Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1824: Who, What, When, Where, Why

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley continue to break down a busy, chaotic week in MLB by bantering about which was wilder, this week or the week leading up to the lockout, then breaking down the Rockies signing Kris Bryant, the Dodgers signing Freddie Freeman, the Blue Jays trading for Matt Chapman and the new AL […]

We'll see you next time. And the world, still so wild, called to me I've been called out, lost on the mean Hello and welcome to episode 1824 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrafts, presented by our Patreon supporters. I'm Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by a very busy managing editor of Fangrafts, Meg Rowley. Hello, Meg. Hello. Has this week been wilder than the week or two leading into the lockout? Because those were busy times, too.

But this is wild. This is wild. I'm struggling to remember that that was a whole lockout ago i know yeah like an entire lockout has happened between then and now i think in some respects that was crazier because you know like seeker won and that was like a 300 million dollar contract and we had you know we had the wander franco extension that was huge you know marcus simeon signed and uh sure sir sure sir yeah yeah you know how you know what i forgot about that totally forgot that happened that's like not just a member of the MLBPA bargaining committee. He pitches too.

Yeah. The Mets remade half their roster. And so in some ways, it feels like that was crazier just because of the magnitude of some of those moves. We saw so many of the very, very top guys come off the board, like Robbie Ray signed, and also Jacob Stallings got traded. Those are equivalent moves.

Kevin Gossman. Right, Kevin Gossman. Tons of stuff happened. Lots of stuff happened. There was all this stuff that happened, but also I think that just the the sheer volume in a compressed time feels at least comparable and the magnitude of the trades that we have seen is is more meaningful i think and so it's been kind of wild but it's been a lot of fun yeah yeah

we knew it was going to be a sprint up until opening day. I compared it at some point during the lockout to the lightsaber fight, the duel of the fates at the end of Phantom Menace when there's a little lull in the fight and the energy barriers come down and everyone is just pacing around and you know that there's going to be a climactic finale following at some point and some people are going to win and some people are going to lose and some teams are going to get cut in half and all of those things have happened and it has totally delivered on that score so we're trying to record during a brief lull between transactions here late on thursday afternoon we will see if we actually make it through an episode without a major move but we have a ton to talk about it took us an hour and a half last time just to catch up,

and now we've got another full episode's worth of transactions to dissect and discuss. So it's like we're taking on water here. We're just trying to bail out as fast as we can to avoid sinking under the weight of all of these moves. But, boy, what a joy just to be able to talk about baseball stuff on the field, ramifications. And I actually wrote about baseball for the first time in a while. That's how busy things have gotten.

Whoa. So I know that you've had your hands full coordinating the Fangraph staff, which has covered every move of any kind of consequence. I mean, not every single one, but a good many of them. We're wrapping up on a couple of things that we have yet to get to, but they are few and far between. Well, we won't get to every minor move, and we will snub some relievers today as we did last time.

Apologies to the utility infielders out there. But we'll get to the big ones. And I do have a few general baseball observations. But maybe we can backload those and save those for the end of the episode and just get straight to the meat and the heart of the transactions. Because Carlos Correa is still out there. There are still good free agents and trade targets to be had, but a lot of big names have come off the board since we last spoke. So I guess we could start with Freddie Freeman, who... Sure. I can't believe you don't want to start

with the craziest transaction we've seen this entire off season. We could also start with Chris Bryant. I don't say to say that i completely hate this i mean i know that the consensus is that it is weird and i agree with that part of the consensus but i'm i'm here to defend okay all right let's do it yeah people probably want to know our rockies takes although i can yeah assume that they would guess some of them and anticipate some but yeah chris bryant to the Rockies for $182 million over seven years. It is quite a lot of money. And I was going to start with Freeman because I figured, well, it probably has more playoff implications than the Bryant signing. But the Bryant signing,

I mean, once Freeman did not resign with the Braves, once he was supplanted by Matt Olsen, which was sort of a shocker, as we discussed last time, it seemed likely that Freeman would land with the Dodgers. At no point would I say it seemed likely that Chris Bryant would sign with the Rockies until the moment that that news was announced. But that happened. And as usual, the rest of the baseball world has spent the intervening time trying to play that popular game. What are the Rockies thinking? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when I say that I'm here to defend Chris Bryant's honor, here's what I mean by that. So I thought that the reaction to this signing was very interesting because on the one hand, yes, it is so the low Rockies of it all. It's just right there for you.

It's such an easy, it's so easy to grab onto that and run with it because it's, you know, it's the Rockies. They make it simple. But I found the reaction to be really interesting because I think that we should use it to think about how we assess, you we assess behavior in the present compared to behavior in the past. Because obviously, when you have recently traded a Nolan Arenado and $51 million to boot, and then you go and spend a lot of money on a guy who also plays third base some of

the time, it's going to be natural to compare them. But this is a different regime not an entirely different regime there's a lot of common dna here right but there but this is in theory multiple members of this regime have monfort dna actually yeah there's that i don't know why but i found that way of describing it very icky ben i didn't like it i didn't like it at all found it unsettling you know know, I think that we can look at the Nolan Aranato trade and certainly the circumstances that led to that where you have alienated a franchise player, you know, the kind of player that teams are like so, so stoked when

they are able to develop in-house, right? When that's one of their guys from the start. And to alienate that player to the point that 12 months after signing a major extension the biggest one in your franchise's history you're you're trying to get that guy out the door and you're paying another team for the privilege of playing him right that's that's bad like we we were pretty upfront about that when it happened but i I'm curious what we would be satisfied with from Colorado going forward, because I think you can look at this and say, what is Colorado's plan? And that's a fair question, because they're a long ways off from contention.

Chris Bryant is not 25, right? And so the best years of the contract that they're getting are probably going to come at a time when they are not competitive in baseball at all. Forget their division. They're not even probably going to be sniffing the expanded playoffs. So you think they don't have a plan. But I kind of like the idea of this team saying there is very little to enjoy here. So we're going to give you a Chris Bryant. We're going to give you a Chris Bryant. We probably have to pay a premium to bring him here. You know, we're going to give you a Chris Bryant. We probably have to pay a premium to bring him here.

We should say a remarkable premium. Like Dan was struggling to recall an instance, either recent or in the past, that yielded a bigger difference between what Zips projects a player's contract ought to be and what the player actually ends up getting. And the contemporary parallel he had was Eric Hosmer, which when you're comping to that contract like that's not great but you know chris bryant's gonna be a lot of fun to

watch in cores i bet he's gonna hit a bunch of home runs there he's gonna look great in purple and uh and he's gonna give uh rocky's fans something to enjoy when they go to that beautiful ballpark of theirs even though what they are likely to see when they go to that beautiful ballpark of theirs, even though what they are likely to see is not going to be a competitive roster. So like, I get that this seems to be consistent with them not having a great understanding of where they are in their own competitive cycle. And I think that that is a fair thing to say. But I also think that like, it's never a bad thing when you give your fans something to be jazzed about, particularly when you're going to go through potentially a protracted fallow period. So I get it.

