Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1964: Our Favorite Transactions

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about pre-Opening Day milestones and the upcoming EW season preview series, then (7:59) draft and discuss their favorite offseason transactions (and non-transactions), followed by a Past Blast from 1964 (1:16:19) and a Stat Blast addendum (1:21:18) about Pinky Higgins, Roxie Lawson, and hits-related records. Audio intro: Marshall Crenshaw, “You’re My […]

I don't care if being with you is meaningless and ridiculous If it's wrong or right I've got to give you my love tonight and tomorrow night Cause you're mine Honey, you're my favorite waste of time You're my favorite waste of time Hello and welcome to episode 1964 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangrass presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangrass. Hello, Meg. Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters.

I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. So before the start of the season, opening day, there is the start of spring training games. And before the start of spring training games, there's pitchers and catchers reporting. And before pitchers and catchers reporting, there's truck day. So we have made it to truck yeah these are in descending order of how exciting they are and it's a steep descent you don't get amped for truck day is it as people do but is the descent as steep as the grade that

trucks have to avoid when they're going over mountains? At least. At least that steep. Possibly steeper. So it's not that exciting, but it is maybe the first milestone of, hey, things are actually starting to get in gear here. And also, I think for baseball podcast hosts, year-round baseball podcast hosts, it's a nice sign that we are getting to the time of year when the material is a little easier to come by. Not that we have issues finding things to talk about. And sometimes doing that in January or early February can be more stimulating because you have to think and work a little harder. But I feel like now we have kind of gotten over the hump

when it comes to creating our content in the depths of winter. Because guess what? Next week, team previews start. Yeah. Yeah. They sure do. I know that, you know, it's a challenge when you're constructing a podcast that you want to have broad appeal because you want to – sometimes you want to have broad appeal because you want to, you know, sometimes you want to satisfy yourself. You have a broad and diverse listenership for which we are quite

grateful. And I know that there are like some, some amongst them, Ben, who are like, you know, I've thought enough about how different baseball is. Maybe I don't need to think about that anymore. Yep. At least for a little while. while i like i know that that is a segment of the listenership it cries out for something different and so you know how nice for them and for us to get to mix it up but we get to talk to some intrepid beat writers and hear about each of these teams in detail because you know we try to keep track of it but it's a lot so many guys ben you know there's just like so many of them and i am given to at least one uh an opening day where i'm like no that guy's not on that team that's a lie somebody's gonna get in trouble with the league office for that guy being in that uniform so

i'm looking forward to it and to ushering in this new part of the off season uh and i'm not gonna think at all about how much i have to do between now and opening day. Because who cares about that except for me and hopefully a therapist. Yeah, just kick that can down the road. But yeah, we're doing the full thing. Yeah. We've done in the past. We're going back to the team by team preview.

So it'll be two teams per pod and 15 pods. And then we start next week and we'll wrap up right before opening day. So that'll take us through and we will continue to do some non-preview pods. There's two preview pods a week and then a middle episode where we do emails or whatever. But we didn't do the full preview last year because we couldn't really. There wasn't enough time with the lockout and then people signing after the lockout and all that uncertainty. So we just did division previews for the first time in ages.

But now I feel energized by our year off from full previews and we're going to go into it. So that means that we no longer have to really look all that hard to figure out what we are going to be doing for the next close to two months, almost, up until the season starts. So that will be coming to you next week. So we're excited for that. tie a bow in a sense on the offseason prior to previews we would do a little i don't know if we want to call it a draft is it is it a draft i guess i don't know we'll see how high register my panic gets and then we'll know for sure yeah the stakes are as low as they are with all of our drafts actually but we're just going to talk about our favorite transactions of this offseason. And we'll take five each and we'll see how that goes and if we have any others

left over. And that'll be a way for us to kind of wrap things up. Because the nice thing about previews this year is that most of the transactions have been transacted. Sometimes there's still some big free agents sitting out there and we know that the projections are going to change and there are going to be major additions and we try to deal with that as we go. But this year, rosters are pretty set. Obviously, there are some moves to make still and there could be some surprises and there are always some injuries, unfortunately, and then those injuries cause transactions. But for the most part, things are in better shape and more ordered than they have been for some time at this time of year. So that'll make things easier on us. And now we can just kind of recap the offseason that was and the moves that we enjoyed and we just said our favorite transactions and we talked about setting specific criteria for that and then decided not to yeah we we figured that we would

interpret transaction very loosely to allow a really broad range of potential additions swaps you know all sorts of stuff i. I do strongly prefer the early resolution to the major moves of the offseason to the alternative. Because, Ben, do you remember in 2019 when Machado signed February 20th or something and then Harper wasn't until March? I was on a call trying to do contributor interviews and I was like, I felt at the time very stressed, but then later very fancy because I was like, I'm sorry, I simply have to go.

I must deal with many more. I have to deal with Bryce Harper now. And I was like, oh, I'm so important. The Meg signal was lit. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's better to get those major deals done earlier because then you have lots of time to anticipate them. Yeah. And teams can sell

tickets and fans can get hyped for the season and people who preview can preview more effectively. With confidence. Yes, right. And because most of the activity was concentrated in those earlier months and the slower times, right? I mean, now it's truck day. I can almost taste opening day when those trucks pull out. Not exactly, but it's harder when it's further away. And so that gave us a lot of things to talk about early in the winter and the winter meetings were actually extremely exciting. And then the holidays, who cares if there's baseball news because we're all just taking it easy and doing whatever we do

no and there wasn't huge news to that i say jerry aj thanks a lot yeah just to pick two gms at random you know january and early february a little slow but then we're into preview podcast time so again no rubric here for what we're drafting, if you can even call this drafting. So we're not doing this is the best deal from a dollars per war perspective or we thought this was a steal or something. Yeah, I mean, there may be some of those where we thought, oh, this is a smart signing and this is a good deal. also just be moves that we found interesting or players going to certain teams that we thought that was a fun fit or just whatever was the most fun to discuss at the time so we'll just see where it takes us yeah and i so i have a couple in mind and then i will invariably like panic and go off my board so you know we have that to look forward to. But I want to say something because we are kind of loosey goosey here and we're just, you know, we're going on vibes and limited sleep.

I have a couple in mind that are like broad categories of things. And I am here to tell you, Ben, that I am not saying that any particular transaction that fits within that broad category is off the board. I think that if you want to draft X player signing with Y team, and I have previously taken insert trend, that you can just do that. I think that that's fine. Does that feel fair? Yeah. I have a couple on my list that are not even technically transactions. Oh, boy.

So we can see whether you allow them or not okay but all right you want to start i don't think it matters who starts okay so i'm gonna start with one of these very very broad trend things okay i have enjoyed this off season the creation of what how do we want to workshop this? What do I want to call it? I'm going to call it the black box outfield. I have enjoyed, Toronto has done this, the Twins have done this, where they're just like, what if we just made the entire outfield out of centerfielders?

What if we just created an entire outfield out of centerfielders and we will never allow fly ball to the outfield to fall on the grass ever again. And so I appreciate it because I think there are pitchers on both of these teams who are quite good, Ben. It's not as if Alec Manoa or Kevin Gosman are slouches. We don't know what Jose Barrios is, but I'm excited to find out. And Minnesota has fortified their rotation in trade. And so that's cool. You know, I'm excited to see Pablo Lopez as a twin. I wonder if Pablo Lopez is excited to see Pablo Lopez as a twin. I guess we're going to find out. Yeah, he doesn't have much choice in the matter.

No, he doesn't. And, you know, we're going to get, you know, we're getting Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan. They got all kinds of weird, funny starters there, you know, we're going to get, you know, we're getting Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan. They got all kinds of weird, funny starters there, you know. And so I don't want to denigrate the pitching stats of these respective teams. But I do like the idea of just saying, look, a lot of ways to secure outs. And one way is to just have a black box outfield that is entirely composed of centerfielders. So that is my first pick. Yeah, that's a good one. I like a great defensive outfield going back to the Kansas City Royals of the mid last decade when they would deploy their ultimate outfield.

They would have Alex Gordon and they would have Lorenzo Cain. And then, you know, when they would just roll out Gerard Dyson in the late innings that was really fun because at that point Kane would go to right and Noriaki was the starter at the time and and so if you put Dyson out there in center then it was just like well there will be no more hits to the outfield yeah forget it yeah so there So you have to weigh the offensive subtraction that you get when that happens. But the late innings shut down defense. Gosh, those teams were so fun. I mean, it wasn't just the outfield, but also the late innings bullpen and all the rest of it. I miss those Royals. But yeah, that kind of gave me a taste, I think, for the elite defensive outfield.

