Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1798: The 2022 Minor League Free Agent Draft

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs writer Ben Clemens banter about a few details of MLB’s latest labor proposal to the players, the conclusion of and possible confounding factors behind a Bill James study about how switching teams affects a player’s chances of Hall of Fame induction, another historic hire of a woman in baseball, […]

Way back in time, someone said try some, I tried some, now buy some, I bought some After a while, when I had tried them, denied them, I opened my eyes and I saw you. Ben Lindberg of The Ringer. Ben, how are you? Doing well. Good. We are also joined by other Ben. Ben Clemens. Ben, how are you? Doing well also. I'm so glad to hear that. It's a big day. Big day. Huge.

It's here, guys. Everyone's been waiting. The questions have been pouring in. When and where is the minor league free agent draft? Well, here it is. It's in your feeds right now. You are currently listening to it. The ninth annual Effectively Wild minor league free agent draft. One of our most storied traditions. Yes. And Ben, this will be your first minor league free agent draft. How are you feeling? A little nervous. I mean, not that nervous because it's a minor league free

agent draft, but a little nervous. It's an institution. It is a podcast institution, so you should be nervous. I'm nervous. We're all nervous. This means something. This has huge stakes. Bragging rights. Look, I just would like to say the following, which is that I made a compelling case for Kriesma

when we did this last year, and you just happened to scoop me. And I would like to say, I don't think you had the conviction in Kriesmaont that i did but you got to reap the rewards and this after i generously gave you the first overall pick allowing you to take faulty so wow so i drafted him but you wanted him more all along so really you deserve that playing time yeah i mean like i i i remember saying i think there is a sneaky path for him here to be a starter, even though the Padres rotation is stacked because of injury history. And who was right?

I was right. Me. Me. Yep. I evidently had more faith in him because I drafted him before you did. So we'll get to the results of last year's minor league for agent draft in just a moment. A little bit of banter first on our last episode we had said that we might talk a little bit about the specifics of mlb's

proposal to the players association because those had not yet come out when we were recording as it turns out i don't know that they're all that illuminating or enlightening our impression at the time was that this was not an offer that moved the needle much, and that still seems to be the case, even though we know about a few of the specifics here. So, Ben, I don't know if anything in particular about what was reported caught your eye here, but it seems like this is just a way to kick the can down the road, I guess, just to do something for the sake of doing something. And I guess put pressure on the Players Association to essentially negotiate against themselves.

Yeah. I think if you told me that prospects who played a full year and got Rookie of the Year votes would give teams extra draft picks and asked me what that would do for when prospects got called up, I don't really know if I think it would get them called up earlier or later. So it seems to me like it's just window dressing, like it's something fancy that they can do and people will talk about. But I don't know. It doesn't really seem like actually an economic proposal so much as like, here's an interesting different way we could do things.

Yeah, I have said several times on this podcast that like, I think that we deal perhaps too much in incentives when it comes to things like service time manipulation and trying to provide disincentives to service time manipulation. do anything about it at all. I understand that crafting rules that address every edge case to make sure that prospects are promoted when they're ready has some difficulty to it, right? That takes some doing, but just write a rule that says you can't manipulate service time and at least have the grievance process address that directly rather than trying to carrot and stick your way through this. It's just like embrace regulation. It's everyone's favorite thing. you know it's just like embrace regulation it's everyone's favorite thing right yeah and it included universal dh of course and there was 14 team playoffs of course and there was potentially an international draft shoehorned in here which was interesting tax was going up or the cbt rather

was going up from 210 million to a whopping214 million. So only 5% slower than inflation. Right, exactly. It's actually lower than it was in effect in real dollars. So yeah, it doesn't seem like this is going to get a deal done. I doubt anyone expected it to. But they did something. So they ended their 42 days of doing nothing. They have technically done something. So they ended their 42 days of doing nothing. They have technically done something.

And so now I guess the Players Association has to decide if they want to budge because the owners appear pretty intractable here. So maybe it's just going to be another game of chicken for a while, and we'll see if there'll be an immediate counter proposal or if they just sort of stand pat and say, make us a real offer. Yeah, I did enjoy that like J.J. Cooper at Baseball America sort of dignified the prospect portion of this with some actual analysis and he found what I think we could all intuit, which is that like this isn't the top 100 prospect patina that was put on that piece of this is sort of unnecessary

because typically the guys who are getting rookie of the year votes and MVP votes and Cy Young votes are guys who are getting rookie of the year votes and mvp votes and cy young votes are guys who were ranked prospects anyway right who are top 100 guys introducing the potential rigmarole and conflicts of that process seems completely unnecessary and not really you know pointed at trying to alleviate service time manipulation at all i also will say like i think there are a lot of public facing prospect writers who do a lot of really really good work and have an accurate understanding of who the guys are who are going to contribute the most to their big league teams. And I also don't think it's really appropriate for those folks to be involved in the process to this degree.

So, you know, quit outsourcing your assessments, MLB. It seems a little weird. I don't know why that's been a trend amongst the proposals that we've heard about so far, but I'd like it to stop, please. Yeah, I guess they largely dissolved the scouting bureau, so I don't know how you would do that. You can't use teams' internal ratings, really, so maybe you just shouldn't do that at all. But that was an interesting wrinkle. It's kind of a waste of time to dive deep into every point of every proposal because they're all just sort of markers along the road that hopefully will eventually lead to some sort of deal that probably won't really resemble the preceding proposals in all of those specifics. Yeah. More to come, we hope.

All right. So a couple other non-labor related things that we wanted to address. There's a new big Bill James study out on Bill James's website, Bill James Online, and it reaches an interesting conclusion. And Bill seems pretty pumped about it. He tweeted about it and asked people to share it. And I think it reaches an interesting conclusion, although I don't totally know if I buy the magnitude of the effect. So essentially, he did some research into Hall of Fame elections, and he found that players who jump from team to team may reduce their chances of getting into the hall by 50% or even more compared to a similar player who stays with one team. And he didn't do this just solely looking at one team career players because there aren't all that many of them really, but he kind of quantified how much of a team switcher you are. Did you go to a ton of teams? Did you play for one for most of your career? And he found that it makes a huge difference. He said, if we take all of the one team players in history, they have 44% more Hall of Fame selections within the group than would be expected based on those players' performance numbers. He also concluded that

a player is more than twice as likely to be selected to the Hall if he spent most of his career with one team than if he moved from team to team, at least within a certain threshold or below a certain threshold of value. Once you get up into the upper tiers, then it may not actually matter. But if you're kind of on the border, then a single team player seems to be more likely to get in. And I should mention he was using win shares for this because it's Bill Jameson. He invented win shares and he still uses them, but it's another measure of value. And he also wrote that if a player has fewer than 300 career win shares, his chance of being elected to the hall is consistently more than twice as great if he played more of his career for one team than if he split his career among three or four different teams. So that's the basic takeaway. three or four different teams. So that's the basic takeaway. Well, he suggested that playing most of his career with one team causes a player to do better in the Hall of Fame selection process,

although he acknowledges that that's not necessarily true, that it is a causative relationship. Anyway, there are six appendices here, so it's a long study, and I will link to it on the show page for anyone who wants to dive into it. But just wanted to bring it up, not only because the conclusion is interesting, but because I think there could be some potential confounding factors here that are also interesting. So last week when we did our Measuring the Unmeasurable series, we talked about how difficult baseball analysis is to do, just because there are all sorts of things that you can easily fail to account for. And not that I need to tell Bill James how to do baseball analysis. I think he has done a fair bit of that in his time.

