Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1780: Thank You for Your Service

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about which teams have the most unfinished roster construction to complete post-lockout and the league’s and union’s dueling playoff format proposals, then answer listener emails about what Wander Franco would make as a free agent today, a plan to combat tanking, and the proper pluralization of “hit by pitch,” […]

🎵 Take me back to my mountain top Where hope is what I got Take me back to my mountain top Hello and welcome to episode 1780 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello Meg. Hello. I was thinking about what various baseball personnel

will be doing during the lockout. We will be making podcasts of course and you will still be publishing posts about what? I don't know. I'm sure you're trying to figure that out. You have plenty of experience trying to figure out what to publish on a baseball website when there's no baseball going on from last year. In a way, that suspended portion of the season when things stopped after spring training and before the season started last year was kind of a dry run for this. I mean, hopefully it'll be under somewhat better circumstances depending on how various variants proceed, but that seemed like kind of a trial for this like a lot of players who now are not able to rehab or train with their teams not that all of them would be over the offseason anyway but those who were training remotely last year and maybe developed some sort of home gym or

some personal fitness plan that they could do on their own. Maybe they are better prepared for this now. And probably baseball media members are better prepared for this. They have their evergreen feature ideas squirreled away, hopefully to publish now. But players will be wondering where they're going to play, of course, if they are not signed somewhere. And front office people who fortunately from the sound of it are not being furloughed or anything for now. I wonder what they will do and how that will differ from their normal off-season workload. Like when Jeff Sullivan has been on the podcast talking about what he did last year when there was a pandemic and no baseball, it sounds like not a whole heck of a lot. Like he was taking a lot of long walks around Portland from the sound of it. And there's probably going to be some of that going on now.

But you have to lay the groundwork. You have to prepare for the presumed sprint to spring training and opening day. I mean, if the lockout is resolved in February, let's say, and pitchers and catchers are reporting right away, then there's not going to be a whole lot of time to figure out what you want to do. So you have to have your plans in place. And so I wonder if we will still get rumor reporting and leaks about potential transactions, even though there's a transaction freeze and teams are not allowed to talk to players. And as I understand it, are not even allowed to talk to agents. And maybe some teams and agents will figure out a way to circumvent that it wouldn't

shock me baseball teams don't always play by the rules when it comes to acquiring players for their teams but i'm sure that teams can talk to each other right so trades could perhaps be worked out and agreed to provisionally and not officially so i wonder if there will be a big backlog of deals that are done in principle and then all of a sudden will be announced in the days after the transaction unfreezes or thaws. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I don't know. I think for us, I'm sure that we will start to feel some pressure to have new things to say as this drags on but it's not like december is normally marked by a ton more transaction activity than what we saw it tends to happen later in the month right we see some of it taking place at winter meetings and some of the big free agents

will sign then but that isn't always true you know what was it 2019 when we had a bunch of guys sign in almost march yeah so i think for writers like in some respects it'll be different but it'll also be kind of a normal off season i mean i should say it'll be a kind of normal off season for us because we're not precluded from like writing about 40 man guys yeah so our editorial challenge is a little bit easier than say the folks over on the dot-com side but so there's that yeah i would imagine that for for front office folks there will be a lot of like you know coming up with trade ideas structuring deals that you might offer to free agents i think some of it will be determined by how far along in the process with guys they eventually end up signing they were prior to the lockout, right? So there was

a lot of talk that teams were particularly like Seattle were far along with Story and that there were a couple of teams that were in on Bryant. And depending on, and I don't say this with inside knowledge, but depending on how far along in those conversations they were, I imagine that their chores over this lockout will involve either being ready to go right away when the lockout lifts, hopefully, and we get a CBA done so that they can strike pretty immediately and get their rosters figured out and you know for trade stuff i imagine we will hear a lot of leaks of like have agreed in principle on which is gonna be really gonna be really a weird thing to experience in the midst of a lockout right because it is every time it happens it will just be another acknowledgement that like you need the players for there to be baseball yeah so that

will that will be odd but i think that depending on what you do in a front office you spend a lot of this time sort of preparing for next year and thinking about ways that you can help you know help the the guys on your roster as as it stands improve and progress and maybe course correct if something has gone wrong for them in the prior season. And, you know, I think that for, for folks who deal with player development on the minor league side, that will continue a pace. You know, they won't be able to, as you said, for the 40 man guys, they're not going to be able to actually put into practice any of that work, but I imagine that they will want to be ready so that once we're sort of back to normal

operations and the work stoppage has stopped, that they can really hit the ground running and make up for whatever time they have lost after the owner's decision to institute the lockout. So I imagine that. But yes, I was happy to hear that at this point, there does not seem to be an expectation of furloughs. But we will see, I suppose. You know, it would be kind of funny, although it would be a painfully funny reminder if we looked around in a couple of months and saw front office furloughs and then were like, you know what, these guys really need is a union. Right, yeah.

Yeah, and of course the most important off-season business of signing minor league free agents that can continue and yeah we're not getting out of the draft yeah no that's uh probably coming up sometime soon i guess we have to start prepping one of these days but i don't know if you can sign minor league free agents to major league contracts during this time but yeah you can go get most of those guys if you want i wonder who was closest to signing with someone before the lockout was imposed and it was like no i just i just have to sign here and there and up pencils down yeah you're still a free agent the the doctor has the the little reflex tester what is the name of that tool does that a hammer is it called a hammer the knee hammer

the knee hammer that makes your knee go like you know it's poised and then they're like i have sorry you can't it's like i'll never know what my reflexes were like i have to wait several months for an answer this is terrible it's good to laugh because otherwise it would be very sad yeah if you were in the middle of your physical you probably have to have a whole new physical to make sure that right sure yourself during the lockout yeah well that leads into something i wanted to ask you which is which team or teams do you think has the most to do yeah whenever they are allowed to stop doing it because there are some teams that more or less finished their off-season makeovers before the lockout was imposed. They made their big signings.

Their rosters seem somewhat set. But then there are others that didn't really do anything. And some teams have to do more than others to begin with. But I wonder which teams you think have the most unfinished business to resolve from a roster construction standpoint? So a couple of names come to mind for me, and I will admit that I am probably going to reveal a bias toward teams that I think have really big and obvious holes on their rosters rather than ones who have a need for depth, because that's probably true of every team, even the ones that have been busy. The Yankees stand out to me as a team that has some work yet to do. I don't get the impression from the way that their offseason

plans have been reported that they were in a particular hurry. I guess it remains to be seen whether or not they really are out on some of the big guys like Correa, but they need a shortstop. They need a better shortstop than they have on the roster currently. And that division, at least among the teams that we expect to be good, has gotten better or in the Rays' case sort of more secure in terms of what its future is going to look like. So I think that New York stands out to me as a team that really needs to do some stuff on the back end. I would not be at all surprised to see them emerge as the team that ultimately signs Correa.

Again, I don't say that with inside knowledge. Like I said, they really sure do need an actual shortstop on their roster. Sorry, Glaber, I'm picking on you, but I'm not wrong. They stand out to me as a team that has some work remaining yet to do i think that the mariners are on that list it sounds like they intend to sort of recommence spending and signing when the lockout is complete and a new cba is agreed to i like the addition of ray but they do they sure do need another bat. And I think that they will get one, you know, we've heard them sort of very closely connected to story. And that seems like a fit that would be nice. I know that they've been connected to Bryant, that also seems like

it would be useful. And you know, like, it wouldn't hurt them to sign another starter. I know those are getting kind of thin on the ground, but I don't think they actually want Justin Dunn to be their fifth starter. And then you always need more beyond that. So I think that there's a good case to be made for Seattle. Philadelphia sure hasn't done a whole lot. They could probably use some help. So the Phillies are perhaps an answer there. Who stands out to you as having work yet to do? Well, Atlanta has one big item on its to-do list at least oh yeah which is freddie freeman and that might dictate how other things proceed on the trade market depending on where he goes and other teams that might want a first baseman yes it's

