Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1972: The Prospects for the Prospects

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Prospect Week at FanGraphs, a misleading email, and Ben’s daughter’s cold, then discuss Alex Rodriguez as a budding book author, social-media maven, and flawed (anti)hero (9:19), non-revelatory news about Shohei Ohtani’s future (24:07), a secret Mets spring training drill (32:07), and Ben’s reviews of two baseball books that […]

I was made by the wonders of self And based my fault onto the law I set the chance that I took I'm a dangerous bird Tear it up, tear it up Dangerous bird Tear it up, tear it up Dangerous bird Tear it up, tear it up, it's the day you're a-burning

Hello and welcome to episode 1972 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello Meg, how are you? I'm great, Ben. I mean, I'm quite tired, but it's an exciting day. Good day. Big day. It's Prospect Week. It's the highlight of Prospect Week, I suppose one could say. The centerpiece of Prospect Week at Pangrass.

Centerpiece is better because I don't want to slight anyone else's work. But the big ranking, the top 100 or I guess the top 112 this year. Expand your mind ben you know push boundaries and just accept that like you know 100 101 220 it's it would all be arbitrary oh yeah you pick your your guys you you get all your 50 future values and above on there, and then you don't impart to your readership the sense that there's a huge distinction between the guy ranked 100 and the guy ranked 112. And I'm not saying that other publications do that. I think that we all put good bumpers on it, but we're trying to help pave the way there. Oh, absolutely.

The rationale, I'm totally on board with not just drawing an arbitrary line at a big round number or a top 101 in baseball prospectus' case, but making the cutoff future value as Eric and co. do it at FanCrafts. If your 102nd prospect has the same long-term outlook as your 100th, then why include one and not the other? Makes total sense. I guess you could quibble with the labeling, perhaps, of it being a top 100 instead of top 112. But the top 100 are there. They're just also some extra guys at the end. Yeah.

And look, unfortunately, SEO, man does it does drive some stuff and uh not that the we hurt for attention on the hundred but like you know people have a number in mind and expectation so i like to think of it as offering a delightful prospect surprise you know like uh like a special if if we had a fan graphs so to shop you know with and shop we'd spell with two P's, N and E, because we're fancy. Yeah. I'm like listening to myself and it's like, yeah, you sound tired, Meg. You know, we'd have like a prospect surprise and it would be, I don't know what flavor it would be. It could get dicey, but, you know, it would be like that where it's like, oh, you get a little extra.

You know, it's like when they put chopped up peanuts on a sundae. If you can eat peanuts. Some people can't eat peanuts. I can and do. Do they ever go in the big salad? Yeah, actually. I prefer almonds, sliced almonds in a big salad. But why not both?

It's a big salad. There are a lot of ingredients. But it's funny that you mentioned SEO because I was going to bring that up too. Last episode, I did a stat blast where I briefly mentioned Jay So, Jay Wong So, and the fact that he led the 2003 Mets in Fangraphs War, which surprised me. And then today, we got an email. I think we both got it. I certainly got it. I think

it was to the podcast address and the subject line was just so. And so I saw that and I thought, oh, someone's writing in maybe to correct me about JSO leading the 2003 Mets in war. To get some correction emails this week. Offer some memory about JSO or say they appreciated the shout out to JSO. And then I clicked on the email and no, it was about search engine optimization. In my defense, the subject line was not capital S, capital E, capital O. It was just capital S and then lowercase EO. So I thought it was the name SO and not the acronym, but it was the latter.

I would absolutely make that exact same mistake. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't looked at our podcast email in a couple of days, at least not with the depth I normally do because I don't know if you heard, but we did the top 100 today. Yes.

But I would absolutely have made that mistake. I also feel like, Ben, I maybe have to issue a slight correction on the pod. made that mistake. I also feel like, Ben, I maybe have to issue a slight correction on the pie. Okay. I have heard on local Phoenix media that we are the fifth largest metro, but I guess that at least as of the last census, we fall below that. But I still think that people would be surprised how big the Phoenix metro is. So I think the general point about us needing to recalibrate our understanding of media market stands, but a listener did point out that at least as of the last census, now more people have moved since then, including me, you know? Right, yes. You have single-handedly.

Yeah, I upped the number by one. Tenth to fifth, yeah. I do think that Phoenix, at least, I looked that up too. I think Phoenix has the fifth largest population of any city as of at least 2021. So it's fifth in that category, at least, but maybe a little lower in media market if you consider the whole area. Maybe. Maybe. It's growing. Maybe we were both right, I think is perhaps our takeaway here.

In a sense, yes. In a sense. A lot of takeaway here. In a sense, yes. In a sense, you know. A lot of people here, you know. It's getting more expensive, so it must be true that there are a lot of people here. Right. Well, I'm glad that you are up and about and conscious and upright and awake. Yeah, mostly.

I'm happy that I am, too, because my daughter is sick. Oh, right, you have a kid. Yeah, well, there is that just generally. But also she started daycare recently and true to form, she got sick almost instantly, which is what I understand always happens, right? Because hell is other people. And their germs. Yes, when you socialize,

then you are liable to catch things from people. And the common cold is undefeated after however many millennia. So it's nothing serious. It's just the usual rite of passage and the runny nose and the cough and all that. She did have one unpleasant night where it's probably not even just the discomfort of having a cold, but also being sick for the first time in your life and being like, what the hell is this? This is not my normal state. What is happening here? I would imagine it's probably pretty confusing to be sick for the first time and there's no way to explain it to someone who maxes out at two word sentences at this stage.

So we just did our best and she's healing. But my wife, Jessie, caught the cold and has the cough. And I assumed it was coming for me, but it has not yet. So I'm sort of just like crowing about my immune system right now that I have fought this off successfully. And probably pride goes before the fall. And when we next record, I will be barely audible. Yeah, but thus far at least i'm still standing so kudos to me that was how i thought things were gonna go for me in december and then

i got the flu so bad i couldn't go to winter meetings so i hope that that doesn't happen to you ben but yeah can you imagine being i mean like she won't remember being sick for the first time because she's so little. I'm glad to hear that she's on the mend. I hope Jesse feels better soon too. But it's like, you know, when you're a little kid, it's not that you don't experience displeasure or frustration or, you know, grumpiness. But having to like isolate and then catalog it like, what? This is very different than whatever, you know know kid related grumpiness she normally experiences i don't get the sense that she's like a particularly grumpy kid but like

all kids have their moments you know yeah no she's fairly good natured but yeah you have no context for sickness for illness so you don't know is this gonna get worse is this gonna last forever it's bad enough when one of us catches a cold, but we know it's not life-threatening most likely, and it will probably pass in a couple of days. So we just got to tough it out. But when you're 16 minutes old or whatever, you may not be able to make that calculation. So anyway, I'm experiencing myself the rite of passage of your kid getting sick when they start to associate with other kids and then possibly spreading that disease to you and your partner. But so far, it could be worse.

Yeah, my sister and brother-in-law have just been sick for like six years. I feel like they've just forever been sick. A lot to look forward to. Yeah. I mean, there is a lot to look forward to, but the sickness, not on the list, I don't think. Yes. Also a lot to dread. So we are doing a baseball podcast, not a sickness podcast, fortunately.

Later in the episode, we will be talking to Eric Long and Hagen about the prospect rankings. But as usual, when we sit down to draw up our plan for an episode of the podcast i think what we generally do is we go and sit out in the sun in our shorts right and we have a blank piece of paper with our logo in the top right corner the effectively wild corp logo and uh and then we balance that blank piece of paper on our legs which look like hot dogs from that angle. And then at the top of the paper, we write podcast and underline it. And then the magic flows from there. So that's what we've done today, inspired by Alex Rodriguez.

We take all of our cues from A-Rod and from his book writing. And for anyone who does not understand the reference that I'm making here, do yourselves a favor, check out our show notes where I will link to A-Rod's latest viral Instagram, whatever it was, where he passed along the news that he's working on a book

in the most inevitably A-Rod fashion, where he decided to start writing my book on lessons learned in business and baseball and just showed the scene that I described, except with book instead of podcast. Just a blank piece

of paper or sheaf of papers. There's a whole bunch of papers there, so he is planning to really crank out the pages, it looks like. But he just wrote book at the top against his nearly naked legs. I said shorts, but you know what? Now that I'm looking at it again, I don't know that we can assume that there are shorts in the picture. I mean, they would have to be short shorts.

There's a shadow that made me think there were shorts, but that might just be a shadow. So he might be just totally nude as he is working on his book. I think that he is wearing, at the very least, he is wearing boxer briefs, it appears. Yeah. He appears to at least be- There's a lot of leg there. There's a lot of leg. He's doing the classic gals at the beach you know uh instagram shot

where you're like are they legs are they hot dogs who knows you know right and those are legs you know so yes they're hairier than you want your hot dogs to be yeah i mean they're as hairy as legs often are but you're right you don't want you don't want, I would argue, any hair on your hot socks. I think you want that to be a hair-free experience. But I think he's wearing at least boxer briefs in the backyard of his home, which looks like it's from Parasite. His compound, yeah. Yes, nice landscaping, just neatly manicured trees. And he's catching some rays. I mean, I've written books, and this

is not how I did it, but I'm reconsidering whether I should have because this looks idyllic. I mean, I'm not someone who tends to soak up the sun because I am a pretty pallid person, and so it would probably be hazardous to my health

and not actually lead to a tan, but this looks nice. If you can do it this way, then I recommend it. I'd love to put this down for a little while and I'll clean the house? You know, I'm sure he has people to do that for him, but I'll just I'll think and I'll luxuriate and lounge in the sun. And at some point the inspiration will flow and I will return to this. And ultimately, I just have book written at the top of this page for who knows how long. But I wish it well. I mean, every writer has faced that situation, right? The blank page, and there's got to be one word on it. And he's got two words just to start because he has A-Rod Corp in the top right. So already the word count is up to two.

And once you add book, we're at three, and we're really on a roll. So for his sake, I hope that the words came quickly and that it was not just confined to book at the top. Yeah, I mean, it's certainly as hard as it is to write a book, I would imagine. It feels closer to a thing A-Rod could actually accomplish as opposed to the time that he posted a photo of his clearly plowed driveway

while holding a shovel as if to suggest he had done all of that in front of his house slash dentist office. I don't understand this. This is not the point of this podcast. This feels like a thing almost for the Patreon, Ben, but I don't understand these houses because they look like a medical dental building, you know?

I'm like, is that where you want to live in a medical dental building where they do medical dental things? Yes. If you look at ballplayer real estate listings, which I do fairly often because I subscribe to Craig Calcaterra's newsletter and he often flags when some MLB veteran sells some massive McMansion somewhere that's like 12,000 square feet on half an acre plot of land. And it's got like 10 bedrooms and it's for some reason excessively ornate and very strangely appointed. And it looks like this is impressive in a sense.

It's like weirdly Rococo. It looks like Versailles or something. It's like weirdly rococo it looks like versailles or something it's like embracing maximalism for sure yeah or it's just very garish it's just but but yes i don't know that their interior decoration is always to my liking necessarily i don't know that i would do the same thing with the space but i envy the amount of space although even that sometimes seems excessive but sometimes yeah like how many people you got living at that house right but look i i But I envy the amount of space, although even that sometimes seems excessive. Sometimes, yeah. Like how many people you got living at that house? Right. But look, I love A-Rod's social media presence just in general.

And this one, you know, him just kind of in a casual setting and lightly dressed. The other one that comes to mind may have. Lightly dressed. Possibly not dressed at all because... I think he has, again, he at least has boxer briefs on. I'd like to think so. I think so. We can't confirm that necessarily.

