Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1308: What Happened in Vegas

Episode Date: December 14, 2018

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s sartorial choice during his MLB Network appearance at the Winter Meetings, Willians Astudillo striking out twice against the same pitcher in a pro game for (possibly) the first time, Scott Boras and Brian Cashman metaphors, big-picture takeaways from the Winter Meetings, the Phillies signing Andrew McCutchen, the […]

If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. As I walk away. Watch me unravel, I'll soon be naked. Lying on the floor, lying on the floor, I've come undone. I've come undone Hello, how are you? There's a long thread in our Facebook group, which I'm assuming you have not read, about your sweater in your MLB Network appearance. People had opinions about that sweater. Some good, some bad. Love that sweater. I don't know if white, off-white, is the best idea for television. It was cold out there. I didn't want to bring my jacket, though.

Right. Yeah, I wanted to wear a sweater. I like that sweater. It's a great sweater. Yeah. It's an 80-grade sweater, and if people have negative feedback, I don't really care. It's not going to hurt me. It's not going to wound me. I think it's, yeah, I think it's a great sweater, too. I would wear that sweater. I mean, on TV, I guess, I don't know if you knew that you were going to be on TV at the winter meetings, and I don't know if you had an opportunity to pack more typical TV attire, but I say down with the suitocracy. Why can't we be comfortable on camera? That's exactly right. I had a sense that I might go on because I knew that Jay Jaffe went on.

I know that the After Meat, Meg Rowley went on. And so I know that Fangraph's people were being represented, but yeah, everybody wears the same stuff on television. So who cares? I wasn't going to pack a suit for God's sake to go to the winter meetings. I'm a blogger. That's absurd. You're not a job seeker. There are plenty of those people running around. But yeah. The first time I ever did an MLB Network hit, it was already complicated because this is the first time I'd ever done one in person. You have

done them in person and it's much more comfortable to be there talking to human beings, right? Yeah. Have you ever had to do one remote? Not for MLB Network. I have for some other TV show, and it's weird because, yeah, you just sit in this room by yourself, and you just look into a camera, and you can't see anything. I guess I did do it once for MLB Network because they have a studio in Manhattan, and for some reason, I just did a quick spot from there. But yeah, it's always the timing is weird, and you can't see who you're talking to and it's uncomfortable. Yeah. So the first time that I ever did one and it was remote, all the ones I've done have been remote.

And I was in some remote studio in Boston and I was given zero instruction. So I conducted myself like you would during a regular conversation. And I figured mentally when I was done talking, I was no longer on camera. And so when I was done talking, was no longer on camera and so when i was done talking i would look around the room and what i realized later upon watching a tape of myself is that i was still on camera looking around the room so that wasn't good but still nobody had no producers in my ear being like hey don't look around the room you look stupid but the other thing and the reason i brought this up is because at that point i wore a green shirt a green penguin shirt i like didn't have

penguins it was by penguin brand but it's kind of like a light green if you see it in person. On television, it read neon highlighter yellow. So that was another problem. Didn't go super well. No one told me what to do with my hands. Being in person was a lot more comfortable. And it's a great sweater. It's my favorite sweater that I own. Yeah, no problem with the sweater on my end. I approve of the sweater. I think there should be more sweaters on baseball panels on TV. So stick with your style. So I'm glad that you don't have such a big head from your in-person MLB Network appearance that you're too big to join me on the podcast. Glad we could have you on the show. Can you imagine, though? I was very proud of the job that Meg Rowley did, making her LLB Network debut on a panel with Brian Kenney and two Hall of Famers. Yeah, Peter Gimmons and Jason Stark and like Gale Force winds that were whipping everything around. But yeah, she was excellent. And outside of that, we officially did not conduct a podcast during, I think, the span of the winter meetings. We had the idea we were going to do it on Wednesday and it couldn't happen. And we were going to do it earlier

Thursday, and it couldn't happen. Why couldn't it happen? Because of the classic reason that always gets in the way of our plans. Although with a twist, Jerry DePoto made a trade. But while burdened by pulmonary embolisms, he had blood clots in his lungs. I knew that he was ill. I thought he was just like, you know, sick, losing fluids, maybe had the flu. No, blood clots in his lungs I knew that he was ill I thought he was just like you know sick Losing fluids maybe had the flu No blood clots Jared Bodo blood clots made a trade from the hospital bed Yeah he evidently

Started feeling ill on Monday And then it just got worse and worse And then his co-workers forced him To go to the hospital On Wednesday because presumably He was already in the middle of working out that trade So he was go to the hospital on Wednesday because presumably he was already in the middle of working out that trade. So he was overnight in the hospital on Wednesday and then into Thursday, and then they completed the trade on Thursday morning. I guess Justin Hollander, assistant GM,

tagged in and was the closer to get it done. But Jerry was still signing off on it in his hospital bed, which is, it almost seems like a joke we would make about Jerry DePoto just completing a trade while in the hospital, but it actually happened. Yeah. And I feel a little bad even talking about it with sort of this like smirk in my voice, if that makes any sense, because it's like a real condition. And Jerry DePoto has had major health scares before. He had cancer when he was, I think, 25 years old. So I was reading in an article not too long ago that Jerry DePoto said, you know, this is like a wake-up call and this is going to give him some perspective and things are going to slow down. But does anybody believe it?

No, right? I mean, he said they were going to slow down and not do a trade before the winter meetings. And it was like six days or something that was slowing down. I think he's completed. What is it? He's done seven trades over the past five weeks, I think, which that's a lot. That's take it easy over the holidays, Jerry. Just no trades.

I mean, I know you have Edwin Encarnacion now and you probably can't wait to send him somewhere else. But just relax. Think of your health. And yeah, well, we can talk about that deal. But big picture winter meetings, I wouldn't say they weren't busy. It was a little slow getting started. Like we didn't get the Machado or Harper news. We didn't get Real Mudo trade.

We didn't get Kluber or Bauer going anywhere. So the really big news did not happen, but there were a lot of little moves that we can discuss. And of course, I think you have an update on our old standby, Williams-Estadillo, we have not discussed for days. This is good. Yeah. Before I guess we get into the meat of the winter meetings, then we should. So we recently spoke to our friend Octavio Hernandez. We talked to him

about the tragedy in Venezuela with Jose Castillo and Luis Valbuena. But I was tweeted and realistically, let's just say we were both tweeted because I think that when one of us

gets an Estadio tweet, realistically, it's both of us getting an Estadio tweet. Octav it's both of us getting an Astadio tweet. Octavia Hernandez updated us with a tweet earlier Thursday. Williams Astadio struck out yesterday twice against the same pitcher. Here in his tweet, here is the guy who did it. At ItAin'tEasy37.

That would be play on words. ItAin'tEasy because his name is Rick Teasley. Rick Teasley, whose Twitter bio says, I get paid to play baseball with my friends. Rick Teasley retweeted Octavio Hernandez tweeting that to me. If you scroll down, one of the next tweets, even before that, so 12 hours before Octavio Hernandez sent that tweet to me, Octavio Hernandez tweeted,

again, now not with the tweet, not tagging Rick Teasley. Octavio Hernandez tweeted, I will translate this the tweet not tagging Rick Teasley. Octavia Hernandez tweeted, I will translate this tweet because he tweeted in Spanish. Rick Teasley struck out Astadillo two times. Rick Teasley, WTF? And Rick Teasley retweeted it right into his timeline, just leaning into it. Rick Teasley is a professional baseball player. We know that because he is playing in the Venezuelan Winter Leagues right now. He has a 0.57 ERA in the leagues and 15.2 innings.

