Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1624: How to Build a Baseball Dynasty

Episode Date: December 4, 2020

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about what went down at MLB’s non-tender deadline, touching on whether the news for arbitration-eligible players was as dire as forecasted, the more notable non-tenders, and the short- and long-term futures of free agency, then (29:36) talk to Jason Coskrey of The Japan Times about how the NPB’s Fukuoka […]

Spirit throngs that hoist us high, 3,000 warriors deep. Spray our dreams on any surface where the paint will stick. Try to time the rhythm, listen for the click. Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake. Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake Rise if you're sleeping, stay awake We are young supernovas And the heat's about to break Hello and welcome to episode 1624 of Effectively Wild,

a Fangraphs baseball podcast brought to you by our Patreon supporters. I'm Meg Rowley of Fangraphs, and I am joined as always by Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing okay. How are you? I'm doing okay. I feel like we sparked a trend, a non-tender headline pun trend, Ben. Yes, as was brought to our attention in the Facebook group, the title that we used for our episode previewing the non-tender deadline, non-tender is the night which i stole

from you because you used it for our little uh recording session and then we found out that you were not the only person to think of that headline no it's been quite a common and popular one this week i just i'm happy that uh baseball writers are reading you I think readers make better writers, so I'm glad that we're all reading, but yes. Evidently, Beyond the Box score beat us to that title by about eight years. They titled a blog that in 2012, but I feel like the statute of limitations has expired,

I think, in the baseball blogosphere. Eight years, that's a long time. I think we're allowed to reuse a headline Eight years, that's a long time. I think we're allowed to reuse a headline after eight years. That's all right. Yeah. And it should not detract from the fact that it was indeed a non-tendery kind of night yesterday. A non-tendered night. Yeah. So I guess it wasn't quite the apocalypse that was feared, but there were some worrisome signs. So we talked last week with Craig Edwards and Eric Langenhagen about why this was shaping up to be potentially a historic

and terrible non-tender deadline. This is the time of year when teams have to decide, yes, we want you back, and we are either going to go to arbitration with you or we're going to work out some sort of deal. But we are committing to offer you a contract and have you play for us next year or not. They can non-tender you and say, nope, we don't want you or at least we don't want you at the salary that we expect you to get in arbitration. And then we can let you go. You're a free agent. Maybe we'll try to resign you at a lower rate. agent. Maybe we'll try to resign you at a lower rate. And as Eric mentioned and has written for Fangraphs, there has been a trend toward an increasing number of non-tenders in recent years.

And that increase continued, but the increase, at least on the surface, was not extreme. So there were only, what, a handful more non-tenders this year than there were last year, which was already a high number, but it wasn't an explosion relative to last year. And some of the most notable potential non-tender candidates were tendered, which as Emma Batchelory pointed out on Twitter, is just a weird verb just in this context to tender someone a contract. I guess it's less weird when you say you tender them a contract. But there were some guys like Gary Sanchez, like Chris Bryant, like Tommy Pham, who seemed like they might potentially be non-tender candidates in this weird year when teams are cost-cutting. And those guys did get tendered contracts, so they are still

with their teams. So the big shockers didn't happen, and the total number of non-tenders was not dramatically different. However, there was a significant increase in pre-tender contracts. I don't even know what you call them exactly, but basically before the non-tender deadline, I don't even know what you call them exactly, but basically before the non-tender deadline, you can work out a deal and say, yeah, we'll just sort of bypass this deadline and we'll agree to come back. And then you're back on a one-year deal. And there were a number of those that were wary of being non-tendered, just sort of spooked by the whole atmosphere and decided, yeah, I want to be back. And some of those deals seemed, you know, fine market rate, what you would expect. Some of them maybe were a bit below market because some players were a bit antsy and scared of being cast adrift. So there were a lot more of those than there were in the typical year. And I guess that is maybe the most obvious sign that this was unusual. Yeah, I think that there were, you know,

some of the names are names that you would sort of expect to be on the edge of needing, you know, sort of they were guys who had been identified as potential non-tandem candidates. But then you have, you know, like Matt Olsen got a one-year $5 million deal. Matt Olson's pretty good at baseball.

Jose Perez is pretty good at baseball, you know? So I think that to look at this and simply compare the 53 or 56, depending on how you were counting, I guess, non-tenders last year compared to the 59 we saw this year and say, oh, well, this wasn't all that bad, I think is to ignore the effect that the anticipation of being non-tendered, which is that just raw chicken? We could make it about chicken tenders and then it doesn't sound so baseball after dark. Kind of gross still though, raw chicken, no one wants to think too long about that. So I think to to sort of say oh well these numbers weren't all that far apart is to to miss some of the the chilling

effects that the anticipation of being non-tendered probably had and there were a couple of names that i was i was surprised by like i i was surprised that david doll got non-tendered i was pretty surprised that matt whistler got non-tendered just because of the the sort of bounce back year that he ended up having although ben i have a thing to say about matt whistler and you can tell me if you think this is too mean especially in in light of his non-tender matt whistler's pitch face matches his name he looks like he's whistling while he's pitching it's like facial onomatopoeia or something there's probably a better way of describing that which is not a reason for him to be non-tendered if anything I think there's probably a marketing

opportunity there that the twins are missing out of but that's missing out on I should say that's a thing about Matt Whistler but like I was surprised looking at his last couple his last couple of headshots on Baseball Reference, he has a little bit of Pete Fairbanks- Yeah, he looks very nervous. Which in prior seasons, I think was likely Matt Whistler reacting rationally to stimulus, but he had quite a good season. It's 25 innings, whatever, but he had quite a nice little bounce back here for the Twins this year.

He had a 107 ERA and a FIP in the low threes. And he had a nice year and he was non-tendered. So I think there were some surprises. I have a question for you, Ben, about a remark that I saw repeatedly on Twitter on the 2nd. And do you ever sometimes see people reacting very strongly to something and then worry that you're missing something because you are not acting reacting as strongly to it as they are yeah okay so we talked with with eric and craig about the

different profiles of players who were likely to find themselves sort of on the the wrong end of the non-tender conversation. And it was that first base DH type where there is a lot of perceived sort of fungibility between those players, right? They're all kind of the same. So you let go of your one that's going to be a little more expensive and you can probably go find a guy who's pretty much as good on the open market for less money. And I think that that is true. And we saw some of those guys get let go. There was a lot of conversation on Twitter last night about the uncertainty surrounding the DH and the effect that that was having on non-tender decisions on the part of National League teams in particular, but sort of just in general. thing matters because i think it matters some for sure it definitely matters some but i think that when it comes to the non-tender conversation that it seems just as likely to me that that's as much a a reflection of like i said the sort of perceived fungibility among these players as it is anything

