Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1293: Offseason Draft Day

Episode Date: November 8, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the possibility of the Mariners selling and what a Jerry Dipoto-led rebuild would look like, the Yankees’ CC Sabathia signing and GM Brian Cashman’s comments about the luxury tax, scenes from the GM meetings, the Giants hiring Farhan Zaidi from the Dodgers, and Lance McCullers presumably pitching hurt […]

And if you do, will anything happen? Will it come true, will anything happen? Will I see you again? Will I see you again? Hello and welcome to episode 1293 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs. Hello. Hi, Ben.

It is draft day. We've got two drafts on the docket. Our old favorites, usual winter standbys. We're going to do our free agent contracts draft and our World Series odds movers draft. But a little bit of baseball news before we get to that. Anything you want to start with? Well, let's see. There were understandably other things that people were focusing on. But what do we have? We have some happy ascending contracts.

A little bit of other news. Yeah. We have the Giants hiring Farhan Zaidi. We have Lance McCullers getting injured. Lance McCullers, Tommy John. Yeah. We've got Mariners. Oh, yeah.

The Mariners. Mariners. Should we talk about them? Because you wrote about the Mariners. Was it before, I guess, before the news came out? Not the news, but rumors. As the news. Okay.

So it was timely. Yeah. So the Mariners, there were reports that the Mariners were considering a teardown. Jerry DiPoto has since sort of walked back those reports and, I don't know, downplayed the possibility that they're just going to strip down the roster, but it remains a possibility. So what do you think of the Mariners going to be the big seller of this winter? I think the Mariners could be the big seller of the winter. And I think that there's a strong argument to be made, partially made by me, that the Mariners should be the big seller of the winter. However, I would be surprised if the people who are actually in charge of the Mariners,

that is the billionaires, would allow the Mariners to completely sell. But I don't think even the Mariners know how far this is going to go. But I do think based on every single indication I've gotten've gotten the mariners are going to trade james baxton so that would be a move that would not be in their let's say short-term competitive best interests and at that point i don't really understand what the purpose it would be of like keeping edwin diaz for example a hard-throwing four years years of control, dominant reliever, whose elbow looks like, well, it doesn't look like an elbow that's long for this world,

is one way to put it. That's based on nothing but the fact that he is a pitcher and he throws a lot of really hard fastballs and really hard sliders, and it just looks terrifying. So, you know, you never know. You could have said the same thing about Craig Kimbrell years ago, and he's held it together somehow since then, right? I don't think he's had a major injury.

So you don't really know. But I think the – if I had to guess, I think the probability is that the Mariners try to go sort of the way of the Pirates last offseason where they didn't go too strongly in either direction. They tried to kind of tread water, right? They traded – Garrett cole had two years of control left when the pirates traded him james paxton also two years of control left similar kind of pitcher and asset i think paxton has had a little better performance than cole pre-trade

but cole a little better pedigree i don't know i like paxton a lot he's good but when the pirates traded garrett cole they got back four players three of whom could go in their major league roster immediately and i would imagine that's something that mariners would be looking for in trading paxton so that that way they could say well we got worse but we also kind of extended some some players some team control years so we have more future assets on the roster or something that is what i think is most likely maybe they'll try to trade gene cigarette too he has a no trade clause that's complicated but paxton be the big one. Paxton would be the best pitcher available on the market, I think. So look for Paxton to be traded. As for the rest, I don't think it's going to happen, but if the Mariners wanted to make it happen, they could have the best outfielder

available on the market. Trade market, I should say. Mitch Aniger is not better than Bryce Harper, although closer than you think. And the best reliever available on either market in Edwin Diaz because he might be the best reliever in baseball. Can you imagine the volume of trade activity if Jerry DiPoto decided to sell? I mean, we've seen buying Jerry DiPoto or not even buying, but just kind of reorganizing, reshuffling. And that was just put every team, it paled in comparison to Jerry DiPoto's trade activity. I can't imagine if he actually decided to take offers on all his guys and get rid of them and refocus on the future or something, it would just be, oh man, it might set a record for the number of trades completed, breaking his own record so it could happen at any moment the gm meetings are happening right now in carlsbad california at some sort of luxurious resort and if there are a lot of t it's going to be an interesting year because like the sellers the the obvious sellers that is like the bad teams they're almost out of good players like they really sold now like jt realmuto is it's still

there and i don't know i guess the orioles could trade dylan bundy or something but otherwise they're going to have to look in other areas to find players to trade for, which would put the Mariners in the position of making it more likely that they could decide to make a trade. And by the way, I made a dismissive remark a minute ago about how Mitch Hanegar is not better than Bryce Harper. But I do feel obligated to point out that last year, Mitch Hanegar was better than Bryce Harper by, at least according to fan graphs,

a win above replacement. Hanegar had a 138 weighted runs created plus Bryce Harper in the same number of plate appearances, 135. Hanegar, a better defensive year. Hmm. Bryce Harper, we'll talk about his contract shortly when we do our guessing game, but Mitch Hanegar

is two years older than Bryce Harper almost. Well, yeah, two years, a little under two years older than bryce harper almost well yeah two years a little under two years older than bryce harper so hanniker obviously not the same kind of asset but bryce harper hasn't really done what he did in 2015 ever since and uh mitch hanniker has been really good for two years so yeah harper's still the best outfielder on the market but if hanniker were out there better than people would think yeah what do you think the orioles presence at the gm meetings is like do you do you think they have like they have one of those like robots on wheels with an ipad screen and people looking through the camera i mean they don't have a gm right now you just send like your highest ranking

person who is still there who might not be there for much longer like the astros just hired sarah gellis from the orioles the head of their stat department or probably almost their entire stat department and uh i you know i don't know what you do if you're a team with no gm at the gm meetings so ken rose i i already forgot the name of the person who is there representing the orioles but he is of course their interim general manager he's present what's uh maybe most interesting here is there's been all this talk about how complicated the Orioles front office situation is and Brady Anderson is kind of like a do everything kind of guy for the team it seems like he has some coaching responsibilities but he also talks to the owners and weighs in on some transactions so I don't really know what

Brady Anderson does or what he's going to do but he apparently he lives an hour away from where the meetings are taking place and the orioles didn't send him so i guess that sends a message to whoever they're going to try to hire that uh hey you're not going to have to deal with brady anderson as much as you fear but i do wonder what the orioles are even doing there because, I'm reading a report. They have a club official there, but he's without authority to make any deals or sign for agents. Just kind of like networking, I guess, chatting, glad-handing, cracking jokes. Probably working on his next job when the new GM comes in and replaces him. You know when you show up to a party late and people already break out and there are separate conversations and then you show up and you're like, I don't know how to break into a conversation. So you just kind of like hang around the circle, just like laugh every so often when you're supposed to laugh and try to blend in.

But people know like, oh, you're not really part of this kind of group dynamic right now. Or you'll just kind of hang it on the outside with a glass of wine in their their hand just kind of like smiling and nodding and trying not to call attention to themselves i wonder if farhan zaidi was there with the dodgers and then like switched uniforms when he got hired by the giants like like when a player gets traded to the team he's playing and he just switches clubhouses i don't know if that happened but anyway he was he was, of course, Andrew Friedman's right-hand man, formerly Billy Beans' right-hand man or one of them. And now he's running the Giants, which is just kind of a, if you can't beat him, hire him sort of situation, I guess. So the Giants will now fall under the label of a progressive analytical organization that just

goes without saying, having hired Farhan Zaidi. The Orioles, it remains to be seen what they do. I've seen a few too many pictures of Ned Colletti under those Orioles headlines, so I don't know what to make of that. But who else has been doing front office stuff? Oh, the Mets hired an agent. Okay, so that's going to be weird. And was there a fourth?