He's allowed one run. He has 10 strikeouts, three walks. Two of those strikeouts have been Williams-Astadillo. Rick Teasley is 27 years old. He'll turn 28 next April. He was a 23rd round pick by Tampa Bay in 2013. He went to John Carroll Catholic High School and then St. Leo

College. His full name is Richard Teasley. Don't have a middle name. He is a lefty. He stands 6'2". He weighs 210 pounds, according to whenever this bioinformation was acquired. And he has played in a few places. He has played in Venezuela. He's in the Atlantic League. That's where he spent

last summer. He was pitching for Som. That's where he spent last summer. He was pitching for Somerset, where he had a mid-3 ZRA, and he also pitched for Brisbane. He pitched in Australia in 2015 and 2016. So Rick Teasley not in affiliated ball. But I would think if you strike out Williams Estadio two times in one game, that's the kind of thing that stands out to an analyst, right? You figure there must be something about those pitches, about that delivery. I, for one, now understanding that Rick Teasley clearly is on Twitter, maybe after achieving the highlight of his professional career, maybe a worthwhile guest.

Yeah, maybe so. I mean, didn't even have the platoon advantage or anything. So I'd like to see some video. I'd like to know how this happened. Maybe we'll find out right from him. Did anyone strike out Astadio twice this season? I mean, someone must have struck him out twice in the past, right? He's struck out twice in a game before, I think, that has happened. Has that happened? I guess we have to check now. I seem to recall checking once and it had happened, but I could be imagining that.

Let's assume, okay, we're going to, we're just going to do a little game log, just a little game log search amongst ourselves. So we have, it looks like we've got 10 years of Asidio game logs. Let's just go through them all, not counting 2013, because something happened to Williams Asidio in 2013, I guess. I don't know what it was. happened to williams acidio in 2013 i guess i don't know what it was so we're going back in to 2009 and in 2009 acidio never struck out twice in game we are going now to 2010 in the year 2010 this is great listening no he didn't do it in the year 2011 do you think that he did it the answer is no he only struck out twice so we're moving on to 2012. In the year 2012, nope, never did it. Five strikeouts all season.

2014 is the year that we get to. In that case, yes, he struck out twice against the Delmarva Shorebirds. I will pull up a box score, see what we do there. But 2015, let's just go through it all. 2015, nope, never struck out twice in a game. 2016, getting a little nervous, never happened in 2016, getting to 2017. Did it happen in 2017? No, it did not.

Did it happen in the year 2018? The answer is yes, twice. Twice it happened against the Durham Bowl. My God. May 31st and then June 2nd, he struck out twice in both of those games. Williams, Estadio must have had his own pulmonary embolism. So I guess at this point I have little choice but to open up game logs, right? We've got to figure out exactly how this happened.

So in 2014, Estadio did not strike out twice against the same pitcher because he struck out once in the fourth inning, once in the ninth, and in the ninth, Donnie Hart came in to pitch. So he relieved whoever was pitching before that. So Estadio did not strike out twice against the same pitcher then. So we move on to May 31st. Willings Estadio called out on strikes. I guess that does count. That counts as a strikeout, even though it's not the same. So in the second inning of that game, Astadio was struck out by Anthony Bonda. So did Bonda do it again?

It happened in the ninth inning, and the pitcher in the ninth inning was Adam Kalark. So no, not twice against the same pitcher. Our last chance will be June 2nd. So let's just find the Astadio strikeouts. So on June 2nd in the fourth inning, Astadio struck out, swing against Jimmy Iacobonis, favorite name to say on the podcast. And the other strikeout in the game, Williams-Astadio, came in the still looking eighth inning, out against john marinas so all right therefore

if this is all accurate rick teasley first pitcher in professional baseball history to strike out williams asadio twice in the same game yeah i guess he could have struck out in a venezuelan winter league game before twice because we don't have game logs for that right but he very rarely strikes out there so right okay so you are correct we don't have venezuelan game logs in baseball reference i thought that we did but we do not so i should i should backtrack and say probably the only pitcher to ever have struck out williams estadio twice in a game but in any case certainly uh this is the most meaningful instance of it happening even if it's not the only instance, because William D'Estadio is a thing now. He is a celebrity beloved by all this global community that we exist in. So Rick Teasley, if you're out there, even if you're not, you'll be out there soon, because I think that we'll be trying to get in touch. Were you in a Scott Boris gaggle? Were you ever close to him as he was spouting analogies and hundreds of people were gathered around holding microphones up? I don't, I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand what the purpose is. I know that I don't mean to like turn this into some sort of just like, oh, Scott Boris is in the news. Of course, you're going to rip him on the podcast. I don't want to end up as some sort of just like caricature of myself or of ourselves, but I just don't understand it. I know it's like the annual

tradition that Scott Boris has his gaggle and he gives his whole speech in the hallway outside one of the conference rooms at the winter meetings. And I understand that, look, he's trying to get attention. That's his job. He's trying to get money for his clients. I understand and I support the business of what he does, but I just don't understand what the purpose is of covering that. And I certainly don't understand the purpose of having 250 microphones shoved in his face when every other line is just going to be repeated.

If we could just have like one pool reporter just be there. Now, I don't know if Scum Horse would deliver the speech if there were just one pool reporter present, just like having a little one-on-one boisterous conversation. But no, I was not present. I didn't want to waste my time. Certainly, even if I did want to be in the gaggle, enough other reporters said that they were trying to be in

the gaggle, but they were so far away, they couldn't hear him at all. So I just, I don't understand. And I mean, the nautical metaphors last year were one thing, but the one quote this year, right? There was one in particular that people just kept tweeting at us. Do you have it in front of you? Yeah, well, there were a couple. There was one, he said, right? There was one in particular that people just kept tweeting at us. Do you have it in front of you? Yeah, well, there were a couple. There was one, he said, this is not a race where every car is labeled. So it's not a regatta. This is a race taking place on land in wheeled vehicles here, presumably. And then the other one, the one that was shared more often, this was about Bryce Harper.

When the nurse walks into the room with a thermometer, the issue is not what the thermometer says that day. The issue is what is their health when they're ready to leave the hospital. So relevant to Jerry DePoto during the winter meetings, I guess, if a nurse was taking his temperature. But I suppose he's just saying that temperature is a snapshot of that moment and doesn't tell you what's going on with the underlying situation. And therefore, if there are no Harper talks taking place at this moment, it does not tell us anything about the health of Bryce Harper's free agency. Is it ill? Why is it in the hospital? I just don't understand why he went to the hospital for this. Unless he was recently in the hospital, is he suggesting that right now Bryce Harper's free agency is not well? Because that would be an indictment that doesn't work.

But I don't know. I mean, I like the tradition of everyone gathering around Scott Boris. It's very silly and senseless, and no one pays any attention to what he says in terms of its actual meaning. I think we're all just here to be entertained by whatever nonsense metaphor he comes up with. And I don't think it actually affects his client's earning power if he's able to craft a particularly apt metaphor this year. It's not going to get them many millions of dollars more. So it is very silly and kind of a waste of time. But I like it. It's a tradition and it's not hurting anyone. When you repeat these things over and over, even if you're just doing it with a wink and a nod and you're just kind of being ironic about it and you're just saying, oh, look at this crazy thing that Scott Boras said, you're still giving him the airtime, you're giving him the press, it's encouraging and it's empowering. And I don't mean to suggest that Scott Boras shouldn't be empowered. He's a high-powered agent and we should want him to be successful in his pursuits. I think that when you have these things catch on the way that they do, you can see how it could warp his psychology into thinking that he's really adept at turning a phrase, and he's not. He's a terrible speaker.

