Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1645: Go Canada

Episode Date: January 21, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Alex Rodriguez’s ubiquity on non-baseball broadcasts and then discuss George Springer signing a franchise-record contract with the Blue Jays, Michael Brantley re-signing with the Astros, and José Quintana signing with the Angels, touching on how the Jays compare to their AL East rivals and what the team may […]

Where the future lies, under the moonlight, in a ballroom, hanging, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you're out, you? No, I have to say I haven't enjoyed Alex Rodriguez's recent work on baseball broadcasts, but I have enjoyed his unexpected presence on many non-baseball broadcasts over the past couple of years. It's like, hey, there's A-Rod at the inauguration. There's A-Rod at Times Square on New Year's Eve. There's A-Rod at the Oscars. There's A-Rod at the Grammys and the VMAs. There's A-Rod at the Oscars. There's A-Rod at the Grammys and the VMAs. There's A-Rod at the Met Gala. June Lee had a whole thread of these earlier. And I think my favorite version of A-Rod is A-Rod as Jennifer Lopez's plus one, where I don't have to hear him, but I get a little jolt of recognition from spotting a baseball player in a place where I don't expect a baseball player to be, like hobnobbing with presidents, for instance.

Yeah, I think supportive partner A-Rod is a good A-Rod. That's a commendable A-Rod. We're excited for that one. It's the best of all A-Rods. Remember last March when Trump reportedly called A-Rod to ask for advice on the coronavirus response? I did not remember that until you mentioned it. There's been some news since then, so I wouldn't blame you. But now that you say it,

it sounds familiar. And I remember thinking at the time, I think we're in trouble here. Yeah. I'm going to give A-Rod the benefit of the doubt and say that Trump just ignored his advice, not that A-Rod gave him the worst advice imaginable. But that's kind of what I'm talking about. Like A-Rod as authority on national crises? No. A-Rod as arm candy who makes funny facial expressions? Yes. Give me more of that, A-Rod. Yeah. And like, to be clear, we are not saying that A-Rod's not a smart guy, but we are saying that expertise is often hard won and you can be very good at one thing and that does not make you immediately

good at other stuff. You've got to talk to the people who are good at the right stuff if you want to say, you know, arrest the momentum of a pandemic. Yeah, right. Not a whole lot in his resume that suggests that

it would be your first call for that. But to show up at an event at your side, absolutely. And also, I've got to give it up to listener and Patreon supporter Kevin Neudiker, who had the line of the day in our Facebook group.

A-Rod is at the inauguration. He must be excited to see so much bunting. Oh, very good. Very, very good. Yeah, I enjoyed that one. So we've got news. A top tier free agent got the bag from the Blue Jays. And I do not mean a milk bag. I mean, 150 million American dollars, which is a pretty impressive sum for George Springer, who is now a Toronto Blue Jay for the next

six years. It is safe to say that he is the first major domino to fall. There have been other good free agents who have signed, but this is the first of the guys where I had a pre-write assigned who signed. So let's put it that way. That's kind of how I gauge things. Like, did I ask someone in advance to think about George Springer so that we could respond in a timely way? And so, yeah, he is going to make that lineup pretty impressive. We'll get to the Brantley almost signing later. Not quite as impressive as it might have been, but still pretty impressive nonetheless. And we talked last time about how this outfield sort of performed surprisingly well, certainly beyond my expectations in the 2020 season,

which granted is abbreviated and all of that. But now they're really strongly anchored in a way that I think makes them quite formidable, really top to bottom here. And whenever you can slot George Springer in as your leadoff guy and then have him followed up by the likes of Biggio and Bichette and Guerrero Jr. And, you know, I don't know. I don't know if Randall Gritchick is going to look the same in 2021

as he did in 2020, but this is an impressive little group that they got going here. Yeah. So I applaud the persistence of the Blue Jays. If at first or second or third or fourth or fifth or sixth, you don't succeed, sign George Springer. Sign an ex-Astros outfielder, though only one ex-Astros outfielder because Michael Brantley got away, returned to Houston, still an Astros outfielder. And we can talk about what may have happened there. Yeah.

Villanastra's outfielder. We can talk about what may have happened there. But yeah, Springer is quite a prize. And I don't know whether you'd say he's the best position player on the market or whether Real Mudo is, but neck and neck probably. And Springer has been basically a top five outfielder since the day he debuted, I would say. And if you look at Fangrafts War, he's actually fifth in outfield war or war among primary outfielders from his first season, 2014, or over the past two seasons, or actually over the past five or six or seven seasons. No matter what span you choose, he ranks fifth in Fangrafts War over it. And that's among all outfielders. So among centerfielders, he's trailing only Trout. That's not counting putting up an 895 OPS with 19 diggers in 63 postseason games, including a 1295 OPS in the World Series. So he has that in his history too. And he has improved really in recent seasons,

which is pretty impressive. And as you said, the Blue Jays had the second best outfield by WRC Plus last season, 128 after the Mets. And that was thanks primarily to Teoscar Hernandez and Kevin Biggio and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Randall Gritchick, all of whom are still there, right? And most of whom are under team control for the next few years. But they also had the third lowest outfield defensive run saved total of any team. So Springer should help with that. Gives them kind of a true two-way center fielder. Like they've had the defensive specialist center fielder with Kevin Pillar not too long ago. They've had center fielders who've hit. They haven't really had the defensive specialist center fielder with Kevin Pillar not too long ago.

They've had center fielders who've hit. They haven't really had the complete package there. And that's what Springer is. Yeah, it's an obvious thing to say that he brings you sort of steady marquee production. But I think that when you have other guys in your outfield mix who, you know, maybe their good performance is newer or it's more variable. You just have fewer potential holes that you're going to have to match up against some of the pitching staffs in your own division when you have a guy like that

who has been so consistent and has produced at such a high level for such a long time and is likely to be able to stay in center field for at least the first couple of years of this deal. You know, We've talked at various points on this podcast about how I'm a little skeptical of how long that's going to last. Dan's write-up of this deal persuaded me somewhat, and I think his observation is good, that Springer's defensive aptitude is less dependent on straight line speed than some other guys might be. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. I was actually just chatting with Dan about that

because I wanted more detail because that was a really interesting tidbit that I hadn't thought about. Because yeah, Springer turned 31 in September. As you mentioned earlier this offseason, he's maybe a little older than you expect, although that's often the case with free agents by the time they hit the open market.

But players aren't aging all that gracefully these days by historical standards. And so you wonder how long he can stick there. But yeah, Dan pointed out that Springer isn't slow. He's 82nd percentile among all players in sprint speed, but he's not especially fast for a center fielder because those tend to be very speedy. He hasn't lost a step yet, like his sprint speeds are holding up to this point, but you might think the fact that he's not an elite speedster would be a bad sign for his defensive future because he has less far to fall. That was sort of the way that I initially thought about it, but Dan pointed out that there are probably reasons for optimism That was sort of the way that I initially thought about it. But Dan pointed out that there are probably reasons for optimism, which sort of seems like a paradox until you really think about it. Because all else being equal, a faster player is more likely to be a

better defender, but all else usually isn't equal. And so a center fielder who doesn't have elite speed is probably playing center and playing it capably in Springer's case because he's good at everything else. So he's maybe taking efficient routes or he's positioning himself well or he's good at throwing or whatever it is. And so Dan has found that historically speaking, slower players typically decline more gradually on defense. So that's encouraging, I guess. You might think the fact that Springer is not top of the scale speed for a center fielder would mean that he can't stick there as long. But it may also mean that his other skills as a defender can compensate for that because he wasn't super, super fast to begin with. So, yeah, I don't think he'll stick there for the entirety of this six-year

deal, but he doesn't have to. And he might just be able to shift over to a corner and be fine there for a while before he becomes more of a DH type. So I'm sure that they've planned for that and they don't really expect him to be in center for this whole deal. It's very rare for an older player in his mid to upper 30s to be a regular center fielder, but that's okay. I don't think that's a problem really. Yeah, it allows him to retain defensive value on the front end of the deal. And like you said, he has a couple of places that he can sort of shift around on the continuum before he has to move to something like a DH only role, which would take a significant chunk out of his value.