We've seen some since then. But yeah, I mean, I was going to take, maybe I still will, but maybe I won't have to now. But I was just going to take the Dalton Varshow trade. This was exactly what I had in mind when I said, if you want to take it, Ben, I say you should do that. I guess I will. I might have enough on my board not to need to. But what the heck, while we're on the subject, I think I will take the Dalton Varshow trade and not even for either side, just the Dalton Varshow trade. Yeah, as a trade.

Yeah, you could call it the Gabriel Moreno trade. You could call it the Lourdes Gurriel Jr. trade. I'm not picking sides here necessarily. I'm just saying this trade was a ton of fun. As I said at the time, I mean, the Pugliese getting Dalton Varshow from the Diamondbacks and then Gabriel Moreno and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. going back to the Diamondbacks. This is just that was so much fun. And it was just so satisfying because it was such a sensible fit. Yeah. You know, like, I mean, most trades you can at least sort of squint and see why each team is making this trade and what they think they're getting. So there's usually some sort of need being filled on both sides. But in this case, it was just so clean, so elegant, predictable almost. I mean, people had looked at the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks and said, oh, it seems like there's probably a fit here. Yeah. Because the Diamondbacks had an excess of outfielders and the Blue Jays had an excess

of catchers. And the Blue Jays not only needed outfielders, they needed left-handed hitting outfielders just to balance their lineup a little. Such a righty-heavy lineup. Yeah. And there was Dalton Varshow. And it could work out well for both teams. It could work out well for one team more than the other.

The Diamondbacks didn't have great organizational catching depth, so they got one of the best young catchers in the game. And they also got Gurriel back. And really just like so much to analyze and speculate about because Dalton Varshow is a player who I think he has like star potential, like one of the better players in baseball type potential. But then you're not quite sure that he's that great yet. And there are some ways in which you could suggest maybe he might regress a bit. And obviously, he's such an interesting player, what with the catching and the outfielding. And sadly, he probably will not be doing much catching anymore. That's the only downside of this deal. But then he had sort of ceased to catch with the Diamondbacks as it was late last season. So I just really liked this trade. It was just fun for the whole family. Just all angles of it was great. I like kind of a challenge trade, like giving an established major leaguer for a top

prospect who is now also a major leaguer. Each side is sacrificing something of real value there that could come back to haunt it. So I think it was just a ton of fun when this move was made. That sounds so ominous, could come back to haunt it yeah yeah it was a great it was a great fun trade arizona has shown that they are at least this iteration of the front office is like game for these kinds of traits and i really like them they're a lot of fun right and uh i think i like this one even more than the zach allen jazz chisholm trade, which is... Yeah, that's the gold standard. That was fun at the time, and it's still sort of fun. Oh, yeah, it's definitely still fun.

I mean, to be clear, it's definitely still fun. But I think that, yeah. This one was the only downside to this trade, I guess, was the timing, right? Because the timing on the Varshow trade, it was not Christmas Eve, right? It was the day before Christmas Eve. I think it was December 23rd when this deal was done. So we were just saying that teams, for the most part, behaved themselves and took the holidays off like everyone else did. But this one, not so much. So it was a while before you could read the fan graphs breakdown of the Dalton Varshow trade, which is right and good that people didn't spring into action to blog about that

one immediately. But it was one of those. Yeah. I mean, like, I'll tell you, we thought about it, you know, but then it was late in the day. If it had been. Yeah, right. It was almost Christmas Eve.

Yeah. If it had been in the morning on the 23rd, I think we would have run it that day. But it happened late in the afternoon. And then, you know, it's going to be night before it goes. And then it's going to be Christmas Eve. And then it's going to be Christmas. And so just do it after that. That was the rationale.

I don't know if it was the right choice, but it was the choice you made. Who won the Jazz Chisholm trade? Too soon to say, right trade too soon to say right too soon to say i mean right right now i think uh maybe maybe ben maybe it tilts ever so slightly in arizona's favor maybe because zach allen had had a heck of a year last year and you know the mlb the show he's not three cover model he's not you know and it's not like he has been totally immune from injury but you know i think that uh it's it's perfectly possible that jazz would be like superlative and center um but you're you are looking at a guy where it seems like the organizational determination is he's not the long-term fetish shortstop so you know that

probably tips it a little bit. But it's very early. They're both young and they're both, you know, they're great. It's great. Yeah, right. I mean, it would be nice if they were just both the best players that they could be and the players that each side of that trade saw them turning into. Yeah. And if we were still debating who won and if we eventually had to conclude it was a

draw, that would be fun but it was just a one for one right with the young promising players who were just getting established and that kind of deal is pretty rare right so i like a one for one even i like like i i don't think any of us is gonna draft this so sorry if i'm stealing a pick here but like matt barnes for richard blier yeah that was a weird trade. It was weird, but it was just like, you know, how often do you see sort of like veteran reliever for veteran reliever? Like for like. I like a like for like trade. Gallon and Chisholm wasn't quite that because it's a pitcher versus a position player.

But especially when it's like same position for same position. It's just like, all right, well, put up or shut up. It's just I like your guy better than my guy all right what is your next pick i am taking jacob de graham signing with the texas rangers interesting all right and i am not drafting this to irritate mets fans i don't think i have a ground sign on the rangers to irritate mets fans either just like if i'm taking sides in a silly debate but I really like signings like this when a team is like, look, we know, we know. We're not ready to take on the Astros. We are the Rangers. We've committed a good deal of money to our infield. We have players we like, but we know we're still at a distance from the class of the division and maybe this year

it won't be any different maybe we maybe we'll be looking up at you know the mariners or god forbid the angels uh in the wild card standings come september and we won't advance to the postseason we know but also we're adding some fun variants to our team. I guess I could take pretty much all of their pitching. Yes, great. And trades. They got Odorizzi from Atlanta too, I guess. But they've introduced the potential for positive variants

to their roster in places that they needed to shore up. Their rotation was pretty shallow. You don't want, no offense to John Gray, but like you don't want John Gray to have such a big role in your rotation. He's fine, but you don't want him to be the guy, right? And they brought back Perez. And so I like how they were like,

Jacob deGrom is a free agent now and he probably won't be next year. And so we should sign him and we'll give him maybe more money than people expected for a guy who is the best pitcher on the planet when he's healthy but is often not but if he's healthy if we capture that de grom you know positive variance who would you rather have starting a playoff game for your team ben the list is short that isn't just Jacob deGrom, right? And so I like it when teams do

that. I like it when teams say this guy won't be around the next time we do free agency and we want him. And so we're going to get him now. And if we eat a year that he is good and we're not quite ready, you know, we'll take that if he's hurt. Which the Rangers did the previous offseason with Corey Seager and Marcus Evian. Right. And I think it's good when teams, you know, it's like good for the sport when a team like the Rangers looks at their 2022 season, having pursued that strategy and is like, no, this is a longer term plan and ambition to win. And we will not be deterred by the fact that, you know, we finished 2022 having, like, what, 68 games or something like that. So we're keeping on this.

And we have some young guys we like, and we want to supplement that with these signings. Here we go. That's my pick. The Rangers have the third best projection for their rotation. But as you said, variance is the operative word there. Yeah, I bet the error bars on that are massive. Could be the best, could be significantly worse. I mean, Martin Perez, John Gray, Jacob deGrom, Nathan Evaldi, and Andrew Heaney.

Yeah, and the saving grace, I guess, is that they do have depth, right? Because you've got Dane Dunning around, Odorizzi, as you mentioned. There's some other guys when inevitably, maybe multiple top pitchers have to spend some time on the AL at some point this season, then it won't be as precipitous a drop-off to the next best pitcher. But yeah, what a group. That could go any number of ways. So that entire team could really. So I'm kind of looking forward to the Rangers preview because we'll have some questions. Yeah. All right. Where will I go next?