There was a fourth one, right? Fourth team that was there? And was there a fourth? There was a fourth one, right? Fourth team? Was there? Eh. Well, the important thing is that we do this for our jobs and we don't remember.

But regardless. Okay, so the Mets, who knows what direction they're going to go in. It'll be different. I don't know if it's going to be analytical. Giants are like everybody else. So the window, the area, I don't know if areas. Well, congressional districts, if you want to say. The districts that belong to more traditional front offices are continuing to wane, as they will. I don't know if there's ever going to be any sort of pushback with the Giants.

The Giants are an interesting opportunity. I have talked to a few people about this, trying to figure out how appealing it is. Because, you know, you look at the Giants, and they have they have won recently but they are bad and their farm system is bad the orioles have won recently they are worse their farm system is bad it seems like the giants have i don't know if they've already gone over the cliff but they're at least looking at the cliff straight ahead and their brakes don't work kind of situation like bad things are coming to them and i think everybody knows that and farhan zaidi got a five-year contract to sign there. And I might have underestimated how appealing that job still is

because you can look at how bad of a shape the team is in, but like you have almost limitless money coming from ownership. And like the fan base is there and you have a beautiful facility. Great ballpark and recent success. And it's just sort of seen as a winning organization i guess even though it's not currently winning but it hasn't been like decades or anything and a great place to live well some would if you are a well-to-do baseball executive it's a good place to live let's put it that way fargan zaidi will not have to worry about

affording living in san francisco therefore he can it. He's lived in the Bay Area before, obviously. So, yeah, you can see why it's appealing. And presumably he'll bring in a bunch of people and suddenly the Giants will look like a lot of other organizations in a lot of ways. So it's just the drumbeat of baseball progress going to yet another team. Although, obviously, the Giants won three World Series as it was. going to yet another team. Although, obviously, the Giants won three World Series as it was. So I don't want to, I mean, even during those years, I think there was criticism of how they operated or, you know, they weren't the best team in baseball necessarily when they won all those

World Series, but they did win all those World Series. So that's something. Meanwhile, the Dodgers have won six consecutive division titles, but have not won a World Series for 30 years. So if you're going to choose one of those, you probably take the Giants, I guess, even if in a way what the Dodgers have done is more impressive, I guess, or I don't know, more sustainable. But it'll be interesting to see how they remodel themselves. But obviously, you know, we've been looking at the Dodgers for a long time. We've been looking at the NL West and saying, well, who's going to catch the Dodgers? Like, how is this run going to end? Because they have all this money. They have all these smart GM types in their front office. They have prospects they've held on to. Any other talent base was really the equal of them. And obviously it's going to be a while before the Giants can mount that type of challenge go is a team can make as progressive a hire as it wants to,

but you need to get buy-in from the people actually in charge of the team because otherwise you'll just have this analytical GM. Not to say that maybe Sandy Alderson has been the most progressive GM of all time, but clearly leans toward analysis and objective information, and he didn't really get the latitude in in in new york with the mets that maybe he would have wanted or would have expected he couldn't for example hire analysts to do analysis but i think that that will not be a problem in san francisco i'm sure farhan zaidi will be able to build out the front office of his dreams or at least of his i don't know desires his desires stronger than dreams dreams implies you get like weird fantastical

hires that aren't actually like humanoid. Anyway, I don't know what's going to happen. He'll hire the people he wants. And then there is a report. So the Yankees signed CeCe Sabathia to a one-year $8 million deal. It's just one of those situations where a guy toward the end of his career likes where he is

and they want him back and it's a great value for the Yankees, and CeCe seems happy, so that's nice. I'm enjoying the crafty, lefty, late-term portion of CeCe Sabathia's career. He's still a pretty valuable starting pitcher, even though he's doing it much differently than he used to. So there was a report that I think Brian Cashman said he prefers to stay under the luxury tax threshold, which probably doesn't mean anything, right? That is probably just like, you know, they're going into the winter and Machado and Harper are out there and he's just trying to set expectations, I guess, that they're not going to sign both of those guys to the biggest deals

in the market. And then maybe it's a message sent to the agents of those guys. And it probably just doesn't mean much. I mean, we know that the Yankees were trying to stay under the threshold before so that they could reset the tax. And then it would take a few more years for that tax to build up again to the point where it was. And so it was possible that having reset that tax the Yankees would just go wild and spend many many millions of dollars and maybe they will but I mean prefer to stay under I

guess every team would prefer to stay under so that it probably doesn't mean much I don't know whether this means we're not going to be going back to the days of the Yankees just buying the biggest free agents but at this, they have enough young, cheap, productive guys that even if they do, it won't put them in the same sort of situation that they would have been in before. Yeah, it was a lot easier to buy the Yankees wanting to stay under the tax last year. There's just less incentive for them to do it this year since they already dropped underneath. But I don't know, they have so much young talent that we know the Yankees are smart enough.

They're not just going to throw money around willy-nilly just for the hell of it. They don't have to. They have so many cheap players on the roster already. You know, you can look at them. I think MLB trade rumors is, oh, actually, no, they linked Bryce Harper to the Dodgers, but there's been talk before about Bryce Harper joining the Yankees, but, like, they just don't have a need or an opening. They have Giancarlo Stanton.

They have Aaron Hicks. They have Aaron Judge, and I guess they have Brett Gardner also hanging around. They just don't have that need. So who knows what the Yankees are actually going to do, but they have less of a need to spend a bunch of money than, for example, the Cubs, who are already $20 million over the competitive balance tax threshold and are needing to do other things so yeah i i don't think that the yankees days of irresponsible or unrestricted spending are over but this doesn't seem like the year to pounce yeah all right and then the last thing

was lance mccullers tommy john surgery out for next season not the biggest shocker in the world. Probably he's someone who hasn't been the most durable guy and doesn't have the cleanest mechanics. And there's sort of been a sense that this might happen at some point, but now it has. We haven't seen the Astros have a whole lot of injuries like this, but they are, I think, very well positioned to deal with this. I mean, they don't have that many established starters in the sense that Charlie Morton's a free agent, Dallas Keuchel's a free agent. So you've got Verlander, you've got Cole, and now McCullers is gone. But the Astros have Colin McHugh, who I think tweeted in response to a report, a quote from Jeff Luno saying that we need to find some starters and McHugh quote tweeted it with a hand raising emoji.

So you've got McHugh, you've got Peacock, who are both seemingly overqualified for the bullpen at this point and have starting experience. You've got Josh James. You've got other top promising pitchers just working on the book and doing Astros research. I don't want to spoil anything, but the thing that has, I think, impressed me the most has just been the incredible depth in the Astros system, particularly on the pitching side. It's just, I mean, all the way down they have guys who look like the major league Astros and there's just, I mean, all the way down, they have guys who look like the major league Astros, and there's just going to be a wave of replacements for the current roster. So I really wouldn't have that many concerns about the Astros finding pitchers. Yeah, I'm in charge of the Fangraphs team depth charts. And you know, I've had to subtract from

the Astros of the last few weeks, Lions McCullers and Dallas Keuchel and Charlie Morton. And then I found, oh, Brad Peacock. Okay. Fran Bervaldez, good-looking rookie. Oh, Forrest Whitley, the best pitching prospect in baseball. Okay. JB Bukoskis, who is also a really good pitching prospect. Okay, I'll slot him in too.

