Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 1988: The 2023 Team Fun Draft

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the joy of Opening Day and other news, including early reactions to the new rules, Rob Manfred’s comments about the ball-strike challenge system, Aaron Judge’s first homer, the Angels’ Tungsten Arm game, a good/bad Hunter Renfroe no-look catch, a Taylor Ward name mix-up, the Giants’ latest new left […]

🎵 You might hear something you never heard before Hello and welcome to episode 1988 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Rowley of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello. What a glorious opening day. Wasn't it wonderful? It was really nice. It was the first ever opening day with all 30

teams in action, and I just drank it in from the fire hose. It was really, really nice. It felt good. It felt good to be back. Not even a new Boy Genius album could make me sad on that day. It was that good. I haven't listened yet, but I... Also good.

Yeah, it's in the queue. It's in the queue. Well, unfortunately, the day after opening day, because teams build in some slack in the schedule in case of weather-related postponements, not quite as many teams in action. So you can listen to Boy Genius and be sad. But for now, we're happy because it was a great opening day. A lot to discuss. And I think it

was generally a success for the new version of Major League Baseball, right? Rules changes wise, I think you'd have to say that things went pretty well, that the rules had their intended effects. Not a surprise if you've been paying attention to spring training, but I think we saw reduced game times, obviously. We saw 2.45 was the average game time. We saw 14 total pitch clock violations, so less than one per game. Seems manageable for the first day of the season. And 23 stolen bases. Actually, 23 attempts and 21 successes, which is, they're both a lot. Those are both very high

numbers. So I think all around, it was pretty much what Rob Manfred wanted. And while I'm not always happy about him getting what he wants, I think in this case, it worked out pretty well. Still don't really know what to make of shift restrictions and positioning and what the effects of all those things will be. But the other changes so far, so good, I'd say. Yeah, I think we don't want to overreact to one game, one day's worth of games, you know, the appropriate amount of restraint, you know, because this was 15 games, you know, this is 15. This is not, Ben, I'm here to tell you,

it's not very many compared to how many they will play in the course of this season, but. It's really not. It's 0.6%, I think. So. Right. But I think more important than just the pure time of game, I know that is a sort of been achieved for the most part. And so that was really nice. I appreciated, you know, clearly all of the broadcasts were going to have to talk about the rule changes. It would be silly for them on the first day of the season to not do that because, you know, people's mileage with spring training can be can really vary and so while it seems impossible kind of that like that there would be folks who wouldn't know anything about the rule changes i bet there were still some low information baseball consumers yesterday

but i think one of the things i appreciated in addition to how you know the games just felt like they moved and there was a natural dynamism to them. You know, some of which was probably it being opening day and us all being excited, but like it felt like they were kind of zipping along was also that the pitch clock was not obtrusive. You know, we knew going into the regular season that unlike in spring training, like we weren't going to see the pitch clock on the broadcast. And, you know, I know that a lot of broadcass are still sort of sorting through how they want to display it in terms of the score bug and if they want to have it on screen and whatnot, but it didn't, it didn't seem like it was there for most of it, you know? And so I, I'm, I'm quite optimistic.

Yeah. I'm, I'm not here to say we got to hand it to him, but I am here to say that this might end up being a moment and a sort of off season and regular season that we look back on a couple years from now and say, you know, baseball really grappled with a thing that existential threat might be strong, but that was really diminishing the average fan's enjoyment of the game. And they course corrected in a way that had an appreciable and positive impact on the way that we consume the sport. And I think we, you know, we're, we're captured like, or, or just in it for better or worse. Being a, being a marriage man and all the other nonsense hasn't broken me.

Like, I'm just in it now. Like, job or no. But I think that they have managed, at least so far, to satisfy multiple constituencies who they surely care about. They've, you know, I think largely satisfied diehards like us. Like this didn't feel rush. It felt energetic and nice. And I imagine that if you're I don't want to denigrate like average fans like that is an important population to satisfy when it comes to baseball. It feels like they've managed to sort of placate both because I suspect that if you're a person who isn't a total sicko

prepared to be strapped in for a 20 inning game, like yesterday probably felt great. I think so. Yeah, it never felt rushed to me. And really, we're talking about maybe a 10% reduction in game times, roughly, if all goes well. It's still plenty leisurely, you know, and they still play a lot of games and there's still some dead time. There's just not as much dead time. You're taking out the deadest of the dead time. And the only time I really noticed a real difference in terms of something feeling rushed was like the broadcast trying to squeeze things in like replays, for instance. I noticed that it seemed like replays were starting sooner, you know, where there might be a bit of a beat between the play and the replay and a bit of

gabbing, and then they'd get to the replay and then they'd get back. There's just not as much time for all the graphics and the replays and everything. So it seemed like they were just cutting right to the replay. And then sometimes I saw even a split screen where you cut back to the batter and then the replay is still going on. So they're still trying to figure out how to squeeze some stuff in and that's fine. And it's probably not a bad thing that there might just be fewer glitzy graphics and less razzmatazz on a broadcast because we are there for the baseball mostly. And I find that I actually do kind of like having the countdown on the screen. I found that when I don't have the countdown, I was wondering what the count was, you know,

like I was, are we almost there? Or I don't know, like I was trying to do the countdown in my head, basically, probably something that is just an opening day effect. And maybe I'll just develop the sense in my head of how long 15 or 20 seconds is and that I won't be wondering. But as it was, it was like I was in suspense or I was feeling kind of anxious if I was not seeing the pitch clock. It was like, how many seconds do we have left? Is there about to be a violation? I don't know. But generally, I really like it. And I was almost surprised by how much I like it because I don't really like countdowns in other entertainments or time limits on things. Like when I play video games, for instance, I tend to enjoy timed levels less.

It depends on the game, obviously, and sometimes you need that tension and that constraint. But I just kind of want to roam around and explore. you need that tension and that constraint. But I just kind of want to roam around and explore. And there are a lot of games like, I don't know, like Majora's Mask, the Zelda game, which a lot of people love, but it was not one of my favorite Zelda games because you're on this three-day cycle and you're always feeling like, oh boy, I'm running out of time and it's going to start over again. Or I liked the game. Yeah, I know this is very relatable to you or like the old Dreamcast or Xbox games, Jet Set Radio, where it's like a cel-shaded sort of skater game with cool music. And in the first game for Dreamcast, there is a time limit and you're always rushing around. And then in the sequel for Xbox, there was no time limit.

It was very leisurely and you could just skate around, grind on the rails, and it was great. I find that when I'm playing a game, I don't want to be rushed. And I think players feel the same way. They didn't want to be rushed, right? So when you're participating in the thing, then you feel some resistance to being rushed, and you feel some anxiety, and you want to take all the time in the world. But as a spectator, I think it's nice to know that you're keeping things moving a little bit. It's not too intrusive. It's not too heavy handed. It's just maintaining a nice cadence. And there are many more people who are watching these games than there are playing in them. So I do think we have to privilege the spectators who ultimately are funding this exercise, which is not to say

that we disregard what the players want, but I think also the players are getting on board. I think they are mostly fine with it or about to be fine with it. And it's not surprising that there was some initial resistance. Yeah, I think that it was something that there was a fair amount of context for the players coming into spring training because there were so many guys on these rosters or who were NRIs or whatever who had had experience with an aspect of these

rule changes, right? Particularly the pitch clock. And they had a month and I think a lot of them like took seriously the notion that they were going to have to adapt to this thing. Like they, seriously the notion that they were going to have to adapt to this thing. Like they, this wasn't going to go away just by resisting it. You couldn't wait it out. And I think, you know, they, they figured this stuff out. And so because the players like understood that this wasn't going to go anywhere, they bought in, in the way that they needed to. And yeah, it's, it's sort of inherently fan friendly. And I, I, I like how many guys sound like they're like, this is an opportunity for us to have some strategy or to, you know, do something funny or whatever. I'm going to figure, I'm going to figure out the

wrinkles of this in a way that seems enthusiastic rather than sort of resistant or even resign. So, yeah, you know, I, again, like two thumbs up? Feels weird. Feels weird. That wasn't even the only good positive news about rules changes because Rob Manfred, again, just a couple days of winning for Mr. Manfred here. Well, he... Relax.

I know. He still used the zombie runner. But he made some comments about the future of the automated strike zone that Evan Drellick wrote about at The Athletic. And I would say it was good news. It was what you want, what we want, I think. And he highlighted, I'll read his quote here. He was talking about whether he's favoring the full automated ball strike system or the challenge system. And he said, number one, there is a body of the MLBPA unit. They refer to them as framing catchers that kind of make their living in the major leagues on the ability to frame pitches. catchers that kind of make their living in the major leagues on the ability to frame pitches. And, you know, unions are kind of one for all. For one, I like unions, Rob said. I guess as a labor lawyer, he does need unions to be his arch enemy or something. I don't know, his foil.

Or perhaps he has developed some understanding of how his quotes play and knew that if he said, I hate unions, that's all we talk about for the next month. Yes, it's a good thing. And it's sort of a nice concept. And you have to understand that when you're making a change, and it could arguably could eliminate a certain kind of player, not a guy or two, but a certain kind of player, that's an issue. And then he went on to talk about how umpires are much better and more consistent than they used to be, etc. So it certainly sounds like he is favoring the challenge system and that even that might be a little ways away, potentially, because they still have some things to work out and how they define the zone. But it sounds like challenge system. He's saying the theory of instant replay was fix the big miss. And we decided, well, why don't we try the same theory? We'll give pitchers, catchers, and hitters all the right to challenge a pitch a certain number per game. It's a very appealing way to correct a problem or a miss in a game where it can be a high leverage situation.

So preserving framing for us and for framing catchers and also getting the most egregious calls right, sounds like a win-win. I've been making like eee and yay sounds into the mic. That's intentional. Okay. Don't take them out. That was on purpose. That was me rubbing my hands. Here it is.

Oh, I'm so excited. Here's me excited. Oh, yay. This is the best possible way to approach approach this problem i don't need to make my case again i've made my case before i'm just happy that um other people have decided to listen to me because you know i'm right about this one i'm not always right i'm not making a blanket statement but i'm i'm confident in my correctness on this particular issue. And I am excited when this eventually makes its way to the majors and people can see how it's so quick,

it's satisfying visually, it is easy to track. I think it's a winner. I really do. I think this one's a winner. And there'll be some interesting strategic and tactical implications of that, too. This article even talks about how some teams have different policies about who can signal for the challenge on a call, because some teams apparently will not let the pitcher and the hitter do it because they run too hot. They might be biased or they might be swayed by their emotions. And so only the catcher can challenge. I mean, the catcher could be into it and let their emotions get the best of them too,

I would think. But maybe they're a little less directly affected than the pitcher and the batter are. And perhaps they have a better view in some ways. So that'll be interesting. And then we'll get to see who's good at challenging and who's not and the leverage of all of that. So yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic and looking forward to that change or at least no longer dreading it the way I was. Yeah, I just, I think we can let some good stuff in. Like there's, you know,

baseball still got its problems. We're going to talk about those. But this one, we might have cracked it, Ben. We might have cracked it. Yeah. So we saw some new things that we'd never really seen before in the big leagues on opening day. And we also saw some old things recurring.

We had a Taylor Ward name confusion. Broadcasters confusing Taylor Ward. And back around to the top with the order in Turner Ward. I'm sorry, Taylor Ward. Ward struck out his first time right-hand batter. He swings and sends one high in the air foul off to the right side over the netting and out of play. I've done that, too, with Turner Ward.

