, is it really necessary for you to be to fly with the team to some other city on Sunday and watch the game from the press box when your best friend is getting married. This is just an example. I don't know anybody that exact situation happened. So there were certainly, I think, life impact is, I think football is a little less flexible. But again, this is one baseball organization.

I think we're pretty progressive on that front relative to some other places. But I also think just the season in baseball being longer and maybe each game having less relative impact makes that a little bit easier. But I do think, yeah, football, the coaches definitely, especially really just go into a hole from September through whenever their season ends. And we talk a lot about the homogeneity of front offices in many ways. It can be racial. It can be gender. It can be all sorts of different conditions that encourage, frankly, a lot of people who

look alike and have similar backgrounds in baseball front offices, maybe in all sports front offices. And I know some twins, I think, including the twins are taking steps to try to address that. But I'm curious just about your professional background being a bit different from the typical baseball operations employee, just in that you worked in football first. Does that help you in any tangible way? Like have there been times where you came up with some solution to a problem that might not have occurred to you if you hadn't been working in a different sport first or something that you've taken from that sport that maybe teams do things a bit differently that has been helpful to you to transfer over to baseball, different ways of thinking?

I think so. I think that's the whole reason I am here. I don't think I've had any solutions to problems so far, but we're only five months in and eventually that will happen. But yeah, I mean, that's the whole reason I'm here. If they wanted somebody, there are practically anybody affiliated with baseball and plenty of people who would just have a passing interest in working in baseball may know the game way better than I do. So that is, and it's something I'm developing and really making a huge effort and have had a lot of support from others to try to really learn the game on a whole lot of levels. But I think, yeah, a big reason why Derek, Thad, and Rob thought I could add something to the organization was that I think some of the stuff, whether it's, hey, this is how we communicated stuff to our coaches in Jacksonville.

And this was a way that we were really able to effectively show data that initially they resisted. And I think a lot of those lessons transfer over and maybe coming at it from a slightly different angle can be helpful. That's the idea. Certainly, I was at least able to convince the leadership group that that could be helpful. Well, I was going to ask a current football question if we're comfortable shifting gears a little bit. So who do you got in the playoffs coming up here, Daniel? But so who do you got in the in the playoffs coming up here, Daniel? Are we going to see Blake Bortles, Super Bowl winning quarterback? I think if I mean, Bortles could has not been amazing this year. He's had some stretches that have been really good, but that defense is so, so stifling. So, you know, could it be like the the Seahawks teams that have made it to the Super Bowl and won one? I think

it's certainly a possibility. Obviously, playing an extra game, even though the Jags, I think, are rightfully, I assume, I actually haven't looked at any lines, but I assume the Jags are pretty significant favorites over the Bills. But you're still, that's just one other matchup you have to win on the way. So I don't know if it would be as much as I love the Jags. I don't know if I'd say they're like favored to join us here in Minneapolis for the Super Bowl, but I would love to see many of my friends from that organization here. So that's certainly who I will be pulling for. And it's especially easy now that the Browns are officially out. I didn't get to watch a lot of football, but I heard the season

was kind of rough for them. Thanks to the good place. Blake Boyles is one of the few football topics I'm conversant with. I guess, I mean, this would be a good question to ask Bill since he just previewed literally every possible matchup. I think it's going to be the Browns. I still have a little bit of faith that they're going to make it through um i don't know i mean i think that it's so difficult to pick a winner in one game let alone pick a winner reliably in a bunch of games that i do i get jealous when i think about oh it will be so nice to have 162 games to use um to have a sample size to really base any information off of so you know a lot of the work that i do in football is strictly just you know saying hey this is not of the work that I do in football is strictly just, you know, saying,

hey, this is not likely, the thing that happened that you saw is not likely to happen again for these reasons, just strict regression towards the mean. It's a big, good amount of my work. So, I mean, if I'm just throwing a thing out there, I would say Patriots, Vikings, Patriots, yeah, Patriots, Vikings, I think is what I chose.

I think we did an ESPN thing where I had to make a pick. So I'll say Patriots, Vikings, because I think a home team in the Super Bowl would be fun for the first time ever. But I don't know. Honestly, I just want it to be fun. This has been a slog of a season in a lot of ways. It feels like it's lasted for about six years. So I think just a fun few games would be nice. Yeah. There was one more thing I wanted to ask you, Daniel, about the infrastructure of the team and how that differed from Jacksonville or from most football teams. I mean, you joined the Twins less than a year after a regime change,

and the Twins had been regarded, at least from afar, as more of a traditional organization, maybe a little bit behind in terms of embracing new ideas and technology and all of that. At least that was the public perception. And I'm sure a lot of that had changed by the time you arrived. But with Derek coming over from Cleveland, of course, they've had their database, their Diamond View system set up for probably 15 years at this point. So I don't know whether there was something similar in place in Minnesota already, but whether or not there was, I'm sure he and many of the other hires are able to transfer that knowledge over quickly. So is that very different from when you were in Jacksonville, when I'd imagine that you were building anything that existed yourself? There probably wasn't a