But there's one that I remember, and I forget whether this was from his Instagram or it may have been from J-Lo's when they were still together. R.I.P. A-Rod and J-Lo. She seems fine. Yeah, no, she's fine. And he seems to have moved on, too. I don't know if he's fine, but he's also dating someone. But there was one where he was just, you know, candid in a bubble bath, which, look, I support the bubble bath. Are you a bathman?

I'm very much a bathman. the bubble bath. Are you a bathman? I'm very much a bathman. I have not been a bubble bathman of late, but there have been times in my life where I've enjoyed a nice bubble bath. And again, I appreciate it because it's maybe not the most stereotypically macho image. And he is counteracting that. And I appreciate that about A-Rod but the great thing about that one where he was sitting in the bubble bath and you know the bubbles were tastefully arranged sure so that one could only see the upper half of the centaur that is A-Rod right but the best the best part of it is that you could see his face reflected in the window that his bubble bath looked out on. And for some reason, his face is just like a rictus grin.

It's like you can see all of his teeth and he looks like he's almost grimacing, which I think is probably because the sun was shining in the window and probably he was sort of squinting a little. It's just an extreme expression. Because the sun was shining in the window and probably he was sort of squinting a little. Sure, sure. It's just an extreme expression. So that was just kind of burned onto my corneas and my retinas for all time. But look, I like the A-Rod social media presence because with anyone else, you might see this book image and you would think that it was calculated. It was maybe tailored to go viral, you know, like people will eat this up and it's kind of like, you know, I'm going for the likes here. And with A-Rod, I don't think that's the case because I don't think he was like, this will go viral. I don't think he is necessarily always conscious of the ways in

which he's weird. And so sometimes he does these things and seems sort of like a simulacrum of a human in a way that is amusing, but to me also endearing because I think this is his authentic self. Now, when he's on TV and he's blathering about bunting and small ball constantly, that to me, I think, is probably pandering to some degree because I don't think he did that initially in his broadcasting career when everyone liked him, when he was just doing pregames and we weren't exposed to his play-by-play or analyst stylings for hours a game. And that, you know, I just refuse to believe that a guy who hit almost 700 homers and never sacrificed bunted himself after he turned 24 sincerely thinks that it's always the best play for anyone who is batting to bunt. So I don't believe that that is his inner self

the way that I do believe that when he's kissing a mirror or when he is having a photo in kissing a mirror or when he is having a photo in a bubble bath or when he is just labeling a blank piece of paper book and propping it on his mostly nude knees that these are things that he is doing knowing that that will cause a sensation. I think he's just doing what comes naturally to him and it is sensational because it would not be natural to anyone else. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to offer that it might be a little bit of both.

It could be. Yeah. Maybe he has come to understand over time what his brand is online. And I feel like he does strike me as a man with an eye toward virality. Really, in a couple of years, just didn't come up with a better way to describe that, did we? And I think, you know, you don't buy an NBA franchise or part of one

without some eye toward being around, you know, to being a guy people know and have thoughts about. And hey, this is promotion for his future book once he has more than one or three words. Yeah. You know, sometimes it's important to just put any words down so that you have something to work with, right? Yeah, just got to get started.

Yeah. You know, because it's just a blank piece of paper and good luck. Right. But I think it can be a little bit of both. I think he wants to be like a guy who's like part of culture, who people think of when they think of both. I think he wants to be a guy who's part of culture, who people think of when they think of sports. I think he wants that still. Yes.

And he can want that and still be a stone-cold weirdo. And those are not, to my mind, I don't think that those are mutually exclusive. I think those are projects that sit quite well next to one another. And so, yeah, i'm happy that he is like you know what the people want hot dog legs in a book that's what they want they want hot dog legs now and a book later that is what they are in for and i hate to say this but he's probably right people would read an a-rod book for sure how has he not written one? Yeah, right. I mean, if he were totally candid and honest in it, I would absolutely read that book.

I mean, he should have learned a lot of lessons, you know, both from good experiences and bad experiences in his life in business and baseball. So if that's what his book delivered, I would absolutely be interested in reading it. delivered, I would absolutely be interested in reading it. I'd be much more interested in reading that than most athlete autobiographies, right? Which are sort of sanitized and they don't want to reveal too much, or maybe they haven't led as interesting a life in their sport as A-Rod has, right? And I think that the degree of thirstiness that exists in the A-Rod persona, that actually has drawn me to him because during his career, at least prior to the PD stuff and the suspensions and everything, I was sympathetic to him because it seemed to me at least that he was maybe more sensitive and even more insecure.

I'm projecting a little bit, but not totally because I think he's made comments to this effect than the typical elite athlete who's like an inner circle great statistically, right? Like, it seems like most of those people are just wired in a different way where they are like completely confident, you know, perhaps excessively confident at all times. And A-Rod never really seemed that way. And I felt that at least earlier in his career, he kind of got a bad rap where people would label him unclutch and everything. And he was always held up to the golden boy, Derek Jeter, who, at least statistically speaking, was not nearly the player A-Rod was. And Jeter gets credit for selflessness and leadership, whereas it was A-Rod who moved to third base so that Jeter could keep playing short, even though A-Rod was a better defender at short, et cetera. And so A-Rod might not have certain intangible qualities that Jeter did actually bring and that were valuable, but also Jeter, just a pretty bland persona for most of his career, as we discussed recently when

we learned that Jeter would be joining A-Rod on the Fox pregame shows, which unless they're actively feuding, which would be very entertaining, but I highly doubt that Jeter would engage in. I don't know that that will be the best TV, but I found him a more compelling figure. I would rather read a book about or by him or a documentary about or by him than I would for Jeter. And obviously, A-Rod sort of poisoned the well with his actions later in his career or actions earlier in his career that came out later in his career. figure that I'm drawn to that story more so than I am with someone who's just always completely in command and respected and seems to always say the right thing or not say the wrong thing because he never says anything revealing. Anyway, I'm just saying that if A-Rod finds that it's harder to write a book than he hoped, call me, Alex, because maybe we could work together

on this thing. Who knows? I wouldn't be a ghostwriter because I wouldn't do it uncredited, and I'm also a living, breathing being. So just as the extra innings runner is not a ghostrunner, I would not be a ghostwriter. But you never know, I could be a co-author, but who knows? Maybe he can handle it himself. The only rule is that it has to wear boxer briefs. Working title. All right. Works for me. Another thing I want to say is that I think we have to get over updates on Shohei Otani's future and contract status. I agree. Because look, folks, we're just not going to know for a while where he's going to be playing in 2024. Yeah. And that's okay. Yes. So this week, his agent made some comments that were completely unrevealing.

I mean, Derek Jeter levels of not saying anything interesting. And these comments were breathlessly reported. So here's an ESPN story by Alden Gonzalez, which, you know, accurately reports the quotes and everything. But I don't know that it's newsworthy. The headline is, Agent says Shohei Otani has right to explore free agency. It's like, yeah. Was that a doubt?

Did we not know that Shohei Otani has the same collectively bargained rights and service time considerations and so forth as every other player? I assumed we know that. So really nothing at all was revealed here. So his agent, Nez Bolelo, who works for CAA Sports, he was asked, I don't know that he volunteered these comments, but of course he's going to be asked about this, whether he would be open to negotiating an extension or whether Otani would this spring training. And so he said, I've always been open to it an extension or whether Otani would this spring training. And so he said, I've always been open to it, but there's several layers to this one.

And Shohei's earned the right to play through the year, explore free agency, and we'll see where it shakes out. Is there any new information? No. No. So he's not shutting the door on an extension. That would have been newsworthy if he said, no way, I'm not even going to talk about it. We're not considering it. Okay, report that. Or if he said, we're totally receptive. Let's talk. You know, we want to be angels for life. That would be news. But he says, open to it. But he's earned the right to play through this here Explore Free Agency, and we'll see where it shakes out. Then they asked a follow-up whether he could clarify whether that meant that a deal this spring was unlikely, which again, I guess if he said it was unlikely, I mean, you would have to assume it's unlikely, but if he said it was unlikely, I guess that would technically

be news. And he refused to even say that much. He said, I've said it before. I'll say it again. We're taking one day at a time. I'm not putting the cart before the horse on this one. So absolutely information-free content, I would say. No news reported.

He did not comment on the status of negotiations or anything. Just we are receptive to it. We are technically open to it and also if we don't sign an extension he will be a free agent at the end of the season because he has earned that right which we all knew i have sympathy for it because like if you're at the presser right if you're at the spring training presser and otani is there you do have to ask that question sure because like maybe the answer would surprise us maybe you know he would be like you said he'd say yeah i'd love to stay in la let's see what we can get done or maybe he'd say i think my trout smells and i don't want to be his teammate

anymore you know because he smells it could be that again he didn't say that i i'm offering it as a hypothetical but that would be nurse worthy yeah yeah although he'd say it in like a coy way where you knew he was joking he seems like a nice guy yes but you know you have to ask the question but you're right like i i did see a couple of uh folks in the facebook group be like ah and start to catastrophize and on the one hand like i don't think it is likely that he returns to the angels so you are no it is no less catastrophic it's just a day closer so i guess in that respect catastrophize away but i agree with you that i don't think that this yielded anything all that surprising it's like hey um is the generational talent who has transcended the sport and is likely to sign the biggest deal not

just in baseball free agency but in sports free agency period gonna test free agency yeah yeah yeah he's gonna do that which you know yeah of course he is like why wouldn't he right i mean i guess you could say well why wouldn't wouldn't Mike Trout have done that? And he didn't do that. Sure. But I think Mike Trout maybe wired a little bit differently when it comes to maximizing money. Now, Shohei Ohtani, you could say the same thing because, of course, he came to MLB when his signing potential financially was artificially limited. And he still came over because he wanted to

compete against the best in the world. He wanted to show what he could do in MLB. So I guess you could say that money is not his primary motivating factor. However, it seems like he really wants to win, and he has not been able to win with the Angels despite his best efforts. So why would he not test the market? Mike Trout at least has been in the Angels organization his whole career and came up with them and did experience some more success earlier in his career, competitively speaking, than Otani has since he joined the Angels. I mean, it was probably still a discount relative to what Mike Trout would be worth, although I don't know that any team would have paid him the entirety of what he would have been worth. But, you know, still, he probably could have made more if he had waited. But yes, I mean, why would you not wait at this point? He's one year away from free agency.

The Angels have not been successful. He will be extremely in demand if he wants to go back to the Angels. I'm sure he'll have that option as a free agent. But really, what have the Angels done to make Shohei Otani want to commit to them other than, of course, using him in the way

that he wants to be used, which is not nothing. I mean, that's a significant factor. It is something, for sure. Other teams that would not have done that or would not have been as receptive to that initially, probably. So that may have earned them

some goodwill, but still, right still right so and i guess they kept asking the agent about that because he kept going on and saying nothing he's like he kept reframing the basic state of affairs in slightly different ways without adding any new information shohei's been here five years. Now this is his final year. So he's explaining how many years you need to play to qualify for free agency. Let me explain the CPA and service time to you. And now we have free agency. So of course there's going to be a lot of questions. What does he want to do?

Where's he going to go? All of it. And I've said this so many times and Shohei has said it as well. We really take it day by day, one day at a time. That's great. And even though he said it many, many times, it's still news every time he says it, I guess. So just saying, like, you know, we're probably many months away from finding out where Shohei Otani is going to play in 2024. Something improbable happens, in which case it will be news if he were to sign an extension, if he were to be traded, obviously, or be on the trade market, which will probably be a story at some point this season unless the Angels get off to a great start, which, as we know, the Angels always do. But I wonder how many times we will be subjected to the same, essentially no comment with some kind of comment. I don't know whether it will be worth headlines every time. If you want to do a tweet, okay.

