Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 2040: The Trade Deadline Deals, Pt. 1

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Charlie Culberson’s surprising staying power as a barely-playing big leaguer, then break down the first batch of trades preceding the trade deadline, including deals involving Max Scherzer, Jordan Montgomery, Chris Stratton, Jordan Hicks, Nicky Lopez, Randal Grichuk, and C.J. Cron. They also discuss the lack of impact hitters […]

If baseball were different, how different would it be? And if this thought haunts your dreams, well, stick around and see what Ben and Meg have to say. Philosophically and pedantically, it's Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild. Effectively Wild! Hello and welcome to episode 2040 of Effectively Wild, a baseball podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters. I am Ben Lindberg of The Ringer, joined by Meg Raleigh of Fangraphs. Hello, Meg. Hello, Ben. So, I've talked in the past about my admiration, appreciation for players who manage to stay on Major League rosters without actually playing.

And yet somehow they keep that roster spot. It's valuable real estate. And yet teams carry them for one reason or another. And Charlie Culberson, I think, has potentially broken new ground when it comes to being a big leaguer without ever being seen in a game. So I've talked about some notables when it comes to this in the past. I know last year we talked about Guillermo Heredia of Atlanta, who himself was very much in this category. He spent the entire 2022 season on the active roster. He was on the roster, I think, 167 of 172 games or days, but barely played. He got 82 plate appearances in 74 games, which was just really by far the fewest plate appearances by

anyone who was on an active roster that amount of time and he was just kind of like a team cheerleader i mean he played occasionally he was a defensive replacement but he was the guy who waved the pink sword to celebrate that seemed to be his primary role at times yeah and the sword dildo you know to be specific about it. This year, that role was played by Charlie Culberson, who spent, gosh, a couple months on the Braves Major League roster this year and got into one game, a single game. He pinch hit once on July 16th. He singled. And that was it. Other than that, he was really never heard from again. I mentioned this

because he was finally designated for assignment. I guess this was actually the second time that he was designated for assignment because he was initially brought up in mid-May, spent a month on the Major League roster without getting into a game. I was going to say without doing anything. I'm sure he was doing something. He was playing some part. He's popular. He's a well-liked teammate. Sure. He reminds people of Dansby Swanson, I guess.

Yeah. That's a nice way of saying Meg has been obsessed with his similarity to Dansby Swanson for an age, really, at this point. Right. So he was designated for assignment on June 18th for the first time because Lana called up catcher Chadwick Trump. Trump! I left that name, by the way. He had been called up, Culberson, May 19th because I guess he was taking the spot of Brandon Shoemake, who was sent to AAA. So then just an uneventful month or so passed in the majors. Then finally Trump comes up

and he was designated for assignment. And then I think he rejected an outright assignment, was declared a free agent briefly, and then signed back with the Braves on a minor league deal. Because why not? Pretty sweet gig being in the big leagues without actually having to play or getting to play. Yeah. Nice work if you can get it. Right. I was going to ask you whether you think it's nice work. I mean, I'm sure he'd prefer to play probably. But for most of us, I would prefer to have the Culberson role. Like, I don't know that I would want to get into a big league game. Maybe once just to say I did it, just to get that baseball reference page, which is what Charlie Culberson did this year. So I'd pinch hit once and then otherwise I would be content to just

sit on the bench. That would be kind of nice. So shortly after he re-signed as a free agent, then they called him back up again and he's been there ever since, again, getting into one single game. And I'm sure helping improve the morale who knows maybe he picks the music in the clubhouse i don't know maybe he's uh helps out with other rituals but really it does seem like pretty nice work like he's he's been a brave before and a regular or a more regular at least in the past and then he was away from atlanta for a while and then he came back but it's pretty impressive not only to hold a big league roster spot but to do so without contributing anything that we can measure or represent in a box score

how much of it do you think is giving fans in atlanta the the brief thrill of being like, is Dansby Swanson back in our dugout? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's like he never left. It's like he never left, except he did leave. He did, in fact, leave.

But yeah, maybe this is meant to be, not that Atlanta fans are in need of a psychological balm, because I don't know if you know this, Ben, but their season's going pretty well. It is, right. But, you know, maybe it's to lend an illusion. It's a magic trick, you know. Maybe that's what they're interested in here.

You would think on a team like Atlanta, probably the best team in baseball, that it might be harder to do what he's doing. Right. Because the bar for clinging to a roster spot would be higher. Then again, maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's just that all their starters are so good that they don't really need a bench. They don't need substitutes, really. So then you can just kind of be Charlie Culbertson and slip under the radar. It's like, you know, our 25 guys on the roster are so good that the 26, it's like, oh yeah, he's around.

I guess we can just let him stay. We like him, you know? He's good company. So that's all you have to do. Whereas if you were a worse team and you had holes and needs and people who needed to be replaced, then maybe you'd be less inclined to carry a Charlie Culberson who never actually got into a game. So he just slipped through the cracks. He found this niche and I guess it's gone for now, but maybe he'll be back at some point. I hope he's able to do this again. It's just like living the dream on some level.

Again, probably pretty frustrating for him. I'm sure he'd to do this again. It's just like living the dream on some level. Again, probably pretty frustrating for him. I'm sure he'd rather be playing. But for us, it's very much, it's like a George Costanza approach to the big leagues. It's like people just forgot you were there and you just keep showing up. So what finally ended his tenure is that Atlanta made a trade, right? And they acquired Nikki Lopez from the Royals I did not intend to lead our trade talk today with the Nikki Lopez trade I was about to say like yeah really this is where we're it is kind of a curious one though I it's so weird later but it's a natural segue from Culberson because this is how he was displaced. So the curious thing here is that

the Royals and Braves, it was a one for one where the Royals got Taylor Hearn and the Braves got Nicky Lopez, but the Braves had just gotten Taylor Hearn themselves from the Rangers who needed pitching, as we will discuss soon in this episode. But Taylor Hearn has not been a great successful pitcher this year, I guess a little bit better in relief. But the Rangers had designated him for assignment, and then Atlanta had acquired him just for cash considerations. So he was available for anyone to take, right? And I'm not going to say Nicky Lopez was some huge trade chip, right?

I mean, kind of popular with Royals fans, I gather. But other than his 2021 season, when he actually managed to be a league average batter a bit better, and with the defense and everything, had like a six-FanCrafts-War season, which makes everyone's eyes pop. Since then, he's not been a good hitter but he's still defensively versatile and useful and has had some value as a major league player so it's kind of odd that they would trade him for a guy who was just recently available to everyone and it just picked him up for not for free not for a song not noah song but for a song i wonder sometimes about the royals you know i wonder about them i wonder about i wonder about the choices that are made and if they could be categorized as like the best choices yeah which

sounds dismissive of a lot of people working hard and i don't mean it to but i also don't think that the choices are the best sometimes ben um and this reflects um well maybe a process failure is like the the most accurate way of describing it so yeah not for a noah song although no song no longer on the fillings but as close to freely available as one might find. Yeah, right. So it's a bit of a head scratcher. Can I add one more thing to the Charlie Culperson talk? People are like, Max Scherzer was literally dealt over the weekend and this is what you guys are starting with? As long as he doesn't end up on the Cubs,

he can go wherever. And I'm not wishing him ill you know to be very clear but ben the number of times i thought that it was one and it was the other one and i was confused by them and so i just need them to stay i need i need them to be like um you know like magnets where the ends repel each other and then they're on different roster he probably he shouldn't even be a a white sock because that would you, that also has the potential for hijinks. Like they could go across town to each other. I don't even know.

Like, are they friends? Do you think that they go out sometimes and their wives are like, you guys look like really similar, you know? Not like a little bit, like a lot a bit, you know? So anyway. Yeah, probably. They were teammates and they were often juxtaposed with each other. So unless they get tired of spending time around each other because, you know, it was the Spider-Man pointing meme whenever they were together, then I would think they could bond over both looking like each other. Yeah.

Yeah. This was a friend of the pod, Rene Giselli's take on that Hearn for Lopez trade. This was a couple hours after his initial take about it. So he had had time to simmer and settle down and digest it. And he said, I've been covering the Royals for 30 years. I was there for Jermaine Dye for Nafi Perez. I was there for the Carlos Beltran trade. I was there for Uniesky Betancourt. This might be the most inexplicable Royals trade I've ever seen. Not the worst trade, but the most inexplicable Royals trade I've ever seen. Not the worst trade, but the most inexplicable. A 32 and 75 team trading a useful veteran for a reliever who is older, has as much service time, and was just cut last week.

Inexplicable. It's one of those that just like, it doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things, but it makes you wonder whether they know what they're doing over there. Yeah, it isn't the best, like I said. So we are going to talk about some actual notable trades on this episode. This will be like part one of our trade deadline discussion because we're recording early in the week, pre-deadline. because we're recording early in the week, pre-deadline. We've got a bunch of moves that have already been made, and then we'll be back soon after the deadline to wrap it up and talk about everything else that happens after we record this episode. And at the end of this episode,

I will also be doing an in-person meet a major leaguer conversation with a brand new big leaguer, Declan Cronin, who is exactly the sort of player we tend to feature on this podcast just because he's a 36th round pick, right? And he's got kind of an analytical orientation and an interesting story. But also he went to my high school, which is the primary reason why I wanted to talk to him. He is the first Regis High School of Manhattan graduate ever to make the major leagues. Not something I really ever expected to see happen.

So I must talk to Declan Cronin about our shared history and his progression to the majors because he's an interesting guy and an interesting call-up story. And he actually has a job other than being a big league pitcher. He is the assistant director of operations at Tread Athletics, which is kind of like driveline Southeast. It's sort of a progressive player development facility, tech and data driven pitching lab type place in North Carolina. And he remade himself there and has helped other players remake themselves there. Not only is he a Regis High School grad, he's a Holy Cross grad, the first one to make the majors in almost 50 years. So he's an interesting guy, great underdog story, and also the sort of player who's getting a shot because of the trade deadline. The White

Sox traded some pitchers. They called up Declan Cronin. The deadline closes some doors and it opens others. And I've said before, I don't have a ton of school spirit. I'm not like a rah-rah school guy, at least for some of the schools I've attended. But the closest I come to really having meaningful school spirit is for my high school because it was a scholarship only school. Gave me a great education for free. So I'm grateful for that and excited that there's now a Regine in the majors. So I'll talk to Declan and that conversation coming at not an ideal time for you as someone who's directing traffic prior to the deadline. So this will not be an all-boys segment because we went to an all boys school. I was invited. Okay.

I was invited. Everyone relaxes. Fine. Yeah. Although, you know, as a graduate of an all women's college, I would understand the instinct. Yeah. So you've got a lot of trade stuff to handle. And also you've got to tend to your cat's butt.