still hard for me to believe that they will not bring Freeman back, especially because the terms that leaked that he supposedly is- So reasonable. Right. He's seeking, it has been said, six years and 180 million. And if you compare that to deals that other players got, that Samian got or Javi Baez got, and I know those are players in a different part of the defensive spectrum and maybe a little younger in Baez's case. But you think of what Freeman has meant to that franchise and how productive and consistent he's been and the fact that they just won the World Series. It's hard for me to imagine that if that's what he's seeking, which even suggests that there could be a little wiggle room there. there because when Sam Miller did a study five years ago and he tried to quantify if players are seeking X as free agents, what do they actually end up with? And he found that historically,

they have ended up with 87.5% of X, both in dollars and in years. So if that's where Freeman ends up, or even if he sticks to 180, That seems fairly reasonable just given his extra marquee value to that franchise. And just he's such a link to earlier teams with that franchise and just the face of it and continuity and fans love him and all of that. And also he's like a fantastic player. So it would be weird if that didn't happen, but that would cause a cascade effect, I guess, related. You could put Oakland in here. Not that Oakland necessarily needs to do a ton, but it sure sounded like the A's were planning to make some major changes and not just buying land in Las Vegas, but they have this big arbitration class. They are miserly as ever. And it sounded like Matt Olson might be on the market, Matt Chapman, both of the Matts, all of the Matts might be moving somewhere. And again,

because those are trades, I guess those are things that they could be discussing during the lockout and working those things out in advance. But might happen and if that happens then that could affect what other teams do because if Matt Olsen is on the market then maybe you don't make an offer for Freddie Freeman if you're the Yankees or whichever team is in the market for uh for Spaceman so that seems like it could affect things so I guess they stood out to me i mean there are a lot of teams that have something to do i know that there's some news that the blue jays are still willing to upgrade and spend and it sounds like the marlins are still interested in upgrading which is exciting news for any marlins fans who remain at this point and they were linked to

starling marty and evidently were interested in a reunion with him and now Ken Rosenthal is reporting rumors about interest in Cattell Marte which is maybe unlikely but it seems like they are trying to continue to upgrade that lineup and bring the batting and pitching into balance so yeah as I mentioned I mean it's a little more than half of the top 50 free agents as ranked by MLB trade rumors are signed. So almost half are remaining. And that's letting alone the hundreds of other free agents who are technically available

to teams. So there's going to be a bunch of activity whenever that activity is allowed to resume. Yeah, like Milwaukee could use another bat still even with the acquisition of Renfro. So that stands out as something that could still get done. I mean, I would argue, and I know that people like Jeremy Pena, so I don't mean to knock him,

but I would argue that like Houston should probably still be thinking about Carlos Correa. Like the lack of any heat around bringing him back there is still very strange to me, even with how well regarded Pena is. So like that part is weird. I don't quite get that all the way. I think that LA and LA's, the Los Angeles's could use starters. Both teams want a greater degree of sort of necessity than the other i think a thing

that we are talking less about than we would if there were an obvious fit but man i am happy that he made the choice that seems to be right for him as a human person but the giants sure could use a better option at catcher now yeah no it's true i'm fascinated by the Giants. Like, I don't know what we're going to do for our season preview team preview series this year, but like, what will the Giants be going into next year? I mean, you look at the history of teams that take large leaps the way that they did, and almost inevitably, they regress to some extent. And you look at the Giants who outperform their projections by more than any other team in the projections era. And then, of course, they will be back without Buster Posey. And you figure, okay, they have some skill, it seems, when it comes to player development at the major league level and getting more out of veterans potentially. But is that a one-year thing? is that going to be a demonstrable repeatable skill to that same extent it's an old team still and sometimes you get old teams that have one last hurrah in them and then suddenly they all look old and they don't play at that level so will they be buttressing the roster in some way to account for that likely regression. You know, if they're just kind of running it back and bringing back Alex Wood and bringing back, you know, they lost Gossman, of course, too. And, you know, I don't know where they go.

They bring in Cobb, I guess. But not that they need to be a 107 win team again. But, you know, they're in a division with the Dodgers and the Padres and it's not going to be an easy run to that division title so I'm really fascinated by what the outlook for them will be going into 2022 and whether we'll all just like artificially raise we'll just like inflate our win total projections by 10 or something because it's the Giants and we were also wildly wrong about them last year yep yeah I mean i think that those points are are all well taken but yeah it's gonna be really interesting i will i hope they are a 107 win team because that race was so fun

and having the best you know having them to push the dodgers and vice versa and hopefully you see like a recovered San Diego squad like the potential exists for that to just remain for both of the West divisions to just be like super fun and dynamic and teams that are you know not taking for granted that they're going to emerge victorious at the end even if some of them are still kind of separated a bit in the in the projection so yeah I'll be fascinated to see what they do but I don't think that the sense you get is that they do not have a ton of internal confidence in Joey Bart. So I don't know about Joey Bart.

Maybe Joey Bart got Zanino'd. We'll find out. Anyway, that's a conversation for a later day. But yeah. Are there any other teams that strike you as like really in need of completing a shopping list? I don't think so.

I think we hit on most of the major ones i mean the twins because it's still really oh yeah they need an entire rotation they need like a whole just a whole rotation quite gonna do it on his own i don't think so yeah all right so one other little bit of news that was lost in the deluge over the past week was an exchange of proposals about the playoff format. And we don't talk about every proposal that surfaces in the midst of the CBA discussions because some of them are sort of unserious or obvious non-starters or going nowhere. But when it comes to expanded playoffs, that sadly for me seems like a virtual certainty as soon as next season and so the question is

how expanded will the playoffs be and what will the format be exactly and the owners want big playoffs and the players know that that is their most valuable chit in these discussions and so they're going to hold the line on that to some extent, and they're going to ask for major things in return for that. Not that the players are necessarily against expanding the playoffs. I mean, probably players are interested in playing in the playoffs too, but they know that the owners really, really want that and that it's worth hundreds of millions of dollars potentially to them. And I don't know that there's anything else that the players can grant the owners that would be nearly as valuable. And so MLB apparently has proposed a 14-team playoff field most recently. Of course, we had 16 during the 2020 season. The owners, Rob Manfred, seem to prefer 14 teams. And under that format, the top seed in each league would get a bye. So that's kind of like the NFL structure. And then the other two division winners in each league would choose which wildcard team they would prefer to face in the first round. And then there would be a three-game series.

and then there would be a three-game series. And then division winner with the second best record in each league would be able to pick any of the four wildcard clubs in its league. The last division winner would pick one of the other three wildcard teams, and then the two wildcard teams remaining would face each other. And then there was a counter. The MLBPA evidently proposed a 12-team format. And in this one, maybe in some ways more dramatic, a reorganization, there would be a realignment to two divisions, one with eight teams and one with seven. Although maybe that seems like obvious incentive for expansion to 32 teams at some point.

But at least for now, you just have two divisions. So that would be a different look. So generally, I am in favor of fewer teams in the playoffs. So I mean, knee jerk, I like 12 more than 14, I guess. But what did you make of these ideas? I just think that I'm pretty skeptical that an expansion of any kind isn't going to have some sort of diluting effect in terms of the competitive environment because i think that teams would with

good reason would look and say the playoffs are something of a crapshoot not entirely like being a good team doesn't hurt you in the playoffs but there's a lot of of variance and randomness in in a short series and so you don't necessarily have to be a behemoth to emerge victorious like we just watched the braves win the world series right so with that understanding i do think that it lessens some of the pressure to improve your roster in a really dramatic sort of impact way if more teams are going to make the field now i i know the the league has offered sort of draft pick lottery stuff as like a concession that would try to decrease the incentives for danking but i i think i'm increasingly of the mind that alternate revenue streams are a bigger problem

for competitive balance and intentional losing to win later. So that's an emerging position for me. But I think that the offset of having the ability to sort of have a buy as the top seed is a good incentive, but I don't think that it is necessarily a powerful enough incentive to offset the idea of an expanded field making it so that like you can be an 86 win team and you'll probably you know be in in the running you might not make it because there will be a lot of other 86 win teams but you will be sort of in that mix and able to say with you know some amount of sincerity to your fan base like we're in this

thing we might make it to October. I do like the idea of teams being able to pick their opponents. I think that is great. I like it too. I like that a lot. I think that is great fun. I think that it is like a feature of the playoffs that is perfectly designed to give writers like you

and the writers at Fangraph something to write about in terms of like who wants to do what, how do they understand their strengths and weaknesses how do they match up so like that part I really like and I have I guess made peace with the idea that we will have some amount of expansion like the the odds that we do not see the field larger next year seemed quite low to me because as you said it is sort of the biggest leverage point that the players association has in these negotiations so i imagine that they will concede something in exchange for something else that seems likely to

me but i don't know it's just like it's a whole lot of teams it's so many teams it is this actually kind of came up this postseason because in the midst of the team entropy tiebreaker madness heading up to the resolution of the AL playoff field, when there was the potential for a four-way tie, the teams involved got to choose whether they wanted home field or they wanted to pick a potential opponent. And Jeff Passan tweeted on October 3rd, Passon tweeted on October 3rd, fun little subplot amid the chaos that's about to unleash itself in less than three hours. If there is a four-way tie for the AL wildcard, the Yankees will go to Fenway to play the Red Sox. That was their choice. They could have chosen to go to Toronto instead and play the Jays.