I haven't panicked at all yet, Ben. I'm so excited. There are a lot of transactions to choose from. All of our picks will be fun transactions, I think. So here's one that I'm going to take that's not technically a transaction. So you can veto it if you'd like. And if you do, then I will have an easy pivot to make. But I'm going to take the Mets agreeing to terms with Carlos Correa. Yeah. All out. Okay. Yeah. If you vetoed that, then I would have just taken the twins signing Carlos Correa? Yeah, I do. Yeah. I all out. Okay. Yeah. If you vetoed that,

then I would have just taken the twins signing Carlos Correa, which was an actual transaction that was completed. But no shots at the twins because they're the victors here. They emerged with the shortstop, but the Mets agreeing to terms with Carlos Correa, and so we thought at the time, signing him, obtaining his services, that seemed unprecedented for a player of Carlos Correa's caliber with the kinds of contracts that he was agreeing to sign for that deal to fall apart with San Francisco and then for him to sign with someone else. That seemed unprecedented. When the Mets deal fell apart and he signed with Minnesota, it was no longer unprecedented because it had already happened with Carlos Correa in that offseason. But the Carlos Correa to the Mets news breaking when it did in the early hours of the morning where I was, that was one of the few transactions of the offseason that I will probably remember

for a while where I was and what I was thinking and what I was doing when that happened. Generally, I guess I'm at home reading MLB trade rumors or whatever when I see any transaction. But in this case, it was the wee hours of the morning and I was writing and then I- You weren't engaged in international espionage or anything? No. Yeah. No. I wasn't like out sightseeing in some exotic climb or anything, but I was writing about one baseball thing and then I switched gears to write about that baseball thing overnight. And there were just so many things to talk about, right?

I mean, the Giants missing out on Carlos Cresa's services, and then Steve Cohen sweeping in, and Boris, and wow, the Mets are outspending everyone, and they're trying to build a super team here. the Mets are outspending everyone and they're trying to build a super team here. And the Mets had many actual transactions this winter and some pretty significant ones, right? So not only did they bring back guys like Edwin Diaz and Brendan Nimmo, but when they lost prominent players like one Jacob deGrom, then they went and got Justin Verlander, right? But most of their major transactions were either keeping someone they already had or replacing someone who was good with a roughly equally attractive player. This one, though, was an actual huge upgrade, right? Not so much we lost this guy and we got to replace him, but we just went and got Carlos Gray, even though we have Francisco Lindor. replace him but we just went got carl's gray even though we have francisco and door and then there was the whole is this uh bad for the sport is this good for the sport can the mets ever be stopped is

there any limit to steve cohen etc etc and then in the back of your brain there was well still pending physical this deal's not done either so boy all of that was wonderful. And we were giddy when we talked about it on the podcast, I think. You know, like when he ultimately signed with the Twins, which might turn out to be one of the better transactions of the offseason. Certainly, if Carlos Correa stays healthy, then in retrospect, that will turn out to be a great signing. But at that point, it was, I mean, a third team getting him, it kind of like it was more fun in a way, like it became almost a farce. Yeah. But really, like the precedent had been set.

We had the template from the Met signing of Carlos Correa. So I don't know that there was a higher high just in terms of angles to dissect oh yeah than the met site in carl's career it was um it will probably forever be the wildest individual free agency that i have had to cover and and analyze in my career i mean like i didn't write any of our transaction analysis the season did give some grist for the mill you know that it's a weird off season when ben clemens is like enough with the carlos correa already like i can't write this guy up when you said you were drafting genres i thought you might just take carlos correa signing with someone yeah but it's it's a truly wild it's a truly wild bit of business. Just like a wild thing, you know? A wild thing. before his deal with the Mets was done, but just dropped in the middle of this column. He said, one rival exec predicted no one will ever again get a $200 million deal after multiple

physical failures. And then in parentheses, one doctor suggested Correa has the worst ankle he's seen. Just the worst ankle he's seen. That's it. One doctor, I assume it's a doctor who has some specific knowledge of Correa's ankle. Yeah, I was going to say, does he know anything about Carlos Correa's ankle in particular? It's interesting because it sounds like the same doctor weighed in on the Giants deal and the Mets deal, which is one of the things that Correa or Boris were raising as, oh, this is odd that this happened. But the worst ankle he's seen, I was trying to figure out because, you know, we talk about John Heyman maybe being quick with the Boris news, right?

And so it sort of surprised me that Heyman was reporting that Carlos Correa, a Boris client, has the worst ankle that this doctor has seen, but then the next part of the sentence was, and called it a Houdini job to get that much after a collapsed market. In a way, if he does have the worst ankle that this doctor has seen,

then great job, Scott Boris, to get a big deal for Carlos Correa. I guess that could still preserve the Boris-Heyman connection there. I guess it's I haven't seen the guy's ankle you know ben so i don't even know but it just is a it's a it's so weird it's such a weird thing could be the worst ankle he's ever seen i mean i think it is not the worst must be some bad ankles out there he's playing major league baseball i mean like he's not playing Major League Baseball on my ankles. Right.

And, like, my ankles haven't suffered, like, any profound trauma, but, like, I don't know. I don't think there's anything to write home about it. I have very flat feet, you know. Oh, I should talk about feet on the pod. I've got flat feet, too. Yeah, you'll never be a ballerina. No, I guess not. We've seen some gruesome ankle injuries even among baseball players.

I don't want to even mention names because I don't want to direct anyone to highlights that they don't want to see. So maybe this anonymous doctor only examines the ankles of elite athletes. Could be true. Those are some upper percentile ankles. And so this is bad by those standards. But really, if he's been playing on it all this time, how bad an ankle can it be? I guess we'll find out.

How bad an ankle can it be? I mean, maybe we will. Hopefully we don't. Hopefully we never have to think about it ever again. You know, it could be fine. What's your next pick? Oh, what is my next pick you know what is it ben i don't know uh this is my third pick i think so okay i'm gonna pick you know i'm gonna pick a

thing that i am delighted by even if i don't totally know if it is a... Well, it's a draft. Congratulations, you're here. We found it. Oh, I know what I'm picking. Meg. I'm picking a signing that I view to be representative of a larger delightful trend, which is Xander Bogart's going to the Padres.

Now, you might say, Ben, that this is duplicative with my outfielders who are all my black box outfields pick, not because Xander Bogarts is necessarily the best at his position. That was a talking point when we were trying to figure out his free agency. But the Padres famously have not one but two major league caliber shortstops already on their roster. And they said, well, what if we got one more?

You know, they're like, it's like that scene in Ocean's Eleven when Danny Ocean is talking to Rusty. Is that Brad Pitt's character's name? He's always eating. So, you know, that's a part of his character. And Rusty's laying on the bar and Danny's saying, do you think we need one more? You think we need one more? You think we need one more? We're going to get one more.

And he doesn't say anything. Brad Pitt doesn't. But he has conveyed something by his laying there on the bar. I'm doing laying there on the bar in my office. And no one can see it but me. But I am delighted by this because it is such a weird. It's such a Padres move, right? Where it's like, we have a ton of depth at this

position we're going to reinforce it we have a billion infielders we're going to reinforce it we have limitless question mark roster spots yep so we're just gonna spend 280 million special exemption from the commissioner to carry more players than every other team. And are we going to use that special exemption to accrue depth at a new position where we are maybe lacking? No. We're going to sign Xander Bogarts. That's right. We're just going to sign him to a $280 million deal because we want to keep making the Dodgers nervous. And we don't want to hear anything from the Giants.

And we're really uninterested in hearing anything from an upstart Diamondbacks team. So we're just going to sign Xander Bogarts, and we'll figure it out when Fernando Tatis Jr. comes back. Great, we'll sort that. We have Kim. It's great. So yeah, I'm taking Xander Bogarts to San Diego because it just typifies so much about them,

and all of those things are fun and vaguely funny. Yeah. I mean, the Padres had at least two major league shortstops, possibly more prior to signing Cedric Bogarts in a pinch. And yeah, I mean, when it comes to making your entire team out of players at one position, like you've got the Phillies making everyone a DH or trying to build an entire team out of DHs. So that was right but then they were like what if we had Trey Turner and just

like right turn the temperature down on that a little bit yeah just a little and then the Marlins are making their entire team out of second baseman and then the Padres are making their entire team out of shortstops I mean that's uh if you're gonna make your entire team out of players at one position probably pick one of the premium positions right yeah you don't going to make your entire team out of players at one position, probably pick one of the premium positions. Right. Yeah. You don't want to make your entire team out of first baseman. Wait, we already covered this. All right. Well, I will stick with the same sort of move here. Speaking of 11-year contracts for shortstops that maybe made the Dodgers nervous, I will take the Trey Turner signing by the Phillies, which I feel like almost went under the radar a little bit.