He doesn't make any clear sense. He presumably makes good points in meetings. Clearly, he's able to convince owners to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on his clients, but he sucks at this. of dollars on his clients, but he sucks at this. He's really quite bad, but because no other agent even deigns to say anything to the press unless it's on background, then he's just the one guy who's in the spotlight. But we can't hold up Scott Boris even if by accident as some sort of great orator of the 21st century. He's just simply not. He's dreadful. And we wouldn't want this to get to his head. I feel like enough things have probably gotten to Scott Boris's head. I think Brian Cashman actually stole his lunch money at these winter meetings when it came to making metaphors because, right, he came out with the we're a fully operational death star

to compare the Yankees and just fully embrace the evil empire label. And then he also dropped in and stole the show with a nautical metaphor. He made one of his own. He said, I've got a lot of lines out. We're still fishing. We're trying to catch a very particular type of fish in very particular types of categories. If not, we'll bring the boat back to dock and set her back out tomorrow, drop our lines again. And you know what that makes sense right unlike the boris ones you completely understand what he's saying there i mean

he didn't have to say he that he could have just said uh we didn't sign anyone today maybe we'll sign someone tomorrow but but what he said did actually make sense. It logically tracks. Yeah, right. And so should how many people retweeted? Like if you look at all tweets quoting Brian Cashman versus all tweets quoting Scott Boris, though, which one got more press? And it's going to be Boris because it's just more ridiculous. But Brian Cashman, credit to Brian Cashman, who's just in like every way, shape and form. Brian Cashman, I think, is just a lot more impressive than he's given credit for now i know that there's like the old story about him and his whoopee cushion and and whatnot and like he's you know there's there's a maybe a more immature edge to him

was it not a whoopee cushion i know it well he had like a fart machine yeah it was uh i've seen it yeah more the more updated farm machine again for the 21st century but uh brian catchman continues to impress even though nobody wants to give him credit because he's in charge of the yankees and scott boris continues to i guess give us five minutes of empty content yeah so more uh substantive content there were some moves made here, and I guess we can start with the biggest in terms of finances with Andrew McCutcheon going to the Phillies. I'll just say that of all the moves made during these winter meetings, I would say that my reaction to most of them or more than half of them was probably really him that much, which is a change from

recent history, right? It's been a while since we've thought, oh, huh, he got kind of a lot or he got as much as he was expected to get or maybe more than he was expected to get. It's kind of a refreshing change. I don't know whether this signifies anything in terms of the larger winter and the free agent market and the health of baseball's economic system. But for the first time in a while, I mean, the free agent market has not been moving all that quickly in terms of the very biggest names or at least the top two. But guys are getting paid. The market looks healthy. And even though we're talking about McCutcheon, I don't know if it's more clear than seeing Lance Lynn get 330. Like Lance Lynn, who last year I know he had a qualifying offer, but he got one year and $8 million.

Then he was not good. So anyway, Andrew McCutcheon, I thought it would have been really easy. And you'll probably agree with this. I wish that now I could revise all of my free agency guesses, but I guess I'll stick to my guns. It would have been really easy to see Andrew McCutcheon end up getting stuck and ending up as one of those one-year guys and maybe having to take $12 or $15 million. But here he is, and to his credit, he hasn't.

I mean, he's declined from being the superstar that he was at his peak, but he hasn't declined in the last few years. His speed is still there. His judgment is still there. If anything, his batting eye has improved. He's more disciplined. He's more targeted of pitches in the strike zone he knows what he can hit and his his hitting is is still there so he's an above average hitter but his defense is not good and it's unlikely to to get better he's a corner outfielder who's fine he is

an above average player it was a little surprising to see him get that much the fan graphs estimate i think was three years and about 43 million million. So not really too far off. There's a fourth year option, which I guess might have a little bit of value for the team. I didn't think it was good or bad. I think probably I'm going to guess that some of it was motivated by the Phillies just wanting to get something done and just preferring probably Andrew McCutcheon over AJ Pollock. Maybe Pollock wasn't available quite at that point. And the Phillies have a lot that they want to get done. And so there is value in just getting a step complete, even if you end up spending maybe a few million more than you intended to. Yeah. Well, of course, a year ago, they wanted to get something done and they got

Carlos Santana. And now they've moved on from that as quickly as they could. But yeah, I actually, this hurts me for our free agent contracts draft because I took the under on McCutcheon at $45 million. And I think I said, I hope McCutcheon gets all the money, but I don't think he will because of some of the things you were just mentioning. And so I lose $5 million there, but that's all right. things you were just mentioning. And so I lose 5 million there, but that's all right. So yeah, I think that, I mean, you could compare him to a lot of the guys who have really been in big trouble in free agency lately, like, I don't know, Mike Moustakas or something. I mean, Moustakas had the qualifying offer that really hurt him last year, but it was the same sort of

thing. Like McCutcheon's a couple of years older than Moustakas was. He was coming off a season of 2.6 war and Moustakas was coming off 2.1 or something. And, you know, and McCutcheon in that category of just guy who's kind of on the downside and he has retained some of his skills but he just is not a good fielder and that was what was sort of surprising to me to see the Phillies invest in another bad fielder when it seemed like maybe they were deciding, okay, our fielding was terrible. It was one of the things that really cost us last year. And so we're going to actually, because when a team is that bad defensively, if you just get good on defense, I mean, we've seen teams do this in the past, whether it was the Rays when they finally got good in 2008 and the Mariners when they did their defensive overhaul like defense I think is still sort of undervalued on the market so if you have a historically

terrible defensive team like the Phillies did last year you can kind of fix that more easily than you can fix other problems so I'm sort of surprised to see them commit to another subpar fielder I mean he's not Reese Hoskins, but it was somewhat curious. I do think, and this is only tangentially related, but I think that maybe the hardest laugh that I could possibly have in 2019 is if the Phillies come out and Reese Hoskins is still their opening day left fielder. Now, that's presumably not going to be the case. I agree with you that McCutcheon, he's just not an acceptably good

defensive corner half fielder. He's not a Hoskins level disaster, but for whatever reason, he still runs okay, but he just doesn't seem to cover enough ground. It could be that there are ballpark effects that we're just not seeing appropriately in the public, but you can assume that McCutcheon is at least five runs or so below average in the corner at field, but he just really is still a good hitter. It is amazing how many parallels there are between McCutcheon's contract with the Phillies now and Santana's contract with the Phillies last year, because they were going into the same age. They'd been almost identically productive in the three years previous, and they're just both very patient, dependable hitters who hit for power without hitting for like eye popping power.

But they they get on base. But McCutcheon is a better athlete and he doesn't force Hoskins into another position. So at least compared to Santana, this is a better move. Now, of course, it took one year for Carlos Santana to become a contract dump and twice, I guess I should say now, a two-time contract hump in the span of not very long. So I think this is better than the Santana move. But again, let's say that the Santana move was maybe a 2 out of 10, which means this might just be a 4 out of 10. But again, I think it's mostly okay.