And I think this is sort of a preliminary, hey, this is interesting. I'm just going to throw it up here kind of study, more than a final fit for publication in a big bound book kind of study. But I think there could be a couple things that are skewing this. One, it seems to me, is that there is an era effect here, or I would think that there's, yeah, there's got to be an era effect here, right? Because Hall of Fame election and induction patterns have changed over time, as have the tendency for players to switch teams. So a greater percentage of players were inducted from earlier eras. And partly that's just because it was longer ago and they've had more Fame. And you have more single I doubt the direction of the conclusion or the idea that there is some effect.

I mean, it makes some sense to me that this would exist to some extent, but I bet if you corrected for that, that it would probably lower it quite a bit from more than twice as likely to get in. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

There's a lot of appendices, and when I control F the thing for era, it's all in the comments. I mean, that makes sense. I think a lot of people kind of pointed this out. I don't doubt that there's an effect, like you said, but seems very large. And it also seems very heavily, like you said, confounding. Yeah, and I think that the mileage kind of varies on this in terms of how much Hall of Fame voters care, but I wonder if you, we talked about this likely to move around. I don't know how those things necessarily interact with one another, but I would be curious to hear more about longevity. I know that when Jay thinks about this stuff, he tries to account for both, that longevity matters to voters, but so does having bright peaks. That's why Jaws includes both a career and a peak score. So I'd be curious to see kind of what role that plays here. I don't know that it would necessarily alter the conclusion all that much, but it doesn't seem like it's being specifically addressed either.

Yeah, I would think. I mean, if you have two players who have the same number of win shares, and that's a counting stat, obviously, so it's kind of taking career length into account, but not totally. So if two players have the same number of win shares, you know, 200 or 300 or whatever, but one player did it in half the time, then that guy might have a better chance to make the Hall of Fame. He has the higher peak, whereas the second guy maybe has a higher chance of playing for more teams because he was bouncing around for a while and maybe had some sub-peak years. So I would guess that that's a part of it. And I would also guess that maybe part of it just has to do with why you're more likely to stay with the same team

in the first place, right? Like maybe there are factors that would lead to a team retaining a player that might not necessarily show up in win shares, but might be important here. I mean, I'm thinking of like playoff success, for instance, because I was kind of thinking of this in terms of like David Ortiz versus Gary Sheffield. And David Ortiz, not a one team player, but certainly spent most of his career with the Red Sox, whereas Sheffield really bounced around. most of his career with the Red Sox, whereas Sheffield really bounced around. And maybe that was partly because the Red Sox had a lot of success when Ortiz was there and he was a postseason hero. And that counts, right? I mean, that's a big part of the David Ortiz Hall of Fame case. And I would imagine that that postseason value is not accounted for by Bill's win shares metric here. So that seems like it could explain why a team was able to or wanted to keep a player around. And that's something that Hall of Fame voters

could consider. Or it could have something to do with the way that player was perceived in his era, right? Because you might have some players who, according to our current accounting, or at least according to WinShares, had sort of the same value but weren't regarded the same way in their own time, right? And then they would be more likely to be retained and to stay with that single team. And probably they would also be more likely to have been voted in by the writers who were covering them during that part of their career. And that could be a real thing or not. I mean, it could be something that Windshare's is missing. Maybe they actually were better, or maybe they brought some clubhouse value or character clause value or whatever it is

that's not being accounted for here, but would explain why they were kept with that team, in which case it would be more of a correlation than a causation, I guess, or they would just kind of go together, right? Like you would be more likely to get into the hall because of the same factors that led you to stay with that one team, but it's not that you're more likely to get into the hall because you were with that one team. Yeah. Yeah. So not to dump on Bill James's work here too much. I think it's an interesting study. It's an interesting topic for research. And Bill himself seemed somewhat surprised by the magnitude of the effect that he had found here.

So I'm just saying interesting study, interesting conclusion. But there might not be quite as much to it as this initial study suggests. as this initial study suggests. And I guess, you know, you could make a case that, well, maybe the one team player who actually built up a relationship with that fan base and is associated with that fan base and delivered that marquee value that another player might not have in terms of, I don't know, putting players in the seats or enriching the experience of baseball for people. Like maybe you should be more likely to get in. I mean, personally, I would say that it would probably be just more about how good at baseball you were. But if you're one of the people who thinks, well, it's the Hall of Fame and fame is an actual factor for you there, then maybe it is something that you should take into consideration. Like it's nice to know what cap the player will be wearing when he goes into the hall. Yeah, I think that that is meaningful to the conversation.

I don't think that it should necessarily be the deciding factor or anything like that. But I do think that there is something to be said for good careers spent in one place. That is a meaningful thing for baseball, not just for that fan base, but to our understanding of the social fabric of the game. So there's something to that i don't think it needs to occupy an overly large place in our understanding of candidates but like i think it matters and fan graphs dan simborski was tweeting about this earlier so i asked him what he had found because he said he found something similar ish and he told me that

when he was working on this, it was just sort of in the spitballing phase. And generally speaking, he found that it was a real variable, but a minor one. So he thinks that accounting for that era effect really minimized what Bill found. And he thinks that the different rates of induction for pre-free agency era players was a confounding variable. So I think that's part of it there. But he found that there was something to it, even if you do account for it. So sort of interesting, I think. When Brian McCann does not make the Hall of Fame and Buster Posey does, we can talk about this again. Right. Yeah. I've written my article about the Hall of Fame cases

of framing dependent catchers in the past that's going to be an interesting and or terrible argument when that really rises to the fore but don't all of those arguments seem like they'll be like a warm bath after some of the recent hall of fame discourse we had i can't wait to talk about how important framing is that's going to be so much more fun than what we've had recently that That's going to be great. You're going to be a complete pain in the ass, Ben. I hope I have a Hall of Fame vote by then, because then we can make our brave stand for the framers. And also just wanted to note, Meg, because we talked earlier this week about how it had been a big week for women in baseball getting certain jobs, debuting in certain

leagues, etc. There was another bit of news about that, which is that the Red Sox are becoming the first team to have multiple women as full-time coaches in their minor league system because the Red Sox already employed Bianca Smith and she'll be a full-time coach for Fort Myers in 2022. But the Red Sox have also just hired Katie Kral, who used to work for the commissioner's office. I met her when she was there, and I think she ended up there through the MLB Diversity Fellowship program that we've talked about. And she did a great job there. And then she ended up with the Reds in their front office in baseball operations as an analyst for the past couple of years. And now she's been hired by the Red Sox as a development coach.

So sort of a hybrid role, kind of part front office, part integrating technology and data into on-field work and player development. So it's another milestone, again, maybe overdue and not enough, but something. Because I would imagine that while it's great to be hired in one of these roles, it's probably also something that invites some isolation and scrutiny if you are the only one in a role like that in an entire organization. So I don't know how much of a difference two with multiple affiliates makes, but it's a start. And I think the Boston Globe mentioned that there are now 11 women coaching in affiliated baseball in 2022 as of now,

and eight of them have been hired just since the start of 2021. So this is a very recent trend, unfortunately, but it does seem to be picking up some steam. Yeah, I think that it's important to remember that support and affirmation doesn't have to come from people who are exactly like you. I do think that having other people from your sort of demographic cohort around is useful, because there are just experiences that are going to be specific to that demo that it's good to be able to talk to someone else about and have them have a baseline of understanding, you know, from common experience. But I think that one of the things that I've been struck by in the conversations around these hires is how conscious the organization seemed to be of

the fact that, you know, it's like any other new manager, not just like baseball manager, but someone in a managerial role. It's like you have to support that person and help them grow within it. And I think that as long as that is the approach that orgs are taking, you're going to be set up for success because that support can come from a lot of places and it can be really meaningful to have it come from people

who don't just look like you. So, mm-hmm. And last thing, Meg, we have a Lab League logo or at least a perspective one. So, listener, Patreon patreon supporter discord group creator chris hannell has mocked up an image here of a lab league logo which is following the scheme of the mlb logo except instead of a player in profile it's a mad scientist with big tufts of spiky hair

and a bubbling beaker levitating above his hand. And can't really tell if it's his right hand or left hand, which is also consistent with the MLB logo. But he doesn't look like a duck if you look at it from a certain way that you can't unsee as the MLB player does. Anyway, I like it. It looks nice. Zach Buchanan, the athletic writer, tweeted that it sounds perilously close to lab leak for his comfort, which I think we may have mentioned on the podcast before. But other than that, looks great. I don't have many notes. I think maybe the mad scientist could use some thick Coke bottle glasses that might enhance the effect here.

