Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1622: Non-Tender is the Night

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley talk to FanGraphs’ Craig Edwards and Eric Longenhagen about MLB’s approaching non-tender deadline, why a number of prominent players may not be offered contracts, the effect a non-tender deluge might have on the free agent market, how slowly this free agent market might move, whether owners’ claims of financial hardship […]

And be my doubting hour, and you, your soothing song, and you, when you call me mercy, and you, when you can't be strong, here you come, with your tender offerings, how could I ever do you wrong? How could I ever do you wrong? How could I ever do you wrong? Hello and welcome to episode 1622 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. And we are joined today by a couple of other pals from Fangraphs, Craig Edwards. Hello,

Craig. How are you? I'm doing well. And Eric Longenhagen. Hello, Eric. Hey, Ben. How's it going? Okay. So we are here to discuss the off-season ahead and whether it could be better structurally speaking, but also just the strange specific circumstances surrounding this offseason and how it will affect moves that are made or not made, as the case may be. And you guys have both been writing about some of the coming decisions that teams are facing with the non-tender deadline on December 2nd next week, and we're already

seeing some dominoes fall there. And there are going to be a lot of tricky decisions this off season in particular. But Eric, you just wrote about this in the context of recent off seasons. And as you pointed out, there have been more and more non-tenders as time has gone on, and the circumstances are really aligned for there to be just sort of a non-tender apocalypse this offseason. So can you explain, I guess, what a non-tender is for people who are kind of hazy on the terminology and why there have been more of them of late and why there seemingly will be a record number this year? Sure, yeah. You know, if a team is non-tendering a player, it just means that they've chosen not to give him a contract for next year and the player enters the free agent pool.

And it's most often going to apply to players who are getting quote unquote expensive, who are entering their arbitration years, especially their later arbitration years, where their salary is going to start to rise above the league minimum that it has been near for the first three years of their MLB careers. And teams just more and more are viewing these, well, a certain tier of player basically as fungible. And as they start to become expensive, they are just looking toward their own farm system and just generally to the open market to replace that player for less. And especially lately, and we've seen that here the last week or so, the players and their representation are becoming more and more aware of this and are starting to agree to what's called a pretender deal, what's called like a pretender deal where the player knowingly takes a pay cut rather than hit the open market with a bunch of other players that are an awful lot like him. Because part of

the piece that I wrote last week is that, hey, there are some clear trends around the types of players who are being non-tendered. It's a lot of first base DH type guys, Jesus Aguilar, CJ Krohn, who are even, even though they're coming off of pretty good years, there are just a lot of players at that position. And then you have like the up the middle players who are hyper aggressive or don't hit for any power. And some of these guys are mistakes to part with, right? Like obviously, El Garcia had a four win season and then was cut loose.

He's been pretty productive for the Brewers. Cesar Hernandez with the Phillies, won a gold glove, hitting at the top of Cleveland's order all year. So not all of these non-tender dudes were smart to cut away, but it is something that increasingly, especially as the thought driving front offices becomes more uniform throughout baseball,

this is under the current CBA what we have. And there's obviously a type that is getting let go more often than some others. And there are certainly teams, you know, even before the pandemic that were budget constrained and not interested in retaining these guys' services as they got more expensive. Have you found that there are particular teams or certain types of teams that are more interested in taking advantage of the non-tenders once they hit the free agent market versus others? of the non-tenders once they hit the free agent market versus others? It's variable because so much of it depends on what the competitive situation of the team is,

who is running that team, and what are their proclivities in this space. And yeah, so there's certainly, there is like the Milwaukee and Oakland, any of the teams who are both constrained financially and are, I guess, as a broad term, forward thinking in their approach toward roster building. If their teams are out ahead in dev and analytics, I guess, is, again, too broad of a term, then often those are the teams who are more willing to part with Corey Dickerson or Jonathan Scope or whoever. And then the teams who are scooping those guys up, it's a mix, right? It's just about roster fit. It's just so much harder to find the player who is at your price point on the market, at the position that you need help with, or in the role

that you need to fill. And so who appears to be interested in these types of players is hard to know at this point. You'd think that Boston could say, hey, our team was really hellaciously bad. Why don't we sign a bunch of these two-ish win players who are suddenly on the open market and we'll have an interesting cast of characters to put around our core pieces, Bogarts, Devers, etc., sale coming back and compete. But it doesn't sound as though the Red Sox are interested in doing that. So you could point to some teams situationally as fits for taking advantage of this trend this year, which has been accelerated and sort of seasoned by the pandemic. But other than the Mets, who have already done a bunch of this stuff on the minor league free agent side,

I'm not sure who would be interested in playing in this pool this year. And Craig, you spearheaded our top 50 free agent exercise at Fangraphs. And I'm not sure who would be interested in playing in this pool this year. And Craig, you spearheaded our top 50 free agent exercise at Fangraphs. And I'm curious how you see the non-tender market and the deluge of coming non-tenders interacting with the broader free agent market. I think that's going to be a theme we return to a couple of times in this episode. But how are these two pools of labor kind of interacting with one another? And are there guys who were free agents at the end of the season who we kind of knew were going to be coming up who might find their markets kind of cold while teams are waiting

to see who among, say, the first base DH types are going to hit the market come December 2nd? Yeah, I think that it's not really going to affect your top 10, even top 20 type of free agents. But anywhere past that, if you're looking at a Kyle Schwarber type player or Eddie Rosario, these corner outfielders who tend to get the higher salaries in arbitration, you might wait a little bit if you think you can get one of those guys cheaper after the non-tender deadline, as opposed to maybe going out and getting Jock Peterson or something like that for a little bit more money or something like that. And so it really, it holds up free agency for anybody outside the top 10 or 15 players because teams

will wait out to see if you can find a comparable player. Like we already know Hunter Renfro's out there and we don't know who else is going to be, but there are presumably going to be some, you know, generally like decent players who will be available after the non-tender deadline who aren't available now. And so it holds things up. And that's also true for relievers, where when we talk about arbitration, they get paid based on the traditional stats, the home runs, the RBIs.