And of course, the Jays did not end up making the playoffs, so this did not actually come into play. But that was bandied about, I think, when the Yankees did go to Fenway and play the Red Sox and they lost to the Red Sox. And then a lot of Red Sox fans who would have been gloating anyway about beating the Yankees, obviously, but were gloating extra hard because the Yankees had kind of chosen to go to Fenway and play the Red Sox. Or they had suggested that they found that preferable to playing the Blue Jays and then they lost. So it's kind of cheap heat, I guess, but I enjoy it. I like that there's a strategic component to it that lends itself to analysis. So that's interesting for us people who cover the game, as you said. But also, it just raises the stakes, I think, and it makes it more of a grudge match. I mean, if there's not already a rivalry as there is with Yankees-Red Sox, then it's sort of a smack in the face, chip on the

shoulder, kind of like when players will post things on their locker and say no one believed in us and all that kind of thing, just the extra motivation. But this brings the fans into it too, because it's like, hey, you chose this and now you're in trouble. So I enjoy that. And whether you actually like make it a production and do some sort of selection show or something. I mean, I know some people feel like that would be kind of like a sideshow or wouldn't reflect well on it or something, but I like it. I'm all in favor of that. Yeah, I think that it adds a dynamic that is invigorating, which is what you want that time of year, right? You want to feel invested in the outcome of the regular season, and you want to go into October feeling jazzed that you get to watch another month of baseball if you're one of the teams that makes it. So I do think that there are aspects of the proposal that are really fun, but I don't want to have the post-season disincentivized winning in the regular season because we already do a good enough job of that. And so I think that

there is a balance to be struck there. And it isn't as if the playoffs are the only mechanism that are at the league or the players association's disposal to sort of incentivize spending and winning and having a more competitive approach but it is a really important one and i think a pretty powerful motivator for a lot of folks on the team side so being mindful of watering that down and making sure that you're really getting something for the benefit of the game when you do it and then trying to counterbalance those incentives elsewhere within the CBA I think is a really important project for the Players Association as they, as I said,

no doubt will do something in this space because there's just so much money to be made and money to be made on the player side too, but it's really a pot of gold that is enticing for ownership. Yeah, I do wonder if they keep expanding the playoff field whether there will be just a greater recognition that the playoffs are a separate entity from your season like if you're letting in half the teams or just about then maybe the belief now that the postseason actually anoints the best team in baseball or means anything really other than you had the best or hottest month and that it's not sort of a discrete standalone tournament. caliber teams get their entry into the tournament and inevitably will win at some point, then maybe that will paradoxically make people appreciate the regular season more, or at least recognize that

winning the regular season means something. And those records count even if you don't actually end up winning in October. So maybe. And I don't mind that really. Like if you just say, hey, we have like two separate seasons in a way, you know, the regular season is its own thing. And that tells you more about the actual talent of the teams. But the playoffs are just fun and everyone likes March Madness and this is baseball March Madness. And it doesn't necessarily overturn the results of the regular season, but it's just a separate thing that you get a ticket to if you do well for six months you know i think there is so much inertia around october being when like baseball capital b baseball memories get made that it's going to be hard to ever convince

people of that even with a sort of shift in the structure but yeah i think that you know in our corner of the internet i think there is an increasing understanding and recognition that the randomness at play there doesn't it tells you something about like what happened in those games but it isn't going to tell you more about the quality of the teams involved than the 162 games that preceded it my great fear ben is this they expand the playoff field and then the seattle mariners make the playoffs and they make it in one of these you know these new spots these spots that wouldn't have existed and then we have to talk about it for the rest of our lives

so that's what i i worry about i you know like people should remember i i went to grad school and and worked in non-profit so I acknowledge the importance of discourse, but my exhaustion with it comes honestly. Well, people were side-eyeing Twins GM Thad Levine the other day at the Byron Buxton press conference when he said, we believe this is a championship caliber team, which when you look at the Twins pitching staff, you're sort of skeptical of that but a championship caliber team in a world with 14 team playoffs i mean you don't have to have as good a team to get in there and championship caliber team could be any team that qualifies for the playoffs because if you do that you can win a championship so the bar is low yeah you did not ask me for my qualification so i did not feel required to offer it Alright so We are going to save our next Stove League recap for Next week so I hope everyone

Is streaming and catching up And we will do episodes 9 through 12 Next time just gonna do maybe A couple emails here we also have A meet a major leaguer and a Stat blast to end on but Here's a question from Nathaniel Who says in light of wander franco's

contract let's pretend the rays instead of signing him accidentally cut wander and he is a free agent at age 20 oops that would be a big mistake there are multiple wanders so like that's true they're not all on the raise though yes my question is what would his value be if he were magically a free agent today? I assume it's going to be a lot more than he actually signed for. And at first I thought about how lopsided it is toward the team, but I suppose they did invest a lot in his development. But does that justify the difference? And I would say that you could just about double what he got. Yeah. that you could just about double what he got. And maybe you could put a more precise number on it. I don't know. I'm sure we could figure it out.

We could run the zips and get the projections. But he got 11 years, 182 guaranteed. And I'd say you could just about double the money part. And that is about what he would get if he were on the open market. Because a lot of those years in the 11 or at least the last, what, five or whatever would be free agent years. So he is kind of getting paid for some free agent level earnings, of course, with the caveat that those years are several years away. And so there's some uncertainty and risk built in there.

But he stood to make very, very little for the next three years and not a ton for the next six years or so. And we're saying, no, he just gets to get his full value on the open market immediately. And because of who he is and how great he was as soon as he hit the ground, essentially, in the majors, people would pay him as if he were a present superstar basically i think he might not be at his peak but he is already a really great player so i would say that he is immediately in the like you know 30 ish million range if not more than that right now and of course if he is uh able to go to any team as opposed to just negotiating with the Rays, then you have the winner's curse that enters into things and the high bidder gets to get him. And some teams will like him more than other teams models would suggest he is worth. So, yeah, I'd say maybe at minimum he gets double what he got.

Yeah, I think that I think that that is right. double what he got yeah i think that i think that that is right and i think if you want to feel better about the reality he finds himself in is that given the structure that we do have and the amount he has played like he is as we discussed when we talked about his extension you know insulating himself from risk in a way that is quite lucrative so i don't think that you know the amount of of time they invested in him as an organization and the resources deployed there like that is that is a cost to tampa but it is in the grand scheme of things like a relatively small one yeah so yeah it's these situations like if there is a mistake like a team accidentally releasing wonder franco which I don't think would happen. But you press the wrong button in the MLP transaction.