Just think about how much intrigue there was with Arson Judge and Aaron Judge and then Carlos Correa and his various contracts. Ben, can I interrupt you for a second? Do you remember Arson Judge? I sure do. I considered drafting Arson Judge. I wasn't sure whether that would count. I would have allowed it. Well, that's a spiritual pick then that I made. It's an honorary pick. But Trey Turner, I feel like, yeah, it almost flew under the radar with all the intrigue about Judge and the Correa contracts and, wow, the Padres got to enter Bogarts. And meanwhile, Trey

Turner went to the Phillies on sort of a similar deal, what, 11 and 300, was it? Bogarts is 11 and 280. And I think I would rather have Trey Turner on those terms probably than Bogarts on pretty similar terms. I just really like Trey Turner as a player and think he will probably hold up and continue to be good. I mean, when Dan Szymborski ran the long-term projections for that contract, I think he had Turner as an above-replacement-level player to the bitter end, to the, you know, being 40 years old or whatever he'll be at the end of that contract, which speaks to just how good he is now. I mean, he's been a six win player the last couple of years and was playing at that level in 2020 as well. Like he is just an absolute superstar and a fun one and the speed and, you know, pretty decent contact for this era and good power for a defensively competent shortstop too. And like, he just, he does it all. And that's going to be fun, I think, for that team. One reason why I like this one out of all of the very long-term high dollar deals that were signed this winter, I think one nice thing about it is that he wasn't leaving a team that he had been with for a really long time.

Right. Because whenever there's one of those moves, either it's like Aaron Judge is back with the Yankees, which is nice for Yankees fans, but a little less to analyze and discuss. Right. Because it's just the guy who was already there is still going to be there. And, you know, he flirted with leaving and that whole saga was entertaining. But ultimately, Aaron Judge, same leaving and that whole saga was entertaining. But ultimately, Aaron Judge, same team, same city, same uniform. So there's a little less to analyze. And then when a player like that does move, then there's like a bit of sadness, right? It's tinged with some sadness for some fans, right? Because when Xander Bogarts went to the Padres, Red Sox fans were sad. When Trey Turner signed with the Phillies, it was fun because a superstar went to a new team.

So we got to talk about his new fit there and what that would mean for the roster. But there wasn't great sadness about him leaving somewhere, right? Because he'd only been with the Dodgers for a couple of years and he wasn't long established there. And there was always the understanding that he might leave. So it wasn't like franchised cornerstone career player with this franchise has left. So it was just all upside, I think, from a vibes perspective, Trey Turner. And really, it's just fun to see the Phillies just plow forward and do their Dave Dombrowski thing and Dave Dombrowski not really needing to worry about what the back end of this

contract will look like because it's unlikely that he will still be running that front office at age 77 or whatever he will be by that point. So this is just, it's so Dombrowski and it's so Phillies. And kudos to them, I think, for also not resting on their heels and saying, oh, we just won a pennant. Right. Because that was extremely improbable and they were not that great a team. And it turned out that they were really a fun team and they were a very good team in October. But if they had talked themselves into, oh, we're just a powerhouse now, then that might have led to a big letdown in 2023. And it's still going to be tough in that division with everything that the Mets and the Braves did, but at least they're still going for it. And they're saying, we recognize that we have some weaknesses and Bryce Harper is going to be gone for half the

year, but hey, here's Trey Turner. Here's a new superstar. And when the Phillies have splurged on a free agent or even on someone they've signed to an extension, it's worked out really well. Like, you know, you can quibble with some of the moves that they've made and certainly some of their player development outcomes. But Bryce Harper, that's worked out great. Zach Wheeler, that's worked out great.

JT Romulo, that's worked out great. Zach Wheeler, that's worked out great. JT Real Muto, that's worked out great. So a lot of those big marquee signings of elite talents by the Phillies, I mean, that's what got them to where they were last year. Trey Turner maybe will fit into that lineage. Yep. And you'll get cool sliding into home yeah sliding into bases we need like a i think we need a physicist to investigate the slides there they feel magical yeah it feels like the the friction is turned down for trey turner somehow yeah that's such a good way of putting it ben you know that is such a good

way of putting it that the friction is turned down it It's like he's in Tron or something. He's like one of the guys in Tron. Okay. Well, I'm going to ask for your help in constructing this. This is not a unique genre of signing that is unique to this offseason. This offseason genre happens every year. But I want to take Nelson Cruz comes to mind. This is sort of overlapping with my prior Padres pick, to be clear.

But I want to take the veteran vibes guy signing as a type of transaction. So we've had Cruz went to San Diego. Yes, Rich Hill. Rich Hill. To the Pirates, the oldest pitcher and the oldest position player, yep. I think, and I don't think this is quite how they are thinking of it,

and I want to be clear that he is still a quite productive hitter, and so I don't want people to read what I'm about to say as me denigrating his skill at the plate, even though last year that skill manifested in a way that it had not for him previously but like i think jose abreu falls into that bucket right he is just like a famously good clubhouse guy i think he had a you know an important place in chicago's clubhouse for a long time. So I just like these later career veteran vibe guys who come in and part of what they are bringing

is their play, right? And if they didn't have something to contribute as players still, they would just get signed as coaches. So clearly they are doing more than just being vibes. And vibes is probably dismissive, but like having, you know, glue guys who can really help to advance something within a clubhouse, you know,

whether it's showing a younger guy how to be a pro or showing a more established player how to mentor a younger guy, which is a valuable thing to mentor someone in also, i just love those they they make me happy i appreciate when they are viewed as valuable for that skill because i think that like it's really hard to be a worker like being in a workplace can be really challenging it has weird rules and politics and and baseball as we have talked about on the pod is one of the weirdest workplaces um but still a workplace you know mccutcheon is like one of those but like i don't want to again i don't want to

like say that all of these guys are only being brought in because they have that element to them but it is part of the appeal right yeah which you know we can see in someone like andrew mccushion's market like he wanted to return to pittsburgh but he had other other options available to him and he picked that one and part of that i'm sure was that teams were like we want that guy in our clubhouse so i like those moves i think that they um they highlight a thing that we can't quantify the impact of, but I think it's very obvious that it has won. So yeah, taking that. Star of our last episode, Zach Granke resigning with the Royals for another year.

Yeah, these are always fun ones. And I will cede it because I have plenty to pick from here, but I was going to take Andrew McCutcheon just as a solo pick. I think you can still take it as a solo pick, Ben. I'll let you have it because this way we can get to more moves. But yeah, McCutcheon to the Pirates was just so wonderful. That was the sentimental favorite transaction of the offseason, I think. Oh, yeah.

And look, the Pirates, within the typical Pirates constraints, I think they did pretty well. It's almost like when judging teams off seasons, you need different categories. It's like how well front offices did and how well ownership did, sort of, because often owners didn't want to spend, but within those imposed constraints, the front office did a pretty decent job. And then you have the Padres, where it's just like, did the Padres do the best job of spending the amount of money they made? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. But the fact that they were willing to spend it at all, it's more like kudos to Peter Seidler than it is kudos to A.J. Preller, probably. Not to take

shots at what Preller did, but it's just the fact that they were willing to invest that amount of money at all was kind of the salient thing from their offseason. Whereas other teams, it's like, okay, well, you weren't going to be allowed to spend all that much, but given the budget that you had, you did pretty well within that and the pirates i mean by nutting standards i guess they they spent a fair amount of money everyone they brought in yeah it's either like a good vibes guy or still has something left in the tank but mccutchen going back to that team like the pirates are not going to be good yet but to have mccutchen like he is the the rare kind of you know veteran signing or re-signing who actually will put fans in the seats and will sell some tickets

so people are going to want to go pack and see edward mccutchen in a pirate suit for him and he's not of the age of a Nelson Cruz or a Rich Hill. And it's still realistic enough that you could imagine some sort of bounce back season for him. He might not just be a farewell to, oh, it's nice to see him back in those threads again, but maybe he will actually have a nice season. That would be great, too. But even if the Pirates have a lousy season, the fact that Andrew McCutcheon is there will really like continuity to past Pirates teams, even though he has not been a continuous member of the roster.

