Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1249: How Trades Get Made

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan have an in-depth discussion with former Mets director of baseball operations and Braves assistant GM Adam Fisher about being a front-office utility man, talking to the media, work-life imbalance in baseball operations, the public-private information gap, the evolution of analytics, scouting, and player development over the past 15 years, the […]

Well, it was a busy pre-deadline day in baseball. It appears that Joaquin Soria is a brewer, Martin Maldonado is an astro, Jay Happ is a Yankee, Cole Hamels is a cub, and Effectively Wild guest Johnny Venters is once again in Atlanta Brave. We will not be talking about any of those transactions

because Jeff was very far from the nearest microphone when all that news arrived. However, we will be talking trades. Where do trades come from? It's time to have the talk. You see, when two teams like each other's players very much, sometimes they can come together in a beautiful act of creation

and you're about to hear all about it straight from a source. A source who is close to the situation and familiar with the matter but is not anonymous. Stay tuned. Well, you talk about... I don't... Is this... Is there such a thing as ineffectively wild? Because this is it.

And once again, fastballs. I could see if he's bouncing breaking balls in the dirt or missing with the split finger down in the dirt, but these are almost all fastballs that he's missing the zone by 3 and 4 feet. Behind on Marte, 3 and 0, and there's ball 4. That's walk number six. So Tyler Chatwood, as Joe Maddon's going to go out there counting today, now 12 games with at least five walks. Looking for some strange new games But bird ass on them games ain't fun anymore

There's something else that you're looking for You've got all the answers You and your friends And I'm on the outside looking around Hello and welcome to episode 1249 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello, Jeff. Hi.

Let's play an edition of our popular segment, Where in the Wilderness is Jeff Sullivan, when people are listening to this podcast, because we are pre-recording this one because you are going away into the woods. Into the woods, going down to a place man jefferson it's a more isolated cascade volcano where i've never really spent a lot of time it's prominent it's big we're not going to summit it but we're going to come close and it's the timing not great it being nearly the trade deadline but now the counter argument would be one the cool stuff has already happened and counter argument number two i don't work under dave cameron anymore and so i'm i'm less afraid of

consequences now maybe you could say it's a little too bold and like maybe there's like there's like two three periods of time in the baseball calendar when one should not disappear it's right now it's during the winter meetings and it's during october but uh well what are you gonna do right well this is a postponed trip right a rescheduled trip yes yeah that is correct you didn't initially plan to be unavailable at this time it's just uh nature conspired against you yeah and uh this is we're going to uh an area that's we're going to be camping near a lot of lakes it's july snow melt the lakes are recently unfrozen the mosquitoes are going to be the worst that i can uh imagine. It's like the only report, the only beta we've gotten on the trip is,

oh, by the way, prepare for the worst mosquitoes of your lifetime. So I don't really know what we can do, but I'm going to be searching for the queen mosquito that if I kill her, then maybe they all drop dead. So maybe some people have their Sasquatch hunts and I've got this one. Well, because of your trip, we are recording a little earlier in the week than we normally would be. So we cannot banter about the latest trade deadline activity. However, we can devote this episode to the trade deadline.

We are bringing in a guest who is going to school us on all things trade deadline and front office. So we will get right to that. It's a long, meaty, and I hope informative and fun interview that will take up Inside and out Inside and out So we are joined now by Adam Fisher, who worked for the Mets for close to 15 years, worked his way up to director of baseball operations. He was briefly the assistant GM of the Braves last year. Now he is in the public sphere for the first time in quite a while.

And we heard him on StatCast podcast a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed listening to him. I know he is just coming from another podcast with SNY where he is contributing as well. And they say that baseball is a copycat league. I guess baseball podcasts also a copycat form because we hear a good guest and hey, we want to talk to that guy and there's more we want to ask him so i guess adam you're you're kind of a hot podcast prospect right now because you're uh you've recently escaped from front offices and we don't get to talk to a lot of people like that who can actually say things without having to watch all of their words well thank you for the introduction ben i appreciate it and uh yeah yeah, it's great to be on.

And I've been enjoying this sort of new journey. And yeah, happy to be here. What is it like to be able to talk about baseball publicly without kind of doing the front office speak? Now, not that you're going to just say anything. The first thing that comes to your mind, you want people to respect you and like you. Anything, the first thing that comes to your mind, you want people to respect you and like you. But, you know, everyone who is in a front office and is of a senior enough level that you might get asked to comment on things from time to time, I guess you just develop almost this cliched way of answering questions, not unlike the way that players answer questions, I guess. Kind of like the Bull Durham, you know, stock responses. You don't want to give anything away. It makes perfect sense. But now you are tweeting and you're talking to us and that's an adjustment.

It is definitely an adjustment. Yeah. You stay guarded as a front office member. For me, getting to senior director with the Mets and assistant GM with the Braves, I'm still not, generally the general manager is the person who is talking. So I haven't had a ton of experience speaking publicly when it comes to these things. So yeah, it's definitely different. And of course, you have relationships that you need to watch. I mean, look, I have lots of friends with the Mets, and I'm not excited about publicly ripping them when it comes to these kinds of things. So that's not something I'm really looking to do. But at the same time, it is nice to get a chance

to sort of tell some of the stories that come out of the front office that the public hasn't heard and that they might be interested in. I don't mean to date you, but of course, when you started working in baseball, you were much younger than you are now. And one of the things that we talk about every so often is that at least what seems to be the perceived lifestyle of someone who works in baseball, certainly at or around the executive level. So you went into baseball when you were younger, more adaptive, and then you rather abruptly were no longer in baseball. You have a family. What has been the adjustment? What can you say about what it was like for your own personal life to work for a baseball team versus what it's like now that you're on the outside?

Oh, yeah. I mean, it is just a huge, huge difference. And, you know, over the years in talking to people who wanted to get involved in baseball, potential intern candidates, potential entry-level candidates, over the years sort of my pitch to them, my talk with them evolved. You know, when I was, when I first started, I was a single guy and I had every hour of, every waking hour of the day and more to dedicate to the team. And in this case, the Mets. And as you get older and things evolve, I got married, I have two kids. It's much, much harder to live that lifestyle. And it is a very challenging lifestyle. It is spring training, two months roughly, where you are out of the state you live in and probably away from your family. Home games,

you're there till, for me being a front office member, I'm there till the end of the game. Don't get home till 11 at night. A lot of times I'm traveling with the team. So I'm on the road when I'm not staying for home games. The off season is very short. Anyway, you get the idea. It is a serious, serious lifestyle adjustment to be with a team and now having this freedom, uh, being home with my kids, getting a chance to, I took a vacation for the first time in 15 years. So what does that say? Um, I took, uh, I took my wife and my, my, my, my wife and I, and we have two little boys. We went to Turks and Caicos on opening day. So perhaps that was symbolic, but it is, it's a very, look, it's very rewarding going to the World Series with the club in 2015. It was the most fun I'd had with the baseball team, sort of living out fantasies in some ways from when you're a kid and helping

getting a chance to put a team together, all of that stuff. The work aspect of it almost isn't like working in some ways, but it is a huge grind. It is a massive time commitment. And when you think about getting involved with a team, you have to consider that. Your opening day trip is kind of like Adrian Gonzalez's October vacation to Europe last year. When I talk to some baseball people, I talk to people who are married mostly, I think is a, seems to be the case most of the time. But as you mentioned, you started single and while you worked in baseball, you became not single.

I know this isn't a relationship podcast, but what is the dating process even like when you have that kind of demanding schedule? How do you, how are you able to get close to somebody and explain what you do? It's, it was tough. I mean, you know, living in New York City, which is a great, you know to get close to somebody and explain what you do? It was tough. I mean, you know, living in New York City, which is a great, you know, great place to be single. But for me, for my first couple of years with the Mets, I mean, you know, I haven't really talking about my dating life.