Right, exactly. And suddenly, uh-oh, no longer have Wonder Franco. I'm sure there are some more safeguards built into that probably, hopefully. But when these things happen occasionally, not that that has happened exactly, but every once in a while someone will find a loophole or make a mistake or something, and then you will suddenly see, oh, this is how the structure of professional sports depress player salaries artificially because of the draft or because of service time and all of that. And these are collectively bargained things at the major league level, but we just take this stuff for granted like yeah if you don't make any money you make the major league minimum for your first three years of course i mean that's just how it works and it's like well why well that's just the system that's how it was set up that's how it was agreed to that's what the players were eventually able to

gain as a concession from the owners who were starting from a place of basically owning the lives and the livelihoods of their players in perpetuity as long as they wanted. That's where you start. And then you gradually get things to be a bit more open market-y, but you still have the draft. And as you point out often, imagine these things being applied to your own work situation you're an accountant right and you have to go work for the company that drafts you and then that company could just trade you to another accounting company in a different city it's like no one would stand for this and

i understand like professional sports it carries some benefits that perhaps accounting doesn't some people really love accounting doesn't. Some people really love accounting. We pick on accountants too much on this podcast. But yeah, you have the potential to make a lot of money and be famous and get endorsement deals and also get to play a game and be a celebrity and all that. I understand that. But it is very deeply strange. And every now and then something happens that exposes that. I guess one of Scott Boris's finest hours as an agent in 1996 when he found this loophole in the draft rules and was able to get four clients declared free agents who had been drafted. Basically, the CBA at the time had a clause that required teams to tender an offer to the players they drafted within 15 days or relinquish the rights to them. But the rule was so deep in the fine print that many teams didn't

even know that it existed. And so he was just kind of lying in the weeds waiting to exploit this loophole. And then he got four draftees who had been drafted in the first round declared free agents. And now suddenly all 30 teams were able to bid on them, or maybe it was fewer than 30 teams at the time, but they got a ton more money than they would have otherwise. Actually, I guess it was 30 because you had some expansion franchises that were able to bid on them. the then devil race signed one of them for the most money matt white and travis lee was one of the players but you can just see how much more money they got because of that because the number one overall pick in the draft that year chris benson got a two million dollar bonus and matt white one of these declared free agents got 10.2 million and he was not

drafted first overall so he quintupled the earnings of the number one pick just because every team was able to bid on him and he got to choose his destination and collectively the four of them got 30 million i think think. And so that was like, oh, okay. So that's what the draft does. It's like that Steve Cohen tweet about the draft, right? Where he basically said the quiet part out loud. Yeah. So every now and then you're just reminded like, oh yeah, this is a very strange system. It is an incredibly strange system. And it's funny because it's like most you know vigorous and impassioned advocates are also the people who are like free market and i'm like well can be horny for hayek

or you can like the baseball system but you can't do both i i've tried to get t-shirts made but oddly enough there wasn't really a market for them so yeah i know that they're competitive balance considerations but still it is uh it is really deeply strange and depresses our eyes a lot. It is just so strange. It is so, so bizarre. And it is particularly bizarre when you think about, and again, I don't, like, let's pick a different profession. You're right. I don't mean to pick on accountants.

It's just like a very, like, normal job. You know, it's like a. Pick writers. Yeah, well. Managing editors. No, because like. I don't mean to pick on accountants. It's just like a very normal job. I can pick writers. Yeah, well. Managing editors. No, because our situation is weird in other ways. But let's say you're a plumber, right? You're a plumber.

And look, there are good plumbers and bad plumbers. And plumbing is a skill. And people have to learn how to do it. And so I don't mean to diminish it as unskilled. Let's pick on lawyers, actually. Sure. You're a lawyer. And, you know, there are good lawyers and bad lawyers.

And you have to go to school and you have to spend all this money to go to school. But like there are a lot of you. There are so many of you all over the place, these lawyers, because your parents, unlike mine, didn't talk you out of going to law school. So there are so many lawyers so it is it is a a particularly weird situation that baseball and pro sports are structured the way you are because there are so many lawyers but there are not so many guys or gals or folks who can play competitive baseball at the level that they do in major league baseball. So you have these hyper skilled, super selective talents and their labor is somebody else's business for such

a long time. And it's very strange. Like you can feel a lot of different ways about it. And you're right that like there are some competitive balance considerations that I do think are real and substantive and are not just an excuse to suppress salaries but it is a it's a weird thing we at least need to acknowledge the strangeness because it's super weird like imagine just imagine it's like you come out of i don't know you come out of yale right you're like a real fancy lawyer i know yale law school is its own problem these days but you come out of yale and then it's like you have to go to the worst firm and it's in rural Texas and then you won't make any money there until you've been traded four times to another firm. This one's in, I don't know, Tampa.

It's so bizarre. It's just a weird thing. All right. Here's a question from Matthew, Patreon supporter. You were just sort of touching on this, I think. He says, placement to placement in the standings or a weighted lottery, as is currently done in the major men's North American sports leagues, teams would start accruing wins the day after they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. The team that accrues the most wins after they have been eliminated picks first in the draft, with the bad teams having the most opportunity to accrue wins. The logic here is that this should incentivize

teams to win every single game, because you have to win your way to a good draft pick rather than lose. The most frequently identified downsides are that this could depress the trade market, with teams incentivized to hold their good players, and this could just mean a shift from tanking to be bad overall to tanking to be eliminated earlier. So you could tank even harder because then you could get more games to accrue wins in after you are eliminated in theory how much you think draft picks and draft positions and draft pools actually matter yeah in mlb when it comes to tanking and i tend to think not that much anymore maybe in earlier cbas that was more of a consideration but i think now it's not as big a factor as people make it out to be and that when teams are tanking they're

often tanking the way that the pirates tank which is basically like we'll just take your revenue sharing money right sit on it and enjoy the spoils of owning a major sports franchise and get all the national tv revenue and everything and probably turn a profit without actually having to field a good team. So I think that's the root of most tanking to the extent that tanking exists. And sometimes I feel like people are a little quick on the trigger figure when it comes to declaring things tanking. But when tanking does exist, I think it's more about just not having the incentive to compete because you get plenty of money without having to do that and revenue is not as tied to the ticket sales anymore. And also because by not winning in the short term, you can trade your veterans for prospects and you can stockpile for the future and you can perhaps save some money for a future team although often team

budgets don't really work that way where if you save money now you can spend more later but i think that is mostly what it comes down to like when a team decides to sell it's not deciding to sell because hey we're going to get a higher draft pick next year it's because hey if we trade all these veterans and we slash our payroll and we get a bunch of prospects who will be good three or four or five years from now, then you have like a different timeline. It's a different horizon than teams that are trying to contend immediately. So I think those are the bigger issues personally. I don't have a problem with this plan necessarily, but I just don't know that in baseball it would address the root of the problem. Right. I agree. I think that the draft stuff matters some because for the teams that are trying to field a good talent through the draft that you then don't have

to pay very much particularly if you you know think that defense could improve in the minors for a couple of weeks and you get an extra year out of it like that isn't unimportant so i don't i don't think that it doesn't matter at all but i don't think that it is the dominant problem affecting sort of the competitive spirit in baseball. I think you're right. It's that, you know, you have plenty of teams that either through revenue sharing or through lucrative TV deals or sort of ancillary revenue that is related to their franchise but is not a direct result of the play on the field are able to make a good deal of money and

they are able to accrue franchise value that they can borrow against without the product on the field really being a huge driver. Now, gate receipts are a real thing, so it's not like there's no connection there, but it is increasingly decoupled in a way that I think is really concerning. So I'm with you. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but I don't think that it sort of short circuits the the worst instincts that are leading to teams not really trying as hard as they could yeah I think there are a lot of misconceptions that come from people believing that something in one sport that has like the same name works the same way as it does in another sport like with the draft I mean people still talk about like ways to make the mlb draft a bigger deal and i feel like we just have to let that

one go yeah like sure like i it'd be nice if if people paid more attention to it but frankly even i don't pay that much attention to it and i'm ostensibly covering baseball and obviously it's a big deal for people who cover prospects and everything. And I'm interested in the strategy of it. And I enjoy having Eric on the show to talk about what teams did and why they did it. But I don't know most of the names of those players. And then I immediately forget most of the names of those players. And it's just because it's not basketball and it's not football. These players, college baseball players are mostly not nationally known and maybe not even locally known. And when you draft the best college baseball player, mostly not nationally known and maybe not even locally known and when you draft the best college baseball player he's not gonna just walk onto your major league roster

the next day and be your best player which can be the case in the NFL or the NBA it's just it's totally different like they both have amateur drafts but they work in completely different ways and I feel like we kind of have to just like give up on making the draft happen. Like, yeah, don't schedule it at exactly the same time as like the Futures game and the All-Star game or whatever. Don't do that. Please stop doing that. Don't do that. But like, you know, if you were to put the MLB draft in the offseason or at some other time, like it's just it's not going to be like suddenly a must-see event.