But I also am here to say like it's probably fine. Because it's the Rockies, I have no idea whether they're thinking of it that way. Like, hey, let's give the fans someone to enjoy while we go through a protracted foul period. It's the Rockies. So they're probably thinking this is the final piece we needed to polish off the NL West winning 2022 Rockies, right? So it seems like they are perpetually in denial or reading the wrong tea leaves about the quality of their team, which is one of the things that has led them to make many mistakes and curious investments. But you're right.

It is a contrast to some of the teams we've been talking about this week, such as the A's and the Reds, who have been not tanking, but banking, nutting, whatever we are currently calling it. I know you maybe have some regrets about nutting. But profound regrets. Has caught on. Some people suggested you might have post-nutting clarity about the term nutting. However, I still enjoy it.

So against the backdrop of teams that are tearing down and have continued to tear down since we last spoke. With the A's shipping out Matt Chapman and the Reds trading away Amir Garrett. Not that he was great last year, but that has continued to happen. And meanwhile, you have the Rockies who are at least signing a star and spending some money and getting a little bit better. And we're in this environment now where in contrast to when you and I started following baseball or maybe even covering baseball, we now just sort of accept that almost everyone kind of has funny money. And signing one player doesn't really preclude you signing other players if you are so inclined. Less of, well, you should have paid less for this guy because we kind of understand that, well, in many cases, it's just a matter of whose bank account that money is going to be sitting in, not whether the team is actually going to get better in other ways. So there are still maybe opportunity costs, but they're less acute than they once were or than we once understood them to be.

And so, yeah, like on the surface, hey, okay, the Rockies got a little bit better. They got a fun player who will be interesting to watch in Coors. It's hard to slag that too much, but then it's the Rockies. And because of what has gone before, it's hard to evaluate this purely in that light. And it's just very apparent that they don't have any kind of coherent plan. And it's not just trading away Arnauto and then acquiring Bryant. I mean, it's also not giving a qualifying offer to John Gray or making any effort to extend him even though he seemed like he wanted to stay. Or alienating Trevor Story, too too and also not trading him. I mean, it just doesn't seem like they know how to handle stars or what to do with them or how to surround them with competent supporting cast.

And that's where you kind of have to question it maybe from Bryant's perspective where it's like, hey, you probably had a lot of potential destinations here. Did you follow any news about the Rockies and their stars lately? I mean, maybe he just likes the atmosphere and the scenery and $182 million. And I wouldn't blame him too much for that. But looking at the recent history of like faces of that franchise, even going back to Troy Tulewitzki, it's like how long until Chris Bryant is fed up with this franchise too? And he has a no trade clause. And so how long until we get to the point where he is demanding a trade? read Nick Groke's analysis of the move at The Athletic, and he basically made it sound like the Rockies have coveted Bryant for a long time, have just kind of fixated on Bryant. That their new GM, Bill Schmidt, who is a former Rocky scouting executive, he was in charge of the draft and he really really really wanted to draft bryant and they were planning to take him with their third overall pick in the draft when he was eligible

until the cubs then decided to swoop in and take him instead and so there's a little bit of like the one that got away syndrome with bryant and the rockies which yeah like it's nice that uh that they like bryant and that they finally got him, but that can be kind of dangerous too when you get really attached to a player who you missed out on at a different phase of his career, and then you still think of him that way. I mean, Bryant's still a good player, but obviously he does not come nearly as cheap now as he did when he was an amateur and he was eligible for the draft. And maybe he is not quite the player he was then as well.

So if that's it, if it's like they had this heuristic in their head of like, we want Chris Bryant. And evidently they have tried to trade for him before and had actually talked to the Cubs about him before he went to the Giants last year. before he went to the Giants last year. So, you know, if it's that, if it's just like having tunnel vision for, we just really like this guy, then that can get you in trouble sometimes. So I don't know, be careful out there, Rockies,

but at least the Rockies roster is a little more talented and interesting than it was earlier this week. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I think that there has definitely been behavior in the last 12 months that would suggest that, like, these are that there has definitely been behavior in the last 12 months, it would suggest that like, these are the new Rockies, same as the old Rockies. But I also think that we are still figuring out exactly what this current regime is going to look like. And this might be indicative of a continuation of an existing theme, or it could be the beginning of something else. And I don't want to give them credit,

but I don't want to bury them necessarily either so they're going to give us plenty of reason to bury them like we don't have to jump the gun there and so uh and then in terms of bryant like i don't know man like you get 182 million dollars to live in denver denver's rad like there's good food there i am given to understand and i say this with great affection that chris bryant is something of a square but like you know there are all kinds of amusements you can enjoy in the state of Colorado that aren't legal in all other places in the United States. So maybe you just want to like wear purple and play in a great ballpark and then go home and like have a little gummy to help you sleep. So it seems sounds like a good life to me. I'd do it for less than $182 million. Sure, I think so. Yeah, I mean, if I were a player, I don't actually think that the team's chances of winning would be at the top of my list, which seems like it's taboo for any player to say. And I don't know that most players feel that way because, of course, the people who become Major League Baseball players are intensely competitive. And I do believe that most of them want to win and be on good teams and play in big games. But for me, I am not as intensely competitive. And if I

just could go somewhere that I liked living and my family was happy there and they paid me well, and I got plenty of playing time and got to hit homers that carried really far because of the thin air. I think I'd probably enjoy that even if I was surrounded by not the best team. In purple. In purple, Ben. An underutilized uniform color, as we have discussed. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I have to imagine Chris Bryant is like a smart seeming guy.

And he's also someone who has experienced what it's like to at times have a contentious relationship with your organization right like i imagine chris bryan is pretty clear-eyed about that and it's weird that it's coming from the rockies but it is kind of nice for him to get an overpay considering that his free agency was delayed by a year through no fault of his own so it's weird that the Cubs don't have to foot that bill. Surely their check should be in the mail. But it's not that I think it is a signing that makes perfect sense. Again, it's weird.

This is deeply strange on some level. But I also have just really been struggling to feel exercised about it as a problem because i don't know like rockies fans get something cool chris bryant gets a big bag of money the rockies get to continue to be performance art you know maybe their goals are just different than we understand them to be like yeah that's possible too who knows i'm not mad about it i'm perplexed by it but i'm not mad about it but I was gonna say because you just kind of brought it up like in a weird way having his free agency delayed actually kind of

worked in Bryant's favor ultimately I mean if he had reached free agency earlier who knows maybe he plays differently in his walk year or something even though that's not generally a thing but if he had been a free agent last offseason instead, then he would have been not only mid-pandemic, but also coming off of the shortened 2020 season when he did not play well and did not play a lot either. That was a really lousy year for him. So coming off of a bounce back,

maybe that actually worked out in his favor. Maybe he made more money in the long run, even though it wasn't in the way that he would have wanted to have that happen. But as for whether the Rockies have turned over a new leaf, we got an email. I want to say it was maybe a couple months ago from a listener who was kind of hyping up the Rockies' hires in the R&D department. And the fact that there were new people in charge and that they had seemingly beefed up their analytics staff, which was probably the smallest in the R&D department and the fact that there were new people in charge and that they had seemingly beefed up their analytics staff, which was probably the smallest in the game, and also had resigned after they were asked to do laundry or whatever during the pandemic. And it's true that they had hired some new people and they had a new head of that department,