else and even with the dh a lot of them were likely to get let go with the hope that they would be brought back on less expensive deals or that there would be another one who's cheaper so am i am i underestimating the effect that the lack of rules clarity is having here i'm open to that feedback but i was feeling kind of off the mark yesterday i think so i think it's very relevant for certain players of course and there are players on the free agent market already guys like like Nelson Cruz and other DH types who it really matters whether they have 15 suitors or 30 suitors. And that might be something that's holding up some individual free agencies. But no, I don't think really on the whole it's having some sort of sweeping effect on non-tenders specifically. on the whole it's having some sort of sweeping effect on non-tenders specifically of course you know teams use the dh spot to sort of rotate players in a lot of teams do if you have nelson

cruz maybe you always have nelson cruz dhing but no other teams have nelson cruz except the one so there are teams that just sort of use that spot to rest players or, you know, maybe they set up some sort of complicated position switching time sharing arrangement. And so it might be relevant, even if they're not signing a dedicated DH, there might be someone they think would spend some time at DH. So it could be a consideration, but no, I wouldn't say it's really affecting things on a major level. That's very generous of you. I appreciate that. I was, you know, it's a terrible feeling to be like, oh, no, I've missed something. Right. It could be relevant for, say, Kyle Schwarber, I suppose, who is one of the more notable names who was non-tendered.

So, you know, there were some good players, some decent players, Schwarber, Hanser Alberto, There's Schwarber, Hanser Alberto, and Travis Shaw, and Michael Franco, and NL MVP vote getter Ryan Tappara, and Eddie Rosario. Some of these guys were non-tendered. Some were waived or DFA'd. That's another thing. number than if you're counting all of the guys who weren't technically non-tendered but were let go of either you know before the deadline or or just via some other type of transaction so eddie rosario i guess would be one who was waived by the twins and you know he's a pretty good player and mvp vote getter just barely like ryan tapera they i guess tried to trade him And didn't find a taker right away So he's out there now

Archie Bradley, Carlos Rodon And you mentioned David Dahl And yeah I mean David Dahl's not even 27 yet And he's a former top prospect And he's been good in the big leagues He's obviously been hurt a lot And he was quite ineffective When he was playing in 2020

But it's not as if the Rockies necessarily have a whole outfield worth of better players than David Dahl so I would think that he might still be an improvement for them if they had chosen to keep him or if they bring him back but yeah there were a lot of players in that kind of, you know, Schwaber bucket or Adam Duvall or Nomar Mazzara, you know, sort of that corner guy, veteran, maybe some power, but not a ton of power in the current context of historic home run rates. Yeah, gosh, the reds let go of Archie Bradley and Brian Goodwin. Yeah. Those were like trade deadline acquisitions. Right.

Yeah. That Archie Bradley move really surprised me. I thought Those were like trade deadline acquisitions. Right. Yeah. That Archie Bradley move really surprised me. I thought that they would hold on to him. But yeah, I think that there were, you know, it is one less spot. The DH being sort of undecided is one less spot to cycle guys through. I mean, even someone like Sanchez, where you have all these injured outfielders who have to cycle through the DH and then are log jam at first,

it is at least one more spot that isn't catcher where he can potentially play. Yes, I think that there's like an Adam Duvall. I think they'll bring Adam Duvall back, but there were no non-tenders so dramatic such that I had to go, okay, pals, who's going to write up the Chris Bryant non-tender? But it wasn't a great day. It's not the best when you have a bunch of capable big leaguers who are suddenly flooding the free agent market. That's not a day where you're like, I feel really good about baseball today.

Yeah. And also that's like the most newsy day of the offseason so far. It's like waiting to see who is on the cut list. That's just not a lot of fun. Normally at this time of year, maybe you're getting excited for the winter meetings, which would be starting now basically or next week. And they will not be taking place because of COVID, of course. So I hope maybe that now that the non-tender deadline has passed and teams know what the market looks like or they know who's available and who's not, that maybe free agency will start to pick up. And we have seen some deals signed and we've talked about some of the one-year deals.

And there have been even a couple of two-year deals, you know, Trevor May to the Mets or Mike Miner. I mean, so far, at least the very small samples of free agents who have signed, you would not necessarily look at the terms and say, oh, no, it's the end of free agency. But this is kind of one-year deals for the most part that we've seen thus far. It's hard to gauge, I think, until we start seeing some of the bigger names moving to see whether teams will still be willing to hand out long-term deals and big dollar deals and deals that would have looked normal in a more normal world. So I think it's kind of encouraging that you're seeing the Charlie Mortons and Robbie Rays of the world sign deals that don't really make you scratch your head, but those are short-term deals. And so maybe it's kind of hard to get a sense of the market, but maybe now things will start moving a bit because the non-tender uncertainty is behind us and this is when the winter meetings would start to take place. So perhaps we will start to see some higher profile signings soon. Yeah, I don't think that it's been, you know, the fact that the market

has been quiet before now hasn't struck me as particularly strange because I think it's become more and more normal for winter meetings to really be the starting gun. I do wonder if it wouldn't be worth thinking about making it so that if you non-tender a player,

you can't sign that same player back yeah i wonder if that would help or hurt i mean on the one hand you're you're taking away one potential team that would be interested in that player's services after he's cut loose but you're also taking away the possibility of cutting a guy for one amount of money and then picking him up for less. And that might make you think twice, I guess, if the choice is between keeping him for the rate that you had an option for or that you would get an arbitration

and then not having any chance to keep him at all. That's interesting. Yeah, I feel like it would find its way to being exploited by teams so that player salaries don't actually end up changing all that much but it does make me wonder if that avenue wasn't available you know i know that there were definitely players who were let go where they're like we hope to bring him back on less money and i'm like this is a really weird way to continue to have a working relationship with a potential employee yeah yeah yeah like michael is who i think has not really mastered the art of oh camouflaging what he's doing and you know like the orioles are doing like a real astro style hard tank here

and uh elias was in houston when they did it the first time, and they ended up getting good on the other side of it, and maybe the Orioles will too, but they are really going whole hog here with the not contending right now, and he's just, he's not very good at expressing it in a way that would make you want to watch this team. You know, he was asked about Hanser Alberto, whom the Orioles let go, and he said they're interested in bringing him back. But, quote, part of our job is to operate within the economic framework

of the collective bargaining agreement, which is nonsense as far as I can tell. I don't know what that means exactly. There's nothing in the CBA that says that the Orioles can't bring back Hanser Alberto. So basically what he's saying is we don't want to pay anyone who's going to make any amount of money. It's not like Alberto was in line for a huge payday or something, and he's been pretty decent for them. But yeah, he doesn't really advertise the team very well like

there's another tweet with a quote for him where he said there will come a time when we flip the switch to maximizing wins in the upcoming season but we're not there yet this isn't fun and you know of course uh you know he's he's saying that uh we're not maximizing wins in the upcoming season like i i think that is defensible like i'm not saying that the orioles should be the biggest spending team in the market this year like they're they're ready to make the leap and all they need is a couple of big free agents to get good like they're still a ways away so yeah like they're not maximizing wins in 2021 they're trying to maximize wins i don't know two or three or four years down the road and and that's uh tanking i guess but perhaps with an

eye toward getting good and and contending not purely to save money although who knows what he has been instructed to do when it comes to trimming payroll but yeah you know to say uh orioles baseball this isn't fun it's it's just it's not much of a tagline although i don't really know what the alternative is because like they're you know getting rid of all of their recognizable players like even iglesias they just traded to the angels like you know they're just not really keeping anyone all that notable so it's hard to like you know who do you put on the cover of the Orioles media guide at this point? Hadley Rutschman. The answer is Rutschman.