It just isn't, I don't think. It's not going to be like suddenly a must-see event. It just isn't, I don't think. And you see the same thing with like TV ratings when you compare like NFL games ratings to an MLB games individual national ratings, let's say. And it's like one sport is followed on a local level and there are 162 games and it's totally different. Or when people will even say, and baseball fans will say sometimes this came up in the Facebook group recently, like, why don't people complain about the length of NFL games? You know, NFL games are slow and they can take as long as MLB games. And yeah, they can, but there are like almost 10 times as many MLB games as there are NFL games in the regular season. And it hits a little different when you're talking about a daily investment of three to four hours as opposed to a weekly one with much higher stakes and everything. So it's apples and oranges to some extent. I mean, they're both high-level professional sports, and they both have TV ratings, and they both have regular season games, and they both have drafts, but they are different in almost every way that matters.

Yeah, I think that it is useful to remember that there are, I think there are ways that we can incentivize competition that are portable and kind of apply across sports. But we do have to always be thinking about sort of the idiosyncratic aspects of each of these. And yeah, it's just so different when you, like I watch the nfl draft and i know well the seahawks are a bad example of this but like i know that i'm gonna

see the first round guys taken that night in september like i'm just gonna see them play on an nfl field like a couple of months away it's very different now i watched the mlb draft broadcast and i do think that those broadcasts have improved over time. And I think that the extent to which they are accessible and interesting to non-prospect towns is probably greater now than it was 10 years ago. upper limit to what you can do with a broadcast that involves individuals who aren't going to play for years and years and and who will be uh kept down in a lot of instances when they're really really good like the fact that the best guys out of there are the ones that have this this service time manipulation attached to them is like a problem right that's not the best so you know we just need to like you said we should like not let it go i think we can always improve those and i think there are ways to use the draft as a way of introducing players to fans and

humanizing them and sort of getting fans invested in them as people earlier and i think that's probably only to their benefit as as minor leaguers try to navigate their own very fraught and exploitative labor landscape but there's like there's just a limit man like you know i saw saw those guys those guys in in june or july and then they're on the football field in september and we get to hear about them adjusting to the nfl and it's like by the time they make the majors you're're like, oh, he's been in AAA for a year. Right. All right.

Last question. This is maybe the defining question of our times. And this is from Patreon supporter and recent guest, Michael Mountain, who asks, the plural of run batted in is runs batted in, leaving aside any heated debate over the proper way to pluralize the acronym RBIs or RSBI.

Yeah, which like good luck to you in actually achieving that. Right. The plural of base on balls is bases on balls. What is the plural of hit by pitch? Oh. Yeah. My gut feeling based on what sounds right is hit by pitches, but shouldn't it be hits by pitch? Yes. Why does this feel different? Is it to emphasize that a separate pitch is thrown each time the event occurs? Yes. Is bases on balls the outlier because the last noun of that expression is already plural, so it needed unique treatment? Does this even matter? Probably not. I would love to hear your thoughts. Yes, this matters because I've encountered this problem whenever I've tried to write this and

prioritize it myself. And I've never really been satisfied with either option. And sometimes I've even resorted to the acronym, although you still have to make the decision. You do. still have to make the decision you do hbps or hsbp i don't like either either solution right and the really frustrating thing is that if you consider those things separately in terms of what you think communicates the most information right how you write it out when you're writing each word versus how you express the acronym i have different answers answers. And that's, I, so if you are writing it out, I would say hits by pitch. Because if you say hit by pitches, I envision multiple baseballs hitting the guy in that moment.

And there's only the one. He gets hit the one time that time. And then, you know, it kind of goes from there. So I would be in favor of hits by pitch because you have been hit multiple times but each of those incidents only involves one baseball and hits by pitches reads to me as you're standing up there and you are being bombarded from all sides by many baseballs perhaps perhaps also from the crowd, and that is not a thing in baseball.

But then I think HSBP reads weird, and so I would do HPS if I were. I can't tell if I am tired because of transactions, the lockout, or the fact that I got my booster shot yesterday. It's maybe all of them combined because I really mentally struggle to figure out where the S went in that and what happened at the end of the acronym. Yeah. Well, I always struggle to decide what to do with this. And I think the problem with hits by pitch, which I agree is more accurate and correct and probably preferable, but it's a little misleading or ambiguous at first because hits is a different thing. about hits not being hit right and this could be confusing potentially for a non-hardcore fan when you're hearing hits by pitch and you're thinking what does that mean that sounds like it could be something different right it sounds like it could be hits you got against pitches or something so

sometimes like i will just use a different word. Like I'll just, I'll switch to like plunkings or something, you know, just so I can avoid hits by pitch or hit by pitches. It's like if I have to talk about multiple Red Sox players. Right. You write around it. Yeah. Or a singular Red Sox sock. I can't even say it. And so I will try to write around it and I will often write around this too but if I have to not write around it I guess I will go with hits by pitch and I will just hope that people can follow and not get so distracted by the hits that they think I'm talking about something completely different yeah it's a real I mean it's a real, I mean, it's a, I don't know. I have sympathy because I was about to say it's a poorly named stat, but what else would they call it?

I guess they could call it hit by balls, but that sounds funnier. And also, it doesn't get you around the problem of a ball meaning something else within the sport that you get when you have hits by pitch so really it's a real head scratcher bases on balls see that sounds like a good yeah that works for me because it sounds like it is a comprehensive all-encompassing stat like the number of bases that you reached on all the right all the many balls and you are gaining a base and if you are batting in a run then you're getting a run whereas if it's a hits by pitch you're not getting a hit right you are getting hit right

yeah it's a real conundrum right and it's funny because within the rule book like there there was thought given you know the rule book tells you something about how baseball understands itself from a moral perspective right so like when sacrifice bunts were named as sacrifices, like there was the idea that you called them a sacrifice because you're really giving yourself up and there's something admirable in that, right? Like there is a thing we want to ascribe to this that implies virtue to the hitter. I've had a lot of occasion to be quite philosophical on the pod of late. I don't know about these lockouts, man. They're going to inspire some weird stuff.

But, you know, so it tells you something about how the sport understands itself. I think that this is part of why we are less excited generally about on-base streaks than we are about hitting streaks because we view something active and like it is the result of good work on the part of the hitter to have a hit streak whereas we understand that an on base streak probably involves a lot of good work on the part of the

hitter but there's also error in some respect on the part of the pitcher either because he's walking the guy or he's hitting him with the pitch. So it's just what do we want to convey about hit by pitch? I think we should figure out a way to frame it in sort of the same sacrifice language that we do for sacrifice bunts. And I guess that when people talk about it, they do say it that way, right? Like you got to give yourself up. You got to take one for the team so you can advance to the base. But the stat as it is described doesn't really reflect that. So anyway, clearly it does matter. It matters a great deal. Yes. but the stat as it is described doesn't really reflect that so anyway that's a that's clearly

it does matter it matters a great deal yes obviously to us it does all right if you have a better suggestion here then uh please yeah please yeah all right so from michael mountain to dick mountain i have a stat blast here, and it concerns us in amazing ways. Here's to day step last. I saw you just tweet that Ben really likes Richelle. Oh my God, he's obsessed. I was shocked to see that you were not referring to me because of course I care deeply about Rich Hill too.