Yes. He's been a hitting coach of the big leagues after his time spent on major league rosters. And this was a confusion for Turner Ward, which has happened before. I think maybe my favorite aspect of this is that the listener who tipped us off to the A's broadcast saying Turner Ward instead of Taylor Ward said Tyler Wade instead of Turner Ward, which I have done in the past when trying to relate broadcaster screw-ups. I have myself screwed up. So it's just it's impossible.

But that was one thing that I was happy to see preserved. Tyler Wade is in the A's organization, but maybe we're less likely to get the Taylor Wade, Taylor Ward. Oh, no. Oh, no. Leave it in. Confusion. I think it's good that we make these mistakes because, you know, I'd like to think, I'd like to think, Ben, that you and I, not people inclined to be big for our britches. I'd like to think

that. But I also think that most people who end up being big for their britches, you know, they don't, they don't appreciate their bigness relative to their britches, you know, they don't appreciate their bigness relative to their britches, right? They think they got it all sorted and then they end up being, you know, confident in a false way. And so, I think it's good because we need to be reminded just how fallible we are, you know? We need to know. Yeah. And another season, another new left fielder for the Giants. So that annual opening day tradition continued. This is an ancient stat blast

or perhaps at that point play index segment where we talked about the curse of Barry Bonds and how the Giants have had a new opening day left fielder every year since Barry Bonds' last year out there and the streak continued. So for the 17th straight opening day, the Giants had a different left fielder. In this case, it was Blake Sable, who was making his major league debut. So they're just calling up new

players to extend this streak. Blake Sable, who was primarily a catcher in the minors, although he's played some left before. So he extends the streak. And just to update the numbers, and Sarah Lings wrote about this too, but this streak of 17 straight seasons with a different player at any position. Padres left field streak, which ran from 2005 through 2021 and is behind only the Browns Orioles streak also in left field from 1937 to 1955. So that's 19 straight. That is the number to beat. So the Giants have to go a couple more seasons with a couple different left fielders to tie the all-time record. But that's always a nice tradition. And so you had some things that were, you know, we've seen this before, like Aaron Judge hitting a home run on his first swing of the season against the Giants painfully, which Grant Brisby predicted months ago on Twitter. So that happened and was kind of cruel,

but also kind of funny. It was loud and it went very far, Ben. Yep. And then, of course, we had a tungsten arm game. We had Shohei Otani striking out 10 A's and pitching six scoreless. And then the Angels end up losing two to one. I was just exhausted and I managed to stay awake until Otani was done pitching. And at that point, it was one nothing Angels. And I fell asleep. I took a baseball nap on the couch. And then I woke up and the Angels had lost. I was like, oh, all right. Well, I guess I should have predicted that. But, you know, it's just the old, they're playing the hits again. I'm going to confess something, Ben.

I didn't watch any of Otani yesterday. It's okay. I didn't watch any of Otani. There's a lot of baseball. And it wasn't a knock on Otani. It was that I knew we were going to talk about opening day. I knew we were going to do it. And I thought, where are we likely to double up? Ben will have that covered.

Yeah. I imagine that Ben will have watched Otani. And I am interested in watching, say, how Zach Allen fares against the Dodgers. Spoiler. Good in the beginning, then it went less well. And also, Ben, and we don't have to go into it, but it's been a month for me. It's been a hard month. And so I thought to myself, do I deserve a little treat? Yeah, I do. I'm going to watch Luis Castillo pitch for the Mariners. And he did a great job. He was very good. So I didn't see him pitch, but I did look at the score in the eighth inning. And I was like, yeah, that tracks. And I didn't think I needed to look at the box score to confirm that none of those runs were his, but I did. And I was like, yeah, you know, we're back. We're back, baby. Yep. The highlight of that game was perhaps not Otani, but the Hunter Renfro catch. I don't

know whether you saw this. If not, I can send it to you now. But this catch... I did not. Tell me. Okay. Well, I don't know whether to call it a great catch or it should have been a routine catch is the thing. And it turned into the Kevin Mitchell barehand catch was the most common comp for this. So he took a terrible route, but it went fine. The worst possible route. I mean, this was a pretty routine fly ball. It was, you know, hit on a line. It was hit fairly hard, but it should have been pretty easily catchable. And he, I mean, he turned around the wrong way.

He started running the wrong way. And then ultimately he made the catch just a no look catch. Like he just, he stuck the catch, just a no-look catch. He stuck his glove out with great timing, but 50% accident at least, and just happened to catch it without even seeing the ball into his glove. Just made a stab at it. He was giggling for the rest of the inning. Otani had a great reaction because Otani is just the most gif-able player in addition to just the best one. He just always has the most expressive reaction to

everything. And Tom Tango of StatCast fame, he made a catch probability graph using StatCast data that showed the catch probability from pitch release to catch. So this is a span of about four and a half seconds. And when the ball is hit, it was a 99% catch probability. So routine play. Then Renfro gets a slow jump. It falls to 20%. He goes in the wrong direction. It falls to 10%.

Ultimately, it looks like it bottomed out at about 5 percent because he had just gotten the worst possible jump. Then he's running the wrong way and it's just like hovering for the next couple seconds at around 10 percent. And it never really gets above 10 percent until he makes the catch when it gets to 100. So like in the last half second, it goes from 10% to 100% catch probability, which I don't know why this sort of thing pleases me. I mean, this is like a win probability graph, but for catch probability.

That is exactly what it is. It's a catch probability graph. I don't know why I need to see the graph, like why the graph tickles me, because I know this intuitively. Intuitively, yeah. If you had asked me to sketch what I imagined the graph would be, it would probably look very much like this, because that's the whole charm of the catch is that it looks like he's not going to

catch it, but he catches it. But for some reason, seeing this represented either statistically or graphically, it just, it thrills me. It just, it's deeply satisfying for me, which I guess is why I'm a baseball stats nerd for some reason. That just, even if it's intuitive, I like seeing it represented in graphical form with this incredible new age data that we never would have had access to. Like, this is not a case where we learned something from StatCast. This is confirming what we would have known from watching this. And yet the fact that we can represent it graphically with data, as you've noted, is Renfro's reaction to this. Because Renfro knows, right? And I appreciate that his instinct in this moment,

I mean, instinct might be overanalyzing it even, but that his reaction in this moment is not one of like, I had that the whole way. He clearly knows, like, I took a terrible route to that ball. That could have been so embarrassing for me, but instead's awesome and they're gonna play this over and over again like all of that is written on his face he knows that he was gonna be on a highlight reel with this one way or the other and one way was gonna be him looking completely ridiculous for having biffed this and the other way is what we got, right? So there's that. And then I love, I love Otani's reaction, not just because like, you know,

you're right. He's very gif-able, but there is, there's versatility in this reaction, right? Because where it ended is arms up, outstretched, you know, excited. Hey, you did it. But what this could have very easily gotten to, right? What it could have very easily been. And he probably wouldn't have paused to do it because the ball would have been in play. Like, you know, stuff would have been happening. They would have had to react to it.

And he's not a jerk, but it could have very easily been Morgan, Morgan. Yeah. I'm sorry, Morgan Sword. Your name is just going to be, this is how I'm interacting with your name and these moments just going forward. It could have been, Morgan, what are you doing out there? Morgan. You know?

Could have been that. I know Hunter Renfro's name doesn't include Morgan anywhere. I know that. I'm just delighted I didn't think this was Mike Trout. Also, I'm both more and less worried about mistaking Hunter Renfro for Mike Trout than I used to be. Because on the one hand, you look at him and you're like, that could just be Mike Trout. It could just be Mike. I mean, not in this moment, maybe. But also, the facial hair is, he seems like he has an easier time growing facial hair than Mike Trout. Yeah, it's not one of Mike Trout's many tools, I would say.

No, and he sometimes ends up with facial hair, and it's a little bit patchy. And look, like, your hair is your hair. It's fine. But you're right, it's not one of his tools. So, yeah, Yeah. Wow. Would you call this a great catch? Can we say it's a great catch? No.

See, the catch itself, I mean, a lot of it was just sheer luck. I would call it a lucky catch. Yeah. There was obviously skill involved. Like, he's anticipating some aspect of, like like when the ball is going to go by him. And like the fact that he was not looking at the ball, that does make it impressive because he was facing in a different direction. And he kind of anticipated roughly where it would be in space and when. And he stuck his glove out there.

So it's not like complete luck. And the catch itself is great. If you start the play like half a second before he made the catch, then it's a great catch. If you start the timer four seconds before, then it's, well, you could call it a great catch. It's not a great play because it should have been a routine play. So I don't know exactly what to call it. I think you could say that the catch is good, but the play is, I don't know. It's not impressive that he caught it, but it's impressive how he caught it. I just think that it is so interesting how many of these highlight catches are only gifted to us because of a terrible mistake early on. Yeah.

Right? And the same is true of some impressive throws, right? Like, I don't want to denigrate you on a cesspitus, but look, you don't have to get bailed out by your arm if you get to the bone center. I'm just saying. Yeah, no, that's true. Like, no one's going to look at this play and think, oh, Hunter Renfro is an amazing outfielder. No, definitely not.

They're going to think Hunter Renfro is a lucky outfielder who might be distantly related to Mike Trout. Yeah, right. He's not a bad outfielder, to be clear. He's okay. He's okay. Yeah, but I think there are players who end up making a lot of diving catches, let's say, and they do get inflated reputations because you don't know where they started and you don't get to see what kind of jump they got. And you just saw that they made this incredible athletic dive, which is an aspect of skill and fielding. But also someone else would have just caught it at their shoestrings or not

even, right? So, you know, or same thing in the infield, if someone has to make some amazing dive or jump throw or whatever to get to that. And meanwhile, someone else would have made it look routine, which it was. So this is an extreme example, but a fun one nonetheless. Anyway, there was just, there was a lot to drink in. And because we've been deprived of real regular season Major League Baseball for some time, everything is inflated in how fun and noticeable and noteworthy it is on opening day, but that's okay. That's part of the joy of it. And my wife discovered Buck Martinez on this opening day because I was watching the Jays game, which was really fun.

The Jays-Cardinals game was great and back and forth. But she heard Buck Martinez from the other room, and she thought that I was watching something with an animated character of some sort. And then she discovered that he is a real man, a human man, who sounds like that. And just sounds like the Hank Azaria Simpsons broadcaster voice or like Brockmire, but like even more so. So that's a real thing. That's a real person who sounds like that. It's great. I'm so glad because during the World Baseball Classic, the number of times that I was just parroting Buck Martinez back to him, he sounds like he's swallowing words while he's saying them. That's a big part of it, you know?

And it led me to think, like, where is he from? And do people from Redding, California normally talk like that? Like, is this a Redding accent? And I don't believe that it is. It is. Like, there's like a lot of. Yep. Man, what a joy. Yeah. He was away for a while with cancer last year, and I'm glad he's back in the booth for many reasons. Yeah.

But especially so that Jesse could discover the sound of Buck Martinez. discover the sound of Buck Martinez. It is really something. My favorite thing that I have just discovered about Buck Martinez is that if you Google him and you get the little preview of his Wikipedia, because he is a color commentator for the Blue Jays, his Wikipedia spells color like Canadians do. Delightful. It's appropriate. And just a few other little things. First, the Phillies traded for Christian Pache, who did not make the A's roster, and so he was traded to the Phillies. And Bauman got a good joke in about how Brandon Walsh can't hit lefties, so the Phillies went and got someone who can't hit anyone. But I also enjoyed—do you you remember this was back in December,

RJ Anderson pointed out, and then I related this on here, that the Pirates, when they signed Austin Hedges, they had pioneered a new form of press release that entirely omitted his offensive stats, just pretended they did not exist. Didn't exist. Just great defender. That's all you need to know, folks. Well, the Pirates were trailblazers, as RJ pointed out, because the Phillies issued their Christian Pache acquisition press release with zero offensive statistics. Just all about his defensive runs saved and where he's from and how he signed, et cetera. Nothing, nothing about the fact that his job also does require him to hit much of the time. And he has not done so.