But yeah, it's like once you clear the initial hurdle of having the, and what I'm about to say is underselling Springer speed in particular, but it's like there's a threshold that you have to clear in order to field the position. And beyond that, if you have supplemental skills, those, like you said, tend to age better. So I think the comparison that Dan made in his write-up was to Tim Lacastro, who, and it could be that he develops in his own game as time goes on, but his current defensive value is very heavily dependent on his speed, whereas Springer's isn't so there's surprising wiggle room there that you wouldn't necessarily attribute to him given that he's not at the at the very tip top for his position or you know just in general so so that part's interesting i still think that this blue jays team needs some pitching but they are quite a bit more fearsome than they were this morning so you know when you look at our depth charts projections which i will remind folks now do include a mix of Zips and Steamer. They're so fancy now, Ben.

They're just fancy. You know, just from a sort of projected war perspective, the top of the American League still sits with the Yankees. The Astros slide in just slightly ahead of the Blue Jays. But Toronto's right there. They're right there in the top of the mix when it comes to American League teams and their projections. So it's very exciting for them, the good people of Toronto and Buffalo. Buffalo's going to get to enjoy the Blue Jays, presumably, for at least part of the season

this year. Maybe so, yeah yeah it's really quite exciting and Springer didn't come cheap here obviously this is a record contract for the franchise eclipsing the Vernon Wells extension which is maybe best forgotten but we've talked ad nauseum about how the Bouchers may have to pay a little bit of a premium to get players to go there and clearly after missing out on several other targets, they really needed to sign someone in Springer with someone they had a lot of interest in,

who made a lot of sense for their team and their lineup. So maybe they had to tack on an extra year compared to other teams. I just don't see that getting in the way of anything else they want to do because their core, most of their core, is still so inexpensive that there's a lot of wiggle room there. So we've talked about the pitching additions they've made

already, Robbie Ray, Tyler Chatwood, Kirby Gates, but it was reported that they have an offer out for Brad Hand and it seems like they're very much still in the starting pitcher market. Not getting Brantley maybe means that they are still very much in the running for Trevor Bauer. And maybe they have their eyes on other starters too. And maybe they have players they can trade. Like they don't have as much of a logjam as they would have had if they had signed Brantley too, because people are already sort of thinking, okay, they'll package a couple of

these outfielders. Grichuk will go somewhere or Hernandez or Gurriel or someone will be on the move for a starter. There's not as much depth or expendable players now, but I think they still have either the surplus players on the major league roster or the prospects or the money to really improve that rotation still. And I agree that they still need to do that, I the money to really improve that rotation still. And I agree that they still need to do that, I think, to really bring themselves into contention with the other top teams in the AL East. Not that they're not within theoretical striking distance already, but it would be easier to envision that if they do add some more pitching.

Yeah, especially in a year where, you know, we've talked about the Yankees situation and the Rays situation. Those teams remain very, very good. And as I said, the Yankees are projected better on paper. But I think that there's a lot of upside and potential in the Yankees rotation as it's currently constituted. But they are going to need some young guys to perform quite well for that rotation to kind of hang together. It's very Garrett Cole dependent at the moment, even with the addition of Kluber and some of the other stuff they've done. So this seems like a good opportunity for the Blue Jays to sort of make their mark and strike out and say, you know, we're going to throw our weight around.

And yeah, as you said, I think we have their estimated payroll at 116 million. I think their luxury tax number is a touch higher than that, but they're still well, well below even the first threshold. So they have wiggle room and it is nice to see them throwing some of it around. And it's nice to see Springer get a deal that does, you know, it does seem a bit rich in terms of what we expected and maybe what the rest of the market would have bared, would have born, would have born? Born, I guess, yeah. You should leave all of this in, Dylan. It's like live editing. A glimpse into the mind.

Because Springer is not, I think, the player who comes most immediately to mind when we think about service time manipulation, but he had his service time job too. Yeah. And so, you know, when Dan ran the numbers, he kind of looked at what his contract, what Zips would have projected a six-year contract to look like for him on different ages. Just kind of asked me, what would it have been in 2021? on different ages just kind of asked me what would it have been in 2021 and you know if he had hit the market even last year he would have been in for what Zip saw as a contract a little bit above this in a in a neutral context and presumably if you know a team like Toronto that might have to pay a bit of a surplus had had to do so he could have made quite a bit more money so it's good when it ends up balancing out on the back end. We don't always

get to say that. So it's nice when it works out that way. It's like you still shouldn't do shenanigans on the front end, but it is nice when people are made somewhat whole on the back end because it is not a guarantee. Yeah, I was thinking about that too. He did well enough here that I don't think he has to spend too much time crying over spilt milk from the bag of milk that he is now trying to learn how to use. No, I think George is fine. But it's true that if he had hit the market in offseason earlier, he would have been 30 instead of 31.

He would have been coming off, I guess, his most successful full season. Of course, he was good in 2022. It would have not been the post-pandemic year, but he did well, I think, and the Blue Jays were out there and were a motivated bidder. And I was also thinking that if he had hit the market last year, he would have done so during the offseason of sign-stealing discontent. Yes, that's a very good point. I don't know how that would have affected him. And that's a very good point. I don't know exactly why that is, but he sort of seems to get a pass or sort of slip under the radar a little bit. And to be clear, like I'm sure that most fans, if their team had just signed Alex Bregman or Carlos Correa, they'd probably be pretty happy to.

Like it's easy to be angry at the Astros when they're the other, when they're the enemy, the adversary. But when you suddenly sign one who makes your team a bunch better, I think you're probably pretty quick to forgive. But I guess in Springer's case, maybe it's just because, I don't know, he seems to have a little less of a chip on his shoulder about it. Like, he's been a little less outspoken. they've had apologies that read as insincere to many people, or they said things that made it clear that they kind of were using this as motivation or like talking about the haters or whatever. And maybe I'm forgetting something, but I don't really recall Springer speaking out in that way. Maybe that's just his personality or his temperament, but he didn't really make himself as much of a target, I think, as those guys did.