Scott Van Lenten, who was coming from the Nationals, I believe. And in response to that email, I said, you know, yeah, these are encouraging signs, but pump the brakes a bit because Dick Monfort is still in charge. And also his son is playing a prominent role. And I know nothing about his son, but, you know, just given the history of nepotism in Major League Baseball, it does make you raise an eyebrow a little bit. And then Schmidt, who was respected, I think, as a scouting executive, is still an internal promotion, which has been a pattern for the Rockies. And so I was skeptical that that really represented a new era. So last week, the Rockies fired Scott Van Lenten after about six months with the organization, and not all of the details of what happened there have come out, and I cannot testify to that personally. But one way or another, whether there was fault on one side or both sides, not ideal when the person you lead to hire an important department and revamp your quantitative efforts

lasts about six months in that role. That's at least maybe an issue with the vetting process or the interview process or however you decided that was a good fit in the first place. And so now the Rockies don't have a head of that department and also still have a very small one relative to their competition so yeah i'm not saying that that had anything to do with the signing and this seems like kind of your classic like scott boris appeals directly to the owner kind of thing which is interesting after all of the like smoke and and weird unsubstantiated rumors about like owners being upset with you know scott boris secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes in the mlbpa and the fact that dick

monfort was like leading the negotiating effort on the committee for the owners and now suddenly he's uh talking to scott boris about free agents again and don't know what it says about the fact that the owners had the man who made the signing leading their efforts in those negotiations but anyway still seems like the rockies are something of a mess in a lot of ways that other organizations are not and hey hope it works out for them and for bryant but yeah this was one that i didn't see coming. Yeah, again, it's weird, but I'm okay with it. All right, so elsewhere in the NL West with organizations that have very large R&D departments and also much higher playoff odds, the Dodgers have signed Freddie Freeman to the six-year contract that he wanted, $162 million.

to the six-year contract that he wanted, $162 million. And they have rounded out their infield and rounded out a ridiculous lineup and added another number five wearing left-handed hitting infielder to replace Corey Seager. And their lineup is just scary now. I mean, we talked about the Braves deciding to move on from Freeman last time and how that was surprising, certainly in some respects, even though they got a great first baseman to replace him. If you look at the actual difference in the contract terms here, it's so small that it almost makes it more mystifying that this parting happened. almost makes it more mystifying that this parting happened. Like, yeah, it's, you know, six years and 162 versus a reported five and 140 was as high as Atlanta went. And Freeman also reportedly had been seeking something like six and 180.

But the actual difference, even though there is a one year contract term difference between what Atlanta was offering and what the Dodgers gave him. It's a slightly lower AAV. And as people have pointed out, there is a pretty significant gap in income tax between Georgia and California. California's is quite a lot higher. So the actual difference in money that is coming to Freddie Freeman here is negligible, really. And so in that light, you look at it even more and it kind of makes you quizzical about how did this happen? And you just have to assume that it was some feeling of not being respected enough, not being wanted enough, the communication not being right. And whether

that's because the Braves just really liked Matt Olsen or they just felt, you know, budgetarily or statistically or whatever it was that they just could not commit to a sixth year for a 32-year-old free agent, it is surprising. And yet it has worked out in a way, like even though it's sad for Braves fans and maybe for baseball fans who like seeing great players spend their whole careers with one franchise, like you had Matt Olson going home to play for the Braves. And now you have Freddie Freeman going home to play for the Dodgers because he's an Orange County kid. He did grow up an Angels fan, but he's from the area. He has a house in Newport Beach. Like it's convenient for him. He gets to go to a great team that has a better chance than anyone probably to make it back to the playoffs, get him another ring. So again, it's weird that it worked out this way. But once his spot was filled in Atlanta, I can see why he chose the Dodgers. And there were other contenders out there who had expressed interest seemingly. And I saw at least one report that maybe there was a bigger offer out there who had expressed interest seemingly. And I saw at least one report that maybe there was a bigger offer out there for him somewhere that he would not be going home to play. But boy, the Dodgers are good. They don't make that many huge free agent signings.

Player development has been such a strength for them, particularly on the offensive side, that they've been able to fill those holes off. I think Andrew Friedman's biggest free agent deal for a position player prior to this had been AJ Pollock, which was like $55 million or something. So this is kind of unusual, but every now and then they are willing to break the bank and flex their financial muscle. You know, when an elite talent is out there, when Mookie Betts is available, you go get them and you extend them. And obviously they feel fairly good about Freeman holding up over the life of this deal.

They currently have the highest odds to make the playoffs in baseball by our projections, which do take into account the new format. They have the highest odds to win their division in baseball and i would remind people that like the centrals exist and the dodgers still have the highest division odds they have the highest odds to clinch a bye yep and win the world series and they have the highest world series odds. They are just really quite stacked. This is a completely ridiculous lineup.

I liked very much the perspective on it that Ben Clemens had when he wrote this up for us at FanGraphs. This doesn't just shore them up in the immediate term and make them or sustain their status as a Goliath, term and sort of make them or sort of sustain their status as a goliath but it is also anticipating some attrition among their other stars on the roster either to free agency to decline related to age and they're just gonna be really very good for a long time i think that they they are right now taking the approach that i think we wish a lot of teams would take, which is to say, what about the competitive balance tax?

What of it? Again, you're not putting me in jail. You're just making me write a check. They, for a long time, were an organization that, as you said, was sustained by incredibly good R&D, and then they would invest and run big payrolls, but they weren't always doing these kinds of huge deals, particularly for position players. And over the last couple of years, we've seen a shift from them, right, where they have, when they have wanted to, made very significant investments in the roster and shown a willingness to manage their payroll in a way that is strategic.

And I think that they aren't going to ever be a team that is like a dollar over the threshold. When they spend and splurge, they're going to do it with an eye toward really securing wins. But I think that they rightly view their money as a resource that they can throw around in much the same way that they have excellent scouting,

they have great player dev, they have great R&D, they're going to use their payroll as an asset. And rather than trying to penny pinch on the margins, they're going to just make you pay by paying themselves. And so it's really exciting. I still think it will be supremely strange to see Freddie Freeman in another uniform than a Braves uniform,

but I can't think of a better situation for him if what he wants is to spend the back half of his career in a place where he is not only able to contribute to a winner that is likely to remain a winner, but where he also has the... He's going to have the breathing room in that lineup where when he does start to decline and he is still, I imagine, a valuable player but not at his peak, that's going to be okay too because they're the Dodgers.

They have a bunch of other really great players. So it just seems like an ideal situation for him. And so I think that's pretty cool. He's the third former MVP in the regular lineup, the fourth on the roster. This lineup is just, I mean, it's almost literally an all-star team top to bottom. Yes. Mookie Betts, Trey Turner, Freddie Freeman, Justin Turner, Max Muncy, Will Smith, Chris Taylor, Cody Bellinger, AJ Pollock. The only one of those players who has not been an all-star is Will Smith, and he is probably the best catcher in the league.

