Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1307: The Baines of Our Existence

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about expected activity at the Winter Meetings, the pointlessness of the Winter Meetings, and the Hall of Fame elections of Lee Smith and Harold Baines (yes, that Harold Baines). Then (23:04) they talk to FanGraphs prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen about the baseball and multi-sport future of Heisman Trophy winner […]

Hello and welcome to episode 1307 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from It's in live when people are listening. But you're in a large hotel, I would assume, at this moment. You've been brushing elbows with baseball people. You all just got there. The winter meetings have not officially started until the week gets started. But would you expect, we haven't seen any major moves being made for the past few days, which has been nice of baseball teams not to overload us. Would you expect this to be a busy meetings to the extent that we can forecast that, given that we've just seen a whole bunch of moves happen? Is this going to be like the time when we actually see some movement with Machado and Harper?

I don't expect the Harper sweepstakes to move quickly at all. I mean, obviously stuff is happening probably on a regular basis. Boris is in connection with people, but I think the Harper sweepstakes is going to last a very long time. I think it's going to be a classic Boris free agent pursuit, high profile free agent pursuit

where, you know, Scott Boris has been preparing for Bryce Harper's free agency for probably five or six years now. And he doesn't want to blow it. I think, though, based on, I want to make clear, based on absolutely nothing,

I think that the Manny Machado sweepstakes could move pretty quickly i wouldn't be shocked again based on nothing i wouldn't be shocked to see him sign this week just because i think that he's going to want to get that money there's a lot of interest that's already out there it's not going to take forever like like harper it's a different agency and i think that machado probably knows that harper is going to wait until he signs now i don't think that that is necessarily a reason to to sign first but i would expect machado to to move quicker and if you look at the market it's it's been good of baseball i've appreciated them providing content and being so busy for the previous weeks or so but you look now and you

know the the diamondbacks have a little more shedding to do the merediths might have a little more trying to do but there are teams like the reds who have been just rumored to make some sort of big pitching splash and that could happen this week the padres are probably overdue for some kind of splash brody van wagenen seems like he wants to do something that's dramatic because it's already been so long since he made his most dramatic splash and there's a lot of movement i don't i don't know how how much you can project to happen within the next four days because ultimately the end of the WIDR meetings is not a deadline for anybody. It's just a day that you go back and travel. But I do think that as much as this is just an antiquated and almost entirely useless event, I do think that just knowing that everyone leaves on Thursday, that artificial deadline probably does sort of take on a more substantive feel where teams think like, you know what?

It would be nice to have some business completed by then because then you start getting close to Christmas and New Year's and things shut down. So I think that I have now taken about a minute and a half to say I don't know what the week is going to be like, but there is a lot of action left to happen and I think there are a lot of trades left to happen, and I think trades take place quicker than free agency does.

Yeah, we could see one of the Cleveland pitchers traded. Perhaps it seems almost inevitable that Kluber or Bauer will be going somewhere, some when. Don't know if that will be this week, but there will be some moves made, and when they are made, we will talk about them them and you will blog about them in a giant room with a bunch of other bloggers who have gathered in a room to blog together. This is so dumb. This is the dumbest thing that we do.

I know there are certain events and meetings that have to take place at the Winter Meetings. And it makes sense that people would all get together because there are certain things that happen at the Winter Meetings. It's an industry trade show. All of the minor league stuff happens and various vendors and data providers and technology manufacturers, equipment makers, they're all there. But writers, they're just kind of there to hop knob, which is fine. And the teams don't even really need to be here not to the extent that they are i mean the people already travel for conferences throughout the year if you if you work for a team but like the 80 years ago i don't think we really need to go over this all

again we probably talked about this last year but like teams teams just kind of huddle in their suites and so everybody gets together in the same resort so that they can just continue texting one another like they do all the time elsewhere. So it's just – it's an absurdity. It's disruptive. It's probably hell to plan, although I don't know. Maybe this helps like the traveling secretary justify their job in the winter because otherwise there's not a whole lot else to do. But this is a dumb event.

I do worse work when I'm here than I do from home. I only come here because it's good to see co-workers every so often. But outside of that, my work product is worse. I think most people's work product is worse being here. The teams don't want to be here because they just text with everybody anyway. This is all dumb and it hasn't even started yet. Well, I look forward to reading your subpar posts over the next few days. So we have two guests lined up for this episode. The first is a fellow Fangraphs writer who is also in Las Vegas with you, Eric Langenhagen. this weekend and was drafted in the first round ninth overall pick by the Oakland A's this year and so now is facing some possible multi-sport future he is committed to baseball for now but no one knows exactly what will happen Eric will tell us how he projects as a baseball player

and a football player and possibly a baseball and football player Then on a much sadder and more somber note, we will be talking to Octavio Hernandez, who is a former Venezuelan journalist. Well, he is a current Venezuelan who is no longer a journalist, but he will be joining us to talk about the tragic killings of Luis Falbuena and Jose Castillo last week in the Venezuelan Winter League and just the general state of baseball and Venezuela, which is not good, spoiler, but Octavio will tell us about that and about how he has fled the country personally just because of the state of politics and violence and lawlessness there. Before we get to our two guests, one quick thing that I don't know whether you have even noticed because you are traveling and busy and because

you are not a Hall of Fame person under any circumstances. When I want to talk about the Hall of Fame briefly, I wait till you are indisposed somehow and then I sneak Jay Jaffe onto the podcast and talk to him myself but we barely spent any time talking about Harold Baines when we spoke a couple weeks ago because whoever thought that Harold Baines was about to be a hall of famer Harold Baines is now a baseball hall of famer or will be when he is inducted he has now been kind of ushered in via the side door along with Lee Smith, which is a little less surprising, but the Today's Game ballot, which is basically the new incarnation of the Veterans Committee,

has elected both of these guys. Smith, you know, whatever, he's a closer. He had lots of saves. He was the all-time saves leader when he retired. He doesn't stack up all that well, I don't think, to some of the best closers who are already in. But he was probably the best of the candidates just compared to his peers. But Harold Baines, I mean, I'm not a guy who cares as much as many people do about the Hall of Fame either. either but when I saw that news it was almost like I briefly became unmoored from reality and had to like check my surroundings and make sure that up was still up and down was still down

because Harold Baines is a hall of famer now and it's like as soon as that news is nuts he's just he's in the hall of fame like it's not even like maybe he will be no he's just he's a hall of famer now and that's that and we just have to get used to this new world in which harold baines is a hall of famer i don't know what to make of it i don't have okay we have the same thing to make of it right and what we make of it is this is this is done right that's that's let's just put it let's just put it out there harold baines according according to Fangraphs, is worth 38 wins above replacement over his career. According to Baseball Reference,