It's going to be Rutschman. Will he play in Camden-Unirods next year? Almost certainly not. Will he be all over that ballpark? Oh, I bet. Yeah, it's such a funny thing because on the one hand, whenever these quotes happen, I do have some sympathy for front office executives who, you know, they get a budget. Like, they don't get to spend everything they want. Now, I think that in general and with Elias in particular, there are guys who are brought in with the understanding that they are very good at executing a particular kind of rebuild.

So I don't want to let him off the hook either, right? But, you know, they get a budget from ownership. It's not like they get to spend whatever they want. And on the one hand, like, it is a bummer for fans to hear that. On the other hand, there is something valuable about them being so honest about what they're doing because then you can at least engage with it in a – it's easier to engage with it in sort of an intellectually honest way, because they've already admitted what they're doing.

They can't hide behind, we're so excited about the farm system, and the bright young talent that is training in the minors today and will be the stars of the future, right? Like, they're not doing any of the, like, Tomorrowland Disney stuff. So, like, there's some value in that from the perspective of analysts at the very least because we can engage with it, I think, in a more sort of robust way

because we don't have to do the work of tearing down the Tomorrowland facade first. But it's just a real bummer. Yeah. It's just a terrible bummer. And like you said, like they traded iglesias on thursday and who who are they gonna point to to say you know if fans if fans can come back to the ballpark next year if we if everybody gets vaccinated and it's safe to come together in crowds again, who are they going to say,

you've waited, you've waited a year to be able to go to the ballpark and now you get to see, who is it? Yeah, I mean, I like John Means. Sure. You know, hopefully Trey Mancini's back and healthy. Right. But yeah, not a lot of notable names on that roster right now. I mean, I guess, what, Ryan Mountcastle.

Yeah, right. Sure. I mean, maybe it'll work. It worked in Houston. Maybe the Orioles will get good down the road. There have been some promising developments there on the farm system and all but it is uh really sort of scorched earth there right now to a degree that we haven't seen with most non-astros teams so they're they're really committing to the bit and uh not even

trying to disguise it which you know i don't know if they could if they wanted to. The Husk of Chris Davis. Yeah, right, still there. Pat Valaika. Paul Fry. Get excited for middle reliever Paul Fry. Yeah. So I wanted to just close, I guess, with a quick excerpt from Joe Sheehan's newsletter edition about the non-tenders.

And this is, I think, nothing that we haven't said at various times on this podcast before, but he sort of put this non-tender day in context and in the larger landscape. So he wrote, what the cases of Bradley, Schwarber, Rosario, and others do, however, is once again shine a light on MLB's compensation model. Those players' projected performances have value to teams, but it's their service time that would have driven their 2021 salaries. All were underpaid up until now because their service time has been more important to their compensation than their performance was. This is the core feature that has to change in the next CBA, just as it had to in

the last CBA. 40 years ago, teams valued veteran players and their experience, and they had a less informed attitude toward how players aged. The MLBPA itself valued those things, which is why arbitration and free agency were tied to service time. Now what matters is how will you perform next year, the next three years, the next five. And if a 22-year-old can produce a few runs more, or sometimes a few runs less, for a lot less money, it's an easy choice. Teams are just not going to go back to paying for service time. They will pay for performance, however, which means the MLBPA has to present a plan that pushes money to the players who get a chance to perform.

That means a much higher minimum salary to both better pay young stars and raise the cost of tanking. It means pushing back arbitration rights to two years of service, which will, by rule, end the terrible Super 2 concept introduced in 1991. It's simply too cost-effective for teams to make the choices they're making now, and the only way to fix that is for younger players to make more money. The MLBPA will have to abandon one of its central tenets that just lasting in the majors has intrinsic value.

It won't be easy, but it's the only way to rebalance the scales. And I think we've expressed a lot of that in the past on the podcast and agree with it and easier said or written than done and you know you have to give up something to get something unless you are prepared to walk out and have a work stoppage and endure the consequences there in hopes of forcing some concessions. So that is something that is looming on the horizon too. Yeah. And I think I was asked this question in my chat this week of what I think kind of will happen when the CBA negotiation gets underway in earnest and whether we're likely to have a

work stoppage. And I have a hard time answering that question because i don't know that the relationship has has ever been quite so acrimonious at least not in recent memory but i think so much depends on how how many games with fans teams are able to play next year because if we have another year of reduced salaries i just i i almost think that it makes a work stoppage less likely because how are players going to endure a third year of that right you're already if you're going to shift the pay scale such that younger players when they're younger and more productive are going to get compensated in a fair way you're already going to have this weird like kind of group of kind of older players who

are just going to get kind of jobbed in the course of their careers right they're never going to get their big payday although they're not really getting much of one now and then to say and you're going to need to engage in a work stoppage after you haven't been paid to to the max in the last two years i don't know it's just gonna be such a mess yeah another thing i saw that you were asked about in your chat someone suggested off-season topic for effectively wild a stove league episode i know you wrote ben you can just g chat me i swear that wasn't me i know but i didn't put anyone up to it that was uh purely independent request it's just what the listeners want it's what they're demanding i know i gotta get on it i gotta get on it yeah it's about time i'm sorry i

was busy watching football in the middle of the afternoon on a wednesday i had that on while i was chatting and i thought to myself you know baseball did a lot of things in a lot of really goofy ways and i don't want to undersell that but we didn't do this yeah we didn't get preempted by a big christmas tree i save a lot of time not being a football fan and you're gonna live so much longer than i am ben watching stove leak you're just gonna live for a lot longer all right so it is also about time for us to get to our guest. We have an interview today. And last week, we did a segment about high school baseball in Japan. Today, we are doing a segment about the highest level of baseball in Japan in NPB. Right now, I think, you know, NPP is the best baseball league in the world that is not in MLB, the highest level. It's generally agreed to be, you know, higher than AAA quality. And there is a dynasty absolutely dominating NPP right now. And I did not know much about the details of how and why that team has done so well.