So your hands are full these days. Ben, look, again, I know that people are saying, no, we're doing the cat before Scherzer too. And look, sometimes you have to share your burdens, everyone. You need to share your burdens. And sometimes your adorable little cat gets in a fight on saturday night and she ends up wounded in her little butthole and and look one could say how does that even happen you know how is of all the parts of yourself you present in a fight i mean like i hope it came as she was

running away as she was trying to get home poor little thing yeah and then she got got in her butthole yeah but she did get got she did and um someone or something tried to tear your cat a new one oh no poor babs so anyway what would the deadline be or at least the day before the deadline, without a trip to the vet that costs $700? And I know some of you out there are thinking, we listened to the bonus pod, why didn't you get pet insurance? And I would just say, you know, I also ask past Meg that question. I am also curious what her justification for her choices is.

But those were the choices that were made. And so here I sit, about to about to be 700 poor than i was at the beginning of the day but hopefully babs but will be fine and her butthole specifically will recover and uh it's certainly be cleaner it's like of all the places you know to get got that's a that's a bad one for a number of reasons not not the least of which is that, like, you know, cats, like every other living creature, they got to poo. And so they're going to get, anyway, I don't want her to get infected. So thank you to the good people of Arvette for getting me in, you know, at a reasonable time the day before the deadline rather than on the deadline. And here we are yeah so anyway all of that to say that i might not have trades to edit tomorrow we don't know we don't know what the next 24 hours are gonna hold as we will talk about in a second

we swear there might not be that many more big moves coming but there will be a cat with an injured butt regardless so i will be bowing out of that one and i appreciate it please don't tell him about my cat like don't be like meg would be here but there's an injured anus in her household right now she's gotta tend to it okay i will not mention that but my best to Babs. Thank you. And yeah, famous last words about there may not be many more trades coming, but we'll talk about that. Let's talk about it. Let's get into it. Some choices that were actually made outside of catfights and Nikki Lopez, right? So the major moves that have happened thus far, many of them involve the Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals and also the Angels. So we've got a Max Scherzer trade to discuss.

We've got a Jordan Montgomery, Chris Stratton trade to talk about. We've got a Jordan Hicks trade to talk about. And we've got a Randall Gritchick, CJ Krohn trade to talk about here. And I guess the common theme, other than obviously these are teams that are in need of marginal wins here to get into the playoffs and hopefully have long runs when they do, but also these are injury replacements to some degree, right? We have the Angels who just lost Taylor Ward, so they need someone to play and hit. What a grisly, grisly thing. Yeah. And the Jays, they just lost Jordan Romano to the IL with a back injury. And the Rangers have already had some starters go down, but just had Nathan Ivaldi go on the IL with a forearm injury.

And maybe it won't be serious, but as we've discussed, sometimes those forearm IL placements, they can lead to more severe diagnoses eventually. So they need arms. They got some arms. So all of these make sense. We get why these teams are making these moves, but we can still discuss the specifics. So the headline deal is Max Scherzer, And this is an interesting deal, not just because it involves Max Scherzer and also a notable prospect, Luis Angel Acuna, who is notable not just for his talent, but because he is the brother of Ronald Acuna. So you have the last name Acuna. That's probably going to make you a little bit more famous than you would be otherwise. But this is interesting for what it says about the Mets and also the structure of this trade, right? There was money changing hands, or there will be, and there was an opt-out decision that

had to be done before this trade was consummated. So this is kind of an interesting one. So Max Scherzer traded from the Mets to the Rangers, and it is for Luis Angel Acuna, who is like a mid-top 100 type guy, right? And Ronald Acuna himself paid a compliment to his brother just this May and said that he's more advanced as a prospect than he himself was at the same age, you know, pumping up his brother. He is not widely seen as a future Ronald Acuna type player, even though Ronald Acuna was intimating as much, but promising player, good speed, lots of stolen bases, just like big bro. He plays premium defensive positions. You know, he can handle himself at shortstop.

He's even played a little bit of center field because the Rangers have been pretty set in the middle infield now. So they were trying him out in the outfield. So there's some positional versatility there. And he could stand to improve his plate discipline a bit, but he's not the hackerist of hackers. So all that's really missing from the profile is power, which could come, although he does not have the build of his big brother. He's listed at 5'8", right, as opposed to his 6-foot-tall listed brother. So promising prospect. You can sort of see why he was maybe expendable for the Rangers specifically, but a good add for the Mets. And they got him not just by giving up Max Scherzer, but by agreeing to pay about two-thirds of Max Scherzer's salary over the

rest of this season and next season. Because Max Scherzer famously signed for $43 million or so per year, which is a fair amount for a pitcher of Max Scherzer's age and performance this season. And he had an opt-out, and the Rangers seemingly were not going to do this deal unless Scherzer agreed not to exercise the opt-out after this season, that he would agree to remain a Ranger for next season. And I'm sure for him as a union leader, he probably was conscious of not wanting to give up his leverage there, but also wanted to go somewhere he could win in the short term and probably recognizes as well that given how he has pitched this season, he would probably not exercise the opt-out.

He would want to be signed at that rate next season. He probably would not do better than that unless he finishes really strong this season. So the Rangers get him for the rest of this season and hopefully the playoffs and next season as well. spent their money to get Scherzer. And now rather than get salary relief, they have elected to still pay Max Scherzer most of the money that they were due to pay him in order to get a prospect back, which is another way that Steve Cohen can throw his money around for the betterment of this organization. Yeah. I think that this goes to show that there are a lot of ways that teams and specifically owners can deploy money as a resource, which is an obvious thing to say. But I think that we tend to, you know, or maybe not you and I because we're so sophisticated, but like the average fan is thinking about money in terms of going out and signing guys. of going out and signing guys. And that is like the marquee way to do it. But I think that when you're in a position like the Mets are where, you know, Cohen clearly wants a World Series and quickly.

I don't think he's going to be content to tear down what they've built, you know, to the studs and then try to rebuild again. But, you know, rather, like you said, rather than just offload the contract and wash your hands of Scherzer and then try to see what you can do, they're like, look, we can still flex the financial might. That's a muscle that we have that's well developed. restocking the farm system, really building up, which is an area that as they were going through and signing all of these guys and spending all of this money, everyone was noting, well, you know, they have to do that. The farm system is not very good. And so, you know, you can make the farm

system better when you're willing to make these moves. And I think that as we have seen both with this deal and some of the others that they have made in the last little bit, they're clearly thinking about it a little bit differently than they have in the past. You know, they're targeting good prospects are targeting lower level guys who have promise and helium and are exciting, but are far from the majors and saying, you know, that's okay. Cause those guys will either be good for us in a couple of years or end up being, you know, part of a package to bring back big league help that can help us next year or the next or the year after, right? So it just feels like they are trying to, rather than rebuild, retool, while also kind of, you know, thinking about player acquisition and resources

in a nimble and dynamic way, the way that an organization like the Dodgers might. And there are long, there may be a long ways too harsh, but there are ways yet from being like Dodgers East, which we've talked about. But like, that is one of the things that the Dodgers do incredibly well is they look at all of their, you know, they look at their big league roster, they look at their firm system, they look at payroll, and they are trying to think all the time about how they can, you know, deploy, you know, assets, and here I mean like money in one place to, you know, go out and acquire talent that will help them or trade talent that they already have in order to get talent they need elsewhere like they maybe that's the way that we should talk about it assets is like just money

and then talent like that's a you know those are the people because people are talented assets not so much they just sit around but anyway i think that this is you know if you're a mets fan and you want there to be a silver lining to what I imagine is an incredibly disappointing season, the way that this front office is conducting itself right now is a welcome departure from some of the approach that the Mets as an organization have had in the past. And I think it's good praising the Mets and their approach to prospects, which sometimes they've been a little shifty. So here we go. Yeah. And it's certainly not out of the question that they could come back and contend next year. As we speak, Justin Verlander is still a Met and he's had some comments about not loving this direction and wondering how the Mets plans for the future include him or whether they do or whether he wants to be part of them.

As of now, they've given up David Robertson, who is due to be a free agent, and they've got decent value back prospect-wise. And now they've given up Max Scherzer, who, in addition to being a bit iffy performance-wise, was not guaranteed to be a Met next year. So it's not that they've necessarily traded from the core, the long-term core, to the extent that there is a long-term core, because it's a pretty old team.

Obviously, there are some rookies, I guess one of whom has performed very well, Francisco Alvarez, and the others not as much. But I don't think that they are in any way treating this as a long-term step back. We'll see whether it turns out to be or not. But Billy Epler said, I do want to be clear that it's not a rebuild. It's not a fire sale.

It's not a liquidation. So those are three things that it is not. So it is a step back. I don't know. It's a retrenchment. It is just trading guys who maybe weren't guaranteed to be contributors beyond this season anyway. And we'll see whether they can turn it around because there's still a solid base of talent there. I guess the question is what the Rangers are getting in Scherzer.

Now, it's pretty fascinating that the Rangers have had a season as successful as the one that they've had, and yet they are in a position to be trading for multiple starting pitchers. Because you would have said coming into the season, if this works, and we were far from convinced that it would work for the Rangers, that they didn't seem to be a finished product yet, that they had bought a lot of wins worth of value, but that there still seemed to be a finished product yet, that they had bought a lot of wins worth of value, but that there still seemed to be some holes on the roster, I would have said, well, if it did work, if the Rangers were in first place, however, tenuously at the trade deadline, that probably the pitching would have had to pay off, right? That the rotation they assembled, all the guys they went out and got

via trade, via free agency, it projected to be a very strong rotation, but also had a lot of downside because basically everyone in that rotation had an extensive injury history. And so if you'd told me that the Rangers were doing this well, I would have said, oh, I guess they've held up. I guess Jacob deGrom has been good and healthy and available and everyone else has been pitching and making their turns in the rotation. And in actuality, they have more or less a middle-of-the-pack rotation, and they've had the best offense in the league. Only Atlanta has hit better than the Rangers.

So I didn't see that coming, but that's how it's happened. And as it is, the wheels are kind of coming off the rotation a little bit. Obviously, deGrom's been out for a long time. Evaldi has just been the stalwart of that rotation. And now that he's gone down, you were looking at a potential playoff rotation of mid-rotation guys at best, you know, like John Gray's okay, and Dane Dunning was never even really expected to start as much as he has, and he's done a good job. But no one who really would have scared you in a short series, right? And no one you could count on health-wise either. I mean, Martin Perez and Andrew Heaney, right, who is probably going to surpass his career-high innings total for a single season if he stays healthy so they've gone and gotten themselves something closer to a top of the rotation with scherzer and with jordan montgomery and they're as we speak a game ahead of the astros so it's

been for a while like can they hold them? We had a conversation about 10 episodes ago, episode 2030. This was July 7th. We talked about, would you rather be the Diamondbacks or the Rangers when it comes to holding off a perennial favorite in that division? Like, can the Diamondbacks hold off the Dodgers? Can the Rangers hold off the Astros? Well, the Diamondbacks couldn't or haven't, right? So their position has worsened significantly since we had that conversation. As we speak, on Monday, they have a 7% chance to win the NL West and a 42% chance to make the playoffs at all, whereas the Rangers are about 42% chance to win the division, just a hair behind the Astros, even though they're a hair ahead of the Astros in the standings, and still roughly a three and four chance to make the playoffs. But obviously, if they could fend off the Astros and

win that division, that would be a big boon to them. And if they could have a serviceable playoff rotation, that would also be a big boon to them. So what do you think they're getting in Scherzer? They're getting a big name. They're getting someone who was a Cy Young finalist, almost winner a couple of years ago, and obviously was good enough to command the average annual value that he has now. but he's not his old self or whether he is his old self. He's not his young self, right? So he's got a 4.01 ERA. His FIP is worse than that. His expected ERA based on stat cast stuff is better than that. Basically, he's been Homer prone, right? He's had a bout of gopheritis this season. His velocity's down from what it was.