he was worth 39 wins above replacement over his career. If you double that, then he would have been a capable Hall of Famer. I mean, we don't need to relitigate the entire Harold Baines case such as it is. I wouldn't have thought that anyone would be making a case. He batted a lot. He played until he was 42. And when you play until you're 42, you accrue a lot of high numbers that make it seem

like you did more than you did. So if there is any up, well, if there's any upside, the upside for this is good news for Harold Baines and the entire Baines family. But also this, I don't think that Edgar Martinez was really in any question now that he's in the last year of his eligibility at least through the front door because it turns out the back door is wide open and unlocked i guess but it makes absolutely no sense to have a hall of fame with harold baines in it and edgar martinez not in it but like if you open the door for harold baines does that mean omar vizquel is going to be all the famer and just where is i in my head i would use like 65 or so wins above replacement

it's sort of a threshold of course there's more to making the Hall of Fame than that but that was my own cutoff and Harold Baines falls short of that by like so much a good career yeah like what is what is Josh Donaldson been worth in his career? I haven't looked this up, so let's just find out. Josh Donaldson in his career has been worth, according to Fangraphs, 37. He's been worth Harold Baines' career. And Josh Donaldson was a late bloomer who still has a career to go. Yeah, I mean, Josh Donaldson has been a better baseball player than Harold Baines ever was, obviously. a better baseball player than Harold Baines ever was, obviously.

I mean, I don't really – it's tough in these situations because, like, I don't want to just pile on Harold Baines' career like he had a nice career and, you know, six-time All-Star and he played for 22 years. And by all accounts, most accounts, he's a nice guy. And, I mean, I'm sure he's happy and no one really suffers from this. Like, he gets to have a nice day and Harold Baines fans are happy. And I don't know, the rest of us can just get used to it and probably shouldn't let it affect our lives. But it's like I don't want to be in the position of just mocking Harold Baines' career because it was way better than almost all careers. But man, it was not a Hall of Fame career.

And I just I don't know this is like you know i'm sure that he's not the worst person in the hall of fame the worst player he's certainly not the worst person they're terrible people but worst player even but it's been a while like i just sent a message to jay jaffe a little bit and if he answers i will update at the end of the episode but i was wondering when the last time like a non reliever who was this far below the Jaws baseline at his position was elected. And it seems like it's been a while because this is like an old school veterans committee, just like Frankie Frisch, just putting his old teammates in in the 30s or something kind of pick like this is almost an archaic kind of selection harold baines okay he had one season in his entire career that was worth more than four wins above replacement that's like one let's say very good season in effect we we don't even need to make this

statistical right because here's here are five numbers i am happy to share with you and with the listening audience harold baines of course was on the hall of fame ballot he uh he had his first year in 2007 he got 5.3 percent of the vote if you get less than five percent you're off the ballot 5.3 percent the next year 5.2 percent the next year 5.9 percent wait the next year 6.1 percent he's getting momentum the next year 4.8%, he fell off the ballot. Five years on the ballot, Harold Baines fell off. He never got 7% of the vote. And now he got at least 12 out of 16 votes from whoever the hell is on the Today's Game ballot voting committee. I don't think Harold Baines is listening to this podcast.

But if the voters are listening to this podcast, you did a bad job. if the voters are listening to this podcast, you did a bad job. Yeah. As Jay pointed out on Twitter, three of the people on that committee, Pat Gillick, Tony La Russa, Jerry Reinsdorf, were closely connected to Harold Baines' career, which is maybe not a coincidence. He got 12 votes and Smith got all 16 votes,

unanimous selection of Lee Smith. I mean, so many of the selections for the Hall of Fame, like people criticize the writers selections and non selections. And sure, they have put some probably undeserving players in and certainly have snubbed some deserving players. But I would say that the vast majority of the just egregious Hall of Fame picks and inclusions are via the Veterans Committee and just, just you know people who played with these guys and like these guys just kind of just getting them in once the writers have already passed them over and it's just a weird i mean i understand why you would want kind of a second way for people to get in maybe if the perception of their career changes

dramatically years later but this is just not improving the caliber of player in the Hall of Fame. And I mean, during his career, I don't think anyone thought of Harold Baines as a Hall of Famer. I mean, his highest MVP finish was ninth one time and just was never just a good above average player, like had a lot of longevity, you know, just solid, solid player. But by Jaws, he is 74th all time among right fielders. And I mean, Jaws classifies you based on where you played most of your games. And so Harold Baines is in right field. Of course, he DH'd a whole lot. Here's just a partial list of players ahead

of Harold Baines on the Jaws list. Number 72, Nelson Cruz. Number 71, Shinsu Chu. Better, more deserving by Jaws than Harold Baines. Brian Jordan, who we're about to talk about briefly with Eric. I just, a lot of names. I mean, Paul O'Neill, I liked Paul O'Neill as much as the next guy and more than most people probably did, but not a Hall of Famer. Mookie Betts, 56 on that list, way above Harold Baines already

as a Hall of Fame candidate. Jose Bautista is way above. I mean, Tim Salmon, 51. It's just, it's really, I can't believe that Harold Baines is in the Hall of Fame. Harold Baines, so what I said earlier was that Harold Baines had one season in his career where he was worth at least four wins above replacement. I should also say he's had two seasons in his career where he was worth at least three wins above replacement, which ties him for 947th place all time. There are, I mean, I don't know if it's better to list off players

who have had other players who have had two seasons at least that good or maybe other players who have had three, but like Logan Forsythe has had two seasons of at least three wins above replacement. Gerardo Parra, Alberto Cajaspo, one of the Chris Youngs. I don't know which one I'm looking at. Probably the outfield version. Adam Lind. Alberto Cajaspo, one of the Chris Youngs. I don't know which one I'm looking at. Probably the outfield version. Adam Lind, possible baby powder farter Adam Lind.

Kurt Suzuki, Marco Scudero, Chris Iannemit, Nick Marcakis, Andre Ethier. Billy Butler, who is playing softball in Idaho and killing it, has had as many seasons above three wins of a replacement as Harold Baines. And of course, this is like a longevity pick and a nepotism pick more than it is a peak of his career pick. But this is stupid. And as much as it would be easy to just be here and complain about Lee Smith, at least Lee Smith did one thing a lot that was great. The one thing Harold Baines did a lot was play.

