Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1166: The 2018 Minor League Free Agent Draft

Episode Date: January 22, 2018

Ben Lindbergh, Jeff Sullivan, and ESPN’s Sam Miller conduct the fifth annual Effectively Wild Minor League Free Agent Draft, selecting 10 minor league free agents each and competing to see whose roster will accumulate the most combined major league playing time in 2018. Audio intro: Semisonic, "This Will Be My Year" Audio outro: Sloan, "Try to Make […]

🎵 Because you have to believe this will be my year joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello, Jeff. Hi. Also joined by Sam Miller of ESPN. All past and or present co-hosts convene today because it is the biggest day on the Effectively Wild calendar. It is the Minor League Free Agent Draft, the fifth annual Minor League Free Agent Draft. Jeff's first annual Minor League Free Agent Draft, but our fifth. Sam, welcome back. Are you excited? I know you're excited. This is your favorite episode, right?

This is like when you were a year and a half ago or whenever it was when you were making a pros and cons list on joining ESPN or not. I don't know whether quitting the podcast was a pro or a con. I have my suspicions, but not being able to do this episode had to be a con, but here you are. You get your cake and eat it too. You can be at ESPN and do the minor league free agent draft. And I have updates on previous minor league free agent drafts. Have you checked the results? Yeah, I know you have updates because yesterday when I went to look at previous drafts, I saw an anonymous person looking at the same spreadsheet. And I thought there could only be one person. You never know.

It's a public sheet. Anyone could be in there checking up on last year's minor league free agent draft. So, well, I did look and I just want to say that it's a weird thing to go back and look because I feel like if like there are a lot of names that you would recognize on some of these old drafts. And I feel like if you took all the famous players, like there's two tiers of players. There's the formerly famous and then there's like just the guy you, you know, discovered or whatever while looking through it one year and decided, ah, it's the right situation. If you took all the famous ones and jumbled them up and tried to ask us to guess which year we drafted them, I think it would be no better than random chance. I was shocked that you took JB Schumann. I'm shocked too. Not four years ago. Yeah, not four years ago, but last year. And you took like Emilio Bonifacio. This is sort of how I can look back and kind of remind myself of when players retired, I guess.

Because I would have thought Emilio Bonifacio retired in like 2011, maybe. And you drafted him in 2016. Yeah. JP Shuck, by the way, is eligible again. He is a minor league free agent. And I was... So is a minor league free agent. And I was- So is Justin Masterson. Wow.

So the results from last year, you cleaned my clock. You destroyed me. So the way that this works for anyone who hasn't been listening to this silly thing we do for four years or one year is we draft minor league free agents. And the person who has the most combined plate appearances or total batters faced from those minor league free agents in the majors in the coming season wins this draft. So it's all about just predicting who will make the majors and get the most playing time. They can be terrible. Usually they are, but they just have to be on a

roster and get some sort of playing time. We always try to explain what a minor league free agent is and fail to do that accurately. But I guess the best way I can say it is that a minor league free agent is someone who is not on a team's 40-man roster and has been in the minors for at least six years. And so they're just free to go. And so a minor league free agent is not the same as signing a minor league contract necessarily. There are guys who sign minor league contracts who are not minor league free agents. So we are all working off a list at Baseball America that was provided by MLB at the beginning of the off season. And there are what, 572 guys,

something like that on the list this year. And we have agreed on the right list this year because last year there was a bait and switch where I thought we were using one list and you thought another. And then we went with mine and you still won, even though you were at a great disadvantage there although i will say that the entire margin of victory in last year's draft was craig stammen that was it so you beat me 707 to 375 plate appearances plus total batter's face that's a difference of 332 and craig stammen got 329 so that was it craig's yeah wait but yeah but but what if he took away your best guy then what's the margin i'm just saying and what if we what if we take away your best guy and double craig stammen now what's the margin i don't think you could double craig stammen because he threw 80 and a third innings somehow yeah i'm just saying you're picking arbitrary no it's true uh parameters i just don't know how that happened craig stammen had the fifth most innings in the major leagues of any reliever last year after having zero innings in 2016 and I think four the year before that. I don't even know why you picked Craig Stammen. But anyway, you destroyed me last year, but the four-year total tally, maybe you did this extremely close i have a lead so each of us has won two of these competitions but the

cumulative total i am up 1995 to 1923 so dead heat basically so jeff how are you feeling about your first minor league free agent draft i'm going to exceed your five-year totals with my one-year total i'm going to point out i'm not going to draft this guy. No spoilers. There's a guy listed as available from the Colorado Rockies organization. He's a high A catcher. His name is Hamlet. His first name is Hamlet. His last name is Marte.

Marte, a familiar word. Hamlet, also a familiar word, but not for these reasons. I was curious. He's not the first. There has been a Hamlet Guerrero who was in the minors in 1996. But if you look at the Major League history, there are two players who show up.

There's Harry East. Harry East played in 1882. His name is Harry Hamlet East. That's fine. But there's also a guy from 1911 to 1915 whose name is Eugene or Gene Hamlet Crap. His last name was Crap and his middle name was Hamlet. His nickname was Rubber Arm. So you could call him Hamlet Rubber Arm Crap. His last name was Crap and his middle name was Hamlet. His nickname was Rubber Arm, so you could call him Hamlet Rubber Arm Crap.

And I have no further addition, but his ERA plus was 102, so he wasn't crappy after all. So is the Hamlet that we could draft today, is he a second baseman, a 2B or not 2B?

Oh. Second baseman, a 2B or not 2B? Oh, Meyerwick-Frieden draft is the best. This is why it's fun. It's not because we actually might get anything right. It's partially because it's kind of fun throughout the season when you happen to see that one of your guys made the majors somehow. It's a little storyline that you can follow. one of your guys made the majors somehow. It's a little storyline that you can follow, but it's also because you see these names that either you've never heard or you can't believe are still in professional baseball. That is half the joy of this thing. And I will say Lifetime, our finished, our completed competitions, according to the spreadsheet, which is a Google doc that anyone

can access through the Facebook group. And official statistician of Effectively Wild, John Chenier, still holds that post in his spare time, despite being an analyst for the Mariners now. And in his capacity as analyst for this podcast, he has determined that I'm up 8-5 in completed competitions, but there are still many that are in progress and might outlive us. So the only one we care about today is minor league free agents. And I think for the first pick, Sam, you had first pick last year, and I think we should probably give Jeff the courtesy first pick because he is so inexperienced at this exercise, whereas we have had

four years to hone our minor league free agent picking abilities please yeah i know that's fine can i can i bypass the first pick and go second with that help will you i'm gonna have no i just i just want to trade down just just to just to sit look i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna give you a leg up that's what i'm gonna do i'm so confident in my picks i'm just gonna second. I'll pick second. It's fine. All right. All right. You can voluntarily give up the first pick. I'm going to pick that Sam goes first. He found that 1% of minor league free agents amass half a war or better in the following season.

But of course, we don't need them to be good. We just need them to amass playing time. All right. So, Sam, go ahead. All right. I will go ahead. And with my first pick, I will take Rafael Ortega. Ugh. I should have gone first.