I think McCutcheon is a good player. I don't think he's going to be a terrible player by the end of this. I think that the upside here is not that McCutcheon becomes Bargain. I think it's that he is worth a contract, maybe a little more than that. Yeah. And I don't know if there's some leadership clubhouse element to this too. You have a young team and a team that didn't play so great down the stretch last year. And I don't know whether that's part of this, whether there's a mentorship aspect, but I've seen some people suggest, Joshian wrote that maybe it's a bad sign that McCutcheon has suddenly become so selective. Like sometimes that can be something you see with an older player whose skills are slipping. They will just sort of stop swinging. And that will work for a little

while because you'll just, you'll take some walks. And McCutcheon did have a very low swing rate, one of his lowest swing rates, I think his lowest ever chase rate. And so he was able to walk a good deal and have a pretty good on base percentage, even though other things weren't like they were in his prime. So I don't know. I don't know whether there's a lot of evidence to support that, whether if a guy in his early 30s just stops swinging all of a sudden, whether that can be a negative kind of leading indicator of some decline that's going to be coming. It's a theory. I don't know if there's a study that shows that, but that's something that could scare people off potentially i mean it sounds like it should be a good thing not to chase but

if it reflects something else about you maybe it's not uh i think it's i think it's unlikely now i it is a good thing to swing at fewer balls just that's i think that's easy enough to to say and i i'm reminded always of when jose bautista was at his peak and his peak lasted a pretty good amount of time jose bautista would pull the ball he was not he was not an opposite field hitter he didn't really have a lot of power the other way and if you looked at it all the pitches you like to clobber were inner half you could pitch a jose bautista on the outside and you can get him out it's so hard to do that the you want to pitch every batter realistically almost every batter is their worst against pitches that are low in a way pitchers know that but bautista in particular that was just not his

pitch he loved the ball up he loved the ball in just whatever he could get that he could yank to left and left center but pitchers still clearly made enough mistakes that they would either walk bautista or give up like 40 home runs in a season. And when you have, like, Andrew McCutcheon among qualified hitters had the second best, the second lowest chase rate in baseball this past year. He was worse only than Joey Votto. And the next guy on the list was Alex Bregman. These are good names. So even though I understand the idea that maybe they're getting more selective because they have to, I mean, that's just part of adapting, right? And Andrew McCutcheon is 32 years old. We already know he's declining. Like that's not, that's not a mystery. I think that if there's one thing that

maybe we, is too easy for us to forget, and I think I was victim to this when I was writing about Robinson Cano going to the Mets, is when we are talking about players who are in their 30s now, we are always inclined to look at the recent record, right, and see how these players did as they got older. But as I believe has been demonstrated pretty conclusively, the aging curve is steepening. So in that sense, maybe we are just not mentally accounting for enough decline for these players in their 30s now, because this is a young man's game more than it's ever been. So that can be part of it. Therefore, I'm probably too generous on Robinson Cano and maybe I'm too generous on Andrew McCutcheon, but I am not too concerned that 2019 McCutcheon is going to be bad.

I think he's going to be probably about a three-win player. He's still really good at hitting the ball. So NL East gets a little bit better again. And one of the more attention-getting moves of the winter meetings was an ankle sprain. And even when he was healthy, he didn't play well. And it's been obviously a very long time since we've seen star level Tulewitzki. And really, it's been a while since we've just seen even healthy average Tulewitzki. So in that sense, not that weird. But also, I think people figured, well, why not just bring him back and see if he's healthy and see if he has something left,

because you're paying him anyway. I think it was not too long before Tulewitzki was released. I think I saw a quote of his on Twitter that he said something to the effect of, you know, I'm going to try my best, but if I'm not the starter, I'm just going to pack my bags and go home, something like that. And the Blue Jays obviously couldn't really count on Tulewitzki to be the starter. They have Gurriel. Now, if Gurriel ends up getting injured, of course,

then you would want to have a backup, and it's quite possible. Troy Tulewitzki just doesn't really want to be a backup, and I don't want to suggest anything that I can't, I don't know if it's true or not, but maybe Tulewitzki, you could look at it and think, oh, we have this highly accomplished veteran on the bench. What a great thing for the team to have someone who's accomplished as much as Chulowitzki has and just have that as depth. But maybe that's just not a role that he was prepared for. So in the end, he basically got Sandoval. It's not easy for certainly ownership to dump so much money.

The owners are always trying to get whatever they can out of players who are expensive, and so this is an exceptional case. But I am going to guess that this was informed in part because Chulowitzki just wasn't going to be the starter. They have somebody they would rather play who's more dependable, and they probably just didn't really figure that Chulitzki was going to be comfortable being a backup, especially to a player who was not elite. And I'm trying to confirm. So Tulewitzki, of course, has signed a large contract, and he agreed to a, in November of 2010, Tulewitzki agreed to a sign, a six-year extension on top of the three years he already had that was remaining on his

contract. The six-year extension was worth around $120 million, and it was the second largest contract ever signed by a Rockies player behind Todd Helton. The Rockies general manager at that point who signed Tulewitzki to that contract was Dan O'Dowd. Am I correct? I believe I am correct. Dan O'Dowd happened to be the man to my left on the MLB Now segment where they introduced before we went live. I think the Tulewitzki news was pretty fresh. And so we were all talking amongst ourselves what just happened with Troy Tulewitzki. And I'm not going to say it's not like anything super insightful was said. We just had the same conversation that you and I are having right now. But I definitely didn't expect that morning when i woke up to be sitting in the

chair next to the guy who signed this player to this this contract and i think dan o'dowd says he uh he was he was surprised and that his argument was you know if gariel gets hurt wouldn't you want to the whiskey there backing him up but he i, came down to the idea that Chula Witzki probably just didn't want to be in Toronto anymore. And so you might as well just cut that at that point and let him find another job. Well, I'm sure he will catch on somewhere else for the league minimum, so we don't have to write his career epitaph right now. But it has been a strange one and not exactly what people hoped for from him, but already a better player than Harold Baines. So Hall of Famer. All right. I could say that about a lot of people. It probably will be. All right. So what else should we talk about? I guess there was a flurry of starting

pitcher signings or at least a trio. I don't know if that qualifies as a flurry, but Charlie Morton went to the Rays. Jay Happ went back to the Yankees. And as already mentioned, Lance Lynn went to the Rangers. That was a three-year deal. Charlie Morton was a two-year deal. I lost out again on Charlie Morton. I had taken him in our off-season contracts draft, and his prediction from MLB Trade Rumors was two years in, $32 million. And I thought, surely someone will pay Charlie Morton more than $32 million. But instead, he got $30 million, which obviously is still quite a big investment by Tampa Bay Rays standards. Yeah, I feel a little weird here because, Jenna, you're bringing up things and then I'm doing the analysis. I don't know.

What do you – do you have anything you'd like to say about Charlie Morton here before I go? Well, I mean I thought he would get more than he did. So I clearly think he's a pretty good pitcher. So I don't know whether this had something to do with the fact that he was briefly considering retirement. And so maybe he didn't even want more than two years and maybe a team didn't want to sign him for more than two years. Although you would think that just by decreasing the risk of a long-term investment, he would get more on an annual basis. He's been extremely effective when he has been healthy and pitched. And I mean, by modern standards, pitching 167 innings this year and 146 last year, that's like close to workhorse. So I mean, good pitcher. I think it's a good addition.