Yeah, I imagine he's going to get his shot this year. Yeah, I would think so. So there's no hole here. Poor Gavin Lux, who's blocked again for now after looking like he might have a shot at playing time. But man, I mean, I don't want to get too caught up in the superlatives when I was writing about this I was like does this team have a shot at like being the first thousand run offense of this century and probably not almost certainly not just because it's a neutral park and it's not that extreme a run scoring environment and it's in lineup that's getting on in years and most of

these guys are well over 30 and you know some of them will probably break down at some point. And you're counting on Max Muncy to make a full recovery from his elbow injury. And you're hoping that Cody Bellinger will have a big rebound and that his hot hitting in the World Series will continue into this season. Some question marks there, I guess, but, you know, Dodgers level question marks for any other team. I mean, this is just so, so stacked. And yeah, I mean, between this and Fernando Tatis Jr.'s absence, this has been a little lighter in some respects than it has been in some previous years. And, of course, both in that area and payroll wise, there is still some uncertainty somehow about the status of Trevor Bauer and whether he will be suspended and for how long. in for how long. As things stand, they are just slightly submet in projected payroll over $270 million. So yeah, this is what the Dodgers can do. They can develop a Will Smith and they can find and fix a Max Muncy or a Justin Turner, but they can also just trade prospects and then sign Mookie Betts to a big deal and they can go out and get Freddie Freeman so they pick their spots and they spend a ton of money and man that

lineup is going to be a lot of fun to watch yeah it's just going to be really really excellent so that's that's fun and I like that and I don't know if they would articulate it in quite these terms because obviously like their trajectory potential trajectory of the Padres looks different now than it did even a week ago with the news that Tatis is going to need surgery or has had surgery at this point. He's either had it or he's going to for sure now. So that has changed since the last time we recorded.

But the trajectory of the Padres is a little different than it was. The Giants still seem committed to winning, and this seems like the second offseason in a row where the Dodgers have been faced with the option of like feeling confident or shoring up an already excellent club in the face of real competition, potentially in division. And they've they've risen to that again. again right and that's exciting that that continues to be a priority for them you know and to be able to do it in a way that feels a lot less icky than some of their options last offseason that's all it's all the better ben yeah it's just all the better and the way they've gone about this maybe provides an interesting contrast to how the Yankees have operated which we could talk about in a second I will segue into the AL East via another ridiculous lineup and that is the Toronto Blue Jays who added Matt Chapman to an already strong position player core so I don't know if it quite compares to the Dodgers, but boy, it's not far. You've got George Springer, Bo Bichette, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Teoscar Hernandez, Lourdes Curiel Jr., Matt Chapman, Randall Gritcha, Kevin Biggio, Danny Jansen. That is quite a collection of talent as well with maybe an even stronger rotation at this point or just as strong. So this team is also stacked.

And I don't know how you can look at this roster and not see the Blue Jays as the favorite in the AL East. And it's going to be competitive as usual, as it was last year. They did not win the division or even make the playoffs last year, but they were, if not the best team, probably at least the second best. And they just didn't make it in, and they had that weird mismatch between their record and their run differential. I would not count on that continuing into the season. So, I mean, Matt Chapman may not quite be the player he was prior to his hip surgery, but he's still seemingly very good defensively. And even last year when he was roughly a league average hitter, not what he had been before, you know, it seems like his power was sapped a bit. And I don't know whether some of that comes back or not, but he does strike out a lot these days and he is not a high average hitter. He does walk so he can still help you offensively but the glove is still good and he is still only 28 and you know they had to pay a price for him and you know you did a little

state of the ace farm system last time we talked so we don't have to go in depth on that this time but they did shore that up even further there. They traded, I guess the headliner was Gunnar Hoagland, right? Toronto's top pick last year. And then they also added infielder Kevin Smith, who maybe is an immediate replacement for Chapman. And then a couple of pitchers, Zach Logan, Kirby Sneed. So this fits in with the A's pattern we talked about last time, where it seems like they are targeting players who are well into their 20s already, like major league ready guys who can step in now or sometime soon and maybe lead to a shorter rebuild than you would expect. So it's tough, obviously, for A's fans now that both of the Mets have gone as well as Chris Bassett and maybe Mania and Montas and who knows who else will follow them sometime soon. But at least they're getting guys back where you can imagine them

getting good again sometime soon. But in the meantime, you can also just sort of salivate over the Blue Jays roster because it is pretty special too. Yeah, we talked about the Dodgers odds. I mean, the Blue Jays for us now lead the American League in their combined playoff odds. They lead the East in terms of their division chances. They do not have the highest odds of winning their division within the American League because the East is pretty stacked, but they're positioned to clinch a bye and they have the highest World Series odds in the AL. They're just a very, very good team. And it sounds like some of the perhaps Yankees-related nonsense

around vaccinations might get resolved, not necessarily by guys getting vaccinated, but by being able to play in new york so you know love that machine but um i don't know what that is worth in terms of the competitive advantage they might experience at home i know we talked about that it's sort of an icky thing to try to put accounting around but you know i wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of positive points in their favor that we're not even really able to capture here just because how do you quantify the advantage, quote unquote, that that gives you.

Plus a full season of having home field advantage in the same home, playing in one park. Can't hurt. Yeah, not having the disruption of playing here and there. I know that there were aspects of playing in Buffalo that some of their players probably liked. But yeah, I would imagine that being able to actually be at home for real has some sort of psychological benefit, if nothing else, right? So there's that piece of it. I like, you know, and you could ask, why do we care what you think of prospects, Megan? You know, that's like not an unfair question for our listeners to ask. But I find this return for Oakland to be underwhelming relative to what

I think I had envisioned Matt Chapman sort of netting for them. And I don't know that there was a better package out there. I mean, I think that when you look at the dip in performance that you referenced, this is probably what they were going to get. I wonder if they would have been able to do a bit better had they waited, you know, if he had been, you know, one of the hopefully assuming his sort of performance at the plate recovers a bit, probably one of the better bats that would have been available on the market because he wouldn't have been a strict rental. He's a free agent.

Right. He's a second year art guy. Yeah. So, you know, it would have been for a year and a half. So I kind of wonder a bit about the thinking there. I wonder if they were just like, if we're going to do this teardown, we may as well just do this teardown. You don't trade Matt Olson and then, you know, hold on to the rest of the guys. That doesn't make any sense.

So it is a bummer for A's fans. And I imagine for like the people who work for the A's other than their ownership group, because you surely would like to try to win rather than not. So, you know, I feel for those folks too. But yeah, the Blue Jays, they're sure going to be fun. I think that I wonder, I wonder, I'm asking myself this question live so I don't have an answer. You know, I often think about like, where is the first Fangraphs World Series ring most likely to come from, right? Like who amongst the many Fangraph graphs alums who have moved on to teams has there not been one yet i'm sort of surprised i don't think we've had one yet i'm probably forgetting someone in a way that's like rude and insulting and to whoever you are i'm sorry but also you

have a world series ring so like you're probably doing fine but i think that this at the very least shifts the odds appreciably in carson's favor i don't know if I think that the Blue Jays are the most likely option but you know we got the we got the Blue Jays we got the Rays the Brewers the Phillies some of that would come at Jeff Sullivan's expense yeah it's true but no yeah so you look at the east and it seems clear to me that the Blue Jays are the most talented team in that division and have the highest playoff odds you have the Rays who I guess according to the playoff odds have the third best chance at winning the division, but there is always that ongoing question of do the Rays just break playoff odds and projection systems because they are so deep, right?