And that's not enough, unless it is enough, in which case, congratulations, Omar Vizquel, on your unanimous appointment to the Hall of Fame. Yeah. Harold Baines has exactly the same career war at baseball reference as Maglio Ordonez, and Ordonez had a higher peak. So Ordoñez has a way better jaw score than Harold Baines did. I don't know. I mean, Harold Baines, you know, he debuted in 1980 and had enough staying power that I certainly remember Harold Baines, like not just as a player, but as a good player. I was not close to being born yet when Harold Baines debuted in the big league. So, I mean, good for him. But, man, and I really do wonder what the effect of this will be. And, you know, like hopefully not a lot other than getting Edgar in because there's just no argument for keeping Edgar out. But you never really want to make the argument like, well, here's the worst player who's in and this guy's better than that guy.

So let's put him in. I mean, you could have made that argument probably for Harold Baines if you had wanted toided over the PED era is in? It's almost like that. I mean, I know that some people, some writers have already submitted their ballots for this round of voting. we might have a Hall of Fame with Harold Baines in it and not Mike Messina or Larry Walker or Jim Edmonds or all these clearly superior players to Harold Baines. It just, I don't know. It's not ideal. I hate the argument. I understand you can look at this and say, oh, this is precedent setting. So like you were saying, well, if Harold Baines is in, then therefore all these other players have to be in. Omar Zizkel, SBN obviously Edgar Martinez is an ESPN. And I understand it because you're looking for some sort of consistency and you figure, well, you know, that shattered it.

But, you know, it's like, without getting political, it's like saying our current situation is precedent setting. It's like, well, if we had this as a government, then I guess we might as well have more governments like this. It's like, did Jeffrey Loria set a precedent because we had a terrible owner in Major League Baseball? We might as well open the door for more terrible owners. If a bad thing happens, that shouldn't be considered precedent.

That should be considered, okay, a bad thing happened. Let's make sure that it is just the anomaly and we don't continue to let bad things happen because if you allow Harold Baines in the Hall of Fame, like if Harold, how do you drop the bar the bar is dropped so low to let in harold baines that if it dropped by an equivalent amount then we're just putting in someone who's like played a baseball game before in the majors and then what does the museum even mean anymore so again you know you know what you said 15 minutes ago i don't want to pile on harold

baines for his career and it's all we've been doing but really this is about the voters harold baines has a had a good career he had spent a lot of seasons as like an average or above average player good for him he played until he was 42 i might not even be able to walk when i'm 42 credit to harold baines very impressive he'll get to deliver a speech where he will also probably deliver an average or slightly above average speech that goes on for a very long time. And then 5% of people like it, except like a lot of people out of these 16 people enjoy it. Anyway, a bad thing that happens is not by its own existence precedent setting. And I understand that when a bad thing happens, you treat it as a precedent because the worst thing in the world is inconsistency and hypocrisy but no the worst thing in the world is

being bad all the time so as long as this doesn't set a precedent then whatever we just overlook it just as we've overlooked other bad hall of fame picks but of course this will set some kind of precedent because the whole thing is stupid yeah I mean even on the today's game ballot he wasn't close to being the i mean oral hershizer is way better than harold baines albert bell was even better than harold baines and he played for like half as long will clark was way better than harold baines i i just i don't know what we're doing here. But yeah, if you were to set the new baseline as Harold Baines or better, like the Hall of Fame would probably like what, triple in size or something? I mean, you could figure that out, I'm sure. But it really would. I mean, this is, wow.

I mean, what's the line? It's like, this is the Hall of Fame, not the Hall of Very Good. But it's like, now this is pretty much like the Hall of fame good sometimes yeah that's that's what what we've done right yeah the professional hitter hall of fame certainly i mean the embodiment of the concept of professional hitter but that is something you say about someone who is not a hall of famer and so you're looking for something nice to say about them that is not Hall of Famer and now he is both a professional hitter and a Hall of Famer perhaps the first person ever to belong to both of those groups I don't know so yeah congratulations Harold after we have just

disparaged your career I'm happy for you personally I'm not happy for what this says About the standards of the Hall of Fame And I guess I will see Harold Baines As he walks to the front of the media room At the Witcher meetings As usually happens when somebody gets elected Into the Hall of Fame by means of some secondary committee So Harold Baines will be there

Giving some sort of press conference While I'm trying to write about a player who Well, I was going to say a player who's actually good But that's way too mean So anyway, while I'm trying to write about a player who, well, I was going to say a player who's actually good, but that's way too mean. So anyway, while I'm trying to focus on something else, Harold Baines, congratulations. You did better than most baseball players did. And I guess these days that's enough. All right. So we will take a quick break and we will be back with Eric Longenhagen, followed by another quick break and Octavio Hernandez.

Didn't even get the pile on Lee Smith, who is not that great himself. Yeah, Lee Smith's just skating by here. I mean, I don't even have anything bad to say about Lee Smith because he's being compared to Harold Baines. Lee Smith. There's a seed I'll never sow Yeah, they cut down my pride But I was glad to see it go Cause I'm on both sides of the line

Bitter on the fruit, sweet on the love I'm on both sides of the line Bitter on the fruit So on Saturday, Kyler Murray won the Heisman Trophy, which, as I understand it, is an award that Bo Jackson and Vic Yanovich and Tim Tebow and assorted non-baseball players have won in the past. Kyler Murray is both a baseball player and a football player for now, but he was drafted in the first round this year by the Oakland A's, and so now there's a lot of discussion about where his future lies and what it could look like

in either sport or both sports. Jeff and I know nothing of Kyler Murray's football career. We know very little about Kyler Murray's baseball career, and so we are joined by Fangraphs prospect analyst Eric Lagenhagen, who knows some things about both of those things. Hello, Eric. Hello, guys. How's it going? Going okay. So you wrote about Kyler Murray back in April, I think, before he was drafted by the A's,

and it was not clear that he would be or where he would be drafted. Teams weren't sure whether he would end up playing baseball or what. Where do things stand right now? He won the Heisman Trophy. Scott Boris says that he's going to play baseball. Kyler Murray says it would be nice if he could play both. So what do we think is going to happen here and how good could he be?