It was pretty non-existent because all I was doing was working. I had very little time to, I mean, I'd go out on the weekends, but very little time to meet people. I was working all the time. And it's certainly not easy for a lot of these people. You're traveling, you're in, you know, you're in cities outside of where you live. It's pretty challenging. And, you know, I was lucky enough to meet my wife and her name's Karen. She understood sort of what my lifestyle was and she was willing to roll with it. But as the years went on, and particularly when we had kids, got married, had kids, it was a lot harder to manage that.

Well, hey, you had to do two podcasts today. So the media life, not easy either. Yes. Yeah, exactly, right? What would you like to be like right now? We're talking to you in late July. How much more work would you be doing? Were you in a front office right now at this point in the season?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I'd be swamped. I'd be slammed. I mean, particularly if I was with them. Well, either team that I was associated with, the Mets or the Braves, they're both very active right now for different reasons. But it would be extremely busy heading up to the trading deadline you have to be on call all the time you never know when a trade may or may not go down so it would be uh it would be a bit of a stressful time and uh

you know i'd probably be i would certainly be at the ballpark right now i know the mets had a day game so after the day game ends at about four o'clock, hang around the office for a couple more hours and then head home. So yeah, it would be completely different. I mean, right now I don't have an office, just kind of hanging out, trying to enjoy my free time and doing a little bit of media. You've probably heard of people by the names of say, Ken Rosenthal, John Heyman, Bob Nightingale, some others. These are people that would have crossed your radar. Can you explain sources, what the real benefits are? Is it just a matter of having established personal relationships with people?

Or why are these people able to get information before it's official? How does that benefit a team in any way? It's a good question. How does that benefit a team in any way? It's a good question. I mean, in some ways, it's a two-way relationship in the sense that you can get something out that the team wants to get out. So say a team wants to suggest that this player is available or they want to try to play games and boost a player's value or things along those lines. That's where it becomes a two-way relationship.

And I think, you know, someone like Ken Rosenthal has developed all of these relationships throughout baseball. And if a team kind of wants to get their message out, they can talk to Ken about it. John Heyman, the same. Nightingale, same type thing. to Ken about it. John Heyman, the same. Nightingale, same type thing. So in a normal column, they'll talk to Ken Rosenthal and kind of get the team side of the situation out. And I guess sort of the return of the relationship is that perhaps Ken will get the dope or get the scoop before everyone else. But in general, I don't think that there's a huge benefit to that type of situation. Some people just like to show that they're smart or that they're important. And that may be why they're able to get the information. You know, there's many, many different angles, but obviously these guys are pros. Ken's about as good as they come in the game when it comes to this stuff. And

in, in a lot of instances, it can be scratch my back and you know, I'll scratch yours, but, but not, not necessarily in the farriest way, just kind of a two-way relationship. Get the dope is like the new ass in the jackpot. I've never heard that before. Oh, you haven't heard? All right, good. We'll go for it.

I'm much more familiar with that one than I was with ass in the jackpot. I've never heard ass in the jackpot either. That was pretty amusing. It was. So I am curious about what aspect of your job or jobs you enjoyed the most because you got to do a little bit of everything in your timeouting and oversaw analytics and kind of had your finger in just about every pie at some point. So what did you feel you were maybe best suited for? I didn't even mention contracts, arbitration, all of that. What was your strength if you think that you stood out in one area more than others?

And what did you find most fascinating or fulfilling? You know, I think, I guess what I would say is, you know, my strength was being able to have proficiency and I think be good at a lot of different things, if that makes sense. All the things you mentioned, I was capable in those areas and able to do them and versatile. I mean, I don't know, you call me utility player or something. I think I had skills I could do overlap in different areas that maybe other people couldn't do. So if that was the case, I was proficient in, I am proficient kind of in both analyzing analytics and scouting. And I think that's not necessarily a common thing. I guess people might say that, I don't know, to be modest about it, people might

say I'm terrible at both. I don't know. But I felt like I was proficient at both and could kind of walk between worlds, per se. For me, the most fun thing is definitely this type of analyzing players and helping the general manager make trades. I mean, the stuff that people really enjoy and say their fantasy team or whatever, that was the most fun for me when it came to the real team. This type of situation last year at the trading deadline, it wasn't fun being in a losing situation with the Mets. It was the most disappointing season I'd ever been involved in last year. But when it came to the trading deadline and preparing, helping prepare for trades, analyzing players, looking at the different farm systems, all that stuff for me is the most fun.

So you tweeted just the other day in response to, I don't know if it was in response to a trade or trade rumors, but you tweeted, quote, remember that prospect rankings are a guideline, not the gospel. Take a good look at the player and decide for yourself. Sage advice. So when you're in the industry and you have all these different, I don't know, three, four, five, six sources of sort of public prospect rankings, are those, what's the utility of those when you were working for a team? Is it kind of a source of arbitrage, looking for players in your own system that you might think are overrated, players in other systems you might think are underrated? Because of course, so much of the public consumption and interpretation of moves will lean on those prospect rankings. And I don't

know how much the public analysis matters to you when you work for a team, but there can certainly be broad differences of opinion. All of the above, I think. I think, you know, you trust your people, right? You trust what your evaluations are internally in terms of scouting and what your evaluations are in terms of analytics. And I think it's all of the above. It's a guideline for a front office too, because, you know, in a lot of cases, teams are telling these publications what they think of the player. You know, you asked about sort of the relationship with these columnists and why they are able to get this information. Well, you know, teams are talking to these publications as well, and they may be boosting a player up the ladder. There's a lot of different sort of strategy that

goes into this. But I think from a front office standpoint, you understand there's a PR aspect to it. You're not going to do it for the PR, but you know if you're getting a high prospect that the PR is going to be more positive than, say, if you got a lower prospect. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact, how do you feel as an organization? And look, if you like the 28th best guy in their system better than the 7th best guy according to Baseball America or whatever, then you're going to go after that 28th best guy and you're going to feel good about that trade. That being said, the guideline, it gives you an idea of kind of what the industry thinks

and perhaps what that team thinks about those players. So you can at least get a feel for kind of what the blowback's going to be, what your PR is going to be, and kind of what the industry thinks of it. So I think there's a lot of different things that go into it. Teams look at that stuff. It doesn't really impact their decisions materially. But certainly, again, just like with the team, it's a guideline. You have a feel for how people perceive an organization's prospects. So I don't recall if you had got to have this experience yourself, but of course, just the other week, the Padres traded Brad Hand and Adam Simber to the Indians and got back Francisco Mejia, who's been rated publicly as a top 20 prospect. I think Keith Law even had him in the top five. And I think it would be pretty apparent based on the fact the trade was

made in the first place that the Indians are not as high on Mejia as some of the public analysts. place that the Indians are not as high on Mejia as some of the public analysts. But how much more difficult, if at all, do public rankings like that make a trade like that when you think maybe a prospect is overrated, but you know that people are going to see that number and think, wow, you really gave away the future here? Sure. I think it can be not to sort of push the New York narrative and how much harder it is in New York versus other cities. But I do think it's particularly more challenging in New York just because there's so much attention and so much media and people really pay attention to that stuff. But at the end of the day, you have to have conviction in what you're doing and feel comfortable with it. And ultimately, an organization shouldn't care about that stuff. You have to

feel comfortable with what your opinions are within your organization, what your ratings are, and run with it. But yes, from a PR standpoint, you at least have to understand that when you're giving up that type of player, there's going to be some blowback from fans, from media, and ultimately, I think you're just aware of it. And if you're comfortable, you should be comfortable with it, you know, if you're comfortable as an organization. Does a trade ever suggest itself from a media report or from some online suggestion? I know that most of them are far-fetched and preposterous, and there are a million reasons why they wouldn't work. But does it ever happen that, I don't know, you're reading a Fangraphs chat and someone

suggests something. There have been instances where a chatter suggested something, and then that deal happens down the road. Probably not because someone read it in that chat, but does that ever happen? Or you read a rumor or something and someone thinks, oh, that could work. I don't know. It's worth asking. Yeah, I think definitely.