And they have such a great farm system and they can just move those players in there. And it's not like they've been active this offseason, like they've been linked to players, including Freddie Freeman. They haven't really upgraded much, but they also didn't really seem to need to. And they're already getting full seasons of Franco and, you know, Shane Boz will be around more. So they're getting upgrades internally in that sense. And they're just so deep that I don't know whether they needed to make a major move. Not that they're the kind of franchise that typically does sign the big free agent. But you have those two teams. Then you have the Yankees and the Red Sox who have been comparatively, well, not idle. I guess the Red Sox have been fairly idle. They signed Jake Diekman, but not a whole lot else. The Yankees have been busy, but to what end, I think, is what a lot of their fans are wondering. So you look at the moves that they've made, and we talked a little bit about the Gary Sanchez trade and getting Josh Donaldson and Isaiah Kiner for Leffa in exchange for Sanchez and Gio Urshela and what they were thinking there.

And since we spoke, they have re-signed Anthony Rizzo on a two-year $32 million deal. Another player with questionable vaccination status, I believe he was asked about it this week and gave one of those answers where, you know, if you got vaccinated, you probably just say, yeah, I got vaccinated. And if you don't say that, then maybe you didn't. I think he said something about how he doesn't think it's going to be a problem, which I guess could be because he got vaccinated, but might also just be because he thinks that New York City will change its rules to accommodate the Yankees. And maybe it will. I would not be at all surprised if that happens. You would think that if the Yankees were re-signing Anthony Rizzo,

a player who has been public about not being vaccinated in the past and, you know, quote unquote, doing his own research, etc. Like you'd think that like either that would be a condition of the contract or they would be certain that it's not going to be an impediment to him playing. So that makes me think that they are not so worried about that eventuality. But as it is now, you have the Yankees not acting like the old fashioned Yankees, I suppose. And it seems like a lot of their fans are frustrated. And look, I grew up a Yankees fan, so I can speak to this from personal experience. Yankees fans are spoiled, and a lot of teams would be happy getting Josh Donaldson and Anthony Rizzo and would say, hey, you don't know how good you guys have it.

But I think if you look at what the Dodgers are doing and the fact that they have not only managed to develop well, but also will go out and get the best player available and spend as much as they need to, to do that. And then you look across town and you have the Mets almost out Yankees-ing the Yankees these days and Steve Cohen kind of being more Steinbrenner than the current Steinbrenners. I think that probably has given some Yankees fans a complex. They're not accustomed to being the little brother in that intracity relationship. And so it's not that I think the Yankees will be bad or anything in a 12-team playoff format. I think you would still have to accept that they have a very good chance of making it back to October.

very good chance of making it back to October, but they are making so many moves that seem like they're more complicated or more risky than they have to be. It's not ancient history that the Yankees would just go get the best free agent. They signed Garrett Cole just a couple of years ago, but I think that's kind of what their fans want them to do and i do understand it you know like if freddie freeman is out there just go get freddie freeman if carlos correa is out there just go get carlos right you know and i don't know if there's baggage because of sign stealing or whatever it's hard for me to believe that that would actually be a big impediment or a deal breaker but like if you're just messing around on the margins and you're like, well, let's go get this good glove guy and we'll go with him for now. And it's just like a weirdly constructed roster and players who are like blocked.

And it's like, well, where does DJ LeMayhew fit in now? And does Luke Voigt get playing time? And is there actually a center fielder on this roster? I mean, you have like a couple of very good right fielders in Gallo and Judge, and you have Aaron Hicks maybe coming back from injury, but it's hard to count on him. And then it's like, well, Ender Inciarte is in camp and, you know, there are some other options. Do you bring back Brett Gardner for yet another go around or Tim Lacastro's in camp as well.

And so it's just kind of an odd approach. And I don't know how much of it is just the Steinbrenners refusing to just go whole hog and do what Hal's dad would have done. And I think in a lot of ways when people invoke the specter of like, oh, the boss, like we just need George back. Like George did a lot of like self-destructive and unproductive things too. And so I think the Yankees operate in a lot of ways better than they did when he was really a power in that organization. And yet there are times when you probably just wish as a Yankee fan like, hey, like the best free agent available is a player at a position where we have a need.

Right. Let's just go get that guy. Right. Yeah. It just seems like it is overcomplicated in the service of penny pinching. Like, you know, it's hard to ascribe another motivation to it when you're not when there's such an obvious roster fit to free agent. to it when you're not, when there's such an obvious roster fit to free agent. And again, like you said, there might be stuff that we don't know about how those things have unfolded. And signing a free agent is something that is, you know, it's like a reciprocal relationship. And

Carl's Cray might want to go back to Houston if the offer is good, right? Like that is supposedly back on the table again. So I think that we can't say for sure that this is purely a matter of sort of budget-conscious Yankee stuff, but it does seem like they have kind of roster-constructed themselves into a very strange corner, particularly given the injury concerns that they have on that roster, some of the weird performance stuff that they had last year. I don't know. It's just like a very very strange thing and it's an odd moment to say well we have

to be mindful of our coffers when you're in a division where like those wins on the win curve make a really big difference yeah and it's not a young team like you have you know judge who's a year away from free agency and then you have older guys, I mean, Stanton and now Donaldson. And, you know, you've got Garrett Cole while he's at or close to the peak of his powers. I mean, make the most of that. I know that they have prospects, and I know that they have a great shortstop prospect too, right? Anthony Volpe, who we talked about recently. I do understand why there might be some reluctance to block a player like that long term. But I don't know. You're the Yankees. Like in the past, maybe the Yankees have been not conscious enough of prospects and have been too wary of giving guys within their system a chance. And just, you know, throughout the 80s and early 90s, I mean, it was you had to hold Steinbrenner back from trading Fred McGriff and Jay Buhner and you know Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams like guys who he almost dealt

at various times and so it makes sense for them to actually have places to play those players at times but Volpe you know he's 20 I guess he's almost 21 he hasn't played above high A and you know if you're a shortstop or you sign some other shortstop, there's always somewhere you can move those players. So just saying, like when a Carlos Cray is out there, I don't know that if you're the Yankees, you let an Anthony Volpe block that move. So it is odd. And if the complaint about them last year was that they were too slow or too old or too unathletic or too right-handed or whatever, like some of that maybe was overblown in my mind. But if you just go out and get Josh Donaldson, you're kind of doubling down on all of those things. Right.