But it is interesting because this is like the first test case. This is the first core member of the Astros sign stealing lineup who has been on the open market. And basically, he was courted and welcomed just as eagerly as A.J. Hinch or Alex Cora were. So there continues to not really be any consequences if that's something that you care about other than, I don't know, I guess, Jeff Luno, maybe. But for the most part, I'm not going to say all is forgiven, but it's kind of an afterthought, really. Yeah, I would imagine that it's a mix of things. He has not, I mean, I don't know George Springer, so I don't know how difficult or taxing it is for him to sort of hold back in moments like that. I would imagine that he was cogn it was calculating in an icky way, but I imagine that he was perhaps aware that the reaction of the rest of the baseball world to what happened was not a particularly favorable one, and the way that fans reacted was not particularly favorable,

and that he was going to have to find a new home in all likelihood at the end of of all this and so he probably you know kind of bore that in mind when he was approaching how he talked about yeah you know things publicly and i think being conscious of how you present yourself in public is you know we don't have to view that as calculating it's it's perfectly fine to be like i could i'm electing to not be obnoxious that's nice it'sing to not be obnoxious. That's nice. It's nice to not be obnoxious. We're so often obnoxious on accident, and we can be forgiven for that. But when you choose to be obnoxious on purpose, it's like,

choose a different thing, choose a different path. So I imagine that he was conscious of that. And he seems like a guy who is, you know, like a nice sort. So that seems kind of consistent with at least the image that he has presented publicly prior to all this. And I think it helps that he has had, you know, a number of very good seasons that preceded what was going on there, that he, you know, had a strong 2019 and his abbreviate 2020 was was very good and so i think that he seemed to be

a player who we just thought about differently within the context of the banging scheme and i think that perhaps we were making a mental adjustment that wasn't quite as severe when we were kind of applying some sort of discount factor to astro performances in the year of the banging scheme in the year of the begging scheme ben ben there's your book title actually i guess there are already multiple books about it on the way the market is flooded yeah i don't um i will leave that to other people um but but i do still enjoy saying banging scheme banging scheme it's so fun to say banging scheme so i think that um all of that taken together the tarnish just seemed to be less severe because he wasn't one of these guys who had you know the huge sort of breakout and the timing of the huge breakout and the timing of the

banging scheme weren't necessarily perfectly aligned for other guys on the team either but i think that we we tend to misremember these things and so i don't know it is funny though that it is so much more it is so much more present in our minds for someone like el tuve than it is for someone like springer because it's not like you know not every year that Altuve had was as good as the years prior to the banging scheme for Springer and he clearly didn't have the same pedigree but he had good seasons too so it's just it is an odd it is an odd bit of business yeah well no one was talking about buzzers when it came to Springer that's true. No buzzers, no circling wrinkles in uniforms to identify supposed wires, no discussions about tattoo timing with Springer. However, he was very much implicated in the bang-based analysis that Tony Adams did at ScienceDealingScandal.com.

In fact, he has Springer with the second most total bangs logged after Marwin Gonzalez in that 2017 season. So, yeah, you know, he was definitely at the plate when banging was taking place. But, yeah, as you mentioned, he has been at his best since that season. He has been even better. his best since that season. He has been even better. So not that I really buy that other Astros hitters fell off significantly because they were deprived of cheating. I think there's been a lot of suspect analysis about the impact of the banging scheme and some, I think, pretty rigorous analysis, at least some of which has shown that there probably wasn't really a net advantage, which isn't to say anything about the morality of it, just the effect of it.

And so when you look at Springer, and I think a lot of people pointed to the big decline in strikeout rate that he had going from 2016 to 2017, it went from like 24% to under 18%. And a lot of people said, oh, well, he knew what was coming. But there were real mechanical changes and approach changes that I think sort of supported that. And the fact that he has sustained it really backs that up. Like his strikeout rate in 2020 was his lowest yet, even as the league average rate continues to rise. And strikeout rate is something that stabilizes fairly quickly, even in a short season. So he's really backed it up over the past couple of years. He's shown that you don't need to know what's coming for him to hit well. So I think a lot of that analysis about sort of the Astros team-wide strikeout rates, it's

really kind of tough because the personnel changes. And yeah, they had a huge decline in strikeout rates. It's really kind of tough because the personnel changes and yeah, they had a huge decline in strikeout rate, but it was accompanied by a change in personnel and a lot of lower strikeout hitters. And then Springer seems to have remade himself in that way. And so it's pretty impressive that he now is able to hit as well as he does and have the power that he does while still making contact at a rate that very few power hitters do in today's game. So I think it's good for the Blue Jays to have him. It's sort of in line with how they built some previous contending teams. I saw Ken Rosenthal point out at The Athletic that when the Blue Jays got so good in the early 90s, a lot of that was acquiring stars from outside. You know, Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter and Devon White and Dave Winfield and David Cohen, all these guys who were brought in to supplement their core. And then the same thing in the middle of last decade where they had some good players who were there already, but then they added and, you know, Russell Martin and Josh Donaldson and Lewicki and David Price, et cetera. And so now finally they're doing that under this current Shapiro Atkins regime, which has taken a while, not for lack of trying this

winter, but they are finally doing it and perhaps they are not done yet. Yeah. I think that it is also nice and I don't want to give undue credit or to sort of give a pass for how icky some of the past rhetoric was, but it is nice to see it actually come to fruition, that the idea of payroll flexibility for its own sake isn't what's at play, but that it is actually being put in service of something. And so that is good. They spent money and they made their team better in a really demonstrable way. And they sound serious about continuing to do so. And it's going to be really nice to see

good, even really good veteran bats compliment the young core and hopefully some of their pitching you know their young pitching takes a step forward hopefully they continue to add but it is you know our list of teams that are trying and actually succeeding and trying because you have to actually sign guys to to have tried to try you gotta you can't just try to try. You got to try. You got to actually try. So now we get to add another team to that list. And in an off season where we are very worried about how long or short as the case may be, that list will end up being at the end of it. At the end of the off season, it's a nice change of pace. So good job, Blue Jays. And another reason why they may have been motivated to give him more than other teams that were bidding for his services, Dan Szymborski pointed out in a piece that when he

ran the numbers for the league as it stood prior to the Francisco Lindor trade, he looked at which teams' playoff probabilities stood to benefit the most from a five-win upgrade from whatever source. And the Mets were on the top of the list, which helps explain why they made the Lindor trade. But the Blue Jays were on top in the American League. So they were kind of in that bubble sort of situation where they really needed to add those wins. They're at that point in the win curve where those wins are more valuable to them than they are to the typical team. So it makes all the sense in the world for them to spend. And by the way, all four of the non-Pirates NL Central teams were between the Mets and the

Blue Jays on that list. And none of them is really doing anything. You'd think if three of them don't do anything, then the one that does, it would be even more beneficial. It's like almost they've all just agreed like okay if none of us does anything then we can all be contending teams without doing anything yeah you you you would imagine and i don't quite know where in the offseason this point comes but you would imagine that at some point someone in the central is going to look around and be like if we sign two guys we're going to win this division right all right two guys still time we had two guys who has signed in milwaukee this offseason ben oh i think you just got a question in your chat from i did brewers fan who was

lamenting the fact that basically no one basically no one not actually no one daniel robertson ah yes how could i forget they also they also claimed tim lopes off waivers from the mariners okay they signed luke mailey to a one-year deal and they have signed a bunch of guys and it's not even a bunch it's like five to minor league contracts but yeah they have done very little and i don't mean to pick on them because the behavior of their fellows is not significantly better, but very little. When Daniel Robertson is like, and Luke Maley, sorry guys, but that's not. Those are not the two players I have in mind.

I should clarify my statement. They need to be two who are more impactful than those two. Yeah, right. The sad thing is I think Daniel Robertson is actually the most expensive signing any NL Central team has made this winter, and he's on a $900,000 deal. I don't think the Cardinals or the Pirates have added anyone on a major league contract, and the Reds and Cubs barely have. So yeah, the NL Central looking bleak. All right. Well, I think you make a fine point bringing up the years of team control, that notorious statement. It was easy to poke at that then, but it depends why you're doing that. If you're doing that just because you want to have a low payroll for the sake of having a low payroll and saving your owner money, then that's not really something for fans to get excited about. fans to get excited about. But if you are planning to reinvest that money down the road where those years of team control turn into cost control players and free you up to sign some big free agents to supplement those homegrown players, all right then. And that's what they are doing here.