For relievers, it's saves, you know, and you can't really go into arbitration and, you know, win over people by telling them what your UZR was or, you know, something like that. They're getting paid based off the traditional stats, and that tends to hurt guys like the first base DH types that Eric was talking about and the corner outfielders who maybe hit a bunch of home runs but aren't maybe quite as valuable as as the home runs and RBIs might indicate yeah do we even know how the arbitration system would function this offseason because the whole thing is based on comps to past players and past seasons and one thing about 2020 is that it's pretty tough to comp which I guess is good that there aren't many precedents for years and seasons like this one. But really, a lot of it is based, as you said, on counting stats.

And so what do you do with a 60-game season in counting stats? And then also, of course, it's based on the economics of previous offseasons and years when you actually had fans in the stands and revenues coming from that and so maybe some teams are thinking well we're going to have our player comped to past players from years when you know economics were more normal or revenue was higher and therefore we don't want to be subject to these salaries that are sort of a relic from past years so I guess the uncertainty surrounding that must be part of the fact that teams are probably going to be a bit trigger-happy when it comes to non-tenders.

Yeah, I think that both sides agreed that whatever salaries they get in this upcoming set of arbitration rulings, they wouldn't use as comps in future years. So if things are really depressed this season for whatever reason, they're not going to be used in future years. And I mean, the other sort of part of that is that, you know, I don't know how you look at a 60 game season and say, you know, this is what the player should get. Do you prorate it for a full season or do you just try and toss it out a little bit? And then the other thing that sort of comes into as a factor here is that you can't offer

a player, I think it's 20%. You can't make a pay cut more than 20% in arbitration. So that's where you see these non-tenders also come in. Whereas if a player gets injured during the season, but was making 8 million last year, you can't go in and say, well, I'm going to say that he's worth 4 million now because he's been injured, which might be the price that you would want to pay, but you're just not, you can't do that. You have to let the player go to free agency. Yeah, I'll just add that the key word I think you mentioned there, Ben, is uncertainty.

And I think that yes, on the roster side, it is absolutely a huge factor. And then coming from ownership too, there's a lot of variability surrounding team by team attendance allowance for next year, what different teams anticipate they'll be allowed to do from an attendance perspective is varying. And I think there are some teams who know and are disappointed by what the government's going to allow them to do. And there are some teams who don't know. And so their owners are imposing, you know, budgetary cuts in line with what the low end of their hopes and expectations for next year are. But yeah, the idea of having a full stadium worth of fans in April seems pretty dumb. So I think that teams are operating with that in mind as well.

And some teams don't even have a budget. Like they haven't said it yet. They're just waiting. Right. Yep. So I guess the question then becomes, and we'll dive into some of the specific names that fans might be familiar with and might be surprised to see let go come December 2nd in a second.

But I'm curious then, and Eric, I know you wrote about some of the outlets that players might find themselves wanting to take advantage of if they find themselves non-tendered. What are the options that are present for these guys? And is there an opportunity? I'm going to ask you a leading question here, Eric. Is there an opportunity for organizations in some of the international leagues, particularly in Asia, to scoop up some very good players who might end up playing important roles on their rosters come 2021? Yeah. My thinking around this was, and I talk to people in Japan and with Korean teams because they're interested in the types

of prospects who I cover with a little bit more attention than, you know, if you're stopping your list at 20 or whatever, because the guys beneath that are the ones who they're most often scooping up, the Drew Ruchinskis of the world. So yeah, I think that just like American sports, sports in other countries also have greedy ownership that are trying to suppress salaries, et cetera, et cetera. And so, yeah, like there are limitations in Asian baseball. Pick a league. There are roster limitations surrounding foreign-born players and how much they can make. And it creates a very narrow window for which there is a mutual benefit for the player who might want to go over there and the team to be able to sign them. like Mel Rojas Jr. in the KBO is making like 1 million base salaries, got another 600k or so in incentives and that's the guy who was

you know threatening to win the triple crown in the KBO all year. So there needs to be some give I think from these Asian baseball leagues to loosen the restrictions on foreign-born players to up the salaries that they can offer those players in a moment where there is still uncertainty around the 2021 MLB season starting and going off without a hitch. And if there's a global media presence that lets me watch Korean baseball or Japanese baseball via the internet, and there are more players on your teams that I'm familiar with at the beginning of next year, and you want to put a game on ESPN at 6 a.m., I just think I'd be more likely to put that game on if I know half a dozen players in it.

It's unlikely any of them are going to be stars, but if you can tell me I can watch Carter Stewart and Hunter Renfro and a bunch of guys who have premium tools but just weren't hitting enough in MLB, I just think I'd be more likely to put that on. So yeah, I think that all these guys who get DFA'd or non-tendered, there's going to be some sort of equilibrium somewhere. They have to find a place to settle somewhere, whether that's expansion in MLB that allows this talent to diffuse to other rosters. I don't know, something's got to give. Maybe in the next CBA, it'll change.