Yeah, it's going to be pretty interesting to see what happens. I don't have a clean answer for you. Everybody says that the kid loves football and it's just the barrier to entry there is his size. He's a tiny person. Even some of the shorter quarterbacks who have been successful in the NFL are much more physical than Murray. So when I wrote about whether he should pick football or baseball back in April, it was on the eve of last year's NFL draft when, you know, Baker Mayfield went first and who's also short, but not small. And Kyler is small. He's like 5'11". I couldn't, I wouldn't believe if he told me he was like over 200 pounds, I just really would not. So, you know, but then again, he has laid waste to big 12 defenses, right? So he had to perform

this fall. And even when i wrote that article back in april it was in doubt whether or not he would even be oklahoma's starter because they have a great uh underclassman there as well and kyler had not performed as a starter before and so there was some risk during fall practice that austin kendrick was gonna win the oklahoma quarterback job and like we wouldn't even have had to worry about this. And, you know, the Kyler baseball stuff, part of the reason that he was ranked so low or that he was mocked so low on drafts

was that there was just uncertainty regarding his decision and that we in the public sphere had no idea what the kid was going to do, and we weren't sure how sure teams were. Oakland presented him with an aggressive enough offer, $5 million bonus, that he signed. And the way those bonuses are paid out is in two installments. There's not a two-sport deal anymore like there used to be. Like Blue Jays prospect Anthony Alford signed a two-sport contract.

He went to Southern Miss and played football, and then that didn't work out, and he came back to baseball, and his bonus by the Blue Jays was paid out like over five years. And he only got most of it once he came back to baseball. But it seems like if Murray does pick football, he's already got $2.5 million from the Oakland A's in hand. They may have some sort of legal recourse to recoup that, but they might also leverage the A's

into letting him try to do both because they're not going to get a comp pick if he leaves to go play football because they signed him. They didn't fail to sign. So, you know, it's the A's are kind of in a tough situation. They don't really have a whole lot of leverage here. Yes, Scott Boris is Murray's agent and Boris's goal is to maximize Kyler's earning power, and playing two sports is absolutely that. We're not at a point anymore where we're weighing football or baseball. You know, he's got most of the baseball money in hand. He's going to make very little money playing baseball as far as, like, salary is concerned.

I think my article lays it out. It's like a few thousand dollars more per month every year into his minor league career and if he makes the majors after four years then it's like you know whatever he got for the bonus which is five million plus like another couple hundred thousand dollars and i think the break-even point for that in the football draft is like somewhere in the first second round like range so but obviously he's going to be making like the pay structures football is very different so i don't know what's going to happen but um there's reason to be skeptical of him as a football prospect because of his size and then on the baseball field there's some uncertainty because he hasn't played very much you know as an underclassman he barely played because he was

transferring and the rules barred him from playing and you know like even in high school his senior year of high school all he did was DH because he had a shoulder issue he didn't play shortstop as a senior in high school and now has moved to center field and so he's fairly new there as well and but from a talent perspective like this is the sort of athlete that baseball slam dunk should like be doing whatever it can to coax him to play baseball and they really should be doing it financially it should not have been a question for Kyler Murray what he was going to do. You know, the fact that a top 10 talent in baseball, in a baseball draft, might have

a decision to make, you know, if he's a second rounder in the NFL. It's like, that's not great for baseball. It's not a great look. And this is just sort of the situation that the, you know, the players union and the owners have put the talent acquisition situation in because they don't want to pay for amateur talent. And the NFL is a little bit more willing to. And so now this is a discussion we're having. So talk to me like I'm an idiot because I don't remember that much about Bo Jackson.

I don't remember that much about Brian Jordan, Deion Sanders, etc. Deion Sanders, et cetera. What are the logistics of playing baseball and football, given that obviously when you get to like August and September and then October, there's a lot of seasonal overlap. Right. And with those guys, it varies. I mean, the Bo Jackson stories are ridiculous because, I mean, in my opinion, that's the greatest athlete in the history of our country. But Bo played football, as he put it, as a hobby, and the baseball season would end, and Bo would show up, Oakland season would have begun, and then it would take Bo a couple weeks

to get into football shape, and then he'd be better than Marcus Allen. So, you know, as a quarterback, it's a little different, because there is a heavier intellectual burden than, you know, Deion would just show up and cover people. So it was a little bit different for Prime. And you know Deion who was about Kyler Murray's size didn't have to

tackle anybody and if you watch Deion Sanders highlights it's clear that he didn't want to so yeah like the logistics of it are bizarre it's been a long time since anybody has done it and both sports have have, especially like football, with preseason and all the install that's going on as far as offensive schemes goes, especially in his first year, it could complicate things. I think that the overlap there in the fall is a huge barrier. Obviously, as far as minor league baseball is concerned, the season ends at the end of August. So in theory, Kyler could be ready sooner now than he would if you were a big leaguer to go transition and play football.

And maybe that situation is actually pretty good to try both for a little while. And Kyler probably comes into camp here in Mesa in February, March, and then maybe they let him wrap up his season at Beloit or Stockton a little early to go play in the NFL somewhere. I suppose that's possible, but the intellectual component, especially for a quarterback, I think makes the barrier for him doing both more difficult to cross. Yeah. And there are a couple schools of thought on it. Bo Jackson is a legend in part because he did both, But if he had done only one, if he had focused on baseball exclusively, odds are he would have been a much better baseball player. I mean, he was a pretty good baseball player at times, but clearly more of a just, you know, he's a physical god, of course. And so he could just kind of compensate

for a lack of experience. But he was sort of a raw player in a lot of ways, and there's no telling how good he would have been if he had focused on both. On the other hand, it's just so incredibly rare and now basically unheard of for someone to do that that in terms of just being a legend, you're probably guaranteed that if you do it at all. I mean, I don't know. Mark Hendrickson's not a legend, I guess, for playing basketball and baseball, but that's a little bit different. So I don't know. Kyler Murray is not quite the just physical person that Bo Jackson was. I mean, he recreated Bo Jackson's iconic Nike photo and, you know, he looks good in black and white with just the shoulder pads and the bat over his shoulders, but it's just not quite the same. Like, you know, he looks good in black and white with just the shoulder pads and the bat

over his shoulders, but it's just not quite the same. Like, I don't know whether Kyler Murray is going to produce the same kind of incredible highlights that we all still talk about with Bo Jackson decades later. Yeah, I was lucky enough to speak with a gentleman who was the Raiders special teams coach during Bo's tenure with Oakland because the special teams coach also coached JP Crawford's father when I was writing about like physical projection at the time and how to do it and looking at parents and then talked you know about athletic parents and so I ended up talking to this guy mostly about JP Crawford's dad who played like uh division one ball at Iowa State and then like in the Canadian league and stuff,