Yeah, I mean, it is, you don't want to make him feel bad, you know, as you're welcoming him into the organization. It's just factual information if you were to cite his stats, which you should, in theory, put in a press release, even though there are many other places to obtain that information. And again, I don't think you're fooling any members of the fourth estate here. You're like, wow, Philly's got this great defensive outfielder. What a steal. Just right before they swoop in, why didn't the A's want this guy? My goodness.

And didn't do any further research to see how he hits. I doubt that happens. So I don't know who this is for or whose feelings it's sparing. Is it Christian Pache? Like, is he going to see the press release somehow? I don't know. But I just, I mean, look, I'm all for frankness and accountability and putting information out there. And I wouldn't like it if teams started hiding more injury information or other things. So, you know, put the information out there, except I just, I kind of am amused by just like, let's, you know, we won't even mention this because if we were to mention it,

it would sound like an insult. Yeah. I mean, I, yeah, I think it's, you're stuck between a rock and a terrible batting average. And this is probably the least unkind way of interacting with that fact, but it is a notable sort of thing. one of which was Justin Verlander. Surprise! Justin Verlander is hurt, and he has strained the same muscle that Tristan McKenzie strained, perhaps not as severely, but, you know, not the best news

when your aged rotation that everyone was worried about breaking down has already done so to some extent. But I think probably the bigger L was that George Santos came out and celebrated the Mets opening day with just like a quintessentially Santosian message. Did you see this? Okay, I got to play the clip for the people. Hey guys, today is opening day. As a good old Mets fan, I know you guys aren't going to be playing until April 6th back home,

but in good old fashion, let's go Mets! If you did not already know that George Santos was a grifter and a fabulous, I feel like you could conclude that from this message in which he purports to be a lifelong Mets fan, which I believe he has said before. And I guess it's maybe some consolation to Mets fans that when he says one thing, he might very well mean something entirely different. So he might not be a Mets fan at all.

But just the enthusiasm he showed here as a good old Mets fan, good old Mets fan on good old fashioned opening day, just sounded like someone who has never heard or participated in a Let's Go Mets chant. Oh, yeah. Because he turned it into this sing-songy, like, let's go Mets. Like, he made Mets a two-syllable word. He did, like, the Mets, which is not how you do a Let's Go Mets. Like, it's just, that's it.

There's no intonation or, like, sonic bending of the word Mets or anything. And this is not how you say that. And of course he would come out and do it exactly like this. So I know some Mets fans, friends were like, already like we got Verlander heard and now we got George Santos coming out and wishing the Mets a happy old opening day, the old Mets on old-fashioned opening day. But I got some giggles out of this. I'm going to offer this to those Mets fans as a way of feeling better. I think you, to your point, Ben, given what we know about George Santos' relationship to the truth, which I think we might describe as estranged. I think this is actually their best possible reality because if he had come out as a Yankees fan, I would assume that he was actually secretly a Mets fan because this man seems incapable of telling the truth, even

about basic, inconsequential, easily verifiable facts of his own life and resume. So the fact that he has declared himself a Mets fan suggests to me some amount of weird political calculus on his part and not in any way an honest statement of preference. And so I think that people who really ought to be concerned here are Yankees fans, because Right. should all feel relieved and think that this guy is just like really into, I don't even want to lay this at another sports feet, you know, but, um, maybe he's just like a Knicks fan. Um, but I think that, you know, if he is aware of modern baseball, his declaration on behalf of the Mets makes me think that he's actually really

stoked for Anthony Volpe, which feels mean to put on Anthony Volpe, you know, that's not his fault. But I think the odds that he either is not, in fact, a sports fan at all or is secretly rooting for the team that calls the Bronx home, very high. But if he's not actually a baseball fan, this might be the most relatable bit of lying he has done while in public office because, you know, politicians are like, it's the start of the thing from the place that I'm from. You know, that's a time-honored tradition among politicians. But yeah, you really got to stand out with your, with your lying for people to be like,

this guy's a liar. He's in politics. Also like the, the politicians putting on the Jersey over the suit. Yeah. What is that? Come on. It's terrible is what it is.

He's got the button down shirt. He's got like, I don't know, a sweater or something or, or dress clothes. And then he has the Mets Jersey over the suit. If you're going to play at being a Mets fan, at least dress like a normal human being would going to a baseball game, not just putting it on top of your business attire. Anyway, I mean, part of his district

extends into Queens. Maybe he's just currying favor with the constituents here. I don't think his reelection hopes are looking particularly good at the moment. And I believe he has said he will not seek reelection. So I don't know that he has much incentive to curry favor with the locals in his district. But who knows what he's thinking? Maybe he just is a sincere good old Mets fan. I mean, you know, maybe, maybe. And then the other actually significant news is that there's a minor league CPA.

Yeah. That happened already. So I would say much to Michael Bauman's dismay because, of course, in our predictions game the other day, he predicted that a minor league CPA would not go into effect during this season. And in fact, it has already been ratified by the minor leaguers to get a good deal here. And again, like they've done everything stealthily, like we had no idea that there was even a union in the works until suddenly it was announced. And we weren't really clear on when there would be a CPU. Like Michael, who's obviously pretty plugged into this stuff, he thought there was a good chance that there wouldn't be a deal done

at any point this season or go into effect. And nope, it's done. And now it's just about ratified. So just kind of, you know, they've kept things quiet. Like they're like the Atlanta Braves making transaction or something. Like they report their own news. You just don't really hear it coming. But this was done, I guess, fairly quickly by the standards of these things.

And it sounds like the minor leaguers got a lot of good stuff in this deal. Obviously, they ratified it. So they're satisfied enough with it as a first CBA. And I mean, the increases in minimum salaries are massive, just like especially at the lower levels, you know, like complex leagues, rookie ball, minimum salaries going up from 4,800 to 19,800. Like the after numbers are not big, which just makes you realize yet again how small the before numbers were. But single A goes up from 11,000 to 26,000

and high A goes up from 11,000 to 27,000 and double A goes from 13,800 to 30,250 and triple A goes from 17,800 to $30,250, and AAA goes from $17,500 to $35,800. So it's big increases in minimum salaries to the point where it could almost potentially be your only job, maybe, because you're also getting free housing in most cases still, and you're also getting some improved housing and getting your own bedrooms at some level and that sort of thing. And then players, if they sign at age 19 or older, then they're under the club's control for six years instead of seven. So various important concessions there. And I guess the only significant concession on the other side, players also get some money

during spring training. They weren't paid for spring training before and they get off-season training period money too. So the only concession we're really aware of that MLB got is that they get the right to reduce minor league rosters starting in 2024. So they can't trim the number of minor league teams again during the duration of this. And I think they had already made a deal to that effect with minor league teams. But they can lower the maximum number of minor league players carried across the entire organization to 165 during the season, down from 180, and 175 in the offseason, down from 190. So they are still at least reserving the right to have there be fewer minor leaguers. But mostly, it seems like this has addressed the things that we're most in need of addressing. even with subsidized housing in Arizona and Florida, like the guys on the complexes are not going to be like rolling in and

exactly. And this isn't a salary that would make it easy to say, raise a family. So there are still difficulties here. And I think that in addition to just being a weird thing to quibble over, given how little money it ends up constituting, like the, the league's continued insistence on reducing the size of the minors is so bizarre to me because it just costs

so little and you might you might find a guy you know you might find a guy we know enough about how much we don't know about player development to think that you might find some guys um or that some org somewhere might find some guys um even if even if not every team is going to be able to take advantage of that to equal effect. So I don't want to downplay the reduction in minor leaguer reserve list piece of it because I think that that's goofy. But I also think that it's good that as the league has demonstrated a continued appetite for this, that they now can't reduce the size of the minors for at least five years. You know, there are concessions on both sides on that, but we should not let those legitimate criticisms of the landscape as it will exist after this is ratified, get in the way of us acknowledging like what a Titanic shift this is for these guys. And I think having established power as a bargaining unit, having made significant progress in this first CBA,

having secured sort of apart from the money, like basic workplace protections around, you know, being able to seek a second medical opinion, having control of your wearable tech data, having control of name, image, and likeness rights again. There are really meaningful gains to be had here, and those were secured. So I think that, like I said, I don't want to downplay the pieces of it that are still suboptimal. Being a minor leaguer is still going to be quite hard. And it is going to be better than it has been at any point in the history CBA, everything that the league agreed to, will cost around $90 million the first year. That's distributed across the entire league, 30 teams, right? So that's $3 million per team. That's not a lot in the grand scheme of things for these teams.

I mean, even their annual operating budgets, let alone the worth of the franchises. And that was always the point that Russell Carlton and others would make when he would try to calculate what will it cost to improve conditions in the minors. And it was always like maybe as much as it costs to sign a decent reliever, you know, like it's just not that much money. decent reliever, you know, like it's just not that much money. And that's why it always seemed to make sense just from a competitive standpoint, let alone a humane one, because it's just not a lot of money to spend to improve conditions that could help you develop great players who you can then make a lot of money off of during the years that they're under your control. So, you know, maybe the number would be higher if you folded in the expenses on housing that they already had to make or when they used to have more teams than they

currently do or some of the improvements to meals that they've made, et cetera. But whatever, add that stuff. It's just it's not that much money just relative to how much money these teams have and how much they spend on other stuff. And it's just a great return on investment in every way. So the fact that they had to be dragged to the table, you know, I mean, if they had just spent that money, perhaps they could have avoided having the minor leaguers unionize in the first place, right? I mean, if they didn't want that to happen, then perhaps they could have headed that off by making the need for collective action less obvious and less acute. But we ended up here, and I'm happy for the minor leaguers that they will be r other than money is that in the pre-contraction days, you saw the organizations that are the very best at developing talent really wanting to invest

in more rosters, more rosters, more rosters. And, you know, were there guys who were organizational filler on those? Sure, of course there were. There's organizational filler on every single minor league roster. But, you know, the teams that really seem to know what they're doing when it comes to helping guys maximize their potential, they wanted more space, not less. And it is a combination of teams that are cheap and bad at player dev that were like, no, no, no, make them smaller, make it smaller, make it harder. And, you know, I doubt that there was much philosophical conviction in that as a statement about like the true, you know, right size to use a gross consulting word of the minors or, you know, a reflection

of them having just like really well dialed in self-scouting or scouting generally to know, no, we know who the guys are. We know who all of our good guys are. We know who all the good guys are in other places. This is the right amount. It's about money. And so you're right. It's a weird thing. I know Russell Carlton has written about that ad nauseum over the last couple of years in a way that was necessary. It's just not that much money. It is such a weird place to be cheap. But if there's one thing you can say about major league owners is that they never miss an opportunity to be cheap in a weird way. It's true. Yeah. All right. Oh, and one last thing I wanted to mention, which is almost as significant as the minor leaguers having a CBA. Did you see the guy get completely

clocked while proposing on the field at Dodger Stadium? Oh my goodness, that guy got wrecked. So if anyone hasn't seen this, I will link to the videos. There are a couple funny ones from various angles. But this guy on the field at Dodger Stadium wearing a Mookie Betts jersey. So he goes down from the outfield and he runs out past the warning track and he kneels and he faces his prospective fiance in the stands and he's just kneeling there holding the ring out in the traditional will you marry me gesture and one video is is my favorite because the camera is pretty tight on him and you can't really see anyone approaching. And then you see a shadow just coming in

from the right side of the frame. And then an instant later, a security guard just like Superman flies into him, just completely tackles the guy. And then two more security dudes come over and like pile on top of the guy who's already down. And I mean, I was kind of conflicted because, you know, on the one hand, don't go on the field. Just don't do it.