But yeah, there's just more talent than MLB. Teams are willing to roster from a volume standpoint, and they have to find somewhere to go. In your conversations with those sources internationally, did you get a sense whether they were more inclined to look at the non-tender market this year in particular because they didn't have a minor league season that they were able to go scout? Because it seems like every year we hear of you know kind of quad a types that

end up finding their way to korea or japan and those guys just weren't as widely scouted this year because most of them spent time at the alternate site and then maybe a little bit of time at instructs do you think that that's going to make the non-tender guys even more appealing? Yeah, I think that the players for which the data agreement from MLB alternate sites, as far as I am aware, did not extend to the Asian team. So those teams are hustling to get as much alternate site data and video as they can through back channels. And also, yes, like if you were non-tendered and there's data on you or there's video for someone to watch and evaluate you as a player,

then the team is more likely to be interested in you just because they have a better idea of what it is you can do. But if you weren't at the alternate site, if you're, you know, like I was talking about a pitcher named Julian Garcia with the Phillies, 25, doesn't throw that hard.

It's upper 80s, but it's like pure backspinning fastball, lots of vertical life. This guy has missed bats in the minor leagues for the last four years or so after coming out of Metropolitan State in Colorado. He was not at the Phillies alternate site, so they don't seem to think very much of him. That's an indicator, right? That he wasn't at the alternate site means the Phillies have him behind some of the other same aged arms in the system. And so maybe that guy, even though there's nothing on him from 2020, is maybe a more

viable candidate for a Korean or Japanese or Taiwanese team. So they are trying to thread that needle where the guys who played in the big leagues are going to be more desirable, but for MLB teams as well. But there's also data on them, they can scout them. And the guys who weren't on big league teams or at the alternate sites, but are in that sweet spot of age and experience, and they performed at upper levels, those might ultimately be the best fits for some of these, especially the CBPL and the KBO, rather than MPB, That might be the player pool they want to play in. So Eric, you just wrote about kind of a team-by-team breakdown of some of the potential non-tender decisions. And Craig, you wrote about some of the most prominent players,

and you surveyed the FanGraph's audience to see what they think will happen. So maybe we can talk first about some of those specific big names, and then eric you can chime in on any of the teams that you think are facing interesting decisions and we've already seen some moves made just in advance of the deadline as mentioned the raised dfa hunter renfro the orioles did the same thing with renato nunez the pirates did the same thing with trevor williams but now we have big decisions to be made with huge names, guys like Chris Bryant and Gary Sanchez and Tommy Pham and Kyle Schwarber. So, Craig, could you run through some of those cases and say what the Fangraphs readership thinks will happen and I guess whether you agree or

disagree? Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, for the big names that you mentioned, Bryant, Sanchez and Pham, it was about two thirds of the people just projected them to to go back to their current team. Depending on on the player, I asked three questions, whether they'd be tendered a contract by their current team, whether they'd be non tendered or whether they would be traded or waived and then get a contract from from another team and like almost 30 percent of the people thought that chris bryant was going to get traded before the the non-tender deadline which you know given bryant's history that's a pretty significant amount but uh i think people are generally i don't know if confused is the right word but they certainly are looking at the cubs a little bit warily, given that they keep having talks about having payroll issues. And they just announced that they were getting $100 million or so in tax credits for renovating Wrigley Field, but that that would not go back into the club at all.

So if they're looking to move payroll, Chris Bryant is projected to make about $19 million next year. So he's a guy that they would have to move. Schwarber's looking at about $8 million. And Gary Sanchez is an interesting case. I just wrote about him just generally as a player this past week as well. And it was still two-thirds go back to the Yankees, but about 15% thought he'd be traded or waived, and close to 20% said he'd just be straight up non-tendered. So I think that for the most part, I think we have the bigger name players. People generally expect them to go back to their team, but there's an insignificant portion of people who think that they're not going to be with their teams next season.

And, you know, the guys like Eddie Rosario, it's more like 50-50. But the same was true for Corey Knabel with the Brewers, who, you know, didn't really have the best season coming off of injury. And because he was a closer and he used to get a lot of saves, his salary was going to come in at around $5 million, which might be more than the Brewers are willing to pay. Eric, do you have anything to add either on those specific cases or with some of the teams you looked at? Yeah. So obviously the Cubs entire situation is very interesting. I mean, Javi Baez seems like an extension candidate to me, but what's pushing and pulling there

is he didn't play so well in 2020. And so I think the Cubs would like to extend him, but I'm not sure that the Baez camp once coming off a year like that is as eager to do it. I would rather see his value rebound in 21. And so that's probably impacting the Bryant and Schwarber situations. At the very least Bryant's

number for 2021 is impacting his trade value so you're going to see a guy who was one of the top prospects in baseball who performed right away and helped end this historic drought in Chicago probably be traded for very little in terms of prospects this offseason if a team is just going to take him in and pay him they're not going to give up very much in terms of prospects. And then the Gary Sanchez situation is also so fascinating. And again, there's so much pushing and pulling. This guy's been in the Yankees organization for almost half his life at this point. And during that time, you know, their relationship between the player and the team has been up and down with,

basically with Sanchez's defense quality, like throughout his career as a minor leaguer and then as a big leaguer. If it were up to me and I were running a team, I'd just be like, just move this guy to first base already. He hasn't wanted to catch really since he was 17. He's intermittently terrible at it and is taking an absolute beating back there. He's tipping pitches because of how he's set up back there sometimes. And it's just not a great situation.