You don't often see the Rays dipping into the free agent market, particularly for a starting pitcher. But if you're going to do it, I think this is a wise one. Yeah, right. I know the Rays have said that they're going to bring the opener back. And so maybe in a sense, you think, oh, how weird. They signed a conventional starting pitcher. But I mean, you got five rotation slots and they have like one proven starting pitcher

in Blake Snell. So now you add Charlie Morton. I think what's most incredible to me about where the Rays are is that before signing Charlie Morton, they had like a full competitive team, could make the playoffs in the National League, I guess could make the playoffs in the American League, and it was projected to cost $36 million. $36 million! And I wrote about Morton and I put in that post, I couldn't believe it when I looked

it up, but in the last year of the Expos' existence, they they had a higher payroll than the rays would have had as like a complete team so that left them with uh with a lot of financial flexibility like you said it's it's really uncommon for the rays to be in this position and so they identified a player who uh seems like he's quite good and was available for a short term because of course all of the cheap young rays eventually become older less cheap rays and so this is a narrow window of the team costing so little. But they saw the opportunity. And I think that there are a few things here. Charlie Morton, of course, has been on the L like 10 times, I think.

And over his career, he's had several surgeries on his hip, his hamstring, his elbow. There's a lot that's gone on with Charlie Morton. And he signed a contract where there's a little team protection. There's a third year club option that could cost as little as $1 million if Morton misses like a whole lot of time over the first two years. But then on the other hand, some people have brought up the point that, you know, if Charlie Morton misses a whole lot of time over the first few years, he's probably just going to retire and not come back to play the end. But anyway, I also thought that Mort morton would just based on his numbers and his performance i thought he could do a little better than than 230 with a team option but i do

think having looked at it he was briefly on the disabled list at near the end of this past season with shoulder discomfort now he came back from that but his velocity was a little down and his strikeouts were a little down and and i have i have a hunch i don't know i don't know what the situation is with uh with Morton's medicals. Presumably, he's passing his tests with the Rays. I don't even know if it's official yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if that little end-of-the-year blip spooked the market just a little bit. Maybe it spooked the Astros into not extending a qualifying offer.

Maybe it spooked the Yankees away, and they didn't want to give the money to Morton. And so he became available to Tampa Bay. I think that there is a lot of risk here because of Morton's health. He is one of the least reliable pitchers in the game health-wise, but again, as you mentioned, he just made 30 starts. He's made 55 starts the last few years, just like

Jay Happ, who people think of as a super dependable pitcher. So, a lot of risk. Weird to see the Rays here, but they are in the weird position of having money to spend, And he's as talented a player to spend money on as they could afford. Yeah. And this is two years after he signed a two-year $14 million deal with the Astros. And I think everyone thought, what? Charlie Morton? Two years, $14 million? I mean, not you. I think you wrote a post about why it was smart and why they wanted Charlie Morton. But I remember certain people questioning the wisdom of that move because, of course, Charlie Morton was that time coming off a year when he had pitched in four games and before that had not been good the previous year either. And obviously the changes that he made in Houston and relative health made him a much more appealing pitcher. So now at 34 years old, he's 35, he just turned 35, and he is getting a much

bigger deal than he did a couple of years ago. And now we're wondering why he's not getting more. So he is clearly one of those interesting lateer or mid-career transformation guys. And it's good, obviously, to see the Rays spending some money because as impressive as it may be that they can construct a competitive roster and be paying less than the Expos paid, it's also good to spend some money, especially if you have already assembled a really strong rest of your roster and that last move or two might put you over the top because I think that's one of the criticisms people made last year was hey the Rays ended up

being pretty good imagine if they had invested even more in this team now they may not have known that they would end up as a 90 win team in 2018 and of course they had Some luck go against them and If it had gone their way maybe they Would have qualified for the playoffs as it was But now they are making Moves and I guess while we're on the subject We might as well discuss the other move That they made which we started

The podcast talking about the Jerry DePoto Hospital trade they were One of the three teams Involved there so this was a Mariners-Indians raise trade. Edwin Encarnacion went to Seattle temporarily, most likely. Carlos Santana returns to Cleveland, and Yandy Diaz goes to Tampa Bay. And I believe Yandy Diaz was fairly costly by raise standards. I think they gave up $5 million to get him as well as Jake Bowers. So clearly they really wanted some Yandy Diaz in their life.

Yeah. How long did it take you? I woke up to this trade. I had a late night and I woke up to a text that said, hey, can you write about this? And I thought, oh, no, because this is complicated. And then I was getting nervous because then there were rumors that Encarnacion is just getting sent to the Rays after the fact. I didn't know how to write it anyway. Yeah, right.

When you heard this and it's like Edwin Encarnacion's in the trade and Carl Santana's in the trade, like you figured one of them's going to go to the Rays because that's like a classic Rays DH kind of guy. And we've been waiting to see who they would get for that role. I mean, we've been thinking, oh, maybe it'll be Josh Johnson or maybe it'll be Nelson Cruz. I mean, Edwin Encarnacion would have made so much sense that I think that's what everyone assumed. Yeah, still in theory could, although then I guess they'd have to give a glove to G-Man Choi

and who knows if that's a great idea. Anyway, how long did it take you to sort of wrap your head around all the different angles of this move? Well, I mean, at first I saw Indians and Bowers, and I misread that. I thought that Trevor Power was going somewhere. But yeah, it took a little while. I don't know that I fully even have wrapped my head around it, but you have written about it it already so why don't you

take the lead here it is so like it's almost not a three-team trade it's almost just two yeah trades in quick succession there's the the indians meredith's part where it's an exchange of basically underwater contracts and then there's the indians ray's part where it's more or less an exchange of of yadi Diaz for Jake Bowers. But the only thing that connects them otherwise than just using the Indians as a hub is that the Rays are sending $5 million to the Mariners. And that is what makes this a three-team trade, I guess, even though it's just money. But anyway, from the Mariners' perspective, it's not super hard to understand. They save a little money, they get rid of a 2020 commitment and they exchange even though encarnacion is worse than santana the

mariners don't really care about that at this point and they get a draft pick this is of course one of the only draft picks you are allowed to trade in baseball being one of those competitive balance round compensation picks or whatever they're called anyway they get the 77th overall pick that's worth a few million dollars so that's's why the Mariners did that. Then I think maybe as is usual, it's most interesting on the other end where the Rays traded that $5 million and Jake Bowers, a two-time top 100 prospect for Yardie Diaz. And a minor league pitcher I had never heard of before and a minor league pitcher about whom I wrote but whose name I have to look up again because I already forgot it. It's Cole, help me out here, Cole S. Sulcer. Cole

Sulcer is how I assume that is pronounced and Cole, I don't mean to take this backwards, I already mentioned the $5 million and Cole Sulcer is going to be 29 years old next March. He's not on the 40-man roster. He was not on the Indians 40-man roster, so the Rays just picked him up.