But you were talking about Ben Clemens who also likes Rich Hill and just blogged about him for Fangraphs. Who doesn't like Rich Hill? And my thoughts turned toward Rich Hill this week when he signed yet again with the Red Sox. And I mentioned on our most recent episode that this was his fourth tour of duty with the Red Sox. This is the fourth time he has joined the Red Sox organization. However, it is actually the seventh time that he has signed with the Red Sox as a free agent. And I was curious about whether that was a record because he has signed with them as a free agent coming from other organizations. And then he has also re-signed with them when he was already with the Red Sox and he reached free agency and he decided to return to the Red Sox. So this is seven separate times that he has had the option to go somewhere else and he

has decided that he wants to be on the Red Sox and the Red Sox have decided that they want Rich Hill. But I was curious about both the number of signings and the number of times he has been acquired in discrete stints. So I asked Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference about the signing question. And it turns out that this actually is a record that Rich Hill is the first player to have signed as a free agent with the same organization seven times. Previously, he was tied with Andy Pettit, who signed with the Yankees as a free agent with the same organization seven times. Previously, he was tied with Andy Pettit, who signed with the Yankees as a free agent six times. And of course, Andy Pettit, sometimes he was just resigning and returning, staying put, right? So I was interested also in non-continuous stints because Rachel and Andy Pettit, both good lefties who pitched to advanced ages and

are associated with certain teams, and Pettit didn't come and go as much as Hill. But Hill, having come and gone four times or at least arrived four different times, I wondered how that stacked up. Who is the player who has been acquired by the same organization the most times after being somewhere else? And so I posed that question to frequent StatBlast consultant and Patreon supporter Ryan Nelson, and he did his RetroSheet magic. So he defined a stint with a team as either the first time a player signs with a professional organization, So he's drafted, he signs as an amateur free agent, et cetera, or when a player moves from one organization to another via trade free agency, et cetera. So this rules out a transaction where a player remains with the

same team, like Rich Hill previously entering free agency, but then re-signing with the Red Sox, or a player gets waived and then re-signs to a minor league deal that sort of thing so with that definition of a stint the player with the most stints with a single team is not Rich Hill but in fact it is Scott Service now this is Scott Service the pitcher not Scott Service the catcher who now manages the Mariners. It is very odd that there happened to be two Scott Services. Scott Service or Scott Services. Yeah, Scott Service and two players with this unusual homophonous last name who not only both were big leaguers, but both played in the big leagues at the same time

and they overlapped for years. Spelled differently, so service the Mariners manager is S-E-R-V-A-I-S. This Scott service, the reliever, is just service the regular word S-E-R-V-I-C-E. And Scott service was acquired by the Cincinnati Reds six times. And what I like about this, there are a number of things that I like about this, but Scott Service did not start out with the Reds. You might think that he had been with the Reds early in his career because he has to be acquired by them six times. But he was actually with multiple other organizations before he joined the Reds for the first time. actually with multiple other organizations before he joined the Reds for the first time.

So I'll just run through his very lengthy transaction log at Baseball Reference. And service for context here, he made his major league debut in 1988. He last played in the majors in 2004. So he was in the big leagues for 12 years, but he was a professional player for like 18 years and he played all over the place and he was not great he was a reliever who was basically replacement level at least according to baseball reference where he ended up at 0.6 and he only actually pitched 416 and a third innings in all this time with a 92 ERA plus and he pitched in relief in all but one of his appearances when he made a start but here's how the transaction log goes in 1985 he signed by the Phillies as an amateur free agent he was not drafted he was with the Phillies made

his debut with them in 88 then he became a free agent in 1990 in 1990 he signs with the Phillies, made his debut with them in 88. Then he became a free agent in 1990. In 1990, he signs with the Expos as a free agent. Then the following July, he is purchased from the Expos by the Chinichi Dragons of NPB. Then in 1992, he goes back to the Expos as a free agent. He reaches free agency again. and finally he signs with the Cincinnati Reds on June 9, 1992. Now, about a year later, June of 1993, the Rockies select him from the Reds on waivers. Then, just a few days later, July of 93, he's selected off waivers by the Reds from the Rockies. So this is the second time now that he is acquired by the Reds. That November of 94, the Reds release him. And then the following February, he signs as a free agent with the Reds. Now that does not count as a separate stint. The

Reds released him and then they re-signed him. So we're still, the Reds acquisition count is at two. re-signed him, so we're still, the Reds acquisition count is at two. Now in July of 1995, he is traded in a very big deal that did not work out very well for the Reds. I guess he was traded by the Reds with Dave McCarty, Ricky Pickett, John Roper, and Deion Sanders to the Giants for Dave Berba, Darren Lewis, and Mark Portugal. In March of 96, he's released by the Giants. And in April of 96, he signs as a free agent with the Cincinnati Reds. So we're up to three acquisitions by the Reds now. March of 97, the A's select him off waivers from the Reds. April of 97, selected by the Reds off waivers from the A's. So now we're up to four times acquired by the Reds. July 97, the Reds trade him again.

This is the second time they have traded him after acquiring him four times. They trade him with Hector Carrasco to the Royals for John Nunnally and Chris Steins. In December 99, the Royals release him. He signs as free agent with the A's. In October 2000, he hits free

agency again. December 2000, he hits free agency again. December 2000, the Dodgers sign him. Then the following March, the Dodgers release him, and he signs with the Cincinnati Reds in June of 2001. So he's up to five times being acquired by the Reds now. Then he reaches free agency October 2001. He signs with the Pirates in January 2002. He reaches free agency again at the end of 2002 and he signs with the Diamondbacks in February

2003 then in June 2003 the Blue Jays select him off waivers from the Diamondbacks the Blue Jays release him that August and on August 24th 2003 he signs as a free agent with the Cincinnati Reds the sixth time that they have

acquired him and in October he reaches free agency and he signs one final time with the Diamondbacks in February 2004 and he's with the Diamondbacks in 2004 and that's it at the end of that season he is done so all told in four seasons with the Reds, he only ended up pitching 102 innings with them with a 93 ERA plus. And it was not the most distinguished Reds career, really. But they wanted him over and over again. And yet they were also willing to keep sending him away. I guess he's a replacement level player. So he's the kind of player you pick up easily and also discard pretty easily. But here's the thing. He's a replacement level player. So he's the kind of player you pick up easily and also discard pretty easily.

But here's the thing. He's a Cincinnati native. He's, yeah, this is his hometown team. He was born in Cincinnati. He went to high school in Cincinnati. And I imagine that was a factor here. Not that the Reds were necessarily signing him because all the locals were going to come out to see the hometown kid Scott Service but I'm sure he probably had some extra desire to sign with the Reds over

and over because he was going home every time and in that way he is similar to Rich Hill who's from Milton a suburb of the Red Sox and that obviously plays a part in why he keeps signing with the Red Sox. And that obviously plays a part in why he keeps signing with the Red Sox. So Scott Service is the answer. Not even the Scott Service that you think of when you think of Scott Service. But that is the solution here. And Scott Service faced Scott Service, by the way, eight times during the course of their respective major league careers. And if you go to YouTube, for some reason, the MLB YouTube account has a video, Service takes on Service in Epic Faceoff. Oh my gosh.

So one of their matchups in July 96. So it's Service against Service again. This matchup yesterday, Service had a base hit. Service gave up a base hit. Service got a base hit. Service gave up a base hit. Service got a base hit. Service can't lose in this confrontation. Well Scott service the pitcher

got away with one right there. Oliver was low and away with the signal he wanted a slider down and Scott service to a backup slider that caught the inside corner which fooled the batter Scott service. Who's on first. I'll be glad when somebody else is up. Here's the 0-2.

And he got him. So Service gets Service. That'll do it. And we'll go to the ninth inning. And Scott Service struck out Scott Service on three pitches, which is pretty impressive. But that is not really a good reflection of their record. The tail of the tape favors Scott Service, the catcher, on the whole in their matchups. The catcher easily had the upper hand. In their eight-point appearances, he went 2-4-6 with a double and a walk and a couple of Ks. So that's a 929 OPS for catcher Scott Service. And Scott Service, the pitcher, at the end of his career, I mean, he's the consummate journeyman, really.

