Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1557: No Appearing in the Press Box

Episode Date: June 27, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk to a beat writer and a broadcaster—The Athletic’s White Sox reporter James Fegan and Diamondbacks and MLB Network Radio host Mike Ferrin—about how they plan to tackle the unique challenges of covering the 2020 season, touching on how often they’ll be at the ballpark, how restricted access to players […]

They say, wait, don't come any closer. It was something I wanted to see. Yeah, wait, don't come any closer. When you're weak, yeah, you bend at the knee. Hello and welcome to episode 1557 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined as usual by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. show with us today because we wanted to do a bonus episode extra episode this week about how we all plan to cover this season if this season does in fact happen and how it will change our jobs and particularly a couple of people who are out and about more than i am and more than meg is as we

cover baseball in our way and are at the ballpark and are talking to players all the time. So we are joined by James Feagin, who covers the White Sox for The Athletic. Hello, James. And we have the honor of welcoming on Mike Farron, who is a host for MLB Network Radio and also does pregame and postgame for the Diamondbacks and also some play-by-play. Hello, Mike. Hi. It is great to be with so many great friends and James. So first, I guess we wanted to start out by talking about what you know to this point about the logistics of how this will affect your job. Because my job, I've been pretty fortunate. My

job is to sit at home most of the time and sometimes call people on the phone, and I can still do that. But I don't have to be at the ballpark every single day. I'm not traveling a ton. I worked from home already. So this has not been a huge disruption to my routine. And even when the season starts, if the season starts, it still probably won't be. But for people who are covering teams on a daily basis, it obviously is. So the MLB operations manual I know has some details in there about what this will mean for writers and broadcasters. And maybe some of that is still TBD. But James, are you aware of how this will change your routine and what you're able to do and not to? I mean,

it's still kind of to be determined to a degree. I think we're supposed to have another, like me personally, I'm supposed to have a call with a White Sox PR like next week to kind of figure out and hash out more details. But there's no like reasonable expectation of doing an in-person interview in 2020, which I guess, you know, if you told March James, that would be mind-blowing. But for me, I've been like you for the last, you know, three and a half months of existing on phone calls. If anything, having like scheduled media availability

the last few days have kind of reblown my mind after kind of entering a life where baseball is just never going to seemingly happen again because it's such a normal stretch of time. but yeah you you make your living off the 45 minutes that you come to the ballpark and you're in the clubhouse and whether or not the people there obviously things you can do in the meantime and stuff you can set up and and coaching interviews and catching guys uh after betting practice and whatnot but that was how you're geared or i've been geared for for three years of being on the beat. And now that's been gone.

And there's no real knowledge of when that will come back. And probably some existential angst about how much it will ever return in a meaningful way. I think sports writers are naturally paranoid and obviously kind of always think that teams don't need them and don't want them. And they wonder if they get crowded out, if they'll ever be let back in. them and don't want them and they wonder if they get crowded out if they'll be let back in but given that we don't really know when the end of sight is for the virus and the fact that if anything it seems farther away than it did a month ago there's a lot of uncertainty there's a lot of debate about what does this mean for guys who have made their living traveling and kind of beating everybody just through work ethic and being more present and picking up things just from being there and the trust you build up

with players and coaches and front office from being there. It seems like that's kind of gone away and everyone's kind of freaking out how to do that. I mean, there's an internal debate right now about what should be given to people if media is going to be handled on Zoom calls from here on out in the foreseeable future. What is the access to that? Do you reward people who travel? Do you not create what would be an incentive for people to put themselves at risk

by making it available to everybody? I mean, it's kind of a huge mass of Zoom calls where it's 30 people, including bloggers and radio and along with the beat reporters, all talking to the starting pitcher right after the game ends. Nightmare. No one really knows what's

going to happen and uh mostly just arguing about a lot would you still go to the ballpark every day do you think if you weren't able to talk to people like would you still feel that it was important to be around object like if it objectively no it i don't think it's important like the purpose of me going there i don't like the white socks press box is in right field it's not a like i probably have a better idea from how the pitcher is doing and what they're doing and what's dictating every at bat if i watched on tv i have a great view of the right fielder's route to balls in the gap but it's not like an essential i've heard ball writers talk about, like, how can we really vote for the MVP if we're not watching in person? It does not improve my

judgment of that whatsoever. It's not 1923. As a sports writer in a shrinking industry, in a dying industry, where you're constantly striving to kind of prove that you're vital, you're necessary, that you're adding some value over some other schlub who would do it for $10,000 less per year. I think if it's a system where you need to prove you need to go to the ballpark to get access, if you need to travel to get access, if you need to just be staking out the parking lot to get access, probably don't have as much confidence in my standing that I'm going to have a job years or years from now if I'm not out hustling everybody. So I don't feel like really like, well, you guys can go. I can do this job from home. And I'm probably not 100% confident how that would look.

So that's that dire prediction is very specific to the beat writing sense. Mike, your role in bringing baseball to your listeners is obviously very different than James's bringing stories to his readers. What are you going to be doing once baseball resumes? Yeah. So broadcasters are considered tier three employees under the health and safety protocol. And I know you guys were just talking a little bit about those this week, but tier one is basically field staff and players. Tier two is, I think it's limited to 38 people. And there are some people from the communications department that would be in there, but the broadcasters don't fall into that.

And then the rest of us are tier three, which basically means we're allowed to be in the ballpark, but we can't go anywhere near ballplayers at all, which does impact our ability to tell their stories over the course of a broadcast. I mean, we are much like James going to be at the mercy of what we can try and set up either through our media relations staff or through our personal relationships with players and coaches to be able to have that information. And then we have the added difficulty this year of not being able to travel. And both television and radio are going to be calling away games remotely. Everybody will be doing the home games from their ballpark,

but the away games will be called on a monitor, not dissimilar to what they've done for the KBO, maybe a little bit better in that regard, that we won't have just a program feed, you know, what's going out on the air, but we probably will have a couple of other camera feeds that are on a separate monitor or monitors so that we can try and track what's going on. But that's basically how we're going to handle the entire year. There is a provision in there for road radio to be able to travel, but they basically have to create their own travel and their own accommodations.