I don't know how often you're that interested about trading for a 29-year-old non-roster right-handed reliever from AAA, but last year in AAA, Cole Sulster struck out 36% of his opponents, and he struck out half of the lefties that he faced. So there's something that's interesting about Cole Sulster that I think the Rays probably really appreciate also that he doesn't have to be on their 40-man roster yet

because their 40-man roster is full, but they turn through pitches so often that it seems likely that Sulcer will end up in the big leagues anyway. I feel like I've been beating around the bush. We can just get to the Diaz-Bowers part. Would Yandy Diaz mean anything to anyone if we didn't have stat cast? Well, if you've seen a picture of Yandy Diaz or some of

his workout pics, then yes, I think so. I mean, that was how I found out about Yandy Diaz before he had even been in the big leagues, I think, or before he'd done anything good there. But yeah, he's definitely a stat cast hero because he's one of these guys who has been an extreme ground ball hitter, but also an extreme hard ball hitter, which should not be a surprise. Again, if you have seen a picture of Yandy Diaz, it would be odd if he did not hit the ball hard. So yeah, there were almost 500 guys this year who had 50 balls in play, at least 50, and he ranked 25 of those almost 500 in average exit speed. And his ground ball rate was not quite as high as it had been the year before, but still very high, more than 50%. And so I haven't looked at all the angles and the sweet spots of launch angle

and everything. And of course, we just saw Christian Jelic win an MVP award without actually significantly lowering his ground ball rate, at least on a full season level. So you can succeed that way. And Yandy Diaz was a good hitter this year as it was in just 120 plate appearances, but 15 15 better than league average but obviously there's some tantalizing thought there that hey if we can just get this guy to start hitting some balls in the air they are going to go out yeah now i think pretty obviously the indians also knew that yandi diaz was like this no one is surprised by it now you've seen him he's like the new pat bur, in a sense,

where you can just imagine like a Yandy Diaz 12-picture calendar that you can, I don't know, give to your stepmom or something. Anyway, he is, I don't know that much about his defense. He runs pretty well. He and Bowers both run fine. I think what makes this interesting is the Indians like Jake Bowers because I think of his like traditional scouting. It's that, to be fair, he has always hit. He's hit at every level. He's almost league average

in the major leagues. He started well, then he slumped. But Bowers has been a fine hitter. He's never actually tapped into that much power in his career so far, but he's only 23 years old. And obviously scouts have liked him. That's why he's been a top 100 and then a top 50 prospect, according to Baseball America. So Bowers is, the scouts like him because i think that people like the look of his swing and you know and he's he's he's got a pretty good eye and a good line drive line drive swing hits the ball in the air and with yandi diaz i think that it's like the more of the new age scouting it's like the statistical scouting right because stat cast in a sense is a scout it's measuring like observations and so you look at Diaz and we know that he hits the ball really really hard which is not something you can really teach it's something you can I guess I don't

know lift deadlift how hard you you hit the ball but you look at Diaz and you think, in the major leagues, his chase rate is extraordinarily low. His contact rate is high. And he makes really, really good, in terms of bat-to-ball contact, he makes really good contact. He hits a lot of ground balls. We know that.

You mentioned the ground ball rate got a little bit better this past season. But you look at Diaz, and it's like 21st century scouting likes Diaz and late 20th century scouting likes Jake Bowers. So it's an interesting trade because generally the Raisin Indians are trying to do some similar things. These are smaller budget operations. And Bowers, of course, being four years younger, we're told so often to think that, well, youth means a lot. Bowers' aging curve might be better but like

diaz has been better in the majors even though he's never been a top 100 prospect he's he's come more off the radar but like his triple a on base percentage over a lot of action is like 435 he has a great eye good contact skills and he hits the ball like the dickens like if the rays get him to lift the ball at all he would start to look a lot i think like tommy fam at the plate and it's by coincidence the rays already have one of those and both bowers and and diaz are under team control for another six full seasons so this is a really interesting trade for for both player development departments yeah all right so since we talked about morton i don't know how much there is to say about j Happ. He's just kind of Jay Happ and he's back with the Yankees and I'm sure they will make some other move perhaps in addition. They've already added Paxton, of course, and now they're bringing back Happ, but they will presumably send Sonny Gray somewhere and maybe add another pitcher. But anyway, Jay Happ, two years, 34.

Sounds about right. So the more perplexing one perhaps was Lance Lynn going to the Rangers for three years and 30 million. Now, as Mike Petriello documented at MLB.com maybe a couple of weeks ago, Lance Lynn was a different and better pitcher once he was traded from the Twins to the Yankees. He actually had a 38 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio in New York. And of course, guys go to the Yankees and teams like the Yankees and they make data driven changes and suddenly they're better. And Lance Lynn did move on the rubber and evidently made some mechanical changes. And I don't know if it were that easy, then everyone would do it. But he did do some things differently and he had better results. But he's still Lance Lynn and he's going to the Rangers on a three-year deal. So what do you make of this? Here's the thing. So Lance Lynn has perplexed me before because his numbers went up a lot when he he was traded from the twins to the yankees but it's funny even though his strikeout

rate went up lance lynn this year with the twins his uh his swinging his swinging strike rate so this is just the percent of pitches that he threw that were swung at and missed his swinging strike rate with the twins was 10 and then he got traded to the yankees and his swinging strike rate was 10 nothing about that moved so it was it was strange to see his strikeouts go up as they did it's uh his like his repertoire isn't meaningfully different he's always thrown just like this blend of fastballs this heavy blend of fastballs and he's he's got a cutter in there it's like it's an interesting kind of like a younger Bartolo Cologne kind of repertoire in a sense where it's just changing speeds on the hardest pitches that he throws. So it is interesting that Lance Lynn last season, he had a high ERA,

but like if you do, even though he started late, and I think that his performance is probably hurt because he got a late start of the season on account of what happened in last free agency, like his peripherals were fine. He had a better than average FIP. He had a better than average XFIP. His ERA is whatever. It's ERA. We know better than that.

So for his career, it's okay. I can just about talk myself into whatever, $10 million a year for Lance Lynn. He's somewhat dependable. It's not terrible. The only thing I don't get is why Texas? What are the Rangers doing? What was their urgency? I know that they need pitching something terrible,

but do you know, unless they just figure, well, we're not going to spend a whole lot of money. Let's just, whatever, use some. But $330 for Lance Lynn, I could talk myself into it, I guess, eventually, but the Rangers for me just don't make any sense as a target because they're not going to be good any time soon. And even if they were, Lance Lynn isn't pitching for you in the playoffs. Yeah, it's kind of a perplexing one. I don't know. I mean, Lance Lynn is, I think, the favorite player of my colleague, Michael Bauman. He loves him some Lance Lynn. And Lance

Lynn, I mean, he's been probably better than most people think or that I would give him credit for. I mean, he was pitching in the NL for most of his career, of course, but still, he's like a mid threes FIP guy and for a while there was durable and kind of a workhorse. So, I mean, that's a valuable mid rotation type starter. And perhaps he could be that again. Yeah, I don't know why the Rangers urgently needed to lock up that type of pitcher right now. But well, it's nice to have some moves like this that are surprising on the high end instead of just the low end. Lance Lynn is absolutely dreadful against left handed hitters. And I can tell and I can tell you what these numbers look like. Do you like his strikeout rate? Great. So do I. Against righties, Lance Lynn is a right-handed pitcher. Against righties, I'm looking at his career,

nothing has changed. He's been the same guy forever. Lance Lynn against righties, 27% strikeouts. Against lefties, 17% strikeouts. That doesn't sound good, but wait, it gets worse. Walk rate against righties, 6%. Walk rate against lefties, 13%. So, you go to FIP, right? Just plain old FIP. Everybody loves FIP. Against righties, 2.72. Against lefties, 4.94.