I think you're always paying attention to what's out in the media and you know if a team if you hear that a player is available through a media member then it doesn't hurt to go check in and and figure it out i can't remember any instances where there was sort of a trade proposal that we kind of got from a from a chat or anything like that. But you can get a sense of who's available just through the media. And then you check in and see if it's real or not. There is one team out there that just likes to float, that they're interested in players before they actually contact you. So it's pretty interesting.

One team is really egregious about it. And if you want a hint, we actually made a trade when I was with the Mets. We made a trade with them last year. Was it because you read that they were interested? Well, we were surprised that they hadn't checked in on the player before. And it turned out they were interested. So there's a good example. Is it just more efficient to do it that way?

I don't know. I'm not quite sure what the strategy is there, but it worked out. It's a little weird, but hey, we ended up making a trade with them. I don't know if it's always been like this, but one of the things I've heard about executives like Jared Apoto, AJ Preller, Alex Anthopoulos, and so on, is that these are guys who are just constantly checking in on anyone who might be valuable just to kind of gauge what's going on, gauge the market. And I don't know if it used to be like that going back 10, 15 years, of course, now with text messages and everything, everything is just so much easier and immediate than it used to be. But especially when you come

up to a period like the trade deadline, when everyone has this sense of urgency, how much more difficult now is it to sort of navigate the deadline when you have sort of good faith negotiations taking place with these check-ins that teams seem to be doing with increasing frequency? You know, well, I mean, just in terms of the volume of sort of teams that are interested or that, you know, modern technology, I think, you know, you understand that you have a certain number of teams that say may or may not be interested. And then you as a team that has players to move are going to set the guidelines. So you kind of say, OK, this is what we're thinking about. This is what it's going to take. These are the players that we are interested in the organization. And if that's something that you might want to do, then let's talk about it. And if not,

then we don't really have anything to talk about. So you have a feel and they'll give you an indication. And then if they keep checking in with you, but they aren't willing to meet that price, then you know that it's not necessarily bad faith, but you're not on the same level, not on the same page. And, you know, you're moving on to other teams. Now, of course, you know, those teams were interested. So if you do decide to lower the price, you know, it's on your terms and you can check back in with them. So I think that's really what it comes down to with those types of aggressive general managers. I think you want to set the guidelines and you come up with a price. And if they're they can keep checking in on you all, you know, all they want. But you have a feel for what what their level of interest is based on what the price you set is.

What is trade etiquette? What are you looking for in a trade partner? Not just whether or not you end up actually making the deal. What do you want? Is it just responsiveness? Is it not bugging you too much? Is it not making some outlandish offer? What are the do's and don'ts or the things that teams appreciate or resent? Sure. I think you see teams making trades with each other over the, you know, a team might make two or three trades with each other, teams. And I think a lot of times it's just the relationships between the two teams and kind of just like a friendship or whatever. Do you vibe? Do you speak the same language? Can you talk about players in the same way?

And sometimes organizations just don't click. So I think you build, and that may be why you don't see teams making trades as much together. Now, if it just really matches up well between players and needs, then you may see those organizations make trades. But I think, yes, it gets upsetting when a team kind of makes that ridiculous trade proposal to you, like that person in your fantasy league to give the analogy that just wants to give you a bag of balls for your best player. That stuff can be upsetting. But a lot of times it's just about relationships and having a positive relationship with the other

team. But yeah, I think all that stuff, not to compare it to dating, but it's the same type of thing. You know, if you're going to upset a team, if you just keep bugging them and bugging them, sometimes that works, but sometimes it doesn't, you know? And I think at the end of the day, you need to know who you're dealing with and what their expectations are. And it's about people, and it's about understanding organizations. And it's just like anything, comes down to relationships. Wow, we're talking about dating in a lot of different contexts today. Yeah, yeah, seriously.

Ben and I are always out here on the outside writing analytical articles about teams or players. And it's not uncommon, we'll be writing about a player maybe around the winter meetings or around the trade deadline. And so obviously every team that's trying to do anything except for maybe the Baltimore Orioles is conducting its own internal analysis. And it has its own understandings of all the different players. But what is or can be the role of public analysis? Like have you ever been trying to trade with a team and then you see some flattering article that gets written about that player in the public and then you think, well, great, now that team is just going to get some sort of boost or they're going to demand more? What impact can public analysis have when you have front offices who are supposed to have all their own information?

Gee, I don't know. It never really affected us per se with the Mets, but you are always trying to push an angle and try to make your players look better to try to convince other teams or at least give you that little extra edge. But you know, it may be just some positive anecdote about a player in an article that helps convince a team that they like them. And that there's nothing wrong with that. That's just like gathering background information on a player. So I think, yeah, your strategy comes into all of this. And I think, I don't think it's going to move the needle and make, make a team want to acquire a player. But if there's some positive anecdotes or some positive stuff that you're pulling out about a player or negative stuff

in the, uh, you know, for example, Matt Harvey with the Mets. I mean, all of that negative stuff that was out there, some of it true, some of it not so true. I mean, obviously that affected his trade value when the Mets tried to move him, not just the fact that he was struggling. So you're cognizant of that, I guess, to kind of take this in a different direction. If you're aware of something that is bad about a player that you're trying to trade and it's not public facing information, I think certainly just like anything, it makes sense to try to keep it quiet. So I think it goes the other way to go the other way with your question. You know, if there's negative stuff out there, you want to keep that out of the public eye as well. Yeah.

How do you find out about the makeup of a player who has never been in your organization? Maybe you've had a scout see him, but there's only so much you can tell about a guy's off the field life and inner life from seeing him play. So are you trying to reach out to people in the game who know him? Or if you have players in your system who played with them, are you picking their brains? How are you trying to find out if a guy is a good guy, basically? Everything. I think everything you just said, and there's no doubt I'm not the first person to say this, but makeup and a player's character is the most challenging thing to pin down and the

hardest thing to scout. And the reality of it is that, you know, we're talking about human beings here and these things change, you know, think about if a player is having a terrible year, we're talking, we talk, you know, we already mentioned, we're talking about dating and, and think about if a player is going through a divorce or something like that and ends up having the worst year of his career. And you're like, wow, what, what's going on with that guy? And you know, that, that's the type of makeup type of information that you would try to dig up. How do you do that? Talk to their friends.

You talk to a good source of information is oftentimes a player who is on your team who maybe played with that player. Your scouts in the minor leagues are trying to talk to as many people as they can. Coaches, people around the ballpark, teammates, all of those kinds of things. You're trying to gather as much information as you can. And even then you can't necessarily pin a guy down because who knows, you know, what's going on inside a person. Sometimes people don't even know themselves. So it's very challenging. And really there's two types of makeup. If you think about it, there's makeup on the field, meaning, okay, how does this person handle pressure situations?

And there's makeup off the field. Is this person going to handle himself with respect off the field and represent the organization in a positive way? So a lot of times those two things don't necessarily go together. I mean, you have a guy who maybe has a rough has a rough lifestyle off the field who can handle pressure and, uh, nothing phases him. Lenny Dykstra, for example, to mention a Met, you know, great makeup on the field, gritty, nothing bothers him off the field. Obviously he's had a lot of problems.