And there was an MLB.com article about him in 2003 where he said he'd like to have a dollar for each mile he had driven from team to team. He said, I've been well-traveled, but I've got over five years in the majors. It's been 18 years. It's been a hard 18 years, but I wouldn't change a thing, which is interesting. Like you'd think if he could change anything, he'd just like stay with the Reds that entire

time and just be like a lifetime career Red instead of coming and going so many times. But nice that he had no regrets. Yeah, that is nice. so many times, but nice that he had no regrets. Yeah, that is nice. And just to follow up a little bit here, Ryan did the usual extra mile that he did. No other player had six separate stints with a team,

but two players had five, both with Cleveland, Russell Branion and Jeff Manto. I love Russell Branion. Yeah. I always believed he was just going to be like the power hitter in the majors Sometimes he was, remember that season He had with Seattle where he hit A ton of homers and yeah he was a fun Three true outcomes guy and then

The immortal Bobo Newsome also Had five stints with the Washington Senators because I think Their manager Bucky Harris Could tolerate him for a little while And then just had to get rid of him but kept bringing him back because he thought he could help the team. Bucky Harris once said, I know all about the big blowhard and his showboating, but if he can keep throwing that ball hard and wins us some games, I'll take the headaches that go with managing Newsom. But he could only take those headaches for so long before he had to ship him out.

headaches for so long before he had to ship him out 18 players have had four stints including rich hill and 251 players have had three stints with a single organization there are 10 players who had stints of three or more with two different teams oh my god yeah and there are two players who have had three or more stints with three teams, which that's, I mean, that just seems like it would be against the odds that your distribution of employers would work that way. So one of them was the reliever Chris Mihalik, who went Athletics, Diamondbacks, Angels, Diamondbacks, Devil Rays, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Rangers, Red Sox, Rockies, Reds, Brewers, Marlins, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Reds, Nationals, Reds, Rangers, Marlins, Athletics, Blue Jays, Rangers, Red Sox, Rockies, Reds, Brewers, Marlins, Blue Jays, Diamondbacks, Reds, Nationals,

Reds, Rangers, Marlins, Athletics, Blue Jays. That's three stints each with the Diamondbacks, Reds, and Blue Jays. And then the other is the longtime starter and reliever, Jamie Wright, who went Rockies, Brewers, Cardinals, Mariners, Brewers, Rangers, Royals, Cubs, Royals, Rockies, Giants, Rangers, Royals, Cleveland, Athletics, Mariners, Dodgers, Rays, Dodgers, Rangers, Dodgers. That is three stints each with the Dodgers, Rangers, and Royals. So speaking of this being a strange line of work. Yeah, geez.

So thanks, as always, to Kenny and to Ryan. And I will put the data sources for this stat blast online. So we figured we would end with a meet a major leaguer here. We haven't done one of these in a while. Meet a major leaguer. I am very eager to meet this nascent major leaguer It's the thrilling debut of somebody new Let's meet this mysterious major leaguer

Sort of symbolic since MLB just did its best to erase all evidence of the existence of major leaguers from MLB.com. We figured this would be a decent time to meet some major leaguers ourselves. And I've seen, you know, Rob Manfred insisted that there was a legal reason that they had to do that. But there are other sources that dispute that there was any obligation for them to do that and that it may have been just partly spite or pettiness or something and it's not completely clear to me what the answer is there and maybe it's a mix of both but it does if it is pettiness or spite to some degree it does seem to have backfired because it has not only exposed that, baseball is a lot more interesting with the players, but also it has given players this seeming solidarity tactic of tweeting their faceless headshots, right, which everyone is doing now, which is quite clever. like as i mentioned was talked out of law school but i do think that like it is probably worth mentioning that there is you know there's like your there's your legal risk and then there's

your perception of legal risk and maybe their understanding of this is that it is a gray area that could open them to litigation at a moment when they don't really want that because they're in the midst of negotiating a new cba so i could imagine them saying like on the advice of counsel they were like the most conservative interpretation of this is that you shouldn't use players' names, images, or likenesses, and you can if you want, but it's probably not worth it. And they were like, eh, take it all down. We've been wanting to push the big button that erases MLB.com's content.

We want to know if the button works, so let's push it and find out. So it could be that it could be pettiness it could be any number of things but i think you're right that if pettiness were driving it they have miscalculated how it would land yes i did enjoy the cardinals adam wainwright and yadier molina bobblehead day being uh transformed into what was it like long-standing cardinals pitcher and catcher battery day yes who could it be who who indeed all right would you like to go first uh sure i would be happy to go first i am going to introduce us to joan adon sorry if i'm mispronouncing that who was per baseball references accounting the last major leaguer to make his debut in the 2021 season which felt fitting as we contemplate the

future of baseball he is a right-handed pitcher in the nationals organization. He was signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Nationals in 2016 and made his way through their minor league system. He, in 2020, spent time training at the alternate site. And my understanding from a piece by David Driver at Federal Baseball over at SB Nation is that he is one of the youngest pitchers to train at the alternate site. So he had that going for him across three levels in 2021. He pitched to a

497 ERA. I will now read to you from his prospect report on the top 22 prospects, Washington Nationals, which was the work of Eric Langenhagen and Tess Teruskin. This is not a deep system, which as we have talked about on the pod, motivated some of their moves this year. He ranked 13th and here is his report. Washington moved Odoan into the rotation after he had spent his first two pro seasons in the bullpen and his velocity dipped a bit during the second half of 2019. His long-term projection remains in relief. He has a graceful delivery that he struggles to repeat.

Which impacts his breaking ball quality and command. In the bullpen he might sit 94 plus. With serious movement. Which even with relatively tepid off-speed projection. Puts him in a solid middle relief role. And he was called up on the last day. Of the 2021 season. To face the Boston Red Sox.

Which meant that this young man. This 23 year old. Was going to have an outsized influence. On the postseason field. face the Boston Red Sox, which meant that this young man, this 23-year-old, was going to have an outsized influence on the postseason field. Because as we mentioned in this very episode, things came down to the final day. If you remember, there were all sorts of tiebreaker scenarios where the Red Sox could be in or out. And it came down to young Yuan. And he pitched pretty darn well, given givens five and a third he struck out

nine which i understand to have been the most by a pitcher making his mlb debut in the 2021 season so even if he ends up in relief he gets to have this lovely day he did give up two earned runs one was a fourth inning solo shot by Rafael Devers. And then there was a runner left on when he came out that Patrick Murphy allowed to come around to score. But when he left this game, this final game, the Nationals were winning. They didn't end up blowing it until much later in the contest.

And so when he left, some of us who maybe were feeling the stirring of fan feelings and were hopeful about the Mariners. Had the Mariners been eliminated yet? Had we already decided? I don't think that we knew at the time that he left the, I don't remember now. Anyway, we were like, he could do it. He could eliminate the Red Sox from postseason contention. And he did his best.

The Nationals then didn't do as good a job but yeah here we are yeah that was an impressive debut my guy not quite as impressive a debut but the same day he debuted and this was a listener patreon supporter suggestion donald suggested that we meet tyler pain and i was happy to accept that nomination. Now, you're right that baseball reference lists your selection as the last major leaguer to debut in the season. Technically, I think you could make the case that it's Tyler Payne. It's definitely one or the other, but Adon started that game, right?

And every game on the last day of the season starts at the same time. And Tyler Payne pinch hit in the middle of his game. So I think if you want to be a real stickler about it, technically he is the most recent MLB-er to debut. And he is a catcher for the Chicago Cubs. So not as young and not as prospect-y as your pick today. Tyler Payne is 29. He turned 29 in late October. He's a 5'11", 210 player from Hurricane, West Virginia, and he was drafted in the 30th round of the 2015 MLB draft out of West Virginia State. The Yellow Jackets, I am watching

Yellow Jackets right now on Showtime, good show Unrelated, but he Kind of slowly climbed through the Minor league system and he actually Really spent most of the season At AA and Didn't hit particularly well there Even, so nothing about the stat line

Suggests that he was about to Get a big league call up. He had a 654 OPS at AA. And in 2019, he had made it to AA too. So he was technically repeating the level. And he made it to AAA for one game, I think in late September. And he was just a defensive replacement. So he didn't even get a plate appearance at AAA before he was called up to the Cubs. But they had some sort of injury stack going on at catcher. Robinson Chirinos had an oblique strain, and then Wilson Contreras hurt his hip. And Payne was not even on the 40-man, but they needed a catcher for that final day.