They can't stay at the team hotel. They have to be separate from the players in an effort to try and keep that group of, what, 125 that are going to be tested regularly between Tier 1 and Tier 2 as safe as possible. So it's going to be unique. It's going to be a real challenge, I think, because it's going to be something that we haven't done before. And, you know, I think, especially when it comes to calling games on radio, you know, you rely so much on the action that's in front of you versus the monitor that it's going to make it a little bit different, but I like a good

challenge. And, you know, I'm hopeful that we can put together a product that, you know, it still entertains and informs the audience. And that's really the goal, because at this point, we all just need some entertainment, maybe a little less informing, but a little more entertainment at this point. You're tier one to me, Mike. Tier one in your hearts, but tier three in the handbook, right? Yeah. So for either of you or both of you, what would you lose

and what would we lose as readers or listeners if you didn't have access to players or if your access were restricted? Because I think a lot of people think of the cliche ridden ballplayer interview and the post-game quote that's just, oh, I went up there and I was looking for a good pitch to hit and just got a good pitch to hit, didn't try to do too much with it, et cetera, et cetera. And you get that a lot, of course, and you might talk to a player for five or 10 minutes and look down at what you actually have and say, there is nothing worth putting in a story here. But there are many times, of course, where it can be really helpful to have relationships with players and to talk to players

and get their insights and learn things. So what are some stories that you couldn't have done, James, without that kind of access? Or what would you miss? What would your stories be lacking? And I guess, Mike, for you too, I mean, you wouldn't have pregame or postgame show guests, but what would

you miss just in your kind of knowledge of the team and the clubhouse I guess James you could go first I mean as far as what's been emphasized in my job the last couple years I mean I would say everything because there are other there are a lot of people who write for Megsite that know statistical breakdowns a lot better than me. There is a lot of people who get scoops from agents a lot better than me. There is people who just write better than me in general. I would say that I try to make my living based on the idea that I read fan graphs and I'm going to apply some of the knowledge I take there or I'm going to chat with my colleague Ken Rosenthal and get some inside

information and I'm actually going to take it and address players of the White Sox individually and try to get some more in-depth out of it. And part of it is that I kind of cover an obscure franchise that I probably have a unique level of enthusiasm about and you're probably not going to get

a combination of someone who is trying to read and inform themselves about the game and apply it to this one kind of obscure team that people mostly ignore. So the fact that I'm like taking these kind of statistical dives and applying it to Jimmy Cordero, whereas most of the people don't know who Jimmy Cordero is. I feel like everything I do is trying to based off of, well, what if somebody who actually understood, you know, some of these concepts actually tried to apply it and ask the White Sox players about it individually or ask White Sox coaches about it individually. That's probably entirely what my job function has been the last couple of years. So I definitely think I'll ask as well as I can or, you know grill uh chris gets about whether or not stuff i read about on driveline is being applied in white socks player development but i i don't i don't i don't know how much potential there is like i i flip i basically

once i got access as a writer i've been trying to make the most out of it as i possibly can so to kind of reverse course on that is kind of requiring a whole rethinking of what I do. I like to think I have a really good relationship with Lucas Giolito, who's the best, both the best pitcher on the White Sox, but also the best talker, most insightful guy to talk to. And we just did a conference call with him and the White Sox media relations, you know, did a great job to set it up. But as a result of like the format and the fact that it's a group interview and it's a Zoom call, I asked him two questions. So how much can that really get? And that's more than other people got so i i feel

like how much can i really recreate of what i was doing uh beforehand in terms of really covering a season in depth and just my goal is to try to make people understand why the team won or lost and what makes a player uh good or not good or fail or succeed. And I think my capacity will probably be somewhere around 10% to do what I was doing before. Yeah. I mean, I think from my standpoint, it might be a little bit different because as somebody who works for the team, I have a feeling that I'm going to be able to get a little bit different access. Like Will, you alluded to pre and post game interviews, Ben. We're still going to be able to have those. We're going to be able to take advantage of the technology that we've all learned to be able to have the manager show every day, you know? So we'll, we'll, I'll do a zoom meeting with Tori

Lovello every day to do that. We'll probably do player interviews, uh, from, from the road games more because that fits what our format would be. And also keeping in mind that, that it's a little bit unique content because there won't be as many chances for somebody like James to be able to come in and get a feature. And so there's that chance to be able to get that conversation. So from that standpoint, I don't think that it's going to change very much. I think it's either the off the record or the trying to gain insight into decision-making or insight into personality or the funny one-off story that, you know, can really help to punctuate a broadcast, I think, is what's going to be lost. And that's the human side of covering sports, and I'm not sure how to do it. I mean, Jason Benetti and I talked about this about a month and a half ago. And he said, you know, his hope was that they would,

they would be able to at least provide, you know, it's like, Hey, if I've got a question about from player X and something that happened last night, I might be able to get them on a zoom call for two minutes, or it's going to be text messages with players and coaches and managers. And that's fine. But you guys know, text messages can be misconstrued a lot of the time. And losing that face-to-face connection is going to make things a little bit more difficult. It's definitely going to be a challenge, but the goals are still the same in that you're trying to tell these stories, you're trying to humanize the players so that they're not just the statistics on the back of a baseball card that, and that, or that they're