His strikeout and walk rates are worse than they were. They're not bad. They're still better than average. Yeah, they're better than league average, yeah. But he's given up almost two homers per nine innings, which is not great. So you wonder, is that randomness? Is that going to regress? Is that a high home run per fly ball rate i mean

it is but is that because of bad luck or is it because his stuff is diminished and maybe he's still pitching like a power pitcher right and and some of those balls are more hittable so he's he's more prone to homers than he once was so yeah it could be both i guess is is often the answer and maybe he'll sort of split the difference between some of the expected stats and the actual stats i mean you know worst case i mean worst case he'll just get hurt right he's been i mean worst case the sun goes out tomorrow but then i guess it doesn't really matter what Max Scherzer does. Yeah, right. So realistic worst case. I mean, you know, healthy worst case, because durability has been an increasing issue for Max Scherzer, as you would expect as he nears 40 here. So you can't count on him to take the ball and be healthy in October. But I guess worst case if he's actually

pitching and ostensibly healthy is that he's like a mid-rotation guy. You know, he's not top of the rotation Max Scherzer, but mid-rotation guy better in terms of like Rangers fans understanding of Max Scherzer is just that like the Rangers have scored almost six runs a game and the Mets have scored like 4.44 runs a game and so some of this is just going to be he's playing in front of a much better offense and I want to ask you something I'm going to go back to Scherzer himself and what it actually looks like I promise that is a thing I am going to do. But I think that this sense is backed up by the numbers, right? The Rangers also have a better defense. Now, does that help with the home run problem? Ben, it sure doesn't. that's not relevant to a home run problem, right? But like the Rangers score a lot of runs and they play good defense. And the Mets score fewer runs and they have a bad defense. And my sense of their defense is that it's like very bad. And I'm gratified to see the numbers kind of back that up because I was worried that

my sense of their defense was being informed by like the worst moment of Brett Beatty's entire life. that my sense of their defense was being informed by like the worst moment of Brett Beatty's entire life. And I think looking at the numbers that it is actually not a very good defense as, as these things go, not the worst in the league, but you know, it's not, it's not very good by the numbers, like not good, but back to Scherzer. I think that some of what is going on is to your point, likely his approach, maybe not having sufficiently changed to reflect the realities of his repertoire as it stands now some of it is probably you know randomness that might regress in a way that is favorable to him but to your point like i don't think that the

the floor for his performance is like sub replacementreplacement level. The floor is like, he is a useful mid-rotation guy who will pitch innings and he will not be a problem. And when you put that in front of an offense that is just incredible and a defense that does good work and maybe can limit non-home run base runners in a way that the Mets defense maybe couldn't, like I think all of those things will combine to being a better experience of Scherzer in his game. There's always the chance that my

sense of how much of his home run problem is approach related is wrong to the upside for him. All of a sudden, his home run rate just regresses to normal and he's incredible and they become a fire-breathing dragon and vanquish the astros decisively and then go on an incredible run and how fun would that be for rangers fans not so much for you know the rest of the aos but certainly for them and then like montgomery again like he's just very useful you know he's just very useful. You know, he's just very useful now, and he's useful in the playoffs. When other Ben wrote about that trade for us, like, I thought he put it well, which is that he's sort of overqualified as a third starter, assuming that Scherzer is, you know, good-ish,

and that Avalzi comes back healthy, and he is useful in a playoff rotation, and he is particularly useful as, like like the third guy that you might need in a wild card series if they aren't able to keep ahead of the Astros and end up going that route to the postseason. So I think that it's good. And it sounds like they're not done, maybe like they might keep trying things. And, you know, the Stratton piece of it is like he's kind of a throw in, right? And, you know, the Stratton piece of it is like he's kind of a throw in. Right. But like he helps to to bring some some stability to that bullpen that's been kind of meh. He's not like a lights as sexy, but, you know, he's got a pretty good fit.

He'll be a good pitcher to add to that mix. Sure. They really needed to remake their bullpen. They needed multiple arms there. So that helps. And, yeah, I think the defense aspect of it is interesting because I was thinking about Montgomery, who's had a very good season going from St. Louis to Texas. And you would think of Montgomery as a guy who really would have been hurt by the Cardinals defense, which is a strange thing to say because the Cardinals historically have had good defenses and good infield defenses. And you would have said, yeah, like Montgomery would be a good fit

for that team because he gets ground balls and they gobble themled them up there but yeah not so much this year and in fact John Moselec has talked about he's sort of blamed the restrictions on the shift and suggested that maybe the Cardinals had an advantage there and now they don't and so the Cardinals are going to be going for more whiff oriented pitchers which maybe you can see in their returns for these trades but Montgomery at least according to StatCast, has had better than average defense behind him personally, even though the Cardinals' defense collectively has been bad. He may have lucked out a little there when it comes to the defensive support behind him. So I don't know that that means he's going to be way better for Texas. But it is true that Texas has allowed the seventh lowest batting average on grounders this season, and the Cardinals have allowed the 27th lowest, or I guess another way to put that would be the seventh highest, or sixth highest, I suppose. So that has not been a strength for them. And you would think

that at least as currently constituted, Montgomery might be better with the Rangers infield defense behind him than the Cardinals. But Montgomery's good. He's underrated. He's not a strikeout guy, so he's not sung. Maybe he's unsung. He's undersung. But yeah, he's been solid. And I guess this is the second season he's been traded midseason. But he's done well. He did well for the Cardinals. And he's a nice pickup for Texas. So I think these are important additions for them. I don't mean to suggest that it's inevitable that the Astros will overtake them. I think there's kind of an aura around the Astros is because they've been successful for so long and they've been perennially at the top of that division that when you see them breathing down your neck, it's like, oh, here come the Astros again. But really, if you look at the underlying numbers, the Rangers have been the better team this year. I mean, run differential wise, only the Braves have a higher run differential than the Rangers do this season and not by much. So the Rangers have outscored their opponents entering Monday's games by 145 runs and the Astros are at plus 55.

So the Rangers are six games worse than their base runs record. The Rangers are six games worse than their base runs record, their expected deserved record based on the underlying performance. And the Astros are four games better than their base runs record. So if anything, it seems like the Rangers are a better team. Like I know the Astros have missed some pretty important players for good chunks of the season, obviously. But still, it's just looking at the underlying quality and performance. obviously, but still, it's just looking at the underlying quality and performance. It's not like a fait accompli that the Astros will overtake the Rangers, and now they have made that a little less likely by adding a few guys and potentially not being done yet. So kudos to them for having gone in on this season and said, you know, we're going for it and we're spending and it's worked out for them

thus far, unlike the Mets, unfortunately for them. And they are throwing good money after good. They're saying, yeah, we're in this. We're going to continue to make a run for it. So as for the Cardinals end of things, again, I guess, you know, you think of the pitching as being a weakness of this Cardinals team. So it's perhaps surprising that they are the team trading pitching all over the place. But I guess their pitching hasn't been so bad and they have some good individual pitchers. Again, the defense makes their pitching look worse than it has been. But they trade Montgomery. Again, he was an impending free agent, as isris stratton so they got again it seems like pretty good value back right in terms of prospects they got left-hander john king infield prospect thomas sagazy am i saying that right and a pitching prospect to koa roby who probably also a top 100 guy right right? So he's a real prospect. So we've seen multiple top 100 guys traded at this deadline. Again, not just like straight up for a rental, but either for someone who's under team control for more than one season or for multiple rentals in the same deal. So they're

getting good guys back. And much like the Mets, I'm sure that they would say that this is not a fire sale and this is not a rebuild and this is not a liquidation, right? They want to be good again next year and they're not trading anyone here who would have helped them be good again next year, at least under their current contract. They say it's not a fire sale, but that's because it's like mid-process, right? Like, I get what you mean, but also I imagine like that,, by tomorrow, Jack Flaherty will no longer be a Cardinal, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's consolidation among their outfielders. But I think that they are doing what they need to to address next year's greatest need, which is pitching actually on their active big league roster as opposed to like making the mascot do it. So that piece is probably appealing to them. So yeah, you know, I think that they are in a good position to be better in 2024.

So that's useful to them. And, you know, they're not going anywhere this year. So why not retool? Even if I think that the extent of their sale is more dramatic than they're saying yep and jordan hicks uh maybe the best reliever who was still on the market after the chapman trade after the robertson trade so nice addition for toronto who's had a pretty good bullpen this year on the whole but again if you're hoping to be a playoff team never a bad thing to have another fire-breathing, flame-throwing, back-end-of-the-bullpen guy, especially with Romano hurt for now.

So they are clinging to that last AL wildcard into the next move here, the Angels deals for Gritchick and Krohn. So the Angels, they lost two out of three to the Blue Jays. They're roughly the same distance back in the wildcard race and the division race. I don't know which is the more or less likely path to the playoffs for the Angels. Obviously, either path is open to them. But as we have discussed, they are being as aggressive as they can be, whether it is just with the promoting recent draftees or prospects who were quite young or just trying to fill every hole that pops up. They've had just a ton of injuries, and every time someone goes down, they go get someone. It's not always someone super impressive,

but whether it's Eduardo Escobar or Mike Moustakis or now Grichuk or Krohn, again, they lost Taylor Ward, who'd been hitting better and playing outfield for them and mashing lefties and got hit in the head by a pitch from Alec Manoa. And fortunately, it seems like he's okay vision-wise, not compromised, but facial fractures, he's going to be out for quite a while and most likely the rest of the season. So by getting Gritchuk and Krohn, I mean, they kind of fill two holes, I guess, like not in super impressive fashion, but they get an outfielder, they get a first baseman. First base has kind of been a problem position for them because Jared Walsh had a bunch of health

challenges and just didn't hit it all. And then they designated him for assignment. Disappointing season for him. Brandon Drury is about to be back or could be back by the time people hear this. But still a little more depth there. Can't hurt. You get Krohn, you get Grichuk, who can kind of fill the ward spot and be the lefty matcher in the short term. And it's not super sexy, but they're still kind of in this and everything is riding on them making the playoffs one time with Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, who could be back at some point in August. So they're just, they're doing everything they can. They're pushing their few remaining chips in. I mean, again, it was like the worst farm system in baseball probably before this trade. And they traded a couple pitchers here, a couple of guys from their all pitcher draft a couple of years ago. So not like super highly rated prospects, just, you know, good prospects by angel standards, which is not saying much.