So, you know, you're not really injury proofing yourself with that move. So, you know, they might just have enough talent that they can kind of brute force their way into the playoffs. But it is an oddly constructed roster and a plan that I do understand why some Yankees fans are kind of questioning. Yeah, it seems very strange. It's not as if you have an incredibly talented shortstop coming up through the ranks that you can't find use for that player either by shifting your infield around or by leveraging him into trade for something else that you might need later. It just seems like a very strange approach. I don't know if they expected, we've heard of them being in on some of these big free agents, right, that they had interest in a lot of these guys and that they made offers to some of them. And so

maybe they expected their their offseason to go really differently than it has ended up going like that, I guess is a possibility. But it's also just I don't know, it's a weird it's a weird bit of business. And I think that they might find themselves maybe not on the outside looking in when it comes time for the playoffs because it's going to take me a while to mentally recalibrate sort of how good I think a team has to be to play October baseball. necessarily think that they're going to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the postseason entirely but i wouldn't be surprised if you know come september they're like wow we really could have won this division if we had you know done more than we have so yeah and you could say a lot of the same things about the red socks who have also been linked to players but just haven't really made anything major happen and and this week we learned that Chris Sale has a stress fracture in his rib and will not be ready for opening day. And he's also unvaccinated and

at least thus far ineligible to play in Toronto. But, you know, the Red Sox made it to the ALCS last year and surprised a lot of people, me included, in doing that. But it's kind of hard to look at that roster and think that they're not the fourth best team in that division, which I don't know, might be good enough. And at least Xander Bogarts is vaccinated now. So there's some positive news on that front. You know, they haven't made a lot of moves either. And they have watched one of their major in-season acquisitions from last season walk away because Kyle Schwarber signed with the Phillies for four years and $79 million. And I don't know if I have as much to say about that move as I have some of these others. that he would command that much money. And he, like Bryant, is maybe hitting the market at the right time

and that he is coming off a career year in his case. And he just really raked last year and sort of settled in. He had that otherworldly streak of hitting home runs with the Nationals, right? And then once he went to the Red Sox and recovered from his hamstring strain, I think it was,

he was walking like 20% of the time and was a huge on-base boost for them. So the Phillies are just banking on him continuing to rake. He is still only 29. He just turned 29 last week or the week before. And now the Phillies, they're a team, along with the Mets probably, that has seemed as if it was playing in a DH league for the past few years and wasn't actually. And now it is. So that benefits those two teams probably as much as anyone. a lot of the time and at least for now but you know they have the option of using him at the dh spot which probably maximizes his skills in the long term and possibly in the short term as well but you know you're kind of banking on him being the hitter he was last year as opposed to the more

inconsistent hitter he was during his time with the cubs but would not be surprised if he just settled in as a solidly well above average masher for the next few years and hit a bunch of homers. And the Phillies, when they have made major free agent signings, they have worked out well for them. You can criticize them for other moves that they have made or not made, but it's like they're the opposite of the Rockies when it comes to signing free agents, which has tended to backfire spectacularly for the Rockies. And with the Phillies, it's like, well, you got Bryce Harper and you got Zach Wheeler.

That worked out pretty well. So I guess they're hoping that they will strike gold again. And hey, they have right now a bullpen that projects middle of the pack, Ben. 14th, in fact, 14th in baseball. That's where that bullpen projects right now not great good for a dave dembrowski team and like certainly for these phillies where you're just like stop please just concede the game at the end just give let's concede the game oh that rocky's bullpens can be bad though um 30th that last no anyway it's a hard place to pitch that's not the point

of this little segment, though. Yeah, I think that he will probably, as you said, settle in as an above-average bat whose war totals are always a little bit depressed by the fact that he's either playing bad defense in left field or is DHing, and he'll be a reliable source of offense for them, and they'll be happy with that.

I imagine that he will end up DHing more than they're maybe letting on, but it'll be interesting to see how NL teams start to adapt to that because they will have for the first time a thing that AL teams have had, which is like, oh, are you a little banged up? Why don't you just DH today?

So I imagine that maybe that is driving their projected playing time for him at the moment more than their like sterling confidence in him as an outfielder because i don't have sterling confidence in him as an outfielder i think that it tends to be a bit of an adventure you don't necessarily want adventures in the outfield you want that to be you know smooth sailing so adventures smooth sailing am i mixing metaphors i don't necessarily want adventures in the outfield. You want that to be smooth sailing. So adventures, smooth sailing. Am I mixing metaphors? I don't think so.

They're compatible. But yeah, I don't know. It was more money than I thought he would get, but it was nice to see the Phillies spend some money after doing sort of smaller moves that I wasn't as big a fan of. So yeah, good for Schwarber. Not really in an enviable spot. And I don't know what they could do to put themselves in one at this point because their internal players just haven't

really panned out the way they wanted and so they've done a good job of going out and getting Harper and Wheeler and Real Muto and you know kind of keeping themselves in the mix but they have just been locked in that like 80 to 82 win range and they're projected to be not a whole lot better than that this year and they're clearly looking up at two other teams in that division with the marlins maybe coming up behind them so even with the 12 team playoff format they're not much better than a 50 50 shot shot, according to the FanCraft's playoff odds, to make it. So I guess they're one of the teams on the bubble that may be a beneficiary from that system, but they're still just kind of caught in between where it's like, is this, you know, the end of the window? Like, I don't know where the window is or was.

Like, are they just going to hang around in this no-man's-land limpo and hope to be decent enough to luck into a playoff spot one of these years? I don't know. It's tough. It's the rebuild that kind of famously, infamously didn't really work out the way that anyone expected it to. But they're still in the running. So along those lines, I guess the last big bullet point, the last team of major interest right now is the Cubs, who won the Seiya Suzuki sweepstakes. Five years, $85 million. And they have also made a bunch of

other more minor moves after getting Marcus Stroman and Wade Miley prior to the lockout. They have added Angleton Simmons and Jonathan Villar and Stephen Brault and David Robertson and Chris Martin. So my question for you is, are the Cubs not nutting after all? Because it certainly seemed, you know, I guess I could have found a neat transition to the Cubs because we were just talking about a bunch of former Cubs. A bunch of Cubs. Who have signed big contracts elsewhere, right? A bunch of former Cubs who have signed big contracts elsewhere, right? And there is still that question of what could have been if the Cubs had just invested in their own roster instead of complaining about biblical losses and now bidding on the Chelsea Soccer Club, right? The Ricketts are doing that this week.

appear that they are trying to breathe more life into the major league roster than maybe i expected them to after they divested let's say at last year's trading deadline so i didn't really expect them in the wake of that to be big players on the free agent market so soon and yet they have been and they have spent more money on a japanese position player than I guess anyone has before. And to convince a Japanese player not to go to the West Coast, which just because of the travel is always often at least the preferred destination, they clearly sold Suzuki on what they're putting together here. Yeah. It's interesting because it's like they're still bad.

Like they're not, we don't think they're going to be very good as a team. Like they have 0.1% odds of winning the World Series. They have 9.3% playoff odds. Like they're still not going to be good, but it suggests that they maybe anticipate being good soonish in a way that I find intriguing given just how thoroughly they seem to have committed to the fire sale. So that was the part of the signing that I found the most sort of interesting. It's like, oh, how soon do you think you're going to be good?