So they almost added another outfielder seemingly and a good friend of George Springer's and someone who is represented by the same agency and has been a teammate of his, Michael Brantley. And it was a rare reversal where all the reputable newsbreakers had Brantley going to the Blue Jays. I think he was even briefly a Blue Jay on the FanCraft's death charts because FanCraft is just all over it as soon as news breaks. And usually when you hear it from the usual suspects, the big news breakers, it happens. But this time, Brantley seemed to slip through Toronto's fingers and went back to Houston.

So I don't know what happened here, what wires were crossed. Maybe he heard about the milk at the last second and changed his mind. How many more bagged milk jokes can I make on this episode? We will find out. But Brantley goes back to Houston. So that was weird. And I'm glad for the sake of Jays fans that they had Springer signed in the bag. I will not make a milk bag joke there before this happened, because imagine if getting and then losing Brantley had happened before they had Springer on board already after all of the other close calls. So that was weird. But Brantley, not a Blue Jay, still an Astro. Still an Astro.

And is a quite good fit for the Astros. The Astros were going to find themselves in a position where they were a little thin. They were a little thin out there in the outfield. And arguably they might still be a little thin. They were a little thin out there in the outfield, and arguably they might still be a touch thin, but they had need there. They didn't want to lose both of those guys. Brantley is older than Springer. This deal is shorter.

There's all the reasons that he got a shorter deal for less money, but I think we've talked about this before. He's just from just a pure hitter perspective. I really enjoy watching Michael Brantley. Yeah, me too. He looks just so in control. He's just like totally calm and collected up there. Totally calm and collected.

And I don't know, the bat speed is nice. Anyway, I just, I enjoy him. I think he makes a good deal of sense for Houston's roster and what they kind of need two years is this. This is another deal that ben it's fine totally fine makes a ton of sense for both parties involved i do find jake caplan i have not read his piece yet but i did the great thing of looking at the the twitter summary and thinking that i understand part of his point so sorry jake but he pointed out on twitter that it does make it a

little bit odd that they didn't even extend a qualifying offer to him. Right. Because that's one year and $18.9 million. And then they ended up signing him for two years and $32 million, which that's actually identical to the terms of the first contract they gave Brantley. But it is weird. If they expected that they were going to give him something like that, then it would have made sense to offer the qualifying offer, which is redundant. But I wonder if that means that the market was more robust than they thought. We've been sort of surprised. We talked about this, how it seems like a lot of the contracts are coming in in a range where you would have expected them to be, even if there were not a pandemic and abbreviated season and all of the owners crying poor and all of that.

So maybe the Astros were also taken aback that they thought that someone like Brantley wouldn't come in this amount and then were somewhat surprised to see whom they had to outbid or what terms they had to extend. Or, you know, I don't know, maybe some other plans fell through or maybe they decided they wanted Brantley more than they initially did. It could be a number of things, but that was what came to my mind. Yeah, I would imagine that this suggests either that the market was different than they were anticipating or that they thought they were going to secure the services of someone else and then they ended up going this way. But regardless of exactly how it came together, I just think that it makes a good deal of sense sense it would have been kind of fun to see him in toronto if only because you know like

he's a really good hitter too and even though as we said there are a lot of qualified and talented players in the lineup up there you know just one more good hitter never hurts to have one more good hitter right and as you said i think that that likely would have resulted in some additional transactions on the back end, which are good for me as a person who helps run a baseball website. This will do just fine. I think the Astros seem much more in need of Brantley than the Blue Jays did. I mean, almost every team would be better with Brantley than without him because he's an excellent hitter. But especially post-Springer, outfield is a strength for Toronto. So it doesn't seem like the marginal

upgrade would be biggest at those positions. And then yes, there would have been a logjam, especially if Vlad Jr. doesn't stay in the best shape of his life, which we all hope he does, that he really makes a go of it at third base again, perhaps. But if at some point he is a first baseman, a DH, and that's permanent, then you start looking ahead because Springer in a couple of years, Brantley in his mid-30s, you'd be adding a lot of players who might have to go there at some point and they already have an excess of at least competent, productive outfielders. So not that they couldn't have afforded to sign him and also go get some pitching, but if they're going to do one or the other, it seems like they could make much more of an impact on their roster by concentrating on pitching or other positions. And the Astros kind of need Brantley, I think.

I mean, they're on the old side as a roster now, and Brantley I think I mean they're on the old side as a roster now and Brantley doesn't help with that and there were some possibly concerning signs about Brantley at the plate last year on the surface his stats looked about the same as ever but he did outperform his expected stats by a considerable margin he had a career low contact rate although not a bad one he really really struggled against four-seamers, which he had historically crushed. So those could be signs of slippage, but I'm not inclined to make too much of them considering his track record, the fact that it was a short season that for him was shortened further by a quad injury, and assuming there isn't any big drop-off there this season, they still have quite a core on offense with Bregman, Altuve, Correa, Brantley, Jordan Alvarez coming back, hopefully healthy, Kyle Tucker. They actually have with Brantley now, I think the most projected position player war of any team, just a hair ahead of the Yankees and the Dodgers. And then the Blue Jays, even without Brantley, are behind those

three. So still pretty good. And maybe Springer brings some veteran mentorship to their young guys. Perhaps that helps in some way too. But I think the Astros showed how dangerous their lineup could be last October. I'm kind of inclined to write off some of their struggles as just small sample or being the most hated team in the country or whatever, you know, more so than thinking that they needed to know what was coming to be good again. So I think they will still be pretty formidable in the short term. And, you know, they have their own pitching issues, I suppose, but I kind of have some faith of them to figure out their pitching staff one way or another and maybe get some guys back. So I think Brantley is a pretty important

piece for them. Yeah. I, I tend to agree with that. He is a nice anchor to an outfield that will, yeah, as an, as a roster older, but like, you know, they got some, some guys who haven't gotten, at least haven't gotten consistent playing time because of who was ahead of them on the depth chart although gosh like no kyle tucker's still 24 miles straw is just 26 so you know that is still pretty young yeah so he just had multiple knee surgery yeah that part is very bad but yeah this this definitely allows them to not have to put jordan out in the outfield. But I think that he's a good veteran presence and anchor and sort of reliable bit of production, which is actually the important thing, next to Tucker and Straw.

And yeah, that Houston team. Do we still, who do we think the best team in the AL West is, Ben? I guess pending further moves, I would probably go into it expecting the Astros to end up on top. Yeah, I guess I think that too. I guess I think that too with a full season, another full presumably healthy season from McCullers and yeah, Framber who pitched well and Urquidy remains impressive and the A's just lost Simeon presumably. And so I guess I think that that's true. One of these days we're going to come in here

and we're going to be like, it's a different team, but I don't know if preseason going into 2021 is that for me, but it's much closer than it used to be, which is nice. Yes. So both Springer and Brantley joined the list of free agents who got more money than they were projected for, I think, on the free agent rankings at Fangraphs and at MLB Trade Rumors. But one guy who didn't, I guess there are a couple more minor moves. One guy who did not join that list is Jose Quintana, who signed with the Angels for one year and $8 million. That's the same deal Jay Happ just got

from the Twins. And I think Quintana had been projected for a little bit more than that. And this seems like sort of a steal to me. Maybe steal is strong, but it seems like a bit of a bargain. Yeah, bargain is probably better because Quintana had never been on the injured list until this past season. And he had thumb surgery and lat inflammation. And given that he hurt his thumb washing dishes, probably not repeatable, I would hope. Just use the dishwasher or something. And pretty much every pitcher had lat inflammation at some point in 2020. I'm not going to hold that against him too much.