So the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks have just swept their second straight Japan series. That is NPB's equivalent of the World Series. They've won four straight titles now and seven since 2011, which is just mind-boggling if you're an MLB fan and you're thinking, are the Dodgers a dynasty? Like the Dodgers seem like a dynasty to us now because they won one World Series and they win the division every year. That's kind of what constitutes a dynasty at this point in MLB.

Well, over in MPB, the Hawks have just absolutely laid waste to the rest of the league. They win every year. And we are going to talk to Jason Koskry, who has been on the podcast before. He writes about sports for the Japan Times. And we're going to ask him all about how the Hawks got so good and how they might influence

the rest of NPP. And we'll also get into some other NPP topics with him, both women's baseball in Japan. Some NPP teams have sponsored women's teams, and also some of the high profile players who could be posted and coming over to the state soon, including Tomoyuki Sugano, who is probably the best pitcher in Japan, and also a player who has been dubbed the Cuban Otani and has been playing in Japan. So obviously that perked up our interest. Ben, can I do a quick plug for Van Graaff's functionality that's related to this conversation real quick? So on Thursday, as we recorded this, we released the new international player functionality

on the board. So previously, the Prospect team has focused on international amateurs because of the July 2 signing period. With that getting pushed back to January, it kind of gave us an opportunity to bring together both the international amateurs in Latin America and also the pro international players who either are being posted or might be posted in the future. So if you go over to the board and click on the international players tab, you will see a mix of those guys. And there are a couple of names from NPP there so go go check that out um

look at eric's reports if you're interested after this conversation in hearing more about these guys excellent and i will link to that on the show page as always we will take a quick break and we'll be right back to talk to the dominance of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks And to do that, we are joined now by Jason Koskary Who covers sports for the Japan Times and has been with us before. Hey, Jason, welcome back. Hi, how are you doing? Thanks. Pretty well. So I'll just read from the lead to your story here from last week after the Hawks won the Japan Series.

You wrote, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks may be in the middle of an epoch making run in Japanese baseball that could, if other teams can emulate the way they operate on and off the field, cause a shift in the middle of an epoch-making run in Japanese baseball that could, if other teams can emulate the way they operate on and off the field, cause a shift in the game. That, however, remains to be seen. What we know for certain, and with even greater clarity after the Hawks secured a fourth straight Japan series title with a 4-1 win over the Yomiuri Giants in Game 4 on Wednesday, is that this era of Japanese baseball without question belongs to SoftBank. And you went on to recount their recent

record. They have swept the Japan Series in consecutive years against the Giants both times. They are the first team to win four straight titles since the Giants won nine in a row in the 60s and 70s. And they've won seven now Japan Series titles since 2011. So it's a really impressive run, and I guess the most impressive in the past 50 years or so. But I guess we should maybe put it in context a little just for MLB fans who are probably just amazed that you could possibly win four titles in a row because we haven't seen an MLB team win in back-to-back years, even in 20 years now. an MLB team win in back-to-back years, even in 20 years now. I guess conditions are a little more conducive to dynasties in NPV, right? Because you have 12 teams and you only have one playoff round the Climax Series that comes before the Japan Series. So if you do get good and you still need to be really good and have things go your way but i guess it's a little more plausible to reel off a record like this than it would be in the states yeah i would say so except i know for

sure if you win the pennant then you've got a really built-in advantage because what they do now is if you win the pennant you get an actual a game advantage so you start the series up one to zero so i mean that's that's a huge advantage if you independent although to be fair the last two years before this year softbank did not win dependent so they had to overcome that one game advantage to make it to the japan series to win the japan series but yeah it's a lot more conducive because there are fewer teams and like you said the fewer playoff rounds there are there have been teams who have overcome the one game advantage and there have been a couple of teams who overcame it who you know you don't get any home games either if you're the team that has to overcome that one game advantage so you're on the road for the entire series until

you get to the Japan series so if you're the third place team you're on the road for two straight rounds you don't get a Japan series game or a home game until you get to the Japan series so even within the context of that though this is quite a run and quite an accomplishment as you've covered. So I guess the first place I'd like to start is organizationally, how are they distinguished from other teams in NPB? Where are the places that they are real standouts, not only in terms of the players on the field, but in terms of their organizational infrastructure?

I think the one place where SoftBank really stands out from everybody else is pretty much on their farm system, because basically in MPB, it's just the top team and then a farm team. That's it, just the one team. But SoftBank has basically taken the lead and signed a bunch of players, and so they've created a third team. So they have two farm teams which is unusual because i think it's maybe them and the giants are the two that have farm teams that are actively playing games and they just play games against industrial teams college teams sometimes they play against korean teams and so you have all these players that they've signed because in in the mpb draft basically you can sign regular you can draft players as regular but then you have all these players that they've signed because in the MPB draft, basically you can sign regular, you can draft players as regular,

but then you have these other pigs who are called developmental players. So they're not allowed to, you know, be with the top team or play on the top team, but they can play on the farm. And so you just have all these guys with nowhere to put them. So teams draft and draft. And then when they get to the developmental part of the draft, they can just stop when, whenever they're done. So the draft is over when everyone decides

that they've picked all the players they want to pick. And often SoftBank will just keep picking a few guys and pick up developmental players and end up putting these guys in this big crucible on the farm team. So they're pushing the guys who are on the second team. The second team guys are pushing the guys who are on the first team. second team guys are pushing the guys from the first team you just got this this massive competition and i'm guessing and they they understand that yeah not every guy that we sign is gonna hit but the ones who do are gonna be battle tested they're gonna have like learn the skills and they're gonna be ready to contribute and they've actually done just amazingly well with with this system if you look at their third team Kodai Senga who a lot of people have talked about as a potential major

league player he'd be there now if they actually posted players and he was in the world baseball classic with Sugano a couple of years ago he was a developmental draft pick Takuya Kai who's their catcher who was an all-star, who was a Japan Series MVP a couple of years ago, he was a developmental pick. And the guy who won game two of the Japan Series this year, he was a developmental pick. The starting shortstop this year was a developmental pick. They've got this Cuban reliever, Levon Moinello, who's the best set up in Japan this year. He was a developmental pick. So the guys that they get that hit and they can bring up through the system and with this competition and they've got they've just set themselves apart and they they invest

money into their development their developmental system they they invest money into their farm team into their farm team facilities into their training facilities more so than the other teams do and it's just created this organization with just this amazing depth that they can call from. And because they also have the money to fill other holes where they need to, it's just kind of helped set them apart. Yeah. And how did they get to that point? Because I think maybe a lot of American fans think of the Giants as the Yankees of Japan, they're sometimes called. So how did the Hawks get to this point where they're beating the Giants as the Yankees of Japan, they're sometimes called. So how did the Hawks get to this point where they are beating the Giants at their own game? Was it that the team