I should have gone first. Rafael Ortega is, I think, a 26-year-old outfielder. If you know him, you probably know him because he spent extended time with the Angels in 2016. You might know him because he was on my roster that year. He was one of my picks in 2016. Oh, is that right? Yeah. I was going to bring him back this year.

I was going to show him some loyalty, but stolen. So there's actually plenty of reasons to pick him. He was actually really quite good in AAA last year for the Padres. And if the Padres didn't have three Rule 5 picks on their roster all year, I believe Rafael Ortega might have been their all-star representative, but because he was crowded off the major league roster, he spent the whole year in El Paso. He is fast. He draws walks. He can play center field. He puts the bat on the ball, and he's going to be 27 this year, which is all pretty good. He's also not anonymous. He debuted in the majors briefly when he was 21,

which is a good indicator. And he spent months in the majors, not two years ago. But I think the most important detail about him is that the Marlins signed him. And as of this moment, the Marlins have three outfielders on their entire 40-man roster, which is cutting it close, you might say. One of them is christian yelich and so i feel pretty confident that rafael ortega is gonna go to camp with the shot at winning a fourth outfield spot in the darkest timeline quite possibly much much better than that and so i'm taking rafael ortega great pick i've made it before I would have made it again. You know, Jarrett Groob was on the board, right? He's on there.

Yeah. I mean, I looked at the list. All right. Well, maybe later. Not giving anything away. All right. Jeff, you're still taking the second pick or do you want to continue to trade down until the draft is over? Well, no, I'll take the second pick. Here's the problem. I was just just gonna confirm the player i was about to pick and then i went to his page and i got a message that says your connection is not secure which is not letting me through which makes me think that maybe this player doesn't want to be i don't care it so i can't confirm

this is true but i'm pretty sure it's true so i'm going to take dario alvarez oh yeah that was gonna be my first hand reliever left-handed reliever who throws hard, gets strikeouts. Wasn't very good last year, but I don't care. He signed a major league contract with the Cubs, if I recall that correctly. So yeah, look, if a minor league free agent signs a major league contract, I'd be stupid not to take him second. In fact, one could argue Sam would be stupid not to take him first, but I actually agree with his Rafael Ortega pick a lot. He was near the top of my board. So I'm going to go Alvarez, Ortega, kind of 1A, 1B, both of them genius picks. Alvarez was also my 1B. And last year I went first and I picked somebody because I thought that my

actual first pick would probably make it to the second round. And then Ben immediately picked him. And so I was screaming and yelling about how unfair it was. But of course, I picked first, right? And so in this case, again, I thought that Ortega was probably a little more likely not to make it back to me. And also, I wanted to talk about Ortega more than Alvarez. But I will note that, so good pick. Dario Alvarez is going to be or is currently in the Cubs bullpen. And when I was looking this up, I saw a bunch of blog posts talking about the Cubs improved bullpen and Dario Alvarez's name and how like Joe Maddon was going to work his bullpen magic with Dario Alvarez now. Is Joe Maddon known for bullpen magic? And if he is or if he isn't, is there currently a bullpen magician that is like how kevin towers always

was you know known for is is there and i feel like they're occasionally have been like buck showalter was a bullpen magician you know for a couple of years in the public consciousness is there a bullpen magic team right now i guess the angels last year yeah i don't the angels were last year but maybe one year isn't enough right because billy epler built a bullpen out of nothing that was good but it may have been a blip so yeah i don't i don't know if there's the same sort of bullpen magician that there once was well the padres restored craig stamman they made brad hand good after a waiver pick kirby yates apparently struck out everyone he faced last season which i didn't know but there was more than that i think the year before what there was the ryan bookter was kind

of okay brandon mauer well whatever but wait brandon mauer buddy bauman buddy there's two buddies in major league baseball buddy bauman was i think if i'm not mistaken, was a pick on this draft once or maybe not. Maybe it wasn't. Anyway. All right. Well, I certainly had both of those guys high on my board. I feel like, man, this is almost mirrored real life baseball in that you can't just pluck the low hanging fruit in the minor league free agent draft anymore.

I feel like the first couple of years when I would get a, my strategy was always sign the guys with major league contracts. And I feel like Sam having done zero preparation in most of those years was kind of blindsided by that at first, but clearly that's not going to set me apart anymore. Well, I'm not blindsided by it, but I also, Ortega does not have a major league contract. Well, he will. All right. Okay. With my first pick, I think I am going to take Scott Barlow. Yep.

Also a major league contract guy and good pitcher, apparently, based on how he pitched last year. He was with the Dodgers. Now he was a starting pitcher at this point. But if you're a starting pitcher, of course, there is always the bullpen option. I don't know anything about his stuff or how it would play up in the pen. So I don't know if he's one of those guys. But he has somewhere to fall and still contribute. And I like his chances. So Scott Barlow.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good pick. All right. All right. So Scott Barlow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a good pick. All right. All right. So we're around, uh, round two. All right. I will, uh, cross off a few names and I will go with, well, so Scott Barlow is, uh, not just majorly contract, but is on a depth chart, which is the, the real, the real golden ticket is if you can find is on a depth chart, which is the real golden ticket is if you can find him on a depth chart. But he's only eighth on the Royals rotation depth chart. I'm going to pick a guy who is currently sixth on a rotation depth chart, which is something. And that man's

name is Ryan Carpenter. Next on my list. I don't know who that is. And so Ryan Carpenter is American Professional Ice Hockey Center for the Vegas Golden Knights, the National Hockey Team. You know what I've found is I used to always get the baseball result first. And I have, in the last few months, I've started to get the non-baseball result almost always. And I'm like, look at that baseball. non-baseball result almost always. And I'm like, look at baseball. That's exactly right. I don't think that my frequency of going to baseball pages is any longer enough to overwhelm Google's perceived public apathy that Google has picked up across baseball in general. I don't know if hockey is doing better in that respect though.

Ryan Carpenter, tall lefty, formerly a seventh round pick by the Rays. I don't know how he got to the Rockies. He was involved in some trade, I guess, three years ago and has been in the Rocky system ever since. And he's basically been good, pretty good every year, except for one. And last year he was pitching in Albuquerque and he struck out nine batters per nine and was generally good as a starter so uh you know he's on a depth chart and the tigers uh rotation is bad major league deal it's a good pick are we out of major league deals well i haven't looked no well i'm gonna let you i guess select them i had to wing it a little bit so i guess i will let's see who am i gonna go with my pick oh uh i'll take anthony ghost anthony ghost is gonna be my pick? Oh, I'll take Anthony Gose. Anthony Gose is going to be my pick.

And there's a reason why. Dude can't hit anymore. So Astros aren't going to let him. The Astros took him in the Rule 5 draft. But the thing about the Astros is they don't really have a left handed reliever. I know they have Tony Sipp, but he doesn't really camp that much. And I think that what Kevin Goldstein or in some sort of interview suggested the Astros are going to double down on this selection and try to make Gose work. And maybe they will just go sign Tony Watson and make Gose not work.