Like if he's helping out O'Neill Cruz, like, you know, and putting his stamp on the next 10 Pirates teams, like that's awesome too. So yeah, I was going to take it, but it's within the umbrella of what you just drafted. And I think that is often one of my favorite categories too. So yeah, I was going to take it, but it's within the umbrella of what you just drafted. And I think that is often one of my favorite categories too. So because McCutcheon is off the board, I will take the Raphael Devers extension. It was a clutch move. It had to

happen. I don't know if it changed the narrative around the Red Sox. John Henry was booed before that extension, and then he was booed after that extension. He was sure booed after. Even though Nesson edited out the boos in the rebroadcast, but the boos still happened. That's such a— They had to trim it for time, and it just so happened that the boos were one of the things that were trimmed. I mean, it's not intentional it's just that they had to you know save some some time but right yeah nothing squirrely there if devers had not been extended then the booze would have been even more resounding right and

like we we like it when a new fan base gets to enjoy a franchise cornerstone type player but we also like it when those guys stay put and it's always bittersweet when they move when they were still good and the team at least ostensibly wanted to keep them and fans obviously wanted them to stick around so after bets's departure after the trade of bets and then bogarts like the red sox fans i mean look they've had it pretty darn good for the past 20 years. Yeah, they're doing fine. Not really playing the violin here for the Red Sox fans

who've had lots of championships. And they were due, in fairness to the Red Sox fans. But also things were looking pretty bleak post-bets and post-Bogarts and with this kind of strange roster and what are they doing and are they contenders or are they buyers or are they sellers or what? Just to cement Devers in there and decide he's the one that we want to build around and we're actually going to give him good money here and he's going to stay put and you can count on Rafael Devers being in Boston. That was sort of

a salve for the wounds, I think, of Red Sox fans. I mean, they're still stung. They're still healing. But I think that went a long way toward that. If there had been no Devers extension heading into 2023, I think there could have been rioting in Boston. It could have been bad. There would have been a lot of discontent. And then we would have had the whole are they going to trade Devers now discussion and that. I mean, look, you want a team like the Red Sox in the deep end of the pool and not be one of the teams that is most loudly crying poor or saying they cannot compete. So you want the big money teams to spend some money sometimes. And they did that in a way that will keep a great beloved player in town for the foreseeable future. Yeah, I think it's definitely a situation where it has broader implications than simply what's going to happen for Red Sox fans. You know, what quality of a player are we going to see at Fenway next year, right? Like it is important to the sport that these things,

that franchises like Boston are like, yeah, we're trying to put a competitive product on the field. And a lot of their other moves this offseason haven't signaled that loudly. So it was important that they do one that did. Yep. Okay. This is my final pick. I think so.

Wow. Okay. I have waited or I'd forgotten until now. Who could say? But I want to draft my favorite individual transaction of the entire offseason. And I'm going to draft a particular angle on my favorite transaction of the offseason. Okay. And that is somehow the Milwaukee Brewers ending up with William Contreras in the Sean Murphy trade.

Yep. It is hilarious and weird. how did this happen ben i don't know how how did oakland not end up with william contreras how ben how did it happen how did how did how how did the oaklandics say you know our favorite guy in that estuary Ruiz and I'm sorry to estuary because it's not his fault we talked about this at the time I feel so

bad for guys in deals like this where our fan base is like I can't believe that we got estuary Ruiz and he's just sitting there like I'm just trying to be a big leaguer man like I'm just trying to do my job and be a good baseball player. Leave me alone.

But we can't always choose our fate. We can't always choose what the Oakland A's are going to do. If we could, they'd do different stuff, I'd hazard to say. So I love this. I love it. And I know that Atlanta loves Sean Murphy.

I know that Sean Murphy is a good catcher and not just because of the badonk. You know, he clearly is excited to be in Atlanta because he signed that extension. It's not like Atlanta got a bad player here, right? No. like atlanta got a bad player here right no sean murphy was thought to be one of the most desirable players potentially acquirable in trade right he was like the top of the list and we thought oh you know oakland they're gonna move him we thought that was inevitable speaking of like things that are bad for the sport on a metal level that go beyond the fortunes of the individual team you know like the unit the seeming inevitability of the sean murphy

deal not good right but we're like they're gonna get a haul right and maybe not quite the haul that other teams have gotten for other star young big leaguers, but a haul. We thought they're going to get a haul. They did get, I mean, in fairness to them, they did get a catcher in this deal. Yeah. But he's 35. And he is not William Contreras. So I'm just flummoxed.

I just, do you think that when this deal like finally cleared, when it was done, when the commissioner's office had signed up, the players had been notified, the trade had been reported, we were all sitting around going, that the brewer's front office just like started high-fiving, like they do when nasa launches something successfully do you think that they did that bad because if i were them i would have been like probably yeah no it was like some sort of sleight of hand it's like wait how

did you end up with it's like yes i don't know know, like you're just moving the cards from one hand to another. You're like moving the cups around on the table. Yeah, right. And somehow Contreras ended up in Milwaukee. Yeah, that was wild. Like the fact that, I mean, you would figure that either the team that got Sean Murphy or the team that got prospects in exchange for Sean Murphy would win the Sean Murphy trade. Yes. No. Maybe not. Maybe not, right? Like the Braves said, if they got the best player in the deal, they got Sean Murphy.

Sean Murphy's great. Yes. But the Brewers, who at least like on paper, in theory, in the abstract, didn't need to be involved in this trade at all to walk away with Contreras. And Ruiz is fun and all, but the Brewers didn't really have such a need for Ruiz that they did for Contreras. And I know opinions are a bit divided about Contreras. And obviously, the Braves thought Sean Murphy would be a big upgrade over him. Sure. Right.

But I think getting Murphy is huge. I mean, it's a coup of the offseason, but the Braves already had a very productive catching core, which is the only thing that makes me say, well, it's not the biggest upgrade of the offseason. I considered taking the Sean Murphy extension just because that was like, OK, like you don't even need to be a homegrown Atlanta player who's been around there. Like they will work their extension magic on you. Yeah.

And if you have no connection previously to that organization, it's like you just show up and instantly get extended. I guess the same sort of had happened with Matt Olson. But like really it's not even, you know, you have to be a strider or someone who's been with that team for quite some time. It's like, no, we will just get you and then you will instantly want to stay forever because somehow we persuade everyone to want to do that. But yeah, that was quite a coup to get contrarious i was just like wait how what how did wait is there another player go wait what oh huh okay i have to imagine it's a surreal experience because like you're right that opinions kind of differ on on

contrarious right but i think that the broad and overwhelming consensus in the industry is that Oakland is higher on Estuary Ruiz than anyone else, right? And do you think that like, how, did Milwaukee ever just go to Oakland and say, what if we give you Estuary Ruiz and you give us Sean Murphy? Or was that never a possibility?

And they heard through the grapevine that Atlanta and Oakland were talking. And then they were like, you know, we've heard tell that Oakland has a really high, just is really high on Ruiz. They must have a crazy report in their system. Estuary Ruiz. What a delight. Like they must have a crazy report in their system. Yeah, I'd like to see a TikTok, an oral history of that trade eventually if that hasn't already been written. Yeah, I want to know. I want to know. And then they were like, yeah, give us some.

We want that Justin Yeager fella, you know, and Joel Pamps. Some really great names in this trade, man. Yep. Yep. That's a good pick. I considered taking that one. All right. For my final pick, and then maybe we can do a couple honorable mentions because I still

am having a hard time deciding which one to take here. But I think I'll finish with another non-transaction, if you'll allow it. This is a transaction that didn't happen, but I think the fact that it didn't happen was quite an accomplishment for the team and maybe also a reflection of contentedness on the part of the player. Nolan Arnauto decided not to opt out. Do you remember that? Yeah. Nolan Arnauto could have been a free agent this winter. Yeah.

And he decided he didn't feel like it. Yeah. He didn't feel like free agency. He just decided to stay in St. Louis. And he has five years and $144 million left on his deal, the original nine-year, $275 million contract that he signed with the Rockies, who, remember, are still paying part of this contract, right, I believe. Right. They're paying $31 million of his deal. And the fact that he decided not to opt for free agency,

I think, you know, you could credit the Cardinals, the city of St. Louis, whatever, for making him just want to stay there, which seems to be a power that the Cardinals organization has to some extent. Like Arnauto is not the first guy who has been exposed to St. Louis and has decided, I like it here. I want to stay. I don't actually want to leave, which can be a nice advantage to a team. Now, I wonder whether if Arnauto had known what the market was going to be like, he would have made a different decision because this was late October when he decided not to opt out or when it was reported that he wouldn't be opting out.

Because he's polite. He's polite and he doesn't want to screw the top 50 free agent post. Right. Yeah. So this was before the explosion of long term deals. Right. I mean, if he knew that people were going to be getting 11 years and 10 years. And by the way, another thing about the Trey Turner deal in the Phillies' favor, I think it's like it's not deferred. There's nothing complicated about it. It's just the same amount of money every year. And because it's spread out over 11 years, that lowers the AAV hit to them.

But if Arnauto had foreseen all that spending, I don't know, maybe he would have been tempted. Because again, he's coming off a season where he was, if not the most valuable player in the National League, like what, the second or third at worst most valuable? Like, he's coming off an incredible year. Like, he was absolutely in position to opt out. I mean, it wasn't like last winter when he also decided not to opt out, right? Because he had multiple opportunities to opt out. But that year, at least, he was coming off a kind of down year by Nolan Arnauto standards, you know, still a good year. But this year he was coming off a superstar, I mean, all-star, gold glove, silver slugger, third in MVP voting and, you know, arguably could have been even better. So for him to decide not to walk after a year like that, like usually when the opt-out's in the contract and it lines up so that the player is coming off of potentially a career year or as good as any year in their career, then they decide to test the market because, hey, they always have the option of staying and resigning with that team if they want to.