But then you have Voight and Stanton and Frazier and guys who have to occupy first base in DH and then if you were to cut him loose the only catcher on your roster is Kyle Higashioka like there's no other 40 man worthy catcher internally for the Yankees they'd have to go get two other guys so it is really very complex and interesting to see what is going to happen there and then as far as yeah the the general uh wins of non-tendering the last couple years, I've got two pieces up on the site. One of them examines like what type of players have been non-tendered historically over the last decade or so, and then who over the last five years has been doing that non-tendering. And it's a lot of brewers the last two years have

non-tendered eight players. The Rangers, the Reds, the Cubs are at the top of the list the last five years with 13 players each. And I just approach thinking about this the way I do a mock draft, where I'm looking at the team's tendencies. I'm looking at the executives' tendencies. I'm looking at what we've been told, more or less, by their financial situation early on this offseason. Are they firing people from ops? Are they declining player options that would indicate that they are cash strapped and more likely to let some of these players go? And I just went through projecting all the players that I, in my opinion, or people on the phone who

I talked to would be candidates for a discussion as to whether or not they'd be tendered to contract. And yeah, it came through with a lot of names. And I think that a lot of the guys who I mentioned are going to be quote unquote pre-tendered. They're going to agree to a raise with the team, but also that you're going to see some bigger names on the open market. Albert Almora Jr. I think is just going to get cut away unceremoniously.

Delano DeShields and Tyler Naquin, I think you're going to see some turnover in the Cleveland outfield. They're going to let some young guys take over there. Jesus Aguilar, I think will get non-tendered again. The Marlins will cut away some guys, even though they're coming off of an unlikely playoff run, and that might feel weird. And yeah, Renato Nunez was sort of an interesting one, but I think some of that had to give too. And Vince Velasquez in Philly is another name I think is interesting to watch what happens there. They're just some straight-up change-of-scenery

candidates, and I think he's one of them. Were there any either teams or individual players who you went in as you were preparing to sort of make your calls and talk to team folks who moved really strongly one way or the other for you, where you either assumed, yes, this is a surefire non-tender or no, this guy is very safe and then realized that the market sentiment was a little bit different than what you were expecting. Yeah. You have the situation in Oakland where like Sean Minaya for me, I'm not on super like hard. I don't think Sean Minaya is, he's just not throwing as hard as he was as a prospect. And he's more of a back rotation piece for me, but the pitching depth in Oakland is not great

with James Kaprelian and Dalton Jeffries and all those guys, even Jesus Lizardo. Like their injury histories just do not really allow you to be cavalier with your pitching depth if you're trying to compete. But then at the same time, Chad Pinder and Tony Kemp on that team, they're both entering arbitration.

Neither has been very productive for the last little bit. Pinder had that one terrific year and you know he's always projected for me as more of a bench piece anyway so i think that oakland's calls are very interesting and became more complex the more i was on the phone talking about them adam duvall is the other one where his number was so big that i thought initially he'd be someone who was likely to be cut away but with o Ozuna coming off the books, with the Braves spending early on, Duvall coming off a pretty strong, shortened campaign, he moved into the unlikely bucket for me as I went along.

So that was another one that shifted. And then you have like, I mentioned the Indians outfielders. They were pretty easy calls from the beginning, but Nick Whitgrin, who they used in pretty high leverage situations last year. Other folks in baseball mentioned him to me. I put him in the unlikely tier, but felt strongly enough based on the calls I made

that he would be in that mix too. I think he'd be a pretty good middle inning reliever for whoever ended up signing him were he to be cut away by Cleveland. And then you have some of the guys, like the weird situations, right? Like Tommy Pham was hurt and then got stabbed and is gonna make $8 million. And so like, you't really know what he's going to look like next year but it

feels kind of crappy to like cut a guy loose after he was stabbed and he certainly gives your team an edge and is like one of the vocal locker room on field like let's get everybody fired up leader types on that team so that seems weird to get rid of him. But also there's an unknown component to his 2021, which seems to be driving a lot of the decisions, especially on the injured pitching historically. You know, like Blake Trinan was non-tendered last off season and then, you know, signed for $10 million by a team that can take an expensive flyer on a pitcher like that. So yeah, there are all sorts of guys like that where they were hurt and were once good, or Josh Bell was good for a couple months,

like really good for a couple months, and then hasn't been good since then, and is getting expensive, and the Pirates, you know, are rebuilding and can afford to let him try to be good again, but also Brian Hayes is there now, and that means Colin Moran isn't getting a bat, so there are all sorts of significant variables.

What's the other one? G-Mon Choi. G-Mon Choi at about a million dollars seemed like maybe he'd be cut free because the Rays have Nate Lowe waiting in the wings. His numbers at the upper levels were incredible. And then Lowe was going to play in the Dominican for a couple of weeks. And it seemed like you could evaluate him there until the deadline and make your decision on Choi. And then Lowe went home because he essentially opted out of the Dominican Winter League season after a week of not playing well. The COVID cases got high and understandably he wanted to be home rather than abroad. If you get COVID abroad, you can't travel and you're in the Dominican. So he came home and