And the Angels need durability in their rotation as much as any team. That's been their biggest problem over the past several seasons. And Quintana, at least based on his longer-term track record, should give them that. And I know his profile has fallen and his stint with the Cubs was not nearly as successful as his stint with the White Sox. And he is known to Cubs fans in part for costing them Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease, which is not Quintana's fault, but he didn't deliver exactly what he was hoped to deliver. But he wasn't bad. Like he was still a league average arm who until 2020 was pretty durable. And for that, for a guy who is just about to turn 32 on a one-year deal, $8 million

seems like a pretty wise investment. And the Angels are one of these teams we talked about yesterday. It seems like they're a bunch of teams that are planning to have a six-man rotation, and the Angels are one of them. And that seems optimistic, giving their troubles, keeping pitchers healthy. Having enough pitchers to fill out a regular rotation has been an issue for them. But I guess that's part of why they're doing this, because maybe part of the motivation is they hope to have Shohei Otani pitching and they would have to manage his workload. So you have a six-man rotation. But Quintana, I think, makes that more viable.

It makes it a little easier to imagine that they could be a threat in that division. It's just, it is maddening at this point that it is so hard. We've joked about put a 500 team around Mike Trout and you'll go to the postseason. That's true, but the Angels have so much more than that on the position player side at this point. For them to not be able to put together even just a league average, you just need a league average. That's all you need. mean you need you probably need more than that but like you just need you need innings competently pitched and it has been such a struggle it has been such a wild weird struggle and so i i think

that this is a good move i agree with you that you know i don't think that he is a good move. I agree with you that, you know, I don't think that he is necessarily going to regain form, but this seems like a perfectly good deal. Like we've talked about before, it is quite hard to have bad one-year contracts. It's just really hard to goof that up too badly. But I will admit that I kind of wish that there were options that we thought they were going to pursue that are slightly more sure than this yes which is hard because it's pitching so it's never quite sure because they always get hurt they just they just get hurt all the time but i wish that there were kind of a more sure

option that they had had gotten and it's tricky because they're not really in a position from a prospect perspective to necessarily trade for one of those guys but i just like you know like carlos carrasco would make such a difference on this stupid team yeah yeah and they sort of struck out in that respect last offseason because they were trying to get garrett cole they were trying to get other top of the rotation types and they ended up settling for Anthony Rendon, which was a nice consolation prize. If you can't get an ace, get the best position player available,

runs or runs. But yes, they still are in need of that position, that player they did not get last winter, and maybe they still will. I guess they've been linked to Bauer at various points who hasn't. So, you know, maybe there's that or there are other options out there, but yes, you're right. That has been the big missing link for them. And we all want to see Mike Trout in October one way or another. Yeah, please. No. i was just thinking like in recent weeks we've talked about

almost an entire rotations worth of cubs pitchers who have departed the team right yeah you darvish tyler chatwood john lester now quintana these are all cubs starters in 2020 and in recent seasons they've all just left and gone to other teams and now i was looking at what's left in the aftermath and the cubs currently have the worst projected starting rotation according to fangraphs depth charts and when you look at even the top of that rotation yeah it's like hendrix davies alec mills and you know hendrix is good. Davies has been good lately. But what a weird top of the rotation in 2021. Deeply strange. it's still an anomaly and then mills sits around 90 and those are like your top guys and and you know they're non-top guys actually throw harder than the top guys do but are maybe still not as

reliable but it's just like hendrix and davies in the same rotation is going to be like the spider man pointing at each other meme right that those guys are like the closest comps for each other and now they're in the same rotation, which maybe will be beneficial. Maybe they will learn from each other, but it's going to be confusing because I feel like I already get them mixed up in my mind. And now they're going to be pitching like back to back in the rotation probably. And I don't know if there's any sort of like, you know, sometimes you hear about like maybe there's a benefit to having pitchers who have different approaches pitching back to back so that you have like a lefty breaking up a bunch of righties or, you know, guys with different sorts of stuff so that you're giving hitters different looks. And I tend to think that's overrated, at least when you're talking about starters.

You know, maybe there's something to it with relievers when it's the same game. But I think Russell Carlton has written about the handedness aspect of that, and it didn't seem like there's a ton to it. And so I don't think it's necessarily the case that Davies would be a lot less effective pitching right after Hendricks or something. It's just strange, I think, that these are the aces in this day and age and that there's not much certainty beyond that. It kind of makes me wish I had taken Shelby Miller in the minor league free agent draft because the Cubs just signed him and maybe there's an opportunity there. This team won the division last year, Ben. I know, I know. And they're very much capable of doing that again if they would do anything like

maybe they're still capable of it but they would be much more capable of if they would make any effort at all and i was just reading like the biggest free agent position player they've signed over the past three winters is daniel descalzo he's like the only guy they've given a multi-year deal, the only position player, I think in the past few years. And like going back to Jason Hayward, it's like, you know, since Hayward, it's like Daniel Descalso who did not get a big deal. They just have not spent in that way. And there are plenty of places where they could improve. spent in that way and there are plenty of places where they could improve yeah it's just it has to be so frustrating i got a question related to to sort of cubs fandom from someone in my chat today and i just want to remind everyone not that you need permission from me but you can take a year

off you can take a couple years off if it doesn't grab you you don't have to be excited about it i i think that there will be uh at least aspects of that broadcast that are fun and exciting this year and so that part is good but like you know you can take a year off it's okay the team will be there when you get back they won't know you were gone right no one will know and you only get to live for so long so if it doesn't make you happy you can you, you know, you can do something else. You can read books or plant lettuce or hang out with your family or whatever moves you that's nice and legal. So like just, you know, do that stuff and take a year off and then check back in. And some of the guys will be the same, but a lot of them will be different.

And then you'll spend time going, oh, guy and that'll be fun that'll transition you back into caring about the team and that'll that'll be great so it's okay to take time off from from fandom if it's not if it's not grabbing you anymore it doesn't make you a bad person or any less of a fan it just means you're busy just go be busy it's fine to. Yeah, I think there were probably more people who did that in 2020 than in a typical year, just because of everything that was going on and how weird baseball was. But I think there are also some people who have just like renounced their affiliation to a certain team, maybe even switch teams. And we've actually been planning and hoping to talk to one of those people. So if you are one of those people, let us know, likeimately, you have switched affiliations after being a lifelong fan of a certain team because that's something that sparks strong emotions in people. It's kind of this controversial thing because there's this belief that if you're a fan, it's just do or die, good times or bad times. You have to follow that team.

It's, you know, it's like blood. It's like you can't get rid of it. And there's something to that. And, you know, we can save this for maybe a full discussion on some other episode. But I understand the sentiment because without the bad times, the good times don't mean much. And so if you're only rooting for a team when it's winning, there's something I think to suffering through some down years, but it does depend at least a little bit on how the down years came about. And if it is just that the team is not trying, it's one thing if the team is trying and it's not working out, or if the team just had an extended run of success and maybe those guys got old and they weren't able to refresh their roster. And, you know, there's an ebb and flow to these things. But if you're a team like the Cubs or other teams because of their owners' actions or politics or whatever.

And that's perhaps valid too, although kind of dangerous because if you're hitching your wagon to any MLB owner or team, there's a decent chance that you're going to get disappointed at some point by that new team. So there's that to consider. But I am interested in it because, yeah, you don't want by that new team. So there's that to consider. But I am interested in it because, yeah, you don't want to abandon your team. Cubs fans know better than anyone that there are a lot of lean times and maybe that makes the boom times even better and sweeter. So you want to stick around for that. But there is kind of a contract between fans and teams that, hey, if we're going to really care about this thing, then you have to make it worth our while.