And Colin McHugh. Okay. Well, that also fits in. Josh James. Josh James, right there. So, look, every team needs more than five starters. Every team probably is going to need more than seven or eight starters. And the Astros, though, could be the kind of team that's flexible enough.

Maybe they do some sort of tandem thing. James could trade off innings with Fran Bervaldez. I don't know what the Astros are going to do, but even having lost three good starting pitchers in one offseason already, they're still positioned to be very, very good. And it's interesting now, Lance McCullers missed time in, I think it was August, maybe September, with an elbow injury that ultimately turned out to be this torn UCL. And he pitched five times in the playoffs. And he pitched three times against the Red Sox in a series that was actually close.

He pitched in some moderate leverage situations. He pitched in back-to-back games, game one and game two. He pitched again in game four, threw an inning and a third. And it's interesting because it was acknowledged after the fact that, yeah, McCullers was pitching through something, but pitching through a torn UCL, I am surprised. Look, obviously he was able to do it. He still had his curveball. He got four playoff strikeouts, whatever. It didn't quite quite look like himself but he was throwing a lot of curveballs and i guess i am surprised what you can do with a torn ucl maybe a little surprised that the astros put him on the playoff roster and left like brad peacock at home now for all i know maybe brad peacock also has a torn ucl maybe has two torn ucls i don't know but it's just sometimes

players will play through things but it's one thing to like be J.D. Martinez playing through a rolled ankle and quite another to be pitching through an elbow that doesn't work. And I would love to hear more about that thought process because obviously McCullers could do it, but how? How could he do it? Yeah. Well, I mean, I think it's something that happened pretty frequently in the pre-Tommy John era because there was nothing else you could do. So guys would just rest for a while and hopefully that would help. But if the thing was torn, no one knew it was torn,

you couldn't get an MRI. So guys would just try to come back and usually they wouldn't be as effective and they'd have some pain, but they could do it. But usually you wouldn't be your old self. You would be clearly compromised by that and probably not last very long so it is impressive when you can continue to pitch at a

high level with that sort of disability you would think that there would be some kind of pain that you're pitching through but also just i mean there's a part of your body that's broken so yeah i don't know what the astros knew about the state of his elbow at the time, but you'd think this didn't come as a complete surprise. So there's maybe something interesting or useful to know here. You look at Lance McCullers' velocity, I guess, over the course of the season. And in April, McCullers' fastball averaged 94.5 miles per hour. In the playoffs, it averaged 94.5 miles per hour. In the playoffs, it averaged 94.5 miles per hour.

His curveball was faster in the playoffs by a mile per hour relative to early in the season. I don't think just kind of eyeballing things is not anything that's particularly notable in Lance McCullers' release points. Maybe there's something if you dig deeper, but it doesn't seem like there's an obvious clue that in october lance mccullers was pitching through a torn ulnar collateral ligament it's nowhere on like brooks baseball it just it was torn and i would assume it hurt his command well he's never really had good command but his control was presumably a little bit worse his results were not quite what you would expect them to be i guess in a sample, but there's just nothing really there but for the fact that, yeah, it was torn. So keep that in mind next time you have a favorite pitcher. And we all get protective of our favorite pitchers because it's

a horrible thing to do. It's basically like you're walking through a minefield that doesn't have a sign that says, by the way, this is a minefield. And every so often somebody blows up. But if you look at Brooks baseball or whatever information after a game, you can reassure yourself. Be like, all right, it looks like Jacob deGrom is doing just fine. You never know. They just fall by the wayside. They just fall off the truck, and their arms are broken, and they're gone for a year and a half. There's nothing you can do.

There's no reassurance in the numbers. Even the good-looking ones can be hurt. Speaking of which, let's talk about some free agents. All right. So the free agent contract draft, been doing this for years. Even the good-looking ones can be heard. Speaking of which, let's talk about some free agents. All right. So the free agent contract draft, been doing this for years. The way it works, we take some predictions about the earnings, the total contract size of some of the best available free agents this year, and we choose the under or the over. And then we add up what we got right. So if we pick the right direction,

then the distance that they were in that direction gets added to our total. So if someone is projected to make $100 million and we take the under and they get $50 million, then there's $50 million applied to our ledger. And last year, we each drafted eight free agents. So I have MLB Trade Rumors list that they produced the 13th annual top 50 free agents list. This came out last week. It is a product of the work of Tim Dirks and Steve Adams and Jeff Todd. And I don't envy them. This task is very difficult to figure out what free agents are going to make. And in doing this draft, we are not belittling their predictions. Everyone would be bad at this. We are just getting to come along and pick the ones that look

slightly off to us, and we may be completely wrong. So that said, I don't know how we decide who goes first, and i don't particularly care so do you want to choose the first sure and i guess i mean this is we're really looking for volume here right that's what we're hoping for so we can pick and choose at the bottom but i'm going to start up top the number one projected contract here is bryce harper We're ignoring the teams. He's projecting to the Dodgers, whatever. And MLB trade rumors gives him 14 years and $420 million. Would I make the argument that Bryce Harper would be worth that contract? Sure. But that would be so unprecedented in the all-time history of baseball contracts. It seems like that's a lot of barriers being broken. That's $95 million more than what Giancarlo Stanton was given by the Marlins.

I think Bryce Harper's recent track record is more disappointing than I think Scott Boris would let on. Harper, very great player. I do not think he will get $420 million. I think there will be enough opt-out clauses, other things in there that, I don't know, there could be a lot of deferred money that takes him up to that total. But I'm going to take the under just based on precedent. Yeah, I was going to take that too. And so we know based on a recent report that the Nationals offered Harper 10 years and 300 million right at the end of the season, and he turned that down

and obviously was pretty confident that he would get more than that. And I think he probably will get more than that. But 420, that's a lot. And 14 years, that's a lot. And I mean, Harper is obviously a very appealing player because he is young for a free agent, for a star free agent. But his track record is up and down. He had the incredible MVP year, but he's had down years since. And there's reason to think that even the MVP year, he was probably getting a little lucky on his batted balls. And there's injury stuff in his past. His defense was seemingly really lousy this past year. I mean, it just seems like we're past the era of locking guys up till they're 40 when they're in their mid-20s. We're not that far past that era. So you never know. You could get a straggler who comes along. And maybe people think Harper, I don't know, is he more athletic, more of an all-around player than Stanton?

I mean, not necessarily. Stanton's a fine outfielder too, I guess. I just, and Harper's been bad at that lately. And I don't know, I guess there was concern about, like, big hitters like Stanton aging, and there's not a lot of precedent for guys that big being good when they were old. Not that there are that many guys who have been that big and that good. So I don't know.

It just seems like, especially because Stanton, I mean, you could say it's been a few years since that contract and inflation and maybe Harper's a bigger star than Stanton was even. But at this point, Stanton's contract is, I think, looked on as sort of a millstone. And I just don't know that anyone is going to rush out and give Harper that kind of money. Can I tell you something I didn't realize? Okay. So I made a sort of joking but also accurate remark about Bryce Harper at Fangraphs that he was a win worse than Mitch Hanegar. Bryce Harper at Fangraphs, 3.5 wins above replacement. Have you looked at Bryce Harper's B war?