But why not check it out? Why not see what else is out there? And if he had decided to see what else was out there, he might have found that there were a lot of deals out there because, you know, he's not yet 32 years old. Like, he's not old. I mean, there were players close to his age that were signing deals that will take them to much older ages than his current contract will. And yet he decided to stay.

And it's not like I'm taking this because, great, the Cardinals get a steal here and I don't, like, want Norn Arnado to make less money than he could or anything. But he had the option to like you know i think it comes down to like giving players some some choice and having them have their earning potential be in their hands to some extent and he just decided i'm happy where i am and and that's great too you know and he's going to be making tons of money as it is just you know fewer tons but still tons so it works out well for everyone, I think. And maybe he finishes his career in St. Louis or maybe not, depends how the rest of that deal goes

and whether he signs another one after that. But he likes it there. They like having him there. Everyone wins, I guess. But really, in retrospect, seeing how the market played out for him to stay put and the Cardinals not have to compete with everyone and outbid everyone for his services. Like that's that's like a huge win of the offseason that won't even show up on a list of transactions because it was a non-transaction that still had huge implications. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, we have each drafted five. Are there any others that you considered? I thought about just going with Aaron Judge returning to New York because I'm glad he did. I think it is good. I would have enjoyed watching him play in San Francisco. I thought about drafting like owners being dweebs In a public way

But that's not like fun No We'd rather they just not do that I thought about sort of in a related way Doing like owners being seemingly newly involved Like I'm really curious to watch Houstonston this year and like watch houston's behavior at the deadline and a lot of that is obviously going to be owing to a new to new front office leadership so i don't mean to say that it's going to be all the the jim crane show remember

when i called him jim kramer that one Yeah. That's not his name though, Ben. I learned my lesson. I realized pretty quickly that I had made a mistake, but I did call him Jim Kramer. So I am curious to see how that unfolds, but I don't know if that's like a fun or favorite thing. I mean, I bet it's Rafael Monteiro's favorite thing. Yes, that worked out well for him. Worked out well for him. And, you know, that worked out well for him. Worked out well for him. And, you know, it worked out well for Jose Abreu.

But yeah, so I'm intrigued by that. I'm intrigued by Chad Green's contract structure. But we had just talked about that. So it felt like a waste to take it as a pick. I don't know. What are some of your other ones? I considered multiple Angels moves. Oh, yeah, the Angels.

Yeah. They did, right? And this was more from the perspective of like, oh, you seem to have gotten a good deal on that player. That player is a good fit for your roster. But Tyler Anderson, like that signing in context, right? And I know that he had a qualifying offer attached too, but he signed quickly. He was one of the first significant free agents to sign. And again, like I wonder if in retrospect, seeing how the market played out, is it all thinking maybe I should have waited a while? Maybe he knew where he wanted to go and he got enough money that he was going to be happy and good for him. And really, though, if you compare Tyler Anderson to other pitchers, he barely got more than Montero you just mentioned. He's coming off quite a good year and made some real changes that make you think that he could sustain his breakout.

some real changes that make you think that he could sustain his breakout and should at the very worst be sort of the solid mid-rotation starter that the Angels need, right? And so I think he was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Angels, but also just like got a good deal on him. I think just comparing him to some of the other pitchers that were out there and that were signed. And I wanted to also, I strongly considered drafting the Hunter Renfro trade for multiple reasons. Oh, yeah. Doppelganger. Yeah. Potential.

How many times, I mean, we've joked for years about Renfro's resemblance to Trout. And now they're going to be playing side by side in that outfield. It's a bunch of thumbs. Potential. Yeah. I mean, they're going to be playing side by side in that outfield. It's a bunch of thumbs. Potential. Yeah. I mean, it's going to be great. Like we're going to see them next to each other constantly in the same uniform even. I mean, that's going to be highly entertaining.

But also getting Hunter Renfro, who's, what is, I don't know whether his ARB deal is done or not, but he was projected to make like 11 million or something. whether his deal is done or not, but he was projected to make like 11 million or something. And to get him for one year and not have to give up like super top prospects. I mean, they gave up some decent guys going back to the Brewers who would probably be part of the big league staff,

but no one you're super sad to give up at least for 2023. Plus they have a billion pitchers because they had an entire draft class that was only that. He fits the Angels timeline, I think, because like they're just they're trying to win. They've got one more year with Otani here and, you know, and Trout before he gets up there in years. And they're just trying to deliver a playoff appearance for those two guys for the first time. And this was sort of what I was saying when I was talking about like grading teams off seasons, like on the front office and on ownership, because given what Perry Manassian was presumably dealing with this off season, which is that they thought the team was going to be sold and probably there were limits on how much they could spend.

And then Artie Marino did a 180 and decided actually I'm not going to sell. So like amid all of that, Manassian had a heck of an off season, I think. And got some of these guys, like even if it's just on a short-term deal, that's what they need. They want to make one more run at this thing. So really, comparing Tyler Anderson to similar players and the deals they got, and then comparing Hunter Renfro to what outfielders were going for, or even Carlos Estevez, who a lot of people are quite high on and think he'll be better outside of colorado and they seem to get him at quite a

reasonable rate too so the angels they just did a lot of good work and also there's a lot of humor potential in the hunter renfrew trade so yeah yeah oh we forgot the transaction that will result in the most direct on roster resemblance, which is the Rogerses. Oh, yeah, of course. Being in the same bullpen. Ben, we've been remiss. Yes, we have. Good point. I'm glad you mentioned that.

Yeah, that has a ton of fun potential, too. Ton of fun potential. Can't wait. I liked the other Contreras brother transaction to the Cardinals signing Wilson Contreras to a five-year deal, which seemed like roughly the kind of contract that he should command. But I like that they just went for it. Molina retires. How do you replace Yadier Molina? I mean, you don't really in the hearts of Cardinals fans, but on the field you can, at least late career Molina. And they went with a different kind of guy.

I mean, Contreras, he has his defensive skills, certainly, but he is not a defense first catcher. He's just one of the better hitting catchers in baseball, which Molina has never been or has rarely been. That wasn't really his skill set, but they went out and got a marquee guy, like maybe the best free agent catcher at least available. And that's good because it's an extremely tough act to follow. And not that Contreras is going to immediately make people forget Yadier Molina, but I think relative to the diminished version of Yadier Molina, who was still a sentimental favorite and maybe brought some intangibles and all of that. But in terms of the offense, at least, and the value we can quantify, was not the best late in his career. It might be a pleasant surprise in some ways to shock to the system to have anyone but Molina back there, but to have it be Contreras and have him be

Raken and Nashin back there. That should be pretty fun. And you get to deprive a direct division rival of his services too, right? And take him away from the cops, which I think sort of sweetens that deal. Plus, if we do get robo-umps at some point during the life of that contract, then perhaps he looks even better at that point. So I thought that was a smart signing. Yeah, I like that one a lot, too. That's a good one.

And lastly, I thought that the Noah Sindergaard signing had a lot to recommend it because that was a one-year, I think, $13 million deal with the Dodgers. And again, look at the comps for Noah Sindergaard. Again, like look at the comps for Noah Sindergaard. Like even coming off of Tommy John surgery and not pitching a ton of innings and having diminished stuff, he was still a pretty productive starter. I mean, he was still like at least a league average starter. And like compare his stats to say Jamison Tyone's stats last year. Were they that different? No, not really. And yet he got a one-year deal,

Syndergaard did. And Michael Lorenzen didn't get much less from the Tigers than Syndergaard got from the Dodgers. And Syndergaard, even if he doesn't regain his old self and his old stuff, if he just kept pitching like he did last year, I feel like that would be a real steal for Los Angeles. And they really needed a starter. Arguably, they still do. But having Heaney leave and Anderson leave, like they really needed someone. And they brought back Clayton Kershaw. But everyone in that rotation has some health and or effectiveness question marks associated

with them. So they needed Syindergaard. And he seemed to evolve when he was with the Phillies. He was pitching better, at least peripherally, right? And he made some changes to his pitch mix and started throwing his sinker more and his slider. And it seemed like, OK, this is a good path forward for him. So now the Dodgers get to enjoy that if he persists in that course.