just, you know, this kind of distant performer that you get a chance to understand who they are as a person. And, you know, I think it's just going to be incumbent on us to try a bunch of different ways until we find the way to be able to make it work in what's really a difficult situation. I think one of the additional challenges that we're all going to face this season is that one of the most obvious human stories that we're having to deal with, that the players on the field are going to have to deal with, that team personnel is going to have to deal with, is how we can safely stage a baseball season in the midst of a pandemic. And I think that we're all relieved both as people who enjoy baseball and enjoy the diversion of it, but also as people who work in the industry and like to be able to like pay rent and buy food that there's

going to seemingly be some kind of a season, but it is not one that is necessarily going to be safe, and it certainly isn't without risk. And so I'm curious how the two of you have sort of thought about the tone that we bring to this season, the way that we deal with balancing the play on the field versus the sort of broader context that we find these games being played in. Because on the one hand, you don't necessarily want, you know, the subheader of every story you file or the lead into every interview you do to be, and should we really be playing in a pandemic at all? But that is a question that I think we're going to have to grapple with probably at multiple points over the course of the season.

And, you know, hopefully we're not dealing with it because there has been some kind of a tragedy, but that possibility also exists. So I am asking this as much because I am still struggling with the answer myself as someone who has to lead a publication. But maybe, James, we can start with you and then we can go to Mike. How are you thinking about tone this year? I'm probably thinking about it a lot because in these group interviews, everyone's kind of asking stuff about, like, how many innings do you think you're ready to throw right now? And what does this situation affect trades?

And how do you make the way decision between rebuilding or going for it based off the limited time you have? And I'm more thinking on the level of like should we be doing this man like is this a good idea but when you're in a group interview and the kind of group thing takes over when your questions are wildly different from like what other colleagues are asking that kind of makes you second guess yourself in a way i don't think you would when you're doing a one-on-one and you're thinking like well this is my question i'm going to ask it as opposed to like am i is this am i off base am i is this an appropriate like tack for me to

be taking i also think it's a much lower fresh threshold for a player to be having a close conversation by the locker and also saying maybe like you know this is off the record like hey man are you worried and them saying like yeah i am concerned this is worrying based on them saying it on the record in a group interview that's being recorded uh with the pr staff like on the line like and that's not the fault of pr staff it's just a reality it's like a different there's a difference between something you're able to whisper to like a friend or a colleague or somebody you know and and basically yelling it in the middle of a crowded room so i i wonder how much we're missing out on really taking the temperature of players or what the individual concern is of coaches, just because the level of distance and how much they have to kind of act proactively, take it upon themselves to put it out there to really kind of voice their worries.

livelihood where there's already been cutbacks there's already been layoffs uh everyone's kind of livelihood depends on this going right and uh there being a season and there being money from it and the whole uh you know industry that we built around baseball kind of constantly being a thing is hurting and needs it to come back i feel like that kind of takes us on this uh and this momentum that carries away really weighing the question of whether or not, you know, we should be doing this and whether or not this is a, this is safe or moral even. And, you know, you want to push that as much as you can, but how much can you really, maybe we're not even the right like population to ask it because of the position we're in. I think if we were judging this from a, from an outside perspective, we'd probably say

that we're ethically compromised to some degree. So we have to fight against that somehow while doing our jobs. Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, listen, doing a radio show for the last three months, three and a half months on baseball, I mean, we've stuck to the three Ps for the most part in pandemic protests and pro rata. And I'm really excited to be able to talk about something other than those three things. For sure. I mean, I think it's also important to constantly be mindful of where we are. And I just did a roundtable with a group of play-by-play guys the other day, and it was right after Meg had asked me to do this.

And so it was at the top of my mind on, how do you handle this? Because we can't be ignorant to the fact that there's a pandemic going on. And you can't be ignorant to the fact that there's a good chance that in a number of these cities, there are still going to be Black Lives Matter protests over the course of the summer. And these are important public health discussions that need to go on. And how do you balance that against what everybody is probably listening to or watching a baseball game for at this point, which is an escape from the reality of what has been just the worst damn year that any of us could possibly imagine. And so finding that balance isn't easy, and nobody seemed to have a good answer for how you do it. I mean, I don't think, I think the way we've tried to handle it is, especially in the last week, is, and granted,

we've got like a two-hour format right now to do it over, is, hey, we're excited about baseball coming back. Here are some of the rule changes. Here are some of the things that are going to happen if we're able to get the season off the ground. But still dedicating time to, you know, the fact that, listen, there's a pandemic going on and that states that have what nearly two thirds of the major league teams are seeing a huge spike in cases. And how do we

keep players safe? And, you know, how do you, when you see somebody like Trevor May of the twins, tell Jason Stark on Twitter that like 1% of the time that was spent over the last three months discussing getting back on the field was spent on the health and safety protocols. I mean, I think that's stuff that really gets your attention and that you absolutely have to discuss. Even if you're in a position where you're working for a team, you have to treat yourself as a reporter of what's going on. And the news of what's happening in the world has to take at least some semblance of precedence. It doesn't mean that it has to overwhelm your broadcast, but it does need to be something that you continue to discuss. So I'm trying to take it down two paths. I'm extremely excited that baseball is coming back. I especially love the potential weird baseball aspect of a 60-game season. And since both sides

are apparently still willing to talk about the extra playoffs, I think the weirdness of extra playoffs in this year would be really cool, while also being realistic about the fact that I live in Arizona and we have had more cases in the last week than there have ever been players that have stepped into a major league batter's box. So I think that there's, you have to be able to balance those two things and know that, that, Hey, it's okay to be excited about this, but also realistic that there is a chance that something goes wrong. Yeah, I'm curious if one of the lasting, you know, saying anything to emerge from this is good, feels terrible, just given the human cost of any of it. But I do wonder if one of the things that will change after this strange season, both in terms of how we've had to deal

with the pandemic and talking about that, but then also the very pressing and important social reality of the protests in Black Lives Matter is going to maybe be the start of a meaningful shift in the way that baseball media, which not the two of you, but like has generally been kind of stodgy around questions like that, is comfortable with trying to strike that balance between, you know, still reporting on the game and getting people excited, but also acknowledging the social context in which we find ourselves and trying to, you know, engage with that responsibly rather than avoid it. Do you think that, is that optimistic of me?