But otherwise, I like it a lot. Yeah, I think that as we discussed last time, you're always going to struggle to have it feel sufficiently distant from a steroid reference, right? That hangs over the entire enterprise of Lab League merch. It's devastating. But as I said to you when you sent this to me, I love how much like a mad scientist it immediately looks like it's just clear that this is this is a mad scientist trying to you know figure out the shift with a beaker i guess so i think it's great i support lab league i hope it prospers i just saw the duck oh wow yeah you'll never unsee it yeah good luck in seeing the duck oh no yeah you'll never unsee it. It's there forever. It's burned into the back of your brain now. All right. Shall we get down to business? Yeah.

Let's do it. All right. Minor League for Agent Draft. So those of you who have not been with us before, what we do every year here sometime around now is we draft Minor League for Ag agents and we compete to get the most accumulated playing time in the upcoming season. So minor league free agents, that's not everyone who signs a minor league contract. It's like a specific class of players, players who basically have been in the minors for seven years or so, and they're not on a 40 man. And then they become free agents if they haven't signed some other

kind of contract already and there's a list that we all work off of that is published by matt eddie at baseball america every year 653 players and we will of course link to that on the show page so if you're wondering why we didn't draft someone, possibly they weren't eligible. But our entire goal is to get playing time, plate appearances, and or batters faced. We just add up the plate appearances and batters faced, and whoever drafts the most in total wins the thing. And so we don't even care if they're good. I mean, we care if they're good because it might help them get more playing time. But otherwise, playing time, all we care about. And we've been doing this for years and years and years.

And I don't know if we're any better at it than we were at the beginning. I think maybe we're a little bit better. But we have the results from last year, which, you know, don't want to brag or anything. No, you kicked my ass. You should brag. You totally kicked my ass. I did pretty well. I had a good draft. Yeah. Look, you kicked my ass. You should brag. You totally kicked my ass. I did pretty well. I had a good draft. Yeah. Look, you didn't

have a bad draft. You had a combined total of 569 plate appearances and batter's face, and that is a perfectly respectable total that would fit in well with many other totals that have been drafted over the year. Yeah. And we had the same number

of players we hit on i believe who made the majors by the way only counting major league playing time here right probably should have specified that so five of each of our 10 got playing time technically zuwei lin also made the majors one of my draftees but played one game and didn't get a plate appearance so that doesn't count for me so we kind of did the same in that sense. We picked major leaguers at roughly the same rate. I just happened to do a bit better with the playing time and ended up with 1,311 combined plate appearances and batters faced, which I believe is the second highest total that has ever been amassed.

I think Jeff Sullivan did a little bit better one year. And then the Rays hired him probably to go sign minor league free agents for them. So now it's up to us, and there's not much method to our madness. So what percentage of it was Fulte and Kreeseburg? A lot. I would have won without Fulte. So Fawlty was the big hit, the number one overall pick, right? And he ended up with 586 batters faced. So, you know, that's a big percentage of my total, although you take that away, stillreismat then you would have won so if you take away my two best picks then oh no i'm not saying like you you won you beat me fair and square um my enthusiasm because i've had some lousy years and some bad drafts in the past yeah my enthusiasm for kreismat aside like you you did you did quite well here i I did not embarrass myself, I don't think. And so I feel happy about that. I say a job well done. Whether we have gotten better at this, I know that it takes me longer to prep than it used to, but I don't know that that is yielding better results. So I mean, I guess we're going to find out. It would be very funny if in this, the year where we arguably have the least to go on, at least from a transaction perspective, if I finally did win, that would be funny.

But what I think will really happen is that Ben Clemens will win because that's how this is going to go. Probably. I did type each player's name in the fan graphs. Every single one? Well, how else was I supposed to know who they were wow wait not all 653 oh yeah on the baseball what whoa okay that's a lot of prep i mean but some of them i assume you knew uh the ones that i knew i didn't type in i guess so i didn't type them all in but some guy i would be like who's this uh no he played in the complex

league last year okay don't have to worry about him. That's a lot of labor there. I mean, I'm sure that you have ad-free fan graphs, which just loads super snappy, but even so. So yeah, my big hits were Fawlty, Chris Mott, and Rafael Ortega, who paid off for me.

And you had Sam Clay did well, and Connor Joe were your two biggest strikes. And I should say we both beat the control group handily because last year our listener Thomas Burton suggested that we should have a control group. And he used random.org to select some players. And random.org got a grand total of 16 plate appearances, all from Atlanta's Jack Lopez. So we did better than picking purely at Random. We did considerably better than that.

So I feel good. So generally, I guess we have given the honor of the first pick to our guest, right? I guess, Meg, you deserve the second pick this year probably because I got the first one last year. But yeah, you alluded to the difficulty of this year's draft in particular. Last year was tough because 2020 was no minor league season. So a lot of the time we didn't know what anyone had been up to or what they had done for the past year. So that was tough. This is tough for a different reason, which is that most of these players haven't signed yet. I mean, fewer than usual. And we

waited a little longer. Usually we do this late December, very early January. We waited a little longer, but that just hasn't happened, I think, because players can't sign major league contracts, even if they're minor league free agents, I think. And so usually there are some players who quickly sign major league contracts. The most desirable minor league free agents can command major league contracts. And often that is a tip for us, right? You draft those guys first because teams believed in them enough to give them the major league deal. That's not going to help us this time. And I think some players who probably think that they could command a major league contract are waiting out the market, right? And some have gone overseas, but also some are just waiting

for the lockout to end so that they could potentially get a better deal. And that seems to be holding up the whole minor league free agent market too. So in a lot of cases, players will not have been signed yet. And there's, I think, less to go on than there is at this time, typically. Yeah, for sure. All of that said, Ben, you're on the board. It's always good to have the first pick. I actually don't think this is very hard. I'm going to take Jose Iglesias.

Yep. Yeah, he's a minor league free agent because of a technicality that he was traded after the trade deadline. And so the Red Sox had to outrun him to the minors. So he's a minor league free agent, but he's a major league free agent. So great. don't know how you two prep for this and my prep differs by the year but often i will just scan down the list i don't type every player into fancraft so i'm not dedicated enough to do that but i just see which ones i recognize because a lot of them i don't i don't know these names some of them i do and it's great to be transported back to the past half the fun of the minor league free agent draft is that it's just a built-in remember some guys you can't believe that these players are still bouncing around there but sometimes you see someone who just leaps off the page and jose iglesias is this year's faulty so he hasn't played fewer than 120 major league

games in a non-shortened season since 2014 and i know the angels released him and his defense is overrated if anyone still thinks it's good. But he somehow had a 9-15 OPS for Boston in 23 games at the end of the year, which was interesting because he was ineligible for the playoffs. So he knew he was just playing out the string. Maybe that's what he needed all along. No pressure, nothing to justify. And he really had a hot streak. But yeah, I mean, he's's gonna play somewhere and get you some serious playing time he dh'd a game in 2021 huh i mean i know he dh'd a lot in 2020 but he's still

doing it it's crazy yeah he had like negative 20 drs or something with the angels if the angels release you that's not a great sign although i think his his stat cast defensive stats were a bit better but anyway that was i think the consensus number one pick meg do you have someone yeah i sure do okay i'm doing that thing i do before i before i take someone where i just like i just like double check i just like make sure that it's like a real thing so i'm gonna select brett sullivan brett sullivan is a catcher. He was formerly with Tampa. He signed a major league deal with Milwaukee. So he's going to compete for third catcher duties.