You have to reward our faith by at least making a good faith effort here. And you can argue that the Cubs have ceased to do that. Yeah, I think that you can. And I agree. I mean, look, the team that I rooted for for most of my life was the Seattle Mariners. like look the team that i rooted for for most of my life was the seattle mariners and if you can't deal with the bad times then like you're what are you doing but right but i do think it's fine to take breaks and yeah i think that more should be made of the the kind of contract that you have and then you're a mariners fan and and jerry depoto is like, we're not in a rush. And I'm like, well, I'm getting older.

Yeah. I'm getting older. So I'm in a rush, Jerry, because I'm getting older. And I don't know if I'll feel anything when the Mariners make the postseason for the next time. But I think that, excuse my language, Ben, I think they should fuck around and see. Let's make Meg feel things challenge 2021.

Yeah. around and see let's make make feel things challenge 2021 yeah and often like it's it's hard like to just decide i'm not gonna root for this team anymore because you've been rooting for this team since you were like in the cradle like you were raised to root for this team it's tied up with your family and your community and your friends and everyone else roots for this team and so if you turn your back on that you're turning your back on your community and your friends and everyone else roots for this team. And so if you turn your back on that, you're turning your back on your community in a way and your social network. And so I understand why there'd be peer pressure there that would discourage you from doing that.

Or maybe it's just fun to follow the team because everyone around you cares about that team. So that would be tough too. Like it's not always a conscious decision where you sit down and say, I'm going to grow up to be a fan of this team. It's just something you are instructed in from birth almost. And it's hard to let that go. But sometimes there are times when we have to let go of things and make our own choices

and fandom, not always one of those areas. It's okay sometimes for that to just be a tribal thing that's just for fun but if it's not bringing you joy then you may have to re-examine that yeah you don't have to throw it away just put it in a drawer you have all kinds of stuff in a drawer in your house put it in your junk drawer and then one day you'll open it up and you'll be like oh i need batteries and then you'll be like oh my fandom i guess I'll plug that in and see if it still has juice. I'm just going to extend the batteries weren't part of the fandom, but then they became part of the fandom.

I don't know that it's a great metaphor, but throw it in a drawer and then see what it's like in a couple of years. And you'll be like, ah, I forgot I had this. Yeah. All right. So maybe I have one email here we could end on in a very simplistic stat blast. I guess I can offer here. So this is a question from a listener who works for an MLB organization and so asked

to remain anonymous. He says, my question is about comparing and contrasting your lives working in and outside of baseball. I've worked for an MLB team for two years. Like many of us who work in and around baseball, I had a prior career working in the sports industry, doing sales analysis for a retail company as my first job out of college. The organization I now work for is awesome. My boss has been awesome. An awesome employer definitely has a different meaning after 2020.

Still, I wonder what life is like. travel, the work hours sometimes the pay cut is it all worth it to work in something you love have you experienced these thoughts what do you think, do you have any insights to prevent this grass is always greener mentality I'm not expecting you to be my therapist just wondering if anyone else

has made these comparisons so this is kind of along the lines of what we were just talking about with fandom this is kind of along the lines of what we were just talking about with fandom. This is professional life now. So if your dream is to work in baseball, work for a baseball team, and then you get there and you find that maybe you're thinking of doing other things or maybe it's not all it's cracked up to be in certain ways. So I don't know if you've experienced this when it comes to baseball, but I know you've kind of switched careers, you know, multiple times at this point and you've found something that you really like doing. So do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah, I guess like the first thing I'll say is that

there is a, you know, there's like a baseline. You got to make a living, right? You have to make enough money to be safe and hopefully comfortable and not grasping all the time. And so I think that it is very acceptable to prioritize being like materially solvent. But I'll tell a little story to our listeners, which is that, you know, one of my first careers out of college was working in finance and I worked all the time and I was, in my opinion, overcompensated for my value relative to society. And, you know, the degree of overcompensation was offset somewhat by the fact that I had to live in New York, which remains an absurdly expensive place, but. Yes, I can testify to that. Yeah, but I was definitely paid more than I was producing in terms of making the world a better or more interesting place.

By the end of my tenure there, I was stressed out and bored, which is a terrible combination of things to be. To be stressed out and bored is like uniquely terrible in terms of a work experience because you don't want to do any of the things that you have to do to check them off your list and thus be less stressed. But you still have to do them anyway. So it's just this constant negotiation between things you hate. You know, I also kind of came to the realization that working in that field was not consistent with my own personal values. And so it was time to make a change. And then I went and was a grad student and was paid far, far less than my value to society. Although I will say having a little bit of cushion from

the finance life definitely softens the blow somewhat. And so all of that to say, I was much happier being a grad student than I was working in finance. And so I of that to say, I was much happier being a grad student than I was working in finance. And so I do think that there is a bar you have to clear so that hopefully you are not just consumed with worry about money all the time, which is its own really debilitating kind of stress. But once you have cleared that bar, I do think prioritizing work, if you are lucky enough to be able to, that you really like and that motivates you and you find engaging and that hopefully you get to do with people you like is worth a lot. And it makes up, it doesn't make up all of the gap.

And you do sometimes end up, as I have in my 30s, in a position where the people you know who, say, stayed in finance are taking very different vacations than you are. But you get to do a thing that you really like and care about. And we, unfortunately, societally do not set people up to do that as often as we should. And we tend to mush people's identities together with their work in a way that I think is not super productive. And I am probably the last person who should talk about that because I am definitely guilty of it. So there's a lot to life beyond your work. And I don't mean to suggest that that has to be sort of an all-consuming force or that it has to be the

most important thing, but it being something that you like and care about and that is consistent with your values as a person, if you're able to thread that needle, I'd encourage you to not walk away from it because even if you are paid in a very generous way, if you're stressed and bored and it's not consistent with your values, you're going to want to leave eventually. So that's my experience anyhow. I don't know that it's necessarily a universal one, but that was sort of the path that I ended up taking, at least from the finance part to the grad school part. And then there was the detour into nonprofit, which is a much longer conversation. And then I got an email from David Appelman, and here we are. And have you had any second thoughts about this portion of your career, or have you felt like you're home?

I was very afraid for a lot of last year that I would not be able to get to do it anymore. Yes, right. But that's a different kind of consternation than not liking your job. You know, like Ben, I'm sure that you have stories that you could tell, like, you know, it's a job. And so it has days that are irritating and you have days where you'd rather be doing something else and you have days where you're tired

and you don't have that feeling of like, wow, I get to do this every day. But I really quite like my job, even with the stresses that come with it because it is one and I feel very fortunate to be able to say that so yeah I don't yeah I don't have any regrets yeah the I mean the first thing that you do doesn't always end up being the last thing that you do even if it's the thing that you thought you wanted to do. And I only really ever aspired to do one of two things, be a writer, not necessarily a writer about baseball, just a writer, or work for a baseball team, be a general manager,

which I guess is the dream of most people in front offices, whether they say so or not. And I was kind of on the track to try to do one of those things. After college, I got some internships. I got a Yankees baseball operations internship. I've talked about that before. And that was basically like dream job or dream job adjacent. I was on that path, I felt like. And I was excited to be there.