The bar for a tweet is extremely low. So I'm open to tweets about the non-comments here that we're getting essentially. But a big story that is shared and treated as somewhat revealing, I don't think so. I think we just got to wait it out. It's okay. We don't need to know where he'll be. He'll be somewhere. We will get to enjoy him somewhere.

Yeah. I mean, like, aren't there big bases to take photos of? You know? Exactly. Aren't there unexplored bits of potential in big base photography that, you know, that lay ahead of you? Go do that instead. Do big bases. And not only that, but there are secret drills going on at Mets camp, right?

Did you see this news? So our friend Evan Drellick, he tweeted the other day that at Mets camp, I believe this was the first full squad workout that the Mets were doing, reporters were told to leave the field because of a proprietary drill that the Mets were conducting. And we know nothing else about what this drill was. So ever since I saw this, I have been wondering what could it have been? What is Buck Showalter and his staff cooking up here that the Mets did not want reporters to see and spoil for everyone. I mean, do you have any theories?

This is a very NFL style sort of secret, you know, close to the media workout because we're drawing up. Yeah, we're running some sort of special play. Right. I mean, there are only so many possibilities for that sort of thing in baseball. And so I'm intrigued by what the Mets might be doing here. I mean, there are a number of possibilities, I suppose, with all the new rules and possible responses to those. So any theories on what the Mets might be doing that they don't want the world to know yet? Which is like, look, some people were sort of salty about, you know, like this should be open. And Evan even said in his tweet, you know, it's an entertainment product. And so restricting reporters access to it is maybe not the best. And perhaps there's a slippery slope of will give them a competitive advantage, why they might want to preserve that. And there's already a lot of practice and drilling that we don't see. It's not like we see every batting practice session conducted in the cages inside the stadium or every bullpen session. So if there's a fielding drill that we don't get to see immediately, I'm kind of okay with that. I'm curious. I guess I would prefer for my curiosity to be satisfied immediately

and not have to wait for the cookie. But if anything comes of this drill, presumably we will see it in games, right? And then it won't be a secret anymore, which makes me wonder also why they think it's worth preserving the secret because as soon as they use this, we will know and everyone else will know. And you would think that they would probably have to debut it in a spring training game, right? And unless the idea is that they will practice it so thoroughly in these drills that they won't actually use it until the regular season starts. And then they will shock the world with whatever it is in a game that actually counts. with whatever it is in a game that actually counts. But one day in the not too distant future, if this proves to be an advantageous strategy,

then we will know what it was that they were practicing and what their proprietary drill is. So I have three potential answers. Would you like me to offer them to you in ascending order of seriousness or descending order of seriousness? Let's go with ascending. Let's start with the silly ones.

Okay, so the first and silliest is that they were doing psychedelics communally and they were worried about how it would go. So they didn't want a bunch of cameras around and they asked the media to sleep. So that's my silly answer. I mean, that's my silliest answer. Yeah.

My medium silly answer is, that's my silliest answer yeah my my medium silly answer is you'll have to forgive me because i don't recall what year it was that they did this i don't know what day it is so how would i know what year it was that they did this but i recall ben the mets in spring training this was in the pre-show walter days and definitely the priest pre-Steve Cohen days, I think, I think the pre-Steve Cohen days. Anyway, it was like in the recent past. They did a practice drill in camp of winning the World Series. Oh, that's right.

Yeah. I think, yeah, that was not too long ago. It wasn't too long ago. Maybe Cohen had bought the team, but I don't think Showalter was managing them yet. I don't know. We're going to have to put our investigative minds to that. But they practiced having- It was 2021.

2021, okay. Having the ball fly out to the outfield to catch the final out of a World Series victory. And then they all practiced coming in and celebrating, being together, being excited. And there was real energy behind the drill. Like they were, you know, they were not loafing. They were really practicing winning the World Series,

which I found to be like, I mean, obviously that is an an experience that i cannot actually relate to in any real way but i found that to be kind of delightful and relatable where it's like and maybe we talked about it on the pod at the time i don't remember now but you know in moments of extreme emotional upheaval, which don't necessarily have to be negative, right? If you win the World Series, you're feeling good feelings, but you're feeling a lot of them.

You have big, good feelings. You don't know what your face is going to do. And you don't know what you're going to say. You don't know what weird, goofy look you're going to have. It helps to practice sure if it is at all important to you to have like like comportment or dignity in that moment which to be clear if you win the world series you do not have to be dignified but you know you might end up having a picture of you looking like a goofus in the image service that we use at fan graphs forever

and one day i'm gonna have to write up something about you and i'm gonna pick a funny photo you know and so they might be kind of a common motivational coach kind of tactic right like you envision yourself having success actual the actual purpose of the drill and not let us help these grown men emotionally regulate themselves right although maybe we should have more of that who could say so that's my medium not silly but like medium answer yeah so they wanted to do that again but but not have it get out because uh the way that 2021 season ended for the mets uh people looked back retrospectively and were like oh

they jinxed they were overconfident right Which I think is kind of an unfair reading, but it's the Mets, so they're going to get unfair readings as well as some fair readings that make them look bad too. Right. And then my serious answer, the answer I find to be the most plausible

is that they have some take on the new shift restrictions that they're working through. And you're right. We're going to see them as soon as you do them right like you can't keep that in your back pocket forever i mean maybe you could maybe you have like a special a really special thing when you gotta you know you really gotta get trey turner or something i don't know i don't know like he's a division right i don't even

but you know maybe that was it that they were trying some stuff out because as we talked about after i went to the rules demonstration like the league tried really hard to anticipate all of the ways that teams would try to circumvent the new shift restrictions and i think that they are realistic that they will initially fail in that endeavor because teams are wily and motivated and you know they're smart so they're gonna try some stuff and then the legal have to be like no no that is that's a violation of the rule and of course the umpire has the right to sort of generally say you're trying to circumvent the rule so i'm assessing a penalty

to you but you know there might be some windows the teams have where it's like well we're trying this thing and it's not technically against the rules and mlb hasn't told us no no no and so we get to deploy it for like maybe even just a game depending on the umpiring situation so i i think that that's probably the most likely thing or they practice the world series or you know they like, we will not listen to Meg. We are not afraid of mushrooms. We do not think they will turn us into zombies. Psychedelics for everyone. That was where my mind went, too.

Not the psychedelics. Ah, crap. I was like, oh, we're so connected. What hosts. The last thing about practicing positioning stuff because you mentioned that mlb said that you can't get running starts right now i don't know how well they'll be able to enforce that because there's sometimes like where a fielder would normally be in motion anyway i mean what if a runner is going or something so i don't know there might be some

leeway there in some situations but thinking thinking along those lines, and because I was thinking of NFL style plays because of the NFL-ish nature of this closed practice, you know that play that the Eagles notably did where they pushed the quarterback? They did this often with Jalen Hurts and some other teams did it too. But this is no longer against the rules in the NFL to push another player. It is illegal to pull another player, but you can push other players. Well, for now. Yes, for now. But they perhaps did this so much and so effectively that it will be banned again. That they might not be able to anymore.

Right. But they would basically do like a human wave sort of where they would just propel the quarterback on a, I don't even know if you can call it a quarterback sneak. It wasn't very sneaky. It was just like, we're just going to mass several large people behind this person

and just physically propel him forward so that if you just need to gain some small amount of yardage and push someone over the line, then you can just do that. And it's tough to stop because you just have so much force and momentum behind it. I can't imagine it's pleasant to be the quarterback in that scenario and to be sandwiched between huge humans, but it does seem to be effective. So I was wondering whether maybe something like that could work, where if you're not allowed to get a running start, maybe you line up the third baseman next to the shortstop.

And then you just have the third baseman push the shortstop and just run along, pushing his back so that he can get a great running start and cover more ground. So that could be something that Chowalter was thinking here. I don't know whether it is actually related to positioning because Woodward, who I shouted out recently, he has a newsletter, a sub stack called The Advanced Scout. He's someone who used to write for me at Baseball Prospectus and then went to work for the Braves and recently left the front office and he's writing again. And he suggested he thought it was more likely maybe that they were practicing some pickoff plays related to the restriction on pickoff attempts. I don't know if you'd need a full team to do that necessarily, a full squad. But he was saying, you know, there might be some things that would be advantageous there. And he ran through a couple of techniques, whether it was just like holding the ball as long as you possibly could.

And he likened it to an NFL style play also, like a hard count on fourth and short. And he's saying, you know, with runners on, like you have 20 seconds, so you could wait until the very last second and you could delay and then whirl if you've already used your two pickoffs or you've used at least one and you think the runner won't think that you'll use a second one. So something like that you could practice or maybe like a whirl, like timing play, where if you're not doing as many pickoff attempts, you don't have to have the first baseman play off the bag. And so he could sort of sneak in there the way that a third baseman sometimes will. And I guess a first basemaneman too, and sort of sneak in clandestinely while the runner is not paying attention and you could time it so that he gets to the bag at the right time for you to whirl and do that pickoff play. So I'll link to his

suggestions. I think there are some good ideas there. So your options are somewhat limited because there's only so much time and you only have so many pickoff plays to work with. But I could see that being an area where maybe if you practice something really well you could differentiate yourself because i do think that'll have a pretty big impact on the game but yeah once you use these things once you deploy them for the first time everyone will see it so even if you have some incredible idea unless it's something that takes a ton of practice so that unless you practiced it for all of spring training and secret drills,

you won't actually be able to do it day one in MLB and games that count. I don't know how much of a competitive advantage you could conceivably get from this, but hey, if they think they're onto something, then more power to them. I'm just very excited to see all of the things that they are going to try that aren't going to work.

Because you know that teams are going to try stuff, and they should try stuff. They should try stuff. Yep. And some of that stuff will be legal stuff, and some of that stuff they'll go, now, now, now. Right, exactly. Ben, can I break some news on the pod? I'm not the one breaking news. Can I break some news to you on this here podcast?

Does Shohei Otani still have the right to explore news to you on this your podcast to show hey otani still have the right to explore free agency it's not otani related it's not that big no it's pretty big though are you ready yeah noah song has been discharged from the navy and will be in philly's camp tomorrow oh well how about that how about that ben we're gonna have to have bauman on to talk about just that whenever we got we got eric coming up we have to have Baumanons talk about just that. We got Eric coming up. We have to have Baumanons talk about it. Who knows? What a thing that would be.

That is an interesting development. I do have one more thing to relate here, and it is also related to murky, shadowy dealings in Florida, although of a more serious nature. So, you know, whenever we wade into waters that are even vaguely quote-unquote political, no matter how closely linked to baseball they are, we inevitably get some one-star iTunes review from someone who says we should stick to sports. I haven't. I know you don't look at them anymore. I don't look at them anymore.

I have a little sticky on my desktop because they made me feel sad. Yeah, they're mostly very nice, but not exclusively. However, there is something baseball-related I wanted to bring up, and I'm sure you saw this news because it was pretty big news, and we didn't mention it earlier this month, but it was reported that there were some baseball books that were possibly banned right in Duval County in Florida, which is part of the larger initiative that has happened in that state

and other states too. But specifically in that state under Governor Ron DeSantis, who I would remind everyone is what maybe the second or third most likely person to be president come 2025. So this is somewhat relevant. And in Florida, there are a number of measures that have been implemented, whether it's the Don't Take A Act or the so-called Stop Woke Act. And this is related to the latter, which went into effect last summer, although some parts of it have not been fully implemented because there was an injunction placed on them by a judge on the grounds that- Because a lot of them seem mighty unconstitutional. That was why, yes. So the judge, I believe, called this dystopian and Orwellian, which often gets applied to this measure. And the idea is basically that certain material has been excluded from classrooms and businesses and other settings because it is considered unacceptable, right? And there are, I guess, three measures

that they have investigated these things based on material which could be considered pornographic and material which could be considered instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity. This is for students in grades K to 3, I think. And then material that could violate this Florida statute, which among other requirements includes things that might describe a person or people as inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex. And look, obviously, there are some reasonable conversations that could be had about when and how to introduce and explain these concepts, sure, but taken in context with everything else going on in that state and across the country. I don't think we can read it as a good faith effort to improve education.