He made our recent provers list. And so I am taking Brett Sullivan. All right. Then I guess I will take Joshua Fuentes, kind of in the Hosea Iglesias mold of, I've heard of this guy and he plays. So I don't know that he is good or as good as Jose Iglesias. He is probably best known as the cousin of Nolan Arnauto. He did play 95 games for the Rockies last year didn't hit well. I believe his brother listens to Effectively Wild and emails us from time to time. So this picks for you. But I don't know that I'm going to get a Glacius level playing time out of Fuentes, but it just seems like a fairly solid bet to get some playing time somewhere. He's 28 and he has gotten some good time with the Rockies in the past couple of years. Yeah. I had him on my list of people as well. I did not know Brett Sullivan signed

a major league deal, so that was a nice scoop. Neither did I. Yeah. Well, I hope that I'm right, because I'm going by our transaction tracker, so I might have been undone by Fangraphs, in which case I will have been truly hoisted by my own petard. Alright. Alright, so back to me or do we bounce this one back and forth? Oh, I don't remember how we normally do it. How do we normally do it? Usually we do just do it the

very simple way of just going in order and I know that people have suggested far more complex and probably fair ways of doing the draft, but i think usually we don't even snake do we i think we just do it in order yeah and by the way we draft 10 players a piece which seems like a lot of players we were surprised to see that we have historically drafted 10 players a piece yeah we were that's what we've done and that's what we will do so

yeah ben back to you all right i will take michael franco uh-huh i don't know how much he's gonna play but he's on the nats and i think he'll play sometimes that's all the rationale you need that's what we're going for here will he play and have you heard of him so yeah two for two yep let's see. It's me again, isn't it? What a choice. Now I'm nervous that my understanding of some of these transactions is wrong. What a thing that would be. Meg, I looked it up. He did sign a major league deal.

Okay, thank God. Was that before the lockout went into effect? Yeah, November 29th. Yeah. Just under the wire. So I'm going to stick on this theme, and I'm going to take Nick Plummer. No. Yeah.

Sorry. Yeah. I'm taking Nick Plummer. Sniped. Ben Clemens, formerly a St. Louis Cardinal. He assigned a major league deal with the Mets. Plummer had kind of a weird developmental track. He's a Detroit high school guy, and then he was injured a bunch and also blocked in that good outfield in st louis so hasn't really gotten an

opportunity but you know he's a lefty bat conforto's gone and so even though they have made some some good free agent signings in that outfield i imagine that there is a path to playing time for him although the mets did a similar thing uh last year with a prospect whose name is now escaping me and then they cut him unceremoniously so this could backfire on me but i think uh nick him although the Mets did a similar thing last year with a prospect whose name is now escaping me and then they cut him unceremoniously so this could backfire on me but I think Nick Plummer come on down yeah great pick my draft is ruined we're even now for Chris Mott I mean yeah I really wanted Nick Plummer I debated taking him with the first pick. Probably just could have gotten away with leaving Josh Pointus for a little while. I think you probably could have, yeah.

Yeah, Plummer's interesting. He was, I think, drafted in the first round a pick ahead of Walker Bueller, right? And it took him a while to put things together, but he finally hit last year and lowered his strikeout rate. I think he was over some wrist problems, and Lorela talked to him at some point about that I believe at Fangraphs and I remember Jarrett Seidler tweeting when the Mets signed him that Plummer had been mentioned to him by multiple

teams as the best minor league free agent available by leaps and bounds and he's like kind of a legitimate prospect again I guess. So yeah, great pick. All right. I think I will take Mark Leiter Jr.

Yeah, good one. All right. Now I feel a little bit better. This is just, it's all about spite, really. It's all about making your fellow drafters upset. No, I'm happy that you had such success last year, Ben. I just hope that you have less success this year. So Mark Leiter Jr., son of Mark Leiter Sr., nephew of Al, cousin of Jack. One of the many pitching Leiters. Yeah, he has been in the big leagues, not since 2018, I believe.

He had Tommy John surgery, and then he caught on with the Tigers and pitched quite well in AAA last year and then was recently signed by the Cubs. And I guess the Cubs rotation is a little more crowded than it was at the start of the offseason. But it seems like there's still an opportunity for Mark Leiter to sneak in there somewhere. So Mark Leiter Jr. Yeah. Dang it. I like that one. I like that one. I like that one too.

Alright. This might be leaning a little bit too much on the name recognition, but I'm going to take Shedlong. Uh-huh. Yeah. On my board. Yeah. I don't know. He's good. He hasn't signed yet, which makes me think maybe he's going to get a major league deal. Because if he had a minor league deal, I'd be a little less interested, but I don't know like he wasn't terrible he kind of was wasn't he

yeah he was pretty bad um i think he's a good player so i hope he gets some playing time somewhere yeah one concern for me i think he had surgery for a stress fracture in his leg this offseason yeah in a sense that's encouraging because i think he had surgery for a stress fracture in his leg this offseason. Yeah. And in a sense, that's encouraging because I think he had played through stress fractures in both of the past two seasons. Yes. But he also had a previous surgery for a stress fracture like last offseason, I think. It doesn't seem great. It doesn't seem great. But he did have at least 120 plate appearances in each of the last three years.

And he's 26 years old. And he starred in a podcast by a friend of the show, C. Trent Rosecrans. And I assume that he will catch on somewhere. So, yeah, I would have taken him at some point if you hadn't. Yeah, that's a good pick. He was on my board, too. Okay. What am I going to do here?

I'm going to do this. And you're going to say, Meg, I don't know. It could be terrible, but it might be fine. I'm taking Kristen Stewart. Oh, yeah. On my board. Kristen Stewart, who our listeners may be most familiar with from his time in Detroit.

Indeed, he was with the Tigers last year and hit pretty well in AAA, 127 WRC+. The strikeouts are like maybe a touch high and that might be concerning and he can be just like an absolute butcher in the outfield but he he caught on with boston who i don't know i'm like kind of skeptical of boston's outfield situation even with some of their options and the versatile guys they have and like you know jackie bradley jr can't hit anymore and also isn't very good at defending and uh you know the the power with stewart is like quite real so i am taking christian

stewart and hoping that between potential underperformance at i don't know maybe first base and then in some outfield spots that he'll get a look or two. So that's what I'm doing. Yep. That is a good pick, I think. And he hit well for the Tigers in AAA last year. He had been in the big leagues with them for a few years. Yeah. Only 28. I don't think he plays center or I don't think he has played center. If he has, he sure shouldn't.

Yeah. So that's a slight concern. But yes, good pick. All right. My next pick, I'm also also gonna go with name recognition but there's a story that goes with this and i could probably wait i imagine this player would fall for a bit but i just really want him on my team i have a guess well i there are a couple people it could be who's well i can't give me your guess because you might tip me off. I will tell you whether it's right or not after you pick it.

My pick is Matt Shoemaker. Oh. Not who I guessed. Okay. It's not who I would have guessed either, but that's nice. There are a couple Lindbergh favorites in this draft pool here. And yes, you wouldn't have picked Matt Shoemaker at the top of that list. But here's the thing about Shoemaker.