No. Guess. Well, he had like, we talked about this, right? He had like one of the worst DRSs in recent years. So I'm going to guess it was like two or something. 1.3. Now, I don't believe that to be an accurate measurement of his value, but that would mean, according to, okay,

according to B-War, baseball references war, I'm going to tell you Bryce Harper's war in 2014, 2016, and 2018. 1.1, 1.5, 1.3. I don't believe Harper is that average of a player, but he's like Eric Hosmer on steroids in terms of his volatility here. He's like a full-time Ryan Rayburn. Yeah, no, definitely. And that's another reason I just, I don't know, I can't see anyone giving him that long a deal. So anyway, I think that's the right number one pick. And I don't know, the next biggest contract on this list is Manny Machado, whom MLB Trade Rumors has at $13,390.

So basically the Harper contract minus a year. I don't know. I guess I would take this one too and hope for some volume. Also, I think this is more realistic than Harper's probably. I mean, if you had to just pick one of these players, just forget about the money, but just who's more valuable? You'd take Machado, right? I believe so.

Yeah, he's the infielder. He's seemingly a good defender. He's coming off one of his best years, maybe his best year offensively, and he's durable. And, you know, yeah, we know about the stepping on people occasionally and throwing equipment at people and not hustling here and there but i think he's i think he's just a better player i mean at their peaks maybe harper is a better player or has the same potential at least but machado i think is probably the safer bet and maybe is still

getting better. So it's not really unrealistic. And obviously Machado is 26 too. So this would be taking him through his age 39 season. And I don't know, maybe there are people who would be worried about just committing for that long to Manny Machado given how he is and just, I don't know, fears about how he would age and whether the effort would be there when he gets a giant contract and all of that. Maybe that keeps it down just a tiny bit, but I'll take Machado, I guess. I don't expect to get the same value here, though, that you're getting with the Harper pick. You're taking Machado under, you're saying? Under, yes. I will make a note.

Okay. Okay. Would you do that also, or do you think that that's in the right region? Yeah, it's closer, obviously, for all the reasons that you laid out. But I think I was also leaning under. I'm less confident about that than with harper because again i think teams will see machado is somehow now having become the uh the slightly better player but it's still it's so far away from the precedent that it's easy to see teams coming up with other ways to uh yeah

inflate value yeah okay all right okay next second pick i feel like i'm pretty confident in taking the under on patrick corbin getting six years and $129 million. Patrick Corbin. That is a lot. He is two years younger than Hugh Darvish was when he signed for six years and $126 million last year for the Cubs. This is Corbin being pegged for almost an identical contract here. And Patrick Corbin is coming off a sensational season with the Diamondbacks. He started 33 games, 200 innings on the nose.

He struck out the world. He had one of the lowest contact rates in baseball. Absolutely tremendous season for Patrick Corbin as a pitcher. And he was worth six wins, according to Fangraphs. 6.3 wins above replacement. That's better than Bryce Harper by a lot. Good for Patrick Corbin. But at the end of the day, one thing working against Patrick Corbin is that he has had Tommy John surgery.

Now the same is true of you, Darvish. So it's obviously not a killer. But there is one thing that is true of Darvish that is not true of Patrick Corbin. And that is that since the day Darvish debuted in the major leagues and while he was pitching in Japan before that, he had unbelievable stuff. Scouting-wise, you could look at darvish and say wow he throws a million pitches and they're all impossible to hit and so even like an analytical gm would look at him and maybe actually think of him as better than he was starfish has never been like that shut down absolutely untouchable kind of ace pitcher he's just been really good i don't think teams are

going to be so deterred by what happened to darvish in 2018. Pitchers get hurt. What are you going to do? But Patrick Corbin throws two pitches. He throws a sinker. I mean, whatever. He throws like a fastball. And if we're going to give him credit, it's really he throws two fastballs. And he throws kind of like two sliders. He has a regular slider. And then he has a much slower slider that some algorithms call a curveball.

But it's basically the same pitch thrown slower. And it's fine. Obviously, it worked well for patrick orbin his contact rate dropped by like 10 percentage points great season again but it was the first time he's ever done that first time he's ever come close to doing that he did have a weird inexplicable velocity drop in the middle of the season that kind of picked back up toward the end but yeah still there were enough red flags i think corbin would end up somewhere more around like 80 million to 90 million. 129 seems way too high to me. Yeah, it does seem high. And you're right. The velocity bounced back in September. He basically just mysteriously lost two miles per hour in the middle of the year and then got it

back. So that's encouraging. But at the end of the year in September, he was throwing like 50% sliders, which there's just not a lot of precedent for that sort of thing. And maybe there will be more precedent as teams go more all-in on breaking balls and off-speed stuff and recognize that when you have a really good pitch, you should throw it even if it's not a fastball. But I think there will be some concerns about what that might do to his arm throwing that many sliders. And the velocity thing is a little scary.

And yeah, he doesn't have the track record. I mean, he has a track record of being good before, but not quite at that level. He's 29, which isn't bad. Like that's in the realm where he could Certainly get a six year deal But I don't know yeah There are some concerns there so I think that is not a bad pick Yeah I don't know if it matters but also

He got a qualifying offer that's not surprising But you know that'll come into play What's your pick? I'm going to take the over on Josh Donaldson Josh Donaldson. Josh Donaldson is at one year and $20 million on this list. And, I mean, I believe that he is still, I think, the most valuable player other than Mike Trout going back to when he got good, basically, like 2013. And if he had had a different platform year or walk year,

he would have been poised to get a massive contract this year. No, he did not. He was injured. He missed lots of time. But when he came back and when he was with the Indians, he hit basically like Josh Donaldson. I haven't looked at the more advanced numbers, but he had a 149 WRC plus in Cleveland. That is essentially right where he was with the Blue Jays in good years and the A's.

And I think that he probably got himself over the hump of kind of the pillow contract. I'll just take a year. There are advantages to doing that if you're Donaldson, because maybe he does come back and have another healthy, great year. But at this point, he'll be 33 by opening day. So I'm going to guess that he will go for the length if it's out there as opposed to the one-year deal. And I just think that some team will see that MVP upside and give him more than $20 million. That's just not a lot of money. Yeah, I think that's a good pick. I don't really have much to add.

All right. Okay. So I am going to, at least for now, I'm going to keep playing near the top of this pool. And I'm going to go right to MLB Trading Room's fourth best free agent, looking at Dallas Keuchel. I'm going to take the under again. Okay. I'm taking the under on four years and $82 million for the 31-year-old Dallas Keuchel, I'm going to take the under again. I'm taking the under on four years and $82 million for the 31-year-old Dallas Keuchel.

Well, 31 in January, whatever. I never know how to talk about player ages. What do we do? When do they age? Anyway. It's like what? Their age, their baseball age is their age on June 30th. I don't know.

I guess we can just say what their actual age is right now. That is something we know. Dallas Keuchel is a pitcher who is not in his 20s. He is a free agent, got a qualifying offer, and he's good. He's a perfectly fine starting pitcher, probably a little above average. He is lefty. He was healthy last year, made 34 starts in the regular season. You don't see a lot of pitchers making 34 starts in a regular season anymore. But at the end of the day, Dallas Keuchel finished with a strikeout rate of 17.5%, which was way down. His career peak was 23.7%. His peripherals have just been going in the wrong direction.