whole lot of that that you were inheriting. Has that been a big change and maybe a positive one? I think if you are banking on me to build your scouting database or any systems, you are in a lot of trouble because it's going to be a bunch of linked Excel sheets. So you could have some real problems. And I think, so, you know, thinking about the twins prior to Derek and Thad coming on, the story of, hey, this is a stats team, this is an old school team. It's probably, I think it's, I'm sure you know this, it's not that simple. This group, there were, I think, in terms of headcount, we were probably smaller. But to the credit of the previous group here, some really significant investments had been made on the database side. And so we had I was extremely pleasantly surprised.

And actually, I think Derek may admit that some of the stuff that was already here was on par. And in some in some ways, there were pieces that were even stronger than Cleveland, partially because the twins started a little later and, you know, were cloud based to begin with. And so there were there were some really great pieces, particularly on the development side of research and development. I think one advantage and we've invested even more there, brought in some new people and I think have the entire organization thinking about how we structure our data, making sure there's really one source of truth and we're not just chasing down 50 different Excel sheets or even one-off models that somebody made in R. So I think there are a lot of good pieces already in place. We're investing there. One of the things that's been easier is everybody in the organization is on board with the importance of research and development. And so we're not making that initial pitch of, hey, here's why we need to invest a bunch in the database. Whereas in football,

I think when we made investments there, we initially it was more, hey, how can this save our scouts time, which is still a huge, huge factor. But I think there was less interest in, hey, it would be really cool to look back through eight years of scouting reports and be able to ask questions and then follow up and see how these guys performed. That was not really the ethos of the place. And I think it's probably getting better. My boss, Tony Khan, invested in a company, True Media, which also works in baseball. And they had done work for us from the outside and they did such a good job that he decided to buy the whole company. And that's been the Jags. I don't think I'm revealing any secrets, do some work with them. But the pitch to, hey, we need a database, I think at least that was already very much in place and people appreciated the importance there.

And is contract stuff and salary and payroll stuff, is that more or less a part of your job than it was in football and more or less a fertile field for analysts to contribute? Obviously, there are no guaranteed contracts, but there's a salary cap which complicates things. But baseball has its own complications and loopholes and regulations and arbitration systems. and regulations and arbitration systems. So is that more or less a part of your job or the front office's day-to-day job in baseball or football? Yeah, I think payroll salary concerns are extremely important in both. And in football, if you kind of trace the history of analytics in a lot of organizations, the director of football administration, commonly called the capologist, was sort of the person most likely to at least understand Excel and kind of general finance concepts. And so that in a lot of organizations still to this day, that's the person sort of leading

the charge analytically. I think in a bunch of places, that's who the research people report to. Whereas in baseball, I think now the research people have kind of infected almost every part of the organization. But working the football contract structure is definitely a little more complex, just trying to value what contracts are worth. It's also an area ripe for really good analysis because, and Bill can speak to this a whole lot more, I think teams oftentimes hand out contracts, not really fully appreciating how much variance there is in player performance. And sometimes maybe they could structure those contracts a little better to take advantage of

the risk associated with players. Yeah, I think, and obviously, this still happens in baseball. I don't think it would be fair to say it never happens. And I think, you know, you can think about teams like the Padres a couple years ago, as an example, but there's a lot more, how can I put it, there's a lot more kidding yourself in football than there is in baseball, where I think in baseball, it seems like teams are much more acutely aware of their actual true talent level and their actual true level of performance. And they have a much better sense of what they need to improve on, what they do well, and where they should be spending their money or their assets. Whereas in football, I think, and this is in part because of the 16-game season, you get so much false information,

and it's so much easier perhaps to believe that you're better than your record suggested that you do see teams get more aggressive and make decisions that on their face just are stupid. I mean, just decisions that don't hold up to any level of scrutiny that seem obviously doomed to fail before but before they they're even played out. And then, you know, sometimes they do work out. I'm not gonna say it never works out. But a good 85 to 90% of the time, you know, free agent decisions don't really work out. Maybe that's a little high, but in terms of when there are certain teams that they will make the same mistakes year after year, and whether it's ownership forced them to make bad choices, whether it's just teams, you know, not knowing where they are perhaps in the success cycle or

whatever we want to call, you know, that, that idea of knowing what they need to do to have a better shot at winning the Super Bowl, they tend to not really have a good grasp on the decisions they should be making. And then it really bears out their lack of interest or their lack of awareness of history, context, of solid quantitative information. And I think the tough part is you mentioned the capologist. I think in a lot of cases, you do have people within organizations where they don't think a team should be doing something or they don't think a thing is a rational thing to do. And they're overruled by people who have more power. And so I think, you know, there are certain organizations where I can write 5000 words, trashing them and saying, Hey, these are all the things you did