I mean, he's fascinated me for a while because he has had periods of dominance that seem strange if you look at the rest of his career. But I remember in 2014, he went off for a few months. And I remember this because Jeff Sullivan was sort of obsessed with it. And he wrote about him maybe multiple times at Fangrass, August 27, 2014. What reasons are there not to believe in Matt Shoemaker? He was like one of the best pitchers in baseball for a fairly brief time, but long enough that it didn't seem like a complete fluke. And then that didn't last all that long. And then, of course, he had to have brain surgery because he was hit by a ball. And it's been an up-and-down career, but with periods of really impressive pitching. And here's why I want him now. So you look at his stats last year, he had an 8 plus ERA with the Twins in the major leagues in 60 Giants and when he started pitching for them in AAA he wasn't great either he had like a 5.19 ERA through several AAA starts however his last

four starts of the season in AAA with the Giants 27 innings pitched 36 strikeouts, four walks, a two ERA, a 613 OPS allowed with a 322 BABIP. So it wasn't some fluky thing. And I had done some reporting on this previously. I didn't do any reporting for the draft, but I had some inside info here because I talked to Brian Bannister, the Giants director of pitching, months ago when I was writing a feature about pitcher deception for the Ringer. And Brian Bannister knows a lot about Yusmero Petit, who was sort of the star of my article. And he used to play with him and he loves him and the deception and all of that. And when I was interviewing Brian, and this was all on the record and everything, he just brought up Matt shoemaker because the giants had signed him

and so here's what he says there's a matt shoemaker in triple a and when you look back on his year with the angels when he was a successful pitcher he moved really fast and he had this funkiness to him and he got away from that he actually in recent times has dramatically slowed down his delivery changed his hand position. And we actually are really diving into what were the qualities of that season in Anaheim that allowed you to put up your most productive year in the big leagues. And we really attacked it from a visual deception perspective. And to his credit, he hadn't done it in a while, but he went out there his last outing and actually had his best outing of the year. So I was talking to him right after he had happened to have that

first super successful start. And Brian said all he changed was trying to be more visually deceptive by moving faster, hiding the ball behind his torso better, really just trying to create visual confusion for the hitter. And so I think there's value when a guy's pitch shape hasn't changed very much or his velocity hasn't changed very much, but he's not getting the production that he got at a previous period in his career. I think it's definitely worth diving into the visual timing deception component of what he's doing out there. So I happen to know this. I guess this is kind of cheating in a way, but I knew this information and I love this story because A, I am obsessed with picture deception and I love the idea that it could make that much difference. But also, maybe Matt Shoemaker is the new Rich Hill.

He is 35 years old. He was discovered and fixed by Bryant Bannister, just like Rich Hill. Hill was also 35 when Bannister found him, and he debuted. Was it four starts that he made at the end of the season for the Red Sox that year in 2015? And he was so dominant and the rest is history. So this was four starts in AAA. It's not quite the same, but 35-year-old pitcher being resurrected by Brian Bannister in his final four starts of the season. I'm all in on Matt Shoemaker for 2022. Wow, Ben. Wow. So you're really drafting two of your favorites, one of whom is not actually in this draft,

but you're drafting the idea of Rich Hill along with Matt Shoemaker is what you're saying. And Brian Bannister because I love Brian Bannister too. So yeah, I just, I had to have Matt Shoemaker. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And the Giants have had some success with change up kind of guys. Yeah. So I like that.

So maybe Matt Shoemaker is the big new Giants breakout for 2022. You heard it here first. Okay. So I'm also going to take someone who is in the NL West and at one point lit the league on, I mean, no. At one point he was an okay pitcher for a few starts. Ty Block, who signed a minor league deal with the Rockies, and they need pitchers. And he was really really good in very very few minor league innings uh 22 minor league innings in complex

leagues and i think short season a ball so that doesn't really mean anything but he was a lot better than those like small children who are playing baseball and yeah he's in the rockies so i think he'll probably get some starts because they need pitchers. Okay. I'm going to stay in the NL West also. I need to put some pitchers on my board, but that's not where I'm going with this pick. I'm taking Yanni Pareda, who's a catcher, used to be with Boston, is now with the Giants.

This is as much a pick about me thinking that the Giants aren't really that high on joey bart as anything else so the way that they have behaved does not indicate to me that they are thinking that that star is ascendant posy has retired it's only bart and casali on the 40 man for them so and they're also an org who has shown us over the last couple of years that they're pretty willing to give guys you know sort of post prospect guys run to see if they're any good and see if they can fix them at all and if they like what they see they let those guys stick and if they don't they dismiss them very very quickly so assuming he makes the big leagues who knows but that's that's where i'm uh i'm going

here so all right i think i will take magnuris sierra who is also someone whose name you probably know partly because it's magnuris but also because he's been a big leaguer for a while he's been with the marlins every season since 2017 he actually played 123 games for them in 2021 kind of rare to get a minor league free agent who got that much playing time. Although a lot of it, I guess, was probably as a defensive replacement because he only had 225 played appearances and defensive innings. Don't do anything for us here. Maybe we should consider that for a future draft. But anyway, he didn't hit at all.

So that's a slight problem. But he's played a lot and he's not old. He's only 25 years old. He has very good defensive stats. He is very fast and he plays multiple positions. I mean, at least all over the outfield. And he was signed by the Angels, I believe. Yes, he was.

So that could be bad news. It could be good news don't know it depends on the season i'm hoping that he is the fourth outfield backup type for trout and walsh and nadal but we'll see there may be some other candidates for that job but i'm gonna hope that he lands it and i'm gonna that Mike Trout plays every single game and gets every single plate appearance. And that Magnus Sierra never fills in for him. Not that I want anything bad to happen to Brandon Walsh or Joe Adele either. But hopefully, one way or another, he gets some playing time for the Angels. Or for someone next season. Yeah, he's very fast.

Yeah. All right. I am going to take a high floor, low ceiling guy, Anthony Bemboom. Yeah, he's very fast. Yeah. I am going to take a high floor, low ceiling guy, Anthony Bemboom. Oh, yeah. He is on the Orioles. He's trying to minor league deal with them, and he's kind of the perfect roster fodder

to have on your 40 man to take some starts until we get past Super 2 deadline for Adley, and then to mysteriously disappear and get outrided. But I think he will get some playing time before he disappears. So I think he's kind of a guaranteed, I don't know, 50 played appearances or something. Yeah, that's always the question.

Do you want to go with the player that you're very confident is going to get a small amount of playing time? Or do you want to shoot for the moon with someone who might actually get some substantial playing time but also might never make the majors? It's one of the eternal questions of the minor league for Agent Draft. Yeah. As someone who has tried to play and is clearly by my current selection still trying to play the doesn't everyone need catching game? Sometimes it works works but not always

yep not always okay i'm going to take i'm gonna take i feel like my board is really different than your guys's board i don't know why okay i'm gonna take dalton kelly oh yeah no he's on my board yeah well that makes me feel better dalton ke Kelly is a first baseman, was with Tampa, is now with Oakland. And my rationale here is, well, there's like him as a player, so he's a lefty hitter and has clearly undergone a pretty meaningful swing change. Like his ground ball rate is way, way down. He's pulling the ball more. Hit quite well for Tampa in AAA.

Projects okay for next year. He doesn't like crush, crush the ball, but he does seem to get the barrel to it pretty regularly. And, you know, he's not the only internal candidate for them if they move Olsen like I think we all expect them to, but I think he's one of the better ones. And so I am taking Dalton Kelly. All right.

So this will be my fifth pick, which I think will take us to the halfway point of this draft. And I will take Janeshwe Fargus, another name you might know because it's Janeshwe. But also, he just turned 27, I believe, and he was in the majors this past year with the Mets and the Cubs. And he is also speedy. He has four 40 or 50 plus steal seasons in the minors, which is a pretty rare thing these days. And he plays all over the outfield.