I don't know. But in his brief... So wait, is that doubling down or they're going to actually use him double? They're going to not use him double. Double down. I mean, if you double down, you got to double your bet. Yeah. So they're going to actually make another Anthony Gose,

and then they're going to use them both. And they're both going to be hard-throwing left-handed former outfielders. And I think that Anthony Gose, I mean, he throws, I think he throws like 98. Maybe he throws 104. You can't prove to me that he doesn't throw 104 miles per hour. And they don't have a lefty. So I think, sure, why not? Anthony Gose.

I'm not going for the big playing time upside play here but i'll take i'll take 200 i'll take 100 batters faced yeah 31 strikeout rate in high a last year as a pitcher and the ass was with the second team that thought enough of this to sign him as a pitcher this winter and it's a great it's a great signing too because uh you get you might you might well no i. And it's a great signing too, because you might. Well, no, I guess, well, it's possible. I mean, there's some talk, I know, that maybe he has sort of two-way Brooks Kieschnick potential, in which case you might get 25 pinch hitting and late game sub at bats as well. If you waste it, though, as like a pinch runner, that's really going to bum me out.

Yeah, doesn't count. Yeah. By the the way there's another there's another converted position player that i've been eyeing but more of a more of a long shot than anthony goes who i think it seems almost certain that anthony goes will be pitching at a high level of professional baseball this year just the question is whether it will be in the majors or not all right well for my second pick i will see Sam's Tigers pitcher and sign my own Tigers pitcher, Mark Montgomery, who is very effective, at least based on last season. He was with the Cardinals AA and AAA for the Yankees. Last year, he went to the Cardinals. He threw 66 innings in AAA, 243 ERA, struck out about 10 guys per nine with good control. He is just a pretty good pitcher, seemingly. He's 27, and he does not

have a major league deal. But again, it's the Tigers who didn't have good bullpens when they were a good team and they are not a good team now. So I'm going in heavy on Tigers pitchers. So Mark Montgomery, he's my guy. Yeah. Good. All right. I'm going to take Chris Carter, an American television and film producer, director and writer. He's terrible. Worst X-Files writer. Chris Carter. I'm taking the actual Chris Carter. Sometimes you see a name on the minor league free agents list and you're not sure whether it's the one you know or whether it's 25-year-old in short season ball, but it's this Chris Carter, the guy who led the National League at home runs one year ago, who is now a minor league free agent and, uh, probably won't bat, but I mean, I don't, I don't need him to bat much. He, uh, as everybody knows, started last

year in a platoon at first base in New York, did not make it through the year, ended up in AAA with the A's, uh, where he hit, uh, somewhat. And, uh, you know, do you remember a few years ago when all the talk was about how power was so scarce in baseball these days that teams were willing to pay a premium for guys like Chris Carter? We derided that at the time. We did. Yeah. So anyway, there's probably not much room in the world for guys like Chris Carter to pinch hit at the end of your bench, but I'll take 30 plate appearances and call it all right ryan howard is still out there if you want to collect all the home run kings on my list he's on my list

all right jeff you're up so i'm gonna i'm gonna go ahead and ignore jb shuck this time around at least for now maybe emilio bonifacio too so i'm gonna go uh who's it gonna be i'll stick with really no no i'm gonna to go Chris Medlin. Why not Chris Medlin? Yeah. I'll take Chris Medlin, who apparently did pitch last season, which is something I didn't know. Stayed healthy. Yeah, stayed somewhat healthy.

I think he wound up short of 100 innings total. No, he got 160. No, he didn't. Look at that. 20 starts for Chris Medlin. A year after he was bad everywhere, he came back and he was not so bad everywhere except for his era which was bad against the best competition but medlin last year at the age of 31 made 20 starts he stopped walking the world which is what he did the year before when he was probably hurt i don't

know he was probably hurt at some point last year as well but still gonna take him i don't actually know where he is right now could have looked that up probably did and have forgotten but chris medlin has enough of a major league track record and is a starting pitcher who has a change up. So I think he will probably make five or six starts with some team who is bad. Yeah, he like a year ago, or I guess one year, I can't remember. He was one of the group of Dodgers pitchers, right? Who were high risk, but had always been good. Am I remembering this right? That he was one of the guys they signed for really cheap. But the problem was that Chris Medlin could never stay healthy. And so if you had told me at the time that I could

take him in a minor league draft some years later, and he had established his ability to stay healthy, I would have said, well, how bad is he? And you would have said, does it matter? I mean, won't you still take him? And I would have said, yeah. Well, he's never been a Dodger that I can tell. Maybe he was. He's never played with the Dodgers. Yeah. He did not get injured last year after he made his debut on May 20th. So, I don't know if his season began late because of injury or because he had not signed anywhere, but he had a solid, you know, four and a half month run of good health. But he had a solid four and a half month run of good health.

Okay. All right. Well, for my next guy, I'm going to take either the sole remaining or one of the few remaining major league contract guys. This is Michael Kelly. Also goes by Mike Kelly. He is actually a former first round pick, or I guess former supplemental first round pick, but he's 25. The Orioles signed him to a major league contract, which is a good sign. I will take any Orioles pitcher

on this list. And he's 6'4". I'd feel a little bit better if he were a lefty. He is a righty, but he made 15 starts at AA last year, had a sub three ERA, struck out lots of guys, made it up to AAA, didn't do so well in limited playing time. But he has been a starter and he's tall and he has a major league contract and he's on the Orioles and he misses bats and he could potentially move to the bullpen if the starting thing doesn't work out. So for all of those reasons, Mike Kelly, come on down. Yeah. Chris Medlin never played or signed with the Dodgers at all. No, I was thinking of Mike Miner, who also never signed with the Dodgers at all.

I don't know who I was thinking about when I thought of Mike Miner. Yeah, Michael Kelly is a good pick. And I only managed to unearth one other player who's currently on a 40. And he's like a weird one. Not that impressive, or at least if we're thinking of the same person. All right. We'll see. If not, then everybody will learn in about a minute and a half. Because I'm going to take the last one I know of, who is Colton Brewer, who's not on the Brewers, unfortunately. I actually looked up, the reason I know that Colton Brewer is who's not on the Brewers, unfortunately. I actually looked up. The reason I know that Colton Brewer is on a 40 is because I saw his name and said,

if he's on the Brewers, I'm signing him. I'm drafting him. And so I looked him up to see if he was on the Brewers and he wasn't. And then I saw that he was on another team. He's on the Yankees, which is kind of the worst case scenario for a potential reliever, right? I thought he was on the Yankees. I thought he was on the Padres. I don't think so. Maybe he was on the Padres last year. Let's see. No, he was on the Yankees. Now he's on the-