No, not very much at all yeah they're getting two guys back who just you know like have pretty good offensive track records just uh unremarkable but they're going to give you league average production if not better and they're both former angels of course too or or at least angels draftees. Draftees, yeah. Right, yeah. Krohn was an Angel back when the Angels were good, so that was a while ago. And Gritchick, of course, famously drafted one pick ahead of Mike Trout by the Angels, as I think Sam Miller has written and pointed out. It's not that they thought that Gritchick was better than Mike Trout.

They did select him one pick ahead of Mike Trout, but that wasn't necessarily reflective of where he was on their draft board. But it is a little quirk of Randall Gritchick's career. Drafted one spot ahead of Mike Trout by the team that drafted Mike Trout, along with all the other teams that passed on Mike Trout. But they've both had sort of nice little careers. They've both been long tenured big leaguers and a little bit above average offensively and roughly like 10 win guys on a career level. And it's the kind of guy you get to plug a hole when you are on the periphery of a race and you're desperately trying to stay in it yeah i mean like you can't they're in the spot where what is ostensibly like a marginal way to plug a hole becomes imperative because they just can't lose any more ground in

in the race if they're gonna do anything at all in the postseason so are either of these like particularly inspiring no but like it's fine and you know when you combine the whole plugging move with like going out and getting a good rotation compliment to otani and trying to write the ship on that side of things i think think in aggregate, it's a useful deadline, particularly if what you're giving up to get it are to like a 40 plus and a 40 future value prospect. It's not like awe-inspiring, but they don't have the prospects to deal

for awe-inspiring position players at this point. They had to use their really good prospect piece right their their trade chip there to go get a starter so that's what they did and then they're like you know cj chrome can stand there gritchick can play reasonable defense he can you know hit one side well so you're gonna go do that and see if it's enough and then hopefully you know trout comes back and looks something like himself and man poor taylor ward yeah he got he got his face broken yeah it seems bad it's bad to get your it was a it was one of those where i'm like i know it looks like he wants to throw up that's never a good sign so yeah yeah yeah and again if you had told me that the angels

would be picking up this amount of infield depth midseason, I mean, this trade and then also Moustakas and Escobar, like coming into the season, it seemed like they had too many infielders. I remember that was a theme of our season preview pod for them. It was like, where are all these guys going to play? guy's gonna play but Rendon as is his want got heard and hasn't performed very well and you can't really ever count on him to be available or productive at this point and Drury's been hurt a little too and then of course they lost Gio Urshela for the season right so all these guys have gone down and it's just like next man up let's just keep bringing in people to just try to keep this thing going somehow. So it's sort of a Ship of Theseus situation now where I think they have about a third of their opening day complement of position players active. Joshi and Compton to the Braves, remaking themselves with a bunch of seemingly minor pickups in 2021 that proved to be important pickups. I doubt that the Angel season will end as well as those Braves did. But Krohn and Grichik, on top of all the other moves and the Giolito and Lopez trade, I mean,

they are trying. You know, they've gotten themselves into this situation where they're having to make a zillion moves and they have Shoya Otani having this incredible season and they're still long shots to make the playoffs. It looks like, as we speak, about a 4% chance to win the division, FanCraft says, and then about an 11% chance on top of that

to win a wildcard, totaling roughly a 16% chance. It's a slim chance. They've got to fight off or overtake a bunch of other teams, but they are trying to maximize that slim chance instead of letting it slip away. So kudos to them on that. I did want to say over the weekend, I'm sure that this did not prompt the trade, but did you see Matt Chapman caught on camera

sort of berating Blue Jays manager John Schneider for pitching to Shohei Otani. Yeah, so this was sort of a lip reading thing. But Shohei Otani in the first game of the series on Friday, I guess, Otani went two for four and he hit a home run. And you could see Matt Chapman having heated words with the Blue Jays manager saying that they shouldn't be pitching to this guy that no one else on this team can hit. Right. With, you know, I guess he put it in not the kindest word. He said, why did we pitch to him? As far as you could tell, he's the only fucking guy on the team that can hit.

Wow. Yeah. And, you know, after the game, he said it was a heat of the moment kind of thing. He said he would keep his comments between me and my teammates and the coaches, although really people had already sussed out what he said. And I go out there every day. I want to win. I get passionate sometimes. out what he said. And I go out there every day. I want to win. I get passionate sometimes. And Schneider, for his part, I thought he handled it well. He played it down and took the high road and diffused it and didn't say anything to inflame the situation. And Phil Nevin was asked about this too. And he also sort of discounted it. I think both Phil Nevin and Matt Chapman are Fullerton guys. They went to the same college. I guess they have some prior relationship. So they have kinship that way. Yeah. Nevin said, that's just team banter. Our guys are all aware of it. However, they want to use it. That's fine. So he at least played it off. They spoke before the next game, said it was no big deal, but kind of insulting and yet also kind of true, right? Yeah. I also just, I don't know, I wouldn't view a moment like that as like him not keeping it to himself and his teammates, right? Like if lip reading is involved.

Yeah, right. If it's like a John Boy breakdown. Yeah, right. If it's like a John Boy breakdown. don't know man like if if people are reading lips then i think you gotta be like this wasn't any of my business like it isn't a nice thing to say and you know maybe he would have been better served just waiting until he was in the clubhouse but i don't know it feels it feels like you gotta give him a pass on that one so i'm glad that everyone involved kind of took it in stride. Yeah, Schneider said it was just a manager and player talking about what unfolded. Yeah. Leave it at that.

But I don't know whether this was because Chapman berated Schneider or because Shohei Otani hurt the Blue Jays for pitching to him. But in each of the next two games in that series, Otani was intentionally walked two times. So I guess he learned his lesson either from the results or from Chapman. Yeah. The message was received, I think, is our takeaway there. Right. And we got an email about that from listener Ben who said, as Shohei continues to mash and without the protection from Mike Trout since his injury, Shohei has been getting pitched around and intentionally walked more than ever.

As an Angels fan and Shohei lover, I'm rooting for him to finish the season with an epic 12 or 13 war. So my question is how do all these walks affect his seasonal war potential? Obviously, walks are great for OBP and therefore OPS and many other batting stats, and they improve his war little by little. But of course, the walks also prevent him from hitting more homers, triples, and collecting RBI. Does the lost potential for the higher value outcomes outweigh the fractional benefits he gets from walks? And yeah, from a war perspective, I would say so. I did a little stat blast about this on episode 2030, and I talked about Otani's batting line with and without Traout behind him.

And I talked about how if you're rooting for him to have the highest war possible, Trout's absence might hurt because Otani's probably going to get pitched around more. And yes, he will walk more, but he might also hit for a little less power, or he has historically. The other thing, though, is that if he's getting intentionally walked, and now there won't even be ward batting behind him i don't know how much uh cronin gritchick help or whether matt chapman would consider them to be effing guys who can hit but intentional walks there's kind of a quirk with the way they're handled in woba and war so yeah if if otani walked every plate appearance, unintentional walks, that would be this season a 697 weighted on base average, which would be amazing and is way higher than his actual 441. So if he were just walking unintentionally all the time, that wouldn't necessarily hurt him. But intentional walks don't really help your Woba or your War. They're treated differently. So I'll quote Neil Weinberg here, former fan grafter who left this in a comment on the fan graphs library entry for Woba several years ago. He noted that intentional walks are generally worth much less than unintentional walks because intentional walks occur when walks are least damaging to the pitcher. So first base is open. So historically, often you

would get an intentional walk if you're like the number eight guy in front of the pitcher. That's not happening anymore. But still, if you're electing to pitch around someone, it might be because there's a base open or it might not hurt you as much on average as an unintentional walk. So he wrote, Woba treats unintentional walks as if they never happened at all. But when we use WOBA to build weighted runs above average or batting runs in war, we're multiplying WOBA

times plate appearances essentially and are giving them credit for their average WOBA for each intentional walk. So this has the effect of giving more credit to good hitters who get intentionally walked

than bad hitters who get intentionally walked. You hitters who get intentionally walked. You could create a Woba that includes intentional walks, but they'd be much less valuable than a normal walk. So basically, it's like you're just kind of giving him an average Shohei Otani plate appearance when he intentionally is walked. So it's not really hurting him, but it's not helping him either the way that an unintentional walk would. So that is somewhat disappointing from a war perspective. And I a fear factor and it's causing teams not to want to pitch to you. Right. Then, you know, like there's a little value to that. Right. It's it's not necessarily like a number eight hitter being walked in front of a pitcher who can't hit it all with a base open. So you could say he's potentially being short changed slightly there.

But it is maybe detracting from his war ceiling, which, of course, I don't want to see as someone who roots for his war to be as high as it could. But just a little statistical note for you there. Also wanted to say that Nevin, even if he wasn't upset about Matt Chapman, or at least professed not to be upset about his comment, he was very upset at an umpire for a pitch. He got thrown out, and Nevin, he gets apoplectic at times. Yeah, he, you know, the cooler head, it does not always prevail. It does not, no. And Sam Blum actually did a piece at The Athletic where he talked to Phil Nevin about his blowups and his tirades and his ejections. And they like watched video of Nevin getting ejected. But he got thrown out on a borderline pitch that he thought was not borderlining. And it was kind of interesting. There was a good breakdown of this on the YouTube channel Close Call Sports that does a lot of analyses of controversial calls or rulings or why an umpire did something or why a manager got thrown out. And it seems like the pitch that Nevin got run on, he appears to have

been under a false impression about how bad a call it was because he was looking at it on his iPad. He was watching the replay. And apparently, I was not really aware of this. We're hyper aware of the odds on Apple TV Plus broadcasts, right? The pitch-by-pitch odds from in-venue. But I have not been as conscious of the fact that apparently, according to Close Call Sports, the K-Zone, the strike zone graphic on Apple TV Plus broadcasts is apparently a little more off than others. Oh, interesting. They aren't always perfect in terms of where they're drawn

and how accurate they are. But apparently the apple one maybe has been worse than others and so if you look closely at this particular pitch like the little dot the circle even if you account for the parallax effect and and offset camera angles and everything it seems like the apple strike zone overlay made that pitch look a little more outside than it actually was like you see the the pitch go in and then the the little dot circle appears like farther outside than the actual pitch seemed to be and so nevin was like ranting and brandishing this ipad and was perhaps misled by that on-screen graphic because the actual pitch appeared to be if not a strike then very borderline like

the kind of call that you see go either way quite right so so you got to be careful with uh what you see on tv you can't always can't always believe it on apple tv plus specifically or or many broadcasts that i find ben very funny i find that very funny. I think that everyone would just be well served by, there really should be a feed you can watch where you just turn off that feature. It would be like an overlay free, we can superimpose a radio broadcast onto the MLB TV feed.