Again, still good. Still seems to generate weak contact. He won the Cy Young back in, what was it, 2015? But it's been a while since 2015 he has not been his uh his peak self since then I think his his velocity is still you know you're looking at a guy who tops out around 88 to 90 really good command so it that much bodes well but I will point out that last season for what I think is the first time in Keiko's career he had a worse than average contact

rate loud he's a pitcher who needs to get a lot of swings out of the zone not a big swing and miss guy and i think that there are just too many reasons for teams to look at him and think well he's a good pitcher but do we really want to give him 20 million dollars a year so i can see keiko settling in is maybe around like a 15 million guy and i i sort of envision something more like maybe three years and 15 million dollars which uh per season per season yes which is uh which is not a ton by his standards but i know i look at him and i think that other teams are going to see keitel as a free agent to think if that's what he could do with the astros who are like the team you would trust to do the most with a pitcher then what's keitel going to do

in another setting? So with that and the qualifying offer and everything, I'm strong under. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I could see him getting more than 45, but 82, that does sound like a lot. So maybe somewhere between those numbers. But speaking of 3 and 45, my next pick, Andrew McCutcheon, I'm going to take the under On 3-45 And it gives me no pleasure to do so I hope Andrew McCutcheon makes all the money Love Andrew McCutcheon

But I just, I don't know He's, at this point He is 32 years old And it seemed like he might just Completely fall off a cliff and Disappear a couple years ago Because he was basically a league average hitter in 2016 and a bad defender and base runner and it just seemed

like things were falling apart very quickly he has since sort of rebounded to the point where he's been you know like 20 above the league average hitter but at at this point, he just seems to really be a liability on the bases, on defense. He was significantly negative in both of those areas. He's just, I mean, I guess he's been, you know, a slightly above average player the last couple of years. And if he could keep doing that for a few more years, then he would be worth three and 45. But I just, I don't know, the skills seem to be going in the wrong direction. There are only so many positions he can play and play well, and he's just not a difference making bat in a corner anymore. So I just don't know if I see that much coming his way. Yeah, it seems like the skills have just declined a little too much. And

as with you it's not a whole lot of pleasure to be taken and saying that but also mccutcheon has he's not hurting for money he's a and i think he's he's going to be looking for a place where he can have a nice landing be an everyday player he'll be good i can see two years and a decent amount of money but yeah 345 that seems that seems aggressive and uh and unlikely so So I am out of what I think are the pretty obvious ones. I'm not going to bias any of your picks. I know Craig Kimball is still up there, picked at $70 million,

if you would like to offer in on Craig Kimball. But I will use my next pick. I'm just going to make a habit, I think, of taking unders because we've seen the market once, therefore we've seen the market a million times. I'm going to take the under on Zach Britton. He is pegged for three years and $33 million. He's pegged to go to the Astros.

Zach Britton, he's somebody who's good. He's a good pitcher, and he is 30 years old. He'll be 31 in a month and a half. So again, don't know how to talk about that. His nickname is Britt. That's not helpful. But Zach Britton, he's come back from surgery or from injury, obviously. But when Zach Britton was like a borderline,

he was getting MVP support and Cy Young support. That's in 2016 when he had an ERA of 0.54. He had four earned runs in that season. Since then, I know he's been hurt and his ERAsas have been fine but his peripherals have gone in the wrong direction his strikeout rate has plummeted he gets about seven strikeouts per nine innings now his walks are over four per nine innings and i understand a lot of that time was spent with baltimore and then when he went to the yankees he did some interviews where he was like, whoa, analysis exists. So, you know, I don't know what other teams could do with Zach Britton's skill set, but for whatever

it's worth, even with the Yankees, Britton threw 25 innings with 11 walks and 21 strikeouts. He threw five wild pitches. He hit two batters. He wasn't great. He was good. And because he's such an effective ground ball pitcher, the sinker hasn't gotten away. The grounders are still there. He's not going to get abused. You know, he can maybe kind of do the Fernando Rodney thing where he's living on the edge. He puts people on base, but it's really hard to drive them in. But I think when you're looking at three years and $33 million, I know that Britain's like a proven closure. But a lot of the relievers last year who were the non-elite relievers were signing for like 215, 216, 218, something like that.

And I look at Britain and I think that on the market, teams are going to see him as more like a, I don't know, more like a Juan Nicasio than a Wade Davis at this point. And so, yeah, I'll take the under. Okay. I'm going to take an under also on Hyunjin Ryu, who is at three years and 33 million on this list. Mostly taking this because I think there's a chance that he might accept the qualifying offer. And if he does, then it's a tidy little profit for me. So even if he doesn't, I don't know. Ryu was excellent this year. He was really great. But of course course he missed all of 2015 with injury. He made one appearance in 2016. He has not been durable in either of the last couple of years,

although he has been effective when he is pitched most of the time. So even if he does not take the qualifying offer, he'll have that draft pick cost associated with him and concerns about his durability. So I'm guessing one way or the other he ends up under there yeah the uh pointing out the qualifying offer is a good one there because he is almost exactly the kind of player who would uh who would take it and then yeah then you uh yeah then you you get like a bonus of almost half that salary commitment bank a little bit yeah yeah so i forgot how many players were picking this is going to be my fifth pick did we do 10 8 8 that's what we did last year okay great i am going to take the uh just sticking

with unders i'm taking the under on joe kelly joe kelly is here he is projected to go to the angels three years and 27 million dollars i'm not playing for a lot of money here this is i think kelly for all the same reasons i talked about zach britain. I think, again, you look last year, free agent relievers, the pretty good ones were getting about 218. And also many of last year's free agent relievers who had great 2017s were disappointing. They did not really pan out. And so I think more GMs are aware of the fact that you need good bullpens, but you don't really bank on the previous season's success that much. And Joe Kelly was outstanding in the playoffs,

could not have timed his playoff bump any better. He did not walk a batter in the playoffs. Great job by Joe Kelly. He was throwing 100 miles per hour. The stuff is clearly there. Joe Kelly, not that much of a control pitcher. He's not that much of a ground ball pitcher. He doesn't avoid home runs. I mean, people still take him deep. If you look at Joe Kelly, and if you completely ignore his stuff, which I know is it's part of it, of course, but you look at him and you think this is a guy who's been like a, I don't know, average reliever for for a while. He's tempting. He when you see his stuff, you think this guy should be amazing. sometimes he can look amazing but fact of the matter is that if you if you go beyond how hard he throws he walks too many batters he doesn't get nearly as many strikeouts as he would expect him to now it's

possible some other team some team like i don't know the dodgers could figure out some analytical trick to make him get more strikeouts throw more up in the zone whatever it is these days but i think that his peripherals are not there and I think that this estimate is biased by the quality of stuff. Okay. That's a reasonable one. All right. So this will be my fifth pick. I think I will take the over on Charlie Morton at two years and 32. I think he is worth more than that. I know that he seemingly was considering

retirement, and I don't know whether that means that now that he has decided not to retire, he won't want a long-term deal in case he decides to retire again. But two and 32 for a pitcher of Charlie Morton's talents. I mean, he basically had like Corbin's strikeout rate this year and he throws really hard. And I know he had some durability concerns, I guess, just down the stretch there, but he's just been so effective. And I know that part of that was

the Astros helping him be a better version of himself, but I don't think there's any reason to think that he couldn't continue to pitch at this level for another team if the Astros don't bring him back. So I just think he deserves more than that. He's been really excellent the last couple of years. Yeah, a bit of a wild card because of the fact that he's talked about retirement.