was sold right in the middle of last decade? Was that how they got the resources that they have now? And I guess when did the current management team take over? Because I know that Sadaharu Oh, who used to manage this team and then went on to be the GM, he's still the chairman of the Hawks, right? And he was on those great Giants teams of the 60s and 70s. So if they give out rings for winning the Japan series, he must just have a ring for all of his fingers and toes at this point but how did the hawks sort of ascend to the point where they are so dominant i mean if it was just money then the giants would win the pennant a lot of years and the tigers would win the pennant some years other teams have money it's just i think with softbank they are they've been so adept at spreading their resources around it's not like

okay here's a really a-priced free agent that we're going to go after. We're just going to sign all the best players that hit the market every year, and that's how we're going to do this. Which, you know, that's what the Giants have been doing sometimes. But with SoftBank, I think it's mostly just the decisions that they make where they say we're going to invest in other parts of our team that may not have an immediate benefit that they make where they say we're going to invest in other parts of our team that

may not have an immediate benefit or may not have a benefit that can be so clearly seen. And we're not going to consider that a waste of money. We're going to consider that just an investment and let's just pay for it. Whereas you have other teams like the Giants and like some of the other teams in MPB where they sort of, they have this, I guess, older school way of thinking where we've got to put our resources where we can see the immediate returns on them. So we're going to go out and get this big free agent. Not that the Hawks don't go out and get big free agents sometimes too, but it's just the way they spread their resources and they're just better at that because they have the money, but it's also the decisions that they make with their money that has really helped set them apart from Yomiuri and the rest of the league you mentioned their sort of profound commitment to player development and taking

a broad view of that I'm curious if that also translates into their approach to analytics and if you can kind of give our listeners who might not be as familiar with NPB what the state of affairs is when it comes to analytics in the front office in Japanese baseball. It's definitely behind the major leagues, but they're catching up. Japanese teams are using the track match system. A lot of them are now. I think maybe Hiroshima could be the only one unless they've added it recently. Maybe Hiroshima could be the only one unless they've added it recently. So SoftBank is pretty heavy into that, which I guess sort of makes sense because they have an IT parent company. So I think Rock10 also does a lot with that.

And the Marines were doing a lot of analytical things when Bobby Valentine was here. Yeah, the SoftBank is kind of, I don't know if they're the leading the pack in that but i'm pretty sure they're pretty higher up japanese teams are i guess like mlb team they keep a lot of that stuff really really close to the vest as far as what they're doing and a lot of the tools they're using and you don't even see the amount of analytic analytics or stable metrics made publicly available here as you would for MLB teams. But I know the Hawks were, you know, they were kind of at the forefront of using like pitch effects, pitch effects systems and a lot of other analytical data that they can

then give to their players. So they are pretty, a pretty sabermetric savvy team. And is there sort of a model Hawks player or a brand of baseball that the Hawks are known for? Are they just great at everything? Or do they lean more toward hitting or pitching? Or do they pursue certain types of players or develop certain types of players? I can't really, there's not really a prototypical sort of Hawks player. I guess maybe if you, if you want to give one example, it'd be, I mean, Senga is a guy like that. He's a guy that they just sort of found everybody passed on him. And I remember I was talking with Dennis Sarfati about him one day and he said, it's just amazing

that the scouts, that the scouts found this guy who nobody wanted. And he was, he was not just even the first developmental pick that year i think he was fourth maybe and you know they they took him and they saw something in him and you know they developed him and now he's he if tomoyuki sugano isn't the best pitcher in japan then senga is and he came all the way from the bottom rungs of their organization he's that kind of guy they've got got, you know, they pretty much just have a guy pretty much to back up everyone they have. They have Ukyo Shuto, who was a developmental pick. And basically he was just known for base running and he came up and

he stole 50 bases in 103 games this year. And he was another one of those picks. So I think the prototypical soft bank player is the player that nobody really saw coming and they just, for whatever reason, they get their shot and then they don't let it go. Like the guy who won the Japan Series MVP this year, Ryo Yakuri Hara, he was like sparingly used until this season

and all of a sudden he gets a chance and plays in over a hundred games and hits a lot of home runs for them and comes in as a Japan series MVP. So I guess their prototypical players is like that guy that no one really saw coming that they kind of developed into being a star. I'm always reticent to compare teams in leagues outside of the U.S. to MLB teams because they're wonderful on their own and they don't always have to be in comparison and conversation with MLB teams. But I am curious about how fans of other NPV teams react to the Hawks. Because if you look at some of the more storied franchises in Major League Baseball, their fans are rabid. And I think most fans will acknowledge and have sort of a grudging respect for them, but they can also breed some resentment and jealousy. And so what is the fan culture around the Hawks' success over the last couple of years?

doing this and it's crazy that this team is doing this and that sort of that kind of thing i don't think the hawks have breeded that particular resentment yet i know the giants definitely have it and people there are a lot of anti-giants and people who don't like the giants really don't like the giants and they're they're the yankees of japan in that respect as well i don't think the hawks have really breeded that sort of contempt. It's just kind of a respect. And also they win the Japan series a lot, but they don't win the pennant every year. And so a lot of like the last couple of Japan series, they won the Sabre Lions won the actual pennant. So it's not as if the Hawks have just won to the point that people are tired of them. It's just sort of, wow, there's a respect for what they've done in the postseason and in the Japan series. And how much continuity has there been in the team's

leadership? They've had multiple managers during this run, right? Is there someone in particular who is credited for being the front office architect of this team? And is there kind of a lineage from one manager to the next? As far as a lineage from one manager to the next as far as the um the lineage from the manager to the next it's just it's really just been the two guys so far um there's koji akiyama who was the who was the manager before the current manager kimiyasu kudo and he stepped away i think for personal reasons actually and so Kudo came into this team and just took this ready-made team and just ran with it and it's a lot of the way that Kudo manages a little bit I don't want to say it's different than other Japanese managers but he sort of has tendencies

that are I don't want to say odd but he's just's just more of an easygoing sort of manager as far as he exerts a lot of control, but then he kind of lets his players do what they do. And he's very confident in the decisions he makes. And he's not a guy who is going to say, it's my way or the highway every single time. He's become sort of open to other forms of managing and especially as far as um like rehabilitation for players and he makes sure those guys have you know the best the best treatment when they're injured and take the best care of themselves and they can do that because they have the depth behind them so um and front office wise i don't know if there's really it's not really an

an r lineage there it's just sort of i mean o has been the constant in the front office wise, I don't know if there's really, it's not really an R lineage there. It's just sort of, I mean, O's been the constant in the front office and they've had a lot of money to be able to do a lot of things. guys that they will face pressure from their players or, you know, increased interest from MLB teams to post some of those guys and allow them to come to the U.S. to play in the majors? I don't think so because Senga has been trying to get posted for a couple of years now and they've just turned him down. And, you know, Yuki Yanagida is another player that MLB scouts have been looking at, and everyone is sort of wondering what he's going to do and if he's going to be able to go to major leagues before he signed a long contract. So, no, I don't think there's any pressure just because they hold all the cards, and they've pretty much made it clear that they're not going to –