So, um, to, to, you know, put it, put it kindly. Um, so, so there's two, two types of makeup and, you know, ultimately you're looking for someone who has good makeup off the field and on the field, but those things, those things can be challenging. And, um, you know, there's also just to, to, to get a little, a little long winded here, you know, a player may have good makeup in one market or bad makeup in another, you know, it's, it's tough to play in New York. You may not be able to play in New York, but you could play in Cincinnati to use Matt Harvey as an example,

or it may just be that you don't get along with the guys or you don't like the manager. You know, there's so many different things. It's just like anything. It's just like your job for, for all of us who go to a, go to our regular, our regular nine to five jobs. If you don't like your manager you're the person who's in charge of you you're going to be unhappy and that may that's going to you know it's going to reflect in your work and in this case it's just it's all public yeah would a trade partner try to tell you about some of those things or is it considered bad form to try to talk you into the trade i mean you know if there is some off the field story, that's not public knowledge that maybe helps explain the player's struggles, for instance,

if you're, yeah, I know you're not always the person who was talking to the opposing GM in the trade talks, but is that something that might come up? Hey, just so you know, he's been going through this or that, or is it, I don't know, almost like too much salesmanship or something, or, or, you know, maybe you can't trust it because you know that the person is trying to put a spin on it. It's all about personal style, you know, when it comes to the GM. You know, just one GM might want to explain all that stuff. For me, I think it's useful. You know, from a full disclosure standpoint, you're trying to make a move down the line.

And you're trying to explain the struggles a little bit. Maybe it gives you a little bit of an edge in trying to make that trade i think what upsets people or upsets opposing gms or upsets opposing teams is when you try to explain when a player is not very good and you're trying to explain to that team why you think they're good and why they're good a good fit for for their team it's like no one no one wants to hear like they know they know what they want on their team. It's like no one wants to hear. They know what they want on their team. We really want to get rid of this guy, but here's why he's good, and he'd be great for you.

Yeah, and there are some GMs that do that, and that just upsets the other team. They don't want to know why your terrible reliever would be great on their team. Right. So from that standpoint, yeah, you don't want to be doing that. But if it might be, hey, this guy is going through a divorce and we think he'd be better in your environment or whatever it may be, those types of little things to get a little bit further ahead in trade talks, that situations, and I think the easy hand-wave answer to this is when you're in the public sphere, is that players get to the majors and the whole process is selective for players who can handle themselves in the major leagues. How do you respond to the idea that major leaguers have generally already been proven to be successful in pressure situations, or is it maybe predictably more nuanced than that?

to be successful in pressure situations, or is it maybe predictably more nuanced than that? Yeah, I think, Jeff, you said it. It's a lot more nuanced than that. There's a great article by Danny Duffy. I'm sorry, not Danny Duffy, Matt Duffy, to get my Duffys mixed up. Hold on, there's actually two Matt Duffys. The Matt Duffys on the Rays.

Okay. And it's in the Players' Tribune, and he talks about his time when he first joined the Giants and how the Giants have a winning culture, and they're really welcoming to him. I think Hunter Pence was really welcoming to him, and they told him that they needed him and that he was going to be a big part of their club. But I believe the advice was don't look up when you're on the field. Don't look up.

Why was that? Because there's two extra levels of stands in the major leagues compared to the minor leagues. And it is intimidating. And again, getting back to the fact that these are human beings, yes, there's, I don't know what percentage of our population are people who can just pop into the major leagues and go, I am the greatest. You know, Muhammad Ali, I don't even care. You know, there's four levels of stands or three levels of stands or whatever it is. And it doesn't phase me at all. But many people are just like you and me. And, you know, it takes time to adjust.

Many of these players, they need to make an adjustment and perhaps whatever percentage it is, it doesn't phase them, but you know, it'll get them eventually. I think the minor leagues trains you and baseball is such a failure game, but I don't think anything really, really prepares you to play in front of 45,000 people at Yankee stadium. And that's an adjustment. And you need to learn how to handle that. Even the toughest guy is going to have to make an adjustment there. And that's why teams are employing mental skills coaches and sports psychologists more and more. Because stuff's important. We're talking about human beings. And it is, to use your word, Jeff, it's nuanced. It's a nuanced thing. It's not always that simple that you can put your finger on it. This guy's tough. This guy can handle it. This guy's not. I think everyone has to go through some level of adjustment.

If I see Matt Duffy dropping any pop-ups, I'll know that he took his own advice too literally. Well, I think five years later, he should be pretty well adjusted to the major leagues at this point. True. So I'm also curious about just how the mechanics of trading have changed since you got into the game, because almost everything has changed in front offices since 2004 or so. And when you were first there, I mean, the Mets and most teams didn't really even have a database, an internal system set up where they had access to everything all the time. Now, today, everyone's communicating via text and no one's really ever unreachable, certainly at important times. So that's part of it.

But also, I would think you just get instantaneous answers to your questions because teams have essentially pre-supplied answers to the question of how good is this guy is this guy better than that guy every team has all of that data a click away and projections and evaluations of all his performance and maybe his surplus value and just you know future contract projections just everything is at your command so i would think that i mean at the beginning you might have had to crunch some numbers manually or call up several scouts to get their thoughts or, you know, go to outside sources to try to get some intel on a player. I'm sure there's some of that that still happens, but it must be a much faster process now, right? I think that's fair. I think things move more quickly than they did in the past.

quickly than they did in the past. Although I still think you're trying to gather as many opinions and get just as much information as possible, so you are going to talk to different people in the organization. It may be that it took a couple days and now it takes a day. You're still going to gather yourself. Sometimes it can just be an immediate answer no no no but in a lot of cases it comes it's sort of in between okay you know we where we have these three players that we'd be willing to trade which of these players do you would you be interested in and you're going to go back you're going to take a look at scouting reports you're going to crunch the numbers you

know and also in a lot of cases at at least to use my, my experience with Sandy, he wants to hear from your, from people's mouths, you know, you can read a report, but he still wants to talk to a scout. He still wants to talk to his analytics people and get their take. And it can, again, it can be more nuanced than that. I think you hit it from the beginning. It's so much of it is just, okay, you can text and you can really communicate so much more easily and it's a lot harder to hide you know if someone's not texting you back then you know that they're who knows what they're doing they're blowing you off or whatever it may be it was just so much different particularly when i started you know you would call the gms would call each

other and the executive assistant would answer and would track that person down. There wasn't as much cell phone use. There was no texting. I think ultimately everything is more immediate, but you're still going through the same types of processes where you want to talk to people and you want to get opinions from the horse's mouth versus just maybe reading it off a stat sheet or reading a report. And you told a story on the StatCast podcast about the Cespedes trade and how that came down to the very last second because Sandy was trying his best not to send Michael Fulmer to the Tigers in that deal. And they wouldn't budge and that's that. And we were just talking about how you can't necessarily talk a team into taking the player that you want them to take. Yeah, exactly. Good example. Good example.

Right. So I guess, you know, do you even need to say, send out someone to see a player in person? I mean, if you're making a franchise altering move, as you said, you want all the sources of information you can. But of course, there's so much video, there are so many stats that, in a sense, replicate scouting information or what used to be scouting information. And teams have dialed back their major league advanced scouting in-person presence a little bit in favor of stats and video. So if you are constructing a trade and it's not something that comes together in one day, do you still dispatch people to the ballpark and say, tell me what this guy looks like right now? Or do you just call up your database and your video? You know, I think it's becoming less important to have someone be there live, but I do think, you know, you want to get your best people. Look, scouting is, geez, it's not an elusive thing, but it's a talent. And some people are better than others. And the sort of like the baseball player whisperer, per se, you may have a scout that you

just, you really, really trust and you want to get that scout's eyes on a player. And that's usually your best scout, you want to send that person in, You want to make sure that they get a look at the player and they're reading body language. They're talking to people. They're gathering information. You're still trying to get as much information as possible on the player when it comes to these types of franchise altering trades. So I do think that it is important in these cases, if you're making a monster trade, that it is important in these cases if you're making a monster trade to get eyes on a player and get a feel for how they're moving you know perhaps it's just about an injury a potential injury watching a player live and seeing how they're moving what's going on you know let's take i don't know say you're trying to acquire gary sanchez we know there's been a ton of

to use him you know there's been a ton of drama surrounding him. I'm not sure you'd get a feel by watching the video, whether you think that he's got a groin injury or whatever it is, you know, if you had a live scout there, he could probably give you a better feel for the whole thing and what he thinks about the hustle and the injury and all that stuff. So I think that's a good example of why you might want someone there live. But that being said, you know, you have so much more video. You have so much access to stats. You have TrackMan. You have StatCast. I mean, you can really paint a picture of a player without necessarily seeing them live.