And I don't really remember if he was signed anywhere yet. I think maybe not. I don't think we have him signed anywhere yet. Yeah. So hopefully he ends up somewhere he didn't get a ton of playing time this past season and didn't do a ton with it really but he has been with the giants he's been with the cubs he's been with the mets and he did a little bit better i guess in triple a but didn't hit a ton really. He is a speed and defense kind of guy. And so I hope someone will find a spot on a bench somewhere for him. Yeah.

Yeah, they should. He's fast. Yep. All right. I will take another pitcher. I'm going to take Kyle McGowan, unsigned guy who was on the Nats last year. I think he also might get a major league deal. Perhaps his projections are really good i mean a

4-2 era is pretty good i think for somebody in the minor league free agent draft and he had a 4-2 era in the majors in 30 innings in 2021 so i'm hoping that someone perhaps the mats i mean they need a lot of pitching we'll sign him to a major league deal once the lockout ends all right i am going to take a picture i should probably take some. I am going to take a pitcher. I should probably take some pitchers. I'm going to take Jake Newberry. Jake Newberry has signed a minor league deal with the Phillies. He's a reliever who signed a deal with the Phillies, so it seems like they'll give him some kind of run because, gosh, is that bullpen still kind of underwhelming?

He's got a good slider and good command. It's like 88 topen is still kind of underwhelming. He's like not, you know, he's got a good slider and good command. It's like 88 to 91 is my understanding. But yeah, Jake Newberry. Because, you know, one of these Philly pitchers is going to actually be something. It could happen. It could be Jake Newberry. And if it is, I'll be very excited about it. My notes on Jake Newberry say, reliever who signed with Philadelphia.

And then it says, draftable, yes. Yep. All right. Wait, do you have notes on every single player too? No. Only on the ones who says draftable yes so yeah yep all right wait do you have notes on every single player too no only on the ones who are draftable just so i can say something about them when i draft them yeah okay all right i was worried about the level of preparation that you put in here i mean this matters i don't want to downplay how much this matters but i also want to be considerate of your time. Okay. I will take Jake Bowers, who is only 26 years old. He has been in the big leagues with Tampa Bay, Cleveland, and most recently Seattle. He played 115 games in the majors in 2021.

And probably the best that can be said is that he out hit Evan White. The lowest bar one could imagine. But he did clear it and he signed with the Reds. So he has a employer. So that's nice. And he's young and he has been not terrible before. So, yeah, Jake Bowers. Yeah, that seems solid. He's one of the more like actual major league looking hitters on this list yeah i am gonna take zach erwin a reliever

who signed a minor league deal with the rays that's a good sign usually i guess that's what i'm hoping they seem to get a lot out of their relievers yeah because jeff is making their minor league free agent signings now, probably. Yeah, they don't have many. They're behind their normal pace. Okay, I guess it's my turn again, isn't it? I'm going to take another

pitcher. I'm taking another Oakland guy. My last pitcher wasn't an Oakland guy, but this guy is. I'm taking Ryan Castellani. Oh, yeah. And this is sort of a two-way directional bet. The first being that I don't think Colorado develops pitchers very well. And the second being that I think Oakland will try to fix him. And also that given the step back that they seem to be taking here

and gearing up for that, even if it's just in relief, that he will likely get some runs so that they see what they have in him so uh so yeah i'm taking ryan castellani because because the rocky suck or something i don't know sorry rocky's fans it's too strong it's just drafting guys because they're either with the rays or no longer with the rockies that That's the rationale. It seems sufficient. So, yeah. And for people who haven't seen Ryan Castellani,

which included me, I think, up until I was prepping for this, he looks exactly like Max Scherzer. I mean, not facially or eye-wise or anything, but he has like Max Scherzer's exact delivery, which I assume is not a coincidence. He is not as good as Max Scherzer, but he does look like him. If he were as good as Max Scherzer and he was available in this draft, he would have gone much earlier. Yes, that would be somewhat surprising.

Okay, where will I go next? Maybe I'll go with another name recognition guy. Sometimes I feel like I'm a bit boring with my picks, but it works out often. I guess I'll go with Yolmer Sanchez, formerly of the White Sox, former Gold Glove winner. Yolmer Sanchez, how often can you get a fairly... In 2020, I guess? 2019.

Yeah. Won a Gold Glove. Who knew? How often can you get that kind of hardware in a minor league free agent draft? how often can you get that kind of hardware in a minor league free agent draft he was not in the big leagues in 2021 which is a strike against him but he was in mlb every year from 2014 to 2020 he's still only 29 he's played everything except catcher and center field so this is just your standard plays every position has been given chances before, hopefully will be given chances again. I'm sorry, he won a

gold glove at second base? Were all the other second basemen dead? Did they become youth pastors briefly? What are we doing here? Do you think that's crazier? Or do you think it's crazier that the 2018 winner was Ian Kinsler? Was it really? Really old

Ian Kinsler, right? We're like, you know, sometimes we're really guessing, I guess, 2018 winner was Ian Kinsler. Was it really? Really old Ian Kinsler. That was not long ago, right? Wow. We're like, you know, sometimes we're really guessing, I guess, is the thing. I mean, he had a good DRS rating that year, I guess. He was leading. He led second baseman in the AL and defensive run saved. So I guess that there was something there, but that's shocking. I'm shocked.

Yeah. So he was with Atlanta, I believe, in the minors last season, but don't know where he is now. Don't know if he's anywhere. I mean, he must be somewhere, but I don't know if he's been signed by a team yet. Hopefully he will be. Wow. I've learned something today.

Yeah. That was truly surprising to me. Yeah. Wow. Glad to blow your minds. Yeah, that was truly surprising to me. Yeah, wow. Glad to blow your minds. Yeah, geez. Ben, I don't know how you're going to recover from that to make your next pick, but I guess we have to soldier on. I have a pick that I found

very enjoyable. He's been in the news. He's been signed by the two best teams in baseball this offseason. That's John Duplantier, who the Giants signed a minor league deal only to have the Dodgers select him away from them in the minor league free agent draft four days later. I don't actually know if he's going to get any major league time.

I think the Dodgers like to use their AAA shuttle enough that he'll probably get some. But the fact that both the Dodgers and Giants wanted to sign him makes me think he might be good. Yeah. He was on my board. I'll be it further down. But yeah, he was floating around.

Oh, God, I got to go now. Yep. Oh, no. I have a pick, and I don't know if I need to make it now. I think I might not have to, but I, so I'm not going to. I'm going to risk it.

I'm going to, how many picks do I have left here? Three. Okay, fine. I'm going like really position player heavy, aren't I? That's fine. We're going to do it. You'm going to, how many picks do I have left here? Three. Okay, fine. I'm going like really position player heavy, aren't I? That's fine. We're going to do it. You don't need a balanced roster here. I know, but sometimes it leaves you vulnerable.

I'm just proud. Once again, I'd like to point out that I've mostly stuck to my board and I, it's not like the first year where I, things went off the rail after like the second pick. Coming up strong. Okay. This is going to be an interesting dynamic to introduce to the draft so it'll be fun for that reason if nothing else because i am taking a different angels minor league outfielder and i guess we're going to

find out who's right i'm taking dylan thomas oh yeah you know i have your same concerns i suppose about how much they will actually need to rely on these guys and you know i guess one of us will be right or we could both be wrong mostly like he had he has a non-roster invite to spring training and his power is stupid like the he is not actually like great from like a hit tool perspective but like the power is pretty nuts so it makes up for some of it and um so i'm taking i'm taking dylan thomas yeah you did a meet a major leaker segment on him i did i think you're right i'm glad you remember what i've said on the podcast i don't always remember ben well that's why we

have a wiki all right i will go with another boring but known name, which is Alex Blandino. And he is as bland as his name suggests. However, I have heard of him. And he is 29. He is a former first rounder. And he's another utility guy. He played 43 games for the Reds last year and didn't do very well. But he played them.