Don't do it. You know, it is scary. Like, scary things have happened. You know, don't make players nervous. It's not your space. Just don't do it. Like, I understand the public marriage proposal. I've done it myself, but I had permission to do it when I did it at a concert. The band was in on it, and hopefully the crowd enjoyed it or at least didn't mind the slight little diversion. didn't mind the slight little diversion. This is not your space, the baseball field.

You do not have permission to violate that space. And security guards, look, you know, it's good that they are aggressive in responding to streakers or whoever, because you don't know. You don't know what their intentions are, right? That said, this guy just got bulldozed. Yeah, trucked. Just like pile driven. And he was like, clearly, I think at that point, not posing a threat.

I mean, again, like you never know 100%. But, you know, he was kneeling. He was holding the rig out. He was motionless. Like he did not appear to have a weapon or anything. And I get, don't take any chances, but also, oh my goodness, did you have to take that guy down? And maybe it's like a disincentive thing. It's like, hey, this is what happens. Even if you try to have a heartwarming moment here on the field, you are going to just get wrecked.

But in one of the angles, you can even see Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who's the closest player, he like flinches. He's like, oh, oh, no. Like he's watching the security guards come. And then when they do the tackle, he just like cringes because it's like, ouch, that's got to hurt. So I don't know. It's like, ouch, that's got to hurt. So I don't know. I don't know whether to say that was like excessive use of force or whether like, you know, play stupid games, win stupid prizes or some bit of both. Yeah, I mean, he did get hit very hard.

Oh, my gosh. And you're right. Like, it is a weird thing because you don't want to assume that that's the intention there because sometimes they're not heartless. But yeah, if he's halfway down already, you have to hit him quite so hard. Also, what did he think was going to happen? Did he think he was going to be able to propose, get an answer, get back into the stands. And then no one would do anything? I know, right? That's the thing. Like, the positive outcome of this is that you still, like, get arrested and taken away. So, even if you don't get clocked, it's like you don't get to hug your new fiancé and just mosey off into the sunset. Like, bad things are going to happen to you.

She said yes, though. Oh, well, thank goodness. But I don't know. Like, I would have doubts. Like, even if I were like, I want this person to propose to me, if this is the way they did it, I don't know. I mean, I guess maybe she appreciated like him sacrificing his body for her or something like for the maybe is it a romantic gesture because he knows he's going to get tackled Maybe she appreciated him sacrificing his body for her or something.

Maybe is it a romantic gesture because he knows he's going to get tackled and he was still willing to do it for love? Or was he worried she wouldn't say yes? And he thought, she can't say no after I get slammed to the ground by a security guard. She wouldn't want to add insult to injury. So I'll get the pity yes. That's a great way to begin our life together. But I saw they had a photo where he he appears to be like conscious and uninjured as far as I can see. And she's smiling and, you know, putting her finger up and with the ring on it and everything. So I guess it had a happy ending. How do you and then like, is this a story that you you know, when people are like, oh, how did you get engaged? Whip out my phone. Here's the video of me getting tackled in the outfield at Dodger Stadium. I guess it makes a good story or an entertaining story, but it also makes you look like someone who would run onto the field

at a baseball game to propose and then get tackled. Well, and like, so I have additional questions about this. So the first of those, the first is that like, I can't imagine opening day tickets at Dodger Stadium are cheap, right? Also, if you're going to opening day, if you're like, you're choosing to attend this event with your hopefully soon to be fiance, which probably means that both of you are big baseball fans. So, and like, you went onto the field, you're going to be prosecuted.

Going to Dodger Stadium is going to be difficult for you going forward. Yeah, right. They'll have your picture up. I mean, they might not be able to stop you from going, but also like in theory, you'll be banned, right? It's not good. Yeah, I have a lot of questions.

But again, you said what did he expect would happen? I guess he expected that she would say yes, and she did. So maybe that's all that matters. I get like, look, I know that I feel allergic to the public proposal idea, but I don't want to yuck anyone else's yum if that's their thing. You can go to opening day. You can pre-pose at Dodger Stadium. You can do that and avoid tackling and prosecution. You know, you have the power. Like, was he confused that the only way he could do this

was to get down onto the field? Again, maybe it's just all about the sacrifice, just laying your body down on the line for love. I don't know. I don't particularly approve of the Jumbotron proposal either, just because, I mean, well, for many reasons, I guess. But, you know, it's just, it's kind of trite. It's kind of hackneyed at this point. But this is not trite and hackneyed. But I don't know that it's any less ill-advised. It's probably more ill-advised. So anyway, I'm glad he got the outcome he wanted. All right. So in honor of that guy getting engaged and also the great opening day that we just had, we wanted to do a little draft here that we've done twice before, but I think neglected to do last year, which is the Team Fun Draft, where we just draft teams in order of how fun they will be to follow this year. So we did that in 2019. We didn't do it in 2020, which I guess makes sense because things were less fun in 2020.

We did it in 2021. And then, I don't know, it must have slipped our minds last season, but we're going to do it now. So this is one of our simpler drafts. So again, it's just running down the list. Just which teams are we most looking forward to following, watching, whatever. I don't know if we want to bring in things like the ballpark experience and getting to the game and how much it costs and all that. I'm looking at it more from a sort of neutral fans perspective. Obviously, if you're a fan of that team, it's going to be the team that's most fun for you to follow. So, but our particular biases and tastes and pleasures can factor into our ranking, certainly. But also, we're kind of looking at it as a league-wide, I guess, as a

nonpartisan fan and a less partisan fan than before. We're kind of looking at it as which teams are just most fun for neutrals to follow. If you don't have a game that you're particularly invested in that day and you pull up MLB TV, which team are you most likely to be gravitating toward? I guess you could also kind of call this an all MLB TV team or MLB TV team draft or something like that, because it's sort of the same idea. So we saw all of them in action on Thursday, and we will try not to be too heavily swayed by whether they had good games or bad games on the very first day of the season. Because as you noted, there are many, many more games to come.

But should we begin? I don't know who has the first pick here. It doesn't make much of a difference. It doesn't. You can go. All right. I'll go. I'll take the San Diego Padres.

Yeah, I figured you would. They are. Did you? Because I strongly considered another team that I'll probably take next. But the San Diego Padres, I think, should probably be the consensus, nonpartisan, rooters, most fun or interesting team this year. Like, how could they not be? I mean, they have all the players, you know, like they have four of the top 13 projected position players, according to the Fangraph step charts. It's just that's in the NL only. But still, so much star power on this team.

So many storylines. As we've noted, they just have more players than all the other teams. So there's just like more to follow and pay attention to. And you have the kind of like, can the underdog in the division unseat the big bad Dodgers? And you also just never know what they're going to do next. And are they going to sign one sort of an extension? Who knows? And are they somehow going to make some big trade at the deadline?

Who knows? And this is just like this is the year or one of the years, at least, when all the efforts they've made to put this team together have to happen. And like you have to, you know, how will Fernando Tatis return? And will he, you know, fully restore his reputation and his performance? And how will having so many shortstops on the same roster work out? And just so many things I'm excited to see. And anytime you turn on the TV and the Padres are on, there's probably someone entertaining on screen.

Yeah, I think despite their opening day loss to literally the Colorado Rockies. Yes. Which, what's going on there, friends? I think as long as they don't have to face CJ Krohn every day, they should be in great shape. All right. Okay. I am going to select, I'm going to take the Atlanta Braves.

Okay. Because they are also very good yep i don't know if you know this ben but um they are projected at least by our um playoff odds to win their division they have the highest world series odds in baseball um higher than the the padres uh for instance and they are also replete with just like really fun uh young players you know they've got ronald lacuna jr who seems like he's gonna steal approximately 1 million bases this season they've got uh they've got sean murphy they've got spencer strider they've got ozzy albies they've got uh they've got michael harris the. They've got Ozzie Albies. They've got Michael Harris II. They might have some injured pitchers, but they have some fun ones too. So I think that they are a very fun team. I

think they're a team that is poised to take good advantage of some of the more fun rule change stuff with stolen bases. And they are going to duke it out with another very good fun team in the Mets and another fun, slightly less good, but still good team in the Phillies. And provided you are quick to mute their home game so you don't have to hear the chop, I don't have a lot of notes, you know? Yeah, they're a little lower on my personal list just because they won a World Series recently.

They've won a bunch of division titles in a row. So there's less intrigue in that sense, whereas the Padres have famously never won a World Series. They haven't won a division since 2006. So they have the get on the board, you know, put it on the board, yes, for the poor Padres and get them back to the top of this division. Whereas Atlanta, they've just been kind of running roughshod over that division. So there's a little less like, you know, get the poor, long-suffering fan base to have their day in the sun with the Braves. Sure. That's fair. But also, I would like to offer you, you know, Austin Riley and Matt Olsen. You know, I'm offering that to you. Yeah.

In terms of talent, yes. They're right up there. All right. My next pick, it's the Angels. I'm sorry. It's just you like what you like. And I think maybe the first time we did this draft, I took the Angels with the number one pick, potentially. I guess that was in 2019 when they ended up winning 72 games and Shohei Otani wasn't pitching and wasn't as good.

And that did not end up being a great pick in retrospect. But look, I have to, as long as you have just like the two potentially greatest players ever playing together and the Shohei Otani show, which is like, that is a huge part of what I follow most closely and care about in baseball these days in Major League Baseball is Shohei Otani. So wherever he goes, that team is going to be high on my list. If he leaves, the Angels are going to plummet on this list next year. So it's not that I'm so into the Angels as an entity. I'm just into that player and particularly two players who have brought me so much joy over the years. And of course, it should be a better Angels team this year. I know we've said that every year, basically, and I know opening day did not inspire confidence. But looking at that lineup, even without Jared Walsh for the time being, it's a much better and deeper lineup.

And I'm hoping there will be fewer tungsten arm games. But even just the tungsten arm games are enough of a draw for me to put the Angels at the top of my list. Like I'm probably going to end up watching more Angels baseball than I watch any other team this year just because I will watch Otani constantly.

So what else? I can't be anyone other than who I am. Yeah, you know, and Ben, we wouldn't want you to be, you know? No one's asking you for that. Some people might, I don't know, but that's my answer. Look, we're not going to see this again. We never saw this before. Like, we got to appreciate this while it's happening. And if that means that we have to watch the Angels, then so be it. Yeah. So, all right.

Yeah. So, all right. So, I guess if you're making a sentimental pick, then I am going to make a sentimental pick and take the Mariners, who I didn't list this as one of the things on opening day. But, Ben, if you're so inclined, you should go watch Matt Brash throw a slider to Jose Ramirez because he fell down. He fell all the way down and he kind of like fell down twice. So I just want, look, we got to appreciate he's such a good hitter. And then Matt Brash happened to him. And for a brief moment, he was terrible and he fell down.