Yes. But I mean, I think I'm a good example of it too, because it's not something that I have largely been willing to talk about on the radio until recently. In large part, because I think, and especially over the last several years that, you know, again, it goes back to what I just talked about. Like you're trying to create a distraction, right? And if everything around you is going wrong, like being able to tune in someplace where, you know, you can at least forget about your troubles for a little bit and maybe have a little bit of fun and think about baseball. I think that that's I think that's important. But, you know, I also have very strong views, especially when it comes to equality. And and whether that whether that be, you know, Black Lives Matter or LGBTQ or whatever it is, those are things that are important issues to me. And I don't think without this, I would have been able to find my voice to stand up for it.

And I'll tell you what, it helped that my radio partner, Jim Duquette, who is not necessarily the guy that you would think of as being the guy that's leading the charge for equality, was willing to stand up too. And he really brought, you know, he really helped to bring me out of my shell on that, because these are things that are, I think, important to discuss. And I think sometimes, you know, for lack of a better terms, you got to call an asshole an

asshole. And I'm much more willing now to stand up and stand for my beliefs publicly, I think, than I have been in the past. And I don't think that would have happened without everything that's gone on in the last several months. Yeah. And I feel like you're probably a little bit more outside of the bubble that we are in just because of your job at MLB Network Radio. I mean, SiriusXM, of course, is a subscription service, and I'm sure that your show attracts discerning and intelligent listeners. But still, you're getting a wide cross-section of people and you're getting people calling in all the time. And maybe demographically, it's a little different from our audience or the Fangraphs audience. So what did you find the

sentiment to be first about the ownership versus labor argument over the past couple of months? And then now about the question of whether it's even safe to do this. Like, are you getting people calling in and saying, oh, it's a bunch of babies. There's no risk. It's a bunch of athletes and it's not a risk. Or are you not really getting that? I just wonder how prevailing that sentiment is because we don't get that from our listeners, but we're lucky that our listeners are great people. Right. Well, so we're in a twofold position here. One, in that we don't really take very many calls on our show to begin with. And then two, we actually haven't been live for three and

a half months. We've been taping our show mostly the afternoon before because our studios in DC have been shut down since the middle of March. And so we've been trying to handle it that way. So we, you know, Twitter is great for people sharing, you know, being a really good microscope of what's happening in America. Right. But, but I mean, I think this, this is the sense that I got at least, I mean, let's start with, let's start with the social justice fact. I mean, I think most, for the most part, people are understanding and, and okay with the idea that it's right to stand up for the rights of people. I think for the most part, we want everybody to be treated well. Every once in a while, you get a jerk that comes and then the best thing you can do is you can mute them. And that's a really wonderful passive aggressive tool that Twitter has. In terms of the way that the season has played out, I think,

and it's really tough because inside the baseball Twitter bubble, it is very pro-player. And so trying to take yourself back from that is a little bit, it can be a little bit difficult. But I think that for the first time in something like this, I had seen a public shift to the side of players for the most part up until when and where. And when, when, and where turned into a counter proposal, there were a lot of eye rolls and a lot of reactions from people that were like, really like, this is, this is where it went. And

it's almost like, like as organic and as cool as that moment was with players who were tweeting that, that caused a lot of people to take a step back and go, okay, what's really going on here? So I think that that balanced it out maybe a little bit in the end in the way that people felt about it. But for the most part, I think they had the players back. As for the pandemic, I mean, people are scared. And so I think that there are enough people that continue to be concerned about whether or not players are going to be healthy by attempting to play. And so I still get a fair amount of reactions on that. And we get a lot of, they shouldn't even be trying this. They should cancel the season. Of course, they said that back in March, too. there are those that say, just get out there and do it. They're at very low risk. So, I mean, I don't know that it's necessarily a balancer. I think most people are concerned about the health and safety of the players overall, at least the people that I've dealt with seem to be that, but

they also seem because the players have been on board with this restart, willing to support them in an effort to try and get baseball off the ground again, because, you know, they miss baseball as a distraction and players obviously miss baseball as their job too. And so you're trying to watch that play out now, hopefully safely or relatively safely over the course of the next four months. a range of opinions on this, so I don't mean to make you speak for the entirety of the White Sox fan base, but they were a team that tried this offseason, right? They were positioning themselves to be competitive in a kind of squishy division, which in hindsight, I think it's going to feel like something of a missed opportunity at times because of how much sort of to the middle this season is likely to play. Can you give us a sense of how folks are feeling about balancing their desire to have the White Sox play and potentially make a run at the Central versus whatever trepidation they might have about playing in the midst of a pandemic?