And he was signed by the Giants, I believe. So I assume that he will now be incredible, and also incredibly clutch, and it'll be late-night Blandino in 2022, and I'm sure that that's what will happen. So I don't know if like a year, or I guess arguably two years, but really a year and a half of the Giants making more of hitters is enough to bank on the Blandino breakout. But in the, what, seventh pick of the minor league free agent drafts, I guess that's good enough.

Yeah. Yeah. I am going to take a former Effectively Wild guest, I think. Oh, you wouldn't. It's not the one that you want to take, though. The one you was thinking i would take before uh christian bethencourt ah former ringer mlb show guest yeah i i mixed him up i remember interview when you interviewed him about pitching he signed the

a's as catching depth i think he's kind of their third catcher at the moment and i assume if he also pitches in mob up duty i get both yeah you do yeah you do he also probably won't play for them this year but he does no but he might yeah i did not know he was still around really all right okay i can tell which prospect list we've published based on some of my picks here um that's neither here nor there um i'm gonna take hobie harris hobie his name is hobie harris a human person his name is hobie hobie harris was with toronto he is now with milwaukee and i will read the following from his report on the recently published brewers list his delivery has changed a bit and he was parked at 96 to 98 during 2020 instructs with the Jays and up to 101 out of the bullpen.

He sat 97 in 2021 and reduced his walk rate some. It is still below average. While pitching at AAA, and then he departed in free agency and landed with the Brewers. He's got potential for an emerging splitter, and his name is Hobie. Yeah. So I'm taking Hobie Harris.

As well you should. Okay. Then with my eighth pick, I will take Tyler White. You may remember Tyler White from his days with the Astros and Dodgers. He has a World Series ring. He was nicknamed and presumably still is nicknamed Big Puddin', which is recent enough to draft him at this point in the draft, I think. But he also hit very well last year in AAA following a stint in the KBO in 2020.

So last year in AAA, he had a 424 on base percentage, which is quite impressive, I think, even if you're an advanced age elder statesman person in AAA. But he was with the Blue Jays, I think, even if you're an advanced age elder statesman person in AAA, but he was with the Blue Jays, I believe. And he's now with the Brewers. And I guess he has to beat out Rowdy Tellez for playing time, which I suppose he had to do with the Blue Jays also and did not do. So I guess that's not the best sign. But yeah, Tyler White. Hoping there's a little more left in that bat. And always root for the 33rd round pick too. Wait, that was your ninth pick, right?

Correct. Oh, was it? Oh, okay. Yeah, that was your ninth pick. I lost track. Yeah, that was your ninth pick. I'll take your word for it. Tyler White looks like a young Kris Kringle.

Like he could be in like a Hallmark Christmas movie about Kris Kringle, the early years. That may not be unrelated to his nickname. Yeah, maybe not. Bowl of figgy pudding, perhaps. My last pick in the draft. There are so many people I want to pick. Yeah. I could go 15 rounds.

Get our lightning round of we like this guy that we can get some names in at the end. All right. My last pick will be Richard Ureña. He is a, I don don't know middle infield type he signed with the gnats the gnats are really bad and he hit okay in triple a with toronto in 2021 so yeah okay okay i am taking this is like this could be nothing or it could be a steal and it'll probably not be anything in between. I am taking Jason Guzman. Jason signed with the very not good Diamondbacks.

That's already a good indicator for his potential playing time. He is someone who I know that Eric Longnagin has been very high on in the past. He is quite young now. Granted, there are some confounding factors here, like the fact that Geraldo Perdomo is sort of like out in the mix and you have Nick Ahmed. They had to, the Royals, they had to like 40 man him very early because he was so young. And so then he was maybe too young to be 40 manned and he ended up getting let go. And now here he is in Arizona and it might end up being some of the same, but also maybe they want to give him some run in the big leagues because they think that Perdomo isn't quite ready for a prime time, even though he is also on the 40 man. So I don't know. It could be nothing or it could be something.

And I guess we'll find out. All right. Well, I'll close with a diamond back to, I suppose. And I will take Brayden Bishop. Oh, yeah. Good choice. Was a Mariner. Yeah.

He's 28 years old. He played for the Mariners briefly in each of the past three seasons. And he was selected off waivers by the Giants in May. And from that point on in AAA, he hit 326, 388, 549, which is solid, more than solid. And then he was signed by the Diamondbacks. And I don't know, the Diamondbacks were bad, probably are bad, but it's not the clearest path to outfield playing time there, I suppose. But I will hope that Braden Bishop finds his way to some somehow. but there's not the clearest path to outfield playing time there, I suppose.

But I will hope that Brandon Bishop finds his way to some somehow. Brandon Bishop is like the bat is incredibly light. He is a good defender and he is supposed to be just one of the like all-time clubhouse guys. So good egg as a person. So we'll wish him and your draft pick well on those grounds, if nothing else. Yeah. It doesn't do anything for me in terms of playing time, unless he gets playing time because he's a good egg, which I hope he does. I mean, they're an organization that is known to not dislike good eggs anyway, right?

They like having those guys around. So that's something they're not like, let's have the all bad egg team. Not dislike good eggs. It's the faintest possible phrase. All right. have the all bad egg team not dislike good eggs it's the faintest possible phrase all right so who else was on your list it's time to to get everyone out so that we can later say oh i almost had him and didn't but i had a lot of guys in that category and i always struggle with like do i take players i like like i'm sure that the player you thought I was going to draft is Mickey Janus, right, Ben? Actually, Drew Maggi. Oh, yeah, that makes sense, too.

Subject of a banter topic before because he did not get Major League Playing Time. So, yeah, see, that's a good example because I could take him because I'm rooting for him to get playing time, but I'm already rooting for him to get playing time. him to get playing time but I'm already rooting for him to get playing time so he doesn't necessarily need to be on my team which is the case for knuckleballer extraordinaire and former podcast guest Mickey Janis who I certainly hope will get playing time the fact that he got a single game for the 2021 Orioles doesn't bode well but I certainly hope he will. But part of the joy of the minor league free agent draft is that we get new people to root for. And they get called up in some game in May. And suddenly it's like, oh, that guy. I took him.

I have something to gain here from this player's success. And I'm already feeling that way about Mickey Janus or Drew Maggi or Greg Bird, who I considered taking. Because I still believe in Greg Bird. He was mostly healthy last year and he actually hit well in AAA. So the Birdissance is coming. I believe that. But I'll root for them without them being on my team. But it's not a sign of lack of faith.

Well, actually, I guess it is. But I still pull for them. Ben, who are some of your other candidates? I had a whole... Anyone who the Phillies signed is a minor league pitcher. Yeah. Michael Kelly fits that mold. He looks like a pretty decent one.

Tyler Sear. Is that how that's pronounced? I think so. Joe Gatto. One of my picks from last year. It's not a short list. I don't know how to pronounce this guy's name, but Adeline Rodriguez, I think.

Yeah, he was on my list too. I think he might. He's 30 and he hasn't played the majors, which is a really bad sign. And so I didn't pick him, but he crushed AAA, I think Toledo for Detroit. And I could see him getting a good deal somewhere. Yeah, I think he got signed by San Diego actually,

which was part of why I didn't end up pulling the trigger on him because he has really impressive raw power, but you also figure how is he getting playing time? It would require maybe Hosmer either not playing or getting hurt and then maybe he has room if there's a universal DH next year. But I don't know. Yeah, he was on my list too.