So I just want you to go in the, okay. So look, does this Mariners team have flaws? Yeah, sure. They do. Do I wish that they had done a little more to fortify their lineup in the off season? Yeah, I do wish that, but also they've got Julio, you know, they have, uh, they got, they got Ty France hitting home runs to, to win on opening day. They got Cal rally and his dumper, you know. And then you go and look at the pitching,

and Ben, this pitching is very fun, you know. It's a good, they got Castillo, they got Gilbert, they got George Kirby. They have, you know, maybe a good version of Robbie Ray this year. Who knows? They have that bullpen, which is, it's really good. And, you know, there were a couple of brief moments yesterday where Andres Munoz was a little shaky.

But also, there's a billion miles an hour, and he added a two-seamer. He's just like, what if I add a two-seamer? So I'm taking the Mariners. I am taking what we hope to be a team that won't make us think about a playoff drought again for a long time. And I'm very excited for their season and what they might be able to manage in the West. And, you know, if we were to overreact to one set of games, we would know that the Astros, losers on opening day, the Angels, losers on opening day,

and the winning teams in the West, as we all expected, include the Rangers and the A's. Yes. All right. My next pick is going to be the Blue Jays, who I think are pretty consistently fun. I sort of associate them with the Padres in my mind, just kind of as the way they're constructed and the star power. And I am kind of waiting for like the big breakthrough Bougie's year, the year where this group of guys like win some playoff games or playoff series. And they've been telling us to expect that. And perhaps this will be the year. I would say that perhaps they're the ALE's favorite. I also said that last year, and they did not end up winning the division, though they came fairly close. But perhaps this will be the year,

and it's just, how can you not enjoy that lineup? It's just still a ton of fun. It's a dynamic team, a lot of great personalities, and great outfield defense out there now, just like a lot of things to enjoy. And, you know, this team hasn't won a World Series in some decades now. It's been quite a while. And, you know, they had their pandemic odyssey where they weren't allowed to play there. And now they're back there. And I'm just kind of pulling for them. And I always enjoy watching a Blue Jays game. Yeah, they were going to be my next pick.

So now I'm sitting here going, hmm, who are some teams? What teams exist? I'm kidding. I'm not confused about what teams there are. I do have the list open, though, so that I can send you our draft results. Thank you. I'm going to take, look, this is going to be a controversial pick because this team can sort of sometimes famously be a no fun team. At least in terms of some parts of their fan base.

But I'm going to take the team that lost to the Blue Jays yesterday. I'm going to take the St. Louis Cardinals. I was going to say, this is the most fun the Cardinals have been in some time. In some time. And look, I am very nervous for them in terms of their pitching. I don't know, man. I don't know how that's going to go for them. In both the rotation and the bull there, there might've been more work necessary there, but at one point yesterday, I may be messaged a friend of mine who is a Cardinals fan and said, what is up with this lineup you have? Cause good gravy. It is, it is quite good. It is. There's some,

there are some dudes on this lineup. Um, and, uh, and some of them, some of them are, are really fun. So I'm going to take the Cardinals and with them, I get a Lars Newpar. I get a Paul Goldschmidt. I get a Nolan Arenado. I get a Jordan Walker. I get a Tommy Edmund. I get a Tyler O'Neill and both of his biceps. I get to see what Nolan Gorman makes of himself this year. Hopefully Wilson Contreras' knee works after yesterday. I gotta say, he still doesn't look good back there, but that's fine. Can hit. Catching?

I don't know. But I like this Cardinals team. Feels strange. I feel strange about that. I will never love Lars Nupar the way that, say, Ben Clemens loves Lars Nupar. That is a pure kind of love, but I'm taking the Cardinals. I feel like I'm talking too much for how many of these we have to do. It seems like they always win like 92 games or something, and they're always good and in contention. And so new stuff is entertaining to us. And we say, oh, a shiny new object.

Oh, something's different and moving. Oh, that attracts our gaze. But they are really kind of entertaining. They have like Jordan Hicks and Ryan Helsley throwing 102 out there. And not that Molina was not fun, but like having someone other than Molina for the first time in almost 20 years, it's like, oh, this is new and different. This is like almost the completely opposite kind of catcher of Yadier Molina and also a good kind. So yeah, I'm with you. All right. I'm going to take the Mets. You know, it's just, look, there's always something to talk about with the Mets, right?

For better or worse. You appreciate their content generation potential? Yeah. I mean, even today, you know, we're talking about, oh, surprise, Justin Verlander's hurt. Oh, George Santos put out a video about the good old Mets. Like, there's just always something. I know that's less true than it used to be.

And the nice thing is, though, that there's still that aspect of them, but also they're a good baseball team and they have a lot of stars. And I'd kind of like to see things work out for them. So again, like that'll be a fun division, right? Like it's just a good race as it was last year. So there's that. It's just like a lot of players I enjoy. Good, solid lineup. Scherzer and Verlander on the same team.

Interested to see how Kodasenga does. Just a lot to pay attention to with the Mets. So they will not fail to make news. Yeah, I mean, like there's definitely no way that they fail to make news. No, I mean, like, there's definitely no way that they fail to make news. No. Okay, I'm picking... See, the issues with this draft are as follows. Like, do you stick with blue bloods or do you take interesting teams, you know, teams that aren't going to win? Right. There's a strong correlation between

contention and draft position, but not a perfect one. Yeah, but I would like to assert the following, which is that I think there are more interesting only okay teams this year than we have on average. You know, I think, I don't know if that's true, but I'm going to assert it as a possible thing to keep an eye on. And to that end, I'm going to take the Baltimore Orioles. Yeah. Yeah, they're up there. Ben, did you notice... Hathaway Rutschman had himself a game? He had himself a game. And then did you notice that the Orioles social media graphic design team

had a little bit of an oopsie? Well, the five hits. graphic design team had a little bit of an oopsie. Well, the five hits. Yeah. Look, I didn't, I was, I didn't, I wasn't on Twitter much yesterday, but when I was, people were like, hey, who do I associate with baseball and pooping, Meg? The five perhaps looked a little too much like an S. Yeah.

But, and while, you know, if we were going to pick any nits about Adley's day yesterday, we might say that he could work on his sliding. Yeah, that was scary. Thankfully, he took a weird, I don't want to call it balletic, because that implies an amount of sort of control that was not present here. Strange tumbling pass into second base where he looked like he might have been hurt and he looked like he might have hurt Christian Arroyo because he definitely seemed like he got kicked in the head a little bit. Thankfully, he was not hurt, but Rutschman, superlative, right? And then they have Gunnar Henderson and then they're gonna have other um impressive prospects coming up this year and they have other guys on their team who are fun and dynamic even if you know they don't get the same amount of hype as like the the core prospect guys you know they

got cedric mullins and they you know jorge mateo's a respectable player and you know the the less we talk about their pitching the better but um i'm taking taking the Orioles if only because I think that Adley is maybe the prince who was promised. Yeah. Yeah. I had them high too. My only knock against them is that like they could have been better. They could have been more exciting if their front office, if their ownership had signed some guys and said, hey, we have such an exciting core here. We could build on this and be in contention more seriously this year. But I guess that's not something to hold against the players who are there. And there are still a lot of exciting ones. So yeah, I'm with you. I mean, they obviously got more fun to follow and

watch last year. And this year will just be a continuation of that with full seasons from Gunnar and Adley and, you know, Grayson Rodriguez coming up at some point. So yeah, it's always to watch a team turn the corner and put its new competitive core out there. That's always one of the most fun times to follow a team. All right. I'll take the Dodgers next. You know, I mean, they've been sitting out there on the board for a while, but they have to go somewhere high-ish. Even though this is a diminished Dodgers team, it's still a very good team. You still got Mookie, you know, you still got Freddie Freeman, you still got Will Smith, you still got Clayton Kershaw.

You still got like a lot of very good, talented teams. And even though the Dodgers are always good and they always win. And so they have that same strike against them that say Atlanta does or St. Louis does. They still have enough compelling personalities and great talents. And there should be a good division battle. And if they do somehow still retain their perch at the top of that division and yet again, they prove to be the Padres kryptonite, at least in the regular season, then you'll just have to hand it to them and say, hey,'s Dodgers, which at least until October rolled around, they just ran the table and showed you how good a baseball team could be. This won't be quite the same show, but because they will not be running away with things, maybe in a way it'll be more entertaining. So, yeah, they're still high up there. Yeah. Yeah.

And like, how will they piece it together? Because, you know, they will somehow, you know, it's like people are heard and people left and you're thinking, oh, they look a little shaky. They look a little thin, but probably like James Outman will be amazing and Miguel Vargas will be amazing. And, you know, Pepeo will be amazing. And we'll all look back and be like, how did we? Yeah. right. Okay. Okay. I'm going to take, well, I guess I'm just going to take my, at this point, local club because I'm really high on them and also I will get to watch them in person a lot. I'm going to take the Diamondbacks,

who did not manage to beat the Dodgers yesterday, but are very fun. They are a team on the rise um do i think that the five of us who picked them to be the third wild card in the fan graph staff predictions are gonna really probably be right you know probably not ben you know for being honest uh sometimes you want to be a little spicy in your in your picks because otherwise they're kind of boring. But they do have a number of players who I think are going to be very good and good for them for a long time. Obviously, they extended Corbin Carroll in the offseason. We get to see what Alec Thomas is

going to be able to muster. We get to see Zach Allen hopefully put together another full, really good season. Zach Gallen was also my Cy Young pick. I'm really invested in this Diamondbacks team. It's going to be great when it flames up. But they have Gallen. They have a number of really interesting pitching prospects coming up. They have more reinforcements on the position player side, many of whom are a little further away, but like are going to be good for them at some point here. So I think that they are an intriguing team. And we've talked a lot in the last couple of years about teams sort of getting to a point of respectability in terms of the product they put on the field as they transition

through being a rebuilding team to one that's really going to contend. And in my time living, a rebuilding team to one that's really going to contend. And in my time living, brief time living in Arizona, I have watched some truly horrific Diamondbacks baseball, Ben. Yeah. And I think that the ratio of even just bad to good baseball is going to be dramatically improved. And in my and the Diamondbacks' favor this this year we already started to see some of that turnaround last year so i'm taking the d-backs and um uh hopefully at some point they uh get

their roof fixed all the way yeah fun base running team too they run a lot yeah so fast speed yeah yeah you got you got corbin carroll you got alec th, you got Jake McCarthy. You got a lot of fast voice in the outfield. Yeah. So, yeah. That's good. All right. I'll take the Rays. Okay.

I think the Rays are pretty fun. They've got Wander Franco. Yeah. Maybe this will be the year that we really get to see what Wander Franco can do in a full, healthy season. Body looks great. Also, he had a home run, but the body looks great. You got Randy Rosarena. You got ground beef Yannity Diaz. Manny Margot or Manuel Margot made a nice catch on opening day. Brandon Lau is healthy again. You got Shane McClanahan looked great, right? And, you know, maybe at some point the pitching gets healthier

and you see Tyler Glasnow out there. And I'm a Patino fan, so maybe you get to see Patino. So there's definitely like some anonymity on that pitching staff and with the Rays and the way they use pitchers and you just, you never know who these guys they're rolling out there throwing unhittable sliders are and you just like discover their names and then they're amazing

and sometimes they're in the rotation and sometimes they're in the bullpen and maybe you don't pick them out of a lineup, but there's always a lot of talent and it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, the Rays do to adjust to new rules. Because you know that the Rays are always going to be at the forefront of whatever the next innovation is. So they're always good.