All right. Yeah, that's a better pick. I was worried. I thought he was a Yankee and that was a bad sign, but Padres, better. Yeah. So last year, he's a reliever. So, you know, limited upside. But last year, AA with the yankees 41 innings 43 strikeouts 11 walks 1.31 era in double a but all the same uh so colton brewer colton colton is colton the most new york yankees name yeah it's up there all right well i think all the major league contract guys are are gone here so we're we're down to the minor league dregs jeff good now i feel like less of an idiot for only knowing one of those players signed a minor major league contract okay so you know what i'm gonna take a chance here i'm gonna take a chance here on one dustin ackley not because not because i think dustin ackley has been good he

has certainly not been good i think he's 30 or 31 years old now but i don't know last year he's but i don't know where he is now is he still with the angels is he just out there available let me confirm these are all things i looked up before currently yeah he's a minor league for yeah he's a minor league free agent yeah yeah his last roto world update was that last march he was reassigned to minor league camp by the angels so you know bad but he had a little bit of promise in 2016 with the Yankees. And last year, I don't know, maybe he was recovering from surgery. Maybe he was just kind of down on his luck. And he's currently out there. But I suspect, so Dustin Ackley last year

was, as he always has been, a very good contact hitter against, you know, AAA competition and whatnot. And the Yankees, I think, had him working on elevating the ball a little bit more and hit some major league home runs before he injured his shoulder. So I think somebody is going to give him a chance to play some position, maybe second base if he can still do it. And I think he's going to elevate. And with elevation and contact, you know how it works. So Dustin Ackley. I'm going to make a bold statement here based on not that much evidence.

But last year, I thought about writing a piece about how it was the year that former prospects all of a sudden got really good. And that there was something about, I don't know about what, maybe it was about the ball, or maybe it was about the swing revolution or whatever. And maybe it was nothing. Maybe I imagined this trend. But it seemed like there were a lot of guys who were previously top prospects, had failed to develop, had been busts for most of their career, and suddenly they were on the all-star team. And so you had Yonder Alonso, and you had Logan Morrison, and you had Justin Smoak.

You know, maybe there's a little bit of Zach Cozart there. And so I'm going to say that Dustin Ackley is going to be – I mean, I'm going to say this thing, but I don't mean like there's a 50-50 chance it's going to happen. I'm going to say like if you gave me like sufficiently good odds, I would think about it as an intriguing bet. Dustin Ackley will, in his career, make an all-star team. And I'm going to say like if you gave me 18 to 1, I'd go, ooh, that's tempting. So that's what I mean.

He apparently spent most of last year as a designated hitter and that's that doesn't bode well but you know i wouldn't uh he also played a little bit in the outfield and i would probably rather have dustin ackley in a corner outfield position over uh rafael ortega but you know the marlins have room for them both right i hope the all-star appearance does not come in 2018 so i am going to continue to accumulate tigers. Give me all the tigers. Just send them on my way. My next pick is Ronnie Rodriguez, who- Wait a minute. Is it not? Hang on. I'm wondering if we're thinking of the same name and if you have the wrong first name or if I, hang on. Ronnie Rodriguez?

Ronnie Rodriguez. How do you spell Ronnie? R-O-N-N-Y, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, you do.? R-O-N-N-Y, I believe. Yeah. Yeah, you do. All right. Okay, go ahead. Okay.

This pick is permissible? All right. Okay. So Ronnie Rodriguez is a utility guy in waiting. He was with the Indians in AAA and had a pretty good season, 778 OPS. He hit 17 homers, stole 15 bases in 117 games. So got some pop, got some speed. I believe he played six positions, including shortstop and center field. So he can play anywhere. He hit 291, 324, 454. He is only 25 years old. And as mentioned,

He is only 25 years old. And as mentioned, he is on the Tigers, which is his greatest qualification for selection here. So Ronnie Rodriguez, I'm hoping that he snags some playing time somewhere in the infield and or outfield in Detroit this year. Did you know that Matt Tuiasa Sopo has played 14 seasons in the minor leagues? Wow. 14 seasons and the minor leagues. Wow. 14 seasons, and he's bad. Wow, that blows my mind. All right.

All right, so I am actually, this is just by coincidence, my next pick was going to be and is currently still going to be Richard Rodriguez. Also on my board. So Richard Rodriguez had a brief appearance in the majors last year, but he was quite good as a reliever in AAA for the Orioles, which is already somewhat compelling. He struck out 80 in 70 innings. He's a two-pitch guy with a 95 mile an hour fastball. But then he went to winter ball, to the Dominican Winter League, and he struck out 30 and walked two. That's a different style of ball there. It's different stakes. It's also a hitter's league, and they have pretty good talent. And I like that. So I can't remember if he's been signed.

Yeah, I think he's with the Pirates again. Oh, yeah. Well, so there we go. Yeah. You know, they're magicians with their bullpen. Everyone knows and says that about them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that was probably going to be my next pick.

Good one. Thanks. Okay. I'm going Percy Garner. Percy Garner is a 29-year-old. Sorry. Don't mean to disparage your pick. 29 years old. Sorry. Don't be too disparaging. I know nothing about Percy Gardner.

Percy Gardner. Wait, no. Percy Gardner is an English classical archaeologist and numismatist. He was the Disney professor of archaeology at the University of Cambridge from 1879 to 1887. Yeah, and I think he's going to get a shot to play in the Marlins outfield this year. Percy Garner is a 29-year-old something. He played for the Indians. He previously played for other teams, but he played for the Indians and he was not very good. But the thing about Percy Garner, so he's a 29-year-old rowdy reliever and he only has like nine and a third major league innings and they weren't they weren't great the thing that i think

there's two things that compel me to take him one he's on the orioles and i think the orioles do like to use their fungible relievers but two not only did the orioles sign him to a minor league contract but they signed him to a minor league contract in november there was some kind of urgency to the orioles wanting specifically percy garner for whatever it is the orioles think that they're gonna do and build so i think i think the Orioles are going to make use of him. He's a, he, he throws a fastball. That's a good thing for a pitcher to do. And, uh, sometimes he, he throws something else that, uh, that he also has and he doesn't do that much, but that's fine. I think he's going to pitch and he's going to pitch for the Orioles. And I think he's going

to pitch about 23, 23 extremely mediocre innings innings where his command is just too bad for him to be reliable. But that's fine. The quality of the playing time doesn't matter. Percy Garner. Yeah, Ben alluded earlier to sort of the evolution of strategy in this draft. One of my strategies was also to look for the guys who signed quickly because a GM had once told me that you really like you have your list of guys and like, you know, midnight hits and you do want to be the first guy to call. So that because more than almost more than anything else, you're negotiating leverage is how interested you are in them because it suggests that you're actually going to give them an opportunity and, you know, some some profile. suggest that you're actually going to give them an opportunity and some profile. And so I had that as a strategy once. The other strategy that Ben might remember is that Kylie McDaniel had written a piece about how the Yankees were using their money, their big budget to dominate the minor

league free agent market by offering like 12% more. And so I thought, well, the Yankees minor league free agent signings are probably the best guys. But of course that totally backfired because if you're on the Yankees, you're probably not going to play unless you're, you're a star. Did you, I don't, you didn't mention this. Apologies if you mentioned this while I was trying to figure out how to spell Percy Garner, Garner, but last year he, he walked eight in one inning at Columbus. That was his triple-A line. And really terrifyingly, that was over three outings. So three outings, 13 batters faced, walked eight,