And I guess he was their best option on short notice. So they called him up and he pinch hit in the fifth inning against the Cardinals' Jake Woodford. And he struck out swinging. And then he came up again in the seventh inning against TJ McFarland and he struck out swinging. And then he was designated for assignment after the season. So as swiftly as he was added to the 40-man, he was then removed from the 40-man. So I guess he can still have a headshot on MLB.com. Good for him. He'd probably rather not have one and still be on the 40-man. But he was re-signed by the Cubs to a minor league deal in October so still in the Cubs organization and he was grinding it out for years and he's the kind

of guy who I don't know whether he will make it back or not it took a confluence of circumstances and injuries for him to get that call and And perhaps he will work his way up again and play his way back to a big league roster spot. Or perhaps that time has passed. But even if it has, he has made his major league debut and it was not super distinguished. But it was historic because when he pinch hit for the Cubs, he became the 68th Cubs player to appear in a game that season. And that broke a tie with the 2019 Mariners for the most players used in a season in MLB history. And then the Cubs extended that record later in the game because Joe Biagini came in and he was thus the 69th Cub. I know everyone is thinking nice to themselves. I acknowledge the nice that is

happening in your head right now. And so the Cubs' previous franchise record was 56 players, so they blew that away. And obviously we know why they blew that away. They traded all their guys. I think Ian Happ was the only player who was in their opening day lineup and their game 162 lineup. And most of the other guys were, well, either injured or on the bench or on other teams in other uniforms. So 44 players made their Cubs debuts in 2021, 10 more than the previous franchise record. And we talked about some of their guys who were unexpectedly exciting and productive,

but I guess Tyler Payne doesn't stand out on that list but he is or was a major leaguer so good for him and so if he was the last whichever one of these was the last was the 265th new major leaguer to debut in 2021 and i believe that's a record the previous record was 262 in 2017 as far as i could tell quickly skimming baseball reference so that's interesting that that continues to increase even though you didn't have expanded 40-man rosters in september this year and we thought maybe that would prevent some players from debuting who otherwise would have and i guess it probably did. But even so, what with pitcher usage and players being optioned and shuffled back and forth from AAA constantly, there still managed to be a new high.

And that's why we started this exercise, because there are too many major leaders to keep track of. So we have to meet them on this segment, or else we wouldn't. And just to tie this back to the beginning of the episode and the lockout and the economic considerations, I think what is perhaps lost is that most players who play in the majors in any given season are more like Tyler Payne than, I don't know, Corey Seager or someone. Like Travis Sachik had a thread about this on Twitter on Thursday, and he noted that in 2019, the most recent year he had data for, pre-arbitration players accounted for 63.2% of all players who stepped on the field. And they accounted for 53.6% of the days of service time accumulated, but only 9.8% of the pay that players collectively accrued. Whereas in the NBA, he wrote only 3% of the league is close to or at minimum salary and 23% in the NHL.

So that's another thing where if you compare across sports, you might miss the significant difference there. And obviously, as long as players are in the majors, they're making major league minimum, which most people in most professions would consider a nice amount of coin. But you can't count on it because you could be Tyler Payne and you could be up for a single day. And that is why MLB is trying to raise the league minimum salary and try to move up arbitration so that more players can qualify that because the way that players are used these days, that has changed. Like, you know, MLB and Rob Manfred can say, well, it's the players rocking the boat and trying to change the system.

But it is the owners and teams that have changed the way that players are deployed, really. And that's kind of changed the distribution of salaries in the union. So that's something to bear in mind, I guess, as you consider the quote unquote millionaires versus billionaires debate. Not all of the players are millionaires. I mean, a billion is a lot, lot, lot, lot more than a million, but also not all the players are millionaires. Some of them are Tyler Payne. Yeah. Some of them are Tyler Payne. And when you get on the back end of that career and you've been only making the minimum, and again, we acknowledge that that relative to other salaries is, you know, in a lot of cases quite high, but when you've been making the minimum and you've only done baseball

and then you have to like go find a new career, it's, you know, that's a big life adjustment and some guys are better equipped for it than others. So I don't know. I think that we can do well to remember that not everybody ends up being an all-star. Not everybody ends up getting to free agency. And they should be paid in a way that is commensurate with their contribution, even if that's not true. All right. Meant to mention, by mention by the way rich hill became a folk hero on this podcast back in 2015 when in one of his stints with the red socks he broke out and he made some changes and his spin rate was recognized and the curveball was valued and he looked

completely dominant in four starts at the end of the 2015 season and sam and i at the time took to saying what we would pay Rich Hill just based on those starts where he looked incredible after coming out of nowhere. And after each start, we would update, okay, here's what we would pay Rich Hill now or here's what we think teams would pay Rich Hill. And he ended up getting a one-year $6 million deal initially with the A's,

which was not a ton but also more than he had made at any previous point in his career. Now we can look back and see what we should have said, I guess, because we know what he has made and what he has been worth over the six seasons since. So he has actually made about $60 million in the years since then, six years. And he has been worth, according to Fang Graaff's translation of dollars per win on the free agent market, about $80 million. So what we should have said at that time is that we would

give Rich Hill a six-year $80 million contract. That would have been appropriate. Of course, he is still going and he's still adding to those totals. I was thinking last night that the idiom you can't go home again is often applied in situations like Rich Hills where a player goes home again because that phrase you can't go home again, it comes from the Thomas Wolfe book. And the idea is that like even if you do go home again, the place is going to be different from how you remember it, or maybe you're going to be different. And so it won't be the same as it is in your memory. But no one actually ever says you can't go home again. It's one of those phrases that people only invoke to contradict. I think they say it'll be like they say you can't go home again, but so and so who went home again. Right.

They say you can't go home again, but so-and-so who went home again, right? And I was looking to see if anyone had used that in a story about Rich Hill or in a headline about Rich Hill last night, and I didn't see anything immediately. But I went to FanGraphs on Friday, and Ben and he will not be the Rich Hill they remember. But just another case where the only time anyone ever uses that is to say, no, actually, you can go home again, which I guess is ignoring the way that that was originally used or the sentiment in the book. But even so, that stuck out to me. So thanks for delivering on the headline front. Our pleasure. All right. Well, we are already home and we will stay home and we will enjoy our weekends and we hope that you do too. So that will do it for today. Meant to mention, by the way, the Cubs did not lead the major leagues in new debuts this season. They had 15 players who made their major league debut this year. That was tied

with the Angels. But leading the way was, as you might expect, the Baltimore Orioles, who had 16 debuts this season. It is generally not a good thing to have a lot of major league debuts. The Marlins had 14. The Rangers had 13. The Diamondbacks had 12. It's not until you get down to 11, the Astros and the Blue Jays, that you start getting to some successful teams. St. Louis and Atlanta were at the bottom of that list with three debuts apiece. A reminder to everyone to sign up for Effectively Wild Secret Santa if you are interested in exchanging inexpensive baseball-themed gifts with fellow listeners this month. The deadline to sign up is December 14th. I will link to where you can do that on the show page as usual.

And a reminder that you can find Stove League at Viki. That is the streaming service I have found to have the best subtitles. That link is also on the show page and we will resume our recap soon. You can also support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. You can pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help keep us going and keep the podcast ad free and get yourself access to some perks, such as monthly bonus episodes and access to the patron-only discord group, among other nice sweeteners. And today's Patreon supporters to thank are Jason Lee, Tyrone Palmer, Ron Jolly, Raymond Chen, and look at that, my friend and colleague

Zachary Cran Isaac. You can join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups 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 at vangrass.com

or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. You can discuss the show on the Effectively Wild subreddit. Thanks to Dylan Higgins, as always, for his editing and production assistance. And we will be back to talk to you early next week. But Richie Rich said, forget that stuff Even though times was rough We kept searching, searching, looking and looking It seems everywhere we went, the jobs was tooken Still Rich didn't give up the faith

He found the job that was insane Even though it was dangerous, it wouldn't switch That's why this is dedicated to my man Rich Yo, this is to to my man, Rich. Yo, this is to you, my man, Rich. You know you're going way back. You're going way back. Word up.

God bless you.