Are they sitting there going, let them play. We want to see who's on the White Sox now. You got all kinds of guys. Yosemite Grindahl. He's a White Sox. I remember. White Sox. White Sox. socks now you got all kinds of guys yosemite grundahl he's like he's a white sock i remember white socks white sock uh that's still a source of debate white socks player there we go white citizen yeah right around it as far as like chiefly partisan people the people who respond to like literally anything like you could be talking about racism and they

preface their sentences with as a white socks fan i don't really see those people that hesitant about playing i that's probably not i definitely am as guilty as anyone is about having the feedback loop type of a twitter uh group that i follow where i see a lot of the the hand wringing about playing and what are we doing and I definitely talked to other writers who are definitely of the opinion of this is getting worse this is a worse situation virus wise than it was when they shut down why are we coming back that's probably mostly how I feel I would I would say I don't have like fans really coming to my message is or in comments saying protect you lucas giolito at all

costs uh keep them safe and home and anything like that i feel like they're more still of the it's really only three years ago as much as maybe understanding of how players are humans who have value uh has improved a little bit back then they're still kind of of the mindset of like cheering all the the deals for sweet prospect depth that Rick Hahn made three years ago and how he's pulling all the strings to the ring, all the value out of this group. And they're, they're more about like,

we're not going to lose a Nick magic all service time. Are we, or like, are we losing the value of Lewis Roberts extension and buying out his years that they don't play the season? Or are we getting all the value of the LA men is extension that we hope i i feel like they're mostly still like i don't think they are of the anti-player mindset of like throw them in the thresher who cares but they're they're very much concerned of like we had this beautiful vision opening up that we were all excited about

how much of it are we losing with this um I think they understand the fact, I mean, Chicago is obviously in an area and a state that probably took this whole situation more seriously than other parts of the country. And it was probably more willing about that. And it was very enthusiastic about this is something we're going to get through together early on. I definitely see that waning recently in concerning amounts, but I feel like they're mostly accepting of why this shutdown has happened

but they're definitely kind of whispering in not too loud voice like but are we still going to get the contention window uh that we thought we were going to get out of this so i i see mostly enthusiasm that they're coming back and the idea that they'll get something out of it and and maybe less less angst than maybe a dodger fan who's worried about having sold the farm for one year of mookie bets and now it's uh you know two months of it this wasn't necessarily they did make this move to compete they did try but it was supposed to only be the start of it I think the moves that you're really are supposed to care about with Yasmany Grandal and Dallas Keuchel those are still multi-year long-term deals and you know signing Luis Robert to extensions like a an eight-year deal you're

still supposed to care about 2022 more than this season. So I would say they're probably less Machiavellian with their view of this season must be played so I can get the enjoyment I was promised than, you know, maybe other fan bases. Yeah. And the White Sox and Diamondbacks, the two teams that you cover and or work for, are sort of in similar boats there in that they missed the playoffs last year but made some major moves over the offseason, signed some big free agents, made some big deals, and really were going to go for it. And there's a way in which these two teams benefit relative to other teams in that, yes, it's a shame that you only get to see 60 games in the best-case scenario. Yes, it's a shame that you only get to see 60 games in the best case scenario. But if you look at Dan Szymborski's post from the other day at FanCrafts where he looked at the changes in World Series odds between 162 game season and a 60 game season, the White Sox and the Diamondbacks are the two teams at the top of the list that have their odds go up the most because a short season tends to favor underdogs or teams that are kind of in that area where they're competitive, but maybe not the favorites. And so you shorten the season, anything can happen. And so I wonder whether fans would be at all excited about it or, you know, if the Diamondbacks upset the Dodgers, let's say, is that going to be, hey, great.

Is that going to be the same as if they did it in 162-game season? Or would fans feel like, well, we may have lucked into it a little bit? Or does it even affect you emotionally because it's like, hey, we win, we're in the playoffs, let's forget about the details? I mean, I think it would depend on which side of the coin you're on. If the Diamondbacks upset the Dodgers and go on to win the World Series, Diamondbacks fans are going to be thrilled. dodger fans will be the ones that say that it it doesn't count right because you're on the other end of it right so and you don't think diamondbacks fans would feel any twinge i mean not that i don't know maybe they would i mean maybe maybe there's

somebody that would say oh well you know it's a it's a 60 game season and what i i don't know i don't know how to to answer that. You know, it's unfortunately, I think, you know, it's the situation that we're dealt with. I mean, it's the season that we're going to have to have. And so I don't know that there's anything we can change that. I mean, I can tell you from the player standpoint, I don't think that they're going to be, they're going to take it any differently than they would any other season. I don't think that winning a championship in 2020 to the players will feel like it's any less of a championship than it did in any other year. I mean, the playoff format is at the very least going to be the same as what we've had. So you still have to go through that

same kind of battle to get to the World Series and win it. So I don't think that that's going to be really any different, even though there's, what, 40 fewer games being played than even in 1981. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it's one of those things where when your team wins a championship, you know, you get buoyed by the casual fans who get involved in it, right? And I'm not sure that anybody is really going to walk away from a championship season saying, yeah, you know, we won, but it really didn't count for us. No, that's something, to me, that's the lament of the the team that doesn't win the championship that they're the ones that are

questioning the the authenticity of something like that yeah i would think i mean the question i pose the white sox fans and the response i get it's not like they're washing championships of the franchise or anything but they don't they won a world series in 2005 that most of their fan base was alive for and that was breaking this like decades-long drought and if they won a World Series in 2005 that most of their fan base was alive for. And that was breaking this, like, decades-long drought. And if they won a championship this season, the general response is it would not mean as much as it did in 2005. Both for historical reasons and it just does not feel like it's quite as full of a campaign and a triumph as that is. I think they're also in a position where they're, this was not supposed to be the year that defined their era or their run. Like this is kind of a year that you could kind

of write off where you want to see some incremental progress, but it's not supposed to be the year that is ultimately the measuring stick by which you use this entire, you know, you judge this entire effort where you traded, you know, possibly the most talented pitcher in the history of the franchise to jumpstart it. I would say probably where you see a lot of disengagement this year is that if your team goes like 25 and 35 or just kind of underperforms a little bit or just doesn't seem like a factor and misses the playoffs, I feel like the general reaction is not like this was a disgrace and they needed to fix it.