This is meant to protect white people's feelings and to keep other people intimidated or under-informed, right? And to pretend that racism never existed or doesn't exist, structural racism, right? And it's meant to not acknowledge real facts about the world, which are important to know so that something can be done about them. And look, book banning or anything approaching book banning is certainly not a broadly popular practice. And I'm probably preaching to the choir here, so I won't spend a ton of time on this soapbox. But I will say that there were three baseball books that were implicated in this Duval County process. Right. So one is called Henry Aaron's Dream. And this is a book that was written and illustrated by Matt Tavares. And it was released in 2010. It's for ages 8 to 12. And then there's Roberto Clemente, Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates, written by Jonah Winter, illustrated by Raul Colon, published in 2005 for ages 4 to 8. And finally, a book called Thank You, Jackie Robinson,

which was published way back in 1974 and written by Barbara Cohen with some drawings by Richard Khafari. So right off the bat, no pun intended, I think if you are running into issues with whether books about Jackie Robinson, Henry Aaron, and Roberto Clemente are acceptable, there might be a bit of a problem here because- Yeah, something has gone terribly wrong. Can you think of three more revered figures or players in baseball history on a personal level than Jackie Robinson, Henry Aaron, and Roberto Clemente? I mean, there are not many, right, when it comes to just like universally acclaimed and celebrated for their contributions to baseball and society. So, I mean, this is Jackie Robinson, who has an annual day devoted to him by MLB and his number retired across the sport. And then all three of these guys have prominent MLB awards named after them. Right. And I mean, there were books about like MLK and Rosa Parks, et cetera, also implicated in this process. So it's not baseball exclusive, but this is the baseball hook for a baseball podcast, right? And so some people were calling for MLB to do something about

this, right? Because MLB traffics in sort of glorifying the images of Robinson and Aaron and Clemente, which is appropriate, but also sort of absorbing some reflected glory, I would say, rightly or wrongly from those figures and their association with baseball. And as far as I know, MLB has not made any public statement about this issue. And I did cross my mind that perhaps behind the scenes, they may have done something. And I actually have something to semi-pass along here that is about that. But this was a big topic because this was initially reported, I think, maybe back like last September or something, but it didn't get a ton of attention at the time. But there was a very viral tweet recently that resurfaced it. And also it was Black History Month. And then with the baseball context, obviously spring training is starting in Florida at the same time that this is all going on. The point is, I bought these books for multiple reasons.

One is that I have a daughter who is not quite old enough to read books with words yet, but they all have pictures and illustrations. And obviously, I will try to indoctrinate her in baseball, you know, at some point, hopefully not in a heavy handed way. But I want to make baseball materials available to her just in case she would like to avail herself of them. And she already has some other baseball books, picture books that she likes looking at. So I figured it would be handy to have these around in her little library. But also, I just wanted to see what the fuss was about and see whether there was any possible grounds for considering these books inappropriate for kids at those age levels. So I read them. I have not read the Thank You, Jackie Robinson book yet because it's a longer, it's a chapter book, but I read the

Henry Aaron's Dream and Roberto Clemente books and they're good. I would certainly have no reservations about recommending them. And I would also say that technically it was not accurate that these books were banned, I believe. They were technically under review, right? So as part of this process and Duval County- Under review to be banned? Possibly to be banned, which is not great either. But there had not been a final banning determination about them yet because they have this whole, you know, reviewer process set up where they have people who read the books and deem whether they are acceptable. Right. As I said, it's a fairly Orwellian process. And so these books, no final determination had been made about them.

And I guess the good news is that as of last week, they have been approved. So these books, or at least the Aaron and Clemente books, I have not heard about the Robinson book. And I emailed someone in the county to ask a spokesperson, and I haven't heard back yet, but at least the Aaron and Clemente books are approved. Again, no reason why they wouldn't be, but they have been. And I assume that they are or soon will be available to kids. And this is a statewide initiative and some counties have been more aggressive about enforcing it than others. And obviously for some for some of the officials involved, like you have to feel for them because they're trying not to run afoul of these restrictive laws. Right. And that's part of the problem with the law is that you have teachers and officials who are sort of self-enforcing it because they're worried about like being charged with a felony if they have these books on the shelves, which is pretty ridiculous.

But something you have to think about if you're a teacher in Florida now. And so in Duval, it seemed like they were more scrupulous maybe about erring on the side of these books might be banned, or maybe we shouldn't display these, and they were covering them up, et cetera. Anyway, they have now been approved, and you have to wonder whether that would have happened if not for the attention and the outcry that happened when people realized that books about Aaron and Robinson and Clemente were being reviewed. So I have reviewed them, and I have deemed them fully acceptable for my child, at least. However, I do have a few baseball-specific notes that I took when I read these books, because if I'm going to review

a baseball book, it won't be for whether the content is acceptable for children, but it'll be about whether the baseball itself is accurate. And reading the Clemente book, and I was not reading these with an eye toward being pedantic and trying to find inaccuracies, but there are a few things that in an otherwise unobjectionable and inspirational story that I would recommend to everyone, I will note just a couple of little things that are kind of in the call us category that we often share when it comes to other media properties. For instance, in the Roberto Clemente book, there is a passage that says that when Roberto made his debut for the

Pirates in his first game in his first at bat, he smacked the very first pitch, but it went right up the infield and into the second baseman's glove. Still, Roberto ran like lightning and beat the throw to first base. And I was reading this, I was thinking, if he smacked the ball to second base, it's pretty impressive that he beat out a grounder to second, that he hit hard. That's tough to do. Well, we do have pitch-by-pitch data for that game because it was against the Dodgers. So thank you, Alan Roth, Branch Rickey statistician. And we know that it was not actually the first pitch.

It was a 1-0 count. And it was not a grounder to second. It was a grounder to short, to shortstop Peewee Reese. And it was not clear to me whether there was a throw or not because some accounts said that it was off of Reese's glove. So one minor mistake that I found there and then another was that during the last game of the season, it says Roberto walked to the plate. This is in his final season, creaked his neck, dug in his stance, stuck his chin toward the pitcher and walloped a line drive off the center field wall.

And I thought, is that how it went down? I've seen this highlight, and it's hard to hit a line drive off the center field wall for his 3,000th hit. Well, it wasn't really to center. It was to left field, I guess you could say, left center, charitably. And it bounced before it hit the wall, and also it was game 152, so it was not the last game of the season or even Clemente's last game because a few days later he played an inning in right field. There was also an assertion that after his 1971 World Series MVP win, it could not be denied that Roberto was the greatest all-around player of his team and maybe of all time, which I thought was potentially a slight toward his contemporary Willie Mays, probably an even better all-around player. I bring this up not solely to nitpick a book about Roberto Clemente for four to eight year olds, although that would not be out of character for me necessarily, but to say that

when I read Henry Aaron's Dream after reading Roberto Clemente's book, I was blown away by how incredibly accurate and thorough it was. And I wanted to praise this because often we come to nitpick, not to praise. And in this case, Henry Aaron's Dream by Matt Tavares, I've got to hand it to him because he got everything right, as far as I could tell, in a really impressive sense where a couple of times something seemed potentially off to me. And then I did further research and found that actually I was wrong and he was right. And this book, again, for four to eight year olds, has a bibliography that links to other books and also a newspaper account. And it has all his stats at the end. And it has an author's note about the accuracy. And I'm so impressed by this book because not only is it well written and illustrated and a great inspirational story, but boy, did he nail the baseball details and went above and beyond to do it in ways that I don't think the readers would necessarily notice or appreciate. I just wanted to let the world know that I deeply appreciated it. In fact, he actually uncovered and debunked some myths about Henry Aaron, namely about how he started his first game in spring training in 1954 because the story goes that Bobby Thompson broke his ankle and that the next day Henry Aaron was in the lineup replacing Thompson and he hit a home run and Ted Williams was there and Ted Williams heard the crack of the bat and was like, who's this guy? Wow, you're going to be hearing about him again.

And it's a nice, neat story. And it's a story that is often repeated and told in many books, including, I think, Henry Aaron's autobiography. And in fact, it is still incorrect on Henry Aaron's Wikipedia page. So I will alert my buddy Joe West in case he wants to make any edits there. But as Matt Tavares established by looking through the archival reports, it is not quite true. The timeline is a little different. Aaron started and hit that homer before Bobby Thompson broke his ankle because there were

some other more minor nagging injuries to outfielders. And so he got a chance and he made the most of it. And also Ted Williams had broken his collarbone and wasn't even at spring training at that time. So he couldn't possibly have hurt it. Anyway, as I noticed that this was the case, I also found that on his blog, Matt Tavares had written this up and had provided his sources and talked about how other sources got it wrong. And I thought it was really and that I enjoyed the book. And I asked him basically what had come of this possible ban and all of the publicity that had come of it, because it seems like not a great thing, but perhaps the attention, it certainly led to my becoming aware of the book and buying the book, and maybe it led to other good things too.

So here's what he wrote back to me. It's been a crazy few weeks and it's complicated. I think that for me personally and for this book, it has definitely brought a lot of positive attention and has shined a spotlight on a book that's been out for 13 years now and really wasn't on anyone's radar before the Duval County controversy. A tweet about my book went viral a few weeks ago, which led to a lot of news coverage. Since then, I've had invitations to do TV news interviews, podcast interviews, newspaper interviews, and the vast majority of the coverage is in support of the books and against Florida's awful slash racist new policies. So it has definitely provided publicity for my book and for Aaron's story. That said, I think my book is kind of an outlier here.

There are book bans like this going on all over the country, and there are a lot of authors whose books are widely banned, and it disproportionately affects authors who aren't white, straight guys like myself. And while there is probably a little boost when controversies pop up here and there, the overall effect of these book bans is negative. Kids lose access to books, and a lot of voices are silenced. I did get a little bit of inside info last week from a sports writer in Florida. of these book bans is negative. Kids lose access to books and a lot of voices are silenced. I did get a little bit of inside info last week from a sports writer in Florida. This is, again, Matt still writing to me. Apparently, Rob Manfred reached out to the governor of Florida's office

and was assured that Henry Aaron's Dream and the Roberto Clemente book would be returned to shelves in Duval County. Not sure if that's what did it, but they were approved the next day. Good for my book, but again, most of these books don't have powerful people advocating for them. Crazy that this thing rose to the heft of the commissioner of baseball intervening by contacting the governor of Florida. Strange times. So this is secondhand. I have not reached out to confirm that Rob Manfred did actually try to intervene here. And it would not surprise me if he did. And I guess you could say that it should have happened publicly, right? And that perhaps it is spineless, again, not an intended book pun there, to do it privately

and behind the scenes. I guess you could also say, you know, like you could say it's calculated, you know, because Republicans watch baseball too, right? And so maybe he would not want to inflame people and provide talking points for the right the way that the all-star game decision in Georgia did. I guess you could also say that maybe this was the more effective way to do it if this is in fact what happened, to do it quietly behind the scenes and to not blow it up further into more of a culture war issue that would then provide grist for the you know, worst faith parties operating and talking about these things, right? And if the idea is that, well, we just want to get the books back on shelves, then maybe

that's the most efficacious way to do it. On the other hand, maybe it doesn't extend to all the books. Maybe it's just the baseball books and maybe saying something publicly would bring attention to the wider policy and condemnation of the policy and would help other books or discourage other similar measures in other states. So I guess you could go back and forth. If there was some sort of informal behind-the-scenes string pulling here, that's probably better than nothing. And I guess you could argue about whether it was the best way to go about it or not the best way to go about it. But I did want to share that and also commend the book and pass along Matt's thoughts on the effects of all of this publicity in the past few weeks. You said a lot, Ben. I did.