wrong. And these are obviously big mistakes. And I'll hear from someone within the organization who tells me, Hey, actually, I agree with you, but I didn't really have anything to say in the matter. Some of that may come down to the difference in backgrounds between GMs in the sports and baseball. GMs largely have come up through kind of general front office type roles, getting that more global view. Whereas in football, almost all of the people running teams came up as scouts. And that it's not to say that that is a bad, bad route at all. But I think if you are hired for your scouting ability, you're going to really lean on that and maybe won't have thought quite as much about the global view of how the whole team fits together and what the best way is to

allocate assets over time. Meg or Bill, do you have anything else you want to ask before we wrap up? Well, a quick thing that Bill made me think of, which is, you know, I don't want to oversell how important sites like Fangraff's or Baseball Perspectives are, but, you know, there's been a lot of contribution to the sort of broader analytical discussion from the public side in baseball. And Bill, you make me wonder, is there any kind of feedback like that from places like Football Outsiders to football front offices, or are they just so far back on the curve

of developing an analytic framework that they're not kind of engaging in, even if it's, you know, just taking a look at what sites like that are doing to sort of better their own understanding of what they ought to prioritize in drafting or game strategy. You know, I think a few organizations, I think I would say that Pro Football Focus probably has a bigger hold than NFL front offices, because it's an attempt to quantify things that NFL front offices really can't quantify. Now, again, I mean, I know they do work with a lot of organizations. How can I put this? I don't know that I would say that a lot of the stuff they do in terms of grading is necessarily good data. But I do think that there's at least people reading what's going on. And in terms of Football Outsiders, I think that's

a more rigorous and more, you know, a quantitative site that's perhaps more similar to BP or FanGraphs. And again, I do think there are teams reading it, and there are teams that are actively, you know, engaging with it and have people involved with it. But again, I just feel like there's not that buy-in at the top level from ownership down to that idea that analytics have to be helpful. And to me, I mean, I don't think that case is ever going to happen unless there is a book like Moneyball or a financial situation like Moneyball in the late 90s where teams really could not compete. I mean, in the NFL, there's not that incentive to try anything new because you're going to be profitable either way. You're on the same financial footing as pretty much everyone else in the league. So you're never incentivized to try anything weird or different because, well, you're going to have just as much success to these

people's perspectives by just doing what you've traditionally done. You're going to make a profit, you're going to hopefully stumble into a good quarterback, and then your franchise is going to change. Whereas I just don't think that that context existed in baseball in the late 90s and that really spurred change. So I do think there's readers, but I don't think that that context existed in baseball in the late 90s and that really spurred change. So I do think there's readers, but I don't think there's as much tangible buy-in as there was even in baseball 20 years ago, let alone now. All right. Well, I guess we can wrap up there. Daniel, thank you very much. You've been generous with your time and we wish you good fortune with the Twins.

Wish you good fortune with the Twins, and we hope that you or some other front office member makes a move at some point so that we have something else to talk about. That would be nice. So please recommend some signings so that we can do a baseball podcast without having to turn it into a football podcast out of desperation. We're talking about a lot. I promise you, we talk about things that would be very exciting. I just don't know if any of them will ever happen. Okay. All right. Well, it has been a pleasure talking to you. It has also been a pleasure having you on, Bill. And of course, people can find Bill on ESPN, on the Bill Barnwell Show, and read all of his 66 playoff previews. Bill, thank you very much.

My pleasure. An honor, to be honest with you. And Meg, thanks for coming on again and go forth and fan graphs. I shall. Thank you. All right. Then after a quick break, which is mostly an excuse to play a camera obscura song, I'll be right back to wrap this thing up and tell you what you can expect next

on the Jeff Sullivan Vacation Cavalcade. to an end, I don't want to be sad again. This morning, Koreans come to an end, I don't want to be sad again. Alright, that was fun. Thanks to all of our guests today, and by the way, if you want to try to follow in Meg's

footsteps, Fangraphs is still hiring another full-time writer. Business must be booming. Maybe Jeff is just never coming back from this vacation. If you go to Fangraphs.com and search for Fangraphs is hiring, you will see a post about that. Or you can just email wanted at Fangraphs.com with the subject line Fangraphs full-time writer application 2018 and try to persuade proprietor David Appelman that he should give you money in exchange for services. And of course, as Meg mentioned, you can always pitch her and get a piece published at the Hardball Times, which is part of Fangraphs. You can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who've already made that brilliant decision and have pledged their support

for the podcast include Nathan Connor, Brandon Kuhn, Andrew Connolly, Rob Haverkamp, and James Smith. Thanks to all of you. via email at podcast at fan graphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. Enjoy the playoff football. If that's your thing, I will be back early next week and tentatively I'll be joined by another very familiar voice. You've heard before in combination with mine. We will talk to you then. Outro Music Thank you.