now you can't evaluate that guy. So what do you do with Choi? So all sorts of weird stuff to think about and decide. And Craig, you've written so much about team finances, which are always pretty opaque, but you've done your best to delve into them. And I wonder what your stance is on some of the spending cutbacks that we're seeing or are likely to see this offseason. How much of it is just a continuation of a trend toward owners just trying to tighten their belts whenever possible, even though times have been pretty good on the whole for quite some time now for MLB owners. And how much of it is, well, this is actually an outlier year or two, and we saw zero revenue from attendance this past year. revenue from attendance this past year. Now the typical relationship, you know, when it's teams sign players so that they can win more games, so that they can draw more fans, at least in part, that is maybe breaking down a bit right now, or at least is harder to count on. And so it's

somewhat more understandable that they would be either unwilling or reluctant to pay what they usually would. Yeah, I think there was always going to be a cutback next year because right now there's a lot of uncertainty about what the next CBA is going to look like and whether or not there is going to be a lockout of some sort and whether they are going to reach an agreement. And so the owners, you know, if you looked at, you know, where the guaranteed salaries were in, you know, potential arbitration cases, there was going to be a fairly significant cut in payroll for 2021, no matter what 2020 looked like. You know, in previous seasons, they've not needed an excuse to cut back on free agency to delay signings until January and February when the players had no choice. You know, so far this offseason, it's kind of looked a lot like the past few offseasons, save for last year. And I think that that's probably still going to be the case this year, but it's just going to be worse because of the pandemic.

And, you know, we don't know exactly how much teams are losing. You know, Manfred threw out $3 billion. If you look at, you know, the Braves finances, which are public, they're an average team where you're talking about half that compared to what Manfred's talking about. about half that compared to what Manfred's talking about. And, you know, you can't just look at teams taking on debt because, you know, a lot of times teams like to take on debt because, you know, they can then use their money elsewhere because they can have free money basically from their team and invest in things like the areas around the stadium and, you know, whatever else, whatever other ventures that they might be interested in.

So I think that you know that they got less revenue last year than they were planning to, but that said, it seemed like they probably recouped all of their national TV money and they got a decent portion of their local TV money as well. So while there were certainly losses in revenue compared to years past, they made out pretty well considering the circumstances. And I think that there's some uncertainty about how things are going to look next year, but all indications are that this was a fairly short-term blip. And I think that the Mets sale is a fairly good example of what the rest of the, I don't know, financial world universe thinks of Major League Baseball. I think that, you know,

the Braves being public shows sort of the same things that, you know, all in all, while 2020 was a rough year and 2020 might be a little tough. Overall, baseball's in pretty good shape financially. All right. So zooming out a little, I wanted to ask you two about MLB's offseason in general and how it compares to other sports. Because early Wednesday morning, Noah Sindergaard tweeted NBA free agency, and then I guess a hair emoji or a rabbit emoji, and then MLB free agency and then I guess a hair emoji or a rabbit emoji and then MLB free agency and it's a tortoise emoji so you know I guess I don't know how if Noah knows how that story ends the tortoise wins but I think he is saying as many people have said that MLB just moves at you know almost like a snail's pace compared to an NBA free agency,

you know, maybe even NFL free agency to an extent. You get these really exciting rushes, particularly in the NBA, where just everyone gets signed or traded all at once, and it just dominates the news, and it's a total frenzy. And then you contrast that with baseball, where things happen very slowly. And this offseason is unusual of course and so I wouldn't take this to be the standard MLP offseason but it is true that things always play out a little slower and there are valid reasons for that but I wonder whether you think a this is a problem when it comes to interest in those sports because I always think yeah you get

that really exciting sugar rush when everyone signs in like three days but then nothing happens for months and you know there are other things to talk about but not so many transactions whereas MLB sort of parcels it out and until recently when you know good players were going and signed until February or March it was okay I think for the most part. So is this an issue? And if you think it is an issue, and if you want to sort of soup up free agency or make it more exciting, is there anything realistically that you could do? I think there might be some aspects of it that are a marketing issue, because we can't have, there's no cool MLB free agency show with Rachel nichols sitting there

with like a giant horn that shoots confetti off when someone agrees to a deal and woe just coming in you know like jeff passan's not sitting there for two hours telling you about eight deals that have have occurred and so maybe there's a marketing issue and certainly i i feel bad for the for the players when the market is so slow like so so many of these guys deserve to know where they're going to work and play and their families are going to live. And it's probably more important now to get your ducks in a row over a period of time than to rush at the very end to know where you're going to have spring training, et cetera. But ultimately, like just to compare sports is, I think that's incorrect. There are just so many dynamics that impact the way these things happen

that make basketball different from baseball, right on down to how many players are on your roster. You just have fewer decisions to make. When you're the Sixers and you go, all right, well, we need people who can shoot, then you just don't, there's a whole segment of the market that you just don't have to pay attention to. It's much more complex in baseball when you're trying to,

you have 25 to 28 moving pieces, players who can play multiple positions and guys whose skills complement one another. The number of decisions you have to make is just so vast as compared to basketball where you have mid-level exceptions and trade exceptions that are a certain amount. It's just easier to see the square pegs and the round pegs and the square holes and the round holes in the NBA. And so I think that things shake out there much more quickly. And I don't think it's fair to compare baseball

and basketball. And I think it's hilarious that we're at a point where, as Ben was describing, the thing that was the genesis of this conversation, it's like one of the pitchers tweeted a picture of a turtle. And so here we are talking about it for 10 minutes. And so, yeah, I think there's a whole bunch about baseball and media culture that is interesting right now. Yeah.