You said so many things. Yeah, I don't want to like overreact because you're right. We don't have confirmation from the commissioner's office. But yeah, it's like just you should stand up for all the books, right? Like you should stand up against the idea of the state being an arbiter of these things. And the thing I always find so strange about it is I have limited experience as a teacher. I did TA when I was a grad student for a while. as a teacher. I did TA when I was a grad student for a while, but all of the teachers I know,

they think a lot about the appropriateness of various parts of curricula and making sure that as they are teaching concepts, sorry, the cat's knocking over all kinds of stuff on the desk. Babby, what you doing? You're knocking over a bunch of stuff is what you're doing. Yeah. Like Steve and his scoops ahoy outfit that pop up, knocked right over. doing you're knocking over a bunch of stuff is what you're doing yeah like uh you know steve and his scoops ahoy outfit that pop up knocked right over it's a little behind the curtain but like they they spend a lot of time thinking about how do we effectively communicate concepts to children at an age appropriate level well like that's a big part of being a teacher and thinking about pedagogy so i i always find it so disheart. It's like you just don't know what goes on in a classroom if that's your concern because I don't know a single teacher who doesn't think about that and think that, you know, what you would – the kinds of conversations you would have with a high school student about race in America are going to be different than the ones you would have with a kindergartner. But that doesn't mean you can't have them, right? Because like, those kids live in America, they're experiencing what it's like to live in America and experience race in America

when they're outside the classroom. So giving them tools to understand their communities and themselves and the institutions that are going to shape their lives, it's really important. And it's always so it's like, okay, okay. So Ben, let's say they had gotten what they wanted and the bands had gone in. Like it's not unusual for school groups to go to baseball games. What happens if a school group goes to a baseball game

on Jackie Robinson Day? Is the teacher just supposed to be like, I don't know who that guy was. What's all this about? It's just so detached from- He's a great baseball player once he started playing for the Dodgers and nothing more to see here,

nothing more to know about why he didn't play for a National League or American League team sooner than that. Yeah, I'm sure that our thoughts on this are hardly surprising to anyone listening, but it is very disheartening and I just think quite dangerous for how future generations of Americans

are going to understand the country they live in. I worry it will be quite far afield from the one they actually occupy. Yeah. And in the Aaron and Clemente books, it's not even a focus. I mean, it could be if you wanted it to be, but it's fairly briefly touched on. It's just like, I mean, how can you tell their stories? I mean, unless you just say, oh, they were good guys and good baseball players. The end.

I mean, a big part of the reason why their stories are so inspirational is because of what they faced and what they overcame and what they had to deal with. And these books are just reporting facts about, you know, where they were and weren't allowed to play and the kind of invective that was hurled at them. And again, it's not even like the focus of the stories. And you can't honestly tell their stories or tell the story of baseball or American history or anything without acknowledging some of these things. And how can you equip kids to go out into the world and understand it without giving them some primer on that stuff? So the only thing I'll add, you know, the initial publication of Henry Aaron's Dream, which was in 2010, printed the N-word itself, you know, uncensored in, I think, two places. The version that I read, which was printed

in 2015, did not. It just didn't specify. It said something like they used terrible names or words or whatever. And there's a thoughtful post that Matt wrote about this on his site, which I will link to from back in 2014 when they made this decision to revise it. Initially, 2010 was different from 2023, I think, in how we think of words and language and kind of representing those words, right? Not the way that we think of what that word meant, but just sort of how we represent it or invoke it. And I think his initial impulse came from a good place, which is that he didn't want to water down what Aaron faced. You know, he wanted to be honest about it and not just say, oh, there were some nasty stuff. It was like the nastiest thing that you could say.

And so he wanted to be true to that reality. But after getting feedback from readers and also educators who were saying, this is limiting the reach of the book because some people just, you know, understandably don't feel comfortable sharing it or reading that to a class, right? And so in the interest of getting the book in more people's hands and into more kids' eyeballs and ears, he felt that it would be better to change that just so that the story and the value that the story could do would reach a wider audience. So I don't know whether the edition that DeWall County was reviewing was the initial version with that word or the more recent revised edition. If it were the original version, I guess you could say there's maybe more reasonable grounds for considering the age appropriateness, but I'm not really inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the parties involved here.

And I assume based on the content of the Roberto Clemente book, which was also flagged for review, that it would have been flagged for review regardless of whether the word was spelled out or not. whether the word was spelled out or not. So just giving you a little update there and I'll reach out to MLB to see if they care to offer a comment on that Manfred suggestion or not. And I will update if I hear back. But that's what I wanted to say just to bring attention to those books

and to let everyone know that Henry Aaron's Dream gets my highest recommendation, not just as a nice story for kids, but also as an extremely more accurate to baseball than it had any right to be or need to be. It passes with flying colors. So kudos to Matt.

And both books are good and enjoyable reads. So check them out. Okay. So we will now take a break and we'll be back with Eric Langenhagen, lead prospect analyst of Fangraphs, to talk some prospects and the top 100 slash top 112. All right, we're back. And we are joined by Eric Langenhagen, lead prospect analyst for Fangraphs, And we are joined by Eric Langenhagen, lead prospect analyst for Fangraphs, here to extend his lead as the all-time most prolific Effectively Wild guest and also to discuss the recently released Top 100. Hello, Eric. Welcome back yet again. Hey, Ben. How's it going? Not bad. And you've already done a Top 100 Prospects chat on the Fangraphs website.

So this is the chat after the chat in a different medium. You and Tess put this list together. And I've got to say, I've got to, I guess, compliment you or at least observe your moderation this year in limiting it to 112. And also, I think there's a question in there, the fact that it is only, quote unquote, 112, because that actually reflects the quality of this prospect class, right? You noted that at least the top of the class is a little thinned out, which I guess makes sense because last year's crop of prospect and rookie debuts was extraordinarily strong, According to an analysis I did at the end of the season based on Baseball America lists, just because those go back the furthest,

there were 40 guys on the Baseball America top 100 list preseason last year who made their major league debuts in 2022, which was the most of any year going back to the beginning of those lists in 1990. So I guess it stands to reason that if a bunch of guys graduate one year, then the next year might be slightly thinner, right? So you notice that. Sure. There are all kinds of different variables at play there, right? Some of it is just that the rookie eligibility rules have changed. Some of it is the lack of a 2020 minor league season, not necessarily in a way that has impacted like everyone's development although to an extent it has but also because there was no

2020 season for anyone to generate like context for more recent struggle perhaps like we just didn't have a flag go up for random guys in 2020 that, you know, even if they've been injured or whatever for the last, you know, or struggled for parts of the last couple of years, like, that would still give us context for that struggle that was, like, pleasing in a way. I also think that there's some, like, bias, right? Like, I think that we have all tended, certainly I am this way, a lot of the prospects who make up the top 100 are guys who are poised to graduate because it feels good as a prospect writer when they play enough to graduate. And I think that some of the confidence in the upper level prospects is driving an artificial move in that direction.

But yeah, the minors overall are more fine than they are exceptional, I think, at this stage. The fact that there are just fewer minor leaguers generally because of roster reductions as a result of the pandemic is probably playing into this as well. There's fewer lottery tickets out there who might be winners. So I think that's part of what's happening too. And then some of it is just trends in pitching. I know I am apprehensive about young, high-upside pitching. So there are definitely teenage pitching prospects in the minors who have the ability to be on this list and it's just that they tend to break at some point during the five

years or so that they are developing in the minors playing russian roulette with their ligaments every fifth or sixth day and you know there tends to be a lot of entropy happening in that part of the player population, such that, you know, I've kind of moved off of that type of guy towards the back of the 100. So there are just like fewer raw names that end up there. And then at some point for me and like Kylie and I together for a while, we were over projecting.

Like in one year, the 55 tier runs through like prospect number 70 overall or something like that. That's too many. And so some of this is just like our technical flaws as we started to get a better feel for this process as like a full-time you know analyst with this type of scope well and the pitching sort of attrition and nervousness that you noted isn't just isolated to the bottom of the list i think we should probably you know as we start to think about individual players talk a little bit about Espino and a guy's placement on our top 100 and how that affects us is is very minor compared to like the potential career trajectory that an injury can have on a pitcher but where was Espino before and then after the news that his shoulder was

still a problem yeah um 12th which to be fair as I... Now he's 93rd, right? Right. Yeah. But this is, if folks go back and look at the board at the touch of a button, you just can sort the pitchers from each of the last six years, basically, of prospect lists. And Forrest Whitley's at the top and Brent Honeywell and Alex Reyes and Sixto Sanchez. That's just one year.

I just clicked on 2018. Like that's just one year at the very top inside like the top 30 or so overall prospects. And like Walker Bueller's in there. I think Kyle Wright's in there and that took a while, but seems good now, right? Like Luis Gojar is in there. AJ Puck is in there. So this stuff just

tends to happen. Throwing a baseball really hard for a living doesn't seem to be good for your elbow or shoulder. So yeah, there's extreme variance in both directions for the pitching population because it is just so hazardous to your health. And that seems to be the thing that causes these guys to bust more than anything else. It's just they get hurt and then things aren't quite the same at some point. The ones who I would project to get hurt more or are more likely to get hurt are the ones who have been hurt a bunch in the past. And now that's Daniel Espino because this is like

incident number three within a calendar year where it was the knee and then during rehab from the knee, the shoulder. And now it seemed like he was a go. I was told he was a hundred percent go for spring training. Like when the guardians list itself ran a couple of weeks ago, I don't think I was being lied to and then you know everyone reports the camp and here we go again so to some extent this guy's a you know espino is unbelievable um and what i saw last spring out of him was really unbelievable just on par with some of the best stuff i've ever seen garrett cole steven strburg, the whole deal, post TJ Bueller, it was right there. And then this stuff starts to happen. And the guys who have fallen are the ones to whom this stuff seems to happen.

So the pitching in general is crazy volatile, both because of the developmental tools that we have, how specific the means of assessment have become, including just biomechanical analysis that you can apply to pretty generic-looking college pitchers that turn them into Gordon Graceffo and Tanner Bibby. So it's in both directions here where the variance is happening among the pitchers. And then the way they're being used at the big league level has changed and has spread more evenly. The innings are spread more, which

sort of clumps everyone's impact closer to the middle of a scale. So all that stuff is happening with the pitchers. Related to what I was asking about the maybe slightly thinner cream of the crop here than usual, I believe in last year's top 100, which was, what was it last year, actually? A top 114. Okay, not that many more than this year. Yeah, Ben. But again, that drop off has got to be because of the rookie eligibility change had a huge impact on how many guys end up graduating because September roster days count now. So that whole month is peeling the Gabriel Morenos of the world just barely off, right? So

that's a big timeline in the sand. 2021 was a top 133. That's what I was thinking. Anyway, what I was going to ask, by the way, I'm not criticizing. I think it totally makes sense to include as many as merit inclusion, but it just, it sets you apart, I think in a good way from some other sites, but it's notable. But what I wanted to observe here is that I think eight of the top 10 last year had 2022 ETAs, and they did all arrive in 2022. And the other two had 2023 ETAs, and I think one of them was Francisco Alvarez, who actually arrived last year. And I think the other was Grayson Rodriguez, who might have arrived last year if not for his injury. So everyone at the top was very close to the majors, whereas this year, I think only four of the top 10 you are to ascend the list if you have the required talent.