Because it's got to be pretty soon for this to make sense. Now, as we spent the first 10 minutes of this episode talking, sometimes teams have a really bad sense of this stuff and they are misaligned, but that is not my impression of the Cubs front office. So I don't quite know what they think the next five years of their team looks like, but they clearly think it looks better than I was mentally adjusting for. And so I find that part of this to be pretty fascinating. Yeah, because a lot of the bright spots on the roster last year, at least in the second half, were players who surprised and kind of came out of nowhere and were fun, but also are older.

Potentially fluky. Yeah, fluky and older than you think they are. Like, you know, the Patrick Wisdoms and the Frank Schwindels and the Rafael Ortegas. So I guess it's good that they are bringing in some more established players and not counting on those performances continuing. But, yeah, it does make me recalibrate where I think the Cubs are, where I think the Cubs think they are. So it is kind of confusing, but I am very eager to watch Suzuki and see what he turns out to be because the stats in Japan have been incredible. And he does a lot of things well. And the projection systems are perhaps not quite as sold on all of that translating fully. But there are a lot of scouts who have submitted glowing reviews.

So it seems like he should be a fun player. And at least there's something to watch it won't be chris bryan and it won't be kyle schwarber and it won't be javi baez but at least it'll be seo suzuki and marcus stroman i guess well and as we also spent the beginning part of this episode establishing like i am a fan of teams that are you know not necessarily going to be good at least giving their fans something to be excited about. And he won't be the only player on their roster that you can say that for, but he'll definitely be one of them. So like, that's kind of cool. And speaking of that kind of move, I think the sentimental favorite signing of all of the baseball internet this week,

of the baseball internet this week, which we talked about with Dan Szymborski when he was on the show recently and kind of fantasy casted Zach Granke returning to the Royals. And that actually happened this week for one year and $13 million, which I think brought warm feelings to everyone's heart just to see Granke back in a Royals uniform.

He is obviously diminished at this stage of his career, but still very much in the crafty, righty mold, I guess, and still has the guile and the finesse and the command and can still get hitters out. And he's still fun to watch because he has so many pitches and a broad range of speeds. And just to see him go home to the Royals should be a lot of fun. So, I mean, some of the Royals reunion stories of recent years have not actually worked out all that well, but this one, this I like a lot just because of, you know, what he meant to that franchise and what it meant to him earlier in his career before he went to the Brewers and just getting to see things go full circle. Like who doesn't love Zach Greinke? And I love the idea of watching him in the powder blue again.

Yeah, I think it's great. Like it's just a very exciting kind of fun thing. And I'm glad he gets to, I mean, I just like it when people get to go where they want to be. And it seems like that's where he wants to be. Who knows how long he'll be able to be a big leaguer. And he might soldier on on one-year deals for a while. Or maybe this will be kind of the end of the line for him.

But if it is, like, very cool to get to go back to the beginning and do it on your own terms. Pretty cool. Yeah. So I guess we have hit on most of the major signings there. And we mentioned the Amir Garrett trade. That was another Royals reunion that maybe didn't work out all that well. So Mike Miner going back to Cincinnati with cash, most important to the Reds probably. And then, you know, the Giants made some smaller signings, Jock Peterson and Matt Boyd. So get your Matt Boyd NL Cy Young bets in for this year. And Peterson, who I guess was less of an extreme platoon split guy last year than he had been before when he was treated that way, but historically has been that type. But the Giants did a great job last year of mixing and matching and playing matchups and finding the right times to play players to make the most of their strengths. So those signings sort of fit in with their recent

model. And then Atlanta used some of its Olsen versus Freeman savings, I suppose, to bring back another playoff hero, Eddie Rosario, and also add Colin McHugh and a couple other more minor players. So, you know, little moves around the margins. But I guess we have hit on the big things. I don't know whether there were any other transactions you wanted to highlight. You probably got some tweets about Archie Bradley going to the Angels. I didn't. I didn't get even one, Ben.

Oh, great. Maybe people have forgotten. Maybe so. Maybe people have forgotten. Maybe so. Maybe people have forgotten about the poop. Could be, yeah. They've moved on to other things. But maybe has R.G. Bradley moved on? I don't know.

We don't know. But yeah, not a one was was shocked was shocked by that can i ask a question that i have been noodling on and we don't have to answer it on this podcast because we've been going for an hour now but you mentioned the phillies is sort of a at this point famous example of the the rebuild not working and i'm curious so we have this expanded playoff field are we going to mentally asterisk the teams like if the Mariners make it into the playoffs this year which like we give them decent odds of doing that at fair graphs and they make it in in a wild card spot that would not have existed prior to this year do we change the way we feel about them

and the success of their rebuild? If the Phillies get in this year and they get in a wildcard position that wouldn't have been possible for them to utilize in a normal non-pandemic year prior to now, do we mentally correct on that? Or do we say, well, I guess it worked out because they made the playoffs?

I would think of it a little differently. Now, if they make a deep run, they win a World Series. Will their fans care how they got there? Probably not. But I think it would be fair to be aware of how that team performs over the long haul. I mean, if you embark on a full-scale rebuild or whatever you want to term it, bark on a full-scale rebuild or whatever you want to term it, you're hoping that you come out the other end with a team that could win division titles and maybe multiple division titles. You're not hoping for a team that can maybe squeak into the 11th or 12th playoff spot, right? And so

if that happens, you take it and you're happy to have it. But I don't think that's the goal necessarily. Like if that's where you peak, if that's where you max out, I think that would be seen as something of a disappointment. Now, if the Mariners were to, say, win a wild card as an intermediate step from never making the playoffs to making the playoffs in a more convincing, commanding way, that would be fine. in a more convincing, commanding way, that would be fine. I think we've talked in the past, I think, maybe about how you want that to happen or don't want that to happen or whether you want to wait for it to be not a weird kind of fluky, defying run differential and sneaking in only to be eliminated immediately or whether at this point after so long, you're just like, let's break the drought and worry about the future after that.

We should just be done. Yeah, no, we should just be done. But I think if you rebuild like that, your goal is to put together a roster that can win your division and hopefully do it for at least a few years. So if that's where you peak, I think that could rightfully be seen as a disappointment, even if as a fan, hey, you're happy to be in the playoffs under any circumstances. Yeah. I think that you're right that that is the way that people will think about it and talk about it but i also think that we do not discount the dodgers world series when coming in a 60 game season which is interesting yeah that's partly because they were a powerhouse right they

were really really really good but they also wanted in a year where if they hadn't been really, really, really good, they could probably have still made their way in potentially. So it's just that I'm not saying that we're right or wrong. I just I find it interesting. And I imagine we will talk about it many more times before the year is done. All right. So that's enough transaction talk. I believe there may be more for us to get to next time. And just in closing, I mentioned a couple of broader stories I wanted to briefly note. One is over and we no longer have to remember which is the low a southeast and which is double a south or whatever like now we can just say it's the international league it's the pacific coast league the old time names are back and surprisingly at

least to me they are not like sponsored by camping world or do something whatever which i assume they would be so i don't know if that means that mlB just could not find a taker for those or whether in a rare case of foregoing a sponsorship, they actually decided not to sully those names. But for whatever reason, they are back and they are unsullied. And that's nice. And I don't know why we even had to go through that intermediate stage of the weird names. I know that MLB said- I think there was a licensing issue, right? That's what MLB said.