Having said that, I think you still want to get as much information as possible. And getting a live look is part of that. We're talking to you right around the trade deadline. Everyone loves the trade deadline. It's a sexy time of year. It's an exciting time of year. And trades are always interesting. It's an opportunity for change that can just happen abruptly. But one of the things that, at least anecdotally, it seems like we've been seeing a lot of in the past few years is a renewed emphasis on player development by way of all the analysis that we're able to do with the major and minor league level. So in your years, how did you see analytical player development progress? I mean,

you've got enough cases of pitchers that the Rays have rescued, or I mean, for God's sake, we have just Max Muncy right now, if he counts. How have you seen player development change over the 10 or 15 years that you were in the game, because there's TrackMan now going all the way down to the lower levels of the minor leagues. I've seen it. It's maybe buggy, but it's impressive, and there's a lot that you can do with the players you already have in the system. No doubt. I think it's huge. It's increased tenfold. I mean, first of all, you had coaches who were maybe resistant to this stuff back in the day. I mean, obviously, we had that big money ball debate, and I think it was overstated sort of stats versus scouts. But, you know, you wouldn't necessarily have coaches that would want to buy into the data either.

And, you know, now you're seeing just all sorts of different ways that you can use the data to coach and improve. that you can use the data to coach and improve. And I think we're seeing it at the major league level, like you alluded to, Jeff, with the raise and coming up with pitching plans. The Dodgers obviously have incorporated that a ton, and it absolutely trickles down to the minor leagues. I mean, I think it's interesting that it's sort of been a reverse process in some ways,

that it has sort of started at the major league level. But a lot of times that's where the technology is available to be used. But there's all sorts of different ways. You know, you can use technology to improve a player's swing path. There's bat sensors that can give you a really good feel for the mechanics of a player that maybe you couldn't quite see with the naked eye. With Trackman, getting a sense of what a player's spin rate is, and maybe because the spin rate is X on a pitch, you want to try a different pitch. From an evaluation standpoint, you can take a look at your own players without even, like you said before, Ben, having late eyes on them. You get a sense of who's hitting the ball hard.

How many guys, you know, you may have a fifth rounder that just simply does not hit the ball hard, and that's his batted ball profile. He's not an Ichiro type or a Dee Gordon type who's going to spray the ball around. This is a guy who's a pull hitter, and, you know, his max exit velo is something that is less than desired. And you may want to move on from that player.

So there's so many different ways that you can use the data for coaching, teaching, analysis. Baseball is moving into a completely new realm. And you're seeing a lack of competitive advantage because teams do have access to this information. advantage, because teams do have access to this information, but the teams that are able to get out ahead of it right now, they're the ones who, at least for the short term, have a big advantage in some of these areas. Sounds like something someone should write a book about, maybe even coming out next spring. Stay tuned. Nice. Well, just to bring it back to you, Ben, how do you feel that that answer kind of foreshadows sort of some of the things you've been hearing? Very much so. I think that was a good advertisement.

All right. I wish it were pre-orderable already, but it is not. But yeah, I think you kind of captured what we're going for. So I also wanted to know, you know, you've worked for front offices through multiple collective bargaining agreements, through multiple playoff formats. That is probably a larger conversation, just the way that that has changed the game in so many ways. But specific to the trade deadline, how do you think that teams are perhaps approaching the deadline differently today than they were 15 years ago, whether because

of the way that the wildcard system works and the play-in game and how you value potentially one game on the road, and that could be all that you get, or the way that teams maybe are placing a more accurate value on prospects now. I think there's still fans who expect that, well, if you trade Manny Machado, you're going to get the best prospect in baseball back because he is one of the best players in baseball. But of course, it doesn't work that way because you don't know what you're going to get for trading him. And you know that it's just for two or three months. And we know how much value there is in someone who is under team control for years and years. Yeah. I mean, you said it. You said it right there, Ben. I think that's the

biggest adjustment. And teams are still trying to wrap their heads around it because I feel like last year and meaning the market for rental players, that's the biggest difference in terms of when we're talking about playoff teams and the deadline, time appropriate. And I tweeted about this a little bit. People have talked about it, but it changed in 2012 when the team that was acquiring a player could no longer get compensation for that player. So that started to weaken the market for rental players. And I think, you know, we saw it with Billy Bean back in the day when he got a lot of attention for Moneyball and those A's teams were really wheeling and dealing at the deadline. He knew that he could just offer that player arbitration and

get back to draft picks. So he was recouping the prospects that he gave up offer that player arbitration and get back two draft picks. So he was recouping the prospects that he gave up, basically. And it was a really smart strategy. And teams did that. When the 2012 CBA rolled around, you couldn't do that anymore. So you weren't going to get anything for the player. So that started to weaken the market. You don't want to give up your, say, second, third best prospect for a rental when you know that player could walk and you get nothing for them.

And that, of course, plays into the playoff picture that you talked about too. If it's a wild card game, oh, wow, you're going to get knocked out after one game. That has a factor too. And then with this past CBA, it really watered things down because it lessened the leverage for the trading teams as well because the compensation is just not the same. You're not getting the same pick that you used to get. And at the same time, the qualifying offer keeps getting higher. So there's a ton more risk in offering that player a qualifying offer and the chance that that player would accept. And you have to pay him $17 million.

And then you don't get a great draft pick back you don't get and i mean in the past it was two picks it went down to one pick now you know it's uh it depends on where it is in the draft it's just there's so many there's so many moving parts here so teams have less leverage to give an example the mets just trading juries. I think they're paying him like $7.5 million. And he's had a good year statistically. He hasn't had a great year in terms of his overall consistency. But from the Mets standpoint, there's no way they're going to take the risk to offer Juries Familia $18 million to get a marginal draft pick. So anyway, that's for me how things have changed. At the deadline, we really need to ramp down our expectations in terms of what teams are getting back for rental players. Mets fans were pretty upset with the familiar return. I didn't really like the Herrera return for the Royals. The Britton return, at least from an optics standpoint, seems solid,

but those are just okay players. Certainly not what Zach Britton would have at least from an optics standpoint, seems solid. But those are just okay players. Certainly not what Zach Britton would have gotten in the past. And of course, you mentioned the Machado trade. A lot of bulk there, but not necessarily a type of impact that you would have seen in the past. No love for the Nathan Uvalde trade. You mentioned the CB. Well, we want to get into a whole trading places discussion about Beaks. But anyway, yes, the Evaldi trade.

That seems like Beaks is an interesting guy. But I haven't had, for me at least, a lot of time to take a good look at it. Yeah, right. No, I don't want to put you on the spot here to talk about Jalen Beaks. We've already done that, Ben and I, actually. So you mentioned the way Billyy bean used to take advantage of compensation and of course there used to be a lot more freewheeling international spending or free agency spending and and as baseball the teams all have access to the same information now many of

them there's increasing amount of like-mindedness between front offices baseball is limited the areas where you can spend and outspend your competition. So do you get the sense that just the opportunity for a competitive advantage has diminished and will continue to diminish over time? I think in some ways it has. I don't think that there's just those teams out there that you could take advantage of in the past. I don't think they exist nearly as much. But the competitive advantages, I think there's always going to be competitive advantages, particularly with technology and teams are going to continue to find new ways to exploit technology. So I do think that there's competitive advantages there. I think to get back to international and there's so many different things to answer Ben's question previously,

and then to loop it into your question here, Jeff. But I think a lot of the ways you can get a competitive advantage in the draft or internationally is about strategy. And it's not just, you can still out-scout teams, you can out-technology them, if you want to use a not-so-great way to say it. But how are you going to allocate those dollars? What types of players are you going to spend money on? Say you have $5 million to spend internationally. Are you going to spend $2.5 million on one player and take the other two and a half and spread it around? Are you going to spend all your money on two players in the draft?