I mean, the entire economic setup is different, too. If you're a professional basketball player heading to free agency, you know, half your income probably doesn't even come from your team. You know, you're getting endorsement money. And then in addition to that, the money that you can go out and get in free agency is capped. So you might say, well, I don't really have that many decisions to make right now, but I'm going to be fine either way because I've already made all of this money and I can go out and make more money and say, whereas a baseball player, their shot at free agency is, you know, very well could be their one shot at, you know, that sort of big payday where that's not the same at basketball. And like

Eric's saying, like if there are five starters on 30 teams, that's 150 players. Well, if you have nine starters on a baseball team, plus five pitchers, plus maybe two or three relievers, that's, you know, three to four times as many players that, you know, have the starting role. So you also have guys who don't make the same type of impact on the field. Now, if you're talking about generating interest, I think that we've seen the teams that have been active early in the offseason see their attendance bumped the next season, whether it's the Phillies, I think, are sort of the prime example from a few years ago after they were very active in the offseason

and then signed Bryce Harper, they got a huge ticket bump. Well, we're not going to be seeing that this offseason. So it's hard to compare those situations. And when a player makes the major leagues, then they're finally going to earn a half a million dollars. Well, when an NBA player steps on the court, they're already a millionaire. And so it's very different financial situations overall. And some of those things you just, you can't really overcome. But, you know, I think setting deadlines or doing something like that just ends up worse for the players because the teams will just put more pressure on the players to take whatever's out there. for decades that they will just really not entertain any talk of a salary cap. And I wonder,

you know, our emailers often ask, is it time to reconsider that given the way things have gone, given the way that caps have worked in other sports? Should they be more receptive to proposals that include a salary cap, assuming that they come with other protections like a salary floor. So, Craig, do you think that the time is right to talk about that, or are they right to not even entertain the idea? I think there are other ways to address the issues that involved with getting younger players paid more, I think, would do a lot more than a floor or a cap. And the one thing that you have to think about compared to these other leagues is you base that floor and you base that cap on league-wide revenue. And as we saw over the past eight months, the players and owners have

massively different views about how to calculate what is baseball revenue. You know, a lot of teams own property next to the stadium. Is that baseball revenue? The owners would say no. The players might say yes. The ownership stakes that teams have in their television stations that often mask a lot of the revenue that teams are getting, is that baseball revenue or is it not? And the fact that the owners, you know,

are not really, you know really willing to open their books even to show that they're losing a lot of money, I don't know that they're going to want to open their books to show that they're making a lot of money and how much should be split with the players. And so if you can't even agree on what revenue is, you're going to have a very difficult time in dealing with how much should the cap or floor be. And from a starting point, it almost makes it impossible. And although the other leagues have figured it out, because so much of that revenue is just a lot easier to ascertain. You've got the national TV deal, you got the local TV deal, and you've got the ticket sales, and that's it. And so then you can come up with something that

isn't necessarily as easy to do in baseball, especially coming from the background of the past, you know, 30 years or 40 years or, you know, ever since the players and owners have been arguing, the owners have kept things from the players and, you know, gotten sued on it. And so I think that there's a level of trust that's going to be incredibly difficult to do without, you know, without coming together and opening the books. And I just, I really don't see that happening. So I think that, you know, you have to, from the players and owners perspective, you have to negotiate to make sure that, you know, the younger players are getting paid more than they are right now. And so then you're a little bit less worried about how free agency

works. I don't want to attribute a position to Noah Syndergaard that he might not necessarily have, or if he does, hasn't thought through. but it just strikes me as sort of an overreaction to what is perceived to be a media problem I don't know enough about how NBA owners and front office folks talk about their teams and their budgets so maybe they sound exactly like baseball executives do and I'm just being naive but you know it's not even just that there's no, you know, air horn and confetti, although that, you know, does sound fun to have air horns and confetti when free agents are signed. But, you know, I don't know many NBA front offices that talk about austerity and like payroll flexibility as a virtue unto itself. It just seems like there are the economic issues that

differentiate baseball from the other sports. And then there's just the way that other sports seem to talk about their sport that is different than the way that baseball talks about its sport, which is they seem excited to spend money inside players. And that varies wildly team to team in MLB. if some of this is just, apart from anything else, a PR and presentation issue, which at least reflects the reality of the way that teams think about constructing their payrolls and their rosters, but is kind of a bummer, right? Nobody wants to get excited about payroll flexibility in Atlanta. They want to get excited about Charlie Morton and potentially Marcelo Azuna. So maybe they should just do that, be excited about their sport, and then we don't have to have a salary cap or floor and maybe we can skip the confetti altogether. Well, I think that also those NBA stars are vastly underpaid compared to their value.

Yeah, that's true. So they don't need to talk about austerity or whatever because they're only paying the best players in the games somewhere between, I don't know between $30 and $50 million or whatever it is. I don't know what Patrick Mahomes' whatever deal he just signed. He's more important to the Chiefs than Garrett Cole is to the Yankees. I can tell you that. But Patrick Mahomes is making less, I think, than Garrett Cole is, especially in guaranteed money. I can't remember exactly what Mahomes' contract is, but you get the idea that those guys are underpaid compared to what their value is.

And that's the setup that they've created, and baseball hasn't really given in to the owners in that respect. While we have you two together, I wanted to ask you about Ha Sung Kim, who is a really intriguing free agent who is now available. I think he is being posted on Wednesday. And as of Thanksgiving morning, teams will be free to negotiate with him during the 30-day posting window. And Craig, you ranked him eighth on your top 50 free agents list.