It was like, eh, who cares about this stupid fake season anyway? I'm just going back to my life, whatever. I hope that Nick Madrigal gets through this season without striking out. It's conceivable. Only 60 games, he could do it. So how do you think it would be covered and how would you try to cover it if a player decides to sit out this season and opt out and we're still waiting to see whether that will be the case? I know that Ryan Zimmerman said he was considering sitting out this season and opt out. And we're still waiting to see whether that will be the case. I know that Ryan Zimmerman said he was considering sitting out this season because he has a three week old baby and his mother has MS. And he's also a player who was thought to be a possible retirement candidate anyway. So he's at a different stage of his life and career than a lot of players

are. But if that happens, or if staff members choose to stay home, I know that Cleveland said that a couple of undisclosed staffers will not be participating in the season. How do you think that would be covered? Would there be a big backlash the way that we see even with like paternity leave during a normal season where people get mad at players for not being in uniform every single day? Or how would you try to present that to the public at least? I mean, for me, I think it's

their right. I mean, it's negotiated. Now granted, if a player isn't high risk, they don't get service time and they don't get paid for it. And to me, that almost makes it a more noble gesture. I mean, you're obviously doing it because you have either in the case of like Ryan Zimmerman, some family member, or if you're one of the players whose wife is pregnant and you're concerned about that and you want to be able to be at home. Or you just have concerns about going and traveling across the country and playing three game series over the course of two months, because there's a pandemic ranging, I can just tell you personally, I would have a significant amount of empathy for them. I mean, I'm scared, like, like I'm scared about a lot of the crap that's going on right now, you know? And, and so I don't, I wouldn't fault them at all. And I think that that's the way that I would, I would present it. I don't care whether you're a star player or you're the, you know, the 39th guy on the 40 man roster. If you're, if you are concerned about your health in the

midst of a pandemic, you've, you probably have your priorities straight. And so I don't know how people would react to that. I would assume that to some degree, it depends on how much capital they have invested in the season, either financially or in Vegas. And if that were to impact them, then maybe that would be where the loudest voices come from. But to me, I don't think that there's any other way. I don't think there's another way that you should cover it personally. I mean, if you're going to opt out the season because you're concerned about your health or the health of loved ones in the middle of a pandemic, then you should have our support because we're all concerned about the same things.

Yeah, I think it would be pretty hard morally to really come down on such a player. I mean, I would assume there'd be so many mitigating factors at work because in general these guys want to play that for them to sit out would probably be an enormously difficult decision for them. And there'd be so many factors kind of like backing them up that it really wouldn't be you know i i probably really rarely go through these very um

difficult moral questions about what's the right way to cover it i always feel like it's generally pretty obvious and i i think that this would probably be the same case now if there was some extreme reaction where a player just said like, peace, I can opt out. So I'm going to, and didn't really give any explanation about it. And you were getting that, that kind of confusion was getting backed up by other players or teammates or a front office or coach is going to whisper in you like, we don't really know what his deal is, but maybe that would be a different case. But I don't really see something like that happening. I think probably the understanding of it for fans cynically, I think would probably break down based off the value of the player,

both to the team and how much they were making. I think if like some quad a up and down reliever was like, I have a lot of family members who are high risk. I'm caring for like a sick family member or whatnot. And it sat out. They'd be like, well, that's very understanding. You know, know we you gotta support somebody like that i think if juan mancada just said like i'm not going to play the the white socks fan base would

probably be a lot more scrutinizing about his reasoning probably be a lot more quick to turn on him and say this is kind of ridiculous he's being paid such and such million dollars you know that that risk is inherent he should be he should be willing to play he's letting his teammates down i think that's where probably if a high profile player stepped down i think we'd see a lot more ugliness if like someone like mike trout uh sat out there'd be all the people who kind of debate his level of greatness and the talk about whether or not he's like the most talented player of his generation or maybe even all time i think that we could see that probably get pretty nasty as terms of holding that against him on like a character level even of just saying that you need to be a sociopath to be considered the best the

greatest athlete because uh that's the model we've sort of embraced in this country but i i think hopefully it'll there will be a level of understanding about the story involved with the individual player for people to appreciate it. But I think there's definitely potential for it to go the wrong, ugly way that fanhood has gone before. I think it's easier, though, in this sense because if somebody opts out, they're not getting paid. I mean I think that that's an easier sell for a lot of people, especially if they were a high-priced player to do that. easy and easier sell for a lot of people, especially if, you know, there were a high price player to do that. And I do think the other part of it is, is an issue of amplification in that the, you know, the loudest people are the ones, my mom's a voice teacher and she always says, if you can't sing good, sing loud. Right. And so it's always these loudest voices that are

squawking about how player X isn't nearly as great as he should be because he's not a sociopath because he decided to do what was right for his family. And part of our job needs to be to not amplify those voices when they say something stupid about, you know, a player making a comment about whether or not they want to play because they felt like they didn't potentially have a good season the year before or as good a season as they felt like they should have. The best thing to do is to ignore that fool because that person is a fool and all they want is the attention that comes with it it doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be treated with the same the same importance as the story should be and in a case like this if there's a star player that walks away it's going to be the same voices that are yelling and screaming the loudest about the fact that they didn't do it.

And they're the people we should be ignoring anyway. I mean, it's the, it's the, what was the Nate Silver line and the hedgehogs and, and what was the other? I can't remember the other one. Foxes.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like just ignore the hedgehogs, right? Ignore the hedgehogs. We would be in a lot better shape if we just ignore the hedgehogs. Speaking as a hedgehog,

if you ignored me, you'd be in a lot better position than if you listen to what I have to say. Yeah, I wonder what would be said inside the clubhouse. That's almost more interesting to me because I would hope that a player wouldn't make this decision one way or another because of what people are tweeting at him or whatever. But one would think that there would be a lot of peer pressure among players, right? Unless there's a very obvious vulnerability or risk factor there. That would be what was on my mind if I were a player. And I hope I wouldn't let that dictate my decision either.