but he'd been a special teams coach all over the place, mostly under Pete Carroll at various spots for a long time. And he was with the Raiders while Bo was there. And like we, our conversation went much longer than I expected. Like half of it was just on Bo and like what it was like to be around somebody like that and it is like a different thing. It's not I don't think you can compare anyone to Bo Jackson

as like a physical athletic entity. And I know Kyler Murray's really special. But you know, if you if anyone's watched football this century, we've kind of seen this type of guy before whether it's Vic or some of the lesser college types who didn't work out in the NFL. It's hard for this type of quarterback to pan

out in the NFL. It's hard for any quarterback to pan out in the NFL. So I think that he and the Boris group have probably discussed the avenues and when is the right time to bail on either avenue if it's clear that's not going to work out so i think they're probably going to try the total line for a while until they reach a point of no return with either board whether that's uh in success or failure like if kyler goes out to beloit if he's in low a and he can't hit like he's running like a 40 strikeout rate or something like that it's probably not going to work. Right. So,

uh, you know, if that pitching is theoretically worse than what he faced in the big 12 last year. And so that should be a sign that like this, there's something that's not going to click here. And maybe at that point, the,

his performance is so extremely bad that they kind of know, okay, this isn't going to work out. And then conversely, like on the football field, the way you find out that that's not going to work is potentially catastrophic for like his body. You know, just think about how injury prone

Teddy Bridgewater has been. And Bridgewater's like 6'2", he's just skinny. You know, and like it's hard to have 300 pound dudes who run like short shuttles under four seconds falling on you. It sucks. So I know people in baseball who care a lot about football, who are, you know, talent evaluators in baseball, who can't turn that switch off when they're watching football, who don't think he has a prayer in the NFL. But they're not exactly, they're very biased. Like everyone wants to see this kid play baseball, see what it would be like if he did it right or well, excuse me.

And yeah, I think I know that's the camp I fall in. And I hope that there's a decision made on it at some point, but I don't anticipate there one to be, to be made anytime soon. NFL draft is in April folks. Yeah. So I guess the last thing I wanted to ask you, just in, in your own opinion, of course we have these precedents from from the 80s, the 90s, and even before that. But now we talk so much about how baseball players have become specialized, and I'm sure all the same things have been happening in football, that everybody, in order to be good

now, you just have to dedicate yourself to being good at that more than probably ever before in terms of being a professional athlete. So just sort of in your opinion, do you think that it would be realistic for a Kyler Murray to be able to be at least an average player in both sports? Oh, man. No, I don't think so. I don't think so. Like, even some of the more recent guys who have tried something like this are gone from one to the other. Like I do think, especially baseball is so unforgiving of technical rust. If you haven't seen a good

curveball for a while, I don't know if you can reclaim that. Your ability to identify and square that pitch up. I don't know what it's like to be in center field and not have taken fly balls out there for an extended period of time and then come back to it.

So I'm very skeptical. Drew Henson couldn't do it. I don't think he's quite the athlete that Kyler Murray was. It's like the first guy who comes to mind when I'm like, okay, who in the last X amount of years has tried anything kind of like this? So no, I don't think so. But if you were able to do that, that would be so incredible. Maybe as a gadget player in the NFL and a good everyday baseball player,

that could work. I don't know if quarterback timeshares are necessarily a thing that NFL teams are super stoked on. But perhaps, yeah, you can limit what the kid has to carry from a playbook standpoint. You limit the physical toll on his body. Maybe there are ways where he's effective in both sports. But to put him on the quarterback continuum in like the 20 to 10 range if you're lining up all the quarterbacks

and think that he's going to be like a two three win baseball player like that that seems pretty unlikely well it's funny i've never seen kyler murray perform any physical feat whether in baseball or football but suddenly i want him. I'm like all tribal about baseball, getting this guy who I've never seen, but hey, if it's us versus football, I want baseball to get the guy. So I hope that works out. I guess in the wake of his Heisman win, he has already had his terrible teenage tweets, homophobic tweets that he sent years ago when he was 14 or so dredged up. And he has apologized for those. So I guess he would fit in baseball in that respect, unfortunately.

He's already got that out of the way. Yeah, let's hope that the kid can grow intellectually and morally because he's not going to grow physically. So, yeah. All right. Well, thank you for giving us a primer on a player we know very little about but wanted to know more about, and now we do. So thank you very much, Eric.

Oh, my pleasure, guys. Yeah, I know Kylie got a lot of video of Kyler playing in Orlando and elsewhere during the spring before the draft. So if you want to see, listeners want to see what this is like, watch this guy play baseball. It's on the Fangraphs YouTube page somewhere. You just Google Kyler FanGraphs video. It comes up.

I will link to it. All right. Thank you, Eric. See you guys. Thank you. Okay, we will take one more quick break, and then we will be right back with Octavio Hernandez to talk about baseball in Venezuela.

A cause and a fact that we'll try to regret But it's his daily life A promise to pack that the world never kept But it's his daily life So on Thursday night, we all got some sad and tragic news, which was that two baseball players we remember well from the majors, Luis Valbuena and Jose Castillo, were killed in Venezuela coming back from a game in the Venezuelan Winter League. At first, we assumed it was an accident, and that was sad itself, obviously. But then we learned that there was something more nefarious at work and that this was caused by bandits, that they were killed on purpose, that they were robbed. It is another instance of violence and tragedy in Venezuela affecting baseball. And so to talk about this and the response and what the future looks like, we are joined now by Octavio Hernandez, who currently is in Mexico City, where he is the head of the advanced metrics department for the Diablos Rojos in the Mexican League. But prior to that, he was in Venezuela.

He is Venezuelan. He covered Venezuelan baseball as a beat writer for Lider. And he was also an assistant GM for the Leones del Caracas in the Venezuelan Winter League for two years. That was a long intro. Hello, Octavio. Hi, Ben. How are you? It's a pleasure.

It's really an honor to be here. Yeah. We talk to you on Twitter all the time. We've mentioned you on the show. You've been on the Ringer MLB show with me before, but we are having you on here and unfortunately under sad circumstances. So tell us a little bit, obviously you are not currently in Venezuelan, but you are connected to Venezuela and Venezuelan baseball. What has the response been to the murders of Valbuena and Castillo? This is basically the worst tragedy in the 72 years of history of this league.