well, they've made it clear by their actions, basically, that they're not going to post any of their players. So there's really no pressure. The player can ask like Senga has, and they can say no. And is there a tradition in NPP of, you know, when one team has some success that it gets known for a certain philosophy or a way of team building, and then that becomes the style that's in vogue in MLB when a team has some success, suddenly there are books about them and it's Moneyball or Astroball or the Cubs way and all of their people get poached and maybe they start some trend. And you alluded to that in the lead that I read earlier, that maybe there would be some sort of lasting influence on Japanese baseball here. So

what is the potential, do you think, for the Hawks to leave a mark on NPB, not just through their current success, but maybe in the way that teams are built? I really think it'd have to have a change in just the way Japanese teams think, just in the fact that the Hawks didn't just start doing this this year or last year that they've been doing this. And so there's been time for other teams to sort of try to follow what they've done. Now, maybe financially, they haven't been able to. And to that point, the Giants have, they have a third team as well. And they've started to get a little bit more heavy into it. And I think maybe once the Giants really, really go after it the way the Hawks have, maybe some of the other teams will

follow along or maybe the Giants will sort of insert whatever influence they have into making other teams come along. And it's not really an original idea. When Bobby Valentine was here, he openly kind of lobbied MPB to add more minor league teams to get more people playing baseball, to be able to find more talent. He wanted to, I think he wanted to absorb an independent league or something, something weird. But, you know, he came up But it was something that he had said, and then the Hawks are now doing basically what Bobby Valentine was preaching,

was adding a third team. They're okay with some really long flights. Maybe they could just absorb some of the minor league teams in the States that no longer have parent clubs, and that'll work out for everyone. Just be a lot of jet lag for the prospects. I am curious, and I imagine this is a question that executives on championship teams hate to hear because it implies that we're not going to let them sort of ruffle in their win at all. But as these guys look ahead to next year's season, which I think you've written about how this year was a very hard one for a lot

of folks and was a disrupted one in NPP, even though they handled their baseball business better than we did here in the States. I'm curious if there are any offseason sort of holes or priorities that they have that they're trying to address going into next year. Is there are there any points of weakness in this in this monster that has been so successful well they've got to restock a lot of their foreign talent and that's sort of by i think some of that's by choice i don't know how much that has to do with maybe finances because of what happened with the coronavirus but i know they're matt moore's leaving and he was he was here for just this year and he almost threw seven no-hit

innings in Game 3 of the Japan Series, and then they pulled him out of the game. Rick Vanden Herk's also leaving, so they've got a few holes to fill, but for the most part, the guys who were on the field at the Japan Series are pretty much going to be a lot of the guys who are going to be on the field next year, plus one of their top pitchers top pitchers now Higashiyama he didn't even play in the Japan series because he was injured and they were also missing their best shortstop because he was been injured for pretty much most of the year and they've also got Vladimir Valentin who had a pretty poor year this year so if those guys all come back and Valentin has a big year it's almost as if they've gotten you know talent without even having to go do anything and is it still a fairly young i mean in their prime core even

though they've been winning for so long have they just kept refreshing the roster enough that the outlook for the long term is still pretty positive too like there's just no end in sight for this hawks team in some points i mean they're getting a little they're starting to get a little older now i know um a lot of people have been talking about that because coming into this year there was sarfate who didn't he actually didn't get to play this year but he's he's in his late 30s and their gold glove third baseman who just keeps winning golden gloves nobuhiro matuda he almost went to the padres a couple years ago i don't know if you remember he's in his he's getting his late 30s mid to late 30s they've

got another guy former batting champion seichu chikawa who couldn't even get on the field this year despite being pretty good on the farm he he's actually gone so it is starting to creep in there a little bit but they've got guys like Uribe Oyokuri Hata, who won the Japan Series MVP this year. He's fairly young, and Shuto's fairly young, and they've got some youngish pitchers. So they're going to go through a little bit of a transition, but right now they're still in a pretty good place. Janagida's still at a pretty good age, so they're all right for the near future.

Well, while we had you to ask about the Hawks, we wanted to talk about a few other topics. And I guess to keep things sort of Hawks-centric, there was news this week that another player would be coming over to MLB potentially soon. So there is a player who has played for the Hawks who is named Oscar Luis Colas. He is a Cuban player who has been in NPP with the Hawks, and he was just declared a free agent by the Hawks this week. And he caught my eye because the MLB.com story that I was reading about him said that he has been called the Cuban Otani. I don't know who has called him the Cuban Otani or how accurate that is, but he does play outfield. He plays third base.

He is a left-handed pitcher. What can you tell us about Colossus and how he might fare here? Well, he didn't play much on the top team here. He played a handful of games, although I think he had a home run in his first at-bat. But, yeah yeah he played about what seven or eight games in mpb in 2019 and he did all right and he he did pretty well he did really well on the the farm team that year and i know he hit over 300 and had 11 home runs

and stole a couple bases so he seemed to be a pretty a pretty decent hitter is at least against the the mpb farm system um he never pitched in for the hawks he pitched for the hawks is like i like i mentioned earlier their their second farm team their third team he pitched for he pitched for them there so he pitched against some college teams and some industrial teams amateur teams as far as how he's gonna fare it's really hard to say. I mean, I only got to see him, you know, for about a handful of games on the top team. He's got a ton of potential and he's got a good build and he's got a really good swing. I don't know if they want him to be a pitcher or not, but he throws in the 90s.

So he's just got a ton of potential if you know he can realize it so he's still just 22 years old and maybe the Cuban Otani is a little bit of an oversell but it obviously caught my eye I wonder because we had you on in 2016 to sort of preview the Otani experience and it lived up to its billing, at least for a little while, but it has not in the last couple of years as he has encountered injuries. And I wonder what the reception to his most recent season and even the preceding season has been in Japan, because he really has never struggled before.

He's never really been unavailable before. And I wonder whether there is any belief now that maybe he shouldn't be a two-way player, because I'm sure that there will be continued whispers and maybe louder than whispers about that when we get to the 2021 season. But in Japan, everyone has seen him do all of those things and be such an incredible two-way player that maybe it's harder to let go of that idea. And I'm not letting go of that idea. I still like to see it and I hope to see it.

But, you know, how big a blow, I guess, has it been to Otani's fan base to see him be so promising early on and then run into these troubles? I don't really think it's been much of a blow at all. I think most people, and maybe it's like you said, I think it's because here we've seen him do it, and we've seen him go through injuries here too. There was a point where he got hurt, and he basically could only hit.