But I'd be thinking about what are my teammates going to say? What are my friends going to say? Are they going to feel like I quit on them or something? And I wouldn't want that to be the case. And just the way that clubhouses work and teams work, you would think that even if it's not stated, and I would hope that teams are not putting any sort of pressure on their players, but the players themselves, it's just a bunch of young guys who hang out together all the time and are macho and don't want to show any weakness.

And so you'd think that might be something that might influence the decision. Yeah, I think it's largely a moot discussion. I mean, I don't follow the NBA super closely. I've started to follow them more. But what were there like three players that opted out of the league? And one was Trevor Ariza in like a custody battle, right, for his 12-year-old son. And so he stepped away and there were a couple of other prominent players,

one with the Wizards, and there were only a handful. I think we're probably in a similar situation outside of maybe some that have, you know, extreme medical concerns. Ryan Zimmerman is certainly a prominent name, but as you mentioned, Ben, he's towards the end of his career. I think in the end, most of the discussion is going to be moot because most of the players said when and where they want to get back out there and play. And so it's more an academic exercise than it is one that's going to be grounded in reality. I don't know if James, you've got any different sense

from talking to the White Sox players or to their front office over the last couple of days, but at least that's the sense I've gotten here in Arizona. to their front office over the last couple of days. But at least that's the sense I've gotten here in Arizona. I mean, we just did a conference call with Giolito and McCann before I hopped on here. Those dudes have worries. They're concerned. Neither one of them have their family coming with them just because they don't know what it's going to be like and how safe it's going to be.

I don't think either one is really considering not playing. But it's not like if somebody said they didn't want to play, they'd be like, what are you doing? Where is this coming from? Like, there are all a lot of factors that they're all very cognizant of and all very worried about themselves. I don't think it'd be out of the blue or some sort of huge break from, um, what everyone else is considering for somebody to sit out. Uh, obviously if it's somebody like Trout or Max Scherzer

and it alters your team's fate entirely for them to not be part of the team, they probably would be disappointed. But I don't think they can ever truly create that much division in the clubhouse because I feel like everyone's really cognizant that this is a nightmarish situation and it's really difficult to kind of trudge through it. It's almost like I feel like if there wasn't so much kind of writing on, you know, your career and the financial stability of your family and everybody running on it, I feel like they wouldn't play

because it's clearly not a great idea if it's not for the health of the league to kind of keep going and for the health of the league to kind of keep going and for the health of individual careers because it there's a there's really reason to to sit out it's a it's a very legit thing it's not shrinking from the moment it's it's it's recognizing the factors that are present and acknowledging them so we've talked a little bit about what is likely to change this year and some of the changes that we might get in terms of content. I'm curious what each of you thinks the future of your respective roles is. I know this is kind of a bummer question to end on because there's nothing that sports media people like to do more than grapple with the fate of their own industry. But, you know, when I talk to people in the game who work for scouting departments or in baseball ops groups, you know, their concern with the contraction of the industry is that there will not be a subsequent re-expansion when there isn't a pandemic and things are better. And I think that there are some parallels we can draw there from there to access and in-person coverage.

And so I'm curious, what of what's going on now out of necessity you think might end up being a more permanent feature when that necessity subsides? I mean, I think I largely suspect that teams are still allowing access to reporters out of acknowledgement of tradition or things that used to used to be standard or essential. They don't need us for the sake of promotion or have people aware that their team exists anymore. They don't need us to like cover day to day stuff. They have their own media arms for that. They have their own TV partners with their own journalistic outlets, so to speak. They don't need kind of independent people kind of poking it through holes. It's not something that's absolutely necessary. And I guess that they're not probably going to shut out The Athletic or anything like that

going forward. But I feel like the longer you give them the opportunity to realize that there's stuff that they can hide or not face scrutiny for by not letting guys in the clubhouse. I think that's obviously probably somewhat appealing to them on, on some base level. And I think probably the push from the BBWA, uh, to immediately return to normal instantly will kind of prevent to anything too drastic from really taking place,

but just to just the whole season of seeing how things can work without them, I don't think it's a positive. I don't think it bodes well for us long term. But I also have a hard time seeing them just saying next year, like, well, we're never going to let you back in. It's just it may be something we look at a decade out from now as being a slippery slope. I would say if you ask me what the future of my industry or my role in the industry would be it's be um pr for

some non-profit uh down the road i think that's what everyone kind of thinks they'll wind up doing so or i don't know we're working for uh cook county because that's where my mom works. She's my only lifeline in this world. So in looking at both jobs, I mean, I think one of the things that we have that has been a benefit to us at Sirius is that while we carry the MLB name, we're not actually owned by MLB or a partner with, we're a partner with the league in the same way that rights holders are. And so the connections that we've made over the course of the last 15 years with agents and teams has been largely through elbow grease and, and, you know, handshakes and, and whatnot and building relationships. And so from that standpoint, I don't think it's going to impact much. In fact, I think even if there were to be a group of players that were outraged at the way the negotiations went, so much so that they wanted to try and limit their contact with MLB, I think that for the most part, they know or their representatives know that we're a little bit different in that while we are promoting Major League Baseball, we are a rights holder there and that they have relationships with us in that regard.