And Eric, you wrote the blurb about Kim. And I am very eager to see how his skills and performance translate, because just looking at the stat line, he's a pretty fun and exciting player. He just turned 25 last month. He's a shortstop and third baseman who's been playing in KBO, and he's coming off his best year yet with a 921 OPS. He hit 30 homers. He stole 23 bases. He walked more than he struck out. So I like the numbers. He is not a big guy. What do we know about his physical skills and how they might translate from KBO to MLB and I guess

where he could potentially be a fit because we've talked a bunch about all of the good short stops available via free agency or the trade market. And this is another one. Right. So let me start with the caveat, right? Which is that the gap between Korean pitching and MLB pitching is pretty sizable. That the good pitchers in the KBO, and you can go to the leaderboard on FanGraphs and see their names from pro ball over here in America, who typically plateaued at double and triple A, or were very, very injured and had intermittent big league time like Raul Alcantara. And so whether he can make that leap, we just won't totally know until we see it. But if we're looking at, again, the physical skills, he can absolutely play shortstop, plus plus arm, plus runner.

He's had, you know, a couple dozen steals and homers annually over the last couple of years. He has legit, like, above average pull power. It is not like all fields monster raw power, but the bat is super quick. It is not like all fields monster all power, but the bat is super quick. He will turn on and yank out, in my estimation, like 18, 20, maybe 22 bombs a year over here if the bat does translate while playing a pretty good shortstop and making an impact on the bases. His numbers are better than, like if you're looking at the guys who got spit out, went

to KBO and came back and played pretty well in MLB for a stretch like Eric Thames, his numbers are better from like a strikeout rate perspective. He is not as whiff prone in Korea as Thames and some of the other, you know, Darren Ruff type guys who went over to Korea and then came back. So that's a good sign, I think, for him. And that Kiwoom roster I watched a lot of during the course of the summer because they had Kim, who was known at the beginning of the year, wanted to be posted. They would eventually sign Addison Russell. They have Jung-Hoo Lee, who's like a 23-year-old outfielder, who I think will eventually be a better big leaguer than Kim. So their roster is pretty

talented. And yeah, I really like him a whole lot and think that as the youngest free agent available and one of the few shortstops as a guy who can make an impact on both sides of the ball, that yeah, I think Craig ranked him correctly. And Craig, we've seen a few guys from your list get signed, but mostly on one-year deals, you know, Smiley and Morton and Robbie Ray, that type of player. At what point do you think we might start to see some serious movement with the guys toward the top of the list real mudo and springer and bauer and others of that ilk are you thinking that this is going to be a wait until the eve of opening day or or spring training you know when

maybe we know that there will be a spring training and when it will be and what the circumstances of the season will be like should we expect any real significant activity you know before the end of the year or do you think this will probably stretch on i mean i think it'll probably take take a while you know i think that after the the top guys it certainly seems like the starting pitching market will pick up you know but at the top of the market, there's only one guy and it's Trevor Bauer. So it's hard to gauge exactly what he is going to want or choose in free agency. And then I think the Rio Muto and Springer, it's possible we see something happen with them after the non-tender deadline, but I think it's more likely that we see teams and players waiting until there's

a little bit more certainty about what type of revenue that teams are going to be bringing in. You know, that said, if the Mets decide, you know, they want to start making some moves, then they're going to get the market moving. And it's possible that happens. Of course, they also don't have a general manager. So, you know, I think that there's a few things that they're waiting on. And, you know, just to add to the notes on Kim, he was a very hard guy to rank because, as you know, his projections would make him the top guy in free agency because the years that you're getting from Spring and Rio Muto are in their 30s. They're likely as good as they're ever going to be right now, whereas Kim, there's some projection where if he's somewhere close to a three and a half, four win player now that he should maintain that throughout the rest of his 20s. But like you know, like Eric said, you know, there's some question marks about exactly how he'll be able to play given the level of competition. So I just sort of

hedged my bets, I guess, a little bit on where to put him, you know, and just moved him a little bit down the list behind guys that have more of a track record. But in terms of upside, in terms of getting the most performance, he's probably the best bet and would be a good fit for a high variance team sort of trying to come out of a rebuild or maybe one year out of their rebuild, something like that, where you need things to go right to sort of stay in contention. Free agents aren't the only thing that we rank at Fangraphs. And so I guess we'll close by asking you, Eric, we're about to start on our prospect list process, and it's going to be an unusual one for you. So I wonder if you could give our listeners a preview

of some of the challenges that you've had to think through and make decisions on as you embark on list season. Okay. Yeah. So it's like three or four fold. In some respects, it's easier because I can just go, I didn't learn anything else about this guy this year. I couldn't, so I don't have to do anything there. But in other respects, it is hard because a lot of times the way I look at players is if you can see the tip of the iceberg, then I try to project that the base of the iceberg is good iceberg. And now everyone's iceberg is just a little bit more obscure. So with no minor league season, I've got the players from the alternate sites. If you are a prospect nerd and have been reading all of the reports from beat writers or folks who cover prospects and they've written about the alternate sites, if you can find me one instance in which the report says, hey, this guy wasn't that great, please let me know.