We don't really know what Charlie Morton is looking for, but I agree with you. Just based on the quality of his pitching, he's really quite good. The injury stuff is a little bit behind him. So yeah, that's a good one. I will move on to take the under on why is Gio Gonzalez pegged for $24 million? I understand if this were like five years ago, it would make a certain amount of sense. But Gio Gonzalez is just $24 million over two years is the projection here. It's not that and you know there are teams that could use like a fourth or fifth starter but gonzalez is and will be 33 years old he's got a long track record and he's been relatively healthy made 32 starts this year but also it was not a good year

according to fangraphs he was an average pitcher his era minus was worse than average his fip minus was worse than average his x fip minus was worse than average he walked too many guys he went to milwaukee and didn't get better he throws 90 miles per hour still has that curveball and and all the trappings and whatnot and he's still hard ish to hit he at least runs like average contact rates but i don't know no team is going to want gio gio Gonzalez to be pitching For them in the playoffs and This feels like one of those If Gonzalez doesn't settle early then he'll Sign for like a year and 8 million at the end of spring

Yeah Alright I'm going to take I think I'm going to take the over On Adam Adovino At 3-30 I don't know there's probably not a whole lot of Upside with this pick I don't know what There's probably not a whole lot of upside with this pick. I don't know what relievers get these days, but well, relievers get paid actually. Even last winter, right,

when no one else was getting paid, relievers were still getting paid because teams realized that they need all the relievers in the world when the postseason rolls around. And Adamadovino having reinvented himself as a slider machine and as my co-author Travis Sacek has documented he was one of the most effective pitchers and baseball relievers that is and he has innings he pitched almost 80 innings at an extremely high success rate very high strikeout rate I just think he doesn't have the closer label. He's just gotten the occasional save. But I don't know. Of all the relief options out there, he looks like among the most appealing to me.

So I could see him getting a fourth year possibly or just a high AAV. I don't know. Is there a better bet among the name brand relievers? Like you've got David Robertson out there, you've got Britton, you've got Familia, you've got Kimbrel. I don't know. I'd probably put my money on Adovino. Yeah, Adovino is a good one. I know that maybe teams would be a little put off. He has like an extreme crossfire delivery, which it's at least anecdotally been suggested that could kind of mess you up it's bad for your command and like out of you know even at the best of times it's not a command pitcher he's a look at this crazy frisbee slider kind of

kind of picture the stuff is incredible uh he's he's a little bit if you think of it like a reliever version of patrick corbin where he's just yeah two pitches but they are great yep and it's easier to be a reliever with two pitches than a starter but yeah I don't know if I'd take the over there but I think that there is a good argument for him to go over and the idea of Adovino making about the same money as Joe Kelly is laughable to me yeah okay okay so this is pick number seven for me I feel like at some point I should take an over, but I just don't. Okay. Pessimist. I know.

I mean, there are players I like here, but still, maybe too biased by what happened. Okay. Well, I feel like I should take an over, so I'm going to take the under on Trevor Cahill. Trevor Cahill is pegged here for two years and $22 million. I like Trevor Cahill quite a bit i think i've written about him a number of times in the last few years because he was really interesting when he joined the padres last year he was really interesting when he was traded the royals then he got hurt he was interesting with the a's this year wound up getting hurt and trevor cahill just threw 110

innings which he hasn't really eclipsed that in any meaningful way since 2013. He's now 30. He's going to be 31. And if you look at him, I think his blend of strikeouts and decent control and ground balls is great. But there's a little bit of like classic Brett Anderson in here where you say, wow, the peripherals are really, really strong. Some teams are just going to get that guy to stay healthy.

Well, he doesn't stay healthy. He signed last year for year for is this true did he sign for one and a half million dollars after last year wow okay i'm real confident in taking this under i uh i do not think cahill is going to get 22 million dollars i think he will get or should get a year and i don't know eight million maybe 10 uh he's He's got perfectly interesting repertoire. He actually was still throwing in the low 90s with his fastball. Good breaking stuff, all that, but the health risk is just— Gets strikeouts and gets grounders. It's an appealing combination, but yeah, he's not been there.

No team can sign Trevor Cahill and think, we've got this guy for October. You just can't do that, and I think that's too much for the Terrain. Yeah. we've got this guy for October. You just can't do that, and I think that's too much for the tournament. Yeah. Okay, with my seventh pick, I think I will take a player who will not play this year or next year,

Garrett Richards. I'm going to take the over on Garrett Richards at two years and $10 million. Maybe this is bold. I don't know. But Garrett Richards obviously has been one of the most tantalizing starters out there he is still a spin rate monster still throws really hard and he had tommy john surgery finally after trying prp and stem cells and all the rest of it and i you know he'll obviously get a multi-year deal because he's not going to pitch this year and some team will hope that he comes

back and is great in 2020. But there just, I mean, there have to be so many teams that would want to take the risk and sign Garrett Richards for post Tommy John surgery that I just have to think like he's going to get maybe some option year for a third year or something with guaranteed money. Like some team will try to go a little longer term possibly, or some team will just think, well, a healthy Garrett Richards for one year would be worth more than $10 million. So whatever, I'll just give him more than that to get him. It's not going to be like way over, but I'm going to take the over.

Man, I don't think I even scrolled down that far to find Garrett Richards. Yeah, I like the over there. I forgot what Michael Pineda signed for when he was in the same situation or right drew smiley i think drew smiley got the two years 10 million thing right yeah it's like the john lieber format deal how much longer can we refer to that one i don't know but that was like one of the first times that happened right that a team signed a guy coming back from injury to a multi-year contract so that's just stuck in my mind for whatever reason yeah no me too but then i think oh yeah right that's half my years ago okay so i'm going to finish and even though i think there are more there are like four more unders that i'm tempted to take and i'll maybe i'll talk about the map

effect but just for out of some principle i want to take an over and i'm going to go out on a limb here and this is going to be a very slight over i i am saying this with very little confidence but okay i am going to take a slight over on dj lemahew and uh and here's why he's paid for two years and 18 million dollars uh paid to go to the tigers whatever who cares dj lemahew has not been a great player for a few years. He was quite good in 2016, and then he's kind of taken a step back 2017, 2018. I don't think anybody knows him for his defense at second base. But what I think is interesting about Didier LeMahieu and what I think some analytical-minded teams will find interesting is that he consistently ranks good by exit velocity, and he makes a ton of contact. His contact rates are around like Daniel Murphy levels,

and I think some team is going to look at him and think, if we can just do something to help him. He started to pull the ball more often last year. It had a mixed bag of results. He is an extreme, like, spray-the-ball kind of hitter, so he hits the ball everywhere. A little bit of Eric Hosmer in here, a little bit of old Christian Jelic, less power, but I think that there is enough skill in LeMayhue that some team will look at him and think I bet

we could untap some skill in here and kind of find the next Daniel Murphy instead of paying for the current and slower Daniel Murphy so I don't know if that's realistic because again Eric Hosmer just finished with the lowest launch angle in baseball in 2018 things happen players don't change but DJ LeMay, he was someone who, if he did change, could have a lot of upside. I think someone will pay for that. Yep. He may have been my next pick, actually. So let's see. For my last one, I definitely don't have any slam dunks here, I don't think. But well, maybe I'll take the under on Kimbrell. But, well, maybe I'll take the under on Kimbrell. I guess I'll do that.