So we should be able to pick a K-Zone free feed. That should be a feature. I think that it would do well. I think we would do big numbers with that one. Yeah. Turn down the temperature a little bit. Ours and Phil Nevin's maybe. Although umpires, Rob Arthur just wrote at Baseball Perspectives, seemingly have been better than ever, which is not new. They kind of get better every year as judged against the technology because they are graded based on the technology and they get feedback. And also saw a lot of turnover with older umps retiring prior to this season and younger umps coming in. And they tend

to conform more to the rulebook zone for one reason or another. So last thing I'll say here, no trades have gone down while we've been speaking, at least. But I think one notable thing, and of course, this could have changed by the time people hear this, but as we speak, I don't know where the hitters are going to come from on this market, because there were some notable non-trades or hitters who were declared unavailable. So yes, Nolan Arnauto, the Cardinals have declared that they're keeping him. And also the Cubs have said that they're Who were declared unavailable. Off the market. Lorenzen like there are other arms available but you look at the hitter market such as it is and there's just there don't appear to be impact

bats there yeah I mean like Jonathan India is on the injured list and he was a he was one we thought might move right we thought we might see an India trade and the Orioles are playing coy at the very least with their hitting prospects if we want to

expand the pool to hitting prospects right they're like we're not moving anyone big so and even some other guys who you thought might present um real obvious redundancy like haven't been playing super well like Colton Couser hasn't been having a great run in his early big league stuff we were lower on him than some other outlets but but he's played badly. So I don't imagine people are like, let's go get Colton. But I've been proven wrong before. Juan Soto seems like he's off the market.

So yeah, it's like, I don't know how on the market he really was, but he seems like he's off the market now. All the Padres are off the market. Although, you know, with AJ, you never know. I wonder if it bothers him and Jerry, like what their reputations are. It's not inaccurate. If it were a distortion of their actual behavior, I could see that bothering them. If it were like a caricature of them, but

at least with Preller, it's not. You say that, but sometimes the feedback that cuts the deepest is the feedback that's true ben that is true yeah that is the thing about people sometimes we hate being perceived you know right yes but when jerry depoto is is doing deals in the hospital it's like you know he probably has to understand people are gonna call me traitor jerry or traitor aj right they have kind of courted those reputations. Yeah, that's true. But yeah, I think that you're right. I mean, as you joked at the beginning, I'm reticent.

I hesitate. I fear being like, you know, tomorrow we'll see like mid-level stuff, but nothing too crazy because then I'm setting myself up to be awake for a long time. But not as long as AJ Prowler potentially, but long nonetheless. And so I'm nervous to do that, but yeah, it's like, what are the sources of big moves, right? Where are they? And I think Verlander is like the, the, the biggest potential shoe to drop. Is that a mixed metaphor? I don't know. Yeah. Well, we'll, we'll talk about the shoes that drop next time.

Yeah. So I did want to say, like, you just talked about some of the Orioles not playing up to expectations yet. But that series this weekend where the Orioles beat the Yankees. Yeah. Yankees fans are upset, right? It wasn't a sweep. They got Aaron Judge back. We talked about this last time, like, the Yankees issues going deeper than the absence of Aaron Judge. And Aaron Judge seemed to be fine in his initial return, at least when he was playing. But the contrast between the top of the division Orioles and the bottom of the division Yankees, not just in terms of where they are in the standings, but like one team is old and slow and just like unexciting.

And the other team, granted, which has been terrible for years, right? So they went through a total tank to get here. But now they are young and they're speedy and they're on the upswing and they're exciting. I keep expecting you to go, and they're so attractive. Well, I mean, there's just like watching those two teams, the contrast. Yeah, it's pretty striking. Not just in terms of results, but also stylistically. Yeah. If you're a Yankees fan, you're kind of salivating and pining and like the grass looks pretty green over there.

I know it's been very arid and brown and dead in Baltimore for several seasons now until last year. Arizona grass, you know. Yeah, right. Deep, deep desert grass. And then Yankees fans also upset about Aaron Boone's quote about the Yankees offense after their 18 strikeout performance, which I think was a franchise record for Orioles pitching. And Aaron Boone said, outside of the strikeouts, I thought at bats we're building off of last night. I thought we grinded out really well. We made it really tough on Kramer.

We couldn't finish off, which, okay, granted, like, they had nine hits. You know, they hit some balls hard, et cetera. Like, it wasn't a completely wasted effort. And I don't know that the offense was the main problem. But when you start outside of the strikeouts on a night when you had 18 strikeouts. It's like Yickey's quotes. I mean, it's like that Dylan Lawson quote we talked about from before he was fired when he was like, I don't care where we are on the leaderboards as long as we're winning. And it's like, yeah, but you have to be high on the leaderboards to win usually. Just like, I admire like the lack of,

you know, yeah, things are going wrong, but just panicking and declaring that things are going wrong. Limited utility, but also sometimes you need to acknowledge that things are going wrong. And Boone has at times, but it just contributes to this perception that he and Cashman are just like too comfortable. Out to lunch. Yeah. Or just, you know, not not urgent enough not sharing the fan bases unrest how as well so when you hear outside of the strikeouts i thought we were okay yeah and like to be clear i don't mean to say things aren't going well for the orioles generally because

boy what a what a team what a club but yeah i guess if yankee fans want to draw any solace, like they are in, at least they're feisty, you know, they care. Like the worst kind of fan experience is ennui. Yeah. You know, we've talked about ennui on this podcast quite a bit. And like just being kind of down, down in the mouth is I think worse than being like really riled up and angry but maybe Boone would say I would take some on we Meg like if they want to if they want to be a little downtrodden if they want to be you know beaten down by by circumstance I'd take it just so they stop yelling for my job quite so much and you know I don't I'd understand that take too all right So I'll take a quick break and I'll be back with my alma mater mate and brand new big leaguer, Declan Cronin.

And then you and I will talk trades again a little later in the week. I am very eager to meet this nascent Major Leaguer. It's the thrilling debut of somebody new. Let's meet this mysterious Major Leaguer. May our hearts be the noble hearts, strong to endure. There in those skies be dark and roadways unsure. May ours be the heroes' hearts, ready to do. We are your sons, dear Regis, our spirit is from you. Well, you are listening to an auditorium full of Regis High School students singing the school's alma mater back in 2014 on the 100th day of the 100th year of Regis's existence.

Declan Cronin was a junior at the time, so he was in that auditorium. And of all the students who were there and of the many, many thousands of other students who have attended the school since its founding in 1914, he is the first to make the major leagues. So, Declan, congratulations. Welcome to the show and welcome to this show.

Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, a lot of Regians have gone on to do some very impressive things so much. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. A lot of Regians have gone on to do some very impressive things, but it's cool to be a first. Yeah. Not this particular impressive thing. I'm sure you still know all the words to the song, but I won't make you perform a solo rendition right now. I guess we could do a duet, but I'm not sure anyone wants to hear that. Maybe not. I was going to ask you, but there's a notable alumni section on the Regis High School Wikipedia page, and you are not yet on there, but I think you deserve to be. I'm just waiting for someone to add you. Now, I'm not there either. I'm not bitter

about that or anything, but maybe if you add me, I could add you because it would be unbecoming of us to add ourselves to the page, but maybe if we do a swap, we could each get on there. I think you deserve it at least at this point. No, that seems like a fair quid pro quo. Okay. We can maybe arrange that. Yeah. So people probably want to hear about your professional baseball career, but I've got

to ask about your high school baseball career, at least briefly. Tell me about your time with the Regis Raiders. Sure. Yeah, it was fairly unique, especially as high school careers go for the guys I'm around now. Not many commuted. I actually got a text from a former Regis teammate and he was like you might be the first major leaguer to ever take the four train and cross down 125th street bus to practice every day. Yeah yeah I was gonna say that the minor league bus rides must have been a cinch for you after commuting to Regis from from New Jersey.

Where in New Jersey how long was that commute for you? From Montclair so obviously like pretty big commuter town. But I usually took the bus or the train, but usually the bus. Let's say an average day was probably about an hour 20, hour 30 commute. Yeah. Yeah. Did the team have a lot of success while you were there? I would say it was varied.

I don't know if we ever went like extremely deep into any playoff runs like the basketball team did when I was there, but we were always fairly competitive, but nothing special, I would say, while I was there. I also didn't, I wouldn't consider myself as being very special when I was there either. basketball team too. Your coach, Kevin Cullen, was my PE teacher as well and one of my advisement heads, so sort of our homeroom people when we would gather in the morning. I was not on the basketball team to no one's surprise, but you were a multi-sport athlete and also juggling that commute and also handling the rigorous course load and academics of Regis. So that must have been a lot to do. You must not have had a ton of free time in those days. No, not much free time. And whatever I did have was probably spent catching up on sleep, to be honest. Right. Yeah. Possibly on the bus or the train, if I know a Regis student. Absolutely. At what point did you start to think of yourself as possibly a professional baseball player?

Because going to Regis, obviously there's no one you could look at and say, yeah, a Regian can make the majors. And then going to Holy Cross, it's been almost 50 years since a Holy Cross grad made the majors as well. And then you were a 36th round draft pick right that round doesn't exist anymore so there are some precedents for players taken then who've made the majors but each step of the way you were either unprecedented or you were a long shot right so at what point did you even start to harbor the hope that you could be a big leaguer as opposed to whatever your fallback plan was?

Yeah, I would say like kind of as my career progressed, I think in high school, my main goal was just to play in college at the highest level possible. And then early in college, it was to be able to play and get consistent innings. And then I think it wasn't until maybe junior year of college where I really thought, okay, maybe being drafted is a reality. That's a new goal that I can chase. And that was one that I obviously chased vigorously and was lucky enough to accomplish, albeit late in the draft and in the 36th round. And then once I was in professional ball and in rookie ball, I think just like making it out of rookie ball was a goal. And then reaching double A was a goal, making triple A roster was a goal.

All the while, obviously, the big leagues being that kind of end goal. But for me, it was just a series of, I would say, like stepping stones that just kind of evolved and the goals changed with each one that was accomplished. And obviously, you know, this past weekend, I got to cross the biggest one off the list and become a big leaguer. But I would say, when did I really start thinking it was reality? Maybe when I first got drafted, but up until then, my only thought had been, I just want to get drafted. I wasn't really thinking past that. I know I just want an opportunity. So yeah. Were you in high school thinking, yeah, I want to be a big leaguer in a serious way? Because I think a lot of kids and people as they're growing up, they think that and then the vast

majority of them at some point have to realize that they're not good enough or maybe they even decide they don't want to do that. And I know that you took academics seriously. What did you study? What was sort of your fallback plan or what did you envision yourself doing if professional baseball didn't work out? Yeah, that's actually a funny question. I was, oh, in college, I studied history and philosophy and I was actually, you know, everything was lined up.