They're always competitive. And they haven't won a World Series yet either. So that's something to root for. That's something to root for. I, from an outfield fest, boys, I'm going to an outfield that features at least one wet boy. I'm taking the Phillies. Of course, yeah. Can't believe they lasted this long. Yeah, it's maybe an oversight on our part, just like my leaving them out of the postseason in my staff predictions

could prove to be an oversight. Yeah, I did that. I didn't do that, actually. Sorry. I did that. Yeah. No, I gave them a third wild card. Look, again, I wanted to have a pick that wasn't just chalk. And so I went with the Diamondbacks in the third wildcard spot. And then a team, you know, somebody had to go. And I decided that while it is good to have some stretch picks, leaving the Mets or the Dodgers off felties are similar in that I worry about both of those teams' depth, I think that there are just more potential worst-case scenarios available to the Phillies. And so I don't know that they will make the postseason, but I think they will be a lot of fun to watch. You know, parts of yesterday's game were fun for Phillies fans to watch, and then there were parts later on that were less good. But, you know, watching them actually notch some runs against DeGrom had to feel good for them. We got to see Trey Turner do a cool slide. We got to see back-to-back triples and, you know, then Nola kind of fell apart. But, but other than that, you know, the play was good. So I think the Phillies

are going to be at times incredibly frustrating, at times a tremendous delight, always imbued with a sense of confidence that will not necessarily be reflective of their record at any given time. And again, just the wettest boy out there. You know, Marsh, I hope you never change. So I'm taking the Phillies. Okay.

All right. There are a few different directions I could go here. This is kind of a toss up, but I guess I'll take the Twins. Sure. Yeah. Okay. I'll take the Twins. You can tell I'm very confident about this pick.

But look, Byron Buxton's healthy for now, right? Yeah. Doing some DH-ing for the moment, which is not as fun as Buxton in the center, obviously. But there's a lot I'm interested in. Obviously, whether Buxton has a full healthy season, whether there will be a Joey Gallo bounce back at all. I enjoy watching Christian Vasquez. I enjoy watching Carlos Correa. Like Luis Arias not being here anymore, that hurts because he was quite fun. But also, I kind of like this pitching staff. I enjoy Joe Ryan. Pablo Lopez looked great on opening day.. Yoan Duran is kind of amazing.

So, you know, and they've had some tough times and they lost the most value to injury last year. If you go by wins above replacement projected that they lost. So they're due for a bounce back. They spent 108 days in first place last year and they were my pick to win the Central, although I was not at all confident about that pick and might have gone toward the Guardians if Tristan McKenzie had not been hurt. But a lot of players I enjoy watching and also a lot of like question marks and what are you going to get out of this guy kind of questions that I'm looking forward to having answered. And even though you don't get Buxton in center for now, you do get Michael A. Taylor in center, which is the next best thing.

Yeah. I think this is a good pick. Thank you. What good pick will I make? You know, if you were me and you had to make a good pick, what pick would you pick? I think I would pick the Yankees. Why are the Yankees still unpicked? You know? Yeah. Why are the Yankees still unpicked? You know?

Yeah. So I guess, like, here's the thing about the Yankees being unpicked that I would say. Sure. But also, did you see the home run that Aaron Judge hit? Yeah. Did you see the enthusiasm for Anthony Volpe? Yes, that was fun. Did you see Garrett Cole yesterday, Ben? Yeah, nasty.

Garrett Cole looked real good yesterday. He looked like prime Garrett Cole. Yes. So I get it. They're compromised in some important ways. They have a bunch of guys on the injured list who, you know, were meant to sort of stabilize things. You don't know what you're going to get from some of their players.

Like, will we see a Stanton resurgence? Who could say? Like, how will the young guys play? Like, are we going to be really stoked with Volpe? Will Oswaldo Cabrera keep doing well? be really stoked with Volpe. Will Oswaldo Cabrera keep doing well? Well, you know, are we going to get to see another really great year from Nestor Cortez? Like there are questions that one could ask, but also there's a lot that's really good. And you know what I realized yesterday? You know what I realized? What's that? Ron Maranaccio's name is really fun to say. I want to hear Buck

Martinez say Ron Maranaccio's name. I think he say. I want to hear Buck Martinez say Ron Maranaccio's name. I think he's going to make a whole sandwich out of that. That's going to be a whole sandwich. Yeah. You're right. They suffer from the they're always good. They're the Yankees. Yeah.

They're the team you're supposed to root against unless you're a Yankees fan. Right. But yeah, Volpe's fun. That's going to be a fun season. And Judge is, I mean, look, they've got the beef boys. Cole is great. I picked Shohei Otani to be my AL Cy Young favorite. And then I saw Garrett Cole and I was like, hmm.

But yeah, I'm with you. Okay, sure. They're the Yankees. They're inevitable. Okay, sure. They're the Yankees. They're inevitable. Okay. I will make up for my twins pick by also taking the Guardians. Yeah. I'm taking the couple top AL Central teams, presumably.

The Guardians were a lot of fun last year. Yeah. Right. And last year they had the underdog, everyone underestimated us kind of thing going for them, which will not be the case as much this year. But they won the division last year. So there's less of a surprise team aspect to them. But the players who made them fun last year are still there largely.

So they're still fun. They still have Jose Ramirez. They still have Andres Jimenez for a long time now. They still have Steven Kwan. These are players I'm looking forward to watching. So even if I'm not in the, like, they're good because they're a high contact team, that still can be fun to watch a high contact team, although they might be a little different this year. You know, what with Mike Zunino and Bell and everything.

Not that Bell's a super strikeout guy, but they'll have more power than they did. So they'll look like a little less of an outlier in terms of how they're constructed. And I love Tristan McKenzie. So his absence hurts quite a bit with their funness. But on the other hand, you get to see James Caron Chak's pitch clock violations and then seeing him get flustered about that. That's kind of fun. Manuel Classe is incredible. So, yeah, you know, Terry Francona, like, I don't know that many managers factor into the fun rankings significantly, but Terry Francona is one of the few who does, who do.

So, yeah, I'm going Guardians here. Okay. I'm going to take the Texas Rangers. Yeah. I'm going to take the Texas Rangers. I think we saw, you know, a lot of really good stuff from DeGrom yesterday. We saw some less good stuff, too, you know. But we also get to watch DeGrom and the rest of that, like, very high ceiling, incredibly low floor pitching staff try to put it all together.

We get to watch a group of pretty fun position players. Not all of them are good or fun, but a bunch of them. Some of them will be Brad Miller hitting home runs. That'll be surprising. I don't think that they are a playoff team yet, but I do think that they will have some stretches where they look like a no doubt playoff team this year. Um, and those stretches will involve probably like a really dominant Jacob to Grom and, um, some, some good bopping from their boppers. Um, so I'm taking the Rangers. Yep. Yeah. Just tuning in to see whether this works. Yeah. And does it fail spectacularly?

And will Ray Davis blow his lid again? Yeah. Can they keep these pitchers healthy? It should be fun. All right. Yeah. I don't know why I'm just like taking the entire AL Central here, but I'll take the White Sox. Wow.

Yeah. Look, the White Sox went from being a really, really fun team to being a disappointing sort of sad team. Yeah. Look, the White Sox went from being a really, really fun team to being a disappointing sort of sad team. And maybe now they'll bounce back at least to somewhere in the middle. Now that we have a new manager in town, and there's still a lot of fun players on the White Sox, you know, maybe like there are a lot of guys I'm looking forward to seeing. Like Oscar Colas, I'm interested to see what his rookie season looks like, for instance. I'm looking forward to Andrew Vaughn as a full-time first baseman and Eloy Jimenez just getting to DH. Some guys not playing out of position and just getting to rake. That should be fun. And obviously, Luis Robert and what will he do and tim anderson you know so there's still a lot to to like here and good pitchers too and you know i picked them as a surprise team because i had to pick a surprise team and it's sort of sad that it would

be a surprise if the white swags were good because they're supposed to be good now but they were so not last year so yeah white socks okay well i guess i'm just gonna keep taking a bunch of the aos and i'll take the astros uh who despite being losers, just yesterday, it's going to be fine. They have a lot of really good players, famously. And so I think that they will continue to have really fun players. Did you see how deep Jose Abreu's V was yesterday? Oh, man. He was unbuttoned past the letters. Jose, hello.

But yeah, I could just list the entire Astros lineup and then also their rotation and quite good bullpen, but I won't do that because that's boring. Instead, I will say that I'm really excited to see what Jeremy Payne's sophomore season looks like. I continue to be fascinated by Jordan Alvarez and just how good he is. He, by himself, is the argument for us

not having our DH positional adjustment quite right. Even though I know he's playing left field for, for stretches here. Kyle Tucker is like very good. And I want to see what his Ichabod crane looking, looking face does this year. I find Tucker less fun than he's good.

Like the ratio of fun to good is, is fairly low for him, I think. He's really good. He's less fun maybe than you'd think for someone who's so good. He's a little nondescript, I guess. But they have plenty of guys where the ratio goes the other way. Yeah, and then you look at that rotation and it's like, I'm excited for Frambois.

I'm excited to see Luisuis garcia and like christian javier christian javier and i want to see what hunter brown does and how many times people can force a verlander comp on him you know yeah so um i dusty yeah like there's just there is a lot here that is exciting and And I wonder, the other thing I want to monitor with the Astros is like, you know, before the sign stealing scandal, they felt like a heel in a useful way,

right? Like it, it is to baseball's benefit to have sort of a villain team. And then they were like actual villains and then it became less fun. And as we continue to move away from the sign stealing scandal, I'm curious to see and I'm not trying to say that like one direction or the other is the right one. This isn't me saying like, be nice to the Astros. That's not the project. fans of other teams interact with them as time marches on and, you know, fewer and fewer members of the active roster are guys who were even, you know, twinkles in someone's eye at the time of the sign stealing scandal. So there's just a lot to monitor here.

You know, they have a new general manager. I want to see like how meddlesome an owner they end up having. I think quite meddlesome. So there's just, it's sort of, it's Mzian in that there's always going to be something to say. You know, they're always going to give you something to talk about, those Astros. So I'm taking the Astros. All right.

I guess I'll go Brewers next. I'm getting into the range here where it's hard for me to declare full-throated fun. But look, the pitching is still strong. The starting pitching in particular and Devin Williams, right? So that alone, I mean, getting to watch Corbin Burns and Brandon Woodruff and co. And Williams, that's plenty fun. Even if there's not some miraculous Christian Jelic bounce back, you still get to watch Willie Adamas and Rowdy Tellez

and see how William Contreras does there. So, you know, Bryce Terang is there now. So that's enough for this portion of the draft. Sure. Okay, well, I'm going to take the Giants, the San Francisco Giants, the giants, the San Francisco giants.

Um, mostly because, um, I, I really enjoy some of their pitching, um, their position players, you know, they tried to upgrade them and then that famously kind of went in a weird

direction this off season, but it's not like they have no, no guys, right? Like we get to see what Michael Conforto does this year. Um, Blake Sable debuted. Jack Peterson is still around.

Lamont Wade Jr. might have a bounce back. You know, they still have Brandon Crawford. But I think the highlight for me here is really on the pitching side. Logan Webb obviously didn't have a day. He was super stoked on in the Bronx yesterday. But, like, he is very good. I'm really curious to see what they are able to help Sean Mania do this year, because I think he has he has some pretty profound bounce back potential. And then, you know, they have Cobb, they have Stripling, they have Wood, a bunch of Alex's.