So four years and 70. And obviously, Craig Kimbrell, I mean, he's among active closers. He's been one of the best. Obviously, throughout his career, he's never had a bad season. He's been closing games for a long time pretty reliably, even if sometimes he uses all the runs available to him to get the save, as we saw all of October. But I think he is now 30 years old, and he just seems to be in decline. It's not like a dramatic decline. It hasn't been a long decline, but he's not hitting free agency at the perfect time for Greg Kimbrell. He lost about a mile per hour in velocity, and he still throws really, really hard.

But this was his worst year ever by FIP, let's say. And he just extreme fly ball guy, just got no grounders this year. His strikeout rate is still extremely high, but relative to the league is not as high as it used to be. His control, not the greatest as we saw recently. He walked almost five per nine, which to be fair, he did in 2016 too. And then he got it back under control. So he certainly could do that again. also he's just like he's not an innings eater even by closer standards he's not a guy who fits the new kind of model where you can stretch someone for two innings at a time like he barely has ever done that right his longest save ever was just this october he just isn't someone who's been pushed in that way or seems all that comfortable when he does that.

He's just kind of your traditional closer pretty much for the most part, one inning at a time, ninth inning, not a whole lot of flexibility there in his past. And I'm just going to bet, I guess, that teams aren't going to pay for saves anymore. They will pay for relievers, but Craig Kimbrell probably does not project as well as the the name value suggests yeah I mean the wood what was Wade Davis 456 is that what he got

last year from the from the Rockies it's something like that well yeah and Kimbrell's probably a better bet than Wade Davis was at that point but yeah but also that was I feel like that contract blew away the competition anyway I yes I agree with you a soft under on Craig Campbell so we're done with our official picks uh do you want to make unofficial just like quick notes any other a few others I was thinking about I was thinking about the under on Jay Happ at 3 and 48 just because he's you know he's 36 years old and I don know, he's been very consistent and durable and hasn't lost anything really. But I don't know that a team will want to go that long or that high with him. Jesse Chavez, I almost took the over at 2-10 because that's just not a lot of money. And

I think he threw the most innings of any non-fake reliever, raise reliever this year and was really good and important to the Cubs, obviously. Hasn't been doing that consistently for a long time, so I don't know, but maybe he gets more. I mean, I'm very intrigued by Nathan Ivaldi and Marwin Gonzalez because I feel like both of those guys just kind of fit the market really well in that we're seeing this trend toward more flexibility in a lot of ways whether it's in pitching staffs where guys are kind of more fluidly going between the rotation and the bullpen and we just saw what evaldi can do in both of those roles he's been really great down the stretch with the Red Sox, World Series hero, throws really hard, all the rest of it,

and teams can sort of slot him in as a full-season starter, as an October reliever, whatever they want to do with him. Of course, the concern is that he will not be healthy when they want him to do those things, but there will be interest in him, obviously. And Marwin fits the trends too because we're seeing more and more multi-position players just because you have to have guys who can cover multiple positions to fit on rosters with as big as bullpens are today and he didn't regress

offensively as much as i expected to i mean he did but he was still above average hitter and as someone who can play lots of positions even if he's not amazing at any of them, a lot of teams could look at him and think, oh, I've got a spot for him. But Evaldi at four years and 60 and Gonzalez at four years and 36, both of those seemed kind of about right to me. So I didn't go in on either of them, but I considered maybe thinking that some team would just really splurge on one of those guys. Yeah. I think Uvalde can't really go past that number given the double Tommy John

surgery and all the other questions, but I think that every single team in baseball wants Nathan Uvalde right now. I think I was looking at this and I'll take the under on Derek Holland at two years and $15 million because I just, what do I have to say? No is the reason I'm taking it. And I was also going to take the under on Anibal Sanchez, who had a big bounce back season with the Braves. I think he was, I don't think, was he a minor league contract or just like a contract throwaway? I forgot how he wound up with the Braves.

And he was good. He had like a new cutter and all the pitches were there, but he's going to be 35 in February. He was not good for like the three seasons previous to that. And I think teams are just going to be pretty biased by the track record. Look at Anibal Sanchez and think, I'm just not comfortable doing that. He's projected for two years and $22 million a year. And no, I think he's going to end up with like one and six,

which for Anibal Sanchez, given where he was a year ago, is just fine. And looking at whatever is else on the list, nothing really moves me. One other guy I'm very curious about is Yasmany Grandal, who is at four years and 64 on this list, and frankly could very easily be worth more than that. If you look at his last four years, he's, I mean, if you believe the BP stats that consider his pitch framing, he's probably been like, you know, I haven't sorted any leaderboards, but probably like a top 10 position player, I would guess, over those four years. He's been like a 5 to 7 win player in all four of those years. So if you think he's going to keep being that player, then you should definitely spend more than four years in 64 on him.

But he is about to turn 30. He obviously has some issues with blocking. We saw that in October, although we saw that from a lot of guys, and he hasn't been horrible at that in the regular season. I just, I don't know. It's weird. Like, even the Dodgers, even as good as he's been, they've, they've used Austin Barnes at a lot of times. They've lost faith in Grandal a little bit.

He looked bad in both ways in October. I just don't know what the market for him should be. It should be good, but I wonder whether teams will be scared off for a few reasons. I suspect Grandal is going to be okay. There are a lot of catchers, though, who are out there, at least on the free agent market. And, you know, the more that are on the free agent market, the fewer there are on the trade market,

because that means there are more catcher vacancies. You know, Mike Zanino's out there. He's already been linked to the Rays. But I suspect Grandel is going to do okay. You would have to be pretty biased by watching him drop a few pitches in the playoffs and pretty not biased by watching him drop a few pitches in the playoffs and pretty not biased by everything else that he's done. Right. Yeah. All right. So the second draft should be very quick. I think it has been in the past. So this is, we're just taking Bovada's

World Series odds, the betting site Bovada. I think they released these on October 24th. So this is just looking at what Vegas thinks the World Series odds are coming into the offseason. And we are projecting the movement of those odds between now and opening day. So we're just going to project whether we think a team will bet better odds or worse odds of winning the World Series between now and opening day. So I don't know. I guess, yeah, I guess I should go first here. So I think I will start with the Mariners. I guess I'll start with the Mariners down, right?

Just on the odd chance that they do sell a lot. So they, according to these odds, I think they have the 19th best world series odds plus 6 000 so i will take the mariners to go down between now and opening day i will i agree with you that was the first time i was going to look for i will take the padres to go up the padres are currently at 26th that plus plus 15 000 one day. I might know what that means. Today is not that day, but I do know they are way down there. I'm going with ordinal ranks here because I don't know what betting odds mean

and I never bet. If you're out there, look, you can send emails and we'll read them. We'll even understand them for five minutes, but it's just going right out the brain again the next day. I've learned this before. I will not actually keep it. So yeah padres uh i i have moving up they are the fifth worst and i think they're going to move aggressively yeah i i agree

i could definitely see them being like the the dark horse like sleeper pick going into next season probably a year too early but just they have this incredible farm system and maybe they'll spend and yeah they were going to be my next pick. All right. I will take the Diamondbacks to go down, I think. So they are 17th and plus 6,000. And I will say down, there was a report about them being willing to listen on like Goldschmidt and Granke. And I don't know what these reports about being willing to listen mean. There were similar reports about the Indians and Kluber and other guys.