Now the Dodgers get to enjoy that if he persists in that course. But really, like relative to some of the other deals that mid-rotation type guys got this winter long-term deals, I thought that was a pretty effective one from the Dodgers perspective. And Syndergaard wanted to be a Dodger. Again, this is like the dodgers development advantage right like they can get good deals on guys like this because there's this track record of them making players better so i mean cinder guard said as much when he signed he was like i feel like everything that they touch turns to gold he said what they did with heaney last year and Tyler Anderson. I definitely want to be in that category. So he's looking at that lineage and saying, hey, the Dodgers can make me better. So yeah, I'll sign a one-year deal with them. Would he have signed that same deal with another organization?

Probably not. Probably not every other organization, but he's thinking they'll make me better and then I can cash in next winter. So you sort of see that paying dividends for the Dodgers, not only are they able to sometimes spin straw into gold when it comes to players who don't have high expectations, but then they can also get themselves some steals on the free agent market because players want to go there and get better. Yeah. It makes a difference when your reputation is we're going to transform you into a guy who is at least productive for us and potentially going to be paid to be productive for somebody else later. Yeah. The only thing that concerns me about Cindergarten, this was in a

Fabian Ardaia piece in December at The Athletic. So he was talking about how his mechanics were never quite right after returning from Tommy John and the velocity never fully returned. And so he was sort of struggling and trying to find his feel again. And Fabian wrote, that work has continued into this winter as Syndergaard has traversed between private facilities in search of a remedy. He went to a noted pitching factory at Tread Athletics in Charlotte, North Carolina, to start his throwing program. Then he went to another lauded pitching outpost, Driveline Baseball's Arizona location. Shortly after the holidays, he'll head to Dodger Stadium

to work under the staff's watchful eye, hopeful to get back to what he once was. And then there's a quote, the pitches I threw last year, I just want to throw those away, Syndergaard said. I fully intend on being a different pitcher next year.

I see no excuse as to why I can't get back to 100 miles per hour. And even farther than that just doesn't make any sense. And that could make you more optimistic, I guess, if you think, oh, he's going to driveline and the Dodgers are going to help him get his velocity back and he'll be the old flamethrowing cinder guard again. That is possible.

That's one possible outcome. The other outcome, though, is that he's a different guy now and he's not accepting that he's a different guy and that he's just going to fight that. And so when he says, like, I just want to throw away the pitches I had last year, like some of his pitches were effective last year. So he's just so obsessed with velocity, which he always was. Right. I mean, it seemed like he always wanted to get bigger and get stronger and throw harder, and then he got hurt. And if he's in a phase of his career where he just doesn't throw that hard anymore, still throws fairly hard, but if he's trying to regain something that can't be regained, that could kind of get him into trouble. You have to make a mental adjustment. Whether you have to make a mental adjustment, you know, whether you have an injury or not, once you're past that age, like expecting to get tons of

velocity back. I don't know. I mean, you know, second full season after TJ, like maybe, maybe some of that can come back, but also it could just be gone for good. And if it's gone for good, then you got to work within that new framework right and and not just rebel against who you are now so that makes me a little bit nervous yeah maybe yeah that's fair that's fair it's like he's holding on to the the thor like hair right in the back even though the the front is uh is looking a little thin these days, it's sort of the same thing. It's like he's holding on to the long flowing mane and he's also trying to hold on to the 100 mile per hour fastball. And I'm just I'm not sure that they're there anymore.

And at a certain point, maybe you need a new hairstyle and maybe you need to do repertoire. You know, like, I mean, you could have the thin on the top, extremely long on the back of the sides, I guess, as long as you want. Right. When you have a baseball cap on, no one can tell. Yeah. But I don't know. It doesn't suit you quite as well at that point. And trying to throw 100 when you can't doesn't suit you that well either.

No, no, it doesn't. Because you know what happens? You get hit, Ben. You get hit. But get hit but if anyone can get through to him and help him tinker and probably the dodgers he should be yeah probably the dodgers and and they will have credibility because he's already bought in to like hey the dodgers right to do with pitchers so if they're the ones delivering hard truths to him and being like look noah sorry you're not the same anymore, but you can still be a good guy.

And here's how. Yeah. Maybe he will listen to that message. Yeah, maybe. I guess we'll find out. All right. Well, these were some fun transactions. So, you know, we can do, I guess, bigger picture conversations about individual teams off seasons

as we talk about them, because we're going to talk about them all over yeah i was gonna say ben i got a whole series for you i know yeah right yeah the athletic just did a an mlb offseason grades for each team tough graders no one got an a not a single team got an a interesting only the white socks got an f from fromagin. Tough grader, but fair. But yeah, we won't do that because we're going to be talking about all of these teams at great length. And of course, the offseason is not officially over yet. So maybe in the very end, we can give some grades to offseasons. And obviously, we've talked in positive or negative terms about teams as we have gone through these individual transactions. So I think you have some sense of which teams we thought did well or didn't do so well. But this was fun. This was fun. Thanks, Ben. All right. Let's wrap up with the Pass Blast.

This is episode 1964, and it comes from 1964 and also from Pass Blast consultant David Lewis, an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. And David writes, baseball's balance of power tips toward the commissioner. The 1964 winter meetings included a proposal to grant the office of the commissioner full authority over the game of baseball. In a move that, according to the Sporting News, conveyed absolute power to baseball's boss, team owners restored to Ford C. Frick the full power that had been held by Kennesaw Mountain Landis, but restricted for future commissioners after Landis' death. This action granted Frick and subsequent commissioners the power to veto any decision that he deemed to be detrimental to baseball, while also providing full legal immunity if the owners ever tried to take the commissioner to court. Frick, who would step down from the office at the end of the 1965 season, apparently wanted to ensure that his replacement had the necessary resources to succeed in the role. As recounted by the sporting news writer

Clifford Cackling, Ford proposed in a confidential letter to the club bosses that they give the new commissioner unquestioned authority if they wanted him to function successfully and provide the desired leadership. The vote passed 9-1 in each league, with the Athletics' Charlie Finley and the Reds' Bill DeWitt as the only no votes. Going forward, baseball's commissioner would have final say over issues that involved the sport. And David said, I don't think these powers were ever specifically stripped back subsequently.

As far as I can tell, the commissioner only seems to have gotten more power through the years. Obviously, the commissioner still works for the owners, right? I mean, it's not like absolute power. I mean, these days, you know, Rob Manfred basically does what the owners want, right? And they're his bosses. And so whether he has this power technically or not, I don't know how often he wields it to go against the owners, certainly.

But at least on paper, this power that was stripped was then restored. So I guess the question is, if the commissioner has the ability to veto anything that is deemed detrimental to baseball, what do we do? What recourse do we have when the commissioner does things that are detrimental to baseball? What check is there on his powers or the owners collectively? That's kind of the catch here. Yeah, that's the rub, as it were. Yeah. We need some sort of tribunal.

We need like a fan court or something that can come in and say, actually, the zombie runner, this is detrimental to baseball. So you're not allowed to do that, even though you have the authority to do that. Yeah. And a baseball ombuds person committee. I think Patrick Dubuque has written about this subject before. We are willing to serve on such a committee, perhaps, if called to. All right.

That will do it. Well, like a lot of other cord cutters, I got a notice this week that I have lost access to MLB Network through YouTube TV because of a carriage dispute. That was a bummer, though I imagine there's a decent chance that that will be straightened out before the season and order will be restored. What was also dismaying, though, was this sentence in the email I got. Quote, we apologize for the news and will continue conversations with the MLB to advocate on your behalf in the hope of restoring their content on YouTube TV. Yes, the MLB. If you're advocating on my behalf, you can't call it that.

The email also refers to the MLB network. Don't need the the, just MLB network. Here's hoping YouTube TV can make a deal with MLB before the season starts. Also, the Orioles are going to be trying to make a deal with the Maryland Stadium Authority. The Orioles declined to exercise their one-time five-year extension on the lease to Camden Yards, which will now expire at the end of this year. Presumably, they did that maybe to give themselves greater leverage and negotiate a better arrangement for themselves. John Angelos released a statement about this. This is the same John Angelos who recently berated Dan Connolly of The Athletic for asking him questions about the lease and

the organization on Martin Luther King Day and then promised to show him the books. Before reneging on that promise, Angelos said, We greatly appreciate Governor Moore's vision and commitment as we seize the tremendous opportunity to redefine the paradigm of what a Major League Baseball venue represents and thereby revitalize downtown Baltimore. There's also something there about realizing the potential of Camden Yards to serve as a catalyst for Baltimore's second renaissance.