Yeah, I think they said they had to acquire the rights to the historic names after they took over management of the minors, which I guess that could be true. I don't have information to the contrary, but whatever. I'm happy to have those names back so that I can actually identify leagues by name again and know which ones people are talking about. And also in other minor league news, there was maybe consequential ruling when it comes to that longstanding case, the class action case that has been wending its way through the courts for like eight years now. There was a preliminary ruling which went in the minor leaguers' favor this week. So I will just read a little bit about that from Craig Calcaterra's

newsletter now. But the judge in this case ruled that MLB is liable for close to $2 million in penalties on the California wage claims of the plaintiffs, the players in this suit. And there may be further liability in Arizona and Florida. That's still in dispute. There is a trial that's scheduled for June, although there will be hearings before that. And there's the possibility of a settlement happening before that. But this is significant because basically the court determined that minor league players are employees and that MLB is also liable here, not just the teams, that MLB is a joint

employer of those players and thus they're on the hook for damages too. And that minor leaguers actually should be paid for spring training and extended spring and instructs and travel to go to games. And all of those things are actually eligible for compensation, contrary to that argument that we talked about that MLB made, that actually, like, the minor leaguers should be paying the teams for the instruction that they're receiving. That argument did not fly. Oh, God. Yeah. So there is a bunch of violations here retrospectively that these players are now entitled to receive,

although there are some caveats to that in that MLP basically limited its exposure in more recent years with the quote-unquote Save America's Pastime Act, right? So the players in this lawsuit predated that bill in 2018. So that's kind of a negative here. on Tuesday that would give minor leaguers full protection under that state's labor laws and could even reduce the time that a player is under team control in the minors. But if that were to pass, then it would only apply in California. And I would not be surprised if suddenly we saw minor league teams just having an exodus from California all of a sudden. But anyway, this is a win and a long-awaited and hard-fought win, and it's limited in some respects, but it's still nice to see that the minor leaguers actually got

a bit of a victory here and got to shove it up MLB's mouth and say these arguments are not going to fly anymore. Yeah, I think that obviously there's more to come here and it doesn't feel like nearly enough money relative to what hopefully they will be in line for. But it is just sometimes it's just reassuring to have a court say, no, you're right. That is a bad argument. Yeah. Like that's that's dumb that doesn't that doesn't apply you know the thing that you felt intuitively was wrong but your instincts and the

legal system don't always match up in a way that is satisfying who could say what else that means like in this case you you were right that that's goofy no we say no so it's nice to have that happen because it doesn't happen nearly as often as we might want it to. Yep. It was a 181-page decision rejecting MLB's claim that minor leaguers are seasonal employees. I'm always flummoxed when I see how long bills are and how long court decisions are. It's like they're all novel length. They're like Lord of the Rings length sometimes. And it's like, how do you have time to read these?

I mean, I know the answer is that like no one does read them and like the legislators don't read them and maybe they get a summary from their staffs or something. But like, how do you even write that many pages? Like, couldn't this have been a page? I mean, there's probably a summary, but maybe it's just like the excessive legalese that leads to like way more words than you need to to say anything. But I'm always kind of impressed by like hundreds of pages and yet also daunted by the idea that anyone could ever actually reckon with all of that. But anyway, good news on that front. And the last bit of good news is that we talked a little bit about how the new CBA prohibits players from being optioned more than, what is it, five times within a single season. And there are also restrictions on like, can a team claim a player multiple times in a season without that player passing through waivers?

And it does carry over across organizations. So some of the more egregious cases that we have documented where players were demoted and promoted, you know, like a dozen times or something in a season, that cannot happen anymore, which is welcome and long overdue. And also one thing that we didn't mention that is related to that is that IL stints, injured list stints for pitchers. Back to 15 days. Yeah, back to 15 days and optioning pitchers now 15 days instead of 10, which was, I think, something that was planned to go into effect maybe for 2020 and then was suspended because of the pandemic. So it's not a new thing, but it is happening. And that is good, too. So I think those two changes in tandem should cut down on a lot of the roster churn that led to us, you know, debuting our meet a major leaguer segment because we just didn't know who any of these players were.

So that's, I guess maybe bad news for a few players who may not make it to the majors because this, but it is good news for players who do make it and maybe can be more assured of not being shuffled back and forth from AAA to the majors and having phantom injuries constantly like not having to figure out who is this reliever who I've never seen before and is suddenly here and then will be optioned right after that game and then he'll be back up next week and then he'll be gone again there will still be some of that but hopefully a lot less and that

has been so rampant it's really been out of. So I'm glad that that at least has had some steps taken to address it. Yeah. I think that there are going to continue to be little nuggets that we find interesting. And those were definitely some of them. But yeah, it'll be nice to have a little stability. I mean, I'm on record about how much I do and do not want to move ever in my life. And so the reality of, you know know rosters up and down is just overwhelmingly stressful to me so i'm glad it's minimized at least to some extent all right well

let's end now before any other huge news breaks i guess we got through this podcast with the only signing being the angels adding ryan toara, two years and $14 million. So sure enough there, bullpen. Sure. But it's something. All right. So we will end there and we will wait to see what happens next. All right.

Here I am a little later to add another little bit of news that broke while we were recording. The Cubs signed reliever Michael Givens. So add him to the list of transactions that suggest that they are not nutting, at least not to the extent that they could be. I also wanted to pass along this quote from the Washington Post beat writer for the Nationals, Jesse Daugherty. Some early DH reactions from West Palm, quote, people are going to watch Nelson Cruz hit instead of Pat Corbin. So that's good. That was Corbin's take on the universal DH. And I've got to say, I feel much the same way.

This is one of those weeks when it's not too hard to be a baseball podcaster. The topics suggest themselves. Those months when we had to scrounge around and dig deep for topics seem like a long time ago all of a sudden. Wish every week could be as eventful as this one, but we thank you for joining us for the lean weeks, as well as the busy ones. You can support the podcast on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going and help us stay ad free while getting themselves access to some perks. Justin Klein, Anthony Varco, Jeremy Bernfeld, Dylan DeThomas, and Andrew Lindsay. Thanks to all of you.

Of course, if you sign up for Patreon, you can get access to the Effectively Wild Discord group solely for Patreon supporters, as well as monthly bonus episodes with me and Meg and many other extras. Any and all of you are eligible to join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. are eligible to join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can also rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and many other podcast platforms. Please keep your questions and comments and suggestions coming for me and Meg via email at podcast.fangrafts.com or via the Patreon messaging system if you are a supporter. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod, and you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit if you are so inclined at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks as always to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance.

We will see how many more moves are in store for us this week. One way or another, we will be back with one more episode before the end of it, so we will talk to you soon. Whatever is said to undo the plan Consider the source and ignore it, my friend You're doing just fine, keep on keeping on