and threw three wild pitches and had an ERA of 47. But he only allowed one hit. That's true. And he struck out a pair did those come last or first uh those that's a good those came last he did not pitch after july 14th because uh of what he had done i should mention by the way that the slow offseason that we've seen at the major league level has also filtered down to the minor league free agent level. There was an article in December at Baseball America about how the major league slowness was holding up the minor league slowness. So if that's why it sort of seems like there are fewer signed players or major league contracts in this group, I had a little tougher time preparing

than I usually do. So if so, that's why I guess it's affecting everyone. So I don't know which way to go with my next pick. I have a few different options. I'm not feeling any one of them particularly strongly. I guess I'll go with Jumbo Diaz. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Jumbo Diaz. Everyone knows Jumbo Diaz, yeah Jumbo Diaz everyone knows Jumbo Diaz which is a good sign in the minor league free agent draft he has pitched in the majors in each of the last four seasons he

pitched 30 innings in the majors this past season they were not good innings but he still misses some bats and he was with Houston in AAA pitched alright there and now he is with the Marlins, which seems like a positive sign. So Marlins, we're all gravitating toward Marlins and Tigers and Orioles, it seems like, which is a wise strategy, I think.

So Jumbo Diaz. Jumbo Diaz listed at 315 pounds. Oh, yeah. Well, okay. According to't know i don't know if this is fair according to the official weights here are the five heaviest pitchers this is baseball reference five heaviest listed weights for pitchers last season lance lynn 280 pounds bartolo cologne 285 lance lynn is lean in my... Lean Lance Lynn, that's what they call him. I should also say that in sixth place here is a name that I didn't know.

I'm going to confirm that it's pronounced the way that I think it is. Not Slania. Oh, it is Slania. That's not fun. I thought it was Dan Slania, and I thought that would be a fun name to say. It's Dan Slania, so now I don't care about him. He's apparently fat. Anyway, Lance Lynn, 280 pounds.

Bartolo Colon, 285. Tied with Jonathan Broxton at 285. That's each of his legs. CeCe Sabathia, 300 pounds. Jumbo Diaz, 315. He has a 15-pound advantage on second place. Who has a 15-pound advantage on third place? I went into this thinking Jumbo Diaz was unfairly nicknamed, but he is enormous.

Yeah, it's apt. It's apt. Yeah, not a lot of ironic weight nicknames. I remember there was a time... He would have been called Tiny. He would have been called Tiny. Yeah. Oh, that's a... 50 years ago, but now he's called Jumbo. By the way, Lance Slim. By the way, Lance Slim.

There was a time when I was with SB Nation where I thought it would be a good idea to go through all of baseball reference to see if there was ever a right-handed pitcher nicknamed Lefty. And it turned out there was not. We had a play index on here once about every pitcher named Slim, I think. Yeah, I think so. And it turned out that it was more about height than weight or something i don't remember yes we we had a good time we had a good time with this question for both of you question for both of you yeah now i've looked at this entire list which of these two weights is actually joe musgrove's listed weight 165 pounds or 265 pounds

this is a great game 165 pounds or 265 pounds. This is a great game. It would be fun to actually to calibrate this and to figure out how big a spread you could do it and have it be random, you know, basically random chance whether I get it right or not. Because I think 100, I think most players I get within 100. But if you made it 55, I bet I'd get half of them wrong. 55 pounds. So with Joe Musgrove, I will say lean Joe Musgrove. Yeah.

I don't think of Joe Musgrove as a big or a wide person. I think of him as a narrow person, although as a pitcher, you'd think he's tall. And so it would be hard to be 165. But yeah, I'm going to go with that too. No, he's fat. Well, he's not fat. He's actually, he's tall and so it would be hard to be 165 but yeah i'm gonna go with that too no he's fat well he's not fat he's actually he's six foot five so you know he carries it but yeah he's 265 pounds and i think that i have the same bias as you because i think joe musgrove command guy command guys are slim no yeah this one's big and so is bartola cologne he's even bigger he's got a super skinny face, too.

Right, yeah. That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Huh. All right. Trunks. Yeah. Man.

Okay. All right. I can't remember who's up, but- I just took Jumbo, right? So it's you? Yeah, you did. Yeah. All right.

I'm going to use my pick to tell you a little bit more about Percy Garner. Okay. I actually, I would like everybody to just prepare to to just not be laughing anymore because I'm gonna I'm gonna read a a little bit of a bittersweet article that it's not it's not tragic or anything like that but I don't want you to to think we're in laugh mode and then accidentally laugh at something that's kind of sad okay so this is uh a reporter strangely a reporter tracked him down which he's Percy Garner and he's been gone for a month.

We really need a where is he now? But a reporter tracked him down in August, about a month after he was released, asked where he was and he said, just hanging out, putting Lego stuff together. And he explained that his season last year, he had been doing weightlifting and he dropped a weight. Like he dropped a weight and tried to catch it and hurt himself. Like he somehow had some fluke weightlifting accident. And he says that that messed up with his release, messed with his release. And that's why he had the weird yippee kind of thing in AAA.

And then his team released him. And he said that, but he was so optimistic. And I think this is what I'm getting to. He said, to be honest, if this had happened last year, and if I didn't have the season I had in 2016, I'd probably be looking at things differently. I'd be saying, oh man, I've had such a tough career. It hasn't panned out the way I wanted it to. But the way I pitched last year, it showed me what I was capable of doing. It's been a bummer to come out and perform like this in 2017, but I feel like I have a good year ahead of me. And if you think about him as basically being like one wrist injury removed

from being like a good pitcher that everybody would want on their team. And if you add to that, that one team was really super excited to go sign him on the first day of a free agency, I can see why you'd be optimistic. Yeah, yeah. All right. Picks looking good. All right. My next pick.

Who'd you got? You got Jumbo Diaz. And the other one was Percy Garner. All right. Is this our last pick? Yeah, we have five. I have five. All right.

Boy, I'm going to take... last pick yeah we've five i have five all right boy i'm gonna take now i'm i'm torn between like fun guys and and guys i think will help me so uh i'm gonna take the least fun guy there is in baseball uh wade leblanc there he goes. And really, what is there to say? Yeah. All right. We could just move on. Yeah. Good luck with weight.

So question for both of you. Which of the following is Dario Alvarez's actual listed weight? Okay. 170 pounds or 270 pounds? Boy, he's young and youngish and most, you know, it takes a while usually. No, he's 29. No, geez. Or is he 19?