How are you allocating those dollars if you don't have enough money to say, sign your second round pick and you have to take money away from other rounds and then you end up weakening those rounds. How do you go about that? I think the strategy involved, it's more, it's so much more strategy now than actual true scouting. But if you have a really good strategy and you're smart about it, I think you can gain a competitive advantage. And that's where teams are coming out ahead. Yeah. And one advantage that some teams have found, or if you can invest money in one place, then one other place that you still can is just by hiring front office people and hiring scouts and hiring R&D people. And there is quite a disparity still between some front offices in size. And the Mets front office, you've talked about this publicly, it's not a big one.

It's three full-time people, I think, in the analytics department. And I know some of those people, and they're good people. But if they were each as good as three other people. There would still be baseball operations departments that just had, you know, three times the size of, you know, the Rays, the Dodgers, the Yankees. I mean, just massive teams there. And we don't have to dwell on the reasons why that is in the Mets case. I would wager that it is not entirely the decision of the baseball operations department to remain small, but you don't have to comment on that. But I just wonder, you know, in what ways can that potentially handicap a team? Even if you have great people and it's very collaborative, just not having the bodies and the brains to say

you work on this while this person works on this and that other person works on that. I mean, how do you kind of have to compromise because of that? I think, well, to take one step back, I think there is a level of diminishing returns at some point. If you have so many guys, they're just, it's not that there's not all these things to work on, but you want to try to remain focused. That's why I feel like a sweet spot might be like, I think you want to have about maybe six guys, but they could be doing a lot of different things. They can be programming, building a database. I think the issue when you're shorthanded is you just don't have the ability to really explore and go in depth and do studies on things that you'd really, really like to look at. In essence, you're just trying to keep up with

what you can keep up with, with the major league team, with the minor league team. You're just trying to stay competitive and make sure that everyone has the needed information, if that makes sense. And if you have more guys, you can start to do more creative things. You can start to study different things. Say you have an idea that you want to explore, pitchers who throw a certain way, you know, whatever it may be, sinker ballers versus four seams. I mean, that's kind of a basic study, but just trying to think of a deeper type study, you can't really go a whole lot deeper. You just don't have the manpower when you're short staff. So in other words, you're really just trying to stay competitive

and make sure that you have the necessary information versus the extra information. Something I've been wondering about, and this is something that would be more and more relevant these days with player development, taking the analytical form that it has. Did you ever have conversations or how do you feel about, obviously, when you were working for analytical reasons on doing something to a player, making some adjustment. You want to clue that player in. You want that player, obviously, he has to buy into what you're doing, so you need to sort of explain yourself. Now, you might have your own internal models,

your own internal experiments you've done, and that would be your hopeful competitive advantage is you have your own way of trying to develop players. Now, of course, players change organizations all the time. So how do you balance letting players in on what you're trying to do versus trying to protect that information that they could take and eliminate your competitive advantage almost immediately? locked up a little bit. I mean, you're not necessarily going to share sort of, I don't know, a folder or a packet with a player or let them into your system. And if they can go somewhere else, you have to understand that when you're making these types of adjustments with the player that they're going to take it with them somewhere and that they could share that information with

another team. I just think you have to have confidence in your own internal systems and the fact that they can't necessarily be replicated. I think there's going to be an element to that with everything. When you're talking about players, for example, the Dodgers and the Rays, and they're making adjustments, a player goes to another team, they take those adjustments with them, but the player can't necessarily explain the entire system that you have with your team. So you have to be comfortable, just comfortable that you have a unique method of doing things, a unique system, and you're sharing a little, little bit of that secret with the player, and you're comfortable that player is going to take it with them to another team. It's okay. And that organization may be able to build off of it, but you have

your own method and it can't really necessarily be replicated, if that makes sense. How has it changed since you started in terms of how often you feel like you quote unquote won a trade or you're looking at someone else's trade and saying, oh, they got the better end of that

or even what are they thinking there? I mean, just from the perspective of someone who sometimes writes about these transactions, even since I started doing this, end of that or even what are they thinking there? I mean, just from the perspective of someone who sometimes writes about these transactions, even since I started doing this, it's just a lot less common that I can say this was bad or this was good. It's not that that's always the goal. I mean, you know, it's not a zero sum thing and both teams can get better, but there are definitely instances you can think of where it's just like, even on day one, it's like, you know, what were they thinking?

And this team clearly got the best of it. And that just seems rarer and rarer. No doubt. I don't, I think that what it comes down to these days is that, yeah, that there's, I think I've already, I already said it. It's just, there's not that sort of team that, that everyone wants to pick on out there anymore. There may be one or two, but there aren't 10, you know? And, uh, I think it comes down to the fact that, I might even mention this in that StatCast podcast that we've talked about,

just take the Aroldis Chapman-Glaiber-Torres trade. People want to talk about maybe the Cubs making a bad move or whatever, but they knew exactly what they were giving up. And I think what you're seeing in these cases, in a lot of these types of trades, is that a team understands what it's going to take. They have a similar sense of value and they know what a player is worth just based on past trades, based on their internal analytics. And you essentially have to convince that other team that they have to give up a player that maybe they don't want to give up. You know, it's not like you're just robbing,

hey, give us that player and they have no idea what they have. In a lot of cases, they know exactly what they have. Take Michael Fulmer, for example. You know, I don't think we expected he was going to win rookie of the year, but Sandy did spend that entire day trying not to give him up.

But, you know we understood in our situation we were on the cusp of making a playoff appearance for the first time in almost i think 10 years and we really needed a bat in the outfield and the tigers knew where we were from that standpoint and they weren't going to budge they didn't have a ton of leverage i mean we already talked about the fact that cesspitous was a rental player and the Tigers weren't, they weren't going to get, they were going to get more than they would get back now, but they weren't going to get that much back if they held Cespedes. But they stuck to their guns and Fulmer was the guy they wanted. And, you know, in retrospect, wow, we gave up Michael Fulmer and he's really good, but we knew what we were giving

up. And I think that's what it comes down to. When you, when you see some of these trades, the teams are generally on the same page. They're not sort of looking to say, rip each other off. It's more about, okay, this is the player, this is the value. And look, if you want him, you're going, it's going to hurt a little bit. Yeah. One thing I'm always curious about is, you know, why so many trades happen at the last possible second. You could trade in theory for months leading up to the deadline. Rarely happens. Obviously, you're not just procrastinating. I mean, maybe there's some of that.

I don't know. But you're gathering information about yourself and about other teams and what you need to do. But how much of it is just kind of, oh, it's the deadline. This is our last chance. We got to do this now. And also how much of it is just trying to, I guess, circulate the message that this is what you're looking for

or this is what you want or this is what's available because that's another thing you sometimes hear that Team X is mad because they could have made a better offer for player y but they didn't have a chance to respond or they didn't know he was available like how i mean there isn't like a a bazaar out there where all the players are posted and here's who's on the market and who's not so like how how well do you actually know who is gettable and who is not and do you have a chance

to kind of match an offer sometimes you don't sometimes you do i think it just comes down to how aggressive are you in terms of communication and um you know sometimes a team may not get back to you i think uh you know we saw that with people were complaining about the mets trade this familiar i think that's probably what you're referencing ben ken rosenthal had a couple quotes hey why they trade him 10 10 days before the deadline and i think the mets put out that they were pretty comfortable that they had told teams, we're going to move. And if we get the offer we want, we're going to move them. So if you want to get in there, you have to give us what we want. And we're not going to go back to