We have had players killed in the past because of insecurity, because of thugs, but never two guys in the same day with this kind of careers. I mean, Jose Castillo, probably you guys don't know this because you're not so familiar with the Venezuelan league. Luis Balbuena had the the better career he he was on mlb uh he actually he was playing without the need of playing over there in venezuela he has had like 30 million career earnings on mlb but jose castillo is even bigger in venezuela Venezuela. You could say he's one of the three best

hitters in the history of the game. First of all, in the history of that league, first you could say is Victor Lavallillo. Second, you could say is Robert Perez. I don't know if you remember that guy.

He played with the Toronto Blue Jays in the early 90s, I believe, a couple of years. And I believe the third best hitter in this league, in the history of the league, could be really Jose Castillo. His nickname was, is, I believe, because his nickname hasn't disappeared, it was The Axe, El Hacha. He's had this music around, this song around him that, I mean, he basically was a great hitter, loved by every single one of the fans that saw him, no matter if this fan was a fan of a rival team,

everyone knew that this guy was just amazing, that he probably, with discipline, with a little bit of discipline in his life, could have been a really good ball player on MLB. Instead, he had a short career on MLB, especially with the Pittsburgh Pirates. But he dedicated himself to play every single winter over there in Venezuela. And he was beloved. He was 38 years old, respected by all, admired by all the fans. And it's a tremendous loss. In Venezuela, the day after this horrible tragedy,

they didn't play, and the day after that, they didn't play again, because basically the majority of the players in the league, they weren't ready, because they were in mourning. It's just too great of a shock to everyone. Is it understood that these two players were targeted in particular, or was this just a random accident that happened to end up targeting them? No, it's a random.

I mean, I don't have proof about that, but anyone that has seen or lived the conditions of our roads and the conditions of our personal security when you're traveling on those roads, you can't expect this to happen. I mean, this is not the first time that this type of things occur in our roads. things occur in our roads. This is a style that road pirates use to slow down cars and after they get trashed, well they rob them. And basically that's what happened. Whoever did this, they ended up plundering the car and stealing whatever was in the car. And basically because of that, the authorities, a day after, they end up with a couple of suspects that had the belongings of these two players. Actually, it wasn't, I don't know if you read that because, of course, all the headlines are designated to Jose Castillo and Luis Valbuena, but they weren't alone in the car. There were four people in the car.

Carlos Rivero, former third base from the Red Sox, I believe, he was in the front seat of the car, but he ended up with small injuries, but alive, basically because he was using a seatbelt. And the chauffeur, he also, well, he saved his life basically because he was saving the seatbelt. He was using the seatbelt. The casualties occurred for the two guys that were in the backseat of the car, and they weren't using the seatbelt. It's just, well, it's not as common to use seatbelts in Venezuela, especially if you're sitting in the backseat of the car.

And there was a comment by the league president who said that he's considering banning players from traveling in their own cars to and from games because if they had been on the team bus this wouldn't have happened so what measures do teams take to try to keep their players safe and you know about this because you were an assistant gm and and you helped organize travel at that time yeah i mean those remarks ignited a lot of a lot of heat from the players against the president of the league because he what he's saying is like political in politically incorrect because he's saying well maybe if he was they they weren't in this private car maybe they were alive well yes of course but

that's not the main issue. The main issue here is they weren't doing anything wrong. They were just traveling in a private car, trying to get faster to their destiny. They played in Caracas. They ended up that game around, I don't know, 11.30, 12 a.m. at night. And they decided to travel privately to Parquisimeto, who's a city around four or five hours away. If you use a private car, you could do that trip in around four hours. If you use a bus, you will do that trip around, you will take like six hours to complete that trip because it's slower. So basically the main issue here, it's not they

did anything wrong like traveling by themselves. The main issue here is the national conditions and the risk that involves specifically traveling when you are out of the flock, when ballplayers, they play in Venezuela in a bubble. They get special measures of security so they can play and forget about the crisis that is living in Venezuela. What happened that night is that the bubble just burst. just burst. Teams can do certain amount of things, but they can't avoid the main conditions that the Venezuelan Baseball League plays. And the main condition is like, well, you play Venezuela and Venezuela is a really dangerous city, a really dangerous country. So, I mean, I understand the remarks of the president, but I think they were taking a little bit out of context because they weren't doing anything wrong. Then again, anyone who plays in Venezuela have to know that you have to take special measures to avoid being involved in this kind of situations.

And they didn't. But it's not their fault, because they're from Venezuela, you know? They don't have this chip that an American player has, or a foreign player has, that it's basically saying to them Venezuela's really is really dangerous you have to be very careful of course of course they know that Venezuela is very dangerous but it's their turf it's their country and they're going to to behave like it's their country and they're gonna start up a car they're gonna and they're going to take this private cars

to get to a city as fast as they can because they want to spend as much as as much time as they can with their families so it's really it's really a tough decision. I mean, I understand the remarks. Then again, it's just the players don't have the fault. The league doesn't have the fault. The main reason that this is happening is because Venezuela is a lawless state that has roads like Mad Max roads. It's just... I mean, forgive me if I get a little bit emotional because I'm

trying to picture something that is just not rare. I've seen this for the last 10 years in my country. And because it happened to a couple of stars, baseball

stars, well, now it's important to the world. Right. You had mentioned earlier that they have identified two suspects, but you also just referred to Venezuela as a lawless state. It's maybe not the most important thing at this moment, but what is the amount of faith that the perpetrators here are going to be able to be found and brought to justice? No, but the thing is, like, because everyone in the baseball community is trying to, basically screaming to the government, we want justice.

Well, basically, they move, and they say, okay, let's bring them justice. Let's bring them, let's bring them let's hunt down this these two three guys that were responsible for for this and tell the world well at least we have responsible then again this type of responses from the government only occurred when the victims are important to the world and it's heartbreaking to say 99% of the country it's not important because when 99% of the of the victims in Venezuela go down the drain using this technique, there aren't thousands of tweets, hundreds of newspapers around the globe basically headlining this tragedy. This is happening only because it was

Jose Castillo and Luis Valbuena, two guys that were beloved in Venezuela and around the globe, guys that were beloved in Venezuela and around the globe, the baseball world. Right. And we've seen players killed in the Dominican over the winter. The conditions of the roads are not great there. Sometimes alcohol is involved. There's a little more laxity about that at times. And this was not that. This is completely different, of course. But iszy Guillen is right now the manager of Tiburones de la Guaira and he was alerting on his timeline around a month ago the bad conditions of the road between Puerto la Cruz and Caracas this accident didn't occur in that in that road but then again there there's no there's no road from the first world in Venezuela.