He couldn't pitch. So it's something that people have seen before. I think it's sort of like Zanin. It's just too bad, and he's hurt right now. And when he gets back to being healthy again, then we'll get to see what he does. So I don't really think his fame or his fan base has taken a hit.

I think people just understand he's going through a few injuries. I think maybe it'd be different if he was just really, really bad at one of the two. Then maybe he'd take a little bit of a hit. But I think people understand that he's hurt. And so I think that's pretty much where most of his fans are looking at. So there's one more player that we want to ask you about before we let you go. And he's Tomoyuki Sugano, who you mentioned earlier as probably the best pitcher in Japan.

And MLB fans will be getting to know him sometime soon. If they don't already, he's a 31-year-old right-handed pitcher. He has been in NPB with the Giants for the past eight years, and he has been brilliant with a lifetime 2.32 ERA. So we had you on in 2013 to talk about Masahiro Tanaka, and then we had you on in 2016 to talk about Otani. So now, please tell us about Sugano and I guess the prospects of his coming over when those sweepstakes might happen and maybe how he compares as a pitcher, what his strengths are and how you think he'll do. Sugano is really, I guess, in a way, really interesting to me because he's just he's an amazing pitcher. And like he's he's he's went over his numbers a little bit.

He's won the Sawamura Award here twice and he was an MVP and he may well be the MVP this year. I think he probably will be the MVP in the Central League this year. But his control is in his command of his pitches is just absolutely amazing. He doesn't throw as hard as Tanaka did when he came over, but he has decent velocity. His velocity actually went up a little bit this year, but his slider is world-class and he's just an amazing pitcher. And I'm really interested to see how he's going to fare in MLB because I know the strike zone is a little different here than it is in in the majors and it's a little lighter probably in Japan but I don't think he's

going to have many many issues transitioning over there in terms of that because he's so good with his control now so um I think he I think he has the potential to be pretty good. I don't see him as necessarily like a number one pitcher for someone, but I think you put him like two, three in that area, I think he has a chance to be really, really good. So I'm actually quite excited to see how he's going to do just because of how good his control has been in Japan. I really want to see how that's going to translate to you know major league strike zone and how he's going to handle those pitches because you've got to make

pitches there and you can get you can get away with a little bit more here than you can get away with against major league hitters and do you know exactly when he's going to be posted when teams are going to be able to start bidding on him well Well, he asked today, he asked the team, well, maybe it was last night, but he asked, he formally said, you know, Hey, I want to be posted. So it's really just up to when the giants, I guess, get the paperwork and all that in, they haven't done that as of 9 39 AM Friday morning, they hadn't done it yet. So I'm guessing it's coming up soon because they've, they've pretty much already said that they would allow him to go and that it was his decision. And so he made his decision already. He made a decision yesterday and asked Central League, the Hawks are in the Pacific League, and the Pacific League has just been dominant lately, much like the AL was over the NL for a pretty extended period recently that has changed of late. But what is it exactly that has made the Pacific League seem so superior to the Central League? Recently, a popular theory is that it's just the Pacific League has better

pitchers. And not just that the Pacific League has better pitchers, the Pacific League has better pitchers with like a lot more velocity, well, maybe not a lot more velocity well maybe not a lot more velocity but uh more velocity than in the central league and so the the theory basically is that you've got these guys who are seeing these just high quality fastballs and just better pitchers day in and day out in the pacific league so when they do end up playing against the Central League, they're kind of taking a step down. And it's really no trouble for them to handle anything that the Central League pitchers are going to throw at them, I guess, other than the best Central League pitchers that the Central League has to offer. And they've just become a better league that way by just seeing better

pitching constantly so that when they see Central League guys that there's no there's no trouble for them and so and also just the arms race of fighting with themselves you gotta you gotta be good enough to compete in the pacific league and trying to keep up with the hawks and trying to keep up with you know the sabre lions and trying to keep up with the other teams have just that infighting has just sort of made them better whereas in in the Central League, you just don't really have that. Yeah, that was one of the theories with the AL dominance is that you had the Yankees and the Red Sox over there and they were spending a lot and other teams were trying to keep up with them. And it kind of, you know, brought up the whole level of the league. So

maybe it's sort of a similar dynamic. You reported back in October that the Hanshin Tigers are starting a women's team for they'll have a women's club for 2021. They'll be the second MPB club to sponsor a women's team. And when you wrote the story, you said that details about the selection of a manager and coaches and players were going to be announced at a later date. And I'm curious if there have been any updates about the formation of that club and what inspired the Tigers to be the second team to put a women's club on the field for 2021. They're planning to start up early next year. As far as playing, they're still looking for a team. They've got a manager, one of the former Tigers

players is going to manage the team. So they've got a staff and they're looking for players. As far as what inspired them, I'm not sure. I think it's probably just there's more interest in women's baseball. I mean, it's not a major thing right now at all, but there's more interest. There was, you know, Madonna Japan, which is what they call the women's national team. They have kind of dominated a lot of international tournaments. And Ayami Sato has gotten a lot of fame for being just like the best female pitcher in the world.

And, you know, they've gotten a lot of press. And there was a women's professional league, which is actually going through some trouble recently. But there's been a women's professional league here for a couple of years, and there are more girls' baseball teams in high school. And so there's just more girls, more young girls playing baseball than there has been. So I think maybe they've just sort of seen that, and they saw that there is some sort of kind of like bubbling interest. And so maybe they want to, you know, try to help support that. I know the Lions, Sabu Lions also have a women's team who just won the women's, the 15th annual

like Women's All Japan Hardball Championship. The Sabu team won that in its first year. So I think it's just that there's just a little bit more interest. It's not mainstream by any means yet, but there are more girls playing baseball here. And those teams that are sponsored by NPB teams, those were not part of the Japan Women's Baseball League that you alluded to, right? That was a four-team league. So where are the Cebu team and maybe the Hanshin team playing or planning to play? I'm not entirely sure where the Hanshin team is going to play. They may play in the same league as Cebu's team,

but the Cebu team is playing kind of like a, it's almost like an amateur-ish league. Like I think it's run by the Women's Japan Baseball Federation. I think I may have the name wrong, but it's sort of maybe semi-pro is maybe the best word for it. I don't think they get paid so i think

technically they're amateurs but it's it's that kind of league so there's their club teams and they're just another one of the club teams and they hold tournaments and i think sometimes there are high school teams that also can play in these tournaments and then the winners of some of their tournaments end up playing against the professional the one of the whichever are the three or four professional teams comes out on top of their league. They play for a title, which the Saitama Astaria may have won this past year. I'm not entirely sure. So it's kind of like a club league in a way. It's like semi-pro, that kind of thing, but they're technically be classified as amateurs because I'm not sure they get paid. Do you know why it is that women's baseball and girls' baseball has been so much better

supported there or why there is just more of an institution and a tradition around it compared to the US where a lot of girls and women get pushed into softball and that's changing to a certain extent, I think, but the highest level professional league has been in Japan, and it just seems like there has been more support over the years there than here. a couple years ago and she said pretty much the same thing that she she started off playing on her local boys team and when she got to high school they kind of pushed her to softball and she played softball and then she kind of drifted back to playing baseball so the same thing happens here too a lot of top girls players sort of get pushed to softball and some of them find their way back and some of them don't. But I think maybe it's just because there's always the national team there. And so girls have something to aspire to.