I was going to be joining the Regis campus ministry office as a kind of a one year fill in assistant there in the event I wasn't drafted. So I went through the whole interview application process. Everything was, was offered the role, accepted it with the kind of caveat that if I'm drafted, I'm going to give this thing a shot. of caveat that if I'm drafted, I'm going to give this thing a shot. And that's kind of, that, that tells you all you need to know about like what I really thought my chances were, you know, I had something lined up and at that point that was only a one-year opportunity. So, you know, law school, who knows what I would, would have done next. Um, it feels like some alternate reality that's probably been lived out somewhere, but yeah, I would say I had a plan B and I would be heading back to Regis funny enough. Yeah. And I have some good friends from my class, guys who were in my wedding, who work at Regis now and teach at Regis now, and they love it there. But that was not a choice that they had to make necessarily between being professional baseball players and doing that.

So I can see why you made that choice. Although they were telling me because they were there when you were there as a student. And one of my friends was telling me, you know, by Regis standards, you were just a really ridiculous athlete. You know, you were dunking pretty regularly in basketball games, right? I mean, it's hard to convey. It's not a sports powerhouse. Your success is maybe giving people the wrong impression of Regis, which is known for its scholars more so than its athletes, right? Looking at that notable alumni section, I think there was one grad who played a season for the Celtics many decades ago ago and one guy who was an Olympic fencer. And that's about it when it comes to notable pro athletes, I think.

So, again, not to disparage the athletic abilities, but you don't expect to see someone at Regis necessarily who's going to go on to play at the highest level. It's just not exactly part of the culture, I guess. So that probably played into, I guess, how you saw yourself when you were there. It's not like a feeder school for elite amateur talents necessarily. Yeah, I think that's very fair. Right. So tell me a little bit, I guess, maybe we could skip just briefly past your development, I guess maybe we could skip just briefly past your development, though I want to return to some of that. But tell me how you found out that you were going to make the majors, because you actually had Jeff Passan, of all people, tweet out the story of how you heard the news. And it's a pretty good one. Yeah, it was a pretty normal day in AAA.

We were on the road in Durham playing the Bulls. It didn't pitch that night. Went back to the hotel. Kind of my normal post-game routine is check emails, get back to people on text, whatever it is, and hop online and play some online chess, maybe watch television, read a book. But at that point, I was playing chess against my brother, Brian, a fellow Regis grad, and heard a knock on the door about maybe 11.45, 11.50 at night. I was really hoping my roommate would get it. He was convinced it wasn't our door, which was fair because why would anyone be knocking at our door? But the knocking persisted. So, okay, I put the chess game down, which was timed. Answered the door, saw my manager there. At that point, you know, my first thought

was like, okay, this is, this is strange. You don't expect to see your manager outside your door close to midnight for many reasons other than obviously the one that he was there for, which was, you know, to let me know, he just kind of said, what are you up to? I said, um, you know, playing chess, just winding down. He's like, okay, well, uh, you know, you're going to Chicago tomorrow, so you're gonna need a good night's sleep. And at that point, you know, I was just kind of flooded with emotion and, and a whole lot of, I don't even know. I kind of blacked out to be honest. Like, yeah, it was, it was surreal to, to hear that, you know, obviously like you have expectations and you think, oh, maybe it's happening and you hear rumors and,

you know, whatever it might be. But when you actually hear those words, oh, maybe it's happening and you hear rumors and, you know, whatever it might be. But when you actually hear those words, uh, nothing can really prepare you for that. So, you know, I obviously, you know, embraced him and was, uh, really thankful that, you know, he was able to deliver that news in person and that sort of thing. Um, but yeah, the head was spinning. You know, I, by the time I got back into my hotel room, I already had a flight info and that sort of thing. So it was a real whirlwind, you know, 12 hours from then until I was basically at the ballpark, you know, 12 hours from then the next day. How did you sleep that night? I didn't. Yeah, right. Yeah, I guess your chess match was ruined probably as well. Yeah, I took the L.

Right. Yeah, that's got to be an underrated aspect of the difficulty of making your Major League debut just on top of the adrenaline and the pressure and everything else that goes with that and the difficulty of facing Major League hitters. Probably most players in that situation are pretty sleep deprived, I would imagine as well. So maybe you're not feeling it when you're actually on the mounts, but it's gotta be, there's some underlying fatigue there that maybe hits you afterward. Yeah. I mean, I think you just ride a wave of adrenaline that entire first day and then I didn't pitch the first day. So that first night's sleep in Chicago was like two nights worth of sleep for me because, me because I had been so like wired and then didn't pitch and I was like, all right, well, I might be throwing tomorrow. So now we really got to recover because I don't think you can rely on pure adrenaline two days in a row. Right. Yeah. And were you aware, I mean, you must have known that if there was an opening

that you were somewhere on the short list at that point. And obviously there are rumors swirling around the White Sox and some White Sox pitchers specifically. So if you're in that situation where you're one step away from the big leagues and the parent club is, you know, sort of surrounded by rumors about possibly shipping out pitchers, Is that something you're paying any attention to? I would imagine it would be a little hard not to, but you probably don't want to let it distract you either. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. You'd be lying if you said you weren't aware of all these things, but you can't really let them occupy you at the end of the day.

When you're in AAA, you're in AAA. That's where you are. So that's where you're going to need to perform. And obviously for me, a big piece was like, just stay healthy, stay ready, you know, control what I can control. If a spot opens and they think I'm the best option to fill it, then I'll be in Chicago. If not, then I'll just be here and it doesn't change what I have to do here. So trying to keep like a level head about it. And obviously, like you said, like there's no secret to really anyone in the room or in the clubhouse down there or whatever it might be. But yeah, I think you just have to kind of take things as they come. There's no guarantees. And at the end of the day, if you're

not taking care of your business where you're at, then you're probably not going to get the opportunity to do it somewhere else. So try to just kind of maintain that and just keep locked in on the kind of everyday, come to the ballpark wherever you are and doing your best. Right. So as a baseball player, you're no stranger to constantly changing cities and changing teams and you have to keep climbing the ladder and meeting a new group of guys, right? But that final rung on the ladder, when you get up there, That final rung on the ladder when you get up there, when you walk into that clubhouse, is there a sense of, I guess, unreality or surreality or just imposter syndrome? Or at this point when you walk in there, do you feel like, I've earned this, I belong?

Is there sort of the Crash Davis in Bull Durham talking about you never handle your luggage in the show. Someone else carries your bags. You hit white balls for batting practice. The ballparks are like cathedrals. The hotels all have room service. Is this a shock to the system to get to that point? Or having been in AAA and made all those intermediate steps, are you prepared for it? Can you be prepared for it can you be prepared for it yeah i mean there's certain things you can be prepared for but honestly stepping into the clubhouse for the first time like was overwhelming and and surreal uh luckily you know was in major league spring training so i knew a lot of the guys and knew the staff fairly well um so certainly felt like welcomed off the bat um there but there's just so much you know when i got to the hotel the first day actually i bumped into zach remillard who was called up maybe around two months ago but i had played with in charlotte and triple a last year and this year um so i had you know i'm bombarding him with questions because we're waiting for a ride over to the field together and he was like you know what man like i can't even answer these for you like you're just gonna have to see it all for yourself

and he was absolutely right like uh a lot of it is really overwhelming but luckily like on the interpersonal side one i had a pre-existing relationship with the majority if not all the guys up here and two there's just really great guys uh not just like teammates but whole staff sports staff and that sort of thing. So I felt really welcomed. I think everyone really eased the transition as much as possible. But at the end of the day, yeah, when you walk out onto a major league field to play catch, it feels a little bit different than playing catch in AAA or anywhere else you've been. Certainly walking out down to the bullpen for the first game is like a surreal experience

and definitely one I will not soon forget. Yeah. And to hear the roar of a crowd and that sort of thing, you can't prepare for that. Yeah. Although I've talked to other pitchers who've made their debuts or players, and it sounds like they do kind of forget the specifics at least because it's all a blur or they black out a little bit. But maybe a couple of days days after the fact it's still fresh in your mind so take me through your actual debut on sunday how did you find out you were getting into the game yeah i figured uh so i obviously was up there friday was available do not throw same thing

saturday available do not throw uh showed up sunday i was pretty sure I was going to get in at some point on Sunday. So I was ready. Ended up calling my name to get going in the middle of an inning. They ended up not using me that inning. And then the call came down, you know, you've got the next one. At that point, kind of just went down, grabbed a drink of water, tried to compose myself, and then kind of treated it like any other outing from then on. I tried to take it in as much as possible, running out to the mound and that kind of treated it like any other outing from then on i tried to take it

in as much as possible running out to the mound and and that sort of thing but honestly like once i got the first you know sign and the pitch calm from sebi back there like it felt like any other outing i've ever had like the goal doesn't change the game doesn't change like that's what i kind of tell people like between the lines, everything feels very comfortable and familiar. Obviously the level of talent is a lot better level of preparation is, is great with the resources and that sort of thing that you have to go out there and compete with. But inside the lines, like it's baseball. So you can kind of take comfort in that. It's what you've been doing your whole life. And it definitely very much felt that way to me. It's just everything

outside the lines feels like larger than life and that sort of thing. So there's like comfort and familiarity in the game. And I felt that like, you know, once I threw my first pitch, it was like, you know, riding a bike, like I've thrown to a lot of hitters in games and this is just another one. Right. And I guess, you know, it, it went well. I mean, your first inning, you went through it scoreless. You got a couple outs to start the next inning. They stretched you for two. You came in the sixth. They bring you back out for the seventh. So I guess you were in a rhythm. It was going great. And then you ran into Jose Ramirez, which will happen to people. He got you, he took you deep, but it was his second home run of the game. And he's one of the best players in baseball. I don't know whether that eases the sting of it at all. Like if someone's going to get you in your debut, at least it's a name brand superstar, Jose Ramirez. Plus the ball barely got out. It was, according to the

StatCast, it would have been out in fewer than half of Major League parks. I don't know if that's any consolation for you, but does it hurt any less coming off a player like that, or is it just kind of darn either way? I think it's a little bit of darn either way. You never want to give up runs, but it's definitely a welcome to the big leagues type moment.

Everyone's is different. Obviously, Jose ramirez is kind of a household name yeah would have loved to have gotten him out there in that situation would have been huge but yeah i mean it happens it's baseball so you know you just kind of got to shake it off and get the next guy and because you were there for a couple days before you got into a game, I guess your friends and family, anyone who wanted to come see your debut had time to do that. So did you have people in the park checking you out? Yeah, it was great. I had immediate family there, friends from Regis, from Holy Cross, from college. My girlfriend was there.

Her friends were there as well. It was awesome, the amount of like support i had a couple of virgins road trip through the night saturday to uh from new york to chicago 13 hours alternating to get there in time for the day game which is like classic and uh certainly well very appreciated on my end but yeah it was it was, it was awesome to, it was kind of a blessing to not throw until Sunday because a lot of people weren't able to make it until Sunday. And I was able to throw in front of, uh, pretty much everyone who I would have wanted to be there, uh, who was able to make it. That's great. And had you been scouted much in college? I mean, did you have a sense before draft day that you were definitely going to get picked or where you would get picked or who was potentially interested in you? Yeah, I had somewhat of an idea. I had met with a fair number of teams, but you never really know.