you. So sometimes the team will let you know, sometimes they won't. It's part of the game. And you can understand, occasionally you're upset. Maybe you feel like you were misled. Maybe you feel like they told you they were going to get back to you or whatever it may be, you felt like you were in the game and then they just got hot with another team and stopped returning your calls. That type of stuff happens. happens. Yeah, no doubt. But I think there's a built in sense of urgency with the deadline. And you know, teams wait to the last minute because they don't I mean, the the obvious answer is that they don't necessarily they want to go get as much information about their playoff hopes as possible, and try to figure out sort of where they are at the last possible moment, and whether they want to make a trade that may hurt a little bit. And on the opposite side, they feel like you know, that that trading, every minute that goes by that trading team loses leverage, particularly if it's a, it's a guy who's not expensive and is going to get claimed on waivers and they're not going to be able to get the trade they want. You know how it is. It's just,

it's a leverage game in a lot of ways and trying to give up the least and get the most. And the longer you wait, you have more information and you hope that teams get desperate and you can make a better trade. So up until this point, we've mostly asked you about how trades are agreed to or conceived, but I'm kind of curious also about how they are completed, just kind of the nitty gritty of once you have an agreement in place, how does it then become official? So everything that goes into that, whether it's getting the medicals and are the medicals always up to date and does the player have to take a physical and how is that arranged and how long does that take? And then how do you submit the paperwork and when do you have to do

that? So basically everything that happens after, yeah, we'll give you these guys for these guys. everything that happens after, yeah, we'll give you these guys for these guys. Yeah. You agree to a deal. And of course, you see it now. We have a media environment with Twitter and just everything has to be immediate. And you'd ask me about sort of how do these reporters get this information so quickly. There were a couple of cases when I was with the Mets, well, of course, most famously Wilmer Flores, where he was crying on the field, but where the trade was agreed to in principle, but you had to review the medicals and nothing is completed until the medicals are reviewed and it was leaked to the media by whoever and it gets out there and then the trade doesn't happen.

media by whoever and it gets out there and then the trade doesn't happen so the first thing is you're trading medicals and the team's doctors and trainers are allowed to have access to the player on the opposing team so we don't just get straight up access to we have access to our own players but you don't have access to players on the other team so there's a there's a medical system within a Major League Baseball and you get permission to look at the medicals, the trainer reviews them, the doctors review them, and then they give you their opinion. This is a good gamble, a bad gamble. He has this wrong. He's got a groin problem. He has a, you know, it's a one-year contract, so it's okay that he has a hip problem, whatever it may be. Uh-huh. And the medicals are just, you know,

maybe AJ Preller a few years ago aside are just, updated so that, you know, if a player goes on the DL or has an MRI or something, it just gets added in there kind of right away. Exactly. That's a good way to think about it, Ben. There's notes, there might be injury notes in there, but in general, you're talking about major procedures. DL placements, what was the story surrounding this particular DL placement, whatever it may be. So once the medicals are reviewed at the trading deadline, you generally, you send an email, you're talking to MLB because you have no time, right? So it can be verbally agreed to, you send an email or you talk on the phone and then it needs to, it does need to be submitted into the system and approved. So there's a major, there's a system that all teams have access to with contracts and it's essentially a transaction system. And once, once you submit the

transaction into the system, major league baseball should know about it when it's a trading deadline situation and they'll approve it. They generally, you're talking to them throughout the process, no matter what. So you give them a heads up. They know that the deal is coming and you're able to get it done before the deadline. When Cespedes' case, as I talked about earlier, we spent the whole day discussing Michael Fulmer. I think we agreed to the trade with 10 minutes left before the deadline. And I believe John Rico pushed the submit button with roughly 15 seconds left before the deadline. So yeah, you don't want to get a buffering or weak wifi or something at that point. Anyway. Yeah. Uh, so, so it was totally down to the wire. So that's kinda, that's kinda your process. There's a little there, you know, there's a

little bit of, uh, of bureaucracy, paperwork uh of bureaucracy paperwork etc but it's it's relatively simple and then does everyone involved have to get a physical or is it only you know if you just got one recently or yeah there's no there's no fit usually there's no physicals when you're talking about trades when you're talking about a free agent signing uh the player is going to take a physical so and you know, you know, if he fails his physical, then you have a problem on your hands. Sometimes you see agreed to pending medicals or physicals. That's usually just reviewing the medical information, though it's not having the player go to a doctor.

Correct. So in a trade situation, you just don't have usually, I mean, I guess the case where you might have a physical for a player is if a trade's agreed to, like let's say Manny Machado, using him as an example. And he was about to be traded and the team was going to sign him to a $200 million extension. They were given a window, a 78-hour window, to sign him to an extension before they agreed to a trade. And I don't think you've seen that in baseball in I don't know how many. Usually that's in the offseason.

I can't even remember a trade Usually that's in the off season. I can't even remember a trade happening like that during the season. I'm not even sure if you're allowed to in the CBA, I'd have to take a look. But that would be a hypothetical situation where you might get a physical if you're about to sign them to a big money contract. But when you're talking about your normal trade situation, it's just reviewing the medicals, reviewing as much of the paperwork and the player's history as possible, getting opinion from the doctor, getting an opinion from your trainers, and moving forward. Yeah.

And speaking of Machado, we know that the Orioles have a reputation for being very tough and scrutinizing medicals and sometimes balking at deals or signings because of that. But that's pretty rare, right? I mean, usually when you call up a player's medicals, you're probably not seeing something that you weren't aware of already that wasn't public or isn't going to sabotage the deal at least. There are a couple teams that are tough. It really just depends on the team that you're dealing with.

There are some teams like the Orioles that have a reputation. There's a couple other teams that are tough to deal with. There was a team that we were making a deal with and they were really tough and they, in fact, failed a couple of players who turned out to be a lot better than the players they accepted. So sometimes you dodge a bullet, I guess you could say. Got it. And those players are healthy. It's just about whether you're, how conservative are you going to be at the end of the day? The last thing I want to ask you is less front office-y and more strategy, but still going to do it because we've seen, of course,

Joe Maddon has done the old Waxahachie swap a few times. He's put a pitcher out in the outfield, and that's boring. We've seen that before. The Rays, not too long ago, put Jose Alvarado at first base, and very recently they played Sergio Aroma for an out at third base. So how do you feel? Maybe this is putting you on the spot. Maybe you haven't thought about this before. But how do you feel about swapping pitchers out to play the infield for the span of a batter or two? And I did see the I did see the Romo thing. I think it's it's risky, certainly at third base

versus first base having to be able to have to make that throw over the diamond. But here's what I would suggest. I don't know if the Rays are doing this or not, but if I'm going to be doing that, then I'm going to have my pitchers take infield. And I think it's important. I think, look, in the outfield, a lot of pitchers are shagging. They have a field during batting practice. You go to the fans, you go to the game early, watch pitchers out there. A lot of times they're messing around, but they may or may not catch that ball. Look, it's a risk no matter what you do, but I think pitchers generally play the outfield during batting practice and should be a little bit more comfortable in the outfield than

the infield. If they're playing the infield, I would like to at least hit them some ground balls and get a sense in how they feel the ball. But I do think it's really risky. I think it's really cool and really creative, and I'm in favor of those types of things. But the first thought that popped into my mind when I heard Sergio Romo was at third base was,

boy, I really hope they don't hit the ball at him. And particularly, he's got to feel the ball and then throw it across the diamond, which is not so easy for someone who has not practiced at that. I wasn't sure if him playing on that side of the shift with Greg Bird at the plate, you know, if Bird were to hit a grounder or even laid out a bunt, I don't know how different it is from fielding a bunt as a pitcher, but you know, there's always the opposite field line drive possibility. Sure, sure. Yeah, see, I had just checked it out on Twitter, so I wasn't totally sure what the details were of his time at third base. But yeah, if I'm Greg Bird and I see Sergio Romo at third base and it's a shift, I am sure as heck more likely to lay on a bunt. So that's something I'm thinking about. But in that case, you know,