And I got a lot out of that job. And I learned some things. And I got a lot out of that job and I learned some things and I enjoyed a lot of aspects of it. But I think it is maybe a little less glamorous for most people once you're in the door. There's the initial thrill of, oh, I'm working for a team. I'm wearing this badge that will get me into the ballpark at all hours and all months. And especially if you're working for the team you grew up rooting for in your home city, which you don't necessarily want to let on when you're at the office. You don't want to be the fanboy, right? But you have some amount of that

inside. And so I am glad that I got to do that. And I did it for a while. And my internship came to an end. And if they had kept me on, if they had said, here's a full-time job, I probably would have taken it. And who knows? Maybe I'd still be there. But it wasn't everything that I thought it would be, I guess. While I was still there, I missed writing because I had done a lot of that, not just in school, but I had already started to do stuff for Baseball Prospectus and I'd

really enjoyed that. And when you work for a baseball team, you just can't really do anything public facing. And I felt the absence of that. And a lot of the work that you do for a baseball team, you know, it's grunt work. It's pretty boring. Like, yes, it's cool that it do for a baseball team, you know, it's grunt work. It's pretty boring. Like, yes, it's cool that it's for a baseball team and you can tell yourself that in some tiny, you know, unmeasurable way, maybe you are contributing to the success of that team. But a lot of it is tedious and monotonous, at least when you're doing an entry level job,

just as it is in almost any industry. So yeah, you get to be in the same office where the GM is and you get to walk through the ballpark to get to your cubicle or whatever. But once you're in your cubicle, it looks a lot like a lot of other cubicles and not all of the work is thrilling. And could I have continued on that track? Perhaps, you know, because I've done what a lot of people do in their 20s when they want to work in baseball, which is just go from internship to internship and hope to catch on eventually and move all over the country and do jobs in the minor leagues and work long hours

for low pay. Yes. And I guess I didn't want it quite enough to do that because I really wanted to try writing and doing more of a media job. And there really just hasn't been a second that I have had second thoughts about that. Who knows what would have happened if I had somehow stuck it out? Would I have managed to get some accomplished baseball career at some point? to get some accomplished baseball career at some point, perhaps. But part of the reason why I went away from that was that I didn't really think my skills stood out. You know, it wasn't like I was a former player who had that side of things in his past. I wasn't like, you know, I was a stat head maybe by English major standards or by baseball

writer standards, but not by baseball front office standards. So it wasn't like I was going to compete sabermetrically speaking with the math and computer science masters people who were working right next to me. So nothing really stood out, I guess, about my skill set that would be really valuable to a baseball team. And maybe today it would a little bit more because teams have hired more people with that background kind of as communicators. A lot of the people who've been poached from fan graphs were people who, when they were hired at least, didn't have those really specialized skills, but had a history of making these things comprehensible to people and coming up with insights. You don't necessarily have to know every programming language to help a team. But at that point, it didn't seem like there was a clear route for me to take. And I sort of fell into doing things that gave me a lot of pleasure. And just like looking back on it, I'd be hard pressed to come up with a baseball career that I could have had that would have been more rewarding than getting to do this podcast or

write books or, you know, get to do all the other things that I've gotten to do. And I'm glad I got a taste of it, if only to get it out of my system. And I made some friends and made some memories. I happened to be with the Yankees when they won the World Series in 2009. So I got to ride in a duck boat in the ticker tape parade or go down to the clubhouse and celebrate after the last out. And those are things that some people who've worked in baseball for many years haven't gotten to do. So if anything, that made it a bit easier for me to transition to something else. I think I've definitely pivoted as time has gone on. Initially, I was just all baseball all the time. Gradually, I've branched out from that more and more to the point that baseball is less than half of the writing that I do now. And I'd like to continue to experiment there and maybe the types of writing or the things that I write about have changed.

But I think it's perfectly fine to adjust. And if you find that the reality is not quite what you dreamed it would be, it's okay to switch. You don't have to be stuck in something because it's what you thought you wanted to do. That said, times might be tough here and there. And yeah, you might have to grind through some less rewarding parts of your career to get to the good stuff so i'm not saying just quit if it's not immediately a thrill ride but i am saying that if you've given it some time and you find that you keep looking at other things well don't be afraid to indulge those things it's pretty common for people to discover that hey they didn't actually know how they wanted to spend their life when they were

still in college yeah and it's also totally acceptable to be like this is the job i work from nine to five and here's the stuff i do outside of work right like that's that's totally fine too. It's fine for you to like work to live and get to go do stuff and, you know, support a life that is meaningful to you away from work. And that's fine too. So if what you find is that, you know, this, you know, selling car parts, I don't know, like, I don't want to say that's not rewarding. I'm sure that is rewarding to some people. But if being the regional junior manager for paper sales is the thing that lets you have a home and take care of your family and take care of yourself and be in your community, that's cool too. There are a lot of ways to be in the world. And I think that the thing is that having all the money is not going to make you happy. Having not enough money will make you miserable too. And you only have,

you know, you got to fill your time during the workday and hopefully it's doing something that you like. And hopefully if it's not, it's doing something that's tolerable. And yeah, like you said, times are tough out there. So I think that the standard for like what you prioritize is probably pretty different right now than it would be under ideal circumstances. But it's okay to really like what you do and make a little less. It's okay to not really care about what you do and make what you need to, you know, just. Yeah. And there's a bit of a brain drain going on in a lot of front offices right now. R.J. Anderson wrote about this back in October for CBS Sports.

And that's partly because teams are downsizing and laying people off. But it's also because, yeah, people are kind of casting their eyes elsewhere. And maybe that's for financial reasons or maybe it's not. Maybe they found that, you know, they're working for a front office that has like a dozen office that has a dozen analysts and you're part of this big group and maybe you can't even interested in baseball because of this podcast and went in that direction. And that's great if we can help someone come to that. But this listener asked if anyone else had brought up these thoughts that he's having. And I wanted to just read an excerpt from an email that we got from a listener named Max just earlier this month. And he had a really interesting experience along these lines. So he's someone who decided that he was interested in working in baseball in college, and he got a minor league player development internship for the Delmarva Shorebirds, part of the Orioles organization. And I'll just read from his email here. He says, what a summer, Maryland crab bakes, parking lot crashes, a visit to Sabre seminar

to hear Ben and Sam live, and a multitude of attempts to persuade Ryan Mountcastle to visit the video room later. I returned to UMass Amherst to wrap up my degree. Senior year brought the winter meetings and an agreement that I would return to the Orioles as a minor league player development intern with the Norfolk Tide upon completion of my degree. Graduating with my degree in December, I had a few months to pass before flying down to Sarasota for spring training. Returning home, winter work was scarce. A few lobster boats were still running, but I wasn't especially keen on the idea of the ocean in January. So I returned to the same K-8 classrooms where I grew up

and substituted until it was time to head down south. He says earlier that a teacher had told him that he thought he might be a good teacher someday if he wanted to pursue that. He continues, I embraced my time in the classroom but was fully committed to my work with the Orioles. Norfolk brought new experiences, travel, minor league rehab stints, frequent visits from Duquette and other brass, sitting between Giolito and Moncada as I charted a game from behind Charlotte's home plate,

and a few shiny data-tracking toys. The dream, one might say. However, I found myself pushing 90-hour work weeks in a dark clubhouse with few opportunities to engage with the outside world. When I did find daylight, it was frequently spent troubleshooting wet cameras on my way to purchase emergency ink or walking between hotels and ballparks. Enjoyable moments became fewer and far between. Guilt crept in as I was noticing an increasing lack of appreciation from what you're told is every baseball fan's childhood dream. There was no fulfillment. I reached my tipping point during the waning hours of an extra inning fireworks getaway day. We departed Norfolk around 10 p.m., arriving in Gwinnett the next morning at 8 a.m., two buses straight through the night.