The draft is kind of a mystery. So you hear one thing and then, you know, that slot or pick comes and goes and you never hear from a team again. And there was certainly a lot of that. So I would say before the draft, I was very, very confident. By the time the 30th round rolled around, I was much less confident. It was kind of like radio silence at that point. The White Sox were not really on my radar, actually. They were a team that I didn't really talk to much if at all. I was aware of them having come and seen me throw

one time in college, but it wasn't a team that I had discussed much of anything with. So that was kind of out of the blue that they picked me. was just five and since then it's been 20 rounds so how does it make you feel i guess that you were picked in a round that you know a year later would not have existed right i mean you've clearly proved that you belonged and had major league ability and one would think that there are other players in a similar position who may not get the opportunity that you got just because the draft doesn't go as deep now. I know obviously the majority of major leaguers come from the earlier rounds, but there are plenty of players like you who made it and now might have a tougher time getting into someone's system and proving themselves. Yeah, I think about that a lot actually like how fortuitous it was that you know i was draft eligible when i was because if it was nowadays with the shorter draft like probably

not getting picked although obviously draft dynamics have changed a little bit with you know the shorter rounds um and that sort of thing but yeah i think about that a lot there's certainly guys out there who have not gotten a chance and have gone on to probably do things outside of baseball and given up on that dream just because of the simple kind of numbers game of it so i would say i'm i'm blessed for a lot of reasons a lot of things have gone my way i've been lucky in a lot of senses and i think that's another instance of kind of luck of the draw being in the last, you know, expanded draft, you know, really obviously is the reason I'm, I'm here today even. Yeah. So you started and relieved at Holy Cross, right. And you've been almost exclusively, I guess, a reliever in pro ball.

So how did that transition come about? Was there a conversation? Was that something you were suited to, or was it just uh this is a better fit for you and your stuff yeah i think uh i would say i started in college more out of just like necessity than anything just being someone who was able to go deeper into games was kind of what we were looking for as a starter in college you know someone you could trust with you know six or seven innings and that sort of thing. I had a program like Holy Cross where you might not have the same amount of depth as a higher-end D1 school has, where maybe I profile more as the bullpen guy there.

But in summer ball, I was pretty much always a reliever. I closed a fair amount as well. I had a taste for it, and I really liked it a lot, actually. So when I was drafted and they were kind of having conversations, they're saying, oh, we're not sure if you really profile exactly as a pro starter given kind of the arsenal and what it was at the time. We're going to probably start you out of the bullpen. I was like, this is great.

You will not hear it because I feel like most people, it's the opposite. They're like, oh, I want to be a starter. For me, I always felt at home in the bullpen I like the idea of pitching more often of not really knowing when you're going to pitch of getting put into cool situations and leverage and that sort of thing so it was a pretty smooth transition there honestly and one that I fully supported and I think we were we were all on the same page with that from the beginning so you mentioned what your arsenal and repertoire was at the time. I know it's quite a bit different now. And part of the change has been your training and also your work at Tread Athletics in North Carolina. So you basically

have a second job, right? So how does that work? You are a pitcher for the White Sox. You are also the assistant director of operations at Tread. How did you end up at TRED and get connected with that facility? And then how did you actually join the staff in addition to training there yourself? Yeah, sure. That's an interesting one for sure. In terms of actually training with them, for those that don't know, TRED a remote-first pitching development company that was founded in 2015. I heard first about them in maybe 2017 or 2018. There was a pitcher at Holy Cross, Brendan King, who was drafted by the Cubs. He came back after his first kind of pro season.

And I was obviously still in college at the time. And he was kind of talking to me. I was talking to him about kind of off-season training and what he was doing to prepare for his next season and that sort of thing. And he had actually kind of taken that leap of faith and reached out to them and was training remotely with them. You know, they're handling all of his throwing, strength and conditioning, mobility, nutrition, everything kind of like a one-stop shop for his development.

And he said to me, he was like, it's not for everyone. It's very intense. There's a lot of information. There's a lot that goes into it. But for someone as kind of motivated and dedicated as you, like, I think it would be a really good fit. I think they're going to kind of help you leave no stone unturned on kind of your journey and wherever it ends up, like you'll be glad that you worked with them and you'll think that you kind of gave it your all if you do. So I kept that in mind. And then in 2018, the summer kind of made the decision going into my senior year, like, I want to give this my all. Um, and I want to, uh, see if I can, you know, get drafted and play professionally. So reached out, began training with them, um, remotely my senior year. And then through

my first season of professional baseball obviously after being drafted in 2019 but then covet hit in 2020 my family had moved to tennessee tread's location in in-person location the gym is in charlotte north carolina so i was with my family in nashville and would make a trip occasionally to Charlotte to throw bullpens, to get on like Rapsodo to have access to better weight room equipment than what I had in my garage, that sort of thing. So I'd make occasional trips every once in a while. And I obviously had been training with them for a while, kind of knew everyone there. And one day I was just talking to Colin McAlpin, who's the CEO there. They were growing rapidly at the time because of COVID and so many

people, college and professional athletes alike, not being able to play. They were all at home training and wanted more resources to help them get better and take advantage of this kind of unique time where there was no games, but there was tons of development to be had and people trying to get a leg up when play did resume. So he said, you know, we're getting a lot of email inquiries and that sort of thing. And phone calls that we're taking with guys, prospective trainees, and it's just been kind of a lot where, you know, we're looking for someone to potentially, you know, help us with just like email support.

I was like, I'll do it. So ended up my first kind of role at Tread was email support. So if you emailed in at any point in 2020, you probably, or 2021, even you probably heard from me and that's kind of how it started. And then my role kind of evolved over the years. Now my title is assistant director of operations, but I was actually just wrapping up a little bit of work before we got on the phone here. But yeah, I do have a second job, but it's great. It's honestly amazing to have like a little bit of a distraction from the field when I'm away from it and have something to kind of pour a little bit of energy into as well.

And obviously be a part of like a really special team there. And then in the off seasons, train there and be rubbing shoulders with some really, really talented guys. And obviously, you know, in my opinion, the best, you know, coaches in the business. Were you always interested in the analytical aspects of the sport and, and sabermetrics and, uh, data-driven type training, or, or was that something that kind of came along for you later as you got exposed to it in, in your own career? I would say I was kind of loosely interested in it. I was always intrigued by, uh, sabermetrics and that sort of thing, but didn't really have

like a great grasp of it until maybe the last three years or so. But now I would say I'm a full kind of like stat junkie and love analytics, especially on the pitching side of things. And the data kind of team down that tread has been like a huge influence in that and has really helped me get up to speed on that, not just for my own career, but just kind of understanding others as well. Yeah. I will link on the show page to a couple of YouTube videos, one of you talking about yourself and one of someone talking about you and how you've added velocity and changed your pitch mix. So can you talk a little bit about that, how you got up to throwing mid nineties and then also how you adjusted what you throw and went from

more of a four seamer mix to throwing your demon sinker? Yeah, sure. I guess to address kind of the first part of that velocity development obviously happens in a lot of different ways. It's not something that happens overnight. So for me, a it was totally a you know multi-factorial equation getting a lot stronger but also cleaning up movement patterns cleaning up efficiency for me my you know kind of like arm action was really inconsistent as it was long it was uh i wasn't really getting into the right positions at the right time so simplifyingifying that a little bit, cleaning up the lower half as well, while adding kind of strength, working through some mobility limitations and just kind of learning how to move a little bit better on the mound was big for me.

Also kind of learning like when to kind of like apply intent on the mound too. I think like when you're, for me, I was always trying to throw harder, but like if you're trying to throw harder at the wrong time, time leads to kind of muscling up and might actually have the adverts kind of opposite effect there um so did eventually you know go from in college being an upper 80s guy to eventually touching like you know 93 94 touching 95 uh in 2020 but that was certainly like a long journey did not happen overnight. But once I had a little bit more velocity, the obviously game changer for me was adding the sinker. Yeah. We had a track man unit at tread in 2020 and I was throwing a bullpen with my four seam,

which I naturally kind of cut. And a couple of the coaches there advised me to try a couple, two seams. And the first one I threw took the catcher's mid off so we thought maybe we had something there but that was kind of like we were learning on the fly because we hadn't really used a trackman unit before which is going to show you kind of the full form movement of the pitch we were using rapsodo which is you know taking a snapshot of the pitch out of the hand and then kind of inferring what the movement's going to be so if you have any sort of like seam effects on it like a seam shifted wake sinker which is what i throw now right rapsodo is not going to pick that up so we were kind of like on the eye test it looked good but we couldn't really tell but then once we had the track man

we're able to see okay this thing's actually doing like some really cool stuff and now the newer units they can actually show you kind of like the spin axis and the movement axis and see what that actual spin that's that kind of seam effect is like quantified as, but it was revolutionary. Like for me, we were, we were just kind of messing around. And when we saw the numbers, I think I threw like five sinkers that day to wrap up my bullpen and immediately texted our pitching coordinator with the white socks and i said hey i think i might have found something here and he was just

like yeah keep throwing that because it was like a week before spring training so i was about to be out there and i just discovered a new pitch like a week before spring training he's like keep throwing that like we'll talk more when we get out here um and then in 2021 spring training was throwing the sinker but also still throwing four seams and eventually we kind of made the decision to just go with the sinker and kind of evolve the arsenal or build it around that so now obviously throwing a little bit of a harder slider as well as like a sweeper with the sinker and kind of going on that east to west plane i found a lot of success with that but it was certainly like an identity shift too. You go from being, you know, a four seam guy and everything that that entails with where you

should throw the ball and kind of what your attack plan is there to being a sinker guy that there was definitely a learning curve there for how to use it. Yeah. And a lot of guys, when they make a dramatic change like that, it's, it's because what they were doing wasn't working right. And they kind of ran into a wall. Was that the case with you? Did you feel like your were doing wasn't working, right? And they kind of ran into a wall. Was that the case with you? Did you feel like your arsenal just wasn't going to play at higher levels? Or was it more of a proactive, just, I think this will be better without necessarily failing and being forced to change? I would say it's a combination of the two.