XFIP, those numbers are in agreement. Lance Lynn, just a massive platoon split. It's not going to go away. It's in a sense, it's kind of like Freddy Peralta-ish, except with maybe less likelihood that it'll go away and get better. So if you have Lance Lynn in a division that it's kind of like Freddy Peralta-ish, except with maybe less likelihood that it'll go away and get better. So if you have Lance Lynn in a division that has a bunch of right-handed hitters, like I think the NL Central for a while there, then whatever. You can kind of hide him, but if you have Lance Lynn going up against a lefty heavy lineup, then you just mail it in because he's not going three innings. Just mail it in because he's not going three innings. Yeah. And then I guess lastly, there was another trio of moves, some reliever-related moves. So the Mets brought back Juris Familia.

The Dodgers signed Joe Kelly. Three years and $25 million for that one. And the Brewers added Alex Claudio, taking him away from the Rangers. I don't know. added Alex Claudio, taking him away from the Rangers. I don't know. I mean, there are Mets fans who don't want to see Darius Familia again because of his suspension, but on a purely performance basis, which is how a lot of teams evaluate these things, unfortunately, Darius Familia and Edwin Diaz in the late innings is not a bad combo. I mean, I don't know if Familia, I mean, putting him in the same breath as Edwin Diaz, they're not equally as effective.

And Edwin Diaz has been better in the past. The last couple of years, he's just been, I don't know, by the standards of modern bullpens, like just kind of a generic reliever. I mean, he's been good, but he's not quite what he was back in the days when he was getting 40, 50 saves. So maybe it seems like a lot to commit to Drew's Familia. What did it end up being? It was $30 million and three years. The Lance Lynn contract, as we call it. They got the old Lynn terms.

These are two, Familia and Kelly. I'm going to love it with you. I have thought about Alex Cladio today, not even a little bit. So I thought it was charitable of you to even include him in the conversation, although his numbers are fine. He's an interesting reliever and maybe a very brewer's move in that the brewers figured they need bullpen help so they get what went out and they got a guy who has fine numbers who throws about 72 miles per hour and they're going to lean on his his weird ass arm slots yeah and he he does like multi-inning outings sometimes i mean not all the time but he can do that so yeah very brewers exploitable

against righties but you know lance Lane is exploitable against lefties. So you get a Claudio Lynn-Waxahachie swap situation. I know these are different teams, but whatever. Just imagine a better future. So Familia and Kelly, both of those came out somewhere around midnight local time between Wednesday and Thursday during the winter meetings. And so I saw them, I think, on the bottom line of a television. I was sitting there and I thought, no, I'm not going to write. I'm not going to do this now.

I haven't thought about them as much as I usually think about relievers signing. But what is striking to me, and this is nothing against the relievers themselves because whatever talent is talent. But last year, the average reliever contract was like two years and 18 or whatever. There were a lot of relievers who signed for terms like that. And they were the only guys getting paid, though, in that market. That was it. And many of them failed to live up to the terms.

So the message that has apparently been conveyed now by teams is, oh, all those relievers failed? We should give them more money and years and therefore they won't fail now of course familia is is i think better than your standard delivery in that he he does strike out a good number of guys and he i mean his his grand ball rate is is not at all what it used to be he used to lean so heavily on on his sinker which would just cause matters to pound the ball into the ground. But he just threw more of a slider. This is a very standard reliever move.

He threw more sliders. He missed more bats, got fewer grounders. This is familiar. So you were right. Kind of a standard reliever for 2018. I was wrong. You were right. But he's good.

He's perfectly good. He's a good eighth inning guy. I know Oakland won on the back, but 330 does seem steep. What is even more surprising, though, is that Joe Kelly got three years and 25 million. Because scouting wise, I understand that Joe Kelly throws really hard. And I know he had a good playoffs. And maybe the Dodgers saw something in the playoffs that made them think, oh, we can get Joe Kelly to throw strikes all of the time. But teams have tried that before,

and it hasn't really worked for more than a week or two at once. So Kelly is surprising. I look at, I mentioned this in the post that I wrote, but I look at that guy, Cole Sulcer, who the Rays picked up, whose name I had to, again, remind myself what it was because I keep thinking that it's something else. And the Rays got him. He's 29 years old, and he's going to cost nothing. He cost him nothing to acquire. And I think there's

probably like a 40 or 45% chance that Cole Sulzer is better than Joe Kelly right now. And Joe Kelly got three years and $25 million from a team that we all, I think, agree is like a juggernaut for the way that their front office operates and for their amount of resources they have at their disposal. The Dodgers don't usually overspend. If anything, their habit is to still operate as if they're a budget organization, except with one of the biggest budgets in the world. So I can't tell. Usually in a situation like this, I figure, I guess I'm missing something. And it's not like Joe Kelly is bad by any means. He throws super hard. Maybe he's really adaptable. But I'm surprised because Joe Kelly doesn't throw a lot of strikes. And it

feels a little like bullpen chatwoody to me. Yeah, well, it's interesting. I actually wrote about Joe Kelly in the book that I'm just finishing up now. There's a whole epilogue that concerns Joe Kelly in part. And I don't know how – I can't wait for this book to come out so I can stop obliquely hinting at things that are in the book and treading carefully because I know you're all going to buy it. And I don't want to subject you to the same information twice. But he did make some changes in the playoffs. He did make some changes in the playoffs. And if you look at, you were just saying that Familia threw more sliders this year. Well, Joe Kelly in the playoffs completely abandoned his slider.

He did not throw a single slider, which is interesting because in 2016, when the Red Sox were in the division series that year, he threw tons of sliders and he had a great slider. And for reasons that made sense, I think, he just ditched the slider entirely in October and he was fantastic. He didn't walk a single guy. So I don't know, maybe the Dodgers just like this sliderless version of Kelly that they saw in October and they thought we want more of that. But he made that change because he just kind of lost his slider over the course of the season and he has not been completely dependable in that way. So who knows if he will lose the curve that was working so well for him in October or what else will happen. He has been a very tantalizing pitcher over the years and has not always lived up to that promise, really has not usually lived up to that promise. So it's an interesting one, but I would guess that the Dodgers liked what they saw and think we can get him to do more of that.

Right. And I guess maybe we can talk about how maybe it seems like Yosemite Grandal is losing money in free agency because he had a bad couple of weeks in October. And maybe Joe Kelly just did the opposite. Maybe he got himself an extra year or $10 million extra because he was really good for a few weeks for Boston. Like you said, he made some changes. So from the Dodgers side, this being free agency, you're trying to pay for what you think a player is going to do and not for what the player already did. to pay for what you think a player is going to do and not for what the player already did so the dodgers i guess would be making a guess here based on very recent results projecting projecting forward as opposed to the bulk of the whole season because for the whole season again kelly not a reliable strike thrower but you can tell he's got he's blessed with a very very

good arm and if he's willing to make changes in in a high stakes month like october then that's a good thing bodes well for future adjustments you might want to make. Still kind of surprising. I'm not convinced that this is some sort of new Joe Kelly. He's just going to become a lockdown reliever, but he's not bad. And I'm really not in a position where I want to complain about players getting money because it kind of keeps us away from the annoying conversations that we couldn't get away from last winter. Right. Yeah. All right. Well, you've had a long week,

so I don't want to make you talk about all the minor moves. I will note that the Rays' death ray stadium is dead. We talked about the death ray, and now that stadium proposal is gone and over, and the Rays seem to be stuck in the trap for a while. I will also note that Brandon McCarthy our recent guest On this podcast was officially Hired as a special assistant to the GM of the Rangers he had

Sort of hinted that he would be working In baseball and now we know That's the job who knows maybe he said As my first move I think we should give Lance Lynn three years and thirty million Dollars that could be how that happened I won't make you talk about Yvonne Nova going to the White Sox, the Reds acquiring Tanner Roark, Tanner for Tanner trade.