The roads are really in bad shape. And there's basically, it's the only way that the teams have to get their players to another city because the airlines in Venezuela are just, if they haven't gone into bankruptcy, they have like two planes. So it's really, really difficult to get to establish some sort of plan to transport every single time your players to a city to another using airplanes. So that's why they use a lot of buses. You look at this year's numbers in the Venezuelan league. There's Harold Ramirez is one of the best hitters.

Williams Estadio was there. Alejandro De Aza is there. There are Ronnie Cedeno, Eddie Chavez, Delman Young. There are a number of current or recent major league players who still go down to Venezuela to play winter ball. Obviously, it's a good league. It's a quality league. And most of the time, nothing bad happens. But how much I know major league teams have been moving their facilities out of Venezuela, their youth academies, and they've been saying out of the country and how much more tolerance do you

think major league baseball and major league players are going to have to to go down to venezuela when when so little about their their safety and their well-being can be taken for granted given the the greater climate that's that's a good question i believe oh if i have to think i mean there's there are a lot of players that play in Venezuela because the pay is good. You have to remember that the Venezuelan players that play a whole season in double-A or triple-A and that maybe were on MLB around two or three years ago, they have to play in Venezuela because if they don't play in Venezuela, being a Venezuelan, they can't play anywhere because of the Caribbean League settings.

Basically, Leones del Caracas, Navegantes del Magallanes, they have the rights over their players. And if they want to play in the Dominican Bowl or the Mexican Bowl, they can't without the permission of the team. So that's that. without the permission of the team. So that's that. Second, we are seeing a diminishing participation of the grand prospects.

For example, you are seeing in the Dominican League, Eloy Jimenez. You are seeing Fernando Tatis. But you're not seeing Venezuela, Ronald Acuña, or Gleyber Torres. And the explanation for that, the main explanation for that is, well, basically they don't feel safe.

The Yankees don't feel safe telling Gleyber Torres, go ahead and play. The Braves don't feel safe telling Ronald Acuna, go ahead and play. But then again, the league is just a massive part of these creatures of habit. I'm not saying this to insult the players, but they are creatures of habit. They love doing exactly the same every single year.

It's really tough to tell them, just don't play there, man. Just don't play there because it doesn't work they are used to playing in Venezuela they crave for the the adrenaline for the league and also for the payment so they go ahead and play right now the the quality of the import players is a little bit under the quality of the import players that the Dominican League usually puts on the field. And that's basically because they import players, they see the newspapers, they see the tweets, they get informed and they just, no, I'm not going there.

Actually, I talked to Dustin Geiger around, I don't know, four months ago over here in Mexico. And I said to him, do you want to go to Venezuela? And he's like, no, not even close. I mean, if you know someone over there in the Dominican Bowl, of course, I have a couple offers over here in Mexico. But I'm not interested in Venezuela because they know. Maybe in the future, Jeff, maybe in the, I don't know, not distant future, maybe there could be an executive order from the government banning MLB to establish economic

relationships to Venezuela. It could happen because the government right now is subject of a series of sanctions. And maybe in the not too distant future, that could just blow the league up. And because the U.S. government is selling MLB, basically you can't do anything with an enterprise from Venezuela. We're an enterprise from Venezuela. And to what extent would you say, I mean, most Venezuelan players who are in the majors, obviously they have made it out and, you know, hopefully they can afford to keep their loved ones relatively safe, but that's certainly not the case for a lot of players. They have friends, they have family who are in danger. And, you know, even if they are not going back to play there over the winter or if they do, maybe they can afford to keep themselves safe.

But there's still a concern all the time about the state of affairs in your country and whether everyone you care about is going to be safe. And obviously that is bigger than baseball. So to what extent would you guess that this weighs on the minds of many of the Venezuelan players in the majors during the regular season? So yes, of course. I mean, these guys are Venezuelans. Most of them, they don't have the luxury to get their families out of Venezuela and into the States. And so basically that's really a huge concern. I mean, I've read a lot of interviews done to Ender Inciarte, to Jose Altuve, that are basically screaming for solutions on this matter because it's something bigger than baseball, exactly what you said.

I know that these guys are not robots. I mean, these guys have to be on the news every single day. They have Twitter accounts. They had Instagram accounts. And they know what's happening over there in Venezuela. And, of course, they get worried. I mean, I'm absolutely sure that they have this eye, this part of their heart in Venezuela, and they're working

because there are connections between the ballplayers and the government. For example, Carlos Guillen, the second baseman from the Detroit Tigers, he has a lot of leverage with the higher power of the government. And I know for a fact that they talk to him to try to solve this. But then again, this is something bigger than the ballplayers. This is something that goes far beyond the lack of efficiency from the government trying to stop the insecurity and thugs. This is a state policy that is trying to expel every single one of the people that is not, for a matter of speaking, okay with what's happening in

Venezuela, just to get them out of Venezuela. And that's why you have millions of people just fleeing the country, just because of the insecurity, because of the economic crisis, because the Venezuelan government doesn't need Venezuelans. They just need oil. They just need gold. They just need diamonds. They just need coltrane.

They don't need Venezuelans over there. So if we flee the country, go ahead. So it's just stuff's tough it's tough there are at least according to the the latest numbers i could find we know that baseball team major league baseball teams have academies in in like the dominican republic but in in venezuela there are i'll i'll read a quote here there are about 100 substantial privately owned baseball academies in venezuela which is mlb's second most represented country after the dominican republic and well ahead of longtime regional powerhouse cuba now that being said by 2002 i think there were 23

major league teams that had their own academies in venezuela and according to the last research i could find there are only four that are still active. The Cubs, the Rays, the Tigers, and the Phillies still run academies in Venezuela. I think there's none, but I'm not, I think I have to, I will confirm that fact after the podcast, after this conversation, because I was in like two months ago in a summit over here of the Mexican Bowl, and I had the pleasure to talk to Arturo Marcano, who's a ESPN collaborator,

and he specializes in the reality of the baseball prospects in Dominican and Venezuela. And I'm almost 100% sure that he told me that there were non-academies right now. And it's just, it's logical. Right. So if there are, let's say, I assume then you are correct, let's say there are no major league baseball academies remaining, Venezuela clearly has a great talent pipeline. There are a lot of, as the article I was reading says, Venezuelans are the second most represented