I would say I failed with the four seam, but it was very inconsistent. I would cut it pretty consistently, too i would say like i failed with the foreseam but it was very inconsistent like you know i would cut it uh pretty consistently but you know what the movement would actually be on it was was sometimes very different pitch to pitch some were very good had you know carry with a little bit of you know glove side cut which were really great pitches and then some were just really like flat and i could tell like as i faced better uh hitters you know it worked in low a but I could tell as I faced better hitters that like kind of the predictive numbers maybe weren't going to be where they needed to be so the sinker was kind of like a godsend in that sense yeah and I

mean I guess it's a zero-sum game some guys are going to make it that means other guys aren't going to make it but the stories of players like you who have kind of harnessed these technologies that didn't exist, you know, you hear from a lot of ex-players, some of them at least, who say, I wish we had had this data and this information when I was playing. It's not that no one threw with seam shifted wake back then, but no one knew that term for it. You couldn't quantify it. Maybe you couldn't design it in as concerted and intentional a way as you did. So you're kind of on the cutting edge here, taking advantage of all of this information that would not have been available, say, back when you were at Regis. Not ancient history, right? These technologies just

weren't widely available if they were available at all. So it's got to be great to have that information. Of course, everyone you're competing with and against also has that information, but not everyone is willing to embrace it, though certainly I think more and more players have, as they've seen it work for so many players, they have gotten on board themselves increasingly. Yeah, for sure. And I guess, I mean, many minor leaguers obviously have had to work in the offseason somewhere, particularly before some of the improvements in conditions in recent years and increases in pay and improvements in housing and now the unionization and everything. I wonder though, is this something that you plan to keep doing if you're hopefully still in the big leagues for quite a while to come? Are you still going to be juggling these multiple responsibilities and going there to work during the off season or even handling that work while you're pitching?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, right now the plan is to continue business as usual for me on that front. Obviously in the off seasons, that's where I want to be. It's the best training environment. I get a ton out of being down there, being on the floor, obviously not just as like an employee there, but I'm also an athlete training there as well. So while I'm in a unique position, like that's, that's where I want to be. That's where I think I'm going to push the needle the most on my own development and kind of drive my career forward. So yeah,

I'll be there. It seems sort of silly to ask you this two days after you major league debut and you're 25 years old, but way down the road, you know, after your long accomplished major league career, do you think that you would want to stay in the game and help other guys get to where you've gotten or will you finally take Regis up on that job offer once you're done playing? That's an interesting question. I don't give a ton of thought to that, to be honest. Yeah, nor should you at this point, really. But yeah, but I would say there are a lot of really cool opportunities now for people to be involved to stay in the game. So, you know, I think

increasingly that's more of a attractive option for a lot of guys, but who knows? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I also was going to ask, cause you mentioned, you know, texting your pitching coordinator and saying, I picked up a new pitch. I think certain teams have different relationships with data-driven facilities like tread orread or like Driveline or P3 in the Midwest, right, where some teams work very closely with them and develop programs with them. Other teams, it's more hands-off. In the past, it's even been hostile or adversarial, right, or they're kind of concerned about what are they going to be teaching our guys. And some teams have tried to replicate and duplicate the capabilities that those facilities

have internally and build their own pitch labs and have their players sort of stay under their roofs. So how does that vary by organization these days and how has that worked with the White Sox? Yeah, I guess like personally, it's been great. That coordinator that I, you know, talked to that one day, he actually just took a pitching coach job at Auburn, so he's no longer with the White Sox. But we had a good relationship. I think I was one of the first guys who was at least open about the other trading avenues I was going down, which maybe 10 years ago would have been met with a lot of resistance, but luckily everyone was, was supportive. And obviously, you know, you try to be respectful,

like, you know, I'm not undermining anyone's authority or ability here, but this is just kind of like another avenue that I think will help me and ultimately help the club if I'm able to contribute for them one day. So we always had a good understanding and, and I was always, I always felt supported.

Um, and even in the last few off seasons had, you know, kind of like pitching coaches from the white socks coming in and watching me in the off season and meeting with me and that sort of stuff at tread even so pretty good there and obviously without going into specifics yeah like a lot of teams you know we work closely with them and obviously they entrust us with with some of their you know bigger name guys and that sort of thing i think as you said the needle is certainly tilting towards that being

kind of the norm where organizations admit either they don't have all the answers or that they don't have control over guys for 12 months out of the year and they're going to be going somewhere. So they may as well be going somewhere that they trust and somewhere that keeps them in the loop and can all be kind of pulling from the same rope. I think that's becoming the norm. So I think we're in a really good spot. Preston Pyshko, MD, PhD And have you picked up anything from other pitchers, teammates, players on the major league staff or others that you've played with or against as you've climbed the ladder? Yeah. I mean, I'm always trying to pick people's brains, whether it's pitch grips,

what you're thinking on certain things, game plan. I think that's the biggest thing that I'm really trying to gain from guys who have been up here for a while is just like understanding game management and that sort of thing. Those are the things I've talked to staff about as well. But, you know, fellow pitchers, that's kind of the beauty of it is like, I'd say there's a lot of camaraderie between just like pitchers in general, especially ones that are like trying to better themselves, that everyone kind of is free to share information and things that have worked for them.

And although it's like a zero sum game, I really do feel like it's a pretty supportive community. Yeah. And thus far, what's been the biggest jump for you in terms of the quality of the competition going from Division I to Rookie Ball to A-Ball to High A, Double A, Triple A? Now the majors, obviously, have only pitched once there, although you've spent some time in big league spring training, as you said. But what do you think is the biggest gap or when you go from one level to another, what's the highest hurdle that you've encountered so far? Yeah, that's a good question. I would honestly say I've only pitched in one big league game. So I would say that that's probably going to be the biggest jump because just the sheer level of talent like one through nine in every lineup is

is not something you're you can possibly see anywhere else but i'd say on the on the ladder kind of up college to rookie ball almost felt like a step down yeah hitters are a lot more disciplined and kind of have an idea in college i would say whereas rookie ball is a little more free-for-all in the box i would say double a is a really big jump because you start to get to a level where like the talent is there like everyone who's in double a is like very talented and the hitters all kind of have at least very raw ability to you know really do damage on mistakes and that sort of thing and while they're not as polished as the guys in a triple a lineup and certainly not a big league lineup like your mistakes start to get punished a little bit more there.

So there's kind of that learning curve there where you really can't take a pitch off. And obviously you can still exploit a lot of stuff in double A hitters, but there is certainly a jump there from A ball to double A, I'd say. And talking to guys, I think a lot of guys have that same kind of thought where like the talent is noticeably better, even if they're not as refined, like there's a lot, a lot more talent. Yeah. Well, I will let you go. Cause you've got to get to the ballpark.

You've got a big league game to get to and potentially play in, but congratulations again. I'm sure you're giving hope to a lot of Regis Raiders and Holy Cross Crusaders out there who maybe didn't see the path to the big leagues previously. And it makes me feel some pride too. I never aspired to be a big leaguer, not that I could have if I had wanted to, but the fact that we were both in that auditorium about 10 years apart of singing that same alma mater and that you made it this far, I'm really happy for you. And I'm looking forward to seeing what you accomplish this season and beyond.

So best of luck with everything. I'll be following your career closely, and maybe we can talk again sometime. Yeah, absolutely, Ben. I really appreciate you having me on. It was seriously an honor, and thank you for those kind words of support. It really does mean a lot. So yeah, absolutely. Hopefully we'll loop back around at some point after we're on the Wikipedia page. Right, exactly. All right. Thanks again to Declan for coming on. By the way, didn't mention this, but he's a big guy, 6'4", 225. Not a lot of Regians in my experience with that sort of frame. Even the jocks were Regis jocks. They were still sort of nerds,

just a little less so. So he's really an outlier here. Again, we're talking about a Jesuit all scholarship school prized for academics. I meant to ask Declan whether he was more excited to get called up to the White Sox or to get into Regis, but I suspect I know what the answer is. If you're wondering about those notable Regis alumni, I guess probably the best known right now, other than Declan Cronin, of course, would be Colin Jost and Anthony Fauci. But this Wikipedia page has many diplomats and politicians and media members, including some sports media members and some baseball folks like Steve Hurt of the Elias Sports Bureau, where I worked briefly when I was in high school, as well as some former Effectively Wild guests and friends of the show, Joe Sheehan, Boog Shambi, Pablo Torre. We're pretty excited to see a Regine not just covering the games and discussing the games, but actually in the games. Heady days for us. I'll leave you with the future blast, which comes to us from Rick Wilber, an award-winning writer, editor, and college professor who's been described as the dean of science fiction baseball. It also comes to us from the year 2040.

fiction baseball, it also comes to us from the year 2040. Rick writes, 2040 is remembered both as the season of the sisters and the year of the sultan of swing. Four young women from Oregon State University, two of them twin sisters, took a full half second off the U.S. record of 40.75 seconds for the 4x100 relays at the NCAA National Tournament before signing non-roster contracts to be designated runners for the Tigers, Cardinals, Freedom, and Yankees, respectively. All had already renegotiated their be-there contracts, which had been lucrative even before, and now, tied to their social media numbers as baseball stars, were worth millions. All four started in A-ball and stole their way to the big clubs by season's end. Their collective total of 624 stolen bases with an average success rate of 88% combined with their personalities and public friendship with each other to make them the new social media darlings of the 20-something fans who followed them through Be There and showed up live when the women were in their towns. They had 60 million followers in total, most of them women and most of them in the 18 to 35-year-old demographic that delighted the owners and advertisers both. But if the speed game was

again highlighted in Major League Baseball, power hitting had its moment too, especially for the 42-year-old Austin Riley, who had parted ways with the Atlanta Freedom at the end of an injury-filled 2039 season. He found new life with the Colorado Rockies, where the thin air, Riley's return to full health, and a great lineup surrounding him resulted in a slashline of 3-10, 4-0-1, 5-98 with 64 home runs, enough to make him the oldest player ever to be named Most Valuable Player, surpassing Barry Bonds, who'd done it at age 40 in 2004. And if you've missed some Future Blast and you want to catch up on the narrative, there's now a page on the Effectively Wild wiki where you can see summaries of each Future Blast as well as a linked document to the full text so you can keep up with the story. Obviously, lots of trades have happened since Meg

and I discussed the trades that had happened so far earlier in this episode, so we will be back with another episode soon where we will do a roundup of all of the subsequent trades that went down before the deadline. In the meantime, you can support Effectively Wild on Patreon by going to patreon.com slash effectively wild. The following five listeners have already signed up and pledged some monthly or yearly amount to help keep the podcast going, help us stay ad free and get themselves access to some perks. Alan Rosen, Michael Arnold, Nicholas Agar-Johnson, Joseph Sverchek, and Lauren Odessa. Thanks to all of you. Patreon perks include access to the Effectively Wild Discord group for patrons only,

as well as access to monthly bonus episodes, the latest and 21st of which Meg and I just published this past weekend. We did an AMA episode. You get access to playoff livestreams as well later in the year, plus discounts on merch and ad-free Fangraphs memberships, and so much more, patreon.com slash Effectively Wild. If you are a Patreon supporter, you can message us through the Patreon site. Anyone and everyone can contact us via email.

Send us your questions and comments at podcast at Fangraphs.com. You can also join our Facebook group at facebook.com slash group slash Effectively Wild. You can rate, review, and subscribe to Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms. You can follow Effectively Wild on Twitter at EWPod. And you can find the Effectively Wild subreddit at r slash Effectively Wild. If you noticed a distinctive editing touch today, it's because an old friend returned for this episode, filling in for Zachary Goldberg, who was filling in for Shane McKeon, our old pal Dylan Higgins, edited and produced today's episode. So thank you to him for his assistance.

As I mentioned, we'll be back with another trade-packed episode soon. Talk to you then. free they say i waste my time tracking all these deadlines but it's here i found my kind you're all effectively wild