But this year, it seems like there are fewer guys who are really close to the majors who are up there, which, again, I guess makes sense because so many of them who would have been there already arrived. Yeah, I think some of it is that a handful of those guys are recent draftees, right? Like Drew Jones and Jackson Holiday. So their ETAs and truly like most of these guys' ETAs are just chalk with their 40-man timeline. And then some of them, like Drew Jones and Jackson Holiday and to an extent Jackson Merrill, although he seems poised to, haven't really had the opportunity to accelerate their timeline. An aggressive move up the ladder with that group hasn't been made yet. When that gets made, and maybe like Brooks Lee on the list is someone for whom it already has been made and we should have made a manual adjustment there already. But until that move is apparent like it was with someone like Julio Rodriguez,

you know, like it just makes sense to leave the chalk 40 man timeline because of all the weird things that tend to happen to these guys developmentally. So, you know, I think there's a lot of subjectivity that comes with, you know, just putting an ETA on a guy based on your gut feel for his readiness, and that it makes more sense to lean on that 40-man timeline, especially as teams tend to behave that way. Right. Ben mentioned that a bunch of the guys are a good distance away, but I want to talk about two... I'm going to make you talk about pitching again and two guys who seem quite likely to have meaningful impacts on their big league rotations this year. And that's Andrew Painter with the

Phillies and Uri Perez with the Marlins, who are quite young, but seem likely to play a role this year. What can fans expect from those guys? Right. And both of those guys are examples where their 40-man timelines aren't necessarily, like have them in line with the 2023 debut, but it seems obvious that at the rate their promotion has been accelerated, that they will be up at some point in 2023. Yeah, especially Painter because Philly's in win now mode and their rotation seems a little bit thin given some of their departures, the Kyle Gibsons of the world. And so it would make sense if they think that he's ready. And I think he's pretty close from a command standpoint and from a, like the third and

fourth pitches started to come out in Redding, that he's ready right now. The thing that might slow him down or at least limit his impact in 2023 is that he theoretically is going to be on some sort of innings cap. And that's true for both of those guys, Perez and Painter. They both threw about 70 innings in 2022, and the pretty standard industry increases like 20 annual innings. So it'll be interesting to see how both those teams handle that. prototypical look where it is like power fastball at the letters, monster slider, and then the different, you know, deeper curveball that he can land for strikes. And then by the end of the year in Reading, there was a change up too. It was, you know, it's not fully operational yet, but the fact that there was one and that his feel for it was pretty good at his size, at his age, at his velocity, all of that stuff is pretty nuts. And then that's true for Yuri as well. The only, you know, you try, the comp stuff can be dubious, but you do try to get

a feel for it. And you watch Yuri Perez do his thing. And the only guy who I've ever seen look that way at that size is CeCe Sabathia, where it's just that type of like balance and power and feel for strikes and all of that stuff for someone at this size, at this age. And CeCe was up pretty quickly. That's the only one. And it's not like, you know, Perez's changeup is at that level or, you know, anything like that. But if I'm just trying, searching for something that looks sort of like this guy, that's what comes to mind. And so both those guys, I think people should be very excited. Uri got shut down towards the end of the late last year with arm fatigue, but he was back before the end of the season and was 96, 99, like things seemed fine. So,

you know, at some point, you know, both those guys were in the middle of that top 10, sort of vacillating on either side of those higher risk hit tool hitters who are also in the top 10, like Eli De La Cruz, Jackson Churrio, the two, you know, the top two draft picks from this past year, especially Drew Jones, who just hasn't proven anything in pro ball yet because of his injuries. So much projection there. It's just huge ceiling. The pitchers are volatile, sure, but about as volatile as that group of hitters and freaky in a way that I feel comfortable betting on. Let me ask about the top two, because some years there are a number of candidates for the number

one ranking, and there's a lot of debate and discussion, and different outlets have different guys, and other years it's very clear and there's an obvious consensus number one. In this case, you have two 65 future value prospects who are ranked first and second, Gunnar Henderson and Corbin Carroll, respectively. So was that a discussion, whether to go with Henderson or Carroll first overall? Obviously, both of those guys already arrived and impressed in smallish samples last year, but did not exceed their rookie eligibility. Henderson is in what Michael Bauman dubbed the roll-in zone, which is when you have more than 130 plate appearances in your inaugural season but not more than 130 at bats because scott

roland in his first season he had exactly 130 at bat so he did not exceed that which would have removed his rookie eligibility and thus he was rookie eligible the following year when he actually won the rookie of the year award and hend, probably the favorite to do the same this season. So break down those two for us. One of the first questions on the phone with scouts and execs was, hey, does anybody else belong up here? You know, can you make a case for either of these pitchers? Do you believe in Elie de la Cruz hitting enough that he's up there for you? And the general sentiment was no.

You know, Adley Rutschman is the type of guy who you want to put a seven on. Wander Franco's the only guy that we've ever put an 80 on. And so you can see that this tandem is just a shade below that tier. And, you know, Henderson's really, this is where like predicting versus scouting plays a role in it because Henderson is probably good enough at short right now that he's just going to start his career there every day. And like Jorge Mateo had a fine season last year, but Jorge Mateo, for most of his life as a baseball player, has been tantalizing you with the hope that he would do what he did in 2022 and not really done that. So I expect a little bit of a regression to the mean for Mateo overall.

And just think, like, Henderson's going to play shortstop. He's got 70 on base skills, huge power, and does enough at short to be there right now. Whereas Corbin Carroll probably plays left field and does basically all the same stuff. His at-bat quality is unbelievable. He's gotten so much stronger than I would have expected when he was in high school. And I loved Corbin Carroll in high school, but I thought he was like Brett Gardner, you know, like going to be really, really good high OBP guy. And now his forearms are huge and there's just way more easy power there than I would have guessed.

He had some swing and miss stuff at the top of the zone last year, but by the time Corbin was in the big leagues, like go put on the tape from that Brewers series, he's on top of 94, 95 chest high, like he's on it. So I think he's starting to adjust to that. And his levers are so short that he, like he gets to wait on that. Like he's, And his levers are so short that he gets to wait on that. It's easier for him to get on top of that pitch than someone who's long like Ellie. And so the degree of confidence in Carroll's on-base skills and how much power playability there's going to be, it's roughly the same as Gunner's, but Alec Thomas exists.

And is just a little bit better in center field than Corbin who can't really throw. So Corbin's probably going to go to left field vacated by David Peralta and predicting him to be left field versus Gunner at shortstop is enough to just go, eh, give me Gunner then, I guess. Right? Like that's, you know, when we're talking about guys with the same grade, you really are kind of splitting hairs, but that's the type of hair I'm

splitting. I'm curious, you know, you mentioned talking to folks about sort of moving guys up and down and who belonged where. Who moved the most in both directions for you? Like who came in, you know, pretty high and ended up falling a spino aside? And who really benefited from, you know, talking it through with scouts and data folks and whatnot? Yes. Great question. So Tess and I, we sliced the 55 future value tier off the top of the list at the onset. And we just organized all those guys lined up. Doesn't matter position, age, nothing like we were just, let's manicure this. And then below that in the 50 future value groupings, which included at the time, like many more players, right? We want to put many more names in front of people as we're talking through this, then we're going to ultimately need and cut a bunch of guys off the

bottom. But we're grouping those guys basically below 40th overall by like their phenotype like here are the high probability corner bats in the upper minors here are the high probability like fourth starter types who are plug and play number fours on a good team here are the extreme variance guys like in groups together so that we have, you know, our sources talk through them in, within those groups earlier on during the list making process, right? So we want to then line up the guys who are of similar type and then start to mush them together. So in the high upside, like high variance group, this is your guys who are like big time power projection. They're 6'2 and lean and really young and explosive bat speed, but maybe they have swing and miss stuff, right? Like this is the

group that was Marco Luciano and Zach Veen at some point and O'Neal Cruz at some point and Aaron Judge at some point. That group this year included Miguel Blais with the Boston Red Sox, who totally lit up the complex in 2022. This is your, boy, look at this guy's bat speed. Look how much room he has to add strength. He's fast enough that even if he things, when he was an injury-prone mid-level minor leaguer upon first signing, was this guy swings at everything. And he kind of swings at everything because he does destroy everything, doesn't he? And Bo Bichette was the same way, where you're scared of the approach, but oh my goodness,

like look at all this bat speed. And so Blaise, as we dug into the data on him, it confirmed how explosive the visual evaluation was. And I think most teams will tell me that the visual evaluation in amateur baseball, especially high schoolers and junior college and at the lower levels of the minors, is just better at predicting than a data-driven model. Like, the guys are still developing so much at that time. So the data here, though, does really support the visual evaluation and maybe even amplifies it because of the quality of this guy's contact is like insane. So yeah, like he was one where he

was part of that group and people, he was maybe in the middle of that high upside group. And people were telling him like, telling us, you know, to move him up and up. And then at some point with some of my last couple of phone calls, people who I trust the most and talk through this type of stuff with, like they're the hammer for the list. They were like, yeah, do that. It seems like if you're bouncing him off of the high school hitters who go in the top five of a draft, he belongs there. And maybe is like the best of, you know, top three, top five type high school hitters who have been drafted up there the last couple of years. So he's definitely the one who really moved up during the course of the process.

And then the guys who moved down the most are probably guys who fell off. So we're talking about like Dylan Dingler with Detroit, like guys who something was exposed in Dingler's case. This was an athletic college catcher and maybe some of this stuff will develop because there's a lot of athleticism and stuff like that. And I'm into that. But then he struck out so much

and it's just like, all right, well, can't do this anymore. Brennan Davis with the Cubs, you know, just hurt a ton, back stuff, swing and miss issues when he's he's healthy like scary enough to kind of move him off um which sucks like we love brennan davis yeah like really really like him and want him to succeed like he's a high school kid from my backyard all the area scouts love him and his mom like you know people love this kid and it sucks. Then like Marco Luciano,

some of the same stuff. He's had back stuff, had a stress fracture. It has kind of cropped up again. He's been limited this spring. His timeline is going to be delayed. It's been a bunch of that type of thing the last couple of years and just medium performance. Bat speed's still there, but you watch him swing and it's like, boy, that's sort of center cut through the middle third of the zone and that's it. Like maybe that's the back that's limiting that or that's just what his feel for contact is. So he's another one who fell considerably. I want to say that Luciano was like 18th at the end of the year. We're still just hoping, you know, ah, the back stuff and look at this bat speed. He's so young. But then he went to winter ball, got hurt again. And so time to slide him. That whole group towards

in the 90 overall area is mostly distressed in some way. You've got Ronnie Mauricio with the Mets. His approach is scary. Daniel Espino, we talked about. Noel V. Marte. The Mariners really pumped him, didn't they? And then were happy to trade him. So yeah, his folly look was pretty rough. Brady House has had back stuff.

Luciano has had back stuff and performed just okay. And then Mason Miller with Oakland has monster stuff, but like a long injury track record. All of that group is, you can see, this is how we're trying to think about it and line guys up is through thought exercises like that. This might be a similar question. I saw in your text chat, you were asked by someone who's underrated or overrated online. And you said, I'm not online enough to know anymore, basically, which is probably a healthy existence. But because other top 100 lists have come out from other outlets, BA and BP and Keith and Kylie, et cetera, you probably don't study those lists that closely when you're making your own, but I wonder if you have any sense of who you're significantly higher or lower on than the consensus of other prospect rankers, or I suppose the industry as a whole, other than

someone like Espino where you had more information because you released your list a little later. Right. Yeah. So to an extent, I am aware of some of that. I am conscious about like feedback loops and like herding and stuff that impacts like polling, which is a small part of the pie of what I'm doing, right? I am asking people what they think of this analysis that I've done like through a combination of visual scouting and like breaking down data. And so like I am avoidant. The place that honestly like it becomes clear is like in today's chat where the questions I have about a certain number of like players indicates who I am higher or lower on than most of the rest of the industry. So number one, I think it's Harry Ford.