And then there are just a lot of really interesting dudes in their bullpen. You know, they have twins. They have Duvall. They have John Brebbia, who, okay, Ben, aside, you know how everyone makes fun of the fact that, like, in Superman, it's ridiculous that people don't just recognize Superman as Clark Kent. You know, the glasses aren't enough. John Brebbia shaved, and I had no idea who he was yesterday. I might have even joked about this at some point on Twitter. Cause I feel like he goes back and forth between like clean shaven and full beard. That was a stranger to me. He was a man I had never seen before. And then I was like,

oh, that's John Brebbia. And you know, they hopefully announced who it is on the TV. You know, they tell you. And I was like, no. And then I was like, yeah, that's John Pervious. So I want to see if I continue to know who he is over the course of the season. Okay. And, you know, and then, like, it would be really nice if he can come back healthy and, like, put a – if Mitch Hanegar can come back healthy at some point and, like, put a season together because I'm always going to have a soft spot for Mitch, you know? So, yeah, the Giants. How many coaches will they have at any given time?

Sure. Do they have enough numbers for them? Did you see that the Yankees are asking MLB for dispensation to not give their coaches and manager a number? Again, go to triple digits. It's fine. Go to triple digits. Put Wingdings on the back, you know?

There are enough numbers also still. There are enough numbers. Even on the Yankees, there are enough numbers. They won't let them use 69, but even without 69 and with all the retired numbers, there are still enough numbers. You might not get your favorite number, but you'll still get a number. Anyway, triple digits. Use the whole space. Okay.

I'll take the Red Sox, I guess. Oh, yeah. They're a team. Yeah. They're in a bit of a fun trough, I guess. But there are still... A fun trough. I'm now excited to see Masataka Yoshida.

Yeah. And they've still got Devers. And Kike Hernandez is fun. And Justin Turner, always a good at bat. Right. And Chris Sale, like I enjoy watching a healthy Chris Sale. So if he is a healthy and effective Chris Sale, that would be fun again. would be fun again. And I'm almost out of things to list, but that was enough, I guess, for them to qualify at this stage. They're not a particularly good team right now,

but they're not a terrible team. Yeah, that feels fair. I think, yeah, okay. I'm picking up what you're putting down. I'm going to take the Pirates. Yeah, okay. Shocking, perhaps. But I'm going up what you're putting down. I'm going to take the Pirates. Yeah, okay. Shocking, perhaps. But I'm going to take... They're punching above their weight a little bit here in fun quotient.

Did you see O'Neal Cruz's home run, Ben? Yeah. Okay, we need to take a moment to appreciate O'Neal Cruz's home run from yesterday. Because look, the Pirates are probably not going to be very good this year. And we have a whole host of problems with the way that that team is run from an ownership perspective. It is a shocking thing to watch a man that big with levers that long have that kind of bat speed. It is, you know, I'm doing the, and i'm making the mind-blown gesture because it wasn't even like you know especially by o'neill cruz's standards like a super super hard hit home run i mean it

was like it was well struck but it was not like you know mind-bending reality altering exit velo but he was so fucking quick to that ball and it just lasered out of there. And I went like this. Whoa. Yep. Yeah. So nice to have big league baseball back then, man. That's the thing. Like there are some teams that are not good, but they don't have a single player who can make you as excited and fascinated as O'Neal Cruz. There are very few players who can just in the majors, but the Pirates have not only O'Neal Cruz, but Rich Hill, right? So they have Rich Hill. They have Andrew McCutcheon back. Right. They have to Brian Hayes.

They have to Brian Hayes. It sounds increasingly like they might continue to have Brian Reynolds, perhaps, right? They have other prospects coming up. So, yeah, they're not good yet. No. But they at least have some highlights. There's like, you know, like a solid fifth of the roster. So it's like, oh, all right. Like I have warm, fuzzy feelings about that guy or he's very fun to watch.

So that's, yeah, a good pick. All right. I guess sort of in the same vein, I'll take the Marlins, who I don't think the Marlins are going to be all that good either, but a lot of interesting, fun Marlins to watch, right? And their more contact-oriented approach, I think maybe they project to have the best contact rate or lowest strikeout rate, which was kind of their goal to go from striking out a lot to striking out less. Now, that's not the only thing that a good offense has to do. So I don't know if this is going to be a good offense, but, you know, they might still put the ball in play a little. They have Luis Arise now. They have Jess Chisholm. We get to see the Jess Chisholm center field experiment, which, based on one game, not going great, but I think he has the physical skills and maybe he just needs the reps. That's my hopeful take on that. But, you know, they have guys playing out of position.

It's not even just him, but it's like Joey Wendell as a shortstop. I don't know. But I still want to watch Jazz Chisholm and Brian De La Cruz. People have high hopes for. And obviously there's the pitching, right? The pitching is the big thing. You have Sandy Alcantara. You have Jesus is the big thing you have sandy alcantara you have jesus lazardo maybe you have a trevor rogers bounce back you have johnny cueto who's

always entertaining whether he's good or not you have other uh top prospects obviously who are on the way at some point this season so yeah like there's a lot to to like and be excited about here. Yeah, I think it's a very defensible pick. Okay. Okay, let's see if you think this is a defensible pick from me. I'm going to take the Kansas City Royals. Really? All right. Okay, let me tell you why. So, first of all, famously, they employ Zach Granke.

So, like, that's, you know, that's a gift that keeps on giving. And then, look, a lot of the pitching here is quite bad. And we don't need to focus on the parts of the pitching that are bad, but we can focus on some parts of the lineup that are at least fun, right? Like, Vinny Pasquantino is just like maybe one of the most charming men in baseball. Yeah, absolutely. He is hilarious. He is a great quote. He has a good perspective on stuff. He hits big, big home runs. That's fun. I am. I continue to just be really fascinated by

MJ Melendez because it is weird to have a guy who is ostensibly a catcher. I'm doing air quotes and an outfielder and is like maybe just not a good defender anywhere so like i'm fascinated by him i really want to see what bobby wood jr does in his second year as we talk about guys who might really benefit from the rule changes like i want to see bobby wood jr just run run run run run so like that is neat. They just named Salvador Perez like a team captain. And there haven't been very many of those in Royals history. And then, you know, you're going to have Salvi be one. And like, I think that's cool. I don't know. I'm so confused by captain stuff in baseball. I don't know what any of you are doing. It's like a weird thing, but I'm going to observe it. So, you know, I don't think that they are good. And I don't know if they know how not good they are. They're like a more competent version of he's in that way where I'm just like, I don't know what your self-scouting is like, but it seems weird. But there are players here who on an individual basis, I'm excited about. And at this point in the draft, I feel uh that's really all you can ask for yeah and philosophically at least they seem a

little less uh anti-fun maybe a little less Matheny-ish than they were so definitely not as stodgy as they have been in prior years okay well I'm gonna take the Reds I, I'm going to take the Reds. I think I'm going to take the Reds. All right, here's my case for the Reds. The pitching, the top three pitchers at least, right? Hunter Green, despite the opening day start, should be fun. Nick Lodolo, Graham Ashcraft, it will be fun to see how good that young top trio is. Yeah. And Joey Votto, farewell tour, potentially.

Yeah. Depends whether he has a bounce back, whether he's still good, how fun he is. But obviously he's going to be fun off the field or as a personality, no matter how he plays. Yeah, it's a high stakes pick, you know? It is. Because like, if he's really bad,

it might just be very sad. Right. And perhaps he won't even finish the season with the team. Who knows? But, you know, Jonathan India, I guess. I'm already like, well, but Ellie Davis Cruz at some point potentially this season, right? So that alone would be a big draw. And so look, I'm running out of steam here, but we're, we're close to the end of this draft. So it's okay. Um, you didn't take the Cubs, right? I didn't. I thought about it, but I didn't. I'm taking, I'm taking the Cubs. Um, we maybe should have drafted the Cubs more highly than

we drafted them. Um, I don't think again, that they are ready to turn the corner yet. Like they needed more than just a, a Dansby Swanson to cure what ailed them. But like they have Dansby Swanson now and we get to see if Cody Bellinger can sort it out and they employ a human being whose last name is Master Boney. And, um, you know, I bet he got made fun of every day in middle school. So there's, there's that. We get to see, you know, maybe like maybe Trey Mancini will turn things around. We get to see what what becomes of Ian Happ and Patrick Wisdom. Nico Warner is going to be a Cub for a while and he's on the Cubs.

And then I think that they have some interesting guys who we might see over the course of the season if things trend in a good direction from them, from their farm system. And so, you know, like the Cubs. Yep. Yeah. Joshian, in one of his recent newsletters, he wrote, I think I'm the low man on the Cubs who made a lot of noise and spent a lot of money this winter yet somehow don't have a single player I'd project to be worth more than four wins. That doesn't mean no player will reach that mark. Players outperform expectations all the time. Just that on March 27th, they seem to have a $222 million payroll and no stars.

You could argue with that. You could say Dansby's better than that, or maybe Seiya Suzuki will be better than that, or someone will be better than that. Yeah, Seiya Suzuki should be fun. But I think the general point I would agree with, which is that, you know, it's just, there's a lot of blandness.

Like they're not bad, but there aren't that many individual players who make me super excited. Okay. I guess I'll, oh gosh. We're down to the final four, right? And yeah, this is the dregs. Apologies to the dregs. But I guess I'll take the tigers. Yeah, you should take the tigers.

Okay. All right. Well, I got the tigers. Yep, there you go. I'm sure happy to have them. I mean, I don't know. I guess you got Miggy's last ride, which isn't all that fun, frankly. But, you know, he'll tie some numbers, right? He went into a tie, I think, with Ichiro, just MLB only,

with his hit the other day. And look, Riley Green, Spencer Torkelson, can they be good, right? Or can they be very good? In Green's case, can Torkelson be can they be good, right? Or can they be very good? In Green's case, can Torkelson be not bad? So you're going to learn something about the Tigers' future this year, at least, right? You're going to know more about what this is all going to look like at the end of the season than you do at the start. There are still people who are going to be missing the entire season. It's a shame that they won't be part of this who had Tommy John or whatever, but there's enough there that it's like,

all right, the prospects who failed to launch last year, maybe they'll launch now. Yeah, maybe Tork will figure it out. Javier Baez, he's entertaining even if he's not having a good season. And look, we're down to the end here so i'm not going to try to tell you that the tigers are super fun i'm just going to try to tell you that they're more fun than the remaining teams left on the board yeah um yeah well so i'm gonna take i guess i'm gonna take the rockies if for no other reason than like they seem to have more actual big leaguers on their roster than either of the remaining teams.

Other remaining teams. And we just want to say, hey, Daniel Bard, we hope you're on the men's team, buddy. We're thinking good thoughts for you. Went on the IA with anxiety and not called anything else, just anxiety. And it's good that he's able to talk about that stuff in an honest way. And I hope, you know, that the weeks and months ahead are easier for him than what he's dealing with right now. So there's that. But, you know, like maybe Chris Bryant will look like a version of himself. Maybe CJ Krohn will just hit home runs every day. You know, maybe German Marquez will have a bounce back. Maybe their weird infield experiment will yield something. I don't know that any of those things are particularly likely, but they have a beautiful ballpark.

So at least watching their games is sometimes visually pleasing if you look up from the field rather than down at it. Yes. Well, that's not the case about the next team. I guess I'm going to take the A's. I can't believe you're not going to take Joey Manessis just by himself. Gosh, of course I should have taken Joey Manessis. You can mulligan.

It's fine. You're right. We're picking between. Neither of us wants to take either of these teams in a fun draft. But, yeah, look, it comes down to the Nationals and the A's who project to be quite bad at baseball. Quite bad. Yeah. Almost shockingly bad, really.