Having separated from my partner of five years earlier in the season, the overnight slog reaffirmed that my work in baseball was prohibiting me from taking care of my years earlier in the season, the overnight slog reaffirmed that my work in baseball was prohibiting me from taking care of my own well-being. In search of a hard reset, I purchased an October flight to Anchorage on my phone while logging the night's game on Bats software. Using www.oof.com, I had found Vernon Stockwell of Stockwell Farms in Palmer, an hour north of Anchorage. He was in need of a farmhand for a few months to wrap up the season And that was it. He says, a professional game since the Anchorage flight.

Sometimes I wonder what Astadio's stance looks like or how Mountcastle has adjusted to life in the outfield, but never to the point of seeking out a highlight. In a way, your voices are my highlights. Presently, my work as a K-8 special educator is fulfilling. I have a dwindling supply of Delmarva and Norfolk home run baseballs that will be passed down to future ballplayers as rewards. My BP collection lines

my shelves for students to flip through. So he just made a decision that it wasn't what he wanted it to be. And that is a bold move. And I admire that to just remake your life on the fly like that. Just decide this is what I thought I was going to do. But now I'm just going to take a flight to Anchorage and work on a farm. That's quite a pivot that I don't think I would have the courage really to do that. But I applaud Max for just deciding that he needed to do something different to take care of himself. And he's now found something that he really likes doing that he feels like he's helping people so i imagine he is not the only one with that sort of story no no i'm sure not and it takes a great deal of courage to be willing to do that and you have to be in the right spot in your life

to even be able to contemplate a move like that and so if you're in that spot and you hear that voice i think it's it's good to act on and yeah gosh that's quite a that's quite a departure i mean i moved to wisconsin yeah and it is cold there but i i didn't have to like depend on the last blockbuster in the united states to get movies either so a little bit different in that respect yeah all right so if anyone else says stories like this that they want to share happy to see them but yeah you you got to figure out your own way and uh be open to new possibilities yes indeed all right so i will close with a stat blast They'll take a dataset sorted by something like ERA- or OBS+. And then they'll tease out some interesting tidbit, discuss it at length, and analyze it for us in amazing ways.

Here's to DASTAblast! This is a question from Kyle Lobner, Patreon supporter. He says, I come to you today with a stat blast idea. Today is the anniversary of Eddie Matthews being inducted into the Hall of Fame. It was earlier this week. Matthews was the only player to play for the Braves in Boston, Milwaukee, and Atlanta. But until this morning, I had forgotten he played in three World Series, two with the Braves in 1957 and 1958, and one with the Tigers in his final season in 1968. Matthews' last hit in the 1958 World Series came in Game 5 on October 6th. Then he didn't get another until Game 4 of the 1968 series

10 years later on October 6th. Matthews probably isn't the record, but which player has the longest gap between World Series hits? So this is an interesting one, and Blue Jays fans will be hoping that George Springer will not be at the top of the list, that he'll get another World Series hit sometime soon. But I wanted to get an answer here,

and so I consulted our frequent StatBlast assistant, Adam Ott, listener and aspiring baseball operations employee himself, which we wish him the best with. And actually, I'll just let everyone know, I tweeted this from the Effectively Wild account, but Adam now has a website. It's called Sabermetrics, with the er being R, the software. And he has put some of the apps that he has built,

the baseball projects he has worked on, and some blog posts where he explains how he has come to the answers that he has supplied to us for some StatBlast. So that's pretty cool. I will link to it on the show page for anyone who wants to check it out. So Adam did a little retro sheet querying and he came up with the answer for me here. As Kyle assumed, it is not, in fact, Eddie Matthews with the longest gap. In fact, Eddie Matthews is in a 10-way tie for 17th longest gap. So there have been some pretty long layoffs between World Series hits.

So the longest one is Tony Gwynn. Tony Gwynn got a hit in the 1984 World Series on October 13th of 84 and then got his next World Series hit on October 17th, 1998. That is 14 seasons, 5,117 days. So yeah, that's a long time to go, but he did that. He is one of three players who have had 14 year breaks between their World Series other two are Doc Kramer, 1931 to 1945, and Rabbit Moranville, 1914 to 1928. Then there are four guys with 12-year gaps, Eddie Murray, 83 to 95, Bill Buckner, 74 to 86, Sherm Lohler, 47 to 59, and

Joe Sewell, 1920 to 1932. Then I'll just read out the guys with 11 years, Dan Dyson, Dwight Evans, Willie Mays, Paul Molitor, Roberto Clemente, Dave Winfield, Del Rice, Freddie Lindstrom, and Red Shane Dienst. So I'll put the full list online as I usually do and link it from the show page. But you know a lot of those names, I'm sure. There are a lot of great players and Hall of Famers on that list, as you would expect, because to be good enough to be on World Series teams separated by a decade or more, you have to be a pretty good player. Because if you're on a World Series team, you're probably still pretty good. And if you're playing in the World Series and getting a hit in a World Series, you're probably still pretty good. And if you're playing in the World Series and getting a hit in a World Series,

you're probably still pretty good. And so to have been good enough that you could go more than 10 years and still be good enough to be a player who's getting opportunities to get a hit in a World Series, you got to have a pretty good and long career. So not a surprise that there are a lot of legends on that list. How long of a gap do surprise that there are a lot of legends on that list how long of a gap do

you think you as a player would have to have between world series opportunities before you would correct a manager who included you as an example of the team having post-season experience oh huh so you think it uh it wears off if it's been more than a decade yeah i think i barely remember what that was like. I think that the muscle would atrophy that you would. First of all, I imagine that every player gets nervous before the World Series, regardless of how many times they've been there, because it's the World Series. So of course you do.

It's a big deal. But I do imagine that, you know, you get habituated to it a little bit. And so if there's a 10-year gap, you'd probably look around and be like, man, some of the guys I played against last time aren't in the league anymore. Like this is different baseball now. I don't know how long it would be,

but I think that 10 years at that point, you're like, Skip, I got bad news for you. I'm real nervous. Yeah. Some of these players may have been in the playoffs between those two World Series hits, of course. So you might have gotten some other postseason experience. Fair enough. flies but I think Russell Carlton has looked into this and has found that there doesn't really seem to be any benefit when it comes to actual performance but but yeah it probably at least feels nice to have been there before especially on the biggest stage the World Series stage where maybe you'd be nervous regardless but yeah like if it's 1998 are you thinking I did this in 1984, 5,117 days ago, so I'm used to it.

Probably not. Yeah, man. Jeez, that would be like teams would be wearing different uniforms probably. You would have had a different president. You'd be like, oh, this is a totally different person perhaps several times. Yeah, it would be different in many ways. Yeah, there's probably technology in many ways yeah yeah there's probably technology that is not that wasn't in existence the last time i bet you could have a gap where you were like before when i was in the world series we didn't have the internet and now we do

right yeah yeah tony quinn he was probably lugging his vcr around looking at tape in 1984. Well, maybe he still was in 1998. Maybe that's not the best example. But you can imagine being a player who started looking at a VCR or something. And at the end, you're looking at clips on a computer prepared for you. Nice and neat. Yeah, you get to skip DVD entirely. You're like, we're not messing around with discs. Right, yeah. I guess Tony probably would have had dvds in 98 if you wanted them but uh yeah all right

well ask and answered thanks to adam as always and i guess we will end there that'll do it for today thanks as always for listening you can support the podcast 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 michael mcclellan ryan mclachlan patrick morris eric rick straw and kevin whittaker thanks to all of you you can join our facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast

platforms. Keep your questions and comments for me and Meg coming via email at podcast.fangraphs.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. Perhaps we will get to more messages next time. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing assistance. And we will be back with one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. My friend George Hey fool What's the word I hear you talking about My friend George

Hey fool What's the word I hear you talking about My friend George