But Diamondbacks, you could envision potentially doing some kind of rebuild here sometime soon. So just in case that happens, go on with them. I will. Hmm. This one's tough. Well, you know what? I want to bump the Red Sox down. The Red Sox are at number one.

I think the Red Sox are going to be really good next year. I think someone's going to bypass them. I don't know who it's going to be but there are a lot of other good teams and i'm going to bump the red sox out of the number one spot at plus 650 i'm going to move them down to plus i don't know a higher number yeah okay all right i'm going to go with the giants to go down i think they're 23rd Right now so they're already pretty down Plus 10,000 but Now Zaydi's there he's got job

Security maybe he Does really start trading people And doesn't give this one more rattle Here so I'm going to say that Between now and opening day they Get even closer to the bottom of that list I will in turn I Agree with you I will move the Rays Up list. I will, in turn, I agree with you.

I will move the Rays up. The Rays are right in the middle. I don't know what number this is, but they're at plus 5,000. They're tied with the Angels. And I think the Rays, or they have a pretty good team. I saw it.

I think it was Ken Rosendahl again. He had some part of his latest notes column where he said people internally and outside of the organization think the Rays kind of overachieved to be as good as they were last year which i can buy it but also last year they had fewer players than they're about to have next year some important players are coming back plus i think that they are pretty well positioned to sign someone like either nelson cruz which is a

current link or josh donaldson which is also out there i think that's like donaldson in particular would fit the raise to a t i think they want like Donaldson in particular would fit the Rays to a T. I think they want like a right-handed power hitter who could take a lot of money, but for a very short term, players like Cruz and Donaldson just fit the Rays to a T. So I think if they make a move like that,

I think they are going to move up. So Rays up. Yeah, they were going to be my last one. And they were really kind of the last one I've felt confident about. I think otherwise most of these look okay to me. But I guess I'll take the Phillies to go up. So the Phillies are, I think, ninth on this list, plus 1,800.

And I'm basically just banking on a spending spree and the Phillies kind of being the winning the offseason team. Now, some of that is already priced in here because everyone expects them to go after Harper, Machado, or who knows both. So maybe there's just not a lot of advantage to be gained here. And I don't know that I can necessarily envision them being better than the ninth actual most likely team to win the World Series next year. But I could see a big splash and a splurge and people getting carried away. So I'm going to go with that. Yeah.

Well, how many more picks? Is this the last pick? Do we have another pick? One each, yeah. Gross. Well, I don't feel strongly. So I'm just going, this is is i don't even know how i feel about this but the the white socks are at plus 6 500 i'm going to move them up even though the

white socks are bad i think that the white socks are in a position where they've already been linked to manny machado as a free agent i don't think the white socks are going to sign manny machado but yeah i think southern like to corbin too for whatever that's worth i think the white socks have an appetite to spend for whatever reason i think that they do have players who are going to start to arrive even though michael kopeck is down plus again their division sucks and there's been chatter that the indians might try to take a step back because you know there's a lot of ground between the indians and the next best team in the division but if the indians get worse by trading a starter or something and if the white socks start making some impact moves it'll make the white socks division odds go up which will therefore inflate their world series odds even

though they will not win the world series next year i'll still move them up to i don't know plus five thousand yeah but it's easy to say numbers when you don't know what they mean yeah all right well i don't like any other option here but i, the Astros are not currently in first, and I think they should probably be in first. So I'm going to take the Astros to be in first. I guess they could be in first without actually improving their odds, but I don't know. Maybe people are thinking, well, they're losing Keichel and Morton, and who knows if they'll be quite as good in McCullers. This was before the McCullers news, I guess, But I don't know. You could certainly see them going after like Real Mudo or even one of the very top free agents. And as mentioned, I just think their depth is underestimated and they can just fill in

for anyone they lose. And so I'm going to go Astros. There's probably not a lot of room for movement here. They're at plus 700, but Astros, best team in baseball, I think. So yeah'm going to go Astros. There's probably not a lot of room for movement here. They're at plus 700. But Astros, best team in baseball, I think. So yeah, going with that. And I guess you picked first. So that means I have one left. Oh, does it? I guess so, right?

Or so let's see. I have Mariners, Giants, Diamondbacks, Phillies, and Astros. So yeah, I have five. Okay. So I'll move the Braves down. The Braves are currently in sixth. Yeah, they're at sixth. They're at plus 1,200, tied with the Indians.

And I'm going to move them down because even though I think the Braves will try to get better, if you're moving the Phillies up, which I agree with, that means it's harder for the Braves. I think the Nationals are going to be better than people think because they're probably going to lose Bryce Harper, but they're still going to be fine. So with the Phillies improving

and the Nationals not declining that much, and I think the Braves are probably not going to lose Bryce Harper, but they're still going to be fine. So with the Phillies improving and the Nationals not declining that much, and I think the Braves are probably not going to do anything enormous. You know, MLB trade rumors, they basically replaced Nick Marcakis with Michael Brantley, which guess what? You have Nick Marcakis again. Whatever, fine player, but I don't think the Braves are going to do something dramatic. And therefore, yeah, I'll move them down. That'll be my last pick. Yeah, that was another reason I took the Astros, because I took the Mariners to go down. So if the Mariners go down, that should help the Astros maybe.

All right, so we did it. We got through our two big offseason drafts. Fun as always. Well, hold on, though. There's a third big offseason draft. What's that? The minor league free agent list was just released. The list is out. Yeah, so we'll have, I don't know, a month or off-season draft. What's that? The minor league free agent list was just released. The list is out.

Yeah. So we'll have, I don't know, a month or two to study it, I guess. And we'll see. We'll get drafting. But that one, that's serious. That's the center of the annual podcast schedule, I think. So hopefully our official statistician record keeper John Chenier will enter all of this On the spreadsheet on the Google Doc

Which you can find in the Facebook group And you can track our predictions And laugh at us when they're wrong So that will do it One more thing The other day Jeff and I talked about The front office turnover with the Astros And I mentioned they were hiring Sarah Gellis

From the Orioles And I believe someone else from the Dodros, and I mentioned they were hiring Sarah Gellis from the Orioles, and I believe someone else from the Dodgers. But as we mentioned, Mike Fast was leaving. Well, he went to the Atlanta Braves. From what I understand, the majority of teams were interested in his services, but he picked the Braves, so if you're a Braves fan, you are lucky. Mike would never say so himself,

but from what I understand, he's been a big part of the Astros' success. Always good to see former baseball prospectus colleagues doing well. So best of luck to Mike, and best of luck to NLE's teams that will have to compete with Mike, because they will need it. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectivelywild. The following five listeners have already visited that site and signed up. Pledge them a small monthly amount to keep the podcast going. Quinton Baker, Paul Locton, Kyle Lewis, Isaac

Stevenson, and Ben Clemens. Thanks to all of you. You can also 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 other podcast platforms. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance.

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