the actual pitcher, not Sergio Romo, has got to be aware, of course, that you've got that another pitcher at third base, and more than likely the bunt coverage is going to be mine. So it's all strategy, just like anything. Strategy and preparing your players for these types of situations. And I expect the Rays have done all of that. But if you just send them out there blind, you're asking for trouble. So my last one, we hear a lot about intra-division trades and rivalry trades. And so on Wednesday, we saw a couple AL East swaps, Yankees with the Orioles and Red Sox with the Rays. And of course, we've heard a lot about how well the Mets match up with the Yankees this

year and some of their top starters. And I know you've said elsewhere that if the Mets trade DeGrom to anyone, it better be for a stud top prospect, which makes some sense. But how much is that a consideration? Maybe it's an ownership consideration at times as well as a front office one. But, you know, do you consider that? Is it just a perception thing or is there a real reason to take that into account? To be brutally honest, it's definitely a consideration. Definitely. I mean, you're still trying to play to your fans, you know, and I think a lot of times, I mean,

the Rays and Red Sox with the Evaldi, I think it's twofold. It depends on the level of player, right? If it was like Chris Archer, I don't think the Rays are trading him to the Red Sox. They don't want to be facing him for the next however many years while they're trying to be competitive. But a guy like Evaldi, who's kind of, eh, he's okay, I think they're more willing to do that. And I think also in a case of the Orioles with Britain and trading to the Yankees, when reality is just that stark and staring you in the face that you're looking at a rebuild and you're, I think, well, about a million games out of first place, 45, I think, you're a lot more willing to make that trade. You know, in the case of the Mets, for example, they've said at least publicly that they're going to strongly consider contending next year if that's something that they can make happen.

So from their standpoint, it makes less sense to trade someone like, say, DeGrom or Wheeler or whoever to, say, the Nationals if they plan on contending next year. Now, the Yankees are a whole different ballgame. And, you know, the Yankees and M whole different ball game and you know the Yankees and Mets are competing for headlines. They're competing for fans. That's just I think a very unique situation and the stars really have to be aligned for those two teams to make trades. I mean they've

hardly ever made trades throughout their history but I think it's really hard. The Mets would have to really swallow hard to trade Jacob deGrom to the Yankees and essentially not hand them a championship, but hand the team in your city a big leg up for a championship when you're having kind of a miserable season. I mean, that's a very tough message to send to your fans. Yeah. All right. Well, we have kept you long enough. I guess you didn't have to talk much to the media for the previous 15 years. So you're making up for lost time now. I will leave you with this quick one, I guess, because I know that when I was in the Yankees front office briefly and then left, you know,

I had had access to their internal system, which is called BASE. And I assume it still is called BASE. You know, they all have wacky names, except the Mets. You heard that part. I think the wacky names are goofy but yeah yes yeah base stands for baseball analytics and statistics engine yep and uh so yeah that's pretty that's pretty that's a pretty easy one i mean it's not the worst i got no issues with it with base i've i mean i've heard that one before that that seems pretty uh that's a pretty solid one as far as that yes some of them are a little over the top but when i lost access to that and i don't even know if I had access to everything, and that was a while ago, but it was and I'm sure still is one of the most advanced systems. And there was all kinds of information there that was great just to satisfy your own curiosity.

I wasn't making any meaningful decisions, but just to look up a guy and learn something you didn't know. any meaningful decisions, but just to look up a guy and learn something you didn't know. So now, I mean, you've had that system for, I mean, close to 15 years since Ben Bomber came aboard with the Mets, I guess some version of it. And it must be like a phantom limb or something like you can't go look up. So what's like the number one thing that you like reflexively like, oh, I'm curious. Oh, I don't know anymore. I don't have access to that. You know, I got to say the video.

Oh, yeah. I just like the teams have access and, you know, you know this, Ben, to clipped video. Right. And you can just take a look at any player. Outfield throws and plays at the plate and just yeah everything if i see some obscure reliever that you know yeah yes the statistical standpoint and getting a look at trackman numbers and getting a look at stack cast numbers that stuff over the last couple years has been irreplaceable uh for me but you know i could still kind of you know

go to fangraphs or go to baseball reference or i or I know this is a Fangraphs podcast, so go to Fangraphs and check out a lot of the advanced stuff. But if I see some, getting back to that, if I see some random reliever, man, I'd really like to get a chance to look at all of their pitches and see how they do it. And it's a battle to try to find that. Maybe I'll scroll through a game. I mean, and it might take the full 15, 20 minutes of a half inning to watch them. You can take a look at 100 pitches in about five minutes. And you can take a look at minor leaguers. So if you hear about a prospect, the video is just so much better and so much more available. And talking about ways that things have changed,

getting back to an earlier question, over the last 15 years, the accessibility of video is a huge difference. Now, the advanced statistics, obviously, is a huge difference. But having that at my fingertips, I can, I can analyze a player on video being with the team in two seconds. You know, now, you tell me about a reliever or a prospect, I have no, I'm not, I have no idea, but I'm not, I don't have nearly the informed opinion that I could when I'm with a team. It's, I'm reliant. It's a lot harder to gather the information and get the look that you want to get. Yeah. It's funny when I think back, a lot of the work I did as an intern, now, granted, my time was not valuable. I was not going to be contributing something amazing in some other way.

But a lot of the stuff I did was video grunt work that now would be totally unnecessary because it was like, you know, timing runs to first. And it's like you can, I mean, I guess, you know, there was no StatCast at that point. So now they have that information for 2008 or whatever, if they ever want to look it up. But now, I mean, I'm sure there's plenty of other stuff for interns to do, but they don't have to do that anymore, at least. No, I think, and I mentioned this, I think, previously in that podcast, the StatCast podcast,

you know, we kind of had to revamp our intern program for that very reason. You know, things were so much more automated. So you had to find different things for them to do. And you said it, Ben, I mean, you know, there's, there's plenty for people to do, but you know, some of the typical things that maybe, or what, you know, what you described as grunt work, some of the, uh, some of the, the typical grunt work type things that, that, that people would do in front offices, uh, no longer exists because of some of this technology. All right. Well, it's been a great pleasure to have you on. I don't know what the future will hold for you. If at some point you want to work in baseball again,

I hope that you get to do that. But as long as you're out here in the public, we'll all enjoy having you as a resource that we can ask these kinds of questions. It's great to have someone who is out from behind the curtain, at least temporarily, and can talk a little more openly. So I really appreciate your coming on and sharing your experience with us. Well, thank you so much, Ben. And thank you, Jeff. And I really appreciate getting a chance to go on here and talk about this stuff and just the opportunity to chat with you guys. And I respect

both of your work. And I don't really, I don't, well, you said you're members of the media. You are members of the media, but I don't even want to go there. You guys are awesome. So you guys are awesome, and I appreciate you having me on. All right. Well, thanks. And everyone can find Adam when he is not on this podcast. He is on SNY, and he is on Twitter at Adam G. Fisher. So thanks again.

Thanks, guys. By the way, we touched on the rumor reporting aspect of the trade deadline with Adam, but of course, he has never been on the news-breaking side of things. If you're interested in hearing more about that, I'd recommend a podcast I did with Jeff Passan two years ago on The Ringer MLB Show. It was actually episode 13 of The Ringer MLB Show. I will link to it on the show page and in the Facebook group. I thought it was a very revealing conversation about how that side of the industry works and Jeff's somewhat mixed feelings about being a part of it.

So go check that out for the complete picture of the trade deadline. Okay, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks to you all for listening. And thanks to those of you who have pledged to support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners are among that group, Kyle Lewis, Isaac Stevenson, Alex McHale, James M. Gannon, and Frederick Hines. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild. And you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and elsewhere. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance.

Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming via email at podcast at fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. Sorry we didn't get to too many questions this week, but we will make up for it next week most likely. Of course, next week is also the trade deadline, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe we'll get another episode out before then, depending on how active early next week is. Of course, we will recap any moves that are made. So have a wonderful weekend and we will talk to you soon. You can come inside for a little while

Just to help me find the end That I've been trying to tie. It'll be easier if I don't try to make you stay. Cause I don't believe in happy endings anymore anyway.