All right. I'm going to say, well, see, now are you trying to, are you just correcting me because there's no mistake that can't go uncorrected? Or are you correcting me because you're trying to lead me astray? I just want to give you the details that aren't relevant necessarily to the detail that you're guessing. Dario. Is Dario a 270 name or a 170 name? Dario Alvarez. Lefty. Uh-huh. Lefties, I think, tend to be... I would say that lefties... Well, I can tell you as a fact that lefties tend to be smaller pitchers than righties. I'll tell you, two previous Darios in the major leagues, Dario

Lodajani, 150 pounds. Dario Varis, 165 pounds. Dario Varis, it's two Game of Thrones characters. There've been multiple Darios in Game of Thrones. So I'm picturing both of them and trying to think which of them is closer to 170 or 270. See, now I'm thinking that because you went heavy on the last one, you might be going light on this one, but maybe you're thinking that I'm thinking that. Or it could be that he's continually astounded by how heavy baseball players are without us noticing. You know, it's by the way, it's something of a miracle that Wade LeBlanc is available in this because these are players who end the year in the minors. And Wade LeBlanc pitched in the majors on September 29th for Pittsburgh, which is game 160. Did they demote

him? Did they demote him or wave him or something him after that? Or am I just, is it easier to get into a minor league free agent draft than I'm realizing? He was outrighted on November 3rd. That's it. He had a mutual option declined and then he was sent outright. I don't have an answer for you. Yeah, I have absolutely no idea why he's eligible for this draft. But, oh, well, let's see. He was, I wonder if it has anything

to do with the fact that he was acquired in september no that was a year earlier all right dario alvarez uh 270 ben 170 it's 170 dario alvarez is a little dude john chenier is gonna update that it bends up 14 to 8 now all right your turn jeff uh oh right okay so uh what do we got here what do we got here let's take let's take casey lawrence and here's why the mariners rotation sucks and he's there so i think that casey lawrence will get a job with the mariners he pitched with the mariners last year i guess he didn't actually start but he still he threw 55 into third innings in the major leagues last year between Seattle and Toronto. He was a reliever. He was a mop-up reliever.

But mop-up relief is important because those are innings and plate appearances that teams maybe don't care about so much. And so you can eat up a lot of playing time if you are a reliever who is just good enough to be bad at a higher level. So Casey Lawrence, I think there's going to be a lot of pitching opportunities for the mariners as a matter of fact as i was preparing to talk about casey lawrence i got an email that the mariners picked up another pitcher uh it doesn't matter who he is the fact of the matter is that the mariners still picked up a pitcher on january 19th that warranted a press release casey lawrence he is uh well is casey lawrence 170 or 270 pounds. Oh, man. Just playing the odds here.

I'm going 170. He's a low strikeout, pitch to contact, low walk guy. And ground ball. So I'm going slim. I'm going 170. Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, Casey Lawrence, he's 170. He's also 30 years old, but he could be any age. It really doesn't matter.

And I'm going to take Casey Lawrence because I think he'll eat up some unimportant innings for a bad Mariners pitching staff. All right. Well, Sam, you were just saying you were weighing fun versus safe. Oh, you're going to take my last pick. I'm taking Williams Astudillo, who is the most fun minor league free agent obviously he has been discussed on this podcast probably multiple times he is of course the small and also not small in other ways catcher who has never been in the majors and never strikes out and hits pretty well generally and also frames pretty well generally. And what

did he, he, he must've missed time with an injury last year, right? But when he was playing, he, uh, did quite well, 928 OPS. It was in Reno. So, you know, and it was only 36 games, but he's a decent hitter, obviously makes extreme, extreme contact. He has been signed by the Twins, who have Jason Castro and I guess Mitch Garver is their backup. That's their entire 40-man, too. They only have two on the 40-man. Yeah, so I'm hoping that he sneaks in here somehow. I think this is the third consecutive year that Williams-Astadillo has been a minor league free agent. So I don't know why this would be the year necessarily, but I'm hoping it is. And if it is, then I will have an additional reason to root for him. Venditti Venditti Venditti on this in this draft where he's you know him very well he's got good minor league stats everybody loves him because there's something just profoundly unusual about

him and uh and then one year you know he actually gets a shot and faces 119 batters and you drafted him that year so now I'm getting a little bit more specifically Pat Venditti but maybe that'll be Williams S DiDio uh this. And I think that's a good pick. He had 340 in AAA. Even at altitude, that's pretty good, right? Yeah. Good defensive catcher. Yeah. I'd give him a shot. Okay. Thought about taking him first. Knew he wasn't going to make it until the end and just kept putting it off yeah all right well so this is my last fic is that right yeah yeah we've we've gone 10 deep in the past but since we have three people here today we figured we'd go seven each so i have six so yeah all right well i've got it down to i've got like three that i could really see taking

i'm not i'll just say one of them because uh i'm not going to take ike davis even though i have hopes that he'll he'll pitch i guess i will take hang on i'm going to do one real quick depth chart look just to see if i can justify this okay I don't think it's going to work though. Be nice to take a Mariner's picture right from under Jeff's nose. Boy, that's a lot of names on here that he is not. All right. I'm going to take, I'll leave the Mariner's picture. I'm going to take Christian Adames.

Adames? Adames? Yeah. Sure. Who's boring. Utility guy, 26 years old, played quite a bit in the majors in 2016. Had, you know, a solid enough year. Hit for some power last year in AAA.

Hit for more power than he'd ever hit for, I guess, in AAA. And is now on the Marlins. That's the decision tree. Yep. All right. ever hit for i guess in triple a and is now on the marlins that's the decision tree yep all right well sticking with the marlins we can we can maybe go over the rest of our draft list when we're done just reading off the names but i am going to take uh one mike kickham yeah kickham signed a minor league contract with the marlins according to chris catello of espionage on january 9th happened while i was away but look at me I'm still on top of the news. Mike Kickum, he was last written about on Fangraphs in 2015,

previous to that, January 2014, and he hasn't been a prospect since 2012 or 2013 with the Giants. But Kickum, last year, was good. He pitched with the Marlins, actually, in their AA and AAA affiliates, and he barely walked anyone. He kind of did the whole throw-and-strikes strikes thing and here's the thing about the marlins rotation it's terrible and it's probably going to get worse if they trade dan straley they're currently projected to have the third worst starting rotation in baseball according to fan graphs and steamer and i'm just gonna

actually i'm not gonna do this because i'm gonna ask you guys to put your heads together the reds i'm looking at that wasn't going to be the question okay but uh if you could just go ahead the both of you maybe combined tell me as many i'm just looking at the fan graphs marlin starting picture depth chart tell me as many names on this list as as you can all right did we play this game yes we did a couple months ago. Jose Urena is one. And Dan Straley is one. Wei and Chen still on there, right? Wei and Chen, yeah. That's a good one.

Volk has got released, right? Is he still on there? Is he still on there? Okay. Nope. Ziegler. Oh, wait. Is that a starter?

Oh, starters. Oh, right, yeah. Although, I don't know. This year he could be. You never know. Yeah. All right. Oh, boy.

Yeah, I don't know, this year he could be. You never know. Yeah. All right. Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm done. I might be done, too. Oh. Dan Straley, Jose Ureña, Adam Conley, Dylan Peters, Idris Amir, Despagne, Jacob Turner, Wayan Chin, Sandy Alcantara, Chris O'Grady, Justin Nicolino, Pablo Lopez, James Needy, defining the rotation, Caleb Smith, Zach Gallin.