country in major league baseball behind the Dominican Republic among Latin American countries. But what hope now do young Venezuelan players have of getting developed, learning, getting nutrition, and getting noticed? How does a young Venezuelan baseball player hope to succeed now relative to 20 years ago when the doors were much wider open? The doors were much wider open, but they weren't as efficient generating MLB players. Because Venezuela didn't have 20 years ago, I don't know, 110 or something like that MLB players because Venezuela didn't have 20 years ago a hundred and I don't know 110 or something like that and maybe players we had like 10 or 15. Why is that? Well, basically because The development system does not depend on the Academy These guys has half like as you said a hundred or more

private academies trying to stash as much of the the talent around the country that they find that they could find and when they turn 16 they sell them to MLB teams and whenever MLB teams have the rights on these players they take them to Dominican RepublicB teams have the rights on these players, they take them to Dominican Republic, where they have the academies. What happened 20 years ago is that those guys didn't have to leave town because the MLB teams already had academies just around the block. around the block and it was, let's not say safer, just more comfortable for Venezuelan prospects to be in their native country. Now that doesn't happen. They just get signed at 16 and they get signed, sealed, delivered to Dominican Republic. So that's why the production, the generation of MLB Venezuelan talent hasn't stopped.

In fact, the crisis that Venezuela is living right now is not something new. Venezuela has had problems for the last 10 years. And basically, the middle class is not seeing too much opportunities to evolve as a citizen studying or getting a job. What's happening in Venezuela from the last 15 years is basically that the parents are telling the kids, OK, go ahead. You can skip school. I don't care if you graduate. Go ahead. Go to the academy, this private academy at 11 years old, go ahead and only play baseball for three or four years, and let's just hope that you could sign for $100,000, $150,000, or $1 million, something like that,

to get a lottery ticket out of poverty. This is the system that has been so successful baseball-wise in Dominican Republic, but it's just a plague on the society because most of them, most of these kids, they don't get signed and they don't have any kind of education. They don't have anything. So they become a weight on the society. So they turn 16. They don't get signed.

What do they do? Well, basically, I don't know, maybe become a thug or something like that. It's just, it's wrong for the society, but it's good for the mining process, the talent mining process that MLB has established in Dominican Republic and Venezuela. So I know that we've been talking about this in a baseball context mostly, but is there any prospect of larger change in the country that might solve this baseball specific issue by addressing things on a national level? No, Ben. That's why I'm here in Mexico. I'm hopeless.

I just fled. I'm bringing my fiancée over the next three months over here to Mexico and just fled the country because there's no hope right now. just fled the country because there's no hope right now. And it's just, it's a nihilistic way of thinking, but it's a realistic way of thinking. There's just no hope right now. It's not a crisis, because crises tend to generate changes.

What's happening right now in Venezuela is a planned, a demolition planned plan. So basically, what is happening right now it's not something that's going to i believe change in the the months to come or the years to come it has to happen something massive and i don't see that happening i guess the last thing i should ask you is how how has been the process of of you fleeing and then you also now trying to move your fiancé up in the next few months. How has it been packing up your life and how feasible has it been for you to change the country where you and your family are living?

Yeah, well, it's tough. But then again, I have family here. I'm right now doing this podcast in the apartment of an aunt that I haven't seen for, I don't know, 20 years. She was a prophet. She moved to Mexico in 1999 when it all began. So right now I'm like a refugee over here, but I have papers. Thanks to Diablo Solado de México, I have a job.

Thanks to Diablo Solado de México and thanks to Tadeo Varela who recommended me for this job. And well, trying to survive, trying to make this situation the best that I can. Of course, I have all my family over there. It's specifically the same situation that the ballplayers have. It's specifically the same situation that the ballplayers have. They get signed, maybe they're 16, and they really don't know what they're facing. But when they are 21, 22, 23,

and they work every single year over there in the States, they work, but they know that they're leaving their hearts over there in Venezuela because they have their parents over there, their brothers over there. And it's just tough. It's just tough. So we have to just keep grinding. Well, we appreciate you coming on and talking about this. I know it's not a fun topic for you or anyone else. And we will have to have you back on another time to talk about something a little less depressing. We can talk about your work in Mexico sometime. We did do an episode, episode 887, about statistics in the Mexican League, but that was a couple of years ago, and I'm sure that things have changed somewhat since then. And maybe we can talk about that and just Williams Estadio and happy subjects next time.

But we appreciate you coming on to talk about a tough one well thanks man really i mean it's as i said of the record it's tough talking about this but then again any opportunity is good to to talk to you guys because I'm a huge fan. I've been hearing your podcast for the last, I don't know, four years. So it's an honor. So anything that you may need from Mexico, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, I'm your guy. All right. And we appreciate you keeping us informed about

William Zestadillo's strikeout list streak and exactly how many at-bats he went without striking out good information. He only has one. He only has one. Ten walks. Jeff. Yeah, so I saw those three walks in a game. I didn't see that game because that has to be like, I don't know what the hell happened there. But if you go like a year ago,

Asturias has strikeout five times and 420 at-bats in Venezuela. there but if you if you go like a year ago I still you has wall that has strikeout five times in 420 at bats in Venezuela did you see that for 20 I mean it's absolutely horrendous I mean I was trying I recently wrote a column for a friend over there in Miami and I I was trying to establish parallelisms in Venezuela. And, I mean, Alberto Callaspo had the most similar season.

He had nine strikeouts in 182 at-bats. I believe it was 2005-2006. Asadillo has five over the last two years. That's more than 400 bats. This guy is amazing.

I mean, he's a circus freak and I love him. He's the one thing, well, he's one of the things that brings joy to my life. Yes, ours too. So just please someone protect William Testatio while he is down there. Take the team bus. Wear your seatbelt. All lives are precious. I want everyone to stay safe, but I want an armed guard surrounding William Testadio at all times.

All right. Well, you can find Octavio on Twitter at Octavio Lider. And again, we appreciate your coming on. Thank you. No, thank you, guys. Okay again, we appreciate your coming on. Thank you. No, thank you guys. Okay. That will do it for today. Thank you for listening. And to everyone who joined us on this episode, you can support the podcast by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild and signing up to pledge some small monthly amount to keep the podcast going as have the following five listeners,

Eugene McMahon, Bill Kirkpatrick, Jeremy Paranto, Matt Kapoluski, and Chris Krohn. Thanks to all of you. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Effectively Wild, and you can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We will try to squeeze in an email show later this week, depending on how busy the winter meetings turn out to be. So please do send us your emails at podcast at fan graphs dot com or message us via Patreon. If you are a Patreon supporter, our schedule will be somewhat unpredictable for the rest of this week as Jeff navigates Las Vegas. But we will, as always, talk to you sometime soon.