But the fact that he went to San Diego, I pulled off him at the last minute. Yeah, who else did I have? I had Robel Garcia on my list, who I think was on the Astros opening day roster last year possibly and has played almost every position and four different teams have picked him off waivers over the past year and a half, on the Astros opening day roster last year, possibly, and has played almost every position.

And four different teams have picked him off waivers over the past year and a half, which is one of those double-edged swords, you know, backhanded compliment. A lot of teams were willing to let him go, but a lot of teams wanted him. Who else? Domingo Leba, I considered, who was with the D-backs and the Orioles in the majors last year and produced literally a zero OPS plus in 96 plate appearances, so that's not ideal. However, he had a 912 OPS in 218 plate appearances at AAA, which must have been really jarring for him to be a star slugger at AAA and then have a zero OPS plus in a decent amount of major league playing time.

But he's only 26 and plays most positions. And I considered Tony Walters, who's just kind of always reliably in the big leagues a little bit, the catcher. Jimmy Cordero, hard thrower for the Yankees now, came from the White Sox, throws hard, gets grounders, but no strikeouts. Justin Grimm with the A's now, I believe. And he's just been in the big leagues like eight years in a row, I think now. And he's 33 and he pitched well and struck out a lot of players with AAA Tacoma last year. And the A's have a lot of free agent relievers, which bodes well for your Ryan Castellani pick too. Or doesn't. Castellani pick too.

Or doesn't. Maybe. They tend to cheap out on their bullpen and everything else for that matter, I guess. And I considered Chris Mazza with the Rays. He's with the Rays and he pitched for Mets and the Red Sox previously. Rays last year, the Rays re-signed him. So they saw something they liked and good peripherals at Durham. He's 32.

I think he's out of options, which could be a good or bad thing, because if he's added to the 40-man in spring training, he'd either have to stay on the active roster, which would get playing time, or be exposed to waivers and end up somewhere else again. Jake Faria, a reliever who's with the Twins now, seems like he could end up in their pen. Anyone else? with the twins now seems like he could end up in their pen anyone else i thought about jesus tanoko who was with colorado went to texas he has an nri with them this was again a like hey is colorado good at developing pitching who could say he has arm strength and throw strikes so i was like that's not terrible but i didn't end up picking him gray fenter who is a reliever who was with baltimore and is now with the giants which is like an interesting trajectory to go there let's see carlos sanabria who doesn't have a team yet i don't think it was a royals guy did we talk about mauricio lovera did you say that guy's name already? I don't think so. He was Philly and then went to the Giants so I thought

about him. Rodolfo Duran who's a catcher who's with New York but I don't know their third catcher situation is kind of weird because they also have David Freitas so that made me nervous to pick him. There were some others some names that

you like know as names but otherwise yeah I don't know. Have you guys heard of James Hoyt? There were some others, some names that you know as names, but otherwise, yeah, I don't know. Have you guys heard of James Hoyt? James Hoyt. That sounds familiar. No. I have not, which is bad.

He's a professional baseball writer. He's pitched in the majors in each of the last six years. He was an angel, right? He's an angel, but he's been a Marlin, a Guardian, an Astro when he came up. He was on this list, and I said, I don't know who this is. I thought, oh, whatever. He's probably some guy who's pitching in AA at 25. No, he's a long-term major leaguer. The Marlins and the Angels, if it all might be your cover there, Ben.

I think he might have a World Series ring. He's only an Astros. Only eight innings with the Angels, if at all, might be your cover there, Ben. I think he might have a World Series ring. He's only an asterisk. Only eight innings with the Angels last year. I may have seen them, but I guess they didn't make much of an impression. If anyone did, it was probably you. I thought about Jordan Weems. Yeah, me too. Jordan Weems.

Thought about him. I strongly considered Carlos Perez, who is a catcher who was in the big league some years ago. He's a catcher who was in the big league some years ago, and he hit 31 homers in AAA last year, which he was in Las Vegas, and that's probably part of it. But 572 slug, that's serious. And he was with the Angels in Atlanta and Texas in the past. So considered him. So considered him. Jacob Wilson, who went from the national system to the KBO and then really raked in AAA last year. And then the Astros and the A's kind of played tug of war with him on waivers.

James Reeves, Padres lefty reliever. Joe Biagini, I considered taking. He's been in the big leagues every year since 2016. Nick Goody has been with the Yankees. Cleveland, Texas has pitched decently, was in AAA with the N with the Yankees, Cleveland, Texas, has pitched decently, was in AAA with the Nats and Yankees, good strikeout rate. Garrett Whitley, who's with the Brewers now,

not to be confused with Garrett Whitlock, but he was with the Rays, former first rounder, hit well in AA last year, made it to AAA. And I guess my final name on my board was Christian Santana, who I think the Reds have signed. Has a terrible approach, but per one of Eric Langenhagen's past scouting reports, ridiculously gifted from a bat speed and arm strength standpoint. And he actually hit well at AAA in his age 24 season last year and plays all of the infield positions. So that seems promising. But now we've gotten all these names on the record so

that we can lament that we had the right idea but drafted the wrong guys yeah we should have just read everybody just be safe i mean i i would like to say the following which is that one of our trends in this exercise is just being early to guys right like we slept them and they aren't good the year that we need them to be. But then they're Patrick Wisdom. And you're like, oh, well, I maybe saw something there. I just saw it before his previous team did. Aren't I so clever? So like that happens with us a fair amount too. Yep. All right. Well, Ben, I hope you enjoyed your first minor league free agent draft experience. I did. I don't know if my other nine picks will outdo Jose Iglesias, but I hope they do.

I don't know that you'll need them to. He could carry your team, but he was eligible on a strange kind of technicality, but even so, yeah. And Thomas Burton has already drafted the random control group. And eyeballing the list, it doesn't look like random.org drafted anyone we drafted. Although Keon Broxton, former Jeff Sullivan favorite, is on the random control group. So all of these names will at some point be added to the Effectively Wild drafts and competitions spreadsheet that's maintained by official Effectively Wild statistician and like Mariner's manager of analytics now, John Chenier, who probably has better things to do than listen to this and write down the players we drafted, or maybe we can send them to him to save him

some time. But I think I got everybody. Okay. Well, I'll link to that on the show page if anyone's interested in where to find it. And this was fun. This is always fun. I hope it's fun for where to find it and this was fun this is always fun i hope it's fun for everyone but it's definitely fun for us yeah i'm excited to be a part of it and because a lot of these players are still out there any team people listening you got

plenty of hot tips here on some of the best minor league agents so you have a chance here to snag some bargains and also get us some playing time in 2022. All right. That will do it for today and for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. Always an engaging and stimulating exercise, at least on our end. Someday I want someone to do an exhaustive study of minor league free agent draft strategy. Are there certain positions we should be prioritizing? Certain ages?

Certain teams? How much of a factor is previous big league experience? I think it's pretty big. I actually think all of my picks this year have already made their major league debuts. They're sort of pre-approved, right? An MLB team decided at some point that they were worthy of playing time in the past. Doesn't mean that that will be the case in the present or the future, but it's a pretty decent sign. Past performance, some indication of future results. So we've developed some feel for it, but there

are probably some minor league free agent draft market inefficiencies that we are not fully exploiting here. Anyway, hope you had fun. And if you did, we hope that you will support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. That's what enables us to keep doing this thing. The following five listeners have already signed up to pledge some monthly or yearly amount to help preserve the podcast and help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks, including the Effectively Wild Patreon-only Discord group and monthly bonus episodes, Nicholas Montgomery, Jeremiah Levine, Julie Hebch, Ashley Schauer, and Isaiah Shea. 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 podcastoffangrass.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can join or at least lurk at the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend and we will be back to talk

to you early next week. to a word that I say Oh just stop There's a world inside a world that's not okay Oh baby come on now just stop