As far as the team aspect goes, you know, I know that there are a number of broadcasters that are very concerned that at some point they'll just be asked to do remote broadcasts all the time. But broadcasters have been concerned about that for probably close to a decade because while what we'll be doing is unique for road games to what has happened in major league baseball it has been something that espn and big 10 network pac-12 you know all of these networks have done for a number of years in trying to to create more coverage without spending to send people to two different sites and taking these kind of world feeds. So I don't know that necessarily that's the biggest cost cutter in the end. I think that this is born more of a pandemic and less about just trying to save money, although there is that benefit to not traveling anyone. But the numbers that we're talking about is pretty minuscule compared to what owners could be

losing in other ways. And when you consider that, even if you grant that it's about 40% or so of revenue that comes from game day operations, that means that almost 60% comes from media rights and media, largely television and to a lesser extent radio. So I don't know that that is going to end up impacting our job much. that that is going to end up impacting our job much. Plus, you're always going to need someone, even if you take the worst case scenario and decide that teams are going to try and shun independent media, they're still going to need people to tell the stories of their players

in an effort to help promote them. And so I think from an internal standpoint, it really doesn't end up impacting very much. I will be curious to see which teams have, we feel like have done a good job of keeping their fan bases engaged through social media platforms or programming on YouTube. You know, I watch the A's very closely because of their A's cast program and the fact that they've created an online A's only radio station. And I think we're all kind of keeping an eye on that.

You know, the Padres brought back the social hour that Jesse Agler hosts, which he had done when he was first hired by the Padres. And they've been doing that, you know, on their Twitter feed and through YouTube and whatnot. And I think that that to me is one of the more interesting aspects out of this is that I think the teams that have done a good job with that are going to be a step ahead in whatever the next step for sharing information and sharing broadcast information is for clubs because they're going to see as we continue to move digitally, you know, how they can get into the hands and into the ears, eyeballs of their

listeners a little bit better. So that to me is one of the things that I'm most interested in know, how they can get into the hands and into the ears, eyeballs of their listeners a little bit better. So that to me is one of the things that I'm most interested in tracking out of this and seeing which teams did well and then whose ideas I can steal. Well, I hope that your jobs continue to exist and that our jobs continue to exist and that our industry survives and also that you have safe seasons for as long as they last and that you have things to talk about and write about that may be actual action taking place on the field james how close were you to like scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came

to article ideas did you just empty out your brain and you have nothing left or or did you find that it like made you become more creative and you actually were surprised by how inexhaustible a resource it was i don't want to say inexhaustible because like every couple of weeks even after like a good stretch where like i set up a couple of phone calls to recap some trade that was 22 years ago i would definitely run into like stretch where I was like, I don't know if I'm ever going to have anything ever again. I don't know what to do. Maybe I should take PTO.

I would definitely get comments like, this is a really good piece, but it also makes me think you're running out of ideas. That didn't fill me with joy because I also thought, well, that wasn't fill me that didn't fill me with like joy because i also thought like well that that wasn't my last idea that i thought i felt better about that one than other things i was doing but yeah at some point this weekend i do have to text mike cameron to ask about a 22 year old trade because i've gotten halfway there working on that then i need to finish it i might

as well yeah i hope to not talk to a college coach of an active major leaguer for a while that would be nice yeah i mean there are a lot of great stories written over the past few months that wouldn't have been written otherwise and you know maybe they were on someone's ideas list then they never would have gotten to it or maybe they just had to dig so deep to think of something to do that they they came across something that it was just like well i'll do this now and otherwise they wouldn't have been able to and it was something really good god forbid like the world go without like a blow by blow coverage of yasmani grandal turning down offers out of high school and then going to the university of miami if we didn't understand that

part of his story like could really understand him as a player like hey what do you think i'm gonna steal to use in a broadcast if you don't like that? I mean, come on, like you're doing my prep work for me. I promise I won't credit you. I plan on using his line in my next contract negotiations, which will probably accelerate my transition to the PR industry. Congrats on the nonprofit world. It's very good to people. Yeah, it's a famously fun place to work. I just look forward to hopefully traffic starting to return to our sites and people being like, you guys should write about this. Maybe being like, so you took a break from the site for a while.

Here it is. Thank you. We got you. I hope that there's a lot of traffic, too, because I know you guys know this, but my job would be infinitely more difficult without having fan graphs. So it is an important site, and what you guys do is really, really great. And the analysis, in addition to the statistical component, is very, very important. So yes, everybody go. If you haven't been to Fangraphs, at least give a page click to somebody on there today.

Do it. Oh, thank you. Yeah. No giant traffic bounce on day one of announcing that there would be a season, huh? I will say, things were better this week. Things were better this week. We got a ways to

go yet. I think, you know, everyone is dipping their toe. It's like they're getting to know an old friend again. So we're in the sending text to see how you are phase and work our way up to phone calls i guess uh but yeah no it's it was an encouraging it was an encouraging silence but that way good all right well you can all find james writing about the white socks at the

athletic chicago and on twitter at jr fegan and mike is on mlb network radio covering diamondbacks games also before and after games, and sometimes during games. And he's on Twitter too, at Mike underscore Farron. Thanks to both of you, and best of luck with what will be a strange season, if it's a season at all. Stay safe. All right, that will do it for today and for this week. Thanks very much to James and Mike,

and a personal thanks to Meg for filling in in Sam's temporary absence. You can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some small monthly amount to help keep the podcast going and get themselves access to some perks. Kathy Hardoon, Tom Wilson, Zachary Morgenstern, Owen Barron, and Tom Hawk. Thanks to all of you. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and other podcast platforms. We really do appreciate those iTunes ratings and reviews. You can join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash effectively wild.

Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg and Sam coming via email at podcast at vangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system. If you are a supporter, thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. It was an eventful week. Aren't they all appreciate your spending part of it with us. And we hope that you have a wonderful remainder of your weekend.

We have a holiday week coming up, but we'll be back with our usual slate of episodes. So we will talk to you then why would you come back through the park you thought that you saw him but no you did not who can be sure of anything through the distance that keeps you from nowhere true