Currently not including Mike Kickum, but I should go in and just put him on there anyway, give him some time. So Mike Kickum is my pick. I think I'll throw, I don't know, like six starts down the stretch just after they trade Straley and Urania gets hurt. All right. Well, man, I don't know which way to go with this. Should should I go with one more tiger? I've taken three tigers already. I should maybe take another tiger. I don't know. All right. I'll take another tiger. Kevin Comer is my tiger. He is a 25 year old reliever who was in Houston, pitched in AAA with Houston last year. Wait, who is it? Sorry, who is it? Kevin Comer, C-O-M-E-R. And missed some bats, nothing special.

Just seems like a generic right-handed reliever, but fairly young and a Tiger. So I'm just hedging my bets here. I'm going to inquire the entire tiger's depth chart and some of these guys will get innings. Former first round sandwich pick. Yeah. The Baseball America page that lists all these, the accompanying article, which I guess is more of a lead in to a long list. It always sort of follows the same format, which is that the list of minor league free agents includes players that once had promise and lists the first rounders. And of those first rounders, Kevin Comer is the only one named who we picked.

All right. So we've each picked seven. I mean, I have more guys. If you want to do a lightning round, just fill out our rosters or we could just name guys we didn't pick i mean i'll keep going i'll keep going but but i mean i don't want to make anybody else keep going who doesn't want to yeah all right one more round make it go fast all right bill and dylan unsworth south african 24 years old mariners pitcher okay you darvish right-handed pitcher Pitched in the World Series last year Alright, I'll take

Who cares? Brooks Pounders I'm taking Brooks Pounders Because who was the Angels Good reliever last year? Use Merle Petit Blake something Blake Parker So I have always and will always

Confuse Brooks Pounders and Blake Parker And so I think that if Blake Parker. Yeah, so I have always and will always confuse Brooks Pounders and Blake Parker, and so I think that if Blake Parker can do it, so can Brooks Pounders, who also pitched with the Angels. I used to work. I actually used to edit Brooks Pounders. Oh, wait, no, no, I'm sorry. Baseball Prospectus. I always confuse Baseball Prospectus and Brooks Pounders. All right, I will take John Andrioli,

who is a Mariners backup center fielder, which seems like a good thing to be right now. Maybe just, you know, just in case the Mariners center fielder with little to no center field experience is not great at that job. And he was with the Cubs in AAA last couple of years was just sort of blocked because the Cubs are good, but pretty decent on base guy has a little bit of power. Maybe he'll steal some plate appearances here or there. So that was fast. Go. All right.

I'll take, I'll take Eric Johnson. Okay. All right. There we go. All right. Veteran pitcher pitched for a team like the White Sox, I think. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Okay. Forrest Snow was a brewer, no longer a brewer, might become a brewer again, made a recent bullpen transition and has missed bats. Just go ahead, Ben. Okay.

All right. Taking Christian Lopes. Sorry. Take Christian Lopes. Too loud. Yeah. He's a 10th round Lopes? This is too loud. Yeah. He's a 10th round. Well, he's my guy.

Utility infielder. Was with Toronto. Is now with Texas. Was in AAA. Played five positions or something. Has some speed. That's all you need to know about Christian Lopes. Yeah.

All right. Fewer details. I don't want to. No, no, no. Ben is too eager. Ben feels like his card counting has just kicked in. Like he's finally got deepened up into the deck that he knows what's in there. No, he thinks that he has out-prepared us for this round.

You're prepared this time. I'm impressed by how prepared you are. I'm not confident, though, in my preparation. You right now are too eager shall we do one last one one last pick go evan you know what you know oh never mind i'm taking evan grills okay i don't know okay sorry he's a he's a lefty he pitches for uh a team all right ben you're so eager you take my pick and i'll go after you. You just do it. Okay. All right. I'll take Kurt Casali. Good, because I don't give a shit about Kurt Casali.

I'm taking Matt Perk. Oh, yeah. He was on my list too. Former actual prospect and player. So he's on the White Sox now. That's good. All right. Who just signed Casali?

Casali. I saw him pop up. I don't recall, but he is a catcher and he's been in the big leagues lately so that's good well the answer is that he was really oh no well he's uh he's rangers rangers signed to a minor league contract just uh yesterday oh all right good yeah look at that so who else is on your lists let's see i got uh christian binford who is is an Orioles pitcher I kind of liked. Miles Jay. Yeah, I had him too. Who else?

Well, Sam, you made fun of Emilio Bonifacio at the beginning of this thing, but he is like the highest floor, the low ceiling, high floor guy. He's been a solid bet. He's played in the big leagues every year since 2007, including this past year. No kidding. Emilio Bonavacio. 44 plate appearances in 2017. The only reason I didn't take him is that his OPS is the last three years,

390, 479, 361 in the majors. He may have finally run out of rope here, but if so, it would snap an 11-year streak for him. He had the extremely rare for a position player, negative OPS plus. Yeah. Last year. Yep. Yeah.

He's also got a four-year run of sub-replacement level wars, which didn't we have a Uniesky Betancourt? I did an article on who could possibly match Uniesky Betancourt's run of like six, I think. And it seemed impossible that anybody would get the chance i don't remember if i had a plate appearance minimum or not but i don't think i did and uh bonifacio's he's only 32 i know yeah i should have taken him i feel bad for not taking him now but uh who else did i have neil ramirez was on my list. Tim Federovich, just the backup catcher category. I took him.

Yeah, I took him a couple years ago. Or last year, maybe. And that's it. That's all I had written down. I had Bo Schultz. I had Sean Nolan. I had Erezmendi Alcantara. And I had Steve Geltz.

Man, Erezmendi Alcantara is on this list. Wow. Yeah. Okay. I was sitting on, I had Bonifacio up there. I can't believe he wasn't taken. Yeah, we really should have taken Bonifacio. That's irresponsible.

Too focused on fun, not focused enough on. Yeah. Also, JB Shuck, who's on there, because why not? And Jim Medusi, who I cannot actually believe is 32 years old, but I was surprised to see him. You think Jim Medusi, right? And you get an image. Yeah. Everybody does. 320 20 pounds something like

that yeah is uh but you find i'm going to confirm that this is true but i remember looking at the uh the sprint speed leaderboard jim madusi is up there he's he has his fast jim madusi whoever that is last year had the same sprint speed as uh asP. Crawford and Gerard Dyson. Wow. Which is not what I would have expected. Also, I think, I could be wrong, but I think he's with the Tigers. So going with the Ben strategy. Indeed, he was re-signed in December by the Tigers,

which means he will bat 350 times and he will have an OPS plus of 62. Reid Brignac still on this list, by the way. Yeah. He's been on here like every year since this list, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. He's been on this list. Your very first. Yeah. He's been on here like every year since.

You won the first year with, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still a minor league free agent. Jonathan Alba-Ladejo, still a minor league free agent. Hasn't been in the big leagues since 2012. A lot of names. Jose Tabata.