Interesting, isn't it, that the ballpark project that is often held up as an example of revitalizing downtown and serving as a catalyst for a city's renaissance evidently still hasn't achieved that after 30 years. For much more on that topic, see episode 1957 and our discussion with Dan Moore about what Camden Yards did and didn't accomplish and public funding for ballparks in general. Lastly, I did a little research and wanted to give you an update on an aspect of one of our stat blasts from earlier this week. It was the one prompted by the baseball scene in the core, Sean Green versus Mike Hampton,

and the discovery that Sean Green had done extremely well against Mike Hampton in real games, which I then talked to Sean Green about on the last episode. Well, in that stat last, Kenny Jacklin of Baseball Reference shared with us the knowledge that while Sean Green reached base in 11 consecutive plate appearances against Mike Hampton, that wasn't the record. As far as we can tell, based on the data we have, the record is actually 17 consecutive plate appearances. Pinky Higgins, no relation to producer Dylan Higgins, reached base against Roxy Lawson in 1938 and 1939. As far as I know, that was not known previously. So that's a fun bit of trivia. Again, beginning on May 3rd, 1938,

and ending on August 19th, 1939, here is the sequence of plate appearances, Higgins versus Lawson. Walk, walk, walk. Single, single, single, single, single. Home run, walk. Single, double. Single, single, single. Walk, single. Higgins didn't even have the platoon advantage. It was right on right, although Lawson had career reverse splits. Quite an impressive streak, and so I wanted to look up. Did anyone notice at the time? Were they aware of this streak? And as far as I can tell from perusingnewspapers.com, no, no one noticed.

There's no way that they would have been able to tell that that was historic at the time, most likely. They didn't have retro sheet, but I didn't see any articles about, hey, this Lawson guy can't get this Higgins guy out. However, I did discover two very interesting things. Now, let me preface this by saying that Pinky Higgins did not enjoy the nickname Pinky, which was something he had almost from birth because of his pink complexion. But I don't feel that bad about calling Pinky Higgins Pinky because from many accounts, he was not a great guy. Many of these accounts surfaced after his death, so he didn't defend himself. But while he was a good player, he was not a great guy. Many of these accounts surfaced after his death, so he didn't defend himself.

But while he was a good player, he is probably better known now for being a bigwig for the Red Sox for years. He was their manager, then he was their general manager, he was Tom Yockey's drinking buddy. And reportedly, like Yockey himself, he was a racist and he stood in the way of integration, didn't like black players, also had a drinking problem, and that problem eventually became a problem not just for him. In 1968, while he was driving drunk, his car struck and killed a Louisiana highway worker and also injured two others. He was convicted and sentenced to four years of hard labor, which he didn't serve because he soon died himself.

And in a way, we could say that Higgins himself was a victim of that crash. According to his Sabre bio by Mark Armour, he was cooperative and penitent with authorities, but so anguished that he suffered two heart attacks and lost 30 or 40 pounds between his conviction and his January 1969 sentencing. He then had another heart attack in March 1969 and died at just 59 years old. So Higgins had a sad end to his life and also wasn't someone to celebrate. But here's what I learned. As I said, this streak of reaching base in plate appearances against Roxy Lawson started in May of 1938. Well, in June of 1938, that historic streak intersected with another historic streak that actually was recognized at the time. So on June

19th, playing for the Red Sox, Higgins had a hit in his last at-bat. That was the first game of a doubleheader. In the second game of a doubleheader on June 19th, he had three hits. And then on June 21st, he played in another doubleheader and he had four hits in each of those games. And so Pinky Higgins had hits in 12 consecutive at-bats. In the second game of that second doubleheader, June 21st, Higgins went 4-4 against Roxy Lawson. So Higgins' four-hit day extended his streak of reaching base against Lawson, but it also helped him set a major league record, or so it was thought at the time, for getting hits in 12 consecutive at-bats, which it was believed bettered the previous record of

11 set by Tris Speaker in 1920. Tris Speaker started that streak by bringing a fungo bat up to home plate because he had been in a slump. So he said, the way I'm hitting, I might as well just take a fungo stick up there. The fungo bat broke, but the ball, he said, popped over the infield for a single and my stretch of 11 straight was underway. Sometimes you resort to extreme tactics to break a slump and sometimes it pays off. But the AP said a curveball low and outside is the sort of a pitch that Michael Frank Pinky

Higgins, the right-handed batting third baseman of the Boston Red Sox, doesn't like. But that's the kind of pitch he got and connected with to better Trish Speaker's record and set a new major league mark for consecutive hits and even dozen. His record-breaking single came off Detroit's Roxy Lawson. Now, a couple of caveats to this. First, Speaker had his hits in 11 consecutive at-bats and plate appearances. Higgins had a couple of walks during his streak. Also, it was discovered by Trent McCotter of Retro Sheet in 2009 that Johnny Kling had done this in 1902. They did not know that in 1938, when Pinky Higgins did it. Johnny Kling was the first, then Higgins, and then Walt Dropo in 1902. They did not know that in 1938 when Pinky Higgins did it. Johnny Kling was the

first, then Higgins, and then Walt Dropo in 1952. Dropo and Kling had their 12 hits and 12 consecutive plate appearances. Higgins, as mentioned, had two walks during history, but no one else has equaled that since. Okay, so a not-so-famous head-to-head record helped Higgins set a more famous record. But here's the other interesting thing I discovered. In spring training 1939 record helped Higgins set a more famous record. But here's the other interesting thing I discovered. In spring training 1939, when Higgins was 10 plate appearances in to his 17 plate appearance streak against Lawson, the two tangled in a different way, and Higgins came out worse for wear because Lawson accidentally, or so it was said, spiked him. Now the two were teammates at the time because Higgins had been traded in December of 38 to Lawson's Tigers. So they were in spring training together. Here's an

account from the Detroit Free Press, March 12th, 1939. The Tigers suffered the first casualty of the 1939 training season today when Pinky Higgins, regular third baseman obtained from the Red Sox in a midwinter deal, was accidentally spiked on the right heel by Roxy Lawson. Higgins was injured during the filming of the practice session by newsreel men. Lawson's spikes inflicted a gash two inches long and an inch deep, and one which required seven stitches to close. Higgins was treated at the Morrell Memorial Hospital here, where surgeons said the spikes had fortunately just missed a tendon. They said he would be out of the lineup for two weeks. It was not uncommon for there to be serious spikings back then. There's no implication of foul play anywhere in any account that I came across. I'm sure it was actually an accident, but here's how it happened.

Higgins, Lawson, and outfielder Roy Cullenbine were doing their laps around the ballpark in single file and in that order. So Higgins is leading and then Lawson right behind him and then Cullenbine when Cullenbine, who again is in the rear, yelled to Lawson. The pitcher turned his head, answered, but kept running. Higgins, who remember is in the lead in this little procession, also answered the shout but stopped and Lawson's spikes inflicted a two inch long gash. So they were jogging together. Cullenbine called out, Higgins in the lead, stopped short, and Lawson, running behind him, kept running and spiked him. Tigers manager Del Baker perhaps miffed about the spiking, then made it clear that Lawson was expendable and could be had via trade, and that May, he was indeed traded to the St. Louis Browns,

which meant that he got to face Pinky Higgins again, and Higgins got his revenge for the spiking because in that 1939 season, he reached seven more times consecutively against Lawson before September 4th, 1939, when he finally made an out. So that's the saga of Pinky and Roxy. There's always a story behind the stat blast. So as mentioned, next week we will be back with the first and second of the season slash team preview podcasts. And just as on Silicon Valley, we're going to use the middle out method that we have used in the past couple rounds of previews using the team projections on the Fangraphs depth charts as of now. We will start with the teams in the middle and then go to the extremes. So we will

end with the best and worst projected teams and we will start with the ones with the more middling projections. You can propel us on this preview journey by supporting us 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,

get themselves access to some perks and help us stay ad free. Connor Nagowski, Kevin Harris, Eric Figge, Jonathan Goetz, and Garrett Sutherland. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for Patreon supporters, monthly bonus episodes, playoff live streams, discounts on merch and ad-free fan crafts, memberships and signed books, and so many more goodies. Check it out, patreon.com slash effectively

wild you can also contact us through the patreon site if you are a supporter if you're not you can still email us send us your comments and questions and suggestions at podcast at fangraphs.com 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. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. We hope you have a wonderful weekend. And we will be back with another episode, perhaps a preview episode, early next week. Let's play pretend We'll dress up in the clothes they wore perhaps a preview episode early next week. We'll love you like it's 1960, 1960, 1964.