And I know that Mariners fans, they seem very passionate about their team's prospects, which I understand and appreciate. And so they want them to be very good. And Harry Ford, I like a lot. Like Harry Ford for the last year and a half plus at the site has been in my 45 plus future value tier, which is right behind the top 100. Like the list of guys who have a chance to make a huge leap within top 100, like the list of guys who have a chance to make a huge leap

within the 100, but are risky or for whatever reason. So with Harry Ford, it's his defense, right? And that was the question in high school as well is, can this guy actually catch? well is can this guy actually catch and the answer is still no he might be able to but right now no definitely not like it is not in a good place right now some aspects of it are good like his arm is unbelievable yeah and so that gives him the shot to stay back there but and you know he'll catch for the the great britain team in the wbc so people can watch this his receiving is like nowhere near where it has to be during the qualifiers for the wbc and some of the guys from great britain are like pro arms and some of them are not and so like there's there's an example from that qualifier where like

a guy hangs a 75 mile an hour curve ball. It is like up above the zone. And Harry Ford is late getting his glove there, like such that he almost misses that pitch entirely. And it's like stuff like that. When you just watch him play defense, it is not ready. And it's like stuff like that when you just watch him play defense, it is not ready. And it is far enough away from being ready that I am not ready to move him into the 100. Now, there's a lot of stuff to like about this guy. As I said, Harry Ford has huge raw power for a guy his age. They have made some changes to his defense. He is like catching on a knee now, which he wasn't doing in high school.

He was like a really high, like for a guy who's 5'10", his crouch was so high. And you know, you could see where the questions about him playing back there came from. Just look at the angle of his hamstrings relative to the ground,

and then look at Yadier Molina's, and they're not the same. Harry Ford's almost standing upright back there in his crouch. He's a tightly wound guy. He's way more explosive than he is athletic and limber in that. He's built like a bodybuilder, but Alejandro Kirk, who's built like John Candy, has something closer to the type of flexibility and catching athleticism that actually plays back there. And, you know, if I thought Harry Ford was just going to be like a six bat, six power guy, then fine. Like I wouldn't care where he plays, but I think it's important that he stays up the middle of the diamond, given what I think the hit power combo is going to be.

And right now it doesn't look that way. So not ready to move in yet to totally see how he gets there. He seems like a great young guy who can will himself into being a catcher through motivation, right? But until he's receiving better, I don't feel compelled to move him. So he's one. Again, great prospect. Right. Like a 45 plus is not like a bad player.

Right, right. Right. No, like a 40, any of these guys. Right. If you're a 40, you're Mike Brasso. That's good but you're just like playing a small role like you're below average defender you right-handed crush lefties like it's a limited you have limited utility but like you still take a role this chapman deep in

like the biggest moment you know what i mean so anyway evan Evan Carter with Texas. I like Evan Carter. Great soft skill guy. On base percentage, above average center field defense. The hit tool's fine. And the OBP's going to be big. Just like not projecting on the power there. Don't see the sort of wind him up athleticism that i do with like a miguel blaise or even like kevin alcantara or uh junior caminero carson williams guys like this who have monster bat speed but brandon nimmo is really good right right so evan carter is walking that path. Brandon Nimmo had like a star level season and got paid on balance for his career.

He's been a little bit, he's been below that in terms of, you know, the way he's performed. But, you know, he's, Brandon Nimmo is like more like a 50, maybe a 55 overall career wise, even though like his, he's peaked above that as you know this type of hitter the obp driven guy contact you know tends to do nikki lopez had a four win season or something like that like he's probably not like doesn't mean he's a six so yeah like i like evan carter i think it's way more like skills over tools and that the ceiling is limited and so i have him as a 50. And I think based on like the comments in the chat that like other people have him super duper stuffed and he's young and he's six, four and all that, but I just don't see the same level of explosion there as some of the guys who I think have a chance to really super duper pop. And as I shuttled the list around, Evan Carter wasn't on

the initial iteration of it. And the feedback wastled the list around, Evan Carter wasn't on the initial iteration of it, and the feedback was mixed as to whether or not he belonged at all. So I feel pretty comfortable about where he's at, but that's definitely one where I seem to have departed from the others. Were there any cases where new rules changes came into play as you were deciding whether to rank someone, even if it's the ball being deader or positioning restrictions or the pickoff stuff affecting the running game or the potential for robo-umps or a challenge system, et cetera? Has any of that risen to the point where you might've bumped someone up or down because of how that could affect their outlook?

For sure, I've thought about it. Towards the end of last year, I felt free to move in the defensive shortstops who I thought were special there, even if it was pretty light offense into the 50 tier. So that would be Bryce Terang with Milwaukee, Joey Ortiz with Baltimore, Michael Garcia with the Royals was in there for a while. And then as I lined him up with all these other shortstops,

the Perazas and Tovars of the world, his physicality I thought was like a level below, such that there's going to be no power. And he moved off. But yeah, I do think I'm interested to see how the second base position now evolves and what the players who end up there consistently start to look like. I don't think that we will see the Max Muncy, Mike Moustakis types there as often anymore, but I still think teams want to find a way for the premium hitters who are relatively positionless to like get into the lineup. Maybe we will start to see them move around more to be hidden to like where the ball is least likely to be hit that day, depending on who like the starter is and like all kinds of other stuff, I bet. But you know, I also wonder

if some of these pull only dudes just, you know, I also wonder if some of these pull-only dudes, just, you know, the fact that you can't shift them anymore means that we get more bulky, Max Muncy, Mike Moustakis type guys. Yeah. Because you can't shift them. Right. Yeah.

So I don't know how the dust is going to settle on that. You know, so as far as the pick-off stuff and the pitch clock, and I think it's always been a good idea to just bet on the well-composed, and I mean that in a bodily sense, athletes on the mound as starters. Even when some of the stuff that we care about analytically now is suboptimal, to just bet on guys who are built like and throw a baseball the way Sandy Alcantara does. It's a stinker, okay, but look at him do it and just keep projecting. I think with the pitch clock, the sort of stamina and mechanical efficiency that it's going to take to operate at that pace and maintain your stuff. Means that guys like that are going to be even, like the emphasis should be placed even more on guys like that. So like on this year's prospect list, that's

Painter and Uri Perez and Brandon Fott and Mick Abel and Taj Bradley. And maybe Gavin Stone is too low on my list. Like really athletic. You know, who's been in on guys like this? The Braves in the draft room, Seth Keller, Owen Murphy, Spencer Strider, where it's just like, holy cow, look how powerful this guy's lower body is. Look how low to the ground he's getting. Some of that is helping the approach angle of the fastball, but some of it is also an indication of athleticism. You have to be athletic to have you Darvish's delivery, right? So, you know, I think that even more in a traditional scouting sense is an important thing to continue to look for.

I don't know how the base running stuff is going to, that's going to be interesting, how the stolen base stuff really, what happens there, I have no idea. But 75% success rate against big league catching, that's tough. The guys who end up playing there are Martin Maldonado. You know, it's not,

we have more Maldonados than we do JSOs and Ryan Domitz. So good luck because those guys can really throw. Jan Gomes, man, like Jan Gomes is going to pop like one eight. So be careful. I don't know how that stuff at the big league level is going to... I think the impact of it will be muted compared to what we saw in the minors. It's funny that you bring up Atlanta because they, along with the Royals, I believe were the only two organizations to not have any representation on the top 100, whether you're

counting the initial 100 or all of those dudes. And I can't think of two organizations that might be more diametrically opposed in terms of where they are at the big league level, but clearly have systems that aren't yielding at least 50 future value talent at this point. But I wonder if there were other systems that struck you as you were assembling the list. I know that we kind of weighted some of our early list publication toward organizations we knew would have heavy representation in the 100. But were there other orgs that kind of surprised you either with depth or with the lack thereof? Yeah, that's a good question. Atlanta, it happens because they just say to their guys basically, we think you're great, go.

And they do not mess around. So Strider, right away, go. Harris, we're not effing great, go. And they do not mess around. So Strider, right away, go. Harris, we're not effing around, go. Vaughn Grissom, you know, so they have no compunction to just rocket guys through. And the fact that the Braves don't have a top 100 guy is not an indictment really of their system so much as it is like proof that

what they're doing is good because they had as many good rookies last year as they did i think that atlanta's that's one where like i wish i i live i wish i lived live in florida to see what the hell's going on in their backfields? How are they? They're definitely doing good stuff over there, I think. Robbie Grossman's swing changed not long after they got him anyway. So, yeah, Kansas City, you're right. Some of that is like Bobby Witt and those guys were up. Right. Some of it's good.

Some of it is good. But the way the pitching plateaus when it goes to Kansas City is a big part of why there's not a big top end here. They've also had some of the international stuff they've done. Eric Pena, Candelario, Wilman Candelario. That's even, who's the guy who they had last year too? The whole group coming over internationally from them has not really, it's not, they don't pan out. So Suli Matias, right?

So some of that's happening. Colorado, Colorado gets ripped on a lot. And I think to some point, you know, their mascot isn't the only dinosaur-like thing happening in Colorado. It's kind of funny that their mascot is a dinosaur. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, based on whether or not, you know, I'd be surprised if Dick Monfort thought dinosaurs existed.

Anyway, but like Colorado can scout hitters, man. Their system always seems to be, and certainly for the last couple of years, as their complex group from two seasons ago moves through the system yeah they do have a lot of good hitters and some of them weren't on the top 100 but you could make an argument for them uh warming bernabelle and adiel amador and ezekiel tovar and young kiel fernandez like they tend to find a way to have interesting hitters around. Some of them haven't worked out.

Like Ryan Velotti plateaued, stopped hitting for power in Albuquerque somehow, and now has kind of moved on. And Tyler Nevin and Colton Welker and guys like this. But they do show a pattern of successfully identifying hitters, I think. So Zach Veen is sort of floating still. I'm not a huge Benny Montgomery guy, even though, you know, PA and all that, but they do tend to be pretty flush with these hitters of note. And so I think they deserve some credit for that, for all of the criticism that they

receive for some of the other team building stuff, which I think, you know, is merited and not really getting anything out of the Nolan Arenado trade. Like that sucks. That sucks. think, you know, is merited and not really getting anything out of the Nolan Arenado trade. Like that sucks. That sucks. And you know, that's painful. So, you know, they're one of them. And then who else is like oddly deep here? Yeah. Like obviously Pittsburgh, they've been rebuilding. Baltimore system is good. Detroit. I think Baseball Perspectives had eight Oriolesoles in the top 100 you only have six why do you hate the orioles i think you had six of the top 66 which some of it was me coming off my boy colton cowsher like there was just more swing and miss during the year i was all over cowsher we were

as a group at the time test kevin and i all the draft, like super in love with Colton Couser and thought he was the guy to do what the Orioles did with. And then just, you know, the swing and miss stuff. And you really start going, eh, does this guy really have big league physicality and some of that? Yeah, like he fell out. But I think Detroit, you know, Detroit, some of it is because you can see it towards the very back of the list. I don't want to vacillate too wildly on some of these guys who have been good historically and then had kind of a down year. The Nick Yorks of the world and Jackson Jobe with Detroit who they took in the top five of 2021 draft.