Haven't heard that name in a while. So you left Jarrett Grubb on your board. You've, even you have given up on Jarrett Grubb. When, you know, when Jerry DiPoto signed him and he still didn't get in. I mean, he is the quintessential Jerry DePoto signee. And so he signed him and I thought, this is it. And then he, oh, I guess he got two thirds of an inning. And I thought, well, that's his ceiling then.

Because Jerry DePoto's, you know, it reached stasis, I guess. All right. Well, we's his ceiling then because Jerry DePoto's reached stasis, I guess. Yeah, right. All right. Well, we did it. By the way, I wanted to mention Craig Stammen, who won you the sort of technically kind of won you the draft last year. I don't understand. What's your beef with Craig Stammen? I'm just mad that Craig Stammen had the fifth most innings of any reliever in the majors last year.

It's a great pick. It is. I don't know how that happened. I just wanted to point out. It's like the very idea. It's like being mad that the Mariners drafted Alex Rodriguez. Craig Stammen has six nicknames on baseball reference. The highest ratio of nicknames to productivity here's nicknames craigaroo

craigaroo this is a stam trigger craiger stammer or trig that's like a uh that's like when you go to spanish class and you learn how to conjugate a verb that's like the six congregate Spanish class and you learn how to conjugate a verb. That's like the six conjugations of Craig Stammen. All right. Well, five years. We've done it again. So hopefully John will keep track of this.

Hopefully he will not put his finger on the scale somehow to get Jeff's Mariners picks playing time Actually I have a Mariners pick too So feel free John Chenier If you want to recommend some extra playing time For John Andreoli Fine with me But I will link to the spreadsheet Where you can see the results of this draft And all of our previous drafts and competitions

On the show page at Fangraphs And in the Facebook group where it always is And thanks guys I'm glad we did this again Nope not done yet No still more Scrolling and competitions on the show page at Fangraphs and in the Facebook group where it always is. And thanks, guys. I'm glad we did this again. Nope, not done yet. No? Still more? Scrolling. Okay.

Bronson Arroyo, six nicknames. Saturn Nuts, Smokey, Tax, Dirty, Bro-Yo, and Free Love. I'm just doing some scrolling here, looking for a whole bunch of nicknames. So right now we've got Arroyo and Stammon. Still scrolling. Well, this is a long list. Shouldn't have done this. list shouldn't have done this really shouldn't have done this crunch wrap lorenzo kane apparently nicknamed crunch wrap

did not know that the this you know the stupid i think the stupid t-shirt the jersey thing this year has you know codified one nickname for everybody even people who didn't have a nickname and were forced to put something on their shirt yeah right i wonder what craig stammen wore on his shirt for players weekend must have been a crowded shirt of them yeah five commas let's let's see let's see craig stammen players weekend nickname yeah trig okay all right we done here i'm getting? I'm getting tired of scrolling here. Let's see. Trigger was the original nickname given to him by one of his friend's fathers, shortened to Trigg over the years. Yeah. That doesn't really count as two nicknames, Trigg and Trigger. That's a nickname of a nickname.

Yeah. Your beef is with baseball reference. Yeah. All right. We done? Yeah. Okay. Man. All right. name yeah your beef is a baseball reference yeah all right we done yeah oh okay man all right oh man unless yeah all right until next year seeing some bad i'm seeing some bad nicknames in this article about players weekend i we gotta end this i hated that weekend yeah all right same time next year or we don't know if it'll be the same time next year. We've done these things in December, January, and February, and I don't know if it makes any difference at all. But I would be interested if someone maybe after this year

runs some sort of analysis to see what the actual winning strategy here is, because we've had so many over the years, just players with bad teams, players with major league contracts, like lefty relievers and catchers and utility guys seem like good bets, but I've not gone back and actually examined any of these assumptions. So for all I know, we're just leaving plate appearances on the table here, but same time next year, we'll talk again and we will draft again. Thank you all. Charlie Paber was nicknamed the old woman in the red cap can we get an explanation joe page joe page i don't know okay joe page is a picture from the 40s and the 50s he was with the yankees and the pirates yeah nickname fireman second nickname the gay reliever we had a different connotation at the time but i want

to know about the old woman in the red cap the old woman in the red cap charlie paper the old woman in the red cap the old woman in the red cap abbreviates very closely to the only rule is it has to work yeah all right should i try to end this podcast for the sixth time or what i'm almost done scrolling here so just kind of just keep talking for like wait wait let's see more seconds let's fit come on let's let's figure out the old woman in the red cap i mean one of us can do that and that one of us is me so i'm gonna see if i can uh figure this out okay real quick because this nobody wants to go to bed not knowing this the story remains elusive wow somebody writes perhaps he was a charter

member of the red hat society just on the wikipedia page for that but i believe i believe that that is uh that has to be a joke because the old the red hat society was actually old women in red caps if that's what he was this nickname wouldn't be interesting. Let's see. Oh, so here's one. This is an attempt. Hang on. I'm going to...

All right, here we go. The unions of Mauritania were a celebrated early team of interest for such players as George Wright, Dave Birdsaw, and Charlie Paber, longtime pitcher and outfielder with the most inexplicable of all baseball nicknames, the old woman in the red cap. And then he brackets off, let me make an attempt. The red cap was common headgear in the French revolution for women who carried knitting bags under these caps. The unions wore puffy red caps. Paybor, baseball's first left-handed pitcher of note, may have been viewed as a revolutionary. That's my story anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Wow. Baseball players were literate back then. They knew their history. Yeah. All right. Can confirm, now that having completed scrolling, if baseball references our authority, Craig Stammen is tied for the all-time major league lead. Well, that is a record I think he can break. Sure.

With some help. We can give him one right now. Yes, exactly. Yeah. What should we nickname him? The old woman in the blue cap. Stammer? It's still blue, right?

I'm surprised he doesn't have Stammer yet. No, that is a nickname. Stammer is a nickname. Oh, right. He's got Stam and Trigger. Stam, Trigger, Craig, or Stammer, Trigg. All right. What variant of those things? But he doesn't have Stag Cram. Stammer is one of these. Oh, right. He's got Stam and Trigger. Stam, Trigger, Kreg, or Stammer, Trig. All right. What variant of those things?

But he doesn't have Stag Cram. Stammeroo? Stammeroo? Stammeroo, yeah. Stammeroo. All right. So everybody call him Stammeroo for about four days, and then it'll be official. Okay.

Okay. I'm not going to say, is it over? Someone else say, is it over? I don't want to keep saying it Stammy lammy ding dong Is it over? Gentlemen Craig It's over

Alright Okay, I'm stopping now Spanky Alright, it's really finally officially over now By the way, if there was any pressing baseball news Over the weekend, we didn't talk about it today because we pre-recorded this episode. I'm probably skiing right now, much as I would like to be minor league free agent drafting at all times. You can support this podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. Five listeners who have already pledged their support include Craig Manami, Josh Baer, Lisa Lozo, Nick Graham, and Doug Graham. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Keep your questions and comments coming for me and Jeff via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for editing assistance. Our next episode might be a little bit delayed because of my travel plans, but we will be back later this week for our usual compliment of episodes. Talk to you then. Try to make it now Hope you can make it Try to make it now