Probably not something we have to talk a whole lot about here. But the only other somewhat interesting one maybe was the Angels getting Justin Boer because I think that surprised people in that We know that Shohei Otani Will likely be DHing Just about every day if all goes well In 2019 and Of course that means that

Albert Pujols route to playing time Would be first base and That is also the position that Justin Boer plays so it seems like They are setting up a Pujols-Boer platoon here. And of course, that is contingent on Pujols continuing to hit well enough to deserve to play. So I don't know if this is setting the stage for the endgame of the Pujols era in Anaheim or not. But this is a bit of a logjam there.

Think of teams that need pitching help. Think of teams that would want to have just a massive pitching staff. And the Angels are near the top of the list, right? Because they want to contend, but they don't have a lot of reliable pitching right now. So you already think, okay, well, the Angels, maybe they're going to have an eight-man bullpen,

something like that. Maybe they want to have, therefore, 13 pitchers and 12 position players. Among those position players now albert pujols who can play barely one position shohei otani who plays no positions and justin bohr who plays sort of one position you have three of the least flexible players that you can have on a roster as position players it does feel like i can't tell if it's aggressive aggressive or passive aggressive like the message that they're trying send to Albert Pujols of just like hey

like it's time we're flicking the light it's time to go but Pujols is just you know he's he's a hall of famer he's one of the greatest hitters of all time and he's just thinking like you know I'm still putting up my counting stats I'm not gonna lose my job to some guy who got DFA'd and like was a waiver claim

from the Marlins and you know Albert Pujols probably not threatened by Justin Boer, but you look at it and Boer is on the long side of the platoon. He's the lefty. There are more righties. And so I have targeted the first half of this season in the past of when I think things would come to a head with the Angels and Albert Pujols because there's just not a whole lot left to do there. So I do think that even

though we can't speculate with detail, them signing Bohr does make it seem like there is a plan here. Whether they've already begun that plan with Pujols, I don't know. But I am certain Albert Pujols at the very least got like a push alert on his phone that said his team signed a first baseman yeah yeah he is at 100.0 war right now two and a half banes is yeah just walk away now while you're still in triple digits albert because i'm not sure it's gonna get higher than that but yeah i mean to his credit i guess he did raise it from 99.5 this year. So he was a little better than he had been the year before. But yeah, that I don't know. I mean, some guys just will walk away and say I'm not the player that I wanted to be and used to be.

And I can read the writing on the wall. And some guys, just the cliche about making them tear the uniform off you. the wall and some guys just the cliche about making them tear the uniform off you so i don't know which one he will be but he is about to celebrate or at least mark his 39th birthday and also in angels related and mariners related moves one of the things that jerry depoto did well before he was admitted was to make a waiver claim and take Caleb Cowart away from the Angels. And this was part of a day in which there were two little updates, little tidbits about possible two-way players in 2019 who are not named Shohei Otani. Caleb Cowart is in the midst of remaking himself as a two-way player. The Angels had already started that process, and now he will continue it with the Mariners.

He was a first-round pick back in 2010, and he was like the best two-way player eligible in that draft. And he wanted to be a position player, and he was immediately a position player, but that has not gone particularly well for him. Got him to the big leagues, but that's about it. So now he is still throwing pretty hard, evidently, and Mariners will let him try that. And then also the Reds evidently said that they would give Michael Lorenzen a chance to play outfield sometimes, which is interesting.

He's obviously been a very good hitter for a pitcher, although he hasn't walked or anything. Like, I don't know if it's sustainable, but obviously he has power and he has a history of being a two-way player too. So don't know whether this is a product of Otani kind of clearing a path for other players or whether it's just a reflection of teams running out of roster spots

and just wanting more relievers all the time. But interesting to see it happen. And Matt Davidson is out there. Now, I don't know if he's going to get a major league opportunity, and I don't know anything. For those of you listening who know anything about, let's say, the NPB, baseball in Japan, do position players take the mound in Japan? Please let us know because I've never considered it, but Matt Davidson could have a very interesting career overseas, just trying to project his

future because it turns out, I haven't looked at the numbers. I wrote good things about Matt Davidson early in the year. It turns out he could only hit one team. It was the Royals, the same team that everybody else in the world could hit. Matt Davidson did not end with a very successful season, but as we have discussed several times, he showed good stuff, and he's a position player who hits for power. So can he be Michael Lorenzen? Find out. Maybe in Japan, I guess. If you're Matt Davidson's agent, sorry for that part, but good luck looking for opportunities

wherever you get them. Yeah. All right. And closing note, I'm sending you a link right now. I don't know whether you spared a thought for Matt Harvey this week. Probably not. But if you were wondering what Matt Harvey was up to during the winter meetings. What?

What? This is a picture on Instagram from Soma Spa in New York of Matt Harvey. It was posted on Thursday. And it is nightmare fuel, I would say. This of Matt Harvey. It was posted on Thursday, and it is nightmare fuel, I would say. This is Matt Harvey. I will link to this for people who haven't seen it. You should continue not to see it, I would say, but in case you want to. Matt Harvey is wearing some sort of skin mask here. It says pampering day for Matt Harvey when he's not on the field. He has some sort of goji berry substance applied to his face, high in vitamin C, which is known to brighten, firm, and protect the skin from environment stressors. Caviar facial will help his skin stay supple, smooth, and radiant. It looks like he has been glazed.

That's what It looks like he has been glazed. That's what it looks like. And he's got I guess caviar flecks all over his face. I don't know. It's pretty scary looking. Is it a solid mask? Is it spread with a tongue depressor?

Right. I would think it would be brushed on or poured on. It's very shiny and it's a scary look. I mean, I don't want to, you know, skincare shame the guy if he wants to brighten and firm and protect his skin. That is perfectly fine and he should. But I don't know that I would put it on Instagram because it's not a great look. Now, there are two ways to look at this. One, he's not very expressive in the photograph. Maybe he thought, you know, I really don't want to be doing this. The other thought, of course, is he can't open his mouth. He would eat some of the goji caviar facial mask.

Caviar facial, I mean, that sounds edible, but probably isn't. I mean, these goji berries are in food. Caviar facial, I mean, that sounds edible, but probably isn't. I mean, these goji berries are in food. Caviar is food. Maybe the entire mask is food. Are we not putting enough food on our skin? You just eat your way out of it when you're done. I don't know. Anyway, treat yourself,

Matt Harvey. I hope the winter works out well for you. All right, so we will end there. We've covered most of the important stuff, and I think we will actually finally get to an email show very soon, so we will end here. Wow, I really

don't want to be looking at this. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already done so. They have signed up to pledge some small monthly amount to Thank you. slash groups slash Effectively Wild. Join the conversation about Jeff's sweater. You can rate and review and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms.

Please keep your questions and comments for me and Jeff coming. We'll probably be recording an email episode before we get your emails, but there will always be another email episode. So send in your questions, podcast at fangraphs.com, or you can use the Patreon messaging system

if you're a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. He was also at the winter meetings but did not have to edit while he was there. We will be back to talk to you soon. We could slip away Oh, wouldn't that be better? Me with nothing to say You in your autumn sweater

We could slip away Would that be better? Me with nothing to say. You and your autumn sweat.