He's one of those guys. And certainly when we were doing this list last year, Kevin and I did not necessarily agree about Jackson Jobe just because of how apprehensive I am about this pitching demographic. But yeah, like his breaking ball does still really look great. So, you know, he had kind of a meh year, as you might expect a teenager who's working as a starter across a pro slate of innings might but like let's see and then i'm also just on reese olsen i just think reese olsen's change up is so good that he's going to be quite good and like belongs here towards the back of the hundred i'm not you know

so i and colt keith left-handed hitter big physical guy who he told reporters here at the onset of the fall league, yeah, I weighed in at 245, I gained 30 pounds, and I'm trying to get stronger because I'm going to play third base, and maybe he's too big for third now, but boy, can he hit. And so I'm just on that Tigers group towards the back of the 100 in a way that I feel pretty strongly about. And at the onset of the process, if you would have told me that they had this many top 100 guys, maybe I would have been a little bit surprised. And they have a young infielder, Christian Santana, who you could also make an argument belongs just based on his upside.

I think, you know, maybe you've already answered this question in a way, but who did you have the most fun evaluating in this top 100 cycle? Like, who was the guy where you're like wow like look at this guy yeah some of it is just watching sedan rafaela play defense and just be like yeah it's an 80 he's an 80 center fielder he's been playing center field for like two years and already is this good like let's sure if any of these guys is an AD up the middle defender, it's probably going to be this guy. So that was a lot of fun.

And then, you know, watching, watching Pekra Armstrong play defense is a similar experience. Watching Jackson Merrill hit for six weeks in the fall league was also as close as I can come to a religious experience, I think. That was really wonderful. And to be able to do that for such a prolonged period of time was a real treat. I'll never get to do that again with someone like that.

If he becomes the player I think he's going to be, I'll just, you know, the most I'll ever be able to see him is like three consecutive games in some big league series. So that was nice. And then, yeah, like just the guys who have like a crazy skill. So like Edouard Julien with the twins, whose play discipline is ridiculous. He's another fall leaguer. Yeah, any of that stuff where he was just like spitting on everything

and then destroying whatever he decided to swing at was a big deal. And then I have my cheese balls who I saw on the complex and I'm just in. That's, you know, Sammy Zavala with the Padres who I'm just betting, like this guy's field hit is so real, I'm in, even though he's a teenager in low A. Yidi Kape with the Marlins, who I saw in April on their backfield and was like, why is this guy down here? And Khalil Watson is with the low A team. This guy seems more advanced than Watson. And so, yeah, Yidi Kape's got that look where it's like, boy, you'd probably be a nickel corner if you grew up playing football.

But you're a Cuban shortstop who I'm watching through a chain link fence in Jupiter. So yeah, like going – turning over rocks in the backfields and coming away confident in guys like that. Speaking of the Rockies, guys, it took restraint not to put Dion Jorge on the top 100, who, you know, another Cuban prospect who defected at a time when most of the money from the international class that he would first be eligible to sign in was already committed. And so he like waits a year plus to sign for something closer to, you know, what he believes he's worth. And, you know, at least in that market where bonuses are what they are. And so it's sort of a delay that, you know, Jorge is only in the DSL now, as opposed to having been on the complex or even at low way at his age and Cape as well, where Cape is 20 and spent the whole year on the complex,

and some of the other 20-year-olds that I'm evaluating him against were aggressively pushed to like high A at some point. But I still want to bet on this guy's baseball-y-ness. He can play shortstop. His body looks like that. His field to hit is that good. But I have to, like, draw a logical conclusion and slide him behind some of these other Kevin Alcantaras and Alex Ramirez's who are his age and have performed

at a level or two ahead. Well, my final question is about a guy who isn't on the top 100, although he is on the board, and that is Noah Song, who we learned today has been discharged and is reporting to the Phillies complex. I think they have until opening day to add him to the 40-man roster, so they don't have to make a move right away, but he faces a steep challenge as a Rule 5 selection because he, in theory, if he's not going to be returned, has to be on the 26

man the whole season so what should philly fans expect at this point because it's been quite a while since we've seen noah song pitch anywhere let alone in like a competitive environment yeah so obviously we don't know but it's impossible for me to do this at scale right where you're really evaluating everyone's makeup and personhood and all that stuff. And like, just the fact that this guy was at a military academy doesn't automatically make me think like,

he must be a great person. But Noah Song seems like if anyone has kept himself in the type of shape and like physical condition who stayed sharp while being away from baseball for a couple of years, I bet it's this guy. I bet it's this guy. And what I saw from Noah Song last, when he was at Navy and then with Team USA, as they got tuned up for a Premier 12 tournament in Asia here in Arizona, that team had Wyatt Mills, Joe Adele. It was pretty stacked. And Noah Song was like touching 101 with a wipeout slider for that team. At Navy, the game that I watched them pitch

in Annapolis against Lehigh and Levi Stout, who the Mariners drafted and then traded to the Reds as part of the Luis Castillo deal, That game was over in like an hour 45 because both of those guys were nails that day. I have Noah Song's entire outing from that day up on the Fangraphs YouTube. That's what it looked like. It's 93 to 96. He's working with real pace.

All of his secondary pitches are good. He is kind of relievery looking. I thought without the the naval commitment and what that did to kind of cloud his status at that time that he was probably just the best or the second best college pitcher in that draft class yeah that he would have gone somewhere in that 10 to 20 range had he been free and clear to just be a pro baseball player right away. Philly should do everything they can to keep this guy around. If he looks at all competent in like a relief role by the end of spring training, incompetent in like a relief role by the end of spring training they just have to do it they just have to find a way to keep him there because of what it might be if you keep him for the year and then can maybe take a step back and develop him as a starter like you could theoretically

slowly increase his innings over time single single inning relief, multi-inning relief starter, because that role is just a more acceptable, that multi-inning relief role is just more acceptable now. If you keep him on the roster all year, then you get all his option years and all of that, the roster flexibility that he doesn't have right now as we're sitting here. He's got to stay on the roster, right? But I think it's worth it to try to, you know, if he can even be a low leverage reliever from the jump, like just find a way to keep him on the roster at all costs because of what this guy looked like before he had to serve in the Navy. because of what this guy looked like before he had to serve in the Navy. I'm super excited by it. Like I cannot wait to see how he looks.

I'm so, I'm maybe more excited to see this than any other aspect of spring training, except for maybe that last, the last weekend of minor league spring training, when everyone is tuned up for like opening day and that last like saturday or sunday of minor league spring training every number one starter at every level throws and you were just flying around the backfields to catch three innings of every single affiliate as many affiliates number one guy as you can get. Other than that day, whatever Noah song is capable of doing is like number two on my list. All right.

Well, we will link to where you can find the top 100 slash top one 12 at Fangraphs, as well as the Fangraphs chat on the website about the top 100. If that isn't quite enough prospect talk for you, you can get some more on Fangraph's audio later this week, where Eric will be talking to Tess Ruskin about the rankings. And I guess I can say you can still follow Eric on Twitter. You shouldn't probably. He wouldn't even tell you to, but you can until he deletes his account, which shockingly

hasn't happened yet. It is still active at Langenhagen. And you did do a retweet six months or so ago. So you never know when it'll spring back to life and some sort of proclamation will usher forth. So thanks as always, Eric, for your hard work on the evaluations and for talking about them with us. Well, thanks for having me again, guys. And I look forward to seeing you out there. Ben, I don't know the next time that we'll run into each other, but I hope it's soon. Me too.

All right, we will close with the Pass Blast, which comes from 1972 and from David Lewis, who is an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. And this is going to come full circle back to a baseball book. This is baseball book themed again. 1972 was the release of The Boys of Summer, classic baseball book. So David writes, Kahn has a hit with The Boys of Summer. 1972 saw the release of Roger Kahn's now classic baseball book, The Boys of Summer. In it, Kahn recounts the history of the mid-1950s Brooklyn Dodgers, including the 1955 World Series champion squad. The book was met with rave reviews upon release.

Editor Jim Korkven of the Kenosha, Wisconsin News wrote, a good book about sports is a rarity. Rude. But Roger Kahn's The Boys of Summer about the Brooklyn Dodgers is one that borders on literature. Sportsbooks, you know, they always tend to be discounted as literature, but maybe it was more true 50 plus years ago than it is now. And Kahn's book, David continues, complete with lines of poetry quoted throughout, certainly did blur the lines between baseball and literature. The way he describes Ebbets Field in the first pages of the book exemplifies his skill with words, quote, Ebbets Field in the first pages of the book exemplifies his skill with words, quote, Ebbets Field was a narrow cockpit built of brick and iron and concrete alongside a steep cobblestone slope of Bedford Avenue. Two tiers of grandstand pressed the

playing area from three sides and in thousands of seats, fans could hear a ballplayer's chatter, notice details of a ballplayer's gait, and at a time when television had not yet assaulted illusion with the zoomar lens, you could actually see the actual expression on the actual face of an actual major leaguer as he played. You could know what he was like. Now more than 50 years removed from its original publication, The Boys of Summer continues to be heralded as one of the greatest baseball books ever written. And I had the pleasure of reading The Boys of Summer, I think back when I was in grade school. So I don't remember it that specifically, but I remembered enjoying it at the

time. I think there were some anecdotes in there because it was kind of oral history-ish that may have not risen to the same high standards as Henry Aaron's dream when it comes to accuracy. But then again, that was decades before baseball reference. So I guess we can kind of give kind of pass there. However, Jackie Robinson was in the book. So if I had been going to school now in Duval County, I don't know whether I would have been able to read The Boys of Summer, whether they would have left that one on the shelves. I guess it's for a slightly older age group as not a picture book. Anyway, I found it edifying and it increased my affection for baseball at the time. So based on my vague

but warm memories of the book, I would also give that one that qualified recommendation too. All right, just to follow up on an intro topic, I did reach out to MLB about the Florida book question and the league did not offer an on-the-record comment on the matter. However, I was hip to the fact that when Rob Manfred was in Florida last week, he was asked about this by Mark Topkin, who covers the Rays for the Tampa Bay Times. And I didn't see this because it was buried in a one-paragraph item within a larger story about the raised ballpark options. But it said, Manfred told the Times his office has spoken with DeSantis and the elementary school level books about baseball stars Henry Aaron and Roberto Clemente that were pulled from Duval County schools as part of a state-led review process have been approved and are being restored. And one other follow-up slash correction on episode 1968 when we were talking about position players pitching.

I said that last season the position player pitchers had started the season doing not terribly and then progressively gotten worse. In fact, I had that reversed. They actually improved every month. They started the season doing terribly and then finished it merely lousy, which probably doesn't really mean anything, but just wanted to note that I had gotten the direction of the trend wrong and was reminded of that by Baseball Perspectives' Rob Maines, who had written about that for BP. We'll have another preview pod for you at the end of the week.

That one will be the Phillies and the Orioles. So that's something to look forward to. And in the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild 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. Help us stay ad-free and get themselves access to some perks. Andrew Ciccarelli, Brennan Kyson, Aaron P., Miles Schockner, and Derek Solberger. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for Patreon supporters,

as well as monthly bonus episodes, one of which we will be recording this coming weekend. You also get access to playoff live streams and computer games and discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships and other goodies. And if you are a Patreon supporter, you can contact us via the Patreon site. If not, you can still email us at podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can also 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. And you can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWpod. We don't tweet a ton either, but we do retweet much more often than Eric Long and Hagen. You can also find the Effectively Wild subreddit at

r slash effectively wild. Thanks to Dylan Higgins for his editing and production assistance. And we will soon be back to bring you one more episode before the end of the week. Talk to you then. And for now, I will leave you with a song that I heard when I took Jesse to see Billy Joel for Valentine's Day, one of Billy's baseball songs. Whoa, me, I'm trying just to get to second base And I'd steal it if she only gave the sign.

Whoa. She's going to give the go-ahead. The inning isn't over yet for me.