Yeah, quite. And so, you know, look, I guess with the Nationals, yeah, you get Joey Manessis. Assuming he's somewhat good again, that's fun. I guess it would be extra sad if he were not. Yeah, it is high stakes in that respect. the A's was that I think they're a bit better as a baseball team than the Nationals are currently. But the whole organization is more depressing. So there's so grim. Yeah. I mean, maybe knowing that you're bad because like things went wrong and you won a World Series a few years ago and you wanted to contend, but you know, like your plans went awry. Maybe it's a little easier to stomach that. And you had bad timing because you didn't get to celebrate and pack your park after the World Series because the pandemic happened.

So all that, like, maybe it's a little easier to stomach a bad baseball team when it's not just that you're doing the Rachel Phelps from major leagues just fully. So yeah, you get, Manassas, you get to find out what you have in players like CJ Abrams and Mackenzie Gore and Josiah Gray. And yeah, you have to have Patrick Corbin be your opening day starter also. So it's not great, but yeah, i guess how you got that bad matters to some degree sure yeah um well that leaves me with the a's yeah they are a baseball team they are i guess yeah they have some guys who are major leaguers uh in a way that would make them major leaguers on other rosters and some guys who aren't and we're not going to name who those guys are because it's not their

fault that they work for the ace you know like that's not on them that's on the ace i guess like i'm excited to see excited it's so strong i'm curious to see like what does fujinami end up looking like this year is he just a reliever? I mean, he might be, but you know, like it could be fine. Um, maybe some of the pitching they got back will take a step. Maybe we'll end up seeing some of their prospects who are good. I don't know. This is a bad team and, um, on purpose. Um, but, uh, they are a team that is mine now in the fun draft. It feels fitting that they go last. Yeah, it does. All right.

Well, we did it. Now you know which teams are fun and not fun, which you never would have known without us. So on the whole, I think collectively, they are quite fun. And we are happy to have them back. Yeah. We are pleased with that. And happy opening day. All right.

Meg has departed, but I've just received the past blast from 1988 and from David Lewis, who is an architectural historian and baseball researcher based in Boston. 1988, big year. This is the first year of pitch-by-pitch data. This is when our pal Sam Miller used to say that baseball history started, which clearly isn't technically true because we've been doing this Pass Blast series for a while here. But here's 1988's entry, AAA Interleague Play Met With Mixed Reviews. In 1988, the AAA season schedule featured an experiment, interleague play. Teams from minor league baseball's International League and American Association began playing games against each other.

As reported by the Associated Press, this produced a public relations bonanza for clubs, but a travel nightmare for players. Fan reaction to the change seemed relatively positive, but not overwhelmingly. The article reported, while it has not visibly boosted attendance, having teams from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains visit each other's parks has sparked more interest in minor league baseball around the country, the league official said. Player and manager reaction, however, was more negative. The travel is horrible, one manager remarked.

You don't hardly know where you're at and then you're off to a new city, a player said, continuing, we were two days in Maine, two days here, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and we'll be in Richmond for two days. The league cited a desire to make the game more interesting as its reasoning for the change, suggesting that more variety in team matchups gives a broader perspective to baseball. The two leagues also agreed to include a postseason series between the winner of each league as part of interleague play. The partnership between the

two leagues ultimately lasted for four seasons, ending at the conclusion of the 1991 season. The American Association team won the championship series each of the four seasons, ending at the conclusion of the 1991 season. The American Association team won the championship series each of the four years and as a league held a 637 and 618 record against international league teams. Major League Baseball did not begin playing regular season interleague games until 1997. I've always been pro interleague and I'm pro more balanced schedule this year. I agree that more variety in team matchups gives a broader perspective to baseball. Also, keeps things fresh. If that means that the leagues become more like conferences with no real distinctions between them, I think that's kind of okay. Okay, a few

follow-ups for you here. Speaking of the past, some of you may recall back on episode 1848 last May, this was the episode when we had Bobby Shantz on. But before we brought Bobby on, I did a long history of the pitch clock and the earlier attempts to introduce it into major league games and minor league games. Well, I wrote that up as an article at The Ringer this week, and I added some sources and reporting and depth to it. I think it came out pretty well. It's fascinating to me that the pitch clock could have been introduced so long ago, could have worked all this time. Most people seem to see it now and think, yeah, this is great. But there was more resistance when it was introduced initially back in the 60s. And the origins of the pitch block go back even further, really, to the first rules about time between pitches. So I think it provides an interesting perspective on how we got here and why it took so long to get here. Sometimes implementing ideas in baseball takes a very long time, as did the games without the pitch clock. So I will link to that on the show page, and case you'd like to hold us to account. One point I made in my predictions is that the compression that we're seeing at the top of the projected standings this year, no team with high projected win totals, not a ton of separation among the best teams, that was a predicted byproduct of the 12-team playoff format. The idea that, well, you just

have to be good enough to get in. So some teams on the low end might try to improve their rosters just to get in wildcard range. But in theory, there's not a ton of incentive to going from, I don't know, 100 wins to 111, let's say, as in the Dodgers case. Still helps to win your division, of course. But when there's so much emphasis on postseason success, and there's only so much you can do to improve your chances of postseason success, then you might say, well, why are we winning all these extra games? We just have to be good enough to get there. So that's something that we cited as a possible drawback of the 12 team playoff format. And perhaps that's what we're seeing this year. That said, the standings have been especially stratified lately, tons of super teams and terrible teams. So it would be sort of refreshing if there are not a lot of hundred plus win and hundred plus loss teams this year. There might still be some of the latter, just not so many of the former. A little more detail on the Dodgers proposal couple that I came across after recording this episode. The man whose name is Ricardo Juarez, he's a sushi chef and he was initially going to propose in the stands, he said, but excitement and some liquid courage took over.

He wanted to tell the world that his girlfriend and the mother of his son is the one. Her name is Stephanie Gutierrez. She said she was shocked. She said he said his motive was to show her how willing he is to go above and beyond. I guess that was one way to do it. He was only banned from Dodger Stadium for a year, so by the time their one-year-old son is old enough to remember going to a baseball game, they can take him. Hopefully he won't follow in his father's footsteps. Also, they have a GoFundMe to support their wedding expenses. I guess if you want to be cynical, you could say that he wanted to go viral to get funding for the wedding. If so, it doesn't seem to be working all that well. They're at $235 raised of the $20,000 goal, but I don't want to be cynical. I'll say he did it for love

and possibly over-imbibed a bit. Also, we did a new draft today, but I wanted to circle back, close the book on an old draft that we did. Back on episode 1929, we did a double draft. We did the off-season free agent contracts draft, which we have reported the results of, and we did the annual World Series odds movers draft. So this is the draft where we take teams' World Series odds at the start of the postseason, and we predict whether they will go up or down by opening day. So we're basically betting on, will they improve their chances, as seen by the bookmakers, to win the World Series between the start of the offseason and the end of the offseason? So it's just about the only sports gambling-related content that you will get on Effectively Wild, other than when we talk about

press releases where sports betting partners are described as co-exclusive partners of MLB. So I took the average of a couple of big sports books, World Series odds, and then we each picked five teams that we thought would go up or down by the end of the off season. So I have reviewed the results. I said the Guardians odds would improve, the Phillies odds would get worse, the Rangers odds would improve, the Marlins odds would improve, and the Angels odds would get worse. I was right on four out of five. The Marlins odds did not get better. They got worse. I was thinking and hoping they might have a more active offseason than they did. So I went four for five. Meg said the Giants odds would get better. The

Orioles odds would get better. The Red Sox odds would get worse. The Diamondbacks odds would get better and the Mets odds would get worse. I'm sorry to say she went one for five. The Red Sox odds did get worse. The other four picks, they went in the other direction. So that's how that one turned out if you were wondering. Also, if you're wondering about the audience voting from last episode, when we did our preseason predictions game, Chris Hannell, who suggested that idea, well, graphic design is his passion and his profession. So he made some great displays of the results, what many, many, many of you voted on and how you appraised our predictions and how likely they were. I'll link to the Twitter thread that he has about this, which is great. But I guess the big picture takeaway is that in descending order of how unlikely you thought our predictions were, it went Michael Bauman, Ben Clemens,

me and Meg. So Bauman has the most possible points to earn. Meg has the fewest, but he breaks it down by question, even broke down Bauman's minor league CBA prediction based on before and after that news came out. Great stuff. Check out the link on the show page. And thanks again to Chris. Also on that episode, we talked about how Shohei Otani is sort of a crossover star in a way that no other MLB player is these days. And I saw an article at Forbes that helped hammer home that point. It was about the highest paid players in terms of endorsement deals. It It says off the field, baseball's most prolific pitchman continues his ascent to global superstardom with at least $35 million in endorsement earnings annually by our count. The next highest off the field total of recent memory was Bryce Harper's $6.5 million in 2022.

Aaron Judge's endorsement earnings ranked second highest on this year's list at $4.5 million. So he's getting almost eight times as much in endorsements as any other player. Obviously, many of those endorsement deals are in Japan, some are international, but he's just in a different stratosphere in terms of his marketability. And that's with him playing for the Angels. Imagine him on a team where he'd be playing in the postseason regularly. Also, an Otani-related note, we got an email from listener Jack Colwell, who was inspired by our discussion of the Otani-Trout WBC championship plate appearance.

We noted that some people had pointed out that this was so exciting in part because there was no pitch clock, and so we had tons and tons of time to drink in that confrontation. Well, Jack did some neat video editing editing and he recut the footage of that plate appearance to make it conform to the pitch timer. So he just snipped a bit here and there and made it so that if the pitch timer had been in effect, this would not have violated it. And you know what? It's still pretty darn exciting. He told me he trimmed out about 38 seconds all told, and he actually made some side-by-side videos so you can see what was cut out. So I will link to all of those on the show page. It's pretty cool, and it does reinforce my impression that

much of the drama was supplied by the moment, not by the extra seconds that we got to savor it. And lastly, if you've been waiting for Orioles owner John Angelos to open the books, which you probably haven't, I hope you haven't, but as you recall, we discussed back in January, John Angelos told reporters, I'll show you the financials of the Orioles. I'll show you everything you want to know. He just volunteered this. No one asked him to do that, but he said he would. He said he'd do it the following week, and then he didn't. And then in February, he said, I will give you a full picture for the business, I think he said, by the end of spring training. Well, just to follow up, he did not. And not only did he blow both of the deadlines that he set, again, self-imposed deadlines, he said, when I say something, like I'm going to sit down with you guys, explain the business from

my perspective, I'm going to do it. I'm not going to say it and walk away from it. That's what he said in February. But that is exactly what he did. And when he was asked about it on the radio, he trashed the Baltimore Sun. And he said, well, they're not opening their books. And he went on and on about his significance in the community. And then he said, I'm as transparent as transparent gets, which, you know, technically not untrue, I suppose, by the standards of sports owners. Transparent just doesn't get very transparent for them unless they are legally required to divulge this information. They don't. And again, no one really expected him to, but he said he would while he was grandstanding about being asked questions about the team on Martin Luther King Day.

So when you promise to do something, people are going to say, hey, about that thing you promised, when is that happening? Clearly, never. However, here's something that can happen. 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. C-H, Parsnip Pizza, E-U, Michael Mahon, or maybe Michael Mahone, and Sean Rosales. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group. You gotta get in there now with the regular season going.

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I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and we will be back to talk to you early next week. No reason to have fun We'll go back with enough We have a ball till the party's done We do that shit all the time