Because the alternate site reports are going to be so heavily skewed in favor of the players because the scouts weren't allowed in there. And so it is the teams themselves talking about their own players, who if you want someone to tell you about the players, you got to ask the team as it relates to the players at the alternate sites. And so what I have been working on is acquiring the data from the alternate sites, which is just more objective. I don't really care about what the hitters data says because they were facing the same AAA or option year reliever type of pitching all year long. They were seeing the same half dozen pitchers all summer long. And so the hitter data, I don't care about, but if someone had a noticeable change in like their fastball axis or is throwing much harder than that'll show in the data compared

to what I have from 2019. So I'm working on acquiring that. Then you have Fall Instructional League, which was shorter. The quality of the player there was more advanced. There was no minor league season. So rather than having the international players who just signed and are 17, 18 years old come for Instructional League,

it's a lot of the guys who just would have been in the mid-minors this year. So that is more or less the same as far as running down info. It's just the player population is different than most years. And then, yeah, you've got the kids who typically would have signed in July and been on prospect lists, you know, from Venezuela and from the Dominican Republic who haven't even signed yet, who are going to sign in January. So handling those guys is going to be different this year because they're not technically, I'll start lists, and they're not technically in the team's form system yet. So I have to wrangle with that. And then the draft stuff is no Cape Cod League. The way the talent

was spread across the country for collegiate players, much different this year for the 2021 draft than in years past. Teams are arguably more confident in how they feel about high school players right now than college players, which is the inverse of what it typically is because the high school showcases still went on as normal. I mean, it wasn't totally normal. They were taking place in states where the COVID restrictions were loose

rather than in California and some of the places that they ordinarily would be, but the events still occurred. All of the scouts, directors, GMs who would typically scout that level of player saw them, but there was no Cape Cod comp for that on the college side. So right now, teams in general are more confident in how they feel about high school prospects for the 2021 draft than college players, which is an odd dynamic. So I'm wrestling with that as we roll out future draft rankings this offseason as

well. And yeah, it's going to be weird. In some ways it's easier or less work than in years past, but it's definitely the most bizarre season that I've ever experienced. I haven't seen this little baseball since any calendar year since I was 18 years old. So I'm going off of less in-person look this season than ever before. Yeah, it'll be weird, but it'll get done and we'll have similar depth that the Fangraphs readers have been accustomed to. All right. Well, best of luck to both of you as you navigate this odd off season and try to cope with these strange circumstances. You can, of course, find Craig and Eric Writing regularly at Fangraphs.com You can find Craig on Twitter

At Craig J Edwards You can find Eric on Twitter at Longenhagen And of course you can find his book Future Value co-authored with Kylie McDaniel Thanks guys appreciate it Thanks for having us That will do it for today and for this week

Thank you for listening And as we head into the holiday Thanks for all of your support this. Thank you for listening. And as we head into the holiday, thanks for all of your support this year, whether you've supported us on Patreon or just by downloading or by leaving us a rating review or sending us a nice email or tweet or Facebook comment. The show has been a source of some solace for us and hopefully for you. And we're grateful that so many of you have stuck by us all this time. Speaking of thanks, my wife brought back a book from the library this week, Paul Harding's novel, Tinkers. And I flipped it open to the dedication page, and it says, For Meg, Samuel, and Benjamin. It's a baseball book, or at least a baseball podcast

book. I was quite surprised to see our three names on there. What are the odds? But Tinkers came out in 2009, won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize. So unless Paul Harding is prescient, it was not a thank you for the podcast, but I'm going to choose to take is prescient, it was not a thank you for the podcast, but I'm going to choose to take it that way. It's actually a baseball book for other reasons too. I searched inside on Google Books for baseball, and I found this passage on page 108, 109. Ezra was known throughout the county and beyond as the man to call when you needed something big pulled. This was the source of many crude jokes. The smallest of his oxen stood at just under six feet at the shoulders, the tallest over seven and a half. The oxen were one of his two passions. The other was baseball, which he followed in the papers every week, nearly committing all of the box scores to memory,

so that as he plowed his fields or whipped his team, which he hired out in pairs from two to the full regiment of 16, in which he himself always oversaw, he muttered batting averages and runs batted in and earned run averages out loud to himself, which, overheard, were simply random-sounding streams of numbers. The statistic that gave Ezra Murrell the most pleasure to contemplate was that of the player's batting averages, and every time he acquired a new ox, he named it after the most recent batting champion from the American League. When he cracked the whip, then, he could be heard variously harassing Ed Delahunty, Elmer Flick, George Stone, Triss Beaker, George Sisler, Harry Heilman, Babe Ruth, one of the three Napoleon Lajoys, or six Ticobs,

because he had more oxen than different batting champs, so that when he ran out, he started back at the beginning and named the animals for the different years the same players had won. Hiya, Napoleon One, ya dog, lean into it, Ezra would yell. That's no 422 effort. Unlike other fans of the sport, Ezra took no pleasure in talking about the game with anyone else. When his son dared ask how the great Cobb had fared on the last road trip, Ezra cuffed the boy on the ear and said, the great Cobb 3 has shot his stall full again, you chatty pup. Now go clean it up before you're behind with the feed. Definitely Pulitzer Prize material. 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 amount to help keep the podcast going while getting themselves access to some perks. Paul Barker, Kyle Rowan, Brian Boger, Matt, and Robert Riley. Thanks to all of you. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. 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 podcastatfangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You still have time to sign up for Effectively Wild's Secret Santa.

Registration closes on December 1st. You can find the link in the Facebook group or on the show page at Fangraphs or in the podcast summary in your podcast player. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. We hope you have a nice Thanksgiving. If you are celebrating Thanksgiving and hopefully celebrating it safely, we will be back on the other side of the holiday to talk to you early next week. You're hooked, you're cooked, you're caught in the tender trap.