And I think maybe the national team has gotten more support maybe than the U.S. women's national team. I can't say I know much about the U.S. women's national team at all. So I could be totally wrong about that. But maybe they just get more support. And a few years ago, Japan basically brought all of its national teams under one umbrella and started calling all of them Samurai Japan. And the women's team has been brought under that umbrella too. So there's a little bit more visibility, more support. And so I guess historically, maybe there's been a slightly more visibility for

women's baseball and it gives girls that opportunity to say I don't have to play softball I can I can keep playing baseball if I really like to play baseball and so you see more women play baseball and so there's still a long way to go because you know there's still the controversy about girls not being allowed to, you know, go on the field at Koshien that bubbles up every couple of years. But I think maybe it's just because there might just be a little bit more visibility or they may see it as more of a viable path in Japan, whereas in the U.S. you get kind of pushed to softball and that seems to be the ceiling for you, whereas inapan you can do a little bit

more and i guess get a little bit more visibility and it shows because the japan national team has been really good that's probably because there's so many more opportunities for for girls to play and women to play baseball here i guess last thing i kind of was curious about how weird this season was as a whole now that it's over. It was a very strange MLB season and extremely curtailed MLB season. Not only were there many fewer games than there usually are, but there were no fans in the stands until the playoffs at the very end. There were a lot of new rules and roster sizes and all of that. And Japan, of course, has handled the pandemic a lot better than the U.S. has in general. And that's been true in baseball, too. So the season was somewhat delayed and shortened. But you wrote that, you know, by the time the Japan series was being played, there were some fans in the stands and things were kind of normal looking and everything went well. And maybe that bodes well for the Olympics next year. So how weird was it? I guess, you know,

what compromises had to be made in terms of attendance, but also rules and all of that, you know, did it feel like a strange outlier season the way that this MLB season did or were things normal enough that at times it just kind of felt like NPB baseball I think in Japan it sort of just felt like NPB baseball it was it was pretty it was pretty normal I mean I think that probably owes to the fact that in NPB they they managed to play 120 games like it wasn't yeah it was a truncated season but what they took out was interleague basically so it was 23 fewer games and it it pretty much played out the same you have ties in japan anyway but instead of it being 12 innings they only played 10 innings

because they were they were very much worried about well just getting the season in and they didn't want they were worried about the players. And they didn't want to have all these games lasting as long as they usually do. So you had the truncated games where you had a tie after 10 innings. They had the roster sizes. They could have an extra foreign player. But there were certain rules about your extra foreign player. But they changed the rosters in those ways.

But for the most part I think it was pretty much once everyone got used to that games are going to end earlier and it was pretty much a normal season it's just you didn't have the normal fans in the stands doing all the things that the fans do in the stands during an MPB game which was a huge loss and it made the game feel just totally different at the beginning because you go from having zero people in the stands to then you have some people in the stands but they're not really cheering and they're not really doing the things that you see MPB teams do and then it was kind of weird because they started piping in crowd noise which just sounded canned and artificial but yeah

for the most part I think the season sort of, it was sort of a normal season once you really got going. And yeah, once you got to, once they got to the Japan series, I know game four, there were almost 20,000 people there. So it was mostly just getting used to the atmosphere,

which was totally different. But the game itself was pretty much the same. And just because you mentioned foreign players, that just sparked one last question in my mind, which is, is the uncertainty in MLB and in the US right now changing at all how NPB teams are looking at recruiting players from the States? Maybe there will be some better players available than usual just because there was no attendance this year. There may not be regular attendance or a regular season next year. So some MLB teams are cutting payroll. There are a lot of free agents out there. Some of them may be a little more receptive to entreaties from a Japanese team

than they would be normally. So I guess there are limits on how many foreign players you can have anyway. So it's not like there will be a mass exodus. But is there any consideration, I guess, that maybe a higher caliber of player will be available or certain guys who in a normal year might not be? It's possible. But I would say also that the virus did take a hit over, the virus did take a hit in Japan too. And as I know the way like player salaries and things like that worked out, you know, there was no, there wasn't like sort of this deal,

like there was an MPB where they ended up having to pay less because of the season being shorter. So, you know, they're paying the player salaries and then you've also got, there's no attendance for until about, I think maybe it was the middle of july they started allowing fans in and then they weren't allowing many fans in so you know a lot of npb teams are also kind of feeling the crunch so and the a lot of the free agent list here was released a couple of days ago maybe it was yesterday but there's some guys that you wouldn't normally see on it maybe like

spencer patton guy was as a free agent and frank herman who's with the marines and some some kind of quality foreign players who in other years might not have hit that list because they would have gotten a new contract you know they're on that list so you may see some mpb teams sign some guys who they know can play in japan because they've seen them and that's going to be a safer investment for them but um yeah I do think there there is the possibility though I mean there could be some team like again SoftBank has money they could they could go out maybe if there's some a player who is not getting the kind of I guess love he thought he'd get in MLB and SoftBank can throw some money at him or the Giants can throw some money at him. I absolutely think that is a possibility. I would say that would probably be a probability for some teams depending on the player and the price check. The price, you know, but I do think that

MPB teams were also feeling the crunch. So it's going to be a bit of a weird offseason here as well. All right. Well, we always appreciate your coming on and filling us in and you should read Jason's work for the Japan Times. I will link to a lot of the pieces that we referenced during this conversation and you can find him on Twitter at jcoskey, J-C-O-S-K-R-E-Y. Thank you again, Jason. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Okay, that will do it for today. And a little bit more Fangraph Synergy for you. Check out the latest episode of Fangraph's audio if you

want to hear more about non-tenders. Eric Langenhagen and Jason Martinez talked about the non-tenders as a whole. And then Ben Clemens and Craig Edwards talked about the career arc of Kyle Schwarber. So, head over to the Fangraphs audio feed if you want yet more info about non-tenders.

You can also 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. Reggie Deal, Tim Maurer, Tony C, Michael Bridwell, and Colin Bowman. Thanks to all of you. going and get themselves access to some perks reggie deal tim moorer tony c michael bridwell and colin bowman 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 coming via email at podcast of fangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. And we will be back with one more episode before the end of this week. Talk to you then. I had the last hope Flying over Woodstown

I could see the treetops Raying for the rain This is my last stop Gonna take a long walk Before I take my boots off I'll see you around the way I'll see you around the way I'll see you around the way